CHAPTER 9
When a men becomes
convinced of the reality of the valuable power of clairvoyance, his first question
usually is, "How can I develop in my own case this faculty which is said
to be latent in everyone?"
Now the fact is that
there are many methods by which it may be developed, but only one which be at
all safely recommended for general use- that of which we shall speak last of
all. Among the less advanced nations of the world the clairvoyant state has
been produced in various objectionable ways; among some of the non-Aryan tribes
of India, but the use of intoxicating drugs or the inhaling of stupefying fumes;
among the dervishes, by whirling in a mad dance of religious fervour until vertigo
and insensibility supervene; among the followers of the abominable practice
of the Voodoo cult, by frightful sacrifices and loathsome rites of black magic.
Methods such as these are happily not in vogue in our race, yet even among us
large numbers of dabblers in this ancient art adopt some plan of self-hypnotization,
such as gazing at a bright spot or the repetition of some formula until a condition
of semi-stupefaction is produced; while yet another school among them would
endeavour to arrive at similar results by the use of some of the Indian systems
of regulation of the breath.
All these methods
are unequivocally to be condemned as quite unsafe for the practice of the ordinary
man who has no idea of what he is doing- who is simply making vague experiments
in an unknown world. Even the method of obtaining clairvoyance by allowing oneself
to be mesmerized by another person is one from which I should myself shrink
with the most decided distaste; and assuredly it should never be attempted except
under conditions of absolute trust and affection between the magnetizer and
the magnetized, and a perfection of purity in heart and soul, in mind and intention,
such as is rarely to be seen among any but the greatest of saints.
Experiments in connection
with the mesmeric trance are of the deepest interest, as offering (among other
things) a possibility of proof of the fact of clairvoyance to the sceptic, yet
except under such conditions as I have just mentioned- conditions, I quite admit,
almost impossible to realize- I should never counsel anyone to submit himself
as a subject for them.
Curative mesmerism,
(in which, without putting the patient into the trance state at all, an effort
is made to relieve his pain, to remove his disease, or to pour vitality into
him by magnetic passes) stands on an entirely different footing; and if the
mesmerizer, even though quite untrained, is himself in good health and animated
by pure intentions, no harm is likely to be done to the subject. In so extreme
a case as that of a surgical operation, a man might reasonably submit himself
even to the mesmeric trance,but it is certainly not a condition with which one
ought lightly to experiment. Indeed, I should most strongly advise any one who
did me the honour to ask for my opinion on the subject, not to attempt any kind
of experimental investigation into what are still to him the abnormal forces
of nature, until he has first of all read carefully everything that has been
written on the subject, or- which is by far the best of all- until he is under
the guidance of a qualified teacher.
But where, it will
be said, is the qualified teacher to be found? Not, most assuredly, among any
who advertise themselves as teachers, who offer to impart for so many guineas
or dollars the sacred mysteries of the ages, or hold "developing circles"
to which casual applicants are admitted at so much per head.
Much has been said
in this treatise of the necessity for careful training- of the immense advantages
of the trained over the untrained clairvoyant; but that again brings us back
to the same question- where is this definite training to be had?
The answer is that
the training may be had precisely where it has always been to be found since
the world's history began- at the hands of the Great White Brotherhood of Adepts,
which stands now, as it has always stood, at the back of human evolution, guiding
and helping it under the sway of the great Cosmic Laws which represent to us
the Will of the Eternal.
But how, it may be
asked, is access to be gained to Them? How is the aspirant thirsting for knowledge
to signify to Them his wish for instruction?
Once more, by the
time-honoured methods only. There is no new patent whereby a man can qualify
himself without trouble to become a pupil in that School- no royal road to the
learning which has to be acquired in it. At the present day, just as in the
mists of antiquity, the man who wishes to attract Their notice must enter upon
the slow and toilsome path of self-development- must learn first of all to take
himself in hand and make himself all that he ought to be. The steps of that
path are no secret; I have given them in full details in Invisible Helpers,
so I need not repeat them here. But it is no easy road to follow, and yet sooner
or later all must follow it, for the Great Law of evolution sweeps mankind slowly
but resistlessly towards its goal.
From those who are
pressing into this path the great Masters select Their pupils, and it is only
by qualifying himself to be taught that a man can put himself in the way of
getting the teaching. Without that qualification membership in any Lodge or
Society, whether secret or otherwise,will not advance his object in the slightest
degree. It is true, as we all know, that it was at the instance of some of these
Masters that our Theosophical Society was founded, and that from its ranks some
have been chosen to pass into closer relations with Them. But that choice depends
upon the earnestness of the candidate, not upon his mere membership of the Society
or of anybody within it.
That, then, is the
only absolutely safe way of developing clairvoyance- to enter with all one's
energy upon the path of moral and mental evolution, at one stage of which this
and other of the higher faculties will spontaneously begin to show themselves.
Yet there is one practice which is advise by all the religions alike- which
if adopted carefully and reverently can do no harm to any human being, yet from
which a very pure type of clairvoyance has sometimes been developed and that
is the practice of meditation.
Let a man choose
a certain time every day- a time when he can rely upon being quiet and undisturbed,though
preferably in the daytime rather than at night-and set himself at that time
to keep his mind for a few minutes entirely free from all earthly thoughts of
any kind whatever and, when that is achieved, to direct the whole force of his
being towards the highest spiritual ideal that he happens to know. He will find
that to gain such perfect control of thought is enormously more difficult than
he supposes, but when he attains it, it cannot but be in every way most beneficial
to him, and as he grows more and more able to elevate and concentrate his thought,
he may gradually find that new worlds are opening before his sight.
As a preliminary
training towards the satisfactory achievement of such meditation, he will find
it desirable to make a practice of concentration in the affairs of daily life-
even in the smallest of them. If he writes a letter, let him think of nothing
else but that letter until it is finished; if he reads a book, let him see to
it that his thought is never allowed to wander from his author's meaning. He
must learn to hold his mind in check, and to be master of that also, as well
as of his lower passions; he must patiently labour to acquire absolute control
of his thoughts, so that he will always know exactly what he is thinking about,
and why- so that he can use his mind, and turn it or hold it still, as a practised
swordsman turns his weapon where he wilt.
Yet after all, if
those who so earnestly desire clairvoyance could possess it temporarily for
a day or even an hour, it is far from certain that they would choose to retain
the gift. True, it opens before them new worlds of study, new powers of usefulness,
and for this latter reason most of us feel it worth while; but it should be
remembered that for one whose duty still calls him to live in the world it is
by no means an unmixed blessing. Upon one in whom that vision is opened the
sorrow and the misery, the evil and the greed of the world press as an ever-present
burden, until in the earlier days of his knowledge he often feels inclined to
echo the passionate adjuration contained in those rolling lines of Schiller's-
which may perhaps be translated, "Why hast thou cast me thus into the town
of the ever-blind, to proclaim thine oracle by the opened sense? What profits
it to lift the veil where the near darkness threatens? Only ignorance is life;
this knowledge is death. Take back this sad clear-sightedness; take from mine
eyes this cruel light! It is horrible to be the mortal channel of thy truth".
And again later he cries, "Give me back my blindness, the happy darkness
of my senses; take back thy dreadful gift!".
But this of course
is a feeling which passes, for the higher sight soon shows the pupil something
beyond the sorrow- soon bears in upon his soul the overwhelming certainty that,
whatever appearances down here may seem to indicate, all things are without
shadows of doubt working together for the eventual good of all. He re reflects
that the sin and the suffering are there, whether he is able to perceive them
or not, and that when he can see them he is after all better able to give efficient
help than he would be if he were working in the dark; and so by degrees he learns
to bear his share of the heavy karma of the world.
Some misguide mortals
there are who, having the good fortune to possess some slight touch of this
higher power, are nevertheless so absolutely destitute of all right feeling
in connection with it as to use it for the most sordid ends- actually even to
advertise themselves as "test and business clairvoyants!". Needless
to say,such use of the faculty is a mere prostitution and degradation of it,
showing that its unfortunate possessor has somehow got hold of it before the
moral side of his nature has been sufficiently developed to stand the strain
which it imposes. A perception of the amount of evil karma that may be generated
by such action in a very short time changes one's disgust into pity for the
unhappy perpetrator of that sacrilegious folly.
It is sometimes object
that the possession of clairvoyance destroys all privacy, and confers a limitless
ability to explore the secrets of others. No doubt it does confer such an ability
, but nevertheless the suggestion is an amusing one to any one who knows anything
practically about the matter. Such an objection may possibly be well-founded
as regards the very limited powers of the "test and business clairvoyant",
but the man who brings it forward against those who have had the faculty opened
for them in the course of their instruction, and consequently possess it fully,
is forgetting three fundamental facts: first, that it is quite inconceivable
that anyone, having before him the splendid fields for investigation which true
clairvoyance opens up, could ever have the slightest wish to pry into the trumpery
little secrets of any individual man; secondly, that even if by some impossible
chance our clairvoyant had such indecent curiosity about matters of petty gossip,
there is, after all, such a thing as the honour of a gentleman, which, on that
plane as on this, would of course prevent him from contemplating for an instant
the idea of gratifying it; and thirdly, in case, by any unheard-of possibility,
one might encounter some variety of low-class pitri with whom the above considerations
would have no weight, full instructions are always given to every pupil, as
soon as he develops any sign of faculty, as to the limitations which are placed
upon its use.
Put briefly, these
restrictions are that there shall be no prying, no selfish use of the power,
and no displaying of phenomena. That is to say, that the same considerations
which would govern the actions of a man of right feeling upon the physical plane
are expected to apply upon the astral and mental planes also; that the pupil
is never under any circumstances to use the power which his additional knowledge
gives to him in order to promote his own worldly advantage, or indeed in connection
with gain in any way; and that he is never to give what is called in spiritualistic
circle "a test" - that is, to do anything which will incontestably
prove to sceptics on the physical plane that he possesses what to them would
appear to be an abnormal power.
With regard to this
latter proviso people often say, "But why should he not? It would be so
easy to confute and convince your sceptic, and it would do him good!" Such
critics lose sight of the fact that, in the first place, none of those who know
anything want to confute or convince sceptics, or trouble themselves in the
slightest degree about the sceptic's attitude one way or the other; and in the
second, they fail to understand how much better it s for that sceptic that he
should gradually grow into an intellectual appreciation of the facts of nature,
instead of being suddenly introduced to them by a knockdown blow, as it were.
But the subject was fully considered many years ago in Mr. Sinnett's Occult
World, and it is needless to repeat again the arguments there adduced.
It is very hard for
some of our friends to realize that the silly gossip and idle curiosity which
so entirely fill the lives of the brainless majority on earth can have no place
in the more real life of the disciple; and so they sometimes enquire whether,
even without any special wish to see, a clairvoyant might not casually observe
some secret which another person was trying to keep, in the same way as one's
glance might casually fall upon a sentence in someone else's letter which happened
to be lying open upon the table. Of course he might, but what if he did? The
man of honour would at once avert his eyes, in one case as in the other, and
it would be as thought he had not seen. If objectors could but grasp the idea
that no pupil cares about other people's business, except when it comes within
his province to try to help them, and that he has always a world of work of
his own to attend to, they would not be so hopelessly far from understanding
the facts of the wide life of the trained clairvoyant.
Even from the little
that I have said with regard to the restrictions laid upon the pupil, it will
be obvious that in very many cases he will know much more than he is at liberty
to say. That is of course true in a far wider sense of the great Masters of
Wisdom Themselves, and that is why those who have the privilege of occasionally
entering Their presence pay so much respect to Their lightest word in subjects
quite apart from the direct teaching. For opinion of a master, or even of one
of His higher pupils, upon any subject is that of a man whose opportunity of
judging accurately is out of all proportion to ours.
His position and
His extended faculties are in reality the heritage of all mankind, and, far
though we may now be from those grand powers, they will none the less certainly
be ours one day. Yet how different a place will this old world be when humanity
as a whole possesses the higher clairvoyance! Think what the difference will
be to history when all can read the records; to science,when all the processes
about which now men theorize can be watched through all their course; to medicine,
when doctor and patients alike can see clearly and exactly all that is being
done; to philosophy, when there is no longer any possibility of discussion as
to its basis, because all alike can see a wider aspect of the truth; to labour,when
all work will be joy, because every man will be put only to that which he can
do best; to education, when the minds and hearts of the children are open to
the teacher who is trying to form their character; to religion, when there is
no longer any possibility of dispute as to its broad dogmas, since the truth
about the states after death, and the Great Law that governs the world, will
be patent to all eyes.
Above all, how far
easier it will be then for the evolved men to help one another under those so
much freer conditions. The possibilities that open before the mind are as glorious
vistas stretching in all directions, so that our Seventh Round should indeed
be a veritable golden age. Well for us that these grand faculties will not be
possessed by all humanity until it has evolved to a far higher level in morality
as well as in wisdom, else should we but repeat once more under still worse
conditions the terrible downfall of the great Atlantean civilization, whose
members failed to realize that increased power meant increased responsibility.
Yet we ourselves were most of us among those very men; let us hope that we have
learnt wisdom by that failure,and that when the possibilities of the wider life
open before use once more, this time we shall bear the trial better.