Section 3

PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 149
traced solely to molecular action. The higher noetic character of the Mind-Princi¬ ple is entirely ignored, and even rejected as a “ superstition ” by both physiologists and psychologists. Psychology, in fact, has be¬ come a synonym in many cases for the sci¬ ence of psychiatry. Therefore, students of Theosophy being compelled to differ from all these, have adopted the doctrine that underlies the time-honored philosophies of the East, What it is, may be found fur¬ ther on.
To better understand the foregoing argu¬ ments and those which follow, the reader is asked to turn to the editorial in the September Lucifer , (“The Dual Aspect of Wisdom”, p. 3), and acquaint himself with the double aspect of that which is termed by St. James in his Third Epistle — at once — the devilish, terrestrial wisdom, and the “wis¬ dom from above ”. In another editorial, “Kosmic Mind” (April, 1890), it is also stated that the ancient Hindus endowed ev¬ ery cell in the human body with conscious¬ ness, giving each the name of a God or Goddess. Speaking of atoms in the name
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of science and philosophy, Professor Ladd calls them in his work “ supersensible be¬ ings”. Occultism regards every atom* as an “ independent entity ” and every cell as a “conscious unit”. It explains that no sooner do such atoms group to form cells, than the latter become endowed with con¬ sciousness, each of its own kind, and with free will to act within the limits of law. Nor are we entirely deprived of scientific evidence for such statements as the two above named editorials well prove. More than one learned physiologist of the golden minority, in our own day, moreover, is rap¬ idly coming to the conviction, that memory has no seat, no special organ of its own in the human brain, but that it has seats in every organ of the body.
“No good ground exists for speaking of any special organ, or seat of memory,” writes Professor G. T. Ladd. “Every organ, indeed every area, and every limit of the nervous system has its own memory ” (p. 553, loc . tit.).
*One of the names of Brahm& is anu or “ atom
PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION
151
The seat of memory, then, is assuredly neither here nor there, but everywhere throughout the human body. To locate its organ in the brain is to limit and dwarf the Universal Mind and its countless Rays (the Manasa putra) which inform every rational mortal. As we write for Theosophists, first of all, we care little for the psychophobian prejudices of the Materialists who may read this and sniff contemptuously at the men¬ tion of “ Universal Mind ”, and the Higher noetic souls of men. But, what is memory ? we ask. “ Both presentation of sense and image of memory, are transitory phases of consciousness ”, we are answered. But what is Consciousness itself? — we ask again. “ We cannot define Consciousness ”, Professor Ladd tells us.* Thus, that which we are asked to do by physiological psychology is, to con¬ tent ourselves with controverting the vari¬ ous states of Consciousness by other people’s private and unverifiable hypotheses ; and this, on “questions of cerebral physiology where experts and novices are alike ignorant” ,
* Elements of Physiological Psychology.
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STUDIES m OCCULTISM
to use the pointed remark of the said au¬ thor. Hypothesis for hypothesis, then we may as well hold to the teachings of our Seers, as to the conjectures of those who deny both such Seers and their wisdom. The more so, as we are told by the same honest man of science, that “if metaphysics and ethics cannot properly dictate their facts and conclusions to the science of phy¬ siological psychology .... in turn this science cannot properly dictate to meta¬ physics and ethics the conclusions which they shall draw from facts of Consciousness, by giving out its myths and fables in the garb of well ascertained history of the cerebral processes” (p. 554).
Now, since the metaphysics of Occult physiology and psychology postulate within mortal man an immortal entity, “divine Mind ”, or JVous , whose pale and too often distorted reflection is that, which we call “Mind” and intellect in men — virtually an entity apart from the former during the period of every incarnation — we say that the two sources of “ memory ” are in these two “ principles ”. These two we dis-
PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION
153
tinguish as the Higher Manas , (Mind or Ego), and the Kama- Manas, i. e ., the rational, but earthly or physical intellect of man, incased in, and bound by, matter, therefore subject to the influence of the lat¬ ter : the all-conscious Self, that which rein¬ carnates periodically — verily the Word made flesh ! — and which is always the same, while its reflected “ Double ”, changing with every new incarnation and personality, is, there¬ fore, conscious but for a life-period. The latter “ principle ” is the Lovier Self, or that, which manifesting through our organic sys¬ tem, acting on this plane of illusion, imagines itself the Ego Sum, and thus falls into what Buddhist philosophy brands as the “ heresy of separateness The former we term In¬ dividuality, the latter Personality. From the first proceeds all the noetic element, from the second, the psychic , i. e ., “ terres¬ trial wisdom ” at best, as it is influenced by all the chaotic stimuli of the human or rather animal passions of the living body.
The “ Higher Ego ” cannot act directly on the body, as its consciousness belongs to quite another plane and planes of ideation :
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the “ lower ” Self does : and its action and behavior depend on its free-will and choice as to whether it will gravitate more towards its parent (“the Father in Heaven”) or the “animal ” which it informs, the man of flesh. The “Higher Ego”, as part of the essence of the Universal Mind, is uncon¬ ditionally omniscient on its own plane, and only potentially so in our terrestrial sphere, as it has to act solely through its alter ego — the Personal Self. Now, although the for¬ mer is the vehicle of all knowledge of the past, the present, and the future, and al¬ though it is from this fountain-head that its “double” catches occasional glimpses of that which is beyond the senses of man, and transmits them to certain brain cells (un¬ known to science in their functions), thus making of man a Seer , a soothsayer, and a prophet; yet the memory of bygone events — especially of the earth earthy — has its seat in the Personal Ego alone. No memo¬ ry of a purely daily-life function, of a physi¬ cal, egotistical, or of a lower mental nature — such as, e.g ., eating and drinking, enjoying personal sensual pleasures, transacting busi-
PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION
155
ness to the detriment of one’s neighbor, etc., etc., has aught to do with the “Higher” Mind or Ego. Nor has it any direct deal¬ ings on this physical plane with either our brain or our heart — for these two are the organs of a power higher than the Person¬ ality — but only with our passional organs, such as the liver, the stomach, the spleen, etc. Thus it only stands to reason that the mem¬ ory of such-like events must be first awak¬ ened in that organ which was the first to induce the action remembered afterwards, and conveyed it to our “sense-thought”, which is entirely distinct from the “ super- sensuous ” thought . It is only the higher forms of the latter, the superconscious men¬ tal experiences, that can correlate with the cerebral and cardiac centers. The memories of physical and selfish (or personal) deeds, on the other hand, together with the mental experiences of a terrestrial nature, and of earthly biological functions, can, of neces¬ sity, only be correlated with the molecular constitution of various Kamic organs, and the “dynamical associations” of the ele-
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ments of the nervous system in each particu¬ lar organ.
Therefore, when Professor Ladd, after showing that every element of the nervous system has a memory of its own, adds : — “ This view belongs to the very essence of every theory which considers conscious mental reproduction as only one form or phase of the biological fact of organic mem¬ ory ” — he must include among such theories the Occult teaching. For no Occultist could express such teaching more correctly than the Professor, who says, in winding up his argument : “We might properly speak, then, of the memory of the end-organ of vision or of hearing, of the memory of the spinal cord and of the different so-called 6 centers ’ of reflex action belonging to the cords of the memory of the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, etc.” This is the essence of Occult teaching — even in the Tantra works. Indeed, every organ in our body has its own memory . For if it is endowed with a con¬ sciousness “of its own kind”, every cell must of necessity have also a memory of its own kind, as likewise its own psychic and
PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 157
noetic action. Responding to the touch of both a physical and a metaphysical Force,* the impulse given by the psychic (or psycho- molecular) Force will act from without with¬ in ; while that of the noetic (shall we call it Spiritual-dynamical ?) Force works from within without . For, as our body is the covering of the inner “principles”, soul, mind, life, etc., so the molecule or the cell is the body in which dwell its “principles”, the (to our senses and comprehension) im¬ material atoms which compose that cell. The cell’s activity and behavior are de¬ termined by its being propelled either inwardly or outwardly by the noetic or the psychic Force, the former having no re¬ lation to the physical cells proper. There¬ fore, while the latter act under the unavoidable law of the conservation and correlation of physical energy, the atoms — being psycho-spiritual, not physical units — act under laws of their own, just as Professor Ladd’s “Unit-Being”, which is our “Mind-Ego”, does, in his very
*We fondly trust this very unscientific term will throw no “Animalist” into hysterics beyond recovery.
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philosophical and scientific hypothesis. Every human organ and each cell in the latter has a key-board of its own, like that of a piano, only that it registers and emits sensations instead of sounds. Every key contains the potentiality of good or bad, of producing harmony or disharmony. This depends on the impulse given and the com¬ binations produced ; on the force of the touch of the artist at work, a “ double-faced Unity ”, indeed. And it is the action of this or the other “ Face ” of the Unity that determines the nature and the dynamical character of the manifested phenomena as a resulting action, and this whether they be physical or mental. For the whole life of man is guided by this double-faced Entity. If the impulse comes from the “Wisdom above ”, the Force applied being noetic or spiritual, the results will be actions worthy of the divine propeller ; if from the “ ter¬ restrial, devilish wisdom” (psychic power), man’s activities will be selfish, based solely on the exigencies of his physical, hence ani¬ mal, nature. The above may sound to the average reader as pure nonsense ; but every
PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 159
Theosophist must understand when told that there are Manasic as well as Kamie organs in him, although the cells of his body answer to both physical and spiritual impulses.
Yerily that body, so desecrated by Mater¬ ialism and man himself, is the temple of the Holy Grail, the Adytum of the grandest, nay, of all, the mysteries of nature in our solar universe. That body is an JEolian harp, chorded with two sets of strings, one made of pure silver, the other of catgut. When the breath from the divine Fiat brushes softly over the former, man becomes like unto his God — but the other set feels it not. It needs the breeze of a strong ter¬ restrial wind, impregnated with animal efflu¬ via, to set its animal chords vibrating. It is the function of the physical, lower mind to act upon the physical organs and their cells ; but, it is the higher mind alone which can influence the atoms interacting in those cells, which interaction is alone capable of exciting the brain, via the spinal “ center ” cord, to a mental representation of spiritual ideas far beyond any objects on this materi-
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al plane. The phenomena of divine con¬ sciousness have to be regarded as activities of our mind on another and a higher plane, working through something less substantial than the moving molecules of the brain. They cannot be explained as the simple re¬ sultant of the cerebral physiological pro¬ cesses, as indeed the latter only condition them or give them a final form for purposes of concrete manifestation. Occultism teach¬ es that the liver and the spleen-cells are the most subservient to the action of our “ per¬ sonal ” mind, the heart being the organ par excellence through which the “ Higher ” Ego acts — through the Lower Self.
Nor can the visions or memory of purely terrestrial events be transmitted directly through the mental perceptions of the brain — the direct recipient of the impressions of the heart. All such recollections have to be first stimulated by and awakened in the or¬ gans which were the originators, as already stated, of the various causes that led to the results, or, the direct recipients and partici¬ pators of the latter. In other words, if what is called “association of ideas” has
PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION
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much to do with the awakening of memory, the mutual interaction and consistent inter¬ relation between the personal “Mind-En¬ tity” and the organs of the human body have far more so. A hungry stomach evokes the vision of a past banquet, because its action is reflected and repeated in the per¬ sonal mind. But even before the memory of the personal Self radiates the vision from the tablets wherein are stored the experi¬ ences of one’s daily life — even to the mi¬ nutest details — the memory of the stomach has already evoked the same. And so with all the organs of the body. It is they which originate according to their animal needs and desires the electro-vital sparks that illuminate the field of consciousness in the Lower Ego ; and it is these sparks which in their turn awaken to function the reminiscences in it. The whole human body is, as said, a vast sounding board, in which each cell bears a long record of im¬ pressions connected with its parent organ, and each cell hajs a memory and a conscious¬ ness of its kind, or call it instinct if you will. These impressions are, according to
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the nature of the organ, physical, psychic, or mental, as they relate to this or another plane. They may be called “ states of con¬ sciousness” only for the want of a better expression — as there are states of instinct¬ ual, mental, and purely abstract, or spiritual consciousness. If we trace all such “psy¬ chic ” actions to brain-work, it is only because in that mansion called the human body the brain is the front-door, and the only one which opens out into Space. All the others are inner doors, openings in the private building, through which travel inces¬ santly the transmitting agents of memory and sensation. The clearness, the vividness, and intensity of these depend on the state of health and the organic soundness of the transmitters. But their reality, in the sense of trueness or correctness, is due to the “ principle ” they originate from, and the preponderance in the Lower Manas of the noetic or of the phrenic ( “ Kama ”, terres¬ trial) element.
For, as Occultism teaches, if the Higher Mind-Entity — the permanent and the im¬ mortal — is of the divine homogeneous
PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 163
essence of “ Alaya-Akasa or Mahat — its reflection, the Personal Mind, is, as a tempo¬ rary “ Principle ”, of the Substance of the Astral Light. As a pure ray of the “ Son of the Universal Mind”, it could perform no functions in the body, and would remain powerless over the turbulent organs of Mat¬ ter. Thus, while its inner constitution is Manasic, its “body”, or rather functioning essence, is heterogeneous, and leavened with the Astral Light, the lowest element of Ether. It is a part of the mission of the Manasic Ray, to get gradually rid of the blind, deceptive element which, though it makes of it an active spiritual entity on this plane, still brings it into so close contact with matter as to entirely becloud its di¬ vine nature and stultify its intuitions.
This leads us to see the difference be¬ tween the pure noetic and the terrestrial psychic visions of seership and mediumship. The former can be obtained by one of two means; (a) on the condition of paralysing at will the memory and the instinctual, inde¬ pendent action of all the material organs
* Another name for the universal mind.
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and even cells in the body of flesh, an act which, once that the light of the Higher Ego has consumed and subjected for ever the passional nature of the personal, lower Ego, is easy, but requires an adept; and ( b ) of being a reincarnation of one, who, in a previous birth, had attained through ex¬ treme purity of life and efforts in the right direction almost to a To^’-state of holiness and saintship. There is also a third possi¬ bility of reaching in mystic visions the plane of the Higher Manas; but it is only occasional and does not depend on the will of the Seer, but on the extreme weakness and exhaustion of the material body through illness and suffering. The Seeress of Pre- vorst was an instance of the latter case; and Jacob Boehme of our second category. In all other cases of abnormal seership, of so-called clairaudience, clairvoyance, and trances, it is simply — mediumship.