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Clairvoyance and Occult Powers by Swami Panchadasi

LESSON II TELEPATHY vs. CLAIRVOYANCE

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Moreover, as every farmer knows, the crow family has a most uncanny way of sensing the intentions of the farmer who is trying to destroy them, and shows great sagacity in defeating those intentions. But, while the crow is a very intelligent bird--one of the wisest of the bird family, in fact--it obtains its knowledge of what is in the mind of the man not alone from "figuring on his intentions," but rather from that instinctive sensing of his mental states. The hen, as all know, is a very stupid bird, showing but little intelligent activity. But, nevertheless, she is very quick about sensing the poultryman's designs on her, though generally very stupid about planning out a skillful escape.

Every owner of dogs, cats and horses, has had many opportunities for observing the manifestation of this sense on the part of those animals. Every dog feels the emotional states of his owner, and others. The horse knows when his owner seeks to throw the halter over his neck, or when, on the contrary, he is merely walking through the field. Cats sense their owners' feelings and thoughts, and often resent them. Of course, the lower animals can sense merely elementary mental states, and generally _only_ emotional states, as their minds are not developed so as to interpret the more complex mental states. Primitive men likewise almost instinctively sense the feelings and designs of other men. They do not reason the thing out, but rather merely "feel" the ideas and designs of the others. The women of the lower races are more adept in interpreting these sense reports than are the men. Women are more sensitive, as a rule, than are men--on any point on the scale of development.

When we come to consider ordinary telepathy in the case of men of civilized countries, we find a more complex state of affairs. While civilized man, as a whole, has lost some of the quick telepathic perception of the lower races, he has, in some exceptional cases, acquired a faculty of receiving and interpreting more complex thought-forms and mental states. The investigations of the Society for Psychical Research, and those of private investigators as well, have shown us that a picture of a complicated geometrical design held in the mind of one person may be carried to and received by the mind of another person, who reproduces the design on paper. In the same way, complicated thoughts have been transmitted and received. But these are only exceptional cases. In many cases this sense seems almost dead in the ordinary civilized individual, except when aroused in exceptional cases.

But, nevertheless, the majority of persons have occasional flashes of telepathy--just enough to make them realize that "there is something in it." The renewed interest in the subject, of late years, has directed the public mind to the phenomena of telepathy, and, consequently, more persons are now taking note of the cases of thought-transference coming under their personal notice. It must be remembered, of course, that all of us are constantly receiving thought-waves, and feeling thought-influence, unconsciously. I am speaking now only of the conscious perception of the thought-waves.

Many investigators have so developed their telepathic sense that they are able, at times, to obtain wonderful test results. But, it has been a source of disappointment to many of them to discover that at other times, under apparently similar conditions, their success was very slight. So true is this that many authorities have accepted the theory that telepathy is more or less spontaneous, and cannot be produced to order. This theory is true as far as it goes, but there is a side of the case that these investigators overlook, probably because of their lack of the occult principles involved in the phenomena. I mean this: that their most brilliant successes have been obtained by reason of their unconscious "switching on" of the astral telepathic sense, the clairvoyant sense. While in this condition, they obtained startling results; but the next time they tried, they failed to awaken the astral sense, and, therefore, had to depend entirely upon the physical telepathic sense, and, consequently, their results were comparatively poor.

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