AN HOUR WITH Mr. LEADBEATER
 
                                                                     Ernest Wood

(Originally published in the Adyar Bulletin, November 1909)


I looked up again enquiringly from the piles of letters, answered and unanswered, that lay before me on the little round-cornered, black table in the famous octagon room. The sunlight glared at me from the smooth river, and smiled upon me from the luscious grass and the green palm-fronds. The hum of distant liquid voices reached my ears. The white cat lay coiled asleep upon the sofa. The round clock pursued its humble patient song. But he did not move his head, still bent upon the facile fingers, scribing obediently the message of the inner worlds. My eyes rested with open admiration and gratitude upon his form, powerful as a Greek statue, though seated at the prosaic desk.

Involuntary I sighed, as I laid down a small handful of selected letters with a little rustle.

“Yes?” and I looked up again, to find his eyes smiling at me half-humorously over the rims of his spectacles.

“More articles,” said I, − a formula in constant use. “The ‘Theosophical Thirst Quencher’ would like one on ‘Parabrahman’; ‘The Shining Light’ wishes to publish full details about ‘Avitchi,’ ‘The Peaceful Aspirant’ desires you to dowse with an authoritative statement its long and heated correspondence on the subject of ‘Taking the Kingdom of Heaven by Storm’; the ‘Practical Theosophist’ desires an article on ‘Comets and Falling Stars’; the −”

“Enough!” I remained silent, waiting, while he mused a while. “I wonder if people really want to know these things; and if they do, if they know why?”

I waited silently for a few moments, and then took up the question.

“How different all these questions must seem to the Ego on his own plane; I suppose that when he is awake at all he has his own interests and activities on the higher mental plane; which must be rather different from those of the personality! Yet I don’t quite see why the personality should favour different activities if it is, so far as consciousness is concerned, only a reflection of the Ego!”

My generalship succeeded beyond all expectations. The noise of the rabbit drew even the white cat, a gentlemanly ruffian, out of his slumbers; he yawned and stretched himself, wiped his feet on my immaculate dhotie and sharpened his claws in the calf of my leg.

Mr. Leadbeater disposed his paper-weights to save his treasures from the snatching fingers of the monsoon wind, and sat up.

“Certainly,” said he, “The Ego lives a life and has interests and activities on his own plane; but you must remember that he only puts down a very small part, so to speak, of himself. That part gets itself entangled in interests which because of their partiality are often along different lines than the general activities of the Ego itself. In fact, the Ego lives a life of its own on its own plane, and does not pay particular attention to the lower life of the personality, unless something rather unusual happens to it.”

“I fancy I have heard you say that it is one of the works of the Masters to ray out upon the Ego a constant stream of divine influence. Does any or much of this get passed on to the personality?”

“Well, that depends upon the connection between the Ego and the personality, which is very different in different cases. There is almost infinite variety in human life. The spiritual force rays upon the Ego and some little of it certainly comes through into the personality; because, you see, though the Ego has put forth a part of himself he does not cut himself off entirely from it, though in the case of all ordinary people the Ego and the personality are very different things. The Ego in such cases has not much grasp of the personality, nor a clear conception of its purpose in sending it forth; and, again, the small piece which meets us in the personality grows to have ways and opinions of its own. It is developing by the experience which it gains, and this is passed on to the Ego; but along with this real development it usually gathers a good deal which is hardly worthy of the name. It acquires knowledge, – but also prejudices, – which are not really knowledge at all. It does not become quite free from the prejudices – not only of knowledge, or rather the absence, but of feeling and action as well – until the man reaches adeptship. It gradually discovers these things to be prejudices, and progresses through them; but has always a great deal of limitation from which the Ego is entirely free.

“You ask how much of the spiritual force passes on to the personality. One could only decide in a particular case by using clairvoyance. But something of it must flow through always, because the lower is attached to the higher, just as the hand is attached to the body by the arm. It is certain that the personality must get something, but then it can only receive what it is able to receive. It is also a question of qualities. The Master might quite conceivably be playing upon certain of the qualities of the Ego which were very obscure in the personality, and in that case, of course, very little would come down.”

“It is not unlike the reverse action in which the personality, as it were, feeds the Ego,” I remarked. “There the lower experience may be retained in the tendencies of the permanent atoms of the physical, astral and lower mental planes, and draw the Ego again into like experiences according to their vibration rates; but only those things can be handed on to the spiritual or permanent Ego which are compatible with its nature and interests.”

“Precisely. Remember, though, that one tends to exclude the good and the other the bad, or rather I should say the spiritual and the material, for nothing is bad. You can sometimes see many of the influences at work, by clairvoyance. On a certain day, for example, you may see a characteristic very much intensified, with no outward reason. The cause is often to be found in what is taking place at some higher level, – the stimulation of that quality in the Ego. Sometimes a man finds himself overflowing with affection or devotion, and quite unable to understand why on the physical plane. The cause is usually again the stimulation of the Ego, or it may be that the Ego is taking some special interest in the personality for the time being.”

“Perhaps in our meditation we draw such attention on the part of the Ego?” I queried.

“Yes, certainly. But it is well to keep in mind that we must try to reach up to join that higher activity, and not try to interrupt it to draw down its attention to the lower. As regards the influence it is certainly invited by right meditation, which is always effective, even though things may seem to be very dull and quite without zest in the physical. The reaching up of the Ego itself often means its neglect to send energy down to the personality, and this, of course leaves the latter feeling rather dull and in the shade. The extent, then, to which the personality is influenced depends upon two things principally – the strength of the connection at the time between the Ego and the personality, and the particular work which the Master is doing upon the Ego, that is, the particular qualities He is playing upon.”

“Meditation, and the study of these spiritual subjects makes a very great big difference, then, in the life of the Ego?”

“Yes, very much indeed. The usual person who has not taken up these matters seriously has, as it were, only a thread of connection between the higher and the lower self. The personality seems to be all, and the Ego, though it undoubtedly exists on its own plane, is not at all likely to be doing anything actively there. It is very much like a chicken which is growing inside an egg. But in the case of some of ourselves who have been making efforts in the right direction, we may hope that the Ego is becoming quite vividly conscious. He has broken through the shell, and is living a life of great activity and power. As we go on we become able to unify our personal consciousness with the life of the Ego, as far as that is possible; and then we have only the one consciousness and all that we have here is the consciousness of the Ego, who knows all that is going on. But with many people at the present day there is often considerable opposition between the personality and the Ego. In fact, there are many things to be taken into account. If you have to deal with a fairly advanced Ego you will often find him somewhat inconsiderate to his body. You see, whatever is put down into the personality is so much taken from him. I have again and again seen cases where the Ego was somewhat impatient and withdrew into himself somewhat – but in cases such as these is always a flow, which is not possible with the ordinary man. In the ordinary man the part is as it were put down and left, though not quite cut off, but at this stage there is constant communication between the two along the channel. Therefore he can withdraw whenever he chooses, and leave a very poor representation of the real man behind. So the relations between the lower and higher self vary very much in different people and at different stages of development.”

“And at what does the Ego work in these cases?”

“Oh, he may be learning things on his own plane; or helping other Egos – there are very many kinds of work for which he may need an accession of strength. You may have noticed that sometimes, after you have completed a special piece of work that has needed the cooperation to a large extent of the Ego – as, for example, sometimes lecturing to a large audience – he takes away the energy and leaves the personality with only enough to feel rather dispirited with. For a time he admitted there was some importance in the work, but afterwards he leaves the poor personality feeling rather depressed. Of course, depression comes much more from other reasons, such as the presence of an astral entity in a low spirited condition, or of some non-human beings. And joy also is not always due to the influence of the Ego – in fact, the man does not think much about his own feelings when he is in a fit condition to receive an influx of power – but may be produced by the proximity of harmonious nature-spirits, or in a variety of other ways.”

“Is the channel a permanent thing, always open?”

“By no means. Sometimes it appears almost choked up, which is quite an easy possibility in view of the narrowness of the thread in most cases. Then the force may break through again on some occasion such as that of a conversion. But for many of us there is a constant flow in some measure. Meditation conscientiously done, opens the channel and keeps it open.”

“Will you explain how the different kinds of meditation affect the flow, and how we may best bring it down?” I queried.

“Don’t bring it down. It is better to go up to it,” – he glanced reproachfully at me, and meaningly at the clock. I transferred my eyes to its relentless face, and abashed by its stony gaze lapsed into silence, burying myself in the stacks of correspondence. 
 

THE ATTITUDE OF THE ENQUIRER

   C. W. Leadbeater

(Originally published in The Adyar Bulletin, February 1911)

I have received many letters from those who are put in the position of lecturers and teachers of Theosophy, asking how best to meet the constant demands of enquirers for proof of the accuracy of the Theosophical teaching. Another common remark of the enquirer is:  “You have a large literature: I am a busy man.  Where am I to begin in all this?  Give me the most important part first.”

Instead of writing a number of private letters, I have thought it best to put an answer, once for all, in the pages of The Adyar Bulletin, to which later enquirers can be referred.

What should be the attitude of the enquirer towards the wonderful mass of new truth which is put before him in Theosophical teaching?  It should be an intelligently receptive attitude—not one of carping criticism on the one hand, nor of blind belief on the other, but of endeavour to understand the different facts as they are presented to him, and to make them his own.  In Theosophy we strongly deprecate the attitude of blind belief, for we say that it has been the cause of a vast amount of the evil of the world. On this point the teaching of the Eastern Masters is emphatic, for they regard superstition as one of the fetters which it is absolutely necessary that a man should cast off before he can hope to make any progress on the occult Path. They also regard doubt as a fetter, but they say that the only way to get rid of doubt is not by blind faith, but by the acquisition of knowledge. It would be quite useless for a man to exchange blind faith in orthodox Christianity for a similar blind faith in those who happened to be writing or speaking on Theosophy.  To say: “Thus saith Madame Blavatsky or Mrs. Besant,” is after all only a small advance on saying: “Thus saith S. Paul of S. John.”

We who live in western countries have a bad heredity behind us in these matters, for the point of view of our forefathers has usually been either the blind faith of the unintelligent and biassed person, or the blank and rather militant incredulity of the materialist.  We have been too much in the habit of thinking that what does not happen in Europe or America is not worth taking account of, and that nobody outside of ourselves knows anything at all.  Many of us have grown up in the midst of the ridiculous theory that there was only one religion in the world, and that the vast majority of its inhabitants were ‘heathens,’ whom we had to ‘save,’ and that if we could not do that, they must be left to ‘the uncovenanted mercies of God’. It seems incredible that civilised people could ever believe anything so silly, but what I state is actually the fact. When we think that we may have had among our recent ancestors people who were capable of that, we see at once that we are but ill-prepared for the reception of a rational creed.

Again, we have been unfortunate in that we had not even the whole of Christianity, for history shows us that what has been taught to us is only a dismembered fragment of the original form of that religion.  Before the Gnostic doctors were cast out, Christianity had a system of philosophy fully equal to that of the other religions, but after their departure it was but a truncated faith. Still its ethics remained to it, and they will be found to be exactly the same as those of the other great world-faiths.  In Theosophy we hold that it matters little what a man believes, but much what he does; whether he is kind and noble, just and gentle, pure and true.
It may be of interest to western readers to remember that on this subject the teaching of the Christian scripture is exactly the same as that of Theosophy.  In the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew will be found a striking account, said to have been given by the Christ Himself, of what is commonly called the day of Judgment, when all men are to be brought before Him and their final destiny is to be decided according to the answer which they are able to give to His questions.  Remember that, according to the theory, the Christ Himself is to be the judge on that occasion, and therefore He can make no mistake as to the procedure. What then are the questions upon the answers to which the future of these men is to depend?  From what one hears of modern Christianity one would expect that the first question would be:  ‘Do you believe in Me?’ and the second one: “Do you attend Church regularly?”  The Christ, however, unaccountably forgets to ask either of these questions. He asks: “Did you feed the hungry, did you give drink to the thirsty, did you clothe the naked, did you visit those who were sick and in prison?” That is to say, “were you ordinarily kind and charitable in you relations to your fellow-men?”

And it is according to the answers to those questions that the destiny of the man is decided.  So far as He, the Judge, has explained Himself, any heathen who had done these things would at once pass into eternal felicity, for He says no single word about belief at all.  As regards all these virtues the teachings of all the religions are identical.  The daily life of a really good Christian will be found to be identical with that of a really good Buddhist or a really good Hindu. One will call his religious exercises by the name of prayer, while the others call them meditation, but in the nature of them there is little difference.  Each enjoins the practice of the same virtues; each reprobates the same vices.

We must clear our minds utterly of the extraordinary theory that a man’s religion is a question of importance.  It depends entirely upon where the man happens to be born.  You are, let us say, a Christian, and you cannot conceive it as possible that you could have been anything else; yet if you had been born in an Indian family, you would have belonged just as unquestioningly to the Hindu religion, or to the Buddhist if you had been born in Ceylon or Siam.  Therefore we must entirely cast aside the curious prejudice that it is necessary for a man to hold some particular form of religion if he is to obtain final perfection.

On taking up the study of Theosophy it is necessary that we should adopt an entirely new attitude—that we should open the doors of the mind, and learn to treat religion as a matter of common-sense, exactly as we do science.  On the one hand we must accept nothing which does not commend itself to us as reasonable, and on the other hand we must not expect proofs of a nature incongruous with the fact which we are considering.  It is often impossible to give for psychological problems and theories a demonstration along mathematical lines, or a proof on the physical plane which a man can hold in his hand.  The proof of any proposition must be congruous with the nature of the proposition, and consequently the final proof of some of the deepest Theosophical doctrines must lie in the experience of the evolved soul.

A common-sense attitude will enable us to determine whether we can know a certain thing positively, or whether it is necessary to take first what seems to be a reasonable working hypothesis, and then see how far future experience supports or weakens it.  Much of the Theosophical teaching must remain as a hypothesis for each man until he is able to develop powers by which he can see for himself; but in the meantime he may easily acquire practical certainty with regard to it, by weighing it against all other hypotheses and seeing how perfectly it, and it alone, accounts for the observed phenomena of life. This is exactly the ground on which are held a large number of what are commonly called scientific facts.

It is a valuable exercise for the student to think carefully which of his beliefs in ordinary life are really founded upon direct personal knowledge.  He believes, for example, that the earth rotates upon its axis; yet all the evidence of his daily life goes to prove exactly the contrary. The ground is stable beneath his feet, and he cannot in any way prove to himself that the sun, moon and stars do not really move above him, exactly as they appear to do. There is proof available of the rotation of the earth. There is the Foucault pendulum experiment and the experiment with the gyroscope.  If a man has seen those experiments tried, he knows that the earth rotates; if he has not, he does not know it, but only believes it.  He believes it on good evidence, but it is not the evidence of his senses. A reasonable hypothesis is necessary in order to induce a man to work, and here his imagination comes into play.  He must be evolved enough to imagine a thing as possible, or he must be able to abstract his ideas and deduce from them a working principle, before he can be induced to make an effort towards proving a fact as true.
Theosophy presents to the student several working hypotheses which appeal to his reason, and at the same time it promises him success in demonstrating them to be true, if he will do certain things.  It tells him that some men have already had success in this demonstration, that they have been able to develop in themselves certain powers which enable them to know that these things are true, and that therefore it is possible for him also to do this, though it does not conceal from him the difficulty of the undertaking.

Theosophy has a considerable literature, but it has no inspired Scriptures.  We who write books on the various branches of the subject, put before our friends the results of our investigations, and we take every care that what we state shall be scrupulously accurate as far as our knowledge goes; but the model which we set before us when we write is not the sacred Scripture but the scientific manual.  So far as the western world is concerned, the study of Theosophical subjects is comparatively a new one, although in the East many books have been written in which these matters are expounded; but these oriental books naturally do not approach them from the modern scientific point of view.  Our plan in verifying the information originally given to us has been just what was adopted in the beginning of the sciences of chemistry or astronomy—a careful observation of all the phenomena within reach, their tabulation, and the endeavour to deduce from them the general laws which govern them.
We are then in the position of the early students of a new science, and although, thanks to the information we have received from eastern Teachers, we have already grasped the main outline of our science, our own investigations are constantly adding to our knowledge of its detail, and this fact often makes it necessary for us to modify statements made in the earlier days of the movement, and to amend imperfect or premature generalisations.  The details will increase in number and accuracy as the number of those who can make the investigations increases, but the broad outlines of principles which have been given to us will always remain the same.

Our attitude to Theosophy should, I think, be thus characterised:

(1) We must not exchange the blind belief in the authority of the Church for an equally blind faith in personal Theosophical teachers.

(2) We must preserve an open mind and an intelligently receptive attitude.

(3) We should accept as working hypotheses the truths which are given to us, and should set to work to prove them for ourselves.

(4) We should realise that this teaching sets before us the scheme of the Logos for His universe, and that the condition of making progress in that universe is to learn the rules of that scheme, and set ourselves to work with them and not against them.

(5) We should seek development or progress not for the sake of ourselves, but in order that the knowledge we may acquire may be used for the benefit of humanity, and that we may fit ourselves to be the servants of that humanity.

(6) We must change absolutely our point of view towards life.  When regarding the sorrow and suffering of the world, we must put aside the despairing attitude of the theologian for one of hopefulness, because the teachings fills us with the calm certainty that everything will at last be well.

THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRUTHS

Again, Theosophy lays before us a vast mass of new truths with regard to the constitution both of man and of the universe, and also with regard to their past and future.  Though the outline is simple the detail is considerable. We have therefore to think in what order we shall consider these truths; what is their relative importance. It seems to me that they group themselves naturally into three great classes:  first, the ethical teachings, and the reason for them; second, the explanation of the constitution of man and the planes on which he lives; third, the remainder of the teaching, the great mass of information about planetary chains and earlier races of mankind.

They come thus in order of importance because the knowledge of the ethical teaching and the reason for it is necessary for the daily life of man, because as he learns even a little of it he can instantly proceed to put it into practice. If, having learnt so much, something should occur to prevent him from learning more, he will still have gained a priceless possession—one which will affect the whole of his future life, not in this world only but in others also.

The second block of information, with regard to the constitution of man and the world in which he lives, is also of great importance to him, as showing him how to do many of the things which the first division of the teaching has commended to him, as showing him also how to be much more useful to his fellow-men than he could be without this knowledge.

The third block of teaching, though keenly interesting, is less directly practical.  It has its value; it has a great value; for from the past we may in many cases predict the future, and from it we may learn many a lesson which will be of help to us in that future. At that same time one must admit that a man might be just a loyal a subject, just as good a citizen, and just as useful to his fellow-men if he had never heard about the planetary chains, whereas it is not true that he would be just as good in any of those capacities if he remained ignorant of the first and second of our great classes of truth.

First, the ethics and the reason for them. The ethical teaching of Theosophy is precisely the same as that of any and all of the great religions.  There is therefore nothing new for us to learn here; the only difference is that Theosophy gives us a scientific reason for our ethics, which most religions do not. This consideration of the reason for ethical teaching involves a very large block of the Theosophical teaching, for the ultimate reason for all good action is that it may be in harmony with the divine plan, the will of the Logos. That we may understand what will be in harmony with it, we must first try to grasp as much as is possible for us of that divine plan itself. This involves the consideration of the nature of God and the method of His working, and also His relation to man. Under this head we must speak of the Logos of our solar system, and the beginnings of that system, of the atom and planes, of the nature, of the formation, constitution and development of man, and of the methods appointed for that development, and the way in which he can hasten it, and of the obstacles which he will find in his way.

Under the second heading we must take up in greater detail the various vehicles of man and their relation to the different planes of nature.  We must learn to understand ourselves, in order that we may direct intelligently the complicated machinery of the vehicles.  This is an intensely practical consideration for us; we are living upon all these planes now, though most of us do not know it; we are using our mental and astral bodies as bridges to carry to the physical brain the messages from the ego, and to carry back to him in return the information which they obtain from external impacts of all sorts. Unless we understand those bodies we cannot use them to the best advantage, we cannot get out of them all that we might.  Apart from the fact of that constant use of the vehicles, we all spend about a third of our lives in the astral body—in a state which we commonly call sleep. After physical death we enter upon a long life in these higher vehicles, and it becomes once more obvious that the more we know about them the more efficient and the more comfortable will this life be.  These higher bodies have their powers and their capacities as well as the physical body.  If we understand them we can utilise all these for our own advancement and for the helping of our fellows, so that their study is eminently practical.

The third division is that which treats of the past evolution of man.  It deals with the planetary chain of which our earth is a part, with its relation to other chains in the solar system, and with the successive life-waves which have passed over these chains.  It takes up the question of the work of the great Official who superintends the formation of each Root Race and its subdivision into branch races. It explains how men come to be at such different levels in life, and accounts for the formation of classes and castes.  Although this appears to be less practical than the other kinds, we shall find not only that it is intensely interesting, but that it has its uses as well.  It is a remarkable fact that all religions have made it a special point to teach their followers something of the beginnings of the world and of man.  In the Jewish scripture you have the extraordinary story of the earlier chapters of the Book of Genesis, which is unfortunately adopted just as it stands by the Christian Church; but each religion has some such story—even those of savage tribes.  It is clear therefore that those who found religions must know that this information is of great importance for man.  Madame Blavatsky has followed in the footsteps of her Teachers in that respect, for the whole of her monumental work, The Secret Doctrine, is a sermon upon the text of the Stanzas of Dzyan, which give an account of the origin of man and of our system.

The point of first importance is that we should live the life; the second that we should understand our possibilities; and when we have got so far, we may then take up with advantage the study of past history. In following out thoroughly that first block of teaching, we have arrived at certainty in regard to the rest.  “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.” The best way to prove to oneself the truth of these Theosophical doctrines is to take them for granted and to live as though they were true; then the proof will soon come.
 

CLAIRVOYANCE

 C. W. Leadbeater

(Originally published in The Theosophical Review, November, 1898)

Clairvoyance means literally nothing more than “clear-seeing,” and it is a word which has been sorely misused, and even degraded so far as to be employed to describe the trickery of a mountebank in a variety show.  Even in its more restricted sense it covers a wide range of phenomena, differing so greatly in character that it is not easy to give a definition of the word which shall be at once succinct and accurate.  It has been called “spiritual vision,” but no rendering could well be more misleading than that, for in the vast majority of cases there is no faculty connected with it which has the slightest claim to be honoured by so lofty a name.

For the purposes of this article we may, perhaps, define it as the power to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight. It will be as well to premise that it is very frequently (though by no means always) accompanied by what is called clairaudience, or the power to hear what would be inaudible to the ordinary physical ear; and we will for the nonce take our title as covering this faculty also, in order to avoid the clumsiness of perpetually using two long words where one will suffice.

The phenomena of clairvoyance differ so widely both in character and in degree that it is not very easy to decide how they can most satisfactorily be classified.  We might for example arrange them according to the kind of sight employed—whether it were devachanic, astral, or merely etheric. We might divide them according to the capacity of the clairvoyant, taking into consideration whether he was trained or untrained; whether his vision was regular and under his command, or spasmodic and independent of his volition; whether he could exercise it only when under mesmeric influence, or whether that assistance was unnecessary for him; whether he was able to use his faculty when awake in the physical body, or whether it was available only when he was temporarily away from that body in sleep or trance.

All these distinctions are of importance, and we shall have to take them all into consideration as we go on, but perhaps on the whole the most useful classification will be one something on the lines of that adopted by Mr. Sinnett in his Rationale of Mesmerism—a book, by the way, which all students of clairvoyance ought to read.  When we come to deal with the phenomena, then, we will arrange them rather according to the direction of the sight employed than to the plane upon which it is exercised, so that we may group instances of clairvoyance under some such headings as these:

1. Simple clairvoyance—that is to say, a mere opening of sight, enabling its possessor to see whatever astral or etheric entities happen to be present around him, but not including the power of observing either distant places or scenes belonging to any other time than the present.

2. Clairvoyance in space—the capacity to see scenes or events removed from the seer in space, and either too far distant for ordinary observation or concealed by intermediate objects.

3. Clairvoyance in time—that is to say, the capacity to see objects or events which are removed from the seer in time, or in other words the power of looking into the past or the future.

Before this more detailed explanation can usefully be attempted, however, it will be necessary for us to devote a little time to some preliminary considerations, in order that we may have clearly in mind a few broad facts as to the different planes on which clairvoyant vision may be exercised, and the conditions which render its exercise possible.

We are constantly assured in Theosophical literature that all these higher faculties are presently to be the heritage of mankind in general—that the capacity of clairvoyance, for example, lies latent in every one, and that those in whom it already manifests itself are simply in that one particular a little in advance of the rest of us. Now this statement is a true one, and yet it seems quite vague and unreal to the majority of people, simply because they regard such a faculty as something absolutely different from anything they have yet experienced, and feel fairly confident that they themselves, at any rate, are not within measurable distance of its development.

It may help to dispel this sense of unreality if we try to understand that clairvoyance, like so many other things in nature, is mainly a question of vibrations, and is in fact nothing but an extension of powers which we are all using every day of our lives. We are living all the while surrounded by a vast sea of mingled air and ether, the latter interpenetrating the former, as it does all physical matter; and it is chiefly by vibrations in that vast sea of matter that impressions reach us from the outside. This much we all know, but it may perhaps never have occurred to many of us that the number of these vibrations to which we are capable of responding is in reality quite infinitesimal.

Up among the exceedingly rapid vibrations which affect the ether there is a certain small section—a very small section—to which the retina of the human eye is capable of responding, and these particular vibrations produce in us the sensation which we call light.  That is to say, we are capable of seeing only those objects from which light of that particular kind can either issue or be reflected.

In exactly the same say the tympanum of the human ear is capable of responding to a certain very small range of comparatively slow vibrations—slow enough to affect the air which surrounds us; and so the only sounds which we can hear are those made by objects which are able to vibrate as some rate within that particular range.

In both cases it is a matter perfectly well known to science that there are large numbers of vibrations both above and below these two sections, and that consequently there is much light that we cannot see, and many sounds to which our ears are deaf.  In the case of light the action of these higher and lower vibrations is easily perceptible in the effects produced by the actinic rays at one end of the spectrum and the heat rays at the other.

As a matter of fact there exist vibrations of every conceivable degree of rapidity filling the whole vast space intervening between the slow sound waves and the swift light waves; nor is even that all, for there are undoubtedly vibrations slower than those of sound, and a whole infinity of them which are swifter than those known to us as light. So we begin to understand that the rates of vibrations by which we see and hear are only like two tiny groups of a few strings selected from an enormous harp of practically infinite extent, and when we think how much we have been able to learn and infer from the use of those minute fragments, we see vaguely what possibilities might lie before us if we were enabled to utilize the vast wonderful whole.

Another fact which needs to be considered in this connection is that different human beings vary considerably, though within relatively narrow limits, in their capacity of response even to the very few vibrations which are within reach of our physical senses.  I am not referring to the keenness of sight or of hearing that enables one man to see a fainter object or hear a slighter sound than another; it is not in the least a question of strength of vision but of extent of susceptibility.

For example, if any one will take a good bisulphide of carbon prism, and by its means throw a clear spectrum on a sheet of white paper, and then get a number of people to mark upon the paper the extreme limits of the spectrum as it appears to them, he is fairly certain to find that their powers of vision differ appreciably.  Some will see the violet extending much farther than the majority do; others will perhaps see rather less violet than most, while gaining a corresponding extension of vision at the red end. Some few there will perhaps be who can see farther than ordinary at both ends, and these will almost certainly be what we call sensitive people—susceptible in fact to a greater range of vibrations than are most men of the present day.

In hearing, the same difference can be tested by taking some sound which is just not too high to be audible—on the very verge of audibility as it were—and discovering how many among a given number of people are able to hear it. The squeak of a bat is a familiar instance of such a sound, and experiment will show that on a summer evening when the whole air is full of their shrills, needle-like cries quite a large number of men will be absolutely unconscious of them, and unable to hear anything at all.

Now these examples show certainly that there is no hard-and-fast limit to man’s power or response to either etheric or aerial vibrations, but that some among us already have that power to a wider extent than others, and it will even be found that the same man’s capacity varies on different occasions. It is therefore not difficult for us to imagine that it might be possible for a man to develope this power, and thus in time to learn to see much that is invisible to his fellow-men, and hear much that is inaudible to them, since we know perfectly well that enormous numbers of these additional vibrations do exist, and are simply as it were, awaiting recognition.

The experiment with the Röntgen rays give us an example of the startling results which are produced when even a very few of these additional vibrations are brought within human ken, and the transparency to these rays of many substances hitherto considered opaque at once show us one way at least in which we may explain such elementary clairvoyance as is involved in reading a letter inside a closed box, or describing those present in an adjoining apartment.  To learn to see by means of the Röntgen rays in addition to those ordinarily employed would be quite sufficient to enable anyone to perform a feat of magic of this order.

So far we have thought only of an extension of the purely physical senses of man; and when we remember that a man’s etheric body is in reality merely the finer part of his physical frame, and that therefore all his sense organs contain a large amount of etheric matter of various degrees of density, the capacities of which are still practically latent in most of us, we shall see that even if we confine ourselves to this line of development alone there are enormous possibilities of all kinds already opening out before us

But besides and beyond all this we know that man possesses an astral and a mental body, each of which can in process of time be aroused into activity, and will respond in turn to the vibrations of the matter of its own plane, thus opening up before the ego, and he learns to function through them, two entirely new and far wider worlds of knowledge and power.  Now these new worlds, though they are all around us and freely interpenetrate one another, are not to be thought of as distinct and entirely unconnected in substance, but rather as melting the one into the other, the lowest astral forming a direct series with the highest physical, just as the lowest mental in its turn forms a direct series with the highest astral.  We are not called upon in thinking of them to imagine some new and strange kind of matter, but simply to think of the ordinary physical kind as subdivided so very much more finely and vibrating so very much more rapidly as to introduce us to what are practically entirely new conditions and qualities.

It is not then difficult for us to grasp the possibility of a steady and progressive extension of our senses, so that both by sight and by hearing we may be able to appreciate vibrations far higher and far lower than those which are ordinarily recognized.  A large section of these additional vibrations will still belong to the physical plane, and will merely enable us to obtain impressions from the etheric part of that plane, which is at present as a closed book to us.  Such impressions will still be received through the retina of the eye; of course they will affect its etheric rather than its solid matter, but we may nevertheless regard them as still appealing only to an organ specialized to receive them, and not the whole surface of the etheric body.

There are some abnormal cases, however, in which other parts of the etheric body respond to these additional vibrations as readily as, or even more readily then, those of the eye.  Such vagaries are explicable in various ways, but principally as effects of some partial astral development, for it will be found that the sensitive parts of the body almost invariably correspond with one or other of the chakras, or centres of vitality in the astral body. And though if astral consciousness be not yet developed these centres may not be available on their own plane, they are still strong enough to stimulate into keener activity the etheric matter which they interpenetrate.

When we come to deal with the astral senses themselves the methods of working are very different.  The astral body has no specialized sense-organs, but if a vibration which is within the limits of its power of cognition strikes any part of it, it responds to that vibration, and sight or hearing, as the case may be, is produced as the result. So that a person using astral vision does not need to turn and look at any object, but can see it equally well behind him or on one side; whereas one using etheric sight would be as far as this is concerned almost in the position of a man seeing physically in the ordinary way.

The vision of the devachanic or mental plane is again totally different, for in this case we can no longer speak of separate senses such as sight and hearing, but rather of one general sense which responds so fully to the vibrations reaching it that when any object comes within its cognition it at once comprehends it fully, and as it were sees it, hears it, feels it, and knows all there is to know about it by the one instantaneous operation. Yet  even this wonderful faculty differs in degree only and not in kind from those which are at our command at the present time; on the mental plane, just as on the physical, impressions are still conveyed by means of vibrations travelling from the object seen to the seer.

On the buddhic plane we meet for the first time with a quite new faculty having nothing in common with those of which we have spoken, for there a man cognizes any object by an entirely different method in which external vibrations play no part.  The object becomes part of himself, and he studies it from the inside instead of from the outside.  But with this power ordinary clairvoyance has nothing to do.

The development, either entire or partial, of any one of these faculties would come under our definition of clairvoyance—the power to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight.  But these faculties may be developed in various ways, and it will be well to say a few words as to these different lines.

We may presume that if it were possible for a man to be isolated during his evolution from all but the gentlest outside influences, and to unfold from the beginning in perfectly regular and normal fashion, he would probably develope his senses in regular order also.  He would find his physical senses gradually extending their scope until they responded to all the physical vibrations, of etheric as well as of denser matter; then in orderly sequence would come sensibility to the coarser part of the astral plane, and presently the finer part also would be included, until in due course the devachanic faculty dawned in its turn.

In real life, however, development so regular as this is hardly ever known, and many a man has occasional flashes of astral consciousness without any awakening of etheric vision at all. And this irregularity of development is one of the principal causes of man’s extraordinary liability to error in matters of clairvoyance—a liability from which there is no escape except by a long course of careful training under a qualified teacher.

Students of Theosophical literature are well aware that there are such teachers to be found—that even in this materialistic nineteenth century the old saying is still true, that “when the pupil is ready, the Master is ready also,” and that “in the hall of learning, when he is capable of entering there, the disciple will always find his Master.” They are well aware also that only under such guidance can a man develop his latent powers in safety and with certainty, since they know how fatally easy it is for the untrained clairvoyant to deceive himself as to the meaning and value of what he sees, or even absolutely to distort his vision completely in bringing it down into his physical consciousness.

It does not follow that even the pupil who is receiving regular instruction in the use of occult powers will find them unfolding themselves exactly in the regular order which was suggested above as probably ideal. His previous progress may not have been such as to make this for him the easiest or most desirable road; but at any rate he is in the hands of one who is perfectly competent to be his guide in spiritual development, and he rests in perfect contentment that the way along which he is taken will be that which is the best way for him.

Another great advantage which he gains is that whatever faculties he may acquire are definitely under his command and can be used fully and constantly when he needs them for his Theosophical work; whereas in the case of the untrained man such powers often manifest themselves only very partially and spasmodically, and appear to come and go, as it were, at their own sweet will.

It may reasonably be objected that if clairvoyant faculty is, as stated, a part of the occult development of man and so a sign of a certain amount of progress along that line, it seems strange that it should often be possessed by primitive peoples, or by the ignorant and uncultured among ourselves—persons who are obviously quite undeveloped, from whatever point of view one regards them. No doubt this does appear remarkable at first sight; but the fact is that the sensitiveness of the savage or of the coarse and vulgar European ignoramus is not really the same thing as the faculty of his properly trained brother, nor is it arrived at in the same way.

An exact and detailed explanation of the difference would lead us into rather recondite technicalities, but perhaps the general idea of the distinction between the two may be caught from an example taken from the very lowest plane of clairvoyance, in close contact with the denser physical. The etheric double in man is in exceedingly close relation to his nervous system, and any kind of action upon one of them speedily reacts on the other.  Now in the sporadic appearance of etheric sight in the savage, whether of Central Africa or of Western Europe, it has been observed that the corresponding nervous disturbance is almost entirely in the sympathetic system, and that the whole affair is practically beyond the man’s control—is in fact a sort of massive sensation vaguely belonging to the whole etheric body, rather than an exact and definite sense-perception communicated through a specialized organ

As in later races and amid higher development the strength of the man is more and more thrown into the evolution of the mental faculties, this vague sensitiveness usually disappears; but still later, when the spiritual man begins to unfold, he regains his clairvoyant power.  This time, however, the faculty is a precise and exact one, under the control of the man’s will, and exercised through a definite sense-organ; and it is noteworthy that any nervous action set up in sympathy with it is now almost exclusively in the cerebro-spinal system.

Occasional flashes of clairvoyance do, however, sometimes come to the highly cultured and spiritual-minded man, even though he may never have heard of the possibility of training such a faculty. In his case such glimpses usually signify that he is approaching that stage in his evolution when these powers will naturally begin to manifest themselves, and their appearance should serve as an additional stimulus to him to strive to maintain that high standard of moral purity and mental balance without which clairvoyance is a curse and not a blessing to its possessor.

Between those who are entirely unimpressible and those who are in full possession of clairvoyant power there are may intermediate stages. One to which it will be worth while to give a passing glance in the stage in which a man, though he has no clairvoyant faculty in ordinary life, yet exhibits it more or less fully under the influence of mesmerism.  This is a case in which the psychic nature is already sensitive, but the consciousness is not yet capable of functioning in it amidst the manifold distractions of physical life. It needs to be set free by the temporary suspension of the outer senses in the mesmeric trance before  it can use the diviner faculties which are but just beginning to dawn within it  But of course even in the mesmeric trance there are innumerable degrees of lucidity, from the ordinary patient who is blankly unintelligent to the man whose power of sight is fully under the control of the operator, and can be directed whithersoever he wills, or to the more advanced stage in which, when the consciousness is once set free, it escapes altogether from the grasp of the magnetizer, and soars into fields of exalted vision where it is entirely beyond his reach.

Another step along the same path is that upon which such perfect suppression of the physical as that which occurs in the hypnotic trance is not necessary, but the power of supernormal sight, though still out of reach during waking life, becomes available when the body is held in the bonds of ordinary sleep. At this stage of development stood many of the prophets and seers of whom we read, who were ‘warned of God in a dream,” or communed with beings far higher than themselves in the silent watches of the night.

Most cultured people of the higher races of the world have this development to some extent; that is to say, the senses of their astral bodies are in full working order, and perfectly capable of receiving impressions from objects and entities of their own plane.  But to make that fact of any use to them down here in the physical body two changes are usually necessary; first, that the ego shall be awakened to the realities of that plane, and induced to emerge from the chrysalis formed by his own waking thoughts, and look round him to observe and to learn; and secondly, that the consciousness shall be so far retained during the return of the ego into his physical body as to enable him to impress upon his physical brain the recollection of what he has seen or learnt.

If the first of these changes has taken place, the second is of little importance, since the ego, the true man, will be able to profit by the information to be obtained upon that plane, even though he may not have the satisfaction of bringing through any remembrance of it into his waking life down here.

Students often ask how this clairvoyant faculty will first be manifested in themselves—how they may know when they have reached the stage at which its first faint foreshadowings are beginning to be visible. Cases differ so widely that it is impossible to give to this question any answer that will be universally applicable.

Some people begin by a plunge, as it were, and under some unusual stimulus become able just for once to see some striking vision; and very often in such a case, because the experience does not repeat itself, the seer comes in time to believe that on that occasion he must have been the victim of hallucination. Others begin by becoming intermittently conscious of the brilliant colours and vibrations of the human aura; yet others find themselves with increasing frequency seeing and hearing something to which those around them are blind and deaf; others again see faces, landscapes, or coloured clouds floating before their eyes in the dark before they sink to rest; while perhaps the commonest experience of all is that of those who begin to recollect with greater and greater clearness what they have seen and heard on the other planes during sleep.

Having now to some extent cleared our ground, we may proceed to consider the various phenomena of clairvoyance under the three heads already mentioned.

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