The Discerning of Spirits: Selections from “The Perfect Way or the Finding of Christ” by Dr. Anna Kingsford (vegetarian), Part 1 of 2

Dr. Anna Kingsford, an outstanding English Theosophist of the 1880s, was said to be clairvoyant from the time she could speak. She herself felt that she came from the fairy realm and was given permission to be born as a human being so as to carry out her destiny. While maintaining her spiritual and vegetarian interests, Anna Kingsford became a doctor. Dr. Kingsford continued with her inner spiritual and mystical experiences, which she documented in several books, in collaboration with long-time friend Edward Maitland. We now share with you selections from the book, “The Perfect Way or the Finding of Christ.” The Third Lecture The Various Orders of Spirits and How to Discern Them Part I

“The Spirit and Soul, which are original life and substance, are Divine and uncreated. The astral and material bodies are the ‘created,’ — that is, the manifested, – part. The astral, which is also called the sideral, the odic, the magnetic, the fiery, – is fluidic, and constitutes the bond between the soul and the material body. It is the original body, being that which makes and that which becomes. The original, permanent individual consists of soul and spirit; and when manifested it is by means of the astral or fluidic body, of which the material or fixed body is the outer manifestation – the manifestation, as it is called, in ultimates.”

“Every creation, or complete manifested entity, whether it be macrocosmic or microcosmic, is a compound of two dualisms, which are respectively celestial and terrestrial, or spiritual and material. The celestial, or kingdom of heaven, which consists of soul and spirit, is within. And the terrestrial, or kingdom of this world, which consists of astral body – the seat of the anima bruta – and of phenomenal body, is without. Of these two dualisms, each is to the other the Beyond. And between them, saving only where one and the same Divine Will, – the will which has its seat in, and which is, the Spirit, – pervades the whole being, is antagonism. They are respectively the spiritual man and the natural man. But in the suffusion of the entire personality thus constituted, by one and the same Divine Will, consists what mystically is termed the At-one-ment, or reconciliation between man and God, but which is commonly called the Atonement.”