Dematerialization
In the first volume of this book we read how André’s mediumistic gifts were gradually developed by Alcar, his spiritual leader.
For quite some time André had longed to perform dark séances.
However, he was told to be patient and first learn more about the occult sciences.
So he quietly awaited the moment when Alcar would summon him.
And he felt overjoyed when, after some time, he received permission to begin with the dark sessions and to watch the phenomena which his own power would bring about.
He had known for quite a while that spirits can make themselves heard by means of a megaphone, a kind of trumpet which will amplify voices in the presence of a direct-voice medium, and that this great event can even take place without that instrument if the mediumistic powers are strong enough.
Alcar informed him that he possessed powers which could bring about direct-voice, materialization as well as dematerialization.
But these had yet to be developed, and that would take quite some time yet.
What a revelation this was to him!
He felt an enormous gratitude for the ability bestowed on him to convince people also in this way, and through his own powers, that life goes on beyond the grave.
Soon he and some friends formed a circle, and Alcar told them that they should all be patient, and peacefully and submissively await the things that lay ahead.
Several sessions went by before the first phenomena appeared.
These consisted of tappings, which were heard sometimes on furniture and walls, but mostly on the megaphone which had been placed on a small table in the middle of the room.
The tapping sounds were followed by apports.
Flowers were taken out of a vase and laid on the laps of those present.
And the keys of a closed piano were struck.
Phenomena of this kind kept on occurring, on some evenings there would be more than on others.
Yet André neither heard nor saw any of these things, because the gramophone music which had to be played to obtain the direct-voices would immediately send him into a trance, and he never awoke until after the séance.
But he accepted this patiently too, and he felt happy when he learned that everyone had enjoyed a beautiful evening.
Finally the moment came when he too was allowed to observe what was taking place.
One evening, when the ‘trumpet’ was once again floating about in the air, Alcar was asked if ‘he’ (between brackets in first edition: his name was not be pronounced while he was in trance) was permitted to see this.
And Alcar complied by letting him awake from his trance.
High above him, in a corner of the room, he saw the ‘trumpet’ floating, along with two luminous bands.
What a sensation that was!
It suddenly swept sharply through the room and made a circling movement in order to land on the floor beside him.
A cold shiver went through him.
He saw how it kept on descending and then he fell into a trance again.
It was quite customary for these impressive phenomena to manifest themselves during their weekly sessions, but one evening something different and very special occurred.
Alcar had spoken to those present through the megaphone, as he and other intelligences frequently did, and he requested them to switch the light either on or off as soon as he told them to do so, and to act on any further instructions he would give.
The person who was to operate the switch should not hesitate, because otherwise the medium would be in jeopardy.
Alcar’s orders were to be carried out immediately.
At a certain moment the light had to be turned on, and to their amazement they saw that André had slipped through the rungs of the small table on which the megaphone had been placed, although his chair was about five feet away from the table.
He was lying there on the floor, as white as a sheet.
How he ever got there was a mystery to all of them.
Suddenly Alcar’s second order sounded: ‘Lights off!’, followed a few seconds later by: ‘Lights on!’
Great was their amazement when they saw that André was quietly asleep in his chair again, as if nothing had happened to him.
He was still in a trance.
After the session, when he was told what had occurred to him, he tried to crawl underneath the little table, which he couldn’t manage as there was far too little space between the rungs and the floor.
He asked Alcar what had happened to him and was told that he had been levitated and had partly dematerialized.
Nobody had seen this process come about, in spite of the bands of light around his arms and legs. Alcar explained to them that the swiftness of the action had prevented them from seeing these bands.
Apart from the séances, another very strange thing happened to him, quite unexpectedly, just as all vivid pieces of evidence are conveyed spontaneously.
Late one evening, while he was standing in front of his home talking to a friend, two ladies came up to him and asked if he would help them to open their front door, as a bicycle had fallen over in the corridor and was now blocking the entrance.
The door could only be opened a few inches and there was nobody home.
Maybe he could lift the bicycle and move it with a broomstick or some other long object.
André was immediately willing to lend a hand.
He said goodbye to his friend and went inside to get a stick of some kind.
He soon reappeared, armed with a piece of gaspipe and a broom to try and raise the bicycle through the gap in the entrance, and he accompanied the ladies to their house, where he immediately set to work.
But try as he might to squeeze either the broomstick or the gaspipe through the narrow gap, the experiment wouldn’t succeed, since both objects proved to be too thick.
Finally the door began to crack ominously, causing the ladies to fear that it might split apart.
Alerted by the noise, the neighbours came to see what was happening, and André asked them if he could reach the back of the ladies’ house via theirs, which turned out to be impossible.
Nonetheless, they had to try and enter.
Suddenly, André himself didn’t know why, he pushed his left hand between the door and the jamb as far as he could, while he kept hold of the doorknob with his right hand.
At that moment, with the door serving as a kind of contact, a current passed through his body which was so strong that it made him feel dizzy and exhausted, and it nearly knocked him down.
A feeling came over him not unlike the one he felt when his spirit parted from his body, or when he was put into a trance.
He awoke as from a deep sleep, unable to remember what else had happened to him.
He rubbed his eyes to get a clear view and looked around, yawning all the time. He found himself standing in the corridor next to the overturned bicycle.
Stupefied, he picked up the bike, placed it against the staircase, opened the front door from the inside, greeted the ladies and the bystanders without a further thought and rushed into the street, leaving them all terrified.
When he was outside again, it began to dawn on him what had happened.
Suddenly he felt as if someone was pushing him on and he started to run, while he heard a voice telling him: ‘Run, André, run; you must, my boy.’
It immediately dawned on him that it was Alcar trying to reassure him.
‘Run, son’, his voice sounded again.
It looked as if he were taking part in a competition, running into one street and out another.
He felt that he wouldn’t be able to stop, even if he wanted to, because he was being driven on against his own will.
Finally, after having run in and out of several streets, he found himself in front of his own home again, where he was brought to a standstill.
How strange this all was!
He felt like a clockwork that had first been wound and then stopped again by some unknown force.
Yet he understood that this must be the power and the will of one of his spiritual helpers, who were in control of this process, even though he couldn’t see anyone, nor Alcar, nor another spirit.
But he knew it wasn’t Alcar, because he could always distinguish the latter’s influence from those of all other intelligences.
All the dashing and running had made him feel quite hungry, and again he heard Alcar’s voice saying: ‘Eat, André, eat, until you’ve had your fill.’
He quickly rushed into the kitchen to make some sandwiches as he didn’t want to disturb his mother in her sleep because it was already half past eleven.
He became aware that this condition, which was completely incomprehensible to him, had now lasted for about half an hour.
Thinking about nothing else but food, he suddenly realized with a shock that he had just started on his eighth sandwich.
Whatever had happened to him?
Where was this all leading to!
What would he do if he became ill?
What was behind it all?
Was it Alcar and his fellow spirits, who were using him for these strange purposes?
He suddenly felt scared.
Once again he heard Alcar’s voice: ‘André, don’t worry.
You’re in my hands.’
The words moved him deeply.
This was his Alcar!
Alcar, the spirit of love, replying to his unuttered thoughts.
He had been allowed to experience this so often.
Alcar knew him, knew everything about him, and had more ways than one to reach him.
And the most beautiful thing of all, the strongest evidence of Alcar’s love, were the answers to his unspoken thoughts.
He always cherished this, and it surprised him each time anew.
There was a ring at the door.
Maybe they had come to fetch him for a patient.
To his astonishment the two ladies were standing outside. He had completely forgotten about them, which showed him once again that he should always fully concentrate on the things he was doing, and that he was still the instrument of his spiritual leaders and unable to hold on to his own affairs through the power of his thinking.
‘You certainly gave us a fright, sir, we felt so scared!’, one of the ladies started.
‘Anyway, what happened?
You can’t shake us off that easily.
We want to know what kind of miracle took place.
Is it the devil we’re dealing with?’
André had to laugh.
Him a devil, whatever next!
‘Do you think this is something to laugh about?’ the other lady asked.
‘We screamed our heads off, so fierce, that everywhere windows were opened.
They must have thought that someone was being murdered.
Please tell us what this was all about.
Otherwise we won’t sleep a wink tonight.
You suddenly disappeared before our eyes, opened the door from the inside, ignored us and ran into the street as if the devil were on your heels and you were scared of us.’
‘Calm down, ladies’, André answered, ‘I’ll try to explain to you that at the time a so-called dematerialization must have taken place, an occult phenomenon which I believe can only be brought about with the aid of a medium, through the agency of spirits, who – though I don’t yet know how – dissolve the body of the medium so to speak, and afterwards put it together again.
In this case I was the medium, and by no means a devil, as you feared.
What happened was just as much a surprise to me. After all, you couldn’t exactly call this kind of phenomenon an everyday event.
God granted me mediumistic powers, which are sacred to me, and I regard myself as an instrument in His hands, first and foremost to practice the gift of healing by means of magnetic powers.’
He turned to one of the ladies and continued: ‘Your back is aching, ma’am, it’s been troubling you for quite some time, and I see a gentleman at your side who says he’s your father.’
He described the intelligence who according to him bore a great resemblance to her, and he named the illness which had caused him to pass on, but he immediately sensed how this made her anxious.
She looked at him as if he too were an apparition and said: ‘It’s true that my back is aching, sir, but that my deceased father should be standing at my side sounds like nonsense to me.
You’re a strange person, and all your stories are making less and less sense.’
She was on the verge of tears.
After the ladies had left André heard Alcar say that he should hurry and go to bed, and he realized that it was high time to do so, since he felt as if his head would explode.
While he was lying in bed he felt a prickly current going through his body that lasted for half an hour.
After that he got very warm and started to perspire enormously, and his heart began to beat violently.
But after a quarter of an hour he felt dried out again, which seemed very strange and unnatural to him because this would not have happened if he had been ill.
It made no sense to him at all.
Then he turned cold and shivery, but finally a pleasant feeling of soft, lovely warmth came over him.
This process lasted for two hours.
Then his leader said: ‘Now go to sleep quietly, my boy, because you’re very tired.
But after a good night’s rest that weariness will disappear.
Tomorrow I’ll inform you about everything you experienced, and I’ll explain this successful dematerialization to you.’
André felt himself sinking deeper and deeper, but just before he fell asleep he felt how a hand gently laid itself on his head. It was Alcar whose magnetic flow had such a positive influence on him that he awoke the next morning feeling fresh and in high spirits again.
His first thoughts were with the two ladies, and he immediately remembered what had happened the previous evening. He naturally told his parents all about it.
They had already experienced many miraculous things with their son, but never had they heard of anything like this before.
The ladies returned in the course of the morning; they had calmed down slightly and wanted to hear a bit more about the ‘miracle’.
André sensed that they regarded him more as a conjurer than a medium; nonetheless he told them again that such a supernatural phenomenon could only be accomplished with spiritual help and advised them, if they were interested, to start reading a lot about spiritualism and occultism.
That would give them a better understanding of these matters.
At that moment he felt that he oughtn’t pursue the matter any further as they wouldn’t understand or believe him anyway. Spiritualism and life after death still presented his visitors with too many mysteries, and they wanted nothing at all to do with spirits.
These were thoughts which he picked up from them, and Alcar let him feel that he would sound them out.
But these poor mortals didn’t show the slightest depth.
They slept their deep sleep and it would take them quite a time to rouse themselves spiritually and show some interest in the things that would happen to them after their earthly existence.
They were afraid of death, and would therefore not be able to accept the fact that the ‘dead’ are alive.
But fear of death means fear of life, because the saying ‘dead and gone’ is an enormous lie.
The so-called dead are alive, and they go on living forever and ever.
How rich those were who held this conviction, just as he did.
How fortunate that he, as an instrument in God’s hands, was allowed to help the ‘dead’ in their physical and psychic support of the people on earth.
The ‘dead’ help and cure physical man.
The ‘dead’ had transported him through the solid wooden door.
They alone are capable of this feat; to mortals made of flesh and blood such a thing is impossible, however learned they may seem to the world.
The ‘dead’ use him to paint, they speak to him and let him perform miracles.
Poor, poor mortals!
When will you awaken?
You who have experienced a miracle of this kind, think it over.
It was a lesson to you which God gave that you may awaken.
No more need for you to remain a doubting Thomas, because you received proof.
‘Awaken, you who are asleep, and arise from the dead’, our common Master calls out to you, because countless human lives are wasted on earth due to man’s spiritual sleep, and so many lives are lived in vain.
So wake up and think about your eternal happiness, your eternal spiritual welfare.
Material death is the transition to the spiritual world, birth into the spheres of the Hereafter.
Open your eyes and behold.
Your time is precious because your earthly end is approaching and then you will be left staring blindly, spiritually blind, into Eternity, into eternal life.
In the afternoon, quietly thinking things over, he once again rejoiced to hear Alcar’s loving voice.
‘Listen, my boy’, he said, ‘our dark sessions served to bring about dematerialization and must be seen as a preliminary investigation.
Some of my friends were involved in this, and one of them is an intelligence who calls himself ‘Physica’.
This spirit, ‘Physica’, who studied mathematics and physics on earth and received a doctorate with distinction in chemistry, has continued his research since he arrived in the spheres.
He has been in our midst for about thirty years now, and he was the one who took charge of the phenomenon that happened yesterday evening. It deserves our full attention, as he can link up with the cosmos in order to extract the powers which was necessary for this event.
I will now explain to you the main things which your body experienced.
When you didn’t manage to open the door more than a few inches, we put you into a semi-trance.
This was the moment you unwittingly stuck your left hand through the gap, while you kept hold of the door knob with your right hand.
This built up the contact which enabled us to link up.
In an dark session we would have done things in a completely different way.
These meetings must always be held in soft, dark-red light, otherwise the ectoplasm that links us up with the medium would dissolve.
Now there were various opposing forces which we had to take into account.
However, ‘Physica’ had made his calculations in advance to ensure that your body would suffer no permanent disturbance.
After dematerialization had taken place we noticed some irregularities in your blood circulation, and in order to correct that we used our strong will power and our concentration to make you run up and down a few streets.
During our journeys to Summerland and other spheres you experienced how strong these powers can be, and consequently all you could do was to carry out what we required of you.
After all that running and dashing about, you suddenly developed an abnormal appetite.
This proved that we had surpassed your normal energy consumption.
You felt exhausted, although this only concerned your active consciousness, not your total source of energy.
Subconsciously man has enormous powers at his disposal, which are only set free under abnormal conditions.
For instance, imagine someone driving a car on a busy road.
Suddenly another car drives straight at him, but by veering to the left or to the right he manages to avoid a head-on collision.
However, this exertion wears him out completely, because he has used up more power and energy in this brief moment than he would have normally spent during an entire day.
Does my son sense what I mean?
Is it clear to him that he was drawing his energy from a source which we call his subconscious power?
So we used up more power than you normally have at your disposal, and your physical body reacted strongly to this.
Hence your feeling of exhaustion.
But a good meal and the necessary rest soon made up for the spent energy.
Then, while you were lying in bed, we got the chance to relax your nervous system with the help of cosmic rays. You urgently needed this, because the slightest disturbance would have harmed your body, especially your heart, which, as you will recall, was beating madly at the time.
This treatment was also intended to stabilize your blood pressure, as it kept on fluctuating between high and low.
You probably remember how you felt terribly hot at first and then cold, and finally your temperature returned to normal again.
The sudden feeling you had of drying out after that heavy spell of perspiration was caused by the cosmic ray treatment which we carried out to nourish your body.
Until now the people of your earth don’t know how to make use of these most profitable forces.
However, the day will come when science turns to nature to extract all these healing forces.
Countless powers still lie hidden in the universe which, as I told you before, will be given to man if science is willing to turn to the eternal realm of the spirits.
Universal consciousness must be roused, but before man can open up the cosmic reservoir, he must first develop his intuition and learn to understand.
Only then will man be capable of utilizing the blessed power within the cosmic rays to nourish a sick body.
Not until the scholars of the earth humbly bow their heads will intelligences from the higher areas fill them with inspiration and establish the link.
Only then will cancer and tuberculosis cease to exist, because nature alone is capable of helping them to suppress these dreaded diseases.
The dematerialization process was successful, because we cancelled the process of gravitation by reducing this force.
Your body was dissolved and within a flash it became reintegrated again.
This process of dissolution and reintegration of your material body is a science in itself.
It consists of various stages which require a certain degree of cosmic development before it can be sensed on all its existential levels.
You won’t be able to understand this until you’re one of us, because by then your sensitivity will have developed and become attuned to all this.
In the spheres every theory becomes: life.
After his transition, ‘Physica’, who was a scholar on earth and a quiet and diligent worker, had to admit that his knowledge, like all earthly science, had hardly any meaning spiritually.
Earthly scholarship doesn’t rank as wisdom until it has been developed in the spirit.
‘Physica’ is now pursuing his studies on our side, spiritually as well as materially.
Our scholars visit the earth to make its inhabitants sense the spiritual laws, and if the latter possessed spiritual eyes, they would be amazed to see how a spirit, the human being of the spheres, continues his study of matter in order to lead them on to a higher path, the path to perfection, the path to God.
That’s why man must learn to use his intuition and to understand the meaning of spiritual life; the spirit will make him live, just as every form of life must be truly lived, because all life has its source in God.
Life is the knowledge which is boundless, and so it will remain forever.
Know, my boy, that all knowledge is life, and means Love in all her appearances.
And all of life will have to be experienced in harmony, because cosmic disharmony is spiritually impossible, since God is Love and His Creation is perfect.
After we had nourished your body with cosmic rays, you felt my hands magnetizing you.
You needed my vital fluid to get some restful sleep.
You undoubtedly realize that while you dematerialized, your spirit left your body, to which you remained connected via the silver or fluid cord, as you have experienced before.
The same thing happened during your first disembodiments, as you will recall.’
Again André was profoundly grateful to his leader for everything he had done for him, but at the same time he deeply regretted that this important event had taken place for no reason at all.
What an effort Alcar, ‘Physica’, and other spirits must have put into this phenomenon to make it a success!
What a lot of energy this must have cost!
‘Don’t worry, my boy’, he heard his beloved spiritual friend say, ‘that won’t do any good.
However, it wasn’t our wish to let physical manifestations take place; it was the longing to be of value which played up in your mind.
That’s why we wanted to show you what it means to be a physical medium.
Can this make man happy?
Is physical power an eternal quality?
Can this power beautify man and make him radiate?
Is he connected to God by means of this?
Does this signify life?
Does it enable one to save mankind from destruction?
No, never in a lifetime.
They are psychic powers, which are eternal possession and mean eternal happiness, while the physical only have a temporary existence.
All this will soon become clear to you, and will make you understand that last night’s phenomenon didn’t happen without a reason.
You know that physical and psychic powers lie dormant within you.
Which are the most essential, which should be developed first of all?
Which of these are the most sacred of gifts one can receive from God?
Which of these serve best to help mankind?
Which of these will, on a higher plane of existence, become your possession forever onward?
Physical powers are a gift from God too, certainly, but these must serve to convince and rouse those who cannot be persuaded by psychic powers.
And once they have been roused we come to support them spiritually, to develop their feeling and to teach them how to give love.
Rest assured that we know why and for what reasons we come to you.
I allowed you to hold sessions in the dark.
Once again: not for our sake, but for yours.
To increase your powers?
No, once and for all: to nip your longing in the bud.
You, my boy, you have a different, a more beautiful task.
We have other things in mind for you than to let you become a puppet in the hands of those who have nothing else to do.
The task which has been assigned to you is a very very sacred one.
You must therefore be humble and quiet, and let the influence of the Holy Spirit take effect on you.
Your task concerns the spirit.
That’s why we want to show you the most beautiful, the most sacred part of all your gifts.
It’s true, we can’t do without physical mediumships on earth, but there are already enough mediums who possess this power.
There are thousands of them, you can find them in every town, every village.
We could develop them along various lines if we wanted to.
But would that get us any further?
There’s enough excitement on earth as it is.
But would this help us along?
Even the very first tappings, these simple phenomena, were too profound to be grasped by science.
And yet these tappings will forever remain the most important phenomenon in the history of mankind.
These simple tapping sounds were clearly audible as direct-voices for those willing to listen.
And thousands did, and they became convinced of the continuous existence of life after physical death.
But the clearer the evidence which mankind receives from our side, the less people believe, because these physical phenomena bear no human traits and so they become incomprehensible.
That is the way things on earth turn into a sensation, since everything is of this earth.
We have no lack of physical mediums, but only one person in thousands is a psychic medium.
We on our side are always on the look-out for instruments of that kind, who are prepared to serve us, to help mankind spiritually, because only if the inhabitants of the earth rise spiritually will they and the earth attain happiness, and this can only be brought about via psychic powers.
That is why we want to develop your gifts for all that is spiritual, to make your love grow and to link your feeling with all that is alive.
Last night’s experiment made it clear to you that we’re unable to offer help to people if they refuse to accept it, and that even the greatest miracles won’t change the attitude of these doubting Thomasses.
I wanted to guard you from this kind of mediumship, which doesn’t lead to eternal light, even if it has its beauty and its purpose.
Your path is a completely different one.
You will accompany me on my visits to the spheres, and there you will behold things which can only be seen with spiritual eyes.
I will develop you according to the spirit, and this will soon, up above, lend substance to your happiness, your love and your eternal light if you ask God for wisdom, strength and love.’
In keeping with Alcar’s wish, André sent a few prominent spiritualists to the two ladies to learn form them about the miracle they had witnessed, with the intent to have it mentioned in some magazine.
It might rouse others.
But the ladies had gone back to sleep again.
They had gone to see their clergyman and he had told them that they were not to meddle with such sorcery.
It was all the devil’s doings.
Then André asked Alcar what he should do now.
And he got the reply: ‘Nothing, my boy, nothing at all.
You realize how people cannot be convinced if their time has not yet come.
There are thousands of clergymen on our side who would be most willing to make it known how everything here is life, something they didn’t understand formerly, and that spiritualism is not something of the devil, it’s from God.
So our task will consist of helping those human beings who want to be helped.
These people will receive nourishment for their soul, their eternal body.’
Later on André came in contact with the wife of the spirit called ‘Physica’. She still dwelt on earth, and he was glad that he was able to prove to her that she was continually in touch with her husband, who would be waiting for her in the spheres after her earthly life had reached its end.
