Apparitions, Messages, Dreams – Sorting out Illusions from Genuine Experiences
Inspired by spiritual topics dealt with on the Good-Will website people sometimes write questions. So a person asked a few days ago: “What about apparitions of Jesus Christ, of his personal messages? Messages of the Holy Virgin Mary and angels in dreams? Or about certain masters or just dreams about the god Thot?”
Sceptical people with an intellectual attitude generally mock such experiences or rationalise them away, whereas esotericists indulge in fanciful hypotheses. There exists an ocean of channeled messages, and many people flock to supernaturalist phenomena like moths to the light. However the “livecycle” of their interest is generally just a few months or years, before other things occupy their attention. There is not deeper transformation of character happening.
The answers the wisdom teachings give belong to neither of these two parties. They might be desillusioning to those who are attracted by a craving for sensation. However, they might also give explanations to an agnostic, but open mind in search of a deeper understanding.
The teachings say that there are many persons claiming to have contact with Jesus, Maria and all kinds of masters and that each strong concept forms a thought form on the mental plane. People can contact these thought forms loaded with a lot of devotional emotion when they have a certain affinity and sensitivity, this also during sleep hours. This has nothing to do with a certain degree of spiritual development, but with the openness of certain subtle energy centres. The mental plane is full of imaginations created by man, and on the spiritual path it is regarded as some kind of a “cinema”, which might be fascinating, but mainly illusionary.
The real inner contact with masters of wisdom or other sublime beings happens in silence, without publicity, and expresses in an inspiration for a work of service to the well-being of mankind. It demands a cultivation of character, a purity of the personality. If someone has visionary experiences, in dreams, meditations or during the wakeful hours, it is good to observe them and note them down in a diary, and also to observe their quality and impact on one’s life. This way you feel what this “gift” is telling you – and you leave away all kind of proselytising others.
If people claim having certain visions or contacts, the best is to observe them and their character without any sensational attitude or curiosity, but with a good sense of discrimination. The energy of a “message”, of a dream or a possible apparition is the proof if the underlying impulse is a genuine spiritual one or a cloak for more or less subtle personality glamour. Running after phenomena leads nowhere except into the jungle of opinions and irritations. Genuine spiritual experiences blossom from an impulse received in one’s inner being.
