Manifestations in the Far East
The manifestations which take place in the presence of Madame Blavatsky as recorded by Mr. Sinnett, of Allahabad, are of the same class, with the slight variations which might be expected from difference of individuality, which once took place in the presence of that most powerful of mediums, Mrs. Guppy, in the days of her full power.
In addition to common manifestations (such as raps, always apparently at command, as in the presence of Kate Fox) when Madame Blavatsky has specially genial surroundings, specimens of direct spirit writing are found in the open air, attached to trees or other objects, within a few dozen feet radius of her body, or solid objects are buried in the earth near her.
This is but a reversal in method of evolution of the earlier manifestations once common in London. Objects would be brought ordinarily from within a radius, say, of two hundred feet to Mrs. Guppy. In Madame Blavatsky’s case, solid objects are often carried to within the same distance from her.
One night while in the garden at Holloway, we asked if a part of a chrysanthemum plant could be brought into the house during the subsequent seance. Mrs. Guppy asked us to tie worsted round some of the sprigs of the plant in a recognisable knot, and to note the appearance of the flowers thus bound together by their stalks. She did not say that she was an “adept” or that Highgate Brothers would help her. If she had done so, in those days of inexperience of the spirits who produce physical manifestations through mediums, we should have believed her, and if permitted, would have recorded it in a book called “The Occult World,” and repented at leisure afterwards.
We believed then, and believe now, that her verbal advice was given under “impression” from some power—a terrible power—outside her own control, and that the ascetic life said to be necessary in Himalayan adepts, is death to the expression of that power.
We left the garden, looking back occasionally at the bound stems, visible at some distance in the twilight, entered the seance room and looked the door. It is needless to say that the knotted bunch was brought into the room, such manifestations being mere child’s play through her powerful mediumship.
Mr. Charles Blackburn, of Manchester, with his intelligent eye for good evidence, had an analogous experience. One day, just before entering the seance room and locking the door, he glanced round the room he had just left, for the express purpose of subsequently demanding the transportation of something he knew not to have been removed therefrom. He asked for Mr. Guppy’s partly emptied bottle of brandy off the mantelpiece in the next room, and of course received it.
When a manifestation is nearly completed, the powers about a medium can force the medium, if they choose, to make utterances relating to the forthcoming phenomenon. It is not on record that in India, Madame Blavatsky ever gave so much as a day’s notice of something she intended to do by her own will-power. Perhaps she could not do so.
One manifestation in Mr. Sinnett’s book, alone might be in favour of the adept theory, namely, the telegram of Koot Hoomi. But that was not a test manifestation. And it was also not carefully authenticated by the securing of the original telegram or a photograph thereof, to expose it with the letter-envelope to public criticism, nor was the telegraph-clerk s “interviewed” as to the sender. If Theosophists argue that such test manifestations as are demanded over and over again of English physical mediums, must not be asked of Madame Blavatsky, let this be clearly understood.
The philosophy of the Guppy-Blavatskian phenomena was pushed farther years ago, than Theosophists have done now. The question then? arose whether, supposing the spirits had prepared a manifestation, they could influence the thoughts of a normal non-medial person, to ask for the manifestation already prepared.
The light an affirmative answer would throw on the brooch manifestation in India, is clear. The spirits had found the brooch, evidently lost, because it was, say, at the bottom of a dust-hole, or back of a chest of drawers; then they put the idea into somebody’s head to ask for it, apparently of his own free-will.
An answer to this problem, which has but limited value as an answer so long as it stands bl by itself, came in this wise:—Mr. and Mrs. Guppy were once paying a visit of two or three days’ duration to friends at Annandale, Upper Norwood. One evening, at a seance, Mr. Benjamin Coleman, who was among the guests, and who was not a medium or mesmeric sensitive, was asked to name something he would like to have brought into the room by the spirits. He asked for Mr. Guppy’s tame hawk from Holloway. Mrs. Guppy screamed, and said she thought it was in her hands, dead or injured; a light was struck, and there lay the hawk, dead and bleeding. On subsequent inquiry it was discovered that shortly before the hawk arrived at Norwood, the housekeeper was feeding it at Holloway, but had carelessly left the drawing-room window open. Something startled the bird, and it flew out into the dark night. The housekeeper ran into the garden, and saw nothing there but a cat, at which she threw a piece of brick.
The spirits would scarcely have killed a pet bird of Mr. and Mrs. Guppy’s to gratify Mr. Coleman, especially as they had sometimes proved their ability to bring living birds to stances. Had they seen the bird killed by a cat, and in their concern for the mishap, were they able to influence Mr. Coleman’s thoughts sufficiently to induce him, apparently of his own free-will, to ask for the hawk?
At Mrs. Guppy’s stances, from fifteen to twenty sitters would sometimes ask in turn that the spirits would bring each of them specimens of fruit which they named. Each sitter usually had the particular kind of fruit he asked for put into his hands directly he made the request.
In India, such manifestations might be exhibited as evidence of the power of the medium to control the manifestations. That mediums ordinarily have no such power is known by observations in the presence of many of them, extending over a long period of time. The alleged “controlled” manifestations are witnessed only in Madame Blavatsky’s presence, and have been observed for a more limited time; moreover, it is not certain that all who have seen them have come to the conclusion that they are not due to ordinary mediumship. Hence the one position is not so well established as the other.
<... continues on page 11-140 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Manifestations in the Far East by unknown author, London Spiritualist, No. 463, July 8, 1881, pp. 13-4
Sources
-
London Spiritualist, No. 463, July 8, 1881, pp. 13-4