Beyond the Occult (70 page)

There may be some truth in that, but once we understand the role of ‘completing’ we can see that it hardly matters.
And now we can suddenly grasp the immense importance of the concept of ‘upside-downness’.
‘Upside-downness’ is the feeling that the vicissitudes of life
are
important, that its disasters are anything but innocuous, that its brevity is all too real.
In short it is a state in which short-sighted emotional values have imposed themselves on the intellect.
This happens because in most of us emotional and intellectual values are roughly the same weight — like the two halves of an old-fashioned egg-timer.
Our problem, as we see in every glimpse of optimism, is simply to add intellectual ballast until we can no longer turn ‘upside-down’ — or, at least, so that when we do turn ‘upside-down’ we can instantly right ourselves again.
Beethoven’s music reveals that he had achieved this state, which is why he told Elizabeth Brentano, ‘Those who understand my music must be freed from all the miseries which others drag around with them.’
When faced with problems that would make other romantics burst into tears Beethoven was strong enough to take hold of the egg-timer and turn it the right way up.
But it was not simply a question of grim, bear-like strength: the real secret lay in his intellectual insight, an adult recognition that most of the problems that worry human beings are childish irrelevances.
The power of Beethoven’s music lies in its underlying optimism: not an emotional or temperamental optimism, but the insight of a philosopher who has balanced life in the scales of objectivity and decided that the good far outweighs the bad.

However, it is unnecessary to be a Beethoven or even a
philosopher to grasp this insight.
It comes with every peak experience: the recognition that most of our problems are due to ‘upside-downness’.
Whenever we experience delight we realize that the answer is simply to translate this delight into intellectual terms — words and ideas —
and then trust the intellect
.
From then on we must learn to carry out the act of ‘completing’ with conscious deliberation, with the unshakeable certainty that it is providing us with the correct solution.
When this truth is grasped the result is the insight the Buddha called Enlightenment.
It is the recognition that most suffering is quite unnecessary and that we are fools to put up with it.
We merely need to
grasp
this insight about ‘completing’ and ‘upside-downness’ to see that most human suffering is self-inflicted.
The psychological mechanism involved is identical to that of religious conversion except that this conversion is a clear and objective perception with no overtones of ‘faith’ or belief in the unprovable.

The result of this insight is not a condition of non-stop euphoria but a calm recognition that life is
not
difficult, dangerous and treacherous, and that most of the problems that confront us can be dealt with by using what might be called ‘constructive will-force’.
This is based upon the certainty that if we behave sensibly and rationally we shall achieve what we want to achieve.
Most of our problems are shadow-bogeys created by ‘upside-downness’.

How is this insight connected to the ‘occult vision’ I have tried to outline in this book?
To begin with it should be clear that it is completely consistent with the mystical experiences described by Anne Bancroft, Warner Allen, Arnold Toynbee, Merrell-Wolff, Daly King and the rest.
The essence of their vision is always a sense of ‘absurd good news’ which springs from a sudden ‘bird’s-eye view’ of life and history.
This is often accompanied by a certain pity for human beings for their inability to recognize that most of their miseries and anxieties are self-inflicted, and for ‘their failure to realize their own divinity’.
On the other hand if they
are
divine then there is not much cause for pity, for they are bound to find out sooner or later.

An immense amount of vital energy is wasted in states of ‘upside-downness’, and ‘enlightenment’ frees this energy for more interesting uses.
The result, as Anne Bancroft observes, is that ‘everything is transformed’.
‘I was in a different state of consciousness altogether … there was a sense of clarity, of utterly beneficent, wonderful emptiness.’
The emptiness is the emptiness around a man who stands on a mountain top.
But because perception is suddenly vitalized with all this additional energy everything appears more alive.
Daly King’s feeling that the bricks were glowing with life is basically similar to Aldous Huxley’s visions under mescalin.

This is of course perfectly understandable: it is merely an intensified version of Compton Mackenzie’s feelings as he waits for his ladylove.
What is more difficult to understand is some of the other powers that seem to be activated by the insight: for example Derek Gibson’s ability to see inside the trees and grass, as if everything was ‘magnified beyond measure’.
This is obviously another version of Albert Tucker’s experience of being able to see every single thread in the man’s tweed overcoat, or every hair on his wife’s head as he looked at her ‘astral form’ on the bed.
It seems clear that some
other
power of vision has been activated, some power of which we are normally unaware.
Eileen Garrett described this as being a kind of clairvoyance.
‘One sees the entire road completely … and its further reaches are as meticulously discernible as the areas that lie close … .’
But we have also seen, in the case of Toynbee, that the flood of insight seems to annihilate time so that he can actually see a battle that took place more than two thousand years earlier.
Whether this ‘seeing’ is simply a case of heightened imagination is immaterial; we are still speaking of the sudden activation of ‘hidden powers’.
And as we saw in the chapter on ‘time-slips’, these seem to include an ability to wander back into the past.
In short the powers that are activated are various powers enabling us to read the ‘information’ encoded in the universe around us.
There is an obvious and direct link between ‘enlightenment’
and so-called clairvoyant powers.
And these powers in turn
are simply an extension of our normal power of ‘completing’
.

It seems then that Lawrence LeShan was correct: the universe seen by the clairvoyant has much in common with the universe seen by the mystic, and both are
bigger
and more complete than the universe seen by the rest of us.
The view of the sceptic is based upon a misconception: that the mystic — or the clairvoyant — is offering an
alternative
to the ordinary reality that surrounds us.
One of Daskalos’s followers objected, ‘Material reality is the only thing that I know exists.
It is what I can feel, touch, see, smell.’
And Daskalos replied, ‘There is nothing more misleading than the five senses.’
He means that our assumption that the five senses ‘reveal’ reality is mistaken.
They only reveal the limited reality of the immediate present,
and this would be meaningless to us unless it was ‘completed’ by our minds
.
The senses of the mystic and clairvoyant are like doors that will
open wider
than the doors of ordinary humanity.
What they perceive is not an alternative reality but an extension of normal reality.

Few people would disagree that they would be better off if they could induce peak experiences and mystical illuminations at will and experience clairvoyance and precognition when necessary.
What is rather more difficult to decide is whether we would be better off if we could see spirits and communicate with the dead.
Here the essential link in the chain of argument is exomatosis or ‘out-of-the-body experience’.
Reports of this experience are so widespread that there seems to be little doubt that it should be included among our ‘hidden powers’.
Some writers even give reasonably detailed instructions about how it can be brought about.
Here for example is a passage from John Heron’s
Confessions of a Janus-Brain
:

Years ago I lived in a remote cottage alone in the Isle of Man, and through the use of dietary control, ritual and meditation, I obtained for a period a measure of command over the process of going out of the physical body in the ka body.
[Heron uses this term for the ‘astral body’.] I will
describe the experience in the present tense, as if it is happening now.

I lie in bed, it does not matter in what position as long as I am very deeply relaxed both mentally and physically.
I then imagine all the energy in my body being drawn to a central point around the area of the solar plexus: I consciously ‘withdraw’ energy from all the extremities and focus it, condense it, in this one place — which is really, of course, a ka space within the physical body.

I must hold this conscious force of energy in the ka region of the solar plexus, without any distraction of attention to, or any ‘leaking’ back of energy to, the extremities.
The challenge is to sustain the focus for a sufficient time, in a state that combines intense alertness with deep relaxation.
The activity of consciousness is contracted to a central point, without drifting back to the limbs — which remain totally inert, dispossessed.
Then, after a certain period of charging up, the process of going out begins.

Going out is a dramatic experience.
There is a very powerful and very rapid spiral thrust of energy, an intense vortex of motion in ka space, that hurtles my consciousness from the solar plexus region up to and out through my head.
It is like being carried off in a rushing whirlwind.

There is no way this process can be confused with phantasy or delusion or anything of the sort.
It is a vertiginous encounter with the profound reality of inner space.
The potent vortex or subtle energy ruthlessly detaches me from the safe moorings of my physical body, and I surge into the world beyond.

Heron goes on to say:

Once I have transcended fear and surrendered to the powerful energy of the process, I am out of the physical body and start to travel.
My experience of travelling to ka domains has always been that of moving at very high
speed, in something like a rushing energy wind, with all my ka senses occluded so that I have no awareness of what sort of spaces I am travelling through.
I only feel the presence, but have no perception, of those who are conducting me on the journey … .

And here, as in the case of Arthur Ellison, we encounter the notion of the involvement of some kind of ‘protective entities’.
(Ellison, we may recall, felt hands grasping his head and firmly guiding him back to his body.) These are not invariably encountered in descriptions of ‘out-of-the-body’ travel, but often enough to suggest that they are a normal part of this ‘astral world’.

But do they
really
exist?
‘Astral travel’ undoubtedly involves an element of imagination: for example Daskalos explains that in order to get to some place on the other side of the world the ‘astral traveller’ merely has to imagine it and he is transported there.
So it is arguable that ‘out-of-the-body experiences’ are simply a version of Jung’s ‘active imagination’, and that the entities who may be encountered are really ‘archetypes of the collective unconscious’, like Philemon and Salome.
There is no reason why we should not take this view and refuse to go any further: that is, we could — figuratively — draw a line under ‘astral travel’ and ignore all the evidence for spirits, poltergeists and communication with the dead.
In that case we could define paranormal research simply as the study of the ‘hidden powers’ of the unconscious mind — a view that might be labelled the ‘anthropic’ theory of the paranormal.
And if we are prepared to admit the existence of Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’ then it must be admitted that the arguments in favour of the anthropic theory are very powerful indeed.
Spirits, according to this theory, are the creation of the human imagination, a response to man’s deep instinctive fear of death.

The anthropic theory strikes me, on the whole, as reasonable and satisfying, and the majority of paranormal researchers appear to agree.
All the same I am not happy with it, for most of them, if asked privately, will admit that they
are inclined to accept the reality of ‘survival’.
Not long before her death from lung cancer I asked Anita Gregory — known as one of the most sceptical of modern researchers — if she believed in life after death.
She replied:

You quite rightly say that I am considered one of the most tough-minded investigators of the SPR.
Let me try and explain what I mean by that.
To me, being tough-minded means being careful and conscientious about evidence, scrupulous about methodology and searching as regards possible failings both of my own and those of other people.
This type of hard-nosedness is for me a matter of principle and it often, much to my regret, brings me into conflict with people I like and with whom I see eye to eye on larger matters.