CENTRO ITALIANO DI PARAPSICOLOGIA
ITALIAN CENTRE OF
PARAPSYCHOLOGY, Naples.
A publication of the
ITALIAN CENTRE OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY, NAPLES.
ITALIAN
CENTRE OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY HOME
PAGE (Italian Version)
ITALIAN
CENTRE OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY HOME
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VOLUME II
A VOICE COMING FROM MYSTERY
This monograph was published in 1990, in a slightly
more elaborate form, by the Italian institute of Parapsychology ("Centro
Italiano di Parapsicologia" abbreviated as "CIP"), one of the most ancient
and qualified Italian Institutes, which enjoys the patronage of the ISUP
Foundation and its Department of "Altered States and Interior States of
Consciousness".
CIP has its seat in Naples.
The fundamental characteristic of CIP has been the continuous investigation
from 1946 until today (that is to say since almost fifty years) into the
most sensational case of mediumism of this century. This case has been
restricted to the Italian territory mainly because the medium in question
remained anonymous until the end of April 1991. From that date CIP is officially
authorized to mention the name of the medium. This anonymity which lasted
from 1946 till 1991 came to an end thanks to a book published in Italy
by Edizioni Mediterranee and written by the medium himself. The title of
the book is "Il sorriso di Giano' ("The Smile of Janus") and the medium
of whom we are speaking is Corrado Piancastelli, a well-known cultural
personality and President of CIP, succeeding Prof. Giorgio di Simone who
was its President from 1963 until 1989.
One doesn't need to dwell at great length on the importance
of Piancastelli's mediumism. He has the gift of an embodiment trance with
a complete alteration of personality and voice, followed by a total amnesia.
Piancastelli can also come into telepathic contact with the "voice" which
appears during the seances. This situation through which Piancastelli has
lived for nearly fifty years is the origin of the exceptional document
"The Smile of Janus" in which the author describes how, from a logical
and neurophysiological point of view, he receives the "voice". According
to the critics it is the first time that a great medium, and also one of
refined cultural faculties, analyses himself not only with exasperating,
scientific meticulousness, but also with great literary expressivity, transforming
a text of Parapsychology into pages of genuine poetry. As a matter of fact
Piancastelli is not only a psychologist and parapsychologist well-known
in Italy, something which confers special emphasis to his case, but he
is also the author of a dozen books outside the parapsychological sphere
and the promoter and inspirer of the movement which is nowadays defined
as 'Humanistic Parapsychology' whose foundation text came out in
Italy, edited by Corrado Piancastelli and published by Edizioni Mediterranee,
under the title of "Proposte per una parapsicologia alternativa" ("Proposals
for an alternative Parapsychology").
The singularity of the Piancastelli case is not only due
to the remarkable fact that he is the first medium in the world who has
been scientifically examined, as will be explained hereafter but also because
his "voice" or "Entity A" or "Andrea" (1)
(since Piancastelli is no longer anonymous) which by now has become legendary
to thousands of people, has manifested an exceptional wisdom in half a
century of communications. These communications have been collected in
more than l0,000 typewritten pages and approximately 2,000 hours of tape
recording. (The average trance duration is about one hour and a half each
seance). Academic theses have been written, various books have been published
and there is a bi-monthly journal entirely dedicated to the communications
of "Entity A".
(1) "Andrea" Translates in English
In many Italian towns groups have been formed to listen to the recorded seances and seminars are being organized with the participation of the public.
It's only natural that this monograph in English represents
a special event for CIP of Naples, because it takes the presence of this
great Entity (but also a scientific case of immense value beyond the national
borders).
Piancastelli's mediumism which avails itself of a convergence
of supporting evidence which was never realized in this world has furthermore
acquired a unique significance because the contents of the lessons received
from "Entity A" have a philosophical and spiritual value which is, to say
the least of it, precious.
We feel that this is the right moment to outline our research,
in order to give our readers an immediate orientation and to show that
the CIP methods are not exaggerated.
The phenomenon of " Entity A" can be examined from two main points
of view. Firstly the philosophical and spiritual teaching of his mysterious
voice and secondly the technical aspect of the phenomenon. This technical
aspect can be briefly described as follows: Piancastelli falls into a trance
after a kind of respiratory convulsion and some minutes later a voice can
be heard which is different from his own and which starts to speak and
to ask those present if they have any questions. Normally these questions
have a philosophical content and the answers are always immediate, elaborate
and aimed at a cultural programme which through the years revealed itself
to be highly organized, as if, in advance the whole cosmological plot was
known. In 45 years of periodical manifestations this Entity has been extremely
consistent, it has never contradicted itself on a cultural level and it
has never given in. In conflict situations among those present, it has
always conducted the seances with exemplary calm and in all these years
has kept the same tone, the same skill and wisdom and exceptional firmness,
sometimes also accompanied by great gentleness.
This voice asserts, since 1946, that it belongs to another world,
that is to say that it comes from the hereafter, sic et simpliciter!
It was therefore essential to carry out a number of checks to
ascertain, as far as possible, that the medium was really in a trance,
that the voice of "Andrea" was not a disguise of the voice of the medium,
that the contents of the doctrine did not come from the unconscious or
from the culture of the medium and finally that the medium was not an hallucinating
psychopath.
The global results of an electroencephalogram made during trance,
analyses of the voices, linguistic analyses, a Rorschachtest and a study
of the physio-chemical variations have demonstrated the Entity's independence
from its medium, as well as the reality of the trances. Therefore
every hypothesis is open to any solution, including the one that "Andrea"
is actually what he claim to be, that is to say a non human reality. This
strengthens the doctrine itself, because the origin from the depth of an
altered state of consciousness confirmed as such by scientific verification,
makes this voice similar to prophecy, miracle, philosophical revelation
and re-proposes a metaphysical mission of the world, based on reality,
more than what happened or would be acceptable in other, similar manifestations.
There are not many analogies with other mediumistic phenomena.
If we compare the experiments performed on the mediumism of Piancastelli
with others, the analogies are worthless. The other important cases which
occurred in the history of parapsychology are in no way superior to the
case of Piancastelli, because none of these mediums have ever been put
through all the cross-checks and convergent checks which make the whole
phenomenon so unique. Moreover, in Piancastelli's case there is no need
to polemize on the "alternating personalities", a subject so dear to psychoanalysis.
In the alternating personalities the so-called guardian spirit is not present,
nobody claims to come from another world and the independent psychophysical
activities, such as voices, speech, EEG track, cannot be identified.
This is meaningful, because both voice and speech are like fingerprints
and they cannot be disguised without being noticed by our sophisticated
checks. Again referring to Piancastelli, there is no need to give consideration
to the hypotheses of psychosis or schizophrenic disorder, because, apart
from leading a mentally normal life, our medium also stood the Rorschach
test in which even the most normal neurotic formations proved to be lacking.
If we extend this concise survey worldwide, we find that other mediums
remained famous for their intellective manifestations, but that their number
is very limited, considering that we are observing at least a whole century:
Leonore Piper, Gladys Osborne Leonard, William Stainton Moses, Eileen Garrett,
Pietro Ubaldi, Jane Roberts, Roberto Setti. If you read reports on these
sensitive, you will realize that it is difficult to make comparisons with
Piancastelli, even if you don't consider the sustaining research to which,
apart from a few rare exceptions, they never submitted anyway. There are,
for example, the psychological tests which Whately Carington applied to
Garret and Leonard and which are quite rudimentary, if reviewed now that
there are very reliable tests.
However, it is not our intention to dispose of anything and
anybody and we are aware of the fact that one cannot be a supporter of
"Entity A" just because it manifested itself at CIP.
That would be the limit! Any result in this fundamental, but
delicate field of research belongs to everyone. We must nevertheless maintain
(and who could blame us?) that scientific proofs, in addition to the level
of content, in a strictly parapsychological sense, cannot be ignored. It
follows that the entirety of facts attributed to "Entity A" and its medium
point to a paranormal origin sufficiently demonstrated, also irrespective
of references based on certainty, in the sense that we ignore the processes
which regulate the relations between the metaphysical and the neurophysiological
aspects of the human being.
The Italian Institute of Parapsychology (CIP) therefore declares
that the communications of "Entity A" are certainly originating from an
unknown dimension. Too many proofs have in fact accumulated in the various
decades, too many emblematic situations have accompanied the hundreds and
hundreds of seances through which the lessons of "Andrea" have been received,
such as for instance Andrea's frequent telepathic anticipations towards
the questions of those present, to name but one of the paranormal atmospheres
in which you feel immersed when you get in touch with this Entity.
If, therefore, within this communicative and cognitive picture
"Entity A" maintains, among other things, to be a Spirit originating from
another dimension, why shouldn't we believe it? In the name of what logic
should we accept the fullness of its cultural project, but deny the identity
which it declares?
Of course we are far from having understood and resolved everything.
We know very well that there are enormous problems to clarify, such as
the linguistic way of expression and the linguistic transformations used
by Andrea, the study and the nature of human inner linguistic expression,
the relations between Andrea and the neuronic network, the nature of the
normal and altered states of consciousness, particularly in connection
with the trance and not only with this trance, but with all the conditions
in which humans perceive other dimensions, like for instance intuition,
ecstasy, poetry, metalinguistics, and so on and so forth.
Of course this is not the right place to deal with these subjects
which, however, give shape to the new relationship which is emerging between
the classic and the humanistic parapsychology, but we would like to conclude
that beyond all the technical and theoretical aspects there is also an
emotive immediacy which a message like that of "Entity A" evokes in those
who are listening.
Nevertheless CIP can only dwell for a moment on the emotive
aspects. We need to go still further, into the areas where scientifically
founded metaphysics and neuroscience meet. And this would exactly apply
to the suggestions of "Entity A".
Therefore the new trend of CIP in Naples is completely aimed
at the transformations of speech after death and the verification of the
signals which separate the brain from its Spirit. This is a very new perspective
for a parapsychology of the future and in this project CIP would be grateful
for a serious co-operation and for an exchange of information with scholars
of parapsychology.
HOW IT ALL STARTED AND DEVELOPED
INTO
SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH
by Fiorella
Contestabile
The study of the Electroencephalogram, the analysis of the
voices, the comparison of the linguistic structures and the
study of the physio-chemical variations during
the embodiment trance represent an indication of very great probability
that the Entity is completely independent of its medium.
Naples 1945.
Almost for fun and driven by a wish to try if they too would have been
able to "evoke spirits", as one of them happened to witness the evening
before, a group of boys between 15 and 16 years old tried a mediumistic
séance at the home of him who would reveal himself later-on as the
medium
of "Entity A".
There were immediately various physical phenomena in connection with
the movement of the inevitable small table and Piancastelli wrote the following
annotation about this experience in the third person, to maintain anonymity:
"Probably about 11 PM the boys reached their friend's (1)
living room with stealthy steps, in order not to awake his parents and
after having chosen a small, round, gilt, three-legged, eighteenth century
table, they sat down around it and joined hands, in
complete ignorance of every
technical procedure and above all entirely uninformed about what
a mediumistic séance could be. At the fatal words "If you are there,
strike a blow" said by the experienced (sic!) friend who had been present
at a séance the previous evening and who was therefore considered
a kind of elder, a sharp blow was heard on the walls, which nearly stunned
them all with fright. Immediately after that the boys felt an icy wind
in their faces, while the little table gave evident signs of life to these
lean and pale kids who remained glued to it feeling more like wetting their
pants than remaining."
The séances with the little table became a daily pastime
which involved hundreds of people from all over Naples, until the turning
point of 1946 when suddenly young Piancastelli fell into trance.
The aforementioned text continues: The séance with
the small table had started as one of the many which had by then been held
for nearly one year and there was nothing to forebode what was about to
happen then, also because until that moment there had been no premonitory
signs at all of possibilities to fall asleep. All at once the young medium
felt that he was prey to a sudden and deep sleep, lost consciousness and
started to breathe deeply and rhythmically, with a simultaneous overlap
of rattling sounds.
(1) The "friend" is Piancastelli
himself, writing in the third person!
Then the rattling sounds became more reduced, more compact, as if
they were about to reach some conclusion, changing into coordinate sentences
and precise orders.(2)
Years later Piancastelli thus remembered this first episode:
"I felt myself gently drawn into a vortex towards an irresistible sleep......"
In this way a great mediumism originated and was to involve,
in subsequent years, hundreds of people and
later on, considering the books written on Andrea, certainly several tens
of thousand of devoted admirers, because the teaching of this Entity is
unique in the world for its contents of speculative value and for its strict
logic.
In those first years every séance lasted about two hours,
but the power of this medium is such that even now, in exceptionally
positive conditions or for particular reasons, he can still remain in a
trance for up to two and a half hours. The trance comes about through embodiment
and the Entity uses the phonation system (3)
of the medium. In the initial phase of the trance there is a respiratory
stress which is integrated by a rattle lasting 3-4 minutes. If it were
not controlled by the communicating Entity, this stress could, in the opinion
of various physicians, involve the danger of suffocation for the medium.
It probably suggests a partial transformation of the physical structure
of the larynx, to differentiate the vocal tone and timbre of Entity A from
those of the medium. Although from a paranormal point of view the voice
details are not fundamental, they assumed a considerable importance in
the scientific research which was carried out in the seventies.
The séances were initially held either in the dark, or
with weak red light, or sometimes in half-light. Later-on they were held
in complete darkness, in order not to create superfluous interferences
to the medium.
At the end of each séance the medium's return to consciousness
has always been immediate and complete, without any symptoms of tiredness.
Rather each time a séance was held while the medium was not in perfect
physical health, every pathological symptom was eliminated for the whole
duration of the trance and nobody could understand how this could happen.
2) Concerning the technical
aspects of the seance of which the boys knew absolutely nothing.
3) Phonation is the
production of speech sounds through the combined action of the vocal organs.
In 1963 CIP was founded. The then president, Prof. Giorgio di
Simone, related as follows his meeting with the medium:
"The meeting was apparently casual, at the end of a
series of lectures, studies and meditations on the greatest problems which
have afflicted mankind from times immemorial and which concern the characteristics
and the purpose of life.
At that time the medium was 2l years old and it became clear
to me that his preparation in the field of philosophy or logic was not
particularly thorough. The hypotheses which are suitable to explain the
type of phenomenon which I attended regularly have been checked up one
by one - the hypothesis of the dissociated, multiple and alternating personalities
(Flournoy, Sudre, Servadio), the hypothesis of the cosmic reservoir (W.
James), the hypothesis of polypsychism (Mackenzie), the hypothesis of facts
and information, forgotten or unconsciously assimilated in the past, emerging
from the medium's subconscious and emotionally re-expressed, the hypothesis
of clairvoyant or telaesthetic reception of facts and information during
the trance. In vain, none of the hypotheses known, except the one of a
contact with a disincarnated intelligence, could explain what took place
before our eyes".
During the span of 40 years many hundreds of persons have attended
the phenomenon. Séances have been held in the presence of one single
participant, as well as for more than 70 persons.
Nearly all the communications by Entity A and by other entities
have been carefully tape-recorded, transcribed and filed.
From this enormous store of material four books have been derived
"Il Cristo vero" ("The Real Christ"), the "Rapporto dalla Dimensione X"
("Report from the Unknown Dimension"), the "Dialoghi con la Dimensione
X" ("Dialogues with the Unknown Dimension"), "Colloqui con A" ("Conversations
with A"), all edited by Prof. di Simone, as well as ample extracts published
in the journal. "Informazioni di Parapsicologia" ("Parapsychological Information")
which is the official organ of CIP and furthermore the "Comunicazioni dalla
Dimensione X" ("Communications from the Unknown Dimension") which are reports
on conversations with Andrea, published since 1977 by the study group of
Bologna, coordinated by Silvio Ravaldini and Clara and Riccardo Cesanelli.
Spectrum Analysis and Voice Print
In 1971 Prof. di Simone had the voice of Entity A and the one
of the medium subjected to a spectrum sound analysis. This is an extract
from the report by Prof. Gino Sacerdote, Director of the Institute of Electroacoustics
G. Ferraris of Turin:
"The recording of the voices turns out to be of good quality
and the pronunciation to be very clear. We were requested to investigate
with technical means if the two recordings could relate to the same voice.
Various general aspects have been examined: the rhythm and
melodiousness of the voices and significant differences have been found.
Various vowels have been analysed and also from this point of view the
possibility that the two voices belong to the same person is thought to
be quite small.
Among the characteristic elements of differentiation the
phonetic behaviour of the dental 't' has been examined with particular
care.
For this purpose four oscillograms have been made and they
show the significant difference of (phonetic) behaviour. The oscillograms
N. 1 and N. 2 belong to the first subject recorded, whereas N. 3 and N.
4 have been taken from the, second recording.
The 't' in oscillograms 1 and 2 has a very short duration
and is vocalised, almost like 'd'.
In oscillograms 3 and 4 the t' has a considerably longer
duration and the vocalised element is completely negligible.
This plot has been repeated at several points on the two
recorded passages, always with results similar to the examples mentioned
before. This phonetic element is particularly significant and, taking other
considerations and other plots into account, I think that the voices are
sufficiently differentiated and, barring simulation or deliberate alteration,
have been uttered by different persons."
Prof. Sacerdote explained that "the sentence 'barring simulation
or deliberate alteration' is a sentence which, for prudential reasons,
I always write in my reports on matters regarding identification."
In 1972 Prof. Sacerdote again examined two voice samples (the
voice of Entity A and the one of the medium in a state of wakefulness)
with the "voice print" method.
In this second test which is technically superior to the first
one and is also considered valid in the legal sphere, Prof. Sacerdote's
opinion is even more radical than the previous time and removes every remnant
of reserve, bringing out the most unfathomable mystery on the origin of
Andrea's voice:
"The plots refer to the same sentence repeated twice at the
beginning of the cassette: with '1' I indicate the first voice(4)
and with '2' the second voice.(5) The comparative
test demonstrates among other things a much slower articulation rhythm
in voice '2', a richer melodious texture in '2' than in '1', a higher basic
frequency in '2' than in '1'. Even a superficial check of the two diagrams
attached reveals a considerable difference of behaviour: the difference
between the two voices also appears from the 's' in 'questo'.(6)
In voice '2' there are many elements at a frequency between 2000 and 3000
hertz which are completely missing in voice '1 '.
I consider all these elements sufficient to diagnose a differentiation
in the two voices."
(4) The first voice is the
one of Entity A.
(5) The second voice is
the one of the medium.
(6) Questo means
'this'
Electroencephalogram during trance
In the June 1975 issue of the CIP Journal "Parapsychological
Information" a report was published by Dr. Massimo Morlino, psychiatrist,
on an electroencephalographic test applied to the medium Piancastelli at
the 2nd Clinic of nervous and mental diseases of the 2nd Polyclinic of
the University of Naples under the supervision of Prof. Buscaino and Prof.
D'Errico, Dr. M. Vittoria Turra, Dr. Striano, the intern Mr. Russo and
the technician Mr. Rotunno, as well as Prof. di Simone and Dr. Morlino,
the author of the report.
As is well-known, the electroencephalogram records the electric
cerebral activity on a moving sheet. In a state of wakefulness there is
a great difference between the cerebral activity with the eyes open and
the one considered as relaxed wakefulness, namely with the eyes closed
which suggests a mental state of prevailing imaginative activity, or at
least of distracted attention.
In the first case the track shows a low voltage activity and
the second case an activity dominated by Alpha Waves which are characteristic
of the adult in a state of perfect rest, but also of states of meditation.
Piancastelli's trance is characterised by the inducement of
an initial state of mental void. This inducement which is controlled by
the medium himself is followed by the respiratory stress which we have
already discussed and is even accompanied by sudden movements. This is
followed by the actual embodiment by Entity A, marked by a motory activity
typical of a person who normally converses and gesticulates with the eyes
open.
Dr. Morlino in his dry, technical laboratory language, gives the following
description:
"As far as the experiment is concerned, without dwelling
upon other technical details, I will only mention that it was performed
in the presence of various persons, some of whom were acting as discussion
partners, whereas others occupied themselves with the instrumental control
of the electroencephalograph.
During the seance questions were asked, to which the "medium-entity"
replied with a rich verbalisation, so that it was possible to record the
electrocerebral activity during the listening phase, as well as during
the dialogue. The track which was made before the trance, in basic conditions,
turned out to be normal.
In the induction phase, both in the period of motory quiet
to realise the "mental void" and in the period animated by exertion and
movement preluding the trance, we find characteristics in the electroencephalographic
track which are more like those of the control conditions at rest with
the eyes closed than those of attentive wakefulness, with the presence
of Alpha of more reduced amplitude.
During the actual trance, and this is perhaps the most interesting
finding, we discover the presence of Alpha also with the eyes open and
in situations which, for all the parameters of description of the functional
and behavioural state, we must describe as actively attentive wakefulness
during which there is even an active behavioural expression.
The presence of Alpha rhythm cannot be sufficiently explained."
The medium was also subjected to the Rorschach test. This is
one among the most reliable projective tests which can provide a global
evaluation of the personality, especially in the mentally disturbed personality,
in its various dimensions: intellective, affective and conative. The test
resulted in the total absence of symptoms of psychosis or neurosis which,
at least to a very small degree, are even common to each of us, almost
physiological, one might say. This report, together with the EEG taken
before the trance at the 2nd Polyclinic of Naples constitute an additional
ascertainment which, coupled with the previous deductions are in practice
a diagnosis of mental health.
Language Analysis
In October 1984, at the annual Congress of Arezzo, Eng. Carlo Trajna
and Dr. Loretana Angelucci presented reports in which they exposed the
results of a comparative linguistic investigation using the methods of
mathematical linguistics. The investigation was carried out on the linguistic
usage of Andrea, the medium and various specimens. Mathematical linguistics
study certain formal characteristics of speech (such as the frequency of
certain letters, phonemes or words according to their length in sentences)
which are completely independent of the meaning and typical of a language,
a literary genre or a writer.
From the report of Dr. Angelucci we quote: "The writings
of two philosophers, for example, will have in common the characteristics
of the language and of the philosophical nature, but their linguistic structures
in this connection will be differentiated by the philosophers' personal
imprints.
It stands to reason that if this method is used to analyse
the long dissertations which appear in several mediumistic circles, as
originated through embodiment mediumism by various alleged entities, we
can verify if there is a linguistic structure differentiation sufficient
to confirm the declared original diversity."
Eng. Trajna and Dr. Angelucci selected texts of the same kind,
namely analogous issues dealt with by entities of the same level. These
texts have been compared with an equivalent group of writers on the same
subjects (P. Giovetti, G. di Simone, P. Ubaldi, U. Dettore, E. Servadio,
P. Albanese, C. Trajna, A. Ferraro, S. Conti). Then they chose 4 characters
from the famous novel by Alessandro Manzoni "I Promessi Sposi"(7)
(Renzo, Don Abbondio, Lucia, Fra Cristoforo) and 9 supposed entities of
3 mediumistic circles (Ifior, Cerchio Firenze 77, Entity A), in addition
to some descriptive passages from "I Promessi Sposi".
As for the linguistic characteristic to be analysed, preference
was given to the length of the words in the texts, because this represents
a very sensible index of differentiation.
Of course other statistical parameters have also been used (standard
deviation of the words from one to six syllables, from the average lengths,
the variation coefficient, etc.) as well as parameters concerning the information
theory, of which the principle one is the absolute entropy H which expresses
the information content in 'bit per word', where bit is the measurement
unit of the information (other parameters: maximum and relative entropy,
efficiency in bit per syllable, redundancy, superior inefficiency limit,
etc.).
While for all the persons selected a number of words varying
from the 1993 of Fra Cristoforo to the 4653 of Kempis (an entity of Cerchio
Firenze 77) was sufficient, for Entity A the number of words considered
for the sampling arrived at 9229 and the two researchers confessed that
at a certain point they had to stop calculating, because, among other things,
the research had been carried out without a computer and therefore this
limit is not the real one. Dr. Angelucci commented: "I do not exclude that
this fact can be significant".
Eng. Trajna then elaborated and compared the results of this
first investigation, finding significant deviations between the linguistic
differentiation degrees of the selected persons, entities and writers.
In particular Trajna also elaborated a comparative investigation between
texts of Prof. di Simone and of "Entity A" (the value
obtained was 169 millesimals) and between texts
of "Entity A" and those written by its medium (value 77 millesimals).
These two values are highly superior to the aforesaid average differentiation.
(7) Published in English under
the title of "The Betrothed"
.
According to Trajna this means that "the linguistic
structures are extremely differentiated, much more than what emerged from
the preliminary statistical investigation into writers and entities.
On the scientific level the selected linguistic parameters of this
analysis can be considered sufficient to 'photograph' an author.
The method is well-founded, as it is based on the presupposition
that the unconscious automatism, built up during a person's lifetime, is
unique and characteristic of that very person: and that's why secondary
and imaginary personalities necessarily have this automatism in common
among themselves and with their main personality.
Therefore, insofar as we can include the said parameters
in the unconscious automatism, we can exclude that Entity A represents
a secondary personality of its supposed medium or
Prof. di Simone."
New research between 1990 and 1992
In 1992 the latest research was completed on the mediumism of
Corrado Piancastelli. It was started in 1990 by a Commission appointed
by the ISUP Foundation, under the auspices of the Department of Altered
States and Interior States of Consciousness.
The Commission consisted of five physicians, chaired by Dr. Giuliano
Taesi of Brescia. The Commission re-examined the entire previous research,
correlating it with new systematic measurements of heart rate and blood
pressure during Piancastelli's trances. The pressure values rose considerably
around 200 of systolic and 120 of diastolic pressure at the beginning of
the trance, to normalise towards the end of the seance and in the following
half hour, on the return of normal consciousness.
In its scientific report the Commission states that: "considering
the presence of Alpha Waves in the electroencephalographic track in the
course of the trance, there is no explanation for the prevalence of the
sympathetic peripheral regulation of the cardio-circulatory system, accompanied
by a high rate of catecholamines which supports it" and on the other hand,
"the Alpha Wave would blank out the cerebral cortex during the talking
phase" (of the medium).
The hypothesis that Piancastelli's nervous system is being blanked
out during the trance and that an autonomous force takes its place in the
intellective and biological regulation, seems quite probable to the Commission
which, among other things, totally excludes the hypothesis of the alternating
personality.
Even if these researches probably never reach the value of "proven
proof" (which, from an exquisitely ethical point of view, is perhaps right),
they nevertheless provide more and more precise indications of an absolute
intellectual independence of Entity A(Andrea) from the medium through
whom it manifests itself.
These researches also provide scientific comfort "ad personam"
so to speak, to the only medium on record, as far as is known, to have
accepted such complex tests, without ever refusing them, provided that
they were done in official scientific environments.
On the whole, the entire research of the last twenty years therefore
highlights both the mediumistic qualities of Piancastelli and the possibility
to study more closely the physio-chemical and bio-electrical dynamics of
the altered states of consciousness, linked together with mysticism, revelation,
prophecy and perhaps even with the genesis itself of creativity.
As Piancastelli himself says, perhaps mediumism, art and creativity
in general, have their origins in the same mould.
Fiorella Contestabile
A philosophy lesson
ANDREA'S METAPHYSICAL
THINKING
THROUGHOUT PHILOSOPHY
FROM PLATO
TO HEIDEGGER
by Daina Dini
From the theoretical to the existing
God
Forty years of Entity A's presence at the seances held at CIP have
meant for many of us an intelligent and consistent affinity which has accompanied
our lives, our aspirations, our errors and our increasing maturity and
now that most of the doctrine can be said to have been transmitted, it
is not only right to pause and evaluate its significance in its entirety,
but also to start working on analyses and extensions, as well as on comments.
This work has never been done and is completely open to the future.
Andrea's communications certainly end up forming a philosophical
system, but they are also much more than that, because the whole message
is not only theoretical, but also practical, that is to say it aims at
being integrated with the personal experience which at a certain point
becomes an indispensable base for the continuation of the evolution of
one's cognitive and experiential capacities.
Perhaps more similar to the great oriental initiatory systems,
Andrea's is a teaching which, owing to its own natural propensity, does
not only theorize on life, but also intends to enliven the theory through
an active inward and behavioural verification.
This should not make us believe that Andrea conveyed an ideology to
us, in the sense of a preformed scheme of thought, because the ideological
superstructure makes up just that first misleading and alienating level
which, in each of us, obstructs the free expression of our own inwardness.
Ideology means negation of freedom, never mind how holy or right
the cause is! Andrea, on the other hand, teaches us to search for and pursue
a more authentic freedom which is the only guarantee to our individual
soul that it can manifest itself to the world and to our consciousness.
While developing a continuously dialectical structure of the
doctrine, Andrea, in all these years, has always allowed for the evolution
which occurred within us as time went by.(1)
Therefore a return to the same subject meant reinterpreting it on the basis
of new prospects and acquisition and consequently extending its level proportionally,
in a process which always remained strictly logical and rational.
In connection with the incontrovertible proposition that each
truth which we can approach during our physical experience is relative,
Andrea allows us to follow personally the succession of partial truths
which little by little become less and less partial, and imperfect truths
becoming less and less imperfect. In short, Andrea makes us consciously
experience a tract of the infinite.
And all this in a way which becomes more evident as the subject
gets more complex and significant, we reach what in this context we can
well define as the significant infinite: God.
Andrea's doctrine is founded on His existence and consequently
on the existence in our Self of an immortal spirit and this might be called
a courageous assumption in an era in which God is usually considered to
be dead.
Through a dialectical mosaic which remains consistent and limpidly
rational, Andrea pushes our thoughts towards extreme limits, weakening
basic concepts and leading us onwards, past intuitions barely touched upon
and abysses remotely sensed, opening up the withered mysticism of our consciousness,
so that it goes beyond an unacceptable God to a God who is so conceivable
that He becomes marvellously plausible.
There is neither a dogmatic compulsion in all this, nor an exploitation
of the evocative charisma of the Word, but a continuous incitement to make
efforts to penetrate the Self and beyond the Self (limits which at a certain
point lose meaning), to find confirmation, in the philosophy of St. Augustine(2),
that what is supposition on the outside is verification on the inside.
In this sense Andrea's doctrine can be defined as genuinely
eschatological, because it brings salvation where there is a real and immediate
need for it, that is to say in the incarnation phase(3),
because in that period the human being lacks support and runs the risk
of being overcome by a desperation too great to endure.
All of us, either holy or damned, will always be within this
infinitely infinite God and therefore in His eyes there will be no guilty
or innocent persons, no winners or losers, once we will be 'dead'. The
only justice to which we will submit will be one of a self-evaluation of
our actions and this is perhaps incomparably more severe than a divine
judgement. The function of this process is to open ourselves in other experiential
and cognitive directions.
As it enables us to find the traces of a God who is immense
in a different way, Andrea's message automatically liberates us from a
painful destiny.
1) This is referred to the evolution
of the group of scholars which has regularly attended Andrea's
lessons and which also includes the Author.
2) St. Augustine: (Aurelius
Augustinus) (354-430) Early Christian church father and philosopher. Among
the Augustinian theses we find the compatibility between faith and reason,
the natural cognition of God, the intellectual illumination of mankind,
etc..
3) The incarnative phase:
that period in which the spirit is incarnated in a human being and experiences
human life.
God as a reality
The impressions of God which can be derived from the assertions
of many philosophies and religions, often form in the first instance an
unreality, because in philosophy it sometimes serves for justifying and
supporting some theoretical set-up in search of foundations.
In the religious sphere, it ends up sliding into an iconographical
perspective, for the benefit of a ritual prevalence or certain intermediate
figures who, coupled with the dogmatic and faithful element, make up an
insuperable barrier between mankind and the divinity.
In this context God is always beyond someone or something and
man has little by little given up looking for traces of Him, because he
felt unsatisfied with the absurdly anthropomorphic descriptions, reminiscent,
at the very most, of an honest person, but certainly not to a divine being.
If God has become an Absentee, His absence is now so gigantic
that it reveals itself powerfully in the immense moral emptiness which
we can witness around us.
In Andrea's exposition God really is: He is an absolute presence,
even in His infinite ineffability and unattainability. A presence which
is deeply rooted in our intimate nature and which, as we penetrate into
the core of the message, starts to locate itself in a logical, philosophical
and moral dimension which is so consistent, so all-embracing that we discover
our natural setting within it.
To put it in Andrea's words: "God is no doubt also a reality,
but He is such because the idea of Him and His actual being are associated
with a permanent existential ideality. Only when the idea of God will prove
to be 'economically' valid, is it possible to affirm that He actually exists
and that He is a reality, that is to say when, according to both subjective
and objective aspects, His essence is such, when His rational aspect and
His essence appear in such a way that His actual existence results to be
valid and indispensable."
The mind's categories and limits
The God of whom Andrea tries to give us a vague notion,
can be defined, from a human point of view, as a synthesis of opposites,
like Heraclitus realized by intuition. Andrea makes a tremendous
effort to make us understand that our categorizing definitions bring us
to conclusions which are too partial and which therefore become distorted
from our own comprehension.
This has always been an enormous difficulty which has ended
up pushing many minds towards atheism, because every explanation, every
definition relating to God, offered by philosophy or religion, seem to
be so reductive that they can only be judged as wrong.
This was certainly felt by Plotinus who said that it was not
possible to assert anything about God, because conveying any impression
of Him, would mean reducing Him infinitely, "canning" Him, so to speak,
in a concept which would end up seeming too miserable even to those who
had formulated it.
In the end, however, this attitude will conceal another trap,
because if it is impossible to describe God's attribute, this could end
in that limitation of thought demanded by the Catholic religion in the
name of the need for a blind and absolute faith.
There certainly is an infinite sphere of imponderability around
God, especially in connection with the limits of our minds. something which
Kant brought to our attention with so much lucid suffering. However, this
awareness should not keep us from investigating and the difficulty of the
undertaking should incite us to take full advantage of our capacities and
not limit us to the only cognitive function which, for us Westerners, has
become by now officially accepted, that is rationality.
Andrea shows us that, step by step, we can get much further
than what has been asserted or imagined so far, if we try to make the most
of our rationality and then, when it reaches its own limit, use our intuition
and expand our sphere of consciousness, in a word surpass ourselves.
Commonplaces on the nature of God
A classical contraposition in philosophy is the one between the
emanation and creation theories, as regards the divine 'modus operandi'.
If we go back to the previous quotation of Andrea's words, we
can again perceive this distinction between essence and existence.
This distinction, originated in the sphere of the school of
Chartres, will be taken up again by St. Thomas Aquinas: God's essence implies
existence. This concept is used by St. Thomas to confirm the creative
act in God.
This is one of the crucial points of the philosophical religious
queries on God.
For all the philosophers of Christian tradition the work of
God is a creation, in opposition to the neo-platonic current which maintains
it is an emanation. Trying to clarify the terms of this antithesis means
starting to structure the hypothesis on God.
Neo-Platonism, then, makes the Universe derive from God through
emanation: from the One who is beyond the being, the mind and the substance
(in Plotinus's words) the whole creation emanates, in a spontaneous and
natural process. This process does not deviate from any voluntaristic act
as this, in God, would mean a mutation, whereas in His essence He is not
subject to evolution.
The conception of emanation opposes to the one of the creation
from nothingness, characteristic of the Old and New Testament which implies
the problem whether the creation should, or should not be considered 'ab
aeterno'.
According to Andrea this is a false problem. If among
God's qualities we advance eternity, absoluteness and infinity, their manifestation
should somehow also be like His nature. And this means that the Universe
which, in this case, is not intended to be understood as the galaxies,
but as power, balance, energy, expression, dynamism and activity, must
always have existed in God Himself, at least as a force and a potentiality,
because otherwise at a certain point something would have been added to
God and in that case He would not be the Absolute.
On this subject Andrea says: "God doesn't create,
because creating means producing out of nothing. He doesn't produce out
of nothing, but out of Himself. Everything exists already in God, because
He is eternal and infinite and His ideas are infinite, not only in a qualitative,
but also in a quantitative sense. The ideas assume shape and become independent:
the ideas in God are potential and the whole reality has always existed
in Him. Theoretically we can make a difference between potential reality
and reality being turned into act: the reality which is being turned into
act is a potential reality which becomes independent".
And this is how, in all its logic and simplicity, the antinomy
of potentiality and act has been resolved: the reality being turned into
act is a potential reality which becomes independent and we may all take
advantage of the distinction.
In this passage the link with the Platinic philosophy stands
out and for Andrea it is a constant reference to key issues, such
as placing our most authentic reality on a transcendent level.
But once a certain common basis is established, Andrea's
thought, driven by an insuperable force of originality, breaks away from
it and follows its own personal course.
Overcoming the dualism of substance
and spirit
Unlike Plato who, as with many other philosophers and mystics
later-on, considers substance as something negative and disharmonious(4),
Andrea teaches that substance and spirit, although subject to different
laws, originate from the same divine mould. That's why
there can be neither separations nor contrasts implying a positive
or a negative standard of evaluation, a contradistinction between good
and evil. What happens is that different laws are being applied and observed,
but these laws relate anyhow to a unitary range of primary universal principles
which reflect the divine mould.
The dualism between spirit and substance is therefore certainly
a sign of heterogeneity, underneath which there is nevertheless a basic
homogeneity, so no negativity of the substantial universe, just some other
kind of self which the spirit investigates, because it is anyhow emanated
by God and, as such, a sign, a signal, an instrument of knowledge and evolution.
We will shortly come back to this fundamental point.
The entire reality has always existed in God in a potential
condition and through the emanation it becomes effective and independent.
Please note that the limitation of our language could deceive us here,
because all this does not imply that the emanation had a beginning, as
it is a divine and eternal activity, just as eternal as its own Mould.
At this point Andrea's teaching breaks completely away
from the creationist conception of St. Thomas who, denying that in
God there is a potential essence(5), ends
up letting Him implode in Himself and relegating the creation to a temporal
sequence.
As for Andrea, we have seen that this type of contrast (between
potentiality and act) has an exclusively theoretical sense, dependent on
the geometrical character of our intellect, so inadequate to catch even
the smallest bit of the Absolute!
To this reductive creationist image Andrea opposes
this infinite, eternal and continuing explosion in which God does not exhaust
Himself, because He has also another, completely ineffable nature which
has existed prior to the principles and the law governing the universe.
It is His thought to become principle, reality.
4) In this connection it
should be noted that substance was also considered to be pre-existent to
the so called ordening action of the Demiurge.
5) St. Thomas defines God as 'Pure
Act'.
As for what is emanated, the conversion into act means
having acquired an independent existence, even if it always remains in
God who, being infinitely infinite, always exceeds what is emanated.
Here we can notice a fundamental diversity with the oriental
philosophic conceptions in which there is a prevalence of a closer tie
with the divine source, a more binding relationship, whereas Andrea's thought
displays this independence conception of the elements of the creation in
which the spirit and the universe, once emanated, don't need God any more.
This can also be connected with the idea of the spirit rejoining
God, which is typical of the Hindu doctrines and which Andrea's teachings
oppose with an irrefutable logic.
But how should this independence be interpreted? It indicates
that both spirit and substance, being emanated are not an extension of
the divine essence, but a projection of it, an attribute of it.(6)
In the eternal instant of emanation, what is emanated possesses already
everything in a potential way, as a projection, a reflex of God, already
included in the universal equilibrium, in harmony with laws and eternal
principles, like the Maker. There is no more need of God and what is emanated
lives its own independent life and retains in itself its own significance,
as it is a sign, a mark of God.
There is here a clear confutation of pantheism, as is generally
understood by the pantheistic doctrines, especially in the Spinozian 'Deus
sive Natura', in which God ends up being broken into fragments and being,
so to speak, swallowed up by the infinite remoteness of the universe.
In Andrea's own words: "God manifests around and in
Himself what he potentially possesses and He evinces it in every infinite
dimension. God's possibilities and power however see to it that there is
in Him, in addition to what He manifests, also what He does not manifest
beyond the infinite limit of His potentiality.
If we would think of God as an infinite force having an infinite
localization, He would turn out to be the finite of the infinite, which
means that He would have an infinite limitation. But God is more and beyond
all this."
Here, too, we can't help observing that pantheism and transcendentalism
also form a theoretical contrast and that they lose their meaning against
the coherence of Andrea's conception of the divinity and of what
exists.
Here the problem of God's static or dynamic nature comes to
the fore again and this is also a classic in philosophy.
As for Aristotle the Prime Mover can only be motionless as it
is pure act(7) and therefore incapable of
motion and becoming.
According to Andrea, motion is
indissolubly tied to the divine attributes of existence and
intelligence and therefore what exists is also motion as it is life. It
is also inconceivable to postulate an intelligence which, being live, is
not existing, although, so Andrea says, it is paradoxical to speak
of God in the space-time contrast of life and death.
Anyhow, if God emanates phenomena in which an intelligent principle
is recognizable, the intelligence must necessarily also b in Him, and that
on an infinite level. As the intellect as such is a dynamic principle,
capable of organizing the manifestations in an harmonious way, it can't
link up with anything static. In this connection Andrea says: "God
expresses what He is and that is continuously being renewed. The creative
act of God's thought is a continuous, infinite, interior modulation which
constantly transforms into act."
6) As a matter of fact God
could neither increase, nor diminish.
7) This is where we find
the root of the Thomistical conception!
Thought has motion in itself: if this would finish also the thought
would end.
Motion is the possibility of manifestation and activation and
this can't be nil in God. If it would be, then the principle of equilibrium
couldn't exist, because it would not be dynamically supported by the initial
force.
Divine antinomies
A very interesting question which can be raised is the one on
the divine 'personality' .
In fact, if we speak of an attribute of intelligence, can we
postulate the existence of some unimaginable form of self-consciousness
in God? In one word: does God know that He is and is He aware of Himself?
Certainly no reference is made here to a personal or personalised
God.
Since we can't get around using our reductive language, we can
say that He is an infinite personality and not infinitely finite, but infinite
and absolute.
Here the differentiation from the Universe (which further confutes
the 'Deus sive natura' is very clear: while God is infinitely absolute,
the Universe is infinitely definite.
Now, God is an intelligent being: He is not only a force, but
also what is beyond that force, outside the creation, beyond the creative
act.
The intelligence attributed to God is His own state of being,
so God knows that He is God.
Therefore the cognitive stimulus is the real basis of the spiritual
nature.
In an attempt to further clarify the modalities of the spiritual
existence, we will deal with two themes which are dear to Hinduism and
which, of nearly the same tenor, can also be found in Plotinus, namely
the Spirit's reabsorption in God, as the ultimate aim of every experience
and the liberation from the negative bodily ties through renunciation and
the purifying influence of virtue.
According to Andrea being absorbed in God would mean the
end of individuality, that is the death of the spirit. Then the spirit
would not be eternal and would not pass through the universe, but it would
only cover the distance which separates it from God.
But an attainable God is also a limited God and the guarantee
for the spirit's eternity is indeed the impossibility of this reunion.
The eternal spirit passes through the infinite, while it perceives
more and more clearly the mark of the Creator, but also remaining always
infinitely distant from Him, the Infinite.
This infinite distance which, in spite of the cognitive passage
through the infinite, remains eternally infinite, this infinity in progress,
is a further guarantee for the eternity of the spirit. It is the key to
the love (if we may call this love) which God brings us, giving us really
eternal lives. It is also the real sense of the universal brotherhood,
because whatever the degree of knowledge that each single spirit will possess,
the spirit will always be at an infinite distance from God, which is equal
for all the other spirits.
The idea that the physical and bodily experience is a negative
one, is the corner stone of many currents of philosophical or religious
thought.
The illusory nature of the human perception, the relativity
of the reality, the sufferings of the flesh, the dualism and contrasts
between life and inner life, have contributed, in the name of a pseudo-spiritual
and purifying purpose, to exalt techniques or attitudes of renunciation,
denial or mortification with regard to the life of the body.
One of the most fascinating novelties of Andrea's doctrine
is the revaluation of the substance and of the physical experience and,
but not in the epicurean sense, the trivialization of the term.
There are two reasons:
a) the substance in itself is a divine creation; as such
it should not be submitted to a value judgement, but studied, known and
therefore loved, like every other aspect of the divine manifestation;
b) the substance is a cognitive instrument, indispensable
to the spirit's evolution, an irreplaceable stage, because it represents
another kind of self with respect to the spirit. Therefore it has to be
used and tried out at the highest possible level of participation in order
to understand its meaning
.
Substance is a diversity which becomes a cognitive necessity
and which, for the spirit, represents a real leap in the dark and often
an extremely reductive trap.(8)
This implies the necessity of recurrent incarnations,
in order to achieve the difficult and always precarious balance between
the absorbing urge of the substance which could completely stifle the spiritual
impulse, and a real 'escape' mechanism of spiritual origin which can cause
an alienation from the physical experience.
We shouldn't, therefore, live as spirits on earth, but thoroughly
experience the substance in a spiritual way, without forgetting either
our real nature, or the existence of objectives different from the merely
social or instinctive ones.
In this perspective Andrea's thought reveals itself once more
in its powerful synthetic quality, for only this conception of the function
of the physical experience can justify the deep contrast situations which
we all go through on earth.
8) In this you can see a motivation
for the desire to 'renounce' substance, in the name of a 'spiritual' life.
The nature of the spirit
According to Andrea the spirit is not a concept or and
philosophical position, like the Fichtian Ego(9)
or like the Spirit of Hegel(10), but a reality,
or rather, for us human beings, as incarnated spirits, the only essential
and eternal reality, not subject to the continuous formal mutation of the
physical existence.
The notion of an immortal Soul exists in the oriental doctrines,
as well as in the Greek philosophy and in the Judaic and Christian traditions,
but the theorization relating to the structure of this soul which
is most similar to the concept of spirit developed by Andrea is
the one of the Leibnizian monads.
9) That this Ego disposes
the physical world by a process called productive imagination.
10) Hegel, Georg Friedrich
Wilhelm (1770-1831) German philosopher.
He greatly influenced the study of metaphysics, as he saw reality
as a dynamic process, rather than as a reflection of static ideals. He
maintained that the spirit splits up according.
The monad, in the interpretation of Leibniz, is an eternal and
individual being, simple and unextended, different from all the others,
owing to its interior quality which characterizes it. Each monad is a window
on the world, an hermeneutical viewpoint of perception of the Universe,
a single, unrepeatable, incommunicable and individualized essence.
As far as Andrea is concerned, the spirit, a divine spark,
has always existed in God. In this eternity, without interruptions, nor
starting points, nor points of arrival, our imagination, due to its human
limitations, is unable to dispel the assertion that there is a 'moment'
in which the spirit is 'born'. The spirit, however, passes from the existential
condition in God as a potentiality, to the existential condition in God
as an emanated being.
And this is the beginning of the infinite story of the spirit's
self recognition which, Socratically, is a revelation, a reappropriation
of the self through a cognitive dialectical relation with the Universe.
"As the spirit is potentially infinite - says Andrea - because
it originates from God's mould, its growth is an interior unveiling. It
is not an introduction from the outside into the inside of the spirit.
The spirit always makes its discoveries in itself because, due to its divine
structure, it already has everything, for it has the infinity in itself.
It discovers itself and what is outside of it represents the moment of
the stimulus, the moment of the spirit's motion process".
The spirit, being emanated by God, shares the divine nature,
even if it keeps its own identity and individuality. This means that it
has the infinite knowledge in itself, but only potentially.
This same infinite knowledge which in God is accomplished and
absolute, is relatively infinite for the spirit, as it is potentially waiting
to be activated and to be brought to the light of consciousness.
And it is by testing itself in relation to the universe which
it perceives as different(11) that the spirit
continuously relates the external experience to its potential internal
reservoir which, in proportion to its cognitive level, opens up and discloses
an internal response which is self-knowledge and, through the self, also
knowledge of the divine mould. In this process the spirit experiences the
interaction and the interrelation between the two realities,(12)
as well as the certainty about the existence of a God who, although He
does not reveal Himself, is an eternally simultaneous presence.
In Andrea's words: "The spirit is an existential being, that
is to say an existent reality which defines its quality or evolution in
itself and which defines it on the basis of a real knowledge which it has
of
itself and of the universe. This is a knowledge which has an infinitely
dynamic nature, but it is somehow at a standstill at that existential
moment. That is, the spirit defines itself on the basis of what it is and
not on the basis of what it could be, or what it will be, because if the
spirit wouldn't have the dimension of its existence, it wouldn't have its
identity either".
One can note that the agreement with the existentialist scheme
is very evident here.
Coming back to the parallel with the Leibnizian thought, we
could say that every spirit is a different point of view of the infinite,
one of the infinite interpretations of this universe and which through
this cognitive passage finds its existential dimension, its real objectification.
11) The feeling of
its own individuality never leaves the spirit, as it is the basis of its
existential continuity.
12) The reality of
the universe and the reality of the spirit
In a more structural than deep sense the "esse est percipi" of
Berkeley resounds and which, removed from its limited range, acquires an
imposing cosmic dimension which Andrea transmits us and in which we can
find the fundamental unity of the divine works.
On a spiritual level the knowledge of the noumenon which Kant denies
to the human intellect is being realised: the "thing-in-itself" is an unattainable
phantasm for us, but a God who would have let us suppose a possibility
of knowledge, to deny it later-on in eternity, would really have been cruel
and above all contradictory.
The descent into the flesh: the
hell of despair
Once incarnated, the spirit loses this serene knowledge and this
clearness and in this perspective man's sense of ontological oblivion is
evident and appropriate for a complete participation in the earthly experience.
This experience could certainly not be such if each of us would retain
the awareness of being an eternal spirit.
From this point of view it is clear that the human being, examining
his situation in the light of a ratiocination which isn't ready to become
blunted in the name of whatever dogma, will not succeed in dispelling his
fear of the certainty of being destined for death and this will spread
a veil of darkness over the joys which life has in store for us.
Hence the despair which, in a Catholic mind like Kierkegaard's,
becomes an almost psychotic mortification of the tormenting situation of
sin, whereas in the more stoical and deliberately detached perspective
of existentialism, it does not only become acceptance, but even a reappropriation
of its own existence, even if it is an existence for the sake of death.
In this dimension the thought of Heidegger stands out, which
literally incarnates the deep contradictions of human life. The greatest
metaphysical mind of our times, the father of modern ontology, a symbol
of the highest spiritual presence in a man, seized, like Kant, by the inalienable
evidence of the human limit, maintains that at the basis of existence there
is nothingness, because nothing else but nothingness is the (in our eyes)
logical and inevitable conclusion of the 'Dasein'.
New mathematical science has demonstrated the essential unreliability
of the concept of absolute logic, because there can be several parallel
logics and several configurations.
The Kantian levels, the nothingness of existence which cannot
be anything else but nothingness, cannot assume absolute evidence. They
are hypotheses, even very psychologized ones, and therefore questionable.
We can only point out the deep, basic irrationality of a philosophy
which asserts that existence originates from nothingness.
There is a certain margin in the term 'nothingness'. Parmenides
maintained that nothingness cannot be thought. If we consider that, in
the fullness of existence, the nothingness is anyhow something existing,
we will realise that there is a psychological residue which is elevated
to a philosophical level, as it is manifest in Sartre.
The following question should be asked: if we apply a procedure
similar to the phenomenological reduction indicated by Husserl to our own
personality, stripping it of what genetics and environment have stratified,
do we arrive at the nothingness of the existentialists or at the spirit
of Andrea.
At this point we find the real basis of Andrea's doctrine. As
it is structured on the premise of the existence of God, it would result
to be, from a strictly philosophical point of view, devoid of a demonstrable
fundament.
In fact Andrea's doctrine ends up forming a very long
exposition of a thesis which, if it appeals to our individual productivity,
will become a working hypothesis.
In this context Andrea's doctrine finds a fundament and
a justification, suggesting to each of us to enter into a dialectical relation
with our own selves, to verify, in an intimate confrontation, the reality
of this hypothesis.
If in ourselves, deep in our inwardness, beyond social conditioning,
inessential psychologism and a consciousness wider than the Freudian one,
we will find a place (not a philosophical, but a real one) where our nakedness
will not correspond with a non-existence, but with some kind of essence
which is different from the one we see in the mirror and where we can anyhow
feel our own identity, then each of us will find the justification, the
basis and the real and living demonstration, not only of Andrea's
words, but also of God's existence.
Daina Dini
MORE
ABOUT ENTITY "A" AND ITS MEDIUM
By Carlo Adriani
(An Extract from a Parapsychology Course)
There are various reasons why the manifestation of Entity
"A" and its doctrine is so important.
First of all because through it we can revert to the entirety
of other historically verified manifestations which preceded it.
Furthermore it makes us understand the mediumistic origin of
the deepest religious expressions, from the ancient world onward, offering
precise ways of interpretation and not just simple conjectures or mere
hypotheses, like the ones obtained from garbled sources or sources partially
kept secret.
From this point of view the case of Entity "A" gives us an expanded
and renewed version of the treasure which ancient witnesses had gathered
and passed on in an hermetic way.
Certain happy intuitions, particularly those of Dodds (in "The
Greek and Irrationality") on the subject of certain mystagogic religions,
like the Orphic one, wherein Orpheus is seen as the prototype of the Thracian
shamans, are being confirmed in an amazing way.
In Orphism, unlike the common Greek conception which clearly
separated the mortals from the Immortals, humanity has a divine nature.
For the Orphic religion "real life is death, the body is
the tomb of the soul".
The expression "soma sema" ("the body, a tomb") coined by Plato
(Cratilus, 5th Century B.C.) is emblematic of the Orphic conception, according
to which the aim of the human being is freeing himself, that is to say
releasing what Dionysian qualities he possesses (divine, celestial and
good ones) and to rid himself of what Titanic qualities he possesses (evil
and earthly ones).
This doctrine devoted itself mainly to the soul and its superterrestrial
destiny and it considered the liberation from the cycle of reincarnations
as the ultimate aim of the initiate. (Encyclopedia delle Religioni - Garzanti
- 1989) (Encyclopaedia of Religions-published by Garzanti - 1989).
In Naples there is a beautiful mosaic from the first century
A.D. with the symbols of the wheel of the reincarnations, surmounted by
a skull (Museo Nazionale) (National Museum).
Enthusiasm, that is the state of possession by a god who enabled the
'transformation', was part of the Orphic practice.
On the subject of "divine possession" it may be interesting
to note the statement of the last representative of Neoplatonism in Athens,
the philosopher Proclus (410-4R5 A.D.):
"There are men who are possessed and who receive a divine
spirit, some of whom spontaneously, like those overwhelmed, so to speak,
by the god, either at specific times, or at occasional, irregular intervals;
there are others who excite themselves to enthusiasm by means of a voluntary
act, like the prophetess of Delphi sitting over a cleft in the rock and
others who have drunk the divinatory water".
As you will have noticed, Proclus clearly divides the divine
possession into spontaneous, voluntary and induced.
He further adds- "During these phenomena the theogogy (1)
inevitably goes into action and suddenly an inspiration and an alteration
of the thought occur. But also among these cases of obsession there are
those in which the possessed are completely beside themselves and unconscious
and others in which the possessed keep their consciousness in an extraordinary
way. (Giamblico - I misteri Egiziani / The Egyptian Mysteries, Edited
by Rusconi - 1983).
I wanted to propose this passage first and foremost, because
Proclus shows a great competence in this kind of phenomena and further
because his testimony of fifteen centuries ago demonstrates that this phenomenology,
although rare, occurs with continuity in the course of the history of humanity.
For this reason, the case of Entity "A" with its topical interest,
has an impact on and a great value for the religious historian, for the
scholar of anthropology, for the psychologist and even more for those who
cultivate the science of parapsychology.
I would like to stress the fact that Proclus points out that
in the course of these phenomena "the theogogy inevitably goes into action".
This means that the divinity appears in the medium. In the ancient world
theology was separated from theurgy. Theology was the line of reasoning
around the divinity. On the other hand, theurgy was the art of getting
in touch with gods or spirits and working wonders thanks to them.
If, in this context, we consider the meaning of the word "Prophet',
in the sense of Plato or Plotinus, as "an interpret of the divine thought"
or "an inspired master " or " a messenger of a religious doctrine" (Giamblico,
op. cit.), we can understand that in ancient times this phenomenology was
well known and had a precise theoretical setting.
The belief that the divinity inevitably appeared when a trance,
as we call it now or, as the case may be, an ecstasy or an enthusiasm,
as they called it then, is activated, was an opinion which was based on
the experience of facts observed.
After thousands of years we can observe that the phenomenon of
the trance produces the same effects, because "the theogogy inevitably
goes into action" in those cases in which it is real, and in this respect
it doesn't differ from what it was in ancient times.
The fact that the phenomenon of Entity "A" is produced in one
of the ways described by an observer of 1500 years ago, becomes a further
motive for reflection and study.
The question that arises spontaneously is: <<Why do
individuals, as soon as they fall into a trance, start talking about, or
produce voices who deal with cosmic and theological themes or themes pertaining
to life after death (from ancient Greece until to-day, just to remain anchored
to sources written in the Western world), without ever losing sight of
this orientation and this cognitive current and without ever moving away
from these themes through thousands of years?>>
If this question has never been formulated in these terms, or
if nobody has been able to tell why in a state of trance there is an emersion
of deep knowledge, indications and suggestions which the individual in
a normal state doesn't seem to possess, it is only because one didn't want
to face this phenomenology and pay attention to the things it produces
or maintains, because of superstitious fear, or simply because one ignored
it.
The discovery of the unconscious, however, has made a small
opening into this field.
1) In the theurgical tradition
"theogogy" is the evocation of a divinity, coercively operated by a priest.
Jung, for instance, in <<Fondamenti psicologici della
credenza degli spiriti>>(2) (Works - Boringhieri
- vol. 8 - page 340) maintained that the parapsychological phenomena which
are usually connected with the presence of a medium, are <<externalized
effects of unconscious complexes>>, but later-on he changed his mind
about it. In fact he recognized in a footnote: <<after having
gathered, in the course of half a century, psychological experiences of
many people and in many countries, I don't feel certain any more, like
when in 1919 I wrote this sentence. I doubt - and I openly confess
it - whether an exclusively psychological methodology
and reflection can cope with the phenomena in question>>.(3)
It isn't by chance that parapsychology claims this class of
phenomena as its sector of studies.
Mediumism used to be superficially and erroneously included
in the categories of alternating personalities which was studied by psychopathology,
in order to avoid a confrontation with what this phenomenon demonstrates
by itself and what it asserts about itself.
In the race for the classification which dominated that period,
not enough consideration was given to the fact that the characteristic
of the alternating personalities is that they are in conflict with each
other and that they break into the external behaviour of the subject, frequently
causing permanent alterations.
In fact, even if the subject is not aware of what happens to
him, as the personalities seem to be independent of each other and sometimes
seem to ignore each other, it is remarkable that they have opposite polarities.
In the classic case, studied by Dr. Azam (Rene Sudre - Treatise
of Parapsychology - Astrolabio - 1966), there was on the one hand a woman
(Felida) who was devout, timid and meek and on the other an aggressive,
impudent and foul-mouthed woman.
These two personalities alternated cyclically and reached the
paradoxical point where one of them became pregnant, without the other
knowing it.
The discovery of the split personality as a cause of an actual
behavioural pathology, was also used to explain mediumistic phenomena.
However, in cases in which the most appropriate techniques are
used to establish that the subject has a completely normal personality,
that he is perfectly healthy and that no behavioural anomalies and alterations
have been found, is it then possible to avail oneself uncritically of the
categories theorized on a clinical level and to think in terms of pathology?
Of course not. The clinical paradigm is only useful to form a mental model
of possible analogies, but we may not equalize both phenomena, homologating
them scientifically.
We are entitled to make this statement, because Piancastelli,
the medium of Entity "A", does belong to this category of psychically sound
persons to which I referred before.
And this is another element which deserves the utmost consideration,
because it definitively finishes with the conception extrapolated from
pathology, showing that this class of phenomena is independent.
2) Title literally translated from
the Italian: "Psychological Foundations of the Belief in Spirits"
(3) Jung's quotations have been
literally translated from the Italian text.
Hence it is clear that this is a specific phenomenology, with
basic principles of its own, that it is not assimilable to an other phenomenology,
as it is greatly different, and that it must be investigated with an appropriate
methodology and therefore scientifically isolated.
Moreover, in more limpid cases, like the one we are discussing,
it is difficult, if not impossible to refer to whatever manifestation compensatory
or complementary to the personality of the medium.
There is no question of an overlapping or a confusion of personality
and what manifests itself during the trance does not invade or alter the
behaviour of the medium at all, but always remains quite detached, distinct
and perfectly separated from him.
Therefore the researcher becomes aware of the fact that he is
faced with a phenomenology which obeys its own laws and which can't be
confused with psychic manifestations pertaining to pathology.
What remains is the data, the fact observed as it occurs.
There is another, not less important element which we should
bear in mind and which concerns the way in which these mediumistic seances
proceed.
During the seances those present are requested to ask questions.
This precautionary measure which Entity "A" itself wisely wanted,
clears the procedure of the suspicion that the subconscious of the medium
could be operating.
The unforeseen nature of the questions would in fact force the
subconscious of the medium into hesitation, silence and even confusion,
something which never happened to Entity "A".
If there is no question of the medium's subconscious(4),
there remains the possibility of two more hypotheses:
a) The appearance of the deepest inwardness of the medium.
This would not at all diminish the importance of the phenomenon, as
it would confront us with an unexpected reality which lies in the depths
of the human being. It seems to us that this is not sufficiently evaluated
by the most stubborn detractors of these phenomena, because it would prove
the existence of an even deeper personality with an awareness different
from the medium's normal one and complete in its kind.
b) The non entirely hypothetical possibility exists that,
in certain conditions, a circuit is activated in predisposed individuals
which enables other intelligent structures to transmit highly qualified
and typified communications. Owing to their very special intimate aspects,
to the way in which they are formulated and to the aims they reveal, there
is a very high degree of probability that these communications have their
origin in single transmitting sources which continuously manifest their
specific individuality.
One of the basic characteristics of Piancastelli's trance is
that it has been going on, without solution of continuity, for about forty
five years. The extraordinariness of this fact, having regard to the very
early age at which Piancastelli had his first trance, puts the phenomenon
in question among the most representative and significant ones in the whole
of paranormal history.
In these forty-five years of Entity "A"'s presence among us,
scholars of various disciplines have literally bombarded Entity "A" with
questions, encompassing the entirety of human knowledge and without hesitation
this extraordinary voice has replied to all their queries.
4) The method of the free
questions with their accidental character proves to be the best safeguard
against possible unconscious tricks.
Moreover it has always shown an absolute command of the subjects under
discussion and it has often extended the proposed themes at its own discretion,
drifting freely also into other fields.
Furthermore it always succeeded in leading everything competently
back to the contexts of the doctrines which it was expressing, maintaining
a strict and punctual contact with them and always knowing how to bring
the debates back to the formulated origins.
Just think that from Entity "A"'s lessons more than 10,000 pages
have been transcribed and that Prof. di Simone, using only extracts from
these lessons, published four books which are still on sale. It is therefore
easy to understand that the study of the message in its completeness would,
without exaggerating, require a multitude of people, engaged full-time
and for many subsequent generations, so large is the quantity and so great
is the quality of the information it contains.
Carlo Adriani
VOLUME III.
Dear Friend,
You'll undoubtedly have heard about the paranormal phenomena that
have always been a part of man's life, such as telepathy, clairvoyance,
mediumism, etc. Thinking about these strange but real facts, we realise
they're an integral part of our existence. Who for instance has not had
a premonitory dream which, even if cloaked in symbolism, came perfectly
true over time? Who has not had a presentiment that was so strong that
he/she was sure a family member or a friend was living through a special
experience?
These are in fact the minor instances of paranormal phenomena
that happen to the man in the street, as one used to say - meaning all
of us. In most cases they pass by almost unnoticed, because we don't attribute
any importance to them. But if we think about them more closely, we realise
that every time they happen they tend to bring us an intuition that there's
"something" inside us that's independent of the laws that govern matter.
Because the very facts of premonition, clairvoyance, and telepathy confirm
this, placing outside our time-space components and in some cases overturning
them completely.
All this undoubtedly makes us think and consequently conjecture
that the "something" within us that is still so mysterious, variously referred
to as "spirit", "soul", "mind", and "divine spark" might really exist and
thus represent our true nature, our deepest inner self, beyond the dogmas
of religions, the pronouncements of philosophies and negations of science.
History tells us of men who had highly-developed paranormal faculties
whom people called mediums. Some of them in particular not only produced
significant physical phenomena, materialisations, moving objects, music
without instruments or other types of phenomena, such as, for example,
faithfully reproducing the voices of the dearly departed, but they also
gave us communications of extraordinary intellectual value which can help
us live our human adventure better and with greater awareness.
It is precisely one of these mediums that I would now like to
briefly mention. I encountered the phenomenon many years ago. It involves
an Italian medium, Corrado Piancastelli, who lives and works in Naples.
Over the years I have taken part in his many of his séances. While
he is in an altered state of consciousness, that's to say in a deep trance,
a "Spiritual master" (whom it has been agreed to refer to as "Entity A")
manifests himself and gives actual lessons on extremely important questions
for all of us: human life, the spirit and its infinite evolution, the problem
of God and of death, while also tackling a wealth of other no less important
problems. I must say that the logic and rational qualities of these communications,
these special teachings, have left me much more able to tackle the adverse
moments in my life that were really very difficult to bear ... to endure
pain when it has knocked at my door.
I know all too well that when people speak of mediumistic phenomena
that in some way involve the word 'Spirit' they are generally inclined
to minimise their importance, considering them a product of more or less
unconscious elements which have in some way been expressed by the medium
and those taking part in the séances. Even when the phenomenon -
as in the case of "Entity A" - unquestionably goes well beyond the flaccid
manifestations of a highly dubious, oldstyle spiritualism that there is
no point going into here.
The phenomenon through which this "spiritual personality" has
manifested itself for many decades and continue to do so today must be
considered a genuine paranormal fact by virtue of the distinctive processes
of manifestation involved. But what really counts are the sayings of "Entity
A", which merit attentive reading, reflection and an objective evaluation
independently of the origin anyone ascribes to them. It is, in a word,
the content of the communications that ought to be taken as a measure of
their importance and validity. Making it a good idea to briefly summarise
some of their main lines of thought.
"Entity A" develops his discourse in an exceptional dialectic,
and has indeed done so since the very beginning of his manifestations,
when the medium himself was not even twenty years old. This discourse set
out from a traditional, elementary cognition of the human and spiritual
problematic and gradually opened out as it proceeded, taking in new and
broader aspects of universal knowledge with a logical and rational consequential
development.
The Earth, matter and human life have always been presented as
something that taints and sullies the spirits, something with an air of
expiation and fall. All this rejected and re-evaluated by the "Master",
who shows how our human life is lived as a function of acquiring a spiritual
knowledge of materiality. So that living this brief period of parenthesis
on earth to the full and exploring its various different aspects, above
all leaving the freedom of others intact, cannot, in the most absolute
sense, be taken to constitute a "sin" (as understood by our conditioning
traditions), which has to be expiated with absurd punishments. It is rather
a subject for self-judgement, which may also be critical in cases where
our behaviour has had a negative influence on the experiences of those
close to us, laying obstacles in their path or blocking their way entirely.
The contents of the thought of "Entity A" have met with widespread
interest. If deeply understood, his communications represent a valid starting
point for rediscovering what our nature and the reality around us truly
are. Although we must not forget that one can only reach any kind of knowledge
through a process of inner maturing and that this can only be achieved
with sacrifice, effort and sometimes pain. And this, we can say, is the
concept that is always present in the thought of "Entity A", who continually
emphasises that we must live everything that concerns our present life
- that's to say our problems and experiences - attentively, incorporating
them within us to subsequently resolve and overcome them.
There is a deep uneasiness in the modern world. Man, who has
lost or is losing what were, rightly or wrongly, the traditional values
that gave him a certain security is now searching and seeking, even though
he does not know for what.
The uncertainties and difficulties of everyday life bear down
on us all. Its struggles, conflicts, violence, moral and civil disorder
make men feel they need help, a real help that can in some way bring them
that inner peace they are searching for so desperately.
So that in the critical period we're going through, where everything
seems uncertain, there's an even greater need for a clear vision than ever
before. We need to clear the field of the nebulous heritage that still
entrammels us on so many sides. Now, perhaps more than ever, there's a
need for a different, yet coherent and rational discourse, because only
this can be understood by an help man to find himself. Which is precisely
the intention of the communications of "Entity A".
Finally, I'd like to point out that my own involvement has no
financial motive. My only desire has been to bring other people to partake
in a phenomenon that is completely out of the ordinary, through which life
and death become more acceptable and more comprehensible.
It is with this aim that I am sending you these further communications
of the "Master", convinced that you will find the answers to some of your
questions in them; questions to which you have perhaps until now always
received unsatisfactory answers.
Thanking you for your attention, best wishes
Tina Tungate (U.S.A.)
Andrew Milani (Australia)
ANDREA: THE MASTER OF CHANGE
Although entitled "WHO WE ARE", the previous issue of our
review was in fact the first issue of the "COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ENTITY
A" which has been published in Italy for over 15 years. This, our second
issue, returns to the original title of the review, regarding which I would
once again like to emphasise that the lessons of Entity "A" (a spiritual
master who took voice in 1946 during an intensively studied trance of mine)
are in particular directed at those who want to change and give a purpose
to their lives. The lessons of Andrea (Entity A) are indeed revolutionary,
turning many commonplace conceptions and platitudes on their heads. They
are anti-conformist, clear and peremptory. The substance of his discourse
is that if we recognise the dualistic principle - which is to say the existence
of a Spirit or Soul that acts above and before the brain - then our whole
life must be orientated in that direction. It must, in other words, be
productive for the purposes of the Spirit.
But Andrea does not repeat the sterile and stupid terminology
of "doing good", "being good and generous", of "forgiving" etcetera, etcetera.
Andrea asserts that one serves the purposes of the Spirit by living actively
in the world and searching out experience because it is the only way of
maturing, producing inner change and thus developing spiritually. All the
rest is simply drawing room chatter and religious do-gooding. We must without
doubt also become good, forgive and help others, but all this must take
place within a spiritual project directed towards knowledge and not just
take the form of a sterile fraternity of charity at all costs simply
because the law says so. We cannot and must not simultaneously recognise
that we are spiritual beings and yet at the same time continue in the hypocrisy
and falsity of living like robots subjected to the renunciatory and passive
rules of the world - a world which decides for us what must and what must
not be done. Master Andrea, however, also maintains that one reaches the
freedom of inner being through the work of reflection, of changing perspective,
with the deep-seated desire of wanting to find one's own goal and fulfil
oneself that the American psychologist Maslow, one of the founders of humanistic
psychology, talks about.
But not everyone can get that far, so we need to be prudent
and assess even the possible risks of change in advance. When the spirit
breaks in upon everyday life it turns one's perspective upside down and
the world needs to be reread with other keys to interpretation and seen
with other eyes. Some eyes could be burnt and would do well to stop in
time, while others will be illuminated and continue. Remember Christ's
warning about not "casting pearls before swine"?
Can there really be any sense in living like computers,
being programmed or manipulated by the rules and taboos of people who have
nothing to do with our needs and in whom we can recognise neither virtue
nor wisdom ? Because the fact is that's how most men live. Which is why
Master Andrea urges us toward change, to honour the presence of a Spirit
in us and to give a meaning and a purpose to existence.
Corrado Piancastelli
THE REALITY AND VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE
IMPARTED THROUGH MEDIUMS
Question: - We would like to talk about the reality and validity
of the type of knowledge we acquire through this extraordinary contact,
through seances with a medium in an "incorporation trance". -
Entity A: "I'd say this: people who witness
this type of manifestation for the first time are surprised and perturbed,
or they immediately believe or don't believe at all. Sometimes they even
continue not believing for a long time, because every human being, in a
sense, needs a certain type of knowledge; a knowledge which will be able
to touch the very roots of that person's sensibility but has no meaning
for others at all.
In a sense everyone - in life - needs their own Master, that's what
they said in antiquity. So much so that in India, someone who was devoting
themselves to philosophy or yoga would often search for years before finding
his/her own Master, his/her own guide, and the meaning's clear - because
we each need our own truth our own knowledge.
This doesn't mean that truth is dissimilar, different from one
person to another but that everyone needs a part of the same truth,
because only that part can satisfy their needs. Now, someone who comes
here is initially motivated by a legitimate curiosity that later becomes
interest (whenever that may be). At which point doubts immediately arise,
some of which can immediately be confronted while others take longer.
This situation which has been called a "spiritualistic phenomenon"
or "mediumistic phenomenon" posits an immediate relationship between life
and non-life and does so I'd say, in a sensory way. It is this that I want
to clarify. Because it isn't so important to recognise the validity of
the "beyond the grave" phenomenon, as you'd rather inappropriately put
it. There's another validity which is much more important and is independent,
separate I'd say, from the phenomenon you're witnessing. I once said: "It
isn't as important to believe in spiritualism as it is, however, to follow
all the knowledge that reaches you through these manifestations - and only
through them, so that your interest in the cultural phenomenon that accompanies
the physical phenomenon is the strongest". The most important element is
therefore precisely in this relationship, in establishing a knowledge that
takes its place between you and us and leads you to conclusions or revelations
that you wouldn't normally have and receive through man.
It's clear that your reason needs to intervene whenever possible
in a dialectic with us, through which we'll always try to eliminate certain
rough edges, certain doubts. Why am I telling you this? Because a number
of hypotheses and theories, some of them very complex, have been built
around spiritualism. After years and years of zealous study no one has
managed to fully explain these types of phenomena, one of which is before
you. Why? Precisely because spiritualism eludes a total scientific enquiry.
One can therefore carry out a whole series of unquestionably valid investigations
in the field of spiritualistic research, none of which will however be
able to provide the information that completes the picture regarding the
relationships, especially the mental relationships, between you and us.
Of course our affirmation that we are spirits may well at a certain point
have a relative value for you, which you will determine according to your
sensitivity, your act of faith. This is nevertheless only faith up to a
certain point, because while a general faith in the reality of the spiritual
problem is something natural, instinctive or even empirical, here you are
undoubtedly in the presence of a different circumstance; a phenomenon that
happens under the scrutiny of your senses.
You're listening, you can see, other mediums can carry out physical
phenomena; they are, in short, phenomena that can be understood, followed
and interpreted on the level of a scientific and spiritual logic. And that
is the main difference between an empirical, reasoned or instinctive faith,
which is of a religious nature, and a faith that is based on concrete facts,
such as those delivered by spiritualism over a great many years. However,
the alternative to settling the question, which is to consider the cultural
phenomenon as taking precedence, can be acceptable even to those who do
not want to follow a spiritualistic line, making it an entirely satisfactory
approach for both of us. Because it doesn't concern us greatly whether
you believe us. The only thing that concerns us is that certain
questions raised, influence your spiritual personality. After all,
as one of us said, and I agree, there are certain truths regarding which
it really makes very little difference what you believe on earth, because
they're the truths you discover on the day you die. Such as whether another
life exists, that cardinal problem of human existence. Well, you'll be
able to verify this other life for yourselves and there won't be any wanting
or needing to believe, because you yourselves will be the "dead" people;
you will testify to another existence with your presence, your being.
So your legitimate concern is to search for certain truths and
my suggestions to carry out certain investigations are unquestionably valid
and legitimate and will lead (if they lead anywhere) to some results. However,
our presence here is only explained on a spiritual plane, and it is on
this plane that we always prefer to remain. A plane that takes your
human nature into account and your need to receive that knowledge from
us which can improve your life and help you better interpret the circumstances
and relationships between you and God.
I naturally don't want to start preaching here, because that's not
my way of doing things. I simply hope that our new guests understand this
discourse as a concrete desire on our part to have a dialogue with you
and with those of you who have been here longer, with this always being
an entirely brotherly relationship. Our limits are due to the fact that
we cannot give you everything. First and foremost, we can't give you faith,
because it isn't in our power to give it to you. We could give it to you
through grandiose phenomena or grandiose apparitions, but experience
teaches that it is never proofs that give man faith.
Man reaches faith, if he reaches it, through a personal labour
of analysing truth, penetrating it, and maybe you will never reach it.
What is more important independently of an abstract faith, is the concrete
way of living following certain universal "morals", eliminating the superfluous
in your conduct and reducing your own truth to a lean relationship, a lean
knowledge of the relationships between you and the Universe.
Unfortunately, with all the many, many things that have been
said on Earth, you've lost the genuine relationship between God and yourselves.
You find yourselves in a situation which it is very difficult to get out
of. I believe all this can be put down to man having reflected little on
the fundamental problem of his life; that is to say his inner being in
relation to a possible God, that is simultaneously outside and inside him..."
MAN, THE SPIRIT AND THE AFTERLIFE.
Entity A: The problem which most interests
you men is life after death. On the other hand, many continue the illusion
of a life that continues after death as an extension of human life. They
cultivate it, partly due to its fascination - the attraction of a life
that retains much of its human character for them and partly because the
various different religions have not moved far away from descriptions of
an almost human life, albeit sublimated. All this is very disappointing
from a strictly dialectical, philosophical point of view, because a change
of life, a shift in one's state necessarily involves a series of transformations.
One is forced to conclude that man has tried to render this afterlife
in his own image and likeness, as happened in the Old Testament, except
that there it was God who made man in his image and likeness. Following
a reverse process, man then created this God, obviously in his own image
and likeness and with God everything in the other life.
When they leave the body, many spirits are disappointed by all
this, because they have seen that there are actually differences between
life and death from an outside viewpoint. But these spirits have not reflected
sufficiently on the differences. They are in actual fact not immediately
aware that nothing has changed in the substance, that it is only the form
which has changed. This of course includes the mental form, because the
way you reason is, just as I was saying, a dialectical way imposed by a
given language, by a mental pattern of your brain. It's clear that when
the brain goes, the related mental pattern also goes - it disappears.
But in the reality of the Earth, the mental pattern of the brain had a
purpose, it was the organ for transmitting something else, deeper inside
man. It is this "something else" which in its substance does not change.
Nevertheless, it has all the appearance of change, because it is precisely
this apparel, this human shell that, being eliminated, frees the fundamental
seed of the Spirit, which apparently doesn't recognise itself any more,
since it's used to showing itself on the outside, following the mental
pattern it used when on Earth.
That's why you find so many spirits who are still in this intermediate
phase at seances and who describe the afterlife,( supposing they are spirits,
naturally) as a bit like yours. I have sometimes even heard you say you've
read about spirits who've described the existence of cities, food, trees
and other such nonsense. Why? Because they're Spiritual Beings that, still
living within this human orbit, still possess a very strong soul structure
that is still bound and mentally structured, so that their consciousness
still perceives an inner and outer world that is still made in man's likeness.
And that's how they describe it to you, endorsing certain writings that
are not based on any logic because, I repeat, the simple fact of changing
condition and state has consequences on a practical as well as a theoretical
level, and there's no way of getting away from it.
Another source of confusion is probably the confusion between
the soul and spirit. This is undoubtedly a very, very widespread confusion,
because men don't make much of a distinction between them and neither does
religion. Why? Because soul and spirit have always been connected etymologically
in the very substance of their meaning. Which is why human beings mean
the same thing by soul and spirit. Causing the whole idea of survival to
be beset by this confusion, because all one's feelings would go with a
soul and this dead being with all its feelings, thoughts and human things
would continue living in this sort of extra-terrestrial species and therefore
construct a world that's homogeneous with its structure. The image of God
is the logical consequence of this.
Now, in actual fact, you know very little about our life, little
or next to nothing, because at a certain point you manage to perceive from
small signs that your existence after death is an existence which however
maintains your personality and see and imagine this existence of thought
in a somewhat confused manner; partly because you don't have your ideas
clear about thinking either. The thinking of the spirit is not the thinking
of man, because the thinking of man is tied to precisely the mental pattern
I was talking about, language and its organisation. When this has passed,
the spirit only finds an essence of language. An inner world of simple
ideas, a world that is indeed rich in simple ideas, but the authentic
meaning of these simple ideas is beyond a philosophical substance.
What I mean above all is that the inner world of the spirit is a world
that is also simple, built on simple and authentic patterns. It's authentic
because, in a sense, the spirit is not allowed to dream, to weave illusions,
build castles in the air. The spirit lives in the reality of its being
and all of this is impossible precisely because its heavy structure is
made up of simple ideas, meaning extremely precise and exact ideas.
So it could be that you now have the idea of a fairly elementary
spirit because it is undoubtedly a spirit that still has minimal attributes.
A spirit that is still elementary. Yes, that's also true. But, naturally,
in the world of the spirit where, above all, the law of the extreme precision
and exactness of phenomena applies, the spirit is undoubtedly also subject
to a great universal scheme. Within this great universal scheme, the spirit
finds itself with its self, a lean self. On the other hand it wouldn't
know what to do with the bulk that you for example have. You, indeed, as
you are, are fake. You aren't a real thing, you're a fake, a fake construction
because, if I scratched a bit until I got down to your marrow, there would
be very little of substance remaining of you at all. That's to say, all
your personality, all of you as a person, is formed of a good ninety
percent superstructures.
Superstructures which are of a mental, psychological, cultural
and pseudo-cultural character. Your make-up is enriched with social elements,
social norms of behaviour - a whole series of superstructures which mean
that down at your bones you're the barest shadow of what you seem on the
surface. So you're always smaller than your authentic personality, as a
spirit.
Now, this faking in your existence cannot continue. That's to
say the spirit cannot play the bluff of superstructures with the universal
law. It cannot do it any longer and must therefore free itself of all this
waste. Why? Because this waste is an impediment to visualising and fully
grasping the structure of reality, otherwise it would always see through
the distorting eyes of superstructure. And now the spirit has to face the
universal structure, which is extremely simple, linear and precise, with
new eyes, almost in a state of limbo, the spirit confronting itself with
what it really is and with what is really authentic in it.
Making it clear now that once death enters the scene, the spirit
is divested of superstructure, becoming something else: as a substance
it stays the same, but as an extreme personality and by this I mean a "fake
human" personality, the spirit must divest itself. And that's why
the afterlife, as you call it, ends up by becoming something else. And
in behaving like this you are really running away from the tough criticism
of the materialists who quite logically laugh when they hear someone talking
about another world that is constructed pretty closely on the human model.
None of you could reasonably imagine, in good faith, that a spirit
goes on its way walking down tree-lined avenues or goes out for a drink
or a bite to eat. No one could accept that, but it has happened. And that's
why research in the field of metaphysics has always been opposed, precisely
because of what I'd call its ridiculous fringes, picked up from unsuitable
environments or spirits or presumed spirits, but always without any global
perspective on the problem and without confronting certain fundamental
assumptions. So it's logical that our explanation can also seem disappointing
to those who imagine a different world in the afterlife that has all the
human affections, ties and attributes. But if you stop to reflect, on the
other hand, it is precisely when faced with this lean, very simple structure
that you can find the meaning of truth.
In other words, you are actually referring yourselves to a logical
plane of acceptance. And what is this logical plane of acceptance? It is
that, independently of any proof, human beings don't have a life that is
entirely theirs. Which is to say that underneath it all even your materialists
have accepted, or are prepared to agree that whatever else, there is a
"something" that cannot be explained at the basis of human beings. Only
that they see this "something" as a structure, perhaps as some
form of electromagnetic phenomenon, a phenomenon that can exist,
survive, even survive someone, without it being necessary for
one to give this survival the meaning of the continuation of the species
in another world.
In this way we are very close to a hypothesis that I'd call positivist
more than materialist because the soul, above all, is actually a structure
that is subject to death, just for starters. So let's not start accepting
this principle that the soul, which could identify itself with that "something"
which the materialists talk of and even the neurophysiologists admit, an
almost autonomous bioelectric existence, is not independent of the structure
of the brain, alright? Good, so this "something" dies. We're agreed on
that.
This "something" is the Soul. We shift the terms a little: we
say it doesn't die immediately, that it dies later. We can even make it
take longer. Let's say it dies after five hundred years. The problem doesn't
lie there: the problem is whether it dies or not. Well, this structure
does die, but beside this structure or in the substance of this structure
there is something different: there is the content of the structure.
You see, any mental model or any electrical model carries signals
and carries information because there's always someone who sends the signal
and the information. And if there isn't someone, there must be something
from which the signal is picked up. What I'm saying is that any electrical
or bioelectrical structure can, if it comes from the brain, exist as an
autonomous structure. Let's get that straight, because the Universe, with
its laws, also moves in an autonomous manner. But if this Universe,
if some of these radio signals that can pass through space become intelligent
signals, it either means that the signal was sent by someone or that it
picked up something significant that it can then transmit. That is to say
a signal per se has no faculties and no possibility of organising itself
into an idea. Why?
Because an idea, if we analyse it, has a meaning that on the
plane of any type of logic can always be traced to an intelligent function.
Being a signal with a meaning it is implicitly an intelligent signal. One
can't call that into question: that's to say a signal which carries information
is incontrovertibly an intelligent signal. It is therefore a question of
establishing whether it is an instinctual, natural intelligence or a non-instinctual
intelligence. That is in fact an extremely elementary task. Why?
Because a signal is instinctual and comes from nature when it does not
modify nature. A signal is no longer instinctual when it modifies nature
- that's clear - because nature on its own cannot emit contrasting signals.
If a signal is in contrast with its origin, which is to say with nature,
it means that there has been some form of interference. And since interference
is inadmissible in an extremely precise pattern such as the pattern of
nature or the universe, it means the signal is an outside wedge that has
penetrated it.
Right, what I'm saying is that once we have admitted or come
to an agreement upon what the spirit might be, that is to say reduced to
an extremely simple element - let's say it might be a signal like an electric
signal, or an insistence, a principal with an electric nature that
nevertheless has the possibility of sending autonomous signals that are
able to reach a mental pattern and give it information.... Well then, at
this point we've got to the spirit, because anything else is just a question
of terminology, as this electric force that transmits signals can be called
spirit or anything else, that's not what matters.
What is important - and this is where everything I've said has
been leading - is that we must as far as possible avoid giving the spirit
and soul banal, poetic, romantic meanings, but rather, in short, try and
return to what the spirit really is. What is the spirit in essence
? The spirit is a structure, an electric structure. Nothing like the electricity
that switches on lamps and nothing like the electricity emitted by a source
like the sun. It's a type of energy, there's no doubt about that and it
must be because the spirit has been emanated by God. The spirit is a part
of a the universe. And what's the universe ? The universe is an energy,
essentially, so the spirit cannot be anything else, but is a type of organised
energy. No one can have any doubt about that, because there are many different
types of organised energies in the universe. So there's no reason why the
spirit organised in that way shouldn't exist as well.
The important thing then is to establish or succeed in establishing
whether or not an intelligent principle exists or could exist in the universe.
It's at this point, I'd say, that the materialists have tied their hands
behind their backs. Why? Intelligence exists in the universe and man is
the proof of it. The principle of intelligence therefore exists, and if
the principle of intelligence exists the argument becomes extremely simple.
Either one accepts that intelligence exists, or one says: intelligence
does not exist. However if intelligence exists, the transfer to a philosophical
plane is simple. A thing exists if its principle exists, otherwise a thing
does not exist. A reality always contemplates its origin, because reality
is always an effect, and an effect presupposes a cause, but above all reality
implies the concept of existence. A thing exists simply if it lives and,
therefore, if its principle exists.
Without the principle of a reality, reality itself could not
be the consequence and could not therefore exist. But if intelligence exists
and the presence of man is the most striking testimony to it; this intelligence
must have a principle. And since the Earth in itself as a structure, also
seems to have a far-off origin in your eyes, because it is the expression
of a certain universal energy; then the energy of intelligence must have
the same origin. Intelligence is therefore also part of a universal principle.
The fact is that one cannot escape a consequence which I'd call
a dialectical consequence. The more we push our discussion, the more this
dialectic becomes incontrovertible. We cannot escape this series of steps
which are, indeed, elementary steps.
The question of whether or not one can demonstrate anything on
Earth is, I'd say, a highly debatable matter, apart from the fact that
there are a great many things on Earth which cannot be demonstrated and
yet are accepted all the same... In the end humanity has accepted its own
life without even knowing how it came about. Only now have you managed
to form a few clear ideas about the genesis of man. Only when it was possible
to study an ovum under the microscope. Only when genetics was able to demonstrate
certain markers which cross the generations - and yet genetics itself makes
slow and difficult progress in such an unsure and dangerous field. And
to demonstrate what? Things that have existed on Earth for thousands of
years and are accepted by everyone. On the other hand genetics has arrived
late among you, one could say, to study these generation markers.
Certainly, if someone had come up to me five or six hundred years
ago and said; "look! there are certain hereditary characteristics which
are passed on from father to son, but they don't pass on just like that,
by simple influence, they pass on because there are certain signs that
work through the cells, in fact the cells carry certain signals and can
keep them for four or even five generations...." well, I'd have burst out
laughing, wouldn't I? I wouldn't have been able to accept anything like
that. Or I might have been able to accept it on a formal logical plane,
but I would still have said: "well, but how are you going to prove that
to me?" No one would have been able to prove it.
Now, the existence of the Spirit is in the same situation. The
fact that one can't prove it means absolutely nothing at all. It does not
deny the possibility of the Spirit's existence. On the other hand there
are things that can never be proved: absolutely nothing can be proved.
Just as man cannot prove what happens in his brain one second after death.
Materialist logic ought to take the view that the brain doesn't stop functioning
immediately, but stops some time after natural death. It ought therefore
logically to suppose that the being which has just died continues to think
in some way. And this would be the extreme of materialism, that the end
of thought naturally coincides with an involutional process of the brain
one might expect to take place between approximately three and five minutes
of death but could in actual fact also become much longer, for a whole
series of other reasons that there's no point in going into now.
Whatever the case, we can say that this argument leads to the
same old conclusion, namely that it is above all indispensable for you
to create a mental pattern that is suitable for being able to accept and
continue working down this path. Because no external demonstration could
serve any purpose in giving you certainty. Many great people have come
to the Earth, I repeat, and they proved absolutely nothing. Christ came
and what did he prove? He who does not believe carries on not believing,
and he who did not believe carried on not believing. There's nothing you
can do about it. Many, many others have come who tried to establish a spiritual
discourse, but they were not believed. And with good reason, I'd say, with
good reason. Because you must no longer construct a discourse of this kind
in the same way that it was several hundred years ago, but in the light
of your physical knowledge. That's to say you need to move away from the
models of preaching and take refuge in the scientific model, because it's
the only one that can open certain doors for you. At least it can give
you certain indispensable keys to a reading.
Man at least needs some appearance of proof that the soul can
exist. Afterwards he may well go back to accepting everything. But if
you don't succeed in giving this to man, the way of the spirit is lost.
It's lost because man is no longer capable of accepting on faith, he no
longer accepts dreams. This is a good thing, I'd say, from a spiritual
point of view, because in this way man at least accepts his responsibilities.
However, it would be even better if, while following this path, he committed
himself to living socially, because this would ensure those fundamental
experiences the spirit needs. Unfortunately, man denies every spiritual
value today, and maybe he's right given the history of these studies. I
naturally include religion in these studies, because it was religion that
ought to have tackled these questions. But it doesn't, no one knows why.
Religion is the only study that ought officially to have tackled these
questions. Instead of which here we are talking about them while not a
word is said there. It seems that everything is clear with the religions,
that everything goes without saying, that everything is beautiful and full
of light and yet none of that's true, nothing's been proved, even
the minimum existence of the spirit has not been proved. Everything's accepted
and nothing's accepted, whether in faith or not.
So, as I was saying, if man could at least live his life socially
he would derive certain benefits. Instead, unfortunately, man does not
even live, he merely survives on Earth like this. A true life, an
authentic life, a life full and rich with humanity is precisely what man
does not achieve. And that's why, so often, these poor spirits within,
behind and beside us truly manage to pass an almost useless life. Fortunately
life in itself exists, which is an experience and already constitutes something.
The fact of being born and the fact of having to die are already two experiences
which are, luckily for you, beyond your choice. You go through them whether
you like it or not, because if it depended on man he wouldn't even go through
with them, or he'd go through them in who knows what way, and who knows
what he'd invent for the question of death. But there are at least two
things which are beyond your choice and which, in a sense, you're obliged
to endure.
Being born and dying: that's already an experience for the spirit,
not a very intelligent experience, to tell the truth, because being born
and dying aren't intelligent actions, they're two fairly silly actions,
above all because they're things that happen and which you endure. You
can't even manage to accept them intelligently, I'd say, and therefore
you simply endure them. But the spirit nevertheless gains something from
all these reincarnations, because the spirit's still wide awake during
the incarnation phase, it's alert and knows what's happening. As soon as
death occurs it finds its life as a spirit again and can thus look back
on the past. But the rest of life, you see, doesn't amount to much. That's
why my advice to live intensely is practical, egotistical advice at the
bottom of it. Your spirit came here for that: if you take that away from
it what can you give it?
I was saying, in fact I've been saying it from some time and
I hope you've been listening, that in the end we aren't interested in saints
on earth because the Earth's an exercise ground for the spirit, an exercise
ground in matter, and you've got to try and understand matter, now, while
you're on the earth. If you went on a journey from your country to Africa,
for example, what would you try and do? You'd want to get to know the costumes
of Africa, to visit its tribes, to make contact with the people and understand
how they live, find out what they eat. You'd try and live some of their
experiences, eat with them, in the tribes, in the forests. Why? Because
that's a real experience. If you went to Africa and, I don't know, went
to sleep in a lovely comfortable bed, for example, taking all your food
with you from home - well, you might as well have stayed at home! That's
to say there'd be no point in going to Africa. What I'm saying is that
someone who wants to live an experience, or see something new, lives the
life of these other people that he or she's gone to see.
Now, on Earth, on the other hand, exactly the opposite has happened.
Spirits, spiritual beings, come to the earth and take on a human body,
to live like what? What, to live like Spirits, to live a spiritual life?
That simply doesn't make sense! The spiritual life is naturally something
different: it's living freed from matter. But freeing oneself from matter
on Earth is suicide. Suicide isn't simply what someone does when they hang
themselves or take poison: suicide is what anyone does when they renounce
human life, because the spirit didn't come down to Earth to renounce human
life, otherwise it wouldn't have bothered coming at all, it would have
stayed on the other side.
It's clear however that this is a concept which men don't understand,
namely that the spirit makes a free choice to come down to Earth, because
men on the other hand believe that it is God who sends them there and forces
them to come and thus puts them to the test saying: you have to live like
a spirit on earth... Who knows what the logic is supposed to be in the
idea of God doing this! Let's take a spirit and send it down to Earth and
tell it: now that you've got a body you however have to live like a spirit.
It is not logical.
KNOW YOURSELF
Entity A: "...The ancient motto of Delphi
is naturally still valid, because "know yourself" obviously didn't just
regard matter, you know that. So biology, physics and all their related
disciplines can obviously shed a full light on the structure of the human
being: how it's made, how it's evolved, born or dies, but it - scientific
discipline - can never tell us how man is made in the non-visible part
of him which expresses itself through the visible part.
And it is therefore to this invisible part that the meaning of
the Delphic Oracle addresses us. Because only a deep inner knowledge of
ourselves can enable us to rise up to other mysteries, and thus to "know
the Universe and God" as the complete I of the Delphic Oracle.
Naturally, the knowledge of matter can be just as necessary in
certain cases, because one can gain a complete knowledge that its therefore
greater than oneself by also knowing the manner in which one is made. But
because what matters are the meanings beyond knowledge - deep, mysterious
echoes which move in that organic structure - one can only rise up to the
entire Universe through a rethinking of oneself, a re-meditating of oneself.
Why? Because what you are made of "inside" has the same structure and
quality as what the spiritual Universe is made of. In the same way
that what makes up your matter, as such, in some way naturally also follows
certain laws of a more universal character.
What this means, therefore, is that the analysis of aggregates,
organic and spiritual complexes, can lead one up to the primary ideas and
thus to a deep and complete knowledge. I wouldn't add a thing to the inscription
at Delphi, which is as true as it's ever been in your time now. Indeed,
above all in your time when meditation has become something that is only
entrusted to good will. It's clear therefore that the problem of will doesn't
come into it, since knowing a material structure completely doesn't mean
solving the problem completely (1). The material
structure is nothing other than a light bulb that comes on, or, if you
prefer, a unit like one of yours (the ones you use to record these seances),
that records and can transmit. But the voice that carries the truth, or
carries the knowledge inside your unit, isn't born of it, it's born of
something else, it comes from outside, that's to say its born of an Idea
which is not innate in or in any way connected with your recording unit.
Your body isn't a recording unit for images and sounds which
are in some way connected and processed, because something else exists
and lives inside it that gives a moral meaning to every complex of ideas,
gives them a certain character, a certain spiritual imprint. This "something"
does not belong to your body: It plugs into this circuit because it's a
circuit that makes a certain type of transmission possible and is - your
body that is - the copy of one of your recording units, a knowledge
of which will tell you absolutely nothing about the imprinting of the
ideas which takes place later when the "voice" speaks... That's the problem!"
(1) At this point the word "will"
refers to a hypothetical voluntary control over the phenomena of the body.
Question on what the point is, then, in knowing oneself.
Entity A: "But knowing oneself, you see,
almost exclusively concerns the spirit which has been incarnated,
because it doesn't recognise itself any more once its found itself in a
body! And that's why human beings can rediscover the meaning of the true
Reality inside them through re-meditation. It's in this sense, in this
direction, that it should be interpreted..."
Question on the need for will; mention of material limits, on one's
own DNA (2).
Entity A: "But what does it mean, being
one's own DNA? Look, I totally agree on the fact that man is tied to his
own DNA. Naturally the problem doesn't change one iota from what I've always
said it was, namely that the spirit in some way shapes its own body, that's
to say the body in which it's going to live, because, considering that
body has to serve for a given type of experience, it must be "marked" in
a certain way.
In order to facilitate this experience, the spirit chooses the
type of family which in some way guarantees that the body only needs partial,
not substantial changes. There is therefore, in a certain sense, a relationship
between the type of experience the spirit wants to live and the type of
body chosen, which - in order to live those given experiences - must be
"dressed" by that DNA and those types of hereditary genes which will then
go and mark certain hereditary characteristics, etc. etc.
From this point of view, then, the spiritual problem remains
the same, completely uninfluenced by scientific research. No, the problem
is rather another one.... you see the problem even exists without DNA,
because having said that the spirit organises the body as it wants, it's
inevitable that a body built in this way becomes a slave to the primary
idea of the spirit, a slave, in some way, to the evolution of the spirit
itself.
We must therefore speak of a body which is in some way a slave
of the spirit. We must never speak of a slave spirit, even though, I can,
however, admit that, during the course of life, the spirit is at least
the slave of its own evolution.
Because it's chosen it. Once it's chosen it, the spirit must, for better
or worse, follow that path - I wouldn't say against its will, because it
was its choice - but it must nevertheless pass through the necessary stages
which it has laid out for itself and it is in that that the real freedom
of the spirit lies!.
Once born, however, freedom becomes a very, very relative thing;
not only because the spirit has to respect the stages it has set out for
itself, but also because, in the second place, having placed itself in
a body with very strong biological limits, the spirit cannot interfere
with it once it has come into the world and been formed. And it can't interfere
for two reasons: the first is because the body is formed biologically and,
I'd say reinforced by that DNA, by certain hereditary genes, by certain
family traits etc. etc. and because the spirit - let us not forget!
- falls into a type of sleep at the moment of birth, from which it wakes
when the body is between more or less 15 and 20 years old....
(2) DNA = deoxyribonucleic acid,
which constitutes the base of the hereditary elements in humans (and other
animals).
That's to say the complete awakening of the spirit
occurs with the maturity of the brain, so that until that age the spirit
is practically nothing but a symbol that moves on under nothing but the
force of its own momentum, because it's not completely awakened. And could
not be - and there's a good reason for this - because a totally awakened
spirit wouldn't know what to do with a body which is still asleep, in the
sense of a brain which is not completely developed and autonomous (the
limit here is clearly a shifting limit).
Now where does the will fit into all this? You will often have
the will to do certain things but won't have the inner freedom, the possibility
of choice. Inside yourself you will never resolve to do a given thing,
maybe even for your whole life! Well, why does all this happen? Probably
because in these cases it's not an experience that you must have. You have
the will on a human level, on a cerebral, psychic level, but something's
not as it should be: the "relay" doesn't trip, the spring capable of driving
you into that type of experience doesn't do anything, either for spiritual
reasons, or even for environmental, educational reasons etc. etc.
But I want to give you a frank and objective answer once and
for all on this question of freedom and will. I want to say this: that
you don't in actual fact have that much freedom. That's the truth of it
- fortunately, I'd say, for as long as you're alive. Because, you see,
we - we and you - we spirits, are responsible for this situation and we're
satisfied with it.
We probably wouldn't manage to conclude any experience on Earth
if we had total freedom, but the fact of not having it and the fact of
being bound to what we chose beforehand is a guarantee for us. Because
before we're born we know very well that if we don't restrict the body
in some way - given that we cannot intervene in it later - we could
have no certainty of being able to live a useful life, a useful experience.
Who could give us this guarantee? Once we'd fallen asleep in a body with
every limit and defect possible, what guarantee could we have of coming
to Earth and being able to complete the cycle we had set ourselves?
So we have to take certain precautions. The first is that of
tying ourselves to a body, of conditioning the body in a certain way, so
that it doesn't play any tricks on us, or else so that if it does, it's
some trick we could easily put up with it. And so we know from the start
that a body made by us in this way will never become something else, because
its impossible for it to do so. The experience will not allow it, will
not permit it and we're not interested in living another type of experience.
Freedom is therefore relative, it is relative from a spiritual viewpoint
above all: you cannot spiritually produce more than the context of
the evolution of your spirit allows - its evolution combined with certain
unconscious tendencies..."
Question on the ineffectiveness of knowing oneself.
Entity A: "No, you see, because this takes
us back to another aspect of life, namely: the spirit, with all these physical
limits, or conditionings that are not strictly physical (that's to say
they have a certain flexibility), creates an orientation for itself. Its
not precisely that the spirit creates itself in the sense, for example,
of I'll do this at twenty, this will happen when I'm 22, that will happen
when I'm 40. No, that's not how it happens! The spirit sets itself certain
fixed stages which have no reference to time: stages as experiences. These
experiences then come together in life and manifest themselves as they
can (sometimes they don't manifest themselves at all!) But the main purpose
of life remains another one. Not that of living certain experiences in
particular, but of knowing and living the experience of materiality,
through which one can reach very special experiences.
In other words, these experiences are simply the pretext for
in some way reaching other, further aspects of materiality. The spirit
is not interested in anything else, such as, for example, deciding whether
to be a doctor, lawyer, peasant or blacksmith. It's not interested in any
of that! Having reached a certain stage of evolution, it's only interested
in identifying which experience will be a further experience, the most
useful one for gaining a further understanding on earth of materiality,
which is the other side of the Universe!
Now, on Earth it must do all this intelligently. Why? Because
the spirit has absolutely no other possibility of going through these experiences
apart from through the body, otherwise it would not incarnate, it would
go through this experience from outside. Why is it forced to live on earth?
It is forced to live there because it is only through this series of "relays",
or biological "units", that the experiences of materiality are able to
transform themselves into spiritual experiences. And how do they transform
themselves into spiritual experiences? That's the point of Delphi!
Only, that is to say, by interpreting the experiences that one lives through,
by incorporating them into one's personality, by bringing them into the
very foundations of one's self, that is to say by making them reach the
spirit.
And how can an experience reach the spirit? When the individual
incorporates the experience, that is to say carries out that "apperception"
- to use the philosophical term - that "digestion" of the experience. And
to be able to "digest" it well, one needs to know it well and to know it
well one needs to know oneself. If one does not know oneself well, the
experience remains external, it cannot be digested deep down.
That's how the problem is concluded. That's how Delphi confirms its
wisdom.
Why "know oneself"? Certainly not for a whim, because I'd in
fact have answered by cutting the question short. I'd have said: there
is in fact no point in someone on Earth knowing themselves. The spirit
can put its mind to knowing itself afterwards as well! What's the purpose
of doing so on Earth? A spirit certainly
doesn't take on a body to know itself as a spirit since, as a spirit, it
knows precisely what it is! It has no need to know itself on Earth, of
all places! What would it come here for? To waste time? No, a spirit on
Earth does everything possible not to occupy itself with spiritual problems,
because it has all the time it could possibly need to occupy itself with
them afterwards! It simply wants to find a possible connection between
the material and spiritual; that's why it wants the experience of materiality.
Not because materiality interests it per se, for what it is,
because the spirit knows it belongs to a spiritual world, opposite which
there is another world that is congenial to it and in which it lives: this
is the reality outside the spirit. This external reality is the other side
of the universe, that is to say the non-spiritual universe, reality in
the normal sense of the word, which is similar in substance to the spirit,
but does not have the individuality and personality of the spirit.
The spirit wants to know this existence which is around it, because
the spirit knows it exists, but also knows it exists because a Reality
of which it is a Principle also exists, and being a Principle the spirit
is a real thing. And what is this principle reality made up of? It is also
made up of certain aspects called energy, called matter, that is to say
the aspect, the "precipitate" of God. In other words the part that "coagulates",
the part that is independent of God and instead depends on him, the spirit
- and the spirit must know and deeply analyse this part, because
by analysing it, the spirit will end up by gaining an increasingly clear
idea of itself, of its own individuality, that is to say it will succeed
in homing in on its own "self". The spirit knows it, understands it as
independent, and this gives it greater autonomy, greater well-being or,
if you prefer, greater knowledge, which is that type of peace which has
been talked about so much, regarding which I once said: The peace of the
spirit is not a state of happiness and bliss! The spirit which is
at peace is not a spirit that smiles or laughs, so to speak, the spirit
at peace is one which is aware of the validity of its own experience, its
own "I" and its own knowledge. When it has these things inside it, these
things are peace!
When things have been decided by the spirit you do not have the
will to give them up, because it is at precisely this point that the will
does not trigger and cannot be triggered. However, not everything
that happens to you has been foreseen by the spirit; you lay the groundwork
for many events yourself! Basically, the spirit simply chooses a couple
of occasions on Earth. Make no mistake, the spirit does not set out to
organise one day after another. No, the spirit wants no more than a couple
of experiences; all the rest is not only of no interest, but simply paves
the way for these salient events, and it is in these rather accessory events
that you have your freedom. You don't have it for the fundamental events,
but you do have it for the accessory events.
At this point I want to say something further: you have turned
this relationship completely on its head: for you the accessory things
have become the important things and the fundamental things have become
- I wouldn't say banal - but inevitable events, Fate and Destiny. You've
managed to make things that don't interest the spirit important: your system
of life, your morals, your restraints, your inhibitions, they are - let
us say - the daily bread of your life. It's true, they've become important
things for you. You almost judge yourselves by these things!
Would it be possible at a certain point for an unpleasant experience
(for you, that is to say) decided by the spirit to be skipped? Is it possible,
in short, for certain fixed experiences decided by the spirit not to happen
for some reason? Yes it is possible for some experiences to stop or not
to happen.
When does the experience stop? For example, I have sometimes
heard people say... (In fact I've heard you say it... It may even have
been a question you asked me)... You've asked me for help with some trouble
that has beset you, or if you haven't asked me it was your intention to
ask me; and if you don't ask me, you ask your saints, your crosses, your
icons.... However, whatever the case, you ask for help. Naturally, we've
established that the important events in life are - within certain limits,
although it's not always like this - that the really important events in
life have been decided by the spirit (the real ones, not the one's you
think are important!).
Once the event has started, is it possible to stop it? One can
stop it in a way which is, I'd say, completely unknown to you. In fact
an event, however unpleasant it may be, is stopped by accepting it.
And why does it stop? Because in the moment you accept it (I mean really
accept it, make no mistake!) it triggers that "passage of experience" between
matter and the spirit. The spirit is satiated, so to speak, by the experience;
the cause which gave rise to it withdraws, the effect disappears.
In fact, you see, it must be like this, because the relationship
between the experience and the spirit is conducted across the psychic path.
When the psychic tension relaxes and the experience is accepted, it's like
a miracle taking place. On the other hand, this is not only what the ancient
Yogis taught, but also follows an inner logic of its own. The experience
of life itself proves it. Those who accept suffering are no longer unhappy.
Those who think they're accepting it, but always complain, never let it
stop! There's a saying on Earth that goes: "every problem brings another".
That's not untrue, because the situation can be fed in a psychic, spiritual
way.
In fact, when you live joyfully (the saints said always live with joy:
friar Francis said it...) things go better. One must live with joy, accept
with joy. That's not a figure of speech; nor is it creating an effect.
It is curing oneself of a disease, whether its a social, spiritual or physical
disease... Accepting, not in the prostrate, passive sense they may have
taught you, that's to say "accept the suffering and thank God". It's not
like that, naturally: there's no one to thank here. But accepting with
awareness, with intelligence, even avoiding the suffering if possible:
there's no need to wallow in pain, none at all! However it's clear that
one can only overcome pain by facing it, with reason, and when reason intervenes
in pain then the awareness of pain intervenes and the awareness becomes
that spiritual experience that the spirit was seeking.
And that is the moment in which freedom is released (the moment
of real experience), because it is the moment in which the spirit
waits, becomes alert and manifests itself in the clearest way at an unconscious
level. It's as if the spirit "opened its eyes" and moved closer to listen,
to feel; that's the right moment! They're things that you don't notice,
that you don't realise. You haven't even been taught, I must say, to arrive
at this type of reasoning, to look pain in the face. You aren't used to
it, so sometimes you end up carrying it all your life, without ever looking
at the reason for it.
No spirit comes onto the Earth to suffer. The spirit seeks a
series of experiences which, probably accomplished fairly badly, consequently
lead to pain. Once pain has intervened, becoming an additional, integral
part of the experience, the spirit has to face it with the means of reason,
understand its importance, connect it with itself, if necessary explain
it. Having done that, the pain is overcome! It's overcome de facto, because
- how shall I put it - it's like an inner psychoanalysis that one carries
out and which automatically cures one of all this.
Question on the case of someone who has lost a leg.
Entity A: "Disability is something one
suffers for an entire lifetime, because the leg can't grow back, but the
disabled person can reach a point in which they no longer feel the lack
of a leg. It's as if they were born with one leg only, seeing that there's
no law in the Universe which lays down that men must be made with two legs,
two arms, etc. One is born with two legs because biological circumstances
wanted it that way. You could, for instance, have been born with three
legs and a tail and not found anything funny about it, just as you don't
find anything funny about the fact that men are born white here while they're
born black in Africa! The moment when the disabled person overcomes the
experience, which is to say when they digest it and understand the point
of all this, they are cured of it internally and thus they no
longer notice their disability. No longer noticing their disability,
it is no longer of any importance whether they have two legs or only one,
because there's no difference between a man with two legs and a man with
one. There's absolutely no difference, apart perhaps from the fact that
some people can go for a good run and he cannot. But what's the importance,
seeing that there are so many men who have two legs and walk slowly for
the whole of their lives?!
It's not a question of unfairness! The disabled person must think
that their human life won't last forever, that their legs aren't necessary
to think, and following this line of thought they will no longer envy other
disabled people who recover, because theirs is another type of trouble,
and because they certainly have a different experience. And what
does it matter whether you have one or two legs on Earth when this isn't
the life that counts and the spirit has no legs and can no longer have
any disabilities in the Universe? That's how one creates the explanation
for one's state, by bringing the demands of human life into the perspectives
of another life. And it doesn't therefore matter whether you live with
one leg for a certain time, because you don't need two at all... Everything
naturally rests on knowledge, evolution and maturity: it's logical...
When I say live intensely I've said everything,
and having said everything I've really said everything! Without excluding
anything from the human experience, absolutely anything, precisely
because (and we've said it before) the spirit wants to place itself in
materiality to understand it, study it and thus overcome it; but to overcome
it, the spirit naturally needs to know it.
You need to try and do everything possible to live life to the
full, in a conscious and intelligent way, of course, otherwise - living
without reason and the moral qualities one has, it would become an entirely
pointless experience, valid on the human plane only...".
ON THE INNER LIFE
Communication of 13th November 1991.
Question: The subject we would like to discuss is the development
of the inner self. You've spoken to us at length on this subject, but we'd
be very grateful for a sort of summary, partly because when we refer to
this inner self away from here, many ask what it is.
Entity A: "I realise it can sometimes be
difficult to give a definition when you don't have the right language,
or when the people you're talking to don't have the right understanding.
The inner self, this inner self of which we have spoken so much,
is certainly counterpoised to an outside. The fundamental point that you
just as others need to grasp is this: when we talk about an inner self
and outside, what exactly are we referring to? By outside we mean the simplest
thing you posses, even if it's the most complex, that is to say the everyday
world of phenomena. For us this is the outside, that we counterpoise to
the inner self, because we are the inner self, and thus "we" takes
on a distinctly spiritual and non-material value. Because it doesn't just
represent, it represents "us" with regard to this outside, this universal
reality of phenomena, part of which is the reality of bodies, while yet
another part is the reality in which bodies are immersed - that is to say
the infinite, representative, tangible universe, the universe of stone,
the hard universe, the universe which does not have its roots in autonomy
and the spirit. So by outside we mean everything which does not belong
to the spirit, although this is naturally a fleeting, shorthand classification.
Now - to turn the discourse on its syntactical head - why do
we say that one needs to find the inner self, having said that we are the
inner self, that we represent ourselves in this inner self? Because in
the very moment that we, as humans, formulate the question, we are no longer
an inner self but an outside that formulates the question. We are a linguistic,
syntactical, cerebral, thinking jumble, a material human mind that is searching
for its own spiritual dimension.
Looked at like this, the question "Which is the inner self? What
is the inner self?" can be answered thus: the inner self is everything
that, not being subject to the golden rules of matter and the mechanical
universe, brings one into a listening relationship with other realities,
stretches out above, emulates or walks a parallel together with other realities.
The inner self is thus an alter ego of living matter, the living body.
It is a function without which the living body could not rise above the
animal level.
I think the difficulty you continually have in understanding and identifying
arises above all from bad use of your meditations.
To those of you who are looking for this inner self and ask
yourselves where it is, where one starts, I always say that the problem
is precisely to start somewhere.
You are used to a theoretical type of culture and identification. From
birth onwards you were never trained to search, to meditate. Then, suddenly,
having reached whatever age you are, you want to find this inner self of
yours overnight.
I don't think anyone has seriously tackled the problem of finding
their own inner self, which is naturally the search for their own soul.
You haven't got your ideas straight about what is of the body, because
everything seems to be of the body and because, on the other hand, the
one thing you can be sure you have is that part of your body which you
touch, that part of it which vibrates, smells, trembles, suffers and loves,
grows melancholy and searches and desires and needs. You gradually move
from the sensory towards the top 8th, then down (according to your geometric
tastes) and you start no longer identifying with your body.
There are things which belong to the body in a way that is highly certain,
such as the sensations, pleasure. You identify a caress, a hand resting
on you, a tickle, a scratch, a pain. Or you're eating and you like the
food and you hold it on your palate, there where the papillae absorb smells,
flavours, tastes which the brain transforms into pleasant or unpleasant
perceptions or sensations.
But it is at this point that you pass from all these things,
which can be endlessly processed and joined with one another in infinite
combinations, to other types of perceptions: certain types of pleasure,
certain types of love, affection, relations with others, friendship, the
sense of forgiveness, the capacity to understand. We are going into the
complex end here, into perceptions which start no longer being perceptions
because they develop in a world where the bodily, sensory part of immediate
recognition, the hard external universe we were talking about starts to
be excluded.
We are already in a zone which abandons a number of the body's
functional patterns and is geared to listening in other ways. From this
point onwards the imagination creates new needs, new desires and, at these
levels, it is the soul that suggests your actions to you. So when you say
"inner life" you're not talking about something abstract, you're starting
to talk about something concrete - if one could call it concrete - you're
talking about a complex reality that already lives beyond the corporeal
and already belongs to the territory of the inner self.
This is the zone of the inner self and it is about this that
you should talk when someone asks you what this inner self is that so much
has been said about and which no one seems able to point out, indicating
its direction and coordinates.
You need to be careful, however, because many people confuse their
inner self with rules. My rules, my inner rules, some will say, lead me
to act in this way, not realising that those rules are not the inner self
I'm talking about, which is to say the inner self of one's own Spirit,
but the one that, strictly speaking, belongs to you - your unconscious
with respect to the rules you have interjected. They are naturally unconscious
and are also part of one's inner life, but they belong to a false inner
life, which is to say that inner life which generates neuroses, not the
inner life which frees. The inner life which frees is that of your spirit,
that is to say of a deeper nucleus, the nucleus that comes into conflict
with the guilt complexes inside you.
If you however reflect on the fact that these so-called promptings
of the inner life only tend to block you and create anxieties and distress,
to make you a slave of yourself, then you will see that you have two inner
daemons: one daemon that prompts you coercively to behave in accordance
with the rules (and without this behaviour you are in guilty conflict)
and another daemon, the one that has often been called the devil of temptation
but is not the devil of temptation - that's the deceit religions have woven
for you - but is simply your own true spirit which tempts you, not agreeing
in the least with the rules of the world. Why should your spirit agree,
since it doesn't belong, even temporarily, to your world? And so the devil
of temptation is none other than your own spirit which wants to transgress
the rules imposed by religion. The family imposes laws which were promulgated
by the religions and have caused guilt complexes, while these have in turn
been joined by social laws, so that social guilt complexes exist as well.
So that when temptation raises its head, it is really the voice
of the spirit that wants to overcome the rule of the world. The rule of
the world, education, ethics, morals and so on, the rule that's called
a good rule but is really only a rule imposed by an ethical process of
civilisation controlled by the religions. That's the whole and simple truth.
Communication of March 1960.
Question - Why didn't God create the Spirit so that it was already
perfect, sparing it reincarnation.
Entity A: It seems impossible - from a
human viewpoint - to reconcile the all-powerful and sublime goodness of
God with the unfairness of the life of society, its suffering, its squalor,
its continual struggles. Could God in actual fact have created a perfect
spirit? The perfection that God ought to have given the spirit, ought for
you to have been an interior infiniteness and, above all, a series of capacities
able to induce this Spirit, even when incarnated, to eliminate pain on
its own. That's what it all comes down to. God ought to have eliminated
pain by giving this spirit, amongst its thousands of different faculties,
all those capacities needed for overcoming and vanquishing all the obstacles
on Earth.
In any case it isn't the Earth as dwelling place, nor is it nature
as man's surroundings that provokes or is the origin of these obstacles,
but it is man who finds them within himself, in his craving to climb higher,
to change himself, to rise above everything and himself and everyone else.
It is in the struggle that man creates in life but not always for life.
If it is true that living human beings are different from the
beasts, they are different by virtue of a number of characteristics which
are mainly those able to organise themselves in a particular way, corresponding
to their intelligence, capacities, tendencies and instincts. Now, if these
capacities exist - and if, as a consequence of them, man finds himself
caught in mazes of his own making this in the end has a spiritual meaning.
The perfection of the spirit is in fact a perfection of its substance
and not of its form. The arrangement of its form is what then causes the
pain and struggle etc. This arrangement arises from the use the being makes
of the powers it has been given: its intelligence, freedom, will, capacities,
etc.
Don't get me wrong, if we assert that God is infinite, eternal
and absolute, we can say that He has conferred his attributes on the substance
that constitutes the spirit. But while there are points of similarity between
God's eternal infinite and the eternal infinite of the spirit, there are
also "infinites" which cannot be crossed. And that is a result precisely
of the infinite structure of the elements forming the spirit and of those
forming the divine Substance.
Putting the question in this light, it is clear that this spirit,
being in a position of lack and confluence in relation to the divine position,
could not do otherwise than create its own freedom.
Now, the fact that the spirit received individuality and personality
from God (and is what it is precisely because of that), it could not be
separated from the use that the spirit would have made of that freedom.
And freedom, associated with intelligence, can only be considered such
when it is allowed free interpretation, when it is allowed to act freely
in accordance with its own orientation, that can be evaluated in relation
to varied and multiple inner and outer needs.
Since we speak of the spirit as an intelligent being, an eternal
being, a being which aspires to God, which lives and suffers, torments
itself and works... well, then this spirit is an intelligent spirit and
to be intelligent it needs to be a free spirit. This freedom that is in
the spirit demonstrates the existence of the being in its self.
Individuality?... How can one separate individuality from personality?
A being is individual by virtue of being one of its kind. In fact,
if there were no principle of individuality, we would have a principle
of identity between the spirits that would cancel out personality: a being
is personal when it is the only one of its kind.
And thus individuality ends up being a fundamental characteristic
of the personality. But personality and individuality are not conceivable
if a way of manifesting them does not exist. That's where the need for
intelligent characteristics comes in. But intelligence, personality and
individuality could not avoid decaying if there were no principle of freedom,
and the principle of freedom in intelligence, personality and individuality
would remain a static element without the mainspring of the will or the
dynamic attitude, the characteristic attitude of the spiritual substance,
which tends to become, or rather is a movement. From the universal
viewpoint, movement represents energy, while from the viewpoint of the
spirit it represents the mainspring of the will. Without this dynamism,
without this movement, the spirit would end up being a static element and
everything would collapse.
The necessity of the concomitance of these forces leads one to
the conclusion that this complex as originated by God, which is perfect
in its characteristics, perfect in the way each gear meshes with the other,
is nevertheless an almost virgin element. Another consideration comes into
the discourse at this point, namely did God of necessity have to make this
element called the spirit a virgin element? Couldn't He give it all knowledge
already?
Well, let us suppose God did give this spirit all his wisdom
to make it "happy" as you'd put it in your way of talking. I might in the
meantime object that it wouldn't be much of a happiness if won like this,
without any effort, without any work, without any merit.
We've said that it was logically necessary for God to endow the
spirit with certain characteristics. If God had, on the other hand, also
given this spirit the attributes of the infinite, of eternity and had also
given it power, knowledge and wisdom, God would have created another Himself!
He would have done nothing other than multiply Himself. And what sense
would there have been in multiplying Himself in this way? None at all!
It was therefore necessary for the beings created to win this happiness
in order to be capable of recognising the signs of happiness and to acquire
balance in order to recognise the signs of this universal balance.
The necessity on God's part was not to create beings identical
to Himself, but intelligent beings with all the characteristics useful
for rising towards Him, while at the same time having everything necessary
to justly and logically acquire characteristics of a universal nature so
as to in some way make themselves fully useful on the plane of the universal
economy. Could God make them happy already and make them start out from
that happiness to perhaps win another, greater happiness? What do you know
about it?! The fact is that you judge these things on the plane of the
Earth. How do you know you're not already happy in your spirits and that
you're torturing yourselves today because you've been unable or unwilling
to recognise the signs of a balanced and tranquil life and you leave yourselves
prey to the materiality that surrounds you? In the end, excuse me, but
it isn't it precisely through the suffering, through the obstacles and
humiliations that you realise your errors and realise there's another world
that surrounds you, that you realise you have so many spiritual needs,
that you make good your errors? Is not that perhaps the mainspring to understanding?
Pain is the compass, it gives you the right direction, it
makes you put right your mistakes. Now all this, far from being a burden
to man, is in fact something very useful. Pain gives you the possibility
of understanding error, of changing your way, of making good. So we say
to you: let pain be welcome, when it must come. It isn't in fact necessary.
You could also not suffer. If you suffer it's always because you've made
a mistake, and it's you that's made the mistake, no one else. You
do not pay for the suffering of others. God does not oblige anyone to suffer.
God has not decreed through His Law that you have to suffer.
No!
----------------------------------------------------------------
From Article 1 of the Statute: "The CIP shall pursue the study of parapsychological
phenomena and their causes following the methods of scientific research,
and shall disseminate the results".
The Italian Centre of Parapsychology organises itself along at least
four lines which also represent the most well-known aspects of contemporary
parapsychology:
A) The dissemination of the doctrinal corpus and cultural work
connected with the phenomenon of Entity A.
B) The analysis of and reflections on classical parapsychology.
C) The development of humanist parapsychology, which is a new line of
approach that brings together all studies on altered states and inner states
of consciousness.
The basic principle of humanistic parapsychology re-evaluates the inner
self and the concept of Soul, considering all the higher activity and creativity
of the human species as paranormal and connecting this great hope to scientifically-based
working hypotheses.
Humanistic parapsychology (which indeed took form within the
CIP) encompasses the phenomena of pre-death, the visions of the dying under
the action of drugs, the study of sacred herbs, relaxation and regressive
hypnosis, mystic ecstasies, etc.
D) Studies into developing the application of humanistic parapsychology
with meetings aimed at personal growth and getting to know one another.
***************
The communications in this review were transmitted by the remarkable
mediumistic personality known as "Entity A" through the incorporation trance
of an exceptional sensitive who has operated exclusively in Naples, initially
for the Centro Cosmos (from 1946 to 1963) and then for the C.I.P. from
1963 to the present day.
The C.I.P. works independently of any technical interpretation (already
successfully taken care of by sophisticated scientific and university research
studies), to disseminate the "lessons of A" in the conviction that the
rare quality of his teachings represents a doctrinal model of immense cultural
import, bringing exceptional reassurance regarding life and death.
P.S. - There are two societies
dedicated to paranormal phenomena
The American Society for Psychical Research
5 West 73rd St. - New York, NY 10023.
and
The Australasian Society for Psychical
Research
P.O. Box 2001, Kardinya 6163, Western
Australia
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