Clairvoyance and Occult Powers, William Walker Atkinson [best book clubs TXT] 📗

safely and effectively induced by the practice of mental concentration alone. They advice positively against artificial methods. A little common sense will show that they are right in this matter. All that is needed is that the consciousness shall be focused to a point—become "one pointed" as the Hindu Yogis say. The intelligent practice of concentration accomplishes this, without the necessity of any artificial methods of development, or the induction of abnormal psychic states.

If you will stop a moment and realize how easily you concentrate your attention when you are witnessing an interesting play, or listening to a beautiful rendition of some great masterpiece of musical composition, or gazing at some miracle of art, you will see what I mean. In the cases just mentioned, while your attention is completely occupied with the interesting thing before you, so that you have almost completely shut out the outer world of sound, sight and thought, you are, nevertheless, perfectly wide awake and your consciousness is alert. The same thing is true when you are reading a very interesting book—the world is shut out from your consciousness, and you are oblivious to the sights and sounds around you. At the risk of being considered flippant, I would remind you of the common spectacle of two lovers so wrapped up in each other's company that they forget that there is a smiling world of people around them—time and space are forgotten to the two lovers—to them there is only one world, with but two persons in it. Again, how often have you fallen into what is known as a "brown study," or "day dream," in which you have been so occupied with the thoughts and fancies floating through your mind, that you forgot all else. Well, then, this will give you a common-sense idea of the state that the occultists teach may be induced in order to enter into the state of en rapport with the astral plane—the state in which clairvoyance is possible. Whether you are seeking clairvoyance by the method of psychometry, or by crystal gazing, or by clairvoyant reverie—this will give you the key to the state. It is a perfectly natural state—nothing abnormal about it, you will notice.

To some who may think that I am laying too much stress on the undesirability of artificial methods of inducing the clairvoyant condition, I would say that they are probably not aware of the erroneous and often harmful teachings on the subject that are being promulgated by ignorant or misinformed teachers—"a little learning is a dangerous thing," in many cases. It may surprise some of my students to learn that some of this class of teachers are instructing their pupils to practice methods of self-hypnosis by gazing steadily at a bright object until they fall unconscious; or by gazing "cross eyed" at the tip of the nose, or at an object held between the two eyebrows. These are familiar methods of certain schools of hypnotism, and result in producing a state of artificial hypnosis, more or less deep. Such a state is most undesirable, not only by reason of its immediate effects, but also by reason of the fact that it often results in a condition of abnormal sensitiveness to the will of others, or even to the thoughts and feelings of others, on both the astral and the physical planes of life. I emphatically warn my students against any such practices, or anything resembling them.

While I dislike to dwell on the subject, I feel that I should call the attention of my students to the fact that certain teachers seek to produce the abnormal psychic condition by means of exhausting breathing exercises, which make the person dizzy and sleepy. This is all wrong. While rhythmic breathing exercises have a certain value in psychic phenomena, and are harmless when properly practiced, nevertheless such practices as those to which I have alluded are harmful to the nervous system of the person, and also tend to induce undesirable psychic conditions. Again, some teachers have sought to have their students hold their breath for comparatively long periods of time in order to bring about abnormal psychic states. The slightest knowledge of physiology informs one that such a practice must be harmful; it causes the blood to become thick and impure, and deficient in oxygen. It certainly will produce a kind of drowsiness, for the same reason that impure air in a room will do the same thing—in both cases the blood stream is poisoned and made impure. The purpose of rational and normal breathing is to obviate just this thing—so these teachers are reversing a natural law of the body, in order to produce an abnormal psychic state. With all the energy in me, I caution you against this kind of thing.

Along the same line, I protest and warn you against the practices advised by certain teachers of "psychic development," who seek to have their pupils induce abnormal physical and psychic conditions by means of drugs, odor of certain chemicals, gases, etc. Such practices, as all true occultists know, belong to the clans of the Black Magicians, or devil worshippers, of the savage races—they have no place in true occult teachings. Common sense alone should warn persons away from such things—but it seems to fail some of them. I assert without fear of intelligent contradiction, that no true occultist ever countenances any such practices as these.

All the true teachers are vigorous in their denunciation of such false teachings and harmful practices. In this same category, I place the methods which are taught by certain persons, namely, that of inducing abnormal physical and psychic condition of giddiness and haziness by means of "whirling" around in a circle until one drops from giddiness, or until one "feels queer in the head." This is a revival of the practices of certain fanatics in Persia and India, who perform it as a religious rite until they fall into what they consider a "holy sleep," but which is nothing more than an abnormal and unhealthful physical and psychic condition. Such practices are a downward step, not an upward one. It seems a pity that the necessity has arisen for such warnings as these—but my duty, as I see it, is very plain. To all who are tempted to "develop" in this way, I say, positively, "DON'T!"

The scientific, rational way to develop the astral senses is to first acquire the art of concentrating. Bear in mind that in concentration the person, while shutting out the impressions of the outside world in general, nevertheless focuses and concentrates his attention upon the one matter before him. This is quite a different thing from making oneself sensitive to every current of thought and feeling that may be in the psychic atmosphere. True concentration renders one positive, while the other methods render one negative. Contrary to the common opinion, psychic concentration is a positive state, not a negative—an active state, not a passive one. The person who is able to concentrate strongly is a master, while one who opens himself to "control," either physical or astral, is more or less of a slave to other minds.

The student who will begin by experimenting along the lines of contact mind-reading, and who then advances along the lines of true telepathy, as explained in the earlier chapters of this book, will have made a good start, and considerable progress, along the road to clairvoyant development. The rest will be largely a matter of exercise and practice. He will be aided by practicing concentration along the general lines of the best occult teaching. Such practice may consist of concentration upon almost any physical object, keeping the thing well before the mind and attention. Do not tire the attention by practicing too long at one time. The following general rules will help you in developing concentration:

(1) The attention attaches more readily to interesting rather than uninteresting things. Therefore, select some interesting thing to study and analyze by concentrated thought.

(2) The attention will decline in strength unless there is a variation in the stimulus. Therefore, keep up the power of concentration by either changing the object you are observing; or else by discovering some new properties, qualities or attributes in it.

(3) The things you wish to shut out of consciousness can best be shut out by your concentration upon some other thing—the attention can dwell only upon one thing at a time, if focused upon that one thing.

(4) The power of applying your attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is a mark of strong will and superior mental discipline—weak-minds cannot do this. Therefore, in cultivating concentrated attention you are really strengthening your mind and will.

(5) To develop concentrated attention, you must learn to analyze, analyze, and analyze the thing upon which you are bestowing concentrated attention. Therefore, proceed by selecting an object and analyzing it by concentrated attention, taking one part after another, one by one, until you have analyzed and mastered the whole object. Give it the same attention that the lover gives his loved one; the musician his favorite composition; the artist his favorite work of art; and the booklover his favorite book—when you have accomplished this, you have mastered concentration, and will be able to apply the mind "one pointed" upon anything you wish, physical or astral; and, consequently will have no trouble in shutting-out disturbing impressions.

(6) Learn to concentrate on the physical plane, and you will be able to concentrate on the astral plane as well. By the one who has mastered concentration, trances and abnormal psychic states will not be needed. The needle-pointed mind is able to pierce the astral veil at will, while the blunt-pointed mind is resisted and defeated by the astral envelope, which while thin is very tough and unyielding.

A well-known authority on psychic development has well said: "Occasional flashes of clairvoyance 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. 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 unimpressionable and those who are in full possession of clairvoyant power, there are many intermediate stages. 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 colors 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 colored 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 other planes during sleep."

The authority in question gives the following excellent advice regarding the subject of the development of clairvoyant power and astral visioning: "Now the fact is that there are many methods by which it may be developed, but only one which can be at all safely recommended for general use—that of which we shall speak last of all. Among the