Thought-Forms
The phrase of Thought-Forms was developed by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, although the concept was present in early Theosophical literature.
General description
Author Gus diZerega wrote,
I have tried to make the case that ideas are more important than we usually acknowledge. They are more than just fleeting flights of subjectivity that pass through our minds and are gone. Thought forms are ideas on steroids.
They are also our creations, though I suspect they have other sources as well.
Thought forms are dependent on the people who generate the mental energy empowering them. Good or bad, they are expressions of human creativity. Take away our energy and focus, and they weaken. Some are positive influences in our lives, and their relationship with us is symbiotic. Others are negative, and the relationship is parasitic because they depend on our anger and fear for their power; anger and fear ultimately weaken us mentally, physically, and spiritually. [1]
Thought-Forms in the Mahatma Letters
In one of his letters to A. P. Sinnett, Mahatma K. H. writes:
Thoughts are things — have tenacity, coherence, and life, — that they are real entities.[2]
This concept is further developed by the Master in a letter to A. O. Hume:
Every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner world and becomes an active entity by associating itself — coalescing, we might term it — with an elemental; that is to say with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence, a creature of the mind's begetting, for a longer or shorter period proportionate with the original intensity of the cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good thought is perpetuated as an active beneficent power; an evil one as a maleficent demon. And so man is continually peopling his current in space with a world of his own, crowded with the offsprings of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions, a current which reacts upon any sensitive or and nervous organisation which comes in contact with it in proportion to its dynamic intensity.[3]
See also
Notes
- ↑ Gus diZerega, "If Thought Forms Exist, What Can We Do About Them?" February 7, 2013. Pointedly Pagan blog on Pagan Channel. Accessed January 13, 2016.
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 18 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 66.
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence Appendix I (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 472.
Online resources
Articles
- Thought Forms at Theosopedia
- Thought-Forms (Their Limitations) by Hugh Shearman
Books
- Thought Forms by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater
- Thought Power - Its Control and Culture by Annie Besant