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Clairvoyance and Occult Powers by Swami Panchadasi

LESSON XV STRANGE ASTRAL PHENOMENA

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There are several phases of astral phenomena other than those mentioned in the preceding chapters, which it will be better for the student to become acquainted with in order to round out his general knowledge of the subject, although the manifestations are comparatively rare, and not so generally recognized in works on this subject.

One of the first of these several phases of astral phenomena is that which may be called Thought-Form Projection. This manifestation comes in the place on the psychic scale just between ordinary clairvoyance on the one hand, and astral body projection on the other. It has some of the characteristics of each, and is often mistaken for one or the other of these phases.

To understand this phenomena, the student should know something regarding the fact that thought frequently takes on astral form, and that these manifestations are known as thought-forms. I have spoken of these in some of the preceding lessons. The ordinary thought-form is quite simple, as a rule, and does not bear any particular resemblance to the sender thereof. But in some cases a person may, consciously or unconsciously, strongly and clearly think of himself as present at some other place, and thus actually create a thought-form of himself at that place, which may be discerned by those having clairvoyant vision. Moreover, this thought-form of himself is connected psychically with himself and affords a channel of psychic information for him. As a rule these thought-forms are only projected by those who have trained their minds and will along occult lines; but occasionally under the stress of strong emotion or desire an ordinary person may focus his psychic power to such an extent that the phenomena is manifested.

Here I will quote from an English investigator of astral phenomena, who has had much experience on that plane. He says: "All students are aware that thought takes form, at any rate upon its own plane, and in the majority of cases upon the astral plane also; but it may not be so generally known that if a man thinks strongly of himself as present at any given place, the form assumed by that particular thought will be a likeness of the thinker himself, which will appear at the place in question. Essentially this form must be composed of the matter of the mental plane, but in very many cases it would draw round itself matter of the astral plane also, and so would approach much nearer to visibility. There are, in fact, many instances in which it has been seen by the person thought of--most probably by means of the unconscious influence emanating from the original thinker. None of the consciousness of the thinker would, however, be included within this thought-form. When once sent out from him, it would normally be a quite separate entity--not indeed absolutely unconnected with its maker, but practically so as far as the possibility of receiving any impression through it is concerned.

"This type of clairvoyance consists, then, in the power to retain so much connection with and so much hold over a newly-created thought-form as will render it possible to receive impressions by means of it. Such impressions as were made upon the form would in this case be transmitted to the thinker--not along an astral telegraph line, but by a sympathetic vibration. In a perfect case of this kind of clairvoyance it is almost as though the seer projected a part of his consciousness into the thought-form, and used it as a kind of outpost, from which observation was possible. He sees almost as well as he would if he himself stood in the place of his thought-form. The figures at which he is looking will appear to him as of life-size and close to hand, instead of tiny and at a distance as in the case of some other forms of clairvoyance; and he will find it possible to shift his point of view if he wishes to do so. Clairaudience is perhaps less frequently associated with this type of clairvoyance than with the others, but its place is to some extent taken by a kind of mental perception of the thoughts and intentions of those who are seen.

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