Psychic power

“ However, no person of impure motives ever acquires a great degree of psychic power, and a pure heart and mind is an invulnerable shield against improper psychic power. Keep yourself pure and nothing can hurt you. ”

“ If, therefore, there exists in man a power which, in obedience to the suggestion of another, is capable of producing abnormal conditions in defiance of the natural instincts and desires of all animal creation, how much more potent must be a suggestion which operates in harmony with the natural instinctive desire of the patient for the restoration of normal conditions, and with the constant effort of nature to bring about that result! ”

“ All our powers of inductive reasoning are strained to their highest tension in an effort to penetrate the secrets of physical Nature, and to harness her dynamic forces. Meantime, the normal exercise of that co-ordinate power in our mental structure is fast falling into desuetude, and its [Pg 54] manifestations, not being understood, are relegated to the domain of superstition. ”

“ It has been demonstrated that there is a psychic power inherent in man which can be employed for the amelioration of his own physical condition, as well as that of his fellows. When this is said, nearly all the ground covered by present knowledge has been embraced. It is true that many wonderful cures have been effected, many marvellous phenomena developed. ”

“ The fact that a spirit, possessing sufficient power to move a table, raise a piano to the ceiling, or levitate the medium, should be paralyzed in presence of one who does not believe in spirits, is simply inexplicable, except upon the one hypothesis, namely, that the power evoked is that of the subjective mind of the medium, which is amenable to control by the mysterious power of suggestion. ”

“ That they are aware that the power which controls the medium emanates from himself, is demonstrative of their advancement in practical knowledge of the subject. But that they are reliable guides to the safe exercise of subjective power has not been demonstrated. It is certain that they are yet ignorant of the fundamental principles which underlie the science of the soul, for they have yet to learn the law of suggestion, and to appreciate the subtle rôle which that power plays in every psychic phenomenon. ”

“ The ability to influence others is a sure sign of the possession of this psychic power. The Three Underlying Principles of Psychic Influence. The importance of strong desire to influence and exert power. The importance of clear, positive mental pictures of what effect you wish to produce. The importance of the firm concentration of your mind on the subject. The creation of a positive psychic atmosphere. The Positive Psychic Aura. How to project your Psychic Power. ”

“ Every one who has examined at all seriously into psychic conditions knows this to be a fact, more or less marked, according to the psychic development. In many instances, the psychic is more keenly and selfishly aware of his own pain than of any other person's; but that is when the development, marked perhaps so far as it has gone, only reaches a certain point. It is the power which carries the man to the margin of that consciousness which is profound peace and vital activity. ”

“ And further, psychology suggested to us, even in its tentative new findings, its exploration of our strange mental deeps, reason for holding such surrender to the purposes of the Spirit to represent the condition of man's fullest psychic health, and access to his real sources of power. ”

“ It will readily be seen that if those three propositions can be established, all the physical phenomena of spiritism can be accounted for on the ground that living man possesses inherently the power to produce them. ”

“ There can be but two hypotheses for the phenomena— (1) The intelligence exhibited by the medium is “ultra-mundane,” in other words, is the effect of spirit control, or, (2) it is the result of the conscious or unconscious exercise of psychic powers on the part of the medium. ”

“ As his innate psychic powers unfold and develop he will be almost instinctively led in the particular directions in which these powers may find the opportunity for the best form of expression and manifestation. ”

“ There remain, then, the numerous efforts that see in the world the expression of psychical powers as such, not mere mind-stuff atoms, but organized wholes, related in nature to what we know by internal experience as mind, yet higher or lower, subtler or mightier, wiser or more foolish, than the human intelligence. These views may be divided into two classes: those that see in nature the manifestations of a logical or intelligent power, and those that see in it the manifestations of an alogical or blind, though still psychical power. ”

“ The Extension of this Theory into the Life Beyond.—This theory, without calling to its aid spiritual beings, marks out the laws by which such beings may control the sensitive and become cognizant of the thoughts of each other. Man being a spirit, limited by a physical body, through the sensitive state, under certain conditions, he breaks away from his limitations and feels the waves of thought created by others through the psychic-ether. ”

“ Such cases as the above are the most difficult of all to prove. What I contend for is, if it is demonstrated we can control a fellow-being, throw him or her into a trance state—in which the phenomena of the psychic state are evolved—and seeing such state is induced largely by the control of spirit over spirit in the body, why may not a disembodied spirit control, direct, or influence a suitable sensitive or medium in the body? If not, why not? There is abundant evidence of such controls. ”

“ It must not be forgotten in this connection that the subjective mind is the soul, or spirit, and is itself an organized entity, possessing independent powers and functions; while the objective mind is merely the function of the physical brain, and possesses no powers whatever independently of the physical organization. The one possesses dynamic force independently of the body ”

“ No material agent could thus turn round and grasp itself—material activities always grasp something else than the agent. And if a brain could grasp itself and be self-conscious, it would be conscious of itself as a brain and not as something of an altogether different kind. The Soul then exists as a simple spiritual substance in which the various psychic faculties, operations, and affections inhere. ”

“ Thought moreover is simple, whilst the activities of the brain are compounded of the elementary activities of each of its parts. Furthermore, thought is spontaneous or free, whilst all material activity is determined ab extra; and the will can turn itself against all corporeal goods and appetites, which would be impossible were it a corporeal function. For these objective reasons the principle of psychic life must be both immaterial and simple as well as substantial, must be what is called a Soul. ”

“ All such conceptions of spiritual life must be relegated to the dark ages of human intelligence, when man was able to conceive of no joy apart from physical pleasure, and no punishment other than physical suffering. Our conceptions must, therefore, be limited by what we know of the nature and attributes of the soul, as exhibited through phenomena. The first question, then, is, What do we know of the attributes of the soul? ”

“ There is a distinct difference between the truly spiritual and what may be termed the psychic: there are hidden powers and latent possibilities which the specially sensitive are beginning to unfold. But the danger is exactly on a par with that which up-to-date chemists and scientists foresee in the physical world. ”

“ So that the powerful subjectivity of the unconscious, where the self is all-in-all unto itself, active in strong desirous psychic assimilation or in direct repudiation of the contiguous universe; this first plane of psychic activity, polarized in the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion of each individual but established in a circuit with the corresponding poles of another individual: this is the first scope of life and being for every human individual, and is beyond question. ”

“ All sight, all hearing, all function is in this psychic body, not in the physical one. What many of the psychologists call the subconscious mind is only the registered intelligence of the psychic self. This psychic self is in direct communication with the cosmic self and with the physical self, and it is through this we become cosmic in our human consciousness. ”

“ From the roughest to the finest, from matter to spirit, from hypnosis to the psychic state, we find enough to arrest attention and give a high degree of seriousness and earnestness to our investigation. We stand on the threshold of soul, and the place where we stand is holy ground. We find, as is the physical, mental, and spiritual characteristics of the operator, plus those of the sensitive or sensitives, so will be the nature of the phenomena evolved. ”

“ It arose from that mysterious force which acts upon the human personality and its faculties and produces supernatural results in contradiction to well known scientific laws, known in one sense as Psychic Force, but which is nothing else than modern spiritualism. ”

“ Thus, every element of humanity has a triple representation—that in the soul, which is purely psychic, yet by its influence becomes physiological in the body; that in the body which is purely physiological, yet by its influence becomes psychic in the soul, and that in the brain which produces physiological effects in the body, and psychic effects in the soul. ”

“ That ideas and feelings, thus indirectly and mechanically transmitted or stored, can affect the sensitive soul in unmistakable fashion, is a fact of experience; but that deposits in matter are competent to produce so purely psychic an effect can surely only be explained in terms of the potentialities and previous experience of the mind or soul itself. No emotional influence can be expressed, or rendered intelligible, in terms of matter. Matter is an indirect medium of communication between mind and mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I should be the last to allow the study of psychism to usurp the legitimate place in life of intellectual and spiritual pursuits, and I look with abhorrence upon the flippant use made of the psychic faculties by a certain class of pseudo-occultists who serve up this kind of thing with their five o'clock tea. But I regard an ordered psychism as a most valuable accessory to intellectual and spiritual development and as filling a natural place in the process of unfoldment between that intellectualism that is grounded in the senses and that higher intelligence which receives its light from within. ”

“ That telepathy can and ought to be henceforth considered by Science as an incontestable reality; that minds are able to act upon each other without the intervention of the senses; that psychic force exists, though its nature is yet unknown. * * * We say that this force is of a psychic order, and not physical, or physiological, or chemical, or mechanical, because it produces and transmits ideas and thoughts, and because it manifests itself without the co-operation of our senses, soul to soul, mind to mind. ”

“ The examination of the mental characteristics of the intelligence which controls the different manifestations is our only purpose, and we have shown that the same laws prevail in all. It is believed that enough has been said to enable the conscientious investigator, who wishes to test the correctness of our hypothesis, to apply its fundamental propositions to all psychic phenomena. ”

“ There is another psychic phenomenon which deserves a passing notice at our hands, not only because it is governed by the same laws which have been discussed, but because it is a matter of transcendent practical interest and importance. ”

“ Consciousness and Will, enter into all psychological phenomena such as Hypnotism and Mediumship, and into every form of mental alienation, insanity, obsession and the like.
Moreover, by building out of mental phenomena a distinct entity—largely independent of the self-conscious Intelligence, and almost equally so with consciousness—our “philosophies,” “metaphysics,” and explanations have become as confused and unreliable as the psychical phenomenon itself. ”

“ Education can never 86become a serious science until the human psyche is properly understood. And the human psyche cannot begin to be understood until we enter the dark continent of the unconscious. Having begun to explore the unconscious, we find we must go from center to center, chakra to chakra, to use an old esoteric word. We must patiently determine the psychic manifestation at each center, and moreover, as we go, we must discover the psychic results of the interaction, the polarized interaction between the dynamic centers both within and without the individual. ”

“ There38 is, indeed, no validity in the claim of some recent psychologists that the term must be abandoned on the ground that psychology discovers only mental acts, without a psychic subject with distinct faculties back of the acts. Yet the term faculty has often been used and understood in a way inconsistent with the essential and conscious unity of the personal ego or self, making the soul seem a bundle of independent and separately acting parts of a psychical organism. ”