| Certain people believe that remote viewing
is a psychic skill that anyone can develop. Others say that such may come
as a natural result of true inner development, and may cite the Cayce
readings as saying that this can happen if one works very hard and very
long on spiritual growth. But let’s resist speculating and start with some
basic considerations.
A first-rate mind is one that is aware of the solar system in which it
lives. A provincial mind is one that has never traveled in time and space.
Readers of The Hutton Commentaries cannot be accused of provincial
thinking. But then again, how far and in which direction must one bend
one’s mind to increase awareness? Let us mentally fly to the realm of the
Moon to answer this question.
The Nature of The Moon,
Esoterically Speaking
The Moon is the child of the Earth. In both
science and in myth this idea has been expressed from the dawn of
history. The nineteenth-century hypothesis that the Moon was a fragment
torn by some cosmic cataclysm from Earth merely echoed in a new form the
Greek legend that Selene was born of Theia.
Greek legend is in many ways more suggestive. It
goes on to add that Selene, the Moon, was the daughter of Theia, the
Earth, and Hyperion, the Sun; that she was beloved by Pan, the world of
nature, but enamoured of Endymion, mankind, whom Zeus had cast into an
endless sleep. Here are hints of many roles, which make our purely
geologic explanations curiously flat and unconvincing.
Now for a planet, the distance at which Earth
supports its satellite is exceptionally great. The Moon's orbit lies no
less than 30 times the Earth's diameter away. From one point of view,
one can say that the Earth is the most hard-pressed planet in the Solar
System. Conditions upon Earth are less free than elsewhere.
All liquids on Earth are subject to the pull of
the Moon. The best know example is the influence of the Moon on the
tides. It pulls back on the great liquid masses of the oceans, as if
applying a brake to Earth's spin. Its actual effect is to reduce
infinitesimally the weight of objects immediately below it.
The tidal effect of the Moon
works as well on liquids in organic matter as it does on those that are
free. The minute capillaries through which organic liquids move break
the liquids up into masses so small that they behave by molecular rather
than mechanical laws. Such masses may be more sensitive to the lunar
pull than the large bodies of water on Earth. On this molecular scale,
the pull of the Moon provides a basis of many country traditions, such
as the belief that plant growth takes place at night, and particularly
on moonlit nights. The maximum content of water in melons and
Sargasso-seaweed coincides with the full Moon. Cuban mahogany contracts
have a moon-clause to ensure that the timber be cut at the moment of
minimum moisture, which equates to maximum hardness.
Since all Nature is in its essence moist, the
influence of the Moon upon it varies only in degree. The world of
Nature, engendered by the Sun, built of the Earth, and clothed with form
by the planets, is endowed with motion by the Moon. The influence of the
Moon - half minor planet, half earthly satellite - thus naturally takes
effect on matters in the state between gaseous and solid - that is to
say, upon matter in liquid state.1
What about the Moon as an entity? One finds no signs of
organic life or atmosphere on the Moon. Only matter in the mineral state
is present. In the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky system (GOS) of esoteric knowledge,
the Moon lies at the end of a branch of the Ray of Creation that includes
our galaxy, our planetary system, the Sun, and the Earth. In this cosmic
ladder of being, the GOS says that Man on Earth is under 48 orders of laws
– that is, 48 influences that play on one like shifting spotlights. GOS
also says that the Moon is under 96 orders of laws.
To be under the Moon is to be under the greatest
possible mechanicalness and, as you know, this is the case in a man, a
woman, who is fast asleep, governed by every form of negative emotion,
hate, internal considering, and so on. By work on oneself one can come
under fewer and better influences or laws. This is why we work on the
lines laid down in the practical teaching of the [GOS] work. As a result
of obeying them one rises in the "Ladder of Being" represented by the
Ray of Creation. But this is only possible through sacrifice. To behave
as you always do, and expect to rise, is impossible. One must, to begin
with, sacrifice one's own suffering. All self-pity, all self-cradling,
vanity, secret absurd fears, all self-sentimentality, all inner
accounting, all pitiful pictures, all sighs, inner groans, and
complaints, must be burned up in the fire of increasing Consciousness.
Remember that there is no justice under higher laws such as we
understand justice. Higher justice, heavenly justice, is to work on
yourself, so that when you die you have no accounts………..
Now in the supreme sense, when we begin to "make
Moon in ourselves" we are making a Work-Center of Gravity distinct from
life. Only a ….force different from the…force of life can do this for
and in us. Only a psycho-spiritual force can do it, derived not from
life and the dull, heavy, habit-forming mechanizing influences of the
"Moon" but from those more graceful who have gone before, up the Side-
Ladder to the Sun, and left us memorials of the way to follow them."2
A final point about the nature of the Moon in relation
to the Earth, from the teachings of the GOS. Organic life – Nature –
originated from the level of intelligence represented visibly by the Sun.
It became necessary for the Sun to create a sensitive living film on the
Earth capable of receiving influences coming down the Ray of Creation and
passing them on to the terminal point of our particular Ray, namely the
Moon. We now have to speak in allegory. The Sun was willing to undertake
this task, only it made the condition that it must receive something for
itself as a reward for all the labor of planning, creating, experimenting
and maintaining the sensitive film of Organic Life on Earth. For this
purpose, and having made the conditions on Earth suitable of his
existence, it created Man as a self-developing organism. That is, it gave
Man more than was necessary. This special creation was purely
experimental. It may fail. The point was that if a sufficient number of
human beings developed themselves beyond what was necessary or mere
existence and survival on the Earth, they could rise in the Scale of Being
to the level of what is represented by the Sun. The Sun would then receive
something for itself. (Nicoll, 1952, v. 5, p. 1617).
Role of the Moon From the Cayce
Readings’ Viewpoint
Now that we are somewhat familiar with the GOS’s
esoteric teaching about the Moon, we can entertain – perhaps with a
greater level of understanding – the various Cayce readings dealing with
the nature and role of the Moon in the transformation of souls on that
long journey home to their origin beyond the stars.
Here is a reading that seems to deal with lunar soul
habitation in an earlier phase of the Moon’s development. (All words in
bold reflect our emphasis.)
With this particular body (in the present), and those influences that
are manifested in the material, mental and spiritual affairs of the
entity, there is offered an unusual illustration of these truths that
have been presented here.
So, in the study, analysis and understanding that may be given or
gained from that which is presented, know that this is being given from
the actual records that have been written by the activities of the
entity through its sojourn in that which may be justly termed reality; a
separate entity from the first cause or impulse. And the varied
experiences are in the form of matter, mind and spirit; for, as given,
the separations must be considered if there would be the more perfect
understanding.
As it has been often presented by one school of thought, the dwellers
upon the Moon (the satellite of the earth) preceded the abilities
for matter (expressed in a form that is known as matter in the earth).
And this entity was among those that so dwelt, and is influenced by two
sojourns there.
Hence there have ever been in the experience of the entity periods
that are governed by the influence of not only the satellite's drawing
upon the earth and the elements of same but of the mental, in such a
manner as to make for physical as well as mental and material changes in
the affairs of the entity; when the mental being of the entity allows
the influence to dominate rather than dominating the influence.
Also as a sojourner in the environ elemental as well as material, the
Sun's activity on the mental has wielded and does wield a powerful
influence in the affairs, the activities, the thoughts of the entity. As
may be illustrated:
On dark days with little sunshine there is an appreciable
manifestation of fear and dread. And especially does this occur when the
Moon by its position is on the opposite side of the orb or earth.
As to this influence also, if the entity uses the will in reference
to such influences in a spiritual sense, much alteration arises.
Naturally, the question would be: How, when, in what manner, may an
entity use such influence as to make for a betterment of those that tend
to bring an air or a feeling of oppression upon the mental being?
Realizing, then, that there is an influence from without self of a
nature that self may be in accord with or in opposition to; for all
entities realize they in themselves are both positive and negative
influences, and that the first cause - or the spirit - must of necessity
within itself be likewise, yet more positive than negative, for it
attracts with attraction and repels with rebellion of that same activity
of which every entity is a part. [See 264-45, Par. 15-A, 16-A, in re her
aversion to flowers and animals.]
Hence the realizing of self's dependence upon that influence is that
which makes for the change in the experience of the entity, in becoming
conscious - through the mental-spiritual forces in self - of the
willingness to be led rather than leading or demanding other than, "Thy
will be done in me, use me in that channel Thou, O God, would have me be
led."
As to the influences then from the astrological sojourn, these become
for an entity (as we have given) as the hereditary influences of the
mental being - or impulses; while the material sojourns become as the
environmental influences in the mental being.
This entity (as we have given) is swayed more by those two greater
lights in the experience, both as to hereditary and environmental, from
the astrological viewpoint, than most individuals. Why? Because of that
influence which has just been given!
264-31; March 18, 1933
The next reading speaks of a time
when the Moon itself had a satellite. This assertion has interesting
implications both from esoteric and exoteric standpoints. But no
information is available as to whether this satellite of the Moon was
natural or man made.3 Thus any
speculations on our part would be barren.
Before this we find the entity in that land now known as the
American, during the periods when the Lemurian or the lands of Mu or Zu
were being in their turmoils for destruction.
And the entity was among those that - in what is now not far from
that land in which the entity in this sojourn first saw the light -
(that must in the near future fade again into those joinings with the
land of Mu) - established a temple of worship for those that escaped
from the turmoils of the shifting of the earth at that particular
period.
The entity, in the name Oeueou, established near what is now Santa
Barbara the temple to the Sun and the Moon; for the satellite
of the Moon had not faded then, and there was enjoined as to
the entity in the worship as the goddess to the Moon and the sun.
The entity brought good and evil with this worship, for the necessity
of the repopulation of the land brought to those peoples - with that
which the entity had established in the soul's relationships of life -
dissension, and, at last, dispersement of those peoples to that portion
which later, much later in the affairs of the earth, became not only the
destructive forces to those that journeyed from the land of promise but
those that journeyed from the Atlantean land and became those that met
with the peoples, centuries later, in the central portion of what is now
United States.
509-1; February 5, 1934
Here we find a rather difficult-to-understand message
about the Moon in relation to one individual’s soul experience with the
Moon.
As to the astrological aspects, then, or those phases of experience
of this entity outside the earth, those phases of consciousness are
known by those influences that are accredited to and are a portion of
the mental and soul experience in those planets that make up the realm
of the earthly environ.
That is, as the Sun is the source of life in materiality in the
earth, the beauty of the satellite of the earth in the Moon
indwellings from which individual or soul experiences (not personally)
travel in the planets within this same realm, ALL are a portion of the
entity's experience or soul experience in its passage.
Why?
That the soul - a portion, an expression of God's desire for
companionship - might find expression, the souls of men and women came
into being; that there might be that which would make each soul, then,
as a fit companion for that realm. There is the necessity of fitting
itself through the experiences of all phases and realms of existence,
then; that it, the soul, may not cause disruption in the realm of
beauty, harmony, strength of divinity in its companionships with that
Creative Force.
Hence the experiences, if we will gain that deeper comprehension of
same, are but opportunities; for in whatsoever state of consciousness
one FINDS self, the awakening is from the desire of the Father that each
soul shall continue to have ITS thread of gold that runs through each
conscious force for its companionship with Him.
So the use or application of that in hand makes for the awareness
within self of ITS, the soul's, relationships to the Creative Force.
805-4; October 22, 1935
The following reading gives an important statement about the actions of
any or all heavenly bodies that might influence a soul and that soul’s
right to choose how it wishes to respond. This is reminiscent of one of
the dictums of the GOS’s esoteric teaching, “You have a right not
to be negative.”
Do the planets have anything to do with the ruling of the destiny of
men? If so, what? and what do they have to do with this body?
They do. In the beginning, as our own planet, Earth, was set in
motion, the placing of other planets began the ruling of the destiny of
all matter as created, just as the division of waters was and is ruled
by the moon in its path about the Earth; just so as in the higher
creation, as it began, is ruled by the action of the planets about the
earth.
The strongest power in the destiny of man is the Sun, first; then the
closer planets, or those that are coming in ascendency at the time of
the birth of the individual; but let it be understood here, no action
of any planet or any of the phases of the Sun, Moon, or any of the
heavenly bodies surpass the rule of Man's individual will power -
the power given by the Creator of man in the beginning, when he became a
living soul, with the power of choosing for himself.
The inclination of man is ruled by the planets under which he is
born. In this far the destiny of man lies within the sphere or scope of
the planets. With the given position of the Solar system at the time of
the birth of an individual, it can be worked out, - that is, the
inclinations and actions without the will power taken into
consideration.
As in this body here [Edgar Cayce] born March 18, 1877, three minutes
past three o'clock, with the Sun descending, on the wane, the Moon
in the opposite side of the Earth (old moon), Uranus at its zenith,
hence the body is ultra in its actions. Neptune closest in conjunction
or Neptune as it is termed in Astrological survey, in the ninth house;
Jupiter, the higher force of all the planets, save the Sun, in
descendency, Venus just coming to horizon, Mars just set, Saturn - to
whom all insufficient matter is cast at its decay - opposite the face of
the Moon. Hence the inclination as the body is controlled by the
Astrological survey at the time of the birth of this body, either (no
middle ground for this body) very good or very bad, very religious or
very wicked, very rich or always losing, very much in love or hate, very
much given to good works or always doing wrong, governed entirely by the
will of the body. Will is the educational factor of the body; thence the
patience, the persistence, the ever faithful attention that should be
given to the child when it is young. [GD's note: I believe above birth
data was volunteered because Mr. Thrash did not accept birth data from
EC and parents.]
March 19, 1919
A reading just below describes the Moon and the Sun as rulers of the
emotions. It also suggests the wearing of moonstone (or agate) at specific
points on the body for the soul obtaining the reading. The entity in
question was said once to have had a sojourn on the Moon. Finally, the
warning given to never sleep with the Moon shining upon the face suggests
that there may be some radiational, etheric, or other related effect
incident to moonlight falling on the tissues of one who had had a sojourn
on the Moon.
As to those things about the person:
The moonstone or the agate should be as an amulet, either
about the neck or as a ring, or worn upon the person.
For these make for the creating of those activities, as will be seen
have been, are, a portion of the experience of the entity in its course
through those influences that bring experiences in the earth as in the
present.
From the astrological aspects we find there was a sojourn upon the
Moon.
Hence the Moon is an active influence of the entity, and DO
NOT ever sleep with the Moon shining upon the face.
In the sunshine, much; for the Moon and the sun are the ruling
of the emotions, and these are - as from the sojourns of the entity in
Venus - a greater portion of the experiences as will be had.
1401-1; July 6, 1937
This reading addresses, in part, whether or not a soul’s
evolution is limited to the Earth plane. It goes on to explain, using some
tortured phrasing, the development of consciousness that a soul
experiences in passing through the varied spheres of the solar system.
(Q) Is experience limited to this earth plane?
(A) As each entity, each soul, in the various consciousnesses, passes
from one to another, it - the soul - becomes conscious of that about
self in that sphere - to which it, the entity, the soul attains in a
materially manifested way or manner.
Hence the entity develops THROUGH the varied spheres of the earth and
its solar system, and the companions of varied experiences in that solar
system, or spheres of development or activity; as in some ways
accredited correctly to the planetary influences in an experience. The
entity develops THROUGH those varied spheres.
Hence the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the position in the
heavens or in all of the hosts of the solar systems that the earth
occupies - all have their influence in the same manner (this is a very
crude illustration, but very demonstrative) that the effect of a large
amount of any element would attract a compass. Drawn to! Why?
Because of the influence of which the mind element of a soul, an entity,
has become conscious!
A soul, an entity, is as real as a physical entity, and is as subject
to laws as the physical body as subject to the laws in a material world
and the elements thereof!
Does fire burn the soul or the physical body?
Yet, self may cast self into a fire element by doing that the soul
knows to be wrong!
What would make a wrong and a right? A comparison of that the soul
knows its consciousness to be in accord or contrarywise with, in
relation to that which gave it existence.
5753-1; June 16, 1933
Considering a reading such as 5753-1 above, is it of any
consequence to speculate on the whether or not remote viewing of the
Moon’s hidden side is of reality or importance? One should not get out of
balance by entertaining too seriously bizarre information based allegedly
on remote viewing. |