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Studies in Occultism by H P Blavatsky
Studies in Occultism
By
H P Blavatsky
A Collection of
Articles from Lucifer,
H P Blavatsky's
magazine,
between 1887-1891
The
Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
Contents
Practical Occultism
Occultism versus the Occult Arts
The Blessings of Publicity
Hypnotism
Black Magic in Science
The Signs of the Times
Psychic and Noetic Action
Kosmic Mind
The Dual Aspect of Wisdom
The Esoteric Character of the Gospels
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
Astral Bodies, or Doppelgangers
Constitution of the Inner
3
Practical Occultism
Important to Students
As some of the letters in the CORRESPONDENCE
of this month show, there are many people
who are looking for practical instruction in
Occultism. It becomes necessary, therefore, to state
once for all: --
(a)
The essential difference between theoretical and practical Occultism; or what
is generally known as Theosophy on the one hand,
and Occult science on the
other, and: --
(b)
The nature of the difficulties involved in the study of the latter.
It is easy to become a Theosophist. Any
person of average intellectual capacities, and a leaning
toward the metaphysical; of pure, unselfish
life, who finds more joy in helping his neighbor than
in receiving help himself; one who is ever
ready to sacrifice his own pleasures for the sake of
other people; and who loves Truth, Goodness
and Wisdom for their own sake, not for the benefit
they may confer -- is a Theosophist.
But it is quite another matter to put oneself
upon the path which leads to the knowledge of what
is good to do, as to the right discrimination
of good from evil; a path which also leads a man to
that power through which he can do the good
he desires, often without even apparently lifting a
finger.
Moreover, there is one important fact with
which the student should be made acquainted.
Namely, the enormous, almost limitless,
responsibility assumed by the teacher for the sake of the
pupil. From the Gurus of the East who teach
openly or secretly, down to the few Kabalists in
Western lands who undertake to teach the
rudiments of the Sacred Science to their disciples --
those western Hierophants being often
themselves ignorant of the danger they incur -- one and
all of these "Teachers" are subject
to the same inviolable law. From the moment they begin
really to
teach, from the instant they confer any power -- whether psychic, mental
or physical --
on their pupils, they take upon themselves all
the sins of that pupil, in connection with the Occult
Sciences, whether of omission or commission,
until the moment when initiation makes the pupil
a Master and responsible in his turn. There
is a weird and mystic religious law, greatly
reverenced and acted upon in the Greek,
half-forgotten in the Roman Catholic, and absolutely
extinct in the Protestant Church. It dates
from the earliest days of Christianity and has its basis in
the law just stated, of which it was a symbol
and an expression. This is the dogma of the absolute
sacredness of the relation between the
god-parents who stand sponsors for a child. (1) These
tacitly take upon themselves all the sins of
the newly baptized child -- (anointed, as at the
initiation, a mystery truly!) -- until the
day when the child becomes a responsible unit, knowing
good and evil. Thus it is clear why the
"Teachers" are so reticent, and why "Chelas" are required.
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to serve a seven years probation to prove
their fitness, and develop the qualities necessary to the
security of both Master and pupil.
Occultism is not magic. It is comparatively
easy to learn the trick of spells and the methods of
using the subtler, but still material, forces
of physical nature; the powers of the animal soul in
man are soon awakened; the forces which his
love, his hate, his passion, can call into operation,
are readily developed. But this is Black
Magic -- Sorcery. For it is the motive, and the motive
alone,
which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent
Magic.
It is impossible to employ spiritual forces
if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining
in the operator. For, unless the intention is
entirely unalloyed, the spiritual will transform itself
into the psychic, act on the astral plane,
and dire results may be produced by it. The powers and
forces of animal nature can equally be used
by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and
the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of
spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in
heart -- and this is DIVINE MAGIC.
What are then the conditions required to
become a student of the "Divine Sapientia"? For let it be
known that no such instruction can possibly
be given unless these certain conditions are
complied with, and rigorously carried out
during the years of study. This is a sine qua non. No
man can swim unless he enters deep water. No
bird can fly unless its wings are grown, and it has
space before it and courage to trust itself
to the air. A man who will wield a two edged sword,
must be a thorough master of the blunt
weapon, if he would not injure himself -- or what is worse
-- others, at the first attempt.
To give an approximate idea of the conditions
under which alone the study of Divine Wisdom
can be pursued with safety, that is without
danger that Divine will give place to Black Magic, a
page is given from the "private
rules," with which every instructor in the East is furnished. The
few passages which follow are chosen from a
great number and explained in brackets.
--------
1. The place selected for receiving
instruction must be a spot calculated not to distract the mind,
and filled with
"influence-evolving" (magnetic) objects. The five sacred colors gathered
in a
circle must be there among other things. The
place must be free from any malignant influences
hanging about in the air.
[The place must be set apart, and used for no
other purpose. The five "sacred
colors" are the prismatic hues arranged
in a certain way, as these colors are very
magnetic. By "malignant influences"
are meant any disturbances through strife,
quarrels, bad feelings, etc., as these are
said to impress themselves immediately
on the astral light, i.e., in the atmosphere
of the place, and to hang "about in the
air." This first condition seems easy
enough to accomplish, yet -- on further
consideration, it is one of the most
difficult ones to obtain.]
2. Before the disciple shall be permitted to
study "face to face," he has to acquire preliminary
understanding in a select company of other lay
upasaka (disciples), the number of whom must be
odd..
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["Face to face," means in this
instance a study independent or apart from others,
when the disciple gets his instruction face
to face either with himself (his higher,
Divine Self) or -- his guru. It is then only
that each receives his due of
information, according to the use he has made
of his knowledge. This can happen
only toward the end of the cycle of
instruction.]
3. Before thou (the teacher) shalt impart to
thy Lanoo (disciple) the good (holy) words of
LAMRIN, or shall permit him "to make
ready" for Dubjed, thou shalt take care that his mind is
thoroughly purified and at peace with all,
especially with his other Selves. Other wise the words
of Wisdom and of the good Law, shall scatter
and be picked up by the winds.
["Lamrin" is a work of practical
instructions, by Tson-kha-pa, in two portions,
one for ecclesiastical and esoteric purposes,
the other for esoteric use. "To make
ready" for Dubjed, is to prepare
the vessels used for seership, such as mirrors and
crystals. The "other selves,"
refers to the fellow students. Unless the greatest
harmony reigns among the learners, no success
is possible. It is the teacher who
makes the selections according to the
magnetic and electric natures of the
students, bringing together and adjusting
most carefully the positive and the
negative elements.]
4. The upasaka while studying must take
care to be united as the fingers on one hand. Thou shalt
impress upon their minds that whatever hurts
one should hurt the others, and if the rejoicing of
one finds no echo in the breasts of the
others, then the required conditions are absent, and it is
useless to proceed.
[This can hardly happen if the preliminary
choice made was consistent with the
magnetic requirements. It is known that
chelas otherwise promising and fit for the
reception of truth, had to wait for years on
account of their temper and the
impossibility they felt to put themselves in
tune with their companions. For -- ]
5. The co-disciples must be tuned by the guru
as the strings of a lute (vina), each different from
the others, yet each emitting sounds in
harmony with all. Collectively they must form a key-board
answering in all its parts to thy lightest
touch (the touch of the Master). Thus their minds
shall open for the harmonies of Wisdom, to
vibrate as knowledge through each and all, resulting
in effects pleasing to the presiding gods
(tutelary or patron-angels) and useful to the Lanoo. So
shall Wisdom be impressed forever on their
hearts and the harmony of the law shall never be
broken.
6. Those who desire to acquire the knowledge
leading to the Siddhis (occult powers) have to
renounce all the vanities of life and of the
world (here follows enumeration of the Siddhis).
7. None can feel the difference between
himself and his fellow-students, such as "I am the
wisest," "I am more holy and
pleasing to the teacher, or in my community, than my brother,"
etc., -- and remain an upasaka. His thoughts
must be predominantly fixed upon his heart, chasing
therefrom every hostile thought to any living
being. It (the heart) must be full of the feeling of its
non-separateness from the rest of beings as
from all in Nature; otherwise no success can follow..
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8. A Lanoo (disciple) has to dread
external living influence alone (magnetic emanations from
living creatures). For this reason while at
one with all, in his inner nature, he must take care to
separate his outer (external) body from every
foreign influence: none must drink out of, or eat in
his cup but himself. He must avoid bodily
contact (i.e., being touched or touch) with human, as
with animal being.
[No pet animals are permitted and it is
forbidden even to touch certain trees and
plants. A disciple has to live, so to say, in
his own atmosphere in order to
individualize it for occult purposes.]
9. The mind must remain blunt to all but the
universal truths in nature, lest the "Doctrine of the
Heart" should become only the
"Doctrine of the Eye," (i.e., empty esoteric ritualism).
10. No animal food of whatever kind, nothing
that has life in it, should be taken by the disciple.
No wine, no spirits, or opium should be used:
for these are like the Lhamayin (evil spirits), who
fasten upon the unwary, they devour the
understanding.
[Wine and Spirits are supposed to contain and
preserve the bad magnetism of all
the men who helped in their fabrication; the
meat of each animal, to preserve the
psychic characteristics of its kind.]
11. Meditation, abstinence in all, the
observation of moral duties, gentle thoughts, good deeds
and kind words, as good will to all and
entire oblivion of Self, are the most efficacious means of
obtaining knowledge and preparing for the
reception of higher wisdom.
12. It is only by virtue of a strict
observance of the foregoing rules that a Lanoo can hope to
acquire in good time the Siddhis of the
Arhats, the growth which makes him become gradually
One with the UNIVERSAL ALL.
-------
These twelve extracts are taken from amongst
some seventy-three rules, to enumerate which
would be useless, as they would be
meaningless in Europe. But even these few are enough to
show the immensity of the difficulties which
beset the path of the would-be "Upasaka," who has
been born and bred in Western lands. (2)
All Western, and especially English,
education is instinct with the principle of emulation and
strife; each boy is urged to learn more
quickly, to outstrip his companions, and to surpass them in
every possible way. What is miscalled
"friendly rivalry" is assiduously cultivated, and the same
spirit is fostered and strengthened in every
detail of life.
With such ideas "educated into" him
from his childhood, how can a Westerner bring himself to
feel towards his co-students "as the
fingers on one hand"? Those co-students, too, are not of his
own selection, or chosen by himself from personal sympathy and
appreciation. They are chosen
by his teacher on far other grounds, and he
who would be a student must first be strong enough.
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to kill out in his heart all feelings of
dislike and antipathy to others. How many Westerners are
ready even to attempt this in earnest?
And then the details of daily life, the
command not to touch even the hand of one's nearest and
dearest. How contrary to Western notions of
affection and good feeling! How cold and hard it
seems. Egotistical too, people would say, to
abstain from giving pleasure to others for the sake of
one's own development. Well, let those who
think so defer, till another lifetime, the attempt to
enter the path in real earnest. But let them
not glory in their own fancied unselfishness. For, in
reality, it is only the seeming appearances
which they allow to deceive them, the conventional
notions, based on emotionalism and gush, or
so-called courtesy, things of the unreal life, not the
dictates of Truth.
But even putting aside these difficulties,
which may be considered "external," though their
importance is none the less great, how are
students in the West to "attune themselves" to
harmony as here required of them? So strong
has personality grown in Europe and America, that
there is no school of artists even whose
members do not hate and are not jealous of each other.
"Professional" hatred and envy have
become proverbial; men seek each to benefit himself at all
costs, and even the so-called courtesies of
life are but a hollow mask covering these demons of
hatred and jealousy.
In the East the spirit of
"non-separateness" is inculcated as steadily from childhood up, as in
the
West the spirit of rivalry. Personal
ambition, personal feelings and desires, are not encouraged to
grow so rampant there. When the soil is
naturally good, it is cultivated in the right way, and the
child grows into a man in whom the habit of
subordination of one's lower to one's higher Self is
strong and powerful. In the West men think
that their own likes and dislikes of other men and
things are guiding principles for them to act
upon, even when they do not make of them the law
of their lives and seek to impose them upon
others.
Let those who complain that they have learned
little in the Theosophical Society lay to heart the
words written in an article in the Path for
last February: "The key in each degree is the aspirant
himself."
It is not "the fear of God" which is "the beginning of
Wisdom," but the knowledge of
SELF which is WISDOM ITSELF.
How grand and true appears, thus, to the
student of Occultism who has commenced to realize
some of the foregoing truths, the answer
given by the Delphic Oracle to all who came seeking
after Occult Wisdom -- words repeated and
enforced again and again by the wise Socrates: --
MAN KNOW THYSELF. . . .
--------
Chelaship has nothing whatever to do
with means of subsistence or anything of the kind, for a
man can isolate his mind entirely from his
body and its surroundings. Chelaship is a state of
mind,
rather than a life according to hard and fast rules on the physical plane. This
applies
especially to the earlier, probationary
period, while the rules given in Lucifer for April last
pertain properly to a later stage, that of
actual occult training and the development of occult.
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powers and insight. These rules indicate,
however, the mode of life which ought to be followed
by all aspirants so far as practicable,
since it is the most helpful to them in their aspirations.
It should never be forgotten that Occultism
is concerned with the inner man who must be
strengthened and freed from the dominion of
the physical body and its surroundings, which must
become his servants. Hence the first and
chief necessity of Chelaship is a spirit of absolute
unselfishness and devotion to Truth; then
follow self-knowledge and self-mastery. These are all-important;
while outward observance of fixed rules of
life is a matter of secondary moment. -- H.
P. Blavatsky, Lucifer IV, 348n
1. So holy is the connection thus formed
deemed in the Greek Church, that a marriage between
god-parents of the same child is regarded as
the worst kind of incest, is considered illegal and is
dissolved by law; and this absolute prohibition
extends even to the children of one of the
sponsors as regards those of the other. (return to text)
2. Be it remembered that all "Chelas,"
even lay disciples, are called Upasaka until after their first
initiation, when they become lanoo-Upasaka.
To that day, even those who belong to Lamaseries
and are set apart, are considered as
"laymen." (return to text)
Occultism versus the Occult Arts
I oft have heard, but ne'er believed till
now,
There are, who can by potent magic spells,
Bend to their crooked purpose Nature's laws.
-- MILTON
In this month's "Correspondence"
several letters testify to the strong impression produced on
some minds by our last month's article
"Practical Occultism." Such letters go far to prove and
strengthen two logical conclusions.
(a)
There are more well-educated and thoughtful men who believe in the
existence of Occultism and Magic (the two
differing vastly) than the modern
materialist dreams of; and --
(b)
That most of the believers (comprising many theosophists) have no definite
idea of the nature of Occultism and confuse
it with the Occult sciences in general,
the "Black art" included.
Their representations of the powers it
confers on upon man, and of the means to be used to
acquire them are as varied as they are
fanciful. Some imagine that a master in the art, to show the
way, is all that is needed to become a
Zanoni. Others, that one has but to cross the
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9
and go to India to bloom forth as Roger Bacon
or even a Count St. Germain. Many take for their
ideal Margrave with his ever-renewing youth,
and care little for the soul as the price paid for it.
Not a few, mistaking
"Witch-of-Endorism" pure and simple, for Occultism -- "through
the
yawning Earth from Stygian gloom, call up the
meager ghost to walks of light," and want, on the
strength of this feat, to be regarded as
full-blown Adepts. "Ceremonial Magic" according to the
rules mockingly laid down by Eliphas Levi, is
another imagined alter-ego of the philosophy of
the Arhats of old. In short, the prisms
through which Occultism appears, to those innocent of the
philosophy, are as multicolored and varied as
human fancy can make them.
Will these candidates to Wisdom and Power
feel very indignant if told the plain truth? It is not
only useful, but it has now become necessary
to disabuse most of them and before it is too late.
This truth may be said in a few words: There
are not in the West half-a-dozen among the fervent
hundreds who call themselves
"Occultists," who have even an approximately correct idea of the
nature of the Science they seek to master.
With a few exceptions, they are all on the highway to
Sorcery. Let them restore some order in the
chaos that reigns in their minds, before they protest
against this statement. Let them first learn
the true relation in which the Occult Sciences stand to
Occultism, and the difference between the
two, and then feel wrathful if they still think
themselves right. Meanwhile, let them learn
that Occultism differs from Magic and other secret
Sciences as the glorious sun does from a
rush-light, as the immutable and immortal Spirit of Man
-- the reflection of the absolute, causeless
and unknowable ALL -- differs from the mortal clay --
the human body.
In our highly civilized West, where modern
languages have been formed, and words coined, in
the wake of ideas and thoughts -- as happened
with every tongue -- the more the latter became
materialized in the cold atmosphere of
Western selfishness and its incessant chase after the goods
of this world, the less was there any need
felt for the production of new terms to express that
which was tacitly regarded as absolute and
exploded "superstition." Such words could answer
only to ideas which a cultured man was
scarcely supposed to harbor in his mind. "Magic," a
synonym for jugglery, "Sorcery," an
equivalent for crass ignorance, and "Occultism," the sorry
relic of crack-brained, mediaeval
Fire-philosophers, of the Jacob Boehmes and the St. Martins,
are expressions believed more than amply
sufficient to cover the whole field of "thimble-rigging."
They are terms of contempt, and used
generally only in reference to the dross and
residues of the dark ages and the preceding
aeons of paganism. Therefore have we no terms in
the English tongue to define and shade the
difference between such abnormal powers, or the
sciences that lead to the acquisition of
them, with the nicety possible in the Eastern languages --
pre-eminently the Sanskrit. What do the words
"miracle" and "enchantment" (words identical in
meaning after all, as both express the idea
of producing wonderful things by breaking the laws of
nature [!!]
as explained by the accepted authorities) convey to the minds of those who
hear, or
pronounce them? A Christian -- breaking "of
the laws of nature," notwithstanding -- while
believing firmly in the miracles,
because said to have been produced by God through Moses, will
either scout the enchantments performed by
Pharaoh's magicians, or attribute them to the devil. It
is the latter whom our pious enemies connect
with Occultism, while their impious foes, the
infidels, laugh at Moses, Magicians and
Occultists, and would blush to give one serious thought
to such "superstitions." This,
because there is no term in existence to show the difference; no
words to express the lights and shadows and
draw the line of demarcation between the sublime
and the true, the absurd and the ridiculous.
The latter are the theological interpretations which.
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10
teach the "breaking of the laws of
Nature" by man, God, or devil; the former -- the scientific
"miracles" and enchantments of
Moses and the Magicians in accordance with natural laws, both
having been learned in all the Wisdom of the
Sanctuaries, which were the "Royal Societies" of
those days -- and in true OCCULTISM. This
last word is certainly misleading, translated as it
stands from the compound word Gupta-Vidya,
"Secret Knowledge." But the knowledge of what?
Some of the Sanskrit terms may help us.
There are four (out of the many others) names
of the various kinds of Esoteric Knowledge or
Sciences given, even in the exoteric Puranas.
There is (1) Yajna-Vidya,* knowledge of the occult
powers awakened in Nature by the performance
of certain religious ceremonies and rites. (2)
Mahavidya, the "great knowledge," the magic of the Kabalists and the Tantrika
worship, often
Sorcery of the worst description. (3) Guhya-Vidya,
knowledge of the mystic powers residing in
Sound (Ether), hence in the Mantras (chanted
prayers or incantations) and depending on the
rhythm and melody used; in other words, a
magical performance based on Knowledge of the
forces of Nature and their correlation; and
(4) ATMA-VIDYA, a term which is translated simply
"Knowledge of the Soul," true
Wisdom by the Orientalists, but which means far more.
This last is the only kind of Occultism that
any theosophist who admires "Light on the Path," and
who would be wise and unselfish, ought to
strive after. All the rest is some branch of the "Occult
Sciences,", i.e. arts based on
the knowledge of the ultimate essence of all things in the Kingdoms
of Nature -- such as minerals, plants and
animals -- hence of things pertaining to the realm of
material nature, however invisible that essence may be, and
howsoever much it has hitherto
eluded the grasp of Science. Alchemy,
Astrology, Occult Physiology, Chiromancy, exist in
Nature and the exact Sciences --
perhaps so called, because they are found in this age of
paradoxical philosophies the reverse -- have
already discovered not a few of the secrets of the
above arts. But clairvoyance,
symbolized in India as the "Eye of Siva," called in Japan,
"Infinite
Vision," is not Hypnotism, the
illegitimate son of Mesmerism, and is not to be acquired by such
arts. All the others may be mastered and
results obtained, whether good, bad, or indifferent; but
Atma-Vidya sets small value on them. It includes them all and may even
use them occasionally,
but it does so after purifying them of their
dross, for beneficent purposes, and taking care to
deprive them of every element of selfish
motive. Let us explain: Any man or woman can set
himself or herself to study one or all of the
above specified "Occult Arts" without any great
previous preparation, and even without
adopting any too restraining mode of life. One could
even dispense with any lofty standard of
morality. In the last case, of course, ten to one the
student would blossom into a very decent kind
of sorcerer, and tumble down headlong into black
magic. But what can this matter? The Voodoos
and Dugpas eat, drink and are merry over
hecatombs of victims of their infernal arts.
And so do the amiable gentlemen vivisectionists and
the diplomaed "Hypnotizers"
of the Faculties of Medicine; the only difference between the two
classes being that the Voodoos and Dugpas are
conscious, and the Charcott-Richet crew
unconscious, Sorcerers. Thus, since both have to reap the fruits of
their labors and achievements
in the black art, the Western practitioners
should not have the punishment and reputation without
the profits and enjoyments they may get
therefrom. For we say it again, hypnotism and
vivisection as practised in such schools, are Sorcery pure and
simple, minus a knowledge that the
Voodoos and Dugpas enjoy, and which no
Charcott-Richet can procure for himself in fifty years
of hard study and experimental observation.
Let then those who will dabble in magic, whether
they understand its nature or not, but who
find the rules imposed upon students too hard, and.
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11
who, therefore, lay Atma-Vidya or Occultism
aside -- go without it. Let them become magicians
by all means, even though they do become Voodoos
and Dugpas for the next ten incarnations.
But the interest of our readers will probably
center on those who are invincibly attracted towards
the "Occult," yet who neither
realize the true nature of what they aspire towards, nor have they
become passion-proof, far less truly
unselfish.
How about these unfortunates, we shall be
asked, who are thus rent in twain by conflicting
forces? For it has been said too often to
need repetition, and the fact itself is patent to any
observer, that when once the desire for
Occultism has really awakened in a man's heart, there
remains for him no hope of peace, no place of
rest and comfort in all the world. He is driven out
into the wild and desolate spaces of life by
an ever-gnawing unrest he cannot quell. His heart is
too full of passion and selfish desire to
permit him to pass the Golden Gate; he cannot find rest or
peace in ordinary life. Must he then
inevitably fall into sorcery and black magic, and through
many incarnations heap up for himself a
terrible Karma? Is there no other road for him?
Indeed there is, we answer. Let him aspire to
no higher than he feels able to accomplish. Let him
not take a burden upon himself too heavy for
him to carry. Without ever becoming a "Mahatma,"
a Buddha or a Great Saint, let him study the
philosophy and the "Science of the Soul," and he
can become one of the modest benefactors of
humanity, without any "super-human" powers.
Siddhis (or the Arhat powers) are only for those who are able to "lead the
life," to comply with
the terrible sacrifices required for such a
training, and to comply with them to the very letter. Let
them know at once and remember always, that
true Occultism or Theosophy is the "Great
Renunciation of SELF," unconditionally
and absolutely, in thought as in action. It is
ALTRUISM, and it throws him who practices it
out of calculation of the ranks of the living
altogether. "Not for himself, but for
the world, he lives," as soon as he has pledged himself to the
work. Much is forgiven during the first years
of probation. But, no sooner is he "accepted" than
his personality must disappear, and he has to
become a mere beneficent force in Nature. There
are two poles for him after that, two paths,
and no midward place of rest. He has either to ascend
laboriously, step by step, often through
numerous incarnations and no Devachanic break, the
golden ladder leading to Mahatmaship (the Arhat
or Bodhisattva condition), or -- he will let
himself slide down the ladder at the first
false step, and roll down into Dugpaship. . . .
All this is either unknown or left out of
sight altogether. Indeed, one who is able to follow the
silent evolution of the preliminary
aspirations of the candidates, often finds strange ideas quietly
taking possession of their minds. There are
those whose reasoning powers have been so distorted
by foreign influences that they imagine that
animal passions can be so sublimated and elevated
that their fury, force, and fire can, so to
speak, be turned inwards; that they can be stored and
shut up in one's breast, until their energy
is, not expended, but turned toward higher and more
holy purposes: namely, until their
collective and unexpended strength enables their possessor to
enter the true Sanctuary of the Soul and stand therein in the presence of the Master -- the
HIGHER SELF! For this purpose they will not
struggle with their passions nor slay them. They
will simply, by a strong effort of will, put
down the fierce flames and keep them at bay within
their natures, allowing the fire to smolder
under a thin layer of ashes. They submit joyfully to the
torture of the Spartan boy who allowed the
fox to devour his entrails rather than part with it. Oh,
poor blind visionaries!.
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12
As well hope that a band of drunken
chimney-sweeps, hot and greasy from their work, may be
shut up in a Sanctuary hung with pure white
linen, and that instead of soiling and turning it by
their presence into a heap of dirty shreds,
they will become masters in and of the sacred recess,
and finally emerge from it as immaculate as
that recess. Why not imagine that a dozen of skunks
imprisoned in the pure atmosphere of a Dgon-pa
(a monastery) can issue out of it impregnated
with all the perfumes of the incenses
used?....Strange aberration of the human mind. Can it be
so? Let us argue.
The "Master" in the Sanctuary of
our souls is "the Higher Self" -- the divine spirit whose
consciousness is based upon and derived
solely (at any rate during the mortal life of the man in
whom it is captive) from the Mind, which we have
agreed to call the Human Soul (the "Spiritual
Soul" being the vehicle of the Spirit).
In its turn the former (the personal or human soul) is a
compound in its highest form, of spiritual
aspirations, volitions, and divine love; and in its lower
aspects, of animal desires and terrestrial
passions imparted to it by its associations with its
vehicle, the seat of all these. It thus
stands as a link and a medium between the animal nature of
man which its higher reason seeks to subdue,
and his divine spiritual nature to which it
gravitates, whenever it has the upper hand in
its struggle with the inner animal. The latter is the
instinctual "animal Soul" and is
the hotbed of those passions, which, as just shown, are lulled
instead of being killed, and locked up in
their breasts by some imprudent enthusiasts. Do they
still hope to turn thereby the muddy stream
of the animal sewer into the crystalline waters of
life? And where, on what neutral ground can
they be imprisoned so as not to affect man? The
fierce passions of love and lust are still
alive and they are allowed to still remain in the place of
their birth -- that same animal soul;
for both the higher and the lower portions of the "Human
Soul" or Mind reject such inmates,
though they cannot avoid being tainted with them as
neighbors. The "Higher Self" or
Spirit is as unable to assimilate such feelings as water to get
mixed with oil or unclean liquid tallow. It
is thus the mind alone, the sole link and medium
between the man of earth and the Higher Self
-- that is the only sufferer, and which is in the
incessant danger of being dragged down by
those passions that may be re-awakened at any
moment, and perish in the abyss of matter.
And how can it ever attune itself to the divine
harmony of the highest Principle, when that
harmony is destroyed by the mere presence, within
the Sanctuary in preparation, of such animal
passions? How can harmony prevail and conquer,
when the soul is stained and distracted with
the turmoil of passions and the terrestrial desires of
the bodily senses, or even of the
"Astral man"?
For this "Astral" -- the shadowy
"double" (in the animal as in man) is not the companion of the
divine Ego but of the earthly body. It is the link between the
personal SELF, the lower
consciousness of Manas and the Body,
and is the vehicle of transitory, not of immortal life. Like
the shadow projected by man, it follows the
movements and impulses slavishly and
mechanically, and leans therefore to matter
without ever ascending to Spirit. It is only when the
power of the passions is dead altogether, and
when they have been crushed and annihilated in the
retort of an unflinching will; when not only
all the lusts and longings of the flesh are dead, but
also the recognition of the personal Self is
killed out and the "astral" has been reduced in
consequence to a cipher, that the Union with
the "Higher Self" can take place. Then when the
"Astral" reflects only the
conquered man, the still living but no more the longing, selfish
personality, then the brilliant Augoeides,
the divine SELF, can vibrate in conscious harmony with
both the poles of the human Entity -- the man
of matter purified, and the ever pure Spiritual Soul.
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13
-- and stand in the presence of the MASTER
SELF, the Christos of the mystic Gnostic, blended,
merged into, and one with IT for ever.**
How then can it be thought possible for a man
to enter the "straight gate" of occultism when his
daily and hourly thoughts are bound up with
worldly things, desires of possession and power,
with lust, ambition and duties, which,
however honorable, are still of the earth earthy? Even the
love of wife and family -- the purest as the
most unselfish of human affections -- is a barrier to
real occultism.
For whether we take as an example the holy love of a mother for her child, or
that
of a husband for his wife, even in these
feelings, when analyzed to the very bottom, and
thoroughly sifted, there is still selfishness
in the first, and an egoisme a deux in the second
instance. What mother would not sacrifice
without a moment's hesitation hundreds and
thousands of lives for that of the child of
her heart? and what lover or true husband would not
break the happiness of every other man and
woman around him to satisfy the desire of one whim
he loves? This is but natural, we shall be
told. Quite so; in the light of the code of human
affections; less so, in that of divine
universal love. For, while the heart is full of thoughts for a
little group of selves, near and dear
to us, how shall the rest of mankind fare in our souls? What
percentage of love and care will there remain
to bestow on the "great orphan"? And how shall the
"still small voice" make itself
heard in a soul entirely occupied with its own privileged tenants?
What room is there left for the seeds of
Humanity en bloc to impress themselves upon, or even
receive a speedy response? And yet, he who
would profit by the wisdom of the universal mind,
has to reach it through the whole of
Humanity without distinction of race, complexion, religion or
social status. It is altruism, not ego-ism
even in its most legal and noble conception, that can lead
the unit to merge its little Self in the
Universal Selves. It is to these needs and to this work that
the true disciple of Occultism has to devote
himself, if he would obtain theo-sophy, divine
Wisdom and Knowledge.
The aspirant has to choose absolutely between
the life of the world and the life of Occultism. It is
useless and vain to endeavor to unite the
two, for no one can serve two masters and satisfy both.
No one can serve his body and the higher
Soul, and do his family duty and his universal duty,
without depriving either one or the other of
its rights; for he will either lend his ear to the "still
small voice" and fail to hear the cries
of his little ones, or, he will listen but to the wants of the
latter and remain deaf to the voice of
Humanity. It would be a ceaseless, a maddening struggle
for almost any married man, who would pursue true
practical Occultism, instead of its
theoretical philosophy. For he would find himself ever hesitating
between the voice of the
impersonal divine love of Humanity, and that
of the personal, terrestrial love. And this could
only lead him to fail in one or the other, or
perhaps in both his duties. Worse than this. For,
whoever indulges after having pledged
himself to OCCULTISM in the
gratification of a
terrestrial love or lust, must feel an almost immediate result; that of being
irresistibly dragged
from the impersonal divine state down to the
lower plane of matter. Sensual, even mental self-gratification,
involves the immediate loss of the powers of
spiritual discernment; the voice of the
MASTER can no longer be distinguished from
that of one's passions or even that of a Dugpa; the
right from wrong; sound morality from mere
casuistry. The Dead Sea fruit assumes the most
glorious mystic appearance, only to turn to
ashes on their lips, and to gall in the heart resulting
in: --.
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14
Depth ever deepening, darkness darkening
still;
Folly for wisdom, guilt for innocence;
Anguish for rapture, and for hope despair.
And once being mistaken and having acted on
their mistakes, most men shrink from realizing
their error, and thus descend deeper and
deeper into the mire. And, although it is the intention
that decides primarily whether white or
black magic is exercised, yet the results even of
involuntary, unconscious sorcery cannot fail
to be productive of bad Karma. Enough has been
said to show that sorcery is any kind of
evil influence exercised upon other persons, who suffer,
or make other persons to suffer, in
consequence. Karma is a heavy stone
splashed in the quiet
waters of Life; and it must produce ever
widening circles of ripples, carried wider and wider,
almost ad infinitum. Such causes
produced have to call forth effects, and these are evidenced in
the just laws of Retribution.
Much of this may be avoided if people will
only abstain from rushing into practices neither the
nature nor importance of which they
understand. No one is expected to carry a burden beyond
his strength and powers. There are
"natural-born magicians"; Mystic and Occultists by birth, and
by right of direct inheritance from a series
of incarnations and aeons of suffering and failures.
These are passion-proof, so to say. No fires
of earthy origin can fan into a flame any of their
senses; no human voice can find response in
their souls, except the great cry of Humanity. These
only may be certain of success. But they can
be met only far and wide, and they pass through the
narrow gates of Occultism because they carry
no personal luggage of human transitory
sentiments along with them. They have got rid
of the feelings of the lower personality, paralyzed
thereby the "astral" animal, and
the golden, but narrow gate is thrown open before them. Not so
with those who have to carry yet for several
incarnations the burden of sins committed in
previous lives, and even in their present
existence. For such, unless they proceed with great
caution, the golden gate of Wisdom may get
transformed into the wide gate and the broad way
"that leadeth unto destruction,"
and therefore "many be they that enter in thereby." This is the
Gate of the Occult arts, practised for selfish
motives and in the absence of the restraining and
beneficent influence of ATMA-VIDYA. We are in
the Kali Yuga and its fatal influence is a
thousandfold more powerful in the West than
it is in the East.; hence the easy preys made by the
Powers of the Age of Darkness in this cyclic
struggle, and the many delusions under which the
world is now laboring. One of these is the
relative facility with which men fancy they can get at
the "Gate" and cross the threshold
of Occultism without any great sacrifice. It is the dream of
most Theosophists, one inspired by desire for
Power and personal selfishness, and it is not such
feelings that can ever lead them to the
coveted goal. For, as well said by one believed to have
sacrificed himself for Humanity --
"narrow is the gate and straitened the way that leadeth unto
life" eternal, and therefore "few
be they that find it." So straight indeed, that at the bare mention
of some of the preliminary difficulties the
affrighted Western candidates turn back and retreat
with a shudder. . . .
Let them stop here and attempt no more in
their great weakness. For if, while turning their backs
on the narrow gate, they are dragged by their
desire for the Occult one step in the direction of the
broad and more inviting Gates of that golden
mystery which glitters in the light of illusion, woe
to them! It can lead only to Dugpa-ship, and
they will be sure to find themselves very soon
landed on that Via Fatale, over whose
portal Dante read the words: --.
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15
Per me si va nella citta dolente
Per me si va nell'eterno dolore
Per me si va tra la perduta gente. . .
FOOTNOTES:
* "The Yajna," say the
Brahmans, "exists from eternity, for it proceeded forth from the Supreme
One . . . in whom it lay dormant from 'no beginning.'
It is the key to the TRAIVIDYA, the thrice
sacred science contained in the Rig verses,
which teaches the Yajus or sacrificial mysteries. 'The
Yajna' exists as an invisible thing at all
time; it is like the latent power of electricity in an
electrifying machine, requiring only the
operation of a suitable apparatus in order to be elicited.
It is supposed to extend from the Ahavaniya
or sacrificial fire to the heavens, forming a bridge or
ladder by means of which the sacrificer can
communicate with the world of gods and spirits, and
even ascend when alive to their abodes."
-- Martin Haug's Aitareya Brahmana.
"This Yajna is again one of the
forms of the Akasa; and the mystic word calling it into existence
and pronounced mentally by the initiated
Priest is the Lost Word receiving impulse through
WILL POWER." -- Isis Unveiled,
Vol. I. Introduction. See Aitareya Brahmana, Haug. (return to
text)
** Those who would feel inclined to see three
Egos in one man will show themselves unable to
perceive the metaphysical meaning. Man is a
trinity composed of Body, Soul and Spirit; but man
is nevertheless one and is surely not
his body. It is the latter which is the property, the transitory
clothing of the man. The three "Egos"
are MAN in his three aspects on the astral, intellectual or
psychic, and Spiritual planes, or states. (return to text)
The Blessings of Publicity
A well-known public lecturer, a distinguished
Egyptologist, said, in one of his lectures against
the teachings of Theosophy, a few suggestive
words, which are now quoted and must be
answered:
"It is a delusion to suppose there is
anything in the experience or wisdom of the
past, the ascertained results of which can
only be communicated from beneath the
cloak and mask of mystery. . . . Explanation
is the Soul of Science. They will tell
you we cannot have their knowledge without
living their life. . . . Public
experimental research, the printing press,
and a free-thought platform, have.
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16
abolished the need of mystery. It is no
longer necessary for science to take the
veil, as she was forced to do for security in
times past. . . .
This is a very mistaken view in one aspect.
"Secrets of the purer and profounder life" not only
may but
must be made universally known. But there are secrets that kill in
the arcana of
Occultism, and unless a man lives the life
he cannot be entrusted with them.
The late Professor Faraday had very serious
doubts whether it was quite wise and reasonable to
give out to the public at large certain
discoveries of modern science. Chemistry had led to the
invention of too terrible means of
destruction in our century to allow it to fall into the hands of
the profane. What man of sense -- in the face
of such fiendish applications of dynamite and other
explosive substances as are made by those
incarnations of the Destroying Power, who glory in
calling themselves Anarchists and Socialists
-- would not agree with us in saying: -- Far better
for mankind that it should never have blasted
a rock by modern perfected means, than that it
should have shattered the limbs of one per
cent even of those who have been thus destroyed by
the pitiless hand of Russian Nihilists, Irish
Fenians and Anarchists. That such discoveries, and
chiefly their murderous application, ought to
have been withheld from public knowledge may be
shown on the authority of statistics and
commissions appointed to investigate and record the
result of the evil done. The following
information gathered from public papers will give an
insight into what may be in store for
wretched mankind.
England alone -- the center of civilization
-- has 21,268 firms fabricating and selling explosive
substances. (1) But the centers of the dynamite trade, of infernal
machines, and other such results
of modern civilization, are chiefly at
Philadelphia and New York. It is in the former city of
"Brotherly Love" that the now most
famous manufacturer of explosives flourishes. It is one of
the well-known respectable citizens -- the
inventor and manufacturer of the most murderous
"dynamite toys" -- who, called
before the Senate of the United States anxious to adopt means for
the repression of a too free trade in
such implements, found an argument that ought to become
immortalized for its cynical sophistry:
"My machines," that expert is reported to have said -- "are
quite harmless to look at; as they may
be manufactured in the shape of oranges, hats, boats, and
anything one likes. . . . Criminal is he who
murders people by means of such machines, not he
who manufactures them. The firm refuses to
admit that were there no supply there would be no
incentive for demand on the market; but
insists that every demand should be satisfied by a supply
ready at hand."
That "supply" is the fruit of
civilization and of the publicity given to the discovery of every
murderous property in matter. What is it? As
found in the Report of the Commission appointed
to investigate the variety and character of
the so-called "infernal machines," so far the following
implements of instantaneous human destruction
are already on hand. The most fashionable of all
among the many varieties fabricated by Mr.
Holgate, are the "Ticker," the "Eight Day Machine,"
the "Little Exterminator," and the
"Bottle Machine." The "Ticker" is in appearance like a
piece of
lead, a foot long and four inches thick. It
contains an iron or steel tube, full of a kind of
gunpowder invented by Holgate himself. That
gunpowder, in appearance like any other common
stuff of that name, has, however, an
explosive power two hundred times stronger than common
gunpowder; the "Ticker" containing
thus a powder which equals in force two hundred pounds of
the common gunpowder. At one end of the
machine is fastened an invisible clock-work meant to.
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17
regulate the time of the explosion, which
time may be fixed from one minute to thirty-six hours.
The spark is produced by means of a steel
needle which gives a spark at the touch-hole, and
communicates thereby the fire to the whole
machine.
The "Eight Day Machine" is
considered the most powerful, but at the same time the most
complicated, of all those invented. One must
be familiar with handling it before a full success
can be secured. It is owing to this
difficulty that the terrible fate intended for London Bridge and
its neighborhood was turned aside by the
instantaneous killing instead of the two Fenian
criminals. The size and appearance of that
machine changes, Proteus-like, according to the
necessity of smuggling it in, in one or
another way, unperceived by the victims. It may be
concealed in bread, in a basket of oranges,
in a liquid, and so on. The Commission of Experts is
said to have declared that its explosive
power is such as to reduce to atoms instantly the largest
edifice in the world.
The "Little Exterminator" is an
innocent-looking plain utensil having the shape of a modest jug.
It contains neither dynamite nor powder, but
secretes, nevertheless, a deadly gas, and has a
hardly perceptible clock-work attached to its
edge, the needle of which points to the time when
that gas will effect its escape. In a shut-up
room this new "vril" of lethal kind, will smother to
death, nearly instantaneously, every living being within a distance of a hundred feet, the
radius
of the murderous jug. With these three
"latest novelties" in the high season of Christian
civilization, the catalogue of the dynamiters
is closed; all the rest belongs to the old "fashion" of
the past years. It consists of hats, porte
cigars, bottles of ordinary kind, and even ladies' smelling
bottles, filled with dynamite, nitro-glycerine, etc., etc. --
weapons, some of which, following
unconsciously Karmic law, killed many of the
dynamiters in the last Chicago revolution. Add to
this the forthcoming long-promised Keely's
vibratory force, capable of reducing in a few seconds
a dead bullock to a heap of ashes, and then
ask yourself if the Inferno of Dante as a locality can
ever rival earth in the production of more
hellish engines of destruction!
Thus, if purely material implements are
capable of blowing up, from a few corners, the greatest
cities of the globe, provided the murderous
weapons are guided by expert hands -- what terrible
dangers might not arise from magical occult
secrets being revealed, and allowed to fall into the
possession of ill-meaning persons! A thousand
times more dangerous and lethal are these,
because neither the criminal hand, nor the immaterial,
invisible weapon used, can ever be
detected.
The congenital black magicians --
those who, to an innate propensity towards evil, unite highly-developed
mediumistic natures -- are but too numerous
in our age. It is nigh time then that
psychologists and believers, at least, should
cease advocating the beauties of publicity and
claiming knowledge of the secrets of nature
for all. It is not in our age of "suggestion" and
"explosives" that Occultism can
open wide the doors of its laboratories except to those who do
live the life.
1. Nitro-glycerine has found its way even
into medical compounds. Physicians and
druggists are vying with the Anarchists in
their endeavors to destroy the surplus of
mankind. The famous chocolate tablets against
dyspepsia are said to contain nitro-glycerine!
They may save, but they can kill still more
easily..
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18
Hypnotism, and Its Relations to Other
Modes of Fascination
We are asked by "H.C." and other
Fellows, to answer the several queries hereafter propounded.
We do so, but with a reservation: our replies
must be made from the standpoint of Occultism
alone, no consideration being given to such
hypotheses of modern (another name for
"materialistic") Science, as may
clash with esoteric teachings.
Q. What is Hypnotism: how does it differ
from Animal Magnetism (or Mesmerism) ?
ANS. Hypnotism is the new scientific name for the old
ignorant "superstition" variously called
"fascination" and
"enchantment." It is an antiquated lie transformed into a
modern truth. The fact
is there, but the scientific explanation of
it is still wanting. By some it is believed that Hypnotism
is the result of an irritation artificially
produced on the periphery of the nerves; that this irritation
reacting upon, passes into the cells of the
brain-substance, causing by exhaustion a condition
which is but another mode of sleep (hypnosis,
or hupnos); by others that it is simply a self-induced
stupor, produced chiefly by imagination,
etc., etc. It differs from animal magnetism
where the hypnotic condition is produced by
the Braid method, which is a purely mechanical
one, i.e., the fixing of the eyes on
some bright spot, a metal or a crystal. It becomes "animal
magnetism" (or mesmerism), when it is
achieved by "mesmeric" passes on the patient, and for
these reasons. When the first method is used,
no electro-psychic, or even electro-physical
currents are at work, but simply the
mechanical, molecular vibrations of the metal or crystal
gazed at by the subject. It is the eye --
the most occult organ of all, on the superficies of our body
-- which, by serving as a medium between that
bit of metal or crystal and the brain, attunes the
molecular vibrations of the nervous centers
of the latter into unison (i.e., equality in the number
of their respective oscillations) with the
vibrations of the bright object held. And, it is this unison
which produces the hypnotic state. But in the
second case, the right name for hypnotism would
certainly be "animal magnetism" or
that so much derided term "mesmerism." For, in the
hypnotization by preliminary passes, it is
the human will -- whether conscious or otherwise -- of
the operator himself, that acts upon the
nervous system of the patient. And it is again through the
vibrations -- only atomic, not molecular
-- produced by that act of energy called WILL in the
ether of space (therefore, on quite a
different plane) that the super-hypnotic state (i.e.,
"suggestion," etc.) is induced. For
those which we call "will-vibrations" and their aura, are
absolutely distinct from the vibrations
produced by the simply mechanical molecular motion, the
two acting on two separate degrees of the
cosmo-terrestrial planes. Here, of course, a clear
realization of that which is meant by will
in Occult Sciences, is necessary.
Q. In both (hypnotism and animal
magnetism) there is an act of will in the operator, a transit of
something from him to his patient, an
effect upon the patient. What is the "something"
transmitted in both cases?
ANS. That which is transmitted has no name in European
languages, and if we simply describe it
as will, it loses all its meaning. The
old and very much tabooed words, "enchantment,"
"fascination," "glamour,"
and "spell," and especially the verb "to bewitch,"
expressed far more
suggestively the real action that took place
during the process of such a transmission, than the
modern and meaningless terms,
"psychologize" and "biologize." Occultism calls the force
transmitted, the "auric fluid,"
to distinguish it from the "auric light"; the
"fluid" being a.
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19
correlation of atoms on a higher
plane, and a descent to this lower one, in the shape of
impalpable and invisible plastic Substances,
generated and directed by the potential Will; the
"auric light," or that which
Reichenbach calls Od, a light that surrounds every animate and
inanimate object in nature, is, on the other
hand, but the astral reflection emanating from objects;
its particular color and colors, the
combinations and varieties of the latter, denoting the state of
the gunas, or qualities and
characteristics of each special object and subject -- the human being's
aura being the strongest of all.
Q. What is the rationale of
"Vampirism"?
ANS. If by this word is meant the involuntary transmission of
a portion of one's vitality, or life-essence,
by a kind of occult osmosis from one
person to another -- the latter being endowed, or
afflicted rather, with such vampirizing faculty, then, the act
can become comprehensible only
when we study well the nature and essence of
the semi-substantial "auric fluid" spoken of just
now. Like every other occult form [force?] in
Nature, this end- and exosmosic process may be
made beneficent or maleficent, either
unconsciously or at will. When a healthy operator
mesmerizes a patient with a determined desire
to relieve and cure him, the exhaustion felt by the
former is proportionate to the relief given:
a process of endosmose has taken place, the healer
having parted with a portion of his vital
aura to benefit the sick man. Vampirism, on the other
hand, is a blind and mechanical process,
generally produced without the knowledge of either the
absorber, or the vampirized party. It is conscious or unconscious black
magic, as the case may
be. For in the case of trained adepts and
sorcerers, the process is produced consciously and with
the guidance of the Will. In both cases the
agent of transmission is a magnetic and attractive
faculty, terrestrial and physiological in its
results, yet generated and produced on the four-dimensional
plane -- the realm of atoms.
Q. Under what circumstances is hypnotism
"black magic"?
ANS. Under those just discussed, but to cover the subject
fully, even by giving a few instances,
demands more space than we can spare for
these answers. Sufficient to say that whenever the
motive which actuates the operator is
selfish, or detrimental to any living being or beings, all
such acts are classed by us as black magic.
The healthy vital fluid imparted by the physician who
mesmerizes his patient, can and does cure;
but too much of it will kill.
[This statement receives its explanation in
our answer to Question 6, when showing that the
vibratory experiment shatters a tumbler to
pieces.]
Q. Is there any difference between
hypnosis produced by mechanical means, such as revolving
mirrors, and that produced by the direct
gaze of the operator (fascination)?
ANS. This difference is, we believe, already pointed out in
the answer to Question 1. The gaze of
the operator is more potent, hence more
dangerous, than the simple mechanical passes of the
Hypnotizer, who, in nine cases out of ten,
does not know how, and therefore cannot will. The
students of Esoteric Science must be aware by
the very laws of the occult correspondences that
the former action is performed on the first
plane of matter (the lowest), while the latter, which.
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20
necessitates a well-concentrated will, has to
be enacted, if the operator is a profane novice, on the
fourth, and if he is anything of an occultist on the fifth plane.
Q. Why should a bit of crystal or a bright
button, throw one person into the hypnotic state and
affect in no way another person? An answer
to this would, we think, solve more than one
perplexity.
ANS. Science has offered several varied hypotheses upon the
subject, but has not, so far,
accepted any one of these as definite. This
is because all such speculations revolve in the vicious
circle of materio-physical phenomena with their
blind forces and mechanical theories. The "auric
fluid" is not recognized by the
men of Science, and therefore, they reject it. But have they not
believed for years in the efficacy of metallo-therapeuty,
the influence of these metals being due
to the action of their electric fluids or
currents on the nervous system? And this, simply because
an analogy was found to exist between the
activity of this system and electricity. The theory
failed, because it clashed with the most
careful observation and experiments. First of all, it was
contradicted by a fundamental fact exhibited
in the said metallo-therapeuty, whose characteristic
peculiarity showed (a) that by no
means every metal acted on every nervous disease, one patient
being sensitive to some one metal, while all
others produced no effect upon him; and (b) that the
patients affected by certain metals were few
and exceptional. This showed that "electric fluids"
operating on and curing diseases existed only
in the imagination of the theorists. Had they had
any actual existence, then all metals
would affect in a greater or lesser degree, all patients, and
every metal, taken separately, would affect
every case of nervous disease, the conditions for
generating such fluids being, in the given
cases, precisely the same. Thus Dr. Charcot having
vindicated Dr. Burke, the once discredited
discoverer of metallo-therapeuty, Shiff and others
discredited all those who believed in
electric fluids, and these seem now to be given up in favor
of "molecular motion," which now
reigns supreme in physiology -- for the time being, of course.
But now arises a question: "Are the real
nature, behavior and conditions of 'motion' known any
better than the nature, behavior and
conditions of the 'fluids'?" It is to be doubted. Anyhow
Occultism is audacious enough to maintain
that electric or magnetic fluids (the two being really
identical) are due in their essence and
origin to that same molecular motion, now transformed
into atomic energy, (1) to which every other phenomenon in nature is also due.
Indeed, when the
needle of a galvano- or electro-meter fails
to show any oscillations denoting the presence of
electric or magnetic fluids, this does not
prove in the least that there are none such to record; but
simply that having passed on to another and
higher plane of action, the electrometer can no
longer be affected by the energy displayed on
a plane with which it is entirely disconnected.
The above had to be explained, in order to
show that the nature of the Force transmitted from one
man or object to another man or object,
whether in hypnotism, electricity, metallo-therapeuty or
"fascination," is the same in
essence, varying only in degree, and modified according to the sub-plane
of matter it is acting on; of which
sub-planes, as every Occultist knows, there are seven on
our terrestrial plane as there are on every
other.
Q. Is Science entirely wrong in its
definition of the hypnotic phenomena?
ANS. It has no definition, so far. Now if there is one thing
upon which Occultism agrees (to a
certain degree) with the latest discoveries
of physical Science, it is that all the bodies endowed.
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21
with the property of inducing and calling
metallo-therapeutic and other analogous phenomena,
have, their great variety not withstanding,
one feature in common. They are all the fountain
heads and the generators of rapid molecular
oscillations, which, whether through transmitting
agents or direct contact, communicate
themselves to the nervous system, changing thereby the
rhythm of nervous vibrations -- on the sole
condition, however, of being what is called, in
unison. Now "unison" does not always imply the sameness of nature, or
of essence, but simply
the sameness of degree, a similarity with
regard to gravity and acuteness, and equal potentialities
for intensity of sound or motion: a bell may
be in unison with a violin, and a flute with an animal
or a human organ. Moreover, the rate of the
number of vibrations -- especially in an organic
animal cell or organ, changes in accordance
with the state of health, and general condition.
Hence the cerebral nervous centers of a
hypnotic subject, while in perfect unison, in potential
degree and essential original activity, with
the object he gazes at, may yet, owing to some
organic disturbance, be at the given moment
at logger-heads with it, in respect to the number of
their respective vibrations. In such case no
hypnotic condition ensues; or no unison at all may
exist between his nervous cells and the cells
of the crystal or metal he is made to gaze at, in
which case that particular object can never
have any effect upon him. This amounts to saying
that to ensure success in a hypnotic
experiment, two conditions are requisite; (a) as every organic
or "inorganic" body in nature is
distinguished by its fixed molecular oscillations, it is necessary
to find out which are those bodies which will
act in unison with one or another human nervous
system; and (b) to remember that the
molecular oscillations of the former can influence the
nervous action of the latter, only when the
rhythms of their respective vibrations coincide, i.e.,
when the number of their oscillations is made
identical; which, in the cases of hypnotism induced
by mechanical means, is achieved through the
medium of the eye.
Therefore, though the difference between
hypnosis produced by mechanical means, and that
induced by the direct gaze of the operator, plus
his will, depends on the plane on which the same
phenomenon is produced, still the "fascinating"
or subduing agent is created by the same force at
work. In the physical world and its material
planes, it is called MOTION; in the worlds of
mentality and metaphysics it is known as WILL
-- the many-faced magician throughout all
nature.
As the rate of vibrations (molecular motion)
in metals, woods, crystals, etc., alters under the
effect of heat, cold, etc., so do the
cerebral molecules change their rate, in the same way: i.e.,
their rate is raised or lowered. And this is
what really takes place in the phenomenon of
hypnotism. In the case of gazing, it is the
eye -- the chief agent of the Will of the active operator,
but a slave and traitor when this Will is
dormant -- that, unconsciously to the patient or subject,
attunes the oscillations of his cerebral
nervous centers to the rate of the vibrations of the object
gazed at by catching the rhythm of the latter
and passing it on to the brain. But in the case of
direct passes, it is the Will of the operator
radiating through his eye that produces the required
unison between his will and the will of the
person operated upon. For, out of two objects attuned
in unison -- as two chords, for instance --
one will always be weaker than the other, and thus
have mastery over the other and even the
potentiality of destroying its weaker "co-respondent."
So true is this, that we can call upon
physical Science to corroborate this fact. Take the "sensitive
flame" as a case in hand. Science tells
us that if a note be struck in unison with the ratio of the
vibrations of the heat molecules, the flames
will respond immediately to the sound (or note
struck), that it will dance and sing in
rhythm with the sounds. But Occult Science adds, that the.
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22
flame may also be extinguished if the
sound is intensified (vide Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, 606 and
607). Another proof. Take a wine-glass or
tumbler of very fine and clear glass; produce, by
striking it gently with a silver spoon, a
well-determined note; after which reproduce the same
note by rubbing its rim with a damp finger,
and, if you are successful, the glass will immediately
crack and be shattered. Indifferent to every
other sound, the glass will not resist the great
intensity of its own fundamental note, for
that particular vibration will cause such a commotion
in its particles, that the whole fabric will
fall in pieces.
Q. What becomes of diseases cured by
hypnotism; are they really cured or are they postponed,
or do they appear in another form? Are
diseases Karma; and, if so, is it right to attempt to cure
them?
ANS. Hypnotic suggestion may cure for ever, and it may not.
All depends on the degree of
magnetic relations between the operator and
the patient. If Karmic, they will be only postponed,
and return in some other form, not
necessarily of disease, but as a punitive evil of another sort. It
is always "right" to try and
alleviate suffering whenever we can, and to do our best for it.
Because a man suffers justly imprisonment,
and catches cold in his damp cell, is it a reason why
the prison-doctor should not try to cure him
of it?
Q. Is it necessary that the hypnotic
"suggestions" of the operator should be spoken? Is it not
enough for him to think them, and may not
even HE be ignorant or unconscious of
the bent he is
impressing on his subject?
ANS. Certainly not, if the rapport between the two is
once for all firmly established. Thought is
more powerful than speech in cases of a real
subjugation of the will of the patient to that of his
operator. But, on the other hand, unless the
"suggestion" made is for the good only of the subject,
and entirely free from any selfish motive, a
suggestion by thought is an act of black magic still
more pregnant with evil consequences than a spoken
suggestion. It is always wrong and unlawful
to deprive a man of his free-will, unless
for his own or Society's good; and even the former has to
be done with great discrimination. Occultism
regards all such promiscuous attempts as black
magic and sorcery, whether conscious or
otherwise.
Q. Do the motive and character of the
operator affect the result, immediate or remote?
ANS. In so far as the hypnotizing process becomes under his
operation either white or black
magic, as the last answer shows.
Q. Is it wise to hypnotize a patient not
only out of disease, but out of a habit, such as drinking or
lying?
ANS. It is an act of charity and kindness, and this is next
to wisdom. For, although the dropping
of his vicious habits will add nothing to his
good Karma (which it would, had his efforts to
reform been personal, of his own free will,
and necessitating a great mental and physical
struggle), still a successful
"suggestion" prevents him from generating more bad Karma, and
adding constantly to the previous record of
his transgressions..
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23
Q. What is it that a faith-healer, when
successful, practises upon himself; what tricks is he
playing with his principles and with his
Karma?
ANS. Imagination is a potent help in every event of our
lives. Imagination acts on Faith, and
both are the draughtsmen who prepare the
sketches for Will to engrave, more or less deeply, on
the rocks of obstacles and opposition with
which the path of life is strewn. Says Paracelsus:
"Faith must confirm the imagination, for faith establishes the will
. . . Determined will is the
beginning of all magical operations. . . . It
is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe
the result, that the arts (of magic) are
uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain." This is all
the secret. Half, if not two-thirds of our
ailings and diseases are the fruit of our imagination and
fears. Destroy the latter and give another
bent to the former, and nature will do the rest. There is
nothing sinful or injurious in the methods per
se. They turn to harm only when belief in his
power becomes too arrogant and marked in the
faith-healer, and when he thinks he can will away
such diseases as need, if they are not to be
fatal, the immediate help of expert surgeons and
physicians.
FOOTNOTE:
l. In Occultism the word atom has a
special significance, different from the one given to it by
Science. See editorial, Psychic and Noetic
Action, in the two last numbers. (return
to text)
Black Magic in Science
Commence research where modern conjecture
closes its faithless wings --
Bulwer's Zanoni.
The flat denial of yesterday has become the
scientific axiom of to-day -- Common
Sense Aphorisms.
Thousands of years ago the Phrygian Dactyls,
the initiated priests, spoken of as the "magicians
and exorcists of sickness," healed
diseases by magnetic processes. It was claimed that they had
obtained these curative powers from the
powerful breath of Cybele, the many-breasted goddess,
the daughter of Coelus and Terra. Indeed, her
genealogy and the myths attached to it show
Cybele as the personification and type of the
vital essence, whose source was located by the
ancients between the Earth and the starry
sky, and who was regarded as the very fons vitae of all
that lives and breathes. The mountain air
being placed nearer to that fount fortifies health and
prolongs man's existence; hence, Cybele's
life, as an infant, is shown in her myth as having been
preserved on a mountain. This was before that
Magna and Bona Dea, the prolific Mater, became
transformed into Ceres-Demeter, the patroness
of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Animal magnetism (now called Suggestion and
Hypnotism) was the principal agent in theurgic
mysteries as also in the Asclepieia -- the
healing temples of Aesculapius, where the patients once
admitted were treated, during the process of
"incubation," magnetically, during their sleep.
This creative and life-giving Force -- denied
and laughed at when named theurgic magic,
accused for the last century of being
principally based on superstition and fraud, whenever.
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24
referred to as mesmerism -- is now called
Hypnotism, Charcotism, Suggestion, "psychology,"
and what not. But, whatever the expression
chosen, it will ever be a loose one if used without a
proper qualification. For when epitomized
with all its collateral sciences -- which are all sciences
within the science -- it will be found
to contain possibilities the nature of which has never been
even dreamt of by the oldest and most learned
professors of the orthodox physical science. The
latter, "authorities" so-called,
are no better, indeed, than innocent bald infants, when brought face
to face with the mysteries of antediluvian
"mesmerism." As stated repeatedly before, the
blossoms of magic, whether white or black,
divine or infernal, spring all from one root. The
"breath of Cybele" -- Akasa
tattwa, in India -- is the one chief agent, and it underlay the so-called
"miracles" and
"supernatural" phenomena in all ages, as in every clime. As the
parent-root or
essence is universal, so are its effects
innumerable. Even the greatest adepts can hardly say
where its possibilities must stop.
The key to the very alphabet of these
theurgic powers was lost after the last gnostic had been
hunted to death by the ferocious persecution
of the Church; and as gradually Mysteries,
Hierophants, Theophany and Theurgy became
obliterated from the minds of men until they
remained in them only as a vague tradition,
all this was finally forgotten. But at the period of the
Renaissance, in Germany, a learned
Theosophist, a Philosopher per ignem, as they called
themselves, rediscovered some of the lost
secrets of the Phrygian priests and of the Asclepieia. It
was the great and unfortunate
physician-Occultist, Paracelsus, the greatest Alchemist of the age.
That genius it was, who during the Middle
Ages was the first to publicly recommend the action
of the magnet in the cure of certain
diseases. Theophrastus Paracelsus -- the "quack" and
"drunken impostor" in the opinion
of the said scientific "bald infants" of his day, and of their
successors in ours -- inaugurated among other
things in the seventeenth century, that which has
become a profitable branch in trade in the
nineteenth. It is he who invented and used for the cure
of various muscular and nervous diseases
magnetized bracelets, armlets, belts, rings, collars and
leglets; only his magnets cured far more
efficaciously than do the electric belts of to-day. Van
Helmont, the successor of Paracelsus, and
Robert Fludd, the Alchemist and Rosicrucian, also
applied magnets in the treatment of their
patients. Mesmer in the eighteenth, and the Marquis de
Puysegur in the nineteenth century only
followed in their footsteps.
In the large curative establishment founded
by Mesmer at Vienna, he employed, besides
magnetism, electricity, metals and a variety
of woods. His fundamental doctrine was that of the
Alchemists. He believed that metals, as also
woods and plants have all an affinity with and bear a
close relation to, the human organism.
Everything in the Universe has developed from one
homogeneous primordial substance
differentiated into incalculable species of matter, and
everything is destined to return thereinto.
The secret of healing, he maintained, lies in the
knowledge of correspondences and affinities
between kindred atoms. Find that metal, wood,
stone, or plant that has the most
correspondential affinity with the body of the sufferer; and,
whether through internal or external use,
that particular agent imparting to the patient additional
strength to fight disease -- (developed
generally through the introduction of some foreign
element into the constitution) -- and to
expel it, will lead invariably to his cure. Many and
marvelous were such cures effected by Anton
Mesmer. Subjects with heart-disease were made
well. A lady of high station, condemned to
death, was completely restored to health by the
application of certain sympathetic woods.
Mesmer himself, suffering from acute rheumatism,
cured it completely by using
specially-prepared magnets..
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25
In 1774 he too happened to come across the
theurgic secret of direct vital transmission; and so
highly interested was he, that he abandoned
all his old methods to devote himself entirely to the
new discovery. Henceforward he mesmerized by
gaze and passes, the natural magnets being
abandoned. The mysterious effects of such
manipulations were called by him -- animal
magnetism. This brought to Mesmer a mass of
followers and disciples. The new force was
experimented with in almost every city and
town of Europe and found everywhere an actual fact.
About 1780, Mesmer settled in Paris, and soon
the whole metropolis, from the Royal family
down to the last hysterical bourgeoise, were
at his feet. The clergy got frightened and cried --
"the Devil"! The licensed
"leeches" felt an ever-growing deficit in their pockets; and the
aristocracy and the Court found themselves on
the verge of madness from mere excitement. No
use repeating too well-known facts, but the
memory of the reader may be refreshed with a few
details he may have forgotten.
It so happened that just about that time the
official Academical Science felt very proud. After
centuries of mental stagnation in the realm
of medicine and general ignorance, several
determined steps in the direction of real
knowledge had finally been made. Natural sciences had
achieved a decided success, and chemistry and
physics were on a fair way to progress. As the
Savants of a century ago had not yet grown to that height of sublime modesty
which
characterizes so pre-eminently their modern
successors -- they felt very much puffed up with
their greatness. The moment for praiseworthy
humility, followed by a confession of the relative
insignificance of the knowledge of the period
-- and even of modern knowledge for the matter of
that -- compared to that which the ancients
knew, had not yet arrived. Those were days of naive
boasting of the peacocks of science displaying
in a body their tails, and demanding universal
recognition and admiration. The Sir Oracles
were not as numerous as they are now, yet their
number was considerable. And indeed, had not
the Dulcamaras of public fairs been just visited
with ostracism? Had not the leeches well
nigh disappeared to make room for diplomaed
physicians with royal licenses to kill and
bury a piacere ad libitum? Hence, the nodding
"Immortal" in his academical chair
was regarded as the sole competent authority in the decision
of questions he had never studied, and for
rendering verdicts about that which he had never heard
of. It was the REIGN OF REASON, and of
Science -- in its teens; the beginning of the great
deadly struggle between Theology and Facts,
Spirituality and Materialism. In the educated
classes of Society too much faith had been
succeeded by no faith at all. The cycle of Science-worship
had just set in, with its pilgrimages to the
Academy, the Olympus where the "Forty
Immortals" are enshrined, and its raids
upon every one who refused to manifest a noisy
admiration, a kind of juvenile calf's
enthusiasm, at the door of the Fane of Science. When
Mesmer arrived, Paris divided its allegiance
between the Church which attributed all kinds of
phenomena except its own divine miracles to
the Devil, and the Academy, which believed in
neither God nor Devil, but only in its own
infallible wisdom.
But there were minds which would not be
satisfied with either of these beliefs. Therefore, after
Mesmer had forced all Paris to crowd to his
halls, waiting hours to obtain a place in the chair
round the miraculous baquet, some
people thought that it was time real truth should be found
out. They had laid their legitimate desires
at the royal feet, and the King forthwith commanded
his learned Academy to look into the matter.
Then it was, that awakening from their chronic nap,
the "Immortals" appointed a
committee of investigation, among which was Benjamin Franklin,.
------------------
26
and chose some of the oldest, wisest and
baldest among their "Infants" to watch over the
Committee. This was in 1784. Every one knows
what was the report of the latter and the final
decision of the Academy. The whole
transaction looks now like a general rehearsal of the play,
one of the acts of which was performed by the
"Dialectical Society" of London and some of
England's greatest Scientists, some eighty
years later.
Indeed, notwithstanding a counter report by
Dr. Jussieu, an Academician of the highest rank, and
the Court physician D'Eslon, who, as
eye-witnesses to the most striking phenomena, demanded
that a careful investigation should be made
by the Medical Faculty of the therapeutic effects of
the magnetic fluid -- their demand fell
through. The Academy disbelieved her most eminent
Scientists. Even Sir B. Franklin, so much at
home with cosmic electricity, would not recognize
its fountain head and primordial source, and
along with Bailly, Lavoisier, Magendie, and others,
proclaimed Mesmerism a delusion. Nor had the
second investigation which followed the first --
namely in 1825 -- any better results. The
report was once more squashed (vide Isis Unveiled, vol.
I, pp. 171-176).
Even now when experiment has amply
demonstrated that "Mesmerism" or animal magnetism,
now known as hypnotism (a sorry effect,
forsooth, of the "Breath of Cybele") is a fact, we yet
get the majority of scientists denying its
actual existence. Small fry as it is in the majestic array
of experimental psycho-magnetic phenomena,
even hypnotism seems too incredible, too
mysterious, for our Darwinists and Haeckelians. One needs too much
moral courage, you see, to
face the suspicion of one's colleagues, the
doubt of the public, and the giggling of fools.
"Mystery and charlatanism go hand in
hand," they say; and "self-respect and the dignity of the
profession," as Magendie remarks in his Physiologie
Humaine, "demand that the well informed
physician should remember how readily mystery
glides into charlatanism." Pity the "well
informed physician" should fail to
remember that physiology among the rest is full of mystery --
profound, inexplicable mystery from A to Z --
and ask whether, starting from the above "truism,"
he should not throw overboard Biology and
Physiology as the greatest pieces of charlatanry in
modern Science. Nevertheless, a few in the
well-meaning minority of our physicians have taken
up seriously the investigation of hypnotism.
But even they, having been reluctantly compelled to
confess the reality of its phenomena, still
persist in seeing in such manifestations no higher a
factor at work than the purely material and
physical forces, and deny these their legitimate name
of animal magnetism. But as the Rev. Mr.
Haweis (of whom more presently) just said in the
Daily Graphic . . . "The Charcot phenomena are, for all that, in many ways
identical with the
mesmeric phenomena, and hypnotism must
properly be considered rather as a branch of
mesmerism than as something distinct from it.
Anyhow, Mesmer's facts, now generally accepted,
were at first stoutly denied." And they
are still so denied.
But while they deny Mesmerism, they rush into
Hypnotism, despite the now scientifically
recognized dangers of this science, in which
medical practitioners in France are far ahead of the
English. And what the former say is, that
between the two states of mesmerism (or magnetism as
they call it, across the water) and hypnotism
"there is an abyss." That one is beneficent, the other
maleficent, as it evidently must be; since,
according to both Occultism and modern Psychology,
hypnotism is produced by the withdrawal of
the nervous fluid from the capillary nerves, which
being, so to say, the sentries that keep the
doors of our senses opened, getting anaesthetized
under hypnotic conditions, allow these to get
closed. A. H. Simonin reveals many a wholesome.
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27
truth in his excellent work, "Solution
du probleme de la suggestion hypnotique." (1) Thus he
shows that while "in Magnetism (mesmerism)
there occurs in the subject a great development of
moral faculties"; that his thoughts and
feelings "become loftier, and the senses acquire an
abnormal acuteness"; in hypnotism, on
the contrary, "the subject becomes a simple mirror." It is
Suggestion which is the true motor of every
action in the hypnotic: and if, occasionally,
"seemingly marvelous actions are
produced, these are due to the hypnotizer, not to the subject."
Again . . . . "In hypnotism instinct, i.e.,
the animal, reaches its greatest development; so much so,
indeed, that the aphorism 'extremes meet' can
never receive a better application than to
magnetism and hypnotism." How true these
words, also, as to the difference between the
mesmerized and the hypnotized subjects.
"In one, his ideal nature, his moral self -- the reflection
of his divine nature -- are carried to their
extreme limits, and the subject becomes almost a
celestial being (un ange). In the
other, it is his instincts which develop in a most surprising
fashion. The hypnotic lowers himself to the
level of the animal. From a physiological standpoint,
magnetism (Mesmerism) is comforting and
curative, and hypnotism, which is but the result of an
unbalanced state, is -- most dangerous."
Thus the adverse Report drawn by Bailly at
the end of last century has had dire effects in the
present, but it had its Karma also.
Intended to kill the "Mesmeric" craze, it reacted as a
death-blow
to the public confidence in scientific
decrees. In our day the Non-Possumus of the Royal
Colleges and Academies is quoted on the Stock
Exchange of the world's opinion at a price
almost as low as the Non-Possumus of
the Vatican. The days of authority whether human or
divine, are fast gliding away; and we see
already gleaming on future horizons but one tribunal,
supreme and final, before which mankind will
bow -- the Tribunal of Fact and Truth.
Aye, to this tribunal without appeal even
liberal clergymen and famous preachers make
obeisance in our day. The parts have now
changed hands, and in many instances it is the
successors of those who fought tooth and nail
for the reality of the Devil and his direct
interference with psychic phenomena, for long
centuries, who come out publicly to upbraid
science. A remarkable instance of this is
found in an excellent letter (just mentioned) by the Rev.
Mr. Haweis to the Graphic. The learned
preacher seems to share our indignation at the
unfairness of the modern scientists, at their
suppression of truth, and ingratitude to their ancient
teachers. His letter is so interesting that
its best points must be immortalized in our magazine.
Here are some fragments of it. Thus he asks:
--
Why can't our scientific men say: "We
have blundered about Mesmerism; it's
practically true"? Not because they are
men of science, but simply because they
are human. No doubt it is humiliating when
you have dogmatized in the name of
science to say, "I was wrong." But
is it not more humiliating to be found out; and
is it not most humiliating, after shuffling
and wriggling hopelessly in the
inexorable meshes of serried facts, to
collapse suddenly, and call the hated net a
"suitable enclosure," in which
forsooth, you don't mind being caught? Now this,
as it seems to me, is precisely what Messrs.
Charcot and the French hypnotists
and their medical admirers in England are
doing. Ever since Mesmer's death at the
age of eighty, in 1815, the French and
English "Faculty," with some honorable
exceptions, have ridiculed and denied the
facts as well as the theories of Mesmer,
but now, in 1890, a host of scientists
suddenly agree, while wiping out as best.
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28
they may the name of Mesmer, to rob him of
all his phenomena, which they
quietly appropriate under the name of
"hypnotism," "suggestion," "Therapeutic
Magnetism," "psychopathic
Massage," and all the rest of it. Well, "What's in a
name?"
I care more for things than names, but I
reverence the pioneers of thought who
have been cast out, trodden under foot, and
crucified by the orthodox of all ages,
and I think the least scientists can do for
men like Mesmer, Du Potet, Puysegur, or
Mayo and Elliotson, now they are gone, is to
"build their sepulchers."
But Mr. Haweis might have added instead, the
amateur Hypnotists of Science dig with their own
hands the graves of many a man and woman's
intellect; they enslave and paralyze freewill in
their "subjects," turn immortal men
into soulless, irresponsible automata, and vivisect their souls
with as much unconcern as they vivisect the
bodies of rabbits and dogs. In short, they are fast
blooming into "sorcerers," and are
turning science into a vast field of black magic. The rev.
writer, however, lets the culprits off
easily; and, remarking that he accepts "the distinction"
[between Mesmerism and Hypnotism]
"without pledging himself to any theory," he adds: --
I am mainly concerned with the facts, and
what I want to know is why these cures
and abnormal states are trumpeted about as
modern discoveries, while the
"faculty" still deride or ignore
their great predecessors without having themselves
a theory which they can agree upon or a
single fact which can be called new. The
truth is we are just blundering back with
toil to work over again the old disused
mines of the ancients; the rediscovery of
these occult sciences is exactly matched
by the slow recovery of sculpture and
painting in modern Europe. Here is the
history of occult science in a nutshell. (1)
Once known. (2) Lost. (3)
Rediscovered. (4) Denied. (5) Reaffirmed, and
by slow degrees, under new
names, victorious. The evidence for all this
is exhaustive and abundant. Here it
may suffice to notice that Diodorus Siculus
mentions how the Egyptian priests,
ages before Christ, attributed clairvoyance
induced for therapeutic purposes to
Isis. Strabo ascribes the same to Serapis,
while Galen mentions a temple near
Memphis famous for these Hypnotic cures.
Pythagoras, who won the confidence
of the Egyptian priests, is full of it.
Aristophanes in "Plutus" describes in some
detail a Mesmeric cure -- [kai prota men de
tes kephales ephepsato], etc., "and
first he began to handle the head."
Caelius Aurelianus describes manipulations
(1569) for disease "conducting the hands
from the superior to the inferior parts";
and there was an old Latin proverb -- Ubi
dolor ibi digitus, "Where pain, there
finger." But time would fail me to tell
of Paracelsus (1462) (2) and his "deep
secret of Magnetism"; of Van Helmont
(1644) (3)
and his "faith in the power of
the hand in disease." Much in the
writings of both these men was only made clear
to the moderns by the experiments of
Mesmer, and in view of modern Hypnotists
it is clearly with him and his disciples that
we have chiefly to do. He claimed, no
doubt, to transmit an animal magnetic fluid,
which I believe the Hypnotists deny..
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29
They do, they do. But so did the scientists
with regard to more than one truth. To deny "an
animal magnetic fluid" is surely no more
absurd than to deny the circulation of the blood, as they
have so energetically done.
A few additional details about Mesmerism
given by Mr. Haweis may prove interesting. Thus he
reminds us of the answer written by the much
wronged Mesmer to the Academicians after their
unfavorable Report, and refers to it as
"prophetic words."
"You say that Mesmer will never hold up
his head again. If such is the destiny of
the man it is not the destiny of the truth,
which is in its nature imperishable, and
will shine forth sooner or later in the same
or some other country with more
brilliancy than ever, and its triumph will
annihilate its miserable detractors."
Mesmer left Paris in disgust, and retired to
Switzerland to die; but the illustrious
Dr. Jussieu became a convert. Lavater carried
Mesmer's system to Germany,
while Puysegur and Deleuze spread it
throughout provincial France, forming
innumerable "harmonic societies"
devoted to the study of therapeutic magnetism
and its allied phenomena of
thought-transference, hypnotism, and clairvoyance.
Some twenty years ago I became acquainted
with perhaps the most illustrious
disciple of Mesmer, the aged Baron du Potet. (4) Round this man's
therapeutic
and mesmeric exploits raged, between 1830 and
1846, a bitter controversy
throughout France. A murderer had been
tracked, convicted, and executed solely
on evidence supplied by one of Du Potet's
clairvoyants. The Juge de Paix
admitted thus much in open court. This was
too much for even sceptical Paris, and
the Academy determined to sit again and, if
possible, crush out the superstition.
They sat, but, strange to say, this time they
were converted. Itard, Fouquier,
Guersent, Bourdois de la Motte, the cream of
the French faculty, pronounced the
phenomena of mesmerism to be genuine --
cures, trances, clairvoyance, thought-transference,
even reading from closed books; and from that
time an elaborate
nomenclature was invented, blotting out as
far as possible the detested names of
the indefatigable men who had compelled the
scientific assent, while enrolling the
main facts vouched for by Mesmer, Du Potet,
and Puysegur among the undoubted
phenomena to be accepted, on whatever theory,
by medical science. . . .
Then comes the turn of this foggy island and
its befogged scientists.
"Meanwhile," [goes on the writer],
England was more stubborn. In 1846 the
celebrated Dr. Elliot son, a popular
practitioner, with a vast clientele, pronounced
the famous Harveian oration, in which he
confessed his belief in Mesmerism. He
was denounced by the doctors with such
thorough results that he lost his practice,
and died well-nigh ruined, if not
heart-broken. The Mesmeric Hospital in
Marylebone Road has been established by him.
Operations were successfully
performed under Mesmerism, and all the
phenomena which have lately occurred
at Leeds and elsewhere to the satisfaction of
the doctors were produced in
Marylebone fifty-six years ago. Thirty-five
years ago Professor Lister did the
same -- but the introduction of chloroform
being more speedy and certain as an.
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30
anaesthetic, killed for a time the mesmeric
treatment. The public interest in
Mesmerism died down, and the Mesmeric
Hospital in the Marylebone Road,
which had been under a cloud since the
suppression of Elliotson, was at last
closed. Lately we know what has been the fate
of Mesmer and Mesmerism.
Mesmer is spoken of in the same breath with
Count Cagliostro, and Mesmerism
itself is seldom mentioned at all; but, then,
we hear plenty of electro-biology,
therapeutic magnetism and hypnotism -- just
so. Oh, shades of Mesmer, Puysegur,
Du Potet, Elliotson -- sic vos non vobis! Still,
I say Palmam qui meruit ferat.
When I knew Baron du Potet he was on the
brink of the grave, and nearly eighty
years old. He was an ardent admirer of
Mesmer; he had devoted his whole life to
therapeutic magnetism, and he was absolutely
dogmatic on the point that a real
magnetic aura passed from the Mesmerist to
the patient. "I will show you this," he
said one day, as we both stood by the bedside
of a patient in so deep a trance that
we ran needles into her hands and arms
without exciting the least sign or
movement. The old Baron continued: "I
will, at the distance of a foot or two,
determine slight convulsions in any part of
her body by simply moving my hand
above the part, without any contact." He
began at the shoulder, which soon set up
a twitching. Quiet being restored, he tried
the elbow, then the wrist, then the knee,
the convulsions increasing in intensity
according to the time employed. "Are you
quite satisfied?" I said, "Quite
satisfied"; "and," continued he, "any patient that I
have tested I will undertake to operate upon
through a brick wall at a time and
place where the patient shall be ignorant of
my presence or my purpose. This,"
added Du Potet, "was one of the
experiences which most puzzled the
Academicians at Paris. I repeated the
experiment again and again under every test
and condition, with almost invariable
success, until the most sceptical was forced
to give in."
We have accused science of gliding full sail
down to the Maelstrom of Black Magic, by
practising that which ancient Psychology --
the most important branch of the Occult Sciences --
has always declared as Sorcery in its
application to the inner man. We are prepared to maintain
what we say. We mean to prove it one of these
days, in some future articles, basing ourselves on
facts published and the actions produced by
the Hypnotism of Vivisectionists themselves. That
they are unconscious sorcerers does not make
away with the fact that they do practice the Black
Art bel et bien. In short the
situation is this. The minority of the learned physicians and other
scientists experiment in
"hypnotism" because they have come to see something in it; while the
majority of the members of the R.C.P.'s still
deny the actuality of animal magnetism in its
mesmeric form, even under its modern mask --
hypnotism. The former -- entirely ignorant of the
fundamental laws of animal magnetism --
experiment at hap-hazard, almost blindly. To remain
consistent with their declarations (a)
that hypnotism is not mesmerism, and (b) that a magnetic
aura or fluid passing from the mesmerizer (or
hypnotizer) is pure fallacy -- they have no right, of
course, to apply the laws of the older to the
younger science. Hence they interfere with, and
awaken to action the most dangerous forces of
nature, without being aware of it. Instead of
healing diseases -- the only use to which
animal magnetism under its new name can be
legitimately applied -- they often inoculate the subjects with
their own physical as well as mental
ills and vices. For this, and the ignorance
of their colleagues of the minority, the disbelieving
majority of the Sadducees are greatly
responsible. For, by opposing them, they impede free.
------------------
31
action, and take advantage of the Hypocratic
oath, to make them powerless to admit and do much
that the believers might and would otherwise
do. But as Dr. A. Teste truly says in his work --
"There are certain unfortunate truths
which compromise those who believe in them, and those
especially who are so candid as to avow
them publicly." Thus the reason of
hypnotism not being
studied on its proper lines is self-evident.
Years ago it was remarked: "It is the
duty of the Academy and medical authorities to study
Mesmerism (i.e., the occult sciences
in its spirit) and to subject it to trials; finally, to take away
the use and practice of it from persons
quite strangers to the art, who abuse this means, and
make it an object of lucre and
speculation." He who uttered this
great truth was "the voice
speaking in the desert." But those
having some experience in occult psychology would go
further. They would say it is incumbent on
every scientific body -- nay, on every government --
to put an end to public exhibitions of this
sort. By trying the magic effect of the human will on
weaker wills, by deriding the existence of occult
forces in Nature -- forces whose name is legion
-- and yet calling out these, under the
pretext that they are no independent forces at all, not even
psychic in their nature, but "connected
with known physical laws" (Binet and Fere), men in
authority are virtually responsible for all
the dire effects that are and will be following their
dangerous public experiments. Verily Karma --
the terrible but just Retributive Law -- will visit
all those who develop the most awful results
in the future, generated at those public exhibitions
for the amusement of the profane. Let them
only think of dangers bred, of new forms of diseases,
mental and physical, begotten by such insane
handling of psychic will! This is as bad on the
moral plane as the artificial introduction of
animal matter into the human blood, by the infamous
Brown Sequard method, is on the physical. They
laugh at the occult sciences and deride
Mesmerism? Yet this century will not have
passed away before they have undeniable proofs that
the idea of a crime suggested for
experiment's sake is not removed by a reversed current of the
will as easily as it is inspired. They may
learn that if the outward expression of the idea of a
misdeed "suggested" may fade out at
the will of the operator, the active living germ artificially
implanted does not disappear with it; that
once dropped into the seat of the human -- or, rather,
the animal -- passions, it may lie dormant
there for years sometimes, to become suddenly
awakened by some unforeseen circumstance into
realization. Crying children frightened into
silence by the suggestion of a
monster, a devil standing in the corner, by a foolish nurse, have
been known to become insane twenty or thirty
years later on the same subject. There are
mysterious, secret drawers, dark nooks and
hiding-places in the labyrinth of our memory, still
unknown to physiologists, and which open only
once, rarely twice, in man's lifetime, and that
only under very abnormal and peculiar
conditions. But when they do, it is always some heroic
deed committed by a person the least
calculated for it, or -- a terrible crime perpetrated, the
reason for which remains for ever a mystery.
. . .
Thus experiments in "suggestion" by
persons ignorant of the occult laws, are the most dangerous
of pastimes. The action and reaction of ideas
on the inner lower "Ego," has never been studied so
far, because that Ego itself is terra
incognita (even when not denied) to the men of science.
Moreover, such performances before a
promiscuous public are a danger in themselves. Men of
undeniable scientific education who
experiment on Hypnotism in public, lend thereby the
sanction of their names to such performances.
And then every unworthy speculator acute enough
to understand the process may, by developing
by practice and perseverance the same force in
himself, apply it to his own selfish, often
criminal, ends..
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32
Result on Karmic lines: every Hypnotist, every man of Science, however well-meaning
and
honorable, once he has allowed himself to
become the unconscious instructor of one who learns
but to abuse the sacred science, becomes, of
course, morally the confederate of every crime
committed by this means.
Such is the consequence of public
"Hypnotic" experiments which thus lead to, and virtually are,
BLACK MAGIC.
FOOTNOTES:
1. See the review of his work in the Journal
du Magnetisme, Mai, Juin, 1890, founded in 1845
by Baron du Potet, and now edited by H.
Durville, in Paris. (return to text)
2. This date is an error. Paracelsus was born
at Zurich in 1493. (return to text)
3. This is the date of Van Helmont's death;
he was born in 1577. (return to text)
4. Baron du Potet was for years Honorary
member of the Theosophical Society. Autograph
letters were received from him and preserved
at Adyar, our Headquarters, in which he deplores
the flippant unscientific way in which
Mesmerism (then on the eve of becoming the "hypnotism"
of science) was handled "par les
charlatans du jour." Had he lived to see the secret science in its
full travesty as hypnotism, his powerful
voice might have stopped its terrible present abuses and
degradation into a commercial Punch and Judy
show. Luckily for him, and unluckily for truth,
the greatest adept of Mesmerism in Europe of
this century -- is dead. (return to text)
The Signs of the Times
It is intensely interesting to follow season
after season the rapid evolution and change of public
thought in the direction of the mystical. The
educated mind is most undeniably attempting to free
itself from the heavy fetters of materialism.
The ugly caterpillar is writhing in the agonies of
death, under the powerful efforts of the
psychic butterfly to escape from its science-built prison,
and every day brings some new glad tidings of
one or more such mental births to light.
As the New York "Path" truly
remarks in its September issue, when "Theosophical and kindred
topics . . . are made the texts for
novels," and, we may add, scientific essays and brochures, "the
implication is that interest in them has
become diffused through all social ranks." That kind of
literature is "paradoxically proof that
Occultism has passed beyond the region of careless
amusement and entered that of serious
enquiry." The reader has but to throw a retrospective
glance at the publications of the last few
years to find that such topics as Mysticism, Magic,
Sorcery, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Mesmerism,
or, as it is now called, Hypnotism, all the various
branches in short of the Occult side
of nature, are becoming predominant in every kind of
literature. They visibly increase in
proportion to the efforts made to discredit the movements in
the cause of truth, and strangle enquiry --
whether on the field of theosophy or spiritualism -- by
trying to besmear their most prominent
heralds, pioneers and defenders, with tar and feathers..
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33
The key-note for mystic and theosophic
literature was Marion Crawford's Mr. Isaacs. It was
followed by his Zoroaster. Then
followed The Romance of Two Worlds, by Marie Corelli; R.
Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde;
The Fallen Idol, by Anstey; King Solomon's Mines
and the thrice famous She, by Rider
Haggard; Affinities and The Brother of the Shadow, by Mrs.
Campbell Praed; Edmund Downey's House of
Tears, and many others less noticeable. And now
there comes a fresh outburst in Florence
Marryat's Daughter of the Tropics, and F. C. Philips'
Strange Adventures of Lucy Smith. It is unnecessary to mention in detail the literature
produced
by avowed theosophists and occultists, some
of whose works are very remarkable, while others
are positively scientific, such as S. L.
Macgregor Mathers' Kabbalah Unveiled, and Dr. F.
Hartmann's Paracelsus, Magic, White
and Black, etc. We have also to note the fact that
theosophy has now crossed the Channel, and is
making its way into French literature. La France
publishes a strange romance by Ch.
Chincholle, pregnant with theosophy, occultism and
mesmerism, and called La Grande Pretresse,
while La Revue politique et litteraire (19 Feb.
1887, et seq.) contained over the
signature of Th. Bentzon, a novel called Emancipee, wherein
esoteric doctrines and adepts are mentioned
in conjunction with the names of well known
theosophists. A sign of the times!
Literature -- especially in countries free
from government censorship -- is the public heart and
pulse. Besides the glaring fact that were
there no demand there would be no supply, current
literature is produced only to please, and is
therefore evidently the mirror which faithfully
reflects the state of the public mind. True,
Conservative editors, and their submissive
correspondents and reporters, still go on
slashing occasionally in print the fair faces of mystic
spiritualism and theosophy, and some of them
are still found, from time to time, indulging in a
brutal personal
attack. But they do no harm on the whole, except perhaps to their own editorial
reputations, as such editors can never be
suspected of an exuberance of culture and good taste
after certain ungentlemanly personal attacks.
They do good on the contrary. For, while the
theosophists and spiritualists so attacked,
may view the Billingsgate poured upon them in a true
Socratean spirit, and console themselves with
the knowledge that none of the epithets used can
possibly apply to them, on the other hand, too
much abuse and vilification generally ends by
awakening the public sympathy for the victim,
in the right-minded and the impartial, at any rate.
In England people seem to like fair play on
the whole. It is not bashi-boozook-like actions, the
doughty deeds of those who delight in
mutilating the slain and the wounded, that can find
sympathy for any great length of time with
the public. If -- as maintained by our lay enemies and
repeated by some naïf and too sanguine
missionary organs -- Spiritualism and Theosophy are
"dead as a doornail" (sic! --
vide American Christian periodicals), -- aye, "dead and buried,"
why,
in such case, good Christian fathers, not
leave the dead at rest till "Judgment Day"? And if they
are not, then editors -- the profane as well
as the clerical -- why should you still fear? Do not
show yourselves such cowards if you have the
truth on your side. Magna est veritas et
prevalebit, and "murder will out," as it always has, sooner
or later. Open your columns to free
and fearless discussion, and do as the
theosophical periodicals have ever done, and as LUCIFER
is now preparing to do. The "bright Son
of the morning" fears no light. He courts it, and is
prepared to publish any inimical
contributions (couched, of course, in decent language), however
much at variance with his theosophical views.
He is determined to give a fair hearing in any and
every case, to both contending parties and
allow things and thoughts to be judged on their
respective merits. For why, or what should
one dread when fact and truth are one's only aim? Du.
------------------
34
choc des opinions jaillit la verite was said by a French philosopher. If Theosophy and
Spiritualism are no better than
"gigantic frauds and will-o'-the-wisps of the age" why such
expensive crusades against both? And if they are not, why should
Agnostics and searchers after
truth in general, help bigoted and
narrow-minded materialists, sectarians and dogmatists to hide
our light under a bushel by mere brutal force
and usurped authority? It is easy to surprise the
good faith of the fair-minded. Still easier
to discredit that, which by its intrinsic strangeness, is
already unpopular and could hardly be
credited in its palmiest days. "We welcome no
supposition so eagerly as one which accords
with and intensifies our own prejudices" says, in
Don Jesualdo, a popular author. Therefore, facts become often
cunningly concocted "frauds";
and self-evident, glaring lies are accepted
as gospel truths at the first breeze of Don Basilio's
Calumnia, by those to whose hard-crusted pre-conceptions such slander
is like heavenly dew.
But, beloved enemies, "the light of
Lucifer" may, after all, dispel some of the surrounding
darkness. The mighty roaring voice of
denunciation, so welcome to those whose little spites and
hates and mental stagnation in the grasp of
the social respectability it panders to, may yet be
silenced by the voice of truth -- "the
still small voice" -- whose destiny it ever was to first preach
in the desert. That cold and artificial light
which still seems to shine so dazzlingly over the
alleged iniquities of professional mediums
and the supposed sins of commission and omission of
non-professional experimentalists, of free and independent theosophists, may
yet be extinguished
at the height of all its glory. For it is not
quite the perpetual lamp of the alchemist philosopher.
Still less is it that "light which never
shone on sea or land," that ray of divine intuition, the spark
which glimmers latent in the spiritual,
never-erring perceptions of man and woman, and which is
now awakening -- for its time is at hand. A
few years more, and the Aladdin's lamp, which called
forth the ministering genius thereof, who,
making three salutes to the public, proceeded forthwith
to devour mediums and theosophists, like a
juggler who swallows swords at a village fair, will
get out of order. Its light, over which the
anti-theosophists are crowing victory to this day, shall
get dim. And then, perhaps, it will be
discovered that what was claimed as a direct ray from the
source of eternal truth was no better than a
penny rush-light, in whose deceitful smoke and soot
people got hypnotized, and saw everything
upside down. It will be found that the hideous
monsters of fraud and imposture had no
existence outside the murky and dizzied brains of the
Aladdins on their journey of discovery. And
that, finally, the good people who listened to them,
had been all the time seeing sights and
hearing things under unconscious and mutual suggestion.
This is a scientific explanation, and
requires no black magicians or dugpas at work; for
"suggestion" as now practised by
the sorcerers of science is -- dugpaship itself, pur sang. No
Eastern "adept of the left hand"
can do more mischief by his infernal art than a grave hypnotizer
of the Faculty of Medicine, a disciple of
Charcot, or of any other scientific light of the first
magnitude. In Paris, as in St. Petersburg,
crimes have been committed under "suggestion."
Divorces have occurred, and husbands have
nearly killed their wives and their supposed
correspondents, owing to tricks played on
innocent and respectable women, who have thus had
their fair name and all their future life
blasted for ever. A son, under such influence, broke open
the desk of an avaricious father, who caught
him in the act, and nearly shot him in a fit of rage.
One of the keys of Occultism is in the hands
of science -- cold, heartless, materialistic, and
crassly ignorant of the other truly psychic
side of the phenomenon: hence, powerless to draw a
line of demarcation between the physiological
and the purely spiritual effects of the disease.
------------------
35
inoculated, and unable to prevent future
results and consequences of which it has no knowledge,
and over which it has, therefore, no control.
We find in the "Lotus" of
September, 1887, the following:
A French paper, the Paris, for August
12th, contains a long and excellent article
by G. Montorgueil, entitled, The Accursed
Sciences, from which we extract the
following passage, since we are,
unfortunately, unable to quote the whole:
"Some months ago, already, in I forget
what case, the question of 'suggestion' was
raised and taken account of by the judges. We
shall certainly see people in the
dock accused of occult malpractices. But how
will the prosecution go to work?
What arguments will it bring to bear? The
crime by 'suggestion' is the ideal of a
crime without proof. In such a case the
gravest charges will never be more than
presumptions, and fugitive presumptions. On
what fragile scaffolding of
suspicions will the charge rest? No
examination, but a moral one, will be possible.
We shall have to resign ourselves to hearing
the Solicitor-general say to the
accused: 'Accused, it appears from a
perquisition made into your brain, etc.'
"Ah, the poor jurymen! it is they who
are to be pitied. Taking their task to heart,
they already have the greatest difficulty in
separating the true from the false, even
in rough and ready cases, the facts of which
are obvious, all the details of which
are tangible and the responsibilities clear.
And we are going to ask them on their
soul and conscience to decide questions of
black magic! Verily their reason will
not hold out through the fortnight; it will
give way before that and sink into
thaumaturgy.
"We move fast. The strange trials for
sorcery will blossom anew; somnambules
who were merely grotesque will appear in a
tragic light; the coffee grounds,
which so far only risked the police court,
will hear their sentence at the assizes.
The evil eye will figure among criminal
offences. These last years of the XIXth
century will have seen us step from progress
to progress, till we reach at last this
judicial enormity: a second Laubardemont
prosecuting another Urbain Grandier."
Serious, scientific, and political papers are
full of earnest discussions on the subject. A St.
Petersburg "Daily" has a long feuilleton
on the "Bearing of Hypnotic Suggestions upon Criminal
Law." "Cases of Hypnotism with
criminal motives have of late begun to increase in an ever
progressing ratio," it tells its
readers. And it is not the only newspaper, nor is Russia the only
country where the same tale is told. Careful
investigations and researches have been made by
distinguished lawyers and medical authorities.
Data have been assiduously collected and have
revealed that the curious phenomenon -- which
sceptics have hitherto derided, and young people
have included among their evening petits
jeux innocents -- is a new and terrible danger to state
and society.
Two facts have now become patent to law and
science:.
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36
(I) That, in the perceptions of the
hypnotized subject, the visionary representations called forth
by "suggestion," become real
existing actualities, the subject being, for the moment, the
automatic executor of the will of the
hypnotizer; and --
(II) That the great majority of persons
experimented upon, is subject to hypnotic suggestion.
Thus Liebeault found only sixty subjects
intractable out of the seven hundred he experimented
upon; and Bernheim, out of 1,014 subjects,
failed with only twenty-six. The field for the natural-born
jadoo-wala (sorcery-mongers), is vast indeed! Evil has acquired a
play-ground on which it
may now exercise its sway upon many a
generation of unconscious victims. For crimes undreamt
of in the waking state, and felonies of the
blackest dye, are now invited and encouraged by the
new "accursed science." The real
perpetrators of these deeds of darkness may now remain for
ever hidden from the vengeance of human
justice. The hand which executes the criminal
suggestion is only that of an irresponsible
automaton, whose memory preserves no trace of it,
and who, moreover, is a witness who can
easily be disposed of by compulsory suicide -- again
under "suggestion." What better
means than these could be offered to the fiends of lust and
revenge, to those dark Powers -- called human
passions -- ever on the look out to break the
universal commandment: "Thou shalt not
steal, nor murder, nor lust after thy neighbor's wife?"
Liebeault suggested to a young girl
that she should poison herself with prussic acid, and she
swallowed the supposed drug without one
moment's hesitation; Dr. Liegois suggested to a young
woman that she owed him 5,000 francs, and the
subject forthwith signed a check for the amount.
Bernheim suggested to another
hysterical girl a long and complicated vision with regard to a
criminal case. Two days after, although the
hypnotizer had not exercised any new pressure upon
her in the interim, she repeated distinctly
the whole suggested story to a lawyer sent to her for the
purpose. Had her evidence been seriously
accepted, it would have brought the accused to the
guillotine.
These cases present two dark and terrible
aspects. From the moral stand point, such processes
and suggestions leave an indelible
stain upon the purity of the subject's nature. Even the innocent
mind of a ten year old child can thus be
inoculated with vice, the poison-germ of which will
develop in his subsequent life.
On the judicial aspect it is needless to
enter in great detail. Suffice to say that it is this
characteristic feature of the hypnotic state
-- the absolute surrender of will and self-consciousness
to the hypnotizer -- which possesses such
importance, from its bearing upon
crime, in the eyes of legal authorities. For
if the hypnotizer has the subject entirely at his beck
and call, so that he can cause him to commit
any crime, acting, so to say, invisibly within him,
then what are not the terrible "judicial
mistakes" to be expected? What wonder then, that the
jurisprudence of one country after the other
has taken alarm, and is devising, one after the other,
measures for repressing the exercise of
hypnotism! In Denmark it has just been forbidden.
Scientists have experimented upon sensitives
with so much success that a hypnotized victim has
been jeered and hooted through the streets on
his way to commit a crime, which he would have
completed unconsciously, had not the victim
been warned beforehand by the hypnotizer.
In Brussels a recent and sad case is
well-known to all. A young girl of good family was seduced
while in a hypnotized state by a man who had
first subjected her to his influence at a social.
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37
gathering. She only realized her condition a
few months later, when her relatives, who divined
the criminal, forced her seducer to make the
only possible reparation -- that of marrying his
victim.
The French Academy has just been debating the
question: how far a hypnotized subject, from a
mere victim, can become a regular tool of
crime. Of course, no jurist or legislator can remain
indifferent to this question; and it was
averred that the crimes committed under suggestion are so
unprecedented that some of them can hardly be
brought within the scope of the law. Hence the
prudent legal prohibition, just adopted in
France, which enacts that no person, save those legally
qualified to exercise the medical profession,
shall hypnotize any other person. Even the
physician who enjoys such legal right is
permitted to hypnotize a person only in the presence of
another qualified medical man, and with the
written permission of the subject. Public séances of
hypnotism are forbidden, and they are
strictly confined to medical cliniques and laboratories.
Those who break this law are liable to a
heavy fine and imprisonment.
But the keynote has been struck, and many are
the ways in which this black art may be used --
laws notwithstanding. That it will be so
used, the vile passions inherent in human nature are
sufficient guarantee.
Many and strange will be the romances yet
enacted; for truth is often stranger than fiction, and
what is thought fiction is still more often
truth.
No wonder then that occult literature is
growing with every day. Occultism and sorcery are in the
air, with no true philosophical knowledge to
guide the experimenters and thus check evil results.
"Works of fiction," the
various novels and romances are called. "Fiction" in the arrangement
of
their characters and the adventures of their
heroes and heroines -- admitted. Not so, as to the
facts presented.
These are no fictions, but true presentiments of what lies in the
bosom of the
future, and much of which is already born --
nay corroborated by scientific experiments. Sign of
the times! Close of a psychic cycle! The time
for phenomena with, or through mediums, whether
professional or otherwise, is gone by. It was
the early season of the blossoming, of the era
mentioned even in the Bible (1); the tree of
Occultism is now preparing for "fruiting," and the
Spirit of the Occult is awakening in the
blood of the new generations. If the old men only "dream
dreams," the young ones see already
visions (2),
and -- record them in novels and works of
fiction. Woe to the ignorant and the
unprepared, and those who listen to the sirens of
materialistic science! For indeed, indeed,
many will be the unconscious crimes committed, and
many will be the victims who will innocently
suffer death by hanging and decapitation at the
hands of the righteous judges and the too
innocent jurymen, both alike ignorant of the fiendish
power of "SUGGESTION."
FOOTNOTES:
1. "It shall come to pass that I will
pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall
dream dreams your young men shall see visions"
(Joel ii. 28). (return to text).
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2. It is curious to note that Mr. Louis Stevenson,
one of the most powerful of our imaginative
writers, stated recently to a reporter that
he is in the habit of constructing the plots of his tales in
dreams, and among others that of Dr. Jekyll. "I dreamed," he
continued, "the story of Olalla . . .
and I have at the present moment two
unwritten stories which I have likewise dreamed. . . . Even
when fast asleep I know that it is I who am
inventing." . . . But who knows whether the idea of
"invention" is not also "a
dream"! (return to text)
Psychic and Noetic Action
. . . I made man just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to
fall,
Such I created all th' ethereal powers
And spirits, both them who stood and them who
fail'd,
Truly, they stood who stood, and fell who
fell . . . -- Milton
. . . The assumption that the mind is a real
being, which can be acted upon by the
brain, and which can act on the body through
the brain, is the only one compatible
with all the facts of experience. -- George
T. Ladd, in the Elements of
Physiological Psychology
I
A new influence, a breath, a sound --
"as of a rushing mighty wind" -- has suddenly swept over a
few Theosophical heads. An idea, vague at
first, grew in time into a very definite form, and now
seems to be working very busily in the minds
of some of our members. It is this: if we would
make converts the few ex-occult teachings,
which are destined to see the light of publicity,
should be made, henceforward, more
subservient to, if not entirely at one with modern science. It
is urged that the so-called esoteric (1) (or late esoteric)
cosmogony, anthropology, ethnology,
geology -- psychology and, foremost of all,
metaphysics -- having been adapted into making
obeisance to modern (hence materialistic)
thought, should never henceforth be allowed to
contradict (not openly, at all events)
"scientific philosophy." The latter, we suppose, means the
fundamental and accepted views of the great
German schools, or of Mr. Herbert Spencer and
some other English stars of lesser magnitude;
and not only these, but also the deductions that
may be drawn from them by their more or less
instructed disciples.
A large undertaking this, truly; and one,
moreover, in perfect conformity with the policy of the
mediaeval Casuists, who distorted truth and
even suppressed it, if it clashed with divine
Revelation. Useless to say that we decline the compromise. It is quite
possible -- nay, probable
and almost unavoidable -- that "the
mistakes made" in the rendering of such abstruse
metaphysical tenets as those contained in
Eastern Occultism, should be "frequent and often
important." But then all such have to be
traced back to the interpreters, not to the system itself.
They have to be corrected on the authority of
the same Doctrine, checked by the teachings grown
on the rich and steady soil of Gupta
Vidya, not by the speculations that blossom forth today, to
die tomorrow -- on the shifting sands of
modern scientific guesswork, especially in all that.
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relates to psychology and mental phenomena.
Holding to our motto, "There is no religion higher
than truth," we refuse most decidedly to
pander to physical science. Yet, we may say this: If the
so-called exact sciences limited their
activity only to the physical realm of nature: if they
concerned themselves strictly with surgery,
chemistry -- up to its legitimate boundaries, and with
physiology -- so far as the latter relates to
the structure of our corporeal frame, then the
Occultists would be the first to seek help in
modern sciences, however many their blunders and
mistakes. But once that over-stepping
material Nature the physiologists of "animalistic" (2)
school pretend to meddle with, and deliver ex
cathedra dicta on, the higher functions and
phenomena of the mind, saying that a careful
analysis brings them to a firm conviction that no
more than the animal is man a free-agent, far
less a responsible one -- then the Occultist has a far
greater right than the average modern
"Idealist" to protest. And the Occultist asserts that no
materialist -- a prejudiced and one-sided
witness at best -- can claim any authority in the question
of mental physiology, or that which is now
called by him the physiology of the soul. No such
noun can be applied to the word
"soul," unless, indeed, by soul only the lower, psychic mind
is
meant, or that which develops in man
(proportionally with the perfection of his brain) into
intellect, and in the animal into a higher instinct. But since
the great Charles Darwin taught that
"our ideas are animal motions of
the organ of sense" everything becomes possible to the modern
physiologist.
Thus, to the great distress of our
scientifically inclined Fellows, it is once more Lucifer's duty to
show how far we are at loggerheads with exact
science, or shall we say, how far the conclusions
of that science are drifting away from truth
and fact. By "science" we mean, of course, the
majority of the men of science; the best
minority, we are happy to say, is on our side, at least as
far as free will in man and the immateriality
of the mind are concerned. The study of the
"Physiology" of the Soul, of the
Will in man and of his higher Consciousness from the
standpoint of genius and its manifesting
faculties, can never be summarized into a system of
general ideas represented by brief formulae;
no more than the psychology of material nature can
have its manifold mysteries solved by the
mere analysis of its physical phenomena. There is no
special organ of will, any more than there is a physical basis for the
activities of self-consciousness.
"If the question is pressed as to the physical
basis for the activities of self-consciousness,
no answer can be given or suggested. . . .
From its very nature, that
marvelous verifying actus of mind in
which it recognizes the states as its own, can
have no analogous or corresponding material
substratum. It is impossible to
specify any physiological process
representing this unifying actus; it is even
impossible to imagine how the description of
any such process could be brought
into intelligible relation with this unique
mental power." (3)
Thus, the whole conclave of
psycho-physiologists may be challenged to correctly define
Consciousness, and they are sure to fail,
because Self-consciousness belongs alone to man and
proceeds from the SELF, the higher Manas.
Only, whereas the psychic element (or Kama-manas)
(4) is
common to both the animal and the human being -- the far higher degree of its
development in the latter resting merely on
the greater perfection and sensitiveness of his
cerebral cells -- no physiologist, not even
the cleverest, will ever be able to solve the mystery of
the human mind, in its highest spiritual
manifestation, or in its dual aspect of the psychic and the.
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noetic (or
the manasic), (5) or even to comprehend the intricacies of the former on
the purely
material plane -- unless he knows something
of, and is prepared to admit the presence of this
dual element. This means that he would have
to admit a lower (animal), and a higher (or divine)
mind in man, or what is known in Occultism as
the "personal" and the "impersonal" Egos. For,
between the psychic and the noetic,
between the personality and the individuality, there exists
the
same abyss as between a "Jack the
Ripper," and a holy Buddha. Unless the physiologist accepts
all this, we say, he will ever be led into a
quagmire. We intend to prove it.
As all know, the great majority of our
learned "Didymi" reject the idea of free will. Now this
question is a problem that has occupied the
minds of thinkers for ages; every school of thought
having taken it up in turn and left it as far
from solution as ever. And yet, placed as it is in the
foremost ranks of philosophical quandaries,
the modern "psycho-physiologists" claim in the
coolest and most bumptious way to have cut
the Gordian knot for ever. For them the feeling of
personal free agency is an error, an
illusion, "the collective hallucination of mankind." This
conviction starts from the principle that no
mental activity is possible without a brain, and that
there can be no brain without a body. As the
latter is, moreover, subject to the general laws of a
material world where all is based on
necessity, and where there is no spontaneity, our modern
psycho-physiologist has nolens volens to
repudiate any self-spontaneity in human action. Here
we have, for instance, a Lausanne professor
of physiology, A. A. Herzen, to whom the claim of
free will in man appears as the most unscientific
absurdity. Says this oracle: --
"In the boundless physical and chemical
laboratory that surrounds man, organic
life represents quite an unimportant group of
phenomena; and amongst the latter,
the place occupied by life having reached to
the stage of consciousness, is so
minute that it is absurd to exclude man from
the sphere of action of a general law,
in order to allow in him the existence of a
subjective spontaneity or a free will
standing outside of that law" --
Psychophysiologie Generale
For the Occultist who knows the difference
between the psychic and the noetic elements in man,
this is pure trash, notwithstanding its sound
scientific basis. For when the author puts the
question -- if psychic phenomena do not
represent the results of an action of a molecular
character whither then does motion disappear
after reaching the sensory centers? -- we answer
that we never denied the fact. But what has
this to do with a free will? That every phenomenon in
the visible Universe has its genesis in
motion, is an old axiom in Occultism; nor do we doubt that
the psycho-physiologist would place himself
at loggerheads with the whole conclave of exact
scientists were he to allow the idea that at
a given moment a whole series of physical phenomena
may disappear in the vacuum. Therefore, when
the author of the work cited maintains that the
said force does not disappear upon reaching
the highest nervous centers, but that it is forthwith
transformed into another series, viz., that
of psychic manifestations, into thought, feeling, and
consciousness, just as this same psychic
force when applied to produce some work of a physical
(e.g., muscular) character gets transformed
into the latter -- Occultism supports him, for it is the
first to say that all psychic activity, from
its lowest to its highest manifestations, is "nothing but --
motion."
Yes; it is MOTION; but not all
"molecular" motion, as the writer means us to infer. Motion as
the GREAT BREATH (vide Secret Doctrine,
vol. I, sub voce) -- ergo "sound" at the same time --.
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41
is the substratum of Kosmic-Motion. It is
beginningless and endless, the one eternal life, the
basis and genesis of the subjective and the
objective universe; for LIFE (or Be-ness) is the fons et
origo of
existence or being. But molecular motion is the lowest and most material of its
finite
manifestations. And if the general law of the
conservation of energy leads modern science to the
conclusion that psychic activity only
represents a special form of motion, this same law, guiding
the Occultists, leads them also to the same
conviction -- and to something else besides, which
psycho-physiology leaves entirely out of all
consideration. If the latter has discovered only in
this century that psychic (we say even
spiritual) action is subject to the same general and
immutable laws of motion as any other
phenomenon manifested in the objective realm of
Kosmos, and that in both the organic and the inorganic
(?) worlds every manifestation, whether
conscious or unconscious, represents but the
result of a collectivity of causes, then in Occult
philosophy this represents merely the A, B,
C, of its science. "All the world is the Svara; Svara
is the Spirit itself" -- the ONE LIFE or
motion, say the old books of Hindu Occult philosophy.
"The proper translation of the word Svara
is the current of the life wave," says the author of
Nature's Finer Forces, (6) and he goes on to explain: --
It is that wavy motion which is the cause of
the evolution of cosmic
undifferentiated matter into the
differentiated universe. . . . From whence does this
motion come? This motion is the spirit
itself. The word atma (universal soul) used
in the book (vide infra), itself
carries the idea of eternal motion, coming as it does
from the root, AT, or eternal motion; and it
may be significantly remarked, that
the root AT is connected with, is in fact
simply another form of, the roots AH,
breath, and AS, being. All these roots have
for their origin the sound produced by
the breath of animals (living beings). . . .
The primeval current of the life-wave is
then the same which assumes in man the form
of inspiratory and expiratory
motion of the lungs, and this is the
all-pervading source of the evolution and
involution of the universe. . . .
So much about motion and the
"conservation of energy" from old books on magic written and
taught ages before the birth of inductive and
exact modern science. For what does the latter say
more then these books in speaking, for
instance, about animal mechanism, when it says: --
From the visible atom to the celestial body
lost in space, everything is subject to
motion . . . kept at a definite distance one
from the other, in proportion to the
motion which animates them, the molecules
present constant relations, which they
lose only by the addition or the subtraction
of a certain quantity of motion. (7)
But Occultism says more than this. While
making of motion on the material plane and of the
conservation of energy, two fundamental laws,
or rather two aspects of the same omnipresent
law -- Svara, it denies point blank
that these have anything to do with the free will of man which
belongs to quite a different plane. The
author of Psychophysiologie Generale, treating of his
discovery that psychic action is but motion, and the result of a
collectivity of causes -- remarks
that as it is so, there cannot be any further
discussion upon spontaneity -- in the sense of any
native internal proneness created by the
human organism; and adds that the above puts an end to
all claim for free will! The Occultist
denies the conclusion. The actual fact of man's psychic (we
say manasic or noetic) individuality
is a sufficient warrant against the assumption; for in the case.
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of this conclusion being correct, or being
indeed, as the author expresses it, the collective
hallucination of the whole mankind
throughout the ages, there would be an end
also to psychic
individuality.
Now by "psychic" individuality we
mean that self-determining power which enables man to
override circumstances. Place half a dozen
animals of the same species under the same
circumstances, and their actions while not
identical, will be closely similar; place half a dozen
men under the same circumstances and their
actions will be as different as their characters, i.e.,
their psychic individuality.
But if instead of "psychic" we call
it the higher Self-conscious Will, then having been shown by
the science of psycho-physiology itself that
will has no special organ, how will the materialists
connect it with "molecular" motion
at all? As Professor George T. Ladd says: --
"The phenomena of human consciousness
must be regarded as activities of some
other form of Real Being than the moving
molecules of the brain. They require a
subject or ground which is in its nature
unlike the phosphorized fats of the central
masses, the aggregated nerve-fibers of
nerve-cells of the cerebral cortex. This
Real Being thus manifested immediately to
itself in the phenomena of
consciousness, and indirectly to others
through the bodily changes, is the Mind
[manas].
To it the mental phenomena are to be attributed as showing what it is by
what it does. The so-called mental
'faculties' are only the modes of the behavior in
consciousness of this real being. We actually
find, by the only method available,
that this real being called Mind believes in
certain perpetually recurring modes:
therefore, we attribute to it certain
faculties. . . . Mental faculties are not entities
that have an existence of themselves. . . .
They are the modes of the behavior in
consciousness of the mind. And the very
nature of the classifying acts which lead
to their being distinguished, is explicable
only upon the assumption that a Real
being called Mind exists, and is to be distinguished from the real being known as
the physical molecules of the brain's nervous
mass." (8)
And having shown that we have to regard
consciousness as a unit (another occult proposition)
the author adds: --
We conclude, then, from the previous
considerations: the subject of all the states
of consciousness is a real unit-being,
called Mind; which is of non-material
nature, and acts and develops according to
laws of its own, but is specially
correlated with certain material molecules
and masses forming the substance of
the Brain." (9)
This "Mind" is manas, or
rather its lower reflection, which whenever it disconnects itself, for the
time being, with kama, becomes the
guide of the highest mental faculties, and is the organ of the
free will in physical man. Therefore, this
assumption of the newest psycho-physiology is
uncalled for, and the apparent impossibility
of reconciling the existence of free will with the law
of the conservation of energy is -- a pure
fallacy. This was well shown in the "Scientific Letters"
of "Elpay" in a criticism of the
work. But to prove it finally and set the whole question definitely.
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43
at rest, does not even require so high an
interference (high for us, at any rate) as the Occult laws,
but simply a little common sense. Let us
analyze the question dispassionately.
It is postulated by one man, presumably a
scientist, that because "psychic action is found subject
to the general and immutable laws of motion,
there is, therefore, no free will in man." The
"analytical method of exact
sciences" has demonstrated it, and materialistic scientists have
decreed to "pass the resolution"
that the fact should be so accepted by their followers. But there
are other and far greater scientists who
thought differently. For instance, Sir William Lawrence,
the eminent surgeon, declared in his lectures
(10) that:
The philosophical doctrine of the soul, and
its separate existence, has nothing to
do with this physiological question, but
rests on a species of proof altogether
different. These sublime dogmas could never
have been brought to light by the
labors of the anatomist and physiologist. An
immaterial and spiritual being could
not have been discovered amid the blood and
filth of the dissecting room.
Now, let us examine on the testimony of the
materialist how this universal solvent called the
"analytical method" is applied in
this special case. The author of the Psychophysiologie
decomposes psychic activity into its compound
elements, traces them back to motion, and,
failing to find in them the slightest trace
of free will or spontaneity, jumps at the conclusion that
the latter have no existence in general; nor
are they to be found in that psychic activity which he
has just decomposed. "Are not the
fallacy and error of such an unscientific proceeding self-evident?"
asks his critic; and then argues very
correctly that: --
At this rate, and starting from the
standpoint of this analytical method, one would
have an equal right to deny every phenomenon
in nature from first to last. For, do
not sound and light, heat and electricity,
like all other chemical processes, once
decomposed into their respective elements,
lead the experimenter back to the
same motion, wherein all the peculiarities of
the given elements disappear leaving
behind them only 'the vibrations of
molecules'? But does it necessarily follow that
for all that, heat, light, electricity -- are
but illusions instead of the actual
manifestations of the peculiarities of our
real world? Such peculiarities are not, of
course, to be found in compound elements,
simply because we cannot expect that
a part should contain, from first to last,
the properties of the whole. What should
we say of a chemist, who, having decomposed
water into its compounds,
hydrogen and oxygen, without finding in them
the special characteristics of water
would maintain that such did not exist at all
nor could they be found in water?
What of an antiquary who upon examining
distributed type and finding no sense
in every separate letter, should assert that
there was no such thing as sense to be
found in any printed document? And does not
the author of 'Psychophysiology'
act just in this way when he denies the
existence of free will or self-spontaneity in
man, on the grounds that this distinctive
faculty of the highest psychic activity is
absent from those compound elements which he
has analyzed?
Most undeniably no separate piece of brick,
of wood, or iron, each of which has once been a part
of a building now in ruins, can be expected
to preserve the smallest trace of the architecture of.
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that building -- in the hands of the chemist,
at any rate; though it would in those of a
psychometer, a faculty by the bye, which demonstrates far more
powerfully the law of the
conservation of energy than any physical
science does, and shows it acting as much in the
subjective or psychic worlds as an the
objective and material planes. The genesis of sound, on
this plane, has to be traced back to the same
motion, and the same correlation of forces is at play
during the phenomenon as in the case of every
other manifestation. Shall the physicist, then, who
decomposes sound into its compound element of
vibrations and fails to find in them any
harmony or special melody, deny the existence
of the latter, And does not this prove that the
analytical method having to deal exclusively
with the elements, and nothing to do with their
combinations, leads the physicist to talk very glibly about motion,
vibration, and what not, and to
make him entirely lose sight of the harmony
produced by certain combinations of that motion or
the "harmony of vibrations"?
Criticism, then, is right in accusing Materialistic psycho-physiology
of neglecting these all-important
distinctions; in maintaining that if a careful
observation of facts is a duty in the
simplest physical phenomena, how much more should it be
so when applied to such complex and important
questions as psychic force and faculties? And
yet in most cases all such essential
differences are overlooked, and the analytical method is
applied in a most arbitrary and prejudiced
way. What wonder, then, if, in carrying back psychic
action to its basic elements of motion, the
psycho-physiologist depriving it during the process of
all its essential characteristics, should
destroy it, and having destroyed it, it only stands to reason
that he is unable to find that which exists
in it no longer. He forgets, in short, or rather purposely
ignores the fact, that though, like all other
phenomena on the material plane, psychic
manifestations must be related in
their final analysis to the world of vibration ("sound" being the
substratum of universal Akasa), yet, in their origin, they belong to a different and
a higher World
of HARMONY. Elpay has a few severe sentences
against the assumptions of those he calls
"physico-biologists" which are
worthy of note.
Unconscious of their error, the
psycho-physiologists identify the compound
elements of psychic activity with that
activity itself: hence the conclusion from
the standpoint of the analytical method, that
the highest, distinctive speciality of
the human soul -- free will, spontaneity --
is an illusion, and no psychic reality.
But as we have just shown, such
identification not only has nothing in common
with exact science, but is simply
impermissible, as it clashes with all the
fundamental laws of logic, in consequence of
which all these so-called physico-biological
deductions emanating from the said
identification vanish into thin air.
Thus to trace psychic action primarily to
motion, means in no way to prove the
'illusion of free will.' And, as in the case
of water, whose specific qualities cannot
be deprived of their reality although they
are not to be found in its compound
gases, so with regard to the specific
property of psychic action: its spontaneity
cannot be refused to psychic reality, though
this property is not contained in those
finite elements into which the
psycho-physiologist dismembers the activity in
question under his mental scalpel.
This method is "a distinctive feature of
modern science in its endeavor to satisfy inquiry into the
nature of
the objects of its investigation by a detailed description of their development,"
says G.
T. Ladd. And the author of The Elements of
Physiological Psychology adds: --.
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The universal process of 'Becoming' has been
almost personified and deified so as
to make it the true ground of all finite and
concrete existence. . . . The attempt is
made to refer all the so-called development
of the mind to the evolution of the
substance of the brain, under purely physical
and mechanical causes. This
attempt, then, denies that any real
unit-being called the Mind needs to be assumed
as undergoing a process of development
according to laws of its own. . . . On the
other hand, all attempts to account for the
orderly increase in complexity and
comprehensiveness of the mental phenomena by
tracing the physical evolution of
the brain are wholly unsatisfactory to many
minds. We have no hesitation in
classing ourselves among this number. Those
facts of experience which show a
correspondence in the order of the
development of the body and the mind, and
even a certain necessary dependence of the
latter upon the former, are, of course,
to be admitted; but they are equally
compatible with another view of the mind's
development. This other view has the
additional advantage that it makes room for
many other facts of experience which are very
difficult of reconciliation with any
materialistic theory. On the whole, the
history of each individual's experiences is
such as requires the assumption that a
real unit-being (a Mind) is undergoing
a
process of development, in relation to the
changing condition or evolution of the
brain, and yet in accordance with a nature
and laws of its own (p. 616).
How closely this last "assumption"
of science approaches the teachings of the Occult philosophy
will be shown in Part II of this article.
Meanwhile, we may close with an answer to the latest
materialistic fallacy, which may be
summarized in a few words. As every psychic action has for
its substratum the nervous elements whose
existence it postulates, and outside which it cannot
act; as the activity of the nervous elements
is only molecular motion, there is therefore no need to
invent a special and psychic Force for the
explanation of our brain work. Free-Will would force
Science to postulate an invisible Free-Willer,
a creator of that special Force.
We agree: "not the slightest need,"
of a creator of "that special" or any other Force. Nor has
anyone ever claimed such an absurdity. But
between creating and guiding, there is a difference
and the latter implies in no way any creation
of the energy of motion, or, indeed, of any special
energy. Psychic mind (in
contradistinction to manasic or noetic mind) only transforms this
energy of the "unit-being"
according to "a nature and laws of its own" -- to use Ladd's felicitous
expression. The "unit-being"
creates nothing but only causes a natural correlation in accordance
with both the psychical laws and laws of
its own; having to use the Force, it guides its direction,
choosing the paths along which it will
proceed, and stimulating it to action. And, as its activity is
sui generis, and independent, it carries this energy from this world of
disharmony into its own
sphere of harmony. Were it not independent
it could not do so. As it is, the freedom of man's will
is beyond doubt or cavil. Therefore, as
already observed, there is no question of creation, but
simply of guidance. Because the sailor
at the wheel does not create the steam in the engine, shall
we say that he does not direct the vessel?
And, because we refuse to accept the
fallacies of some psycho-physiologists as the last word of
science, do we furnish thereby a new proof
that free will is an hallucination? We deride the
animalistic idea. How far more scientific and logical, besides being as
poetical as it is grand, is
the teaching in the Kathopanishad, which,
in a beautiful and descriptive metaphor, says that:.
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"The senses are the horses, body is the
chariot, mind (kama-manas) is the reins, and intellect (or
free will) the charioteer." Verily, there is more exact science in the less
important of the
Upanishads, composed thousands of years ago, than in all the
materialistic ravings of modern
"physico-biology" and
"psychophysiology" put together!
II
The knowledge of the past, present, and
future, is embodied in Kshetrajna (the
"Self"). -- Occult Axioms
Having explained in what particulars, and
why, as Occultists, we disagree with materialistic
physiological psychology, we may now proceed
to point out the difference between psychic and
noetic mental functions, the noetic not being
recognized by official science.
Moreover, we, Theosophists, understand the
terms "psychic" and "psychism" somewhat
differently from the average public, science,
and even theology, the latter giving it a significance
which both science and Theosophy reject, and
the public in general remaining with a very hazy
conception of what is really meant by the
terms. For many, there is little, if any, difference
between "psychic" and
"psychological," both words relating in some way to the human soul.
Some modern metaphysicians have wisely agreed
to disconnect the word Mind (pneuma) from
Soul (psyche), the one being the
rational, spiritual part, the other -- psyche -- the living principle
in man, the breath that animates him
(from anima, soul). Yet, if this is so, how in this case refuse
a soul to animals? These are, no less
than man, informed with the same principle of sentient life,
the nephesh of the 2nd chapter of Genesis.
The Soul is by no means the Mind, nor can an idiot,
bereft of the latter, be called a
"soul-less" being. To describe, as the physiologists do, the human
Soul in its relations to senses and
appetites, desires and passions, common to man and the brute,
and then endow it with God-Like intellect,
with spiritual and rational faculties which can take
their source but in a supersensible world
-- is to throw for ever the veil of an impenetrable
mystery over the subject. Yet in modern
science, "psychology" and "psychism" relate only to
conditions of the nervous system, mental
phenomena being traced solely to molecular action.
The higher noetic character of the
Mind-Principle is entirely ignored, and even rejected, as a
"superstition" by both
physiologists and psychologists. Psychology, in fact, has become a
synonym in many cases for the science of
psychiatry. Therefore, students of Theosophy being
compelled to differ from all these, have
adopted the doctrine that underlies the time-honored
philosophies of the East. What it is, may be
found further on.
To better understand the foregoing arguments
and those which follow, the reader is asked to turn
to the editorial in the September Lucifer ("The
Dual Aspect of Wisdom," p. 3), and acquaint
himself with the double aspect of that
which is termed by St. James in his Third Epistle at once --
the devilish, terrestrial wisdom and
the "wisdom from above." In another editorial, "Kosmic
Mind" (April, 1890), it is also stated,
that the ancient Hindus endowed every cell in the human
body with consciousness, giving each the name
of a God or Goddess. Speaking of atoms in the
name of science and philosophy, Professor
Ladd calls them in his work "supersensible beings."
Occultism regards every atom (11) as an
"independent entity" and every cell as a "conscious.
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unit." It explains that no sooner do
such atoms group to form cells, than the latter become
endowed with consciousness, each of its own
kind, and with free will to act within the limits of
law. Nor are we entirely deprived of
scientific evidence for such statements as the two above
named editorials well prove. More than one
learned physiologist of the golden minority, in our
own day, moreover, is rapidly coming to the
conviction, that memory has no seat, no special
organ of its own in the human brain, but that
it has seats in every organ of the body.
"No good ground exists for speaking of
any special organ, or seat of memory," writes Professor
G. T. Ladd. (12) "Every organ, indeed, every area, and every limit
of the nervous system has its
own memory" (Elements of
Physiological Psychology, p. 553).
The seat of memory, then, is assuredly
neither here nor there, but everywhere throughout the
human body. To locate its organ in the brain
is to limit and dwarf the Universal Mind and its
countless Rays (the Manasaputra) which
inform every rational mortal. As we write for
Theosophists, first of all, we care little
for the psychophobian prejudices of the Materialists who
may read this and sniff contemptuously at the
mention of "Universal Mind" and the Higher
noetic souls
of men. But, what is memory, -- we ask. "Both presentation of sense
and image of
memory, are transitory phases of
consciousness," we are answered. But what is Consciousness
itself? -- we ask again. We cannot define
Consciousness, Professor Ladd tells us. (Ibid.) Thus,
that which we are asked to do by
physiological psychology is, to content ourselves with
controverting the various states of
Consciousness by other people's private and unverifiable
hypotheses; and this, on "questions of
cerebral physiology where experts and novices are alike
ignorant," to use the pointed remark of the said author. Hypothesis
for hypothesis, then, we may
as well hold to the teachings of our Seers,
as to the conjectures of those who deny both such
Seers and their wisdom. The more so, as we
are told by the same honest man of science, that "if
metaphysics and ethics cannot properly
dictate their facts and conclusions to the science of
physiological psychology . . . in turn this
science cannot properly dictate to metaphysics and
ethics the conclusions which they shall draw
from facts of Consciousness, by giving out its
myths and fables in the garb of well
ascertained history of the cerebral processes" (p.544).
Now, since the metaphysics of Occult
physiology and psychology postulate within mortal man
an immortal entity, "divine Mind,"
or Nous, whose pale and too often distorted reflection is that
which we call "Mind" and intellect
in men -- virtually an entity apart from the former during the
period of incarnation -- we say that the two
sources of "memory" are in these two "principles."
These two we distinguish as the Higher Manas
(Mind or Ego), and the Kama-Manas, i.e., the
rational, but earthly or physical intellect
of man, incased in, and bound by, matter, therefore
subject to the influence of the latter: the
all-conscious SELF, that which reincarnates periodically
-- verily the WORD made flesh! -- and which
is always the same, while its reflected "Double,"
changing with every new incarnation and
personality, is, therefore, conscious but for a life-period.
The latter "principle" is the Lower
Self, or that, which manifesting through our organic
system, acting on this plane of illusion, imagines
itself the Ego Sum, and thus falls into what
Buddhist philosophy brands as the
"heresy of separateness. "The former, we term
INDIVIDUALITY, the latter Personality. From
the first proceeds all the noetic element, from
the second, the psychic, i.e., "terrestrial
wisdom" at best, as it is influenced by all the chaotic
stimuli of the human or rather animal
passions of the living body..
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The "Higher EGO" cannot act
directly on the body, as its consciousness belongs to quite another
plane and planes of ideation: the
"lower" Self does: and its action and behavior depend on
its free
will and choice as to whether it will gravitate more towards its parent
("the Father in Heaven") or
the "animal" which it informs, the
man of flesh. The "Higher Ego," as part of the essence of the
UNIVERSAL MIND, is unconditionally omniscient
on its own plane, and only potentially so in
our terrestrial sphere, as it has to act
solely through its alter ego -- the Personal Self. Now,
although the former is the vehicle of all
knowledge of the past, the present, and the future, and
although it is from this fountain-head that
its "double" catches occasional glimpses of that which
is beyond the senses of man, and transmits
them to certain brain cells (unknown to science in
their function), thus making of man a Seer,
a soothsayer, and a prophet; yet the memory of
bygone events -- especially of the earth
earthy -- has its seat in the Personal Ego alone. No
memory of a purely daily-life function, of a
physical, egotistical, or of a lower mental nature --
such as, e.g., eating and drinking,
enjoying personal sensual pleasures, transacting business to the
detriment of one's neighbor, etc., etc., has
aught to do with the "Higher" Mind or EGO. Nor has it
any direct dealings on this physical plane
with either our brain or our heart -- for these two are
the organs of a power higher than the Personality
-- but only with our passional organs, such as
the liver, the stomach, the spleen, etc. Thus
it only stands to reason that the memory of such-like
events must be first awakened in that organ
which was the first to induce the action remembered
afterwards, and conveyed it to our
"sense-thought," which is entirely distinct from the
"supersensuous" thought. It is only the higher forms of the latter, the superconscious
mental
experience, that can correlate with the
cerebral and cardiac centers. The memories of physical
and selfish (or personal) deeds, on
the other hand, together with the mental experiences of a
terrestrial nature, and of earthly biological
functions, can, of necessity, only be correlated with
the molecular constitution of various Kamic
organs, and the "dynamical associations" of the
elements of the nervous system in each
particular organ.
Therefore, when Professor Ladd, after showing
that every element of the nervous system has a
memory of its own, adds: -- "This view
belongs to the very essence of every theory which
considers conscious mental reproduction as
only one form or phase of the biological fact of
organic memory" -- he must include among
such theories the Occult teaching. For no Occultist
could express such teaching more correctly
than the Professor, who says, in winding up his
argument: "We might properly speak,
then, of the memory of the end-organ of vision or of
hearing, of the memory of the spinal cord and
of the different so-called 'centers' of reflex action
belonging to the chords of the memory of the
medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, etc." This is the
essence of Occult teaching -- even in the
Tantra works. Indeed, every organ in our body has its
own memory. For if it is endowed with a consciousness "of its own
kind," every cell must of
necessity have also a memory of its own kind,
as likewise its own psychic and noetic action.
Responding to the touch of both a physical
and a metaphysical Force, (12) the impulse given by
the psychic (or psycho-molecular)
Force will act from without within; while that of the noetic
(shall we call it Spiritual-dynamical?) Force
works from within without. For, as our body is the
covering of the inner "principles,"
soul, mind, life, etc., so the molecule or the cell is the body in
which dwell its "principles," the
(to our sense and comprehension) immaterial atoms which
compose that cell. The cell's activity and
behavior are determined by its being propelled either
inwardly or outwardly, by the noetic or the
psychic Force, the former having no relation to the
physical cells proper. Therefore, while the latter act under the
unavoidable law of the
conservation and correlation of physical
energy, the atoms -- being psycho-spiritual, not physical.
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units -- act under laws of their own, just as Professor Ladd's "Unit-Being," which is
our "Mind-Ego,"
does, in his very philosophical and
scientific hypothesis. Every human organ and each cell
in the latter has a key-board of its own,
like that of a piano, only that it registers and emits
sensations instead of sounds. Every key
contains the potentiality of good or bad, of producing
harmony or disharmony. This depends on the
impulse given and the combinations produced; an
the force of the touch of the artist at work,
a "double-faced Unity," indeed. And it is the action of
this or the other "Face" of the
Unity that determines the nature and the dynamical character of the
manifested phenomena as a resulting action,
and this whether they be physical or mental. For the
whole life of man is guided by this
double-faced Entity. If the impulse comes from the "Wisdom
above," the Force applied being noetic
or spiritual, the results will be actions worthy of the
divine propeller; if from the
"terrestrial, devilish wisdom" (psychic power), man's activities will
be selfish, based solely on the exigencies of
his physical, hence animal, nature. The above may
sound to the average reader as pure nonsense;
but every Theosophist must understand when told
that there are Manasic as well as Kamic
organs in him, although the cells of his body answer to
both physical and spiritual impulses.
Verily that body, so desecrated by
Materialism and man himself, is the temple of the Holy Grail,
the Adytum of the grandest, nay, of
all, the mysteries of nature in our solar universe. That body is
an Aeolian harp, chorded with two sets of
strings, one made of pure silver, the other of catgut.
When the breath from the divine Fiat brushes
softly over the former, man becomes like unto his
God -- but the other set feels it not. It
needs the breeze of a strong terrestrial wind, impregnated
with animal effluvia, to set its animal
chords vibrating. It is the function of the physical, lower
mind to act upon the physical organs and
their cells; but, it is the higher mind alone which can
influence the atoms interacting in these
cells, which interaction is alone capable of exciting the
brain, via the spinal "center"
cord, to a mental representation of spiritual ideas far beyond any
objects on this material plane. The phenomena
of divine consciousness have to be regarded as
activities of our mind on another and a
higher plane, working through something less substantial
than the moving molecules of the brain. They
cannot be explained as the simple resultant of the
cerebral physiological processes, as indeed
the latter only condition them or give them a final
form for purposes of concrete manifestation.
Occultism teaches that the liver and the spleen-cells
are the most subservient to the action of our
"personal" mind, the heart being the organ par
excellence through which the "Higher" Ego acts -- through
the Lower Self.
Nor can the visions or memory of purely
terrestrial events be transmitted directly through the
mental perceptions in the brain -- the direct
recipient of the impressions of the heart. All such
recollections have to be first stimulated by
and awakened in the organs which were the
originators, as already stated, of the
various causes that led to the results, or, the direct recipients
and participators of the latter. In other
words, if what is called "association of ideas" has much to
do with the awakening of memory, the mutual
interaction and consistent inter-relation between
the personal "Mind-Entity" and the
organ of the human body have far more so. A hungry
stomach evokes the vision of a past banquet,
because its action is reflected and repeated in the
personal mind. But even before the memory of the personal Self
radiates the vision from the
tablets wherein are stored the experiences of
one's daily life -- even to the minutest details -- the
memory of the stomach has already evoked the
same. And so with all the organs of the body. It
is they which originate according to their
animal needs and desires the electro-vital sparks that
illuminate the field of consciousness in the
Lower Ego; and it is these sparks which in their turn.
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awaken to function the reminiscences in it.
The whole human body is, as said, a vast sounding
board, in which each cell bears a long record
of impressions connected with its parent organ, and
each cell has a memory and a consciousness of
its kind, or call it instinct if you will. These
impressions are, according to the nature of
the organ, physical, psychic, or mental, as they relate
to this or another plane. They may be called
"states of consciousness" only for the want of a
better expression -- as there are states of
instinctual, mental, and purely abstract, or spiritual
consciousness. If we trace all such
"psychic" actions to brain-work, it is only because in that
mansion called the human body the brain is
the front-door, and the only one which opens out into
Space. All the others are inner doors,
openings in the private building, through which travel
incessantly the transmitting agents of memory
and sensation. The clearness, the vividness, and
intensity of these depend on the state of
health and the organic soundness of the transmitters. But
their reality, in the sense of trueness or
correctness, is due to the "principle" they originate from,
and the preponderance in the Lower Manas of
the noetic or the phrenic ("Kamic," terrestrial)
element.
For, as Occultism teaches, if the Higher
Mind-Entity -- the permanent and the immortal -- is of
the divine homogeneous essence of
"Alaya-Akasa," (13) or Mahat -- its reflection, the Personal
Mind, is, as a temporary
"Principle," of the Substance of the Astral Light. As a pure ray of
the
"Son of the Universal Mind," it
could perform no functions in the body, and would remain
powerless over the turbulent organs of
Matter. Thus, while its inner constitution is Manasic, its
"body," or rather functioning
essence, is heterogeneous, and leavened with the Astral Light, the
lowest element of Ether. It is a part of the
mission of the Manasic Ray, to get gradually rid of the
blind, deceptive element which though it
makes of it an active spiritual entity on this plane, still
brings it into so close contact with matter
as to entirely becloud its divine nature and stultify its
intuitions.
This leads us to see the difference between
the pure noetic and the terrestrial psychic visions of
seership and mediumship. The former can be
obtained by one of two means: (a) on the condition
of paralyzing at will the memory and
the instinctual, independent action of all the material organs
and even cells in the body of flesh, an act
which, once that the light of the Higher Ego has
consumed and subjected for ever the passional
nature of the personal, lower Ego, is easy, but
requires an adept; and (b) of being a
reincarnation of one, who, in a previous birth, had attained
through extreme purity of life and efforts in
the right direction almost to a Yogi-state of holiness
and saintship. There is also a third
possibility of reaching in mystic visions the plane of the
higher Manas; but it is only occasional and
does not depend on the will of the Seer, but on the
extreme weakness and exhaustion of the
material body through illness and suffering. The Seeress
of Prevorst was an instance of the latter
case; and Jacob Boehme of our second category. In all
other cases of abnormal seership, of
so-called clairaudience, clairvoyance and trances, it is
simply -- mediumship.
Now what is a medium? The term medium, when
not applied simply to things and objects, is
supposed to be a person through whom the
action of another person or being is either manifested
or transmitted. Spiritualists believing in
communications with disembodied spirits, and that these
can manifest through, or impress sensitives
to transmit "messages" from them, regard
mediumship as a blessing and a great privilege.
We Theosophists, on the other hand, who do not
believe in the "communion of
spirits" as Spiritualists do, regard the gift as one of the most.
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dangerous of abnormal nervous diseases. A
medium is simply one in whose personal Ego, or
terrestrial mind (psyche), the
percentage of "astral" light so preponderates as to impregnate with
it their whole physical constitution. Every
organ and cell thereby is attuned, so to speak, and
subjected to an enormous and abnormal
tension. The mind is ever on the plane of, and quite
immersed in, that deceptive light whose soul
is divine, but whose body -- the light waves on the
lower planes, infernal; for they are but the
black and disfigured reflections of the earth's
memories. The untrained eye of the poor
sensitive cannot pierce the dark mist, the dense fog of
the terrestrial emanations, to see beyond in
the radiant field of the eternal truths. His vision is out
of focus. His senses, accustomed from his
birth, like those of a native of the London slums, to
stench and filth, to the unnatural
distortions of sights and images tossed on the kaleidoscopic
waves of the astral plane -- are unable to
discern the true from the false. And thus, the pale
soulless corpses moving in the trackless
fields of "Kama loka," appear to him the living images
of the "dear departed" ones; the
broken echoes of once human voices, passing through his mind,
suggest to him well coordinated phrases,
which he repeats, in ignorance that their final form and
polish were received in the innermost depths
of his own brain-factory. And hence the sight and
the hearing of that which if seen in its true
nature would have struck the medium's heart cold
with horror, now fills him with a sense of
beatitude and confidence. He really believes that the
immeasurable vistas displayed before him are
the real spiritual world, the abode of the blessed
disembodied angels.
We describe the broad main features and facts
of mediumship, there being no room in such an
article for exceptional cases. We maintain --
having unfortunately passed at one period of life
personally through such experiences -- that on the whole, mediumship
is most dangerous; and
psychic experiences when accepted indiscriminately lead only to honestly
deceiving others,
because the medium is the first self-deceived
victim. Moreover, a too close association with the
"Old Terrestrial Serpent" is
infectious. The odic and magnetic currents of the Astral Light often
incite to murder, drunkenness, immorality,
and, as Eliphas Levi expresses it, the not altogether
pure natures "can be driven headlong by
the blind forces set in motion in the Light" -- by the
errors and sins imposed on its waves.
And this is how the great Mage of the XIXth
century corroborates the foregoing when speaking
of the Astral Light: --
We have said that to acquire magical power,
two things are necessary: to
disengage the will from all servitude, and to
exercise it in control.
The sovereign will [of the adept] is represented
in our symbols by the woman who
crushes the serpent's head, and by the
resplendent angel who represses the dragon,
and holds him under his foot and spear; the
great magical agent, the dual current
of light, the living and astral fire of
the earth, has been represented in the ancient
theogonies by the serpent with the head of a
bull, a ram, or a dog. It is the double
serpent of the caduceus, it is the Old
Serpent of Genesis, but it is also the brazen
serpent of Moses entwined around the tau, that is to say, the generative lingam.
It
is also the goat of the witch-sabbath, and
the Baphomet of the Templars; it is the
Hyle of
the Gnostics; it is the double-tailed serpent which forms the legs of the
solar cock of die Abraxas; finally, it is the
Devil of M. Eudes de Mirville. But in.
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very fact it is the blind force which souls
[i.e., the lower Manas or Nephesh] have
to conquer to liberate themselves from the
bonds of the earth; for if their will does
not free 'them from this fatal attraction,
they will be absorbed in the current by
the force which has produced them, and will
return to the central and eternal fire.
(14)
The "central and eternal fire" is
that disintegrating Force, that gradually consumes and burns out
the Kama-rupa, or
"personality," in the Kama-loka, whither it goes after death. And
verily, the
Mediums are attracted by the astral light, it
is the direct cause of their personal "souls" being
absorbed "by the force which has
produced" their terrestrial elements. And, therefore, as the
same Occultist tells us:
All the magical operations consist in freeing
one's self from the coils of the
Ancient Serpent; then to place the foot on
its head, and lead it according to the
operator's will. 'I will give unto thee,'
says the Serpent, in the Gospel myth, 'all the
kingdoms of the earth, if thou wilt fall down
and worship me.' The initiated
should reply to him, 'I will not fall down,
but thou shalt crouch at my feet; thou
wilt give me nothing, but I will make use of
thee and take whatever I wish. For I
am thy Lord and Master!'
And as such, the Personal Ego, becoming at
one with its divine parent, shares in the immortality
of the latter. Otherwise . . .
Enough, however. Blessed is he who has
acquainted himself with the dual powers at work in the
ASTRAL Light; thrice blessed he who has
learned to discern the noetic from the Psychic action
of the "Double-Faced" God in him,
and who knows the potency of his own Spirit -- or "Soul
Dynamics."
FOOTNOTES:
1. We say "so-called," because
nothing of what has been given out publicly or in print can any
longer be termed esoteric. (return to text)
2. "Animalism" is quite an
appropriate word to use (whoever invented it) as a contrast to Mr.
Tylor's term "animism," which he
applied to all the "Lower Races" of mankind who believe the
soul a distinct entity. He finds that the
words psyche, pneuma, animus, spiritus, etc., all belong to
the same cycle of superstition in "the
lower stages of culture," Professor A. Bain dubbing all
these distinctions, moreover, as a
"plurality of souls" and a "double materialism." This is
the
more curious as the learned author of Mind
and Body speaks as disparagingly of Darwin's
"materialism" in Zoonomia,
wherein the founder of modern Evolution defines the word idea as
"contracting a motion, or configuration
of the fibers which constitute the immediate organ of
Sense" (Mind and Body, p. 190,
Note). (return to text).
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3. Physiological Psychology, etc., p.
545, by George T. Ladd, Professor of Philosophy in Yale
University. (return
to text)
4. Or what the Kabalists call Nephesh,
the "breath of life." (return to
text)
5. The Sanskrit word Manas (Mind) is
used by us in preference to the Greek Nous (noetic)
because the latter word having been so
imperfectly understood in philosophy, suggests no
definite meaning. (return to text)
6. The Theosophist, Feb. 1888, p. 275,
by Rama Prasad, President of the Meerut Theosophical
Society.
As the Occult book cited by him says: "It is the Svara that has
given form to the first
accumulations of the divisions of the universe; the Svara causes evolution and
involution; the
Svara is
God, or more properly the Great Power itself (Mahesvara). The Svara
is the
manifestation of the impression on matter of
that power which in man is known to us as the
power which knows itself [mental and psychic consciousness]. It is to be understood
that the
action of this power never ceases. . . . It
is unchangeable existence" -- and this is the "Motion" of
the Scientists and the universal Breath of
Life of the Occultists. (return to text)
7. Animal Mechanism, a treatise on
terrestrial and aerial locomotion. By E. J. Marvey, Professor
at the College of France, and Member of the
Academy of Medicine. (return to text)
8. "The higher manas" or
"Ego" (Kshetrajna) is the "Silent Spectator," and
the voluntary
"sacrificial victim": the lower
manas, its representative -- a tyrannical despot, truly. (return to
text)
9. Elements of Physiological Psychology. A
treatise of the activities and nature of the mind, from
the Physical and Experimental Point of View,
pp. 606 and 613. (return to text)
10. W. Lawrence, Lectures on Comparative
Anatomy, Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural
History of Man. 8vo. London, 1848, p.6. (return
to text)
11. One of the names of Brahma is anu or
"atom." (return to text)
12. We fondly trust this very unscientific
term will throw no "Animalist" into hysterics beyond
recovery. (return
to text)
13. Another name for the universal mind. (return to text)
14. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, quoted
in Isis Unveiled, I, 138 (return to
text).
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Kosmic Mind
Whatsoever quits the Laya (homogeneous)
state, becomes active conscious life.
Individual consciousness emanates from, and
returns into Absolute consciousness,
which is eternal MOTION. -- Esoteric
Axioms.
Whatever that be which thinks, which
understands, which wills, which acts, it is
something celestial and divine, and upon that
account must necessarily be eternal.
-- CICERO
Edison's conception of matter was quoted in
our March editorial article. The great American
electrician is reported by Mr. G. Parsons
Lathrop in Harper's Magazine as giving out his
personal belief about the atoms being
"possessed by a certain amount of intelligence," and shown
indulging in other reveries of this kind. For
this flight of fancy the February Review of Reviews
takes the inventor of the phonograph to task
and critically remarks that "Edison is much given to
dreaming," his "scientific
imagination" being constantly at work.
Would to goodness the men of science
exercised their "scientific imagination" a little more and
their dogmatic and cold negations a little
less. Dreams differ. In that strange state of being which,
as Byron has it, puts us in a position
"with seal'd eyes to see," one often perceives more real facts
than when awake. Imagination is, again, one
of the strongest elements in human nature, or in the
words of Dugald Stewart it "is the great
spring of human activity, and the principal source of
human improvement. . . . Destroy the faculty,
and the condition of men will become as stationary
as that of brutes." It is the best guide
of our blind senses, without which the latter could never
lead us beyond matter and its illusions. The
greatest discoveries of modern science are due to the
imaginative faculty of the discoverers. But
when has anything new been postulated, when a
theory clashing with and contradicting a
comfortably settled predecessor put forth, without
orthodox science first sitting on it, and
trying to crush it out of existence? Harvey was also
regarded at first as a "dreamer"
and a madman to boot. Finally, the whole of modern science is
formed of "working hypotheses," the
fruits of "scientific imagination" as Mr. Tyndall felicitously
called it.
Is it then, because consciousness in every
universal atom and the possibility of a complete
control over the cells and atoms of his body
by man, have not been honored so far with the
imprimatur of the Popes of exact science, that the idea is to be
dismissed as a dream? Occultism
gives the same teaching. Occultism tells us
that every atom, like the monad of Leibnitz, is a little
universe in itself; and that every organ and
cell in the human body is endowed with a brain of its
own, with memory, therefore, experience and
discriminative powers. The idea of Universal Life
composed of individual atomic lives is one of
the oldest teachings of esoteric philosophy, and the
very modern hypothesis of modern science,
that of crystalline life, is the first ray from the
ancient luminary of knowledge that has
reached our scholars. If plants can be shown to have
nerves and sensations and instinct (but
another word for consciousness), why not allow the same
in the cells of the human body? Science
divides matter into organic and inorganic bodies, only
because it rejects the idea of absolute
life and a life-principle as an entity: otherwise it would be
the first to see that absolute life cannot
produce even a geometrical point, or an atom inorganic in
its essence. But Occultism, you see,
"teaches mysteries" they say; and mystery is the negation of.
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common sense, just as again metaphysics is but a kind of poetry,
according to Mr. Tyndall. There
is no such thing for science as mystery; and
therefore, as a Life Principle is, and must remain for
the intellects of our civilized races for
ever a mystery on physical lines -- they who deal in this
question have to be of necessity either fools
or knaves.
Dixit. Nevertheless,
we may repeat with a French preacher: "mystery is the fatality of
science."
Official science is surrounded on every side
and hedged in by unapproachable, for ever
impenetrable mysteries. And why? Simply
because physical science is self-doomed to a squirrel-like
progress around a wheel of matter limited by
our five senses. And though it is as confessedly
ignorant of the formation of matter, as of
the generation of a simple cell; though it is as
powerless to explain what is this, that, or
the other, it will yet dogmatize and insist on what life,
matter and the rest are not. It comes to
this: the words of Father Felix addressed fifty years ago to
the French academicians have nearly become
immortal as a truism. "Gentlemen," he said, "you
throw into our teeth the reproach that we
teach mysteries. But imagine whatever science you
will; follow the magnificent sweep of its
deductions. . . . and when you arrive at its parent source
you come face to face with the unknown!"
Now to lay at rest once for all in the minds
of Theosophists this vexed question, we intend to
prove that modern science, owing to
physiology, is itself on the eve of discovering that
consciousness is universal -- thus justifying
Edison's "dreams." But before we do this, we mean
also to show that though many a man of
science is soaked through and through with such belief,
very few are brave enough to openly admit it,
as the late Dr. Pirogoff of St. Petersburg has done
in his posthumous Memoirs. Indeed that
great surgeon and pathologist raised by their publication
quite a howl of indignation among his
colleagues. How then? the public asked: He, Dr. Pirogoff,
whom we regarded as almost the embodiment of
European learning, believing in the
superstitions of crazy alchemists? He, who in
the words of a contemporary: --
was the very incarnation of exact science and
methods of thought; who had
dissected hundreds and thousands of human
organs, making himself as acquainted
with all the mysteries of surgery and anatomy
as we are with our familiar
furniture; the savant for whom physiology had
no secrets and who, above all men
was one to whom Voltaire might have
ironically asked whether he had not found
immortal soul between the bladder and the
blind gut, -- that same Pirogoff is
found after his death devoting whole chapters
in his literary Will to the scientific
demonstration. . . . (Novoye Vremya of
1887)
-- of what? Why, of the existence in every
organism of a distinct "VITAL FORCE" independent
of any physical or chemical process. Like
Liebig he accepted the derided and tabooed
homogeneity of nature -- a Life Principle --
that persecuted and hapless teleology, or the science
of the final causes of things, which is as
philosophical as it is unscientific, if we have to believe
imperial and royal academies. His
unpardonable sin in the eyes of dogmatic modern science,
however, was this: The great anatomist and
surgeon, had the "hardihood" to declare in his
Memoirs, that:
We have no cause to reject the possibility of
the existence of organisms endowed
with such properties that would make of them
-- the direct embodiment of the.
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universal mind -- a perfection inaccessible to our own (human) mind. . . .
Because, we have no right to maintain that
man is the last expression of the divine
creative thought.
Such are the chief features of the heresy of
one, who ranked high among the men of exact
science of this age. His Memoirs show
plainly that not only he believed in Universal Deity,
divine Ideation, or the Hermetic
"Thought divine," and a Vital Principle, but taught all this, and
tried to demonstrate it scientifically. Thus
he argues that Universal Mind needs no physico-chemical,
or mechanical brain as an organ of
transmission. He even goes so far as to admit it in
these suggestive words: --
Our reason must accept in all necessity an
infinite and eternal Mind which rules
and governs the ocean of life. . . . Thought
and creative ideation, in full agreement
with the laws of unity and causation,
manifest themselves plainly enough in
universal life without the participation
of brain-slush. . . . Directing the forces
and
elements toward the formation of organisms,
this organizing life-principle
becomes self-sentient, self-conscious,
racial or individual. Substance, ruled and
directed by the life-principle, is organized according to a general defined plan
into certain
types. . . .
He explains this belief by confessing that
never, during his long life so full of study, observation,
and experiments, could he --
acquire the conviction, that our brain could
be the only organ of thought in the
whole universe, that everything in this
world, save that organ, should be
unconditioned and senseless, and that human
thought alone should impart to the
universe a meaning and a reasonable harmony
in its integrity.
And he adds a propos of Moleschott's
materialism:
Howsoever much fish and peas I may eat, never
shall I consent to give away my
Ego into
durance vile of a product casually extracted by modern alchemy from the
urine. If, in our conceptions of the Universe
it be our fate to fall into illusions,
then my "illusion" has, at least,
the advantage of being very consoling. For, it
shows to me an intelligent Universe and the
activity of Forces working in it
harmoniously and intelligently; and that my
"I" is not the product of chemical and
histological elements but an embodiment of
a common universal Mind. The latter,
I sense and represent to myself as acting in
free will and consciousness in
accordance with the same laws which are
traced for the guidance of my own
mind, but only exempt from that restraint
which trammels our human conscious
individuality.
For, as remarks elsewhere this great and
philosophic man of Science:.
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The limitless and the eternal, is not only
a postulate of our mind and reason, but
also a gigantic fact, in itself. What would become of our ethical or moral principle
were not the everlasting and integral truth
to serve it as a foundation!
The above selections translated verbatim from
the confessions of one who was during his long
life a star of the first magnitude in the
fields of pathology and surgery, show him imbued and
soaked through with the philosophy of a
reasoned and scientific mysticism. In reading the
Memoirs of that man of scientific fame, we feel proud of finding him accepting,
almost
wholesale, the fundamental doctrines and
beliefs of Theosophy. With such an exceptionally
scientific mind in the ranks of mystics, the
idiotic grins, the cheap satires and flings at our great
Philosophy by some European and American
"Freethinkers," become almost a compliment.
More than ever do they appear to us like the
frightened discordant cry of the night-owl hurrying
to hide in its dark ruins before the light of
the morning Sun.
The progress of physiology itself, as we have
just said, is a sure warrant that the dawn of that day
when a full recognition of a universally
diffused mind will be an accomplished fact, is not far
off. It is only a question of time.
For, notwithstanding the boast of physiology,
that the aim of its researches is only the summing
up of every vital function in order to bring
them into a definite order by showing their mutual
relations to, and connection with, the laws
of physics and chemistry, hence, in their final form
with mechanical laws -- we fear there is a
good deal of contradiction between the confessed
object and the speculations of some of the
best of our modern physiologists. While few of them
would dare to return as openly as did Dr.
Pirogoff to the "exploded superstition" of vitalism and
the severely exiled life principle, the principium
vitae of Paracelsus -- yet physiology stands
sorely perplexed in the face of its ablest
representatives before certain facts. Unfortunately for us,
this age of ours is not conducive to the
development of moral courage. The time for most to act
on the noble idea of "principia non
homines," has not yet come. And yet there are exceptions to
the general rule, and physiology -- whose
destiny it is to become the hand-maiden of Occult
truths -- has not let the latter remain
without their witnesses. There are those who are already
stoutly protesting against certain hitherto
favorite propositions. For instance, some physiologists
are already denying that it is the forces and
substances of so-called "inanimate" nature, which are
acting exclusively in living beings. For, as
they well argue:
The fact that we reject the interference of
other forces in living things, depends
entirely on the limitations of our senses.
We use, indeed, the same organs for our
observations of both animate and inanimate
nature; and these organs can receive
manifestations of only a limited realm of
motion. Vibrations passed along the
fibers of our optic nerves to the brain reach
our perceptions through our
consciousness as sensations of light and
color; vibrations affecting our
consciousness through our auditory organs
strike us as sounds; all our feelings,
through whichever of our senses, are due to
nothing but motions.
Such are the teachings of physical Science,
and such were in their roughest outlines those of
Occultism, aeons and millenniums back. The
difference, however, and most vital distinction
between the two teachings, is this: official
science sees in motion simply a blind, unreasoning.
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force or law; Occultism, tracing motion to
its origin, identifies it with the Universal Deity, and
calls this eternal ceaseless motion -- the
"Great Breath." (1)
Nevertheless, however limited the conception
of Modern Science about the said Force, still it is
suggestive enough to have forced the
following remark from a great Scientist, the present
professor of physiology at the University of
Basle, (2)
who speaks like an Occultist.
It would be folly in us to expect to be ever
able to discover, with the assistance
only of our external senses, in animate
nature that something which we are unable
to find in the inanimate.
And forthwith the lecturer adds that man
being endowed "in addition to his physical senses with
an inner sense," a perception
which gives him the possibility of observing the states and
phenomena of his own consciousness, "he
has to use that in dealing with animate nature" -- a
profession of faith verging suspiciously on
the borders of Occultism. He denies, moreover, the
assumption, that the states and phenomena of
consciousness represent in substance the same
manifestations of motion as in the external
world, and bases his denial by the reminder that not
all of such states and manifestations have
necessarily a spatial extension. According to him that
only is connected with our conception of
space which has reached our consciousness through
sight, touch, and the muscular sense, while
all the other senses, all the effects, tendencies, as all
the interminable series of representations,
have no extension in space but only in time.
Thus he asks: --
Where then is there room in this for a
mechanical theory? Objectors might argue
that this is so only in appearance, while in
reality all these have a spatial
extension. But such an argument would be
entirely erroneous. Our sole reason for
believing that objects perceived by the
senses have such extension in the external
world, rests on the idea that they seem to do
so, as far as they can be watched and
observed through the senses of sight and
touch. With regard, however, to the
realm of our inner senses even that
supposed foundation loses its force and there
is no ground for admitting it.
The winding up argument of the lecturer is
most interesting to Theosophists. Says this
physiologist of the modern school of
Materialism --
Thus, a deeper and more direct acquaintance
with our inner nature unveils to us a
world entirely unlike the world
represented to us by our external senses, and
reveals the most heterogeneous faculties,
shows objects having nought to do with
spatial extension, and phenomena absolutely
disconnected with those that fall
under mechanical laws.
Hitherto the opponents of vitalism and
"life-principle," as well as the followers of the mechanical
theory of life, based their views on the
supposed fact, that, as physiology was progressing
forward, its students succeeded more and more
in connecting its functions with the laws of blind
matter. All those manifestations that used to be attributed to a "mystical
life-force," they said,.
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may be brought now under physical and
chemical laws. And they were, and still are loudly
clamoring for the recognition of the fact
that it is only a question of time when it will be
triumphantly demonstrated that the whole
vital process, in its grand totality, represents nothing
more mysterious than a very complicated
phenomenon of motion, exclusively governed by the
forces of inanimate nature.
But here we have a professor of physiology
who asserts that the history of physiology proves,
unfortunately for them, quite the contrary;
and he pronounces these ominous words:
I maintain that the more our experiments and
observations are exact and many-sided,
the deeper we penetrate into facts, the more
we try to fathom and speculate
on the phenomena of life, the more we acquire
the conviction, that even those
phenomena that we had hoped to be already
able to explain by physical and
chemical laws, are in reality
unfathomable. They are vastly more complicated, in
fact; and as we stand at present, they
will not yield to any mechanical explanation.
This is a terrible blow at the puffed-up
bladder known as Materialism, which is as empty as it is
dilated. A Judas in the camp of the apostles
of negation -- the "animalists"! But the Basle
professor is no solitary exception, as we
have just shown; and there are several physiologists who
are of his way of thinking; indeed some of
them going so far as to almost accept free-will and
consciousness, in the simplest monadic protoplasms!
One discovery after the other tends in this
direction. The works of some German physiologists
are especially interesting with regard to
cases of consciousness and positive discrimination -- one
is almost inclined to say thought --
in the Amoebas. Now the Amoebas or animalculae are, as all
know, microscopical protoplasms -- as the Vampyrella
Sirogyra for instance, a most simple
elementary cell, a protoplasmic drop,
formless and almost structureless. And yet it shows in its
behavior something for which zoologists, if
they do not call it mind and power of reasoning, will
have to find some other qualification, and
coin a new term. For see what Cienkowsky (3) says of
it. Speaking of this microscopical, bare,
reddish cell he describes the way in which it hunts for
and finds among a number of other aquatic
plants one called Spirogyra, rejecting every other
food. Examining its peregrinations under a
powerful microscope, he found it when moved by
hunger, first projecting its pseudopodiae (false
feet) by the help of which it crawls. Then it
commences moving about until among a great
variety of plants it comes across a Spirogyra, after
which it proceeds toward the cellulated
portion of one of the cells of the latter, and placing itself
on it, it bursts the tissue, sucks the
contents of one cell and then passes on to another, repeating
the same process. This naturalist never saw
it take any other food, and it never touched any of the
numerous plants placed by Cienkowsky in its
way. Mentioning another Amoeba -- the
Colpadella Pugnax -- he says that he found it showing the same predilection for
the
Chlamydomonas on which it feeds exclusively; "having made a puncture
in the body of the
Chlamydomonas it sucks its chlorophyl and
then goes away," he writes, adding these significant
words: "The way of acting of
these monads during their search for and reception of food, is so
amazing that one is almost inclined to see in
them consciously acting beings!"
Not less suggestive are the observations of
Th. W. Engelman (Beitraege zur Physiologie des
Protoplasm), on the Arcella, another unicellular organism
only a trifle more complex than the.
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Vampyrella. He shows them in a drop of water under a microscope on a
piece of glass, lying so
to speak, on their backs, i.e., on
their convex side, so that the pseudopodiae, projected from the
edge of the shell, find no hold in space and
leave the Amoeba helpless. Under these
circumstances the following curious fact is
observed. Under the very edge of one of the sides of
the protoplasm gas-bubbles begin immediately
to form, which, making that side lighter, allow it
to be raised, bringing at the same time the
opposite side of the creature into contact with the
glass, thus furnishing its pseudo or
false feet means to get hold of the surface and thereby turning
over its body to raise itself on all its pseudopodiae.
After this, the Amoeba proceeds to suck back
into itself the gas-bubbles and begins to
move. If a like drop of water is placed on the lower
extremity of the glass, then, following the
law of gravity the Amoeba will find themselves at first
at the lower end of the drop of water.
Failing to find there a point of support, they proceed to
generate large bubbles of gas, when, becoming
lighter than the water, they are raised up to the
surface of the drop.
In the words of Engelman: --
If having reached the surface of the glass
they find no more support for their feet
than before, forthwith one sees the gas-globules
diminishing on one side and
increasing in size and number on the other,
or both, until the creatures touch with
the edge of their shell the surface of the
glass, and are enabled to turn over. No
sooner is this done than the gas-globules
disappear and the Arcellae begin
crawling. Detach them carefully by means of a
fine needle from the surface of the
glass and thus bring them down once more to
the lower surface of the drop of
water; and forthwith they will repeat the
same process, varying its details
according to necessity and devising new means
to reach their desired aim. Try as
much as you will to place them in
uncomfortable positions, and they find means
to extricate themselves from them, each time,
by one device or the other; and no
sooner have they succeeded than the
gas-bubbles disappear! It is impossible not to
admit that such facts as these point to
the presence of some PSYCHIC process in
the protoplasm. (4 )
Among hundreds of accusations against Asiatic
nations of degrading superstitions, based on
"crass ignorance," there exists no
more serious denunciation than that which accuses and
convicts them of personifying and even
deifying the chief organs of, and in, the human body.
Indeed, do not we hear these "benighted
fools" of Hindus speaking of the small-pox as a goddess
-- thus personifying the microbes of the
variolic virus? Do we not read about Tantrikas, a sect of
mystics, giving proper names to nerves, cells
and arteries, connecting and identifying various
parts of the body with deities, endowing
functions and physiological processes with intelligence,
and what not? The vertebrae, fibers, ganglia,
the cord, etc., of the spinal column; the heart, its
four chambers, auricle and ventricle, valves
and the rest; stomach, liver, lungs and spleen,
everything has its special deific name, is
believed to act consciously and to act under the potent
will of the Yogi, whose head and heart are
the seats of Brahma and the various parts of whose
body are all the pleasure grounds of this or
another deity!
This is indeed ignorance. Especially
when we think that the said organs, and the whole body of
man are composed of cells, and these cells
are now being recognized as individual organisms and.
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-- quien sabe -- will come perhaps to
be recognized some day as an independent race of thinkers
inhabiting the globe, called man! It really
looks like it. For was it not hitherto believed that all
the phenomena of assimilation and sucking in
of food by the intestinal canal, could be explained
by the laws of diffusion and endosmosis? And
now, alas, physiologists have come to learn that
the action of the intestinal canal during the
act of absorbing, is not identical with the action of the
non-living membrane in the dialyser. It is
now well demonstrated that --
this wall is covered with epithelium cells,
each of which is an organism per se, a
living being, and with very complex
functions. We know further, that such a cell
assimilates food -- by means of active
contractions of its protoplasmic body -- in a
manner as mysterious as that which we notice
in the independent Amoeba and
animalcules. We can observe on the intestinal
epithelium of the cold-blooded
animals how these cells project shoots -- pseudopodiae
-- out of their contractive,
bare, protoplasmic bodies -- which pseudopodiae,
or false feet, fish out of the
food drops of fat, suck them into their
protoplasm and send it further, toward the
lymph-duct. . . . The lymphatic cells issuing
from the nests of the adipose tissue,
and squeezing themselves through the
epithelium cells up to the surface of the
intestines, absorb therein the drops of fat
and loaded with their prey, travel
homeward to the lymphatic canals. So long as
this active work of the cells
remained unknown to us, the fact that while
the globules of fat penetrated through
the walls of the intestines into lymphatic
channels, the smallest of pigmental
grains introduced into the intestines did not
do so, -- remained unexplained. But
to-day we know, that this faculty of
selecting their special food -- of assimilating
the useful and rejecting the useless and the
harmful -- is common to all the
unicellular organisms. (5)
And the lecturer queries, why, if this discrimination
in the selection of food exists in the simplest
and most elementary of the cells, in the
formless and structureless protoplasmic drops -- why it
should not exist also in the epithelium cells
of our intestinal canal. Indeed, if the Vampyrella
recognizes its much beloved Spirogyra, among
hundreds of other plants as shown above, why
should not the epithelium cell, sense,
choose and select its favorite drop of fat from a pigmental
grain? But we will be told that
"sensing, choosing, and selecting" pertain only to reasoning
beings, at least to the instinct of
more structural animals than is the protoplasmic cell outside or
inside man. Agreed; but as we translate from
the lecture of a learned physiologist and the works
of other learned naturalists, we can only
say, that these learned gentlemen must know what they
are talking about; though they are probably
ignorant of the fact that their scientific prose is but
one degree removed from the ignorant,
superstitious, but rather poetical "twaddle" of the Hindu
Yogis and Tantrikas.
Anyhow, our professor of physiology falls
foul of the materialistic theories of diffusion and
endosmosis. Armed with the facts of the
evident discrimination and a mind in the cells, he
demonstrates by numerous instances the
fallacy of trying to explain certain physiological
processes by mechanical theories; such for
instance as the passing of sugar from the liver (where
it is transformed into glucose) into the
blood. Physiologists find great difficulty in explaining this
process, and regard it as an impossibility
to bring it under the endosmosic laws. In all probability
the lymphatic cells play just as active a
part during the absorption of alimentary substances.
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dissolved in water, as the peptics do, a
process well demonstrated by F. Hofmeister. (6)
Generally speaking, poor convenient endosmose
is dethroned and exiled from among the active
functionaries of the human body as a useless
sinecurist. It has lost its voice in the matter of
glands and other agents of secretion, in the
action of which the same epithelium cells have
replaced it. The mysterious faculties of
selection, of extracting from the blood one kind of
substance and rejecting another, of
transforming the former by means of decomposition and
synthesis, of directing some of the products
into passages which will throw them out of the body
and redirecting others into lymphatic and
blood vessels -- such is the work of the cells. "It is
evident that in all this there is not the
slightest hint at diffusion or endosmose,"
says the Basle
physiologist. "It becomes entirely
useless to try and explain these phenomena by chemical laws."
But perhaps physiology is luckier in some
other department? Failing in the laws of alimentation,
it may have found some consolation for its
mechanical theories in the question of the activity of
muscles and nerves, which it sought to
explain by electric laws? Alas, save in a few fishes -- in
no other living organisms, least of all in
the human body, could it find any possibility of pointing
out electric currents as the chief ruling
agency. Electro-biology on the lines of pure dynamic
electricity has egregiously failed. Ignorant
of "Fohat" no electrical currents suffice to explain to it
either muscular or nervous activity!
But there is such a thing as the physiology
of external sensations. Here we are no longer on terra
incognita, and all such phenomena have already found purely physical
explanations. No doubt,
there is the phenomenon of sight, the eye
with its optical apparatus, its camera obscura. But the
fact of the sameness of the reproduction of
things in the eye, according to the same laws of
refraction as on the plate of a photographic
machine, is no vital phenomenon. The same may be
reproduced on a dead eye. The
phenomenon of life consists in the evolution and development of
the eye itself. How is this marvelous and complicated work produced? To
this physiology replies,
"We do not know"; for, toward the
solution of this great problem --
Physiology has not yet made one single step.
True, we can follow the sequence of
the stages of the development and formation
of the eye, but why it is so and what
is the causal connection, we have absolutely
no idea. The second vital
phenomenon of the eye is its accommodating activity.
And here we are again face
to face with the functions of nerves and
muscles -- our old insoluble riddles. The
same may be said of all the organs of sense.
The same also relates to other
departments of physiology. We had hoped to
explain the phenomena of the
circulation of the blood by the laws of
hydrostatics or hydrodynamics. Of course
the blood moves in accordance with the
hydrodynamical laws: but its relation to
them remains utterly passive. As to
the active functions of the heart and the
muscles of its vessels, no one, so far,
has ever been able to explain them by
physical laws.
The underlined words in the concluding
portion of the able Professor's lecture are worthy of an
Occultist. Indeed, he seems to be repeating
an aphorism from the "Elementary Instructions" of
the esoteric physiology of practical Occultism:
--.
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The riddle of life is found in the active
functions of a living organism (7), the real
perception of which activity we can get
only through self-observation, and not
owing to our external senses; by observations on our will, so far as it penetrates
our consciousness, thus revealing itself to
our inner sense. Therefore, when the
same phenomenon acts only on our external
senses, we recognize it no longer. We
see everything that takes place around and
near the phenomenon of motion, but
the essence of that phenomenon we do not see
at all, because we lack for it a
special organ of receptivity. We can accept
that esse in a mere hypothetical way,
and do so, in fact, when we speak of
"active functions." Thus does every
physiologist, for he cannot go on without
such hypothesis; and this is a first
experiment of a psychological explanation of
all vital phenomena. . . . And if it is
demonstrated to us that we are unable with
the help only of physics and chemistry
to explain the phenomena of life, what may we
expect from other adjuncts of
physiology, from the sciences of morphology,
anatomy, and histology? I maintain
that these can never help us to unriddle the
problem of any of the mysterious
phenomena of life. For, after we have
succeeded with the help of scalpel and
microscope in dividing the organisms into
their most elementary compounds, and
reached the simplest of cells, it is just
here that we find ourselves face to face with
the greatest problem of all. The simplest
monad, a microscopical point of
protoplasm, form less and structureless,
exhibits yet all the essential vital
functions, alimentation, growth, breeding, motion,
feeling and sensuous
perception, and even such functions which
replace "consciousness" -- the soul of
the higher animals!
The problem -- for Materialism -- is a
terrible one, indeed! Shall our cells, and infinitesimal
monads in nature, do for us that which the
arguments of the greatest Pantheistic philosophers
have hitherto failed to do? Let us hope so.
And if they do, then the "superstitious and ignorant"
Eastern Yogis, and even their exoteric
followers, will find themselves vindicated. For we hear
from the same physiologist that --
A large number of poisons are prevented by
the epithelium cells from penetrating
into lymphatic spaces, though we know that
they are easily decomposed in the
abdominal and intestinal juices. More than
this. Physiology is aware that by
injecting these poisons directly into the
blood, they will separate from, and
reappear through the intestinal walls, and
that in this process the lymphatic cells
take a most active part.
If the reader turns to Webster's Dictionary
he will find therein a curious explanation at the words
"lymphatic" and "Lymph."
Etymologists think that the Latin word lympha is derived from the
Greek nymphe, "a nymph or inferior
Goddess," they say. "The Muses were sometimes called
nymphs by
the poets. Hence (according to Webster) all persons in a state of rapture, as
seers,
poets, madmen, etc., were said to be caught
by the nymphs."
The Goddess of Moisture (the Greek and Latin nymph
or lymph, then) is fabled in India as being
born from the pores of one of the Gods,
whether the Ocean God, Varuna, or a minor "River
God" is left to the particular sect and
fancy of the believers. But the main question is, that the.
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ancient Greeks and Latins are thus admittedly
known to have shared in the same "superstitions"
as the Hindus. This superstition is shown in
their maintaining to this day that every atom of
matter in the four (or five) Elements is an
emanation from an inferior God or Goddess, himself or
herself an earlier emanation from a superior
deity; and, moreover, that each of these atoms --
being Brahma, one of whose names is Anu, or
atom -- no sooner is it emanated than it becomes
endowed with consciousness, each of its kind, and free-will, acting within the limits
of law. Now,
he who knows that the kosmic trimurti (trinity)
composed of Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the
Preserver; and Siva, the Destroyer, is a most
magnificent and scientific symbol of the material
Universe and its gradual evolution; and who
finds a proof of this, in the etymology of the names
of these deities (8), plus the doctrines
of Gupta Vidya, or esoteric knowledge -- knows also how
to correctly understand this
"superstition." The five fundamental titles of Vishnu -- added to
that
of Anu (atom) common to all the
trimurtic personages -- which are, Bhutatman, one with the
created or emanated materials of the world; Pradhanatman,
"one with the senses;" Paramatman,
"Supreme Soul"; and Atman, Kosmic
Soul, or the Universal Mind -- show sufficiently what the
ancient Hindus meant by endowing with mind
and consciousness every atom and giving it a
distinct name of a God or a Goddess. Place
their Pantheon, composed of 30 crores (or 300
millions) of deities within the macrocosm
(the Universe), or inside the microcosm (man), and the
number will not be found overrated, since
they relate to the atoms, cells, and molecules of
everything that is.
This, no doubt, is too poetical and abstruse
for our generation, but it seems decidedly as
scientific, if not more so, than the
teachings derived from the latest discoveries of Physiology
and Natural History.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Vide Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, pp. 2
and 3. (return to text)
2. From a paper read by him some time ago at
a public lecture. (return to text)
3. L. Cienkowsky. See his work Beitraege
zur Kentniss der Monaden, Archiv f. mikroskop,
Anatomie. (return
to text)
4. Loc. Cit, Pfluger's Archiv.,
II. 387. (return to text)
5. From the paper read by the Professor of
physiology at the University of Basle, previously
quoted. (return
to text)
6. Untersuchungen uber Resorption u.
Assimilation der Nahrstoffe (Archiv. f. Experimentale
Pathologie und Pharmakologie, Bd. XIX, 1885).
(return to text)
7. Life and activity are but
two different names for the same idea, or, what is still more correct,
they are two words with which the men of
science connect no definite idea whatever.
Nevertheless, and perhaps just for that, they
are obliged to use them, for they contain the point of
contact between the most difficult problems
over which, in fact, the greatest thinkers of the
materialistic school have ever tripped. (return to text)
8. Brahma comes from the root brih,
"to expand," to "scatter"; Vishnu from the root vis
or vish
(phonetically) "to enter into,"
"to pervade" the universe, of matter. As to Siva -- the patron of
the.
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Yogis, the etymology of his name would remain
incomprehensible to the casual reader. (return
to
text)
The Dual Aspect of Wisdom
No doubt but ye are the people and wisdom
shall die with you. -- Job xii, 2
But wisdom is justified of her children. -- Matthew
xi, 19
It is the privilege -- as also occasionally
the curse -- of editors to receive numerous letters of
advice, and the conductors of Lucifer have
not escaped the common lot. Reared in the aphorisms
of the ages they are aware that "he who
can take advice is superior to him who gives it," and are
therefore ready to accept with gratitude any
sound and practical suggestions offered by friends;
but the last letter received does not fulfill
the condition. It is not even his own wisdom, but that
of the age we live in, which is asserted by
our adviser, who thus seriously risks his reputation for
keen observation by such acts of devotion on
the altar of modern pretensions. It is in defense of
the "wisdom" of our century that we
are taken to task, and charged with "preferring barbarous
antiquity to our modern civilization and its
inestimable boons," with forgetting that "our own-day
wisdom compared with the awakening instincts
of the Past is in no way inferior in philosophic
wisdom even
to the age of Plato." We are lastly told that we, Theosophists, are
"too fond of the
dim yesterday, and as unjust to our glorious
(?) present-day, the bright noon-hour of the highest
civilization and culture"! !
Well, all this is a question of taste. Our
correspondent is welcome to his own views, but so are
we to ours. Let him imagine that the Eiffel
Tower dwarfs the Pyramid of Ghizeh into a mole-hill,
and the Crystal Palace grounds transform the
hanging gardens of Semiramis into a kitchen-garden
-- if he likes. But if we are seriously
"challenged" by him to show "in what respect our
age of hourly progress and gigantic
thought" -- a progress a trifle marred, however, by our
Huxleys being denounced by our Surgeons, and
the University ladies, senior classics and
wranglers, by the "hallelujah
lasses" -- is inferior to the ages of, say, a hen-pecked "Socrates
and
a cross-legged Buddha," then we will
answer him, giving him, of course, our own personal
opinion.
Our age, we say, is inferior in Wisdom to any
other, because it professes, more visibly every day,
contempt for truth and justice, without
which there can be no Wisdom. Because our
civilization,
built up of shams and appearances, is at best
like a beautiful green morass, a bog, spread over a
deadly quagmire. Because this century of
culture and worship of matter, while offering prizes
and premiums for every "best thing"
under the Sun, from the biggest baby and the largest orchid
down to the strongest pugilist and the
fattest pig, has no encouragement to offer to morality; no
prize to give for any moral virtue. Because
it has Societies for the prevention of physical cruelty
to animals, and none with the object of
preventing the moral cruelty practiced on human beings.
Because it encourages, legally and tacitly,
vice under every form, from the sale of whiskey down
to forced prostitution and theft brought on
by starvation wages, Shylock-like exaction, rents and
other comforts of our cultured period.
Because, finally, this is the age which, although
proclaimed as one of physical and moral
freedom, is in truth the age of the most ferocious moral
and mental slavery, the like of which was
never known before. Slavery to State and men has.
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disappeared only to make room for slavery to things
and Self, to one's own vices and idiotic
social customs and ways. Rapid civilization,
adapted to the needs of the higher and middle
classes, has doomed by contrast to only
greater wretchedness the starving masses. Having
leveled the two former it has made them the
more to disregard the substance in favor of form and
appearance, thus forcing modern man into
duress vile, a slavish dependence on things inanimate,
to use and to serve which is the first
bounded duty of every cultured man.
Where then is the Wisdom of our modern age?
In truth, it requires but a very few lines to
show why we bow before ancient Wisdom, while
refusing absolutely to see any in our modern
civilization. But to begin with, what does our critic
mean by the word "wisdom"? Though
we have never too unreasonably admired Lactantius, yet
we must recognize that even that innocent
Church Father, with all his cutting insults anent the
heliocentric system, defined the term very
correctly when saying that "the first point of Wisdom
is to discern that which is false, and the
second, to know that which is true." And if so what
chance is there for our century of
falsification, from the revised Bible texts down to natural
butter, to put forth a claim to
"Wisdom"? But before we cross lances on this subject we may do
well, perchance, to define the term
ourselves.
Let us premise by saying that Wisdom is, at
best, an elastic word -- at any rate as used in
European tongues. That it yields no clear
idea of its meaning, unless preceded or followed by
some qualifying adjective. In the Bible,
indeed, the Hebrew equivalent Chockmah (in Greek,
Sophia)
is applied to the most dissimilar things -- abstract and concrete. Thus
we find "Wisdom"
as the characteristic both of divine
inspiration and also of terrestrial cunning and craft; as
meaning the Secret Knowledge of the Esoteric
Sciences, and also blind faith; the "fear of the
Lord," and Pharaoh's magicians. The noun
is indifferently applied to Christ and to sorcery, for
the witch Sedecla is also referred to as the "wise
woman of En-Dor." From the earliest Christian
antiquity, beginning with St. James (iii,
13-17), down to the last Calvinist preacher, who sees in
hell and eternal damnation a proof of
"the Almighty's wisdom," the term has been used with the
most varied meanings. But St. James teaches
two kinds of wisdom; a teaching with which we
fully concur. He draws a strong line of
separation between the divine or noetic "Sophia" -- the
Wisdom from above -- and the terrestrial,
psychic, and devilish wisdom (iii, 15). For the true
Theosophist there is no wisdom save the
former. Would that such an one could declare with
Paul, that he speaks that wisdom exclusively
only among them "that are perfect," i.e., those
initiated into its mysteries, or familiar, at
least, with the A B C of the sacred sciences. But,
however great was his mistake, however
premature his attempt to sow the seeds of the true and
eternal gnosis on unprepared soil, his motives were yet good and his
intention unselfish, and
therefore has he been stoned. For had he only attempted to preach
some particular fiction of his
own, or done it for gain, who would have ever
singled him out or tried to crush him, amid the
hundreds of other false sects, daily
"collections" and crazy "societies"? But his case was
different. However cautiously, still he spoke
"not the wisdom of this world" but truth or the
"hidden wisdom . . . which none of the
Princes of this World know (I Corinth. ii.) least of all the
archons of our modern science. With regard to "psychic" wisdom,
however, which James defines
as terrestrial and devilish, it has existed
in all ages, from the days of Pythagoras and Plato, when
for one philosophus there were nine sophistae,
down to our modern era. To such wisdom our
century is welcome, and indeed fully
entitled, to lay a claim. Moreover, it is an attire easy to put.
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on; there never was a period when crows
refused to array themselves in peacock's feathers, if the
opportunity was offered.
But now as then, we have a right to analyze
the terms used and inquire in the words of the book
of Job, that suggestive allegory of Karmic
purification and initiation rites: "Where shall (true)
wisdom be found? Where is the place of
understanding?" and to answer again in his words:
"With the ancient is wisdom and
in the length of days understanding." (Job xxviii, 12 and xii, 12)
Here we have to qualify once more a dubious
term, viz: the word "ancient," and to explain it. As
interpreted by the orthodox churches, it has
in the mouth of Job one meaning; but with the
Kabalist, quite another; while in the Gnosis
of the Occultist and Theosophist it has distinctly a
third signification, the same which it had in
the original Book of Job, a pre-Mosaic work and a
recognized treatise on Initiation. Thus, the
Kabalist applies the adjective "ancient" to the
Manifested WORD or LOGOS (Dabar) of
the forever concealed and uncognizable deity. Daniel,
in one of his visions, also uses it when
speaking of Jahve -- the androgynous Adam Kadmon.
The Church man connects it with his
anthropomorphic Jehovah, the "Lord God" of the translated
Bible. But the Eastern Occultist employs the
mystic term only when referring to the
reincarnating higher Ego. For, divine Wisdom
being diffused throughout the infinite Universe,
and our impersonal HIGHER SELF being an
integral part of it, the atmic light of the latter can be
centered only in that which though eternal is
still individualized -- i.e., the noetic Principle, the
manifested God within each rational being, or
our Higher Manas at one with Buddhi. It is this
collective light which is the "Wisdom
that is from above," and which whenever it descends on
the personal Ego, is found "pure,
peaceable, gentle." Hence, Job's assertion that "Wisdom is with
the Ancient," or Buddhi-Manas. For
the Divine Spiritual "I," is alone eternal, and the same
throughout all births; whereas the
"personalities" it informs in succession are evanescent,
changing like the shadows of a kaleidoscopic
series of forms in a magic lantern. It is the
"Ancient," because, whether it be
called Sophia, Krishna, Buddhi-Manas or Christos, it is ever
the "first-born" of Alaya-Mahat,
the Universal Soul and the Intelligence of the Universe.
Esoterically then, Job's statement must read:
"With the Ancient (man's Higher Ego) is Wisdom,
and in the length of days (or number of its
re-incarnations) is understanding." No man can learn
true and final Wisdom in one birth; and every
new rebirth, whether we be reincarnated for weal
or for woe, is one more lesson we receive at
the hands of the stern yet ever just schoolmaster --
KARMIC LIFE.
But the world -- the Western world, at any
rate -- knows nothing of this, and refuses to learn
anything. For it, any notion of the Divine
Ego or the plurality of its births is "heathen
foolishness." The Western world rejects
these truths, and will recognize no wise men except
those of its own making, created in its own
image, born within its own Christian era and
teachings. The only "wisdom" it
understands and practices is the psychic, the "terrestrial and
devilish" wisdom spoken of by James,
thus making of the real Wisdom a misnomer and a
degradation. Yet, without considering her
multiplied varieties, there are two kinds of even
"terrestrial" wisdom on our globe
of mud -- the real and the apparent. Between the two, there is
even for the superficial observer of this
busy wicked world, a wide chasm, and yet how very few
people will consent to see it! The reason for
this is quite natural. So strong is human selfishness,
that wherever there is the smallest personal
interest at stake, there men become deaf and blind to
the truth, as often consciously as not. Nor
are many people capable of recognizing as speedily as.
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is advisable the difference between men who
are wise and those who only seem wise, the latter
being chiefly regarded as such because they
are very clever at blowing their own trumpet. So
much for "wisdom" in the profane
world.
As to the world of the students in mystic
lore, it is almost worse. Things have strangely altered
since the days of antiquity, when the truly
wise made it their first duty to conceal their
knowledge, deeming it too sacred to even
mention before the hoi polloi. While the mediaeval
Rosecroix, the true philosopher, keeping old Socrates in mind, repeated
daily that all he knew
was that he knew nothing, his modern
self-styled successor announces in our day, through press
and public, that those mysteries in Nature
and her Occult laws of which he knows nothing, have
never existed at all. There was a time when
the acquirement of Divine Wisdom (Sapientia)
required the sacrifice and devotion of a
man's whole life. It depended on such things as the purity
of the candidate's motives, on his
fearlessness and independence of spirit; but now, to receive a
patent for wisdom and adept-ship requires
only unblushing impudence. A certificate of divine
wisdom is now decreed, and delivered to a
self-styled "Adeptus" by a regular majority of votes of
profane and easily caught gulls, while a host
of magpies driven away from the roof of the
Temple of Science will herald it to the world
in every marketplace and fair. Tell the public that
now, even as of old, the genuine and sincere
observer of life and its underlying phenomena, the
intelligent co-worker with nature, may, by becoming
an expert in her mysteries thereby become a
"wise" man, in the terrestrial
sense of the word, but that never will a materialist wrench from
nature any secret on a higher plane -- and
you will be laughed to scorn. Add, that no "wisdom
from above" descends on any one save on
the sine qua non condition of leaving at the threshold
of the Occult every atom of selfishness, or
desire for personal ends and benefit -- and you will be
speedily declared by your audience a
candidate for the lunatic asylum. Nevertheless, this is an
old, very old truism. Nature gives up her
innermost secrets and imparts true wisdom only to him,
who seeks truth for its own sake, and who
craves for knowledge in order to confer benefits on
others, not on his own unimportant personality.
And, as it is precisely to this personal benefit
that nearly every candidate for adept-ship
and magic looks, and that few are they, who consent to
learn at such a heavy price and so small a
benefit for themselves in prospect -- the really wise
Occultists become with every century fewer
and rarer. How many are there, indeed, who would
not prefer the will-o'-the-wisp of even
passing fame to the steady and ever-growing light of
eternal, divine knowledge, if the
latter has to remain, for all but oneself -- a light under the
bushel?
The same is the case in the world of
materialistic science, where we see a great paucity of really
learned men and a host of skin-deep
scientists, who yet demand each and all to be regarded as
Archimedes and Newtons. As above so below.
Scholars who pursue knowledge for the sake of
truth and fact, and give these out, however
unpalatable, and not for the dubious glory of
enforcing on the world their respective
personal hobbies -- may be counted on the fingers of one
hand: while legion is the name of the
pretenders. In our day, reputations for learning seem to be
built by suggestion on the hypnotic
principle, rather than by real merit. The masses cower before
him who imposes himself upon them: hence such
a galaxy of men regarded as eminent in
science, arts and literature; and if they are
so easily accepted, it is precisely because of the
gigantic self-opinionated and self-assertion
of, at any rate, the majority of them. Once thoroughly
analyzed, however, how many of such would
remain who truly deserve the appellation of "wise"
even in terrestrial wisdom? How many, we ask,
of the so-called "authorities" and "leaders of.
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men" would prove much better than those
of whom it was said -- by one "wise" indeed -- "they
be blind leaders of the blind"? That the
teachings of neither our modern teachers nor preachers
are "wisdom from above" is fully
demonstrated. It is proved not by any personal incorrectness in
their statements or mistakes in life, for
"to err is but human," but by incontrovertible facts.
Wisdom and
Truth are synonymous terms, and that which is false or well-known
representative
of the Church of England, that the Sermon
of the Mount would, in its practical application, mean
utter ruin for his country less than three
weeks; and if it is no less true, as asserted by a literary
critic of science, that "the knell of
Charles Darwinism is rung in Mr. A. R. Wallace's present
book," (1) an event already predicted by Quatrefages -- then we are
left to choose between two
courses. We have either to take both Theology
and Science on blind faith and trust; or, to
proclaim both untrue and untrustworthy. There
is however, a third course open: to pretend that
we believe in both at the same time, and say nothing, as many do; but this would be sinning
against Theosophy and pandering to the
prejudices of Society -- and that we refuse to do. More
than this: we declare openly, quand meme,
that not one of the two, neither Theologist nor
Scientist, has the right in the face of this
to claim, the one that he preaches that which is divine
inspiration, and the other -- exact science;
since the former enforces that, which is on his own
recognition, pernicious to men and states --
i.e. the ethics of Christ; and the other (in the person
of the eminent naturalist, Mr. A. R. Wallace,
as shown by Mr. Samuel Butler) teaches Darwinian
evolution, in which he believes no longer; a
scheme, moreover, which has never existed in
nature,
if the opponents of Darwinism are correct.
Nevertheless, if anyone would presume to call
"unwise" or "false" the world-chosen authorities,
or declare their respective policies
dishonest, he would find himself promptly reduced to silence.
To doubt the exalted wisdom of the religion
of the late Cardinal Newman, of the Church of
England, or again of our great modern
scientists, is to sin against the Holy Ghost and Culture.
Woe unto him who refuses to recognize the
World's "Elect." He has to bow before one or the
other, though, if one is true, the
other must be false; and if the "wisdom" of neither Bishop nor
Scientist is "from above" -- which
is pretty fairly demonstrated by this time -- then their
"wisdom" is at best --
"terrestrial, psychic, devilish."
Now our readers have to bear in mind that
naught of the above is meant as a sign of disrespect
for the true teachings of Christ, or true
science: nor do we judge personalities but only the
systems of our civilized world. Valuing
freedom of thought above all things as the only way of
reaching at some future time that Wisdom, of
which every Theosophist ought to be enamored,
we recognize the right to the same freedom in
our foes as in our friends. All we contend for is
their claim to Wisdom -- as we understand
this term. Nor do we blame, but rather pity, in our
innermost heart, the "wise men" of
our age for trying to carry out the only policy that will keep
them on the pinnacle of their
"authority"; as they could not, if even they would, act otherwise and
preserve their prestige with the
masses, or escape from being speedily outcast by their
colleagues. The party spirit is so strong
with regard to the old tracks and ruts, that to turn on a
side path means deliberate treachery to it.
Thus, to be regarded now-a-days as an authority in
some particular subject, the scientist has to
reject nolens volens the metaphysical, and the
theologian to show contempt for the
materialistic teachings. All this is worldly policy and
practical common sense, but it is not the Wisdom
of either Job or James..
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Shall it be then regarded as too far fetched,
if, basing our words on a life-long observation and
experience, we venture to offer our ideas as
to the quickest and most efficient means of obtaining
our present World's universal respect and
becoming an "authority"? Show the tender regard for
the corns of every party's hobbies, and offer
yourself as the chief executioner, the hangman, of
the reputations of men and things regarded as
unpopular. Learn, that the great secret of power
consists in the art of pandering to popular
prejudices, to the World's likes and dislikes. Once this
principal condition complied with, he who
practices it is certain of attracting to himself the
educated and their satellites -- the less
educated -- they whose rule it is to place themselves
invariably on the safe side of public
opinion. This will lead to a perfect harmony or simultaneous
action. For, while the favorite attitude of
the cultured is to hide behind the intellectual bulwarks
of the favorite leaders of scientific
thought, and jurare in verba magistri, that of the less cultured
is to transform themselves into the faithful,
mechanical telephones of their superiors, and to
repeat like well-trained parrots the dicta
of their immediate leaders. The now aphoristical precept
of Mr. Artemus Ward, the showman of famous
memory -- "Scratch my back, Mr. Editor, and I
will scratch yours" -- proves immortally
true. The "rising Star," whether he be a theologian, a
politician, an author, a scientist, or a
journalist -- has to begin scratching the back of public tastes
and prejudices -- a hypnotic method as old as
human vanity. Gradually the hypnotized masses
begin to purr, they are ready for
"suggestion." Suggest whatever you want them to believe, and
forthwith they will begin to return your
caresses, and purr now to your hobbies, and pander in
their turn to anything suggested by
theologian, politician, author, scientist, or journalist. Such is
the simple secret of blossoming into an
"authority" or a "leader of men"; and such is the secret of
our modern-day wisdom.
And this is also the "secret" and
the true reason of the unpopularity of Lucifer and of the
ostracism practiced by this same modern world
on the Theosophical Society: for neither Lucifer,
nor the Society it belongs to, has ever
followed Mr. Artemus Ward's golden precept. No true
Theosophist, in fact, would consent to become
the fetish of a fashionable doctrine, any more than
he would make himself the slave of a decaying
dead-letter system, the spirit from which has
disappeared for ever. Neither would he pander
to anyone or anything, and therefore would
always decline to show belief in that in
which he does not, nor can he believe, which is lying to
his own soul. Therefore there, where others
see "the beauty and graces of modern culture," the
Theosophist sees only moral ugliness and the
somersaults of the clowns of the so-called cultured
centers. For him nothing applies better to
modern fashionable society than Sydney Smith's
description of Popish ritualism:
"Posture and imposture, flections and genuflections, bowing to
the right, curtsying to the left, and an
immense amount of male (and especially female)
millinery." There may be, no doubt, for
some worldly minds, a great charm in modern
civilization; but for the Theosophist all its
bounties can hardly repay for the evils it has brought
on the world. These are so many, that it is
not within the limits of this article to enumerate these
offspring of culture and of the progress of
physical science, whose latest achievements begin
with vivisection and end in improved murder
by electricity.
Our answer, we have no doubt, is not
calculated to make us more friends than enemies, but this
can be hardly helped. Our magazine may be
looked upon as "pessimistic," but no one can charge
it with publishing slanders or lies, or, in
fact, anything but that which we honestly believe to be
true. Be it as it may, however, we hope never
to lack moral courage in the expression of our
opinions or in defense of Theosophy and its
Society. Let then nine-tenths of every population.
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arise in arms against the Theosophical
Society wherever it appears -- they will never be able to
suppress the truths it utters. Let the masses
of growing Materialism, the hosts of Spiritualism, all
the Church-going congregations, bigots and
iconoclasts, Grundy-worshippers, aping-followers
and blind disciples, let them slander, abuse,
lie, denounce, and publish every falsehood about us
under the sun -- they will not uproot
Theosophy, nor even upset her Society, if only its members
hold together. Let even such friends and advisers
as he who is now answered, turn away in
disgust from those whom he addresses in vain
-- it matters not, for our two paths in life run
diametrically opposite. Let him keep to his
"terrestrial" wisdom: we will keep to that pure ray
"that comes from above," from the
light of the "Ancient."
What indeed, has WISDOM, Theosophia -- the
Wisdom "full of mercy and good fruits, without
wrangling or partiality and without
hypocrisy" (James iii, 17) -- to do with our cruel, selfish,
crafty, and hypocritical world? What is there
in common between divine Sophia and the
improvements of modern civilization and
science; between spirit and the letter that killeth? The
more so as at this stage of evolution the
wisest man on earth, according to the wise Carlyle, is but
a clever infant spelling letters from a
hieroglyphical, prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in
eternity."
FOOTNOTE:
1. See "The Deadlock of Darwinism,"
by Samuel Butler, in the Universal Review for April,
1890. (return
to text)
The Esoteric Character of the Gospels
Part I
". . . . Tell us, when shall these things
be? And what shall be the sign of thy
presence,
and of the consummation of the age?" (1) asked the Disciples of the
MASTER, on the Mount of Olives.
The reply given by the "Man of
Sorrow," the Chrestos, on his trial, but also on his way to
triumph, as Christos, or Christ (2), is prophetic, and
very suggestive. It is a warning indeed. The
answer must be quoted in full. Jesus . . . .
said unto them: --
Take heed that no man lead you astray.
For many shall come in my name saying, I
am the Christ; and shall lead many astray.
And ye shall hear of wars . . . . but the
end is not yet. For nation shall rise
against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom; and there shall be famines and
earthquakes in divers places. But all
these things are the beginning of travail. .
. . Many false prophets shall arise, and
shall lead many astray . . . . then shall the
end come. . . . when ye see the
abomination of desolation which was spoken
through Daniel. . . . Then if any man
shall say unto you, Lo, here is the
Christ, or there; believe him not. . . . If they
shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the
wilderness, go not forth; behold, he is in
the inner chambers, believe them not. For as
the lightning cometh forth from the.
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East, and is seen even in the West, so shall
be the presence of the Son of Man,
etc., etc.
Two things become evident to all in
the above passages, now that their false rendering is
corrected in the revision text: (a)
"the coming of Christ," means the presence of CHRISTOS in a
regenerated world, and not at all the actual
coming in body of "Christ" Jesus; (b) this Christ is to
be sought neither in the wilderness nor
"in the inner chambers," nor in the sanctuary of any
temple or church built by man; for Christ --
the true esoteric SAVIOR -- is no man, but the
DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being. He who
strives to resurrect the Spirit crucified in
him by his own terrestrial passions, and buried deep in the "sepulcher" of his
sinful flesh; he who
has the strength to roll back the stone of
matter from the door of his own inner sanctuary, he has
the risen Christ in him.(3) The "Son of Man" is no child of the
bond-woman -- flesh, but verily
of the free-woman -- Spirit (4), the child of man's
own deeds, and the fruit of his own spiritual
labor.
On the other hand, at no time since the
Christian era, have the precursor signs described in
Matthew applied so graphically and forcibly to any epoch as they do to our own
times. When has
nation arisen against nation more than at
this time? When have "famines" -- another name for
destitute pauperism, and the famished
multitudes of the proletariat -- been more cruel,
earthquakes more frequent, or covered such an
area simultaneously, as for the last few years?
Millenarians and Adventists of robust faith,
may go on saying that "the coming of (the canalized)
Christ" is near at hand, and prepare
themselves for "the end of the world." Theosophists -- at any
rate, some of them -- who understand the
hidden meaning of the universally-expected Avatars,
Messiahs, Sosioshes and Christs -- know that
it is no "end of the world," but "the consummation
of the age," i.e., the close of a cycle,
which is now fast approaching. (5) If our readers have
forgotten the concluding passages of the
article, "The Signs of the Times," (6) in LUCIFER for
October last, let them read them over, and
they will plainly see the meaning of this particular
cycle.
Many and many a time the warning about the
"false Christs" and prophets who shall lead people
astray has been interpreted by charitable
Christians, the worshippers of the dead-letter of their
scripture, as applying to mystics generally,
and Theosophists most especially. The recent work
by Mr. Pember, Earth's Earliest Ages,
is a proof of it. Nevertheless, it seems very evident that
the words in Matthew's Gospel and others can
hardly apply to Theosophists. For these were
never found saying that Christ is
"Here" or "There," in wilderness or city, and least of all
in the
"inner chamber" behind the altar of
any modern church. Whether Heathen or Christian by birth,
they refuse to materialize and thus degrade
that which is the purest and grandest ideal -- the
symbol of symbols -- namely, the immortal
Divine Spirit in man, whether it be called Horus,
Krishna, Buddha, or Christ. None of them has
ever yet said: "I am the Christ"; for those born in
the West feel themselves, so far, only Chrestians
(7),
however much they may strive to become
Christians in Spirit. It is to those, who in their great conceit and
pride refuse to win the right of
such appellation by first leading the life of
Chrestos (8); to those who haughtily proclaim
themselves Christians (the glorified,
the anointed) by sole virtue of baptism when but a few days
old -- that the above-quoted words of Jesus
apply most forcibly. Can the prophetic insight of him
who uttered this remarkable warning be
doubted by any one who sees the numerous "false
prophets" and pseudo-apostles (of
Christ), now roaming over the world? These have split the one.
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divine Truth into fragments, and broken, in
the camp of the Protestants alone, the rock of the
Eternal Verity into three hundred and fifty
odd pieces, which now represent the bulk of their
Dissenting sects. Accepting the number in
round figures as 350, and admitting, for argument's
sake, that, at least, one of these may have
the approximate truth, still 349 must be necessarily
false.
(9) Each of
these claims to have Christ exclusively in its "inner chamber," and
denies him
to all others, while, in truth, the great
majority of their respective followers daily put Christ to
death on the cruciform tree of matter -- the
"tree of infamy" of the old Romans -- indeed!
The worship of the dead-letter in the Bible
is but one more form of idolatry, nothing better. A
fundamental dogma of faith cannot exist under
a double-faced Janus form. "Justification" by
Christ cannot
be achieved at one's choice and fancy, either by "faith" or by
"works" and James,
therefore (ii., 25), contradicting Paul (Heb.
xi., 31), and vice versa (10), one of them must be
wrong. Hence, the Bible is not the
"Word of God," but contains at best the words of fallible men
and imperfect teachers. Yet read esoterically,
it does contain, if not the whole truth, still,
"nothing but the truth," under whatever allegorical garb. Only: Quot
homines tot sententiae.
The "Christ principle," the
awakened and glorified Spirit of Truth, being universal and eternal,
the true Christos cannot be monopolized
by any one person, even though that person has chosen
to arrogate to himself the title of the
"Vicar of Christ," or of the "Head" of that or another
State-religion.
The spirits of "Chrest" and
"Christ" cannot be confined to any creed or sect, only
because that sect chooses to exalt itself
above the heads of all other religions or sects. The name
has been used in a manner so intolerant and
dogmatic, especially in our day, that Christianity is
now the religion of arrogance par
excellence, a stepping-stone for ambition, a sinecure for
wealth, sham and power; a convenient screen
for hypocrisy. The noble epithet of old, the one
that made Justin Martyr say that "from
the mere name, which is imputed to us as a crime, we are
the most excellent," (11) is now degraded. The missionary prides himself with the
so-called
conversion of a heathen, who makes of Christianity ever a profession,
but rarely a religion, a
source of income from the missionary fund,
and a pretext, since the blood of Jesus has washed
them all by anticipation, for every petty
crime, from drunkenness and lying up to theft. That
same missionary, however, would not hesitate
to publicly condemn the greatest saint to eternal
perdition and hell fires if that holy man has
only neglected to pass through the fruitless and
meaningless form of baptism by water with
accompaniment of lip prayers and vain ritualism.
We say "lip prayer" and "vain
ritualism" knowingly. Few Christians among the laymen are aware
even of the true meaning of the word Christ;
and those of the clergy who happen to know it (for
they are brought up in the idea that to study
such subjects is sinful) keep the information secret
from their parishioners. They demand blind,
implicit faith, and forbid inquiry as the one
unpardonable sin, though nothing of that which leads to the knowledge of
the truth can be aught
else than holy. For what is "Divine
Wisdom," or Gnosis, but the essential reality behind the
evanescent appearances of objects in nature
-- the very soul of the manifested LOGOS? Why
should men who strive to accomplish union
with the one eternal and absolute Deity shudder at
the idea of prying into its mysteries --
however awful? Why, above all, should they use names
and words the very meaning of which is a
sealed mystery to them a mere sound? Is it because an
unscrupulous, power-seeking Establishment
called a Church has cried "wolf" at every such
attempt, and, denouncing-it as
"blasphemous," has ever tried to kill the spirit of inquiry? But
Theosophy, the "divine Wisdom," has
never heeded that cry, and has the courage of its opinions..
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The world of sceptics and fanatics may call
it, one -- an empty "ism" -- the other "Satanism":
they can never crush it. Theosophists have
been called Atheists, haters of Christianity, the
enemies of God and the gods. They are none of
these. Therefore, they have agreed this day to
publish a clear statement of their ideas, and
a profession of their faith -- with regard to
monotheism and Christianity, at any rate --
and to place it before the impartial reader to judge
them and their detractors on the merits of
their respective faiths. No truth-loving mind would
object to such honest and sincere dealing,
nor will it be dazzled by any amount of new light
thrown upon the subject, howsoever much
startled otherwise. On the contrary, such minds will
thank LUCIFER, perhaps, while those of whom
it was said "qui vult decipi decipiatur" -- let
them be deceived by all means!
The editors of this magazine propose to give
a series of essays upon the hidden meaning or
esotericism of the "New Testament."
No more than any other scripture of the great world-religions
can the Bible be excluded from that class of
allegorical and symbolical writings which
have been, from the pre-historic ages, the
receptacle of the secret teachings of the Mysteries of
Initiation, under a more or less veiled form.
The primitive writers of the Logia (now the Gospels)
knew certainly the truth, and the whole
truth; but their successors had, as certainly, only dogma
and form, which lead to hierarchical power at
heart, rather than the spirit of the so-called Christ's
teachings. Hence the gradual perversion. As
Higgins truly said, in the Christologia of St. Paul
and Justin Martyr, we have the esoteric
religion of the Vatican, a refined Gnosticism for the
cardinals, a more gross one for the people.
It is the latter, only still more materialized and
disfigured, which has reached us in our age.
The idea of writing this series was suggested
to us by a certain letter published in our October
issue, under the heading of "Are the
Teachings ascribed to Jesus contradictory?" Nevertheless,
this is no attempt to contradict or weaken,
in any one instance, that which is said by Mr. Gerald
Massey in his criticism. The contradictions
pointed out by the learned lecturer and author are too
patent to be explained by any
"Preacher" or Bible champion; for what he has said -- only in more
terse and vigorous language -- is what was
said of the descendant of Joseph Pandira (or Panthera)
in Isis Unveiled (vol. II., p. 201),
from the Talmudic Sepher Toldos Jeshu. His belief with regard
to the spurious character of the Bible and
New Testament, as now edited, is therefore, also the
belief of the present writer. In view of the
recent revision of the Bible, and its many thousands of
mistakes, mistranslations, and interpolations
(some confessed to, and others withheld), it would
ill become an opponent to take any one to
task for refusing to believe in the authorized texts.
But the editors would object to one short
sentence in the criticism under notice. Mr. Gerald
Massey writes: --
"What is the use of taking your 'Bible
oath' that the thing is true, if the book you are sworn upon
is a magazine of falsehoods already exploded,
or just going off?"
Surely it is not a symbologist of Mr.
Massey's powers and learning who would call the Book of
the Dead,
or the Vedas, or any other ancient Scripture, "a magazine of falsehoods.''
(12) Why
not
regard in the same light as all the others,
the Old, and, in a still greater measure, the New
Testament?.
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All of these are "magazines of
falsehoods," if accepted in the exoteric dead-letter interpretations
of their ancient, and especially their
modern, theological glossarists. Each of these records has
served in its turn as a means for securing
power and of supporting the ambitious policy of an
unscrupulous priesthood. All have promoted
superstition, all made of their gods bloodthirsty and
ever-damning Molochs and fiends, as all have
made nations to serve the latter more than the God
of Truth. But while cunningly-devised dogmas
and intentional misinterpretations by scholiasts
are beyond any doubt, "falsehoods
already exploded," the texts themselves are mines of universal
truths. But for the world of the profane and
sinners, at any rate -- they were and still are like the
mysterious characters traced by "the
fingers of a man's hand" on the wall of the Palace of
Belshazzar: they need a Daniel to read and
understand them.
Nevertheless, TRUTH has not allowed herself
to remain without witnesses. There are, besides
great Initiates into scriptural symbology, a
number of quiet students of the mysteries or archaic
esotericism, of scholars proficient in Hebrew
and other dead tongues, who have devoted their
lives to unriddle the speeches of the Sphinx
of the world-religions. And these students, though
none of them has yet mastered all the
"seven keys" that open the great problem, have discovered
enough to be able to say: There was a
universal mystery-language, in which all the World
Scriptures were written, from Vedas to Revelation,
from the Book of the Dead to the Acts. One of
the keys, at any rate -- the numerical and geometrical
key (13) to
the Mystery Speech is now
rescued; an ancient language, truly, which up
to this time remained hidden, but the evidences of
which abundantly exist, as may be proven by
undeniable mathematical demonstrations. If,
indeed, the Bible is forced on the acceptance
of the world in its dead-letter meaning, in the face
of the modern discoveries by Orientalists and
the efforts of independent students and kabalists, it
is easy to prophesy that even the present new
generations of Europe and America will repudiate
it, as all the materialists and logicians
have done. For, the more one studies ancient religious
texts, the more one finds that the
ground-work of the New Testament is the same as the ground-work
of the Vedas, of the Egyptian theogony, and the
Mazdean allegories. The atonements by
blood -- blood-covenants and
blood-transferences from gods to men, and by men, as sacrifices to
the gods -- are the first keynote struck in
every cosmogony and theogony; soul, life and blood
were synonymous words in every language,
pre-eminently with the Jews; and that blood-giving
was life-giving. "Many a legend among
(geographically) alien nations ascribes soul and
consciousness in newly-created mankind to the
blood of the god-creators." Berosus records a
Chaldean legend ascribing the creation of a
new race of mankind to the admixture of dust with
the blood that flowed from the severed head
of the god Belus. "On this account it is that men are
rational and partake of divine
knowledge," explains Berosus. (14) And Lenormant has shown
(Beginnings of History, p. 52, note) that "the Orphics . . . . said that
the immaterial part of man,
his soul (his life) sprang from the blood of Dionysius Zagreus, whom
. . . . Titans tore to pieces."
Blood "revivifies the dead" -- i.e.,
interpreted metaphysically, it gives conscious life and a soul to
the man of matter or clay -- such as the
modern materialist is now. The mystic meaning of the
injunction, "Verily I say unto you,
except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood,
ye have not life in yourselves," etc.,
can never be understood or appreciated at its true occult
value, except by those who hold some of the seven
keys, and yet care little for St. Peter. (15)
These words, whether said by Jesus of
Nazareth, or Jeshua Ben-Panthera, are the words of an
INITIATE. They have to be interpreted with
the help of three keys -- one opening the psychic
door, the second that of physiology, and the
third that which unlocks the mystery of terrestrial
being, by unveiling the inseparable blending
of theogony with anthropology. It is for revealing a.
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few of these truths, with the sole view of
saving intellectual mankind from the insanities of
materialism and pessimism, that mystics have often been denounced as the servants
of
Antichrist, even by those Christians who are
most worthy, sincerely pious and respectable men.
The first key that one has to use to unravel
the dark secrets involved in the mystic name of
Christ, is the key which unlocked the door to
the ancient mysteries of the primitive Aryans,
Sabeans and Egyptians. The Gnosis supplanted
by the Christian scheme was universal. It was the
echo of the primordial wisdom-religion which
had once been the heirloom of the whole of
mankind; and, therefore, one may truly say
that, in its purely metaphysical aspect, the Spirit of
Christ (the divine logos) was present
in humanity from the beginning of it. The author of the
Clementine Homilies is right; the mystery of Christos -- now supposed to have
been taught by
Jesus of Nazareth -- "was
identical" with that which from the first had been communicated "to
those who were worthy," as quoted in another lecture. (16) We may learn from
the Gospel
according to Luke, that the "worthy" were those who had
been initiated into the mysteries of the
Gnosis, and who were "accounted
worthy" to attain that "resurrection from the dead" in this
life .
. . . "those
who knew that they could die no more, being equal to the angels as sons of God
and
sons of the Resurrection." In other
words, they were the great adepts of whatever religion; and
the words apply to all those who, without
being Initiates, strive and succeed, through personal
efforts to live the life and to attain
the naturally ensuing spiritual illumination in blending their
personality -- (the "Son") with
(the "Father,") their individual divine Spirit, the God within them.
This "resurrection" can never be
monopolized by the Christians, but is the spiritual birth-right of
every human being endowed with soul and
spirit, whatever his religion may be. Such individual
is a Christ-man. On the other hand,
those who choose to ignore the Christ (principle) within
themselves, must die unregenerate heathens
-- baptism, sacraments, lip-prayers, and belief in
dogmas notwithstanding.
In order to follow this explanation, the
reader must bear in mind the real archaic meaning of the
paronomasia involved in the two terms Chrestos
and Christos. The former means certainly more
than merely "a good," and
"excellent man," while the latter was never applied to any one living
man, but to every Initiate at the moment of his
second birth and resurrection. (17) He who finds
Christos within himself and recognizes the
latter as his only "way," becomes a follower and an
Apostle of Christ, though he may have never been baptized, nor even have
met a "Christian," still
less call himself one.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Matthew xxiv, 3, et seq. The
sentences italicized are those which stand corrected in the New
Testament after the recent revision in 1881
of the version of 1611; which version is full of errors,
voluntary and involuntary. The word
"presence," for "coming," and "the consummation of the
age," now standing for "the end of
the world," have altered, of late, the whole meaning, even for
the most sincere Christians, if we exempt the
Adventists. (return to text)
2. He who will not ponder over and master the
great difference between the meaning of the two.
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Greek words -- [chrestos] and [christos]
must remain blind for ever to the true esoteric meaning
of the Gospels; that is to say, to the living
Spirit entombed in the sterile dead-letter of the texts,
the very Dead Sea fruit of lip-Christianity.
(return to text)
3. For ye are the temple
("sanctuary" in the revised N. T.) of the living God. (2 Cor.
vi., 16.)
(return to text)
4. Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, was feminine
with the Jews, as with most ancient peoples, and it
was so with the early Christians. Sophia of
the Gnostics and the third Sephiroth Binah (the
female Jehovah
of the Kabalists), are feminine principles -- "Divine Spirit," or Ruach.
"Achath
Ruach Elohim Chiim." "One is She, the Spirit of the Elohim
of Life," is said in Sepher Yezirah.
(return to text)
5. There are several remarkable cycles that
come to a close at the end of this century. First, the
5,000 years of the Kaliyug cycle; again the
Messianic cycle of the Samaritan (also Kabalistic)
Jews of the man connected with Pisces (Ichthys
or "Fish-man" Dag). It is a cycle, historic and
not very long, but very occult, lasting about
2,155 solar years, but having a true significance only
when computed by lunar months. It occurred
2410 and 255 B.C., or when the equinox entered
into the sign of the Ram, and again
into that of Pisces. When it enters, in a few years, the sign of
Aquarius,
psychologists will have some extra work to do, and the psychic idiosyncrasies
of
humanity will enter on a great change. (return to text)
6. See Volume II. p. 381. (return to text)
7. The earliest Christian author, Justin
Martyr, calls, in his first Apology, his co-religionists
Chrestians, [Chrestianoi] -- not Christians. (return to text)
8. "Clemens Alexandrinus, in the second
century, founds a serious argument on this paranomasia
(lib. iii., cap. xvii., 53 et circa),
that all who believed in Chrest (i.e., "a good man") both are,
and
are called Chrestians, that is, good
men," (Strommata, lib. ii. "Higgins' Anacalypsis").
And
Lactantius (lib. iv., cap. vii.) says that it
is only through ignorance that people call themselves
Christians, instead of Chrestians: "qui
proper ignorantium errorem cum immutata litera
Chrestum solent dicere." (return to text)
9. In England alone, there are over 239
various sects. (See Whitaker's Almanac.) In 1883, there
were 186 denominations only, and now they
steadily increase with every year, an additional 53
sects having sprung up in only four years! (return to text)
10. It is but fair to St. Paul to remark that
this contradiction is surely due to later tampering with
his Epistles. Paul was a Gnostic himself,
i.e., a "Son of Wisdom," and an Initiate into the true
mysteries of Christos, though he may have thundered (or was made to appear to
do so) against
some Gnostic sects, of which, in his day,
there were many. But his Christos was not Jesus of
Nazareth, nor any living man, as shown so
ably in Mr. Gerald Massey's lecture, "Paul, the
Gnostic Opponent of Peter." He was an
Initiate, a true "Master-Builder" or adept, as described in
Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., pp. 90-91. (return
to text)
11. [hoson te ek tou kategoreumenou hemon
onomatos chrestotatoi huparchomen] (First
Apology). (return to text)
12. The extraordinary amount of information
collated by that able Egyptologist shows that he has
thoroughly mastered the secret of the
production of the New Testament. Mr. Massey knows the
difference between the spiritual, divine and
purely metaphysical Christos, and the made-up "lay
figure" of the canalized Jesus. He knows
also that the Christian canon, especially the Gospels,
Acts and
Epistles, are made up of fragments of gnostic wisdom, the ground-work of
which is pre-Christian
and built on the MYSTERIES of Initiation. It
is the mode of theological presentation.
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and the interpolated passages -- such as in Mark
xvi. from verse 9 to the end -- which make of
the Gospels a "magazine of (wicked)
falsehoods," and throw a slur on CHRISTOS. But the
Occultist who discerns between the two
currents (the true gnostic and the pseudo Christian)
knows that the passages free from theological
tampering belong to archaic wisdom, and so does
Mr. Gerald Massey, though his views differ
from ours. (return to text)
13. "The key to the recovery of the language,
so far as the writer's efforts have been concerned,
was found in the use, strange to say, of the
discovered integral ratio in numbers of diameter to
circumference of a circle," by a
geometrician. "This ratio is 6,561 for diameter and 20,612 for
circumference." (Cabalistic MSS.) In one
of the future numbers of "LUCIFER" more details will
be given, with the permission of the
discoverer. -- ED. (See The Secret Doctrine, I, 313 et seq.)
(return to text)
14. Cory's Anc. Frag., p. 59, f. So do
Sanchoniaton and Hesiod, who both ascribe the vivifying of
mankind to the spilt blood of the gods. But
blood and soul are one (nephesh), and the blood of
the gods means here the informing soul. (return to text)
15. The existence of these seven keys
is virtually admitted, owing to deep research in the
Egyptological lore, by Mr. G. Massey again.
While opposing the teachings of "Esoteric
Buddhism" -- unfortunately misunderstood
by him in almost every respect -- in his Lecture on
"The Seven Souls of Man," he writes
(p. 21): --
"This system of thought, this mode of
representation, this septenary of powers, in
various aspects, had been established in
Egypt, at least, seven thousand years ago,
as we learn from certain allusions to Atum
(the god 'in whom the fatherhood was
individualized as the begetter of an
eternal soul,' the seventh principle of the
Theosophists), found in the inscriptions
lately discovered at Saqqarah. I say in
various aspects, because the gnosis of the
Mysteries was, at least, sevenfold in its
nature -- it was Elemental, Biological, Elementary (human), Stellar,
Lunar, Solar
and Spiritual -- and nothing short of a
grasp of the whole system can possibly
enable us to discriminate the various parts, distinguish one from the other, and
determinate the which and the what, as we try to follow the symbolical Seven
through their several phases of
character." (return to text)
16. "Gnostic and Historic
Christianity." (return to text)
17. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of
God." (John iii. 4.) Here the
birth from above, the spiritual birth, is meant, achieved at the
supreme and last initiation. (return to text)
The Esoteric Character of the Gospels
Part II
The word Chrestos existed ages before
Christianity was heard of. It is found used, from the fifth
century B.C., by Herodotus, by Aeschylus and
other classical Greek writers, the meaning of it
being applied to both things and persons.
Thus in Aeschylus (Cho. 901) we read
of pythochresta the "oracles delivered by a Pythian God"
(Greek-English Lexicon) through a pythoness; and Pythochrestos is the
nominative singular of an.
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adjective derived from chrao (Eurip. Ion,
1218). The later meanings coined freely from this
primitive application, are numerous and
varied. Pagan classics expressed more than one idea by
the verb [chraomai] "consulting
an oracle"; for it also means "fated," doomed by an
oracle, in the
sense of a sacrificial victim to its decree,
or -- "to the WORD"; as chresterion is not only "the
seat of an oracle" but also "an
offering to, or for, the oracle.'' (18) Chrestes is one who expounds
or explains oracles, "a prophet, a soothsayer;" (19) and chresterios is
one who belongs to, or is
in the service of, an oracle, a god, or a
"Master" (20); this Canon Farrar's efforts
notwithstanding.(21)
All this is evidence that the terms Christ
and Christians, spelt originally Chrest and Chrestians
[chrestianoi] (22) were directly borrowed from the Temple terminology of
the Pagans, and
meant the same thing. The God of the Jews was
now substituted for the Oracle and the other
gods; the generic designation
"Chrestos" became a noun applied to one special personage; and
new terms such as Chrestianoi and Chrestodoulos
"a follower or servant of Chrestos" -- were
coined out of the old material. This is shown
by Philo Judaeus, a monotheist, assuredly, using
already the same term for monotheistic
purposes. For he speaks of theochrestos "God-declared,"
or one who is declared by god, and of logia
theochresta "sayings delivered by God" -- which
proves that he wrote at a time (between the
first century B. C., and the first A. D.) when neither
Christians nor Chrestians were yet known
under these names, but still called themselves the
Nazarenes. The notable difference between the
two words [chrao] -- "consulting or obtaining
response from a god or oracle" (chreo
being the Ionic earlier form of it), and chrio "to rub, to
anoint" (from which the name Christos),
has not prevented the ecclesiastical adoption and coin
age from Philo's expression [Theochrestos]
of that other term [Theochristos] "anointed by God."
Thus the quiet substitution of the letter, [i]
for [e] for dogmatic purposes, was achieved in the
easiest way, as we now see.
The secular meaning of Chrestos runs
throughout the classical Greek literature pari passu with
that given to it in the mysteries.
Demosthenes' saying [o Chreste] (330, 27), means by it simply
"you nice fellow"; Plato (in Phaed.
264 B) has [chrestos ei hoti hegei] -- "you are an excellent
fellow to think . . ." But in the
esoteric phraseology of the temples "chrestos," (23) a word which,
like the participle chrestheis, is
formed under the same rule, and conveys the same sense -- from
the verb [chraomai] ("to consult
a god") -- answers to what we would call an adept, also a high
chela,
a disciple. It is in this sense that it is used by Euripides (Ion. 1320)
and by Aeschylus (l.
c.). This qualification was applied to those
whom the god, oracle, or any superior had proclaimed
this, that, or anything else. An instance may
be given in this case.
The words [chresen oikistera] used by
Pindar (pp. 4-10) mean "the oracle proclaimed him the
colonizer." In this case the genius of
the Greek language permits that the man so proclaimed
should be called Chrestos. Hence this
term was applied to every Disciple recognized by a
Master, as also to every good man. Now, the
Greek language affords strange etymologies.
Christian theology has chosen and decreed
that the name Christos should be taken as derived
from [chrio, chriso], "anointed
with scented unguents or oil." But this word has several
significances. It is used by Homer,
certainly, as applied to the rubbing with oil of the body after
bathing (Il. 23, 186; also in Od., 4,
252) as other ancient writers do. Yet the word Christes means
rather a white-washer, while the word
Chrestes means priest and prophet, a term far more
applicable to Jesus, than that of the
"Anointed," since, as Nork shows on the authority of the.
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Gospels, he never was anointed, either as
king or priest. In short, there is a deep mystery
underlying all this scheme, which, as I
maintain, only a thorough knowledge of the Pagan
mysteries is capable of unveiling. (24) It is not what the
early Fathers, who had an object to
achieve, may affirm or deny, that is the
important point, but rather what is now the evidence for
the real significance given to the two terms Chrestos
and Christos by the ancients in the pre-Christian
ages. For the latter had no object to
achieve, therefore nothing to conceal or disfigure,
and their evidence is naturally the more
reliable of the two. This evidence can be obtained by
first studying the meaning given to these
words by the classics, and then their correct
significance searched for in mystic
symbology.
Now Chrestos, as already said, is a
term applied in various senses. It qualifies both Deity and
Man. It is used in the former sense in the
Gospels, and in Luke (vi., 35), where it means "kind,"
and "merciful." [chrestos estin
epi tous] . . .; in I Peter (ii., 3), where it is said, "Kind
is the
Lord," [Chrestos o Kurios]. On
the other hand, it is explained by Clemens Alexandrinus as
simply meaning a good man; i.e., "All
who believe in Chrest (a good man) both are, and are
called Chrestians, that is good men." (Strom. lib. ii.) The
reticence of Clemens, whose
Christianity, as King truly remarks in his Gnostics,
was no more than a graft upon the congenial
stock of his original Platonism, is quite
natural. He was an Initiate, a new Platonist, before he
became a Christian, which fact, however much
he may have fallen off from his earlier views,
could not exonerate him from his pledge of
secrecy. And as a Theosophist and a Gnostic, one
who knew, Clemens must have known that
Christos was "the WAY," while Chrestos was the
lonely traveler journeying on to reach the
ultimate goal through that "Path," which goal was
Christos,
the glorified Spirit of "TRUTH," the reunion with which makes the
soul (the Son) ONE
with the (Father) Spirit. That Paul knew it,
is certain, for his own expressions prove it. For what
do the words [palin odino, achris ou
morphothei Christos], or as given in the authorized
translations, "I am again in travail
until Christ be formed in you" mean, but what we give in its
esoteric rendering, i.e., "until you
find the Christos within yourselves as your only 'way'." (Vide
Galatians iv., 19 and 20.)
Thus Jesus, whether of Nazareth or Lud (25), was a Chrestos, as
undeniably as that he never was
entitled to the appellation of Christos,
during his life-time and before his last trial. It may have
been as Higgins thinks, who surmises that the
first name of Jesus was, perhaps, [chreistos], the
second, [chrestos], and the third [christos].
"The word [chreistos] was in use before the H (cap.
eta)
was in the language." But Taylor (in his answer to Pye Smith, p. 113) is
quoted saying "The
complimentary epithet Chrest . . . .
signified nothing more than a good man."
Here again a number of ancient writers may be
brought for ward to testify that Christos (or
Chreistos, rather) was, along with [chrestos] = Chrestos, an adjective
applied to Gentiles before
the Christian era. In Philopatris it
is said [ei tuchoi chrestos kai en ethnesin], i.e., "if chrestos
chance to be even among the Gentiles,"
etc.
Tertullian denounces in the 3rd chapter of
his Apologia the word "Christianus" as derived by
"crafty interpretation" (26); Dr. Jones, on the
other hand, letting out the information,
corroborated by good sources, that "Chrestos
([chrestos]) was the name given to Christ by the
Gnostics, and even by unbelievers,"
assures us that the real name ought to be [christos] or
Christos -- thus repeating and supporting the
original "pious fraud" of the early Fathers, a fraud.
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which led to the carnalizing of the whole
Christian system. (27) But I propose to show as much
of the real meaning of all these terms as
lies within my humble powers and knowledge. Christos,
or the "Christ condition," was ever
the synonym of the "Mahatmic-condition," i.e., the union of
the man with the divine principle in him. As
Paul says (Ephes. iii. 17) "[katoikesai ton Christon
dia tes pisteos en tais kardiais humon]." "That you may find Christos in your inner
man through
knowledge" not faith, as translated; for Pistis is
"knowledge," as will be shown further on.
There is still another and far more weighty
proof that the name Christos is pre-Christian. The
evidence for it is found in the prophecy of
the Erythrean Sybil. We read it in [IESOUS
CHREISTOS THEOU HUIOS SOTER STAUROS]. Read esoterically, this string of meaningless
detached nouns, which has no sense to the
profane, contains a real prophecy -- only not referring
to Jesus -- and a verse from the mystic
catechism of the Initiate. The prophecy relates to the
coming down upon the Earth of the Spirit of
Truth (Christos), after which advent -- that has once
more nought to do with Jesus -- will begin
the Golden Age; the verse refers to the necessity
before reaching that blessed condition of
inner (or subjective) theophany and theopneusty, to
pass through the crucifixion of flesh or
matter. Read exoterically, the words "Iesous Chreistos
theou yios soter stauros," meaning literally "Iesus, Christos, God, Son,
Savior, Cross," are most
excellent handles to hang a Christian
prophecy on, but they are pagan, not Christian.
If called upon to explain the names IESOUS
CHREISTOS, the answer is: study mythology, the
so-called "fictions" of the
ancients, and they will give you the key. Ponder over Apollo, the solar
god, and the "Healer," and the
allegory about his son Janus (or Ion), his priest at Delphos,
through whom alone could prayers reach the immortal
gods, and his other son Asclepios, called
the Soter, or Savior. Here is a
leaflet from esoteric history written in symbolical phraseology by
the old Grecian poets.
The city of Chrisa (28) (now spelt Crisa),
was built in memory of Kreusa (or Creusa), daughter
of King Erechtheus and mother of Janus (or
Ion) by Apollo, in memory of the danger which
Janus escaped. (29) We learn that Janus, abandoned
by his mother in a grotto "to hide the shame
of the virgin who bore a son," was found
by Hermes, who brought the infant to Delphi, nurtured
him by his father's sanctuary and oracle,
where, under the name of Chresis Janus became first a
Chrestis (a priest, soothsayer, or Initiate), and then very nearly a
Chresterion, "a sacrificial
victim," (30) ready to be poisoned by his own mother who knew him not,
and who, in her
jealousy, mistook him, on the hazy intimation
of the oracle, for a son of her husband. He pursued
her to the very altar with the intention of
killing her -- when she was saved through the
pythoness, who divulged to both the secret of
their relationship. In memory of this narrow
escape, Creusa, the mother, built the city of
Chrisa, or Krisa. Such is the allegory, and it
symbolizes simply the trials of Initiation. (31)
Finding then that Janus, the solar God, and
son of Apollo, the Sun, means the "Initiator" and the
"Opener of the Gate of Light," or
secret wisdom of the mysteries; that he is born from Krisa
(esoterically Chris), and that he was
a Chrestos through whom spoke the God; that he was finally
Ion, the father of the Ionians, and, some
say, an aspect of Asclepios, another son of Apollo, it is
easy to get hold of the thread of Ariadne in
this labyrinth of allegories. It is not the place here to
prove side issues in mythology, however. It
suffices to show the connection between the
mythical characters of hoary antiquity and
the later fables that marked the beginning of our era of.
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civilization. Asclepios (Esculapius) was the
divine physician, the "Healer," the "Savior," [Soter]
as he was called, a title also given to Janus
of Delphi; and IASO, the daughter of Asclepios, was
the goddess of healing, under whose patronage
were all the candidates for initiation in her
father's temple, the novices or chrestoi,
called "the sons of Iaso." (Vide for name, Plutus, by
Aristoph. 701).
Now, if we remember, firstly, that the names
of IESUS in their different forms, such as Iasius,
Iasion, Jason and Iasus, were very common in
ancient Greece, especially among the descendants
of Jasius (the Jasides), as also the number
of the "sons of Iaso," the Mystoi and future Epoptai
(Initiates), why should not the enigmatical
words in the Sibylline Book be read in their legitimate
light, one that had nought to do with a
Christian prophecy? The secret doctrine teaches that the
first two words [IESOUS CHREISTOS]
mean simply "son of Iaso, a Chrestos," or servant of the
oracular God. Indeed IASO is in the Ionic
dialect IESO and the expression Iesous -- in its archaic
form, [IESOUS] -- simply means
"the son of Iaso or Ieso, the "healer," i.e., [ho
Iesous] ([uios]).
No objection, assuredly, can be taken to such
rendering, or to the name being written Ieso instead
of Iaso, since the first form is attic,
therefore incorrect, for the name is Ionic. "Ieso" from which
"Ho Iesous" (son of Ieso) -- i.e.,
a genitive, not a nominative -- is Ionic and cannot be anything
else, if the age of the Sibylline book is
taken into consideration. Nor could the Sibyl of Erythrea
have spelt it originally otherwise, as
Erythrea, her very residence, was a town in Ionia (from Ion
or Janus) opposite Chios; and that the Ionic
preceded the attic form.
Leaving aside in this case the mystical
signification of the now famous Sibylline sentence, and
giving its literal interpretation only, on
the authority of all that has been said, the hitherto
mysterious words would stand; "Son of
IASO, CHRESTOS (the priest or servant) (of the) SON
of (the) GOD (Apollo) the SAVIOR from the
CROSS" -- (of flesh or matter). (32) Truly,
Christianity can never hope to be understood
until every trace of dogmatism is swept away from
it, and the dead letter sacrificed to the
eternal Spirit of Truth, which is Horus, which is Crishna,
which is Buddha, as much as it is the Gnostic
Christos and the true Christ of Paul.
In the Travels of Dr. Clarke, the
author describes a heathen monument found by him.
Within the sanctuary, behind the altar, we
saw the fragments of a marble
cathedra,
upon the back of which we found the following inscription, exactly as it
is here written, no part of it having been
injured or obliterated, affording perhaps
the only instance known of a sepulchral
inscription upon a monument of this
remarkable form.
The inscription ran thus: [CHRESTOS PROTOS
THESSALOS LARISSAIOS PELASGIOTES
ETON IH];
or, "Chrestos, the first, a Thessalonian from Larissa, Pelasgiot 18 years
old Hero."
Chrestos the first (protos), why? Read
literally the inscription has little sense; interpreted
esoterically, it is pregnant with meaning. As
Dr. Clarke shows, the word Chrestos is found on the
epitaphs of almost all the ancient
Larissians; but it is preceded always by a proper name. Had the
adjective Chrestos stood after a name, it
would only mean "a good man," a posthumous
compliment paid to the defunct, the same
being often found on our modern tumular epitaphs. But
the word Chrestos, standing alone and the
other word, "protos," following it, gives it quite
another meaning, especially when the deceased
is specified as a "hero." To the mind of an.
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Occultist, the defunct was a neophyte, who
had died in his 18th year of neophytism (33), and
stood in the first or highest class of
discipleship, having passed his preliminary trials as a "hero";
but had died before the last mystery, which
would have made of him a "Christos," an anointed,
one with the spirit of Christos or Truth in
him. He had not reached the end of the "Way," though
he had heroically conquered the horrors of
the preliminary theurgic trials.
We are quite warranted in reading it in this
manner, after learning the place where Dr. Clarke
discovered the tablet, which was, as Godfrey
Higgins remarks, there, where "I should expect to
find it, at Delphi, in the temple of the God
IE," who, with the Christians became Jah, or Jehovah,
one with Christ Jesus. It was at the foot of
Parnassus, in a gymnasium, "adjoining the Castalian
fountain, which flowed by the ruins of Crisa,
probably the town called Crestona," etc. And again:
"In the first part of its course from
the (Castalian) fountain, it (the river) separates the remains of
the gymnasium . . . from the valley of
Castro," as it probably did from the old city of Delphi --
the seat of the great oracle of Apollo, of
the town of Krisa (or Kreusa) the great center of
initiations and of the Chrestoi of the
decrees of the oracles, where the candidates for the last
labor were
anointed with sacred oils (34) before being plunged into their last trance of
forty-nine
hours' duration (as to this day, in the
East), from which they arose as glorified adepts or
Christoi."
In the Clementine Recognitions it is
announced that the father anointed his son
with "oil that was taken from the wood
of the Tree of Life, and from this
anointing he is called the Christ":
whence the Christian name. This again is
Egyptian. Horus was the anointed son of the
father. The mode of anointing him
from the Tree of Life, portrayed on the
monuments, is very primitive indeed; and
the Horus of Egypt was continued in the
Gnostic Christ, who is reproduced upon
the Gnostic stones as the intermediate link
betwixt the Karest and the Christ, also
as the Horus of both sexes. ("The name
and nature of the Christ." -- Gerald
Massey )
Mr. G. Massey connects the Greek Christos or
Christ with the Egyptian Karest, the "mummy
type of immortality," and proves it very
thoroughly. He begins by saying that in Egyptian the
"Word of Truth" is Ma-Kheru,
and that it is the title of Horus. Thus as he shows, Horus preceded
Christ as the Messenger of the Word of Truth,
the Logos or the manifestor of the divine nature in
humanity. In the same paper he writes as
follows:
The Gnosis had three phases -- astronomical,
spiritual, and doctrinal, and all three
can be identified with the Christ of Egypt.
In the astronomical phase the
constellation Orion is called the Sahu or
mummy. The soul of Horus was
represented as rising from the dead and
ascending to heaven in the stars of Orion.
The mummy-image was the preserved one, the
saved, therefore a portrait of the
Savior, as a type of immortality. This was
the figure of a dead man, which, as
Plutarch and Herodotus tell us, was carried
round at an Egyptian banquet, when
the guests were invited to look on it and eat
and drink and be happy, because,
when they died, they would become what the
image symbolized -- that is, they
also would be immortal! This type of
immortality was called the Karest, or
Karust,
and it was the Egyptian Christ. To Kares means to embalm, anoint,
to.
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make the Mummy as a type of the eternal; and,
when made, it was called the
Karest;
so that this is not merely a matter of name for name, the Karest for the
Christ.
This image of the Karest was bound up
in a woof without a seam, the proper
vesture of the Christ! No matter what the
length of the bandage might be, and
some of the mummy-swathes have been unwound
that were 1,000 yards in length,
the woof was from beginning to end without a
seam. . . . Now, this seamless robe
of the Egyptian Karest is a very
tell-tale type of the mystical Christ, who becomes
historic in the Gospels as the wearer of a
coat or chiton, made without a seam,
which neither the Greek nor the Hebrew fully
explains, but which is explained by
the Egyptian Ketu for the woof, and by
the seamless robe or swathing without
seam that was made for eternal wear, and worn
by the Mummy-Christ, the image
of immortality in the tombs of Egypt.
Further, Jesus is put to death in accordance
with the instructions given for making
the Karest. Not a bone must be broken.
The true Karest must be perfect in every
member. "This is he who comes out sound;
whom men know not is his name."
In the Gospels Jesus rises again with every
member sound, like the perfectly-preserved
Karest,
to demonstrate the physical resurrection of the mummy. But, in
the Egyptian original, the mummy transforms.
The deceased says: "I am
spiritualized. I am become a soul. I rise as
a God." This transformation into the
spiritual image, the Ka, has been
omitted in the Gospel.
This spelling of the name as Chrest or Chrest
in Latin is supremely important,
because it enables me to prove the identity
with the Egyptian Karest or Karust,
the name of the Christ as the embalmed mummy,
which was the image of the
resurrection in Egyptian tombs, the type of
immortality, the likeness of the Horus,
who rose again and made the pathway out of
the sepulcher for those who were his
disciples or followers. Moreover, this
type of the Karest or Mummy-Christ is
reproduced in the Catacombs of Rome. No representation of the supposed historic
resurrection of Jesus has been found on any
of the early Christian monuments.
But, instead of the missing fact, we find the
scene of Lazarus being raised from
the dead. This is depicted over and over
again as the typical resurrection where
there is no real one! The scene is not
exactly in accordance with the rising from
the grave in the Gospel. It is purely
Egyptian, and Lazarus is an Egyptian
mummy! Thus Lazarus, in each representation,
is the mummy-type of the
resurrection; Lazarus is the Karest,
who was the Egyptian Christ, and who is
reproduced by Gnostic art in the Catacombs of
Rome as a form of the Gnostic
Christ, who was not and could not become
an historical character.
Further, as the thing is Egyptian, it is
probable that the name is derived from
Egyptian. If so, Laz (equal to Ras) means to
be raised up, while aru is the
mummy by name. With the Greek terminal s this
becomes Lazarus. In the course
of humanizing the mythos the typical
representation of the resurrection found in.
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the tombs of Rome and Egypt would become the
story of Lazarus being raised
from the dead. This Karest type of the Christ
in the Catacombs is not limited to
Lazarus.
By means of the Karest type the Christ
and the Christians can both be traced in
the ancient tombs of Egypt. The mummy was
made in this likeness of the Christ.
It was the Christ by name, identical with the
Chrestoi of the Greek Inscriptions.
Thus the honored dead, who rose again as the
followers of Horus-Makheru, the
Word of Truth, are found to be the
Christians, on the Egyptian monuments. Ma-Kheru
is the term that is always applied to the
faithful ones who win the crown of
life and wear it at the festival which is
designated 'Come thou to me' -- an
invitation by Horus the Justifier to those
who are the 'Blessed ones of his father,
Osiris' -- they who, having made the Word of
Truth the law of their lives, were
the Justified -- [hoi chrestoi], the
Christians, on earth.
In a fifth century representation of the
Madonna and child from the cemetery of
St. Valentinus, the new-born babe lying in a
box or crib is also the Karest, or
mummy-type, further identified as the divine
babe of the solar mythos by the disk
of the sun and the cross of the equinox at
the back of the infant's head. Thus the
child-Christ of the historic faith is born,
and visibly begins in the Karest image of
the dead Christ, which was the mummy-type of
the resurrection in Egypt for
thousands of years before the Christian era.
This doubles the proof that the Christ
of the Christian Catacombs was a survival of
the Karest of Egypt.
Moreover, as Didron shows, there was a
portrait of the Christ who had his body
painted red! (35) It was a popular
tradition that the Christ was of a red
complexion. This, too, may be explained as a
survival of the Mummy-Christ. It
was an aboriginal mode of rendering things tapu
by coloring them red. The dead
corpse was coated with red ochre -- a very
primitive mode of making the mummy,
or the anointed one. Thus the God Ptah tells
Rameses II that he has "re-fashioned
his flesh in vermilion." This anointing with red ochre is called Kura by
the Maori,
who likewise made the Karest or Christ.
We see the mummy-image continued on another
line of descent when we learn
that among other pernicious heresies and
deadly sins with which the Knights
Templars were charged, was the impious custom
of adoring a Mummy that had
red eyes. Their Idol, called Baphomet, is
also thought to have been a mummy. . . .
The Mummy was the earliest human image of the
Christ.
I do not doubt that the ancient Roman
festivals called the Charistia were
connected in their origin with the Karest and
the Eucharist as a celebration in
honor of the manes of their departed kith and
kin, for whose sakes they became
reconciled at the friendly gathering once a
year. It is here, then, we have to seek
the essential connection between the Egyptian
Christ, the Christians, and the
Roman Catacombs. These Christian Mysteries,
ignorantly explained to be
inexplicable, can be explained by Gnosticism
and Mythology, but in no other.
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way. It is not that they are insoluble by
human reason, as their incompetent,
howsoever highly paid, expounders now-a-days
pretend. That is but the puerile
apology of the unqualified for their own
helpless ignorance -- they who have
never been in possession of the gnosis or
science of the Mysteries by which alone
these things can be explained in accordance
with their natural genesis. In Egypt
only can we read the matter to the root, or
identify the origin of the Christ by
nature and by name, to find at last that the
Christ was the Mummy-type, and that
our Christology is mummified mythology."
-- Agnostic Annual
The above is an explanation on purely
scientific evidence, but, perhaps, a little too materialistic,
just because of that science, notwithstanding
that the author is a well-known Spiritualist.
Occultism pure and simple finds the same
mystic elements in the Christian as in other faiths,
though it rejects as emphatically its
dogmatic and historic character. It is a fact that in the terms
[Iesous ho Christos] (See Acts v. 42, ix. 34; I Corinth. iii.
11, etc.), the article [ho] designating
"Christos," proves it simply a
surname, like that of Phocion, who is referred to as [Phokion ho
chrestos]
(Plut. v.). Still, the personage (Jesus) so addressed -- whenever he lived --
was a great
Initiate and a "Son of God."
For, we say it again, the surname Christos is
based on, and the story of the Crucifixion derived
from, events that preceded it. Everywhere, in
India as in Egypt, in Chaldea as in Greece, all these
legends were built upon one and the same
primitive type; the voluntary sacrifice of the logoi --
the rays of the one LOGOS, the direct
manifested emanation from the One ever-concealed
Infinite and Unknown -- whose rays incarnated
in mankind. They consented to fall into matter,
and are, therefore, called the "Fallen
Ones." This is one of those great mysteries which can
hardly be touched upon in a magazine article,
but shall be noticed in a separate work of mine,
The Secret Doctrine, very fully.
Having said so much, a few more facts may be
added to the etymology of the two terms.
[Christos] being the verbal adjective in Greek of [chrio] "to be
rubbed on," as ointment or salve,
and the word being finally brought to mean
"the Anointed One," in Christian theology; and Kri,
in Sanskrit, the first syllable in the name
of Krishna, meaning "to pour out, or rub over, to cover
with," (36) among many other things, this may lead one as easily to
make of Krishna, "the
anointed one." Christian philologists
try to limit the meaning of Krishna's name to its derivation
from Krish, "black"; but if
the analogy and comparison of the Sanskrit with the Greek roots
contained in the names of Chrestos, Christos,
and Chrishna, are analyzed more carefully, it will
be found that they are all of the same
origin. (37)
"In Bockh's Christian Inscriptions,
numbering 1287, there is no single instance of an earlier date
than the third century, wherein the name is
not written Chrest or Chreist." "The Name and
Nature of the Christ," by G. Massey, The
Agnostic Annual.)
Yet none of these names can be unriddled, as
some Orientalists imagine, merely with the help of
astronomy and the knowledge of zodiacal signs
in conjunction with phallic symbols. Because,
while the sidereal symbols of the mystic
characters or personifications in Puranas or Bible, fulfill
astronomical functions, their spiritual
anti-types rule invisibly, but very effectively, the world.
They exist as abstractions on the higher
plane, as manifested ideas on the astral, and become.
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males, females and androgyne powers on this
lower plane of ours. Scorpio, as Chrestos-Meshiac,
and Leo, as Christos-Messiah antedated
by far the Christian era in the trials and triumphs of
Initiation during the Mysteries, Scorpio
standing as symbol for the latter, Leo for the glorified
triumph of the "sun" of truth. The
mystic philosophy of the allegory is well understood by the
author of the Source of Measures; who
writes:
One (Chrestos) causing himself to go down
into the pit (of Scorpio, or incarnation
in the womb) for the salvation of the world;
this was the Sun, shorn of his golden
rays,
and crowned with blackened (38) ones (symbolizing this loss) as the thorns;
the other was the triumphant Messiah, mounted up to the summit
of the arch of
heaven,
personated as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. In both instances he had
the
Cross; once in humiliation (as the son of
copulation), and once holding it in his
control, as the law of creation, he being
Jehovah --
in the scheme of the authors of dogmatic
Christianity. For, as the same author shows further,
John, Jesus and even Apollonius of Tyana were
but epitomizers of the history of the Sun "under
differences of aspect or condition." (39) The explanation, he
says,
is simple enough, when it is considered that
the names Jesus, Hebrew [JSH] and
Apollonius, or Apollo, are alike names of the
Sun in the heavens, and, necessarily,
the history of the one, as to his travels
through the signs, with the personifications
of his sufferings, triumphs and miracles,
could be but the history of the other,
where there was a wide-spread, common method
of describing those travels by
personification.
The fact that the Secular Church was founded
by Constantine, and that it was a part of his decree
"that the venerable day of the Sun should
be the day set apart for the worship of Jesus Christ as
Sun-day,"
shows that they knew well in that "Secular Church" "that the
allegory rested upon an
astronomical basis," as the author
affirms. Yet, again, the circumstance that both Puranas and
Bible are full of solar and astronomical
allegories, does not militate against that other fact that all
such scriptures in addition to these two are closed
books to the scholars "having authority." (!)
Nor does it affect that other truth, that all
those systems are not the work of mortal man, nor are
they his invention in their origin and basis.
Thus "Christos," under whatever
name, means more than Karest, a mummy, or even the
"anointed" and the elect of
theology. Both of the latter apply to Chrestos, the man of sorrow and
tribulation, in his physical, mental, and
psychic conditions, and both relate to the Hebrew
Mashiac (from whence Messiah) condition, as the word is etymologized (40) by Fuerst, and the
author of The Source of Measures, p.
255. Christos is the crown of glory of the suffering
Chrestos of the mysteries, as of the
candidate to the final UNION, of whatever race and creed.
To the true follower of the SPIRIT OF TRUTH,
it matters little, therefore, whether Jesus, as man
and Chrestos, lived during the era called
Christian, or before, or never lived at all. The Adepts,
who lived and died for humanity, have existed
in many and all the ages, and many were the good
and holy men in antiquity who bore the
surname or title of Chrestos before Jesus of Nazareth,
otherwise Jesus (or Jehoshua) Ben Pandira was
born. (41)
Therefore, one may be permitted to
conclude, with good reason, that Jesus, or
Jehoshua, was like Socrates, like Phocian, like.
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Theodorus, and so many others surnamed Chrestos,
i.e., the "good, the excellent," the gentle, and
the holy Initiate, who showed the
"way" to the Christos condition, and thus became himself "the
Way" in the hearts of his enthusiastic
admirers. The Christians, as all the "Hero-worshippers"
have tried to throw into the background all
the other Chrestoi, who have appeared to them as
rivals of their Man-God. But if the
voice of the MYSTERIES has become silent for many ages in
the West, if Eleusis, Memphis, Antium,
Delphi, and Cresa have long ago been made the tombs of
a Science once as colossal in the West as it
is yet in the East, there are successors now being
prepared for them. We are in 1887 and the
nineteenth century is close to its death. The twentieth
century has strange developments in store for
humanity, and may even be the last of its name.
FOOTNOTES:
18. The word [chreon] is explained by
Herodotus (7,11,7,) as that which an oracle declares, and
[to chreon] is given by Plutarch (Nich. 14.) as
"fate," "necessity." Vide Herodotus, 7, 215; 5, 108;
and Sophocles, Phil. 437. (return to text)
19. See Liddell and Scott's Greek-English
Lexicon. (return to text)
20. Hence of a Guru, "a
teacher," and chela, a "disciple," in their mutual
relations. (return to text)
21. In his recent work -- The Early Days
of Christianity, Canon Farrar remarks: -- "Some have
supposed a pleasant play of words founded on
it, as . . . . between Chrestos ('sweet' Ps. xxx., iv.,
8) and Christos (Christ)," (I. p. 158, footnote).
But there is nothing to suppose, since it began by
a "play of words," indeed. The name
Christus was not "distorted into Chrestus," as the
learned
author would make his readers believe (p.
19), but it was the adjective and noun Chrestos which
became distorted into Christus, and
applied to Jesus. In a footnote on the word "Chrestian,"
occurring in the First Epistle of
Peter (chap. iv., 16), in which in the revised later MSS. the word
was changed into Christian, Canon
Farrar remarks again, "Perhaps we should read the ignorant
heathen distortion, Chrestian."
Most decidedly we should; for the eloquent writer should
remember his Master's command to render unto
Caesar that which is Caesar's. His dislike
notwithstanding, Mr. Farrar is obliged to
admit that the name Christian was first INVENTED, by
the sneering, mocking Antiochians, as early
as A.D. 44, but had not come into general use before
the persecution by Nero. "Tacitus,"
he says, "uses the word Christians with something of
apology. It is well known that in the N. T.
it only occurs three times, and always involves a
hostile sense (Acts xi. 26, xxvi. 28
as it does in iv. 16)." It was not Claudius alone who looked
with alarm and suspicion on the Christians,
so nicknamed in derision for their carnalizing a
subjective principle or attribute, but all
the pagan nations. For Tacitus, speaking of those whom
the masses called "Christians,"
describes them as a set of men detested for their enormities and
crimes. No wonder, for history repeats itself.
There are, no doubt, thousands of noble, sincere,
and virtuous Christian-born men and
women now. But we have only to look at the viciousness
of Christian "heathen" converts; at
the morality of those proselytes in India, whom the
missionaries themselves decline to take into
their service, to draw a parallel between the converts
of 1800 years ago, and the modern heathens
"touched by grace." (return
to text)
22. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius,
Clemens Alexandrinus, and others spelt it in this way.
(return to text).
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23. Vide Liddell and Scott's Greek and
English Lexicon. Chrestos is really one who is
continually warned, advised, guided, whether
by oracle or prophet. Mr. G. Massey is not correct
in saying that " . . . . The Gnostic
form of the name Chrest, or Chrestos, denotes the Good God,
not a human original," for it denoted
the latter, i.e., a good, holy man; but he is quite right when
he adds that "Chrestianus signifies
. . . . 'Sweetness and Light'." 'The Chrestoi, as the Good
People,
were pre-extant. Numerous Greek inscriptions show that the departed, the hero,
the
saintly one -- that is, the 'Good' -- was
styled Chrestos, or the Christ; and from this meaning of
the 'Good' does Justin, the primal apologist,
derive the Christian name. This identifies it with the
Gnostic source, and with the 'Good God' who
revealed himself according to Marcion -- that is,
the Un-Nefer or Good-opener of the Egyptian
theology." -- (Agnostic Annual.) (return
to text)
24. Again I must bring forward what Mr. G.
Massey says (whom I quote repeatedly because he
has studied this subject so thoroughly and so
conscientiously).
"My contention, or rather
explanation," he says, "is that the author of the Christian name is
the
Mummy-Christ of Egypt, called the Karest,
which was a type of the immortal spirit in man, the
Christ within (as Paul has it), the divine
offspring incarnated, the Logos, the Word of Truth, the
Makheru of Egypt. It did not originate as a mere type! The preserved mummy was
the dead body
of any one that was Karest, or mummified, to be kept by the
living; and, through constant
repetition, this became a type of the
resurrection from (not of!) the dead." See the explanation of
this further on. (return to text)
25. Or Lydda. Reference is made here to the
Rabbinical tradition in the Babylonian Gemara,
called Sepher Toledoth Jeshu, about
Jesus being the son of one named Pandira, and having lived
a century earlier than the era called
Christian, namely, during the reign of the Jewish king
Alexander Jannaeus and his wife Salome, who
reigned from the year 106 to 79 B.C. Accused by
the Jews of having learned the magic art in
Egypt, and of having stolen from the Holy of Holies
the Incommunicable Name, Jehoshua (Jesus) was
put to death by the Sanhedrin at Lud. He was
stoned and then crucified on a tree, on the
eve of Passover. The narrative is ascribed to the
Talmudistic authors of Sota and Sanhedrin,
p. 19, Book of Zechiel. See Isis Unveiled, II. 201;
Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, I, 43; Eliphas
Levi's Science des Esprits, and "The Historical Jesus and
Mythical Christ," a lecture by G.
Massey. (return to text)
26. "Christianus quantum interpretatione
de unctione deducitas. Sed ut cum preferam
Chrestianus pronunciatus a vobis (nam nec
nominis certa est notitia penes vos) de suavitate vel
benignitate compositum est." Canon
Farrar makes a great effort to show such lapsus calami by
various Fathers as the results of disgust and
fear. "There can be little doubt," he says (in the
Early Days of Christianity) "that the . . . . name Christian . . . . was a
nick-name due to the wit of
the Antiochians . . . . It is clear that the
sacred writers avoided the name (Christians) because it
was employed by their enemies (Tac. Ann.
xv. 44). It only became familiar when the virtues of
Christians had shed luster upon it "
This is a very lame excuse, and a poor explanation to give for
so eminent a thinker as Canon Farrar. As to
the "virtues of Christians" ever shedding luster upon
the name, let us hope that the writer had in
his mind's eye neither Bishop Cyril, of Alexandria,
nor Eusebius, nor the Emperor Constantine, of
murderous fame, nor yet the Popes Borgia and the
Holy Inquisition. (return to text)
27. Quoted by G. Higgins. (See Vol. I., pp.
569-573.) (return to text)
28. In the days of Homer, we find this city,
once celebrated for its mysteries, the chief seat of
Initiation and the name of Chrestos used
as a title during the mysteries. It is mentioned in the
Iliad. ii.,
520 as "Krisa." Dr. Clarke suspected its ruins under the present site
of Krestona, a small.
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town, or village rather, in Phocis, near the
Crissaean Bay. (See E. D. Clarke, 4th ed., Vol. viii, p.
239, "Delphi.") (return to text)
29. The root of Chrestos and Chrestos
is one and the same; [chrao] which means "consulting the
oracle," in one sense, but in another
one "consecrated," set apart, belonging to some temple, or
oracle, or devoted to oracular services. On
the other hand, the word [chre (chreo)] means
"obligation," a "bond,
duty," or one who is under the obligation of pledges, or vows taken.
(return to text)
30. The adjective [chrestos] was also
used as an adjective before proper names as a compliment,
as in Plat. Theaet, p. 166A, "[Houtos
ho Sokrates ho chrestos]"; (here Socrates is the Chrestos),
and also as a surname, as shown by Plutarch
(V. Phocion), who wonders how such a rough and
dull fellow as Phocion could be surnamed Chrestos.
(return to text)
31. There are strange features, quite
suggestive, for an Occultist, in the myth (if one) of Janus.
Some make of him the personification of Kosmos,
others, of Coelus (heaven), hence he is "two-faced"
because of his two characters of spirit and
matter; and he is not only "Janus Bifrons" (two-faced),
but also Quadrifrons -- the perfect
square, the emblem of the Kabbalistic Deity. His
temples were built with four equal
sides, with a door and three windows on each side.
Mythologists explain it as an emblem of the four
seasons of the year, and three months in each
season, and in all of the twelve months of
the year. During the mysteries of Initiation, however,
he became the Day-Sun and the Night-Sun.
Hence he is often represented with the number 300
in one hand, and in the other 65, or the
number of days of the Solar year. Now Chanoch (Kanoch
and Enosh in the Bible) is, as may be
shown on Kabalistic authority, whether son of Cain, son of
Seth, or the son of Methuselah, one and the
same personage. As Chanoch (according to Fuerst),
"he is the Initiator, Instructor
-- of the astronomical circle and solar year," as son of Methuselah,
who is said to have lived 365 years and been
taken to heaven alive, as the representative of the
Sun (or God). (See Book of Enoch.)
This patriarch has many features in common with Janus,
who, exoterically, is Ion but IAO
kabalistically, or Jehovah, the "Lord God of Generations," the
mysterious Yod, or ONE (a phallic number).
For Janus or Ion is also Consivius, a conserendo,
because he presided over generations. He is
shown giving hospitality to Saturn (Kronos "time"),
and is the Initiator of the year, or
time divided into 365. (return to text)
32. Stauros became the cross, the instrument
of crucifixion, far later, when it began to be
represented as a Christian symbol and with
the Greek letter T, the Tau. (Luc. Jud. Voc.) Its
primitive meaning was phallic, a symbol for
the male and female elements; the great serpent of
temptation, the body which had to be killed
or subdued by the dragon of wisdom, the seven-voweled
solar chnouphis or Spirit of Christos of the
Gnostics, or, again, Apollo killing Python.
(return to text)
33. Even to this day in India, the candidate
loses his name and as also in Masonry, his age
(monks and nuns also changing their Christian
names at their taking the order or veil), and
begins counting his years from the day he is
accepted a chela and enters upon the cycle of
initiations. Thus Saul was "a child of
one year," when he began to reign, though a grown-up
adult. See 1 Samuel ch. xiii. 1, and Hebrew
scrolls, about his initiation by Samuel. (return
to
text)
34. Demosthenes, De Corona, 313,
declares that the candidates for initiation into the Greek
mysteries were anointed with oil. So they are
now in India, even in the initiation the Yogi
mysteries --various ointments or unguents
being used. (return to text)
35. Because he is kabalistically the new
Adam, the celestial man, and Adam was made of red
earth.
(return to text).
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36. Hence the memorializing of the doctrine
during the MYSTERIES. The pure monad, the
"god" incarnating and becoming Chrestos,
or man, on his trial of life, a series of those trials led
him to the crucifixion of flesh, and
finally into the Christos condition. (return
to text)
37. On the best authority the derivation of
the Greek Christos is shown from the Sanskrit root
ghrish = "rub"; thus: ghrish-a-mi-to, "to rub,"
and ghrish-ta-s "flayed, sore." Moreover, Krish,
which means in one sense to plough and make
furrows, means also to cause pain, "to torture to
torment," and ghrsh-ta-s
"rubbing"-- all these terms relating to Chrestos and Christos
conditions.
One has to die in Chrestos, i.e., kill
one's personality and its passions, to blot out every idea of
separateness from one's "Father,"
the Divine Spirit in man; to become one with the eternal and
absolute Life and Light (SAT)
before one can reach the glorious state of Christos, the regenerated
man, the man in spiritual freedom. (return to text)
38. The Orientalists and Theologians are
invited to read over and study the allegory of
Visvakarman, the "Omnificent," the
Vedic God, the architect of the world, who sacrificed
himself to himself or the world, after
having offered up all worlds, which are himself, in a "Sarva
Madha" (general sacrifice) -- and ponder
over it. In the Puranic allegory, his daughter Yoga-siddha
"Spiritual consciousness," the wife
of Surya, the Sun, complains to him of the too great
effulgence of her husband; and Visvakarma, in
his character of Takshaka, "wood cutter and
carpenter," placing the Sun upon his
lathe cuts away a part of his brightness. Surya looks, after
this, crowned with dark thorns instead of
rays, and becomes Vikarttana ("shorn of his rays"). All
these names are terms which were used by the
candidates when going through the trials of
Initiation. The Hierophant-Initiator
personated Visvakarman; the father, and the general artificer
of the gods (the adepts on earth), and the
candidate -- Surya, the Sun, who had to kill all his fiery
passions and wear the crown of thorns while
crucifying his body before he could rise and be re-born
into a new life as the glorified "Light
of the World"--Christos. No Orientalist seems to have
ever perceived the suggestive analogy, let
alone to apply it! (return to text)
39. The author of the Source of Measures
thinks that this "serves to explain why it has been that
the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, by
Philostratus, has been so carefully kept back from translation
and popular reading." Those who have
studied it in the original have been forced to the comment
that either the "Life of Apollonius has
been taken from the New Testament, or that New
Testament narratives have been taken from the
Life of Apollonius, because of the manifest
sameness of the means of construction of
the narrative." (p. 260). (return to
text)
40. "The word shiach, is in
Hebrew the same word as a verbal, signifying to go down into the pit.
As a noun, place of thorns, pit. The
hifil participle of this word is Messiach, or the Greek
Messias,
Christ, and means "he who causes to go down into the pit" (or
hell, in dogmatism). In
esoteric philosophy, this going down into
the pit has the most mysterious significance. The Spirit
"Christos" or rather the
"Logos" (read Logoi), is said to "go down into the pit,"
when it
incarnates in flesh, is born as a man.
After having robbed the Elohim (or gods) of their secret,
the pro-creating "fire of
life," the Angels of Light are shown cast down into the pit or abyss of
matter, called Hell, or the bottomless
pit, by the kind theologians. This, in Cosmogony and
Anthropology. During the Mysteries, however,
it is the Chrestos, neophyte, (as man), etc., who
had to descend into the crypts of Initiation
and trials; and finally, during the "Sleep of Siloam" or
the final trance condition, during the
hours of which the new Initiate has the last and final
mysteries of being divulged to him. Hades,
Scheol, or Patala, are all one. The same takes place in
the East now, as took place 2,000 years ago
in the West, during the MYSTERIES. (return
to text)
41. Several classics bear testimony to this
fact. Lucian, c. 16 says [Phokion ho chrestos], and.
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[Phokion ho epiklen] ([legomenos], surnamed) [chrestos]. In
Phaedr. p. 226 E; it is written, "you
mean Theodorus the Chrestos." "[Ton
chreston legeis Theodoron]." Plutarch shows the same;
and [Chrestos] -- Chrestus, is the
proper name (see the word in Thesaur. Steph.) of an orator and
disciple of Herodes Atticus. (return to text)
The Esoteric Character of the Gospels
Part III
No one can be regarded as a Christian unless
he professes, or is supposed to profess, belief in
Jesus, by baptism, and in salvation,
"through the blood of Christ." To be considered a good
Christian, one has, as a conditio sine qua
non, to show faith in the dogmas expounded by the
Church and to profess them; after which a man
is at liberty to lead a private and public life on
principles diametrically opposite to those
expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. The chief point
and that which is demanded of him is, that he
should have -- or pretend to have -- a blind faith in,
and veneration for, the ecclesiastical
teachings of his special Church.
"Faith is the key of Christendom,"
saith Chaucer, and the penalty for lacking it
is as clearly stated as words can make it, in St.
Mark's Gospel, Chapter xvi., verse 16th:
"He that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
It troubles the Church very little that the
most careful search for these words in the oldest texts
during the last centuries remained fruitless;
or, that the recent revision of the Bible led to a
unanimous conviction in the truth-seeking and
truth-loving scholars employed in that task, that
no such un-Christ-like sentence was to
be found, except in some of the latest, fraudulent texts.
The good Christian people had assimilated the
consoling words, and they had become the very
pith and marrow of their charitable souls. To
take away the hope of eternal damnation, for all
others except themselves, from these chosen
vessels of the God of Israel, was like taking their
very life. The truth-loving and God-fearing
revisers got scared; they left the forged passage (an
interpolation of eleven verses, from the 9th
to the 20th), and satisfied their consciences with a
foot-note remark of a very equivocal
character, one that would grace the work and do honor to
the diplomatic faculties of the craftiest
Jesuits. It tells the "believer" that: --
The two oldest Greek MSS. and some other
authorities OMIT from verse 9 to the
end. Some authorities have a different
ending to the Gospel, (42)
-- and explains no further.
But the two "oldest Greek MSS." omit
the verses nolens volens, as these have never existed. And
the learned and truth-loving revisers know
this better than any of us do; yet the wicked falsehood
is printed at the very seat of Protestant
Divinity, and it is allowed to go on, glaring into the faces
of coming generations of students of theology
and, hence, into those of their future parishioners.
Neither can be, nor are they deceived by it,
yet both pretend belief in the authenticity of the cruel.
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words worthy of a theological Satan. And
this Satan-Moloch is their own God of infinite mercy
and justice in Heaven, and the incarnate symbol of love and charity on
Earth -- blended in one!
Truly mysterious are your paradoxical ways,
Oh -- Churches of Christ!
I have no intention of repeating here stale
arguments and logical exposés of the whole
theological scheme; for all this has been
done, over and over again, and in a most excellent way,
by the ablest "Infidels" of England
and America. But I may briefly repeat a prophecy which is a
self-evident result of the present state of
men's minds in Christendom. Belief in the Bible
literally, and in a canalized Christ, will not last a quarter of a
century longer. The Churches will
have to part with their cherished dogmas, or
the 20th century will witness the downfall and ruin
of all Christendom, and with it, belief even
in a Christos, as pure Spirit. The very name has now
become obnoxious, and theological
Christianity must die out, never to resurrect again in its
present form. This, in itself, would be the
happiest solution of all, were there no danger from the
natural reaction which is sure to follow:
crass materialism will be the consequence and the result
of centuries of blind faith, unless the loss
of old ideals is replaced by other ideals, unassailable,
because universal, and built on the
rock of eternal truths, instead of the shifting sands of human
fancy. Pure immateriality must replace, in
the end, the terrible anthropomorphism of those ideals
in the conceptions of our modern dogmatists.
Otherwise, why should Christian dogmas -- the
perfect counterpart of those belonging to
other exoteric and pagan religions -- claim any
superiority? The bodies of all these were
built upon the same astronomical and physiological (or
phallic) symbols. Astrologically, every
religious dogma the world over, may be traced to, and
located in, the Zodiacal signs and the Sun.
And so long as the science of comparative symbology
or any theology has only two keys to open the
mysteries of religious dogmas -- and these two
only very partially mastered, how can a line
of demarcation be drawn, or any difference made
between the religions of say, Chrishna and
Christ, between salvation through the blood of the
"first-born primeval male" of one
faith, and that of the "only begotten Son" of the other, far
younger, religion?
Study the Vedas; read even the superficial,
often disfigured writings of our great Orientalists, and
think over what you will have learnt. Behold
Brahmans, Egyptian Hierophants, and Chaldean
Magi, teaching several thousand years before
our era that the gods themselves had been only
mortals (in previous births) until they won
their immortality by offering their blood to their
Supreme God or chief. The Book of the Dead, teaches that mortal
man "became one with the
gods through an interflow of a common life in
the common blood of the two." Mortals gave the
blood of their first-born sons in sacrifice
to the Gods. In his Hinduism, p. 35, Professor Monier
Williams, translating from the Taitiriya
Brahmana, writes: -- "By means of the sacrifice the gods
obtained heaven." And in the Tandya
Brahmana: -- "The lord of creatures offered himself a
sacrifice for the gods." . . . And again
in the Satapatha Brahmana: -- "He who, knowing this,
sacrifices with the Purusha-medha or
the sacrifice of the primeval male, becomes everything."
Whenever I hear the Vedic rites discussed and
called "disgusting human sacrifices," and
cannibalism (sic.), I feel always
inclined to ask, where's the difference? Yet there is one, in fact;
for while Christians are compelled to accept
the allegorical (though, when understood, highly
philosophical) drama of the New Testament
Crucifixion, as that of Abraham and Isaac literally
(43),
Brahmanism -- its philosophical schools at any rate -- teaches its adherents,
that this.
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(pagan)
sacrifice of the "primeval male" is a purely allegorical and
philosophical symbol. Read
in their dead-letter meaning, the four
gospels are simply slightly altered versions of what the
Church proclaims as Satanic plagiarisms (by
anticipation) of Christian dogmas in Pagan
religions. Materialism has a perfect right to
find in all of them the same sensual worship and
"solar" myths as anywhere else.
Analyzed and criticized superficially and on its dead-letter face,
Professor Joly ("Man before
Metals," pp. 189-190) finding in the Svastika, the crux ansata,
and
the cross pure and simple, mere sexual
symbols -- is justified in speaking as he does. Seeing that
"the father of the sacred fire (in
India) bore the name of Twashtri, that is the divine carpenter
who made the Swastika and the Pramantha,
whose friction produced the divine child Agni, in
Latin Ignis; that his mother was named
Maya; he himself, styled Akta (anointed, or Christos)
after the priests had poured upon his head
the spirituous soma and on his body butter purified by
sacrifice"; seeing all this he has a
full right to remark that:
The close resemblance which exists between
certain ceremonies of the worship of
Agni and
certain rites of the Catholic religion may be explained by their common
origin. Agni in the condition of Akta,
or anointed, is suggestive of Christ; Maya,
Mary, his mother; Twashtri, St. Joseph,
the carpenter of the Bible.
Has the professor of the Science Faculty of
Toulouse explained anything by drawing attention to
that which anyone can see? Of course not. But
if, in his ignorance of the esoteric meaning of the
allegory he has added nothing to human
knowledge, he has on the other hand destroyed faith in
many of his pupils in both the "divine
origin" or Christianity and its Church and helped to
increase the number of Materialists. For
surely, no man, once he devotes himself to such
comparative studies, can regard the religion
of the West in any light but that of a pale and
enfeebled copy of older and nobler
philosophies.
The origin of all religions --
Judaeo-Christianity included -- is to be found in a few primeval
truths, not one of which can be explained
apart from all the others, as each is a complement of
the rest in some one detail. And they are
all, more or less, broken rays of the same Sun of truth,
and their beginnings have to be sought in the
archaic records of the Wisdom-religion. Without
the light of the latter, the greatest
scholars can see but the skeletons thereof covered with masks
of fancy, and based mostly on personified
Zodiacal signs.
A thick film of allegory and blinds,
the "dark sayings" of fiction and parable, thus covers the
original esoteric texts from which the New
Testament -- as now known -- was compiled.
Whence, then, the Gospels, the life of Jesus
of Nazareth? Has it not been repeatedly stated that
no human, mortal brain could have
invented the life of the Jewish Reformer, followed by the
awful drama on Calvary? We say, on the
authority of the esoteric Eastern School, that all this
came from the Gnostics, as far as the name
Christos and the astronomico-mystical allegories are
concerned, and from the writings of the
ancient Tanaim as regards the Kabalistic connection of
Jesus or Joshua, with the Biblical
personifications. One of these is the mystic esoteric name of
Jehovah -- not the present fanciful God of
the profane Jews ignorant of their own mysteries, the
God accepted by the still more ignorant
Christians -- but the compound Jehovah of the pagan
Initiation. This is proven very plainly by
the glyphs or mystic combinations of various signs
which have survived to this day in the Roman
Catholic hieroglyphics..
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The Gnostic Records contained the epitome of
the chief scenes enacted during the mysteries of
initiation, since the memory of man; though
even that was given out invariably under the garb of
semi-allegory, whenever entrusted to
parchment or paper. But the ancient Tanaim, the Initiates
from whom the wisdom of the Kabala (oral
tradition) was obtained by the later Talmudists, had
in their possession the secrets of the
mystery language, and it is in this language that the Gospels
were written. (44) He alone who has mastered the esoteric cipher of
antiquity -- the secret
meaning of the numerals, a common property at
one time of all nations -- has the full proof of the
genius which was displayed in the blending of
the purely Egypto-Jewish, Old Testament
allegories and names, and those of the
pagan-Greek Gnostics, the most refined of all the mystics
of that day. Bishop Newton proves it himself
quite innocently, by showing that "St. Barnabas,
the companion of St. Paul, in his epistle
(ch. ix.) discovers . . . the name of Jesus crucified in the
number 318," namely, Barnabas finds it
in the mystic Greek I H T -- the tau being the glyph of
the cross. On this, a Kabalist, the author of
an unpublished MS. on the Key of Formation of the
Mystery Language, observes: --
But this is but a play upon the Hebrew
letters Jodh, Cheth, and Shin, from whence
the I H S as the monogram of Christ coming
down to our day, and this reads as [J
Ch Sh]
or 381, and sum of the letters being 318 or the number of Abraham and his
Satan, and of Joshua and his Amalek . . .
also the number of Jacob and his
antagonist . . . (Godfrey Higgins gives the
authority for the number 608) . . . It is
the number of Melchizedek's name, for the
value of the last is 304 and
Melchizedek was the priest of the most high
God, without beginning or ending of
days.
The solution and secret of Melchizedek are
found in the fact that: --
in the ancient Pantheons the two planets
which had existed from eternity (aeonic
eternity) and were eternal, were the Sun and
the Moon, or Osiris and Isis, hence
the terms of without beginning or ending
of days. 304 multiplied by two is 608.
So also the numbers in the word Seth, who was
a type of the year. There are a
number of authorities for the number 888 as
applying to the name of Jesus Christ,
and as said this is in antagonism to the 666
of the Anti-Christ. . . . The staple
value in the name of Joshua was the number
365, the indication of the Solar year,
while Jehovah delighted in being the
indication of the Lunar year -- and Jesus
Christ was both Joshua and Jehovah in the
Christian Pantheon.
This is but an illustration to our point to
prove that the Christian application of the compound
name Jesus-Christ is all based on Gnostic and
Eastern mysticism. It was only right and natural
that Chroniclers like the initiated Gnostics,
pledged to secrecy, should veil or cloak the final
meaning of their oldest and most sacred
teachings. The right of the Church fathers to cover the
whole with an epitheme of euhemerized fancy
is rather more dubious. (45) The Gnostic Scribe
and Chronicler deceived no one. Every
Initiate into the Archaic gnosis -- whether of the pre-Christian
or post-Christian period -- knew well the
value of every word of the "mystery-language."
For these Gnostics -- the inspirers of
primitive Christianity -- were "the most cultured,
the most learned and most wealthy of the
Christian name," as Gibbon has it. Neither they, nor
their humbler followers, were in danger of
accepting the dead letter of their own texts. But it was.
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different with the victims of the fabricators
of what is now called orthodox and historic
Christianity. Their successors have all been
made to fall into the mistakes of the "foolish
Galatians" reproved by Paul, who, as he
tells them (Galat. iii. 1-5), having begun (by believing)
in the Spirit (of Christos), "ended by
believing in the flesh," -- i.e., a corporeal Christ.
For such is
the true meaning of the Greek sentence (46), "[enarzamenoi
Pneumati, nun sarki epiteleisthe.]"
That Paul was a gnostic, a founder of a new
sect of gnosis which recognized, as all other gnostic
sects did, a "Christ-Spirit,"
though it went against its opponents, the rival sects, is sufficiently
clear to all but dogmatists and theologians.
Nor is it less clear that the primitive teachings of
Jesus, whenever he may have lived, could be
discovered only in Gnostic teachings; against
which discovery, the falsifiers who dragged
down Spirit into matter, thus degrading the noble
philosophy of primeval Wisdom-Religion, have
taken ample precautions from the first. The
works of Basilides alone -- "The
philosopher devoted to the contemplation of Divine things," as
Clement describes him -- the 24 volumes of
his interpretations upon the Gospels -- were all
burned by order of the Church, Eusebius tells
us (Hist. Ecctes., iv. 7).
As these Interpretations were written
at a time when the Gospels we have now, were not yet in
existence (47), here is a good proof that the Evangel, the doctrines of
which were delivered to
Basilides by the Apostle Matthew, and
Glaucus, the disciple of Peter (Clemens Al. Strom. vii. 7,
§106), must have differed widely from the
present New Testament. Nor can these doctrines be
judged by the distorted accounts of them left
to posterity by Tertullian. Yet even the little this
partisan fanatic gives, shows the chief
gnostic doctrines to be identical, under their own peculiar
terminology and personations, with those of
the Secret Doctrine of the East. For, discussing
Basilides, the "pious, god-like,
theosophic philosopher," as Clement of Alexandria thought him,
Tertullian exclaims:
After this, Basilides, the Heretic,
broke loose. (48) He asserted that there is a
Supreme God, by name Abraxas, by whom Mind [Mahat]
was created which the
Greeks call Nous. From this emanated
the Word; from the Word, Providence;
from Providence, Virtue and Wisdom; from
these two again, Virtues,
Principalities (49), and Powers were
made; thence infinite productions and
emissions of angels. Among the lowest angels,
indeed, and those that made this
world, he sets last of all the god of
the Jews, whom he denies to be God himself,
affirming that he is but one of the angels. (50) (Isis Unveiled, II,
289)
Another proof of the claim that the Gospel of
Matthew in the usual Greek texts is not the original
gospel written in Hebrew, is given by no less
an authority than St. Jerome (or Hieronymus). The
suspicion of a conscious and gradual euhemerization
of the Christ principle ever since the
beginning, grows into a conviction, once that
one becomes acquainted with a certain confession
contained in book ii. of the Comment. to
Matthew by Hieronymus. For we find in it the proofs of
a deliberate substitution of the whole
gospel, the one now in the Canon having been evidently
rewritten by this too zealous Church Father. (51) He says that he was
sent toward the close of the
fourth century by "their
Felicities," the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus to Caesarea, with the
mission to compare the Greek text (the only
one they ever had) with the Hebrew original version
preserved by the Nazarenes in their library,
and to translate it. He translated it, but under protest;
for, as he says, the Evangel "exhibited
matter not for edification, but for destruction." (52) The
"destruction" of what? Of the dogma
that Jesus of Nazareth and the Christos are one -- evidently;.
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hence for the "destruction" of the
newly planned religion. (53) In this same letter the Saint (who
advised his converts to kill their fathers,
trample on the bosom that fed them, by walking over the
bodies of their mothers, if the parents stood
as an obstacle between their sons and Christ) --
admits that Matthew did not wish his gospel
to be openly written, hence that the MS. was a
secret one.
But while admitting also that this gospel "was written in Hebrew
characters and by
the hand of himself" (Matthew), yet in another place he
contradicts himself and assures posterity
that as it was tampered with and
re-written by a disciple of Manicheus, named Seleucus . . . "the
ears of the Church properly refused to listen
to it." (Hieronymus, Comment. to Matthew, book ii.
chapter xii., 13.)
No wonder that the very meaning of the terms Chrestos
and Christos, and the bearing of both on
"Jesus of Nazareth," a name coined
out of Joshua the Nazar, has now become a dead letter for all
with the exception of non-Christian
Occultists. For even the Kabalists have no original data now
to rely upon. The Zohar and the Kabala
have been remodeled by Christian hands out of
recognition; and were it not for a copy of
the Chaldean Book of Numbers there would remain no
better than garbled accounts. Let not our
Brothers, the so-called Christian Kabalists of England
and France, many of whom are Theosophists,
protest too vehemently; for this is history (See
Munk). It is as foolish to maintain, as some
German Orientalists and modern critics still do, that
the Kabala has never existed before the day
of the Spanish Jew, Moses de Leon, accused of
having forged this pseudograph in the 13th
century, as to claim that any of the Kabalistical works
now in our possession are as original as they
were when Rabbi Simeon Ben Jochai delivered the
"traditions to his sons and followers.
Not a single of these books is immaculate, none has
escaped mutilation by Christian hands. Munk,
one of the most learned and able critics of his day
on this subject, proves it, while protesting as
we do, against the assumption that it is a post-Christian
forgery, for he says:
It appears evident to us that the author made
use of ancient documents, and
among these of certain Midraschim or
collections of traditions and Biblical
expositions, which we do not now possess.
After which, quoting from Tholuck (1. c. pp.
24 and 31), he adds:
"Haya Gaon, who died in 1038, is to our
knowledge the first author who
developed the theory of the Sephiroth and he
gave to them the names which we
find again to be among the Kabalists
(Tellenik, Moses ben Schem Tob di Leon, p.
13, note 5); this doctor, who had intimate
intercourse with the Syrian and
Chaldean Christian savans, was enabled by these last to acquire a knowledge of
some of the Gnostic writings."
Which "Gnostic writings" and
esoteric tenets passed part and parcel into the Kabalistic works,
with many more modern interpolations that we
now find in the Zohar, as Munk well proves. The
Kabala is Christian now, not Jewish.
Thus, what with several generations of most
active Church Fathers ever working at the
destruction of old documents and the
preparation of new passages to be interpolated in those
which happened to survive, there remains of
the Gnostics -- the legitimate offspring of the.
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Archaic Wisdom-religion -- but a few
unrecognizable shreds. But a particle of genuine gold will
glitter for ever; and, however garbled the
accounts left by Tertullian and Epiphanius of the
Doctrines of the "Heretics," an
occultist can yet find even in them traces of those primeval truths
which were once universally imparted during
the mysteries of Initiation. Among other works
with most suggestive allegories in them, we
have still the so-called Apocryphal Gospels, and the
last discovered as the most precious relic of
Gnostic literature, a fragment called Pistis-Sophia,
"Knowledge-Wisdom."
In my next article upon the Esoteric
character of the Gospels, I hope to be able to demonstrate
that those who translate Pistis by
"Faith," are utterly wrong. The word "faith" as grace or
something to be believed in through
unreasoned or blind faith, is a word that dates only since
Christianity. Nor has Paul ever used this
term in this sense in his Epistles; and Paul was
undeniably an INITIATE.
(This series was never completed by H. P.
B.)
FOOTNOTES:
42. Vide "Gospel according to St.
Mark," in the revised edition printed for the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, 1881. (return to text)
43. Vide "The Soldier's
Daughter," Lucifer, vol. I, No. 6, by the Rev. T. G. Headley, and
notice
the desperate protest of this true Christian,
against the literal acceptance of the "blood
sacrifices," "Atonement by
blood," etc., in the Church of England. The reaction begins: another
sign of the times. (return to text)
44. Thus while the three Synoptics display a
combination of the pagan Greek and Jewish
symbologies the Revelation is written
in the mystery language of the Tanaim -- the relic of
Egyptian and Chaldean wisdom -- and St.
John's Gospel is purely Gnostic. (return to
text)
45. "The claim of Christianity to
possess Divine authority rests on the ignorant belief that the
mystical Christ could and did become a
Person, whereas the gnosis proves the corporeal Christ to
be only a counterfeit Presentment of the
trans-corporeal man; consequently, historical portraiture
is, and ever must be, a fatal mode of
falsifying and discrediting the Spiritual Reality." (G.
Massey, "Gnostic and Historic
Christianity.") (return to text)
46. This sentence analyzed means "Shall
you, who in the beginning looked to the Christ-Spirit,
now end by believing in a Christ of
flesh," or it means nothing. The verb [epiteloumai] has not
the meaning of "becoming perfect,"
but of "ending by," becoming so. Paul's lifelong struggle
with Peter and others, and what he himself
tells of his vision of a Spiritual Christ and not of Jesus
of Nazareth, as in the Acts -- are so
many proofs of this. (return to text)
47. See Supernatural Religion, vol.
ii., chap. "Basilides." (return to
text)
48. It was asked in Isis Unveiled,
were not the views of the Phrygian Bishop Montanus, also
deemed a HERESY by the Church of Rome? It is
quite extraordinary to see how easily that
Church encourages the abuse of one heretic,
Tertullian, against another heretic, Basilides, when
the abuse happens to further her own object. (return to text)
49. Does not Paul himself speak of "Principalities
and Powers in heavenly places" (Ephesians.
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iii. 10; i. 21), and confesses that there be gods
many and Lords many (Kurioi)? And angels,
powers (Dunameis), and Principalities? (See
I Corinthians viii. 5; and Epistle to Romans, viii.
38.) (return
to text)
50. Tertullian: Praescript. It is undeniably
owing only to a remarkably casuistical, sleight-of-hand-
like argument that Jehovah, who in the Kabala
is simply a Sephiroth, the third, left-hand
power among the Emanations (Binah), has been
elevated to the dignity of the One absolute God.
Even in the Bible he is but one of the Elohim
(See Genesis, chapter iii. v. 22, "The Lord God"
making no difference between himself and
others.) (return to text)
51. This is history. How far that re-writing
of, and tampering with, the primitive gnostic
fragments which are now become the New
Testament, went, may be inferred by reading
"Supernatural Religion," which went
through over twenty-three editions, if I mistake not. The
host of authorities for it given by the
author, is simply appalling. The list of the English and
German Bible critics alone seems endless. (return to text)
52. The chief details are given in Isis
Unveiled, Vol II, pp. 180-183, et seq. Truly faith in the
infallibility of the Church must be stone-blind
-- or it could not have failed being killed and --
dying. (return
to text)
53. See Hieronymus: De Viros, illust. cap.
3; Olshausen: "Neuen Text.," p. 32. The Greek text of
Matthew's Gospel is the only one used or ever
possessed by the Church. (return to text)
Astral Bodies, or Doppelgangers
M. C. Great confusion exists in the minds of people about the
various kinds of apparitions,
wraiths, ghosts, or spirits. Ought we not to
explain once for all the meaning of these terms? You
say there are various kinds of
"doubles" what are they?
H. P. B. Our occult philosophy teaches us that there are three kinds
of "doubles," to use the word
in its widest sense. First, man has his
"double" or shadow, properly so called, around which the
physical body of the fetus -- the
future man -- is built. The imagination of the mother, or an
accident which affects the child, will affect
also the astral body. The astral and the physical both
exist before the mind is developed into
action, and before the Atma awakes. This occurs when
the child is seven years old, and with it comes
the responsibility attaching to a conscious sentient
being. This "double" is born with
man, dies with him, and can never separate itself far from the
body during life, and though surviving him,
it disintegrates, pari passu, with the corpse. It is this
which is sometimes seen over the graves like
a luminous figure of the man that was, during
certain atmospheric conditions. From its
physical aspect it is, during life, man's vital double, and
after death, only the gases given off from
the decaying body. But, as regards its origin and
essence, it is something more. This double is
what we have agreed to call Linga-sarira, but
which I would propose to call, for greater
convenience, "Protean" or "Plastic Body."
M. C. Why Protean or Plastic?
H. P. B. Protean, because it can assume all forms; e.g., the
"shepherd magicians" whom popular
rumor accuses, perhaps not without some
reason, of being "were-wolves," and "mediums in.
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cabinets," whose own "Plastic
Bodies" play the part of materialized grandmothers and "John
Kings." Otherwise, why the invariable
custom of the "dear departed angels" to come out but little
further than arm's length from the medium,
whether entranced or not? Mind, I do not at all deny
foreign influences in this kind of phenomena.
But I do affirm that foreign interference is rare,
and that the materialized form is always that
of the medium's Astral, or Protean body.
M. C. How is this astral body created?
H. P. B. It is not created; it grows, as I told you, with the man
and exists in the rudimentary
condition even before the child is born.
M. C. And what about the second?
H. P. B. The second is the "Thought" body, or Dream body,
rather; known among Occultists as
the Mayavi-rupa, or
"Illusion-body." During life this image is the vehicle both of
thought and of
the animal passions and desires, drawing at
one and the same time from the lowest terrestrial
manas (mind)
and Kama, the element of desire. It is dual in its potentiality,
and after death forms
what is called in the East Bhut, or Kama-rupa,
but which is better known to Theosophists as the
"Spook."
M. C. And the third?
H. P. B. The third is the true Ego, called in the East by a
name meaning "causal-body," but
which in the trans-Himalayan schools
is always called the "Karmic body," which is the same.
For Karma, or action, is the cause
which produces incessant rebirths or "reincarnations." It is not
the Monad, nor is it Manas proper;
but is, in a way, indissolubly connected with and a compound
of the Monad and Manas in Devachan.
M. C. Then there are three doubles?
H. P. B. If you call the Christian and other Trinities "three
Gods," then there are three doubles.
But in truth there is only one under three
aspects or phases: the most material portion
disappearing with the body; the middle one
surviving both as an independent but temporary
entity in the land of shadows; the third,
immortal throughout the Manvantara, unless Nirvana
puts an end to it before.
M. C. But shall not we be asked what difference there is between
the Mayavi and Kama-rupa, or
as you propose to call them the "Dream
body" and the "Spook"?
H. P. B. Most likely, and we shall answer, in addition to what has
been said, that the "thought-power"
or aspect of the Mayavi or
"Illusion-body," merges after death entirely into the causal
body or the conscious, thinking Ego.
The animal elements, or power of desire of the "Dream
body," absorbing after death that which
it has collected (through its insatiable desire to live)
during life; i.e., all the astral vitality as
well as all the impressions of its material acts and
thoughts while it lived in possession of the
body, forms the "Spook" or Kama-rupa. Our
Theosophists know well enough that after
death the higher Manas unites with the Monad and.
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passes into Devachan, while the dregs of the lower
Manas or animal mind go to form this Spook.
This has life in it, but hardly any
consciousness, except, as it were, by proxy; when it is drawn
into the current of a medium.
M. C. Is it all that can be said upon the subject?
H. P. B. For the present this is enough metaphysics, I guess. Let
us hold to the "Double" in its
earthly phase. What would you know?
M. C. Every country in the world believes more or less in the
"double" or doppelganger. The
simplest form of this is the appearance of a
man's phantom the moment after his death, or at the
instant of death, to his dearest friend. Is
this appearance the mayavi-rupa?
H. P. B. It is; because produced by the thought of the dying man.
M. C. Is it unconscious?
H. P. B. It is unconscious to the extent that the dying man does not
generally do it knowingly;
nor is he aware that he so appears. What
happens is this. If he thinks very intently at the moment
of death of the person he either is very
anxious to see, or loves best, he may appear to that
person. The thought becomes objective; the
double, or shadow of a man, being nothing but the
faithful reproduction of him, like a
reflection in a mirror: that which the man does, even in
thought, that the double repeats. This is why
the phantoms are often seen in such cases in the
clothes they wear at the particular moment,
and the image reproduces even the expression on the
dying man's face. If the double of a man
bathing were seen it would seem to be immersed in
water; so when a man who has been drowned
appears to his friend, the image will be seen to be
dripping with water. The cause for the
apparition may also be reversed; i.e., the dying man may
or may not be thinking at all of the
particular person his image appears to, but it is that person
who is sensitive. Or perhaps his sympathy or
his hatred for the individual whose wraith is thus
evoked is very intense physically or psychically;
and in this case the apparition is created by, and
depends upon the intensity of the thought.
What then happens is this. Let us call the dying man
A, and him who sees the double B. The latter,
owing to love, hate, or fear, has the image of A so
deeply impressed on his psychic memory, that
actual magnetic attraction and repulsion are
established between the two, whether one
knows of it and feels it, or not. When A dies, the sixth
sense or psychic spiritual intelligence of
the inner man in B becomes cognizant of the change in
A, and forthwith apprizes the physical senses
of the man by projecting before his eye the form of
A as it is at the instant of the great
change. The same when the dying man longs to see some one;
his thought
telegraphs to his friend, consciously or unconsciously along the wire of
sympathy,
and becomes objective. This is what the
"Spookical" Research Society would pompously, but
none the less muddily, call telepathic
impact.
M. C. This applies to the simplest form of the appearance of the
double. What about cases in
which the double does that which is contrary
to the feeling and wish of the man?
H. P. B. This is impossible. The "Double" cannot act
unless the key-note of this action was
struck in the brain of the man to whom the
"Double" belongs, be that man just dead, or alive, in.
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good or in bad health. If he paused on the
thought a second, long enough to give it form, before
he passed on to other mental pictures, this
one second is as sufficient for the objectivization of
his personality on the astral waves, as for
your face to impress itself on the sensitized plate of a
photographic apparatus. Nothing prevents your
form then being seized upon by the surrounding
Forces -- as a dry leaf fallen from a tree is
taken up and carried away by the wind -- being made
to caricature or distort your thought.
M. C. Supposing the double expresses in actual words a thought
uncongenial to the man, and
expresses it -- let us say to a friend far
away, perhaps on another continent? I have known
instances of this occurring.
H. P. B. Because it then so happens that the created image is taken
up and used by a "Shell." Just
as in seance-rooms when "images" of
the dead -- which may perhaps be lingering unconsciously
in the memory or even the auras of those
present -- are seized upon by the Elementals or
Elementary Shadows and made objective to the
audience, and even caused to act at the bidding
of the strongest of the many different wills
in the room. In your case, moreover, there must exist
a connecting link -- a telegraph wire --
between the two persons, a point of psychic sympathy,
and on this the thought travels instantly. Of
course there must be, in every case, some strong
reason why that particular thought takes that
direction; it must be connected in some way with
the other person. Otherwise such apparitions
would be of common and daily occurrence.
M. C. This seems very simple; why then does it only occur with
exceptional persons?
H. P. B. Because the plastic power of the imagination is much
stronger in some persons than in
others. The mind is dual in its potentiality:
it is physical and metaphysical. The higher part of the
mind is connected with the spiritual soul or
Buddhi, the lower with the animal soul, the Kama
principle. There are persons who never think
with the higher faculties of their minds at all; those
who do so are the minority and are thus, in a
way, beyond, if not above, the average of human
kind. These will think even upon ordinary
matters on that higher plane. The idiosyncrasy of the
person determines in which
"principle" of the mind the thinking is done, as also the faculties
of a
preceding life, and sometimes the heredity of
the physical. This is why it is so very difficult for a
materialist -- the metaphysical portion of
whose brain is almost atrophied -- to raise himself, or
for one who is naturally spiritually-minded
to descend to the level of the matter-of-fact vulgar
thought. Optimism and pessimism depend on it
also in a great measure.
M. C. But the habit of thinking in the higher mind can be
developed -- else there would be no
hope for persons who wish to alter their
lives and raise themselves? And that this is possible
must be true, or there would be no hope for
the world.
H. P. B. Certainly it can be developed, but only with great
difficulty, a firm determination, and
through much self-sacrifice. But it is
comparatively easy for those who are born with the gift.
Why is it that one person sees poetry in a
cabbage or a pig with her little ones, while another will
perceive in the loftiest things only their
lowest and most material aspect, will laugh at the "music
of the spheres," and ridicule the most
sublime conceptions and philosophies? This difference
depends simply on the innate power of the
mind to think on the higher or on the lower plane,
with the astral (in the sense given to
the word by St. Martin), or with the physical brain. Great.
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intellectual powers are often no proof of,
but are impediments to spiritual and right conceptions;
witness most of the great men of science. We
must rather pity than blame them.
M. C. But how is it that the person who thinks on the higher plane
produces more perfect and
more potential images and objective forms by
his thought?
H. P. B. Not necessarily that "person" alone, but all
those who are generally sensitives. The
person who is endowed with this faculty of
thinking about even the most trifling things from the
higher plane of thought has, by virtue of
that gift which he possesses, a plastic power of
formation, so to say, in his very
imagination. Whatever such a person may think about, his
thought will be so far more intense than the
thought of an ordinary person, that by this very
intensity it obtains the power of creation.
Science has established the fact that thought is an
energy. This energy in its action disturbs
the atoms of the astral atmosphere around us. I already
told you; the rays of thought have the same
potentiality for producing forms in the astral
atmosphere as the sunrays have with regard to
a lens. Every thought so evolved with energy from
the brain, creates, nolens volens a
shape.
M. C. Is that shape absolutely unconscious?
H. P. B. Perfectly unconscious unless it is the creation of an
adept, who has a preconceived
object in giving it consciousness, or rather
in sending along with it enough of his will and
intelligence to cause it to appear conscious.
This ought to make us more cautious about our
thoughts.
But the wide distinction that obtains between
the adept in this matter and the ordinary man must
be borne in mind. The adept may at his will
use his Mayavi-rupa, but the ordinary man does not,
except in very rare cases. It is called Mayavi-rupa
because it is a form of illusion created for use
in the particular instance, and it has quite
enough of the adept's mind in it to accomplish its
purpose. The ordinary man merely creates a
thought-image, whose properties and powers are at
the time wholly unknown to him.
M. C. Then one may say that the form of an adept appearing at a
distance from his body, as for
instance Ram Lal in Mr. Isaacs, is
simply an image?
H. P. B. Exactly. It is a walking thought.
M. C. In which case an adept can appear in several places almost
simultaneously.
H. P. B. He can. Just as Apollonius of Tyana, who was seen in two
places at once, while his
body was at Rome. But it must be understood
that not all of even the astral adept is present in
each appearance.
M. C. Then it is very necessary for a person of any amount of
imagination and psychic powers to
attend to their thoughts?.
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H. P. B. Certainly, for each thought has a shape which borrows
the appearance of the man
engaged in the action of which he thought.
Otherwise how can clairvoyants see in your aura
your past and present? What they see is a
passing panorama of yourself represented in successive
actions by your thoughts. You asked me if we
are punished for our thoughts. Not for all, for
some are still-born; but for the others,
those which we call "silent" but potential thoughts yes.
Take an extreme case, such as that of a
person who is so wicked as to wish the death of another.
Unless the evil-wisher is a Dugpa, a
high adept in black magic, in which case Karma is delayed,
such a wish only comes back to roost.
M. C. But supposing the evil-wisher to have a very strong will,
without being a dugpa, could the
death of the other be accomplished?
H. P. B. Only if the malicious person has the evil eye, which
simply means possessing enormous
plastic power of imagination working
involuntarily, and thus turned unconsciously to bad uses.
For what is the power of the "evil
eye"? Simply a great plastic power of thought, so great as to
produce a current impregnated with the
potentiality of every kind of misfortune and accident,
which inoculates, or attaches itself to any
person who comes within it. A jettatore (one with the
evil eye) need not be even imaginative, or
have evil intentions or wishes. He may be simply a
person who is naturally fond of witnessing or
reading about sensational scenes, such as murder,
executions, accidents, etc., etc. He may be
not even thinking of any of these at the moment his
eye meets his future victim. But the currents
have been produced and exist in his visual ray ready
to spring into activity the instant they find
suitable soil, like a seed fallen by the way and ready to
sprout at the first opportunity.
M. C. But how about the thoughts you call "silent"? Do
such wishes or thoughts come home to
roost?
H. P. B. They do; just as a ball which fails to penetrate an
object rebounds upon the thrower.
This happens even to some dugpas or
sorcerers who are not strong enough, or do not comply
with the rules -- for even they have rules
they have to abide by -- but not with those who are
regular, fully developed "black
magicians"; for such have the power to accomplish what they
wish.
M. C. When you speak of rules it makes me want to wind up this
talk by asking you what
everybody wants to know who takes any
interest in occultism. What is a principal or important
suggestion for those who have these powers
and wish to control them rightly -- in fact to enter
occultism?
H. P. B. The first and most important step in occultism is to
learn how to adapt your thoughts
and ideas to your plastic potency.
M. C. Why is this so important?
H. P. B. Because otherwise you are creating things by which you may
be making bad Karma. No
one should go into occultism or even touch it
before he is perfectly acquainted with his own
powers, and that he knows how to commensurate
it with his actions. And this he can do only by.
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deeply studying the philosophy of Occultism
before entering upon the practical training.
Otherwise, as sure as fate -- HE WILL FALL
INTO BLACK MAGIC.
Constitution of the Inner Man
Of course it is most difficult, and, as you
say, "puzzling" to understand correctly and distinguish
between the various aspects, called by
us the "principles" of the real EGO. It is the more so as
there exists a notable difference in the
numbering of those principles by various Eastern schools,
though at the bottom there is the same identical
substratum of teaching in all of them.
X. Are you thinking of the Vedantins? They divide our seven
"principles" into five only, I
believe?
M. They do; but though I would not presume to dispute the
point with a learned Vedantin, I may
yet state as my private opinion that they
have an obvious reason for it. With them it is only that
compound spiritual aggregate which consists
of various mental aspects that is called Man at all,
the physical body being in their view
something beneath contempt, and merely an illusion. Nor is
the Vedanta the only philosophy to reckon in
this manner. Lao-Tze in his Tao-te-King, mentions
only five principles, because he, like the
Vedantins, omits to include two principles, namely, the
spirit (Atma) and the physical body, the
latter of which, moreover, he calls "the cadaver." Then
there is the Taraka Raja Yoga School.
Its teaching recognizes only three "principles" in fact; but
then, in reality, their Sthulopadhi, or
the physical body in its jagrata or waking conscious state,
their Sukshmopadki, the same body in svapna
or the dreaming state, and their Karanopadhi or
"causal body," or that which passes
from one incarnation to another, are all dual in their aspects,
and thus make six. Add to this Atma, the
impersonal divine principle or the immortal element in
Man, undistinguished from the Universal
Spirit, and you have the same seven, again, as in the
esoteric division. (1)
X. Then it seems almost the same as the division made by
mystic Christians: body, soul, and
spirit?
M. Just the same. We could easily make of the body the vehicle
of the "vital Double"; of the
latter the vehicle of Life or Prana; of
Kama-rupa or (animal) soul, the vehicle of the higher and
the lower mind, and make of this six
principles, crowning the whole with the one immortal spirit.
In Occultism, every qualificative change in
the state of our consciousness gives to man a new
aspect, and if it prevails and becomes part
of the living and acting EGO, it must be (and is) given
a special name, to distinguish the man in
that particular state from the man he is when he places
himself in another state.
X. It is just that which is so difficult to understand.
M. It seems to me very easy, on the contrary, once that you
have seized the main idea, i.e., that
man acts on this, or another plane of
consciousness, in strict accordance with his mental and.
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spiritual condition. But such is the
materialism of the age that the more we explain, the less
people seem capable of understanding what we
say. Divide the terrestrial being called man into
three chief aspects, if you like; but, unless
you make of him a pure animal, you cannot do less.
Take his objective body; the feeling
principle in him -- which is only a little higher than the
instinctual element in the animal -- or the vital elementary soul; and
that which places him so
immeasurably beyond and higher than the
animal -- i.e., his reasoning soul or "spirit." Well, if
we take these three groups or representative
entities, and subdivide them, according to the occult
teaching, what do we get?
First of all Spirit (in the sense of the
Absolute, and therefore invisible ALL) or Atma. As this can
neither be located nor conditioned in
philosophy, being simply that which is, in Eternity, and as
the ALL cannot be absent from even the
tiniest geometrical or mathematical point of the
universe of matter or substance, it ought not
to be called, in truth, a "human" principle at all.
Rather, and at best, it is that point in
metaphysical Space which the human Monad and its vehicle
man, occupy for the period of every life. Now
that point is as imaginary as man himself, and in
reality is an illusion, a maya; but
then for ourselves as for other personal Egos, we are a reality
during that fit of illusion called life, and
we have to take ourselves into account -- in our own
fancy at any rate, if no one else does. To
make it more conceivable to the human intellect, when
first attempting the study of Occultism, and
to solve the A B C of the mystery of man, Occultism
calls it the seventh principle, the
synthesis of the six, and gives it for vehicle the Spiritual Soul,
Buddhi. Now the latter conceals a mystery, which is never given to any one with
the exception of
irrevocably pledged chelas, those at
any rate, who can be safely trusted. Of course there would
be less confusion, could it only be told;
but, as this is directly concerned with the power of
projecting one's double consciously and at
will, and as this gift like the "ring of Gyges" might
prove very fatal to men at large and to the
possessor of that faculty in particular, it is carefully
guarded. Alone the adepts, who have been
tried and can never be found wanting, have the key of
the mystery fully divulged to them. . . . Let
us avoid side issues, however, and hold to the
"principles." This divine soul or
Buddhi, then, is the Vehicle of the Spirit. In conjunction, these
two are one, impersonal, and without any
attributes (on this plane, of course), and make two
spiritual "principles." If we pass
on to the Human Soul (manas, the mens) every one will
agree
that the intelligence of man is dual to
say the least: e.g., the high-minded man can hardly become
low-minded; the very intellectual and
spiritual-minded man is separated by an abyss from the
obtuse, dull and material, if not
animal-minded man. Why then should not these men be
represented by two "principles" or
two aspects rather? Every man has these two principles in
him, one more active than the other, and in
rare cases, one of these is entirely stunted in its
growth: so to say paralyzed by the strength
and predominance of the other aspect, during the life
of man. These, then, are what we call the two
principles or aspects of Manas, the higher and the
lower; the former, the higher Manas, or the
thinking, conscious EGO gravitating toward the
Spiritual Soul (Buddhi); and the latter, or
its instinctual principle attracted to Kama, the seat of
animal desires and passions in man. Thus, we
have four "principles" justified; the last three being
(1) the "Double" which we have
agreed to call Protean, or Plastic Soul; the vehicle of (2) the life
principle; and (3) the physical body. Of course no Physiologist or
Biologist will accept these
principles, nor can he make head or tail of
them. And this is why, perhaps, none of them
understand to this day either the functions
of the spleen, the physical vehicle of the Protean
Double, or those of a certain organ on the
right side of man, the seat of the above mentioned
desires, nor yet does he know anything of the
pineal gland, which he describes as a horny gland.
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with a little sand in it, and which is the
very key to the highest and divinest consciousness in man
-- his omniscient, spiritual and all
embracing mind. This seemingly useless appendage is the
pendulum which, once the clock-work of the inner
man is wound up, carries the spiritual vision
of the EGO to the highest planes of
perception, where the horizon open before it becomes almost
infinite. . . .
X. But the scientific materialists assert that after the death
of man nothing remains; that the
human body simply disintegrates into its
component elements, and that what we call soul is
merely a temporary self-consciousness
produced as a by-product of organic action, which will
evaporate like steam. Is not theirs a strange
state of mind?
M. Not strange at all, that I see. If they say that
self-consciousness ceases with the body, then in
their case
they simply utter an unconscious prophecy. For once that they are firmly
convinced of
what they assert, no conscious afterlife is
possible for them.
X. But if human self-consciousness survives death as a rule,
why should there be exceptions?
M. In the fundamental laws of the spiritual world which are
immutable, no exception is possible.
But there are rules for those who see, and
rules for those who prefer to remain blind.
X. Quite so, I understand. It is an aberration of a blind man,
who denies the existence of the sun
because he does not see it. But after death
his spiritual eyes will certainly compel him to see.
M. They will not compel him, nor will he see anything. Having
persistently denied an after-life
during this life, he will be unable to sense
it. His spiritual senses having been stunted, they
cannot develop after death, and he will
remain blind. By insisting that he must see it, you
evidently mean one thing and I another. You
speak of the spirit from the Spirit, or the flame from
the Flame -- of Atma in short -- and you
confuse it with the human soul -- Manas. . . . You do not
understand me, let me try to make it clear.
The whole gist of your question is to know whether,
in the case of a downright materialist, the
complete loss of self-consciousness and self-perception
after death is possible? Isn't it so? I say:
It is possible. Because, believing firmly in our Esoteric
Doctrine, which refers to the post-mortem period,
or the interval between two lives or births as
merely a transitory state, I say: -- Whether
that interval between two acts of the illusionary drama
of life lasts one year or a million, that post-mortem
state may, without any breach of the
fundamental law, prove to be just the same
state as that of a man who is in a dead swoon.
X. But since you have just said that the fundamental laws of
the after-death state admit of no
exceptions, how can this be?
M. Nor do I say now that they admit of exceptions. But the
spiritual law of continuity applies
only to things which are truly real. To one
who has read and understood Mandukya Upanishad
and Vedanta-Sara, all this becomes
very clear. I will say more: it is sufficient to understand what
we mean by Buddhi and the duality of Manas to
have a very clear perception why the materialist
may not have a self-conscious survival after
death: because Manas, in its lower aspect, is the seat
of the terrestrial mind, and, therefore, can
give only that perception of the Universe which is
based on the evidence of that mind, and not
on our spiritual vision. It is said in our Esoteric.
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school that between Buddhi and Manas, or
Isvara and Prajnsa (2), there is in reality no more
difference than between a forest and its
trees, a lake and its waters, just as Mandukya teaches.
One or hundreds of trees dead from loss of
vitality, or uprooted, are yet incapable of preventing
the forest from being still a forest. The
destruction or post-mortem death of one personality
dropped out of the long series, will not cause
the smallest change in the Spiritual Ego, and it will
ever remain the same EGO. Only, instead of
experiencing Devachan it will have to immediately
reincarnate.
X. But as I understand it, Ego-Buddhi represents in this
simile the forest and the personal minds
the trees. And if Buddhi is immortal, how can
that which is similar to it, i.e., Manas-taijasi (3),
lose entirely its consciousness till the day
of its new incarnation? I cannot understand it.
M. You cannot, because you will mix up an abstract representation
of the whole with its casual
changes of form; and because you confuse Manas-taijasi,
the Buddhi-lit human soul, with the
latter, animalized. Remember that if it can
be said of Buddhi that it is unconditionally immortal,
the same cannot be said of Manas, still
less of taijasi, which is an attribute. No post-mortem
consciousness or Manastaijasi, can exist
apart from Buddhi, the divine soul, because the first
(Manas) is, in its lower aspect, a qualificative attribute of the terrestrial
personality, and the
second (taijasi) is identical with the
first, and that it is the same Manas only with the light of
Buddhi reflected on it. In its turn, Buddhi
would remain only an impersonal spirit without this
element which it borrows from the human soul,
which conditions and makes of it, in this illusive
Universe, as it were something separate from
the universal soul for the whole period of the cycle
of incarnation. Say rather that Buddhi-Manas
can neither die nor lose its compound self-consciousness
in Eternity, nor the recollection of its
previous incarnations in which the two --
i.e., the spiritual and the human soul, had
been closely linked together. But it is not so in the case
of a materialist, whose human soul not only
receives nothing from the divine soul, but even
refuses to recognize its existence. You can
hardly apply this axiom to the attributes and
qualifications of the human soul; for it
would be like saying that because your divine soul is
immortal, therefore the bloom on your cheek
must also be immortal; whereas this bloom, like
taijasi, or spiritual radiance, is simply a transitory phenomenon.
X. Do I understand you to say that we must not mix in our
minds the noumenon with the
phenomenon, the cause with its effect?
M. I do say so, and repeat that, limited to Manas or the human
soul alone, the radiance of Taijasi
itself becomes a mere question of time;
because both immortality and consciousness after death
become for the terrestrial personality of man
simply conditioned attributes, as they depend
entirely on conditions and beliefs created by
the human soul itself during the life of its body.
Karma acts incessantly: we reap in our
after-life only the fruit of that which we have ourselves
sown, or rather created in our terrestrial
existence.
X. But if my Ego can, after the destruction of my body, become
plunged in a state of entire
unconsciousness, then where can be the
punishment for the sins of my past life?
M. Our philosophy teaches that Karmic punishment reaches the
Ego only in its next incarnation.
After death it receives only the reward for
the unmerited sufferings endured during its just past.
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existence. (4) The whole punishment after death, even for the
materialist, consists therefore in
the absence of any reward and the utter loss
of the consciousness of one's bliss and rest. Karma --
is the child of the terrestrial Ego, the
fruit of the actions of the tree which is the objective
personality visible to all, as much as the
fruit of all the thoughts and even motives of the spiritual
"I"; but Karma is also the tender
mother, who heals the wounds inflicted by her during the
preceding life, before she will begin to
torture this Ego by inflicting upon him new ones. If it
may be said that there is not a mental or
physical suffering in the life of a mortal, which is not the
fruit and consequence of some sin in this, or
a preceding existence on the other hand, since he
does not preserve the slightest recollection
of it in his actual life and feels himself not deserving
of such punishment, but believes sincerely he
suffers for no guilt of his own, this alone is quite
sufficient to entitle the human soul to the
fullest consolation, rest and bliss in his post-mortem
existence. Death comes to our spiritual
selves ever as a deliverer and friend. For the materialist,
who, notwithstanding his materialism, was not
a bad man, the interval between the two lives will
be like the unbroken and placid sleep of a
child; either entirely dreamless, or with pictures of
which he will have no definite perception.
For the believer it will be a dream as vivid as life and
full of realistic bliss and visions. As for
the bad and cruel man, whether materialist or otherwise,
he will be immediately reborn and suffer his
hell on earth. To enter Avichi is an exceptional and
rare occurrence.
X. As far as I remember, the periodical incarnations of
Sutratma (5)
are likened in some
Upanishad to the life of a mortal which
oscillates periodically between sleep and waking. This
does not seem to me very clear, and I will
tell you why. For the man who awakes, another day
commences, but that man is the same in soul
and body as he was the day before; whereas at
every new incarnation a full change takes
place not only in his external envelope, sex and
personality, but even in his mental and
psychic capacities. Thus the simile does not seem to me
quite correct. The man who arises from sleep
remembers quite clearly what he has done
yesterday, the day before, and even months
and years ago. But none of us has the slightest
recollection of a preceding life or any fact
or event concerning it. . . . I may forget in the morning
what I have dreamed during the night, still I
know that I have slept and have the certainty that I
lived during sleep; but what recollection
have I of my past incarnation? How do you reconcile
this?
M. Yet some people do recollect their past incarnations. This
is what the Arhats call Samma-Sambuddha
-- or the knowledge of the whole series of
one's past incarnations.
X. But we ordinary mortals who have not reached
Samma-Sambuddha, how can we be expected
to realize this simile?
M. By studying it and trying to understand more correctly the
characteristics of the three states
of sleep. Sleep is a general and immutable law
for man as for beast, but there are different kinds
of sleep and still more different dreams and
visions.
X. Just so. But this takes us from our subject. Let us return
to the materialist, who, while not
denying dreams, which he could hardly do, yet
denies immortality in general and the survival of
his own individuality especially..
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M. And the materialist is right for once, at least; since for
one who has no inner perception and
faith, there is no immortality possible. In
order to live in the world to come a conscious life, one
has to believe first of all in that life
during one's terrestrial existence. On these two aphorisms of
the Secret Science all the philosophy about
the post-mortem consciousness and the immortality
of the soul is built. The Ego receives always
according to its deserts. After the dissolution of the
body, there commences for it either a period
of full clear consciousness, a state of chaotic
dreams, or an utterly dreamless sleep
indistinguishable from annihilation; and these are the three
states of consciousness. Our physiologists
find the cause of dreams and visions in an
unconscious preparation for them during the
waking hours; why cannot the same be admitted for
the post-mortem dreams? I repeat it, death
is sleep. After death begins, before the spiritual eyes
of the soul, a performance according to a
program learned and very often composed
unconsciously by ourselves; the practical
carrying out of correct beliefs or of illusions which
have been created by ourselves. A Methodist
will be a Methodist, a Mussulman a Mussulman of
course, just for a time -- in a perfect
fool's paradise of each man's creation and making. These are
the post-mortem fruits of the tree of
life. Naturally, our belief or unbelief in the fact of conscious
immortality is unable to influence the
unconditioned reality of the fact itself, once that it exists;
but the belief or unbelief in that
immortality, as the continuation or annihilation of separate
entities cannot fail to give color to that
fact in its application to each of these entities. Now do
you begin to understand it?
X. I think I do. The materialist, disbelieving in everything
that cannot be proven to him by his
five senses or by scientific reasoning, and
rejecting every spiritual manifestation, accepts life as
the only conscious existence. Therefore,
according to their beliefs so will it be unto them. They
will lose their personal Ego, and will plunge
into a dreamless sleep until a new awakening. Is it
so?
M. Almost so. Remember the universal esoteric teaching of the
two kinds of conscious
existence: the terrestrial and the spiritual.
The latter must be considered real from the very fact
that it is the region of the eternal,
changeless, immortal cause of all; whereas the incarnating Ego
dresses itself up in new garments entirely
different from those of its previous incarnations, and in
which all except its spiritual prototype is
doomed to a change so radical as to leave no trace
behind.
X. Stop! . . . Can the consciousness of my terrestrial Egos
perish not only for a time, like the
consciousness of the materialist, but in any
case so entirely as to leave no trace behind?
M. According to the teaching, it must so perish and in its
fulness, all except that principle which,
having united itself with the Monad, has
thereby become a purely spiritual and indestructible
essence, one with it in the Eternity. But in
the case of an out and out materialist, in whose
personal "I" no Buddhi has ever reflected
itself, how can the latter carry away into the infinitudes
one particle of that terrestrial personality?
Your spiritual "I" is immortal; but from your present
Self it can carry away into after-life but
that which has become worthy of immortality, namely,
the aroma alone of the flower that has been
mown by death.
X. Well, and the flower, the terrestrial "I"?.
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M. The flower, as all past and future flowers which blossomed
and died, and will blossom again
on the mother bough, the Sutratma, all
children of one root or Buddhi, will return to dust. Your
present "I," as you yourself know,
is not the body now sitting before me, nor yet is it what I
would call Manas-Sutratma -- but
Sutratma-Buddhi.
X. But this does not explain to me at all, why you call life
after death immortal, infinite, and real,
and the terrestrial life a simple phantom or
illusion; since even that post-mortem life has limits,
however much wider they may be than those of
terrestrial life.
M. No doubt. The spiritual Ego of man moves in Eternity like a
pendulum between the hours of
life and death. But if these hours marking
the periods of terrestrial and spiritual life are limited in
their duration, and if the very number of
such stages in Eternity between sleep and awakening,
illusion and reality, has its beginning and
its end, on the other hand the spiritual "Pilgrim" is
eternal. Therefore are the hours of his post-mortem
life -- when, disembodied he stands face to
face with truth and not the mirages of his
transitory earthly existences during the period of that
pilgrimage which we call "the cycle of
rebirths" -- the only reality in our conception. Such
intervals, their limitation notwithstanding,
do not prevent the Ego, while ever perfecting itself, to
be following undeviatingly, though gradually
and slowly, the path to its last transformation,
when that Ego having reached its goal becomes
the divine ALL. These intervals and stages help
towards this final result instead of
hindering it; and without such limited intervals the divine Ego
could never reach its ultimate goal. This Ego
is the actor and its numerous and various
incarnations the parts it plays. Shall you
call these parts with their costumes the individuality of
the actor himself? Like that actor, the Ego
is forced to play during the Cycle of Necessity up to
the very threshold of Para-nirvana many
parts such as may be unpleasant to it. But as the bee
collects its honey from every flower, leaving
the rest as food for the earthly worms, so does our
spiritual individuality, whether we call it
Sutratma or Ego. It collects from every terrestrial
personality into which Karma forces it to
incarnate, the nectar alone of the Spiritual qualities and
self-consciousness, and uniting all these
into one whole it emerges from its chrysalis as the
glorified Dhyani Chohan. So much the worse
for those terrestrial personalities from which it
could collect nothing. Such personalities
cannot assuredly outlive consciously their terrestrial
existence.
X. Thus then it seems, that for the terrestrial personality,
immortality is still conditional. Is then
immortality itself not unconditional?
M. Not at all. But it cannot touch the non-existent. For
all that which exists as SAT, ever aspiring
SAT, immortality and Eternity are absolute.
Matter is the opposite pole of spirit and yet the two
are one. The essence of all this, i.e.,
Spirit, Force and Matter, or the three in one, is as endless as
it is beginningless; but the form acquired by
the triple unity during incarnations, the externality,
is certainly only the illusion of our
personal conceptions. Therefore do we call the after-life alone
a reality, while relegating the terrestrial
life, its terrestrial personality included, to the phantom
realm of illusion.
X. But why in such a case not call sleep the reality, and
waking the illusion, instead of the
reverse?.
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M. Because we use an expression made to facilitate the
grasping of the subject, and from the
standpoint of terrestrial conceptions, it is
a very correct one.
X. Nevertheless, I cannot understand. If the life to come is
based on justice and the merited
retribution for all our terrestrial
suffering, how, in the case of materialists many of whom are
ideally honest and charitable men, should
there remain of their personality nothing but the refuse
of a faded flower!
M. No one ever said such a thing. No materialist, if a good
man, however unbelieving, can die
forever in the fulness of his spiritual
individuality. What was said is, that the consciousness of
one life can disappear either fully or
partially; in the case of a thorough materialist, no vestige of
that personality which disbelieved remains in
the series of lives.
X. But is this not annihilation to the Ego?
M. Certainly not. One can sleep a dead sleep during a long
railway journey, miss one or several
stations without the slightest recollection
or consciousness of it, awake at another station and
continue the journey recollecting other
halting places, till the end of that journey, when the goal
is reached. Three kinds of sleep were
mentioned to you: the dreamless, the chaotic, and the one
so real, that to the sleeping man his dreams
become full realities. If you believe in the latter why
can't you believe in the former? According to
what one has believed in and expected after death,
such is the state one will have. He who
expected no life to come will have an absolute blank
amounting to annihilation in the interval
between the two rebirths. This is just the carrying out of
the program we spoke of, and which is created
by the materialist himself. But there are various
kinds of materialists, as you say. A selfish
wicked Egoist, one who never shed a tear for anyone
but himself, thus adding entire indifference
to the whole world to his unbelief, must drop at the
threshold of death his personality for ever.
This personality having no tendrils of sympathy for
the world around, and hence nothing to hook
on to the string of the Sutratma, every connection
between the two is broken with the last
breath. There being no Devachan for such a materialist,
the Sutratma will reincarnate almost
immediately. But those materialists who erred in nothing
but their disbelief, will oversleep but one
station. Moreover, the time will come when the ex-materialist
will perceive himself in the Eternity and
perhaps repent that he lost even one day, or
station, from the life eternal.
X. Still, would it not be more correct to say that death is
birth into a new life, or a return once
more to the threshold of eternity?
M. You may if you like. Only remember that births differ, and
that there are births of "still-born"
beings, which are failures. Moreover,
with your fixed Western ideas about material life, the
words "living" and
"being" are quite inapplicable to the pure subjective state of post-mortem
existence. It is just because of such ideas
-- save in a few philosophers who are not read by the
many and who themselves are too confused to
present a distinct picture of it -- that all your
conceptions of life and death have finally
become so narrow. On the one hand, they have led to
crass materialism, and on the other, to the
still more material conception of the other life which
the Spiritualists have formulated in their
Summerland. There the souls of men eat, drink, and
marry, and live in a Paradise quite as
sensual as that of Mohammed, but even less philosophical..
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Nor are the average conceptions of the
uneducated Christians any better, but are still more
material, if possible. What between truncated
Angels, brass trumpets, golden harps, streets in
paradisaical cities paved with jewels, and
hell-fires, it seems like a scene at a Christmas
pantomime. It is because of these narrow
conceptions that you find such difficulty in
understanding. And, it is also just because
the life of the disembodied soul, while possessing all
the vividness of reality, as in certain
dreams, is devoid of every grossly objective form of
terrestrial life, that the Eastern
philosophers have compared it with visions during sleep.
Contents
FOOTNOTES:
1. See The Secret Doctrine for a
clearer explanation. (return to text)
2. Isvara is the collective consciousness of
the manifested deity, Brahma, i.e., the collective
consciousness of the Host of Dhyani Chohans;
and Prajna is their individual wisdom. (return
to
text)
3. Taijasi means the radiant in
consequence of the union with Buddhi of Manas, the human,
illuminated by the radiance of the divine
soul. Therefore Manas-taijasi may be described as
radiant mind; the human reason lit by the
light of the spirit; and Buddhi-Manas is the
representation of the divine plus the human
intellect and self-consciousness. (return to
text)
4. Some Theosophists have taken exception to
this phrase, but the words are those of the
Masters, and the meaning attached to the word
"unmerited" is that given above. In the T. P. S.
pamphlet No. 6 a phrase, criticized
subsequently in Lucifer, was used, which was intended to
convey the same idea. In form, however it was
awkward and open to the criticism directed
against it; but the essential idea was that
men often suffer from the effects of the actions done by
others, effects which thus do not strictly
belong to their own Karma, but to that of other people --
and for these sufferings they of course
deserve compensation. If it is true to say that nothing that
happens to us can be anything else than Karma
-- or the direct or indirect effect of a cause -- it
would be a great error to think that every
evil or good which befalls us is due only to our own
personal Karma. (Vide further on.) (return to text)
5. Our immortal and reincarnating principle
in conjunction with the Manasic recollections of the
preceding lives is called Sutratma, which
means literally the Thread-Soul; because like the pearls
on a thread so is the long series of human
lives strung together on that one thread. Manas must
become taijasi, the radiant, before it
can hang on the Sutratma as a pearl on its thread, and so
have full and absolute perception of itself
in the Eternity. As said before, too close association
with the terrestrial mind of the human soul
alone causes this radiance to be entirely lost. (return
to text)
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