Subba Row on Thought Transference

Tallapragada Subba Row · Constitution of Man Series · 11 pages

Subba Row's explanation of thought-transference rests on a single postulate: the existence of the astral fluid, which exists throughout the manifested solar system but does not extend beyond it. Before using it he separates two terms often treated as synonyms. Akasha is a much higher kind of cosmic ether, existing as a link between one solar system and another, as infinite as the original cosmic matter and the result of motion in it. Astral Light is not Akasha but a different form of cosmic ether — the entity in the manifested solar system corresponding to what is called the fourth principle in man, a manifestation of undifferentiated matter far more ethereal than anything we know, for which radiant matter may give some conception.

The mechanism follows from the distribution of that fluid. Though it exists uniformly throughout the solar system, it is denser around certain objects by reason of their molecular action — especially around the brain and spinal cord of human beings, where it forms what is called the aura; and it is this aura around the nerve cells and nerve tubes that enables a man to catch the impressions made on the Astral Light in the Cosmos. Taking the three branches of the psychologists of his day — intellectual images, emotions and volition — he then works out how each is transmitted, finding that volition always makes itself felt by an increase in that action. The account complements Aura and Magnetism in Confusing Words, which records the Blavatsky Lodge discussion of the same distinction.

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