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Sir Francis Bacon Presents a
Discourse on the
Continuity of Life after Death.
I AM HERE. Francis
Bacon.
Let me write a few
lines tonight upon a subject that has
recently been discussed by a spiritualist, a
preacher, a philosopher and a scientist, and
that is the continuity of life after death
of the physical body. Each of these writers
approach the subject from a different
viewpoint, but all arrive at the same
conclusion based upon different means of
argument—and that is that life continues
after death.
The subject is one in
which mankind is vitally interested, and is
worthy of consideration by the greatest
minds of investigation and research. It
should be studied in the light of nature as
well as in that of actual demonstration by
those who have proved to mankind by their
experiences that the spirits of their
departed friends and acquaintances, and of
others of more or less distinction when in
the physical life, do actually live and
communicate to men their existence and their
possession of the mental faculties and
thoughts that were theirs when mortals.
The proper study of man
would demonstrate this fact and, logically,
doubt would cease to exist. But the
difficulty is that men do not understand
man, or his creation and faculties, and his
relationship to things of life known as the
material or matter. It is a common belief
that matter is now existent, or, rather,
that what men see and know of the material,
is all that is knowable, and that when that
which is merely physical, as commonly
understood, ceases to exist, no further or
other knowledge of it can be obtained or
understood by the finite mind of man.
But this accepted
assumption is not true. And if men would
only think for a moment of what matter, or
the material, is, they would comprehend the
possibilities of its workings and
functioning, and, also, of what use may be
made of the same by the minds of the spirits
operating upon it in the spiritual
world—that is, in the world beyond the
comprehension of the five senses of men,
which are only the means of the spirits
working in the ordinary purview of the
physical life.
Matter is eternal and
exists in all spheres of the spirit world,
just as it does on earth, although in
different forms and attenuation and
conditions that may or may not be the
objects of the physical senses, or of the
senses of the mind which are superior to, or
exclusive of, these mere physical senses.
Matter is, in its essential nature, the
same, notwithstanding the fact that it
assumes different forms—some visible to the
ordinary senses of men, and some entirely
outside of that view or sensation and, as to
these ordinary senses, wholly nonexistent.
Yet, to these other senses of the mind,
these latter forms are just as real and
tractable and subject to the influence of
the workings of the mind as the merely
physical matter is to the five senses of
men.
The world in which men
live is composed of the material. And the
world in which I live is also composed of
the material of the same nature, but of
different consistencies and objective
qualities. The material of the universe is
always material, whether or not it be
cognizable by man and subject to his
thoughts and inventions and uses. And as man
progresses in the study of the same—I mean
the practical and experimental—he will
discover that there are things of the
material in nature which are being developed
and made known to him, and which he had no
conception of their existence a few years
before. Such is the discovery and use of
electricity, and the workings of the laws of
nature which enable him to make the effects
of wireless telegraphy possible. These
discoveries and workings of forces of the
unseen are nothing more or less than a
certain kind of knowledge controlling the
same, and which, as to his consciousness,
have become apparent. But, in all these
operations, matter is the thing made use of,
and not any spiritual power as commonly
understood by men. So, you see, matter,
whether in the grossly physical of earth or
in the more attenuated and invisible of the
spirit world, is that which is used to
produce effects, and is operated on by the
mind, whether or not it be tangible and
understood matter or not.
The mind is an entity,
indivisible and united, and is not separable
into the subjective and objective, as men
frequently teach, except in this: that, in
its workings, that part which is suited for
and used in controlling the material, after
it has been transformed into the purely
invisible, may be called the subjective. But
it is all one mind and exists in man while
on earth, just as it will and does exist
when he becomes a spirit.
Man, in his journey
through life, and I mean when in the earth
existence, is always of the material; that
is, his soul has a material covering and
appearance. And while this material covering
changes in its appearance and quality as he
progresses in the spheres, yet, the gross
physical of his earth life and the
sublimated spiritual of the eternal part of
his life are both of the material—real,
existing, and tangible, and used for the
purpose of their creation: namely, the
protection and individualization of the soul
which they contain.
Now, this being so, you
can readily understand that man, when he
gives up the coarser physical of the human
body, does not cease to be of the material,
but becomes an inhabitant of the finer and
purer material of what is called his spirit
body. And this body is subject to the laws
governing the material, just as his physical
body was subject to these laws. And the
spirit, which in this sense is the real man
clothed in the material, controls and uses
that material more effectively than it did
when bound in the physical on earth. All the
material of the spirit world is used and
formulated by the spirits according to their
degree of intelligence and development, and
as the occasions for such uses may arise.
And such uses, or the effects of the same,
are or can be made known to man according to
his receptive capacities.
Ordinarily, man’s
understanding of the effects of the spirit’s
control of the material of the invisible
world is limited by the capacity of his five
senses to comprehend. And as these five
senses were created for the purpose only of
permitting or helping the spirit to manifest
itself, with reference to those things which
belong to the wholly physical of earth, it
rarely happens that men can perceive the
invisible material or the workings of the
laws controlling the same.
Now, in what I have
said, this spirit control is merely the
exercise of the mind of man—the same
indivisible mind that he possesses when on
earth, but which, because of the limitations
of the physical organs, he was not able to
function, as regards the invisible material,
so that man could understand that
functioning and its results.
When man dies, he is
thereafter the same being in all his
faculties, desires and thoughts, and in his
ability to use the material, as he was
before his death, except that the purely
physical organs of his own being are no
longer his; and, as to them, he is dead. But
strange as it may seem to you, he can and
often does control the physical organs of
another man who is living in the flesh, if
that man will submit to that control. And,
when you think for a moment, you will
realize that there is nothing remarkable in
this. The mind of the spirit remains just
the same as it was before his departure from
the body, having all its powers and thoughts
and consciousness. And if it can obtain
control of that which is necessary to
manifest itself to the consciousness of men,
there will be no difficulty in its doing so,
which is nothing unusual or supernatural.
Its own organs of brain and nerves and the
five senses having gone, and the brain of
every other mortal being subject to the
control of its own mind, so long as that
mortal mind claims the exclusive use or
control of these organs, the spirit mind,
deprived of its own physical organs, cannot
control, because it is a Law of Being that
no mind in its normal state can be intruded
upon by another mind. And unless the mortal
mind (whose seat and functioning are within
the spirit body, which is also enclosed in
the physical body, possessing these organs)
consents to the control of such organs by
the other mind, the spirit cannot use such
organs. But the power is in the disembodied
spirit or mind. Only the opportunity is
wanting.
When the spirit desires
to control the invisible material, it is
limited only by its intelligence and
knowledge of the law governing such control
and its progress in the spirit spheres.
Well, I have written
enough for tonight, but will come again and
amplify my message.
Thanking you, I will
say good night.
Your friend,
FRANCIS
BACON.
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