Legend
< Mrs. Showers on "Isis Unveiled" (continued from page 4-243) >
The Egypt of the present day is under Mohammedan rule. The Temples of Karnac, of Luxor, and of Memphis, are in ruins. The statue of Memnon may still utter its wail at sunrise, but the voices that echoed through those Sphinx-formed alleys are mute. Astrologer, and prophet, and magician, passed away for ever long centuries ago. It cannot be pretended that Madame Blavatsky went through an “initiation” under such circumstances as these. The worship of the Hindoos was, no doubt, a sublime and solemn ceremony, while the Aryan faith was yet in its purity in the days when the Vedas were written, and the worshippers, as the Vedic hymn says,—
Quaffed the soma bright, |
but it has degenerated into a loathsome thing now. The Juggernaut worship, the adoration of the terrifying goddess Kali, the worship of Siva, with his neck adornments of human skulls, and his earrings of serpents, all show the depths to which the ancient faith has fallen. Neither Miss Kislingbury nor I would relish a tete-a-tete with one of those swarthy, nude, and paint-bespattered fakirs at any time, and it would be at our peril that we presumed to set foot in the temples. I think we would find, moreover, that the religions of his country were just about the last subjects that our friend would care to discuss. The women who are loved and honoured among Eastern nations never show their faces in public. No greater indignity can be offered an Oriental, whether Brahmin or Mahommedan, than an inquiry after the welfare of his family, or regarding the health of his female relatives.
The feminine attendants round and about the temples are those who make an open profession of unchastity, and a glory and pride of it. I forward you a paper received from India by the last mail, and if you like to publish the article I have marked, it will be seen that my assertions are true.
The disgusting remains of the Phallic worship, which one would be puzzled to discover in the processions and ceremonies of our Christian churches, are patent to all who may chance to witness some of the sacred Hindoo festivals, where men give way to every form of drunken licentiousness, while even the menial class of native women steadily confine themselves within the precincts of their dwellings for three and four days at a time.
The gross ignorance that prevails most unfortunately among Protestants (from whom our spiritualistic ranks are mainly recruited) regarding the parent religion—Catholicism—renders it a practically safe proceeding for all who are so disposed to circulate slander upon slander against Catholic religious communities, knowing that, owing to the fanaticism of some, and the indifference or indolence of others, few will care to put their statements to the test.
Without presuming to enter into a discussion regarding the nature of the Second Person of the Christian Trinity, whether God as believed by millions, or “Man in manhood more Divine, than any God created there,” as affirmed by others, I may say that He seems, either way, equally an object of adoration, being our highest ideal both of humanity and Deity, and those who, regardless of ecclesiastical contentions, bow before His cross, sign it on the brows of their children, or engrave it above the dust of their treasured dead, care little to be reminded of any signification it might possibly have borne during the period of the foul Osiris worship of Egypt. The student of history discerns, only too plainly, that wherever Christianity has planted its standard it has displaced something that was worse, never anything that was better. “Higher has the thought of man not attained,” and while that same history bears testimony, both willingly and unwillingly to its great facts, and the conscience of man, in a state of intellectual enlightenment, responds to the teachings of the Gospels, we need certainly not follow the derisive counsel of Colonel Olcott, or “ask the people of Asia to guide the people of Europe into the path that leads to happiness.”
Of Thibet and its lamasaries I unfortunately know only about as much as most people do; but that small knowledge is quite sufficient to enable me to tell Mr. O’Sullivan and others, who are bewailing their approaching bereavement, to be of good heart! It appears to me, though my opinion must only be taken for what it is worth, that Madame Blavatsky will not be so cruel as to cross the snow-capped Himalayas, and bury herself for ever with her bosom friends the Lamas. I think it far more likely that she will prolong her sojourn in America, or probably visit Europe, and probe still further the infinite depths of human credulity.
In justice to her, however, I must admit that, in the preface to her second volume, she patronisingly takes a few Christians, not very particularly indicated, under her wing, and speaks of them with favour, as being “better than their creed.” Those, I think, are her words. Poor, help- less, ignorant things! How grateful they must feel for the crumb thus compassionately flung to them ere they are reconsigned to the fools’ paradise, in which they seem to have long existed, and are supposed to be far too stupid ever to leave. Your voice now reaches, every Continent, sir, your words are perused with attention, even amid the din of political agitation, wherever the sincere and earnest heart of man is endeavouring to solve the greatest of all problems by the light of Spiritualism; and it is right that it should be so, for this message, entrusted to you and a few others, is higher than any that herald has yet proclaimed. It is that the old and beautiful Semitic myth of Genesis is yet no fable, that God and His messengers converse with man to-day, even as it is alleged they once conversed in Eden. Yes, here—here to-day; even in this poor, miserable, sinful, money-making world; not in halls where mirth and festivity prevail, not among men flushed from the banquet, or women intoxicated with vanity and flattery, but where two or three are gathered with prayerful heart and solemn earnestness: in a word, wherever the stricken soul of man exclaims, “Lord, I would believe—Oh, help Thou mine unbelief.”
No medium can effect what Almighty God and all His hierarchies of angels decline to effect—that is, convert a man to Spiritualism without great and corresponding effort on his own part. Should he by any chance arrive at a belief in the physical manifestations, his Spiritualism becomes a torment to him; he in turn becomes a torment—often a disgrace to Spiritualists, nothing more.
The ancients understood this so well, that no candidate was admitted to the Eleusinian mysteries—which were but seances under different circumstances—without undergoing a previous purification of nine days, during which his character was made a subject of strict inquiry. On entering the temple, he was most solemnly admonished to come with a pure and undefiled mind, without which the purity of the body would not be acceptable. Any person who infringed these rules, or entered with-out a proper introduction, was punished even with death. They had the lights, the sounds, the apparitions, all that we witnessed among ourselves during the memorable period of my daughter’s development at Teignmouth, as described by me in your paper four years ago. That these mysteries referred only to the dead and to a future state, is evident from the circumstances that they were instituted in honour of Ceres Demeter, and to commemorate her grief and sorrow at the loss of her daughter Proserpine, whom she seeks in the infernal regions, whither Proserpine has been carried by Pluto, the inexorable god, who holds the keys of the kingdoms of death and of hell. One thing seems particularly remarkable to me, the candidates for initiation were compelled to bathe in the sea; and I have already published, and have in my possession the original spirit writings in which “Peter” frequently endeavoured to calm our terrors (for we were alone, and inexperienced), by such messages as “I won’t hurt you—but bathe in the sea,” &c., &c„ a condition on which he insisted, and which appeared to us absurd at the time. As I have already told you frequently, the investigation into Spiritualism was undertaken at a time when I was an utter and entire disbeliever, and after a terrible domestic bereavement, The Spiritualist of the future will see the deep signification of the so-termed heathen mythology far more clearly than we can discern it now; and the farther he studies the religions of nations, the more convinced he will feel that “the spot whereon he stands is holy ground.”
The Spiritualism that Paganism has practised and too frequently prostituted, that Catholicism has recognised and veiled, that Protestantism has abandoned and derided, will shine forth for him with unprecedented clearness, for it will be lit by no uncertain, straggling beam, but by the torch held up on high by Christianity. Will he then, think you, sir, amid the assured advantages of his own happy position, forget the noble army of martyrs who have suffered and died for him? Will he, Blavatsky-like, gloat over the sins and frailties of ever-erring, but ever-penitent humanity? Will he feel -disposed to smite the crucified Jesuit, or mock the burning Hebrew, or deride the poisoned philosopher? No! Face to face with that ancient and eternal truth, whiclrthey had also discerned and acknowledged, with that ancient and solemn beauty which they had also recognised and worshipped, will he not rather bow down in humble adoration, and owning his own blessedness, inasmuch as he has seen, and has believed, exclaim:—“Blessed—aye perhaps even more blessed—were they who died within reach of the promised land, who had not seen, and yet had believed!”
It would contribute not a little to our enlightenment if Madame Blavatsky would kindly furnish us with some of her own personal experiences with regard to the Fakir performances; with dates and other particulars that could be verified, for India is no sealed land of mystery to Englishmen, and a European lady travelling about in the manner alleged, with a Fakir and a juggler—(see Vol. I., p. 368)— must have attracted a good deal of attention. It is not usual to take one’s “noonday repose” under the circumstances alleged, even in that somewhat unconventional land.
We would wish also to learn the whereabouts of some of those pools, round which Fakirs have sat, in the presence of the authoress, “in circles, while alligators have crawled out, and played like kittens.” Somebody else must have heard of these wonders, and might substantiate Madame Blavatsky’s statements.
For more than 368 pages no allusion whatever is made to Madame Blavatsky’s own experiences, and we feel naturally surprised, therefore, to find her saying—“With deep regret we once more leave India; its blue sky and its mysterious past.” Leave it! Why, she has never once mentioned it, except to quote some one else’s experiences there, and we do not want to know what Jacolliot saw, or what Champollion described of the countries visited, but what Madame Blavatsky saw, and the circumstances under which she saw.
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