Category Archives: Psychic and New Age

The Seven Distortions of the Psychic Realm

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By George A. Boyd ©2017

Q: What are some of the challenges aspirants face in the Psychic Realm?

A: The Psychic Realm is called the world of illusion. Seven major misrepresentations of perception and knowing contaminate the spiritual teachings that come from the Psychic Realm.

These illusions distort the Soul’s clear vision and lead to misapprehension of the working of the laws of the mind, and promote irrational thinking and false beliefs. These seven distortions are briefly described below.

  1. Solipsism – In this view, only the Self and its mental content is real, and is the only creative force. This ignores the natural events of the world, the actions of other people, and spiritual agencies that operate independently of the Self as causative factors. This leads aspirants to profound narcissistic absorption, and creates genuine distress when their efforts at creation do not bear immediate fruit or when others do not acquiesce to their every whim.
  2. Amorality – In this perspective, there is no good or evil, only undifferentiated Oneness. This leads the aspirants who experience this distortion to abide in peace and sublime detachment. Holding this point of view suppresses their ability to act on truth, to stand up for what is right and just, and to honor your values and integrity. [We are reminded that if anything is fine, and there is no good or evil, then criminals will rule and anarchy will prevail.]
  3. Omnipotence – From this standpoint, it appears that whatever aspirants intend or wish will magically and miraculously manifest. This leads to unrealistic notions about the Laws of the Universal Mind, the Law of Attraction, and the purported “motivations of the universe”—that they only exist to instantly fulfill their every desire. If this instant manifestation does not occur, then aspirants blame their thoughts and emotions, which they believe are in some manner blocking or hindering these beneficent forces.
  4. Present time absorption – In this distortion, aspirants keep their attention focused on the “eternal now.” By keeping their attention fixed in this altered state of consciousness, they neglect the adoption of appropriate orientation to their temporal experience. They abandon the immediacy of the experienced present in the Conscious mind; shun the storehouse of lived experience in the reservoir of memory in their Subconscious mind; and neglect the future orientation of Metaconscious mind that enables them to plan and set goals. These other three temporal orientations play important roles in adult functioning and in promoting personal growth—continuously abiding in the perspective of the eternal can effectively shut down personal functioning.
  5. Magical and paranoid thinking – When aspirants operate from this mindset, they run the risk of generating irrational thinking through transcending grounded awareness, suppressing reason and reality testing, and re-identifying as a spiritual essence. Belief in conspiracy theories, spiritual fantasies, and the content of unfounded channeled messages readily promote paranoia and delusion in those who do not take the time to examine these warped ideas to discover in what ways they introduce distortion and untruth.
  6. Glamour – This distortion occurs when aspirants misunderstand the phenomena of the Psychic Realm, and they tend to over-value, exaggerate, and idealize the content that comes from this band of the Continuum. Glamour also idealizes and makes people larger than life—actors and sports stars become “celebrities,” famous and gifted people are viewed as infallible gods and goddesses.
  7. Warped notions of transformation and ascension – In this distortion, aspirants come to believe that the misalignment of one of their vehicles of consciousness in the Psychic Realm is “ascension.” They use Kriya-like practices such as the Merkaba method to create “transformation,” which creates spiritual imbalance, and generates perceptual illusions and cognitive delusions. Some who perform these unbalancing practices come to believe they are “the Christ” or a “Master,” even though their Soul’s spiritual evolution is far below the station in which the Masters genuinely dwell.

We encourage aspirants to examine themselves to determine whether any of these distorted viewpoints are operating in them, and to root them out.

Aspirants will benefit from reading our book, The Psychic Realm: Finding Safe Passage through the Worlds of Illusion for guidance on how to combat these illusions.

If you have been exposed to the charismatic and visionary teachers that dwell in this realm, or channeled teachings that arise from this Band of the Continuum, it is likely you have been exposed to one or more of these distortions. We suggest that it will be valuable for you to remain vigilant, as it is very easy to slip into these seductive mindsets that abandon reason and personal responsibility, and promote irrationality and delusion.

Revisiting the Veil Over the Soul

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By George A. Boyd ©2015

Many people are not aware of their Soul. Their experience only encompasses the world of their senses, their body, their relationships, and their faculty of reason. Others have access to deeper layers of the mind, but their awareness is not raised to the level where they can cognize levels of their Superconscious mind, or their conscious essences—attentional principle, spirit, or Soul. Because they do not penetrate into these deepest levels of spiritual experience, they operate with a veil over their spiritual core.

It appears that successive states of identification come forward as layers of potential awareness progressively become dominant in the mind. These states of identification and potential awareness are shown in the table below.

Veil

Level

Dominant Faculty

Who demonstrates this
level of identification
85.7% to 100%

 Empirical

 Reason

 Scientists
71.4% to 85.6%

 Egoic

 Ego

 Politicians, actors, businessmen
57.1% to 71.3%

 Attention

 Attention (travels through the layers of the mind in the astral body)

 Psychics, hypnotists, channelers, New Age practitioners, healers: these enter trance states through their astral body or meditate on the chakras
42.9% to 57.0%

 Attentional
principle

 Attentional principle (collects attention and leads it along the thread of consciousness,
directs it via intention)

 Mindfulness practitioners, Raja Yoga meditators, those who utilize creation or manifestation meditation
28.6% to 42.8%

 Self

 Self (faculty of volition directs human life and destiny)

 Coaches, teachers, counselors, and therapists
14.3% to 28.5%

 The
spirit

 Individual spirit (spirit awakens and travels in the channels of the Nada)

 Mystics, devotees, Nada Yoga meditators
0% to 14.2%

 Soul

 Ensouling entity (realizes the God essence within)

 Enlightened meditators, practitioners of Integral meditation, Psychosynthesis, Jnana Yogis who experience Gnosis

As potential awareness becomes established over time in each successive identity state, the veil begins to gradually lift until the Soul is revealed in its true essence. But this veil does not lift simply because you raise your awareness, it often requires that you work on the issues that hold it in place.

What Constructs the Veil?

The following factors play a role in construction this veil over the Soul:

  1. Unprocessed life experiences – This occurs when you never sort out your experiences through reflection or in the dream state, which keeps you stuck in a particular layer
  2. Karmic accretions – These are emotionalized, desire-laden impressions in the unconscious mind that form a barrier that blocks you moving to a deeper layer. You may have an unwillingness to confront these issues, which may bring up feelings of fear, guilt, or shame.
  3. Automatized awareness – This occurs when you maintain your awareness at one of these levels through routine or habit, or when you must function in that level through the demands of career or family.
  4. Lack of meditation practice – In this scenario, you don’t pierce the veil because you never lift your awareness through meditation to penetrate to your core.
  5. Limiting beliefs – You learn beliefs and values that dissuade or frighten you from entering deeper states of awareness. You may have learned that entering certain other states of awareness are states of insanity, or states where you lose control.
  6. Inner gates – You may come across inner gates that prevent your attention from moving deeper into the layers of the mind. Two common gates are the one that blocks entrance to the Subconscious mind, and the one that limits access to the Superconscious mind.

There are a variety of meditation methods to begin to deconstruct this veil. These methods include:

  1. Process meditation – This enables you to help you work through and complete specific issues, so they no longer influence you from the unconscious mind.
  2. Active reflection and decision-making – This allows you to analyze the nature of the inner block or barrier. Once you know what it is, you can make new decisions to release its hold on you.
  3. Breakthrough – Through moving through the entire unconscious mind and the issues stored in it, you can break through into union with your attentional principle, spirit, or Soul. This can sublimate the desire-laden impressions and give you greater control over their expression in your life.
  4. Mindfulness – Through creating the inner mental habits of self-observation and mindfulness, you can begin to break out of the hypnotic spell of habit and routine.
  5. Conscious ascension to deeper layers of awareness and identity – Through learning how to direct your attention along the thread of consciousness to unite with the attentional principle, Self, spirit, and Soul.
  6. Inventory and introspection – Through structured inventory and introspection, you can discover the beliefs and values that keep you locked in an identity state. You learn to cultivate courage, faith, and curiosity to drive attention to explore deeper layers of the mind.
  7. Breaking up mindsets – You can use affirmation and autohypnosis to counter limiting beliefs. You can utilize evocative coaching questions to shift your mindsets to entertain other possibilities.
  8. The truth shall set you free – Be willing to tell the truth about your experience and about your failings; be willing to face the truth about yourself that you have been evading, and to face the uncomfortable feelings that uncovering surfaces. Psychotherapy can facilitate this.
  9. Find another pathway – If you encounter inner gates, try adopting a different form of meditation to help you get around these barriers.
  10. Transmutation – Burn away the barrier through drawing down the Light of the Spirit through implementing a transformational meditation technique.

For Ralph Waldo Emerson, “the unexamined life was not worth living.” He insisted upon opening his awareness to the transcendental vistas of the Soul, and looking at life from this expanded perspective. Perhaps people do not achieve their full potential because they do not expand their awareness to the level where their true promise can be known and actualized.

For those who wish to take on the project of deconstructing their veil and fully actualizing their potential, we teach many of these methods in our intermediate Integral meditation programs, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and on-line Accelerated Meditation Program. These courses provide the meditator with a variety of tools to counter these inner barriers that construct the veil over the Soul, and dismantle them. Those who wish to learn more about our system of Integral meditation that promotes person growth, enlightenment, and unlimited spiritual growth can do so at our website, https://www.mudrashram.com.

Concerning the World Mind

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By George A. Boyd ©2017

Q: What is the world mind?

A: There are several constructions of the world mind, which are described below:

  1. A purported neuro-electric network connecting the brains of human beings – this allows us to understand other people’s communication.
  2. The Internet – the collected assembly of human knowledge on a series of storage devices throughout the world, allowing dynamic intercommunication of this knowledge. This is humanity’s concretization of the information Aether.
  3. The international forum for resolution of world problems – this includes international organizations like the United Nations and the World Court, which however ineffectually, attempt to work with the needs and concerns of disparate nations at different stages of economic and social development. This brings a global perspective on human affairs, and reminds us that we are one world—and humanity, however diverse, is one family.
  4. The mind of Nature – In the Gaia hypothesis, the world itself is a conscious being. It operates to nurture, care for, and sustain the different kingdoms under its aegis—the deva-angelic, human, animal, plant, monera (e.g., bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and viruses), and mineral.
  5. The collective mind that absorbs humanity in materialism – This vision of the collective world mind appears to conflate the maelstrom of evil that the Lower Astral Plane embodies with the combined progress of humanity in science, technologies, and humanistic social advancement outside the circle of the Planetary Initiations.

Aspirants and disciples need to be aware of the content that arises from the Lower Astral, and keep themselves free from its influences. They also need to be aware of the advances of science and humanism, and utilize these advances to enhance their career and carry out their life’s work.

  1. The “mind” outside the spiritual Path – Viewed from spiritual traditions embedded in the Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental levels of the Continuum of Consciousness, it appears that the Subtle, Planetary, and Transplanetary bands constitute an outer darkness, a matrix of nescience, or a cloak over the “higher truths” revealed upon their Path. What these traditions fail to grasp is that the darkness they see is their own unawakened potentials in these realms—what they have done is skipped ahead to Higher Octave spiritual work and failed to complete their spiritual development in these realms.

Even though it takes longer, in Mudrashram®, we complete your spiritual development in these lower bands first, before working in these higher octaves.

The Subtle, Planetary, and Transplanetary Realms have been construed as a series of lower chakras in the feet and legs below the spine, as a series of “lower worlds,” or a collective matrix of illusion (Maya). Some groups consider the personal integration centers of the human personality—the ego and the Self—are embedded in this “outer darkness” and must be transcended. Spiritual work, in their view, is that spiritual work is contingent upon restraining the personality and detaching from it, living instead in union with a higher spiritual essence.

  1. The Great Continuum of Consciousness – This vision of the world mind construes a continuum of consciousness reaching from centers below the waking state of consciousness in the Conscious mind to the highest levels of the Transcendental Sphere in the Superconscious mind. We have mapped this Continuum and explicated its many levels in the Mudrashram® Correspondence Course. In this perspective, spiritual groups colonize discrete levels upon this Continuum and open tracks through it—these are the different spiritual Paths. This view of the collective mind does not create splits between an outer mind and an inner Path—it instead describes and delineates the content at each level, noting where it dwells upon this Continuum.

We are concerned when spiritual traditions embrace world mind conceptions five and six that demonize and deprecate the material progress of the world, or write off entire bands of the Continuum as an illusion or as outer darkness. This can lead to paranoid belief systems that see evil everywhere; and produce protective “lighthouse” mindsets, where they confine themselves to the safety of the Light of the Path they have opened—and split themselves off from their personality and the rich content of the bands of the Continuum they have rejected.

We recommend that aspirants and disciples contemplate these seven types of world mind conceptions and familiarize themselves with them. They should pay special attention to see if they are creating inner splits between the “Path” and their personality, or between their Path and an “outer darkness.”

A Brief Primer on Illusion

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By George A. Boyd © 2011

In an East Indian wisdom tale, Sage Astabakra gave a response to a king’s question, “Which is real, the waking state or the dreaming state?” Astabakra replied, “Oh King, neither this waking state or this dream state is real.”

In this viewpoint, both the subjective sense of a Soul—the ensouling entity or eternal essence—and the embodied life that the ego and the Self know, are both illusory. Not all hold this perspective, however. We compare the perspectives on what is real and what is not in different spiritual and secular traditions in the table below.

Scenario

Statement

Identification

Is It Real?

Approaches that embrace this perspective

Soul
(EE)

Embodied Life
(EL)

1

Both are not real

Satchitananda [In Advaita and Vedanta Paths of the First Cosmic Initiation, they use this rejection of both objective and subjective life to re-identify with Brahman. It also appears in the Third Transcendental Path, where chelas are taught that only God is real.]

No

No

Brahma Vidya (Path of T7)

2

EE is real; EL is not real

T1 to T5 spirit and ensouling entity; Supracosmic Soul or Supracosmic seed atom; Astral Soul or Cosmic Sphere nucleus of identity; or Monad

Yes

No

Groups that operate at the Transcendental (T1 to T5), Supracosmic, Cosmic, and Monadic levels of the Continuum

3

EE is real; EL is real

Subtle of Planetary ensouling entity and nuclei of identity, Soul of the Bridge Path, T6

Yes

Yes

Groups that operate in the Subtle and Planetary Realms,and Mudrashram®

4

EE is not real; EL is real

Self or ego; some operating at this level may mistake the activity of the brain as consciousness

No

Yes

Science, materialistic worldviews, atheists, unawakened individuals

When you work at the cutting edge of spirituality, as we do in Mudrashram®:

  • You do not drop into the Uncreated (Avayakta) and postpone spiritual development, regarding this as illusion.
  • You do not regard the personality as an illusion and relate to the world from a detached spiritual perspective
  • You do not abandon spirituality altogether, as the materialist and atheist do.

In this Integral approach, we ask you to work on and make a commitment to both personal and spiritual growth. We say, you should honor both worlds; and make progress in both worlds.

The Thought Form Ether

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By George A. Boyd ©2008

Q: What is the thought form ether? What does it contain?

A: The thought form ether can be discovered through meditation on the psychic eye, in the center of the forehead in your form on the Psychic Realm. Contemplation of this center reveals the following levels of the mind and consciousness:

  1. The chemical ether – this comprises the molecular, atomic, and subatomic strata of matter
  2. The information ether – this consists of the digital and analog information that processes through the human brain and in computers, and is exchanged between individuals
  3. The resonance ether – this is the space and silence beyond information that is its container. This resonance ether is purported to retain the vibrations of every event, every thought, every emotion, and every action, and makes up what is called the Akashic Records or Akashic Ether.
  4. The life force ether – this level reveals the movement of the life force (Prana, Chi) through subtle channels in the etheric body. These channels are called nadis and meridians; the places where these channels come together are called chakras. Learning to channel this living force confers the ability to heal others.
  5. The desire ether – this level contains the impressions of desire (attraction), dislike (repulsion), and equanimity (neutrality). By focusing your desire and commitment to achieve something you want, you activate the Law of Attraction, which brings fulfillment of what you desire. Certain patterns of thinking and believing may paradoxically block or repulse what you desire; programs that purport to teach you how to activate the Law of Attraction work on countering these negative patterns to release what you desire.
  6. The thought form ether – this level holds your ideas and thoughts, which appear as animated forms. You can learn to make these thought forms do things for you, and augment your creativity as you tap this realm of possibilities.
  7. The consciousness ether – this level appears like a stream of thoughts and impressions arising from the voidness of consciousness. Those who do mindfulness meditation or Vipassana appear to enter this level of the mind.
  8. The archetypal ether – this level portrays your vehicles of consciousness of the personal and transpersonal bands of your mind as archetypal forms. You enter the collective unconscious realm of myths—heroes and gods—when you enter this band.
  9. The Divine essence – when you are able to fully open the psychic eye, you penetrate to the core of perception available through this center, and you can behold the essence of the Soul, or higher Self. This enables you to behold the inner “God atom” that dwells in each individual.

The thought form ether appears to contain several strata in which you progressively encounter “thoughts as things.”

  1. Idea – here the thought appears as a bubble in the thought form ether. It forms networks with other ideas through association. This stratum appears to parallel the neuro-electrical association webs of the physical brain.
  2. Name – at this level, you give a name, description, and attribution to an idea. By doing this, you objectify the idea, and place it within the container of language.
  3. Form or pattern – at this stratum, you engage your faculty of perception, and you group the idea with other similar ideas to form categories or schemas. You distinguish the idea from others through finding similarities or differences, and you can tease out complex interrelationships with other ideas.
  4. Quality – at this band of the thought form ether, you behold the idea with your subtle senses. You note the idea’s shape, color, sound, smell, taste, texture, shape, and feeling. You may begin to note that some ideas are static, but others appear to be animated and kinetic. You can behold thought forms in this way during the state of hypnosis, astral projection, or intoxication with psychoactive drugs.
  5. Suggestion – when you reach this stratum, you encounter the thought forms as if they were containers of your desires and wishes. They take on the forms of subpersonalities, with which you can dialog and gather information about emotional issues or problems. Systems of psychotherapy that use imagery to interface with the unconscious mind tap this level of the thought form ether.
  6. Creation and destruction – at this level, you discover that thought forms attract certain circumstances and outcomes. You discover that you can create a thought form to bring about a particular outcome, you can sustain a thought form that is producing a result in your life, or you can dissolve a thought form that is producing unwanted consequences.
  7. Discernment – when you reach this deepest level of the thought form ether, you can begin to locate where thought forms dwell. You locate them in a particular vehicle of consciousness, in a conscious or unconscious zone of the mind, or clinging to the energy fields around people’s bodies (aura). You may locate them dimensionally relative to the top of a Subplane or Plane, or identify where they dwell on the Great Continuum of Consciousness. When you activate this faculty of the mind, you discover that certain thought forms are contained within archetypes at different levels of the Continuum, and you can differentiate which thought forms cluster with these archetypes.

[For example, you discover that different types of thought forms arise in the Mystery Schools of the First Esoteric Initiation than in the Psychic Realm.] Thought forms appear in this discernment matrix from the system of chakras in the Subconscious mind to the abode of the Lords of Mind in the Third Planetary Initiation.

Academic education appears to access the first three levels of the thought form ether through the intellect. This enables students to recognize ideas and their associations, to work with them through language, to categorize them, to compare and contrast them, and utilize other intellectual strategies to manipulate them.

Hypnosis, psychotherapy, or meditation trains you to visualize thought forms through your subtle senses, interface with them through suggestion and dialog, and ultimately, learn to create useful thought forms or destroy ones that bring about unwanted emotions and behavior. We teach several suggestion, insight, and dialog methods in our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the online and by-mail Accelerated Meditation Program.

Though deepest meditation on this ether, you will be able to discern where these thought forms dwell on the Continuum, and you can use them to recognize what band of the Continuum you are visiting.