Question: Are all children clairvoyant up to a certain age? (Vol. I, #139)
Answer: Yes, all are clairvoyant at least during the first year of their life.
It depends upon the spirituality of the child to a great extent, also upon its
environment, how long it will keep the faculty, for most children communicate
all they see to their elders and the faculty of clairvoyance is affected by
their attitude. Often children are ridiculed, and nothing so hurts their
sensitive natures. They soon learn to shut out the scenes which engender the
ridicule of their elders, or at least they will learn to keep such experiences
to themselves. When listened to, they often reveal wonderful things, and at
times it is possible to trace a previous life by information from a little
child. This happens particularly, of course, if the child died as a child in
its previous life, for then it would only have been in the Invisible World
from one to twenty years, so that it is possible to verify its information.
Children who, in their previous life, died as children, are much more apt to
remember the past and to be clairvoyant than other children, because the
desire body and vital body are not born at the same time as the physical birth
of the child, but at seven and fourteen years of age, respectively, and what
has not been quickened cannot die, so that if a child passes out before birth
of the vital body or of the desire body, it will not go into the Second and
Third Heavens, but will stay in the Desire World and will be reborn with the
same desire body and mind that it possessed in its previous life, and
therefore it will be very much more apt to remember what happened then. The
writer came across such an instance a few years ago in Southern California.
One day in Santa Barbara, a man by the name of Roberts was walking along the
street when a little child ran up to him, put her arms around his knees and
called him "Papa." Mr. Roberts thought someone was trying to foist a child
upon him and indignantly freed himself. The mother of the child was also
indignant at its action and took it away. But the child kept crying, "It is my
papa, it is my papa." On account of circumstances which will appear later, the
incident preyed upon Mr. Roberts' mind, and he went to a gentleman whom we
will call "X". Together they sought the house where the little child lived
with her parents, and after some parleying were allowed to question her. As
soon as the little girl saw Mr. Roberts she ran to him again and called him
"Papa." Then, in answer to intermittent questioning during the afternoon, the
child told the story, which we give here connectedly.
Once upon a time she lived with Mr. Roberts as her father and another mama
in a little house by a brook where flowers grew (here she ran out and fetched
some pussy willows.) There was a gang plank across the brook which she was
forbidden to cross, lest she fall in the water. One day Mr. Roberts left her
mama and herself never to return. After some time her mama laid down and and
moved no more. "She became so still, and she died." Then, said the child, "I
died too; but I didn't die, I came here!"
Next, Mr. Roberts told his story. "About eighteen years previously he had
lived with his father, a brewer, in England. He fell in love with their
servant girl, but the father refused permission to marry. The young people ran
off to London, were married, went to Australia, where he cleared a little farm
in the bush, and built a house by a brook where pussy willows grew. There was
a gang plank over the brook. A little child was born to them, and when that
child was about two years of age, Mr. Roberts went one day to a clearing about
a mile from the cabin and while there an officer of the law approached him
with a gun and arrested him for a bank robbery committed on the night he left
London.
"He protested his innocence, begged leave to visit wife and child to take
care of them, but the officer feared a trap to get him into the hands of
confederates, and drove Mr. Roberts to the coast at the point of the gun. He
was taken to England, tried for the robbery and found not guilty. Not until
then did the authorities listen to his constant ravings about a wife and child
who must surely have starved in the wilds of Australia. A telegram was sent, a
search party organized and in due time the answer came. They found the
skeletons of the deserted ones, and Mr. Roberts departed for America, a heart-
broken man."
The child was then shown a number of pictures, in a casual way, among them
being two photographs of Mr. Roberts and his wife. Mr. Roberts' appearance had
altered very much since that photograph was taken. Nevertheless, when the
child came upon the picture, she joyously shouted, "Oh, there is Papa!'' She
also recognized the picture of her mother in the previous life. The little
child was only about three years of age at the time when Mr. Roberts found
her, and could not possibly have made up such a story. Later the case was
investigated by one of the foremost newspapers in Southern California, the Los
Angeles Times, and the facts found to be as here related.
Different Forms
of Supersensible Sight
Question: What is the difference between etheric sight, clairvoyance and the
sight pertaining to the World of Thought? (Vol. I, #142)
Answer: When we look at a man with etheric sight, we first see his outside
clothing, then the lining inside, his underclothing, his skin, ribs and the
various organs of his body along the line of our vision; then the spinal
column, the back of the ribs, the flesh, the skin and the clothing on his
back. In other words, we see through him. By the etheric sight a man can see
through books, papers, letters, walls, or anything else for a short distance.
In fact, this faculty may be called X-ray sight. Only one substance is proof
against its penetrative faculty. Glass is as opaque to etheric sight as a
stone wall to ordinary physical sight for the same reason, perhaps, that glass
is such a splendid insulator for electricity.
When we look at a person or a thing with ordinary clairvoyant sight, we see
their desire bodies and the counterparts of their other vehicles inside and
out — every particle at the same time. It is rather difficult to read a book or
even a letter with etheric sight, because we must look through other pages
which blur the one we wish to read. When we use ordinary clairvoyance it seems
as if the book or letter is spread out so that we can read any page or part
without having to look through any other part. But when we look at an object
with the sight pertaining to the four lower regions of the World of Thought,
and the writer (Max Heindel) has personal knowledge of no higher realms, we
find that instead of forms there are hollow spaces or molds, which speak to us
and tell us about themselves. The necessity of investigation is eliminated
from that world. There we know at once everything about whatever becomes an
object of our attention. There is, however, a curious drawback to the
knowledge gained in that manner — it dawns upon us all at once. The sum of
this knowledge is a whole, and has neither beginning nor end. It is therefore
usually a herculean task to unfold it into an orderly, sequential concept
which may be comprehensively stated to ourselves and others.
Various Methods
of Acquiring Clairvoyance
Question: Is it possible to cultivate clairvoyance by the use of drugs, by
crystal gazing or breathing exercises, and do these methods not bring results
quicker than the methods you advocate? (Vol. I, #148)
Answer: Yes; it is possible to cultivate a certain kind of clairvoyance by any
of the methods mentioned, but when a man or woman cultivates the sixth sense
by such means he or she is not master of his or her faculty; the power of
producing clairvoyance is vested in the crystal and not in the person. He or
she is in a similar position to one who learns horsemanship at a riding
academy where the horses are trained to allow themselves to be ridden. The
pupils acquire no ability to deal with intractable animals, but simply ride by
permission of their mount.
If a man learns to break a wild horse he can break others, and rides by
virtue of his own power to master his horse, and when a man has used will
power instead of drugs or a crystal to subdue his body and cultivate
clairvoyance, he has acquired a soul quality which enables him to exercise his
faculty in all future lives. But the crystal gazer and the drug abuser have
lost their power at death, and must wail until they can obtain drugs or
crystals in the new life to train the new body, and thus a great loss of time
and effort results from the use of such methods. When we take into
consideration the fact that drugs and breathing exercises have a dreadfully
destructive effect upon the body, it will be seen that these methods are
altogether undesirable. Many a man is today in the insane asylum or in the
grave of the consumptive on account of breathing exercises, and the effects of
drugs are well known.
Besides, there are various kinds of clairvoyants. There are some who have a
faculty of such a nature that the clairvoyant may be likened to a prisoner who
sits in his cell behind bars. The window in his cell opens upon a certain
view; he cannot escape seeing whatever comes into the range of his vision, for
he cannot turn away. There is also a shutter before his window which he cannot
control either. Thus at all times when that shutter is open he must see
whatever passes outside his window whether the sight pleases him or not. A
faculty of that nature is an unmitigated curse, for sometimes the most
dreadful scenes are enacted before the vision of such a clairvoyant. The
writer (Max Heindel) remembers the case of a certain gentleman, who possessed
that kind of faculty. Lecturing before a certain society at the time of the
War in the Philippines, a battle scene presented itself before his gaze. An
encounter was taking place at that moment between Filipinos and U.S. soldiers.
He saw horses ripped open and falling with entrails on the ground, our men
being hewn to pieces by the bolos of the natives, etc. Unable to shut off the
vision, he turned deathly pale, but exercise of will-power enabled him to
finish his lecture without attracting attention from the general audience.
There are other clairvoyants who have only a partial control of their sight
and who cannot count on the power at any time. To this class belongs the
ordinary medium who prostitutes the faculty for a fee. At times, when the
power is on, she may give exceedingly good readings and tell the truth, but at
other times, when the power is off, there may be a temptation to secure the
fees needed for office rent and personal expenses by simulating. The only safe
way to cultivate the faculty of clairvoyance is by means of exercises given by
the mystery schools, but these exercises and lessons in the development of the
higher faculties are never sold for gold or any material consideration. They
are always given without money as a reward of merit. The man who possesses
this faculty, cultivated by their method, has no off days, but he will never
consent to use it to gratify anyone's curiosity, for tests or other frivolous
purpose. He directs all his energy to aid in uplifting humanity.
The Best Time for the
Concentration Exercise
Question: What time in the morning is best for concentration? (Vol. I, #149)
Answer: The object of the exercises, both morning and evening, is to bring the
pupil into conscious touch with the invisible worlds, and there is no time so
good as the morning, for during the night the spirit withdraws from the dense
body and enters the invisible world, leaving the body asleep upon the bed; and
it is the return of the spirit in the morning which causes the body to awake
and focuses our consciousness upon the material world through the sense
organs. Wordsworth says in his beautiful "Ode to Immortality":
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our
life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar: Not in
entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory
do we come from God, who is our home:
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to
close Upon the growing Boy, But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, He
sees it in his joy.
"The Youth, who daily farther from the east, Must travel, still is Nature's
Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man
perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day."
During the life of a person, the Inner Worlds are closest to him in
childhood's years, as Wordsworth says, for that is life's morning and so it is
with us; when we waken in the morning we are in closer touch with the Spirit
Worlds than at any other time of day, and then it is easiest to return to
them. Therefore, the pupil should commence his exercises the very moment he
wakens, without allowing his mind to rest upon anything else. He should be
particular to relax his body perfectly so that no muscle is tense and fix his
mind upon a high ideal or upon the first five verses of the Gospel of St.
John, either sentence by sentence, or as a whole. That will put him in touch
with cosmic vibrations. He should still the senses so that he can hear nothing
and see nothing in his room. When he succeeds the scenes of the Desire World
will present themselves to his inner vision. First spasmodically, later more
and more clearly, as practice makes him perfect.
For most persons, however, the evening exercise is of the greater importance
and will probably bring results quicker, because that works upon the life we
lead and ennobles us in a way that the morning exercise cannot.
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