Milarepa
Adept
In the periods of half-light at dawn and at dusk the everyday world becomes transformed into strange and fascinating shapes. Ugly things soften their outlines and sink into the background of subtle shades. Ordinary objects become invested with a new grace, and for a brief spell acquire certain transient qualities which fade once more into practical realities as morning breaks, or if darkness falls and blots them out.
Some people find the half-light either alluring or frightening and in either case are liable to lose their ordinary sense of proportion; while others accept these times as part of the day's cycle and think no more about them.
This is because these periods of between-lights have a strange affinity with the psychic world; and to those who are familiar with with psychic life there is nothing unnatural about this affinity, ant more than there is about the dawn and the dusk in the physical world.
What happens at this point?
Why should a half-light – a few moments of transition – be more puzzling than darkness in which one sees nothing or daylight when there is so much more to be seen?
It is because of a change from one phase to the next, values are being shifted. Certain physical characteristics are lost, color is replaced by black and grey, well-known outlines fade into the general mass of shadow, and new perspectives emerge as night takes command.
Yet these new and passing values are not merely products of the imagination but they are just as real as those of daylight. It is as if while the scene is being changed from day to night, one had a glimpse of another world behind the familiar stage.
This backstage world is in every way as valid as that immediately behind the floodlights. Those from whom the world of the theater holds no secrets know that the real life of it takes place out of sight of the crowd and that the play itself is only the outermost phenomenon of a large and complex scheme.
It is the same with the psychic background to physical and psychological life.
It is this hidden world we wish to discuss because its influence, though usually unrecognized, permeates the substance of daily life and experience. If at our present stage of evolving consciousness it remains unchanged, it seems to be the cause of problems as baffling and bewildering in their own way as those dealt with in the part of the psychological field which is concerned with studying and analyzing the psychic reactions to physical experience.
A psychic experience cause psychological reactions just as does a physical experience. It is axiomatic that the psychological reaction to a physical experience must be related to the physical object which has provoked it, before it can be properly understood.
Similarly the psychological reaction to a psychic experience must be related to its own origin before it can be assimilated. Psychology has explored a vast field from academic deserts to green lands of live human material, but there still exists the Gobi desert, virtually unexplored and uncharted concerning which books say nothing.
This is the field of the psychic or extra-sensory perceptions, considered not as an unusual phenomenon but as a constant part of daily life. The psychologist either steers his patient careful around it as if its a dangerous area or else deals with it, if he must, as something purely symbolic with no real existence. But even if he has an inkling of it as part of a real experience he is inclined to gloss over its importance. Such an attitude is clearly inadequate.
Many careful students have been led to the conclusion that a great deal of imaginary psychological material is not satisfactorily explained when looked on as subjective, fantastic, and therefore unreal.
It may be so, and the first line of analytical approach must always be to see whether the mental images of patients are not the product of their own minds.
We are accustomed to consider that mental images are always the result of personal thought, and no doubt this is mostly correct. Yet this is by no means always the case, for there is a class of material which, on analysis, is found not to emanate from the depths of the mind but to represent perception of non-physical things outside oneself.
It scarcely seems necessary to offer proof that such a thing as psychic perception exists. There are many excellent books on the subject and the reader is referred to them if he wishes to study the question for himself.. It is enough to say that many strict tests have been made which prove beyond a doubt, the possibility of a individual extending their senses further than the range ordinarily attributed to them.
People have apparently seen things happening at the other end of the world, or objects locked in opaque boxes; they have received messages and information from people miles away; they have described events in detail before they have occurred or seemingly likely to occur.
These and other recorded messages are so numerous and well attested that there can be little doubt about them. They seem to take place through some faculty beyond the ordinary physical senses, which makes the individual capable of perceiving objects and sounds out of the range of sight and hearing.
There is however no hard proof of this; no apparatus exists to prove this; only psychic experience and tradition.
Some people find the half-light either alluring or frightening and in either case are liable to lose their ordinary sense of proportion; while others accept these times as part of the day's cycle and think no more about them.
This is because these periods of between-lights have a strange affinity with the psychic world; and to those who are familiar with with psychic life there is nothing unnatural about this affinity, ant more than there is about the dawn and the dusk in the physical world.
What happens at this point?
Why should a half-light – a few moments of transition – be more puzzling than darkness in which one sees nothing or daylight when there is so much more to be seen?
It is because of a change from one phase to the next, values are being shifted. Certain physical characteristics are lost, color is replaced by black and grey, well-known outlines fade into the general mass of shadow, and new perspectives emerge as night takes command.
Yet these new and passing values are not merely products of the imagination but they are just as real as those of daylight. It is as if while the scene is being changed from day to night, one had a glimpse of another world behind the familiar stage.
This backstage world is in every way as valid as that immediately behind the floodlights. Those from whom the world of the theater holds no secrets know that the real life of it takes place out of sight of the crowd and that the play itself is only the outermost phenomenon of a large and complex scheme.
It is the same with the psychic background to physical and psychological life.
It is this hidden world we wish to discuss because its influence, though usually unrecognized, permeates the substance of daily life and experience. If at our present stage of evolving consciousness it remains unchanged, it seems to be the cause of problems as baffling and bewildering in their own way as those dealt with in the part of the psychological field which is concerned with studying and analyzing the psychic reactions to physical experience.
A psychic experience cause psychological reactions just as does a physical experience. It is axiomatic that the psychological reaction to a physical experience must be related to the physical object which has provoked it, before it can be properly understood.
Similarly the psychological reaction to a psychic experience must be related to its own origin before it can be assimilated. Psychology has explored a vast field from academic deserts to green lands of live human material, but there still exists the Gobi desert, virtually unexplored and uncharted concerning which books say nothing.
This is the field of the psychic or extra-sensory perceptions, considered not as an unusual phenomenon but as a constant part of daily life. The psychologist either steers his patient careful around it as if its a dangerous area or else deals with it, if he must, as something purely symbolic with no real existence. But even if he has an inkling of it as part of a real experience he is inclined to gloss over its importance. Such an attitude is clearly inadequate.
Many careful students have been led to the conclusion that a great deal of imaginary psychological material is not satisfactorily explained when looked on as subjective, fantastic, and therefore unreal.
It may be so, and the first line of analytical approach must always be to see whether the mental images of patients are not the product of their own minds.
We are accustomed to consider that mental images are always the result of personal thought, and no doubt this is mostly correct. Yet this is by no means always the case, for there is a class of material which, on analysis, is found not to emanate from the depths of the mind but to represent perception of non-physical things outside oneself.
It scarcely seems necessary to offer proof that such a thing as psychic perception exists. There are many excellent books on the subject and the reader is referred to them if he wishes to study the question for himself.. It is enough to say that many strict tests have been made which prove beyond a doubt, the possibility of a individual extending their senses further than the range ordinarily attributed to them.
People have apparently seen things happening at the other end of the world, or objects locked in opaque boxes; they have received messages and information from people miles away; they have described events in detail before they have occurred or seemingly likely to occur.
These and other recorded messages are so numerous and well attested that there can be little doubt about them. They seem to take place through some faculty beyond the ordinary physical senses, which makes the individual capable of perceiving objects and sounds out of the range of sight and hearing.
There is however no hard proof of this; no apparatus exists to prove this; only psychic experience and tradition.