Materials And Conditions
The crystal is a clear pellucid piece of quartz or beryl,
sometimes oval in shape but more generally spherical. It is
accredited by Reichenbach and other researchers with highly
magnetic qualities, capable of producing in a suitable subject
a state analogous to the ordinary "waking trance" of the
hypnotists. It is believed that all bodies convey, or are the
vehicles of certain universal property called od or odyle
(od-hyle), which is not regarded as a force but as an inert and
passive substance underlying the more active forces familiar to
us in kinetic, calorific and electrical phenomena. In this respect
it holds a position analogous to the argon of the atmosphere,
and is capable of taking up the vibrations of those bodies to
which it is related and which it invests. It would perhaps not be
amiss to regard it as static ether. Of itself it has no active
properties, but in its still, well-like depths, it holds the
potentiality of all magnetic forces.
This odyle is particularly potent in certain bodies and one of
these is the beryl or quartz. It produces and retains more readily
in the beryl than in most other bodies the images communicated
to it by the subconscious activity of the seer. It is in the nature
of a sensitized film which is capable of recording thought forms
and mental images as the photographic film records objective
things. The occultist will probably recognize in it many of the
properties of the "astral light," which is often spoken of in this
connection. Readers of my Manual of Occultism will already
be informed concerning the nature of subconscious activity. The
mind or soul of man has two aspects: the attentive or waking
consciousness, directed to the things of the external world; and
the subconscious, which is concerned with the things of the
interior world. Each of these spheres of the mind has its
voluntary and automatic phases, a fact which is usually lost
sight of, inasmuch as the automatism of the mind is frequently
confounded with the subconscious. All purposive action tends
to become automatic, whether it be physical or mental, sensory
or psychic.
The soul in this connection is to be regarded as the repository of
all that complex of emotions, thoughts, aspirations, impressions,
perceptions, feelings, etc., which constitute the inner life of man.
The soul is none the less a fact because there are those who
bandy words about its origin and nature.
Reichenbach has shown by a series of experiments upon sensitive and
hypnotized subjects, that metals and other materials produce very marked
effects in contact with the human body. The experiments further showed
that the same substance affected different patients in diverse manners.
The hypnotic experiments of the late Dr. Charcot, the well-known
French biologist, also demonstrate the rapport existing between the
sensitive subject and foreign bodies in proximity. A bottle containing
a poison is taken at random from a number of others of similar appearance
and is applied to the back of the patient's neck. The hypnotic subject
at once begins to develop all the symptoms of arsenical, strychnine or
prussic acid poisoning; it being afterwards found that the bottle
contains the toxine whose effects have been portrayed by the subject.
But not all hypnotic subjects are capable of the same degree of
sensibility.
Community of sensation is as common a phenomenon as community of
thought between a hypnotizer and his subject, and what are called
sympathetic pains are included in common experience. Sensitive persons
will simulate all the symptoms of a virulent disease, e.g. mock
measles. The phenomena of psychometry reveal the fact of bodies being
able to retain records and of the human possibility of reviving these
records as sensations and thought images, although there is no direct
community of sensation between an inanimate object and the
nervous organism of a sensitive. It need not, therefore, be a
matter of surprise that the crystal can exert a very definite and
sensible effect upon the nervous organism of a certain order of
subjects. It does not affect all alike nor act in a uniform
and constant manner on those whom it does so affect. The
modifications of sensibility taking place in the subject or
sensitive render the action of the agent a variable quantity.
Where its action is more or less rapid and remarkable, however,
the quartz or beryl crystal may be regarded as the most effective
agent for producing clairvoyance.
In other cases the concave mirror, either of polished copper or
black japan, will be found serviceable. In certain cases where
the faculty is already developed but lying in latency, any
shining surface will suffice to bring it into activity. Ecstatic
vision was first induced in Jacob Boehme by the sun's rays
falling upon a bowl of water which caught and dazzled his eyes
while he was engaged in the humble task of cobbling a pair of
shoes. In consequence of this exaltation of the visual sense we
have those remarkable works, The Aurora, The Four Complexions,
Signatura Rerum, and many others, with letters and commentaries which,
in addition to being of a spiritual nature, are also to be regarded
as scholarly when referred to their source. In Boehme's case, as in
that of Swedenborg, whose faculty did not appear until he was
fifty-four years of age, it would appear that the faculty was
constitutional and already developed, waiting only the conditions
which should bring it into active operation.
The agent most suitable for developing clairvoyance cannot
therefore be definitely prescribed. It must remain a matter of
experiment with the subject himself. That there are some
persons in whom the psychic faculties are more prone to
activity than in others is certain, and it would appear also that
these faculties are native in some by spiritual or hereditary
succession, which fact is evident from their genitures as
interpreted by astrology. Many planets in flexed signs and a
satellitium in the nadir or lower angle of the horoscope is
a certain indication of extreme nervous sensibility and
predisposition to telaesthenic impressions, though this
observation does not cover all the instances before me. It is true,
however, where it applies. The dominant influence of the planet
Neptune in a horoscope is also to be regarded as a special
indication of some form of psychic activity, as I have frequently
observed.
In cases where the subject is not prepared by evolutional
process for the exercise of the psychic faculties, it will be found
that the same or similar indications will tend to the simulation
of such faculties, as by mediumism, conjuring, etc., while they
may even result in chicanery and fraud.
But among those who are gifted in the direction spoken of,
all are not clairvoyant. The most common form of psychic
disturbance is involuntary clairaudience, and telaesthesia is not
perhaps less general. St. Paul indicates a variety of such
psychic "gifts," e.g. the gifts of prophecy, of healing, of
understanding, etc.; but these may also be regarded in quite a
mundane sense. The development among the early Christians of
spiritual gifts, visions, hearing, speaking in foreign tongues,
psychic healing, etc., appears to have given rise to a variety of
exceptional experiences by which they were induced to say "we
cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard." "One star
differs from another in glory," says St. Paul, and this diversity
of spiritual gifts proceeds from the celestial world, and is so
ordered that each may fulfil the part required of him in the
economy of life.
Psychic tradition is as important a fact as is physical heredity.
The latter is a factor of immense importance as affecting the
constitution and quality of the organism in and through which
the soul is required to function. But psychic tradition is that
which determines the power and faculty brought to bear upon
the physical organism. Past evolution is not a negligible
quantity, and its effects are never wasted or lost to the
individual. We are what we are by reason of what we have
already been, as well individually as racially. "The future is, the
past unfolded" or "entered upon by a new door," as it has been
well said. We do not suddenly acquire faculties, we evolve them
by effort and successive selection. In our upward striving for
liberty we specialize along certain lines which appear to us to be
those offering either the least resistance or the most ready
means of self-preservation, liberty and well-being. Hence some
evolve a special faculty for money-making and, as schoolboys,
will be expert traders of alley-taws, jack-knives, toffee and all
sorts of kickshaws. Others of another bent or list will traffic in
knowledge to the abounding satisfaction of their masters and the
jealous pride of their form.
So that psychic tradition while disposing some to the speedy
revelation of an already acquired faculty, disposes others to the
more arduous but not less interesting work of acquiring such
faculty. And because the spiritual needs of mankind are ever of
primary importance, there are always to be found those in
whom the power of spiritual interpretation is the dominant
faculty, such persons being the natural channels of intercourse
between the superior and inferior worlds. The physical body of
man is equipped with a corresponding order of microbic life
which acts as an organic interpreter, translating the elements of
food into blood, nerve, fibre, tissue and bone agreeably to the
laws of their being. What I have to say in this place is addressed
especially to those who would aspire to the faculty of clear
vision and in whom the psychic powers are striving towards
expression. Every person whose life is not wholly sunk in
material and selfish pleasures but in whom the aspiration to a
higher and better life is a hunger the world cannot satisfy, has
within himself the power to see and know that which he seeks
behind the veil of the senses. Nature has never produced a
desire she cannot satisfy. There is no hope, however vague, that
the soul cannot define, and no aspiration, however high, that the
wings of the spirit cannot reach. Therefore be patient and strive.
To others I would say: Be content. All birds cannot be eagles.
The nightingale has a song and the humming bird a plumage the
eagle can never possess. The nightingale may sing to the stars,
the humming bird to the flowers, but the eagle, whose tireless
eyes gaze into the heart of day, is uncompanioned in its lofty
loneliness amid the mountain tops.