The Shapes of Everyday Thoughts
Part II
©Lorena Loo
Part II
©Lorena Loo
Strictly impersonal thought-forms float about detached. Provided they do not come into contact with another, they eventually dissipate.
If, through training and work, a person has evolved to where the lower thoughts and emotions no longer comprise their makeup, then these types of thought-forms and vibrations will pass through them like Chinese food. i.e. They are unaffected by them.
When it is the thought wave (i.e. radiating vibration) that affects people, it is the nature of the thought that is conveyed rather than the subject. A Buddhist in deep devotional meditation to Buddha will trigger rapt devotional thoughts in others, particulary those who are accustomed to similar thinking. In a Hindu it would most likely trigger devotion to a Hindu deity such as Krishna; in a Christian to Christ, say. Everyone, consciously or not, would be affected to some degree, some possibly even awakened to higher powers of thought.
The stronger and clearer the thought, the greater its impact on others and the greater number of people it will affect. There is a saying in eastern spiritual teachings that the right person thinking the right thought can make all the difference in the world.
Thoughtography:
In the fall and winter of 2005, the Metropolitan Museum of Art held an exhibit entitled "The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult." Part of the exhibit featured photographs of so-called vital forces believed to emanate from the human body. Thoughts, feelings and dreams were some of these vital forces and they were captured directly onto sensitive photographic plates by French researchers such as Louis Darget and Hippolyte Baraduc.
Darget (1847-1921) was the French pioneer of Thought Photography and also produced color photos on glass plates showing human fingerprints with aura forms. Both Darget and Baraduc, a neurologist by profession, photographed their own thoughts and mental energy by placing their fingers or foreheads on or within close proximity to sensitized plates.
In the June 20, 1903 issue of Age magazine, Baraduc claimed he had been able to photograph emotions. "I have obtained photographs of love, hate, joy, grief, fear, sympathy, piety, & etc. No new chemical is necessary to obtain these results. Any ordinary camera will do it. All I have done is to apply an old invention to a new use."
Baraduc had invented a device called a biometer with which he used to measure the "vital and nervous force" of a patient thought to be mentally ill. The device consisted of two glass bell jars placed side by side, inside each of which was a sensitive copper needle suspended by a silk thread. The needle was fastened loosely to the top of a circular card which had been marked into degrees to gauge the position of the needle. The jars were placed on a wooden support beneath which was a coil of copper wire used to condense the "current" but not in any manner connected to batteries or other apparatus. When the fingers of both hands were brought within an inch of the glass jars, the degree of deflection of the needles within would register the patient's "vitality current." Whatever the true nature of this force was, Baraduc believed it to be universally present, operating as a vital current of energy within each person and existing and flowing through every physical organism. To some extent it could be controlled by the power of the human will. Anyone familiar with eastern spiritual teachings will at once know this vital force by other names such as chi or prana. Baraduc believed it to be a fluidic ether (aether).
Baraduc applied the biometer to 5,000 patients and in each case "observed" the effect the emotions of the patient had on the needles. If emotions affected sensitized needles that way, Baraduc reasoned they would also produce an effect on a photographic plate. So he took highly sensitive dry plates wrapped in light-proof paper and held them about twelve inches from the patient's head. Typically he would wait until the patient was the most agitated emotionally.
If, through training and work, a person has evolved to where the lower thoughts and emotions no longer comprise their makeup, then these types of thought-forms and vibrations will pass through them like Chinese food. i.e. They are unaffected by them.
When it is the thought wave (i.e. radiating vibration) that affects people, it is the nature of the thought that is conveyed rather than the subject. A Buddhist in deep devotional meditation to Buddha will trigger rapt devotional thoughts in others, particulary those who are accustomed to similar thinking. In a Hindu it would most likely trigger devotion to a Hindu deity such as Krishna; in a Christian to Christ, say. Everyone, consciously or not, would be affected to some degree, some possibly even awakened to higher powers of thought.
The stronger and clearer the thought, the greater its impact on others and the greater number of people it will affect. There is a saying in eastern spiritual teachings that the right person thinking the right thought can make all the difference in the world.
Thoughtography:
In the fall and winter of 2005, the Metropolitan Museum of Art held an exhibit entitled "The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult." Part of the exhibit featured photographs of so-called vital forces believed to emanate from the human body. Thoughts, feelings and dreams were some of these vital forces and they were captured directly onto sensitive photographic plates by French researchers such as Louis Darget and Hippolyte Baraduc.
Darget (1847-1921) was the French pioneer of Thought Photography and also produced color photos on glass plates showing human fingerprints with aura forms. Both Darget and Baraduc, a neurologist by profession, photographed their own thoughts and mental energy by placing their fingers or foreheads on or within close proximity to sensitized plates.
In the June 20, 1903 issue of Age magazine, Baraduc claimed he had been able to photograph emotions. "I have obtained photographs of love, hate, joy, grief, fear, sympathy, piety, & etc. No new chemical is necessary to obtain these results. Any ordinary camera will do it. All I have done is to apply an old invention to a new use."
Baraduc had invented a device called a biometer with which he used to measure the "vital and nervous force" of a patient thought to be mentally ill. The device consisted of two glass bell jars placed side by side, inside each of which was a sensitive copper needle suspended by a silk thread. The needle was fastened loosely to the top of a circular card which had been marked into degrees to gauge the position of the needle. The jars were placed on a wooden support beneath which was a coil of copper wire used to condense the "current" but not in any manner connected to batteries or other apparatus. When the fingers of both hands were brought within an inch of the glass jars, the degree of deflection of the needles within would register the patient's "vitality current." Whatever the true nature of this force was, Baraduc believed it to be universally present, operating as a vital current of energy within each person and existing and flowing through every physical organism. To some extent it could be controlled by the power of the human will. Anyone familiar with eastern spiritual teachings will at once know this vital force by other names such as chi or prana. Baraduc believed it to be a fluidic ether (aether).
Baraduc applied the biometer to 5,000 patients and in each case "observed" the effect the emotions of the patient had on the needles. If emotions affected sensitized needles that way, Baraduc reasoned they would also produce an effect on a photographic plate. So he took highly sensitive dry plates wrapped in light-proof paper and held them about twelve inches from the patient's head. Typically he would wait until the patient was the most agitated emotionally.
© Copyright Lorena Loo
The Shugs of Tibetan Mysticism:
To Tibetans there is no such thing as the supernatural, only the occult. I am paraphrasing slightly but allow me to explain. The word occult derives from the Latin occulere which means "hide." When it came into the English language as occult, it still retained the meaning of hidden or secret. This is seen in an astronomical term, occultation, which refers to the close approach of two celestial objects such that one temporarily obscures the other from view. One of the two is temporarily hidden from view and hence the term occultation. Somehow, during the 17th century, the meaning of occult was distorted to mean supernatural. According to Alexandra David-Neel1, the Tibetans say that psychic phenomenon is merely the skillful manipulation of little known forces and laws. As these are little known, they are therefore secret or hidden forces and laws. Hence my usage of the word occult to refer to them. Esoteric and occult teachings then are not about the supernatural, only about the little known forces and laws as the Tibetans say.
To Tibetans there is no such thing as the supernatural, only the occult. I am paraphrasing slightly but allow me to explain. The word occult derives from the Latin occulere which means "hide." When it came into the English language as occult, it still retained the meaning of hidden or secret. This is seen in an astronomical term, occultation, which refers to the close approach of two celestial objects such that one temporarily obscures the other from view. One of the two is temporarily hidden from view and hence the term occultation. Somehow, during the 17th century, the meaning of occult was distorted to mean supernatural. According to Alexandra David-Neel1, the Tibetans say that psychic phenomenon is merely the skillful manipulation of little known forces and laws. As these are little known, they are therefore secret or hidden forces and laws. Hence my usage of the word occult to refer to them. Esoteric and occult teachings then are not about the supernatural, only about the little known forces and laws as the Tibetans say.
Author's sketch of Hippolyte Baraduc's biometer. Top shows the two glass bell jars inside each of which are suspended copper needles. Below shows the deflection of the needles in angular measurement when the fingers of the hands are brought to within one inch proximity of the jars.
Baraduc found the same emotion would make the same kind of impression upon the photographic plate but different emotions produced different images. Feelings such as love produced indistinct blurs on the plates while other feelings would generate a mass of twisted tubes of light seemingly filled with a milky fluid or an explosion of fireworks. Compare Baraduc's description of "an explosion of fireworks" with plate 24, the thought-form of an explosion of anger from Besant and Leadbeater's book. Other images obtained by Baraduc were described as white spots appearing in star-like clusters or shaped like a comet. Many of Baraduc's images
appeared in a book published in Paris in 1896. An English edition subsequently was published in London in 1913 entitled The Human Soul: Its Movements, Its Lights, and the Iconography of the Fluidic Invisible.
From left to right: Aspiration to enfold all was a thought-form generated by someone in meditation concentrating on enfolding all of humanity upwards toward a vision of high ideal. The intricacy of lines in the lower portion are so dense as to appear as one thick solid line. The golden background is a rendering of the actual golden light which shone forth from within the thought-form. Besant and Leadbeater noted that thought-forms created in meditation bore a remarkable similarity to figures drawn by a pendulum (vibration figures as the two theosophists called them). The pendulum figures of which they spoke of are created by harmonographs. A harmonograph is a mechanical device consisting of several pendulums. The simplest kind uses two pendulums set in motion at right angles to one another. One pendulum moves a pen back and forth while the other moves a drawing surface (piece of paper). The results are exquisite drawings such as the middle image from the work of Frederick Bligh Bond. The last two images are mathematically generated harmonograph forms (harmonograms) on a computer. The forms generated by mathematics are startling similar to those generated in a higher power of thought of meditation.
energies so that the same energies will be transmitted to anyone who touches the object. For example, an object embedded with the energy of courage or vitality will impart courage or vitality to whosoever touches it. Inanimate objects can also be infused with energies that bring them to life so that they can move and perform actions at the will and direction of their "creator."
As currents of energy produced by thoughts, shugs would then be visible to clairvoyants, taking form and color as described by Besant and Leadbeater. They could also affect photographic plates per the research of Baraduc and others.
In J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, invisibly was granted to anyone who wore "the ring." For Tibetan mystics, no such device is necessary. Tibetans say if one is adept at ceasing all activity of the mind, one becomes invisible at will. When the mind is active, it generates an energy which spreads around the person. That energy is palpable and felt in different ways to people who come into contact with it. There is a stimulus which excites a reflection and leaves an impression in the memory of others. When you succeed in stopping all activity of the mind, no such energy is generated. As you are not exciting a reflection in the minds of others and not leaving an impression on their memory, you will seem invisible to them.
Theosophists Besant and Leadbeater would concur completely with the Tibetans. Every thought, word and act has a consequence in the unseen world which then directly impacts upon the physical. The world of the occult (hidden) is of far more importance than the world of the visible. You can perhaps understand then there is reason behind the Buddhist practice of right body, right mind, right speech.
The Stuff of the World is Mind Stuff:
Sir James Jeans and Sir Arthur S. Eddington were renown British astronomers of the first half of the 20th century. They shared more in common than their nationality and profession, though. Both these astronomers had arrived at the conclusion that the universe (and everything in it) was a creation of …pure thought!
In his book The Mysterious Universe (1931), Jeans wrote of the uncanny mathematical nature of the universe and that "the mathematics enters the universe from above instead of from below." He was saying the mathematical nature of the universe is not fashioned by the human mind but is inherently of a higher power of thought. Albert Einstein referred to that higher power of thought as his definition of God.
In one startling paragraph in his book, Jeans states that:
…the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter-not of course our individual minds, but the mind in which the atoms out of which our individual minds have grown exist as thoughts.2
As currents of energy produced by thoughts, shugs would then be visible to clairvoyants, taking form and color as described by Besant and Leadbeater. They could also affect photographic plates per the research of Baraduc and others.
In J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, invisibly was granted to anyone who wore "the ring." For Tibetan mystics, no such device is necessary. Tibetans say if one is adept at ceasing all activity of the mind, one becomes invisible at will. When the mind is active, it generates an energy which spreads around the person. That energy is palpable and felt in different ways to people who come into contact with it. There is a stimulus which excites a reflection and leaves an impression in the memory of others. When you succeed in stopping all activity of the mind, no such energy is generated. As you are not exciting a reflection in the minds of others and not leaving an impression on their memory, you will seem invisible to them.
Theosophists Besant and Leadbeater would concur completely with the Tibetans. Every thought, word and act has a consequence in the unseen world which then directly impacts upon the physical. The world of the occult (hidden) is of far more importance than the world of the visible. You can perhaps understand then there is reason behind the Buddhist practice of right body, right mind, right speech.
The Stuff of the World is Mind Stuff:
Sir James Jeans and Sir Arthur S. Eddington were renown British astronomers of the first half of the 20th century. They shared more in common than their nationality and profession, though. Both these astronomers had arrived at the conclusion that the universe (and everything in it) was a creation of …pure thought!
In his book The Mysterious Universe (1931), Jeans wrote of the uncanny mathematical nature of the universe and that "the mathematics enters the universe from above instead of from below." He was saying the mathematical nature of the universe is not fashioned by the human mind but is inherently of a higher power of thought. Albert Einstein referred to that higher power of thought as his definition of God.
In one startling paragraph in his book, Jeans states that:
…the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter-not of course our individual minds, but the mind in which the atoms out of which our individual minds have grown exist as thoughts.2
Tibetan mystics say that each physical and mental act produces a currents or waves of energy they call shugs or tsal (written as rstal). Each act, thought or word then creates shugs. Psychic phenomenon arises from these energies depending upon their intensity (strength) and the direction in which they are pointed.
Adepts who have developed sufficient powers of concentration are able to use these energies in various ways. They are able to infuse an object with these
Adepts who have developed sufficient powers of concentration are able to use these energies in various ways. They are able to infuse an object with these
