Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle

by Alice A Bailey

  In union is strength. This is the second law governing telepathic communication.

  The first law is:

  1. The power to communicate is to be found in the very nature of substance itself. It lies potentially within the ether, and the significance of telepathy is to be found in the word omnipresence.

  The second law is:

  2. The interplay of many minds produces a unity of thought which is powerful enough to be recognised by the brain.

  Here we have a law governing a subjective activity and another law governing objective manifestation. Let us voice these laws in the simplest manner possible. When [6] each member of the group can function in his mind-consciousness, untrammelled by the brain or the emotional nature, he will discover the universality of the mental principle which is the first exoteric expression of the soul consciousness. He will then enter into the world of ideas, becoming aware of them through the sensitive receiving plate of the mind. He then seeks to find those who respond to the same type of ideas and who react to the same mental impulse, simultaneously with himself. Uniting himself to them he discovers himself to be en rapport with them.

  The understanding of the first law produces results in the mind or mental body. The understanding of the second law produces results in a lesser receiving station, the brain. This is possible through the strengthening of a man’s own mental reaction by the mental reaction of others, similarly receptive. It will be found therefore that this process of communication, governed by these two laws, has always been in operation among the adepts, the initiates and the senior disciples who are in physical plane bodies. Now the operation of this process is to be extended and steadily developed by the emerging group of mystics and world servers who constitute, in embryo, the world Saviour.

  Only those who know something of the meaning of concentration and meditation and who can hold the mind steady in the light will be able to understand the first law and comprehend that interplay of thought-directed energies which finds one terminal of expression in the mind of some inspired Thinker, and the other terminal in the mind of the attentive world server who seeks to tune in on those mind processes which hold the clue to ultimate world salvation. The thought-directing energy has for its source a Thinker Who can enter into the divine Mind, owing to His having transcended human limitation; the thought-directed receiver [7] is the man, in exoteric expression, who has aligned his brain, his mind, and his soul.

  It is a fact that omnipresence, which is a law in nature and based on the fact that the etheric bodies of all forms constitute the world etheric body, makes omniscience possible. The etheric body of the planetary Logos is swept into activity by His directed will; energy is the result of His thoughtform playing in and through His energy body. This thoughtform embodies and expresses His world Purpose. All the subhuman forms of life and the human forms up to the stage of advanced man are governed by divine thought through the medium of their energy bodies which are an integral part of the whole. They react, however, unconsciously and unintelligently. Advanced humanity, the mystics and the knowers, are becoming increasingly aware of the mind which directs the evolutionary process. When this awareness is cultivated and the individual mind is brought consciously into contact with the mind of God as it expresses itself through the illumined mind of the Hierarchy of adepts, we shall have the steady growth of omniscience. This is the whole story of telepathic interplay in the true sense; it portrays the growth of that oligarchy of elect souls who will eventually rule the world, who will be chosen so to rule, and who will be recognised by the mass as eligible for that high office through the co-ordination that they have established between:

  1. The universal mind.

  2. Their individual mind illumined by the soul consciousness.

  3. The brain, reacting to the individual mind, and

  4. The group of those whose minds and brains are similarly tuned and telepathically related.

  [8] In connection with disciples and aspirants to discipleship, it is presumed that their minds are somewhat attuned to the soul; that they are also so aligned that the soul, mind and brain are coordinated and are beginning to function as a unit. This is the individual responsibility. Now comes the task of learning to be responsive to the group and to find and contact those minds which are energised by similar thought currents. This has to be cultivated. How, my brother, shall this be done? Let us consider the various types of telepathic work.

  The undeveloped human being and the unthinking, non-mental man or woman can be and often are telepathic, but the centre through which they work is the solar plexus. The line of communication is, therefore, from solar plexus to solar plexus. This is therefore instinctual telepathy and concerns feeling in every case. It involves, invariably, radiations from the solar plexus, which in the case of the animal world serves usually as the instinctual brain. This type of telepathic communication is definitely a characteristic of the animal body of man, and one of the best illustrations of this telepathic rapport is that existing between a mother and her child. It is this type of telepathy which is predominantly present in the average spiritualistic seance. There the medium, quite unconsciously, sets up a telepathic rapport with the people in the circle. Their feelings, worries, sorrows, and desires become apparent and form part of the reading, so called. Both the sitters and the medium are functioning through the same centre. With this class of medium, and in this type of seance, the highly intelligent and mentally polarised man or woman will learn nothing, and will probably receive no messages, unless faked. Hence, therefore, when it comes to scientific investigation by trained minds, physical phenomena has predominated and not the more subtle forms of psychism. Where [9] the more subtle forms of super- or extra-sensory perception have been involved, the subjects have been either adolescent or in their early twenties and have been primarily and rightly focussed in the emotional-feeling body. This is true even when they are highly intellectual.

  This form of telepathic communication is therefore of two kinds, with the solar plexus always involved:

  a. It will be from solar plexus to solar plexus between two people who are ordinary, emotional, governed by desire, and primarily centred in the astral and animal bodies.

  b. It will be between such a “solar plexus” person, if I may so call him, and a higher type whose solar plexus centre is functioning actively but whose throat centre is also alive. This type of person registers in two places—provided that the thought sensed and sent out by the solar plexus person has in it something of mental substance or energy. Pure feeling and entirely emotional emanations between people necessitate only solar plexus contact.

  Later, when group work in telepathy is undertaken, the centres of transmission wherein high and consecrated feeling, devotion, aspiration and love are concerned and where the groups work with pure love, communication will be from heart to heart, and from a group heart to another group heart. The phrase “heart to heart talk,” so often used, is usually a misnomer at this time, but will some day be true. At present it is usually a solar plexus conversation!

  The second form of telepathic work is that of mind to mind, and it is with this form of communication that the highest investigation is at this time concerned. Only mental types are involved, and the more that emotion and feeling [10] and strong desire can be eliminated, the more accurate will be the work accomplished. The strong desire to achieve success in telepathic work, and the fear of failure, are the surest ways to offset fruitful effort. In all such work as this, an attitude of non-attachment and a spirit of ‘don’t care’ are of real assistance. Experimenters along this line need to give more time and thought to the recognition of types of force. They need to realise that emotion, and desire for anything, on the part of the receiving agent create streams of emanating energy which rebuff or repulse that which seeks to make contact, such as the directed thought of someone seeking rapport. When these streams are adequately strong, they act like a boomerang and return to the emanating centre, being attracted back there by the
power of the vibration which sent them forth. In this thought lies hid the cause of:

  a. The failure on the part of the broadcasting or transmitting agent. Intense desire to make a satisfactory impression will attract the outgoing thought back again to the transmitter.

  b. The failure on the part of the receiving agent whose own intense desire to be successful sends out such a stream of outgoing energy that the stream of incoming energy is met, blocked and driven back whence it came; or, if the receiver is aware of this and seeks to stem the tide of his desire, he frequently succeeds in surrounding himself with a wall of inhibited desire through which naught can penetrate.

  II. TELEPATHIC WORK

  [11] Telepathy and the allied powers will only be understood when the nature of force, of emanations and radiations, and of energy currents, is better grasped. This is rapidly coming about as science penetrates more deeply into the arcana of energies and begins to work—as does the occultist—in the world of forces.

  It should also be borne in mind that it is only as the centres employed are consciously used that we have that carefully directed work which will be fruitful of results. For instance, an emotional person, using primarily the solar plexus centre, will be endeavouring to enter into rapport with a mental type. From this will result only confusion. The two parties concerned are using different centres and are sensitive to certain types of force and closed to others. Again, some people, even if mentally polarised and therefore sensitive to similar vibrations attempt to make a telepathic contact when one party is under emotional strain and therefore not responsive, or one party is intensively occupied with some mental problem and is encased in a wall of thoughtforms and therefore impervious to impressions. You can see, therefore, how a cultivation of detachment is a necessary qualification for success in telepathic work.

  All who seek to tread the Path of Discipleship are endeavouring to live in the head centre, and—through meditation—to bring in the power of the soul. The problem which you face, as disciples learning telepathic sensitivity, is founded on two things:

  a. Upon which of your three bodies is the most active; thereby is indicated where you live subjectively most of the time. [12]

  b. Upon which centre is the most expressive in your equipment, and through which you contact most easily modern living conditions. I mean by these words: where, literally speaking, your life energy is predominantly focussed and your sentient energy expresses itself the most.

  An understanding of this will make you better able to work and to make intelligent experiment. Therefore, watch yourselves with care yet impersonally, and work out the why and the wherefore of the effects produced, for by this means you will learn.

  The third type of telepathic work is that from soul to soul. This is the highest type of telepathic work possible to humanity and is that form of communication which has been responsible for all the inspirational writings of real power, the world Scriptures, the illumined utterances, the inspired speakers, and the language of symbolism. It only becomes possible where there is an integrated personality, and, at the same time, the power to focus oneself in the soul consciousness. The mind and the brain have, at the same time, to be brought into perfect rapport and alignment.

  It is my intention to elucidate further this science of communication, which started through the sense of touch and developed through sound, symbols, words and sentences, languages, writing, art, and on again to the stage of higher symbols, vibratory contact, telepathy, inspiration and illumination. I have, however, in the above, dealt with the general outline and we will take the specific details later.

  The work of the telepathic communicators is one of the most important in the coming new age, and it will be of value to gain some idea of its significance and techniques. I [13] would, in summarising the above instruction, state that in connection with individuals:

  1. Telepathic communication is

  a. Between soul and mind.

  b. Between soul, mind and brain.

  This is as far as interior individual development is concerned.

  2. When it is found between individuals, telepathic communication is

  a. Between soul and soul.

  b. Between mind and mind.

  c. Between solar plexus and solar plexus, and therefore purely emotional.

  d. Between all these three aspects of energy simultaneously, in the case of very advanced people.

  3. Telepathic communication is also:

  a. Between a Master and His disciples or disciple.

  b. Between a Master and His group and a group or groups of sensitives and aspirants on the physical plane.

  c. Between subjective and objective groups.

  d. Between the occult Hierarchy and groups of disciples on the physical plane.

  e. Between the Hierarchy and the New Group of World Servers in order to reach humanity and lift it nearer the goal.

  This concerns the new science of group telepathic communication, of which herd or mass telepathy (so well known) is the lowest known expression. This instinctual telepathy which is shown by a flight of birds, acting as a unit, or that animal telepathy which serves to govern so mysteriously the movements of herds of animals, and the rapid transmission [14] of information among the savage races and non-intelligent peoples—these are all instances of that lower externalisation of an inner spiritual reality. An intermediate stage of this instinctual activity, based largely on solar plexus reactions, can be seen in modern mass psychology and public opinion. It is, as you know, predominantly emotional, unintelligent, astral and fluidic in its expression. This is changing rapidly and shifting into the realm of what is called “intelligent public opinion,” but this is, as yet, slow. It involves the activity of the throat and ajna centres. We have, therefore:

  1. Instinctual telepathy.

  2. Mental telepathy.

  3. Intuitional telepathy.

  I would remind you right at the outset that sensitivity to the thoughts of one’s Master, sensitivity to the world of ideas, and sensitivity to intuitional impressions are all forms of telepathic sensitivity.

  In any consideration of this theme, it is obvious that there are three major factors which must be considered:

  1. The initiating agent. I use this word with deliberate intent, as the power to work telepathically, both as initiating agent and as recipient, is closely connected with initiation, and is one of the indications that a man is ready for that process.

  2. The recipient of that which is conveyed to him on the “wings of thought.”

  3. The medium through which it is intended to convey the transfer of thought, of idea, of wish, of imprint, and therefore of some form of knowledge.

  [15] This is the simplest statement of the elementary mechanics of the process. This indicates, likewise, the most elementary comprehension of the thought covered so frequently by the Bhagavad Gita in the words which we have translated in the West by the terms: the Knower, the Field of Knowledge, and the Known. You have oft been told that every sacred book, such as the Bhagavad Gita, for instance, has various interpretations, dependent upon the point in evolution of the reader, or seeker after truth. This interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita in terms of Communicator, Communication and Communicant still demands elucidation, and in the idea which I have above conveyed to you, I have given you a hint.

  III. THREE TYPES OF TELEPATHY

  [16] Let us now discuss in some detail the three types of telepathy enumerated above: instinctual telepathy, mental telepathy, and intuitional telepathy. These three produce differing modes of activity and tap (to use a familiar word) differing areas of communication.

  1. Instinctual telepathy is based upon those impacts of energy which come from one etheric body and make an impression upon another. The medium of communication employed is, as we have seen, the etheric substance of all bodies, which is necessarily one with the etheric substance of the planet. The area around the solar plexus (though not in direct relation to that centre as it exists as an instru
ment differentiated from all other instruments or centres) is sensitive to the impact of etheric energy, for this area in the etheric body is in direct “touch” with the astral body, the feeling body. Also, close to the solar plexus is found that centre near the spleen which is the direct instrument for the entrance of prana into the human mechanism. This instinctual response to etheric contact was the mode of communication in Lemurian times, and largely took the place of thought and of speech. It concerned itself primarily with two types of impression: that which had to do with the instinct of self-preservation, and that which had to do with self-reproduction. A higher form of this instinctual telepathy has been preserved for us in the expression we so frequently use, “I have a feeling that...,” and allied phrases. These are more definitely astral in their implications and work through the astral substance, using the solar plexus area as a sensitive plate for impact and impression.

  [17] One point should here be made clear, and upon it you should ponder. This astral (not etheric) sensitivity, or “feeling telepathy” is basically the Atlantean mode of communication, and involved finally the use of the solar plexus centre itself as the receiving agent; the emitting agent (if I may use such a phrase) worked, however, through the entire area of the diaphragm. It was as though there appeared, through emergence, a gathering of forces or outgoing waves of energy in that part of the human vehicle. The relatively wide area from which the information was sent out acted as a large general distributor; the area which received the impression, however, was more localised, involving only the solar plexus. The reason for this can be found in the fact that in Atlantean days the human being was still unable to think, as we understand thinking. The whole lower part of the body, in a sense difficult for us to grasp, was given up to feeling; the communicator’s one thought-contribution was the name of the recipient, plus the name or noun form of that which was the idea to be conveyed. This embryo thought winged its way to its goal, and the powerful “feeling” apparatus of the solar plexus received it (acting like a magnet) and drew the “feeling impression” powerfully there, drawing thus upon the communicator. It is this process which is pursued when, for instance, some mother “feels” that some danger threatens her child, or that some happening is taking place in connection with her child. She is thus sometimes enabled to send, by the medium of instinctual love, a most definite warning. The solar plexus is involved where the recipient is concerned; the area around the diaphragm is involved where the communicator is concerned.