Clairvoyance and Occult Powers was first published in 1916 under the name Swami Panchadasi. The book presents a practical course in psychic development, guiding readers to cultivate their latent spiritual abilities. It treats these abilities as natural skills that can be developed through mental training, concentration, and heightened sensory awareness. Swami Panchadasi was one of several pen names used by the Society’s writers.
The book is organized into 20 lessons that introduce concepts such as the astral body and astral plane. It explains that everyone possesses subtle senses similar to sight, hearing, and touch. These “astral senses” are typically dormant but can be awakened through regular practice, enabling perception beyond ordinary space and time.
The lessons address a range of psychic topics, including telepathy, mind reading, clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry, crystal gazing, and astral projection. Readers practice exercises to enhance concentration, visualization, and mental openness before progressing to advanced skills such as distant perception, second sight, and the perception of past or future events. The book emphasizes that psychic development is a gradual process requiring discipline and self-awareness, rather than passive waiting or expecting sudden results.
The book also explores personal psychic influence and magnetic healing, teaching that thoughts, intentions, and mental energy can affect both oneself and others. Consistent with the Yogi Publication Society’s philosophy, these concepts are explained in terms of mental force, vibration, and suggestion as natural causes. The development of psychic abilities is presented as governed by the same mental laws that shape thought, consciousness, and human growth.
Clairvoyance and Occult Powers combines ideas from New Thought psychology, Western occultism, and Eastern philosophy, to emphasize that greater awareness arises from self-discipline and heightened perception.
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