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Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter II - The Ray of Personality - Problems of Disciples and Mystics
We are considering the unfoldment of the psychic powers, producing conditions in the subject which are regarded by the orthodox investigator as pathological in nature or as indicating psychological trouble of a serious kind. However, we are today close to the time when the fact of there being modes of perception other than those of the physical senses will be recognized, and the attitude of medicine and of the psychiatric and neurological sciences will undergo definite [574] changes - much to the assistance and aid of humanity. The development of the psychic powers is basically due at this time (for the whole problem shifts into changing fields as evolution proceeds) to the psychic becoming aware of a field or fields of phenomena which are always present but which remain usually unrecognized because the inner mechanism of perception remains latent or quiescent. In the undeveloped human being or in groups of men who are low down in the racial scale, as also in animals, there is much psychic perception because the sacral center motivates the physical plane life and the solar plexus center governs the psychic nature. In these cases, all the higher centers are quiescent and undeveloped. The solar plexus is to the worlds of lower psychic perception what the brain is intended to be in the worlds of higher psychic understanding. In the one case, you have a center of energy which is so potent that it swings the man into a state of consciousness which is fundamentally astral, thus governing the sex life from the angle of the sentient consciousness; in the other case, you have so close an identification between the head center in etheric matter and the brain in physical substance that an organ which is definitely physical functions sympathetically, accurately and synchronously with its subjective counterpart, registering impressions from the head center and the worlds with which that center puts a man in touch. The two are then as one. In between these stages of low grade psychic life and the spiritual perception of the initiate there is to be found every possible type of sentient consciousness. These can be divided into three major categories: The unfoldment and use of the psychic powers, both higher and lower. This is the stage of Psychism. [575] The evolution of the mystical vision. This is the stage of Mysticism. The revelation of light and power. This is the stage of Occultism. All these expressions of divine knowledge are connected with, and dependent upon, the development of the centers. In the low grade human being, the centers are nothing more than slowly revolving, palpitating disks of dim light. In Lemurian days, the sacral center was the most active and the brightest. In Atlantean days, the solar plexus center was by far the most significant. Today, as you know, the higher correspondences are coming into functioning activity and humanity is beginning to reap the benefits derived from experience in three races - the Lemurian, the Atlantean and the Aryan. The throat center is now the most active in the majority of cases and the most significant. The time is, however, coming when humanity will function on a large scale and as a mass through the ajna center; this will take place in the next race for, in the next great cycle of racial development, there will be no people with a Lemurian consciousness to be found any where and the "pull" or the activity of the sacral center will be greatly lessened and controlled. This can be seen happening today among the intelligentsia of the race. The Atlantean state of awareness (which functions primarily through the solar plexus) will be also greatly lessened as the heart center awakens. Humanity will then be wrestling with difficulties and pathological and psychological troubles which will be based on group conditions and influences and not so much on a man's individual unfoldment. The beginnings of this can already be seen in its lowest phase in the emergence today of what is called "mass psychology" - a thing practically unknown (except in urban centers) a few hundred years ago. [576] Now it is well nigh planetary in its radius of influence. Public opinion, with its determining and conditioning influence, is another phase of the same emerging factor. The Aryan state of consciousness, with its coordinating capacity and its mental emphasis, will control the mass of the people, for in the coming race the Atlantean emotional state of consciousness will be to humanity what the Lemurian or low grade type is to the Aryan at this time. The masses will then all come under the category of the intelligentsia, whilst the intelligentsia of today will be the intuitive of tomorrow. In the language of mysticism, the masses will be on the probationary path and the cream of the race will be on the path of discipleship. The number also of the initiates and adepts, present in incarnation in order to carry forward the externalized work of the Hierarchy, will be great. The world will then be full of people who will be completely integrated personalities with all the virtues (and consequently all the vices), the ambitions and problems, incident to that stage of awareness.
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