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The Return to True Self

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Natar^
COMINC; HOME: The Return to True Self
© 1993 Martia Nelson

l\iblishcd by Nataraj Publishing

P.O. Box 2627

Mill Valley, CA 94942

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in

part, without written permission from the publisher, except by a re-

viewer who may quote brief passages in a review; nor may any part of
this lx)ok be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice nor pre-
scribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical or

mental problems without the advice of a physician either directly or

indirectly. In the event you use any of the information in this book
neither the author nor the publisher can assume any responsibility for
\'()ur actions. Tlie intent of the author is only to offer information of
a general nature to help you in your quest for personal growth.

1-irst printing, April 1993

ISBN I SS2S91 11-9

Primed in ilie United States of America •

10 9 8 7 6 S J ^21
mJ- to \^^. JMc
 nci^^s^oMjitiL^^^

With warmest heart I thank my friend Satyen for giving me the

nudge to begin this book. I am deeply grateful to Mary Wyman,
Carole Savoy, Sieuli Deerfoot, and Linda Thomas for support
and feedback in the beginning stages; your encouragement
gave me the confidence needed to proceed. add extra
I I thanks
to Linda Thomas for generously transcribing hundreds of pages
of material and for computer assistance above and beyond the
call of friendship. To Sue Brown, Karen Koshgarian, Stella

Rhodes, Judy Norton, Brad Clark, Ginny Clark, Stephen Francis

Martineau, Tom Swindell, Padi Selwyn, Denise Gardner, and
Barbara West — thank you for your gracious and insightful man-
uscript review.
To my father. Bill, thank you for being there when needed I

your support. Bob Cronbach, I treasure the innumerable gifts

your presence gave me throughout this project. And thank
you, Shakti Gawain and Manuela Adelman, for vour friendship
and stalwart belief in my work.
Great appreciation goes to my editors, Leslie Keenan and
Janet Mills, as well as to Katherine Dieter, Marcus Allen, Jane
Hogan, and Jim Burns for the care and attentiveness that went
into this book.
I especially thank my clients and students for all you have
taught me. I am grateful for your trust and for the honor of be-
ing allowed to witness to such depth the challenge, the beauty,
and the precious vulnerability of the human journey Mome.

VII
 CiH^te4^

Introduction xvii

Prologue xix

Part I
My Story:
I Begin the Return

1. Opening 3

2. Truth 6
3. Personality and True Self 7

4. My Search 9
5. The Overview 12

6. Seeing 13

Part II
Higher Guidance:
Our Link to Spirit

7. What Is Higher Guidance? 17

8. Where Does Higher Guidance

(]()me From? 19

9. Guidance and Its Form 20

CONTENTS

Part III
Self-Love:
Your Source of Life

10. The Love That You Are 25

1 1 Loving Yourself 26
12. Letting Love Light Your Life 28
13. Choosing Love 31
14. Loving Others 33
15. Recognizing True Love 34
16. Love and Physical Reality 35

Part IV
fourney into Form:
The Exploration of Limitation

17. The Journey So Far 41

18. Illusion and Truth 46
19. Living a Split 48
20. Choosing Your Reality 53
21. Emanations of Light 55

Part V
Creating Your World:
Abundance and Manifesting

11. Longing for Abundance 63

Ih. Receiving Abundance 64
24. Manifesting 68
25. Lnipowering Your Desires 70
 h 9
1

CONTENTS xi

26. Relinquishing Control 76

27. Owning Your Power to Create 80
28. Transforming Your Bloeks 85

Part VI
Enlivened Emotion:
The Healing Power of Intense Feeling

29. Emotion as a Vehiele for Spirit 95

30. Love 98
31. Hate 100
32 . Forgi ve ness 1 04
33. Anger 109

Part VII
Sexuality:
The Embodiment of Spirit

34. Sexual Energy and Life Eoree 125

35. Sexual Activity 128

36. Celibacy 134

Part VIII
Living the Split:

Redefining Destiny

37. Heeding the Call 14

38. Gathering Power 146

39. E m p( we
) ri ng Y( ) u r S peec 1 4
xii CONTENTS

40. Setting Your Course 151

41. Updating the Map 155

42. Getting Free of Self-Judgment 159

Part IX
Awakened Personality:
Loyal Servant to Unlimited Spirit

43. Transformation and Perfection 167

44. Nurturing Your Personality 171

45. Where Is Your Support? 174

46. Personality as Ally 176
47. Bridging the Split 178
48. Approaching the Bridge 180
49. Carrying Power 182
50. Discharging Excess Energy 183
51. Moving Through the Gate 186

Part X
Planetary Survival:
Facing Challenge in the World

52. Deepening Your Awareness 193

53. Survival and the One Mind 194
54. Transforming bear 200
55. Attachment. Suffering, and
Disaster 203
56. From Crisis to Compassion 208
57. Allowing IntegraticMi 212
 7

CONTENTS xiii

Part XI
You Are the Earth:
Living the One Body

58. Inner and Outer Realities 2 1

59. The World Catches Up

with You 220
60. Jiealing the World 221
61. Sharing Consciousness with
the Earth 225

Epilogue 229
To make the material as practical and useable as possible,

numerous attunements and guided meditations are sprinkled

throughout this book. For quick reference, they are listed

below by page number. As you work with these suggestions,

let yourself be creative in altering them to fit your needs and
your sense of truth.

Letting Love Light Your Life 29

Self-Love #1 37
Self-Love #2 37
Receiving Abundance 65
Being Creator of \l)ur Life #1 89
Being Creator of Your Life #2 90
Being Creator of Your Life #3 91
Being Creator of Your Life #4 92
Forgiveness 108
Staying Aware in Anger 120
Healing Through Anger 121

Spiritual Awareness in Lcwemaking 130

Sexual Energy and Healing 136
Sexual Energy and Unity 136
Accepting the Split 145

Yearning and Not Knowing 148

Talking About Yearning and Not Knowing 1 50

Yearning, Not Knowing, and Decisions 153

Finding Affection for Self 156

Facing Self-Judgment 159

XV
XVI ATTUNEMENTS AND MEDITATIONS

Creating Changes in Your Life 171

Feeling the Support of Source 175

Discharging Excess Energy 184
Moving Through the Gate 1 88
The One Mind 199
Responding to People's Fear 202
Finding Compassion in a Crisis 2 1

Witnessing Your Attachments 2 1

Responding to Distress in the World 224

 \1/Ct/Uod4ACt^i^

I've known Martia Nelson for many years. I've watehed her go
through the evolutionary process she describes in the first part

of this book, and I've seen her develop an extraordinary con-

nection with higher guidance as she writes about in part two.
I've had intuitive readings from her over the years, and
received amazingly clear and accurate insights and advice.
She sent me the original version of this manuscript two
years ago. I stayed up almost all night reading it, feeling very
excited. I knew it was one of the best metaphysical books I had
ever read, and I felt immediately that I wanted to publish it.

Due to various factors, I was not able to follow up on that feel-

ing immediately.
A year later she sent me a revised manuscript. Again, I

stayed up half the night reading, and once again I was blown
away by the clarity and power of the book. Now the time was
right. My husband, James Burns, and I had just started Nataraj

Publishing. We were pleased to sign Martia as one of our first

new authors.
Coming Home is a clear, practical and inspiring explana-
tion of how we can integrate our human experience with our
essential spiritual nature and express the potential that dwells

within all of us. As I read it, it actually lifts me into an expanded

perspective on my life. have found it very helpful in my own
I

personal process, and know many others will as well. Anyone

I

who has resonated with my work is likely to love this book.

Frankly, at this stage in my life read very few books of this I

nature. This one will be on my bedside table for quite some

time. I believe it's destined to become a classic.

— Shakti Ciawaiti

XVII
 P^UOto^iAC

This book comes straight from my heart. In Part I and Part II

I offer events from my life that signaled the beginning of my

spiritual awakening. Woven into my story is the learning that
came as I did my best to listen to spirit's voice and to keep my
footing on a path I often couldn't see. As you follow me on that
path, it is my hope that you will see yourself on yours and
that your heart will open in loving compassion to the being that
you are, to the being that we all are, on the great return Home.
The material in the remainder of the book is my interpreta-
tion of some of my most important lessons from higher guidance.
It is presented to reflect our deep experience ashuman beings.
I suggest reading own pace, stopping every now
it entirely at your
and then to attune to your intuition. Notice when something you
read carries a ring of truth for you, and take a moment to really
let it in. Or, if any information seems contrary to what intuition
tells you is right for you, feel free to ignore that material or men-
tally put it aside. Some of it may turn out to be more appropri-
ate for you later, orit may never have personal relevance. Glean

whatever information supports you in your growth, and give

yourself permission to leave the rest behind. If you feel the need
to stop at any point — for days, weeks, or even months — to inte-
grate what you have read, give yourself that time.

It is possible that as you read, emotions may surface that

you have not yet fully explored or have even known were
there. If this happens, please take good care of yourself and get
the support you need. You may benefit greatly by talking with

close friends. It may even be appropriate to join a support

group, talk to a minister or rabbi, or find a good therapist who
can guide you through your feelings.

XIX
XX PROLOGUE

Be sensitive to your needs and remember that it is not

necessary to go through personal growth alone. Getting suffi-

cient support from trustworthy sources during times of strong

emotion is essential for the journey into spiritual awareness.

Having a healthy and well cared for personality that feels nur-
tured and safe enables you to stabilize amidst rapid growth and
to open to deeper levels of experience.

To help you put the information you read to practical use,

attunements and meditations are sprinkled throughout the

book. You will find them in the middle of some chapters and
at the end of others — wherever the material invites a pause for
step-by-step integration. The attunements are new ways to

direct your awareness as you go about your day — ways of

"attuning" to a deeper reality while you remain at your every-
day level of consciousness. The meditations are guided pro-
cesses to be done when you can take time out to sit quietly for
several minutes and allow yourself a more complete transcen- i

dence into expanded experience. For easy reference, a table of ,

contents for the attunements and meditations is included in the j

front of the book.

j

Feel free to personalize these attunements and medita- '

tions. You may want to alter some instructions to more closely ;

match your natural wording, your beliefs, or your personal i

focus. You may also find yourself drawn to some of them, yet |

be completely disinterested in others. If so, pick your favorites

and do them according to whatever schedule (or nonschedule)
benefits you. 1 suggest you do not pressure yourself to do any i

meditations or attunements that do not feel right for you. You

are a unique individual and must honor your own truth. i

With love,

Martia Nelson* \

1993 ,

«
* Mania is pronounced like Marsiia
I Begin the Return
 1

In 1984 I stood at the edge of an abyss. Following an inner

intuitive message that my workaholic stress level was life-

threatening, I abruptly left the career 1 had nurtured for ten

years. I had no idea what was in front of me and secretly hoped

that I wasn't crazy to make such a radical change. All I knew
was that I was moving toward something new. I prayed that the
"something new" would find me if couldn't find 1 it.

I leapt into the chasm of the unknown and lived in free-fall

for more than a year. Throughout that time, never knew

1

where I was going or what was awaiting me. In moments of my

greatest uncertainty and fear, it was hard to believe that any-

thing awaited me at all. I sometimes wondered whether I

would survive.

If I didn't know where was going, at least knew what

I I I

was leaving behind: my past. It was being ripped out of my

hands with gale force as I fell. In giving up my work, I relin-

quished an identity that had given me my sense of self for a

decade. Each month I had no idea how I'd get the money to
live; I was without a love relationship to give me continuity or
security; I needed support more than ever, yet I found myself
letting old friendships fade away because they no longer "fit."

It was as though everything that had been real to me before — or

had made me real to myself — had become too vaporous to hold
onto anymore.
With my external reality slipping through my fingers, the

only thing left for me was inner reality. Intuition told me that

the deep, guiding part of my being was choosing this change to

prepare me for the next phase of my life, yet seemed to have I

no control over the practical details. None of the reliable struc-

tures of my life were there for me any longer. I felt deeply

4 COMING HOME

empowered yet totally helpless, all at the same time. I had noth-
ing by which to orient myself except the sense that I was in

transition to new territory in my life and that the secret to the

transition was somewhere within me.

As I looked within old pain flew up at me, desperate for
release. For many months my most distressing childhood expe-
riences presented themselves to me over and over again. With
the help of skilled body/mind therapists, and through lonely
hours of my own processing, I was able to come to terms with
what was happening: Everything within me that was a barrier

to my transition into the new was coming up for expression and

healing. All inner injury that still held me back from living my
greater truth was revealing itself and demanding my attention.
This process was painful, frightening, and time-consuming, yet
it significant period of my life.
was perhaps the most
my soul-searching, a friend told me about
In the midst of

a woman named Linda who did "intuitive readings," sessions in

which she communicated information from her higher guid-

ance to individuals wanting assistance in their spiritual growth.
In the hope of getting a more expanded perspective on what I
was going through (and where I might be going!), I made an

appointment for a reading.

Linda's technique was simple. She closed her eyes, went

into a light trance or meditation, and attuned her awareness to

higher guidance, inviting love and wisdom to come through

for divine purpose. The session was fascinating and quite help-
ful. Linda responded to my questions with an amazing sense of
love and accc{)tance. Mer higher perspective took for granted
aspects of my spirit that I had only sensed existed, and I felt

recognized at a deep level. Toward the end of the session,

Linda told me that 1, too, could receive guidance directly, if I

chose to. She suggested sitting for ten minutes three times a
day, with the intention of quietly listening. ,
 MY STORY 5

The suggestion that I could directly receive information

from a higher source surprised me. I still held the idea that very
few people could consciously receive higher guidance, and I

assumed that they fell into two categories: rare individuals who
were unusually gifted and somehow chosen for such special
spiritual work, and those who were fooling themselves and
others. Because I didn't identify with either category, I'd auto-

matically excluded myself from the whole possibility.

Being told that I could have contact with a source of ex-

panded knowledge and unconditional love stirred a longing in

me that I had never before let myself fully feel. Much of my life

had been lived with a buried grief, a sense that I had lost some-
thing deep within and couldn't hope to recover it. It had to do
with a vague memory of expanded family a family that ex-
tended beyond the people I knew and even beyond physical
form. This family was my true source, and longed to recon- I

nect with it. My grief at feeling separated from this family tran-
scended emotion; it was a spiritual yearning for Home.
My process of opening to higher guidance was to be the
beginning of my return Home. It took a month or two for me
to feel I was hearing guidance clearly, and I had to make several
inner adjustments to stay open and receptive. Most impor-
tantly, I learned that opening to higher guidance includes
allowing it to touch my life. This lesson came early on.
After a few weeks of sitting and listening the way Linda had
suggested, I felt I was getting nowhere. was frustrated and I

disappointed. Why did she tell me could do this if couldn't?

I I

It seemed like a cruel joke. 1 phoned Linda and complained.

Linda patiently heard my frustration, then checked in with her
guidance. "You're not ready," she reported back.
I hit the ceiling. "Not ready! If I'm not ready why did you
get my hopes up? Why did you tell me I could do something I

can't do?" None of it made sense. I had wanted io experience

6 COMING HOME

the contact so much and had even dared to believe it was possi-
ble. Now the whole thing was backfiring.
Linda's response was gentle, "It's not that you can't do it.

You're just not quite ready because there is something you're

blocking."
I started to say, "I'm not blocking anything!" but before I

could get the words out, something slipped inside me. I knew.
Tears streamed down my face as I told Linda about it. "It's that
I'm going to have to move. If I really listen to true guidance, I'll

know that my deeper self needs me to move out of the area. I'll

leave this house that I've lived in for so long and loved so
much. Home is the most important thing to me, and it's the
hardest thing for me to leave." The barrier was broken.

So often in our daily lives we block out things we don't want

to hear because of the conflict we'll feel. Yet in turning to
higher guidance we are asking for the truth. The truth has a
power to it. Whenever truth touches us, we are never the same
again. To the degree that we want to expand beyond our previ-

ous limitations in awareness and experience, we long for the

truth. At times we beg for it. But to the degree that we still want
control over the details of our lives, we resist the truth and fear
its touch. The pull toward truth is often equaled by our resis-

tance to it; the ambivalence is our reluctance to choose be-

tween empowerment and control.
When the truth touches us, every structure in our lives that

was built on nontruth is destined for change. When I let the

truth in about needing to move away, 1 finall)' allowed truth to

 MY STORY 7

touch mc. My house was my last holdout, the last tangible sym-
bol of my old self that I still clung to. In finally loosening my
grasp on the house, I recognized that the inner power guiding
me was beyond my control, and that its being beyond my con-
trol was the very reason it could propel me forward into
greater territory I couldn't even see yet. I knew then that mv
safety was in my trust of this powerful life force, not in my
efforts to control it.

I also realized that following higher guidance never means

having to do what it wants us to do. Higher guidance never has
an agenda of its own to impose. Its service is in assisting us in
opening to our divine purpose and inner truth, then support-
ing us in integrating this alignment into the actions and experi-
ences of our daily living. Our challenge throughout this pro-

cess is to give up our tendency to deny our inner truth; only

then are we really free to follow it.

PtM^y^AXX^ Af^ T^u*e Sd^

For the first year my contact with higher guidance was like ten-
der young shoots of new growth. I felt vulnerable and protec-
tive, happened with very few people. was afraid
sharing what I

Iwouldn't be believed or that old friends who'd had firsthand

exposure to my personal shortcomings would judge me as
unworthy of such a precious experience. So I consulted higher
guidance exclusively for myself for several months, then occa-
sionally for trusted friends or friends of friends.

I asked for assistance in every aspect of my life, and the

response was consistently helpful. I was given a deeper view of
each situation than I had i:)een focusing on. I'his view was
8 COMING HOME

expanded and was always aligned with a purpose greater than

I'd been able to see with my ordinary perception. The most

amazing thing was that it kept turning out that nothing about
my life was really wrong! This was difficult for my mind to

comprehend because my life was obviously a topsy-turvy

mess. Everything felt wrong, and my mind frequently told me

I was doomed. Yet higher guidance patiently showed me the
divinity, love, and hidden order in every situation, introducing
me time and time again to the perspective of my true self. My
heart recognized this truth, and I began to learn.

My greatest teacher was the experience of living in split

realities: personality and true self. Personality is our daily com-
panion, our conscious self that sees the world through the eyes
of limitation and dutifully keeps us informed about what we
can and cannot do. True self, on the other hand, patiendy
stands by, offering the unwavering knowledge that a state of
vibrant well-being and unlimited possibility is our true nature,
a birthright that can be lived if we choose to do so.

For clarification, I'd like to mention here that the term

"true self" is not meant to imply that any part of who we are is

false or unreal. All aspects of our being are real in our human
experience and have value. True self simply refers to the es-

sential self, or the aspect of our being that is completely aware

of its true nature no matter what we may be experiencing in

our lives.

Asbecame more aware of my true self, sensed when

I I I

was drawing from that source and when was not. realized 1 I

that my true self had been with me all my life, quietly guiding

me along, yet had not identified with it. My identity had been
I

with my personality.
Identifying with my personality meant that what had been
real to my personality had determined what was real to me. The

beliefs my personality held were the ones had chosen to live I

with. The feelings, assumptions, and expectations of my per-

 MY STORY 9

sonality were the base I had operated from and the yardstiek I

had used for measuring my sueeess, safety, sanity, and personal

well-being.
Now I was in a bind. My personality was threatened and
panicked by everything 1 was doing (and not doing). Yet my
true self rejoiced in my growth, showing me that had changed 1

the direction of my life at every level as an entry into something

greater. Habit would prompt me to believe my personality and
to take action to tighten control on my life. Yet habit's strength
was weakening in the emerging presence of true self.

At times the outer structures and events of my life tem-

porarily seemed to invalidate the information I received
through higher guidance and 1 was challenged to choose
which source to believe, which reality to identify with and act
from. So for quite some time I lived with both realities, and
with their apparently conflicting information. The magic was
that everything higher guidance told me and showed me ulti-

mately turned out to be true, even against seemingly impossi-

ble odds. And in spite of my personality's repeated warnings, I

did not go broke, I did not die, and I did not end up crazy or
alone. Instead, something within me shifted to incorporate true

self into my identity, and I learned a new wav to live.

The turning point came through a rite of passage tailor-made

for me. Because it was my area of greatest resistance — my per-
sonality's last stand — the drama unfolded around leaving my
house. After I realized 1 needed to move, 1 packed most of my
belongings and tried to figure out where I would be going. I
10 COMING HOME

sensed that a new home was waiting for me somewhere, but I

couldn't quite sense where it was. My inner guidance refused

to giveme the location, telling me that the process of finding
my new home was my learning. It said that tracking my new
place would strengthen me enough to make the shift into a new
way of living once I got there.
After I'd agonized over my dilemma for a few months,
the name of a specific town popped into my mind, out of
the blue, during a light meditation. The words were clear as a
bell, unmistakable. I set off for that area a few days later, and
when I arrived, I knew it was home. I began house-hunting and
easily found the right house; the third one I looked at was
definitely mine. I made an offer right away and couldn't wait to

move in.

My offer was accepted. The bank

Everything was perfect.
said there would be no problem with my loan. put my old I

house on the market and was confident it would sell quickly In

a few short weeks would leave the crowded city and settle in
I

the country. Cows would live across the street from me! I was
delighted with where my intuition was taking me at last.

Then the trouble started. The bank called and told me

the\''d made a mistake and couldn't possibly approve my loan.

Round and round we went, wasting time; they wouldn't budge.

On top of that, my house wasn't selling. Less attractive houses
nearby sold within days, yet mine brought no significant
response. 1 felt as though I'd entered the Twilight Zone and
couldn't get out.
As the deadline for buying my new house approached,
things looked grim. People began to tell me the situation was
impossible. Banks told me. The realtor trying to sell my old

house told me. Even the realtor representing me in buying the

new house told me. Well-meaning friends tried to me
prepare
for the disappointment they saw coming. That was when {
 MY STORY 11

learned to hate the often-heard "spiritual" axiom: "When

you're doing what's really right, everything happens easily and
effortlessly" (I'm here to say now that this is not always true.)

I was torn inside. For the first time in my life 1 had elearly
heard the intuitive voiee of true self, reeognized it as real, and
followed it by taking major aetion based on its guidanee. In let-

ting go of my old home and finding my new one, I had ehosen

the expansive reality of true self over the restrietive reality of
my personality. I had made the shift.

The planned move to my new home felt so deeply right,

more right than anything else had ever felt. Yet the outer events
clearly contradicted that inner certainty. The outer obstacles to

my move seemed so insurmountable that my confidence was

shaken. worried that somehow may have made a great mis-
1 I

take. Had been wrong in my perceptions of intuition and true

I

self? Was fooling myself about higher guidance being real?

I

Did this mean that could never really trust myself again?
I

At my wit's end, I consulted higher guidance about the

move. At once I felt a sense of peace and clarity. "Of course,
that's your new house," was the response I received. "You
found your home, and you will live there. Do not give up on
yourself. What appears to be most real often isn't. Everything
will work out."
I recognized that I was hearing the truth and proceeded in

that light. The third time my realtor called to tell me we should

admit defeat and cancel my offer on the new house, was clear. I

^ I said, "My guidance has told me that it's all going to work, and
I have confidence in that." Who knows what she thought, but
she didn't argue anymore.
Finally we found a way to satisfy the bank s concerns, and
my loan got last-minute approval. At eight o'clock on the night
before the deadline, someone bought m\' house. lAcrything

happened smoothly and cjuickly from then on, ;ind 1 soon

12 COMING HOME

moved into my new home. With that move came my first tangi-

ble step into the new territory that had beckoned me for so
long. I had crossed over, and, with at least one foot firmly
planted on new ground, my journey Home had truly begun.

IhO i/CAA/^^CM/

Why had my transition been so difficult? I had been going

through a deep inner move into new consciousness and had
spontaneously manifested the outer move to match and sym-
bolize the inner one. Because part of my transition had
included the experience of living in split realities, I had
manifested the clarity of my true self (through my intuition and
higher guidance) as well as the resistance within my personal-
ity (through the outer obstacles). To the degree I had opened to

true self, I had found my way. And to the degree I had allowed
the limitations of my personality's old beliefs and fears to
restrict me, my outer way had been obstructed.
The dynamics had been very simple, though only hind-
sight allowed me to see it that way. While 1 had been lost in the

intensity of the drama I had been blind much of the time, feel-

ing my way from moment to moment. Yet that had been the
challenge, the true test. Those moments of choosing greater

truth and acting on it in the midst of complete disorientation

had strengthened my alignment with true self and had kept me
on my path.
 MY STORY 13

Scdf^

After I'd made the move to my new house I realized that assist-

ing others in rediscovering their true self was to be my new

work. Over the last several years, I've used my process of open-
ing to higher guidance to give readings to hundreds of individ-
uals and to give countless workshops and presentations. In
each of these events, I have received valuable lessons in con-
sciousness along with everyone else. Opening to higher guid-

ance, whether for myself or for others, has been my primary

source of spiritual education. I have been shown experiences
that I would never have thought possible. I am the most grate-
ful for the recurring reminder that we are all more than we
appear to be.
I am given this lesson whenever I find myself working with
a client whose personality clashes with mine (yes, this happens!).

One man got on my nerves the first two minutes we were

together. On the way through the living room to my office, he
found three things to criticize about my house. As we sat down
in the office, he quickly glanced at my tape recorder and

announced that he was sure it was an inferior model. Finally, he

wanted a very specific focus to his reading, but seemed to want
me to guess what it was without any help from him.
I felt him block me at every turn. From annoyance and

exasperation, 1 considered referring him to someone else. Instead,

I followed an intuitive feeling to trust and go ahead with the read-

ing. As soon asopened to higher guidance, everything shifted.
I

My perspective deepened and no longer saw a difficult person-

I

ality before me. Instead was facing one of the most beautiful
I

beings had ever seen. This man's suffering was the deep pain
I

of having lost touch with the amazing beauty and love he carried
within. 1 spoke to him of his true being and, through sound and
14 COMING HOME

movement, I emanated the energy of his beauty directly to him

as a vibrational reminder. With the assistance from higher guid-
ance, it felt natural to address this man v^ith love and honor, relat-

ing to him as he truly was rather than as he appeared to be.

I have been shown the deeper truth in people so many times

that it profoundly affects my sense of who we all are. I do not
yet carry this "true vision" with me consciously on a continu-
ous basis, but I have experienced it often enough that it is creep-
ing into my life more and more. All my work is for the purpose
of supporting that process of evolving perception for myself and
others.

This has been my story. The movement into greater aware-

ness has already begun for all of us, and the story each of us
lives is a chronicle for our collective journey. Our stories need
to be shared. Perhaps you recognize elements of your own
story in mine and will be encouraged to affirm your growth
and transformation.
Leaving old structures behind can be lonely. As we tell our
stories, we create a compassionate ritual for releasing the limi-
tations of our past and opening to the empowerment that

shapes our future. At the same time, we give inspiration and

support to other adventurers who, whether timidly or bra-
zenly, dare to make the journey, too.
 pMtii

'

Our Link to Spirit

 7

My answer to tliis question has ehanged over the years as my

experience has grown. At first higher guidance seemed to be
separate from me, or at least that was the perspective I took.
The thought that I might be receiving information from "just

myself" horrified me. I now realize had that attitude because

I

I still identified myself as my personality, which indeed would

have been a limited source from which to draw.
My guidance comes from a spirit consciousness that exists
in a state of unlimited knowledge and unconditional love. It is

an awareness based in unity, a oneness that we share with all

things and all beings. We are often unconscious of this unity

because our personalities are so identified with form. Yet, the

true self within each of us experiences unity and lives from

that knowing. At that level, there is truly no separation be-
tween higher guidance and us; we are all truly one.

The more I open to this source, the more the dividing line

I thought existed between myself and higher guidance fades.

At one point I realized that my true self has been on the "coun-
cil" of higher guidance all along. Then I began seeing that the

true self of everyone to whom I gave readings was also on that

council. From there recognized that the higher consciousness
I

of everyone on our planet was part of higher guidance. Although

I often refer to higher guidance as "it" or "them," it would per-

haps be more accurate to use an expanded form of "us."

Is this source of guidance made up of anyone else in addi-

tion to the collective higher consciousness of people living on

earth? I believe so. There seems to be tremendous input from

divine realms and expansive states of being. My words seem
inadequate past this point, and much of this is still beyond my

conscious understanding. Yet I can tell that the medium of

17
18 COMING HOME

communication among all contributing beings seems to be the

state of unity, the very state toward which our own conscious
awareness is evolving.
Another perspective would be to remove all description
suggesting personification or individuation and to simply see
higher guidance as a unified source of unlimited intelligence,
love, and creativity. You may choose to call it God, the Uni-
verse, Source, Spirit, the Beloved, Light, or any other term that
opens your heart and reminds you that you are a cherished part
of the magnificent scheme of life.

How accessible is this source for the general populace?

Because we are never really separate from higher guidance, it is

available to each of us in every moment. Assistance in our spiri-

tual growth is never withheld or forced; it is simply offered.

Through our true self, we choose how to draw on this guid-

ance and put it to appropriate use in our lives.

I have come we all draw on higher guidance

to believe that

continuously, just as we draw on the life-giving vitality of air

with each breath we take. And just as most of our breaths are
taken unconsciously, most of our communication with higher
guidance is automatic and unnoticed. In spite of our lack of
conscious awareness, the air we breathe is still real to our lungs
and the guidance we receive is still real to our intuition. We are
never truly alone, and somewhere deep within, we know this.
We can become more aware of this source of greater
easily

consciousness that we draw from so regularly. There are count-

less techniques and approaches to choose from, yet any experi-
ence of opening to true self will lead us there. True self is

the entrance into the greater realms. Through true self we

open to unlimited being and allow unlimited experience to
enter our lives.
 HIGHER GUIDANCE 19

Ulcere Oott f/^C^^^ QiAiJ^M^cc C{Hh^ F^^afJ)

At first I believed that higher guidance was outside myself

because I had to view it that way to begin trusting it. Yet over
the years, I increasingly noticed an inner aspect of my own
being that was an exact match of the "external" higher guid-
ance. Focusing on the external source awakened the internal

one — and gave me the ability to recognize it.

This blossoming of my inner higher guidance dissolved

the separation I felt from external higher guidance. I now see
inner and outer higher guidance as one and the same, a con-
tinuum of awareness that is omnipresent. As a result, my iden-
tity has been altered to include both an increased self-reliance
and a greater sense of interdependence with all life.

With internalized higher guidance, it is possible to see the

world with a more refined vision and with an unwavering
recognition of perfection. We can surrender to life and follow
its flow no matter where it takes us, for both inner and outer
realities become trustworthy when divinity is apparent
everywhere.
The internalized form of higher guidance is our true self.

We need do nothing special to get a true self; each of us already

has one. Yet if we have lost touch with true self, we may need
to do something special to be conscious of it again. Opening to

external higher guidance can be very helpful. However, I stress

that the primary purpose of external higher guidance is to help

us reconnect with the aspect of ourselves that matches it — and
then to help us learn to use our internal source more consciously.
Repeatedly relying on external guidance to replace inner
guidance is not beneficial in the long run. It creates an

imbalance in our lives, with the external source becoming one

20 COMING HOME

more addiction we use to avoid ourselves. Higher guidance of

a pure nature will not fall for this; it will not give information
that takes us further from ourselves. It will, however, be uncon-
ditionally generous with information that leads us to true self-
love and natural empowerment.

People report wide variations in their experience of higher

guidance. Higher guidance has no form of its own: it is beyond
form and does not identify with it. Yet as human beings we live
in a world of form. Our personality is so identified with it that

everything must have some form before we recognize it as real

and are able to talk about it. Language is based on form, as are

most thoughts. Because we receive conscious awareness of

higher guidance through the filter of our personality, we inter-

pret the experience through our individual and collective

needs for form.

This happens very quickly and usually unconsciously. For

example, if one person's personality feels more able to open to

higher guidance that comes in the form of a wizened old man

dressed in white robes with an ancient-sounding name, that is

what the experience will be. If another persons unconscious

need is for a feminine spirit from another planet, that is the
form in which guidance will seem to appear. To believe that the
guidance is real, still others may need to relate to a being with
a strong personality, a sense of humor, and the ability to give
factual data about events on earth. Yet, someone who is less

attached to personal form may simply experience higher guid-

ance as radiant energy or as creative inspiration. The list of pos-
sible variations is limitless.
 HIGHER GUIDANCE 21

None of these forms is any better or worse than any other;

the form we give guidanee doesn't necessarily matter. In fact, as
we grow in consciousness, the form in which we experience
guidance will very likely change to reflect our new perspectives.
Being so attached to form can sometimes seem limiting,
but it is simply a reality of human
As human life at this time.

beings, we honor our need for spiritual growth by opening to

higher guidance, and we honor our personality by doing it
through form. Receiving unlimited guidance through form
exposes our personality directly to a more refined frequency of
consciousness. Through its own language, the energetics of
form, our personality is essentially taught to expand its range of
perceived reality and permit greater awareness to come into
our daily lives.

It is, then, both wise and compassionate that we don't push

aside our personality's needs as we open spiritually. Honoring
our need for form as we connect with higher consciousness
invites our personality to participate in a way that allows it to be
touched and transformed by our greatest experiences.
Higher guidance is unconditionally loving and generous,
willing to come to us in any way we allow it. It will never force
its way through our personality's limitations, nor will it ever
pass us up because we are not "evolved" enough to be worthy.
Higher guidance honors us as we are and graciously works in
harmony with both our limitations and our aspirations. Just
keep in mind that the form guidance takes reflects more about
the orientation of the person receiving it than about the guid-
ance itself. What matters more than the form is the essence of
the guidance, and the two should not be confused.
Because it is filtered through the beliefs and limitations of
our personality, I believe that all information we receive from
higher guidance gets unintentionally distorted in some way.
Although an individual may truly be extending to a refined

spiritual level and tapping a very high source, the process of

22 COMING HOME

bringing that information into form is like translating material

from an unlimited language into a limited one. Something

always gets lost in the translation. The material is first filtered

(at least slightly) by the beliefs, needs, and experiences of the

individual. Then it is filtered again by the beliefs, needs, and expe-
riences of each person who hears or reads the information.
Many people are spiritually clear and open, yet even the
most aware human beings are still in bodies. When there is an
alive body, there is always a personality, and even the most
enlightened personality carries some filters. As we continue to

evolve, stretching our abilities to bring unlimited awareness

through our personality, less and less distortion will appear. For

the time being, simply be aware that no information credited to

higher guidance conveys exactly and completely the truth that

is intended.
How, then, can you know if information you receive, read,
or hear from someone else will benefit you? By fine tuning
your own intuition and listening to it. Intuition is the voice of
your true self. Your true self will always recognize truth and let

you know whether information is relevant for you. Remember,

attunement to higher guidance is not meant to replace or invali-

date your inner truth; it is meant to remind you of it. You are

your greatest guide.

Your Source of Life
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 INTRODUCTION.

Of the Mechanico-Chemical Sciences.

U NDER the title of Mechanico-Chemical Sciences, I include the

laws of Magnetism, Electricity, Galvanism, and the other classes
of phenomena closely related to these, as Thermo-electricity. This
group of subjects forms a curious and interesting portion of our
physical knowledge; and not the least of the circumstances which
give them their interest, is that double bearing upon mechanical and
chemical principles, which their name is intended to imply. Indeed, at
first sight they appear to be purely Mechanical Sciences; the
attractions and repulsions, the pressure and motion, which occur in
these cases, are referrible to mechanical conceptions and laws, as
completely as the weight or fall of terrestrial bodies, or the motion of
the moon and planets. And if the phenomena of magnetism and
electricity had directed us only to such laws, the corresponding
sciences must have been arranged as branches of mechanics. But
we find that, on the other side, these phenomena have laws and
bearings of a kind altogether different. Magnetism is associated with
Electricity by its mechanical analogies; and, more recently, has been
discovered to be still more closely connected with it by physical
influence; electric is identified with galvanic agency; but in
galvanism, decomposition, or some action of that kind, universally
appears; and these appearances lead to very general laws. Now
composition and decomposition are the subjects of Chemistry; and
thus we find that we are insensibly but irresistibly led into the domain
of that science. The highest generalizations to which we can look, in
advancing from the elementary facts of electricity and galvanism,
must involve chemical notions; we must therefore, in laying out the
platform of these sciences, make provision for that convergence of
mechanical and chemical theory, which they are to exhibit as we
ascend.

We must begin, however, with stating the mechanical phenomena

of these sciences, and the reduction of such phenomena to laws. In
this point of view, the phenomena of which we have to speak are
those in which bodies exhibit attractions and repulsions, peculiarly
determined by their nature and circumstances; as the magnet, and a
192 piece of amber when rubbed. Such results are altogether
different from the universal attraction which, according to Newton’s
discovery, prevails among all particles of matter, and to which
cosmical phenomena are owing. But yet the difference of these
special attractions, and of cosmical attraction, was at first so far from
being recognized, that the only way in which men could be led to
conceive or assent to an action of one body upon another at a
distance, in cosmical cases, was by likening it to magnetic attraction,
as we have seen in the history of Physical Astronomy. And we shall,
in the first part of our account, not dwell much upon the peculiar
conditions under which bodies are magnetic or electric, since these
conditions are not readily reducible to mechanical laws; but, taking
the magnetic or electric character for granted, we shall trace its
effects.

The habit of considering magnetic action as the type or general

case of attractive and repulsive agency, explains the early writers
having spoken of Electricity as a kind of Magnetism. Thus Gilbert, in
his book De Magnete (1600), has a chapter, 1 De coitione Magniticâ,
primumque de Succini attractione, sive verius corporum ad
Succinum applicatione. The manner in which he speaks, shows us
how mysterious the fact of attraction then appeared; so that, as he
says, “the magnet and amber were called in aid by philosophers as
illustrations, when our sense is in the dark in abstruse inquiries, and
when our reason can go no further. Gilbert speaks of these
phenomena like a genuine inductive philosopher, reproving 2 those
who before him had “stuffed the booksellers’ shops by copying from
one another extravagant stories concerning the attraction of magnets
and amber, without giving any reason from experiment.” He himself
makes some important steps in the subject. He distinguishes
magnetic from electric forces, 3 and is the inventor of the latter name,
derived from ἤλεκτρον, electron, amber. He observes rightly, that the
electric force attracts all light bodies, while the magnetic force
attracts iron only; and he devises a satisfactory apparatus by which
this is shown. He gives 4 a considerable list of bodies which possess
the electric property; “Not only amber and agate attract small bodies,
as some think, but diamond, sapphire, carbuncle, opal, amethyst,
Bristol gem, beryli, crystal, glass, glass of antimony, spar of various
kinds, sulphur, mastic, sealing-wax,” and other substances which he
mentions. Even his speculations on the general laws of these
phenomena, though vague and erroneous, as 193 at that period was
unavoidable, do him no discredit when compared with the doctrines
of his successors a century and a half afterwards. But such
speculations belong to a succeeding part of this history.
1 Lib. ii. cap. 2.

2 De Magnete, p. 48.

3 Ib. p. 52.

4 Ib. p. 48.

In treating of these Sciences, I will speak of Electricity in the first

place; although it is thus separated by the interposition of Magnetism
from the succeeding subjects (Galvanism, &c.) with which its alliance
seems, at first sight, the closest, and although some general notions
of the laws of magnets were obtained at an earlier period than a
knowledge of the corresponding relations of electric phenomena: for
the theory of electric attraction and repulsion is somewhat more
simple than of magnetic; was, in fact, the first obtained; and was of
use in suggesting and confirming the generalization of magnetic
laws.
 CHAPTER 1.

Discovery of Laws of Electric Phenomena.

W E have already seen what was the state of this branch of

knowledge at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and
the advances made by Gilbert. We must now notice the additions
which it subsequently received, and especially those which led to the
discovery of general laws, and the establishment of the theory;
events of this kind being those of which we have more peculiarly to
trace the conditions and causes. Among the facts which we have
thus especially to attend to, are the electric attractions of small
bodies by amber and other substances when rubbed. Boyle, who
repeated and extended the experiments of Gilbert, does not appear
to have arrived at any new general notions; but Otto Guericke of
Magdeburg, about the same time, made a very material step, by
discovering that there was an electric force of repulsion as well as of
attraction. He found that when a globe of sulphur had attracted a
feather, it afterwards repelled it, till the feather had been in contact
with some other body. This, when verified under a due generality of
circumstances, forms a capital fact in our present subject.
Hawkesbee, who wrote in 1709 (Physico-Mechanical Experiments)
also observed various of the effects of attraction and repulsion upon
threads hanging loosely. But the person who appears to have first
fully seized the general law of these facts, is 194 Dufay, whose
experiments appear in the Memoirs of the French Academy, in 1733,
1734, and 1737. 5 “I discovered,” he says, “a very simple principle,
which accounts for a great part of the irregularities, and, if I may use
the term, the caprices that seem to accompany most of the
experiments in electricity. This principle is, that electric bodies attract
all those that are not so, and repel them as soon as they are become
electric by the vicinity or contact of the electric body. . . . Upon
applying this principle to various experiments of electricity, any one
will be surprised at the number of obscure and puzzling facts which it
clears up.” By the help of this principle, he endeavors to explain
several of Hawkesbee’s experiments.
5 Priestley’s History of Electricity, p. 45, and the Memoirs quoted.

A little anterior to Dufay’s experiments were those of Grey, who, in

1729, discovered the properties of conductors. He found that the
attraction and repulsion which appear in electric bodies are exhibited
also by other bodies in contact with the electric. In this manner he
found that an ivory ball, connected with a glass tube by a stick, a
wire, or a packthread, attracted and repelled a feather, as the glass
itself would have done. He was then led to try to extend this
communication to considerable distances, first by ascending to an
upper window and hanging down his ball, and, afterwards, by
carrying the string horizontally supported on loops. As his success
was complete in the former case, he was perplexed by failure in the
latter; but when he supported the string by loops of silk instead of
hempen cords, he found it again become a conductor of electricity.
This he ascribed at first to the smaller thickness of the silk, which did
not carry off so much of the electric virtue; but from this explanation
he was again driven, by finding that wires of brass still thinner than
the silk destroyed the effect. Thus Grey perceived that the efficacy of
the support depended on its being silk, and he soon found other
substances which answered the same purpose. The difference, in
fact, depended on the supporting substance being electric, and
therefore not itself a conductor; for it soon appeared from such
experiments, and especially 6 from those made by Dufay, that
substances might be divided into electrics per se, and non-electrics,
or conductors. These terms were introduced by Desaguliers, 7 and
gave a permanent currency to the results of the labors of Grey and
others.
6 Mém. Acad. Par. 1734.

7 Priestley, p. 66.

Another very important discovery belonging to this period is, that

195 of the two kinds of electricity. This also was made by Dufay.
“Chance,” says he, “has thrown in my way another principle more
universal and remarkable than the preceding one, and which casts a
new light upon the subject of electricity. The principle is, that there
are two distinct kinds of electricity, very different from one another;
one of which I call vitreous, the other resinous, electricity. The first is
that of glass, gems, hair, wool, &c.; the second is that of amber,
gum-lac, silk, &c. The characteristic of these two electricities is, that
they repel themselves and attract each other.” This discovery does
not, however, appear to have drawn so much attention as it
deserved. It was published in 1735; (in the Memoirs of the Academy
for 1733;) and yet in 1747, Franklin and his friends at Philadelphia,
who had been supplied with electrical apparatus and information by
persons in England well acquainted with the then present state of the
subject, imagined that they were making observations unknown to
European science, when they were led to assert two conditions of
bodies, which were in fact the opposite electricities of Dufay, though
the American experimenters referred them to a single element, of
which electrized bodies might have either excess or defect. “Hence,”
Franklin says, “have arisen some new terms among us: we say B,”
who receives a spark from glass, “and bodies in like circumstances,
is electrized positively; A,” who communicates his electricity to glass,
“negatively; or rather B is electrized plus, A minus.” Dr. (afterwards
Sir William) Watson had, about the same time, arrived at the same
conclusions, which he expresses by saying that the electricity of A
was more rare, and that of B more dense, than it naturally would
have been. 8 But that which gave the main importance to this
doctrine was its application to some remarkable experiments, of
which we must now speak.
8 Priestley, p. 115.

Electric action is accompanied, in many cases, by light and a

crackling sound. Otto Guericke 9 observes that his sulphur-globe,
when rubbed in a dark place, gave faint flashes, such as take place
when sugar is crushed. And shortly after, a light was observed at the
surface of the mercury in the barometer, when shaken, which was
explained at first by Bernoulli, on the then prevalent Cartesian
principles; but, afterwards, more truly by Hawkesbee, as an electrical
phenomenon. Wall, in 1708, found sparks produced by rubbing
amber, and Hawkesbee observed the light and the snapping, as he
calls it, under various modifications. But the electric spark from a
living body, which, as 196 Priestley says, 10 “makes a principal part of
the diversion of gentlemen and ladies who come to see experiments
in electricity,” was first observed by Dufay and the Abbé Nollet. Nollet
says 11 he “shall never forget the surprise which the first electric
spark ever drawn from the human body excited, both in M. Dufay
and in himself.” The drawing of a spark from the human body was
practised in various forms, one of which was familiarly known as the
“electrical kiss.” Other exhibitions of electrical light were the electrical
star, electrical rain, and the like.
9 Experimenta Magdeburgica, 1672, lib. iv. cap. 15.
 10 P. p. 47.

11 Priestley, p. 47. Nollet, Leçons de Physique, vol. vi. p. 408.

As electricians determined more exactly the conditions of electrical

action, they succeeded in rendering more intense those sudden
actions which the spark accompanies, and thus produced the electric
shock. This was especially done in the Leyden phial. This apparatus
received its name, while the discovery of its property was attributed
to Cunæus, a native of Leyden, who, in 1746, handling a vessel
containing water in communication with the electrical machine, and
happening thus to bring the inside and the outside into connexion,
received a sudden shock in his arms and breast. It appears,
however, 12 that a shock had been received under nearly the same
circumstances in 1746, by Von Kleist, a German prelate, at Camin, in
Pomerania. The strangeness of this occurrence, and the
suddenness of the blow, much exaggerated the estimate which men
formed of its force. Muschenbroek, after taking one shock, declared
he would not take a second for the kingdom of France; though Boze,
with a more magnanimous spirit, wished 13 that he might die by such
a stroke, and have the circumstances of the experiment recorded in
the Memoirs of the Academy. But we may easily imagine what a new
fame and interest this discovery gave to the subject of electricity. It
was repeated in all parts of the world, with various modifications: and
the shock was passed through a line of several persons holding
hands; Nollet, in the presence of the king of France, sent it through a
circle of 180 men of the guards, and along a line of men and wires of
900 toises; 14 and experiments of the same kind were made in
England, principally under the direction of Watson, on a scale so
large as to excite the admiration of Muschenbroek; who says, in a
letter to Watson, “Magnificentissimis tuis experimentis superasti
conatus omnium.” The result was, that the transmission of electricity
through a length of 12,000 feet was, to sense, instantaneous.
12 Fischer, v. 490.

13 Fischer, p. 84.

14 Ibid. v. 512.

197 The essential circumstances of the electric shock were

gradually unravelled. Watson found that it did not increase in
proportion either to the contents of the phial or the size of the globe
by which the electricity was excited; that the outside coating of the
glass (which, in the first form of the experiment, was only a film of
water), and its contents, might be varied in different ways. To
Franklin is due the merit of clearly pointing out most of the
circumstances on which the efficacy of the Leyden phial depends.
He showed, in 1747, 15 that the inside of the bottle is electrized
positively, the outside negatively; and that the shock is produced by
the restoration of the equilibrium, when the outside and inside are
brought into communication suddenly. But in order to complete this
discovery, it remained to be shown that the electric matter was
collected entirely at the surface of the glass, and that the opposite
electricities on the two opposite sides of the glass were accumulated
by their mutual attraction. Monnier the younger discovered that the
electricity which bodies can receive, depends upon their surface
rather than their mass, and Franklin 16 soon found that “the whole
force of the bottle, and power of giving a shock, is in the glass itself.”
This they proved by decanting the water out of an electrized into
another bottle, when it appeared that the second bottle did not
become electric, but the first remained so. Thus it was found “that
the non-electrics, in contact with the glass, served only to unite the
force of the several parts.”
15 Letters, p. 13.

16 Letters, iv. Sect. 16.

So far as the effect of the coating of the Leyden phial is

concerned, this was satisfactory and complete: but Franklin was not
equally successful in tracing the action of the electric matter upon
itself, in virtue of which it is accumulated in the phial; indeed, he
appears to have ascribed the effect to some property of the glass.
The mode of describing this action varied, accordingly as two electric
fluids were supposed (with Dufay,) or one, which was the view taken
by Franklin. On this latter supposition the parts of the electric fluid
repel each other, and the excess in one surface of the glass expels
the fluid from the other surface. This kind of action, however, came
into much clearer view in the experiments of Canton, Wilcke, and
Æpinus. It was principally manifested in the attractions and
repulsions which objects exert when they are in the neighborhood of
electrized bodies; or in the electrical atmosphere, using the
phraseology of the time. At present we say that bodies are electrized
by induction, when they are 198 thus made electric by the electric
attraction and repulsion of other bodies. Canton’s experiments were
communicated to the Royal Society in 1753, and show that the
electricity on each body acts upon the electricity of another body, at
a distance, with a repulsive energy. Wilcke, in like manner, showed
that parts of non-electrics, plunged in electric atmospheres, acquire
an electricity opposite to that of such atmospheres. And Æpinus
devised a method of examining the nature of the electricity at any
part of the surface of a body, by means of which he ascertained its
distribution, and found that it agreed with such a law of self-
repulsion. His attempt to give mathematical precision to this
induction was one of the most important steps towards electrical
theory, and must be spoken of shortly, in that point of view. But in the
mean time we may observe, that this doctrine was applied to the
explanation of the Leyden jar; and the explanation was confirmed by
charging a plate of air, and obtaining a shock from it, in a manner
which the theory pointed out.

Before we proceed to the history of the theory, we must mention

some other of the laws of phenomena which were noticed, and
which theory was expected to explain. Among the most celebrated of
these, were the effect of sharp points in conductors, and the
phenomena of electricity in the atmosphere. The former of these
circumstances was one of the first which Franklin observed as
remarkable. It was found that the points of needles and the like throw
off and draw off the electric virtue; thus a bodkin, directed towards an
electrized ball, at six or eight inches’ distance, destroyed its electric
action. The latter subject, involving the consideration of thunder and
lightning, and of many other meteorological phenomena, excited
great interest. The comparison of the electric spark to lightning had
very early been made; but it was only when the discharge had been
rendered more powerful in the Leyden jar, that the comparison of the
effects became very plausible. Franklin, about 1750, had offered a
few somewhat vague conjectures 17 respecting the existence of
electricity in the clouds; but it was not till Wilcke and Æpinus had
obtained clear notions of the effect of electric matter at a distance,
that the real condition of the clouds could be well understood. In
1752, however, 18 D’Alibard, and other French philosophers, were
desirous of verifying Franklin’s conjecture of the analogy of thunder
and electricity. This they did by erecting a pointed iron rod, forty feet
high, 199 at Marli: the rod was found capable of giving out electrical
sparks when a thunder-cloud passed over the place. This was
repeated in various parts of Europe, and Franklin suggested that a
communication with the clouds might be formed by means of a kite.
By these, and similar means, the electricity of the atmosphere was
studied by Canton in England, Mazeas in France, Beccaria in Italy,
and others elsewhere. These essays soon led to a fatal accident, the
death of Richman at Petersburg, while he was, on Aug. 6th, 1753,
observing the electricity collected from an approaching thunder-
cloud, by means of a rod which he called an electrical gnomon: a
globe of blue fire was seen to leap from the rod to the head of the
unfortunate professor, who was thus struck dead.
17 Letter v.

18 Franklin, p. 107.

[2nd Ed.] [As an important application of the doctrines of electricity,

I may mention the contrivances employed to protect ships from the
effects of lightning. The use of conductors in such cases is attended
with peculiar difficulties. In 1780 the French began to turn their
attention to this subject, and Le Roi was sent to Brest and the
various sea-ports of France for that purpose. Chains temporarily
applied in the rigging had been previously suggested, but he
endeavored to place, he says, such conductors in ships as might be
fixed and durable. He devised certain long linked rods, which led
from a point in the mast-head along a part of the rigging, or in
divided stages along the masts, and were fixed to plates of metal in
the ship’s sides communicating with the sea. But these were either
unable to stand the working of the rigging, or otherwise inconvenient,
and were finally abandoned. 19
19 See Le Roi’s Memoir in the Hist. Acad. Sc. for 1790.
 The conductor commonly used in the English Navy, till recently,
consisted of a flexible copper chain, tied, when occasion required, to
the mast-head, and reaching down into the sea; a contrivance
recommended by Dr. Watson in 1762. But notwithstanding this
precaution, the shipping suffered greatly from the effects of lightning.

Mr. Snow Harris (now Sir William Snow Harris), whose electrical
labors are noticed above, proposed to the Admiralty, in 1820, a plan
which combined the conditions of ship-conductors, so desirable, yet
so difficult to secure:—namely, that they should be permanently
fixed, and sufficiently large, and yet should in no way interfere with
the motion of the rigging, or with the sliding masts. The method
which he proposed was to make the masts themselves conductors of
electricity, 200 by incorporating with them, in a peculiar way, two
laminæ of sheet-copper, uniting these with the metallic masses in the
hull by other laminæ, and giving the whole a free communication
with the sea. This method was tried experimentally, both on models
and to a large extent in the navy itself; and a Commission appointed
to examine the result reported themselves highly satisfied with Mr.
Harris’s plan, and strongly recommended that it should be fully
carried out in the Navy. 20 ]
20 See Mr. Snow Harris’s paper in Phil. Mag. March, 1841.

It is not here necessary to trace the study of atmospheric

electricity any further: and we must now endeavor to see how these
phenomena and laws of phenomena which we have related, were
worked up into consistent theories; for though many experimental
observations and measures were made after this time, they were
guided by the theory, and may be considered as having rather
discharged the office of confirming than of suggesting it.
 We may observe also that we have now described the period of
most extensive activity and interest in electrical researches. These
naturally occurred while the general notions and laws of the
phenomena were becoming, and were not yet become, fixed and
clear. At such a period, a large and popular circle of spectators and
amateurs feel themselves nearly upon a level, in the value of their
trials and speculations, with more profound thinkers: at a later
period, when the subject is become a science, that is, a study in
which all must be left far behind who do not come to it with
disciplined, informed, and logical minds, the cultivators are far more
few, and the shout of applause less tumultuous and less loud. We
may add, too, that the experiments, which are the most striking to
the senses, lose much of their impressiveness with their novelty.
Electricity, to be now studied rightly, must be reasoned upon
mathematically; how slowly such a mode of study makes its way, we
shall see in the progress of the theory, which we must now proceed
to narrate.

[2nd Ed.] [A new mode of producing electricity has excited much

notice lately. In October, 1840, one of the workmen in attendance
upon a boiler belonging to the Newcastle and Durham Railway,
reported that the boiler was full of fire; the fact being, that when he
placed his hand near it an electrical spark was given out. This drew
the attention of Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Pattinson, who made the
circumstance publicly known. 21 Mr. Armstrong pursued the
investigation 201 with great zeal, and after various conjectures was
able to announce 22 that the electricity was excited at the point where
the steam is subject to friction in its emission. He found too that he
could produce a like effect by the emission of condensed air.
Following out his views, he was able to construct, for the Polytechnic
Institution in London, a “Hydro-electric Machine,” of greater power
than any electrical machine previously made. Dr. Faraday took up
the investigation as the subject of the Eighteenth Series of his
Researches, sent to the Royal Society, Jan. 26, 1842; and in this he
illustrated, with his usual command of copious and luminous
experiments, a like view;—that the electricity is produced by the
friction of the particles of the water carried along by the steam. And
thus this is a new manifestation of that electricity, which, to
distinguish it from voltaic electricity, is sometimes called Friction
Electricity or Machine Electricity. Dr. Faraday has, however, in the
course of this investigation, brought to light several new electrical
relations of bodies.]
21 Phil. Mag. Oct 1840.

22 Phil. Mag. Jan. 1848, dated Dec. 9, 1841.

 CHAPTER II.

The Progress of Electrical Theory.

T HE cause of electrical phenomena, and the mode of its

operation, were naturally at first spoken of in an indistinct and
wavering manner. It was called the electric fire, the electric fluid; its
effects were attributed to virtues, effluvia, atmospheres. When men’s
mechanical ideas became somewhat more distinct, the motions and
tendencies to motion were ascribed to currents, in the same manner
as the cosmical motions had been in the Cartesian system. This
doctrine of currents was maintained by Nollet, who ascribed all the
phenomena of electrized bodies to the contemporaneous afflux and
efflux of electrical matter. It was an important step towards sound
theory, to get rid of this notion of moving fluids, and to consider
attraction and repulsion as statical forces; and this appears to have
been done by others about the same time. Dufay 23 considered that
he had proved the existence of two electricities, the vitreous and the
resinous, and conceived each 202 of these to be a fluid which
repelled its own parts and attracted those of the other: this is, in fact,
the outline of the theory which recently has been considered as the
best established; but from various causes it was not at once, or at
least not generally adopted. The hypothesis of the excess and defect
of a single fluid is capable of being so treated as to give the same
results with the hypothesis of two opposite fluids and happened to
obtain the preference for some time. We have already seen that this
hypothesis, according to which electric phenomena arose from the
excess and defect of a generally diffused fluid, suggested itself to
Watson and Franklin about 1747. Watson found that when an
electric body was excited, the electricity was not created, but
collected; and Franklin held, that when the Leyden jar was charged,
the quantity of electricity was unaltered, though its distribution was
changed. Symmer 24 maintained the existence of two fluids; and
Cigna supplied the main defect which belonged to this tenet in the
way in which Dufay held it, by showing that the two opposite
electricities were usually produced at the same time. Still the
apparent simplicity of the hypothesis of one fluid procured it many
supporters. It was that which Franklin adopted, in his explanation of
the Leyden experiment; and though after the first conception of an
electrical charge as a disturbance of equilibrium, there was nothing
in the development or details of Franklin’s views which deserved to
win for them any peculiar authority, his reputation, and his skill as a
writer, gave a considerable influence to his opinions. Indeed, for a
time he was considered, over a large part of Europe, as the creator
of the science, and the terms 25 Franklinism, Franklinist, Franklinian
system, occur in almost every page of continental publications on the
subject. Yet the electrical phenomena to the knowledge of which
Franklin added least, those of induction, were those by which the
progress of the theory was most promoted. These, as we have
already said, were at first explained by the hypothesis of electrical
atmospheres. Lord Mahon wrote a treatise, in which this hypothesis
was mathematically treated; yet the hypothesis was very untenable,
for it would not account for the most obvious cases of induction, such
as the Leyden jar, except the atmosphere was supposed to
penetrate glass.
23 Ac. Par. 1733, p. 467.

24 Phil. Trans. 1759.

25 Priestley, p. 160.
 The phenomena of electricity by induction, when fairly considered
by a person of clear notions of the relations of space and force, were
seen to accommodate themselves very generally to the conception
203 introduced by Dufay; 26 of two electricities each repelling itself
and attracting the other. If we suppose that there is only one fluid,
which repels itself and attracts all other matter, we obtain, in many
cases, the same general results as if we suppose two fluids; thus, if
an electrized body, overcharged with the single fluid, act upon a ball,
it drives the electric fluid in the ball to the further side by its repulsion,
and then attracts the ball by attracting the matter of the ball more
than it repels the fluid which is upon the ball. If we suppose two
fluids, the positively electrized body draws the negative fluid to the
nearer side of the ball, repels the positive fluid to the opposite side,
and attracts the ball on the whole, because the attracted fluid is
nearer than that which is repelled. The verification of either of these
hypotheses, and the determination of their details, depended
necessarily upon experiment and calculation. It was under the
hypothesis of a single fluid that this trial was first properly made.
Æpinus of Petersburg published, in 1759, his Tentamen Theoriæ
Electricitatis et Magnetismi; in which he traces mathematically the
consequences of the hypothesis of an electric fluid, attracting all
other matter, but repelling itself; the law of force of this repulsion and
attraction he did not pretend to assign precisely, confining himself to
the supposition that the mutual force of the particles increases as the
distance decreases. But it was found, that in order to make this
theory tenable, an additional supposition was required, namely, that
the particles of bodies repel each other as much as they attract the
electric fluid. 27 For if two bodies, A and B, be in their natural
electrical condition, they neither attract nor repel each other. Now, in
this case, the fluid in A attracts the matter in B and repels the fluid in
B with equal energy, and thus no tendency to motion results from the
fluid in A; and if we further suppose that the matter in A attracts the
fluid in B and repels the matter in B with equal energy, we have the
resulting mutual inactivity of the two bodies explained; but without
the latter supposition, there would be a mutual attraction: or we may
put the truth more simply thus; two negatively electrized bodies repel
each other; if negative electrization were merely the abstraction of
the fluid which is the repulsive element, this result could not follow
except there were a repulsion in the bodies themselves, independent
of the fluid. And thus Æpinus found himself compelled to assume
this mutual repulsion of material particles; he had, in fact, the 204
alternative of this supposition, or that of two fluids, to choose
between, for the mathematical results of both hypotheses are the
same. Wilcke, a Swede, who had at first asserted and worked out
the Æpinian theory in its original form, afterwards inclined to the
opinion of Symmer; and Coulomb, when, at a later period, he
confirmed the theory by his experiments and determined the law of
force, did not hesitate to prefer 28 the theory of two fluids, “because,”
he says, “it appears to me contradictory to admit at the same time, in
the particles of bodies, an attractive force in the inverse ratio of the
squares of the distances, which is demonstrated by universal
gravitation, and a repulsive force in the same inverse ratio of the
squares of the distances; a force which would necessarily be
infinitely great relatively to the action of gravitation.” We may add,
that by forcing us upon this doctrine of the universal repulsion of
matter, the theory of a single fluid seems quite to lose that superiority
in the way of simplicity which had originally been its principal
recommendation.
26 Mém. A. P. 1733, p. 467.