< The Soul, and How it Found Me (continued from page 4-92) >
stance, would it seem other than a startling paradox to assert that a bad soul is a contradiction in terms? The great truth proclaimed by Mr. Maitland is the substantial indifference of the Universal Soul (God) and its manifestation in man. But in how many men is it manifested? How many men have other than potential souls?
This doctrine of the soul is perfectly familiar, though under diverse expressions, to the religious consciousness, and is in accordance with ancient religious and philosophical systems. It is inevitably implied in the attempt to escape from limitations. We should not have the sense of limitation if our whole being was comprised and expressed in any moment of its development—in a word, if we were not conscious of an affinity to the infinite. We may represent this to ourselves in the sphere of finite things by supposing the germ of a tree to be endowed with self-consciousness. The true being is not the germ but the ideal tree, which has to come, in time, to its phenomenal manifestation. Its phenomenal consciousness, during the germ stage, would reveal only the germ as a completed existence, but would be accompanied by a real consciousness, which would, however, appear only as a sense of limitation, and a struggle for development. But when the limit of its capacity was attained, and the phenomenal tree fully expressed the ideal, this sense of limitation would disappear, and would be succeeded by a perfect contentment and satisfaction. This state can never be permanently attained by the human soul, because it is none other than the Infinite and Universal Being in temporary and partial manifestation. The ideal of religious aspiration is to have done with the apparent self, and to be so united with God as to have no desires, no interests, no passions—in a word, no will apart from His. So the ideal of the philosopher is to think in universal forms, and to escape from the partial categories that are peculiar to himself or to a school. No wonder that speculation sometimes confounds this ideal with absorption, or that Nirvana has been supposed to imply the privation of individual consciousness. Yet the revolution of the planetary bodies round their true centre, the Sun, is not inconsistent with the secondary motion about their own axes. In the revelation received by Mr. Maitland respecting the spiritual origin idea, familiar to the student of Swedenborg (to go no further back), of the exact correspondence between the spiritual and the natural, as between the macrocosm and the microcosm. This doctrine, if scientific men would avail themselves of it, is an organon by which knowledge and discovery might advance with gigantic strides. Nor has it been wholly neglected. Nothing in his writings stamps Mr. Herbert Spencer so distinctly as a man of genius as his independent discovery of the fact that the processes of evolution are the same in moral, social, and physical phenomena. But this pregnant idea can only receive its full application to the sphere of existence when the intellect has fairly grappled with materialistic assumptions, and idealism has attained its victory in thought.
The significance of this doctrine of the soul with reference to the question of human immortality will be partly apparent from what has been already said. If the true soul is that which links us to the universal, and is alone immortal, then must it vitalise the individual consciousness in order that the latter may be perpetuated. The doctrine of individual immortality, in short, implies that the infinite and universal shall be active and conscious in the finite and particular. It may be expressed again, in religious language, by saying that the Divine Will has to take the place of the individual will in the individual, to convert the latter to itself, so that the individual shall be the conscious energy of God in a sphere of particular manifestation. The theological alternative, as we all know, was hell. The philosophical alternative is death—the annihilation of individual energy and consciousness which have in themselves no value, no claim to persistence, and no ground of it. Why, forsooth, should “I” be immortal, if the “I” means nothing more than an individual, centre of pleasures, pains, passions, and self-regarding energies of thought and action? The very hope of such an immortality is inexpressibly degrading; the very conception of it, so far from being spiritualistic, is a consequence of that other false and essentially materialistic conception of existence, which makes the individual the atom, the reality, and the universal a mere abstraction. Those who would go more deeply and particularly into this subject of conditional immortality may be referred to that recently published marvel of erudition and research, Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled. At present let us hear our author, “Though the soul is in its nature indestructible, the individual is not, therefore, necessarily immortal; for the soul is a loan and not a gift. It is a flame which, tended and fostered, burns up into God; but which, rejected or ignored, burns out and becomes extinct in respect of its possessor, but only after many trials and opportunities of recovery, when the individual perishes, and the soul returns to its Divine element,” p. 240. And we find the same teaching in a trance communication, at p. 253, entitled, “A Vision of Creation.” It presents no difficulty when once we have ceased to regard the distinction between the soul and the apparent self, as a mere religious figure of speech, and are able to perceive in it a profound metaphysical truth.
Of the force and lucidity with which its leading conceptions are inculcated in the book before us, no isolated passages can give an adequate impression. The most striking are involved in such streams of cogent and connected thought and narrative that to quote them out of their context, even if space permitted, would be mere mutilation. It must be assumed that every reader of this journal, who cares to know what Spiritual Pantheism is, will read Mr. Maitland’s book for himself. Some of the “spirit messages” given through the hand of the lady whom Maitland calls “the Seeress,”* are of exceptional excellence. One specimen must be given. “We would have you know that there is no such thing as purely spiritual evil, but that evil is the result of the materialization of spirit. If you examine carefully all we have said concerning the various forms of evil, you will see that every one is the result of the limitations of matter. Falsehood is the limitation of the faculties of perception— selfishness is the result of the limitation of the power to perceive that the whole universe is but the larger self, and so of all the rest. It' is then true that God created evil, but yet it is true that God is spirit, and being spirit is incapable of evil. Evil is then purely and solely the result of the materialisation of God. This is a great mystery. We can but indicate it to-night,” p. 152.
Other topics, less transcendental, are comprised in Mr. Maitland’s book, which cannot be adequately noticed here. A practical result of the prevalent materialism is traced in the horrible practice of vivisection; and an analogy is drawn between the theological dogma of sacrificial atonement and the slaying of animals for the sustenance of life. To Spiritualists, the former atrocity is deprived of its poor and doubtful plea of indispensable utility by the knowledge that mesmeric clairvoyance, cultivated and developed, would probably render a truer account than an instrument of torture.
From one so fertile in thought, and so powerful in expression, as Mr. Maitland, we may hope that the literature of Spiritualism will be further enriched by his pen. He is a welcome ally to the movement, over which he cannot fail to exercise an elevating and instructive influence.
* One word here of disgust for the vulgar insolence of a reviewer in The Academy, who could describe a lady, of whom he could know nothing, except what Mr. Maitland tells us, viz., that she is of a “bright intelligence, cultivated mind, indomitable spirit, and eager sympathy with the pursuit of perfection wherever discernible,” as a “hysterica woman.” It is, however, fair to add that this has since been retracted by the Editor.
The Career of Colonel Henry S. Olcott
Dr. Carpenter having spoken (as usual, upon mere hearsay) in terms of offensive disparagement of my friend, Colonel Olcott, in a footnote to his article in Fraser, I ask leave to place before your readers some particulars respecting the literary, scientific and public career of this honourable and not undistinguished gentleman, which I obtained from him during my stay in New York two years ago, when I was honoured with his intimate acquaintance. A day or two before I left for England, it occurred to me that before very long the question might be asked here, “Who is this Colonel Olcott, who makes these amazing statements to the world?” and that it would be desirable that there should be some one able to reply upon the spot. Accordingly I got my friend to give me a history of his antecedents, which he not only did, but accompanied it with plentiful vouchers in the shape of original letters, documents, and other testimonies, understanding my object, and good-humouredly proffering proofs which one gentleman could not ask of another without immediate and business-like occasion.
At a very early period of life Colonel Olcott was called upon to make his own way, and soon learned that knowledge of the world and of mankind which of all knowledge is the least favourable to a habit of credulity, or to deception by impostors. He travelled, and rubbed shoulders with all kinds of people; and at forty-three, when I made his acquaintance, was about as hard-headed, and as little disposed to an innocently charitable estimate of character or pretensions as anybody I ever met. Agricultural pursuits and inquiries first engaged his attention, and were, I believe, the occasion of his early travels. He became a recognised authority on these subjects, was the author of three works on scientific agriculture; one, on the Chinese and African sugarcane, which passed through seven editions. He was for some time agricultural editor of the Nero York Tribune, and correspondent of our Mark Lane Express. His Government offered him a commissionership of agriculture. While yet young, he became a lawyer, not practising in the courts, but <... continues on page 4-94 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ The Career of Colonel Henry S. Olcott by Massey C.C., London Spiritualist, No. 275, November 30, 1877, p. 257
London Spiritualist, No. 275, November 30, 1877, p. 257