Theosophy Northwest View
The Newsletter of the Northwest Branch of the Theosophical Society
May 2005 -- Vol. 8 Issue 3
Multicultural and Interfaith Fair
Nearly 4,000 people attended the Eastside Multicultural and Interfaith Fair on April 9th, which brought together many local groups interested in bettering the human condition and in building bridges of understanding among both individuals and groups. The event, organized by students at Bellevue Community College, also featured Kids, Wellness, and Multi-cultural Fairs, with 72 events at four locations on campus.
Baha'i, Christian, Buddhist and Unitarian Tables
The main Interfaith Fair site had tables representing Judaism, Islam, Baha'i, Christianity, and Buddhism as well as organizations such as the Unitiarian Universalists, Friends (Quakers), Theosophical Society, Unity, Christian Scientists, and Interfaith Communications Network, Friend to Friend, as well as various related Bellevue City services.
The Northwest Branch Table
Those attending the Fair enjoyed exchanging ideas and discovering the many concrete ways in which local people are involved in helping others.
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On Dreams
It depends entirely on each individual what principle will be the chief motor in dreams, and whether they will be remembered or forgotten. Generally it is the physical brain of the personal ego, the seat of memory, radiating and throwing off sparks like the dying embers of a fire. The memory of the sleeper is like a seven-stringed harp; and his state of mind may be compared to the wind that sweeps over the chords. The corresponding string will respond to that one of the seven states of mental activity in which the sleeper was before falling asleep. If it is a gentle breeze the harp will be affected but little; if a hurricane, the vibrations will be proportionately powerful. If the personal ego is in touch with its higher principles, all is well; if on the contrary it is of a materialistic animal nature, there will be probably no dreams; or if the memory by chance catch the breath of a "wind" from a higher plane, seeing that it will be impressed through the sensory ganglia of the cerebellum, and not by the direct agency of the spiritual ego, it will receive pictures and sounds so distorted and inharmonious that even a heavenly vision would appear a nightmare or grotesque caricature. - H. P. Blavatsky
Theosophical Book Circle - Newport Way Library
Thursday, April 7th, we will continue reading and discussing the Tao Teh Ching by Lao-tzu, starting with verse 53. Feel free to drop in at any meeting!
- When: Thursday, May 5, 7:30 to 8:45 pm
- Where: Newport Way Library, 14250 SE Newport Way, Bellevue (map at www.kcls.org/npw/direct.cfm)
Open to the public, unsectarian, non-political, no charge
Following meetings (at Newport Way Library):
Thursdays, June 2 and July 7, 2005
Monthly Discussion Group -- Bellevue Regional Library
"Dreams and Visions" is our topic this month. We will be discussing such questions as: What are the causes and significance of dreams and visions? How can we judge their value, and what do they tell us about ourselves and about consciousness? What light do mysticism, religion, psychology, and scientific research throw on these subjects? What about imagination, visualization, hallucination, prophecy, and clairvoyance? Come and share your ideas!
- When: Thursday, May 19, 7:30 to 8:45 pm
- Where: Bellevue Library, 1111 - 110th Ave NE, Bellevue
Open to the public, unsectarian, non-political, no charge
Upcoming Topics
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The topics for the monthly discussions are chosen by members of the Northwest Branch. If there is a subject that particularly interests you, or if you have ideas or suggestions about the meetings, please do not hesitate to email or mail them to the Branch or to mention them after the meetings.
Theosophical Views
Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena
by William Q. Judge
Clairvoyance, clairaudience, and second-sight are all related very closely. Every exercise of any one of them draws in at the same time both of the others. They are but variations of one power. Sound is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the astral sphere, and as light goes with sound, sight obtains simultaneously with hearing. To see an image with the Astral senses means that at the same time there is a sound, and to hear the latter infers the presence of a related image in astral substance. It is perfectly well known to the true student of occultism that every sound produces instantaneously an image, and this, so long known in the Orient, has lately been demonstrated in the West in the production to the eye of sound pictures on a stretched tympanum. This part of the subject can be gone into very much further with the aid of occultism, but as it is a dangerous one in the present state of society I refrain at this point.
In the astral light* are pictures of all things whatsoever that happened to any person, and as well also pictures of those events to come the causes for which are sufficiently well marked and made. If the causes are yet indefinite, so will be the images of the future. But for the mass of events for several years to come all the producing and efficient causes are always laid down with enough definiteness to permit the seer to see them in advance as if present. By means of these pictures, seen with the inner senses, all clairvoyants exercise their strange faculty. Yet it is a faculty common to all people, though in the majority but slightly developed; but occultism asserts that were it not for the germ of this power slightly active in every person no one could convey to another any idea whatsoever.
* The astral light is the repository of all things that ever have been, are, or will be. We human beings are as individuals swimming in it; we are perpetually bathed in it; it washes not only through our brains continuously, but through every molecule of our body. Every thought that passes through the human brain, high or low, comes by way of the astral light, even the thought of every god or demigod. For the astral light is a picture gallery through which our human minds wander constantly and which, when sympathetic contact with astral records has been made, transport such record into the brain. - G. de Purucker
In clairvoyance the pictures in the astral light pass before the inner vision and are reflected into the physical eye from within. They then appear objectively to the seer. If they are of past events or those to come, the picture only is seen; if of events actually then occurring, the scene is perceived through the astral light by the inner sense. The distinguishing difference between ordinary and clairvoyant vision is, then, that in clairvoyance with waking sight the vibration is communicated to the brain first, from which it is transmitted to the physical eye, where it sets up an image upon the retina, just as the revolving cylinder of the phonograph causes the mouthpiece to vibrate exactly as the voice had vibrated when thrown into the receiver. In ordinary eye vision the vibrations are given to the eye first and then transmitted to the brain. Images and sounds are both caused by vibrations, and hence any sound once made is preserved in the astral light from whence the inner sense can take it and from within transmit it to the brain, from which it reaches the physical ear. So in clairaudience at a distance the hearer does not hear with the ear, but with the center of hearing in the astral body. Second-sight is a combination of clairaudience and clairvoyance or not, just as the particular case is, and the frequency with which future events are seen by the second-sight seer adds an element of prophecy.
The highest order of clairvoyance - that of spiritual vision - is very rare. The usual clairvoyant deals only with the ordinary aspects and strata of the astral matter. Spiritual sight comes only to those who are pure, devoted, and firm. It may be attained by special development of the particular organ in the body through which alone such sight is possible, and only after discipline, long training, and the highest altruism. All other clairvoyance is transitory, inadequate, and fragmentary, dealing, as it does, only with matter and illusion. Its fragmentary and inadequate character results from the fact that hardly any clairvoyant has the power to see into more than one of the lower grades of astral substance at any one time. The pure-minded and the brave can deal with the future and the present far better than any clairvoyant.