Now - so many, many years after this book was written - so many books about the (near) -deathprocess has been written - and then one can see the extreme accuracy of Rampas descriptions in this book - regarding the deathprocess, life on the other side, the reincarnation process etc. Rampa had the ability to fellow all incidents by reading/looking in the AKASHA - earths memory-bank and so retelling the happenings in every detail. The one who SEES can here recognise the TRUTH. Research yourself!!

Also in the opening-words: The faint flickering gleam of fourteen little Candles shines forth into the world, bringing to a vast number of people some of the Light of astral knowledge.

The Sunlight is waning. Coming fast is the end of Day. The Darkness of communism is by stealth and treachery engulfing the world faster and faster. (Remember the Chinese communists had invaded his beloved homeland - Tibet)

Soon the Light of Freedom will be extinguished for a time while Mankind ponders opportunities lost, and regrets warnings unheeded.

But even in the darkest hour there shall be the gleams of little Candles, bringing hope to a stricken world. The darkest hour is before the dawn, and that hour is not yet.

The gloom and despondency of evil men usurping power shall be lessened by the knowledge that all suffering shall eventually pass, and the Sunlight shall shine again.

Candlelight may bring illumination to some, hope to others. Sunlight gives way to darkness, darkness gives way to Sunlight, but even in the deepest dark a Candle may show the Way…

The overself/subcons., pendulum work and human electricity

Early in the book he enters the microcosmos in connection with pendulum work and he says:

We know, for example, that throughout countless years radium decays into lead. We know that all matter is a whole horde of molecules hopping about like fleas on a hot plate, the smaller the fleas the faster they can jump, the bigger the fleas - the slower and more cumbersome (tung). So it is with material. Everything has its atomic number, number of atoms indicating how slowly it is going to vibrate, or how fast it is going to vibrate. So all we do in pendulum work is to tune in to some atomic vibrations, and, if we know how, we can tell which one it is and where it is.

When we are dealing with radio - we have an aerial system, which absorbs or attracts or intercepts (call it what you like) the waves coming through the atmosphere. Perhaps they are bounced back by the Heaviside layer or the Appleton layer. But in addition there is a ground wire, which makes contact with the ground wave - because you must have two - positive and negative - in everything. You can take the ground wave as negative and the air wave as positive. So in the matter of pendulums the human body collects the air wave, acting as the antenna or aerial, and the feet in contact with the ground act as the earth connection, or 'ground'. And for correct pendulum work it is necessary to keep the balls of the feet on the ground, unless one uses another method of tapping the earth current.

Of course, using a pendulum is simplicity itself. It is even simpler than simplicity if we know why a thing works. That's why you are getting this long collection of words which might at first strike you as rigmarole (meningsløs); it's not. Until you know what you are doing you can't tell when you are doing it!

Pendulums really work! Many Japanese tell the sex of unborn babies by the use of a pendulum. They use a gold ring suspended on a piece of string or thread, and it is held above the stomach of the pregnant woman. The direction or type of movement indicates the sex of the child yet to be born. Incidentally, many Chinese and Japanese use a pendulum for sexing eggs!

A radio set uses electric current for reproducing sound which was broadcast from some distant station. Television sets use current also for reproducing a rough simulacrum of the picture transmitted from a distant station. So in the same way - if we are going to dowse (gå med ønskekvist) or use a pendulum or anything else, we have first of all to have a source of current, and the best source of current we can use is the human body. After all, our brains are really storage batteries, telephone exchanges, and all that sort of thing, but the main thing is, it is a source of electric current - sufficient for all our needs and sufficient to enable us to 'detect' impulses, and thereby cause a pendulum to twitch, swirl, gyrate (rotere), or oscillate, or all the other queer thing, which a pendulum does. So, to work a pendulum, we must have a human body, an alive human body at that. You cannot tie a pendulum to a hook and expect it to work, because there would be no source of current.

Nor would it be of much use if we could tie our pendulum to a hook and supply it with current because the current has to be in pulses varying according to the type of action desired. Just as in radio, we have high notes, low notes, loud notes, and soft notes, so with a pendulum we must have the necessary current variation to do 'the necessary'.

Who is going to vary the current? Well, the Overself, of course. That is the brightest citizen we have around us, you know. After all, you who read this are just one tenth conscious, so, knowing yourself, just think how brilliant you would be if you could call in the other nine tenths of consciousness. You can certainly enlist its aid, the aid of the subconscious. The subconscious is brilliant; it knows everything that you have ever known, can do everything that you could ever do, and can remember every single incident since long before you were born. So if you could touch your subconscious, you would get to know a very considerable amount of things, wouldn't you? You can touch your subconscious - with practice and with confidence.

The subconscious can also contact other subconscious minds. There are truthfully no limits to the powers of the subconscious mind and when the subconscious mind is allied to other subconscious minds, then indeed results may be achieved.

We cannot just ring up a telephone number and ask to speak to our subconscious, because we have to look upon that Mind as being something like a very absent - minded (åndsfraværende; distré) professor who is constantly sorting knowledge, storing knowledge, and acquiring knowledge. He is so busy that he can't bother with other people. If you pester (plager) him enough in the politest way, then he may answer your summons (ordre). So first of all you have to become familiar with your subconscious. You see, the whole thing is that the subconscious is the greater part of you, the much greater part of you, and I suggest that you give your subconscious a name. Call him or her whatever you like so long as it is a name agreeable to you. Supposing it is a male, then you could (purely as an illustration) use the name 'George'. Or if it is the subconscious of a female, then you could say 'Georgina'. But the whole point is that you must have some definite name, which you link inseparably with your subconscious. So when you want to get in touch with your subconscious, you could say for example, 'George, George, I want your help very much, I want you to work with me, I want you to - (here you specify what you want), and remember, George, that really we are all one and what you do for me you are also doing for yourself.' You need to repeat that slowly and carefully, and with very great thought. Repeat it three times!!

The first time - 'George' will probably shrug his mental shoulders and say, 'Oh that pestiferous fellow, bothering me again when I've got so much work to do,' and 'he' will turn back to his work. Next time you repeat it he will pay more attention -because he is being bothered, but still he won't take any action. But if you repeat it a third time, 'George' or 'Peter' or 'Dave' or 'Bill' or whoever it is - will get the idea that you are going to keep on until you get some action, so he will give a metaphorical (billedlig) sigh and help.

This is not fantasy, it's fact. I claim to know quite a lot about it, because for more years than I care to remember, I have done just this. My own subconscious is not called 'George', by the way, but a name which I do not reveal to anyone else, just as you should not reveal to anyone else the name of your subconscious. Never laugh or joke about it because this is deadly serious. You are only onetenth of a person, your subconscious is nine - tenths, so you have to show respect, you have to show affection, you have to show that you can be trusted because if you do not gain the co - operation of your subconscious then you won't do any of the things that I write about. But if you practise what you are reading, you can do the whole lot. So make friends with your subconscious. Give him or her a name, and be sure that you keep that name very, very private indeed.

You can talk to your subconscious. It is better if you talk slowly and repeat things. Imagine that you are telephoning someone on the other side of the world and the telephone line is a bit poor, you have to repeat yourself, you have quite a difficult time making yourself understood. Your listener at the other end of the telephone line is not an idiot for having difficulty in understanding your message, but general communications are bad, and if you overcome the difficulties of communications - you can then find that you have a very intelligent conversationalist, one who is far more intelligent than you are!

When you are using the pendulum (we will go into that in more detail in a moment or so) you have to keep your feet flat on the ground so that the balls of your feet are in contact with the floor, and then you have to say something like, 'Subconscious (or the name you have chosen), I want to know what. I 'must do to get success at such - and - such a thing. if you are going to make the pendulum work, will you make it swing backwards and forwards to indicate "yes", and from side to side to indicate "no" - just as a human does when he nods for "yes" and shakes his head for "no".' You have to get over a message like that about three times, you have to explain very slowly, very dearly, and very carefully indeed what you want your subconscious to do and what you expect of the test - because if you don't know what you want, then how can the subconscious give you any information? The subconscious won't know either. If you don't know what you want, you don't know when you've found it!

We started with dowsing, so let us deal first with what we call the dowsing pendulum. By the way, a little digression. Shall we refer to all subconsciousness as 'George' for the purpose of this instruction? It's such a chore typing out "subconscious" time after time, so we will just use the generic name of George - in the same way as pilots call their automatic pilot 'Mike'. So George it is for our collective subconscious.

The dowsing pendulum should be a ball possibly an inch or an inch and a quarter in diameter (25-30mm). If you can get a very good wooden pendulum so much the better, or you may be able to obtain a 'neutral metal' one. But for the moment any pendulum will do as long as it is about an inch or an inch and a quarter in diameter. You should get a piece of thread such as boot - makers use for stitching on soles. I believe it's called cobblers' thread. You will need about five feet of it. Tie one end to your pendulum which should have a little eyelet on the top for that purpose, and tie the other end to a rod or even to an empty cotton reel. Then wind all the thread on to the cotton reel so that when you hold the small cotton reel in the palm of your hand the thread holding the pendulum is between the finger and thumb of your right hand - your right hand if you write with that one, but if you use your left hand instead, then, of course, the pendulum will be in the left hand. But first we have to sensitize or tune our pendulum for the particular type of material we wish to locate. Supposing we are going to look for a gold mine; first of all you get a little piece of sticky (seig) tape, about an inch long is sufficient, and then you put just a very small piece of gold (scraped from inside a ring, for instance) on to the sticky tape and then just lightly push it on to the pendulum. Then your pendulum has a piece of gold which will sensitize it to that metal, and when I say 'scrape' - I mean that even if you get a grain (korn), that will be adequate.

When you have that, put your ring, or another piece of gold, between your feet as you stand up. Stand with this gold, such as a gold ring or a gold watch, between your feet and slowly unwind (spole ned) the thread so that your pendulum lowers to perhaps a foot and a half (45cm) from your fingers. At this point the pendulum should swing in a circular direction, that is, making a complete circle. If it does not do so, lower the thread a little or pull it up a little, the point being, you have to ascertain the length of thread at which the pendulum swings most freely for gold. When you have determined that - it may be eighteen or twenty or twenty - two inches or similar - you make a knot in the thread and you write down the exact length, such as 'Knot One - Gold', and then you pull off your gold specimen with the Sellotape and pick up your watch or ring, and put a silver artide on the floor; it may be a coin or a piece of silver you have pinched from somebody else, but it must be silver. You also put a very fine scraping of silver on another piece of Sellotape and put that on to your pendulum. Then you try again to find what is the correct length for silver. When you have done that you make another note such as 'Knot Two - Silver'. You can go on doing it for different metals, and not only different metals but different substances. If you make a proper table, then you should have great fun 'prospecting'. Generally you will find that in terms of length, the first thing to respond (at about twelve inches in length) is stonework. A bit longer thread, and you will get glass or chinaware. Longer still and you will get vegetable stuff. Go on increasing the length and you will get silver and lead, and then a bit further on you will find water. Longer still, you will find gold. Still longer, copper and brass. And the longest will be iron, and iron will be roughly just under thirty inches (76cm). So if you want to know what is beneath you, you just stand there and first of all think of whatever metal you are looking for. You adjust the length of your thread to the appropriate distance, and you very slowly walk forward.

Again- again - it is emphasized and re-mphasized that you must tell 'George' precisely what you are doing. You have to tell him that you want to prospect for gold, iron, silver, or whatever it is, and when he senses the radiations will he please swing the pendulum. At all times you must definitely keep thinking very strongly of that which you hope to find; other - wise, if you change over and think of something else, then you won't get it.

Apropos of this - let me say that if you are looking for antique porcelain, for instance, and you suddenly think of women, then you will get the reaction for gold because the length of thread for gold and for women is precisely the same, and if a woman thinks about men she will get the reaction as if there was a diamond under the ground! That, of course, means that you will be completely misled. It would never do if you got the reaction for a diamond so you grabbed a shovel and pick and dug, but found instead a dead man. It could happen!

Now, it is advisable to use a shorter - cord pendulum for everyday indoor use. After all, you don't want three, four, or five feet of thread getting tangled up every day. So when you are indoors use a separate pendulum. The pendulums which can be obtained commercially already have a thread or a chain attached to them, and frequently the chain is possibly six inches long, although the exact length varies, but that is of no moment.

Supose you want to find something - suppose you want to find out if a person is living in a certain area; then you sit down at a desk or, table, but it must be an ordinary desk or table with no drawers or anything beneath because if you have anything beneath in, for example, a drawer, then the pendulum will be influenced by whatever is in the drawer. You may have a kitchen knife in the drawer. You may have a gold ring or something like that, and the pendulum, no matter how hard you think, will be influenced by the 'wrong' subject. So - sit at a plain table and have within arm's reach some sheets of ordinary plain white paper. 'Then you tell your pendulum, or rather you tell 'George', exactly what you want. You say, for example, 'Look, George, I want to find if Maria Bugsbottom lives in this area. If she does, will you please nod by giving the pendulum a backwards and forwards movement, and if she does not will you please shake the pendulum from side to side.'

Then on the right - hand side of the table you have your piece of white paper, and on the top which is far away from you - you put 'Yes', and on the bottom which is close to you you put 'Yes'. On the far left side of the paper you put 'No' and on the far right side you put 'No', and in the centre you put a little X to show that is the spot over which you are going to hold the pendulum. The pendulum, by the way, should be held about two inches above that X.

Sit comfortably. It doesn't matter if you have your shoes on or your shoes off, but you must have your feet on the floor, not on the bars of a chair - have them flat on the floor so that the balls of your feet are in contact with the floor. Then you get a map of the area desired and spread it to your left so that you have a white sheet of paper to the right and your map on the left. First you gently take the, pendulum all over the area of the map, saying, 'Look, George, this' is the area of my map. Is Maria Bugsbottom anywhere within this area?'

The pendulum being taken over the map about two inches above the surface. When you have covered the whole area, you say, 'George - I am now going to start this investigation. Will you help me, George? Will you indicate "Yes" or "No" as the case may be?' Then (if you are right - handed) put your right elbow comfortably on the table and suspend your pendulum by its thread or chain, hold the thread or chain between your thumb and forefinger (the finger with which you point). See that the pendulum is about two inches above the X. Special note here - if you are left - handed everything will have to be reversed, but for the right - handed people in the majority - well, go by the instructions conveyed above.

Having got ready, and making sure that you are not likely to be disturbed, tell George that you are now ready to start work. Look at the map and put your left forefinger along the road on the map where you think Maria Bugsbottom may be living. Give an occasional glance at the pendulum. It may swing idly without any apparent sense, but if you get to where you believe your friend or enemy is living, then the pendulum will definitely indicate yea or nay.

It is a good idea to use a small - scale map first so that you can cover the biggest area, but when you get some sort of indication as if George was saying, 'Gee! This is a big area, I need to get closer than this,' then you get a large - scale map so that you can with practice locate any individual house.

After each test you definitely must replace your sheet of white paper by another, you can use it for writing on; write letters on it or anything else, but only one sheet of white paper to one reading because you have impregnated that sheet with the impressions of whatever you are trying to find out so that if you try to repeat a reading, then the second reading will be influenced by the first and - well, that's all there is to it.

But no, perhaps that's not all there is to it after all - because you've got to really frame your questions properly. George, you see, is a single - minded individual who can't take a joke and is extremely and exceptionally literal. So it's no good you saying, 'George, can you tell me if Maria Bugsbottom lives there?' If you ask a question like that the answer will be 'Yes', because George can tell you if Maria Bngsbottom lives there, he can. And that is what you are asking. You are asking with a question in that form if the pendulum can tell you. You are not asking if she is actually living there at the moment. So whatever question you ask must be framed in such a way that George is not in a state of confusion.

The biggest difficulty about the whole affair is framing the questions, so that they are fool proof, so that there are no double - meanings to them. In any question if you say, 'Can you tell me - ?', then the answer will be Yes or No to the question of 'Can you tell me?' The other part of the question, 'if Maria Bugsbottom lives there?' will be unanswered because the first question will have swamped George's interest. So until you are more practised at this how about writing out your questions first and looking at your words to see if there is any way at all in which the question can be regarded as ambiguous or as having a double - meaning or is unclear. Let me repeat in big, bold, black capitals - YOU MUST BE SURE OF WHAT YOU ARE ASKING BEFORE YOU CAN POSE THE QUESTION.

Of course, when you have some practice it's quite easy to trace missing people. You have to have a small - scale and a large - scale map of the area in which the person is supposed to be missing. Then you have to be able to form some sort of mental picture of the person who is missing. Is it a big boy or a small girl? Is he or she ginger(rødbrun), blonde, or black - haired? What do you know about the person? You have to brief yourself as fully as possible, because, again, unless you know what you are seeking, then you don't know when you've found it.

It may happen at times when, for example, you are confined to bed, that you cannot stick your feet plunk on the ground. That is my trouble, so I have a metal wand (stang) about two and a half feet long, and I hold that in my left hand just like an antennae system to a portable radio, in fact that's what it is; it is an antenna rod from a portable radio. I pick up the wave from that in precisely the same manner as a more mobile person would with two flat feet.

When I am picking up impressions from a map or a letter, then I use a little propelling pencil, a metal one, and I touch the letter or the map and then the old pendulum starts to wobble and gives me an answer.

Never, never, never let anyone else touch your pendulum. It's got to be saturated with your own impressions. You should have several pendulums, one of wood, one of neutral metal, that is something like type - metal, and - well, you may want a glass one or you may want a plastic one, you may even have one which is hollow so you can put a specimen inside instead of sticking it up with Sellotape. But you will find one pendulum is more responsive than all the others for personal things, and you can make it even more responsive by carrying it on your person, getting saturated (mettet) with your own impressions. If you do that and never let another person use it or even touch it, then you will find you have something as potent and as useful as radar is to aircraft on a foggy night.

The pendulum cannot be wrong. George cannot be wrong. You can. You can go wrong with the form your questions take and your interpretations of the answers. Now, with computers one has to use a special language, otherwise the computer can not make sense of what one is trying to get at, so pretend that your pendulum is a computer and frame your questions in such a dear one - way form that no possibility of error can occur because the pendulum can only indicate Yes or No. It can indicate uncertainty by doing a figure of eight. It can also indicate what sex a thing or a person is because most times for a man it can rotate in a right hand circle, clockwise that is, but for a woman it will rotate in a left - hand, anti - clockwise, circle. But if the man is very feminine then the poor old pendulum may go the wrong way, but it's not actually the wrong way, it is just indicating that the man isn't - he's more female and just has the necessary attachments, as one would say in the best circles, which would enable him to pass physiologically as a male specimen. All his thoughts may be female, so in that way the pendulum is far better as a judge than the best doctors!

Oh yes, I must be sure to tell you this; make sure your hands are clean before using the pendulum, otherwise, if, for instance, you have been gardening or stubbing out a cigarette butt in some poor plant's plant pot home, then you will get a reading for the soil content of the pores of your fingers. So be sure that your fingers and hands are clean. Be sure that your table is clean. It's no good, for instance, turning around and finding that a big fat cat is sitting on a sheet of white paper, and if it is then you have to use a different sheet of white paper!

With a pendulum and practice you can know how to dowse for minerals from a map. You go along looking for gold if you like, by having a little particle of gold attached to the pendulum. Then you let your finger go along the map to the location where you think there may be gold, and you think strongly of gold to the exclusion of all else. Or, if you are looking for silver, think strongly of silver to the exclusion of all else. All these things are very, very simple; until you get used to them you will be sure they are utterly impossible - they are not for you. But they are. It is only practice that makes a pilot able to take off in his aircraft and bring it down in one piece. It is only practice and faith in yourself, that will enable you to go to your table, produce a map and a pendulum, and say, ' There - there is water, floods of it,' and then go to the actual site and find upon digging that the water is at a certain depth.

You can get a good idea of the depth of a thing by the strength of the oscillation or movement of the pendulum. This is not a book on pendulums or dowsing, but practice will soon teach you how to shorten or lengthen the chain or string, and how to gauge depth. But remember again that you must very definitely and strongly concentrate on that which you want to find or know.

You can also find out a lot about a person by using a pendulum over the signature on the letter. It is quite a useful exercise. But, remember, you must be sure of what you want to know, you must be sure of what you are asking, because if you are asking a thing in two parts, then George is sure to answer the wrong one! And be very certain that you tell your subconscious - George or whatever you call him or her - precisely what you are trying to find out and what you expect the pendulum to do to indicate the information you desire.

Since writing the above I have 'tried it on the dog' because it seemed clear enough to me, but then I know it all, so I got someone who did not know it all to read it and now am going to give some supplementary information.

'Well, how does one hold this pendulum?'

One rests one's elbow on the table, as already stated, and it should be the right elbow for a right - handed person and the left elbow for a left - handed person. Then you bend your arm so that your hand is at such a height from the table that your pendulum, which is suspended at the end of its chain, rests about two inches (5cm) above the surface of the table. You actually hold the chain, string, cord, or whatever it is between your thumb and forefinger, and if you want to shorten the chain an inch or so in order to get a better swing - well, do so. Always adjust the length of the chain or thread between your finger and thumb so as to get the best swing or indication. Now, that should be clear enough - you just hold your forearm at such an angle that you are comfortable. You must be comfortable or you will not be able to do pendulum work. Similarly, if you have just had a heavy meal you will not be able to do pendulum work, or if you have something bothering you greatly unconnected with this pendulum, it will distract your attention. You must be in a fairly quiet state of mind, and you must be willing to work with the subconscious.

Regarding pendulums: in "twilight" (from 1975- two years after this book Candlelight came) - he made this answer under the headline from the bookreport -

pendulums and elernentals (headline made by r- ø.)

So we should be very clear of "the dangers" by trusting pendulums alone!!

Back to the book Candlelight:

Now, I am also told, 'You've got me all confused; you say the Overself is going to vary the current - well, what is the connection between the Overself and the subconscious?'

Let us try to get this clear for ever and a day or a bit longer; there is you who is just one - tenth conscious. You are bottom man on the ladder, or you might even be bottom woman on the ladder. Above you - you have your subconscious, and your subconscious is like the operator who controls the switchboard, etc., which is your brain. The subconscious is in touch with you through your brain - through your joint brain would perhaps be a better term - and the subconscious is also in touch with your Overself. So it's like you, the ordinary poor worker, who cannot get a word with the manager, you have to go through the shop steward or the foreman first. So you sort of hang around, try to make yourself obtrusive (iøynefallende) in the hope that the shop steward or the one above you will notice you, and wondering why the (you - know - what!) you are not at work will come and see what it's all about. Then you have to get your point of view over to the shop steward (tillitsmann) or foreman, and persuade him to take up your case with the manager or whoever is above him. This is similar to conditions with the Overself and you. Before you can get through to your Overself -you have to enlist the aid of your subconscious, and once you can convince your subconscious that it's really necessary for your joint good (fellesgode), then the subconscious will contact the Overself and the pendulum will be varied according to the indications which you are 'perceiving'.

Incidentally, if you can get through to your Overself by way of the subconscious you can cure a lot of illnesses which you may have. The Overself is like the president of a company and he doesn't always know what minor ailments affect the lower departments. He knows it in times when conditions are very, very serious, but often he is in complete ignorance of some grievance, which the lower order of workers have. But if you can get your shop steward (tillitsmann) to take up the matter with the Over - self, or president, or general manager, then a grievance can be settled before it becomes serious. So if you have a persistent (vedvarende) ache here, there, or somewhere else, then keep on at George or Georgina, say clearly what the trouble is, what is this pain, what does it feel like, why do you have it, and will the subconscious please see that you are cured. The Overself is the unapproachable(den utilnærmelige). The subconscious is the link between you, the one-tenth conscious, and the Overself which is all conscious.

Oh sure, of course the pendulum can help you pick the winner of a race if you phrase (formulerer) your question sensibly, but look at this. "Can you tell me who will win the two-thirty race?" Now what sort of a question is that? Look at it seriously and you will see that you are asking your subconscious to tell you this; can you, subconscious, tell me who will win the race? The answer, of course, would be 'Yes', and if you get a yes in answer to your question, you would think you were being fooled, wouldn't you? You can't do it that way at all.

Read back a bit to where I tell you how to locate things on a map. Now, in this case if you want to know who is going to win a certain race, you will have to get a list of horses, the horses who are going to run in that specific race, and you will have to think definitely, 'Will this horse win?' And you will have to bring the pencil in your left hand slowly down to each name in turn, leaving it there about thirty seconds and thinking about that horse for about thirty seconds, asking if this horse will win the race. If the answer is 'No', then go on to the next horse until you've got to the one that is going to win. You can do it with practice. It's not very moral, you know, because betting and gambling are bad things, but anyway that is your own responsibility. I am just trying to make absolutely clear to you that you won't get any satisfactory result unless you quite definitely phrase your question in such a manner that there is only one question involved, a question which can be answered by a plain 'Yes' or a plain 'No'. I suggest you read that bit again because otherwise you are going to be really cross (gretten) when you get a mixed up answer which really will be a mixed up questioner.

The last question here is, 'Yes, but where do I buy these pendulums?'

Actually they are fairly difficult to obtain because so many quick - money operators are out to make a fast buck and they are selling absolute junk, little things like key chain ornaments which they swear is a pendulum with your birthstone attached or something. But that is utterly useless. I am going to persuade Mr. Sowter to stock really reputable pendulums of a special type. There will be wooden ones and there will be neutral metal ones, and the metal ones will also have a recess or opening so one can place a specimen inside (such as a piece of hair picked up from a missing person's hairbrush or some - thing like that). In that way the missing person can be missing no longer. Mr. Sowter of Touchstones of England will also be able to supply you with books. I 'will give you his address later, at the end of this chapter. But I do repeat again that it is utterly useless to buy a cheap little junk affair, which is just a gimmick to get money out of your reluctant pocket. If you want a thing you have to pay for it, and a worthwhile pendulum will cost anything from $15 to $30, let's say in English terms from five to ten pounds (in 1973). But you would pay that willingly for a small transistor radio, and a good pendulum is by far more useful to you than the aforementioned transistor radio. With a pendulum you can find a fortune - if you read this chapter properly and if you do really seriously practise.

Practice is the key to everything. You cannot be a great pianist unless you practise. The more important the pianist the more he or she practises - hours a day of those silly scales going 'bonk, bonk, bonk'. It is the same with a pendulum; you have to practise and practise and practise, so you can do it by instinct, and you can practise with people's letters, with metals and all the rest of it, and that's the way you will make a success - practice.

Oh yes! There is one other little point which I should mention. I will mention it but, naturally, I would expect that the ordinary rules of politeness would apply; it is very, very important indeed that after you have used your pendulum you clasp (omfavner) it in your two hands to your forehead and then you solemnly thank George or Georgina for assisting you in this reading. 'Thank you' three times, do not forget that - because if you do not thank 'him' or 'her' according to the elementary rules of politeness, you may not get a response in two or three times hence, and - remember, your thanks must be repeated thrice just as your requests have been.

I am informed that there is some slight ambiguity in one part of this chapter (probably the whole thing is ambiguous (twetydig) but let's not dig up that problem). I am told that I do not make it clear how some poor wretch should stand when he or she is tuning the pendulum with a lump of gold or a crummy bit of silver between the feet. Okay, here it is again - you get your gold, silver, tin, lead, or copper and you put it on the ground between your feet. Then you stand upright with your spine straight and your left arm down by your side. Then you elevate your right hand so that your forearm is parallel to the ground and you see if that is a convenient method of doing it - because if you brace your right elbow against your side, you will not get undesired wobbles or squiggles in your pendulum but only what 'George' dictates. But the main thing, of course, is - hold your arm at any distance convenient for you and convenient for the pendulum. And that's all there is to it!

You may obtain pendulums, books and other supplies from: Mr. E. Z. Sowter, Touchstones Ltd., 33 Ashby Road, Loughborough, LEICESTERSHIRE, England. (remember this was in 1973! R.Ø. remark.)

"….You don't return to God at the end of this life on Earth just as a small child returns to Daddy or Mummy. It is not like that at all. There are many, many things to be learned. There are billions, trillions of years to live in different stages, and I must tell you in this connection that I had a most offensive letter from two people in Australia. (in connection with the timeaspect on the development of the consciousness - the pleiadian contactperson Semjase and Ptaah - told that the primitive man had to go thorugh a development of at least 70.000.000.000 earth-years, before reaching the level of spiritual perfection. This should require a lot of incarnations - as the average time between two incarnations now are ap. 170 years - after what they told. For scandinavian readers see JORDENS FJERNHISTORIE I NYTT LYS. R.Ø. remark.)

But so back to Rampa and the letter from Australia: A man and a woman claimed that they were 'in touch with the Gardeners of the Earth', and the Gardeners of the Earth were such wonderfully good people, and all I write in 'The Hermit' must obviously be imagination because the Gardeners of the Earth would never do anything to harm a human. My goodness me! These people in Australia - they must have a hole in their head or something! Humanity is not the highest form of creation, it is just another specimen the same as an ant (maur) is a specimen, the same as a tapeworm (bendelorm) is a specimen. A tapeworm is learning one thing, a human is learning another, or rather - correction - they should be learning, which is a different matter altogether.

But again, let me state definitely that we are here to learn - certain things and to do certain things, and life goes on and on in cycles. I prefer to regard it as the swing of the pendulum; we have a pendulum swinging, now it is at the top of its stroke and we are at a Golden Age where everything is wonderful, everything is peaceful - but where nobody learns. And then the pendulum falls and things become worse and worse, lower and lower. When we reach the lowest point of the pendulum swing there are wars and rumours of wars, murders, everything, the whole crime calendar rolled into one. But after that the heedless pendulum continues upwards and so we get a Golden Age again wherein no one learns for it is a fact, a sad fact but still a fact, that people only learn by hardship and by suffering, and when a person has all that he wants he sits back and enjoys comfort and does not do anything to try to help others or even himself.

Another person writes to ask: 'Can we ever meet our individual opposites?' By that, presumably, is meant the twinsoul, and if that should be so then the answer is no, you do not meet your twinsoul on this world, because if you did you would be complete and thus could not stay here. You can only stay here if you have an 'anchor', which moors you here, some defect; or some artificially induced fault, which enables one to stay here.

People who come from beyond the spheres are like divers, they have to wear the equivaient of a lead belt, lead boots, etc., in order to keep submerged in this dreary (triste) world. So if a person met his or her twinsoul there would be the nearest approach there can be to perfection, and you cannot have perfection in a world such as this. So you will have to wait for your twinsoul until you leave this world.

Now another person says: 'You emphatically declare that each one of us finds God alone through individual effort, and that we should not depend upon others for assistance. Do you mean that the ultimate responsibility for use of one's' freewill in committing oneself to God - rests squarely upon each individual's shoulders. No matter what kind or unkind things have been done to us by others - one consciously chooses the direction of his vision. Of course truth and justice or deceit and injustice can affect the course of our lives, either way towards - or away from the light, but isn't the application of the Golden Rule vitally important for each of us to practise, thereby helping others?'

I say quite definitely that every person must stand alone. It is silly to join cults, gangs, associations, institutes, etc., etc., and to expect 'salvation' thereby, because you won't find salvation in these money - making cults which are merely out to get your money! Look at it like this; a person dies - leaves this Earth for the astral realms - and that person is going to go to the Hall of Memories and answer to himself or herself for things which have been done or have not been done. There is no one else there except the newly arrived soul or entity or whatever you like to call it and the connection with the Overself. Now, I tell you quite definitely - quite, quite definitely - you answer alone. You won't get the secretary or chief tutor of the Hot Dog Society, or whatever you like to call all these cult things, to come and answer for you. You won't find the President of the Rednose Association coming and saying, 'Oh yes, Overself, you don't know anything; I told this person to do such a thing because the rules of our Association say that that is so, so he should take your place.'

You have to stand alone, then, naked and probably ashamed with it. And if you toss out all thoughts of these associations and cults on this Earth, then you will be in training to answer alone when you reach the Other Side. (Again - todays big number of near-death-experiences - seem so clear to confirm the statements that Rampa here did - many years before those "storys" came forth. R.Ø. remark.)

Of course, if you are going to answer to your Overself then you need to have some good answers, and the best way is to obey the Golden Rule which is, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This person who writes this question seems to be wriggling and writhing and doing anything to evade (unnvike) the simple truth, the truth which is - you have to learn to stand on your own two feet, no matter whether they are flat or not. You have to stand on them, you have to be responsible for yourself, and if you help others by adherence (overholdelse) to and obedience of the Golden Rule, then you will have much good in your astral bank account.

Let me again state that God is not standing there with a whacking great cane, and the devil is not standing there with branding irons either. God is a positive force, the devil is a negative force, they are not people who praise or torture. While down here on this Earth you cannot understand things which happen in many more dimensions. In the same way a sea slug sitting on a bit of slime in the bottom of the ocean could not possibly understand what people on the Moon are experiencing, it could not even understand what people in high - rise buildings are thinking or doing, nor could it understand the commotion which is caused when people turn their television sets full on. All that would be completely beyond the comprehension of people here in the third dimension to try to understand what people in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, or twentieth dimension are doing. So everything is relative. We might understand more or less what other people on Earth are doing, we might have a greater feeling that they are doing right or they are doing wrong, but how could we possibly attempt to understand what twentieth - dimension people are doing? You cannot comprehend the concepts of another dimension unless you have had some experience of that dimension.

Actually you can get an idea, a rough idea, from thinking that everything is vibration. One end we call 'feel', a bit further we say 'sound', higher up still it is 'sight'. Everything is vibration, on any planet, on any system, or any universe, so that gives us some faint illustration of other dimensions. It is rare indeed for a person to feel a sound or see a sound, yet they are all vibrations, all part of the same scale. There are entities who can see sound, there are animals who can hear different sounds, those which are beyond human range. Dogs, for instance, will respond to a whistle which is completely silent to humans. Cats see colours on a different spectrum; cats, for example, see red as silver. But to give another slight illustration which might help, try to work out this for yourself:

We have a person who was born blind. Now, you have the task of explaining to that person who was born blind the difference between red and pink, or between yellow and orange. How are you going to do that? You can't. There is no way in which you can explain to a blind person the difference between yellow and orange, or amber and brown. You could possibly explain the difference between red and green if the person was extremely sensitive and could feel the difference. But you work that out - you want to know what other dimensions are like, so cut off a dimension that you know, cut off sight. Then how are you going to explain to a person who has never known sight the difference between pink and red?

Supposing you have a person who is completely deaf; how are you going to' get that person to appreciate the difference between two fairly similar musical notes? Not so easy, eh? So unless you can give me answers to my questions I cannot tell you of the experiences of the ninth dimension.

Here is a question which will make your hair stand on end, so ladies, put on your bath hats; gentlemen, if you are bald, your hair will be standing up on your bald skulls! Here is the question: 'According to the Zen philosophers there really is no right or wrong thereby eliminating the need for judgment.'

Can you answer that? Well, I see the point behind it, and the answer is this: on the Greater scale of things 'right' and 'wrong' are completely different from what they are on Earth. Here there are certain rules or laws which have to be obeyed for what is commonly thought of as the common good. For example, it is not right to steal, so a man, in theory at least, should starve to death rather than steal money to buy food.

If a man is smoking and for some reason he puts his still alight pipe in his trousers pocket and sets his trousers on fire, then in theory he shouldn't pull them off - because then he would be naked and he would offend public decency, and he could in fact be charged with 'indecent exposure'. So, according to law, a man should be definitely hotted up in all the best places rather than expose himself to the lewd gaze when his trousers were on fire. Which do you consider right?

While on the subject of indecencies, in some places the lady must keep her face covered from the gaze of all mankind. She can leave the lower part of her body quite uncovered and still be decent. Yet in other parts of the world she can have her face bare but the lower part of her body must be covered, otherwise she is very much in disgrace. So what is right, in one part of the world is wrong in another. Right and wrong are man - made precepts, and these have no basis of stability beyond the Earth. At the same time, if one is judging oneself in the Hall of Memories - one has had to go according to the rules in force during One's lifetime. It would not matter in the least if you had transgressed (overtrått) against the purely artificial laws, for instance, if you had removed your clothes in public - that would not be an offence in the Greater Reality of the astral world. Anyway, Christians believe that Man is made in the image of God and yet they make an awful hullabaloo if a person appears naked, but why? Are they saying that God is indecent (uanstendig)? But anyway, that is just a personal thought of mine.

What does matter in One's 'judgment' is that you have to answer - - Have you harmed another person? Have you helped another person? As examples of this, a person had a job, which you coveted (begjærte). You very much wanted that job, you could see yourself exactly fitting into that Position, and so you made a little plot against the incumbent of that Position so that he was discharged from his employment and you took it in his place. Now that, of course, is a sin, because that is going against a law of the Universe, which is 'Do no harm unto others'. But if you told a little white lie in order to help a person get a job which he really could do, then that lie would not be an offence, it would be good!

Far away, above all the trumpery laws and regulations of mankind, there are basic truths, basic rules which we transgress only at our peril. The laws of Man on Earth are not made for the individual but for the majority, and so that the best interests of a majority can be served often a law will appear to inflict hardship upon the individual. Never mind, that is one of the things we have to put up with if we are crazy enough to live in communities because liberty is a relative term. If we were free to do anything at all, then we could go into anyone's house, take anything we wanted, do anything we wanted, and then we would be entirely 'free'. Actually, that would not be to the benefit of the community as a whole and so there are laws to protect the majority against the minority, and we break those laws at our peril, peril on Earth, that is; most of them don't matter the slightest beyond this Earth. What does it matter, for instance, if a person buys a packet of cigarettes in England after eight o'clock in the evening? What does it matter if, in Canada, a person buys a newspaper on a Sunday? All these are childish stupid things, but somebody had an idea somewhere even if nobody knows what the sense of the said law now is!

Here is another question: I understand that entities of the fourth and other dimensions are all very busily occupied in helping souls in this, the third dimension, and they stay exclusively helping us upon this world. What do they get out of it?'

No, of course that is not true! Let us consider life, all life, as a school - - of course somebody will write to me and say, 'Oh, you are repeating yourself, you've told us all this before. But obviously I couldn't have told it very clearly or people wouldn't still be asking me about it, so you people who want to write and complain, just be quiet for a bit, will you?

All life is a school, then. Different classes, different grades. We on this Earth happen to be in Grade Three (third dimension). People in the fourth dimension are in Grade Four. People in the fifth dimension are in Grade Five. Now tell me seriously, thinking back to your own school days, can you truthfully say that the students in Grade Five at your school were very interested in staying on and helping the students in Grade Three? More likely the Grade Five, students thought the Grade Three students were crummy little punks who were beneath even a contemptuous notice. That is so, isn't it? So let me tell you this: there are certain people who are teachers who are unfortunate enough to be persuaded to 'volunteer' to come to Grade Three to teach the crummy little punks in this class, and when they get down to Grade Three they find that the students are not at all anxious to learn (were you anxious to learn when you were at school?), so the teacher gets all sorts of nasty things said about him and eventually he gets really fed up with the whole procedure, and he says to the Headmaster, 'Well Boss, I can't stick all these punks, I have to go to a different class or I shall go, even crazier. Where can you move me?'

So take it from me, the teachers on the Earth - teachers from other dimensions - are trying hard to do something to help the people in Grade Three, help the people in the third dimension. And if the people in the third dimension would be a bit more appreciative (takknemlige) - they would get on much faster because there comes a time when even the best of teachers get sick and tired of continual persecution (forfølgelse) and wants to move on.

Now I have been taken to task, not for the first time and not for the last, but I have had a comment: 'Oh, but you can't leave it like that!! People will not at all understand what you mean by 'God'. In some places you say that God is a concept and in other places you say that God is a person. How are you going to account for that?'

Oh dear, oh dear, troubles never come singly, do they? Well, there are Gods and Gods. The average person prays to his or her 'God'. Actually the prayers are going on the first - class route to the Overself, but if you want to get a bit higher up then you can pray to the Manu of the planet. Or, if you have 'connections' up there, you can pray to the Manu of this whole Universe. As I have tried to make clear in my books (apparently without any success!) the God - system is very much like a multiple store or a chain of stores where you have each branch manager as 'God' to his cohorts or hirelings. But all the departmental managers or branch managers look upon the President or Chairman of the Company as 'God'. So let's try to get this clear; one can pray to, a person whom one regards as 'God'. He may be the Overself, he may be a Manu, or he may be a Chief Manu, or he may even be the God of the Universe. But he is not the 'top God' by any means. The 'top God' is something completely different, something which one can only regard as a concept at the present time because, as I have already been telling you, you cannot discuss, nine or ten or twenty dimensional things in three - dimensional concepts. So go on regarding your God as a person or entity, but keeping clear in your mind that there is something very, very much higher than all this.

"…lets go back to art - if we see something beautiful - we appreciate it, we like it, we get pleasure from it. But if we see something terrible - what shall I say? A picture of devilish tortures? - whatever it may be, if it is a terrible, beastly, horrible thing it depresses our vibrations and we get to thinking, 'Oh, suppose that should happen to me!' Then immediately it sets up a chain reaction in our vibrationary make - up and the unpleasant vibration, which we call fear - feeds upon itself and produces more fear.

You get the same thing sometimes when people pass a graveyard at midnight and something stirs. The hair on the back of their necks sticks up and there is a great temptation to start off at a run because the imagination lowers the vibrations so that one is susceptible to impressions from the lower astral of disembodied spirits, bodies in coffins and all the rest of it, and we think that such things could happen to us, we think that a ghost is going to come out and bite us behind, or some - thing. Well, we think about that and we fail to be rational about it, and so the fear grows and grows. In other words, the vibrations become lower and lower and we become gloomier and gloomier.

Fear is nothing but uncontrolled imagination. If you want to overcome fear just be certain that nothing is going to hurt you. Nothing can hurt you!! Tell yourself that you are an immortal soul and although it is possible for someone to temporarily damage your clothes or your body - that will not hurt the essential you. The less you fear fear - the less you will have fear, so that in the end you can discipline yourself so much that fear does not exist, cannot exist in your make - up. Then you will know contentment and satisfaction, then you will walk with your head up and your shoulders back (unless you live in a wheelchair!).

Now, listen to this - 'You have described how drugs can do great harm to one's spirituality. Can such damage be repaired within a lifetime? You say, also, that one should never take drugs, but surely you will agree that many people have secured out-of-the-body experiences by the use of drugs, have secured spiritual enlightenment through the use of drugs. I believe you are wrong when you say that drugs are harmful. What do you say about that?'

Yes, ma'am, I do say that drugs are wrong. Drugs are the work of the devil himself because if you take drugs, then you are altering your vibrations artificially and are making it almost impossible (I said 'almost') to develop spiritually without the aid of such props (støttebjelker).

Drugs are terrible things indeed and they definitely stain (setter flekker på…) your astral body and impair (skader) your physical body.

Do you believe that athletes should be given drugs to make them run faster or jump higher? Do you believe that people should take Benzedrine tablets to keep them going longer? If you do - you should read some of the police reports. For an illustration I will tell you about long - distance truck drivers; these men drive vast distances every day and, naturally, they get tired. So many of them have been in the habit of taking drugs or, as they term them, 'goof - balls', and police records and insurance statistics quite irrefutably prove that the use of these drugs causes accidents, death, and mental impairment. Now if drug firms could do so with safety they would sell all manner of drugs, they are in the business to make money, but it is stupid to go on sernng stuff like - LSD, goof - balls, and the like, and then find that they are injuring the health of so many people. I say that drugs should be quite definitely banned.

But those who have taken drugs, what hope have they? They have every hope provided they most rigidly abstain from taking drugs any more, provided they eat sensibly and drink sensibly, and provided they do not go in for too many forms of abuse - self - abuse, that is. No one is 'beyond the pale'. Everyone can be helped if they want to be helped. So if any of you who are drug addicts really want to 'kick the habit', then you can 'kick the habit' and by the time you get to the Other Side, you will find that your astral form has recovered from the psychic shock of your physical drug addiction.

I do want to say something here about suicide because of late I have been shocked at the number of people who have written to me saying that they have been on drugs and they see no way out except td commit suicide. Well, my goodness me! Suicide is very very wrong indeed. You harm yourself, and you have to come back to much worse conditions if you commit suicide. If you have difficulties which make you think about suicide, then talk over the matter with a priest, or even with the Salvation Army, or look in the telephone directory and find some Association or Society connected with Welfare with whom you can discuss your problems. So let me emphasize as I have emphasized so often in the past - never contemplate suicide. Never commit suicide. You are hurting yourself if you do. If you commit suicide, well, you have abandoned help. If you stay alive there is always some way out of your problem. Suicide is not a way out because - I repeat - you come back to harder conditions.

Now another question: 'How is it that some people come to one sign of the Zodiac and some to another sign? if we come as a Taurus person how can we appreciate the problems of a Cancer person or a Leo person or a Scorpio person, or something else? I don't understand this problem about how we come under different signs of the Zodiac. Will you tell us?'.

Yes, I can tell you. Every person goes through every sign of the Zodiac, and there are twelve signs. And every person has to live through each quadrant of the Zodiac. So you can be just entering the sign of Libra in one life, then in another life (not necessarily the next) you can be right midway in the sign of Libra, and in yet another life you can be just leaving the sign of Libra, or, of course, all the other signs of the Zodiac. So you have to live through every sign and every part of the sign - so that you get full experience of each of the signs.

Question: 'Tell us about the future. Are we in the West all going to be "in for it", or will things suddenly brighten for us? Tell us, will you? I've just bought a place up in the Rockies in Washington State, I am having a house built there, and I am hoping to be free of all troubles. Will I be?'

Well, we have to remember that everything comes in cycles. Imagine that you are watching a great big pendulum. The pendulum is at the top of its stroke. Let us say you are facing this pendulum and it is up at the top of its stroke on the right - hand side. Then you release it, and it moves down and eventually it reaches its lowest point, and then it rises to go up to its highest point. Then it reverses and comes down to the lowest point, and up again. Life - existence - is like that. You get a Golden Age and then people are too self - satisfied so things get worse and worse, things get lower and lower just like the pendulum on its downward swing. And then, when it is nearly at the bottom of its swing, you get the negation of all liberties, you get Communism when people get horribly sick of being dictated to. After that they strive again for freedom and so, just as the pendulum moved to the upward stroke, people strive for more spirituality and they work hard at it, they put aside their petty bickering, they put aside their fighting, conditions improve. Eventually (omsider) life becomes quite pleasant, then it becomes exceedingly good, better and better. And so we come again to a Golden Age, an Age in which people get complacent, too self - satisfied, too content. So they sit back, they've got everything, there is nothing more to work for. And then the pendulum starts on its downward swing again, and so people find hardship coming, they find Communism comes again, and so we get the same thing cycle after cycle.

Now upon this Earth we are having a hard time. The pendulum is still going down, and it has to go down still further before it can go higher, but cheer up - the Communism the world will know - will not be so severe as that which initiated that evil cult or policy into this world, because each time conditions get a little better. So - we are approaching the darkest hour before the dawn, but after the darkest hour shafts of light will shine across the sky, the gloom will end, the day will dawn, and again we shall come to the Golden Age. But at the end of the day the night will fall again, to be followed by gloom and darkness until again dawn will burst upon the world and life will become brighter and brighter until, with increasing complacency and self - satisfaction, conditions will deteriorate. And so until the end of Time the Earth and all worlds have these cycles of good and bad, and good and bad. So be of good cheer because no one is ever alone or deserted. There is always hope, so keep that in mind. You can be as good as you want to be. You can be helped at any time if you really want to be.

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