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Searchable Full Text of A
Modern Panarion by H P Blavatsky
A Modern Panarion
A Collection of Fugitive Fragments
From the Pen of
H P Blavatsky
First Published 1895
The
Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
The Eddy Manifestations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Dr. Beard Criticized . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Lack of Unity among
Spiritualists . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The Holmes Controversy. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Holmes Controversy
(continued) . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Notice to Mediums. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .35
A Rebuke . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .36
Occultism or Magic. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 38
Spiritualistic Tricksters . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The Search after Occultism . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
The Science of Magic . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .55
An Unsolved Mystery . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 63
Spiritualism in
Spiritualism and
Spiritualists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
What is Occultism? . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .78
A Warning to Mediums. . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 82
(New)
Huxley and Shade. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .88
Can the Double Murder . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Fakirs and Tables . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .103
A Protest . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 107
The Fate of the Occultist . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Buddhism in
Russian Atrocities . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Washing the Disciples’ Feet. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Trickery or Magic ? . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .121
The Jews in
H. P. Blavatsky’s Masonic
Patent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128
Views of the Theosophists . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 132
A Society without a Dogma. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Elementaries . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 146
Kabalistic Views of ‘‘Spirits”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
The Knout. As Wielded by the
Great Russian Theosophist. Mr. Coleman’s
First Appearance. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 158
iv Contents
Page
Indian Metaphysics . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 163
“H. M.’’ and the Todas. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
The Todas . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 174
The Ahkoond of Swat. The
Founder of Many Mystical Societies . . . . . 179
The Ćrya Samŕj . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .184
Parting Words . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .188
‘Not a Christian”! . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
The Retort Courteous . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
‘‘Scrutator Again’’ . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
A Republican Citizen . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
The Theosophists and their
Opponents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Echoes from
Missionaries Militant . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
The History of a “Book” . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
A French View of Women’s
Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Occult Phenomena . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Hindu Widow-Marriage . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
“Oppressed Widowhood” in
‘‘Esoteric Buddhism’’ and its
Critic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .249
Mr. A. Lillie’s Delusions . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
What is Theosophy? . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
What are the Theosophists? . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Antiquity of the Vedas . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Persian Zoroastrianism and
Russian Vandalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Cross and Fire . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
War in
A
Which First—the Egg or the
Bird?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
The Pralaya of Modern Science.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
The Yoga Philosophy . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
A Year of Theosophy . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .348
“A Word with Our Friends”. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .353
Questions Answered about Yoga
Vidyâ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .357
The Missing Link . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Hypnotism . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
The Leaven of Theosophy. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Count St. Germain . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Lamas and Druses. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .375
A Reply to Our Critics. Our
Final Answer to Several Objections. . . . . . . . 387
‘‘The Claims of Occultism’’. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
A Note on Eliphas Levi. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .398
The Six-Pointed and
Five-Pointed Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .401
The Grand Inquisitor . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
The Bright Spot of Light . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
v contents
Page
“Is it Idle to Argue
Further?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Fragments of Occult Truth. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Notes on some Aryan-Arhat
Esoteric Tenets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
The Thoughts of the Dead . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Dreamland and Somnambulism . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
Are Dreams but Idle Visions? .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Spiritualism and Occult Truth
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .490
Reincarnation in
PREFACE
THE title A Modern Panarion
has been taken from the controversial Panarion of the Church Father Epiphanius
in which he attacked the various sects and heresies of the first four centuries
of the Christian era. The Panarion was so called as being a “basket” of scraps
and fragments. We are told that this Panarion was “a kind of medicine chest, in
which he had collected means of healing against the poisonous bite of the
heretical serpent.”
A Modern Panarion is of a like
nature with the intent of the Christian Father; only in the nineteenth century,
heresy has in many instances become orthodoxy, and orthodoxy heresy, and the
Panarion of H. P. Blavatsky is intended as a means of healing against the
errors of ecclesiasticism, dogma and bigotry, and the blind negation of
materialism and pseudo-science.
EDITORS.
THE H. P. B. MEMORIAL FUND
In 1891 the following
resolutions were passed by all the Sections of the Theosophical Society :—
Resolved:
1. That the most fitting and
permanent memorial of H. P. B.’s life and work would be the production and
publication of such papers, books and translations as will tend to promote that
intimate union between the life and thought of the Orient and the Occident to
the bringing about of which her life was devoted.
2. That an “H. P. B. Memorial
Fund” be instituted for this purpose, to which all those who feel gratitude or
admiration towards H. P. B. for her work, both within and without the T. S.,
are earnestly invited to contribute as their means may allow.
3. That the President of the
Theosophical Society, together with the General Secretaries of all Sections of
the same, constitute the Committee of Management of this Fund.
4. That the Presidents of
Lodges in each Section be a Committee to collect and forward to the General
Secretary of their respective Sections the necessary funds for this purpose.
THE EDDY MANIFESTATIONS
—————
[ The following letter was
addressed to a contemporary journal by Mine. Blavatsky, and was handed to us
for publication in The Daily Graphic, as we have been taking the lead in the
discussion of the curious subject of Spiritualism.—EDIT0R “DAILY GRAPHIC.”]
AWARE in the past of your love
of justice and fair play, I most earnestly solicit the use of your columns to
reply to an article by Dr. G. M. Beard in relation to the Eddy family in
I do not know Dr. Beard
personally, nor do I care to know how far he is entitled to wear the laurels of
his profession as an M.D., but what I do know is that he may never hope to
equal, much less to surpass, such men and savants as Crookes, Wallace, or even
Flammarion, the French astronomer, all of whom have devoted years to the
investigation of Spiritualism. All of them came to the conclusion that,
supposing even the well-known phenomenon of the materialization of spirits did
not prove the identity of the persons whom they purported to represent, it was
not, at all events, the work of mortal hands; still less was it a fraud.
Now to the Eddys. Dozens of
visitors have remained there for weeks and even for months; not a single séance
has taken place with out some of them realizing the personal presence of a
friend, a relative, a mother, father, or dear departed child. But lo! here
comes Dr. Beard, stops less than two days, applies his powerful electrical
battery, under which the spirit does not even wink or flinch, closely examines
the
2 ————————————————————
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A MODERN PANARION.
cabinet (in which he finds
nothing), and then turns his back and declares most emphatically “that he
wishes it to be perfectly under-stood that if his scientific name ever appears
in connection with the Eddy family, it must be only to expose them as the
greatest frauds who cannot do even good trickery.” Consummatum est!
Spiritualism is defunct. Requiescat in Pace! Dr. Beard has killed it with one
word. Scatter ashes over your venerable but silly heads, 0 Crookes, Wallace and
Varley! Henceforth you must be considered as demented, psychologized lunatics,
and so must it be with the many thousands of Spiritualists who have seen and
talked with their friends and relatives departed, recognizing them at Moravia,
at the Eddys’, and elsewhere throughout the length and breadth of this
continent. But is there no escape from the horns of this dilemma? Yea verily,
Dr. Beard writes thus: “When your correspondent returns to
To this I reply, backed as I
am by the testimony of hundreds of reliable witnesses, that all the wardrobe of
Niblo’s Theatre would not suffice to attire the numbers of “spirits” that
emerge night after night from an empty little closet.
Let Dr. Beard rise and explain
the following fact if he can: I remained fourteen days at the Eddys’. In that
short period of time I saw and recognized fully, out of 119 apparitions, seven
“spirits.” I admit that I was the only one to recognize them, the rest of the
audience not having been with me in my numerous travels throughout the East,
but their various dresses and costumes were plainly seen and closely examined
by all.
The first was a Georgian boy,
dressed in the historical Caucasian attire, the picture of whom will shortly
appear in The Daily Graphic. I recognized and questioned him in Georgian upon
circumstances known only to myself. I was understood and answered. Requested by
me in
3 ———————————————————THE EDDY MANIFESTATIONS.
his mother tongue (upon the
whispered suggestion of Colonel Olcott) to play the Lezguinka, a Circassian
dance, he did so immediately upon the guitar.
Second—A little old man
appears. He is dressed as Persian merchants generally are. His dress is perfect
as a national costume. Everything is in its right place, down to the
“babouches” that are off his feet, he stepping out in his stockings. He speaks
his name in a loud whisper. It is “Hassan Aga,” an old man whom I and my family
have known for twenty years at Tiflis. He says, half in Georgian and half in
Persian, that he has got a “big secret to tell me,” and comes at three
different times, vainly seeking to finish his sentence.
Third—A man of gigantic
stature comes forth, dressed in the picturesque attire of the warriors of
Fourth—A Circassian comes out.
I can imagine myself at
Fifth—Au old woman appears
with Russian headgear. She comes out and addresses me in Russian, calling me by
an endearing term that she used in my childhood. I recognize an old servant of
my family, a nurse of my sister.
Sixth—A large powerful negro
next appears on the platform. His head is ornamented with a wonderful coiffure
something like horns wound about with white and gold. His looks are familiar to
me, but I do not at first recollect where I have seen him. Very soon he begins
to make some vivacious gestures, and his mimicry helps me to recognize him at a
glance. It is a conjurer from
4 ————————————————————
-------
A MODERN PANARION.
Seventh and last—A large,
grey-haired gentleman comes out attired in the conventional suit of black. The
Russian decoration of
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
I2
DR. BEARD CRITICIZED
—————
As Dr. Beard has scorned (in
his scientific grandeur) to answer the challenge sent to him by your humble
servant in the number of The Daily Graphic for the 13th* of October last, and
has preferred instructing the public in general rather than one “credulous
fool” in particular, let her come from Circassia or Africa, I fully trust you
will permit me to use your paper once more in order that by pointing out some
very spicy peculiarities of this amazingly scientific exposure, the public
might better judge at whose door the aforesaid elegant epithet could be most
appropriately laid.
For a week or so an immense
excitement, a thrill of sacrilegious fear, if I may be allowed this expression,
ran through the psychologized frames of the Spiritualists of New York. It was
rumoured in ominous whispers that G. Beard, M.D., the Tyndall of America, was
coming out with his peremptory exposure of the Eddys’ ghosts and—the
Spiritualists trembled for their gods!
The dreaded day has come, the
number of The Daily Graphic for November the 9th is before us. We have read it
carefully, with respectful awe, for true science has always been an authority
for us (weak- minded fool though we may be), and so we handled the dangerous
exposure with a feeling somewhat akin to that of a fanatic Christian opening a
volume of Büchner. We perused it to the last: we turned the page over and over
again, vainly straining our eyes and brains to detect therein one word of scientific
proof or a solitary atom of over whelming evidence that would thrust into our
Spiritualistic bosom the venomous fangs of doubt. But no, not a particle of
reasonable explanation or of scientific evidence that what we have all seen,
heard and felt at the Eddys’ was but delusion. In our feminine modesty, still
allowing the said article the benefit of the doubt, we disbelieved our
—————
* This appears to be a
misprint, unless the challenge had been made on the 13th, and was Only repeated
in the letter of Oct. 2 —Eds.
6 ————————————————————
-------
A MODERN PANARION.
own senses, and so devoted a
whole day to the picking up of sundry bits of criticism from judges that we
believe more competent than ourselves, and at last came collectively to the
following conclusion:
The Daily Graphic has allowed
Dr. Beard in its magnanimity nine columns of its precious pages to prove—what?
Why, the following:
First, that he, Dr. Beard,
according to his own modest assertions (see columns second and third) is more
entitled to occupy the position of an actor intrusted with characters of
simpletons (Moličre’s “Tartuffe” might fit him perhaps as naturally) than to
undertake the difficult part of a Prof. Faraday vis-ŕ-vis the Chittenden D. D.
Home.
Secondly, that although the
learned doctor was “overwhelmed already with professional labours” (a nice and
cheap reclame, by the way) and scientific researches, he gave the latter
another direction, and so went to the Eddys. That, arrived there, he played
with Horatio Eddy, for the glory of science and the benefit of humanity, the
difficult character of a “dishevelled simpleton,” and was rewarded in his
scientific research by finding on the said suspicious premises a professor of
bumps “a poor harmless fool”! Galileo, of famous memory, when he detected the
sun in its involuntary imposture chuckled certainly less over his triumph than
does Dr. Beard over the discovery of this “poor fool” No. 1. Here we modestly
suggest that perhaps the learned doctor had no need to go as far as Chittenden
for that.
Further, the doctor,
forgetting entirely the wise motto, Non bis in idem, discovers and asserts
throughout the length of his article that all the past, present and future
generations of pilgrims to the “Eddy homestead” are collectively fools, and
that every solitary member of this numerous body of Spiritualistic pilgrims is
likewise “a weak- minded, credulous fool”! Query—the proof of it, if you
please, Dr. Beard? Answer—Dr. Beard has said so, and Echo responds, Fool!
Truly miraculous are thy
doings, indeed, 0 Mother Nature! The cow is black and its milk is white! But
then, you see, those ill-bred, ignorant Eddy brothers have allowed their
credulous guests to eat up all the “trout” caught by Dr. Beard and paid for by
him seventy-five cents per pound as a penalty; and that fact alone might have
turned him a little—how shall we say—sour, prejudiced? No, erroneous in his
statement, will answer better.
For erroneous he is, not to
say more. When, assuming an air of scientific authority, he affirms that the
séance-room is generally so dark
7 ————————————————————DR. BEARD CRITICIZED.
that one cannot recognize at
three feet distance his own mother, he says what is not true. When he tells us
further that he saw through a hole in one of the shawls and the space between
them all the manśuvres of Horatio’s arm, he risks finding himself contradicted
by thousands who, weak-minded though they may be, are not blind for all that,
neither are they confederates of the Eddys, but far more reliable wit nesses in
their simple-minded honesty than Dr. Beard is in his would-be scientific and
unscrupulous testimony. The same when he says that no one is allowed to
approach the spirits nearer than twelve feet dis tance, still less to touch
them, except the “two simple-minded ignorant idiots” who generally sit on both
ends of the platform. To my knowledge many other persons have sat there besides
those two.
Dr. Beard ought to know this
better than anyone else, as he has sat there himself. A sad story is in
circulation, by the way, at the Eddys’. The records of the spiritual séances at
Chittenden have devoted a whole page to the account of a terrible danger that
threatened for a moment to deprive
It becomes evident that the
said neglected logic was keeping company at the time with old mother Truth at
the bottom of her well, neither of them being wanted by Dr. Beard. I myself
have sat upon the upper step of the platform for fourteen nights by the side of
Mrs. Cleveland. I got up every time “Honto” approached me to within an inch of
my face in order to see her the better. I have touched her
8 ————————————————————
-------
A MODERN PANARION.
hands repeatedly as other
spirits have been touched, and even embraced her nearly every night.
Therefore, when I read Dr.
Beard’s preposterous and cool assertion that “a very low order of genius is
required to obtain command of a few words in different languages and so to
mutter them to credulous Spiritualists,” I feel every right in the world to say
in my turn that such a scientific exposure as Dr. Beard has come out with in
his article does not require any genius at all; per contra, it requires a
ridiculous faith on the part of the writer in his own infallibility, as well as
a positive confidence in finding in all his readers what he elegantly terms
“weak- minded fools.” Every word of his statement, when it is not a most
evident untruth, is a wicked and malicious insinuation built on the very
equivocal authority of one witness against the evidence of thousands.
Says Dr Beard, “I have proved
that the life of the Eddys is one long lie, the details need no further
discussion.” The writer of the above lines forgets, by saying these imprudent
words, that some people might think that “like attracts like.” He went to
Chittenden with deceit in his heart and falsehood on his lips, and so judging
his neighbour by the character he assumed himself, he takes everyone for a
knave when he does not put him down as a fool. Declaring so positively that he
has proved it, the doctor forgets one trifling circumstance, namely, that he
has proved nothing whatever.
Where are his boasted proofs?
When we contradict him by saying that the séance-room is far from being as dark
as he pretends it to be, and that the spirits themselves have repeatedly called
out through Mrs. Eaton’s voice for more light, we only say what we can prove
before any jury. When Dr. Beard says that all the spirits are personated by W.
Eddy, he advances what would prove to be a greater conundrum for solution than
the apparition of spirits themselves. There he falls right away into the domain
of Cagliostro: for if Dr. B. has seen five or six spirits in all, other
persons, myself included, have seen one hundred and nineteen in less than a
fortnight, nearly all of whom were differently dressed. Besides, the accusation
of Dr. Beard implies the idea to the public that the artist of The Daily
Graphic who made the sketches of so many of those apparitions, and who is not a
“credulous Spiritualist” himself, is likewise a humbug, propagating to the
world what he did not see, and so spreading at large the most preposterous and
outrageous lie.
When the learned doctor will
have explained to us how any man in
9 ————————————————————DR. BEARD CRITICIZED.
his shirt-sleeves and a pair
of tight pants for an attire can possibly conceal on his person (the cabinet
having been previously found empty) a whole bundle of clothes, women’s robes,
hats, caps, head-gears, and entire stilts of evening dress, white waistcoats
and neckties included, then he will be entitled to more belief than he is at
present. That would be a proof indeed, for, with all due respect to his
scientific mind, Dr. Beard is not the first Śdipus that has thought of catching
the Sphinx by its tail and so unriddling the mystery. We have known more than
one “weak-minded fool,” ourselves included, that has lahoured under a similar
delusion for more than one night, but all of us were finally obliged to repeat
the words of the great Galileo, “E pur, se muove!” and give it up.
But Dr. Beard does not give it
up. Preferring to keep a scornful silence as to any reasonable explanation, he
hides the secret of the above mystery in the depths of his profoundly
scientific mind. “His life is given to scientific researches,” you see; “his
physiological knowledge and neuro-physiological learning are immense,” for he
says so, and skilled as he is in combating fraud by still greater fraud (see
column the eighth), spiritualistic humbug has no more mysteries for him. In
five minutes the scientist had done more towards science than all the rest of
the scientists put together have done in years of labour, and “would feel
ashamed if he had not.” (See same column.) In the overpowering modesty of his
learning he takes no credit to himself for having done so, though he has
discovered the astounding, novel fact of the “cold benumbing sensation.” How
Wallace, Crookes and Varley, the naturalist-anthropologist, the chemist and
electrician, will blush with envy in their old country!
A far wiser mind than Dr.
Beard (will he dispute the fact?) has suggested, centuries ago, that the tree
was to be judged according to its fruits. Spiritualism, notwithstanding the
desperate efforts of more scientific men than himself, has stood its ground
without flinching for more than a quarter of a century. Where are the fruits of
the tree of science that blossoms on the soil of Dr. Beard’s mind? If we are to
10 ————————————————————
-------
A MODERN PANARION.
judge of them by his article,
then verily the said tree needs more than usual care. As for the fruits, it
would appear that they are as yet in the realms of “sweet delusive hope.” But
then, perhaps the doctor was afraid to crush his readers under the weight’ of
his learning (true merit has been in all times modest and unassuming), and that
accounts for the learned doctor withholding from us any scientific proof of the
fraud that he pretends to be exposing, except the above-mentioned fact of the
“cold benumbing sensation.” But how Horatio can keep his hand and arm ice cold
under a warm shawl for half an hour at a time, in summer as well as in any other
season, and that without having some ice concealed about his person, or how he
can prevent it from thawing—all the above is a mystery that Dr. Beard doesn’t
reveal for the sent. Maybe he will tell us something of it in his book that he
advertises in the article. Well, we only hope that the former will be more
satisfactory than the latter.
I will add but a few words
before ending my debate with Dr. Beard for ever. All that he says about the
lamp concealed in a bandbox, the strong confederates, etc., exists only in his
imagination, for the mere sake of argument, we suppose. “False in one, false in
all,” says Dr. Beard in column the sixth. These words are a just verdict on his
own article.
Here I will briefly state what
I reluctantly withheld up to the present moment from the knowledge of all such
as Dr. Beard. The fact was too sacred in my eyes to allow it to be trifled with
in newspaper gossiping. But now, in order to settle the question at once, I
deem it my duty as a Spiritualist to surrender it to the opinion of the public.
On the last night that I spent
with the Eddys I was presented by Georgo Dix and Mayflower with a silver
decoration, the upper part of a medal with which I was but too familiar. I
quote the precise words of the spirit: “We bring you this decoration, for we
think you will value it more highly than anything else. You will recognize it,
for it is the badge of honour that was presented to your father by his
Government for the campaign of 1828, between
These words were spoken in the
presence of forty witnesses. Col. Olcott will describe the fact and give the
design of the decoration.
I have the said decoration in
my possession. I know it as having
11 ————————————————————DR. BEARD CRITICIZED.
belonged to my father. More, I
have identified it by a portion that, through carelessness, I broke myself many
years ago, and, to settle all doubt in relation to it, I possess the photograph
of my father (a picture that has never been at the Eddys’, and could never
possibly have been seen by any of them) on which this medal is plainly visible.
Query for Dr. Beard: How could
the Eddys know that my father was buried at Stavropol; that he was ever
presented with such a medal, or that he had been present and in actual service
at the time of the war of 1828?
Willing as we are to give
every one his due, we feel compelled to say on behalf of Dr. Beard that he has
not boasted of more than he can do, in advising the Eddys' to take a few
private lessons of him in the trickery of mediumship. The learned doctor must
be expert in such trickeries. We are likewise ready to admit that in saying as
he did that “his article would only confirm the more the Spiritualists in their
belief” (and he ought to have added, “convince no one else”), Dr. Beard has
proved himself to be a greater “prophetic medium” than any other in this
country!
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
23, Irving Place, New York
City,
November 10th, 1874
THE LACK OF UNITY AMONG
SPIRITUALISTS
—————
[ From a letter received from
Mme. Blavatsky last week we make the following extracts, want of space alone
preventing us from publishing it entire. It was written in her usual lively and
entertaining style, and her opinions expressed are worthy of careful study,
many of them being fully consistent with the true state of affairs.—EDIT0R
“SPIRITUAL SCIENTIST” (Dec. 3rd, 1874).]
As it is, I have only done my
duty; first, towards Spiritualism, that I have defended as well as I could from
the attacks of imposture under its too transparent mask of science; then
towards two helpless slandered “mediums”—the last word becoming fast in our
days the synonym of “martyr”; secondly, I have contributed my mite towards
opening the eyes of an indifferent public to the real, intrinsic value of such
a man as Dr. Beard. But I am obliged to confess that I really do not believe
that I have done any good—at least, any practical good—to Spiritualism itself;
and I never hope to perform such a feat as that were I to keep on for an
eternity bombarding all the newspapers of America with my challenges and
refutations of the lies told by the so-called “scientific exposers.”
It is with a profound sadness
in my heart that I acknowledge this fact, for I begin to think there is no help
for it. For over fifteen years have I fought my battle for the blessed truth; I
have travelled and preached it—though I never was born for a lecturer—from the
snow- covered tops of the Caucasian Mountains, as well as from the sandy
valleys of the Nile. I have proved the truth of it practically and by
persuasion. For the sake of Spiritualism I have left my home, an easy life amongst
a civilized society, and have become a wanderer upon the face of this earth. I
had already seen my hopes realized, beyond the most sanguine expectations,
when, in my restless desire for more knowledge, my unlucky star brought me to
America.
Knowing this country to be the
cradle of modern Spiritualism, I
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came over here from France
with feelings not unlike those of a Mohammedan approaching the birthplace of
his prophet. I had for gotten that “no prophet is without honour save in his
own country.” In the less than fourteen months that I am here, sad experience
has but too well sustain the never-dying evidence of this immortal truth.
What little I have done
towards defending phenomena I am ever ready to do over and over again, as long
as I have a breath of life left in me. But what good will it ever do? We have a
popular and wise Russian saying that “one Cossack on the battle-field is no
warrior.” Such is my case, together with that of many other poor, struggling
wretches, everyone of whom, like a solitary scout, sent far ahead in advance of
the army, has to fight his own battle, and defend the post entrusted to him,
unaided by anyone but himself. There is no union between Spiritualists, no
entante cordiale, as the French say. Judge Edmonds said, some years ago, that
they numbered in their ranks over eleven millions in this country alone; and I
believe it to be true; in which case, it is but to be the more deplored. When
one man—as Dr. Beard did and will do yet—dares to defy such a formidable body
as that, there must be some cause for it. His insults, gross and vulgar as they
are, are too fearless to leave one particle of doubt that if he does it, it is
but because he knows too well that he can do so with impunity and perfect ease.
Year after year the American Spiritualists have allowed themselves to be
ridiculed and slighted by everyone who had a mind to do so, protesting so
feebly as to give their opponents the most erroneous idea of their weakness. Am
I wrong, then, in saying that our Spiritualists are more to be blamed than Dr.
Beard himself in all this ridiculous polemic? Moral cowardice breeds more
contempt than the “familiarity” of the old motto. How can we expect such a
scientific sleight-of-hand as he is to respect a body that does not respect
itself?
My humble opinion is, that the
majority of our Spiritualists are too much afraid for their “respectability”
when called upon to confess and acknowledge their “belief.” Will you agree with
me, if I say that the dread of the social Areopagus is so deeply rooted in the
hearts of your American people, that to endeavour to tear it out of them would
be undertaking to shake the whole system of society from top to bottom?
“Respectability” and “fashion” have brought more than one utter materialist to
select (for mere show) the Episcopalian and other wealthy churches. But
Spiritualism is not “fashionable,” as yet, and that’s
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where the trouble is.
Notwithstanding its immense and daily increasing numbers, it has not won, till
now, the right of citizenship. Its chief leaders are not clothed in gold and
purple and fine raiment; for, not unlike Christianity in the beginning of its
era, Spiritualism numbers in its ranks more of the humble and afflicted ones,
than of the powerful and wealthy of this earth. Spiritualists belonging to the
latter class will seldom dare to step out in the arena of publicity and boldly
proclaim their belief in the face of the whole world; that hybrid monster,
called “public opinion,” is too much for them; and what does a Dr. Beard care
for the opinion of the poor and the humble ones? He knows but too well that his
insulting terms of “fools” and “weak minded idiots,” as his accusations of
credulousness, will never be applied to themselves by any of the proud castes
of modern “Pharisees”; Spiritualists as they know themselves to be, and have
perhaps been for years, if they deign to notice the insult at all, it will be
but to answer him as the cowardly apostle did before them, “Man, I tell thee, I
know him not!”
St. Peter was the only one of
the remaining eleven that denied his Christ thrice before the Pharisees; that
is just the reason why, of all the apostles, he is the most revered by the
Catholics, and has been selected to rule over the most wealthy as the most
proud, greedy and hypocritical of all the churches in Christendom. And so, half
Christians and half believers in the new dispensation, the majority of those
eleven millions of Spiritualists stand with one foot on the threshold of
Spiritualism, pressing firmly with the other one the steps leading to the
altars of their “fashionable” places of worship, ever ready to leap over under
the protection of the latter in hours of danger. They know that under the cover
of such immense “respectability” they are perfectly safe. Who would presume or
dare to accuse of “credulous stupidity’’ a member belonging to certain
‘‘fashionable congregations’’? Under the powerful and holy shade of any of
those “pillars of truth” every heinous crime is liable to become immediately
transformed into but a slight and petty deviation from strict Christian virtue.
Jupiter, for all his numberless “Don Juan” like frolics, was not the less on
that account considered by his worshippers as the “Father of Gods”!
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A FEW weeks ago, in a letter,
extracts from which have appeared in The Spiritual Scientist of December 3rd, I
alluded to the deplorable lack of accord between American Spiritualists, and
the consequences of the same. At that time I had just fought out my useless
battle with a foe who, though beneath my own personal notice, had insulted all
the Spiritualists of this country, as a body, in a caricature of a so-called
scientific exposé. In dealing with him I dealt with but one of the numerous
“bravos” enlisted in the army of the bitter opponents of belief; and my task
was, comparatively speaking, an easy one, if we take it for granted that
falsehood can hardly withstand truth, as the latter will ever speak for itself.
Since that day the scales have turned; prompted now, as then, by the same love
of justice and fair play, I feel compelled to throw down my glove once more in
our defence, seeing that so few of the adherents to the cause are bold enough
to accept that duty, and so many of them show the white feather of
pusillanimity.
I indicated in my letter that
such a state of things, such a complete lack of harmony, and such cowardice, I
may add, among their ranks, subjected the Spiritualists and the cause to
constant attacks from a compact, aggressive public opinion, based upon
ignorance and wicked prejudice, intolerant, remorseless and thoroughly
dishonest in the employment of its methods. As a vast army, amply equipped, may
be cut to pieces by an inferior force well trained and handled, so
Spiritualism, numbering its hosts by millions, and able to vanquish every
reactionary theology by a little well-directed effort, is constantly harassed,
weakened, impeded, by the convergent attacks of pulpit and press, and by the
treachery and cowardice of its trusted leaders. It is one of these professed
leaders that I propose to question to-day, as closely as my rights, not only as
a widely known Kabalist but also as a resident of the United States, will allow
me. When I see the numbers of believers in this country, the broad basis of
their belief, the im-
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pregnability of their
position, and the talent that is embraced within their ranks, I am disgusted at
the spectacle that they manifest at this very moment, after the Katie King—how
shall we say—fraud? By no means, since the last word of this sensational comedy
is far from being spoken.
There is not a country on the
face of our planet, with a jury attached to its courts of justice, but gives
the benefit of the doubt to every criminal brought within the law, and affords
him a chance to be heard and tell his story.
Is such the case between the
pretended “spirit performer,” the alleged bogus Katie King, and the Holmes
mediums? I answer most decidedly no, and mean to prove it, if no one else does.
I deny the right of any man or
woman to wrench from our hands all possible means of finding out the truth. I
deny the right of any editor of a daily newspaper to accuse and publish
accusations, refusing at the same time to hear one word of justification from
the defendants, and so, instead of helping people to clear up the matter,
leaving them more than ever to grope their way in the dark.
The biography of “Katie King”
has come out at last; a sworn certificate, if you please, endorsed (under
oath?) by Dr. Child, who throughout the whole of this “burlesque” epilogue has
ever appeared in it, like some inevitable deus-ex-machinâ. The whole of this
made- up elegy (by whom? evidently not by Mrs. White) is redolent with the
perfume of erring innocence, of Magdalene-like tales of woe and sorrow, tardy
repentance and the like, giving us the abnormal idea of a pickpocket in the act
of robbing our soul of its most precious, thrilling sensations. The
carefully-prepared explanations on some points that appear now and then as so
many stumbling-blocks in the way of a seemingly fair exposé do not preclude,
nevertheless, through the whole of it, the possibility of doubt; for many
awkward semblances of truth, partly taken from the confessions of that fallen
angel, Mrs. White, and partly—most of them we should say—copied from the
private note-book of her “amanuensis,” give you a fair idea of the veracity of
this sworn certificate. For instance, according to her own statement and the
evidence furnished by the habitue’s of the Holmeses, Mrs. White having never
been present at any of the dark circles (her alleged acting as Katie King
excluding all possibility, on her part, of such a public exhibition of flesh
and bones), how comes she to know so well, in every particular, about the
tricks of the mediums, the pro-
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gramme of their performances,
etc.? Then, again, Mrs. White who remembers so well—by rote we may say—every
word exchanged between Katie King and Mr. Owen, the spirit and Dr. Child, has
evidently forgotten all that was ever said by her in her bogus personation to
Dr. Felger; she does not even remember a very important secret communicated by
her to the latter gentleman! What an extraordinary combination of, memory and
absence of mind at the same time. May not a certain memorandum-book, with its
carefully-noted contents, account for it, perhaps? The document is signed,
under oath, with the name of a non-existing spirit, Katie King. . . . Very
clever!
All protestations of innocence
or explanations sent in by Mr. or Mrs. Holmes, written or verbal, are
peremptorily refused publication by the press. No respectable paper dares takes
upon itself the responsibility of such an unpopular cause.
The public feel triumphant;
the clergy, forgetting in the excitement of their victory the Brooklyn scandal,
rub their hands and chuckle; a certain exposer of materialized spirits and
mind-reading, like some monstrous anti-spiritual mitrailleuse shoots forth a
volley of missiles, and sends a condoling letter to Mr. Owen; Spiritualists,
crestfallen, ridiculed and defeated, feel crushed for ever under the pretended
exposure and that overwhelming, pseudonymous evidence. . . . The day of
Waterloo has come for us, and sweeping away the last remnants of the defeated
army, it remains for us to ring our own death-knell.
Spirits, beware! henceforth,
if you lack prudence, your materialized forms will have to stop at the cabinet
doors, and in a perfect tremble melt away from sight, singing in chorus Edgar
Poe’s “Never more.” One would really suppose that the whole belief of the
Spiritualists hung at the girdles of the Holmeses, and that in case they should
be unmasked as tricksters, we might as well vote our phenomena an old woman’s
delusion.
Is the scraping off of a
barnacle the destruction of a ship? But, moreover, we are not sufficiently
furnished with any plausible proofs at all.
Colonel Olcott is here and has
begun investigations. His first tests with Mrs. Holmes alone, for Mr. Holmes is
lying sick at Vineland, have proved satisfactory enough, in his eyes, to induce
Mr. Owen to return to the spot of his first love, namely, the Holmeses’
cabinet. He began by tying Mrs. Holmes up in a bag, the string drawn tightly
round her neck, knotted and sealed in the presence of Mr. Owen, Col.
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Olcott and a third gentleman.
After that the medium was placed in the empty cabinet, which was rolled away
into the middle of the room, and it was made a perfect impossibility for her to
use her hands. The door being closed, hands appeared in the aperture, then the
outlines of a face came, which gradually formed into the classical head of John
King, turban, beard and all. He kindly allowed the investigators to stroke his
beard, touch his warm face, and patted their hands with his. After the séance
was over, Mrs. Holmes, with many tears of gratitude in the presence of the
three gentlemen, assured Mr. Owen most solemnly that she had spoken many a time
to Dr. Child about “Katie” leaving her presents in the house and dropping them
about the place, and that she—Mrs. Holmes—wanted Mr. Owen to know it; but that
the doctor had given her most peremptory orders to the contrary, forbidding her
to let the former know it, his precise words being, “Don’t do it, it’s useless;
he must not know it I leave the question of Mrs. Holmes’ veracity as to this
fact for Dr. Child to settle with her.
On the other hand, we have
tile woman, Eliza White, exposer and accuser of the Holmeses, who remains up to
the present day a riddle and an Egyptian mystery to every man and woman of this
city, except to the clever and equally invisible party—a sort of protecting
deity— who took the team in hand, and drove the whole concern of “Katie’s”
materialization to destruction, in what he considered such a first-rate way.
She is not to be met, or seen, or interviewed, or even spoken to by anyone,
least of all by the ex-admirers of “Katie King” herself, so anxious to get a
peep at the modest, blushing beauty who deemed her self worthy of personating
the fair spirit. Maybe it’s rather dangerous to allow them the chance of
comparing for themselves the features of both? But the most perplexing fact of
this most perplexing imbroglio is that Mr. R. D. Owen, by his Own confession to
me, has never, not even on the day of the exposure, seen Mrs. White, or talked
to her, or had other wise the least chance to scan her features close enough
for him to identify her. He caught a glimpse of her general outline but once,
viz., at the mock séance of Dec. 5th referred to in her biography, when she
appeared to half a dozen of witnesses (invited to testify and identify the
fraud) emerging de nova from the cabinet, with her face closely covered with a
double veil (!) after which the sweet vision vanished and appeared no more. Mr.
Owen adds that he is not prepared to swear to the identity of Mrs. White and
Katie King.
May I he allowed to enquire as
to the necessity of such a profound
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mystery, after the promise of
a public exposure of all the fraud? It seems to me that the said exposure would
have been far more satisfactory if conducted otherwise. Why not give the
fairest chance to R. D. Owen, the party who has suffered the most on account of
this disgusting swindle—if swindle there is—to compare Mrs. White with his
Katie? May I suggest again that it is perhaps because the spirit’s features are
but too well impressed on his memory, poor, noble, confiding gentleman. Gauze
dresses and moonshine, coronets and stars can possibly be counterfeited in a
half-darkened room, while features, answering line for line to the “spirit
Katie’s” face, are not so easily made up; the latter require very clever
preparations. A lie may be easy enough for a smooth tongue, but no pug nose can
lie itself into a classical one.
A very honourable gentleman of
my acquaintance, a fervent admirer of the “spirit Katie’s” beauty, who has seen
and addressed her at two feet distance about fifty times, tells me that on a
certain evening, when Dr. Child begged the spirit to let him see her tongue
(did the honour-able doctor want to compare it with Mrs. White’s tongue—the
lady having been his patient?), she did so, and upon her opening her mouth, the
gentleman in question assures me that he plainly saw, what in his admiring
phraseology he terms “the most beautiful set of teeth—two rows of pearls.” He
remarked most particularly those teeth. Now there are some wicked, slandering
gossips, who happen to have cultivated most intimately Mrs. White’s
acquaintance in the happy days of her innocence, before her fall and subsequent
exposé and they tell us very bluntly (we beg the penitent angel’s pardon, we
repeat but a hear say) that this lady can hardly number among her other natural
charms the rare beauty of pearly teeth, or a perfect, most beautiful formed
hand and arm. Why not show her teeth at once to the said admirer, and so shame
the slanderers? Why shun “Katie’s” best friends? If we were so anxious as she
seems to be to prove “who is who,” we would surely submit with pleasure to the
operation of showing our teeth, yea, even in a court of justice. The above
fact, trifling as it may seem at first sight, would be considered as a very
important one by any intelligent juryman in a question of personal
identification.
Mr. Owen's statement to us,
corroborated by “Katie King” herself in her biography, a sworn document,
remember, is in the following words:
“She consented to have an
interview with some gentlemen who had seen her personating the spirit, on
condition that she would be allowed to
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keep a veil over her face all
the time she was conversing with them.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 11th, 4
col., “K. K. Biography.”)
Now pray why should these “too
credulous weak-minded gentle men,” as the immortal Dr. Beard would say, he
subjected again to such an extra strain on their blind faith? We should say
that that was just the proper time to come out and prove to them what was the
nature of the mental aberration they were labouring under for so many months.
Well, if they do swallow this new veiled proof they are welcome to it.
Vulgus vult decipi decipiatur!
But I expect something more substantial before submitting in guilty silence to
be laughed at. As it is, the case stands thus:
According to the same
biography (same column) the mock séance was prepared and carried out to
everyone’s heart’s content, through the endeavours of an amateur detective,
who, by the way, if any one wants to know, is a Mr. W. 0. Leslie. a contractor
or agent for the Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York Railroad, residing in
this city. If the press and several of the most celebrated victims of the fraud
are under bond of secrecy with him, I am. not, and mean to say what I know. And
so the said séance took place on Dec. 5th last, which fact appearing in sworn
evidence, implies that Mr. Leslie had wrested from Mrs. White the confession of
her guilt at least several days previous to that date, though the precise day
of the ‘‘amateur’s’’ triumph is very cleverly withheld in the sworn
certificate. Now comes a new conundrum.
On the evenings of Dec. 2nd
and 3rd at two séances held at the Holmeses’, I, myself, in the presence of
Robert Dale Owen and Dr. Child (chief manager of those performances, from whom
I got on the same morning an admission card), together with twenty more
witnesses, saw the spirit of Katie step out of the cabinet twice, in full form
and beauty, and I can swear in any court of justice that she did not bear the
least resemblance to Mrs. White’s portrait.
As I am unwilling to base my
argument upon any other testimony than my own, I will not dwell upon the
alleged apparition of Katie King at the Holmeses’ on Dec. 5th to Mr. Roberts
and fifteen others, among whom was Mr. W. H. Clarke, a reporter for The Daily
Graphic, for I happened to be out of town, though, if this fact is
demonstrated, it will go far against Mrs. White, for on that precise evening,
and at the same hour, she was exhibiting herself as the bogus Katie at the mock
séance. Something still more worthy of consideration is found in the
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most positive assertion of a
gentleman, a Mr. Wescott, who on that evening of the 5th on his way home from
the real séance, met in the car Mr. Owen, Dr. Child and his wife, all three
returning from the mock séance. Now it so happened that this gentleman
mentioned to them about having just seen the spirit Katie come out of the cabinet,
adding ‘‘he thought she never looked better” ; upon hearing which Mr. Robert
Dale Owen stared at him in amazement, and all the three looked greatly
perplexed.
And so I have but insisted on
the apparition of the spirit at the mediums’ house on the evenings Dec. 2nd and
3rd, when I witnessed the phenomenon, together with Robert Dale Owen and other
parties.
It would be worse than useless
to offer or accept the poor excuse that the confession of the woman White, her
exposure of the fraud, the delivery to Mr. Leslie of all her dresses and
presents received by her in the name of Katie King, the disclosure of the sad
news by this devoted gentleman to Mr. Owen, and the preparation of the mock
séance cabinet and other important matters, had all of them taken place on the
4th the more so, as we are furnished with most positive proofs that Dr. Child
at least, if not Mr. Owen. knew all about Mr. Leslie’s success with Mrs. White
several days beforehand. Knowing then of the fraud, how could Mr. Leslie allow
it to be still carried on, as the fact of Katie’s apparition at the Holmeses’
on Dec. 2nd and 3rd prove to have been the case? Any gentleman, even with a
very moderate degree of honour about him, would never allow the public to be
fooled and defrauded any longer, unless he had time firm resolution of catching
the bogus spirit on the spot and proving the imposition. But no such thing
occurred. Quite the contrary; for Dr. Child, who had constituted himself from
the first not only chief superintendent of the séances, cabinet and
materialization business, but also cashier and ticket-holder (paying the
mediums at first ten dollars per séance, as he did, and subsequently fifteen
dollars, and pocketing the rest of the proceeds), on that same evening of the
3rd took the admission money from every visitor as quietly as he ever did. I
will add, furthermore, that I, in propriâ personâ, handed him on that very
night a five—dollar bill, and that he (Dr. Child) kept the whole of it,
remarking that the balance could he made good to us by future séance.
Will Dr. Child presume to say
that getting ready, as he then was, in company with Mr. Leslie, to produce the
bogus Katie King on the 5th of December, he knew nothing, as yet, of the fraud
on the 3rd?
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Further; in the same biography
(chap. viii, column the 1st), it is stated that, immediately upon Mrs. White’s
return from Blissfield, Mich., she called on Dr. Child, and offered to expose
the whole humbug she had been engaged in, but that he would not listen to her.
Upon that occasion she was not veiled, as indeed there was no necessity for her
to be, since by Dr. Child’s own admission she had been a patient of his, and
under his medical treatment. In a letter from Holmes to Dr. Child, dated Blissfield,
Aug. 28th, 1874, the former writes:
Mrs. White says you and the
friends were very rude, wanted to look into all our boxes and trunks and break
open locks. What were you looking for, or expecting to find?
All these several
circumstances show in the clearest possible manner that Dr. Child and Mrs.
White were on terms much more intimate then than that of casual acquaintance,
and it is the height of absurdity to assert that if Mrs. White and Katie King
were identical, the fraud was not perfectly well known to the “Father
Confessor” (see narrative of John and Katie King, p. 45). But a side light is
thrown upon this comedy from the pretended biography of John King and his
daughter Katie, written at their dictation in his own office by Dr. Child
himself. This book was given out to the world as an authentic revelation from
these two spirits. It tells us that they stepped in and stepped out of his
office, day after day, as any mortal being might, and after holding brief
conversations, followed by long narratives, they fully endorsed the genuineness
of their own apparition in the Holmeses’ cabinet. Moreover, the spirits
appearing at the public séances corroborated the statements which they made to
their amanuensis in his office; the two dovetailing together and making a
consistent story. Now, if the Holmeses’ Kings were Mrs. White, who were the
spirits visiting the doctor’s office? and if the spirits visiting him were
genuine, who were those that appeared at the public séances? In which
particular has the “Father Confessor” defrauded the public? In selling a book
containing false biographies or exposing bogus spirits at the Holmeses’? Which
or both? Let the doctor choose.
If his conscience is so tender
as to force him into print with his certificate and affidavits why does it not
sink deep enough to reach his pocket, and compel him to refund to us the money
obtained by him under false pretences? According to his own confession, the
Holmeses received from him, up to the time they left town, about $1,2OO, for
four months of daily séances. That he admitted every night as many visitors
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as he could possibly find room
for—sometimes as many as thirty-five— is a fact that will be corroborated by
every person who has seen the phenomena more than once. Furthermore, some six
or seven reliable witnesses have told us that the modest fee of $1 was only for
the habitués, too curious or over-anxious visitors having to pay sometimes as
much as $5, and in one instance $10. This last fact I give under all reserve,
not having had to pay so much as that myself.
Now let an impartial
investigator of this Philadelphia imbroglio take a pencil and cast up the
profit left after paying the mediums, in this nightly spirit speculation
lasting many months. The result would be to show that the business of a spirit
“Father Confessor” is, on the whole, a very lucrative one.
Ladies and gentlemen of the
spiritual belief, methinks we are all of us between the horns of a very
wonderful dilemma. If you happen to find your position comfortable, I do not,
and so will try to extricate myself.
Let it be perfectly
understood, though, that I do not intend in the least to undertake at present
the defence of the Holmeses. They may be the greatest frauds for what I know or
care. My only purpose is to know for a certainty to whom I am indebted for my
share of ridicule— small as it may be, luckily for me. If we Spiritualists are
to be laughed and scoffed at and ridiculed and sneered at, we ought to know at
least the reason why. Either there was a fraud or there was none. If the fraud
is a sad reality, and Dr. Child by some mysterious combination of his personal
cruel fate has fallen the first victim to it, after having proved himself so
anxious for the sake of his honour and character to stop at once the further
progress of such a deceit on a public that had hitherto looked on him alone as
the party responsible for the perfect integrity and genuineness of a phenomenon
so fully endorsed by him in all particulars, why does not the doctor come out
the first and help us to the clue of all this mystery? Well aware of the fact
that the swindled and defrauded parties can at any day assert their rights to
the restitution of moneys laid out by them solely on the ground of their entire
faith in him they had trusted, why does he not sue the Holmeses and so prove
his own innocence? He cannot but admit that in the eyes of some initiated
parties, his cause looks far more ugly as it now stands than the accusation
under which the Holmeses vainly struggle. Or, if there was no fraud, or if it
is not fully proved, as it cannot well be on the shallow testimony of a
nameless woman signing documents
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with pseudonyms, why then all
this comedy on the part of the principal partner in the “Katie materialization”
business? Was not Dr. Child the institutor, the promulgator, and we may say the
creator of what proves to have been but a bogus phenomenon, after all? Was not
lie the advertising agent of this incarnated humbug—the Barnum of this
spiritual show? And now that he has helped to fool not only Spiritualists but
the world at large, whether as a confederate himself or one of the weak-minded
fools—no matter, so long as it is demonstrated that it was he that helped us to
this scrape—he imagines that by helping to accuse the mediums, and expose the
fraud, by fortifying with his endorsement all manner of bogus affidavits and
illegal certificates from non-existing parties, he hopes to find himself
henceforth perfectly clear of responsibility to the persons he has dragged
after him into this infamous swamp!
We must demand a legal
investigation. We have the right to insist upon it, for we Spiritualists have
bought this right at a dear price:
with the life-long reputation of Mr. Owen as an able and reliable writer and
trustworthy witness of the phenomena, who may henceforth be regarded as a
doubted and ever-ridiculed visionary by sceptical wise-acres. We have bought
this right with the prospect that all of us, whom Dr. Child has unwittingly or
otherwise (time will prove it) fooled into belief in his Katie King, will
become for a time the butts for end-less raillery, satires and jokes from the
press and ignorant masses. We regret to feel obliged to contradict on this
point such an authority in all matters as The Daily Graphic, but if orthodox
laymen rather decline to see this fraud thoroughly investigated in a court of
justice for fear of the Holmeses becoming entitled to the crown of martyrs, we
have no such fear as that, and repeat with Mr. Hudson Tuttle that “better
perish the cause with the impostors than live such a life of eternal ostracism,
with no chance for justice or redress.”
Why in the name of all that is
wonderful should Dr. Child have all the laurels of this unfought battle, in
which the attacked army seems for ever doomed to be defeated without so much as
a struggle? Why should he have all the material benefit of this materialized
humbug, and R. D. Owen, an honest Spiritualist, whose name is universally
respected, have all the kicks and thumps of the sceptical press? Is this fair
and just? How long shall we Spiritualists be turned over like so many
scapegoats to the unbelievers by cheating mediums and speculating prophets?
Like some modern shepherd Paris, Mr. Owen fell a
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victim to the snares of this
pernicious, newly materialized Helen; and on him falls heaviest the present
reaction that threatens to produce a new Trojan war. But the Homer of the
Philadelphia Iliad, the one who has appeared in the past as the elegiac poet
and biographer of that same Helen, and who appears in the present kindling up
the spark of doubt against the Holmeses, till, if not speedily quenched, it
might become a roaring ocean of flames—he that plays at this present hour the
unparalleled part of a chief justice presiding at his own trial and deciding in
his own case-—Dr. Child, we say, turning back on the spirit daughter of his own
creation, and backing the mortal, illegitimate off spring furnished by
somebody, is left unmolested! Only fancy, while R. D. Owen is fairly crushed
under the ridicule of the exposure, Dr. Child, who has endorsed false spirits,
now turns state’s evidence and endorses as fervently spirit certificates,
swearing to the same in a court of justice
If ever I may hope to get a
chance of having my advice accepted by some one anxious to clear up all this
sickening story, I would insist that the whole matter be forced into a real
court of justice and unriddled before a jury. If Dr. Child is, after all, an
honest man whose trusting nature was imposed upon, lie must be the first to
offer us all the chances that he in his power of getting at the bottom of all
these endless “whys” and “bows.” If he does not, in such a case we will try for
ourselves to solve the following mysteries:
1st, Judge Allen, of Vineland,
now in Philadelphia, testifies to the fact that when the cabinet, made up under
the direct supervision and instructions of Dr. Child, was brought home to the
Holmeses, the doctor worked at it himself, unaided, one whole day, and with his
tools, Judge Allen being at the time at the mediums’, whom he was visiting. If
there was a trap-door or “two cut boards” connected with it, who did the work?
Who can doubt that such clever machinery, fitted in such a way as to baffle
frequent and close examinations on the part of the sceptics, requires an
experienced mechanic of more than ordinary ability? Further, unless well paid,
he could hardly be bound to secrecy. Who paid him? Is it Holmes out of his
ten-dollar nightly fee? We ought to ascertain it.
2nd, If it is true, as two
persons are ready to swear, that the party, calling herself Eliza White, alias
“Frank,” alias Katie King, and so forth, is no widow at all, having a well
materialized husband, who is living, and who keeps a drinking saloon in a
Connecticut town—then
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in such case the fair widow
has perjured herself and Dr. Child has endorsed the perjury. We regret that he
should endorse the statements of the former as rashly as he accepted the fact
of her materialization.
3rd, Affidavits and witnesses
(five in all) are ready to prove that on a certain night, when Mrs. White was
visibly in her living body, refreshing her penitent stomach in company with impenitent
associates in a lager beer saloon, having no claims to patrician “patronage,”
Katie King, in her spirit form, was as visibly seen at the door of her cabinet.
4th On one occasion, when Dr.
Child (in consequence of some prophetic vision, maybe) invited Mrs. White to
his own house, where he locked her up with the inmates, who entertained her the
whole of the evening, for the sole purpose of convincing (he always seems
anxious to convince somebody of something) some doubting sceptics of the
reality of the spirit-form, the latter appeared in the séance-room and talked
with R. D. Owen in the presence of all the company. The Spiritualists were
jubilant that night, and the doctor the most triumphant of them all. Many are
the witnesses ready to testify to the fact, but Dr. Child, when questioned,
seems to have entirely forgotten this important occurrence.
5th Who is the party whom she
claims to have engaged to personate General Rawlings? Let him come out and
swear to it, so that we will all see his great resemblance to the defunct
warrior.
6th, Let her name the friends
from whom she borrowed the costumes to personate “Sauntee” and “Richard.” They
must prove it under oath. Let them produce the dresses. Can she tell us where
she got the shining robes of the second and third spheres?
7th Only some portions of
Holmes’ letters to “Frank” are published in the biography: some of them for the
purpose of proving their co- partnership in the fraud at Blissfield. Can she
name the house and parties with whom she lodged and boarded at Blissfield,
Michigan?
When all the above questions
are answered and demonstrated to our satisfaction, then, and only then, shall
we believe that the Holmeses are the only guilty parties to a fraud, which, for
its consummate rascality and brazenness, is unprecedented in the annals of
Spiritualism.
I have read some of Mr.
Holmes’ letters, whether original or forged, no matter, and blessed as I am
with a good memory, I well remember certain sentences that have been, very
luckily for the poetic creature,
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suppressed by the blushing
editor as being too vile for publication. One of the most modest of the
paragraphs runs thus:
Now, my advice to you, Frank,
don’t crook your elbow too often; no use doubling up and squaring your fists
again.
Oh, Katie King!
Remember, the above is
addressed to the woman who pretends to have personated the spirit of whom R. D.
Owen wrote thus:
I particularly noticed this
evening the ease and harmony of her motions. In Naples, (luring five years, I
frequented a circle famed for courtly demeanour; but never in the best-bred
lady of rank accosting her visitors, have I seen Katie out-rivalled.
And further:
A well-known artist of
Philadelphia, after examining Katie, said to me that he had seldom seen
features exhibiting more classic beauty. “Her movements and, bearing,” he
added, “are the very ideal of grace.”
Compare for one moment this
admiring description with the quotation from Holmes’ letter. Fancy an ideal of
classic beauty and grace crooking her elbow in a lager beer saloon, and—judge
for yourselves !
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
1111, Girard Street,
Philadelphia.
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(Continued.)
IN the last
Religio-Philosophical Journal (for February 2 in the Philadelphia department,
edited by Dr. Child, under the most poetical heading of “After the Storm comes
the Sunshine,” we read the following:
I have been waiting patiently
for the excitement in reference to the Holmes fraud to subside a little. I will
now make some further statements and answer some questions.
Further:
The stories of my acquaintance
with Mrs. White are all fabrications.
Further still:
I shall not notice the various
reports put forth about my pecuniary relations farther than to say there is a
balance due to me for money loaned to the Holmeses.
I claim the right to answer
the above three quotations, the more so that the second one consigns me most
unceremoniously to the ranks of the liars. Now if there is, in my humble
judgment, anything more contemptible than a cheat, it is certainly a liar.
The rest of this letter,
editorial, or whatever it may be, is unanswerable, for reasons that will be
easily understood by whoever reads it. ‘When petulant Mr. Pancks (in Littie
Dorrit) spanked the benevolent Christopher Casby, this venerable patriarch only
mildly lifted up his blue eyes heavenward, and smiled more benignly than ever.
Dr. Child, tossed about and as badly spanked by public opinion, smiles as
sweetly as Mr. Casby, talks of “sunshine,” and quiets his urgent accusers by assuring
them that ‘‘it is all fabrications.”
I don’t know whence Dr. Child
takes his “sunshine,” unless he draws it from the very bottom of his innocent
heart.
For my part, since I came to
Philadelphia, I have seen little but slush and dirt; slush in the streets, and
dirt in this exasperating Katie King mystery.
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I would strongly advise Dr.
Child not to accuse me of “fabrication,” whatever else he may be inclined to
ornament me with. What I say I can prove, and am ever willing to do so at any
day. If he is innocent of all participation in this criminal fraud, let him
“rise and explain.”
If he succeeds in clearing his
record, I will be the first to rejoice, and promise to offer him publicly my
most sincere apology for the “erroneous suspicions” I labour under respecting
his part in the affair; but he must first prove that he is thoroughly innocent.
Hard words prove nothing, and he cannot hope to achieve such a victory by
simply accusing people of “fabrications.” If he does not abstain from applying
epithets unsupported by substantial proofs, he risks, as in the game of
shuttlecock and battledore, the chance of receiving the missile back, and maybe
that it will hurt him worse than he expects.
In the article in question he
says:
The stories of my acquaintance
with Mrs. White are all fabrications. I did let her in two or three times, but
the entry and hall were so dark that it was impossible to recognize her or any
one. I have seen her several times, and knew that she looked more like Katie
King than Mr. [?] or Mrs. Holmes.
Mirabile dietu! This beats our
learned friend, Dr. Beard. The latter denies, point-blank, not only
“materialization,” which is not yet actually proved to the world, but also
every spiritual phenomenon. But Dr. Child denies being acquainted with a woman
whom he confesses him self to have seen “several times,” received in his
office, where she was seen repeatedly by others, and yet at the same time
admits that he “knew she looked like Katie King,” etc. By the way, we have all
laboured under the impression that Dr. Child admitted in The Inquirer that he
saw Mrs. White for the first time and recognized her as Katie King only on that
morning when she made her affidavit at the office of the justice of the peace.
A “fabrication” most likely. In the R.-P. Journal for October 2 1874, Dr. Child
wrote thus:
Your report does not for a
moment shake my confidence in our Katie King, as she comes to me every day and
talks to me. On several occasions Katie had come to me and requested Mr. Owen
and myself to go there [ to the Holmeses’] and she would come and repeat what
she had told me above.
Did Dr. Child ascertain where
Mrs. White was at the time of the spirit’s visits to him?
As to Mrs. White, I know her
well. I have on many occasions let her into the house. I saw her at the time
the manifestations were going on in Blissfield. She has since gone to
Massachusetts.
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And still the doctor assures
us he was not acquainted with Mrs. White. What signification does he give to
the word “acquaintance” in such a case? Did he not go, in the absence of the
Holmeses, to their house, and talk with her and even quarrel with the woman?
Another fabricated story, no doubt. I defy Dr. Child to print again, if he
dare, such a word as fabrication in relation to myself, after he has read a
certain statement that I reserve for the last.
In all this pitiful,
humbugging romance of an “exposure” by a too material she-spirit, there has not
been given us a single reasonable explanation of even so much as one solitary
fact. It began with a bogus biography, and threatens to end in a bogus fight,
since every single duel requires at least two participants, and Dr. Child
prefers extracting sunshine from the cucumbers of his soul and letting the
storm subside, to fighting like a man for his own fair name. He says that “he
shall not notice” what people say about his little speculative transactions
with the Holmeses. He assures us that they owe him money. Very likely, but it
does not alter the alleged fact of his having paid $10 for every séance and
pocketing the balance. Dare he say that he did not do it? The Holmeses' say
otherwise, and the statements in writing of various witnesses corroborate them.
The Holmeses may be scamps in
the eyes of certain persons, and the only ones in the eyes of the more
prejudiced; but as long as their statements have not been proven false, their
word is as good as the word of Dr. Child; aye, in a court of justice even, the
“Mediums Holmes” would stand just on the same level as any spiritual prophet or
clairvoyant who might have been visited by the same identical spirits that
visited the former. So long as Dr. Child does not legally prove them to be
cheats and himself innocent, why should not they be as well entitled to belief
as himself?
From the first hour of the
Katie King mystery, if people have accused them, no one so far as I know—not
even Dr. Child himself—has proved, or even undertaken to prove, the innocence
of their ex-cashier and recorder. The fact that every word of the ex-leader and
president of the Philadelphian Spiritualists would be published by every
spiritual paper (and here we must confess to our wonder that he does not hasten
much to avail himself of this opportunity) while any statement coming from the
Holmeses' would be pretty sure of rejection, would not necessarily imply the
fact that they alone are guilty; it would only go towards showing that,
notwithstanding the divine truth of our faith and the
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teachings of our invisible
guardians, some Spiritualists have not profited by them to learn impartiality
and justice.
These “mediums” are
persecuted; so far it is but justice, since they themselves admitted their
guilt about the photography fraud, and unless it can be shown that they were
thereunto controlled by lying spirits their own mouths condemn them; but what
is less just, is that they are slandered and abused on all points and made to
bear alone all the weight of a crime, where confederacy peeps out from every
page of the story. No one seems willing to befriend them—these two helpless
uninfluential creatures, who, if they sinned at all, perhaps sinned through
weakness and ignorance—to take their case in hand, and by doing justice to
them, do justice at the same time to the cause of truth. If their guilt should
be as evident as the daylight at noon, is it not ridiculous that their partner,
Dr. Child, should show surprise at being so much as suspected! History records
but one person—the legitimate spouse of the great Cćsar—whose name has to
remain enforced by law as above suspicion. Methinks that if Dr. Child possesses
some natural claims to his self-assumed title of Katie King’s “Father
Confessor,” he can have none whatever to share the infallibility of Madame
Cćsar's virtue. Being pretty sure as to this myself, and feeling, moreover,
somewhat anxious to swell the list of pertinent questions, which are called by
our disingenuous friend “fabrications,” with at least one fact, I will now
proceed to furnish your readers with the following:
“Katie’s” picture has been,
let us say, proved a fraud, an imposition on the credulous world, and is Mrs.
White’s portrait. This counterfeit has been proved by the beauty of the
“crooking elbow,” in her bogus autobiography (the proof sheets of which Dr.
Child was seen correcting), by the written confession of the Holmeses', and,
lastly, by Dr. Child himself.
Out of the several bogus
portraits of the supposed spirit, the most spurious one has been declared—mostly
on the testimony endorsed by Dr. Child and “over his signature”—to be the one
where the pernicious and false Katie King is standing behind the medium.
The operation of this delicate
piece of imposture proved so difficult as to oblige the Holmeses' to take into
the secret of the conspiracy the photographer.
Now Dr. Child denies having
had anything whatever to do with the sittings for those pictures. He denies it
most emphatically, and goes so far as to say (we have many witnesses and proofs
of this) that he
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was out of town, four hundred
miles away, when the said pictures were taken. And so he was, bless his dear
prophetic soul! Meditating and chatting with the nymphs and goblins of Niagara
Falls, so that, when he pleads an alibi, it’s no “fabrication” but the truth
for once.
Unfortunately for the
veracious Dr. Child—”whose character and reputation for truthfulness and moral
integrity no one doubts,” here we quote the words of “Honesty” and “Truth,”
transparent pseudonyms of an “amateur” for detecting, exposing and writing
under the cover of secrecy, who tried to give a friendly push to the doctor in
two articles, but failed in both—unfortunately for H. T. Child, we say, he got
inspired in some evil hour to write a certain article, and for getting the wise
motto, Verba volant, scripta manent, to publish it in The Daily Graphic on Nov.
6th, together with the portraits of John and Katie King.
Now for tins bouquet of the
endorsement of a fact by a truthful man, ‘‘whose moral integrity no one can
doubt.’’
To The Editor of “The Daily
Graphic.”
On the evening of July 20th,
after a large and successful séance, in which Katie had walked out into the
room in the presence of thirty persons and had disappeared and reappeared in
full view, she remarked to Mr. Leslie and myself that if we, with four others
whom she named, would remain after the séance, she would like to try for her
photograph. We did so, and there were present six persons besides the
photographer. I had procured two dozen magnesian spirals, and, when all was
ready, she opened the door of the cabinet and stood in it, while Mr. Holmes on
one side, and I upon the other, burned these, making a brilliant light. We
tried two plates, but neither of them was satisfactory.
Another effort was made on
July 23rd, which was successful. We asked her if she would try to have it taken
by daylight. She said she would. We sat with shutters often at 4 pm. In a few
moments Katie appeared at the aperture and said she was ready. She asked to
have one of the windows closed, and that we should hold a shawl to screen her.
As soon as the camera was ready she came out and walked behind the shawl to the
middle of the room, a distance of six or eight feet, where she stood in front
of the camera. She remained in that position until the first picture was taken,
when she retired to the cabinet.
Mr. Holmes proposed that she
should permit him to sit in front of the camera, and should come out and place
her hand upon his shoulder. To this she assented, and desired all present to
avoid looking into her eyes, as this disturbed the conditions very much.
The second picture was then
taken in which she stands behind Mr. Holmes. When the camera was closed she
showed great signs of weakness, and it was necessary to assist her back to the
cabinet, and when she got to the door she appeared ready to sink to the floor
and disappeared [?]. The cabinet door was opened, but she was not to be
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seen. In a few minutes she appeared
again and remarked that she had not been sufficiently materialized, and said
she would like to try again, if we could wait a little while. We waited about
fifteen minutes, when she rapped on the cabinet, signifying that she was ready
to come out. She did so, and we obtained the Third negative.
(Signed) DR. H. T. CHILD.
And so, Dr. Child, we have
obtained this, we did that, and we did many other things. Did you? Now, besides
Dr. Child’s truthful assertions about his being out of town, especially at the
time this third negative was obtained, we have the testimony of the
photographer, Dr. Selger, and other witnesses to corroborate the fact. At the
same time, I suppose that Dr. Child will not risk a denial of his own article.
I have it in my possession and keep it, together with many others as curious,
printed like it, and written in black and white. Who fabricates stories? Can
the doctor answer?
How will he creep out of this
dilemma? What rays of his spiritual “sunshine” will be able to de-materialize such
a contradictory fact as this one? Here we have an article taking up two
spacious columns of The Daily Graphic, in which he asserts as plainly as
possible, that he was present himself at the sittings of Katie King for her
portrait, that the spirit come out boldly, in full daylight, that she
disappeared on the threshold of the cabinet, and that he, Dr. Child, helping
her back to it on account of her great weakness, saw that there was no one in
the said cabinet, for the door remained opened. Who did he help? Whose
fluttering heart beat against his paternal arm and waistcoat? Was it the bonny
Eliza? Of course, backed by such reliable testimony of such a truly trustworthy
witness, the pictures sold like wild-fire. Who got the proceeds? Who kept them?
If Dr. Child was not in town when the pictures were taken, then this article is
an “evident fabrication.” On the other hand, if what he says in it is truth,
and he was present at all at the attempt of this bogus picture-taking, then he
certainly must have known “who was who, in 1874,” as the photographer knew it,
and as surely it did not require Argus-eyes to recognize in full daylight with
only one shutter partially closed, a materialized, ethereal spirit, from a
common, “elbow-crooking” mortal woman, whom, though not acquainted with her,
the doctor still “knew well.”
If our self-constituted
leaders, our prominent recorders of the phenomena, will humbug and delude the
public with such reliable statements as this one, how can we Spiritualists
wonder at the masses of incredulous scoffers that keep on politely taking us
for “lunatics” when they do
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not very rudely call us “liars
and charlatans” to our faces? It is not the occasionally cheating “mediums”
that have or can impede the progress of our cause; it’s the exalted
exaggerations of some fanatics on one hand, and the deliberate, unscrupulous
statements of those who delight in dealing in “wholesale fabrications” and
“pious frauds” that have arrested the unusually rapid spreading of Spiritualism
in 1874 and brought it to a dead stop in 1875. For how many years to come yet,
who can tell?
In his “After the Storm comes
the Sunshine,” the Doctor makes the following melancholy reflection:
It has been suggested that
going into an atmosphere of fraud, such as surrounds these mediums [ Holmeses]
and being sensitive [ poor Yorick!] I was more liable to be deceived than
others.
We shudder indeed at the
thought of the exposure of so much sensitiveness to so much pollution. Alas!
soiled dove! how very sensitive must a person be who picks up such evil
influences that they actually force him into the grossest of fabrications and
make him invent stories and endorse facts that he has not and could not have
seen. If Dr. Child, victim to his too sensitive nature, is liable to fall so
easily as that under the control of wicked “Diakka,” our friendly advice to him
is to give up Spiritualism as soon as possible, and join a Young Men’s
Christian Association; for then, under the protecting wing of the true orthodox
Church, he can begin a regular fight, like a second St. Anthony, with the
orthodox devil. Such Diakka as he fell in with at the Holmeses’ must beat Old
Nick by long odds, and if he could not withstand them by the unaided strength
of his own pure soul, he may with “bell, book and candle” and the use of holy
water be more fortunate in a tug with Satan, crying as other “Father
Confessors” have heretofore, “Exorciso vos in nomine Lucis!” and signify ing
his triumph with a robust Laus Deo.
H. P. BLAVATSKY
Philadelphia, March,1875
NOTICE TO MEDIUMS
IN compliance with the request
of the Honourable Alexander Aksakoff, Counsellor of State in the Imperial
Chancellery at St. Petersburg, the undersigned hereby give notice that they are
prepared to receive applications from physical mediums who may he willing to go
to Russia, for examination before the committee of the Imperial University.
To avoid disappointment, it
may be well to state that the undersigned will recommend no mediums whose
personal good character is not satisfactorily shown; nor any who will not
submit themselves to a thorough scientific test of their mediumistic powers, in
the city of New York, prior to sailing; nor any who cannot exhibit most of
their phenomena in a lighted room, to be designated by the undersigned, and
with such ordinary furniture as may be found therein.
Approved applications will be
immediately forwarded to St. Petersburg, and upon receipt of orders thereon
from the scientific commission or its representative, M. Aksakoff, proper
certificates and instructions will be given to accepted applicants, and
arrangements made for defraying expenses.
Address the undersigned, in
care of E. Gerry Brown, Editor of The Spiritual Scientist, 18, Exchange Street,
Boston, Mass., who is hereby authorized to receive personal applications from
mediums in the New England States.
HENRY S. OLCOTT.
HELEN P. BLAVATSKY.
A REBUKE
—————
I AM truly sorry that a
Spiritualist paper like The Religio-Philosophical Journal, which claims to
instruct and enlighten its readers, should suffer such trash as Mr. Jesse
Sheppard is contributing to its columns to appear without review. I will not
dwell upon the previous letter of this very gifted personage, although
everything he has said concerning Russia and life at St. Petersburg might be
picked to pieces by anyone having merely a superficial acquaintance with the
place and the people; nor will I stop to sniff at his nosegays of high-sounding
names—his Princess Boulkoffs and Princes This and That, which are as preposterously
fictitious as though, in speaking of Americans, some Russian singing-medium
were to mention his friends Prince Jones or Duke Smith, or Earl Brown—for if he
chooses to manufacture noble patrons from the oversloppings of his poetic
imagination, and it amuses him or his readers, no great harm is done. But when
it comes to his saying the things he does in the letter of July 3rd in that
paper, it puts quite a different face upon the matter. Here he pretends to give
historical facts—which never existed. He tells of things he saw clairvoyantly,
and his story is such a tissue of ridiculous, gross anachronisms that they not
only show his utter ignorance of Russian history, but are calculated to injure
the cause of Spiritualism by throwing doubt upon all clairvoyant descriptions.
Secondarily in importance they destroy his own reputation for veracity, stamp
him as a trickster and a false writer, and bring the gravest suspicion upon his
claim to possess any mediumship whatever.
What faith can anyone,
acquainted with the rudiments of history, have in a medium who sees another
(Catherine II) giving orders to strangle her son (Paul I), when we all know
that the Emperor Paul ascended the throne upon the decease of the very mother
whom the inventive genius of this musical prodigy makes guilty of infanticide?
Permit me, 0 young seer and
Spiritualist, as a Russian somewhat
37 ———————————————————————A REBUKE.
read in the history of her
country, to refresh your memory. Spiritualism has been laughed at quite enough
recently in consequence of such pious frauds as yours, and as Russian savants
are about to investigate the subject, we may as well go to them with clean
hands. The journal which gives you its hospitality goes to my country, and its
interests will certainly suffer if you are allowed to go on with your
embroidery and spangle-work without rebuke. Remember, young poetico-historian,
that the Emperor Paul was the paternal grandfather of the present Czar, and
everyone who has been at St. Petersburg knows that the “old palace,” which to
your spiritual eye wears such “an appearance of dilapidation and decay, worthy
of a castle of the Middle Ages,” and the one where your Paul was strangled, is
an every-day, modern-looking, respectable building, the successor of one which
was pulled down early in the reign of the late Emperor Nicholas, and known from
the beginning until now as the Pawlowsky Military College for the “Cadets.” And
the two assassins, begotten in your clairvoyant loins—Petreski and Kofski!
Really now, Mr. Sheppard, gentlemanly assassins ought to be very much obliged
to you for these pretty aliases!
It is fortunate for you, dear
sir, that it did not occur to you to discuss these questions in St. Petersburg,
and that you evolved your history from the depths of your own consciousness,
for in our autocratical country one is not permitted to discuss the little
unpleasantnesses of the imperial family history, and the rule would not be
relaxed for a Spanish grandee, or even that more considerable personage, an
American singing-medium. An attempt on your part to do so would assuredly have
interfered with your grand concert, under imperial patronage, and might have
led to your journeying to the borders of Russia under an armed escort befitting
your exalted rank.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
OCCULTISM OR MAGIC
—————
AMONG the numerous sciences
pursued by the well-disciplined army of earnest students of the present
century, none has had less honours or more scoffing than the oldest of them—the
science of sciences, the venerable mother-parent of all our modern pigmies.
Anxious in their petty vanity to throw the veil of oblivion over their
undoubted origin, the self-styled positive scientists, ever on the alert,
present to the courageous scholar who tries to deviate from the beaten highway traced
out for him by his dogmatic predecessors, a formidable range of serious
obstacles.
As a rule, Occultism is a
dangerous, double-edged weapon for one to handle who is unprepared to devote
his whole life to it. The theory of it, unaided by serious practice, will ever
remain in the eyes of those prejudiced against such an unpopular cause an idle,
crazy speculation, fit only to charm the ears of ignorant old women. When we
cast a look behind us and see how for the last thirty years modern Spiritualism
has been dealt with, notwithstanding the occurrence of daily, hourly proofs
which speak to all our senses, stare us in the eyes, and utter their voices
from “beyond the great gulf,” how can we hope, I say, that Occultism or
Magic—which stands in relation to Spiritualism as the infinite to the finite,
as the cause to the effect, or as unity to multifariousness—will easily gain
ground where Spiritualism is scoffed at? One who rejects priori or even doubts
the immortality of man’s soul can never believe in its Creator; and, blind to
what is heterogeneous in his eyes, will remain still more blind to the
proceeding of the latter from homogeneity. In relation to the Kabalah, or the
compound mystic text-book of the great secrets of Nature, we do not know of
anyone in the present century who could have commanded a sufficient dose of
that moral courage which fires the heart of the true Adept with the sacred
flame of propagandism, to force him into defying public opinion by displaying
familiarity with that sublime work. Ridicule is the dead-
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liest weapon of the age, and
while we read in the records of history of thousands of martyrs who joyfully
braved flames and faggots in support of their mystic doctrines in the past
centuries, we would scarcely be likely to find one individual in the present
times who would be brave enough even to defy ridicule by seriously undertaking
to prove the great truths embraced in the traditions of the Past.
As an instance of the above, I
will mention the article on Rosicrucianism, signed “Hiraf.” This ably-written
essay—notwithstanding some fundamental errors, which, though they are such,
would be hardly noticed except by those who had devoted their lives to the
study of Occultism in its various branches of practical teaching—indicates with
certainty to the practical reader that, for theoretical knowledge, at least,
the author need fear few rivals, still less superiors. His modesty, which I
cannot too much appreciate in his case—though he is safe enough behind the mask
of his fancy pseudonym—need not give him any apprehensions. There are few
critics in this country of Positivism who would willingly risk themselves in an
encounter with such a powerful disputant, on his own ground. The weapons he
seems to hold in reserve, in the arsenal of his wonderful memory, his learning,
and his readiness to give any further information that enquirers may wish for,
will undoubtedly scare off every theorist, unless he is perfectly sure of
himself, which few are. But book-learning—and here I refer only to the subject
of Occultism—vast as it may be, will always
prove insufficient even to the analytical mind—the most accustomed to extract
the quintessence of truth, disseminated throughout thousands of
contradictory statements—unless supported by personal experience and practice.
Hence “Hiraf” can only expect an encounter with some one who may hope to find a
chance to refute some of his bold assertions on the plea of having just such a
slight practical experience. Still, it must not be understood that these
present lines are intended to criticize our too modest essayist. Far from poor,
ignorant me be such a presumptuous thought. My desire is simple: to help him in
his scientific, but, as I said before, rather hypothetical researches, by
telling a little of the little I picked up in my long travels throughout the
length and breadth of the East—that cradle of Occultism—in the hope of
correcting certain erroneous notions he seems to be labouring under, and which
are calculated to confuse uninitiated sincere enquirers, who might desire to
drink at his own source of knowledge.
In the first place, “Hiraf”
doubts whether there are in existence, in
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England or elsewhere, what we
term regular colleges for the neophytes of this Secret Science. I will say from
personal knowledge that such places there are in the East—in India, Asia Minor,
and other countries. As in the primitive days of Socrates and other sages of
antiquity, so now, those who are willing to learn the Great Truth will ever
find the chance if they only “try” to meet some one to lead them to the door of
one “who knows when and how.” If “Hiraf” is right about the seventh rule of the
Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, which says that “the Rose-crux becomes and is
not made,” he may err as to the exceptions which have ever existed among other
Brotherhoods devoted to the pursuit of the same secret knowledge. Then again,
when he asserts, as he does, that Rosicrucianism is almost forgotten, we may answer
him that we do not wonder at it, and add, by way of parenthesis, that, strictly
speaking, the Rosicrucians do not now even exist, the last of that fraternity
having departed in the person of Cagliostro.
“Hiraf” ought to add to the
word Rosicrucianism “that particular sect” at least, for it was but a sect
after all, one of many branches of the same tree.
By forgetting to specify that
particular denomination and by including under the name of Rosicrucians all
those who, devoting their lives to Occultism congregated together in
Brotherhoods, “Hiraf” commits an error by which he may unwittingly lead people
to believe that the Rosicrucians having disappeared, there are no more
Kabalists practising Occultism on the face of the earth. He also becomes
thereby guilty of an anachronism, attributing to the Rosicrucians the building
of the pyramids and other majestic monuments, which indelibly exhibit in their
architecture the symbols of the grand religions of the past. For it is not so.
If the main object in view was, and still is, alike, with all the great family
of the ancient and modern Kabalists, the dogmas and formulas of certain sects
differ greatly. Springing one after the other from the great Oriental
mother-root, they scattered broadcast all over the world, and each of them
desiring to out-rival the other by plunging deeper and deeper into the secrets
jealously guarded by Nature, some of them became guilty of the greatest
heresies against the primitive Oriental Kabalah.
While the first followers of
the secret sciences, taught to the Chaldćans by nations whose very name was
never breathed in history, remained stationary in their studies, having arrived
at the maximum, the Omega of the knowledge permitted to man, many of the subse-
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quent sects separated from
them, and, in their uncontrollable thirst for more knowledge, trespassed beyond
the boundaries of truth and fell into fictions. In consequence of Pythagoras—so
says Jamblichus— having by sheer force of energy and daring penetrated into the
mysteries of the Temple of Thebes, obtained therein his initiation and
afterwards studied the sacred sciences in Egypt for twenty-two years, many
foreigners were subsequently admitted to share the knowledge of the wise men of
the East, who, as a consequence, had many of their secrets divulged. Later
still, unable to preserve them in their purity, these mysteries were so mixed
up with fictions and fables of the Grecian mythology that truth was wholly
distorted.
As the primitive Christian
religion divided, in course of time, into numerous sects, so the science of
Occultism gave birth to a variety of doctrines and various brotherhoods. So the
Egyptian Ophites became the Christian Gnostics, shooting forth the Basilideans
of the second century, and the original Rosicrucians created subsequently the
Paracelsists, or Fire Philosophers, the European Alchemists, and other physical
branches of their sect. (See Hargrave Jennings’ Rosicrucians.) To call
indifferently every Kabalist a Rosicrucian, is to commit the same error as if
we were to call every Christian a Baptist on the ground that the latter are
also Christians.
The Brotherhood of the Rosy
Cross was not founded until the middle of the thirteenth century. and
notwithstanding the assertions of the learned Mosheim, it derives its name
neither from the Latin word Ros (dew), nor from a cross, the symbol of Lux. The
origin of the Brotherhood can he ascertained by any earnest, genuine student of
Occultism, who happens to travel in Asia Minor, if he chooses to fall in with
some of the Brotherhood, and if he is willing to devote himself to the
head-tiring work of deciphering a Rosicrucian manuscript—the hardest thing in
the world-—for it is carefully preserved in the archives of the very Lodge which
was founded by the first Kabalist of that name, but which now goes by another
name. The founder of it, a German Ritter, of the name of Rosencranz, was a man
who, after acquiring a very suspicious reputation through the practice of the
Black Art in his native place, reformed in consequence of a vision. Giving up
his evil practices, he made a solemn vow, and went on foot to Palestine, in
order to make his amende honorable at the Holy Sepulchre. Once there, the
Christian God, the meek, but well-informed Nazarene—trained as he was in the
high school of the Essenians, those
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virtuous descendants of the
botanical as well as astrological and magical Chald to Rosencranz, a Christian
would say, in a vision, but I would suggest, in the shape of a materialized
spirit. The purport of this visitation, as well as the subject of their
conversation, remained for ever a mystery to many of the Brethren; but
immediately after that, the ex-sorcerer and Ritter disappeared, and was heard
of no more till the mysterious sect of Rosicrucians was added to the family of
Kabalists, and their powers aroused popular attention, even among the Eastern
populations, indolent and accustomed as they are to live among wonders. The
Rosicrucians strove to combine together the most various branches of Occultism,
and they soon became renowned for the extreme purity of their lives and their
extraordinary powers, as well as for their thorough knowledge of the secret of
secrets.
As alchemists and conjurers
they became proverbial. Later (I need not inform “Hiraf” precisely when, as we
drink at two different sources of knowledge), they gave birth to the more
modern Theosophists, at whose head was Paracelsus, and to the Alchemists, one
of the most celebrated of whom was Thomas Vaughan (seventeenth century), who
wrote the most practical things on Occultism under the name of Eugenius
Philalethes. I know and can prove that Vaughan was, most positively, “made
before he became.”
The Rosicrucian Kabalah is but
an epitome of the Jewish and the Oriental ones, combined, the latter being the
most secret of all. The Oriental Kabalah, the practical, full, and only
existing copy, is carefully preserved at the headquarters of this Brotherhood
in the East, and, I may safely vouch, will never come out of its possession.
Its very existence has been doubted by many of the European Rosicrucians. One
who wants “to become” has to hunt for his knowledge through thousands of
scattered volumes, and pick up facts and lessons, bit by bit. Unless he takes
the nearest way and consents “to be made,” he will never become a practical
Kabalist, and with all his learning will remain at the threshold of the
“mysterious gate.” The Kabalah may be used and its truths imparted on a smaller
scale now than it was in antiquity, and the existence of the mysterious Lodge,
on account of its secrecy, doubted, but it does exist and has lost none of the
primitive secret powers of the ancient Chaldćans The lodges, few in number, are
divided into sections and known but to the Adepts; no one would be likely to
find them out, unless the Sages themselves found the neophyte worthy of
initiation. Unlike the European Rosicrucians—who,
43 ————————————————————OCCULTISM OR MAGIC.
in order “to become and not to
be made,” have constantly put into practice the word of St. John, who says,
“Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force,” and who have
struggled alone, violently robbing Nature of her secrets—the Oriental
Rosicrucians (for such we will call them, being denied the right to pronounce
their true name), in the serene beatitude of their divine knowledge, are ever
ready to help the earnest student struggling “to become” with practical
knowledge, which dissipates, like a heavenly breeze, the blackest clouds of sceptical
doubt.
“Hiraf” is right again when he
says that
Knowing that their mysteries,
if divulged, in the present chaotic state of society, would produce mere
confusion and death,
they shut up that knowledge within themselves. Heirs to the early heavenly wisdom
of their first forefathers, they keep the keys which unlock the most guarded of
Nature’s secrets, and impart them only gradually and with the greatest caution.
But still they do impart sometimes.
Once all such a cercle
vicieux, “Hiraf” sins likewise in a certain comparison he makes between Christ,
Buddha, and Khoung-foo-tsee, or Confucius. A comparison can hardly be made
between the two former wise and spiritual Illuminati, and the Chinese
philosopher. The higher aspirations and views of the two Christs can have
nothing to do with the cold, practical philosophy of the latter, brilliant
anomaly as he was among a naturally dull and materialistic people, peaceful and
devoted to agriculture from the earliest ages of their history. Confucius can
never bear the slightest comparison with the two great Reformers. Whereas the
principles and doctrines of Christ and Buddha were calculated to embrace the
whole of humanity, Confucius confined his attention solely to his own country,
trying to apply his profound wisdom and philosophy to the wants of his
countrymen, and little troubling his head about the rest of mankind. Intensely
Chinese in patriotism and views, his philosophical doctrines are as much devoid
of the purely poetic element, which characterizes the teachings of Christ and
Buddha, the two divine types, as the religious tendencies of his people lack in
that spiritual exaltation which we find, for instance, in India.
Khoung-foo-tsee has not even the depth of feeling and the slight spiritual
striving of his contemporary, Lao-tsee. Says the learned Ennemoser:
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The spirits of Christ and
Buddha have left indelible, eternal traces all over the face of the world. The
doctrines of Confucius can he mentioned only as the most brilliant proceedings
of cold human reasoning.
Harvey, in his Universal
History, has depicted the Chinese nation perfectly, in a few words:
Their heavy, childish, cold,
sensual nature explains the peculiarities of their history.
Hence any comparison between
the first two Reformers and Confucius, in an essay on Rosicrucianism, in which
“Hiraf” treats of the Science of Sciences and invites the thirsty for knowledge
to drink at her inexhaustible source, seems inadmissible.
Further, when our learned
author asserts so dogmatically that the Rosicrucian learns, though he never
uses, the secret of immortality in earthly life, he asserts only what he
himself, in his practical inexperience, thinks impossible. The words “never”
and “impossible” ought to be erased from the dictionary of humanity, until the
time at least when the great Kabalah shall all be solved, and so rejected or
accepted. The Count St. Germain is, until this very time, a living mystery, and
the Rosicrucian Thomas Vaughan another one. The countless authorities we have
in literature, as well as in oral tradition (which sometimes is the more
trustworthy), about this wonderful Count’s having been met and recognized in
different centuries, is no myth. Anyone who admits one of the practical truths
of the occult sciences taught by the Kabalah tacitly admits them all. It must
be Hamlet’s “to be or not to be,” and if the Kabalah is true, then St. Germain
need be no myth.
But I am digressing from my
object, which is, firstly, to show the slight differences between the two
Kabalahs, that of the Rosicrucians and time Oriental one; and, secondly, to say
that the hope expressed by “Hiraf” to see the subject better appreciated at
some future day than it has been till now, may perhaps become more than a hope.
Time will show man things; till then, let us heartily thank “Hiraf” for this
first well-aimed shot at those stubborn scientific runaways, who, once before
the Truth, avoid looking her in the face, and dare not even throw a glance
behind them, lest they should be forced to see that which would greatly lessen
their self-sufficiency. As a practical follower of Eastern Spiritualism, I can
confidently wait for the time, when, with the timely help of those ‘‘who
know,’’ American Spiritualism, which even in its present shape has proved such
a sore in the side of the materialists, will become a science and a thing of
mathematical certi-
45 ———————————————————OCCULTISM OR MAGIC.
tude, instead of being
regarded only as the crazy delusion of epileptic monomaniacs.
The first Kabalah in which a
mortal man ever dared to explain the greatest mysteries of the universe, and
show the keys to
Those masked doors in the
ramparts of Nature through which no mortal can ever pass without rousing dread
sentries never seen upon this side her wall,
was compiled by a certain
Simeon Ben Iochai, who lived at the time of the second Temple’s destruction.
Only about thirty years after the death of this renowned Kabalist, his MSS. and
written explanations, which had till then remained in his possession as a most
precious secret, were used by his son Rabbi Elizzar and other learned men.
Making a compilation of the whole, they so produced the famous work called
Sohar (God’s splendour). This book proved an inexhaustible mine for all the
subsequent Kabalists, their source of information and knowledge, and all more
recent and genuine Kabalahs were more or less carefully copied from the former.
Before that, all the mysterious doctrines had come down in an unbroken line of
merely oral tradition as far back as man could trace himself on earth. They
were scrupulously and jealously guarded by the wise men of Chald India, Persia
and Egypt, and passed from one Initiate to another, in the same purity of form
as when handed down to the first man by the angels, students of God’s great
Theosophic Seminary. For the first time since the world’s creation, the secret
doctrines, passing through Moses who was initiated in Egypt, underwent some
slight alterations.
In consequence of the personal
ambition of this great prophet medium, he succeeded in passing off his familiar
spirit, the wrathful “Jehovah,” for the spirit of God himself, and so won
undeserved laurels and honours. The same influence prompted him to alter some
of the principles of the great oral Kabalah in order to make them the more
secret. These principles were laid out in symbols by him in the first four
books of the Pentateuch, but for some mysterious reasons he with held them from
Deuteronomy. Having initiated his seventy Elders in his own way, the latter
could give but what they had received them selves, and so was prepared the
first opportunity for heresy, and the erroneous interpretation of the symbols.
While the Oriental Kabalah remained in its pure primitive shape, the Mosaic or
Jewish one was full of drawbacks, and the keys to many of the secrets—forbidden
by the Mosaic law—purposely misinterpreted. The powers conferred by it on the
Initiates were formidable still, and of all the most renowned
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Kabalists, King Solomon and
his bigoted parent, David, not withstanding his penitential psalms, were the
most powerful. But still the doctrine remained secret and purely oral, until,
as I have said before, the days of the second Temple’s destruction.
Philologically speaking, the very word Kabalah is formed from two Hebrew words,
meaning to receive, as in former times the Initiate received it orally and
directly from his Master, and the very book of the Sohar was written out on
received information, which was handed down as an unvarying stereo typed
tradition by the Orientals, and altered, through the ambition of Moses, by the
Jews.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
SPIRITUALISTIC TRICKSTERS
—————
A MOST outrageous swindle was
perpetrated upon the public last Sunday evening at the Boston Theatre. Some
persons with no higher aspirations in the world than a lust for a few dollars
to fill their pockets, depleted by unsuccessful cheap shows, advertised a
“séance,” and engaged as “mediums” some of the most impudent impostors with
which the world is cursed. They furthermore abused public confidence by causing
it to be understood that these people were to appear before the scientific
commission at St. Petersburg.
Is it not about time that some
Society in Boston should be sufficiently strong financially, and have members
who will have the requisite energy to act in an emergency like this? Common
sense would dictate what might be done, and a determined will would overcome
all obstacles. Spiritualism needs a Vigilance Committee. Public opinion will
justify any measures that will tend to check this trifling. “Up, and at them!”
should be the watchword until we have rid society of these pests and their
supporters.
The press of Boston are
disposed to be fair towards Spiritualists. But if Spiritualists do not care enough
for Spiritualism to defend it from tricksters who have not sufficient skill to
merit them the title of jugglers, how can they expect any different treatment
than that it is receiving?
As a proof of the sincerity of
the Boston press and also in support and further explanation of the above we
might mention that the following card, sent to all the morning dailies, was
accepted and printed in Tuesday’s edition.
Boston, July 19, 1875.
—————
SIR,—The undersigned desire to
say that the persons who advertised a so-called spiritualistic exhibition at
the Boston Theatre last evening were guilty of false representations to the
public. We are alone empowered by the Academy of Sciences attached to the
Imperial University of St. Petersburg, Russia, to select the mediums
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who shall be invited by that
body to display their powers during the forthcoming scientific investigation of
Spiritualism, and Mr. H. Gerry Brown, editor . Scientist, of this city, is our
only authorized deputy.
Neither “F. Warren,” “Prof. J.
T. Bates,” “Miss I “Mrs. S. Gould,” nor “Miss Lillie Darling” has been
selected, or is at all likely to be selected for that honour.
As this swindle may be again
attempted, we desire to say, once for all, that no medium accepted by us will
be obliged to exhibit his powers to earn money to de fray his expenses, nor
will any such exhibition be tolerated. The Imperial University of St.
Petersburg makes its investigation in the interest of science—not to assist
charlatans to give juggling performances in theatres, upon the strength of our
certificates.
HENRY S. OLC0YT.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
THE SEARCH AFTER OCCULTISM
—————
[ The Spiritual Scientist.]
BEING daily in receipt of
numerous letters, written with the view of obtaining advice as to the best
method of receiving information respecting Occultism, and the direct relation
it bears to modern Spiritualism, and not having sufficient time at my disposal
to answer these requests, I now propose to facilitate the mutual labour of
myself and correspondents by naming herein a few of the principal works
treating upon Magism, and the mysteries of such modern Hermetists.
To this I feel bound to add,
respecting what I have stated before, to wit: that would-be aspirants must not
lure themselves with the idea of any possibility of their becoming practical
Occultists by mere book-knowledge. The works of the Hermetic philosophers were
never intended for the masses, as Mr. Charles Sotheran, a learned member of the
Society Rosć Crucis, in a late essay observes;
Gabriel Rossetti in his
disquisitions on the anti-papal spirit which produced the Reformation shows
that the art of speaking and writing in a language which bears a double
interpretation is of very great antiquity, that it was in practice among the
priests of Egypt, brought thence by the Manichees, whence it passed to the
Ternplars and Albigenses, spread over Europe, and brought about the
Reformation.
The ablest book that was ever
written on Symbols and Mystic Orders, is most certainly Hargrave Jennings’ The
Rosicrucians, and yet it has been repeatedly called “obscure trash” in my
presence, and that too, by individuals who were most decidedly well-versed in
the rites and mysteries of modern Freemasonry. Persons who lack even the latter
knowledge, can easily infer from this what would be the amount of information
they might derive from still more obscure and mystical works; for if we compare
Hargrave Jennings’ book with some of the medićval treatises and ancient works
of the most noted Alchemists and Magi, we might find the latter as much more
obscure than the former—as regards language—as a pupil in celestial philosophy
would
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find the Book of the Heavens,
if he should examine a far distant star with the naked eye, rather than with
the help of a powerful telescope. Far from me, though, the idea of disparaging
in anyone the laudable impulse to search ardently after Truth, however arid and
ungrateful the task may appear at first sight; for my own principle has ever
been to make the Light of Truth the beacon of my life. The words uttered by
Christ eighteen centuries ago: “Believe and you will understand,” can be
applied in the present case, and repeating them with but a slight modification,
I may well say: “Study and you will believe.”
But to particularize one or
another book on Occultism, to those who are anxious to begin their studies in
the hidden mysteries of nature, is something the responsibility of which I am
not prepared to assume. What may be clear to one who is intuitional, if read in
the same book by another person might prove meaningless. Unless one is prepared
to devote to it his whole life, the superficial knowledge of Occult Sciences
will lead him surely to become the target for millions of ignorant scoffers to
aim their blunderbusses loaded with ridicule and chaff against. Besides this,
it is in more than one way dangerous to select this science as a mere pastime.
One must bear for ever in mind the impressive fable of Śdipus, and beware of
the same consequences. Śdipus unriddled but one-half of the enigma offered him
by the Sphinx and caused its death; the other half of the mystery avenged the
death of the symbolic monster, and forced the King of Thebes to prefer
blindness and exile in his despair rather than face what he did not feel him
self pure enough to encounter. He unriddled the man, the form, and had
forgotten God, the idea.
If a man would follow in the
steps of Hermetic philosophers he must prepare himself beforehand for
martyrdom. He must give up personal pride and all selfish purposes, and be
ready for everlasting encounters with friends and foes. He must part, once for
all, with every remembrance of his earlier ideas, on all and on everything.
Existing religions, knowledge, science, must rebecome a blank book for him, as
in the days of his babyhood, for if he wants to succeed he must learn a new
alphabet on the lap of Mother Nature, every letter of which will afford a new
insight to him, every syllable and word an Unexpected revelation. The two
hitherto irreconcilable foes, science and theology—the Montecchi and Capuletti
of the nineteenth century—will ally themselves with the ignorant masses against
the modern Occultist. If we have outgrown the age of stakes, we are in the
heyday, per
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contra, of slander, the venom
of the press, and all these mephitic venticelli of calumny so vividly expressed
by the immortal Don Basilio. To science it will be the duty—arid and sterile as
a matter of course—of the Kabbalist to prove that from the beginning of time
there was but one positive science—Occultism; that it was the mysterious lever
of all intellectual forces, the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil of the
allegorical paradise, from whose gigantic trunk sprang in every direction
boughs, branches and twigs, the former shooting forth straight enough at first,
the latter deviating with every inch of growth, assuming more and more
fantastical appearances, till at last one after the other lost its vital juice,
got deformed, and, drying up, finally broke off, scattering the ground afar
with heaps of rubbish. To theology the Occultist of the future will have to
demonstrate that the Gods of the mythologies, the Elohims of Israel as well as
the religious and theological mysteries of Christianity, to begin with the
Trinity, sprang from the sanctuaries of Memphis and Thebes; that their mother
Eve is but the spiritualized Psyche of old, both of them paying a like penalty
for their curiosity, descending to Hades or hell, the latter to bring back to
earth the famous Pandora’s box, the former to search out and crush the head of
the serpent—symbol of time and evil, the crime of both expiated by the pagan
Prometheus and the Christian Lucifer; the first delivered by Hercules, the
second conquered by the Saviour.
Furthermore, the Occultist
will have to prove to Christian theology, publicly, what many of its priesthood
are well aware of in secret, namely, that their God on earth was a Kabbalist,
the meek representative of a tremendous Power, which, if misapplied, might
shake the world to its foundations; and that of all their evangelical symbols,
there is not one but can be traced up to its parent fount. For instance, their
incarnated Verbum or Logos was worshipped at his birth by the three Magi led on
by the star, and received from them the gold, the frankincense and myrrh—the
whole of which is simply an excerpt from the Kabalah our modern theologians
despise, and the representation of another and still more mysterious “Ternary” embodying
allegorically in its emblems the highest secrets of the Kabalah.
A clergy whose main object has
ever been to make of their Divine Cross the gallows of Truth and Freedom, could
not do otherwise than try and bury in oblivion the origin of that same cross,
which, in the most primitive symbols of the Egyptians’ magic, represents the
key to heaven. Their anathemas are powerless in our days—the multitude is
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wiser; but the greatest danger
awaits us just in that latter direction, if we do not succeed in making the
masses remain at least neutral—till they come to know better—in this
forthcoming conflict between Truth, Superstition and Presumption, or to express
it in other terms, Occult Spiritualism, Theology and Science. We have to fear
neither the miniature thunderbolts of the clergy, nor the unwarranted negations
of science. But Public Opinion, this invisible, intangible, omnipresent,
despotic tyrant—this thousand-headed Hydra, the more dangerous for being composed
of individual mediocrities—is not an enemy to be scorned by any would-be
Occultist, courageous as he may be. Many of the far more innocent Spiritualists
have left their sheepskins in the clutches of this ever-hungry, roaring lion,
for he is the most dangerous of our three classes of enemies. What will be the
fate in such a case of an unfortunate Occultist, if he once succeeds in
demonstrating the close relationship existing between the two? The masses of
people, though they do not generally appreciate the science of truth or have
real knowledge, on the other hand are unerringly directed by mere instinct;
they have intuitionally—if I may be allowed to so express myself—an idea of
what is formidable in its genuine strength. People will never conspire except against
real Power. In their blind ignorance, the Mysteries and the Unknown have been,
and ever will be, objects of terror for them. Civilization may progress; human
nature will remain the same throughout all ages. Occultists, beware!
Let it be understood then that
I address myself but to the truly courageous and persevering. Besides the
danger expressed above, the difficulties in becoming a practical Occultist in
this country are next to insurmountable. Barrier upon barrier, obstacles in
every form and shape, will present themselves to the student; for the keys of
the Golden Gate leading to the Infinite Truth lie buried deep, and the gate
itself is enclosed in a mist which clears up only before the ardent rays of
implicit faith. Faith alone—one grain of which as large as a mustard-seed,
according to the words of Christ, can lift a mountain—is able to find out how
simple becomes the Kabalah to the Initiate once he has succeeded in conquering
the first abstruse difficulties. The dogma of it is logical, easy and absolute.
The necessary union of ideas and signs; the trinity of words, letters, numbers,
and theorems; the religion of it can be compressed into a few words. “It is the
Infinite condensed in the hand of an infant,” says Eliphas Lévi. Ten ciphers,
twenty-two alphabetical letters, one triangle, a square and a circle. Such are
53 ——————————————————THE SEARCH AFTER OCCULTISM.
the elements of the Kabalah
from whose mysterious bosom sprang all the religions of the past and present;
which endowed all the Free-masonic associations with their symbols and secrets,
which alone can reconcile human reason with God and Faith, Power with Freedom,
Science with Mystery, and which has alone the keys of present, past and future.
The first difficulty for the
aspirant lies in the utter impossibility of his comprehending, as I said
before, the meaning of the best books written by Hermetic philosophers. These,
who mainly lived in the medićval ages, prompted on the one hand by their duty
towards their brethren, and by their desire to impart only to them and their
successors the glorious truths, and on the other very naturally desirous to
avoid the clutches of the bloodthirsty Christian Inquisition, enveloped
themselves more than ever in mystery. They invented new signs and hieroglyphs,
renovated the ancient symbolical language of the high priests of antiquity, who
had used it as a sacred barrier between their holy rites and the ignorance of
the profane, and created a veritable Kabalistic slang. This latter, which
continually blinded the false neophyte, attracted towards the science only by
his greediness for wealth and power which he would have surely misused were he
to succeed, is a living, eloquent, clear language, but it is and can become
such only to the true disciple of Hermes.
But were it even otherwise,
and could books on Occultism, written in a plain and precise language be
obtained in order to get initiated in the Kabalah, it would not be sufficient
to understand and meditate on certain authors. Galatinus and Pic de la Mirandola,
Paracelsus and Robertus de Fluctibus do not furnish one with the key to the
practical mysteries. They simply state what can be done and why it is done; but
they do not tell one how to do it. More than one philosopher who has by heart
the whole of the Hermetic literature, and who has devoted to the study of it
upwards of thirty or forty years of his life, fails when he believes he is
about reaching the final great result. One must understand the Hebrew authors,
such as Sepher Yelzirah, for instance, learn by heart the great book of the
Zohar in its original tongue, master the Kabalah Denudata from the Collection
of 1684 (Paris); follow up the Kabalistic pneumatics at first, and then throw
oneself headlong into the turbid waters of that mysterious * . . . never tried
to explain:
the Prophecy of Ezekiel and
the Apocalypse, two Kabalistic treatises,
—————
* The cutting is here imperfect—some paragraph or so wanting.
54 ————————————————————A M0DERN PANARION.
reserved without doubt for the
commentaries of the Magi kings, books closed with the seven seals to the
faithful Christian, but perfectly clear to the Infidel initiated in the Occult
Sciences.
Thus the works on Occultism,
were not, I repeat, written for the masses, but for those of the Brethren who
make the solution of the mysteries of the Kabalah the principal object of their
lives, and who are supposed to have conquered the first abstruse difficulties
of the Alpha of Hermetic philosophy.
To fervent and persevering
candidates for the above science, I have to offer but one word of advice, “try
and become.” One single journey to the Orient, made in the proper spirit, and
the possible emergencies arising from the meeting of what may seem no more than
the chance acquaintances and adventures of any traveller, may quite as likely
as not throw wide open to the zealous student the heretofore closed doors of
the final mysteries. I will go farther and say that such a journey, performed
with the omnipresent idea of the one object, and with the help of a fervent will,
is sure to produce more rapid, better, and far more practical results, than the
most diligent study of Occultism in books—even though one were to devote to it
dozens of years.
In the name of Truth, yours,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
THE SCIENCE OF MAGIC
—————
HAPPENING to be on a visit to
Ithaca, where spiritual papers in general, and The Banner of Light in
particular, are very little read, but where, luckily, The Scientist has found
hospitality in several houses, I learned through your paper of the intensely
interesting and very erudite attack in an editorial of The Banner, on “Magic,”
or rather on those who had the absurdity to believe in Magic. As hints
concerning myself—at least in the fragment I see—are very decently veiled, and,
as it appears, Col. Olcott alone, just now, is offered by way of a pious
holocaust on the altar erected to the angel-world by some Spiritualists, who
seem to be terribly in earnest, I will—leaving the said gentleman to take care
of himself, provided he thinks it worth his trouble—proceed to say a few words
only, in reference to the alleged non-existence of Magic.
Were I to give anything on my
own authority and base my defence of Magic only on what I have seen myself and
know to he true in relation to that science, as a resident of many years’
standing in India and Africa, I might, perhaps, risk to be called by Mr.
Colby—with that unprejudiced, spiritualized politeness, which so distinguishes
the venerable editor of The Banner of Light—”an irresponsible woman”; and that
would not be for the first time either. Therefore, to his astonishing assertion
that no Magic whatever either exists or has existed in this world, I will try
to find as good authorities as himself, and maybe better ones, and thus
politely proceed to contradict him on that particular point.
Heterodox Spiritualists, like
myself, must be cautious in our days and proceed with prudence, if they do not
wish to be persecuted with all the untiring vengeance of that mighty army of”
Indian controls” and miscellaneous “guides” of our bright Summer-Land.
When the writer of the
editorial says that he—
Does not think it at all improbable that there are humbugging spirits who try
to fool certain aspirants to occult knowledge with the notion that there is
such a thing as magic, (?)
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then, on the other hand, I can
answer him that I, for one, not only think it probable but I am perfectly sure
and can take my oath to the certainty, that more than once spirits who were
either very elementary or very unprogressed ones, calling themselves Theodore
Parker, have been most decidedly fooling and disrespectfully humbugging our
most esteemed editor of The Banner of Light into the notion that the Apennines
were in Spain, for instance.
Furthermore, supported in my
assertions by thousands of intelligent Spiritualists, generally known for their
integrity and truthfulness I could furnish numberless proofs and instances
where the Elementary Diakka, Esrito malims etfarfadeto and other such-like
unreliable and ignorant denizens of the spirit-world, arraying themselves in
pompous, world-known and famous names, suddenly gave the bewildered witnesses
such deplorable, unheard-of, slipslop trash, and betirnes some thing worse,
that more than one person who, previous to that, was an earnest believer in the
spiritual philosophy, has either silently taken to his heels, or if he happened
to have been formerly a Roman Catholic, has devoutly tried to recall to memory
with which hand he used to cross himself, and then cleared out with the most
fervent exclamation of “ Vade reyro, Satanas!” Such is the opinion of every
educated Spiritualist.
If that indomitable Attila.
the persecutor of modern Spiritualism and mediums, Dr. G. Beard, had offered
such a remark against Magic, I would not wonder, as a too profound devotion to
blue pill and black draught is generally considered the best antidote against
mystic and spiritual speculations; but for a firm Spiritualist—a believer in
invisible, mysterious worlds swarming with beings, the true nature of which is
still an unriddled mystery to everyone—to step in and then sarcastically reject
that which has been proved to exist and believed in for countless ages by
millions of persons, wiser than himself, is too audacious! And that sceptic is
the editor of a leading Spiritual paper!—a man whose first duty should be to
help his readers to seek, untiringly and perseveringly, for the truth in
whatever form it might present itself; but who takes the risk of dragging
thousands of people into error, by pinning them to his personal rose-water
faith and credulity. Every serious, earnest-minded Spiritualist must agree with
me in saying, that if modern Spiritualism remains, for a few years only, in its
present condition of chaotic anarchy, or still worse, if it is allowed to run
its mad course, shooting forth on all sides idle hypotheses based on
57 ———————————————————THE SCIENCE OP MAGIC.
superstitious, groundless
ideas, then will the Dr. Beards, Dr. Marvins and others, known as scientific
(?) sceptics, triumph indeed.
Really, it seems to be a waste
of time to answer such ridiculous, ignorant assertions as the one which forced
me to take up my pen. Any well-read Spiritualist who finds the statement “that
there ever was such a science as magic, has never been proved, nor ever will
be,” will need no answer from myself, nor anyone else, to cause him to shrug
his shoulders and smile, as he probably has smiled, at the wonderful attempt of
Mr. Colby’s spirits to reorganize geography by placing the Apennines in Spain.
Why, man alive, did you never
open a book in your life besides your own records of Tom, Dick and Harry
descending from upper spheres to remind their Uncle Sam that he had torn his
gaiters or broken his pipe in the far West?
Did you suppose that Magic is
confined to witches riding astride broomsticks and then turning themselves into
black cats? Even the latter superstitious trash, though it was never called
Magic but Sorcery, does not appear so great an absurdity for one to accept who
firmly believes in the transfiguration of Mrs. Compton into Katie Brinks. The
laws of nature are unchangeable. The conditions under which a medium can be
transformed, entirely absorbed in the process by the spirit, into the semblance
of another person, will hold good whenever that spirit, or rather force, should
have a fancy to take the form of a cat.
The exercise of magical power
is the exercise of powers natural but superior to the ordinary functions of
Nature. A miracle is not a violation of the laws of Nature, except for ignorant
people. Magic is but a science, a profound knowledge of the Occult forces in
Nature, and of the laws governing the visible or the invisible world.
Spiritualism in the hands of an Adept becomes Magic, for he is learned in the
art of blending together the laws of the universe, without breaking any of them
and thereby violating Nature. In the hands of an experienced medium,
Spiritualism becomes unconscious sorcery; for, by allowing himself to become
the helpless tool of a variety of spirits, of whom he knows nothing save what
the latter permit him to know, he opens, unknown to himself, a door of
communication between the two worlds, through which emerge the blind forces of
Nature lurking in the astral light, as well as good and bad spirits.
A powerful mesmerizer,
profoundly learned in his science, such as
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Baron Dupotet, and Regazzoni
Pietro d’Amicis of Bologna, are magicians, for they have become the Adepts, the
initiated ones, into the great mystery of our Mother Nature. Such men as the
above-mentioned— and such were Mesmer and Cagliostro—control the spirits
instead of allowing their subjects or themselves to be controlled by them; and
Spiritualism is safe in their hands. In the absence of experienced Adepts
though, it is always safer for a naturally clairvoyant medium to trust to good
luck and chance, and try to judge of the tree by its fruits. Bad spirits will
seldom communicate through a pure, naturally good and virtuous person; and it
is still more seldom that pure spirits will choose impure channels. Like
attracts like.
But to return to Magic. Such
men as Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lulli, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Robert
Fludd, Eugenius Philalethes, Kunrath, Roger Bacon and others of similar
character, in our sceptical century, are generally taken for visionaries; but
so, too, are modern Spiritualists and mediums—nay worse, for charlatans and
poltroons; but never were the Hermetic philosophers taken by anyone for fools
and idiots, as, unfortunately for ourselves and the cause, every unbeliever
takes all of us believers in Spiritualism to be. Those Hermetics and
philosophers may be disbelieved and doubted now, as everything else is doubted,
but very few doubted their knowledge and power during their lifetime, for they
could always prove what they claimed, having command over those forces which
now command helpless mediums. They had their science and demonstrated
philosophy to help them to throw down ridiculous negations, while we
sentimental Spiritualists, rocking ourselves to sleep with our “Sweet
Bye-and-Bye,” are now unable to recognize a spurious phenomenon from a genuine
one, and are daily deceived by vile charlatans. Even though doubted then, as
Spiritualism is in our day, still these philosophers were held in awe and
reverence, even by those who did not implicitly believe in their Occult
potency, for they were giants of intellect. Profound knowledge, as well as
cultured intellectual powers, will always be respected and revered; but our
mediums and their adherents are laughed at and scorned, and we are all made to
suffer, because the phenomena are left to the whims and pranks of self-willed
and other mischievous spirits, and we are utterly powerless in controlling
them.
To doubt Magic is to reject
History itself, as well as the testimony of ocular witnesses thereof, during a
period embracing over 4,000 years. Beginning with Homer, Moses, Hermes,
Herodotus, Cicero, Plutarch,
59 ————————————————————THE SCIENCE OF MAGIC.
Pythagoras, Apollonius of
Tyana, Simon the Magician, Plato, Pausanias, Iamblichus, and following this
endless string of great men— historians and philosophers, who all of them
either believed in Magic or were magicians themselves—and ending with our
modern authors, such as W. Howitt, Ennemoser, G. des Mousseaux, Marquis de
Mirville and the late Eliphas Lévi who was a magician himself—among all of
these great names and authors, we find but the solitary Mr. Colby, editor of
The Banner of Light, who ignores that there ever was such a science as Magic.
He innocently believes the whole of the sacred army of Bible prophets,
commencing with Father Abraham, including Christ, to be merely mediums; in the
eyes of Mr. Colby they were all of them acting under control! Fancy Christ,
Moses, or an Apollonius of Tyana, controlled by an Indian guide! The venerable
editor ignores, perhaps, that spiritual mediums were better known in those days
to the ancients, than they are now to us, and he seems to be equally unaware of
the fact that the inspired sibyls, pythonesses, and other mediums were entirely
guided by their high priest and those who were initiated into the esoteric
theurgy and mysteries of the temples. Theurgy was Magic; as in modern times,
the sibyls and pythonesses were mediums; but their high priests were magicians.
All the secrets of their theology, which included Magic, or the art of invoking
ministering spirits, were in their hands. They possessed the science of
discerning spirits; a science which Mr. Colby does not possess at all—to his
great regret, no doubt. By this power they controlled the spirits at will,
allowing but the good ones to absorb their mediums. Such is the explanation of
Magic—the real, existing, While or Sacred Magic, which ought to be in the hands
of science now, and would be, if science had profited by the lessons which
Spiritualism has inductively taught for these last twenty-seven years.
That is the reason why no
trash was allowed to be given by unprogressed spirits in the days of old. The
oracles of the sibyls and inspired priestesses could never have affirmed Athens
to be a town in India, or jumped Mount Ararat from its native place down to
Egypt.
If the sceptical writer of the
editorial had, moreover, devoted less time to little prattling Indian spirits
and more to profitable lectures, he might have learned perhaps at the same time
that the ancients had their illegal mediums—I mean those who belonged to no
special temple—and thus the spirits controlling them, unchecked by the expert
hand of the magician, were left to themselves, and had all the opportunity
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possible to perform their
capers on their helpless tools. Such mediums were generally considered obsessed
and possessed, which they were in fact, in other words, according to the Bible
phraseology, “they had seven devils in them.” Furthermore, these mediums were
ordered to be put to death, for the intolerant Moses the magician, who was
learned in the wisdom of Egypt, had said, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to
live.” Alone the Egyptians and Greeks, even more humane and just than Moses,
took such into their temples, and, when found unfit for the sacred duties of
prophecy cured them in the same way as Jesus Christ cured Mary of Magdala and
many others, by “casting out the seven devils.” Either Mr. Colby and Co. must
completely deny the miracles of Christ, the Apostles, Prophets, Thaumaturgists
and Magicians, and so deny point-blank every bit of the sacred and profane
histories, or he must confess that there is a Power in this world which can
command spirits—at least the bad and unprogressed ones, the elementary and
Diakka. The pure ones, the disembodied, will never descend to our sphere unless
attracted by a current of powerful sympathy and love, or on some useful
mission.
Far from me the thought of casting
odium and ridicule on all mediums. I am myself a Spiritualist, if, as says
Colonel Olcott, a firm belief in our spirit’s immortality and the knowledge of
a constant possibility for us to communicate with the spirits of our departed
and loved ones, either through honest, pure mediums, or by means of the Secret
Science, constitutes a Spiritualist. And I am not of those fanatical
Spiritualists, to be found in every country, who blindly accept the claims of
every “spirit,” for I have seen too much of various phenomena, undreamed of in
America; I know that Magic does exist, and 10,000 editors of spiritual papers
cannot change my belief in what I know. There is a White and a Black Magic, and
no one who has ever travelled in the East can doubt it, if he has taken the
trouble to investigate. My faith being firm I am therefore ever ready to
support and protect any honest medium—aye, and even occasionally one who
appears dishonest, for I know but too well what helpless tools and victims such
mediums are in the hands of unprogressed, invisible beings. I am furthermore
aware of the malice and wickedness of the elementaries, and how far they can
inspire not only a sensitive medium, but any other person as well. Though I may
be an “irresponsible,” despite the harm some mediums do to earnest
Spiritualists by their unfairness, one-sidedness, and spiritual sentimentalism,
I feel safe to say that
61 ————————————————————THE SCIENCE OP MAGIC.
generally I am quick enough to
detect whenever a medium is cheating under control, or cheating consciously.
Thus Magic exists, and has
existed, ever since prehistoric ages. Beginning in history with the
Samothracian Mysteries, it followed its course uninterruptedly, and ended for a
time with the expiring theurgic rites and ceremonies of Christianized Greece;
then reappeared for a time again with the Neo-Platonic, Alexandrian school,
and, passing by initiation to sundry solitary students and philosophers, safely
crossed the medićval ages, and notwithstanding the furious persecutions of the
Church, resumed its fame in the hands of such Adepts as Paracelsus and several
others, and finally died out in Europe with the Count St. Germain and
Cagliostro, to seek refuge from frozen-hearted scepticism in its native country
of the East.
In India, Magic has never died
out, and blossoms there as well as ever. Practised, as in ancient Egypt, only
within the secret enclosure of the temples, it was, and still is, called the
“Sacred Science.” For it is a science, based on the occult forces of Nature; and
not merely a blind belief in the poll-parrot talking of crafty elementaries,
ready to forcibly prevent real, disembodied spirits from communicating with
their loved ones whenever they can do so.
Some time since a Mr.
Mendenhall devoted several columns, in The Religio-Philosophical Journal, to
questioning, cross-examining, and criticizing the mysterious Brotherhood of
Luxor. He made a fruitless attempt at forcing the said Brotherhood to answer
him, and thus unveil the sphinx.
I can satisfy Mr. Mendenhall.
The Brotherhood of Luxor is one of the sections of the Grand Lodge of which I
am a member. If this gentleman entertains any doubt as to my statement—which I
have no doubt he will—he can, if he chooses, write to Lahore for information.
If, perchance, the seven of the committee were so rude as not to answer him,
and should refuse to give him the desired information, I can then offer him a
little business transaction. Mr. Mendenhall, as far as I remember, has two
wives in the spirit world. Both of these ladies materialize at M. Mott’s, and
often hold very long conversations with their husband, as the latter told us
several times and over his own signature; adding, moreover, that he had no
doubt whatever of the identity of the said spirits. If so, let one of the departed
ladies tell Mr. Mendenhall the name of that section of the Grand Lodge I belong
to. For real, genuine, disembodied spirits, if both are what they claim
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to be, the matter is more than
easy; they have but to enquire of other spirits, look into my thoughts, and so
on; for a disembodied entity, an immortal spirit, it is the easiest thing in
the world to do. Then, if the gentleman I challenge, though I am deprived of
the pleasure of his acquaintance, tells me the true name of the section—which
name three gentlemen in New York, who are accepted neophytes of our Lodge, know
well—I pledge myself to give to Mr. Mendenhall the true statement concerning
the Brotherhood, which is not composed of spirits, as he may think, but of
living mortals, and I will, moreover, if he desires it, put him in direct
communication with the Lodge as I have done for others. Methinks, Mr.
Mendenhall will answer that no such name can be given correctly by the spirits,
for no such Lodge or Section either, exists at all, and thus close the
discussion.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
(From The Spiritual
Scientist.)
AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY
THE circumstances attending
the sudden death of M. Delessert, inspector of the Police de Surete seem to
have made such an impression upon the Parisian authorities that they were
recorded in unusual detail. Omitting all particulars except what are necessary
to explain matters, we produce here the undoubtedly strange history.
In the fall of 1861 there came
to Paris a man who called himself Vic de Lassa, and was so inscribed upon his
passports. He came from Vienna, and said he was a Hungarian, who owned estates
on the borders of the Banat, not far from Zenta. He was a small man, aged
thirty-five, with pale and mysterious face, long blonde hair, a vague,
wandering blue eye, and a mouth of singular firmness. He dressed carelessly and
unaffectedly, and spoke and talked without much empressement. His companion,
presumably his wife, on the other hand, ten years younger than himself, was a strikingly
beautiful woman, of that dark, rich, velvety, luscious, pure Hungarian type
which is so nigh akin to the gipsy blood. At the theatres, on the Bois, at the
cafes, on the boulevards, and everywhere that idle Paris disports itself,
Madame Aimee de Lassa attracted great attention and made a sensation.
They lodged in luxurious
apartments on the Rue Richelieu, frequented the best places, received good
company, entertained handsomely, and acted in every way as if possessed of
considerable wealth. Lassa had always a good balance chez Schneider, Rater et
Cie, the Austrian bankers in Rue Rivoli, and wore diamonds of conspicuous
lustre.
How did it happen then, that
the Prefect of Police saw fit to suspect Monsieur and Madame de Lassa, and
detailed Paul Delessert, one of the most ruse inspectors of the force, to
“pipe” him? The fact is, the insignificant man with the splendid wife was a
very mysterious personage, and it is the habit of the police to imagine that
mystery always hides either the conspirator, the adventurer, or the charlatan.
The conclusion to which the Prefect had come in regard to M. de Lassa was
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that he was an adventurer and
charlatan too. Certainly a successful one, then, for he was singularly unobtrusive
and had in no way trumpeted the wonders which it was his mission to perform,
yet in a few weeks after he had established himself in Paris the salon of M. de
Lassa was the rage, and the number of persons who paid the fee of 100 francs
for a single peep into his magic crystal, and a single message by his spiritual
telegraph, was really astonishing. The secret of this was that M. de Lassa was
a conjurer and deceiver, whose pretensions were omniscient and whose
predictions always came true.
Delessert did not find it very
difficult to get an introduction and admission to De Lassa’s salon. The
receptions occurred every other day— two hours in the forenoon, three hours in
the evening. It was evening when Inspector Delessert called in his assumed
character of M. Flabry, virtuoso in jewels and a convert to Spiritualism. He
found the handsome parlours brilliantly lighted, and a charming assemblage
gathered of well-pleased guests, who did not at all seem to have come to learn
their fortunes or fates, while contributing to the income of their host, but
rather to be there out of complaisance to his virtues and gifts.
Mme. de Lassa performed upon
the piano or conversed from group to group in a way that seemed to be
delightful, while M. de Lassa walked about or sat in his insignificant,
unconcerned way, saying a word now and then, but seeming to shun everything
that was conspicuous. Servants handed about refreshments, ices, cordials,
wines, etc. and Delessert could have fancied himself to have dropped in upon a
quite modest evening entertainment, altogether en regle, but for one or two
noticeable circumstances which his observant eyes quickly took in.
Except when their host or
hostess was within hearing the guests conversed together in low tones, rather
mysteriously, and with not quite so much laughter as is usual on such
occasions. At intervals a very tall and dignified footman would come to a
guest, and, with a profound bow, present him a card on a silver salver. The
guest would then go out, preceded by the solemn servant, but when he or she
returned to the salon—some did not return at all—they invariably wore a dazed
or puzzled look, were confused, astonished, frightened, or amused. All this was
so unmistakably genuine, and De Lassa and his wife seemed so unconcerned amidst
it all, not to say distinct from it all, that Delessert could not avoid being
forcibly struck and considerably puzzled.
Two or three little incidents,
which came under Delessert’s own
65 ————————————————————AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY.
immediate observation, will
suffice to make plain the character of the impressions made upon those present.
A couple of gentlemen, both young, both of good social condition, and evidently
very intimate friends, were conversing together and tutoying one another at a
great rate, when the dignified footman summoned Alphonse. He laughed gaily,
“Tarry a moment, cher Auguste,” said he, “and thou shalt know all the
particulars of this wonderful fortune!” “En bien!” A minute had scarcely
elapsed when Alphonse returned to the salon. His face was white and bore an
appearance of concentrated rage that was frightful to witness. He came straight
to Auguste, his eyes flashing, and bending his face toward his friend, who
changed colour and recoiled, he hissed out: “Monsieur Lefčbure, vous ęles Un
láche ! ” Very well, Monsieur Meuner,” responded Auguste, in the same low tone,
“tomorrow morning at six o’clock!” “It is settled, false friend, execrable
traitor! A la mort!” rejoined Alphonse, walking off. “Cela va sans dire!”
muttered Auguste, going towards the hat-room.
A diplomatist of distinction,
representative at Paris of a neighbouring state, an elderly gentleman of superb
aplomb and most commanding appearance, was summoned to the oracle by the bowing
footman. After being absent about five minutes he returned, and immediately
made his way through the press to M. de Lassa, who was standing not far from
the fireplace, with his hands in his pockets and a look of utmost indifference
upon his face. Delessert standing near, watched the interview with eager
interest.
“I am exceedingly sorry,” said
General Von , “to have to absent myself so soon from your interesting salon, M.
de Lassa, but the result of my séance convinces me that my dispatches have been
tampered with.” “I am sorry,” responded M. de Lassa, with an air of languid but
courteous interest; “I hope you may be able to discover which of your servants
has been unfaithful.” “I am going to do that now,” said the General, adding, in
significant tones, “I shall see that both he and his accomplices do not escape
severe punishment.” “That is the only course to pursue, Monsieur le Comte.” The
ambassador stared, bowed, and took his leave with a bewilderment in his face
that was beyond the power of his tact to control.
In the course of the evening
M. de Lassa went carelessly to the piano, and, after some indifferent vague
preluding, played a remarkably effective piece of music, in which the turbulent
life and buoyancy of bacchanalian strains melted gently, almost imperceptibly
away, into a
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sobbing wail of regret, and
languor, and weariness, and despair. It was beautifully rendered, and made a
great impression upon the guests, one of whom, a lady, cried, “How lovely, how
sad! Did you compose that yourself, M. de Lassa?” He looked towards her
absently for an instant, Then replied: “I? Oh, no! That is merely a
reminiscence, madame.” “Do you know who did compose it, M. de Lassa?” enquired
a virtuoso present. “I believe it was originally written by Ptolemy Auletes,
the father of Cleopatra,” said M. de Lassa, in his indifferent musing way; “but
not in its present form. It has been twice re-written to my knowledge; still,
the air is substantially the same.” “From whom did you get it, M. de Lassa, if
I may ask?” persisted the gentleman. “Certainly, certainly! The last time I
heard it played was by Sebastian Bach; but that was Palestrina’s—the
present—version. I think I prefer that of Guido of Arezzo—it is ruder, but has
more force. I got the air from Guido himself.” “You—from— Guido!” cried the
astonished gentleman. “Yes, monsieur,” answered De Lassa, rising from the piano
with his usual indifferent air. “Mon Dieu!” cried the virtuoso, putting his
hand to his head after the manner of Mr. Twemlow, “Mon Dieu! that was in Anno
Domni 1022.” “A little later than that—July, 1031. if I remember rightly,”
courteously corrected M. de Lassa.
At this moment the tall
footman bowed before M. Delessert, and presented the salver containing the
card. Delessert took it and read:
“On vous accorde trente-cinq
secondes, M. Flabry, tout au plus I” Delessert followed; the footman opened the
door of another room and bowed again, signifying that Delessert was to enter.
“Ask no questions,” he said briefly; “Sidi is mute.” Delessert entered the room
and the door closed behind him. It was a small room, with a strong smell of
frankincense pervading it; the walls were covered completely with red hangings
that concealed the windows, and the floor was felted with a thick carpet.
Opposite the door, at the upper end of the room near the ceiling was the face
of a large clock, under it, each lighted by tall wax candles, were two small
tables, containing, the one an apparatus very like the common registering
telegraph instrument, the other a crystal globe about twenty inches in
diameter, set upon an exquisitely wrought tripod of gold and bronze
intermingled. By the side of the door stood a man jet black in colour, wearing
a white turban and burnous, and having a sort of wand of silver in one hand.
With the other he took Delessert by the right arm above the elbow, and led him
quickly up the
67 ————————————————————AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY.
room. He pointed to the clock,
and it struck an alarum; he pointed to the crystal. Delessert bent over, looked
into it, and saw—a facsimile of his own sleeping-room, everything photographed
exactly. Sidi did not give him time to exclaim, but still holding him by the
arm, took him to the other table. The telegraph-like instrument began to click
click. Sidi opened the drawer, drew out a slip of paper, crammed it into
Delessert’s hand, and pointed to the clock, which struck again. The thirty-five
seconds were expired. Sidi, still retaining hold of Delessert’s arm, pointed to
the door and led him towards it. The door opened, Sidi pushed him out, the door
closed, the tall footman stood there bowing—the interview with the oracle is
over. Delessert glanced at the piece of paper in his hand. It was a printed
scrap, capital letters, and read simply: “To M. Paul Delessert: The policeman
is always welcome, the spy is always in danger!”
Delessert was dumbfounded a
moment to find his disguise detected, but the words of the tall footman, “This
way if you please, M. Flabry,” brought him to his senses. Setting his lips, he
returned to the salon, and without delay sought M. de Lassa. “Do you know the
contents of this?” asked he, showing the message. “I know everything, M.
Delessert,” answered De Lassa, in his careless way. “Then perhaps you are aware
that I mean to expose a charlatan, and unmask a hypocrite, or perish in the
attempt?” said Delessert. “Cela rn’est egal, monsieur,” replied De Lassa. “You
accept my challenge then?” “Oh! it is a defiance, then?” replied De Lassa,
letting his eye rest a moment upon Delessert, “mais oui, je l’accepte!” And
thereupon Delessert departed.
Delessert now set to work,
aided by all the forces the Prefect of Police could bring to bear, to detect
and expose this consummate sorcerer, whom the ruder processes of our ancestors
would easily have disposed of—by combustion. Persistent enquiry satisfied
Delessert that the man was neither a Hungarian nor was named De Lassa; that no
matter how far back his power of “reminiscence” might extend, in his present
and immediate form he had been born in this unregenerate world in the toy-making
city of Nuremburg; that he was noted in boyhood for his great turn for
ingenious manufactures, but was very wild, and a mauvais sujet. In his
sixteenth year he escaped to Geneva and apprenticed himself to a maker of
watches and instruments. Here he had been seen by the celebrated Robert Houdin,
the prestidigitateur. Houdin recognizing the lad’s talents, and being himself a
maker of ingenious automata, had taken him off to Paris and employed him in
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his own workshops, as well as
for an assistant in the public performances of his amusing and curious
diablerie. After staying with Houdin some years, Pflock Haslich (which was De
Lassa’s right name) had gone East in the suite of a Turkish Pasha, and after
many years’ roving, in lands where he could not be traced under a cloud of
pseudonyms, had finally turned up in Venice, and come thence to Paris.
Delessert next turned his
attention to Mme. de Lassa. It was more difficult to get a clue by means of
which to know her past life; but it was necessary in order to understand enough
about Haslich. At last, through an accident, it became probable that Mme. Aimee
was identical with a certain Mme. Schlaff, who had been rather conspicuous
among the demi-monde of Buda. Delessert posted off to that ancient city, and
thence went into the wilds of Transylvania to Mengyco. On his return as soon as
he reached the telegraph and civilization, he telegraphed the Prefect from
Kardszag: “Don't lose sight of my man, nor let him leave Paris. I will run him
in for you two days after I get back.”
It happened that on the day of
Delessert’s return to Paris the Prefect was absent, being with the Emperor at
Cherbourg. He came back on the fourth day, just twenty-four hours after the
announcement of Delessert’s death. That happened, as near as could be gathered,
in this wise: The night after Delessert’s return he was present at De Lassa’s
salon with a ticket of admittance to a séance. He was very completely disguised
as a decrepit old man, and fancied that it was impossible for any one to detect
him. Nevertheless, when he was taken into the room, and looked into the
crystal, he was utterly horror stricken to see there a picture of himself,
lying face down and senseless upon the side-walk of a street; and the message
he received read thus:
“What you have seen will be,
Delessert, in three days. Prepare!” The detective, unspeakably shocked, retired
from the house at once and sought his own lodgings.
In the morning he came to the
office in a state of extreme dejection. He was completely unnerved. In relating
to a brother inspector what had occurred, he said: “That man can do what he
promises, I am doomed!”
He said that he thought he
could make a complete case out against Haslich alias De Lassa, but could not do
so without seeing the Prefect and getting instructions. He would tell nothing
in regard to his discoveries in Buda and in Transylvania—said he was not at
liberty to do so—and repeatedly exclaimed: “Oh! if M. le Préfet were only
here!”
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He was told to go to the
Prefect at Cherbourg, but refused upon the ground that his presence was needed
in Paris. He time and again averred his conviction that he was a doomed man,
and showed himself both vacillating and irresolute in his conduct, and
extremely nervous. He was told that he was perfectly safe, since De Lassa and
all his household were under constant surveillance; to which he replied, “You
do not know the man.” An inspector was detailed to accompany Delessert, never
to lose sight of him night and day, and guard him carefully; and proper
precautions were taken in regard to his food and drink, while the guards
watching De Lassa were doubled.
On the morning of the third
day, Delessert, who had been staying chiefly indoors, avowed his determination
to go at once and telegraph to M. le Prefet to return immediately. With this
intention he and his brother officer started out. Just as they got to the
corner of the Rue de Lanery and the Boulevard, Delessert stopped suddenly and
put his hand to his forehead.
“My God!” he cried, “the
crystal! the picture!” and fell prone upon his face, insensible. He was taken
at once to a hospital, but only lingered a few hours, never regaining his
consciousness. Under express instruction from the authorities, a most careful,
minute, and thorough autopsy was made of Delessert’s body by several
distinguished surgeons, whose unanimous opinion was, that the cause of his
death was apoplexy, due to fatigue and nervous excitement.
As soon as Delessert was sent
to the hospital, his brother inspector hurried to the Central Office, and De
Lassa, together with his wife and everyone connected with the establishment,
were at once arrested. D Lassa smiled contemptuously as they took him away. “I
knew you were coming; I prepared for it; you will be glad to release me again.”
It was quite true that De
Lassa had prepared for them. When the house was searched it was found that
every paper had been burned, the crystal globe was destroyed, and in the room
of the seances was a great heap of delicate machinery broken into
indistinguishable bits. “That cost me 200,000 francs,” said De Lassa, pointing
to the pile, “but it has been a good investment.” The walls and floors were
ripped out in several places, and the damage to the property was considerable.
In prison neither De Lassa nor his associates made any revelations. The notion
that they had something to do with Delessert’s death was quickly dispelled, in
a legal point of view, and all the party but De Lassa were released. He was
still detained in prison, upon one pretext
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or another, when one morning
he was found hanging by a silk sash to the cornice of the room where he was
confined—dead. The night before, it was afterwards discovered, Madame de Lassa
had eloped with a tall footman, taking the Nubian Sidi with them. De Lassa’s
secrets died with him.
—————
“It is an interesting story,
that article of yours in to-day’s Scientist. But is it a record of facts, or a
tissue of the imagination? If true, why not state the source of it, in other
words, specify your authority for it.”
The above is not signed, but
we would take the opportunity to say that the story, “An Unsolved Mystery,” was
published because we considered the main points of the narrative—the
prophecies, and the singular death of the officer—to be psychic phenomena, that
have been, and can be, again produced. Why quote “authorities”? The Scriptures
tell us of the death of Ananias, under the stern rebuke from Peter; here we
have a phenomenon of a similar nature. Ananias is supposed to have suffered
instant death from fear. Few can realize this power governed by spiritual laws,
but those who have trod the boundary line and know some few of the things that
can he done, will see no great mystery in this, nor in the story published last
week. We are not speaking in mystical tones. Ask the powerful mesmerist if
there is danger that the subject may pass out of his control?—if he could will
the spirit out, never to return? It is capable of demonstration that the
mesmerist can act on a subject at a distance of many miles; and it is no less
certain that the majority of mesmerists know little or nothing of the laws that
govern their powers.
It may be a pleasant dream to
attempt to conceive of the beauties of the spirit-world; but the time can be
spent more profitably in a study of the spirit itself, and it is not necessary
that the subject for study should be in the spirit-world.
SPIRITUALISM IN RUSSIA
—————
To the Editor of “ The
Spiritual Scientist.”
DEAR SIR,—In advices just
received from St. Petersburg I am requested to translate and forward to The
Scientist for publication the protest of the Hon. Alexander Aksakoff, Imperial
Counsellor of State, against the course of the professors of the University
respecting the Spiritualistic investigation. The document appears, in Russian,
in the Vedomostji, the official journal of St. Petersburg.
This generous, high-minded,
courageous gentleman has done the possible, and even the impossible, in order
to open the spiritual eyes of those incurable moles who fear the daylight of
truth as the burglar fears the policeman’s bull’s-eye.
The heartfelt thanks and
gratitude of every Spiritualist ought to be forwarded to this noble defender of
the cause, who regretted neither his time, trouble nor money to help the
propagation of the truth.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, April 19th, 1876.*
—————
* See Appendix, “A. Aksakoff’s
Protest.”
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—————
[From The Spiritual Scientist,
Jan. 6th, 1876.]
DEAR SIR,—For the last three
months one has hardly been able to open a number of The Banner or the other
papers, without finding one or more proofs of the fecundity of the human
imagination in the condition of hallucination. The Spiritualist camp is in an uproar,
and the clans are gathering to fight imaginary foes. The tocsin is sounded;
danger signals shoot, like flaming rockets, across the hitherto serene sky, and
warning cries are uttered by vigilant sentries posted at the four corners of
the “angel-girt world.” The reverberations of this din resound even in the
daily press. One would think that the Day of Judgment had come for American
Spiritualism.
Why all this disturbance?
Simply because two humble individuals have spoken a few wholesome truths. If
the grand beast of the Apocalypse with its seven heads and the word “Blasphemy”
written upon each, had appeared in heaven, there would hardly have been seen so
much commotion there, as this; and there seems to be a concerted effort to cast
out Col. Olcott and myself (coupled like a pair of Hermetic Siamese twins) as
ominous to the superstitious as a comet with a fiery tail, and the precursor of
war, plagues and other calamities. They seem to think that if they do not crush
us, we will destroy Spiritualism.
I have no time to waste, and
what I now write is not intended for the benefit of such persons as these—whose
soap-bubbles, however pretty, are sure to burst of themselves—but to set myself
right with many most estimable Spiritualists for whom I feel a sincere regard.
If the spiritual press of
America were conducted upon a principle of doing even justice to all, I would
send your contemporaries copies of this letter, but their course in the past
has made me—whether rightly or not—feel as if no redress could be had outside
of your columns. I shall be only too glad if their treatment, in this case,
gives me cause to change my opinion that they, and their slandering theorists,
are inspired
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by the biblical devils who
left Mary Magdalene and returned to the land of the “Sweet Bye-and-Bye.”
To begin, I wish to unhook my
name from that of Col. Olcott, if you please, and declare that, as he is not
responsible for my views or actions, neither am I for his. He is bold enough
and strong enough to defend himself under all circumstances, and has never
allowed his adversaries to strike without knocking out two teeth to their one.
If our views on Spiritualism are in some degree identical, and our work in the
Theosophical Society pursued in common, we are, notwithstanding, two very
distinct entities and mean to remain such. I highly esteem Col. Olcott, as
everyone does who knows him. He is a gentle man; but what is more in my eyes,
he is an honest and true man, and an unselfish Spiritualist, in the proper
sense of that word. If he now sees Spiritualism in another light than orthodox
Spiritualists would prefer, they themselves are only to blame. He strikes at
the rotten places of their philosophy, and they do all they can to cover up the
ulcers instead of trying to cure them. He is one of the truest and most
unselfish friends that the cause has to-day in America, and yet he is treated
with an intolerance that could hardly be expected of any body above the level
of the rabid Moodys and Sankeys. Surely, facts speak for themselves; and a
faith so pure, angelic and unadulterated as American Spiritualism is claimed to
be, can have nothing to fear from heresiarchs. A house built on the rock stands
unshaken by any storm. If the New Lutheran Church can prove all its “controls,
guides and visitors from behind the shining river” to be disembodied spirits,
why all this row? That’s just where the trouble lies; they cannot prove it.
They have tasted these fruits of Paradise, and while finding some of them sweet
and refreshing because gathered and brought by real angel friends, so many
others have proved sour and rotten at the core, that to escape an incurable
dyspepsia, many of the best and most sincere Spiritualists have left the
communion without asking for a letter of dismissal.
This is not Spiritualism; it
is, as I say, a New Lutheran Church, and really, though the late oracle of The
Banner of Light was evidently a pure and true woman—for the breath of calumny,
this raging demon of America, has never been able to soil her reputation—and
though certainly she was a wonderful medium, still I don’t see why a
Spiritualist should be ostracized, only because after having given up St. Paul,
he or she does not strictly adhere to the doctrines of St. Conant.
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The last number of The Banner
contained a letter from a Mr. Saxon, criticizing some expressions in a recent
letter of Col. Olcott to the New, York Sun, in defence of the Eddys. The only
part which concerned me is this:
Surely some magician, with his
or her Kabalistic “Presto! Change!” has worked sudden and singular revolutions
in the mind of this disciple of Occultism, this gentleman who “is” and “is not”
a Spiritualist.
As I am the only Kabalist in
America, I cannot be mistaken as to the author’s meaning; so I cheerfully pick
up the glove. While I am not responsible for the changes in the barometer of
Col. Olcott’s spirituality (which I notice usually presage a storm), I am for
the following facts: Since I left Chittenden, I have constantly and fearlessly
maintained against everyone, beginning with Dr. Beard, that their apparitions
are genuine and powerful. Whether they are “spirits of hell or goblins damned”
is a question quite separate from that of their mediumship. Col. Olcott will
not deny that when we met at Chittenden for the first time, and afterwards—and
that more than once—when he expressed suspicions about the genuineness of
Mayflower and George Dix, the spirits of Horatio’s dark séances, I insisted that,
so far as I could judge, they were genuine phenomena. He will also no doubt
admit, since he is an eminently truthful man, that when the ungrateful
behaviour of the Eddys—toward whom every visitor at the homestead will testify
that he was kinder than a brother—had made him ready to express his
indignation, I interfered on their behalf, and begged that he would never
confound mediums with other people as to their responsibility. Mediums have
tried to shake my opinions of the Eddy boys, offering in two cases that I can
recall to go to Chittenden with me and expose the fraud. I acted the same with
them that I did with the Colonel. Mediums have tried likewise to convince me
that Mr. Crookes’ Katie King was but Miss F. Cooke walking about, while a wax
bust, fabricated in her likeness and covered with her clothes, lay in the
cabinet representing her as entranced. Other mediums, regarding me as a
fanatical Spiritualist, who would even be ready to connive at fraud rather than
see the cause hurt by an exposure, have let, or pretended to let, me into the
secrets of the mediumship of their fellow mediums, and sometimes incautiously
into their own.
My experience shows that the
worst enemies of mediums are mediums. Not content with slandering each other,
they assail and. traduce their warmest and most unselfish friends.
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Whatever objection anyone may
have to me on account of country, religion, occult study, rudeness of speech,
cigarette-smoking, or any other peculiarity, my record in connection with
Spiritualism for long years does not show me as making money by it, or gaining
any other advantage, direct or indirect. On the contrary, those who have met me
in all parts of the world (which I have circumnavigated three times), will
testify that I have given thousands of dollars, imperilled my life, defied the
Catholic Church—where it required more courage to do so than the Spiritualists
seem to show about encountering elementaries—and in camp and court, on the sea,
in the desert, in civilized and savage countries, I have been from first to
last the friend and champion of mediums. I have done more. I have often taken
the last dollar out of my pocket, and even necessary clothes off my back, to
relieve their necessities.
And how do you think I have
been rewarded? By honours, emoluments, and social position? Have I charged a
fee for imparting to the public or individuals what little knowledge I have
gathered in my travels and studies? Let those who have patronized our principal
mediums answer.
I have been slandered in the
most shameful way, and the most unblushing lies circulated about my character
and antecedents by the very mediums whom I have been defending at the risk of
being taken for their confederate, when their tricks have been detected. What
has happened in American cities is no worse nor different from what has
befallen me in Europe, Asia and Africa. I have been injured temporarily in the
eyes of good and pure men and women by the libels of mediums whom I never saw,
and who never were in the same city with me at the same time; of mediums who
made me the heroine of shameful histories whose action was alleged to have
occurred when I was in another part of the world, far away from the face of a
white man. Ingratitude and injustice have been my portion since I had first to
do with spiritual mediums. I have met here with a few exceptions, but very,
very few.
Now, what do you suppose has
sustained me throughout? Do you imagine that I could not see the disgusting
frauds mixed up with the most divine genuine manifestations? Could I, having
nothing to gain in money, power or any other consideration, have been content
to pass through all these dangers, suffer all this abuse, and receive all these
injurious insults, if I saw nothing in Spiritualism but what these critics
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of Col. Olcott and myself can
see? Would the prospect of an eternity, passed in the angel-girt world, in
company with unwashed Indian guides and military controls, with Aunt Sallies
and Prof. Websters, have been inducement enough? No; I would prefer
annihilation to such a prospect. It was because I knew that through the same
golden gates which swung open to admit the elementary and those unprogressed
human spirits who are worse, if anything, than they, have often passed the real
and purified forms of the departed and blessed ones. Because, knowing the
nature of these spirits and the laws of mediumistic control, I have never been
willing to hold my calumniators responsible for the great evil they did, when
they were often simply the unfortunate victims of obsession by unprogressed
spirits. Who can blame me for not wishing to associate with or receive
instruction from spirits who, if not far worse, were no better nor wiser than I?
Is a man entitled to respect and veneration simply because his body is rotting
under ground, like that of a dog? To me the grand object of my life was
attained and the immortality of our spirit demonstrated. Why should I turn
necromancer and evoke the dead, who could neither teach me nor make me better
than I was? It is a more dangerous thing to play with the mysteries of life and
death than most Spiritualists imagine.
Let them thank God for the
great proof of immortality afforded them in this century of unbelief and
materialism; and, if divine Providence has put them on the right path, let them
pursue it by all means, but not stop to pass their time in dangerous talk
indiscriminately with every one from the other side. The land of spirits, the
Summer Land, as they call it here, is a terra incognita; no believer will deny
it; it is vastly more unknown to every Spiritualist, as regards its various
inhabitants, than a trackless virgin forest of Central Africa. And who can
blame the pioneer settler if he hesitates to open his door to a knock, before
assuring himself whether the visitor be man or beast?
Thus, just because of all that
I have said above I proclaim myself a true Spiritualist, because my belief is
built upon a firm ground, and that no exposure of mediums, no social scandal
affecting them or others, no materialistic deductions of exact science, or
sneers and denunciations of scientists, can shake it. The truth is coming
slowly to light and I shall do my best to hasten its advent. I will breast the
current of popular prejudice and ignorance. I am prepared to endure
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slander, foul insinuations and
insult in the future as I have in the past. Already one spiritual editor, to
most effectually demonstrate his spirituality, has called me a witch. I have
survived, and hope to do so if two or two-score more should do the same; but
whether I ride the air to attend my Sabbath or not, one thing is certain: I
will not ruin myself to buy broomsticks upon which to chase after every lie set
afloat by editors or mediums.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
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—————
[From The Spiritual
Scientist.]
I BELIEVE Occultism to be
essentially a reincarnation of ancient paganism, a revivification of the
Pythagorean philosophy; not the senseless ceremonies and spiritless forms of
those ancient religions, but the Spirit of the Truth which animated those grand
old systems which held the world spell-bound in awe and reverence long after
the spirit had departed, and nothing was left but the dead, decaying body.
Occultism asserts the eternal
individuality of the soul, the imperishable force which is the cause and
sustaining power of all organization, that death is only the casting off of a
worn-out garment in order to procure a new and better one.
So death, so-called, can but the form deface,
The immortal soul flies out in empty space,
To seek her fortune in another place.
Occultism, in its efforts to
penetrate the arcana of dynamic forces and primordial power, sees in all things
a unity, an unbroken chain extending from the lowest organic form to the
highest, and concludes that this unity is based upon a uniformly ascending
scale of organic forms of being, the Jacob’s ladder of spiritual organic
experience, up which every soul must travel before it can again sing praises
before the face of its Father. It perceives a duality in all things, a physical
and spiritual nature, closely interwoven in each other’s embrace,
interdependent upon each other, and yet independent of each other. And as there
is in spirit-life a central individuality, the soul, so there is in the
physical, the atom, each eternal, unchangeable and self-existent. These
centres, physical and spiritual, are surrounded by their own respective
atmospheres, the intersphering of which results in aggregation and
organization. This idea is not limited to terrestrial life, but is extended to
worlds and systems of worlds.
Physical existence is
subservient to the spiritual, and all physical
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improvement and progress are
only the auxiliaries of spiritual progress, without which there could be no
physical progress. Physical organic progress is effected through hereditary
transmission; spiritual organic progress by transmigration.
Occultism has divided
spiritual progress into three divisions—the elementary, which corresponds with
the lower organizations; the astral, which relates to the human; and the
celestial, which is divine. “Elementary spirits,” whether they belong to
“earth, water, air or fire,” are spirits not yet human, but attracted to the
human by certain congenialities. As many physical diseases are due to the
presence of parasites, attracted or produced by uncleanness and other causes,
so parasitic spirits are attracted by immorality or spiritual uncleanness,
thereby inducing spiritual diseases and consequent physical ailments. They who
live on the animal plane must attract spirits of that plane, who seek for
borrowed embodiments where the most congeniality exists in the highest form.
Thus the ancient doctrine of
obsession challenges recognition, and the exorcism of devils is as legitimate
as the expelling of a tape-worm, or the curing of the itch. It was also
believed that these spiritual beings sustained their spiritual existence by
certain emanations from physical bodies, especially when newly slain; thus in
sacrificial offerings the priests received the physical part, and the Gods the
spiritual, they being content with a “sweet-smelling savour.” It was further
thought that wars were instigated by these demons, so that they might feast on
the slain.
But vegetable food also held a
place in spiritual estimation, for incense and fumigations were powerful
instruments in the hands of the expert magician.
Above the elementary spheres
were the seven planetary spheres, and as the elementary spheres were the means
of progress for the lower animals, so were the planetary spheres the means of
progress for spirits advanced from the elementary—for human spirits. The human
spirit at death went to its associative star, till ready for a new incarnation,
and its birth partook of the nature of the planet whence it came, and whose
rays illumined the ascendant—the central idea of astrology. When the lessons of
a planetary sphere were fully mastered, the spirit rose to the next sphere to
proceed as before. The character of these spheres corresponded to the “seven
ages of man.” But not always did the spirit return to the astral spheres.
Suicides; those from whom life had been
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suddenly taken before fully
ripe; those whose affections were inordinately attached to earthly things,
etc., were held to the earth till certain conditions were fulfilled, and some
whose lives had fitted them for such disposal were remanded to the elementary
spheres, to be incarnated as lower animals, corresponding to the nature of
their lives. Such were the perturbed spirits who sometimes disturbed the peace
of sensitive mortals in the days gone by—perhaps now.
Transcending the planetary
spheres were the three divine spheres where the process of apotheosis took
place, where the spirit progressed till it reached the fulness of the Godhead
bodily. From these spheres were appointed the Guardians of the inferior
spheres, the Messengers of God, ministering spirits, sent to minister to them
who shall receive the inheritance of salvation.
Such is a brief outline of
spiritual Occult philosophy; it may seem to be inconsistent with the ideas of
modern Spiritualism, yet even Spiritualism has not altogether lost sight of the
seven spheres and other peculiarities of the ancient astro-spiritual faith; and
as knowledge is acquired and experience gained, a better understanding of both
ancient and modern mysticism will bring them nearer together and show a
consistency and mutual agreement which has never been disturbed—only
obscured—by human ignorance and presumption.
But Occultism has a physical
aspect which I cannot afford to pass by. Man is a fourfold being.
Four things of man there are:
spirit, soul, ghost, flesh;
Four places these four keep and do possess.
The earth covers flesh, the ghost hovers o’er the grave,
Orcus hath the soul, the stars the spirit crave.
When the spirit leaves the
body, and is properly prepared for the stellar spheres, these are retained in
the mortal remains; and the shade, which is no part of the spirit or the true
man or woman, may still counterfeit them, make revelations of the past, in fact
reveal more of its sensual history, and prove sensual identity better than the
spirit itself could do, seeing it knows only spiritual things. The sciomancy of
the past bears the same relation to modern psychometry that ancient Magic does
to modern Spiritualism. Thus in haunted houses, in graveyards and places where
deeds of violence have occurred, sensitives see the drama reacted which
transpired long ago, the spirit being no accessory thereto.
The spirit cannot even
communicate unless through the interblend-
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ing of physical and spiritual
aurć and only by coming en rapport with physical things can it know anything of
them; and thus mediums are as necessary on the other side as on this; through
which mediums, Guardian Spirits, we may gain a nearer apprehension of spiritual
truths, if we live for them.
BUDDHA 0F CALIFORNIA.*
—————
* We cannot say positively
that this is H. P. B. ‘s, but it is either written by her, or under her
inspiration.
A WARNING TO MEDIUMS
—————
[From The Banner of Light, May
13th1876.]
DEAR SIR,—I take the earliest
opportunity to warn mediums generally—but particularly American mediums—that a
plot against the cause has been hatched in St. Petersburg. The particulars have
just been received by tile from one of my foreign correspondents, and may be
relied upon as authentic.
It is now commonly known that
Prof. Wagner, the geologist, has boldly come out as a champion for mediumistic
phenomena. Since he witnessed the wonderful manifestations of Bredif, the
French medium, he has issued several pamphlets, reviewed at great length in
Col. Olcott’s People from the Other World, and excited and defied the anger of
all the scientific pyschophobists of the Imperial University. Fancy a herd of
mad bulls rushing at the red flag of a picador, and you will have some idea of
the effect of Wagner’s Olcott-pamphlet upon his colleagues.
Chief among them is the
chairman of the scientific Commission which has just exploded with a report of
what they did not see at séances never held! Goaded to fury by the defence of
Spiritualism, which they had intended to quietly butcher, this individual
suddenly took the determination to come to America, and is now probably on his
way. Like a Samson of science, he expects to tie our foxes of mediums together
by the tails, set fire to them, and turn them into the corn of those Philistines,
Wagner and Butlerow.
Let me give mediums a bit of
friendly caution. If this Russian Professor should turn up at a séance, keep a
sharp eye upon him, and let everyone do the same; give him no private séances
at which there is not present at least one truthful and impartial Spiritualist.
Some scientists are not to be trusted. My correspondent writes that the
Professor—
Goes to America to create a great scandal, burst up Spiritualism, and turn the
laugh on P. Wagner, Aksakoff and Butlerow.
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The plot is very ingeniously
contrived: he is coming here under the pretext of the Centennial, and will
attract as little attention as possible among the mediums.
But, Mr. Editor, what if he
should meet the fate of Hare and become a Spiritualist! What wailing would
there not be in the Society of Physical Sciences! I shudder at the
mortification which would await my poor countrymen.
But another distinguished
Russian scientist is also coming, for whom I bespeak a very different reception.
Prof. Kittara, the greatest technologist of Russia and a member of the
Emperor’s Privy Council, is really sent by the government to the Centennial. He
is deeply interested in Spiritualism, very anxious to investigate it, and will
bring the proper credentials from Mr. Aksakoff. The latter gentleman writes me
that every civility and attention should be shown Prof. Kittara, as his report,
if favourable, will have a tremendous influence upon public opinion.
The unfairness of the
University Commission has, it seems, produced a reaction. I translate the
following from a paper which Mr. Aksakoff has sent me, the St. Petersburg
Berjeveya viedomostji (Exchange Reports):
We hear that the Commission
for the investigation of mediumism, which was formed by the Society of Physical
Sciences attached to the University, is preparing to issue a report of its
labours [? !]. It will appear as an appendix to the monthly periodical of the
Chemical and Physical Societies. Meanwhile another Commission is being formed,
but this time its members will not be supplied from the Physical Science
Society, but from the Medical Society. Nevertheless, several members of the
former will be invited to join, as well as the friends of mediumism, and others
who would be able to offer important suggestions pro or con. We hear that the
formation of this new Commission is warmly advocated, its necessity having been
shown in the breach of faith by the Physical Science Society, its failure to
hold the promised forty seances, its premature adoption of unfair conclusions,
and the strong prejudices of the members.
Let us hope that this new
organization may prove more honourable than its predecessor (peace to its
ashes!).
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
(NEW) YORK AGAINST LANKESTER
A NEW WAR OF THE ROSES.
[From The Banner of Light,
Oct. 24th, 1876]
DESPITE the constant
recurrence of new discoveries by modern men of science, an exaggerated respect
for authority and an established routine among the educated class retard the
progress of true knowledge. Facts which, if observed, tested, classified and
appreciated, would be of inestimable importance to science, are summarily cast
into the despised limbo of supernaturalism. To these conservatives the
experience of the past serves neither as an example nor a warning. The overturning
of a thousand cherished theories finds our modern philosopher as unprepared for
each new scientific revelation as though his predecessor had been infallible
from time immemorial.
The protoplasmist should, at
least, in modesty remember that his past is one vast cemetery of dead theories;
a desolate potter’s field wherein exploded hypotheses lie, in ignoble oblivion,
like so many executed malefactors, whose names cannot be pronounced by the next
of kin without a blush.
The nineteenth century is
essentially the age of demolition. True, science takes just pride in many
revolutionary discoveries and claims to have immortalized the epoch by forcing
from Dame Nature some of her most important secrets. But for every inch she
illumines of the narrow and circular path within whose limits she has hitherto
trodden, what unexplored boundless stretches have been left behind? The worst
is that science has not simply withheld her light from these regions that seem
dark (but are not), but her votaries try their best to quench the lights of
other people under the pretext that they are not authorities, and their
friendly beacons are but “will-o’-the-wisps.” Prejudice and preconceived ideas
have entered the public brain, and, cancer-like, are eating it to the core.
Spiritualism—or, if some for whom the word has become so unpopular prefer it,
the universe of
85 ———————————————————(NEW) YORK AGAINST LANKESTER.
spirit—is left to fight out
its battle with the world of matter, and the crisis is at hand.
Half-thinkers, and aping,
would-be philosophers—in short, that class which is unable to penetrate events
any deeper than their crust, and which measures every clay’s occurrences by its
present aspect, unmindful of the past and careless of the future—heartily
rejoice over the latest rebuff given to phenomenalism in the Lankester-Donkin
offensive and defensive alliance, and the pretended exposure of Slade. In this
hour of would—be Lancastrian triumph, a change should be made in English
heraldic crests. The Lancasters were always given to creating dissensions and
provoking strife among peaceable folk. From ancient York the War of the Roses
is now transferred to Middle sex, and Lankester (whose name is a corruption),
instead of uniting himself with the hereditary foe, has joined his idols with
those of Donkin (whose name is evidently also a corruption). As the hero of the
hour is not a knight, but a zoologist deeply versed in the science to which lie
devotes Ins talents, why not compliment his ally by quartering the red rose of
Lancaster with the downy thistle so delicately appreciated by a certain
prophetic quadruped, who seeks for it by the wayside? Really, Mr. Editor, when
Mr. Lankester tells us that all those who believe in Dr. Slade’s phenomena ‘are
lost to reason,” we must accord to biblical animals a decided precedence over
modern ones. The ass of Balaam had at least the faculty of perceiving spirits,
while some of those who bray in our academies and hospitals show no evidence of
its possession. Sad degeneration of species!
Such persons as these bound
all spiritual phenomena in Nature by the fortunes and mishaps of mediums; each
new favourite, they think, must of necessity pull down in his fall an
unscientific hypothetical “Unseen Universe,” as the tumbling red dragon of the
Apocalypse drew with his tail the third part of the stars of heaven. Poor blind
moles! They perceive not that by inveighing against the “craze” of such
phenomenalists as Wallace, Crookes, Wagner and Thury, they only help the spread
of true Spiritualism. We millions of lunatics really ought to address a vote of
thanks to the “dishevelled” Beards who make supererogatory efforts to appear as
stupid clodpoles to deceive the Eddys, and to Lankesters simulating
“astonishment and intense interest,” the better to cheat Dr. Shade. More than
any advocates of phenomenalism, they bring its marvels into public notice by
their pyrotechnic exposures.
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As one entrusted by the
Russian Committee with the delicate task of selecting a medium for the coming
St. Petersburg experiments, and as an officer of the Theosophical Society,
which put Dr. Slade’s powers to the test in a long series of seances, I
pronounce him not only a genuine medium, but one of the best and least
fraudulent mediums ever developed. From personal experience I can not only
testify to the genuineness of his slate-writing, but also to that of the
materializations which occur in his presence. A shawl thrown over a chair
(which I was invited to place wherever I chose) is all the cabinet he exacts,
and his apparitions immediately appear, and that in gas—light.
No one will charge me with a
superfluous confidence in the personality of material apparitions, or a
superabundance of love for them ; but honour and truth compel me to affirm that
those who appeared to me in Slade’s presence were real phantoms, and not “made
up” confederates or dolls. They were evanescent and filmy, and the only ones I
have seen in America which have reminded me of those that the Adepts of India
evoke. Like the latter, they formed and dissolved before my eyes, their
substance rising mist-like from the floor, and gradually condensing. Their eyes
moved and their lips smiled ; but as they stood near me their forms were so
transparent that through them I could see the objects in the room. These I call
genuine spiritual substances, whereas the opaque ones that I have seen else
where were nothing but animated forms of matter—whatever they be—with sweating
hands and a peculiar odour, which I am not called upon to define at this time.
Everyone knows that Dr. Slade
is not acquainted with foreign languages, and yet at our first séance, three
years ago, on the day after my arrival in New York, where no one knew me, I
received upon his slate a long communication in Russian. I had purposely
avoided giving either to Dr. Slade or his partner, Mr. Simmons, any clue to my
nationality, and while, from my accent, they would of course have detected that
I was not an American, they could not possibly have known from what country I came.
I fancy that if Dr. Lankester had allowed Slade to write on both knees and both
elbows successively or simultaneously, the poor man would not have been able to
turn out Russian messages by trick and device.
In reading the accounts in the
London papers, it has struck me as very remarkable that this “vagrant” medium,
after baffling such a host of savants, would have fallen so easy a victim to
the zoölogico-osteological
87 ——————————————————(NEW) YORK AGAINST LANKESTER.
brace of scientific
detectives. Fraud, that neither the “psychic” Sergeant Cox, nor the
“unconsciously cerebrating” Carpenter, nor the wise Wallace, nor the
experienced M.A. (Oxon.), nor the cautious Lord Rayleigh—who, mistrusting his
own acuteness, employed a professional juggler to attend the séance with
him—nor Dr. Carter Blake, nor a host of other competent observers could detect,
was seen by the eagle eyes of the Lankester-Donkin Gemini at a single glance.
There has been nothing like it since Beard, of electro-hay fever and Eddy fame,
denounced the faculty of Yale for a set of asses, because they would not accept
his divinely-inspired revelation of the secret of mind-reading, and pitied the
imbecility of that “amiable idiot,” Col. Olcott, for trusting his own
two—months’ observation of the Eddy phenomena in preference to the electric
doctor’s single séance of an hour.
I am an American citizen in
embryo, Mr. Editor, and I cannot hope that the English magistrates of Bow
Street will listen to a voice that comes from a city proverbially held in small
esteem by British scientists. When Prof. Tyndall asks Prof. Youmans if the New
York carpenters could make him a screen ten feet long for his Cooper Institute
lectures, and whether it would be necessary to send to Boston for a cake of ice
that he wished to use in the experiments; and when Huxley evinces grateful
surprise that a “foreigner” could express him self in your (our) language in
such a way as to be so readily intelligible, “to all appearance,” by a New York
audience, and that those clever chaps—the New York reporters—could report him
despite his accent, neither New York “spooks,” nor I, can hope for a standing
in a London court, when the defendant is prosecuted by English scientists. But,
fortunately for Dr. Slade, British tribunals are not inspired by the Jesuits,
and so Slade may escape the fate of Leymarie. He certainly will, if he is
allowed to summon to the witness-stand his Owasso and other devoted “controls,”
to write their testimony inside a double state, furnished and held by the magistrate
himself. This is Dr. Slade’s golden hour; he will never have so good a chance
to demonstrate the reality of phenomenal manifestations, and make Spiritualism
triumph over scepticism; and we, who know the doctor’s wonderful powers, are
confident that he can do it, if he is assisted by those who in the past have
accomplished so much through his instrumentality.
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
Corresponding Secretary of the
Theosophical Society. New York, Oct. 8th, 1876.
HUXLEY AND SLADE
[ From The banner of Light, Oct.
28th, 1876.]
As I see the issue that has
been raised by Dr. Hallock with Mr. Huxley, it suggests to me the comparison of
two men looking at the same distant object through a telescope. The Doctor,
having taken the usual precautions, brings the object within close range where
it can he studied at one’s leisure; but the naturalist, having forgotten to
remove the cap, sees only the reflection of his own image.
Though the materialists may
find it hard to answer even the brief criticisms of the Doctor, yet it appears
that Mr. Huxley’s New York lectures—as they present themselves to me in their
naked desolation— suggest one paramount idea which Dr. Hallock has not touched
upon. I need scarcely say to you, who must have read the report of these
would-be iconoclastic lectures, that this idea is one of the “false pretences”
of Modern Science. After all the flourish which attended his coming, all the
expectations that had been aroused, all the secret apprehensions of the church
and the anticipated triumph of the materialists, what did he teach us that was
really new or so extremely suggestive? Nothing, positively nothing. Exclude a
sight of his personality, the sound of his well-trained voice, the reflection
of his scientific glory, and the result may be summed up thus: “Cr., Thomas H.
Huxley, L1,000.”
Of him it may be said, as it
has been of other teachers before, that what he said that was new was not true;
and that which was true was not new.
Without going into details,
for the moment, it suffices to say that the materialistic theory of evolution
is far from being demonstrated, while the thought that Mr. Huxley does not
grasp—i.e., the double evolution of spirit and matter—is imparted under the
form of various legends in the oldest parts of the Rig Veda (the Aitareya
Brâhmana). Only these benighted Hindus, it seems, made the trifling improvement
over Modern
89 ————————————————————HUXLEY
AND SLADE.
Science, of hooking a First
Cause on to the further end of the chain of evolution.
In the Chaturhotri Mantra
(Book V of the Aitareya Brâhmana) the Goddess Eath (lyam), who is termed the
Queen of the Serpents (Sârpa), for she is the mother of everything that moves
(Sârpat), was in the beginning of time completely bald. She was nothing but one
round head, which was soft to the touch, i.e., “a gelatinous mass.” Being
disstressed at her baldness, she called for help to the great Vâyu, the Lord of
the airy regions; she prayed him to teach her the Mantra (invocation or
sacrificial prayer—a certain part of the Veda), which would confer on her the
magical power of creating things (generation). He complied, and then as soon as
the Mantra was pronounced by her “in the proper metre” she found herself
covered with hair (vegetation). She was now hard to the touch, for the Lord of
the air had breathed upon her—the globe had cooled. She had become of a
variegated or motley appearance, and suddenly acquired the power to produce out
of herself every animate and inanimate form, and to chance one form to another.
Therefore in like manner [ the
sacred book] the man who has such a knowledge [ the Mantras] obtains the
faculty of assuming any shape or form he likes.
It will scarcely be said that
this allegory is capable of more than one interpretation, viz., that the
ancient Hindus, many centuries before the Christian era, taught the doctrine of
evolution. Martin Haug, the Sanskrit scholar, asserts that the Vedas were
already in existence from 2,000 to 2,200 B.C.
Thus, while the theory of
evolution is nothing new, and may be considered a proven fact, the new ideas
forced upon the public by Mr. Huxley are only undemonstrated hypotheses, and as
such liable to be exploded the first fine day upon the discovery of some new
fact. We find no admission of his, however, in Mr. Huxley’s communications to
the public; but the unproved theories are enunciated with as much boldness as
though the were established scientific facts, corroborated by unerring laws of
Nature. Notwithstanding this the world is asked to revere the great
evolutionist, only because he stands under the shadow of a great name.
What is this but one of the
many false pretences of the sciolists? And yet Huxley and his admirers charge
the believers in the evolution of spirit with the same crime of false
pretences, because, forsooth, our theories are as yet undemonstrated. Those who
believe in Slade’s
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spirits-are “lost.to reason,”
while those who can see embryonic man in Huxley’s “gelatinous mass” are
accepted as the progressive minds of the age. Slade is arraigned before the
magistrate for taking $5 from Lankester, while Huxley triumphantly walks away
with $5,0OO of American gold in his pockets, which was paid him for imparting
to us the mirific fact that man evolved from the hind toe of a pedactyl horse!
Now, arguing from the
standpoint of strict justice, in what respect is a materialistic theorist any
better than a spiritualistic one? And in what degree is the evolution of
man—independent of divine and spiritual interference—better proven by the
toe-bone of an extinct horse, than the evolution and survival of the human
spirit by the writing upon a screwed-up slate by some unseen power or powers?
And yet again, the soulless Huxley sails away laden with flowers like a
fashionable corpse, conquering and to conquer in fresh fields of glory, while
the poor medium is hauled before a police magistrate as a “vagrant and a
swindler,” without proof enough to sustain the charge before an unprejudiced
tribunal.
There is good authority for
the statement that psychological science is a debatable land upon which the
modern physiologist hardly dares to venture. I deeply sympathize with the
embarrassed student of the physical side of Nature. We all can readily
understand how disagreeable it must be to a learned theorist, ever aspiring for
the elevation of his hobby to the dignity of an accepted scientific truth,
constantly to receive the lie direct from his remorseless and untiring
antagonist— psychology. To see his cherished materialistic theories become
every day more untenable, until they are reduced to the condition of mummies
swathed in shrouds, self-woven and inscribed with a farrago of pet sophistries,
is indeed hard. And in their self-satisfying logic, these sons of matter reject
every testimony but their own: the divine entity of the Socratic daimonion, the
ghost of Cćsar, and Cicero’s Divinum Quidam, they explain by epilepsy; and the
prophetic oracles of the Jewish Bath-Kol are set down as hereditary hysteria!
And now, supposing the great
protoplasmist to have proved to the general satisfaction that the present horse
is an effect of a gradual development from the Orophippus, or four-toed horse
of the Eocene formation, which, passing further through Miocene and Pliocene
periods, has become the modern honest Equus, does Huxley thereby prove that man
has also developed from a one-toed human being? For nothing short of that could
demonstrate his theory. To be consistent he must
91 ————————————————————HUXLEY AND SLADE.
show that while the horse was
losing at each successive period a toe, man has in reversed order acquired an
additional one at each new formation; and unless we are shown the fossilized
remains of man in a series of one-, two-, three- and four-toed anthropoid
ape-like beings antecedent to the present perfected Homo, what does Huxley’s
theory amount to? Nobody doubts that everything has evolved out of some thing
prior to itself. But, as it is, he leaves us hopelessly in doubt whether it is
man who is a hipparionic or equine evolution, or the antediluvian Equus that evolved
from the primitive genus Homo!
Thus to apply the argument to
Slade’s case we may say that, whether the messages on his slate indicate an
authorship among the returning spirits of antediluvian monkeys, or the bravos
and Lankestrian ancestors of our day, he is no more guilty of false pretences
than the $5,000 evolutionist. Hypothesis, whether of scientist or medium, is no
false pretence; but unsupported assertion is, when people are charged money for
it.
If, satisfied with the osseous
fragments of a Hellenized or Latinized skeleton, we admit that there is a
physical evolution, by what logic can we refuse to credit the possibility of an
evolution of spirit? That there are two sides to the question, no one but an
utter psychophobist will deny. It may be argued that even if the Spiritualists
have demonstrated their bare facts, their philosophy is not complete, since it
has missing links. But no more have the evolutionists. They have fossil remains
which prove that once upon a time the ancestors of the modern horse were
blessed with three and even four toes and fingers, the fourth ‘‘answering to
the little finger of the human hand,” and that the Protohippus rejoiced in ‘‘a
fore-arm’’ ; Spiritualists in their turn exhibit entire hands, arms, and even
bodies in support of their theory that the dead still live and revisit us. For
my part I cannot see that the osteologists have the better of them. Both follow
the inductive or purely scientific method, proceeding from particulars to
universals; thus Cuvier, upon finding a small bone, traced around it imaginary
lines until he had built up from his prolific fancy a whole mammoth. The data
of scientists are no more certain than those of Spiritualists; and while the
former have but their modern discoveries upon which to build their theories,
Spiritualists may cite the evidence of a succession of ages, which began long
prior to the advent of Modern Science.
An inductive hypothesis, we
are told, is demonstrated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance
with it. Thus, if Huxley possesses
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conclusive evidence of the
evolution of man in the genealogy of the horse, Spiritualists can equally claim
that proof of the evolution of spirit out of the body is furnished in the
materialized, more or less substantial, limbs that float in the dark shadows of
the cabinet, and often in full light—a phenomenon which has been recognized and
attested by numberless generations of wise men of every country. As to the
pretended superiority of modern over ancient science, we have only the word of
the former for it. This is also an hypothesis; better evidence is required to
prove the fact. We have but to turn to Wendell Phillips’s lecture on the Lost
Arts to have a certain right to doubt the assurance of Modern Science.
Speaking of evidence, it is
strange what different and arbitrary values may be placed upon the testimony of
different men equally trustworthy and well-meaning. Says the parent of
protoplasm:
It is impossible that one’s
practical life should not be more or less influenced by the views which he may
hold as to what has been the past history of things. One of them is human
testimony in its various shapes—all testimony of eye-witnesses, traditional
testimony from the lips of those who have been eye-witnesses, and the testimony
of those who have put their impressions into writing or into print.
On just such testimony, amply
furnished in the Bible (evidence which Mr. Huxley rejects), and in many other
less problematical authors than Moses, among whom may be reckoned generations
of great philosophers, theurgists, and laymen, Spiritualists have a right to
base their fundamental doctrines. Speaking further of the broad distinction to
be drawn between the different kinds of evidence, some being less valuable than
others, because given upon grounds not clear, upon grounds illogically stated
and upon such as do not bear thorough and careful inspection, the same
gelatinist remarks:
For example, if I read in your
history of Tennessee [Ramsays] that one hundred years ago this country was
peopled by wandering savages, my belief in this statement rests upon the
conviction that Mr. Ramsay was actuated by the same sort of motives that men
are now,... that he himself was, like ourselves, not inclined to make false
statements. . . . If you read Cćsar’s Commentaries, wherever he gives an
account of his battles with the Gauls, you place a certain amount of confidence
in his statements. You take his testimony upon this, you feel that Cćsar would
not have made these statements unless he had believed them to be true.
Profound philosophy! precious
thoughts! gems of condensed, gelatinous truth! long may it stick to the
American mind! Mr. Huxley ought to devote the rest of his days to writing
primers for the feeble minded adults of the United States. But why select Cćsar
as the type
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of the trustworthy witness of
ancient times? And if we must implicitly credit his reports of battles, why not
his profession of faith in augurs, diviners and apparitions?—for in common with
his wife, Calpurnia, he believed in them as firmly as any modern Spiritualist
in his mediums and phenomena. We also feel that no more than Cćsar would such
men as Cicero and Herodotus and Livy and a host of others “have made these
false statements,” or reported such things “unless they believed them to be
true.”
It has already been shown that
the doctrine of evolution, as a whole, was taught in the Rig Veda, and I may
also add that it can be found in the most ancient of the books of Hermes. This
is bad enough for the claim to originality set up by our modern scientists, but
what shall be said when we recall the fact that the very pedactyl horse, the
finding of whose footprints has so overjoyed Mr. Huxley, was mentioned by
ancient writers (Herodotus anti Pliny, if I mistake not), and was once
outrageously laughed at by the French Academicians? Let those who wish to
verify the fact read Salverti’s Philosophy of Occult Science, translated by
Todd Thompson.
Some day proofs as conclusive
will be discovered of the reliability of the ancient writers as to their
evidence on psychological matters. What Niebuhr, the German materialist, did
with Livy’s History, from which he eliminated every one of the multitude of
facts of phenomenal “Super naturalism,’’ scientists now seem to have tacitly
agreed to do with all the ancient, medćval and modern authors. What they
narrate, that can be used to bolster up the physical part of science,
scientists accept and sometimes coolly appropriate without credit; what
supports the Spiritualistic philosophy they incontinently reject as mythical
and contrary to the order of Nature. In such cases “evidence” and the
“testimony of eye-witnesses” count for nothing. They adopt the contrary course
to Lord Verulam, who, arguing on the properties of amulets and charms, remarks
that:
We should not reject all this
kind, because it is not known how far those contributing to superstition depend
on natural causes.
There can be no real
enfranchisement of human thought nor expansion of scientific discovery until
the existence of spirit is recognized, and the double evolution accepted as a
fact. Until then, false theories will always find favour with those who, having
forsaken “the God of their fathers,” vainly strive to find substitutes in
nucleated masses of matter. And of all the sad things to be seen in this era of
“shams,”
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none is more deplorable—though
its futility is often ludicrous—than the conspiracy of certain scientists to
stamp out spirit by their one-sided theory of evolution, and destroy
Spiritualism by arraigning its mediums upon the charge of “false pretences.”
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
CAN THE DOUBLE MURDER?
—————
To the Editor of” The Sun.”
SIR,—One morning in 1867 Eastern
Europe was startled by news of the most horrifying description. Michael
Obrenovitch, reigning Prince of Serbia, his aunt, the Princess Catherine, or
Katinka, and her daughter had been murdered in broad daylight, near Belgrade,
in their own garden, assassin or assassins remaining unknown. The Prince had
received several bullet-shots and stabs, and his body was actually butchered;
the Princess was killed on the spot, her head smashed, and her young daughter,
though still alive, was not expected to survive. The circumstances are too
recent to have been forgotten, but in that part of the world, at the time, the
case created a delirium of excitement.
In the Austrian dominions and
in those tinder the doubtful protectorate of Turkey, from Bucharest down to
Trieste, no high family felt secure. In those half-Oriental countries every
Montecchi has its Capuletti, and it was rumoured that the bloody deed was
perpetrated by the Prince Kara-Gueorguevitch, or “Tzerno-Gueorgey,” as he is
usually called in those parts. Several persons innocent of the act were, as is
usual in such cases, imprisoned, and the real murderers escaped justice. A
young relative of the victim, greatly beloved by his people, a mere child,
taken for the purpose from a school in Paris, was brought over in ceremony to
Belgrade and proclaimed Hospodar of Serbia. In the turmoil of political
excitement the tragedy of Belgrade was for gotten by all but an old Serbian
matron who had been attached to the Obrenovitch family, and who, like Rachel,
would not be comforted for the death of her children. After the proclamation of
the young Obrenovitch, nephew of the murdered man, she had sold out her
property and disappeared; but not before taking a solemn vow on the tombs of
the victims to avenge their deaths.
The writer of this truthful
narrative had passed a few days at Belgrade, about three months before the
horrid deed was perpetrated,
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and knew the Princess Katinka.
She was a kind, gentle, and lazy creature at home; abroad she seemed a
Parisienne in manners and education. As nearly all the personages who will
figure in this true story are still living, it is but decent that I should
withhold their names, and give only initials.
The old Serbian lady seldom
left her house, going but to see the Princess occasionally. Crouched on a pile
of pillows and carpeting, clad in the picturesque national dress, she looked
like the Cumćan sibyl in her days of calm repose. Strange stories were
whispered about her Occult knowledge, and thrilling accounts circulated some
times among the guests assembled round the fireside of the modest inn. Our fat
landlord’s maiden aunt’s cousin had been troubled for some time past by a
wandering vampire, and had been bled nearly to death by the nocturnal visitor,
and while the efforts and exorcisms of the parish pope had been of no avail,
the victim was luckily delivered by Gospoja P—, who had put to flight the
disturbing ghost by merely shaking her fist at him, and shaming him in his own
language. It was in Belgrade that I learned for the first time this
highly-interesting fact in philology, namely, that spooks have a language of
their own. The old lady, whom I will call Gospoja P was generally attended by
another personage destined to be the principal actress in our tale of horror.
It was a young gipsy girl from some part of Roumania, about fourteen years of
age. Where she was born, and who she was, she seemed to know as little as
anyone else. I was told she had been brought one day by a party of strolling
gipsies, and left in the yard of the old lady, from which moment she became an
inmate of the house. She was nicknamed “the sleeping girl,” as she was said to
be gifted with the faculty of apparently dropping asleep wherever she stood,
and speaking her dreams aloud. The girl’s heathen name was Frosya.
About eighteen months after
the news of the murder had reached Italy, where I was at the tune, I travelled
over the Banat in a small waggon of my own, hiring a horse whenever I needed
one. I met on my way an old Frenchman, a scientist, travelling alone after my
own fashion, but with the difference that while he was a pedestrian, I
dominated the road from the eminence of a throne of dry hay in a jolting
waggon. I discovered him one fine morning slumbering in a wilderness of shrubs
and flowers, and had nearly passed over him, absorbed as I was in the
contemplation of the surrounding glorious scenery. The acquaintance was soon
made, no great ceremony of
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mutual introduction being
needed. I had heard his name mentioned in circles interested in mesmerism, and
knew him to be a powerful adept of the school of Dupotet.
“I have found,” he remarked,
in the course of the conversation after I had made him share my seat of hay,
“one of the most wonderful subjects in this lovely Thebaide. I have an
appointment to-night with the family. They are seeking to unravel the mystery
of a murder by means of the clairvoyance of the girl . . . she is wonderful!”
“Who is she?” I asked.
“A Roumanian gipsy. She was
brought up, it appears, in the family of the Serbian reigning Prince, who
reigns no more, for he was very mysteriously mur— Halloo, take care! Diable,
you will upset us over the precipice!” he hurriedly exclaimed, unceremoniously
snatching from me the reins, and giving the horse a violent pull.
“You do not mean Prince
Obrenovitch?” I asked aghast.
“Yes, I do; and him precisely.
To-night I have to be there, hoping to close a series of seances by finally
developing a most marvellous manifestation of the hidden power of the human
spirit; and you may come with me. I will introduce you; and besides, you can
help me as an interpreter, for they do not speak French.”
As I was pretty sure that if
the somnambule was Frosya, the rest of the family must be Gospoja P—, I readily
accepted. At sunset we were at the foot of the mountain, leading to the old
castle, as the Frenchman called the place. It fully deserved the poetical name
given it. There was a rough bench in the depths of one of the shadowy retreats,
and as we stopped at the entrance of this poetical place, and the Frenchman was
gallantly busying himself with my horse on the suspicious-looking bridge which
led across the water to the entrance gate, I saw a tall figure slowly rise from
the bench and come towards us.
It was my old friend Gospoja
P—, looking more pale and more mysterious than ever. She exhibited no surprise
at seeing me, but simply greeting me after the Serbian fashion, with a triple
kiss on both cheeks, she took hold of my hand and led me straight to the nest
of ivy. Half reclining on a small carpet spread on the tall grass, with her
back leaning against the wall, I recognized our Frosya.
She was dressed in the
national costume of the Wallachian women, a sort of gauze turban intermingled
with various gilt medals and bands on her head, white shirt with opened
sleeves, and petticoats of varie-
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gated colours. Her face looked
deadly pale, her eyes were closed, and her countenance presented that stony,
sphinx-like look which characterizes in such a peculiar way the entranced
clairvoyant somnambule. If it were not for the heaving motion of her chest and
bosom, ornamented by rows of medals and head necklaces which feebly tinkled at
ever breath, one might have thought her dead, so lifeless and corpse-like was
her face. The Frenchman informed me that he had sent her to sleep just as we
were approaching the house, and that she now was as he had left her the
previous night; he then began busying himself with the sujet, as he called
Frosva. Paying no further attention to us, he shook her by the hand, and then
making a few rapid passes stretched out her arm and stiffened it. The arm, as
rigid as iron, remained in that position. He then closed all her fingers but
one—the middle finger—which he caused to point at the evening star, which
twinkled in the deep blue sky. Then he turned round and went over from right to
left, throwing on some of his fluids here, again discharging them at another
place; busying himself with his invisible but potent fluids, like a painter
with his brush when giving the last touches to a picture.
The old lady, who had silently
watched him, with her chin in her hand the while, put her thin,
skeleton—looking hands on his arm and arrested it, as he was preparing himself
to begin the regular mesmeric passes.
‘‘Wait,” she whispered, ‘‘till
the star is set and the ninth hour completed. The Vourdalaki are hovering
round; they may spoil the influence.’’
“What does she say?” enquired
time mesmerizer, annoyed at her interference.
I explained to him that the
old lady feared the pernicious influences of the Vourdalaki.
“Vourdalaki! What’s that—the
Vourdalaki?” exclaimed the French man. “Let us be satisfied with Christian
spirits, if the honour us to-night with a visit, and lose no time for the
Vourdalaki.”
I glanced at the Gospoja. She
had become deathly pale and her brow was sternly knitted over her flashing
black eyes.
“Tell him not to jest at this
hour of the night!” she cried. “He does not know the country. Even this holy
church may fail to protect us once the Vourdalaki are roused. What’s this ?“
pushing with her foot a bundle of herbs the botanizing mesmerizer had laid near
on the
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grass. She bent over the
collection and anxiously examined the contents of the bundle, after which she
flung the whole into the water.
‘‘It must not be left here,’’
she firmly added; ‘‘these are the St. John’s plants, and they might attract the
wandering ones.’’
Meanwhile the night had come,
and the moon illuminated the land scape with a pale, ghostly light. The nights
in the Banat are nearly as beautiful as in the East, and the Frenchman had to
go on with his experiments in the open air, as the priest of the church had prohibited
such in the tower, which was used as the parsonage, for fear of filling the
holy precincts with the heretical devils of the mesmerizer, which, the priest
remarked, he would be unable to exorcise on account of their being foreigners.
The old gentleman had thrown
off his travelling blouse, rolled tip his shirt sleeves, and now, striking a
theatrical attitude, began a regular process of mesmerization.
Under his quivering fingers
the odile fluid actually seemed to flash in the twilight. Frosya was placed
with her figure facing the moon, and every motion of the entranced girl was
discernible as in daylight. In a few minutes large drops of perspiration
appeared on her brow, and slowly rolled down her pale face, glittering in the
moonbeams. Then she moved uneasily about and began chanting a low melody, to
the words of which the Gospoja, anxiously bent over the unconscious girl, was
listening with avidity and trying to catch every syllable. With her thin finger
on her lips, her eyes nearly starting from their sockets, her frame motionless,
the old lady seemed herself transfixed into a statue of attention. The group
was a remarkable one, and I regretted that I was not a painter. What followed
was a scene worthy to figure in Macbeth. At one side she, the slender girl,
pale and corpse- like, writhing tinder the invisible fluid of him who for the
hour was her omnipotent master; at the other the old matron, who, burning with
her unquenched fire of revenge, stood waiting for the long-expected name of the
Prince’s murderer to be at last pronounced. The Frenchman himself seemed
transfigured, his grey hair standing on end; his bulky clumsy form seemed to
have grown in a few minutes. All theatrical pretence was now gone; there
remained but the mesmerizer, aware of his responsibility, unconscious himself
of the possible results, studying and anxiously expecting. Suddenly Frosya, as
if lifted by some super natural force, rose from her reclining posture and
stood erect before us,
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again motionless and still,
waiting for the magnetic fluid to direct her. The Frenchman, silently taking
the old lady’s hand, placed it in that of the somnambulist, and ordered her to
put herself en rapport with the Gospoja.
“What seest thou, my
daughter?” softly murmured the Serbian lady. “Can your spirit seek out the
murderers?”
“Search and behold!” sternly
commanded the mesmerizer, fixing his gaze upon the face of the subject.
“I am on my way—I go,” faintly
whispered Frosya, her voice seeming not to come from herself, but from the
surrounding atmosphere.
At this moment something so
strange took place that I doubt my ability to describe it. A luminous vapour
appeared, closely surround ing the girl’s body. At first about an inch in
thickness, it gradually expanded, and, gathering itself, suddenly seemed to
break off from the body altogether and condense itself into a kind of
semi-solid vapour, which very soon assumed the likeness of the somnambule
herself. Flickering about the surface of the earth the form vacillated for two
or three seconds, then glided noiselessly toward the river. It disappeared like
a mist, dissolved in the moonbeams, which seemed to absorb it altogether.
I had followed the scene with
an intense attention. The mysterious operation, known in the East as the
evocation of the scin-lecca, was taking place before my own eyes. To doubt was
impossible, and Dupotet was right in saying that mesmerism is the conscious
Magic of the ancients, and Spiritualism the unconscious effect of the same
Magic upon certain organisms.
As soon as the vaporous double
had smoked itself through the pores of the girl, Gospoja had, by a rapid motion
of the hand which was left free, drawn from under her pelisse something which
looked to us suspiciously like a small stiletto, and placed it as rapidly in
the girl’s bosom. The action was so quick that the mesmerizer, absorbed in his
work, had not remarked it, as he afterwards told me. A few minutes elapsed in a
dead silence. We seemed a group of petrified persons. Suddenly a thrilling and
transpiercing cry burst from the entranced girl’s lips, she bent forward, and
snatching the stiletto from her bosom, plunged it furiously round her, in the
air, as if pursuing imaginary foes. Her mouth foamed, and incoherent, wild
exclamations broke from her lips, among which discordant sounds I discerned
several times two familiar Christian names of men. The mesmerizer was so
terrified
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that he lost all control over
himself, and instead of withdrawing the fluid he loaded the girl with it still
more.
“Take care,” exclaimed I.
“Stop! You will kill her, or she will kill you!”
But the Frenchman had
unwittingly raised subtle potencies of Nature over which he had no control.
Furiously turning round, the girl struck at him a blow which would have killed
him had he not avoided it by jumping aside, receiving but a severe scratch on
the right arm. The poor man was panic-stricken; climbing with an extraordinary
agility, for a man of his bulky form, on the wall over her, he fixed himself on
it astride, and gathering the remnants of his will power, sent in her direction
a series of passes. At the second, the girl dropped the weapon and remained
motionless.
“What are you about?” hoarsely
shouted the mesmerizer in French, seated like some monstrous night-goblin on
the wall. “Answer me, I command you!’’
“I did ... but what she...whom
you ordered me to obey commanded me to do,” answered the girl in French, to my
amazement.
“What did the old witch
command you?” irreverently asked he.
‘‘To find them how murdered ..
kill them. . . I did so . . . and they are no more . . . Avenged! . . .
Avenged! They are An exclamation of triumph, a loud shout of infernal joy, rang
loud in the air, and awakening the dogs of the neighbouring villages a
responsive howl of barking began from that moment, like a ceaseless echo of the
Gospoja’s cry:
“I am avenged! I feel it; I
know it. My warning heart tells me that the fiends are no more.” She fell
panting on the ground, dragging down, in her fall, the girl, who allowed
herself to be pulled down as if she were a bag of wool.
‘‘I hope my subject did no
further mischief to—night. She is a dangerous as well as a very wonderful
subject,” said the Frenchman.
We parted. Three days after
that I was at T—, and as I was sitting in the dining-room of a restaurant,
waiting for my lunch, I happened to pick up a newspaper, and the first lines I
read ran thus:
VIENNA, 186—. TWO MYSTERIOUS
DEATHS.
Last evening, at 9.45, as was
about to retire, two of the gentlemen-in-wait ing suddenly exhibited great
terror, as though they had seen a dreadful apparition.
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They screamed, staggered, and
ran about the room, holding up their hands as if toward off the blows of an
unseen weapon. They paid no attention to the eager questions of the prince and
suite, but presently fell writhing upon the floor, and expired in great agony.
Their bodies exhibited no appearance of apoplexy, nor any external marks of
wounds, hot, wonderful to relate, there were numerous dark spots and long marks
upon the skin, as though they were stabs and slashes made without puncturing
the cuticle. The autopsy revealed the fact that beneath each of these
mysterious discolourations there was a deposit of coagulated blood. The
greatest excitement prevails, and the faculty are unable to solve the mystery.
HADJI MORA.
(H. P. BLAVATSKY.)
FAKIRS AND TABLES
—————
[ From the New York Sun, April
1st,1877.]
HOWEVER ignorant I may be of
the laws of the solar system, I am at all events so firm a believer in
heliocentric journalism that I sub scribe some remarks for The Sun upon my
“iconoclasm.”
No doubt it is a great honour
for an unpretending foreigner to be thus crucified between the two greatest
celebrities of your chivalrous country—the truly good Deacon Richard Smith, of
the blue gauze trousers, and the nightingale of the willow and the cypress, G.
Washington Childs, A.M. But I am not a Hindu Fakir, and therefore can not say
that I enjoy crucifixion, especially when unmerited. I do not even fancy being
swung round the “tall tower” with the steel hooks of your satire metaphorically
thrust through my back. I have not invited the reporters to a show. I have not
sought notoriety. I have only taken up a quiet corner in your free country,
and, as a woman who has travelled much, shall try to tell a Western public the
strange things I have seen among Eastern peoples. If I could have enjoyed this
privilege at home I should not be here. Being here, I shall, as your old
English proverb expresses it, “Tell the truth and shame the devil.’’
The World reporter who visited
me wrote an article which mingled his souvenirs of my stuffed apes and my
canaries, my tiger-heads and palms, with aerial music and the flitting
doppelgangers of Adepts. It was a very interesting article and was certainly
intended to be very impartial. If I appear in it to deny the immutability of
natural law, and inferentially to affirm the possibility of miracle, it is
either due to my faulty English or to the carelessness of the reader.
There are no such
uncompromising believers in the immutability and universality of the laws of
Nature as students of Occultism. Let us then, with your permission, leave the
shade of the great Newton to rest in peace. It is not the principle of the law
of gravitation, or the neces-
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sity of a central force acting
toward the sun, that is denied, but the assumption that, behind the law which
draws bodies toward the earth’s centre, and which is our most familiar example
of gravitation, there is no other law, equally immutable, that under certain
conditions appears to counteract the former.
If but once in a hundred years
a table or a Fakir is seen to rise in the air, without a visible mechanical
cause, then that rising is a manifestation of a natural law of which our
scientists are as yet ignorant. Christians believe in miracles; Occultists
credit them even less than pious scientists, Sir David Brewster, for instance.
Show an Occultist an Unfamiliar phenomenon, and he will never affirm a priori
that it is either a trick or a miracle. he will search for the cause in the
reason of causes.
There was an anecdote about
Babinet, the astronomer, current in Paris in 1854, when the great war was
raging between the Academy and the “waltzing tables.” This sceptical man of
science had proclaimed in the Revue des Deux Mondes (January, 1854, p. 414)
that the levitation of furniture without contact “was simply as impossible as
perpetual motion.” A few days later, during an experimental seance, a table was
levitated without contact in his presence. The result was that Babinet went
straight to a dentist to have a molar tooth extracted, which the iconoclastic
table in its aerial flight had seriously damaged. But it was too late to recall
his article.
I suppose nine men out of ten,
including editors, would maintain that the undulatory theory of light is one of
the most firmly establislied. And yet if you will turn to page 22 of The New
Chemistry, by Prof. Josiah P. Cooke, Jr., of Harvard University (New York,
1876), you will find him saying:
I cannot agree with those who
regard the wave-theory of light as an established principle of science. . . .
It requires a combination of qualities in the ether of space which I find it
difficult to believe are actually realized.
What is this that iconoclasm?
Let us bear in mind that
Newton himself accepted the corpuscular theory of Pythagoras and his
predecessors, from whom he learned it, and that it was only en desespoir de
cause that later scientists accepted the wave theory of Descartes and Huyghens.
Kepler maintained the magnetic nature of the sun. Leibnitz ascribed the
planetary motions to agitations of an ether. Borelli anticipated Newton in his
discovery, although he failed to demonstrate it as triumphantly. Huyghens and
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Boyle, Horrocks and Hooke,
Halley and Wren, all had ideas of a central force acting toward the sun, and of
the true principle of diminution of action of the force in the ratio of the
inverse square of the distance. The last word has not yet been spoken with
respect to gravitation; its limitations can never be known until the nature of
the sun is better understood.
They are just beginning to
recognize—see Prof. Balfour Stewart’s lecture at Manchester, entitled, The Sun
and the Earth, and Prof. A. M. Mayer’s lecture, The Earth a Great Magnet—the
intimate connection between the sun’s spots and the position of the heavenly
bodies. The interplanetary magnetic attractions are but just being demonstrated.
Until gravitation is understood to be simply magnetic attraction and repulsion,
and the part played by magnetism itself in the endless correlations of forces
in the ether of space—that “hypothetical medium,” as Webster terms it—is better
grasped, I maintain that it is neither fair nor wise to deny the levitation of
either Fakir or table. Bodies oppositely electrified attract each other;
similarly electrified they repulse each other. Admit, therefore, that any body
having weight, whether man or inanimate object, can by any cause whatever,
external or internal, be given the same polarity as the spot on which it
stands, and what is to prevent its rising?
Before charging me with
falsehood when I affirm that I have seen both men and objects levitated, you
must first dispose of the abundant testimony of persons far better known than
my humble self. Mr. Crookes, Prof. Thury of Geneva, Louis Jacolliot, your own
Dr. Gray and Dr. Warner, and hundreds of others, have, first and last,
certified the fact of levitation.
I am surprised to find how
little even the editors of your erudite contemporary, The World, are acquainted
with Oriental metaphysics in general, and the trousers of the Hindu Fakirs in
particular. It was bad enough to make those holy mendicants of the religion of
Brahmâ graduate from the Buddhist Lamaseries of Tibet; but it is unpardonable
to make them wear baggy breeches in the exercise of their religious functions.
This is as bad as if a Hindu
journalist had represented the Rev. Mr. Beecher entering his pulpit in the
scant costume of the Fakir—the dhoti, a cloth about the loins, “only that and
nothing more.” To account, therefore, for the oft-witnessed, open-air
levitations of tile Swamis and Gurus upon the theory of an iron frame concealed
beneath
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the clothing, is as reasonable
as Monsieur Babinet’s explanation of the table-tipping and tapping as
unconscious ventriloquism.
You may object to the act of
disembowelling, which I am compelled to affirm I have seen performed. It is as
you say, “remarkable,” but still not miraculous. Your suggestion that Dr.
Hammond should go and see it is a good one. Science would be the gainer, and
your humble correspondent be justified. Are you, however, in a position to guarantee
that he would furnish the world of sceptics with an example of “veracious
reporting,” if his observation should tend to overthrow the pet theories of
what we loosely call science?
Yours very respectfully,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, March 28th, 1877.
A PROTEST
[From the New York World April
6th, 1877.]
THERE was a time when the
geocentric theory was universally accepted by Christian nations, and if you and
I had then been carrying on our little philological and psychological
controversy, I should have bowed in humility to the dictum of an authority so
particularly at home in “the Mysticism of the Orient” But despite all
modifications of our astronomical system, I am no heliolater, though I do
subscribe for The Sun as well as The World. I feel no more bound to “cajole” or
conciliate the one than to suffer my feeble taper to be extinguished by the
draught made by the other in its diurnal rush through journalistic space.
As near as I can judge from
your writing there is this difference between us, that I write from personal
experience, and you upon information and belief My authorities are my eyes and
ears; yours, obsolete works of reference and the pernicious advice of a
spontaneously generated Lampsakano who learned his Mysticism from the detached
head of one Dummkopf. (See The Sun of March 25th My assertions may be
corroborated by any traveller, as they have been by the first authorities.
Elphinstone’s Kingdom of Kabul was published sixty-two years ago (1815), his
History of India thirty-six years ago. If the latter is the “standard
text-book” for British civil servants, it certainly is not so for native
Hindus, who perhaps know as much of their Philosophy and Religion as he. In
fact, a pretty wide reading of European “authorities” has given me a very poor
opinion of them, since no two agree. Sir William Jones himself, whose
shoe-strings few Orientalists are worthy to untie, made very grave mistakes,
which are now being corrected by Max Muller and others. He knew nothing of the
Vedas (see Max Muller’s Chips, vol. i. p. 183), and even expressed his belief
that Buddha was the same as the Teutonic deity Woden or Odin, and
Shâkya—another name of Buddha—the same as Shishak, a king of
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Egypt! Why, therefore, could
not Elphinstone make a mess of such subtle religious distinctions as the
innumerable sects of Hindu Mystics existing at present?
I am charged with such
ignorance that I imagine the Fakirs to be holy mendicants of the religion of
Brahma,” while you say they are not of the religion of Brahma at all, but
Mohammedans.
Does this precious piece of
information also come from Elphinstone? Then I give you a Roland for your
Oliver. I refer you to James Mill’s History of British India, vol. . i-283
(London: 1858). You say:
Those seeking ready-made
information can find our statements corroborated in any encyclopćdia.
Perhaps you refer to
Appleton’s? Very well. In the article on James Mill (vol. ii. p. 501), you will
find it saying that his India
Was the first complete work on
the subject. It was without a rival as a source of information, and the justice
of its views appeared in the subsequent measures for the government of that
country.
Now, Mill says that the
Fakirs are a sect of
Brâhmanism; and that their penances are prescribed by the Laws of Manu.
Will your Lamp-sickener, or
whatever the English of that Greek may be, say that Manu was a Mohammedan? And
yet this would be no worse than your clothing the Fakirs, who belong, as a
rule, to the Brâhman pagodas, in yellow—the colour exclusively worn by Buddhist
lamas—and breeches—which form part of the costume of the Mohammedan dervishes.
Perhaps it is a natural mistake for your Lampsakanoi, who rely upon Elphinstone
for their facts and have not visited India, to confound the Persian dervishes
with the Hindu Fakirs. But “while the lamp holds out to burn” read Louis
Jacolliot’s Bible in India, just out, and learn from a man who has passed
twenty years in India, that your correspondent is neither a fool nor a liar.
You charge me with saying that
a Fakir is a “worshipper of God.” I say I did not, as the expression I used,
“Fakir is a loose word,” well proves. It was a natural mistake of the reporter,
who did not employ stenography at our interview. I said, “A Svamis one who
devotes himself entirely to the service of God.”
All Svamis of the Nir-Narrain
sects are Fakirs, but all Fakirs are not necessarily Svamis. I refer you to
Coleman’s Mythology of the Hindus (p. 244.), and to The Asiatic Journal.
Coleman says precisely what Louis Jacolliot says, and both corroborate me. You
very oblig-
109——————————————————————A PROTEST.
ingly give me a lesson in
Hindustâni and Devanâgari, and teach me the etymology of “Guru,” “Fakir,”
“Gossain,” etc. For answer I refer you to John Shakespear’s large Hindustani-English
Dictionary. I may know less English than your Lampsakanoi, but I do know of
Hindustâni and Sanskrit more than can be learned on Park Row.
As I have said in another
communication, I did not invite the visits of reporters, nor seek the notoriety
which has suddenly been thrust upon me. If I reply to your
criticisms—rhetorically brilliant, but wholly unwarranted by the facts—it is
because I value your good opinion (without caring to cajole you), and at the
same time cannot sit quiet and be made to appear alike devoid of experience,
knowledge and truthfulness.
Respectfully, but still
rebelliously, yours,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Monday, April 2nd, 1877.
THE FATE OF THE OCCULTIST
[From the New York World, May
6th, 1877.]
FROM the first month of my
arrival in America I began, for reasons mysterious, but perhaps intelligible,
to provoke hatred among those who pretended to be on good terms with Me, if not
the best of friends. Slanderous reports, vile insinuations and innuendoes have
rained about me. For more than two years I have kept silent, although the least
of the offences attributed to me were calculated to excite the loathing of a
person of My disposition. I have rid myself of a number of these retailers of
slander, but finding that I was actually suffering in the estimation of friends
whose good opinion I valued, I adopted a policy of seclusion. For two years my
world has been in my apartments, and for an average of at least seventeen hours
a day I have sat at my desk, with my books and manuscripts as my companions.
During this time many highly-valued acquaintanceships have been formed with
ladies and gentlemen who have sought me out, without expecting me to return
their visits.
I am an old woman, and I feel
the need of fresh air as much as any one, but my disgust for the lying,
slanderous world that one finds out side of “heathen” uncivilized countries has
been such that in seven months I believe I have been out but three times. But
no retreat is secure against the anonymous slanderer, who uses the United
States mail. Letters have been received by my trusted friends containing the
foulest aspersions upon myself. At various times I have been charged with: (1)
drunkenness; (2) forgery; (3) being a Russian spy; (4) with being an
anti-Russian spy; (5) with being no Russian at all, but a French adventuress;
(6) with having been in jail for theft; (7) with being the mistress of a Polish
count in Union Square; (8) with murdering seven husbands; (9) with bigamy; (10)
with being tile mistress of Col. Olcott, (11) also of an acrobat. Other things
might be mentioned, but decency forbids.
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Since the arrival of Wong Chin
Foo the game has recomrnenced with double activity. We have received anonymous
letters and others, and newspaper slips, telling infamous stories about him. On
his part, he has received communications about us, one of which I beg you to
insert.
May 4th..
Does the disciple of Buddha
know the character of the people with whom he is at present residing? The surroundings
of a teacher of morality and religion should be moral. Are his so? On the
contrary, they are people of very doubtful reputation, as he can ascertain by
applying at the nearest police-station.
A FRIEND.
Of Wong Chin Foo’s merits or
shortcomings I know nothing, except that since his arrival his conversation and
behaviour have impressed me very favourably. He appears to be a very earnest
and enthusiastic student. However, he is a man, and is able to take care of
himself, although, like me, a foreigner. But I wish to say for myself just
this:
that I defy any person in America to come forward and prove a single charge
against my honour. I invite everyone possessed of such proof as will vindicate
them in a court of justice to publish it over their own signatures in the
newspapers. I will furnish to anyone a list of my several residences, and
contribute towards paying detectives to trace my every step. But I hereby give
notice that if any more unverifiable slanders can be traced to responsible
sources, I will invoke the protection of the law, which, it is the theory of
your national Constitution, was made for heathen as well as Christian denizens.
Respectfully,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, May 5th 1877
BUDDHISM IN AMERICA.
[From the New York Sun, May
13th, 1877.]
As, in your leading article of
May 6th, I am at one moment given credit for knowing something about the
religion of the Brâhmans and Buddhists, and, anon, of being a pretender of the
class of Jacolliot, and even his plagiarist, you will not wonder at my again
knocking at your doors for hospitality. This time I write over my own
signature, and am responsible, as I am not under other circumstances.
No wonder that the “learned
friend” at your elbow was reminded “of the utterances of one Louis Jacolliot.”
The paragraphs in the very
able account of your representative’s interview, which relate to “Adhima and
Heva” and “Jezeus Christna,” were translated bodily, in his presence, from the
French edition of the Bible in India. They were read, moreover, from the
chapter entitled, “Bagaveda”—instead of “Bhagavat,” as you put it, kindly
correcting me. In so doing, in my humble opinion, he is right, and the others
are wrong, were it but for the reason that the Hindus themselves so pronounce
it—at least those of southern India, who speak either the Tamil language or
other dialects. Since we seek in vain among Sanskrit philologists for any two
who agree as to the spelling or meaning of important Hindu words, and scarcely
two as to the orthography of this very title, I respectfully submit that
neither “the French fraud” nor I are chargeable with any grave offence in the
premises.
For instance, Prof. Whitney,
your greatest American Orientalist, and one of the most eminent living, spells
it Bagavata; while his equally great opponent, Max Muller, prefers Bagavadgitâ,
and half a dozen others spell it in as many different ways. Naturally each
scholar, in rendering the Indian words into his own vernacular, follows the
national rule of pronunciation; and so, you will see, that Prof. Muller in
writing the syllable ad with an a does precisely what Jacolliot does in
spelling it ed, the French e having the same sound as the
113————————————————————BUDDHISM IN AMERICA.
English a before a consonant.
The same holds good with the name of the Hindu Saviour, which by different
authorities is spelt Krishna, Crisna, Khristna and Krisna; everything, in
short, but the right way, Christna, Perhaps you may say that this is there
hypothesis. But since every Indianist follows his own fancy in his phonetic
transcriptions, I do not know why I may not exercise my best judgment,
especially as I can give good reasons to support it.
You affirm that there “never
was a Hindu reformer named Jezeus Christna”; and, although I confined my
affirmation of his existence to the authority of Jacolliot at the interview in
question, I now assert on my own responsibility that there was, and is, a
personage of that name recognized and worshipped in India, and that he is not
Jesus Christ. Christna is a Brâhmanical deity, and, besides by the Brâhmans, is
recognized by several sects of the Jains. When Jacolliot says “Jezeus
Christna,” he only shows a little clumsiness in phonetic rendering, and is
nearer right than many of his critics. I have been at the festivals of Janmotsar,
in commemoration of the birth of Christna (which is their Christmas) and have
heard thousands of voices shouting: “Jas-i Christna! Jasas-wi-Christna!”
Translated they are: Jas-i, renowned, famous, and Jasas-wi, celebrated, or
divinely-renowned, powerful; and Christna, sacred. To avoid being again
contradicted, I refer the reader to any Hindustâni dictionary. All the Brâhmans
with whom I have talked on the subject spoke of Christna either as
Jas-i-Christna, or Jadar Christna, or again used the term, Yadur-pati, Lord of
Yâdavas, descendant of Yadu, one of the many titles of Christna in India. You
see, therefore, that it is but a question of spelling.
That Christna is preferable to
Krishna can be clearly shown under the rules laid down by Burnouf and others
upon the authority of the pandits. True, the initial of the name in the
Sanskrit is generally written k; but the Sanskrit k is strongly aspirated; it
is a guttural expiration, whose only representation is the Greek chi. In
English, therefore, the k instead of having the sound of k as in king would be
even more aspirated than the h in heaven. As in English the Greek word is
written Christos in preference to H’ristos, which would be nearer the mark, so
with the Hindu deity; his name under the same rule should be written Christna,
notwithstanding the possible unwelcomeness of the resemblance.
M. Taxtor de Ravisi, a French
Catholic Orientalist, and for ten years Governor of Karikal (India),
Jacolliot’s bitterest opponent in religious
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conclusions, fully appreciates
the situation. He would have the name spelt Krishna, because (1) most of the
statues of this God are black, and Krishna means black; and (2) because the
real name of Christna “was Kaneya, or Caneya.” Very well; but black is Krishna.
And if not only Jacolliot, but the Brâhnians themselves are not to be allowed
to know as much as their European critics, we will call in the aid of Volney
and other Orientalists, who show that the Hinds deity’s name is formed from the
radical Chris, meaning sacred, as Jacolliot shows it. Moreover, for the
Brâhmans to call their God the “black one would be unnatural and absurd; while
to style him the sacred, or pure essence, would be perfectly appropriate to
their notions. As to the name being Caneya, M. Taxtor de Ravisi, in suggesting
it, completes his own discomfiture. In escaping Scylla he falls into Charybdis.
I suppose no one will deny that the Sanskrit Kanyâ means Virgin, for even in
modern Hindustâni the Zodiacal sign of Virgo is called Kaniya. Christna is
styled Kâneya, as having been born of a Virgin. Begging pardon, then, of the
“learned friend” at your elbow, I reaffirm that if there “never was a Hindu
reformer named Jezeus Christna,” there was a Hindu Saviour, who is worshipped
unto this day as Jasi Christna, or, if it better accords with his pious
preferences, Jas-i-Kristna.
When the 84,000 volumes of the
Dharma Khanda, or sacred books of the Buddhists, and the thousands upon
thousands of ollć of Vaidic and Brâhmanical literature, now known by their
titles only to European scholars, or even a tithe of those actually in their
possession are translated, and comprehended, and agreed upon, I will be happy
to measure swords again with the solar pandit who has prompted your severe reflections
upon your humble subscriber
Though, in common with various
authorities, you stigmatize Jacolliot as a “French fraud,” I must really do him
the justice to say that his Catholic opponent, De Ravisi, said of his Bible in
India, in a report made at the request of the Sociéte Académique de St.
Quentin, that it is written
With good faith, of absorbing
interest, a learned work on known facts and with familiar arguments.
Ten years’ residence and
studies in India were surely enough to fit him to give an opinion.
Unfortunately, however, in America it is but too easy to gain the reputation of
“a fraud” in much less time.
Respectfully,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
RUSSIAN ATROCITIES
[From the New York World, Aug.
13th, 1877.]
THE Sublime Porte has had the
sublime effrontery to ask the American people to execrate Russian barbarity. It
appeals for sympathy on behalf of helpless Turkish subjects at the seat of war.
With the memories of Bulgaria and Servia still fresh, this seems the climax of
daring hypocrisy. Barely a few months ago the reports of Mr. Schuyler and other
impartial observers of the atrocities of Bashi Bazouks sent a thrill of horror
through the world. Perpetrated under official sanction, they aroused the
indignation of all who had hearts to feel. In to-day’s paper I read another
account of pretended Russian cruelties, and your able and just editorial
comments upon the same. Permit one who is, perhaps, in a better position than
any other private person here to know what is taking place at the front, to
inform you of certain facts derived from authentic sources. Besides receiving
daily papers from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tiflis and Odessa, I have an uncle, a
cousin and a nephew on active service, and every steamer brings me accounts of
military improvements from eye-witnesses. My cousin and nephew have taken part
in all bloody engagements in Turkish Armenia up to the present time, and were
at the siege and capture of Ardahan. Newspapers may suppress, colour or
exaggerate facts; the private letters of brave soldiers to their families
rarely do.
Let me say, then, that during
this campaign the Turkish troops have been guilty of such fiendish acts as to
make me pray that my relatives may be killed rather than fall into their hands.
In a letter from the Danube, corroborated by several correspondents of German
and Austrian papers, the writer says:
On June 20th we entered
Kozlovetz, a Bulgarian town of about two hundred houses, which lies three or
four hours distant from Sistova. The sight which met our eyes made the blood of
every Russian soldier run cold, hardened though he is to such scenes. On the
principal street of the deserted town were placed in rows 140 beheaded bodies
of men, women, and children. The heads of these unfortu-
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nates were tastefully piled in
a pyramid in the middle of the street. Among the smoking ruins of every house
we found half-burned corpses, fearfully mutilated. We caught a Turkish soldier,
and to our questions he reluctantly confessed that their chiefs had given
orders not to leave a Christian place, however small, before burning it and
putting to death every man, woman, and child.
On the first day that the
Danube was crossed some foreign correspondents, among them that of the Cologne
Gazette, saw several bodies of Russian soldiers whose noses, ears, hands, etc.,
had been cut off, while the genital organs had been stuffed into the mouths of
the corpses. Later, three bodies of Christian women were found—a mother and two
daughters—whose condition makes one almost drop the pen in horror at the
thought. Entirely nude, split open from below to the navel, their heads cut
off; the wrists of each corpse were tied together with strips of skin and flesh
flayed from the shoulder down; and the corpses of the three martyrs were
similarly bound to each other by long ribbons of flesh dissected from their
thighs.
A correspondent writes from
Sistova:
The Emperor continues his
daily visits to the hospitals and passes whole hours with the wounded. A few
(lays ago His Majesty, accompanied by Colonel Wellesley, the British military
attache, visited two unfortunate Bulgarians who died on the night following.
The skull of one of them was split open both laterally and vertically, by two
sword-cuts, an eye was torn out, and he was otherwise mutilated. He explained,
as well as he could, that several Turks seeing him, demanded his money. As he
had none, four of the party held him fast while the fifth, brandishing his
sword, and repeating all the time, “There, you Christian dog, there’s your
cross for you!” first split his skull from the forehead to the back of the
head, and then crosswise from ear to ear. While the Emperor was listening to
these details the greatest agony was depicted upon his face. Taking Colonel
Wellesley by the arm, and pointing to the Bulgarian, he said to him in French:
“See the work of your prolégés’” The British officer blushed and was much
confused.
The special correspondent of
the London Standard, describing his audience with the Grand Duke Nicholas,
Commander-in-Chief, on July 7th, says that the Grand Duke communicated to him
the most horrifying details about the cruelties committed at Dobroudga. A
Christian whose hands were tied with strips of his own skin cut from the length
of both his arms, and his tongue cut down from the root, was laid at the feet
of the Emperor and died there before the eyes of the Czar and the British
agent, the same Colonel Wellesley, who was in attendance. Turning to the
latter, His Majesty, with a stern expression, asked him to inform his
Government of what he had just seen for himself. Says the correspondent:
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From the beginning of the war
I have heard of quite a number of such cases, but never witnessed one myself:
After the personal assurances given to me by the Grand Duke, it is no longer
possible to doubt that the Turkish officers are unable to control their
irregular troops.
The correspondent of The
Northern Messenger had gone the rounds of the hospitals to question the wounded
soldiers. Four of them, belonging to the Second Battalion of Minsk Rifles,
testified with the most solemn asseverations that they had seen the Turks
approach the wounded, rob them, mutilate their bodies in the most cruel way,
finish them with the bayonet. They themselves had avoided this fate only by
feigning death. It is a common thing for wounded Turks to allure Russian
soldiers and members of the sanitary corps to their assistance, and, as they
bend over them, to kill with a revolver or dagger those who would relieve them.
A case like this occurred under the eye of one of my correspondents in Turkish
Armenia, and was in all the Russian papers. A sergeant’s assistant (a sanitar)
was despatched under such circumstances; thereupon a soldier standing by killed
the assassin.
My cousin, Major Alexander U.
White—of the Sixteenth Nijegorodsk Dragoons, one of the most gallant soldiers
in the army of Loris Melikof and who has just been decorated by the Grand Duke,
under the authority of the Emperor, with a golden sword inscribed, “For
Bravery”—says that it is becoming positively dangerous to relieve a wounded
Turk. The people who robbed and killed the wounded in the hospital at Ardahan
upon the entry of the Russian troops were the Karapapahs, Mussulmans and the
supposed allies of the Turks. During the siege they prudently awaited the issue
from a safe distance. As soon as the Russians conquered, the Karapapahs flew
like so many tigers into the town, slaying the wounded Turks, robbing the dead,
pillaging houses, bringing the horses and mules of the fleeing enemy into the
Russian camp, and swearing allegiance to the Commander-in-Chief. The Cossacks
had all the trouble in the world to prevent their new allies from continuing
the greatest excesses. To charge, therefore, upon the Russians the atrocities
of these cowardly jackals (a nomadic tribe of brigands) is an impudent lie of
Mukhtar Pasha, whose falsifications have become so notorious that some Parisian
papers have nicknamed him “Blaguer Pasha.” His despatches are only matched in
mendacity by those of the Spanish commanders in Cuba.
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The stupidity of charging such
excesses upon the Russian army becomes apparent when we remember that the
policy of the Government from the first has been to pay liberally for supplies,
and win the goodwill of the people of the invaded provinces by kindness. So
marked and successful has this policy proved in General Loris Melikof’s field
of operations, that the anti-Russian papers of England, Austria and other countries
have denounced it as Russian “craft.” With the Danubian forces is the Emperor
in person, liberator of millions of serfs, and the mildest and justest
sovereign who has ever occupied the throne of any country. As he won the love
of his whole people and the adoration of his army by his sense of justice and
benevolent regard, I ask you if he is likely to countenance any cruel excesses?
While the cowardly Abdul-Hamid hides in the alcoves of his harem, and of the
imperial princes none have taken the field, the Czar follows his army, step by
step, submits to comparatively severe and unaccustomed hardships, and exposes
his health and life against all the rernonstrances and prayers of Prince
Gortschakof. His four sons are all in active service, and the son of the Grand
Duke Nicholas was decorated at the crossing of the Danube for personal courage,
having exposed his life for hours under a shower of bullets.
I only ask the American people
to do justice to their long-tried and unfaltering friends, the Russians.
However politicians may have planned, the Russian people have entered this war
as a holy crusade to rescue millions of helpless Slavonians—their brothers—of
the Danube from Turkish cruelty. The people have dragged the Government to the
field. Russia is surrounded by false neutrals, who but watch the opportunity to
fly at her throat, and, shameful fact, the blessing of the Pope rests upon the
Moslem standards, and his curse against his fellow Christians has been read in
all the Catholic churches. For my part, I care a great deal less even than my
countrymen for his blessings or curses, for besides other reasons I regard this
war not as one of Christian against Moslem, but as one of humanity and
civilization against barbarism. This is the view of the Catholic Czecks of
Bohemia. So great was their indignation at what they rightly considered the
dishonour of the Roman Catholic Church that on July 4th—anniversary of the
martyrdom of John Huss—notwithstanding the efforts of the police, they repaired
in multitudes to the heights of Smichovo, Beraun and other hills around Prague,
and burnt at the stake the portraits and wax effigies of the Pope and the
Prince Archbishop
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Schwartzenberg, and the papal
discourse against the Russian Emperor and army, singing the while Slavonian
national songs, and shouting, “Down with the Pope! Death to the Ultramontanes!
Hurrah for the Czar-Liberator! “—all of which shows that there are good
Catholics among the Slavonians, at least, who rightly hold in higher estimation
the principles of national solidarity than foolish dogmas of the Vatican, even
though backed by pretended infallibility.
Respectfully,
August 9th H. P. BLAVATSKY.
WASHING THE DISCIPLES’ FEET
[From the New York Sun, August
16th, 1877.]
AT the ceremony of
“feet-washing” which occurred at Limwood Camp-ground, August 8th, and is
described in The Sun of to-day, Elder Jones, of Mechanicsburg, Pa., professed
to give the history of this ancient custom. The report says:
He claimed that its origin did
not date anterior to the coming of Christ; neither was the matter of
cleanliness to be thought of in this connection. Its observance was due
exclusively to the fact that it was a scriptural injunction; it originated in
Christ’s example, and it devolved upon his hearers to follow this example.
Numerous scriptural passages were quoted in support of this argument.
The reverend gentleman is in
error. The ceremony was first performed by the Hindu Christna (or Krishna) who
washed the feet of his Brâhmans as an example of humility, many thousand years
anterior to the Christian era. Chapter and verse will be given, if required,
from the Brâhmanical books. Meanwhile, the reader is referred to the Rev. John
P. Lundy’s Monumental christianity, p. 154.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
TRICKERY OR MAGIC?
—————
[From The
Religio-Philosophical Journal, Dec. 22nd, 1877.]
A wise saying is that which
affirms that he who seeks to prove too much, in the end proves nothing. Prof.
W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S. (and otherwise alphabetically adorned), furnishes a
conspicuous example in his strife with men better than himself. His assaults
accumulate bitterness with every new periodical he makes his organ, and in
proportion with the increase of his abuse his arguments lose force and cogency.
And, forsooth, he nevertheless lectures his antagonists for their lack of “calm
discussion,” as though he were not the very type of controversial
nitro-glycerine! Rushing at them with his proofs, which are “incontrovertible”
only in his own estimation, he commits himself more than once. By one of such
committals I mean to profit to-day, by citing some-curious experiences of my
own.
My object in writing the
present is far from that of taking any part in this onslaught upon reputations.
Messrs. Wallace and Crookes are well able to take care of themselves. Each has
contributed in his own specialty towards real progress in useful knowledge more
than Dr. Carpenter in his. Both have been honoured for valuable original
researches and discoveries, while their accuser has been often charged with
being no better than a very clever compiler of other men’s ideas. After reading
the able rejoinders of the “defendants” and the scathing review of the
mace-swinging Prof. Buchanan, every one, except his friends, the psychophobists,
can see that Dr. Carpenter is completely floored. He is as dead as the
traditional door nail.
In the December supplement of
The Popular Science Monthly, I find, (p.116) the interesting admission that a
poor Hindu juggler can perform a feat that quite takes the great Professor’
breath away! In comparison, the mediumistic phenomena of Miss Nichol (Mrs.
Guppy) are of no account. Says Dr. Carpenter:
The celebrated “tree-trick,”
which most people who have been long in India have seen, as described by
several of our most distinguished civilians and scientific
122————————————————————
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A MODERN PANARION.
officers, is simply the
greatest marvel I ever heard of. That a mango-tree should first shoot up to a
height of six inches, from a grass-plot to which the conjurers had no previous
access, beneath an inverted cylindrical basket, whose emptiness has been
previously demonstrated, and that this tree should appear to grow in the course
of half an hour from six inches to six feet, under a succession of taller and
yet taller baskets, beats Miss Nichol.
Well, I should think it did.
At any rate, it beats anything that any F.R.S. can show by daylight or dark, in
the Royal Institution or else where. Would not one think that such a phenomenon
so attested, and occurring under circumstances that preclude trickery, would
provoke scientific investigation? If not, what would? But observe the knot hole
through which an F.R.S. can creep out. “Does Mr. Wallace,” ironically asks the
Professor,
Attribute this to a spiritual
agency? or, like the world in general [of course meaning the world that science
created and Carpenter energizes] and the performers of the tree-trick in
particular, does he regard it as a piece of clever jugglery?
Leaving Mr. Wallace, if he
survives this Jovian thunder-bolt, to answer for himself, I have to say for the
“performers” that they would respond with an emphatic “No” to both
interrogatories. The Hindu jugglers neither claim for their performance a
“spiritual agency,” nor admit it to be a “trick of clever jugglery.” The ground
they take is that the tricks are produced by certain powers inherent in man him
self, which may he used for a good or bad purpose. And the ground that I,
humbly following after those whose opinion is based on really exact
psychological experiments and knowledge, take, is, that neither Dr. Carpenter
nor his body-guard of scientists, though their titles stream after their names
like the tail after a kite, have as yet the slightest conception of these
powers. To acquire even a superficial knowledge of them, they must change their
scientific and philosophical methods. Following after Wallace and Crookes, they
must begin with the A B C of Spiritualism, which—meaning to be very
scornful—Dr. Carpenter terms “the centre of enlightenment and progress.” They
must take their lessons not alone from the true but as well from spurious
phenomena, from what his (Carpenter’s) chief authority, the “arch-priest of the
new religion,” properly classifies as “Delusions, Absurdities and Trickeries.”
After wading through all this, as every intelligent investigator has had to do,
he may get some glimpses of truth. It is as useful to learn what the phenomena
are not, as to find out what they are.
123————————————————————TRICKERY OR MAGIC?
Dr. Carpenter has two patent keys
warranted to unlock every secret door of the mediumistic cabinet. They are
labelled “expectancy” and “prepossession.” Most scientists have some pick-lock
like this. But to the “tree-trick” they scarcely apply; for neither his
“distinguished civilians” nor “scientific officers” could have expected to see
a stark- naked Hindu on a strange glass-plot, in full daylight, make a
mango-tree grow six feet from the seed in half an hour, their “prepossessions”
would be all against it. It cannot be a “spiritual agency”; it must be
“jugglery.” Now Maskelyne and Cooke, two clever English jugglers, have been
keeping the mouths and eyes of all London wide open with their exposures of
Spiritualism. They are admired by all the scientists, and at Slade’s trial
figured as expert witnesses for the prosecution. They are at Dr. Carpenter’s
elbow. Why does he not call them to explain this clever jugglery, and make
Messrs. Wallace and Crookes blush with shame at their own idiocy? All the
tricks of the trade are familiar to them; where can science find better allies?
But we must insist upon identical conditions. The “Tree-Trick” must not be per
formed by gas-light on the platform of any Egyptian Hall, nor with the
performers in full evening dress. It must be in broad daylight, on a strange
grass-plot to which the conjurers had no previous access. There must he no
machinery, no confederates, white cravats and swallow-tail coats must be laid
aside, and the English champions appear in the primitive apparel of Adam and
Eve—a tight-fitting “coat of skin,” and with the single addition of a dhoti, or
a breech cloth seven inches wide. The Hindus do all this, and we only ask fair
play. If they raise a mango-sapling under these circumstances, Dr. Carpenter
will he at perfect liberty to beat therewith the last remnant of brains out of
the head of any “crazy Spiritualist” he may encounter. But until then, the less
he says about Hindus jugglery the better for his scientific reputation.
It is not to be denied that in
India, China and elsewhere in the East there are veritable jugglers who exhibit
tricks. Equally true is it that some of these performances surpass any with
which Western people are acquainted. But these are neither Fakirs nor the
performers of the “mango-tree” marvel, as described by Dr. Carpenter. Even this
is sometimes imitated both by Indian and European adepts in sleight of-hand,
but under totally different conditions. Modestly following in the rear of the
“distinguished civilians” and “scientific officers,” I will now narrate something
which I have seen with my own eyes.
124————————————————————
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
A MODERN PANARION.
While at Cawnpur, en route to
Benares, the holy city, a lady, my travelling companion, was robbed of the
entire contents of a small trunk. Jewelry, dresses, and even her note-book,
containing a diary which she had been carefully compiling for over three
months, had mysteriously disappeared, without the lock of the valise having
been disturbed. Several hours, perhaps a night and a day had passed since the
robbery, as we had started at daybreak to explore some neighbouring ruins,
still freshly allied with the Nana Sahib’s reprisals on the English. My
companion’s first thought was to call upon the local police; mine for the help
of some native gossain (a holy man supposed to be informed of everything) or at
least a jadugar, or conjurer. But the ideas of civilization prevailed, and a
whole week was wasted in fruitless visits to the chabutara (police-house), and
interviews with the kotwal, its chief. In despair, my expedient was at last
resorted to, and a gossain procured. We occupied a small bungalow at the
extreme end of one of the suburbs, on the right bank of the Ganges, and from
the verandah a full view of the river was had, which at that place was very
narrow.
Our experiment was made on
that verandah in the presence of the family of the landlord—a half-caste
Portuguese from the south—my friend and myself and two freshly-imported
Frenchmen, who laughed outrageously at our superstition. Time, three o’clock in
the afternoon. The heat was suffocating, but notwithstanding, the holy man—a
coffee coloured, living skeleton—demanded that the motion of the pankah
(hanging fan worked by a cord) should be stopped. He gave no reason, but it was
because the agitation of the air interferes with all delicate magnetic
experiments. We had all heard of the “rolling pot” as an agency for the
detection of theft in India—a common iron pot being made, under the influence
of a Hindu conjurer, to roll of its own impulse, without any hands touching it,
to the very spot where the stolen goods are concealed. The gossain proceeded
otherwise. He first of all demanded some article that had been latest in
contact with the contents of the valise; a pair of gloves was handed him. He
pressed them between his thin palms, and, rolling them over and over again,
then dropped them on the floor and proceeded to turn himself slowly around,
with arms outstretched and fingers expanded, as though he were seeking the
direction in which the property lay. Suddenly he stopped with a jerk, sank
gradually to the floor and remained motionless, sitting cross-legged and with
his arms still outstretched in the
125————————————————————TRICKERY OR MAGIC?
same direction, as though
plunged in a cataleptic trance. This lasted for over an hour, which in that
suffocating atmosphere was to us one long torture. Suddenly the landlord sprang
from his seat to the balustrade, and began intently looking towards the river,
in which direction our eyes also turned. Coming from whence, or how, we could not
tell, but out there, over the water, and near its surface, was a dark object
approaching. What it was we could not make out; but the mass seemed impelled by
some interior force to revolve, at first slowly, but then faster and faster as
it drew near. It was as though supported on an invisible pavement, and its
course was in a direct line as the bee flies. It reached the bank, disappeared
again among the high vegetation, and anon, rebounding with force as it leaped
over the low garden wall, flew rather than rolled on to the verandah and
dropped with a heavy thud under the extended palms of the gossain. A violent,
convulsive tremor shook the frame of the old man, as with a deep sigh he opened
his half-closed eyes. All were astonished, but the French men stared at the
bundle with an expression of idiotic terror in their eyes. Rising from the
ground the holy man opened the tarred canvas envelope, and within were found
all the stolen articles down to the least thing. Without a word or waiting for
thanks, he salaamed low to the company and disappeared through the doorway,
before we recovered from our surprise. We had to run after him a long way
before we could press upon him a dozen rupees, which blessings he received in
his wooden bowl.
This may appear a very surprising
and incredible story to Europeans and Americans who have never been in India.
But we have Dr. Carpenter’s authority for it, that even his “distinguished
civilian” friends and “scientific officers,” who are as little likely to sniff
out anything mystical there with their aristocratic noses as Dr. Carpenter to
see it with his telescopic, microscopic, double-magnifying scientific eyes in
England, have witnessed the mango “tree-trick,” which is still more wonderful.
If the latter is “clever jugglery” the other must be, too. Will the
white-cravated and swallow-tailed gentlemen of the Egyptian Hall, please show
the Royal Society how either is done?
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
THE JEWS IN RUSSIA
[From the New York World,
Sept. 25th, 1877.]
IT is to be regretted that your
incandescent contemporary, The Sun, should have no better sources of
information. It stated on Saturday last that
In Russia the persecution of
the Israelites is continued, with nearly all its ancient cruelty. They are not
permitted to reside in many of the greatest cities. Kief and Novgorod as well
as Moscow are forbidden to them, and even in the rural districts they are
burdened with multiform exactions.
This is the reverse of
correct, as is also the further statement that
They have been robbed and oppressed
in Bulgaria by the Russians.
The murdering and plundering
at the seat of war, it is now pretty well settled, has been done by the Turks
exclusively, and, notwithstanding that the English and other Turkophile organs
have diligently cast the blame upon the Russians, the plot f the Ottoman
Government, thanks to the honest old German Emperor, is now discovered. The
Turks are convicted of systematic lying, and nearly every country, including
England herself, has sent a protest to the Sublime Porte against atrocities. As
to the condition of Israelites in Russia, it has immensely improved since the
ascension of Alexander II to the throne of his father. For more than ten years
they have been placed on jury duty, admitted to the bar, and otherwise accorded
civil rights and privileges. If social disabilities still linger, we are
scarcely the ones to chide, in view of our Saratoga and Long Branch customs,
and the recent little unpleasantness between Mr. Hilton and the descendants of
the “chosen people.”
If your neighbour would take
the trouble to ask any traveller or Russian Israelite now in America, it would
learn that Kief, as well as other “greatest cities” are full of Jews; that in
fact there are more Jews than Gentiles in the first-named of these cities. Pretty
much all trade is in their hands, and they furnish even all the olive-oil that
is perma-
127————————————————————THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.
nently burnt at the rakka
(shrines) of the 700 orthodox saints whose beatified mummies fill up the
catacombs of Kief, and the wax for the candles on all the altars. It is again
the Jews who keep the dram-shops, or Kabak, where the faithful congregate after
service to give a last fillip to their devotional ardour. It is barely four
months since the chief Rabbi of Moscow published in the official Viedomosty an
earnest address to his co-religionists throughout the empire to remind them
that they were Russians by nativity, and called upon them to display their
patriotism in subscriptions for the wounded, prayers in the synagogues for the
success of the Russian arms, and in all other practical ways. In 1870, during
the emeut in Odessa, which was caused by some Jewish children throwing dirt
into the church on Easter night, and which lasted more than a week, the Russian
soldiers shot and bayoneted twelve Christian Russians and not a single Jew;
while—and I speak as an eye-witness—over two hundred rioters were publicly
whipped by order of the Governor-General, Kotzebue, of whom none were
Israelites. That there is a hatred between them and the more fanatical
Christians is true, but the Russian Government can be no more blamed for this
than the British and American Governments because Orangemen and Catholics
mutually hate, beat, and occasionally kill each other.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, Sept. 24th 1877.
H. P. BLAVATSKY’S MASONIC
PATENT
[From The Franklin Register,
Feb. 8th, 1878.]
[ EDITORIAL.— are gratified to
be able to present to the readers of The Register this week, the following
highly-characteristic letter, prepared expressly for our paper by Madame Helen
P. Blavatsky, the authoress of Isis Unveiled. In this letter the lady defends
the validity of her diploma as a Mason, reference to which was had in our issue
of January 8th. The immediate cause of the letter from Madame B. was the
multiplication of attacks upon her claim to that distinguished honour both
before and since the publication mentioned.
The field is open for a
rejoinder; and we trust that a champion will appear, to defend that which she
so vigorously and bravely assails.
That the subject-matter in
controversy may be seen at a glance by those who may not be regular readers of
our paper, we again print the text of her diploma.
To the Glory of the Sublime
Architect of the Universe.
Ancient and Primitive Rite of
Masonry, derived through the Charter of the
Sovereign Sanctuary of
America, from the Grand Council of the
Grand Lodge of France.
Salutation on all points of
the Triangle.
Respect to the Order.
Peace, Tolerance, Truth.
To all Illustrious and
Enlightened Masons throughout the world—union, prosperity,
friendship, fraternity.
We, the The Sovereign Grand
Master General, and we, the Sovereign Grand Conservators, thirty-third and last
degree of the Sovereign Sanctuary for England, Wales, etc., decorated with the
Grand Star of Sirius, etc., Grand Commanders of the Three Legions of the
Knights of Masonry, by virtue of the high authority with which we are invested,
have declared and proclaimed, and by these presents do declare and proclaim our
illustrious and enlightened Brother, H. P. Blavatsky, to be an Apprentice,
Companion, Perfect Mistress, Sublime Elect
129———————————————H. P. BLAVATSKY’S MASONIC PATENT.
Scotch Lady, Grand Elect,
Chevaliere de Rose Croix, Adonaite Mistress, Perfect Venerable Mistress, and a
crowned Princess of Rite of Adoption.
Given under our hands and the
seals of the Sovereign Sanctuary for England and Wales, sitting in the Valley
of London, this 24th day of November, 1877, year of true light ooo,ooo,ooo.
JOHN YARKER, thirty-third
degree, Sovereign Grand Master.
M. CASPARI, thirty-third
degree, Grand chancellor.
A. D. LOEWENSRARK,
thirty-third degree, Grand Secretary.]
—————
To the Editor of “ The Frankin
Register.”
I am obliged to correct
Certain errors in your highly complimentary editorial in The Register of
January 18th. You say that I have taken “the regular degrees in Masonic Lodges”
and attained high dignity in the order, and further add:
Upon Madame B. has recently
been conferred the diploma of the thirty-third Masonic Degree, from the oldest
Masonic body in the world.
If you will kindly refer to my
Isis Unveiled (vol. ii. p. 394), YOU will find me saying:
We are neither under promise,
obligation, nor oath, and therefore violate no confidence,—reference being made
to Western Masonry, to the criticism of which the chapter is devoted; and full
assurance is given that I have never taken “the regular degrees” in any Western
Masonic Lodge. Of course, therefore, having taken no such degrees, I am not a
thirty-third degree Mason. In a private note, also in your most recent
editorial, you state that you find yourself taken to task by various Masons,
among them one who has taken thirty-three degrees—which include the
“Ineffable”—for what you said about me. My Masonic experience—if you will so
term membership in several Eastern Masonic Fraternities and Esoteric
Brotherhoods—is confined to the Orient. But, nevertheless, this neither
prevents my knowing, in common with all Eastern “Masons,” everything connected
with Western Masonry (including the numberless humbugs that have been imposed
upon the Craft during the last half century) nor, since the receipt of the
diploma from the “Sovereign Grand Master,” of which you publish the text, my
being entitled to call myself a Mason. Claiming nothing, therefore, in Western
Masonry but what is expressed in the above diploma, you will perceive that your
Masonic mentors must transfer their quarrel to John Yarker, jun., P.M., P.Mk.,
M.Pz., P.G.C., and M.W.S.K.T. and R.C., K.T., P.K.H., and K.A.R.S., P.M.W.,
P.S.G.C. and P.S.,
130———————————————————
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
A MODERN PANARION.
Dai AD., A. and P. Rite, to
the man, in short, who is recognized in England and Wales and the whole world,
as a member of the Masonic Archćological Institute; as Honorary Fellow of the
London Literary Union; of Lodge No. 227, Dublin; of the Bristol College of
Rosicrucians; who is Past Grand Mareschal of the Temple; member of the Royal
Grand Council of the Antient Rites time immemorial; keeper of the Ancient Royal
Secrets, Grand Commander of Mizraim, Ark Mariners, Red Cross Constantine,
Babylon and Palestine, R. Grand Superintendent for Lancashire, Sovereign Grand
Conservator of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Masonry, thirty-third and last
degree, etc., from whom the Patent issued.
Your “Ineffable” friend must
have cultivated his spiritual perceptions to small purpose in the investigation
and contemplation of the “Ineffable Name,” from the fourth to the fourteenth
degrees of that gilded humbug, the A. and A. Rite, if he could say that there
is,
No authority for a derivation
through the charter of the Sovereign Sanctuary of America, to issue this
patent.
He lives in a veritable
Crystal Palace of Masonic glass, and must look out for falling stones. Brother
Yarker says, in his Notes on the
Modern Rosicrucianism and the
various Rites and Degrees (p. 149), that the Grand Orient, derived from the
Craft Grand Lodge of England, in 1725, works and recognizes the following
Rites, appointing representatives with chapters in America and elsewhere: 1.
French Rite; 2. Rite of Heredom; 3. A. and A. Rite; 4. Rite of Kilwinning; 5.
Philosophical Rite; 6. Rite du Régime rectif; 7. Rite of Memphis; 8. Rite of
Mizraim. All under a grand college of Rites.
The A. and P. Rite was
originally chartered in America, November 9th 1856, with David McChellan as G.
M. [ Kenneth Mackenzie’s Royal Masonic Cyclopćdia p. 43], and in 1862 submitted
entirely to the Grand Orient of France. In 1862, the Grand Orient vised and
sealed the American Patent of Seymour as G. M., and mutual representatives were
appointed, down to 1866, when the relations of the G. 0. with America were
ruptured, and the American Sovereign Sanctuary took up its position, “in the
bosom” of the Ancient Cernear Council, of the “Scottish Rite” of thirty-three
degrees, as John Yarker says, in the above quoted work. In 1872 a Sovereign
Sanctuary of the Rite was established in England, by the American Grand Body,
with John Yarker as Grand Master. Down to the present time the legality of
Seymour’s Sanctuary has never been disputed by the Grand Orient of France, and
reference to it is found in Marconis de Nčgre’s books.
131——————————————————H. P. BLAVATSKY’S MASONIC PATENT.
It sounds very grand, no
doubt, to be a thirty-second degreeist, and an “Ineffable” one into the
bargain; but read what Robert B. Folger, M.D., Past Master thirty-third, says
himself in his Ancient’ and Accepted Scottish Rite in Thirty-three Degrees:
With reference to the other
degrees, . . . (with the exception of the thirty third, which was manufactured
in Charleston) they were all in the possession of the G. 0. before, but were
termed ... obsolete.
And further: he asks:
Who were the persons that
formed this Supreme Council of the thirty-third degree? And where did they get
that degree, or the power to confer it?
Their patents have never been
produced, nor has any evidence ever yet been given that they came in possession
of the thirty-third degree in a regular and lawful manner (pp. 92, 95, 96).
That an American Rite, thus
spuriously organized, declines to acknowledge the Patent of an English
Sovereign Sanctuary, duly recognized by the Grand Orient of France, does not at
all invalidate my claim to Masonic honours. As well might Protestants refuse to
call the Dominicans Christians, because they—the Protestants—broke away from the
Catholic Church and set up for themselves, as for A. and A. Masons of America
to deny the validity of a Patent from an English A. and P. Rite body. Though I
have nothing to do with American modern Masonry, and do not expect to have,
yet, feeling highly honoured by the distinction conferred upon me by Brother
Yarker, I mean to stand for my chartered rights, and to recognize no other
authority than that of the high Masons of England, who have been pleased to
send me this unsolicited and unexpected testimonial of their approval of my
humble labours.
Of a piece with the above is
the ignorant rudeness of certain critics who pronounce Cagliostro an “impostor”
and his desire of engrafting Eastern Philosophy upon Western Masonry
“charlatanism.” Without such a union Western Masonry is a corpse without a
soul. As Yarker observes, in his Notes on the Mysteries of Antiquity:
As the Masonic fraternity is
now governed, the Craft is becoming a storehouse of paltry Masonic emperors and
other charlatans, who swindle their brothers, and feather their nests out of
the aristocratic pretensions which they have tacked on to our institutions—ad
captanduin vulgus.
Respectfully,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
VIEWS OF THE THEOSOPHISTS
[From the London
Spiritualist.]
PERMIT a humble Theosophist to
appear for the first time in your columns, to say a few words in defence of our
beliefs. I see in your issue of December 21St ultimo, one of your
correspondents, Mr. J. Croucher, makes the following very bold assertions:
Had the Theosophists
thoroughly comprehended the nature of the soul and spirit, and its relation to
the body, they would have known that if the soul once leaves, it leaves for
ever.
This is so ambiguous that,
unless he uses the term “soul” to designate only the vital principle, I can
only suppose that he falls into the common error of calling the astral body,
spirit, and the immortal essence, “soul.” We Theosophists, as Col. Olcott has
told you, do vice versa.
Besides the unwarranted
imputation on us of ignorance, Mr. Croucher has an idea (peculiar to himself)
that the problem which has heretofore taxed the powers of the metaphysicians in
all ages has been solved in our own. It is hardly to be supposed that
Theosophists or any others “thoroughly” comprehend the nature of the soul and
spirit, and their relation to the body. Such an achievement is for Omniscience,
and we Theosophists treading the path worn by the footsteps of the old Sages in
the moving sands of exoteric philosophy, can only hope to approximate to the
absolute truth. It is really more than doubtful whether Mr. Croucher can do
better, even though an “inspirational medium,’’ and experienced ‘‘through
constant sittings with one of the best trance mediums” in your country. I may
well leave to time and Spiritual Philosophy to entirely vindicate us in the far
here after. When any Śdipus of this or the next century shall have solved this
eternal enigma of the Sphinx—man, every modern dogma, not excepting some pets
of the Spiritualists, will be swept away, as the Theban monster, according to
the legend, leaped from his promontory into the sea, and was seen no more.
133———————————————————VIEWS OF THE THEOSOPHISTS.
As early as February 8th,
1876, your learned correspondent, “M.A. Oxon.,” took occasion, in an article
entitled “Soul and Spirit,” to point out the frequent confusion of the terms by
other writers. As things are no better now, I will take the opportunity to show
how surely Mr. Croucher, and many other Spiritualists of whom he may be taken
as the spokesman, misapprehend Col. Olcott’s meaning and the views of the New
York Theosophists. Col. Olcott neither affirmed nor dreamed of implying that
the immortal spirit leaves the body to produce the medial displays. And yet Mr.
Croucher evidently thinks he did, for the word “spirit” to him means the inner,
astral man, or double. Here is what Col. Olcott did say, double commas and all:
That mediumistic physical
phenomena are not produced by pure spirits, but by “souls” embodied or
disembodied, and usually with the help of Elementals.
Any intelligent reader must
perceive that, in placing the word “souls” in quotation marks, the writer
indicated that he was using it in a sense not his own. As a Theosophist, he
would more properly and philosophically have said for himself “astral spirits”
or “astral men,” or doubles. Hence, the criticism is wholly without even a
foundation of plausibility. I wonder that a man could be found who, on so frail
a basis, would have attempted so sweeping a denunciation. As it is, our
President only propounded the trine of man, like the ancient and Oriental
Philosophers and their worthy imitator Paul, who held that the physical
corporeity, the flesh and blood, was permeated and so kept alive by the Psuche,
the soul or astral body. This doctrine, that man is trine—spirit or Nous, soul
and body—was taught by the Apostle of the Gentiles more broadly and clearly
than it has been by any of his Christian successors (see i Thess., V. 23). But
having evidently forgotten or neglected to “thoroughly” study the
transcendental opinions of the ancient Philosophers and the Christian Apostle
upon the subject, Mr. Croucher views the soul (Psuche) as spirit (Nous) and
vice versa.
The Buddhists, who separate
the three entities in man (though viewing them as one when on the path to
Nirvana), yet divide the soul into several parts, and have names for each of
these and their functions. Thus confusion is unknown among them. The old Greeks
did likewise, holding that Psuche was bios, or physical life, and it was
thumos, or passional nature, the animals being accorded but the lower faculty
of the soul instinct. The soul or Psuche is itself a combination, consensus or
unity of the bios, or physical vitality, the epithumia or concupiscible nature,
and the phrén, mens or mind. Perhaps the animus
134———————————————————
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
A MODERN PANARION.
ought to be included. It is
constituted of ethereal substance, which pervades the whole universe, and is
derived wholly from the soul of the world—Anima Mundi or the Buddhist
Svabhâvat—which is not spirit; though intangible and impalpable, it is yet, by
comparison with spirit or pure abstraction, objective matter. By its complex
nature, the soul may descend and ally itself so closely to the corporeal nature
as to exclude a higher life from exerting any moral influence upon it. On the
other hand, it can so closely attach itself to the Nous or spirit, as to share
its potency, in which case its vehicle, physical man, will appear as a God even
during his terrestrial life. Unless such union of soul and spirit does occur,
either during this life or after physical death, the individual man is not
immortal as an entity. The Psuche is sooner or later disintegrated. Though the
man may have gained “the whole world,” he has lost his “soul.” Paul, when
teaching the anastasis, or continuation of individual spiritual life after
death, set forth that there was a physical body which was raised in
incorruptible substance.
The spiritual body is most
assuredly not one of the bodies, or visible or tangible larvre, which form in
circle-rooms, and are so improperly termed “materialized spirits.” When once
the metanoia,, the full developing of spiritual life, has lifted the spiritual
body out of the psychical (the disembodied, corruptible, astral man, what Col.
Olcott calls “soul”), it becomes, in strict ratio with its progress, more and
more an abstraction for the corporeal senses. It can influence, inspire, and
even communicate with men subjectively; it can make itself felt, and even, in
those rare instances when the clairvoyant is perfectly pure and perfectly
lucid, be seen by the inner eye (which is the eye of the purified Psuche—soul).
But how can it ever manifest objectively?
It will be seen, then, that to
apply the term “spirit” to the materialized eldola of your
“form-manifestations” is grossly improper, and something ought to be done to
change the practice, since scholars have begun to discuss the subject. At best,
when not what the Greeks termed phantasma, they are but phasma or apparitions.
In scholars, speculators, and
especially in our modern savants, the psychical principle is more or less
pervaded by the corporeal, and “the things of the spirit are foolishness and
impossible to be known” (i Cor., ii. 14). Plato was then right, in his way, in
despising land measuring, geometry and arithmetic, for all these overlooked all
high ideas. Plutarch taught that at death Proserpine separated the body
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and the soul entirely, after
which the latter became a free and independent demon (daimon). Afterward the
good underwent a second dissolution: Demeter divided the Psuche from the Nous
or Pneuma. The former was dissolved after a time into ethereal particles—hence
the inevitable dissolution and subsequent annihilation of the man who at death
is purely psychical; the latter, the Nous, ascended to its higher divine power
and became gradually a pure, divine spirit. Kapila, in common with all Eastern
Philosophers, despised the purely psychical nature. It is this agglomeration of
the grosser particles of the soul, the mesmeric exhalations of human nature
imbued with all its terrestrial desires and propensities, its vices,
imperfections and weakness, forming the astral body, which can become objective
under certain circumstances, which the Buddhists call the Skandhas (the
groups), and Col. Olcott has for convenience termed the “soul.” The Buddhists
and Brâhmans teach that the man’s individuality is not secured until he has
passed through and become disembarrassed of the last of these groups, the final
vestige of earthly taint. Hence their doctrine of metempsychosis, so ridiculed
and so utterly misunderstood by our greatest Orientalists.
Even the physicists teach us
that the particles composing physical man are, by evolution, reworked by nature
into every variety of inferior physical form. Why, then, are the Buddhists
unphilosophical or even unscientific, in affirming that the semi-material
Skandhas of the astral man (his very ego, up to the point of final
purification) are appropriated to the evolution of minor astral forms (which,
of course, enter into the purely physical bodies of animals) as fast as he
throws them off in his progress toward Nirvana? Therefore, we may correctly
say, that so long as the disembodied man is throwing off a single particle of
these Skandhas, a portion of him is being reincarnated in the bodies of plants
and animals. And if he, the disembodied astral man, be so material that
“Demeter” cannot find even one spark of the Pneuma to carry up to the “divine
power,” then the individual, so to speak, is dissolved, piece by piece, into
the crucible of evolution, or, as the Hindus allegorically illustrate it, he
passes thousands of years in the bodies of impure animals. Here we see how
completely the ancient Greek and Hindu Philosophers, the modern Oriental
schools, and the Theosophists, are ranged on one side, in perfect accord, and
the bright array of “inspirational mediums” and “spirit guides” stand in
perfect discord on the other. Though no two of the latter, unfortunately,
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agree as to what is and what
is not truth, yet they do agree with unanimitv to antagonize whatever of the
teachings of the Philosophers we may repeat.
Let it not be inferred,
though, from this, that I, or any other real Theosophist, undervalue true
spiritual phenomena or philosophy, or that we do not believe in the
communication between mortals and pure Spirits, any less than we do in
communication between bad men and bad Spirits, or even of good men with bad
Spirits under bad conditions. Occultism is the essence of Spiritualism, while
modern or popular Spiritualism I cannot better characterize than as adulterated
unconscious Magic. We go so far as to say that all the great and noble
characters, all the grand geniuses, the poets, painters, sculptors, musicians,
all who have worked at any time for the realization of their highest ideal,
irrespective of selfish ends—have been spiritually inspired; not mediums, as
many Spiritualists call them—passive tools in the hands of controlling guides—but
incarnate, illuminated souls, working consciously in collaboration with the
pure disembodied human and new-embodied high Planetary Spirits, for the
elevation and spiri-tualization of mankind. We believe that everything in
material life is most intimately associated with spiritual agencies. As regards
physical phenomena and mediumship, we believe that it is only when the passive
medium has given place, or rather grown into, the conscious mediator, that he
discerns between Spirits good and bad. And we do believe, and know also, that
while the incarnate man (though the highest Adept) cannot vie in potency with
the pure disembodied Spirits, who, freed of all their Skandhas, have become
subjective to the physical senses, yet he can perfectly equal, and can far surpass
in the way of phenomena, mental or physical, the average “Spirit” of modern
mediumship. Believing this, you will perceive that we are better Spiritualists,
in the true acceptation of the word, than so-called Spiritualists, who, instead
of showing the reverence we do to true Spirits—Gods—debase the name of Spirit
by applying it to the impure, or at best, imperfect beings who produce the
majority of the phenomena.
The two objections urged by
Mr. Croucher against the claim of the Theosophists, that a child is but a
duality at birth, “and perhaps until the sixth or seventh year,” and that some
depraved persons are annihilated at some time after death, are (1) the mediums
have described to him his three children “who passed away at the respective
ages of two,
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four, and six years”; and (2)
that he has known persons who were “very depraved” on earth come back. He says:
These statements have been
afterwards confirmed by glorious beings who came after, and who have proved by
their mastery of the laws which are governing the universe, that they are
worthy of being believed.
I am really happy to hear that
Mr. Croucher is competent to sit in judgment upon these “glorious beings,” and
give them the palm over Kapila, Manu, Plato, and even Paul. It is worth
something, after all, to be an “inspirational medium.” We have no such
“glorious beings” in the Theosophical Society to learn from; but it is evident
that while Mr. Croucher sees and judges things through his emotional nature,
the Philosophers whom we study took nothing from any “glorious being” that did
not perfectly accord with the universal harmony, justice, and equilibrium of
the manifested plan of the Universe. The Hermetic axiom, “as below, so above,”
is the only rule of evidence accepted by the Theosophists. Believing in a
spiritual and invisible Universe, we cannot conceive of it in any other way
than as completely dovetailing and corresponding with the material, objective
Universe; for logic and observation alike teach us that the latter is the
outcome and visible manifestation of the former, and that the laws governing
both are immutable.
In this letter of Dec. 7th
Colonel Olcott very appropriately illustrates his subject of potential
immortality by citing the admitted physical law of the survival of the fittest.
The rule applies to the greatest as to the smallest things, to the planet
equally with the plant. It applies to man. And the imperfectly developed
man-child can no more exist under the conditions prepared for the perfected
types of its species, than can an imperfect plant or animal. In infantile life
the higher faculties are not developed, but, as everyone knows, are only in the
germ, or rudimentary. The babe is an animal, however “angelic” he may, and naturally
enough ought to, appear to his parents. Be it ever so beautifully modelled, the
infant body is but the jewel-casket preparing for the jewel. It is bestial,
selfish, and, as a babe, nothing more. Little of even the soul, Psuche, can be
perceived except so far as vitality is concerned; hunger, terror, pain and
pleasure appear to be the principal of its conceptions. A kitten is its
superior in everything but possibilities. The grey neurine of the brain is
equally unformed. After a time mental qualities begin to appear, but they
relate chiefly to external matters. The cultivation of the mind of the child by
teachers
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can only affect this part of
the nature—what Paul calls natural or physical, and James and Jude sensual or
psychical. Hence the words of Jude, “psychical, having not the spirit,” and of
Paul:
The psychical man receiveth
not the things of the spirit, for to him they are foolishness; the spiritual
man discerneth.
It is only the man of full
age, with his faculties disciplined to discern good and evil, whom we can
denominate spiritual, noetic, intuitive. Children developed in such respects
would be precocious, abnormal abortions.
Why, then, should a child who
has never lived other than an animal life; who never discerned right from
wrong; who never cared whether he lived or died—since he could not understand
either of life or death—become individually immortal? Man’s cycle is not
complete until he has passed through the earth-life. No one stage of probation
and experience can be skipped over. He must he a man before he can become a
Spirit. A dead child is a failure of nature—he must live again; and the same
Psuche reenters the physical plane through another birth. Such cases, together
with those of congenital idiots, are, as stated in Isis Unveiled, the only
instances of human reincarnation. If every child-duality were to be immortal,
why deny a like individual immortality to the duality of the animal? Those who
believe in the trinity of man know the babe to be but a duality—body and
soul—and the individuality which resides only in the psychical is, as we have
seen proved by the Philosophers, perishable. The completed trinity only
survives. Trinity, I say, for at death the astral form becomes the outward body,
and inside a still finer one evolves, which takes the place of the Psuche on
earth, and the whole is more or less overshadowed by the Nous. Space prevented
Col. Olcott from developing the doctrine more fully, or he would have added
that not even all of the Elementaries (human) are annihilated. There is still a
chance for some. By a supreme struggle these may retain their third and higher
principle, and so, though slowly and painfully, yet ascend sphere after sphere,
casting off at each transition the previous heavier garment, and clothing
themselves in more radiant spiritual envelopes, until, rid of every finite
particle, the trinity merges into the final Nirvana, and becomes a unity—a God.
A volume would scarce suffice
to enumerate all the varieties of Ele-
—————
* [Note that ‘reincarnation” is here used as a term applying only to the
Psuche. This does not reincarnate, it has always been taught, except in the
instances given.—Ens.]
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mentaries and Elementals; the
former being so called by some Kabalists (Henry Kunrath, for instance) to
indicate their entanglement in the terrestrial elements which hold them
captive, and the latter designated by that name to avoid confusion, and equally
applying to those which go to form the astral body of the infant and to the
stationary Nature Spirits proper. Eliphas Levi, however, indifferently calls
them all “Elementary” and “souls.” I repeat again, it is but the wholly
psychical disembodied astral man which ultimately disappears as an individual
entity. As to the component parts of his Psuche, they are as indestructible as
the atoms of any other body composed of matter.
The man must indeed be a true
animal who has not, after death, a spark of the divine Ruach or Nous left in
him to allow him a chance of self-salvation. Yet there are such lamentable
exceptions, not alone among the depraved, but also among those who, during
life, by stifling every idea of an after existence, have killed in themselves
the last desire to achieve immortality. It is the will of man, his all-potent
will, that weaves his destiny, and if a man is determined in the notion that
death means annihilation, he will find it so. It is among our commonest
experiences that the determination of physical life or death depends upon the
will. Some people snatch themselves by force of determination from the very
jaws of death, while others succumb to insignificant maladies. What man does
with his body he can do with his disembodied Psuche.
Nothing in this militates against
the images of Mr. Croucher’s children being seen in the Astral Light by the
medium, either as actually left by the children themselves, or as imagined by
the father to look when grown. The impression in the latter case would be but a
phasma, while in the former it is a phantasma, or the apparition of the
indestructible impress of what once really was.
In days of old the “mediators”
of humanity were men like Christna, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Apollonius of
Tyana, Plotinus, Porphyry, and the like of them. They were Adepts,
Philosophers—men who, by struggling their whole lives in purity, study, and
self-sacrifice, through trials, privations and self-discipline, attained divine
illumination and seemingly superhuman powers. They could not only produce all
the phenomena seen in our times, but regarded it as a sacred duty to cast out
“evil spirits,” or demons, from the unfortunates who were obsessed—in other
words, to rid the medium of their days of the “Elementaries.”
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But in our time of improved
psychology every hysterical sensitive looms into a seer, and behold! there are
mediums by the thousand! Without any previous study, self-denial, or the least
limitation of their physical nature, they assume, in the capacity of
mouthpieces of unidentified and unidentifiable intelligences, to outrival
Socrates in wisdom, Paul in eloquence, and Tertullian himself in fiery and
authoritative dogmatism. The Theosophists are the last to assume infallibility
for themselves, or recognize it in others; as they judge others, so they are
willing to be judged.
In the name, then, of logic
and common sense, before bandying epithets, let us submit our difference to the
arbitrament of reason. Let us compare all things, and, putting aside emotionalism
and prejudice as unworthy of the logician and the experimentalist, hold fast
only to that which passes the ordeal of ultimate analysis.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, Jan. 14th 1878.
A SOCIETY WITHOUT A DOGMA
—————
[From the London Spiritualist
Feb. 8th, 1878.]
TIMES have greatly changed
since the winter of 1875-6, when the establishment of the Theosophical Society
caused the grand army of American Spiritualists to wave banners, clang steel,
and set up a great shouting. How well we all remember the putting forth of
“Danger Signals,” the oracular warnings and denunciations of numberless
mediums! How fresh in memory the threats of “angel-friends” to Dr. Gardiner, of
Boston that they would kill Colonel Olcott if he dared call them “Elementaries”
in the lectures he was about delivering! The worst of the storm has passed. The
hail of imprecations no longer batters around our devoted heads; it is raining
now, and we can almost see the rainbow of promised peace spanning the sky.
Beyond doubt, much of this
subsidence of the disturbed elements is due to our armed neutrality. But still
I judge that the gradual spread of a desire to learn something more as to the
cause of the phenomena must be taken into account. And yet the time has not
quite come when the lion (Spiritualism) and the lamb (Theosophy) are ready to
lie down together—unless the lamb is willing to lie inside the lion. While we
held our tongues we were asked to speak, and when we spoke—or rather our
President spoke—the hue and cry was raised once more. Though the pop-gun
fusillade and the dropping shots of musketry have mostly ceased, the defiles of
your spiritual Balkans are defended by your heaviest Krupp guns. If the fire
were directed only against Colonel Olcott there would be no occasion for me to
bring up the reserves. But fragments from both of the bombs which your able
gunner, and our mutual friend, ‘‘M.A. Oxon.’’ has exploded, in his two letters
‘of January 4th and 11th have given me contusions. Under the velvet paw of his
rhetoric I have felt the scratch of challenge.
At the very beginning of what
must be a long struggle, it is imperatively demanded that the Theosophical
position shall be unequivo-
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cally defined. In the last of
the above two communications, it is stated that Colonel Olcott transmits “the
teaching of the learned author of Isis Unveiled”—the “master key to all
problems.” (?)
Who has ever claimed that the
book was that, or anything like it? Not the author, certainly. The title? A
misnomer for which the publisher is unpremeditatedly responsible, and, if I am
not mistaken, “MA. Oxon.” knows it. My title was The Veil of Isis, and that
head line runs through the entire first volume. Not until that volume was
stereotyped did anyone recollect that a book of the same name was before the
public. Then, as a derniere ressource, the publisher selected the present
title.
“If he [Olcott] be not the
rose, at any rate he has lived near it,” says your learned correspondent. Had I
seen this sentence apart from the context, I would never have imagined that the
unattractive old party, superficially known as H. P. Blavatsky, was designated
under this poetical Persian simile. If he had compared me to a bramble- bush, I
might have complimented him upon his artistic realism. He says:
Colonel Olcott of himself
would command attention; he commands it still more on account of the store of
knowledge to which he has had access.
True, he has had such access,
but by no means is it confined to my humble self. Though I may have taught him
a few of the things that I had learned in other countries (and corroborated the
theory in every case by practical illustration), yet a far abler teacher than I
could not in three brief years have given him more than the alphabet of what
there is to learn, before a man can become wise in spiritual and psycho
physiological things. The very limitations of modern languages prevent any
rapid communication of ideas about Eastern Philosophy. I defy the great Max
Muller himself to translate Kapila’s Sutras so as to give their real meaning.
We have seen what the best European authorities can do with the Hindu
metaphysics; and what a mess they have made of it, to be sure! The Colonel
corresponds directly with Hindu scholars, and has from them a good deal more
than he can get from so clumsy a preceptor as myself.
Our friend, “M.A. Oxon.,” says
that Colonel Olcott “comes forward to enlighten us’’—than which scarce anything
could be more inaccurate. He neither comes forward, nor pretends to enlighten
anyone. The public wanted to know the views of the Theosophists, and our
President attempted to give, as succinctly as possible in the limits of a
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SOCIETY WITHOUT A DOGMA.
single article, some little
glimpse of so much of the truth as he had learned. That the result would not be
wholly satisfactory was inevitable. Volumes would not suffice to answer all the
questions naturally presenting themselves to an enquiring mind; a library of
quartos would barely obliterate the prejudices of those who ride at the anchor of
centuries of metaphysical and theological misconceptions—perhaps even errors.
But, though our President is not guilty of the conceit of “pretending to
enlighten” Spiritualists, I think he has certainly thrown out some hints worthy
of the thoughtful consideration of the unprejudiced.
I am sorry that “M.A. Oxon.”
is not content with mere suggestions. Nothing but the whole naked truth will
satisfy him. We must “square” our theories with his facts, we must lay our
theory down “on exact lines of demonstration.” We are asked:
Where are the seers? What are
their records? And, far more important, how do they verify them to Us?
I answer: Seers are where
“Schools of the Prophets” are still extant, and they have their records with
them. Though Spiritualists are not able to go in search of them, yet the
Philosophy they teach commends itself to logic, and, its principles are
mathematically demonstrable. If this be not so, let it be shown.
But, in their turn,
Theosophists may ask, and do ask.: Where are the proofs that the medial
phenomena are exclusively attributable to the agency of departed “Spirits”? Who
are the “Seers” among mediums blessed with an infallible lucidity? What “tests”
are given that admit of no alternative explanation? Though Swedenborg was one
of the greatest of Seers, and churches are erected in his name, yet except to
his adherents what proof is there that the “Spirits” objective to his
vision—including Paul—promenading in hats, were anything but the creatures of
his imagination? Are the spiritual potentialities of the living man so well
comprehended that mediums can tell when their own agency ceases, and that of
outside influence begins? No; but for all answer to our suggestions that the
subject is open to debate, “M.A. Oxon.” shudderingly charges us with attempting
to upset what he designates as “a cardinal dogma of our faith,” i.e., the faith
of the Spiritualists. Dogma? Faith? These are the right and left pillars of
every soul crushing Theology. Theosophists have no dogmas, exact no blind
faith. Theosophists are ever ready to abandon every idea that is
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proved erroneous upon strictly
logical deductions; let Spiritualists do the same. Dogmas are the toys that
amuse, and can satisfy but, unreasoning children. They are the offspring of
human speculation and prejudiced fancy. In the eye of true Philosophy it seems
an insult to common sense, that we should break loose from the idols and dogmas
of either Christian or heathen exoteric faith to catch up those of a church of
Spiritualism. Spiritualism must either be a true Philosophy, amenable to the
test of the recognized criterion of logic, or be set up in its niche beside the
broken idols of hundreds of antecedent Christian sects.
Realizing, as they do, the
boundlessness of the absolute truth, Theosophists repudiate all claim to
infallibility. The most cherished preconceptions, the most “pious hope,” the
strongest “ master passion,” they sweep aside like dust from their path, when
their error is pointed out. Their highest hope is to approximate to the truth;
that they have succeeded in going a few steps beyond the Spiritualists, they
think proved in their conviction that they know nothing in comparison with what
is to be learned; in their sacrifice of every pet theory and prompting of
emotionalism at the shrine of fact; and in their absolute and unqualified
repudiation of everything that smacks of “dogma.”
With great rhetorical
elaboration “M.A. Oxon.” paints the result of the supersedure of spiritualistic
by Theosophic ideas. In brief, he shows Spiritualism a lifeless corpse:
A body from which the soul has
been wrenched, and for which most men will care nothing.
We submit that the reverse is
true. Spiritualists wrench the soul from true Spiritualism by their degradation
of Spirit. Of the in they make the finite; of the divine subjective they make
the human and limited objective. Are Theosophists Materialists? Do not their
hearts warm with the same “pure and holy love” for their “loved ones” as those
of Spiritualists? Have not many of us sought long years “through the gate of
mediumship to have access to the world of Spirit”—and vainly sought? The
comfort and assurance modern Spiritualism could not give us we found in
Theosophy. As a result we believe far more firmly than many Spiritualists—for
our belief is based on knowledge—in the communion of our beloved ones with us;
but not as materialized Spirits with beating hearts and sweating brows.
Holding such views as we do as
to logic and fact, you perceive that when a Spiritualist pronounces to us the
words dogma and fact, debate
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is impossible, for there is no
common ground upon which we can meet. We decline to break our heads against
shadows. If fact and logic were given the consideration they should have, there
would be no more temples in this world for exoteric worship, whether Christian
or heathen, and the method of the Theosophists would be welcomed as the only
one insuring action and progress—a progress that cannot be arrested, since each
advance shows yet greater advances to be made.
As to our producing our
“Seers” and “their records”—one word. In The Spiritulist of Jan. 11th, I find
Dr. Peebles saying that in due time he
Will publish such facts about
the Dravida Brâhmans as I am [he is] permitted. I say permitted, because some
of these occurred under the promise and seal of secrecy.
If even the casual wayfarer is
put under an obligation of secrecy before he is shown some of the less
important psycho-physiological phenomena, is it not barely possible that the
Brotherhood to which some Theosophists belong has also doctrines, records, and
phenomena, that cannot be revealed to the profane and the indifferent, without
any imputation lying against their reality and authoritativeness? This, at
least, I believe, “M.A. Oxon.” knows. As we do not offensively obtrude
ourselves upon an unwilling public, but only answer under compulsion, we can
hardly be denounced as contumacious if we produce to a promiscuous public
neither our “Seers” nor “their records.” When Mohammed is ready to go to the
mountain, it will be found standing in its place.
And that no one that makes
this search may suppose that we Theosophists send him to a place where there
are no pitfalls for the unwary, I quote from the famous commentary on the
Bhagavad Gita of our brother Hurrychund Chintamon, the unqualified admission
that,
In Hindustau, as in England,
there are doctrines for the learned, and dogmas for the unlearned; strong meat
for men, and milk for babes; facts for the few, and fictions for the many;
realities for the wise, and romances for the simple; esoteric truth for the
philosopher, and exoteric fable for the fool.
Like the Philosophy taught by
this author in the work in question, the object of the Theosophical Society “is
the cleansing of spiritual truth.”
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, Jan. 20th, 1877.
ELEMENTARIES
—————
[From The
Religio-Philosophical Journal, Nov. 17th, 1877.]
I PERCEIVE that of late the
ostracized subject of the Kabalistic “Elementaries” is beginning to appear in
the orthodox spiritualistic papers pretty often. No wonder; Spiritualism and
its Philosophy are progressing, and they will progress despite the opposition
of some very learned ignoramuses, who imagine the Cosmos rotates within the academic
brain. But if a new term is once admitted for discussion, the least we can do
is to first clearly ascertain what that term means. We students of the Oriental
Philosophy count it a clear gain that spiritualistic journals on both sides of
the Atlantic are beginning to discuss the subject of sub-human and earth-bound
beings, even though they ridicule the idea. But do those who ridicule know what
they are talking about, having never studied the Kabalistic writers? It is
evident to me that they are confounding the “Elementaries”—disembodied,
vicious, and earth-bound, yet human Spirits—with the “Elementals,” or Nature
Spirits.
With your permission, then, I
will answer an article by Dr. Woldrich which appeared in your Journal of the
2th inst., and to which the author gives the title of “Elementaries.” I freely
admit that, owing to my imperfect knowledge of English at the time I first
wrote upon the Elementaries, I may have myself contributed to the present
confusion, and thus brought upon my doomed head the wrath of Spiritualists,
mediums, and their “guides” into the bargain. But now I will attempt to make my
meaning clear. Eliphas Levi applies the term “Elementary” equally to
earth-bound human Spirits and to the creatures of the elements. This
carelessness on his part is due to the fact that as the human Elementaries are
considered by the Kabalists as having irretrievably lost every chance of
immortality, they therefore, after a certain period of time, become no better
than the “Elementals,” who never had any souls at all. To disentangle the
subject, I have, in my
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Isis Unveiled, shown that the
former should, alone, be called “Elementaries” and the latter “Elementals”
(vol. i. p. xxx. “Before the Veil”).
Dr. Woldrich, in imitation of
Herbert Spencer, attempts to explain the existence of a popular belief in
Nature Spirits, demons and mythological deities, as the effect of an
imagination untutored by Science, and wrought upon by misunderstood natural
phenomena. He attributes the legendary Sylphs, Undines, Salamanders and
Gnomes—four great families, which include numberless sub-divisions—to mere
fancy; going however to the extreme of affirming that by long practice one can
acquire
That power which disembodied
spirits have of materializing apparitions by the will.
Granted that “disembodied
Spirits” have sometimes that power; but if disembodied why not embodied Spirits
also, i.e., a yet living person who has become an Adept in Occultism through
study? According to Dr. Woldrich’s theory, an embodied Spirit or Magician can
create only subjectively, or to quote his words:
He is in the habit of
summoning, that is, bringing up to his imagination, his familiar spirits,
which, having responded to his will, he considers as real existences.
I will not stop to enquire for
the proofs of this assertion, for it would only lead to an endless discussion.
If many thousands of Spiritualists in Europe and America have seen materialized
objective forms which assure them they were the Spirits of once living persons,
millions of Eastern people throughout the past ages have seen the Hierophants
of the Temples, and even now see them in India, without being in the least
mediums, also evoking objective and tangible forms, which display no
pretensions to being the souls of disembodied men. But I will only remark that,
though subjective and invisible to others, as Dr. Woldrich tells us, these
forms are palpable, hence objective to the clairvoyant; no scientist has yet
mastered the mysteries of even the physical sciences sufficiently to enable him
to contradict, with anything like plausible or incontrovertible proofs, the
assumption that because the clairvoyant sees a form remaining subjective to
others, this form is nevertheless neither a “hallucination” nor a fiction of
the imagination. Were the persons present endowed with the same clairvoyant
faculty, they would every one of them see this creature of “hallucination” as
well; hence there would be sufficient proof that it had an objective existence.
And this is how the experiments are conducted in certain psychological training
schools, as I call such establishments in the East. One clair-
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voyant is never trusted. The
person may be honest, truthful, and have the greatest desire to learn only that
which is real, and yet mix the truth unconsciously and accept an Elemental for
a disembodied Spirit, and vice versa. For instance, what guarantee can Dr.
Woldrich give us that “Hoki” and “Thalla,” the guides of Miss May Shaw, were
not simply creatures produced by the power of the imagination? This gentleman
may have the word of his clairvoyant for this; he may implicitly and very
deservedly trust her honesty when in her normal state; but the fact alone that
a medium is a passive and docile instrument in the hands of some invisible and
mysterious powers, ought to make her irresponsible in the eves of every serious
investigator. It is the Spirit, or these invisible powers, he has to test, not
the clairvoyant; and what proof has he of their trustworthiness that he should
think himself warranted in coming out as the opponent of a Philosophy based on
thousands of years of practical experience, the iconoclast of experiments
performed by whole generations of learned Egyptians, Hierophants, Gurus,
Brâhmans, Adepts of the Sanctuaries, and a whole host of more or less learned
Kabalists, who were all trained Seers? Such an accusation, moreover, is
dangerous ground for the Spiritualists them selves. Admit once that a Magician
creates his forms only in fancy, and as a result of hallucination, and what
becomes of all the guides, spirit friends and the tutti quanti from the sweet
“Summer Land,” crowding around the trance mediums and Seers? Why these would-be
disembodied entities are to be considered more identified with humanity than
the Elementals, or as Dr. Woldrich terms them, “Elementaries,” of the Magician,
is something which would scarcely bear investigation.
From the standpoint of certain
Buddhist Schools, your correspondent may be right. Their Philosophy teaches
that even our visible Universe assumed an objective form as a result of the
fancy followed by the volition or the will of the Unknown and Supreme Adept,
differing, however, from Christian theology, inasmuch as they teach that instead
of calling out our Universe from nothingness, He had to exercise His will upon
preexisting Matter, eternal and indestructible as to invisible Substance,
though temporary and ever-changing as to forms. Some higher and still more
subtle metaphysical Schools of Nepaul even go so far as to affirm—on very
reasonable grounds, too—that this preexisting and self-existent Substance or
Matter (Svabhâvat) is itself without any other creator or ruler; when in the
state of activity it is Pravritti, a universal creating principle; when latent
and passive they
149———————————————————————ELEMENTARIES.
call this force Nirvritti. As
for something eternal and infinite, for that which had neither beginning nor
end there can be neither past nor future, but everything that was and will be,
Is; therefore there never was an action or even thought, however simple, that
is not impressed in imperishable records on this Substance, called by the
Buddhists Svabhâvat, by the Kabalists Astral Light. As in a faithful mirror,
this Light reflects every image, and no human imagination could see any thing
outside that which exists impressed somewhere on the eternal Substance. To
imagine that a human brain can conceive of anything that was never conceived of
before by the “universal brain,” is a fallacy and a conceited presumption. At
best, the former can catch now and then stray glimpses of the “Eternal Thought”
after this has assumed some objective form, either in the world of the
invisible, or visible, Universe. Hence the unanimous testimony of trained Seers
goes to prove that there are such creatures as the Elementals; and that though
the Elementaries have been at some time human Spirits, they, having lost every
connection with the purer immortal world, must be recognized by some special
term which would draw a distinct line of demarcation between them and the true
and genuine disembodied souls, winch have henceforth to remain immortal. To the
Kabalists and the Adepts, especially in India, the difference between the two
is all-important, and their tutored minds will never allow them to mistake the
one for the other; to the untutored medium they are all one.
Spiritualists have never
accepted the suggestion and sound advice of certain of their seers and mediums.
They have regarded Dr. Peebles’ “Gadarenes” with indifference; they have
shrugged their shoulders at the “Rosicrucian” fantasies of P. B. Randolph, and
his Ravalette has made none of them the wiser; they have frowned and grumbled
at A. Jackson Davis’ “Diakka”; and finally, lifting high the banner, have
declared a murderous war of extermination against the Theosophists and
Kabalists. What are now the results?
A series of exposures of
fraudulent mediums that have brought mortification to their endorsers and
dishonour upon the cause; identification by genuine seers and mediums of
pretended Spirit-forms that were afterwards found to be mere personations by
lying cheats, go to prove that in such instances at least, outside of clear
cases of confederacy, the identifications were due to illusion on the part of
the said seers; spirit-babes discovered to be battered masks and bundles of
rags; obsessed mediums driven by their guides to drunkenness and immor-
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ality of conduct; the
practices of free-love endorsed and even prompted by alleged immortal Spirits;
sensitive believers forced to the commission of murder, suicide, forgery,
embezzlement and other crimes; the over-credulous led to waste their substance
in foolish investments and the search after hidden treasures; mediums fostering
ruinous speculations in stocks; free-loveites parted from their wives in search
of other female affinities; two continents flooded with the vilest slanders,
spoken and sometimes printed by mediums against other mediums; incubi and succubi
entertained as returning angel-husbands or wives; mountebanks and jugglers
protected by scientists and the clergy, and gathering large audiences to
witness imitations of the phenomena of cabinets, the reality of which genuine
mediums themselves and Spirits are powerless to vindicate by giving the
necessary test conditions; seances still held in Stygian darkness, where even
genuine phenomena can readily be mistaken for the false, and false for the
real; mediums left helpless by their angel guides, tried, convicted, and sent
to prison, and no attempt made to save them from their fate by those who, if
they are Spirits having the power of controlling mortal affairs, ought to have
enlisted the sympathy of the heavenly hosts on behalf of their mediums in the
face of such crying injustice; other faithful spiritualistic lecturers and
mediums broken down in health and left unsupported by those calling themselves
their patrons and protectors—such are some of the features of the present
situation; the black spots of what ought to become the grandest and noblest of
all religious Philosophies freely thrown by the unbelievers and Materialists
into the teeth of every Spiritualist. No intelligent person of the latter class
need go outside of his own personal experience to find examples like the above.
Spiritualism has not progressed and is not progressing and will not progress,
until its facts are viewed in the light of the Oriental Philosophy.
Thus, Mr. Editor, your
esteemed correspondent, Dr. Woldrich, may be found guilty of an erroneous
proposition. In the concluding sentence of his article he says:
I know not whether I have
succeeded in proving the Elementary a myth, but at least I hope that I have
thrown some more light upon the subject to some of the readers of the journal.
To this I would answer: (1) He
has not proved at all the “Elementary a myth,” since the Elementaries are, with
a few exceptions, the earth-bound guides and Spirits in which he believes,
together with every other Spiritualist. (2) Instead of throwing light upon the
subject,
151——————————————————————ELEMENTARIES.
the Doctor has but darkened it
the more. (3) Such explanations and careless exposures do the greatest harm to
the future of Spiritualism, and greatly serve to retard its progress by teaching
its adherents that they have nothing more to learn.
Sincerely hoping that I have
not trespassed too much on the columns of your esteemed journal, allow me to
sign myself, dear sir,
Yours respectfully,
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
Corresponding Secretary of the
Theosophical Society.
New York.
KABALISTIC VIEWS OF “SPIRITS”
[From The
Religio-Philosophical Journal, Jan. 26th, 1578.]
I MUST beg you to again allow
me a little space for the further elucidation of a very important question—that
of the “Elementals” and the “Elementaries.” It is a misfortune that our
European languages do not contain a nomenclature expressive of the various
grades and conditions of spiritual beings. But surely I cannot be blamed for
either the above linguistic deficiency, or because some people do not choose,
or are unable, to understand my meaning! I cannot too often repeat that in this
matter I claim no originality. My teachings are but the substance of what many
Kabalists have said before me, which to-day I mean to prove, with your kind permission.
I am accused (1) of “turning
somersaults” and jumping from one idea to another. The defendant pleads—not
guilty. (2) Of coining not only words but Philosophies out of the depths of my
consciousness. Defendant enters the same plea. (3) Of having repeatedly
asserted that “intelligent Spirits other than those who have passed through an
earth experience in a human body were concerned in the manifestations known as
the phenomena of Spiritualism.” True, and defendant repeats the assertion. (4)
Of having advanced, in my bold and unwarranted theories, “beyond the great
Eliphas Levi himself.” Indeed? Were I to go even as far as he (see his Science
des Esprits), I would deny that a single so-called spiritual manifestation is
more than hallucination, produced by soulless Elementals, whom he calls
“Elementaries” (see Ritual de la Haute Magic).
I am asked: “What proof is
there of the existence of the Elementals?” In my turn I will enquire: “‘What
proof is there of ‘diakkas,’ ‘guides,’ ‘bands’ and ‘controls’ ?“ And yet these
terms are all current among Spiritualists. The unanimous testimony of
innumerable observers and competent experimenters furnishes the proof. If
Spiritualists cannot, or will not, go to those countries where they are living
153———————————————————KABALISTIC VIEWS OF “SPIRITS.”
and these proofs are
accessible, they, at least, have no right to give the lie direct to those who
have seen both the Adepts and the proofs. My witnesses are living men teaching
and exemplifying the Philosophy of hoary ages; theirs, these very “guides” and
“controls,” who up to the present time are at best hypothetical, and whose
assertions have been repeatedly found, by Spiritualists themselves,
contradictory and false.
If my present critics insist
that since the discussion of this matter began, a disembodied soul has never
been described as an “Elementary,” I merely point to the number of the London
Spiritualist for Feb. 8th, 1876, published nearly two years ago, in which a
correspondent, who has certainly studied the Occult Sciences, says :
Is it not probable that some
of the elementary spirits of an evil type are those spirit-bodies, which, only
recently disembodied, are on the eve of an eternal dissolution, and which
continue their temporary existence only by vampirizing those still in the
flesh? They had existence; they never attained to being.
Note two things: that human
Elementaries are recognized as existing, apart from the Gnomes, Sylphs, Undines
and Salamanders beings purely elemental; and that annihilation of the soul is
regarded as potential.
Says Paracelsns, in his
Philosophia Sagax:
The current of Astral Light
with its peculiar inhabitants, Gnomes, Svlphs, etc., is transformed into human
light at the moment of the conception. and it becomes the first envelope of the
soul—its grosser portion; combined with the most subtle fluids, it forms the
sidereal [astral, or ethereal] phantom—the inner man.
And Eliphas Levi :
The Astral Light is saturated
with elementary souls which it discharges in the incessant generation of beings
...At the birth of a child they influence the four temperaments of the latter:
the element of the Gnomes predominates in melanchol persons; of the Salamanders
in the sanguine; of the Undines in the phlegmatic; of the Sylphs in the giddy
and bilious.... These are the spirits which we designate under the tern of
occult elements (Rituel de la Haute Magic, vol. ii. chapter on the
‘‘Conjnration of the Four Classes of Elementary”).
‘‘Yes, yes,’’ he remarks (op.
cit., vol. i. p. 164):
These spirits of the elements
do exist. Same wandering in their spheres, others trying to incarnate
themselves, others, again, already incarnated, and living on earth. These are
vicious and imperfect men.
Note that we have here
described to us more or less “intelligent Spirits, other than those who have
passed through an earth experience in a human body.’’ If not intelligent, they
would not know how to make the attempt to incarnate themselves. Vicious
Elementals, or
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Elementaries, are attracted to
vicious parents; they bask in their atmosphere, and are thus afforded the
chance, by the vices of the parents, to perpetuate in the child the paternal
wickedness. The unintellectual “Elementals” are drawn in unconsciously to
themselves, and, in the order of Nature, as component parts of the grosser
astral body or soul, determine the temperament. They can as little resist as
the animalcules can avoid entering into our bodies in the water we swallow. Of
a third class, out of hundreds that the Eastern Philosophers and Kabalists are
acquainted with, Eliphas I discussing spiritistic phenomena, says:
They are neither the souls of
the damned nor guilty; the elementary spirits are like children, curious and
harmless, and torment people in proportion as attention is paid to them.
These he regards as the sole
agents in all the meaningless and useless physical phenomena at seances. Such
phenomena will be produced unless they be dominated “by wills more powerful
than their own.” Such a will may be that of a living Adept, or, as there are
none such at Western spiritual seances, these ready agents are at the disposal
of every strong, vicious, earth-bound, human Elementary who has been attracted
to the place. By such they can be used in combination with the astral
emanations of the circle and medium, as stuff out of which to make materialized
Spirits.
So little does Levi concede
the possibility of Spirit-return in objective form that he says:
The good deceased come back in
our dreams; the state of mediumism is an extension of dream, it is somnambulism
in all its variety and ecstasies. Fathom the phenomenon of sleep and you will
understand the phenomena of the spirits.
And again
According to one of the great
dogmas of the Kabalah, the soul despoils itself in order to ascend, and thus
would have to re-clothe itself in matter to descend. There is but one way for a
spirit already liberated to manifest himself objectively on earth; he must get
back into his body and resurrect. This is quite another thing from hiding under
a table or a hat. Necromancy, or the evocation of materialized spirits, is
horrible. It constitutes a crime against Nature. We have admitted in our former
works the possibility of vampirism, and even undertaken to explain it. The
phenomena now actually occurring in America and Europe unquestionably belong to
this fearful malady. The mediums do not, it is true, eat the flesh of corpses
[like one Sergeant Bertrand]; but they breathe in throughout their whole
nervous organism the phosphoric emanations of putrefied corpses, or spectral
light. They are not vampires, but they evoke vampires; for this reason, they
are nearly all debilitated and sick (Science des Esprits. p.258).
155———————————————————KABALISTIC VIEWS OF “SPIRITS.”
Henry Kunrath was a most
learned Kabalist, and the greatest anthority among medićval Occultists. He
gives, in one of the clavicles of his Amphitheatrum Sapientić Ćternć,
illustrative engravings of the four great classes of elementary Spirits, as
they presented them selves during an evocation of ceremonial Magic, before the
eyes of the Magus, when, after passing the threshold, he lifted the “Veil of
Isis.” In describing them, Kunrath corroborates Eliphas Levi. He tells us they
are disembodied, vicious men, who have parted with their divine Spirits and
become Elementaries. They are so termed, because attracted by the earthly
atmosphere and surrounded by the earth’s elements. Here Kunrath applies the
term “Elementary” to doomed human souls, While Levi uses it, as we have seen,
to designate another class of the same great family—Gnomes, Sylphs, Undines,
etc.—sub-human entities.
I have before me a manuscript,
intended originally for publication, but withheld for various reasons. The
author signs himself “Zeus,” and is a Kabalist of more than twenty-five years’
standing. This experienced Occultist, a zealous devotee of Kunrath, expounding
the doctrine of the latter, also says that the Kabalists divided the Spirits of
the elements into four classes, corresponding to the four temperaments in man.
It is charged against me as a
heinous offence that I aver that some men lose their souls and are annihilated.
But this last-named authority, “Zeus,” is equally culpable, for he says:
They [ the Kabalists] taught
that mail’s spirit descended from the great ocean of spirit, and is, therefore,
per se, pure and divine, but its soul or capsule, through the [allegorical]
fall of Adam, became contaminated with the world of darkness, or the world of
Satan [evil] of which it must be purified, before it could ascend again to
celestial happiness. Suppose a drop of water enclosed within a capsule remains
whole, the drop of water remains isolated; break the envelope, and the drop
becomes a part of the ocean, its individual existence has ceased. So it is with
the spirit. So long as its ray is enclosed in its plastic mediator or soul, it
has an individual existence. Destroy this capsule, the astral man then becomes
an Elementary; this destruction may occur from the consequences of sin, in the
most depraved and vicious, and the spirit returns back to its original
abode—the individualization of man has ceased. . . . This militates with the
idea of progression that Spiritualists generally entertain. If they understood
the Law of harmony, they would see their error. It is only by this Law that
individual life can be sustained; and the farther we deviate from harmony the
more difficult it is to regain it.
To return to Levi, he remarks
(La Haute Magie, vol. i. p. 319):
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When we die, our interior
light [the soul] ascends agreeably to the attraction of its star [the spirit],
but it must first of all get rid of the coils of the serpent [earthly
evil—sin], that is to say, of the unpurified Astral Light which surrounds and
holds it captive, unless, by the force of Will, it frees and elevates itself.
This immersion of the living soul in the dead light [the emanations of
everything that is evil, which pollute the earth’s magnetic atmosphere, as the
exhalation of a swamp does the air] is a dreadful torture; the soul freezes and
burns therein at the same time.
The Kabalists represent Adam
as the Tree of Life, of which the trunk is Humanity; the various races, the
branches; and individual men, the leaves. Every leaf has its individual life,
and is fed by the one sap; but it can live only through the branch, as the
branch itself draws its life through the trunk. Says the Kabalah:
The wicked are the dead leaves
and the dead bark of the tree. They fall, die, are corrupted and changed into
manure, which returns to the tree through the root.
My friend, Miss Emily
Kislingbury, of London, secretary of the British National Association of
Spiritualists, who is honoured, trusted and beloved by all who know her, sends
me a spirit-communication obtained, in April, 1877, through a young lady, who
is one of the purest and most truthful of her sex. The following extracts are
singularly a propos to the subject under discussion.
Friend, you are right. Keep
our Spiritualism pure and high, for there are those who would abase its uses.
But it is because they know not the power of Spiritualism. It is true, in a
sense, that the spirit can overcome the flesh, but there are those to whom the
fleshly life is dearer than the life of the spirit; they tread on dangerous
ground. For the flesh may so outgrow the spirit, as to withdraw from it all
spirituality, and man becomes as a beast of the field, with no saving power
left. These are they whom the church has termed “reprobate,” eternally lost,
but they suffer not, as the church has taught, in conscious hells. They merely
die, and are not; their light goes out, and has no conscious being. [Question]:
But is this not annihilation? [Answer]: It amounts to annihilation; they lose
their individual entities, and return to the great reservoir of
spirit—unconscious spirit.
Finally, I am asked: “Who are
the trained Seers?” They are those, I answer, who have been trained from their
childhood, in the Pagodas, to use their spiritual sight; those whose
accumulated testimony has not varied for thousands of years as to the
fundamental facts of Eastern Philosophy; the testimony of each generation
corroborating that of each preceding one. Are these to be trusted more, or
less, than the communications of “bands”—each of whom contradicts the other as
completely as the various religious sects, which are ready to cut each other’s
throats—and of mediums, even the best of whom are
157———————————————————KABALISTIC VIEWS OF “SPIRITS.”
ignorant of their own nature,
and unsubjected to the wise direction and restraint of an Adept in
Psychological Science?
No comprehensive idea of
Nature can be obtained except by apply ing the Law of Harmony and analogy in
the spiritual as well as in the physical world. “As above, so below,” is the
old Hermetic axiom. If Spiritualists would apply this to the subject of their
own researches they would see the philosophical necessity of there being in the
world of Spirit, as was the world of Matter, a law of the survival of the
fittest.
Respectfully,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
THE KNOUT
AS WIELDED BY THE GREAT
RUSSIAN THEOSOPHIST.
MR. COLEMAN’S FIRST
APPEARANCE.
[From The
Religio-Philosophical Journal, March 16th, 1878]
I HAVE read some of the
assaults upon Colonel Olcott and myself that have appeared in the Journal. Some
have amused me, others I have passed by unread; but I was quite unprepared for
the good fortune that lay in store for me in embryo in the paper of Feb. 6th.
The “Protest” of Mr.W. Emmette Coleman, entitled “Sclavonic Theosophy v.
American Spiritualism” is the musky rose in an odoriferous bouquet. Its pungent
fragrance would make the nose of a sensitive bleed, whose olfactory nerves
would withstand the perfume of a garden full of the Malayan flower-queen—the
tuberose; and yet, my tough, pug, Mongolian nose, which has smelt carrion in
all parts of the world, proved itself equal even to this emergency.
“From the sublime to the
ridiculous,” says the French proverb, “there is but a single step.” From
sparkling wit to dull absurdity there is no more. An attack, to be effective,
must have an antagonist to strike, for to kick against something that exists
only in one’s imagination, wrenches man or beast. Don Quixote fighting the “air
drawn” foes in his windmill, stands for ever the laughing-stock of all
generations, and the type of a certain class of disputants, whom, for the
moment, Mr. Coleman represents.
The pretext for two columns of
abuse—suggesting, I am sorry to say, parallel sewers—is that Miss Emily
Kislingbury, in an address before the B.N.A. of Spiritualists, mentioned
Colonel Olcott’s name in connection with a leadership of Spiritualism. I have
the report of her remarks before me, and find that she neither proposed Colonel
Olcott to American Spiritualists as a leader, nor said that he had wanted
“leadership,” desired it now, or could ever be persuaded to take it. Says Mr.
Coleman:
159——————————————————————THE KNOUT.
It is seriously proposed by
your transatlantic sister, Miss Kislingburv . . . that American Spiritualists
should select as their guardian guide . Col. H. S. Olcott!!
If anyone is entitled to this
wealth of exclamation points it is Miss Kislingbury, for the charge against her
from beginning to end is simply an unmitigated falsehood. Miss Kislingbury
merely expressed the personal opinion that a certain gentleman, for whom she
had a deserved friendship, would have been capable, at one time, of acting as a
leader. This was her private opinion, to which she had as good a right as
either of her defamers—who in a cowardly way try to use Col. Olcott and myself
as sticks with which to break her head—have to their opinions. It may or may
not have been warranted by the facts— that is immaterial. The main point is,
that Miss Kislingbury has not said one word that gives the slightest pretext
for Mr. Coleman’s attacking her on this question of leadership. And yet, I am
not surprised at his course, for this brave, noble-hearted, truthful and
spotless lady occupies too impregnable a position to be assailed, except
indirectly. Someone had to pay for her plain speaking about American Spiritualism.
What better scapegoat than Olcott and Blavatsky, the twin “theosophical
Gorgons”!
What a hullabaloo is raised,
to be sure, about Spiritualists declining to follow our “leadership.” In my
“Buddhistico-Tartaric” ignorance I have always supposed that something must be
offered before it can either be indignantly spurned or even respectfully
declined. Have we offered to lead Spiritualists by the nose or by other
portions of their anatomy? Have we ever proclaimed ourselves as “teachers,” or
set ourselves up as infallible “guides”? Let the hundreds of unanswered letters
that we have received from Spiritualists be our witness. Let us even include
two letters from Mr. W. Emmette Coleman, from Leaven worth, Kansas, calling
attention to his published articles of Jan. 13th, 20th, 27th, and Feb. 3rd
(four papers), inviting controversy. He says in his communication of Jan. 23rd,
1877, to Col. Olcott, ‘‘I am in search of Truth”; therefore he has not all the
truth. He asks Col. Olcott to answer certain “interrogatories”; therefore our
opinions are admitted to have some weight. He says:
This address [the one he wants
us to read and express our opinion upon] was delivered some time since; if of
more recent date I [he] might modify somewhat.
Now Col. Olcott’s People from The
0ther World was published Jan., 1875; Mr. Coleman’s letter to the Colonel was
written in Jan., 1877; and
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A MODERN PANARION.
his present “Protest” to the
Journal appeared Feb., 1878. It puzzles me to know how a man “in search of Truth”
could lower himself so far as to hunt for it in the coat-pockets of an author
whose work is
Clearly demonstrative of the
utterly unscientific character of his researches, full of exaggerations,
inaccuracies, marvellous statements recorded at second-hand without the
slightest confirmation, lackadaisical sentimentalities, egotistical
rhodomontades, and grammatical inelegancies and solecisms.
To go to a man for “Truth” who
is characterized by The most fervid imagination and brilliant powers of
invention,—according to Mr. Emmette Coleman—shows Mr. Coleman in a sorry light
indeed! His only excuse can be that in January, 1877, when he invited Col.
Olcott to discuss with him—despite the fact that the Theosophical Society had
been established in 1875, and all our “heresies” were already in print—his
estimation of Col. Olcott’s intellectual powers was different from what it is
now, and that Mr. Coleman’s “address” has been left two years unread and
unnoticed. Does this look like our offering ourselves as “leaders”? We address
the great body of intelligent American Spiritualists. They have as much a right
to their opinions as we to ours; they have no more right than we to falsely
state the positions of their antagonists. But their would-be champion, Mr.
Coleman, for the sake of having an excuse to abuse me, pretends to quote (see
column 2, paragraph 1) from something I have published, a whole sentence that I
defy him to prove I ever made use of. This is downright literary fraud and
dishonesty. A man who is in “search of Truth” does not usually employ a
falsehood as a weapon.
Good friends, whose enquiries
we have occasionally, but rarely, answered, bear us witness that we have always
disclaimed anything like “leadership”; that we have invariably referred you to
the same standard authors whom we have read, the same old Philosophers we have
studied. We call on you to testify that we have repudiated dogmas and
dogmatists, whether living men or disembodied Spirits. As opposed to
Materialists, Theosophists are Spiritualists, but it would be as absurd for us
to claim the leadership of Spiritualism as for a Protestant priest to speak for
the Romish Church, or a Romish Cardinal to lead the great body of Protestants,
though both claim to be Christians! Recrimination seems to be the life and soul
of American journalism, but I really thought that a spiritualistic organ had
more congenial matter for its columns than such materialistic abuse as the
present “Fort Leavenworth” criticism!
161———————————————————————THE KNOUT.
One chief aim of the writer
seems to be to abuse Isis Unveiled. My publisher will doubtless feel under
great obligations for giving it such a notoriety just now, when the fourth
edition is ready to go to press. That the fossilized reviewers of The Tribune
and Popular Science Monthly—both admitted advocates of materialistic Science
and unsparingly contemptuous denouncers of Spiritualism—should, without either
of them having read my book, brand it as spiritualistic moon shine, was
perfectly natural. I should have thought that I had written my first volume,
holding up Modern Science to public contempt for its unfair treatment of
psychological phenomena, to small purpose, if they had complimented me. Nor was
I at all surprised that the critic of the New York Sun permitted himself the
coarse language of a partizan and betrayed his ignorance of the contents of my
book by terming me a “Spiritualist.” But I am sorry that a critic like Mr.
Coleman, who professes to speak for the Spiritualists and against the
Materialists, should range himself by the side of the flunkeys of the latter,
when at least twenty of the first critics of Europe and America, not
Spiritualists but well-read scholars, have praised it even more unstintedly
than he has bespattered it. If such men as the author of The Great Dionysiak
Myth and Poseidon—writing a private letter to a fellow arch and scholar, which
he thought I would never see—says the design of my book is “simply colossal,”
and that the book “is really a marvellous production” and has his “entire
concurrence” in its views about:
(1) the wisdom of the ancient
Sages; (2) the folly of the merely material Philosopher (the Emmette Colemans,
Huxleys and Tyndalls);
(3) the doctrine of Nirvana;
(4) archaic monotheism, etc.; and when the London Public Opinion calls it “one
of the most extraordinary works of the nineteenth century” in an elaborate
criticism; and when Alfred R. Wallace says:
I am amazed at the vast amount
of erudition displayed in the chapters, and the great interest of the topics on
which they treat; your book will open up to many Spiritualists a whole world of
new ideas, and cannot fail to be of the greatest value in the enquiry which is
now being so earnestly carried on,
—Mr. Coleman really appears in the sorry light of one who abuses for the mere
sake of abusing.
What a curious psychological
power I must have All the Journal writers, from the talented editor down to Mr.
Coleman, pretend to account for the blind devotion of Col. Olcott to Theosophy,
the over-partial panegyric of Miss Kislingbury, the friendly recantation of
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Dr. G. Bloede, and the
surprisingly vigorous defence of myself by Mr. C. Sotheran, and other recent
events, on the ground of my having psychologized them all into the passive servitude
of hoodwinked dupes! I can only say that such Psychology is next door to
miracle. That I could influence men and women of such acknowledged independence
of character and intellectual capacity, would be at least more than any of your
lecturing mesmerizers or “spirit-controls” have been able to accomplish. Do you
not see, my noble enemies, the logical consequences of such a doctrine? Admit
that I can do that, and you admit the reality of Magic, and my powers as an
Adept. I never claimed that Magic was anything but Psychology practically
applied. That one of your mesmerizers can make a cabbage appear a rose is only
a lower form of the power you all endow me with. You give an old woman—whether
forty, fifty, sixty or ninety years old (some swear I am the latter, some the
former), it matters not; an old woman whose “Kalmuco-Buddhistico-Tartaric”
features, even in youth, never made her appear pretty; a woman whose ungainly
garb, uncouth manners and masculine habits are enough to frighten any bustled
and corseted fine lady of fashionable society out of her wits—you give her such
powers of fascination as to draw fine ladies and gentlemen, scholars and
artists, doctors and clergymen, to her house by scores, to not only talk
Philosophy with her, not merely to stare at her as though she were a monkey in
red flannel breeches, as some of them do, but to honour her in many cases with
their fast and sincere friendship and grateful kindness! Psychology! If that is
the name you give it, then, although I have never offered myself as a teacher,
you had better come, my friends, and be taught at once the “trick” (gratis—for,
unlike other psychologizers, I never yet took money for teaching any thing to
anybody), so that hereafter you may not be deceived into recognizing as—what
Mr. Coleman so graphically calls—”the sainted dead of earth,” those
pimple-nosed and garlic-breathing beings who climb ladders through trap-doors,
and carry tow wigs and battered masks in the penetralia of their underclothing.
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
—“the masculine-feminine
Sclavonic Theosoph from Crim-Tartary”—a title which does more credit to Mr.
Coleman’s vituperative ingenuity than to his literary accomplishments.
INDIAN METAPHYSICS
[From the London Spiritualist,
March 22nd, 1877.]
Two peas in the same pod are
the traditional symbol of mutual resemblance, and the time-honoured simile
forced itself upon me when I read the twin letters of our two masked assailants
in your paper of Feb. 22nd. In substance they are so identical that one would
suppose the same person had written them simultaneously with his two hands, as
Paul Morphy will play you two games of chess, or Kossuth dictate two letters at
once. The only difference between these two letters— lying beside each other on
the same page, like two babes in one crib—is, that “M.A. Cantab’s” is brief and
courteous, while “Scrutator’s” is prolix and uncivil.
By a strange coincidence both
these sharp-shooters fire from behind their secure ramparts a shot at a certain
“learned Occultist” over the head of Mr. C. C. Massey, who quoted some of that
personage’s views, in a letter published May 10th, 1876. Whether in irony or
otherwise, they hurl the views of this “learned Occultist” at the heads of Col.
Olcott and myself, as though they were missiles that would floor us completely.
Now the “learned Occultist” in question is not a whit more, or less, learned
than your humble servant, for the very simple reason that we are identical. The
extracts published by Mr. Massey, by permission, were contained in a letter
from myself to him. More over it is now before me, and, save one misprint of no
consequence, I do not find in it a word that I would wish changed. What is said
there I repeat now over my signature—the theories of 1876 do not contradict
those of 1878 in any respect, as I shall endeavour to prove, after pointing out
to the impartial reader the quaking ground upon which our two critics stand.
Their arguments against Theosophy— certainly “Scrutator’s”—are like a verdant
moss, which displays a velvety carpet of green without roots and with a deep
bog below.
When a person enters on a
controversy over a fictitious signature, he
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should be doubly cautious, if
he would avoid the accusation of abusing the opportunity of the mask to insult
his opponents with impunity. Who or what is “Scrutator”? A clergyman, a medium,
a lawyer, a philosopher, a physician (certainly not a metaphysician), or what?
Quien sabe? He seems to partake of the flavour of all, and yet to grace none.
Though his arguments are all interwoven with sentences quoted from our letters,
yet in no case does he criticize merely what is written by us, but what he
thinks we may have meant, or what the sentences might imply. Drawing his
deductions, then, from what existed only in the depths of his own
consciousness, he invents phrases, and forces constructions, upon which he
proceeds to pour out his wrath. Without meaning to be in the least
personal—for, though propagating “absurdities with the “utmost effrontery,” I
should feel sorry and ashamed to be as impertinent with “Scrutator” as he is
with us—yet, hereafter, when I see a dog chasing the shadow of his own tail, I
will think of his letter.
In my doubts as to what this
assailant might be, I invoked the help of Webster to give me a possible clue in
the pseudonym. “Scrutator,” says the great lexicographer, is “one who
scrutinizes,” and “scrutiny” he derives from the Latin scrutari, “to search
even to the rags”; which scrutari itself he traces back to a Greek root,
meaning “trash, trumpery.” In this ultimate analysis, therefore, we must regard
the nom de plume, while very applicable to his letter of February 22nd, as very
unfortunate for himself; for, at best, it makes him a sort of literary
chiffonnier, probing in the dust-heap of the language for bits of hard
adjectives to fling at us. I repeat that, when an anonymous critic accuses two
persons of “slanderous imputations” (the mere reflex of his own imagination),
and of “unfathomable absurdities,” he ought, at least, to make sure (1) that he
has thoroughly grasped what he is pleased to call the “teachings” of his
adversaries; and (2) that his own philosophy is infallible. I may add,
furthermore, that when that critic permits himself to call the views of other
people—not yet half digested by himself—”unfathomable absurdities,” he ought to
be mighty careful about introducing as arguments into the discussion sectarian
absurdities far more “unfathomable” and which have nothing to do with either
Science or Philosophy.
I suppose [gravely argues
“Scrutator”] a babe’s brain is soft and a quite unfit tool for intelligence,
otherwise Jesus could not have lost His intelligence when He took upon Himself
the body and the brain of a babe [!!?]
165————————————————————INDIAN METAPHYSICS.
The very opposite of Oliver
Johnson evidently, this Jesus-babe of “Scrutator’s.”
Such an argument might come
with a certain force in a discussion between two conflicting dogmatic sects,
but if picked “even to rags” it seems but “utmost effrontery”—to use
“Scrutator’s” own complimentary expression—to employ it in a philosophical
debate, as if it were either a scientific or historically proved fact! If I
refused, at the very start, to argue with our friend “M.A. Oxon.,” a man whom I
esteem and respect as I do few in this world, only because he put forward a
“cardinal dogma,” I shall certainly lose no time in debating Theosophy with a
tattering Christian, whose scrutinizing faculties have not helped him beyond
the acceptance of the latest of the world’s Avatâras, in all its
unphilosophical dead-letter meaning, without even suspecting its symbolical
significance. To parade in a would-be philosophical debate the exploded dogmas
of any Church, is most ineffectual, and shows, at best, a great poverty of
resource. Why does not “Scrutator” address hiss refined abuse, ex cathedra, to
the Royal Society, whose Fellows doom to annihilation every human being,
Theosophist or Spiritualist, pure or impure?
With crushing irony he speaks
of us as “our teachers.” Now I remember having distinctly stated in a previous
letter that we have not offered ourselves as teachers, but, on the contrary,
decline any such office—whatever may be the superlative panegyric of my
esteemed friend, Mr. 0. Sullivan, who not only sees in me “a Buddhist
priestess” (!), but, without a shadow of warrant of fact, credits me with the
foundation of the Theosophical Society and its Branches! Had Colonel Olcott
been half as “psychologized” by me as a certain American Spiritualist paper
will have it, he would have followed my advice and refused to make public our
“views,” even though so much and so often importuned in different quarters.
With characteristic stubbornness, however, he had his own way, and now reaps
the consequence of having thrown his bomb into a hornet’s nest. Instead of
being afforded opportunity for a calm debate, we get but abuse, pure and
simple—the only weapon of partisans. Well, let us make the best of it, and join
our opponents in picking the question “to rags.” Mr. C. C. Massey comes in for
his share, too, and though fit to be a leader himself, is given by “Scrutator”
a chief!
Neither of our critics seems
to understand our views (or his own) so little as “Scrutator.” He misapprehends
the meaning of Elementary,
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and makes a sad mess of Spirit
and Matter. Hear him say that Elementary
Is a new-fangled and
ill-defined term . . not yet two years old.
This sentence alone proves
that he forces himself into the discussion, without any comprehension of the
subject at issue. Evidently, he has neither read the medićval nor modern
Kabalists. Henry Kunrath is as unfamiliar to him as the Abbe Constant. Let him
go to the British Museum, and ask for the Amphitheatrum Sapientić Ćternć
Kunrath. He will find in it illustrative engravings of the four great classes
of elementary Spirits, as seen during an evocation of ceremonial Magic by the
Magus who lifts the Veil of Isis. The author explains that these are
disembodied vicious men, who have parted with their divine Spirits, and become
as beasts. After reading this volume, “Scrutator” may profitably consult
Eliphas Levi whom he will find using the words “Elementary Spirits” throughout
his Dogmae et Rituel de la Haute Magie, in both senses in which we have
employed it. This is especially the case where (vol. i. p. 262, seq.) he speaks
of the evocation of Apollonius of Tyana by himself. Quoting from the greatest
Kabalistic authorities, he says:
When a man has lived well, the
astral cadaver evaporates like a pure incense, as it mounts towards the higher
regions; but if a man has lived in crime, his astral cadaver, which holds him
prisoner, seeks again the objects of his passions and desires to resume its
earthly life. It torments the dreams of young girls, bathes in the vapour of
spilt blood, and wallows about the places where the pleasures of his life
flitted by; it watches without ceasing over the treasures which it possessed
and buried; it wastes itself in painful efforts to make for itself material
organs [materialize itself] and live again. But the astral elements attract and
absorb it; its memory is gradually lost, its intelligence weakens, all its
being dissolves.
The unhappy wretch loses thus
in succession all the organs which served its sinful appetites. Then it [this
astral body, this “soul,” this all that is left of the once living man] dies a
second time and for ever, for it then loses its personality and its memory.
Souls which are destined to live, but which are not yet entirely purified,
remain for a longer or shorter time captive in the astral cadaver, where they
are refined by the odic light, which seeks to assimilate them to itself and
dissolve. It is to rid themselves of this cadaver that suffering souls
sometimes enter the bodies of living persons, and remain there for a time in a
state which the Kabalists call embryonic [embryonnal]. These are the aerial
phantasmas evoked by necromancy [ I may add, the “materialized Spirits” evoked
by the unconscious necromancy of incautious mediums, in cases where the forms
are not transformations of their own doubles]; these are larvć, substances dead
or dying with which one places himself en rapport.
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Further, Levi says (op. cit.,
p. 164):
The astral light is saturated
with elementary souls. . . Yes, yes, these spirits of the elements do exist.
Some wandering in their spheres, others trying to incarnate themselves, others,
again already incarnated and living on earth; these are vicious and imperfect
men.
And in the face of this
testimony—which he can find in the British Museum, two steps from the office of
The Spiritualist (!)—that since the Middle Ages the Kabalists have been writing
about the Elementaries, and their potential annihilation, “Scrutator” permits
himself to arraign Theosophists for their “effrontery” in foisting upon
Spiritualists a “new-fangled and ill-defined term” which is “not yet two years
old”!
In truth, we may say that the
idea is older than Christianity, for it is found in the ancient Kabalistic
books of the Jews. In the olden time they defined three kinds of “souls”—the
daughters of Adam, the daughters of the angels and those of sin; and in the
book of The Revolution of the Souls three kinds of “Spirits” (as distinct from
material bodies) are shown—the captive, the wandering and the free Spirits. If
“Scrutator” were acquainted with the literature of Kabalism, he would know that
the term Elementary applies not only to one principle or constituent part, to
an elementary primary substance, but also embodies the idea which we express by
the term elemental—that which pertains to the four elements of the material
world, the first principles or primary ingredients. The word “elemental” as
defined by Webster, was not current at the time of Kunrath, but the idea was
perfectly understood. The distinction has been made, and the term adopted by
Theosophists for the sake of avoiding confusion. The thanks we get are that we
are charged with propounding, in 1878, a different theory of the “Elementaries”
from that of 1876!
Does anything herein stated
either as from ourselves, or Kunrath, or Levi contradict the statement of the
‘‘learned Occultist’’ that:
Each atom, no matter where
found, is imbued with that vital principle called spirit each grain of sand,
equally with each minutest atom of the human body, has its inherent latent
spark of the divine light?
Italicizing some words of the
above, but omitting to emphasize the one important word of the sentence, i.e.,
“latent,” which contains the key to the whole mystery, our critic mars the
sense. In the grain of sand, and each atom of the human material body, the
Spirit is latent, not active; hence being but a correlation of the highest
light, some-
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defined a materialized Spirit
as “frozen whiskey,” was right in his way. A Copious vocabulary, indeed, that
has but one term for God and for alcohol! With all their libraries of
metaphysics, European nations have not even gone to the trouble of inventing
appropriate words to elucidate metaphysical ideas. If they had, perhaps one
book in every thousand would have sufficed to really instruct the public,
instead of there being the present confusion of words, obscuring intelligence,
and utterly hampering the Orientalist, who would expound his Philosophy in
English. Whereas, in the latter language, I find but one word to express,
perhaps, twenty different ideas, in the Eastern tongues, especially Sanskrit,
there are twenty words or more to render one idea in its various shades of
meaning.
We are accused of propagating
ideas that would surprise the “average” Buddhist. Granted, and I will liberally
add that the average Brâhmanist might be equally astonished. We never said that
we were either Buddhists or Brâhmanists in the sense of their popular exoteric
Theologies. Buddha, sitting on his Lotus, or Brahmâ, with any number of
teratological arms, appeals to us as little as the Catholic Madonna or the
Christian personal God, which stare at us from cathedral walls and ceilings.
But neither Buddha nor Brahmâ represents to His respective worshippers the same
ideas as these Catholic icons which we regard as blasphemous. In this
particular who dares say that Christendom with its civilization has outgrown
the fetichism of Fijians? When we see Christians and Spiritualists speaking so
flippantly and confidently about God and the “materialization of Spirit,” we
wish they might be made to share a little in the reverential ideas of the old
Aryas.
We do not write for “average”
Buddhists, or average people of any sort. But I am quite willing to match any
tolerably educated Buddhist or Brâhman against the best metaphysicians of
Europe, to compare views on God and on man’s immortality.
The ultimate abstract
definition of this—call it God, Force, Principle, as you will—will ever remain
a mystery to Humanity, though it attain to its highest intellectual
development. The anthropomorphic ideas of Spiritualists concerning Spirit are a
direct consequence of the anthropomorphic conceptions of Christians as to the
Deity. So directly is the one the outflow of the other, that “Scrutator’s”
handiest argument against the duality of a child and potential immortality is
to cite
Jesus who increased in wisdom
as His brain increased.
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Christians call God an
Infinite Being, and then endow Him with every finite attribute, such as love,
anger, benevolence, mercy! They call Him all-merciful, and preach damnation for
three-fourths of Humanity in every church, all-just, and the sins of this brief
span of life may not be expiated by even an eternity of conscious agony. Now,
by some miracle of oversight, among thousands of mistranslations in the “Holy”
Writ, the word “destruction,” the synonym of annihilation, was rendered
correctly in King James’s version, and no dictionary can make it read either
damnation or eternal torment. Though the Church consistently put down the
“destructionists,” yet the impartial will scarcely deny that they come nearer
than their persecutors to believing what Jesus taught, and what is consistent
with justice, in teaching the final annihilation of the wicked.
To conclude, then, we believe
that there is but one undefinable Principle in the whole Universe, which being
utterly incomprehensible by our finite intellects, we prefer rather to leave
undebated than to blaspheme Its majesty with our anthropomorphic speculations.
We believe that all else which has being, whether material or spiritual, and
all that may have existence, actually, or potentially in our idealism, emanates
from this Principle. That everything is a correlation in one shape or another
of this Will and Force; and hence, judging of the unseen by the visible, we
base our speculations upon the teachings of the generations of Sages who
preceded Christianity, fortified by our own reason.
I have already illustrated the
incapacity of some of our critics to separate abstract ideas from complex
objects, by instancing the grain of sand and the nail-paring. They refuse to
comprehend that a philosophical doctrine can teach that an atom imbued with
divine light, or a portion of the great Spirit, in its latent stage of
correlation, may, not withstanding its reciprocal or corresponding similarity
and relations to the one indivisible whole, be yet utterly deficient in
self-consciousness. That it is only when this atom, magnetically drawn to its
fellow-atoms, which had served in a previous state to form with it some lower
complex object, is transformed at last, after endless cycles of evolution, into
man—the apex of perfected being, intellectually and physically, on our
planet—in conjunction with them it becomes, as a whole, a living soul, and
reaches the state of intellectual self-consciousness.
A stone becomes a plant, a
plant an animal, an animal a man, and man a Spirit, say the Kabalists. And here
again, is the wretched necessity of trans-
171————————————————————INDIAN METAPHYSICS.
lating by the word “Spirit” an
expression which means a celestial, or rather ethereal, transparent man. But if
man is the crown of evolution on earth, what is he in the initiatory stages of
the next existence, that man who, at his best—even when he is pretended to have
served as a habitation for the Christian God, Jesus—is said by Paul to have
been “made a little lower than the angels”? But now we have every astral spook
transformed into an “angel”! I cannot believe that the scholars who write for
your paper—and there are some of great intelligence and erudition who think for
themselves, and whom exact science has taught that ex nihilo nihil fit who know
that every atom of man’s body has been evolving by imperceptible gradations,
from lower into higher forms, through the cycles—accept the unscientific and
illogical doctrine that the simple unshelling of an astral man transforms him
into a celestial Spirit and “angel” guide.
In Theosophical opinion a
Spirit is a Ray, a fraction of the Whole; and the Whole being Omniscient and
Infinite, Its fraction must partake, in degree, of the same abstract
attributes. Man’s “Spirit” must become the drop of the Ocean, called
“Ishvara-Bhâva”—the “I am one body, together with the universe itself” (I am in
my Father, and my Father is in me), instead of remaining but the “Jiva-Bhâva
the body only. He must feel himself not only a part of the Creator, Preserver
and Destroyer, but of the Soul of the Three, the Parabrahman, Who is above
these and is the vitalizing, energizing and ever-presiding Spirit. He must
fully realize the sense of the word “Sahajanund,” that state of perfect bliss
in Nirvana, which can only exist for the It, which has become coexistent with the
“formless and actionless present time.” This is the state called “Vartamâna,”
or the “ever still present,” in which there is neither past nor future, but one
infinite eternity of present. Which of the controlling “spirits,” materialized
or invisible, have shown any signs that they belong to the kind of real Spirits
known as the “Sons of Eternity”? Has the highest of them been able to tell even
as much as our own Divine Nous can whisper to us in moments when there comes
the flash of sudden prevision? Honest communicating “intelligences” often
answer to many questions: “We do not know; this has not been revealed to us.”
This very admission proves that, while in many cases on their way to knowledge
and perfection, yet they are but embryonic, undeveloped “Spirits”; they are
inferior even to some living Yogis who, through abstract meditation, have
united themselves with their personal individual Brahman, their Atman, and
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hence have overcome the
“Agnyânam,” or lack of that knowledge as to the intrinsic value of one’s
“self,” the Ego or self-being, so recommended by Socrates and the Delphic
commandment.
London has been often visited
by highly intellectual, educated Hindus. I have not heard of any one professing
a belief in “materialized Spirits”
—as Spirits. When not tainted
with Materialism, through demoralizing association with Europeans. and when
free from superstitious sectarianism, how would one of them, versed in the
Vedânta, regard these apparitions of the circle? The chances are that, after
going the rounds of the mediums, he would say: “Some of these may be survivals
of disembodied men’s intelligences, but they are no more spiritual than the
average man. They lack the knowledge of ‘Dryananta,’ and evidently find themselves
in a chronic state of ‘Mâyâ,’ i.e., possessed of the idea that ‘they are that
which they are not.’ The ‘Vartamâna’ has no significance for them, as they are
cognizant but of the ‘Vishania’ [that which, like the concrete numbers in mixed
mathematics, applies to that which can be numbered]. Like simple, ignorant
mortals, they regard the shadow of things as the reality, and vice versa,
mixing up the true light of the ‘Vyatireka’ with the false light or deceitful
appearance—the ‘Anvaya.’ . . . In what respect, then, are they higher than the
average mortal? No; they are not spirits, not ‘Devas,’ they are astral
‘Dasyoos.’
Of course all this will appear
to “Scrutator” “unfathomable absurdities,” for unfortunately, few
metaphysicians shower down from Western skies. Therefore, so long as our
English opponents will remain in their semi-Christian ideas, and not only
ignore the old Philosophy, but the very terms it employs to render abstract
ideas; so long as we are forced to transmit these ideas in a general way—particularly
as it is impracticable without the invention of special words—it will be
unprofitable to push discussion to any great lengths. We would only make
ourselves obnoxious to the general reader, and receive from other anonymous
writers such unconvincing compliments as “Scrutator” has favoured us with.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, March 7th, 1877.
“H. M.” AND THE TODAS
—————
[From the London
Spiritualist.]
I HAVE read the communication
of “H. M.” in your paper of the 8th inst. I would not have mentioned the
“Todas” at all in my book, if I had not read a very elaborate octavo work in
271 pp., by William S. Marshall, Lieut.-Col. of Her Majesty’s Bengal Staff
Corps, entitled:
A Phrenologist among the
Todas, copiously illustrated with photographs of the squalid and filthy beings
to whom “H. M.” refers. Though written by a staff officer, assisted “by the
Rev. Friedrich Metz, of the Basle Missionary Society, who had spent upwards of
twenty years of labour” among them, “the only European able to speak the obscure
Toda tongue,” the book is so full of misrepresentations—though both writers
appear to be sincere— that I wrote what I did.
What I said I knew to be true,
and I do not retract a single word. If neither “H. M.” nor Lieut.-Col.
Marshall, nor the Rev. Mr. Metz have penetrated the secret that lies behind the
dirty huts of the aborigines they have seen, that is their misfortune, not my
fault.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, March 18th, 1878.
THE TODAS
—————
[From the London
Spiritualist.]
FOR my answer to the sneer of
your correspondent “H. M.” about my opinion of the Todas a few lines sufficed.
I only cared to say that what I have written in Isis Unveiled was written after
reading Col. Marshall’s A Phrenologist among the Todas, and in consequence of
what, whether justly or not, I believe to be the erroneous statements of that
author. Writing about Oriental psychology, its phenomena and practitioners, as
I did, I should have been ludicrously wanting in common sense if I had not
anticipated such denials and contradictions as those of “H. M.” from every
side. How would it profit the seeker after this Occult knowledge to face
danger, privations, and obstacles of every kind to gain it, if, after attaining
his end, he should not have facts to relate of which the profane were ignorant?
A pretty set of critics are the ordinary travellers or observers, even though
what Dr. Carpenter euphemistically calls a “scientific officer,” or
“distinguished civilian,” when, confessedly, every European unfurnished with
some mystical passport is debarred from entering any orthodox Brâhman’s house
or the inner precincts of a pagoda. How we poor Theosophists should tremble
before the scorn of those modern Daniels when the cleverest of them has never
been able to explain the commonest “tricks” of Hindu jugglers, to say nothing
of the phenomena of the Fakirs! These very savants answer the testimony of
Spiritualists with an equally lofty scorn, and resent as a personal affront the
invitation to even attend a seance.
I should therefore have let the
“Todas” question pass, but for the letter of “Late Madras C. S.” in your paper
of the 15thI feel bound to answer it, for the writer plainly makes me out to be
a liar. He threatens me, moreover, with the thunderbolts that a certain other
officer has concealed in his library closet.
It is quite remarkable how a
man who resorts to an alias sometimes forgets that he is a gentleman. Perhaps
such is the custom in your
175———————————————————————THE
TODAS.
civilized England, where
manners and education are said to be carried to a superlative elegance; but not
so in poor, barbarous Russia, which a good portion of your countrymen are just
now trying to strangle (if they can). In my country of Tartaric Cossacks and
Kalmucks, a man who sets out to insult another does not usually hide himself
behind a shield. I am sorry to have to say this much, but you have allowed me,
without the least provocation and upon several occasions, to be unstintedly
reviled by correspondents, and I am sure that you are too much of a man of honour
to refuse me the benefit of an answer. “Late Madras, C. S.” sides with Mrs.
Showers in the insinuation that I never was in India at all. This reminds me of
a calumny of last year, originating with “spirits” speaking through a
celebrated medium at Boston, and finding credit in many quarters.
It was, that I was not a
Russian, did not even speak that language, but was merely a French adventuress.
So much for the infallibility of some of the sweet “angels.” Surely, I will
neither go to the trouble of exhibiting to any of my masked detractors, of this
or the other world, my passports vise’s by the Russian embassies half a dozen
times on my way to India and back. Nor will I demean myself by showing the
stamped envelopes of letters received by me in different parts of India.
Such an accusation makes me
simply laugh, for my word is, surely, as good as that of anybody else. I will
only say that more’s the pity that an English officer, who was “fifteen years
in the district,” knows less of the Todas than I, who, he pretends, never was
in India at all. He calls Gopuram a “tower” of the pagoda. Why not the roof or
any thing else as well? Gopuram is the sacred pylon, the pyramidal gate way by
which the pagoda is entered; and yet I have repeatedly heard the people of southern
India call the pagoda itself a Gopuram. It may be a careless mode of expression
employed among the vulgar; but when we come to consult the authority of the
best Indian lexicographers we find it accepted. In John Shakespear’s Hindustáni
English Dictionary (edition of 1849, p. 1727) the word Gopuram is rendered as
“an idol temple of the Hindus.” Has “Late Madras C. S.” or any of his friends,
ever climbed up into the interior, so as to know who or what is concealed
there? If not, then perhaps his fling at me was a trifle premature. I am sorry
to have shocked the sensitiveness of such a philological purist, but really I
do not see why, when speaking of the temples of the Todas—whether they exist or
not—even a Brâhman Guru might not say that they had their Gopurams? Perhaps
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he, or some other brilliant
authority in Sanskrit and other Indian languages, will favour us with the
etymology of the word? Does the first syllable, go or gu, relate to the
roundness of these “towers” as my critic calls them (for the word go does mean
something round) or to gop, a cowherd, which gave its name to a Hindu caste and
was one of the names of Krishna, Go-pal meaning the cowherd? Let these critics
carefully read Col. Marshall’s work and see whether the pastoral tribe, whom he
saw so much, and discovered so little about, whose worship (exoteric, of
course) is all embraced in the care of the sacred cows and buffaloes, the
distribution of the “divine fluid”—milk, and whose seeming adoration, as the
missionaries tell us, is so great for their buffaloes that they call them the
“gift of God,” could not be said to have their Gopurams, though the latter were
but a cattle-pen, a tirieri, the maund, in short, into which the phrenological
explorer crawled alone by night with infinite pains and—neither saw nor found
anything. And because he found nothing he concludes they have no religion, no
idea of God, no worship. About as reasonable an inference as Dr. W. B.
Carpenter might come to if he had crawled into Mrs. Showers’ séance— room some
night when all the “angels” and their guests had fled, and straightway reported
that among Spiritualists there are neither mediums nor phenomena.
Col. Marshall I find far less
dogmatic than his admirers. Such cautious phrases as “I believe,” “I could not
ascertain,” “I believe it to be true,” and the like, show his desire to find
out the truth, but scarcely prove conclusively that he has found it. At best it
only comes to this, that Col. Marshall believes one thing to be true, and I
look upon it differently. He credits his friend the missionary, and I believe
my friend the Brâhman, who told me what I have written. Besides, I explicitly
state in my book (see Isis, vol. ii. pp. 614, 615):
As soon as their [the Todas’]
solitude was profaned by the avalanche of civilization . . the Todas began
moving away to other parts as unknown and more inaccessible than the Neilgherri
hills had formerly been.
The Todas, therefore, of whom
my Brâhman friend spoke, and whom Capt. W. L. D. O’Grady, late manager of the
Madras Branch Bank at Ootacamund, tells me he has seen specimens of, are not
the degenerate remnants of the tribe whose phrenological bumps were measured by
Col. Marshall. And yet, even what the latter writes of these, I from personal
knowledge affirm to be in many particulars inaccurate. I may be regarded by my
critics as over-credulous, but this is surely no
177———————————————————————THE TODAS.
reason why I should be treated
as a liar whether by late or living Madras authorities of the C. S. Neither
Capt. O’Grady, who was born at Madras and was for a time stationed on the
Neilgherri hills, nor I, recognized the individuals photographed in Col.
Marshall’s book as Todas. Those we saw wore their dark brown hair very long, and
were much fairer than the Badagas, or any other Hindus in neither of which
particulars do they resemble Col. Marshall’s types. “H. M.” says:
The Todas are brown,
coffee-coloured, like most other natives.
But turning to Appleton’s
Cyclopćdia (vol. xii. p. 173), we read:
These people are of a light
complexion, have strongly-marked Jewish features, and have been supposed by
many to be one of the lost tribes.
“H. M.” assures us that the
places inhabited by the Todas are not infested by venomous serpents or tigers;
but the same Cyclopćdia remarks that:
The mountains are swarming
with wild animals of all descriptions, among which elephants and tigers are
numerous.
But the “Late” (defunct?—is
your correspondent a disembodied angel?) “Madras C. S.” attains to the sublimity
of the ridiculous when, with biting irony in winding up, he says:
All good spirits, of whatever
degree, astral or elementary, . . . prevent his [Capt. R. F. Burton’s] ever
meeting with Isis—rough might be the unveiling
Surely unless that military Nemesis
should tax the hospitality of some American newspaper, conducted by
politicians, he could never be rougher than this Madras Grandison. And then,
the idea of suggesting that, after having contradicted and made sport of the
greatest authorities of Europe and America, to begin with Max Muller and end
with the Positivists, in both my volumes, I should be appalled by Captain
Burton, or the whole lot of captains in Her Majesty’s service—though each
carried an Armstrong gun on his shoulder and a mitrailleuse in his pocket—is
positively superb! Let them reserve their threats and terrors for my Christian
countrymen.
Any moderately equipped
sciolist (and the more empty-headed, the easier) might tear Isis to shreds, in
the estimation of the vulgar, with his sophisms and presumably authoritative
analysis; but would that prove him to be right, and me wrong? Let all the
records of medial phenomena, rejected, falsified, slandered and ridiculed, and
of mediums terrorized, for thirty years past, answer for me. I, at least, am
not of the kind to be bullied into silence by such tactics, as “Late Madras”
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may in time discover; nor will
he ever find me skulking behind a nom de plume when I have insults to offer. I
always have had, as I now have, and trust ever to retain, the courage of my
opinions, however unpopular or erroneous they may be considered; and there are
not showers enough in Great Britain to quench the ardour with which I stand by
my convictions.
There is but one way to account
for the tempest which, for four months, has raged in The Spiritualist against
Col. Olcott and myself, and that is expressed in the familiar French proverb—”
Quand on veut tuer son chien, on dit qu’il est enrage".
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, March 24th 1878.
THE AHKOOND OF SWAT
THE FOUNDER OF MANY MYSTICAL
SOCIETIES.
—————
[From the New York Echo,
1878.]
OF the many remarkable
characters of this century, Ghafur was one of the most conspicuous.
If there be truth in the
Eastern doctrine that souls, powerful whether for good or bad, who had not time
in one existence to work out their plans, are reincarnated, the fierceness of
their yearnings to continue on earth thrusting them back into the current of
their attractions, then Ghafur was a rebirth of that Felice Peretti, who is
known in history as Pope Sixtus V., of crafty and odious memory. Both were born
in the lowest class of society, being ignorant peasant boys and beginning life
as herdsmen. Both reached the apex of power through craft and stealth and by
imposing upon the superstitions of the masses. Sixtus, author of mystical books
and himself a practitioner of the forbidden sciences to satisfy his lust for
power and ensure impunity, became Inquisitor-General. Made Pope, he hurled his
anathemas alike against Elizabeth of England, the King of Navarre, and other
important personages. Abdul Ghafur, endowed with an iron will, had educated
himself without colleges or professors except through association with the
“wise men” of Khuttuk. He was as well versed in the Arabic and Persian
literature of alchemy and astronomy as Sixtus was in Aristotle, and like him
knew how to fabricate mesmerized talismans and amulets containing either life
or death for those to whom they were presented. Each held millions of devotees
under the subjection of their psycho logical influence, though both were more
dreaded than beloved.
Ghafur had been a warrior and
an ambitious leader of fanatics, but becoming a dervish and finally a pope, so
to say, his blessing or curse made him as effectually the master of the Ameers
and other Mussulmans as Sixtus was of the Catholic potentates of Europe.
Only the salient features of
his career are known to Christendom.
180————————————————————A M0DERN PANARION.
Watched, as he may have been,
his private life, ambitions, aspirations for temporal as well as religious
power, are almost a sealed book. But the one certain thing is, that he was the
founder and chief of nearly every secret society worth speaking of among
Mussulmans, and the dominant spirit in all the rest. His apparent antagonism to
the Wahabees was but a mask, and the murderous hand that struck Lord Mayo was
certainly guided by the old Abdul. The Biktashee Dervishes* and the howling,
dancing, and other Moslem religious mendicants recognize his supremacy as far
above that of the Sheik-ul-Islam of the faithful. Hardly a political order of
any importance issued from Constantinople or Teheran—heretics though the
Persians are—without his having a finger in the pie directly or indirectly. As
fanatical as Sixtus, but more cunning yet, if possible, instead of giving
direct orders for the extermination of the Huguenots of Islam, the Wahabees, he
directed his curses and pointed his finger only at those among them whom he
found in his way, keeping on the best, though secret, terms with the rest.
The title of Nasr-ed-Din
(defender of the faith) he impartially applied to both the Sultan and the Shah,
though one is a Sunnite and the other a Shiah. He sweetened the stronger
religious intolerance of the Osman dynasty by adding to the old title of
Nasr-ed-Din those of Saif-ed-Din (scimitar of faith) and Emir-el-Mumminiah
(prince of the faithful). Every Emir-el-Sourey, or leader of the sacred caravan
of pilgrims to Mekka, brought or sent messages to, and received advice and
instructions from, Abdul, the latter in the shape of mysterious oracles, for
which was left the full equivalent in money, presents and other offerings, as
the Catholic pilgrims have recently done at Rome.
In 1847-8 the Prince Mirza,
uncle of the young Shah and ex-governor of a great province in Persia, appeared
in Tiflis, seeking Russian protection at the hands of Prince Woronzof, Viceroy
of the Caucasus. Having helped himself to the crown jewels and ready money in
the treasury, he had run away from the jurisdiction of his loving nephew, who
was anxious to put out his eyes. Popular rumour asserted that his reason for
what he had done was that the great dervish, Ahkoond, had thrice appeared to
him in dreams, prompting him to take what he had and share his booty with the
protectors of the faith of his principal wife (he brought twelve with him to
Tiflis), a native of Cabul. The
—————
* To this day, no Biktashee
would be recognized as Such unless he could claim possession of a certain medal
with the seal of this high-pontiff” of all the Dervishes, whether they belong
to one sect or the other.
181———————————————————THE AHKOOND OF SWAT.
secret, though, perhaps,
indirect influence he exercised on the Begum of Bhopal, during the Sepoy
rebellion of 1857, was a mystery only to the English, whom the old schemer knew
so well how to hoodwink. During his long career of Macchiavellism, friendly
with the British, and yet striking them constantly in secret; venerated as a
new prophet by millions of orthodox, as well as heretic Mussulmans; managing to
preserve his influence over friend and foe, the old “Teacher” had one enemy
whom he feared, for he knew that no amount of craft would ever win it over to
his side. This enemy was the once mighty nation of the Sikhs, ex-sovereign
rulers of the Punjab and masters of the Peshawur Valley. Reduced from their
high estate, this warrior people are now under the rule of a single
Mahârâjah—Puttiala—who is him self the helpless vassal of the British. From the
beginning the Ahkoond had continually encountered the Sikhs in his path. Scarce
would he feel himself conqueror over one obstacle, before his hereditary enemy
would appear between him and the realization of his hopes. If the Sikhs
remained faithful to the British in 1857, it was not through hearty loyalty or
political convictions, so much as through sheer opposition to the Mohammedans,
whom they knew to be secretly prompted by the Ahkoond.
Since the days of the great
Nanak, of the Kshattriya caste, founder of the Sikh Brotherhood in the second
half of the fifteenth century, these brave and warlike tribes have ever been
the thorn in the side of the Mogul dynasty, the terror of the Moslems of India.
Originating, as we may say, in a religious Brotherhood, whose object was to
make away alike with Islamism, Brâhmanism, and other isms, including later
Christianity, this sect evolved a pure monotheism in the abstract idea of an
ever unknown Principle, and elaborated it into the doctrine of the “Brotherhood
of Man.” In their view, we have but one Father- Mother Principle, with “neither
form, shape, nor colour,” and we ought all to be, if we are not, brothers
irrespective of distinctions of race or colour. The sacerdotal Brâhman,
fanatical in his observance of dead-letter forms, thus became in the opinion of
the Sikh as much the enemy of truth as the Mussulman wallowing in a sensual
heaven with his houris, the joss-worshipping Buddhist grinding out prayers at
his wheel, or yet the Roman Catholic adoring his jewelled Madonnas, whose
complexion the priests change from white to brown and black to suit climates
and prejudices. Later on, Arjuna, son of Ramdas, the fourth in the succession
after Nanak, gathering together the doctrines
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of the founder and his son
Angad, brought out a sacred volume, called Adi-garunth, and largely
supplemented it with selections from forty- five Sutras of the Jains. While
adopting equally the religious figures of the Vedas and Koran, after sifting
them and explaining their symbolism, the Adi-garuizlh yet presents a greater
similarity of ideas respecting the most elaborate metaphysical conceptions with
those of the Jain school of Gurus. The notions of Astrology, or the influence
of the starry spheres upon ourselves, were evidently adopted from that most
prominent school of antiquity. This will be readily ascertained by comparing
the commentaries of Abhayadeva Sun upon the original forty-five Sfttras in the
Magadhi or Balabasha languages* with the Adigarunik. An old Jain Guru, who is
said to have drawn the horoscope of Runjeet Singh, at the time of his greatest
power, had foretold the downfall of the kingdom of Lahore. It was the learned
Arjuna who retired into Amritsir, changed the sect into a politico- religious
community, and instituted within the same another and more esoteric body of
Gurus, scholars and metaphysicians, of which he became sole chief. He died in
prison, under torture, by the order of Aurungzebe, into whose hands he had
fallen, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. His son Govinda, a Guru
(religious teacher) of great renown, vowed revenge against the race of his
father’s murderers, and after various changes of fortune the Afghans were
finally driven from the Punjab by the Sikhs in 1764. This triumph only made
their hatred more bitter still, and from that moment until the death of Runjeet
Singh, in 1839, we find them constantly aiming their blows at the Moslems. Mahâ
Singh, the father of Runjeet, had set off the Sikhs into twelve mizals or
divisions, each having its own chief (Sirdar), whose secret Council of State
consisted of learned Gurus. Among these were Masters in spiritual Science, and
they might, if they had had a mind, have exhibited as astonishing “miracles”
and divine legerdemain as the old Mussulman Ahkoond. He knew it well, and for
this reason dreaded them even more than he hated them for his defeat and that
of his Ameer by Runjeet Singh.
One highly dramatic incident
in the life of the “Pope of Sydoo” is the following well-authenticated case,
which was much commented upon in his part of India about twenty years ago. One
day, in 1858,
—————
* This valuable work is now
being republished by Ookerdhabhoy Shewgee, and has been received by the
Theosophical Society from the Editor through the President of the Bombay
branch. When finished it will be the first edition of the Jain Bible,
Sudra-Sangraha or Vihiva Punnutti Sudra in existence, as all their sacred books
are kept in secret by the Jains.
183———————————————————THE AHKOOND OF SWAT.
when the Ahkoond, squatting on
his carpet, was distributing amulets, blessings and prophecies among his pious
congregation of pilgrims, a tall Hindu who had silently approached and mingled
in the crowd without having been noticed, suddenly addressed him thus: “Tell
me, prophet, thou who prophesiest so well for others, whether thou knowest what
will be thine own fate, and that of the ‘Defender of the Faith,’ thy Sultan of
Stamboul, twenty years hence?”
The old Ghafur, overcome with
violent surprise, stared at his interlocutor, but no answer came. In
recognizing the Sikh he seemed to have lost all power of speech, and the crowd
was under a spell.
“If not,” continued the
intruder, “then I will tell thee. Twenty years more and your ‘Prince of the
Faithful’ will fall by the hand of an assassin of his own house. Two old men,
one the Dalai Lama of the Christians, the other the great prophet of the
Moslems—thyself— will be simultaneously crushed under the heel of death. Then,
the first hour will strike of the downfall of those twin foes of truth—
Christianity and Islam. The first, as the more powerful, will survive the
second, but both will soon crumble into fragmentary sects, which will mutually
exterminate each other’s faith. See, thy followers are powerless, and I might
kill thee now, but thou art in the hands of Destiny, and that knows its own
hour.”
Before a hand could be lifted
the speaker had disappeared. This incident of itself sufficiently proves that
the Sikhs might have assassinated Abdul Ghafur at any time had they chosen so
to do. And it may be that The Mayfair Gazette which in June, 1877,
prophetically observed that the rival pontiffs of
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
THE ARYA SAMAJ
CHRISTENDOM sends its
missionaries to Heathendom at an expense of millions drained from the pockets
of would-be pious folks, who court respectability. Thousands of homeless and
penniless old men, women and children are allowed to starve for lack of funds,
for the sake, perhaps, of one converted “heathen.” All the spare money of the
charitable is absorbed by these dead-head travelling agents of the Christian
Church. What is the result? Visit the prison cells of so-called Christian
lands, crammed with delinquents who have been led on to felony by the weary
path of starvation, and you will have the answer.
Read in the daily papers the
numerous accounts of executions, and you will find that modern Christianity
offers, perhaps unintentionally but none the less surely, a premium for murder
and other heinous crimes. Is anyone prepared to deny the assertion? Remember
that, while many a respectable unbeliever dies in his bed with the comfortable
assurance from his next of kin, and good friends in general, that he is going
to hell, the red-handed criminal has but to believe at his eleventh hour that
the blood of the Saviour can and will save him, to receive the guarantee of his
spiritual adviser that he will find himself when launched into eternity in the
bosom of Christ, in heaven, and playing upon the traditional harp. Why, then,
should any Christian deny himself the pleasure and profit of robbing, or even
murdering, his richer neighbour? And such a doctrine is being promulgated among
the heathen at the cost of an annual expenditure of millions.
But, in her eternal wisdom,
Nature provides antidotes against moral as well as against mineral and
vegetable poisons. There are people who do not content themselves with
preaching grandiloquent discourses; they act. If such books as Higgins’
Anacalypsis, and that extraordinary work of an anonymous English author—a
bishop, it is whispered—entitled Supernatural Religion, cannot awaken
responsive
185————————————————————THE
ARYA SAMAJ.
echoes among the ignorant
masses, other means can be, and are resorted to—means more effectual and which
will bring fruit in the future, if hitherto prevented by the crushing hand of
ecclesiastical and monarchical despotism. Those whom the written proofs of the
fictitious character of biblical authority cannot reach, may be saved by the
spoken word. And this work of disseminating the truth among the more ignorant
classes is being ardently prosecuted by an army of devoted scholars and
teachers, simultaneously in India and America.
The Theosophical Society has
been of late so much spoken about; such idle tales have been circulated about
it—its members being sworn to secrecy and hitherto unable, even if willing, to
proclaim the truth about it—that the public may be gratified to know, at least,
about one portion of its work. It is now in organized affiliation with the Arya
Samâj of India, its Western representative, and, so to say, under the order of
its chiefs. A younger Society than the Brâhmo Samaj it was instituted to save
the Hindu from exoteric idolatries, Brâhmanism and Christian missionaries.
The purely Theistic movement
connected with the Brâhmo Samâj had its origin in the same idea. It began early
in the present century, but spasmodically and with interruption, and only took
concrete shape under the leadership of Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen in 1858. Rammo
bun Roy, who may be termed the combined Fénelon and Thomas Paine of Hindustan,
was its parent, his first church having been organized shortly before his death
in 1833. One of the greatest and most acute of controversial writers that our
century has produced, his works ought to be translated and circulated in every
civilized land. At his death, the work of the Brâhmo Samâj was interrupted. As
Miss Collett says, in her Brahmo Year Book for 1878, it was only in October,
1839, that Debendra Nath Tagore founded the Tattvabodhini Sabhâ (or Society for
the Knowledge of Truth), which lasted for twenty years, and did much to arouse
the energies and form the principles of the young church of the Brahmo Samaj.
But exoteric or open religion as it is now, it must have been conducted at
first much on the principles of the secret societies, as we are informed that
Keshub Chunder Sen, a resident of Calcutta and a pupil of the Presidency College,
who had long before quitted the orthodox Brâhmanical Church and was searching
for a purely Theistic religion, “had never heard of the Brâhmo Samâj before
1858” (see The Theistic Annual, 1878, p. 45).
Since then the Brâhmo Samâj,
which he then joined, has flourished
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and become more popular every
day. We now find it with Samâjes established in many provinces and cities. At
least, we learn that in May, 1877, fifty Samâjes have notified their adhesion
to the Society and eight of them have appointed their representatives. Native
missionaries of the Theistic religion oppose the Christian missionaries and the
orthodox Brâhmans, and the work is going on livelily. So much for the Brâhmo
movement.
And now, with regard to the
Arya Samâj, The Indian Tribune uses the following language in speaking of its
founder:
The first quarter of the
sixteenth century was no more an age of reformation in Europe than the one we
now live in is, at this moment, in India. from amongst its own “Benedictines,”
Swami Dyanand Saraswati has arisen, who, unlike other reformers, does not wish
to set up a new religion of his own, but asks his country men to go back to the
pristine purity and Theism of their Vedic religion. After preaching his views
in Bombay, Poona, Calcutta, and the N. -W. Provinces, he came to the Punjab
last year, and here it is that he found the most congenial soil.
It was in the land of the five
rivers, on the banks of the Indus, that the Vedas were first compiled. It was
the Punjah that gave birth to a Nanak. And it is the Punjab that is making such
efforts for a revival of Vedic learning and its doctrines. And wherever Swami
Dyanand goes, his splendid physique, his manly bearing, eloquence and his
incisive logic tear down all opposition. People rise up and say: We shall
remain no longer in this state for ourselves, we have bad enough of a crafty
priesthood and a demoralizing idolatry, and we shall tolerate them no longer.
We shall wipe off the ugliness of ages, and try to shine forth in the original
radiance and effulgence of our Aryan ancestors.
The Svami is a most highly
honoured Fellow of the Theosophical Society, takes a deep interest in its
proceedings, and The Indian Spectator of Bombay, April 14th, 1878, spoke by the
book when it said that the work of Pundit Dyanand “bears intimate relation to
the work of the Theosophical Society.”
While the members of the
Brâhmo Samaj may be designated as the Lutheran Protestants of orthodox
Brâhmanism, the disciples of the Svami Dyanand should be compared to those
learned mystics, the Gnostics, who had the key to those earlier writings which,
later, were worked over into the Christian gospels and various patristic
literature. As the above-named pre-Christian sects understood the true esoteric
meaning of the Chrestos allegory, which is now materialized into the Jesus of
flesh, so the disciples of the learned and holy Svami are taught to
discriminate between the written form and the spirit of the word preached in
the Vedas. And this is the principal point of difference between the Arya Samâj
and the Brâhmos who, as it would seem, believe
187———————————————————THE ARYA SAMAJ
in a personal God and
repudiate the Vedas, while the Aryas see an everlasting Principle, an
impersonal Cause in the great “Soul of the universe” rather than a personal
being, and accept the Vedas as supreme authority, though not of divine origin.
But we may better quote in elucidation of the subject what the President of the
Bombay Arya Samâj, also a Fellow of the Theosophical Society, Mr. Hurrychund
Chintamon, says in a recent letter to our Society:
Pundit Dyanand maintains that
as it is now universally acknowledged that the Vedas are the oldest books of
antiquity, if they contain the truth and nothing but the truth in all
unmutilated state, and nothing new can be found in other works of later date,
why should we not accept the Vedas as a guide for Humanity? . . A revealed book
or revelation is understood to mean one of two things, Viz.: (1) a book already
written by some invisible hand and thrown into the world; or (2) a work written
by one or more men while they were in their highest state of mental lucidity,
acquired by profound meditation upon the problems of who man is, whence he
came, whither he must go, and by what means he may emancipate himself from
worldly delusions and sufferings. The latter hypothesis may be regarded as the
more rational and correct.
Our Brother Hurrychund here
describes those superior men whom we know as Adepts. He adds:
The ancient inhabitants of a
place near Thibet, and adjoining a lake called Mansovara, were first called
Deveneggury (Devanâgari) or godlike people. Their written characters were also
called Deveneggury or Balbadha letters. A portion of them migrated to the North
and settled there, and afterwards spread towards the South, while others went
to the West. All these emigrants styled themselves Aryans, or noble, pure, and
good men, as they considered that a pure gift had been made to humanity from
the “Pure Alone.” These lofty souls were the authors of the Vedas.
What more reasonable than the
claim that such Scriptures, emanating from such authors, should contain, for
those who are able to penetrate the meaning that lies half concealed under the
dead letter, all the wisdom which it is allowed to men to acquire on earth? The
Chiefs of the Arya Samâj discredit “miracles,” discountenance superstition and
all violation of natural law, and teach the purest form of Vaidic Philosophy.
Such are the allies of the Theosophical Society. They have said to us: “Let us
work together for the good of mankind,” and we will.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
PARTING WORDS
—————
[From The
Religio-Philosophical Journal, July 6th, 1878.]
So far as I can at present
foresee, this will be the last time I shall ask you to print anything over my,
to many Spiritualists, loathed signature, as I intend to start for India very
soon. But I have once more to correct inaccurate statements. If I had had my
choice, I would have preferred almost any other person than my very esteemed friend
Dr. Bloede, to have last words with. Once an antagonist, a bitter and unjust
one to me, as he himself admits, he has since made all the amends I could have
asked of a scholar and a gentleman, and now, as all who read your valuable
paper see, he does me the honour to call me friend. Honest in intent he always
is, I am sure, but still a little prejudiced. Who of us but is so, more or
less? Duty, therefore, compels me to correct the erroneous impression which his
letter on “Secret Societies” (Journal of June 15th) is calculated to give about
the Theosophical Society. How many “Fellows” we have, how the Society is
flourishing, what are its operations or how conducted, no one knows or can
know, save the presidents of its various branches and their secretaries.
Therefore, Dr. G. Bloede, in saying that it has “failed in America and will
fail in Europe,” speaks of that of which neither he nor any other outsider has
knowledge. If the Society’s only object were the study of the phenomena called
Spiritual, his strictures would be perfectly warranted; for it is not secrecy
but privacy and exclusiveness that are demanded in the management of circles
and mediums. It would have been absurd to make a secret society expressly for
that purpose. At its beginning the Theosophical Society was started for that
sole study, and therefore was, as you all know, open to any respectable person
who wished to join it. We discussed “spiritual” topics freely, and were willing
to impart to the public the results of all our experiments, and whatever some
of us might have learned of the subject in the course of long studies. How our
views and philosophy
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were received—no need to
recall the old story again. The storm has already subsided; and the total of “Billingsgate”
poured upon our devoted heads is preserved in three gigantic scrap-books whose
contents I mean to immortalize some day. When through the writing and noble
efforts of the Journal and other spiritual papers the secret of these varied
and vexing phenomena, indiscriminately called spiritual, will be snatched at
last, when the faithful of the orthodox church of Spiritualism will be forced
to give up—partially at least—their many bigoted and preconceived notions, then
the time will have come again for Theosophists to claim a hearing. Till then,
its members retire from the arena of discussion and devote their whole leisure
to the fulfilment of other and more important objects of the Society.
You perceive, then, that it is
only when experience showed the necessity for its work to be enlarged, and its
objects became various, that the T. S. thought fit to protect itself by
secrecy. Since then, none but perjured witnesses, and we know of none, can have
told about what we were doing, except as permitted by official sanction and
announced from time to time. One of such objects of our Society we are willing
to publicly announce.
It is universally known that
this most important object is to antagonize Christianity* and especially
Jesuitism. One of our most esteemed and valued members, once an ardent
Spiritualist, but who must for the present be nameless, has but recently fallen
a victim to the snares of this hateful body.
The nefarious designs of
Jesuitism are plotted in secret and carried out through secret agencies. What
more reasonable and lawful, there fore, than that those who wish to fight it
should keep their own secret, likewise, as to their agencies and plans? We have
among us persons in high position—political, military, financial and social—who
regard Christianity as the greatest evil to humanity, and are willing to help
pull it down. But for them to be able to do much and well, they must do it
anonymously. The Church—”triple-headed snake” as a well known writer calls
it—can no longer burn its enemies, but it can blast their social influence; can
no longer roast their bodies, but can ruin their fortunes. We have no right to
give our enemy, the Church, the names of our “Fellows,” who are not ripe for
martyrdom, and so we
—————
* [In later days H. P. B. took
great pains to explain that the ‘christianity’ which she so vigorously
attacked, was all ecclesiastical system of dogmas to which she subsequently
gave the name ‘‘churchianity,’’ and not the spiritual and moral teachings of
Jesus.—Ens.]
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keep them secret. If we have
an agent to send to India or to Japan, or China, or any other heathen country,
to do something or confer with somebody in connection with the Society’s
general plans against missionaries, it would be foolish, nay, criminal, to
expose our agent to imprisonment under some malicious pretext, if not death,
and even the latter is possible in the far-away East, and our scheme is liable
to miscarry by announcing it to the dishonourable company of Jesus.
So, sir, to sum up in a word,
Dr. Bloede has made a great mistake in supposing the Theosophical Society a
“failure” in this or any other country. Where the Society counted three years
ago its members by the dozen, it now counts them by the hundred and thousand. And
so far from its threatening in any respect the stability of society or the
advancement of spiritual knowledge, the Theosophical institution which now
bears the name of the “Theosophical Society of the Arya Samâj of India” (being
regularly chartered by and affiliated with that great body in the land of the
Aryas) will be found some day, by the Spiritualists and all others who claim
the right of thinking for them selves, to have been the true friend of
intellectual and spiritual liberty—if not in America, at least in France and
other countries, where an infernal priesthood thrusts innocent Spiritualists
into prison by the help of a subservient judiciary and the use of perjured
testimony. Its name will be respected as a pioneer of free thought and an uncompromising
enemy of priestly and monkish fraud and despotism.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
New York, June 17th, 1878.
“NOT A CHRISTIAN”
—————
[From the Indian Spectator.]
BEFORE entering upon the main
question that compels me to ask you kindly to accord me space in your esteemed
paper, will you inform me as to the nature of that newly-horn infant prodigy
which calls itself The Bombay Review? Is it a bigoted, sectarian organ of the
Christians, or an impartial journal, fair to all, and unprejudiced as every
respectable paper styling itself “Review” ought to be, especially in a place
like Bombay, where such a diversity of religious opinions is to be found? The
two paragraphs in the number of February 22nd, which so honour the Theosophical
Society by a double notice of its American members, would force me to incline
toward the former opinion. Both the editorial which attacks my esteemed friend,
Miss Bates, and the apocalyptic vision of the modern Ezekiel, alias
“Anthroposophist,” who shoots his rather blunt arrows at Col. Olcott, require
an answer, if it were but to show the advisability of using sharper darts
against Theosophists. Leaving the seer to his prophetic dream of langoutis and
cow-dung, I will simply review the editorial of this Review which tries to be
at the same time satirical and severe and succeeds only in being nonsensical.
Quoting from another paper a sentence relating to Miss Bates, which describes
her as “not a Christian,” it remarks in that bitter and selfish spirit of
arrogance and would-be superiority, which so characterizes Christian
sectarianism:
The public might have been
spared the sight of the italicized personal explanation.
What “public” may I ask? The
majority of the intelligent and reading public—especially of native papers—in
Bombay as throughout India is, we believe, composed of non-Christians—of
Parsis, Hindus, etc. And this public instead of resenting such “wanton
aggressiveness,” as the writer pleases to call it, call but rejoice to find at
least one European lady, who, at the same time that she is not a Christian,
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is quite ready, as a
Theosophist, to call any respectable “heathen” her brother, and regard him with
at least as much sympathy as she does a Christian. But this unfortunate thrust
at Theosophy is explained by what follows:
In the young lady’s own
interest the insult ought not to have been flung into the teeth of the
Christian public.
Without taking into
consideration the old and wise axiom, that honesty is the best policy, we can
only regret for our Christian opponents that they should so soon “unveil” their
cunning policy. While in the eyes of every honest “heathen” Theosophist, there
can be no higher recommendation for a person than to have the reputation of
being truthful even at the expense of his or her “interest,” our Christian
Review unwittingly exposes the concealed rope of the mission machinery, by
admitting that it is in the interest of every person here, at least—to appear a
Christian or a possible convert, if he is not one de facto. We feel really
very, very grateful to the Review for such a timely and generous confession.
The writer’s defence of the “public” for which it speaks as one having
authority is no less vague and unsatisfactory, as we all know that among the
240,000,000 of native population in India, Christians count but as a drop in an
ocean. Or is it possible that no other public but the Christian is held worthy
of the name or even of consideration? Had converted Brâhmans arrived here
instead of Theosophists, and one of these announced his profession of faith by
italicizing the words, not a heathen, we doubt whether the fear of hurting the
feelings of many millions of Hindus would have ever entered the mind of our
caustic paragraphist!
Nor do we find the sentence,
“India owes too much to Christianity,” anything but arrogant and presumptuous
talk. India owes much and everything to the British Government, which protects
its heathen subjects equally with those of English birth, and would no more
allow the one class to insult the other than it would revive the Inquisition.
India owes to Great Britain its educational system, its slow but sure progress,
and its security from the aggression of other nations; to Christianity it owes
nothing. And yet perhaps I am mistaken, and ought to have made one exception.
India owes to Christianity its mutiny of 1857, which threw it back for a
century. This we assert on the authority of general opinion and of Sir John
Kay, who declares, in his Sepoy War, that the mutiny resulted from the intolerance
of the crusading missions and the silly talk of the Friend of India.
195————————————————————“NOT A CHRISTIAN”!
I have done; adding but one
more word of advice to the Review. In the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, when the latest international revision of the Bible—that infallible
and revealed Word of God !—reveals 64,000 mistranslations and other mistakes,
it is not the Theosophists—a large number of whose members are English patriots
and men of learning—but rather the Christians who ought to beware of “wanton
aggressiveness” against people of other creeds. Their boomerangs may fly back
from some unexpected parabola and hit the throwers.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Bombay, Feb. 25th, 1879.
THE RETORT COURTEOUS
[From the Indian Spectator.]
THERE is a story current among
the Yankees of a small school boy, who, having been thrashed by a bigger fellow
and being unable to hit him back, consoled himself by making faces at his
enemy’s sister. Such is the position of my opponent of the world-famed Bombay
Review. Realizing the impossibility of injuring the Theosophical Society, he
“makes faces” at its Corresponding Secretary, flinging at her personal abuse.
Unfortunately for my masked
enemies and fortunately for myself, I have five years’ experience in fighting
American newspapers, any one of which, notwithstanding the grandiloquent style
of the “Anthroposophists,” “B.’s” and “Onesimuses” is any day more than a match
in humour, and especially in wit, for a swarm of such pseudonymous wasps as
work on the Review. If I go to the trouble of noticing their last Saturday’s
curry of weak arguments and impertinent personalities at all, it is simply with
the object of proving once more that it requires more wit than seems to be at
their command to compel my silence. Abuse is no argument; moreover, if applied
indiscriminately it may prove dangerous sometimes.
Hence, I intend noticing but
one particular point. As to their conceit, it is very delightful to behold!
What a benevolent tone of patronage combined with modesty is theirs! How
refreshing in hot weather to hear them saying of oneself:
We have been more charitable
to her than she seems subsequently to deserve [!!].
Could dictatorial magnanimity
be carried further? And this dithyrambic, which forces one’s recognition of the
worth of the mighty ones “of broad and catholic views,” who control the fates
of The Bombay Review, and have done in various ways so much “for the races of
India” ! One might fancy he heard the “spirits” of Lord Mayo and Sir William
Jones themselves blowing through the pipes of this earth shaking organ.
197————————————————————THE
RETORT COURTEOUS.
Has it acquired its
reverberant diapason from the patronage of all the native princes whose favours
it so eagerly sought a while ago?
I have neither leisure nor
desire to banter penny-a-line wit with such gold-medal experts, especially when
I honestly write above my own signature and they hide themselves behind secure
pseudonyms. Therefore, I will leave their claptrap about “weeds and Madame
Sophy” to be digested by themselves, and notice but the insinuation about
“Russian spies.” I agree with the Review editor when he says that it is the
business of Sir Richard Temple and Sir Frank Souter to take care of such
“spies.” And I will further add that it is these two gentlemen alone who have
the right or the authority to denounce such people.
No other person, were he even
the noblest of the lords instead of an anonymous writer, can or will be allowed
to throw out such a malicious and mischievous hint about a woman and a citizen
of the United States. He who does it risks being brought to the bar of that
most just of all tribunals—a British Court. And if either of my ambuscaders
wishes to test the question, pray let him put his calumny in some tangible
shape. Such a vile innuendo—even when shaped into the sham-denial of a bazaar
rumour, becomes something more serious than whole folios of the “flapdoodle”
(the stuff—as sailors say—upon which fools are fed) which the Review’s
Christian Shâstris serve up against Theosophy and Theosophists. In the interest
of that youthful and boisterous paper itself, we hope that henceforth it will
get its information from a more reliable source than the Bombay market places.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Bombay, March 14th, 1879.
“SCRUTATOR” AGAIN
[Probably from the London
Spiritualist.]
IF my memory has not
altogether evaporated under the combined influences of this blazing Indian sun
and the frequent misconstructions of your correspondents, there occurred, in
March, 1878, an epistolary skirmish between one who prudently conceals his face
behind the two masks of “Scrutator” and “M.A. Cantab.,” and your humble
servant. He again attacks me in the character of my London Nemesis. Again he
lets fly a Parthian shaft from behind the fence of one of his pseudonyms. Again
he has found a mare’s nest in my garden—a chronological, instead of a
metaphysical one this time. He is exercised about my age, as though the value
of my statements would be in the least affected by either rejuvenating me to
infancy, or ageing me into a double centenarian. He has read in the Revue
Spirite for October last a sentence in which, discussing this very point, I say
that I have not passed thirty years in India. And that:
C’est justement mon
age—quoique fort respectable tel qu’il est—qui s’oppose violemmeet a cette
chronologie, etc.
I reproduce the sentence
exactly as it appears, with the sole exception of restoring the period after
“l’Inde” in the place of the comma, which is simply a typographical mistake.
The capital C which immediately follows would have conveyed to anyone except a
“Scrutator” my exact meaning, viz., that my age itself, however respectable, is
opposed to the idea that I had passed thirty years in India.
I do hope that my ever-masked
assailant will devote some leisure to the study of French as well as of
punctuation before he attacks again.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Bombay, Feb., 1879.
MAGIC
—————
[From The Deccan Star, March
30th, 1879.]
IN The Indian Tribune of March
15th appears a letter upon the relations of the Theosophical Society with the
Arya Samâj. The writer seems neither an enemy of our cause, nor hostile to the
Society; therefore I will try in a gentle spirit to correct certain
misapprehensions under which he labours.
As he signs himself “A
Member,” he must, therefore, be regarded by us as a Brother. And yet he seems
moved by an unwarranted fear to a hasty repudiation of too close a connection
between our Society and his Samâj, lest the fair name of the latter be
compromised before the public by some strange notions of ours. He says:
I have been surprised to hear
that the Society embraces people who believe in magic. Should this, however, be
the belief of the Theosophical Society, I could only assure your readers that
the Arya Samâj is not in common with them in this respect. Only as far as Vedic
learning and Vedic philosophy is concerned, their objects may be said to be
similar.
It is these very points I now
mean to answer.
The gist of the whole question
is as to the correct definition of the word “Magic,” and understanding of what
Vaidic “learning and philosophy” are. If by Magic is meant the popular
superstitious belief in sorcery, witchcraft and ghosts in general; if it
involves the admission that supernatural feats may be performed; if it requires
faith in miracles—that is to say, phenomena outside natural law; then, on
behalf of every Theosophist, whether a sceptic yet unconverted, a believer in
and student of phenomena pure and simple, or even a modern Spiritualist
so-called—i.e., one who believes mediumistic phenomena to be necessarily caused
by returning human Spirits—we emphatically repudiate the accusation.
We did not see The Civil and
Military Gazette, which seems so well acquainted with our doctrines; but if it
meant to accuse any Theo-
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sophists of any such belief,
then, like many other Gazettes and Reviews, it talked of that which it knew
nothing about.
Our Society believes in no
miracle, diabolical or human, nor in any-thing which eludes the grasp of either
philosophical and logical induction, or the syllogistic method of deduction.
But if the corrupted and comparatively modern term of “Magic” is understood to
mean the higher study and knowledge of Nature and deep research into her hidden
powers—those Occult and mysterious laws which constitute the ultimate essence
of every element—whether with the ancients we recognize but four or five, or
with the moderns over sixty; or, again, if by Magic is meant that ancient study
within the sanctuaries, known as the “worship of the Light,” or divine and
spiritual wisdom—as distinct from the worship of darkness or ignorance—which
led the initiated High-priests of antiquity among the Aryans, Chaldćans, Medes
and Egyptians to be called Maha, Magi or Maginsi, and by the Zoroastrians
Meghistam (from the root Meh’ah, great, learned, wise)—then, we Theosophists
“plead guilty.”
We do study that “Science of
sciences,” extolled by the Eclectics and Platonists of the Alexandrian Schools,
and practised by the Theurgists and the Mystics of every age. If Magic
gradually fell into disrepute, it was not because of its intrinsic
worthlessness, but through misconception and ignorance of its primitive
meaning, and especially the cunning policy of Christian theologians, who feared
lest many of the phenomena produced by and through natural (though Occult) law
should give the direct lie to, and thus cheapen, ‘‘Divine biblical miracle,”
and so forced the people to attribute every manifestation that they could not
comprehend or explain to the direct agency of a personal devil. As well accuse
the renowned Magi of old of having had no better knowledge of divine truth and
the hidden powers and possibilities of physical law than their successors, the
uneducated Parsi Mobeds, or the Hindu Mahârâjahs of that shameless sect known
as the Vallabhâchâryas, both of whom yet derive their appellation from the
Persian word Mog or Mag, and the Sanskrit Mahâ. More than one glorious truth
has thus tumbled down through human ignorance from the sublime unto the
ridiculous.
Plato, and even the sceptical
Lucian, both recognized the high wisdom and profound learning of the Magi; and
Cicero, speaking of those who inhabited Persia in his times, calls them “
sapientium et doctorum genus majorum.” And if so, we must evidently believe
that
201———————————————————————MAGIC.
these Magi or “magicians” were
not such as London sees at a shilling a seat—nor yet certain fraudulent
spiritual mediums. The Science of such Theurgists and Philosophers as
Pythagoras, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Bruno, Paracelsus, and a host of other
great men, has now fallen into disrepute. But had our Brother Theosophist,
Thomas Alva Edison. the inventor of the telephone and the phonograph, lived in
the days of Galileo, he would have surely expiated on the rack or at the stake his
sin of having found the means to fix on a soft surface of metal, and preserve
for long years, the sounds of the human voice, for his talent would have been
pronounced the gift of hell. And yet, such an abuse of brute power to suppress
truth would not have changed a scientific discovery into a foolish and
disreputable superstition.
But our friend “A Member,”
consenting to descend to our level in one point at least, admits himself that
in ‘‘Vedic learning and philosophy” the Arya Samâj and the Theosophical Society
are upon a common ground. Then, I have something to appeal to as an authority
which will be better still than the so-much-derided Magic, Theurgy and Alchemy.
It is the Vedas themselves, for “Magic” is brought into every line of the
sacred books of the Aryans. Magic is indispensable for the comprehension of
either of the six great schools of Aryan philosophy. And it is precisely to
understand them, and thus enable our selves to bring to light the hidden summum
bonum of that mother of all Eastern Philosophies known as the Vedas, and the
later Brâhmanical literature, that we study it. Neglect this study, and we, in
common with all Europe, would have to set Max Muller’s interpretations of the
Vedas far above those of Svami Dyanand Sarasvati, as given in his Veda
.Bhashya. And we would have to let the Anglo-German Sanskritist go
uncontradicted, when he says that with the exception of the Rik, none other of
the four sacred books is deserving of the name of Veda, especially the Atharva
Veda, which is absurd, magical nonsense, composed of sacrificial formulas,
charms and incantations see his Lecture on the Vedas). This is, therefore, why,
disregarding every misconception, we humbly beg to be allowed to follow the
analytical method of such students and practitioners of “Magic” as Kapila—
mentioned in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad as
The Rishi nourished with knowledge by the God himself—
Patanjali, the great authority of the Yoga, Shankarâchârya of theurgic memory,
and even Zoroaster, who certainly learned his wisdom from the initiated
Brâhmans of Aryavarta. And we do not see why, for
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that, we should be held up to
the world’s scorn, as either superstitious fools or hallucinated enthusiasts,
by our own brother of the Arya Samâj. I will say more. While the latter is,
perhaps, in common with other “members” of the same Samâj, unable and perfectly
Helpless to defend Svami Dyanand against the sophistry of such partial scoffers
as a certain Pandit Mahesa Chandra Nyayaratna, of Calcutta, who would have us
believe the Veda Bhashya a futile attempt at interpretation; we, Theosophists,
do not shrink from assuming the burden. When the Svami affirms that Agni and
Ishvara are identical, the Calcutta Pandit calls it “stuff.” To him Agni means
the coarse, visible fire, with which one melts his ghee and cooks his rice
cakes. Apparently he does not know, as he might, if he had studied “Magic”—
that is to say, had familiarized himself with the views about the divine Fire
or Light, “whose external body is Flame,” held by the medićval Rosicrucians
(the Fire-Philosophers) and all their initiated predecessors and
successors—that the Vedic Agni is in fact and deed Ishvara and nothing else.
The Svami makes no mistake when he says:
For Agni is all the deities
and Vishnu is all the deities. For these two [divine] bodies, Agni and Vishnu,
are the two ends of the sacrifice.
At one end of the ladder which
stretches from heaven to earth is Ishvara—Spirit, Supreme Being, subjective,
invisible and incomprehensible; at the other his visible manifestation,
“sacrificial fire.”
So well has this been
comprehended by every religious Philosophy of antiquity that the enlightened
Parsi worships not gross flame, but the divine Spirit within, of which it is
the visible type; and even in the Jewish Bible there is the unapproachable
Jehovah and his down-rushing fire which consumes the wood upon the altar and
licks up the water in the trench about it ( I Kings, xviii. 38). There is also
the visible manifestation of God in the burning bush of Moses, and the Holy
Ghost, in the Gospels of the Christians, descending like tongues of flame upon
the heads of the assembled disciples on the day of Pentecost. There is not an
Esoteric Philosophy or rather Theosophy, which did not apprehend this deep
spiritual idea, and each and all are traceable to the Vaidic sacred books. Says
the author of The Rosicrucians in his chapter on “The Nature of Fire,” and
quoting R. Fludd, the medićval Theosophist and Alchemist:
Wonder no longer then, if, in
the religions of the Aryans, Medes and Zoroastrians, rejected so long as an
idolatry, the ancient Persians and their masters, the Magi, concluding that
they saw ‘‘All” in this supernaturally magnificent Element
203————————————————————————MAGIC.
[fire] fell down and
worshipped it; making of it the visible representation of the truest, but yet,
in man’s speculations, in his philosophies, nay, in his commonest reason,
impossible God; God being everywhere and in us, and indeed us, in the
God-lighted man, and impossible to be contemplated or known outside, being All.
This is the teaching of the
medićval Fire-Philosophers known as the Brothers of the Rosie-Cross, such as
Paracelsus, Kunrath, Van Helmont, and that of all the Illuminati and Alchemists
who succeeded these, and who claimed to have discovered the eternal Fire, or to
have “found out God in the Immortal Light”—that light whose radiance shone
through the Yogis. The same author remarks of them:
Already, in their determined
climbing unto the heights of thought, had these Titans of mind achieved, past
the cosmical through the shadowy borders of the Real and Unreal, into Magic.
For is Magic wholly false?
—he goes on to ask. No;
certainly not, when by Magic is understood the higher study of divine, and yet
not supernatural law, though the latter be, as yet, undiscovered by exact and
materialistic phenomena, such as those which are believed in by nearly twenty
millions of well- educated, often highly enlightened and learned persons in
Europe and America. These are as real, and as well authenticated by the
testimony of thousands of unimpeached witnesses, and as scientifically and
mathematically proved as the latest discoveries of our Brother T. A. Edison. If
the term “fool” is applicable to such men of Science and giants of intellect of
the two hemispheres, as W. Crookes, F.R.S., Alfred Russel Wallace, the greatest
Naturalist of Europe and a successful rival of Darwin, and as Flammarion, the
French Astronomer, Member of the Academy of Sciences of France, and Professor
Zöllner, the celebrated Leipzig Astronomer and Physicist, and Professor Hare,
the great Chemist of America, and many another no less eminent Scientist,
unquestioned authorities upon any other question but the so-called spiritual
phenomena, and all firm Spiritualists themselves, often converted only after
years of careful investigation—then, indeed, we Theosophists would not find
ourselves in bad company, and would deem it an honour to be called “fools” were
we even firm orthodox Spiritualists ourselves—i.e., believers in perambulating
ghosts and materialized bhuts—which we are not. But we are believers in the
phenomena of the Spiritualists (even if we do doubt their “spirits”), for we
happen to know them to be actual facts. It is one thing to reject unproved
theory, and quite another to battle against well-established facts. Everyone
has a right to doubt, until further and stronger
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evidence, whether these modern
phenomena which are inundating the Western countries, are all produced by
disembodied “spirits”—for it happens to be hitherto a mere speculative doctrine
raised up by enthusiasts; but no one is authorized—unless he can bring to
contradict the fact, something better and weightier than the mere negations of
sceptics—to deny that such phenomena do occur. If we Theosophists (and a very
small minority of us), disclaim the agency of “spirits” in such manifestations,
it is because we can prove in most instances to the Spiritualists, that many of
their phenomena, whether of physical or psychological nature, can be reproduced
by some of our Adepts at will, and without any aid of “spirits” or resort to
either divine or diabolical miracle, but simply by developing the Occult powers
of the man’s Inner Self and studying the mysteries of Nature. That European and
American sceptics should deny such interference by Spirits, and, as a
consequence discredit the phenomena themselves, is no cause for wonder.
Scarcely liberated from the clutches of the Church, whose terrible policy,
barely a century ago, was to torture and put to death every person who either
doubted biblical “divine” miracle, or endorsed one which theology declared
diabolical, it is but the natural force of reaction which makes them revel in
their new-found liberty of thought and action. One who denies the Supreme and
the existence of his own Soul, is not likely to believe in either Spirits or
phenomena, without abundant proof. But that Eastern people, Hindus especially,
of any sect, should disbelieve, is indeed an anomaly, considering that they all
are taught the transmigration of Souls, and spiritual as well as physical
evolution. The sixteenth chapter of the Mahabhárata, Harivansha Parva, is full
of spiritual phenomena and the raising of Spirits. And if, ashamed of the now
termed “superstitions” of their forefathers, young India turns, sunflower-like,
but to the great luminaries of the West, this is what one of the most renowned
men of Science of England, A. R. Wallace—a Fellow of the Royal as well as a
member of the Theosophical Society—says of the phenomena in his Contributions
to the Theory of Natural Selection, and On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism,
thus confirming the belief of old India:
Up to the time when I first
became acquainted with the facts of Spiritualism, I was a confirmed
philosophical sceptic. I was so thorough and confirmed a Materialist, that I
could not at that time find a place in my mind for the conception of spiritual
existence, or for any other genesis in the universe than matter and force.
Facts, however, “are stubborn things.”
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Having explained how he came
to become a Spiritualist, he considers the spiritual theory and shows its
compatibility with natural selection. Having, he says:
Been led, by a strict induction
from facts, to a belief—firstly, in the existence of a number of preter-human
intelligences of various grades; and secondly, that some of these
intelligences, although usually invisible and intangible to us, can and do act
on matter, and do influence our minds—I am surely following a strictly logical
and scientific course, in seeing how far this doctrine will enable us to
account for some of those residual phenomena which Natural Selection alone will
not explain. In the tenth chapter of my Contributions to the Theory of Natural
Selection I have pointed out what I consider to be some of these residual
phenomena; and I have suggested that they may be due to the action of some of
the various intelligences above referred to. I maintained, and still maintain,
that this view is one which is logically tenable, and is in no way inconsistent
with a thorough acceptance of the grand doctrine of evolution through Natural
Selection.
Would not one think he hears
in the above the voices of Manu, Kapila and many other Philosophers of old
India, in their teachings about the creation, evolution and growth of our
planet and its living world of animal as well as human species? Does the great
modern Scientist speak less of “Spirits” and spiritual beings than Manu, the antediluvian
scientist and prehistoric legislator? Let young and sceptical India read and
compare the old Aryan ideas with those of modern Mystics, Theosophists,
Spiritualists, and a few great Scientists, and then laugh at the superstitious
theories of both.
For four years we have been
fighting out our great battle against tremendous odds. We have been abused and
called traitors by the Spiritualists, for believing in other beings in the
invisible world besides their departed Spirits; we were cursed and sentenced to
eternal damnation, with free passports to hell, by the Christians and their
clergy; ridiculed by sceptics, looked upon as audacious lunatics by society,
and tabooed by the conservative press. We thought we had drunk to the dregs the
bitter cup of gall. We had hoped that at least in India, the country par
excellence of psychological and metaphysical Science, we would find firm ground
for our weary feet. But lo! here comes a brother of ours who, without even
taking the trouble to ascertain whether or not the rumours about us are true,
in case we do believe in either Magic or Spiritualism— Well! We impose impose
ourselves upon no one. For more than four years we lived and waxed in power if
not in wisdom—which latter our humble deputation of Theosophists was sent to
search for here, so that we might impart ‘‘Vaidic learning and
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philosophy” to the millions of
famished souls in the West, who are familiar with phenomena, but wrongly suffer
themselves to be misled through their mistaken notions about ghosts and bhuts.
But if we are to be repulsed at the outset by any considerable party of Arya
Samâjists, who share the views of “A Member,” then will the Theosophical
Society, with its 45,000 or so of Western Spiritualists, have to become again a
distinct and independent body, and do as well as it can without a single
“member” to enlighten it on the absurdity of Spiritualism and Magic.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Bombay, March, 1879.
A REPUBLICAN CITIZEN
—————
[From The Banner of Light, May
13th 1879, but addressed to the Editor of
The Bombay Gazette.]
ON the very day of my return
from a month’s travel, I am shown by the American Consul two paragraphs, viz.,
one in your paper of the 10th inst., which mentions me as the “Russian ‘Baroness,’”
and one in The Times of India of the 8th, whose author had tried hard to be
witty but only succeeded in being impertinent and calumnious. In this last
paragraph I am referred to as a woman who called herself a “Russian Princess.”
With the original and selected
matter in your contemporary you, of course, have nothing to do. If the editor
can find “amusing” such slanderous tomfooleries as the extract in question from
The Colonial Gazette and Star of India, and risk a suit for libel for
circulating defamations of a respectable scientific Society, and vilifying its
honoured President by calling him a “secret detective”—an outrageous lie, by
the way—that is not your affair. My present business is to take the Gazette to
task for thrusting upon my unwilling Republican head the baronial coronet.
Know, please, once for all, that I am neither “Countess,” “Princess,” nor even
a modest “Baroness”—whatever I may have been before last July. At that time I
became a plain citizen of the United States of America. I value that title far
more than any that could be conferred on me by King or Emperor. Being this, I
could be nothing else, if I wished; for, as everyone knows, had I been even a
princess of the royal blood before, once that my oath of allegi- ance was
pronounced, I forfeited every claim to titles of nobility. Apart from this
notorious fact, my experience of things in general, and peacocks’ feathers in
particular, has led me to acquire a positive contempt for titles; since it
appears that, outside the boundaries of their own fatherlands, Russian princes,
Polish counts, Italian marquises and German barons, are far more plentiful
inside than outside the police
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precincts. Permit me further
to state—if only for the edification of The Times of India and a brood of
snarling little papers searching around after the garbage of journalism—that I
have never styled myself aught but what I can prove myself to be, namely, an
honest woman, now a citizen of America, my adopted country, and the only land
of true freedom in the whole world.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Bombay, May 12th.
THE THEOSOPHISTS AND THEIR
OPPONENTS
—————
[From The Amrita Bazar
Patrika, June 13th, 1879.]
I PRAY you to give me, in your
Calcutta paper, space enough to reply to the mendacious comments of one of our
religious neighbours upon the Theosophical Society. The Indian Christian
Herald, in the number of April 4th (which unhappily has just now reached my
eye), with a generosity peculiar to religious papers, filled two pages with
pious abuse of our Society as a body. I gather from it, moreover, that The
Friend of India had previously gone out of its way to vilify the Society, since
the former paper observes that:
The Theosophical Society has
merited the epithets employed about it by The Friend of India.
To my everlasting confusion be
it said, that I am guilty of the crime of not only never reading, but also of
never having so much as laid my eyes upon that last named veteran organ. Nor
can any of our Theosophists be charged with abusing the precious privilege of
reading the missionary journals, a considerable time having elapsed since each
of us was weaned, and relinquished milk-and-water pap. Not that we shirk the
somniferous task under the spur of necessity. Were not the proof of our present
writing itself sufficient, I need only cite the case of the Bombay missionary
organ, The Dnyanodaya, which, on the 17th ult., infamously libelled us, and on
the 25th was forced by Colonel Olcott’s solicitor, Mr. Turner, to write an
ample apology, in order to avoid a criminal prosecution for defamation of
character. We regret now to see that while the truly good and pious writer of
the Herald was able to rise to the level of Billingsgate, he would not (or
dared not?) climb to the height of actionable slander. Truly prudence is a
great virtue!
Confronted, as we all have so
often been, with the intolerant bigotry
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—religious “zeal” they call
it—and puerile anathemas of the clerical “followers of the meek and lowly
Jesus,” no Theosophist is surprised to find the peas from the herald-shooter
rattling against his armour. It adds to the clatter, but no one is mortally
hurt. And, after all, how natural that the poor fellows who try to administer
spiritual food to the benighted heathen—much after the fashion of the Strasburg
goose-fatteners, who thrust balls of meal down the throats of the captive
birds, unmasticated, to swell their livers—should shake at the intrusion of
Europeans who are ready to analyze for the heathen these scripture-balls they
are asked to grease with blind faith and swallow without chewing! People like
us, who would have the effrontery to claim for the “heathen” the same right to
analyze the Bible as the Christian clergy claim to analyze and even to revile
the sacred Scriptures of other people, must of course be put down. And the very
Christian Herald tries his hand. It says:
Let us without any bias or
prejudice reflect ... about the Theosophical Society such a mortal degradation
of persons [ Buddhist, Aryan, Jain, Parsi Hebrew and Mussulman Theosophists,
included?] who can see nothing good in the Bible . . [and who] ought to
remember that the Bible! is not only a blessed book, but our book [!]
The latter piece of
presumptuous conceit cannot be allowed to pass unnoticed. Before I answer the
preceding invectives I mean to demand a clear definition of this last sentence,
“our Book.” Whose Book? The Herald’s? “Our” must mean that; for the seven thick
volumes of the Speaker’s Commentary on the Old Testament *show that the
possessive pronoun and the singular noun in question can no longer be used by
Christians when speaking of the Bible. So numerous and glaring have been the
mistakes and mistranslations detected by the forty divines of the Anglican Church,
during their seven years’ revision of the Old Testament, that the London
Quarterly Review (No. 294, April, 1879), the organ of the most extreme
orthodoxy, is driven in despair to say:
The time has certainly passed
when the whole Bible could be practically esteemed a single book, miraculously
communicated in successive portions from heaven, put into writing no doubt by
human hands, but at the dictation of the divine spirit.
So we see beyond question that
if it is anybody’s “Book” it must be The Indian Christian Herald’s; for, in
fact, its editors add:
—————
* The Bible, according to the
authorized version (AD.1611), with an explanatory and critical commentary and a
revision of the translation, by bishops and other clergy of the Anglican
Church. Edited by F.C. Cook, MA., Canon of Exeter, Preacher at Lincohn’s Inn,
Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. Vols. i.-vi. The Old Testament. London,
1871-1876.
211———————————————THE
THEOSOPHISTS AND THEIR OPPONENTS.
We feel it to be no more a
collection of books, but the book.
But here is another bitter
pill for your contemporary. It says in a pious gush:
The words which had come from
the prophets of the despised Israel have been the life-blood of the world’s
devotion.
But the inexorable quarterly
reviewer, after reluctantly abandoning to the analytical scalpels of Canon Cook
and Bishop Harold Browne the Mosaic miracles—whose supernatural character is no
longer affirmed, but they are allowed to be “natural phenomena”—turns to the
pretended Old Testament prophecies of Christ, and sadly says:
In the poetical [psalms and
songs] and the prophetical books especially the number of corrections is
enormous.
And he shows how the
commentators upon Isaiah and the other so-called prophets have reluctantly
admitted that the time-worn verses which have been made to serve as predictive
of Christ have in truth no such meaning. He says:
It requires an effort to break
the association, and to realize how much less they [the prophecies] must have
meant at first to the writers themselves. But it is just this that the critical
expositor is bound to do . . . for this some courage is required, for the
result is apt to seem like a disenchantment for the worse, a descent to an
inferior level, a profanation of the paradise in which ardent souls have found
spiritual sustenance and delight.
(Such “souls” as the Herald
editor’s?) What wonder, then, that the explosion of these seven theological
torpedoes—as the seven volumes of the Speaker’s Commentary may truly be
called—should force the reviewer into saying:
To us, we confess, every
attempt to place the older Scriptures on the same supreme pinnacle on which the
New Testament of later Revelation stands, is doomed to failure.
The Herald is welcome to what
is left of its “Book.”
How childishly absurd it was
then of the Herald to make a whole Society the scapegoat for the sins of one
individual! It is now universally known that the Society comprises fellows of
many nationalities and many different religious faiths, and that its Council is
made up of the representatives of these faiths; yet the Herald endorses the
false hood that the Society’s principles are “a strange compound of Paganism
and Atheism,” and its creed “a creed as comprehensive as it is
incomprehensible.” What other answer does this calumny require than the fact
that our President has publicly declared that it had “no
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creed to offer for the world’s
acceptance,”* and that in art. viii of the Society’s Rules, appended to the
printed Address, in an enumeration of the plans of the Society, the first
paragraph says that it aims:
To keep alive in man his
belief that he has a soul, and the Universe a God.
If this is a ‘‘compound of
Paganism and Atheism,’’ then let the Heralad make the most of it.
But the Society is not the
real offender; the clerical stones are thrown into my garden. The Herald’s
quotation of an expression used by me, in commenting upon a passage of Sir John
Kay’s Sepoy War making The Friend of India and Co. primarily responsible for
that bloody tragedy, shows the whole animus. It was I who said (see Indian
Spectator, March 2nd) that:
India owes everything to the
British Government and not to Christianity
—i.e., to missionaries. I may
have lost my “senses outright,” as The Indian Christian Herald politely
remarks, but I think have enough left to see through the inane sophistries
which they make do duty for arguments.
We have only to say to the
Herald the following: (1) It is just because we do live in ‘‘an age of
enlightenment and progress,’’ in which there is (or should be) room for every
form of belief, that such Augustinian trades as the Herald’s are out of place.
(2) We have not a Mortal hatred for Christianity and its Divine Founder,—for
the tendency of the Society is to emancipate its fellows from all hatred or
preference for any one exoteric form of religion—i.e., with more of the human
than divine element in it—over another (see rules) neither can we hate a
“Founder” whom the majority of us do not believe to have ever existed. (3) To
“retain” a “reverence for the Bible” one must at some time have had it, and if
our own investigations had not long since convinced us that the Bible was no
more the “Word of God” than half a dozen other holy hooks, the present
conclusions of the Anglican divines—at least as far as the Old Testament is
concerned—would have removed the last vestige of doubt upon that point. And
besides sundry American clergymen and bishops we have among our Fellows a vicar
of the Church of England, who is one of its most learned antiquarians. (4) The
assertion that the
Pure monotheism of the Vedas
is a pure myth
—————
* The Theosophical Society and
its Aim. Address delivered by Colonel H. S. Olcott, at the Framji Cowasji Hall,
Bombay, March 23rd 1879.
213———————————————THE THEOSOPHISTS AND THEIR OPPONENTS.
is a pure falsehood, beside
being an insult to Max Muller and other Western Orientalists, who have proved
the fact; to say nothing of that great Aryan scholar, preacher and reformer,
Svami Dyanand Sarasvati.
“Degraded humanity” that we
are, there must he indeed “some thing radically wrong and corrupt” in our
“moral nature,” for, we confess to joy at seeing our Society constantly growing
from accessions of some of the most influential laymen of different countries.
And it moreover delights us to think that when we reach the bottom of the
ditch, we will have as bedfellows half the Christian clergy, if the Speaker’s
commentary makes as sad havoc with the divinity of the New Testament as it has
with that of the Old. Our Indian Christian Pecksniff in righteous indignation
exclaims:
How they managed to sink so
low in the scale of moral and spiritual being must be a sadly interesting study
for metaphysicians.
Sad, indeed; but sadder still
to reflect that unless the editors of The Indian Christian Herald are protected
by post-mortem fire-insurance policies, they are in danger themselves of
eternal torment.
Whosoever shall say to his
brother, Thou fool, shall be in danger of Hell fire,
says Lord Jesus, “the Desire
of nations,” in Matthew, v. 22, unless—dreadful thought!—this verse should be
also found a mistranslation.
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
Corresponding Secretary of the
Theosophical Society.
[N.B.—We insert the above
letter with great reluctance. The subject matter of the letter is not fit for
our columns, and we have no sympathy with those who attack the religions creed
of other men. The matter of fact is, a Calcutta paper attacks a body of men,
and the latter are thrown at a great disadvantage if they are not allowed an
opportunity by another paper of replying to the attack. It is from that feeling
alone that we have given place to the above letter.—ED. A. B. Patrika.]
ECHOES FROM INDIA.
WHAT IS HINDU SPIRITUALISM?
—————
[ From The Banner of Light,
Oct. 18th, 1879.]
PHENOMENA in India—beside the
undoubted interest they offer in themselves, and apart from their great variety
and in most instances utter dissimilarity from those we are accustomed to hear
of in Europe and America—possess another feature which makes them worthy of the
most serious attention of the investigator of Psychology.
Whether Eastern phenomena are
to be accounted for by the immediate interference and help of the spirits of
the departed, or attributed to some other and hitherto unknown cause, is a
question which, for the present, we will leave aside. It can he discussed, with
some degree of confidence, only after many instances have been carefully noted
and submitted, in all their truthful and unexaggerated details, to an impartial
and unprejudiced public. One thing I beg to reaffirm, and this is, that instead
of exacting the usual “conditions” of darkness, harmonious circles, and
nevertheless leaving the witnesses uncertain as to the expected results, Indian
phenomena, if we except the independent apparitions of bhuts (ghosts of the dead),
are never sporadic and spontaneous, but seem to depend entirely upon the will
of the operator, whether he be a holy Hindu Yogi, a Mussulman Sâdhu, Fakir, or
yet a juggling Jaddugar (sorcerer).
In this connection I mean to
present numerous examples of what I here say; for whether we read of the
seemingly supernatural feats produced by the Rishis, the Aryan patriarchs of
archaic antiquity, or by Achâryas of the Paurânic days, or hear of them from
popular traditions, or again see them repeated in our modern times, we always
find such phenomena to be of the most varied character. Besides covering the
whole range of those known to us through modern mediumistic agency, as well as
repeating the medićval pranks of the nuns of London and other historical possedees
in cases of bhut obsession, we often recognize
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in them the exact
counterparts—as once upon a time they must have been the originals—of biblical
miracles. With the exception of two—those over which the world of piety goes
most into raptures while glorifying the Lord, and the world of scepticism grins
most sardonically—to wit, the anti-heliocentric crime performed by Joshua, and
Jonah’s unpleasant excursion into the slimy cavern of the whale’s belly—we have
to record as occasionally taking place in India, nearly every one of the feats
which are said to have so distinguished Moses and other “friends of God.”
But alas for those venerable
jugglers of Judća! And alas for those pious souls who have hitherto exalted these
alleged prophets of the forthcoming Christ to such a towering eminence! The
idols have just been all but knocked off their pedestals by the parricidal
hands of the forty divines of the Anglican Church, who now are known to have
sorely disparaged the Jewish Scriptures. The despairing cry raised by the
reviewer of the just issued Commentary on the “Holy” Bible, in the most extreme
organ of orthodoxy (the London Quarterly Review for April, 1879), is only
matched by his meek submission to the inevitable. The fact I am alluding to is
one already known to you, for I speak of the decision and final conclusive
opinions upon the worth of the Bible by the conclave of learned bishops who
have been engaged for the last dozen years on a thorough revision of the Old Testament.
The results of this labour of love may he summarized thus:
1. The shrinkage of the Mosaic
and other “miracles” into mere natural phenomena. (See decisions of Canon Cook,
the Queen’s Chaplain, and Bishop Harold Browne.)
2. The rejection of most of the
alleged prophecies of Christ as such; the said prophecies now turning out to
have related simply to contemporaneous events in Jewish national history.
3. Resolutions to place no
more the Old Testament on the same eminence as the Gospels, as it would inevitably
lead to the disparagement of the new one.
4. The sad confession that the
Mosaic Books do not contain one word about a future life and the just complaint
that:
Moses under divine direction
[?] should have abstained from any recognition of man’s destiny beyond the
grave, while the belief was prominent in all the religions around Israel.
This is:
confessed to be one of those
enigmas which are the trial of our faith.
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And it is the “trial” of our
American missionaries here also. Educated natives all read the English papers
and magazines, and it now becomes harder than ever to convince these “heathen”
matriculates of the ‘‘sublime truths” of Christianity. But this by way of a
small parenthesis; for I mention these newly evolved facts only as having an
important bearing upon Spiritualism in general, and its phenomena especially.
Spiritualists have always taken such pains to identify their manifestations
with the Bible miracles, that such a decision, coming from witnesses certainly
more prejudiced in favour of than opposed to “miracles” and divine supernal
phenomena, is rather a new and unexpected difficulty in our way. Let us hope
that in view of these new religious developments, our esteemed friend Dr.
Peebles, before committing himself too far to the establishment of “independent
Christian churches,” will wait for further ecclesiastical verdicts, and see how
the iconoclastic verdicts, and how the iconoclastic English divines will
overhaul the phenomena of the New Testament. Maybe, if their consistency does
not evaporate, they will have to attribute all the miracles worked by Jesus
also to “natural phenomena”! Very happily for Spiritualists, and for
Theosophists likewise, the phenomena of the nineteenth century cannot be as
easily disposed of as those of the Bible. We have had to take the latter for
nearly two thousand years on mere blind faith, though but too often they
transcended every possible law of nature; while quite the reverse is our own
case, and we can offer facts.
But to return. If
manifestations of an Occult nature of the most various character may be said to
abound in India, on the other hand, the frequent statements of Dr. Peebles to
the effect that this country is full of native Spiritualists, are—how shall I
say it?—a little too hasty and exaggerated. Disputing this point in the London
Spiritualist of Jan. 8th, 1878, with a Madras gentleman, now residing in New
York, he maintained his position in the following words:
I have met not only Sinhalese
and Chinese Spiritualists, but hundreds of Hindu Spiritualists, gifted with the
powers of conscious mediumship. And yet Mr. W. L. D. O’Grady, of New York,
informs the readers of The Spiritualist (see issue Nov. 23rd) that there are No
Hindu Spiritualists. These are ins words: “No Hindu is a Spiritualist.”
And as an offset to this
assertion, Dr. Peebles quotes from the letter of an esteemed Hindu gentleman,
Mr. Peary Chand Mittra, of Calcutta, a few words to the effect that he blesses
God that his “inner vision is being more and more developed” and that he talks
“with spirits.” We
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all know that Mr. Mittra is a
Spiritualist, but what does it prove? Would Dr. Peebles be justified in stating
that because H. P. Blavatsky and half a dozen other Russians have become
Buddhists and Vedântists, Russia is full of Buddhists and Vedântists? There may
be in India a few Spiritualists among the educated reading classes, scattered
far and wide over the country, but I seriously doubt whether our esteemed
opponent could easily find a dozen of such among this population numbering
240,000,000. There are solitary exceptions, which only go to strengthen a rule,
as everyone knows.
Owing to the rapid spread of
spiritualistic doctrines the world over, and to my having left India several
years before, at the time I was in America I abstained from contradicting in
print the great spiritualistic “pilgrim” and philosopher, surprising as such
statements seemed to me, who thought myself pretty well acquainted with this
country. India, unprogressive as it is, I thought might have changed, and I was
not sure of my facts. But now that I have returned for the fourth time to this
country, and have had over five months’ residence in it, after a careful
investigation into the phenomena and especially into the opinions held by the
people on this subject, and seven weeks of travelling all over the country,
mainly for the purpose of seeing and investigating every kind of
manifestations, I must be allowed to know what I am talking about, as I speak
by the book. Mr. O’Grady was right. No “Hindu is a Spiritualist” in the sense
we all understand the term. And I am now ready to prove, if need be, by dozens
of letters from the most trustworthy natives who are educated by Brâhmans, and
know the religious and superstitious views of their countrymen better than any
one of us, that whatever else Hindus may be termed it is not Spiritualists.
“What constitutes a Spiritualist?” very pertinently enquires, in a London
spiritual organ, a correspondent with “a passion for definition” (see
Spiritualist, June 13th 1879). He asks:
Is Mr. Crookes a Spiritualist,
who, like my humble self, does not believe in spirits of the dead as agents in
the phenomena?
He then brings forward several
definitions, From the most latitudinarian to the most restricted definitions.
Let us see to which of these
‘‘definitions’’ the ‘‘Spiritualism’’ of the Hindus—I will not say of the mass,
but even of a majority—would answer. Since Mr. Peebles—during his two short visits
to India and while on his way from Madras, crossing the continent in its
diameter from Calcutta to Bombay—could meet ‘‘ hundreds of Spiritualists,”
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then these must indeed form,
if not the majority, at least a considerable percentage of the 240,000,000 of
India. I will now quote the definitions from the letter of the enquirer who
signs himself “A Spiritualist” (?), and add my own remarks thereupon
A—Everyone is a Spiritualist
who believes in the immortalitv of the soul.
I guess not; otherwise the
whole of Christian Europe and America would be Spiritualists ; nor does this
definition A answer to the religious views of the Hindus of any sect, for while
the ignorant masses believe in and aspire to Moksha, i.e., literal absorption
of the spirit of man in that of Brahman, or loss of individual immortality, as
means of avoiding the punishment and horrors of transmigration, the
Philosophers, Adepts, and learned Yogis, such as our venerated master, Svami
Dyanand Sarasvati, the great Hindu reformer, Sanskrit scholar, and supreme
chief of the Vaidic Section of the Eastern division of the Theosophical
Society, explain the future state of man’s Spirit, its progress and evolution,
in terms diametrically opposite to the views of the Spiritualists. These views,
if agreeable, I will give in some future letter.
B.—Anyone who believes that
the continued conscious existence of deceased persons has been demonstrated by
communication is a Spiritualist.
A Hindu whether an erudite
scholar and Philosopher or an ignorant idolater, does not believe in
‘‘continued conscious existence,’’ though the former assigns for the holy,
sinless soul, which has reached Svarga (heaven) and Moksha, a period of many
millions and quadrillions of years, extending from one Pralaya* to the next.
The Hindu believes in cyclic transmigration of the soul, during which there
must be periods when the soul loses its recollections as well as the
consciousness of its individuality; since, if it were otherwise, every person
would distinctly remember all his previous existences, which is not the case.
Hindu Philosophers are likewise consistent with logic. They at least will not
allow an endless eternity of either reward or punishment for a few dozens of
years of earthly life, whether this life be wholly blameless or yet wholly
sinful.
C.—Anyone is a Spiritualist
who believes in airy of the alleged objective phenomena, whatever theory he may
favour about them, or even if he have none at all.
—————
* For the meaning of the word
Pralaya see vol. ii. of Isis Unveiled. I am happy to say that not withstanding
the satirical criticisms upon its Vaidic and Buddhistic portions by some
American would—be’’ Orientalists, Svami Dyanand and the Rev. Sumangala of
Ceylon, respectively the representatives of Vaidic and Buddhistic scholarship
and literature in India—the first the best Sanskrit, and the other the most
eminent Pali scholar—both expressed their entire satisfaction with the
correctness of my esoteric explanations of their respective religions. Isis
Unveiled is now being translated into Marathi and Hindi in India, and into Pâli
in Ceylon.
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Such are “phenomenalists,” not
Spiritualists, and in this sense the definition answers to Hindu beliefs. All
of them, even those who, aping the modern school of Atheism, declare themselves
Materialists, are yet phenomenalists in their hearts, if one only sounds them.
D and E.—Does not allow of
Spiritualism without spirits, but the spirits need not be human.
At this rate Theosophists and
Occultists generally may also be called Spiritualists, though the latter regard
them as enemies; and in this sense only all Hindus are Spiritualists, though
their ideas about human Spirits are diametrically opposed to those of the
“Spiritualists.” They regard bhuts are the Spirits of those who died with
unsatisfied desires, and who on account of their sins and earthly attractions,
are earth-bound and kept back from Svarga (the “Elementaries” of the
Theosophists)—as having become wicked devils, liable to be annihilated any day
under the potent curses of much-sought-for and appreciated mediums.* The Hindu
regards as the greatest curse a person can be afflicted with, possession and
obsession by a bhut and the most loving couples often part if the wife is
attacked by the bhut of a relative, who, it seems, seldom or never attacks any
but women.
F.—Considers that no one has a
right to call himself a Spiritualist who has any new-fangled notions about
‘‘Elementaries,’’ spirit of the medium, and so forth; or does not believe that
departed human spirits, high and low, account for all the phenomena of every
description.
This one is the most proper
and correct of all the above given “definitions,” ‘from the standpoint of
orthodox Spiritualism, and settles our dispute with Dr. Peebles. No Hindu were
it even possible to bring him to regard bhuts as low, suffering Spirits on
their way to progress and final pardon (?), could, even if he would, account
for all the phenomena on this true spiritualistic theory. His religious and
philosophical traditions are all opposed to such a limited idea. A Hindu is,
first of all, a born metaphysician and logician. If he believes at all, and in
whatever he believes, he will admit of no special laws called into existence
for men of this planet alone, but will apply these laws throughout the
universe; for he is a Pantheist before being anything else, and notwithstanding
his possible adherence to some special sect. Thus Mr. Peebles has well defined
the situation himself, in the following happy paradox, in his Spiritualist
letter above quoted, and in which he says:
—————
[Evidently the word “medium”
is here used for “exorcist.’’—EDS.]
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Some of the best mediums that
it has been my good fortune to know, I met in Ceylon and India. And these were
not mediums; for, indeed, they held converse with the Pays and Pesatsays,
having their habitations in the air, the water, the fire, in rocks and trees,
in the clouds, the rain, the dew, in mines and caverns!
Thus these “mediums” who were
not mediums, were no more Spiritualists than they were mediums, and—the house
(Dr. Peebles’ house) is divided against itself and must fall. So far we agree,
and I will now proceed further on with my proofs.
As I mentioned before, Colonel
Olcott and myself, accompanied by a Hindu gentleman, Mr. Mulji-Taker-Sing, a
member of our Council, started on our seven weeks’ journey early in April. Our
object was twofold: (1) to pay a visit to and remain for some time with our
ally and teacher, Svami Dyanand, with whom we had corresponded so long from
America, and thus consolidate the alliance of our Society with the Arya Samajes
of India (of which there are now over fifty); and (2) to see as much of the
phenomena as we possibly could; and, through the help of our Svami—a Yogi
himself and an Initiate into the mysteries of the Vidya (or Secret Science)—to
settle certain vexed questions as to the agencies and powers at work, at first
hand. Certainly no one could find a better opportunity to do so than we had.
There we were, on friendly relations of master and pupils with Pandit Dyanand,
the most learned man in India, a Brâhman of high caste, and one who had for
seven long years undergone the usual and dreary probations of Yogism in a
mountainous and wild region, in solitude, in a state of complete nudity and
constant battle with elements and wild beasts—the battle of the divine human
Spirit and the imperial will of man against gross blind matter in the shape of
tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses and bears, without noting venomous snakes and
scorpions. The inhabitants of the village nearest to that mountain are there to
certify that sometimes for weeks no one would venture to take a little food—a
handful of rice—to our Svami; and yet, whenever they came, they always found
him in the same posture and on the same spot—an open, sandy hillock, surrounded
by thick jungle full of beasts of prey—and apparently as well without food and
water for whole weeks, as if he were made of stone instead of human flesh and
bones.* He has explained to us this mysterious secret which enables man to
suffer and
—————
* Yogis and ascetics are not the only examples of such protracted fastings; for
if those call be doubted, and sometimes utterly rejected by sceptical Science
as void of any conclusive proof—for the phenomenon takes place in remote and
inaccessible places—we have many of the Jains, inhabitants of populated towns,
to bring forward as exemplars of the same. Many of them fast, abstaining even
from one drop of water, for forty days at a time—and survive always.
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conquer at last the most cruel
privations, which permits him to go without food or drink for days and weeks;
to become utterly insensible to the extremes of either heat or cold; and
finally, to live for days out side instead of within his body
During this voyage we visited
the very cradle of Indian Mysticism, the hot-bed of ascetics, where the
remembrance of the wondrous phenomena performed by the Rishis of old is now as
fresh as it ever was during those days when the School of Patanjali—the reputed
founder of Yogism—was filled, and where his Yog-Sânkhya is still studied with
as much fervour, if not with the same powers of comprehension. To Upper India and
the North-Western Provinces we went; to Allahabad and Cawnpore, with the shores
of their sacred Ganga (Ganges) all studded with devotees; whither the latter,
when disgusted with life, proceed to pass the remainder of their clays in
meditation and seclusion, and become Sannyâsis, Gossains, Sadhus. Thence to
Agra, with its Taj Mâhal, “the poem in marble,” as Bishop Heber happily called
it, and the tomb of its founder, the great Emperor Adept, Akbar, at Secundra;
to Agra, with its temples crowded with Shakti-worshippers, and to that spot,
famous in the history of Indian Occultism, where the Jumna mixes its blue
waters with the patriarchal Ganges, and which is chosen by the Shâktas
(worshippers of the female power) for the performance of their pujâs. during winch
ceremonies the famous black crystals or mirrors mentioned by P. B. Randolph are
fabricated by the hands of young virgins. From there, again, to Saharampore and
Meerut, the birthplace of the mutiny of 1857. During our sojourn at the former
town, it happened to be the central railway point to which, on their return
from the Hardwâr pilgrimage, flocked nearly twenty-five thousand Sannyâsis and
Gossains, to numbers of whom Col. Olcott put close interrogatories, and with
whom he conversed for hours. Then to Râjputana, the land inhabited by the
bravest of all races in India, as well as the most mystically inclined—the
Solar Race, whose Râjahs trace descent from the sun itself. We penetrated as
far as Jeypore, the Paris, and at the same time the Rome of the Râjput land. We
searched through plains and mountains, and all along the sacred groves covered
with pagodas and devotees, among whom we found some very holy men, endowed with
genuine wondrous powers, but the majority were unmitigated frauds. And we got
into the favour of more than one Brâhman, guardian and keeper of his God’s
secrets and the mysteries of his temple; but got no more evi-
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dence out of these “hereditary
dead beats,” as Col. Olcott graphically dubbed them, than out of the Sannyâsis
and exorcizers of evil spirits, as to the similarity of their views with those
of the Spiritualists. Neither have we ever failed, whenever coming across any
educated Hindu, to pump him as to the ideas and views of his countrymen about
phenomena in general, and Spiritualism especially. And to all our questions,
who it was in the case of holy Yogis, endowed “with miraculouns powers,” that
produced the manifestations, the astonished answer was invariably the same: “He
[ Yogi] himself having become one with Brahm, produces them,” and more than
once our interlocutors got thoroughly disgusted and extremely offended at Col.
Olcott’s irreverent question, whether the bhuts might not have been at work
helping the Thaumaturgist. For nearly two months uninterruptedly our premises
at Bombay—garden, verandahs and halls—were crammed from early morning till late
at night with native visitors of the most various sects, races and religious
opinions, averaging from twenty to a hundred and more a day, coming to see us
with the object of exchanging views upon metaphysical questions, and to discuss
the relative worth of Eastern and Western Philosophies—Occult Sciences and
Mysticism included. During our journey we had to receive our brothers of the
Arya Samâjes, which sent their deputations wherever we went to welcome us, and
wherever there was a Samâj established. Thus we became intimate with the
previous views of hundreds and thousands of the followers of Svami Dyanand,
every one of whom had been converted by him from one idolatrous sect or
another. Many of these were educated men, and as thoroughly versed in Vaidic
Philosophy as in the tenets of the sect from which they had separated. Our
chances, then, of getting acquainted with Hindu views, Philosophies and
traditions, were greater than those of any previous European traveller; nay,
greater even than those of any officials who had resided for years in India,
but who, neither belonging to the Hindu faith nor on such friendly terms with
them as ourselves, were neither trusted by the natives, nor regarded as and
called by them “brothers” as we are.
It is, then, after constant
researches and cross-questioning, extending over a period of several months,
that we have come to the following conclusions, which are those of Mr. O’Grady:
No Hindu is a Spiritualist; and, with the exception of extremely rare
instances, none of them have ever heard of Spiritualism or its movements in
Europe,
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least of all in America—with
which country many of them are as little acquainted as with the North Pole. It
is but now, when Svami Dvanand, in his learned researches, has found out that
America must have been known to the early Aryans—as Arjuna, one of the five
Pândavas, the friend and disciple of Christna, is shown in Paurânic history to
have gone to Pâtâl(a) in search of a wife, and married in that country Ulupi,
the widow daughter of Nâga, the king of Pâtâl(a), an antipodal country
answering perfectly in its description to America, and unknown in those early
days to any but the Aryans—that an interest for this country is being felt
among the members of the Samâjes. But, as we explained the origin, development
and doctrines of the Spiritual Philosophy to our friends, and especially the modus
operandi of the mediums—i.e., the communion of the Spirits of the departed with
living men and women, whose organisms the former use as modes of
communication—the horror of our listeners was unequalled and undisguised in
each case. ‘‘Communion with bhuts! ‘‘ they exclaimed. ‘‘Communion with souls
that have become wicked demons, to whom we are ready to offer sacrifices in
food and drink to pacify them and make them leave us quiet, but who never come
but to disturb the peace of families; whose presence is a pollution! What
pleasure or comfort can the Bellate [White foreigners find in communicating
with them?” Thus, I repeat most emphatically that not only are there, so to
say, no Spiritualists in India, as we understand the term, but I affirm and
declare that the very suggestion of our so-called ‘‘Spirit intercourse’’ is
obnoxious to most of them—that is to say, to the oldest people in the world,
people who have known all about the phenomena for thousands upon thousands of
years. Is this fact nothing to us, who have just begun to see the wonders of
medium-ship? Ought we to estimate our cleverness at so high a figure as to make
us refuse to take instruction from these Orientals, who have seen their holy
men—nay, even their Gods and demons and the Spirits of the elements—performing
‘‘miracles’’ since the remotest antiquity? Have we so perfected a Philosophy of
our own that we can compare it with that of India, which explains every
mystery, and triumphantly demonstrates the nature of every phenomenon? It would
he worth our while, believe me, to ask Hindu help, if it were but to prove,
better than we can now, to the Materialists and sceptical Science, that, what
ever may be the true theory as to the agencies, the phenomena, whether biblical
or Vaidic, Christian or heathen, are in the natural
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order of this world, and have
a first claim to scientific investigation. Let us first prove the existence of
the Sphinx to the profane, and after wards we may try to unriddle its mysteries.
Spiritualists will always have time enough to refute “antiquated doctrines” of
old. Truth is eternal, and however long trampled down will always come out the
brighter in the expiring twilight of superstition. But in one sense we are
perfectly warranted in applying the name of Spiritualists to the Hindu Opposed
as they are to physical phenomena as produced by the bhuts or unsatisfied souls
of the departed, and to the possession by them of mediumistic persons, they
still accept with joy those consoling evidences of the continued interest in
themselves of a departed father or mother. In the subjective phenomena of
dreams, in visions of clairvoyance or trance, brought on by the powers of holy
men, they welcome the Spirits of their beloved ones, and often receive from
them important directions and advice.
If agreeable to your readers I
will devote a series of letters to the phenomena taking place in India,
explaining them as I proceed. I sincerely hope that the old experience of
American Spiritualists, massing in threatening force against iconoclastic
Theosophists and their “superannuated” ideas will not be repeated; for my offer
is perfectly impartial and friendly. It is with no desire to either teach new
doctrines or carry on an unwelcome Hindu propaganda that I make it; but simply
to supply material for comparison and study to the Spiritualists who think.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Bombay, July, 1879.
MISSIONARIES MILITANT
[Probably from the Allahabad
Pioneer; 1880.]
WE have just read the two
dreary columns in The Pioneer of March 15th, “The Theosophists in Council,” by
Mr. T. G. Scott. The Council of the Society having nothing more to say to the
reverend polemic, who, in rejoinder to a brief card, treats the world to two
columns of what Coleridge would call “a juggle of sophistry,” I, myself, would
ask you to favour me with a brief space.
A few points of Mr. Scott’s
most glaring misconceptions (?) about our Society may be noticed. We are said
to have declared, at New York, that the Theosophical Society was hostile to the
“Christian Church”; while at Mayo Hall, Allahabad, our President affirmed that
his Society was not organized to fight “Christianity.” This is assumed to be a
contradiction and a “change of base.” Now if there were enough “Christianity”
in the “Christian Church” to be spoken of the gentleman’s point might be deemed
well taken. But, in my humble opinion, this is not at all the case.
Hence—though not at all hostile to “Christianity,” i.e., the ethics alleged to
have been preached by Jesus of Nazareth—I, in common with many Theosophists, am
very much so to the so-called “Church of Christ.” Collectively, this Church
includes three great rival religions and some hundreds of minor sects, for the
most part bitterly recriminative and mutually far more hostile to each other
than we are to all. To accuse, therefore, the Theosophists—who may dislike the
Methodist, Presbyterian, Jesuit, Baptist, or any other alleged “Christian”
sect—of bitter hatred of “Christianity” in the abstract, is like accusing one
of hating light because he opposes the use of either or all of the man
new-fangled inventions of kerosene lamps, which, under the pretext of
preserving the light, injure it! The Christianity of Jesus, dragged by its
numberless sects around the arena of our century, appears like that car in the
Slavonian fable (a version of one by Ćsop) to which were harnessed all manner
of creeping,
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swimming, and flying things.
Each of these, following its own instinct, attempted to draw the car after its
own fashion. Result: between the birds, animals, reptiles and fishes, the
unfortunate vehicle was torn into fragments.
The reverend missionaries are
hard to please in this country. When left unnoticed, they complain of the
Theosophists ignoring the brave “six hundred”; and when we do notice
them—which, indeed, happens only under compulsion—they begin abusing us in the
most un-Christian and often, I am sorry to say, ungentlemanly way.
Thus, for instance, we had to
call the strong hand of the law to our help in the case of The Dnyanodaya, a
diminutive and sorry but quite a fighting little missionary weekly of Bombay,
which called our Society names, and had to apologize in print for it. Now comes
The Bengal Magazine of January; its Editor—by the by, a Christian reverend, but
nevertheless very rude Bâbu—is advised to look out and consult the law, before
he charges Colonel Olcott or anyone else with “hocus-pocus tricks’’ again; as
the ‘‘gushing Colonel’’ may prove as little gushing and as active in his case
as he was in that of the abusive little Dnyânodaya. And now Mr. T. G. Scott
calls an article on “Missions in India” (Theosophist, January) a
Bold, but exceedingly ignorant
attempt at making it appear that missions are a failure in India.
Ignorant as we newcomers maybe
about Indian missionary questions, I must remind Mr. Scott that the person whom
he stigmatizes with ignorance is a lady who has passed many years in India and
has had ample opportunities for observation. Most military or civil employees of
experience in India whom I have met take the same view of the matter that she
does. I cannot imagine why Darwin and Tyndall should have been selected by Mr.
Scott, out of the thousands of scientific and educated men now pulling
Christianity to pieces, as “noisy characters”; nor why he should cite, in an
issue created by modern biblical research, Newton, Kepler, Herschell or anyone
else who lived before the recent advances of Science in this direction, and in
days when, to deny not merely Christianity, but some minor dogma of the State
religion was equivalent to self-condemnation to an auto da-fe As for the
Christianity of Max Muller, Dr. Carpenter (a prince among Materialists) and the
late Louis Agassiz, the less said the better. Might not his long string of
high-sounding names have been profitably enlarged by the addition of those of
the late Viscount Amberley and
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Lord Queensborough, of the
“Church” of Moncure Conway, in which is preached the great Religion of Humanity
from every “religion” and church?
Science is our guide, and
truth is the spirit that we worship, says the noble Lord Queensborough in his
letter recently published in The Statesman! Mr. Scott assures his readers that:
Never since the Apostles has it [Christanity] been so vigorous as now, the
tendency is anything else than to infidelity and atheism.
But Lord Queensborough, in his
letter to “E. C. H.” challenges the latter, and with him the whole world of
Christians in these remarkable words:
Call us atheists and infidels
if you will; . . . and I maintain, and will maintain, that the time has arrived
for us to proclaim ourselves and to claim to be respected, as other religious
bodies are; but as we never shall he, unless we stand forward and openly declare
what our religion is . . . I am only acting as the mouthpiece of thousands,
perhaps millions, with whom I have faith in common.
Churches of our religion
already exist. I will name one in London, always as full as it can hold on
Sundays—South Place Chapel, Finsbury, where Mr. Moncure Conway lectures.
Moncure Conway, I will remind
Mr. Scott, instead of the Bible and Christianity preaches every Sunday from The
Sacred Anthology, extracts from the Vedas, the Buddhist Sutras, the Koran, and
so on. Many of his parishioners are fellows of the Theosophical Society. And
now it is my turn to ask, “How does this tally with the utterances of” Mr.
Scott, the missionary? Equally ill-timed was Mr. Scott’s quotation from the New
Testament of the passage:
Jesus said, Other sheep I
have, not of this fold.
For in the very mouth of Jesus
are put also the words:
He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned (Mark xvi.
16).
To this Mr. Scott may,
perhaps, repeat what he says in his two column letter:
The whole question of the
nature and extent of future punishment is a matter of interpretation.
Exactly. So we, Theosophists
and other heathen and “infidels,” who live in a century of free thought and in
a country of religious freedom, avail ourselves of it.
And now all his points being
answered, the reverend gentleman is
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at liberty to ventilate his
ideas and pour his wrath upon the Theosophists wherever he likes. Yet, unless
he can get his satisfaction from following the good example of other
missionaries, and indulge in monologues of abuse, he can reckon but little upon
us to answer him. It takes two for a dialogue; and whether as a Society or as
individuals, we decline any further controversy on the subject with one who
gives so few facts and so many words.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
THE HISTORY OF A “BOOK”
—————
[From the Allahahad Pioneer,
March 12th, 1880.]
As the indications in the
press all point towards a Russian reign of terror, either before or at the
death of the Czar—most probably the former—a bird’s-eye view of the
constitution of Russian society will enable us to better understand events as
they transpire.
Three distinct elements
compose what is now known as the Russian aristocracy. These may be broadly said
to represent the primitive Slavonian, the primitive Tartar, and composite
Russianized immigrants from other countries, and subjects of conquered states,
such as the Baltic provinces. The flower of the haute noblesse, those whose
hereditary descent places them beyond challenge in the very first rank, are the
Rurikovilch, or descendants of the Grand Duke Rurik and [the ruling families of
the aforetime separate principalities of Novgorod, Pskof, etc., which were
welded together into the Muscovite empire. Such are the Princes Bariatinskv,
Dolgorouki, Shonysky (now extinct, we believe), Tscherbatow, Ouroussov,
Viazemsky, etc. Moscow has been the centre of the greater part of this princely
class since the days of Catherine the Great; and though, in most cases, ruined
in fortune, they are yet as proud and exclusive as the blue-blooded French
families of the Quartier St. Germain. The names of some of the highest of these
are virtually unknown outside of the limits of the empire, for, dissatisfied with
the reforms of Peter and Catherine, and unable to make as fine a figure at the
court as those whom they delighted to call parvenus, it has been their proud
boast that they have never served in any subordinate capacity, and have not
been brought in contact with Western Europe and its politics. Living only upon
their remembrances, they have made a class apart and dwell on a sort of high
social table-land, whence they look down upon commoner mortals. Many of the old
families are extinct, and many of those that remain entirely reduced to genteel
poverty.
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Rurik, as is well known, was
not a Slav by birth, but a Varyago-Roos, though his nationality, as well as
that of his people who came with him to Russia, is very much questioned unto
this day, having been a matter of scientific dispute for several years between
the two well-known professors of St. Petersburg, Kostornarof and Pogodine— the
latter now dead. Implored by the Slays to come and reign over their country,
Rurik is reported to have been addressed by the delegates in these ominous
words: “Come with us, great prince for vast is our mother land; but there is
little order in it”—words which their descendants might well report with as
much, if not more, propriety now as then. Accepting the invitation, Rurik came
in A.D. 861 to Novgorod, with his two brothers, and laid the foundation of
Russian nationality. The “Rurikovitch,” then, are the descendants of this
prince, his two brothers and his son, Igor, the line running through a long
succession of princes and chiefs of principalities. The reigning house of Rurik
became extinct at the death of Fredor, the son of Ivan the Terrible. After a
period of anarchy, the Romanoffs, a family of petty nobles, came into power.
But, as this was only in 1613, it was not without reason that the Prince P.
Dolgorouki, a modern historian of Catherine II (a book prohibited in Russia),
when smarting under the sense of a personal wrong, taunted the present Emperor
with the remark:
Alexander II must not forget
that it is little more than two centuries since the Romanoffs held the stirrups
of the Princes Dolgorouki.
And this, despite the marriage
of Mary, Princess Dolgorouki, with Michael Romanoff after he became Czar.
The Tartar princely families descend
from the Tartar Khans and Magnates of the “Zolotaya Orda” (Golden Orda) of
Kazan, who so long held Russia in subjection, but who were made tributary by
Ivan III, father of Ivan the Terrible, in 1523-1530. Of the families of this
blood which survive, the Princes Dondoukof, whose head was formerly
Governor-General of Kiew, and more recently served in Bulgaria in a similar
capacity, may be mentioned. These are, more or less, looked down upon by the
“Rurikovitch,” as well as by old Lithuanian and Polish princely families, who
hate the Russian descendants of Rurik, as these hate their Roman Catholic
rivals. Then comes in the third element, the old Livonian and Esthonian Barons
and Counts, the Kourland nobles and freiherrs, who boast of descending from the
first Crusaders and look down upon the Slav aristocracy; and various
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foreign families invited into
the country by successive sovereigns, a Western element engrafted upon the
Russian stock. The names of the latter immigrés have been Russianized in some
cases beyond recognition; as, for instance, the English Hamiltons, who have now
become the “Khomoutoff!”
We have not the data which
would enable us to give the numerical strength of either of the above classes; but
an enumeration, made in the year 1842, showed a total of 551,970 noblemen of
hereditary, and 257,346 of personal rank. This comprised all in the empire of
different degrees of noble ranks, including the princely families and the
under-stratum of nobility. There is an untitled nobility, the descendants of
the old Boyars of Russia, often prouder of their family record than those who
are known as princes. The Demidoff family, for instance, and the Narishkine,
though frequently offered the ranks of prince and count, have always haughtily
rejected the honour, maintaining that the Czar could make a prince any day, but
never a Demidoff or a Narishkine.
Peter the Great, having
abolished the princely privileges of the Boyars, and made the offices of the
empire accessible to all, created the Tchin, or a caste of municipal employes
and government officials, divided into fourteen classes, the first eight of
which confer hereditary nobility upon the person holding one of them, and the
six latter give but a personal nobility to the incumbent, and do not transmit
gentility to the children. Office does not increase the nobility of incumbents
already noble, but does lift the ignoble into a higher social rank (Tchinovnik,
government employe was for years a term of scorn in the mouths of the nobles).
It is only since Alexander came to the throne that all old edict was done away
with, which deprived of noble rank and reduced to the peasantry any family
which, for three successive generations, had not taken service under the government.
Those were called Odnodvorizi, and among them some of the oldest families found
themselves included in 1845, when the Emperor Nicholas ordered the examination
of the titles of nobles. The nice distinctions among the above fourteen classes
are as puzzling to a foreigner as the relative precedence of the various
buttons of Chinese Mandarins, or the tails of the Pachas.
Besides these conflicting
elements of high and low nobility, the direct descendants of the Boyars of
old—the Slavonian peers in the palmy days of Russia, divided into petty
sovereignties, who chose for
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themselves the prince they
wanted to serve and left him at will, who were vassals, not subjects, had their
own military retinue, and without whose approval no grand-ducal “ukasč” could
be of any avail—and the ennobled Tchinovniks, sons of priests and petty
traders, there are yet to be considered 79,000,000 of other people. These may
be divided into the millions of liberated serfs (22,000,000), of crown peasants
(16,000,000), who inhabit cities, preferring various trades and menial service
to agriculture. The rest comprises (1) the Meshichanis, or petty bourgeois, one
step higher than the peasant; (2) the enormous body of merchants and traders divided
into three guilds; (3). the hereditary citizens, who have nothing to do with
nobility; (4) the black clergy or the monks and nuns; and the secular clergy,
or married priests—a caste apart and hereditary; and (5) the military class.
We will not include in our
classification the 3,000,000 of Mohammedans, the 2,000,000 of Jews, the 250,000
Buddhists, the pagan Izors, the Savakots, and the Karels, who seem perfectly
well satisfied with the Russian rule, thoroughly tolerant to their various
worships.* These, with the exception of the higher educated Jews and some
fanatical Mohammedans, care little as to the hand that rules them. But we will
remind the reader of the fact that there are over one hundred different nations
and tribes, who speak more than forty different languages, and are scattered
over an area of 8,331,884 English square miles;† that the population of all
Russia, European and Asiatic, is not above ten to the square mile; that the
railroads are very few and easily controlled, and other means of transport
scanty. How far it would be possible to effect a complete revolution throughout
the Russian Empire, may well be a subject of conjecture. With so little to bind
the many nationalities into one movement, it would seem to a foreigner an
undertaking so hopeless as to discourage even an Internationalist or a
Nihilist. Add to this the unquestionable devotion of the liberated serfs and
peasantry to the Czar, in whom they see alike the benefactor of the oppressed,
the vicegerent of God, and the head of their Church, and the case seems yet
more problematical. At the same time, we must not forget the lessons of
history, which has more than once shown us
—————
* By the last statistics, the
Mohammedans have 4,189 mosques and 7,940 mutfis and mulahs in the Empire of
Russia the Buddhists 389 places of worship and 4,400 priests; the Jews 445
synagogues and 4,935 rabbis, etc.
† According to the calculation
made in 1856 by G. Schweitzer, Director of the Observatory of Moscow.
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how the very vastness of an
empire and the lack of a common unity among its subjects have proved at some
supreme crisis the most potent elements of its downfall.
St. Petersburg is, in reality,
the aristocratic Parc aux Cerfs, a place of shameless profligacy and riotous
excesses, with so little that is national in it that its very name is German.
It is the natural port of entry for all the continental vices, as well as for
the loose ideas about morality, religion and social duty, which are becoming so
widely prevalent. The corrupting influence that Paris has upon France, St.
Petersburg has upon Russia. An influential Russian magazine, Rousskeye Rye gave
us only the other day the following picture of St. Petersburg society:
Russian society slumbers, or rather
it feels heavy and somnolent. it lazily nods, only now and then opening its
lifeless eyes, as might one who, after a heavy dinner, forced to sit in an
unnatural position, cannot resist a lethargic drowsiness, and feels that he
must either unbutton his uniform and draw a full breath, or— suffocate. But the
dinner is an official one, and his body pinched in a state uniform too tight
for him. The man is overcome with an irresistible somnolence ; he feels the
blood rushing to his head, his legs tremble and his hand mechanically fumbles
the button of the uniform to get one gasp of breath that would interrupt the
unendurable torture. Such is the present condition of our society.
But while it is nodding under
its threatened apoplexy, from a surfeit of indigestible food, those carnivorous
jackals, who are always ready to eat and drink, and can digest whatever they
pick up, do not sleep. The violation of the seventh commandment, intellectually
as well as physically, having debased body, mind and soul is nestling in the
very heart of the public. Adulterers of body, and of thought, and of knowledge
and science, adulterers of labour—reign in our midst, are creeping out from
every side as the representatives of society and the public, boasting of their
brazen hardihood, successful wherever they go, having flung away’ all shame
cast aside every’ concern to at least conceal the nakedness of their deeds,
even from the eyes of those from whom they’ squeeze all that can be squeezed
only from such a fool as—man. Government and treasury’ pilferers’, embezzlers
of public and private properties; blacklegs and swindlers subsidized by
numberless bubble companies, by stock companies and fraudulent enterprises;
thimble-riggers and violators of women and children whom they’ debauch and
ruin; contractors, money-lenders, bribed judges and venal counsel, bucket-shop
keepers and sharpers of all nationalities, ever)’ religion, every social class.
This is our modern social force. Like beasts of prey, hunting in packs, this
force, gloating over its quarry, satiating itself, noisily crunching its
restless, tireless jaws, imposing itself upon everyone, dares to offer itself
as the patron of everything”—science ,literature, arts, and even thought
itself. There it is, the kingdom of this world, flesh of the flesh, blood of
the blood, made in the image of the animal from which the first germ of man
evolved.
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Such are the social ethics of
our contemporary Russia, on Russian testimony. If so, then it must have reached
that culminating point from which it must either fall into the mire of
dissolution, like old Rome, or gravitate towards regeneration through all the
horrors and chaos of a “Reign of Terror.” The press teems with guarded
complaints of “prostration of forces” among its representatives, the chronic
signs of fast-impending social dissolution, and the profound apathy into which
the whole Russian people seem to have fallen. The only beings full of life and
activity, amid this lethargy of satiety, seem to be the omnipresent and
ever-invisible Nihilists. Clearly there must be a change.
From all this social
rottenness, the black fungus of Nihilism has sprung. Its hot-bed has been
preparing for years, by the gradual sapping of moral tone and self-respect and
the debauchery of the higher class, who always give the impulse to those below
them for good or evil. All that lacked was the occasion and the man. Under the
passport system of Nicholas, the chances for becoming polluted by Paris life
were confined to a mere handful of rich nobles, whom the caprice of the Czar
allowed to travel. Even they, the privileged of favour and fortune, had to
apply for permission six months in advance, and pay a thousand roubles for
their passport, with a heavy fine for each day in excess of the time granted,
and the prospect of confiscation of their entire property should their foreign
stay exceed three years. But under Alexander everything was changed; the
emancipation of the serfs was followed by numberless reforms—the unmuzzling of
the press, trial by jury, equalizing the rights of citizenship, free passports,
etc. Though good in themselves, these reforms came with such a rush upon a
people unaccustomed to the least of these privileges, as to throw them into a
high fever. The patient, escaping from his strait-jacket, ran wildly about the
streets. Then came the Polish Revolution of 1863, in which a number of Russian
students participated. Reaction followed and repressive measures were reädopted
one by one; but it was too late. The caged animal had tasted liberty, though
ever so brief, and thence forth could not be docile as before. Where there had
been one Russian traveller to Paris, Vienna and Berlin under the old reign, now
there were thousands and tens of thousands; and just so many more agencies were
at work to import fashionable vice and scientific scepticism. The names of John
Stuart Mill, Darwin, and Buchner, were upon the lip of every beardless boy and
heedless girl at the universities and colleges.
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The former were preaching
Nihilism, the latter Women’s Rights and Free Love. The one let their hair grow
like moujiks, and donned the red national shirt and kaflan of the peasantry;
the other clipped their hair short and affected blue spectacles. Trades Unions,
infected with the notions of the International, sprang up like mushrooms; and
demagogues ranted to social clubs upon the conflict between labour and capital.
The cauldron began to seethe. At last the man came.
The history of Nihilism can be
summed up in two words. For their name they are indebted to the great novelist
Tourguenief, who created Bazarof, and stamped the type with the name of
Nihilist. Little did the famous author of Fathers and Sons imagine at that time
into what national degeneration his hero would lead the Russian people
twenty-five years later. Only “Bazarof”—in whom the novelist painted with
satirical fidelity the characteristics of certain “Bohemian” negationists, then
just glimmering on the horizon of student life—had little in common, except the
name and materialistic tendency, with the masked Revolutionists and Terrorists
of today. Shallow, bilious, and nervous, this studiosus medicine is simply an
unquiet spirit of sweeping negation; of that sad, yet scientific scepticism
reigning now supreme in the ranks of the highest intellect; a spirit of
Materialism, sincerely believed in, and as honestly preached; the outcome of
long reflections over the rotten remnants of man and frog in the dissecting
room, where the dead man suggested to his mind no more than the dead frog.
Outside of animal life everything to him is nihil; “a thistle,” growing out of
a lump of mud, is all that man can look forward to after death. And thus this
type—Bazarof—was caught up as their highest ideal by the university students.
The “Sons” began destroying what the “Fathers” had built. . . . And now
Tourguenief is forced to taste of the bitter fruits of the tree of his
planting. Like the creator of Frankenstein, who could not control the mechanical
monster that his ingenuity had constructed out of the putrefactions of the
churchyard, he now finds his “type”—which was from the first hateful and
terrible to him—grown into the ranting spectre of the Nihilist delirium, the
red-handed Socialist. The press, at the initiative of the Moshovskye
Vyedomosty—a centenarian paper—takes up the question and openly accuses the
most brilliant literary talent of Russia, one whose sympathies are, and always
have been, on the side of the “Fathers,” with having been the first to plant
the poisonous weed.
Owing to the peculiar
transitional state of Russian society between
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1850 and 1860, the name was
hailed and adopted, and the Nihilists began springing up at every side. They captured
the national literature, and their new doctrines were fast disseminated
throughout the whole empire. And now Nihilism has grown into a power—an
imperium in imperio: It is no more with Nihilism with which Russia struggles,
but with the terrible consequences of the ideas of 1850. Fathers and Sons must
henceforth occupy a prominent place, not only in literature, as quite above the
ordinary level of authorship, but also as the creator of a new page in Russian
political history, the end of which no man can foretell.
A FRENCH VIEW OF WOMEN’S
RIGHTS
[Probably from the Allahabad
Pioneer.]
WITH a little book entitled
Les Femmes qui Tuent et Les Femmes qui Votent, Alexandre Dumas, fils, has just
entered the arena of social and political reform. The novelist, who began by
picking up his Beatrices and Lauras in the social gutter, the author of La Dame
aux Camelias and La Dame aux Perles, is regarded in France as the finest known
analyst of the female heart. He now comes out in a new light; as a defender of
Woman’s Rights in general, and of those women especially whom English people
generally talk about as little as possible. If this gifted son of a still more
gifted father never sank before to the miry depths of that modern French
realistic school now in such vogue, the school headed by the author of
L’Assommoir and Nana and so fitly nicknamed L’Ecole Ordurialiste it is because
he is a born poet, and follows the paths traced out for him by the Marquis de
Sade, rather than those of Zola. He is too refined to be the rival of writers
like those who call themselves auteurs-naturalisles and
romanciers-experimentalistes, who use their pen as the student in surgery his
scalpel, plunging it into the depths of all the social cancers they can find.
Until now he idealized and
beautified vice. In the work under review, he defends not only its right to
exist under certain conditions, but claims for it a recognized place in the
broad sunlight of social and political life.
His brochure of 216 pages,
which has lately been published in the shape of a letter to J. Claretie, is now
having an immense success. By the end of September, hardly a week after its
appearance, it had already reached its sixth edition. It treats of two great
social difficulties—the question of divorce, and the right of women to
participate in elections. Dumas begins by assuming the defence of the several
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women who have recently played
an important part in murder cases, in which their victims were their husbands
and lovers.
All these women, he says, are
the embodiment of the idea which for some time past has been fermenting in the
world. It is that of the entire disenthralment of the woman from her old
condition of slavery, created for her by the Bible, and enforced by tyrannical
society. All these murders and this public vice, as we as the increasing mental
labour of women, M. Dumas takes to be so many signs of one and the same
aspiration—that of mastering man, getting the best of him, and competing with
him in everything. What men will not give them willingly, women of a certain
class endeavour to obtain by cunning. As a result of such a policy, he says, we
see “those young ladies” acquiring an enormous influence over men in all social
affairs and even in politics. Having amassed large fortunes, when older they
appear as lady-patronesses of girls’ schools and of charitable institutions,
and take a part in provincial administration. Their past is lost sight of; they
succeed in establishing, so to say, an imperium in imperio, where they enforce
their own laws, and manage to have them respected. This state of things is
attributed by Dumas directly to the restriction of Woman’s Rights, to the state
of legal slavery women have been subjected to for centuries, and especially to the
marriage and anti-divorce laws. Answering the favourite objection of those who
oppose divorce on the ground that its establishment would promote too much
freedom in love, the author of Le Demi-Monde bravely pushes forward his last
batteries and throws off the mask.
Why not promote such freedom?
What appears a danger to some, a dishonour and shame to others,
Will become an independent and
recognized profession in life—une carričre ŕ part—a fact, a world of its own,
with which all the other corporations and classes of society will have to
reckon. It will not be long before everyone will have ceased to protest against
its right to an independent and legal existence. Very shortly it will form
itself into an integral, compact body; and the time will come when, between
this world and the others, relations will be established as friendly as between
two equally powerful and recognized empires.
With every year women free
themselves more and more from empty formalism, and M. Dumas hopes there will
never again be a reaction. If a woman is unable to give up the idea of love
altogether, let her prefer unions binding neither party to anything, and let
her be guided in this only by her own free will and honesty. Of course it is
rather to
239——————————————————A FRENCH VIEW OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS.
review an important current of
feeling in an important community than to discuss au fond the delicate
questions with which M. Dumas deals, that we are taking notice of his book. We
may thus leave the reader to his own reflections on this proposed reform, as
also in reference to most of the points raised.
A certain Hubertine Auclaire,
in France, has lately refused to pay her taxes on the plea that political
rights belonging to man are denied to her as a woman; and Dumas, with this
incident as a text, devotes the last part of this brochure to a defence of
Woman’s Rights, as eloquent, impressive and original as other portions which
will less bear discussion. He writes:
In 1847 political reformers
thought it necessary to lower the electoral franchise and distribute the right
of vote according to capacity.
That is, to limit it to
intelligent men. The government refused, and this led to the Revolution of
1848. Scared, it gave the people the right of universal suffrage, extending the
right to all, whether capable or incapable, provided the voters were only men.
At present this right holds good, and nothing can abolish it. But women come,
in their turn, and ask: “How about us? We claim the same privileges.”
What [asks Dumas] can be more
natural, reasonable and just? There is no reason why woman should not have
equal rights with man. What difference do you find between the two which
warrants your refusing her such a privilege? None at all. Sex? her sex has no
more to do with it than the sex of man. As to all other dissimilarities between
us, they go far more to her credit than to ours. If one argues that Woman is by
nature a weaker creature than man, and that it is his duty to take care of and
defend her, we will answer that hitherto we have, it seems, so badly defended
her that she had to pick up a revolver and take that defence into her own
hands; and to remain consequent with ourselves we have to enter the verdict of
“Not guilty” whenever she is caught in that act of self-defence.
To the plea that woman is
intellectually weaker than man, and is shown to be so by sacred writings, the
author sets off against the biblical Adam and Eve, Jacolliot’s translation of
the Hindu legend in his Bible dans l’Inde, and contends that it was man, not
woman, who became the first sinner and was turned out of Paradise. If man is
endowed with stronger muscles, woman’s nerves surpass his in capacity for
endurance. The biggest brain ever found—in weight and size—is now proved to
have belonged to a woman. It weighed 2,200 grammes—400 more than that of
Cuvier. But brain has nothing to do with the electoral question. To drop a
ballot into the urn no one is required to have invented powder, or to be able
to lift 500 kilogrammes.
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Dumas has an answer for every
objection. Are illustrious women exceptions? He cites a brilliant array of
great female names, and contends that the sex in which such exceptions are to
be met has acquired a legal right to take part in the nomination of the village
maires and municipal officers. The sex which claims a Blanche de Castille, an
Elizabeth of England, another of Hungary, a Catherine II and a Maria Theresa,
has won every right.
If so many women were found
good enough to reign and govern nations, they surely must have been fit to
vote. To the remark that women can neither go to war nor defend their country,
the reader is reminded of such names as Joan of Arc, and the three other Joans,
of Flanders, of Blois, and Joan Hachette. It was in memory of the brilliant
defence and salvation of her native town, Beauvais, by the latter Joan, at the
head of all the women of that city, besieged by Charles le Témeraire that Louis
XI decreed that henceforth and for ever the place of honour in all the national
and public processions should belong to women. Had woman no other rights in
France, the fact alone that she was called upon to sacrifice1,800,000 of her
sons to Napoleon the Great, ought to ensure to her every right. The example of
Hubertine Auclaire will be soon followed by every woman in France. Law was ever
unjust to woman; and instead of protecting her, it seeks but to strengthen her
chains. In case of crimes committed, does law ever think of bringing forward as
an extenuating circumstance, her weakness? On the contrary, it always takes
advantage of it. The illegitimate child is given by it the right to find out
who its mother was, but not its father. The husband can go anywhere, do
whatever he pleases, abandon his family, change his citizenship, and even
emigrate, without the consent or even knowledge of his wife.
She can do nothing of the
kind. In case of a suspicion of her faith, he can deprive her of her marriage
portion; and in case of guilt may even kill her. It is his right. Debarred from
the benefits of a divorce, she has to suffer all, and finds no redress. She is
fined, judged, sentenced, imprisoned, put to death, and suffers all the
penalties of law just as much and under the same circumstances as he does, but
no magistrate has ever thought of saying yet:
“Poor weak little creature Let
us forgive her, for she is irresponsible, and so much lower than man
The whole eloquent, if
sometimes rhapsodical plea in favour of women’s suffrage is concluded with the
following suggestions:
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First, the situation will
appear absurd; but gradually people will become accustomed to the idea, and
soon every protest will die out. No doubt at first the idea of woman in this
new role will have to become the subject of bitter criticism and satire. Ladies
will be accused of ordering their hats a
a l'urne, their bodices au suffrage universel, and their skirts au scrutin
secret. But what then ? After having served for a time as an object of
amazement, then become a fashion and habit, the new system will be finally
looked upon as a duty. At all events it has now become a claimed right. A few
grandes dames in cities, some wealthy female landowners in provincial
districts, and leaseholders in villages, will set the example, and it will be
soon followed by the rest of the female population.
The book winds up with this
question and answer:
I may, perhaps, be asked by
some pious and disciplined lady, some fervent believer in time idea that
humanity can only he rescued from perdition by codes and gospels, by the Roman
law and Roman Church: ‘‘Pray, tell me, sir, where are we driving to with all
these ideas ?“ “He, madame! ... we go where we were going to from the first, to
that which must be, that is, the inevitable. We move slowly onward, because we
call spare time, having some millions of years yet before us, and because we
have to leave some work to do for those who are following us. For the present
we are occupied in enfranchising women; when this is done we will try to
enfranchise God. And as soon as full harmony will have been established between
these three eternal principles—God, man and woman—our way will appear to us
less dark before us, and we will journey on the quicker.”
Certainly the advocates of
Woman’s Rights in England have never yet approached their subject from this
point of view. Is the new method of attack likely to prove more effective than
the familiar declamation of the British platform, or the earnest prosing of our
own great woman’s champion, John Stuart Mill? This remains to be seen; but
certainly for the most part the English ladies who fight this battle will be
puzzled how to accept an ally whose sympathy is due to principles so
frightfully indecorous as those of our present author.
H. P. Blavatsky.
OCCULT PHENOMENA
—————
[From the Bombay Gazette Oct.
29th, 1880.]
IN the issue of the 19th
instant of your worthy contemporary, I find over two columns devoted to the
doubtful glorification, but mostly to the abuse, of my humble individuality.
There is a long confidential letter from Colonel Olcott to an officer of our
Society, obtained surreptitiously by somebody, and marked “private”—a word
showing in itself that the document was never meant for the public eye—and an
editorial, principally filled with cheap abuse, and venomous, though
common-place, suggestions. The latter was to be expected, but I would like
information upon the following points: (1) How did the editor come into
possession of a document stolen from the desk of the President of the Bombay
Branch of the Theosophical Society? and (2) having got it, what right had he to
publish it at all, without first obtaining consent from the writer or
addressee—a consent which he could never have obtained? and (3) how is such an
action to be characterized? If the law affords no redress for a wrong like this
I am content, at least, to abide the verdict of every well-bred man or woman
who shall read the letter and comments thereon. This private letter having been
written about, but not by me, I abandon this special question to be settled
between the offended and the offender, and touch but upon the one which
concerns me directly.
I have lived long enough in
this world of incessant strife, in which the “survival of the fittest” seems to
mean the triumph of the most unprincipled, to have learned that when I have
once allowed my name to appear in the light of a benevolent genius, for the
production of “cups,” “saucers” and “brooches,” I must bear the penalty;
especially when the people are so foolish as to take the word “Magic” either in
its popular superstitious sense—that of the work of the devil—or in that of
jugglery. Therefore and precisely because I am an “elderly lady from Russia via
America,” the latter country of unlimited freedom
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—especially in newspaper
personal abuse—has toughened me to the extent of being indifferent as to the
sneering and jeering of news papers upon questions they do not understand at
all; provided they are witty and remain within the limits of propriety and do
no harm but to myself. Being neither a professional medium nor a professional
anything, and making my experiments in “Occult phenomena” only in the presence
of a few friends—rarely before anyone who is not a member of our Society—I have
a right to claim from the public a little more fairness and politeness than are
usually accorded to paid jugglers and even alleged Thaumaturgists. And if my
friends will insist upon publishing about “Occult phenomena” taking place in
their presence, they should at least preface their narratives with the
following warning: Pukka Theosophy believes in no miracle, whether divine or
devilish; recognizes nothing as supernatural; believes only in facts and
Science; studies the laws of Nature, both Occult and patent; and gives
attention particularly to the former, just because exact Science will have
nothing to do with them.
Such laws are those of
Magnetism in all its branches, Mesmerism, Psychology, etc. More than once in
the history of its past has Science been made the victim of its own delusions
as to its professed infallibility; and the time must come when the perfection
of Asiatic Psychology and its knowledge of the forces of the invisible world
will be recognized, as were the circulation of the blood, electricity, and so
forth, after the first sneers and lampoons died away. The “silly attempts to
hoodwink individuals” will then be viewed as honest attempts at proving to this
generation of Spiritualists and believers in past ‘‘miracle—mongers,” that
there is naught miraculous in this world of Matter and Spirit, of visible
results and invisible causes; naught—but the great wickedness of a world of
Christians and Pagans, alike ridiculously superstitious in one direction, that
of their respective religions, and malicious whenever a purely disinterested
and philanthropic effort is made to open their eyes to the truth. I beg leave
to further remark that personally I never bragged of anything I might have
done, nor do I offer any explanation of the phenomena, except to utterly
disclaim the possession of any miraculous or supernatural powers, or the
performing of anything by jugglery—i.e., with the usual help of confederates
and machinery. That’s all. And surely, if there is anything like a sense of
justice left in society, I am amenable to neither statutory nor social laws for
gratifying the interest of members
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of our Society, and the wishes
of my personal friends, by exhibiting to them in privacy various phenomena, in
which I believe far more firmly than any of them, since I know the laws by
which they are produced, and am ready to stand any amount of personal newspaper
abuse when ever these results are told to the public. The “official circles at
Simla” was an incorrect and foolish phrase to use. I never produced anything in
the ‘‘official circles’’ ; but I certainly hope to have impressed a few persons
belonging to such “official circles” with the sense that I was neither an
impostor nor a “hood of official personages,” for whom, moreover, so long as I
live up to the law of the country, and respect it (especially considering my
natural democratic feelings, strengthened by my American naturalization), I am
not bound to have any more respect than each of them personally deserves in his
individual capacity. I must add, for the personal gratification of the Editor
of your contemporary, and in the hope that this will soothe his irate feelings,
that of the five eye-witnesses to the “cup” production, three (two of these of
the “official circle”) utterly disbelieve the genuineness of the phenomenon,
though I would be pleased to know how, with all their scepticism, they would be
able to account for it. I do not imitate the indiscretion of the Editor and
mention names, but leave the public to draw such inferences as they please.
I am a private individual, and
no one has a right to call upon me to rise and explain. Therefore, by causing
Colonel Olcott’s stolen letter to be followed by a paragraph entitled “The way
they treat ‘occult phenomena’ in England,” giving an account of the arrest of
Miss Houghton, a medium who obtained money under false pretences, the Editor,
by the implied innuendo which likens my case to hers, became guilty of one more
unprovoked and ungentlemanly insult towards me, who obtain neither money nor
favours of any sort for my ‘‘phenomena,” and lays himself open to very hard
reprisals. The only benefit I have ever derived from my experiments, when made
public, is newspaper abuse and more or less unfavourable comments upon my
unfortunate self all over the country. This, unless my convictions were strong
indeed, would amount to obtaining Billingsgate and martyrdom under false
pretences, and begging a reputation for insanity. The game would hardly be
worth the candle, I think.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Amritzur, Oct. 25th 1880.
HINDU WIDOW- MARRAGE
—————
[The following is a copy of a
letter received by Dewan Bahadar Ragunath Row from Madame Blavatsky.]
MY DEAR SIR,—I have not made a
study of Hindu law, but I do know something of the principles of Hindu
religions, or rather ethics, and of those of its glorious Founders. I regard
the former as almost the embodiment of justice, and the latter as ideals of
spiritual perfectibility. When then anyone points out to me in the existing
canon any text, line or word that violates one’s sense of perfect justice, I
instinctively know it must be a later perversion of the original Smriti. In my
judgment, the Hindus are now patiently enduring many outrageous wrongs that
were cunningly introduced into the canon, as opportunity offered, by selfish
and unscrupulous priests for their personal benefit, as occurred in the case of
Suttee, the burning of widows. The marriage laws are another example. To marry
a child, without her knowledge or consent to enter the married state, and then
to doom her to the awful, because unnatural, fate of enforced celibacy if the
boy-child to whom she was betrothed should die (and one half of the human race
do die before coming of age), is something actually brutal, devilish. It is the
quintessence of injustice and cruelty, and I would sooner doubt the stars of
heaven than believe that any one of those star-bright human souls called Rishis
had ever consented to such a base and idiotic cruelty. If a female has entered
the marital relation, she should, in my opinion, remain a chaste widow if her
husband should die. But if a betrothed boy—husband of a non-consenting and
irresponsible child-wife should die, or if, upon coming to age, either of them
should be averse from matrimony, and prefer to take tip the religious life, to
devote themselves to charitable occupations, to study, or for other good
reasons wish to remain celibate, then they ought to be allowed to do so. We
personally know of several cases where the males or females are so bent upon
becoming Chelâs that they prefer death
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rather than to enter or
continue in—as the cases severally may be— the married state. My woman’s
instinct always told me that for such there was comfort and protection in the
Hindus law of the Rishis, which was based upon their spiritual perceptions,
hence upon the perfect law of harmony and justice which pervades all nature.
And now, upon reading your excellent pamphlet, I perceive that my instincts had
not deceived me.
Wishing every possible success
to your noble and highly philanthropical enterprise, believe me, dear sir, with
respect,
Yours fraternally,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Mylapore, June 3rd, 1882.
“OPPRESSED WIDOWHOOD” IN
AMERICA
—————
[From The Philosophic Enquirer
; July 15 1883.]
HAVING read an article signed
with the above pseudonym in The Philosophic Enquirer of July 1st, in which the
hapless condition of the Hindu widow is so sincerely bewailed, the idea struck
me that it may not be uninteresting to your readers, the opponents as well as
the supporters of child-marriage and widow-marriage, to learn that the
sacerdotal caste of India is not a solitary exception in the cruel treatment of
those unfortunates whom fate has deprived of their husbands. Those who look
upon the re-marriage of their bereaved females with horror, as well as those
who may yet be secretly sighing for Suttee, will find worthy sympathizers among
the savage and fierce tribe of the Talkotins of Oregon (America). Says Ross Cox
in his Adventures on the Columbia River:
The ceremonies attending the
dead are very singular and quite peculiar to this tribe. During the nine days
the corpse is laid out the widow of the deceased is obliged to sleep alongside
it from sunset to sunrise; and from this custom there is on relaxation even
during the hottest days of summer [ the ceremony of cremation is being
performed, and the doctor (or ‘‘medicine man “) is trying for the last time his
skill upon the corpse, and using useless incantations to bring hint back to
life,] the widow must lie on the pile, add after the fire is applied to it she
cannot stir until the doctor orders her to be removed, which, however, is never
done until her body is completely covered with blisters.
After being placed on her legs
she is obliged to pass her hands gently through the flames and collect some of
the liquid fat which issues front the corpse, with which she is permitted [?]
to wet her face and body! When the friends of the deceased observe the sinews
of the legs and arms beginning to contract they compel the unfortunate widow to
go again on the pile, and by dint of hard pressing to straighten those members.
If during her husband’s
lifetime she has been known to have omitted administering to him savoury food,
or neglected his clothing, etc., she is now made to suffer severely for such
lapses of duty by his relations, who frequently fling her On
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the funeral pile, from which
she is dragged by her friends, and thus between alternate scorching and cooling
she is dragged backwards and forwards until she falls into a state of
insensibility.
After which she is saved and
allowed to go.
But if the widow was faithful,
respectful and a good wife, then:
After the process of burning
the corpse has terminated, the widow collects the larger bones, which she rolls
up in an envelope of birch bark, and which she is obliged for some years
afterwards to carry on her back. She is now considered and treated as a slave
[as in India]; all the laborious duties of cooking, collecting fuel, etc.,
devolve on her. She must obey the orders of all the women and even of the
village children, and the slightest mistake or disobedience subjects her to the
infliction of a heavy punishment. The wretched widow, to avoid this complicated
cruelty, often commits suicide. Should she, however, linger on for three or
four years, the friends of her husband agree to relieve her from her painful
mourning. This is a ceremony of much consequence. . . . Invitations are sent to
the inhabitants of the various friendly villages, and when the feast commences
presents are distributed to each visitor. The object of their meeting is then
explained, and the woman is brought forward, still carrying on her back the
bones of her late husband, which are now removed and placed in a carved box,
which is nailed to a post twelve feet high.
Her conduct as a faithful
widow is next highly eulogized, and the ceremony of her manumission is
completed by one man powdering on her head the down of birds and another
pouring on it the contents of a bladder of oil! She is then at liberty to marry
again or lead a life of single blessedness; but few of them, I believe, wish to
encounter the risk attending a second widowhood.
H. P. B.
“ESOTERIC BUDDHISM” AND ITS
CRITIC
—————
[From Light, 1883.]
Bottom.— me play the lion. . .
. I will roar, that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. . . . I will
make the Duke say,...” Let him roar, let him roar again.” ... Masters, you
ought to consider with yourselves; to bring in—God shield us!—a lion among
ladies, is a most dreadful thing; for, there is not a more fearful wild-fowl
than your lion living; and we ought to look to it.
Nay, you must name his name,
and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck; and he himself must
speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect:
“Ladies,” or “fair ladies [or
Theosophists] I would wish you,” or “I would request you,” or “I would entreat
you,” not to fear, not to tremble If you think I come hither as a lion, . . .
no, I am no such thing: I am a man . . . and there indeed let him name his
name.—Midsummer Night’s Dream.
IN Light of July 21st in the
“Correspondence,” appears a letter signed “G. W., M.D.” Most transparent
initials these, which “name the name” at once, and show the writer’s face
“through the lion’s neck.” The communication consists of just fifty-eight
paragraphs, containing an equal number of sneering, rancorous, vulgar, personal
flings, the whole distributed over three and a half columns. It pretends to
criticize, while only misquoting and misinterpreting Eastern Esotericism. Its
author would create a laugh at the expense of Mr. Sinnett’s book, and succeeds
in showing us what a harmless creature is the “lion,” “wild-fowl” though he may
be; and where he would make a show of wit, the letter is only—nasty.
I should not address your
public, even in my private capacity, but that the feelings of many hundreds of
my Asiatic brothers have been outraged by this, to them, ribald attack upon
what they hold sacred. For them, and at their instance, I protest. It might be
regarded as beneath contempt had it come from an outsider upon whom rested no
obligation to uphold the dignity of the Theosophical Society; in such case it
would have passed for a clumsy attempt to injure an unpalatable cause: that of
Esoteric Buddhism. But when it is a wide-open secret
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that the letter came from a
member of about five years’ standing, and one who, upon the protogenesis of the
“British Theosophical Society” as the “London Lodge of the Theosophical
Society,” retained membership, the case has quite another aspect. The cutting
insult having been inflicted publicly and without antecedent warning, it
appears necessary to enquire as to the occult motive.
I shall not stop to remark
upon the wild resume which, professedly “a criticism from a European and
arithmetical standpoint,” passed muster with you. Nor shall I lose time over
the harmless flings at “incorrigible Buddhists and other lunatics,” beyond
remarking ŕpro of “moon” and “dust-bins” that the former seems to have found a
good symbol of herself as a “dust-bin” in the heads of those whose perceptive
faculties seem so dusty as to prevent the entrance of a single ray of Occult
light. Briefly then, since the year 1879 when we came to India, the author of
the letter in question has made attempts to put himself into communication with
the “Brothers.” Besides trying to enter into correspondence with Colonel
Olcott’s Guru, he sent twice, through myself letters addressed to the Mahâtmâs.
Being, as it appears, full of one-sided prejudiced questions, suggesting to
Buddhist Philosophers the immense superiority of his own “Esoteric”
Christianity over the system of the Lord Buddha, which is characterized as
fruitful of selfishness, human blindness, misanthropy and spiritual death, they
were returned by the addressees for our edification and to show us why they
would not notice them. Whoever has read a novelette contributed by this same
gentleman to The Psychological Review and entitled “The Man from the East” will
readily infer what must have been his attitude towards the “Himalayan” and
Tibetan Mystics. A Scotch doctor, the hero, meets at a place in Syria, in an
Occult Brother hood, a Christian convert from this “Himalayan heathen
Brotherhood,” who—a Hindu against his late Adept Masters the self-same libels
as are now repeated in the letter under notice.
—————
* The shot at Theosophy being
badly aimed, flew wide of the mark; but still, like Richard III, “G. W., M.D.”
resolved, as it appears, to keep up the gunnery— The mythical hero of the story
would seem to have met at Paris with a certain pseudo-Brâhman, a convert to
Roman Catholicism, who is giving himself out as an ex-Chela—his statements and
all corroborative ones to the contrary notwithstanding; he may have misled, if
not the mythical Scotch doctor, at least the actual “M.D.’’ of London. And, by
the way, our French Fellows may as well know, that unless this pretender ceases
his bogus revelations as to the phenomenal powers of our Mahatmas being “of the
devil” a certain native gentleman who has known this convert of the Jesuits
from childhood, will expose him most fully—H. P. B.
251—————————————————“ESOTERIC BUDDHISM” AND ITS CRITIC.
If not to fight with foreign
enemies,
Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.
The three indignant answers
called out by “G. W., M.D.,” having emanated from an English lady and two
genuine English gentlemen, are, in my humble opinion, too dignified and mild
for the present case. So brutal an attack demanded something stronger than
well-bred protests; and at the risk of being taken by “G. W., M.D.” as the
reverse of well-bred, I shall use plain words about this whilom friend, but now
traitor—I hope to show the term is not too harsh. As an ardent Theosophist, the
grateful loyal friend of the author denounced—who deserves and has the regard
of Mahâtmâ Koot-Hoomi—and as the humble pupil of Those to whom I owe my life
and the future of my soul, I shall speak. While I have breath, I shall never
allow to pass unnoticed such ugly manifestations of religious intolerance, nay,
bigotry, and personal rancour resulting from envy, in a member of our Society.
Before closing, I must notice
one specially glaring fact. Touched evidently to the quick by Mr. Sinnett’s
very proper refusal to let one so inimical see the “Divine Face” (yes, truly
Divine, though not so much so as the original) of the Mahâtmâ, “G. W., M.D.”
with a sneer of equivocal propriety, calls it a mistake. He says:
For just as some second-class
saints have been made by gazing on halfpenny prints of the Mother of God, so
who can say that if my good friend had permitted my sceptical eyes to look on
the Divine face of Koot-Hoomi I might not forthwith have been converted into an
Esoteric Buddhist?
Impossible; an Esoteric
Buddhist never broke his pledged word; and one who upon entering the Society
gave his solemn word of honour, in the presence of witnesses, that he would.
Defend the interests of the
Society and the honour of a brother Theosophist, when unjustly assailed, even
at the peril of my [his] own life,
and then could write such a
letter, would never be accepted in that capacity. One who unjustly assails the
honour of hundreds of his Asiatic brothers, slanders their religion and wounds
their most sacred feelings, may be a very esoteric Christian, but certainly is
a disloyal Theosophist. My perceptions of what constitutes a man of honour may
be very faulty, but I confess that I could not imagine such a one making public
caricatures upon confessedly “private instructions.” (See second column,
paragraph 14 of his letter.) Private instructions of this sort, given at
confidential private meetings of the Society in
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advance of their publication,
are exactly what the entering member’s word of honour’’ pledges him not to
reveal.
The broken faith made thee
prey for worms;
What canst thou swear by now?
Your correspondent deprecates
At the outset this Oriental
practice of secrecy; [he knows] that secrecy and cunning are ever twin sisters,
[and it appears to him childish and effeminate [to pretend] by secret Words and
signs to enshrine great truths behind a veil, which is only useful as a
concealment of ignorance and nakedness.
Indeed: so he is not an
“Esoteric Christian” after all, else I have misread the Bible. For what I find
there in various passages, of which I cite but one, shows me that he is as
disloyal to his own Master and Ideal Christ, as he is to Theosophy:
And he said unto them [his own
disciples], Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but
unto them that are without [the ‘‘G.W., M.D.’s’’ of the day] all these things
are done in parables: that seeing they may see and not perceive; and hearing
they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and
their sins should be forgiven them. ( iv. 11, 12.)
Shall we characterize this
also as “childish and effeminate,” say that the twins sisters ‘‘secrecy and
cunning” lurk behind this veil, and that in this instance, as usual, it was
“only useful as a concealment of ignorance and nakedness”? The grandeur of
Esoteric Buddhism is that it hides what it does from the vulgar, not “lest at
any time they should be converted, and their sins forgiven them,” or as they
would say, “cheat their Karma”—but lest by learning prematurely that which can
safely be trusted only to those who have proved their unselfishness and
self—abnegation, even the wicked, the sinners should be hurt.
And now, may the hope of
Bottom be realized, and some London Duke say to this harmless lion: “Let him
roar, let him roar again.”
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
Nilgherry Hills, Aug. 23rd,
1883.
MR. A. LILLIE’S DELUSIONS
—————
[From Light, 1884.]
I WRITE to rectify the many
mistakes—if they are, indeed, only “mistakes”—in Mr. Lillie’s last letter that
appeared in Light of August 2nd, in answer to the Observations on his pamphlet
by the President of the London Lodge.
I. This letter, in which the
author of Buddha and Early Buddhism proposed to Consider briefly some of the
notable omissions made in the “Observations,’
begins with two most notable
assertions concerning myself, which are entirely false, and which the author
had not the slightest right to make. He says:
For fourteen years (1860 to
1874) Madame Blavatsky was all avowed Spiritualist, controlled by a spirit
called “John King” ... she attended many seances.
But this would hardly prove
anyone to be a Spiritualist, and, more over, all these assertions are entirely
false. I say the word and under line it, for the facts in them are distorted,
and made to fit a preconceived and very erroneous notion, started first by the
Spiritualists, whose interest it is to advocate “spirits” pure and simple, and
to kill, if they can, which is rather doubtful, belief in the wisdom, if not in
the very existence, of our revered Masters.
Though I do not at all feel
bound to unbosom my private life to Mr. Arthur Lillie, nor do I recognize in
him the right of demanding it, yet out of respect to a few Spiritualists whom I
esteem and honour, I would set them right once for all on the subject. As that
period of my life (1873-1879) in America, with all its spiritual transactions,
will be given very soon in a new book called Madame Blavatsky, published by
friends, and one which I trust will settle, once and for ever, the many wild
and unfounded stories told of me, I will briefly state only the following.
The unwarranted assumption
mentioned above is very loosely based
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on one single document,
namely, Colonel Olcott’s People from the other World. As this book was written
partly before, and partly after, my first acquaintance with Colonel Olcott, and
as he was a Spiritualist, which he has never denied, I am not responsible for
his views of me and my “power” at that time. He wrote what he then thought the whole
truth, honestly and sincerely; and as I had a determined object in view, I did
not seek to disabuse him too rudely of his dreams. It was only after the
formation of the Theosophical Society in 1875, that he learned the whole truth.
I defy anyone, after that period, to find one word from his pen that would
corroborate his early views on the nature of my supposed “mediumship.” But even
then, when writing of me in his book, he states distinctly the following:
Her mediumship is totally
different from that of any other person I ever met, for instead of being
controlled by spirits to do their will, it is she who seems to control them to
do her bidding.
Strange “mediumship,” one that
resembled in no way any that even Colonel Olcott—a Spiritualist of thirty years’
standing—had ever met with! But when Colonel Olcott says in his book (p. 453)
that instead of being controlled by, it is I who control the so-called spirits,
he is yet made to say by Mr. Lillie, who refers the public to Colonel Olcott’s
book, that is I who was controlled! Is this a misstatement and a misquotation,
I ask, or is it not?
Again, it is stated by Mr.
Lillie that I conversed with this “spirit” (John King) during fourteen years,
“constantly in India and else where.” To begin with, I here assert that I had
never heard the name of “John King” before 1873. True it is, I had told Colonel
Olcott and many others that the form of a man, with a dark pale face, black
beard, and white flowing garments and fettah, that some of them had met about
the house and my rooms, was that of a “John King.” I had given him that name
for reasons that will be fully explained very soon, and I laughed heartily at
the easy way the astral body of a living man could be mistaken for, and
accepted as, a spirit. And I had told them that I had known that “John” since
1860; for it was the form of an Eastern Adept, who has since gone for his final
initiation, passing through and visiting us in his living body on his way, at
Bombay. Whether Messrs. Lillie and Co. believe the statement or not, I care
very little, as Colonel Olcott and other friends know it now to be the true
one. I have known and conversed with many a “John King” in my life—a generic
name for more than one spook—but, thank heaven,
255———————————————————MR. A. LILLIE’S DELUSIONS.
I was never yet “controlled”
by one! My rnedium-ship has been crushed out of me a quarter of a century or
more; and I defy loudly all the “spirits” of the Kâma Loka to approach—let
alone to control me—now. Surely it is Mr. Arthur Lillie who must be
“controlled” by some one to make untruthful statements which can be so easily
refuted as this one.
2. Mr. Lillie asks for
Information about the seven
years’ initiation of Madame Blavatsky.
The humble individual of this
name has never heard of such an initiation. With that accuracy in the
explanation of Esoteric terms that so preeminently characterizes the author of
Buddha and Early Buddhism, the word may be intended for ‘‘instruction”? If so,
then I should be quite justified in first asking Mr. Lillie what right he has
to cross-examine me. But since he chooses to take such liberties with my name,
I will tell him plainly that he himself knows nothing, not merely of
initiations and Tibet, but even of exoteric—let alone Esoteric—Buddhism. What
he pretends to know about Lamaism he has picked tip from the hazy information
of travellers, who, having forced them selves into the borderland of Tibet,
pretend on that account to know all that is within the country closed for
centuries to the average traveller. Even Csomo de Koros knew very little of the
real gyelukpas and Esoteric Lamaism, except what he was permitted to know, for
he never went beyond Zanskar and the lamasery of Phagdal—erroneously spelt by
those who pretend to know all about Tibet, Pugdal which is incorrect, just
because there are no meaning-less names in Tibet’, as Mr. Lillie has been
taught to say. And I will tell him also that I have lived at different periods
in Little Tibet as well as in Great Tibet, and that these combined periods form
more than seven years.
Yet I have never stated either
verbally or over my signature that I had passed seven consecutive years in a
convent. What I have said, and repeat now, is that I have stopped in Lamaistic
convents; that I have visited Tzi-gadze, the Teshu Hlumpo territory anti its
neighbour hood, and that I have been further into, and have visited such places
of Tibet as have never been visited by other Europeans, and such as he can
never hope to visit.
Mr. Lillie had no right to
expect more “ample details” in Mr. Finch’s pamphlet. Mr. Finch is an honourable
man, who speaks of the private life of a person only so far as that person
permits him. My friends and those whom I respect and for whose opinion I care,
have ample
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evidence—from my family for
instance—that I have been in Tibet, and this is all I care for. As to—
The names, perhaps, of three
or four ... English [ Anglo-Indian] officials, who would certify
to having seen me when I
passed, I am afraid their vigilance would not be found at the height of their
trustworthiness. Only two years back, as I can prove by numerous witnesses,
when journeying from Chandernagore to Darjeeling, instead of proceeding to it
direct, I left the train half-way, was met by friends with a conveyance, and
passed with them into the territory of Sikkhim where I found my Master and
Mahâtmâ Kuthumi. Thence I went five miles across the old border land of Tibet.
Upon my return, five days
later, to Darjeeling, I received a kind note from the Deputy Commissioner. It
notified me in the politest of terms that, having heard of my intention of
going over to Tibet, the government could not allow me to proceed there before
I had received permission to that effect from Simla, nor could it accept the responsibility
of my safety,
The Râjah of Sikkhim being
very averse to allow travellers on his territory, etc.
This I would call shutting the
stable-door when the steed is stolen. Nor had the very “trustworthy” official
even heard that a month before Mr. Sinnett had kindly procured for me
permission, since I went to Sikkhim but for a few days, and no farther than the
old Tibetan borderland. The question is not whether the Anglo-Indian Government
will or will not grant such permission, but whether the Tibetans will let one
cross their territory. Of the latter, I am sure any day. I invite Mr. Lillie to
try the same. He may at the same time study with profit geography, and
ascertain that there are other routes than those laid down into Tibet, besides
via “English officials.” He tries his best to make me out, in plain words, a
liar. He will find it even more difficult than to disprove that he knows
nothing of either Tibet or Buddhism or our “Byang Tisubs.”
I will surely never lose my
time in showing that his accusations against One, Whom no insult of his can
reach, are perfectly worthless. There are numbers of men quite as intelligent
as he believes himself to be, whose opinion of our Mahâtmâs’ letters is the
reverse of his. He can “suppose” that the authorities by him cited knew more
about Tibet than our Masters; others think they do not; and the thousand
257———————————————————MR. A. LILLIE’S DELUSIONS
and one blunders of his Buddha
and Early Buddhism show us what these authorities are worth when trusted
literally. As to his trying to insinuate that there is no Mahâtmâ Kuthumi at
all, the idea alone is absurd. He will have to dispose, before he does anything
more, of a certain lady in Russia, whose truthfulness and impartiality no one
who knows her would ever presume to question, who received a letter from that
Master so far back as 1870. Perchance a forgery also? As to my having been in
Tibet, at Mahâtmâ Kuthumi's house, I have better proof in store—when I believe
it needed—than Mr. Lillie’s rancorous ingenuity will ever be able to make away
with.
If the teachings of Mr.
Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism are considered atheistic, then I am an atheist too.
And yet I would not deny what I wrote in Isis, as quoted by Mr. Finch. If Mr.
Lillie knows no difference between an anthropomorphic extra-cosmic God, and the
Divine Essence of the Advaitis and other Esotericists, then, I must only lose a
little more of my respect for the R. A. S. in which he claims membership; and
it may justify the more our assertions that there is more knowledge in “Bâbu
(?) Subba Row’s” solitary head than in dozens of the heads of “Orientalists”
about London we know of. The same with regard to the Master’s name. If Mr.
Lillie tells us that “Kuthumi ” is not a Tibetan name, we answer that we never
claimed it to be one. Everyone knows that the Master is a Punjabi, whose family
was settled for years in Cashmere. But if he tells us that an expert at the
British Museum ransacked the Tibetan dictionary for the words “Kut” and “Humi,”
“and found no such words,” then I say: Buy a better dictionary or replace the
expert by a more “expert” one. Let Mr. Lillie try the glossaries of the
Moravian Brothers and their alphabets. I am afraid he is ruining terribly his
reputation as an Orientalist. Indeed, before this controversy is settled he may
leave in it the last shreds of his supposed Oriental learning.
Lest Mr. Lillie should take my
omitting to answer a single one of his very indiscreet questions as a new
pretext for printing some impertinence, I say: I was at Mentana during the
battle in October, 1867, and left Italy in November of the same year for India.
Whether I was sent there, or found myself there by accident, are questions that
pertain to my private life, with which, it appears to me, Mr. Lillie has no
concern. But this is on a par with his other ways of dealing with his
opponents.
Mr. Lillie’s other sarcasms
touch me very little, for I know their
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value. I may let them pass
without any further notice. Some persons have an extraordinarily clever way of
avoiding an embarrassing position by trying to place their antagonists in the
same situation. For instance, Mr. Lillie could not answer the criticisms made
on his Buddha and Early Buddhism in The Theosophist, nor has he ever attempted
to do so. But he applied himself instead to collect every vile rumour and idle
gossip about me, its editor. Why does he not show, to begin with, that his
reviewer was wrong? Why does he not, by contradicting our statements, firmly
establish his own authority as an Orientalist, showing first of all that lie is
a genuine scholar, who knows the subject he is talking about, before he allows
himself to deny and contradict other people’s statements in matters which he
knows still less about? He does nothing of the kind, however—not a word, not a
mention of the scourging criticism that he is unable to relute. Instead of
that, one finds the offended author trying to throw ridicule on his reviewers,
probably so as to lessen the value of what they have to say of his own book.
This is clever, very clever strategy—whether it is equally honourable remains,
withal, an open question.
It might be difficult, after
the conclusions reached by qualified scholars in India concerning his first
book, to secure much attention in The Theosophist for his second, but if this
volume in turn were examined with the care almost undeservedly devoted to the
first, and if it were referred to the authority of such real Oriental scholars
and Sanskritists as Mr. R. T. H. Griffith, for instance, I think it would be
found that the aggregate blundering of the two books put together might excite
even as much amusement as the singular complacency with which the author
betrays himself to the public.
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
August 3rd, 1884.
WHAT IS THEOSOPHY?
—————
[Vol. I. No. I, October,
1879.]
THIS question has been so
often asked, and misconception so widely prevails, that the editors of a
journal devoted to an exposition of the world’s Theosophy would be remiss, were
its first number issued with-out coming to a full understanding with their
readers. But our heading involves two further queries: what is the Theosophical
Society; and what are the Theosophists? To each an answer will be given.
According to lexicographers,
the term Theosophia is composed of two Greek words—Theos, “God,” and sophia,
“wisdom.” So far, correct. But the explanations that follow are far from giving
a clear idea of Theosophy. Webster defines it most originally as
A supposed intercourse with
God and superior spirits, and consequent attainment of superhuman knowledge, by
physical processes, as by the theurgic operations of some ancient Platonists,
or by the chemical processes of the German fire-philosophers.
This, to say the least, is a
poor and flippant explanation. To attribute such ideas to men like Ammonius
Saccas, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Porphyry, Proclus, shows either intentional
misrepresentation, or Mr. Webster’s ignorance of the philosophy and motives of
the greatest geniuses of the later Alexandrian School. To impute to those whom
their contemporaries as well as posterity styled “Theodidaktoi,” God- taught, a
purpose to develop their psychological, spiritual perceptions by “physical
processes,” is to describe them as materialists. As to the concluding fling at
the fire-philosophers, it rebounds from them to fall home among our most
eminent modern men of science, those in whose mouths the Rev. James Martineau
places the following boast: “Matter is all we want; give us atoms alone and we
will explain the universe.”
Vaughan offers a far better,
more philosophical definition. He says:
A Theosophist is one who gives
you a theory of God or the works of God, which has not revelation, but an
inspiration of his own for its basis.
In this view every great
thinker and philosopher, especially every founder of a new religion, school of
philosophy, or sect is necessarily a Theosophist. Hence Theosophy and
Theosophists have existed ever
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since the first glimmering of
nascent thought made man seek instinctively for the means of expressing his own
independent opinions.
There were Theosophists before
the Christian era, notwithstanding that the Christian writers ascribe the
development of the eclectic Theosophical system to the early part of the third
century of their era. Diogenes Laertius traces Theosophy to an epoch antedating
the dynasty of the Ptolemies; and names as its founder an Egyptian Hierophant
called Pot-Amun, the name being Coptic and signifying a priest consecrated to
Amun, the God of Wisdom. But history shows it revived by Ammonius Saccas, the
founder of the Neo-Platonic School. He and his disciples called themselves
“Philalethians”—lovers of the truth; while others termed them the
‘‘Analogists,” on account of their method of interpreting all sacred legends,
symbolical myths and mysteries, by a rule of analogy or correspondence, so that
events which had occurred in the external world were regarded as expressing
operations and experiences of the human soul. It was the aim and purpose of
Ammonius to reconcile all sects, peoples and nations under one common faith—a
belief in one Supreme Eternal, Unknown and Unnamed Power, governing the
universe by immutable and eternal laws. His object was to prove a primitive
system of Theosophy, which at the beginning was essentially alike in all
countries; to induce all men to lay aside their strifes and quarrels, and unite
in purpose and thought as the children of one common mother; to purify the
ancient religions, by degrees corrupted and obscured, from all dross of human
element, by uniting and expounding them upon pure philosophical principles.
Hence, the Buddhistic, Vedantic and Magian, or Zoroastrian, systems were taught
in the Eclectic Theosophical School along with all the philosophies of Greece.
Hence also, that preeminently Buddhistic and Indian feature among the ancient
Theosophists of Alexandria, of due reverence for parents and aged persons; a
fraternal affection for the whole human race; and a compassionate feeling for
even the dumb animals. While seeking to establish a system of moral discipline,
which enforced upon people the duty to live according to the laws of their
respective countries, to exalt their minds by the research and contemplation of
the one Absolute Truth; his chief object, in order, as he believed, to achieve
all others, was to extract from the various religions teachings, as from a
many-chorded instrument, one full and harmonious melody, which would find
response in every truth-loving heart.
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Theosophy is, then, the
archaic Wisdom the esoteric doctrine once known in every ancient country having
claims to civilization. This “Wisdom” all the old writings show us as an
emanation of the divine Principle; and the clear comprehension of it is typified
in such names as the Indian Budh, the Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis,
the Hermes of Greece; in the appellations, also, of some goddesses—Metis,
Neitha, Athena, the Gnostic Sophia finally the Vedas, from the word “to know.”
Under this designation, all the ancient philosophers of the East and West, the
Hierophants of old Egypt, the Rishis of Aryávartta, the Theodidaktoi of Greece,
included all knowledge of things occult and essentially divine. The Mercavah of
the Hebrew rabbis, the secular and popular series, were thus designated as only
the vehicle, the outward shell which contained the higher esoteric knowledge.
The Magi of Zoroaster received instruction and were initiated in the caves and
secret lodges of Bactria; the Egyptian and Grecian Hierophants had their
aporrheta, or secret discourses, during which the Mystés became an Epoptes
Seer.
The central idea of Eclectic
Theosophy was that of a single Supreme Essence, Unknown and Unknowable,
for—”How could one know the knower?” as enquires the Brihadáranyaka Upanishad
Their system was characterized by three distinct features: the theory of the
above named Essence; the doctrine of the human soul—an emanation from the
latter, hence of the same nature; and its theurgy. It is this last science
which has caused the Neo-Platonists to be so misrepresented in our era of
materialistic science. Theurgy being essentially the art of applying the divine
powers of man to the subordination of the blind forces of nature, its votaries
were first termed magicians—a corruption of the word “Magh,” signifying a wise,
or learned man—and then derided. Sceptics of a century ago would have been as
wide of the mark if they had laughed at the idea of a phonograph or telegraph.
The ridiculed and the “infidels” of one generation generally become the wise
men and saints of the next.
As regards the Divine Essence
and the nature of the soul and spirit, modern Theosophy believes now as ancient
Theosophy did. The popular Din of the Aryan nations was identical with the Iao
of the Chaldćans and even with the Jupiter of the less learned and
philosophical among the Romans; and it was just as identical with the Jahve of
the Samaritans, the Tiu or “Tiusco” of the Northmen, the Duw of the Britons,
and the Zeus of the Thracians. As to the Absolute
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Essence, the One and
All—whether we accept the Greek Pythagorean, the Chaldćan Kabalistic, or the
Aryan philosophy in regard to it, it will all lead to one and the same result.
The Primeval Monad of the Pythagorean system, which retires into darkness and
is itself Darkness for human intellect) was made the basis of all things; and
we can find the idea in all its integrity in the philosophical systems of
Leibnitz and Spinoza. Therefore, whether a Theosophist agrees with the Kabalah
which, speaking of En-Soph propounds the query: “Who, then, can comprehend It,
since It is formless and Non-existent?”; or, remembering that magnificent hymn
from the Rig Veda (book x, hymn 129)—enquires:
Who knows from whence this
great creation sprang?
Whether his will created or was mute.
He knows it—or perchance even He knows it not;
or, again, accepts the
Vedântic conception of Brahma, who in the Upanishads is represented as “without
life, without mind, pure,” unconscious, for—Brahma is “Absolute Consciousness”;
or even, finally, whether, siding with the Svâbhâvikas of Nepaul, he maintains
that nothing exists but “Svabhâva” (substance or nature) which exists by itself
without any creator; any one of the above conceptions can lead but to pure and
absolute Theosophy—that Theosophy which prompted such men as Hegel, Fichte and
Spinoza to take up the labours of the old Grecian philosophers and speculate
upon the One Substance, the Deity, the Divine All proceeding from the Divine
Wisdom, incomprehensible, unknown and unnamed, by any ancient or modern
religious philosophy, with the exception of Christianity and Mohammedanism.
Every Theosophist, then, holding to a theory of the Deity “which has not
revelation, but an inspiration of his own for its basis,” may accept any of the
above definitions, or belong to any of these religions, and yet remain strictly
within the boundaries of Theosophy. For the latter is belief in the Deity as
the ALL, the source of all existence, the infinite that cannot be either
comprehended or known, the universe alone revealing It, or, as some prefer it,
Him, thus giving a sex to that, to anthropomorphize which is blasphemy True
Theosophy shrinks from brutal materialization; it prefers believing that, from
eternity retired within itself, the Spirit of the Deity neither wills nor
creates; but that, from the infinite effulgency everywhere going forth from the
Great Centre, that which produces all visible and invisible things is but a Ray
containing in itself the generative and conceptive power,
265———————————————————WHAT IS THEOSOPHY?
which, in its turn, produces
that which the Greeks called Macrocosm, the Kabalists Tikkun or Adam Kadmon—the
archetypal man—and the Aryans Purusha, the manifested Brahmâ, or the Divine
Male. Theosophy believes also in the Anastasis or continued existence, and in
transmigration (evolution) or a series of changes in the soul * which can be
defended and explained on strict philosophical principles, and only by making a
distinction between Paramâtmâ (transcendental, supreme soul) and Jivâtmâ
(animal, or conscious soul) of the Vedântins.
To fully define Theosophy we
must consider it under all its aspects. The interior world has not been hidden
from all by impenetrable darkness. By that higher intuition acquired by
Theosophia, or God-knowledge, which carried the mind from the world of form
into that of formless spirit, man has been sometimes enabled in every age and
every country to perceive things in the interior or invisible world. Hence the
“Samadhi,” or Dhyân Yog Samâdhi, of the Hindu ascetics; the ‘‘
Daimonion—photisma,’’ or spiritual illumination of the Neo—Platonists; the
“sidereal confabulation of soul,” of the Rosicrucians or fire-philosophers;
and, even the ecstatic trance of mystics and of the modern mesmerists and
spiritualists, are identical in nature, though various as to manifestation. The
search after man’s diviner “self,” so often and so erroneously interpreted as
individual communion with a personal God, was the object of every mystic, and
belief in its possibility seems to have been coëval with the genesis of
humanity, each people giving it another name. Thus Plato and Plotinus call
“Noëtic work” that which the Vogin and the Shrotriya term Vidyâ.
By reflection, self-knowledge
and intellectual discipline, the soul can be raised to the vision of eternal
truth, goodness and beauty—that is, to the Vision of God— thus is the epopteia,
said the Greeks, and Porphyry
adds:
To unite one’s soul to the
Universal Soul requires but a perfectly’ pure mind. Through self-contemplation,
perfect chastity, and purity of body, we may approach nearer to It, and
receive, in that state, true knowledge and wonderful insight.
And Svami Dayânand Sarasvati,
who has read neither Porphyry nor other Greek authors, but who is a thorough
Vedic scholar, says in his
Veda Bhashya:,
—————
* In a series of at-tides
entitled ‘‘The World’s Great Theosophists,’ ‘ we intend showing that from
Pythagoras, who got his wisdom in India, down to our best known modern
philosophers and Theosophists—David Hume, Shelley, and the Spiritists of France
included—many believed end yet believe in metempsychosis, or reincarnation of
the soul, however unelaborated the system of the Spiritists may be considered.
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To obtain Dikshâ (highest
initiations) and Yoga, one has to practise according to the rules. The soul in
human body can perform the greatest wonders by knowing the Universal Spirit (or
God) and acquainting itself with the properties and qualities (occult) of all
the things in the universe. A human being (a Dikshita or initiate) can thus
acquire a power of seeing and hearing at great distances.
Finally, Alfred R. Wallace,
F.R.S., a spiritualist and yet a confessedly great naturalist, says, with brave
candour:
It is “spirit” that alone
feels, and perceives, and thinks—that acquires knowledge, and reasons and
aspires ... there not unfrequently occur individuals so constituted that the
spirit can perceive independently of the corporeal organs of sense, or can,
perhaps, wholly or partially, quit the body for a time and return to it again
... the spirit ... communicates with spirit easier than with matter.
We can now see how, after
thousands of years have intervened between the age of the Gymnosophists * and
our own highly civilized era, notwithstanding, or, perhaps, just because of
such an enlightenment which pours its radiant light upon the psychological as
well as upon the physical realms of nature, over twenty millions of people
to-day believe, under a different form, in those same spiritual powers, that
were believed in by the Yogins and the Pythagoreans, nearly 3,000 years ago.
Thus, while the Aryan mystic claimed for himself the power of solving all the
problems of life and death, when he had once obtained the power of acting
independently of his body, through the Atmâ—”self or “soul”; and the old Greeks
went in search of Atme—the Hidden One, or the God-Soul of man, with the
symbolical mirror of the Thesmopnorian mysteries; so the Spiritualists of
to-day believe in the faculty of the spirits, or the souls of the disembodied
persons, to communicate visibly and tangibly with those they loved on earth.
And all these, Aryan Yogins, Greek philosophers, and modern Spiritualists,
affirm that possibility on the ground that the embodied soul and its never
embodied spirit—the real self—are not separated from either the Universal Soul
or other spirits by space, but merely by the differentiation of their
qualities; as in the boundless expanse of the universe there can be no
limitation. And that when this difference is once removed—according to the
Greeks and Aryans by abstract contemplation, producing the temporary liberation
of the imprisoned soul ; and according to Spiritualists, through
mediumship—such a union between embodied and disembodied spirits becomes
possible. Thus was it that Patanjali’s Yogins, and, following in their steps,
—————
* The reality of the
Yoga-power was affirmed by many Greek and Roman writers, who call the Yogins
Indian Gymnosophists; by Strabo, Lucan, Plutarch, Cicero, Pliny, etc.
267———————————————————WHAT IS THEOSOPHY?
Plotinus, Porphyry and other
Neo-Platonists, maintained that in their hours of ecstasy they had been united
to, or rather become as one with, God, several times during the course of their
lives. This idea, erroneous as it may seem in its application to the Universal
Spirit, was, and is, claimed by too many great philosophers to be put aside as
entirely chimerical. In the case of the Theodidaktoi, the only controvertible
point, the dark spot on this philosophy of extreme mysticism, was its claim to
include that which is simply ecstatic illumination under the head of sensuous
perception. In the case of the Yogins, who maintained their ability to see
Ishvara “face to face,” this claim was successfully overthrown by the stern
logic of Kapila. As to the similar assumption made for their Greek followers,
for a long array of Christian ecstatics, and, finally, for the last two
claimants to “God seeing” within these last hundred years Böhme and
Swedenborg—this pretension would and should have been philosophically and
logically questioned, if a few of our great men of science who are
Spiritualists had had more interest in the philosophy than in the mere
phenomenalism of Spiritualism.
The Alexandrian Theosophists
were divided into neophytes, initiates and masters, or Hierophants; and their
rules were copied from the ancient Mysteries of Orpheus, who, according to
Herodotus, brought them from India. Ammonius obliged his disciples under oath
not to divulge his higher doctrines, except to those who were proved thoroughly
worthy and initiated, and who had learned to regard the gods, the angels and
the demons of other peoples, according to the esoteric Hyponoia, or
under-meaning. Epicurus observes:
The Gods exist, but they are
not what the hoi polloi, the uneducated multitude, suppose them to be. He is
not an atheist who denies the existence of the Gods whom the multitude worship,
but he is such who fastens on these gods the opinions of the multitude.
In his turn, Aristotle
declares that of the Divine Essence pervading the whole world of nature, what
are styled the Gods are simply the first principles.
Plotinus, the pupil of the
‘‘God-taught” Ammonius, tells us that the secret gnosis or the knowledge of
Theosophy, has three degrees— opinion, science and illumination.
The means or instrument of the
first is sense, or perception; of the second, dialectics; of the third,
intuition. To the last, reason is subordinate; it is absolute knowledge,
founded on the identification of the mind with the object known.
Theosophy is the exact science
of psychology, so to say; it stands in
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relation to natural,
uncultivated mediumship, as the knowledge of a Tyndall stands to that of a
school-boy in physics. It develops in man a direct beholding; that which
Schelling denominates “a realization of the identity of subject and object in
the individual”; so that under the influence and knowledge of hyponoia man
thinks divine thoughts, views all things as they really are, and, finally,
“becomes recipient of the Soul of the World,” to use one of the finest
expressions of Emerson. “I, the imperfect, adore my own perfect”—he says in his
superb Essay on The Over Besides this psychological, or soul-state, Theosophy
cultivated every branch of sciences and arts. It was thoroughly familiar with
what is now commonly known as mesmerism. Practical theurgy or “ceremonial
magic,” so often resorted to in their exorcisms by the Roman Catholic clergy, was
discarded by the Theosophists. It is but Jamblichus alone who, transcending the
other eclectics, added to Theosophy the doctrine of Theurgy. When ignorant of
the true meaning of the esoteric divine symbols of nature, man is apt to
miscalculate the powers of his soul, and, instead of communing spiritually and
mentally with the higher, celestial beings, the good spirits (the gods of the
theurgists of the Platonic school), he will unconsciously call forth the evil,
dark powers which lurk around humanity—the undying, grim creations of human
crimes and vices—and thus fall from Theurgia (white magic) into goetia (or
black magic, sorcery). Yet, neither white nor black magic are what popular
superstition under stands by the terms. The possibility of “raising a spirit,”
according to the key of Solomon, is the height of superstition and ignorance.
Purity of deed and thought can alone raise us to an intercourse “with the
gods,” and attain for us the goal we desire. Alchemy, believed by so many to
have been a spiritual philosophy as well as a physical science, belonged to the
teachings of the Theosophical school.
It is a noticeable fact that
neither Zoroaster, Buddha, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, nor
Ammonius Saccas, committed anything to writing. The reason for it is obvious.
Theosophy is a double-edged weapon and unfit for the ignorant or the selfish.
Like every ancient philosophy, it has its votaries among the moderns; but,
until late in our own days, its disciples were few in number, and of the most
various sects and opinions.
Entirely speculative, and
founding no schools, they have still exercised a silent influence upon
philosophy; and no doubt, when the time arrives, many ideas thus silently
propounded may yet give new directions to human thought,
269———————————————————WHAT IS THEOSOPHY?
remarks Mr. Kenneth R. H.
Mackenzie, IX° ... himself a mystic and a Theosophist, in his large and
valuable work, The Royal Masonic Cyclopćdia ( articles “Theosophical Society of
New York” and “Theosophy,” p. 73I ).* ” Since the days of the
fire-philosophers, they had never formed themselves into societies, for,
tracked like wild beasts by the Christian clergy, to be known as a Theosophist
often amounted, hardly a century ago, to a death-warrant. The statistics show
that, during a period of 150 years, no less than 90,000 men and women were
burned in Europe for alleged witchcraft. In Great Britain only, from AD. 1640
to 1660, but twenty years, 3,000 persons were put to death for compact with the
“Devil.” It was but late in the present century—in 1875 some progressed mystics
and Spiritualists, unsatisfied with the theories and explanations of
Spiritualism, started by its votaries, and finding that they were far from
covering the whole ground of the wide range of phenomena, formed at New York,
America, an association which is now widely known as the Theosophical Society.
And now, having explained what is Theosophy, we will, in a separate article,
explain what is the nature of our Society, which is also called the ‘‘Universal
Brotherhood of Humanity.”
————————————————————————————————————————
* The Royal Masonic Cyclopćdia
of History, Rites, Symbolism and Biography. Edited bv Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie,
IXş (Cryptonymus), Hon. Member of the canongate Kilwinning Lodge, No. 2,
Scotland.. New York: J. W. Bouton, 706, Broadway. 1877.
WHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS?
—————
ARE they what they claim to
be—students of natural law, of ancient and modern philosophy, and even of exact
science? Are they Deists, Atheists, Socialists, Materialists, or Idealists; or
are they but a schism of modern Spiritualism—mere visionaries? Are they
entitled to any consideration, as capable of discussing philosophy and
promoting real science; or should they be treated with the compassionate
toleration which one gives to “harmless enthusiasts”? The Theosophical Society
has been variously charged with a belief in “miracles” and “miracle working”;
with a secret political object—like the Carbonari; with being spies of an
autocratic Czar; with preaching socialistic and nihilistic doctrines; and,
mirabile dietu, with having a covert understanding with the French Jesuits, to
disrupt modern Spiritualism for a pecuniary consideration! With equal violence
they have been denounced as dreamers, by the American Positivists; as fetish-worshippers,
by some of the New York press; as revivalists of “mouldy superstitions,” by the
Spiritualists ; as infidel emissaries of Satan, by the Christian Church; as the
very types of “gobe-mouche,” by Prof. W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S.; and, finally,
and most absurdly, some Hindu opponents, with a view to lessening their
influence, have flatly charged them with the employment of demons to perform
certain phenomena. Out of all this pother of opinions, one fact stands
conspicuous—the Society, its members, and their views, are deemed of enough
importance to be discussed and denounced: Men slander only those whom they
hate—or fear.
But, if the Society has had
its enemies and traducers, it has also had its friends and advocates. For every
word of censure, there has been a word of praise. Beginning with a party of
about a dozen earnest men and women, a month later its numbers had so increased
as to necessitate the hiring of a public hall for its meetings; within two
years it had working branches in European countries. Still later, it found
itself in alliance with the Indian Arya Samâj, headed by. the
271——————————————————WHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS?
learned Pandit Dayânand
Sarasvati Svâmi, and the Ceylonese Buddhists, under the erudite H. Sumangala,
High Priest of Adam’s Peak and President of the Vidyodaya College, Colombo.
He who would seriously attempt
to fathom the psychological sciences, must come to the sacred land of ancient
Aryâvartta. None is older than she in esoteric wisdom and civilization, however
fallen may be her poor shadow—modern India. Holding this country, as we do, for
the fruitful hot-bed whence proceeded all subsequent philosophical systems, to
this source of all psychology and philosophy a portion of our Society has come
to learn its ancient wisdom and ask for the impartation of its weird secrets.
Philology has made too much progress to require at this late day a
demonstration of this fact of the primogenitive nationality of Aryâvartta. The
unproved and prejudiced hypothesis of modern chronology is not worthy of a
moment’s thought, and it will vanish in time like so many other unproved
hypotheses. The line of philosophical heredity, from Kapila through Epicurus to
James Mill; from Patanjali through Plotinus to Jacob Böhme, can be traced like
the course of a river through a landscape. One of the objects of the Society’s
organization was to examine the too transcendent views of the Spiritualists in
regard to the powers of disembodied spirits; and, having told them what, in our
opinion at least, a portion of their phenomena are not, it will become
incumbent upon us now to show what the are. So apparent is it that it is in the
East, and especially in India, that the key to the alleged “supernatural”
phenomena of the Spiritualists must be sought, that it has recently been
conceded in the Allahabad Pioneer (Aug. 11, 1879), an Anglo-Indian daily
journal .which has not the reputation of saying what it does not mean. Blaming
the men of science who, “intent upon physical discovery, for some generations
have been too prone to neglect super-physical investigation,” it mentions “the
new wave of doubt” (Spiritualism) which has “latterly disturbed this
conviction.” To a large number of persons, including many of high culture and
intelligence, it adds, “the super natural has again asserted itself as a fit
subject of enquiry and research. And there are plausible hypotheses in favour
of the idea that among the ‘sages’ of the East . . there may be found in a
higher degree than among the more modernized inhabitants of the West traces of
those personal peculiarities, whatever they may be, which are required as a
Condition precedent to the occurrence of supernatural phenomena.” And then,
unaware that the cause he pleads is one of the chief aims
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-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
A MODERN PANARION.
and objects of our Society,
the editorial writer remarks that it is “the only direction in which, it seems
to us, the efforts of the Theosophists in India might possibly be useful. The
leading members of the Theosophical Society in India are known to be very
advanced students of occult phenomena already, and we cannot but hope that
their professions of interest in Oriental philosophy . . . may cover a reserved
intention of carrying out explorations of the kind we indicate.”
While, as observed, one of our
objects, it yet is but one of many; the most important of which is to revive
the work of Ammonius Saccas, and make various nations remember that they are
the children “of one mother.” As to the transcendental side of the ancient
Theosophy, it is also high time that the Theosophical Society should explain.
With how much, then, of this nature-searching, God-seeking science of the
ancient Aryan and Greek mystics, and of the powers of modern spiritual
mediumship, does the Society agree? Our answer is: With it all. But if asked
what it believes in, the reply will be: “As a body— nothing.” The Society, as a
body, has no creed, as creeds are but the shells around spiritual knowledge;
and Theosophy in its fruition is spiritual knowledge itself—the very essence of
philosophical and theistic enquiry. Visible representative of Universal
Theosophy, it can be no more sectarian than a Geographical Society, which
represents universal geographical exploration without caring whether the
explorers be of one creed or another. The religion of the Society is an
algebraical equation, in which so long as the sign of equality (=) is not
omitted, each member is allowed to substitute quantities of his own, which
better accord with climatic and other exigencies of his native land, with the
idiosyncrasies of his people, or even with his own. Having no accepted creed,
our Society is very ready to give and take, to learn and teach, by practical
experimentation, as opposed to mere passive and credulous acceptance of
enforced dogma. It is willing to accept every result claimed by any of the
foregoing schools or systems, that can be logically and experimentally
demonstrated. Conversely, it can take nothing on mere faith, no matter by whom
the demand may be made.
But when we come to consider
ourselves individually, it is quite another thing. The Society’s members
represent the most varied nationalities and races, and were born and educated
in the most dissimilar creeds and social conditions. Some of them believe in
one thing, others in another. Some incline towards the ancient magic, or
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THE THEOSOPHISTS?
secret wisdom that was taught in the sanctuaries, which was the very opposite of supernaturalism or diabolism; others in modern spiritual ism, or intercourse with the spirits of the dead; still others in mesmerism or animal magnetism, or only an occult dynamic force in nature. A certain number have scarcely yet acquired any definite belief, but are in a state of attentive expectancy; and there are even those who call themselves materialists, in a certain sense. Of atheists and bigoted sectarians of any religion, there are none in the Society; for the very fact of a man’s joining it proves that he is in search of the final truth as to the ultimate essence of things. If there be such a thing as a speculative atheist, which philosophers may deny, he would have to reject both cause and effect, whether in this world of matter, or in that of spirit. There may be members who, like the poet Shelley, have let their imagination soar from cause to prior cause adinfinitum, as each in its turn became logically transformed into a result necessitating a prior cause, until they have thinned the Eternal into a mere mist. But even they are not atheist in the speculative sense, whether they identify the material forces of the universe with the functions with which the theists endow their God, or oth