Hellsehen (Clairvoyance)

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has taken place, which is sufficient to explain the situation.

In another subdivision of the same, this isolated case may have been the seeing of an apparition, which mostly originated from some friend or relative who was dying. Two possibilities may exist here, and in each, the strong desire of the dying person is the driving force. This force may have enabled him to materialize to take on a physical or semi-physical form for a moment, in which case, of course, clairvoyance was not necessary at all. Or, what is more likely, it may have acted magnetically on the observer, numbing his physical sensitivity for the moment and awakening his higher sensitivity. In both cases, the vision is the effect of the unexpected event and does not repeat itself, quite simply because the necessary conditions are not repeated.

There remains, however, an insoluble remainder of cases in which a single example of the use of unquestionable clairvoyance occurs, while the occasion on which it appears seems quite trivial and unimportant to us. Regarding these cases, we can only put forward hypotheses. The prevailing conditions obviously do not take place on the physical plane, and each case would have to be examined quite specifically before we could speak with any certainty about the reasons. In some cases, it seemed as if an astral entity was trying to make some communication and was only able to communicate an unimportant detail of it, because it was not possible to impress the useful and important part of what it had to say upon the consciousness of the subject.

In the investigation of the phenomena of clairvoyance, one encounters all these different types and many others. A certain number of cases of mere hallucination also certainly come to light, which must be carefully struck from the list of examples. Whoever makes this subject his study needs inexhaustible patience and firm perseverance. If he deals with it long enough, however, he will

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gradually discover the order in this chaos and get an inkling of the great laws under which the whole of evolution works.

It will be very useful to him in his efforts if he proceeds in the same order that we have adopted. That is, if he first wants to become as thoroughly familiar as possible with the actual facts of the planes with which ordinary clairvoyance deals. If he wants to learn what is actually to be seen with astral and etheric sight, and what its natural limits are, then he will have a guideline, so to speak, by which he can measure the cases to be observed. Since all occurrences of one-sided clairvoyance must necessarily fit into this whole, he will find it easy with some practice to classify the examples he deals with, provided he has the outline of the whole scheme in his head.

Until now, nothing has been said about the even more wonderful possibilities of clairvoyance on the mental plane the level of consciousness associated with pure thought and the mind. It is not necessary to say much about it, as it rarely happens that the researcher will ever get to know any examples of it, except among the students specially prepared for it in the highest schools of occultism the study of hidden or secret spiritual knowledge. To these, another new world opens up, which is much wider than all those lying beneath it. It is a world in which everything we can imagine in the highest splendor and glory becomes commonplace. A small report on its wonderful power, its unspeakable blessing, its glorious opportunities for learning and working, is given in the sixth of our Theosophical Manuals, and we therefore refer the occultist to it. original: "C. W. Leadbeater. 'Die Devachanebene', ihre Charakteristik und ihre Bewohner. Theosophisches Verlagshaus, Leipzig."

Everything that this new world can give — at least everything that he can process within himself — lies within the reach of the trained student, but for the untrained clairvoyant, it is hardly possible to come into contact with it. It can happen in a magnetic trance state, but occurs