Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00160)

July 12 2003

Dear K:

Re: Hypnotic regression – Fragments of past lives


Perhaps some of these quotes will be of help. They give you a basis to
understand what THEOSOPHY has to say on the subject.

Hypnosis can awaken dormant memories from past lives that are fragmentarily
left as residuals of strong emotional Karmic events that impact the present
life. Fears and phobias, as well as cravings are predominant in these.

There are also the accounts made by some who have reincarnated very quickly
(as in the case of children dying young) relating to personal events not yet
effaced by time.. 

All they prove is that there is a factor in Mans consciousness that does not
die when death destroys a physical body. I hoe these notes will help

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


MESMERISM - HYPNOSIS - FAITH HEALING


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



ILLUSION AND REALITY - AS TO BODY


"It may be true that bodies are illusions, but they are not the
illusions of single individuals but of the great mind of the
race, and therefore they are relatively real--as they are now
constructed--for the minor beings who make up the race. No one
has the power to escape from this great illusion of the total
mind until he has risen to an actual conscious realization of
that mind in all its departments...

The line of demarcation between black and white magic is very
thin, but it is quite plain when one sees the art of healing by
means of such high forces as are claimed by these schools
practiced for purely selfish ends or for money in addition.
There is danger in it...

The great danger is from disturbances that are brought about by
the practice. It is a sort of yoga without any right knowledge of
method; it is blind wandering among forces so subtle and so
violent that they are liable to explode at any moment. By
continuing in the way taught a person actually from the first
arouses latent currents of the body that act and react on the
astral and physical and at last bring about injury."
WQJ Art II 426


"Divine Science is a term used ages ago in Indian writing, and
is well understood to cover a real science of psychology,
physiology, and spirit. But if a number of people...appropriate
the term to cover a few half-truths...the terms used are strained
in general, and thus false conclusions are arrived at if we thus
throw away right standards long ago fixed...The resulting calm
ignorance of these vital matters might be pleasant, but it would
not destroy the existence of the subtle form of matter called
akasa, nor the subtle body [astral] temporarily called sukshma
sarira, nor the Mayavi rupa, nor those negative and positive
astral currents known as Ida and Pingala, but not yet perceived
distinctly by either scientific men or "metaphysical and divine
healers." WQJ Art II 427-8


MANAS-MIND: REPOSITORY OF OUR KARMA


"The mind is manas of the Hindus. It is a part of the immortal
man. The "spiritual body" [ or astral form ] is not immortal.
It is compounded of astral body with the passions and desires.
Mind [ Lower and Higher ] is the container of the efficient
causes of our circumstances, our inherent character and the seeds
that sprout again and again as physical diseases as well as those
purely mental. It is the mover who is either voluntary in his
motion, free if it will, or moved hither and thither by every
object and influence and colored by every idea. From life to
life it occupies body after body, using a new brain instrument in
each incarnation. As Patanjali put it ages ago, in mind lie
planted all seeds with self-reproductive power inherent in them,
only waiting for time and circumstances to sprout again.

Here are the causes for our diseases. Product of thought truly,
but thought long finished and now transformed into cause beyond
our present thought. Lying like tigers by the edge of the
jungle's pool ready to spring when the hour arrives, they may
come forward accompanied by counteractions due to other causes,
or they may come alone.

When these seeds sprout and liberate their forces they show
themselves in diseases in the body, where they exhaust
themselves. To attack them with the forces belonging to the
plane of the mind is to force them again to their hiding place,
to inhibit their development, to stop their exhaustion and
transfer to the grosser levels of life. they are forcibly
dragged back, only to lie waiting once more for their natural
expression in some other life. That natural expression is
through the body, or rather through the lowest vehicle in use in
any evolutionary period...We must work everything out to the last
item. The moment we evolve a thought and thus a cause, it must
go on producing its effects, all becoming in turn causes for
other effects and sweeping down the great evolutionary current in
order to rise again...Hence the great sages have always said we
have to let the Karmic effect roll on which we set new and better
cause in motion..."	WQJ Art II 439-40



"...from the theosophical side, we know that the thoughts of the
preceding life are the causes for the troubles and joys of this,
and therefore those troubles are now being exhausted here by the
proper channel, the body, and are on the way down and out. Their
exit ought not to be stopped. But by the attempt to cure in the
way of the healer they are stopped often and are sent back to the
place they came from, and thus once more are planted in the mind
as unexpended causes sure at some other time to come out again,
whether in this or in another life. This is one of the greatest
dangers. It will in many cases lead to insanity.

The next fallacy is in the system of affirmations and denials.
To assert as they do that there is no matter, that all is spirit,
and that there is no evil, but that all is good, and that "this
my body is pure and sweet and free from all trouble," is
philosophically...false in every respect.

"Spirit" and "Matter" are terms that must exist together, and if
one is given up so must the other disappear...They are the two
eternities, the two manifestations, one at one pole and one at
the other, of the absolute...which is wholly indescribable.
Likewise Good and Evil...By these foolish affirmations all
relativity is abolished, and we are asked to abandon all proper
use of words in order to satisfy those who wish to show that
optimism in all things and at all times is the right position."
WQJ Art II 425
[ see also WQJ Art II 430-1 436 438 478 507-8 ]


ASTRAL BODY STRUCTURE


"The inner anatomical structure should also be known. The
ethereal body has its own currents--nerves, for want of a better
word, changes and methods of growth and action, just as the gross
body has. It is, in fact, the real body, for it seldom alters
throughout life, while the physical counterpart changes every
moment, its atoms going and coming upon the matrix or model
furnished by the ethereal body.

The inner currents emanate from their own centers and are
constantly in motion. they are affected by thoughts and the
reflection of the body in its physiological changes. They each
act upon the other incessantly. (Every center of the inner body
has its appropriate correspondent in the physical one, which it a
effects and through which it is in turn acted upon.) It is by
means of these subtle currents--called vital airs...--that
impressions are conveyed to the mind above, and though them also
are the extraordinary feats of the seance room and the Indian
Yogi accomplished.

And just as one may injure his body by ignorantly using drugs or
physical practices, so can the finer currents and nerves of the
inner man be thrown out of adjustment if one in pride or
ignorance attempts, uninstructed, to deal with them.

The seeds of disease being located primarily in the mind, they
begin to exhaust themselves through the agency of the inner
currents that carry the appropriate vibrations down upon the
physical plane. If left to themselves--aside from palliations
and aids in throwing them off--they pass out into the great
crucible of nature and one is free of them forever. Therefore
pain is said to be a kind friend who relieves the real man of a
load of sin."	WQJ Art II 440


MIND CURRENTS IN USE


"...the moment the practices of the mind-curer are begun, what
happens is that the hidden inner currents are violently grasped,
and, if concentration is persisted in, the downward vibrations
are thrown up and altered so as to carry back the cause to the
mind, where it is replanted with the addition of the purely
selfish desires that led to the practice. It is impossible to
destroy the cause; it must be allowed to transform itself. And
when it is replaced in the mind, it waits there until an
opportunity occurs either in this life or in the next rebirth.

In some cases the physical and psychological structures are not
able to stand the strain, so that sometimes the return of the
downward vibrations is so great and sudden that insanity results;
in other case disease with violent characteristics sets in."		
WQJ II 441


"...the practitioner...brings to play certain inner forces by
virtue of his dwelling on one thing [ it is the concentration
that makes the effect, and not the philosophy ]...When one is
operating on another who is willing, the change of inner nerve
currents is brought about by sympathy, which in these cases is
the same as the phenomena so will known in physics by the name of
induction...Here is the danger again. The school of hypnotists
are teaching how to do it. The mind-curers and "metaphysicians"
are doing the same...already there are those practitioners who
deliberately practice against their opponents...instead of being
taught it ought to be warned against.

The world could get along with what disease there is, if it only
turned its attention to high ethics and altruistic endeavor. For
after a few centuries of right living the nations would have
purged themselves and built up a right moral building well founded
on the rocks or true philosophy, charity, and love." 
WQJ Art II 441-2


ASTRAL FLUID


"The ancients taught that the astral light--Akasa--is projected
from the eyes, the thumbs and the palms of the hands. Now as the
elementals exist in the astral light, they will be able to see
only though those avenues of human organism which are used by the
astral light in traveling from th person. The eyes are th most
convenient. So when [a] person directs his glance on any thing
or person, the astral light goes out in that glance and through
it those elementals see that which he looks upon. And so also,
if he should magnetize a person, the elementals will project
themselves from his hands and eyes upon the subject magnetized
and do it injury." WQJ Art I 130



MESMERISM EXPLAINED


"...whether there is or is not any actual fluid thrown off by a
mesmerizer...HPB declares there is such a fluid...as a subtle
form of matter...composed in part of the astral substance around
every one, and in part of the physical atoms in a finely divided
state. By some this astral substance is called the aura. But
that word is indefinite, as there are many sorts of aura and many
degrees of its expression...This aura, then, is thrown off by the
mesmerizer upon his subject, and is received in a department of
his inner constitution, never described by any Western
experimenter because they know nothing of it. It wakes up
certain inner and non-physical divisions of the person operated
on, causing a change in the relation between the various and
numerous sheaths surrounding the inner man, and making possible
different degrees of intelligence and clairvoyance and the like.
It has no influence whatsoever on the Higher Self [Atma in its
vehicle Buddhi], which it is impossible to reach by such means."
WQJ Art I 526-7


"Many persons are deluded into supposing that the Higher Self is
the responder, or that some spirit or what not is present, but it
is only one of the many inner persons, so to say, who is talking
or rather causing the organs of speech to do their office...the
words spoken are sometimes far above the ordinary intelligence or
power of the subject in waking state...

When the hypnotic or mesmerized state is complete--and often
when it is partial--there is an immediate paralyzing of the power
of the body to throw its impressions, and thus modify the
conceptions of the inner being. In ordinary waking life every
one, without being able to disentangle himself, is subject to the
impressions from the whole organism; that it to say, every cell
in the body, to the most minute, has its own series of
impressions and recollections, all of which continue to impinge
on the great register, the brain, until the impression remaining
in the cell is fully exhausted. And that exhaustion takes a long
time. Further, as we are adding continually to them, the period
of disappearance of impression is indefinitely postponed. Thus
the inner person is not able to make itself felt. But, in the
right subject, those bodily impressions are by mesmerism
neutralized for a time, and at once another effect follows, which
is equivalent to cutting the general off from his army and
compelling him to seek other means of expression."
WQJ Art I 527-8


"The brain--in cases where the subject talks--is left free
sufficiently to permit it to obey the commands of the mesmerizer
and compel the organs of speech to respond...

By mesmerism other organs [in the astral body] are set to work,
disconnected from the [physical] body, but which in normal state
function with and through the latter. These are not admitted by
the world, but they exist, and are as real as the body is--in
fact some who know say they are more real and less subject to
decay, for they remain almost unchanged from birth to death.
These organs have their own currents, circulation...and methods
of receiving and storing impressions. They are those which in a
second of time seize and keep the faintest trace of any object or
word coming before the waking man. They not only keep them but
very often give them out, and when the person is mesmerized their
exit is untrammeled by the body.

They are divided into many classes and grades, and each one of
them has a whole series of ideas and facts peculiar to itself, as
will as centres in the ethereal body to which they relate."
WQJ Art I 528


"Instead now of the brain's dealing with the sensations of the
body, it deals with something quite different, and reports what
these inner organs see in any part of space to which they are
directed. And in place of your having waked up the Higher Self
(Atma-Buddhi), you have merely uncovered one of the many sets of
impressions and experiences of which the inner man is composed,
and who is himself a long distance from the Higher Self. These
varied pictures, thus seized from every quarter, are normally
overborne by the great roar of the physical life, which is the
sum total of possible expression of a normal being on the
physical plane whereon we move. They show themselves usually
only by glimpses when we have sudden ideas or recollections, or
in dreams when our sleeping may be crowded with fancies for which
we cannot find a basis in daily life. Yet that basis exists, and
it is always some one or other of the million small impressions
of the day passed unnoticed by the physical brain, but caught
unerringly by means of other sensoriums belonging to our astral
double. For this astral body, or double, permeates the physical
one as color does the bowl of water...it has all of these with a
surprising power and grasp. Although perhaps a mist, it can
exert under proper conditions a force equal to the viewless wind
when it levels to earth the proud constructions of puny man.

In the astral body, then, is the place to look for the
explanation of mesmerism and hypnotism. The Higher Self
(Atma-Buddhi) will explain the sudden flights we seldom make into
the realm of spirit, and is God--the Father within--who guides
His children up the long steep road to perfection. Let not the
idea of it be degraded by chaining it to the low floor of
mesmeric phenomena, which any healthy man or woman can bring
about if they will only try. The grosser the operator the
better, for thus there is more of the mesmeric force..."  
WQJ Art I 528-9

	
	
MENTAL OR WILL CURES -- FAITH HEALING


"H.P.Blavatsky...wrote that some of these practices [Mind Cure,
Mental Science, Christian Science ] were of the nature of black
magic...whenever the healer interferes--consciously or
unconsciously--with the free mental action of the person he
treats, it is Black Magic."	WQJ Art II 423


"...as very many of the troubles of people are imaginary,
sometimes in the acute form because of imagination, it does
happen in those cases that a cure may be effected by the schools
we are speaking of. Some nervous derangements may be thus cured.
And if this is brought about by directing the mind of the patient
to high thoughts, there can be no objection to it.

But if the mind is filled with wrong philosophy, or it the
affirmations and denials found in these "sciences" are used, or
the "construction of the divine and spiritual form be gone into,
the whole thing is bad...our position about the cure of bodily
ailments...is that inasmuch as they are of and in the body, those
that come from a wrong attitude of mind will disappear when we
are contented and self-centered, while those that are chronic,
being mechanical and physical, ought to be treated by such means
and not by an attempt to drag the spiritual and divine down to
this plane of being. In none of the ancient schools was it
permitted to one to use for himself, or to sell, the divine
spiritual powers."	WQJ Art II 424



[ Names given to "Metaphysical" healing:


Mesmerism, magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion,
fascination, psychologizing, laying on of hands,
hysteria, etc... WQJ Art I 524 526 549 550

Fields: operation nearby and at a distance,
WQJ Art I 525

Types: trance, clairvoyance, clairaudience,
second-sight, prophecy, warnings, visions,
WQJ Art I 525 HPB Art II 298 370-3 I 389-90
Ocean 147 143 150

Altered states of consciousness:
waking, dreaming, deep sleep, trance, lucid dreams
day-dreams or reveries, involuntary visions
Trans. 59-79 WQJ Letters 147-9 Ocean 143-4
Q & A 219-21 HPB Art II 376-80

Dreams:
Prophetic, allegorical, retrospective, warning,
confused, fancies & chaotic pictures, dreams sent
by adepts (good or bad) or by mesmerizers,
Trans. 66, 76 79 HPB Art II 293-4 Ocean 143-4
Isis I 200-1 HPB Art II 296 475-6

nightmares Trans 72-3, 77-8,
HPB Art I 389-90, II 298

induced visions	TTPG 40-3, HPB Art II 370-3
induced trance	Lucif 3-290 TM 3-100 MP 438...

Modes of sight or vision:	Ocean 145, Isis II 605-6
T M 13- p. 46


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

2

 
HYPNOTISM AND THEOSOPHY

Is hypnotism understood? What is the attitude of the Theosophical Society to
hypnotism?
It is thought by some that magnetism and hypnotism are identical; for many
have said this new force or power is only the old practice of Mesmer revived
in this century, after long years of contempt, and labeled with a new name,
which will permit doctors to take it up. This is not, however, altogether
true. 

Dr. Charcot, of Paris, and his followers, may be credited with the revival
of hypnotism; for, in consequence of their investigations, it has been
accepted by the medical profession. I have seen the prominent doctors of the
Atlantic coast change their views on this subject in twenty-five years. Dr.
Hammond and others laughed at the credulity of those who believed that the
phenomena, now so well known among hypnotizers, ever took place; today they
write articles and admit the facts previously denied.

Many years ago, Dr. Esdaile, a surgeon of the British army, conducted a
hospital in India, and there performed many difficult operations by using
magnetism as an anaesthetic, even instructing native assistants to use it on
patients in his stead. His book, long ago published, gives all the facts.
There is plenty of testimony in all countries to the reality of the mesmeric
and hypnotic states and powers.

The great question which arose after the proofs about hypnotism were in, was
a very different one from any which has previously been brought forward. As
soon as the process was described and admitted, experiments proceeded with
rapidity, and the great subject of "suggestion" was laid bare. It was found
that the hypnotized person could be made to do many strange things after
recovering from the hypnotic state, provided the suggestion had been made to
him when he was in the state. The subject was told to murder Dr. A or B; to
steal a pocket-book. He was then taken out of the hypnotic state, and, at
the appointed time, would take the suggested weapon - a paper knife or
harmless thing - and go through all the required actions, or would actually
steal the object he was told to steal. If this power could be used by a
doctor in an experiment, it was argued that an actual murder might be
planned and executed through a hypnotized person. Hence it was dangerous.
Crime is possible of perpetration with impunity by the real culprit. 

Dr. Charcot gave an article to an important New York magazine in which he
admitted the probabilities of suggestion to patients, but denied that there
was danger from suggested crime, and yet also said there ought to be laws
against indiscriminate hypnotization. In the latter conclusion, most of the
Theosophical Society's members fully concur, but they also think that there
is, and will be, danger from crime suggested to hypnotic subjects. Not in
the immediate present, but in the future.

This is because hypnotism is not understood nor its dangers appreciated by
the medical profession; still less do they credit the public with a correct
knowledge on the subject.
The very best hypnotizers know very well that there are points at which the
hypnotized subject escapes their influence, continues in the hypnotic state,
and remains under some influence not known to the operator nor
distinguishable by the subject. Here is one danger - the danger of ignorance
and of a blind guide's leading one equally blind. Such writers as Braid,
Binet and others are only statisticians. They simply give facts and methods,
all being equally in the dark as to causes and possibilities. 

Again, the operators in the forefront of hypnotic fame know, too, as Dr.
Charcot has said, there is a danger that hysteria will be developed where it
never existed, and a long train of other evils. This is why he demands the
suppression of indiscriminate operating. But the real rock of offense is
this, and well known to theosophical students, that as the force and power
of hypnotism are better known, it will be seen that whatever the influence
is, the process going on in hypnotism is the contracting of the cells of the
body and brain from the periphery to the centre. This process is actually a
phenomenon of the death state, and is the opposite of the mesmeric effect;
and this point is not known to the medical profession, nor will it be as
they now proceed, because post mortem examinations never reveal the action
of a living cell. Magnetism by human influence starts from within and
proceeds to the outer surface, thus exhibiting a phenomenon of life the very
opposite of hypnotism. And the use of magnetism is not objectionable, yet it
should be limited in practice to competent members of the medical
profession. 

The more studious and careful members of the Theosophical Society, then, are
against the use of hypnotism. In all its anaesthetic phases it can be
duplicated by mesmerism without any bad effects. Dr. Esdaile has abundantly
shown this. Laws ought to be passed making it a misdemeanor to have public
or private hypnotic séance. And these laws should also be aimed at even
those doctors who, under the plea of science, put subjects into absurd and
undignified positions. 

Such practices are not necessary, and are deliberately against the desire of
the waking will and judgment of the subject. They only exhibit the
operator's power and add nothing to knowledge that cannot be otherwise
obtained.

But even with the remarkable cases recorded by Binet and others in France,
the laws governing man's inner constitution, and which especially govern in
hypnotism after a certain point, are not perceived by the learned writers.
Some give only facts - either facts about strange recurrence of states, and
others like Dr. James of this country assume that there is a hidden self who
does these queer tricks with the mortal shape. 

Theosophists know that the extraordinary alterations in mind or mental
power, the strange "recurrence of states" and the apparently distinct
division or separation of intelligence in a single human subject are all
explained by the ancient eastern method of reducing the inner powers of man
into seven classes, in each of which the hidden self - the Ego - can and
does act independently, the body being only a gross instrument or field for
the action of the real man.


This theory divides him into seven planes of action, in each of which the
Ego or hidden self can have a consciousness operating in a manner peculiarly
appropriate to that plane, and also partaking of the consciousness and
experience of the planes above it but not below. And each of these layers or
fields for consciousness is further divided into other sub-fields, in every
one of which there may be a separate experience and action, or all may be
combined. Now in the cases taken up by Dr. James, the peculiarity noted was
that when the subject acted as No. I, she had no recollection of a state
called No. 2. No explanation of this was offered, only the fact being
recorded. It is explained by the localization of the consciousness of the
Ego in one or the other of the sub-fields of action of the first of the
great class of seven.

The failure to recollect from one to the other was due to the fact that the
Ego was forced into that particular field, and was thus unable to carry
recollection with it. Hence it was entirely automatic in its action on that
plane. This effect was due almost entirely to the specific contractile
action of the hypnotic process, which, as said above, is essentially a
contraction of the cells from outside to the centre. This will always
prevent the Ego from educating itself to remember from state to state and
field to field the experience of each, which education is however possible
in the mesmerized or magnetized state, and of course in the normal waking
life.

The cases where the subject escapes from the operator's control are all
explicable under the same theosophic theory; that is, those are instances in
which the Ego retreats from the first plane or field of consciousness made
up of seven divisions or sub-fields to the next one of the whole class of
seven, instead of entering one of the sub-divisions of the first. 

And, as the medical practitioners do not know of nor admit the reality of
the higher inner sub-divisions, they are not acquainted with the means for
reaching the Ego when it has escaped further from them into a field of
consciousness where they are in ignorance of causes and conditions; that is
to say, the hypnotizers are not examining the real field of operation of the
force, but are looking at some of its phenomena merely.

These phenomena are exhibited in the body or outer shell while the
psycho-physiological process, going on within, and causing the visible
phenomena, are hidden from their view.

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
_______
Note. - This article was printed in the Jenness Miller Illustrated Monthly,
possibly some time in 1893. It is here reproduced from an undated page torn
from this journal. A search for the volume in which it appeared has proved
fruitless, the set in the Library of Congress being incomplete. - Editors.
 
----------------------------------------

Hope this helps

Best wishes,


Dallas
 

-----Original Message-----
From: krishtar 
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 11:52 AM
To: 
Subject: ISIS UNVEILED X past lives therapy - A falacy?

Hi
Everybody knows that studying the reincarnation´s principles, like the ones
in ISIS Unveiled which reads that " the personality reincarnating in the
the same planet twice is an exception in the nature, NOT a law".

What do the impressions the past-lives-therapy 'professionals" come from?
The Akasha´s records?

Can a person really remind of things that happened in latter lives?
Can a personality ( the astral monad, finite monad - see Colected writings
Vol IV Isis Unveiled And Theosophist on Reincarnation* ) remind of a past
life that It never had?
It puzzles me...' cause everytime I incarnate I am a new individual
personality, not the latter one reborn, according to the Mahatma´s
teachings.So what about these impressions gotten by hypnosis?

I don´t know if I am being clear in this question.

Krishtar