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Magic
- Science - Hypnotism
Page No 2
Sweet
Mother, I have heard that the magicians who use occult powers
for their work suffer a great deal after their death. Is
it true?
What
sort of magicians are you speaking about? Any kind?
Those who have occult powers and use them for their personal
interest? You mean these?
Yes.
I
don't know whether they suffer after their death or lose their
consciousness, but in any case, obviously they are not in
any state of peace or happiness, that's absolutely certain.
For it is a kind of absolute rule from the spiritual point
of view: it is by an inner discipline and by consecration
to the Divine that the powers come to you. But if with your
aspiration, your discipline and consecration, an ambition
is mixed up, that is, an intention to obtain powers, then
if they come to you it is almost like a curse. Usually they
don't come to you, but something vital which tries to imitate
them comes to you with adverse influences which put you entirely
under the domination of beings who give you powers simply
with the intention of making use of you, using you to do all
the work they have the intention of doing, and to create all
the disorder they want to create. And when they find that
you have served them enough and are no longer good for anything,
they just destroy you. They may not be able to destroy you
physically because they don't always have the power to do
it, but they destroy you mentally, vitally and in your consciousness,
and after that you are good for nothing, even before dying.
And after death, as you are entirely under their influence,
the first thing they do is to swallow you up, because this
is their way of making use of people—to swallow them.
So it cannot be a very pleasant experience. It is a very,
very, very dangerous game.
But
everywhere, in all the teachings, in all the disciplines,
in all ages, the same thing has been repeated: that one must
never intermingle ambition and personal interest with the
sadhana, otherwise he is inviting trouble. So it is not only
a particular case, it is all the instances of this kind which
have fatal consequences.
Sweet
Mother, are there any magicians who do not work magic for
their personal interest?
You
mean magical rites? Because, you see, you must not mix up
magic with occultism.
Occultism
is a science and it is the knowledge of invisible forces and
the capacity to handle them, as one has the capacity of handling
material forces if one has studied them scientifically.
Magic:
these are different kinds of processes which were fixed probably
by people who had a certain knowledge, and still more a certain
power of vital formation. These things can be learnt without
having any special capacity, that is, someone who has no inner
power can learn this as he learns chemistry, for example,
or mathematics. It is one of the things which are learnt like
that, it is not a thing one acquires. So it doesn't itself
carry any special virtues except the same kind of qualities
as those one learns through chemical manipulations. You may
reproduce these manipulations, but if you are an intelligent
and capable being, you can by the help of these manipulations
obtain an interesting and useful result, and in any case,
be sheltered from all danger; whereas if you are an idiot,
misfortunes may come to you. It is something similar.
With
the help of magical formulas one may produce a certain result,
but this result is necessarily limited and has no particular
interest for those who, through their inner development, spontaneously
receive powers of which they have a higher knowledge, not
a mechanical one. It is not for someone who is truly a yogi;
it has no interest except that of curiosity. It is interesting
only for people who are precisely not yogis and who want to
have certain powers which, in fact, they have in a very limited
way—it is always limited.
What
is special about it is that it has a direct action upon matter;
while usually, apart from some rare exceptions, with people
who have spiritual powers, yogic powers, it acts through the
intermediary of the mental forces usually—either spiritual
or mental forces—sometimes of the vital forces (more
rarely), but not directly upon matter, except naturally with
those who have done yoga in matter, but these are exceptional
cases of which one doesn't speak. These things put into motion
certain small entities which are usually the result of the
decomposition of human beings and yet have a sufficient contact
with the material world to be able to act there. But anyhow,
if the action is of a lower order, the power is of a lower
order, and it is something almost repugnant for one who is
truly in relation with the higher forces.
To
act in order to accomplish a work with the spontaneous powers
of spiritual realisation, that is well understood. But one
may say that everybody does that, because just the fact of
thinking means that you are acting invisibly; and according
to the power of your thought your action is more or less wide-spread.
But to use small magical formulas to obtain a result is something
that has no true relation with the spiritual life. From the
spiritual point of view it appears even surprising that these
things can always prove effective, because for each case the
need is different; and how putting together certain words
and making certain signs can always have an effect seems surprising.
When
one wants to act spiritually and for some reason or other
it is necessary, for example, to formulate words, the words
come spontaneously and are exactly the words needed for the
particular occasion. But things written beforehand which one
repeats mechanically most of the time, without even knowing
what one is saying and why one is saying it—it is difficult
to see how this can always work. There is bound to be a great
imprecision in the action. And one thing is certain, that
this same formula cannot have exactly the same effect, and
that one factor is indispensable for it to take effect: fear.
The first thing is a kind of fear, a fright created in the
person against whom the magic is done; for if he has no fear
I am quite sure that it cannot have any effect or has so ridiculously
small an effect that it's not worth speaking about it.
What
opens the door to the action of these forces is fear, a kind
of apprehension, the feeling that something is going to happen;
and it is these vibrations of fear which put out certain forces
from you, forces which give these entities the power to act.
Sweet
Mother, there are people who do hypnotism. Then, when they
always practise it on the same person, does that person
fall ill after a while?
Not
necessarily ill. It depends on the kind of hypnotism and hypnotiser.
Not necessarily ill. One thing is certain, that this person
loses his personal will, that the hypnotiser's will takes
the place of the personal will, otherwise it would not work.
But not necessarily ill, terribly dependent! It creates almost
a kind of slavery.
(Long
silence)
It
is very difficult to say, because it depends entirely on the
hypnotiser and the hypnotised, and how it is done. In its
ordinary outer form it is something that can cause much disturbance.
But
there can be a spontaneous hypnotism which may be the expression
of a divine force, but then that does not work in the ordinary
way.
I
think there are as many cases as people. It's like every other
thing. If you put scientific knowledge in the hands of ignorant
and stupid people, it can produce catastrophes. And if to
this is added the fact that they are people with ill-will
or those who have personal motives, then the results are as
bad as can be. It's the same with hypnotism. It depends exclusively
upon the one practising it and how he practises it.
It's
not something genuine; like all so-called human knowledge,
it is not true, but the deformation of something.
It
could be said that if the divine Will works in you, you can
call it hypnotism, if you like, and yet it is the supreme
Good, you see.
But
what is usually called hypnotism is a completely blind and
ignorant action: the use of the power of a force which one
doesn't even know very well. So naturally it has unfortunate
results; and then, as I say, if it falls into the hands of
someone who is unscrupulous or has bad intentions, it becomes
altogether disastrous.
3
August 1955
- The Mother
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