Theos-Talk Archives (May 2003 Message tt00259)

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Dear G. and Friends:

Occult powers are divided into two camps according to the motive
underlying them. This is because Humanity is at a cross roads.
The "Self of Spirit" ( Atma-Buddhi-Manas) and the "Self of
Matter" ( Body, Astral body, Prana and Kama) are conjoined.

The mixture is you and me, here and now. We are moved by two
sets of motives: the one is a universal one, made up of the
wisdom of common experience -- named "spiritual." and the other
is selfish, centred in our Personality, and exists only for this
incarnation. The purpose of our repeated incarnations is to
learn how to recognize and separate these two sets of motives --
with the intention of adopting the spiritual ones, which persist
life after life and which we cal our "character, talents, and
discernment."


"Occult practices such as the Tarot, Divination, Astrology,
Magic, Astral Projection and the
like" fall under the division of the selfish and personal type of
motives. They relate mainly to curiosity about the future of
this life and its possible vicissitudes or successes.

Theosophy directs us to our Higher Self -- which is a part of the
SELF OF ALL. It encourages learning and study with a view to
ascertaining exactly what we are, and how we happen to have a
connection with the Earth, and, what our potentials are which can
be developed

The following will prove to be helpful, I believe.

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







The field of psychic forces, phenomena, and dynamics is a vast
one. Such phenomena are seen and the forces exhibited every day
in all lands, but until a few years ago very little attention was
given to them by scientific persons, while a great deal of
ridicule was heaped upon those who related the occurrences or
averred belief in the psychic nature.

Other Western investigators of the accepted schools have not done
much better, and the result is that there is no Western
Psychology worthy of the name. This lack of an adequate system of
Psychology is a natural consequence of the materialistic bias of
science and the paralyzing influence of dogmatic religion; the
one ridiculing effort and blocking the way, the other forbidding
investigation..

Real psychology is an Oriental product today. The system was
known in the West when a very ancient civilization flourished in
America, and in certain parts of Europe anterior to the Christian
era, but for the present day psychology in its true phase belongs
to the ancient Orient.


PSYCHIC LAWS AND FORCES

Are there psychic forces, laws, and powers? If there are, then
there must be the phenomena. And if the philosophy of Theosophy
is 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.

This has long been recognized in the East, where travellers have
seen exhibitions of such powers which would upset the theories of
many a Western man of science. And in the West the same phenomena
have been repeated. The genuine psychic -- or, as they are often
called, magical -- phenomena done by the Eastern faquir or yogee
are all performed by the use of natural forces and processes not
even dreamed of as yet by the West.


LEVITATION AND GRAVITY

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, if one wishes to adopt the
term; but the real term is attraction, the other half of the law
being expressed by the word repulsion, and both being governed by
the great laws of electrical force. Weight and stability depend
on polarity, and when the polarity of an object is altered in
respect to the earth immediately underneath it, then the object
may rise. But as mere objects are devoid of the consciousness
found in man, they cannot rise without certain other aids. The
human body, however, will rise in the air unsupported, like a
bird, when its polarity is thus changed. This change is brought
about consciously by a certain system of breathing known to the
Oriental; it may be induced also by aid from certain natural
forces spoken of later, in the cases of those who without knowing
the law perform the phenomena, as with the saints of the Roman
Catholic Church.


COHESION AND DISPERSION

A third great law which enters into many of the phenomena of the
East and West is that of Cohesion. The power of Cohesion is a
distinct power of itself, and not a result as is supposed. This
law and its action must be known if certain phenomena are to be
brought about, as, for instance, what the writer has seen, the
passing of one solid iron ring through another, or a stone
through a solid wall. Hence another force is used which can only
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 position.

Following this out the Adept in such great dynamics is able to
disperse the atoms of an object -- excluding always the human
body -- to such a distance from each other as to render the
object invisible, and then can send them along a current formed
in the ether to any distance on the earth. At the desired point
the dispersing force is withdrawn, when immediately cohesion
reasserts itself and the object reappears intact.


INSTRUMENTS OF THE MAN OF WILL

But the lay mind infested by the materialism of the day 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 Lodge "the human brain is an
exhaustless generator of force," and a complete knowledge of the
inner chemical and dynamic laws of Nature, together with a
trained mind, give the possessor the power to operate the laws to
which I have referred. 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.


PRECIPITATION OF OBJECTS

Using the same powers, the trained Adept can produce before the
eye, objective to the touch, material which was not visible
before, and in any desired shape. This would be called creation
by the vulgar, but it is simply evolution in your very presence.
Matter is held suspended in the air about us. Every particle of
matter, visible or still unprecipitated, has been through all
possible forms, and 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 to clothe the form with the
matter by precipitation. The object so made will fade away unless
certain other processes are resorted to which need not be here
described, but if these processes are used the object will remain
permanently. And if it is desired to make visible a message 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." All these things the writer has seen done in the
way described, and not by any hired or irresponsible medium, and
he knows whereof he speaks.



WILL AND IMAGINATION

This, then, 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 ordinary average human person 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 objectively will flow. It
is the greatest power, after Will, in the human assemblage of
complicated instruments.

The modern Western definition of Imagination is incomplete and
wide of the mark. 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. The word
is derived from those signifying the formation or reflection of
an image. This faculty used, or rather suffered to act, in an
unregulated mode has given the West no other idea than that
covered by "fancy." So far as that goes it is right but it may be
pushed to a greater limit, which, when reached causes the
Imagination to evolve in the Astral substance an actual image or
form which may be then used in the same way as an iron molder
uses a mold of sand for the molten 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.


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.

And when it is desired to look into the mind and catch the
thoughts of another and the pictures all around him of all he has
thought and looked at, the Adept's inner sight and hearing are
directed to the mind to be seen, when at once all is visible.
But, as said before, only a rogue would do this, and the Adepts
do not do it except in strictly authorized cases.

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 in his hand, 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 philosophy put forward here 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 thus refusing the
philosophy they will put off the day when all may have these
great powers for the use of all.


APPORTATION OF OBJECTS

Among phenomena useful to notice are those consisting of the
moving of objects without physical contact. This may be done, and
in more than one way. 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. In nearly all cases of such apportation
the feat is accomplished by thus using the unseen but material
Astral hand.

The second method is to use the elementals. They have the power
when directed by the inner man to carry objects by changing the
polarity, and then we see, as with the fakirs of India and some
mediums in America, 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. Those students who have seen the forces work from
the inside will need no argument on this.


THE REALM OF THE ASTRAL ENERGIES AND FORCES

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.

Clairvoyance, clairaudience, and second-sight are all related
very closely. Every exercise of any one of them draws in at the
same time both of the others. They are but variations of one
power. Sound is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the
Astral sphere, and as light goes with sound, sight obtains
simultaneously with hearing.

To see an image with the Astral senses means that at the same
time there is a sound, and to hear the latter infers the presence
of a related image in Astral substance. It is perfectly 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 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 as if
present. 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; but 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.

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. 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. The distinguishing difference
between ordinary and clairvoyant vision is, then, that in
clairvoyance with waking sight the vibration is communicated to
the brain first, from which it is transmitted to the physical
eye, where it sets up an image upon the retina, just as the
revolving cylinder of the phonograph causes the mouthpiece to
vibrate exactly as the voice had vibrated when thrown into the
receiver.

In ordinary eye vision the vibrations are given to the eye first
and then transmitted to the brain. Images and sounds are both
caused by vibrations, and hence any sound once made is preserved
in the Astral Light from whence the inner sense can take it and
from within transmit it to the brain, from which it reaches the
physical ear. So in clairaudience at a distance the hearer does
not hear with the ear, but with the center of hearing in the
Astral body. Second-sight is a combination of clairaudience and
clairvoyance or not, just as the particular case is, and the
frequency with which future events are seen by the second-sight
seer adds an element of prophecy.


SPIRITUAL VISION -- RARE

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. Its fragmentary and
inadequate character results from the fact that hardly any
clairvoyant has the power to see into more than one of the lower
grades of Astral substance at any one time.

The pure-minded and the brave can deal with the future and the
present far better than any clairvoyant. But as the existence of
these two powers proves the presence in us of the inner senses
and of the necessary medium -- the Astral Light, they have, as
such human faculties, an important bearing upon the claims made
by the so-called "spirits" of the seance room.


DREAMS

Dreams are sometimes the result of brain action automatically
proceeding, and are also 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. They
are then strained into the brain as if floating on the soul as it
sinks into the body. These dreams may be of use, but generally
the resumption of bodily activity destroys the meaning, perverts
the image, and reduces all to confusion.

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. In sleep the inner man communes with higher
intelligences, and sometimes succeeds in impressing the brain
with what is gained, either a high idea or a prophetic vision, or
else fails in consequence of the resistance of brain fiber. 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."


GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS

Apparitions and doubles are of two general classes. The one,
astral shells or images from the astral world, either actually
visible to the eye or the result of vibration within 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. Laborious attempts by
Psychical Research Societies to prove apparitions without knowing
these 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 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.

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


SCIENCE AND THEOSOPHY

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 may be made to see one by internal
stimulus.

This gives us three modes of sight:

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

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

(c) 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.


SEANCES AND MEDIUMS = CHANNELING

The question of materialization of forms at seances deserves some
attention. Communication includes trance-speaking, slate and
other writing, independent voices in the air, speaking through
the physical vocal organs of the medium, and precipitation of
written messages out of the air. Do the mediums communicate with
the spirits of the dead? Do our departed friends perceive the
state of life they have left, and do they sometimes return to
speak to and with us?

Our departed do not see us here. They are relieved from the
terrible pang such a sight would inflict. 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 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:

I. 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. As it would
destroy such structures as those erected by A. J. Davis, these
particular spirits fell into discredit.

II. 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.

III. The spirits have discovered nothing 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.

IV. In these forty 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.

V. 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.

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

VII. 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.

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. If to
this be added the taking of money for the practice of mediumship,
an additional danger is at hand, for the things of the spirit and
those relating to the Astral world must not be sold. This is the
great disease of American spiritualism which has debased and
degraded its whole history; until it is eliminated no good will
come from the practice; those who wish to hear truth from the
other world must devote themselves to truth and leave all
considerations of money out of sight.

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.

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;
for that reason the phenomena of spiritualism are lessening in
number and volume; the 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 this
book, (The OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY) and thus, it is submitted to its
readers in every part of the world.
------------------------------
Best wishes,
DTB


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

-----Original Message-----
From: gmcism
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 7:29 AM
To:
Subject: Occult Practices

Hi,


Over the years I have become aware of certain Occult practices
such
as the Tarot, Divination, Astrology, Magic, Astral Projection and
the
like; and I am curious to find out what place these practices
have in
Theosophy?

Thanks,

Gar