[.uk] Thought-Forms (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press) (ISBN 1406510696)

One of the best books I own:
If you're into symbolism, intuition, and exploring the human condition -- Thought Forms just might blow your mind. I can't guarantee it for you, but with my life experience the author's depiction of how clairvoyants see our thoughts and spirits acting seems very true. Probably the best book I own on the occult, believe it or not, the statements made with images are profound. If you have any tendency towards being a mystic this book will give you a charge, the content will connect.

Beware the Dodo Press Illustrated Edition:
This is a black & white edition: it does NOT include the color plates of older editions. Without color, it is impossible to appreciate the formulations of the thought-forms. Buy an older edition instead.

The Protean World of Thought Formation:
There are a number of methods that we can use to clarify and describe something elusive. In my own work I combine phenomenology (which slowly and carefully works through the ways in which something shows itself) and transcendental arguments (which move from what is observed toward what may or must be presupposed to explain what is observed). Using these two methods together can produce a (hopefully) powerful strategy for bringing the more hidden or esoteric realm into the less hidden realm of common discourse and description. Even though they did not use this technical methodological language (especially since phenomenology was just being born in 1901), Besant and Leadbeater were certainly using the same dual approach. That is, in probing into the human aura and the thought forms that emerge within and through it, they carefully describe the data that clairvoyants almost universally report. Since both authors were themselves gifted in this area, they were in a position to evaluate what others had said about those phenomena that reside outside of the immediate boundaries of the human body. The transcendental strategy comes into play when they argue that the world must be set up as a series of more and more refined fields of energy that condense themselves in order to become relevant to the physical orders. Simply put, phenomenology describes what appears in clairvoyant seeing, while the transcendental argument tells us what the world must be like in order to explain just how thought forms got to be the way they are. Three traits emerge from the phenomenological description. Thought forms manifest: (1) color, (2) form, and, (3) variations in definiteness of outline. The correlation of color with mood and even quality of thought is well known in the literature. The form of the thought is correlated with its intention, while the outline is related to the thought's intensity of focus. For Besant and Leadbeater, thoughts are causal agents in the world of so-called physical matter and can act to alter the brain states that are mistakenly taken to be their source. The aura-entwined thought form is causally prior to the later brain state activity (to which it is often reduced). The social aspects of thought form activity are given their proper role and are sometimes manifest pathologically in what Wilhelm Reich called the "emotional plague." It is this plague ridden thought form that lies behind such phenomena as fascism and group psychosis. Of great value are the many color renditions of thought forms and their emotional correlaries. Each thought contains an emotion and vice versa. Musicians will be especially interested in the color plates that depict the energetic effects (pictured as manifesting themselves high above a church wherein the music was played on an organ) of the thought forms of the music of Mendelssohn, Gounod, and Wagner. Needless to say, the music of Wagner's Overture to "The Meistersingers" has the most powerful expression of the three. It broils 900 feet upwards in mountain-like crags with intense color fields of red, green, and purple. Before reading this book I would have laughed at such an idea, but now I am reasonably persuaded that Besant and Leadbeater got it right. John Algeo's introduction locates this text historically and conceptually and prepares the reader for the strange things that are to come. "Thought Forms" is more akin to the real thing than many of the fluff books that came later. This book would make an excellent text for a seminar on esoteric thought because of its combination of careful reflection and iconic representation.

Thought, Causality And The Law Of Attraction ~ A True Story:
True Story: One Saturday afternoon quite a few years ago I decided to drive into Hollywood to visit my favorite metaphysical bookstore, the Bodhi Tree on Melrose Ave., to pick-up a copy of Annie Besant's `Thought Forms'. It's a good 45 minute plus drive from my home in Orange County and I didn't call before I left to see if they had a copy in stock, so I was quite pleased to discover I didn't make the trip for nothing, there were two copies on the shelf. I continued to browse, eventually finding myself on the opposite end of the store. As I returned a book on channeling to the shelf I noticed an extremely attractive women slowly moving in my direction. She seemed to be looking for something in particular and by the look on her face I surmised she wasn't having much luck finding it. I began thinking to myself over and over again, "I hope she asks me for help." Guess what happened? She walked up to me and said, "Excuse me, would you happen to know of a good book on thought forms?" I said "Sure how about this one", lifting the slender volume with the bold letters proclaiming `Thought Forms' on the cover that had been hidden away out of sight under my arm. We were both impressed. Coincidence? Maybe, or maybe thoughts really can manifest on the physical plane. According to Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater thoughts act as causal agents which can effect all planes of existence; astral, mental and physical. I think they definitely had a part to play in the physical realm that day. Needless to say we both bought a copy of the book. Wouldn't you?

Written with keen intellect about the power of thought!:
This small but significant tome clearly outlines that you are what you think about. That thoughts are energy forms and each time you think a thought you generate a certain type of frequency that follows the universal tenet of the Law of Attraction. A wonderful wise book we all should read.