WE have seen in a previous Chapter that nervous and mental disorders can simulate a psychic attack, especially if the subject is familiar with the terminology of occultism.
We must also consider the part played by psychic attack in nervous and mental disorders.
But before we can embark upon this section of our studies, we must give a brief explanation of the nature of nervous and mental disturbances and the distinction between them.
We will not go into academic considerations, for these pages are not written for the orthodox professional psychologist, who has an abundance of textbooks at his disposal, but for the person whose interest is primarily in occult matters, and who comes to the study of the subject unequipped with the technicalities of psychology and psycho-physiology, two sciences of which at least a working knowledge is exceedingly necessary in the pursuit of practical occultism.
In the course of an incarnation the mind is built up on the foundations of the traits of the Higher Self, or Individuality, which is the immortal soul that develops in the course of an evolution.
The mind, therefore, is part of the personality -the unit of incarnation - commencing at birth and dissolving at death, its essence being absorbed by the individuality , which evolves thereby.
[Note for clarification from the Editor/Arranger of this html document: The Personality is the ego or external identity and ordinary consciousness of a person, and the Individuality is the Higher-self, H.G.A., or spiritual component of a person.] The mind is essentially the organ of adaptation to the environment, and it is when that adaptation fails that neurotic and hysterical troubles begin.
Each living creature is the channel for a current of life-force which proceeds from the Logos, the Creator of this universe.
This current is divided into three main channels represented to us as the three great natural instincts, Self-preservation, Reproduction, and the Social Instinct.
These are the mainsprings of our lives.
The pressure of Life itself is behind them, and if they are thwarted beyond their power of compensation (considerable as that is), they are like streams whose channels are blocked, and which in consequence overflow and make a morass of the adjacent land.
Emotion is the subjective aspect of an instinct.
That is to say, when an instinct is at work, we feel emotion.
Every emotion we feel can be referred to one or other of the instincts.
Our resentment of a slur upon our dignity has its roots in the instinct of Self-preservation.
Our love of art has its roots in the instinct of love, beauty and creative expression which, upon its lowest arc, is called sex.
Each of these instincts has its high spiritual aspect and its elemental physical aspect, and transmution from one plane to another takes place freely, so that unless we understand the significance of these manifestations we shall be misled.
In their understanding is the key to the science of life.
If one of these great instincts is so thwarted that all attempts at compensation break down; or if the temperament is so inelastic and unaccommodating that it will not modify its demands, the ego makes a final desperate attempt at adjustment which goes outside the limits within which harmonious relations with the environment can be maintained.
Communications with the environment break down, and the mind has, in part at least, quitted the sphere of reality for the sphere of imagination.
The sense of fixed values is lost, and things assume a symbolic importance.
This breakdown may be partial, relating to certain aspects of the life only, or it may be total.
In hysteria, the dammed-up forces of life remain in the channel, but spurt with concentrated force through any sluice that may be opened to them.
Consequently, instead of the river below the obstruction being a smooth-flowing body of water, it descends in rapids and whirlpools difficult and dangerous to navigate, so that the barque of life makes shipwreck therein.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
The passage discusses the mind being built up 'in the course of an incarnation' and dissolving at death.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The text describes the human mind and instincts as channels for a universal life-force current from the Logos, reflecting cosmic principles in the individual.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The text mentions instincts having both 'high spiritual aspect and its elemental physical aspect' with transmutation between planes.
The doctrine and practice of one person deliberately inflicting harm on another through trained will, mind-power, or occult technique alone, without physical contact — producing exhaustion, illness, breakdown, or death in the victim; recognised cross-culturally as witchcraft, hexing, or the evil eye, and treated in Western esotericism as a genuine occult hazard requiring diagnosis and defence rather than dismissed as superstition. Distinct from magical_will (the general doctrine that trained volition has causal power, of which this is one malevolent application) and from spirit_conjuration (which subordinates an already-existing summoned spirit, rather than directing the operator's own power at a person).
The text explicitly discusses the relationship between nervous disorders and psychic attacks, noting they can simulate each other.
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
The passage distinguishes between the Personality (ego), the Individuality (Higher Self), and the Mind as distinct functional components of the human being.