Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl01241)

 From Mr. Judge's letters:

"A student of occultism after a while gets into what we may call a psychic
whirl, or a vortex of occultism.  At first he is affected by the feelings and
influences of those about him.  That begins to be pushed off and he pases
into the whirl caused by the mighty effort of his Higher Self to make him
remember his past lives.  Then those past lives affect him.  They become like
clouds throwing shadows on his path.  Now they seem tangible and then fade
away, only a cloud.  Then they begin to affect his impulse to action in many
various ways.  To-day he has vague calling longings to do something, and
critically regarding himself, he cannot see in this life any cause.  It is
the bugle note of a past life blown almost in his face.  It startles him; it
may throw him down.  Then it [stands] before him, a phantom, or, like a
person behind you as you look at a mirror, it looks over his shoulder.
Although dead and past they yet have a power. He gets, too, a power and a
choice.  If all his previous lifes were full of good, then irresistible is
the force for his benefit. But all alike marshal up in front, and he hastens
their coming by his effort. Into this vortex about him others are drawn, and
their germs for good or ill ripen with activity. This is a phase of the
operation of Karmic stamina. The choice is this: these events arrrive one
after the other and, as it were, offer themselves. If he chooses wrong, then
hard is the fight. The one chosen attracts old ones like itself perhaps, for
all have a life of their own. Do you wonder that in the case of those who
rush unprepared into the "circle of ascetics" and before the ripe moment,
insanity sometimes results? But then that insanity is their safety for the
next life, or for their return to sanity."

Posted by John Paul Rolston