Spiritualism and Occult Science
Sir,—Your review of The Occult World being now concluded, and my friend Mr. Sinnett having no present opportunity of replying to it, (even if ho should feel disposed to do so,) perhaps you will allow me to advert to some of your remarks.
You question the distinction between the phenomenal powers ascribed to the Eastern “adepts,” and those evinced by our own mediums. You deny that the facts alleged by the author of this book supply any evidence of a knowledge of nature, of a science, possessed by these adopts at all surpassing our own. You ask why anyone cannot verify the existence of these adepts for himself; and further, if they know, and have for ages known, so much of natural laws and forces which we are wont to regard as modern discoveries, “where are their electric telegraphs, electric lights, and electric motors, &c.”
And, in short, you regard Madame Blavatsky as a powerful physical medium, and Koot Hoomi as no embodied human being at all, but simply as a “spirit” of the John King order.
To one question, as to a matter of fact, which you asked this week, I can reply. “Has Colonel Olcott over seen a Brother?” Yes, repeatedly, both in India and in Now York.
Your argument appears to amount to this, that inasmuch as all the facts recorded in this book can singly and severally be matched by others which have occurred through mediums, unconscious of the agency or manner of then production, they can never afford proof of scientific powers possessed by a human being still among us. The assertion of such scientific powers by the apparent agent is to go for nothing; though, evidently, if we had first witnessed these phenomena in connection with this assertion, and had found them to be perfectly accordant with the expressed will an intention of the visible agent, the subsequent disclaimer of a medium would go for nothing, unless we could distinguish his case, as we can, by the absence of this very power and control over the phenomena. Even as regards the nature of the phenomena recorded, I by no means admit that you will find it easy to parallel them with facts in Spiritualism; but allowing this to be so, I fail to see how the proved fact that spirits can do certain things independently of the will and knowledge of a medium can rebut the evidence of their deliberate production by an adept in the flesh. Are all the characteristics of human will, intelligence, and design, in results repeatedly produced as and how they are wanted, for ends immediately practical and sometimes important, to count for nothing in corroboration of the most positive and explicit assertion of these human powers? The distinctive features of mediumship being want of control over the phenomena, their course and nature, is control the most repeatedly evidenced to be no proof of the science which in every other department of experiment is conclusively established by such control? What, then, is the alternative? It can only be a rare fidelity and submissive obedience of the “spirits” to the medium— Madame Blavatsky in this case—an obedience of which the records of Spiritualism afford us no other instance; an obedience, which, if compulsory, implies a power, and thus a science of subjecting them, at least as difficult to understand and explain as the very science alleged. That acquaintance with mediumship, so-called, or the peculiar psychical facilities offered by certain individuals, is important in estimating these facts may be admitted. In the more elaborate phenomena Madame Blavatsky was evidently, in one sense, a medium. What is asserted is that the operative power was an embodied human being, and not a disembodied spirit. Now as to this, at all events, Madame Blavatsky must know the truth. Is her statement antecedently incredible to Spiritualists? Not certainly, if we are really convinced that there is nothing supernatural or miraculous in these phenomena. We are all of us trying, and have long been trying, to get at the rationale, at the modus operandi, at the conditions, in short at the science of these things. Well some one tells us he has succeeded, (nay that this science is the oldest in the world, and has never been lost,) and that by reason of his success, that is to say by his knowledge of the means and conditions, together with requisite operative training, he can reproduce the phenomena at will. That is exactly what we should expect, unless we are prepared to dogmatise in the same breath that we avow our ignorance, and to declare that no embodied spirit can use the means, supposing him to have discovered them. So far as the objection goes to discredit altogether the possession of arcane knowledge and powers, it can only be put forward in ignorance—an ignorance greatly to be lamented among Spiritualists—of the evidence of such knowledge and powers running through all the ages.
As regards the raps, I have myself heard them produced by Madame Blavatsky, under the same conditions of light and choice of locality described by Mr. Sinnett. She told me that they were electrical phenomena, directed by her own will. That she is unable to explain exactly how they were produced, in no way derogates from the value of this assertion. I cannot tell how my will enables me to contract my muscles, so as to guide this pen. If that phenomena were unfamiliar, I really believe there are Spiritualists' who would introduce a disembodied spirit to account for it, and discredit any assertion that I did it all myself. But for the more complex phenomena described by Mr. Sinnett, exact science, no less than will, was requisite. And Koot Hoomi does give some account of the process.
A great deal is made of the difficulty of obtaining access to adepts. Surely this is sufficiently explained. Why should these self-contained and recluse individuals, whoso powers, bye-the-bye, can only be exercised u under conditions which we will not make an effort to understand—descend among us, or admit us to them, for the gratification of our curiosity, or for the indulgence of a display from which they are profoundly averse? To really earnest and devoted students, who prove their sincerity and their qualifications, they are accessible. Colonel Olcott, whose marvellous self-sacrifice, faith, and patience, have been so nobly proved, is in association with these persons. And Mr. Sinnett, I confidently predict, will be so. Courage and single-mindedness such as his, if only supported by constancy, will not go unrecognised. But the conditions I believe to be such as few would accept. Your correspondent, J. K., knows accurately what these are, albeit that he, belonging to another school of the same truth, is at present disposed to treat the aspirations— for such, I admit, they alone are—of the Theosophical Society with contempt. Our belief, however, is this; that the human spirit is of divine origin and participation, and has the prerogatives of divinity. But that it can only be manifested in consciousness when we have detached ourselves wholly from all that is sensual, selfish, and worldly. That to this end there are appropriate disciplines and initiations; <... continues on page 11-128 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Spiritualism and Occult Science by C.C.M., London Spiritualist, No. 461, June 24, 1881, pp. 296-98
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 461, June 24, 1881, pp. 296-98