Tag Archives: Consciousness

The Way In Which The Individual is Defined

Part of the difficulty arises from the current scientific-oriented blend of rationalism. As a species, we think of ourselves as the “pinnacle” end of an evolutionary scale, as if all other entities from the first cell onward somehow existed in a steady line of progression, culminating with animals, and finally with man and woman the reasoning animal. (with all of that progress occurring of course by chance, incidentally.)

That particular blend of rational thinking with which our society is familiar takes it more or less for granted, then, that  man’s and woman’s identity as a species, and the identity of the individual, is first and foremost connected with the intellect . We identify ourselves with our intellect, primarily, casting aside as much as possible other equally vital elements of our personhood.

In our historical past, when man and woman identified his or her identity with the soul, he or she actually gave himself or herself greater leeway in terms of psychological mobility, but eventually the concept of the soul as held resulted in a distrust of the intellect. That result was the inevitable follow-up of dogma. Part of man’s woman’s latest over-identification with the intellect is, of course, an overreaction to those past historical events. Neither religion or science grant other creatures much subjective dimension, however: We like to think of ourselves, again, as the reasoning animal in terms of our species.

However, animals do reason. They do not reason in the same areas that we do. In those areas in which they do reason, they understand cause and effect quite well. Their reasoning is applied, however, to levels of activity to which our own reasoning is not applied. Therefore, often animal reasoning is not apparent to us. Animals are curious. Their curiosity is applied to areas in which we seldom apply our own.

The animals possess a consciousness of self, and without the human intellect. We do not need a human intellect to be aware of our own consciousness. Animals, it is true, do not reflect upon the nature of their own identities as man and woman do, but this is because that nature is intuitively comprehended. It is self-evident.

I only want to show that the sense of identity need not inevitably be coupled with the intellect exclusively. Our intellect is a part of us — a vital, functioning portion of our cognitive processes — but it does not contain our identity.

The natural person is understood perhaps more clearly by considering any person as a child. In fashion the child discovers its own intellect, as it discovers its own feelings. Feelings come “first.” The child’s feelings give rise to curiosity, to thoughts, to the operation of the intellect: “Why do I feel thus and so? Why is grass soft, and rock hard? Why does a gentle touch soothe me, while a slap hurts me”

The feelings and sensations give rise to the questions, to the thoughts, to the intellect. The child in a fashion feels — feels — its own thoughts rise from a relative psychological invisibility into immediate, vital formation. There is a process there that we have forgotten. The child identifies with its own psychic reality first of all — then discovers its feelings, and claims those, and discovers its thoughts and intellect, and claims those.

The child first explores the components of its psychological environment, the inside stuff of subjective knowledge, and claims that inner territory, but the child does not identify its basic being with either its feelings or its thoughts. That is why, for example, it often seems that young children can die so easily. They can disentangle themselves because they have not as yet identified their basic beings with life experience.

In most cases children grow up, of course, although in the vast overall picture of nature a goodly proportion of individuals do indeed take other courses. They serve other functions, they have other purposes, they take part in life through a different cast of action. They affect life while themselves not completely immersed in it. They die young. They are aborted. They remain, however, an important element in life’s overall picture — part of a psychological underpainting that always affects later versions.

Ideally, however, children finally claim their feelings and their thoughts as their own. They identify naturally with both, finding each valid and vital. By the time we are an adult, however, we have been taught to disconnect our identity from our feelings as much as possible, and to think of our personhood in terms of our intellectual orientation. Our identity seems to be in our head. Our feelings and our mental activity therefore appear, often, quite contradictory. We try to solve all problems through the use of reasoning alone.

We are taught to submerge the very intuitive abilities that the intellect needs to do its proper work — for the intellect must check with the feeling portions of the self for feedback, for support, for knowledge as to biological conditions. Denied that feedback, it can spin on endlessly in frenzied dry runs.

At each moment, from the most microscopic levels the body in one way or another is ascertaining a constant picture of its position within physical reality. That picture is composed of millions of ever-changing smaller snapshots, as it were — or moving pictures is better — determining so many conditions, positions and relationships that they could never be described. We end up with a predominating picture of reality in any given moment — one that is the result of the activity of psychological, biological, and electromagnetic strats. One picture is transposed upon the others, and calculations made constantly, so that all of the components that make up physical existence are met, and intersect to give us life.

None of that is the intellect’s concern at an intellectual level. At a biological level, and at an electromagnetic level, the intellect, of course, performs feats that it cannot consciously know through the use of its reason. Spontaneously, with the process just mentioned, millions of pictures are being taken also of the probable actions that will — or may — be needed, in our terms, in the moment immediately following, from microscopic action to the motion of a muscle, the driving of a car, the reading of a book, or whatever.

One of the intellect’s main purposes is to give us a conscious choice in a world of probabilities. To do that properly the intellect is to make clear, concise decisions, on its level, of matters that are its concern, and therefore to present its own picture of reality to add to the entire construct. On the one hand we have been told to identify ourselves almost completely with our intellects. On the other hand, we have been taught that the intellect, the “flower of consciousness,” so  frail, vulnerable adjunct — again, a chance creation, without meaning and without support without support because we believe that “beneath it” lie “primitive, animalistic, bloody instincts,” against which reason must exert what strength it has.

Despite all of that, men and women still find the solutions to many of their problems by rediscovering the larger sense of identity — a sense of identity that accepts the intuitions and the feelings, the dreams and the magic hopes as vital characteristics, not adjuncts, of personhood. When I tell you to remember your own natural persons, I do then want to remind you not to identify with your intellect alone, but to enlarge you scopes of identity. Automatically those other, often-shunted-aside characteristics begin to add their richness, fulfillment, and vitality to your lives effortlessly.

This new orientation will bring results, and the results do appear effortlessly. Remember that creative activity goes on within us all the time, and is often most active precisely when we are not aware of it. We are only aware of those moments when creative activity surges into our conscious awareness, and by then much of the “work” has already been done.

We are not responsible for other people’s realities, but we are responsible for our own. The Ill man’s or woman’s reality does not threaten our own in any way. The situation, however, shows that we sometimes still think we should be able to solve all problems, and to know all the reasons for any given sorrow or tragedy. The intellect cannot handle that kind of information at this level.

Some answers come when we are ready for them. Then they come naturally, as a matter of understanding and comprehension. The question of life’s tragedies still cannot be answered satisfactorily at the level at which any of us are currently asking it. I can give hints and clues and explanations that are quite valid within that context.

As a matter of fact, the kind of literal answers that we may think we want can indeed lead us somewhat astray in terms of the larger picture, so I must say: “That is not my province,” send energy, a note now and then; but the particular problem, the specific problem is the other’s, not mine’s.”

The reason for the problem is a philosophical concern of mine and of yours, but it is one whose answer — or answers — will gradually unfold. All of this information I consider necessary, again, to provide an overall atmosphere of comprehension that will allow the release of our own vitalities and strengths in an effortless manner, in such a way that our own problems begin to dissolve.

The kind of orientation I am speaking of represents the truest picture I can give of a man’s and woman’s natural relationship with himself or herself and the world. This is how it works. This is physical.

The Present Is The Point Of Power

The point of power is where flesh and matter meet with spirit. That juncture embodies the actions and beliefs we choose to draw from all of our previous points of power. From our current present we project, for better or worse, those choices, plus any new ones we may decide upon, into each of the presents we’ll be creating throughout the rest of our lives. The contents of our projections, then, are of supreme importance.

Through even a five-minute exercise, in which we sit quietly and look about, we can become aware that the present is the point of power. In this exercise, we gently remind ourselves that we aren’t at the mercy of our past beliefs unless we think we are. We have the full freedom to insert new creative goals in our point-of-power exercises. Next, we relax, to give our fresh suggestions time to begin working within us. Next, physically we make a simple gesture or act, no matter how modest, that is in line with our desires for the future. Periodically we repeat the exercise — but easily, without pressure, confident that we’re doing well. Action is thought in physical motion.

My wife and I are “counterparts” — entities psychically connected to each other, and to other men, women and children alive now in this country and in others. The connection can be conscious, unconscious, or both. Many of us will never meet physically, but as a group all of us are exploring related lifetime themes in ways that no individual can do.

Styles of Thought

The scientific framework of reference has become equated with the term “rational thinking,” to such an extent that any other slant of thought automatically seems to be irrational. Thought has become, in that regard, too specialized, prejudiced, and inflexible.

Now there are styles of thought. Each individual has his or her own style of thinking, a peculiar, rich, individual mixture of speculations, fantasies, ideocentric ways of using subjective and objective data. Science has so dominated the world of thought, however, that many nuances and areas once considered quite “rational” have become quite unrespectable. Science  tries to stick to what it can prove.

Unfortunately, it tends to set up a worldview that is then based upon certain material only. We end up with separate disciplines: biology, psychology, physics, mathematics, and so forth, each with its own group of facts, jealously guarded, each providing its own worldview: the world as seen through biology, or reality as seen through the eyes of physics.

There is no separate field that combines all of that information, or applies the facts of one discipline to the facts of another discipline, so overall, science, with its brand of rational thought, can offer no even, suggestive, hypothetical, comprehensive ideas of what reality is. It seems that each individual is in effect isolated in certain vital regards — given, say, a genetic heritage and a certain amount of unspecified energy with which to run the body’s machinery. Intent, purpose, or desire do not apply in that picture.

The individual is, again, a stranger, almost an alien, in his or her own environment, in which he must struggle to survive, not only against the “uncaring” forces of the immediate environment, but against the genetic determinism. He or she must fight against his or her own body, overemphasize its susceptibility to built-in defects, diseases, and against a built-in time bomb, so to speak, when without warning extinction will arrive. Science does not stress the cooperative forces of nature. It glories in distinctions, specifications, and categories, and is quite blind, generally speaking, to the uniting forces that are of course every bit as real. Therefore, when I speak of the natural person being also the magical person, it is easy to transpose even that idea into more isolated terms than I intend.

It is not just that each person has his or her source in a “magical” dimension, from which his or her overall life emerges, but that the private source itself is a part of the very energy that upholds the entire planet and its inhabitants, and the overall construct that we understand as the universe.

Fields, or planes of interrelatedness connect all kinds of life, supporting it not through, say, just one system — a biological one or a spiritual one — but at every conceivable point of its existence. We are not just given so much energy, in those terms earlier mentioned. “New” energy is everywhere available. Again, there are no closed systems. Again, the environment is conscious and alive. There are constant communications between all positions of our body and all portions of the environment.

In our terms this means that we do not have to rely upon what we think of as our private resources alone. Basically, value fulfillment is one of the most important characteristics of existence, so that all things act individually and together in ways that best provide for the overall fulfillment of the entire construct.

We were born because we desired to be born. A plant comes to life for the same reason. We live in a different frame of reference than a plant, however: We have more choice available. We interact with nature differently. Our intellect is meant to help us make choices. It allows us to perceive certain probabilities within  a physical time context. We use the intellect properly when it is allowed to perceive physical conditions as clearly as possible. Then it can make the most beneficial decisions as to what goals we want to achieve.

Those goals are usually conceptualized desires, and once formed they act in a fashion like magnets, drawing from those vast fields of interrelatedness the kinds of conditions best suited to their fulfillment. The intellect alone cannot bring about the fulfillment of those goals. The intellect alone cannot bring about one motion of the body. It must count upon those other properties that it does indeed set into motion — that spontaneous array of inner complexity, that orderly magic.

When the intellect is used properly, it thinks of a goal and automatically sets the body in motion toward it, and automatically arouses the other levels of communication unknown to it, so that all forces work together toward the achievement. Consider a hypothetical goal as a target. When properly used, the intellect imagines the target and imaginatively then attains it. If it were a physical target, the person would stand bow and arrow in hand, thinking only of hitting the bull’s eye, mentally concentrating upon it, making perhaps some learned gestures — proper footing or whatever — and the body’s magical properties would do the rest.

When the intellect is improperly used, however, it is as if the intellect feels required to somehow know or personally direct all of those inner processes. When the erroneous belief systems and negativity connected with so-called rational reason apply, then it is as if our person sees the target, but instead of directing his or her attention to it he of she concentrates upon all of the different ways that his or her arrow could go wrong: It could fall to the left or the right, go too far or not far enough, break in the air, fall from his or her hand, or in multitudinous other ways betray his or her intent.

He or she has switched his or her attention from the target, of course, completely. He or she projected upon the present event the picture of his or her fears, rather than the picture of his or her original intent. His or her body, responding to his or her mental images and his or her thoughts, brings out actions that mirror his or her confusion.

In other words, the magical approach and the so-called rational one are to be combined in a certain fashion for best results. People sometimes write me, telling of their intent to make money — or rather, to have it. They concentrate upon money, so they say, and wait for it in full faith that it will be attracted to them because of their belief and concentration. They might do the point of power exercise, for example. They may also, however, have quit their jobs, ignored impulses to find other work, or to take any rational approaches, and rely upon, say, the magical approach alone. This does not work either, of course.

As I uses the magical approach, and as you use it, we will see that it blends in perfectly with the rest of existence, inspires the intellect, inspires physical motion — for it activates physical properties.

I will continue describing the ways the two approaches work together. The main point I want to make is, however, the fact that out private source of power is a portion of that greater field of interrelatedness, in which our being is securely couched. It is not something we have to strain after. It was effortlessly ours at birth, and before, and it carries with it its own emotional and intuitive comprehensions — comprehensions that can indeed support us throughout all of our physical existence. If we understand that, then in a large manner many of our fears will jointly vanish.

Desire as Action

To the world of the intellect, a glass door must be considered solid, as it is in the world of physical senses. In other quite as factual terms, indeed in the larger frameworks of facts, the door of course is not solid at all, as no objects are. Obviously that is known to science.

Science delegates the world of nature as the realm of exterior natural events. Its view of nature is therefore mechanistic. The natural self, however, like the rest of nature, possesses a rich dimension of inside psychological depth, that science, because of its own definitions, cannot perceive. Telepathy and clairvoyance, for example, are a part of natural effects, but they belong to a nature so much more expansive than science’s definitions that they have been made to appear as highly unnatural eccentricities of behavior rather than as natural components of consciousness.

It is also for that reason that they seem to fall outside of the realm of the s-a-n-e. Such characteristics are, however, basic properties of the natural person. They do not appear very well under the auspices of the scientific method, because the scientific method is itself programmed to perceive only information that fits into its preconceived patterns. Such abilities appear to be unpredictable, discontinuous, only because we are so relatively unaware of what is actually quite constant psychological behavior. That is, such abilities operate so smoothly, so continuously, and with such ease that we become aware of them only under certain conditions. We are aware of what seem to be isolated hints of odd characteristics.

The intellect is basically able to handle many kinds of information, and information systems. It is far more flexible that we presently allow it to be. It can handle several main world views at once, realizing that they are each methods of perceiving and approaching reality. To some degree historically speaking, that sort of situation operated in the past when — comparatively speaking, now — people realized that there was indeed an inner world of complexity and richness that could be approached in certain fashions, one that existed alongside with the physical world, so that the two intersected. Certain approaches worked in one area, and others worked in the inner reality.

The intellect could handle both approaches, operating with separate assumptions. There were separate assumptions that applied to different realities. I do not mean to idealize those times. In so-called modern ages, however, the intellect has been stripped down, so to speak. Science perceived the spectacular complexity of exterior reality, but turned its sights completely away from any recognition — any at all — until regarded subjectivity itself as a mere throw-away product, accidentally formed by a mindless matter.

All of this applies to our situation, for I want you to thoroughly understand, intellectually and emotionally, the errors of current thought, so that we can see that our material is indeed providing us not only with “creative material,” but with a more factual presentation of the framework in which we have our existence.

In modern times, then, the intellect was finally left with only one acceptable world view, with one set of assumptions, with only one main approach to reality and experience. The acceptable assumptions to a large extent ran directly contradictory to built-in biological, spiritual, and psychological assumptions that are a part of man’s and woman’s heritage. The intellect does try to order experience, to make sense out of perception. When it is enriched by having in its possession several world views, then it does an excellent job of merging those into meaningful patterns, of sorting information and sending it to the proper places, so to speak.

It understands, for example, that clairvoyant material is a part of the personality’s overall characteristics, so it is not afraid of perceiving it — and it is able to separate such information confusion from present physical sense perception. Orderliness, then, is one of its main characteristics. When it is given only one world view, and only one group of assumptions, its orderly nature causes it to throw out all information that does not fit. It is almost forced to make an orderly picture, say like a jigsaw puzzle picture, while being denied half of the pieces.

The intellect is not to blame. It does the best it can under those conditions.

Now in our dreams, we are quite clearly seeing the threshold between physical reality and the magical dimension in which that physical reality has its source. We are being shown — or showing ourselves — the difference in the rules or assumptions between the two. The dog’s desire for food led him to walk magically through the door, for the desires of the natural creature are satisfied with an ease that has nothing to do with our ideas of work. What I am getting at is the introduction of the concepts of a different kind of work — very valuable, vital work that is performed at another level and in a different fashion.

A prime example, of course, is the “work” done to keep each and every creature alive and breathing, the “work” done to keep the planets in their places, the “work” being done so that one evolutionist can meditate over his or her theories.

Now in our dreams we get the feeling of that kind of work, or action. It is the given power of the world, the given power of nature. It is the directed force of value fulfillment. In other terms it is of course the energy of All That Is. The trouble is that the rational view of life has separated man and woman from a sense of his or her own power source. When he or she have a problem, the rational approach to its solution seems the only answer, and often, of course, it is no answer at all.

I want to make sure that I am right. I try to go ahead and not go ahead at the same time. I try to be daring and cautious, brave and safe. This applies to some extent to each of us, of course, precisely because we are gifted strongly both intellectually and intuitively. We try rationalize our creativity, to some extent. The rational line of thought finds creativity highly disruptive, so in those terms as highly gifted creative people, we would have encountered some difficulties in any case.

It is time that we regarded such difficulties instead as challenges that are a part of a creative adventure that we have ourselves chosen. We chose the adventure because it is the kind best suited to our own individual value fulfillment. In reconciling the many concepts and contradictions for ourselves, we also lead the way for many others. It would, again, help considerably if we thought of our work more as an adventure, an exciting creative adventure, than of work in our old terms.

This will allow us to include the feeling of inner, magical “work” in our calculations. It would also begin to give us a feeling for the magical support that upholds us, and our lives — the support that we can count upon, and that can bring about the solution to our physical difficulties. Here, the vital word is ease of effortlessness. If we want to feed a dog in the physical world — and he or she is on the other side of the door — we must open it. In the inner world we or the dog can walk through the door without effort, because desire is action. Desire is action.

In the inner world, our desires bring about their own fulfillment, effortlessly. That inner world, and the exterior one, intersect and interweave. They only appear separate. In the physical world, time may have to elapse, or whatever. Conditions may have to change, or whatever, but the desire will bring about the proper results. The feeling of effortlessness is what is important. It is quite proper for our intellect to understand this, and to say, simply now, ” That is not my realm. I will leave the solution to that problem where it belongs. We will use the magical approach here.”

Of course, an entire reorientation is instead implied, and that entire reorientation will effortlessly bring about a new relationship in our bodies and our lives, and with the adventure we embark upon. We will simply automatically get better, because the framework will allow us to do so.

Within our time scheme each physically-endowed consciousness, whatever its form or size or complexity, inherently seeks to fulfill its own highest potential — not only for itself, but for the benefit of each other such consciousness in our reality. There is no drifting through life, then, but a built-in search for the fulfillment of values, whatever possible successes, conflicts, or failures may be involved, and no matter how modest or great or complex any of those qualities may be. The ecstasy and love of being always operate to ensure the quality and growth of life’s existence through value fulfillment.

All Other Species Preserve Nature, While Man and Woman Has a Propensity for Destroying It

I have myself heard it said that other creatures behave with a natural grace, save man and woman. I have myself heard it said that all of nature is content unto itself save man and woman, who is filled with discontent. Such thoughts follow “naturally” the dictums of so-called rational thought. When we think such thoughts, we think of them at the most strained level of intellectual speculation — that is, the thoughts seem self-evident to the intellect that is forced to operate by itself, relatively speaking, divorced from the self’s other faculties. It then does indeed seem that man and woman is somehow apart from nature — or worse, an ungrateful blight, almost a parasite, upon the face of the planet.

That view itself is a symptom of the intellect’s difficulty. In the position in which our culture places the intellect, it does see itself quite alone, separated both from other portions of the personalities, from other creatures, and from nature itself. Therefore science, for example, says that creatures — except for man and woman — operate by blind instinct, and that term is meant to explain all of the complicated behavior of the other species. Therefore the gulf between man and woman and animals, the intellect and nature, seems to deepen.

In those terms, it is quite as truthful to say that man’s and woman’s intellect is also instinctive. He or she begins thinking at once. He and she cannot help but use his or her intellect. The intellect, again, operates magically, spontaneously, automatically. It’s most keen reasoning processes rise as a result of that natural magical action.

The intellect has been taught to divorce itself from its source. It realizes in that regard a sense of powerlessness, for to some extent it is philosophically cut off from its own source of power. When it looks, therefore, at world of political events, the problems seem insoluble. Man and woman makes decisions that may seem quite wrong to the intellect because of its belief systems, and because it is so cut off from other sources of information. A goodly number of those mistaken decisions, or “poor moves,” often represent self-corrective actions, decisions taken on knowledge not consciously perceived, but this escapes our consciousness.

In the same way, some private-life decisions or events may appear disadvantageous to the intellect for the same reasons, while instead they are also self-corrective measures that we are not able to perceive because of our beliefs. The rational approach, as it is now used, carries a basic assumption that anything that is wrong will get worse. That belief of course is highly detrimental because it runs against the basic principles of life. Were this the case in our terms of history, the world would never have lasted a century. It is interesting to note that even before medical science, there were a goodly number of healthy populations. No disease rubbed out the entire species.

When we believe that the worst will happen we must always be on guard. In our culture people use the term “intellect” almost like a weapon to protect themselves against impending disaster. They must be alert for dangers of all kinds. They begin to collect evidence of danger so that any other kind of orientation to life seems foolhardy, and to be a realist means in that framework to look out for the worst.

First of all, if we realize that the intellect itself is a part of nature, a part of the natural person, a part of magical processes, then we need not overstrain it, force it to feel isolated, or put it in a position in which paranoid tendencies develop. It is itself supported, as our intuitions are, by life’s magical processes. It is supported by the greater energy that gave us and the world birth. That power is working in the world, and in the world of politics, as it is in the working of nature, since we make that distinction.

When we follow that so-called rational approach, however, we are bound to feel threatened, divorced from our body. Our thoughts and our body seem separate. Divisions seem to appear between the mental and the physical, where again each are supported by those magical processes. That rational approach goes against what I can only call life’s directives and life’s natural rhythms. It is contradictory to biological integrity, and again, it does not make sense.

That rational approach is, of course, connected now with scientific ideas mentioned earlier: life surrounded by chaos, the struggle for survival, and so forth. I do not mean to put down the intellect. It is highly important, but it is, if you will forgive me, as natural as a cat’s whiskers. It is not some adjunct to nature, but a part it.

The magical approach takes is for granted, in the simplest terms, that the life of any individual will fulfill itself, will develop and mature, that the environment and the individual are uniquely suited and work together. This sounds very simple. In verbal terms, however, those are the beliefs of each cell. They are imprinted in each chromosome, in each atom. they provide a built-in faith that pervades each living creature, each snail, each hair on our head. Those ingrained beliefs are, of course, biologically pertinent, providing the impetus of all growth and development.

Each cell believes in a better tomorrow. I am, I admit, personifying our cell here, but the statement has a firm truth. Furthermore, each cell contains within itself a belief and an understanding of its own inevitability. It knows it lives beyond its death, in other words.

The idea of heaven, for all of its distortions, has operated as a theoretical framework, assuring the intellect of its survival. Science has believed to the contrary in the utter annihilation of the intellect after death, and since man and woman had by then placed all of his or her identification with the intellect, this was a shattering blow to it. It denied man and woman a necessary biological imperative.

All of these reasons lie beneath men’s and women’s mass problems, and apply in each life.  I feel I have never learned to use the power of reason, and instead trust every stray thought that comes into my head. So to doubt myself is protective.

I also feel that the questioning power of the intellect is not just one of its functions –which it is — but is primary purpose, which it is not. In our terms the intellect’s primary function is to make clear deductions and distinctions involving the personality’s relationship with the world. Our society, however, has indeed considered the rational approach to be the masculine-favored one — so I have an additional reason in that regard to be such a proponent of the rational approach. All of the beliefs connected with the sex were of course erroneous, but they are part and parcel of the “rational” framework itself.

It is certainly too simple to say what I am going to say, yet it is almost as if we would be better off turning the entire rational approach upside down, taking it for granted that all of its assumptions were false, for they are indeed more false than true. Again, the result of highly spontaneous processes of which it itself knows nothing, and the intuitions that are considered so undisciplined and unreasonable are based upon calculations far more spectacular than those of which the conscious mind can conceive. The intellect could not follow them, so the distinctions are not basic: They are the result of beliefs and habitual usage. Therefore, of course, I speak of them separately, as we think of them.

The magical approach takes it for granted that the human being is a united creature, fulfilling purposes in nature even as the animals do, whether or not those purposes are understood. The magical approach takes it for granted that each individual has a future, a fulfilling one, even though death may be tomorrow. The magical approach takes it for granted that the means for development are within each individual, and that fulfillment will happen naturally. Overall, that approach operates in our world. If it did not, there would be no world. If the worst was bound to happen, as the scientists certainly think, even evolution, in their terms, would have been impossible, of course.

You needed this background, for I want to build up the atmosphere in which this magical approach can be comprehended. Then specific material can be utilized.

In our dreams we are, of course, in the process of forming new ideas about the nature of the magical self and also in our way working that idea out through imagery. The dreams are above all an example of “work” being done at other levels of awareness.

All of these experiences are indications of the exquisite kind of reasoning that goes on at the levels of awareness that are usually considered unreasonable. That kind of material enriches the intellect and reassures it.

Certain portions of the personality or psyche must very shrewdly and carefully construct dreams in advance, so that when the dreams are played back they render just the right message to the parts of the psyche that need it. I’m not being contradictory here when I write that the dream is a spontaneous production, also.
Continue reading All Other Species Preserve Nature, While Man and Woman Has a Propensity for Destroying It

The Human Magic Show

What magicians we are,

turning darkness into light,

transforming invisible atoms into the dazzling theater

of the world,

pulling objects,

(people as well

as rabbits)

out of secret

microscopic closets,

turning winter into summer,

making a palmful of moments

disappear through time’s trap door.

 

We learned the methods

so long ago

that they’re unconscious,

and we’ve hypnotized ourselves

into believing

that we’re the audience,

so I wonder where we served

our apprenticeship.

Under what master magicians did we learn

to form reality

so smoothly that we forgot to tell ourselves

the secret?

Normal Dreams

I believe that normal dreams are the outside shell of deeper inside experience. The interior reality is clothed in dream images as, when we are awake, it is clothed in physical ones. Dream objects and physical objects alike are symbols by which we perceive — and distort — an inner reality that we do not seem able to experience directly. In certain states of consciousness, particularly in projections from the dream state, we achieve a peculiar poise of alertness. This lets us briefly examine the nature of our consciousness by allowing us to view its products — the events and experiences that it creates when released from usual physical focus.

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Consciousness forms its own reality, physical and otherwise. I think there is a “mass” dream experience, however, as there is a collectively perceived physical life and definite interior conditions within which dream life happens. Only inner experimentation will let us discover this interior landscape. Perhaps one day we will move freely within it, alert, conscious and far wiser than we are now.

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It is a dimension native to consciousness, I believe, at whatever stage of being, physical or nonphysical. We have our primary existence in it after death and spend a good deal of physical time wandering through it, unknowingly, in sleep. Clues as to our creativity and the nature of our existence can be found there and from it emerges the organizational qualities of normal consciousness as we know it.

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I do not believe that there are any more dangers facing us in the interior universe than there are in the physical one. We should explore each world with common sense and courage. The interior universe is the source of the exterior one, however, and traveling through it we will encounter our own hopes, fears and beliefs in their ever-changing form.

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And so the exterior emerges from the interior one even as this physical blog materialized from the inner reality of inspiration, creativity and dreams.

 

Basic Reality in The Dream, Hallucination and Objects

We will sometimes automatically translate this reality into physical terms. Such images will be hallucinatory, but it may take awhile for us to distinguish their true nature. It must be understood, however, that all physical objects are hallucinatory. They may be called mass hallucination.

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There is constant translation of inner reality into objects in the waking state and a constant translation of ideas into pseudo-objects in the dream state. Within a certain range of dream reality, ideas and thoughts can be translated into pseudo-objects and transported. This is what happens when we adopt a pseudo-form in projection, though I am simplifying this considerably.

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When we travel beyond a certain range of intensities, even pseudo-objects must vanish. They exist in a cluster about, and connected to, our own system. The lack of these, obviously, means that we have gone beyond our own camouflage system. If it were possible, we would then travel through a range of intensities in which no camouflage of the next system. This would or would not encounter the heart of the camouflage area. The completely un-camouflaged areas at the outer edges of the various systems should remind us of the undifferentiated areas between various life cycles in the subconscious. This is no coincidence.

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As a rule, we see, there is little communication within the un-camouflaged areas. They act as boundaries, even while they represent the basic stuff of which all camouflage is composed. (Without the camouflage, we would perceive nothing with the physical senses.)

The sentence is really meaningless, however, because the physical senses are themselves camouflage. There would be nothing to translate. It is only the inner senses that will allow us to perceive under these circumstances. Theoretically, if we can bridge the gap between our system and another.

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Once more: The undifferentiated layers are composed of the vitality that forms the camouflage of all systems. Such an area is not really a thing in itself, but a portion of vitality that contains no camouflage, and is therefore unrecognizable to those within any given system. We are in touch with infinity in such areas, since it is only camouflage that gives us the conception of time.

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Now, during some projections, we may be aware of nothing as far as surroundings are concerned. There will only be the mobility of our own consciousness. If this occurs, we will be traveling through such an un-camouflaged area. We could then expect to encounter next a more differentiated environment, that seems to become clearer as we progress toward the heart of another system.

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The completely un-camouflaged layer would be rather bewildering. We might automatically be tempered to project images into it. They would not take, so to speak, but would appear and disappear with great rapidity. This is a silent area. thoughts would not be perceived here, as a rule, for the symbols for them would not be understood.

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If a certain intensity is reached, however — a peak of intensity — then we would perceive the spacious present as it exists within our native system. We could, from this peak, look into other systems, but we would not understand what we perceived, not having the proper root assumptions. I have used the idea of neighboring systems for simplicity’s sake, as if they were laid out end to end. Obviously, such is not the case. The systems of reality are more like the various segments of a tangerine, with the un-camouflaged boundary areas like the white membrane between the tangerine sections.

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The tangerine, then, would be compared to a group of many systems, yet it would represent in itself but one portion of an unperceived whole. The tangerine would be but one segment of a larger system. We can see, then, why some projections would lead us in a far different direction from our linear sort of travel and why time as we know it would be meaningless.

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Nor do such projections necessarily involve journeys through space as we know it. There are systems, vivid in intensity, that have no existence in physical reality at all. It is now thought, I believe, that time and space are basically one, but they are both a part of something else. They are merely the camouflage patterns by which we perceive reality. Space as we perceive it in the dream state comes much closer to the reality.

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Projections within our own system will, of course, involve us with some kind of camouflage. If none is present, we will know we are out of the system. The dream universe is obviously closely connected with our own, since pseudo-objects are present. Even there, we are to some extent free from the space-time elements of our own system. Within the dream state, then, we are in the ‘outward’ areas of the physically oriented universe.

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One point: There are other systems all about and within our own. The undifferentiated areas move out like spirals, through all reality. Little resistance is encountered with them. They represent inner roads that connect systems, as well as divide them. The traveler must leave his or her own camouflage.

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It is possible, theoretically, to travel to any system in this manner and bypass others, you see. Such a traveler would not age physically. His or her body would be in a suspended state. Only a very few individuals have traveled in this manner. Most of the knowledge gained escape the ego, and the experience cannot be translated by the physical brain.

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However, it is possible to travel under such circumstances, and some of the data would be retained by inner portions of the self. In a creative individual, some of this information might be symbolically expressed in a painting or other work of art.

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Each brushstroke of a painting represents concentrated experience and compressed perceptions. In a good painting, these almost explode when perceived by the lively consciousness of another. The observer is washed over by the intensities. The excellent work of art recreates for the observer inner experience of his or her own, also, of which he or she has never been aware. As we know, paintings have motion, yet the painting itself does not move. This idea should help understand experience in terms of intensities and projections or the movement of consciousness without necessarily motion through space.

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True motion has nothing to do with space. The only real motion is that of the traveling consciousness.

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These dimensions as we know it, and I believe that in them we exercise abilities that are ours by right and heritage.

Root Assumptions

Root assumptions represent the basic premises upon which a given existence-system is formed. These are the ground rules, so such a way that reality is perceived through the lens of particular root assumptions, then. Using the physical senses, it is almost impossible for us to perceive reality in any other way.

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Physically speaking, we will find nothing to contradict these assumptions, since they are all we can experience or perceive physically. These root assumptions are the framework of the camouflage system. As we explore other realities, we almost automatically interpret such data in terms of the root assumptions of our own system.

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This highly falsifies such information. The inner senses are not bound by those assumptions, however. This is why so many psychic or subjective experiences seem to contradict physical laws. We must learn the ‘laws’ that apply to other systems.

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The root assumptions that govern physical reality are indeed valid, but within physical reality alone. They do not apply elsewhere. There is a natural tendency to continue judging experience against these assumptions, however. With experience, the habit will lose much of its hold. Inner experience must be colored to some extent by the physical system, while we exist in it. In order for such data to rise to conscious levels, for example, it must be translated into terms that the ego can understand, and the translation is bound to distort the original experience.

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The whole physical organism of the body has been trained to react to certain patterns, these based on physical root assumptions. The nervous system reacts definitely to visual block images. Such images are received through the skin, as well as through the eyes. The whole system is highly complicated and organized. This is obviously necessary for physical survival.

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The organization however is, biologically speaking, artificial and learned. It is no less rigid for that reason. This organizational structure of perception can be broken up, as LSD and Meth experiments certainly show. This can be dangerous, however. The fact that this does occur shows that the systems of perception are not a part of overall structure biologically, but learned secondary responses. It is disturbing to the whole organism, however, to break up the strong pattern of usual perception. Inner stability of response is suddenly swept away. Changes that are not yet known occur within the nervous system under these circumstances, both electromagnetic and chemical.

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The inner senses alone are equipped to process and perceive other reality systems. Even the distortions can be kept at a minimum with training. Indiscriminate use of the psychedelic drugs, like amazon mushrooms or LSD, can severely shake up learned patterns of response that are necessary for effective manipulation within physical reality. This can break subtle connections and we disturb electromagnetic functions. Some ask “can you smoke magic mushrooms and have lesser distortion?” While there is a lesser distortion as the high is milder, that is not an excuse for indiscriminate smoking. Ego failure is a risk that can result without responsibility.

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Development of the inner senses is a much more effective method of perceiving other realities, and, followed correctly, the ego is not only stronger but more flexible. Even consciousness of physical reality is increased. Such development becomes an unfolding and natural expansion of the whole personality.

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These root assumptions are so a part of our existence that they cloud our dreams. Beneath them, however, portions of the self perceive physical reality in an entirely different fashion, free of the tyranny of objects and physical form. Here we experience concepts directly, without the need for symbols. We have knowledge of our ‘past’ personalities and know that they exist simultaneously with our own.

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The practice of psychological time will allow us to reach these portions of the self. The ego is not artificially disorganized by such practice. It is simply bypassed for the moment. The experience gained does become a part of the physical structure, but there is no massive disorganization of perception, since the ego agrees to step aside momentarily.

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It is not bombarded, as with the drug experiments, and forced to experience chaotic and frightening perceptions that can terrify it into complete disorder. Survival in our system is dependent upon the highly specialized, focused, limited but specific qualities of the ego. It should not be rigid. Neither should it be purposed weakened.

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The root assumption upon which physical reality is formed represent secure ground to the ego. We always operate with the ego’s consent. It interprets the inner knowledge gained in its own way, true, but it is immeasurably enriched by so doing.

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The ego can exist only within the context of these assumptions. The primary dream experience is finally woven into a structure composed of these assumptions, and it is these we remember. These serve us as basic information but the information is in symbolic form. Objects, are symbols. Dream objects are often symbols of realities that the ego could not otherwise perceive.

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Some out-of-body experiences are extremely difficult to categorize and involve extraordinarily sensuous events that remain vivid long after their occurrence. Some are suggestive of drug-induced episodes, except for the greater sense of alertness and self-control.

Continue reading Root Assumptions

The Strange Senses Inside Consciousness

Projections from the dream state intrigue me because in them I believe we encounter the inside of our own consciousness in a most direct fashion. In a way, we are completely on our own, manipulating in a subjective environment, aware of the workings of consciousness when it is not soaked up or fastened upon objective specifics. Such exploration is full of surprises. In these states, consciousness operates within definite conditions, within an ordered system of experience. But we must struggle to discover what these are as opposed to the hallucinatory image we set up ourselves against or superimposed upon this reality.

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While we may “come awake” spontaneously within a dream, certain procedures do help, and these can induce projections from the dream state. They have been mentioned before in previous blogs, but here I’ll give them as briefly and simply as possible. First we must realize that we are dreaming. Suggestion to this effect, given before sleep, facilitates this recognition.

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This knowledge automatically changes the dream state into another in which the critical faculties are aroused and operating. Dream actions are no longer taken for granted. Experience is scrutinized. We may “awaken” in our house, for example. If so, check the rooms against their normal arrangement. Anything that does not normally belong there may be an hallucination, part of the usual dreaming process. If we will such images to disappear, they will, leaving us within the basic un-hallucinated environment. If we rationalize any such elements or accept them uncritically, we may fall back into normal dreaming.

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The next point is to realize that we are alert, conscious and awake, while our body is asleep. We can then explore the environment in which we find oneself or travel to another location. Instead of “coming to” in our home, however, we may instead become alert in another location, a town, another house or unfamiliar place where checking against usual circumstances is nearly impossible.

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Here, rely on common sense. If we find a girl in a bathing suit standing on a wintery street, for example, one or the other has to go. If the girl is the main incongruous element, and the rest all fits in, then will the girl to disappear. Keep this up with any other such images that we meet. Again, we’ll be left with the basic environment and can proceed as we want. We can accept such images and play around with them or watch them to see what develops, but only if we realize they are hallucinations. There are exceptions to this practice, however.

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To travel somewhere else, will oneself there. Often travel seems instantaneous. At other times, we may find ourselves swept from place to place, with little control. If we come awake while still within our physical body as described earlier. We may also find ourselves in non-physical locations or places in which matter does not behave the way it usually does.

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We agree to accept certain data in the physical universe. We agree to form this into certain patterns, and we agree to ignore other data completely. These now, called root assumptions, form the main basis for the apparent permanence and coherence of our physical system.

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In our journeys into inner reality, we cannot proceed with these same root assumptions. Reality, per se, changes completely according to the basic root agreements that we accept. One of the root assumption that objects have a reality independent of any subjective cause and then these objects, within definite specified limitations, are permanent.

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Objects may appear and disappear in these other systems. Using the root assumptions just mentioned as a basis for judging reality, an observer would insist that the objects were not real, for they do not behave as he or she believes objects must. Because dream images may appear and disappear, then, do not take it for granted that they do not really exist.

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There is a cohesiveness to the inner universe and to the systems that are not basically physical. But this is based upon an entirely different set of root assumptions and these are the keys that alone will let us manipulate within other systems or understand them. There are several major root assumptions connected here and many minor ones:

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  1. Energy and action are basically the same, although neither must necessarily apply to physical action.
  2. All objects have their origin basically in mental action. Mental action is directed psychic energy.
  3. Permanence is not a matter of time. Existence has value in terms of intensities.
  4. Objects are blocks of energy perceived in a highly specialized manner.
  5. Stability in time sequence is not a prerequisite requirement for an object, except as a root assumption in the physical universe.
  6. Space as a barrier does not exist.
  7. The spacious present is here more available to the senses.
  8. The only barriers are mental or psychic ones. 

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Only if these basic root assumptions are taken for granted will our projection experience make sense to us. Different rules simply apply. Our subjective experiences is extremely important here; that is, the vividness of any given experience in terms of intensity will be far more important than anything else.

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Elements from past, present and future may be indiscriminately available to us. We may be convinced that a given episode is the result of subconscious fabrication, simply because the time sequence is not maintained, and this could be a fine error. In a given dream projection, for example, we may experience an event that is obviously from the physical past, yet within it there may be elements that do not fit. In an old-fashion room of the 1700’s we may look out and see an automobile pass by. Obviously, we think: distortion. Yet we may be straddling time in such an instance, perceiving, say, the room as it was in the 1700’s and the street as it appears in our present. These elements may appear side by side. the car may suddenly disappear before our eyes, to be replace by an animal or the whole street may turn into a field.

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This is how dreams work,’ you may think. ‘This cannot be a legitimate projection.’ Yet we may be perceiving the street and the field that existed ‘before’ it, and the images may be transposed one upon the other. If we try to judge such an experience with physical root assumptions, it will be meaningless. As mentioned earlier, we may also perceive a building that will never exist in physical reality. This does not mean that the form is illusion. We are simply in a position where we can pick up and translate the energy pattern before us.

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If another individual under the same circumstances comes across the same ‘potential’ object, he or she can also perceive it as we did. He may, however, because of his or her own make-up, perceive and translate another portion of allied pattern. He or she may see the form of the man or woman who originated the thought of the building.

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To a larger extent in the physical system, our habit of perceiving time as a sequence forms the type of experience and also limit it. This habit also unites the experiences, however. The unifying and limiting aspects of consecutive moments are absent in inner reality. time, in other words, cannot be counted upon to unify action. The unifying elements will be those of our own understanding and abilities. We are not forced to perceive action as a series of moments within inner reality, therefore.

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Episodes will be related to each other by different methods that will be intuitional, highly selective and psychological. We will find our way through complicated mazes of reality according to our own intuitional nature. We will find what we expect to find. We will seek out what we want from the available data.

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In physical experience, we are dealing with an environment with which we are familiar. We have completely forgotten the chaos and unpredictable nature it presented before learning processes were channeled into its specific directions. We learned to perceive reality in a highly specified fashion. When we are dealing with inner, or basically non-physical realities, we must learn to become unspecialized and then learn a new set of principles. We will soon learn to trust our perceptions, whether or not the experiences seem to make logical sense.

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In a projection, the problems will be of a different sort. The form of a man or woman, for example, may be a thought-form, or a fragment sent quite unconsciously by another individual whom it resembles. It may be another projectionist, like oneself. It may be a potential form like any potential object, a record of a form played over and over again.

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It may be another version of oneself. We will discuss ways of distinguishing between these. A man or woman may suddenly appear, and be then replaced by a small girl or boy. This would be a nonsensical development to the logical mind; yet, the girl or boy might be the form of the man’s previous or future reincarnated self.

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The unity, we see, is different. Basically, perception of the spacious present is naturally available. It is our nervous physical mechanism which acts as a limiting device. By acting in this manner it forces us to focus upon what we can perceive with greater intensity.

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Our mental processes are formed and developed as a result of this conditioning. The intuitive portions of the personality are not so formed, and these will operate to advantage in any inner exploration.

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We are basically capable of seeing any particular location as it existed a thousand years in our past or as it will exist a thousand years in our future. The physical senses serve to blot out more aspects of reality than they allow us to perceive, yet in many inner explorations we will automatically translate experience into terms that the senses can use. Any such translation is, nevertheless, a second-hand version of the original — an important point to remember.

The Time Sense Outside The Body Can Be Quite Different Than The Body’s

My wife and I are telepathically aware of our emotional presence. This acts as the emotional impetus to give the inner self full rein.

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In the same way do we travel in other realities without being aware of it. We perceive in a ‘normal’ fashion, which shows that perception is not dependent upon the physical image. We have both traveled together in such a fashion from the dream state. There is no reason why we cannot try such experiments, trying to project at the same time.

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When we do this from a dream state, then we must set aside two and one half hours, for the first portion will be used as preliminaries. We can also give ourselves such suggestions before we sleep. We might begin by making an appointment to meet each other, say, at three in the morning in the living room.

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For our own purposes, an unfinished painting on our easel helped project to the studio, for we would wish to study it. We have often done this, without remembering. It is always to our advantage when we both traveled together, however. We help each other retain proper consciousness and purpose during projection.

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We can be of greater help to each other, when we develop further. We can also suggest dreams in which we are flying in an airplane and tell ourselves then that we will waken from the dream and project. We will know the plane to be a dream image, but be able to retain it for our convenience if we want, so that we do not feel falling at first.

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In such instances, we are withdrawing our perceptive abilities from the physical body. They will seem to operate as usual, but they are more vivid and far-reaching. Our thoughts instantly attain a form that we can then perceive. If we think of a dog, for example, quite unconsciously we form the image of a dog, which we then perceive.

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It is because of this instantaneous creation and projection of inner reality outward into form that we experience time within the physical system — to train us, to give us time to learn to handle our own creations. Projection experiments, then, should only be tried when we are in a peaceful state of mind.

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Now, there are ‘objective’ realities that exist within the astral system. There are more than our own thought forms, in other words. Our own thought-forms can be definite aids when we are in the proper mental condition, and they can impede our progress if we are not. For example, a man or woman in a desperate frame of mind is more apt to emphasize the unpleasant aspects of the news and to see bitterness rather than the joy in the faces of those we meets. He or she will ignore a contented child playing on one side of the street and notice, instead, a dirty ragged child, even though he or she be further away. So our frame of mind when projecting will largely determine the kind of experiences we have.

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The original intensity behind the construction determines its duration. Left alone, any such construction will eventually vanish. It will leave a trace, however, in electromagnetic reality where it can then be activated by anyone when certain conditions are met or are favorable.

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Denying energy to such a construction can be like pricking a balloon. Then all attention must be taken from it, for it thrives upon attention.