CHAPTER X

HUMAN STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.[62]

1. THE SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS.

WE have already noticed the fact that many activities of consciousness, once purposive, have become automatic, and have gradually sunk below the “threshold of consciousness”. The processes which maintain the life of the body - such as the beating of the heart, the expansion and contraction of the heart, the processes of digestion, etc. - have all fallen into a region of consciousness on which the attention of consciousness is not fixed. And there are innumerable phenomena, not directly connected with the [210] maintenance of bodily life, which also inhabit this dim region. The sympathetic system is a storehouse of traces left by long-past events - events not belonging to our present life at all, but events that passed hundreds of centuries ago, that occurred in long-past lives, when the Jivatma which is our Self was abiding in savage human bodies, and even in the bodies of animals. Many a causeless terror, many a midnight panic, many a surge of furious anger, many an impulse of vindictive cruelty, many a rush of passionate revenge, is flung up from the depths of that dark sea of the sub-conscious which rolls within us, concealing many a wreck, many a skeleton of our past. Handed down by the astral consciousness of the time to its physical instrument for putting into action, the ever-sensitive plate of the permanent atom has caught and photographed them, and has registered them in the recesses of the nervous system, life after life. The con­sciousness is off guard; or a strong vibra­tion from another strikes us; or some event reproduces circumstances that start vibrations that arouse; in one way or [211] another, the slumbering possibilities are awakened, and hurling itself upwards into the light of day comes the long-buried passion. There too hide the instincts which oft overpower reason, instincts that were once life-preserving efforts, or the results of experiences in which our body of the time perished, and the soul regis­tered the result for future guidance. Instincts of love for the opposite sex, out­come of innumerable unions. Instincts of paternal and maternal love, poured out in many generations. Instincts of self-­defence, developed in countless battles. Instincts of taking undue advantage, offspring of numberless cheatings and intrigues. And yet again there lurk there many vibrations that belong to events, and feelings, and desires, and thoughts of our present life, experienced and forgotten, but lying near the surface, ready for upcall. Time would fail to enumerate the contents of this relic­-chamber of an immemorial past, con­taining old bones fit only for the dust-bin, side by side with interesting fragments of earlier days, with tools still useful for our [212] present needs. Over the door of the relic-chamber is written: “Fragments of the Past”. For the sub-consciousness belongs to the Past, as the waking-con­sciousness to the Present, as the super­-consciousness to the Future.

Another part of the sub-conscious in us is composed of the contents of all the consciousnesses that use our bodies as fields of evolution - atoms, molecules, cells of many grades. Some of the queer spectres and dainty figures that arise from the sub-conscious in us do not belong to us at all, but are the dim gropings, and foolish fears, and pretty fancies, of the Units of consciousness at a lower stage of evolution than our own, that are our guests, inhabiting our body as a lodging-­house.

In this part of the sub-conscious go on the wars, waged by one set of creatures in our blood against another set, which do not enter our consciousness, save when their results appear as diseases.

Human sub-consciousness, working on the physical plane, is thus composed of very varied elements, and it is necessary [213] thus to analyse and to understand it, in order to distinguish its workings from those of the true human super-conscious­ness, which resembles the instincts in its sudden irruptions into consciousness, but differs entirely from them in its nature and place in evolution, belonging to the future while they belong to the past. These two differ as atrophied vestigial organs, record­ing the history of the past, differ from germinal rudimentary organs, indicating the progress of the future.

We have also seen that consciousness, working on the astral plane, built up and is still building the nervous system for its instrument on the physical plane; but this also does not form part of what is called the normal waking consciousness at this stage of evolution. In the average man, con­sciousness, working on the mental plane, is now building up and organising the astral body as its instrument in the future on the astral plane; but this again does not form part of the waking-conscious­ness. What then is the human waking­-consciousness? [214]

2. THE WAKING CONSCIOUSNESS.

The waking-consciousness is conscious­ness working on the mental plane and on the astral, using mental and astral matter as its vehicle, seated in the physical brain as Self-consciousness[63], and using that brain with its connected nervous system as its instrument for willing, knowing, and acting on the physical plane. In waking­-consciousness the brain is always active, always vibrating; its activity may be stimulated as a transmitting organ from outside through the senses, or it may be stimulated by the consciousness from the inner planes; but it is ceaselessly active, responding to the without and the within. In the average man, the brain is the only part in which conscious­ness has definitely become Self-consciousness, the only part in which he feels himself as “I”, and asserts himself [215] as a separate individual unit. In all the rest of him consciousness is still vaguely groping about, answering to external impacts but not yet defining them, con­scious as to changes in its own con­ditions, but not yet conscious of “others” and “myself”. In the more advanced members of the human family, consciousness, working on the astral and mental planes, is very rich and active, but its attention is not yet turned out­wards to the astral and mental worlds in which it is living, and its activities find their outer expression in Self-conscious­ness on the physical plane, to which all the outer attention in consciousness is turned, and into which is poured as much of the higher workings as it is capable of receiving. From time to time, powerful impacts on the astral or mental plane create so violent a vibration in conscious­ness, that a wave of thought or emotion surges outwards into the waking con­sciousness and throws it into such furious motion, that its normal activities are swept away, submerged, and the man is hurried into action which is not directed or [216] con­trolled by Self-consciousness. We shall consider this further when we come to the super-physical consciousness.

Waking-consciousness may then be defined as that part of the total conscious­ness which is functioning in the brain and nervous system, and which is definitely Self-conscious. We may conceive of consciousness as symbolised by a great light, which shines through a glass globe inserted in a ceiling, illuminating the room below, while the light itself fills the room above, and sheds its radiance freely in every direction. Consciousness is as a great egg of light, of which only one end is inserted into the brain, and that end is the waking-consciousness. As con­sciousness becomes Self-consciousness on the astral plane, and the brain develops sufficiently to answer to its vibrations, astral consciousness will become part of the waking-consciousness. Later still, when consciousness becomes Self-con­sciousness on the mental plane, and the brain develops sufficiently to answer to its vibrations, the waking-consciousness will include mental consciousness. And [217] so on, until all the consciousness on our five planes has evolved to waking-con­sciousness.

This enlarging of waking-conscious­ness is accompanied with development in the atoms of the brain, as well as with the development of certain organs in the brain, and of the connexions between cells. For the inclusion of the astral Self­-consciousness, it is necessary that the pituitary body should be evolved beyond its present condition, and that the fourth set of spirillae in the atoms should be perfected. For the inclusion of the mental, the pineal gland must be ren­dered active, and the fifth set of spirillae brought into thorough working order. So long as these physical development remain unaccomplished, Self-conscious­ness may be evolved on the astral and mental planes, but it remains super­-consciousness and its workings do not express themselves through the brain, and thus become part of the waking-consciousness.

Waking-consciousness is limited and conditioned by the brain so long as a man [218] possesses a physical body, and any injury to the brain, any lesion, any disturbance, at once interferes with its manifestation. However highly developed may be a man’s consciousness, he is limited by his brain so far as its manifestations on the physical plane are concerned, and if that brain be ill-formed or ill-developed, his waking-consciousness will be poor and restricted.

With the loss of the physical body, the connotation of waking-consciousness changes, and that which is here said of the physical conditions is transferred to the astral. We may therefore enlarge our original definition to the general state­ment: waking-consciousness is that part of the total consciousness which is work­ing through its outermost vehicle, that is, which is manifesting on the lowest plane then touched by that consciousness.

In the earlier stages of human evolution, there is little activity in consciousness on the inner planes except as stimulated from the outer; but as Self-consciousness grows more vivid on the physical plane, it enriches with ever-increasing rapidity the [219] content of consciousness on the inner; consciousness, working upon its content, rapidly evolves, until its internal powers far outstrip the possibilities of their mani­festation through the brain, and the latter becomes a limitation and a hindrance instead of feeder and a stimulator. Then the pressure of consciousness on its physical instrument becomes at times perilously great, causing a nervous tension which endangers the equilibrium of the brain, unable to adapt itself with sufficient rapidity to the powerful waves beating upon it. Hence the truth of the saying “Great wits to madness near allied”. Only the highly and delicately organised brain can enable the “great wits” to manifest themselves on the physical plane; but such a brain is the one most easily thrown off its balance by the strong waves of these same “great wits”, and this is “madness”. Madness - the incapacity of the brain to respond regularly to vibra­tions - may indeed be due to lack or arrest of development, lack or arrest of brain organisation, and such madness is not allied to “great wits”; but it is a [220] significant and pregnant fact that a brain in advance of normal evolution, developing new and delicately balanced combinations for the enriched expression of consciousness on the physical plane, is the brain of all others that may most easily be disabled by the throwing out of gear of some part of its mechanism not yet sufficiently established to resist a strain. To this again we must return in considering the super-physical consciousness.

3. THE SUPER-PHYSICAL CONSCIOUSNESS.

Psychologists in the West have lately betaken themselves to the study of states of consciousness other than the waking; these are variously designated as “abnor­mal”, “sub-conscious”, “inconscient”, and often as “dream-consciousness” - because the dream is the most generally recognised and universal form of other-consciousness. At first there was a tendency to regard these states as the result of disordered brain conditions, and this view is still largely held; but the more advanced psychologists are out-growing this narrow [221] idea, and are beginning to study such states as definite manifestations of con­sciousness under conditions not yet under­stood, but not necessarily disorderly; some definitely recognise a “larger conscious­ness”, a part only of which can find expression in the brain as at present evolved. In the East, this state of other­ consciousness has for long ages been regarded as higher than the waking state, as that of the consciousness set free from the narrow limits of the physical brain, and acting in a subtler and more plastic and congenial medium. Dream has been regarded as one phase of this super­physical activity, and as a touch with higher worlds; and means have been taken to arouse Self-consciousness in the dream-world, to set Self-consciousness, clothed in its higher vestures, free from the physical body at will; so that, instead of the vague and confused answers to im­pacts from higher worlds in undeveloped dream states, Self-consciousness may be established therein with clear and definite vision. To effect this, Self-consciousness in its higher vehicles must be at first [222] removed from the physical body and made active on the astral plane; for until it knows itself out of the dense body, it cannot separate out in the “dream”, the extra-physical experiences from the chaotic fragments of physical experiences mixed up with them in the brain. As clear water poured into a muddy bucket becomes mixed up with the mud, so does an astral experience, poured down into a brain full of fragments of past physical happenings, become blurred, confused, incongruous[64]. Eastern psychology hence sought after methods of separating the Self-conscious­ness from its physical vehicle, and it is interesting to observe that these methods, wholly different as they are from those used in the West, and directed to the intensifying of consciousness, reduce the body to the same state of quiescence as that induced by physical methods in the West, when the western psychologist betakes himself to the study of other-consciousness.

Super-consciousness includes the whole [223] of the consciousness above the waking-consciousness; that is, all on the higher planes that does not express itself on the physical plane as Self-consciousness working through the brain. It is therefore a great complexity, and covers a large number of phenomena. Dream, as said, is part of it; so are all the workings of the astral consciousness asserting themselves as premonitions, warnings, visions of happenings distant in space or time, vague touches from other worlds, sudden intui­tions as regards character or events; also all the workings of the mental conscious­ness, lower or higher, that appear as intuitive grasp of truths, sudden insight into causal connexions, inspirations - ­mental or moral - flashes of genius, visions of high artistic beauty, etc., etc. These irruptions of the super-consciousness into the physical plane have the character of unexpectedness, of conviction, of imperious authority, of lack of apparent cause. They are unrelated, or only indirectly related, to the contents of the waking-consciousness, and do not justify themselves to it, but simply impose themselves on it. [224]

To bring the super-consciousness into manifestation on the physical plane, it is necessary - in the early stages - ­to reduce the brain to inactivity, to render the sense-organs unresponsive to physical impacts, and, by expelling the conscious entity from the body, reduce that body to the state called trance. Trance is but the sleep-state, artificially or abnormally induced; whether produced by mesmeric, hypnotic, medicinal, or other means, the result is the same, so far as the physical body is concerned. But the result on the other planes will depend entirely on the evolution of consciousness on those planes, and a highly evolved consciousness would not permit the use of hypnotic or medicinal means - unless, perhaps, of an anaesthetic for an operation - though such a one might allow, under exceptional circumstances, the use of mes­merism in producing the trance state. Trance may also be produced by action from the higher planes, as by intense concentration of thought, or by rapt contemplation of an object of devotion, inducing exstasy. These are the means [225] used from time immemorial by the Raja Yogis of the East, and the exstasy of the Saint in the West is produced by this rapt contemplation; the trance is indistinguishable from that produced by the means above referred to in the Sal­petriere and elsewhere. The Hatha Yogis also reach this same trance condition, but by means much resembling the last named, - by staring at a black spot on a white ground, at the point of the nose, and other similar practices.

But when other than physical vision and physical tests are used, how great is the difference between the super-physical con­ditions of consciousness in the hypnotised subject and in the Yogi. H. P. Blavatsky has well described this difference: “In the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colours being no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all ‘at home’. For those which belong to the spiritual elements in the man, viz., yellow, Buddhi; indigo, Higher Manas; and the blue of the Auric Envelope, will be either hardly discernible or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is free during sleep, [226] and though his physical memory may not become aware of it, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in realms which are the land of reality, called dreams on our plane of illusion. A good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yogi in the trance state and a mesmerised subject side by side, would learn an important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference between self-induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting from extraneous influence In the Yogi, the ‘principles’ of the lower quaternary disappear entirely. Neither red, green, red-violet, nor the auric blue of the body are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden-hued Prana principle, and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards from the head, in the region where the Third Eye rests, and culminat­ing in a point. If the student remembers that the true violet, or the extreme end of the spectrum, is no compound colour of red and blue, but a homogeneous colour with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the red, and that the golden [227] hue is the essence of the three yellow lines from orange-red to yellow-orange and yellow, he will understand the reason why; he [the Yogi] lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi-Manas. On the other hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or mesmeric trance, an effect of unconscious when not of conscious Black Magic, unless produced by a high Adept, the whole set of the principles will be present, with the Higher Manas paralysed, Buddhi severed from it through that paralysis, and the red-violet Astral Body entirely subjected to the Lower Manas and Kama Rupa”[65].

This difference in the appearance of the entranced person, as seen by the clear­-seeing eye, is connected with a difference of immense importance in the after out­come of the trance. The Yogi, who thus leaves the body, leaves it in full Self­-consciousness, visits the higher worlds in full possession of his faculties, and, on returning to the dense body, imprints on the evolved brain the memory of his experiences. The little evolved person, [228] entranced, “loses consciousness”; when his Self-consciousness is not developed on the higher planes, his awareness is not there turned outwards; he is practically as much asleep there, in the astral and mental worlds, as he is in the physical plane, and on awaking from the trance he knows nothing of what has occurred during its continuance, either here or elsewhere.

If, however, the subject be sufficiently evolved, as most people are at this stage of evolution, to be Self-conscious on the astral plane, then others may be profited by questioning him while entranced. For in the artificially induced trance state, wherein the brain is cut off from the normal action and reaction between itself and its environment, it becomes an instrument, however inadequate, of the super-physical consciousness. Isolated from its physical environment, rendered incapable of responding to its accustomed stimuli from outside, cut off from its lower attachments while remaining united to its higher, it continues to answer to the impacts from above, and can do this the [229] more effectively since none of its energies are running out into the physical plane. This is the essence of the trance state. In the forcible closure of the avenues of the senses, through which its forces pour out into the external world, these forces remain available as servants of the super­physical consciousness. In the silence thus imposed on the physical plane, the voices of the other planes can make them­selves heard.

In the hypnotic trance, a quickening of the mental faculties is observed: memory is found to embrace a far larger area, for the faint pulsings left by far-off events become audible when the stronger pulsings from the recent are temporarily stilled; people forgotten in the waking state are remem­bered in the trance; languages known in childhood, but since lost, reappear; trivial events re-arise. Sometimes the perceptive powers range over a larger area; distant occurrences are seen, vision pierces through physical barriers, far-off speech becomes audible. Fragments of other planes are also occasionally glimpsed, much mixed up with the thought-forms [230] of waking hours. A whole literature exists on this subject, and can be studied by the investigator.

It has also been found that the results of deeper trance are not identical with those of the more superficial. As the trance deepens, higher strata of the super-physical consciousness manifest themselves in the brain. The famous case of Leonie I., II. and III. is well-­known; and it should be observed that Leonie I. knew nothing of Leonie II. and III.; that Leonie II. knew Leonie I. but did not know Leonie III.; that Leonie III. knew both Leonie I. and II. That is, the higher knows the lower, while the lower does not know the higher - a most pregnant fact.

In the mesmeric trance, the higher phenomena are more easily obtained than in the hypnotic, and, in this, very clear statements may be had of the phenomena of the astral and even of the mental plane - where the “subject” is well-developed - and sometimes glimpses are gained of past lives.

When we see that the exclusion of [231] the physical plane is the condition for these manifestations of the super-physical consciousness, we begin to understand the rationale of the methods of Yoga, practised in the East. When the methods are physical, as in Hatha Yoga, the ordinary hypnotic trance is most often obtained, and the subject, on re-awakening, remembers nothing of his experiences. The method of the Raja Yoga, in which the consciousness is withdrawn from the brain by intense concentration, leads the student to continuity of consciousness on the successive planes, and he remembers his super-physical experiences on his return to the waking state. Both in the West and in the East, the same cessation of waking-consciousness is aimed at, in order to obtain traces of the super­-physical consciousness, or as the western psychologist would say, from the un­conscious in man. The eastern method, however, with thousands of years of experience behind it, yields results incomparably greater in the realms of the super-physical consciousness, and estab­lishes, on the sure basis of reiterated [232] experiences, the independence of con­sciousness as regards its physical vehicle.

The exstasy and the visions of Saints, in all ages and in all creeds, afford another example of the irruptions from the “unconscious”. In these, prolonged and absorbing prayer, or contemplation, is the means for producing the necessary brain-condition. The avenues of the senses become closed by the intensity of the inner concentration, and the same state is reached spasmodically and involuntarily which the practiser of Raja Yoga seeks deliberately to attain. Hence we find that devotees of all faiths ascribe their visions to the favour of the Deity worshipped, and not to the fact that they have produced in themselves a passive brain-condition, which enables the super-physical consciousness to imprint on that brain the sights and sounds of the higher worlds.

Prof. William James, in his Varieties of Religious Experience, points out that some of the most striking of these irruptions from the “unconscious” are cases of “sudden conversions”, in which [233] a sudden thought, or vision, or voice, has changed at once and completely the whole course of a man’s waking life. He rightly argues that a force, sufficiently powerful to produce such effects, cannot be lightly waved aside, or contemptuously ignored, by any serious student of human consciousness. This whole class of psychical phenomena demands careful and scientific study, and promises a rich harvest of results, as to the super-physical consciousness, to repay the serious investi­gator.

As against this view, however, it is urged that these facts are observed in connexion with morbid nervous states, and that the subjects are hysterical, over-excited persons, whose experiences are vitiated by their condition. In the first place, this is not always true; the eastern Raja Yogis are persons distin­guished for their calmness and serenity, and some of the cases of conversion have been those of worldly and capable men. Let it be granted, however, that in the majority of cases the nervous condition is morbid, and the brain [234] overstrained, what then? The normal brain is admittedly evolved to the point of responding to the vibrations of the physical world, and of transmitting these upwards, and of transmitting downwards mental and astral vibrations connected with these, from the higher vehicles. It is not yet evolved to the point of receiving without disturbance very violent vibrations from the higher planes, nor of responding at all to the vibrations set up in the subtler vehicles by the external phenomena of their own planes. Very violent emotions of joy, pain, grief, terror, often prove too much for the normal brain, causing severe headache, hysteria, and even nervous collapse. It is, therefore, no wonder that the very violent emotion which causes what is called a conversion should often be accompanied by similar nervous distress. The important point is, that when the nervous upset has passed, the effect - the changed attitude towards life - remains. The nervous disturbance is due to the inadequacy of the physical brain to bear the violent and rapid vibra­tions dashing down upon it; the [235] permanently changed attitude is due to the steady pressure of the super-physical conscious­ness, continuously exerted. Where the super-physical consciousness is not suffi­ciently developed to exert this continuous pressure, the converted person “falls from grace” as the surge of emotion ebbs away.

In cases of visions, and like phenomena, we have already seen that they may occur when a form of trance has been produced. But without this, such pheno­mena may occur, in cases where the brain is in a state of tension, either from some temporary cause, or from the fact that its evolution has gone beyond the normal. Strong emotion may increase the nervous tension to the point where response to direct astral vibrations becomes possible, and thus an astral happening becomes visible or audible. The reaction from the strain will probably show itself as nervous disturbance. When the brain is more highly evolved than the ordinary brain, has become more complicated and more sensitive, astral happenings may be felt constantly, and this strain may well be [236] somewhat greater than the nervous system is quite fitted to bear, in addition to bear­ing the ordinary wear and tear of modern civilisation. Hence, again, hysteria and other forms of nervous distress are likely to accompany the visions.

But these facts do not take away from the importance of the experiences, as facts in consciousness. Rather, perhaps, do they increase their importance, as showing the way in which evolution works in the action of the environment on an organism. The reiterated impacts of external forces stimulate the growing organism, and very often temporarily overstrain it; but the very strain forces forward its evolution. The crest of the evolu­tionary wave must always consist of abnormal organisms; the steady, normal, safe, average organisms follow on behind; they are most respectable, but per­haps not so interesting as the pioneers, and most certainly not so instructive as regards the future. As a matter of fact, the forces of the astral plane are constantly playing vigorously on the human brain, in order that it may develop as a fuller [237] vehicle of consciousness, and a sensitive brain, in the transitional state, is apt to be thereby thrown a little out of gear with the world of its past. It is probable that a good many activities to which thought is at present directed will, in the future, be carried on automatically, and will gradually sink below the thres­hold of the waking consciousness, as have done various functions, once performed purposively.

As these changes go on, the subtler vibrations must inevitably show themselves in an increasing number in the most deli­cately equilibrated brains, those which are not normal, inasmuch as these - on the crest of evolution - will be those most capable of responding. Dr. Maudsley writes: “What right have we to believe Nature under any obligation to do her work by means of complete minds only? She may find an incomplete mind a more suitable instrument for a particular pur­pose”[66]. And Prof. James himself remarks: “If there were such a thing as inspiration [238] from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite recep­tivity”[67].

When we once recognise that forces subtler than the physical must necessitate for their expression a more refined vehicle than the brain organised for the reception of the physical, we shall cease to be troubled or distressed when we find that the super-physical forces often find their readiest expression through brains that are more or less out of gear with the physical plane. And we shall understand that the abnormal physical symptoms accompanying their manifestations in no way derogate from the value of these energies, nor from the importance of the part they will play in the future of humanity. At the same time the wish must naturally arise to find out some method whereby these forces may be enabled to manifest themselves without risking the destruction of their physical instrument.

This way has been found in the East in the practice of Raja Yoga, whereby the [239] safe exercise of the higher consciousness is sought by intense concentration. This concentration, in itself, develops the brain as an instrument for the subtler forces, working in the brain-cells in the manner already described in connexion with thought.[68] Moreover, it slowly opens up the set of spirillae of the atom, next in order to those now in activity, and thus adds a new organ for the higher functioning. This process is necessarily a slow one, but it is the only safe way of development; and, if its slowness be resented, it may be suggested as a reason for patience that the student is endea­vouring to ante-date the atomic develop­ment of the next Round, and he can hardly expect to accomplish this with rapidity. It is, however, this slowness of the Raja Yogic practices which renders them somewhat unacceptable to the hurrying West; and yet there is no other way to secure a balanced develop­ment. The choice lies between this and the morbid nervous disturbances which accompany the irruptions of the super­-[240]physical consciousness into an unpre­pared vehicle. We cannot transcend the laws of Nature; we can only try to understand, and then to utilise them. [241]