But the full consciousness of man is self-consciousness—that which makes us say, “I do that.” If there is pleasure it must be traced to some one experiencing it. Now the difference between the consciousness of man and of animals is that while there is a Self in the animal, the animal is not conscious of the Self. Spencer reasons on consciousness, but when he comes to a gap he merely jumps over it. So again Hume, when he says that on introspection he sees merely feelings and can never find any “I,” forgets that without an “I” no seeing of feelings would be possible. What is it that studies the feelings? The animal is not conscious of the feeling “I am I.” It has instinct, but instinct is not self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is an attribute of the mind, not of the soul, the anima, whence the very name animal is taken. Humanity had no self-consciousness until the coming of the Mânasaputras in the Third Race. Consciousness, brain-consciousness, is the field of the light of the Ego, of the Auric Egg, of the Higher Manas. The cells of the leg are conscious, but they are the slaves of the idea; they are not self-conscious, they cannot originate an idea, although when they are tired they can convey to the brain an uneasy sensation, and so give rise to the idea of fatigue. Instinct is the lower state of consciousness. Man has consciousness running through the [pg 574] four lower keys of his septenary consciousness; there are seven scales of consciousness in his consciousness, which is none the less essentially and pre-eminently one, a unit. There are millions and millions of states of consciousness, as there are millions and millions of leaves; but as you cannot find two leaves alike, so you cannot find two states of consciousness alike; a state is never exactly repeated.
Is memory a thing born in us that it can give birth to the Ego? Knowledge, feeling, volition, are colleagues of the mind, not faculties of it. Memory is an artificial thing, an adjunct of relativeness; it can be sharpened or left dull, and it depends on the condition of the brain-cells which store all impressions; knowledge, feeling, volition, cannot be correlated, do what you will. They are not produced from each other, nor produced from mind, but are principles, colleagues. You cannot have knowledge without memory, for memory stores all things, garnishing and furnishing. If you teach a child nothing, it will know nothing. Brain-consciousness depends on the intensity of the light shed by the Higher Manas on the Lower, and the extent of affinity between the brain and this light. Brain-mind is conditioned by the responsiveness of the brain to this light; it is the field of consciousness of the Manas. The animal has the Monad and the Manas latent, but its brain cannot respond. All potentialities are there, but are dormant. There are certain accepted errors in the West which vitiate all their theories.
How many impressions can a man receive simultaneously into his consciousness and record? The Westerns say one: Occultists say normally seven, and abnormally fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, up to forty-nine, impressions can be simultaneously received. Occultism teaches that the consciousness always receives a sevenfold impression and stores it in the memory. You can prove it by striking at once the seven notes of the musical scale: the seven sounds reach the consciousness simultaneously, but the untrained ear can only recognize them one after another, and if you choose you can measure the intervals. The trained ear will hear the seven notes at once, simultaneously. And experiment has shown that in two or three weeks a man may be trained to receive seventeen or eighteen impressions of colour, the intervals decreasing with practice.
Memory is acquired for this life, and can be expanded. Genius is the greatest responsiveness of the brain and brain-memory to the Higher Manas. Impressions on any sense are stored in the memory.
Before a physical sense is developed there is a mental feeling which proceeds to become a physical sense. Fishes who are blind, living in the deep sea, or subterranean waters, if they are put into a pond will in a few generations develop eyes. But in their previous state there is a sense of seeing, though no physical sight; how else should they in the darkness find their way, avoid dangers, etc.? The mind will take in and store all kinds of things mechanically and unconsciously, and will throw them into the memory as unconscious perceptions. If the attention is greatly engrossed in any way, the sense perception of any injury is not felt at the time, but later the suffering enters into consciousness. So, returning to our example of the seven notes struck simultaneously, we have one impression, but the ear is affected in succession by the notes one after another, so that they are stored in the brain-mind in order, for the untrained consciousness cannot register them simultaneously. All depends on training and on attention. Thus the transference of a sensation passing from any organ to the consciousness is almost simultaneous if your attention is fixed on it, but if any noise distracts your attention, then it will take a fraction more of a second before it reaches your consciousness. The Occultist should train himself to receive and transmit along the line of the seven scales of his consciousness every impression, or impressions, simultaneously. He who reduces the intervals of physical time the most has made the most progress.
Consciousness, Its Seven Scales.
There are seven scales or shades of consciousness, of the Unit; e.g., in a moment of pleasure or pain; four lower and three higher.
1. Physical sense-perception: Perception of the cell (if paralyzed, the sense is there, though you do not feel it).
2. Self-perception or apperception: I.e., self-perception of cell.
3. Psychic apperception: Of astral double, döppelganger, carrying it higher to the: