MENTAL TELEPATHY Explained

Telepathy, meaning Thought-Transference, bears a misleading title. Literally translated, it means "suffering at a distance," or, perhaps, "feeling pain at a distance." The name should really indicate "knowing at a distance," in order to be properly descriptive. But as the term has acquired a forced meaning by reason of years of usage, it will probably be continued in popular favor. After all, names do not count, so long as the meaning is accepted and understood.
While the term itself has been generally used in the sense of conscious and deliberate sending and receiving of thought-waves, there is a far wider field of phenomena really covered by it, viz., the unconscious sending and receiving of mental and emotional vibrations.

There is a manifestation of energy or force (in the form of vibrations) in every mental or emotional state. This is true not only in the case of deep thought or vivid feeling, but also in the case of general mental "feelings," and emotional states. During such manifestations there is a radiation of mental or emotional vibrations from the brain or nervous centres of the system, which flows out in all directions just as do light and wireless electricity. The principal seats or centres of these radiations are (1) the several brains of man, viz., the cerebrum, cerebellum, and the medulla oblongata, respectfully; and (2) the several great centres of nerve substance in the human system, called the plexi, such as the solar plexus, etc.

The vibrations arising from emotional excitement are sent out principally from the plexi, or great centres of the sympathetic nervous system. Those arising from the more strictly mental states emanate from certain centres and points of the brain, or brains, of the person manifesting them. Certain forms of these vibrations constitute the real essence of what is generally called "human magnetism".

There have been phenomena obtained as the result of long series of careful experiments which are, in a way, even more wonderful than these somewhat less deliberate experiments just mentioned. I allude to the experiments of a number of earnest, careful scientific students, who surrounded themselves with every precaution against over-enthusiasm, fraud, and coincidence. Prominent among this class of investigations we find those conducted by the Society for Psychical Research, of England, which really established a firm basis for the work of other investigators who followed the general methods of the said society. In the following chapter, I shall give you a somewhat extended statement of the results of such investigations, because this information is important to every student of psychic phenomena, not only because it establishes a firm scientific basis for his studies and beliefs, but also because it gives him important information which he may apply in the course of his own experimental work.

The investigations into the subject of telepathy, and kindred subjects, under the auspices of the society just mentioned, were conducted by men of careful scientific training and experience, and under the general supervision and approval of the officers of the society, among which have been numbered such eminent men as Prof. Henry Sidgwick, of Cambridge University; Prof. Balfour Stewart, a Fellow of the Royal Society of England; Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, the eminent English statesman; Prof. William James, the eminent American psychologist; Sir William Crookes, the great chemist and discoverer of physical laws, who invented the celebrated "Crookes' Tubes," without which the discovery of the X Rays, radio-activity, etc., would have been impossible; Frederick W.H. Myers, the celebrated explorer of the astral planes, and writer upon psychic phenomena; Sir Oliver Lodge, the popular English scientist; and other men of international reputation and high standing. The character of these men at once gives the stamp of honesty and scientific accuracy to all the work of the society.

In order that you may understand the spirit which animated these scientific investigators in their work of the exploration of this new and strange region of Nature, I ask you to carefully read the following words of the presidential address of Sir William Crookes, before the Royal Society, at Bristol, England, in 1898. Remember, please, that this address was made before an assemblage of distinguished scientists, many of them rank materialists and, quite skeptical of all occult phenomena—this was nearly twenty years ago, remember. Sir William Crookes, facing this gathering, as its president, said:

"Were I now introducing for the first time these inquiries to the world of science, I should choose a starting point different from that of old (where we formerly began). It would be well to begin with Telepathy; with that fundamental law, as I believe it to be, that thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized organs of sense—that knowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in any hitherto known or recognized ways. * * * If telepathy takes place, we have two physical facts—the physical change in the brain of A, the suggestor, and the analogous physical change in the brain of B, the recipient of the suggestion. Between these two physical events there must exist a train of physical causes. * * * It is unscientific to call in the aid of mysterious agencies, when with every fresh advance in knowledge it is shown that either vibrations have powers and attributes abundantly able to any demand—even the transmission of thought.

"It is supposed by some physiologists that the essential cells of nerves do not actually touch, but are separated by a narrow gap which widens in sleep while it narrows almost to extinction during mental activity. This condition is so singularly like a Branly or Lodge coherer (a device which led to the discovery of wireless telegraphy) as to suggest a further analogy. The structure of brain and nerve being similar, it is conceivable that there may be present masses of such nerve coherers in the brain, whose special function it may be to receive impulses brought from without, through the connecting sequence of ether waves of appropriate order of magnitude."Roentgen has familiarized us with an order of vibrations of extreme minuteness as compared with the smallest waves with which we have hitherto been acquainted: and there is no reason to suppose that we have here reached the limit of frequency. It is known that the action of thought is accompanied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of acting direct upon individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of internal and external movements of the atoms themselves. A formidable range of phenomena must be scientifically sifted before we effectually grasp a faculty so strange, so bewildering, and for ages so inscrutable, as the direct action of mind upon mind.
"In the old Egyptian days, a well known inscription was carved over the portal of the Temple of Isis: 'I am whatever has been, is, or ever will be; and my veil no man hath yet lifted.' Not thus do modern seekers after truth confront Nature—the word that stands for the baffling mysteries of the Universe. Steadily, unflinchingly, we strive to pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what she is to reconstruct what she has been, and to prophesy what she shall be. Veil after veil we have lifted, and her face grows more beautiful, august and wonderful, with every barrier that is withdrawn."

You will notice that this address made nearly twenty years ago, and from the standpoint of physical science is in full accord with the ideas of occultism as old as the hills. And yet, the speaker had worked out the idea independently. He also investigated higher forms of psychic phenomena, with results that startled the world. But, you will notice that he does not attempt to give any other than purely physical laws the credit for the ordinary phenomena of telepathy. And he was thoroughly right in this, as we have seen. He escaped the common error of confusing physical-sense phenomena with the phenomena of the astral-senses. Each plane has its own phenomena—and each class is surely wonderful enough. And, again, remember that both physical and astral phenomena are purely natural; there is no need for seeking any supernatural agencies to account for these natural facts.

Swami Panchadasi

Author of"The Human Aura,""The Astral World," Etc.1916