Clairvoyance-5

Among the real psychic powers, however, which are attained by slow and careful self development, there are some which are of very great interest. For example, for one who can function freely in the mental body there are methods of getting at the meaning of a book, quite apart from the ordinary process of reading it. The simplest is to read from the mind of one who has studied but this is open to the objection that one gets not the real meaning of the work but that student's conception of the meaning, which may be by no
means the same thing. A second plan is to examine the aura of the book--a phrase which needs a little explanation for those not practically acquainted with the hidden side of things.

An ancient manuscript stands in this respect in a somewhat different position from a modern book. If it is not the original work of the author himself, it has at any rate been copied word by word by some person of a certain education and understanding, who knew the subject of the book, and had his own opinions about it. It must be remembered that copying (done usually with a stylus) is almost as slow and emphatic as engraving; so that the writer inevitably empresses his thought strongly on his handiwork. Any manuscript, therefore, even a new one, has always some sort of thought-aura about it which conveys its general meaning, or rather one man's idea of its meaning and his estimate of its value. Every time it is read by anyone an addition is made to that thought-aura, and if it be carefully studied the addition is naturally large and valuable.

This is equally true of a printed volume. A book which has passed through many hands has an aura which is usually better balanced than that of a new one, because it is rounded off and completed by the divergent views brought to it by its many readers; consequently the psychometrization of such a book generally yields a fairly full comprehension of its contents, though with a considerable fringe of opinions not expressed in the book, but held by its various readers.

On the other hand, a book used in a public library is not infrequently as unpleasant psychically as it usually is physically, for it becomes loaded with all kinds of mixed magnetism, many of them of a most unsavory character. The sensitive person will do well to avoid such books, or if necessity compels him to use them he will be wise to touch them as little as may be, and rather to let them lie upon a table than to hold them in his hand. Another factor to be remembered with regard to such books is that a volume written upon a special subject is most likely to be read by a particular type of person, and the readers leave their impress upon the aura of the volume. Thus a book violently advocating some sectarian religious views is not read except by persons who sympathize with its narrowness, and so it soon develops a decidedly unpleasant aura; and in the same way a book of an indecent or prurient nature quickly becomes loathsome beyond description. Old books containing magical formulae are often for this reason most uncomfortable neighbors. Even the language in which a book is printed indirectly affects its aura, by limiting its readers largely to a man of a certain nationality, and so by degrees endowing it with the more prominent characteristics of that nationality

In the case of a printed book there is no original copyist, so that at the beginning of its career it usually carries nothing but disjointed fragments of the thought of the binder and bookseller. Few readers at the present day seem to study so thoughtfully and thoroughly as did the men of old, and for that reason the thought forms connected with a modern book are rarely so precise and clear cut as those which surround the manuscripts of the past. The third method of reading requires some higher powers, in order to go behind the book or manuscript altogether and get at the mind of its author. If the book is in some foreign language, its subject entirely unknown, and there is no aura around it to give any helpful suggestion, the only ways to follow back its history to see from what it was copied (or set up in type, as the case may be) and so to trace out the line of its descent until one reaches its author. If the subject of the work be known, a less tedious method is to psychometricize that subject, get into the general current of thought about it, and so find a particular writer required, and see what he thinks. There is a sense in which all the ideas connected with a given subject may be said to be local--to be concentrated around a certain point in space--so that by mentally visiting that point one can come into touch with all the converging streams of thought about that subject, though they are linked by millions of lines with all sorts of other subjects.

Another interesting power is that of magnification. There are two methods of magnification which may be used in connection with the clairvoyant faculty. One is simply an intensification of ordinary sight. It is obvious that when in common life we see anything, and impact of some sort is made upon the retina--upon its physical rods and cones. The effects there produced, or the vibration set up, are transmitted, in some way by no means thoroughly understood, by the optic nerve to the gray matter of the brain. Clearly, before the true man within can become conscious of what is seen, these impressions made upon the physical brain-matter must be transmitted from that to the etheric matter, from that in turn to the astral, and from that to the mental--these different degrees of matter being, as it were, stations on the telegraph wire.

One method of magnification is to tap this telegraph wire at an intermediate station--to receive the impression upon the etheric matter of the retina instead of upon the physical rods and cones, and to transfer the impression received directly to the etheric part of the brain. By an effort of will the attention can be focused in only a few of the etheric particles, or even in one of them, and in that way a similarity of size can be attained
between the organ employed and some minute object which is to be observed.

A method more commonly used but requiring somewhat higher development, is to employ the special faculty of the center between the eyebrows. From the central portion of that can be projected what we may call a tiny microscope at the etheric level, having for its lens only one atom. In this way again we produce an organ commensurate in size with the minute objects to be observed. The atom employed may be either physical, astral or mental, but whichever it is it needs a special preparation. It must be opened up and brought into full working order, so that it is just as developed as it will be in the seventh round of our chain.

This power belongs to the causal body, so if an atom of lower level be used as an eyepiece a system of reflecting counterparts must be introduced. The atom must be adjusted to any sub plane, so that any required degree of magnification can be applied in order to suit the object which is being examined. A further extension of the same power enables the operator to focus his own consciousness in that lens through which he looks, and then to project it to distant points. The same power, by a different arrangement, it can be used for diminishing purposes when one wishes to view as a whole something far too large to be taken in at once by ordinary vision.

***End of Clairvoyance***