Talismans 2
alismans, or charms, are given or selected because of the significant they hold for the giver or selector.
"Talismans" from "The Hidden Side of Things" by CW Leadbeater
Talismans and the Power of Fear
In most cases the man who is really trying to do better falls only because he is taken off his guard. The impure thought creeps in insidiously and has seized upon him before he is aware of it, and then he quickly reaches the condition in which for the moment he does not even wish to resist. The value of the talisman is that it gives him time to recollect himself. The disharmony between its undulations and those of the wandering thought, cannot but attract the man' s attention, and thus while he wears it he cannot be taken unawares, so that if he falls he falls deliberately.
Thought detail Nummo by Allison L. Williams Hill
Again, some people suffer much from apparently causeless fear. Often they are quite unable to give any reason for their feelings; but at certain times, and especially when alone at night, they are liable to be attacked by extreme nervousness, which may gradually increase to positive terror. There may be various explanations for this. Perhaps the commonest is the presence of some hostile astral entity who is persecuting the victim-- sometimes in the hope of obtaining through him some sensations which he desires, sometimes in the endeavour to obtain control over him and obsess him, sometimes for sheer mischief and impish love of demonstrating his power over a human being. Here again is a case in which the mediaeval remedy has a distinct practical value. Naturally, the talisman against impurity would not avail in this case, for quite a different sort of motion is required. What is wanted in this case is a centre strongly charged with vibrations expressive of courage and self-reliance-- or, if the wearer is of the devotional type, with thoughts of the protective power of his special deity.
Specie by Allison L. Williams Hill
For an amulet has a double action. Not only does it operate directly by means of the waves which it radiates, as we have just described in the case of impurity, but also the knowledge of its presence usually awakens the faith and courage of the wearer. In the case of a talisman against fear, such as we are now considering, the two lines of action will be clearly marked. Courage expresses itself in the mental and astral bodies by the strength and steadiness of their striations, and by the calm, steadfast shining of the colours indicating the various higher qualities. When fear overpowers a person all these colours are dimmed and overwhelmed by a livid grey mist, and the striations are lost in a quivering mass of palpitating jelly; the man has for the time quite lost the power of guiding and controlling his vehicles.
The vibrations of strength and courage steadily radiating from the talisman are quite unaffected by the feelings of the wearer, and when the first tremblings of fear begin to manifest themselves they find a difficulty in their way. If unopposed, they would steadily increase, each augmenting and strengthening the other until their power became irresistible. What the talisman does is to prevent them from reaching this condition of irresistible velocity. It deals with them at the commencement, while they are still weak. The resistance which it opposes to them is precisely the same in kind as that which a gyroscope opposes to any effort to turn it aside from its line. It is so determinedly set in motion in one direction that it will sooner fly to pieces than allow itself to be turned into any other. Suddenly to bring such a power as this into conflict with unreasoning panic would probably result in the complete shattering of the astral body concerned; but if the gyroscopic force of the talisman is already working before the alarm is felt, its determined persistence along its own lines checks the first beginnings of fear, and so makes it impossible for the person ever to reach the later stages of panic terror.
That is its direct operation; but it works also indirectly upon the mind of the wearer. When he feels the first beginnings of fear stirring within him he probably recollects the amulet and clutches at it, and then there arises within him the feeling: "Why should I fear so long as I have with me this strong centre of magnetism?" And so, instead of yielding to the vibrations and allowing them to lengthen themselves until they become unmanageable, he calls up the reserve strength of his own will and asserts himself as master of his vehicles, which is in truth all that is necessary.
There is a third possibility in connection with a talisman, which is in some cases even more powerful than the other two. The object, whatever it may be, has been strongly magnetised by some individual, by the hypothesis a person of power and development, and therefore also probably highly sensitive. That being so, the talisman is a link with its creator, and through it his attention may be attracted. Under ordinary conditions its connection with its originator is of the slightest, but when the wearer is in desperate circumstances he sometimes actually calls upon the maker, much in the way in which the mediaeval devotee when in difficulties invoked the assistance of
his patron saint; and that call will unquestionably reach the maker of the amulet and evoke a response from him. If he is still living in the physical world, he may or may not be conscious of the appeal in his physical brain; but in any case his ego will be conscious, and will respond by reinforcing the vibration of the talisman by a strong wave of his own more powerful thought,
bearing with it strength and comfort.
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