Elements of this and following sections concerning the nature of spiritual beings, especially “the basic cosmology about the origin and destiny of the human soul,” could not have been given earlier. Also the Invisible College did not want to describe certain things they intend to do in the future before they were fully prepared to do them. The technical preparations have now been completed, their psychic network is now in place and functioning, and it is safe to tell more. Hitchiking Spirits
Some advanced civilizations have a form of rapid interstellar travel that makes it possible for disembodied spirits to travel from one world to another at speeds much faster than the speed of light. When they get to their destination, they incarnate there. However, such interstellar travel by spirits involves risks, and they sometimes get lost in transit and end up on a planet other than the one they intended to visit. If the equipment needed to project spirits over interstellar distances does not exist there, they are marooned. If spirits find themselves marooned on a planet devoid of life, they eventually die, unless other spiritual beings are able to rescue them. This will be discussed further later.
Accidents like this do not leave spirits marooned in empty interstellar space because the method of travel requires there to be a large mass of physical matter at the far end. The problem arises when that mass isn't the one intended.
In earlier communications that are not part of this book, the Invisible College has said that some advanced civilizations of the past have had a sort of religion that encouraged people to go around the universe creating organic life on every planet that was geologically ready for it. This statement was true as far as it went, but it didn't mention that such civilizations were very different from theirs -- as different as a colony of social insects such as bees or ants is from a herd of horses or a pack of wolves.
They had also mentioned (elsewhere) that the civilizations that sent out such original missions of creation seemed to be enemies of the civilizations ancestral to their own, and that their (the Invisible College's) ancestors were partly responsible for driving them away. But they didn't tell the full story. This subject will be treated in a later section. In the present section, they continue describing how spirits create organic life on planets that are ready for it and then guide the process of evolution until intelligent beings develop.
But they point out that everything they say about the origin and evolution of life on Earth is just scientific speculation. They're reasonably sure it's accurate, but it's not based on detailed historical records.
Griffith asks why the Invisible College doesn't have access to the histories of all the advanced civilizations going back millions of years? Surely all such societies would have sophisticated equipment for storing information, better than our present computers here on Earth, so information about all of them would be easy to obtain. Even if civilizations are always rising and falling, communication between them should ensure that history and other information gets passed along. After all, we Earth people, primitive as we are, still possess many important written records of our own vanished civilizations.
But we don't, his guides point out. We Earth people have a few written records from the ancient Greeks, Hindus, Chinese, etc., but there are still huge gaps in our knowledge.
To answer the question: Advanced civilizations don't use electronic computers, nor do they store much of their data in durable physical forms equivalent to books, photographic film, sound recordings, etc. The equipment they use to store and process information is made of living organic matter and is relatively fragile, so it's not that hard for specific historical knowledge to be lost. Also, the symbolic systems for storing data are neither alphabetic nor digital, but are versions of the system used for memory storage in the human brain. Such systems are extremely complex, and translation from one system to another is often very difficult.
As long as a particular civilization is viable, it retains the information that the people in it want to retain. If it breaks up, the souls of the people who survive the breakup go to other civilizations, which have their own history, their own store of information they consider valuable. So specific information about a particular planet is often not available.
Here Griffith asks for some discussion of “the creation of the universe.”
The universe is cyclical. It really doesn't have a beginning or an end. The Big Bang theory, which most of your scientists now accept as proven, is valid; but it's just one component of a Steady State theory that operates on a larger scale. There is another Parallel Part of the universe that is contracting toward a Big Crunch, at the point where/when Earth astronomers observe evidence of the Big Bang. That part of the universe is composed of antimatter and time flows backwards there.
The "heat death" points in our own part of the universe, the points where particles of matter lose all their energy and motion, are also the points at which particles become antimatter and pass into the other part of the universe to start falling towards the Big Crunch.
In other words, the universe didn't really have an origin at all. There wasn't a point in time when the universe didn't exist, because the very definition of time is as a measurement of changes in matter and energy. Therefore, time cannot exist unless matter and energy also exist. It is simply a dimension as length, breadth, and height are dimensions; and this makes it part of the universe, not something independent of it.
Returning to the discussion of the creation and evolution of life: the astral souls of all intelligent beings contain a template for the DNA molecule and all the precursor chemicals that compose it. If the surface waters of an Earth-like planet are close to the correct temperature and have the right chemicals dissolved in them, disembodied spirits with the proper technical knowledge can create life by psychokinesis alone. There is no need to visit planets in spaceships and "seed" them physically.
But this does not mean that organic life is always of the same type as on Earth... or that DNA “as we know it” is the basis for all life in the universe.
There are other kinds of organic life on the surfaces of other kinds of planets, and also non-organic forms who live in the interiors of stars, comets, gas clouds, and other bodies of matter. They all have different kinds of souls, composed of different kinds of astral matter, and there is almost no communication between the different kinds of life.
Even telepathic communication, while barely possible, is not really feasible, because the different types of organic and astral life use very different kinds symbols for communication, and also think at different rates of speed.
Griffith asks about the possibility of building translating equipment, as we do to allow data exchanges between different computers. The response is that the analogy doesn't really apply. All of our computers were designed by and for human beings. The common denominator between two different computers is the person who understands both. There is no such common denominator between people and vastly different forms of intelligent life.
More about how intelligent life is created, and the relationship between the body and the soul. The human astral soul is both an alien parasite or symbiote, and a natural part of a human being. All mammals have astral souls, but the astral soul of a human being is extremely different from the astral soul of an ape. Human beings were radically altered by psychokinetic genetic manipulation to become physically different from other apes. The brain, the hands, the sense organs, the general musculature, and the organs used in standing and walking erect are all very different in humans from those in apes. However, the scientists who recently started mapping the DNA structure of anthropoid apes found it much more similar to that of humans than they had expected.
And when genetic science begins to learn the details of how DNA structure is typically changed by random mutations, the scientists will discover that the genetic differences between apes and humans don't fit those patterns. They'll realize that the particular loops in the DNA molecule that cause the genetic differences between people and apes have an artificial or alien look to them. That's because they actually are artificial, and the changes were made by spirits from other worlds who were familiar with genetic patterns different from those on Earth.
The somatic soul of the human species was genetically altered just as radically as the body was, and is also very different from the somatic soul of an ape. The human somatic soul's nervous system is much more highly developed for transmitting and using astral energy, and the attachment point for the astral soul is much more highly developed. This attachment point allows any human astral soul to incarnate, including those used to incarnating in bodies very different from human bodies on Earth. In other words, there is a sort of standardization among human-type bodies on many different worlds to allow them to be linked to a wide variety of astral souls. There are often problems of astral tissue compatibility if body and soul are too different, but it is still possible for many different types of astral souls from many different worlds to incarnate on Earth.
One of the chief characteristics of intelligent beings compared with similar non-intelligent beings is that both the body and the astral soul show strong evidence of neoteny. For example, many scientists on Earth have noticed that an adult human being retains many physical characteristics found in an anthropoid ape during infancy or childhood, but lost in the ape as it matures.
When a neotenous salamander like an axolotl retains its gills while becoming sexually mature, the resulting neotenous adult is physiologically more primitive, meaning that there is less specialization of the tissues and organs than in a normal adult of the same species. Human beings are physiologically more primitive than other large primates such as gorillas, baboons, or chimpanzees. This is especially true of the voluntary musculature. It is well known that all the great apes far exceed human beings in relative strength, because of differences in the muscle structure. Notice too that there's a marked gender difference in humans in muscle structure as well. The adult female, with her smoother voluntary muscles and a more extensive layer of subcutaneous fat, is more primitive and more neotenous than the adult male.
Many technologically-advanced races of people use genetic engineering (modification of the genes before conception) and biological engineering (modification of the body during embryological development by the use of hormones and other chemicals) to repress the development of the secondary sexual characteristics and to increase the neotenous characteristics. This is why so many dreams and visions of space people show them as rather androgynous.
There are three reasons why humans living under primitive conditions were genetically engineered to have less sheer muscular strength than ordinary apes. The first is that if the process is properly done, they gain considerably in coordination and are are much better at doing delicate manipulations with their hands. Second, having less muscular strength stimulates people's intellectual development by encouraging them to use tools and develop technology. The third reason is that neoteny significantly slows down the maturation and aging process, giving people more time to develop their minds than animals have. Since humans are physically immature and dependent on others for so long while they are growing up, this also gives them an opportunity to learn many things from their elders that they might not learn if they became independent adults sooner.
Advanced human civilizations inhibit the secondary sexual characteristics and certain kinds of muscular development even more, for exactly the same reasons. They gain a longer lifespan, better general health, and physical equality between the genders; and they lose very little, because they don't need great physical strength nearly as much as they need good balance, agility, and coordination. If such a body is kept in good general muscle tone, it has greater endurance against fatigue than a more heavily-muscled body and is more resistant to many kinds of injuries. Also, most advanced human societies reproduce entirely by ectogenesis, so there is no need for people to be capable of ordinary mammalian reproduction.
Most advanced societies have separated sexuality from reproduction. Why create the human body by having it grow inside an adult as a parasite, when it can be grown much more efficiently in an artificial environment? Notice the paradoxical attitude that so many Earth women have about bearing children: on one hand, they know the future of the human race may depend on it, but on the other, they also know it's damaging to the body and seriously interferes with other aspects of adult life. Especially, pregnancy and child-rearing are ready-made excuses for placing women in an inferior social status.
However, sexuality itself still exists in all advanced human societies for emotional, social, and psychic reasons. The androgynous people you see in your dreams are all sexually functional males or females. On the average, advanced humans tend to be more sexually active than primitive humans, because their physical and mental health are better, and because they don't have to work as hard for basic survival.
Many Earth people have an instinctive feeling that the soul is an "alien parasite" attached to the body. The somatic soul of a human being contains many structures not found in the souls of other primates. Some of these produce a form of neoteny in the body; others could cause the brain to develop into a high-quality biocomputer; and still others allow astral souls of many different types to incarnate in human bodies. This gives many people the feeling that there is something alien about the soul.
Gods. The Invisible College has stated that gods don't exist. That statement is completely true in the context in which they used it. Throughout human history on Earth, some spirits have pretended to be gods, using a definition of the term that allows them to rule over human beings without being accountable for their actions. These definitions assert that gods are greatly superior to humans in wisdom and morality, encouraging people to let deities deny them their rights to consent of the governed.
However, the human spirits making these claims are simply lying. They are not superior to ordinary people except in possessing certain forms of knowledge and power; and in moral terms they are significantly inferior because their very existence depends on enslaving and exploiting living people and other disembodied spirits. Since pretending to be gods is one of the chief sources of Theocratic power, the Invisible College attacked it very strongly in an earlier section of this book.
Now it is time to look at spiritual reality from an even larger perspective, and to deal with the idea that intelligent beings greater than humans actually exist. There are two types, "elementals" and "gods," and their description will begin in the next section of this book. However, this segment concludes with the assurance that everything previously stated about gods and human rights still stands. The elementals and gods that are about to be described are still not morally superior to humans, and it is our duty -- the duty of advanced human civilizations on other worlds and people on Earth as well, to stand up to these beings and demand our rights as sovereign individuals.
Elementals and Gods are the same kind of entity structurally, though they differ enormously in personality and behavior. You might say that Gods are civilized elementals. So, for our descriptions of how the astral bodies and minds of these beings function, we'll use the general term "Elementals." Elementals
On one level, Elementals are specialized types of Theocratic bands. They are very large composite spirits containing thousands of human astral souls very closely linked together. On another, they are sentient creatures in their own right, with personalities and emotions quite different from those of ordinary human beings. One thing we want to stress: Elementals and humans are not two races of beings, but different forms of one race. The astral DNA template of both is identical, but humans are the individual form and Elementals are the composite form.
Composite physical life forms exist on Earth. The bees, ants, termites, and other social insects are the most intelligent of these. The Elementals bear the same relationship to humans as an ordinary honey-bee colony does to a primitive, solitary bee or wasp.
Griffith asks whether colonies of social insects have a single very highly developed soul or group mind, since the behavior of a whole colony shows much more intelligence than the behavior of an individual.
The nature of group minds depends on the amount of control they have over their individual members. There are roughly four levels of control, though each “intergrades” with the next. These can be verbalized as cooperation, persuasion, coercion, and compulsion.
Cooperation is working with others because your mutual interests coincide, and the joint effort is of mutual benefit without major concessions on the part of either party involved. Persuasion is essentially barter: "I'll do this for you if you'll do that for me." Coercion is similar, but the barter is negative: "I'll do harm to you unless you do some particular thing for me." Compulsion is direct control of someone else that transcends that other person's volition.
Earthly societies operate mostly by cooperation and persuasion, with some coercion and only a small amount of compulsion. A bee colony operates entirely by compulsion, almost in the same way that your brain operates your body through the nervous system.
Human societies resist becoming a true composite entity, for two reasons. First, people have highly developed brains and are fully intelligent as individuals. Second, each person has a separate astral soul with an astral will that resists outside control. It is possible to control the minds of living people by psychic compulsion under certain circumstances, but this is very difficult. People strongly resist such control because of their highly developed brains and souls.
A bee colony is a composite entity because individual bees don't have large enough brains to support true intelligence and because they don't have individual astral souls. A colony of social insects has a single astral soul that is linked to the body of every individual in it. The brain of a bee has very limited capacity for storing information, and little programming for processing data. Instead, the individual uses telepathy to pass information to the astral mind of the hive. This group mind processes and stores the information received from individual bees and does the thinking for the entire hive, passing down its orders by telepathy.
The collective mind of a bee colony shows intelligence far beyond the reasoning and memory-storage capacity of an individual bee. In fact, in certain narrow areas, this group mind displays a level of intelligence almost equal to that of human beings. One example is the colony's ability to direct the physical changes that individual bees go through during the course of their lives to perform different specialized functions: gathering food, cleaning and repairing the hive, rearing the young, defending the colony from enemies, swarming to produce a new colony, etc. A bee colony is actually better organized in terms of division of labor than a human society.
Another example is the colony's ability to control the temperature within the hive, using a biological central heating and air conditioning system. When the group mind perceives that the hive is too hot inside, certain bees are instructed to act as living ventilator fans. They cling to the walls of passageways leading to entrances of the hive, and circulate cool air by beating their wings. When the hive is too cool, the entrances are sealed with wax; but the bees serving as fans keep on circulating air, which evenly distributes the heat generated by the metabolism of all the bees in the hive.
Human societies are superficially similar to composite entities, but they aren't true composites, because individual people have independent intelligence and will. However, the human astral soul has a strong potential for forming composite entities while it is in a disembodied state, because souls can literally link themselves together, as was described in the section on Theocratic bands. There is much more compulsion in a Theocratic band on the astral plane than in any totalitarian society on Earth, because Theocrats attach their silver cords to other spirits and control them as directly as the human brain controls the hands.
The structure of a Theocratic band as described earlier is similar to a wheel: the spirit controlling the band is the hub, and the subordinate spirits are the spokes. Notice that the world's oldest surviving religion, Vedanta, uses such a spoked wheel as its symbol. The rayed sun used by many other religions is the same symbol, minus the rim of the wheel. However, the rim is extremely important, because it indicates that a Theocratic band naturally produces a structure of astral matter separate from the individual souls attached to it.
In other words, over the course of time, a Theocratic band develops its own astral soul and astral mind that is the equivalent of the composite astral mind of a bee or ant colony.
This is another important reason why Theocratic spirits don't achieve true immortality. The longer a Theocratic band lasts, the more it develops into a composite entity with a mind of its own. At first, the controlling Theocrat completely dominates the group mind, but eventually that mind becomes powerful enough to become independent, and the band becomes an elemental.
The term "Elemental" reminds Griffith of the Windigo legend. Several North American Indian mythologies describe the Windigo as a huge, powerful disembodied spirit that is capable of both reasoning and speech, though it behaves like a predatory animal, not a human being. The legends say it eats the souls of the dead on the astral plane, and can sometimes kill living people and devour their souls as well. The Windigo is one of the most frightening spiritual monsters in human mythology.
Similar beings are described in mythologies from all over the world, but only a few Elementals have become as dangerous as the Windigos. Most of the Elementals that have formed on Earth so far have been less dangerous than a large Theocratic band controlled by the spirit of some human tyrant. Most Elementals that become independent of their creator are no more intelligent than a human infant or a predatory animal. In most cases, the Elemental stays in one place, feeding on the disembodied souls of animals or humans that approach it. It was conditioned to do this while still under the control of human spirits.
Griffith assumes this is why so many myths speak of magic spells to "chain" evil spirits in one place. And it also explains why primitive religions performed sacrifices and rituals to placate the spirits that inhabited specific places. Elementals lived there, and feeding them made it safer for living people to travel by the place.
Sometimes the "spirit of a place" was an Elemental, sometimes a Theocratic band. It really didn't matter; both wanted to be fed through sacrifices and rituals. The uninhabited areas where such sacrifices were made were very often places where large-scale religious sacrifices of humans or animals had once been conducted, where a city had once stood, or where large numbers of people had died in a battle or disaster. Any of these activities would have formed Theocratic bands, which may have later turned into Elementals.
Most Elementals of this type are not particularly dangerous, because they were formed by first- or third-stage religions, and aren't particularly large or powerful. However, the second stage religions that practiced mass human sacrifices created Theocratic bands that eventually formed Elementals of vast power. Second-stage Theocratic bands had to be extremely large because this was the only way they could exert enough power over their living slave populations to keep the whole society from collapsing. Invariably, such bands quickly became Elementals.
Many ancient cities that practiced second-stage Theocratic religion were abandoned after being conquered by their enemies. Carthage is one example, and the Judeo-Christian Bible mentions several more. No one wanted to live on the site for a long time, because of the presence of large and dangerous Elementals. Of course, if people avoided the place long enough, the Elemental would die of starvation, making the area safe for human habitation again.
The Windigos were a related phenomenon, except that the Elementals didn't remain where they were first formed. The Windigos had originated in those areas where the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs practiced second-stage Theocracy. When a new Elemental formed in this region, the other Theocratic bands attached to those tribes didn't try to chain it to one place, but worked magic to drive it far away. Some of these banished Elementals went all the way to North America and gave rise to the Windigo legend. Others went to the southern tip of South America, where the Aurucanians have similar legends.
Similar things have also happened during modern wars. The fate of Hitler and a number of the other top Nazi leaders and their Theocrat friends on the astral plane after the surrender of Germany in 1945 is an example.
Griffith wonders about the persistent rumors that Hitler didn't really die at the end of the war, but successfully fled Germany. He suspects that Hitler did commit suicide in that bunker, but immediately took charge of a band of Nazi Theocrats on the astral plane, and is probably still “up there” today, sustained by the psychic energies of creeps and misfits who continue to wear the swastika and practice the Nazi creed of bigotry and violence.
The truth, says the Invisible College guide, is much stranger than that. Hitler and hundreds of other Nazi leaders fled as disembodied spirits to Japan to assist their Theocratic allies there. They hoped that a D-Day-type invasion of Japan would prove too costly to the Allies and that Japanese Fascism would survive after a negotiated peace.
At this point, both the German and Japanese Theocrats had access to enormous amounts of energy from the millions of victims of World War Two, and they deliberately manipulated the American government into dropping the atomic bomb to provide them with even more victims. Their hope was to create an Elemental and use its vast psychic power either to turn defeat into victory on the Earth plane, or to flee to another world.
Fortunately, the attempt failed, and the Theocrats involved were devoured by the entity they were trying to create. This Elemental still survives on the astral plane, and will become an important focal point in the struggle between the Invisible College and the Theocrats in the future.
Griffith: Does this mean that the Theocrats themselves may be natural enemies of the Elementals?
This is quite true. That's why the third and fourth stages of Theocratic religion were invented: to allow Theocratic bands to remain stable on the astral plane for long periods of time. However, either a Theocratic spirit has to reincarnate or else its band will eventually turn into an Elemental. That's a fact of nature.
The fact that human beings tend to create a technology that allows the planet's total population to increase steadily is another factor preventing Theocratic spirits from becoming truly immortal. It's true that a rising population generates new souls in large numbers, which in turn increases the number of souls on the astral plane that are easy prey for Theocratic spirits. But this superabundance of souls is a mixed blessing, because it encourages Theocratic bands to grow so large they go out of control and turn into Elementals. This is why Theocratic religions often try to inhibit technological progress, but such a policy is self-limiting.
Griffith: I see what you mean. If the Theocrats keep their particular society from developing technology at the same rate as neighboring societies, it's likely to be conquered from outside. Can you tell me why human beings have this instinctive drive to achieve technological progress?
Technological progress is caused by a process of Darwinian natural selection that works on the whole society. Technology allows a society to survive natural disasters, defeat enemies in war, and develop the natural resources available to it more fully. All these give it an advantage over any society that doesn't do these things. Cultures that encourage their members to work for technological progress survive better than those that don't.
But this particular cycle contains the seeds of its own destruction: technological advancement on a primitive planet like Earth invariably causes the human population to increase to the point where exploitation of natural resources seriously upsets the planet's ecological balances. Most people on Earth are now aware that a population bomb is ticking toward explosion.
Scientists are predicting that this rape of the planet's resources will destroy the Earth's biosphere and cause the extinction of the human species, or, at the least, destroy technological civilization. Others are more optimistic. They predict that almost everyone in the underdeveloped countries will die of plagues and famines, but that the advanced nations will survive the crisis with most of their population and technology intact.
Biologists on Earth already know that population explosions in a particular species followed by massive die-offs are quite common, and usually are not a sign that the species is headed for extinction. Overpopulation/die-off cycles are commonest in successful species that are trying to extend their range but are blocked by environmental barriers. The process often creates new variants of the species that can survive in a wider variety of environments.
We are reasonably sure from our experiences on other planets that Earth's biosphere is not so fragile that it can be destroyed by the actions of human beings, except possibly by a massive nuclear war. We are also reassured by the fact that the populations of all the technological advanced societies on Earth are already reasonably stable, even in countries like the Soviet Union [1988] where the official government policy is to encourage population growth. However, we still broadcast telepathic messages that urge people to take an alarmist position on overpopulation and possible destruction of the Earth's biosphere.
If Theocratic spirits and Elementals didn't exist, there would be a massive die-off of poor people, especially in the Third World, and then the Earth's population would stabilize and an advanced civilization would develop. Unfortunately, Elementals do exist, and they may eventually destroy all human life on Earth, possibly all organic life of any kind as well, unless we are able to stop them.
We've already described how an increasing population forms new souls. If there is an abundance of human astral souls at a low stage of development in the astral plane for the Theocrats to recruit or feed upon, Theocratic bands tend to grow larger and larger, making the creation of new Elementals more common. Right now, Earth has more Elemental spirits than it ever had before in its history. And this is a very dangerous situation.
As long as the Earth's population goes on increasing, the existing elementals and Theocratic bands have a steady supply of new souls to feed upon or recruit. But when massive human die-offs occur, vast numbers of new souls will be stranded on the astral plane at once. This overabundance of souls will cause thousands of embryonic Elemental spirits to start growing very rapidly towards adulthood. Once a young Elemental reaches a certain critical mass it becomes able to seize and capture souls psychokinetically against their will, something that ordinary Theocratic bands cannot do because they lack the necessary psychic energy.
As such an Elemental grows in size and psychic power, it can forcefully capture disembodied souls at a higher and higher stage of spiritual development; if it becomes big enough, it is able to devour ordinary Theocratic bands, and finally even the astral souls of living humans. If this happens, then most of the planet's human population, living and disembodied, can end up being taken over and eventually devoured by a small number of elementals.
These adult Elementals are then forced to leave their planet of origin in search of a new food supply. They can travel interstellar distances. Advanced civilizations can usually defend themselves against such beings, but they can depopulate whole planets at a lower stage of civilization very easily. This is why the Invisible College is intervening in the evolution of human society on Earth.
The natural order of the universe is for people (not necessarily in Earth-type human bodies) to start developing an advanced technology under the control of Theocratic spirits. Such a world never gets beyond the second stage of Theocratic religion, but it does develop enough technology to allow the human population to reach into the billions. When it does, a nuclear or biological war suddenly reduces the population, and the Elementals and the Theocrats start fighting among themselves over who controls the planet, and which Elementals will reach adulthood.
Within a few years after this point is reached, the adult Elementals leave the planet and go off into deep space. Sometimes the sudden growth and violent end of the human civilization destroy the planet's biosphere, and sometimes the biosphere survives but human beings do not. More commonly, a few living people and a few Theocratic spirits survive and the whole cycle begins again and runs its course over a period of thousands of years.
Griffith: How do the Gods differ from the Elementals? Gods
Invisible College: On the structural level, a God is simply an adult Elemental, a huge colony of astral souls that lives in deep space and absorbs the astral energy radiated by certain stars.
The desire to form a composite entity is programmed into the astral template of every human soul. This is a major reason why so many living people desire wealth, fame, political power, and other symbols of having control over others that simulate being the guiding force of a composite entity. The ambitious earthly politician, the aspiring despot, the "Man Who Would Be King," is just acting out in the physical plane what his astral soul may be programmed to do on the astral plane.
Disembodied astral souls do the same thing when they become Theocrats. Readers have asked why Theocratic spirits would want to remain on the astral plane indefinitely if they must feed on other human souls.
This is the answer. Almost every human culture has produced some version of the saying, "A man is a God in embryo," and it's true. However, the astral template also can program the soul to act as a sovereign individual, which is why there are free spirits as well as Theocrats. The extension of this influence to living people creates the desire for freedom and individuality on Earth as well.
Griffith: This dichotomy is a partial answer to the age-old "problem of evil." However, you are implying that both the desire for individuality and the desire to form a composite entity are just natural biological drives, too fundamental to be judged by terms like good and evil.
Invisible College: This is why human beings have a characteristic similar to neoteny. Elementals are the adult form, but without a truly intelligent composite soul; they are more like animals than people. Gods are also the adult form, but have a highly developed composite mind. The civilizations you call "space people" are made up of individuals that reject the adult form.
A long time ago, the people on a particular planet developed sufficient technology to allow them to flee into deep space before adult Elementals developed and depopulated their world. After the Elementals had matured and departed, the people returned to their planet, whose biosphere had been badly damaged, and lived in space colonies circling the world. By the time the planet again became fit for human habitation, they had no desire to return. They had become fully adjusted to life in their self-created environment, and their knowledge and technology had reached an extremely high level.
Since the population of their space colonies was low, they were able to prevent the cycle of Theocracy from re-establishing itself, but their society eventually found itself threatened with extinction through sheer stagnation. After a certain number of incarnations in a stable, "perfect" society, people became suicidal. Large numbers volunteered to be teleported as disembodied spirits to far-away planets in order to create life or guide the evolution of existing life towards the development of intelligence.
New souls replaced those who departed on suicidal missions of creation, but this didn't stop the overall stagnation of the culture: the generations who underwent their evolution in a civilized environment with little real challenge became suicidal through boredom even more quickly than those who had evolved struggling to survive. Eventually, they tried to figure out a way to balance life between danger and security -- to create a dynamic cycle that would allow advanced human cultures to survive indefinitely.
They forced some of their people to recolonize their planet under the most primitive of conditions, letting the natural evolution of human society occur there. They allowed the advance of technology to cause a population explosion, and didn't interfere when Elementals started to develop.
However, they manipulated the development of the planet's civilization much as we are doing on Earth today. Their purpose was to interfere with the natural human life-cycle in a way that would allow sovereign individual humans to live in peace with Elementals, so that both could realize their full positive potential and eliminate the negative aspects of the individual/composite dichotomy. The result was the creation of the first true Gods.
When the planetary population reached the saturation point, and a mass die-off of souls at a low stage of spiritual development allowed Elementals to grow to maturity, the advanced civilization on the space colonies in the vicinity of the planet managed to tame or capture some of these vast spiritual creatures, and tried to turn them into civilized people instead of wild animals. Elementals have the potential to be Gods, but they don't realize it unless raised by their peers.
Elementals don't have peers in the natural cycle of their evolution because they are the composite form of another race. We individual humans are their parents as well as their children, but we also have a destiny of our own which conflicts with theirs.
This is why the space people interfere with this natural cycle of human evolution. They raise Elementals to be fully human and civilized by teaching them to accept a symbiotic relationship with individual humans. Remember, an Elemental is similar in structure to a Theocratic band, and it has a place in its astral body for individual humans to attach to it.
In a primitive, animalistic Elemental, these attachment points remain empty when the creature reaches maturity. To produce a God, human astral souls attach themselves to these points as the Elemental is growing and try to control it. If it overcomes them and remains an animal, then it may have to be killed. If the spirits win and tame the Elemental, it becomes a God.
A God allows human spirits at an advanced state of development to attach themselves and travel with it when it leaves its planet of origin and travels into deep space. These spirits are mentioned in Earth mythologies as "the sons of the Gods," "Elohim," and by many other names. Once the young God becomes fully conscious, they stop controlling the God, and it stops trying to control them. Both cooperate for mutual benefit.
As the Gods travel through the universe, the Elohim who ride on them can visit planets and create life there, or guide the evolution of existing life, without having to die in the process as the original Missionary Spirits did. The God cannot approach the gravitational field of a planet very closely, but the Elohim can do so and return, using psychic technology that the God creates within itself. Another thing the Elohim do before they leave a planet is to create an elaborate and self-sustaining network of astral machines, which remains there for future use.
Much of what the Invisible College is doing on your planet right now makes use of such machines, which were left on Earth's astral plane by the Elohim when one of the Gods seeded your planet in the remote past. It might have been hundreds of thousands of years ago, or millions of years. The devices are constructed of organic astral matter. They are machines, but they are also alive as plants are alive. This is why they were able to survive for unimaginable periods of time. The equipment is capable of defending itself from Theocrats and all but the largest Elementals, and of sustaining itself indefinitely. It possesses an artificial intelligence like a computer, but does not have true volition or creativity. It repairs itself but it does not reproduce or evolve.
Griffith: Do the Elohim and Gods return to a planet when it reaches the "Last Days" and new Gods are about to be born? Most Earth mythologies imply this.
Invisible College: No. The Gods normally visit a planet once. After that, they can call to their children when they are ready. The Elohim can return to a planet, using the same type of teleportation equipment that we use. Many of the spirits in the Invisible College are in fact Elohim.
Griffith: Are Elohim and space people different races, or the same?
Invisible College: We are both the same race or species in a genetic sense, because our astral souls are capable of incarnating in the same types of bodies. There is not a single race of space people or a single race of Elohim, though; there are actually several of each that we are in contact with. Your occult literature has for many centuries used the word "Elohim" to refer to the beings we're talking about, just as it has called space people angels. In general, the difference between the space people and the Elohim is simply that those who live in space value physical technology and life in a physical body more than the Elohim do. Space people normally incarnate immediately after death, though they can function quite well in the disembodied state if there is reason to do so. The space people possess a high level of psychic technology, much of it learned from their friends among the Elohim people, but rely on it less to meet their total needs than they rely on physical technology.
The Elohim have cultures that reverse the patterns described above. They incarnate in bodies only for specialized reasons, such as coming to Earth to assist with the birth of new Gods. By choice, they spend most of their time in the disembodied state, traveling the universe with the Gods, or living in the astral planes of advanced societies like and un1ike ours. Some cultures of space people have a very strong relationship with the Elohim, and others do not. The ones who do often live with a lower level of physical technology than those who do not; for example, they live on the surface of planets rather than in space stations, and would rather use biologically-engineered plants and animals than machines of metal or plastic. They, like the Elohim themselves, make more extensive use of machines constructed of living astral matter then we ordinary space people do.
Another major difference between space people and the Elohim is equally difficult to describe. It has to do with group minds and the relationships between individuals within the society. The Elohim like to link their astral souls together using methods that are superficially similar to the way spirits are linked together in Theocratic bands on Earth. However, the Elohim are civilized, moral people, and would never control or exploit one another when they do this. Their group minds compare to Theocratic bands as sexual intercourse between lovers compares to rape. We space people, on the other hand, do not link our souls together in this fashion except very briefly for specialized purposes: education, psychotherapy, etc.
It should be pointed out that these differences between cultures are matters of esthetics, not morality or level of evolution. Both groups are good in the moral sense and highly advanced in the evolutionary sense. Of course, the cultural differences between the two groups often create political friction arising out of conflicting goals and values, but this can be beneficial and stimulating to both sides if handled correctly on the social level. An individual can change from one group to the other, as a person on Earth might emigrate to another country and become naturalized. Whole societies have made this change in the past on the collective level, and adopted a new technology and culture.
Over the last six hundred years, both space people and Elohim have been coming to Earth in ever-increasing numbers. Many of your greatest minds were directed by astral souls from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. And your whole modern Western civilization is the creation of our political organization on Earth, the Invisible College.
However, not all the space people on Earth are our agents. Theocracy is not confined only to primitive planets. Even advanced societies still have a minority of people with an insane lust for power, and use planets like Earth as places of exile for them. After spending a few lifetimes here, either they will reject their Theocratic tendencies, and become rehabilitated by joining the Invisible College and assisting in the birth of the new Gods and an advanced human civilization on Earth; or else they will be devoured by elementals during the Last Days, as the new Gods are reaching maturity.
Griffith: This confirms all these rumors I've heard about Earth's being used by other worlds as a hospital, or insane asylum. But doesn't the presence here of people with Theocratic mentalities and advanced extraterrestrial knowledge make survival and spiritual development more difficult for the native Earth people? How do you justify this ethically?
Invisible College: Most of the memories are removed from the exiles' minds before they are sent here, so they don't have the same type of knowledge that our regular agents have. The majority of them have a vague feeling of being alien to earthly society, but very few possess conscious memories of life on other worlds, and they have no technical knowledge at all. However, they do possess high intelligence and control over their psychic powers: these are essential functions of the astral mind that we don't have the right to tamper with.
Griffith: Science-fiction writers often assume that advanced societies handle their crime problems by reprogramming people's minds to rehabilitate them. Why don't you do this to your criminals instead of sending them here?
Invisible College: We do employ such methods, but only on the less serious cases. Every advanced society that's tried to eliminate all crime and insanity from the population has ended up destroying itself. It's impossible to program destructive tendencies out of the mind without also eliminating good qualities like creativity. So exile is the lesser evil. And having a few extraterrestrial Theocrats here doesn't affect the average Earth person at all: They're really no different from your own native Theocrats, and there's no shortage of those. The presence of such people on Earth really has no overa11 effect on events here, especially since about half of the exiles eventually rehabilitate themselves and fight on our side.
Griffith: My personal psychic experiences and my past-life memories tell me that the exiled criminals and the agents sent here to direct the War in Heaven are only a small minority among the extraterrestrial spirits now incarnating on Earth. What kind of people are the rest?
Invisible College: There are two main groups: refugees from physical, wars and disasters, and young souls seeking development in the challenge of this hostile environment. Both come here to be in at the beginning of a new civilization.
Griffith: Everything you've just described sounds like what has happened on Earth during colonization of a new area. The American West was settled by exactly the same groups: a cadre of professionals who assisted the others, refugees fleeing poverty or oppression, young people seeking opportunity, and a minority of criminals running from the law. Australia is an even better example: it started as a penal colony, and later attracted the other types of immigrants as well.
Invisible College: That is a very good analogy. And the presence of large numbers of typical colonist types here ought to make your readers feel better: the voluntary immigrants wouldn't come here unless they believed that their chances of surviving and prospering on Earth were reasonably good.
Griffith: Just what are the risks? What are the best and worst things that can happen on this planet, and what is your prediction of what will actually happen?
Invisible College: On the positive side, psychic equipment for controlling the development of the embryonic Elementals into Gods instead of all-devouring monsters is functioning extremely well. It seems to be completely adequate for its job when the time comes. We also have plenty of spirits trained to operate the equipment, and others to work with the embryonic Gods, as well as Elohim to guide them home when they are ready to leave the planet.
On the negative side, the Theocrats still have far more influence on Earth than we'd like, considering your state of technological development. We're not worried about the eventual outcome of the battle with them. The Invisible College is going to win, because we now have much better access to psychic technology than the Theocrats do. However, unless the control of Theocratic spirits over your technology can be broken fairly soon, the Earth's biosphere will be seriously damaged before the Last Days. It's going to be a near thing.
Griffith: Are you referring to things like the destruction of the ozone layer by organic halogen compounds, the greenhouse effect, etc.?
Invisible College: These are only two out of a long list of symptoms, and not even the worst ones. For example, some of your medical researchers are becoming aware that insecticides and other poisonous chemicals cause mutations in bacteria and viruses that create new diseases, but they have not yet realized just how great a potential danger this is. Over fifty million years ago, the dinosaurs became extinct because of diseases caused by chemical pollutants released by the impact of large numbers of comets with the Earth during a visit of the Sun's astronomical companion, the "Nemesis Star."
Griffith: What happens if the Earth becomes uninhabitable after the majority of the population dies off during the last Days and the new Gods depart?
Invisible College: It may be possible to start an advanced civilization of reasonable size on space colonies, as has happened on many other worlds. This is the most probable outcome, the way things look right now. However, if there is largescale nuclear or biological warfare, the last Days may come so soon and be so short that this won't be possible. That's the worst-case scenario, and if it happens, we will simply have to evacuate as many souls as possible to other worlds, using the same psychic equipment that we use to control the Elementals.
Griffith: Well, that sounds better than the prospect of universal death that everyone on Earth would face if the extraterrestrial spirits weren't here.
Invisible College: It is, but it still isn't a good situation. Only astral souls above a certain state of development can be teleported out of here. Weaker souls would not survive the journey. Now, all of the agents and immigrants and even the rehabilitated exiles are strong enough to survive the journey out as they survived the journey in, but many Earth people aren't. This means that many ordinary Earth people will die under these conditions... but they will survive if this planet continues to support physical human life, or if it's possible to build space colonies in time.
Griffith: Knowing this, it's easy to see why you're pushing the New Age movement and the resurgence of occultism so hard. You want people to strengthen their astral souls through practicing psychic development techniques, because that increases their chances of survival, no matter what happens.
Invisible College: Psychic development alone does not guarantee survival. Theocracy on Earth is now entering a fifth stage of development, which is based on electronic mind control instead of religious mind control, and on belief systems with no obvious ties to organized religion. Fifth-stage Theocracy can entrap living people into group entities similar to Theocratic bands by linking their souls together with ties of astral matter, and people capable of entering the psychic trance are not as resistant to it as they are to the religious stages of Theocracy.
More to come...
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