by Robert Wilkinson
From Chapter 10, “Problems of Illusion,” in The Magic of Space, we find helpful advice if we would like the power to see through illusions, and understand how to know the real from the unreal with unerring accuracy.
In the world of soul and spirit it is not so easy to distinguish which are illusions and which are not. In the world of sense, facts are not altered by human delusions, concerning them; you can correct a delusion by examining the facts, but in the world of soul and spirit this is not immediately possible. If we study a supersensible problem from the wrong spirit of judgment, we then carry that wrong judgment over into the thing itself, and it becomes interwoven with the fact, the two becoming very difficult to distinguish. The error is no longer in the person, and the correct fact exterior to him, but the error will have become a component part of the exterior fact. You will see the extremely fertile source for illusion and deception that one would be liable to if he entered the supersensible world without the proper training.
The student becomes able to exclude delusions which might tinge the phenomena of the supersensible world with the color of his own making the second source of such delusions ineffective. He is able to do away with what arises within himself after the meeting with his own double, and he will also be able to eliminate the second source of delusion if he is able to develop the power for judging by the nature of a fact seen in the supersensible world – whether it be real or illusionary. If the delusions were exactly of the same appearance as the realities, differentiation would be almost impossible. But this is never the case; illusions seen in the supersensible world have their own peculiarities which makes it possible to distinguish them from realities, which shows the importance of knowing the qualities by which you can recognize the reality.
Anyone who has never made a study of occultism would naturally come to the conclusion, after reading this chapter, that one would have his hands full in guarding against delusions, since they are so numerous. He may also think that possibly all of the experiences of the supersensible world might be delusions. Anyone taking this view ignores the fact that all true occult training develops you so that you do not have to depend upon what someone else tells you, and you are taught how to proceed to remove the sources of delusion. In the first place, any occultist devoting the necessary time to the study of occultism to be worthy of being called an occultist will, during his preparation, have acquired enough knowledge about these matters so that he will be in a position to avoid delusion, and also self-delusion. His training will have made him level-headed, and capable of using right judgment at all times. His training will have taught him that it is never safe to rely on vague presentiments and premonitions. His training has made him cautious – much more so than he would ordinarily have been – and he has gained knowledge of the great cosmic events, and therefore he is fully prepared to tackle matters which necessitate the exertion of the judgment, a process by which this power is both refined and sharpened.
If it were possible for a person to jump over the preparatory work in the training of a seer, and be able to foretell the future, as so many would like to do, he would not possess the strengthening of that sound power of judgment which makes it possible to distinguish between illusions and reality. So you can see the necessity for understanding the ground-work on which occultism is built. This is so arranged that the consciousness of the student is enabled, during the time he is practicing inward meditation, to examine carefully all that passes within his soul.
Men, through higher educational development, have gained a kind of soul activity although they are not able to know the origin of such activity. The occult student, however, studies to remove his own soul-activity from his consciousness. He does not permit anything to enter that he cannot investigate, and of which he cannot learn the entire contents. Therefore, the student is able to see how pure reality within the soul and spirit world is constituted, and he will apply the test to everything that comes within his observations in the realm of spiritual realities. And there is no reason why he should not be able to distinguish delusions from realities. He should also be prepared to determine just as quickly the delusions in the spiritual world, such as psychic entities masquerading as higher Beings, as he is able to in the physical world, where he knows that the imaginary hot bar of steel cannot burn him.
This test, of course, only refers to our own experiences in the supersensible world – not to communications made to us which we have to apprehend by means of our physical understanding and our sense of truth. The student should do all he can to distinguish between what he learns from one kind of knowledge and that of another. He must be willing to accept communications made to him regarding the higher worlds, and should try to understand them by using his own observations; before he accepts them he must carefully test them to see whether they possess exactly the qualities which he has learned to be correct by his infallible intuition.
Comments