Psionics

“ So much only we can say: certain as it is that the Psyche, especially as conscious inner life, only gradually develops and becomes actual, and that in the closest dependence upon the development, maturing, and establishment of the nervous basis and the bodily organisation in general, yet the naturalistic view, a fortiori the materialistic, is never at any point correct. There are three things to be borne in mind. First, the origin, the “whence” of the psychical is wholly hidden from us, and, notwithstanding the theory of evolution and descent, it remains an insoluble riddle. ”

“ And yet it is impossible to translate any psychosis into any neurosis, or to say that this organic movement has become this phase of consciousness. Nor is it possible to say that this neurosis has produced that psychosis, as we may say that these two movements in space have combined to produce that movement in space. We evidently have here two orders of reality, one an order of consciousness-of-objects, the other an order of objects-of-consciousness. The problem of psychogenesis is, to trace the origin and development of this consciousness-of-objects. ”

“ What is the spinning spider of the first human consciousness—or rather, where is the center at which this consciousness lies and spins? Since there must be a center of consciousness in the tiny fœtus, it must have been there from the very beginning. There it must have been, in the first fused nucleus of the ovule. And if we could but watch this prime nucleus, we should no doubt realize that throughout all the long and incalculable history of the individual it still remains central and prime, the source and clue of the living unconscious, the origin. ”

“ Karl Thurn to Professor Albrecht Aigen.
... I deplore your reaction. It has the emotional quality of a reaction to witchcraft or magic, but psi is not witchcraft. It is a natural force. No natural force is either nonexistent or irresistible. No natural force is invariably effective. Psi is not irresistible under all circumstances. It is not always effective. My rat cannot levitate cheese-crumbs weighing more than 1.7 grams. My she-dog could not make you give her dog-candy once you were on guard. ”

“ And in the whole crystalline hollow, gleaming and flowing with delight, yet waiting for more, the Psyche was the one only lonely life-bearing thing — the one cloudy germ-spot afloat in the bosom of the great roc-egg of sea and sky, whose sheltering nest was the universe with its walls of flame. ”

“ A physical phenomenon is defined as one common to many minds, while a psychic phenomenon is an object of an individual consciousness. I think that such a view of the external physical object, as that which is common to many minds in contrast to the psychic or that belonging to an individual mind only is incorrect from a purely psychological standpoint. Psychologically considered the characteristic trait of a physical object is not that it is common but that it is external. ”

“ It is easily seen that, in his opinion (1) the phenomena are positive facts; (2) that they are produced by an unknown substance, to which he gives the name psychode, a something that, by the hypothesis, exists in us and serves as the intermediary between the mind and the body, between the will and the organs, and can project itself beyond the limits of the body; (3) that the hypothesis of spirits is not absurd, and that there may exist in this world other wills than those of man and the animals, wills capable of acting on matter. ”

“ As for the remaining matter of your somewhat illegible letter, what is this mythological and poetical talk about psychology and Psyche and keeping back a manuscript composed during a honeymoon? The only Psyche now recognized by science is a decapitated frog whose writhings express deeper truths than your weakminded poets ever dreamed. She (not Psyche but the bride) loves all these doctrines which are quite novel to her mind, hitherto accustomed to all sorts of mysticism and superstitions. ”

“ But I, and all who adopt this theory of Psychic Force, as being the agent through which the phenomena are produced, do not thereby intend to assert that this Psychic Force may not be sometimes seized and directed by some other Intelligence than the Mind of the Psychic. The most ardent spiritualists practically admit the existence of Psychic Force under the very inappropriate name of Magnetism (to which it has no affinity whatever) , for they assert that the Spirits of the Dead can only do the acts attributed to them by using the Magnetism (that is, the Psychic Force) of the Medium. ”

“ Happy indeed are you, dear Psyche, and blissful in your ignorance. There you sit, unknowing of your own danger, but we who care for you so deeply are in despair at what threatens you. For we have discovered for a fact, nor can we longer conceal it from you, that your love, that secretly entwines you at night, is nothing but an evil serpent of base and venomous nature. Remember for a moment how the Pythian oracle said you were destined to wed a wild and fierce animal. ”

“ Overcome with surprise and admiration, Psyche stooped down to gaze more closely on his lovely features, when, from the lamp which she held in her trembling hand, there fell a drop of burning oil upon the shoulder of the sleeping god, who instantly awoke, and seeing Psyche standing over him with the instrument of death in her hand, sorrowfully reproached her for her treacherous designs, and, spreading out his wings, flew away. ”

“ For consciousness, which means to us a sensory organ for the reception of psychic qualities, may receive stimuli from two sources—first, from the periphery of the entire apparatus, viz. from the perception system, and, secondly, from the pleasure and pain stimuli, which constitute the sole psychic quality produced in the transformation of energy within the apparatus. All other processes in the Ψ-system, even those in the foreconscious, are devoid of any psychic quality, and are therefore not objects of consciousness inasmuch as they do not furnish pleasure or pain for perception. ”

“ Surely fear is instinctive and is a conscious element in an innate process; and so must be visual and other sensory images, as in the first peck of a chicken. To look upon the first visual image simply as conscious “experience,” as an “onlooker,” and reject it as a factor in the process which determines that first peck, seems to me to be arbitrary psychology if not physiology. If consciousness may be a quality of an innate process—and why not?—it cannot be a criterion of intelligence. The true converse of the conscious is the unconscious. ”

“ If Consciousness per se, or the Soul, is above all [19] direct proof at the present stage of human evolution, the vehicles through which it functions are more or less apparent to us provided they are capable of affecting the brain. At the present stage of human evolution, this is the case only with the astral body; the other bodies are too fine to manifest through the nervous system such characteristics as are calculated to furnish scientists with a proof of their existence; they can only be felt and proved in and by Yoga. ”

“ He considered that the whole hypothesis that an outer physical thing causes a change in one’s central nervous system, which again causes another change in one’s inner psychical system or soul, is a departure from the natural view of the universe, and is due to what he called “introjection,” or the hypothesis which encloses soul and its faculties in the body, and then, having created a false antithesis between outer and inner, gets into the difficulty of explaining how an outer physical stimulus can impart something into an inner psychical soul. ”

“ He says that no one will call the action of the spider instinctive in voiding the fluids from its glands when they are too full. Why not?
He is continually personifying instinct; thus he speaks of the “ends proposed to itself by the instinct,” of “the blind unconscious purpose of the instinct,” of “an unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird,” of “each variation and modification of the instinct,” as though instinct, purpose, and, later on, clairvoyance, were persons, and not words characterising a certain class of actions. ”

“ And just as there is thus a physical psychology, so [p.095] in like manner there is a psychological or epistemological physics, which in its turn is concerned with the indirections, or doors in the panelling, present in all the psychical sciences, for those very physical things quantity and matter. The devil will have his due; even an optimistic theology has to recognize him. And psychology has a sensuous self, the self of the purely sensuous consciousness, which has always involved it in a curious psychical atomism, a projection, in a word, of the physical on the plane of the psychical. ”

“ In advanced races, the astral body, being far more developed, brings about distinct consciousness during sleep. As man evolves, consciousness begins to function in the mental and the astral bodies, without the assistance of the vibrations of the lower vehicles, and when all the grades [238] of matter which compose the human constitution are thus vitalised, man has become perfect; he knows the Universe because he feels it within himself—he echoes it, so to speak, and possesses all its powers. ”

“ These facts have given us grounds for establishing a theory of psychism very closely akin to the teaching of the Occultists. It is that the mind-sphere or soul is divided into two hemispheres, one of which is on the level of normal consciousness and the other below it. The nous or mind is then seen to be 38energized from above by the pneuma through inspiration, and from below by the psyche through instinct. Intuition and instinct, or inspiration and passion, are thus at opposite poles of the mind-sphere, and appeal can be made to either by suggestion through the sphere of the mind. ”

“ Ward suggests, would be a more appropriate and colorless designation for the objects of psychological science. The psychologist deals with psychical events merely as such; the world of conscious states is the reality with which alone he is concerned, and each state of consciousness is a real fact in that world — a fact occurring at a definite time and in a definite set of connections with other psychical facts. The interconnections of this factual world, the laws of the happening of psychical events, are what the psychologist has to investigate. ”

“ It is the task of the epistemologist and metaphysician to inquire into the nature of that physical world whether it really exists independent of consciousness. Without, therefore, going into metaphysical considerations, I think it is best to define the physical phenomenon as the object or process conceived as being independent of consciousness, while the psychic object or process is one that is conceived as being directly dependent on consciousness. ”

“ The molecular action, being precedent to the symbol of itself, cannot be determined or controlled by that symbol—that state of consciousness—that mental part of the phenomena which we call volition. Therefore, if from a voluntary movement we strike out the only mental part—the volition—which, as we have seen, is not a factor, what is left is as purely organic, and hence as purely reflex or automatic, as the movements of a decapitated frog upon the application of an external irritant. ”

“ But this whole psychical world exists, with graduated stages perhaps as close to each other as [pg 154] in the physical world, but even less capable than these of being explained as having arisen out of their antecedent lower stages. And this psychical world, which is, indeed, related to and dependent upon the corporeal life, as also conversely, has its own quite peculiar laws: thought does not follow natural laws, but those of logic, which is entirely indifferent to exciting stimuli, for instance of the brain, which conform to natural laws. ”

“ But the two great laws—duality of mind and suggestion—clear away the greatest stumbling-block in the way of scientific investigation of this, the greatest problem of the ages. It is now no longer necessary to deny the phenomena, since they can all be accounted for on scientific principles, outside the domain of the supernatural. It is no longer necessary to consider the spiritual medium either a fool or an impostor, since the phenomena are genuine, and their explanation on scientific principles is impossible, except in the light of very recent discoveries in psychic science. ”

“ The mind is not in the brain, nor in fact is the mind anywhere in the universe of space; for psychosis is not at all a physical spatial process.
As fallacious and superstitious is the recent tendency of medical investigation to localize psychic processes, to place different psychic processes in different seats or localities of the brain, thus implying that each psychic process respectively is placed inside some cerebral centre or nerve cells. ”

“ On this new plane, the memory of the worlds left behind continues, though far less clearly than the memory of the physical existed in the astral world; this is owing to the fact that, in ordinary man, the mental body is not sufficiently developed to constitute a complete vehicle of consciousness, capable of registering all the vibrations that come to it; everything in the past that has been purely the work of the astral or the physical plane then disappears from his memory ”

“ The infinite and eternal power that animates the universe must be psychical in its nature, and any attempt to reduce it to mechanical force must end in absurdity. The only kind of monism which will stand the test of an ultimate analysis, says John Fiske is monotheism. The highest development of psychical life is the end for which the world exists. To the materialist the ultimate power is material power, and psychical life is nothing but fleeting colocations of natural elements in the shape of nervous systems. ”