THINKING AND DESTINY

Harold W. Percival

CHAPTER VI

PSYCHIC DESTINY

Section 7

Clairvoyance. Psychic powers.

Clairvoyance, which is desired by some, is usually an abnormal development. Such development at present is like gigantism, a disease where one part of the body grows to enormous size while the other parts remain normal. Where one develops clairvoyance only, the sense of sight functions astrally or on the form plane while the other senses do not. Inasmuch as such a clairvoyant has not the companion senses to balance it, or the psychic power so trained as to work it, or the knowledge to judge concerning his experience, he is deluded and confused. This is the form destiny attendant on premature development of the astral or radiant aspect of the senses, organs and nerves of the body so as to see or hear that which is concealed.

“Astral senses” are usually used to astonish the credulous and to satisfy the curiosity of the skeptics, or to feed the psychic hunger of the spook seeker, or to gratify those who want to have “spiritual husbands” or “spiritual wives,” or to make money.

The term “astral senses” is not accurate. There are no astral senses any more than there are physical senses. The term is used for brevity to indicate the functioning in any state other than the solid-solid state, of the same elementals that work as the four senses in seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and contacting. Astral vision of a future event, for example, refers to the functioning of the same elemental, in radiant matter on the physical or any other plane, which works as the sense of sight in looking at a ball game, in solid-solid matter. To see a thing astrally means in common speech to see the thing in a state of matter or on a plane other than the solid-solid. There are on the physical plane three other states and on the form plane four states. Beyond these even the best clairvoyant cannot go.

The sense of sight is a fire elemental of the light world, the sense of hearing an air elemental of the life world, the sense of taste a water elemental of the form world and the sense of smell an earth elemental of the physical world. While these elementals are in a body they function on the physical plane and there only in the solid state and not in their own worlds. Only things in the solid state can be seen, heard, tasted, smelled and contacted.

The things which they perceive they transmit through the finer physical bodies or masses to the breath-form. When the sense of sight perceives a thing it can perceive it in two ways, negatively or positively, depending on the attitude of the human. When one is negative, his sense of sight merely receives the impressions which come in a fourfold stream of fine matter emitted by the objects seen. When he is positive and bent on making an observation, his sense of sight sends something of its own nature of fire out to meet the stream of matter coming from the objects seen. The sense of sight usually does this sending out for a distance of from three inches to three feet. In both cases, that of the negative and of the positive perception, the sense of sight aligns the particles of matter and transmits its alignment, as a point, to the breath-form as a perception.

There are limits to this functioning of the sense of sight. It can see only things outside the body. It can see only in a curve called a straight line. It can see only matter in the solid state. Matter in the radiant, in the airy and in the fluid states of the physical plane is not visible. Seeing at a distance is limited by the size of the object and by the nature of the intervening matter. Things which are too small cannot be seen. Another limitation is that the sense cannot perceive unless there is sufficient light, that is, light of the kind that can be seen by. Nor can it see colors beyond a limited range. It cannot see through opaque matter. It can see only surfaces and not the interior of things. Such are some of its limitations. It is true of all the four senses that the range of their functioning is very limited.

The limitations are not inherent in the senses, but are due to the organs and nerves through which they have to work. The functioning of the senses is intimately related to the universe in which man is, that is, the universe which his senses show him, the universe as it appears. Little of the universe stands out before his senses, and that little the senses report as the whole. Only a small part is open to view, to hearing, to taste, and to contact by smell; the greater part is imperceptible and therefore concealed from the senses and not reported by them. The senses are deceived by appearances and report things as they are not, because they perceive them not as they are but subject to their own limitations. Man accepts the testimony which comes through the senses because he has no other witnesses to what exists outside of him. He believes his senses. The further result is that he is ignorant of what the senses do not bring in. This ignorance causes misconceptions of the universe in which he lives. He does not see it as it really is, as a huge being, made up of four states of matter which are in constant flux, change and transformation, inside and outside the shell that he now beholds.

The perception of the senses would be different if the finer physical bodies or masses were built up, if the sense organs and nerves were more sensitive and could be better focused and if the nervous systems were less dull, heavy and choked up. Then perceptions by the senses would not be limited as they are. Vision, for instance, could be focused to see inside the body and to see the very eye itself; to see not only some of the matter, but to see the flow of all of the matter in the four states of the physical plane; to see any object irrespective of distance and of intervening solid matter; to see things so small as to be imperceptible through any microscope; to see in the absence of ordinary light; to see colors other than those now visible; to see not only surfaces but to see between and inside and through surfaces. The eye is now normally focused to see by sunlight, and by the other kinds of light, like candle and electric light, in which sunlight is stored. Sunlight is matter in the airy state or dominated by matter in the airy state. When the eye can be focused so as to see by radiant matter, which is also physical, it can see without sunlight and can see between and through the surfaces of solid objects. Such vision is as physical as seeing by sunlight, but it is called astral vision or clairvoyance, though the things seen are physical.

True astral vision or clairvoyance is the clear seeing of things that are on the astral-form plane, that is, in the radiant or astral state of matter on the form plane of the physical world. These are not things of the physical plane. The physical things are seen, but in another medium, and so they appear different, as a man in the water appears different from the same man on land. If things are seen in the present or in the past by contacting an object, as in psychometry, the vision may be either astral-physical or on the astral-form plane of the physical world. The vision is on the astral-form plane if things are seen which will happen in the future. Such things are on the form plane and have not yet come to the physical plane for exteriorization. True seeing in the astral state of matter on the form plane is done by the same sense of sight which sees physically through the eye. When it sees on the form plane it does not necessarily use the organism of the eye. It can perceive directly without the use of the organ, as it does in deep sleep, in dreams, or after death when it beholds the scenes of the life that has passed.

Usually no distinction is made between the clairvoyance which is astral-physical and that which is on the astral-form plane. The term clairvoyance is generally used to cover the seeing of things which are ordinarily not visible to the naked eye in the waking state.

Some persons have the gift of clairvoyance from birth, others acquire it through certain practices, others through diseases, and others are clairvoyant when they are in trance states into which they go or into which they have been put. Then they see, hear, taste, and smell things concealed from the average man. Those who are natural clairvoyants should not practice their gifts for amusement or money. Those who have not the gift should not attempt to develop it prematurely.

Until a man knows something definite about the properties of the doer, of the breath-form, of the astral and the other inner bodies and of the four senses, the development of the sense organs and of the nervous systems, so as to let the senses see, hear, taste, smell and contact that which to the ordinary man is concealed, will bring confusion and may bring injury. It is fortunate that people have not developed their organs and nerves so as to use their senses astrally, else they would in their present state, become the prey of irresponsible or inimical beings and would be in greater troubles than they are in now.

When a man rules his feelings and desires, his voluntary nervous system comes under his control and changes go on in his fourfold physical body. Among these changes are that the nerves of the sense organs are cleansed, strengthened and keyed up to impressions of finer and finer matter. These nerves belong to the involuntary nervous system. This system becomes less dull, heavy and choked up as the voluntary nervous system comes under control.

As the nerves in the sense organs become keyed up to matter that is finer than the matter ordinarily perceived, the senses perceive matter within the matter which they have so far perceived and which was their limitation. The gross matter is then no obstruction. On the physical plane, things unsuspected will come within the ken of man as he perceives new dimensions of physical matter and is no longer limited by the on-ness or surface matter spoken of as length, breadth and thickness. That one may then see solid objects and within the solid matter finer matter that is circulating through it; he can watch the sap flowing through plants, the digestion of food and the circulation in his own body and in other bodies, the currents of the breath going through the body and its physical atmosphere, the currents in the air and in the water. Distance will not interfere with sight. He may see through the crust of the earth into the interior. Then the shape of the earth crust will not be that of a globe or of a plane. He will see the sun and moon through the earth crust as he now sees them above it. He will see the planets working through the earth as he now sees them cycling around the sun. He will see the stars not as millions of miles away and of fantastic size but as they are and connected with the nerves of human bodies.

Then he will hear what he sees in plants and in human and animal bodies, the circulation of sap and blood and nervous fluid. He will hear finer matter flowing through the coarser matter that forms solid objects. He will hear the sound made by the earth and other celestial bodies as they move in their courses. He will so see and hear by focusing his sight and hearing on the objects and their movements. Sight and hearing work together; so do taste and smell. Without physical contact he will sense the properties of any thing as being palatable, poisonous, fragrant, friendly or inimical. All this can be done by the four senses acting as reporters, on the physical plane. No exercise of psychic power should be required.

The senses can be used as instruments and agents for the exercise of psychic powers in the control of physical matter. One could act upon radiant matter through his sense of sight, and so cause lightning, or might set fire to anything, or break up solid objects by dispersing the causal elementals in them. With the air elemental that is his hearing, he may, if the organ and nerves are attuned, create sounds in the world outside and can shake and vibrate things to destruction by disorganizing their portal elementals, so that they break up the cohesive power of the form elementals that hold the particles together. He may contact the sun or the moon as he may now touch a boulder.

While man is unable to govern his appetites and restrain his feelings and desires and he has not his voluntary nervous system under his control, it is well that he has not organs and nerves that would enable him to let his senses deal with the finer matter on the physical plane, as each organ so developed would be like a road left open for forces to sweep through and wreck his body.