Helen Savage – Psychic Powers

 

Contents

I — Introductory

II — Fundamental Ideas

The Astral Light

The Nature of the Psyche

The Astral Senses

Study Necessary

III — Psychology and Psychic Powers

IV — Mediumship and Its Dangers

The Ordinary Trance Medium

Materializations

Poltergeists

Mediumship an Undesirable Profession

Mediator Versus Medium

V — Hypnotism

Self-Hypnotization

Psychologization in General

Will-Prayer

VI — Clairvoyance and Other Psychic Powers

Clairvoyance and Clairaudience

Telepathy

Crystal-Gazing

Psychometry

Automatic Writing

VII — The Theosophical Objective

 

INTRODUCTORY

THE craze to obtain super physical pow­ers, so apparent today, is nothing new. Nor is the appearance of such powers a re­cent evolutionary development. The litera­ture of every people is full of references, historical as well as fictional, to certain indi­viduals who can do things of a ‘magical’ character, which the laws of physical sci­ence, known today, do not explain.

Such persons may be able to talk with ‘spirits’: they hear phantom voices and see visions, and often think they are guided by angelic beings. They may be able to con­jure up visions of the past, or of things happening at a distance, or they can foretell the future. Sometimes they are able to over-ride the normal laws of nature by handling red-hot coals and similar things without be­ing burned. Sometimes they are able under trance to draw and write things that are ordinarily quite beyond their capacities. Others may have the power of exerting a sort of enchantment or fascination over their fellows and of making these latter do their bidding; or they can heal the sick by the ‘laying on of hands/ and in other ways.

It is noted that in the presence or atmos­phere of a certain type of such individuals strange happenings take place. ‘Raps’ and other sounds may be heard that are caused by no known agency; or there are the ring­ing of bells and sounds of musical instru­ments. Furniture perhaps moves of itself, and other household objects become dis­arranged. There may appear in the air what seem to be human hands and faces and ulti­mately complete figures.

The above examples, and many others that  might be enumerated, are all included under the general category of the psychic powers. In their essential nature these powers are not evil, though they vary widely in quality, ranging from those which are closely asso­ciated with the physical nature of man to those which work more closely with his spir­itual nature.

Then too, religious belief and custom has always profoundly affected the status of such powers, and it seems likely that their de­velopment along lower or higher lines has run parallel with, and has been a funda­mental part of, the growth and influence of religion among the people. For instance, at a time when the Mysteries were still in­fluencing the life of ancient Greece, a high type of clairvoyant was used in the sacred oracles, the priestess on the tripod being considered holy, and cherished and pro­tected from contamination of any sort. The Temples of Aesculapius in Greece, where the  art of healing was highly developed, and where the most remarkable cures were per­formed, were a recognized part of the Mysteries themselves.

On the other hand, during the Dark Ages in Europe most unwholesome types of ‘psy­chic epidemics’ occurred, connected in some cases with sorcery. And as late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries psy­chics were still believed to be witches and were put to death by the Church.

There are, in fact, certain cyclic periods in history when there occur unusual outcrop­pings of these psychic manifestations. At such times the numbers of these abnormal individuals increase. Others through curi­osity and the element of wonder are carried along on the psychic wave. The whole mat­ter is given undue importance and an em­phasis which almost always reacts harmfully upon those thus engaged, because they are ignorantly invoking strange forces which  they cannot control. We are at the present time in such a cycle. It is with this cycle that we are particularly concerned in this Manual: how it is affecting Western people, and what light Theosophy throws upon the whole matter.

The present cycle started in the middle of last century with the rise of modern Spiri­tualism. The movement spread like an epidemic, first through America and later to some extent in the European countries. About this time there had been a growing interest in cures effected by means of hypno­tism, and combined with the new possibilities these experiments suggested, the spiritual­istic movement was welcomed as a new reve­lation. Reputed clairvoyants developed into mediums, ‘spirit circles’ were formed in many families, and it was obvious that a great many people were rushing headlong into experimentation and practices whose dangers they little dreamed of.

Already by the last quarter of the century much harm had been done, both in the dis­astrous effect on mediums themselves, and in the tremendous interest that had been aroused in every and any sort of abnormal power. A glamour had been cast over it all and many were feverishly hunting after the most unwholesome sorts of inner develop­ment with complete ignorance of the nature of what they were after.

Part of the mission of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, was to call a halt to this mad rush for phenomena and powers. This was to be done principally in two ways:

A. By trying to illumine the hearts and minds of men with a spiritual light which so far transcended the will-o’-the-wisp flickerings of psychism, that the latter would lose their fascination.

B. By presenting a scientifically sound rationale of these lower powers, thereby giving logical and convincing proof, first, of  the existence of such powers, and second, of their extreme danger.

It was in this cause that H. P. Blavatsky, when she first came to America in 1873, had been instructed to work with the Spiri­tualists. In her own words:

I am here in this country sent by my Lodge on behalf of Truth in modern spiritualism, and it is my most sacred duty to unveil what is, and expose what is not. . (See H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Move­ment, by C. J. Ryan, chapters v and vi.)

But beyond a certain point they were not willing to accept her explanations of phe­nomena based on the Ancient Wisdom which she had been taught. Many of them even repudiated her, and thereby they lost a valuable champion and gave up the oppor­tunity offered to them to put their ex­perimentations upon a sound basis and at the same time satisfy the natural human longing for evidence of post-mortem survival.

There was, further, the counter-current of materialism that had to be reckoned with. While the simple-minded, as well as others of a mystical type, were being sucked into the psychic vortex, the great army of the skeptics saw in these manifestations only trickery and hallucination; and since both these factors are abundantly found in the annals of Spiritualism, the skeptics had a pretty good case.

The situation was a difficult and peculiar one because the psychic demonstrations which, it had been hoped, would jolt a ma­terialistic world into an awakening to a wider outlook, got out of hand, so to speak. Since the group of Spiritualists had become utterly useless as an instrument for serious study, H. P. Blavatsky herself, under the direction and often with the aid of her Teachers, was then instructed to give proof

of her own supernormal powers.(A description of these may be found in much of the early Theosophical literature, as for instance The Occult World by A. P. Sinnett.) Her pur­pose in this was to show the skeptics that beyond their circumscribed sphere of physic­al matter was an invisible world operating under its own unerring laws which, for one who understood them, could be made to act with definite and demonstrable results. Fur­ther, as W. Q. Judge says, she exhibited these marvelous feats for the purpose of showing those who were learning from her that the human subject is a complicated and powerful being, not to be classed, as science loves to do, with mere matter and motion. – The Path, VIII, May, 1893

H. P. Blavatsky was bitterly disappointed in the general attitude of the scientists to­wards her entirely disinterested efforts. Writing in her magazine Lucifer, in Febru­ary, 1888, she says:

Never were the phenomena presented in any other character than that of instances of a power over perfectly natural though unrecognized forces, and incidentally over matter, possessed by certain individuals who have attained to a larger and higher knowledge of the Universe than has been reached by scientists and theologians, or can ever be reached by them, by the roads they are now respectively pursuing. Yet this power is latent in all men, and could, in time, be wielded by anyone who would cultivate the knowledge and conform to the con­ditions necessary for its development.

She continues:

Therefore, it is hardly to be wondered at, that word came to abandon phenomena and let the ideas of Theosophy stand on their own intrinsic merits.

When the Mahatmans who started the Theosophical Society were urged to cause a newspaper published in India to appear in London on the day of publication, or vice versa, to convince the skeptics once for all, their answer came:

Very true, we work by natural not supernatural  means and laws. But as on the one hand Science would find itself unable (in its present state) to account for the wonders given in its name, and on the other, the ignorant masses would still be left to view the phenomenon in the light of a miracle; everyone who would thus be made a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance and the results would be deplorable. (See The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Let­ter No. I.)

They declined to perform the experiment, pointing out further that, on the one hand, no phenomena, however startling, would ever convince the skeptics; and on the other hand, that in order to prevent superstitious practices arising, a healthy element of doubt should be preserved. Further, as greater and greater proofs would be demanded, the Mahatmans themselves would end by find­ing themselves on the point of breaking the unalterable esoteric law, namely, that the secrets of the occult arts shall never be divulged except to those who have undergone the most strict and thorough discipline in their own schools of training.

It is now more than half a century since H. P. Blavatsky brought her spiritual mes­sage to the West, and we are seeing evi­dences of its infiltration into the general thought-world, which is turning men’s minds away from materialism. But much remains to be done in educating people as to the dangers of psychism. We are opening upon a new cycle which will see the progressive development of new faculties in man. As the human race advances it will inevitably become more finely organized both physic­ally and psychically, and will come gradually more and more in contact with forces, powers and beings that belong to a more subtle plane of existence. What Theosophy has to give in the way of explanation and prepa­ration is needed right now as the introduc­tion to a new cycle of development.

FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS

THE nature of the psychic powers and faculties cannot be understood without a comprehension of certain basic concep­tions. These are as necessary as charts are in sailing an unfamiliar sea.

First we must dismiss the idea that any­thing can be brought about by supernatural means. No divine being can suspend the working of natural law. On the other hand, neither can we say with the materialists that everything can be explained by the laws of physical nature alone.

The teaching of the Ancient Wisdom is that there is indeed more to the universe than can be measured by our physical senses or by our laboratory researches, which are but an extension of the power of our sensory perceptions. Our physical universe is but a reflection of a vast and invisible realm, filled full with many grades of con­scious living beings. It is their combined activities which bring about what we call the ‘laws’ of nature, but which might better be called the ‘habits’ of nature.

Mankind forms one group of these invisi­ble entities — because, after all, the con­scious thinking self of us is invisible. The portion of the universe that we call ‘visible’ is merely that aspect of it for which we have developed organs of perception: the eye, the ear, and so on. Those aspects of the uni­verse that we cannot perceive with our senses are not far away, in some distant stretches of space, but are right with us here and now, interpenetrating our physical sphere and impinging upon our inner selves at every moment of the day and night.

It is a mistake to suppose that invisibility necessarily implies spirituality. Assuredly spiritual energies have their source in the unseen realms of nature, but evil energies do likewise. The physical world is like a great arena for the enactment of the pageant of life, which we as human beings are at one and the same time taking part in and be­holding. But this gorgeous and sometimes very tragic presentment only feebly depicts the unseen forces, both exalted and de­graded, which move the actors to noble or to sordid deeds.

The Astral Light

Those substances and energies of invisi­ble nature impinging most closely upon our physical sphere are known in Theosophy under the general term the Astral Light.(See Manual No. XI of this series: The Astral Light.)

It would perhaps be more accurate to say that its grosser portions thus impinge upon our sphere; for in its highest reaches it merges indefinitely into the purest Cosmic Aether, the source of all intelligence in the universe. The astral light surrounds and in­terpenetrates our globe as an ethereal es­sence, so sensitive and plastic that it receives and retains in its subtle substance an impres­sion of all that takes place on earth, and of all the thoughts and emotional energies ema­nated by man. But it is more than a photo­graphic plate, a mere recorder. It is a great crucible in which all the effluxes and emanations of the Earth, whether psychical, moral, or physical, are re­ceived, and after undergoing therein a myriad of ethereal alchemical changes are reflected or radiated back to the Earth . . . thus producing epidemic troubles or diseases, whether these latter be physi­cal, psychic, or moral. (G. de Purucker, The Esoteric Tradition, p. 953)

There is, in fact, a constant interchange between what we call the physical plane and the astral plane. No sharp dividing line exists between the finest grade of physical matter and the densest grade of astral sub­stance. The one merges into the other as naturally as dark night merges into dawn. This fact, with all that it implies, plays a large part in the explanation of the phe­nomena of memory, hallucination, emotional ‘complexes,’ psychoses, and the dozens of other problems of mind and consciousness that puzzle the psychologists. And it has to be reckoned with in the study of every aspect of psychism. The psychic waves that sweep over portions of the earth at cyclic times are caused, we are told, when through certain stresses and tensions in the earth’s constitution, the protecting veils between the two planes grow thin, and contact with these finer substances is more easily made by peculiarly constituted individuals.

One of the chief characteristics of the astral light is its deceptive quality. Its whirling and eddying currents, its confused jumble of pictures, and its irresponsible as well as often evil denizens, bewilder and lead astray all but the highly trained seer. The ordinary man is not developed along the lines that would allow him a safe entry into these realms. Nor does the mere ability to enter them guarantee one’s safety therein.

The Nature of the Psyche

Man, like the universe, has an inner na­ture ranging from the purely astral to the highest spiritual. His complex make-up is explained in detail in another Manual of this series,* but for our convenience we here re­produce the diagram therein used. (Manual No. IV, The Seven Principles of Man.)

 

The Monad (Atman and Buddhi) repre­sents that high spiritual source of all that is noble and inspiring in our human exist­ence. The lower three principles in the Dia­gram (Prana, Linga-sarira, Sthula-sarira) are the body of man, both astral and phy­sical, and the vitality that courses through them as long as our life on earth lasts. But what we are particularly concerned with for our present study is the intermediate portion of the Diagram, for it is the seat of the ordinary individual, made up of mind (Manas) and emotions (Kama).

The Greeks sometimes called this part of man the psyche, and it is from this root that words such as psychic, psychism, and psychology have been formed. The use of this Greek root is accurate because the studies with which these words are associ­ated all deal with the nature of the psyche: its relation to the body-part of man and to his spiritual nature, as well as to the world about him, including the astral light.

As a little study will show, our diagram suggests that Manas (mind) partakes of the spiritual nature of its parent above, and forms with it the Higher Triad. Further, that Kama (desire) when linked with the body-part of man forms a lower group of four, the Lower Quaternary. But what makes man as he is today is the union of Manas and Kama. It is this Duad that  holds the key-position in our present evo­lutionary make-up. It is for this Duad that life on earth is necessary, and its dual aspect explains the many contradictions, surprises and disappointments of human nature.

This Duad is the seat of our psychical nature. Our psyche is thus an undeveloped being. It has the use of all the powers of the human constitution to carve for itself a glorious destiny: will, imagination, thought, desire; but as yet it has not learned how to use them with wisdom. Its character is unstable. It is torn between its urge to understand and interpret through its own powers the will of its spiritual parent; and on the other hand its urge to identify it­self with the animal nature below. It is drawn hither and thither by the attractions of the senses. Its purposes are divided. It is in fact that familiar part of ourself which needs no description.

In the normal, healthy individual this ‘conflict’ assumes the nature of a natural stimulus to achievement. There is harmony and symmetry of development. Health means ‘wholeness,’ and where psychic health exists one finds those characteristics that be­long to the well-balanced person: poise, clarity of thought and firmness of purpose, a sense of proportion, often a sense of humor tempered by a natural kindly feeling. We have in fact what is often spoken of as a well-adjusted personality.

Psychic ill-health occurs when the har­monious working of all the factors in man is broken. This often occurs when the psyche attempts to assume a position in the general economy of the human being to which it is not entitled; and there is little doubt that, could we see the chain of cir­cumstances through several lives perhaps that lead up to our present psychic ills, we should find that somewhere along the way we had, perhaps by imperceptible degrees, built up the condition we now are trying to overcome.

The particular phase of psychic ill-health that we are concerned with here is that serious aspect shown by many people who possess what are called psychic powers. In the ordinary medium, for instance, there is always an actual dislocation of the psyche. The danger of this state will be discussed in a later chapter; suffice it to say here that the involuntary disjunction of this inter­mediate principle is never a desirable thing, for it makes the unfortunate individual the prey of evil entities in the astral light which crave a vicarious existence on earth as a means to satisfy their unfulfilled desires. Though purity and natural good­ness do act to a certain extent as a protec­tion to the medium, still there is likely to be a progressive deterioration in the medi­um’s character, and his weaknesses, however mild, may prove to be the entering wedge for undesirable astral visitants to ‘control’ him.

The Astral Senses

The true Self in man has been evolving appropriate vehicles for growth and experi­ence through long ages, and our inner econo­my is most marvelously regulated. Our spiritual nature provides us with the power to develop and express in ever greater de­gree our latent faculties. Our body serves as a means of contact with the outside world and with our fellows. It further acts as a protection, a barrier as it were, to the in­roads of the astral plane. Our senses act in a selective and limiting way, and this is as much a blessing as it is an inconvenience. Until we are unaffected, at least in some de­gree, by the influences penetrating by means of our senses to our psychic nature, it were foolish to wish for this barrier to be broken. Yet this is what happens with those who crave to possess psychic powers. The ordi­nary man is to a certain extent imprisoned within his body. The psychic is in danger of breaking this guard, and finding himself in a realm where he is more or less helpless.

The fact is that for every one of our physical senses we have an astral counter­part which is the true center of sense per­ception. It is through these astral centers that the ego within really hears, sees, tastes, and touches. Without them, the physical senses would be useless. But at present these astral sense-centers are in their turn dependent upon their physical replicas. We cannot use them consciously and inde­pendently as yet. This will come in the future as a further stage of development. When that time comes it will be natural for us to use these astral senses at will, and then we shall know at first hand a great deal about the inner aspects of the universe which are now hidden from us. We must wait, however, until “the inner man has grown to maturity,” as W. Q. Judge ex­presses it.(See his pamphlet Culture of Concentration.)

This sort of thing fascinates the average man; but there is nothing more magical about it than the fact that now we can look into the heavens at night and catch with our physical eye the light that started from the stars perhaps millions of years ago — a marvel truly!

This future development of the astral senses is but a phase of a greater power that is to be ours: that of being able through conscious will and thought to travel where we will in a refined ‘astral body’ of our own making, free from the burden of the “too too solid flesh.” It was such a power that Apollonius of Tyana used when he suddenly vanished before the very eyes of Domi- tian and the crowd gathered at his trial in Rome, and appeared before his friend an hour later at the grotto of Puteoli. (See Isis Unveiled, II, 597.)

Those who advertise to teach for a price the power of roaming at will in the astral have no idea of the difficulties involved, nor of the dangers they invite where even a par­tial success may be attained. There are also those who profess to know such dangers, but who do not sufficiently warn against them.

Psychics at the present time shadow forth this power that is to be ours in the distant future. They are not symmetrically de­veloped, however, nor do they know any­thing about the true nature of their pre­maturely awakened ability. They may have one astral sense partially developed, as for instance the astral left eye or right eye; such being the case of the ordinary clairvoyant. Or they may be able to ex­tend an astral arm, as some mediums do. But what they are able to see or sense is always one-sided, scrappy and misleading; and as the power is used involuntarily, they have no guarantee that they can stop it when they will.

The Theosophist does not consider it a fortunate thing for persons at the present time to have abnormally developed astral senses. It is in nearly all cases an affliction. It is always a responsibility.

Study Necessary

It is necessary to study the subject of psychism in order to put the matter en­tirely on a rational basis. Too often the word ‘psychic’ is veiled in a sort of mys­terious atmosphere which enhances its at­tractions. People speak of having psychic experiences as though they were set apart from the ordinary run of mortals in some special, favored way. Or they have a dread of the very mention of the word, saying that it conjures up in their minds a host of vague terrors. Neither of these attitudes is desirable. One might as well be a rank ma­terialist, scoffing at the very idea of the existence of invisible worlds, as to hold these false notions that cloud the understanding and lead one astray.

As a matter of fact, when we speak of the psychic world, we simply mean that invisible realm where our lower mind nat­urally functions. Here our psychic nature is active all the time; and it is this very psychic nature that provides us the means by which we can act on this physical plane. To be sure it is the seat of temptation and desire, of mental and emotional illusion; but it can also, when trained and controlled, be the transmitter of the vitality of the Spiritual Self into active expression in daily life. Nay, more, it is the only means the Spiritual Self has of functioning here on earth.

The abnormal development of the psychic nature, producing what are generally under­stood as the psychic powers, would be recog­nised, like all abnormalities, to be a mere side issue, if its nature and development were studied today as once they were studied in the ancient science of Psychology, which H. P. Blavatsky speaks of as “the most important branch of the Occult Sciences. (Studies in Occultism, II, 43.)

III

PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIC POWERS

THE subject of psychology does not rightfully belong under the heading of psychic powers; rather should we say that the study of psychic powers rightfully be­longs under the heading of psychology, as a branch of the general subject.

Some scientific investigators of psychic matters have evidently held the same view. In a letter to Sir William Crookes written in 1871, E. W. Cox says, in discussing the mys­terious powers that ‘sensitives’ possess:

I venture to suggest that the force be termed the Psychic Force; the persons in whom it is mani­fested in extraordinary power Psychics; and the science relating to it Psychism, as being a branch of Psychology.

Psychology is defined as “the science of the nature, functions and phenomena of the human soul or mind.” But H. P. Bla­vatsky gives a more inclusive and therefore more accurate meaning in Isis Unveiled (I, xxvii-xxviii):

Psychology, or the great, and in our days, so neglected science of the soul, both as an entity dis­tinct from the spirit and in its relations with the spirit and body.

It is obvious, then, that every conceivable aspect of man’s make-up and activity, other than those aspects which are purely phy­siological (and it is a question whether there are any that could come under that cate­gory) could logically be included in some branch of the science of psychology.

But modern psychologists are just begin­ning the great task of developing a science; and they have limited themselves right from the start by trying to do away with the terms ‘soul’ and ‘mind’: the first, because as scientists they do not feel justified in entering the realms of metaphysics; the second, in an attempt to avoid the ever-puzzling prob­lem of the relation of mind to matter. Des­cartes, it will be remembered, laid down the principle that mind and matter are two op­posing substances having absolutely nothing in common. The modern psychologist pre­fers to think of man as a body-mind unity – a Theosophical concept also when freed from any materialistic implications. Instead of ‘the science of mind/ he prefers to speak of ‘the science of individual experience.’ On this basis he tries to analyse such phe­nomena as sensation, emotion, memory, imagination, aesthetic feelings, desire, under­standing, belief, and all types of thought- processes.

As a simple example: The ordinary man is not concerned with an explanation of his reactions to outward stimuli. For him there is no mystery in the fact that a gun-shot will make him start; that he finds certain kinds of music pleasing, and others not; or that an almost-forgotten tune may bring such a rush of unpleasant memories that he is put in a gloomy mood for the rest of the day. But the psychologist is concerned with the explanation of these things. He does not take them for granted. He wants to know why.

The effect of the gun-shot may undoubt­edly be explained purely physiologically. But can the other two reactions? What, exactly, are moods? What are memories? Have they, indeed, any real existence? When the psychologist banishes any soul or any mind from his scheme, any inner entity which experiences, he is hard put to it to explain even such simple reactions as the above. He must find some other explana­tion for obvious functions of mind and soul. The various schools of theoretical psycholo­gy have thus elaborated the most complicated systems and developed a difficult and highly technical terminology to explain the simplest phenomena of experience.

But whatever terms are used, the idea of an ego or self is implicit in all systems except the most materialistic. Some such concep­tion is continually cropping up. The ban­ished ego slips in by a back door, so to speak, and has to be reckoned with. As a matter of fact it is often only a sort of ‘temporary’ ego that is postulated, a result of the inter­action of brain and body. Little or nothing is known about the spiritual genealogy of the true egoic center in man and its pro­gressive development through many lives on earth, bringing into each life what it had made of itself in the past.

Yet philosophies of the past have all taught of a ‘self’ in man; sages have studied the constitution of man’s inner nature with scientific exactitude. It would seem fool­hardy to ignore their testimony as to the existence of the Self and the nature of the complex vehicles it uses for expression during its evolution on this earth. The very universality of such teachings, their intel­lectual profundity, and their ability to ac­count for all the phenomena of human ex­perience, both normal and abnormal, war­rant their serious study; and it is one of the aims of Theosophists today to bring this knowledge of man’s inner nature to the at­tention of the modern world.

Theosophy is, indeed, like a key to a code. Without the key a code is unintelligible, though one may make any number of obser­vations about it and pile up a vast amount of data concerning it. The data may be absolutely correct, but they do not answer the question: “What does the code mean?” The modern psychologist has gathered a vast amount of such observable data about man. The key to his code is missing; but we notice that some of the more penetrating scientists are turning to the sacred books of the East to find the missing key.

It is naturally in the field of the abnormal states in man that psychology and psychism meet; but the former confines itself mainly to research and experiment connected with such obvious states as dreams, hypnosis, in­sanity, hysteria, and double personality, leaving untouched a far wider range of un­explained ‘powers.’ Perhaps this is just as well for the time being.

It is worthy of note that practical psy­chology brings out a whole new set of problems to be solved which are totally un­suspected in the theoretical systems. In the treatment of abnormal states the practition­er often proves himself much bigger than his theory. This is surely because he brings to bear upon his actual problems his natural love of his fellowmen and his keen desire to bring relief to those who suffer. The spontaneous qualities of his spiritual nature cannot be denied and are bound to exert an influence upon those with whom he labors. On the other hand, he can ill afford to ignore any sources of knowledge in regard to psy­chic powers, for the simple reason that he is using them himself to some extent. His good intentions will not save his patient from the possibly disastrous effects of a power used in ignorance.

The use of hypnotism in the cure of vari­ous afflictions is discussed in a later chapter, but it may be pointed out here that even where hypnotism is not directly used, there is a large element of suggestion (another form of the same power) in the emotional relationship that is often developed between doctor and patient. The negative patient who lays open to his doctor the secrets of his inner self is likely to leave his own will passive for the entrance into the psychic nature of whatever the doctor wishes to put there. Leaving aside all cases of unscrupulous behavior on the part of the physician, the negative condition into which the pa­tient is thrown is never advisable.

Though no sweeping generalities or dog­matic assertions can be made in regard to the profound problems that the medical psy­chologist is faced with when he probes into the dark chambers of the unbalanced psy­che, we can look forward to the time when the patient will be taught to find and to rely upon the center of strength within him­self, the true Spiritual Ego from which, in the end, all power for recovery must spring. All outside help, however salutary, can only have a lasting effect, if it becomes an aid to the patient’s own latent capacity to cor­rect, from within, his own unbalanced state.

Psychic derangements often accompany, and indeed are the cause of various nervous and mental disorders which the medical psychologist treats. For instance, it is well known that certain types of megalomania, or exaggerated egotism, are often accompa­nied by psychic lesions where the sufferer imagines that he is being led to the perform­ance of great deeds by some angelic guide. He hears ‘voices/ he is said to be ‘clair­voyant/ and in touch with ‘spiritual’ powers, while all the time his own hallucination is feeding his sense of superiority. It would seem that a knowledge of the true nature of the psyche and the possibility of its ‘dis­location’ in the human constitution — one of the commonest evidences of mediumship — would be an enormous help to the psy­chologist in studying such cases.

While it is freely admitted by many that Western psychology is still in its infancy, in its application to the practical affairs of everyday life, such as education and indus­try, excellent work is being done. But it is obvious that, whereas ‘psychologization’ is freely taught and used, very little is known of the true nature of this psychic power.

It has become such a common thing now to believe that it is a good action and a sign of strength of character to force one’s own ideas or convictions upon others, that clever methods for doing so are ever on the increase. The very word psychologize’ has come to have this exclusive meaning, though its technical meaning is, of course, ‘to analyse psychologically.’ If it is argued that success in college or in business depends upon the use of this power, then we can only answer that that in itself is a sad com­mentary on present-day standards. A real psychologist might analyse this ignoble prac­tice as an attempt, by illicit means, to bring about what the man of high integrity, character and genius, accomplishes through the compelling power of truth and of his innate spiritual strength. True greatness re­quires no psychological tricks to enhance it.

IV

MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS DANGERS

MEDIUMSHIP of one kind or another is far more common than is generally supposed. It is by no means confined to ‘sensitives’ in the seance-room. And since a great many types of psychic powers are linked up with this matter, and their origin very little understood, it is worthwhile devot­ing a chapter to its study.

Speaking in a broad and general sense, we all act as ‘mediums’ for the transmission of the thoughts and impulses originating in minds other than our own, to a certain extent at least. This is inevitable since we live and move in this world as parts of a great whole. The very law of life is  a giving and taking. We are continuously exchanging and interchanging life-atoms — gross, ethereal and spiritual. Ideas spread through the astral ethers unimpeded by time and space. They enter the minds of men, are there clothed in a million forms and are sent forth again to touch new minds, which in turn become new centers of generation. Thought expresses itself in action. Action becomes the stimulus to more thought. The flow is never-ending.

But for all that we must admit that, in our unenlightened attempts to use our divine faculties of will and imagination, we have transgressed the natural law of giving and taking. The complexities of human rela­tionships offer endless illustrations of this fact. From motives good, bad, or mixed, in a thousand different ways we impose our wills on others; or, we become the instru­ment for the carrying out of someone else’s will, or are moved to action by some other outside agency. Such relationships are not necessarily evil, but when they become habit­ual, then to the extent that the outside ener­gy controls us, we are actually ‘mediums’ of one kind or another, using this word in its broadest sense.

In a penetrating article in The Theosophist (June, 1884, p. 211), H. P. Blavatsky enumerates various types of such mediums, showing how such types may vary from the most debased to the most sublime:

A person may consciously and voluntarily submit his will to another being and become his slave. This other being may be a human being, and the medium will then be his obedient servant and may be used by him for good or bad purposes. This other “being” may be an idea, such as love, greedi­ness, hate, jealousy, avarice, or some other passion, and the effect on the medium will be proportionate to the strength of the idea and the amount of self­-control left in the medium. This “other being” may be an elementary or an elemental, and the poor medium become an epileptic, a maniac or a criminal. This “other being” may be the man’s own higher principle, whether alone or put into rapport with another ray of the collective universal spiritual principle, and the “medium” will then be a great genius, a writer, a poet, an artist, a musi­cian, an inventor, and so on. This “other being” may be one of those exalted beings, called Ma­hatmas, and the conscious and voluntary medium will then be called their “Chela.”

H. P. Blavatsky says further that the ‘medium’ may or may not be conscious of the source of the influence which moves him. He may be unaware of what the actual being is like whose action is transmitted through him. He may really be getting inspiration from his own Higher Nature and imagine that he is in personal communication with Jesus. Or some adept may influence him to write a great scientific work and the writer imagine that he is in communication with the ‘spirit’ of Faraday or Francis Bacon. On the other hand, a person may be moved to commit a crime which he considers entirely foreign to his nature, and not be aware of the fact that in this case he is being influenced by an evil denizen of the astral light to whom he has given hospitality.

It can be seen from the above that energies foreign to our own stream of vitality can use us at times in various ways. The playground of their activities is always the region of our psychic nature whether these energies come from ‘above’ or ‘below.’ The dangerous and often evil cases of this psy­chological phenomenon occur when the psy­chic principle passively allows itself to be numbed, paralysed, or even ousted by an intruder from outside. A large proportion of the ordinary mediums are an outstanding example of this sort of usurpation; and a study of what is usually understood as ‘mediumship’ will serve as a specific illus­tration of the above general remarks, and provide suggestive hints as to the enormous possibilities there are for loss of moral stamina as well as of psychic and physical health, where self-control is lacking.

The Ordinary Trance Medium

The term medium usually designates one who is abnormally sensitive to impressions from the astral light. Some people are born with marked mediumistic powers. A great many more, having slight tendencies in that direction, have developed these tendencies, ignorantly supposing that a heaven-sent gift has been conferred upon them. The Spiri­tualists have been largely responsible for this. Since the rise of the Spiritualist move­ment in the middle of last century, they have never wavered from a sincere belief that by means of ‘sensitives’ under trance, communications can be made with the spirits of departed loved ones.

Now, no true Occultist would deny that communication of some kind is made. The question is: Communication with what? There are Adepts in occult science who have answered this question. It was they who instructed H. P. Blavatsky in that knowledge which she, with so little recompense, en­deavored to share with the Spiritualists. The teachings of these Adepts concerning the nature of Spiritualistic communications bear the force and conviction of first-hand testimony: for that is exactly what it is. They have used neither guesswork, fancy, nor even philosophical speculation. At home in the invisible worlds, they have used the discriminating faculty of their own spiritual clairvoyance to test and observe what takes place therein. The Theosophical teachings upon these matters represent as much of their findings as they have deemed wise to release for the present generations of men.

First of all, it is impossible to understand this subject of ‘communication’ without a knowledge of what happens to man’s complex nature after death. This is clearly described in another Manual of this series, to which the reader is referred.(Manual No. V, After Death — What? by Leoline L. Wright. See Chapter hi, ‘Why Do We Die?’)

Barring all frauds, of which, unfortunate­ly, there have been all too many in the history of Spiritualism, we might list types of contact made by the medium as follows:

A. Elementals or nature spirits. These throng the astral light. Their will, such as it is, is not directed by purposive thought. They are irresponsible and mischievous, and will assume whatever thought-forms are most strongly present in the atmosphere of the seance-room, impressed thereon by the medium or the sitters. Their lively action explains a large proportion of the phenomena of spiritualism.

B. The ‘shells’f of dead men, called (See Manual No. V, After Death — What?, Chap­ter v “Can We Communicate with our ‘Dead’?”) kama-rupas in Theosophical philosophy. These are of astral substance, and like the greater astral light, from which, indeed, they draw their life, they are impregnated with all the passional and lower emotional thoughts and feelings of the human beings who built them up during earth life.

Such kama-rupa is no fit body for the real man after death, who makes his escape out of the astral light as quickly as he may, leaving this ‘shell’ to fade out as it will. It is this ‘shell’ that is often revitalized in the seance-room, its passions quickened into a false life, and its automatic memory made to rehearse again and again the words and acts of the Ego that once ensouled it.

C. Akin to these ‘shells’ are the elementaries. These are the most evil denizens of the astral light. They are also kama-rupas of former human beings, but of grossly materialistic ex-humans whose evil impulses and appetites still inhering in the Kama-rupic phantom draw these phantoms to physical spheres con­genial to them. They are a real danger to psychi­cal health and sanity, and literally haunt living hu­man beings possessing tendencies akin to their own. They are soulless shells, but still filled with energies of a depraved and ignoble type. — G. de Purucker: Occult Glossary, p. 55

H. P. Blavatsky describes such a kama-rupa as a vampire “feeding on the vitality of those who are so anxious for its com­pany.”— Theosophical Glossary, p. 172

D. Occasionally, under very rare and unusual conditions, and when death has just taken place, the true Ego of the deceased may speak through the medium. (This sometimes can happen just before death also.) The rare event of such communica­tion just after death, is, in fact, only pos­sible as long as the brain is still functioning. Occultism has always stated what physiolo­gists now admit, that the process of decease may last several days. When true death has taken place, the Ego slips into unconsciousness from which no medium can re­call it.

E. Certain unusual cases exist where authentic communication has been made with the spirit of a departed friend. This does not mean the descent of such spirit. It im­plies that the medium’s Higher Ego is on the same high plane as the disembodied spirit and can thus contact it. The medium must be absolutely pure, and then his Higher Ego, untrammeled by an impure psychic vehicle, “has the opportunity and facility of influencing the passive organs of its en­tranced physical body, to make them act, speak, and write at its will. The Ego can make it repeat, echo-like, and in the human language, the thoughts and ideas of the dis­embodied entity, as well as its own.” (H. P. Blavatsky: The Key to Theosophy, p. 30.) medium and some spiritual being, the con­tact always made through the intermediary of the medium’s own Higher Ego. It should be distinctly understood, however, that in cases (e) and (f) there can be no ‘materialization’ in the seance-room.

It might be added here that the adept can do this and similar things self-consciously and directed by his will. The unstable con­dition of the constitution prevalent among mediums is only too often a hindrance to communications of a spiritual nature.

Finally, we should include those numer­ous instances where the medium is merely reading the thoughts in the minds of the sitters. The technical or detailed informa­tion thus received has often been adduced by the unsuspecting investigator, as irrefut­able proof of true ‘spirit’ communication. As a matter of fact, everyone present at a seance is likely to influence the type and extent of the phenomena presented, even though he may be taking no obvious part in the proceedings. It has even been pointed out that a skeptic present will act as a sort of ‘freezing’ agent impeding the usual prog­ress of affairs.

Materializations

Having enumerated the types of entities with which communication is made, there still remains to be given an explanation of just what it is that appears in the seance- room. The word ‘materialization’ is used in Spiritualism to denote the objective ap­pearance of what purports to be the spirit of the departed one. The striking and some­times photographic likeness of these shapes constitutes one of the surest proofs to the Spiritualist that it is indeed the dead friend or relative who has ‘returned’. Since the actual state of affairs precludes the possi­bility of the return of the true spirit of the departed from higher realms, what explana­tion are we to give for this phenomenon?

The Theosophical philosophy explains that the densest astral substance is very near indeed to the most tenuous physical, so that the appearance caught on the photographic plate and seen occasionally with the human eye is that of a coarse grade of astral sub­stance which has become partially objective through the concurrence of a number of fav­orable conditions. This should be no more difficult to understand than the various elec­tric phenomena with which we are all fami­liar. Electricity is forever about us, yet only under certain conditions does its acti­vity become visible. There is also an anal­ogy in the transformations from the invisi­ble to the visible and vice versa which take place daily in the test-tube of the chemist. Or, again, where is our spark of fire before we strike the match that causes it to spring into visibility?

Evidently there is more than one grade of astral substance employed in materializa­tions, and as there are a number of different factors involved, the matter is a very com­plicated one; but a few general principles can be stated.

Sometimes the apparition, if we may so call it, is formed by the actual astral eidolon or kama-rupa of the deceased which natur­ally bears the likeness of the body that once harbored it.

Whenever the strong desires of living men and the conditions furnished by the abnormal constitu­tions of mediums are combined together, these eidola are drawn — nay, pulled down from their plane on to ours and made objective. — H. P. Blavatsky: Theosophical Glossary, p. 210

Then there is the ‘double’ or astral body which can be projected a short distance from the physical body of the medium. This gathers to itself particles of ethereal substance suspended in the atmosphere about it, and drawn even from the vital emana­tions of the sitters. It then takes upon it­self whatever thought-forms are most strong­ly impressed from the minds of those pres­ent, more often than not, the likeness of the deceased.

Another and more tangible process is the extrusion of material substance (ectoplasm) from the body of the medium, which sub­stance, being highly plastic molds itself into recognisable forms. In some cases this is like a flat plate upon which a picture is thrown. Obviously these images are not ‘spirits’ of any kind; they are merely illu­sions foisted upon the ignorant sitters by sportive nature-spirits.

In fact, only too often the Spiritualists, and even the more scientific researchers, are subject to the most deceptive illusions be­cause of the activity of the mischievous denizens of the astral light.

Poltergeists

It is to these astral denizens that are to be attributed the crazy moving of furniture, violent breaking of household objects, ring­ing of bells and other strange noises, as well as the more intelligent ‘raps’ answering questions by a sort of code,(*It is a recognised fact that these messages often start out in an incoherent manner, but by medium- istic encouragement a pseudo-personality is gradu­ally developed, representing itself as a spirit known to the sitters. This is explained in Theosophy by the fact that elementals collect the thoughts and images in the minds of those present—which are usually centered upon the departed one — until by degrees an artificial resemblance to the latter’s way of thinking and method of expression is built up. If this line of investigation were followed out by psychic researchers, it would lead them to a fuller appreciation of the illusory nature of a great number of the phenomena of so-called spirit-return.) which are known both in the seance-room and out of  it. These phenomena are generally classed under the term poltergeist, a German word meaning literally ‘racketing spirit.’ This term is quite accurate, but scientists have adopted it without accepting its significance, since they do not recognise the existence of ‘spirits.’ When they do not dismiss such occurrences with some mechanical explana­tion which is often absurd and totally inade­quate, they simply describe them as “phe­nomena of an unexplained nature and of untraceable origin.”

These phenomena, known in all ages and to all peoples from the most savage tribes to the most highly developed races, are ex­plained in Theosophy in accordance with the principles already set forth in this Manual. The factors involved are first, a person of mediumistic tendencies, and sec­ond, the inhabitants of the astral light. The ‘medium’ may be a person temporarily in an unbalanced state perhaps through some nervous malady or nervous shock. Often it is a young girl; and the household may be annoyed for some time by these disturbing happenings without the slightest idea as to who is acting as the ‘contact-point’ with the astral world. Such a person’s constitution acts as an electric wire, so to speak, conduct­ing astral forces onto the physical plane.

There are two general explanations for these disturbances, but, as in all such mat­ters, each case under observation would have to be expertly studied for a complete under­standing of all the factors involved. Some­times it is the medium’s own astral limbs, extruded in a sort of dream fashion, which lift books from a table, knock down pieces of china and so on. More often it is frolic­some nature-spirits which, attracted to psy­chically sensitive people, are unconsciously used by them to perform these various crazy acts. The medium serves as a sort of in­ferior type of magician — not evil, but using nature forces as a magician does, though unconsciously and without the technical knowledge of the latter.

A more fully developed medium may at­tract the decaying kama-rupa of some for­mer evil human being, or even a sorcerer who is reaching the last stages of disinte­gration but who has enough vitality left to permit him to act on the physical plane through the constitution of the medium. Thus the medium who develops his so-called powers by repeated attempts at contact with ‘the other side’ is in a far worse state than the mere ‘sensitive’ whose inner faculties may be temporarily out of control.

Mediumship an Undesirable Profession

This whole business of attempting to com­municate with the dead has been tradition­ally considered among all peoples as necro­mancy. Modern Spiritualists are saved from its more evil forms by their good intentions and perhaps even more because of their very ignorance of the occult laws for tam­pering with the dead which were known to evil sorcerers in the past. It is in their ig­norance also that they are violating a law of nature which mercifully puts a veil of oblivion between ourselves and those who have passed from this plane. Though it is true that present-day attempts to communi­cate with the departed Ego are not success­ful, nevertheless the tampering with the be­ing in the kama-loka delays the process of the Ego’s freeing itself from the lower astral realms. W. Q. Judge tells us that the Ego may actually feel a twinge every time his shade is called up in the “charnel house of a living medium’s body.”

But the greatest danger in these practices is to the medium himself. His nature, in the first place, becomes a playground for elemental beings. Normally these beings look upon man as their master and they are quick to recognise and respect those superi­or moral qualities manifest in the controlled and balanced man. But when man drops to their plane and ignorantly invades their uncanny realm then they become the master. Since they are quite without conscience and moral stamina it is obvious that the very fiber of character of one under their influ­ence is consistently undermined.

The medium also opens the door of his nature to elementaries who are forever seek­ing an entrance into earth-life in order to satisfy their unfulfilled lusts. In some cases these usurpers are successful in ousting the wavering psyche of the medium from its sheltered seat within the human constitu­tion and then play havoc with his nervous system and mental and even moral stability. Deterioration nearly always results.

Even the ‘shells’ of averagely good indi­viduals, magnetically drawn to the seance-room, are harmful. Since they are galvan­ized into a false life by drawing upon the nervous vitality of the entranced medium, the latter is always left bloodless and ex­hausted. In fact it is generally recognised that the nervous health of mediums is de­plorably bad; and their usual psychic in­stability is also admitted. Note the ac­cepted definition of a medium quoted in a modern book on Spiritualism: (A Cavalcade of the Supernatural_y by H. H. U. Cross, ph. D., 1939, p. 137.)

One whose constituent elements — mental, dyna­mic and material — are capable of being momentari­ly decentralized. The innate tendency to disso­ciation in these peculiar constitutions is increased by the practice of mediumship, which tends to ren­der the primarily abnormal state more and more easy and normal — a fact that should cause one to pause before embarking on the career.

H. P. Blavatsky’s emphatic warnings against the cultivation of mediumistic powers, as well as the words of other Theosophi- cal teachers, take on added force when one reviews the fate of the many human wrecks that modern Spiritualism has left in its train.

Mediator versus Medium

Fortunately this unlovely subject has an­other side to it — the true occult science of which mediumship is but a counterfeit. In the highly trained human being, the psychic nature can be so absolutely under control, so free from the pull downwards towards things of matter, so pellucid, that it can act as an intermediary for the transmission of the lofty energies of the Spiritual Ego with­out distortion or misrepresentation.

The technical word to describe such an intermediary is Mediator. The character of a mediator is the antithesis of that of the medium. The former is highly spiritual, with a forceful personality often, and a firmness of will which could in no way be affected or turned aside by beings in the lower astral light. It is said, in fact, that the evil denizens of the astral currents sur­rounding our earth could not endure to be near one who radiated such spiritual vitali­ty. Myths and stories of every land telling of those highly developed beings who seem to walk in the light and radiate it about them, and from whom ‘devils⁷ and ‘demons’ flee, have their originals in actual individu­als. If we do not see many such in our day, we may well believe it is because we have not created an atmosphere congenial to their exalted natures.* (See Isis Unveiled, I, 487-8.)

A mediator is also able on occasion to step aside, so to speak, with full conscious­ness, in order to allow his brain and body to be used by one even greater than himself. This ‘stepping aside’ in no way resembles the disjunction or dislodging of the inter­mediate nature which takes place in the case of the hapless and helpless medium, nor has it anything to do with spiritualism or spiritualistic seances. It is done with the full intelligence and co-operation of the in­dividual and for a divinely compassionate purpose. There is a great mystery con­nected with this which in published writ­ings can only be hinted at; but those who are at all familiar with the life-story of H. P. Blavatsky will know something of how she, as the Messenger of the Brotherhood of Compassion, offered herself as their mouth­piece.

There is value to the ordinary man and woman in this teaching of the infilling of the nature with the inspiration of the High­er Self. By studying the principles of both mediumship and mediatorship, we can learn in our every act to avoid the former while cultivating the latter state. A positive alert attitude to the duties that life brings us, a practice of the power of concentration, and an attempt to lift even the commonplaces of our existence to a plane where they can be illumined by the light of our own spirit­ual nature, are the first steps in a training which must extend over many lifetimes be­fore we reach the status of the mediator.

There is in very fact, wondrous mystery as it is, a continuous and unceasing effort of the inner god to lean downwards towards us, so to speak, in order to raise its ‘lower self,’ the human individual, up to higher planes towards a final consummation of self-conscious unity with itself. When the inner god thus leans from its highths and touches its low­er brother-mind, there then instantaneously passes from the god a spiritual-electric fire into the being of the one thus divinely touched. — G. de Purucker, The Esoteric Tradition, II, 984-5.

There is no normal human being who can­not learn to become such a mediator for the transmission of this “spiritual-electric fire” from the god within his own being.

HYPNOTISM

CLOSELY associated with the general topic of mediumship is that of hyp­notism, since the subject of the hypnotizer’s experiments becomes in a very real sense a medium: his will is temporarily paralysed and often permanently weakened, and his psychic nature becomes a passive receiver of the foreign will-force it is subjected to.

H. P. Blavatsky speaks of Hypnotism as the “illegitimate son of Mesmerism.” This indicates that a distinction is actually to be made between the two, though in early Theo-sophical literature the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

Anton Mesmer reintroduced to the west­ern world, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, a knowledge of the healing power of magnets. He showed that certain diseases could be treated effectively by stroking the afflicted parts with magnets of various kinds. He soon realized that the magnetic rods with which his first experi­ments were made merely served as conduc­tors for a fluid emanating from his own per­son; and he then re-enunciated the truth that the human body itself is a magnet and that some people have the ability to use this magnetic power from themselves without the aid of metals. It is because of its pres­ence in the physical body that the force be­came known as ‘animal’ magnetism for want of a more truly scientific term.

This magnetism is, as a matter of fact, as Mesmer was well aware, a quality per­vading the whole universe, man merely shar­ing in it because he is built out of the very substance of the universe. In man it mani­fests as an invisible fluid that can be induced to flow by means of the will from one individual to another. H. P. Blavatsky de­scribes it thus:

Occultism calls the force transmitted, the “auric fluid ” to distinguish it from the “auric light”; the “fluid” being a correlation of atoms on a higher plane, and a descent to this lower one, in the shape of impalpable and invisible plastic Substances, gener­ated and directed by the potential Will; . . .

— Studies in Occultism, II, pp. 4-5

This “correlation of atoms” spoken of is but one aspect of the general law, already stated, that we are all continuously pouring forth streams of life-atoms on all planes of our being. This outflow is very weak in some individuals, very strong in others, depending upon the general vitality of the individual, which vitality is in it­self determined by the habitual trends of the Ego through many lives, in which it has been building and perfecting for it­self outer and inner bodies for its means of expression in earth life.

The magnetic fluid is not in itself a spir­itual thing, and it need not necessarily be the possession only of those who are spir­itually developed. It might be said that the force per se is colorless, receiving its healthy or unhealthy stamp from the operator. All types of magnetic healers of today use this force and whether they understand its ra­tionale or not, does not affect in any way the quality of the emanation. They give to the patient of their own vitality, and, if their own vital stream is healthy, not only on the physical but on the psychic plane (this latter being the more important) then real cures can be made by means of this ‘auric fluid.’ But it is a question how many would-be healers have an absolutely pure heredity; and there is always some risk in attempted cures of this kind because where there are any physical weaknesses in the practitioner, even though they be only in germ, these may be transplanted into the patient’s life-stream, and a worse disease take root in the adopted system than the one that is being cured.

Painstaking and conscientious investiga­tion over long periods of time, and a study of many types of cases, would have to be undertaken to provide ‘convincing’ scientific proof of this occult truth; and even such examinations would be incomplete since the present-day scientist does not consider the thread of continuous life carrying along from incarnation to incarnation, following the longer cycles of cause and effect.

Anton Mesmer was, of course, an adept in the art of magnetic healing. As one of the cyclical envoys from the Brotherhood of Compassion he was authorized to teach the real nature of this power and its use in heal­ing. His cures were effected always by direction of his will and in full understand­ing of the polarity of the physical body in its relation to the great magnet, the universe. His knowledge, in fact, was much vaster than is generally supposed. We are told* (See Theosophical Glossary, p. 214) that he founded in 1783 the “Order of Universal Harmony” where it is general­ly supposed only animal magnetism was taught; but in reality he taught the princi­ples and methods used in the ancient Temples of Healing, called in Greece the Temples of Aesculapius.

There has always been known to the few ‘enlightened ones’ a complete occult system of healing; sometimes it has been generally recognised for the actual fact that it is, and sometimes it has been scoffed at and called superstition or fraud, as was the case with Mesmer’s work of nearly two centuries ago. In many lands this art, or true science, was carried on under the aegis of the Mystery Schools where proper supervision and train­ing was possible; where the physicians were adepts in the mysteries of man’s inner na­ture as well as of his physical body, and where the possibility of the art’s being used for evil purposes was unthinkable.

Today there is no such occult school for training in this art, whose modern presenta­tion, the pseudo-science known as Hypno­tism, denies the very source from which it sprang. This modern counterfeit is classed by all occultists as a species of the Black Art — Sorcery; unconscious in many cases, to be sure, but evil nonetheless because it violates a fundamental law and right of our human nature: that each man shall be his own ruler in his inner kingdom, with the right of choice as to what guests he shall entertain therein, and the right to direct his own development by discovering for himself and making use of the exhaustless treasures that his inner kingdom contains.

Hypnotism comes from a Greek root, hypnos, meaning ‘sleep’; and the practice is so named because the state brought about in the subject of the experiment resembles an artificially induced somnambulism. In such a state the will of the subject is pas­sive, and by means of impressing pictures upon the astral double (a process called ‘sug­gestion’), the subject automatically does whatever the operator wills that he shall do, since the physical body, driven by the will-force from without, merely produces the motion-patterns indicated in the astral double.

In this process the nervous system, the link between the physical and astral bodies, is anesthetized: a state that in itself has questionable after-effects, since it is likely to cause or aggravate the nervous unbalance and sensitiveness so characteristic of all types of mediums.

Further, when the hypnotizer dominates the will of another so that it becomes in­active, what actually happens is that he synchronizes the rate of vibration of his will and that of his subject. H. P. Blavatsky thus describes the process:

. . . it is the Will of the operator radiating through his eye that produces the required unison between his will and the will of the person operated upon. For, out of two objects attuned in unison — as two chords, for instance — one will always be weaker than the other, and thus [the stronger] have mas­tery over the other and even the potentiality of de­stroying its weaker “co-respondent.” — Studies in Occultism, II, pp. 14-15

In these words lies the key to a scientific explanation of the deterioration of the force of will in the victim of such practices. Even in cases where experimentation is well-mean­ing, once the controlling power is withdrawn, as for instance at the death of the hypnotizer, the subject finds himself stranded, deprived both of the artificial aid and of his self-generated will. It is for this reason that the use of hypnotism for the cure of bad habits or mental ills, cannot be approved by the Theosophist. To be able temporarily to supply an alien psychic force for making an artificial adjustment, is merely delaying the process that finally has to take place. Cures made in this way are at best tempo­rary, and the time will come when the steps of the sufferer will have to be retraced and the enfeebled psychic nature build as best it may a secure stronghold within the outer vehicle.

In all cases of hypnotic subjugation, the contact between hypnotist and patient es­tablishes a rapport which reacts on both. The karman of the two becomes inextricably woven, so that the operator becomes largely karmically responsible for anything the other may do in his unconscious state, or even afterwards due to the effect of post­hypnotic suggestion. Moreover, the hypnotizer is unable to make the line of demarca­tion between the purely physiological results of his efforts and the psychic results, and in his ignorance may bring on subtle re­actions which even he had no intention of inducing and over which he has no control. It is even said that there is the possibility of a psychic backwash too strong for the practitioner himself to withstand, since the channels of communication are open in both directions, and the very things that he is combating may find lodgment in his own nature.

Quite aside from the use of this power for cures of one kind or another, which are, in these days, better regulated than formerly, there is much illicit use of the power to amuse the wonder-seekers. This is a dis­grace to our civilization and can only be excused on the grounds of the utter igno­rance of most performers and of those who allow themselves to be used for such public exhibitions. Such spectacles accustom the unthinking to imagine that the whole thing is a sport and nothing more; while they act as a constant suggestion to evil-minded men to develop the power for their own diabolic purposes. The last mentioned use of the power is the most insidious, since crimes committed in this way are untraceable. Mr. Judge speaks of this as one of the most serious aspects of our present development, since the power is likely to increase in the coming generations rather than decrease, and the ethical development of the race does not appear to be keeping pace.

Self-Hypnotization

Under this heading may be classed a great many abnormal states, which might even include the psychological case in which the self-deluded individual has given over all the energies of his being to some fixed idea that he has built up in his conscious­ness. The idea may have no basis in actual

reality, but it can become of such absorbing reality to the unfortunate person that he may entirely lose his sense of proportion and finally become unfit to continue life among normal people. Mental unbalance of this sort often starts by the fostering of some imaginary grievance which, once it receives lodgment in the mind, finds little difficulty in waxing strong and finally dominating its victim.

However, confining ourselves to those cases which rightly come under the study of psychic powers, and in which there are definite physiological as well as psychologic­al reactions, we might enumerate the fol­lowing:

A. Those who induce artificial somnam­bulism without the aid of an outside oper­ator, by various mechanical means such as gazing at a bright object.

B. The religious ecstatics who can reproduce upon their own bodies the wounds as pictured on the body of Jesus by the concentrated visualizing of such unpleasant pictures until the astral disfiguration affects the physical flesh.

C. Those who practise certain lower forms of Yoga, hoping by psycho-physio­logical means to rise superior over the claims of body and mind.

D. Those who, in their misguided en­thusiasm, try to heal the ills of the body by denying the existence of their troubles.

In all these cases imagination and will are the two moving powers. For man is a tremendous dynamo of energy — a creator who makes his creations out of thought driven by will. But thought can either build or destroy, and whether he is acting upon his own nature or that of another, it behooves him to know something about the tools with which he works, otherwise he may find himself well on the road to destroying — himself.

In our normal use of thought directed by will we are using a psychic power. This is legitimate; but the cases enumerated above instance the unwise use of such power. To discuss briefly but one example, that of curing disease by forcible efforts of the self­centered will: In the ancient schools it was understood that all sickness originates with the thinking self, which has the power of impressing, first upon the astral body, and through it on the physical, the stamp of its character. Thought at the present stage of our development is largely governed by emotion, and it is actually the potent inter­action of these two that changes our bodies and accounts for our states of health and dis­ease. The disease itself is only a symptom of an inner state, or of a state held at some time in the past by the ego, perhaps several in­carnations ago. Disease might, in fact, be described as ‘a state of mind and emotion in the last stages of working itself out of the human constitution through the physical body.’ For nature works normally from within outward, and the appearance of a disease is a testimony to her thorough and efficient methods.

No adept in the art of healing will there­fore do anything that will dam back the disease. He would consider it merely doing away with the symptoms and sending the seeds of the trouble back to its psychic source. To deny with concentrated will the existence of an obvious ill is a form of this damming back, or sending back, process, which, apparently so effective sometimes, is really most ineffective since it is an inter­ference with a natural process, which will at a later date have to be repeated.

This does not mean that mind plays no part in healing. Just the contrary. Since mind caused the disease, mind can also cause eventual health by creating a gener­ating center of mental health within. But ills perhaps long ago established, are better left to the wise care of a good physician who aids nature in carrying them out of the system; aided also, hopefully, by the patient himself by a cheerful attitude of mind based on a philosophical outlook to­wards the trouble.

Psychologization in General

Under the general term Hypnotism are included all forms of fascination, sugges­tion, glamour, spell-binding, and so on, all of which might accurately be grouped under the general heading of ‘Psychologization” a tampering with the psychic nature of other individuals. Probably a record of the former lives of many unfortunate inmates of our mental hospitals as well as our prisons would show that there had been subjection at one time or another to hypnotic influence.

In all cases of hypnosis the confidence and good will of the patient are necessary for complete success, while prejudice against the practice may render one much less amen­able to suggestion and even entirely im­mune. Similarly in all forms of psycholo­gization: an intelligent understanding of the danger of the process, and a healthy and positive disapproval of any form of it are an excellent protection. And it is worth pondering upon the thought that as in all forms of mediumship, each person is vul­nerable to such domination at those points where his nature is weakest.

As H. P. Blavatsky says:

Every man has his little “weaknesses,” and every man has his little “mediumship”; that is to say, some vulnerable point, by which he may be taken unawares. — The Theosophist, June, 1884, p. 211

If a man allows fear to rule his life, then it is this aura of fear about him that will invite some form of subtle suggestion. Or sloth and indifference may throw him off his guard. Living as we do amid a con­stant subtle interplay of forces, bathed as we are at all times by the thought-laden astral currents, it is never wise to imagine our fortress impregnable unless we can keep the connexion with our spiritual inner center unbroken.

This state of inner stability is the truly human condition. When we drop below this by allowing any vagrant force to sweep us off our feet, we have fallen somewhat below the human standard. We can be said to be for the time sub-human. The inanities and even atrocities committed by groups of people under the power of what is called ‘mob-psychology’ show to what ex­tent otherwise quite decent people can fore­go their true humanity and become irrespon­sible ‘elementals’ automatically driven by some outside Will or Idea.

Will-Prayer

There is one other type of psychic power which should receive mention, though it does not strictly belong under the subject of Hypnotism. This power is used in vari­ous ways which might all be classed under what H. P. Blavatsky calls Will-Prayer.

The number of groups and individuals in the West who use some form of Will- Prayer is growing rapidly. They have dis­covered, indeed, an occult secret: “the mys­terious power of thought which enables it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy.” (The Secret Doctrine, II, 173).

Since Man is a Thinker, he is a Creator, and if his will is strong enough and one- pointed enough he can make of an Idea a fact. But when this divine gift is used, as only too often it is, to satisfy selfish per­sonal wishes, remove hardships and trials,and in general do away with the wholesome disciplines which his life provides, he trans­forms the spiritual will into the psychic. This is a dangerous practice which can be­come the first step along the path of moral degeneration. One’s ‘willing’ for this or for that may ‘work’; but the many instances recorded of results coming about in unex­pected ways, or at times when the objects are no longer desired, should act as a deter­rent to those who are tempted to dabble with occult powers.

A study of the legitimate uses of thought and will is essential to all students of life. Intelligent discrimination must be used, however, if one would discern the false from the true.* (For further study of this important subject see The Key to Theosophy, pp. 67-8, orig. ed.)

CLAIRVOYANCE AND OTHER PSYCHIC POWERS

CLAIRVOYANCE, clairaudience, tele­pathy, psychometry and the like pow­ers, may or may not be connected with the phenomena of spiritualistic mediumship. Certain phases of these powers are common to the medium under trance, but many clair­voyants, psychometrists, etc., have no con­nexion whatsoever with the spiritualistic seance.

The possession of these faculties, men­tioned above, does not indicate an unusual degree of spiritual development, nor is their manifestation dependent upon purity and unselfishness of character. They are mere­ly evidences that one or more of the astral

senses are partially able to act independent of their physical counterparts.

Clairvoyance and Clairaudience

The word ‘clairvoyance’ means ‘clear-see­ing’, but this is exactly what it is not, as this psychic power is known today, since its outstanding characteristic is unreliability. There are, as said, many grades of astral substance, each of which is familiar to a certain type of ‘seer’, but as a rule it is the lower regions of the astral light that the clairvoyant contacts, a realm where all is a welter of confusion. Even here their vision is limited, they see only into one or more sub-planes, and their pictures are therefore partial and scrappy.

Through octave after octave of vibrations the effect of every thought or act on our plane makes its own particular impression on inner planes, each and all known to the occultist. Each such impression represents but one phase of the imperishable record. The trained seer must combine all of these ‘aspects’ in order to read the true picture. W. Q. Judge describes how even in so simple an act as a person’s moving from one chair to another in a room, all the centers of force in his being come into play and each one makes its own and peculiar effect on the astral substance, and he goes on to say that:

At once the motion made and thoughts aroused elicit their own sound, color, motion in ether, amount of etheric light, symbolic picture, disturb­ance of elemental forces, and so on through the great catalogue. Did one but wink his eye, the same effects follow in due order. And the seer can perceive but that which attunes itself to his own development and personal peculiarities, all limited in force and degree. — The Path, V, pp. 283-4

Every reading made by the seer is modi­fied, if not markedly colored, by his own powers of interpretation, partly governed by his degree of technical knowledge concerning the character of the various sub-planes of the astral light, and partly by his mental and intuitional development. In fact his whole hereditary and evolutionary back­ground affects the nature of his interpreta­tion.

There is also a distinction to be made be­tween actual astral records of people and events either of the past, present or future, and mere thought-forms relating to such people and events projected from the minds of individuals. Suppose, for instance, one approaches a ‘fortune-teller’ for the pur­pose of finding out whether some project will turn out to one’s liking. There are sev­eral possibilities of error in the answer, aside from the limitations already mentioned. There hangs around every man in his own astral atmosphere, sometimes called his aura, a perfect phantasmagoria of images that he weaves out of the stuff of his own thinking self. Now if our querent has built up, as he undoubtedly has, a thought-pic- ture of what he hopes will happen, the seer may mistake this for a foreshadowing of the future outcome. Or the querent’s mind may be just freshly impressed by thoughts from another dominant mind. This impres­sion will then stand out most clearly and prove a false indication for the undiscrimi- nating seer. Or there may be spontaneous and quite unconscious feelings of either sym­pathy or antipathy between the two, and this in itself will color the reply.

Further, the relation of pictures one with another is not clear in the astral light. There is often a reversal of sequence or conditions: the future may appear as the past, summer as winter, results look like causes, and so on. Numbers also are said to appear in reverse, as for instance 321 may be transformed into 123.

Such instances of the unreliability of most clairvoyant readings could be added to al­most indefinitely. Conflicting reports from a number of clairvoyants about some event of nation-wide interest bear out the em­phatic statements made by occultists as to the uncertain character of all such sources of knowledge. And mention might also be made of the strong temptation to deception and fraud risked by those professed psy­chics whose rather doubtful powers are not always functioning.

Besides this matter of unreliability, which often may lead others astray, there are the more serious dangers to the clairvoyant him­self. It is significant that a large majority of clairvoyants suffer from nervous and other physical disorders, and from mental insta­bility, and that their degree of sensitivity often increases proportionally to their ill- health.

Further, the effect of such constant cen­tering of attention on this subtle sense-perception brings on a gradual atrophy of the thinking, reasoning faculty. The clair­voyant, also, may not be able to stop the power at will, and the images that float before his inner eye may torment and per­plex until sanity itself is threatened. When we are so little able as yet to stand firm against the throng of subtle suggestions that assault the fortress of our psychic na­ture through the avenues of our five phy­sical senses, it would seem to be rashness in the extreme to wish to be introduced to a whole new set of senses, far more com­plicated and bewildering in action. And to advise another to try to develop clair­voyant powers is a responsibility no one would care to undertake once he knew all that it entails.

The following words from W. Q. Judge are emphatic and unmistakable in their im­port:

But what shall theosophists do? Stop all attempts at clairvoyance. And why? Because it leads them slowly but surely — almost beyond re­call— into an interior and exterior passive state where the will is gradually overpowered and they are at last in the power of the demons who lurk around the threshold of our consciousness. Above all, follow no advice to “sit for development.” Madness lies that way. The feathery touches which come upon the skin while trying these experiments are said by mediums to be the gentle touches of the “spirits.” But they are not. They are caused by the ethereal fluids from within us making their way out through the skin and thus producing the illusion of a touch. When enough has gone out, then the victim is getting gradually negative, the future prey for spooks and will-o’-the-wisp images.

“But what” they say, “shall we pursue and study?” Study the philosophy of life, leave the decorations that line the road of spiritual develop­ment for future lives, and — practise altruism. — The Path, V, p. 284

Clairaudience is but another form of the same psychic power as clairvoyance and may be just as open to error. Sound, like light, leaves its impressions upon the tenacious substance of the astral light. This may be difficult to understand at first, but an analogous phenomenon is found in the simple experiment of the physics laboratory where sand will take on geometrical patterns when submitted to the vibrations of a mu­sical instrument. The phonograph record still better illustrates this point.

The two powers are sometimes hardly dis­tinguishable, both astral senses apparently functioning together. And whether of the ear or of the eye the ‘image’ may sometimes seem to be objective because the astral sense organ, having received its vibratory mes­sage from the ether, sends it on to the brain which then excites the physical organ of sight or sound.

Telepathy

Telepathy or thought-transference, also called E. S. P. (extra-sensory perception), is the faculty of perceiving thought-pictures sent out by another mind. Involuntary tele­pathy is very common indeed, especially where there exists a bond of sympathy. Al­most everyone has had the experience of having letters cross, one being obviously the reply to the other; or that a friend at a dis­tance is aware of something going on in one’s own mind without any written word. There is nothing abnormal or ‘magical’ about this, since thought is known to the occult­ist to be vibratory, and where two minds are in sympathy there is similarity of vibra­tion transmitted from one mind to the other along the invisible astral medium.

Voluntary telepathy requires not only a perfect rapport between two individuals, but also an intense concentration of thought directed by the will; but the development of the power in ordinary persons would be exceedingly difficult and probably danger­ous in any case. As a race we have not as yet the ethical stamina that would prove us worthy to possess a power allowing us, under a thousand temptations, to pick the thoughts out of another’s mind and pry into the inner recesses of his consciousness.

The present rather widespread experi­ments in telepathy, in order to discover whe­ther there does exist a sixth sense in man, an ‘extra-sensory perception/ are bound to be very incomplete in their results, because the experimenters are working with the mys­teries of elusive consciousness which will not be confined within the limits of the laboratory. It is like trying to draw perma­nent lines with a stick in a body of water. Yet their efforts are interesting since they may lead to the opening of a door into a realm whose existence scientists have con­sistently denied.

There is a higher form of telepathy, if one may so call it, in which we all may par­take. H. P. Blavatsky speaks of that great ocean of supernal Ideas in which our globe exists. To this are attracted those great minds of the human race whose quality of thought is on a similar high plane. These giant minds become the channels by which these sublime Ideas are clothed in human language to quicken the spiritual intuitions of the race. This inner world of thought has no limiting frontiers. We keep our­selves out.

Crystal-Gazing

This rather specific term may serve to de­scribe one type of astral visioning. It is the practice of looking into a crystal, a polished mirror, or some such object with the ability to see therein events taking place at a dis­tance, or foreshadowings of the future. Ex­amination shows that there are too many cases of successful divination to class this whole matter under that of hallucination or trickery. Yet as with other occult matters, the subject has not been studied seriously by scientific investigators because of ma­terialistic prejudice which would make the researcher lose caste in scientific circles. For too long the matter has been associated with superstition and the tricks of paid pro­fessionals. The inability of the seer to be consistently successful, or to explain causes of failure, has also helped to throw the whole matter into disfavor.

Theosophy explains that certain bright and polished objects more readily than other things collect or concentrate a portion of the astral light about themselves, where pic­tures are thus made visible to one who has a certain amount of clairvoyant perception. Such objects are really merely an aid to the natural clairvoyant. Records of many peoples show a wide variety of such objects used in different ages and countries, such as a pool of ink in the hand, water in a ves­sel, a sword blade, and so on.

PSYCHOMETRY

This is the faculty of reading astral im­pressions and pictures that cluster around inanimate as well as animate objects. Such pictures the psychometrist can ‘see’ when he comes into physical contact with the ob­ject to be studied. The sensations received are not only those of sight. Sounds can be heard, odors smelt, or sensations of heat and cold, dryness and moisture felt.

Thus a manuscript, painting, article of clothing or jewelry — no matter how ancient — conveys to the sensitive, a vivid picture of the writer, painter, or wearer even; though he lived in the days of Ptolemy or Enoch. Nay, more; a fragment of an ancient building will recall its history and even the scenes which transpired within or about it. A bit of ore will carry the soul-vision back to the time when it was in process of formation.

H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, I, 182

This power is fairly common in a mild degree. In fact all people who are at all sensitive to the unpleasant or perhaps pleasant atmosphere hanging around old houses, books, furniture and the like, are exhibiting a slight and unconscious use of the power; for it is obvious that that unseen something they sense, adheres rather in the astral body of the object than in the physical shell.

Psychometry may be considered a rela­tively safe door into the inner world for the scientists. The thousands of experiments that have been made along this line are much more satisfactory and much less sub­ject to fraud than anything else of a psychic nature. H. P. Blavatsky suggests that the faculty was extensively used in the ancient world, and quotes a modern investigator who believes that the profound knowledge of the Chaldean astrologers was gained rather through clairvoyant reading of cer­tain meteoric stones than by the use of astronomical instruments.* (*See Isis Unveiled, I, 331-2.)

Automatic Writing

Automatic Writing, besides being one of the phenomena of spiritualism, is also at the present time cultivated by an ever increas­ing number of people whose purposes in so doing are probably varied. Some enthusiasts seriously believe that they can train them­selves to be guided in the composition of marvelous works of literature, or become the channels for revelations of truth from ‘on high.’ But most results that have been studied, while sometimes containing bits of lofty thought, are characterized by two things: (a) inequality of style to a marked degree, and, (b) lack of any coherent thread of thought. The mass of twaddle put out in this way is conspicuous. Even the best class of this kind of writing never contains any new contribution to the body of spiri­tual ideas already found in the great litera­tures of the world.

In India, where the mysteries of the psy­chic nature have been studied for many ages, such type of automatic writing has always been ascribed to bhutas, astral remnants of former human beings. And the practice has always been warned against, since it leaves one passive to whatever astral entities may find an affinity in one’s psychic make-up.

There is, however, another type of auto­matic writing which is described by G. de Purucker as follows:

This kind is wholesome, good, and proper to cul­tivate if you have a wise and reliable Teacher. Otherwise you will almost inevitably slip on the path. This other kind of automatic writing can occur when the higher part of the human constitu­tion becomes the controlling factor for an hour or two or three mayhap. The human being then is no longer conscious of his physical personality at all; he has transcended that; he has raised himself, has become for the time being almost at one with the god within, and in these circumstances his hand writes what may actually be a very message from his own spiritual nature.

But alas, in the present state of human evolution, none can do this without initiation, without train­ing, without a Teacher. — Questions We All Ask, Series II, No. iv

To establish contact with the spiritual source of one’s own being requires not only technical training, but a prepared vehicle as well. It was through such training and prep­aration that H. P. Blavatsky was able to become the channel for the writing of large portions of her books by her own Teachers. She was able at any moment to receive their ‘call to attention’; and hints that she her­self has given in her writings show that this was no light accomplishment.

It would not be profitable to dwell fur­ther on the various types of abnormal de­velopment as exhibited in the West; nor need the numerous other psychic powers known only to the East concern us here. Enough has been said to show how misleading is the glamour that hangs about these subjects, a glamour that we could dispel if we knew more about the genuine spiritual powers of which these are at best but a poor reflexion.

For instance, it is undoubtedly the element of prophecy that makes clairvoyance so fas­cinating to many people. To be able to cheat time, so to speak, becomes almost a passion with some. Yet such attempts to glimpse into the future, when successful bring dissatisfaction, unrest, a centering of attention upon oneself, and a general loss of equilibrium; when unsuccessful, they are futile indeed.

The true clairvoyant power, on the other hand, which takes its beginnings in unselfish love, brings with it no such unhappy results. It is a power used at will by the master of life; in us it feebly manifests as flashes of intuitions, ‘hunches/ warnings in dreams, and the like.

Even such qualities as discrimination and sound judgment, natural attributes of the well-developed individual, indicate that nor­mal evolutionary growth leads us sanely, even if imperceptibly, towards the acquir­ing of clairvoyant powers. Discrimination is essentially a quality derived from our Buddhic principle, and wherever we see someone who knows ‘instinctively’ as we say, what to do in a crisis, when to act and when to refrain from action, who can make swift decisions, perhaps on momentous questions, that contain no flaw of judgment, who has a balanced sense of values — such a person we may know is giving exercise to the clair­voyant power of ‘seeing straight.’ The highly specialized powers of the adept must always rest on such secure foundations of character. They are the normal higher faculties of man, developed, refined and ex­panded to a universal scope.

One often comes upon the phrase, “The Eye of Siva” or “The Third Eye,” in Theo­sophical literature. This refers to the inner spiritual eye of the seer; but “the faculty which manifests through it is not clairvoy­ance as ordinarily understood, i. e., the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable.”* (*The Secret Doctrine, I, 46, footnote. See The Secret Doctrine, II, 294-302.)

There was a time in the history of man’s evolution, say the ancient records,! when the race possessed an actual physical organ known as the Third Eye which finally be­came atrophied as spirituality disappeared and materiality increased. This was the organ of spiritual clairvoyance, now repre­sented in the skull by the mysterious pineal gland which remains as a witness to the fact that there exists this sleeping power with­in us.

The disappearance of the Third Eye took place when man’s physical development dominated the scene. But that racial cycle of growth has now passed its lowest point, and it is again time for our spiritual facul­ties, so long recessive, to find expression through our progressively refining inner and outer bodies. Thus true clairvoyance is not something foreign to the human make-up. To the extent that we can tranquilize and purify our psychic nature we shall again possess that direct perception of Reality which belongs to us by right of our essential spiritual nature. But possession is not enough. Spiritual intuition, the true clair­voyance, does not become our strength and our knowledge until we learn how to use it.

THE THEOSOPHICAL OBJECTIVE

WHEN the Theosophical Society was * * founded in 1875, those who were at­tracted to this ‘new’ and original organi­zation naturally interpreted its objectives in the light of their own understanding and according to their degree of enlightenment. If, as they understood, there existed a great Brotherhood of exalted Men who possessed amazing power over the forces of man and nature, and who were guardians of a great treasury of knowledge accumulated through the ages, then here was the opportunity of a lifetime to receive development along ‘oc­cult’ lines and learn those secrets that con­fer knowledge and power upon him who can master them.

It was vague in the minds of many as to exactly what sort of training and instruction they were seeking and exactly what were the results they expected to arrive at. To some it was psychism that fascinated. And these were disappointed when they found that no promises were made to teach meth­ods for roaming about in the astral body at will, reading astral records, or communi­cating with ‘spirits.’

Others, interested in ‘magic’ and the oc­cult arts, looked for instruction in formulas and spells and rites, in ‘correspondences’ and the secret properties of metals, colors, num­bers and the like.

Others aspired rather higher. They wished to acquire the powers of the spirit, those qualities that make one truly holy and wise; and they imagined that their eagerness to be put under training and their high enthu­siasm were sufficient guarantee of success.

The Theosophical philosophy has an answer for each of these three classes of power- seekers, whose like can be found today, as always. The dangers of psychism have al­ready been discussed at length in these pages. No Theosophical Teacher, however, condemns psychic powers per se.

When a man has allied himself consciously with the god within him, with the real source of every­thing that he is, then these psychical powers and faculties so-called develop and unfold as naturally as the unfolding of the petals of a flower and the use of these psychical faculties and powers then becomes not only legitimate and proper, but neces­sary. But to cultivate these psychical things before you have mastered the merest elements of self­knowledge, of selfhood, before you know who you are or before you have found yourself, makes you to be as much without guides as is a bit of drift­ing flotsam on the ocean of life; . . . — G. de Pu- rucker, Questions We All Ask, Series II, No. v

To those interested in the occult arts, the following words of H. P. Blavatsky are a fitting answer:

Occultism is not magic. It is comparatively easy to learn the trick of spells and the methods of using the subtler, but still material, forces of physical nature; the powers of the animal soul in man are soon awakened; the forces which his love, his hate, his passion, can call into operation, are readily developed. But this is Black Magic — Sorcery. — Studies in Occultism, I, p. 4

And again:

Real divine theurgy requires an almost super­human purity and holiness of life; otherwise it de­generates into mediumship or black magic. — The Key to Theosophy, p. 3, footnote

A distinction is made in Theosophy be­tween Occultism and the Occult Arts. Oc­cultism is Atma-Vidya, which means literal­ly ‘Knowledge of the Self/ This knowledge is the supreme aim of the true aspirant to wisdom because he is taught that the uni­verse is within himself, and that the farther ‘inward’ he goes the more all-embracing his consciousness becomes. This is a mystical saying which will not yield up its secret meaning to the coldly critical mind of the pure materialist.

The occult arts, on the other hand, consti­tute a group of Sciences — however little recognised today; among which are included Occult Physiology, Astrology, Alchemy and Chiromancy. They are based on exact knowledge and are known to the Great Brotherhood of Adepts by natural right. But the high spiritual stature of these Sages was never achieved by seeking to attain this knowledge and power for its own sake.

Atma-Vidya, says H. P. Blavatsky, sets small store by them.

It includes them all, and may even use them occasionally, but it does so after purifying them of their dross, for beneficent purposes, and taking care to deprive them of every element of selfish motive.— Studies in Occultism, I, 25

To those who aspire to attain the powers of the spirit, the answer always comes: Discipline first.

Siddhis (or the Arhat powers) (Arhat: a Master of Life.) are only for those who are able to “lead the life,” to comply with the terrible sacrifices required for such a training, and to comply with them to the very letter. — cit., I, 28

There have been those who have com­plained at this attitude of reserve on the part of Theosophical Teachers, in giving out certain knowledge, and have attributed it to unworthy motives of one kind or another — reflected, indeed, from their own dis­torted consciousness. Study of the philo­sophy, however, soon uncovers the wise reason for this reticence. Man as he is at present is comparatively well protected against his own follies and imperfections. His very incapacity shields him. But Know­ledge is power, and power without absolute purity and self-control spells sorcery and finally utter self-destruction. Knowledge also brings responsibility; and whatever evil effects arise from one’s wielding of forbid­den power, affecting others as well as one­self, have to be met and answered for by the unfortunate offender of the cosmic law.

No true Teacher would be guilty of the crime, for such it would be, of putting into the hands of the unprepared man the ter­rible temptations attendant upon the acquir­ing of technical instruction as to nature’s inner secrets. Only he is prepared whose psychic nature is unassailable; and pre­paredness is achieved through a long period of training, and by the use of the creative will.

But the first steps in training can be taken at any time. Life itself provides the oppor­tunity. Through the gradual refining in­fluence of suffering and the disciplines of experience, the very quality of our psychic nature changes little by little following the natural upward urge towards racial improve­ment. It becomes purer, less vacillating and wayward, more sensitive to the mag­netic pull upwards towards its spiritual par­ent within. Discrimination, a quality of the spirit, begins to develop. The purpose of life takes on a new and profounder signifi­cance. The mystery of the One Life flow­ing through all beings gradually turns one away from the small attentions of the personal self to embrace a wider circle of sym­pathies and interests.

By such gradual development one be­comes prepared to take a further step. No one who is ready is ever denied the oppor­tunity to advance. The Theosophical So­ciety has provided in this cycle such an op­portunity. Yet it was not methods for de­veloping powers that the Mahatmans who founded the Society offered. Powers fasci­nate the human mind because to us, how­ever spiritually conceived, they imply the ability to have something for ourself; to rise above our fellows; to excel rather than to serve. Our motives are of course mixed. We do entertain altruistic ideals; but the higher forms of selfishness are very subtle indeed, and altruistic motives are very easi­ly submerged under the excess of egoism that grows pari passu with our psychic, or, let us say, even spiritual, development.

What the Theosophical Society offers is an opportunity to all lovers of humanity to do altruistic work, illuminated by the light of a comprehensive philosophy which ex­plains the causes of the miseries and in­equalities in the world. It was founded to help direct altruism along constructive chan­nels, and to show that whole-hearted co­operation in such work was the safest way to higher development. The dynamic ener­gy to give the Movement power to over­come every obstacle is not generated by striving to learn tricks of the occult arts, but by arousing a burning desire to serve. In short, the Society was not formed to be a “Hall of Magic.” It was to be a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood in the world and “to keep alive in man his spiritual intui­tions.”

Many Westerners find it very distasteful to contemplate a postponement of personal achievement. They say, “Why must we wait for future lives? We want powers now” Such people are fascinated by the various methods of training offered by self­styled ‘occultists/ or by ‘yogis’ from the East. Nevertheless, an inquiry into these systems and their results shows that even here they do not find satisfaction. Even when such systems are not positively dan­gerous, they practically all pander to the acquisitiveness of the undeveloped human being. Advertisements say: “You can learn in six weeks to gain power over others.” Or, “You can have everything you want, power, riches, friends.”

Yet with all their appeal, these adaptations of oriental systems are quite unsuited to the temperament of the average Western­er with his impatient, restless and undisci­plined nature. As a rule we are entirely unable to go through with the difficult courses of training to which the meditative, introspective Oriental is adapted by ages of heredity, by custom and environment. The eager enthusiast gets ‘stuck half way.’ Unable to win through to a promised suc­cess, and equally unable to regain the more normal if not enlightened state he previous­ly possessed, he does not know where to turn. His foundations are gone and he is likely to become a sort of derelict in life.

The better systems, with a quasi-spirit­ual appeal, promise the student looking for quick results, the possibility of reaching a state of cosmic consciousness by following a particular course of lessons — for a price. But cosmic consciousness is not to be bought! It is the unalterable rule of the real Teachers that no spiritual teaching shall ever be sold.

Further than this, the human soul has taken millions of years to reach its present stage, and that slow process of unfolding growth which is to culminate eventually in full spiritual enlightenment cannot sudden­ly be consummated. You cannot over-night make of a soul something that it is not. Its quality and character change slowly. Soul- enlightenment comes as the fruition of life­times of diligence and one-pointed effort.

Thus the Theosophical philosophy holds out no false hopes. It explains the nature, origin, and destiny of the complex being called man, and provides a grand universal setting in which the awakening conscious­ness of the aspirant to wisdom views his own progress as inseparable from that of the whole human race, and almost inconse­quential in its purely personal aspects. He finds that, far from any barriers being raised to his progressive development, the expan­sion of consciousness he receives from a study of the Ancient Wisdom and from its application in a life of unselfish service, clears away veil after veil of the lower self­hood. Thus he himself, by his own self­devised efforts, brings about those higher stages of training and teaching which lead to the final objective: the attainment of Atma-Vidya, the union of the human self with the aspirant’s own inner god.* (*For a study of the Yoga of Theosophy, see Manual No. XV of this series: Yoga and Yoga Discipline: A Theosophical Interpretation, by C. J. Ryan.)

As a concluding thought, we quote from the closing chapter of The Key to Theoso­phy, H. P. Blavatsky, writing in 1889, draws a picture of what the Theosophical Society may do if it can avoid the pitfalls that so many former efforts have fallen into. She writes:

Then the Society will live on into and through the twentieth century. It will gradually leaven and permeate the great mass of thinking and intelligent people with its large-minded and noble ideas of Religion, Duty, and Philanthropy. Slowly but sure­ly it will burst asunder the iron fetters of creeds and dogmas, of social and caste prejudices; it will break down racial and national antipathies and bar­riers, and will open the way to the practical realisa­tion of the Brotherhood of all men. . . . Further, the development of the psychic powers and facul­ties, the premonitory symptoms of which are al­ready visible in America, will proceed healthily and normally. Mankind will be saved from the terrible dangers, both mental and bodily, which are in­evitable when that unfolding takes place, as it threatens to do, in a hot-bed of selfishness and all evil passions. Man’s mental and psychic growth will proceed in harmony with his moral improve­ment, while his material surroundings will reflect the peace and fraternal good-will which will reign in his mind, instead of the discord and strife which is everywhere apparent around us to-day.

 

The End