Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00032)

Re: Patrick's post about psychic powers.

I must agree with a couple of different things.
First, I like what P said about children being born with them. I guess I
believe that there is some sort of change going on - and that the number of
children being born with psychic "powers" is increasing. Whether this is
merely absolute (the percentage of the population remaining constant, but the
number increasing because of our rapidly growing population), or is a sign of
something (e.g., the postulated incarnation of increasing numbers of the 6th
sub-race) that is increasing the number per hundred born with such abilities -
well, point is, I (quite subjectively) seem to be running into an growing
number of children to whom what would have been called psychic "powers" are
simply natural, inborn senses. Additionally, perhaps because of what is often
spoken of (sometimes with a demeaning attitude) as "New Age philosophies, there
seem to be growing numbers of parents who do not simply write their children's
abilities off as "fantasy", but who are willing to at least consider that what
their children are seeing may be something more than simply imagination.

In the era in which HPB & etc. wrote, such abilities may have been "natural" to
a much smaller number - and there may have been a good number of adults who
were not born with such things attempting to force them into development
through somewhat unnatural means, and perhaps this is the reason for the early
Society's injunctions against fooling with this stuff.

I guess I believe that this ought to be completely re-thought, and updated to
more effectively serve a very different world. I was, near as I can tell, born
"clairvoyant" - meaning simply that there's a sort of place in my head that
sees things (makes no difference whether the physical eyes are open or not). I
remember being quite young and playing with these little flitting things that
would sort of make little bubbles and balls of light and pop them at me - and I
would try to catch them. In retrospect, my parents probably just thought I was
waving my arms around and giggling - but at the time, *I just assumed everyone
saw what I was seeing* - it was not a "psychic power" or some bizarre thing
that required whispers and ominous warnings - but just a sense organ no better
or worse than other sense organs. By the time I was six or seven, the ability
was mostly gone (though in my worldview, I would be more inclined to say that
the "sense closed"). This was very likely because I (as is the case with almost
all children) had a deep desire to form the world that is validated by the
surrounding human family - and it was just must easier to live in the "human"
world with the band of reality revealed by that particular sense chopped off.

In my late teens and early twenties, as I was experimenting (somewhat
idiotically) with a hodgepodge of spiritual practices, the sense began opening
again (or perhaps I simply became open to acknowledging it again). Within
several years I had met "angels" (which I'll write something about to the list
this weekend) & had determined that the "sense" required a good deal of
discipline to be able to use in any meaningful way, and even further, that a
very distinct moral code would need to be developed surrounding its use.

All this happened before I stumbled across Theosophy - and when I first started
going to meetings and reading some of the books, I thought oh good, somebody is
actually talking about this stuff - I don't have to keep my mouth shut (I
learned early on that people's reaction to even mentioning what I saw was
mostly unpleasent). I soon, of course, got in trouble. First, I heard all sorts
of attitudes like "oh that is lower psychism and you must avoid the use of it
because it will stop your spiritual growth"; and "the development of that
`ability' is frowned upon"; and "that is the road of delusion and the path
requires that such things be transcended"; ...along with a bit of suspicion that
I had purposely done something spiritually "illegal". These *all* seemed like
*really* bizzare attitudes - its hard to explain, but it was as though
something I had considered somewhat neutrally ... it was, in the end, just
another _sense_, and to me no more or less important than any other (imagine
how puzzled you would be if people began waving cautionary fingers and speaking
in dark tones simply because you could *smell* dinner cooking in the kitchen
(-:)... was suddenly being contextualized as a "power" and being invested with
all sorts of earth-shaking "spiritual" ramifications.

Things, of course, got much worse when I made the mistake of questioning some
of the Theosophical giants - though I very much appreciate CWL's devotion to
*service* (a trait that, to me, excuses a host of flaws), when I read his books
and (especially) looked at the pictures of what the inner worlds alledgedly
looked like - all I could do was protest "no it *doesn't* look like that" -
CWL's view of the inner world seemed to me (not philosophically, mind you, but
simply in terms of what I was seeing) to be oddly distorted - like someone had
given the innerland to a group of systems analysts and efficiency experts and
said "make it neat". [Liesel - dear friend, understand this is *not* an attack
on CWL - whose life I do admire, and whose total committment to service seems
to me to greatly surpass that of most of his detractors - but is simply the
result of looking at what he saw and just not being able to see it myself].

Hodson, who I also admire, and who I began to read ravenously once I heard he
fooled with "angels" (though I wasn't yet conceptualizing the beings I
experimented with in those terms) - also seemed badly distorted once I saw a
bunch of his drawings of "angels" that actually seemed to have human *faces*
.. and read a comment that implied that while angeels obviously didn't need
such things, they often sort of "mimicked" the appearence of humans because the
human kingdom was considered such an achievement of planetary evolution (or
something like that) --- which to me seemed like a wildly anthropomorphic
concept (and, by the by, provoked massive (and quite beautiful) explosions of
the angelic analog of laughter when I tried to convey this concept to a group
of them (-:).

I was young, and quite naive about human emotions when this was happening, and
when I began giving my opinion of this stuff in TS meetings ... the reaction
was not good. I did not realize that several of the older members were used to
being the "teachers" in the group, and could hold forth at great length about
the complexities of the inner worlds - because they had read so many of the
*books* - and were quite used to positions of honor because of their knowledge
of the inner worlds - and were not at all happy that someone was not only
speaking in meetings at the level of experience rather than theory, but was
disagreeing (often, gulp, in a terribly undiplomatic way) with the theory. In
my own mind, at the time, it seemed kind of nasty that apparently it was only
ok to talk about this stuff if you were 1) Dead, or 2) Were alive, but were
taught by those who were dead (it apparently *was* ok, for instance, for Dora
Kunz to be acknowledged as "gifted" instead of "deluded by lower psychism").

Point is, I guess, that there is a curious paradox that has developed over the
years of Theosophy - on the one hand, the 3rd Object would seem to make it a
natural place for the study of some abilities that may be moving *quite
naturally* from latency to potency in a growing number of humans ... which
humans are often quite puzzled and who might very greatly appreciate a place
that not only acknowledges what they have, but helps them to learn how to think
about their abilities, to wrestle with all sorts of ramifications that come
from such abilities (e.g., virtually all philsophical systems of ethics
*assume* humans are very limited in perceptual abilities - entirely new ethical
foundations must be built if, for instance, people's thoughts are no longer
invisible ...) etc., etc. - while on the other hand, there is huge and old pile
of (IMO) philosophical baggage surrounding the possession of any such
abilities.
Theosophy *could* become a place (and there are really very few places that
might even potentially serve this purpose) where such abilities might be
studied, refined, clarified, and integrated into a service-oriented worldview.
Perhaps even where modern science is also used ...

[As a for instance, it long puzzled developmental biologists that
something as massively complex as the human brain - a thing requiring literally
millions of connections to be made, and to be made precisely - could develop
from the DNA code with so few flaws in most cases. What has recently been
discovered by neurophysiologists and other clinical researchers is that this is
achieved through *programmed atrophy* - the brain of a child actually has far
*more* connections than that of an adult ... the nerve systems that allow the
impulses from the eye (for instance) to be received and prosessed into
meaningful information by the brain are, in a small child, present in a number
of different forms with many duplications ... and in the first few months, the
set of nerves that is the best, that carries the signals most effectively,
becomes "burned in", and the others atrophy and die - i.e., evolution has built
an *immense* fail-safe system into human natal development ...

... what if, for instance, there were all sorts of *other* senses that
we are potentially wired for, but that fall off during those first few months
.. that, in short, the presence of "abilities" does not come about because of
something *added* to the normal human brain, but is rather the result of
something that, for some reason in some people, is not genetically supressed?
Might it not be possible, a few years from now, for Theosophy to be one of
those rare places that begins to understand the foundations of senses that are
starting to appear in growing numbers? Imagine a place where children might
come to learn to control and refine their abilities - and where adults might
even volunteer to be studied using some of the newest medical technology (MRI's
& etc.) to determine whether there are differences in brain function in those
possessing some of these new senses .... just speculatin' here, but would not
such a picture be *fully* in line with our Objects? Would it not also
(possibly) provide a great service to a growing group of people who really are
struggling to understand themselves - and often feel terribly alienated in this
present culture?

Thing is, there is not even a glimmer of a chance of realizing this possibility
so long as some of the attitudes towards such abilities still present in
Theosophical circles (and mostly formed and propagated by those who do *not*
have such senses open, and have not had to wrestle with all the ramifications
inherent in them) persist.

Well, didn't mean to make this so long - and (perhaps a few people have noticed
what I just did) I guess maybe part of this post is a bit too personal ...
apparently I still have some resentments left about some of my early
experiences with the TS - but I do hope that maybe a bit of the subjective
effects of "seeing" have come through ... it is very difficult to convey, but
for both myself and for others I know who were born needing to wrestle with
such things, these "abilities" are not only not felt to be "powers", but often
are considered more like *disabilities* ... there is great inner uncertainty
within everyone I know who has such born this way - a sort of continual and
deep "Am I nuts" questioning - almost everyone tried at one time or another to
delibrately make the stuff go away - there is a deep alienation that
accompanies any difference from the norm ... that sometimes even turns into a
sensation resembling guilt - a predisposition to keep one's mouth shut about it
(as though one has an embarrasing secret) - and I suppose I'd like to, very
respectfully, suggest to those that do not operate with those senses opened
that they perhaps consider more deeply the attitudes and words they convey with
their philosophical ideas ... simply because Theosophy *could* become a place
where, in the future, people with abilities that are no longer "latent" might
come to learn how to turn what is very often considered a *curse* into
something that is not only validated, but refined into a tool for service.
 With love, -JRC