Searchable Theosophical Texts
Theosophy House
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 ————————————————————
-------
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
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
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,
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
Knowing this
country to be the cradle of modern Spiritualism, I
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came over here from
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-
39————————————————————OCCULTISM OR MAGIC.
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-
41 ————————————————————OCCULTISM OR MAGIC.
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
50 ————————————————————A M0DERN PANARION.
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
51 ——————————————————THE SEARCH AFTER OCCULTISM.
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!”
69
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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.*
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* 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
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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
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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
105————————————————————FAKIRS AND TABLES.
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-
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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.
111———————————————————THE FATE OF’ THE OCCULTIST.
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:
117————————————————————RUSSIAN ATROCITIES.
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
119————————————————————RUSSIAN ATROCITIES.
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
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-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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
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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
147———————————————————————ELEMENTARIES.
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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A MODERN PANARION.
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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A MODERN PANARION.
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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A MODERN PANARION.
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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A MODERN PANARION.
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
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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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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.
167————————————————————INDIAN METAPHYSICS.
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-
169————————————————————INDIAN METAPHYSICS.
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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A MODERN PANARION.
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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A MODERN PANARION.
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 Rome and Swat might die
simultaneously, had heard from some “old Indian” this story, which the writer
also heard from an informant at Lahore.
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
189————————————————————PARTING WORDS.
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.”
205———————————————————————MAGIC.
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
215————————————————————ECHOES FROM INDIA.
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
231———————————————————THE HISTORY OF A “BOOK.”
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.
235———————————————————THE HISTORY OF A “BOOK.”
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
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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:
241——————————————————A FRENCH VIEW OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS.
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
243———————————————————OCCULT PHENOMENA
—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,
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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 pu