< The Theosophical Society (continued from page 11-217) >
The Christian fears that an attempt thus “to take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence,” might meet with the fate of Lucifer or of Phæton.
Colonel Olcott’s sympathies are with Oriental Psychology. My devotion is to the Christian beatitudes, to the teaching and life of the personal Christ, as well as to the esoteric Christ or Logos, the knowledge, wisdom, and love of God.
Madame Blavatsky must not call this Sectarianism, because, spirit being One, if any man is in spirit, he is one with God. He is in the centre; it matters not what external name or garment he may assume.
Your readers must not suppose that our differences produce any discord between Colonel Olcott and myself.
I know how true and devoted he is, and he knows that we have both one end—the moral and spiritual regeneration of mankind.
Buxton, 19th August, 1881.
Mesmerism
Sir,—J. K. says in The Spiritualist of July 8, 1881, “Looking over portions of the as yet unpublished third edition of private instructions on organic magnetism by an eminent lady magnetist, I find, to my extreme surprise, that although they profess to teach pure mesmerism, they run altogether into the higher grades of magic, and that the clue to the modus operands of those magical performances of the Brothers which are not based on mediumship, is there so practically and scientifically given, that I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing in magic that is not in mesmerism, and nothing in mesmerism that is not in magic. In fact, the two are one and the same thing. A magician is but a developed mesmerist and a mesmerist is an incipient magician. To those who attempt to study ‘The natural powers of the soul and how these may be manifested,’ I would counsel (in order that they may not be misled by false theories) that they should learn and practice mesmerism. They will find this important branch of occult science more practically useful for attaining satisfactory results than the Theosophy of the Arya Samaj a, and they will get in the precise instructions of Miss Chandos Leigh Hunt more exact information than all India can teach on this subject.”
And H. M. states in The Spiritualist of July 22, 1881, “I quite agree with J. K. as to the value of Miss Hunt’s manuscript, but I should like much to see it printed in good clear type, and published. I can also speak as to her readiness to answer all inquiries coming from those who have purchased her manuscript. Some of her experiments on animals I have put to the test with curious results.”
I desire to thank both J. K. and H. M. for thus kindly mentioning my privately written instructions on “Organic Magnetism” for pupils, but wish to explain that those having the second edition are not in possession of the occult work spoken by J. K., as that is the unpublished manuscript of the third edition containing all valuable matter to be found in the previous first and second edition, but possessing over and above so much indirect practical information concerning occult philosophy, that the two editions are in no wise identical. I also wish to state that the third edition will be issued in print instead of lithography at the urgent request of so many pupils.
The Occult World
This is a sadly disappointing book. The prospectus of it raised hopes that at last some light was going to be thrown upon the manner in which the Indian jugglers perform those wonderful tricks which Europeans, whose ideas of such things are limited by the Egyptian Hall, hear of with a mixture of envy and incredulity. The heart would be plucked out of the mysteries of the mango and the basket, or that still more ghastly and mysterious operation with cobras of which the Pall Mall Gazette gave an account some weeks ago. Nay, we might even hear some modern experience of the feat which Sir John Mandeville saw, when the conjuror threw up one end of a chain, which fixed itself somewhere beyond mortal sight, and he, climbing up it, disappeared, and shortly began to fall down limb by limb; which limbs having all come down straightway joined together again, and presently the conjuror stood up, as whole as ever, before the spectators’ eyes. But whatever connexion these performances may bear to what Mr. Sinnett rather barbarously calls “occultism,” it is not with these that his book has to do. On the contrary, it is concerned with “phenomena” by no means unfamiliar in this country, albeit a certain dignity is given to them by the scenes amid which they occur, such as cannot be attained in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury.
Somewhere about November of last year Indian society in general, and that select portion of it which frequents Simla in particular, was much exercised by the remarkable performances of a certain Madame Blavatsky, who seems to be in those parts all that the celebrated Mrs. Guppy was in London. Through her agency long-lost jewels were restored to ladies: deficient cups and saucers were supplied to picnic parties; letters, by some aerial postal system, were conveyed from eminent “occultists” in Thibet to aspirants on the other side of the Himalayas in a few hours. So far as we have been able to discover from the files of Indian newspapers, these manifestations were treated with the same polite incredulity as they usually meet with here. The phenomena were not denied, but the hypothesis on which <... continues on page 11-219 >
* Trubner & Co.
Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 471, September 2, 1881, p. 119
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London Spiritualist, No. 471, September 2, 1881, pp. 116-7