Theos-Talk Archives (March 1998 Message tt00203)

March 21st 1998

Dallas writes:

MEDIUMSHIP

Mediumship -- is described by HPB in her article PSYCHIC AND
NOETIC ACTION published in LUCIFER, October and November 1890.
(see 2nd part).

"The term medium...is supposed to be a person through whom the
action of another person or being is either manifested or
transmitted.  [... by either consciously or unconsciously active
will of that other person.   (HPB Art, I, 295) ]

Spiritualists, believing in communications with disembodied
spirits, and that these can manifest through, or impress
sensitives to transmit "messages" from them, regard mediumship
as a great privilege.

We Theosophists, on the other hand, who do not believe in the
"communion of spirits" as Spiritualists do, regard the gift as
one of the most dangerous of abnormal nervous diseases.

A medium is simply one in whose personal Ego, or terrestrial
mind, (psuche), the percentage of "astral" light so
preponderates as to impregnate with it their whole physical
constitution.  Every organ and cell thereby is attuned, so to
speak, and subjected to an enormous and abnormal tension.  The
mind is ever on the plane of, and quite immersed in, that
deceptive light whose soul is divine, but whose body--the light
waves on the lower planes, infernal;  for they are but the black
and disfigured reflections of the earth's memories.

The untrained eye of the poor sensitive cannot pierce the dark
mist, the dense fog of the terrestrial emanations, to see beyond
in the radiant field of the eternal truths.

His vision is out of focus,  His senses accustomed from
birth...to the unnatural distortions of sights and images tossed
on the kaleidoscopic waves of the astral plane--are unable to
discern the true from the false.  And thus the pale soulless
corpses moving in the trackless fields of "Kama loka," appear to
him the living images of the "dear departed" ones;  the broken
echoes of once human voices, passing through his mind, suggest
to him well co-ordinated phrases, which he repeats in ignorance
that their final form and polish were received in the innermost
depths of his own brain-fancy.

And hence the sight and hearing of that which if seen in its
true nature would have struck the medium's heart cold with
horror, now fills him with a sense of beatitude and confidence.
He really believes that the immeasurable vistas displayed before
him are the real spiritual world, the abode of the blessed
disembodied angels.  ...on the whole mediumship is most
dangerous;  and psychic experiences when accepted
indiscriminately lead only to honestly deceiving others, because
the medium is the first self-deceived victim.  Moreover, a too
close association...is infectious.  The odic and magnetic
currents of the Astral Light often incite to murder,
drunkenness, immorality...the not altogether pure natures "can
be driven headlong by the blind forces set in motion in the
Light" [ --E. Levi ]
--by the errors and sins imposed on its waves."
					 HPB - PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION
			(ULT Edition Articles by H.P.Blavatsky, Vol. II, p. 25-26)

"The dreamer of an entity in Kama Loka [an after-death state of
personal desire and passion] would probably bring upon himself a
nightmare, or would run the risk of becoming "possessed" by the
"spook," so attracted, if he happened to be a medium, or one who
had made himself so passive during his waking hours that even
his Higher Self is now unable to protect him.  This is why the
mediumistic state of passivity is so dangerous, and in time
renders the Higher Self entirely helpless to aid or even warn
the sleeping or entranced person.  Passivity paralyzes the
CONNECTION between the lower and the higher principles.  It is
very rare to find instances of mediums who, while remaining
passive at will, for the purpose of communicating with some
higher intelligence, some extraneous spirit (not disembodied),
will yet preserve sufficiently their personal will so as not to
break off all communication with the Higher Self."	--HPB
TRANSACTIONS OF THE B. LODGE, p. 77 (ULT Edition)

HPB in editorial "Notes" answered some questions posed by
correspondents.  This is extracted from THEOSOPHIST, June 1882
(ULT Edn. HPB Articles vol. I, p. 489)

[ referring to ISIS UNVEILED, Vol. I, p. 67]  "...the word
"controlling" must not be understood in the SENSE of a "spirit"
possessing himself of the organism of a medium;  nor that, in
each case, it is a "spirit;"  for often it is but a "shell"
[astral shell in Kama Loka]  in its preliminary stages of
dissolution, when most of the physical intelligence and
faculties are yet fresh and have not begun to disintegrate, or
fade out.

A "spirit," or the spiritual Ego, cannot descend to the
medium... the "spirits" being benevolent or wicked in quality
largely depends upon the medium's private morality...a pure
medium's Ego can be drawn to and made, for an instant, to unite
in a magnetic (?) relation with a real disembodied spirit,
whereas the soul of an impure medium can only confabulate with
the astral soul, or "shell" of the deceased...We should say that
the personal morality of the medium would be a fair test of the
genuineness of the manifestations..."
		HPB -- SEEMING DISCREPANCIES  --  THEOSOPHIST, June 1882
					(ULT:  HPB Articles, Vol. I 489-90)

CHANNELER / CHANNELING

"Channeler" --   appears to be the modern designation given to
those who, in the last century, were called "mediums."

I hope these statements are of help.				Dallas

----------
| From: "M K Ramadoss" <ramadoss@eden.com>
| Subject: Re: Medium vs Chaneller
| Date: Saturday, March 21, 1998 3:36 PM
|
| Would someone like to define/differentiate a medium and a
chaneller?
|
|
|
theos-talk@theosophy.com
|
and
consisting of
theos-talk-request@theosophy.com.