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vol. title: vol. period: 1881 pages in vol.: 439 |
< Conditional Immortality and "Elementary" Spirits (continued from page 11-333) >
in his article of December 7th, 1877, in your Journal, when he astonished his old acquaintances, the Spiritualists, with his opinions about “elementaries,” who, he said, were either men still in the flesh, who were merely “souls,” who had “lost their nous or immortal spirit,” and were no longer trinities, but only dualities. Or, if they were not the spiritless souls of men in the flesh, the “elementaries” were Col. Olcott’s alleged beings already in the next world, who had been formerly men, but who, having lost their nous or spirit, generally before death, and then bodies of flesh also by death, were reduced to a single principle, that of “soul” only, spiritless soul, which must soon be “annihilated,” in other words snuffed out. “Man is taught,” says Col. Olcott, “that he must save himself from, annihilation.” And he further alleges that “the whole range of mediumistic physical phenomena is produced by ‘souls’ embodied or disembodied.” In other words, by souls, whether in the flesh or out of it, who have lost their immortal spirit. “From whom the divine immortal spirit has shrunk in horror.”
Strong asseveration, however, never yet proved truth. And yet these opinions of the Theosophists are not left a mere theory, and are really much less shocking than those of certain men holding certain Western views. Here are sentiments uttered by a clergyman of acknowledged talent and of importance in position, at a late missionary meeting: “The simple answer,” he said, “to those who are talking about the salvability of the heathen is this—they are unholy, and become more and more so, and those who live unholy lives must necessarily pass into an unholy, and therefore into an unhappy eternity.” Shades of Pythagoras, Sakya Muni, the great Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Virgil, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius! What strange ideas are these, to those who believe in a God who is the Great First Cause, our own Cause, our sole Cause, who alone is accountable for the existence of men and angels. That God whom Copernicus, no Eastern sage, has shewn to be a God of a Universe essentially of order and equilibrium, which last word means justice! No, no Eastern soul has ever been raised so high as Copernicus by knowledge.
Now the above words of a clergyman I do not give as a specimen of Bible doctrine. God forbid! I believe them to be quite untenable as such, but I give them as a theory, (he theory of a clique. And surely the theory alluded to of the Theosophists is that of an angel of mеrсу compared with the other; though it certainly does Dot abound in mercy, and is as much the theory of a clique as the other. Both seem to have a like origin, certainly not in each judging others better than themselves. And both lay their index finger on individuals whom they distinctly mark out. First their noble selves, and next, a very large lot indeed of outcasts, though there certainly is a difference in quality, if not in quantity, in their respective adjudications and denunciations. But the number of theories in the world is in proportion to the cliques; not least the theories concerning the future of man, many of them so diverse from each other as to show, if nothing else, bow far man is still from any real knowledge, not only of the absolute, but of questions of the most vital importance concerning our nearest future. I need go no further than to say that the beings in fluidic life, which the Theosophists, from a Hindu point of view, call “elementaries,” or spiritless souls, the Bible, the expounder of Western thought throughout, actually calls spirits, though the term may be supplemented by the adjectives, evil, lying, unclean, &c.
Now, if this doctrine of the existence of souls without the immortal spirit should be a general doctrine of the Hindus, which I believe to be very far indeed from the case, though it may be held by the exclusive, self- righteous Brahmins, we must remember that the Hindu religion, as a whole, since the Buddhist wrench from its bosom on account of its exclusiveness, now embraces but a moderate portion of the inhabitants of Asia, and is by no means the general index of Eastern thought.
The doctrine of spiritless souls is certainly not held by the Chinese, the majority of whom worship the spirits of their ancestors, and to whom the propounding of the idea that their ancestors had lost their immortal spirit, would be an offence that could not but arouse a very vast amount of “celestial” wrath indeed.
The doctrine of spiritless souls is not certainly that of the Buddhist. Col. Olcott says: “The indiscriminate attainment of immortality would be contrary to the analogies of nature, and repugnant to the idea of justice.” The Buddhist does not think so; be thinks that the same ultimate destiny is allotted to all men. Cot Olcott says: “The survival of the fittest is the universal law.” The Buddhist thinks that all men, God’s noblest work on earth, are fit to survive; and that the soul, instead of its being probably annihilated through getting <... continues on page 11-335 >