Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00396)

> Jerry S> Each and every one of
>> us is continuously being bombarded by the thoughts of others.
>> The surface of our aura serves as a screen or filter, so that
>> only a select number of these come through into our personal
>> unconscious, and then only a very few of these ever pop into
>> consciousness.

Alan B> Interesting that you seem to see this as a physical or
> semi-physical process.  Come back phlogiston, all is forgiven!
> Maybe it is.  What, in the above scenario, is the selecting or
> filter-operating mechanism?  I suspect that we receive the lot,
> and that the only filtering may be within ourselves [wherever
> that is] in order to be able to handle it.  Must be a mighty
> powerful filter, though.

Alan's sentence "I suspect that we ....  " seems to be pretty
much the same kind of picture as Jerry's.

>From one point of view, it might take a particularly "powerful"
or dense filter to do this, but another view is that a simple
mechanism of consciousness automatically filters out more than a
complex one.  Evolution of more complex vehicles of consciousness
allows more subtlety of response.

As for where the filter is, there is a concept of a film of
etheric atomic matter in our aura which stops many astral
impressions from getting through into physical consciousness.  I
don't know where this idea first pops up in modern theosophy -
perhaps somebody else will know.

I do know that Geoffrey Hodson used to do repair work on the
auras of people who had "torn" or "punctured" them in damaging
experiences with drugs or mediumship.  I think this kind of
healing was a multi-level thing, though; not purely etheric.
This work took a great deal of time and energy, and he had to
reluctantly let much of it go in later life, which was sad,
because there are always people in dire situations this way.
Uncontrollable and distressing voices, visions, obsession etc.

Part of the problem was that you could repair an aura this way,
but it could be fairly readily damaged again.  Not much use
repairing the paint on the car if the driver doesn't know how, or
want, to steer clear of walls.  Hence the need for multi-level,
whole-person healing and change.

I understand the chakras are intimately involved in this kind of
filtering, damage and repair, as well.

I keep being confronted with the existence, and *need* even, for
multiple metaphors for these kinds of things.  I've been using
fairly mechanistic, and structural language above, for
experiences that are difficult to capture in any kind of
language.

We not only need to *tolerate* different world-views or forms of
expression; we need to be able to *appreciate* more than one,
because no single one says it all.

Murray Stentiford