Theos-Talk Archives (December 2003 Message tt00000)

Monday, December 01, 2003


Dear Denis:

Consider what THEOSOPHY has to offer on this subject. Is has a wide and
deep coverage.

Best washes,

Dallas

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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...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 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.
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. 


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 in this book, 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.
.


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.

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 [disc, tape, etc.] of the phonograph causes the
mouthpiece [speaker] 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.

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.

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. 


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. Once in a while a pure-minded, unpaid
medium may ascend in trance to the state in which a deceased soul is,
and may remember some bits of what was there heard; but this is rare. 

Now and then in the course of decades some high human spirit may for a
moment return and by unmistakable means communicate with mortals. 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. .

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. 


PSYCHIC PHENOMENA - AN UNDERSTANDING OF CAUSES

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. 


HYPNOTISM == ITS DANGERS

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. .


Extracts from the OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY -- W Q JUDGE 

DTB


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

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Kier  
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 9:24 PM
To: BN-STUDY
Subject: Re :Physical Phenomena at a Seance 

It is interesting that such physical phenomena is still being taking
place. I have attended many, but they were all on the mental and
spiritual level. I thought that perhaps mediumship had evolved past
the physical. This account seems to indicate that this type of
experiment from the 1890s is still possible, with some mediums.
Perhaps the spiral of evolution is up an octave above 100 years ago.

Some of the equipment that we have today in the digital area should be
able to photograph in almost dark conditions, something that the slow
films with heavy filters were unable to do in the past. It would be
interesting to see what is actually taking place with the substance
that the physical body is generating.

It was always my observation that it is the physical body that is
doing this, and capable of doing this, so what do we need "spirits"
for, in the explanation of what is actually taking place.