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The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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A MASTER-KEY
TO THE
MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND
MODERN
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
BY
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
"Cecy est un livre de
bonne Foy." -- MONTAIGNE.
VOL. I. -- SCIENCE.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE
THE present edition is a
faithful reprinting of Isis Unveiled as originally published in
The Index has been
considerably enlarged, and an Appendix added, containing a Bibliographical
Index of works and authors quoted and two articles by HPB on the writing of
Isis Unveiled: "Theories about Reincarnation and Spirits" (1886) and
"My Books" (1891).
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THE AUTHOR
Dedicates these Volumes
TO THE
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,
WHICH WAS FOUNDED AT NEW YORK,
A.D. 1875,
TO STUDY THE SUBJECTS ON WHICH
THEY TREAT.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
---------------------
[[PUBLISHER'S NOTE]]
PREFACE ... v
BEFORE THE VEIL.
Dogmatic assumptions of modern
science and theology ... ix
The Platonic philosophy
affords the only middle ground ... xi
Review of the ancient
philosophical systems ... xv
A Syriac manuscript on Simon
Magus ... xxiii
Glossary of terms used in this
book ... xxiii
---------------------
Volume First.
THE "INFALLIBILITY"
OF MODERN SCIENCE.
---------------------
CHAPTER I.
OLD THINGS WITH NEW NAMES.
The Oriental Kabala ... 1
Ancient traditions supported
by modern research ... 3
The progress of mankind marked
by cycles ... 5
Ancient cryptic science ... 7
Priceless value of the Vedas
... 12
Mutilations of the Jewish
sacred books in translation ... 13
Magic always regarded as a
divine science ... 25
Achievements of its adepts and
hypotheses of their modern detractors ... 25
Man's yearning for immortality
... 37
CHAPTER II.
PHENOMENA AND FORCES.
The servility of society ...
39
Prejudice and bigotry of men
of science ... 40
They are chased by psychical
phenomena ... 41
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Lost arts ... 49
The human will the
master-force of forces ... 57
Superficial generalizations of
the French savants ... 60
Mediumistic phenomena, to what
attributable ... 67
Their relation to crime ... 71
CHAPTER III.
BLIND LEADERS OF THE BLIND.
Huxley's derivation from the
Orohippus ... 74
Comte, his system and
disciples ... 75
The
Borrowed robes ... 89
Emanation of the objective
universe from the subjective ... 92
CHAPTER IV.
THEORIES RESPECTING PSYCHIC
PHENOMENA.
Theory of de Gasparin ... 100
[[Theory]] of Thury ... 100
[[Theory]] of des Mousseaux,
de Mirville ... 100
[[Theory]] of Babinet ... 101
[[Theory]] of Houdin ... 101
[[Theory]] of MM. Royer and
Jobart de Lamballe ... 102
The twins -- "unconscious
cerebration" and "unconscious ventriloquism" ... 105
Theory of Crookes ... 112
[[Theory]] of Faraday ... 116
[[Theory]] of Chevreuil ...
116
The Mendeleyeff commission of
1876 ... 117
Soul blindness ... 121
CHAPTER V.
THE ETHER, OR "ASTRAL
LIGHT."
One primal force, but many
correlations ... 126
Tyndall narrowly escapes a
great discovery ... 127
The impossibility of miracle
... 128
Nature of the primordial
substance ... 133
Interpretation of certain
ancient myths ... 133
Experiments of the fakirs ...
139
Evolution in Hindu allegory
... 153
CHAPTER VI.
PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PHENOMENA.
The debt we owe to Paracelsus
... 163
Mesmerism -- its parentage,
reception, potentiality ... 165
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"Psychometry" ...
183
Time, space, eternity ... 184
Transfer of energy from the
visible to the invisible universe ... 186
The Crookes experiments and
Cox theory ... 195
CHAPTER VII
THE ELEMENTS, ELEMENTALS, AND
ELEMENTARIES.
Attraction and repulsion
universal in all the kingdoms of nature ... 206
Psychical phenomena depend on
physical surroundings ... 211
Observations in
Music in nervous disorders ...
215
The "world-soul" and
its potentialities ... 216
Healing by touch, and healers
... 217
"Diakka" and
Porphyry's bad demons ... 219
The quenchless lamp ... 224
Modern ignorance of vital
force ... 237
Antiquity of the theory of
force-correlation ... 241
Universality of belief in
magic ... 247
CHAPTER VIII.
SOME MYSTERIES OF NATURE.
Do the planets affect human
destiny? ... 253
Very curious passage from
Hermes ... 254
The restlessness of matter ...
257
Prophecy of Nostradamus
fulfilled ... 260
Sympathies between planets and
plants ... 264
Hindu knowledge of the
properties of colors ... 265
"Coincidences" the
panacea of modern science ... 268
The moon and the tides ... 273
Epidemic mental and moral
disorders ... 274
The gods of the Pantheons only
natural forces ... 280
Proofs of the magical powers
of Pythagoras ... 283
The viewless races of ethereal
space ... 284
The "four truths" of
Buddhism ... 291
CHAPTER IX.
CYCLIC PHENOMENA.
Meaning of the expression
"coats of skin" ... 293
Natural selection and its
results ... 295
The Egyptian "circle of
necessity" ... 296
Pre-Adamite races ... 299
Descent of spirit into matter
... 302
The triune nature of man ...
309
The lowest creatures in the
scale of being ... 310
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Elementals specifically
described ... 311
Proclus on the beings of the
air ... 312
Various names for elementals
... 313
Swedenborgian views on
soul-death ... 317
Earth-bound human souls ...
319
Impure mediums and their
"guides" ... 325
Psychometry an aid to
scientific research ... 333
CHAPTER X.
THE INNER AND OUTER MAN.
Pere Felix arraigns the
scientists ... 338
The "Unknowable" ...
340
Danger of evocations by tyros
... 342
Lares and Lemures ... 345
Secrets of Hindu temples ...
350
Reincarnation ... 351
Witchcraft and witches ... 353
The sacred soma trance ... 357
Vulnerability of certain
"shadows" ... 363
Experiment of Clearchus on a
sleeping boy ... 365
The author witnesses a trial
of magic in
Case of the Cevennois ... 371
CHAPTER XI.
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL
MARVELS.
Invulnerability attainable by
man ... 379
Projecting the force of the
will ... 380
Insensibility to snake-poison
... 381
Charming serpents by music ...
383
Teratological phenomena
discussed ... 385
The psychological domain
confessedly unexplored ... 407
Despairing regrets of
Berzelius ... 411
Turning a river into blood a
vegetable phenomenon ... 413
CHAPTER XII.
THE "IMPASSABLE
CHASM."
Confessions of ignorance by
men of science ... 417
The Pantheon of nihilism ...
421
Triple composition of fire ...
423
Instinct and reason defined
... 425
Philosophy of the Hindu Jains
... 429
Deliberate misrepresentations
of Lempriere ... 431
Man's astral soul not immortal
... 432
The reincarnation of Buddha
... 437
Magical sun and moon pictures
of Thibet ... 441
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Vampirism -- its phenomena
explained ... 449
Bengalese jugglery ... 457
CHAPTER XIII.
REALITIES AND ILLUSION.
The rationale of talismans ...
462
Unexplained mysteries ... 466
Magical experiment in
Chibh Chondor's surprising
feats ... 471
The Indian tape-climbing trick
an illusion ... 473
Resuscitation of buried fakirs
... 477
Limits of suspended animation
... 481
Mediumship totally
antagonistic to adeptship ... 487
What are "materialized
spirits"? ... 493
The Shudala Madan ... 495
Philosophy of levitation ...
497
The elixir and alkahest ...
503
CHAPTER XIV.
EGYPTIAN WISDOM.
Origin of the Egyptians ...
515
Their mighty engineering works
... 517
The ancient land of the
Pharaohs ... 521
Antiquity of the Nilotic
monuments ... 529
Arts of war and peace ... 531
Mexican myths and ruins ...
545
Resemblances to the Egyptian
... 551
Moses a priest of Osiris ...
555
The lessons taught by the
ruins of
The Egyptian Tau at
CHAPTER XV.
Acquisition of the
"secret doctrine" ... 575
Two relics owned by a Pali scholar
... 577
Jealous exclusiveness of the
Hindus ... 581
Lydia Maria Child on Phallic
symbolism ... 583
The age of the Vedas and Manu
... 587
Traditions of pre-diluvian
races ... 589
Atlantis and its peoples ...
593
Peruvian relics ... 597
The
Thibetan and Chinese legends
... 600
The magician aids, not
impedes, nature ... 617
Philosophy, religion, arts and
sciences bequeathed by Mother India to posterity ... 618
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-----------------------
THE work now submitted to
public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern
adepts and study of their science. It is offered to such as are willing to
accept truth wherever it may be found, and to defend it, even looking popular
prejudice straight in the face. It is an attempt to aid the student to detect
the vital principles which underlie the philosophical systems of old.
The book is written in all
sincerity. It is meant to do even justice, and to speak the truth alike without
malice or prejudice. But it shows neither mercy for enthroned error, nor
reverence for usurped authority. It demands for a spoliated past, that credit
for its achievements which has been too long withheld. It calls for a
restitution of borrowed robes, and the vindication of calumniated but glorious
reputations. Toward no form of worship, no religious faith, no scientific hypothesis
has its criticism been directed in any other spirit. Men and parties, sects and
schools are but the mere ephemera of the world's day. TRUTH, high-seated upon
its rock of adamant, is alone eternal and supreme.
We believe in no Magic which
transcends the scope and capacity of the human mind, nor in
"miracle," whether divine or diabolical, if such imply a
transgression of the laws of nature instituted from all eternity. Nevertheless,
we accept the saying of the gifted author of Festus, that the human heart has
not yet fully uttered itself, and that we have never attained or even
understood the extent of its powers. Is it too much to believe that man should
be developing new sensibilities and a closer relation with nature? The logic of
evolution must teach as much, if carried to its legitimate conclusions. If,
somewhere, in the line of ascent from vegetable or ascidian to the noblest man
a soul was evolved, gifted with intellectual qualities, it cannot be
unreasonable to infer and believe that a faculty of perception is also growing
in man, enabling him to descry facts and truths even beyond our ordinary ken.
Yet we do not hesitate to accept the assertion of Biffe, that "the
essential is forever the same. Whether we cut away the marble inward that hides
the statue in the
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block, or pile stone upon
stone outward till the temple is completed, our NEW result is only an old idea.
The latest of all the eternities will find its destined other half-soul in the
earliest."
When, years ago, we first
travelled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted sanctuaries,
two saddening and ever-recurring questions oppressed our thoughts: Where, WHO,
WHAT is GOD? Who ever saw the IMMORTAL SPIRIT of man, so as to be able to
assure himself of man's immortality?
It was while most anxious to
solve these perplexing problems that we came into contact with certain men,
endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may
truly designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their instructions we lent
a ready ear. They showed us that by combining science with religion, the
existence of God and immortality of man's spirit may be demonstrated like a
problem of
In our studies, mysteries were
shown to be no mysteries. Names and places that to the Western mind have only a
significance derived from Eastern fable, were shown to be realities. Reverently
we stepped in spirit within the temple of Isis; to lift aside the veil of
"the one that is and was and shall be" at Sais; to look through the
rent curtain of the Sanctum Sanctorum at Jerusalem; and even to interrogate
within the crypts which once existed beneath the sacred edifice, the mysterious
Bath-Kol. The Filia Vocis -- the daughter of the divine voice --
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responded from the mercy-seat
within the veil,* and science, theology, every human hypothesis and conception
born of imperfect knowledge, lost forever their authoritative character in our
sight. The one-living God had spoken through his oracle -- man, and we were
satisfied. Such knowledge is priceless; and it has been hidden only from those
who overlooked it, derided it, or denied its existence.
From such as these we
apprehend criticism, censure, and perhaps hostility, although the obstacles in
our way neither spring from the validity of proof, the authenticated facts of
history, nor the lack of common sense among the public whom we address. The
drift of modern thought is palpably in the direction of liberalism in religion
as well as science. Each day brings the reactionists nearer to the point where
they must surrender the despotic authority over the public conscience, which
they have so long enjoyed and exercised. When the Pope can go to the extreme of
fulminating anathemas against all who maintain the liberty of the Press and of
speech, or who insist that in the conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical,
the civil law should prevail, or that any method of instruction solely secular,
may be approved;** and Mr. Tyndall, as the mouth-piece of nineteenth century
science, says, ". . . the impregnable position of science may be stated in
a few words: we claim, and we shall wrest from theology, the entire domain of
cosmological theory"*** -- the end is not difficult to foresee.
Centuries of subjection have
not quite congealed the life-blood of men into crystals around the nucleus of
blind faith; and the nineteenth is witnessing the struggles of the giant as he
shakes off the Liliputian cordage and rises to his feet. Even the Protestant
communion of England and America, now engaged in the revision of the text of
its Oracles, will be compelled to show the origin and merits of the text
itself. The day of domineering over men with dogmas has reached its gloaming.
Our work, then, is a plea for
the recognition of the Hermetic philosophy, the anciently universal
Wisdom-Religion, as the only possible key to the Absolute in science and
theology. To show that we do not at all conceal from ourselves the gravity of
our undertaking, we may say in advance that it would not be strange if the
following classes should array themselves against us:
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Lightfoot assures us that
this voice, which had been used in times past for a testimony from heaven,
"was indeed performed by magic art" (vol. ii., p. 128). This latter
term is used as a supercilious expression, just because it was and is still
misunderstood. It is the object of this work to correct the erroneous opinions
concerning "magic art."
** Encyclical of 1864.
*** "Fragments of
Science."
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The Christians, who will see
that we question the evidences of the genuineness of their faith.
The Scientists, who will find
their pretensions placed in the same bundle with those of the Roman Catholic
Church for infallibility, and, in certain particulars, the sages and
philosophers of the ancient world classed higher than they.
Pseudo-Scientists will, of
course, denounce us furiously.
Broad Churchmen and
Freethinkers will find that we do not accept what they do, but demand the
recognition of the whole truth.
Men of letters and various
authorities, who hide their real belief in deference to popular prejudices.
The mercenaries and parasites
of the Press, who prostitute its more than royal power, and dishonor a noble
profession, will find it easy to mock at things too wonderful for them to
understand; for to them the price of a paragraph is more than the value of
sincerity. From many will come honest criticism; from many -- cant. But we look
to the future.
The contest now going on
between the party of public conscience and the party of reaction, has already
developed a healthier tone of thought. It will hardly fail to result ultimately
in the overthrow of error and the triumph of Truth. We repeat again -- we are
laboring for the brighter morrow.
And yet, when we consider the
bitter opposition that we are called upon to face, who is better entitled than
we upon entering the arena to write upon our shield the hail of the Roman gladiator
to Caesar: MORITURUS TE SALUTAT!
New York, September, 1877.
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Joan. -- Advance our waving
colors on the walls! -- King Henry VI. Act IV.
"My life has been devoted
to the study of man, his destiny and his happiness." -- J. R. BUCHANAN,
M.D., Outlines of Lectures on Anthropology.
IT is nineteen centuries
since, as we are told, the night of Heathenism and Paganism was first dispelled
by the divine light of Christianity; and two-and-a-half centuries since the
bright lamp of Modern Science began to shine on the darkness of the ignorance
of the ages. Within these respective epochs, we are required to believe, the
true moral and intellectual progress of the race has occurred. The ancient
philosophers were well enough for their respective generations, but they were
illiterate as compared with modern men of science. The ethics of Paganism
perhaps met the wants of the uncultivated people of antiquity, but not until
the advent of the luminous "Star of Bethlehem," was the true road to
moral perfection and the way to salvation made plain. Of old, brutishness was
the rule, virtue and spirituality the exception. Now, the dullest may read the
will of God in His revealed word; men have every incentive to be good, and are
constantly becoming better.
This is the assumption; what
are the facts? On the one hand an unspiritual, dogmatic, too often debauched
clergy; a host of sects, and three warring great religions; discord instead of
union, dogmas without proofs, sensation-loving preachers, and wealth and
pleasure-seeking parishioners' hypocrisy and bigotry, begotten by the
tyrannical exigencies of respectability, the rule of the day, sincerity and
real piety exceptional. On the other hand, scientific hypotheses built on sand;
no accord upon a single question; rancorous quarrels and jealousy; a general
drift into materialism. A death-grapple of Science with Theology for
infallibility -- "a conflict of ages."
At Rome, the self-styled seat
of Christianity, the putative successor to the chair of Peter is undermining
social order with his invisible but omnipresent net-work of bigoted agents, and
incites them to revolutionize Europe for his temporal as well as spiritual
supremacy. We see him who calls himself the "Vicar of Christ,"
fraternizing with the anti-Christian Moslem against another Christian nation,
publicly invoking the blessing of God upon the arms of those who have for
centuries withstood, with
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fire and sword, the pretensions
of his Christ to Godhood! At Berlin -- one of the great seats of learning --
professors of modern exact sciences, turning their backs on the boasted results
of enlightenment of the post-Galileonian period, are quietly snuffing out the
candle of the great Florentine; seeking, in short, to prove the heliocentric
system, and even the earth's rotation, but the dreams of deluded scientists,
Newton a visionary, and all past and present astronomers but clever calculators
of unverifiable problems.*
Between these two conflicting
Titans -- Science and Theology -- is a bewildered public, fast losing all
belief in man's personal immortality, in a deity of any kind, and rapidly
descending to the level of a mere animal existence. Such is the picture of the
hour, illumined by the bright noonday sun of this Christian and scientific era!
Would it be strict justice to
condemn to critical lapidation the most humble and modest of authors for
entirely rejecting the authority of both these combatants? Are we not bound
rather to take as the true aphorism of this century, the declaration of Horace
Greeley: "I accept unreservedly the views of no man, living or
dead"?** Such, at all events, will be our motto, and we mean that
principle to be our constant guide throughout this work.
Among the many phenomenal
outgrowths of our century, the strange creed of the so-called Spiritualists has
arisen amid the tottering ruins of self-styled revealed religions and
materialistic philosophies; and yet it alone offers a possible last refuge of
compromise between the two. That this unexpected ghost of pre-Christian days
finds poor welcome from our sober and positive century, is not surprising.
Times have strangely changed; and it is but recently that a well-known Brooklyn
preacher pointedly remarked in a sermon, that could Jesus come back and behave
in the streets of New York, as he did in those of Jerusalem, he would find
himself confined in the prison of the Tombs.*** What sort of welcome, then,
could Spiritualism ever expect? True enough, the weird stranger seems neither
attractive nor promising at first sight. Shapeless and uncouth, like an infant
attended by seven nurses, it is coming out of its teens lame and mutilated. The
name of its enemies is legion; its friends and protectors are a handful. But
what of that? When was ever truth accepted a priori? Because the champions of
Spiritualism have in their fanaticism magnified its qualities, and remained
blind to its imperfections, that gives no excuse to doubt its reality. A
forgery is impossible when we have no model to forge after. The fanaticism of
Spiritualists is itself
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See the last chapter of this
volume, p. 622.
** "Recollections of a
Busy Life," p. 147.
*** Henry Ward Beecher.
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a proof of the genuineness and
possibility of their phenomena. They give us facts that we may investigate, not
assertions that we must believe without proof. Millions of reasonable men and
women do not so easily succumb to collective hallucination. And so, while the
clergy, following their own interpretations of the Bible, and science its
self-made Codex of possibilities in nature, refuse it a fair hearing, real
science and true religion are silent, and gravely wait further developments.
The whole question of
phenomena rests on the correct comprehension of old philosophies. Whither,
then, should we turn, in our perplexity, but to the ancient sages, since, on
the pretext of superstition, we are refused an explanation by the modern? Let
us ask them what they know of genuine science and religion; not in the matter
of mere details, but in all the broad conception of these twin truths -- so
strong in their unity, so weak when divided. Besides, we may find our profit in
comparing this boasted modern science with ancient ignorance; this improved modern
theology with the "Secret doctrines" of the ancient universal
religion. Perhaps we may thus discover a neutral ground whence we can reach and
profit by both.
It is the Platonic philosophy,
the most elaborate compend of the abstruse systems of old India, that can alone
afford us this middle ground. Although twenty-two and a quarter centuries have
elapsed since the death of Plato, the great minds of the world are still
occupied with his writings. He was, in the fullest sense of the word, the
world's interpreter. And the greatest philosopher of the pre-Christian era
mirrored faithfully in his works the spiritualism of the Vedic philosophers who
lived thousands of years before himself, and its metaphysical expression.
Vyasa, Djeminy, Kapila, Vrihaspati, Sumati, and so many others, will be found
to have transmitted their indelible imprint through the intervening centuries
upon Plato and his school. Thus is warranted the inference that to Plato and
the ancient Hindu sages was alike revealed the same wisdom. So surviving the
shock of time, what can this wisdom be but divine and eternal?
Plato taught justice as
subsisting in the soul of its possessor and his greatest good. "Men, in
proportion to their intellect, have admitted his transcendent claims." Yet
his commentators, almost with one consent, shrink from every passage which
implies that his metaphysics are based on a solid foundation, and not on ideal
conceptions.
But Plato could not accept a
philosophy destitute of spiritual aspirations; the two were at one with him.
For the old Grecian sage there was a single object of attainment: REAL
KNOWLEDGE. He considered those only to be genuine philosophers, or students of
truth, who possess the knowledge of the really-existing, in opposition to the
mere seeming; of
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the always-existing, in
opposition to the transitory; and of that which exists permanently, in
opposition to that which waxes, wanes, and is developed and destroyed
alternately. "Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws,
ideas, and principles, there is an INTELLIGENCE or MIND [nous, the spirit], the
first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas
are grounded; the Monarch and Lawgiver of the universe; the ultimate substance
from which all things derive their being and essence, the first and efficient
Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency, and goodness,
which pervades the universe -- who is called, by way of preeminence and
excellence, the Supreme Good, the God ([[ho theos]]) 'the God over all' ([[ho
epi pasi theos]])."* He is not the truth nor the intelligence, but
"the father of it." Though this eternal essence of things may not be
perceptible by our physical senses, it may be apprehended by the mind of those
who are not wilfully obtuse. "To you," said Jesus to his elect
disciples, "it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but
to them [the [[polloi]] ]it is not given; . . . therefore speak I to them in
parables [or allegories]; because they seeing, see not, and hearing, they hear
not, neither do they understand."**
The philosophy of Plato, we
are assured by Porphyry, of the Neoplatonic School was taught and illustrated
in the MYSTERIES. Many have questioned and even denied this; and Lobeck, in his
Aglaophomus, has gone to the extreme of representing the sacred orgies as
little more than an empty show to captivate the imagination. As though Athens
and Greece would for twenty centuries and more have repaired every fifth year
to Eleusis to witness a solemn religious farce! Augustine, the papa-bishop of
Hippo, has resolved such assertions. He declares that the doctrines of the
Alexandrian Platonists were the original esoteric doctrines of the first
followers of Plato, and describes Plotinus as a Plato resuscitated. He also
explains the motives of the great philosopher for veiling the interior sense of
what he taught.***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Cocker: "Christianity
and Greek Philosophy," xi., p. 377.
** Gospel according to
Matthew, xiii. 11, 13.
*** "The accusations of
atheism, the introducing of foreign deities, and corrupting of the Athenian
youth, which were made against Socrates, afforded ample justification for Plato
to conceal the arcane preaching of his doctrines. Doubtless the peculiar
diction or 'jargon' of the alchemists was employed for a like purpose. The
dungeon, the rack, and the fagot were employed without scruple by Christians of
every shade, the Roman Catholics especially, against all who taught even
natural science contrary to the theories entertained by the Church. Pope
Gregory the Great even inhibited the grammatical use of Latin as heathenish.
The offense of Socrates consisted in unfolding to his disciples the arcane
doctrine concerning the gods, which was taught in the Mysteries and was a
capital crime. He also was charged by Aristophanes with intro-
[[Footnote continued on next
page]]
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As to the myths, Plato
declares in the Gorgias and the Phaedon that they were the vehicles of great
truths well worth the seeking. But commentators are so little en rapport with
the great philosopher as to be compelled to acknowledge that they are ignorant
where "the doctrinal ends, and the mythical begins." Plato put to
flight the popular superstition concerning magic and daemons, and developed the
exaggerated notions of the time into rational theories and metaphysical
conceptions. Perhaps these would not quite stand the inductive method of
reasoning established by Aristotle; nevertheless they are satisfactory in the
highest degree to those who apprehend the existence of that higher faculty of
insight or intuition, as affording a criterion for ascertaining truth.
Basing all his doctrines upon
the presence of the Supreme Mind, Plato taught that the nous, spirit, or
rational soul of man, being "generated by the Divine Father,"
possessed a nature kindred, or even homogeneous, with the Divinity, and was
capable of beholding the eternal realities. This faculty of contemplating
reality in a direct and immediate manner belongs to God alone; the aspiration
for this knowledge constitutes what is really meant by philosophy -- the love
of wisdom. The love of truth is inherently the love of good; and so
predominating over every desire of the soul, purifying it and assimilating it
to the divine, thus governing every act of the individual, it raises man to a
participation and communion with Divinity, and restores him to the likeness of
God. "This flight," says Plato in the Theaetetus, "consists in
becoming like God, and this assimilation is the becoming just and holy with
wisdom."
The basis of this assimilation
is always asserted to be the preexistence of the spirit or nous. In the
allegory of the chariot and winged steeds, given in the Phaedrus, he represents
the psychical nature as composite and two-fold; the thumos, or epithumetic
part, formed from the substances of the world of phenomena; and the thumoeides,
the essence of which is linked to the eternal world. The present earth-life is
a fall and punishment. The soul dwells in "the grave which we call the
body," and in its incorporate state, and previous to the discipline of
education, the noetic or spiritual element is "asleep." Life is thus
a dream, rather than a reality. Like the captives in the subterranean cave,
described in The Republic, the back is turned to the light, we perceive only
the shadows of objects, and think them the actual realities. Is not this
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote continued from
previous page]] ducing the new god Dinos into the republic as the demiurgos or
artificer, and the lord of the solar universe. The Heliocentric system was also
a doctrine of the Mysteries; and hence, when Aristarchus the Pythagorean taught
it openly, Cleanthes declared that the Greeks ought to have called him to
account and condemned him for blasphemy against the gods," --
("Plutarch"). But Socrates had never been initiated, and hence
divulged nothing which had ever been imparted to him.
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the idea of Maya, or the
illusion of the senses in physical life, which is so marked a feature in
Buddhistical philosophy? But these shadows, if we have not given ourselves up
absolutely to the sensuous nature, arouse in us the reminiscence of that higher
world that we once inhabited. "The interior spirit has some dim and
shadowy recollection of its antenatal state of bliss, and some instinctive and
proleptic yearnings for its return." It is the province of the discipline
of philosophy to disinthrall it from the bondage of sense, and raise it into
the empyrean of pure thought, to the vision of eternal truth, goodness, and
beauty. "The soul," says Plato, in the Theaetetus, "cannot come
into the form of a man if it has never seen the truth. This is a recollection of
those things which our soul formerly saw when journeying with Deity, despising
the things which we now say are, and looking up to that which REALLY IS.
Wherefore the nous, or spirit, of the philosopher (or student of the higher
truth) alone is furnished with wings; because he, to the best of his ability,
keeps these things in mind, of which the contemplation renders even Deity
itself divine. By making the right use of these things remembered from the
former life, by constantly perfecting himself in the perfect mysteries, a man
becomes truly perfect -- an initiate into the diviner wisdom."
Hence we may understand why
the sublimer scenes in the Mysteries were always in the night. The life of the
interior spirit is the death of the external nature; and the night of the
physical world denotes the day of the spiritual. Dionysus, the night-sun, is,
therefore, worshipped rather than Helios, orb of day. In the Mysteries were
symbolized the preexistent condition of the spirit and soul, and the lapse of
the latter into earth-life and Hades, the miseries of that life, the
purification of the soul, and its restoration to divine bliss, or reunion with
spirit. Theon, of Smyrna, aptly compares the philosophical discipline to the
mystic rites: "Philosophy," says he, "may be called the
initiation into the true arcana, and the instruction in the genuine Mysteries.
There are five parts of this initiation: I., the previous purification; II.,
the admission to participation in the arcane rites; III., the epoptic
revelation; IV., the investiture or enthroning; V. -- the fifth, which is
produced from all these, is friendship and interior communion with God, and the
enjoyment of that felicity which arises from intimate converse with divine
beings. . . . Plato denominates the epopteia, or personal view, the perfect
contemplation of things which are apprehended intuitively, absolute truths and
ideas. He also considers the binding of the head and crowning as analogous to
the authority which any one receives from his instructors, of leading others
into the same contemplation. The fifth gradation is the most perfect felicity
arising from hence, and, according to
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Plato, an assimilation to
divinity as far as is possible to human beings."*
Such is Platonism. "Out
of Plato," says Ralph Waldo Emerson, "come all things that are still
written and debated among men of thought." He absorbed the learning of his
times -- of Greece from Philolaus to Socrates; then of Pythagoras in Italy;
then what he could procure from Egypt and the East. He was so broad that all
philosophy, European and Asiatic, was in his doctrines; and to culture and
contemplation he added the nature and qualities of the poet.
The followers of Plato
generally adhered strictly to his psychological theories. Several, however,
like Xenocrates, ventured into bolder speculations. Speusippus, the nephew and
successor of the great philosopher, was the author of the Numerical Analysis, a
treatise on the Pythagorean numbers. Some of his speculations are not found in
the written Dialogues; but as he was a listener to the unwritten lectures of
Plato, the judgment of Enfield is doubtless correct, that he did not differ
from his master. He was evidently, though not named, the antagonist whom
Aristotle criticised, when professing to cite the argument of Plato against the
doctrine of Pythagoras, that all things were in themselves numbers, or rather,
inseparable from the idea of numbers. He especially endeavored to show that the
Platonic doctrine of ideas differed essentially from the Pythagorean, in that
it presupposed numbers and magnitudes to exist apart from things. He also asserted
that Plato taught that there could be no real knowledge, if the object of that
knowledge was not carried beyond or above the sensible.
But Aristotle was no
trustworthy witness. He misrepresented Plato, and he almost caricatured the
doctrines of Pythagoras. There is a canon of interpretation, which should guide
us in our examinations of every philosophical opinion: "The human mind
has, under the necessary operation of its own laws, been compelled to entertain
the same fundamental ideas, and the human heart to cherish the same feelings in
all ages." It is certain that Pythagoras awakened the deepest intellectual
sympathy of his age, and that his doctrines exerted a powerful influence upon
the mind of Plato. His cardinal idea was that there existed a permanent
principle of unity beneath the forms, changes, and other phenomena of the
universe. Aristotle asserted that he taught that "numbers are the first
principles of all entities." Ritter has expressed the opinion that the
formula of Pythagoras should be taken symbolically, which is doubtless correct.
Aristotle goes on to associate these numbers with the "forms" and
"ideas" of Plato. He even declares that Plato said:
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Thomas Taylor: "Eleusinian
and Bacchic Mysteries," p. 47. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1875.
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"forms are numbers,"
and that "ideas are substantial existences -- real beings." Yet Plato
did not so teach. He declared that the final cause was the Supreme Goodness --
[[to agathon]] "Ideas are objects of pure conception for the human reason,
and they are attributes of the Divine Reason."* Nor did he ever say that
"forms are numbers." What he did say may be found in the Timaeus:
"God formed things as they first arose according to forms and
numbers."
It is recognized by modern
science that all the higher laws of nature assume the form of quantitative
statement. This is perhaps a fuller elaboration or more explicit affirmation of
the Pythagorean doctrine. Numbers were regarded as the best representations of
the laws of harmony which pervade the cosmos. We know too that in chemistry the
doctrine of atoms and the laws of combination are actually and, as it were,
arbitrarily defined by numbers. As Mr. W. Archer Butler has expressed it:
"The world is, then, through all its departments, a living arithmetic in
its development, a realized geometry in its repose."
The key to the Pythagorean
dogmas is the general formula of unity in multiplicity, the one evolving the
many and pervading the many. This is the ancient doctrine of emanation in few
words. Even the apostle Paul accepted it as true. "[[Ex auton, kai di
auton, kai eis auton ta panta]]" -- Out of him and through him and in him
all things are. This, as we can see by the following quotation, is purely Hindu
and Brahmanical:
"When the dissolution --
Pralaya -- had arrived at its term, the great Being -- Para-Atma or
Para-Purusha -- the Lord existing through himself, out of whom and through whom
all things were, and are and will be . . . resolved to emanate from his own
substance the various creatures" (Manava-Dharma-Sastra, book i., slokas 6
and 7).
The mystic Decad 1 + 2 + 3 + 4
= 10 is a way of expressing this idea. The One is God, the Two, matter; the
Three, combining Monad and Duad, and partaking of the nature of both, is the
phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection, expresses the emptiness of
all; and the Decad, or sum of all, involves the entire cosmos. The universe is
the combination of a thousand elements, and yet the expression of a single
spirit -- a chaos to the sense, a cosmos to the reason.
The whole of this combination
of the progression of numbers in the idea of creation is Hindu. The Being
existing through himself, Swayambhu or Swayambhuva, as he is called by some, is
one. He emanates from himself the creative faculty, Brahma or Purusha (the
divine male), and the one becomes Two; out of this Duad, union of the purely
intel-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Cousin: "History of
Philosophy," I., ix.
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lectual principle with the
principle of matter, evolves a third, which is Viradj, the phenomenal world. It
is out of this invisible and incomprehensible trinity, the Brahmanic Trimurty,
that evolves the second triad which represents the three faculties -- the
creative, the conservative, and the transforming. These are typified by Brahma,
Vishnu, and Siva, but are again and ever blended into one. Unity, Brahma, or as
the Vedas called him, Tridandi, is the god triply manifested, which gave rise
to the symbolical Aum or the abbreviated Trimurty. It is but under this
trinity, ever active and tangible to all our senses, that the invisible and unknown
Monas can manifest itself to the world of mortals. When he becomes Sarira, or
he who puts on a visible form, he typifies all the principles of matter, all
the germs of life, he is Purusha, the god of the three visages, or triple
power, the essence of the Vedic triad. "Let the Brahmas know the sacred
Syllable (Aum), the three words of the Savitri, and read the Vedas daily"
(Manu, book iv., sloka 125).
"After having produced
the universe, He whose power is incomprehensible vanished again, absorbed in
the Supreme Soul. . . . Having retired into the primitive darkness, the great
Soul remains within the unknown, and is void of all form. . . .
"When having again
reunited the subtile elementary principles, it introduces itself into either a
vegetable or animal seed, it assumes at each a new form."
"It is thus that, by an
alternative waking and rest, the Immutable Being causes to revive and die
eternally all the existing creatures, active and inert" (Manu, book i.,
sloka 50, and others).
He who has studied Pythagoras
and his speculations on the Monad, which, after having emanated the Duad
retires into silence and darkness, and thus creates the Triad can realize
whence came the philosophy of the great Samian Sage, and after him that of
Socrates and Plato.
Speusippus seems to have
taught that the psychical or thumetic soul was immortal as well as the spirit
or rational soul, and further on we will show his reasons. He also -- like
Philolaus and Aristotle, in his disquisitions upon the soul -- makes of aether
an element; so that there were five principal elements to correspond with the
five regular figures in Geometry. This became also a doctrine of the
Alexandrian school.* Indeed, there was much in the doctrines of the
Philaletheans which did not appear in the works of the older Platonists, but
was doubtless taught in substance by the philosopher himself, but with his
usual reticence was not committed to writing as being too arcane for
promiscuous publication. Speusippus and Xenocrates after him, held, like their
great master, that the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Theol. Arithme.,"
p. 62: "On Pythag. Numbers."
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anima mundi, or world-soul,
was not the Deity, but a manifestation. Those philosophers never conceived of
the One as an animate nature.* The original One did not exist, as we understand
the term. Not till he had united with the many -- emanated existence (the monad
and duad) was a being produced. The [[timion]], honored -- the something
manifested, dwells in the centre as in the circumference, but it is only the
reflection of the Deity -- the World-Soul.** In this doctrine we find the
spirit of esoteric Buddhism.
A man's idea of God, is that
image of blinding light that he sees reflected in the concave mirror of his own
soul, and yet this is not, in very truth, God, but only His reflection. His
glory is there, but, it is the light of his own Spirit that the man sees, and
it is all he can bear to look upon. The clearer the mirror, the brighter will
be the divine image. But the external world cannot be witnessed in it at the
same moment. In the ecstatic Yogin, in the illuminated Seer, the spirit will
shine like the noonday sun; in the debased victim of earthly attraction, the
radiance has disappeared, for the mirror is obscured with the stains of matter.
Such men deny their God, and would willingly deprive humanity of soul at one
blow.
No GOD, NO SOUL? Dreadful,
annihilating thought! The maddening nightmare of a lunatic -- Atheist;
presenting before his fevered vision, a hideous, ceaseless procession of sparks
of cosmic matter created by no one; self-appearing, self-existent, and
self-developing; this Self no Self, for it is nothing and nobody; floating
onward from nowhence, it is propelled by no Cause, for there is none, and it
rushes nowhither. And this in a circle of Eternity blind, inert, and -- CAUSELESS.
What is even the erroneous conception of the Buddhistic Nirvana in comparison!
The Nirvana is preceded by numberless spiritual transformations and
metempsychoses, during which the entity loses not for a second the sense of its
own individuality, and which may last for millions of ages before the Final
No-Thing is reached.
Though some have considered
Speusippus as inferior to Aristotle, the world is nevertheless indebted to him
for defining and expounding many things that Plato had left obscure in his doctrine
of the Sensible and Ideal. His maxim was "The Immaterial is known by means
of scientific thought, the Material by scientific perception."***
Xenocrates expounded many of
the unwritten theories and teachings of his master. He too held the Pythagorean
doctrine, and his system of numerals and mathematics in the highest estimation.
Recognizing but three degrees of knowledge -- Thought, Perception, and
Envisagement (or knowledge by Intuition), he made the former busy itself with
all that
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Plato:
"Parmenid.," 141 E.
** See Stoboeus'
"Ecl.," i., 862.
*** Sextus: "Math.,"
vii. 145.
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which is beyond the heavens;
Perception with things in the heavens; Intuition with the heavens themselves.
We find again these theories,
and nearly in the same language in the Manava-Dharma-Sastra, when speaking of
the creation of man: "He (the Supreme) drew from his own essence the
immortal breath which perisheth not in the being, and to this soul of the being
he gave the Ahancara (conscience of the ego) sovereign guide." Then he
gave to that soul of the being (man) the intellect formed of the three
qualities, and the five organs of the outward perception."
These three qualities are
Intelligence, Conscience, and Will; answering to the Thought, Perception, and
Envisagement of Xenocrates. The relation of numbers to Ideas was developed by
him further than by Speusippus, and he surpassed Plato in his definition of the
doctrine of Indivisible Magnitudes. Reducing them to their ideal primary
elements, he demonstrated that every figure and form originated out of the
smallest indivisible line. That Xenocrates held the same theories as Plato in
relation to the human soul (supposed to be a number) is evident, though
Aristotle contradicts this, like every other teaching of this philosopher.*
This is conclusive evidence that many of Plato's doctrines were delivered
orally, even were it shown that Xenocrates and not Plato was the first to
originate the theory of indivisible magnitudes. He derives the Soul from the
first Duad, and calls it a self-moved number.** Theophrastus remarks that he
entered and eliminated this Soul-theory more than any other Platonist. He built
upon it the cosmological doctrine, and proved the necessary existence in every
part of the universal space of a successive and progressive series of animated
and thinking though spiritual beings.*** The Human Soul with him is a compound
of the most spiritual properties of the Monad and the Duad, possessing the
highest principles of both. If, like Plato and Prodicus, he refers to the
Elements as to Divine Powers, and calls them gods, neither himself nor others
connected any anthropomorphic idea with the appellation. Krische remarks that
he called them gods only that these elementary powers should not be confounded
with the daemons of the nether world**** (the Elementary Spirits). As the Soul
of the World permeates the whole Cosmos, even beasts must have in them
something divine.***** This, also, is the doctrine of Buddhists and the
Hermetists, and Manu endows with a living soul even the plants and the tiniest
blade of grass.
The daemons, according to this
theory, are intermediate beings be-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Metaph.," 407, a.
3.
** Appendix to
"Timaeus."
*** Stob.: "Ecl.,"
i., 62.
**** Krische: "Forsch.,"
p. 322, etc.
***** Clem.: "Alex.
Stro.," v., 590.
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tween the divine perfection
and human sinfulness,* and he divides them into classes, each subdivided in
many others. But he states expressly that the individual or personal soul is
the leading guardian daemon of every man, and that no daemon has more power
over us than our own. Thus the Daimonion of Socrates is the god or Divine
Entity which inspired him all his life. It depends on man either to open or
close his perceptions to the Divine voice. Like Speusippus he ascribed
immortality to the [[psuche]], psychical body, or irrational soul. But some
Hermetic philosophers have taught that the soul has a separate continued
existence only so long as in its passage through the spheres any material or
earthly particles remain incorporated in it; and that when absolutely purified,
the latter are annihilated, and the quintessence of the soul alone becomes
blended with its divine spirit (the Rational), and the two are thenceforth one.
Zeller states that Xenocrates
forbade the eating of animal food, not because he saw in beasts something akin
to man, as he ascribed to them a dim consciousness of God, but, "for the
opposite reason, lest the irrationality of animal souls might thereby obtain a
certain influence over us."** But we believe that it was rather because,
like Pythagoras, he had had the Hindu sages for his masters and models. Cicero
depicted Xenocrates utterly despising everything except the highest virtue;***
and describes the stainlessness and severe austerity of his character.****
"To free ourselves from the subjection of sensuous existence, to conquer
the Titanic elements in our terrestrial nature through the Divine one, is our
problem." Zeller makes him say: ***** "Purity, even in the secret
longings of our heart, is the greatest duty, and only philosophy and the
initiation into the Mysteries help toward the attainment of this object."
Crantor, another philosopher
associated with the earliest days of Plato's Academy, conceived the human soul
as formed out of the primary substance of all things, the Monad or One, and the
Duad or the Two. Plutarch speaks at length of this philosopher, who like his
master believed in souls being distributed in earthly bodies as an exile and
punishment.
Herakleides, though some
critics do not believe him to have strictly adhered to Plato's primal
philosophy,****** taught the same ethics. Zeller presents him to us imparting,
like Hicetas and Ecphantus, the Pythagorean doctrine of the diurnal rotation of
the earth and the immobility of the fixed stars, but adds that he was ignorant
of the annual revolution of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Plutarch: "De
Isid," chap. 25, p. 360.
** "Plato und die Alt.
Akademie."
*** "Tusc.," v., 18,
51.
**** Ibid. Cf. p. 559.
***** "Plato und die Alt.
Akademie."
****** Ed. Zeller:
"Philos. der Griech."
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earth around the sun, and of
the heliocentric system.* But we have good evidence that the latter system was
taught in the Mysteries, and that Socrates died for atheism, i.e., for
divulging this sacred knowledge. Herakleides adopted fully the Pythagorean and
Platonic views of the human soul, its faculties and its capabilities. He
describes it as a luminous, highly ethereal essence. He affirms that souls
inhabit the milky way before descending "into generation" or
sublunary existence. His daemons or spirits are airy and vaporous bodies.
In the Epinomis is fully
stated the doctrine of the Pythagorean numbers in relation to created things.
As a true Platonist, its author maintains that wisdom can only be attained by a
thorough inquiry into the occult nature of the creation; it alone assures us an
existence of bliss after death. The immortality of the soul is greatly
speculated upon in this treatise; but its author adds that we can attain to
this knowledge only through a complete comprehension of the numbers; for the
man, unable to distinguish the straight line from a curved one will never have
wisdom enough to secure a mathematical demonstration of the invisible, i.e., we
must assure ourselves of the objective existence of our soul (astral body)
before we learn that we are in possession of a divine and immortal spirit.
Iamblichus says the same thing; adding, moreover, that it is a secret belonging
to the highest initiation. The Divine Power, he says, always felt indignant
with those "who rendered manifest the composition of the icostagonus,"
viz., who delivered the method of inscribing in a sphere the dodecahedron.**
The idea that
"numbers" possessing the greatest virtue, produce always what is good
and never what is evil, refers to justice, equanimity of temper, and everything
that is harmonious. When the author speaks of every star as an individual soul,
he only means what the Hindu initiates and the Hermetists taught before and
after him, viz.: that every star is an independent planet, which, like our
earth, has a soul of its own, every atom of matter being impregnated with the
divine influx of the soul of the world. It breathes and lives; it feels and
suffers as well as enjoys life in its way. What naturalist is prepared to
dispute it on good evidence? Therefore, we must consider the celestial bodies
as the images of gods; as partaking of the divine powers in their substance;
and though they are not immortal in their soul-entity, their agency in the
economy of the universe is entitled to divine honors, such as we pay to minor
gods. The idea is plain, and one must be malevolent indeed to misrepresent it.
If the author of Epinomis places these fiery gods higher than the animals,
plants, and even mankind, all of which, as earthly creatures, are assigned
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Plato und die Alt.
Akademie."
** One of the five solid
figures in Geometry.
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by him a lower place, who can
prove him wholly wrong? One must needs go deep indeed into the profundity of
the abstract metaphysics of the old philosophies, who would understand that
their various embodiments of their conceptions are, after all, based upon an
identical apprehension of the nature of the First Cause, its attributes and
method.
Again when the author of
Epinomis locates between these highest and lowest gods (embodied souls) three
classes of daemons, and peoples the universe with invisible beings, he is more
rational than our modern scientists, who make between the two extremes one vast
hiatus of being, the playground of blind forces. Of these three classes the
first two are invisible; their bodies are pure ether and fire (planetary
spirits); the daemons of the third class are clothed with vapory bodies; they
are usually invisible, but sometimes making themselves concrete become visible
for a few seconds. These are the earthly spirits, or our astral souls.
It is these doctrines, which,
studied analogically, and on the principle of correspondence, led the ancient,
and may now lead the modern Philaletheian step by step toward the solution of
the greatest mysteries. On the brink of the dark chasm separating the spiritual
from the physical world stands modern science, with eyes closed and head
averted, pronouncing the gulf impassable and bottomless, though she holds in
her hand a torch which she need only lower into the depths to show her her
mistake. But across this chasm, the patient student of Hermetic philosophy has
constructed a bridge.
In his Fragments of Science
Tyndall makes the following sad confession: "If you ask me whether science
has solved, or is likely in our day to solve the problem of this universe, I
must shake my head in doubt." If moved by an afterthought, he corrects
himself later, and assures his audience that experimental evidence has helped
him to discover, in the opprobrium-covered matter, the "promise and
potency of every quality of life," he only jokes. It would be as difficult
for Professor Tyndall to offer any ultimate and irrefutable proofs of what he
asserts, as it was for Job to insert a hook into the nose of the leviathan.
To avoid confusion that might
easily arise by the frequent employment of certain terms in a sense different
from that familiar to the reader, a few explanations will be timely. We desire
to leave no pretext either for misunderstanding or misrepresentation. Magic may
have one signification to one class of readers and another to another class. We
shall give it the meaning which it has in the minds of its Oriental students
and practitioners. And so with the words Hermetic Science, Occultism,
Hierophant, Adept, Sorcerer, etc.; there has been little agreement of late as to
their meaning. Though the distinctions between the terms are very often
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insignificant -- merely ethnic
-- still, it may be useful to the general reader to know just what that is. We
give a few alphabetically.
AETHROBACY, is the Greek name
for walking or being lifted in the air; levitation, so called, among modern
spiritualists. It may be either conscious or unconscious; in the one case, it
is magic; in the other, either disease or a power which requires a few words of
elucidation.
A symbolical explanation of
aethrobacy is given in an old Syriac manuscript which was translated in the fifteenth
century by one Malchus, an alchemist. In connection with the case of Simon
Magus, one passage reads thus:
"Simon, laying his face
upon the ground, whispered in her ear, 'O mother Earth, give me, I pray thee,
some of thy breath; and I will give thee mine; let me loose, O mother, that I
may carry thy words to the stars, and I will return faithfully to thee after a
while.' And the Earth strengthening her status, none to her detriment, sent her
genius to breathe of her breath on Simon, while he breathed on her; and the
stars rejoiced to be visited by the mighty One."
The starting-point here is the
recognized electro-chemical principle that bodies similarly electrified repel
each other, while those differently electrified mutually attract. "The
most elementary knowledge of chemistry," says Professor Cooke, "shows
that, while radicals of opposite natures combine most eagerly together, two
metals, or two closely-allied metalloids, show but little affinity for each
other."
The earth is a magnetic body;
in fact, as some scientists have found, it is one vast magnet, as Paracelsus
affirmed some 300 years ago. It is charged with one form of electricity -- let
us call it positive -- which it evolves continuously by spontaneous action, in
its interior or centre of motion. Human bodies, in common with all other forms
of matter, are charged with the opposite form of electricity -- negative. That
is to say, organic or inorganic bodies, if left to themselves will constantly
and involuntarily charge themselves with, and evolve the form of electricity
opposed to that of the earth itself. Now, what is weight? Simply the attraction
of the earth. "Without the attractions of the earth you would have no
weight," says Professor Stewart;* "and if you had an earth twice as
heavy as this, you would have double the attraction." How then, can we get
rid of this attraction? According to the electrical law above stated, there is
an attraction between our planet and the organisms upon it, which holds them
upon the surface of the ground. But the law of gravitation has been
counteracted in many instances, by levitations of persons and inanimate
objects; how account
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* "The Sun and the
Earth."
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for this? The condition of our
physical systems, say theurgic philosophers, is largely dependent upon the action
of our will. If well-regulated, it can produce "miracles"; among
others a change of this electrical polarity from negative to positive; the
man's relations with the earth-magnet would then become repellent, and
"gravity" for him would have ceased to exist. It would then be as
natural for him to rush into the air until the repellent force had exhausted
itself, as, before, it had been for him to remain upon the ground. The altitude
of his levitation would be measured by his ability, greater or less, to charge
his body with positive electricity. This control over the physical forces once
obtained, alteration of his levity or gravity would be as easy as breathing.
The study of nervous diseases
has established that even in ordinary somnambulism, as well as in mesmerized
somnambulists, the weight of the body seems to be diminished. Professor Perty
mentions a somnambulist, Koehler, who when in the water could not sink, but
floated. The seeress of Prevorst rose to the surface of the bath and could not
be kept seated in it. He speaks of Anna Fleisher, who being subject to
epileptic fits, was often seen by the Superintendent to rise in the air; and
was once, in the presence of two trustworthy witnesses (two deans) and others,
raised two and a half yards from her bed in a horizontal position. The similar
case of Margaret Rule is cited by Upham in his History of Salem Witchcraft.
"In ecstatic subjects," adds Professor Perty, "the rising in the
air occurs much more frequently than with somnambulists. We are so accustomed
to consider gravitation as being a something absolute and unalterable, that the
idea of a complete or partial rising in opposition to it seems inadmissible;
nevertheless, there are phenomena in which, by means of material forces,
gravitation is overcome. In several diseases -- as, for instance, nervous fever
-- the weight of the human body seems to be increased, but in all ecstatic
conditions to be diminished. And there may, likewise, be other forces than
material ones which can counteract this power."
A Madrid journal, El Criterio
Espiritista, of a recent date, reports the case of a young peasant girl near
Santiago, which possesses a peculiar interest in this connection. "Two
bars of magnetized iron held over her horizontally, half a metre distant, was
sufficient to suspend her body in the air."
Were our physicians to
experiment on such levitated subjects, it would be found that they are strongly
charged with a similar form of electricity to that of the spot, which,
according to the law of gravitation, ought to attract them, or rather prevent
their levitation. And, if some physical nervous disorder, as well as spiritual
ecstasy produce
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unconsciously to the subject
the same effects, it proves that if this force in nature were properly studied,
it could be regulated at will.
ALCHEMISTS. -- From Al and
Chemi, fire, or the god and patriarch, Kham, also, the name of Egypt. The
Rosicrucians of the middle ages, such as Robertus de Fluctibus (Robert Fludd),
Paracelsus, Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes), Van Helmont, and others,
were all alchemists, who sought for the hidden spirit in every inorganic
matter. Some people -- nay, the great majority -- have accused alchemists of
charlatanry and false pretending. Surely such men as Roger Bacon, Agrippa,
Henry Kunrath, and the Arabian Geber (the first to introduce into Europe some
of the secrets of chemistry), can hardly be treated as impostors -- least of
all as fools. Scientists who are reforming the science of physics upon the
basis of the atomic theory of Demokritus, as restated by John Dalton,
conveniently forget that Demokritus, of Abdera, was an alchemist, and that the
mind that was capable of penetrating so far into the secret operations of
nature in one direction must have had good reasons to study and become a
Hermetic philosopher. Olaus Borrichias says, that the cradle of alchemy is to be
sought in the most distant times.
ASTRAL LIGHT. -- The same as
the sidereal light of Paracelsus and other Hermetic philosophers. Physically,
it is the ether of modern science. Metaphysically, and in its spiritual, or
occult sense, ether is a great deal more than is often imagined. In occult
physics, and alchemy, it is well demonstrated to enclose within its shoreless
waves not only Mr. Tyndall's "promise and potency of every quality of
life," but also the realization of the potency of every quality of spirit.
Alchemists and Hermetists believe that their astral, or sidereal ether, besides
the above properties of sulphur, and white and red magnesia, or magnes, is the
anima mundi, the workshop of Nature and of all the cosmos, spiritually, as well
as physically. The "grand magisterium" asserts itself in the
phenomenon of mesmerism, in the "levitation" of human and inert
objects; and may be called the ether from its spiritual aspect.
The designation astral is
ancient, and was used by some of the Neoplatonists. Porphyry describes the
celestial body which is always joined with the soul as "immortal,
luminous, and star-like." The root of this word may be found, perhaps, in
the Scythic aist-aer -- which means star, or the Assyrian Istar, which,
according to Burnouf has the same sense. As the Rosicrucians regarded the real,
as the direct opposite of the apparent, and taught that what seems light to
matter, is darkness to spirit, they searched for the latter in the astral ocean
of invisible fire which encompasses the world; and claim to have traced the
equally invisible divine spirit, which overshadows every man and is erroneously
called soul, to the very throne of the Invisible and Unknown God.
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As the great cause must always
remain invisible and imponderable, they could prove their assertions merely by
demonstration of its effects in this world of matter, by calling them forth
from the unknowable down into the knowable universe of effects. That this
astral light permeates the whole cosmos, lurking in its latent state even in
the minutest particle of rock, they demonstrate by the phenomenon of the spark
from flint and from every other stone, whose spirit when forcibly disturbed
springs to sight spark-like, and immediately disappears in the realms of the
unknowable.
Paracelsus named it the
sidereal light, taking the term from the Latin. He regarded the starry host
(our earth included) as the condensed portions of the astral light which
"fell down into generation and matter," but whose magnetic or
spiritual emanations kept constantly a never-ceasing intercommunication between
themselves and the parent-fount of all -- the astral light. "The stars
attract from us to themselves, and we again from them to us," he says. The
body is wood and the life is fire, which comes like the light from the stars
and from heaven. "Magic is the philosophy of alchemy," he says
again.* Everything pertaining to the spiritual world must come to us through
the stars, and if we are in friendship with them, we may attain the greatest
magical effects.
"As fire passes through
an iron stove, so do the stars pass through man with all their properties and
go into him as the rain into the earth, which gives fruit out of that same
rain. Now observe that the stars surround the whole earth, as a shell does the
egg; through the shell comes the air, and penetrates to the centre of the
world." The human body is subjected as well as the earth, and planets, and
stars, to a double law; it attracts and repels, for it is saturated through
with double magnetism, the influx of the astral light. Everything is double in
nature; magnetism is positive and negative, active and passive, male and
female. Night rests humanity from the day's activity, and restores the
equilibrium of human as well as of cosmic nature. When the mesmerizer will have
learned the grand secret of polarizing the action and endowing his fluid with a
bisexual force he will have become the greatest magician living. Thus the
astral light is androgyne, for equilibrium is the resultant of two opposing
forces eternally reacting upon each other. The result of this is LIFE. When the
two forces are expanded and remain so long inactive, as to equal one another
and so come to a complete rest, the condition is DEATH. A human being can blow
either a hot or a cold breath; and can absorb either cold or hot air. Every
child knows how to regulate
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "De Ente
Spirituali," lib. iv.; "de Ente Astrorum," book i.; and opera
omnia, vol. i., pp. 634 and 699.
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the temperature of his breath;
but how to protect one's self from either hot or cold air, no physiologist has yet
learned with certainty. The astral light alone, as the chief agent in magic,
can discover to us all secrets of nature. The astral light is identical with
the Hindu akasa, a word which we will now explain.
AKASA. -- Literally the word
means in Sanscrit sky, but in its mystic sense it signifies the invisible sky;
or, as the Brahmans term it in the Soma-sacrifice (the Gyotishtoma Agnishtoma),
the god Akasa, or god Sky. The language of the Vedas shows that the Hindus of
fifty centuries ago ascribed to it the same properties as do the Thibetan lamas
of the present day; that they regarded it as the source of life, the reservoir
of all energy, and the propeller of every change of matter. In its latent state
it tallies exactly with our idea of the universal ether; in its active state it
became the Akasa, the all-directing and omnipotent god. In the Brahmanical
sacrificial mysteries it plays the part of Sadasya, or superintendent over the
magical effects of the religious performance, and it had its own appointed Hotar
(or priest), who took its name. In India, as in other countries in ancient
times, the priests are the representatives on earth of different gods; each
taking the name of the deity in whose name he acts.
The Akasa is the indispensable
agent of every Kritya (magical performance) either religious or profane. The
Brahmanical expression "to stir up the Brahma" -- Brahma jinvati --
means to stir up the power which lies latent at the bottom of every such
magical operation, for the Vedic sacrifices are but ceremonial magic. This
power is the Akasa or the occult electricity; the alkahest of the alchemists in
one sense, or the universal solvent, the same anima mundi as the astral light.
At the moment of the sacrifice, the latter becomes imbued with the spirit of Brahma,
and so for the time being is Brahma himself. This is the evident origin of the
Christian dogma of transubstantiation. As to the most general effects of the
Akasa, the author of one of the most modern works on the occult philosophy,
Art-Magic, gives for the first time to the world a most intelligible and
interesting explanation of the Akasa in connection with the phenomena
attributed to its influence by the fakirs and lamas.
ANTHROPOLOGY. -- The science
of man; embracing among other things:
Physiology, or that branch of
natural science which discloses the mysteries of the organs and their functions
in men, animals, and plants; and also, and especially,
Psychology, or the great, and
in our days, so neglected science of the
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soul, both as an entity
distinct from the spirit and in its relations with the spirit and body. In
modern science, psychology relates only or principally to conditions of the
nervous system, and almost absolutely ignores the psychical essence and nature.
Physicians denominate the science of insanity psychology, and name the lunatic
chair in medical colleges by that designation.
CHALDEANS, or Kasdim. -- At
first a tribe, then a caste of learned kabalists. They were the savants, the
magians of Babylonia, astrologers and diviners. The famous Hillel, the
precursor of Jesus in philosophy and in ethics, was a Chaldean. Franck in his
Kabbala points to the close resemblance of the "secret doctrine"
found in the Avesta and the religious metaphysics of the Chaldees.
DACTYLS (daktulos, a finger).
-- A name given to the priests attached to the worship of Kybele (Cybele). Some
archaeologists derive the name from [[daktulos]], finger, because they were
ten, the same in number as the fingers of the hand. But we do not believe the
latter hypothesis is the correct one.
DAEMONS. -- A name given by
the ancient people, and especially the philosophers of the Alexandrian school,
to all kinds of spirits, whether good or bad, human or otherwise. The
appellation is often synonymous with that of gods or angels. But some
philosophers tried, with good reason, to make a just distinction between the
many classes.
DEMIURGOS, or Demiurge. --
Artificer; the Supernal Power which built the universe. Freemasons derive from
this word their phrase of "Supreme Architect." The chief magistrates
of certain Greek cities bore the title.
DERVISHES, or the "whirling
charmers," as they are called. Apart from the austerities of life, prayer
and contemplation, the Mahometan devotee presents but little similarity with
the Hindu fakir. The latter may become a sannyasi, or saint and holy mendicant;
the former will never reach beyond his second class of occult manifestations.
The dervish may also be a strong mesmerizer, but he will never voluntarily
submit to the abominable and almost incredible self-punishment which the fakir
invents for himself with an ever-increasing avidity, until nature succumbs and
he dies in slow and excruciating tortures. The most dreadful operations, such
as flaying the limbs alive; cutting off the toes, feet, and legs; tearing out
the eyes; and causing one's self to be buried alive up to the chin in the
earth, and passing whole months in this posture, seem child's play to them. One
of the most common tortures is that of Tshiddy-Parvady.* It consists in
suspending the fakir to one of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* Or more commonly charkh
puja.
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mobile arms of a kind of
gallows to be seen in the vicinity of many of the temples. At the end of each
of these arms is fixed a pulley over which passes a rope terminated by an iron
hook. This hook is inserted into the bare back of the fakir, who inundating the
soil with blood is hoisted up in the air and then whirled round the gallows.
From the first moment of this cruel operation until he is either unhooked or
the flesh of his back tears out under the weight of the body and the fakir is
hurled down on the heads of the crowd, not a muscle of his face will move. He
remains calm and serious and as composed as if taking a refreshing bath. The
fakir will laugh to scorn every imaginable torture, persuaded that the more his
outer body is mortified, the brighter and holier becomes his inner, spiritual
body. But the Dervish, neither in India, nor in other Mahometan lands, will
ever submit to such operations.
DRUIDS. -- A sacerdotal caste
which flourished in Britain and Gaul.
ELEMENTAL SPIRITS. -- The
creatures evolved in the four kingdoms of earth, air, fire, and water, and
called by the kabalists gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines. They may be
termed the forces of nature, and will either operate effects as the servile
agents of general law, or may be employed by the disembodied spirits -- whether
pure or impure -- and by living adepts of magic and sorcery, to produce desired
phenomenal results. Such beings never become men.*
Under the general designation
of fairies, and fays, these spirits of the elements appear in the myth, fable,
tradition, or poetry of all nations, ancient and modern. Their names are legion
-- peris, devs, djins, sylvans, satyrs, fauns, elves, dwarfs, trolls, norns,
nisses, kobolds, brownies, necks, stromkarls, undines, nixies, salamanders,
goblins, ponkes, banshees, kelpies, pixies, moss people, good people, good
neighbors, wild women, men of peace, white ladies -- and many more. They have
been seen, feared, blessed, banned, and invoked in every quarter of the globe
and in every age. Shall we then concede that all who have met them were
hallucinated?
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Persons who believe in the
clairvoyant power, but are disposed to discredit the existence of any other spirits
in nature than disembodied human spirits, will be interested in an account of
certain clairvoyant observations which appeared in the London Spiritualist of
June 29, 1877. A thunder-storm approaching, the seeress saw "a bright
spirit emerge from a dark cloud and pass with lightning speed across the sky,
and, a few minutes after, a diagonal line of dark spirits in the clouds."
These are the Maruts of the "Vedas" (See Max Muller's "Rig-Veda
Sanhita").
The well-known and respected
lecturer, author, and clairvoyant, Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, has published
accounts of her frequent experiences with these elemental spirits.
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These elementals are the
principal agents of disembodied but never visible spirits at seances, and the
producers of all the phenomena except the subjective.
ELEMENTARY SPIRITS. --
Properly, the disembodied souls of the depraved; these souls having at some
time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost
their chance for immortality. Eliphas Levi and some other kabalists make little
distinction between elementary spirits who have been men, and those beings
which people the elements, and are the blind forces of nature. Once divorced
from their bodies, these souls (also called "astral bodies") of
purely materialistic persons, are irresistibly attracted to the earth, where
they live a temporary and finite life amid elements congenial to their gross
natures. From having never, during their natural lives, cultivated their
spirituality, but subordinated it to the material and gross, they are now
unfitted for the lofty career of the pure, disembodied being, for whom the
atmosphere of earth is stifling and mephitic, and whose attractions are all
away from it. After a more or less prolonged period of time these material
souls will begin to disintegrate, and finally, like a column of mist, be dissolved,
atom by atom, in the surrounding elements.
ESSENES -- from Asa, a healer.
A sect of Jews said by Pliny to have lived near the Dead Sea "per millia
saeculorum" -- for thousands of ages. Some have supposed them to be
extreme Pharisees; and others -- which may be the true theory -- the
descendants of the Benim-nabim of the Bible, and think they were
"Kenites" and "Nazarites." They had many Buddhistic ideas
and practices; and it is noteworthy that the priests of the Great Mother at Ephesus,
Diana-Bhavani with many breasts, were also so denominated. Eusebius, and after
him De Quincey, declared them to be the same as the early Christians, which is
more than probable. The title "brother," used in the early Church,
was Essenean: they were a fraternity, or a koinobion or community like the
early converts. It is noticeable that only the Sadducees, or Zadokites, the
priest-caste and their partisans, persecuted the Christians; the Pharisees were
generally scholastic and mild, and often sided with the latter. James the Just
was a Pharisee till his death; but Paul or Aher was esteemed a schismatic.
EVOLUTION. -- The development
of higher orders of animals from the lower. Modern, or so-called exact science,
holds but to a one-sided physical evolution, prudently avoiding and ignoring
the higher or spiritual evolution, which would force our contemporaries to
confess the superiority of the ancient philosophers and psychologists over
themselves. The ancient sages, ascending to the UNKNOWABLE, made their
starting-point from the first manifestation of the unseen, the unavoidable, and
from a strict logical reasoning, the absolutely necessary creative Being,
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the Demiurgos of the universe.
Evolution began with them from pure spirit, which descending lower and lower
down, assumed at last a visible and comprehensible form, and became matter.
Arrived at this point, they speculated in the Darwinian method, but on a far
more large and comprehensive basis.
In the Rig-Veda-Sanhita, the
oldest book of the World* (to which even our most prudent Indiologists and
Sanscrit scholars assign an antiquity of between two and three thousand years
B.C.), in the first book, "Hymns to the Maruts," it is said:
"Not-being and Being are
in the highest heaven, in the birthplace of Daksha, in the lap of Aditi"
(Mandala, i, Sukta 166).
"In the first age of the
gods, Being (the comprehensible Deity) was born from Not-being (whom no
intellect can comprehend); after it were born the Regions (the invisible), from
them Uttanapada."
"From Uttanapad the Earth
was born, the Regions (those that are visible) were born from the Earth. Daksha
was born of Aditi, and Aditi from Daksha" (Ibid.).
Aditi is the Infinite, and
Daksha is dakska-pitarah, literally meaning the father of gods, but understood
by Max Muller and Roth to mean the fathers of strength, "preserving,
possessing, granting faculties." Therefore, it is easy to see that
"Daksha, born of Aditi and Aditi from Daksha," means what the moderns
understand by "correlation of forces"; the more so as we find in this
passage (translated by Prof. Muller):
"I place Agni, the source
of all beings, the father of strength" (iii., 27, 2), a clear and
identical idea which prevailed so much in the doctrines of the Zoroastrians,
the Magians, and the mediaeval fire-philosophers. Agni is god of fire, of the
Spiritual Ether, the very substance of the divine essence of the Invisible God
present in every atom of His creation and called by the Rosicrucians the
"Celestial Fire." If we only carefully compare the verses from this
Mandala, one of which runs thus: "The Sky is your father, the Earth your
mother, Soma your brother, Aditi your sister" (i., 191, 6),** with the
inscription on the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes, we will find the same
substratum of metaphysical philosophy, the identical doctrines!
"As all things were
produced by the mediation of one being, so all things were produced from this
one thing by adaptation: 'Its father is the sun; its mother is the moon' . . .
etc. Separate the earth from the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Translated by Max Muller,
Professor of Comparative Philology at the Oxford University, England.
** "Dyarih vah pita,
prithivi mata somah bhrata Aditih svasa."
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fire, the subtile from the
gross. . . . What I had to say about the operation of the sun is
completed" (Smaragdine Tablet).*
Professor Max Muller sees in
this Mandala "at last, something like a theogony, though full of
contradictions."** The alchemists, kabalists, and students of mystic
philosophy will find therein a perfectly defined system of Evolution in the
Cosmogony of a people who lived a score of thousands of years before our era.
They will find in it, moreover, a perfect identity of thought and even doctrine
with the Hermetic philosophy, and also that of Pythagoras and Plato.
In Evolution, as it is now
beginning to be understood, there is supposed to be in all matter an impulse to
take on a higher form -- a supposition clearly expressed by Manu and other
Hindu philosophers of the highest antiquity. The philosopher's tree illustrates
it in the case of the zinc solution. The controversy between the followers of
this school and the Emanationists may be briefly stated thus: The Evolutionist
stops all inquiry at the borders of "the Unknowable"; the
Emanationist believes that nothing can be evolved -- or, as the word means,
unwombed or born -- except it has first been involved, thus indicating that
life is from a spiritual potency above the whole.
FAKIRS. -- Religious devotees
in East India. They are generally attached to Brahmanical pagodas and follow
the laws of Manu. A strictly religious fakir will go absolutely naked, with the
exception of a small piece of linen called dhoti, around his loins. They wear
their hair long, and it serves them as a pocket, as they stick in it various
objects -- such as a pipe, a small flute called vagudah, the sounds of which
throw the serpents into a cataleptic torpor, and sometimes their bamboo-stick
(about one foot long) with the seven mystical knots on it. This magical stick,
or rather rod, the fakir receives from his guru on the day of his initiation,
together with the three mantrams, which are communicated to him "mouth to
ear." No fakir will be seen without this powerful adjunct of his calling.
It is, as they all claim, the divining rod, the cause of every occult
phenomenon produced by them.*** The Brahmanical fakir is en-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* As the perfect identity of
the philosophical and religious doctrines of antiquity will be fully treated
upon in subsequent chapters, we limit our explanations for the present.
**
"Rig-Veda-Anhita," p. 234.
*** Philostratus assures us
that the Brahmins were able, in his time, to perform the most wonderful cures
by merely pronouncing certain magical words. "The Indian Brahmans carry a
staff and a ring, by means of which they are able to do almost anything."
Origenes states the same ("Contra Celsum"). But if a strong mesmeric
fluid -- say projected from the eye, and without any other contact -- is not
added, no magical words would be efficacious.
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tirely distinct from the
Mussulman mendicant of India, also called fakirs in some parts of the British
territory.
HERMETIST. -- From Hermes, the
god of Wisdom, known in Egypt, Syria, and Phoenicia as Thoth, Tat, Adad, Seth,
and Sat-an (the latter not to be taken in the sense applied to it by Moslems
and Christians), and in Greece as Kadmus. The kabalists identify him with Adam
Kadmon, the first manifestation of the Divine Power, and with Enoch. There were
two Hermes: the elder was the Trismegistus, and the second an emanation, or
"permutation" of himself; the friend and instructor of Isis and
Osiris. Hermes is the god of the priestly wisdom, like Mazeus.
HIEROPHANT. -- Discloser of
sacred learning. The Old Man, the Chief of the Adepts at the initiations, who
explained the arcane knowledge to the neophytes, bore this title. In Hebrew and
Chaldaic the term was Peter, or opener, discloser; hence, the Pope, as the
successor of the hierophant of the ancient Mysteries, sits in the Pagan chair
of "St. Peter." The vindictiveness of the Catholic Church toward the
alchemists, and to arcane and astronomical science, is explained by the fact
that such knowledge was the ancient prerogative of the hierophant, or
representative of Peter, who kept the mysteries of life and death. Men like
Bruno, Galileo, and Kepler, therefore, and even Cagliostro, trespassed on the
preserves of the Church, and were accordingly murdered.
Every nation had its Mysteries
and hierophants. Even the Jews had their Peter -- Tanaim or Rabbin, like
Hillel, Akiba,* and other famous kabalists, who alone could impart the awful
knowledge contained in the Merkaba. In India, there was in ancient times one,
and now there are several hierophants scattered about the country, attached to
the principal pagodas, who are known as the Brahma-atmas. In Thibet the chief
hierophant is the Dalay, or Taley-Lama of Lha-ssa.** Among Christian nations,
the Catholics alone have preserved this "heathen" custom, in the
person of their Pope, albeit they have sadly disfigured its majesty and the
dignity of the sacred office.
INITIATES. -- In times of
antiquity, those who had been initiated into the arcane knowledge taught by the
hierophants of the Mysteries; and in our modern days those who have been
initiated by the adepts of mystic lore into the mysterious knowledge, which,
notwithstanding the lapse of ages, has yet a few real votaries on earth.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Akiba was a friend of Aher,
said to have been the Apostle Paul of Christian story. Both are depicted as
having visited Paradise. Aher took branches from the Tree of Knowledge, and so
fell from the true (Jewish) religion. Akiba came away in peace. See 2d Epistle
to the Corinthians, chapter xii.
** Taley means ocean or sea.
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KABALIST, from , KABALA; an
unwritten or oral tradition. The kabalist is a student of "secret
science," one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the
help of the symbolical Kabala, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim
were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the
beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The Books of Ezekiel,
Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical. This
secret doctrine is identical with that of the Chaldeans, and includes at the
same time much of the Persian wisdom, or "magic."
LAMAS. -- Buddhist monks
belonging to the Lamaic religion of Thibet, as, for instance, friars are the
monks belonging to the Popish or Roman Catholic religion. Every lama is subject
to the grand Taley-Lama, the Buddhist pope of Thibet, who holds his residence
at Lha-ssa, and is a reincarnation of Buddha.
MAGE, or Magian; from Mag or
Maha. The word is the root of the word magician. The Maha-atma (the great Soul
or Spirit) in India had its priests in the pre-Vedic times. The Magians were
priests of the fire-god; we find them among the Assyrians and Babylonians, as
well as among the Persian fire-worshippers. The three magi, also denominated
kings, that are said to have made gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh to the
infant Jesus, were fire-worshippers like the rest, and astrologers; for they
saw his star. The high priest of the Parsis, at Surat, is called Mobed, others
derived the word from Megh; Meh-ab signifying something grand and noble.
Zoroaster's disciples were called Meghestom, according to Kleuker.
MAGICIAN. -- This term, once a
title of renown and distinction, has come to be wholly perverted from its true
meaning. Once the synonym of all that was honorable and reverent, of a
possessor of learning and wisdom, it has become degraded into an epithet to
designate one who is a pretender and a juggler; a charlatan, in short, or one
who has "sold his soul to the Evil One"; who misuses his knowledge,
and employs it for low and dangerous uses, according to the teachings of the
clergy, and a mass of superstitious fools who believe the magician a sorcerer
and an enchanter. But Christians forget, apparently, that Moses was also a
magician, and Daniel, "Master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans,
and soothsayers" (Daniel, v. II).
The word magician then,
scientifically speaking, is derived from Magh, Mah, Hindu or Sanscrit Maha --
great; a man well versed in the secret or esoteric knowledge; properly a Sacerdote.
MANTICISM, or mantic frenzy.
During this state was developed the gift of prophecy. The two words are nearly
synonymous. One was as honored as the other. Pythagoras and Plato held it in
high esteem, and
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Socrates advised his disciples
to study Manticism. The Church Fathers, who condemned so severely the mantic
frenzy in Pagan priests and Pythiae, were not above applying it to their own
uses. The Montanists, who took their name from Montanus, a bishop of Phrygia,
who was considered divinely inspired, rivalled with the manteis or prophets.
"Tertullian, Augustine, and the martyrs of Carthage, were of the
number," says the author of Prophecy, Ancient and Modern. "The
Montanists seem to have resembled the Bacchantes in the wild enthusiasm that
characterized their orgies," he adds. There is a diversity of opinion as
to the origin of the word Manticism. There was the famous Mantis the Seer, in
the days of Melampus and Proetus, King of Argos; and there was Manto, the
daughter of the prophet of Thebes, herself a prophetess. Cicero describes
prophecy and mantic frenzy by saying that "in the inner recesses of the
mind is divine prophecy hidden and confined, a divine impulse, which when it
burns more vividly is called furor" (frenzy, madness).
But there is still another
etymology possible for the word mantis, and to which we doubt if the attention
of the philologists was ever drawn. The mantic frenzy may, perchance, have a
still earlier origin. The two sacrificial cups of the Soma-mystery used during
the religious rites, and generally known as grahas, are respectively called
Sukra and Manti.*
It is in the latter manti or
manthi cup that Brahma is said to be "stirred up." While the initiate
drinks (albeit sparingly) of this sacred soma-juice, the Brahma, or rather his
"spirit," personified by the god Soma, enters into the man and takes
possession of him. Hence, ecstatic vision, clairvoyance, and the gift of
prophecy. Both kinds of divination -- the natural and the artificial -- are
aroused by the Soma. The Sukra-cup awakens that which is given to every man by
nature. It unites both spirit and soul, and these, from their own nature and
essence, which are divine, have a foreknowledge of future things, as dreams,
unexpected visions, and presentiments, well prove. The contents of the other
cup, the manti, which "stirs the Brahma," put thereby the soul in communication
not only with the minor gods -- the well-informed but not omniscient spirits --
but actually with the highest divine essence itself. The soul receives a direct
illumination from the presence of its "god"; but as it is not allowed
to remember certain things, well known only in heaven, the initiated person is
generally seized with a kind of sacred frenzy, and upon recovering from it,
only remembers that which is allowed to him. As to the other kind of seers and
diviners -- those who make a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See "Aytareya
Brahmanan," 3, I.
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profession of and a living by
it -- they are usually held to be possessed by a gandharva, a deity which is
nowhere so little honored as in India.
MANTRA. -- A Sanskrit word
conveying the same idea as the "Ineffable Name." Some mantras, when
pronounced according to magical formula taught in the Atharva-Veda, produce an
instantaneous and wonderful effect. In its general sense, though, a mantra is
either simply a prayer to the gods and powers of heaven, as taught by the Brahmanical
books, and especially Manu, or else a magical charm. In its esoteric sense, the
"word" of the mantra, or mystic speech, is called by the Brahmans
Vach. It resides in the mantra, which literally means those parts of the sacred
books which are considered as the Sruti, or direct divine revelation.
MARABUT. -- A Mahometan
pilgrim who has been to Mekka; a saint, after whose death his body is placed in
an open sepulchre built on the surface, like other buildings, but in the middle
of the streets and public places of populated cities. Placed inside the small
and only room of the tomb (and several such public sarcophagi of brick and
mortar may be seen to this day in the streets and squares of Cairo), the
devotion of the wayfarers keeps a lamp ever burning at his head. The tombs of
some of these marabuts have a great fame for the miracles they are alleged to
perform.
MATERIALIZATION. -- A word
employed by spiritualists to indicate the phenomenon of "a spirit clothing
himself with a material form." The far less objectionable term,
"form-manifestation," has been recently suggested by Mr.
Stainton-Moses, of London. When the real nature of these apparitions is better
comprehended, a still more appropriate name will doubtless be adopted. To call
them materialized spirits is inadmissible, for they are not spirits but
animated portrait-statues.
MAZDEANS, from (Ahura) Mazda.
(See Spiegel's Yasna, xl.) They were the ancient Persian nobles who worshipped
Ormazd, and, rejecting images, inspired the Jews with the same horror for every
concrete representation of the Deity. "They seem in Herodotus's time to
have been superseded by the Magian religionists. The Parsis and Ghebers
geberim, mighty men, of Genesis vi. and x. 8) appear to be Magian religionists.
. . . By a curious muddling of ideas, Zoro-Aster (Zero, a circle, a son or
priest, Aster, Ishtar, or Astarte -- in Aryan dialect, a star), the title of
the head of the Magians and fire-worshippers, or Surya-ishtara, the
sun-worshipper, is often confounded in modern times with Zara-tustra, the
reputed Mazdean apostle" (Zoroaster).
METEMPSYCHOSIS. -- The
progress of the soul from one stage of existence to another. Symbolized and
vulgarly believed to be rebirths in animal bodies. A term generally
misunderstood by every class of European and
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American society, including
many scientists. The kabalistic axiom, "A stone becomes a plant, a plant
an animal, an animal a man, a man a spirit, and a spirit a god," receives
an explanation in Manu's Manava-Dharma-Sastra, and other Brahmanical books.
MYSTERIES. -- Greek teletai,
or finishings, as analogous to teleuteia or death. They were observances,
generally kept secret from the profane and uninitiated, in which were taught by
dramatic representation and other methods, the origin of things, the nature of
the human spirit, its relations to the body, and the method of its purification
and restoration to higher life. Physical science, medicine, the laws of music,
divination, were all taught in the same manner. The Hippocratic oath was but a
mystic obligation. Hippocrates was a priest of Asklepios, some of whose
writings chanced to become public. But the Asklepiades were initiates of the
AEsculapian serpent-worship, as the Bacchantes were of the Dionysia; and both
rites were eventually incorporated with the Eleusinia. We will treat of the
Mysteries fully in the subsequent chapters.
MYSTICS. -- Those initiated.
But in the mediaeval and later periods the term was applied to men like Boehmen
the Theosophist, Molinos the Quietist, Nicholas of Basle, and others who
believed in a direct interior communion with God, analogous to the inspiration
of the prophets.
NABIA. -- Seership,
soothsaying. This oldest and most respected of mystic phenomena, is the name
given to prophecy in the Bible, and is correctly included among the spiritual
powers, such as divination, clairvoyant visions, trance-conditions, and
oracles. But while enchanters, diviners, and even astrologers are strictly
condemned in the Mosaic books, prophecy, seership, and nabia appear as the
special gifts of heaven. In early ages they were all termed Epoptai, the Greek
word for seers, clairvoyants; after which they were designated as Nebim,
"the plural of Nebo, the Babylonian god of wisdom." The kabalist
distinguishes between the seer and the magician; one is passive, the other
active; Nebirah, is one who looks into futurity and a clairvoyant; Nebi-poel,
he who possesses magic powers. We notice that Elijah and Apollonius resorted to
the same means to isolate themselves from the disturbing influences of the
outer world, viz.: wrapping their heads entirely in a woolen mantle; from its
being an electric non-conductor we must suppose.
OCCULTIST. -- One who studies
the various branches of occult science. The term is used by the French
kabalists (See Eliphas Levi's works). Occultism embraces the whole range of
psychological, physiological, cosmical, physical, and spiritual phenomena. From
the word occult, hidden or secret; applying therefore to the study of the
Kabala, astrology, alchemy, and all arcane sciences.
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PAGAN GODS. -- This term gods
is erroneously understood by most of the reading public, to mean idols. The
idea attached to them is not that of something objective or anthropomorphical.
With the exception of occasions when "gods" mean either divine
planetary entities (angels), or disembodied spirits of pure men, the term
simply conveys to the mind of the mystic -- whether Hindu Hotar, Mazdean Mage,
Egyptian hierophant, or disciple of the Greek philosophers -- the idea of a
visible or cognized manifestation of an invisible potency of nature. And such
occult potencies are invoked under the appellation of various gods, who, for
the time being, are personating these powers. Thus every one of the numberless
deities of the Hindu, Greek, and Egyptian Pantheons, are simply Powers of the
"Unseen Universe." When the officiating Brahman invokes Aditya --
who, in her cosmic character, is the goddess-sun -- he simply commands that
potency (personified in some god), which, as he asserts, "resides in the
Mantra, as the sacred Vach." These god-powers are allegorically regarded
as the divine Hotars of the Supreme One; while the priest (Brahman) is the
human Hotar who officiates on earth, and representing that particular Power
becomes, ambassador-like, invested with the very potency which he personates.
PITRIS. -- It is generally
believed that the Hindu term Pitris means the spirits of our direct ancestors;
of disembodied people. Hence the argument of some spiritualists that fakirs,
and other Eastern wonder-workers, are mediums; that they themselves confess to
being unable to produce anything without the help of the Pitris, of whom they
are the obedient instruments. This is in more than one sense erroneous. The
Pitris are not the ancestors of the present living men, but those of the human
kind or Adamic race; the spirits of human races which, on the great scale of
descending evolution, preceded our races of men, and were physically, as well
as spiritually, far superior to our modern pigmies. In Manava-Dharma-Sastra
they are called the Lunar ancestors.
PYTHIA, or Pythoness. --
Webster dismisses the word very briefly by saying that it was the name of one
who delivered the oracles at the Temple of Delphi, and "any female
supposed to have the spirit of divination in her -- a witch," which is
neither complimentary, exact, nor just. A Pythia, upon the authority of
Plutarch, Iamblichus, Lamprias, and others, was a nervous sensitive; she was
chosen from among the poorest class, young and pure. Attached to the temple,
within whose precincts she had a room, secluded from every other, and to which
no one but the priest, or seer, had admittance, she had no communications with
the outside world, and her life was more strict and ascetic than that of a
Catholic nun. Sitting on a tripod of brass placed over a fissure in the ground,
through which arose intoxicating vapors, these subterranean
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exhalations penetrating her
whole system produced the prophetic mania. In this abnormal state she delivered
oracles. She was sometimes called ventriloqua vates,* the
ventriloquist-prophetess.
The ancients placed the astral
soul of man, [[psuche]], or his self-consciousness, in the pit of the stomach.
The Brahmans shared this belief with Plato and other philosophers. Thus we find
in the fourth verse of the second Nabhanedishtha Hymn it is said: "Hear, O
sons of the gods (spirits) one who speaks through his navel (nabha) for he
hails you in your dwellings!"
Many of the Sanscrit scholars
agree that this belief is one of the most ancient among the Hindus. The modern
fakirs, as well as the ancient gymnosophists, unite themselves with their atman
and the Deity by remaining motionless in contemplation and concentrating their
whole thought on their navel. As in modern somnambulic phenomena, the navel was
regarded as "the circle of the sun," the seat of internal divine
light.** Is the fact of a number of modern somnambulists being enabled to read
letters, hear, smell, and see, through that part of their body to be regarded
again as a simple "coincidence," or shall we admit at last that the
old sages knew something more of physiological and psychological mysteries than
our modern Academicians? In modern Persia, when a "magician" (often
simply a mesmerizer) is consulted upon occasions of theft and other puzzling
occurrences, he makes his manipulations over the pit of his stomach, and so
brings himself into a state of clairvoyance. Among the modern Parsis, remarks a
translator of the Rig-vedas, there exists a belief up to the present day that
their adepts have a flame in their navel, which enlightens to them all darkness
and discloses the spiritual world, as well as all things unseen, or at a
distance. They call it the lamp of the Deshtur, or high priest; the light of
the Dikshita (the initiate), and otherwise designate it by many other names.
SAMOTHRACES. -- A designation
of the Fane-gods worshipped at Samothracia in the Mysteries. They are
considered as identical with the Kabeiri, Dioskuri, and Korybantes. Their names
were mystical -- denoting Pluto, Ceres or Proserpina, Bacchus, and AEsculapius
or Hermes.
SHAMANS, or Samaneans. -- An
order of Buddhists among the Tartars, especially those of Siberia. They are
possibly akin to the philosophers
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Pantheon:
"Myths," p. 31; also Aristophanes in "Voestas," i., reg.
28.
** The oracle of Apollo was at
Delphos, the city of the [[delphus]], womb or abdomen; the place of the temple
was denominated the omphalos or navel. The symbols are female and lunary;
reminding us that the Arcadians were called Proseleni, pre-Hellenic or more
ancient than the period when Ionian and Olympian lunar worship was introduced.
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anciently known as Brachmanes,
mistaken sometimes for Brahmans.* They are all magicians, or rather sensitives
or mediums artificially developed. At present those who act as priests among
the Tartars are generally very ignorant, and far below the fakirs in knowledge
and education. Both men and women may be Shamans.
SOMA. -- This Hindu sacred
beverage answers to the Greek ambrosia or nectar, drunk by the gods of Olympus.
A cup of kykeon was also quaffed by the mysta at the Eleusinian initiation. He
who drinks it easily reaches Bradhna, or place of splendor (Heaven). The
soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute;
for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real soma; and even kings and
rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. Haug shows by his own
confession, in his Aytareya Brahmanan, that it was not the Soma that he tasted
and found nasty, but the juice from the roots of the Nyagradha, a plant or bush
which grows on the hills of Poona. We were positively informed that the
majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret of the
true soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral
information. The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few;
these are the alleged descendants from the Rishis, the real Agnihotris, the
initiates of the great Mysteries. The soma-drink is also commemorated in the
Hindu Pantheon, for it is called the King-Soma. He who drinks of it is made to
participate in the heavenly king, because he becomes filled with it, as the
Christian apostles and their converts became filled with the Holy Ghost, and
purified of their sins. The soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn
and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it gives the
divine power of inspiration, and develops the clairvoyant faculty to the
utmost. According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but, at the
same time it is an angel. It forcibly connects the inner, highest
"spirit" of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical soma,
with his "irrational soul," or astral body, and thus united by the
power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature, and
participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven.
Thus the Hindu soma is
mystically, and in all respects the same that the Eucharistic supper is to the
Christian. The idea is similar. By
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* From the accounts of Strabo
and Megasthenes, who visited Palibothras, it would seem that the persons termed
by him Samanean, or Brachmane priests, were simply Buddhists. "The
singularly subtile replies of the Samanean or Brahman philosophers, in their
interview with the conqueror, will be found to contain the spirit of the
Buddhist doctrine," remarks Upham. (See the "History and Doctrine of
Buddhism"; and Hale's "Chronology," vol. iii, p. 238.)
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means of the sacrificial
prayers -- the mantras -- this liquor is supposed to be transformed on the spot
into real soma -- or the angel, and even into Brahma himself. Some missionaries
have expressed themselves very indignantly about this ceremony, the more so,
that, generally speaking, the Brahmans use a kind of spirituous liquor as a
substitute. But do the Christians believe less fervently in the
transubstantiation of the communion-wine into the blood of Christ, because this
wine happens to be more or less spirituous? Is not the idea of the symbol
attached to it the same? But the missionaries say that this hour of soma-drinking
is the golden hour of Satan, who lurks at the bottom of the Hindu sacrificial
cup.*
SPIRIT. -- The lack of any
mutual agreement between writers in the use of this word has resulted in dire
confusion. It is commonly made synonymous with soul; and the lexicographers
countenance the usage. This is the natural result of our ignorance of the other
word, and repudiation of the classification adopted by the ancients. Elsewhere
we attempt to make clear the distinction between the terms "spirit"
and "soul." There are no more important passages in this work.
Meanwhile, we will only add that "spirit" is the [[nous]] of Plato,
the immortal, immaterial, and purely divine principle in man -- the crown of
the human Triad; whereas,
SOUL is the [[psuche]], or the
nephesh of the Bible; the vital principle, or the breath of life, which every
animal, down to the infusoria, shares with man. In the translated Bible it
stands indifferently for life, blood, and soul. "Let us not kill his
nephesh," says the original text: "let us not kill him,"
translate the Christians (Genesis xxxvii. 21), and so on.
THEOSOPHISTS. -- In the
mediaeval ages it was the name by which were known the disciples of Paracelsus
of the sixteenth century, the so-called fire-philosophers or Philosophi per
ignem. As well as the Platonists they regarded the soul [[psuche]] and the
divine spirit, nous, as a particle of the great Archos -- a fire taken from the
eternal ocean of light.
The Theosophical Society, to
which these volumes are dedicated by the author as a mark of affectionate
regard, was organized at New York in 1875. The object of its founders was to
experiment practically in the occult powers of Nature, and to collect and
disseminate among Christians information about the Oriental religious philosophies.
Later, it has determined to spread among the "poor benighted heathen"
such evi-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* In their turn, the heathen may
well ask the missionaries what sort of a spirit lurks at the bottom of the
sacrificial beer-bottle. That evangelical New York journal, the
"Independent," says: "A late English traveller found a
simple-minded Baptist mission church, in far-off Burmah, using for the
communion service, and we doubt not with God's blessing, Bass's pale ale
instead of wine." Circumstances alter cases, it seems!
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dences as to the practical
results of Christianity as will at least give both sides of the story to the
communities among which missionaries are at work. With this view it has
established relations with associations and individuals throughout the East, to
whom it furnishes authenticated reports of the ecclesiastical crimes and
misdemeanors, schisms and heresies, controversies and litigations, doctrinal
differences and biblical criticisms and revisions, with which the press of
Christian Europe and America constantly teems. Christendom has been long and
minutely informed of the degradation and brutishness into which Buddhism,
Brahmanism, and Confucianism have plunged their deluded votaries, and many millions
have been lavished upon foreign missions under such false representations. The
Theosophical Society, seeing daily exemplifications of this very state of
things as the sequence of Christian teaching and example -- the latter
especially -- thought it simple justice to make the facts known in Palestine,
India, Ceylon, Cashmere, Tartary, Thibet, China, and Japan, in all which
countries it has influential correspondents. It may also in time have much to
say about the conduct of the missionaries to those who contribute to their
support.
THEURGIST. -- From [[theos]],
god, and [[ergon]], work. The first school of practical theurgy in the
Christian period was founded by Iamblichus among the Alexandrian Platonists;
but the priests attached to the temples of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia, and
who took an active part in the evocations of the gods during the Sacred
Mysteries, were known by this name from the earliest archaic period. The
purpose of it was to make spirits visible to the eyes of mortals. A theurgist
was one expert in the esoteric learning of the Sanctuaries of all the great
countries. The Neoplatonists of the school of Iamblichus were called
theurgists, for they performed the so-called "ceremonial magic," and
evoked the "spirits" of the departed heroes, "gods," and
Daimonia ([[daimonia]], divine, spiritual entities). In the rare cases when the
presence of a tangible and visible spirit was required, the theurgist had to
furnish the weird apparition with a portion of his own flesh and blood -- he
had to perform the theopoea, or the "creation of gods," by a
mysterious process well known to the modern fakirs and initiated Brahmans of
India. This is what is said in the Book of Evocations of the pagodas. It shows
the perfect identity of rites and ceremonial between the oldest Brahmanic
theurgy and that of the Alexandrian Platonists:
"The Brahman Grihasta
(the evocator) must be in a state of complete purity before he ventures to call
forth the Pitris."
After having prepared a lamp,
some sandal, incense, etc., and having traced the magic circles taught to him
by the superior guru, in order to keep away bad spirits, he "ceases to
breathe, and calls the fire to his
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help to disperse his
body." He pronounces a certain number of times the sacred word, and
"his soul escapes from his body, and his body disappears, and the soul of
the evoked spirit descends into the double body and animates it." Then
"His (Grihasta's) soul reenters into his body, whose subtile particles
have again been aggregating, after having formed of their emanations an aerial
body to the spirit he evoked."
And now, that he has formed
for the Pitri a body with the particles the most essential and pure of his own,
the grihasta is allowed, after the ceremonial sacrifice is over, to
"converse with the souls of the ancestors and the Pitris, and offer them
questions on the mysteries of the Being and the transformations of the
imperishable."
"Then after having blown
out his lamp he must light it again, and set at liberty the bad spirits shut
out from the place by the magical circles, and leave the sanctuary of the
Pitris."*
The school of Iamblichus was
distinct from that of Plotinus and Porphyry, who were strongly against
ceremonial magic and practical theurgy as dangerous, though these two eminent
men firmly believed in both. "The theurgic or benevolent magic, the
Goetic, or dark and evil necromancy, were alike in preeminent repute during the
first century of the Christian era."** But never have any of the highly
moral and pious philosophers, whose fame has descended to us spotless of any
evil deed, practiced any other kind of magic than the theurgic, or benevolent,
as Bulwer-Lytton terms it. "Whoever is acquainted with the nature of
divinely luminous appearances [[phasmata]] knows also on what account it is
requisite to abstain from all birds (animal food), and especially for him who
hastens to be liberated from terrestrial concerns and to be established with
the celestial gods," says Porphyry.***
Though he refused to practice
theurgy himself, Porphyry, in his Life of Plotinus, mentions a priest of Egypt,
who, "at the request of a certain friend of Plotinus (which friend was
perhaps Porphyry himself, remarks T. Taylor), exhibited to Plotinus, in the
temple of Isis at Rome, the familiar daimon, or, in modern language, the
guardian angel of that philosopher."****
The popular, prevailing idea
was that the theurgists, as well as the magicians, worked wonders, such as
evoking the souls or shadows of the heroes and gods, and doing other
thaumaturgic works by supernatural powers.
YAJNA. -- "The
Yajna," say the Brahmans, exists from eternity, for
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Book of Brahmanical
Evocations," part iii.
** Bulwer-Lytton: "Last
Days of Pompeii," p. 147.
*** "Select Works,"
p. 159.
**** Ibid., p. 92.
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it proceeded forth from the
Supreme One, the Brahma-Prajapati, 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 Yagus or sacrificial mysteries.
"The Yajna" exists as an invisible thing at all times; 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.*
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.
To complete the list, we will
now add that in the course of the following chapters, whenever we use the term
Archaic, we mean before the time of Pythagoras; when Ancient, before the time
of Mahomet; and when Mediaeval, the period between Mahomet and Martin Luther.
It will only be necessary to infringe the rule when from time to time we may
have to speak of nations of a pre-Pythagorean antiquity, and will adopt the
common custom of calling them "ancient."
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Before closing this initial
chapter, we venture to say a few words in explanation of the plan of this work.
Its object is not to force upon the public the personal views or theories of
its author; nor has it the pretensions of a scientific work, which aims at
creating a revolution in some department of thought. It is rather a brief
summary of the religions, philosophies, and universal traditions of human kind,
and the exegesis of the same, in the spirit of those secret doctrines, of which
none -- thanks to prejudice and bigotry -- have reached Christendom in so
unmutilated a form, as to secure it a fair judgment. Since the days of the
unlucky mediaeval philosophers, the last to write upon these secret doctrines
of which they were the depositaries, few men have dared to brave persecution
and prejudice by placing their knowledge upon record. And these few have never,
as a rule, written for the public, but only for those of their own and
succeeding times who possessed the key to their jargon. The multitude, not
understanding them or their doctrines, have been accustomed to regard them en
masse as either charlatans or dreamers. Hence the unmerited contempt into which
the study of the noblest of sciences -- that of the spiritual man -- has
gradually fallen.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Aitareya
Brahmanan," Introduction.
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In undertaking to inquire into
the assumed infallibility of Modern Science and Theology, the author has been
forced, even at the risk of being thought discursive, to make constant
comparison of the ideas, achievements, and pretensions of their
representatives, with those of the ancient philosophers and religious teachers.
Things the most widely separated as to time, have thus been brought into
immediate juxtaposition, for only thus could the priority and parentage of
discoveries and dogmas be determined. In discussing the merits of our
scientific contemporaries, their own confessions of failure in experimental
research, of baffling mysteries, of missing links in their chains of theory, of
inability to comprehend natural phenomena, of ignorance of the laws of the
causal world, have furnished the basis for the present study. Especially (since
Psychology has been so much neglected, and the East is so far away that few of
our investigators will ever get there to study that science where alone it is
understood), we will review the speculations and policy of noted authorities in
connection with those modern psychological phenomena which began at Rochester
and have now overspread the world. We wish to show how inevitable were their
innumerable failures, and how they must continue until these pretended
authorities of the West go to the Brahmans and Lamaists of the far Orient, and
respectfully ask them to impart the alphabet of true science. We have laid no
charge against scientists that is not supported by their own published
admissions, and if our citations from the records of antiquity rob some of what
they have hitherto viewed as well-earned laurels, the fault is not ours but
Truth's. No man worthy of the name of philosopher would care to wear honors
that rightfully belong to another.
Deeply sensible of the Titanic
struggle that is now in progress between materialism and the spiritual
aspirations of mankind, our constant endeavor has been to gather into our
several chapters, like weapons into armories, every fact and argument that can
be used to aid the latter in defeating the former. Sickly and deformed child as
it now is, the materialism of To-Day is born of the brutal Yesterday. Unless
its growth is arrested, it may become our master. It is the bastard progeny of
the French Revolution and its reaction against ages of religious bigotry and
repression. To prevent the crushing of these spiritual aspirations, the
blighting of these hopes, and the deadening of that intuition which teaches us
of a God and a hereafter, we must show our false theologies in their naked
deformity, and distinguish between divine religion and human dogmas. Our voice
is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement from all
tyranny, whether of SCIENCE or THEOLOGY.
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THE VEIL OF ISIS.
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PART ONE. -- SCIENCE.
---------------------
CHAPTER I.
"Ego sum qui sum." --
An axiom of Hermetic Philosophy.
"We commenced research
where modern conjecture closes its faithless wings. And with us, those were the
common elements of science which the sages of to-day disdain as wild chimeras,
or despair of as unfathomable mysteries." -- BULWER'S "ZANONI."
THERE exists somewhere in this
wide world an old Book -- so very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder
over its pages an indefinite time, and still not quite agree as to the nature
of the fabric upon which it is written. It is the only original copy now in
existence. The most ancient Hebrew document on occult learning -- the Siphra
Dzeniouta -- was compiled from it, and that at a time when the former was
already considered in the light of a literary relic. One of its illustrations
represents the Divine Essence emanating from ADAM* like a luminous arc
proceeding to form a circle; and then, having attained the highest point of its
circumference, the ineffable Glory bends back again, and returns to earth,
bringing a higher type of humanity in its vortex. As it approaches nearer and
nearer to our planet, the Emanation becomes more and more shadowy, until upon
touching the ground it is as black as night.
A conviction, founded upon
seventy thousand years of experience,** as they allege, has been entertained by
hermetic philosophers of all periods that matter has in time become, through
sin, more gross and dense than it was at man's first formation; that, at the
beginning, the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* The name is used in the
sense of the Greek word [[anthropos]].
** The traditions of the
Oriental Kabalists claim their science to be older than that. Modern scientists
may doubt and reject the assertion. They cannot prove it false.
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human body was of a
half-ethereal nature; and that, before the fall, mankind communed freely with
the now unseen universes. But since that time matter has become the formidable
barrier between us and the world of spirits. The oldest esoteric traditions
also teach that, before the mystic Adam, many races of human beings lived and
died out, each giving place in its turn to another. Were these precedent types
more perfect? Did any of them belong to the winged race of men mentioned by
Plato in Phaedrus? It is the special province of science to solve the problem.
The caves of France and the relics of the stone age afford a point at which to
begin.
As the cycle proceeded, man's
eyes were more and more opened, until he came to know "good and evil"
as well as the Elohim themselves. Having reached its summit, the cycle began to
go downward. When the arc attained a certain point which brought it parallel
with the fixed line of our terrestrial plane, the man was furnished by nature
with "coats of skin," and the Lord God "clothed them."
This same belief in the
pre-existence of a far more spiritual race than the one to which we now belong
can be traced back to the earliest traditions of nearly every people. In the
ancient Quiche manuscript, published by Brasseur de Bourbourg -- the Popol Vuh
-- the first men are mentioned as a race that could reason and speak, whose
sight was unlimited, and who knew all things at once. According to Philo
Judaeus, the air is filled with an invisible host of spirits, some of whom are
free from evil and immortal, and others are pernicious and mortal. "From
the sons of EL we are descended, and sons of EL must we become again." And
the unequivocal statement of the anonymous Gnostic who wrote The Gospel
according to John, that "as many as received Him," i.e., who followed
practically the esoteric doctrine of Jesus, would "become the sons of
God," points to the same belief. (i., 12.) "Know ye not, ye are
gods?" exclaimed the Master. Plato describes admirably in Phaedrus the
state in which man once was, and what he will become again: before, and after
the "loss of his wings"; when "he lived among the gods, a god
himself in the airy world." From the remotest periods religious
philosophies taught that the whole universe was filled with divine and
spiritual beings of divers races. From one of these evolved, in the course of
time, ADAM, the primitive man.
The Kalmucks and some tribes
of Siberia also describe in their legends earlier creations than our present
race. These beings, they say, were possessed of almost boundless knowledge, and
in their audacity even threatened rebellion against the Great Chief Spirit. To
punish their presumption and humble them, he imprisoned them in bodies, and
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so shut in their senses. From
these they can escape but through long repentance, self-purification, and
development. Their Shamans, they think, occasionally enjoy the divine powers
originally possessed by all human beings.
The Astor Library of New York
has recently been enriched by a facsimile of an Egyptian Medical Treatise,
written in the sixteenth century B.C. (or, more precisely, 1552 B.C.), which,
according to the commonly received chronology, is the time when Moses was just
twenty-one years of age. The original is written upon the inner bark of Cyperus
papyrus, and has been pronounced by Professor Schenk, of Leipsig, not only
genuine, but also the most perfect ever seen. It consists of a single sheet of
yellow-brown papyrus of finest quality, three-tenths of a metre wide, more than
twenty metres long, and forming one roll divided into one hundred and ten
pages, all carefully numbered. It was purchased in Egypt, in 1872-3, by the
archaeologist Ebers, of "a well-to-do Arab from Luxor." The New York
Tribune, commenting upon the circumstance, says: The papyrus "bears
internal evidence of being one of the six Hermetic Books on Medicine, named by
Clement of Alexandria."
The editor further says:
"At the time of Iamblichus, A.D. 363, the priests of Egypt showed
forty-two books which they attributed to Hermes (Thuti). Of these, according to
that author, thirty-six contained the history of all human knowledge; the last
six treated of anatomy, of pathology, of affections of the eye, instruments of
surgery, and of medicines.* The Papyrus Ebers is indisputably one of these
ancient Hermetic works."
If so clear a ray of light has
been thrown upon ancient Egyptian science, by the accidental (?) encounter of
the German archaeologist with one "well-to-do Arab" from Luxor, how
can we know what sunshine may be let in upon the dark crypts of history by an
equally accidental meeting between some other prosperous Egyptian and another
enterprising student of antiquity!
The discoveries of modern
science do not disagree with the oldest traditions which claim an incredible
antiquity for our race. Within the last few years geology, which previously had
only conceded that man could be traced as far back as the tertiary period, has
found unanswerable proofs that human existence antedates the last glaciation of
Europe -- over 250,000 years! A hard nut, this, for Patristic Theology to
crack; but an accepted fact with the ancient philosophers.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Clement of Alexandria
asserted that in his day the Egyptian priests possessed forty-two Canonical
Books.
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Moreover, fossil implements
have been exhumed together with human remains, which show that man hunted in
those remote times, and knew how to build a fire. But the forward step has not
yet been taken in this search for the origin of the race; science comes to a
dead stop, and waits for future proofs. Unfortunately, anthropology and
psychology possess no Cuvier; neither geologists nor archaeologists are able to
construct, from the fragmentary bits hitherto discovered, the perfect skeleton
of the triple man -- physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Because the fossil
implements of man are found to become more rough and uncouth as geology
penetrates deeper into the bowels of the earth, it seems a proof to science
that the closer we come to the origin of man, the more savage and brute-like he
must be. Strange logic! Does the finding of the remains in the cave of Devon
prove that there were no contemporary races then who were highly civilized?
When the present population of the earth have disappeared, and some
archaeologist belonging to the "coming race" of the distant future
shall excavate the domestic implements of one of our Indian or Andaman Island
tribes, will he be justified in concluding that mankind in the nineteenth century
was "just emerging from the Stone Age"?
It has lately been the fashion
to speak of "the untenable conceptions of an uncultivated past." As
though it were possible to hide behind an epigram the intellectual quarries out
of which the reputations of so many modern philosophers have been carved! Just
as Tyndall is ever ready to disparage ancient philosophers -- for a dressing-up
of whose ideas more than one distinguished scientist has derived honor and
credit -- so the geologists seem more and more inclined to take for granted
that all of the archaic races were contemporaneously in a state of dense
barbarism. But not all of our best authorities agree in this opinion. Some of
the most eminent maintain exactly the reverse. Max Muller, for instance, says:
"Many things are still unintelligible to us, and the hieroglyphic language
of antiquity records but half of the mind's unconscious intentions. Yet more
and more the image of man, in whatever clime we meet him, rises before us,
noble and pure from the very beginning; even his errors we learn to understand,
even his dreams we begin to interpret. As far as we can trace back the
footsteps of man, even on the lowest strata of history, we see the divine gift
of a sound and sober intellect belonging to him from the very first, and the
idea of a humanity emerging slowly from the depths of an animal brutality can
never be maintained again."*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Chips from a German
Work-shop," vol. ii., p. 7. "Comparative Mythology."
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SCIENCE.
As it is claimed to be
unphilosophical to inquire into first causes, scientists now occupy themselves
with considering their physical effects. The field of scientific investigation
is therefore bounded by physical nature. When once its limits are reached,
enquiry must stop, and their work be recommenced. With all due respect to our
learned men, they are like the squirrel upon its revolving wheel, for they are
doomed to turn their "matter" over and over again. Science is a
mighty potency, and it is not for us pigmies to question her. But the
"scientists" are not themselves science embodied any more than the
men of our planet are the planet itself. We have neither the right to demand,
nor power to compel our "modern-day philosopher" to accept without
challenge a geographical description of the dark side of the moon. But, if in
some lunar cataclysm one of her inhabitants should be hurled thence into the
attraction of our atmosphere, and land, safe and sound, at Dr. Carpenter's
door, he would be indictable as recreant to professional duty if he should fail
to set the physical problem at rest.
For a man of science to refuse
an opportunity to investigate any new phenomenon, whether it comes to him in
the shape of a man from the moon, or a ghost from the Eddy homestead, is alike
reprehensible.
Whether arrived at by the
method of Aristotle, or that of Plato, we need not stop to inquire; but it is a
fact that both the inner and outer natures of man are claimed to have been
thoroughly understood by the ancient andrologists. Notwithstanding the
superficial hypotheses of geologists, we are beginning to have almost daily
proofs in corroboration of the assertions of those philosophers.
They divided the interminable
periods of human existence on this planet into cycles, during each of which
mankind gradually reached the culminating point of highest civilization and
gradually relapsed into abject barbarism. To what eminence the race in its
progress had several times arrived may be feebly surmised by the wonderful
monuments of old, still visible, and the descriptions given by Herodotus of
other marvels of which no traces now remain. Even in his days the gigantic
structures of many pyramids and world-famous temples were but masses of ruins.
Scattered by the unrelenting hand of time, they are described by the Father of
History as "these venerable witnesses of the long bygone glory of departed
ancestors." He "shrinks from speaking of divine things," and
gives to posterity but an imperfect description from hearsay of some marvellous
subterranean chambers of the Labyrinth, where lay -- and now lie -- concealed,
the sacred remains of the King-Initiates.
We can judge, moreover, of the
lofty civilization reached in some
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periods of antiquity by the
historical descriptions of the ages of the Ptolemies, yet in that epoch the
arts and sciences were considered to be degenerating, and the secret of a
number of the former had been already lost. In the recent excavations of
Mariette-Bey, at the foot of the Pyramids, statues of wood and other relics
have been exhumed, which show that long before the period of the first
dynasties the Egyptians had attained to a refinement and perfection which is calculated
to excite the wonder of even the most ardent admirers of Grecian art. Bayard
Taylor describes these statues in one of his lectures, and tells us that the
beauty of the heads, ornamented with eyes of precious stones and copper
eyelids, is unsurpassed. Far below the stratum of sand in which lay the remains
gathered into the collections of Lepsius, Abbott, and the British Museum, were
found buried the tangible proofs of the hermetic doctrine of cycles which has
been already explained.
Dr. Schliemann, the
enthusiastic Hellenist, has recently found, in his excavations in the Troad,
abundant evidences of the same gradual change from barbarism to civilization,
and from civilization to barbarism again. Why then should we feel so reluctant
to admit the possibility that, if the antediluvians were so much better versed
than ourselves in certain sciences as to have been perfectly acquainted with
important arts, which we now term lost, they might have equally excelled in
psychological knowledge? Such a hypothesis must be considered as reasonable as
any other until some countervailing evidence shall be discovered to destroy it.
Every true savant admits that
in many respects human knowledge is yet in its infancy. Can it be that our
cycle began in ages comparatively recent? These cycles, according to the
Chaldean philosophy, do not embrace all mankind at one and the same time.
Professor Draper partially corroborates this view by saying that the periods
into which geology has "found it convenient to divide the progress of man
in civilization are not abrupt epochs which hold good simultaneously for the
whole human race"; giving as an instance the "wandering Indians of
America," who "are only at the present moment emerging from the stone
age." Thus more than once scientific men have unwittingly confirmed the
testimony of the ancients.
Any Kabalist well acquainted
with the Pythagorean system of numerals and geometry can demonstrate that the
metaphysical views of Plato were based upon the strictest mathematical
principles. "True mathematics," says the Magicon, "is something
with which all higher sciences are connected; common mathematics is but a
deceitful phantasmagoria, whose much-praised infallibility only arises from
this -- that
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materials, conditions, and
references are made its foundation." Scientists who believe they have
adopted the Aristotelian method only because they creep when they do not run
from demonstrated particulars to universals, glorify this method of inductive
philosophy, and reject that of Plato, which they treat as unsubstantial.
Professor Draper laments that such speculative mystics as Ammonius Saccas and
Plotinus should have taken the place "of the severe geometers of the old
museum."* He forgets that geometry, of all sciences the only one which
proceeds from universals to particulars, was precisely the method employed by
Plato in his philosophy. As long as exact science confines its observations to
physical conditions and proceeds Aristotle-like, it certainly cannot fail. But
notwithstanding that the world of matter is boundless for us, it still is
finite; and thus materialism will turn forever in this vitiated circle, unable
to soar higher than the circumference will permit. The cosmological theory of
numerals which Pythagoras learned from the Egyptian hierophants, is alone able
to reconcile the two units, matter and spirit, and cause each to demonstrate
the other mathematically.
The sacred numbers of the
universe in their esoteric combination solve the great problem and explain the
theory of radiation and the cycle of the emanations. The lower orders before
they develop into higher ones must emanate from the higher spiritual ones, and
when arrived at the turning-point, be reabsorbed again into the infinite.
Physiology, like everything
else in this world of constant evolution, is subject to the cyclic revolution.
As it now seems to be hardly emerging from the shadows of the lower arc, so it
may be one day proved to have been at the highest point of the circumference of
the circle far earlier than the days of Pythagoras.
Mochus, the Sidonian, the
physiologist and teacher of the science of anatomy, flourished long before the
Sage of Samos; and the latter received the sacred instructions from his
disciples and descendants. Pythagoras, the pure philosopher, the deeply-versed
in the profounder phenomena of nature, the noble inheritor of the ancient lore,
whose great aim was to free the soul from the fetters of sense and force it to
realize its powers, must live eternally in human memory.
The impenetrable veil of
arcane secrecy was thrown over the sciences taught in the sanctuary. This is
the cause of the modern depreciating of the ancient philosophies. Even Plato
and Philo Judaeus have been accused by many a commentator of absurd
inconsistencies, whereas the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Conflict between
Religion and Science," ch. i.
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design which underlies the
maze of metaphysical contradictions so perplexing to the reader of the Timaeus,
is but too evident. But has Plato ever been read understandingly by one of the
expounders of the classics? This is a question warranted by the criticisms to
be found in such authors as Stalbaum, Schleirmacher, Ficinus (Latin
translation), Heindorf, Sydenham, Buttmann, Taylor and Burges, to say nothing
of lesser authorities. The covert allusions of the Greek philosopher to
esoteric things have manifestly baffled these commentators to the last degree.
They not only with unblushing coolness suggest as to certain difficult passages
that another phraseology was evidently intended, but they audaciously make the
changes! The Orphic line:
"Of the song, the order
of the sixth race close" --
which can only be interpreted
as a reference to the sixth race evolved in the consecutive evolution of the
spheres,* Burges says: ". . . was evidently taken from a cosmogony where
man was feigned to be created the last."** -- Ought not one who undertakes
to edit another's works at least understand what his author means?
Indeed, the ancient
philosophers seem to be generally held, even by the least prejudiced of our
modern critics, to have lacked that profundity and thorough knowledge in the
exact sciences of which our century is so boastful. It is even questioned
whether they understood that basic scientific principle: ex nihilo nihil fit.
If they suspected the indestructibility of matter at all, -- say these
commentators -- it was not in consequence of a firmly-established formula but
only through an intuitional reasoning and by analogy.
We hold to the contrary
opinion. The speculations of these philosophers upon matter were open to public
criticism: but their teachings in regard to spiritual things were profoundly
esoteric. Being thus sworn to secrecy and religious silence upon abstruse
subjects involving the relations of spirit and matter, they rivalled each other
in their ingenious methods for concealing their real opinions.
The doctrine of Metempsychosis
has been abundantly ridiculed by men of science and rejected by theologians,
yet if it had been properly understood in its application to the
indestructibility of matter and the immortality of spirit, it would have been
perceived that it is a sublime conception. Should we not first regard the
subject from the stand-point
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* In another place, we explain
with some minuteness the Hermetic philosophy of the evolution of the spheres
and their several races.
** J. Burges: "The Works
of Plato," p. 207, note.
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HINDU.
of the ancients before
venturing to disparage its teachers? The solution of the great problem of
eternity belongs neither to religious superstition nor to gross materialism.
The harmony and mathematical equiformity of the double evolution -- spiritual
and physical -- are elucidated only in the universal numerals of Pythagoras,
who built his system entirely upon the so-called "metrical speech" of
the Hindu Vedas. It is but lately that one of the most zealous Sanskrit
scholars, Martin Haug, undertook the translation of the Aitareya Brahmana of
the Rig-Veda. It had been till that time entirely unknown; these explanations
indicate beyond dispute the identity of the Pythagorean and Brahmanical
systems. In both, the esoteric significance is derived from the number: in the
former, from the mystic relation of every number to everything intelligible to
the human mind; in the latter, from the number of syllables of which each verse
in the Mantras consists. Plato, the ardent disciple of Pythagoras, realized it
so fully as to maintain that the Dodecahedron was the geometrical figure
employed by the Demiurgus in constructing the universe. Some of these figures
had a peculiarly solemn significance. For instance four, of which the
Dodecahedron is the trine, was held sacred by the Pythagoreans. It is the
perfect square, and neither of the bounding lines exceeds the other in length,
by a single point. It is the emblem of moral justice and divine equity
geometrically expressed. All the powers and great symphonies of physical and
spiritual nature lie inscribed within the perfect square; and the ineffable
name of Him, which name otherwise, would remain unutterable, was replaced by
this sacred number 4 the most binding and solemn oath with the ancient mystics
-- the Tetractys.
If the Pythagorean metempsychosis
should be thoroughly explained and compared with the modern theory of
evolution, it would be found to supply every "missing link" in the
chain of the latter. But who of our scientists would consent to lose his
precious time over the vagaries of the ancients. Notwithstanding proofs to the
contrary, they not only deny that the nations of the archaic periods, but even
the ancient philosophers had any positive knowledge of the Heliocentric system.
The "Venerable Bedes," the Augustines and Lactantii appear to have
smothered, with their dogmatic ignorance, all faith in the more ancient
theologists of the pre-Christian centuries. But now philology and a closer
acquaintance with Sanskrit literature have partially enabled us to vindicate
them from these unmerited imputations. In the Vedas, for instance, we find
positive proof that so long ago as 2000 B.C., the Hindu sages and scholars must
have been acquainted with the rotundity of our globe and the Heliocentric
system. Hence, Pythagoras and Plato knew well this astronomical truth; for
Pythagoras obtained his knowledge
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in India, or from men who had
been there, and Plato faithfully echoed his teachings. We will quote two
passages from the Aitareya Brahmana:
In the
"Serpent-Mantra,"* the Brahmana declares as follows: that this Mantra
is that one which was seen by the Queen of the Serpents, Sarpa-rajni; because
the earth (iyam) is the Queen of the Serpents, as she is the mother and queen
of all that moves (sarpat). In the beginning she (the earth) was but one head
(round), without hair (bald), i.e., without vegetation. She then perceived this
Mantra which confers upon him who knows it, the power of assuming any form
which he might desire. She "pronounced the Mantra," i.e., sacrificed
to the gods; and, in consequence, immediately obtained a motley appearance; she
became variegated, and able to produce any form she might like, changing one
form into another. This Mantra begins with the words: "Ayam gauh pris'nir
akramit" (x., 189).
The description of the earth
in the shape of a round and bald head, which was soft at first, and became hard
only from being breathed upon by the god Vayu, the lord of the air, forcibly
suggests the idea that the authors of the sacred Vedic books knew the earth to
be round or spherical; moreover, that it had been a gelatinous mass at first,
which gradually cooled off under the influence of the air and time. So much for
their knowledge about our globe's sphericity; and now we will present the
testimony upon which we base our assertion, that the Hindus were perfectly
acquainted with the Heliocentric system, at least 2000 years B.C.
In the same treatise the
Hotar, (priest), is taught how the Shastras should be repeated, and how the
phenomena of sunrise and sunset are to be explained. It says: "The
Agnishtoma is that one (that god) who burns. The sun never sets nor rises. When
people think the sun is setting, it is not so; they are mistaken. For after
having arrived at the end of the day, it produces two opposite effects, making
night to what is below, and day to what is on the other side. When they (the
people) believe it rises in the morning, the sun only does thus: having reached
the end of the night, it makes itself produce two opposite effects, making day
to what is below, and night to what is on the other side. In fact the sun never
sets; nor does it set for him who has such a knowledge. . . ."**
This sentence is so
conclusive, that even the translator of the Rig-Veda, Dr. Haug, was forced to
remark it. He says this passage contains "the denial of the existence of
sunrise and sunset," and that the author supposes the sun "to remain
always in its high position."***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* From the Sanskrit text of
the Aitareya Brahmanam. Rig-Veda, v., ch. ii., verse 23.
** Aitareya Brahmanam, book
iii., c. v., 44.
*** Ait. Brahm., vol. ii., p.
242.
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CALCULATIONS.
In one of the earliest Nivids,
Rishi Kutsa, a Hindu sage of the remotest antiquity, explains the allegory of
the first laws given to the celestial bodies. For doing "what she ought
not to do," Anahit (Anaitis or Nana, the Persian Venus), representing the
earth in the legend, is sentenced to turn round the sun. The Sattras, or
sacrificial sessions* prove undoubtedly that so early as in the eighteenth or
twentieth century B.C., the Hindus had made considerable progress in
astronomical science. The Sattras lasted one year, and were "nothing but
an imitation of the sun's yearly course. They were divided, says Haug, into two
distinct parts, each consisting of six months of thirty days each; in the midst
of both was the Vishuvan (equator or central day), cutting the whole Sattras
into two halves, etc."** This scholar, although he ascribes the
composition of the bulk of the Brahmanas to the period 1400-1200 B.C., is of
opinion that the oldest of the hymns may be placed at the very commencement of
Vedic literature, between the years 2400-2000, B.C. He finds no reason for
considering the Vedas less ancient than the sacred books of the Chinese. As the
Shu-King or Book of History, and the sacrificial songs of the Shi-King, or Book
of Odes, have been proved to have an antiquity as early as 2200, B.C., our
philologists may yet be compelled before long to acknowledge, that in
astronomical knowledge, the antediluvian Hindus were their masters.
At all events, there are facts
which prove that certain astronomical calculations were as correct with the Chaldeans
in the days of Julius Caesar as they are now. When the calendar was reformed by
the Conqueror, the civil year was found to correspond so little with the
seasons, that summer had merged into the autumn months, and the autumn months
into full winter. It was Sosigenes, the Chaldean astronomer, who restored order
into the confusion, by putting back the 25th of March ninety days, thus making
it correspond with the vernal equinox; and it was Sosigenes, again, who fixed
the lengths of the months as they now remain.
In America, it was found by
the Montezuman army, that the calendar of the Aztecs gave an equal number of
days and weeks to each month. The extreme accuracy of their astronomical
calculations was so great, that no error has been discovered in their reckoning
by subsequent verifications; while the Europeans, who landed in Mexico in 1519,
were, by the Julian calendar, nearly eleven days in advance of the exact time.
It is to the priceless and
accurate translations of the Vedic Books, and to the personal researches of Dr.
Haug, that we are indebted for the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Ait. Brahm., book iv.
** Septenary Institutions;
"Stone him to Death," p. 20.
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corroboration of the claims of
the hermetic philosophers. That the period of Zarathustra Spitama (Zoroaster)
was of untold antiquity, can be easily proved. The Brahmanas, to which Haug
ascribes four thousand years, describe the religious contest between the
ancient Hindus, who lived in the pre-Vedic period, and the Iranians. The
battles between the Devas and the Asuras -- the former representing the Hindus
and the latter the Iranians -- are described at length in the sacred books. As
the Iranian prophet was the first to raise himself against what he called the
"idolatry" of the Brahmans, and to designate them as the Devas
(devils), how far back must then have been this religious crisis?
"This contest,"
answers Dr. Haug, "must have appeared to the authors of the Brahmanas as
old as the feats of King Arthur appear to English writers of the nineteenth
century."
There was not a philosopher of
any notoriety who did not hold to this doctrine of metempsychosis, as taught by
the Brahmans, Buddhists, and later by the Pythagoreans, in its esoteric sense,
whether he expressed it more or less intelligibly. Origen and Clemens
Alexandrinus, Synesius and Chalcidius, all believed in it; and the Gnostics,
who are unhesitatingly proclaimed by history as a body of the most refined,
learned, and enlightened men,* were all believers in metempsychosis. Socrates
entertained opinions identical with those of Pythagoras; and both, as the
penalty of their divine philosophy, were put to a violent death. The rabble has
been the same in all ages. Materialism has been, and will ever be blind to
spiritual truths. These philosophers held, with the Hindus, that God had infused
into matter a portion of his own Divine Spirit, which animates and moves every
particle. They taught that men have two souls, of separate and quite different
natures: the one perishable -- the Astral Soul, or the inner, fluidic body --
the other incorruptible and immortal -- the Augoeides, or portion of the Divine
Spirit; that the mortal or Astral Soul perishes at each gradual change at the
threshold of every new sphere, becoming with every transmigration more
purified. The astral man, intangible and invisible as he might be to our
mortal, earthly senses, is still constituted of matter, though sublimated.
Aristotle, notwithstanding that for political reasons of his own he maintained
a prudent silence as to certain esoteric matters, expressed very clearly his
opinion on the subject. It was his belief that human souls are emanations of
God, that are finally re-absorbed into Divinity. Zeno, the founder of the
Stoics, taught that there are "two eternal qualities throughout nature:
the one active, or male; the other passive, or female: that the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Gibbon's "Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire."
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SOUL" OF BEASTS.
former is pure, subtile ether,
or Divine Spirit; the other entirely inert in itself till united with the
active principle. That the Divine Spirit acting upon matter produced fire,
water, earth, and air; and that it is the sole efficient principle by which all
nature is moved. The Stoics, like the Hindu sages, believed in the final
absorption. St. Justin believed in the emanation of these souls from Divinity,
and Tatian, the Assyrian, his disciple, declared that "man was as immortal
as God himself."*
That profoundly significant
verse of the Genesis, "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl
of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, I gave a living
soul, . . . ." should arrest the attention of every Hebrew scholar capable
of reading the Scripture in its original, instead of following the erroneous
translation, in which the phrase reads, "wherein there is life."**
From the first to the last chapters,
the translators of the Jewish Sacred Books misconstrued this meaning. They have
even changed the spelling of the name of God, as Sir W. Drummond proves. Thus
El, if written correctly, would read Al, for it stands in the original -- Al,
and, according to Higgins, this word means the god Mithra, the Sun, the
preserver and savior. Sir W. Drummond shows that Beth-El means the House of the
Sun in its literal translation, and not of God. "El, in the composition of
these Canaanite names, does not signify Deus, but Sol."*** Thus Theology
has disfigured ancient Theosophy, and Science ancient Philosophy.****
For lack of comprehension of
this great philosophical principle, the methods of modern science, however
exact, must end in nullity. In no one branch can it demonstrate the origin and
ultimate of things. Instead of tracing the effect from its primal source, its
progress is the reverse. Its higher types, as it teaches, are all evolved from
antecedent lower ones. It starts from the bottom of the cycle, led on step by
step in the great labyrinth of nature by a thread of matter. As soon as this
breaks and the clue is lost, it recoils in affright from the Incomprehensible,
and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Turner; also G.
Higgins's "Anacalypsis."
** Genesis, i, 30.
*** Sir William Drummond:
"OEdipus Judicus," p. 250.
**** The absolute necessity
for the perpetration of such pious frauds by the early fathers and later
theologians becomes apparent, if we consider that if they had allowed the word
Al to remain as in the original, it would have become but too evident -- except
for the initiated -- that the Jehovah of Moses and the sun were identical. The
multitudes, which ignore that the ancient hierophant considered our visible sun
but as an emblem of the central, invisible, and spiritual Sun, would have
accused Moses -- as many of our modern commentators have already done -- of
worshipping the planetary bodies; in short, of actual Zabaism.
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confesses itself powerless.
Not so did Plato and his disciples. With him the lower types were but the
concrete images of the higher abstract ones. The soul, which is immortal, has
an arithmetical, as the body has a geometrical, beginning. This beginning, as
the reflection of the great universal ARCHAEUS, is self-moving, and from the
centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the microcosm.
It was the sad perception of
this truth that made Tyndall confess how powerless is science, even over the
world of matter. "The first marshalling of the atoms, on which all
subsequent action depends, baffles a keener power than that of the
microscope." "Through pure excess of complexity, and long before
observation can have any voice in the matter, the most highly trained
intellect, the most refined and disciplined imagination, retires in
bewilderment from the contemplation of the problem. We are struck dumb by an
astonishment which no microscope can relieve, doubting not only the power of
our instrument, but even whether we ourselves possess the intellectual elements
which will ever enable us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of
nature."
The fundamental geometrical
figure of the Kabala -- that figure which tradition and the esoteric doctrines
tell us was given by the Deity itself to Moses on Mount Sinai* -- contains in
its grandiose, because simple combination, the key to the universal problem.
This figure contains in itself all the others. For those who are able to master
it, there is no need to exercise imagination. No earthly microscope can be
compared with the keenness of the spiritual perception.
And even for those who are
unacquainted with the GREAT SCIENCE, the description given by a well-trained
child-psychometer of the genesis of a grain, a fragment of crystal, or any
other object -- is worth all the telescopes and microscopes of "exact
science."
There may be more truth in the
adventurous pangenesis of Darwin -- whom Tyndall calls a "soaring
speculator" -- than in the cautious, line-bound hypothesis of the latter;
who, in common with other thinkers of his class, surrounds his imagination
"by the firm frontiers of reason." The theory of a microscopic germ
which contains in itself "a world of minor germs," soars in one sense
at least into the infinite. It oversteps the world of matter, and begins
unconsciously busying itself in the world of spirit.
If we accept Darwin's theory
of the development of species, we find that his starting-point is placed in
front of an open door. We are at liberty with him, to either remain within, or
cross the threshold, beyond
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Exodus, xxv., 40.
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"BEYOND."
which lies the limitless and
the incomprehensible, or rather the Unutterable. If our mortal language is
inadequate to express what our spirit dimly foresees in the great
"Beyond" -- while on this earth -- it must realize it at some point
in the timeless Eternity.
Not so with Professor Huxley's
theory of the "Physical Basis of Life." Regardless of the formidable
majority of "nays" from his German brother-scientists, he creates a
universal protoplasm and appoints its cells to become henceforth the sacred
founts of the principle of all life. By making the latter identical in living
man, "dead mutton," a nettle-sting, and a lobster; by shutting in, in
the molecular cell of the protoplasm, the life-principle, and by shutting out
from it the divine influx which comes with subsequent evolution, he closes every
door against any possible escape. Like an able tactician he converts his
"laws and facts" into sentries whom he causes to mount guard over
every issue. The standard under which he rallies them is inscribed with the
word "necessity"; but hardly is it unfurled when he mocks the legend
and calls it "an empty shadow of my own imagination."
The fundamental doctrines of
spiritualism, he says, "lie outside the limits of philosophical
inquiry." We will be bold enough to contradict this assertion, and say that
they lie a great deal more within such inquiry than Mr. Huxley's protoplasm.
Insomuch that they present evident and palpable facts of the existence of
spirit, and the protoplasmic cells, once dead, present none whatever of being
the originators or the bases of life, as this one of the few "foremost
thinkers of the day" wants us to believe.**
The ancient Kabalist rested
upon no hypothesis till he could lay its basis upon the firm rock of recorded
experiment.
But the too great dependence
upon physical facts led to a growth of materialism and a decadence of
spirituality and faith. At the time of Aristotle, this was the prevailing
tendency of thought. And though the Delphic commandment was not as yet
completely eliminated from Grecian thought; and some philosophers still held
that "in order to know what man is, we ought to know what man was" --
still materialism had already begun to gnaw at the root of faith. The Mysteries
themselves had degenerated in a very great degree into mere priestly speculations
and religious fraud. Few were the true adepts and initiates, the heirs and
descendants of those who had been dispersed by the conquering swords of various
invaders of Old Egypt.
The time predicted by the
great Hermes in his dialogue with AEscu-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "The Physical Basis of
Life." A Lecture by T. H. Huxley.
** Huxley: "Physical
Basis of Life."
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lapius had indeed come; the
time when impious foreigners would accuse Egypt of adoring monsters, and naught
but the letters engraved in stone upon her monuments would survive -- enigmas incredible
to posterity. Their sacred scribes and hierophants were wanderers upon the face
of the earth. Obliged from fear of a profanation of the sacred mysteries to
seek refuge among the Hermetic fraternities -- known later as the Essenes --
their esoteric knowledge was buried deeper than ever. The triumphant brand of
Aristotle's pupil swept away from his path of conquest every vestige of a once
pure religion, and Aristotle himself, the type and child of his epoch, though
instructed in the secret science of the Egyptians, knew but little of this
crowning result of millenniums of esoteric studies.
As well as those who lived in
the days of the Psammetics, our present-day philosophers "lift the Veil of
Isis" -- for Isis is but the symbol of nature. But, they see only her
physical forms. The soul within escapes their view; and the Divine Mother has
no answer for them. There are anatomists, who, uncovering to sight no
indwelling spirit under the layers of muscles, the network of nerves, or the
cineritious matter, which they lift with the point of the scalpel, assert that
man has no soul. Such are as purblind in sophistry as the student, who,
confining his research to the cold letter of the Kabala, dares say it has no
vivifying spirit. To see the true man who once inhabited the subject which lies
before him, on the dissecting table, the surgeon must use other eyes than those
of his body. So, the glorious truth covered up in the hieratic writings of the
ancient papyri can be revealed only to him who possesses the faculty of
intuition -- which, if we call reason the eye of the mind, may be defined as
the eye of the soul.
Our modern science
acknowledges a Supreme Power, an Invisible Principle, but denies a Supreme
Being, or Personal God.* Logically, the difference between the two might be
questioned; for in this case the Power and the Being are identical. Human
reason can hardly imagine to itself an Intelligent Supreme Power without
associating it with the idea of an Intelligent Being. The masses can never be
expected to have a clear conception of the omnipotence and omnipresence of a
supreme God, without investing with those attributes a gigantic projection of
their own personality. But the kabalists have never looked upon the invisible
EN-SOPH otherwise than as a Power.
So far our modern positivists
have been anticipated by thousands of ages, in their cautious philosophy. What
the hermetic adept claims to demonstrate is, that simple common sense precludes
the possibility that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Prof. J. W. Draper:
"Conflict Between Religion and Science."
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POTENT ADEPTS.
the universe is the result of
mere chance. Such an idea appears to him more absurd than to think that the
problems of Euclid were unconsciously formed by a monkey playing with
geometrical figures.
Very few Christians
understand, if indeed they know anything at all, of the Jewish Theology. The
Talmud is the darkest of enigmas even for most Jews, while those Hebrew
scholars who do comprehend it do not boast of their knowledge. Their kabalistic
books are still less understood by them; for in our days more Christian than
Jewish students are engrossed in the elimination of their great truths. How
much less is definitely known of the Oriental, or the universal Kabala! Its
adepts are few; but these heirs elect of the sages who first discovered
"the starry truths which shone on the great Shemaia of the Chaldean
lore"* have solved the "absolute" and are now resting from their
grand labor. They cannot go beyond that which is given to mortals of this earth
to know; and no one, not even these elect, can trespass beyond the line drawn
by the finger of the Divinity itself. Travellers have met these adepts on the
shores of the sacred Ganges, brushed against them in the silent ruins of
Thebes, and in the mysterious deserted chambers of Luxor. Within the halls upon
whose blue and golden vaults the weird signs attract attention, but whose
secret meaning is never penetrated by the idle gazers, they have been seen but
seldom recognized. Historical memoirs have recorded their presence in the
brilliantly illuminated salons of European aristocracy. They have been
encountered again on the arid and desolate plains of the Great Sahara, as in
the caves of Elephanta. They may be found everywhere, but make themselves known
only to those who have devoted their lives to unselfish study, and are not
likely to turn back.
Maimonides, the great Jewish
theologian and historian, who at one time was almost deified by his countrymen
and afterward treated as a heretic, remarks, that the more absurd and void of
sense the Talmud seems the more sublime is the secret meaning. This learned man
has successfully demonstrated that the Chaldean Magic, the science of Moses and
other learned thaumaturgists was wholly based on an extensive knowledge of the
various and now forgotten branches of natural science. Thoroughly acquainted
with all the resources of the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms, experts
in occult chemistry and physics, psychologists as well as physiologists, why
wonder that the graduates or adepts instructed in the mysterious sanctuaries of
the temples, could perform wonders, which even in our days of enlightenment
would appear super-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Bulwer's "Zanoni."
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natural? It is an insult to
human nature to brand magic and the occult science with the name of imposture.
To believe that for so many thousands of years, one-half of mankind practiced
deception and fraud on the other half, is equivalent to saying that the human
race was composed only of knaves and incurable idiots. Where is the country in
which magic was not practised? At what age was it wholly forgotten?
In the oldest documents now in
our possession -- the Vedas and the older laws of Manu -- we find many magical
rites practiced and permitted by the Brahmans.* Thibet, Japan and China teach
in the present age that which was taught by the oldest Chaldeans. The clergy of
these respective countries, prove moreover what they teach, namely: that the
practice of moral and physical purity, and of certain austerities, developes
the vital soulpower of self-illumination. Affording to man the control over his
own immortal spirit, it gives him truly magical powers over the elementary
spirits inferior to himself. In the West we find magic of as high an antiquity
as in the East. The Druids of Great Britain practised it in the silent crypts
of their deep caves; and Pliny devotes many a chapter to the
"wisdom"** of the leaders of the Celts. The Semothees, -- the Druids
of the Gauls, expounded the physical as well as the spiritual sciences. They
taught the secrets of the universe, the harmonious progress of the heavenly
bodies, the formation of the earth, and above all -- the immortality of the
soul.*** Into their sacred groves -- natural academies built by the hand of the
Invisible Architect -- the initiates assembled at the still hour of midnight to
learn about what man once was and what he will be.**** They needed no
artificial illumination, nor life-drawing gas, to light up their temples, for
the chaste goddess of night beamed her most silvery rays on their oak-crowned
heads; and their white-robed sacred bards knew how to converse with the
solitary queen of the starry vault.*****
On the dead soil of the long
by-gone past stand their sacred oaks, now dried up and stripped of their
spiritual meaning by the venomous breath of materialism. But for the student of
occult learning, their vegetation is still as verdant and luxuriant, and as
full of deep and sacred truths, as at that hour when the arch-druid performed
his magical cures, and waving the branch of mistletoe, severed with his golden
sickle the green bough from its mother oak-tree. Magic is as old as man. It is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See the Code published by
Sir William Jones, chap. ix., p. 11.
** Pliny: "Hist.
Nat.," xxx. I: Ib., xvi., 14; xxv., 9, etc.
*** Pomponius ascribes to them
the knowledge of the highest sciences.
**** Caesar, iii., 14.
***** Pliny, xxx.
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APOLLONIUS.
as impossible to name the time
when it sprang into existence as to indicate on what day the first man himself
was born. Whenever a writer has started with the idea of connecting its first
foundation in a country with some historical character, further research has
proved his views groundless. Odin, the Scandinavian priest and monarch, was
thought by many to have originated the practice of magic some seventy years
B.C. But it was easily demonstrated that the mysterious rites of the
priestesses called Voilers, Valas, were greatly anterior to his age.* Some
modern authors were bent on proving that Zoroaster was the founder of magic,
because he was the founder of the Magian religion. Ammianus Marcellinus,
Arnobius, Pliny, and other ancient historians demonstrated conclusively that he
was but a reformer of Magic as practiced by the Chaldeans and Egyptians.**
The greatest teachers of
divinity agree that nearly all ancient books were written symbolically and in a
language intelligible only to the initiated. The biographical sketch of
Apollonius of Tyana affords an example. As every Kabalist knows, it embraces
the whole of the Hermetic philosophy, being a counterpart in many respects of
the traditions left us of King Solomon. It reads like a fairy story, but, as in
the case of the latter, sometimes facts and historical events are presented to
the world under the colors of a fiction. The journey to India represents
allegorically the trials of a neophyte. His long discourses with the Brahmans,
their sage advice, and the dialogues with the Corinthian Menippus would, if
interpreted, give the esoteric catechism. His visit to the empire of the wise
men, and interview with their king Hiarchas, the oracle of Amphiaraus, explain
symbolically many of the secret dogmas of Hermes. They would disclose, if
understood, some of the most important secrets of nature. Eliphas Levi points
out the great resemblance which exists between King Hiarchas and the fabulous
Hiram, of whom Solomon procured the cedars of Lebanon and the gold of Ophir. We
would like to know whether modern Masons, even "Grand Lecturers" and
the most intelligent craftsmen belonging to important lodges, understand who
the Hiram is whose death they combine together to avenge?
Putting aside the purely
metaphysical teachings of the Kabala, if one would devote himself but to
physical occultism, to the so-called branch of therapeutics, the results might benefit
some of our modern sciences; such as chemistry and medicine. Says Professor
Draper: "Sometimes, not
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Munter, on the most ancient
religion of the North before the time of Odin. Memoires de la Societe des
Antiquaires de France. Tome ii., p. 230.
** Ammianus Marcellinus,
xxvi., 6.
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without surprise, we meet with
ideas which we flatter ourselves originated in our own times." This
remark, uttered in relation to the scientific writings of the Saracens, would
apply still better to the more secret Treatises of the ancients. Modern
medicine, while it has gained largely in anatomy, physiology, and pathology,
and even in therapeutics, has lost immensely by its narrowness of spirit, its
rigid materialism, its sectarian dogmatism. One school in its purblindness
sternly ignores whatever is developed by other schools; and all unite in
ignoring every grand conception of man or nature, developed by Mesmerism, or by
American experiments on the brain -- every principle which does not conform to
a stolid materialism. It would require a convocation of the hostile physicians
of the several different schools to bring together what is now known of medical
science, and it too often happens that after the best practitioners have vainly
exhausted their art upon a patient, a mesmerist or a "healing medium"
will effect a cure! The explorers of old medical literature, from the time of
Hippocrates to that of Paracelsus and Van Helmont, will find a vast number of
well-attested physiological and psychological facts and of measures or medicines
for healing the sick which modern physicians superciliously refuse to employ.*
Even with respect to surgery, modern practitioners have humbly and publicly
confessed the total impossibility of their approximating to anything like the
marvellous skill displayed in the art of bandaging by ancient Egyptians. The
many hundred yards of ligature enveloping a mummy from its ears down to every
separate toe, were studied by the chief surgical operators in Paris, and,
notwithstanding that the models were before their eyes, they were unable to
accomplish anything like it.
In the Abbott Egyptological
collection, in New York City, may be seen numerous evidences of the skill of
the ancients in various handicrafts; among others the art of lace-making; and,
as it could hardly be expected but that the signs of woman's vanity should go
side by side with
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* In some respects our modern
philosophers, who think they make new discoveries can be compared to "the
very clever, learned, and civil gentleman" whom Hippocrates having met at
Samos one day, describes very good-naturedly. "He informed me," the
Father of Medicine proceeds to say, "that he had lately discovered an herb
never before known in Europe or Asia, and that no disease, however malignant or
chronic, could resist its marvellous properties. Wishing to be civil in turn, I
permitted myself to be persuaded to accompany him to the conservatory in which
he had transplanted the wonderful specific. What I found was one of the
commonest plants in Greece, namely, garlic -- the plant which above all others
has least pretensions to healing virtues." Hippocrates: "De optima
praedicandi ratione item judicii operum magni." I.
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SUN.
those of man's strength, there
are also specimens of artificial hair, and gold ornaments of different kinds.
The New York Tribune, reviewing the contents of the Ebers Papyrus, says: --
"Verily, there is no new thing under the sun. . . . Chapters 65, 66, 79,
and 89 show that hair invigorators, hair dyes, pain-killers, and flea-powders
were desiderata 3,400 years ago."
How few of our recent alleged
discoveries are in reality new, and how many belong to the ancients, is again
most fairly and eloquently though but in part stated by our eminent
philosophical writer, Professor John W. Draper. His Conflict between Religion
and Science -- a great book with a very bad title -- swarms with such facts. At
page 13, he cites a few of the achievements of ancient philosophers, which
excited the admiration of Greece. In Babylon was a series of Chaldean
astronomical observations, ranging back through nineteen hundred and three
years, which Callisthenes sent to Aristotle. Ptolemy, the Egyptian
king-astronomer possessed a Babylonian record of eclipses going back seven
hundred and forty-seven years before our era. As Prof. Draper truly remarks: "Long-continued
and close observations were necessary before some of these astronomical results
that have reached our times could have been ascertained. Thus, the Babylonians
had fixed the length of a tropical year within twenty-five seconds of the
truth; their estimate of the sidereal year was barely two minutes in excess.
They had detected the precession of the equinoxes. They knew the causes of
eclipses, and, by the aid of their cycle, called saros, could predict them.
Their estimate of the value of that cycle, which is more than 6,585 days, was
within nineteen and a half minutes of the truth."
"Such facts furnish
incontrovertible proof of the patience and skill with which astronomy had been
cultivated in Mesopotamia, and that, with very inadequate instrumental means,
it had reached no inconsiderable perfection. These old observers had made a
catalogue of the stars, had divided the zodiac into twelve signs; they had
parted the day into twelve hours, the night into twelve. They had, as Aristotle
says, for a long time devoted themselves to observations of star-occultations
by the moon. They had correct views of the structure of the solar system, and
knew the order of emplacement of the planets. They constructed sundials,
clepsydras, astrolabes, gnomons."
Speaking of the world of
eternal truths that lies "within the world of transient delusions and
unrealities," Professor Draper says: "That world is not to be
discovered through the vain traditions that have brought down to us the opinion
of men who lived in the morning of civilization, nor in the dreams of mystics
who thought that they were inspired. It is to be
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discovered by the
investigations of geometry, and by the practical interrogations of
nature."
Precisely. The issue could not
be better stated. This eloquent writer tells us a profound truth. He does not, however,
tell us the whole truth, because he does not know it. He has not described the
nature or extent of the knowledge imparted in the Mysteries. No subsequent
people has been so proficient in geometry as the builders of the Pyramids and
other Titanic monuments, antediluvian and postdiluvian. On the other hand, none
has ever equalled them in the practical interrogation of nature.
An undeniable proof of this is
the significance of their countless symbols. Every one of these symbols is an
embodied idea, -- combining the conception of the Divine Invisible with the
earthly and visible. The former is derived from the latter strictly through
analogy according to the hermetic formula -- "as below, so it is
above." Their symbols show great knowledge of natural sciences and a
practical study of cosmical power.
As to practical results to be
obtained by "the investigations of geometry," very fortunately for
students who are coming upon the stage of action, we are no longer forced to
content ourselves with mere conjectures. In our own times, an American, Mr.
George H. Felt, of New York, who, if he continues as he has begun, may one day
be recognized as the greatest geometer of the age, has been enabled, by the
sole help of the premises established by the ancient Egyptians, to arrive at
results which we will give in his own language. "Firstly," says Mr.
Felt, "the fundamental diagram to which all science of elementary
geometry, both plane and solid, is referable; to produce arithmetical systems
of proportion in a geometrical manner; to identify this figure with all the
remains of architecture and sculpture, in all which it had been followed in a
marvellously exact manner; to determine that the Egyptians had used it as the
basis of all their astronomical calculations, on which their religious
symbolism was almost entirely founded; to find its traces among all the
remnants of art and architecture of the Greeks; to discover its traces so
strongly among the Jewish sacred records, as to prove conclusively that it was
founded thereon; to find that the whole system had been discovered by the
Egyptians after researches of tens of thousands of years into the laws of
nature, and that it might truly be called the science of the Universe."
Further it enabled him "to determine with precision problems in physiology
heretofore only surmised; to first develop such a Masonic philosophy as showed
it to be conclusively the first science and religion, as it will be the
last"; and we may add, lastly, to prove by ocular demonstrations that the
Egyptian sculptors and architects ob-
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tained the models for the
quaint figures which adorn the facades and vestibules of their temples, not in
the disordered fantasies of their own brains, but from the "viewless races
of the air," and other kingdoms of nature, whom he, like them, claims to
make visible by resort to their own chemical and kabalistical processes.
Schweigger proves that the
symbols of all the mythologies have a scientific foundation and substance.* It
is only through recent discoveries of the physical electro-magnetical powers of
nature that such experts in Mesmerism as Ennemoser, Schweigger and Bart, in
Germany, Baron Du Potet and Regazzoni, in France and Italy, were enabled to
trace with almost faultless accuracy the true relation which each Theomythos
bore to some one of these powers. The Idaeic finger, which had such importance
in the magic art of healing, means an iron finger, which is attracted and
repulsed in turn by magnetic, natural forces. It produced, in Samothrace,
wonders of healing by restoring affected organs to their normal condition.
Bart goes deeper than Schweigger
into the significations of the old myths, and studies the subject from both its
spiritual and physical aspects. He treats at length of the Phrygian Dactyls,
those "magicians and exorcists of sickness," and of the Cabeirian
Theurgists. He says: "While we treat of the close union of the Dactyls and
magnetic forces, we are not necessarily confined to the magnetic stone, and our
views of nature but take a glance at magnetism in its whole meaning. Then it is
clear how the initiated, who called themselves Dactyls, created astonishment in
the people through their magic arts, working as they did, miracles of a healing
nature. To this united themselves many other things which the priesthood of
antiquity was wont to practice; the cultivation of the land and of morals, the
advancement of art and science, mysteries, and secret consecrations. All this
was done by the priestly Cabeirians, and wherefore not guided and supported by
the mysterious spirits of nature?"** Schweigger is of the same opinion,
and demonstrates that the phenomena of ancient Theurgy were produced by
magnetic powers "under the guidance of spirits."
Despite their apparent
Polytheism, the ancients -- those of the educated class at all events -- were
entirely monotheistical; and this, too, ages upon ages before the days of
Moses. In the Ebers Papyrus this fact is shown conclusively in the following
words, translated from the first four lines of Plate I.: "I came from
Heliopolis with the great ones from
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Schweigger:
"Introduction to Mythology through Natural History."
** Ennemoser: "History of
Magic," i, 3.
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Het-aat, the Lords of
Protection, the masters of eternity and salvation. I came from Sais with the
Mother-goddesses, who extended to me protection. The Lord of the Universe told
me how to free the gods from all murderous diseases." Eminent men were
called gods by the ancients. The deification of mortal men and supposititious
gods is no more a proof against their monotheism than the monument-building of
modern Christians, who erect statues to their heroes, is proof of their
polytheism. Americans of the present century would consider it absurd in their
posterity 3,000 years hence to classify them as idolaters for having built
statues to their god Washington. So shrouded in mystery was the Hermetic
Philosophy that Volney asserted that the ancient peoples worshipped their gross
material symbols as divine in themselves; whereas these were only considered as
representing esoteric principles. Dupuis, also, after devoting many years of
study to the problem, mistook the symbolic circle, and attributed their
religion solely to astronomy. Eberhart (Berliner Monatschrift) and many other
German writers of the last and present centuries, dispose of magic most
unceremoniously, and think it due to the Platonic mythos of the Timaeus. But
how, without possessing a knowledge of the mysteries, was it possible for these
men or any others not endowed with the finer intuition of a Champollion, to
discover the esoteric half of that which was concealed, behind the veil of
Isis, from all except the adepts?
The merit of Champollion as an
Egyptologist none will question. He declares that everything demonstrates the
ancient Egyptians to have been profoundly monotheistical. The accuracy of the
writings of the mysterious Hermes Trismegistus, whose antiquity runs back into
the night of time, is corroborated by him to their minutest details. Ennemoser
also says: "Into Egypt and the East went Herodotus, Thales, Parmenides,
Empedocles, Orpheus, and Pythagoras, to instruct themselves in Natural Philosophy
and Theology." There, too, Moses acquired his wisdom, and Jesus passed the
earlier years of his life.
Thither gathered the students
of all countries before Alexandria was founded. "How comes it,"
Ennemoser goes on to say, "that so little has become known of these
mysteries? through so many ages and amongst so many different times and people?
The answer is that it is owing to the universally strict silence of the
initiated. Another cause may be found in the destruction and total loss of all
the written memorials of the secret knowledge of the remotest antiquity."
Numa's books, described by Livy, consisting of treatises upon natural
philosophy, were found in his tomb; but they were not allowed to be made known,
lest they should reveal the most secret mysteries of the state religion. The
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ANTIQUITY.
senate and the tribune of the people
determined that the books themselves should be burned, which was done in
public.*
Magic was considered a divine
science which led to a participation in the attributes of Divinity itself.
"It unveils the operations of nature," says Philo Judaeus, "and
leads to the contemplation of celestial powers."** In later periods its
abuse and degeneration into sorcery made it an object of general abhorrence. We
must therefore deal with it only as it was in the remote past, during those
ages when every true religion was based on a knowledge of the occult powers of
nature. It was not the sacerdotal class in ancient Persia that established
magic, as it is commonly thought, but the Magi, who derive their name from it.
The Mobeds, priests of the Parsis -- the ancient Ghebers -- are named, even at
the present day, Magoi, in the dialect of the Pehlvi.*** Magic appeared in the
world with the earlier races of men. Cassien mentions a treatise, well-known in
the fourth and fifth centuries, which was accredited to Ham, the son of Noah,
who in his turn was reputed to have received it from Jared, the fourth
generation from Seth, the son of Adam.****
Moses was indebted for his
knowledge to the mother of the Egyptian princess, Thermuthis, who saved him
from the waters of the Nile. The wife of Pharaoh,***** Batria, was an initiate
herself, and the Jews owe to her the possession of their prophet, "learned
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and mighty in words and deeds."******
Justin Martyr, giving as his authority Trogus Pompeius, shows Joseph as having
acquired a great knowledge in magical arts with the high priests of
Egypt.*******
The ancients knew more
concerning certain sciences than our modern savants have yet discovered.
Reluctant as many are to confess as much, it has been acknowledged by more than
one scientist. "The degree of scientific knowledge existing in an early
period of society was much greater than the moderns are willing to admit";
says Dr. A. Todd Thomson, the editor of Occult Sciences, by Salverte; "but,"
he adds, "it was confined to the temples, carefully veiled from the eyes
of the people and opposed only to the priesthood." Speaking of the Kabala,
the learned Franz von Baader remarks that "not only our salvation and
wisdom, but our science itself came to us from the Jews." But why not
complete the sentence and tell the reader from whom the Jews got their wisdom?
Origen, who had belonged to
the Alexandrian school of Platonists,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Hist. of Magic,"
vol. i, p. 3.
** Philo Jud.: "De
Specialibus Legibus."
*** Zend-Avesta, vol. ii., p.
506.
**** Cassian:
"Conference," i., 21.
***** "De Vita et Morte
Mosis," p. 199.
****** Acts of the Apostles,
vii., 22.
******* Justin, xxxvi., 2.
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declares that Moses, besides
the teachings of the covenant, communicated some very important secrets
"from the hidden depths of the law" to the seventy elders. These he
enjoined them to impart only to persons whom they found worthy.
St. Jerome names the Jews of
Tiberias and Lydda as the only teachers of the mystical manner of
interpretation. Finally, Ennemoser expresses a strong opinion that "the
writings of Dionysius Areopagita have palpably been grounded on the Jewish
Kabala." When we take in consideration that the Gnostics, or early
Christians, were but the followers of the old Essenes under a new name, this
fact is nothing to be wondered at. Professor Molitor gives the Kabala its just
due. He says:
"The age of inconsequence
and shallowness, in theology as well as in sciences, is past, and since that
revolutionary rationalism has left nothing behind but its own emptiness, after
having destroyed everything positive, it seems now to be the time to direct our
attention anew to that mysterious revelation which is the living spring whence
our salvation must come . . . the Mysteries of ancient Israel, which contain
all secrets of modern Israel, would be particularly calculated to . . . found
the fabric of theology upon its deepest theosophical principles, and to gain a
firm basis to all ideal sciences. It would open a new path . . . to the obscure
labyrinth of the myths, mysteries and constitutions of primitive nations. . . .
In these traditions alone are contained the system of the schools of the
prophets, which the prophet Samuel did not found, but only restored, whose end
was no other than to lead the scholars to wisdom and the highest knowledge, and
when they had been found worthy, to induct them into deeper mysteries. Classed
with these mysteries was magic, which was of a double nature -- divine magic,
and evil magic, or the black art. Each of these is again divisible into two
kinds, the active and seeing; in the first, man endeavors to place himself en
rapport with the world to learn hidden things; in the latter he endeavors to
gain power over spirits; in the former, to perform good and beneficial acts; in
the latter to do all kinds of diabolical and unnatural deeds."*
The clergy of the three most
prominent Christian bodies, the Greek, Roman Catholic, and Protestant,
discountenance every spiritual phenomenon manifesting itself through the
so-called "mediums." A very brief period, indeed, has elapsed since
both the two latter ecclesiastical corporations burned, hanged, and otherwise
murdered every helpless victim through whose organism spirits -- and sometimes
blind and as yet unex-
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Molitor: "Philosophy of
History and Traditions," Howitt's Translation, p. 285.
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ROME.
plained forces of nature --
manifested themselves. At the head of these three churches, pre-eminent stands
the Church of Rome. Her hands are scarlet with the innocent blood of countless
victims shed in the name of the Moloch-like divinity at the head of her creed.
She is ready and eager to begin again. But she is bound hand and foot by that
nineteenth century spirit of progress and religious freedom which she reviles
and blasphemes daily. The Graeco-Russian Church is the most amiable and
Christ-like in her primitive, simple, though blind faith. Despite the fact that
there has been no practical union between the Greek and Latin Churches, and
that the two parted company long centuries ago, the Roman Pontiffs seem to
invariably ignore the fact. They have in the most impudent manner possible
arrogated to themselves jurisdiction not only over the countries within the
Greek communion but also over all Protestants as well. "The Church
insists," says Professor Draper, "that the state has no rights over
any thing which it declares to be within its domain, and that Protestantism
being a mere rebellion, has no rights at all; that even in Protestant
communities the Catholic bishop is the only lawful spiritual pastor."*
Decrees unheeded, encyclical letters unread, invitations to ecumenical councils
unnoticed, excommunications laughed at -- all these have seemed to make no
difference. Their persistence has only been matched by their effrontery. In
1864, the culmination of absurdity was attained when Pius IX. excommunicated
and fulminated publicly his anathemas against the Russian Emperor, as a
"schismatic cast out from the bosom of the Holy Mother Church."**
Neither he nor his ancestors, nor Russia since it was Christianized, a thousand
years ago, have ever consented to join the Roman Catholics. Why not claim
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Buddhists of Thibet, or the shadows of the
ancient Hyk-Sos?
The mediumistic phenomena have
manifested themselves at all times in Russia as well as in other countries.
This force ignores religious differences; it laughs at nationalities; and
invades unasked any individuality, whether of a crowned head or a poor beggar.
Not even the present Vice-God,
Pius IX., himself, could avoid the unwelcome guest. For the last fifty years
his Holiness has been known to be subject to very extraordinary fits. Inside
the Vatican they are termed Divine visions; outside, physicians call them
epileptic fits; and popular rumor attributes them to an obsession by the ghosts
of Peruggia, Castelfidardo, and Mentana!
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Conflict between
Religion and Science," p. 329.
** See "Gazette du
Midi," and "Le Monde," of 3 May, 1864.
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"The lights burn blue: it
is now dead midnight,
Cold fearful drops stand on my
trembling flesh,
Methought the souls of all
that I caused to be murdered
Came. . . ." *
The Prince of Hohenlohe, so
famous during the first quarter of our century for his healing powers, was
himself a great medium. Indeed, these phenomena and powers belong to no
particular age or country. They form a portion of the psychological attributes
of man -- the Microcosmos.
For centuries have the
Klikouchy,** the Yourodevoy,*** and other miserable creatures been afflicted
with strange disorders, which the Russian clergy and the populace attribute to
possession by the devil. They throng the entrances of the cathedrals, without
daring to trust themselves inside, lest their self-willed controlling demons
might fling them on the ground. Voroneg, Kiew, Kazan, and all cities which possess
the thaumaturgical relics of canonized saints, abound with such unconscious
mediums. One can always find numbers of them, congregating in hideous groups,
and hanging about the gates and porches. At certain stages of the celebration
of the mass by the officiating clergy, such as the appearance of the
sacraments, or the beginning of the prayer and chorus, "Ejey
Cherouvim," these half-maniacs, half-mediums, begin crowing like cocks,
barking, bellowing and braying, and, finally, fall down in fearful convulsions.
"The unclean one cannot bear the holy prayer," is the pious
explanation. Moved by pity, some charitable souls administer restoratives to
the "afflicted ones," and distribute alms among them. Occasionally, a
priest is invited to exorcise, in which event he either performs the ceremony
for the sake of love and charity, or the alluring prospect of a twenty-copeck
silver bit, according to his Christian impulses. But these miserable creatures
-- who are mediums, for they prophesy and see visions sometimes, when the fit
is genuine**** -- are never molested because of their misfortune. Why should
the clergy persecute them, or people hate and denounce them as damnable witches
or wizards? Common sense and justice surely suggest that if any are to be
punished it is certainly not the victims who cannot help themselves, but the
demon who is alleged to control their actions. The worst that happens to the
patient is, that the priest inundates him or her with holy water, and causes
the poor creature to catch cold. This failing in efficacy, the Klikoucha is
left to the will
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Shakespere: "Richard
III."
** Literally, the screaming or
the howling ones.
*** The half-demented, the
idiots.
**** But such is not always
the case, for some among these beggars make a regular and profitable trade of
it.
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SUN.
of God, and taken care of in
love and pity. Superstitious and blind as it is, a faith conducted on such
principles certainly deserves some respect, and can never be offensive, either
to man or the true God. Not so with that of the Roman Catholics; and hence, it
is they, and secondarily, the Protestant clergy -- with the exception of some
foremost thinkers among them -- that we purpose questioning in this work. We
want to know upon what grounds they base their right to treat Hindus and
Chinese spiritualists and kabalists in the way they do; denouncing them, in
company with the infidels -- creatures of their own making -- as so many
convicts sentenced to the inextinguishable fires of hell.
Far from us be the thought of
the slightest irreverence -- let alone blasphemy -- toward the Divine Power
which called into being all things, visible and invisible. Of its majesty and
boundless perfection we dare not even think. It is enough for us to know that
It exists and that It is all wise. Enough that in common with our fellow
creatures we possess a spark of Its essence. The supreme power whom we revere
is the boundless and endless one -- the grand "CENTRAL SPIRITUAL SUN"
by whose attributes and the visible effects of whose inaudible WILL we are
surrounded -- the God of the ancient and the God of modern seers. His nature
can be studied only in the worlds called forth by his mighty FIAT. His
revelation is traced with his own finger in imperishable figures of universal
harmony upon the face of the Cosmos. It is the only INFALLIBLE gospel we
recognize.
Speaking of ancient
geographers, Plutarch remarks in Theseus, that they "crowd into the edges
of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in
the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full
of wild beasts and unapproachable bogs." Do not our theologians and
scientists do the same? While the former people the invisible world with either
angels or devils, our philosophers try to persuade their disciples that where
there is no matter there is nothing.
How many of our inveterate
skeptics belong, notwithstanding their materialism, to Masonic Lodges? The
brothers of the Rosie-Cross, mysterious practitioners of the mediaeval ages,
still live -- but in name only. They may "shed tears at the grave of their
respectable Master, Hiram Abiff "; but vainly will they search for the
true locality, "where the sprig of myrtle was placed." The dead
letter remains alone, the spirit has fled. They are like the English or German
chorus of the Italian opera, who descend in the fourth act of Ernani into the
crypt of Charlemagne, singing their conspiracy in a tongue utterly unknown to
them. So, our modern knights of the Sacred Arch may descend every night if they
choose
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"through the nine arches
into the bowels of the earth," -- they "will never discover the
sacred Delta of Enoch." The "Sir Knights in the South Valley"
and those in "the North Valley" may try to assure themselves that
"enlightenment dawns upon their minds," and that as they progress in
Masonry "the veil of superstition, despotism, tyranny" and so on, no
longer obscures the visions of their minds. But these are all empty words so
long as they neglect their mother Magic, and turn their backs upon its twin
sister, Spiritualism. Verily, "Sir Knights of the Orient," you may
"leave your stations and sit upon the floor in attitudes of grief, with
your heads resting upon your hands," for you have cause to bewail and
mourn your fate. Since Philippe le Bel destroyed the Knights-Templars, not one
has appeared to clear up your doubts notwithstanding all claims to the
contrary. Truly, you are "wanderers from Jerusalem, seeking the lost
treasure of the holy place." Have you found it? Alas, no! for the holy
place is profaned; the pillars of wisdom, strength and beauty are destroyed.
Henceforth, "you must wander in darkness," and "travel in
humility," among the woods and mountains in search of the "lost
word." "Pass on!" -- you will never find it so long as you limit
your journeys to seven or even seven times seven; because you are
"travelling in darkness," and this darkness can only be dispelled by
the light of the blazing torch of truth which alone the right descendants of
Ormasd carry. They alone can teach you the true pronunciation of the name
revealed to Enoch, Jacob and Moses. "Pass on! Till your R. S. W. shall
learn to multiply 333, and strike instead 666 -- the number of the Apocalyptic
Beast, you may just as well observe prudence and act "sub rosa."
In order to demonstrate that
the notions which the ancients entertained about dividing human history into
cycles were not utterly devoid of a philosophical basis, we will close this
chapter by introducing to the reader one of the oldest traditions of antiquity
as to the evolution of our planet.
At the close of each
"great year," called by Aristotle -- according to Censorinus -- the
greatest, and which consists of six sars* our planet is subjected to a thorough
physical revolution. The polar and equatorial climates gradually exchange
places; the former moving slowly toward the Line, and the tropical zone, with
its exuberant vegetation and swarming animal life, replacing the forbidding
wastes of the icy poles. This
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Webster declares very
erroneously that the Chaldeans called saros, the cycle of eclipses, a period of
about 6,586 years, "the time of revolution of the moon's node."
Berosus, himself a Chaldean astrologer, at the Temple of Belus, at Babylon,
gives the duration of the sar, or sarus, 3,600 years; a neros 600; and a sossus
60. (See, Berosus from Abydenus, "Of the Chaldaean Kings and the
Deluge." See also Eusebius, and Cory's MS. Ex. Cod. reg. gall. gr. No.
2360, fol. 154.)
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KALPAS.
change of climate is
necessarily attended by cataclysms, earthquakes, and other cosmical throes.* As
the beds of the ocean are displaced, at the end of every decimillennium and
about one neros, a semi-universal deluge like the legendary Noachian flood is
brought about. This year was called the Heliacal by the Greeks; but no one
outside the sanctuary knew anything certain either as to its duration or
particulars. The winter of this year was called the Cataclysm or the Deluge, --
the Summer, the Ecpyrosis. The popular traditions taught that at these
alternate seasons the world was in turn burned and deluged. This is what we
learn at least from the Astronomical Fragments of Censorinus and Seneca. So
uncertain were the commentators about the length of this year, that none except
Herodotus and Linus, who assigned to it, the former 10,800, and the latter
13,984, came near the truth.** According to the claims of the Babylonian
priests, corroborated by Eupolemus,*** "the city of Babylon, owes its
foundation to those who were saved from the catastrophe of the deluge; they
were the giants and they built the tower which is noticed in history."****
These giants who were great astrologers and had received moreover from their
fathers, "the sons of God," every instruction pertaining to secret
matters, instructed the priests in their turn, and left in the temples all the
records of the periodical cataclysm that they had witnessed themselves. This is
how the high priests came by the knowledge of the great years. When we
remember, moreover, that Plato in the Timaeus cites the old Egyptian priest
rebuking Solon for his ignorance of the fact that there were several such
deluges as the great one of Ogyges, we can easily ascertain that this belief in
the Heliakos was a doctrine held by the initiated priests the world over.
The Neroses, the Vrihaspati,
or the periods called yugas or kalpas, are life-problems to solve. The
Satya-yug and Buddhistic cycles of chronology would make a mathematician stand
aghast at the array of ciphers. The Maha-kalpa embraces an untold number of
periods far
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Before scientists reject
such a theory -- traditional as it is -- it would be in order for them to
demonstrate why, at the end of the tertiary period, the Northern Hemisphere had
undergone such a reduction of temperature as to utterly change the torrid zone
to a Siberian climate? Let us bear in mind that the heliocentric system came to
us from upper India; and that the germs of all great astronomical truths were
brought thence by Pythagoras. So long as we lack a mathematically correct demonstration,
one hypothesis is as good as another.
** Censorinus: "De Natal
Die." Seneca: "Nat. Quaest.," iii., 29.
*** Euseb.: "Praep.
Evan." Of the Tower of Babel and Abraham.
**** This is in flat
contradiction of the Bible narrative, which tells us that the deluge was sent
for the special destruction of these giants. The Babylon priests had no object
to invent lies.
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back in the antediluvian ages.
Their system comprises a kalpa or grand period of 4,320,000,000 years, which
they divide into four lesser yugas, running as follows:
1st. -- Satya yug -- 1,728,000
years.
2d. -- Tretya yug -- 1,296,000
years.
3d. -- Dvapa yug ---- 864,000
years.
4th. -- Kali yug ------
432,000 years.
Total -------------- 4,320,000
years.
which make one divine age or
Maha-yug; seventy-one Maha-yugs make 306,720,000 years, to which is added a
sandhi (or the time when day and night border on each other, morning and
evening twilight), equal to a Satya-yug, 1,728,000, make a manwantara of
308,448,000 years;* fourteen manwantaras make 4,318,272,000 years; to which
must be added a sandhi to begin the kalpa, 1,728,000 years, making the kalpa or
grand period of 4,320,000,000 of years. As we are now only in the Kali-yug of
the twenty-eighth age of the seventh manwantara of 308,448,000 years, we have
yet sufficient time before us to wait before we reach even half of the time
allotted to the world.
These ciphers are not
fanciful, but founded upon actual astronomical calculations, as has been
demonstrated by S. Davis.** Many a scientist, Higgins among others,
notwithstanding their researches, has been utterly perplexed as to which of
these was the secret cycle. Bunsen has demonstrated that the Egyptian priests,
who made the cyclic notations, kept them always in the profoundest mystery.***
Perhaps their difficulty arose from the fact that the calculations of the
ancients applied equally to the spiritual progress of humanity as to the
physical. It will not be difficult to understand the close correspondence drawn
by the ancients between the cycles of nature and of mankind, if we keep in mind
their belief in the constant and all-potent influences of the planets upon the
fortunes of humanity. Higgins justly believed that the cycle of the Indian
system, of 432,000, is the true key of the secret cycle. But his failure in
trying to decipher it was made apparent; for as it pertained to the mystery of
the creation, this cycle was the most inviolable of all. It was repeated in
symbolic figures only in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, the original of which,
if
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Coleman, who makes this
calculation, allowed a serious error to escape the proofreader; the length of
the manwantara is given at 368,448,000, which is just sixty million years too
much.
** S. Davis: "Essay in
the Asiatic Researches"; and Higgins's "Anacalypsis"; also see
Coleman's "Mythology of the Hindus." Preface, p. xiii.
*** Bunsen:
"Egypte," vol. i.
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NEROS.
now extant, is certainly not
to be found in libraries, as it formed one of the most ancient Books of
Hermes,* the number of which is at present undetermined.
Calculating by the secret
period of the Great Neros and the Hindu Kalpas, some kabalists, mathematicians
and archeologists who knew naught of the secret computations made the above
number of 21,000 years to be 24,000 years, for the length of the great year, as
it was to the renewal only of our globe that they thought the last period of
6,000 years applied. Higgins gives as a reason for it, that it was anciently
thought that the equinoxes preceded only after the rate of 2,000, not 2,160,
years in a sign; for thus it would allow for the length of the great year four times
6,000 or 24,000 years. "Hence," he says, "might arise their
immensely-lengthened cycles; because, it would be the same with this great year
as with the common year, till it travelled round an immensely-lengthened
circle, when it would come to the old point again." He therefore accounts
for the 24,000 in the following manner: "If the angle which the plane of
the ecliptic makes with the plane of the equator had decreased gradually and
regularly, as it was till very lately supposed to do, the two planes would have
coincided in about ten ages, 6,000 years;
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* The forty-two Sacred Books
of the Egyptians mentioned by Clement of Alexandria as having existed in his
time, were but a portion of the Books of Hermes. Iamblichus, on the authority
of the Egyptian priest Abammon, attributes 1200 of such books to Hermes, and
Manetho 36,000. But the testimony of Iamblichus as a neo-Platonist and
theurgist is of course rejected by modern critics. Manetho, who is held by
Bunsen in the highest consideration as a "purely historical
personage" . . . with whom "none of the later native historians can
be compared . . . ." (See "Egypte," i, p. 97), suddenly becomes
a Pseudo-Manetho, as soon as the ideas propounded by him clash with the
scientific prejudices against magic and the occult knowledge claimed by the
ancient priests. However, none of the archeologists doubt for a moment the
almost incredible antiquity of the Hermetic books. Champollion shows the
greatest regard for their authenticity and great truthfulness, corroborated as
it is by many of the oldest monuments. And Bunsen brings irrefutable proofs of
their age. From his researches, for instance, we learn that there was a line of
sixty-one kings before the days of Moses, who preceded the Mosaic period by a
clearly-traceable civilization of several thousand years. Thus we are warranted
in believing that the works of Hermes Trismegistus were extant many ages before
the birth of the Jewish law-giver. "Styli and inkstands were found on
monuments of the fourth Dynasty, the oldest in the world," says Bunsen. If
the eminent Egyptologist rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander,
to which Diogenes Laertius carries back the records of the priests, he is evidently
more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical observations, and
remarks that "if they were actual observations, they must have extended
over 10,000 years" (p. 14). "We learn, however," he adds,
"from one of their own old chronological works . . . that the genuine
Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological period, treated of myriads of
years." ("Egypte," i, p. 15).
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in ten ages, 6,000 years more,
the sun would have been situated relatively to the Southern Hemisphere as he is
now to the Northern; in ten ages, 6,000 years more, the two planes would
coincide again; and, in ten ages, 6,000 years more, he would be situated as he
is now, after a lapse of about twenty-four or twenty-five thousand years in
all. When the sun arrived at the equator, the ten ages or six thousand years
would end, and the world would be destroyed by fire; when he arrived at the
southern point, it would be destroyed by water. And thus, it would be destroyed
at the end of every 6,000 years, or ten neroses."*
This method of calculating by
the neroses, without allowing any consideration for the secrecy in which the
ancient philosophers, who were exclusively of the sacerdotal order, held their
knowledge, gave rise to the greatest errors. It led the Jews, as well as some
of the Christian Platonists, to maintain that the world would be destroyed at
the end of six thousand years. Gale shows how firmly this belief was rooted in
the Jews. It has also led modern scientists to discredit entirely the
hypothesis of the ancients. It has given rise to the formation of different
religious sects, which, like the Adventists of our century, are always living
in the expectation of the approaching destruction of the world.
As our planet revolves once
every year around the sun and at the same time turns once in every twenty-four
hours upon its own axis, thus traversing minor circles within a larger one, so
is the work of the smaller cyclic periods accomplished and recommenced, within
the Great Saros.
The revolution of the physical
world, according to the ancient doctrine, is attended by a like revolution in
the world of intellect -- the spiritual evolution of the world proceeding in
cycles, like the physical one.
Thus we see in history a
regular alternation of ebb and flow in the tide of human progress. The great
kingdoms and empires of the world, after reaching the culmination of their
greatness, descend again, in accordance with the same law by which they
ascended; till, having reached the lowest point, humanity reasserts itself and
mounts up once more, the height of its attainment being, by this law of
ascending progression by cycles, somewhat higher than the point from which it
had before descended.
The division of the history of
mankind into Golden, Silver, Copper and Iron Ages, is not a fiction. We see the
same thing in the literature of peoples. An age of great inspiration and
unconscious productiveness is invariably followed by an age of criticism and
consciousness. The one affords material for the analyzing and critical
intellect of the other.
Thus, all those great
characters who tower like giants in the history of mankind, like
Buddha-Siddartha, and Jesus, in the realm of spiritual, and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Higgins:
"Anacalypsis."
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PROTOTYPES.
Alexander the Macedonian and
Napoleon the Great, in the realm of physical conquests, were but reflexed
images of human types which had existed ten thousand years before, in the
preceding decimillennium, reproduced by the mysterious powers controlling the
destinies of our world. There is no prominent character in all the annals of
sacred or profane history whose prototype we cannot find in the half-fictitious
and half-real traditions of bygone religions and mythologies. As the star,
glimmering at an immeasurable distance above our heads, in the boundless
immensity of the sky, reflects itself in the smooth waters of a lake, so does
the imagery of men of the antediluvian ages reflect itself in the periods we
can embrace in an historical retrospect.
"As above, so it is
below. That which has been, will return again. As in heaven, so on earth."
The world is always ungrateful
to its great men. Florence has built a statue to Galileo, but hardly even
mentions Pythagoras. The former had a ready guide in the treatises of
Copernicus, who had been obliged to contend against the universally established
Ptolemaic system. But neither Galileo nor modern astronomy discovered the
emplacement of the planetary bodies. Thousands of ages before, it was taught by
the sages of Middle Asia, and brought thence by Pythagoras, not as a
speculation, but as a demonstrated science. "The numerals of Pythagoras,"
says Porphyry, "were hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained
all ideas concerning the nature of all things."*
Verily, then, to antiquity
alone have we to look for the origin of all things. How well Hargrave Jennings
expresses himself when speaking of Pyramids, and how true are his words when he
asks: "Is it at all reasonable to conclude, at a period when knowledge was
at the highest, and when the human powers were, in comparison with ours at the
present time, prodigious, that all these indomitable, scarcely believable
physical effects -- that such achievements as those of the Egyptians -- were
devoted to a mistake? that the myriads of the Nile were fools laboring in the
dark, and that all the magic of their great men was forgery, and that we, in
despising that which we call their superstition and wasted power, are alone the
wise? No! there is much more in these old religions than probably -- in the
audacity of modern denial, in the confidence of these superficial-science
times, and in the derision of these days without faith -- is in the least
degree supposed. We do not understand the old time. . . . . Thus we see how
classic practice and heathen teaching may be made to reconcile -- how even the
Gentile and the Hebrew, the mytho-
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* "De Vite Pythag."
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logical and the Christian
doctrine harmonize in the general faith founded on Magic. That Magic is indeed
possible is the moral of this book."*
It is possible. Thirty years
ago, when the first rappings of Rochester awakened slumbering attention to the
reality of an invisible world; when the gentle shower of raps gradually became
a torrent which overflowed the whole globe, spiritualists had to contend but
against two potencies -- theology and science. But the theosophists have, in
addition to these, to meet the world at large and the spiritualists first of
all.
"There is a personal God,
and there is a personal Devil!" thunders the Christian preacher. "Let
him be anathema who dares say nay!" "There is no personal God, except
the gray matter in our brain," contemptuously replies the materialist.
"And there is no Devil. Let him be considered thrice an idiot who says
aye." Meanwhile the occultists and true philosophers heed neither of the
two combatants, but keep perseveringly at their work. None of them believe in
the absurd, passionate, and fickle God of superstition, but all of them believe
in good and evil. Our human reason, the emanation of our finite mind, is
certainly incapable of comprehending a divine intelligence, an endless and
infinite entity; and, according to strict logic, that which transcends our
understanding and would remain thoroughly incomprehensible to our senses cannot
exist for us; hence, it does not exist. So far finite reason agrees with
science, and says: "There is no God." But, on the other hand, our
Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal
casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for
the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No
dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling
inherent in man, when he has once fully realized it in himself.
Human nature is like universal
nature in its abhorrence of a vacuum. It feels an intuitional yearning for a
Supreme Power. Without a God, the cosmos would seem to it but like a soulless
corpse. Being forbidden to search for Him where alone His traces would be
found, man filled the aching void with the personal God whom his spiritual
teachers built up for him from the crumbling ruins of heathen myths and hoary
philosophies of old. How otherwise explain the mushroom growth of new sects,
some of them absurd beyond degree? Mankind have one innate, irrepressible
craving, that must be satisfied in any religion that would supplant the
dogmatic, undemonstrated and undemonstrable theology of our Christian ages.
This is the yearning after the proofs of immortality. As Sir Thomas Browne has
expressed it: . . . . "it is the heaviest stone that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "The
Rosicrucians," etc., by Hargrave Jennings.
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IMMORTALITY.
melancholy can throw at a man,
to tell him that he is at the end of his nature, or that there is no future
state to come, unto which this seems progressive, and otherwise made in
vain." Let any religion offer itself that can supply these proofs in the
shape of scientific facts, and the established system will be driven to the
alternative of fortifying its dogmas with such facts, or of passing out of the
reverence and affection of Christendom. Many a Christian divine has been forced
to acknowledge that there is no authentic source whence the assurance of a
future state could have been derived by man. How could then such a belief have
stood for countless ages, were it not that among all nations, whether civilized
or savage, man has been allowed the demonstrative proof? Is not the very
existence of such a belief an evidence that thinking philosopher and
unreasoning savage have both been compelled to acknowledge the testimony of
their senses? That if, in isolated instances, spectral illusion may have
resulted from physical causes, on the other hand, in thousands of instances,
apparitions of persons have held converse with several individuals at once, who
saw and heard them collectively, and could not all have been diseased in mind?
The greatest thinkers of
Greece and Rome regarded such matters as demonstrated facts. They distinguished
the apparitions by the names of manes, anima and umbra: the manes descending
after the decease of the individual into the Underworld; the anima, or pure
spirit, ascending to heaven; and the restless umbra (earth-bound spirit),
hovering about its tomb, because the attraction of matter and love of its
earthly body prevailed in it and prevented its ascension to higher regions.
"Terra legit carnem
tumulum circumvolet umbra,
Orcus habet manes, spiritus
astra petit,"
says Ovid, speaking of the
threefold constituents of souls.
But all such definitions must
be subjected to the careful analysis of philosophy. Too many of our thinkers do
not consider that the numerous changes in language, the allegorical phraseology
and evident secretiveness of old Mystic writers, who were generally under an
obligation never to divulge the solemn secrets of the sanctuary, might have
sadly misled translators and commentators. The phrases of the mediaeval
alchemist they read literally; and even the veiled symbolology of Plato is
commonly misunderstood by the modern scholar. One day they may learn to know
better, and so become aware that the method of extreme necessarianism was
practiced in ancient as well as in modern philosophy; that from the first ages
of man, the fundamental truths of all that we are permitted to know on earth
was in the safe keeping of the adepts of the sanc-
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tuary; that the difference in
creeds and religious practice was only external; and that those guardians of
the primitive divine revelation, who had solved every problem that is within
the grasp of human intellect, were bound together by a universal freemasonry of
science and philosophy, which formed one unbroken chain around the globe. It is
for philology and psychology to find the end of the thread. That done, it will
then be ascertained that, by relaxing one single loop of the old religious
systems, the chain of mystery may be disentangled.
The neglect and withholding of
these proofs have driven such eminent minds as Hare and Wallace, and other men
of power, into the fold of modern spiritualism. At the same time it has forced
others, congenitally devoid of spiritual intuitions, into a gross materialism
that figures under various names.
But we see no utility in
prosecuting the subject further. For, though in the opinion of most of our
contemporaries, there has been but one day of learning, in whose twilight stood
the older philosophers, and whose noontide brightness is all our own; and
though the testimony of scores of ancient and mediaeval thinkers has proved
valueless to modern experimenters, as though the world dated from A.D. 1, and
all knowledge were of recent growth, we will not lose hope or courage. The
moment is more opportune than ever for the review of old philosophies.
Archaeologists, philologists, astronomers, chemists and physicists are getting
nearer and nearer to the point where they will be forced to consider them.
Physical science has already reached its limits of exploration; dogmatic
theology sees the springs of its inspiration dry. Unless we mistake the signs,
the day is approaching when the world will receive the proofs that only ancient
religions were in harmony with nature, and ancient science embraced all that
can be known. Secrets long kept may be revealed; books long forgotten and arts
long time lost may be brought out to light again; papyri and parchments of
inestimable importance will turn up in the hands of men who pretend to have
unrolled them from mummies, or stumbled upon them in buried crypts; tablets and
pillars, whose sculptured revelations will stagger theologians and confound
scientists, may yet be excavated and interpreted. Who knows the possibilities
of the future? An era of disenchantment and rebuilding will soon begin -- nay,
has already begun. The cycle has almost run its course; a new one is about to
begin, and the future pages of history may contain full evidence, and convey
full proof that
"If ancestry can be in
aught believed,
Descending spirits have
conversed with man,
And told him secrets of the
world unknown."
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CHAPTER II
"Pride, where wit fails,
steps in to our defence
And fills up all the mighty
void of sense. . . . " -- POPE.
"But why should the
operations of nature be changed? There may be a deeper philosophy than we dream
of -- a philosophy that discovers the secrets of nature, but does not alter, by
penetrating them, its course." -- BULWER.
IS it enough for man to know
that he exists? Is it enough to be formed a human being to enable him to
deserve the appellation of MAN? It is our decided impression and conviction,
that to become a genuine spiritual entity, which that designation implies, man
must first create himself anew, so to speak -- i.e., thoroughly eliminate from
his mind and spirit, not only the dominating influence of selfishness and other
impurity, but also the infection of superstition and prejudice. The latter is
far different from what we commonly term antipathy or sympathy. We are at first
irresistibly or unwittingly drawn within its dark circle by that peculiar
influence, that powerful current of magnetism which emanates from ideas as well
as from physical bodies. By this we are surrounded, and finally prevented through
moral cowardice -- fear of public opinion -- from stepping out of it. It is
rare that men regard a thing in either its true or false light, accepting the
conclusion by the free action of their own judgment. Quite the reverse. The
conclusion is more commonly reached by blindly adopting the opinion current at
the hour among those with whom they associate. A church member will not pay an
absurdly high price for his pew any more than a materialist will go twice to
listen to Mr. Huxley's talk on evolution, because they think that it is right
to do so; but merely because Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so have done it, and these
personages are THE S---- AND S----'s.
The same holds good with
everything else. If psychology had had its Darwin, the descent of man as regards
moral qualities might have been found inseparably linked with that of his
physical form. Society in its servile condition suggests to the intelligent
observer of its mimicry a kinship between the Simia and human beings even more
striking than is exhibited in the external marks pointed out by the great
anthropologist.
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The many varieties of the ape
-- "mocking presentments of ourselves" -- appear to have been evolved
on purpose to supply a certain class of expensively-dressed persons with the
material for genealogical trees.
Science is daily and rapidly
moving toward the great discoveries in chemistry and physics, organology, and
anthropology. Learned men ought to be free from preconceptions and prejudices
of every kind; yet, although thought and opinion are now free, scientists are
still the same men as of old. An Utopian dreamer is he who thinks that man ever
changes with the evolution and development of new ideas. The soil may be well
fertilized and made to yield with every year a greater and better variety of
fruit; but, dig a little deeper than the stratum required for the crop, and the
same earth will be found in the subsoil as was there before the first furrow
was turned.
Not many years ago, the person
who questioned the infallibility of some theological dogma was branded at once
an iconoclast and an infidel. Vae victis! . . . Science has conquered. But in
its turn the victor claims the same infallibility, though it equally fails to
prove its right. "Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis," the
saying of the good old Lotharius, applies to the case. Nevertheless, we feel as
if we had some right to question the high-priests of science.
For many years we have watched
the development and growth of that apple of discord -- MODERN SPIRITUALISM.
Familiar with its literature both in Europe and America, we have closely and eagerly
witnessed its interminable controversies and compared its contradictory
hypotheses. Many educated men and women -- heterodox spiritualists, of course
-- have tried to fathom the Protean phenomena. The only result was that they
came to the following conclusion: whatever may be the reason of these constant
failures -- whether such are to be laid at the door of the investigators
themselves, or of the secret Force at work -- it is at least proved that, in
proportion as the psychological manifestations increase in frequency and
variety, the darkness surrounding their origin becomes more impenetrable.
That phenomena are actually
witnessed, mysterious in their nature -- generally and perhaps wrongly termed
spiritual -- it is now idle to deny. Allowing a large discount for clever
fraud, what remains is quite serious enough to demand the careful scrutiny of
science. "E pur se muove," the sentence spoken ages since, has passed
into the category of household words. The courage of Galileo is not now required
to fling it into the face of the Academy. Psychological phenomena are already
on the offensive.
The position assumed by modern
scientists is that even though the occurrence of certain mysterious phenomena
in the presence of the
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PROOF.
mediums be a fact, there is no
proof that they are not due to some abnormal nervous condition of those
individuals. The possibility that they may be produced by returning human
spirits need not be considered until the other question is decided. Little
exception can be taken to this position. Unquestionably, the burden of proof
rests upon those who assert the agency of spirits. If the scientists would
grapple with the subject in good faith, showing an earnest desire to solve the
perplexing mystery, instead of treating it with undignified and unprofessional
contempt, they would be open to no censure. True, the great majority of
"spiritual" communications are calculated to disgust investigators of
even moderate intelligence. Even when genuine they are trivial, commonplace,
and often vulgar. During the past twenty years we have received through various
mediums messages purporting to be from Shakespere, Byron, Franklin, Peter the
Great, Napoleon and Josephine, and even from Voltaire. The general impression
made upon us was that the French conqueror and his consort seemed to have
forgotten how to spell words correctly; Shakespere and Byron had become chronic
inebriates; and Voltaire had turned an imbecile. Who can blame men trained to
habits of exactitude, or even simply well-educated persons, for hastily
concluding that when so much palpable fraud lies upon the surface, there could
hardly be truth if they should go to the bottom? The huckstering about of
pompous names attached to idiotic communications has given the scientific
stomach such an indigestion that it cannot assimilate even the great truth
which lies on the telegraphic plateaux of this ocean of psychological
phenomena. They judge by its surface, covered with froth and scum. But they
might with equal propriety deny that there is any clear water in the depths of
the sea when an oily scum was floating upon the surface. Therefore, if on one
hand we cannot very well blame them for stepping back at the first sight of
what seems really repulsive, we do, and have a right to censure them for their
unwillingness to explore deeper. Neither pearls nor cut diamonds are to be
found lying loose on the ground; and these persons act as unwisely as would a
professional diver, who should reject an oyster on account of its filthy and
slimy appearance, when by opening it he might find a precious pearl inside the
shell.
Even the just and severe
rebukes of some of their leading men are of no avail and the fear on the part
of men of science to investigate such an unpopular subject, seems to have now
become a general panic. "The phenomena chase the scientists, and the
scientists run away from the phenomena," very pointedly remarks M. A. N.
Aksakof in an able article on Mediumism and the St. Petersburg Scientific
Committee. The attitude
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of this body of professors
toward the subject which they had pledged themselves to investigate was
throughout simply disgraceful. Their premature and prearranged report was so
evidently partial and inconclusive as to call out a scornful protest even from
unbelievers.
The inconsistency of the logic
of our learned gentlemen against the philosophy of spiritualism proper is
admirably pointed out by Professor John Fisk -- one of their own body. In a
recent philosophical work, The Unseen World, while showing that from the very
definition of the terms, ,matter and spirit, the existence of spirit cannot be
demonstrated to the senses, and that thus no theory is amenable to scientific
tests, he deals a severe blow at his colleagues in the following lines:
"The testimony in such a
case," he says, "must, under the conditions of the present life, be
forever inaccessible. It lies wholly outside the range of experience. However
abundant it may be, we cannot expect to meet it. And, accordingly, our failure
to produce it does not raise even the slightest presumption against our theory.
When conceived in this way, the belief in the future life is without scientific
support, but at the same time it is placed beyond the need of scientific
support and the range of scientific criticism. It is a belief which no
imaginable future advance of physical discovery can in any way impugn. It is a
belief which is in no sense irrational, and which may be logically entertained
without in the least affecting our scientific habit of mind, or influencing our
scientific conclusions." "If now," he adds, "men of science
will accept the position that spirit is not matter, nor governed by the laws of
matter, and refrain from speculations concerning it restricted by their
knowledge of material things, they will withdraw what is to men of religion, at
present, their principal cause of irritation."
But, they will do no such
thing. They feel incensed at the brave, loyal, and highly commendable surrender
of such superior men as Wallace, and refuse to accept even the prudent and
restrictive policy of Mr. Crookes.
No other claim is advanced for
a hearing of the opinions contained in the present work than that they are
based upon many years' study of both ancient magic and its modern form,
Spiritualism. The former, even now, when phenomena of the same nature have
become so familiar to all, is commonly set down as clever jugglery. The latter,
when overwhelming evidence precludes the possibility of truthfully declaring it
charlatanry, is denominated an universal hallucination.
Many years of wandering among
"heathen" and "Christian" magicians, occultists,
mesmerisers; and the tutti quanti of white and black art, ought to be
sufficient, we think, to give us a certain right to
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BARRACHIAS-HASSAN-OGLU.
feel competent to take a
practical view of this doubted and very complicated question. We have
associated with the fakirs, the holy men of India, and seen them when in
intercourse with the Pitris. We have watched the proceedings and modus operandi
of the howling and dancing dervishes; held friendly communications with the
marabouts of European and Asiatic Turkey; and the serpent-charmers of Damascus
and Benares have but few secrets that we have not had the fortune to study.
Therefore, when scientists who have never had an opportunity of living among
these oriental jugglers and can judge at the best but superficially, tell us
that there is naught in their performances but mere tricks of prestidigitation,
we cannot help feeling a profound regret for such hasty conclusions. That such
pretentious claims should be made to a thorough analysis of the powers of
nature, and at the same time such unpardonable neglect displayed of questions
of purely physiological and psychological character, and astounding phenomena
rejected without either examination or appeal, is an exhibition of
inconsistency, strongly savoring of timidity, if not of moral obliquity.
If, therefore, we should ever
receive from some contemporaneous Faraday the same fling that that gentleman
made years since, when, with more sincerity than good breeding, he said that
"many dogs have the power of coming to much more logical conclusions than
some spiritualists,"* we fear we must still persist. Abuse is not
argument, least of all, proof. Because such men as Huxley and Tyndall denominate
spiritualism "a degrading belief" and oriental magic
"jugglery," they cannot thereby take from truth its verity.
Skepticism, whether it proceeds from a scientific or an ignorant brain, is
unable to overturn the immortality of our souls -- if such immortality is a
fact -- and plunge them into post-mortem annihilation. "Reason is subject
to error," says Aristotle; so is opinion; and the personal views of the
most learned philosopher are often more liable to be proved erroneous, than the
plain common sense of his own illiterate cook. In the Tales of the Impious
Khalif, Barrachias-Hassan-Oglu, the Arabian sage holds a wise discourse:
"Beware, O my son, of self-incense," he says. "It is the most
dangerous, on account of its agreeable intoxication. Profit by thy own wisdom,
but learn to respect the wisdom of thy fathers likewise. And remember, O my
beloved, that the light of Allah's truth will often penetrate much easier an
empty head, than one that is so crammed with learning that many a silver ray is
crowded out for want of space; . . . such is the case with our over-wise
Kadi."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* W. Crookes, F.R.S.:
"Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism."
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These representatives of
modern science in both hemispheres seem never to have exhibited more scorn, or
to have felt more bitterly toward the unsolvable mystery, than since Mr.
Crookes began the investigation of the phenomena, in London. This courageous
gentleman was the first to introduce to the public one of those alleged
"materialized" sentries that guard the forbidden gates. Following
after him, several other learned members of the scientific body had the rare
integrity, combined with a degree of courage, which, in view of the
unpopularity of the subject, may be deemed heroic, to take the phenomena in
hand.
But, alas! although the spirit,
indeed, was willing, the mortal flesh proved weak. Ridicule was more than the
majority of them could bear; and so, the heaviest burden was thrown upon the
shoulders of Mr. Crookes. An account of the benefit this gentleman reaped from
his disinterested investigations, and the thanks he received from his own
brother scientists, can be found in his three pamphlets, entitled, Researches
in the Phenomena of Spiritualism.
After a while, the members
appointed on the Committee of the Dialectical Society and Mr. Crookes, who had
applied to his mediums the most crucial tests, were forced by an impatient
public to report in so many plain words what they had seen. But what could they
say, except the truth? Thus, they were compelled to acknowledge: 1st. That the
phenomena which they, at least, had witnessed, were genuine, and impossible to
simulate; thus showing that manifestations produced by some unknown force,
could and did happen. 2d. That, whether the phenomena were produced by
disembodied spirits or other analogous entities, they could not tell; but that
manifestations, thoroughly upsetting many preconceived theories as to natural
laws, did happen and were undeniable. Several of these occurred in their own
families. 3d. That, notwithstanding all their combined efforts to the contrary,
beyond the indisputable fact of the reality of the phenomena, "glimpses of
natural action not yet reduced to law,"* they, to borrow the expression of
the Count de Gabalis, "could make neither head nor tail on't."
Now this was precisely what a
skeptical public had not bargained for. The discomfiture of the believers in
spiritualism had been impatiently anticipated before the conclusions of Messrs.
Crookes, Varley, and the Dialectical Society were announced. Such a confession
on the part of their brother-scientists was too humiliating for the pride of
even those who had timorously abstained from investigation. It was regarded as
really too much, that such vulgar and repulsive manifestations of phe-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* W. Crookes:
"Experiments on Psychic Force," page 25.
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nomena which had always, by
common consent of educated people, been regarded as nursery tales, fit only to
amuse hysterical servant-girls and afford revenue to professional somnambulists
-- that manifestations which had been consigned by the Academy and Institute of
Paris to oblivion, should so impertinently elude detection at the hands of
experts in physical sciences.
A tornado of indignation
followed the confession. Mr. Crookes depicts it in his pamphlet on Psychic
Force. He heads it very pointedly with the quotation from Galvani: "I am
attacked by two very opposite sects -- the scientists and the know-nothings,
yet I know that I have discovered one of the greatest forces in nature. . .
." He then proceeds:
"It was taken for granted
that the results of my experiments would be in accordance with their
preconceptions. What they really desired was not the truth, but an additional
witness in favor of their own foregone conclusions. When they found the facts
which that investigation established could not be made to fit those opinions,
why, . . . so much the worse for the facts. They try to creep out of their own
confident recommendations of the inquiry, by declaring 'that Mr. Home is a
clever conjurer who has duped us all.' 'Mr. Crookes might, with equal
propriety, examine the performances of an Indian juggler.' 'Mr. Crookes must
get better witnesses before he can be believed.' 'The thing is too absurd to be
treated seriously.' 'It is impossible, and therefore can't be.' . . . (I never
said it was impossible, I only said it was true.) 'The observers have all been
biologized, and fancy they saw things occur which really never took place,'
etc., etc., etc."*
After expending their energy
on such puerile theories as "unconscious cerebration,"
"involuntary muscular contraction," and the sublimely ridiculous one
of the "cracking knee-joints" (le muscle craqueur); after meeting
ignominious failures by the obstinate survival of the new force, and finally,
after every desperate effort to compass its obliteration, these filii
diffidentiae -- as St. Paul calls their class -- thought best to give up the
whole thing in disgust. Sacrificing their courageously persevering brethren as
a holocaust on the altar of public opinion, they withdrew in dignified silence.
Leaving the arena of investigation to more fearless champions, these unlucky
experimenters are not likely to ever enter it again.** It is easier by far to
deny the reality of such manifestations from a secure distance, than find for
them a proper place among the classes of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* W. Crookes:
"Spiritualism Viewed by the Light of Modern Science." See
"Quarterly Journal of Science."
** A. Aksakof: "Phenomena
of Mediumism."
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natural phenomena accepted by
exact science. And how can they, since all such phenomena pertain to
psychology, and the latter, with its occult and mysterious powers, is a terra
incognita for modern science. Thus, powerless to explain that which proceeds
directly from the nature of the human soul itself -- the existence of which
most of them deny -- unwilling at the same time to confess their ignorance,
scientists retaliate very unjustly on those who believe in the evidence of
their senses without any pretence to science.
"A kick from thee, O
Jupiter! is sweet," says the poet Tretiakowsky, in an old Russian tragedy.
Rude as those Jupiters of science may be occasionally toward us credulous
mortals, their vast learning -- in less abstruse questions, we mean -- if not
their manners, entitles them to public respect. But unfortunately it is not the
gods who shout the loudest.
The eloquent Tertullian,
speaking of Satan and his imps, whom he accuses of ever mimicking the Creator's
works, denominates them the "monkeys of God." It is fortunate for the
philosophicules that we have no modern Tertullian to consign them to an immortality
of contempt as the "monkeys of science."
But to return to genuine
scientists. "Phenomena of a merely objective character," says A. N.
Aksakof, "force themselves upon the representatives of exact sciences for
investigation and explanation; but the high-priests of science, in the face of
apparently such a simple question . . . are totally disconcerted! This subject
seems to have the privilege of forcing them to betray, not only the highest
code of morality -- truth, but also the supreme law of science -- experiment! .
. . They feel that there is something too serious underlying it. The cases of
Hare, Crookes, de Morgan, Varley, Wallace, and Butleroff create a panic! They
fear that as soon as they concede one step, they will have to yield the whole
ground. Time-honored principles, the contemplative speculations of a whole
life, of a long line of generations, are all staked on a single card!"*
In the face of such experience
as that of Crookes and the Dialectical Society, of Wallace and the late
Professor Hare, what can we expect from our luminaries of erudition? Their
attitude toward the undeniable phenomena is in itself another phenomenon. It is
simply incomprehensible, unless we admit the possibility of another
psychological disease, as mysterious and contagious as hydrophobia. Although we
claim no honor for this new discovery, we nevertheless propose to recognize it
under the name of scientific psychophobia.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* A. N. Aksakof:
"Phenomena of Mediumism."
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THEORIES.
They ought to have learned by
this time, in the school of bitter experience, that they can rely on the
self-sufficiency of the positive sciences only to a certain point; and that, so
long as there remains one single unexplained mystery in nature, the word
"impossible" is a dangerous word for them to pronounce.
In the Researches on the
Phenomena of Spiritualism, Mr. Crookes submits to the option of the reader
eight theories "to account for the phenomena observed."
These theories run as follows:
"First Theory. -- The
phenomena are all the result of tricks, clever mechanical arrangements, or
legerdemain; the mediums are impostors, and the rest of the company fools.
"Second Theory. -- The
persons at a seance are the victims of a sort of mania, or delusion, and
imagine phenomena to occur which have no real objective existence.
"Third Theory. -- The
whole is the result of conscious or unconscious cerebral action.
"Fourth Theory. -- The
result of the spirit of the medium, perhaps in association with the spirits of
some or all of the people present.
"Fifth Theory. -- The
actions of evil spirits, or devils, personifying whom or what they please, in
order to undermine Christianity, and ruin men's souls. (Theory of our
theologians.)
"Sixth Theory. -- The
actions of a separate order of beings living on this earth, but invisible and
immaterial to us. Able, however, occasionally to manifest their presence, known
in almost all countries and ages as demons (not necessarily bad), gnomes,
fairies, kobolds, elves, goblins, Puck, etc. (One of the claims of the
kabalists.)
"Seventh Theory. -- The
actions of departed human beings. (The spiritual theory par excellence.)
"Eighth Theory. -- (The
psychic force) . . . an adjunct to the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh
theories."
The first of these theories having
been proved valid only in exceptional, though unfortunately still too frequent
cases, must be ruled out as having no material bearing upon the phenomena
themselves. Theories the second and the third are the last crumbling
entrenchments of the guerilla of skeptics and materialists, and remain, as
lawyers say, "Adhuc sub judice lis est." Thus, we can deal in this
work but with the four remaining ones, the last, eighth, theory being according
to Mr. Crookes's opinion, but "a necessary adjunct" of the others.
How subject even a scientific
opinion is to error, we may see, if we only compare the several articles on
spiritual phenomena from the able
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pen of that gentleman, which
appeared from 1870 to 1875. In one of the first we read: . . . "the
increased employment of scientific methods will promote exact observations and
greater love of truths among inquirers, and will produce a race of observers
who will drive the worthless residuum of spiritualism hence into the unknown
limbo of magic and necromancy." And in 1875, we read, over his own
signature, minute and most interesting descriptions of the materialized spirit
-- Katie King!*
It is hardly possible to
suppose that Mr. Crookes could be under electro-biological influence or
hallucination for two or three consecutive years. The "spirit"
appeared in his own house, in his library, under the most crucial tests, and
was seen, felt, and heard by hundreds of persons.
But Mr. Crookes denies that he
ever took Katie King for a disembodied spirit. What was it then? If it was not
Miss Florence Cook, and his word is our sufficient guarantee for it -- then it
was either the spirit of one who had lived on earth, or one of those that come
directly under the sixth theory of the eight the eminent scientist offers to
the public choice. It must have been one of the classes named: Fairies,
Kobolds, Gnomes, Elves, Goblins, or a Puck.**
Yes; Katie King must have been
a fairy -- a Titania. For to a fairy only could be applied with propriety the
following poetic effusion which Mr. Crookes quotes in describing this wonderful
spirit:
"Round her she made an
atmosphere of life;
The very air seemed lighter
from her eyes;
They were so soft and
beautiful and rife
With all we can imagine of the
skies;
Her overpowering presence
makes you feel
It would not be idolatry to
kneel!"***
And thus, after having
written, in 1870, his severe sentence against spiritualism and magic; after
saying that even at that moment he believed "the whole affair a
superstition, or, at least, an unexplained trick -- a delusion of the
senses;"**** Mr. Crookes, in 1875, closes his letter with the following
memorable words: -- "To imagine, I say, the Katie King of the last three
years to be the result of imposture does more violence to one's reason and
common sense than to believe her to be what she herself affirms."*****
This last remark, moreover, conclusively proves that:
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "The Last of Katie
King," pamphlet iii., p. 119.
** Ibid., pam. i., p. 7.
*** "The Last of Katie
King," pamp. iii., p. 112.
**** Ibid., p. 112.
***** "Researches in the
Phenomena of Spiritualism," p. 45.
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OBSCURIUS.
1. Notwithstanding Mr. Crookes's
full convictions that the somebody calling herself Katie King was neither the
medium nor some confederate, but on the contrary an unknown force in nature,
which -- like love -- "laughs at locksmiths"; 2. That that hitherto
unrecognized form of Force, albeit it had become with him "not a matter of
opinion, but of absolute knowledge," -- the eminent investigator still did
not abandon to the last his skeptical attitude toward the question. In short,
he firmly believes in the phenomenon, but cannot accept the idea of its being
the human spirit of a departed somebody.
It seems to us, that, as far
as public prejudice goes, Mr. Crookes solves one mystery by creating a still
deeper one: the obscurum per obscurius. In other words, rejecting "the
worthless residuum of spiritualism," the courageous scientist fearlessly
plunges into his own "unknown limbo of magic and necromancy!"
The recognized laws of
physical science account for but a few of the more objective of the so-called
spiritual phenomena. While proving the reality of certain visible effects of an
unknown force, they have not thus far enabled scientists to control at will
even this portion of the phenomena. The truth is that the professors have not
yet discovered the necessary conditions of their occurrence. They must go as
deeply into the study of the triple nature of man -- physiological,
psychological, and divine -- as did their predecessors, the magicians,
theurgists, and thaumaturgists of old. Until the present moment, even those who
have investigated the phenomena as thoroughly and impartially as Mr. Crookes,
have set aside the cause as something not to be discovered now, if ever. They
have troubled themselves no more about that than about the first cause of the
cosmic phenomena of the correlation of forces, whose endless effects they are
at such pains to observe and classify. Their course has been as unwise as that
of a man who should attempt to discover the sources of a river by exploring
toward its mouth. It has so narrowed their views of the possibilities of
natural law that very simple forms of occult phenomena have necessitated their
denial that they can occur unless miracles were possible; and this being a
scientific absurdity the result has been that physical science has latterly
been losing prestige. If scientists had studied the so-called
"miracles" instead of denying them, many secret laws of nature
comprehended by the ancients would have been again discovered.
"Conviction," says Bacon, "comes not through arguments but
through experiments."
The ancients were always
distinguished -- especially the Chaldean astrologers and Magians -- for their
ardent love and pursuit of knowledge in every branch of science. They tried to
penetrate the secrets of na-
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ture in the same way as our
modern naturalists, and by the only method by which this object can be
obtained, namely: by experimental researches and reason. If our modern
philosophers cannot apprehend the fact that they penetrated deeper than
themselves into the mysteries of the universe, this does not constitute a valid
reason why the credit of possessing this knowledge should be denied them or the
imputation of superstition laid at their door. Nothing warrants the charge; and
every new archaeological discovery militates against the assumption. As
chemists they were unequalled, and in his famous lecture on The Lost Arts,
Wendell Phillips says: "The chemistry of the most ancient period had
reached a point which we have never even approached." The secret of the
malleable glass, which, "if supported by one end by its own weight, in
twenty hours dwindles down to a fine line that you can curve around your
wrist," would be as difficult to rediscover in our civilized countries as
to fly to the moon.
The fabrication of a cup of
glass which was brought by an exile to Rome in the reign of Tiberius, -- a cup
"which he dashed upon the marble pavement, and it was not crushed nor
broken by the fall," and which, as it got "dented some" was
easily brought into shape again with a hammer, is a historic fact. If it is
doubted now it is merely because the moderns cannot do the same. And yet, in
Samarkand and some monasteries of Thibet such cups and glass-ware may be found
to this day; nay, there are persons who claim that they can make the same by
virtue of their knowledge of the much-ridiculed and ever-doubted alkahest --
the universal solvent. This agent that Paracelsus and Van Helmont maintain to
be a certain fluid in nature, "capable of reducing all sublunary bodies,
as well homogeneous as mixed, into their ens primum, or the original matter of
which they are composed; or into an uniform, equable, and potable liquor, that
will unite with water, and the juices of all bodies, and yet retain its own
radical virtues; and, if again mixed with itself will thereby be converted into
pure elementary water": what impossibilities prevent our crediting the
statement? Why should it not exist and why the idea be considered Utopian? Is
it again because our modern chemists are unable to produce it? But surely it
may be conceived without any great effort of imagination that all bodies must
have originally come from some first matter, and that this matter, according to
the lessons of astronomy, geology and physics, must have been a fluid. Why
should not gold -- of whose genesis our scientists know so little -- have been
originally a primitive or basic matter of gold, a ponderous fluid which, as
says Van Helmont, "from its own nature, or a strong cohesion between its
particles, acquired afterward a solid form?"
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There seems to be very little
absurdity to believe in a "universal ens that resolves all bodies into
their ens genitale." Van Helmont calls it "the highest and most
successful of all salts; which having obtained the supreme degree of
simplicity, purity, subtilty, enjoys alone the faculty of remaining unchanged
and unimpaired by the subjects it works upon, and of dissolving the most
stubborn and untractable bodies; as stones, gems, glass, earth, sulphur,
metals, etc., into red salt, equal in weight to the matter dissolved; and this
with as much ease as hot water melts down snow."
It is into this fluid that the
makers of malleable glass claimed, and now claim, that they immersed common
glass for several hours, to acquire the property of malleability.
We have a ready and palpable
proof of such possibilities. A foreign correspondent of the Theosophical
Society, a well-known medical practitioner, and one who has studied the occult
sciences for upward of thirty years, has succeeded in obtaining what he terms
the "true oil of gold," i.e., the primal element. Chemists and
physicists have seen and examined it, and were driven to confess that they
neither knew how it was obtained nor could they do the same. That he desires
his name to remain unknown is not to be wondered at; ridicule and public
prejudice are more dangerous sometimes than the inquisition of old. This
"Adamic earth" is next-door neighbor to the alkahest, and one of the
most important secrets of the alchemists. No Kabalist will reveal it to the
world, for, as he expresses it in the well-known jargon: "it would explain
the eagles of the alchemists, and how the eagles' wings are clipped," a
secret that it took Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes) twenty years to
learn.
As the dawn of physical
science broke into a glaring day-light, the spiritual sciences merged deeper
and deeper into night, and in their turn they were denied. So, now, these
greatest masters in psychology are looked upon as "ignorant and
superstitious ancestors"; as mountebanks and jugglers, because, forsooth,
the sun of modern learning shines to-day so bright, it has become an axiom that
the philosophers and men of science of the olden time knew nothing, and lived
in a night of superstition. But their traducers forget that the sun of to-day
will seem dark by comparison with the luminary of to-morrow, whether justly or
not; and as the men of our century think their ancestors ignorant, so will
perhaps their descendants count them for know-nothings. The world moves in
cycles. The coming races will be but the reproductions of races long bygone; as
we, perhaps, are the images of those who lived a hundred centuries ago. The
time will come when those who now in public slan-
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der the hermetists, but ponder
in secret their dust-covered volumes; who plagiarize their ideas, assimilate
and give them out as their own -- will receive their dues. "Who,"
honestly exclaims Pfaff -- "what man has ever taken more comprehensive
views of nature than Paracelsus? He was the bold creator of chemical medicines;
the founder of courageous parties; victorious in controversy, belonging to
those spirits who have created amongst us a new mode of thinking on the natural
existence of things. What he scattered through his writings on the
philosopher's stone, on pigmies and spirits of the mines; on signs, on
homunculi, and the elixir of life, and which are employed by many to lower his
estimation, cannot extinguish our grateful remembrance of his general works,
nor our admiration of his free, bold exertions, and his noble, intellectual
life."*
More than one pathologist,
chemist, homoeopathist, and magnetist has quenched his thirst for knowledge in
the books of Paracelsus. Frederick Hufeland got his theoretical doctrines on
infection from this mediaeval "quack," as Sprengel delights in
calling one who was immeasurably higher than himself. Hemman, who endeavors to
vindicate this great philosopher, and nobly tries to redress his slandered
memory, speaks of him as the "greatest chemist of his time."** So do
Professor Molitor,*** and Dr. Ennemoser, the eminent German psychologist.****
According to their criticisms on the labors of this Hermetist, Paracelsus is
the most "wondrous intellect of his age," a "noble genius."
But our modern lights assume to know better, and the ideas of the Rosicrucians
about the elementary spirits, the goblins and the elves, have sunk into the
"limbo of magic" and fairy tales for early childhoods.*****
We are quite ready to concede
to skeptics that one-half, and even more, of seeming phenomena, are but more or
less clever fraud. Recent exposures, especially of "materializing"
mediums, but too well prove the fact. Unquestionably numerous others are still
in store, and this will
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Pfaff's
"Astrology." Berl.
** "Medico-Surgical
Essays."
*** "The Philosophy of
Hist."
**** On Theoph. Paracelsus. --
Magic.
***** Kemshead says in his
"Inorganic Chemistry" that "the element hydrogen was first
mentioned in the sixteenth century by Paracelsus, but very little was known of
it in any way." (P. 66.) And why not be fair and confess at once that
Paracelsus was the re-discoverer of hydrogen as he was the re-discoverer of the
hidden properties of the magnet and animal magnetism? It is easy to show that
according to the strict vows of secrecy taken and faithfully observed by every
Rosicrucian (and especially by the alchemist) he kept his knowledge secret.
Perhaps it would not prove a very difficult task for any chemist well versed in
the works of Paracelsus to demonstrate that oxygen, the discovery of which is
credited to Priestley, was known to the Rosicrucian alchemists as well as
hydrogen.
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CHURCHWARD.
continue until tests have
become so perfect and spiritualists so reasonable as no longer to furnish
opportunity to mediums or weapons to adversaries.
What should sensible
spiritualists think of the character of angel guides, who after monopolizing,
perhaps for years, a poor medium's time, health and means, suddenly abandon him
when he most needs their help? None but creatures without soul or conscience
would be guilty of such injustice. Conditions? -- Mere sophistry. What sort of
spirits must they be who would not summon if necessary an army of
spirit-friends (if such there be) to snatch the innocent medium from the pit
dug for his feet? Such things happened in the olden time, such may happen now.
There were apparitions before modern spiritualism, and phenomena like ours in
every previous age. If modern manifestations are a reality and palpable facts,
so must have been the so-called "miracles" and thaumaturgic exploits
of old; or if the latter are but fictions of superstition so must be the
former, for they rest on no better testimony.
But, in this daily-increasing
torrent of occult phenomena that rushes from one end of the globe to the other,
though two-thirds of the manifestations are proved spurious, what of those
which are proved genuine beyond doubt or cavil? Among these may be found
communications coming through non-professional as well as professional mediums,
which are sublime and divinely grand. Often, through young children, and
simple-minded ignorant persons, we receive philosophical teachings and
precepts, poetry and inspirational orations, music and paintings that are fully
worthy of the reputations of their alleged authors. Their prophecies are often
verified and their moral disquisitions beneficent, though the latter is of
rarer occurrence. Who are those spirits, what those powers or intelligences
which are evidently outside of the medium proper and entities per se? These
intelligences deserve the appellation; and they differ as widely from the generality
of spooks and goblins that hover around the cabinets for physical
manifestations, as day from night.
We must confess that the
situation appears to be very grave. The control of mediums by such unprincipled
and lying "spirits" is constantly becoming more and more general; and
the pernicious effects of seeming diabolism constantly multiply. Some of the
best mediums are abandoning the public rostrum and retiring from this
influence; and the movement is drifting churchward. We venture the prediction that
unless spiritualists set about the study of ancient philosophy, so as to learn
to discriminate between spirits and to guard themselves against the baser sort,
twenty-five years more will not elapse before they will have to fly to the
Romish communion to escape these "guides" and "controls"
that they have fondled so long. The signs of this catastrophe already exhibit
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themselves. At a recent
convention at Philadelphia, it was seriously proposed to organize a sect of
Christian Spiritualists! This is because, having withdrawn from the church and
learned nothing of the philosophy of the phenomena, or the nature of their
spirits, they are drifting about on a sea of uncertainty like a ship without
compass or rudder. They cannot escape the dilemma; they must choose between
Porphyry and Pio Nono.
While men of genuine science,
such as Wallace, Crookes, Wagner, Butlerof, Varley, Buchanan, Hare,
Reichenbach, Thury, Perty, de Morgan, Hoffmann, Goldschmidt, W. Gregory,
Flammarion, Sergeant Cox and many others, firmly believe in the current
phenomena, many of the above named reject the theory of departed spirits.
Therefore, it seems but logical to think that if the London "Katie
King," the only materialized something which the public is obliged more or
less to credit out of respect to science, -- is not the spirit of an ex-mortal,
then it must be the astral solidified shadow of either one of the Rosicrucian
spooks -- "fantasies of superstition" -- or of some as yet
unexplained force in nature. Be it however a "spirit of health or goblin
damn'd" it is of little consequence; for if it be once proved that its
organism is not solid matter, then it must be and is a "spirit," an
apparition, a breath. It is an intelligence which acts outside our organisms
and therefore must belong to some existing even though unseen race of beings.
But what is it? What is this something which thinks and even speaks but yet is
not human; that is impalpable and yet not a disembodied spirit; that simulates
affection, passion, remorse, fear, joy, but yet feels neither? What is this
canting creature which rejoices in cheating the truthful inquirer and mocking
at sacred human feeling? For, if not Mr. Crookes's Katie King, other similar
creatures have done all these. Who can fathom the mystery? The true
psychologist alone. And where should he go for his text-books but to the
neglected alcoves of libraries where the works of despised hermetists and
theurgists have been gathering dust these many years.
Says Henry More, the revered
English Platonist, in his answer to an attack on the believers of spiritual and
magic phenomena by a skeptic of that age, named Webster:* "As for that
other opinion, that the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Letter to J. Glanvil,
chaplain to the king and a fellow of the Royal Society." Glanvil was the author
of the celebrated work on Apparitions and Demonology entitled "Sadducismus
Triumphatus, or a full and plain evidence concerning witches and
apparitions," in two parts, "proving partly by Scripture, and partly
by a choice collection of modern relations, the real existence of apparitions,
spirits and witches." -- 1700.
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THING.
greater part of the reformed
divines hold, that it was the Devil that appeared in Samuel's shape, it is
beneath contempt; for though I do not doubt but that in many of these
necromantic apparitions, they are ludicrous spirits, not the souls of the
deceased that appear, yet I am clear for the appearing of the soul of Samuel,
and as clear that in other necromancies, it may be such kinds of spirits, as
Porphyrius above describes, 'that change themselves into omnifarious forms and
shapes, and one while act the parts of daemons, another while of angels or
gods, and another while of the souls of the departed.' And I confess such a
spirit as this might personate Samuel here, for anything Webster alleged to the
contrary, for his arguments indeed are wonderfully weak and wooden."
When such a metaphysician and
philosopher as Henry More gives such testimony as this, we may well assume our
point to have been well taken. Learned investigators, all very skeptical as to
spirits in general and "departed human spirits" in particular, during
the last twenty years have taxed their brains to invent new names for an old
thing. Thus, with Mr. Crookes and Sergeant Cox, it is the "psychic
force." Professor Thury of Geneva calls it the "psychode" or
ectenic force; Professor Balfour Stewart, the "electro-biological
power"; Faraday, the "great master of experimental philosophy in
physics," but apparently a novice in psychology, superciliously termed it
an "unconscious muscular action," an "unconscious cerebration,"
and what not? Sir William Hamilton, a "latent thought"; Dr.
Carpenter, "the ideo-motor principle," etc., etc. So many scientists
-- so many names.
Years ago the old German
philosopher, Schopenhauer, disposed of this force and matter at the same time;
and since the conversion of Mr. Wallace, the great anthropologist has evidently
adopted his ideas. Schopenhauer's doctrine is that the universe is but the
manifestation of the will. Every force in nature is also an effect of will,
representing a higher or lower degree of its objectiveness. It is the teaching
of Plato, who stated distinctly that everything visible was created or evolved
out of the invisible and eternal WILL, and after its fashion. Our Heaven -- he
says -- was produced according to the eternal pattern of the "Ideal World,"
contained, as everything else, in the dodecahedron, the geometrical model used
by the Deity.* With Plato, the Primal Being is an emanation of the Demiurgic
Mind (Nous), which contains from the eternity the "idea" of the
"to be created world" within itself, and which idea he produces out
of himself.** The laws of nature are the established relations of this idea to
the forms of its manifestations; "these
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Plato: "Timaeus
Soerius," 97.
** See Movers'
"Explanations," 268.
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forms," says
Schopenhauer, "are time, space, and causality. Through time and space the
idea varies in its numberless manifestations."
These ideas are far from being
new, and even with Plato they were not original. This is what we read in the
Chaldean Oracles:* "The works of nature co-exist with the intellectual
[[noerio]], spiritual Light of the Father. For it is the soul [[psuche]] which
adorned the great heaven, and which adorns it after the Father."
"The incorporeal world
then was already completed, having its seat in the Divine Reason," says
Philo** who is erroneously accused of deriving his philosophy from Plato's.
In the Theogony of Mochus, we
find AEther first, and then the air; the two principles from which Ulom, the
intelligible [[noetos]] God (the visible universe of matter) is born.***
In the Orphic hymns, the
Eros-Phanes evolves from the Spiritual Egg, which the AEthereal winds
impregnate, Wind**** being "the spirit of God," who is said to move
in AEther, "brooding over the Chaos" -- the Divine "Idea."
In the Hindu Katakopanisad, Purusha, the Divine Spirit, already stands before
the original matter, from whose union springs the great Soul of the World,
"Maha =Atma, Brahm, the Spirit of Life";***** these latter
appellations are identical with the Universal Soul, or Anima Mundi, and the
Astral Light of the theurgists and kabalists.
Pythagoras brought his
doctrines from the eastern sanctuaries, and Plato compiled them into a form
more intelligible than the mysterious numerals of the sage -- whose doctrines
he had fully embraced -- to the uninitiated mind. Thus, the Cosmos is "the
Son" with Plato, having for his father and mother the Divine Thought and
Matter.******
"The Egyptians,"
says Dunlap,******* "distinguish between an older and younger Horus, the
former the brother of Osiris, the latter the son of Osiris and Isis." The
first is the Idea of the world remaining in the Demiurgic Mind, "born in
darkness before the creation of the world." The second Horus is this
"Idea" going forth from the Logos, becoming clothed with matter, and
assuming an actual existence.********
"The mundane God,
eternal, boundless, young and old, of winding form," ********* say the
Chaldean Oracles.
This "winding form"
is a figure to express the vibratory motion of the Astral Light, with which the
ancient priests were perfectly well
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Cory: "Chaldean
Oracles," 243.
** Philo Judaeus: "On the
Creation," x.
*** Movers:
"Phoinizer," 282.
**** K. O. Muller, 236.
***** Weber: "Akad.
Vorles," 213, 214, etc.
****** Plutarch, "Isis
and Osiris," i., vi.
******* "Spirit History
of Man," p. 88.
******** Movers:
"Phoinizer," 268.
********* Cory:
"Fragments," 240.
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acquainted, though they may
have differed in views of ether, with modern scientists; for in the AEther they
placed the Eternal Idea pervading the Universe, or the Will which becomes
Force, and creates or organizes matter.
"The will," says Van
Helmont, "is the first of all powers. For through the will of the Creator
all things were made and put in motion. . . . The will is the property of all
spiritual beings, and displays itself in them the more actively the more they
are freed from matter." And Paracelsus, "the divine," as he was
called, adds in the same strain: "Faith must confirm the imagination, for
faith establishes the will. . . . Determined will is a beginning of all magical
operations. . . . Because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result,
is that the arts are uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain."
The opposing power alone of
unbelief and skepticism, if projected in a current of equal force, can check
the other, and sometimes completely neutralize it. Why should spiritualists
wonder that the presence of some strong skeptics, or of those who, feeling
bitterly opposed to the phenomenon, unconsciously exercise their will-power in
opposition, hinders and often stops altogether the manifestations? If there is
no conscious power on earth but sometimes finds another to interfere with or
even counterbalance it, why wonder when the unconscious, passive power of a
medium is suddenly paralyzed in its effects by another opposing one, though it
also be as unconsciously exercised? Professors Faraday and Tyndall boasted that
their presence at a circle would stop at once every manifestation. This fact
alone ought to have proved to the eminent scientists that there was some force
in these phenomena worthy to arrest their attention. As a scientist, Prof.
Tyndall was perhaps pre-eminent in the circle of those who were present at the
seance; as a shrewd observer, one not easily deceived by a tricking medium, he
was perhaps no better, if as clever, as others in the room, and if the
manifestations were but a fraud so ingenious as to deceive the others, they
would not have stopped, even on his account. What medium can ever boast of such
phenomena as were produced by Jesus, and the apostle Paul after him? Yet even
Jesus met with cases where the unconscious force of resistance overpowered even
his so well directed current of will. "And he did not many mighty works
there, because of their unbelief."
There is a reflection of every
one of these views in Schopenhauer's philosophy. Our "investigating"
scientists might consult his works with profit. They will find therein many a
strange hypothesis founded on old ideas, speculations on the "new"
phenomena, which may prove as reasonable as any, and be saved the useless
trouble of inventing new
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theories. The psychic and ectenic
forces, the "ideo-motor" and "electro-biological powers";
"latent thought" and even "unconscious cerebration"
theories, can be condensed in two words: the kabalistic ASTRAL LIGHT.
The bold theories and opinions
expressed in Schopenhauer's works differ widely with those of the majority of
our orthodox scientists. "In reality," remarks this daring
speculator, "there is neither matter nor spirit. The tendency to
gravitation in a stone is as unexplainable as thought in human brain. . . . If
matter can -- no one knows why -- fall to the ground, then it can also -- no
one knows why -- think. . . . As soon, even in mechanics, as we trespass beyond
the purely mathematical, as soon as we reach the inscrutable, adhesion,
gravitation, and so on, we are faced by phenomena which are to our senses as
mysterious as the WILL and THOUGHT in man -- we find ourselves facing the
incomprehensible, for such is every force in nature. Where is then that matter
which you all pretend to know so well; and from which -- being so familiar with
it -- you draw all your conclusions and explanations, and attribute to it all
things? . . . That, which can be fully realized by our reason and senses, is
but the superficial: they can never reach the true inner substance of things.
Such was the opinion of Kant. If you consider that there is in a human head
some sort of a spirit, then you are obliged to concede the same to a stone. If
your dead and utterly passive matter can manifest a tendency toward
gravitation, or, like electricity, attract and repel, and send out sparks --
then, as well as the brain, it can also think. In short, every particle of the
so-called spirit, we can replace with an equivalent of matter, and every
particle of matter replace with spirit. . . . Thus, it is not the Cartesian
division of all things into matter and spirit that can ever be found
philosophically exact; but only if we divide them into will and manifestation,
which form of division has naught to do with the former, for it spiritualizes
every thing: all that, which is in the first instance real and objective --
body and matter -- it transforms into a representation, and every manifestation
into will."*
These views corroborate what
we have expressed about the various names given to the same thing. The
disputants are battling about mere words. Call the phenomena force, energy,
electricity or magnetism, will, or spirit-power, it will ever be the partial
manifestation of the soul, whether disembodied or imprisoned for a while in its
body -- of a portion of that intelligent, omnipotent, and individual WILL,
pervading all nature, and known, through the insufficiency of human language to
express correctly psychological images, as -- GOD.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Parerga," ii.,
pp. 111, 112.
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"PARERGA."
The ideas of some of our
schoolmen about matter are, from the kabalistic standing-point, in many a way
erroneous. Hartmann calls their views "an instinctual prejudice."
Furthermore, he demonstrates that no experimenter can have anything to do with
matter properly termed, but only with the forces into which he divides it. The
visible effects of matter are but the effects of force. He concludes thereby,
that that which is now called matter is nothing but the aggregation of atomic
forces, to express which the word matter is used: outside of that, for science
matter is but a word void of sense. Notwithstanding many an honest confession
on the part of our specialists -- physicists, physiologists and chemists --
that they know nothing whatever of matter,* they deify it. Every new phenomenon
which they find themselves unable to explain, is triturated, compounded into
incense, and burned on the altar of the goddess who patronizes modern
scientists.
No one can better treat his
subject than does Schopenhauer in his Parerga. In this work he discusses at
length animal magnetism, clairvoyance, sympathetic cures, seership, magic,
omens, ghost-seeing, and other spiritual matters. "All these
manifestations," he says, "are branches of one and the same tree, and
furnish us with irrefutable proofs of the existence of a chain of beings which
is based on quite a different order of things than that nature which has at its
foundation laws of space, time and adaptability. This other order of things is
far deeper, for it is the original and the direct one; in its presence the
common laws of nature, which are simply formal, are unavailing; therefore,
under its immediate action neither time nor space can separate any longer the
individuals, and the separation impendent on these forms presents no more
insurmountable barriers for the intercourse of thoughts and the immediate
action of the will. In this manner changes may be wrought by quite a different
course than the course of physical causality, i.e., through an action of the
manifestation of the will exhibited in a peculiar way and outside the
individual himself. Therefore the peculiar character of all the aforesaid
manifestations is the visio in distante et actio in distante (vision and action
at a distance) in its relation to time as well as in its relation to space.
Such an action at a distance is just what constitutes the fundamental character
of what is called magical; for such is the immediate action of our will, an
action liberated from the causal conditions of physical action, viz.,
contact."
"Besides that,"
continues Schopenhauer, "these manifestations present to us a substantial
and perfectly logical contradiction to materialism, and even to naturalism,
because in the light of such manifestations,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Huxley: "Physical
Basis of Life."
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that order of things in nature
which both these philosophies seek to present as absolute and the only genuine,
appears before us on the contrary purely phenomenal and superficial, and
containing at the bottom of it a substance of things a parte and perfectly
independent of its own laws. That is why these manifestations -- at least from
a purely philosophical point of view -- among all the facts which are presented
to us in the domain of experiment, are beyond any comparison the most
important. Therefore, it is the duty of every scientist to acquaint himself with
them."*
To pass from the philosophical
speculations of a man like Schopenhauer to the superficial generalizations of
some of the French Academicians, would be profitless but for the fact that it
enables us to estimate the intellectual grasp of the two schools of learning.
What the German makes of profound psychological questions, we have seen.
Compare with it the best that the astronomer Babinet and the chemist
Boussingault can offer by way of explaining an important spiritualistic
phenomenon. In 1854-5 these distinguished specialists presented to the Academy
a memoire, or monograph, whose evident object was to corroborate and at the
same time make clearer Dr. Chevreuil's too complicated theory in explanation of
the turning-tables, of the commission for the investigation of which he was a
member.
Here it is verbatim: "As
to the movements and oscillations alleged to happen with certain tables, they
can have no cause other than the invisible and involuntary vibrations of the
experimenter's muscular system; the extended contraction of the muscles
manifesting itself at such time by a series of vibrations, and becoming thus a
visible tremor which communicates to the object a circumrotary motion. This
rotation is thus enabled to manifest itself with a considerable energy, by a
gradually quickening motion, or by a strong resistance, whenever it is required
to stop. Hence the physical explanation of the phenomenon becomes clear and
does not offer the slightest difficulty."**
None whatever. This scientific
hypothesis -- or demonstration shall we say? -- is as clear as one of M.
Babinet's nebulae examined on a foggy night.
And still, clear as it may be,
it lacks an important feature, i.e., common sense. We are at a loss to decide
whether or not Babinet accepts en desespoir de cause Hartmann's proposition
that "the visible effects of matter are nothing but the effects of a
force," and, that in order to form a clear conception of matter, one must
first form one of force. The philosophy to the school of which belongs Hartmann,
and which is
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* Schopenhauer:
"Parerga." Art. on "Will in Nature."
** "Revue des Deux
Mondes," Jan. 15, 1855, p. 108.
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ATOMS.
partly accepted by several of
the greatest German scientists, teaches that the problem of matter can only be
solved by that invisible Force, acquaintance with which Schopenhauer terms the
"magical knowledge," and "magical effect or action of
Will." Thus, we must first ascertain whether the "involuntary
vibrations of the experimenter's muscular system," which are but
"actions of matter," are influenced by a will within the experimenter
or without. In the former case Babinet makes of him an unconscious epileptic;
the latter, as we will further see, he rejects altogether, and attributes all
intelligent answers of the tipping or rapping tables to "unconscious
ventriloquism."
We know that every exertion of
will results in force, and that, according to the above-named German school,
the manifestations of atomic forces are individual actions of will, resulting
in the unconscious rushing of atoms into the concrete image already
subjectively created by the will. Democritus taught, after his instructor
Leucippus, that the first principles of all things contained in the universe
were atoms and a vacuum. In its kabalistic sense, the vacuum means in this
instance the latent Deity, or latent force, which at its first manifestation
became WILL, and thus communicated the first impulse to these atoms -- whose
agglomeration, is matter. This vacuum was but another name for chaos, and an
unsatisfactory one, for, according to the Peripatetics "nature abhors a
vacuum."
That before Democritus the
ancients were familiar with the idea of the indestructibility of matter is
proved by their allegories and numerous other facts. Movers gives a definition
of the Phoenician idea of the ideal sun-light as a spiritual influence issuing
from the highest God, IAO, "the light conceivable only by intellect -- the
physical and spiritual Principle of all things; out of which the soul
emanates." It was the male Essence, or Wisdom, while the primitive matter
or Chaos was the female. Thus the two first principles -- co-eternal and
infinite, were already with the primitive Phoenicians, spirit and matter.
Therefore the theory is as old as the world; for Democritus was not the first
philosopher who taught it; and intuition existed in man before the ultimate
development of his reason. But it is in the denial of the boundless and endless
Entity, possessor of that invisible Will which we for lack of a better term
call GOD, that lies the powerlessness of every materialistic science to explain
the occult phenomena. It is in the rejection a priori of everything which might
force them to cross the boundary of exact science and step into the domain of
psychological, or, if we prefer, metaphysical physiology, that we find the
secret cause of their discomfiture by the manifestations, and their absurd
theories to account for them. The ancient philosophy affirmed that it is in
consequence of the manifestation of that Will -- termed by Plato the Divine
Idea -- that everything visible and invisible
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sprung into existence. As that
Intelligent Idea, which, by directing its sole will-power toward a centre of
localized forces called objective forms into being, so can man, the microcosm
of the great Macrocosm, do the same in proportion with the development of his
will-power. The imaginary atoms -- a figure of speech employed by Democritus,
and gratefully seized upon by the materialists -- are like automatic workmen
moved inwardIy by the influx of that Universal Will directed upon them, and
which, manifesting itself as force, sets them into activity. The plan of the
structure to be erected is in the brain of the Architect, and reflects his
will; abstract as yet, from the instant of the conception it becomes concrete
through these atoms which follow faithfully every line, point and figure traced
in the imagination of the Divine Geometer.
As God creates, so man can
create. Given a certain intensity of will, and the shapes created by the mind
become subjective. Hallucinations, they are called, although to their creator
they are real as any visible object is to any one else. Given a more intense
and intelligent concentration of this will, and the form becomes concrete,
visible, objective; the man has learned the secret of secrets; he is a
MAGICIAN.
The materialist should not
object to this logic, for he regards thought as matter. Conceding it to be so,
the cunning mechanism contrived by the inventor; the fairy scenes born in the
poet's brain; the gorgeous painting limned by the artist's fancy; the peerless
statue chiselled in ether by the sculptor; the palaces and castles built in air
by the architect -- all these, though invisible and subjective, must exist, for
they are matter, shaped and moulded. Who shall say, then, that there are not
some men of such imperial will as to be able to drag these air-drawn fancies
into view, enveloped in the hard casing of gross substance to make them
tangible?
If the French scientists
reaped no laurels in the new field of investigation, what more was done in
England, until the day when Mr. Crookes offered himself in atonement for the
sins of the learned body? Why, Mr. Faraday, some twenty years ago, actually
condescended to be spoken to once or twice upon the subject. Faraday, whose
name is pronounced by the anti-spiritualists in every discussion upon the phenomena,
as a sort of scientific charm against the evil-eye of Spiritualism, Faraday,
who "blushed" for having published his researches upon such a
degrading belief, is now proved on good authority to have never sat at a
tipping table himself at all! We have but to open a few stray numbers of the
Journal des Debats, published while a noted Scotch medium was in England, to
recall the past events in all their primitive freshness. In one of these
numbers, Dr. Foucault, of Paris, comes out as a champion for the eminent
English experimenter. "Pray, do not imagine," says he,
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GLUE.
"that the grand physicist
had ever himself condescended so far as to sit prosaically at a jumping
table." Whence, then, came the "blushes" which suffused the
cheeks of the "Father of Experimental Philosophy"? Remembering this
fact, we will now examine the nature of Faraday's beautiful
"Indicator," the extraordinary "Medium-Catcher," invented
by him for the detection of mediumistic fraud. That complicated machine, the
memory of which haunts like a nightmare the dreams of dishonest mediums, is
carefully described in Comte de Mirville's Question des Esprits.
The better to prove to the
experimenters the reality of their own impulsion, Professor Faraday placed
several card-board disks, united to each other and stuck to the table by a
half-soft glue, which, making the whole adhere for a time together, would,
nevertheless, yield to a continuous pressure. Now, the table having turned --
yes, actually having dared to turn before Mr. Faraday, which fact is of some
value, at least -- the disks were examined; and, as they were found to have
gradually displaced themselves by slipping in the same direction as the table,
it thus became an unquestionable proof that the experimenters had pushed the
tables themselves.
Another of the so-called
scientific tests, so useful in a phenomenon alleged to be either spiritual or
psychical, consisted of a small instrument which immediately warned the
witnesses of the slightest personal impulsion on their part, or rather,
according to Mr. Faraday's own expression, "it warned them when they
changed from the passive to the active state." This needle which betrayed
the active motion proved but one thing, viz.: the action of a force which
either emanated from the sitters or controlled them. And who has ever said that
there is no such force? Every one admits so much, whether this force passes
through the operator, as it is generally shown, or acts independently of him,
as is so often the case. "The whole mystery consisted in the disproportion
of the force employed by the operators, who pushed because they were forced to
push, with certain effects of rotation, or rather, of a really marvellous race.
In the presence of such prodigious effects, how could any one imagine that the
Lilliputian experiments of that kind could have any value in this newly discovered
Land of Giants?"*
Professor Agassiz, who
occupied in America nearly the same eminent position as a scientist which Mr.
Faraday did in England, acted with a still greater unfairness. Professor J. R.
Buchanan, the distinguished anthropologist, who has treated Spiritualism in
some respects more scientifically than any one else in America, speaks of
Agassiz, in a recent article, with
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* Comte de Mirville:
"Question des Esprits."
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a very just indignation. For,
of all other men, Professor Agassiz ought to believe in a phenomenon to which
he had been a subject himself. But now that both Faraday and Agassiz are
themselves disembodied, we can do better by questioning the living than the
dead.
Thus a force whose secret
powers were thoroughly familiar to the ancient theurgists, is denied by modern
skeptics. The antediluvian children -- who perhaps played with it, using it as
the boys in Bulwer-Lytton's Coming Race, use the tremendous "vril" --
called it the "Water of Phtha"; their descendants named it the Anima
Mundi, the soul of the universe; and still later the mediaeval hermetists
termed it "sidereal light," or the "Milk of the Celestial
Virgin," the "Magnes," and many other names. But our modern
learned men will neither accept nor recognize it under such appellations; for
it pertains to magic, and magic is, in their conception, a disgraceful
superstition.
Apollonius and Iamblichus held
that it was not "in the knowledge of things without, but in the perfection
of the soul within, that lies the empire of man, aspiring to be more than
men."* Thus they had arrived at a perfect cognizance of their godlike
souls, the powers of which they used with all the wisdom, outgrowth of esoteric
study of the hermetic lore, inherited by them from their forefathers. But our
philosophers, tightly shutting themselves up in their shells of flesh, cannot
or dare not carry their timid gaze beyond the comprehensible. For them there is
no future life; there are no godlike dreams, they scorn them as unscientific;
for them the men of old are but "ignorant ancestors," as they express
it; and whenever they meet during their physiological researches with an author
who believes that this mysterious yearning after spiritual knowledge is
inherent in every human being, and cannot have been given us utterly in vain,
they regard him with contemptuous pity.
Says a Persian proverb:
"The darker the sky is, the brighter the stars will shine." Thus, on
the dark firmament of the mediaeval ages began appearing the mysterious
Brothers of the Rosie Cross. They formed no associations, they built no
colleges; for, hunted up and down like so many wild beasts, when caught by the
Christian Church, they were unceremoniously roasted. "As religion forbids
it," says Bayle, "to spill blood," therefore, "to elude the
maxim, Ecclesia non novit sanguinem, they burned human beings, as burning a man
does not shed his blood!"
Many of these mystics, by
following what they were taught by some treatises, secretly preserved from one
generation to another, achieved discoveries which would not be despised even in
our modern days of exact sciences. Roger Bacon, the friar, was laughed at as a
quack, and
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* Bulwer-Lytton:
"Zanoni."
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is now generally numbered
among "pretenders" to magic art; but his discoveries were
nevertheless accepted, and are now used by those who ridicule him the most.
Roger Bacon belonged by right if not by fact to that Brotherhood which includes
all those who study the occult sciences. Living in the thirteenth century,
almost a contemporary, therefore, of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, his
discoveries -- such as gunpowder and optical glasses, and his mechanical
achievements -- were considered by every one as so many miracles. He was
accused of having made a compact with the Evil One.
In the legendary history of
Friar Bacon, as "well as in an old play written by Robert Green, a
dramatist in the days of Queen Elizabeth, it is recounted, that, having been
summoned before the king, the friar was induced to show" some of his skill
before her majesty the queen. So he waved his hand (his wand, says the text),
and "presently was heard such excellent music, that they all said they had
never heard the like." Then there was heard a still louder music and four
apparitions suddenly presented themselves and danced until they vanished and
disappeared in the air. Then he waved his wand again, and suddenly there was
such a smell "as if all the rich perfumes in the whole world had been
there prepared in the best manner that art could set them out." Then Roger
Bacon having promised a gentleman to show him his sweetheart, he pulled a
hanging in the king's apartment aside and every one in the room saw "a
kitchen-maid with a basting-ladle in her hand." The proud gentleman,
although he recognized the maiden who disappeared as suddenly as she had
appeared, was enraged at the humiliating spectacle, and threatened the friar
with his revenge. What does the magician do? He simply answers: "Threaten
not, lest I do you more shame; and do you take heed how you give scholars the
lie again!"
As a commentary on this, the
modern historian* remarks: "This may be taken as a sort of exemplification
of the class of exhibitions which were probably the result of a superior
knowledge of natural sciences." No one ever doubted that it was the result
of precisely such a knowledge, and the hermetists, magicians, astrologers and
alchemists never claimed anything else. It certainly was not their fault that
the ignorant masses, under the influence of an unscrupulous and fanatical
clergy, should have attributed all such works to the agency of the devil. In
view of the atrocious tortures provided by the Inquisition for all suspected of
either black or white magic, it is not strange that these philosophers neither
boasted nor even acknowledged the fact of such an intercourse. On the contrary,
their own writings prove that they held that magic is "no more than the
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* T. Wright: "Narratives
of Sorcery and Magic."
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application of natural active
causes to passive things or subjects; by means thereof, many tremendously
surprising but yet natural effects are produced."
The phenomena of the mystic
odors and music, exhibited by Roger Bacon, have been often observed in our own
time. To say nothing of our personal experience, we are informed by English
correspondents of the Theosophical Society that they have heard strains of the
most ravishing music, coming from no visible instrument, and inhaled a
succession of delightful odors produced, as they believed, by spirit-agency.
One correspondent tells us that so powerful was one of these familiar odors --
that of sandal-wood -- that the house would be impregnated with it for weeks
after the seance. The medium in this case was a member of a private family, and
the experiments were all made within the domestic circle. Another describes
what he calls a "musical rap." The potencies that are now capable of
producing these phenomena must have existed and been equally efficacious in the
days of Roger Bacon. As to the apparitions, it suffices to say that they are
evoked now in spiritualistic circles, and guaranteed by scientists, and their
evocation by Roger Bacon is thus made more probable than ever.
Baptista Porta, in his
treatise on Natural Magic, enumerates a whole catalogue of secret formulae for
producing extraordinary effects by employing the occult powers of nature.
Although the "magicians" believed as firmly as our spiritualists in a
world of invisible spirits, none of them claimed to produce his effects under
their control or through their sole help. They knew too well how difficult it
is to keep away the elementary creatures when they have once found the door
wide open. Even the magic of the ancient Chaldeans was but a profound knowledge
of the powers of simples and minerals. It was only when the theurgist desired
divine help in spiritual and earthly matters that he sought direct
communication through religious rites, with pure spiritual beings. With them,
even, those spirits who remain invisible and communicate with mortals through
their awakened inner senses, as in clairvoyance, clairaudience and trance, could
only be evoked subjectively and as a result of purity of life and prayer. But
all physical phenomena were produced simply by applying a knowledge of natural
forces, although certainly not by the method of legerdemain, practiced in our
days by conjurers.
Men possessed of such
knowledge and exercising such powers patiently toiled for something better than
the vain glory of a passing fame. Seeking it not, they became immortal, as do
all who labor for the good of the race, forgetful of mean self. Illuminated with
the light of eternal truth, these rich-poor alchemists fixed their attention
upon the things that lie beyond the common ken, recognizing nothing inscrutable
but the First
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Cause, and finding no question
unsolvable. To dare, to know, to will, and REMAIN SILENT, was their constant
rule; to be beneficent, unselfish, and unpretending, were, with them,
spontaneous impulses. Disdaining the rewards of petty traffic, spurning wealth,
luxury, pomp, and worldly power, they aspired to knowledge as the most
satisfying of all acquisitions. They esteemed poverty, hunger, toil, and the evil
report of men, as none too great a price to pay for its achievement. They, who
might have lain on downy, velvet-covered beds, suffered themselves to die in
hospitals and by the wayside, rather than debase their souls and allow the
profane cupidity of those who tempted them to triumph over their sacred vows.
The lives of Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, and Philalethes are too well known
to repeat the old, sad story.
If spiritualists are anxious
to keep strictly dogmatic in their notions of the "spirit-world,"
they must not set scientists to investigate their phenomena in the true
experimental spirit. The attempt would most surely result in a partial
re-discovery of the magic of old -- that of Moses and Paracelsus. Under the
deceptive beauty of some of their apparitions, they might find some day the
sylphs and fair Undines of the Rosicrucians playing in the currents of psychic
and odic force.
Already Mr. Crookes, who fully
credits the being, feels that under the fair skin of Katie, covering a
simulacrum of heart borrowed partially from the medium and the circle, there is
no soul! And the learned authors of The Unseen Universe, abandoning their
"electro-biological" theory, begin to perceive in the universal ether
the possibility that it is a photographic album of EN-SOPH -- the Boundless.
We are far from believing that
all the spirits that communicate at circles are of the classes called
"Elemental," and "Elementary." Many -- especially among
those who control the medium subjectively to speak, write, and otherwise act in
various ways -- are human, disembodied spirits. Whether the majority of such
spirits are good or bad, largely depends on the private morality of the medium,
much on the circle present, and a great deal on the intensity and object of
their purpose. If this object is merely to gratify curiosity and to pass the
time, it is useless to expect anything serious. But, in any case, human spirits
can never materialize themselves in propria persona. These can never appear to
the investigator clothed with warm, solid flesh, sweating hands and faces, and
grossly-material bodies. The most they can do is to project their aethereal
reflection on the atmospheric waves, and if the touch of their hands and
clothing can become upon rare occasions objective to the senses of a living
mortal, it will be felt as a passing breeze gently sweeping over the touched
spot, not as a human hand or material body. It is useless to plead that the
"materialized spirits" that have exhibited themselves with
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beating hearts and loud voices
(with or without a trumpet) are human spirits. The voices -- if such sound can be
termed a voice at all -- of a spiritual apparition once heard can hardly be
forgotten. That of a pure spirit is like the tremulous murmur of an AEolian
harp echoed from a distance; the voice of a suffering, hence impure, if not
utterly bad spirit, may be assimilated to a human voice issuing from an empty
barrel.
This is not our philosophy,
but that of the numberless generations of theurgists and magicians, and based
upon their practical experience. The testimony of antiquity is positive on this
subject: [[Daimonioin phonai anarthroi eisi]]. . . .* The voices of spirits are
not articulated. The spirit-voice consists of a series of sounds which conveys
the impression of a column of compressed air ascending from beneath upward, and
spreading around the living interlocutor. The many eye-witnesses who testified
in the case of Elizabeth Eslinger, namely:** the deputy-governor of the prison
of Weinsberg, Mayer, Eckhart, Theurer, and Knorr (sworn evidence), Duttenhofer,
and Kapff, the mathematician, testified that they saw the apparition like a
pillar of clouds. For the space of eleven weeks, Doctor Kerner and his sons,
several Lutheran ministers, the advocate Fraas, the engraver Duttenhofer, two
physicians, Siefer and Sicherer, the judge Heyd, and the Baron von Hugel, with
many others, followed this manifestation daily. During the time it lasted, the
prisoner Elizabeth prayed with a loud voice uninterruptedly; therefore, as the
"spirit" was talking at the same time, it could be no ventriloquism;
and that voice, they say, "had nothing human in it; no one could imitate
its sounds."
Further on we will give
abundant proofs from ancient authors concerning this neglected truism. We will
now only again assert that no spirit claimed by the spiritualists to be human
was ever proved to be such on sufficient testimony. The influence of the
disembodied ones can be felt, and communicated subjectively by them to
sensitives. They can produce objective manifestations, but they cannot produce
themselves otherwise than as described above. They can control the body of a
medium, and express their desires and ideas in various modes well known to
spiritualists; but not materialize what is matterless and purely spiritual --
their divine essence. Thus every so-called "materialization" -- when
genuine -- is either produced (perhaps) by the will of that spirit whom the
"appearance" is claimed to be but can only personate at best, or by
the elementary goblins themselves, which are generally too stupid to deserve
the honor of being called devils. Upon rare occasions the spirits are able to
subdue and control these soulless beings, which are ever ready to
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* See Des Mousseaux's
"Dodone," and "Dieu et les dieux," p. 326.
** "Apparitions,"
translated by C. Crowe, pp. 388, 391, 399.
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HUMAN.
assume pompous names if left
to themselves, in such a way that the mischievous spirit "of the
air," shaped in the real image of the human spirit, will be moved by the
latter like a marionette, and unable to either act or utter other words than those
imposed on him by the "immortal soul." But this requires many
conditions generally unknown to the circles of even spiritualists most in the
habit of regularly attending seances. Not every one can attract human spirits
who likes. One of the most powerful attractions of our departed ones is their
strong affection for those whom they have left on earth. It draws them
irresistibly, by degrees, into the current of the Astral Light vibrating
between the person sympathetic to them and the Universal Soul. Another very important
condition is harmony, and the magnetic purity of the persons present.
If this philosophy is wrong,
if all the "materialized" forms emerging in darkened rooms from still
darker cabinets, are spirits of men who once lived upon this earth, why such a difference
between them and the ghosts that appear unexpectedly -- ex abrupto -- without
either cabinet or medium? Who ever heard of the apparitions, unrestful
"souls," hovering about the spots where they were murdered, or coming
back for some other mysterious reasons of their own, with "warm
hands" feeling like living flesh, and but that they are known to be dead
and buried, not distinguishable from living mortals? We have well-attested
facts of such apparitions making themselves suddenly visible, but never, until
the beginning of the era of the "materializations," did we see
anything like them. In the Medium and Day Break, of September 8, 1876, we read
a letter from "a lady travelling on the continent," narrating a
circumstance that happened in a haunted house. She says: ". . . A strange
sound proceeded from a darkened corner of the library . . . on looking up she
perceived a cloud or column of luminous vapor; . . . . the earth-bound spirit
was hovering about the spot rendered accursed by his evil deed. . . ." As
this spirit was doubtless a genuine elementary apparition, which made itself
visible of its own free will -- in short, an umbra -- it was, as every
respectable shadow should be, visible but impalpable, or if palpable at all,
communicating to the feeling of touch the sensation of a mass of water suddenly
clasped in the hand, or of condensed but cold steam. It was luminous and
vapory; for aught we can tell it might have been the real personal umbra of the
"spirit," persecuted, and earth-bound, either by its own remorse and
crimes or those of another person or spirit. The mysteries of after-death are
many, and modern "materializations" only make them cheap and
ridiculous in the eyes of the indifferent.
To these assertions may be
opposed a fact well known among spiritualists: The writer has publicly
certified to having seen such materialized forms. We have most assuredly done
so, and are ready to repeat the
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testimony. We have recognized
such figures as the visible representations of acquaintances, friends, and even
relatives. We have, in company with many other spectators, heard them pronounce
words in languages unfamiliar not only to the medium and to every one else in
the room, except ourselves, but, in some cases, to almost if not quite every
medium in America and Europe, for they were the tongues of Eastern tribes and
peoples. At the time, these instances were justly regarded as conclusive proofs
of the genuine mediumship of the uneducated Vermont farmer who sat in the
"cabinet." But, nevertheless, these figures were not the forms of the
persons they appeared to be. They were simply their portrait statues,
constructed, animated and operated by the elementaries. If we have not
previously elucidated this point, it was because the spiritualistic public was
not then ready to even listen to the fundamental proposition that there are
elemental and elementary spirits. Since that time this subject has been
broached and more or less widely discussed. There is less hazard now in
attempting to launch upon the restless sea of criticism the hoary philosophy of
the ancient sages, for there has been some preparation of the public mind to
consider it with impartiality and deliberation. Two years of agitation have
effected a marked change for the better.
Pausanias writes that four
hundred years after the battle of Marathon, there were still heard in the place
where it was fought, the neighing of horses and the shouts of shadowy soldiers.
Supposing that the spectres of the slaughtered soldiers were their genuine
spirits, they looked like "shadows," not materialized men. Who, then,
or what, produced the neighing of horses? Equine "spirits"? And if it
be pronounced untrue that horses have spirits -- which assuredly no one among
zoologists, physiologists or psychologists, or even spiritualists, can either
prove or disprove -- then must we take it for granted that it was the
"immortal souls" of men which produced the neighing at Marathon to
make the historical battle scene more vivid and dramatic? The phantoms of dogs,
cats, and various other animals have been repeatedly seen, and the world-wide
testimony is as trustworthy upon this point as that with respect to human
apparitions. Who or what personates, if we are allowed such an expression, the
ghosts of departed animals? Is it, again, human spirits? As the matter now
stands, there is no side issue; we have either to admit that animals have
surviving spirits and souls as well as ourselves, or hold with Porphyry that
there are in the invisible world a kind of tricky and malicious demons,
intermediary beings between living men and "gods," spirits that delight
in appearing under every imaginable shape, beginning with the human form, and
ending with those of multifarious animals.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* "De Abstinentia,"
etc.
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CRIMES.
Before venturing to decide the
question whether the spectral animal forms so frequently seen and attested are
the returning spirits of dead beasts, we must carefully consider their reported
behavior. Do these spectres act according to the habits and display the same
instincts, as the animals during life? Do the spectral beasts of prey lie in
wait for victims, and timid animals flee before the presence of man; or do the
latter show a malevolence and disposition to annoy, quite foreign to their
natures? Many victims of these obsessions -- notably, the afflicted persons of
Salem and other historical witchcrafts -- testify to having seen dogs, cats,
pigs, and other animals, entering their rooms, biting them, trampling upon
their sleeping bodies, and talking to them; often inciting them to suicide and
other crimes. In the well-attested case of Elizabeth Eslinger, mentioned by Dr.
Kerner, the apparition of the ancient priest of Wimmenthal* was accompanied by
a large black dog, which he called his father, and which dog in the presence of
numerous witnesses jumped on all the beds of the prisoners. At another time the
priest appeared with a lamb, and sometimes with two lambs. Most of those
accused at Salem were charged by the seeresses with consulting and plotting
mischief with yellow birds, which would sit on their shoulder or on the beams
overhead.** And unless we discredit the testimony of thousands of witnesses, in
all parts of the world, and in all ages, and allow a monopoly of seership to
modern mediums, spectre-animals do appear and manifest all the worst traits of
depraved human nature, without themselves being human. What, then, can they be
but elementals?
Descartes was one of the few
who believed and dared say that to occult medicine we shall owe discoveries
"destined to extend the domain of philosophy"; and Brierre de
Boismont not only shared in these hopes but openly avowed his sympathy with
"supernaturalism," which he considered the universal "grand
creed." ". . . We think with Guizot," he says, "that the
existence of society is bound up in it. It is in vain that modern reason, which,
notwithstanding its positivism, cannot explain the intimate cause of any
phenomena, rejects the supernatural; it is universal, and at the root of all
hearts. The most elevated minds are frequently its most ardent
disciples."***
Christopher Columbus
discovered America, and Americus Vespucius reaped the glory and usurped his
dues. Theophrastus Paracelsus rediscovered the occult properties of the magnet
-- "the bone of Horus" which, twelve centuries before his time, had
played such an important part in the theurgic mysteries -- and he very naturally
became the founder
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* C. Crowe: "On
Apparitions," p. 398.
** Upham: "Salem
Witchcraft."
*** Brierre de Boismont:
"On Hallucinations," p. 60.
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of the school of magnetism and
of mediaeval magico-theurgy. But Mesmer, who lived nearly three hundred years after
him, and as a disciple of his school brought the magnetic wonders before the
public, reaped the glory that was due to the fire-philosopher, while the great
master died in a hospital!
So goes the world: new
discoveries, evolving from old sciences; new men -- the same old nature!
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CHAPTER III.
"The mirror of the soul
cannot reflect both earth and heaven; and the one vanishes from its surface, as
the other is glassed upon its deep." ZANONI.
"Qui, donc, t'a donne la
mission d'annoncer au peuple que la Divinite n'existe pas -- quel avantage
trouves tu a persuader a l'homme qu'une force aveugle preside a ses destinees
et frappe au hasard le crime et la vertu?"
ROBESPIERRE (Discours), May 7,
1794.
WE believe that few of those
physical phenomena which are genuine are caused by disembodied human spirits.
Still, even those that are produced by occult forces of nature, such as happen
through a few genuine mediums, and are consciously employed by the so-called
"jugglers" of India and Egypt, deserve a careful and serious
investigation by science; especially now that a number of respected authorities
have testified that in many cases the hypothesis of fraud does not hold. No
doubt, there are professed "conjurors" who can perform cleverer
tricks than all the American and English "John Kings" together.
Robert Houdin unquestionably could, but this did not prevent his laughing
outright in the face of the academicians, when they desired him to assert in
the newspapers, that he could make a table move, or rap answers to questions,
without contact of hands, unless the table was a prepared one.* The fact alone,
that a now notorious London juggler refused to accept a challenge for £1,000
offered him by Mr. Algernon Joy,* to produce such manifestations as are usually
obtained through mediums, unless he was left unbound and free from the hands of
a committee, negatives his expose of the occult phenomena. Clever as he may be,
we defy and challenge him to reproduce, under the same conditions, the
"tricks" exhibited even by a common Indian juggler. For instance, the
spot to be chosen by the investigators at the moment of the performance, and
the juggler to know nothing of the choice; the experiment to be made in broad
daylight, without the least preparations for it; without any confederate but a
boy absolutely naked, and the juggler to be in a condition of semi-nudity.
After that, we should select out of a variety three tricks, the most common
among such public jugglers, and that were recently exhibited to some gentlemen
belonging to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See de Mirville's
"Question des Esprits," and the works on the "Phenomenes
Spirites," by de Gasparin.
** Honorary Secretary to the
National Association of Spiritualists of London.
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the suite of the Prince of
Wales: 1. To transform a rupee -- firmly clasped in the hand of a skeptic --
into a living cobra, the bite of which would prove fatal, as an examination of
its fangs would show. 2. To cause a seed chosen at random by the spectators,
and planted in the first semblance of a flower-pot, furnished by the same
skeptics, to grow, mature, and bear fruit in less than a quarter of an hour. 3.
To stretch himself on three swords, stuck perpendicularly in the ground at
their hilts, the sharp points upward; after that, to have removed first one of
the swords, then the other, and, after an interval of a few seconds, the last
one, the juggler remaining, finally, lying on nothing -- on the air,
miraculously suspended at about one yard from the ground. When any
prestidigitateur, to begin with Houdin and end with the last trickster who has
secured gratuitous advertisement by attacking spiritualism, does the same, then
-- but only then -- we will train ourselves to believe that mankind has been
evolved out of the hind-toe of Mr. Huxley's Eocene Orohippus.
We assert again, in full
confidence, that there does not exist a professional wizard, either of the
North, South or West, who can compete with anything approaching success, with
these untutored, naked sons of the East. These require no Egyptian Hall for
their performances, nor any preparations or rehearsals; but are ever ready, at
a moment's notice, to evoke to their help the hidden powers of nature, which,
for European prestidigitateurs as well as for scientists, are a closed book.
Verily, as Elihu puts it, "great men are not always wise; neither do the
aged understand judgment."* To repeat the remark of the English divine, Dr.
Henry More, we may well say: ". . . indeed, if there were any modesty left
in mankind, the histories of the Bible might abundantly assure men of the
existence of angels and spirits." The same eminent man adds, "I look
upon it as a special piece of Providence that . . . fresh examples of
apparitions may awaken our benumbed and lethargic minds into an assurance that
there are other intelligent beings besides those that are clothed in heavy
earth or clay . . . for this evidence, showing that there are bad spirits, will
necessarily open a door to the belief that there are good ones, and lastly,
that there is a God." The instance above given carries a moral with it,
not only to scientists, but theologians. Men who have made their mark in the
pulpit and in professors' chairs, are continually showing the lay public that
they really know so little of psychology, as to take up with any plausible
schemer who comes their way, and so make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of
the thoughtful student. Public opinion upon this subject has been manufactured
by jugglers and self-styled savants, unworthy of respectful consideration.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Job.
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The development of
psychological science has been retarded far more by the ridicule of this class
of pretenders, than by the inherent difficulties of its study. The empty laugh
of the scientific nursling or of the fools of fashion, has done more to keep
man ignorant of his imperial psychical powers, than the obscurities, the
obstacles and the dangers that cluster about the subject. This is especially
the case with spiritualistic phenomena. That their investigation has been so
largely confined to incapables, is due to the fact that men of science, who
might and would have studied them, have been frightened off by the boasted
exposures, the paltry jokes, and the impertinent clamor of those who are not
worthy to tie their shoes. There are moral cowards even in university chairs.
The inherent vitality of modern spiritualism is proven in its survival of the
neglect of the scientific body, and of the obstreperous boasting of its
pretended exposers. If we begin with the contemptuous sneers of the patriarchs
of science, such as Faraday and Brewster, and end with the professional (?)
exposes of the successful mimicker of the phenomena, ----, of London, we will
not find them furnishing one single, well-established argument against the
occurrence of spiritual manifestations. "My theory is," says this
individual, in his recent soi-disant "expose," "that Mr.
Williams dressed up and personified John King and Peter. Nobody can prove that
it wasn't so." Thus it appears that, notwithstanding the bold tone of
assertion, it is but a theory after all, and spiritualists might well retort
upon the exposer, and demand that he should prove that it is so.
But the most inveterate,
uncompromising enemies of Spiritualism are a class very fortunately composed of
but few members, who, nevertheless, declaim the louder and assert their views
with a clamorousness worthy of a better cause. These are the pretenders to science
of young America -- a mongrel class of pseudo-philosophers, mentioned at the
opening of this chapter, with sometimes no better right to be regarded as
scholars than the possession of an electrical machine, or the delivery of a
puerile lecture on insanity and mediomania. Such men are -- if you believe them
-- profound thinkers and physiologists; there is none of your metaphysical
nonsense about them; they are Positivists -- the mental sucklings of Auguste
Comte, whose bosoms swell at the thought of plucking deluded humanity from the
dark abyss of superstition, and rebuilding the cosmos on improved principles.
Irascible psychophobists, no more cutting insult can be offered them than to
suggest that they may be endowed with immortal spirits. To hear them, one would
fancy that there can be no other souls in men and women than
"scientific" or "unscientific souls"; whatever that kind of
soul may be.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Dr. F. R. Marvin's
"Lectures on Mediomania and Insanity."
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Some thirty or forty years
ago, in France, Auguste Comte -- a pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique, who had
remained for years at that establishment as a repetiteur of Transcendant
Analysis and Rationalistic Mechanics -- awoke one fine morning with the very
irrational idea of becoming a prophet. In America, prophets can be met with at
every street-corner; in Europe, they are as rare as black swans. But France is
the land of novelties. Auguste Comte became a prophet; and so infectious is
fashion, sometimes, that even in sober England he was considered, for a certain
time, the Newton of the nineteenth century.
The epidemic extended, and for
the time being, it spread like wildfire over Germany, England, and America. It
found adepts in France, but the excitement did not last long with these. The
prophet needed money: the disciples were unwilling to furnish it. The fever of
admiration for a religion without a God cooled off as quickly as it had come
on; of all the enthusiastic apostles of the prophet, there remained but one
worthy of any attention. It was the famous philologist Littre, a member of the
French Institute, and a would-be member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences,
but whom the archbishop of Orleans maliciously prevented from becoming one of
the "Immortals."*
The philosopher-mathematician
-- the high-priest of the "religion of the future" -- taught his
doctrine as do all his brother-prophets of our modern days. He deified
"woman," and furnished her with an altar; but the goddess had to pay
for its use. The rationalists had laughed at the mental aberration of Fourier;
they had laughed at the St. Simonists; and their scorn for Spiritualism knew no
bounds. The same rationalists and materialists were caught, like so many
empty-headed sparrows, by the bird-lime of the new prophet's rhetoric. A
longing for some kind of divinity, a craving for the "unknown," is a
feeling congenital in man; hence the worst atheists seem not to be exempt from
it. Deceived by the outward brilliancy of this ignus fatuus, the disciples
followed it until they found themselves floundering in a bottomless morass.
Covering themselves with the
mask of a pretended erudition, the Positivists of this country have organized
themselves into clubs and committees with the design of uprooting Spiritualism,
while pretending to impartially investigate it.
Too timid to openly challenge
the churches and the Christian doctrine, they endeavor to sap that upon which
all religion is based -- man's faith in God and his own immortality. Their
policy is to ridicule that which affords an unusual basis for such a faith --
phenomenal Spiritualism.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Vapereau: "Biographie
Contemporaine," art. Littre; and Des Mousseaux: "Les Hauts Phenomenes
de la Magie," ch. 6.
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FUTURE.
Attacking it at its weakest
side, they make the most of its lack of an inductive method, and of the exaggerations
that are to be found in the transcendental doctrines of its propagandists.
Taking advantage of its unpopularity, and displaying a courage as furious and
out of place as that of the errant knight of La Mancha, they claim recognition
as philanthropists and benefactors who would crush out a monstrous
superstition.
Let us see in what degree
Comte's boasted religion of the future is superior to Spiritualism, and how
much less likely its advocates are to need the refuge of those lunatic asylums
which they officiously recommend for the mediums whom they have been so
solicitous about. Before beginning, let us call attention to the fact that
three-fourths of the disgraceful features exhibited in modern Spiritualism are
directly traceable to the materialistic adventurers pretending to be
spiritualists. Comte has fulsomely depicted the
"artificially-fecundated" woman of the future. She is but elder
sister to the Cyprian ideal of the free-lovers. The immunity against the future
offered by the teachings of his moonstruck disciples, has inoculated some
pseudo-spiritualists to such an extent as to lead them to form communistic
associations. None, however, have proved long-lived. Their leading feature
being generally a materialistic animalism, gilded over with a thin leaf of
Dutch-metal philosophy and tricked out with a combination of hard Greek names,
the community could not prove anything else than a failure.
Plato, in the fifth book of
the Republic, suggests a method for improving the human race by the elimination
of the unhealthy or deformed individuals, and by coupling the better specimens
of both sexes. It was not to be expected that the "genius of our
century," even were he a prophet, would squeeze out of his brain anything
entirely new.
Comte was a mathematician.
Cleverly combining several old utopias, he colored the whole, and, improving on
Plato's idea, materialized it, and presented the world with the greatest
monstrosity that ever emanated from a human mind!
We beg the reader to keep in
view, that we do not attack Comte as a philosopher, but as a professed
reformer. In the irremediable darkness of his political, philosophical and
religious views, we often meet with isolated observations and remarks in which
profound logic and judiciousness of thought rival the brilliancy of their
interpretation. But then, these dazzle you like flashes of lightning on a
gloomy night, to leave you, the next moment, more in the dark than ever. If
condensed and repunctuated, his several works might produce, on the whole, a volume
of very original aphorisms, giving a very clear and really clever definition of
most of our social evils; but it would be vain to seek, either through the
tedious circumlocution of the six volumes of his Cours de Philoso-
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phie Positive, or in that
parody on priesthood, in the form of a dialogue -- The Catechism of the
Religion of Positivism -- any idea suggestive of even provisional remedies for
such evils. His disciples suggest that the sublime doctrines of their prophet
were not intended for the vulgar. Comparing the dogmas preached by Positivism
with their practical exemplifications by its apostles, we must confess the
possibility of some very achromatic doctrine being at the bottom of it. While
the "high-priest" preaches that "woman must cease to be the
female of the man";* while the theory of the positivist legislators on
marriage and the family, chiefly consists in making the woman the "mere
companion of man by ridding her of every maternal function";** and while
they are preparing against the future a substitute for that function by
applying "to the chaste woman" "a latent force,"*** some of
its lay priests openly preach polygamy, and others affirm that their doctrines
are the quintessence of spiritual philosophy.
In the opinion of the Romish
clergy, who labor under a chronic nightmare of the devil, Comte offers his
"woman of the future" to the possession of the
"incubi."**** In the opinion of more prosaic persons, the Divinity of
Positivism, must henceforth be regarded as a biped broodmare. Even Littre, made
prudent restrictions while accepting the apostleship of this marvellous
religion. This is what he wrote in 1859:
"M. Comte not only
thought that he found the principles, traced the outlines, and furnished the
method, but that he had deduced the consequences and constructed the social and
religious edifice of the future. It is in this second division that we make our
reservations, declaring, at the same time, that we accept as an inheritance,
the whole of the first."*****
Further, he says: "M.
Comte, in a grand work entitled the System of the Positive Philosophy,
established the basis of a philosophy [?] which must finally supplant every
theology and the whole of metaphysics. Such a work necessarily contains a
direct application to the government of societies; as it has nothing arbitrary
in it [?] and as we find therein a real science [?], my adhesion to the
principles involves my adhesion to the essential consequences."
M. Littre has shown himself in
the light of a true son of his prophet. Indeed the whole system of Comte
appears to us to have been built on a play of words. When they say
"Positivism," read Nihilism; when you hear the word chastity, know
that it means impudicity; and so on.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* A. Comte: "Systeme de
Politique Positive," vol. i., p. 203, etc.
** Ibid.
*** Ibid.
**** See des Mousseaux:
"Hauts Phenomenes de la Magie," chap. 6.
***** Littre: "Paroles de
Philosophie Positive."
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NEGATION.
Being a religion based on a
theory of negation, its adherents can hardly carry it out practically without
saying white when meaning black!
"Positive
Philosophy," continues Littre, "does not accept atheism, for the
atheist is not a really-emancipated mind, but is, in his own way, a theologian
still; he gives his explanation about the essence of things; he knows how they
began! . . . Atheism is Pantheism; this system is quite theological yet, and
thus belongs to the ancient party."*
It really would be losing time
to quote any more of these paradoxical dissertations. Comte attained to the
apotheosis of absurdity and inconsistency when, after inventing his philosophy,
he named it a "Religion." And, as is usually the case, the disciples
have surpassed the reformer -- in absurdity. Supposititious philosophers, who
shine in the American academies of Comte, like a lampyris noctiluca beside a
planet, leave us in no doubt as to their belief, and contrast "that system
of thought and life" elaborated by the French apostle with the
"idiocy" of Spiritualism; of course to the advantage of the former.
"To destroy, you must replace"; exclaims the author of the Catechism
of the Religion of Positivism, quoting Cassaudiere, by the way, without
crediting him with the thought; and his disciples proceed to show by what sort
of a loathsome system they are anxious to replace Christianity, Spiritualism,
and even Science.
"Positivism,"
perorates one of them, "is an integral doctrine. It rejects completely all
forms of theological and metaphysical belief; all forms of supernaturalism, and
thus -- Spiritualism. The true positive spirit consists in substituting the
study of the invariable laws of phenomena for that of their so-called causes,
whether proximate or primary. On this ground it equally rejects atheism; for
the atheist is at bottom a theologian," he adds, plagiarizing sentences
from Littre's works: "the atheist does not reject the problems of
theology, only the solution of these, and so he is illogical. We Positivists
reject the problem in our turn on the ground that it is utterly inaccessible to
the intellect, and we would only waste our strength in a vain search for first
and final causes. As you see, Positivism gives a complete explanation [?] of
the world, of man, his duty and destiny . . . . "!**
Very brilliant this; and now,
by way of contrast, we will quote what a really great scientist, Professor
Hare, thinks of this system. "Comte's positive philosophy," he says,
"after all, is merely negative. It is admitted by Comte, that he knows
nothing of the sources and causes of nature's laws; that their origination is
so perfectly inscrutable as to make it idle to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Littre: "Paroles de
Philosophie Positive," vii., 57.
** "Spiritualism and
Charlatanism."
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take up time in any scrutiny
for that purpose. . . . Of course his doctrine makes him avowedly a thorough
ignoramus, as to the causes of laws, or the means by which they are
established, and can have no basis but the negative argument above stated, in
objecting to the facts ascertained in relation to the spiritual creation. Thus,
while allowing the atheist his material dominion, Spiritualism will erect
within and above the same space a dominion of an importance as much greater as
eternity is to the average duration of human life, and as the boundless regions
of the fixed stars are to the habitable area of this globe."*
In short, Positivism proposes
to itself to destroy Theology, Metaphysics, Spiritualism, Atheism, Materialism,
Pantheism, and Science, and it must finally end in destroying itself. De
Mirville thinks that according to Positivism, "order will begin to reign
in the human mind only on the day when psychology will become a sort of
cerebral physics, and history a kind of social physics." The modern
Mohammed first disburdens man and woman of God and their own soul, and then
unwittingly disembowels his own doctrine with the too sharp sword of
metaphysics, which all the time he thought he was avoiding, thus letting out
every vestige of philosophy.
In 1864, M. Paul Janet, a
member of the Institute, pronounced a discourse upon Positivism, in which occur
the following remarkable words:
"There are some minds
which were brought up and fed on exact and positive sciences, but which feel
nevertheless, a sort of instinctive impulse for philosophy. They can satisfy
this instinct but with elements that they have already on hand. Ignorant in
psychological sciences, having studied only the rudiments of metaphysics, they
nevertheless are determined to fight these same metaphysics as well as
psychology, of which they know as little as of the other. After this is done,
they will imagine themselves to have founded a Positive Science, while the
truth is that they have only built up a new mutilated and incomplete
metaphysical theory. They arrogate to themselves the authority and
infallibility properly belonging alone to the true sciences, those which are
based on experience and calculations; but they lack such an authority, for
their ideas, defective as they may be, nevertheless belong to the same class as
those which they attack. Hence the weakness of their situation, the final ruin
of their ideas, which are soon scattered to the four winds."**
The Positivists of America
have joined hands in their untiring efforts to overthrow Spiritualism. To show
their impartiality, though, they propound such novel queries as follows: "
. . . how much rationality is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Prof. Hare: "On Positivism,"
p. 29.
** "Journal des
Debats," 1864. See also des Mousseaux's "Hauts Phen. de la
Magie."
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FECUNDATION."
there in the dogmas of the
Immaculate Conception, the Trinity and Transubstantiation, if submitted to the
tests of physiology, mathematics, and chemistry?" and they "undertake
to say, that the vagaries of Spiritualism do not surpass in absurdity these
eminently respectable beliefs." Very well. But there is neither
theological absurdity nor spiritualistic delusion that can match in depravity
and imbecility that positivist notion of "artificial fecundation."
Denying to themselves all thought on primal and final causes, they apply their
insane theories to the construction of an impossible woman for the worship of
future generations; the living, immortal companion of man they would replace
with the Indian female fetich of the Obeah, the wooden idol that is stuffed
every day with serpents' eggs, to be hatched by the heat of the sun!
And now, if we are permitted
to ask in the name of common-sense, why should Christian mystics be taxed with
credulity or the spiritualists be consigned to Bedlam, when a religion
embodying such revolting absurdity finds disciples even among Academicians? --
when such insane rhapsodies as the following can be uttered by the mouth of
Comte and admired by his followers: "My eyes are dazzled; -- they open each
day more and more to the increasing coincidence between the social advent of
the feminine mystery, and the mental decadence of the eucharistical sacrament.
Already the Virgin has dethroned God in the minds of Southern Catholics!
Positivism realizes the Utopia of the mediaeval ages, by representing all the
members of the great family as the issue of a virgin mother without a husband.
. . ." And again, after giving the modus operandi: "The development
of the new process would soon cause to spring up a caste without heredity,
better adapted than vulgar procreation to the recruitment of spiritual chiefs,
or even temporal ones, whose authority would then rest upon an origin truly
superior, which would not shrink from an investigation."
To this we might inquire with propriety,
whether there has ever been found in the "vagaries of Spiritualism,"
or the mysteries of Christianity, anything more preposterous than this ideal
"coming race." If the tendency of materialism is not grossly belied
by the behavior of some of its advocates, those who publicly preach polygamy,
we fancy that whether or not there will ever be a sacerdotal stirp so begotten,
we shall see no end of progeny, -- the offspring of "mothers without
husbands."
How natural that a philosophy
which could engender such a caste of didactic incubi, should express through
the pen of one of its most garrulous essayists, the following sentiments:
"This is a sad, a very sad
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Philosophie
Positive," Vol. iv., p. 279.
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age,* full of dead and dying
faiths; full of idle prayers sent out in vain search for the departing gods.
But oh! it is a glorious age, full of the golden light which streams from the
ascending sun of science! What shall we do for those who are shipwrecked in
faith, bankrupt in intellect, but . . . who seek comfort in the mirage of
spiritualism, the delusions of transcendentalism, or the will o' the wisp of
mesmerism? . . ."
The ignis fatuus, now so
favorite an image with many dwarf philosophers, had itself to struggle for
recognition. It is not so long since the now familiar phenomenon was stoutly
denied by a correspondent of the London Times, whose assertions carried weight,
till the work of Dr. Phipson, supported by the testimony of Beccaria, Humboldt,
and other naturalists, set the question at rest.** The Positivists should
choose some happier expression, and follow the discoveries of science at the
same time. As to mesmerism, it has been adopted in many parts of Germany, and
is publicly used with undeniable success in more than one hospital; its occult
properties have been proved and are believed in by physicians, whose eminence,
learning, and merited fame, the self-complacent lecturer on mediums and
insanity cannot well hope to equal.
We have to add but a few more
words before we drop this unpleasant subject. We have found Positivists
particularly happy in the delusion that the greatest scientists of Europe were
Comtists. How far their claims may be just, as regards other savants, we do not
know, but Huxley, whom all Europe considers one of her greatest scientists, most
decidedly declines that honor, and Dr. Maudsley, of London, follows suit. In a
lecture delivered by the former gentleman in 1868, in Edinburgh, on The
Physical Basis of Life, he even appears to be very much shocked at the liberty
taken by the Archbishop of York, in identifying him with Comte's philosophy.
"So far as I am concerned," says Mr. Huxley, "the most reverend
prelate might dialectically hew Mr. Comte in pieces, as a modern Agag, and I
would not attempt to stay his hand. In so far as my study of what specially
characterizes the positive philosophy has led me, I find, therein, little or
nothing of any scientific value, and a great deal which is as thoroughly
antagonistic to the very essence of science as anything in ultramontane
Catholicism. In fact, Comte's philosophy in practice might be compendiously
described as Catholicism minus Christianity." Further, Huxley even becomes
wrathful, and falls to accusing Scotchmen of ingratitude for having allowed the
Bishop to mistake Comte for the founder of a philosophy which belonged by right
to Hume. "It was enough," exclaims the professor, "to make David
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Dr. F. R. Marvin:
"Lecture on Insanity."
** See Howitt: "History
of the Supernatural," vol. ii.
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OF SCIENCE.
Hume turn in his grave, that here,
almost within earshot of his house, an interested audience should have
listened, without a murmur, whilst his most characteristic doctrines were
attributed to a French writer of fifty years later date, in whose dreary and
verbose pages we miss alike the vigor of thought and the clearness of style. .
. ."*
Poor Comte! It appears that
the highest representatives of his philosophy are now reduced, at least in this
country, to "one physicist, one physician who has made a specialty of
nervous diseases, and one lawyer." A very witty critic nicknamed this
desperate trio, "an anomalistic triad, which, amid its arduous labors,
finds no time to acquaint itself with the principles and laws of their
language."**
To close the question, the
Positivists neglect no means to overthrow Spiritualism in favor of their
religion. Their high priests are made to blow their trumpets untiringly; and
though the walls of no modern Jericho are ever likely to tumble down in dust
before their blast, still they neglect no means to attain the desired object.
Their paradoxes are unique, and their accusations against spiritualists
irresistible in logic. In a recent lecture, for instance, it was remarked that:
"The exclusive exercise of religious instinct is productive of sexual immorality.
Priests, monks, nuns, saints, media, ecstatics, and devotees are famous for
their impurities."***
We are happy to remark that,
while Positivism loudly proclaims itself a religion, Spiritualism has never
pretended to be anything more than a science, a growing philosophy, or rather a
research in hidden and as yet unexplained forces in nature. The objectiveness
of its various phenomena has been demonstrated by more than one genuine
representative of science, and as ineffectually denied by her "monkeys."
Finally, it may be remarked of
our Positivists who deal so unceremoniously with every psychological
phenomenon, that they are like Samuel Butler's rhetorician, who
". . . . could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew
a trope."
We would there were no
occasion to extend the critic's glance beyond the circle of triflers and
pedants who improperly wear the title of men
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Prof. Huxley: "Physical
Basis of Life."
** Reference is made to a card
which appeared some time since in a New York paper, signed by three persons
styling themselves as above, and assuming to be a scientific committee
appointed two years before to investigate spiritual phenomena. The criticism on
the triad appeared in the "New Era" magazine.
*** Dr. Marvin: "Lecture
on Insanity," N. Y., 1875.
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of science. But it is also
undeniable that the treatment of new subjects by those whose rank is high in
the scientific world but too often passes unchallenged, when it is amenable to
censure. The cautiousness bred of a fixed habit of experimental research, the
tentative advance from opinion to opinion, the weight accorded to recognized
authorities -- all foster a conservatism of thought which naturally runs into
dogmatism. The price of scientific progress is too commonly the martyrdom or
ostracism of the innovator. The reformer of the laboratory must, so to speak,
carry the citadel of custom and prejudice at the point of the bayonet. It is
rare that even a postern-door is left ajar by a friendly hand. The noisy
protests and impertinent criticisms of the little people of the antechamber of
science, he can afford to let pass unnoticed; the hostility of the other class
is a real peril that the innovator must face and overcome. Knowledge does
increase apace, but the great body of scientists are not entitled to the
credit. In every instance they have done their best to shipwreck the new
discovery, together with the discoverer. The palm is to him who has won it by
individual courage, intuitiveness, and persistency. Few are the forces in
nature which, when first announced, were not laughed at, and then set aside as
absurd and unscientific. Humbling the pride of those who had not discovered
anything, the just claims of those who have been denied a hearing until
negation was no longer prudent, and then -- alas for poor, selfish humanity!
these very discoverers too often became the opponents and oppressors, in their
turn, of still more recent explorers in the domain of natural law! So, step by
step, mankind move around their circumscribed circle of knowledge, science
constantly correcting its mistakes, and readjusting on the following day the
erroneous theories of the preceding one. This has been the case, not merely
with questions pertaining to psychology, such as mesmerism, in its dual sense
of a physical and spiritual phenomenon, but even with such discoveries as
directly related to exact sciences, and have been easy to demonstrate.
What can we do? Shall we
recall the disagreeable past? Shall we point to mediaeval scholars conniving
with the clergy to deny the Heliocentric theory, for fear of hurting an
ecclesiastical dogma? Must we recall how learned conchologists once denied that
the fossil shells, found scattered over the face of the earth, were ever
inhabited by living animals at all? How the naturalists of the eighteenth
century declared these but mere fac-similes of animals? And how these
naturalists fought and quarrelled and battled and called each other names, over
these venerable mummies of the ancient ages for nearly a century, until Buffon
settled the question by proving to the negators that they were mistaken? Surely
an oyster-shell is anything but transcendental, and ought to be quite a
palpable subject for any exact study; and if the scientists could not agree
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on that, we can hardly expect
them to believe at all that evanescent forms, -- of hands, faces, and whole
bodies sometimes -- appear at the seances of spiritual mediums, when the latter
are honest.
There exists a certain work
which might afford very profitable reading for the leisure hours of skeptical
men of science. It is a book published by Flourens, the Perpetual Secretary of
the French Academy, called Histoire des Recherches de Buffon. The author shows
in it how the great naturalist combated and finally conquered the advocates of
the fac-simile theory; and how they still went on denying everything under the
sun, until at times the learned body fell into a fury, an epidemic of negation.
It denied Franklin and his refined electricity; laughed at Fulton and his
concentrated steam; voted the engineer Perdormet a strait-jacket for his offer
to build railroads; stared Harvey out of countenance; and proclaimed Bernard de
Palissy "as stupid as one of his own pots!"
In his oft-quoted work,
Conflict between Religion and Science, Professor Draper shows a decided
propensity to kick the beam of the scales of justice, and lay all such
impediments to the progress of science at the door of the clergy alone. With
all respect and admiration due to this eloquent writer and scientist, we must
protest and give every one his just due. Many of the above-enumerated
discoveries are mentioned by the author of the Conflict. In every case he
denounces the bitter resistance on the part of the clergy, and keeps silent on
the like opposition invariably experienced by every new discoverer at the hands
of science. His claim on behalf of science that "knowledge is power"
is undoubtedly just. But abuse of power, whether it proceeds from excess of
wisdom or ignorance is alike obnoxious in its effects. Besides, the clergy are
silenced now. Their protests would at this day be scarcely noticed in the world
of science. But while theology is kept in the background, the scientists have
seized the sceptre of despotism with both hands, and they use it, like the
cherubim and flaming sword of Eden, to keep the people away from the tree of
immortal life and within this world of perishable matter.
The editor of the London
Spiritualist, in answer to Dr. Gully's criticism of Mr. Tyndall's fire-mist
theory, remarks that if the entire body of spiritualists are not roasting alive
at Smithfield in the present century, it is to science alone that we are
indebted for this crowning mercy. Well, let us admit that the scientists are
indirectly public benefactors in this case, to the extent that the burning of
erudite scholars is no longer fashionable. But is it unfair to ask whether the
disposition manifested toward the spiritualistic doctrine by Faraday, Tyndall,
Huxley, Agassiz, and others, does not warrant the suspicion that if these
learned gentlemen
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and their following had the
unlimited power once held by the Inquisition, spiritualists would not have
reason to feel as easy as they do now? Even supposing that they should not
roast believers in the existence of a spirit-world -- it being unlawful to
cremate people alive -- would they not send every spiritualist they could to
Bedlam? Do they not call us "incurable monomaniacs,"
"hallucinated fools," "fetich-worshippers," and like
characteristic names? Really, we cannot see what should have stimulated to such
extent the gratitude of the editor of the London Spiritualist, for the
benevolent tutelage of the men of science. We believe that the recent
Lankester-Donkin-Slade prosecution in London ought at last to open the eyes of
hopeful spiritualists, and show them that stubborn materialism is often more
stupidly bigoted than religious fanaticism itself.
One of the cleverest
productions of Professor Tyndall's pen is his caustic essay upon Martineau and
Materialism. At the same time it is one which in future years the author will
doubtless be only too ready to trim of certain unpardonable grossnesses of
expression. For the moment, however, we will not deal with these, but consider
what he has to say of the phenomenon of consciousness. He quotes this question
from Mr. Martineau: "A man can say 'I feel, I think, I love'; but how does
consciousness infuse itself into the problem?" And thus answers: "The
passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of
consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a molecular
action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual
organ nor apparently any rudiments of the organ, which would enable us to pass
by a process of reasoning from one to the other. They appear together, but we
do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened and
illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain;
were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their
electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with
the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever
from the solution of the problem, 'How are these physical processes connected
with the facts of consciousness?' The chasm between the two classes of
phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable."*
This chasm, as impassable to
Professor Tyndall as the fire-mist where the scientist is confronted with his
unknowable cause, is a barrier only to men without spiritual intuitions.
Professor Buchanan's Outlines of Lectures on the Neurological System of
Anthropology, a work written so far back as 1854, contains suggestions that, if
the scio-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Tyndall: "Fragments of
Science."
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SCIENCE.
lists would only heed them,
would show how a bridge can be thrown across this dreadful abyss. It is one of
the bins in which the thought-seed of future harvests is stored up by a frugal
present. But the edifice of materialism is based entirely upon that gross
sub-structure -- the reason. When they have stretched its capabilities to their
utmost limits, its teachers can at best only disclose to us an universe of
molecules animated by an occult impulse. What better diagnosis of the ailment
of our scientists could be asked than can be derived from Professor Tyndall's
analysis of the mental state of the Ultramontane clergy by a very slight change
of names. For "spiritual guides" read "scientists," for
"prescientific past" substitute "materialistic present,"
say "spirit" for "science," and in the following paragraph
we have a life portrait of the modern man of science drawn by the hand of a
master:
" . . . Their spiritual
guides live so exclusively in the prescientific past, that even the really
strong intellects among them are reduced to atrophy as regards scientific
truth. Eyes they have and see not; ears they have and hear not; for both eyes
and ears are taken possession of by the sights and sounds of another age. In
relation to science, the Ultramontane brain, through lack of exercise, is
virtually the undeveloped brain of the child. And thus it is that as children
in scientific knowledge, but as potent wielders of spiritual power among the
ignorant, they countenance and enforce practices sufficient to bring the blush
of shame to the cheeks of the more intelligent among themselves."* The
Occultist holds this mirror up to science that it may see how it looks itself.
Since history recorded the
first laws established by man, there never was yet a people, whose code did not
hang the issues of the life and death of its citizens upon the testimony of two
or three credible witnesses. "At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses,
shall he that is worthy of death be put to death,"** says Moses, the first
legislator we meet in ancient history. "The laws which put to death a man
on the deposition of one witness are fatal to freedom" -- says
Montesquieu. "Reason claims there should be two witnesses."***
Thus the value of evidence has
been tacitly agreed upon and accepted in every country. But the scientists will
not accept the evidence of the million against one. In vain do hundreds of
thousands of men testify to facts. Oculos habent et non vident! They are
determined to remain blind and deaf. Thirty years of practical demonstrations
and the testimony of some millions of believers in America and Europe are
certainly entitled to some degree of respect and attention. Especially so, when
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Tyndall: Preface to
"Fragments of Science."
** Deuteronomy, chap. xvii.,
6.
*** Montesquieu: Esprit des
Lois I., xii., chap. 3.
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the verdict of twelve
spiritualists, influenced by the evidence testified to by any two others, is
competent to send even a scientist to swing on the gallows for a crime, perhaps
committed under the impulse supplied by a commotion among the cerebral
molecules unrestrained by a consciousness of future moral RETRIBUTION.
Toward science as a whole, as
a divine goal, the whole civilized world ought to look with respect and
veneration; for science alone can enable man to understand the Deity by the
true appreciation of his works. "Science is the understanding of truth or
facts," says Webster; "it is an investigation of truth for its own
sake and a pursuit of pure knowledge." If the definition be correct, then
the majority of our modern scholars have proved false to their goddess.
"Truth for its own sake!" And where should the keys to every truth in
nature be searched for, unless in the hitherto unexplored mystery of
psychology? Alas! that in questioning nature so many men of science should
daintily sort over her facts and choose only such for study as best bolster
their prejudices.
Psychology has no worse
enemies than the medical school denominated allopathists. It is in vain to
remind them that of the so-called exact sciences, medicine, confessedly, least
deserves the name. Although of all branches of medical knowledge, psychology
ought more than any other to be studied by physicians, since without its help
their practice degenerates into mere guess-work and chance-intuitions, they
almost wholly neglect it. The least dissent from their promulgated doctrines is
resented as a heresy, and though an unpopular and unrecognized curative method
should be shown to save thousands, they seem, as a body, disposed to cling to
accepted hypotheses and prescriptions, and decry both innovator and innovation
until they get the mint-stamp of regularity. Thousands of unlucky patients may
die meanwhile, but so long as professional honor is vindicated, this is a
matter of secondary importance.
Theoretically the most
benignant, at the same time no other school of science exhibits so many
instances of petty prejudice, materialism, atheism, and malicious stubbornness
as medicine. The predilections and patronage of the leading physicians are
scarcely ever measured by the usefulness of a discovery. Bleeding, by leeching,
cupping, and the lancet, had its epidemic of popularity, but at last fell into
merited disgrace; water, now freely given to fevered patients, was once denied
them, warm baths were superseded by cold water, and for a while hydropathy was
a mania. Peruvian bark -- which a modern defender of biblical authority
seriously endeavors to identify with the paradisiacal "Tree of
Life,"* and which was brought to Spain in 1632 -- was neg-
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* C. B. Warring.
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lected for years. The Church,
for once, showed more discrimination than science. At the request of Cardinal
de Lugo, Innocent X. gave it the prestige of his powerful name.
In an old book entitled
Demonologia, the author cites many instances of important remedies which being
neglected at first afterward rose into notice through mere accident. He also
shows that most of the new discoveries in medicine have turned out to be no more
than "the revival and readoption of very ancient practices." During
the last century, the root of the male fern was sold and widely advertised as a
secret nostrum by a Madame Nouffleur, a female quack, for the effective cure of
the tapeworm. The secret was bought by Louis XV. for a large sum of money;
after which the physicians discovered that it was recommended and administered
in that disease by Galen. The famous powder of the Duke of Portland for the
gout, was the diacentaureon of Caelius Aurelianus. Later it was ascertained
that it had been used by the earliest medical writers, who had found it in the
writings of the old Greek philosophers. So with the eau medicinale of Dr.
Husson, whose name it bears. This famous remedy for the gout was recognized under
its new mask to be the Colchicum autumnale, or meadow saffron, which is
identical with a plant called Hermodactylus, whose merits as a certain antidote
to gout were recognized and defended by Oribasius, a great physician of the
fourth century, and AEtius Amidenus, another eminent physician of Alexandria
(fifth century). Subsequently it was abandoned and fell into disfavor only
because it was too old to be considered good by the members of the medical
faculties that flourished toward the end of the last century!
Even the great Magendie, the
wise physiologist, was not above discovering that which had already been
discovered and found good by the oldest physicians. His proposed remedy against
consumption, namely, the use of prussic acid, may be found in the works of
Linnaeus, Amenitates Academicae, vol. iv., in which he shows distilled laurel
water to have been used with great profit in pulmonary consumption. Pliny also
assures us that the extract of almonds and cherry-pits had cured the most
obstinate coughs. As the author of Demonologia well remarks, it may be asserted
with perfect safety that "all the various secret preparations of opium
which have been lauded as the discovery of modern times, may be recognized in
the works of ancient authors," who see themselves so discredited in our
days.
It is admitted on all hands
that from time immemorial the distant East was the land of knowledge. Not even
in Egypt were botany and mineralogy so extensively studied as by the savants of
archaic Middle Asia. Sprengel, unjust and prejudiced as he shows himself in
everything else, confesses this much in his Histoire de la Medicine. And yet,
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notwithstanding this, whenever
the subject of magic is discussed, that of India has rarely suggested itself to
any one, for of its general practice in that country less is known than among
any other ancient people. With the Hindus it was and is more esoteric, if
possible, than it was even among the Egyptian priests. So sacred was it deemed
that its existence was only half admitted, and it was only practiced in public
emergencies. It was more than a religious matter, for it was considered divine.
The Egyptian hierophants, notwithstanding the practice of a stern and pure
morality, could not be compared for one moment with the ascetical
Gymnosophists, either in holiness of life or miraculous powers developed in
them by the supernatural adjuration of everything earthly. By those who knew
them well they were held in still greater reverence than the magians of
Chaldea. Denying themselves the simplest comforts of life, they dwelt in woods,
and led the life of the most secluded hermits,* while their Egyptian brothers
at least congregated together. Notwithstanding the slur thrown by history on
all who practiced magic and divination, it has proclaimed them as possessing
the greatest secrets in medical knowledge and unsurpassed skill in its
practice. Numerous are the volumes preserved in Hindu convents, in which are
recorded the proofs of their learning. To attempt to say whether these
Gymnosophists were the real founders of magic in India, or whether they only
practiced what had passed to them as an inheritance from the earliest Rishis**
-- the seven primeval sages -- would be regarded as a mere speculation by exact
scholars. "The care which they took in educating youth, in familiarizing
it with generous and virtuous sentiments, did them peculiar honor, and their
maxims and discourses, as recorded by historians, prove that they were expert
in matters of philosophy, metaphysics, astronomy, morality, and religion,"
says a modern writer. They preserved their dignity under the sway of the most
powerful princes, whom they would not condescend to visit, or to trouble for
the slightest favor. If the latter desired the advice or the prayers of the
holy men, they were either obliged to go themselves, or to send messengers. To
these men no secret power of either plant or mineral was unknown. They had
fathomed nature to its depths, while psychology and physiology were to them
open books, and the result was that science or machagiotia that is now termed,
so superciliously, magic.
While the miracles recorded in
the Bible have become accepted facts
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Ammianus Marcellinus,
xxiii., 6.
** The Rishis were seven in
number, and lived in days anteceding the Vedic period. They were known as sages,
and held in reverence like demigods. Haug shows that they occupy in the
Brahmanical religion a position answering to that of the twelve sons of Jacob
in the Jewish Bible. The Brahmans claim to descend directly from these Rishis.
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with the Christians, to
disbelieve which is regarded as infidelity, the narratives of wonders and
prodigies found in the Atharva-Veda,* either provoke their contempt or are
viewed as evidences of diabolism. And yet, in more than one respect, and
notwithstanding the unwillingness of certain Sanscrit scholars, we can show the
identity between the two. Moreover, as the Vedas have now been proved by
scholars to antedate the Jewish Bible by many ages, the inference is an easy
one that if one of them has borrowed from the other, the Hindu sacred books are
not to be charged with plagiarism.
First of all, their cosmogony
shows how erroneous has been the opinion prevalent among the civilized nations
that Brahma was ever considered by the Hindus their chief or Supreme God.
Brahma is a secondary deity, and like Jehovah is "a mover of the
waters." He is the creating god, and has in his allegorical
representations four heads, answering to the four cardinal points. He is the
demiurgos, the architect of the world. "In the primordiate state of the
creation," says Polier's Mythologie des Indous, "the rudimental
universe, submerged in water, reposed in the bosom of the Eternal. Sprang from
this chaos and darkness, Brahma, the architect of the world, poised on a
lotus-leaf floated (moved?) upon the waters, unable to discern anything but
water and darkness." This is as identical as possible with the Egyptian
cosmogony, which shows in its opening sentences Athtor** or Mother Night (which
represents illimitable darkness) as the primeval element which covered the
infinite abyss, animated by water and the universal spirit of the Eternal,
dwelling alone in Chaos. As in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the
creation opens with the spirit of God and his creative emanation -- another
Deity.*** Perceiving such a dismal state of things, Brahma soliloquizes in
consternation: "Who am I? Whence came I?" Then he hears a voice:
"Direct your prayer to Bhagavant -- the Eternal, known, also, as
Parabrahma." Brahma, rising from his natatory position, seats himself upon
the lotus in an attitude of contemplation, and reflects upon the Eternal, who,
pleased with this evidence of piety, disperses the primeval darkness and opens
his understanding. "After this Brahma issues from the universal egg --
(infinite chaos) as light, for his understanding is now opened, and he sets
himself to work; he moves on the eternal waters, with the spirit of God within
himself; in his capacity of mover of the waters he is Narayana."
The lotus, the sacred flower
of the Egyptians, as well as the Hindus, is the symbol of Horus as it is that
of Brahma. No temples in Thibet or
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* The fourth Veda.
** Orthography of the
"Archaic Dictionary."
*** We do not mean the current
or accepted Bible, but the real Jewish one explained kabalistically.
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Nepaul are found without it;
and the meaning of this symbol is extremely suggestive. The sprig of lilies placed
in the hand of the archangel, who offers them to the Virgin Mary, in the
pictures of the "Annunciation," have in their esoteric symbolism
precisely the same meaning. We refer the reader to Sir William Jones.* With the
Hindus, the lotus is the emblem of the productive power of nature, through the
agency of fire and water (spirit and matter). "Eternal!" says a verse
in the Bhagavad Gita, "I see Brahma the creator enthroned in thee above
the lotus!" and Sir W. Jones shows that the seeds of the lotus contain --
even before they germinate -- perfectly-formed leaves, the miniature shapes of
what one day, as perfected plants, they will become; or, as the author of The
Heathen Religion, has it -- "nature thus giving us a specimen of the
preformation of its productions"; adding further that "the seed of
all phoenogamous plants bearing proper flowers, contain an embryo plantlet
ready formed."**
With the Buddhists, it has the
same signification. Maha-Maya, or Maha-Deva, the mother of Gautama Buddha, had
the birth of her son announced to her by Bhodisat (the spirit of Buddha), who
appeared beside her couch with a lotus in his hand. Thus, also, Osiris and
Horus are represented by the Egyptians constantly in association with the
lotus-flower.
These facts all go to show the
identical parentage of this idea in the three religious systems, Hindu,
Egyptian and Judaico-Christian. Wherever the mystic water-lily (lotus) is
employed, it signifies the emanation of the objective from the concealed, or
subjective -- the eternal thought of the ever-invisible Deity passing from the
abstract into the concrete or visible form. For as soon as darkness was
dispersed and "there was light," Brahma's understanding was opened,
and he saw in the ideal world (which had hitherto lain eternally concealed in
the Divine thought) the archetypal forms of all the infinite future things that
would be called into existence, and hence become visible. At this first stage
of action, Brahma had not yet become the architect, the builder of the
universe, for he had, like the architect, to first acquaint himself with the
plan, and realize the ideal forms which were buried in the bosom of the Eternal
One, as the future lotus-leaves are concealed within the seed of that plant.
And it is in this idea that we must look for the origin and explanation of the
verse in the Jewish cosmogony, which reads: "And God said, Let the earth
bring forth . . . the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is
in itself." In all the primitive religions, the "Son of the Father"
is the creative God -- i.e., His thought made visible; and before the Christian
era, from the Trimurti of the Hindus down to the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Dissertations Relating
to Asia."
** Dr. Gross, p. 195.
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GABRIEL.
three kabalistic heads of the
Jewish-explained scriptures, the triune godhead of each nation was fully
defined and substantiated in its allegories. In the Christian creed we see but
the artificial engrafting of a new branch upon the old trunk; and the adoption
by the Greek and Roman churches of the lily-symbol held by the archangel at the
moment of the Annunciation, shows a thought of precisely the same metaphysical
significance.
The lotus is the product of
fire (heat) and water, hence the dual symbol of spirit and matter. The God
Brahma is the second person of the Trinity, as are Jehovah (Adam-Kadmon) and
Osiris, or rather Pimander, or the Power of the Thought Divine, of Hermes; for
it is Pimander who represents the root of all the Egyptian Sun-gods. The
Eternal is the Spirit of Fire, which stirs up and fructifies and develops into
a concrete form everything that is born of water or the primordial earth,
evolved out of Brahma; but the universe is itself Brahma, and he is the
universe. This is the philosophy of Spinoza, which he derived from that of Pythagoras;
and it is the same for which Bruno died a martyr. How much Christian theology
has gone astray from its point of departure, is demonstrated in this historical
fact. Bruno was slaughtered for the exegesis of a symbol that was adopted by
the earliest Christians, and expounded by the apostles! The sprig of
water-lilies of Bhodisat, and later of Gabriel, typifying fire and water, or
the idea of creation and generation, is worked into the earliest dogma of the
baptismal sacrament.
Bruno's and Spinoza's doctrines
are nearly identical, though the words of the latter are more veiled, and far
more cautiously chosen than those to be found in the theories of the author of
the Causa Principio et Uno, or the Infinito Universo e Mondi. Both Bruno, who
confesses that the source of his information was Pythagoras, and Spinoza, who,
without acknowledging it as frankly, allows his philosophy to betray the
secret, view the First Cause from the same stand-point. With them, God is an
Entity totally per se, an Infinite Spirit, and the only Being utterly free and
independent of either effects or other causes; who, through that same Will
which produced all things and gave the first impulse to every cosmic law,
perpetually keeps in existence and order everything in the universe. As well as
the Hindu Swabhavikas, erroneously called Atheists, who assume that all things,
men as well as gods and spirits, were born from Swabhava, or their own nature,*
both
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Brahma does not create the
earth, Mirtlok, any more than the rest of the universe. Having evolved himself
from the soul of the world, once separated from the First Cause, he emanates in
his turn all nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up
with it; and Brahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of which is
in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself. [Burnouf:
"Introduction," p. 118.]
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Spinoza and Bruno were led to
the conclusion that God is to be sought for within nature and not without. For,
creation being proportional to the power of the Creator, the universe as well
as its Creator must be infinite and eternal, one form emanating from its own
essence, and creating in its turn another. The modern commentators affirm that
Bruno, "unsustained by the hope of another and better world, still surrendered
his life rather than his convictions"; thereby allowing it to be inferred
that Giordano Bruno had no belief in the continued existence of man after
death. Professor Draper asserts most positively that Bruno did not believe in
the immortality of the soul. Speaking of the countless victims of the religious
intolerance of the Popish Church, he remarks: "The passage from this life
to the next, though through a hard trial, was the passage from a transient
trouble to eternal happiness. . . . On his way through the dark valley, the
martyr believed that there was an invisible hand that would lead him. . . . For
Bruno there was no such support. The philosophical opinions, for the sake of
which he surrendered his life, could give him no consolation."*
But Professor Draper seems to
have a very superficial knowledge of the true belief of the philosophers. We
can leave Spinoza out of the question, and even allow him to remain in the eyes
of his critics an utter atheist and materialist; for the cautious reserve which
he placed upon himself in his writings makes it extremely difficult for one who
does not read him between the lines, and is not thoroughly acquainted with the
hidden meaning of the Pythagorean metaphysics, to ascertain what his real
sentiments were. But as for Giordano Bruno, if he adhered to the doctrines of
Pythagoras he must have believed in another life, hence, he could not have been
an atheist whose philosophy offered him no such "consolation." His
accusation and subsequent confession, as given by Professor Domenico Berti, in
his Life of Bruno, and compiled from original documents recently published,
proved beyond doubt what were his real philosophy, creed and doctrines. In
common with the Alexandrian Platonists, and the later Kabalists, he held that Jesus
was a magician in the sense given to this appellation by Porphyry and Cicero,
who call it the divina sapientia (divine knowledge), and by Philo Judaes, who
described the Magi as the most wonderful inquirers into the hidden mysteries of
nature, not in the degrading sense given to the word magic in our century. In
his noble conception, the Magi were holy men, who, setting themselves apart
from everything else on this earth, contemplated the divine virtues and
understood the divine nature of the gods and spirits, the more clearly; and so,
initiated others into the same mys-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Conflict between
Religion and Science," 180.
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BRUNO.
teries, which consist in one
holding an uninterrupted intercourse with these invisible beings during life.
But we will show Bruno's inmost philosophical convictions better by quoting
fragments from the accusation and his own confession.
The charges in the
denunciation of Mocenigo, his accuser, are expressed in the following terms:
"I, Zuane Mocenigo, son
of the most illustrious Ser Marcantonio, denounce to your very reverend
fathership, by constraint of my conscience and by order of my confessor, that I
have heard say by Giordano Bruno, several times when he discoursed with me in
my house, that it is great blasphemy in Catholics to say that the bread
transubstantiates itself into flesh; that he is opposed to the Mass; that no
religion pleases him; that Christ was a wretch (un tristo), and that if he did
wicked works to seduce the people he might well predict that He ought to be
impaled; that there is no distinction of persons in God, and that it would be
imperfection in God; that the world is eternal, and that there are infinite
worlds, and that God makes them continually, because, he says, He desires all
He can; that Christ did apparent miracles and was a magician, and so were the
apostles, and that he had a mind to do as much and more than they did; that
Christ showed an unwillingness to die, and shunned death all He could; that
there is no punishment of sin, and that souls created by the operation of
nature pass from one animal to another, and that as the brute animals are born
of corruption, so also are men when after dissolution they come to be born
again."
Perfidious as they are, the above
words plainly indicate the belief of Bruno in the Pythagorean metempsychosis,
which, misunderstood as it is, still shows a belief in the survival of man in
one shape or another. Further, the accuser says:
"He has shown indications
of wishing to make himself the author of a new sect, under the name of 'New
Philosophy.' He has said that the Virgin could not have brought forth, and that
our Catholic faith is all full of blasphemies against the majesty of God; that
the monks ought to be deprived of the right of disputation and their revenues,
because they pollute the world; that they are all asses, and that our opinions
are doctrines of asses; that we have no proof that our faith has merit with
God, and that not to do to others what we would not have done to ourselves
suffices for a good life, and that he laughs at all other sins, and wonders how
God can endure so many heresies in Catholics. He says that he means to apply
himself to the art of divination, and make all the world run after him; that
St. Thomas and all the Doctors knew nothing to compare with him, and that he
could ask questions of all the first theologians of the world that they could
not answer."
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To this, the accused
philosopher answered by the following profession of faith, which is that of
every disciple of the ancient masters:
"I hold, in brief, to an
infinite universe, that is, an effect of infinite divine power, because I
esteemed it a thing unworthy of divine goodness and power, that being able to
produce besides this world another and infinite others, it should produce a
finite world. Thus I have declared that there are infinite particular worlds
similar to this of the earth, which, with Pythagoras, I understand to be a star
similar in nature with the moon, the other planets, and the other stars, which
are infinite; and that all those bodies are worlds, and without number, which
thus constitute the infinite universality in an infinite space, and this is
called the infinite universe, in which are innumerable worlds, so that there is
a double kind of infinite greatness in the universe, and of a multitude of
worlds. Indirectly, this may be understood to be repugnant to the truth
according to the true faith.
"Moreover, I place in
this universe a universal Providence, by virtue of which everything lives,
vegetates and moves, and stands in its perfection, and I understand it in two
ways; one, in the mode in which the whole soul is present in the whole and
every part of the body, and this I call nature, the shadow and footprint of
divinity; the other, the ineffable mode in which God, by essence, presence, and
power, is in all and above all, not as part, not as soul, but in mode
inexplicable.
"Moreover, I understand
all the attributes in divinity to be one and the same thing. Together with the
theologians and great philosophers, I apprehend three attributes, power,
wisdom, and goodness, or, rather, mind, intellect, love, with which things have
first, being, through the mind; next, ordered and distinct being, through the
intellect; and third, concord and symmetry, through love. Thus I understand
being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in being,
and there is no being without essence, just as nothing is beautiful without
beauty being present; thus nothing can be free from the divine presence, and
thus by way of reason, and not by way of substantial truth, do I understand
distinction in divinity.
"Assuming then the world
caused and produced, I understand that, according to all its being, it is
dependent upon the first cause, so that it did not reject the name of creation,
which I understand that Aristotle also has expressed, saying, 'God is that upon
whom the world and all nature depends,' so that according to the explanation of
St. Thomas, whether it be eternal or in time, it is, according to all its
being, dependent on the first cause, and nothing in it is independent.
"Next, in regard to what
belongs to the true faith, not speaking philosophically, to come to
individuality about the divine persons, the
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wisdom and the son of the
mind, called by philosophers intellect, and by theologians the word, which
ought to be believed to have taken on human flesh. But I, abiding in the
phrases of philosophy, have not understood it, but have doubted and held it
with inconstant faith, not that I remember to have shown marks of it in writing
nor in speech, except indirectly from other things, something of it may be
gathered as by way of ingenuity and profession in regard to what may be proved
by reason and concluded from natural light. Thus, in regard to the Holy Spirit
in a third person, I have not been able to comprehend, as ought to be believed,
but, according to the Pythagoric manner, in conformity to the manner shown by
Solomon, I have understood it as the soul of the universe, or adjoined to the
universe according to the saying of the wisdom of Solomon: 'The spirit of God
filled all the earth, and that which contains all things,' all which conforms
equally to the Pythagoric doctrine explained by Virgil in the text of the
AEneid:
Principio coelum ac terras
camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunae,
Titaniaque astra
Spiritus intus alit, totamque
infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem;
and the lines following.
"From this spirit, then,
which is called the life of the universe, I understand, in my philosophy,
proceeds life and soul to everything which has life and soul, which, moreover,
I understand to be immortal, as also to bodies, which, as to their substance,
are all immortal, there being no other death than division and congregation,
which doctrine seems expressed in Ecclesiastes, where it is said that 'there is
nothing new under the sun; that which is is that which was.' "
Furthermore, Bruno confesses
his inability to comprehend the doctrine of three persons in the godhead, and
his doubts of the incarnation of God in Jesus, but firmly pronounces his belief
in the miracles of Christ. How could he, being a Pythagorean philosopher,
discredit them? If, under the merciless constraint of the Inquisition, he, like
Galileo, subsequently recanted, and threw himself upon the clemency of his
ecclesiastical persecutors, we must remember that he spoke like a man standing
between the rack and the fagot, and human nature cannot always be heroic when
the corporeal frame is debilitated by torture and imprisonment.
But for the opportune
appearance of Berti's authoritative work, we would have continued to revere
Bruno as a martyr, whose bust was deservedly set high in the Pantheon of Exact
Science, crowned with laurel by the hand of Draper. But now we see that their
hero of an hour
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is neither atheist,
materialist, nor positivist, but simply a Pythagorean who taught the philosophy
of Upper Asia, and claimed to possess the powers of the magicians, so despised by
Draper's own school! Nothing more amusing than this contretemps has happened
since the supposed statue of St. Peter was discovered by irreverent
archaeologists to be nothing else than the Jupiter of the Capitol, and Buddha's
identity with the Catholic St. Josaphat was satisfactorily proven.
Thus, search where we may
through the archives of history, we find that there is no fragment of modern
philosophy -- whether Newtonian, Cartesian, Huxleyian or any other -- but has
been dug from the Oriental mines. Even Positivism and Nihilism find their
prototype in the exoteric portion of Kapila's philosophy, as is well remarked
by Max Muller. It was the inspiration of the Hindu sages that penetrated the
mysteries of Pragna Paramita (perfect wisdom); their hands that rocked the
cradle of the first ancestor of that feeble but noisy child that we have
christened MODERN SCIENCE.
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CHAPTER IV.
"I choose the nobler part
of Emerson, when, after various disenchantments, he exclaimed, 'I covet Truth.'
The gladness of true heroism visits the heart of him who is really competent to
say this." -- TYNDALL.
"A testimony is sufficient
when it rests on:
1st. A great number of very
sensible witnesses who agree in having seen well.
2d. Who are sane, bodily and
mentally.
3d. Who are impartial and
disinterested.
4th. Who unanimously agree.
5th. Who solemnly certify to
the fact." -- VOLTAIRE, Dictiannaire Philosophique.
THE Count Agenor de Gasparin
is a devoted Protestant. His battle with des Mousseaux, de Mirville and other
fanatics who laid the whole of the spiritual phenomena at the door of Satan,
was long and fierce. Two volumes of over fifteen hundred pages are the result,
proving the effects, denying the cause, and employing superhuman efforts to
invent every other possible explanation that could be suggested rather than the
true one.
The severe rebuke received by
the Journal des Debats from M. de Gasparin, was read by all civilized Europe.*
After that gentleman had minutely described numerous manifestations that he had
witnessed himself, this journal very impertinently proposed to the authorities
in France to send all those who, after having read the fine analysis of the
"spiritual hallucinations" published by Faraday, should insist on
crediting this delusion, to the lunatic asylum for Incurables. "Take
care," wrote de Gasparin in answer, "the representatives of the exact
sciences are on their way to become . . . the Inquisitors of our days. . . .
Facts are stronger than Academies. Rejected, denied, mocked, they nevertheless
are facts, and do exist."**
The following affirmations of
physical phenomena, as witnessed by himself and Professor Thury, may be found
in de Gasparin's voluminous work.
"The experimenters have
often seen the legs of the table glued, so to say, to the floor, and,
notwithstanding the excitement of those present, refuse to be moved from their
place. On other occasions they have seen the tables levitated in quite an
energetic way. They heard, with their own
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Des Tables," vol.
i, p. 213.
** Ibid., 216.
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ears, loud as well as gentle
raps, the former threatening to shatter the table to pieces on account of their
violence, the latter so soft as to become hardly perceptible. . . . As to
LEVITATIONS WITHOUT CONTACT, we found means to produce them easily, and with
success. . . . And such levitations do not pertain to isolated results. We have
reproduced them over THIRTY times.* . . . One day the table will turn, and lift
its legs successively, its weight being augmented by a man weighing
eighty-seven kilogrammes seated on it; another time it will remain motionless
and immovable, notwithstanding that the person placed on it weighs but sixty.**.
. . On one occasion we willed it to turn upside down, and it turned over, with
its legs in the air, notwithstanding that our fingers never touched it
once."***
"It is certain,"
remarks de Mirville, "that a man who had repeatedly witnessed such a phenomenon,
could not accept the fine analysis of the English physicist."****
Since 1850, des Mousseaux and
de Mirville, uncompromising Roman Catholics, have published many volumes whose
titles are cleverly contrived to attract public attention. They betray on the
part of the authors a very serious alarm, which, moreover, they take no pains
to conceal. Were it possible to consider the phenomena spurious, the church of
Rome would never have gone so much out of her way to repress them.
Both sides having agreed upon
the facts, leaving skeptics out of the question, people could divide themselves
into but two parties: the believers in the direct agency of the devil, and the
believers in disembodied and other spirits. The fact alone, that theology
dreaded a great deal more the revelations which might come through this
mysterious agency than all the threatening "conflicts" with Science
and the categorical denials of the latter, ought to have opened the eyes of the
most skeptical. The church of Rome has never been either credulous or cowardly,
as is abundantly proved by the Machiavellism which marks her policy. Moreover,
she has never troubled herself much about the clever prestidigitateurs whom she
knew to be simply adepts in juggling. Robert Houdin, Comte, Hamilton and Bosco,
slept secure in their beds, while she persecuted such men as Paracelsus,
Cagliostro, and Mesmer, the Hermetic philosophers and mystics -- and
effectually stopped every genuine manifestation of an occult nature by killing
the mediums.
Those who are unable to
believe in a personal devil and the dogmas of the church must nevertheless
accord to the clergy enough of shrewdness
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Des Tables," vol.
i., p. 48.
** Ibid., p. 24.
*** Ibid., p. 35.
**** De Mirville: "Des
Esprits," p. 26.
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"UNCONSCIOUS VENTRILOQUISM!"
to prevent the compromising of
her reputation for infallibility by making so much of manifestations which, if
fraudulent, must inevitably be some day exposed.
But the best testimony to the
reality of this force was given by Robert Houdin himself, the king of jugglers,
who, upon being called as an expert by the Academy to witness the wonderful
clairvoyant powers and occasional mistakes of a table, said: "We jugglers
never make mistakes, and my second-sight never failed me yet."
The learned astronomer Babinet
was not more fortunate in his selection of Comte, the celebrated ventriloquist,
as an expert to testify against the phenomena of direct voices and the
rappings. Comte, if we may believe the witnesses, laughed in the face of
Babinet at the bare suggestion that the raps were produced by "unconscious
ventriloquism!" The latter theory, worthy twin-sister of "unconscious
cerebration," caused many of the most skeptical academicians to blush. Its
absurdity was too apparent.
"The problem of the
supernatural," says de Gasparin, "such as it was presented by the
middle ages, and as it stands now, is not among the number of those which we
are permitted to despise; its breadth and grandeur escape the notice of no one.
. . . Everything is profoundly serious in it, both the evil and the remedy, the
superstitious recrudescency, and the physical fact which is destined to conquer
the latter."*
Further, he pronounces the
following decisive opinion, to which he came, conquered by the various
manifestations, as he says himself -- "The number of facts which claim
their place in the broad daylight of truth, has so much increased of late, that
of two consequences one is henceforth inevitable: either the domain of natural
sciences must consent to expand itself, or the domain of the supernatural will
become so enlarged as to have no bounds."**
Among the multitude of books
against spiritualism emanating from Catholic and Protestant sources, none have
produced a more appalling effect than the works of de Mirville and des
Mousseaux: La Magie au XIXme Siecle -- Moeurs et Pratiques des Demons -- Hauts
Phenomees de la Magie -- Les Mediateurs de la Magie -- Des Esprits et de leurs
Manifestations, etc. They comprise the most cyclopaedic biography of the devil
and his imps that has appeared for the private delectation of good Catholics
since the middle ages.
According to the authors, he
who was "a liar and murderer from the beginning," was also the
principal motor of spiritual phenomena. He had been for thousands of years at
the head of pagan theurgy; and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Avant propos,"
pp. 12 and 16.
** Vol. i., p. 244.
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it was he, again, who,
encouraged by the increase of heresies, infidelity, and atheism, had reappeared
in our century. The French Academy lifted up its voice in a general outcry of indignation,
and M. de Gasparin even took it for a personal insult. "This is a
declaration of war, a 'levee of shields' " -- wrote he in his voluminous
book of refutations. "The work of M. de Mirville is a real manifesto. . .
. I would be glad to see in it the expression of a strictly individual opinion,
but, in truth, it is impossible. The success of the work, these solemn
adhesions, the faithful reproduction of its theses by the journals and writers
of the party, the solidarity established throughout between them and the whole
body of catholicity . . . everything goes to show a work which is essentially
an act, and has the value of a collective labor. As it is, I felt that I had a
duty to perform. . . . I felt obliged to pick up the glove. . . . and lift high
the Protestant flag against the Ultramontane banner."*
The medical faculties, as
might have been expected, assuming the part of the Greek chorus, echoed the
various expostulations against the demonological authors. The
Medico-Psychological Annals, edited by Drs. Brierre de Boismont and Cerise,
published the following: "Outside these controversies of antagonistical
parties, never in our country did a writer dare to face, with a more aggressive
serenity, . . . the sarcasms, the scorn of what we term common sense; and, as
if to defy and challenge at the same time thundering peals of laughter and
shrugging of shoulders, the author strikes an attitude, and placing himself
with effrontery before the members of the Academy . . . addresses to them what
he modestly terms his Memoire on the Devil!"**
That was a cutting insult to
the Academicians, to be sure; but ever since 1850 they seem to have been doomed
to suffer in their pride more than most of them can bear. The idea of asking
the attention of the forty "Immortals" to the pranks of the Devil!
They vowed revenge, and, leaguing themselves together, propounded a theory
which exceeded in absurdity even de Mirville's demonolatry! Dr. Royer and
Jobart de Lamballe -- both celebrities in their way -- formed an alliance and
presented to the Institute a German whose cleverness afforded, according to his
statement, the key to all the knockings and rappings of both hemispheres.
"We blush" -- remarks the Marquis de Mirville -- "to say that
the whole of the trick consisted simply in the reiterated displacement of one
of the muscular tendons of the legs. Great demonstration of the system in full
sitting of the Institute -- and on the spot . . . expressions of Academical
gratitude for this interesting communication, and, a few days later, a full
assurance given to the public by a professor of the medical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Vol. ii., p. 524.
** "Medico-Psychological
Annals," Jan. 1, 1854.
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PILLAR OF FAITH."
faculty, that, scientists
having pronounced their opinion, the mystery was at last unravelled!"*
But such scientific
explanations neither prevented the phenomenon from quietly following its
course, nor the two writers on demonology from proceeding to expound their
strictly orthodox theories.
Denying that the Church had
anything to do with his books, des Mousseaux gravely gave the Academy, in
addition to his Memoire, the following interesting and profoundly philosophical
thoughts on Satan:
"The Devil is the chief
pillar of Faith. He is one of the grand personages whose life is closely allied
to that of the church; and without his speech which issued out so triumphantly
from the mouth of the Serpent, his medium, the fall of man could not have taken
place. Thus, if it was not for him, the Saviour, the Crucified, the Redeemer,
would be but the most ridiculous of supernumeraries, and the Cross an insult to
good sense!"**
This writer, be it remembered,
is only the faithful echo of the church, which anathematizes equally the one
who denies God and him who doubts the objective existence of Satan.
But the Marquis de Mirville
carries this idea of God's partnership with the Devil still further. According
to him it is a regular commercial affair, in which the senior "silent
partner" suffers the active business of the firm to be transacted as it
may please his junior associate, by whose audacity and industry he profits. Who
could be of any other opinion, upon reading the following?
"At the moment of this
spiritual invasion of 1853, so slightingly regarded, we had dared to pronounce
the word of a 'threatening catastrophe.' The world was nevertheless at peace,
but history showing us the same symptoms at all disastrous epochs, we had a
presentiment of the sad effects of a law which Goerres has formulated thus:
[vol. v., p. 356.] 'These mysterious apparitions have invariably indicated the
chastening hand of God on earth.' "***
These guerilla-skirmishes
between the champions of the clergy and the materialistic Academy of Science,
prove abundantly how little the latter has done toward uprooting blind
fanaticism from the minds of even very educated persons. Evidently science has
neither completely conquered nor muzzled theology. She will master her only on
that day when she will condescend to see in the spiritual phenomenon something
besides mere hallucination and charlatanry. But how can she do it without
investigating it thoroughly? Let us suppose that before the time when
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* De Mirville: "Des
Esprits," "Constitutionnel," June 16, 1854.
** Chevalier des Mousseaux:
"Moeurs et Pratiques des Demons," p. x.
*** De Mirville: "Des
Esprits," p. 4.
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electro-magnetism was publicly
acknowledged, the Copenhagen Professor Oersted, its discoverer, had been
suffering from an attack of what we call psychophobia, or pneumatophobia. He
notices that the wire along which a voltaic current is passing shows a tendency
to turn the magnetic needle from its natural position to one perpendicular to
the direction of the current. Suppose, moreover, that the professor had heard
much of certain superstitious people who used that kind of magnetized needles
to converse with unseen intelligences. That they received signals and even held
correct conversations with them by means of the tippings of such a needle, and
that in consequence he suddenly felt a scientific horror and disgust for such
an ignorant belief, and refused, point-blank, to have anything to do with such
a needle. What would have been the result? Electro-magnetism might not have
been discovered till now, and our experimentalists would have been the
principal losers thereby.
Babinet, Royer, and Jobert de
Lamballe, all three members of the Institute, particularly distinguished
themselves in this struggle between skepticism and supernaturalism, and most
assuredly have reaped no laurels. The famous astronomer had imprudently risked
himself on the battlefield of the phenomenon. He had explained scientifically
the manifestations. But, emboldened by the fond belief among scientists that
the new epidemic could not stand close investigation nor outlive the year, he
had the still greater imprudence to publish two articles on them. As M. de
Mirville very wittily remarks, if both of the articles had but a poor success
in the scientific press, they had, on the other hand, none at all in the daily
one.
M. Babinet began by accepting
a priori, the rotation and movements of the furniture, which fact he declared
to be "hors de doute." "This rotation," he said,
"being able to manifest itself with a considerable energy, either by a
very great speed, or by a strong resistance when it is desired that it should
stop."*
Now comes the explanation of
the eminent scientist. "Gently pushed by little concordant impulsions of
the hands laid upon it, the table begins to oscillate from right to left. . . .
At the moment when, after more or less delay, a nervous trepidation is
established in the hands and the little individual impulsions of all the
experimenters have become harmonized, the table is set in motion."**
He finds it very simple, for
"all muscular movements are determined over bodies by levers of the third
order, in which the fulcrum is very near to the point where the force acts.
This, consequently, communicates a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Ibid., "Revue des Deux
Mondes," January 15, 1854, p. 108.
** This is a repetition and
variation of Faraday's theory.
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HIMSELF.
great speed to the mobile
parts for the very little distance which the motor force has to run. . . . Some
persons are astonished to see a table subjected to the action of several
well-disposed individuals in a fair way to conquer powerful obstacles, even
break its legs, when suddenly stopped; but that is very simple if we consider
the power of the little concordant actions. . . . Once more, the physical
explanation offers no difficulty."*
In this dissertation, two
results are clearly shown: the reality of the phenomena proved, and the
scientific explanation made ridiculous. But M. Babinet can well afford to be
laughed at a little; he knows, as an astronomer, that dark spots are to be
found even in the sun.
There is one thing, though,
that Babinet has always stoutly denied, viz.: the levitation of furniture
without contact. De Mirville catches him proclaiming that such levitation is
impossible: "simply impossible," he says, "as impossible as
perpetual motion."**
Who can take upon himself,
after such a declaration, to maintain that the word impossible pronounced by
science is infallible?
But the tables, after having
waltzed, oscillated and turned, began tipping and rapping. The raps were
sometimes as powerful as pistol-detonations. What of this? Listen: "The
witnesses and investigators are ventriloquists!"
De Mirville refers us to the
Revue des Deux Mondes, in which is published a very interesting dialogue,
invented by M. Babinet speaking of himself to himself, like the Chaldean
En-Soph of the Kabalists: "What can we finally say of all these facts brought
under our observation? Are there such raps produced? Yes. Do such raps answer
questions? Yes. Who produces these sounds? The mediums. By what means? By the
ordinary acoustic method of the ventriloquists. But we were given to suppose
that these sounds might result from the cracking of the toes and fingers? No;
for then they would always proceed from the same point, and such is not the
fact."***
"Now," asks de
Mirville, "what are we to believe of the Americans, and their thousands of
mediums who produce the same raps before millions of witnesses?"
"Ventriloquism, to be sure," answers Babinet. "But how can you
explain such an impossibility?" The easiest thing in the world; listen
only: "All that was necessary to produce the first manifestation in the
first house in America was, a street-boy knocking at the door of a mystified
citizen, perhaps with a leaden ball attached to a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Revue des Deux
Mondes," p. 410.
** "Revue des Deux
Mondes," January, 1854, p. 414.
*** "Revue des Deux
Mondes," May 1, 1854, p. 531.
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string, and if Mr. Weekman
(the first believer in America) (?)* when he watched for the third time, heard
no shouts of laughter in the street, it is because of the essential difference
which exists between a French street-Arab, and an English or Trans-Atlantic
one, the latter being amply provided with what we call a sad merriment,
"gaite triste."**
Truly says de Mirville in his
famous reply to the attacks of de Gasparin, Babinet, and other scientists:
"and thus according to our great physicist, the tables turn very quickly,
very energetically, resist likewise, and, as M. de Gasparin has proved, they
levitate without contact. Said a minister: 'With three words of a man's
handwriting, I take upon myself to have him hung.' With the above three lines,
we take upon ourselves, in our turn, to throw into the greatest confusion the
physicists of all the globe, or rather to revolutionize the world -- if at
least, M. de Babinet had taken the precaution of suggesting, like M. de
Gasparin, some yet unknown law or force. For this would cover the whole
ground."***
But it is in the notes
embracing the "facts and physical theories," that we find the acme of
the consistency and logic of Babinet as an expert investigator on the field of
Spiritualism.
It would appear, that M. de
Mirville in his narrative of the wonders manifested at the Presbytere de
Cideville,**** was much struck by the marvellousness of some facts. Though
authenticated before the inquest and magistrates, they were of so miraculous a
nature as to force the demonological author himself to shrink from the
responsibility of publishing them.
These facts were as follows:
"At the precise moment predicted by a sorcerer" -- case of revenge --
"a violent clap of thunder was heard above one of the chimneys of the
presbytery, after which the fluid descended with a formidable noise through
that passage, threw down believers as well as skeptics (as to the power of the
sorcerer) who were warming themselves by the fire; and, having filled the room
with a multitude of fantastic animals, returned to the chimney, and having
reascended it, disappeared, after producing the same terrible noise.
"As," adds de Mirville, "we were already but too rich in facts,
we recoiled before this new enormity added to so many others."****
But Babinet, who in common with
his learned colleagues had made such fun of the two writers on demonology, and
who was determined, moreover, to prove the absurdity of all like stories, felt
himself obliged
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* We translate verbatim. We
doubt whether Mr. Weekman was the first investigator.
** Babinet: "Revue des
Deux Mondes," May 1, 1854, p. 511.
*** De Mirville: "Des
Esprits," p. 33.
**** Notes, "Des
Esprits," p. 38.
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to discredit the
above-mentioned fact of the Cideville phenomena, by presenting one still more
incredible. We yield the floor to M. Babinet, himself.
The following circumstance
which he gave to the Academy of Sciences, on July 5, 1852, can be found without
further commentary, and merely as an instance of a sphere-like lightning, in
the "OEuvres de F. Arago," vol. i., p. 52. We offer it verbatim.
"After a strong clap of
thunder," says M. Babinet, "but not immediately following it, a
tailor apprentice, living in the Rue St. Jacques, was just finishing his
dinner, when he saw the paper-screen which shut the fireplace fall down as if
pushed out of its place by a moderate gust of wind. Immediately after that he
perceived a globe of fire, as large as the head of a child, come out quietly
and softly from within the grate and slowly move about the room, without touching
the bricks of the floor. The aspect of this fire-globe was that of a young cat,
of middle size . . . moving itself without the use of its paws. The fire-globe
was rather brilliant and luminous than hot or inflamed, and the tailor had no
sensation of warmth. This globe approached his feet like a young cat which
wishes to play and rub itself against the legs, as is habitual to these
animals; but the apprentice withdrew his feet from it, and moving with great
caution, avoided contact with the meteor. The latter remained for a few seconds
moving about his legs, the tailor examining it with great curiosity and bending
over it. After having tried several excursions in opposite directions, but
without leaving the centre of the room, the fire-globe elevated itself
vertically to the level of the man's head, who to avoid its contact with his
face, threw himself backward on his chair. Arrived at about a yard from the
floor the fire-globe slightly lengthened, took an oblique direction toward a
hole in the wall over the fireplace, at about the height of a metre above the
mantelpiece." This hole had been made for the purpose of admitting the
pipe of a stove in winter; but, according to the expression of the tailor,
"the thunder could not see it, for it was papered over like the rest of
the wall. The fire-globe went directly to that hole, unglued the paper without
damaging it, and reasscended the chimney . . . when it arrived at the top,
which it did very slowly . . . at least sixty feet above ground . . . it
produced a most frightful explosion, which partly destroyed the chimney, . .
." etc.
"It seems," remarks
de Mirville in his review, "that we could apply to M. Babinet the
following remark made by a very witty woman to Raynal, 'If you are not a
Christian, it is not for lack of faith.' "*
It was not alone believers who
wondered at the credulity displayed by
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* De Mirville: "Faits et
Theories Physiques," p. 46.
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M. Babinet, in persisting to
call the manifestation a meteor; for Dr. Boudin mentions it very seriously in a
work on lightning he was just then publishing. "If these details are
exact," says the doctor, "as they seem to be, since they are admitted
by MM. Babinet and Arago, it appears very difficult for the phenomenon to
retain its appellation of sphere-shaped lightning. However, we leave it to
others to explain, if they can, the essence of a fire-globe emitting no
sensation of heat, having the aspect of a cat, slowly promenading in a room,
which finds means to escape by reascending the chimney through an aperture in
the wall covered over with a paper which it unglues without damaging!"*
"We are of the same
opinion," adds the marquis, "as the learned doctor, on the difficulty
of an exact definition, and we do not see why we should not have in future
lightning in the shape of a dog, of a monkey, etc., etc. One shudders at the
bare idea of a whole meteorological menagerie, which, thanks to thunder, might
come down to our rooms to promenade themselves at will."
Says de Gasparin, in his
monster volume of refutations: "In questions of testimony, certitude must
absolutely cease the moment we cross the borders of the supernatural."**
The line of demarcation not
being sufficiently fixed and determined, which of the opponents is best fitted
to take upon himself the difficult task? Which of the two is better entitled to
become the public arbiter? Is it the party of superstition, which is supported
in its testimony by the evidence of many thousands of people? For nearly two
years they crowded the country where were daily manifested the unprecedented
miracles of Cideville, now nearly forgotten among other countless spiritual
phenomena; shall we believe them, or shall we bow to science, represented by
Babinet, who, on the testimony of one man (the tailor), accepts the
manifestation of the fire-globe, or the meteor-cat, and henceforth claims for
it a place among the established facts of natural phenomena?
Mr. Crookes, in his first
article in the Quarterly Journal of Science, October 1, 1871, mentions de
Gasparin and his work Science v. Spiritualism. He remarks that "the author
finally arrived at the conclusion that all these phenomena are to be accounted
for by the action of natural causes, and do not require the supposition of
miracles, nor the intervention of spirits and diabolical influences! Gasparin
considers it as a fact fully established by his experiments, that the will, in
certain
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Monograph: "Of the
Lightning considered from the point of view of the history of Legal Medicine
and Public Hygiene," by M. Boudin, Chief Surgeon of the Military Hospital
of Boule.
** De Gasparin: vol. i., page
288.
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GASPARIN.
states of organism, can act at
a distance on inert matter, and most of his work is devoted to ascertaining the
laws and conditions under which this action manifests itself."*
Precisely; but as the work of
de Gasparin called forth numberless Answers, Defenses, and Memoirs, it was then
demonstrated by his own work that as he was a Protestant, in point of religious
fanaticism, he was as little to be relied upon as des Mousseaux and de
Mirville. The former is a profoundly pious Calvinist, while the two latter are
fanatical Roman Catholics. Moreover, the very words of de Gasparin betray the
spirit of partisanship: -- "I feel I have a duty to perform. . . . I lift
high the Protestant flag against the Ultramontane banner!" etc.** In such
matters as the nature of the so-called spiritual phenomena, no evidence can be
relied upon, except the disinterested testimony of cold unprejudiced witnesses
and science. Truth is one, and Legion is the name for religious sects; every
one of which claims to have found the unadulterated truth; as "the Devil
is the chief pillar of the (Catholic) Church," so all supernaturalism and
miracles ceased, in de Gasparin's opinion, "with apostleship."
But Mr. Crookes mentioned
another eminent scholar, Thury, of Geneva, professor of natural history, who
was a brother-investigator with Gasparin in the phenomena of Valleyres. This
professor contradicts point-blank the assertions of his colleague. "The
first and most necessary condition," says Gasparin, "is the will of
the experimenter; without the will, one would obtain nothing; you can form the
chain (the circle) for twenty-four hours consecutively, without obtaining the
least movement."***
The above proves only that de
Gasparin makes no difference between phenomena purely magnetic, produced by the
persevering will of the sitters among whom there may be not even a single
medium, developed or undeveloped, and the so-called spiritual ones. While the
first can be produced consciously by nearly every person, who has a firm and
determined will, the latter overpowers the sensitive very often against his own
consent, and always acts independently of him. The mesmerizer wills a thing,
and if he is powerful enough, that thing is done. The medium, even if he had an
honest purpose to succeed, may get no manifestations at all; the less he
exercises his will, the better the phenomena: the more he feels anxious, the
less he is likely to get anything; to mesmerize requires a positive nature, to
be a medium a perfectly passive one. This is the Alphabet of Spiritualism, and
no medium is ignorant of it.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Crookes: "Physical
Force," page 26.
** De Gasparin: "Science
versus Spirit," vol. i., p. 313.
*** Ibid., vol. i., p. 313.
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The opinion of Thury, as we
have said, disagrees entirely with Gasparin's theories of will-power. He states
it in so many plain words, in a letter, in answer to the invitation of the
count to modify the last article of his memoire. As the book of Thury is not at
hand, we translate the letter as it is found in the resume of de Mirville's
Defense. Thury's article which so shocked his religious friend, related to the
possibility of the existence and intervention in those manifestations "of
wills other than those of men and animals."
"I feel, sir, the
justness of your observations in relation to the last pages of this memoire:
they may provoke a very bad feeling for me on the part of scientists in
general. I regret it the more as my determination seems to affect you so much;
nevertheless, I persist in my resolution, because I think it a duty, to shirk
which would be a kind of treason.
"If, against all
expectations, there were some truth in Spiritualism, by abstaining from saying
on the part of science, as I conceive it to be, that the absurdity of the
belief in the intervention of spirits is not as yet demonstrated scientifically
(for such is the resume, and the thesis of the past pages of my memoire), by
abstaining from saying it to those who, after having read my work, will feel
inclined to experiment with the phenomena, I might risk to entice such persons
on a path many issues of which are very equivocal.
"Without leaving the
domain of science, as I esteem it, I will pursue my duty to the end, without
any reticence to the profit of my own glory, and, to use your own words, 'as
the great scandal lies there,' I do not wish to assume the shame of it. I,
moreover, insist that 'this is as scientific as anything else.' If I wanted to
sustain now the theory of the intervention of disembodied spirits, I would have
no power for it, for the facts which are made known are not sufficient for the
demonstration of such a hypothesis. As it is, and in the position I have
assumed, I feel I am strong against every one. Willingly or not, all the
scientists must learn, through experience and their own errors, to suspend
their judgment as to things which they have not sufficiently examined. The
lesson you gave them in this direction cannot be lost.
"GENEVA, 21 December,
1854."
Let us analyze the above
letter, and try to discover what the writer thinks, or rather what he does not
think of this new force. One thing is certain, at least: Professor Thury, a
distinguished physicist and naturalist, admits, and even scientifically proves
that various manifestations take place. Like Mr. Crookes, he does not believe
that they are produced by the interference of spirits or disembodied men who
have lived
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GASPARIN.
and died on earth; for he says
in his letter that nothing has demonstrated this theory. He certainly believes
no more in the Catholic devils or demons, for de Mirville, who quotes this
letter as a triumphant proof against de Gasparin's naturalistic theory, once
arrived at the above sentence, hastens to emphasize it by a foot-note, which
runs thus: "At Valleyres -- perhaps, but everywhere else!"* showing
himself anxious to convey the idea that the professor only meant the
manifestations of Valleyres, when denying their being produced by demons.
The contradictions, and we are
sorry to say, the absurdities in which de Gasparin allows himself to be caught,
are numerous. While bitterly criticizing the pretensions of the learned
Faradaysiacs, he attributes things which he declares magical, to causes
perfectly natural. "If," he says, "we had to deal but with such
phenomena (as witnessed and explained (?) by the great physicist), we might as
well hold our tongues; but we have passed beyond, and what good can they do
now, I would ask, these apparatus which demonstrate that an unconscious
pressure explains the whole? It explains all, and the table resists pressure
and guidance! It explains all, and a piece of furniture which nobody touches
follows the fingers pointed at it; it levitates (without contact), and it turns
itself upside down!"**
But for all that, he takes
upon himself to explain the phenomena.
"People will be
advocating miracles, you say -- magic! Every new law appears to them as a
prodigy. Calm yourselves; I take upon myself the task to quiet those who are
alarmed. In the face of such phenomena, we do not cross at all the boundaries
of natural law."***
Most assuredly, we do not. But
can the scientists assert that they have in their possession the keys to such
law? M. de Gasparin thinks he has. Let us see.
"I do not risk myself to
explain anything; it is no business of mine. (?) To authenticate simple facts,
and maintain a truth which science desires to smother, is all I pretend to do.
Nevertheless, I cannot resist the temptation to point out to those who would
treat us as so many illuminati or sorcerers, that the manifestation in question
affords an interpretation which agrees with the ordinary laws of science.
"Suppose a fluid,
emanating from the experimenters, and chiefly from some of them; suppose that
the will determined the direction taken by the fluid, and you will readily
understand the rotation and levitation of that one of the legs of the table
toward which is ejected with every action of the will an excess of fluid.
Suppose that the glass causes the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* De Mirville pleads here the
devil-theory, of course.
** "Des Tables,"
vol. i., p. 213.
*** Vol. i., p. 217.
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fluid to escape, and you will
understand how a tumbler placed on the table can interrupt its rotation, and
that the tumbler, placed on one of its sides, causes the accumulation of the
fluid in the opposite side, which, in consequence of that, is lifted!"
If every one of the experimenters
were clever mesmerizers, the explanation, minus certain important details,
might be acceptable. So much for the power of human will on inanimate matter,
according to the learned minister of Louis Philippe. But how about the
intelligence exhibited by the table? What explanation does he give as to
answers obtained through the agency of this table to questions? answers which
could not possibly have been the "reflections of the brain" of those
present (one of the favorite theories of de Gasparin), for their own ideas were
quite the reverse of the very liberal philosophy given by this wonderful table?
On this he is silent. Anything but spirits, whether human, satanic, or
elemental.
Thus, the "simultaneous
concentration of thought," and the "accumulation of fluid," will
be found no better than "the unconscious cerebration" and
"psychic force" of other scientists. We must try again; and we may
predict beforehand that the thousand and one theories of science will prove of
no avail until they will confess that this force, far from being a projection
of the accumulated wills of the circle, is, on the contrary, a force which is
abnormal, foreign to themselves, and supra-intelligent.
Professor Thury, who denies
the theory of departed human spirits, rejects the Christian devil-doctrine, and
shows himself unwilling to pronounce in favor of Crookes's theory (the 6th),
that of the hermetists and ancient theurgists, adopts the one, which, he says
in his letter, is "the most prudent, and makes him feel strong against
every one." Moreover, he accepts as little of de Gasparin's hypothesis of
"unconscious will-power." This is what he says in his work:
"As to the announced
phenomena, such as the levitation without contact, and the displacement of
furniture by invisible hands -- unable to demonstrate their impossibility, a
priori, no one has the right to treat as absurd the serious evidences which
affirm their occurrence" (p. 9).
As to the theory proposed by
M. de Gasparin, Thury judges it very severely. "While admitting that in
the experiments of Valleyres," says de Mirville, "the seat of the
force might have been in the individual -- and we say that it was intrinsic and
extrinsic at the same time -- and that the will might be generally necessary
(p. 20), he repeats but what he had said in his preface, to wit: 'M. de
Gasparin presents us with crude facts, and the explanations following he offers
for what they are worth. Breathe on them, and not many will be found standing
after this. No,
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"ECTENIC FORCE."
very little, if anything, will
remain of his explanations. As to facts, they are henceforth demonstrated'
" (p. 10).
As Mr. Crookes tells us,
Professor Thury refutes "all these explanations, and considers the effects
due to a peculiar substance, fluid, or agent, pervading in a manner similar to
the luminiferous ether of the scientists, all matter, nervous, organic or
inorganic, which he terms psychode. He enters into full discussion as to the
properties of this state, or form, or matter, and proposes the term ectenic
force . . . for the power exerted when the mind acts at a distance through the
influence of the psychode."*
Mr. Crookes remarks further,
that "Professor Thury's ectenic force, and his own 'psychic force' are
evidently equivalent terms."
We certainly could very easily
demonstrate that the two forces are identical, moreover, the astral or sidereal
light as explained by the alchemists and Eliphas Levi, in his Dogme et Rituel
de la Haute Magie; and that, under the name of AKASA, or life-principle, this
all-pervading force was known to the gymnosophists, Hindu magicians, and adepts
of all countries, thousands of years ago; and, that it is still known to them,
and used at present by the Thibetan lamas, fakirs, thaumaturgists of all
nationalities, and even by many of the Hindu "jugglers."
In many cases of trance,
artificially induced by mesmerization, it is also quite possible, even quite
probable, that it is the "spirit" of the subject which acts under the
guidance of the operator's will. But, if the medium remains conscious, and psycho-physical
phenomena occur which indicate a directing intelligence, then, unless it be
conceded that he is a "magician," and can project his double,
physical exhaustion can signify nothing more than nervous prostration. The
proof that he is the passive instrument of unseen entities controlling occult
potencies, seems conclusive. Even if Thury's ectenic and Crookes's psychic
force are substantially of the same derivation, the respective discoverers seem
to differ widely as to the properties and potencies of this force; while
Professor Thury candidly admits that the phenomena are often produced by
"wills not human," and so, of course, gives a qualified endorsement
to Mr. Crookes's theory No. 6, the latter, admitting the genuineness of the
phenomena, has as yet pronounced no definite opinion as to their cause.
Thus, we find that neither M.
Thury, who investigated these manifestations with de Gasparin in 1854, nor Mr.
Crookes, who conceded their undeniable genuineness in 1874, have reached
anything definite. Both are chemists, physicists, and very learned men. Both
have given all their attention to the puzzling question; and besides these two
scien-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Crookes: "Psychic
Force," part i., pp. 26-27.
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tists there were many others
who, while coming to the same conclusion, have hitherto been as unable to
furnish the world with a final solution. It follows then, that in twenty years
none of the scientists have made a single step toward the unravelling of the
mystery, which remains as immovable and impregnable as the walls of an enchanted
castle in a fairy tale.
Would it be too impertinent to
surmise that perhaps our modern scientists have got in what the French term un
cercle vicieux? That, hampered by the weight of their materialism, and the
insufficiency of what they name "the exact sciences" to demonstrate
to them tangibly the existence of a spiritual universe, peopled and inhabited
much more than our visible one, they are doomed forever to creep around inside
that circle, unwilling rather than unable to penetrate beyond its enchanted
ring, and explore it in its length and breadth? It is but prejudice which keeps
them from making a compromise with well-established facts and seek alliance
with such expert magnetists and mesmerizers as were Du Potet and Regazzoni.
"What, then, is produced
from death?" inquired Socrates of Cebes. "Life," was the reply.*
. . . "Can the soul, since it is immortal, be anything else than
imperishable?"** The "seed cannot develop unless it is in part
consumed," says Prof. Lecomte; "it is not quickened unless it
die," says St. Paul.
A flower blossoms; then
withers and dies. It leaves a fragrance behind, which, long after its delicate
petals are but a little dust, still lingers in the air. Our material sense may
not be cognizant of it, but it nevertheless exists. Let a note be struck on an
instrument, and the faintest sound produces an eternal echo. A disturbance is
created on the invisible waves of the shoreless ocean of space, and the
vibration is never wholly lost. Its energy being once carried from the world of
matter into the immaterial world will live for ever. And man, we are asked to
believe, man, the living, thinking, reasoning entity, the indwelling deity of
our nature's crowning masterpiece, will evacuate his casket and be no more!
Would the principle of continuity which exists even for the so-called inorganic
matter, for a floating atom, be denied to the spirit, whose attributes are
consciousness, memory, mind, LOVE! Really, the very idea is preposterous. The
more we think and the more we learn, the more difficult it becomes for us to
account for the atheism of the scientist. We may readily understand that a man
ignorant of the laws of nature, unlearned in either chemistry or physics, may
be fatally drawn into materialism through his very ignorance; his incapacity of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Plato: "Phaedo," §
44.
** Ibid., § 128.
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MALFORMATION.
understanding the philosophy
of the exact sciences, or drawing any inference by analogy from the visible to
the invisible. A natural-born metaphysician, an ignorant dreamer, may awake abruptly
and say to himself: "I dreamed it; I have no tangible proof of that which
I imagined; it is all illusion," etc. But for a man of science, acquainted
with the characteristics of the universal energy, to maintain that life is
merely a phenomenon of matter, a species of energy, amounts simply to a
confession of his own incapability of analyzing and properly understanding the
alpha and the omega even of that -- matter.
Sincere skepticism as to the
immortality of man's soul is a malady; a malformation of the physical brain,
and has existed in every age. As there are infants born with a caul upon their
heads, so there are men who are incapable to their last hour of ridding
themselves of that kind of caul evidently enveloping their organs of
spirituality. But it is quite another feeling which makes them reject the
possibility of spiritual and magical phenomena. The true name for that feeling
is -- vanity. "We can neither produce nor explain it -- hence, it does not
exist, and moreover, could never have existed." Such is the irrefutable
argument of our present-day philosophers. Some thirty years ago, E. Salverte
startled the world of the "credulous" by his work, The Philosophy of
Magic. The book claimed to unveil the whole of the miracles of the Bible as
well as those of the Pagan sanctuaries. Its resume ran thus: Long ages of
observation; a great knowledge (for those days of ignorance) of natural
sciences and philosophy; imposture; legerdemain; optics; phantasmagoria;
exaggeration. Final and logical conclusion: Thaumaturgists, prophets,
magicians, rascals, and knaves; the rest of the world, fools.
Among many other conclusive
proofs, the reader can find him offering the following: "The enthusiastic
disciples of Iamblichus affirmed that when he prayed, he was raised to the
height of ten cubits from the ground; and dupes to the same metaphor, although
Christians, have had the simplicity to attribute a similar miracle to St.
Clare, and St. Francis of Assisi."*
Hundreds of travellers claimed
to have seen fakirs produce the same phenomena, and they were all thought
either liars or hallucinated. But it was but yesterday that the same phenomenon
was witnessed and endorsed by a well-known scientist; it was produced under
test conditions; declared by Mr. Crookes to be genuine, and to be beyond the
possibility of an illusion or a trick. And so was it manifested many a time
before and attested by numerous witnesses, though the latter are now invariably
disbelieved.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Philosophy of
Magic," English translation, p. 47.
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Peace to thy scientific ashes,
O credulous Eusebe Salverte! Who knows but before the close of the present
century popular wisdom will have invented a new proverb: "As incredibly
credulous as a scientist."
Why should it appear so
impossible that when the spirit is once separated from its body, it may have
the power to animate some evanescent form, created out of that magical
"psychic" or "ectenic" or "ethereal" force, with
the help of the elementaries who furnish it with the sublimated matter of their
own bodies? The only difficulty is, to realize the fact that surrounding space
is not an empty void, but a reservoir filled to repletion with the models of
all things that ever were, that are, and that will be; and with beings of
countless races, unlike our own. Seemingly supernatural facts -- supernatural
in that they openly contradict the demonstrated natural laws of gravitation, as
in the above-mentioned instance of levitation -- are recognized by many
scientists. Every one who has dared to investigate with thoroughness has found
himself compelled to admit their existence; only in their unsuccessful efforts
to account for the phenomena on theories based on the laws of such forces as
were already known, some of the highest representatives of science have
involved themselves in inextricable difficulties!
In his Resume de Mirville
describes the argumentation of these adversaries of spiritualism as consisting
of five paradoxes, which he terms distractions.
First distraction: that of
Faraday, who explains the table phenomenon, by the table which pushes you
"in consequence of the resistance which pushes it back."
Second distraction: that of
Babinet, explaining all the communications (by raps) which are produced, as he
says, "in good faith and with perfect conscientiousness, correct in every
way and sense -- by ventriloquism," the use of which faculty implies of
necessity -- bad faith.
Third distraction: that of Dr.
Chevreuil, explaining the faculty of moving furniture without contact, by the
preliminary acquisition of that faculty.
Fourth distraction: that of
the French Institute and its members, who consent to accept the miracles, on
condition that the latter will not contradict in any way those natural laws
with which they are acquainted.
Fifth distraction: that of M.
de Gasparin, introducing as a very simple and perfectly elementary phenomenon
that which every one rejects, precisely because no one ever saw the like of
it.*
While the great, world-known
scientists indulge in such fantastic theories, some less known neurologists
find an explanation for occult phe-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* De Mirville: "Des
Esprits," p. 159.
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VERSUS IMMORTALITY.
nomena of every kind in an
abnormal effluvium resulting from epilepsy.* Another would treat mediums -- and
poets, too, we may infer -- with assafoetida and ammonia,** and declare every
one of the believers in spiritual manifestations lunatics and hallucinated
mystics.
To the latter lecturer and
professed pathologist is commended that sensible bit of advice to be found in
the New Testament: "Physician, heal thyself." Truly, no sane man
would so sweepingly charge insanity upon four hundred and forty-six millions of
people in various parts of the world, who believe in the intercourse of spirits
with ourselves!
Considering all this, it
remains to us but to wonder at the preposterous presumption of these men, who
claim to be regarded by right of learning as the high priests of science, to
classify a phenomenon they know nothing about. Surely, several millions of
their countrymen and women, if deluded, deserve at least as much attention as
potato-bugs or grasshoppers! But, instead of that, what do we find? The
Congress of the United States, at the demand of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, enacts statutes for organization of National Insect
Commissions; chemists are busying themselves in boiling frogs and bugs;
geologists amuse their leisure by osteological surveys of armor-plated ganoids,
and discuss the odontology of the various species of dinichtys; and
entomologists suffer their enthusiasm to carry them to the length of supping on
grasshoppers boiled, fried, and in soup.*** Meanwhile, millions of Americans
are either losing themselves in the maze of "crazy delusions,"
according to the opinion of some of these very learned encyclopaedists, or
perishing physically from "nervous disorders," brought on or brought
out by mediumistic diathesis.
At one time, there was reason
to hope that Russian scientists would have undertaken the task of giving the
phenomena a careful and impartial study. A commission was appointed by the
Imperial University of St. Petersburg, with Professor Mendeleyeff, the great
physicist, at its head. The advertised programme provided for a series of forty
seances to test mediums, and invitations were extended to all of this class who
chose to come to the Russian capital and submit their powers to examination. As
a rule they refused -- doubtless from a prevision of the trap that had been
laid for them. After eight sittings, upon a shallow pretext, and just when the
manifestations were becoming interesting, the commission prejudged the case,
and published a decision adverse to the claims of mediumism. Instead of
pursuing dignified, scientific methods, they set spies to peep
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* See F. Gerry Fairfield's
"Ten Years with Spiritual Mediums," New York, 1875.
** Marvin: "Lecture on
Mediomania."
*** "Scientific
American," N. Y., 1875.
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through the key-holes.
Professor Mendeleyeff declared in a public lecture that spiritualism, or any
such belief in our souls' immortality, was a mixture of superstition, delusion,
and fraud; adding that every "manifestation" of such nature --
including mind-reading, trance, and other psychological phenomena, we must
suppose -- could be, and was produced by means of clever apparatus and
machinery concealed under the clothing of mediums!
After such a public exhibition
of ignorance and prejudice, Mr. Butlerof, Professor of Chemistry at the St.
Petersburg University, and Mr. Aksakof, Counsellor of State in the same city,
who had been invited to assist on the committee for mediums, became so
disgusted that they withdrew. Having published their protests in the Russian
papers, they were supported by the majority of the press, who did not spare
either Mendeleyeff or his officious committee with their sarcasms. The public
acted fairly in that case. One hundred and thirty names, of the most
influential persons of the best society of St. Petersburg, many of them no
spiritualists at all, but simply investigators, added their signatures to the well-deserved
protest.
The inevitable result of such
a procedure followed; universal attention was drawn to the question of
spiritualism; private circles were organized throughout the empire; some of the
most liberal journals began to discuss the subject; and, as we write, a new
commission is being organized to finish the interrupted task.
But now -- as a matter of
course -- they will do their duty less than ever. They have a better pretext
than they ever had in the pretended expose of the medium Slade, by Professor
Lankester, of London. True, to the evidence of one scientist and his friend, --
Messrs. Lankester and Donkin -- the accused opposed the testimony of Wallace,
Crookes, and a host of others, which totally nullifies an accusation based
merely on circumstantial evidence and prejudice. As the London Spectator very
pertinently observes:
"It is really a pure
superstition and nothing else to assume that we are so fully acquainted with
the laws of nature, that even carefully examined facts, attested by an experienced
observer, ought to be cast aside as utterly unworthy of credit, only because
they do not, at first sight, seem to be in keeping with what is most clearly
known already. To assume, as Professor Lankester appears to do, that because
there are fraud and credulity in plenty to be found in connection with these
facts -- as there is, no doubt, in connection with all nervous diseases --
fraud and credulity will account for all the carefully attested statements of
accurate and conscientious observers, is to saw away at the very branch of the
tree of knowledge on which inductive science necessarily rests, and to bring
the whole structure toppling to the ground."
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LOURDES.
But what matters all this to
scientists? The torrent of superstition, which, according to them, sweeps away
millions of bright intellects in its impetuous course, cannot reach them. The
modern deluge called spiritualism is unable to affect their strong minds; and
the muddy waves of the flood must expend their raging fury without wetting even
the soles of their boots. Surely it must be but traditional stubbornness on the
part of the Creator that prevents him from confessing what a poor chance his
miracles have in our day in blinding professed scientists. By this time even He
ought to know and take notice that long ago they decided to write on the
porticoes of their universities and colleges:
Science commands that God
shall not
Do miracles upon this spot! *
Both the infidel spiritualists
and the orthodox Roman Catholics seem to have leagued themselves this year against
the iconoclastic pretensions of materialism. Increase of skepticism has
developed of late a like increase of credulity. The champions of the Bible
"divine" miracles rival the panegyrist's mediumistic phenomena, and
the middle ages revive in the nineteenth century. Once more we see the Virgin
Mary resume her epistolary correspondence with the faithful children of her
church; and while the "angel friends" scribble messages to
spiritualists through their mediums, the "mother of God" drops
letters direct from heaven to earth. The shrine of Notre Dame de Lourdes has
turned into a spiritualistic cabinet for "materializations," while
the cabinets of popular American mediums are transformed into sacred shrines,
into which Mohammed, Bishop Polk, Joan of Arc and other aristocratic spirits
from over the "dark river," having descended, "materialize"
in full light. And if the Virgin Mary is seen taking her daily walk in the
woods about Lourdes in full human form, why not the Apostle of Islam, and the
late Bishop of Louisiana? Either both "miracles" are possible, or
both kinds of these manifestations, the "divine" as well as the
"spiritual," are arrant impostures. Time alone will prove which; but
meanwhile, as science refuses the loan of her magic lamp to illuminate these
mysteries, common people must go stumbling on whether they be mired or not.
The recent
"miracles" at Lourdes having been unfavorably discussed in the London
papers, Monsignor Capel communicates to the Times the views of the Roman Church
in the following terms:
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*"De par le Roi, defense
a Dieu,
De faire miracle, en ces
lieux."
A satire that was found
written upon the walls of the cemetery at the time of the Jansenist miracles
and their prohibition by the police of France.
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"As to the miraculous
cures which are effected, I would refer your readers to the calm, judicious
work, La Grotte de Lourdes, written by Dr. Dozous, an eminent resident
practitioner, inspector of epidemic diseases for the district, and medical
assistant of the Court of Justice. He prefaces a number of detailed cases of
miraculous cures, which he says he has studied with great care and
perseverance, with these words: 'I declare that these cures effected at the
Sanctuary of Lourdes by means of the water of the fountain, have established
their supernatural character in the eyes of men of good faith. I ought to
confess that without these cures, my mind, little prone to listen to miraculous
explanations of any kind, would have had great difficulty in accepting even
this fact (the apparition), remarkable as it is from so many points of view.
But the cures, of which I have been so often an ocular witness, have given to
my mind a light which does not permit me to ignore the importance of the visits
of Bernadette to the Grotto, and the reality of the apparitions with which she
was favored.' The testimony of a distinguished medical man, who has carefully
watched from the beginning Bernadette, and the miraculous cures at the Grotto,
is at least worthy of respectful consideration. I may add, that the vast number
of those who come to the Grotto do so to repent of their sins, to increase
their piety, to pray for the regeneration of their country, to profess publicly
their belief in the Son of God and his Immaculate Mother. Many come to be cured
of bodily ailments; and on the testimony of eye-witnesses several return home
freed from their sickness. To upbraid with non-belief, as does your article,
those who use also the waters of the Pyrenees, is as reasonable as to charge
with unbelief the magistrates who inflict punishment on the peculiar people for
neglecting to have medical aid. Health obliged me to pass the winters of 1860
to 1867 at Pau. This gave me the opportunity of making the most minute inquiry
into the apparition at Lourdes. After frequent and lengthened examinations of
Bernadette and of some of the miracles effected, I am convinced that, if facts
are to be received on human testimony, then has the apparition at Lourdes every
claim to be received as an undeniable fact. It is, however, no part of the
Catholic faith, and may be accepted or rejected by any Catholic without the
least praise or condemnation."
Let the reader observe the
sentence we have italicized. This makes it clear that the Catholic Church,
despite her infallibility and her liberal postage convention with the Kingdom
of Heaven, is content to accept even the validity of divine miracles upon human
testimony. Now when we turn to the report of Mr. Huxley's recent New York
lectures on evolution, we find him saying that it is upon "human historical
evidence that we depend for the greater part of our knowledge for the doings of
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PROOF.
the past." In a lecture
on Biology, he has said " . . . every man who has the interest of truth at
heart must earnestly desire that every well-founded and just criticism that can
be made should be made; but it is essential . . . that the critic should know
what he is talking about." An aphorism that its author should recall when
he undertakes to pronounce upon psychological subjects. Add this to his views,
as expressed above, and who could ask a better platform upon which to meet him?
Here we have a representative
materialist, and a representative Catholic prelate, enunciating an identical
view of the sufficiency of human testimony to prove facts that it suits the
prejudices of each to believe. After this, what need for either the student of
occultism, or even the spiritualist, to hunt about for endorsements of the
argument they have so long and so persistently advanced, that the psychological
phenomena of ancient and modern thaumaturgists being superabundantly proven
upon human testimony must be accepted as facts? Church and College having
appealed to the tribunal of human evidence, they cannot deny the rest of
mankind an equal privilege. One of the fruits of the recent agitation in London
of the subject of mediumistic phenomena, is the expression of some remarkably
liberal views on the part of the secular press. "In any case, we are for
admitting spiritualism to a place among tolerated beliefs, and letting it alone
accordingly," says the London Daily News, in 1876. "It has many votaries
who are as intelligent as most of us, and to whom any obvious and palpable
defect in the evidence meant to convince must have been obvious and palpable
long ago. Some of the wisest men in the world believed in ghosts, and would
have continued to do so even though half-a-dozen persons in succession had been
convicted of frightening people with sham goblins."
It is not for the first time
in the history of the world, that the invisible world has to contend against
the materialistic skepticism of soul-blind Sadducees. Plato deplores such an
unbelief, and refers to this pernicious tendency more than once in his works.
From Kapila, the Hindu
philosopher, who many centuries before Christ demurred to the claim of the
mystic Yogins, that in ecstasy a man has the power of seeing Deity face to face
and conversing with the "highest" beings, down to the Voltaireans of
the eighteenth century, who laughed at everything that was held sacred by other
people, each age had its unbelieving Thomases. Did they ever succeed in checking
the progress of truth? No more than the ignorant bigots who sat in judgment
over Galileo checked the progress of the earth's rotation. No exposures
whatever are able to vitally affect the stability or instability of a belief
which humanity inherited from the first races of men, those, who -- if we
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can believe in the evolution
of spiritual man as in that of the physical one -- had the great truth from the
lips of their ancestors, the gods of their fathers, "that were on the
other side of the flood." The identity of the Bible with the legends of
the Hindu sacred books and the cosmogonies of other nations, must be
demonstrated at some future day. The fables of the mythopoeic ages will be
found to have but allegorized the greatest truths of geology and anthropology.
It is in these ridiculously expressed fables that science will have to look for
her "missing links."
Otherwise, whence such strange
"coincidences" in the respective histories of nations and peoples so
widely thrown apart? Whence that identity of primitive conceptions which,
fables and legends though they are termed now, contain in them nevertheless the
kernel of historical facts, of a truth thickly overgrown with the husks of
popular embellishment, but still a truth? Compare only this verse of Genesis
vi.: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the
earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the
daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which
they chose. . . . There were giants in the earth in those days," etc.,
with this part of the Hindu cosmogony, in the Vedas, which speaks of the
descent of the Brahmans. The first Brahman complains of being alone among all
his brethren without a wife. Notwithstanding that the Eternal advises him to
devote his days solely to the study of the Sacred Knowledge (Veda), the first-born
of mankind insists. Provoked at such ingratitude, the eternal gave Brahman a
wife of the race of the Daints, or giants, from whom all the Brahmans
maternally descend. Thus the entire Hindu priesthood is descended, on the one
hand, from the superior spirits (the sons of God), and from Daintany, a
daughter of the earthly giants, the primitive men.* "And they bare
children to them; the same became mighty men which were of old; men of
renown."**
The same is found in the
Scandinavian cosmogonical fragment. In the Edda is given the description to
Gangler by Har, one of the three informants (Har, Jafuhar, and Tredi) of the
first man, called Bur, "the father of Bor, who took for wife Besla, a
daughter of the giant Bolthara, of the race of the primitive giants." The
full and interesting narrative may be found in the Prose Edda, sects. 4-8, in
Mallett's Northern Antiquities.**
The same groundwork underlies
the Grecian fables about the Titans; and may be found in the legend of the Mexicans
-- the four successive races of Popol-Vuh. It constitutes one of the many ends
to be found in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Polier: "Mythologie des
Indous."
** Genesis vi., 4.
*** Mallett: "Northern
Antiquities," Bohn's edition, pp. 401-405.
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PROTESTS.
the entangled and seemingly
inextricable skein of mankind, viewed as a psychological phenomenon. Belief in
supernaturalism would be otherwise inexplicable. To say that it sprang up, and
grew and developed throughout the countless ages, without either cause or the
least firm basis to rest upon, but merely as an empty fancy, would be to utter
as great an absurdity as the theological doctrine that the universe sprang into
creation out of nothing.
It is too late now to kick
against an evidence which manifests itself as in the full glare of noon.
Liberal, as well as Christian papers, and the organs of the most advanced
scientific authorities, begin to protest unanimously against the dogmatism and
narrow prejudices of sciolism. The Christian World, a religious paper, adds its
voice to that of the unbelieving London press. Following is a good specimen of
its common sense:
"If a medium," it
says,* "can be shown ever so conclusively to be an impostor, we shall
still object to the disposition manifested by persons of some authority in
scientific matters, to pooh-pooh and knock on the head all careful inquiry into
those subjects of which Mr. Barrett took note in his paper before the British
Association. Because spiritualists have committed themselves to many
absurdities, that is no reason why the phenomena to which they appeal should be
scouted as unworthy of examination. They may be mesmeric, or clairvoyant, or
something else. But let our wise men tell us what they are, and not snub us, as
ignorant people too often snub inquiring youth, by the easy but unsatisfactory
apothegm, 'Little children should not ask questions.' "
Thus the time has come when
the scientists have lost all right to be addressed with the Miltonian verse,
"O thou who, for the testimony of truth, hast borne universal
reproach!" Sad degeneration, and one that recalls the exclamation of that
"doctor of physic" mentioned one hundred and eighty years ago by Dr.
Henry More, and who, upon hearing the story told of the drummer of Tedworth and
of Ann Walker, "cryed out presently, If this be true, I have been in a
wrong box all this time, and must begin my account anew."**
But in our century,
notwithstanding Huxley's endorsement of the value of "human
testimony," even Dr. Henry More has become "an enthusiast and a
visionary, both of which, united in the same person, constitute a canting
madman."***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* In the "Quarterly
Review" of 1859, Graham gives a strange account of many now deserted
Oriental cities, in which the stone doors are of enormous dimensions, often
seemingly out of proportion with the buildings themselves, and remarks that
dwellings and doors bear all of them the impress of an ancient race of giants.
** Dr. More: "Letter to
Glanvil, author of 'Saducismus Triumphatus.' "
*** J. S. Y.:
"Demonologia, or Natural Knowledge Revealed," 1827, p. 219.
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What psychology has long
lacked to make its mysterious laws better understood and applied to the
ordinary as well as extraordinary affairs of life, is not facts. These it has
had in abundance. The need has been for their recording and classification -- for
trained observers and competent analysts. From the scientific body these ought
to have been supplied. If error has prevailed and superstition run riot these
many centuries throughout Christendom, it is the misfortune of the common
people, the reproach of science. The generations have come and gone, each
furnishing its quota of martyrs to conscience and moral courage, and psychology
is little better understood in our day than it was when the heavy hand of the
Vatican sent those brave unfortunates to their untimely doom, and branded their
memories with the stigma of heresy and sorcery.
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CHAPTER V.
"Ich bin der Geist der
stets verneint."
(I am the spirit which still
denies.) -- (Mephisto in FAUST.)
"The Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive because it seeth Him not; neither knoweth
Him." -- Gospel according to John, xiv., 17.
"Millions of spiritual
creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and
when we sleep." -- MILTON.
"Mere intellectual
enlightenment cannot recognize the spiritual. As the sun puts out a fire, so
spirit puts out the eyes of mere intellect. -- W. HOWITT.
THERE has been an infinite
confusion of names to express one and the same thing.
The chaos of the ancients; the
Zoroastrian sacred fire, or the Antusbyrum of the Parsees; the Hermes-fire; the
Elmes-fire of the ancient Germans; the lightning of Cybele; the burning torch
of Apollo; the flame on the altar of Pan; the inextinguishable fire in the
temple on the Acropolis, and in that of Vesta; the fire-flame of Pluto's helm;
the brilliant sparks on the hats of the Dioscuri, on the Gorgon head, the helm
of Pallas, and the staff of Mercury; the [[pur asbeston]]; the Egyptian Phtha,
or Ra; the Grecian Zeus Cataibates (the descending);* the pentecostal
fire-tongues; the burning bush of Moses; the pillar of fire of the Exodus, and
the "burning lamp" of Abram; the eternal fire of the "bottomless
pit"; the Delphic oracular vapors; the Sidereal light of the Rosicrucians;
the AKASA of the Hindu adepts; the Astral light of Eliphas Levi; the nerve-aura
and the fluid of the magnetists; the od of Reichenbach; the fire-globe, or
meteor-cat of Babinet; the Psychod and ectenic force of Thury; the psychic
force of Sergeant Cox and Mr. Crookes; the atmospheric magnetism of some
naturalists; galvanism; and finally, electricity, are but various names for
many different manifestations, or effects of the same mysterious, all-pervading
cause -- the Greek Archeus, or [[Archaios]].
Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton, in his
Coming Race, describes it as the VRIL,** used by the subterranean populations,
and allowed his readers to take it
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Pausanias:
"Eliae," lib. i., cap. xiv.
** We apprehend that the noble
author coined his curious names by contracting words in classical languages. Gy
would come from gune; vril from virile.
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for a fiction. "These
people," he says, "consider that in the vril they had arrived at the
unity in natural energic agencies"; and proceeds to show that Faraday
intimated them "under the more cautious term of correlation," thus:
"I have long held an
opinion, almost amounting to a conviction, in common, I believe, with many
other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the
forces of matter are made manifest, HAVE ONE COMMON ORIGIN; or, in other words,
are so directly related and naturally dependent, that they are convertible, as
it were, into one another, and possess equivalents of power in their
action."
Absurd and unscientific as may
appear our comparison of a fictitious vril invented by the great novelist, and
the primal force of the equally great experimentalist, with the kabalistic
astral light, it is nevertheless the true definition of this force. Discoveries
are constantly being made to corroborate the statement thus boldly put forth.
Since we began to write this part of our book, an announcement has been made in
a number of papers of the supposed discovery of a new force by Mr. Edison, the
electrician, of Newark, New Jersey, which force seems to have little in common
with electricity, or galvanism, except the principle of conductivity. If
demonstrated, it may remain for a long time under some pseudonymous scientific
name; but, nevertheless, it will be but one of the numerous family of children
brought forth from the commencement of time by our kabalistic mother, the
Astral Virgin. In fact, the discoverer says that, "it is as distinct, and
has as regular laws as heat, magnetism, or electricity." The journal which
contains the first account of the discovery adds that, "Mr. Edison thinks
that it exists in connection with heat, and that it can also be generated by
independent and as yet undiscovered means."
Another of the most startling of
recent discoveries, is the possibility of annihilating distance between human
voices -- by means of the telephone (distance-sounder), an instrument invented
by Professor A. Graham Bell. This possibility, first suggested by the little
"lovers' telegraph," consisting of small tin cups with vellum and
drug-twine apparatus, by which a conversation can be carried on at a distance
of two hundred feet, has developed into the telephone, which will become the
wonder of this age. A long conversation has taken place between Boston and
Cambridgeport by telegraph; "every word being distinctly heard and
perfectly understood, and the modulations of voices being quite
distinguishable," according to the official report. The voice is seized
upon, so to say, and held in form by a magnet, and the sound-wave transmitted
by electricity acting in unison and co-operating with the magnet. The whole
success depends upon a perfect control of the electric currents and the
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BELL'S TELEPHONE.
power of the magnets used,
with which the former must co-operate. "The invention," reports the
paper, "may be rudely described as a sort of trumpet, over the bell-mouth
of which is drawn a delicate membrane, which, when the voice is thrown into the
tube, swells outward in proportion to the force of the sound-wave. To the outer
side of the membrane is attached a piece of metal, which, as the membrane
swells outward, connects with a magnet, and this, with the electric circuit, is
controlled by the operator. By some principle, not yet fully understood, the
electric current transmits the sound-wave just as delivered by the voice in the
trumpet, and the listener at the other end of the line, with a twin or
facsimile trumpet at his ear, hears every word distinctly, and readily detects
the modulations of the speaker's voice."
Thus, in the presence of such
wonderful discoveries of our age, and the further magical possibilities lying
latent and yet undiscovered in the boundless realm of nature, and further, in
view of the great probability that Edison's Force and Professor Graham Bell's
Telephone may unsettle, if not utterly upset all our ideas of the imponderable
fluids, would it not be well for such persons as may be tempted to traverse our
statements, to wait and see whether they will be corroborated or refuted by
further discoveries.
Only in connection with these
discoveries, we may, perhaps, well remind our readers of the many hints to be
found in the ancient histories as to a certain secret in the possession of the
Egyptian priesthood, who could instantly communicate, during the celebration of
the Mysteries, from one temple to another, even though the former were at
Thebes and the latter at the other end of the country; the legends attributing
it, as a matter of course, to the "invisible tribes" of the air,
which carry messages for mortals. The author of Pre-Adamite Man quotes an instance,
which being given merely on his own authority, and he seeming uncertain whether
the story comes from Macrinus or some other writer, may be taken for what it is
worth. He found good evidence, he says, during his stay in Egypt, that
"one of the Cleopatras (?) sent news by a wire to all the cities, from
Heliopolis to Elephantine, on the Upper Nile."*
It is not so long since
Professor Tyndall ushered us into a new world, peopled with airy shapes of the
most ravishing beauty.
"The discovery
consists," he says, "in subjecting the vapors of volatile liquids to
the action of concentrated sun-light, or to the concentrated beam of the
electric light." The vapors of certain nitrites, iodides, and acids are
subjected to the action of the light in an experimental tube, lying
horizontally, and so arranged that the axis of the tube and that of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* P. B. Randolph:
"Pre-Adamite Man," p. 48.
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the parallel beams issuing
from the lamp are coincident. The vapors form clouds of gorgeous tints, and
arrange themselves into the shapes of vases, of bottles and cones, in nests of
six or more; of shells, of tulips, roses, sunflowers, leaves, and of involved
scrolls. "In one case," he tells us, "the cloud-bud grew rapidly
into a serpent's head; a mouth was formed, and from the cloud, a cord of cloud
resembling a tongue was discharged." Finally, to cap the climax of
marvels, "once it positively assumed the form of a fish, with eyes, gills,
and feelers. The twoness of the animal form was displayed throughout, and no
disk, coil, or speck existed on one side that did not exist on the other."
These phenomena may possibly
be explained in part by the mechanical action of a beam of light, which Mr.
Crookes has recently demonstrated. For instance, it is a supposable case, that
the beams of light may have constituted a horizontal axis, about which the
disturbed molecules of the vapors gathered into the forms of globes and
spindles. But how account for the fish, the serpent's head, the vases, the
flowers of different varieties, the shells? This seems to offer a dilemma to
science as baffling as the meteor-cat of Babinet. We do not learn that Tyndall
ventured as absurd an explanation of his extraordinary phenomena as that of the
Frenchman about his.
Those who have not given
attention to the subject may be surprised to find how much was known in former
days of that all-pervading, subtile principle which has recently been baptized
THE UNIVERSAL ETHER.
Before proceeding, we desire
once more to enunciate in two categorical propositions, what was hinted at
before. These propositions were demonstrated laws with the ancient theurgists.
I. The so-called miracles, to
begin with Moses and end with Cagliostro, when genuine, were as de Gasparin
very justly insinuates in his work on the phenomena, "perfectly in
accordance with natural law"; hence -- no miracles. Electricity and
magnetism were unquestionably used in the production of some of the prodigies;
but now, the same as then, they are put in requisition by every sensitive, who
is made to use unconsciously these powers by the peculiar nature of his or her
organization, which serves as a conductor for some of these imponderable
fluids, as yet so imperfectly known to science. This force is the prolific
parent of numberless attributes and properties, many, or rather, most of which,
are as yet unknown to modern physics.
II. The phenomena of natural
magic to be witnessed in Siam, India, Egypt, and other Oriental countries, bear
no relationship whatever to sleight of hand; the one being an absolute physical
effect, due to the action of occult natural forces, the other, a mere deceptive
result
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obtained by dexterous
manipulations supplemented with confederacy.*
The thaumaturgists of all
periods, schools, and countries, produced their wonders, because they were
perfectly familiar with the imponderable -- in their effects -- but otherwise perfectly
tangible waves of the astral light. They controlled the currents by guiding
them with their will-power. The wonders were both of physical and psychological
character; the former embracing effects produced upon material objects, the
latter the mental phenomena of Mesmer and his successors. This class has been
represented in our time by two illustrious men, Du Potet and Regazzoni, whose
wonderful powers were well attested in France and other countries. Mesmerism is
the most important branch of magic; and its phenomena are the effects of the
universal agent which underlies all magic and has produced at all ages the
so-called miracles.
The ancients called it Chaos;
Plato and the Pythagoreans named it the Soul of the World. According to the
Hindus, the Deity in the shape of AEther pervades all things. It is the
invisible, but, as we have said before, too tangible Fluid. Among other names
this universal Proteus -- or "the nebulous Almighty," as de Mirville
calls it in derision -- was termed by the theurgists "the living
fire,"** the "Spirit of Light," and Magnes. This last
appellation indicates its magnetic properties and shows its magical nature.
For, as truly expressed by one of its enemies -- [[magos]] and [[magnes]] are
two branches growing from the same trunk, and shooting forth the same
resultants.
Magnetism is a word for the
derivation of which we have to look to an incredibly early epoch. The stone
called magnet is believed by many to owe its name to Magnesia, a city or
district in Thessaly, where these stones were found in quantity. We believe,
however, the opinion of the Hermetists to be the correct one. The word Magh,
magus, is derived from the Sanskrit Mahaji, the great or wise (the anointed by
the divine wisdom). "Eumolpus is the mythic founder of the Eumolpidae
(priests);
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* On this point at least we
are on firm ground. Mr. Crookes's testimony corroborates our assertions. On
page 84 of his pamphlet on "Phenomenal Spiritualism" he says:
"The many hundreds of facts I am prepared to attest -- facts which to
imitate by known mechanics or physical means would baffle the skill of a
Houdin, a Bosco, or an Anderson, backed with all the resources of elaborate
machinery and the practice of years -- have all taken place in my own house; at
times appointed by myself and under circumstances which absolutely precluded
the employment of the very simplest instrumental aids."
** In this appellation, we may
discover the meaning of the puzzling sentence to be found in the Zend-Avesta
that "fire gives knowledge of the future, science, and amiable
speech," as it develops an extraordinary eloquence in some sensitives.
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the priests traced their own
wisdom to the Divine Intelligence."* The various cosmogonies show that the
Archaeal Universal Soul was held by every nation as the "mind" of the
Demiurgic Creator, the Sophia of the Gnostics, or the Holy Ghost as a female
principle. As the Magi derived their name from it, so the Magnesian stone or
Magnet was called in their honor, for they were the first to discover its
wonderful properties. Their temples dotted the country in all directions, and
among these were some temples of Hercules,** -- hence the stone, when it once
became known that the priests used it for their curative and magical purposes,
received the name of the Magnesian or Heraclean stone. Socrates, speaking of
it, remarks: "Euripides calls it the Magnesian stone, but the common
people, the Heraclean."*** It was the country and stone which were called
after the Magi, not the Magi after one or the other. Pliny informs us that the
wedding-ring among the Romans was magnetized by the priests before the
ceremony. The old Pagan historians are careful to keep silent on certain
Mysteries of the "wise" (Magi) and Pausanias was warned in a dream,
he says, not to unveil the holy rites of the temple of Demeter and Persephoneia
at Athens.****
Modern science, after having
ineffectually denied animal magnetism, has found herself forced to accept it as
a fact. It is now a recognized property of human and animal organization; as to
its psychological, occult influence, the Academies battle with it, in our
century, more ferociously than ever. It is the more to be regretted and even
wondered at, as the representatives of "exact science" are unable to
either explain or even offer us anything like a reasonable hypothesis for the
undeniable mysterious potency contained in a simple magnet. We begin to have
daily proofs that these potencies underlie the theurgic mysteries, and
therefore might perhaps explain the occult faculties possessed by ancient and modern
thaumaturgists as well as a good many of their most astounding achievements.
Such were the gifts transmitted by Jesus to some of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Dunlap: "Musah, His
Mysteries," p. iii.
** "Hercules was known as
the king of the Musians," says Schwab, ii., 44; and Musien was the feast
of "Spirit and Matter," Adonis and Venus, Bacchus and Ceres. (See
Dunlap: "Mystery of Adonis," p. 95.) Dunlap shows, on the authority
of Julian and Anthon (67), AEsculapius, "the Savior of all,"
identical with Phtha (the creative Intellect, the Divine Wisdom), and with
Apollo, Baal, Adonis, and Hercules (ibid., p. 93), and Phtha is the "Anima
mundi," the Universal Soul, of Plato, the Holy Ghost of the Egyptians, and
the Astral Light of the Kabalists. M. Michelet, however, regards the Grecian
Herakles as a different character, the adversary of the Bacchic revellings and
their attendant human sacrifices.
*** Plato: "Ion"
(Burgess), vol. iv., p. 294.
**** "Attica," i.,
xiv.
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POWER.
his disciples. At the moment of
his miraculous cures, the Nazarene felt a power issuing from him. Socrates, in
his dialogue with Theages,* telling him of his familiar god (demon), and his
power of either imparting his (Socrates') wisdom to his disciples or preventing
it from benefiting those he associates with, brings the following instance in
corroboration of his words: "I will tell you, Socrates," says
Aristides, "a thing incredible, indeed, by the gods, but true. I made a
proficiency when I associated with you, even if I was only in the same house,
though not in the same room; but more so, when I was in the same room . . . and
much more when I looked at you. . . . But I made by far the greatest
proficiency when I sat near you and touched you."
This is the modern magnetism
and mesmerism of Du Potet and other masters, who, when they have subjected a
person to their fluidic influence, can impart to them all their thoughts even
at a distance, and with an irresistible power force their subject to obey their
mental orders. But how far better was this psychic force known to the ancient
philosophers! We can glean some information on that subject from the earliest
sources. Pythagoras taught his disciples that God is the universal mind
diffused through all things, and that this mind by the sole virtue of its
universal sameness could be communicated from one object to another and be made
to create all things by the sole will-power of man. With the ancient Greeks,
Kurios was the god-Mind (Nous). "Now Koros (Kurios) signifies the pure and
unmixed nature of intellect -- wisdom," says Plato.** Kurios is Mercury,
the Divine Wisdom, and "Mercury is the Sol" (Sun),*** from whom Thaut
-- Hermes -- received this divine wisdom, which, in his turn, he imparted to
the world in his books. Hercules is also the Sun -- the celestial storehouse of
the universal magnetism;**** or rather Hercules is the magnetic light which,
when having made its way through the "opened eye of heaven," enters
into the regions of our planet and thus becomes the Creator. Hercules passes through
the twelve labors, the valiant Titan! He is called "Father of All"
and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Plato: "Theages."
Cicero renders this word [[daimonion]], quiddam divinum, a divine something,
not anything personal.
** "Cratylus," p.
79.
*** "Arnobius," vi.,
xii.
**** As we will show in
subsequent chapters, the sun was not considered by the ancients as the direct
cause of the light and heat, but only as an agent of the former, through which
the light passes on its way to our sphere. Thus it was always called by the
Egyptians "the eye of Osiris," who was himself the Logos, the
First-begotten, or light made manifest to the world, "which is the mind
and divine intellect of the Concealed." It is only that light of which we
are cognizant that is the Demiurge, the creator of our planet and everything
pertaining to it; with the invisible and unknown universes disseminated through
space, none of the sun-gods had anything to do. The idea is expressed very
clearly in the "Books of Hermes."
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"self-born"
"(autophues)."* Hercules, the Sun, is killed by the Devil, Typhon,**
and so is Osiris, who is the father and brother of Horus, and at the same time
is identical with him; and we must not forget that the magnet was called the
"bone of Horus," and iron the "bone of Typhon." He is
called "Hercules Invictus," only when he descends to Hades (the
subterranean garden), and plucking the "golden apples" from the
"tree of life," slays the dragon.*** The rough Titanic power, the
"lining" of every sun-god, opposes its force of blind matter to the
divine magnetic spirit, which tries to harmonize everything in nature.
All the sun-gods, with their
symbol, the visible sun, are the creators of physical nature only. The
spiritual is the work of the Highest God -- the Concealed, the Central,
Spiritual SUN, and of his Demiurge -- the Divine Mind of Plato, and the Divine
Wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus**** -- the wisdom effused from Oulom or Kronos.
"After the distribution
of pure Fire, in the Samothracian Mysteries, a new life began."***** This
was the "new birth," that is alluded to by Jesus, in his nocturnal
conversation with Nicodemus. "Initiated into the most blessed of all
Mysteries, being ourselves pure . . . we become just and holy with
wisdom."****** "He breathed on them and saith unto them, 'Take the
Holy Pneuma.' "******* And this simple act of will-power was sufficient to
impart vaticination in its nobler and most perfect form if both the initiator
and the initiated were worthy of it. To deride this gift, even in its present
aspect, "as the corrupt offspring and lingering remains of an ignorant age
of superstition, and hastily to condemn it as unworthy of sober investigation,
would be as unphilosophical as it is wrong," remarks the Rev. J. B. Gross.
"To remove the veil which hides our vision from the future, has been
attempted -- in all ages of the world; and therefore the propensity to pry into
the lap of time, contemplated as one of the faculties of human mind, comes
recommended to us under the sanction of God. . . . Zuinglius, the Swiss
reformer, attested the comprehensiveness of his faith in the providence of the
Supreme Being, in the cosmopolitan doctrine that the Holy Ghost was not
excluded from the more worthy portion of the heathen world. Admitting its
truth, we cannot
[[Footnote(s)]]
--------------------------------------------------
* "Orphic Hymn,"
xii.; Hermann; Dunlap: "Musah, His Mysteries," p. 91.
** Movers, 525. Dunlap:
"Mysteries of Adonis," 94.
*** Preller: ii., 153. This is
evidently the origin of the Christian dogma of Christ descending into hell and
overcoming Satan.
**** This important fact
accounts admirably for the gross polytheism of the masses, and the refined,
highly-philosophical conception of one God, which was taught only in
sanctuaries of the "pagan" temples.
*****Anthon:
"Cabeiria."
****** Plato:
"Phaedrus," Cary's translation.
******* John xx., 22.
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easily conceive a valid reason
why a heathen, thus favored, should not be capable of true prophecy."*
Now, what is this mystic,
primordial substance? In the book of Genesis, at the beginning of the first
chapter, it is termed the "face of the waters," said to have been
incubated by the "Spirit of God." Job mentions, in chap. xxvi., 5,
that "dead things are formed from under the waters, and inhabitants
thereof." In the original text, instead of "dead things," it is
written dead Rephaim (giants, or mighty primitive men), from whom
"Evolution" may one day trace our present race. In the Egyptian
mythology, Kneph the Eternal unrevealed God is represented by a snake-emblem of
eternity encircling a water-urn, with his head hovering over the waters, which
it incubates with his breath. In this case the serpent is the Agathodaimon, the
good spirit; in its opposite aspect it is the Kakodaimon -- the bad one. In the
Scandinavian Eddas, the honey-dew -- the food of the gods and of the creative,
busy Yggdrasill -- bees -- falls during the hours of night, when the atmosphere
is impregnated with humidity; and in the Northern mythologies, as the passive
principle of creation, it typifies the creation of the universe out of water;
this dew is the astral light in one of its combinations and possesses creative
as well as destructive properties. In the Chaldean legend of Berosus, Oannes or
Dagon, the man-fish, instructing the people, shows the infant world created out
of water and all beings originating from this prima materia. Moses teaches that
only earth and water can bring a living soul; and we read in the Scriptures
that herbs could not grow until the Eternal caused it to rain upon earth. In
the Mexican Popol-Vuh man is created out of mud or clay (terre glaise), taken
from under the water. Brahma creates Lomus, the great Muni (or first man),
seated on his lotus, only after having called into being, spirits, who thus
enjoyed among mortals a priority of existence, and he creates him out of water,
air, and earth. Alchemists claim that primordial or pre-Adamic earth when
reduced to its first substance is in its second stage of transformation like
clear-water, the first being the alkahest** proper. This primordial substance
is said to contain within itself the essence of all that goes to make up man;
it has not only all the elements of his physical being, but even the
"breath of life" itself in a latent state, ready to be awakened. This
it derives from the "incubation" of the Spirit of God upon the face
of the waters -- chaos; in fact, this substance is chaos itself. From this it
was that Paracelsus claimed to be able to make his "homunculi"; and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Heathen
Religion," 104.
** Alkahest, a word first used
by Paracelsus, to denote the menstruum or universal solvent, that is capable of
reducing all things.
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this is why Thales, the great
natural philosopher, maintained that water was the principle of all things in
nature.
What is the primordial Chaos
but AEther? The modern Ether; not such as is recognized by our scientists, but
such as it was known to the ancient philosophers, long before the time of
Moses; Ether, with all its mysterious and occult properties, containing in
itself the germs of universal creation; Ether, the celestial virgin, the
spiritual mother of every existing form and being, from whose bosom as soon as
"incubated" by the Divine Spirit, are called into existence Matter
and Life, Force and Action. Electricity, magnetism, heat, light, and chemical
action are so little understood even now that fresh facts are constantly
widening the range of our knowledge. Who knows where ends the power of this
protean giant -- Ether; or whence its mysterious origin? -- Who, we mean, that
denies the spirit that works in it and evolves out of it all visible forms?
It is an easy task to show
that the cosmogonical legends all over the world are based on a knowledge by
the ancients of those sciences which have allied themselves in our days to
support the doctrine of evolution; and that further research may demonstrate
that they were far better acquainted with the fact of evolution itself,
embracing both its physical and spiritual aspects, than we are now. With the
old philosophers, evolution was a universal theorem, a doctrine embracing the
whole, and an established principle; while our modern evolutionists are enabled
to present us merely with speculative theoretics; with particular, if not
wholly negative theorems. It is idle for the representatives of our modern
wisdom to close the debate and pretend that the question is settled, merely
because the obscure phraseology of the Mosaic account clashes with the definite
exegesis of "exact science."
One fact at least is proved:
there is not a cosmogonical fragment, to whatever nation it may belong, but
proves by this universal allegory of water and the spirit brooding over it,
that no more than our modern physicists did any of them hold the universe to
have sprung into existence out of nothing; for all their legends begin with
that period when nascent vapors and Cimmerian darkness lay brooding over a
fluid mass ready to start on its journey of activity at the first flutter of
the breath of Him, who is the Unrevealed One. Him they felt, if they saw Him
not. Their spiritual intuitions were not so darkened by the subtile sophistry
of the forecoming ages as ours are now. If they talked less of the Silurian age
slowly developing into the Mammalian, and if the Cenozoic time was only
recorded by various allegories of the primitive man -- the Adam of our race --
it is but a negative proof after all that their "wise men" and
leaders did not know of these successive periods as well as we do now.
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ORIGIN.
In the days of Democritus and
Aristotle, the cycle had already begun to enter on its downward path of
progress. And if these two philosophers could discuss so well the atomic theory
and trace the atom to its material or physical point, their ancestors may have
gone further still and followed its genesis far beyond that limit where Mr.
Tyndall and others seem rooted to the spot, not daring to cross the line of the
"Incomprehensible." The lost arts are a sufficient proof that if even
their achievements in physiography are now doubted, because of the
unsatisfactory writings of their physicists and naturalists, -- on the other
hand their practical knowledge in phytochemistry and mineralogy far exceeded
our own. Furthermore, they might have been perfectly acquainted with the
physical history of our globe without publishing their knowledge to the
ignorant masses in those ages of religious Mysteries.
Therefore, it is not only from
the Mosaic books that we mean to adduce proof for our further arguments. The
ancient Jews got all their knowledge -- religious as well as profane -- from
the nations with which we see them mixed up from the earliest periods. Even the
oldest of all sciences, their kabalistic "secret doctrine," may be
traced in each detail to its primeval source, Upper India, or Turkestan, far
before the time of a distinct separation between the Aryan and Semitic nations.
The King Solomon so celebrated by posterity, as Josephus the historian says,*
for his magical skill, got his secret learning from India through Hiram, the
king of Ophir, and perhaps Sheba. His ring, commonly known as "Solomon's
seal," so celebrated for the potency of its sway over the various kinds of
genii and demons, in all the popular legends, is equally of Hindu origin.
Writing on the pretentious and abominable skill of the
"devil-worshippers" of Travancore, the Rev. Samuel Mateer, of the
London Missionary Society, claims at the same time to be in possession of a
very old manuscript volume of magical incantations and spells in the Malayalim
language, giving directions for effecting a great variety of purposes. Of
course he adds, that "many of these are fearful in their malignity and
obscenity," and gives in his work the fac-simile of some amulets bearing
the magical figures and designs on them. We find among them one with the
following legend: "To remove trembling
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Josephus:
"Antiquities," vol. viii., c. 2, 5.
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arising from demoniacal
possession -- write this figure on a plant that has milky juice, and drive a
nail through it; the trembling will cease."* The figure is the identical
Solomon's seal, or double triangle of the Kabalists. Did the Hindu get it from
the Jewish kabalist, or the latter from India, by inheritance from their great
king-kabalist, the wise Solomon?** But we will leave this trifling dispute to
continue the more interesting question of the astral light, and its unknown
properties.
Admitting, then, that this
mythical agent is Ether, we will proceed to see what and how much of it is
known to science.
With respect to the various
effects of the different solar rays, Robert Hunt, F. R. S., remarks, in his
Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations, that:
"Those rays which give
the most light -- the yellow and the orange rays -- will not produce change of
color in the chloride of silver"; while "those rays which have the
least illuminating power -- the blue and violet -- produce the greatest change,
and in exceedingly short time. . . . The
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "The Land of
Charity," p. 210.
** The claims of certain
"adepts," which do not agree with those of the students of the purely
Jewish Kabala, and show that the "secret doctrine" has originated in
India, from whence it was brought to Chaldea, passing subsequently into the
hands of the Hebrew "Tanaim," are singularly corroborated by the
researches of the Christian missionaries. These pious and learned travellers
have inadvertently come to our help. Dr. Caldwell, in his "Comparative
Grammar of the Dravidian Languages," p. 66, and Dr. Mateer, in the
"Land of Charity," p. 83, fully support our assertions that the
"wise" King Solomon got all his kabalistic lore from India, as the
above-given magical figure well shows. The former missionary is desirous to
prove that very old and huge specimens of the baobab-tree, which is not, as it
appears, indigenous to India, but belongs to the African soil, and "found
only at several ancient sites of foreign commerce (at Travancore), may, for
aught we know," he adds, "have been introduced into India, and planted
by the servants of King Solomon." The other proof is still more
conclusive. Says Dr. Mateer, in his chapter on the Natural History of
Travancore: "There is a curious fact connected with the name of this bird
(the peacock) which throws some light upon Scripture history. King Solomon sent
his navy to Tarshish (I Kings, x. 22), which returned once in three years,
bringing 'gold and silver, ivory and apes, and peacocks.' Now the word used in
the Hebrew Bible for peacock is 'tukki,' and as the Jews had, of course, no
word for these fine birds till they were first imported into Judea by King
Solomon, there is no doubt that 'tukki' is simply the old Tamil word 'toki,'
the name of the peacock. The ape or monkey also is, in Hebrew, called 'koph,'
the Indian word for which is 'kaphi.' Ivory, we have seen, is abundant in South
India, and gold is widely distributed in the rivers of the western coast. Hence
the 'Tarshish' referred to was doubtless the western coast of India, and
Solomon's ships were ancient 'East Indiamen.' " And hence also we may add,
besides "the gold and silver, and apes and peacocks," King Solomon
and his friend Hiram, of masonic renown, got their "magic" and
"wisdom" from India.
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DISCREDITED.
yellow glasses obstruct
scarcely any light; the blue glasses may be so dark as to admit of the
permeation of a very small quantity."
And still we see that under
the blue ray both vegetable and animal life manifest an inordinate development,
while under the yellow ray it is proportionately arrested. How is it possible
to account for this satisfactorily upon any other hypothesis than that both animal
and vegetable life are differently modified electrico-magnetic phenomena, as
yet unknown in their fundamental principles?
Mr. Hunt finds that the
undulatory theory does not account for the results of his experiments. Sir
David Brewster, in his Treatise on Optics, showing that "the colors of
vegetable life arise . . . from a specific attraction which the particles of
these bodies exercise over the differently-colored rays of light," and
that "it is by the light of the sun that the colored juices of plants are
elaborated, that the colors of bodies are changed, etc. . . ." remarks
that it is not easy to allow "that such effects can be produced by the
mere vibration of an ethereal medium." And he is forced, he says, "by
this class of facts, to reason as if light was material (?)." Professor
Josiah P. Cooke, of Harvard University, says that he "cannot agree . . .
with those who regard the wave-theory of light as an established principle of
science."* Herschel's doctrine, that the intensity of light, in effect of
each undulation, "is inversely as the square of the distance from the
luminous body," if correct, damages a good deal if it does not kill the
undulatory theory. That he is right, was proved repeatedly by experiments with
photometers; and, though it begins to be much doubted, the undulatory theory is
still alive.
As General Pleasonton, of
Philadelphia, has undertaken to combat this anti-Pythagorean hypothesis, and
has devoted to it a whole volume, we cannot do any better than refer the reader
to his recent work on the Blue Ray, etc. We leave the theory of Thomas Young,
who, according to Tyndall, "placed on an immovable basis the undulatory
theory of light," to hold its own if it can, with the Philadelphia
experimenter.
Eliphas Levi, the modern magician,
describes the astral light in the following sentence: "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 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Cooke: "New
Chemistry," p. 22.
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of a bull, a ram, or a dog. It
is the double serpent of the caduceus, it is the Old Serpent of the Genesis,
but it is also the brazen serpent of Moses entwined around the tau, that is to
say, the generative lingha. 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-tail
of serpent which forms the legs of the solar cock of the Abraxas; finally, it
is the Devil of M. Eudes de Mirville. But in very fact it is the blind force
which souls 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."
This last kabalistic figure of
speech, notwithstanding its strange phraseology, is precisely the one used by
Jesus; and in his mind it could have had no other significance than the one
attributed to it by the Gnostics and the Kabalists. Later the Christian
theologians interpreted it differently, and with them it became the doctrine of
Hell. Literally, though, it simply means what it says -- the astral light, or
the generator and destroyer of all forms.
"All the magical
operations," continues Levi, "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 initiate 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!' This is the real
meaning of the ambiguous response made by Jesus to the tempter. . . . Thus, the
Devil is not an Entity. It is an errant force, as the name signifies. An odic
or magnetic current formed by a chain (a circle) of pernicious wills must
create this evil spirit which the Gospel calls legion, and which forces into
the sea a herd of swine -- another evangelical allegory showing how base
natures can be driven headlong by the blind forces set in motion by error and
sin."*
In his extensive work on the
mystical manifestations of human nature, the German naturalist and philosopher,
Maximilian Perty, has devoted a whole chapter to the Modern Forms of Magic.
"The manifestations of magical life," he says in his Preface,
"partially repose on quite another order of things than the nature in
which we are acquainted with time, space, and causality; these manifestations
can be experimented with but little; they cannot be called out at our bidding,
but may be observed
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Eliphas Levi: "Dogme et
Rituel de la Haute Magie."
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FAKIR.
and carefully followed
whenever they occur in our presence; we can only group them by analogy under
certain divisions, and deduce from them general principles and laws."
Thus, for Professor Perty, who evidently belongs to the school of Schopenhauer,
the possibility and naturalness of the phenomena which took place in the
presence of Kavindasami, the fakir, and are described by Louis Jacolliot, the
Orientalist, are fully demonstrated on that principle. The fakir was a man who,
through the entire subjugation of the matter of his corporeal system has
attained to that state of purification at which the spirit becomes nearly freed
from its prison,* and can produce wonders. His will, nay, a simple desire of
his has become creative force, and he can command the elements and powers of
nature. His body is no more an impediment to him; hence he can converse
"spirit to spirit, breath to breath." Under his extended palms, a
seed, unknown to him (for Jacolliot has chosen it at random among a variety of
seeds, from a bag, and planted it himself, after marking it, in a flower pot),
will germinate instantly, and push its way through the soil. Developing in less
than two hours' time to a size and height which, perhaps, under ordinary
circumstances, would require several days or weeks, it grows miraculously under
the very eyes of the perplexed experimenter, and mockingly upsets every
accepted formula in Botany. Is this a miracle? By no means; it may be one,
perhaps, if we take Webster's definition, that a miracle is "every event
contrary to the established constitution and course of things -- a deviation
from the known laws of nature." But are our naturalists prepared to
support the claim that what they have once established on observation is
infallible? Or that every law of nature is known to them? In this instance, the
"miracle" is but a little more prominent than the now well-known
experiments of General Pleasonton, of Philadelphia. While the vegetation and
fruitage of his vines were stimulated to an incredible activity by the
artificial violet light, the magnetic fluid emanating from the hands of the
fakir effected still more intense and rapid changes in the vital function of
the Indian plants. It attracted and concentrated the akasa, or life-principle,
on the germ.** His magnetism, obeying his will,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Plato hints at a ceremony
used in the Mysteries during the performance of which the neophyte was taught
that men are in this life in a kind of prison, and taught how to escape from it
temporarily. As usual, the too-learned translators disfigured this passage,
partially because they could not understand it, and partially because they
would not. See Phaedo § 16, and commentaries on it by Henry More, the
well-known Mystic philosopher and Platonist.
** The akasa is a Sanscrit
word which means sky, but it also designates the imponderable and intangible life-principle
-- the astral and celestial lights combined together, and which two form the
anima mundi, and constitute the soul and spirit of man; the celestial light
forming his [[nous, pneuma]], or divine spirit, and the other his [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
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drew up the akasa in a
concentrated current through the plant towards his hands, and by keeping up an
unintermitted flow for the requisite space of time, the life-principle of the
plant built up cell after cell, layer after layer, with preternatural activity,
until the work was done. The life-principle is but a blind force obeying a
controlling influence. In the ordinary course of nature the plant-protoplasm
would have concentrated and directed it at a certain established rate. This
rate would have been controlled by the prevalent atmospheric conditions; its
growth being rapid or slow, and, in stalk or head, in proportion to the amount
of light, heat, and moisture of the season. But the fakir, coming to the help
of nature with his powerful will and spirit purified from the contact with
matter,* condenses, so to speak, the essence of plant-life into its germ, and
forces it to maturity ahead of its time. This blind force being totally
submissive to his will, obeys it with servility. If he chose to imagine the
plant as a monster, it would as surely become such, as ordinarily it would grow
in its natural shape; for the concrete image -- slave to the subjective model
outlined in the imagination of the fakir -- is forced to follow the original in
its least detail, as the hand and brush of the painter follow the image which
they copy from his mind. The will of the fakir-conjurer forms an invisible but
yet, to it, perfectly objective matrix, in which the vegetable matter is caused
to deposit itself and assume the fixed shape. The will creates; for the will in
motion is force, and force produces matter.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote continued from
previous page]] [[psuche]], soul or astral spirit. The grosser particles of the
latter enter into the fabrication of his outward form -- the body. Akasa is the
mysterious fluid termed by scholastic science, "the all-pervading
ether"; it enters into all the magical operations of nature, and produces
mesmeric, magnetic, and spiritual phenomena. As, in Syria, Palestine, and
India, meant the sky, life, and the sun at the same time; the sun being
considered by the ancient sages as the great magnetic well of our universe. The
softened pronunciation of this word was Ah -- says Dunlap, for "the s
continually softens to h from Greece to Calcutta." Ah is Iah, Ao, and Iao.
God tells Moses that his name is "I am" (Ahiah), a reduplication of
Ah or Iah. The word "As" Ah, or Iah means life, existence, and is
evidently the root of the word akasa, which in Hindustan is pronounced ahasa,
the life-principle, or Divine life-giving fluid or medium. It is the Hebrew
ruah, and means the "wind," the breath, the air in motion, or
"moving spirit," according to Parkhurst's Lexicon; and is identical
with the spirit of God moving on the face of the waters.
* Bear in mind that
Kavindasami made Jacolliot swear that he would neither approach nor touch him
during the time he was entranced. The least contact with matter would have
paralyzed the action of the freed spirit, which, if we are permitted to use
such an unpoetical comparison, would re-enter its dwelling like a frightened
snail, drawing in its horns at the approach of any foreign substance. In some
cases such a brusque interruption and oozing back of the spirit (sometimes it
may suddenly and altogether break the delicate thread connecting it with the
body) kills the entranced subject. See the several works of Baron du Potet and
Puysegur on this question.
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TRICK.
If some persons object to the
explanation on the ground that the fakir could by no means create the model in
his imagination, since he was kept ignorant by Jacolliot of the kind of seed he
had selected for the experiment; to these we will answer that the spirit of man
is like that of his Creator -- omniscient in its essence. While in his natural
state the fakir did not, and could not know whether it was a melon-seed, or
seed of any other plant; once entranced, i.e., bodily dead to all outward
appearance -- the spirit, for which there exist neither distance, material
obstacle, nor space of time, experienced no difficulty in perceiving the
melon-seed, whether as it lay deeply buried in the mud of the flower-pot, or
reflected in the faithful picture-gallery of Jacolliot's brain. Our visions,
portents, and other psychological phenomena, all of which exist in nature, are
corroborative of the above fact.
And now, perhaps, we might as
well meet at once another impending objection. Indian jugglers, they will tell
us, do the same, and as well as the fakir, if we can believe newspapers and
travellers' narratives. Undoubtedly so; and moreover these strolling jugglers
are neither pure in their modes of living nor considered holy by any one;
neither by foreigners nor their own people. They are generally FEARED and
despised by the natives, for they are sorcerers; men practising the black art.
While such a holy man as Kavindasami requires but the help of his own divine
soul, closely united with the astral spirit, and the help of a few familiar
pitris -- pure, ethereal beings, who rally around their elect brother in flesh
-- the sorcerer can summon to his help but that class of spirits which we know
as the elementals. Like attracts like; and greed for money, impure purposes,
and selfish views, cannot attract any other spirits than those that the Hebrew
kabalists know as the klippoth, dwellers of Asiah, the fourth world, and the
Eastern magicians as the afrits, or elementary spirits of error, or the devs.
This is how an English paper
describes the astounding trick of plant-growth, as performed by Indian
jugglers:
"An empty flower-pot was
now placed upon the floor by the juggler, who requested that his comrades might
be allowed to bring up some garden mould from the little plot of ground below.
Permission being accorded, the man went, and in two minutes returned with a
small quantity of fresh earth tied up in a corner of his chudder, which was
deposited in the flower-pot and lightly pressed down. Taking from his basket a
dry mango-stone, and handing it round to the company that they might examine
it, and satisfy themselves that it was really what it seemed to be, the juggler
scooped out a little earth from the centre of the flower-pot and placed the
stone in the cavity. He then turned the earth lightly over it, and, having
poured a little water over the surface, shut the flower-pot out
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