Olivia Robertson - The Call of Isis Eight

Illustration by Olivia Robertson, Chapter Eight

"Either silver or gold"

The Call of Isis

by

Olivia Robertson

8. Channels of Power.

It was Good Friday; and I wanted our house party to be aware of this. We had a cheerful girl cousin staying from Hertfordshire, and were having a good time enjoying the spring weather. But on this day I felt awareness of those who had died through faith in their particular ideals. I am one of those people who insist on sharing their moods with others. So I determined to find a means of doing so! That evening we were sitting round the blaze of an open wood fire in the sitting-room. Alexander was in his big chair; Valentine was in hers. Deirdre, my niece, and the cousin were present. I decided this was a moment to share my own feelings ... I did not say anything; but left the room and returned with Yogananda's 'Autobiography of a Yogi.'

Somehow I interrupted the general laughter and amusing stories. I began reading aloud the account of Therése Neumann's trance visitations every Good Friday; and commented that doubtless this had repeated itself today. Yogananda described seeing Therése lying in deep trance, pouring with blood from brow, hands and feet. Yogananda put himself into sympathetic psychic rapport, and saw that Therése was witnessing the Passion of Christ. Having gained the attention of my audience, I went on to read that the nail marks that appeared on Therése's hands were square, and Yogananda pointed out that this was like the square nails used in the East ...

However my reading was abruptly interrupted by Valentine, who suddenly uttered a sharp cry, clapped one hand over the other and shot out of the room.

Afterwards she explained what had happened. She said she could not have explained in front of the cousin. As I described the hand stigmata of Therése, she became aware of a sharp piercing on the palm of her right hand. It hurt. She showed me the marks. Sure enough, in the centre of the palm were four clear cut red pricks, in the shape of a square. These marks lasted for about a fortnight, and then gradually faded out, one by one.

As in the case of the mystery of the bent latch-key, we have a demonstration of the influence of the mind on physical matter. But the mind - this combination of thought, feeling and imagination does not operate on its own on the body. This is why so many efforts at healing through thought fail. The mind operates through the medium of an etheric power network upon physical matter.

What is this power? One may well ask a scientist to define the nature of electricity. He can tell about the properties of electricity - but not what electricity is. And as 'power' and its area of activity, the ether are as yet unproven, one must fall back upon the experience of oneself and others.

Reichenbach called this Force 'Odic Fluid.' Mesmer, disastrously for his scientific reputation, described it as 'animal magnetism'. Yogis name it Kundalini, Shakti force, a form of prana. I used to call it 'electric-like power' until a doctor told me that it was not electric. Many esotericists use the word 'magnetic', but this apparently is not an acceptable term for scientists, Another doctor told me it was Cosmic Fire - but he was an esotericist. So in our family we used the handy word Vril,' from Bulwer Lytton's novel, 'The Coming Race'. His feminine Gy-ei were particularly good at utilizing it.

To the trance psychic, it would appear that our apparently solid earth material is built upon an invisible network, like a spider's web, formed of intersecting channels of force. Our own bodies have a complicated individual pattern of this web, working through certain centres; yet inter-connected with all other beings and things. Indeed one might suppose that the universe is composed of a fantastically complicated spider's web, that yet is formed of one single strand.

Some occult students have seen glimpses of this web. To me it has appeared as either silver or gold. On one occasion I had a vision of silver 'power' flowing through the head of a white-silver Being with whom I associated the name 'Isis'. The power came through the top of the head, in two places, in the form of two great spreading antlers like those of a Royal stag. This may be the silvery power one feels in brow and throat, and at the top of the head.

The gold power I have seen around the head of two figures, who looked like Indian God and Goddess. The figures were made of sunlike gold light. Around each head was a network of golden Power that reminded me of the Phoenix head-dress of China. This form of channelled power was not in two streams, as with the two silver branches. It was in the form of a gold mesh with intersecting lines of power. I have since then seen a similar formation portrayed as headdress on an Indian dancer performing the role of Siva, God of this type of force.

I feel that possibly this gold power is that which one feels in the heart, solar plexus and in the spine. Possibly one sort of power is reflected in the physical form through the sympathetic nervous system; the other through the cerebro-spinal system. For the greater is mirrored forth in the lesser, and a lower level is a microcosm of a permeating higher sphere.

It is interesting to note the social attitude in Homo Sapiens towards the lunar and the solar areas of being. The sphere of the psychic, the passive, is treated as atavistic, domain of women, peasants and gypsies! The field of the magician, however, is respected as belonging to the theurgic power of the Master, who commands the elements.

All our education on this planet is directed to suppressing the old instinctive human psychism, and to developing the rational faculties, controlling practical techniques. I discovered this for myself when I wished to retreat to the psychic passive level, in order later to combine this with the magical sphere.

One can easily test this for oneself. Shut one's eyes. Can one see vividly in pictures? It is pretty certain that if one habitually sees in pictures one is not clever at passing examinations! All our education - with a few exceptions - teach very young children to change from seeing in pictures, eidetic imagery, to thinking in words. The little television set in our brains is short-circuited early on in our scholastic life, and a broadcasting station comes in with brain-washing insistence. One is taught to think in abstract terms, as this is 'higher'. I am reminded of some visitors to the Castle, who walked round our rooms and turned all the objects therein into figures: Pounds and Pence. There are others who turn a book into a 'title', and humans into statistics. Our feelings are classified into psychological terms. One is not shy; one is introverted: not many-sided, but rather schizophrenic. And so forth This doubtless prepared us to adjust, to structure ourselves into a society which provides us with a flat in a high-rise block, and provides us 'assistance' through a numbered form. Human terms are translated into scientific jargon. We are no longer old: we are Senior Citizens. We cannot be poor any more, we are 'under-privileged.' These are not basically kindly euphemisms. They are de-humanizing abstractions.

Before we computerize ourselves out of existence, we should take a look at what we have lost. For in this area of living we may not take two steps forward without one step backwards. We have lost vision. We cannot see the majority of humanity who are in another sphere - 'dead,' We cannot see Gods or angels. We cannot hear the music of the spheres. And these limitations, ever diminishing our range of consciousness, are also affecting our physical bodies. The spiritually blind soon find they need even stronger spectacles. It is remarkable to note the growing number of people wearing glasses. We cannot hear the music of heaven, so are growing physically deaf. The sound of the cricket and the bat are seldom heard by us. As for our sense of touch - we can feel neither healing being given to us, nor know when healing has left us.

There are those who, faced with the monotony of office and factory life, take refuge in day-dreaming and drugs. They retreat to the psychic realm of the moon, and are classed as maladjusted. Thousands of young people take this course and, rather than live a de-humanized existence in a machine-dominated world ruled by the computer mind - opt out of it all. They try to form an alternative society where art, nature and the psychic once again play a true part.

But to retreat to childhood, however beautiful, is not a sufficient solution. There must be an innate desire to comprehend during the development of Homo Sapiens; and then, not to run away from intellect, but to combine it with the heritage of the man of instinct. Otherwise one can walk around in a dream, unsuccessful in both spheres of day and night.

I feel that the synthesizing agent is 'Vril', Solar Power. And this is as it should be, for the Heart Centre commands the whole body, head to foot. It is through the etheric centres that healing can be channelled through from the psychic sphere to the physical body. And the practical man, the scientist, respects that which definitely affects the physical fields - his own field. The New Elysium needs to manifest on earth, rather than to be banished from earth. For earth is not impure. It is the material used in transmutation, the evolution of mind through form.

When we discover that this power flows through the universal web, we realize that we may transform not only ourselves but those about us, and our surroundings. This transmutation is only effective when voluntarily accepted, and harmonizes with the universal symphony of life. What creature will ultimately refuse love? All nature responds to creative vitality.

Understanding this, we are ready to work actively within the sphere of the sun. We need to learn to bring through that which we have imagined into actual physical existence.

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Text presented on this site as it appears in the 1975 editi