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An
Esoteric History of Thought-forms
by
Amanda Fraser
Note:
This is part one of a two part series.-
Editor
Much
of metaphysical writing these days recognizes
how emotion and thought determine our
health and life experiences.
I
remember when I first read physicist Friedbert
Karger's (of the Max Planck Institute)
explanation of how thought-forms actualize.
His explanation about the physics of how
thoughts manifest seriously changed my
views. In his Nexus Magazine article,
Karger and other theorists have explained
how our thoughts are actually configured
into thought-forms in our astral bodies.
As these thought-forms attract thoughts
of a similar vibration (more of ours or
others'), they manifest through our actions,
our health, and ultimately, our worlds.
After
reading Karger's article, I was exposed
to more enlightening information on the
power of thoughts. All the stuff I'd heard
about the importance of thoughts from
people like Borysenko, Dyer, Hay, Peale
and others never meant too much to me
until I stumbled upon a scientific explanation
of “how it works.” Working on
the assumption that there are others who
are persuaded by a more “concrete”
explanation, I began to investigate
the
beginnings of this fascinating phenomenon
of thought-forms.
What
follows is a collection of diverse writers'
contributions to the concept of thought-forms.
They give us just a glimpse of the fascinating
discoveries which show how thought and
emotions shape our lives so dramatically.
Ancient
Tradition (Western).
According
to Stuart Gordon, scholar of metaphysical
literature, “It is an occult cliché
that the material world and its causes
and effects proceed from activity of the
mind, and thus that thought itself has
an affective power not usually granted
it by those considering it to be purely
abstract. According to occultists, thought,
whether conscious or not, is so potent
that its projected forms literally shape
that outer reality which customarily we
believe to be thrust upon us.”
Tibetan
Tradition.
The
Tibetans called thought-forms tulpas.
These are mind-generated entities that
can evolve and take on a life of their
own. Once a tulpa is created, it is possible
for others (who see in other dimensions)
to visually see it. Alexandra David-Neel
documented this phenomena at length in
1931. While living with and studying the
Tibetans, David-Neel herself created a
benign tulpa who evolved into a troublesome
independent companion, whom she ultimately
dissolved, with difficulty.
Paracelsus
(1493-1541, Switzerland).
Although often unpopular because of his arrogance and belligerent demeanor, Paracelsus was a genius. As a physician, he perceived illness as arising from a spiritual imbalance. He realized that, “The power of the imagination may produce diseases in man and it may cure them.” His thinking differed from that of earlier shamanistic ideology in that he believed that people could be healed by their own thoughts, as well by gods and spirits. Annie
Besant (1847-1933, England).
Besant was a true pioneer in the understanding of thought-forms and a key leader of the Theosophist movement. As a powerful intuitive and clairvoyant, she “saw” many of the thought phenomena that today's scientists are discovering through quantum physics. In the Bodies of Man, she explains that the domain for activation of our thoughts and emotions is the astral/emotional body, which surrounds the physical body. Here, the astral matter of our astral bodies is intensely attracted to like thought-forms or emotion-forms that may impact it. It then surrounds the homogeneous thought, thus creating a dynamic entity in the astral body. As these energy phenomena grow in magnitude, they become actualized and directly affect the courses of our lives. She therefore stresses the importance of being aware of the direction (positive, negative, spiritual, defeatist, etc.) of our thoughts. With C. W. Leadbetter, she also wrote Thought-forms in 1925. Besant's (and the Theosphists') is the earliest work I have seen to use the term “thought-form”-although references are made in earlier literature to the understanding that thought is what shapes our outer reality. Science
Article continued on next
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