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CHAPTER 7

CLAIRVOYANCE
IN TIME: THE PAST

Clairvoyance in time-
that is to say, the power of reading the past and the future- is, like all the
other varieties, possessed by different people in very varying degrees, ranging
from the man who has both faculties fully at his command, down to one who only
occasionally gets involuntary and very imperfect glimpses or reflections of
these scenes of other days. A person of the latter type might have, let us say,
a vision of some event in the past; but it would be liable to the most serious
distortion, and even if it happened to be fairly accurate it would almost certainly
be a mere isolated picture, and he would probably be quite unable to relate
it to what had occurred before or after it, or account for anything unusual
which might appear in it. The trained man, on the other hand, could follow the
drama connected with his picture backwards or forwards to any extent that might
seem desirable, and trace out with equal ease the causes which had led up to
it or the results which it in turn would produce.

We shall probably
find it easier to grasp this somewhat difficult section of our subject if we
consider it in the subdivisions which naturally suggest themselves, and deal
first with the vision which looks backwards into the past, leaving for later
examination that which pieces the veil of the future. In each case it will be
well for us to try to understand what we can of the modus operandi, even though
our success can at best be only very modified one, owing first to the imperfect
information on some parts of the subject at present possessed by our investigators,
and secondly to the recurring failure of physical words to express a hundred
part even of the little we do known about higher planes and faculties.

In the case then
of a detailed vision of the remote past,how is it obtained, and to what plane
of Nature does it really belong? The answer to both these questions is contained
in the reply that it is read from the akashic records; but that statement in
return will require a certain amount of explanation for many readers. The word
is in truth somewhat of a misnomer, for though the records are undoubtedly read
from the akasha, or matter of the mental plane, yet it is not to it that they
really belong. Still worse is the alternative title, "records of the astral
light", which has sometimes been employed, for these records lie far beyond
the astral plane, and all that can be obtained on it are only broken glimpses
of a kind of double reflection of them, as will presently be explained.

Like so many others
of our Theosophical terms, the word akasha has been very loosely used. In some
of our earlier books it was considered as synonymous with astral light, and
in others it was employed to signify any kind of invisible matter, from mulaprakriti
down to the physical ether. In later books its use has been restricted to the
matter of the mental plane, and it is in that sense that the records may be
spoken of as akashic, for although they are not originally made on that plane
any more than on the astral, yet it is there that we first come definitely into
contact with them and find it possible to do reliable work with them.

This subject of the
records is by no means an easy one to deal with, for it is one of that numerous
class which requires for its perfect comprehension faculties of a far higher
order than any which humanity has yet evolved. The real solution of its problems
lies on planes far beyond any that we can possibly know at present, and any
view that we take of it must necessarily be of the most imperfect character,
since we cannot but look at it from below instead of from above. The idea which
we form of it must therefore be only partial, yet it need not mislead us unless
we allow ourselves to think of the tiny fragment which is all that we can see
as though it were the perfect whole. If we are careful that such conceptions
as we may form shall be accurate as far as they go, we shall have nothing to
unlearn, though much to add, when in the course of our further progress we gradually
acquire the higher wisdom. Be it understood then at the commencement that a
thorough grasp of our subject is an impossibility at the present stage of our
evolution, and that many points will arise as to which no exact explanation
is yet obtainable, though it may often be possible to suggest analogies and
to indicate the lines along which an explanation must lie.

Let us then try to
carry back our thoughts to the beginning of this solar system to which we belong.
We are all familiar with the ordinary astronomical theory of its origin- that
which is commonly called the nebular hypothesis- according to which it first
came into existence as a gigantic glowing nebula, of a diameter fax exceeding
that of the orbit of even the outermost of the planets, and then, as in the
course of countless ages that enormous sphere gradually cooled and contracted,
the system as we know it was formed.

Occult science accepts
that theory, in its broad outline, as correctly representing the purely physical
side of the evolution of our system, but it would add that if we confine our
attention to this physical side only we shall have a very incomplete and incoherent
idea of what really happened. It would postulate, to begin with, that the exalted
Being who undertakes the formation of a system (whom we sometimes call the Logos
of the system) first of all forms in His mind a complete conception of the whole
of it with all its successive chains of worlds. By the very act of forming that
conception He calls the whole into simultaneous objective existence on the plane
of His thought- a plane of course far above all those of which we know anything-
from which the various globes descend when required into whatever state of further
objectivity may be respectively destined for them. Unless we constantly bear
in mind this fact of the real existence of the whole system from the very beginning
on a higher plane, we shall be perpetually misunderstanding the physical evolution
which we see taking place down here.

But Occultism has
more than this to teach us on the subject. It tells us not only that all this
wonderful system to which we belong is called into existence by the Logos, both
on lower and on higher planes, but also that its relation to Him is closer even
than that, for it is absolutely a part of Him- a partial expression of Him upon
the physical plane- and that the movement and energy of the whole system is
His energy, and is all carried on within the limits of His aura. Stupendous
as this conception is, it will yet not be wholly unthinkable to those of us
who have made any study of the subject of the aura.

We are familiar with
the idea that as a person progresses on the upward path his causal body,which
is the determining limit of his aura, distinctly increases in size as well as
in luminosity and purity of colour. Many of us know from experience that the
aura of a pupil who has already made considerable advance on the Path is very
much larger than that of one who is but just setting his foot upon its first
step, while in the case of an Adept the proportional increase is far greater
still. We read in quite exoteric Oriental scriptures of the immense extension
of the aura of the Buddha; I think that three miles is mentioned on one occasion
as its limit, but whatever the exact measurement may be, it is obvious that
we have here another record of this fact of the extremely rapid growth of the
causal body as man passes on his upward way. There can be little doubt that
the rate of this growth would itself increase in geometrical progression, so
that it need not surprise us to hear of an Adept on a still higher level whose
aura is capable of including the entire world at once; and from this we may
gradually lead our minds up to the conception that there is a Being so exalted
as to comprehend within Himself the whole of our solar system. And we should
remember that, enormous as this seems to us, it is but as the tiniest drop in
the vast ocean of space.

So of the Logos (who
has in Him all the capacities and qualities with which we can possibly endow
the highest God we can imagine) it is literally true, as was said of old, that
"of Him and through Him, and to Him are all things", and "in
Him we live and move and have our being".

Now if this be so,
it is clear that whatever happens within our system happens absolutely within
the consciousness of its Logos, and so we at once see that the true record must
be His memory; and furthermore, it is obvious that on whatever plane that wondrous
memory exists, it cannot but be far above anything that we know, and consequently
whatever records we may find ourselves able to read must be only a reflection
of that great dominant fact, mirrored in the denser media of the lower planes.

On the astral plane
it is at once evident that this is so- that what we are dealing with is only
a reflection of a reflection, and an exceedingly imperfect one,for such records
as can be reached there are fragmentary in the extreme, and often seriously
distorted. We know how universally water is used as a symbol of the astral light,
and in this particular case it is a remarkably apt one. From the surface of
still water we may get a clear reflection of the surrounding objects, just as
from a mirror; but at the best it is only a reflection- a representation in
two dimensions of three-dimensional objects, and therefore differing in all
its qualities, except colour, from that which it represents; and in addition
to this,it is always reversed.

But let the surface
of the water be ruffled by the wind and what do we find then? A reflection still,
certainly, but so broken up and distorted as to be quite useless or even misleading
as a guide to the shape and real appearance of the objects reflected. Here and
there for a moment we might happen to get a clear reflection of some minute
part of the scene- of a single leaf from a tree, for example; but it would need
long labour and considerable knowledge of natural laws to build up anything
like a true conception of the object reflected by putting together even a large
number of such isolated fragments of an image of it.

Now in the astral
plane we can never have anything approaching to what we have imaged as a still
surface, but on the contrary we have always to deal with one in rapid and bewildering
motion; judge, therefore,how little we can depend upon getting a clear and definite
reflection. Thus a clairvoyant who possesses only the faculty of astral sight
can never rely upon ay picture of the past that comes before him as being accurate
and perfect; here and there some part of it may be so, but he has no means of
knowing which it is. If he is under the care of a competent teacher he may,
by long and careful training, be shown how to distinguish between reliable and
unreliable impressions, and to construct from the broken reflections some kind
of image of the object reflected; but usually long before he has mastered those
difficulties he will have developed the mental sight, which renders such labour
unnecessary.

On the next plane,
which we call the mental, conditions are very different. There the record is
full and accurate, and it would be impossible to make any mistake in the reading.
That is to say, if three clairvoyants possessing the powers of the mental plane
agreed to examine a certain record there, what would be presented to their vision
would be absolutely the same reflection in each case, and each would acquire
a correct impression from it in reading it. It does not,however, follow that
when they all compared notes later on the physical plane their reports would
agree exactly. It is well known that, if three people who witness an occurrence
down here in the physical world set to work to describe it afterwards, their
accounts will differ considerably, for each will have noticed especially those
items which most appeal to him, and will insensibly have made them the prominent
features of the event, sometimes ignoring other points which were in reality
much more important.

Now in the case of
an observation on the mental plane this personal equation would not appreciably
affect the impressions received, for since each would thoroughly grasp the entire
subject it would be impossible for him to see its parts out of due proportion;
but, except in the case of carefully trained and experienced persons,this factor
does come into play in transferring the impressions to the lower planes. It
is in the nature of things impossible that any account given down here of a
vision or experience on the mental plane can be complete, since nine-tenths
of what is seen and felt there could not be expressed by physical words at all;
and, since all expression must therefore be partial, there is obviously some
possibility of selection as to the part expressed. It is for this reason that
in all our Theosophical investigations of recent years so much stress has been
laid upon the constant checking and verifying of clairvoyant testimony, nothing
which rests upon the vision of one person only having been allowed to appear
in our later books.

But even when the
possibility of errors from this factor of personal equation has been reduced
to a minimum by a careful system of counterchecking, there still remains the
very serious difficulty which is inherent in the operation of bringing down
impressions from a higher plane to a lower one. This is something analogous
to the difficulty experienced by a painted in his endeavour to reproduce a three-dimensional
landscape on a flat surface- that is, practically in two dimensions. Just as
the artist needs long and careful training of eye and hand before he can produce
a satisfactory representation of Nature,so does the clairvoyant need long and
careful training before he can describe accurately on a lower plane what he
sees on a higher one; and the probability of getting an exact description from
an untrained person is about equal to that of getting a perfectly-finished landscape
from one who has never learn how to draw.

It must be remembered,
too, that the most perfect picture is in reality infinitely far from being a
reproduction of the scene which it represents, for hardly a single line or angle
in it can ever be the same as those in the object copied. It is simply a very
ingenious attempt to make upon only only of our five senses, by means of lines
and colours on a flat surface, an impression similar to that which would have
been made if we had actually had before us the scene depicted. Except by a suggestion
dependent entirely on our own previous experience, it can convey to us nothing
of the roar of the sea, of the scent of the flowers, of the taste of the fruit,
of of the softness or hardness of the surface drawn.

Of exactly similar
nature,though far greater in degree, are the difficulties experienced by a clairvoyant
in his attempt to describe upon the physical plane what he has seen upon the
astral; and they are furthermore greatly enhanced by the fact that, instead
of having merely to recall to the minds of his hearers conceptions with which
they are already familiar, as the artist does when he paints men or animals,
fields or trees, he has to endeavour by the very imperfect means at his disposal
to suggest to them conceptions which in most cases are absolutely new to them.

Small wonder then
that, however vivid and striking his descriptions may seem to his audience,he
himself should constantly be impressed with their total inadequacy, and should
feel that his best efforts have entirely failed to convey any idea of what he
really sees. And we must remember that in the case of the report given down
here of a record read on the mental plane, this difficult operation of transference
from the higher to the lower has taken place not once but twice, since the memory
has been brought through the intervening astral plane. Even in a case where
the investigator has the advantage of having developed his mental faculties
so that he has the use of them while awake in the physical body, he is still
hampered by the absolute incapacity of physical language to express what he
sees.

Try for a moment
to realize fully what is called the fourth dimension, of which we said something
in an earlier chapter. It is easy enough to think of our own three dimensions-
to image in our minds the length, breadth and height of any object; and we see
that each of these three dimensions is expressed by a line at right angles to
both of the others. The idea of the fourth dimension is that it might be possible
to draw a fourth line which shall be at right angles to all three of those already
existing.

Now the ordinary
mind cannot grasp this idea in the least, though some few who have a special
study of the subject have gradually come to be able to realize one or two very
simple four-dimensional figures.

Still, no words that
they can use on this plane can bring any image of these figures before the mind
of others, and if any reader who has not specially trained himself along that
line will make the effort to visualize such a shape he will find it quite impossible.
Now to express such a form clearly in physical words would be, in effect, to
describe accurately a single object of the astral plane; but in examining the
records on the mental plane we should have to face the additional difficulties
of a fifth dimension! So that the impossibility of fully explaining these records
will be obvious to even the most superficial observation.

We have spoken of
the records as the memory of the Logos, yet they are very much more than a memory
in an ordinary sense of the word. Hopeless as it may be to imagine how these
images appear from His point of view, we yet known that as we rise higher and
higher we must be drawing nearer to the true memory- must be seeing more nearly
as He sees; so that great interest attaches to the experience of the clairvoyant
with reference to these records when he stands upon the buddhic plane- the higher
which his consciousness can reach even when away from the physical body until
he attains the level of the Arhats.

Here time and space
no longer limit him; he no longer needs, as on the mental plane, to pass a series
of events in review, for past, present and future are all alike simultaneously
present to him, meaningless as that sounds down here. Indeed, infinitely below
the consciousness of the Logos as even that exalted plane is, it is yet abundantly
clear from what we see there that to Him the record must be far more than what
we call a memory, for all that has happened in the past and all that will happen
in the future is happening now before His eyes just as are the events of what
we call the present time. Utterly incredible, widely incomprehensible, of course,
to our limited understanding; yet absolutely true for all that.

Naturally we could
not expect to understand at our present stage of knowledge how so marvellous
a result is produced, and to attempt an explanation would only be to involve
ourselves in a mist of words from which we should gain no real information.
Yet a line of though recurs to my mind which perhaps suggests the direction
in which it is possible that that explanation may lie; and whatever helps us
to realize that so astounding a statement may after all not be wholly impossible
will be of assistance in broadening our minds.

Some thirty years
ago I remember reading a very curious little book, called, I think, The Stars
and the Earth, the objects of which was to endeavour to show how it was scientifically
possible that to the mind of God the past and the present might be absolutely
simultaneous. Its arguments struck me at the time as decidedly ingenious, and
I will proceed to summarize them, as I think they will be found somewhat suggestive
in a connection with the subject which we have been considering.

When we see anything,
whether it be the book which we hold in our hands or a star millions of miles
away, we do so by means of a vibration in the ether, commonly called a ray of
light, which passes from the object seen to our eyes. Now the speed with which
this vibration passes is so great- about 186,000 miles in a second- that when
we are considering any object in our own world we may regard it as practically
instantaneous. When, however, we come to deal with interplanetary distances
we have to take the speed of light into consideration,for an appreciable period
is occupied in traversing these vast spaces. For example it takes eight minutes
and a quarter for light to travel to us from the sun, so that when we look at
the solar orb we see it by means of a ray of light which left it more than eight
minutes ago.

From this follows
a very curious result. The ray of light by which we see the sun can obviously
reports to us only the state of affairs which existed in that luminary when
it started on its journey, and would not be in the least affected by anything
that happened there after it left; so that we really see the sun not as he is,
but as he was eight minutes ago. That is to say that if anything important took
place in the sun - the formation of a new sunspot, for instance- an astronomer
who was watching the orb through his telescope at the time would be quite unaware
of the incident while it was happening, since the ray of light bearing the news
would not reach him until more than eight minutes later.

The difference is
more striking when we consider the fixed stars, because in their case the distances
are so enormously greater. The pole star, for example, is so far off that light,
travelling at the inconceivable speed above mentioned, takes a little more than
fifty years to reach our eyes; and from that follows the strange but inevitable
inference that we see the pole star no as and where it is at this moment, but
as and where it was fifty years ago. Nay, if tomorrow some cosmic catastrophe
were to shatter the pole star into fragments, we should still see it peacefully
shining in the sky all the rest of our lives; our children would grow up to
middle age and gather their children about them in turn before the news of that
tremendous accident reached any terrestrial eye. In the same way there are other
stars so far distance that light takes thousands of years to travel from them
to us, and with reference to their condition our information is therefore thousands
of years behind time.

Now carry the argument
a step farther. Suppose that we were able to place a man at the distance of
186,000 miles form the earth, and yet to endow him with the wonderful faculty
of being able from that distance to see what was happening here as clearly as
though he were still close beside us. It is evident that a man so placed would
see everything a second later the time when it really happened, and so at the
present moment he would be seeing what happened a second ago. Double the distance,
and he would be two seconds behind time, and so on; remove him to the distance
of the sun (still allowing him to preserve the same mysterious power of sight)
and he would look down and watch you doing not what you are doing now, but what
you were doing eight minutes and a quarter ago. Carry him away to the pole star,
and he would see passing before his eyes the events of fifty years ago; he would
be watching the childish gambols of those who at the very same moment were really
middle-aged men. Marvellous as this may sound, it is literally and scientifically
true, and cannot be denied.

The little book went
on to argue logically enough that God, being almighty, must possess the wonderful
power of sight which we have been postulating for our observed; and further,
that being omnipresent, He must be at each of the stations which we mentioned,
and also at every intermediate point, not successively but simultaneously. Granting
these premises, the inevitable deduction follows that everything which has ever
happened from the very beginning of the world must be at this very moment taking
place before the eye of God- not a mere memory of it, but the actual occurrence
itself being under His observation.

All this is materialistic
enough, and on the plane of purely physical science, and we may therefore be
assured that it is not the way in which the memory of the Logos acts; yet it
is neatly worked out and absolutely incontrovertible, and as I have said before,
it is not without its use, since it gives us a glimpse of some possibilities
which otherwise might not occur to us.

But, it may be asked,
how is it possible, amid the bewildering confusion of these records of the past,
to find any particular picture when it is wanted? As a matter of fact, the untrained
clairvoyant usually cannot do so without some special link to put him en rapport
with the subject required. Psychometry is an instance in point, and it is quite
probable that our ordinary memory is really only another presentment of the
same idea. It seems as though there were a sort of magnetic attached or affinity
between any particle of matter and the record which contains its history- an
affinity which enables it to act as a kind of conductor between that record
and the faculties of anyone who can read it.

For example, I once
brought from Stonehenge a tiny fragment of stone, not larger than a pin's head,
and on putting this into an envelope and having it to a psychometer who had
no idea what it was, she at once began to describe that wonderful ruin and the
desolate country surrounding it, and then went on to picture vividly what were
evidently scenes from its early history, showing that that infinitesimal fragment
had been sufficient to put her into communication with the records connected
with the spot from which it came. The scenes through which we pass in the course
of our life seem to act in the same manner upon the cells of our brain as did
the history of Stonehenge upon that particle of stone; they establish a connection
with those cells by means of which our mind is put en rapport with that particular
portion of the records, and so we "remember" what we have seen.

Even a trained clairvoyant
needs some link to enable him to find the record of an event of which he has
no previous knowledge. If, for example, he wished to observe the landing of
Julius Caesar on the shores of England, there are several ways in which he might
approach the subject. If he happened to have visited the scene of the occurrence,the
simplest way would probably be to call up the image of that spot, and then run
back through its records until he reached the period desired. If he had not
seen the place, he might run back in time to the date of the event, and then
search the Channel for a fleet of Roman galleys; or he might examine the records
of Roman life at about that period, where he would have no difficulty in identifying
so prominent a figure as Caesar, or in tracing him when found through all his
Gallic wars until he set his foot upon British land.

People often enquire
as to the aspect of these records- whether they appear near or far away from
the eye, whether the figures in them are large or small, whether the pictures
follow one another as in a panorama or melt into another like dissolving views,
and so on. One can only reply that their appearance varies to a certain extent
according to the conditions under which they are seen. Upon the astral plane
the reflection is most often a simple picture, though occasionally the figures
seen would be endowed with motion; in this latter case, instead of a mere snapshot
a rather longer and more perfect reflections has taken place.

On the mental plane
they have two widely different aspects. When the visitor to that plane is not
thinking specially of them in any way, the records simply for a background to
whatever is going on, just as the reflections in a pier-glass at the end of
a room might form a background to the life of the people in it. It must always
be borne in mind that under these conditions they are really merely reflections
from the ceaseless activity of a great Consciousness upon a far higher plane,
and have very much the appearance of an endless succession of the recently invented
cinematographer, or living photographs. They do not melt into one another like
dissolving views, nor do a series of ordinary pictures follow one another; but
the action of the reflection figures constantly goes on, as though one were
watching the actors on a distant stage.

But if the trained
investigator turns his attention specially to any one scene, or wishes to call
it up before him, an extraordinary change at once takes place, for this is the
plane of thought, and to think of anything is to bring it instantaneously before
you. For example, if a man wills to see the records of that event to which we
before referred- the landing of Julius Caesar- he finds himself in a moment
not looking at any picture, but standing on the shore among the legionaries,with
the whole scene being enacted around him, precisely in every respect as he would
have seen it if he had stood there in the flesh on that autumn morning in the
year 55 B.C.. Since what he sees is but a reflection, the actors are of course
entirely unconscious of him, nor can any effort of his change the course of
their action in the smallest degree, except only that he can control the rate
at which the drama shall pass before him - can have the events of a whole year
rehearsed before his eyes in a single hour, or can at any moment stop the movement
altogether, and hold any particular scene in view as a picture as long as he
chooses.

In truth he observes
not only what he would have seen if he had been there at the time in the flesh,
but much more. He hears and understands all that the people say, and he is conscious
of all their thoughts and motives; and one of the most interesting of the many
possibilities which open up before one who has learnt to read the records is
the study of the thought of ages long past- the thought of the cavemen and the
lake-dwellers as well as that which ruled the mighty civilisations of Atlantis,
of Egypt or Chaldaea. What splendid possibilities open up before the man who
is in full possession of this power may easily be imagined. He has before him
a field of historical research of most entrancing interest. Not only can he
review at his leisure all history with which we are acquainted, correcting as
he examines it the many errors and misconceptions which have crept into the
accounts handed down to us; he can also range at will over the whole story of
the world from its very beginning, watching the slow development of intellect
in man, the descent of the Lords of the Flame, and the growth of the mighty
civilisations which They founded.

Nor is his study
confined to the progress of humanity alone; he has before him, as in a museum,
all the strange animal and vegetable forms which occupied the stage in days
when the world was young; he can follow all the wonderful geological changes
which have taken place, and watch the course of the great cataclysms which have
altered the whole face of the earth again and again.

In one especial case
an even closer sympathy with the past is possible to the reader of the records.
If in the course of his enquiries he has to look upon some scene in which he
himself has in a former birth taken part, he may deal with it in two ways: he
can either regard it in in the usual manner as a spectator (though always, be
it remembered, as a spectator whose insight and sympathy are perfect) or he
may once more identify himself with that long-dead personality of his - may
throw himself back for the time into that life of long ago, and absolutely experience
over again the thoughts and the emotions, the pleasures and the pains of a prehistoric
past. No wilder and more vivid adventures can be conceived than some of those
through which he thus may pass; yet though it all he must never lose hold of
the consciousness of his own individuality- must retain the power to return
at will to his present personality.

It is often asked
how it is possible for an investigator accurately to determine the date of any
picture from the far-distance past which he disinters from the records. The
fact is that it is sometimes rather tedious work to find an exact date, but
the thing can usually be done if it is worth while to spend the time and trouble
over it. It we are dealing with Greek or Roman times the simplest method is
usually to look into the mind of the most intelligent person present in the
picture, and see what date he supposes it to be; or the investigator might watch
him writing a letter, or other document and observe what date, if any, was included
in what was written. When once the Roman or Greek date is thus obtained, to
reduce it to our own system of chronology is merely a matter of calculation.

Another way which
is frequently adopted is to turn from the scene under examination to a contemporary
picture in some great and well-known city such as Rome, and note what monarch
is reigning there, or who are the consuls for the year; and when such data are
discovered a glance at any good history will give the rest. Sometimes a date
can be obtained by examining some public proclamation or some legal document;
in fact in the times of which we are speaking the difficulty is easily surmounted.

The matter is by
no means so simple, however,r when we come to deal with periods much earlier
than this- with a scene from early Egypt, Chaldaea, or China, or to go further
back still, from Atlantis itself or any of its numerous colonies. A date can
still be obtained easily enough from the mind of any educated man, but there
is no longer any means of relating it to our own system of dates, since the
man will be reckoning by eras of which we know nothing, or by the reigns of
kings, whose history is lost in the night of time.

Our methods, nevertheless,
are not yet exhausted. It must be remembered that it is possible for the investigator
to pass the records before him at any speed that he may desire- at the rate
of a year in a second if he will, or even very much faster still. Now there
are one or two events in ancient history whose dates have already been accurately
fixed- as, for example, the sinking of Poseidonis in the year 9,564 B.C.. It
is therefore obvious that if from the general appearance of the surroundings
it seems probable that a picture seen is within measurable distance of one of
these events, it can be related to that event by the simple process of running
through the record rapidly, and counting the years between the two as they pass.

Still, if those years
ran into a thousand, as they might sometimes do, this plan would be insufferably
tedious. In that case we are driven back upon the astronomical method. In consequence
of the movement which is commonly called the precession of the equinoxes, though
it might more accurately be described as a kind of second rotation of the earth,
the angle between the equator and the ecliptic steadily but very slow varies.
Thus, after long intervals of time we find the pole of the earth no longer pointing
towards the same spot in the apparent sphere of the heavens, or in other words,our
pole star is not, as at present, Ursae Minoris, but some other celestial body;
and from this position of the pole of the earth, which can easily be ascertained
by careful observation of the night-sky of the picture under consideration,
an approximate date can be calculated without difficulty.

In estimating the
date of occurrences which took place millions of years ago in earlier races,the
period of a secondary rotation (or the precession of the equinoxes) is frequently
used as a unit, but of course absolute accuracy is not usually required in such
cases, round numbers being sufficient for all practical purposes in dealing
with epochs so remote.

The accurate reading
of the records, whether of one's own past lives or those of others, must not,
however, be thought of as an achievement possible to anyone without careful
previous training. As has been already remarked, though occasional reflections
may be had upon the astral plane, the power to use the mental sense is necessary
before any reliable reading can be done. Indeed, to minimise the possibility
of error,that sense ought to be fully at the command of the investigator while
awake in the physical body; and to acquire that faculty needs years of ceaseless
labour and rigid self-discipline.

Many people seem
to expect that as soon as they have signed their application and joined the
Theosophical Society they will at once remember at least three of our of their
past births; indeed, some of them promptly begin to imagine recollections and
declare that in their last incarnation they were Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra,
or Julius Caesar! Of course such extravagant claims simply bring discredit upon
those who are so foolish as to make them; but unfortunately some of that discredit
is liable to be reflected, however unjustly, upon the Society to which they
belong,so that a man who feels seething within him the conviction that he was
Homer or ?Shakespeare would do well to pause and apply commonsense tests on
the physical plane before publishing the news to the world.

It is quite true
that some people have had glimpses of scenes from their past lives in dreams,
but naturally these are usually fragmentary and unreliable. I had myself in
earlier life an experience of this nature. Among my dreams I found that one
was constantly recurring- a dream of a house with a portico overlooking a beautiful
bay, not far from a hill on the top of which rose a graceful building. I knew
that house perfectly, and was as familiar with the position of its rooms and
the view from its door as I was with those of my home, in this present Life.
In those days I knew nothing bout reincarnation, so that it seemed to me simply
a curious coincidence that this dream should repeat itself so often; and it
was not until some time after I had joined the Society that, when one who knew
was showing me some pictures of my last incarnation, I discovered that this
persistent dream had been in a reality a partial recollection,and that the house
which I knew so well was the one in I was born more than two thousands years
ago.

But although there
are several cases on record in which some well-remembered scene has thus come
through from one life to another, a considerable development of occult faculty
is necessary before an investigator can definitely trace a line of incarnations,
whether they be his own or another man's. This will be obvious if we remember
the conditions of the problem which has o be worked out. To follow a person
from this life to the one preceding it, it is necessary first of all to trace
his present life backwards to his birth and then to follow up in reverse order
the stages by which the Ego descended into incarnation.

This will obviously
take us back eventually to the condition of the Ego upon the highest levels
of the mental plane; so it will be seen that to perform this task effectually
the investigator must be able to use the sense corresponding to that exalted
level while awake in his physical body- in other words, his consciousness must
be centred in the reincarnating Ego itself, and no longer in the lower personality.
In that case, the memory of the Ego being aroused, his own past incarnations
will be spread out before him like an open book, and he would be able, if he
wished, to examine the conditions of another Ego upon that level and trace him
backwards through the lower mental and astral lives which led up to it, until
he came to the last physical death of that Ego, and through it to his previous
life.

There is no way but
this in which the chain of lives can be followed through with absolute certainty;
and consequently we may at once put aside as conscious or unconscious impostors
those people who advertise that they are able to race out anyone's past incarnations
for so many shillings a head. Needless to say, the true occultist does not advertise,
and never under any circumstances accepts money for any exhibition of his powers.

Assuredly the student
who wishes to acquire the power of following up a line of incarnations can do
so only by learning from a qualified teacher how the work is to be done. There
have been those who persistently asserted that it was only necessary for a man
to feel good and devotional and "brotherly", and all the wisdom of
the ages would immediately flow in upon him; but a little common-=sense will
at once expose the absurdity of such a position. However good a child may be,
if he wants to know the multiplication table he must set to work and learn it;
and the case is precisely similar with the capacity to use spiritual faculties.
The faculties themselves will not doubt manifest as the man evolves, but he
can learn how use them reliable and to the best advantage only by steady hard
work and persevering effort.

Take the case of
those who wish to help others while on the astral plane during sleep; it is
obvious that the more knowledge they possess here, the more valuable will their
services be on that higher plane. For example, the knowledge of languages would
be useful to them, for though on the mental plane men can communicate directly
by thought-transference, whatever their languages may be, on the astral plane
this is not so, and a thought must be definitely formulated in words before
it is comprehensible. If, therefore, you wish to help a man on that plane,you
must have some language in common by means of which you can communicate with
him, and consequently the more languages you know the more widely useful you
will be. In fact there is perhaps no kind of knowledge for which a use cannot
be found in the work of the occultist.

It would be well
for all students to bear in mind that occultism is the apotheosis of commonsense,
and that every vision which comes to them is not necessarily a picture from
the akashic records, nor every experience a revelation from on high. It is better
far to err on the side of healthy skepticism than of over-credulity; and it
is an admirable rule never to hunt about for an occult explanation of anything
when a plain and obvious physical one is available. Our duty is to endeavour
to keep our balance always, and never to lose our self-control, but to take
a reasonable, commonsense view of whatever may happen to us; so shall we be
better Theosophists, wiser occultists, and more useful helpers than we have
ever been before.

As usual, we find
examples of all degrees of the power to see into this memory of nature, from
the trained man who can consult the record for himself at will, down to the
person who gets nothing but occasional vague glimpses, or has even perhaps had
only one such glimpse. But the man who possesses this faculty only partially
and occasionally still finds it of the deepest interest. The psychometer, who
needs an object physically connected with the past in order to bring it all
into life again around him, and the crystal-gazer who can sometimes direct his
less certain astral telescope to some historic scene of long ago, may both derive
the greatest enjoyment from the exercise of their respective gifts, even thought
they may not always understand exactly how their results are produced, and may
not have them fully under control under all circumstances.

In many cases of
the lower manifestations of these powers we find that they are exercised unconsciously;
many a crystal-gazer watches scenes from the past without being able to distinguish
them from visions of the present, and many a vaguely-psychic person finds pictures
constantly arising before his eyes without ever realizing that he is in effect
psychometrizing the various objects around him as he happens to touch them or
stand near them.

An interesting variant
of this class of psychics is the man who is able to psychometrize persons only,
and not inanimate objects as is more usual. In most cases this faculty shows
itself erratically, so that such a psychic will, when introduced to a stranger,
often see in a flash some prominent event in that stranger's earlier life, but
on other similar occasions will receive no special impression. More rarely we
meet with someone who gets details visions of the past life of everyone whom
he encounters. Perhaps one of the best examples of this class was the German
writer Zxschokke, who describes in his autobiography this extraordinary power
of which he found himself possessed. He says:

"It has happened
to me occasionally at the first meeting with a total stranger, when I have been
listening in silence to his conversation, that his past life up to the present
moment, with many minute circumstances belonging to one or other particular
scene in it, has come across me like a dream, but distinctly, entirely involuntarily
and unsought, occupying in duration a few minutes.

"For a long
time I was disposed to consider these fleeting visions as a trick of the fancy-
the more so as my dream-visoin displayed to me the dress and movements of the
actors, the appearance of the room, the furniture, and other accidents of the
scene; till on one occasion, in a awesome mood, I narrated to my family the
secret history of a sempstree who had just before quitted the room. I had never
seen the person before. Nevertheless the hearers were astonished, and laughed
and would not be persuaded but that I had a previous acquaintance with the former
life of the person, inasmuch as what I had stated was perfectly true.

"I was not less
astonished to find that my dream-vision agreed with reality. I then gave more
attention to the subject, and as often as propriety allowed of it, I related
to those whose lives had so passed before me the substance of my dream-vision,
to obtain from them its contradiction or confirmation. On every occasion its
confirmation followed, not without amazement on the part of those who gave it.

"On a certain
fair-day I went into the two of Waldshut accompanied by two young foresters,
who are still alive It was evening, and, tired with our walk, we went into an
inn called the 'Vine'. We took our supper with a numerous company at the public
table, when it happened that they made themselves merry over the peculiarities
and simplicity of the Swiss in connection with the belief in mesmerism. Lavater's
physiognomical system and the like. One of my companions,whose national pride
was touched by their raillery, begged me to make some reply, particularly in
answer to a young man of superior appearance who sat opposite, and had indulged
in unrestrained ridicule.

'It happened that
the events of this person's life had just previously passed before my mind.
I turned to him with the question whether he would reply to me with truth and
candour if I narrated to him the most secret passages of his history, he being
as little known to me as I to him? That would, I suggested, go something beyond
Lavater's physiognomical skill. He promised if I told the truth to admit it
openly. Then I narrated the events with which my dream vision had furnished
me, and the stable learnt the history of the young tradesman's life of his school
years, his peccadilloes, and finally, of a little act of roguery committed by
him on the strongbox of his employer. I described the uninhabited room with
its white walls,where to the right of the brown door there had stood upon the
table the small back money-chest, etc. The man, much struck, admitted the correctness
of each circumstance- even, which I could not expect, of the last".

And after narrating
this incident, the worthy Zschokke calmly goes on to wonder whether perhaps
after all this remarkable power, which he had so often displayed, might not
really have been always the result of mere chance coincidence!

Comparatively few
accounts of persons possessing this faculty of looking back into the past are
to be found in the literature of the subject, and it might therefore be supposed
to be much less common than prevision, I suspect, however, that the truth is
rather that it is much less commonly recognized. As I said before, it may very
easily happen that a person may see a picture of the past without recognizing
it as such, unless there happens to be in it something which attracts special
attention, such as a figure in armour or in antique costume. A prevision also
might not always be recognized as such at the time; but the occurrence of the
event foreseen recalls it vividly at the same time that it manifests its nature,
so that it is unlikely to be overlooked. It is probable, therefore, that occasional
glimpses of these astral reflections of the akashic records are commoner than
the published accounts would lead us to believe.

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