There exists in India a secret knowledge based on sounds and the differences of vibratory modes according to each plane of consciousness. If we pronounce the sound OM, for example, we clearly feel its vibrations envelop the head centers, while the sound RAM touches the navel center. And since each of our centers of consciousness is in direct contact with a plane, we can, by the repetition (japa) of certain sounds, make contact with the corresponding plane of consciousness. This is the basis of an entire spiritual discipline, known as "Tantric" because it derives from sacred texts called Tantra.The fundamental or essential sounds, which have the power to make contact, are called mantras. The mantras, always secret, and given to the disciple by his guru, are of all kinds (there is a multitude of degrees within each plane of consciousness), and may serve the most contradictory purposes. By combining certain sounds, one can at the lower levels of consciousness, generally the vital level, make contact with the corresponding forces and acquire quite strange powers: there are mantras that can kill (in five minutes, with violent vomiting), mantras that can strike with precision a particular part or organ of the body, mantras that can cure, mantras that can start a fire, or protect, or cast spells. This type of magic, or chemistry of vibrations, simply proceeds from the conscious handling of lower vibrations. But there is a higher magic, which also proceeds from the handling of vibrations, but on higher planes of consciousness: this is poetry, music, the spiritual mantras of the Upanishads and the Vedas, the mantras a guru gives his disciple to help him consciously make direct contact with this or that plane of consciousness, this or that force or divine being. Here, the sound holds in itself the power of the experience and realization-it is a sound that makes us see.