The seven principles of man / By Annie Besant.

  • Annie Besant
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The seven principles of man / By Annie Besant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    characterise the workings of consciousness when it is removed from the limitations of the physical plane, and some of the most able and advanced of our psychologists do not think these workings to be in any way unworthy of the most careful and scien- tific investigation. All such workings are, in Theo- sophical language, on the astral plane, and the student who seeks for proof that there is an astral plane, may here find enough and to spare. He will speedily dis- cover that the laws under which consciousness works. on the physical plane have no existence on the astral. £.g., the laws of Space and Time which are here the very conditions of thought, do not exist for conscious- ness when its activity is transferred to the astral world. Mozart hears a whole symphony as a single impression, ‘‘as in a fine and strong dream” (Phzlo- - sophy of Mysticism, Du Prel, Vol. I., p. 106), but has. to work it out in successive details when he brings it back with him to the physical plane. The ‘“‘dream”. of a moment contains a mass of events that would take years to pass in succession in our world of space and time. The drowning man sees his life-history in a. few seconds. But itis needless to multiply instances. The astral plane may be reached in sleep or in trance, natural or induced, z.e., in any case in which the body is reduced to a condition of lethargy. It is in trance that it can best be studied, and here our enquirer will soon find proof that consciousness can work apart from the physical organism, unfettered by — the laws that bind it while it works on the physical plane. Clairvoyance and clairaudience are among the most interesting of the phenomena that here lie open for investigation. <2 It is not necessary here to give a large number of
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