Candle of Vision

 “There is precious little theorization in The Candle of Vision, but the theory it does present is deeply challenging to conventional beliefs about the natural world and the existence of a supreme deity beyond nature. A.E. assumed that his experiences were memories of past lives, but not necessarily his own memories.” From A.E., The Candle of Vision

I became aware of a swift echo or response to my own moods in circumstance which had seemed hitherto immutable in its indifference. I found every intense imagination, every new adventure of the intellect endowed with magnetic power to attract to it its own kin. . . . I could prophesy from the uprising of new moods in myself that I, without search, would soon meet people of a certain character, and so I met them. The Candle of Vision, by AE (George William Russell), [1918]

WHEN I am in my room looking upon the walls I have painted I see there reflections of the personal life, but when I look through the windows I see a living nature and landscapes not painted by hands. So, too, when I meditate I feel in the images and thoughts which throng about me the reflections of personality, but there are also windows in the soul through which can be seen images created not by human but by the divine imagination. I have tried according to my capacity to report about the divine order and to discriminate between that which was self-begotten fantasy and that which came from a higher sphere. These retrospects and meditations are the efforts of an artist and poet to relate his own vision to the vision of the seers and writers of the sacred books, and to discover what element of truth lay in those imaginations. A. E. PREFACE to The Candle of Vision, by AE (George William Russell), [1918]

George William Russell ( 1867 – 1935 ) who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (sometimes written AE or A.E.), was an Irish nationalist, writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter. He was also a mystical writer, and a personage of a group of devotees of theosophy in Dublin for many years.

“The Koran (4:1, 2) says, "God is ever watching you," and similar assertions occur endlessly in Judaism and Christianity.  . . . Many people who believe God is omniscient feel guilty about some things they do, imagining God disapproves.” A.E., The Candle of Vision

Someone watching over you is bound to either reassure you or make you feel guilty. The first time I went to Mexico after I got back I envisioned myself at the bottom of a cylinder with people at the top rim looking down. The concept of loved ones sitting on the clouds watching your daily experiences can either reassure or not reassure. The new age books I read in the 80’s about taking to your angel, guides scared the living daylights out of me. Imagine someone watching over you that new every mistake and could tell you off. We even had animal guides. I one point I could swear someone sat down on my bed at night or something jumped up on my bed. It wasn’t until I mentioned that to someone in a bookstore and they said it was coming from me that it stopped. And it wasn’t until I read Quimby and started reading ACIM that I understood why it was coming from me. Imagine the relief, no guilt, no spirits floating around trying to inhabit your body and no walk-ins needed. Now, I do chuckle when I see a sign on dental offices or other stores that say “Walk-ins Welcome”.

New Thought taught “Christ Within” which removed the guilt. ACIM makes us guiltless.

The Candle of Vision describes Russells' luminous excursions into the otherworld, including clairvoyant and prophetic visions, precognition of Gnostic concepts, past-life and astral journeys, and, always, heightened awareness of the beauty that pervades mundane reality. Russell describes encounters with what today we would call UFOs, and attempts to construct a private Kabala based on an intuitive reconstuction of a primal language and alphabet. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cov/

“Man imagining himself into a mood takes on himself the results of the mood.”
Neville – The Law and The Promise

Know Your Magnetic Field, by William E. Gray, [1947] talks about the Magnetic Field and laying on of hands as a method of distributing human energy.