The Subconscious and The Superconscious Planes Of Mind E-Book

William Walker Atkinson

• Herausgeber: Andura Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Experience the life-changing power of William Walker Atkinson with this unforgettable book.

Leseprobe

The Subconscious and The Superconscious Planes Of Mind

William Walker Atkinson

Contents

Chapter I – Infra-Conscious Mentality

The great problems of modern psychology are found  to consist largely of the phenomena of the mental operations and activities on planes other than those of ordinary consciousness. While the terminology of the subject is still in a state of transition, nevertheless certain terms have sprung into common use and are employed tentatively by those who write and teach of these wonderful regions of the mind. Among these terms we find “infra-conscious,” which is used to designate the planes of mental activity below and above the ordinary plane of consciousness. In this term, the word “infra” is used in the sense of inner, within, etc., rather than its more familiar sense of “below.” Hence “infra-conscious” means an inner consciousness, or within-consciousness, and includes the mental planes commonly knoWn as the “sub conscious” and “super conscious,” respectively. The term is far from being satisfactory, but it is used by psychologists, tentatively, and will be until some other more fitting term is evolved.

The older school of psychology ignored, so far as possible, the infra-conscious planes and fields of mental activity, and regarded consciousness as synonymous with mind—and by “consciousness” was meant merely the plane of the ordinary consciousness. But the phenomena of the hidden planes of mentation would not stay in the dark corner in which the psychologists were compelled to place them, but would constantly present themselves most inopportunely, as if to perplex the teachers, and to confute their theories. And so, little by little, there was tacitly admitted to exist an unknown and unexplored region of the mind which was at first labeled “unconscious mind,” although the term was vigorously opposed by many of the authorities as contradictory and meaningless— but the quarrel was rather with the term than with the fact.

The psychologists who began to use the term “unconscious mind” soon found sufficient authority among certain of the older writers, which served as a foundation for the newer theories and teachings which began to evolve when the conception of the “unconscious mind” had begun to take upon itself the garb of scientific orthodoxy. It was found that Leibnitz had asserted that there were certain mental activities in evidence, which certainly manifested in the “unconscious” region of the mind, and the influence of the older philosopher was added to the new teaching. As Carpenter said: “The psychologists of Germany, from the time of Leibnitz, have taught that much of our mental work is done without consciousness.” Sir William Hamilton said: “To this great philosopher (Leibnitz) belongs the honor of having originated this opinion, and of having supplied some of the strongest arguments in its support.” Kay said: “Leibnitz was the first to confute this opinion (that consciousness was coextensive with mind), and to establish the doctrine that there are energies always at work, and modifications constantly taking place in the mind, of which we are quite unconscious.” Basing the new conception upon Leibnitz and his followers, the psychologist began to write freely regarding this great “unconscious” area of the mind. But, nevertheless, it was regarded by many of the more conservative authorities as an unwarrantable extension of psychological inquiry into a field which properly belonged to metaphysics. Schofield says: “So high priests of the religion of mind- being committed so generally to deny and refuse any extension of it outside consciousness, though they cannot refrain from what Ribot calls ‘a sly glance’ at the forbidden fruit, consistently ignore the existence of the Unconscious, their pupils naturally treading in their steps; while the physician of the period, revelling in the multiplication and elaboration of physical methods of diagnosis and experiment, is led to despise and contemptuously set aside as ‘only fancy’ those psychical agencies which can cure, if they cannot diagnose. It may be asked, why was not an attempt made sooner to give these unconscious faculties their proper place? It was made determinedly years ago in Germany, and since then in England, by men who, to their honor undeterred by ridicule and contempt, made noble and partially successful efforts to establish the truth.”

But we may find many important references to this great “unconscious” area of mind in the writings of the earlier of the older writers on the subject in the Nineteenth Century. Sir William Hamilton, Lewes, Carpenter and others referred freely to it, and taught it as a truth of psychology. Lewes said: “The teaching of most modern psychologists is that consciousness forms but a small item in the total of psychical processes. Unconscious sensations, ideas and judgments are made to play a great part in their explanations. It is very certain that in every consciousvolition—every act that is so characterized—the larger part of it is quite unconscious. It is equally certain that in every perception there are unconscious processes of reproduction and inference,—there is a middle distance of subconsciousness, and a background of unconsciousness.” Sir William Hamilton said: “I do not hesitate to affirm that what we are conscious of is constructed out of what we are not conscious of—that our whole knowledge in fact is made up of the unknown and incognizable. The sphere of our consciousness is only a small circle in the centre of a far wider sphere of action and passion, of which we are only conscious through its effects….The fact of such latent mental modifications is now established beyond a rational doubt; and, on the supposition of their reality, we are able to solve various psychological phenomena otherwise inexplicable.”

Taine said: “Mental events imperceptible to consciousness are far more numerous than the others, and of the world which makes up our being we only perceive the highest points—the lighted-up peaks of a continent whose lower levels remain in the shade. Beneath ordinary sensations are their components— that is to say, the elementary sensations, which must be combined into groups to reach our consciousness. Outside a little luminous circle lies a large ring of twilight, and beyond this an indefinite night; but the events of this twilight and this night are as real as those within the luminous circle.” Maudsley says: “Examine closely, and without bias, the ordinary mental operations of daily life, and you will surely discover that consciousness has not one-tenth part of the function therein which it is commonly assumed to have.In every conscious state there are at work conscious, sub-conscious, and infra-conscious energies, the last as indispensable as the first.”

Kay said: “Every impression or thought that has once been before consciousness remains ever after impressed in the mind. It may never again come up before consciousness, but it will doubtless remain in that vast ultra-conscious region of the mind, unconsciously moulding and fashioning our subsequent thoughts and actions. It is only a small part of what exists in the mind that we are at any time conscious of. There is always much that is known to be in the mind that exists in it unconsciously, and must be stored away somewhere. We may be able to recall it into consciousness when we wish to do so, but at other times the mind is unconscious of its existence.”

Morrell said: “We have every reason to believe that mental power when once called forth follows the analogy of everything we see in the material universe in the fact of its perpetuity. Every single effort of mind is a creation which can never go back again into nonentity. It may slumber in the depths of forgetfulness as light and heat slumber in the coal seams, but there it is, ready at the bidding of some appropriate stimulus to come again out of the darkness into the light of consciousness….What is termed ‘common sense’ is nothing but a substratum of experiences out of which our judgments flow, while the experiences themselves are hidden away in the unconscious depths of our intellectual nature; and even the flow of public opinion is formed by ideas which lie tacitly in the national mind, and come into consciousness, generally, a long time after they have been really operating and shaping the course of events in human history.” Carpenter said: “Man’s ordinary common-sense is the resultant of the unconscious co-ordination of a long succession of small experiences mostly forgotten, or perhaps never brought out into distinct consciousness.”

The study of the subject of Memory led many of the psychologists of the last generation to assume as & necessity the existence of a great “unconscious” storehouse in which all the records impressed upon the mind were preserved. Other branches of psychology forced their investigators to assume a great area of the mind, lying outside of the field of consciousness, to account for certain phenomena. And, so, gradually the idea of the existence of this undiscovered and unexplored country of the mind came to be accepted as orthodox by all except the ultra-conservatives, and investigation in the said direction was encouraged instead of discouraged or forbidden as has been the case previously. And arising from the thought on the subject of the “un-conscious mind” we find the evolving conception of there being various strata, planes, or regions of mind of varying stages of consciousness—that, instead of there being but one plane of consciousness, there were many—that instead of there being an “unconscious region” there was one, or more, additional plane of consciousness, operating under general laws and being as much a part of the general consciousness as is that plane which we speak of as the ordinary consciousness.

This was the beginning of the various dual-mind theories, which we shall now consider.

Chapter II – The Manifold Mind

Arising naturally from the speculations regarding the “unconscious mind” we find the conception of the “dual-mind” taking a prominent place on the stage of psychological consideration. From the idea of an unconscious area of mind was evolved the conception of two minds possessed by the individual, each independent and yet both working together in the production of mental phenomena. It is difficult to determine the beginning of this conception. Traces of it and vague hints regarding it may be found in many of the earlier writings. While there seems to have been a dawning conception of the subconscious mind as a separate mind on the part of many thinkers and writers in the latter put of the Twentieth Century, yet to two men must be given the credit of attracting the public notice to the subject, and of the presentation of the thought in a positive, clear form. We refer to Frederic W. H. Myers and Thomson J. Hudson, respectively. Both of these men offered a dual-mind theory or Working hypothesis as a basis for a correct understanding of what has been called “Psychic Phenomena,” by which is meant the phenomena of telepathy, clairvoyance, hypnotism, trance-conditions, etc.

Myers evolved the idea that the self was not only a unity but was also a coordination, and that it “possesses faculties and powers unexercised and unexercisable by the consciousness that finds employment in the direction of the affairs of every-day life,” as Bruce so well states it. In 1887 he first made public his theory of the “Subliminal Self,” as he called this secondary or hidden mind. After that time, for several years, he wrote and spoke frequently on the subject, and in the year last mentioned his full theory was embodied in his work entitled “Human Personality,” which was published after his death.

Myers stated his conception of the Subliminal Self in his great work, as follows: “The idea of a threshold (limen, Schwelle) of consciousness—of a level above which sensation or thought must rise before it can enter into our conscious life—is a simple and familiar one. The word subliminal—meaning ‘beneath the threshold’—has already been used to define those sensations which are too feeble to be individually recognized. I propose to extend the meaning of the term, so as to make it cover all that takes place beneath the ordinary threshold, or say, if preferred, the ordinary margin of consciousness—not only those faint stimulations whose very faintness keeps them submerged, but much else which psychology as yet scarcely recognizes—sensations, thoughts, emotions, which may be strong, definite and independent; but which, by the original constitution of our being, seldom merge into that supraliminal current of consciousness which we habitually identify with ourselves. Perceiving that these submerged thoughts and emotions possess the characteristics which we associate with conscious life, I feel bound to speak of a subliminal, or ultramarginal, consciousness—a consciousness which we shall see, for instance, uttering or writing sentences quite as complex and coherent as the supraliminal consciousness could make them. Perceiving further that this conscious life beneath the threshold or beneath the margin seems to be no discontinuous or intermittent thing; that not only are  these isolated subliminal processes comparable with isolated supraliminal processes (as when a problem is solved by some unknown procedure in a dream), but that there also is a continuous subliminal chain of memory (or more chains than one) involving just that kind of individual and persistent revival of old impressions and response to new ones, which we commonly call a Self—I find it permissible and convenient to speak of subliminal Selves or more briefly of a Subliminal Self. I do not intend by using this term assume that there are two correlative and parallel selves existing always within each of us. Rather I mean by the Subliminal Self that part of the Self which is commonly subliminal; and I conceive that there may be—not only cooperations between these quasi-independent trains of thought—but also upheavals and alternations of personality of many kinds, so that what was once below the surface may for a time, or permanently, rise above it. And I conceive also that no Self of which we can here have cognizance, is in reality more than a fragment of a larger Self—revealed in a fashion at once shifting and limited through an organism not so framed as to afford it full manifestation.”

Perhaps to Hudson, even more than to Myers, is due the wide-spread interest in the dual-mind theory or conception. In 1893, Hudson, in his work entitled “The Law of Psychic Phenomena,” boldly enunciated his now famous theory of the “Subjective Kind,” which at once caught the popular fancy, and which he elaborated in his subsequent works. Hudson’s dual-mind theory can best be stated in his own words. In his work, above mentioned, he states: “Man has, or appears to have, two minds, each endowed with separate and distinct attributes and powers; each capable, under certain conditions, of independent action. It should be clearly understood at the outset “that for the purpose of arriving at a conclusion it is a matter of indifference whether we consider that man is endowed with two distinct minds, or that his one mind possesses certain attributes and powers under some conditions,  and certain other attributes and powers under other conditions. It is sufficient to know that everything happens just as though he were endowed with a dual mental organization. Under the rules of correct reasoning, therefore, I have a right to assume that man has two minds; and the assumption is so stated, in its broadest terms, as the first proposition of my hypothesis. For convenience, I shall designate the one as the objective mind, and the other as the subjective mind.” We shall consider the details of Hudson’s theory in another chapter.

Following Hudson and Myers came a number of other writers who eagerly availed themselves of the convenient classification of the mind into two divisions or “two minds.” The new hypothesis served as an excellent foundation for various theories explaining, or attempting to explain, all things “in heaven and in earth” ever dreamt of in any of the philosophies. Some of the wildest theories were built upon this broad foundation, and this fact caused many careful thinkers to undervalue the fundamental principles of both Myers’ and Hudson’s thought. Hudson, himself, alienated a number of his earlier admirers by extending his theory to what was considered unwarranted lengths in his later books in which he boldly invaded the metaphysical and theological fields, endeavoring to account for and explain immortality and the “divine pedigree” by his dual-mind theory. And Myers, by identifying his theory with the phenomena of Telepathy, brought down on his head the adverse criticism of the orthodox psychologists, so that the value of his conception was largely overlooked.