8. Potential Aberrations in Spiritual Investigation

The moment our Ego is insulated and we manifest mediumistic powers, an elementary being slips into this faint shadow or into the feeble tones that proceed from the auditory sense. This being slips into the parts vacated by the Ego where the external sense-perception is obliterated, and takes possession of the medium. Then it enters into the ramifications of the nerves, into the will-organisation, that is to say, the nerves that govern the formation of the will. In consequence the medium begins to respond actively because that which should be under the control of the Ego has been taken over by the elementary being. All the subtle, shadowy elements, the residual weight of the brain, the remnants of the colour and auditory sensations, possess us like a phantom—for this 20 grammes weight is only a phantom and these feeble shadows of the colours that penetrate into our inner being are phantom-like. The elementary being enters into this phantom and then the medium grows so lethargic that his body becomes wholly passive and everything in the dim, phantom-like shadows that should really be permeated by the Ego—shadows that are normally tenanted by the Ego—now becomes active within him.