The New Psychology and the Evolution of Consciousness - Part 6

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

Part 5 of The New Psychology and the Evolution of Consciousness ended

with the words:

 

" At this stage of mental consciousness there arises the concept of

linear time as distinguished from cyclic time. We have seen how the

sense of time gradually grew, but in all ancient culture time was

experienced as cyclic because it was connected with the course of

nature where everything goes in cycles, the sun rising and setting,

the moon waxing and waning, the seasons following one another. All

ancient cultures, including the whole Indian culture up to

practically the present time, had a cyclic view of life. But at this

stage begins the linear view of time with the idea that the past is

moving into the present and the present into the future. The linear

view was developed particularly by the Hebrews. Along with the linear

view of time there arose a particular historical consciousness. Prior

to this there was no history. Herodotus the Greek historian par

excellence, lived in the sixth century BC. India had very little

history at all at this time. It was the Hebrews particularly who

developed a sense of history; though the patriarchs and even Moses

belong to a large extent to a legendary time, with Samuel, David and

Solomon we are well into the period of historic time. "

 

Here now is Part 6.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

The New Psychology and the Evolution of Consciousness

 

(Part 6)

 

 

(P.47} At this level of consciousness when the mind experiences itself as

separate from the body, there is a great danger of repression and this is where

the so-called demonic forces come into play. What happens is that natural

energies like sex and anger, for instance, are repressed. Having been relegated

to the unconscious, they may be experienced as demons or devils. The concept of

demons and devils arises (P.48} when the ego is trying to repress unacceptable

parts of the self. A hostile force is experienced within, and when repression

continues that may be projected outside and experienced as coming from outside.

To that experience the name demon or devil is given. But these experiences occur

not merely in the individual soul but in the collective unconscious, so that

they are experienced as cosmic forces.

 

We are still in the period of the development of mental consciousness. Normal

people today have all, from childhood, developed first from the uroboric [womb]

stage through the typhonic [pre-logical] stage, through the verbal, to the

discovery of the ego. The danger is in stopping at the level of the ego and the

mental consciousness. Most people at the present stage of development do stop at

this point, not envisioning that there is anything beyond. Stopping at the

mental, rational consciousness, with science and technology seen as the highest

achievement, the ego is exalted as the centre. Everything is referred to the

ego, the centre of the individual self, and life is lived as if there is nothing

beyond that. Western materialist philosophy has contributed largely to this

arrested development and most of Western science and philosophy is being kept

down at that level. But this is precisely where the East has gone far beyond the

West and has developed the understanding and experience of transpersonal

consciousness. In the next chapter we shall be considering how this developed in

India, in Hinduism in particular. In the fifth and sixth centuries before Christ

there took place in the East the breakthrough beyond the mental consciousness

and beyond the ego to the transegoic, transmental consciousness. That is the

supreme achievement of the human race, when, beyond the ego, we opened ourselves

to the transcendent.

 

There is, however, an intermediate stage which needs to be examined here. It is

not simply a matter of immediate transcendence to the Ultimate. Between the

mental consciousness (P.49} and the supramental there is what can be called the

psychic or subtle world. The Hindu speaks of the gross world which includes

everything which can be known through the gross or ordinary senses, and of the

subtle world which is beyond the ordinary senses. In this subtle realm there

operate the subtle senses, clairvoyance and clairaudience for example. These are

definite faculties, transmental, psychic faculties, which in the ancient world

were in fact quite normal. It was not at all unusual to see visions of angels or

gods, and to experience fairies, elves and goblins. These are visionary

experiences of the psychic faculty. We need to understand that the psychic world

is interwoven with the physical world. There is a complete physical world with

the whole range of physical causality and structure which science explores, but

interwoven with that is the psychic world which is perceived through our

psychic, rather than physical, faculties. Westerners today have largely lost

these psychic powers whereas all ancient peoples, in India and elsewhere, lived

to a large extent in that psychic world. But we are beginning to recover it. All

over the world today people are discovering this realm of psychic experience.

There needs to be a warning here that entering the subtle realm has its own

particular dangers. Every advance is accompanied by dangers which have to be

faced, and at this level there is still both good and evil.

 

The phenomena indicative of the subtle level of consciousness are

well-established and parapsychology, which is concerned with these phenomena, is

now a recognised science. Associated with this level, apart from the subtle

senses themselves, there are, for example, telepathy, experiencing events at a

distance, and knowledge of the past and future. The latter is very common in

India where, for instance, palmistry and astrology may be the means by which

such knowledge is concretised. The phenomenon referred to as astral travel is

also well-known in India. There are many reports (P.50} of yogis appearing to

their followers at a distance and talking with them. Sai Baba is a contemporary

example of this and many people report how he has appeared to them and spoken

with them or helped them in some way, when all the time he is physically in his

ashram at Puttaparthi.

 

Another series of phenomena at the subtle level are the 'siddhis', which are all

based on the control of matter by the mind. These have been developed by Sai

Baba to an extraordinary extent and have been observed by multitudes of peoples,

many of whom are qualified scientists and psychologists. These powers are latent

in all of us. They are not properly supernatural but are present, at least

latently, in human nature as such.

 

Powers of this kind were common in the earlier stages of human development and

are seen in the phenomenon of shamanism. Shamanism has recently been studied

extensively and has been found to occur all over the world, among the Arctic

people, the American Indians and in India. A shaman is a person who develops

psychic powers for the good of his community and he is usually an odd person who

does not fit in with the ordinary way of life. He or she begins to have dreams

and visions and he cultivates these. Among the American Indians a boy who is

developing shamanistic powers has to go through an initiatory ceremony. He

might, for instance, be taken out alone to a hill where a pit would be dug and

he would have to stay three days and three nights in that pit without food or

water or any companionship at all. Through that experience he is expected to

receive a vision of the gods, of the powers which are thought to control the

world. Once the shaman's psychic powers are developed he becomes a healer and a

guide to the community. The same kind of thing happens in India in the villages,

where there is usually someone who has psychic powers to whom the villagers go

for help. Sometimes those shamanic people are frauds and they may be dangerous,

but they may also be quite genuine. (P.51} This then is the realm of psychic

powers and is the level where extraordinary control over the body can be

achieved. In yoga, in particular Tantric yoga, these powers have been

systematically developed, and not only the breathing but even the circulation of

the blood and the beating of the heart can be controlled.

 

The subtle level is also the world of elemental spirits. The ancient peoples

were aware of the world around them as inhabited by spirits; in other words,

they were as much aware of the psychic world as of the physical. Their knowledge

of the physical world was of a limited kind compared with ours today, but they

had a vast knowledge and experience of the psychic world and they communicated

this in the form of images. We must not be misled by the idea of angels with

wings and devils with horns and hoofs; these are only images which the psyche

[soul] calls up in different forms in different people. The Hindu people, for

instance, represent gods with many arms. These, and all the other

representations of the gods, are simply images but behind the images are the

powers, the elemental powers of the universe, which St. Paul calls the

'stoicheia'. These are, first, the ever-present elemental powers of earth,

water, fire and air. Then there are the powers of plant and animal life, of

ghosts and ancestors. At a higher level the powers of heaven, the angels and the

gods, and finally the supreme God, the supreme Person beyond. In this way the

whole religious world was built up through psychic experience. In the Bible this

psychic element is always present; for instance in Exodus, when Moses saw the

burning bush, it was a psychic experience. The column of fire and of light which

followed the Israelites through the wilderness was a psychic or subtle

phenomenon. Again when Elijah went up into the mountain and there was thunder

and lightning, and an earthquake and finally " a still, small voice " , the

experience he had there of Yahweh was in this higher, subtle level of

consciousness. There is evidence (P.52} of this kind of experience right through

the Old Testament and the figure of Yahweh was a development from experiences at

this level. We must distinguish between the subtle, or psychic, and the

spiritual, and we shall see how the subtle level of consciousness is the basis

for, and is followed by, the spiritual level.

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith)

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0

Pgs.47-52