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Now to wrap up with the mental magic portion of the Yoga Sutras in Book Three, plus the first sutra of Book Four.
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47. Mastery over the powers of perception and action comes through perfectly concentrated Meditation on their fivefold forms; namely, their power to grasp, their distinctive nature, the element of self-consciousness in them, their inherence, and their purposiveness.

Take, for example, sight. This possesses, first, the power to grasp, apprehend, perceive; second, it has its distinctive form of perception; that is, visual perception ; third, it always carries with its operations self-consciousness, the thought : "I perceive"; fourth, sight has the power of extension through the whole field of vision, even to the utmost star; fifth, it is used for the purposes of the Seer. So with the other senses. Perfectly concentrated Meditation on each sense, a viewing it from behind and within, as is possible for the spiritual man, brings a mastery of the scope and true character of each sense, and of the world on which they report collectively.

48. Thence comes the power swift as thought, independent of instruments, and the mastery over matter.

We are further enumerating the endowments of the spiritual man. Among these is the power to traverse space with the swiftness of thought, so that whatever place the spiritual man thinks of, to that he goes, in that place he already is. Thought has now become his means of locomotion. He is, therefore, independent of instruments, and can bring his force to bear directly, wherever he wills.

52. From perfectly concentrated Meditation on the divisions of time and their succession comes that wisdom which is born of discernment.

The Upanishads say of the liberated that "he has passed beyond the triad of time"; he no longer sees life as projected into past, present and future, since these are forms of the mind; but beholds all things spread out in the quiet light of the Eternal. This would seem to be the same thought, and to point to that clear-eyed spiritual perception which is above time; that wisdom born of the unveiling of Time's delusion. Then shall the disciple live neither in the present nor the future, but in the Eternal.

53. Hence comes discernment between things which are of like nature, not distinguished by difference of kind, character or position.

Here, as also in the preceding Sutra, we are close to the doctrine that distinctions of order, time and space are creations of the mind; the threefold prism through which the real object appears to us distorted and refracted. When the prism is withdrawn, the object returns to its primal unity, no longer distinguishable by the mind, yet clearly knowable by that high power of spiritual discernment, of illumination, which is above the mind.

54. The wisdom which is born of discernment is starlike; it discerns all things, and all conditions of things, it discerns without succession: simultaneously.

That wisdom, that intuitive, divining power is starlike, says the commentator, because it shines with its own light, because it rises on high, and illumines all things. Nought is hidden from it, whether things past, things present, or things to come ; for it is beyond the three-fold form of time, so that all things are spread before it together, in the single light of the divine. This power has been beautifully described by Columba: "Some there are, though very few, to whom Divine grace has granted this: that they can clearly and most distinctly see, at one and the same moment, as though under one ray of the sun, even the entire circuit of the whole world with its surroundings of ocean and sky, the inmost part of their mind being marvellously enlarged."

I. Psychic and spiritual powers may be inborn, or they may be gained by the use of drugs, or by incantations, or by fervour, or by Meditation.

Spiritual powers have been enumerated and described in the preceding sections. They are the normal powers of the spiritual man, the antetype, the divine edition, of the powers of the natural man. Through these powers, the spiritual man stands, sees, hears, speaks, in the spiritual world, as the physical man stands, sees, hears, speaks in the natural world.

There is a counterfeit presentment of the spiritual man, in the world of dreams, a shadow lord of shadows, who has his own dreamy powers of vision, of hearing, of movement; he has left the natural without reaching the spiritual. He has set forth from the shore, but has not gained the further verge of the river. He is borne along by the stream, with no foothold on either shore. Leaving the actual, he has fallen short of the real, caught in the limbo of vanities and delusions. The cause of this aberrant phantasm is always the worship of a false, vain self, the lord of dreams, within one's own breast. This is the psychic man, lord of delusive and bewildering psychic powers.

Spiritual powers, like intellectual or artistic gifts, may be inborn: the fruit, that is, of seeds planted and reared with toil in a former birth. So also the powers of the psychic man may be inborn, a delusive harvest from seeds of delusion.

Psychical powers may be gained by drugs, as poverty, shame, debasement may be gained by the self-same drugs. In their action, they are baneful, cutting the man off from consciousness of the restraining power of his divine nature, so that his forces break forth exuberant, like the laughter of drunkards, and he sees and hears things delusive. While sinking, he believes that he has risen; growing weaker, he thinks himself full of strength; beholding illusions, he takes them to be true.

Such are the powers gained by drugs; they are wholly psychic, since the real powers, the spiritual, can never be so gained.

Incantations are affirmations of half-truths concerning spirit and matter, what is and what is not, which work upon the mind and slowly build up a wraith of powers and a delusive well-being. These, too, are of the psychic realm of dreams.

Lastly, there are the true powers of the spiritual man, built up and realized in Meditation, through reverent obedience to spiritual law, to the pure conditions of being, in the divine realm.

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And there we have it; the original source for all things yoga. I'll be referring back to these quoted sutras from time to time as I go through William Walker Atkinson's Yogi Ramacharaka books.

But first, one more background book: Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga.

After a bit of philosophy in the middle, Book Three returns to more mental magic:
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36. Thereupon are born the divine power of intuition, and the hearing, the touch, the vision, the taste and the power of smell of the spiritual man.

When, in virtue of the perpetual sacrifice of the personal man, daily and hourly giving his life for his divine brother the spiritual man, and through the radiance ever pouring down from the Higher Self, eternal in the Heavens, the spiritual man comes to birth,—there awake in him those powers whose physical counterparts we know in the personal man. The spiritual man begins to see, to hear, to touch, to taste. And, besides the senses of the spiritual man, there awakes his mind, that divine counterpart of the mind of the physical man, the power of direct and immediate knowledge, the power of spiritual intuition, of divination. This power, as we have seen, owes its virtue to the unity, the continuity, of consciousness, whereby whatever is known to any consciousness, is knowable by any other consciousness. Thus the consciousness of the spiritual man, who lives above our narrow barriers of separateness, is in intimate touch with the consciousness of the great Companions, and can draw on that vast reservoir for all real needs. Thus arises within the spiritual man that certain knowledge which is called intuition, divination, illumination.

37. These powers stand in contradistinction to the highest spiritual vision. In manifestation they are called magical powers.

The divine man is destined to supersede the spiritual man, as the spiritual man supersedes the natural man. Then the disciple becomes a Master. The opened powers of the spiritual man, spiritual vision, hearing, and touch, stand, therefore, in contradistinction to the higher divine power above them, and must in no wise be regarded as the end of the way, for the path has no end, but rises ever to higher and higher glories; the soul's growth and splendour have no limit. So that, if the spiritual powers we have been considering are regarded as in any sense final, they are a hindrance, a barrier to the far higher powers of the divine man. But viewed from below, from the standpoint of normal physical experience, they are powers truly magical; as the powers natural to a four-dimensional being will appear magical to a three-dimensional being.

39. Through mastery of the upward-life comes freedom from the dangers of water, morass, and thorny places, and the power of ascension is gained.

Here is one of the sentences, so characteristic of this author, and, indeed, of the Eastern spirit, in which there is an obvious exterior meaning, and, within this, a clear interior meaning, not quite so obvious, but far more vital.

The surface meaning is, that by mastery of a certain power, called here the upward-life, and akin to levitation, there comes the ability to walk on water, or to pass over thorny places without wounding the feet.

But there is a deeper meaning. When we speak of the disciple's path as a path of thorns, we use a symbol; and the same symbol is used here. The upward-life means something more than the power, often manifested in abnormal psychical experiences, of levitating the physical body, or near-by physical objects. It means the strong power of aspiration, of upward will, which first builds, and then awakes the spiritual man, and finally transfers the conscious individuality to him; for it is he who passes safely over the waters of death and rebirth, and is not pierced by the thorns in the path. Therefore it is said that he who would tread the path of power must look for a home in the air, and afterwards in the ether.

Of the upward-life, this is written in the Katha Upanishad: "A hundred and one are the heart's channels; of these one passes to the crown. Going up this, he comes to the immortal." This is the power of ascension spoken of in the Sutra.

40. By mastery of the binding-life comes radiance.

In the Upanishads, it is said that this binding-life unites the upward-life to the downward-life, and these lives have their analogues in the "vital breaths" in the body. The thought in the text seems to be, that, when the personality is brought thoroughly under control of the spiritual man, through the life-currents which bind them together, the personality is endowed with a new force, a strong personal magnetism, one might call it, such as is often an appanage of genius.

But the text seems to mean more than this, and to have in view the "vesture of the colour of the sun" attributed by the Upanishads to the spiritual man; that vesture which a disciple has thus described: "The Lord shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body"; perhaps "body of radiance" would better translate the Greek.

In both these passages, the teaching seems to be, that the body of the full-grown spiritual man is radiant or luminous,—for those, at least, who have anointed their eyes with eye-salve, so that they see.

41. From perfectly concentrated Meditation on the correlation of hearing and the ether, comes the power of spiritual hearing.

Physical sound, we are told, is carried by the air, or by water, iron, or some medium on the same plane of substance. But there is a finer hearing, whose medium of transmission would seem to be the ether; perhaps not that ether which carries light, heat and magnetic waves, but, it may be, the far finer ether through which the power of gravity works.

For, while light or heat or magnetic waves, travelling from the sun to the earth, take eight minutes for the journey, it is mathematically certain that the pull of gravitation does not take as much as eight seconds, or even the eighth of a second. The pull of gravitation travels, it would seem "as quick as thought"; so it may well be that, in thought transference or telepathy, the thoughts travel by the same way, carried by the same "thought-swift" medium.

The transfer of a word by telepathy is the simplest and earliest form of the "divine hearing" of the spiritual man; as that power grows, and as, through perfectly concentrated Meditation, the spiritual man comes into more complete mastery of it, he grows able to hear and clearly distinguish the speech of the great Companions, who counsel and comfort him on his way. They may speak to him either in wordless thoughts, or in perfectly definite words and sentences.

42. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the correlation of the body with the ether, and by thinking of it as light as thistle-down, will come the power to traverse the ether.

It has been said that he who would tread the path of power must look for a home in the air, and afterwards in the ether. This would seem to mean, besides the constant injunction to detachment, that he must be prepared to inhabit first a psychic, and then an etheric body; the former being the body of dreams; the latter, the body of the spiritual man, when he wakes up on the other side of dreamland. The gradual accustoming of the consciousness to its new etheric vesture, its gradual acclimatization, so to speak, in the etheric body of the spiritual man, is what our text seems to contemplate.

44. Mastery of the elements comes from perfectly concentrated Meditation on their five forms: the gross, the elemental, the subtle, the inherent, the purposive.

These five forms are analogous to those recognized by modern physics : solid, liquid, gaseous, radiant and ionic. When the piercing vision of the awakened spiritual man is directed to the forms of matter, from within, as it were, from behind the scenes, then perfect mastery over the "beggarly elements" is attained. This is, perhaps, equivalent to the injunction : "Inquire of the earth, the air, and the water, of the secrets they hold for you. The development of your inner senses will enable you to do this."

45. Thereupon will come the manifestation of the atomic and other powers, which are the endowment of the body, together with its unassailable force.

The body in question is, of course, the etheric body of the spiritual man. He is said to possess eight powers : the atomic, the power of assimilating himself with the nature of the atom, which will, perhaps, involve the power to disintegrate material forms; the power of levitation; the power of limitless extension; the power of boundless reach, so that, as the commentator says, "he can touch the moon with the tip of his finger"; the power to accomplish his will; the power of gravitation, the correlative of levitation; the power of command; the power of creative will. These are the endowments of the spiritual man. Further, the spiritual body is unassailable. Fire burns it not, water wets it not, the sword cleaves it not, dry winds parch it not. And, it is said, the spiritual man can impart something of this quality and temper to his bodily vesture.

46. Shapeliness, beauty, force, the temper of the diamond: these are the endowments of that body.
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This set of sutras seems to be discussing the "extrasensory" powers like clairvoyance, clairaudience, astral projection, and either the etheric or astral body in general. Just a note on sutra 46 - the translator's comment is simply a Bible quote. Nothing from the tenth century commentary or any others.

I have just about half a dozen more left to highlight, then I will be commenting on Swami Vivekananda's Yoga Philosophy: Lectures on Râja Yoga

or Conquering the Internal Nature also Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentaries. Delivered in New York, Winter of 1895–96. This is most likely to be William Walker Atkinson's source material, as Swami Vivekananda was quite the sensation in the US as well as Europe following his presentation at the Chicago Parliament of the World Religions in 1893. Atkinson also dedicates his first book written under the Yogi Ramacharaka name, The Science of Breath, to Swami Vivekananda.

I've started reading Vivekananda's Raja Yoga, and just from the preface and first two chapters I can easily see how it would have grabbed Atkinson's imagination. I am tempted to skip to Vivekananda's translations and commentary on the Yoga Sutras (translated as "aphorisms") to see how an Indian native's translation differs from Johnston's translation, who seems to have been British. We'll see how well I hold up against this temptation.

This may seem like a tangent, but I see this as getting a good solid background for the Yogi Ramacharaka books. Reading through the actual Yoga Sutras has shown me that there is so much more to yoga than what is taught at the little local fitness center. The instructions on meditation didn't surprise me, but all the mental magic and occult philosophy sure did. I was also expecting a LOT more about the asanas (postures) and pranayama (breath/life-force control) than the few sutras each. I do wonder if it would affect yoga's popularity if all of yoga was taught, instead of only the physical side.

I say "some" because there are bits and pieces scattered throughout regarding the Spiritual Self (translated as Man, of course) and how to find and eventually liberate said Spiritual Self from the cycle of death and rebirth. As I mentioned yesterday, Patanjali wrote about 23 centuries ago, which was smack dab in the middle of the "escape" religious sensibility (as the Archdruid wrote about on his old blog) between the Buddha (circa 500 BCE) and Jesus. So, in Books One, Two, and Four most of the magical philosophy is couched in terms like sorrow, bondage, and liberation. Some of that is also found in Book Three, of course, but we also find a bit of interesting occult magic philosophy as well:
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26. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the sun comes a knowledge of the worlds.

This has several meanings: First, by a knowledge of the constitution of the sun, astronomers can understand the kindred nature of the stars. And it is said that there is a finer astronomy, where the spiritual man is the astronomer. But the sun also means the Soul, and through knowledge of the Soul comes a knowledge of the realms of life.

27. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the moon comes a knowledge of the lunar mansions.

Here again are different meanings. The moon is, first, the companion planet, which, each day, passes backward through one mansion of the stars. By watching the moon, the boundaries of the mansion are learned, with their succession in the great time-dial of the sky. But the moon also symbolizes the analytic mind, with its divided realms; and these, too, may be understood through perfectly concentrated Meditation.

28. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the fixed pole-star comes a knowledge of the motions of the stars.

Addressing Duty, stern daughter of the Voice of God, Wordsworth finely said :

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,

And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong—

thus suggesting a profound relation between the moral powers and the powers that rule the worlds. So in this Sutra the fixed polestar is the eternal spirit about which all things move, as well as the star toward which points the axis of the earth. ' Deep mysteries attend both, and the veil of mystery is only to be raised by Meditation, by open-eyed vision of the awakened spiritual man.

29. Perfectly concentrated Meditation on the center of force in the lower trunk brings an understanding of the order of the bodily powers.

We are coming to a vitally important part of the teaching of Yoga: namely, the spiritual man's attainment of full self-consciousness, the awakening of the spiritual man as a self-conscious individual, behind and above the natural man. In this awakening, and in the process of gestation which precedes it, there is a close relation with the powers of the natural man, which are, in a certain sense, the projection, outward and downward, of the powers of the spiritual man. This is notably true of that creative power of the spiritual man which, when embodied in the natural man, becomes the power of generation. Not only is this power the cause of the continuance of the bodily race of mankind, but further, in the individual, it is the key to the dominance of the personal life. Rising, as it were, through the life-channels of the body, it flushes the personality with physical force, and maintains and colours the illusion that the physical life is the dominant and all-important expression of life. In due time, when the spiritual man has begun to take form, the creative force will be drawn off, and become operative in building the body of the spiritual man, just as it has been operative in the building of physical bodies, through generation in the natural world.

Perfectly concentrated Meditation on the nature of this force means, first, that rising of the consciousness into the spiritual world, already described, which gives the one sure foothold for Meditation; and then, from that spiritual point of vantage, not only an insight into the creative force, in its spiritual and physical aspects, but also a gradually attained control of this wonderful force, which will mean its direction to the body of the spiritual man, and its gradual withdrawal from the body of the natural man, until the over-pressure, so general and such a fruitful source of misery in our day, is abated, and purity takes the place of passion. This over-pressure, which is the cause of so many evils and so much of human shame, is an abnormal, not a natural, condition. It is primarily due to spiritual blindness, to blindness regarding the spiritual man, and ignorance even of his existence; for by this blind ignorance are closed the channels through which, were they open, the creative force could flow into the body of the spiritual man, there building up an immortal vesture. There is no cure for blindness, with its consequent over-pressure and attendant misery and shame, but spiritual vision, spiritual aspiration, sacrifice, the new birth from above. There is no other way to lighten the burden, to lift the misery and shame from human life. Therefore, let us follow after sacrifice and aspiration, let us seek the light. In this way only shall we gain that insight into the order of the bodily powers, and that mastery of them, which this Sutra implies.

30. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the well of the throat, there comes the cessation of hunger and thirst.

We are continuing the study of the bodily powers and centres of force in their relation to the powers and forces of the spiritual man. We have already considered the dominant power of physical life, the creative power which secures the continuance of physical life; and, further, the manner in which, through aspiration and sacrifice, it is gradually raised and set to the work of upbuilding the body of the spiritual man. We come now to the dominant psychic force, the power which manifests itself in speech, and in virtue of which the voice may carry so much of the personal magnetism, endowing the orator with a tongue of fire, magical in its power to arouse and rule the emotions of his hearers. This emotional power, this distinctively psychical force, is the cause of "hunger and thirst," the psychical hunger and thirst for sensations, which is the source of our two-sided life of emotionalism, with its hopes and fears, its expectations and memories, its desires and hates. The source of this psychical power, or, perhaps we should say, its centre of activity in the physical body is said to be in the cavity of the throat. Thus, in the Taittiriya Upanishad it is written: "There is this shining ether in the inner being. Therein is the spiritual man, formed through thought, immortal, golden. Inward, in the palate, the organ that hangs down like a nipple,—this is the womb of Indra. And there, where the dividing of the hair turns, extending upward to the crown of the head."

Indra is the name given to the creative power of which we have spoken, and which, we are told, resides in "the organ which hangs down like a nipple, inward, in the palate."

31. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the channel called the "tortoise-formed," comes steadfastness.

We are concerned now with the centre of nervous or psychical force below the cavity of the throat, in the chest, in which is felt the sensation of fear; the centre, the disturbance of which sets the heart beating miserably with dread, or which produces that sense of terror through which the heart is said to stand still.

When the truth concerning fear is thoroughly mastered, through spiritual insight into the immortal, fearless life, then this force is perfectly controlled; there is no more fear, just as, through the control of the psychic power which works through the nerve-centre in the throat, there comes a cessation of "hunger and thirst." Thereafter, these forces, or their spiritual prototypes, are turned to the building of the spiritual man.

Always, it must be remembered, the victory is first a spiritual one ; only later does it bring control of the bodily powers.

32. Through perfectly concentrated Meditation on the light in the head comes the vision of the Masters who have attained.

The tradition is, that there is a certain centre of force in the head, perhaps the "pineal gland," which some of our Western philosophers have supposed to be the dwelling of the soul,—a centre which is, as it were, the doorway between the natural and the spiritual man. It is the seat of that better and wiser consciousness behind the outward looking consciousness in the forward part of the head; that better and wiser consciousness of "the back of the mind," which views spiritual things, and seeks to impress the spiritual view on the outward looking consciousness in the forward part of the head. It is the spiritual man seeking to guide the natural man, seeking to bring the natural man to concern himself with the things of his immortality. This is suggested in the words of the Upanishad already quoted : "There, where the dividing of the hair turns, extending upward to the crown of the head"; all of which may sound very fantastical, until one comes to understand it.

It is said that when this power is fully awakened, it brings a vision of the great Companions of the spiritual man, those who have already attained, crossing over to the further shore of the sea of death and rebirth. Perhaps it is to this divine sight that the Master alluded, who is reported to have said : "I counsel you to buy of me eye-salve, that you may see." It is of this same vision of the great Companions, the children of light, that a seer wrote:

"Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."

33. Or through the divining power of intuition he knows all things.

This is really the supplement, the spiritual side, of the Sutra just translated. Step by step, as the better consciousness, the spiritual view, gains force in the back of the mind, so, in the same measure, the spiritual man is gaining the power to see : learning to open the spiritual eyes. When the eyes are fully opened, the spiritual man beholds the great Companions standing about him; he has begun to "know all things."

This divining power of intuition is the power which lies above and behind the so-called rational mind ; the rational mind formulates a question and lays it before the intuition, which gives a real answer, often immediately distorted by the rational mind, yet always embodying a kernel of truth. It is by this process, through which the rational mind brings questions to the intuition for solution, that the truths of science are reached, the flashes of discovery and genius. But this higher power need not work in subordination to the so-called rational mind, it may act directly, as full illumination, "the vision and the faculty divine."

34. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the heart, the interior being, comes the knowledge of consciousness.

The heart here seems to mean, as it so often does in the Upanishads, the interior, spiritual nature, the consciousness of the spiritual man, which is related to the heart, and to the wisdom of the heart. By steadily seeking after, and finding, the consciousness of the spiritual man, by coming to consciousness as the spiritual man, a perfect knowledge of consciousness will be attained. For the consciousness of the spiritual man has this divine quality: while being and remaining a truly individual consciousness, it at the same time flows over, as it were, and blends with the Divine Consciousness above and about it, the consciousness of the great Companions; and by showing itself to be one with the Divine Consciousness, it reveals the nature of all consciousness, the secret that all consciousness is One and Divine.

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A couple notes: sutras 29 through 32 are talking about chakras. This is probably a good place to mention the translator, Charles Johnston, published the individual Books in the Theosophical journal as he finished each one, and sounds very much a Theosopher. This sort of put a line under the mental magic and philosophy sections here in Book Three, but it also may distort a few things because he saw through the Theosophy lens. Reminder, the italicized phrases are the actual sutras, while unitalicized are the commentary either from the tenth century or from the translator himself.

This was not what I expected to find, but it is certainly in there! When I remarked a couple months ago that Atkinson's A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga "may not be raja yoga as Patanjali laid out," I was showing my ignorance. What we most often are taught here in the States as yoga only covers about a dozen sutras from Book Two, and occasionally the first handful of sutras on attention, meditation, and concentration from Book Three. Venture beyond those sutras, and you end up in the mental magic territory ... along very similar lines as Mind Power, even. Some examples:

16. Through perfectly concentrated Meditation on the three stages of development comes a knowledge of past and future.

We have taken our illustrations from natural science, because, since every true discovery in natural science is a divination of a law in nature, attained through a flash of genius, such discoveries really represent acts of spiritual perception, acts of perception by the spiritual man, even though they are generally not so recognized.

So we may once more use the same illustration. Perfectly concentrated Meditation, perfect insight into the chrysalis, reveals the caterpillar that it has been, the butterfly that it is destined to be. He who knows the seed, knows the seed-pod or ear it has come from, and the plant that is to come from it.

So in like manner he who really knows today, and the heart of to-day, knows its parent yesterday and its child to-morrow. Past, present and future are all in the Eternal. He who dwells in the Eternal knows all three.

17. The sound and the object and the thought called up by a word are confounded because they are all blurred together in the mind. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the distinction between them, there comes an understanding of the sounds uttered by all beings.

It must be remembered that we are speaking of perception by the spiritual man.

Sound, like every force, is the expression of a power of the Eternal. Infinite shades of this power are expressed in the infinitely varied tones of sound. He who, having entry to the consciousness of the Eternal knows the essence of this power, can divine the meanings of all sounds, from the voice of the insect to the music of the spheres.

In like manner, he who has attained to spiritual vision can perceive the mind-images in the thoughts of others, with the shade of feeling which goes with them, thus reading their thoughts as easily as he hears their words. Every one has the germ of this power, since difference of tone will give widely differing meanings to the same words, meanings which are intuitively perceived by everyone.

18. When the mind-impressions become visible, there comes an understanding of previous births.

This is simple enough if we grasp the truth of rebirth. The fine harvest of past experiences is drawn into the spiritual nature, forming, indeed, the basis of its development.

When the consciousness has been raised to a point above these fine subjective impressions, and can look down upon them from above, this will in itself be a remembering of past births.

19. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on mind-images is gained the understanding of the thoughts of others.

Here, for those who can profit by it, is the secret of thought-reading. Take the simplest case of intentional thought transference. It is the testimony of those who have done this, that the perceiving mind must be stilled, before the mind-image projected by the other mind can be seen. With it comes a sense of the feeling and temper of the other mind and so on, in higher degrees.

20. But since that on which the thought in the mind of another rests is not objective to the thought-reader's consciousness, he perceives the thought only, and not also that on which the thought rests.

The meaning appears to be simple : One may be able to perceive the thoughts of someone at a distance; one cannot, by that means alone, also perceive the external surroundings of that person, which arouse these thoughts.

21. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the form of the body, by arresting the body's perceptibility, and by inhibiting the eye's power of sight, there comes the power to make the body invisible.

There are many instances of the exercise of this power, by mesmerists, hypnotists and the like; and we may simply call it an instance of the power of suggestion. Shankara tells us that by this power the popular magicians of the East perform their wonders, working on the mind-images of others, while remaining invisible themselves. It is all a question of being able to see and control the mind-images.

23. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on sympathy, compassion and kindness, is gained the power of interior union with others.

Unity is the reality; separateness the illusion. The nearer we come to reality, the nearer we come to unity of heart. Sympathy, compassion, kindness are modes of this unity, of heart, whereby we rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. These things are learned by desiring to learn them.

24. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on power, even such power as that of the elephant may be gained.

This is a pretty image. Elephants possess not only force, but poise and fineness of control. They can lift a straw, a child, a tree with perfectly judged control and effort. So the simile is a good one. By detachment, by withdrawing into the soul's reservoir of power, we can gain all these, force and fineness and poise; the ability to handle with equal mastery things small and great, concrete and abstract alike.

25. By bending upon them the awakened inner light, there comes a knowledge of things subtle, or concealed, or obscure.

As was said at the outset, each consciousness is related to all consciousness; and, through it, has a potential consciousness of all things ; whether subtle or concealed or obscure. An understanding of this great truth will come with practice. As one of the wise has said, we have no conception of the power of Meditation.

Pretty interesting, huh? There's more in Book Three, but I think it fits more into occult philosophy than mental magic as such. Book Four is about escaping the process of reincarnation, which seems to have been a global theme about twenty to twenty-five centuries ago.

A couple more gems from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, translated by Charles Johnston, in Book 3:

5. By mastering this perfectly concentrated Meditation, there comes the illumination of perception. The meaning of this is illustrated by what has been said before. When the spiritual man is able to throw aside the trammels of emotional and mental limitation, and to open his eyes, he sees clearly, he attains to illuminated perception. A poet once said that Occultism is the conscious cultivation of genius; and it is certain that the awakened spiritual man attains to the perceptions of genius. Genius is the vision, the power, of the spiritual man, whether its possessor recognizes this or not. All true knowledge is of the spiritual man. The greatest in all ages have recognized this and put their testimony on record. The great in wisdom who have not consciously recognized it, have ever been full of the spirit of reverence, of selfless devotion to truth, of humility, as was Darwin ; and reverence and humility are the unconscious recognition of the nearness of the Spirit, that Divinity which broods over us, a Master o'er a slave.
6. This power is distributed in ascending degrees. It is to be attained step by step. It is a question, not of miracle, but of evolution, of growth. Newton had to master the multiplication table, then the four rules of arithmetic, then the rudiments of algebra, before he came to the binomial theorem. At each point, there was attention, concentration, insight; until these were attained, no progress to the next point was possible. So with Darwin. He had to learn the form and use of leaf and flower, of bone and muscle; the characteristics of genera and species ; the distribution of plants and animals, before he had in mind that nexus of knowledge on which the light of his great idea was at last able to shine. So is it with all knowledge. So is it with spiritual knowledge. Take the matter this way: The first subject for the exercise of my spiritual insight is my day, with its circumstances, its hindrances, its opportunities, its duties. I do what I can to solve it, to fulfil its duties, to learn its lessons. I try to live my day with aspiration and faith. That is the first step. By doing this, I gather a harvest for the evening, I gain a deeper insight into life, in virtue of which I begin the next day with a certain advantage, a certain spiritual advance and attainment. So with all successive days. In faith and aspiration, we pass from day to day, in growing knowledge and power, with never more than one day to solve at a time, until all life becomes radiant and transparent.
10. Through frequent repetition of this process, the mind becomes habituated to it, and there arises an equable flow of perceiving consciousness. Control of the mind by the Soul, like control of the muscles by the mind, comes by practice, and constant voluntary repetition. As an example of control of the muscles by the mind, take the ceaseless practice by which a musician gains mastery over his instrument, or a fencer gains skill with a rapier. Innumerable small efforts of attention will make a result which seems well-nigh miraculous; which, for the novice, is really miraculous. Then consider that far more wonderful instrument, the perceiving mind, played on by that fine musician, the Soul. Here again, innumerable small efforts of attention will accumulate into mastery, and a mastery worth winning. For a concrete example, take the gradual conquest of each day, the effort to live that day for the Soul. To him that is faithful unto death, the Master gives the crown of life.
11. The gradual conquest of the mind's tendency to flit from one object to another, and the power of one-pointedness, make the development of Contemplation. As an illustration of the mind's tendency to flit from one object to another, take a small boy, learning arithmetic. He begins: two ones are two; three ones are three—and then he thinks of three coins in his pocket, which will purchase so much candy, in the store down the street, next to the toy-shop, where are base-balls, marbles and so on,—and then he comes back with a jerk, to four ones are four. So with us also. We are seeking the meaning of our task, but the mind takes advantage of a moment of slackened attention, and flits off from one frivolous detail to another, till we suddenly come back to consciousness after traversing leagues of space. We must learn to conquer this, and to go back within ourselves into the beam of perceiving consciousness itself, which is a beam of the Oversoul. This is the true onepointedness, the bringing of our consciousness to a focus in the Soul.

I'm still working through Book Three, which appears to be all about mental powers that develop from following yoga - all eight "arms" of it, not just the postures or breathing work.

I am very glad I decided to go back to the original source, as what is presented here in the U.S. as yoga is only the physical side, even on the meditation and energy-work side. It is reminding me a lot of how Buddhist meditation has been transformed into mindfullness and relaxation, without any of the spiritual or religious context. What Patanjali wrote is a religious text, with all of the first book and most of the second being all about the spiritual Man (read: Self) and how to liberate him/her from the cycle of reincarnation. This has turned out to be a very productive and fruitful side excursion to the main topic of Atkinson's work.

More than just an army drill and ceremony command, this is one of the cornerstones of the mental sciences, according to William Walker Atkinson. Syfen mentioned back on the Sub-consciousing post he wasn't sure he understood all that is implied in the word attention, so I have been meaning to get around to doing up a post on it. I have found an excellent description not in Atkinson's work, but in the first sutra of book 3 in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which I am reading as background for both Swami Vivekananda and Arkinson's Yogi Ramacharaka books. Since Patanjali was there a good 22 centuries prior to the other two, I figure to start out here. I am using the 1912 translation by Charles Johnston, which came out a few years after Vivekananda's and Atkinson's books, but seems to be an easier read as an introduction. It consists of the actual sutras, and commentary that has been attached to them since about the tenth century CE. Here is the sutras (in italics), followed by comments (both traditional plus the translator's):

- I. The binding of the perceiving consciousness to a certain region is attention (dharana). Emerson quotes Sir Isaac Newton as saying that he made his great discoveries by intending his mind on them. That is what is meant here. I read the page of a book while thinking of something else. At the end of the page, I have no idea of what it is about, and read it again, still thinking of something else, with the same result. Then I wake up, so to speak, make an effort of attention, fix my thought on what I am reading, and easily take in its meaning. The act of will, the effort of attention, the intending of the mind on each word and line of the page, just as the eyes are focused on each word and line, is the power here contemplated. It is the power to focus the consciousness on a given spot, and hold it there. Attention is the first and indispensable step in all knowledge. Attention to spiritual things is the first step to spiritual knowledge.
- 2. A prolonged holding of the perceiving consciousness in that region is meditation (dhyana). This will apply equally to outer and inner things. I may for a moment fix my attention on some visible object, in a single penetrating glance, or I may hold the attention fixedly on it until it reveals far more of its nature than a single glance could perceive. The first is the focusing of the searchlight of consciousness upon the object. The other is the holding of the white beam of light steadily and persistently on the object, until it yields up the secret of its details. So for things within; one may fix the inner glance for a moment on spiritual things, or one may hold the consciousness steadily upon them, until what was in the dark slowly comes forth into the light, and yields up its immortal secret. But this is possible only for the spiritual man, after the Commandments and the Rules have been kept; for until this is done, the thronging storms of psychical thoughts dissipate and distract the attention, so that it will not remain fixed on spiritual things. The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word of the spiritual message.
- 3. When the perceiving consciousness in this meditation is wholly given to illuminating the essential meaning of the object contemplated, and is freed from the sense of separateness and personality, this is contemplation (samadhi) . Let us review the steps so far taken. First, the beam of perceiving consciousness is focussed on a certain region or subject, through the effort of attention. Then this attending consciousness is held on its object. Third, there is the ardent will to know its meaning, to illumine it with comprehending thought. Fourth, all personal bias, all desire merely to indorse a previous opinion and so prove oneself right, and all desire for personal profit or gratification must be quite put away. There must be a purely disinterested love of truth for its own sake. Thus is the perceiving consciousness made void, as it were, of all personality or sense of separateness. The personal limitation stands aside and lets the All-consciousness come to bear upon the problem. The Oversoul bends its ray upon the object, and illumines it with pure light.

From there, Patanjali smoothly segues into the idea of perfect meditation and perception. I thought this would help as a starting point on the topic, sort of an introduction before I get to the chapter on attention in A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga, and whatever nuggets may lie in Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga.

Rather than struggle to reconstruct the eaten post, I've decided to tell y'all about the VA's pain management and coping skills class I am taking again. I first took it a few years ago, when VA took away everyone's pain pills that actually worked, and was quite surprised to be presented with the latest cutting-edge psychology research ... that I learned back around the turn of the millennium as magic. I decided to retake the class, not just because my back has been acting up this past month (weather-related, IMO) but because I am curious if anything has been added since the first go-round.

Along with keeping a sleep diary for the week, our other homework assignment is something they call "the signal breath." In a nutshell, you draw in a full, deep breath, hold for a second or three, then as you exhale you say to yourself, "Relax, relax, relax." Second deep breath you say to yourself, "Calm, calm, calm." For the third breath (because you should always do things in threes!) you say to yourself, "Let go, let go, let go." (of the tension) Personally, I prefer to say "release" instead of "let go," but it's my mind so I doubt anyone will quibble over it.

The story behind it is the Long Beach (California) VA system had numerous chronic pain patients who were running out of their pain meds before they were supposed to be, so someone gave this a go and discovered those numbers turned around in an impressive way. In fact, several patients who had been running out early started having some meds left over at the end of the 30 day period. This caught the attention of quite a few administrators as well, since not only does this mean the patients were getting better pain management (a good public relations side effect) but this also was saving a little money on the pharmacy side of things.

The doctor instructing the course also took pains to mention this time that the idea is to train the mind, so we ought to practice our homework whether we are in pain or not. He also noted that the Long Beach patients from the original experiment said, "This is not a miracle cure, but it will take the edge off enough to make it manageable." He also compared the mental training to getting a new dog, and teaching it its name by repetition and positive reinforcement (treats and/or affection).

I recall from last time (and looking ahead) that we'll also cover a "happy place" meditation as well as doing a guided meditation ... also things I learned in the coven. So, VA is teaching magic and mental training, and calling it the newest research in psychology.

Current Mood: amused

I just spent half an hour writing up a post on the firs three lessons in A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga, and Dreamwidth just ate it. There are times when I just HATE technology ... I guess this is my clue to write things in wordpad and then copy and paste into the page. I need to vent a little before reconstructing it.

Trying to get together my thoughts on the subconsciousing lesson, I've come to realize I need to back up to the beginning of A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga, which is also a sequel to Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism and Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism. Since the previous two books are not available on audio* as far as I can tell, I'll need to get to them the old-fashioned way after I draw up all the good stuff from the current book, which does include an entire lesson on attention and one on perception.

* Edited to add: I sit corrected. I have found Fourteen Lessons in audio on YouTube. Listening to this, I now realize I need to back up even further to The [Hindu-Yogi] Science of Breath, which is available on LibriVox. I find it interesting he alludes to "that little book" containing more than meets the eye in light of the Fourteen Lessons. This is like pulling a garlic clove off the head, only to discover it is actually two or three that look like one big one. I'm going to be a little busier than I thought ... gives me something to do while it rains for another week or two.

Current Location: untangling the braided strands

And here it is, in his own words, William Walker Atkinson's method of subconsciousing (the intentional use of the subconscious mind):

the methods whereby, after having accumulated the necessary materials, they may bid the sub‑conscious mentality to sort it out, rearrange, analyze, and build up from it some bit of desired knowledge
the mind is capable of extending outward toward an object, material or mental, and by examining it by methods inherent in itself, extracting knowledge regarding the object named
the process by which the knowledge is extracted is most wonderful, and really is performed below the plane of consciousness, the work of the conscious mind being chiefly concerned in holding the Attention upon the object
the sub‑conscious intellectual faculty may be set to work under the direction of orders given by the Will
relax every muscle,—take the tension from every nerve—throw aside all mental strain, and then wait a few moments. Then the student is instructed to grasp the subject which he has had before his mind, firmly and fixedly before his mental vision, by means of concentration. Then he is instructed to pass it on to the sub‑conscious mentality by an effort of the Will, which effort is aided by forming a mental picture of the subject as a material substance, or bundle of thought, which is being bodily lifted up and dropped down a mental hatch‑way, or trap‑door, in which it sinks from sight. The student is then instructed to say to the sub‑conscious mentality: “I wish this subject thoroughly analyzed, arranged, classified (and whatever else is desired) and then the results handed back to me. Attend to this.”
the Will‑power back of the transferred thought material, which Will‑power is the cause of the subconscious action, depends very greatly upon the attention and interest given to the acquired material. This mass of thought‑material which is to be digested, and threshed out by the sub‑conscious mind, must be well saturated with interest and attention, in order to obtain the best results. In fact interest and attention are such important aids to the Will, that any consideration of the development and acquirement of Will‑power is practically a development and acquirement of attention and interest
In acquiring the mass of thought‑material which is to be passed on to the sub‑conscious digestion, one must concentrate a great degree of interest and attention upon each item of thought‑material gathered up. The gathering of this thought‑material is a matter of the greatest importance
take up each bit of thought‑material in turn, and examine it with the greatest possible interest, and consequently the greatest attention, and then after having fairly saturated it with this interested attention, place it with the pile of material which, after a while, is to be passed on to the sub‑conscious mentality. Then take up the next bit of material, and after giving it similar treatment, pass it along to the pile also. Then after a while when you have gathered up the main facts of the case, proceed to consider the mass as a whole, with interest and attention, giving it as it were a “general treatment.” Then drop it down the trap‑door into the sub‑conscious mind, with a strong command, “Attend to this thought‑material,” coupled with a strong expectant belief that your order will be obeyed
Remember that you are passing on “thoughts” for the sub‑consciousness to act upon, and that the more tangible and real these thoughts are, the better can they be handled. Therefore any plan that will build these thoughts up into “real” things is the plan to pursue. And attention and interest produce just this result
thought‑material if worked upon with attention and interest become “thought‑forms” that may be handled by the mind just as the hands handle a material object
To realize just what we are offering to you, we would remind you of the old fairy tales of all races, in which there is to be found one or more tales telling of some poor cobbler, or tailor, or carpenter, as the case may be, who had by his good deeds, gained favor with the “brownies” or good fairies, who would come each night when the man and his family were asleep, and proceed to complete the work that the artisan had laid out for the morrow. The pieces of leather would be made into shoes; the cloth would be sewed into garments; the wood would be joined, and nailed together into boxes, chairs, benches and what not. But in each case the rough materials were prepared by the artisan himself during the day
first to calm and quiet his mind. Then he should arrange the main features of the problem, together with the minor details in their proper places. Then he should pass them slowly before him in review, giving a strong interest and attention to each fact and detail, as it passes before him, but without the slightest attempt to form a decision, or come to a conclusion. Then, having given the matter an interested and attentive review, let him Will that it pass on to his sub‑conscious mind, forming the mental image of dropping it through the trap‑door, and at the same time giving the command of the Will, “Attend to this for me!” Then dismiss the matter from your conscious mind, by an effort of command of the Will.
If the matter does not present itself the following day, bring it up again before the conscious mind for review. You will find that it has shaped itself up considerably, and is assuming definite form and clearness. But right here—and this is important—do not make the mistake of again dissecting it, and meddling with it, and trying to arrange it with your conscious mind. But, instead, give it attention and interest in its new form, and then pass it back again to the sub‑conscious mind for further work. You will find an improvement each time you examine it. But, right here another word of caution. Do not make the mistake of yielding to the impatience of the beginner, and keep on repeatedly bringing up the matter to see what is being done. Give it time to have the work done on it.
Sooner or later, the sub‑conscious mind will, of its own choice, lift up the matter and present it to you in its finished shape for the consideration of the conscious mind.
The secret is that the sub‑conscious mind with its wonderful patience and care has analyzed the matter, and has separated things before apparently connected. It has also found resemblances and has combined things heretofore considered opposed to each other
Its whole work seems to have been in the nature of assorting, dissecting, analyzing, and arranging the evidence, and then presenting it before you in a clear, systematic shape. It does not attempt to exercise the judicial prerogative or function, but seems to recognize that its work ceases with the presentation of the edited evidence, and that of the conscious mind begins at the same point
Suppose you wish to gather together all the information that you possess relating to a certain subject. In the first place it is certain that you know a very great deal more about any subject than you think you do. Stored away in the various recesses of the mind, or memory if you prefer that term, are stray bits of information and knowledge concerning almost any subject. But these bits of information are not associated with each other. You have never attempted to think attentively upon the particular question before you, and the facts are not correlated in the mind.
fix the interested attention firmly upon the question before you, until you manage to get a clear, vivid impression of just what you want answered. Then pass the whole matter into the sub‑conscious mind with the command “Attend to this,” and then leave it. Throw the whole matter off of your mind, and let the sub‑conscious work go on. If possible let the matter run along until the next morning and then take it up for consideration, when, if you have proceeded properly you will find the matter worked out, arranged in logical sequence, so that your conscious attention will be able to clearly review the string of facts, examples, illustrations, experiences, etc., relating to the matter in question.
And so far from being apt to get us in a position of false dependence, it is calculated to make us self‑confident—for we are calling upon a part of ourselves, not upon some outside intelligence.

I'll post up my commentary and thoughts in a separate post for discussion, but this should give y'all quite a bit to chew on until then.

I get the impression that the silence following yesterday's big "Eureka!" outburst is everyone waiting patiently for my next post. Or, perhaps y'all didn't get rained out for the weekend. Even the chickens are hiding under shelter now at the first few raindrops - usually they only care when it starts coming down hard, which it has done a few days this week.

As my thoughts are congealing, I realize a big part of the excitement is a feeling of validation. Hubby pointed out that we "set things on the back burner to simmer" on a regular basis, so we've been groping towards the main idea of this, but not only does Atkinson's chapter validate our gropings, it shines light on a purposeful, methodical way to do this. In fact, Atkinson describes this phenomenon at the start of the chapter as a way of introduction. Here are the meaty quotes I pulled out of the first part of the chapter:

- we called your attention to the fact that Reasoning was not necessarily conscious in its operations, and that, in fact, a large part of the rational processes of the mind are performed below or above the field of consciousness.
- We also gave you a number of cases in which the sub‑conscious field of the Intellect worked out problems, and then after a time passed on to the conscious field of the Intellect the solution of the matter. In this lesson we propose instructing you in the methods by which this part of the Intellect may be set to work for you.
- those who related instances of the help of the sub‑conscious mind had merely stumbled upon the fact that there was a part of the mind below consciousness that could and would work out problems for one, if it could somehow be set in operation. And these people trusted to luck to start that part of the mind in operation. Or rather, they would saturate their conscious mind with a mass of material
- In none of the cases mentioned was the subconscious mind directed specially to perform its wonderful work. It was simply hoped that it might digest the mental material with which it had been stuffed—in pure self defense.

Those last two quotes describe what I have been doing up to this point: chuck all into the big mental stockpot and set it on the back burner to simmer. Atkinson has a better way ...

I feel as though I have just found the motherlode in A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga. It may not be raja yoga as Patanjali laid out, but it does have a fine couple lessons on using the subconscious mind. I am still in the middle of lesson eleven - Subconscious character building - but I was very impressed with lesson ten - Subconsciousing - last evening, and shared a summary with hubby, who also liked it. I won't claim either of us grok the fullness yet, but there is some real Western occult philosophy of real practical use in this book. Oh, I still have lesson twelve, also on using the subconscious.

To use one of Atkinson's metaphors from the lessons, I need a little time to churn the cream into butter, but right now I just wanted to share my discovery with y'all. I realize it may sound like I am highly critical of Atkinson's work, but I do try to keep mentioning there is some good seed mixed in with the chaff here.

As forecast, the weather has us indoors most of the day due to storms, so I've had plenty of time to listen to another Atkinson book, this one written under the pseudonym Yogi Ramacharaka, entitled A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga. Well, from what little I've read up on yoga, this isn't it. What it is, is Atkinson's western occult philosophy dressed up in costume. I had been listening for one of Atkinson's pet phrases, "There is no royal road to ___ (fill in the blank)!" and sure enough, it was there. Why is this significant? Raja yoga roughly translates to "royal path." A couple more fun little Sanskrit words: a yogi is a student. The reason most yoga instructors use the title yogi is the idea that you can't say you've truly learned something until you can competently teach it to another. The Sanskrit word for master/expert teacher is guru ... and that is the word that is (so far, to the beginning of the 9th out of 12 lessons) missing from the text.

Okay, so this is NOT yoga in any real meaning of the idea. You may still want to read it, as it seems to roll up quite a bit of Atkinson's mental philosophy teachings into one spot, and as I commented over at Ecosophia this week, some of what he wrote is definitely worth reading. I also mentioned the jarring phrases of the time, like "savages," "barbarians," and "primitives races" to refer to non-European non-whites. Of course, he also takes quite the swipe at the lower classes of white Americans (in particular, although he mentions at least once the problem is in Europe as well) ... BUT he does not target educated white women as group, just the lower classes with inferior educations, if any. A little reading into the broader New Thought history shows not only quite a few educated and influential women leaders, but quite a bit of activity with the women's suffrage movement of the time. Racial bigotry and class bigotry abound, but not chauvinism or misogynism. Atkinson would certainly be crucified by the current politically correct crowd today, so don't look to any kind of revival of his work as is.

I've been spending time with outside stuff this past week, in preparation for this week's continuous rain, which started sometime in the wee hours of the morning. I've also finished ten dishcloths, and am now making a few up to see if they sell at the farmers' market. I love LibriVox, and have downloaded all seven WWA audiobooks, plus Leland's The Mystic Will. That should do me at least part of the week ... and yes, we really are getting nonstop rain here today, which the goats just hate (cats in disguise, I tell people).

Full reviews will wait for a read-through, but here are some impressions from listening to the audiobooks while knitting:

Leland either needed a more ruthless and sharp penned editor, or there is another message in between the lines. He's more all-over-the-place than birdshot at 50 feet. He claims multiple times to not be an occultist, but casually refers to both theurgy and thamaturgy in the same breath as scientific research. Some of his examples don't seem to illustrate his points, and I don't think it is just a matter of not aging well. I'm going to leave Leland's book on the back burner and see if anything gels up or not.

Now, for our main focus, Atkinson. So far, I have listened to Memory, The Power of Concentration, and now Thought Vibrations, or The Law of Attraction. Yeah, that Law of Attraction ... and anyone tempted to think of Atkinson as some kind of guru will be disabused of such a notion with this book. The arrogance and sense of entitlement inherent in the philosophy take center stage with this work. That being said, there are still a few bits of wheat that may be winnowed out of the chaff upon read-through.

The Power of Concentration (written under the name Theron Q. Dumont) if very much straddling the line between useful (like Memory) and absurd (like Thought Vibrations). It could also be subtitled "containing many exercises pertaining to the development of the Will." It picks up threads from memory work, and adds in a good bit on the will, and right now is just behind Memory in my read-through list.

I mentioned Your Mind and How to Use It last time, and while the first section of the book is outdated science of physiology, the rest of it may be most useful as an overview of the various parts of mental training he advocates. I thought it bogged down* in the section on feelings and emotions, but I decided to slog through and found the sections on reason and will to be worth the previous trudge. I'll wait for a comparison to Mind Power, but right now I'd say it's a good introduction to the mental science (as it was called at the time) side of the New Thought I've encountered so far.

(* - When I say a books gets bogged down, keep in mind that I read the unabridged version of Melville's Moby Dick even though it wasn't assigned because I thought the abridgement we read jumped around too much.)

Going through Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It (first by audiobook, now reading in pdf form) one thing that sticks out noticeably is that Atkinson isn't really breaking any new ground, nor does he claim to be. He extensively quotes previous authors, and often only refers to their last names. I find this more than a bit frustrating, as more than a century after publication, I'd be pretty clueless if not for Google. I doubt several of these authors he quotes would be in the old fashioned cross-indexes.

To save others from hunting these down (or if you enjoy the hunt, feel free to disregard this!) here are four that Atkinson quotes copiously:
Psychology and Psychic Culture, by Reuben Post Halleck
On Self-culture: Intellectual, Physical, and Moral : a Vade Mecum for Young Men and Students, by John Stuart Blackie
Memory: What it is and how to Improve it, by David Kay
Bain is Alexander Bain, who wrote quite a few academic books, and I thought for certain I bookmarked the one that had a section on memory, but now I can't find it. The link will take you to GoogleBooks page for his works. My eyes are tired of looking at a computer monitor now.

So, I've been a bit lazy-ish the past few days. I only intended to take the weekend off, but my back has been acting up a bit this week and I tend to be cranky when in pain. I am still in need of dishcloths, so am about to resume knitting #3 while listening to the LibriVox edition of Your Mind and How to Use it: A Manual of Practical Psychology.

A few notes on Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It first. In the chapter on associations, first he used a chain and hook metaphor, but then he mentioned "tightly knit together" memories as I was pulling the row I just knittted tight. I think that one will stick in my brain pretty well. Oh, do not try to listen to the chapter on remembering numbers while counting out stitches or even rows! Bad idea. He mentions that most people are either good at remembering things they hear, or things they see, but most people don't do both equally well so you should reinforce something you want to recall by the both methods so you have a double-sense impression ... that's what I am doing with the audiobook plus ebook idea. For the record, I remember things I read better than things I hear, unless it's set to a catchy tune.

As brought up in this week's Magic Monday, WWA is biased against the classical Art of Memory technique, calling it artificial, whereas his system is natural. I have not done the classical version just yet, but JMG says his methods enhance the older style, not contradict or confound. I chalked this up to WWA being very tightly wrapped up in the myth of Progress, as he uses the word "new" far too often. It particularly amuses me that he calls what he's doing "the New Psychology," and yes you can just hear the capital letters in context, even while being read into mp3 format. Psychology was still quite new at the time he wrote this book 109 years ago! Of course another word he uses too often to the point of abuse is "scientific." The ideas he pushes are of course not only new, but they are science and scientific. I guess we should cut him a little slack, as this was still five years before World War One (so-called the Great War and the War to End All Wars in its time ... until the second one came around and was even more ghastly).

Final note before I put the headphones back on and wrap a nice cotton yarn around my fingers: Syfen has started a community, so if you can't sign up uninvited, holler at him (?) to shoot you an invite. Temporaryreality has asked about tagging along ... the more the merrier, I say! Anyone else lurking in the shrubbery?

I am listening to the audiobook of Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It first, then will be going back to read for detail and comprehension. In chapter 5, on the subconscious part of the memory, he mentions about how things aren't totally forgotten, and can occasionally be bumped back into conscious recall. I have seen this myself.

(Perhaps I should give a quick warning? We raise most of our own meat here these days. We do also do the slaughtering ourselves, so we know it's done right, or if something doesn't go right, we know how and why. Oh, I don't dress any of this up in euphemisms. We don't send animals "to freezer camp," we slaughter, dress, and butcher them.)

A couple years back, my dad and his wife came by for a quick visit. We were describing an incident with a cockerel where I had bled the bird out, he was certainly dead, but when hubby dunked him into the scald water some neurons were still firing and the wings flapped. Dad "hmmm"ed, his brows furrowed, and he looked a bit puzzled and a lot thoughtful, then said, "By golly, kid, you've just called up a memory I forgot I had!" Apparently, he worked one summer in a poultry slaughter house, and described how every once in a while they had one do that, and on rarer occasion the kill knife machine missed and there would be a loud squawking at the scald tank. I had never heard that he worked that job before, and he said it had been a good forty years since he had even thought about it.

Just a quick impression here.

Current Mood: thoughtful

OK, so I am on my second mug of coffee, the goats are milked and the pigs, rabbits, and chickens fed ... there is a reason we get up early here! A couple random notes: first, I am allowing anonymous comments here, so if you don't want (or have trouble starting) a DW account you can still chime in. All comments are screened ... even my replies, apparently. I decided to adopt the Archdruid's comment policy, so no cussing, no flaming, no off-topic screeds, and no proselytizing of any kind (that's my pet peeve). I am on Eastern (US) time zone, unfortunately doing Daylight Stupid Time right now, but I go to bed early to wake up early to have enough coffee to deal with goats who are really just cats in disguise who try to get over any chance they can.

We've been joined by jcp_w who is blogging on his own journal, so cruise over there to subscribe. If I understand correctly, he has access to a hard copy of Memory Culture: The Science of Observing, Remembering, and Recalling through the Toronto library. It ought to be interesting to see what changed for WWA in the six years between that book and the memory book I'm reading.

Syfen, who originally brought the topic up this past Magic Monday, is doing Mind Power, and a couple others have signaled an interest, so I suppose we'll start things rolling. Everyone at their own pace and distance ... to mix metaphors, as long as the ball is making forward progress, we won't whistle it dead.

Current Mood: blank

After a couple messages back and forth, it looks like we'll be doing whichever book calls the loudest to each of us. I am tackling WWA's Memory: How to Develop, Train and Use It while the other book currently claimed is Mind‑Power: The Secret of Mental Magic. If anyone else wants to join in, feel free to jump in, whether it's with one of the two already named, or another book that seems to be jumping up and down in your mind's eye begging for attention.

As for the finer details of how we're going to manage this, y'all can feel free to comment in a relevant post, or start your own DW account and post to your own journal (just say hey here so others can follow). This was a spur of the moment thing, as I was typing out that I think it would be a neat idea, I could see the Archdruid's response as clear as day: "Well, why don't you start that?"

Don't worry too much about stepping on my toes, as I tend to be a bit "tone deaf" to internet communication. This also isn't yet my pet project (yet?) so if you have a suggestion, feel free to toss it out here. All of Atkinson's works are out of copyright, so shouldn't be too hard to scare up for free online.

Current Mood: geeky

So, just where to start? Just under his own name, there are quite a few intriguing titles! I am open to suggestions, although right now I am inclined to start with one of the memory books ... just to make subsequent books easier to recall.

This just in! I have found some of his works read into LibriVox audiobooks. Cool beans - I can listen while knitting up some new washcloths.

Current Mood: contemplative

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William Walker Atkinson book discussion

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Finishing up the mental magic of the Yoga Sutras

More mental magic from the Yoga Sutras

Some magic philosophy in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

The Mental Magic of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Attention, Part One, Section B

Attention, part one

A slight tangent (but not really)

URGH!

Backing up a few steps

Subconsciousing, part two

Subconsciousing, part one

Eureka!

And another

Thoughts simmering on the back burner

Some of Atkinson's source material

Back at note-taking

I've seen this before

Accomplices

Dissensus to start

Where to start?