Areopagitica

“ Does not the brain, which, as the source of sensibility was then it may be said unknown, fulfil all that is required by this suggestion? The brain is the organ which individualises different impressions, and so enables the mind to compare and judge; it is the organ, too, which, retaining impressions, is the seat of memory, and the source whence imagination draws its images. The mind is again spoken of as higher in nature than aught else, and thus Aristotle agrees with Anaxagoras who held that the "mind was the first of all created entities and powers." ”

“ The generally received explanation of the illusion in Aristotle’s experiment is that two parts of the skin are being touched which in the ordinary position of the fingers have always been touched by two objects. If this is correct, we might expect to find that if two parts of the skin ordinarily touched by one object are simultaneously touched by two objects, there would be the illusive perception of one object, and such is the case. The illusion occurs most readily in a person unaware of the nature of the experiment. ”

“ While all this astral awakening was taking place, then, the man in his physical consciousness knew nothing whatever of it. The only way in which the dense body can be brought to share all these advantages is by repeating that process of awakening with the etheric centres. That is to be achieved precisely in the same way as it was done upon the astral plane — that is to say, by the arousing of the serpent-fire, which exists clothed in etheric matter on the physical plane, and sleeps in the corresponding etheric centre, that at the base of the spine. ”

“ Hence in the Eleatic philosophy there are two worlds brought face to face, lying side by side of each other, unreconciled--the world of Being, which is the true world, and the world of facts, which is illusion. Although the Eleatics deny the sense-world, and call it illusion, yet of this illusion they cannot rid themselves. In some sense or other, this world is here, is present. ”

“ The initiates were named “epoptai,” that is, “they whose eyes are opened.” Their emblem was the golden fleece of Jason which is the symbol of the mind-body; for the yellow colour in the human aura indicates the intelligence, as every clairvoyant knows. In this degree of initiation the teachings of the former degree were continued. In the first, as you remember, were taught the effects in the astral world of various ways of living. In the greater mysteries the pupil was shown what would be the effect in the heaven-world of a certain line of life, study and aspiration on earth. ”

“ When the sentient organ itself is touched, no sensation can there or then be produced, any more than a white object can be seen when placed immediately over the surface of the eye; and thus it is evident that the part perceptive of tangible impressions must be within. Thus, it should be with the touch, as with the other senses; and if objects, when placed upon an organ, are not perceived, but, when placed upon the flesh, they are perceived, we must conclude that the flesh is only the medium for tangible impressions. ”

“ We are so constituted, in fact, that, if several objects, differing generically from one another, could be perceived through one medium, an individual, having a sentient organ such as that medium, would, necessarily, be sensible of impressions through both media—as if the sentient organ should be of air, then, as air is the medium for sound and colour, the individual would be sensible of both impressions through the same organ. ”

“ Though we may rightly classify the elemental essence and the animal astral bodies as non-human, the monadic essence which ensouls them will, nevertheless, in the fullness of time, evolve to the level of manifesting itself through some future humanity comparable to our own, and if we were able to look back through countless ages on our own evolution in previous world-cycles, we should find that that which is now our casual body has passed on its upward path through similar stages. ”

“ In each of these divisions of the mysteries, the lesser and the greater, there was an inner school which taught practical development to those who were seen to be ready for it. In the lesser mysteries theoretical knowledge about the astral plane was given, but the teachers carefully watched their pupils, and when they noticed one of whose character they felt sure, who showed that he was capable of psychic development, they invited him into the inner circle in which instruction was given as to the method of using the astral body and consciously functioning in it. ”

“ What we find is a vast store of elemental essence, wonderfully sensitive to the most fleeting human thought, responding with inconceivable delicacy in an infinitesimal fraction of a [49] second to a vibration set up in it even by an entirely unconscious exercise of human will or desire. But the moment that by the influence of such thought or exercise of will it is moulded into a living force—into something that may correctly be described as an elemental—it at once ceases to belong to the category we are discussing, and becomes a member of the artificial class. ”

“ In many cases they spend long periods of acute mental suffering before they can free themselves from the fatal influence of that hideous blasphemy, and realize that the world is governed not according to the caprice of some demon who gloats over human anguish, but according to a benevolent and wonderfully patient law of evolution. Many members of the class we are considering do not really attain an intelligent appreciation of this fact of evolution at all, but drift through their astral interlude in the same aimless manner in which they have spent the physical portion of their lives. ”

“ For every thing that makes a sudden impression, astonisheth nature. Whence it is, that many Philosophers were of opinion that Aire is the cause of dreams, and of many other impressions of the mind, through the prolonging of Images, or similitudes, or species (which are fallen from things and speeches, multiplyed in the very Aire) untill they come to the senses, and then to the phantasy, and soul of him that receives them, which being freed from cares, and no way hindred, expecting to meet such kind of species, is informed by them. ”

“ In this case the arousing is done by a determined and long-continued effort of the will, and to bring that first centre into full activity is precisely to awaken the serpent-fire. When once that is aroused, it is by its tremendous force that the other centres are vivified. Its effect on the other etheric centres is to bring into the physical consciousness the powers which were aroused by the development of their corresponding astral centres. ”

“ If we examine with psychic faculty the body of a newly-born child, we shall find it permeated not only by astral matter of every degree of density, but also by the several grades of etheric matter; and if we take the trouble to trace these inner bodies backwards to their origin, we find that it is of the latter that the etheric double—the mould upon which the physical body is built up—is formed by the agents of the Lords of Karma; while the astral matter has been gathered together by the descending Ego—not of course consciously, but automatically—as he passes through the astral plane. ”

“ Anaxagoras seems, as we have already said, to distinguish the mind from the Vital Principle, although he employs both terms as if synonymous; excepting that he sets down the mind as being, in the fullest sense, the origin of all things. Thus he says that the mind alone of all entities is homogeneous, unmixed, and pure; and to the same principle he attributes the properties both of knowing and imparting motion, as he maintains that it is the mind which has given motion to the universe. ”

“ But to shew how many doubts and difficulties beset the opinion adopted by Empedocles, that "objects are recognised by the corporeal elements in the relation of like;" we have only to observe that all those parts in animal bodies, which are simply of earth, as bones, sinews and hairs, seem to be altogether without feeling, and consequently without any feeling of like, and yet, according to the theory, they ought to be perceptive. ”

“ These considerations shew why sentient impressions in excess destroy the organ of sense. The reason is that if the movement of the organ of sense be too strong, the relation, which, as we have seen, sense involves, is broken, much in the same manner as harmony and tone become discordant when the strings are violently struck. The same fact explains also why plants possess no sense-perception although they have a psychic element and are impressed in some degree by things tangible, becoming, as they do, both hot and cold. ”

“ 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 faculty of the mental plane 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. ”

“ The body of the animal cannot, it is evident, consist of any one single element, such as for instance fire or air. The reason of this is that touch is the necessary pre-supposition of the other senses, because, as we have said, every animate body is also provided with the sense of touch. Now, all the other elements except earth might serve as organs of the senses, but they all effect perception only mediately. ”

“ In the same way we find that all the kingdoms are represented upon the astral and mental globes. It is not very easy for us to grasp with our physical consciousness what can be the condition of the life of the lower kingdoms on these higher planes; the idea of the evolution of a mineral on the mental plane, for example, suggests nothing readily comprehensible to the ordinary mind. ”

“ When he cannot find a medium or does not understand how to use one he sometimes makes clumsy and blundering endeavours to communicate on his own account, and by the strength of his will he sets elemental forces blindly working, perhaps producing such apparently aimless manifestations as stone-throwing, bell-ringing, etc. It consequently frequently happens that a psychic or medium going to a house where such manifestations are taking place may be able to discover what the entity who produces them is attempting to say or do, and may thus put an end to the disturbance. ”

“ As vision was said to be, in some sense, perceptive of the visible and the invisible, and the other senses equally of their opposites, so Touch may be said to be perceptive of the tangible and the intangible; and by intangible is meant as well what differs but slightly from what is tangible, as air for instance, as what is in such excess as to be destructive of all sensation. ”

“ When the ego descends into incarnation, he draws round himself a mass of astral matter, not yet formed into a definite astral body; this takes, in the first place, the shape of that ovoid which is the nearest expression that we can realize of the true shape of the causal body. ”

“ Now as we know that the whole space which separates the heavenly bodies is filled with a subtile matter called aether, it seems more reasonable to ascribe the mutual attraction of bodies to an action which the aether exercises upon them, though its manner of acting may be unknown to us, than to have recourse to an unintelligible property As the idea of all occult qualities is now banished from philosophy, attraction ought not to be considered in this sense. ”

“ Our cognition flows and changes. It is the result of an active impact upon a passive percipient. And, resulting from this change, there are in practice always two things to be said, a pro and a con. about every possible proposition. There is no general statement that cannot be contradicted.
Other teachers also are represented as having influenced Euripides; Archelaus, who tried to conceive Anaxagoras's "Mind" in some material form, as air or spirit—for spiritus, of course, means "breath" ”

“ There is, in the third place, liability to error in our perception of common properties, and sequences in the accidents referrible to particular bodies—accidents, I mean, such as motion and magnitude, which are referrible to all bodies, and from which there is peculiar liability to error through the senses. But the motion produced by the act of sensation will differ from the sensation derived from these three modes of sensation—the first, while sensation is yet present, must be true ”

“ Now and again the etheric veil may part sufficiently to permit one glance into lower astral scenes, but that is rarely encouraging, and indeed is often mistaken for a glimpse into hell; sometimes for a moment some familiar earthly object may be half-seen — usually from passing contact with a strong thought-image ”

“ The permanent colours of the astral body react upon, the mental. They produce in it their correspondences, several octaves higher, in the same manner as a musical note produces overtones. The mental body in its turn reacts upon the causal in the same way, and thus all the good qualities expressed in the lower vehicles by degrees establish themselves permanently in the ego. The evil qualities cannot do so, as the rates of vibrations which express them are impossible for the higher mental matter of which the causal body is constructed. ”