The first step in Occultism is the study of the invisible Worlds. These Worlds are invisible to the majority of people because of the dormancy of the finer and higher senses whereby they may be perceived, in the same way that the Physical World about us is perceived through the physical senses. The majority of people are on a similar footing in regard to the super-physical Worlds as the man who is born blind is to our world of sense; although light and color are all about him, he is unable to see them. To him they are non-existent and incomprehensible, simply because he lacks the sense of sight wherewith to perceive them. Objects he can feel; they seem real; but light and color are beyond his ken.
So with the greater part of humanity. They feel, and see objects and hear sounds in the Physical World, but the other realms, which the clairvoyant calls the higher Worlds, are as incomprehensible to them as light and color are to the blind man. Because the blind man cannot see color and light, however, is no argument against their existence and reality. Neither is it an argument, that because most people cannot see the super-physical Worlds no one can do so. If the blind man obtains his sight, he will see light and color. If the higher senses of those blind to the super-physical Worlds are awakened by proper methods, they also will be able to behold the Worlds which are now hidden from them.
While many people make the mistake of being incredulous concerning the existence or reality of the super-sensuous Worlds, there are also many who go to the other extreme, and, having become convinced of the verity of invisible Worlds, think that when a person is clairvoyant all truth is at once open to him; that when one can "see," he at once "knows all about" these higher Worlds.
This is a great mistake. We readily recognize the fallacy of such a contention in matters of everyday life. We do not think that a man who was born blind, but has obtained his sight, at once "knows all about" the Physical World. Nay, more; we know that even those of us who have been able to see the things about us all our lives are far from having a universal knowledge of them. We know that it requires arduous study and years of application to know about even that infinitesimal part of things that we handle in our daily lives, and reversing the Hermetic aphorism, "as above, so below," we gather at once that it must be the same in the other Worlds. At the same time it is also true that there are much greater facilities for acquiring knowledge in the super-physical Worlds than in our present dense physical condition, but not so great as to eliminate the necessity for close study and the possibility of making a mistake in observation. In fact, all the testimony of reliable and qualified observers prove that much more care in observation is needed there than here.
Clairvoyants must first be trained before their observations are of any real value, and the more proficient they become the more modest they are about telling of what they see; the more they defer to the versions of others, knowing how much there is to learn and realizing how little the single investigator can grasp of all the detail incident to his investigations.
This also accounts for the varied versions, which superficial people think are an argument against the existence of the higher Worlds. They contend that if these Worlds exist, investigators must necessarily bring back identical descriptions. If we take an illustration from everyday life, the fallacy of this becomes apparent.
Suppose a newspaper sends twenty reporters to a city with orders to "write it up." Reporters are, or ought to be, trained observers. It is their business to see everything and they should be able to give as good descriptions as can be expected from any source. Yet it is certain that of the twenty reports, no two would be exactly alike. It is much more likely that they would be totally different. Although some of them might contain leading features in common, others might be unique in quality and quantity of description.
Is it an argument against the existence of the city that these reports differ? Certainly not! It is easily accounted for by the fact that each saw the city from his own particular point of view and instead of these varying reports being confusing and detrimental, it is safe to say that a perusal of them all would give a fuller, better understanding and description of the city than if only one were read and the others were thrown in the wastebasket. Each report would round out and complement the others.
The same is true regarding accounts made by investigators of the higher Worlds. Each has his own peculiar way of looking at things and can describe only what he sees from his particular point of view. The account he gives may differ from those of others, yet all be equally truthful from each individual observer's viewpoint.
It is sometimes asked, Why investigate these Worlds? Why is it not best to take one World at a time; to be content for the present time with the lessons to be learned in the Physical World, and, if there are invisible Worlds why not wait until we reach them before investigating? "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof!" Why borrow more?
If we knew without doubt that at some time, sooner or later, each one of us must be transported to a far country where, under new and strange conditions, we must live for many years, is it not reasonable to believe that if we had an opportunity to learn of that country in advance of our removal to it we would gladly do so? Knowledge would render it much easier for us to accommodate ourselves to new conditions.
There is only one certainty in life and that is - Death! As we pass into the beyond and are confronted by new conditions, knowledge of them is sure to be of the greatest help.
But that is not all. To understand the Physical World, which is the world of effects, it is necessary to understand the super-physical World, which is the world of causes. We see street cars in motion and we hear the clicking of telegraph instruments, but the mysterious force which causes phenomena remains invisible to us. We say it is electricity, but the name gives us no explanation. We learn nothing of the force itself; we see and hear only its effects.
If a dish of cold water be placed in an atmosphere of a sufficiently low temperature ice crystals immediately begin to form and we can see the process of their formation. The lines along which the water crystallizes were in it all the time as lines of force but they were invisible until the water congealed. The beautiful "frost flowers" on a windowpane are visible manifestations of currents of the higher Worlds which operate upon us all the time, unrecognized by most of us, but none the less potent.
The higher Worlds are thus the worlds of causes, of forces; and we cannot really understand this lower World unless we know the others and realize the forces and causes of which all material things are but the effects.
As to the reality of these higher Worlds compared with that of the Physical World, strange as it may seem, these higher Worlds, which to the majority appear as mirages, or even less substantial, are, in truth, much more real and the objects in them more lasting and indestructible than the objects in the Physical World. If we take an example we shall readily see this. An architect does not start to build a house by procuring the material and setting the workmen to laying stone upon stone in a haphazard way, without thought or plan. He "thinks the house out." Gradually it takes form in his mind and finally there stands a clear idea of the house that is to be - a thought-form of a house.
This house is yet invisible to all but the architect. He makes it objective on paper. He draws the plans and from this objective image of the thought-form the workmen construct the house of wood, iron, or stone, accurately corresponding to the thought-form originated by the architect.
Thus the thought-form becomes a material reality. The materialist would assert that it is much more real, lasting and substantial than the image in the architect's mind. But let us see. The house could not have been constructed without the thought-form. The material object can be destroyed by dynamite, earthquake, fire, or decay, but the thought-form will remain. It will exist as long as the architect lives and from it any number of houses similar to the one destroyed may be constructed. Not even the architect himself can destroy it. Even after his death this thought-form can be recovered by those who are qualified to read the memory of nature, which will be dealt with later.
Having thus seen the reasonableness of such Worlds existing around and about us, and having satisfied ourselves of their reality, their permanency, and of the utility of a knowledge concerning them, we shall now examine them severally and singly, commencing with the Physical World...
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11-05-07 - On The Nature of Things
10-28-07 - Strings on the Winds
10-21-07 - Heaven & Hell - Chapter 57
10-14-07 - The Most Holy Trinosophia
10-08-07 - Breaking the Authority of the Bastard Curse
09-30-07 - Silent Teachings and Sat-sang
09-24-07 - The Right to Ignore the State
09-16-07 - Edgar Cayce Akashic Records
09-03-07 - Life and Teachings of Hermes Trismegistus
08-26-07 - Science Fiction, Wars & a Meaning to Life
08-19-07 - Plato's Science of Maieutic Psychagogy
08-12-07 - The Lightning and the Sun
08-05-07 - The Uses of Disaster:...
07-30-07 - Those loving bonobos...
07-22-07 - The Days of Noah
07-15-07 - Terror Attacks & Protecting Infrastructure
07-08-07 - Science the Destroyer
07-01-07 - Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion
06-24-07 - Nihilism: The Question of Truth
06-17-07 - Earthly Lesson of Jesus' Crucifixion
06-10-07 - Lyrics: Shrunken Heads
06-03-07 - Eugene Debs 1918 Anti-war speech
05-28-07 - Freedom from Experiences
02-10-07 - Arcana Coelestia n. 9407
02-04-07 - The Crowd, by Gustave le Bon
01-27-07 - War of Assumption
01-21-07 - New Types of Weapons
01-14-07 - Chaos and Terror
01-09-07 - Helen Keller as Mystic