< The Doctrine of Annihilation–Personal Experience in Mediumship (continued from page 4-152) >
made me a bust of this uncle, after a plaster-cast taken by my husband. Now this bust stands in my room. I often speak to it as if I were speaking to my dear uncle, and I very often feel it to be like a living being. My uncle wrote through me that as the cast was taken from his body there were inherent perisprit molecules in the bust, and he could make it move and speak if I strongly wished it. The warnings that Mrs. Blavatsky gives to all physical mediums are wise. Such phenomena, and the laws which govern them, still remain unexplained, and Spiritualists are too often contented with superficial explanations. For myself, I have a personal dislike to all physical manifestations, not from fear, but because they make me feel ill. I look upon a good spirit as something too high and godly to play guitars and to fetter and unfetter mediums. Still, God sends us these signs. Often they come unasked; so, surely they are designed for some good purpose.
It is singular that my guides never allowed me to evoke spirits. They always said: “Leave those who will not come, in peace. Those who have something to say will come unasked.” And so it was. I never evoked a spirit; but often received spontaneous messages of the most convincing nature from departed spirits. Thus, being consulted by a Russian gentleman, I wrote automatically in characters I had wever seen before. I sent the writing to the gentleman, and he wrote me that it was Old Russian, which is now seldom used.
Though I feel myself to be surrounded by good, loving spirits, I do not appear to have much physical force in me, for I never could get one rap or make a table turn. Several mesmerists have tried to put me to sleep, but have never succeeded in doing so. Still, by holding a mountain crystal in my hand, I go into a sort of half trance, when I see the spirit of my angel sister, Elizabeth, who says that she lives with me and speaks through me as my double. In my visions I have often seen elementaries, but they were almost always beautiful and kind. Sometimes, but very seldom, I have seen little red gnomes with long beards.
During the twelve years that I have been curing diseases, I have found obsession to be the affliction most easy to abolish. Often amulets, with prayers, are sent to the patients, and these, with daily prayer, raise, as it were, a wall between the patient and the obsessing spirit, and bring about the final cure.
Mrs. Blavatsky’s book should be read and studied. It contains the history of magic up to the present time. Her studies must have been immense. I know of no woman who has written such a deep, scientific book, and with so much sense and wit. She unites the wisdom of a man with Turn over the leaflet on the left hand page. the tact of a woman. But, in reading her book, and also the works of Jacolliot (which I much admire), I am always sorry they will rob us of our Messiah, Jesus Christ, when, in the meantime, they believe in the Buddha and Christos of India. If a Messiah lived in those remote times, why could not a new sending of God’s Son have taken place through Jesus Christ? Why take away our Christos? I do not see the use of so doing. Jesus came. He is an historical personage; the founder of Christianity. If Buddha and Christna were godly spirits, sons of God, why not Jesus? Has He not, by His life and by His teachings of purity and love, proved Himself to be as good and perfect a spirit as any? As the Buddhists adhere to Buddha, let us then, as Christians, adhere to our Christ.
Gonobitz, Hungary, Jan. 1st, 1878.
The Influence of the Lives Professed Religionists
Sir,—“Lutchmee and Dilloo, a story of West Indian Life, by Edward Jenkins,” concludes with the following scene:—
Dilloo, a Hindu coolie, is dying. “The Reverend Adolpus Telfer,” a clergymen of the Church of England, “touched by the evident nearness of the departing soul to the dark postern of death . . . tried in simple language to tell the dying man of ... a Saviour, Jesus Christ, who had opened the gates from death to life, from pain to bliss.
“The coolie listened, impassive, silent. He held Lutchmee’s (his wife) hand tightly in his own. The moments flew by. Lutchmee watched the ebbing, dribbling life.
“‘See, Dilloo,’ cried the missionary, stirred to earnestness, ‘there is good and life ready for you even now. Believe in Jesus Christ—trust your soul to Him!’
“’No!’ cried the dying coolie, loudly, almost fiercely, and with unconscious, but terribly pointed, satire, as he half raised his body. ’No! no! Jesu Kriss Massa Drummond’s God—Massa Marston’s God—all Inglees’ God. No God for coolie!’
“And turning his face away from the Christian, the coolie breathed out his soul into the bosom of the Unknown God.”
Theological Opinions
Sir,—The very interesting and suggestive paper of Dr. George Wyld, entitled “Man as a Spirit; and Spiritual Phenomena as Produced by the Spirits of the Living,” which appear in your issue of December 14th, has been attentively read by the Theosophists of New York. It is encouraging to us that the views of our society, as enunciated by myself, in a crude and imperfect manner, in your number of the 7th inst., should in any degree commend themselves to such thoughtful critics as Dr. Wyld. The interpretation which he places upon my averment that “we Theosophists of the inner ring adhere to the Oriental religious philosophies as better guides to happiness than the Christian theology,” is perfectly correct. The teachings ascribed to Jesus, and the theology of the so-called Christian Church, have, in my judgment, no mutual resemblance. In fact, I am acquainted with no religious system less Christ-like than Christianity. Certainly, no heathen religion so thoroughly substitutes words for deeds, exacts so little of self-earned merit, as the necessary condition for future progress and beatitude. No Christian priest or layman holds, or can hold, Jesus of Nazareth in higher respect than a sincere Theosophist. We regard this lofty initiate of Egypto-Indian Esoterism with no less reverence for His holy life and teachings than Sakya-Muni and Christna. But around the real personage of Judea we recognise the same mythological numbers as that which Indian theology has created about the true men of Mathura and Kapila-Vastu. Madame Blavatsky has shown the identity of doctrine taught by the three, and equally, the intimate resemblance between the mythical biographies composed for them by their respective theological propagandists. There can be no “higher religion and morality” than that which was probably taught by Jesus, for He taught the sublime religion of ancient India. Were there but a meagre percentage of nominal Christians showing by their daily life and conversation that they relied upon the self-same methods as He to “gain eternal life,” and avoid losing their souls (psuche), assuredly no Theosophist would reproach Christian theology, as he now safely may, with fostering sin, and pushing humanity down to moral ruin. We want no system that puts a premium upon self-indulgence and self brutalisation, by promising a death-bed condonation for a career of vice by men in cassocks or frocks, who too often are viler inwardly than the penitent they shrive.
Theosophists profoundly respect the religious convictions of the sincere of every creed, and unreservedly admit that each embraces many within its communion whom angels will joyfully welcome. But, as philosophical students, we separate the individual saint from his ancestral theology; and viewing all religious systems, and their results, with calm impartiality, we are forced to reiterate the idea expressed in my letter, that esoteric Brahmanism, Buddhism, Parsism, and other Eastern religions, philosophies are better guides to happiness, here and hereafter, than that travesty upon the doctrines of Christ, called Christian theology.
I hope these remarks may not be viewed as untimely. I really think they are not. Your Canon Farrar, and our American clergy of various denominations, are at this moment repudiating the dogma of a blazing Hell. Your press and ours teem with discussions of the subject. Lay editors of influential secular journals challenge the clergymen to pronounce their honest convictions. Many have complied, and manfully denounced the doctrine of eternal damnation, except for a few elect, as cruel, even blasphemous. The world moves. And now, if there is no hell, what becomes of the dogma of atonement? The corner-stone of Christianity rests upon molten lava—its doom is upborne by the Miltonic fiend.
Depend upon it, if theology abandons its personal devil, and its pit of eternal torment, it will not be long before the people of Europe wall ask the people of Asia to point them to the hard but safe path which leads to eternal happiness.
New York, December 27th, 1877.
The Views of the Theosophists
Sir,— The letter of “ M.A., Oxon,” must win the admiration of all Spiritualists, on account of the manifold light which it presents, in a kind of kaleidoscopic form. Whether the Isis which he unveils is akin to the Goddess of Nature; is perhaps a bifrontine manifestation of Janus; or a multiform presentation of a poly-analystic simulacrum of Truth, I shall not attempt to discuss.
“M.A., Oxon.,” demands “evidence, or proof.”
Such evidence would, I humbly contend, be either inductive or deductive. If the former, it must either rest on intuition before, or general evidence after the fact. If the latter, it may rest on either “theosophical” grounds, or on some other άλογος condition.
As a humble reader of Madame Blavatsky’s book (which the imperfect nature of my habitual studies must prevent me from comprehending), I think I have seen examples chosen from each of these four sources of information.
Firstly, the intuitional conceptions are apparently arranged according to scientific method, whatever the conclusions of the authoress may be. Some versed in Brahmanistic work may consider that she has gone quite as far with regard to the pujas as any could venture. If E. Sellon went further, Moore and Inman accomplished less.
Secondly, the weight of the evidence with regard to the events which Madame Blavatsky alleges to have taken place in Thibet, must be tested by the counter-evidence, if any, which a sceptic might accumulate.
Thirdly, as to the value of the superadded knowledge which “theosophy” gives. It would be obviously unfair for an ignorant “cowen” to give an opinion. At present we have only to deal with the evidence that the Theosophists assert that they possess certain knowledge, and the means of using it, for purposes which they may conceive to be good. Either they are crazy, or this power is real. The same canons of fair criticism should be applied to them as to any description of witness;
Fourthly, if some of the sensations leading to a deductive line of argument, are true or false, they are also άλογος, or unconditioned. Some of these may be transcendental; some may be false; but all are equally beyond the range of criticism. If an ordinary nisi prius mind were to attempt to evolve any conditions or criteria of truth from what is, or at least claims to be, beyond, all criteria, nothing but a hopeless state of confusion can arise.
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Editor's notes
- ↑ The Influence of the Lives Professed Religionists by Joy, A., London Spiritualist, No. 282, January 18, 1878, p. 32
- ↑ Theological Opinions by Olcott, H. S., London Spiritualist, No. 282, January 18, 1878, p. 32
- ↑ The Views of the Theosophists by Blake, C. Carter, London Spiritualist, No. 282, January 18, 1878, pp. 32-3
London Spiritualist, No. 282, January 18, 1878, p. 32