Comparative and Critical Study of Mantrashastra

Author(s): Mohanlal Bhagwandas Jhaveri, K V Abhayankar
Publisher: Sarabhai Manilal Nawab

Page 18

IMAGINATION
orator, bred in woods, whose senses have been nourished by the fair and appeasing changes of a country life, shall not lose their lesson altogether in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountains as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with these forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power, are put in the orator's hands."
"And Indian Fakir can cause spectators to see lions, tigers, elephants, etc., emerge from a tent and furiously attack each other. By long practice of concentration the fakir attains such a degree of perfection in the exercise of the image--making power of the imagination that, through the operation of another law-telepathy, or the transmission of an image from the mental sphere of one person to that of others-the spectators around are made to see as an external reality, the imaginative creation of the fakir." "Ars Vivendi" by Arthur Lowell pp. 106-7, 6th Edition.
These are the instances of the concentrated imagination. When, however, a man loses control over his imagination, this very concen trated imagination produces insanity; and to the affected person, images become clearly visible as the sight of flesh and blood through creative power of the imagination. "The explanation of Magic, sorcery, Witchcraft, second sight, Apparitions and Ghosts is to be found in the Imagination.” Just as a morbid idea will eventually bring about a morbid state of body, so a healthy idea will bring about a healthy state of body, and this is the principle on which cures are effected of such diseases as insanity, paralysis, ague, etc. “In fact the force of the healthy imagination is even more powerful in healing, strengthening, and ennobling man than the diseased imagination is in weakening debasing and enthralling him in the bonds of pain, misery and disease.” What is required is imagination concentrated and the Will firmly fixed. We may here quote Arthur Lowell from his work "Imagination and Its Wonders" on the Magical Image at pp. 120-1, 1st Edition.
"The Magical Inage has played its part amongst all sorts and conditions of men and