Travis Simpkins

Saturday, July 23, 2022

Isaac Davis (1799-1883). Worcester Historical Museum. Massachusetts. by Travis Simpkins

Isaac Davis (1799-1883). Worcester Historical Museum. by Travis Simpkins

Sketch of a Portrait Bust of

Isaac Davis

(1799 - 1883)

Lawyer and Politician

Member of the Massachusetts Senate

Mayor of Worcester, MA

President of Worcester Academy

Member of the American Antiquarian Society

Collection of the

Worcester Historical Museum

by Travis Simpkins

based on a marble bust, sculpted by Benjamin H. Kinney

Isaac Davis (1799-1883). Worcester, Massachusetts

For more info, please visit:

worcesterhistory.org

Isaac Davis. by Travis Simpkins. Worcester Historical Museum. Massachusetts

Friday, July 22, 2022

Clairvoyance. C.W. Leadbeater. Theosophical Society. Psychic. Occult. New Age

I've long enjoyed the little books published by the Theosophical Society. Many are still in print through Quest Books, but used copies are plentiful as well. This little book on "Clairvoyance" by C.W. Leadbeater is one of my favorites.

‘Clairvoyance means literally nothing more than "clear-seeing," and it is a word which has been sorely misused, and even degraded so far as to be employed to describe the trickery of a mountebank in a variety show. Even in its more restricted sense it covers a wide range of phenomena, differing so greatly in character that it is not easy to give a definition of the word which shall be at once succinct and accurate. It has been called "spiritual vision," but no rendering could well be more misleading than that, for in the vast majority of cases there is no faculty connected with it which has the slightest claim to be honoured by so lofty a name.’

The creator of this Theosophical masterpiece, Charles Webster Leadbeater, was a member of the Theosophical Society, a Co-Freemason, and an esoteric writer. He was also a co-founding member of the Liberal Catholic Church. After quitting from the Anglican Church due to his interest in spiritualism, he became an associate of Annie Bessant. He was a Theosophical Society senior officer and the author of more than 60 books and pamphlets. He discusses seeing beyond the bounds of regular sight in this book. Leadbeater asserts that the ability to see things not visible to the naked eye is merely an extension of conventional perception; and that with this developed talent, one can perceive a vast variety of occurrences. A conceivable application of with is that it would be possible to perceive the tiniest particles, such as a molecule or an atom, using occultist clairvoyance. Thus, clairvoyance, defined as the capacity for extrasensory perception to provide information about an object, a person, a location, or a physical occurrence, would open up numerous research avenues.