The Silver Shield

AFTER we have developed our power to attract the Aspiring atoms and have reviewed our past lives we begin to practise another kind of breathing to attract atoms that will protect our minds from outside interference: these are the Transformation atoms. They build about the lining of our mental body what is called the Silver Shield, formed from those atoms that in time will vibrate and immerse us into a higher wave-length. It is a mental atmosphere possessing the qualities of our wisdom experience, and when this is built up it becomes the temple for the Master atom of the mind-body, who ascends from the seminal system and there illuminates our minds. It is also a receiving station and condenser for the vibration of the Innermost and the higher counterpart of elemental Nature.

The quality and size of this Silver Shield depends upon the quality of the student’s aspiration and his powers of attracting the Transformation atoms to his nasal grid and into his bloodstream. Later on we will describe the method of breathing to develop this shield.

The development of the Silver Shield is our real important work and needs time and patience; for such atoms are not easily attracted. These shield us from the interference of our submerged self and those conditions attracted to us the moment our atmosphere radiates atoms of an aspiring nature.

The calls of the past are difficult to eradicate from our atmosphere; for they contain atoms that would place the mind in their periods.

The new vibration of the Transformation atoms is very subtle, and one’s sensitivity increases and is difficult to analyse. Though the student is not conscious of its approach after his first immersion in this wave-length, and though he will seem normal, this vibration will be difficult to bear and will cause him suffering.

If possible, the student should try to go into retreat in the country where there will be mental quietness and therefore little to interfere with his practice.

This is a period through which most of the ancient anchorites passed; for the conditions that infest the atmosphere repeatedly plunges the student into his own borderland, between his protective shield and atmosphere. This is like an army attacking a fortress shielded by an outer pallisade wherein swarms of evil entities hover, seeking entrance into the atmosphere of this powerful atomic substance composed of Transformation atoms.

The student is now a light in a dark world, and the mentally evil attack him whenever possible. This excites and disturbs the student very easily.

This struggle lasts longer than we desire; for, though shielded, we are not immune from thought-activity of a worldly nature. This is a period of instruction when we listen-in to the Master atom after it has entered the Silver Shield.

The student will now have to shoulder burdens others cast upon him. Before he can carry on his true work he is often plunged into the world of commerce, and, being very sensitive, this sometimes makes him unhappy. He will later discover how to help the people among whom he works; for he will be able to analyse what is needed for their betterment. Like a surgeon, he will discover what canker to remove in order to help the troubled mind.

We should remember that there are very few who can work consciously under the direction of their teachers, and there are students who assist in bearing the burdens of the Great Initiates.

Teachers will sometimes reveal their accomplishments and tasks in order that their pupils may realise their future possibilities, and show them that they are part of a great universal plan. Every man has his place in this vast scheme, even though he is ignorant of it. By Yoga practice we seek to work in harmony with this universal stream that creates, guides, and aspires all to become part of its intelligence. The seeker will attain to this does he but aspire; if not in this life, then in another.

Both the Aspiration and Transformation atoms have their own symbols. The radiations from an atom give it an apparent form; and this is often used as a symbol. The symbol of the Transformation atom is like a trident or inverted crossbow. This symbol is also used by the Brahmins, and the Silver Shield is known to them as the instrument of the mind-body.

The workings of the mind are not understood by Western psychologists. In their task of charting the brain and nervous system they have not yet discovered how thought acts upon the brain.

On our Silver Shield are a multitude of node points. When a thought is brought to them they transfer into the cell life of the brain their vibratory energy; this also brings to us information from other planetary systems.

The Silver Shield takes up a large area and upon it is the chart of our solar system. Its lower counterpart is the surface of the brain, but, being imprisoned within the skull, it has to be crumpled up. Hence the convolutions within it.

Each node on the outer membrane is attuned to its special kind of thought. If we send the thought of love, the node point of the receiver attracts it and sends it inwardly to the cell life of the brain vibrating to it.

The normal brain receives these impulses from these node points situated on the silken membrane of the mind-body.

Just as the physical body receives nourishment from food that causes atomic stimulation, so does the mind-body receive nourishment from its surrounding atmosphere.

It is interesting to note that when one fasts, after a few days one becomes mentally stimulated, for the densities of the body do not impede the mind by pressing on it.

The Master atom of the Silver Shield is a migratory atom of the seminal fluid. Its energy typifies the inherited strength of the student’s ancestors, until over-shadowed by the energy of the Innermost. One often wonders why so few men have minds strong enough to begin and complete a thing of merit. If a man’s ancestors have been dissipated and weak through un-natural lusts his Master atom is weak likewise. This is why the student is told to conserve his vitality in order that he may become aware of his mental strength.

We rarely respect minds enfeebled by dissipation; for as we develop into our secondary system we see the necessity for strength and vitality.

We have a reserve of nervous energy stored at the base of the brain; if this is wasted it is difficult to think with power and precision unless our supply of this energy is phenomenal. To succeed in this world we must retain sufficient energy to rise above our fellows. Heedlessly wasted energy shortens one’s life considerably. Arabs possess a certain method of building up and conserving their energy when making forced journeys.

In various ancient books the departure of the Master atom from the seminal fluid into the Silver Shield is spoken of symbolically as man uprooting old conditions and transplanting the roots to the head. When this occurs we are given an intelligence that has been denied us for many lives, as our forsaken energies again begin to function.

The Master atom now halts us in our path and presents things from several unfamiliar angles. We begin to view conditions from within and the wisdom from our collected experience of past lives.

The Master atom attracts atoms that bring the exact record of our inheritance received from our mental and physical ancestors.

The Master atom teaches us that we possess unlimited schools of instruction, and from them we gain our ultimate wisdom. But this can only be revealed to us if we have attained a certain standard of purity in this and other lives. Nature’s wisdom also gave us security and protection in our remote lives.

During the Atlantean upheaval they who had attained to this wisdom were preserved, and the future security of a race or person will depend upon the protective power of their Silver Shields.

Man is placed between two opposing densities of matter: one represents freedom, the other conquest. Freedom is enlightenment; conquest is destructive.

We have to be placed between these two atomic pressures, and the atomic energy of the sun attracts and unites these opposites.

The law of opposition is the law of attraction. The man who strikes you in a moment of anger has attracted a force from you that unites your mind to his. This is one of the so-called hidden laws of Nature. Opposition attracts two forces to unite their atoms. It is said that a “Soft voice turneth away wrath.” This is the law: if one does not oppose a thing it is difficult for it to unite itself to one. Yogis have to learn this law in the jungles of life where each man preys upon the other.

There are many things humanity is not taught: simple laws needed in moments of emergency that those who pass into their inner barriers understand. Such are used for the protection of self and others. The human mind is easily illusioned by the atoms of the Silver Shield, evil is often prevented by means of illusion, and we have frequently read about adepts becoming invisible.

We cannot tell how long the student will have to remain under the instruction of the Master atom of the Silver Shield. This depends upon his own efforts, as he has to transmute the density of his mental atmosphere into its wave-length.

This Master atom can dispel the activities of the Secret Enemy at the base of the spine. It has many atoms under it that can instruct us.

The human body possesses many sheaths. In the lower sheath is a Master atom that can be called upon to perform miracles. Once we gain its instruction, we shall be under its authority for two or three incarnations. This was used by the ancients, for they understood the lower self and its surrounding sheaths of matter. It is not spoken about save by those initiated into its wisdom, and we only become aware of it through the teachings of the Master atom in the Silver Shield. But we are not permitted to write about it, as it will become known and analysed in the new era.

Among the esoteric Hebrews this was called the Manna of the desert, though not that which was gathered from the sands, and this knowledge is guarded in the Temple of the Sphinx.

When we begin building up our Silver Shield we worked under the Transformation atoms. Before that under the Aspiring atoms and a sun influence that ejected from our physical body old particles of matter that absorbed our energy but did not promote our growth. But now we pass under the influence of the moon.

This moon force now takes us into its schools of instruction, and we pass beyond the range of our normal vision into periods of illumination that had been hidden from us. It has a different atomic structure from others; for the etheric currents flowing into it divide it into several streams of intelligence and we must unite ourselves to them. This will give us the perception to discover several kinds of animal entities, and realise that though we are human we are not immune from their astral activities.

Here it is that we can reach backward and forward into immensities of Nature and discover that wisdom we once possessed, also the ignorance of the beings found there. We now enter realms of unconquered darkness, as well as that supreme wisdom symbolised by the Sphinx; for this great elemental is the guardian of our ancient knowledge relating to natural law.

As the student enters this period of illumination he witnesses those great streams of intelligence that had left the moon aeons back to build up and work over our earth until it reached its own Transformation period: this was what we now call one of its golden ages. These Beings were similar to a nomadic chain, that is: an interlaced intelligence.

As we gaze into this vast depth of the past we wonder over and reverence the great commonwealth that is slowly being built up; we follow it into the future, and realise what wealth and prosperity is to be the portion of the Western area. But now we also witness those periods of darkness when a nation separates itself from its guiding influence; when it no longer seeks its Innermost but worships Mammon.

The consciousness of the Silver Shield gives the student a regal bearing. This comes when he contacts the atoms of the moon; for it is possible for him to possess the summit of its past wisdom; those qualities he had developed in its constructive and destructive aspects, and before he became imprisoned in the moist atmosphere of this earth. From this he will realise that in the past he had attained wisdom and power now denied him.

The moon symbolises man’s own secret wisdom that will be revealed to him when he returns into his inner planes. When the student inhales the properties of the intelligence he will then find his own sacred and scientific literature.

This new kind of atom is, mentally, similar to the Secret Enemy but is beyond evil, though it can bring to us the Secret Enemy’s powers and give the student part of its consciousness. The student now enters his underworld and meets two opposing forces: the wisdom of our Innermost and that of the Secret Enemy.

The light we receive from the moon also brings foreign atoms that disturb our atmosphere as they collect into clusters, and agitate the nerve cells that are under the jurisdiction of the sun. Thus sensitive people are nervous when the moon is full. These un-pleasant sensations cause the node points of the mental sheath to reflect their agitated conditions into us.

The moon influences us to deep inspirational tendencies. When this occurs it is well to listen-in; for its lunar atoms can impart their periods of instruction and assist us to revert to an ancient wisdom religion.

The human body is subject to two forces: that of the sun, and that of the moon. During the day, the sun’s pressure holds back the germinating forces within us, and this preserves our vitality. The night current of the moon seeks to draw out this stored-up vitality. This is why animals, save those with a non-conductor about their feet, keep them off the ground at night in order not to be devitalised.