Theos-Talk Archives (October 2003 Message tt00125)

Oct 10 2003

Dear Mauri:

Levitation is a well know psychic phenomenon, but its modus operandi is
not known. It seem to focus around particular people -- some times when
they are in a state of ecstasy (sometimes miscalled meditation).

What occurs is that the polarity we call "gravitation" that keeps us all
on the (or near) the surface of the Earth is reversed under psychic
controls -- usually involuntary and for a limited extent.

LEVITATION is discussed in ISIS UNVEILED see pp. I xxii-v, 100, 105,
115, 196-8, 202, 204, 219, 225, 359, 374, 420, 471-2, 486, 491-2, 494-8,
500-1, 622;  
II 589.

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2

PSYCHIC LAWS, FORCES, AND PHENOMENA


WHAT IS THE "PSYCHIC ?"

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. A
cult sprang up in the United States some years ago calling itself quite
wrongly "spiritualism," but having a great opportunity it neglected it
and fell into mere wonder-seeking without the slightest shadow of a
philosophy. It has accomplished but little in the way of progress except
a record of many undigested. But 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. The Roman Catholic branch of the
Christian Church is in some respects an exception, however. It has
always admitted the existence of the psychic world -- for it the realm
of devils and angels, but as angels manifest when they choose and devils
are to be shunned, no one is permitted by that Church to meddle in such
matters except an authorized priest. So far as that Church's prohibiting
the pernicious practice of necromancy indulged in by "spiritualists" it
was right, but not in its other prohibitions and restrictions. Real
psychology is an Oriental product today. Very true 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. 

For centuries, what is now called "spiritualism," has been well known
in India where it is properly designated "bhuta worship," meaning the
attempt to communicate with the Astral remnants of deceased persons.
This should be its name here also, for by it the gross and devilish, or
earthly, parts of man are excited, appealed to, and communicated with.
[The real Man, the divine Ego, has retired to Devachan, and the astral
corpse is disintegrating.] But the facts of the long record in America
demand a brief examination. These facts all studious Theosophists must
admit. The theosophical explanation and deductions, however, are totally
different from those of the average spiritualist. A philosophy has not
been evolved in the ranks or literature of spiritualism; nothing but
theosophy will give the true explanation, point out defects, reveal
dangers, and suggest remedies


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 travelers 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 determining 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.
This may sound like fiction, but being known to the Lodge and its
disciples as an actual fact, it is equally certain that Science will
sooner or later admit the proposition. 


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. Not even the Christian lives up
to his Master's very true statement that if one had faith he could
remove a mountain. 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. 


	
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. I do
not go into argument on this, 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. The second method is to use the elementals of
which I have spoken. 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. It is no argument against this that mediums do
not know they do so. They rarely if ever know anything about how they
accomplish any feat, and their ignorance of the law is no proof of its
non-existence. 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.
This part of the subject can be gone into very much further with the aid
of occultism, but as it is a dangerous one in the present state of
society I refrain at this point. 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. 


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

3 

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. 

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. 

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. This is the whole of it; as much a fraud as a
collection of muslin and masks. How this is accomplished is another
matter. The spirits are not able to tell, but an attempt has been made
to indicate the methods and instruments in former chapters. 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. In
almost every instance dimness of light is requisite because a high light
would disturb the Astral substance in a violent manner and render the
projection difficult. 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. 

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

I. 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. 

II. The 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. 

III. The nature, extent, function, and power of man's inner Astral
organs and faculties included in the terms Astral body and Kama. 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, or by a
predominating will, or by the presiding devil 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. 

IV. The fate of the real man after death, his state, power, activity
there, and his relation, if any, to those left behind him here. 

V. 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. 

VI. 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. 

VII. 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 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. 

VIII. 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. 

IX. 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. 

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.

Extracts from the OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY   

DTB









-----Original Message-----
From: Mauri 
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 6:34 AM
To:; study@blavatsky.net
Subject: re meditation and levitation

re levitation and meditation

Wondering if any of you have experienced 
levitation while meditating.
Yesterday, on a CBC radio broadcast, an 
architect by the name of Bing Tom 
(bingtomarchitects.com) talked about 
levitating an inch off the floor, for a 
second, during his twice daily meditation 
sessions.

So that got me speculating, wondering if, 
maybe, way back when (ie, maybe longer ago 
than most scientists and archeologists care 
to think about all that much?), levitation 
might've been a regular occurrance with most 
everybody, maybe ... Could that be how those 
heavy stones were moved, for example, on some 
building projects?

Speculatively,
Mauri