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

the original thing. Think of the concentrated power of a tiny drop of attar of roses—it has within its tiny space the concentrated odor of thousands of roses; one drop of it will make a pint of extract, and a gallon of weaker perfumery! Think of the concentrated power in a lightning flash, as contrasted with the same amount of electricity diffused over a large area. Or, think of the harmless flash of a small amount of gunpowder ignited in the open air, as contrasted with the ignition of the same amount of powder compelled to escape through the small opening in the gun-barrel.

The occult teachings lay great stress upon this power of mental concentration. All students of the occult devote much time and care to the cultivation of the powers of concentration, and the development of the ability to employ them. The average person possesses but a very small amount of concentration, and is able to concentrate his mind for but a few moments at a time. The trained thinker obtains much of his mental power from his acquired ability to concentrate on his task. The occultist trains himself in fixing his concentrated attention upon the matter before him, so as to bring to a focal centre all of his mental forces.

The mind is a very restless thing, and is inclined to dance from one thing to another, tiring of each thing after a few moment's consideration thereof. The average person allows his involuntary attention to rest upon every trifling thing, and to be distracted by the idlest appeals to the senses. He finds it most difficult to either shut out these distracting appeals to the senses, and equally hard to hold the attention to some uninteresting thing. His attention is almost free of control by the will, and the person is a slave to his perceptive powers and to his imagination, instead of, being a master of both.

The occultist, on the contrary, masters his attention, and controls his imagination. He forces the one to concentrate when he wishes it to do so; and he compels the latter to form the mental images he wishes to visualize. But this a far different thing from the self-hypnotization which some persons imagine to be concentration. A writer on the subject has well said: "The trained occultist will concentrate upon a subject or object with a wonderful intensity, seemingly completely absorbed in the subject or object before him, and oblivious to all else in the world. And yet, the task accomplished, or the given time expired, he will detach his mind from the object and will be perfectly fresh, watchful and wide-awake to the next matter before him. There is every difference between being controlled by involuntary attention, which is species of self-hypnotization, and the control of the attention, which is an evidence of mastery." An eminent French psychologist once said: "The authority of the attention is subject to the superior authority of the Ego. I yield it, or I withhold it, as I please. I direct it in turn to several points. I concentrate it upon each point, as long as my will can stand the effort."

In an earlier lesson of this series, I have indicated in a general way the methods whereby one may develop and train his powers of concentration. There is no royal road to concentration; it may be developed only by practice and exercise. The secret consists in managing the attention, so as to fix it upon a subject, no matter how uninteresting; and to hold it there for a reasonable length of time. Practice upon some disagreeable study or other task is good exercise, for it serves to train the will in spite of the influence of more attractive objects or subjects. And this all serves to train the will, remember; for the will is actively concerned in every act of voluntary attention. In fact, attention of this kind is one of the most important and characteristic acts of the will.

So, as you see, in order to be successful in influencing the minds of others by means of mental induction, you must first cultivate a strong feeling of interest in the idea which you wish to induce in the other person, or a strong desire to produce the thing. Interest and desire constitute the fire which generates the stream of will from the water of mind, as some occultists have stated it. Secondly, you must cultivate the faculty of forming strong and clear mental images of the idea or feeling you wish to so induce; you must learn to actually "see" the thing in your imagination, so as to give the idea strength and clearness. Thirdly, you must learn to concentrate your mind and attention upon the idea or feeling, shutting out all other ideas and feelings for the time being; thus you give concentrated force and power to the vibrations and thought-forms which you are projecting.

These three principles underlie all of the many forms of mental induction, or mental influence. We find them in active operation in cases in which the person is seeking to attract to himself certain conditions, environment, persons, things, or channels of expression, by setting into motion the great laws of mental attraction. We see them also employed when the person is endeavoring to produce an effect upon the mind of some particular person, or number of persons. We see them in force in all cases of mental or psychic healing, under whatever form it may be employed. In short, these are general principles, and must therefore underlie all forms and phases of mental or psychic influence. The sooner the student realizes this fact, and the more actively does he set himself to work in cultivating and developing these principles within himself, the more successful and efficient will he become in this field of psychic research and investigation. It is largely in the degree of the cultivation of these three mental principles that the occultist is distinguished from the ordinary man.

It may be that you are not desirous of cultivating or practicing the power of influencing other persons psychically. Well, that is for you to decide for yourself. At any rate, you will do well to develop yourselves along these lines, at least for self-protection. The cultivation of these three mental principles will tend to make you active and positive, psychically, as contrasted with the passive, negative mental state of the average person. By becoming mentally active and positive you will be able to resist any psychic influence that may be directed toward yourself, and to surround yourself with a protective aura of positive, active mental vibrations.

And, moreover, if you are desirous of pursuing your investigations of psychic and astral phenomena, you will find it of great importance to cultivate and develop these three principles in your mind. For, then you will be able to brush aside all distracting influences, and to proceed at once to the task before you, with power, clearness and strength of purpose and method.

In the following chapters I shall give you a more or less detailed presentation of the various phases or forms of psychic influence. Some of these may seem at first to be something independent of the general principles. But I ask that you carefully analyze all of these, so as to discover that the same fundamental principles are under and back of each and every instance presented. When you once fully grasp this fact, and perfect yourselves in the few fundamental principles, then you are well started on the road to mastery of all the various phases of psychic phenomena. Instead of puzzling your mind over a hundred different phases of disconnected phenomena, it is better to master the few actual elementary principles, and then reason deductively from these to the various manifestation thereof. Master the principles, and then learn to apply them.

LESSON XVII.

PERSONAL PSYCHIC INFLUENCE OVER OTHERS

Psychic Influence, as the term is used in this book, may be said to be divided into three general classes, viz., (1) Personal Influence, in which the mind of another is directly influenced by induction while he is in the presence of the person influencing; (2) Distant Influencing, in which the psychic induction is directly manifested when the persons concerned are distant from one another; and (3) Indirect Influence, in which the induction is manifested in the minds of various persons coming in contact with the thought vibrations of the person manifesting them, though no attempt is made to directly influence any particular person. I shall now present each of these three forms of psychic influence to you for consideration, one after the other in the above order.

Personal Influence, as above defined, ranges from cases in which the strongest control (generally known as hypnotism) is manifested, down to the cases in which merely a slight influence is exerted. But the general principle underlying all of these cases is precisely the same. The great characters of history, such as Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Julius Caesar, manifested this power to a great degree, and were able to sway men according to their will. All great leaders of men have this power strongly manifested, else they would not be able to influence the minds of men. Great orators, preachers, statesmen, and others of this class, likewise manifest the power strongly. In fact, the very sign of ability to influence and manage other persons is evidence of the possession and manifestation of this mighty power.

In developing this power to influence others directly and personally, you should begin by impressing upon your mind the principles stated in the preceding chapter, namely (1) Strong Desire; (2) Clear Visualization; and (3) Concentration.

You must begin by encouraging a strong desire in your mind to be a positive individual; to exert and manifest a positive influence over others with whom you come in contact, and especially over those whom you wish to influence in some particular manner or direction. You must let the fire of desire burn fiercely within you, until it becomes as strong as physical hunger or thirst. You must "want to" as you want to breathe, to live. You will find that the men who accomplish the great things in life are those who have strong desire burning in their bosoms. There is a strong radiative and inductive power in strong desire and wish—in fact, some have thought this the main feature of what we generally call strong will-power.

The next step, of course, is the forming of a clear, positive, distinct and dynamic mental picture of the idea or feeling that you wish to induce in the other person. If it is an idea, you should make a strong clear picture of it in your imagination, so as to give it distinctness and force and a clear outline. If it is a feeling, you should picture it in your imagination. If it is something that you wish the other person to do, or some way in which you wish him to act, you should picture him as doing the thing, or acting in that particular way. By so doing you furnish the pattern or design for the induced mental or emotional states you wish to induce in the other person. Upon the clearness and strength of these mental patterns of the imagination depends largely the power of the induced impression.

The third step, of course, is the concentration of your mind upon the impression you wish to induce in the mind of the other person. You must learn to concentrate so forcibly and clearly that the idea will stand out clearly in your mind like a bright star of a dark night, except that there must be only one star instead of thousands. By so doing you really focus the entire force of your mental and psychic energies into that one particular idea or thought. This makes it act like the focused rays in the sun-glass, or like the strong pipe-stream of water that will break down the