Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - Esoteric Psychology I - Section I

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Esoteric Psychology I - Section One - II. Certain Questions and their Answers

The fact of the soul will be brought to the racial recognition in many ways, and the revelation will come along so many lines that all types of minds will be satisfied. I shall indicate only a few.

The psychics of the world are increasing greatly in number, and the growing sensitivity of the race to impression is a cause of rejoicing and of danger. All over the world aspirants are registering contacts hitherto unknown, are seeing a phenomenal world usually hidden to them, and are generally becoming aware of an expansion of consciousness. They are registering a world of phenomena - often astral, sometimes mental, and occasionally egoic - which does initiate them into a new dimension of consciousness and into a different state of being. This expansion of consciousness serves both to encourage them in their endeavor and to complicate the way of the aspirant. This growing sensitivity is universal; hence the [98] rapid growth of spiritualism and of the psychic sciences, and hence also the increase among men of nervous tension, of neurotic conditions, and of the greatly increased problems of the psychiatrist; hence also the spread of new nervous and mental diseases. This sensitivity is the response of the mechanism of man to the approaching developments, and the race as a whole is being brought into a condition wherein it will be ready to "see and hear" that which has been up to the present unrevealed.

The growth of the color sense and the capacity to respond musically to quarter tones and subtle nuances indicate a thinning of the veil which separates the world of external and tangible phenomena from that of subjective being and of more subtle matter. The growth also of etheric vision and the largely increased numbers of clairvoyant and clairaudient people are steadily revealing the existence of the astral plane and the etheric counterpart of the physical world. More and more people are becoming aware of this subjective realm; they see people walking around who are either the so-called "dead," or who in sleep have dropped the physical sheath. They become aware of colors and distinctive hues and streams of organized light which are not of this physical world; they hear sounds and voices which emanate from those who are not using the physical vocal apparatus, and from forms of existence which are not corporeal.

The first step towards substantiating the fact of the soul is to establish the fact of survival, though this may not necessarily prove the fact of immortality. It can nevertheless be regarded as a step in the right direction. That something survives the process of death, and that something persists after the disintegration of the physical body, is steadily being proved. If that is not so, then we are the victims of a collective hallucination, and the brains and minds of thousands [99] of people are untrue and deceiving, are diseased and distorted. Such a gigantic collective insanity is more difficult to credit than the alternative of an expanded consciousness. This development along psychic lines does not prove the fact of the soul, however; it only serves to break down the materialistic position.

It is among the thinkers of the race that the first assured recognition of the soul will come, and this event will be the result of the study and analysis, by the psychologists of the world, of the nature of genius and the significance of creative work.

Some men and women in the world tower above their fellow men, and produce that which is superlative in its own field; their work has in it the element of divinity and of immortality. The work of creative artists, the intuitive perception of great scientific investigators, the inspired imagination of the poets of the world and the vision of the illumined idealists, have all to be accounted for and explained, for the laws under which such men and women work have yet to be discovered. The close study, by the psychologist, of the abnormal and the subnormal, of warped and distorted minds and of defective equipments, has been over-emphasized, and due attention has not been given to the divinely abnormal, and to those types of consciousness which transcend the ordinary human state of intelligent awareness. These latter supernormal states find expression through the medium of the great artists, musicians, dramatists, writers, and the many other types of creative workers who have been the glory of the human kingdom down the ages, and who will flame forth during the coming century with greater glory still.

When the hypothesis of the soul is accepted, when the nature of the spiritual energy which flows through the soul is admitted, and when the mechanism of the force centers is [100] studied, we shall make rapid progress towards knowledge. When, through meditation, experiment is made to produce creatively some of the beauty contacted, some of the ideas revealed and some of the patterns seen, we shall learn to cultivate genius and understand how to train people to work creatively. Then much will be discovered about the centers in man where the divine principle has its dwelling, and from which the Christ within can work. The study of the superconscious must be undertaken, and not simply the study of the self-conscious or of the subconscious. Through this study, carried forward with an open mind, modern psychology will eventually arrive at a recognition of the soul.

The range of investigation is so wide that I can only indicate some of the possible fields of research:

The investigation of the nature of genius, and its definite and specialized cultivation.

Training in creative work and a study of the difference between this kind of training and training for vocational work. Creative work proves the fact of the soul; vocational training demonstrates the type of the personality.

Scientific investigation of the powers in man, with particular attention to telepathy. It will be found that telepathic work is from mind to mind, or from soul to mind, and does not necessarily imply brain to brain communication and contact. This is one of the most promising fields of investigation, though it still presents much difficulty. The fact of the existence of the soul will not be proved through the medium of telepathy until after the year 1945. By that time an event will have happened in the world and a particular new teaching will have been given which will put the entire subject of telepathic phenomena in a new light.

The scientific training of clairvoyants and the intelligent development of clairvoyant powers by the intelligentsia of [101] the world leaves as yet much to be desired, but it will come as the result of mind control and illumination. Men will learn to subject the mechanism of the body to a downflow of spiritual energy and stimulation, and thus will bring the powers of the psychic nature into activity, and the old method of sitting for development in order to awaken the centers will be seen as dangerous and unnecessary.

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