Above the violet, color can no longer be seen by the eye, and we find the ultra-violet rays and the X-ray. Now at last we have reached vibrations fine and rapid enough to penetrate through most solids. Higher up on the scale we come to the magnetic vibrations and their wave-lengths, such as those that issue from the mind of the hypnotist. These can go through denser solids than the X-ray can, which accounts for the hypnotist being able to produce the effect of a deep trance upon a person seated in an adjoining room.

Apparently the vibrations of the mind can travel instantaneously many hundreds of miles, as in thought telepathy, passing through all solids which intervene. They have an intimate connection with electricity which, as we know, can travel round the world in a flash.

Each thought is a vibration having a set wave-length! When, however, we consider the vastness of the scale of vibrations with which we have to deal it will be seen that there are enough and to spare for everything.

Now, having placed sound, light and heat in their respective order as we know it, we must ask what they are and how we know they exist.

Had we and the animals no ears, what would sound be?

What we know as sound is that tiny section of octaves on the scale of vibration which can be transmitted to the brain by the receivers in the ear. The human ear is successful up to a certain point, beyond which it can receive no more; but many animals hear vibrations which to us are no longer sounds at all.

Higher up on our keyboard than sound comes heat. Our skin contains the little receivers to transmit these vibrations, to which the ear is no longer sensible.

Farther up the scale still we come to light and color. We only have one tiny marvelous organ to register this set of vibrations to the brain – the optic nerve. The eye is made to react up the scale of color to the violet vibration. After that, as already stated, the oscillation is so minute and rapid that it can inter-penetrate solids, so these ultraviolet vibrations pass right through the eye lens.

The question now arises – have we any organs which can deal with those higher vibrations, or the very subtle substance of which they are composed, and in what form are these contacted?

These last vibrations are so fine that they use the ether as their vehicle instead of the heavier air particles. The ether is the indefinable substance in which this earth and all the atoms of the air are supported. Scientists are on the verge of discovering that there is more than one kind of ether, in fact even perhaps three or four. The finest vibrations which we have yet considered are within the realm of electrical and magnetic phenomena. These are the forces which man also contains within himself, and which can be utilized through the mind.

We must now inquire what organs man has with which to register these particular vibrations, embracing the radiations and emanations, which come under the general term ‘psychic’. There are two small glands in the head which give doctors much cause for speculation. I refer to the Pituitary Body and the Pineal Gland.

The former is a tiny, double bean-shaped body situated behind the root of the nose. It is posed so that it is very sensitive to vibrations. We know that it is in some way connected with nurture, body-building, and the nervous system. If it is removed all organic function ceases. If overdeveloped it produces giantism, which if underdeveloped dwarfism is the result. The Pituitary Body has been called the seat of the mind. Its frontal lobe is concerned with emotional thought, of the type which produces poetry and music, while the anterior lobe is connected with more concrete intellectual concepts.

The Pineal Gland is a tiny cone-shaped body in the middle of the head, behind and just above the Pituitary. It contains pigment similar to that found in the eyes, and is connected by two nerve cords with the optic thalmi; it is said to control the action of light upon the body, and for these reasons scientists have suggested that it is the remnant of a third physical eye. Men of learning, such as Descartes, have pronounced it to be the point in the human being where soul and body meet, the seat of intuition.

It is said that when, for specific reasons, the Pituitary Body and the Pineal Gland have become fully developed and stimulated, their vibrations fuse and stir into life the mysterious 'Third Eye’ of man, the eye of the soul. Apparently this activity provides the mind with a perfect instrument with which to work, a transmitter by means of which vibrations of very differing types can be translated, interpreted and rearranged. This gives him personal access to much knowledge, of which we will speak later.

Man can also become sensitive to the finer chemical and magnetic emanations in the ether, and can ‘see’ the numberless thought-forms, entities and creatures, the endless complexities and types of life which make up a vast world of teeming energies which the limited capacity of ordinary physical sight is unable to register.

In a few people there is a slight involuntary functioning of these latter activities, and we call them either clairvoyant or crazy, according to our understanding. They can literally see the radiations and ‘photographs’ in the ether which are given off by almost any kind of body. We will study these in a later chapter. But, just as the muscles and brain need developing in an average person, so these organs of ‘second sight’ need their own particular training. Many, however, are born with a ‘knack’ for their use, in the way of any other type of prodigy.

When a psychometrist holds an article to his forehead against the awakened ‘Third Eye’ it tunes in to and commingles with the vibrations emanating from the article, and as these vibrations represent a certain picture, just as do our thoughts, he is able to describe the associations attached to it. The emanations from an object are often so fine and numerous that they continue to be given off for thousands of years, just as with radium.

The Egyptians knew all about the ‘Third Eye’, and indicated it on the statues of their gods by a knob on the forehead. They trained the people in the use of this psychic centre in the temple of Ma-at. The god Ma-at was vulture-headed, because the vulture has a sight so keen as to be almost clairvoyant. When people responded to this training they became ‘seers’, or psychic, as we should say now. They could see with the trained ‘Third Eye’ right through a body, as the X-ray does, and diagnose disease. All over the East we find statues of historic men or women of wisdom with a knob or other mark upon the forehead indicating this type of achievement.

Of course there are some people who have this power today, but we do not understand its use now how to train them properly, consequently their development has been left to chance.

We have now reached the most subtle portion on the scale of vibrations which we are discussing. The question arises as to whether we have quite exhausted its possibilities, or whether there are still finer ones than those that exist in the ether, and, if so, have we any means of contacting them?

The sphere of thought next occurs to us. We are told that ‘thoughts are things’! We know that each thought has its definite vibration, because this has been proved. An instrument has been invented by Dr. Baraduc of Bordeaux which records thought vibrations. When an intelligent person approaches this instrument it registers a high-speed and strong vibration. When a low type or imbecile approaches it the vibration is correspondingly feeble and slow.

It has also been proved by experiment that by an act of will the mind can cause objects such as metal levers to move (see experiments by Sir William Crookes in Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science). We have also heard of numberless cases of fakirs and people of that kind having been able to prevent themselves from burning by fire, from suffocating when buried alive, from bleeding from wounds, and from other normal reactions. They can do this by being able to bring into action the power that the finer vibrations of the mind have over the lower ones of chemical matter. The same thing is done in chemistry through the use of electrical heat to split up, reorganize or control chemical compounds.

Sometimes people use these powers without knowing exactly what they are doing, nor what the result will be, as in the cases of some forms of mental healing, based on ‘blind faith’. Such cases are a wonderful proof of existing possibilities, but at best they are uncertain (sometimes only ‘flukes’), and often much harm is done through lack of a fuller understanding.

In curing some diseases, either by self-treatment or by a mental healer, the fine vibrations of the mind act on the lower vibrations of the disease tissue. This can be performed at the same rate at which that particular mind is able to visualize and concentrate – it may take hours, days or weeks, according to the condition of patient and healer.

However, we know that there have occurred many cases of ‘instantaneous’ healing, diseased and broken tissues being rendered whole in a flash of times. We have heard of such things throughout history, and they are said to happen at the present day in places such as Lourdes. In these cases we have at last touched upon the finest and subtlest ‘vibrations’ of all, those of the ‘spirit’ or the highest creative force. Such vibrations, being unhampered by the processes of the brain, and operating at a terrific speed, can go through the whole process of cure so quickly that we cannot possibly follow its course, and the result seems to us to be instantaneous.

With a great spiritual healer such as Christ was, works of this kind are possible, especially if the sufferer can tune in, through ‘faith’ or through the medium of his own ‘spiritual’ vibrations, to the healer’s actions. Christ encouraged us to strive for these powers of healing, which are not really ‘supernatural’, but the result of an intensive development and an understanding of the laws of the universe.

The mind has power over everything that it can understand and visualize. Therefore the first step of all is to study these arguments and theories, and those facts which are supported by adequate testimony, with a perfectly open and logical mind.

If and when we become convinced of any argument or concept, we must tabulate it carefully, and pass on to a study of the next. In this way we will begin gradually to discover what we really can know and believe.

For instance, we may feel that it is impossible for us to prove for ourselves the truth of Christ’s miracles, or of any others in the past. But actually such things are happening every day, in every guise and form, and a little inquiry will soon put us in touch with them. Our own common sense will then enable us to separate the true from the false.

The object of this chapter is to show that, although we may approach this subject from the angle of pure chemical and mechanical science, we shall still be able to work through to the final result that there is a certain force controlled by our minds which can act more powerfully over solid matter than anything else; and that there is a still stronger force, apparently outside of mind, which can act instantaneously and ‘miraculously’.

It is not enough to go on any longer weakly tabulating these things as ‘hypnotism’, ‘thought-reading’, or ‘imagination’. They must be better understood for what they really are. We must have an explanation for the changes in tissue and matter which occur. The old alchemists claimed that it was possible to direct a mental force to change the composition of atoms by altering their vibrations, and that thereby it would be possible to make gold. They believed it was so, but already materialism had stepped in, and they often endeavoured to accomplish it by chemical means alone.

The only real power to do such things lies within ourselves, but we must first learn to use our own highest vibrations.

These powers can only work if they are undisturbed by the inharmonious heavy vibrations which enter into our composition if we live out of harmony with the laws of Nature.

The athlete knows that alcohol, smoking, unbalanced diet, worry and lack of sleep upset his health and undermine his stamina, so that even the low vibrations of physical strength and steadiness cannot gain control.

The mental worker knows that he has to steady down all his bodily disturbances and vibrations before he can concentrate at all. He needs not only to be able to ignore the vibrations all around him, which he can only do if they are steady and balanced (a hum of traffic disturbs many much less than odd drops of falling water), but also he must have steadiness and balance of every activity of his own body – so that he can ignore it.

If, however, he is seeking neither athletic nor mental expression, but ‘inspiration’, he can only obtain that by steadying down the brain itself, so that, balancing its vibrations to the same state of poise as those of his body, he can ignore the brain and reach for the subtler forces of the mind. The greatest inspiration will flash suddenly into the brain at a moment when it is quiet and receptive.

Therefore, although the highest vibrations are the most powerful, we cannot get in touch with them within ourselves when our bodies and brains are a mass of struggling, fighting inharmonious vibrations, as is usually the case. Though the highest forces are there within us, we give ourselves little chance of linking up with them, and consequently are unable to utilize them.

The yogis and fakirs spend hours in ‘meditation’, or the effort to quieten down every activity in the body and brain, so that the aforementioned portions of the latter, the Pineal Gland and the Pituitary Body, can ‘tune in’ to those highest powers. When this is accomplished these men can, while in that state, cure their own and others’ bodily or mental ills, obtain inspiration or wisdom, and attain a high state of physical fitness and strength without our methods of ‘exercise’.

The first thing for us to do, therefore, is to eliminate all inharmonious vibrations from our bodies and brains. We must throw them out one by one as we discover them. Every unnecessary act, thought, emotion and fear must go! We must build into the fabric of our lives only those things which will balance, strengthen, and beautify them. We will find that there is a tremendous amount of accumulated rubbish to cast away! Those things which remain will give us all the greater joy and interest through being intensified.