THE relation of the soul to the body can, in certain aspects, be made clearer by a study of the phenomena of Hypnotism than, perhaps, by any other method. Most, if not all, of these can only be explained by admitting the presence and superior powers of a center of consciousness, or soul, which is actually limited in its conscious manifestations by the sense organs instead of being helped by them.

As bases from whence to survey the field of hypnotic phenomena, we must return to the scientific and self-evident postulates of a Unit of Consciousness, and the Compound Nature of Man.

By a unit is meant a center of consciousness, which, like the mathematical point, excludes from its conception all measures of time or space. Such centers are infinite in number as potentialities; while as potencies, actively ascending the spiral of evolution, they embrace all degrees from the center of consciousness present and potent in an "atom" to that of the highest Dhyani-Buddhi, or "god." By an atom is not meant the materialistic definition of this. There is no attempt at dividing matter until it is presumably incapable of further division, and then setting up this hypothetical infinitesimal "element" as a measure of both the material and the spiritual worlds, as science would fain do. Holding that "the Universe is worked and guided from within outwards," * and that as we pass from the outer material phenomena to the inner spiritual noumena, matter becomes not less and less in the size or extension of its particles, but more and more ethereal and homogeneous in its essence, Theosophy defines an atom as the seventh or guiding principle of the first differentiation of the homogeneity of the plane above ours toward the heterogeneity of this material plane.

But this center of consciousness, although regarded as unity, still presents that Trinity in Unity which accompanies all conceptions of the One Absolute. As this, though one and indivisible, is yet matter, or Substance; force, or Motion; and Consciousness, or Ideation - so the unit of consciousness we term human, which is only that of an atom extended by countless accretions of material expressions and experiences, presents the triple aspects of Thought, Will, and Feeling. It is with the second of these, or Will, that a study of hypnotism must largely deal.

* Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, p; 274.

But what is the Will? Locke * declares that:

"That power which the mind has to order the consideration of an idea, or the forbearing to consider it, or to prefer the motion of any part of the body or its rest, and vice versa, in any particular instance, is that which we call the will. It signifies nothing but the power to prefer or choose, and thought determines it. Desire and will are two distinct acts, and desire determines the will."

Lewes † says, by implication, that the Will is only the play of molecular forces, under the unconscious law of cause and effect. Upham ‡ regards the Will as the Understanding or Ideation in action - the active aspect of Consciousness. Bain§ holds that the Will is that power in Consciousness which controls spontaneous ideation, or ideation which naturally arises in the course of evolution through the reaction between the subject and its environment.

But see the prince of modern Agnosticism, Herbert Spencer, | seize the fiery Fohat of the Occultist and drag him, a helpless captive, at the wheel of his materialistic chariot. He writes:

"When automatic actions become so involved, so varied in kind, and severally so infrequent as no longer to be performed with unhesitating precision- when after the reception of one of the more complex impressions, the appropriate motor changes become nascent, but are prevented from passing into immediate action by the antagonism of certain other nascent motor changes, appropriate to some nearly allied impression, there is constituted a state of consciousness which, when it finally issues into action, displays what we term volition. We have a conflict between two sets of ideal motor changes which severally tend to become real, and this passing of an ideal motor change into a real one we distinguish as Will. Thus the cessation of automatic action and the dawn of volition are one and the same thing."

*Essay on the Human Understanding.

† Philosophy of Life and Mind. §Senses and Intellect.

‡ Mental Philosophy. | Principles of Psychology

In other words, the mighty, creative volitions of a Shakespeare, a Goethe, a Dante, a Bacon, an Edison, a Newton, a Harvey, a Galileo, a Kant, a Hegel, or even Spencer's own speculations, are merely the fortuitous emergence of one set of "nascent," unconscious motor changes slightly in advance of other equally unconscious ones, which blind chance has thus caused to be lost to the world forever! What a relief to feel and, indeed, know, by "scientific authority," that the horrible visions of Dante were not deliberately evoked, but were enabled to "issue into action" in advance of a milder set - perchance by the unconscious assistance of a very badly digested dinner ! An Occultist would declare that the very ability to choose even the subject of our thoughts indicates an inherent power in consciousness which no fortuitous combination of material molecules could ever evoke, though all eternity were granted it in which to exert its "blind force." The stream cannot rise higher than its source; the effect can not exceed its cause; and Will, manifesting as an aspect and power of Consciousness on this material, phenomenal plane, must have its origin and cause in that larger, Cosmic, noumenal plane - the Force-Aspect of the Absolute.

Will, then, from a Theosophic standpoint, is Desire in action guided by Ideation, which latter, again, is the active aspect of Consciousness, or Consciousness in action. In man, Will is one aspect of the Center of Consciousness, or Ray, which takes its source directly in the Absolute or Unknowable, and around which has evolved the feeling of "I am I" through accretions of material experiences and expressions in the manner pointed out in the chapter upon the Individualization of the Soul. This Center, though a unity in essence, is a trinity in aspect; and because of this unity of base, all three aspects merge into one another, or, rather, into that unity of which they are the phenomenal expression. Will selects the subject of Thought; yet Thought, again, will so modify the Will that we find ourselves desiring or willing that which before we compelled ourselves to think it desirable was repugnant to us. Feeling, also, particularly in its lowest aspect of emotion, will modify both Thought and Will, and be in turn itself modified and transmuted by them.