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vol. title: vol. period: 1876-1878 pages in vol.: 247 |
< Phoenix M`Carthy (continued from page 4-85) >
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Isis Unveiled
The author of the two portly elegantly printed octavos bearing this mysterious title is Madame H. P. Blavatsky, who is said to have been born in an Asiatic province of Russia, and professes to have made many journeys into the less explored regions of Asia. She asserts that in Thibet or Mongolia she learned, by initiation, the secrets of the Lama religion, and afterwards extended her acquaintance to the Singalese of Ceylon, the Brahmins and Sivaists of India, the votaries of Somona-Kadom in Siam and Cambodia. She has also acquired a great variety of recondite learning, with which her pages are plentifully sprinkled. Out of all this she has constructed these volumes, which she declares to be "a master-key to all the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology." The first volume is devoted to science, the second to theology. In the first volume, purporting to be an analysis of science, she agrees exactly with Wendell Phillips that the ancients possessed many rare and wonderful arts that are now "lost." She also insists that most of our newly-discovered sciences were familiar to the ancients. She affirms the modern doctrine of evolution to have been a dream likewise of the Greek philosophers and Hindu sages. Much of the knowledge claimed in the West she declares to have been long known in the East, hidden often in the vihar or the crypt, or possessed only by men of rare moral excellence and thorough discipline.
On the beaten field of Theology, the theme of her second volume, our survey must necessarily be cursory. It is written in the same spirit with the first, but embraces a different class of topics. Like Emanuel Swedenborg, she believes that there exists "a Lost Word in Great Tartary" of higher character and profounder wisdom than what is contained in either Testament. There was a primitive faith, the Doctrine or Religion of Wisdom, from which all more modern worships and systems such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islamism, as to their more vital elements, are descendants. The Vedic, Brahman, Persian and Chaldean religions in this way were offshoots of the Wisdom-Religions; but Gautama was its later apostle. The unparalleled efforts of King Asoka, of Delhi or Magadha, to disseminate his doctrines, resulted in their diffusion over all the West, as well as to the North, East and South, and hence they became incorporated into Grecian philosophy as well as in the religious systems of other countries. The worships of Palestine, Egypt and Europe were modified and softened by it; and the later religions of the New Testament and Al Koran exhibit its influence. She has quoted from the Kabala and Talmud, the Hermetic Tablets and Codex Nazareus, and has even cited alchemists and magicians, Roger Bacon, Cornelius Agrippa, Theophrast Paracelsus, Lully, Thomas Vaughn, Henry More and others. She believes in God, the anima mundi, in spirits elemental, in men of divine powers, in reincarnation, soul-death, and beyond all this, in Nirvana, not as extinction but as perfected bliss. The mysterious Akasa, capable of producing miracles, prolonging life indefinitely, and of remedying bodily injuries otherwise mortal, is defined and its potencies fully explained. Indeed, "seventy thousand years of experience," which these veterans of Asia have had access to, ought to have done something for them.
She says in her preface she expects to find arrayed against her all Christians, scientists, broad churchmen, freethinkers, men of letters, and the mercenaries and parasites of the Press, "who prostitute its more than royal power, and dishonor a noble profession." So that, like another Ishmael, she anticipates that every man's hand will be against her, for the classes she enumerates compose pretty nearly every one except herself. But however this may be, it is certain that her book is curious and entertaining, and that she shows a singular combination of extreme scepticism and extreme credulity.
J. W. Bouton, New York, publisher.
Madam Blavatsky in a Christian Pulpit
To the Editor of the Banner of Light:
On Sunday evening last the Rev. Mr. McCarthy, a well-known minister of the Universalist persuasion, preached before a large congregation assembled in the chapel of the New York University. Having myself been present, I venture to send you a few particulars, at least as far as they refer to our special work. The reverend gentleman took as his text the passage in the Acts of the Apostles, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” This, he explained, he did as a mere matter of form, his real object that evening being to review a debate on Positivism which followed his lecture the previous week before the Liberal Club. In support of his arguments that Positivism was not only unscientific but immoral, he quoted largely from Vol. I, Chapter 3, of a “new and magnificent” work, which he characterized as one of the greatest productions of thought in modern times, “Isis Unveiled,” written by a lady, Madame Blavatsky. “Having had the pleasure of an introduction to the gifted authoress,” continued Mr. McCarthy, “I was struck by the vigor of her majestic intellect, the force of her reasoning, and the immense range of her experience. But this lady is not of our race!” Producing the book, from which he read his extracts, the Rev. Mr. McCarthy recommended his hearers to purchase “Isis Unveiled,” assuring them that they would be repaid tenfold, though he wished them to understand that he did not agree with all its conclusions.
When Christian ministers place in the hands of their flock a work whose chief tendency is to show Christianity in unfavorable contrast with Oriental philosophy, we can only say “the force of” Universalism and self-contradicting doctrines “can no further go.” Truly the whirligig of Time brings about its own revenges!
Speaking personally with regard to this wonderful book, I find it impossible to express in the form or space of a newspaper article my feeling of its importance and significance at the present juncture of the Spiritualist movement, but all thoughtful students must agree that the writer of “Isis Unveiled” has been the first to furnish an adequate solution to the difficulties which have beset Spiritualism from the first on every side, and that we should be especially grateful for its advent at a time when the unchecked and untrained developments on the physical plane are resulting in such direful consequences as have been frequent of late. I say it with extreme sorrow, but it is time that the fact should be acknowledged, and the difficulty boldly faced, that the tendency of physical manifestations in circles promiscuously held is to bring about the moral degradation of the medium. Much of the evil might be averted if every discouragement were given to mediums holding circles in their own rooms, without test conditions, and without a director in whom the public can have confidence. Some attempt to combat this evil, and to bring the Spiritualist movement into something like order, has been made in England by the National Association of Spiritualists, though as yet much remains to be done. By the arrangements there made for initiating inquirers into the subject, the medium is protected from the public, the public from the medium, and the medium from himself. A further knowledge and study of mediumship, as propounded by Madam Blavatsky in her book, and derived from the teachings and experience of Eastern adepts, founded on the psychological investigations of thousands of years, will, I hope, enable us to carry successfully into practice a new and true system of work, both as regards our treatment of mediums and our methods of investigation.
I have had the pleasure, during my stay in America, now almost concluded, of meeting many earnest and high-minded Spiritualists, and I sincerely hope that some attempt will shortly be made among them to organize the movement in a manner suited to the character of the country and of its people.
In conclusion, let me take this opportunity of warmly thanking all those friends, including yourself, Mr. Editor, whose kindness and cordiality have made my visit to America one of the pleasantest experiences of my life, and whom I sincerely hope I have not seen for the last time.
Most truly yours,
New York, Oct. 16th, 1877.
Wanted – Works on Spiritualism
Dear Friends—Allow me to thank you for your kind offer to supply the library of the British National Association of Spiritualists with a copy of Mrs. Conant's "Life" and "Flashes of Light from the Spirit-World." I shall be very happy to receive and take charge of them, as you propose.
As it is among the aims of our Association to form a complete collection of works on Spiritualism, and to supply students of our science with works not even to be found in the vaults of our opposite neighbor, the British Museum; and as, moreover, many such works were published years ago, and are not now easily procurable, I venture to appeal to the generosity of our American friends, who may have duplicate copies, or some they no longer wish to keep, and which <... continues on page 4-87 >
Editor's notes