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Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter II - The Ray of Personality - Some Problems of Psychology
In dealing with these situations certain general rules should govern the psychologist, and certain general premises should eventually be accepted by the man who constitutes the problem case. These same rules and premises can be considered and accepted by the man who, without the aid of a trained psychologist, manages to train himself and to bridge his realized cleavages. These basic premises are:
  1. That any psychological difficulty is universal and not unique. It is the sense of uniqueness - with its separative tendency and its realized loneliness - which is often the all-engrossing factor. It makes the personality too important, and this should be definitely negated.
  2. That the crisis faced indicates progress and opportunity, and that it does not indicate disaster and failure. It must be realized by the patient (can I use that term?) that the race has progressed to its present point in evolution by just such crises. So does the individual human unit progress. In the last analysis, psychological crises are indicative of progressive steps upon the Way, bringing with them the need for effort and at the same time a [428] sense of gain and of freedom, when surmounted, overcome and solved.
  3. That the power to produce the needed integration and to end a cycle of sensed duality lies within the man himself because:
    1. His discomfort, lack of coordination, pain and distress are symptoms of aspiration, unrealized perhaps but none the less there. They are the reaction of the integrated aspects to that aspect which is seeking integration.
    2. The aspect to be integrated is essentially more powerful than the lower waiting aspects, for they are negative or receptive whilst that which should be realized and accepted is positive and dynamic. Hence the sensed discomfort.
  4. That the capacity, innate in that imaginative creature, man, to act "as if", holds the solution to the problem. By the use of the creative imagination, the bridge between the lower aspect and higher can be built and constructed. "As a man thinketh, hopeth and willeth" so is he. This is a statement of an immutable fact.

When modern psychologists comprehend more fully the creative purpose of humanity, and seek to develop the creative imagination more constructively, and also to train the directional will, much will be accomplished. When these two factors (which are the signal evidence of divinity in man) are studied and scientifically developed and utilized, they will produce the self-releasing of all the problem cases which are found in our clinics at this time. Thus we shall, through experiment, arrive at a more rapid understanding of man. Psychology can count definitely upon the innate ability of the [429] human unit to understand the use of the creative imagination and the use of directed purpose, for it is found frequently even in children. The development of the sense of fantasy and the training of children to make choices (to the end that ordered purpose may emerge in their lives) will be two of the governing ideals of the new education. The sense of fantasy calls into play the imagination, perception of beauty, and the concept of the subjective worlds; the power of choice, with its implications of why and wherefore and to what end (if wisely taught from early days), will do much for the race, particularly if, at the time of adolescence, the general world picture and the world plan are brought to the attention of the developing intelligence. Therefore:

  1. The sense of fantasy
  2. The sense of choice
  3. The sense of the whole - plus
  4. The sense of ordered purpose

should govern our training of the children which are coming into incarnation. The sense of fantasy brings the creative imagination into play, thus providing the emotional nature with constructive outlets; this should be balanced and motivated by the recognition of the power of right choice and the significance of the higher values. These, in turn, can be developed selflessly by a due recognition of the environing whole in which the individual has to play his part, whilst the entire range of reactions are increasingly subordinated by the understanding of the ordered purpose which is working out in the world.
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