Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00895)

Sept 29 2004

RE: Psychic Powers Use and Acquisition

Dear Friend:

Here are some Theosophical statements concerning this important subject

Western investigators of accepted schools of psychology have not advanced
very far. The result is that there is no comprehensive, or inclusive Western
Psychology worthy of the name. 

This lack of an adequate system, is a natural consequence of the
materialistic bias of science, and the paralyzing influence of dogmatic
religion.  

Real psychology is an Oriental product today. Traces of the "Oriental
Psychological System" can be traced historically in the Middle East, in
Greece and Egypt, and when a very ancient civilization flourished in
America, anterior to the Christian era. 


When inquiring and investigating this real psychology it is made apparent
that there are great dangers, and psychological damage was seen to have been
made to the human instruments involved. These more than offset any good
done in the opinion of the disciples of the Ancient Adept Lodge who would
have mankind progress evenly and without unnecessary pain or ruin along its
path of evolution. 

Take for instance: "SPIRIT" COMMUNICATIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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,
they are entirely the production of, invention, compilation, discovery, and
collocation by the loosely attached Astral body of the living medium. 

>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. 

Let us now pass to phenomena.  

MAN -- the MICROCOSM

If all the phenomena described are true, then in man are the same powers and
forces which are to be found anywhere in Nature. 

He is held by the Masters of Wisdom to be the highest product of the whole
system of evolution, and mirrors in himself every power, however wonderful
or terrible, of Nature. By the very fact of being such a mirror, he is man
-- the "Microcosm" of the Macrocosm. 


WILL and IMAGINATION

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


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

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


MIND IS THE INSTRUMENT OF CONTROL

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


MAGIC vs. PSYCHISM

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

Some of these are:  


LEVITATION -- A Change of POLARITY

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


COHESION AND DISPERSION

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

Using this Law, the Adept is able to disperse, or alter a shape by changing
the molecular relations or 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 astral
light, 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. 


PRECIPITATION

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

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

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


MATERIALIZATION

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

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

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

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


APPARITIONS, DOUBLES

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

Apparitions and doubles are of two general classes. 

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

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

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


APPORTATION -- MOTION WITHOUT PHYSICAL CONTACT

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

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

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

TELEPATHY

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


MENTAL BURGLARY FORBIDDEN

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

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

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


CLAIRVOYANCE, CLAIRAUDIENCE

Clairvoyance, clairaudience, and second-sight are all closely related. 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. It is well known to the true student of occultism that every sound
produces instantaneously an image, and this, so long known in the Orient,
has lately been demonstrated in the West in the production to the eye of
sound pictures on a stretched tympanum. 

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

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


THE ASTRAL PICTURE GALLERY OF EVERYTHING 

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


SPIRITUAL VISION and CLAIRVOYANCE

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

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


AN ADEPT MAY PROJECT HIS "DOUBLE."

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


SECOND-SIGHT

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

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


DREAMS

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


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


SCIENTIFIC LAWS AND THEOSOPHY

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

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

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

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


This gives us three modes of sight: 

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

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

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

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

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

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


LAWS AFFECTING PSYCHIC PHENOMENA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


DANGERS TO MEDIUMS

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

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


CURIOSITY AND SELFISH ACQUIREMENT OF "POWER"

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


SCIENCE and THE ASTRAL & PSYCHIC PLANE

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

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

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

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


=====================================
[Extracts from the OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY ]


Best wishes,


DTB








Dallas
 

-----Original Message-----
From: fnord [mailto:fnord@busquedainterior.com.ar] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 1:26 PM
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Theos-World cwl

Hi,

in several books i've read mentions about the method Leadbeater used to
develop his psyquic powers. It's evident from his writings that implied the
chakras, something completley oposite to the one of HPB, to concentrate on
the seven centers in the head... What was the method Leadbeater used? Are
there any records, from the London Lodge? I'm vey sory for my, i guess,
lausy english. Thanks.

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



 
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