| Fear of Death A Treatise on
    White Magic: 
    
      The fear of
      death is based upon: 
      
     
    
      - A terror of
        the final rending processes in the act of death itself.
 
      - Horror of
        the unknown and the indefinable.
 
      - Doubt as to
        final immortality.
 
      - Unhappiness
        at leaving loved ones behind or of being left behind.
 
      - Ancient
        reactions to past violent deaths, lying deep in the consciousness.
 
      - Clinging to
        form life, because primarily identified with it in consciousness.
 
      - Old
        erroneous teaching as to Heaven and Hell, both equally unpleasant in prospect to certain
        types.
 
        - Page 300.As time progresses and before the close of the next century, death will be
        finally seen to be non-existent in the sense in which it is now understood. Continuity of
        consciousness will be so widely developed, and so many of the highest types of men will
        function simultaneously in the two worlds, that the old fear will go and the intercourse
        between the astral plane and the physical plane will be so firmly established and so
        scientifically controlled that the work of the trance mediums will rightly and mercifully
        come to an end. The ordinary common trance mediumship and materializations under controls
        and Indian guides are just as much perversions of the intercourse between the two planes
        as are sex perversions and the distortions of the [443] true relationship and intercourse
        between the sexes. I refer not here to the work of clairvoyants, no matter how poor, nor
        to the taking possession of the body by entities of high caliber, but of the unpleasant
        phenomena of the materialization seance, of ectoplasm and the blind unintelligent work
        done by the old Atlantean degenerates and earth bound souls, the average Indian chief and
        guide. There is nothing to be learned from them, and much to be avoided. 
        The reign of the fear of death is well-nigh ended and we shall soon enter upon a period of
        knowledge and of certainty which will cut the ground from under all our fears. In dealing
        with the fear of death, there is little to be done except to raise the whole subject onto
        a more scientific level, and - in this scientific sense - teach people to die. There is a
        technique of dying just as there is of living, but this technique has been lost very
        largely in the West, and is almost lost except in a few centers of Knowers in the East.
        More of this can perhaps be dealt with later, but the thought of the needed approach to
        this subject can rest in the minds of students who read this, and perhaps as they study
        and read and think, material of interest will come their way which could be gradually
        assembled and published. 
        - Pages 301-302. 
        Fear of
        death and depression constitute for man the Dweller on the Threshold in this age and
        cycle. Both of them indicate sentient reaction to psychological factors and cannot be
        dealt with by the use of another factor such as courage. They must be met by the
        omniscience of the soul, working through the mind - not by its omnipotence. In this is to
        be found an occult hint. 
        - Page 309. 
        The instinct of self-preservation has its roots in an innate fear of death; through the
        presence of this fear, the [444] race has fought its way to its present point of longevity
        and endurance. 
        - Page 626. 
       
     
     |