Instead of feeding the gods with blood and burnt offerings, the kahunas understood the secret that lay behind the externals of all sacrifice. The High Self, in order to produce results in the physical plane must draw from the physical body of the earthy man sufficient vital force or mana to use in the work.
The custom of building temples or shrines to aid in contacting the gods was not practiced by the genuine kahunas, although the spurious kahunas of later times built temples of stone and offered sacrifices in vain efforts to get magical results.
The true kahunas needed no temples or shrines. They knew how to send the telepathic message to the High Self at will, regardless of place or conditions. They used no altar symbols, no incense or other mechanisms. (These things were reserved for use as physical stimuli to impress the low self when suggestion was being given for various purposes.)
The various rites used in religions to insure the dying a survival in spirit form and a certain amount of happiness as a spirit, were unknown to the kahunas. They had no place in their matter-of-fact science for dogmas which would demand a “salvation.” Their teaching was simply that all people should know that the spirits of men survived death and that the memories and complexes of physical life were carried over into the spirit life, making it advisable for the individual to rid himself of guilt complexes before death. (This may have given rise in ancient times to the non-kahuna practices aimed at preparing man for a better life after physical death.)
The kahunas believed that after death there was a continuation of growth and progression, the low self reincarnating as a middle self in due time and the middle self eventually rising to the level of the High Selves, first learning to watch over lesser forms of life, and in the end becoming the “utterly truthworthy parental spirit” or High Self of a low and middle self incarnated in the physical., Not a great deal was known about this process of growth and progression, so little was taught about it except as a part of the speculative doctrines of Huna. The graduation, so to speak, of the low self to the level of a middle self is accomplished after death during a period of inactivity resembling a long sleep. One is reminded of the worm which becomes a pupa, is inactive for a time, and then bursts forth a butterfly.
The most important preparation for death must be done by the individual. He must reduce his guilt complexes to the minimum and free himself of dogmatic religious beliefs which will hinder him after he becomes a spirit. It is not necessary to spend more than a few months on the spirit plane before continuing the growth process, providing one knows the ropes as did the kahunas. Knowing Huna is knowing the ropes.
All we can take with us at the time of death is knowledge, and it should be the first duty of each of us to accumulate the correct “take-withable” knowledge by a careful study of the psycho-religions and the discarding of beliefs which cannot be substantiated.
Secret Science Behind Miracles [p. 312-313] Max Freedom Long