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THE POWER OF KARMA For this reason, some of the views very firmly held in waking life, are revealed in the unconscious state of the medium, which has just that trace of consciousness to spoil a foolproof experiment. On the contrary, in hypnotic trance, controlled by a competent hypnologist, no consciousness is allowed to leak through into the unconscious, as the subconscious mind is completely in abeyance, which is not the case in mediumistic trance. Some of our best mediums have confessed to me in private that they can control to some extent "what comes through". What a confession to make !
Madame Blavatsky, the founder of the Thcosophical Society, made it quite clear that a passive medium has no power of his own, and that it is erroneous to speak of him as having powers developed. The phenomena of mediumship are due to emanations given off by the medium which form an aura. The controlling intelligences temporarily live in or draw life from this aura, and it is the vehicle by which they manifest themselves and display their power. This aura is “an external effect resulting from interior causes. The medium's moral state determines the kind of spirits that come, and the spirits that come reciprocally influence the medium, intellectually, physically, and morally."