Excerpt

Chapter 1 The First Session: Introduction to Michael

We are here with you tonight.

With that phrase the entity known as Michael introduced itself to Jessica Lansing on a pleasant night in October of 1970. Jessica, then thirty-two, is a publicist by profession, a well-educated woman with an extensive background in the arts religion, psychology, and history. Her husband, Walter, is a building contractor; a pleasant-faced man with an abiding interest in all aspects of engineering. On that particular evening, they were entertaining a number of dinner guests including Craig and Emily Wright. There were four other guests, but they were not to participate in the extraordinary event that would occur.

Jessica and Walter Lansing had long been interested in parapsychology and psychic studies and occasionally tried their hands at different techniques, but with no significant results. On that October night they had decided to try the Ouija board that Jessica had been given as a gift. The dinner party was not going well; the mixture of guests had not "clicked."

The Wrights were interested in the Ouija board. Walter thought it might be fun, and it was easier to try that than to dream up conversation. Besides, Jessica had been curious about the board for some time.

"I had my doubts about the board, of course," Jessica says now very matter-of-factly. "Sometimes I still do. What startled me at first was that it was so unexpected."

They did not really expect anything to happen as they sat at the dining room table with the board between Jessica and Walter, their fingers placed lightly on the planchette, waiting for something to happen. There were a few random movements of the planchette, and what might have been letters indicated were faithfully read off and written down by Emily Wright. All in all, it did not seem very exciting, and they began to relax, and as Jessica herself says now, "We decided that it didn't matter; nothing had happened and nothing was going to happen. I was beginning to wonder if we ought to put away the board and play cards. Two other guests, Leah and Arnold Harris, were good at canasta."

This letting go of expectations, although Jessica did not realize it then, was crucial to opening up that part of her mind through which the entity Michael operates. That night she had ceased to want the board to work, her mind was open and, though alert, it was wandering somewhat. Walter, too, was becoming restless and their other guests were talking quietly over coffee in the living room while Craig and Emily sat with Jessica and Walter in the dining room. They were comfortable and very much at ease, not upset or hostile.

It was then that the planchette began to move, slowly at first, and then briskly. The words were spelled out, and the message read: We are here with you tonight.

Reaction ranged from derision to confusion to curiosity. Walter was quite disturbed, insisting that he had had no part in that comment, that the planchette had just "moved." He thought that Jessica might have done it, but she insisted that if anyone had, it was Walter. Emily was the one who thought to ask who "We" might be.

Jessica was reluctant to try the board again after so unexpected a response. Walter was unsure that it was a good idea to ask any more questions as they might be tampering with persons or forces they had no desire to deal with. This sentiment was echoed by Craig, who was immediately suspicious of the message. "Besides," he recalls, "all I could think of at the time was what it might say. There might be someone there with hidden anger or malice who would want this kind of outlet-a safe way to express what they would not say in words." Did Craig have anyone in particular in mind? "No. I knew Jessica and Walter fairly well, but the other two couples I'd met only once or twice before." Then why did he have this reaction? "Well, if there's one thing I've learned in my practice as a surgeon," he says, "it's that people will find a way to express what's frightening them or angering them. Often it comes out in illness. It's one of the most difficult problems doctors have to deal with. Michael has warned us about this tendency many times. Many illnesses have psychosomatic origins, and with something as chancy as a Ouija board, well, I was suspicious let's put it that way."

Jessica chuckles. "What Craig means is that he didn't believe a word of it. He was certain that Walter or I had done something."

"Not consciously," Craig protests.

"That doesn't make it any better," Jessica retorts. "The funny thing is," she continues reflectively, "that Craig was the one who was most anxious to go on. I was scared and Walter was reluctant and Emily was alarmed, but that skeptic over there"-she nods toward Craig-"he was all for it."

Finally curiosity overcame their reluctance and Jessica took her place at the table again, opposite her husband, her hands on one side of the planchette and Walter's on the other. Very hesitantly they asked who or what was speaking through the board.

You may call us anything you wish.

"We were nonplussed," Walter says. "None of us knew what to say to that, but even though I felt damned silly, I asked the board what we would call it if we wanted to make contact with it again. Was there some name that whatever-it-was would accept?"

The last name a fragment of this entity used was Michael.

"Entity? Fragment?" Jessica said, somewhat puzzled. "What does that mean?"

Craig and Emily, who were sitting at the head of the table, had no answer.

Do you think this Michael-thing will explain?" Emily asked, looking up from her notebook where she had been writing down the responses as Jessica read the letters off the board.

"I hope so," Walter said.

The other two couples had retreated to the living room and were enjoying an after-dinner drink, rather pointedly ignoring what was happening in the dining room.

"I realized that we weren't being very sociable," Jessica recalls, "but I really wanted to hear the explanation."

The explanation took some time, and Jessica began to get a headache as she followed the movement of the planchette around the board. Walter said little, only calling out the letters as the little plastic device hovered over one after another.

Each soul is a part of a larger body, an entity. Each entity is made up of about one thousand souls, each of which enters the Physical plane as many times as is necessary to experience all aspects of life and achieve human understanding. At the end of the Cycles on the Physical plane, the fragments once again reunite as we have reunited.

"It's a kind of astral guru," Emily said, not quite sure she believed it.

We are of the Mid-Causal plane, was the prompt correction. The Astral plane is accessible to the Physical plane. We are not.

"I guess that tells us," Jessica said, thinking that this would be the end of it. "Then," she recalls, "I had a strange sensation at the back of my head. It seemed to go down my shoulders and into my arms. My hands felt prickly, as if I were about to break out in hives. I must have turned pale, too, because Walter was alarmed and suggested that we stop."

"But this was just getting interesting," Emily had said, beginning to enjoy herself.

"I was somewhat upset," Jessica says now, remembering that evening, "and probably rather frightened." Just probably? "Well," she says reasonably, "that was some time ago, and I've had a lot of time to get used to Michael. He certainly doesn't frighten me now. But that first evening, I was probably scared. It was alarming, sitting there with this board and planchette, getting words that made sense that I didn't have any control over."

Jessica decided to continue working with the board a little longer. Emily and Craig had paper and pens now, and were writing as the information came. After some misgivings, Walter agreed to keep at it a little longer.

"OK, then, if you aren't an Astral plane guru, what are you?" Walter demanded.

We are not the path to spiritual enlightenment. We offer a way to human understanding based on our own experience, first as humans ourselves in both troubled and tranquil times and now as the reintegrated fragments of a Causal body no longer alive as you know it but still with keen awareness of what being human entails.

"Does that mean that you have the answer to enlightenment? That seems kind of farfetched," Craig remarked as he finished writing down the dictated letters.

The answer came promptly: We are not the path. We are an ancient entity that comes to all who ask [and whose Life Plan and Life-Task support this work. (Scholar's transcript)]

Our purpose is to teach some understanding of the evolution on the Physical plane so that the student can reach some insight into human behavior which will enable him then to stop brooding over interpersonal relationships or the lack thereof and concentrate on personal Life Plans.

"Sounds like merit badges," one of the other guests said sarcastically. He had come back into the dining room and had been listening. "Are you going to keep at this nonsense much longer? Doris and I were hoping you'd have time to talk about the room addition, Walter."

This very definite disapproval made the four at the dining table suddenly uncomfortable. Walter hesitated, because, as he admits now, "What the board was saying was fascinating. I wasn't sure I liked it, but I knew damn well that I had a lot more questions I wanted to ask." Nevertheless, being a good host, he left the dining room and went to talk with the two couples in the living room.

"I wish he didn't act like that," Jessica sighed, meaning their guest. "He's always putting down anything psychic. He insists there's nothing to it, and then refuses to examine any information that might prove him wrong."

Emily looked at the Ouija board. "I wonder what Michael has to say about that?" She was not more than half serious, but Jessica said, "Walter's not here."

Craig said he'd work the other half of the board; after an initial hesitancy, Jessica agreed. Craig took Walter's chair and Emily waited with her pen poised.

Human behavior at times defies understanding until a teacher can bring this understanding about; then the student must agree that the teacher's words are right and true. In other words, the student must realize within himself that the teaching is true. Understanding occurs when the student can go on to agape [the Greek concept of selfless and nonsexually expressed unconditional love], which is the goal.

"Are you saying you are that kind of teacher?" Jessica asked. She says now that she was both enthusiastic and frightened at what Michael's response might be.

Yes. The next part of the message came slowly, and with many long pauses. "It happens sometimes," Jessica says philosophically. "There are many things that Michael has trouble expressing in words, and when that happens, the letters come with difficulty."

If one is to seek the path to spiritual enlightenment one must first become aware of one's own inner humanness and exploit this to its fullest. If one is to seek the highest truth of all, one must first be able to recognize what is false--in other words, the lies must be told before the truth can be sought. In order to understand, there must be agreement on all levels. Love is the truth toward which we all aspire. In this we include ourselves and other entities like ourselves still seeking.

"But why?" Jessica asked helplessly when the message had been read back to her. Even at the time, she observed, "That's one of the big ones," with an uncertain laugh. She has said that she did not seriously expect an answer, but the planchette moved again.

There is no exalted purpose behind human life. The life itself is the purpose and is only one stage of evolution, which proceeds in an awesomely ordered, unalterable line until the created in effect evolves to become the creator. We prefer not to use the word God in speaking of the ultimate creative force of the universe.

"You don't call it God," Craig said. "I'm an agnostic, but I don't object to the word. Why don't you use it?"

Primarily because the word God in your society has become masculinized and requires the use of the masculine pronoun, thus perpetuating the personification of the universal creative force, which is ethereal and not physical. This cannot be personified, even for teaching purposes with this cadre [the groups of students in contact with the entity Michael]. It would be treading on thin ice for this entity. For us, this teaching is a form of evolution. Unfortunately the word god gives rise to anthropomorphic fantasies that have no place in this teaching. For our purposes we shall call this constant creative force the Tao, for it is impossible for the western mind to construct any visual image around this word.

"What on earth is he talking about?" Emily asked when she had read back the answer. "The Tao. That's Chinese, meaning 'the way,' isn't it?" She looked toward Craig for help.

Michael was the one to answer her question, somewhat obliquely.

From this Tao comes all things physical and nonphysical; to this Tao must all things return, each in its time and only when each has evolved to that point.

Jessica stopped and said that she wanted a cup of coffee. "I felt very spacey that night," she says now. "I thought I was in another world, and I suppose in a way I was. I kept thinking that none of it should be happening. And I wondered, 'why me?' I mean, look at me. I'm a sensible married woman. I'm forty. I've got a teen-aged daughter. I work in public relations. I'm not exactly the sort of woman usually exploring the occult."

It is easy to agree with Jessica Lansing. She sits in her high-ceilinged living room dressed in a neat suit. Her hair is light brown, a short pageboy cut. She is wearing a pair of jade earrings, but none of the bangles, bracelets, or shawls that one usually associates with many of those pursuing the occult. She is an attractive woman, not much different from those who live in the other houses on this woodsy hill. Her hazel eyes are direct and intelligent; she has a ready laugh and a subdued charm.

"You know, when Michael said that there was no way to end the cycles prematurely, I was shocked. I'd read some of the Hindu religious writings, and I remembered what had been said about that. The worship of Kali is supposed to extinguish the soul once and for all. Buddhism also teaches that the soul wants to return to Nirvana and be free of the burdens of rebirth. This seemed a direct contradiction of what I had read."

There were more contradictions to come, over the years. That night, Michael explained:
There is no premature return to the Tao. Evolution is an extremely slow and painstaking process, for only perfection becomes the stuff of which universes are made. We are far from that perfection, even on our exalted plane: we cannot even define perfection [as the Tao achieves it (Priest's transcript)] which is the end point of evolution. We can only know that it exists because we sense a higher state in those above us, just as you can only sense higher centers in exalted souls on your planet.

"But if that's the case," Craig objected, "then what are we doing here?"

Human understanding is the lesson of the Physical plane; without it, there can be no growth of the soul. To strive for spiritual enlightenment without gaining human understanding is to disregard the real purpose of your existence on the Physical plane. We cannot stress this enough. To this end, we make this teaching available to all who ask [when the Life-Task makes such study "applicable" as well as contributory. That does not mean that such study is an "error," only that for many it is included in the Life-Task, which provides a kind of "added incentive" to pursue such interests in this, or any number of other, forms. For those who have no such factor in the Life Plan and who choose such pursuits, the study is valid, of course, but it may not be as "central" to the focus of the life that it is when it is "part of the package." (Scholar's transcript)]

Walter, who had just seen the other four guests out the door, came back into the dining room. "I think they're annoyed with us," he said mildly. "It probably wasn't very wise of us to get so caught up in this stuff while they were here."

The others had to agree. "One of those women hasn't spoken to me since," Jessica says, a trace of a frown between her brows. "I know it was rude of us to ignore them as we did, but this seemed so much more important than an evening of whist." She pauses a moment with the beginnings of a smile on her face. "Well, now that I think about it, this was much more important than whist. I wish they hadn't felt so... threatened by what we were doing. There's nothing to be afraid of in what Michael has to say. It doesn't always make you happy, but there's nothing to fear in it." She sounds a little defensive as she speaks and her well-manicured hands tighten on the arms of her bentwood rocking chair. "I wish more people were willing to accept this material. I never talk about this at work. It's unfortunate that this has to be so secretive. But my boss wouldn't know how to handle this, if he was aware of it. And it could be so useful."

That first night none of the four anticipated that these sessions would become a regular part of their lives, taking up many hours, and with transcriptions running over two thousand pages.

"It seemed like one glorious chance, and so I stayed at the board with Walter or Craig much longer than I should have. I've learned now that there's a time to stop. That night, I thought I'd never have another session, and that I'd have to get everything I could at once."

It was Craig who asked how Michael saw himself.

This entity perceives itself as a part of the greater whole that is the oneness. This entity also perceives all of its fragments making up the whole, much as you perceive the individual parts of the anatomic structure. We would have to, at this point in our own evolution, agree that there is a pervasive cosmic awareness that is certainly present at the Tao. It is extremely doubtful, however, that those lofty entities on the Buddhic plane really long for the personalities they left behind aeons ago. What is lost is not the perception of self-what is lost is the personality's perception of the apartness, the separateness which is an illusion of the Physical plane.

This entity does not perceive the apartness that you feel when you are communicating with others. You perceive it because you are caught in the artificial limitations of the solid, rigid, space-time continuation of the Physical plane.

Jessica herself was the one who asked about that. "You make it sound as if reality isn't very dependable."

The realities, of course, depend upon the perceiver. This session itself is a good example. Some in this room perceive us as real. Others do not. The same could be said of unidentified flying objects and other unexplained phenomena. Another concept of reality begins with the widespread agreement that a certain object is "real." We think that Bishop Berkeley had a few words on this subject. There is, of course, an ultimate reality that is absolute. This can only be glimpsed when the Logos is brought to bear. Physical things are very real on the Physical plane, and should be respected as such in order to avoid possible serious collisions with doors that are really and truly there. On the Astral plane, things are truly real on the Astral plane. In another frame of reference the same admonition holds true. We on this plane also perceive certain Causal phenomena as real, and there is agreement. We believe that holds true for the high planes. This same subject has been occupying philosophers happily now for many thousands of years. There is, oddly enough, always an opposing opinion that goes something like "accept that nothing is real." Does this suggest anything to you?

"But we're reasoning beings," Walter protested. "We need a rational world. If any of this is valid, what does that do to reason?"

Reason. Man has always endeavored through the creation of chaos, or of a chaotic system (they're one and the same), to create the illusion of complexity which exists on the Physical plane. This illusion of complexity, that which we choose to call false order, by its very chaotic nature creates order of a sort easily incorporated into the belief systems of those who are limited to it. The concept of a physical god was created out of this very chaos--the necessity to solidify. The solidification of the cosmos--in an ironic sense, is true, of course.

Since there is no such thing as nothing... No-thing. But the solidification of the cosmos is man's first step toward explaining away those unexplainable phenomena with which he is confronted when he first confronts the physical universe. He must, of course, reduce it to the smallest possible limits.

Emily had said little during the session, but there was something disturbing her and finally she talked about it. "I'm a fairly religious person," she remarked, "and it sounds to me as if Michael is making antireligious statements. That troubles me. If there's only this Tao he talks about, where does that leave me?"

You, Emily, have accepted restrictions that you do not need. Your soul does not seek an anthropomorphic god. The soul has searched through the ages for truth. The Scholar has sought to intellectualize all experiences of ecstasy and has therefore denied the experience. Being now in touch, however timorously, with truth, is both threatening and incredibly inviting. To allow the experience, ritual or some form, that will enable the intellect to recede could be beneficial. More talking about it is not Good Work, and merely prolongs the agony that must, of course, [in almost all human fragments. (Scholar's transcript)] precede the ecstasy. We patiently await your trying another doorway.

It was after midnight and Jessica had an intense headache. "But I was determined to go on," she says, chuckling. "The next day I felt as if I'd fallen down a flight of stairs, but, well, good in spite of it all."

"But this sounds like you're preaching reincarnation," Craig had said as Jessica and Walter worked the board. "I just can't believe in that."

Belief is not required: you will reincarnate anyway. A leaf does not have to believe in photosynthesis to turn green.

"Michael," Craig said as he stared at the Ouija board, "is a smart-ass."

The others laughed then, a little embarrassed at Craig's statement.

"We agreed with him," Jessica says merrily. "That made it worse. It's true, though. Michael is a smart-ass."

That first night the session lasted almost five hours. "We were all so groggy we could hardly speak," Jessica recalls. "There wasn't a coherent sentence between us. I kept thinking that I didn't want it to be over. Then Walter got up enough nerve to ask if Michael would still be around to communicate with us if we stopped the session for a while."

The answer came back quickly.

By all means. We now have access to eternity.

Chapter One: Additional Information

When those seeking to "define their lives" beyond the limits of choice cling to this, or any teaching, the purpose of such work is often lost, for the transformation of "information" to "dogma" is always a hazard of such teachings, and far from the intention of any Mid-Causal teacher. We have nothing we impart other than information, and no goal in its imparting other than to answer those questions we are able to answer, with the caveats that we cannot predict and we will not "tell you what to do," since that would abrogate choice, which is in diametric opposition to our purpose in providing information. We would wish to underscore that point: we have no intention of communicating "dogma," but only "information" which you are, of course, free to use or not, as you choose. However, if you make "dogma" of our teaching, we would wish to point out that your purpose in doing so does not align with our purpose in providing it. (Priest's transcript)