Mechanism of Consciousness

           No great illumined person ever comes out of a vacuum. Geoffrey Hodson’s faculty was what is sometimes called “conscious” or “trained” clairvoyance (clear-seeing). It was neither “mediumistic” nor induced by shamanistic practices. It could also be described as “Kundalini activated clairvoyance” where the threefold kundalini force (the serpent power of Indian Yoga) has been thoroughly and systematically aroused within a properly strengthened and purified body and psyche:

           The kundalini force stimulates and intensifies everything within the psyche – the bad as well as the good – hence it is advised never to stir it up into activity unless one has done the necessary purification of one’s body emotions and mind. And even then, to only proceed on the advice of an adept teacher. This form of clairvoyance, shown in the above diagram, rarely occurs in any degree of exactitude, especially in the Western World, hence its significance is usually lost amongst the more common forms of clairvoyance which can sometimes be notoriously unreliable. Where Kundalini is involved it is not scaremongering  to say that it usually causes more problems than anything else, especially inordinate excitation of the sex impulse and eccentricities of thought and behaviour. It is only when it arises in perfectly prepared conditions that it is a blessing rather than a curse. With Mr. Hodson, none of the negative aspects of Kundalini occurred, in fact despite his ultra-sensitivity from a psychic and spiritual point of view, he was the most normal, kindly and friendly person in all other respects. In fact, the New Zealand psychiatrist, Dr. David D. Lyness, with whom he collaborated in some of his investigations, is on record as reporting to his scientific colleagues: 

“Hodson has shown no difficulty in reality testing, no affective disturbance, no thought disorder or bizarre behaviour at any time. After having spent many hours at this work I am certain of his ability, given satisfactory conditions, to see substantially correctly though not of course entirely without error". 

  Mr. Hodson, himself, was his own severest critic and preferred not to be absolute and categorical about his abilities saying:  

“It may lead to a reasonably accurate discovery of truth”. 

             He expanded his consciousness through the advanced practice of Yoga and training in the Mysteries, a training that started many lifetimes ago and continued with some degree of effectiveness this time. He was also sincerely and deeply involved in trying to help the people whom he came into contact with, which introduced a type of grace into his life, sometimes absent in those who are too preoccupied with personal progress. In many ways this balanced equipoise made it possible for him to be used effectively for the work of the spiritual hierarchy and the angelic hosts. He was not a psychic in the ordinary sense of the word, although he certainly possessed remarkable conscious or trained clairvoyance which he could turn on and off at will. His mature ability was of a higher order than is generally met with in most psychics and is more aptly described as seership or sibylship, where he was able to unify his consciousness with the object of investigation and as it were see from the inside out. This was particularly useful when he was the recipient of teachings from a Master of the Wisdom or an Archangelic Teacher, because the quality of the information received was very pure by this method. He also had the extraordinary ability to be able to keep a link in physical brain consciousness whilst his super-physical investigations were underway, so that it was possible to speak to him and ask questions at the same time, although his voice at these times often reflected the awesome splendour of the inner realms. What he did was that he took the genuine and perennial teachings of the spiritual life (Theosophy) and through intense effort over many lives mastered them, rather like a great concert pianist starts off with the same piano keyboard as everyone else, but by a combination of natural talent and intense effort and training, eventually masters the instrument so it can be used as an extension of body, emotion, mind and spirit. What we actually saw in Mr. Hodson  was really the culmination of many lives of effort along this specialized line of development.

            Because of his advanced degree of yogic illumination Mr. Hodson had several forms of superphysical investigation at his disposal. At the most elementary level he was able to observe the etheric or health aura, whose pinkish striated radiations extend at right angles slightly beyond the human physical counterpart, such radiations tending to droop at the point of egress from the body in the area of a physically diseased organ showing where the problem lay. Also, it was easy for him to observe the dynamic flows and colours in the human emotional and mental energy fields - the so called astral and mental auras - and to a trained seer these flows and colours carry important medical and psychological data. Then, additional vignette-type images would open to his vision within these energy fields, giving linkage to the source of the problem. These abilities would normally be ample for clairvoyant diagnosis and most psychics would be very happy to settle for them, but Mr. Hodson’s preferred method went well beyond even this. The more advanced technique that he commonly adopted was to raise his consciousness to the level where the reincarnating self (The Spiritual Ego in the Causal Body sometimes called the Spiritual Soul) lives, and then engage it in dialogue. This is described in his own words in an audio clip in the sub-section Disease and Healing found in  Clairvoyant Investigations , because this method of diagnosis is so significant for the future a transcript is also included in Appendices lV . If a person had come to him for clairvoyant diagnosis of a psychological state or a morbid physical condition then this method was employed and he could usually do this work very quickly, but if in addition some immediate spiritual intervention or healing was needed the session would take a little longer. If the person was reasonably intact in their psychology and physical health and had come to see him for purposes of spiritual guidance his approach was slightly different. In such a case he would tend to be more conversational in order to allow the person to enter at their own comfort level. For example, he might start by saying, "Do any of the old civilisations attract you?" If the person responded specifically, he would then go on to possibly validate the inquirer's perception from his own yogic insight. He might perhaps tell them that they had several incarnations in that particular civilisation, might even name the king or historical dynasty that they lived under, how well or badly their career progressed both in spiritual terms and by the standards of the day, if they came under the benign influence of the wisdom tradition in one its various forms and what progress or even mistakes they made etc. Further questions concerning the person’s current interests, family life, occupation and general lifestyle would then give him an opportunity to offer suggestions on strengths and weaknesses of character, suggested forms of meditation and ideals of service. He tried to ride the balance between prescriptive and proscriptive morality - his main wish being to truly help the person consulting him to find their own deepest spiritual needs and expression. He also wished to preserve safe practice in the spiritual life, because so many people who came to him had been doing undesirable things which had got them into trouble, so he had no qualms in warning if he saw it necessary. Flash points of this nature which often came up during consultations were, experimentation with recreational drugs as a supposed means of spiritual experience, bad or unwise disciplines which awakened forces that Nature wisely keeps below the conscious threshold until character and personality development are at a very high and pure level and, attempting to follow the spiritual life whilst doing hurtful things to others or wrong means of livelihood. When these issues were at stake Mr. Hodson was quite uncompromising in his opinion – but he knew that often the matter was going to rise or fall on the basis of whether the person could bring through enough soul-wisdom to help themself. Still, he would do everything he could to bring them to that point of decision, which sometimes involved invoking angelic and adeptic powers and if the person wished it, adjusting their aura or energy field to give them the best possible chance. He would never force a person to do something beyond their own wishes or inclination.

            In the more aspirational type of person he often ended up suggesting one or other form of Religion, Yoga, or Mystery School activity which was known to be safe. More rarely he recommended some quite unexpected discipline which was directly matched to that person’s specific needs. 

            Occasionally, as he travelled round the world, he came into contact with very advanced people. For example, a child might be brought to him who had been an initiate or realized yogi in a previous life, naturally the advice that he was going to give to such a person or their parents was going to be very different to what he would give to the usual inquirer – by and large these people required little advice on spiritual discipline, they just needed enough space to become themselves, their own internal direction and previous attainment effectively doing the rest. But, whatever a person’s need, Mr. Hodson would identify it, try and meet it, and help the person move forward along their chosen path. At the bottom of the whole process was the fact that each person’s spiritual Ego in its own realm of consciousness knows exactly what direction it wants to take, but in most people the lines of communication between Ego, personality and body are not working very effectively, whereas in the case of Mr. Hodson those lines were flowing freely. This put him in a privileged position with those who came to see him because he could help them to know what their own Soul-Ego wanted for them. Yet, in all of this his advice was offered non-dogmatically, for the person’s consideration only, to accept or reject as they saw fit. This spiritual counselling comprised one of the many forms of service that he offered freely and unstintingly to those who needed it. 

            Other types of advanced persons that he came into contact with were mature fully realized yogis and teachers of the spiritual life like himself. There is a saying that “the robe does not make the monk” and not all people who purport to be yogis or spiritual teachers are necessarily either God-realized (Self-illumined), free of the body or have the added yogic siddhis as did Mr. Hodson. However, in the course of his life he did meet some of his peers in this respect and was able to have very private discussions with them. On one occasion in 1960 he took some of the members of the The School of the Wisdom at Adyar, Chennai (Madras), India to visit one of the famous Indian yogi sages of the day (The sage of Kanchi) and after the sage had given his dharshan (blessing) the group left, but the yogi sent a runner after them and asked Mr. Hodson to return alone for a private discussion. Also, when religious leaders or heads of spiritual communities realized that Mr. Hodson had the higher sense faculties, they usually opened up a lot more than they would to ordinary people. So, whether it be to a Bantu Healer in Africa, a Pueblo Indian Medicine Man in the U.S.A. or a Maori Tohunga in New Zealand they were all prepared to give him a lot more inner information than they would normally reveal, and it is to our good fortune that he documented parts of these meetings in journal articles or lectures.

            In other cases many discriminating people in all walks of life who were hungry for the inner, deeper knowledge that a seer like Mr. Hodson could access, went out of their way to seek it from him. As indication of this, at the height of the Vietnam war when he and his wife Sandra flew into Saigon, the General  whose mind was obviously also on other pressing matters, sent his car out onto the tarmac to collect them, also when they visited one Central American country they were most surprised to be met by the assembled Grand Lodge of Freemasons, who had turned out to welcome them at the airport. Although belonging to a different Masonic order to Mr. Hodson they nevertheless knew of his deeper insights and paid this extraordinary honour to him so they could spirit him off to share his deeply esoteric knowledge with them. All these things and many more were just part and parcel of the life of a great Western sage, but one who was not always recognized for the spiritual heights he could reach because he was so modest and self-effacing in his behaviour. Often in his Theosophical lectures and talks he would try to keep the common touch by saying such things as, “we are all gathered here as students together” or answer questions by prefacing them with the words, “according to my limited understanding”, which could blindside people who did not know that such information came from direct spiritual investigation of the facts in those realms of consciousness where truth can be experienced in some degree of fullness. He did this so that people could respond to his message through their intuition, not by any externally imposed authority. In this respect he was very different from certain of the heavily marketed “gurus” of recent times, some of whom have even parted their followers from large amounts of money or else took pleasure in misleading or abusing them in various ways.

Bill Keidan