THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PERSONAL MAGNETISM/PART 10
CHAPTER 10.
MENTAL RADIATION
Leaving for the moment the phase of physical magnetism,
or nerve-force, and entering into a consideration of the other phase, namely,
that of mental magnetism or thought-force, let us first take a general glance
at the report of the most advanced science of the day, upon the subject of the
phenomena of mental radiation.
It will be well for you to feel fully convinced of the
reality of this phenomenon, before you undertake to manifest the power. This
not only to maintain consistency and mental honesty on your own part, but also
that you may rid yourself of any doubt or unbelief in the matter, the result of
such doubt or unbelief being to interpose a barrier or brake upon the will, as
we have stated in a preceding chapter.
Listen to the following words from the pen of one of the
world’s great scientists, Professor Ochorowicz, who has created such a
wonderful stir here in Paris by his demonstrations of practical psychology,
mental photography, etc. Professor Ochorowicz says: “Every living being is a
dynamic focus.”
“A dynamic focus tends ever to propagate the motion that
is proper to it. Propagated motion becomes transformed according to the medium
it traverses. Motion tends always to propagate itself.”
“Therefore, when we see work of any kind - mechanical, electrical,
nerve, or psychic - of two things, one happens, either a transmission or a
transformation. Where does the first end, and where does the second begin?”
“In an identical medium there is only transmission. In a
different medium there is transformation. You send an electric current through
a thick wire. You have the current, but you do not perceive any other force.
But cut that thick wire and connect the ends by means of a fine wire; the fine
wire will grow hot; there will be a transformation of a part of the current
into heat.”
“Take a pretty strong current and interpose a wire still
more resistant, or a very thin carbon rod, and the carbon will emit light.” “A
part of the current, then, is transformed into heat and light. This light acts
in every direction around about, first visibly as light, then invisibly as heat
and electric current.” “Hold a magnet near it. If the magnet is weak and
movable, in the form of a magnetic needle, the beam of light will cause it to
deviate; if it is strong and immovable, it will in turn cause the beam of light
to deviate.”
“And all this from a distance, without contact,
without special conductors.”
“A process that is at once chemical, physical and
psychical goes on in a brain. A complex action of this kind is propagated
through the gray matter, as waves are propagated in water. Regarded on its
physiological side, an idea is only a vibration, a vibration that is
propagated, yet which does not pass out of a medium in which it can exist as
such. It propagates as far as other vibrations allow. It is propagated more
widely if it assumes the character, which subjectively we call emotive. But it
cannot go beyond without being transformed. Nevertheless, like force in
general, it cannot remain in isolation, it escapes in disguise.”
“Thought stays at home, as the chemical action of a
battery remains in the battery, it is represented by its dynamic correlate,
called in the case of the battery a current, and in the case of the brain - I
know not what; but whatever its name may be, it is the dynamic correlate of
thought. I have chosen the term ‘dynamic correlate.’ There is something more
than that; the universe is neither dead nor void.”
“A force that is transmitted meets other forces, and if
it is transformed only little by little it usually limits itself to modifying
another force at its own cost, though without suffering perceptibly thereby.
This is the case particularly with forces that are persistent, concentrated,
well seconded by their medium. It is the case with the physiological
equilibrium, nerve force, psychic force, ideas, emotions, and tendencies. These
modify environing forces without themselves disappearing. They are imperceptibly
transformed, and, if the next man is of a nature exceptionally well adapted to
them, they gain in inductive action.”
Various other eminent scientists have testified to the
general resemblance of the brain to an electrical or magnetic battery or cell
group. Professor Bain has said: “The structure of the nervous substances, and
the experiments made upon the nerves and nerve centers, establish beyond doubt
certain peculiarities as belonging to the force that is exercised by the brain.
This force is of a current nature; that is to say, a power generated at one
part of the structure is conveyed along an intervening substance and discharged
at some other part. The different forms of electricity and magnetism have made
us familiar with this kind of action.”
Professor Draper tells us that: “I find the cerebrum is
absolutely analogous in construction to any other nervous arc. It is composed
of centripetal and centrifugal fibers, having also registering ganglia. If in
other nervous arcs the structure is merely automatic, and can display no
phenomena of itself, but requires the influence of an external agent - the
optical apparatus inert save under the influence of light, the auditory save
under the impression of sound - the cerebrum, being precisely analogous in its
elementary structure, presupposes the existence of some agent to act through
it.”
Dr. haddock says, in connection with his consideration of
the idea that thought may be communicated through ether-vibrations: “The ether
is accepted by science as a reality, and as a medium for light, heat
electricity, magnetism, etc. The nervous system is certainly comparable to an
electric battery with connecting wires. Communication of thought and feeling
without the mediation of sense perception as commonly understood, is now
established.
Inanimate objects exert,
now and then, ‘strange influences.’ People certainly carry with them a personal
atmosphere. The representation of the condition of these facts by a psychic
field, compared to the magnetic or electric field, becomes, therefore, if not
plausible, at least convenient. As such a ‘field’ exists surrounding the sun,
so may a ‘field’ be assumed as surrounding each human individual. ‘We have
already strong grounds for believing that we live in a medium which conveys
to-and-fro movements to us from the sun, and that these movements are
electro-magnetic, and that all the transformation of light and heat, and indeed
the phenomena of life, are due to the electrical energy which comes to us
across the vacuum which exists between us and the sun - a vacuum which is
pervaded by the ether, which is a fit medium for the transmission of
electro-magnetic wares.’ By means, then, of a similar theory applied to mind
and brain and body, we may find reasonable explanations of many otherwise
insoluble mysteries of life, and, which is of more importance, deduce certain
suggestions for the practical regulation of life in the greatest individual
interest.”
Haddock also approvingly quotes the following from Dr. M.
P. Hatfield, an authority with whom I, personally, am not familiar: “The
arrangement of the nerve-envelopes is so like that of the best constructed electrical
cables that we cannot help thinking that both were constructed to conduct
something very much alike. I know that there are those who stoutly maintain
that nerve-force is not electricity, and it is not, in the sense that an
electrical battery is the same things as a live man; but nevertheless
nerve-force is closely allied to that wonderful thing that for the want of a
better and clearer understanding we agree to call electricity.”
Haddock adds: “All states of body and mind involve
constant molecular and chemical change. The suggestion arises that the brain,
with its millions of cells and its inconceivable changes in substance, may be
regarded as a transmitting and receiving battery. The brain being a kind of
battery, and the nerves conductors of released stored-energy to different parts
of the body, by a kind of action similar to the actions of electricity and
magnetism; it is suggested that, either by means of the ether, or of some still
finer form of matter, discharges of brain energy may be conducted beyond the
limits of the body. If the nerve-track corresponds to wires, this refined
medium may correspond to the ether-field supposed to be employed in wireless
telegraphy. As electrical movements are conducted without wires, or other
visible media, so may brain-discharges be conveyed beyond the mechanism of the
battery, without the intervention of nerves - except, as they may constitute a
part of the battery. Generally speaking, such discharges would originate in two
ways: by direct mental action, or by mental or physical states - perhaps by a
combination.”
In the above quotations,
there will be found constant reference to vibrations in the universal ether.
That there is a place, and plenty of room, in the scale of etheric
vibrations for the vibrations of mental-force, may be seen by a reference to
the following quotations from eminent authorities:
Professor Gray has said: “There is much food for
speculation in the thought that there exists sound waves that no human ear can
hear, and color waves of light that no eye can see. The long, dark, soundless
space between 40,000 and 400.000.000.000.000 vibrations per second, and the
infinity of range beyond 700.000.000.000.000 vibrations per second, where light
ceases, in the universe of motion, makes it possible to indulge in
speculation.”
Professor Williams has said: “There is no gradation
between the most rapid undulations or trembling that produce our sensation of
sound, and the slowest of those which give rise to our sensations of gentlest
warmth. There is a huge gap between them, wide enough to include another world
of motion, all lying between our world of sound and our world of heat and
light. And there is no good reason whatever for supposing that matter is
incapable of such intermediate activity, or that such activity may not give
rise to intermediate sensations, provided there are organs for taking up and sensifying
these movements.”
A recent writer in the “London Post” says, “The knowledge
we gain by experiment brings home to us what a miserably imperfect piece of
mechanism our bodies are. The ear can detect the slow-footed sound vibrations
that come to us at the rate of between 40 and 40,000 a second. But the whole of
space may be quivering and palpitating with waves at all sorts of varying
speeds, and our senses will tell us nothing of them until we get them coming to
us at the inconceivable speed of 400.000.000.000.00 a second, when again we
respond to them and appreciate them in the form of light.”
Another writer, an
American psychologist, carries on the tale from this point, as follows: “The
first indications of warmth comes when the vibrations reach the rate of
35,000,000,000,000 per second. When the vibrations reach 450.000.000.000.000
the lowest visible light ray manifests. Then comes the orange rays, the golden
yellow, the pure yellow, the greenish yellow, the pure green, the greenish
blue, the ocean blue, the cyanic blue, the indigo, and finally the violet, the
highest degree of light which the human eye can register, and which occurs when
the vibrations reach the rate of 750,000,000,00,00 per second. Then come the
ultra-violet rays, invisible to human sight, but registered by chemical media.
In this ultraviolet region lie the ‘X Rays’ and the other recently discovered
high-degree rays; also the actinic rays which, while invisible to the eye,
register on the photographic plate, sunburn one’s face, blister one’s nose, and
even cause violent explosions in chemical substances exposed to them, as well
as acting on the green leaves of plants, causing the chemical change of
transforming carbonic acid and water into sugar and starches. These forms of
‘dark light,’ that is, light too fine to be perceived by the human eye, are but
faint indications of the existence of still higher and finer vibrations - the
‘finer forces of nature.’”
Oh, yes! There is plenty of space and room in Nature’s
scale of forces, for the vibrations of mental energy, nerve-force, and personal
magnetism, which combines the two. I trust that the foregoing statements of
scientific fact have cleared your mind of any lurking doubts on the subject.
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