Psychic Powers: Theosophy Occultism Mysticism Dictionary on Psychic Powers

By G. de Purucker, compiled by Geoffrey Barborka

Psychic Powers

The lowest powers of the intermediate or soul-nature in the human being, and we are exercising and using them all the time  - yes, and we cannot even control them properly! Men's emotional thoughts are vagrant, wandering, uncertain, lacking precision, without positive direction, and feebly governed.

The average man cannot even keep his emotions and thoughts in the grip of his self-conscious will. His weakest passions lead him astray. It is this part of his nature whence flow his "psychic powers." It is man's work to transmute them and to turn them to employment which is good and useful and holy. Indeed, the average man cannot control the ordinary psycho-astral-physical powers that he commonly uses; and when, forsooth, people talk about cultivating occult powers, by which they mean merely psychic powers, it simply shows that through ignorance they know not to what they refer. Their minds are clouded as regards the actual facts.

Those who talk so glibly of cultivating occult powers are just the people who cannot be trusted as real guides, for before they themselves can crawl in these mysterious regions of life, they seem to desire to teach other people how to run and to leap. What most people really mean, apparently, when they speak of cultivating occult powers is "I want to get power over other people." Such individuals are totally unfit to wield occult powers of any kind, for the motive is in most cases purely selfish, and their minds are beclouded and darkened with ignorance.

The so-called psychic powers have the same relation to genuine spiritual powers that baby-talk has to the discourse of a wise philosopher. Before occult powers of any kind can be cultivated safely, man must learn the first lesson of the mystic knowledge, which is to control himself; and all powers that later he gains must be laid on the altar of impersonal service  - on the altar of service to mankind.

Psychic powers will come to men as a natural development of their inner faculties, as evolution performs its wonderful work in future ages. New senses, and new organs corresponding to these new senses, both interior and exterior, will come into active functioning in the distant future. But it is perilous both to sanity and to health to attempt to force the development of these prematurely, and unless the training and discipline be done under the watchful and compassionate eye of a genuine occult teacher who knows what he is about.

The world even today contains hundreds of thousands of "sensitives" who are the first feeble forerunners of what future evolution will make common in the human race; but these sensitives are usually in a very unfortunate and trying situation, for they themselves misunderstand what is in them, and they are misunderstood by their fellows. (See also Occultism)

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For more articles related to Psychic Powers , see: Body Mind and Soul, Theosophy, Psychic Powers

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The definition of Psychic Powers is extracted from "OCCULT GLOSSARY - A COMPENDIUM OF ORIENTAL AND THEOSOPHICAL TERMS".

Publisher's Note

"Every branch of study has its own special terminology, and the esoteric philosophies are no exception. This compendium not only clarifies the significance of the terms most frequently found in such literature, but offers a comprehensive outline of the scope and principles underlying an age-old tradition respecting the constitution of man and the universe in which he lives.

This Second and Revised Edition is faithful to the original 1933 edition. Changes include modernizing capitalization, spelling, and punctuation, and amending a few foreign terms (with appreciation to Dr. Bruce C. Hall and Mr. David Reigle for their respective contributions)."

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