Part 20

You must not, however, imagine that every person with whom you engage in one of these psychic duels is conscious of what is going on. He usually recognizes that some sort of conflict is under way, but he does not know the laws and principles of psychic force, and so is in the dark regarding the procedure. You will find that a little practice of this kind, in which no great question is involved, will give you a certain knack or trick of handling your psychic forces, and will, besides, give you that confidence in yourself that comes only from actual practice and exercise. I can point out the rules, and give you the principles, but you must learn the little bits of technique yourself from actual practice.

When you have crossed psychic swords with the other person, gaze at him intently but not fiercely, and send him this positive strong thought-vibration: "I am stronger than you, and I shall win!" At the same time picture to yourself your forces beating down his and overcoming him. Hold this idea and picture in your mind: "My vibrations are stronger than are yours--I am beating you!" Follow this up with the idea and picture of: "You are weakening and giving in--you are being overpowered!" A very powerful psychic weapon is the following: "My vibrations are scattering your forces--I am breaking your forces into bits--surrender, surrender now, I tell you!"

And now for some interesting and very valuable information concerning psychic defense. You will notice that in the offensive psychic weapons there is always an assertion of positive statement of your power and its effect. Well, then, in using the psychic defensive weapon against one of strong will or psychic force, you reverse the process. That is to say you deny the force of his psychic powers and forces, and picture them as melting into nothingness. Get this idea well fixed in your mind, for it is very important in a conflict of this kind. The effect of this is to neutralize all of the other person's power so far as its effect on yourself is concerned--you really do not destroy it in him totally. You simply render his forces powerless to affect you. This is important not only when in a psychic conflict of this kind, but also when you wish to render yourself immune from the psychic forces of other persons. You may shut yourself up in a strong defensive armor in this way, and others will be powerless to affect you.

In the positive statement, "I deny!" you have the Occult Shield of Defense, which is a mighty protection to you. Even if you do not feel disposed to cultivate and develop your psychic powers in the direction of influencing others, you should at least develop your defensive powers so as to resist any psychic attacks upon yourself.

You will find it helpful to practice these offensive and defensive weapons when you are alone, standing before your mirror and "playing" that your reflection in the glass is the other person. Send this imaginary other person the psychic vibrations, accompanied by the mental picture suitable for it. Act the part out seriously and earnestly, just as if the reflected image were really another person. This will give you confidence in yourself, and that indefinable "knack" of handling your psychic weapons that comes only from practice. You will do well to perfect yourself in these rehearsals, just as you would in case you were trying to master anything else. By frequent earnest rehearsals, you will gain not only familiarity with the process and methods, but you will also gain real power and strength by the exercise of your psychic faculties which have heretofore lain dormant. Just as you may develop the muscle of your arm by calisthenic exercises, until it is able to perform real muscular work of strength; so you may develop your psychic faculties in this rehearsal work, so that you will be strongly equipped and armed for an actual psychic conflict, besides having learned how to handle your psychic weapons.

After you have practiced sufficiently along the general offensive and defensive lines, and have learned how to manifest these forces in actual conflict, you will do well to practice special and specific commands to others, in the same way. That is to say, practice them first on your reflected image in the mirror. The following commands (with mental pictures, of course) will give you good practice. Go about the work in earnest, and act out the part seriously. Try these exercises: "Here! look at me!" "Give me your undivided attention!" "Come this way!" "Come to me at once!" "Go away from me--leave me at once!" "You like me--you like me very much!" "You are afraid of me!" "You wish to please me!" "You will agree to my proposition!" "You will do as I tell you!" Any special command you wish to convey to another person, psychically, you will do well to practice before the mirror in this way.

When you have made satisfactory progress in the exercises above mentioned, and are able, to demonstrate them with a fair degree of success in actual practice, you may proceed to experiment with persons along the lines of special and direct commands by psychic force. The following will give you a clear idea of the nature of the experiments in question, but you may enlarge upon and vary them indefinitely. Remember there is no virtue in mere words--the effect comes from the power of the thought behind the words. But, nevertheless, you will find that positive words, used in these silent commands, will help you to fit in your feeling to the words. Always make the command a real COMMAND, never a mere entreaty or appeal. Assume the mental attitude of a master of men--of a commander and ruler of other men. Here follow a number of interesting experiments along these lines, which will be very useful to you in acquiring the art of personal influence of this kind:

SEVEN VALUABLE EXERCISES

EXERCISE 1: When walking down the street behind a person, make him turn around in answer to your mental command. Select some person who does not seem to be too much rushed or too busy--select some person who seems to having nothing particular on his mind. Then desire earnestly that he shall turn around when you mentally call to him to do so; at the same time picture him as turning around in answer to your call; and at the same time concentrate your attention and thought firmly upon him. After a few moments of preparatory thought, send him the following message, silently of course, with as much force, positiveness and vigor as possible: "Hey there! turn around and look at me! Hey! turn around, turn around at once!" While influencing him fix your gaze at the point on his neck where the skull joins it--right at the base of the brain, in the back. In a number of cases, you will find that the person will look around as if someone had actually called him aloud. In other cases, he will seem puzzled, and will look from side to side as if seeking some one. After a little practice you will be surprised how many persons you can affect in this way.

EXERCISE 2: When in a public place, such as a church, concert or theatre, send a similar message to someone seated a little distance in front of you. Use the same methods as in the first exercise, and you will obtain similar results. It will seem queer to you at first to notice how the other person will begin to fidget and move around in his seat, and finally glance furtively around as if to see what is causing him the disturbance. You, of course, will not let him suspect that it is you, but, instead will gaze calmly ahead of you, and pretend not to notice him.

EXERCISE 3: This is a variation of the first exercise. It is practiced by sending to a person approaching you on the street, or walking ahead of you in the same direction, a command to turn to the right, or to the left, as you prefer. You will be surprised to see how often you will be successful in this.

EXERCISE 4: This is a variation of the second exercise. It is practiced by sending to a person seated in front of you in a public place the command to look to the right, or to the left, as you prefer. Do not practice on the same person too long, after succeeding at first--it is not right to torment people, remember.

EXERCISE 5: After having attained proficiency in the foregoing exercises, you many proceed to command a person to perform certain unimportant motions, such as rising or sitting down, taking off his hat, taking out his handkerchief, laying down a fan, umbrella, etc.

EXERCISE 6: The next step is to command persons to say some particular word having no important meaning; to "put words in his mouth" while talking to him. Wait until the other person pauses as if in search of a word, and then suddenly, sharply and forcibly put the word into his mouth, silently of course. In a very susceptible person, well under your psychic control, you may succeed in suggesting entire sentences and phrases to him.

EXERCISE 7: This is the summit of psychic influencing, and, of course, is the most difficult. But you will be surprised to see how well you will succeed in many cases, after you have acquired the knack and habit of sending the psychic message. It consists of commanding the person to obey the spoken command or request that you are about to make to him. This is the art and secret of the success of many salesmen, solicitors, and others working along the lines of influencing other people. It is acquired by beginning with small things, and gradually proceeding to greater, and still greater. At this point I should warn you that all the best occult teachings warn students against using this power for base ends, improper purposes, etc. Such practices tend to react and rebound against the person using them, like a boomerang. Beware against using psychic or occult forces for improper purposes--the psychic laws punish the offender, just as do the physical laws.

Finally, I caution the student against talking too much about his developing powers. Beware of boasting or bragging about these things. Keep silent, and keep your own counsel. When you make known your powers, you set into operation the adverse and antagonistic thought of persons around you who may be jealous of you, and who would wish to see you fail, or make yourself ridiculous. The wise head keepeth a still tongue! One of the oldest occult maxims is: "Learn! Dare! Do! Keep Silent!!!" You will do well to adhere strictly to this warning caution.

LESSON XVIII.

PSYCHIC INFLUENCE AT A DISTANCE

The second phase of Psychic Influence is that called Distant Psychic Influence, in which psychic induction is manifested when the persons are distant in space from one another--not in the presence of each other. Here, of course, we see the principle of telepathy involved in connection with the process of mental induction: and in some cases even the astral telepathic sense is called into operation.

The student who has followed my explanation and course of reasoning in the preceding lessons will readily perceive that the principle involved in this distant phase of psychic influence is precisely the same as that employed in direct personal psychic influence. As I have explained in an early lesson, it matters little whether the space to be covered by the psychic vibratory waves is but one foot or a thousand miles, the principle is exactly the same. There are, of course, other principles involved in the case of two persons meeting face to face and calling into force their psychic powers; for instance, there is the element of suggestion and association, and other psychological principles which are not in force when the two persons are out of the actual presence of each other. But so far as the telepathic or astral psychic powers are concerned, the mere extension of space does not change the principle.

The student who has developed his power of psychic induction in the phases mentioned in the preceding chapter, may begin to experiment and practice psychic induction at long-range, if he so wishes. That is to say, instead of causing psychic induction in the minds of persons actually in his presence and sight, he may produce similar results in persons out of his sight and presence. The person may be brought into presence and psychic contact, for all practical purposes, by using the visualizing powers for the purpose of bringing him into the en rapport condition. That is to say, by using the imagination to bring into the mind a strong clear picture of the other person, you may induce an en rapport condition in which he will be practically in the same psychic relation to you as if he were actually before you. Of course, if he is sufficiently well informed regarding occult matters, he may shut you out by drawing a psychic circle around himself which you cannot penetrate, or by surrounding himself with psychic armor or atmosphere such as I have already mentioned in preceding lessons. But as he will not likely know anything of this, the average person may be reached in the manner just mentioned.

Or again, you may establish en rapport conditions by psychometric methods, by holding to your forehead an article which has been in the other person's possession for some time; an article worn by him; a piece of his hair; etc. Or, again, you may use the crystal to bring up his astral vision before you. Or, again, you may erect an "astral tube" such as I will mention a little further on in this chapter, and thus establish a strong en rapport condition.

Having established the en rapport condition with the other person, and having thus practically brought him into your presence, psychically speaking, you may proceed to send him commands or demands, just as you did in the phase of personal psychic influence previously mentioned. You act precisely as if the other person were present before you, and state your commands or demands to him just as you would were he seated or standing in your presence. This is the keynote of the whole thing; the rest is simply an elaboration and stating of details of methods, etc. With the correct principle once established, you may apply the same according to your own wishes and discretion.

This phase of distant psychic influence is at the bottom of all the wonderful tales, stories and legends of supernatural powers, witchcraft, sorcery, etc., with which the pages of history are filled. There is of course always to be found much distortion and exaggeration in these legends and tales, but they have truth at the bottom of them. In this connection, let me call your attention to a very important psychic principle involved. I have told you that by denying the power of any person over you, you practically neutralize his psychic power--the stronger and more positive your belief in your immunity, and your denial of his power over you, the more do you rob him of any such power. The average person, not knowing this, is more or less passive to psychic influences of other persons, and may be affected by them to a greater or less extent, depending upon the psychic development of the person seeking to influence him. At the extreme of the sensitive pole of psychic influence, we find those persons who believe firmly that the other person has power over them, and who are more or less afraid of him. This belief and fear acts to make them particularly sensitive and impressionable, and easily affected by his psychic induction. This is the reason that the so-called witches and sorcerers and others of evil repute have been able to acquire such a power over their victims, and to cause so much trouble. The secret is that the victims believed in the power of the other person, and feared their power. The greater the belief in, and fear of, the power of the person, the greater the susceptibility to his influence; the greater the sense of power of neutralizing the power, and the disbelief in his power to affect them, the greater the degree of immunity: this is the rule!

Accordingly we find that persons in various stages of the history of the world have been affected by the influences of witches, sorcerers, and other unprincipled persons. In most cases these so-called witches and sorcerers themselves were under the delusion that they were assisted by the devil or some other supernatural being. They did not realize that they were simply using perfectly natural methods, and employing perfectly natural forces. For that matter, you must remember that magnetism and electricity, in ancient days, were considered as supernatural forces in some way connected with demonic powers.

Studying the history of witchcraft, sorcery, black-magic, and the like, you will find that the devotees thereof usually employed some psychometric method. In other cases they would mould little figures of clay, or of wax, in the general shape and appearance of the person whom they wished to affect. It was thought that these little figures were endowed with some supernatural powers or attributes, but of course this was mere superstition. The whole power of these little figures arose from the fact that they aided the imagination of the spell-worker in forming a mental image of the person sought to be influenced; and thus established a strong en rapport condition. Added to this, you must remember that the fear and belief of the public greatly aided the spell-worker and increased his power and influence over these poor persons.

I will give you a typical case, taken from an old German book, which thoroughly illustrates the principles involved in cases of this kind. Understand this case, and you will have the secret and working principle of them all. The story is told by an eminent German physician of the last century. He relates that he was consulted by one of his patients, a wealthy farmer living near by. The farmer complained that he was disturbed every night by strange noises which sounded like someone pounding iron. The disturbances occurred between the hours of ten o'clock and midnight, each and every night. The physician asked him if he suspected anyone of causing the strange trouble. The farmer answered that he suspected an old enemy of his, an old village blacksmith living several miles away from his farm. It appears that an old long-standing feud between them had broken out afresh, and that the blacksmith had made threats of employing his "hex" (witchcraft) powers on the old farmer. The blacksmith was reputed to be a sort of "hex" or male-witch, and the farmer believed in his diabolic powers and was very much in fear of them. So you see the ideal condition for psychic receptivity was present.

The physician called on the blacksmith, and taking him by surprise, gazing sternly into his eyes and asked him: "What do you do every night between ten and twelve o'clock?" The blacksmith, frightened and disturbed, stammered out: "I hammer a bar of iron every night at that time, and all the while I think intently of a bad neighbor of mine who once cheated me out of some money; and I 'will' at the same time that the noise will disturb his rest, until he will pay me back my money to get peace and quiet." The physician bade him to desist from his evil practices, under threats of dire punishment; and then went to the farmer and made him straighten out the financial dispute between the two. Thereafter, there was no more trouble.