“You do not know a tithe of the real power of the will.” (Paracelsus, “Paramir.,” I., iv., 8.)
Upon the physical plane the will acts, so to say, unconsciously, carrying out blindly the laws of nature, causing attractions, repulsions, guiding the mechanical, chemical and physiological functions of the body without man’s intelligence taking any part in the process. Man is himself a manifestation of will, and the will (spirit) in him can perform many things without depending on the intellectual activity of the brain; all of which is left unexplained by modern physiology, although it cannot deny the facts. Thus an experienced pianist does not require to determine first which movement he should give to the muscles of his fingers before striking a key; but he does this instinctively after his spirit has been educated to it. Rope-walking, gymnastic feats and acts of all kinds are the products of a trained will, and would be impossible without that. They may be superintended by the intellect, but are not guided by it. Its sphere of action is limited to that of the body in which it dwells.
In its higher aspect the will is a conscious power, manifesting itself as emotions, virtues and vices of various kinds. Its sphere of action extends as far as the sphere of the influence of the individual mind. Thus the will of a superior person exercises an influence over his inferiors, a teacher over his pupils, a general over his army, a sage over the world.
In its highest aspect the will manifests itself as a self-conscious power, capable of acting far beyond the limits of the corporeal form from which it issues, constituting, so to say, an independent organized spiritual being acting under the guidance of the intelligence of the person from whom it is born. Strange as this assertion may appear, it is nevertheless true, and the now accepted phenomena of “hypnotism” have opened the door to the understanding of such phenomena.[40] An investigation into this subject would bring us within the realm of magic, spiritism, witchcraft, sorcery, etc., etc., which does not belong to our present purpose, and which has been treated in a previous work.[41]
As an evil will is the cause of many diseases, so is a good will a great remedy for curing them. While two fools hypnotizing each other will produce a mixture of folly, the magic power of the self-conscious benevolent will of an enlightened physician is able to arouse the confidence and restore health in many cases where all the remedies of the pharmacopœia are of no avail, and the cultivation of this power is therefore of supreme importance, even more so than a knowledge of all the details in regard to the action of drugs. Science and wisdom should be cultivated together, but not the former at the expense of the latter.
Imagination.
“Imagination” means the power of the mind to form images; from the shadowy images of a dream up to the corporeal and living images formed by the power of an Adept. This faculty, which was well known to the ancient sages who were in possession of it, is almost entirely ignored by popular medical science, which in spite of its recent discoveries of what is now called “suggestion,” does not yet seem to suspect the extent of its power. It is a power whose application cannot be taught to those who do not possess it, and there are very few who have this power developed; for our present generation is of a pre-eminently adamic (terrestrial) and impotent kind; leading a dream-life, and being itself composed of dreams, its imagination is as feeble as a dream. The real power of active and effective imagination belongs to the spiritual inner man, who in the vast majority of mankind has not yet awakened to life. Only when men and women have entered into the true life—in other words, when the spirit in them will have become self-conscious—will they be able to possess and to exercise spiritual powers, such as constituted the Arcana of Theophrastus Paracelsus, on which there has been so much speculation in modern literature and yet so little really known—the stumbling block and fruitful source of error for so many of our modern surface observers.[42]
We do not blame popular medical science for not knowing that which it does not know; but we believe that the presumption of those who figure temporarily as the representatives of science, and who dogmatically pronounce useless and absurd everything which they do not possess, ought not to be encouraged. It is not so very long since recognised science laughed at the rotundity of the earth, and declared officially that no meteors could fall from the sky “because there were no stones in heaven;” denounced the belief in “psychic phenomena” as being a degrading superstition, and ridiculed the idea of building steamboats and telegraphs, etc. These errors originate not from science, but from stupid ignorance and self-conceit; they are the result of human infirmities, which exist now as in times of old, and can be cured only by the development of a superior power for knowing the truth.
Memory.
The third great power of the spirit manifested in the mind is the power of memory, which is, in fact, the power of man’s spirit to visit those places within the sphere of his mind where the impressions of former experiences are preserved, and thus to bring them again within the field of consciousness. Whatever function the physical brain may exercise in using this faculty of the spirit, the brain is no more the memory than the eye the sight; it is merely an instrument for perception, but not the perceiver nor the object of perception, nor the perception itself. To remember a thing is to see its impression or image in the astral light; to recollect a thing is to gather together one’s own attention at the place where its impression is stored up in the mind, and the power which enables a person to do so is the relation which exists between the creator and his creatures; man having formed a thought or idea, or perceived an image, is able to recollect it, because the impression is his creation—having issued from himself, it is a part of his world.