William Walker Atkinson book discussion

William Walker Atkinson: An Intellectual Biography

2026-09-06T17:29:32Z

Went snooping around the Wikipedia pages for William Walker Atkinson, and found some very interesting new stuff, including a link to what looked to be someone's dissertation, but the professor was retiring, so simply an open source short book called William Walker Atkinson: An Intellectual Biography.
I'm only starting chapter 3, but already it is filling in some interesting things that seemed a bit hazy before - especially how he met one Sydney Flower and their early days in Chicago (including Flower's issues with the U.S. Post Office's investigation department. So, not a hagiography, because these guys would never qualify as saints even if New Thought had saints.

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Mental Therapeutics (TQD)

2026-08-30T15:00:58Z

Testing, one-two-three. I'm still alive, and just converted an old library scan of William Walker Atkinson's Mental Therapeutics, written under his Theron Q. Dumont pen name. I have uploaded it to a folder on Google Drive, marked it as sharable with anyone who has the link ... and here is the link. Let me know in comments if this works.

The short book review is: All of the science is over a century out-of-date, but the core concept is intriguing. In fact, I would not be surprised to learn the founders of the Modern Order of Essenes had a copy of this or another similar book (WWA wrote an earlier version, and of course quotes that earlier edition in this one). Atkinson wasn't the only New Thought author to write about this - Phineas Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy basically kicked off New Thought coming from the health angle.

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Atkinson and affirmations: not the best mix

2019-09-05T16:56:04Z

Last week, John Michael Greer wrote a lovely little introductory post on affirmations, where he lays out seven basic rules for constructing affirmations. I already picked up a few here and there - usually in the answers of Magic Mondays - enough to realize William Walker Atkinson was not a good source for affirmations. There is a particularly bad example in The Master Mind, but I can't put my finger on at present. I do recall the first two sentences (and right there is a problem in that it is too long for easy memorization): "Don't be such a weakling! You are stronger than that."

Ouch. That is the one that stuck out like a broken thumb on the first read-through, and as far as bad examples go, that's a real winner of a loser. It starts out in the negative, which the subconscious does not process, then go into the swamp of relatives. Stronger than what, exactly? You should be trying to pip the bulls-eye with a sniper rifle, not a sawed-off shotgun.

So with just the first part of one affirmation, we illustrate two major blunders.

Typing up the two authors' names, makes me wonder if I should adopt a third name myself. You know, sort of as a pseudonym to tag onto my given and family names. This also brings up the question: three names, or three parts of a name?

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The storm has passed

2019-09-04T18:01:12Z

The hurricane weakened, and we are glad. We even still have both power and internet here! I guess it expended most of its energy pummeling those poor folks in the Bahamas.

The funny thing about these storms is that no matter how many computer models the experts throw at them, they still just can't be predicted. A hurricane that stays completely stationary at 0 mph for almost a day? Wow.

I'll get back to the topic at hand soon. I think I need a day "off" from the waiting and worrying of wondering just what the storm will do.

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William Walker Atkinson on his writing style

2019-08-28T16:41:49Z

I've been taking a look at some of William Walker Atkinson's early work, in particular prefaces and introductions, and found some interesting notes from the start of his writing career. In the preface to his very first book, Thought-Force in Business and Everyday Life, he writes:

I felt that I had a message to deliver, and I endeavored to deliver it promptly, clearly and plainly, without any attempt at “fine writing.” If a homely word seemed to express my thought— I used it. If a slang term or semi-slang phrase seemed to fit in— in it went.

I trust that my critics will spare themselves the trouble of pointing out my many defects of style and composition—I fully realize these things. I have subordinated everything else, in my endeavor to make this work plain and practical. This is an explanation, not an apology.

With the above understanding between us, I submit this little work to your kind consideration. Whilst fully cognizant of its defects, I still feel that it will be helpful to some of the many who are endeavoring to overcome unfavorable environments; that it may serve as a guide-post, pointing out the path to better things.

So he was very aware he was not going to win any awards for elegant prose. He carries this theme into the preface of his 1902 book, Nuggets of the New Thought, and writes:

I do not like writing a preface-it seems too much like an apology. I have no special apology to tender for offering this collection of New Thought nuggets. They may possess no literary merit, but they have helped men and women. With the exception of "The Secret of the I Am," these essays appeared from month to month in ''New Thought," of which magazine I am associate editor. They were written hastily, principally upon the demand of the printer for "copy," and, for the most part, were printed just as they were written, there being no time for revision or polishing up. You may pick up any one of them and find many sentences needing straightening out-many thoughts which could be better expressed by the change of a few words. Knowing these things, I first thought that I would go over each essay and add a little here, and take away a little there, polishing up and burnishing as I went along. But when I looked over them, my heart failed me. There they were just as they were written-just as they were dug out of my mind-and I hadn't the heart to change them. I remembered the circumstances surrounding the writing of every one of them, and I let them alone. A "nugget" polished up would be no longer a nugget. And these thoughts are nuggets-I dug them myself. I will not say much regarding the quality of the metal-that is for you-but you see them just as they came from the mine-rough, unpolished, mixed with the rock, queerly shaped. If you think that they contain metal of sufficiently good quality, refine them, melt them and fashion them into something useful or ornamental. For myself, I like things with the bark on-with the marks of the hammer-with the original quartz adhering to the metal. But others are of different taste-they like everything to feel smooth to the touch. They will not like these nuggets. Alas, I cannot help it-I cannot produce the beautifully finished article-I have nothing to offer other than the crude product of the mine. Here they are, polish them up yourself if you prefer them in that shape-I will not touch them.

· W. W. A.

Chicago, October 2, 1902.

In this one, he challenges critics to "polish them up yourself if you prefer them in that shape." I've only looked in these two plus The Law of the New Thought (his first three books) from his early writings, but find it interesting that in two out of the three he felt a need to mention his writing style. This kind of acknowledgement is absent from his later titles. Perhaps by that time he decided his writing style was a known quantity, since he was also writing articles for Sydney Flower's magazine New Thought. (N.B.-From what I've found so far, that Sydney Flower was quite the character. He also copyrighted Atkinson's earliest books in both his name and his publishing house's name. Oh, and the Post Office revoked his mailing privileges more than once for mail fraud.)

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Musing

2019-08-25T15:37:23Z

TempReal looked it up for me, and Amazon defines annotation as "Unique annotations (additional content like study guides, literary critiques, detailed biographies, or historical context)." The context here is for posting public domain works for sale. Just formatting for readability no longer cuts it - and I can understand why they had to put their figurative foot down, as there is a *crap-ton* of crap out there ... make that a *crap-tonne* as a metric tonne is larger ... from messed-up scans of old library books to decently-formatted stuff where the OCR misreads are corrected. I've even found versions where someone added their name like a co-author, even though it was just a cleanly-formatted copy. No introduction, brief biography, historical context, or even a "What this means to me" blurb. Wow. Some days I have to wonder what it must be like to not have as high of personal standards as to be able to do that. I guess that is just one of those things I'll completely miss out on this lifetime.

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The Master Mind formatting complete

2019-08-23T16:58:20Z

I just finished up the last chapter of The Master Mind, and emailed it off to Temporary Reality. If anyone else would like the files, drop me a line here or at my email (this username at g-male).

I may need a new printer cartridge, but most of it is printed out (What? I can't even get a full book out of a printer cartridge these days?!?) I have a red pen for the first pass-through, because Atkinson - whether writing under his own name or a pseudonym - definitely needed someone to edit his manuscripts for typos, misspellings, and grammar. Then the real work begins: figuring out what needed to be cut out, where things need to be filled in, and what should stay.

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The great unanswered question of writing

2019-08-21T17:52:55Z

... is "How am I supposed to type when I have a content, comfortable kitten in my lap?" Trying to move her gets me from 30 seconds to 3 minutes' reprieve, at which point she hops back up on the lap, gets comfortable again in half-a-second flat, and starts up the purring that made me get up and fix another pot of coffee. Her cousin is in the windowsill, has already mugged me for attention this morning, and looks like she is just waiting for the lap to be open enough to do the same. I brought in two kittens so they could play with each other ... instead they conspire in the afternoon to get me to pet them while one or the other lap-cuddles me. (When I first brought them in six weeks ago, they could both fit in my lap. Now - nope, one at time.)

Now I'll need to see if I have any pictures that turned out of these two adorable monsters.

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A divination with Hanson-Roberts tarot deck

2019-08-18T19:49:49Z

I have several tarot decks, and more on my wishlist at Amazon, but for a straightforward answer to a more practical question, my Hanson-Roberts deck is the one I'll use. I used it Thursday afternoon, approximately 4:30ish, asking the question: "Is this project a good idea?" Here is the deck's answer, using a ten-card cross-and-column spread:
1: The Star (XVII)
2: 8 of Swords, Reversed
3: King of Rods, Reversed
4: 2 of Swords
5: 10 of Rods
6: Knight of Pentacles
7: The Hierophant (V)
8: Queen of Rods, Reversed
9: Ace of Cups
10: King of Cups

My interpretation is: "The creativity is HERE. It won't be all smooth sailing, but keep at it because it will be worth it. (Now get to work!)"

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Formatting The Master Mind and hunting up quotations

2019-08-14T19:41:24Z

Checking in for this week: I've started formatting The Master Mind and have gotten up to chapter 4 now. This book lacks an introduction, and also seems to have been written as a book from the get-go, as opposed to The Power of Concentration, which started as a correspondence course.

One thing I noted last year in Memory was his extensive use of quotation, and in this book he doesn't even list a last name as attribution, preferring to say, "a well-known psychologist," or "an authority on the subject." Some of these Google can find ... but there are some it can't, except for in Atkinson's books. I am tempted to go on the supposition that Atkinson - writing as Dumont - quoted his earlier books that were written under his own name. It's certainly possible, and I'm sure quite a few of us have seen people do the same online. This does not invalidate the quotes - those stand or fall on their merit for how well they've held up over the past century. Atkinson may or may not have been a con man, but I think he was no charlatan. He had some real knowledge of magic.

What makes the previous assertion so humorous is the first paragraph of The Master Mind:

"In this book there will be nothing said concerning metaphysical theories or philosophical hypotheses; instead, there will be a very strict adherence to the principles of psychology. There will be nothing said of "spirit" or "soul"; but very much said of "mind." There will be no speculation concerning the question of "what is the soul," or concerning "what becomes of the soul after the death of the body." These subjects, while highly important and interesting, belong to a different class of investigation, and are outside of the limits of the present inquiry. We shall not even enter into a discussion of the subject of "what is the mind"; instead, we shall confine our thought to the subject of "how does the mind work."

Hey, Billy boy, pull the other leg while you're at it ... I think this is the proverbial wink-and-nod to those paying attention. Then again, I've only read up to chapter four so far. Chapters 3 and 4 slowed me down quite a bit, mostly because they left me with the feeling that there is more below the surface of what is written.

Oh, related to the topic of large quotations is a name Google and Wikipedia are giving up next to nothing when searched: Reuben Post Halleck. In particular is a book he wrote called Psychology and Psychic Culture, which Atkinson loves to quote. I've found a birth year and a death year for him, and a list of other titles he wrote, and the abstract of one academic paper on him and one of his contemporaries who published a book on neurology within a year of his book on the subject ... but as far as any kind of biography goes ... nada. Anyone know anything about him?

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Not-so-minor irritation

2019-08-09T19:57:32Z

I called it a minor irritation, but it's turned out to be not so minor after all. In fact, it's bugging the **** out of me now. Atkinson really should have put a note in the introduction that it would be beneficial to go through his book The Master Mind prior to starting The Power of Concentration. It really does break the concentration knowing (but not until the second lesson!) that the book has a prereq.

So, I am detouring already, and have started formatting The Master Mind. Anyone who wants a copy of the Wordpad *.rtf files, just drop me an email: this username at ye olde gmaile. I've done the first two chapters today.

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The Power of Concentration formatted

2019-08-07T17:40:21Z

It's been more than a hot minute since I started formatting the Power of Concentration, but I am now finally finished. While I've corrected the places the pdf was not-quite-readable to my clipboard and Wordpad program, and a couple egregious spelling errors, I have not corrected all the sentence fragments or overuse of commas. I made the remark to hubby, "After having written books for a good fifteen years, you'd think his writing would have improved with practice." At least he wrote well enough to get the ideas across that he was trying to convey.

Well, mostly. He hints in the introductory that not everything is explicitly laid out:

"This course of lessons will stimulate and inspire you to achieve success; it will bring you into perfect harmony with the laws of success. It will give you a firmer hold on your duties and responsibilities.

The methods of thought concentration given in this work if put into practice will open up interior avenues that will connect you with the everlasting laws of Being and their exhaustless foundation of unchangeable truth.

As most people are very different it is impossible to give instructions that will be of the same value to all. The author has endeavored in these lessons to awaken that within the soul which perhaps the book does not express. So study these lessons as a means of awakening and training that which is within yourself."

I will take him on his word, and work from the assumption that perhaps words are not able to express something he is hoping to convey.

A minor irritation (yes, already) is in Lesson 2, where he mentions his previous book, The Master Mind, as beneficial to have already worked through. I guess that will be my next book to format and skim through.

Perhaps I should take a minute to describe how I intend to work through these: as I format them into Wordpad, I am skimming over them as an initial read-through, then after I print up a hardcopy, I read through more thoroughly with a brand-new red ink pen in hand to take notes of things that look promising for themes for meditation. I hope to post weekly, or more if inspiration seizes me.

For those needing or wanting a bit of a pep talk and encouragement, there is quite a lot of that throughout the entire course. One thing Atkinson was very good at is giving motivational pep talks.

Let the fun begin!

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question for magic monday

2019-02-08T23:11:53Z

Since I seem to forget when I have a question for JMG's Magic Monday, I think I'll post up a note to myself here. So, for this upcoming MM I want to ask about epsom salt (magnesium sulphate) and what modern magical uses it has, and also if he's found anything new since ENM went to print.

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Formatting The Power of Concentration

2019-01-11T15:33:39Z

I started formatting The Power of Concentration this morning. William Walker Atkinson wrote this under the pen name of Theron Q. Dumont (I wonder what the Q was intended to stand for?) in 1918. The table of contents is laid out more like a syllabus, with lessons instead of chapters, no page numbers, and the book likely started out as a series of lessons like many other books Atkinson did.

I'll be working through this book lesson-by-lesson, with close reading and some meditation on the meatier parts, as I format it. Anyone interested in grabbing up copies of each lesson in *.rtf rich text format (I use WordPad), drop me an email at this user name at the old gmail.

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Dynamic Thought formatted

2018-11-24T21:31:15Z

Just to let folks know, I have finished formatting Dynamic Thought. I'f anyone wants copies of these, broken down into chapters with a foreword, in Wordpad *.rtf document (which ought to be read by Word and Word clones) then email me - this username at gmail. Yeah, I am a simple creature at times.

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Formatting Dynamic Thought

2018-11-16T15:26:07Z

Yeah, I've been quiet for a while. I took a break to focus on sewing clothes, as my work clothes have started to fall apart. I think I am up to tossing a handful of underwear, one pair of work jeans, with another hanging on by its last threads, and a good week's worth of old T-shirts. At least four of those T shirts were old enough to get a driver's license! Shirts I've bought within the last five years just don't last beyond two or three years. The crapification of things continues ...

Now that I have a few new things to wear, I am back to working on Dynamic Thought, or the Law of Vibrant Energy. What I am up to now, along with re-listening to the audio and reading along in the text, is the copy-and-paste the text into a Wordpad document. The scanned book I downloaded was/is a library copy from University of California, and after over a century it has picked up smudges and stray marks that copy funny. Due to the nature of book printing back then, it also has narrow margins and a lot of hyphenated words, which is an annoyance for me. I am up to chapter two today.

When I get done copying it into rich text format documents (one per chapter) I plan to print it out and literally take the red pen to it. Yeah, I am planning to basically revise and in places rewrite it. Since William Walker Atkinson self-published most of his books, he missed out on the benefits of a tough-as-nails editor forcing him to improve. (Not that having an editor is a guarantee of that - Stephen King comes to mind. I've said since the first book I've read of his way back thirty years ago that he has all the style and grace of a sixth grader. I was in tenth grade the first time I said that.) Not only to trim off excess verbiage, but to excise a bit of seriously outdated biases that I've mentioned previously.

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading here, but if anyone is, and wants the raw files, or is interested in my rewrite, plunk a comment down here.

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Librivox version of Dynamic Thought completed

2018-08-28T13:23:24Z

Just a heads-up that Librivox finished up Dynamic Thought, making it the 8th completed audiobook for William Walker Atkinson. It had been languishing in limbo when the original person who was doing it just stopped, so recently it was finished up by a group effort. You can listen and download it here.

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A couple practices I have been doing

2018-08-07T21:45:52Z

From chapter two, "The First Steps," I have added two things to my morning ritual and asana-stretches. First:
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After one has learned to have a firm erect seat, he has to perform, according to certain schools, a practice called the purifying of the nerves. This part has been rejected by some as not belonging to Râja Yoga, but as so great an authority as the commentator, Śankarâchârya, advises it, I think it fit that it should be mentioned, and I will quote his own directions from his commentary to the Svetâśvatara Upaniṣad. “The mind whose dross has been cleared away by Prâṇâyâma, becomes fixed in Brahman; therefore Prâṇâyâma is pointed out. First the nerves are to be purified, then comes the power to practise Prâṇâyâma. Stopping the right nostril with the thumb, with the left nostril fill in air, according to one’s capacity; then, without any interval, throw the air out through the right nostril, closing the left one. Again inhaling through the right nostril eject through the left, according to capacity; practising this three or five times at four intervals of the day, before dawn, during midday, in the evening, and at midnight, in fifteen days or a month purity of the nerves is attained; then begins Prâṇâyâma.”
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I do this prior to my morning sun salutations, and added it about two weeks ago. Then I embedded this into my morning cleansing -and-protection ritual shortly after:
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Sit in a straight posture, and the first thing to do is to send a current of holy thought to all creation; mentally repeat: “Let all beings be happy; let all beings be peaceful; let all beings be blissful.” So do to the East, South, North and West. The more you do that the better you will feel yourself. You will find at last that the easiest way to make yourselves healthy is to see that others are healthy, and the easiest way to make yourselves happy is to see that others are happy.
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I have a LOT of notes just from the preface and first two chapters, but I should probably get back to the main focus of the discussion: the writings of William Walker Atkinson, with my focus on the books he wrote under the pen name Yogi Ramacharaka. I don't think he started with Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga, and I will be reading the Swami's other books, which are all just transcriptions of lectures he gave. I'll just be keeping notes, and refer to things when appropriate.

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Another parable; or, How to begin at the practice of meditation

2018-07-30T21:21:30Z

I think I am beginning to get the hang of how subtitles of books in this era are phrased. Like Patanjali, Swami Vivekananda offers some very basic absolute-beginner level advice on meditation.
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How hard it is to control the mind. Well has it been compared to the maddened monkey. There was a monkey, restless by his own nature, as all monkeys are. As if that were not enough someone made him drink freely of wine, so that he became still more restless. Then a scorpion stung him. When a man is stung by a scorpion he jumps about for a whole day, so the poor monkey found his condition worse than ever. To complete his misery a demon entered into him. What language can describe the uncontrollable restlessness of that monkey? The human mind is like that monkey; incessantly active by its own nature, then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence. After desire takes possession comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy of others whose desires meet with fulfilment, and last of all the demon of pride takes possession of the mind, making it think itself of all importance. How hard to control such a mind.

The first lesson, then, is to sit for some time and let the mind run on. The mind is bubbling up all the time. It is like that monkey jumping about. Let the monkey jump as much as he can; you simply wait and watch. Knowledge is power says the proverb, and that is true. Until you know what the mind is doing you cannot control it. Give it the full length of the reins; many most hideous thoughts may come into it; you will be astonished that it was possible for you to think such thoughts. But you will find that each day the mind’s vagaries are becoming less and less violent, that each day it is becoming calmer. In the first few months you will find that the mind will have a thousand thoughts, later you will find that it is toned down to perhaps seven hundred, and after a few more months it will have fewer and fewer, until at last it will be under perfect control, but we must patiently practise every day. As soon as the steam is turned on the engine must run, and as soon as things are before us we must perceive; so a man, to prove that he is not a machine, must demonstrate that he is under the control of nothing. This controlling of the mind, and not allowing it to join itself to the centres, is Pratyâhâra. How is this practised? It is a long work, not to be done in a day. Only after a patient, continuous struggle for years can we succeed.

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Pranayama and another parable

2018-07-27T17:40:56Z

Also from chapter two, The First Steps, Swami Vivekananda introduces the topic of pranayama - usually translated as "breath control" - and tells an interesting little parable that likely applies to more than just pranayama.
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Returning to our subject, we come next to Prâṇâyâma, controlling the breathing. What has that to do with concentrating the powers of the mind? Breath is like the fly‑wheel of this machine. In a big engine you find the fly‑wheel first moving, and that motion is conveyed to finer and finer machinery, until the most delicate and finest mechanism in the machine is in motion in accordance. This breath is that fly‑wheel, supplying and regulating the motive power to everything in this body.

There was once a minister to a great king. He fell into disgrace, and the king as a punishment, ordered him to be shut up in the top of a very high tower. This was done, and the minister was left there to perish. He had a faithful wife, however, and at night she came to the tower and called to her husband at the top to know what she could do to help him. He told her to return to the tower the following night and bring with her a long rope, a stout twine, a pack thread, a silken thread, a beetle, and a little honey. Wondering much, the good wife obeyed her husband, and brought him the desired articles. The husband directed her to attach the silken thread firmly to the beetle, then to smear his horns with a drop of honey, and to set him free on the wall of the tower, with his head pointing upwards. She obeyed all these instructions, and the beetle started on his long journey. Smelling the honey before him he slowly crept onwards and onwards, in the hope of reaching it, until at last he reached the top of the tower, when the minister grasped the beetle, and got possession of the silken thread. He told his wife to tie the other end to the pack thread, and after he had drawn up the pack thread, he repeated the process with the stout twine, and lastly with the rope. Then the rest was easy. The minister descended from the tower by means of the rope, and made his escape. In this body of ours the breath motion is the “silken thread,” and laying hold of that, and learning to control it we grasp the pack thread of the nerve currents, and from these the stout twine of our thoughts, and lastly the rope of Prâṇa, controlling which we reach freedom.
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I like Swami Vivekananda's illustrative metaphors - then again, I have replaced a transmission and helped attach it to the flywheel.

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A parable from Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga

2018-07-24T23:32:11Z

I'll be referring back to this later when I get into William Walker Atkinson's A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga again. This is from chapter two, "The First Steps," in Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga:
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A god and a demon went to learn about the Self from a great sage. They studied with him for a long time, and at last the sage told them, “Thou thyself art the being thou art seeking.” Both of them thought that their bodies were the Self. “We have got everything,” they said, and both of them returned to their people and said, “We have learned everything that is to be learned; eat, drink, and be merry; we are the Self; there is nothing beyond us.” The nature of the demon was ignorant, clouded, so he never inquired any further, but was perfectly satisfied with the idea that he was God, that by the Self was meant the body. But the god had a purer nature. He at first committed the mistake of thinking, “I, this body, am Brahman, so keep it strong and in health, and well‑dressed, and give it all sorts of bodily enjoyments.” But, in a few days, he found out that this could not be the meaning of the sage, their master; there must be something higher. So he came back and said, “Sir, did you teach me that this body is the Self? If so, I see all bodies die; the Self cannot die.” The sage said, “Find it out; thou art That.” Then the god thought that the vital forces which work the body were what the sage meant. But, after a time, he found that if he ate, these vital forces remained strong, but, if he starved, they became weak. The god then went back to the sage and said, “Sir, do you mean that the vital forces are the Self?” The sage said, “Find out for yourself; thou art That.” The god returned once more, and thought that it was the mind; perhaps that is the Self. But in a few days he reflected that thoughts are so various; now good, now bad; the mind is too changeable to be the Self. He went back to the sage and said, “Sir, I do not think that the mind is the Self; did you mean that?” “No,” replied the sage, “thou art That; find out for yourself.” The god went back, and, at last, found that he was the Self, beyond all thought; One, without birth or death, whom the sword cannot pierce, or the fire burn, whom the air cannot dry, or the water melt, the beginningless and birthless, the immovable, the intangible, the omniscient, the omnipotent Being, and that it was neither the body nor the mind, but beyond them all. So he was satisfied, but the poor demon did not get the truth, owing to his fondness for the body.
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I'll be posting a couple more stories, each individual.

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A curious little bit of yoga philosophy

2018-07-21T19:52:38Z

Kicking off the third chapter of Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga is this interesting discussion of what makes up the universe:

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According to the philosophers of India, the whole universe is composed of two materials, one of which they call Âkâśa. It is the omnipresent, all penetrating existence. Everything that has form, everything that is the result of compounds, is evolved out of this Âkâśa. It is the Âkâśa that becomes the air, that becomes the liquids, that becomes the solids; it is the Âkâśa that becomes the sun, the earth, the moon, the stars, the comets; it is the Âkâśa that becomes the body, the animal body, the plants, every form that we see, everything that can be sensed, everything that exists. It itself cannot be perceived; it is so subtle that it is beyond all ordinary perception; it can only be seen when it has become gross, has taken form. At the beginning of creation there is only this Âkâśa; at the end of the cycle the solids, the liquids, and the gases all melt into the Âkâśa again, and the next creation similarly proceeds out of this Âkâśa.

By what power is this Âkâśa manufactured into this universe? By the power of Prâna. Just as Âkâśa is the infinite omnipresent material of this universe, so is this Prâna the infinite, omnipresent manifesting power of this universe. At the beginning and at the end of a cycle everything becomes Âkâśa, and all the forces that are in the universe resolve back into the Prâna; in the next cycle, out of this Prâna is evolved everything that we call energy, everything that we call force. It is the Prâna that is manifesting as motion; it is the Prâna that is manifesting as gravitation, as magnetism. It is the Prâna that is manifesting as the actions of the body, as the nerve currents, as thought force. From thought, down to the lowest physical force, everything is but the manifestation of Prâna. The sum‑total of all force in the universe, mental or physical, when resolved back to its original state, is called Prâna. “When there was neither aught nor naught, when darkness was covering darkness, what existed then? That Âkâśa existed without motion.” The physical motion of the Prâna was stopped, but it existed all the same. All the energies that are now displayed in the universe we know, by modern science, are unchangeable. The sum‑total of the energies in the universe remains the same throughout, only, at the end of a cycle, these energies quiet down, become potential, and, at the beginning of the next cycle, they start up, strike upon the Âkâśa, and out of the Âkâśa evolve these various forms, and, as the Âkâśa changes, this Prâna changes also into all these manifestations of energy.
===

Anyone else following along with JMG on his book club discussion of Dion Fortune's The Cosmic Doctrine? I immediately sat up as I read through this the first time. The lectures that make up Raja Yoga were transcribed in 1895-96, published in 1896, and Swami Vivekananda was quite the sensation here in the US and Europe, as well as in India. His teachings were very popular with Spiritualists, New Thought, and Theosophists.

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Finishing up the mental magic of the Yoga Sutras

2018-07-18T14:58:17Z

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.

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More mental magic from the Yoga Sutras

2018-07-17T16:09:44Z

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.

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Some magic philosophy in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

2018-07-12T15:48:52Z

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.

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