VII. The Science of Impression

The entire subject of telepathic communication can be approached under a more subjective designation or name, but one which is interpretive of the more universal and prior stage than that of direct telepathic reception. The occultist ever approaches the subject connected with the evolutionary process from the angle of the whole and then the part, from the periphery to the center, from the universal to the particular. Among Themselves, the Masters do not deal with telepathy as a science warranting consideration, endeavor and importation; They are concerned primarily with the Science of Impression. The term most often employed by Them is the esoteric equivalent of what the average person means when he says, "I have an impression." Impression is the subtlest reaction (more or less accurate) to the vibratory mental activity of some other mind or group of minds, of some whole, as its radiatory influence affects the unit or aggregate of units.

The first stage of correct telepathic reception is ever the registering of an impression; it is generally vague at the beginning, but as a thought, idea, purpose or intention of the sending agent concretizes, it slips into the second stage which appears as a definite thought-form; finally, that thought-form makes its impact upon the consciousness of the brain in the location lying just behind the ajna center and consequently in the area of the pituitary body. It can appear also in the region of the solar plexus center. But for those Lives Who have surmounted life in the three worlds and Who are not conditioned by the triple mechanism of the personality, the impression is the factor of importance; Their consciousness is impressed, and so sensitive is Their response to the higher impression, that They [42] absorb or appropriate the impression so that it becomes a part of Their own "impulsive energy."

This is by no means an easy subject for me to elucidate, and the reasons are two:

1. The members of the Hierarchy (among Whom I have the status of Master) [Discipleship in the New Age, I, 777] are Themselves in process of learning this Science of Impression. This They do on the levels of the abstract mind, of the intuition, or of manas and buddhi.
2. The science is as yet without a vocabulary. It is not limited at any stage by thought-forms but it is limited by word forms; and it is therefore a difficult problem for me to pass on any information anent this subtle mode of communication of which telepathy is in fact but an exoteric externalization.

Impression, as an art to be mastered both from the angle of the impressing agent and of the impressed recipient, is definitely related to the world of ideas. As far as our planetary Life is concerned, there are certain great sources of impression and one or two of them might here be noted; you will thus gain some idea of the subtlety of the whole subject, of its close relation to energy impacts and of its group reception as differentiated from individual reception, as is the case in any telepathic rapport.