THE POWER OF MIND. William Walker Atkinson

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Lesson X.

       Intuition and Beyond.

       Table of Content

      JUST AS there are mental planes which the investigator naturally classifies as “below” the ordinary planes of consciousness—the instinctive plane; the physical-function plane; the habit-plane; and even the plane on which the so-called “automatic thinking,” etc., manifests—so are there many planes

       which one naturally thinks of as “above” the ordinary plane. As we have said, not only are there the basements and sub-cellars beneath the floor of the packing and shipping department of the mind, but also many “upper stories” above that floor. Upon these upper floors of the mind rest those things which the world calls Genius; Inspiration; Intuition; Spiritual Power; and other names denoting higher faculties of the mind.

      Kay says: “It is in the ultra-conscious region of the mind that all its highest operations are carried on. It is here that genius works.” Carlyle said: “Shakespeare’s intellect is what I call an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of. The latest generations of men will find new meanings in Shakespeare, new elucidations of their own human being.” Goethe said: “I prefer that the principle from which, and through which, I work shall be hidden from me.” Ferrier says: “The sublimest works of intelligence are quite possible, and may be easily conceived to be executed, without any consciousness of them on the part of the apparent and immediate agent.” Holmes says: “The creating and informing spirit which is within us and not of us, is recognized everywhere in real life. It comes to us as a voice that will be heard; it tells us what we must believe; it frames our sentences and we wonder at this visitor who chooses our brain as his dwelling place.” Schofield says: “The supra-conscious mind lies at the other end—all those regions of higher soul and spirit life, of which we are only at times vaguely conscious, but which always exist, and link us on to eternal verities, on the one side, as surely as the sub-conscious mind links us to the body on the other.”

      Schofield also says: “The mind, indeed, reaches all the way, and while on the one hand it is inspired by the Almighty, on the other it energizes the body, all whose purposive life it originates. We may call the supra-conscious mind the sphere of the body life, the sub-conscious mind the sphere of the body life, and the conscious mind the middle region where both meet.” Schofield also says: “The Spirit of God is said to dwell in believers, and yet, as we have seen, His presence is not the subject of direct consciousness. We would include, therefore, in the supra-conscious, all such spiritual ideas, together with conscience—the voice of God, as Max Muller calls it—which is surely a half-conscious faculty. Moreover the supra-conscious, like the sub-conscious, is, as we have said, best apprehended when the conscious mind is not active. Visions, meditations, prayers, and even dreams have been undoubtedly occasions of spiritual revelations, and many instances may be adduced as illustrations of the workings of the Spirit apart from the action of reason or mind. The truth apparently is that the mind as a whole is an unconscious state, by that its middle registers, excluding the highest spiritual and lowest physical manifestations, are fitfully illuminated in varying degrees by consciousness; and that it is to this illuminated part of the dial that the word “mind,” which rightly appertains to the whole, has been limited.” And as Emerson has said: “Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It shall ripen into truth, and you shall know why you believe.”

      In the region of the higher planes of the Inner Consciousness are to be found that wonderful aspect or phase of mind which we call “Intuition,” which Webster defines as: “Direct apprehension or cognition; immediate knowledge, as in perception or consciousness involving no reasoning process.” Intuition is a most difficult thing to describe, but yet nearly everyone understands just what is meant by the term. It is a higher form of that which we know as “Instinct,” the difference being chiefly that Instinct belongs to the phenomena of the “below” conscious planes, and has to do chiefly with that which concerns the physical body and well-being—while Intuition belongs to the “above” conscious planes and has to do with the higher part of the nature of the individual. Instinct sends its messages “up” to the Intellect, while Intuition sends its messages “down” to the Intellect. Many of the highest form of pleasurable things come from the region of Intuition. Art, Music, Poetry; the love of the Beautiful and the Good; the higher forms of love; intuitive perception of truth; all these come from above— from the region of Intuition.

      Genius also comes from that enchanted region. All great writers, poets, painters, musicians, actors, and artists of all kinds and modes of expression have received their “Inspiration” from these higher regions of the mind. All great artists, working through the various mediums of expression noted above, have felt that their best work was rather the result of the labor of some higher power, rather than of their own “every-day self.” The testimony on this point is overwhelming. And, strange to say, the work that impresses itself most strongly upon the public, is just this kind of work which left upon the mind of the worker the impression that it came “from above”—was the result of “inspiration.” The Greeks, recognizing the wonderful phenomena emanating from this part of the mind, were wont to call it the work of the “daemon,” or “spirit,” which, friendly to the artist, would attach itself to him and “inspire” his work. Plutarch wrote that Timarchus saw in a vision the spirits which were partly attached to human bodies, and partly over and above them, shining luminously over their heads. In the vision, he was informed by the oracle that the part of the spirit which was immersed in the body was called the “soul,” while the outer or unimmersed portion was called the “daemon” or “spirit.” The oracle also stated that every man had his daemon, whom he was bound to obey; those who implicitly follow that guidance are the prophetic souls, the favorites of the gods. This idea of the “daemon” was a favorite one with Socrates, and even Goethe was evidently impressed with the idea, for he speaks of the daemon as a power higher than the will, and which inspired certain natures with miraculous energy. Of course these ideas were merely the attempts of the thinkers of those days attempting to account for and explain the phenomena which was apparent to all. There is no necessity for postulating the existence of these “daemons” or “spirits” to account for the phenomena of Intuition and Genius. The “daemon” is merely the operation of the mind of each of us on its higher planes. We have it all within us—that Something Within which seems almost like a protecting and guiding entity.

      In this connection we quote the following from a well-known work: “The advanced occultist knows that in: the higher regions of the mind are locked up intuitive perceptions of all truth, and that he who can gain access to these regions will know everything intuitively, and as a matter of clear sight, without reasoning or explanation. The race has not as yet reached СКАЧАТЬ