Theos-Talk Archives (September 2002 Message tt00043)

Part 2 -- Spirit communications


"SPIRIT" COMMUNICATIONS

The questions most pressing in respect to "Spiritualism" are
those relating to communication with the "Souls" of those
who have left this earth and are now disembodied; and, with
unclassified spirits who have not been embodied here but
belong to other spheres of the Astral matter.

1. Do the mediums communicate with the "Spirits of the
dead?"

2. Do our departed friends perceive the state of life
they have left, and, do they sometimes return to speak with
us?

The answers that Theosophy has always put forward are clear,
and based on the universal and demonstrable laws of
occultism.

Our departed do not see us here. They are relieved from the
terrible pang such a sight would inflict. Once in a while, a
pure-minded, unpaid medium may ascend in trance to the state
[Devachan] in which a deceased soul is, and may remember
some bits of what was there heard; but this is rare.

At the moment of death, the Soul may speak to some friend on
earth before the door is finally shut.

But the mass of communications alleged as made day after day
through mediums, are from the astral unintelligent remains
of men, or in many cases, they are entirely the production
of, invention, compilation, discovery, and collocation by
the loosely attached Astral body of the living medium.

Certain objections arise to the theory that the "Spirits of
the dead" communicate. Some are:

1. At no time have these spirits given the laws
governing any of the phenomena, except in a few instances,
not accepted by the cult, where the theosophical theory was
advanced. These particular spirit communications fell into
discredit.

2. The spirits disagree among themselves, one stating
the after-life to be very different from the description by
another. These disagreements vary with the medium and the
supposed theories of the deceased during life. One spirit
admits reincarnation, and others deny it.

3. The spirits have discovered nothing new in respect
to history, anthropology, or other important matters,
seeming to have less ability in that line than living men;
and although they often claim to be men who lived in older
civilizations, they show ignorance thereupon or merely
repeat recently published discoveries.

4. In these past years, no rationale of phenomena nor
of development of mediumship has been obtained from the
spirits. Great philosophers are reported as speaking through
mediums, but utter only drivel and merest commonplaces.

5. The mediums come to physical and moral grief, are
accused of fraud, are shown guilty of trickery, but the
"spirit guides and controls" do not interfere to either
prevent or save.

6. It is admitted that the "guides and controls"
deceive and incite to fraud.

7. It is plainly to be seen through all that is
reported of the spirits that their assertions and
philosophy, if any, vary with the medium and the most
advanced thought of living spiritualists.

>From all this and much more that could be adduced, the man
of materialistic science is fortified in his ridicule, but
the theosophist has to conclude that the entities, if there
be any communicating, are not human spirits, and that the
explanations are to be found in some other theories.


MAN -- the MICROCOSM

If all the phenomena described are true, then in man are the
same powers and forces which are to be found anywhere in
Nature. He is held by the Masters of Wisdom to be the
highest product of the whole system of evolution, and
mirrors in himself every power, however wonderful or
terrible, of Nature. By the very fact of being such a
mirror, he is man -- the "Microcosm" of the Macrocosm.


WILL and IMAGINATION

This, naturally leads to the proposition that the human WILL
is all powerful, and the Imagination is a most useful
faculty with a dynamic force.

The IMAGINATION is the picture-making power of the human
mind. In the average human it has not enough training or
force to be more than a sort of dream, but it may be
trained. When trained it is the Constructor in the Human
Workshop. Arrived at that stage, it makes a matrix in the
Astral substance through which effects will flow into
physical objectivity. It is the greatest power, after Will,
in the human assemblage of complicated instruments.

The modern definition of imagination is incomplete and
inaccurate. It is chiefly used to designate fancy or
misconception, and at all times, stands for unreality. It is
impossible to get another term as good because one of the
powers of the trained Imagination is that of making an
image. This faculty used, or pushed to a greater limit,
causes the Imagination to evolve in the Astral substance an
actual form, which like a sand-mold, can be used to shape
cast-iron. It is therefore the King faculty, inasmuch as the
Will cannot do its work if the Imagination be at all weak or
untrained. For instance, if the person desiring to
precipitate from the air wavers in the least with the image
made in the Astral substance, the pigment will fall upon the
paper in a correspondingly wavering and diffused manner.


MIND IS THE INSTRUMENT OF CONTROL

But the lay mind infected by the materialism of these days,
wonders how all these manipulations are possible, seeing
that no instruments are spoken of. The instruments are in
the body and brain of man. In the view of the Adept Lodge:
"the human brain is an exhaustless generator of force." A
complete knowledge of the inner chemical and dynamic laws of
Nature, together with a trained mind, give the possessor the
power to operate these laws. This will be man's possession
in the future, and would be his today were it not for blind
dogmatism, selfishness, and materialistic unbelief. A
knowledge of the law when added to faith gives power over
matter, mind, space, and time.


MAGIC vs. PSYCHISM

The genuine psychic -- or, as they are often called,
"magical" -- phenomena done by an Eastern faquir or yogi are
all performed by the use of natural forces and processes not
yet known to the West. [ Reference to ISIS UNVEILED, Vol.
1, will be helpful; and in Vol. 2 , p. 587 ( 10 Points of
Psychology) ]

Some of these are: 


LEVITATION -- A Change of POLARITY

Levitation of the body in apparent defiance of gravitation
is a thing to be done with ease when the process is
completely mastered. It contravenes no law. GRAVITATION is
only half of a law. The Oriental sage admits gravity, but
the real term is ATTRACTION, the other half of the law being
expressed by the word REPULSION, and both are governed by
the great laws of electrical and magnetic force.


COHESION AND DISPERSION

A third great law which enters into many of the phenomena is
that of COHESION. This power is a distinct power in itself,
and not only a result as is supposed. This law and its
action must be known if certain phenomena are to be brought
about, as, for instance, the passing of a solid iron ring
through another, or a stone through a solid wall. Hence
another force is used which can be called DISPERSION.
Cohesion is the determinating force, for, the moment the
dispersing force is withdrawn, the cohesive force restores
the particles to their original form.


PRECIPITATION

Using the same powers, the trained Adept can produce before
the eye, objective to the touch, material in any desired
shape, which was not visible before. This would be called
creation by the vulgar, but it is simply evolution in your
presence. Matter is held suspended in the air about us.
Every particle of matter, visible or still unprecipitated,
has been through all possible forms. What the Adept does, is
to select any desired form, existing, as they all do, in the
Astral Light, and then by effort of the Will and
Imagination, clothe the form with the matter by
PRECIPITATION.

The object so made will fade away unless certain other
processes are used to make it permanent.

For the process of letter precipitation, on paper or other
surface, the same laws and powers are used. The distinct --
photographically and sharply definite -- image of every line
of every letter or picture is formed in the mind, and then
out of the air is drawn the pigment to fall within the
limits laid down by the brain, "the exhaustless generator of
force and form." 


MATERIALIZATION

Materialization of a form out of the air, independent of the
medium's physical body, is a fact. But it is not a spirit.

As was very well said by one of the "spirits" not favored by
spiritualism, one way to produce this phenomenon is by the
accretion of electrical and magnetic particles into one mass
upon which matter is aggregated and an image reflected out
of the Astral sphere.

Some so-called materializations are hollow mockeries, as
they are but flat plates of electrical and magnetic
substance on which pictures from the Astral Light are
reflected. These seem to be the faces of the dead, but they
are simply pictured illusions. This is the whole of it; as
much a fraud as a collection of muslin and masks.

The second method is by the use of the Astral body of the
living medium. In this case the Astral form exudes from the
side of the medium, gradually collects upon itself particles
extracted from the air and the bodies of the sitters
present, until at last it becomes visible. Sometimes it will
resemble the medium; at others it bears a different
appearance. 


APPARITIONS, DOUBLES

Laborious attempts by Psychical Research Societies to prove
apparitions without knowing the occult laws really prove
nothing, for out of twenty admitted cases, nineteen may be
the objectivization of the image impressed on the brain. But
that "apparitions" have been seen, there is no doubt.

Apparitions and doubles are of two general classes.

The one, consist of astral shells or images from the astral
world, and are either actually visible to the eye or the
result of vibration within the Astral and thrown out to the
eye, and thus making the person think he sees an objective
form without.

The other, the Astral body of living persons and carrying
full consciousness or only partially so endowed.

Apparitions of those just dead may be either pictures made
objective as described, or the Astral Body -- called
Kama-Rupa at this stage -- of the deceased. And as the dying
thoughts and forces released from the body are very strong,
we have more accounts of such apparitions than of any other
class.

To see an image with the Astral senses means that at the
same time there is a sound. It is well known to the true
student of occultism that every sound produces
instantaneously an image, and this, so long known in the
Orient, has lately been demonstrated in the West in the
production to the eye of sound pictures on a stretched
tympanum.

In clairvoyance, the pictures in the Astral Light pass
before the inner vision and are reflected into the physical
eye from within. They then appear objectively to the seer.
In clairaudience, the hearer hears with the center of
hearing in the Astral body activating the physical
equivalent sense.

In clairvoyance with waking sight, the vibration is
communicated to the brain first. From the brain it is
transmitted to the physical eye, where it sets up an image
upon the retina. In ordinary vision the vibrations on the
retina of the are transmitted to the brain. Sound, also a
vibration, is preserved in the Astral Light and, from thence
the inner sense can take it and transmit it to the brain,
from which it is retransmitted to the physical ear.


THE ASTRAL: -- A PICTURE GALLERY OF EVERYTHING

By means of these pictures, seen with the inner senses, all
clairvoyants exercise their strange faculty. Yet it is a
faculty common to all men, though in the majority but
slightly developed. Occultism asserts that were it not for
the germ of this power slightly active in every one no man
could convey to another any idea whatsoever. 


SPIRITUAL VISION and CLAIRVOYANCE

The highest order of clairvoyance -- that of Spiritual
Vision -- is very rare. The usual clairvoyant deals only
with the ordinary aspects and strata of the Astral matter.
SPIRITUAL SIGHT comes only to those who are pure, devoted,
and firm. It may be attained by special development of the
particular organ in the body through which alone such sight
is possible, and only after discipline, long training, and
the highest altruism.

All other clairvoyance is transitory, inadequate, and
fragmentary, dealing, as it does, only with matter and
illusion.


APPORTATION -- MOTION WITHOUT PHYSICAL CONTACT

Among phenomena are those of the moving of objects without
physical contact. This may be done, and in more than one
way.

1. The first is to extrude from the physical body the
Astral hand and arm, and with those grasp the object to be
moved. This may be accomplished at a distance of as much as
ten feet from the person, we are only referring to the
properties of the Astral substance and members. This will
serve to some extent to explain several of the phenomena of
mediums. In nearly all cases of such apportation the feat is
accomplished by thus using the unseen, but material Astral
hand.

2. The second method is to use the "elementals" [Nature
sprites]. They have the power when directed by the Inner Man
to carry objects by changing the polarity, and then we see
small objects moving apparently unsupported. These elemental
entities are used when things are brought from longer
distances than the length to which the Astral members may be
stretched. It is no argument against this that mediums do
not know they do so. They rarely if ever know anything about
the laws whereby they accomplish any feat, and their
ignorance of the law is no proof of its non-existence.


TELEPATHY

To communicate with another mind at any distance the Adept
attunes all the molecules of the brain and all the thoughts
of the mind so as to vibrate in unison with the mind to be
affected, and that other mind and brain have also to be
either voluntarily thrown into the same unison or fall into
it voluntarily. So though the Adept be at Bombay and his
friend in New York, the distance is no obstacle, as the
inner senses are not dependent on an ear, but may feel and
see the thoughts and images in the mind of the other person.


MENTAL BURGLARY FORBIDDEN

The modern man sees no misdemeanor in looking into the
secrets of another by means of this power, but the Adepts
say it is an invasion of the rights of the other person. No
man has the right, even when he has the power, to enter into
the mind of another and pick out its secrets. This is the
law of the Lodge to all who seek, and if one sees that he is
about to discover the secrets of another he must at once
withdraw and proceed no further.

If he proceeds his power is taken from him in the case of a
disciple; in the case of any other person he must take the
consequence of this sort of burglary. For Nature has her
laws and her policemen, and if we commit felonies in the
Astral world the great Law and the guardians of it, for
which no bribery is possible, will execute the penalty, no
matter how long we wait, even if it be for ten thousand
years. Here is another safeguard for ethics and morals.

But until men admit the system of ethical and moral
philosophy put forward by Theosophy, they will not deem it
wrong to commit felonies in fields where their weak human
law has no effect, but at the same time, by refusing the
philosophy, they will put off the day when all may have
these great powers for the use of all.



AN ADEPT MAY PROJECT HIS "DOUBLE."

The Adept may send out his apparition, which, however, is
called by another name [mayavi-rupa], as it consists of his
conscious and trained astral body endowed with all his
intelligence and not wholly detached from his physical
frame.


SECOND-SIGHT

SECOND-SIGHT is a combination of clairaudience and
clairvoyance, and the frequency with which future events are
seen by the second-sight seer adds an element of prophecy.
If they are of past events or those to come, the picture
only is seen; if of events actually then occurring, the
scene is perceived through the Astral Light by the inner
sense. This part of the subject is a dangerous one, but can
be gone into much further with the aid of occultism. The
pure-minded and the brave can deal with the future and the
present far better than any clairvoyant.

In the Astral Light are pictures of all things whatsoever
that happened to any person, and as well also pictures of
those events to come, the causes for which are sufficiently
well marked and made. If the causes are yet indefinite, so
will be the images of the future. But for the mass of events
for several years to come all the producing and efficient
causes are always laid down with enough definiteness to
permit the seer to see them in advance.


DREAMS

Dreams are sometimes the result of brain action
automatically proceeding, but, Theosophy also says they can
be produced by the transmission into the brain by the real
inner person of those scenes or ideas, high or low, which
that real person has seen while the body slept.


But the great fact of all dreaming is that some one
perceives and feels therein, and this is one of the
arguments for the inner person's existence. The karma of the
person also determines the meaning of a dream, for a king
may dream that which relates to his kingdom, while the same
thing dreamed by a citizen relates to nothing of temporal
consequence. But, as said by Job: "In dreams and visions of
the night man is instructed."


SCIENTIFIC LAWS AND THEOSOPHY

But to explain the phenomena performed by Adepts, Fakirs,
Yogees, and all trained occultists, one has to understand
the occult laws of chemistry, of mind, of force, and of
matter.

Theosophy does not deny nor ignore the physical laws
discovered by science. It admits all such as are proven, but
it asserts the existence of others which modify the action
of those we ordinarily know.

Behind all the visible phenomena is the occult cosmos with
its ideal machinery. That occult cosmos can only be fully
understood by means of the inner senses which pertain to it.
Those senses will not be easily developed if their existence
is denied. Brain and mind, acting together, have the power
to evolve forms, first as astral ones in astral substance,
and later as visible ones by accretions of the matter on
this plane.

Objectivity depends largely on perception, and perception
may be affected by inner stimuli. Hence a witness may either
see an object which actually exists as such without, or, he
may be made to see one by internal stimulus.

This gives us three modes of sight:

(1) with the eye by means of light from an object,

(2) with the inner senses by means of the Astral Light, and

(3) by stimulus from within which causes the eye to report
to the brain, thus throwing the inner image without.

The phenomena of the other senses may be tabulated in the
same manner.

The Astral substance being the register of all thoughts,
sounds, pictures, and other vibrations, and the inner man
being a complete person able to act with or without
co-ordination with the physical, all the phenomena of
hypnotism, clairvoyance, clairaudience, mediumship, and the
rest of those which are not consciously performed may be
explained.

In the Astral substance are all sounds and pictures, and in
the Astral Man, remain impressions of every event, however
remote or insignificant; these acting together produce the
phenomena which seem so strange to those who deny or are
unaware of the postulates of occultism.



LAWS AFFECTING PSYCHIC PHENOMENA

If one is to understand the psychic phenomena found in the
history of "spiritualism" it is necessary to know and admit
the following:

1. The complete heredity of man astrally, spiritually,
and psychically, as a being who knows, reasons, feels, and
acts through the body, the Astral body, and the soul. [Man
is an immortal Monad.]

2. he nature of the mind, its operation, its powers;
the nature and power of imagination; the duration and effect
of impressions. Most important in this is the persistence of
the slightest impression as well as the deepest; that every
impression produces a picture in the individual aura; and
that by means of this a connection is established between
the auras of friends and relatives old, new, near, distant,
and remote in degree: this would give a wide range of
possible sight to a clairvoyant.

3. The nature, extent, function, and power of man's
inner Astral organs and faculties included in the terms
Astral body and Kama [Desire & Passion]. That these are not
hindered from action by trance or sleep, but are increased
in the medium when entranced. At the same time their action
is not free, but governed by the mass chord of thought among
the sitters. This may also be governed by the predominating
will of one of the sitters, or by the presiding "devilish
Kama-rupa" behind the scenes. If a sceptical scientific
investigator be present, his mental attitude may totally
inhibit the action of the medium's powers by what we might
call a freezing process which no English terms will
adequately describe.

4. The fate of the Real Man after death, his state,
power, activity there, and his relation, if any, to those
left behind him here.

5. That the intermediary between mind and body -- the
Astral body -- is thrown off at death and left in the Astral
light to fade away; and that the real man goes to Devachan.

6. The existence, nature, power, and function of the
Astral light and its place as a register in Nature. That it
contains, retains, and reflects pictures of each and every
thing that happened to anyone, and also every thought; that
it permeates the globe and the atmosphere around it; that
the transmission of vibration through it is practically
instantaneous, since the rate is much quicker than that of
electricity as now known.

7. The existence in the Astral light of beings not
using bodies like ours, but not human in their nature,
having powers, faculties, and a sort of consciousness of
their own. These include the elemental forces or nature
sprites divided into many degrees, and which have to do with
every operation of Nature and every motion of the mind of
man. That these elementals act at seances automatically in
their various departments, one class presenting pictures,
another producing sounds, and others depolarizing objects
for the purposes of apportation. Acting with them in this
Astral sphere are the "soulless men" [Elementaries,
"shells"] who live in it. To these are to be ascribed the
phenomenon, among others, of the "independent voice," always
sounding like a voice in a barrel just because it is made in
a vacuum which is absolutely necessary for an entity so far
removed from spirit. The peculiar timbre of this sort of
voice has not been noticed by the spiritualists as
important, but it is extremely significant in the view of
occultism.

8. The existence and operation of occult laws and
forces in nature which may be used to produce phenomenal
results on this plane; that these laws and forces may be put
into operation by the subconscious man and by the elementals
either consciously or unconsciously, and that many of these
occult operations are automatic in the same way as is the
freezing of water under intense cold or the melting of ice
under heat.

9. That the Astral body of the medium, partaking of the
nature of the Astral substance, may be extended from the
physical body, may act outside of the latter, and may also
extrude at times any portion of itself such as hand, arm, or
leg and thereby move objects, indite letters, produce
touches on the body, and so on ad infinitum. And that the
Astral body of any person may be made to feel sensation,
which, being transmitted to the brain, causes the person to
think he is touched on the outside or has heard a sound.


DANGERS TO MEDIUMS

Mediumship is full of dangers because the Astral part of the
man is now only normal in action when joined to the body; in
distant years, it will normally act without a body as it has
in the far past.

To become a medium means that you have to become
disorganized physiologically and in the nervous system,
because through the latter is the connection between the two
worlds. The moment the door is opened all the unknown forces
rush in, and as the grosser part of nature is nearest to us
it is that part which affects us most; the lower nature is
also first affected and inflamed because the forces used are
from that part of us. We are then at the mercy of the vile
thoughts of all men, and subject to the influence of the
shells in Kama Loka.


CURIOSITY AND SELFISH ACQUIREMENT OF "POWER"

To attempt to acquire the use of the psychic powers for mere
curiosity or for selfish ends is also dangerous for the same
reasons as in the case of mediumship. As the civilization of
the present day is selfish to the last degree and built on
the personal, element, the rules for the development of
these powers in the right way, have not been given out. But
the Masters of Wisdom have said that philosophy and ethics
must first be learned and practiced before any development
of the other department is to be indulged in; and their
condemnation of the wholesale development of mediums is
supported by the history of spiritualism, which is one long
story of the ruin of mediums in every direction.


SCIENCE and THE ASTRAL & PSYCHIC PLANE

Equally improper is the manner of the scientific schools
which without a thought for the true nature of man indulge
in experiments in hypnotism in which the subjects are
injured for life, put into disgraceful attitudes, and made
to do things for the satisfaction of the investigators which
would never be done by men and women in their normal state.

The Lodge of the Masters does not care for Science unless it
aims to better man's state morally as well as physically,
and no aid will be given to Science until she looks at man
and life from the moral and spiritual side.

For this reason those who know all about the psychical
world, its denizens and laws, are proceeding with a reform
in morals and philosophy before any great attention will be
accorded to the strange and seductive phenomena possible for
the inner powers of man.

And at the present time the cycle has almost run its course
for this century. Now, as a century ago, the forces are
slackening; the Adept Lodge hopes by the time the next tide
begins to rise that the West will have gained some right
knowledge of the true philosophy of Man and Nature, and be
then ready to bear the lifting of the veil a little more. To
help on the progress of the race in this direction is the
object of Theosophy and that is offered to all.


=====================================


[Extracts from the OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY by W Q Judge
available through 

http://www.blavatsky.net ]

best wishes

DTB

-----------------




-----Original Message-----
From: p o d [mailto:pod3@angelfire.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 7:02 PM
To: Blavatsky_Study@yahoogroups.com;
theosophers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Blavatsky_Study] materializations

I have heard at least a dozen other terms for the phenomena
before, but "materializations" seems the most widely
recognized.







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]