Lecture: Self-Determinism On The Dynamics (1951)

Every few preclears, you are going to get hold of one who has monkeyed around with spiritualism, mysticism, yoga, Hinduism and all the rest of it, right down the line. And self-confidence in handling the seventh dynamic depends on not having tampered with it. That is a fact.

Look at the gorgeous louse-up that this dynamic can occasion. Let us take an individual who takes up Rosicrucianism when he is fifteen years of age. He is sent a little folder and it tells him that he should sit in a dark closet, gazing at a lighted candle for fifteen minutes every day, until he finally sees something. And believe me, he will eventually see something. If he can just get relaxed enough, one of these counter-efforts will hit him— bong! Now is he convinced! Of course, it was probably Mama’s broom handle or something of the sort, but it is much easier to assign this to a spirit world, and he says, “Gee, there’s something here—maybe.” And there is where the seventh dynamic starts falling to pieces: on that confounded maybe.

Now, let’s look at this. This boy is saying, “Do I have any affinity with something that has gone beyond, or with spiritual guidance? Do I? Well, do they have any for me? Well, I can’t nail that down, but I have a feeling like there’s something there. Do I agree with anything that this spiritual guidance is trying to do or not? Or is it there to agree with? Does it exist? Is there any reality to it? Well, I don’t know. Now, can I talk to spirits or can’t I? And if I talk to them, do they listen?” A-R-C—question mark, question mark, question mark. Is there any A, is there any R. is there any C on it?

And that is how a fellow gets himself into a beautiful state on the seventh dynamic. He just gets himself completely loused up if he keeps this up.

I speak with a great deal of experience. I know lots of people in various parts of the world, men who are very holy—who demonstrate it—and there is no accounting for the things that these individuals can do. I have seen the poltergeist phenomena. Very interesting—matter moves without being touched. Fascinating. I know people that started in telling fortunes and were excellent at it, just expert, and in about a year or so they were all off the groove on the subject of telling fortunes. I know people that have followed and studied magic, mysticism and so on as philosophies, and I know that every single one of them started out in pretty good shape and wound up in horrible shape.

I studied this off and on, I guess, for about five years in my life, because it is the most beautiful field in which to find phenomena. And can you find some choice and lovely phenomena! But if you can’t get the phenomena and bring it back to MEST and pin it down in its association with MEST, it is just a blur and you get worse and worse and worse on it. I am telling you all this, not autobiographically, but so you can appreciate some of these people when you run into them.¹

Notes