Hellsehen (Clairvoyance)

should serve as a new incentive in the endeavor to hold high the banner of moral purity and mental balance. Without these, Hellsehen clairvoyance is a curse and not a blessing for its possessor.

Between those who are completely unreceptive and those who are in full possession of the power of clairvoyance, there are many intermediate stages. One that is worth considering briefly is the stage at which a person, although they do not possess the ability of clairvoyance in ordinary life, exercises it more or less under magnetic influence. This is a case where the psychic nature is already sensitive, but the consciousness is not yet capable of being active within it amidst the manifold distractions of physical life. It must be set free through the temporary cessation of the external senses in a magnetic Trancezustande trance state before it can apply the higher spiritual powers that are just beginning to dawn within it. However, even in the magnetic trance state, there are naturally countless degrees of clairvoyance. These range from the ordinary, completely mindless patient to the person whose sight is entirely under the control of the operator and can be directed by him wherever he wishes. It can even reach that higher stage where, once the consciousness is free, it escapes the will of the magnetizer entirely and floats in regions of exalted vision, where it is completely beyond his reach.

A further step on the same path is when a complete suppression of physical consciousness, such as in the hypnotic trance state, is not necessary. Instead, the power of supernatural vision, although not yet reached in the waking state, is available to the person when the body lies in the bonds of ordinary sleep. Many prophets and Seher seers stood at this stage of development, of whom we read that God "gave them a sign in sleep" or who communed with higher beings in the quiet hours of the night.

Most cultivated peoples of the higher human races have reached this stage of development to a certain degree: that is, the senses of their Astralkörper astral bodies are fully active and completely capable of receiving impressions from objects

and entities on their own plane. But for this fact to be of use to them here in their physical body, two transformations are usually necessary. First, the Ego the true self must be awakened to the realities of the Astralplan astral plane. It must be prompted to rise from the sheath formed by its own ideas and look around to make observations and learn. Second, during the return of the Ego to its physical body, the consciousness must be kept awake enough to impress the memory of what it has seen or learned onto its physical brain.

When the first of these changes has taken place, the second is of minor importance. Then the Ego, the true man, is capable of benefiting from the instruction that can be obtained on that plane, even if he does not have the power to bring any memory of it over into his waking consciousness.

Students of Theosophie Theosophy often ask in what way this ability of clairvoyance will first show itself to them. They want to know how they can tell when they have reached the stage where the first faint signs of it become noticeable. Since cases are so entirely different from one another, it is impossible to give any generally valid answer to this question.

Some people begin quite suddenly, so to speak. Under a natural stimulus, they become capable of seeing some striking vision just once. It very often happens in such a case that the person concerned begins to believe over time that they must have been the victim of a Halluzination hallucination on that occasion, since the experience does not repeat itself. Others begin by becoming aware from time to time of the brilliant colors and vibrations of the human Aura aura. Some see and hear things more and more frequently to which their surroundings are blind and deaf. Still others see figures, landscapes, or colored clouds floating before their eyes in the dark before they fall asleep. However, most probably go through the experience of beginning to