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The Comte De Gabalis

By Abbé N. de Montfaucon de Villars

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Sleep

"In sleep the soul is vigorous, and free from the senses, and the obstruction of the cares of the body, which lies prostrate and deathlike.... When we are not asleep, our faculties are employed on the necessary affairs of life, and so are hindered from communication with the Deity by the bondage of the body.... When the soul of man is disengaged from corporeal impediments and set at freedom,--in sleep,--it beholds those wonders which, when entangled beneath the veil of the flesh, it is unable to see," says Cicero in his treatise "On Divination." * And this truth regarding the emergence of the Soul from the body during sleep, as well as the Soul's consequent closer union with the Divine Principle, is also set forth in the Koran Sura xxxix, The Troops. " God taketh souls unto Himself at death; and during their sleep those who do not die: and He retaineth those on which He hath passed a decree of death, but sendeth the others back till a time that is fixed. Herein are signs for the refledting."

Freed from the bondage of the body and the trammels of space and time in sleep, the soul desiring light is able to seek those great souls and sources ever flooding humanity with the out-pourings of divine love and wisdom. Thus are the words of Christ fulfilled, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." * Whatever the limitations of an individual's temporal experience, they cannot fetter the immortal spirit and soul, which in sleep attain those realms of consciousness whose memories, because of the imperfetions of the instrument, may filter but dimly into the waking mind, yet inevitably tindure it and the entire life of the man.

"In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

Then He (God) openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instrudtion." JOB xxxiii, 15, 16.

Footnotes
265:* Chapters xxx, xlix, lvii.

266:* St. Matthew vii, 7, 8.