Ira Progoff's The Image of an Oracle: A Report on Research into the Mediumship of Eileen J. Garrett (1964) is an investigation of four ...
Ira Progoff's The Image of an Oracle: A Report on Research into the Mediumship of Eileen J. Garrett (1964) is an investigation of four "control figures" ('Ouvani,' 'Abdul Latif,' 'Tahoteh' and 'Ramah') who spoke through trance medium Eileen Garrett (what today is called 'channeling'). The book provides 12 transcripts of trance session recordings. The concept of a shared subconscious and Superconscious Mind among all of humanity�an aspect of spiritual �Oneness��is not fully articulated by Eileen Garrett or Ira Progoff; however, some of their written reflections suggest intimations of this insight.
In the concluding pages of her last autobiography Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968), Eileen reflected about her psychic abilities after the four years of working with Progoff. She accepted the concept of a "collective unconscious" and expressed that she "came to grips with myself not only on a deep subconscious level but in the universal cosmic revelation." Garrett also stated in the book:
Progoff concluded in the final chapter of The Image of an Oracle:
In the concluding pages of her last autobiography Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968), Eileen reflected about her psychic abilities after the four years of working with Progoff. She accepted the concept of a "collective unconscious" and expressed that she "came to grips with myself not only on a deep subconscious level but in the universal cosmic revelation." Garrett also stated in the book:
Consciously, and without prompting, the unconscious mind reveals its tapestry. It is only sad at times that the majority of people fail to understand this task of nature as the unconscious threads that orient us to each other.
. . . around us is a field of force which includes all that the planet is. Akin to a sea, it is timeless in its momentum.
Progoff concluded in the final chapter of The Image of an Oracle:
The meaning of the relationship involved in these conversations was certainly different for Mrs. Garrett than for me; and yet there was a ground of meeting where a dialogue in the depths of being of both of us took place. The quality and content of this dialogue can only be known directly, alluded to, or sensed, but it cannot be encased in words. It carries a reality that transcends all outward events and material conditions.
It is elusive in its content and in its implications, but certain of its aspects indicate that it conveys the essence of the human contact with ultimate meaning in life. During the past decade, from the pioneer work of C. G. Jung to the more recent writings of existential psychology, it has increasingly been noted that an experience of ultimate meaning is necessary if work in the field of psychotherapy is to succeed. Seeking to answer this need, the various existential psychologists have tended to move into philosophical discussions, but there is ample evidence already that intellectual philosophies do not reach sources deep enough to meet this need.
In some of her books, Eileen considered attributes of her mind that she equated with the 'subconscious' and 'superconscious.' As she wrote in Telepathy (1941), her experiences of 'telepathy' included psychometry and automatic writing while 'telekinesis,' 'physical mediumship' and the 'trance' were identified as "greater and rarer evidences of mind-energy at work."
Telepathy includes the recollection of participating in 'Zener cards' ESP testing with mundane results.
The whole process interested me afterwards, but at the time that I was making a sincere effort to work telepathically, I was acutely unhappy because of an inner knowing which manifested itself in several ding dong voices which reiterated, "This is wrong�you cannot do it!"
She equated this occurrence with "the intrusion of my subconscious" while accepting other psychic phenomena as confirmation of a state of "superconsciousness." Eileen concluded a discussion of the function of symbolism in telepathy by summarizing the three important points she endeavored to bring out concerning her techniques to ready herself for psychic experiences:
(1) Symbology is utilized by me entirely as a key to that state of alertness in which I can best work telepathically; (2) when that alertness is present, I attain a superconsciousness which makes possible valid and clear telepathic communication; and (3) neither the subconscious nor the normal mind are instrumental in telepathy. The symbol of the yew tree, which I use to bring about the prerequisite alertness, is, then, the key to the garden of the "oversoul," or impersonal consciousness, in which the melody of harmonious knowing forever greets my ear�a state of superconsciousness.
As I understand the process by which I am telepathic, I feel that I am participating in an experiment which is happening outside of myself, and that through a process of selectivity I am able to know this process for myself as it is being received into the common collective thinking of the universe. It is like a storehouse to which I gain the entry the moment that I accept the fact of this universal consciousness. I perceive because of both a belief that I can know and that I desire to know. Telepathy, therefore, presents no difficult "innerforce" or mental process for me.
postage stamp showing Taxus baccata 'Fastigiata' Irish Yew
In her first autobiography My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1939), Eileen also offered perceptions about a universal force involved with humanity and encompassing different levels of consciousness �
Mind, in the universal sense, I know to be without and not within the human body. I am able to see the impressions emanating from the outer universe register in the magnetic field of all living organisms. As such ideas, sensations and emotions reach man from without, they are, I recognize, received by certain centres located within his own magnetic field; these impressions are then passed on to register within the physical body. From my own experience, I am prepared to state that the brain of man registers and directs the activity of only a limited part of the impressions of his own mind. For the mind of man consists not only of the conscious and the subconscious, but of the superconscious as well . . .
Mind is the true force that creates all things in the Universe. Just as the architect must image in his own mind the building he will some day erect, so must mind in the Universe, conceive all things before they can be born. First comes the image or vision to the artist or creator and then follows the realization of the dream in a completed work of art, or a world.
Excerpts from the trance medium session transcripts in The Image of an Oracle may be read in the preceding blog article.
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