(Lucifer, Vol. VII, No. 40, December, 8190, pp.295-301)
We are asked by "H.C." and other Fellows to answer the several queries from now on propounded. We do so, but with a reservation. Our replies must be made from the standpoint of Occultists alone, no consideration being given to such hypotheses of modern (another name for "materialistic") Science, as may clash with esoteric teachings.
Q. WHAT IS HYPNOTISM: HOW DOES IT DIFFER FROM ANIMAL MAGNETISM (OR MESMERISM)?
ANSWER: Hypnotism is the new scientific name for the old ignorant "superstition" variously called "fascination" and "enchantment." It is an antiquated lie transformed into a modern truth. The fact is there, but the scientific explanation is still wanting. By some, it is believed that Hypnotism is the result of an irritation artificially produced on the periphery of the nerves; that this irritation is reacting upon, passes into the cells of the brain substance, causing my exhaustion, a condition which is but another mode of sleep (hypnosis or Hypnos); by others that it is simply a self-induced stupor, produced chiefly by imagination, etc., etc. It differs from animal magnetism, where the Braid method produces the hypnotic condition, which is a purely mechanical one, i.e., the fixing of the eyes on some bright spot, a metal, or a crystal. It becomes "animal magnetism" (or mesmerism) when it is achieved by "mesmeric" passes on the patient, and for these reasons. No electro-psychic or even electro-physical currents are at work when the first method is used. Still, simply the mechanical, molecular vibrations of the metal or crystal gazed at by the subject. It is the eye, the most occult organ of all, on the superficies of our body-- which, by serving as a medium between that bit of metal or crystal and the brain, attunes the molecular vibrations of the nervous centers of the latter into unison (i.e., equality in the number of the respective oscillations) with the vibrations of the bright object held. And it is this unison that produces the hypnotic state. But in the second case, the right name for Hypnotism would certainly be "animal magnetism" or that so much derided term "mesmerism." For, in the hypnotization by preliminary passes, it is the human will--whether conscious or otherwise--of the operator himself that acts upon the patient's nervous system. And it is again through the vibrations--only atomic, not molecular--produced by that act of energy called WILL in the ether of space (therefore, on quite a different plane) that the super-hypnotic state (i.e., "suggestion," etc.) is induced. For those we call "will-vibrations," their aura are distinct from the vibrations produced by the simply mechanical molecular motion, the two acting on two separate degrees of the cosmo-terrestrial planes. Here, of course, a clear realization of what Will means in Occult Sciences is necessary.
Q. IN BOTH (HYPNOTISM AND ANIMAL MAGNETISM), THERE IS AN ACT OF WILL IN THE OPERATOR, A TRANSIT OF SOMETHING FROM HIM TO HIS, AN EFFECT UPON THE PATIENT. WHAT IS THE 'SOMETHING' TRANSMITTED IN BOTH CASES?
ANSWER: That transmitted has no name in European languages, and if we simply describe it as Will, it loses all its meaning. The old and very much tabooed words, "Enchantment," "fascination," "glamour," and "spell," and especially the verb "to bewitch," expressed far more suggestively the real action that took place during the process of such a transmission, than the modern and meaningless terms, "psychologize" and "biologize." Occultism, called the Force transmitted the "auric fluid" to distinguish it from the "auric light"; the "fluid" being a correlation of atoms on a higher plane and descent to this lower one, in the shape of impalpable and invisible plastic Substances, generated and directed by the potential Will; the "auric light" or that which Reichenbach call Od, a light that surrounds every animate and inanimate object in nature, is, on the other hand, but the astral reflection emanating from objects; its particular color and colors, the combinations and varieties of the latter, denoting the state of the gunas, or qualities and characteristics of each special object and subject--the human being's aura being the strongest of all.
Q. WHAT IS THE RATIONALE FOR "VAMPIRISM"?
ANSWER: If by this word is meant the involuntary transmission of a portion of one's vitality, or life-essence, by a kind of occult osmosis from one person to another--the latter being endowed, or afflicted rather, with such vampirizing faculty, then, the act can become comprehensible only when we study well the nature and essence of the semi-substantial "auric fluid" spoke of just now. Like every other form in nature, this end-and exosmosis process may be made beneficent or maleficent, either unconsciously or at Will. When a healthy operator mesmerizes a patient with a determined desire to relieve and cure him, the exhaustion felt by the former is proportionate to the relief given: a process of endosmosis has taken place, the healer having parted with a portion of his vital aura to benefit the sick man. On the other hand, Vampirism is a blind and mechanical process, generally produced without the knowledge of either the absorber or the vampirized party. It is conscious or unconscious black magic, as the case may be. For in the case of trained adepts and sorcerers, the process is produced consciously and with the guidance of the Will. In both cases, the transmission agent is a magnetic and attractive faculty, terrestrial and physiological in its results, yet generated and produced on the four-dimensional plane--the realm of atoms.
Q. UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES IS HYPNOTISM "BLACK MAGIC"?
ANSWER: Under those just discussed, but to cover the subject fully, even by giving a few instances, demands more space than we can spare for these answers. Sufficient to say that whenever the motive that actuates the operator is selfish or detrimental to any living being or beings, all such acts are classed as black magic. The healthy vital fluid imparted by the physician who mesmerizes his patient can and does cure, but too much of it will kill.
(This statement receives its explanation in our answer to the quesiton7 when showing that the vibratory experiment shatters a tumbler to pieces.)
Q. IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HYPNOSIS PRODUCED BY MECHANICAL MEANS, SUCH AS REVOLVING MIRRORS, AND THAT PRODUCED BY THE DIRECT GAZE OF THE OPERATOR (fascination)?
ANSWER: This difference is, we believe, already pointed out in answer to Question1. The operator's gaze is more potent, hence more dangerous, than the simple mechanical passes of the Hypnotizer, who, in nine cases out of ten, does not know The students of esoteric Science must be aware by the very laws of the occult correspondences that the former action is performed on the first plane of matter (the lowest). At the same time, the latter, which necessitates a well-concentrated will, has to be enacted if the operator is a profane novice, on to the fourth, and if he is anything of an occultist on the fifth plane.
Q. WHY SHOULD A BIT OF CRYSTAL OR A BRIGHT BUTTON THROW ONE PERSON INTO THE HYPNOTIC STATE AND AFFECT IN NO WAY ANOTHER PERSON? AN ANSWER TO THIS WOULD, WE THINK, SOLVE MORE THAN ONE PERPLEXITY.
ANSWER:, Science has offered several varied hypotheses upon the subject but has not, so far, accepted any one of these as definite. All such speculations revolve in the vicious circle of material-physical phenomena with their blind forces and mechanical theories. Science does not recognize the "auric fluid", so they reject it. But have they not believed for years in the efficacy of metallotherapy, the influence of these metals being due to the action of their electric fluids or currents on the nervous system? And this is because an analogy was found to exist between the activity of this system and electricity. The theory failed because it clashed with the most careful observation and experiments. First of all, it was contradicted by a fundamental fact exhibited in the said metallotherapy, whose characteristic peculiarity showed (a) that by no means every metal acted one very nervous disease, one patient being sensitive to someone metal, while all others produced no effect upon him; and (b) that the patients affected by certain metals were few and exceptional. This showed that "electric fluids" operating on and curing diseases existed only in the imagination of the theorists. Had they had any actual existence, all metals would affect to a greater or lesser degree all patients, and every metal, taken separately, would affect every case of nervous disease, the conditions for generating such fluids being, in the given cases, precisely the same.
Thus Dr. Charcot having vindicated Dr. Burke, the Once discredited discoverer of metallotherapy, Shiff and others discredited all those who believed in electric fluids. These seem now to be given up in favor of "molecular motion, which now reigns supreme in physiology--for the time being, of course, But now arises a question: "Are the real nature, behavior, and conditions of 'motion' known any better than the nature, behavior, and conditions of the 'fluids'?" It is to be doubted Anyhow.
Occultism is audacious enough to maintain that electromagnetic fluids (the two being identical) are due in their essence and origin to that same molecular motion, now transformed into atomic energy.* to which every other phenomenon in nature is also due. Indeed, when the needle of a glavano-or electrometer fails to show any oscillations denoting the presence of electric or magnetic fluids, this does not prove in the least that there are none such to record; but simply that having passed on to another and higher plane of action, the electrometer can no longer be affected by the energy displayed on a plane with which it is entirely disconnected.
The above had to be explained to show that the nature of the Force transmitted from one man or object to another man or object, whether in Hypnotism, electricity, metallotherapy, or "fascination," is the same, varying only in degree and modified, according to the subplane of the matter is acting on; of which sub-planes, as every Occultist knows, there are seven on our terrestrial plane as there are on every other.
*(In occultism, the word atom has a special significance, different from the one by Science. See editorial, "Psychic and Noetic Action," in the two last numbers
(Lucifer, Vol. VII. Oct. and Nov. 1890, and present Volume pp. 350 et seq.)
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