October 31 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

SOME PHASES of the SUBJECTIVE LIFE
Ernest Holmes

The Spirit of Prophecy (Concluded)

"Mental tendencies set in motion cast their shadows before, and a psychic often sees the complete manifestation of an idea before it has had time to materialize in the objective world.  This is what constitutes the average spirit of prophecy, for prophecy is the reading of subjective tendencies and seeing them as already accomplished facts.  The subjective mind can deduce only, but its power of logic and sequence appears to be perfect.

For illustration, suppose there is a window one mile distant; I am throwing a ball at this window and the ball is halfway to it, going at the rate of one mile a minute.  Now you come into the picture, see the ball, measure the distance, compute the speed with which the ball is passing through the air and say:  "The ball is halfway to the window, it is travelling at the rate of one mile a minute and in just one half a minute the window is going to be broken by the ball passing through it."  Let us suppose that you are the only one who sees the ball, for the rest are looking at the window, and in half a minute it is broken.  How did you prophesy that the window would be broken?  By drawing a logical conclusion from an already established premise.

A similar thing takes place when a psychic exercises the spirit of prophecy, because he is getting his own subjective contact with the condition and simply interpreting what comes to him; but this is the logical, deductive, conclusive power of his subjective thought - seeing a thing completed, by first seeing a tendency set in motion and computing the time it will take to complete it.  There are but few, however, who possess any reliable spirit of prophecy."

October 29 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

SOME PHASES of the SUBJECTIVE LIFE
Ernest Holmes

The Spirit of Prophecy

"We have explained how it is that the psychic vision can look into the past and see what has transpired - by reason of the fact that it is dealing with a field in which there is no past, no present and no future, but merely a continuation of being.  Because this is so, any incident which has transpired in the past is an active thing in the present, unless the vibration is neutralized, when it no longer has existence anywhere.

Just as it is true, apparently, that the incidents of the past continually rehearse themselves in the same manner that a picture hanging on the wall for the next ten thousand years (if nothing happens to it) will look just as it does now, so anyone contacting an previous incident, clairvoyantly, will see it as though it were now transpiring...not past.   This is the way in which clairvoyant vision operates.  The continuation of the past, through the present, into the future, is a movement of causation passing from cause to effect; and because the movement is first set in motion in a field of Mind which is purely subjective, both cause and effect will exist at any point during the sequence of this movement.  The clairvoyant vision, then, contacting it at any point - even before the final outcome - will see the final outcome.

There is nothing fatalistic about this. A thing can appear to be fatalistic without necessarily being so.  This we should understand, because the human mind in its ignorance has created great psychic laws for itself.  Therefore, if one has been told anything in the way of a prophecy which is negative, it should be directly refuted, because that negation exists in the realm of subjective causation...not spiritual causation."

October 28 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

SOME PHASES of the SUBJECTIVE LIFE
Ernest Holmes

Streams of Consciousness

"Each being an individual entity in Mind is known by the name he bears, and by the vibration which he emanates; for while we are all in One Mind or Spirit, each has a separate and individualized personality.

According to the Unity of Mind, thought is everywhere present, and so long as it persists it will remain present.  What is known in one place, may be known in all places.  Time, space and obstructions are unknown to Mind and thought.  It follows, that anyone tuning into our thought, will enter into our stream of consciousness, no matter where we are and no matter where he may be.  If we still persist after the body shall have suffered physical death (and we are convinced that we shall) this law must still hold good, for past and present are one and the same in Mind.  Time is only the measure of an experience, and space, of itself, is not apart from, but is in, Mind. 

A psychic can enter the stream of thought of anyone whose vibration he can mentally contact, be that person in the flesh or out of it; and since we are all psychic - all having a soul element - we are all doubtless communicating with each other to the degree that we sympathetically vibrate toward each other.  We do not all have the ability to objectify psychic impressions and ordinarily they never come to the surface.  However, they are there just the same.  This is why we often feel uneasy in the presence of certain people, or when we mentally contact some condition and are aware of a disturbed inner feeling, without any apparent reason.

There are many normal psychics who can, while in a perfectly objective state, read people's thoughts and perform many other wonderful feats of the mind.  This is normal and no harm can come from it.  It is, indeed, one of Nature's ways of working and is most interesting.  Any psychic power which can be used while in a normal state of mind is harmless and helpful; by this we mean one that can be used while one is in a conscious state."

October 27 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

SOME PHASES of the SUBJECTIVE LIFE
Ernest Holmes

Tuning in on Thought

"Thought-transference, or telepathy, is such a commonly known fact that it is not our purpose to do other than discuss it briefly.  However, there are some facts which might be overlooked unless we give them careful attention.  The main fact to emphasize is that mental telepathy would not be possible, unless there were a medium through which it could operate.  This medium is Universal Mind, and it is through this medium, or avenue, that all thought-transference, or mental telepathy, takes place.

Telepathy is the act of reading subjective thought, or of receiving conscious thought from another without audible words being spoken.  But there must be a mental tuning in, so to speak, just as there must be in radio.  We are surrounded by all sorts of vibrations and if we wish to catch any of them distinctly, we must tune in.  Even then, there is a great deal of interference and we do not always get the messages clearly.  We often get the wrong ones and sometimes many of the vibrations come together and seem to be nothing but a lot of noises, without any particular reason for being.  It is only when the instrument is property adjusted to some individual vibration that a clear message may be received.

This is true of mental telepathy, which is the transmission of thought; the receiver must tune in.  It does not follow, however, that the sender knows that this is taking place, any more than a radio speaker knows how many are tuning in to hear his address.  In other words, one might pick up on thoughts just as he picks up radio messages.  Some have the ability to tune in on thought and read it more or less accurately.  These people we call psychics, but all people are really psychic, since all have a soul or subjective mind.  What we really mean is that a psychic, or medium, is one who has the ability to objectify that which is subjective - to bring to the surface of conscious thought that which lies below the threshold of the outer mind.  The medium reads the book of remembrance and it is marvelous how far-reaching this book may be.  Whatever may have happened at any time on this plane remains within its subjective atmosphere as a memory picture of the experiences of those who have lived here.  These pictures, or vibrations, may be clearly discerned by those who can read them.

Since the Universal Subjectivity is a Unity it follows that all of these pictures exist at any and every point within It.  Consequently, we may contact at the point of our own subjective mind (which is a point in Universal Subjective Mind) every incident which has ever transpired on this planet.  We might even see a picture which was enacted two thousand years ago in some Roman arena, for the atmosphere contains such pictures.

Each person in his objective state is a distinct and individualized center in Universal Mind, but in his subjective state (in his stream of consciousness, or at his rate of vibration) each is Universal, because of the Indivisibility of Mind.  Wherever and whenever any individual contacts another upon the subjective side of life, if he is a psychic (if he objectifies subjectivity) he may see a thought form of that person, but it does not necessarily follow that he would really be seeing the person.

We need not be astonished when a psychic gives us the complete history of our family, even to reciting the things that engaged the attention of our ancestors while they were on earth.  The psychic is merely reading form the subjective remembrance."

October 13 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Cosmic Consciousness - Illumination

"Dr. Bucke defines Cosmic Consciousness as:  "One's consciousness of his unity with the Whole."  The mystic intuitively perceives Truth, and often without any process of reasoning - immediately is aware, with what Swedenborg called a sort of "interior awareness," a spiritual sense.

There can and does descend into our minds - embody and personify in our person - a Divinity, a Unity, the Spirit of God, the direct incarnation of the Original Thing, in us - the mystical presentation of Christ.

Dean Inge, perhaps the best thinker in the Anglican Church of today, tells us that Plotinus had seven distinct periods of cosmic consciousness, in which state he was so completely unified with the Universe that he became One with It.  His spiritual philosophy was a result of these experiences.  Plotinus, you will recall, was one of the greatest of the Neo-Platonic Philosophers.

Dr. Buck, the author of that most rational book, "Cosmic Consciousness," cites many instances of known and authentic records of people who have had definite Cosmic experiences.  In his scientific approach to this subject, he calls attention to the necessity of distinguishing between psychic revelations and Cosmic Consciousness.

Reports of the experiences of most psychics are contradictory.  While on the other hand, the experiences of those who have entered into Cosmic Consciousness - over a period of thousands of years - tell us an identical story, once we get the key to their language - all tell the same story of Reality.  The psychic may or may not be true; the spiritual is always true. The psychic realm is the realm of the subconscious, or relative first cause.   The spiritual is the realm of First Cause.  Therefore, we may read Buddha, Jesus, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Swedenborg, Emerson, Whitman, Browning or any of the other great mystics, no matter in what age they have lived, and we shall find the same Ultimate.  By reading the writings of most psychics, we enter confusion; therefore, we must understand clearly this vital difference between psychism and mysticism.  One may or may not be true; the other is always true."

September 23 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

What Is a Mystic? (Continued)

"The teaching of the mystics has been that there should be conscious courting of the Divine Presence.  There should be a conscious receptivitiy to It, but a balanced one.  As one of the Apostles said, in substance, that he would rather speak ten words with his understanding than ten thousand with confusion.  "God is not the author of confusion but of peace."  Unlike the great psychics of the ages, who have been more or less confused, the great mystics have been intensely and pre-eminently the sane people, sound people.

The philosophy of Jesus will remain sound when the belief in a material universe shall have been rolled up like a scroll and numbered with the things once thought to be real.  So will be the philosophy of Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Emerson and Walt Whitman, and the philosophy we are writing about today.  But the more or less unconscious disclosures of many psychics are not entire true, even in the day in which they are given.  While psychism is a most interesting field of study, we should understand it for what it is worth.

It is through the teachings of the illumined that the Spiritual Universe reveals Itself, imparting to us what we know about God.  What we directly experience ourselves, and what we believe others have experienced, is all we can know about God.

Jesus taught a Power transcendent, triumphant, absolute, positive, against which lesser laws meant nothing.  By Its very Presence It heals.  The mystics did not contend or argue with people.  There was nothing to argue about.  THEY SAW and KNEW.  They are the great revealers to man of the nature of the Universe, and the relationship of man to God."

September 22 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT the MYSTICS TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

What is a Mystic? (continued)

"Man has compelled nature to do his bidding.  He has harnessed electricity, caught the wind, trapped steam, and made them do his will.  He has invented machines to do the work of thousands.  He has belted the globe with his traffic and built up a wonderful civilization; but in a few cases has he conquered his own soul.  The mystic has revealed things that do not pass as ships in the night.  He has revealed Eternal Verities and has plainly taught us that there is a Living Presence indwelling ALL.  This constitutes the greatest intellectual and spiritual heritage of the ages.  The balance of our knowledge of God must come as a direct impartation from Him.  We must learn it for ourselves.

The mystic does not read human thought, but rather he senses the atmosphere of God.  The mystics of every age have seen, sensed and taught THE SAME TRUTH!  Psychic experiences, on the other hand, bear the exact opposite testimony, as they more or less contradict each other, for each psychic sees a different kind of mental picture.  But the mystic experiences of the ages have revealed ONE AND THE SAME TRUTH!

A psychic sees largely through his own, or another's subjective mentality.  Consequently, his impressions are more or less colored by the vibration of his own or another's thought.  He is subject to hallucinations and false impressions of every description.  That is why, generally speaking, no two psychics see the same thing.  Mystics have all sensed one identical Reality, and their testimony is in no way confusing, because the Spirit within them has borne witness to the same Truth.

The mystics have been perfectly normal people.  They did not think of themselves as mystics, that was their language.  It was natural to them - perfectly normal.  They have been people like Jacob Boehme, a cobbler, pegging away at his shoes, who, looking up, saw in the geranium plant the reflection of the Cosmos - the very soul of God; like Jesus looking into the heart of nature; like Moses reading God's Law from a burning bush."