Often people have an uncanny feeling of having experienced something before. It is termed déjà vu (French for "already seen") and defined as "any subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of a present experience with an undefined past." The phenomenon is studied by parapsychologists in the hope of finding answers to recalled memories and how the mind registers familiarity. "In the past, psychologists spoke not only of déjà vu but of the déjà etendu (already heard), déjà senti (already smelled), déjà lu (already read), and déjà vecu (already lived). Freud traced the feeling, somewhat predictably, to the mother's genitals," writes Joshua Foer. (Discover, September 2005)

Two explanations are offered. One is that déjà vu is the result of "double perception," so that we see things twice in quick succession: the first time superficially and the second time with full awareness. If one has glanced at a building while talking on phone, it is registered by the brain, subliminally, and hence the second glance, after one gets off the phone, may seem oddly familiar. After studying several epileptics, neurologists have traced the phenomenon to the temporal lobe and its surroundings. They have even triggered déjà vu by stimulating those areas with electrodes. Alan Brown, psychologist and author of the book The Déjà vu Experience, writes:

It's a real puzzle. We don't know what causes it, what triggers it, who has it and who doesn't and why. We don't even understand why it dissipates with age. But the more we can understand about how this illusion occurs, the more we'll understand our normal memory processes.

H.P.B. describes memory as "the most unreliable thing in us." Memory "is a recording machine, a register which very easily gets out of order." Further:

Memory—the despair of the materialist, the enigma of the psychologist, the sphinx of science—is to the student of old philosophies merely a name to express that power which man unconsciously exerts....to look with inner sight into the astral light, and there behold the images of past sensations and incidents. (Isis Unveiled, I, 178-79)

"Each plane has its own tablet of memory and produces the appropriate effects on any other plane—being accessible, in fact, but not perceived on account of other predominating perceptions," writes Mr. Crosbie (The Friendly Philosopher, p. 180). During sleep, the astral body (soul) becomes free and travels round visible and invisible worlds. Pictures and images seen during astral travel are impressed on the brain, but we remember nothing upon waking up. However:

The impressions of scenes and landscapes which the astral body saw in its peregrinations are still there, though lying latent under the pressure of matter. They may be awakened at any moment, and then during such flashes of man's inner memory, there is an instantaneous interchange of energies between the visible and the invisible universes. Between the "micrographs" of the cerebral ganglia and the photo-scenographic galleries of the astral light, a current is established. And a man who knows that he has never visited in body, nor seen the landscape and person that he recognizes, may well assert that still he has seen and knows them, for the acquaintance was formed while travelling in "spirit." (Isis Unveiled, I, 180)

The Roslin Institute at Scotland created an embryo that will be mined for stem cells—the master cells that can form any tissues—to determine the possibility of using them in various medical treatments. The embryo was produced by "immaculate conception" procedure, known as "parthenogenesis" (Greek for "virgin birth"). Parthenogenesis involves the human egg cell developing into an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a sperm cell, i.e., it uses material from just the female. Will this make the male species irrelevant to procreation? "Parthenogenesis already exists in what are described as 'lower' animals, in some insects and even lizards. If ever the embryo created through virgin conception is allowed to complete its term, it will only be a case of life imitating life," writes Narayani Ganesh (Times International, September 13, 2005). Parthenogenesis was tried in 2004; mice were created from eggs that had two sets of chromosomes from two female mice.

Occult philosophy teaches, as shown in The Secret Doctrine, that in the course of human evolution, man has passed through various modes of procreation, as other animals have. Early humanity was first self-born, then egg-born, sweat-born, hermaphrodite, gave birth parthenogenetically (on the immaculate principle) to its young ones, and after the separation of the sexes—the present method of procreation (S.D., II, 173 and 659). Occult philosophy shows

gradual development of organs; their solidification, and the procreation of each species at first by simple easy separation from one into two or even several individuals. Then follows a fresh development—the first step to a species of separate distinct sexes—the hermaphrodite condition; then again, a kind of parthenogenesis, "virginal reproduction," when the egg-cells are formed within the body, issuing from it in atomic emanations and becoming matured outside of it; until, finally, after a definite separation into sexes, the human being procreating through sexual connection. (S.D., II, 657)

Theosophy posits three streams of evolution—physical, intellectual and spiritual. The above methods of procreation concern only physical man. At present, is parthenogenesis in the scheme of nature? Hence, "if ever the embryo created through virgin conception is allowed to complete its term," then most probably, scientists will only succeed in producing a human form—a mindless monster.

NASA's Deep Impact mission which aimed at bringing about the collision of a spacecraft weighing 362 kilograms with the periodic comet 9P/Tempel 1, on July 4, 2005, has been a success, returning images that show detailed view of a cometary nucleus and after-effects of the impact. The effect of this collision was studied by a network of Earth-based as well as space-based observers like European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft. Scientists are debating over the issues of the dust and water composition of the comet, Temple 1, and are left wondering: what is a comet—dusty iceball or icy dustball? "Comets are of interest because their composition is expected to reflect conditions that were prevalent when the Solar System was formed. So far, only the make-up of a comet's enveloping coma is known to any great extent," writes Paul D. Feldman (Nature, 13 October, 2005). "At this point, it seems that we have only scratched the surface of this comet, and that many of the conclusions about its make-up are likely to change."

"What does Science know of Comets, their genesis, their growth, and ultimate behaviour? Nothing—absolutely nothing!" wrote H.P.B. in 1888 (S.D., I, 204). In Transactions H.P.B. explains that Milky Way is the storehouse of the materials from which the stars, planets and other celestial bodies are produced (p. 113). It is developed world-stuff, all the rest in space being crude material, as yet invisible to us. Comets begin their life as wanderers, detaching themselves from the Milky Way, and in their long journey, first settle where conditions are prepared for them by Fohat, and gradually become suns. Each sun, when its Pralaya comes, resolves into millions and millions of fragments. "Each of these fragments moved to and fro in space collecting fresh materials, as it rolled on, like an avalanche, until it came to a stop through the laws of attraction and repulsion, and became a planet in our own, as in other systems, beyond our telescopes." Our sun was Comet in the beginning of Brahma's age, then it came to its present position, after which it will burst asunder and then sun's fragments will become planets after the Solar pralaya. (pp. 145-46)

As for the composition of the comet, we are told that

All hypotheses to the contrary, cometary matter does not appear to possess even the common law of adhesion or of chemical affinity....The essence of cometary matter must be—and the "Adepts" say is—totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which the greatest chemists and physicists of the Earth are familiar—all present hypotheses to the contrary notwithstanding. (The Theosophist, September 1883)

Moreover, it is said that the atmosphere of our earth has become a sort of crucible, so that the cometary matter, during its rapid passage through our atmosphere, undergoes a certain change in ints nature (S.D., I, 142). Similarly H.P.B. points out the difficulty encountered in using spectrum star-analysis in determining the presence of iron and sodium in the star, as no account is taken of the modification of the rays of the star, as they pass through the cosmic dust with which the earth is sorrounded. (Transactions, p. 123)

New research indicates that the brain shows profound changes when under the influence of hypnosis. The way the brain processes information undergoes profound change, in the case of people acting on sugestions. "The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who were hynotised 'saw' colours where there were none. Others lost the ability to make simple decisions," writes Sandra Blakeslee (The Indian Express, November 23, 2005, courtesy The New York Times). "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon.

Mr. Crosbie explains that in hynotism, the hypnotizer paralyzes that channel in the brain of the subject, through which the subject, as Ego, operates and controls his brain. There are two methods of hynotism. Hypnotic condition can be produced by a purely mechanical means, i.e., by fixing of the eyes on some bright spot, a metal or a crystal, or it can be produced by "mesmeric" passes on the patient by the hypnotizer. H.P.B. explains the rationale of both these methods, thus:

It is the eye—the most occult organ of all, on the superficies of our body—which, by serving as a medium between the bit of metal or crystal and the brain, attunes the molecular vibrations of the nervous centres of the latter into unison (i.e., equality in the number of their respective oscillations) with the vibrations of the bright object held [catching the rhythm of the latter and passing it on to the brain]. And, it is this unison which produces the hypnotic state....In the hypnotization by the preliminary passes, it is the human will—whether conscious or otherwise—of the operator himself, that acts upon the nervous system of the patients. (Lucifer, December 1890)

Thoreau pointed out that there are artists in life, persons who can change the colour of a day and make it beautiful to those with whom they come in contact. We claim that there are adepts, masters in life who make it divine, as in all other arts. Is it not the greatest art of all, this which affects the very atmosphere in which we live? That it is the most important is seen at once, when we remember that every person who draws the breath of life affects the mental and moral atmosphere of the world, and helps to colour the day for those about him. Those who do not help to elevate the thoughts and lives of others must of necessity either paralyze them by indifference, or actively drag them down....Everyone lives, and thinks, and speaks. If all our readers...endeavoured to learn the art of making life not only beautiful but divine, and vowed no longer to be hampered by disbelief in the possibility of this miracle, but to commence the Herculean task at once, then the coming year will have been fitly ushered in by the gleaming star.

—H. P. Blavatsky