He replaced the lid and turned away to another device standing on a table at a far corner. He was just leading the way to that table when the Medical Lama Chinrobnobo came into the room again and joined us. “Ah!” he said, coming over to us, “so you are going to test his thought power? Good! I must be in on this!” My Guide pointed to a queer cylinder of what appeared to be rough paper. “This, Lobsang, is thick, rough paper. You will see that it has innumerable holes made in it, holes made with a very blunt instrument so that the paper is torn and leaves projections. We then folded that paper so that all the projections were on the outside and the sheet, instead of being flat, formed a cylinder. Across the top of the cylinder we affixed a rigid straw, and upon a small pedestal we fixed a sharp needle. Thus we have the cylinder supported on an almost frictioniess bearing. Now watch me!” He sat down, and put his hands on either side of the cylinder, not touching the cylinder, but leaving about an inch or an inch and a half space between his hands and the projections. Soon the cylinder started to spin, and I was astounded as the thing picked up speed and was soon rotating at quite a merry rate. My Guide stopped it with a touch, and placed his hands in the opposite direction so that the fingers – instead of pointing away from his body as had been the case – now pointed toward his body. The cylinder started to spin but in the opposite direction! “You are blowing upon it!” I said. “Everyone says that!” said the Medical Lama Chinrobnobo, “but they are completely wrong.”
The Great Medical Lama went to a recess in the far wall, and returned bearing a sheet of glass, it was quite a thick sheet, and he carried it carefully to my Guide the Lama Mingyar Dondup. My Guide stopped the cylinder from rotating and sat quiet while the Great Medical Lama Chinrobnobo placed the sheet of glass between my Guide and the paper cylinder. “Think about rotation,” said the Medical Lama. My Guide apparently did so, for the cylinder started to rotate again. It was quite impossible for my Guide or for anyone else to have blown on the cylinder and made it rotate because of the glass. He stopped the cylinder again and then turned to me and said, “You try it, Lobsang!” He rose from his seat and I took his place.
I sat down and placed my hands just as had my Guide. The Medical Lama Chinrobnobo held the sheet of glass in front of me so that my breath would not influence the rotation of the cylinder. I sat there feeling like a fool. Apparently the cylinder thought I was one too, for nothing happened “Think of making it rotate, Lobsang!” said my Guide. I did so, and immediately the thing started to go round. For a moment I felt like dropping everything and running – I thought the thing was bewitched, then reason (of a sort!) prevailed and I just sat still.
“That device, Lobsang,” said my Guide, “runs by the force of the human aura. You think of rotating it and your aura puts a swirl on the thing, which causes it to turn. You may be interested to know that a device such as this has been experimented with in all the greater countries of the world. All the greatest scientists have tried to explain away the workings of this thing, but Western people, of course, cannot believe in etheric force and so they invent explanations which are even stranger than the actual force of the etheric!”
The Great Medical Lama said, “I am feeling quite hungry, Mingyar Dondup, I feel that it is time we repaired to our rooms for a rest and for sustenance. We must not tax the young man’s abilities nor his endurance, for he will get enough of that in the future.” We turned, and the lights were extinguished in that room, and we made our way up the stone corridor and into the main building of the Chakpori. Soon I was in a room with my Guide the Lama Mingyar Dondup. Soon – happy thought – I was consuming food and feeling the better for it. “Eat well, Lobsang,” said my Guide, “for later in the day we shall see you again and discuss with you other matters.”
For an hour or so I rested in my room, looking out of the window, because I had a weakness; I always liked to look from high places and watch the world moving beneath. I loved to watch the traders wending their slow way through the Western Gate, their every step indicating their delight at having reached the end of a long and arduous journey through the high mountain passes. Traders in the past had told me of the wonderful view there was from a certain spot on a high pass where, as one came from the Indian border, one could look down between a cleft in the mountains and gaze upon the Sacred City with its’ roof tops agleam with gold and, off by the side of the mountains, the white walls of “The Rice Heap”, looking indeed like a heap of rice as it sprawled in bounteous profusion down the side of the mountainous Slopes. I loved to watch the ferryman crossing the Happy River, and I hoped always for the sight of a puncture in his inflated hide boat, I longed to watch him gradually sink from sight until only his head protruded above the water. But I was never that fortunate, the ferry-man always reached the other side, took on his load, and returned again.
Soon, once more I was in that deep room with my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup and the Great Medical Lama Chinrobnobo. “Lobsang!” said the great Medical Lama, “you must be sure that if you are going to examine a patient in order that you may assist him or her the clothes’ be entirely removed.” “Honourable Medical Lama!” I said, in some confusion, “I can think of no reason why I should deprive a person of their clothing in this cold weather, for I can sec their aura perfectly without there being any need whatsoever to remove a single garment, and oh! Respected Medical Lama! How could I possibly ask a woman to remove her clothing?” My eyes rolled up-wards in horror at the mere thought. I must have presented quite – a comical figure, for both my Guide and the Medical Lama burst out laughing. They sat down, and really enjoyed themselves with their laughter. I stood in front of them feeling remarkably foolish, but really, I was quite puzzled about these things. I could see an aura perfectly -with no trouble at all and I saw no reason why I should depart from what was my own normal practice.
“Lobsang!” said the Medical Lama; “you are a very gifted clairvoyant, but there are some things which you do not yet see. We have had a remarkable demonstration from you of your ability in seeing the human aura, but you would not have seen the liver complaint of the Indian Lama Marfata if he had not removed his clothing.” I reflected upon this, and when I thought about it I had to admit that it was correct; I had looked at the Indian Lama while he had been robed, and while I had seen much about his character and basic traits, I still had not noticed the liver complaint. “You are perfectly correct, Honourable Medical Lama,” I said, “but I should like some further training from you in this matter.”
My Guide,’ the Lama Mingyar Dondup, looked at me and said, “When you look at a person’s aura you want to see the person’s aura, you are not concerned with the thoughts of the sheep whence came the wool which was made into a robe. Every aura is influenced by that which interferes with its direct rays. We have here a sheet of glass, and if I breathe upon that glass, it will effect what you see through the glass. Similarity, although this glass is transparent, it actually does alter the, light or rather the colour of the light, which you would see when looking through it. In the same way, if you look through a piece of coloured glass all the vibrations which you receive from an object are altered in intensity by the action of the coloured glass. Thus it is that a person whose body has upon it clothing, or ornaments (pryd) of any kind, has his aura modified according to the etheric content of the clothing or ornament.” I thought about it, and I had to agree, that there was quite a lot in what he said, he continued, “A further point is this, every organ of the body projects its own picture – its own state of health or sickness – onto the etheric, and the aura, when uncovered and free from the influence of clothes, magnifies and intensifies the impression which one receives. Thus it is quite definite that if you are going to help a person in health or in sickness, then you will have to examine him without his clothing.” He smiled at me and said, “And if the weather be cold, why then, Lobsang, you will have to take him to a warmer place!”
“Honourable Lama,” I said “some time ago you told me that you were working on a device which would enable one to cure illness through the aura.” “That is perfectly correct, Lobsang,” said my Guide, “illness is merely a dissonance in the body vibrations. An organ has its rate of molecular vibration disturbed and so it is considered to be a sick organ. If we could actually see how much the vibration of an organ departs from the normal, then, by restoring the rate of vibration to what it should be we have effected a cure. In the case of a mental affliction, the brain usually receives messages from the Overself which it cannot correctly interpret, and so the actions resulting are those which depart from that which is accepted as normal actions for a human. Thus, if the human is not able to reason or act in a normal manner, he is said to have some mental ailment. By measuring the discrepancy the under-stimulation – we can assist a person to recover normal balance. The vibrations may be lower than normal resulting in under-stimulation, or they may be higher than normal, which would give an effect similar to that of a brain fever. Quite definitely – illness can be cured by intervention through the aura.”
The Great Medical Lama interrupted here, and said, “By the way, Respected Colleague, the Lama Marfata was discussing this matter with me, and he said that at certain places in India – at certain secluded lamaseries – they were experimenting with a very high voltage device known as a – ” he hesitated and said, “it is a deGraaf generator.” He was a bit uncertain about his terms, but he was making a truly manful effort to give us the exact information. “This generator apparently developed an extraordinarily high voltage at an extraordinarily low current, applied in a certain way to the body it caused the intensity of the aura to increase many many times so that even the non-clairvoyant could clearly observe it. I am told also that photographs have been taken of a human aura under these conditions.” My Guide nodded solemnly(nikket høytidlig), and said, “Yes, it is also possible to view the human aura by means of a special dye(fargestoff), a liquid which is sandwiched between two plates of glass. By arranging appropriate lighting and back-ground, and viewing the nude human body through this screen – many people can indeed see the aura.
I burst in and said, “But, Honourable Sirs! Why do people have to use all these tricks? I can see the aura -why cannot they?” My two mentors laughed again, this time they did not feel it necessary to explain the difference between training such as I had had and the training of the average man or woman in the street.
The Medical Lama said, “Now we probe in the dark, we try to cure our patients by rule of thumb, by herbs and pills and potions. We are like blind men trying to find a pin dropped on the ground. I would like to see a small device so that any non-clairvoyant person could look through this device and see the human aura, see all the faults of the human aura, and – in seeing – would be able to cure the discrepancy (mangel) or the deficiency which truly was the cause of the illness.”
For the rest of that week I was shown things by hypnotism and by telepathy, and my powers were increased and intensified, and we had talk after talk on the best ways to see the aura and to develop a machine which would also see the aura, and then, upon the last night of that week. I went to my little room in the Chakpori Lamasery and looked out of the window thinking that on the morrow I would return again to that bigger dormitory where I slept in company with so many others.
The lights in the Valley were atwinkle. The last dying rays peering over the rocky rim of our Valley glanced down, flicking the golden roofs as if with sparkling fingers, sending up showers of golden light, and in doing so breaking the light into iridescent colours which were of the spectrum of the gold itself. Blues and yellows and reds, and even some green struggled to attract the eye, growing dimmer and dimmer as the light faded. Soon the Valley itself was as encased in dark velvet, a dark blue-violet or purple velvet which could almost be felt. Through my open window I could smell the scent of the willows(piletrær), and the scent of plants in the garden so far below me, a vagrant breeze wafted stronger scents to my nostrils, pollen, and budding flowers….
The story continues in Summary part 1: Link to Summary part 1
