Theos-Talk Archives (December 2004 Message tt00401)

Dec 28 2004





Part 3 -- Astral & Psychic Phenomena










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. .





This lack of an adequate system of Psychology is a natural consequence of
the materialistic bias of science and the paralyzing influence of dogmatic
religion; the one ridiculing effort and blocking the way, the other
forbidding investigation. Real psychology is an Oriental product today. 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. 







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. 







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. A knowledge of the law when added to faith gives power over
matter, mind, space, and time. 



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
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. 





APPORTATION OF OBJECTS



Among phenomena useful to notice are those consisting of the moving of
objects without physical contact. This may be done, and in more than one
way. The first is to extrude from the physical body the Astral hand and arm,
and with those grasp the object to be moved. This may be accomplished at a
distance of as much as ten feet from the person. In nearly all cases of such
apportation the feat is accomplished by thus using the unseen but material
Astral hand. The second method is to use the elementals of which I have
spoken. They have the power when directed by the inner man to carry objects
by changing the polarity. These elemental entities are used when things are
brought from longer distances. 





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. 



Clairvoyance, clairaudience, and second-sight are all related very closely.
Every exercise of any one of them draws in at the same time both of the
others. They are but variations of one power. Sound is one of the
distinguishing characteristics of the Astral sphere, and as light goes with
sound, sight obtains simultaneously with hearing. To see an image with the
Astral senses means that at the same time there is a sound, and to hear the
latter infers the presence of a related image in Astral substance. It is
perfectly well known to the true student of occultism that every sound
produces instantaneously an image, and this, so long known in the Orient,
has lately been demonstrated in the West in the production to the eye of
sound pictures on a stretched tympanum. 



In the Astral Light are pictures of all things whatsoever that happened to
any person, and as well also pictures of those events to come the causes for
which are sufficiently well marked and made. If the causes are yet
indefinite, so will be the images of the future. But for the mass of events
for several years to come all the producing and efficient causes are always
laid down with enough definiteness to permit the seer to see them in advance
as if present. By means of these pictures, all clairvoyants exercise their
strange faculty. Yet it is 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.
Second-sight is a combination of clairaudience and clairvoyance or not, just
as the particular case is, and the frequency with which future events are
seen by the second-sight seer adds an element of prophecy. 





SPIRITUAL VISION -- RARE



The highest order of clairvoyance -- that of spiritual vision -- is very
rare. The usual clairvoyant deals only with the ordinary aspects and strata
of the Astral matter. Spiritual sight comes only to those who are pure,
devoted, and firm. It may be attained by special development of the
particular organ in the body through which alone such sight is possible, and
only after discipline, long training, and the highest altruism. All other
clairvoyance is transitory, inadequate, and fragmentary its fragmentary and
inadequate character results from the fact that hardly any clairvoyant has
the power to see into more than one of the lower grades of Astral substance
at any one time. 



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





DREAMS



Dreams are sometimes the result of brain action automatically proceeding,
and are also produced by the transmission into the brain by the real inner
person of those scenes or ideas high or low which that real person has seen
while the body slept. They are then strained into the brain as if floating
on the soul as it sinks into the body. These dreams may be of use, but
generally the resumption of bodily activity destroys the meaning, perverts
the image, and reduces all to confusion. 



But the great fact of all dreaming is that some one perceives and feels
therein, and this is one of the arguments for the inner person's existence.
In sleep the inner man communes with higher intelligences, and sometimes
succeeds in impressing the brain with what is gained, either a high idea or
a prophetic vision. The karma of the person also determines the meaning of a
dream, for a king may dream that which relates to his kingdom. 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. 



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



The Adept may send out his apparition, which, however, is called by another
name [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. 



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. 



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. 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 often 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. All that is reported of the spirits show their assertions and
philosophy, if any, vary with the medium and the most advanced thought of
living spiritualists. 



>From all this and much more, 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 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. One 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" [elementary] 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 . 



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. 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. 



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 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. 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 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. 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 phenomena.



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
THEOSOPHY. 







DTB















Dallas





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