< Sir,-It appears to me that self-justification... (continued from page 7-19) >
With regard to another point, Madame Blavatsky will be able to inform Mrs. Showers, in her own inimitable manner, that the learned Brahmins and Buddhists of India did not require a Sir William Jones or an Asiatic Society to teach them what precious treasures were in their own possession, treasures always jealously guarded from European eyes, and, moreover, that one of the deepest insults offered them by the British Government is the appointment of German professors to the chairs of Sanscrit in Hindu colleges.
I do not expect, in the above explanation, to convince any one of anything of which he or she does not wish to be convinced. But I hope I have shown that I have a fairer claim to a knowledge of Madame Blavatsky’s character, habits, modes of thought and life than those who, like Mrs. Showers, have, by their own showing, only partially perused her book, who have no personal acquaintance with her or any of her friends, and who have, I maintain, no right to cast upon me the slur of credulity without inquiring what opportunities I may have had of ascertaining the truth of “pretensions” which I grieve to see have excited the hasty “vituperation” of one, in other respects so accomplished as Mrs. Showers. And if anything had been wanting to confirm me in the wisdom of “esoteric’’ methods, it is the manner in which the present controversy on Theosophy has been conducted, persons having entered the lists under double disguises, with no other preparation than the perusal of one or two newspaper articles, and no other weapons than ill-pointed epithets. It has been well said by an ancient Jewish writer—“Herein is a mystery; and whoso understandeth it, let him hold his peace.”
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 Dear – brava little Emily...
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<Untitled> (The editorial privilege of the “last word”)
Sir,—The editorial privilege of the “last word” is a condition of journalistic controversy. Still, such last word may contain matter that, in fairness, makes a rejoinder admissible. So when you say, in your footnote to Dr. Carter Blake’s letter this week, “if it gives offence to Theosophists to be asked for proofs or facts, let it be so stated,” I may be allowed, in reply, to use your own words inreference to a question of mine, mutatis mutandis, “If you know that it does not, and that nothing we have ever said in your paper contains evidence that it does, perhaps there may be a slight trace of accidental unfairness in unnecessarily importing prejudice by putting such an idea into the minds of casual readers.” We are not offended, we are simply bewildered when we are asked for evidence of such a proposition as that of the annihilation—as a conscious personality—of the thoroughly sensual and material soul, That proposition results from our philosophy of spirit, and “evidence” of it can only be found in a study of that philosophy. I am afraid we cannot show you an annihilated soul. And that we should present “the ghost of the shadow of an example of the occasional annihilation of the spirit of a living man” we must hold to be indeed impossible, since it is one of our “cardinal doctrines” that this never happens, or can happen, “the spirit” being necessarily immortal, and that which confers immortality upon man. Personal immortality we hold to be the result of that complete identification with the spirit, the higher self, which comes from the final extinction of all the selfish propensities and desires of the lower self. It is that which the intuition of religious “mystics” of all ages has described as “union with God.” All that is temporal is subject to change and decay, and if the consciousness, attracted by desire, clings to material conditions, we think that it must needs be lost with the dissolution of these, as that it will enter into eternity if it attaches itself to that which is eternal. This is the principle, that immortality is potential, and must be won; that regeneration—the Divine spirit individualised in consciousness, or coming to consciousness in us—is no religious figure of speech, but a veritable metaphysical fact, and that the lower, sensual consciousness is neither worth preserving, nor has any foundation of permanence. We are here confessedly in the region of metaphysics; yet we are met with a demand for evidence, as if we were giving an account of a dark Seance. The effects of will-power do admit of more palpable exhibition, but as you yourself call attention to the evidence on this head of Prince Wittgenstein (to which you might have added a very remarkable communication in your journal, from Mr. Judge, also a member of the Theosophical Society), I may perhaps assume that, so far, you do not adhere to the charge of our putting forward unevidenced statements; for the trans corporeal action of embodied man, the evidence has been recently collected and published by “M.A., Oxon.” Both to him and to you I must apologise if anything I have said implied that either of you have failed to recognise the subjective origin of much that purports to be communication from foreign spirits. But, in fact, I only stated a dilemma in which you seemed to be placed, and I asked for a much larger admission, which it is clear that you, at least, are not disposed to make. Nor do I think that an appeal to critical interpretation of phenomena is very appropriately described as “vague generality.” I meant that purposeless lies, aberrations from the logic of the commonest intelligence, the piecing together of fragments of mental furniture are very unlikely products of the lowest human reason; that when the intelligence is clearly that of the medium I cannot believe that the agency (as in direct writing, for instance) is that of a distinct human spirit, and that the failure, in the great majority of cases, to supply satisfactory tests of identity—surely, the very easiest demand which can be made upon a human being with a history and a memory—should lead us to the recognition of one or both of the other causes for which I was pleading. For direct testimony I would refer to the literature of magic and witchcraft. So far from the Theosophical Society or its representatives wishing Spiritualists to accept anything without evidence, their whole desire is that they should be well informed and critical.
I hardly know how to deal with “M.A., Cantab.—Scrutator.” Usually, a disputant may be assumed to have read what he quotes, and that if he mistakes the meaning there is at least some apparent ambiguity or obscurity in the passage to account for it. I should have thought that it would not require the education of a Cambridge graduate so to read a sentence of English that it should refer to the subject-matter of the immediately antecedent sentence, and not to another sentence further back, to which the whole context makes it utterly inappropriate. Col. Olcott is speaking of the fate of the debased and materialised soul, and he says “Usually the separation of soul and spirit occurs before the bodily death. His critic—this literary duality—makes that proposition apply to the earlier statement, with which it is clearly inconsistent, respecting the progress of the man who does finally attain immortality, and asks the “candid reader” to apply it in the same way. I hope the candid reader will do nothing of the sort, and will not read a plain English sentence in a manner which can only be justified by the exigency of the critic. Col. Olcott’s position was very clearly stated, that the spirit accompanies, but it is not actually united with us during our lives of probation. The ultimate uniorq or junction, spoken of in the earlier sentence, has, therefore, no reference whatever to any separation at or before death. But “M.A., Cantab.,” repeats what he and his “double,” “Scrutator,” said before, “in justice to himself and his readers.” His statement was, and, therefore, still is, that all physical mediums, according to Colonel Olcott, have lost their spirits, and are doomed to annihilation. He founds this on Colonel Olcott’s proposition that all the physical phenomena are produced either by elementaries or by the soul of the medium. I asked, first, how is this sweeping condemnation to be extracted from an alternative proposition? No answer. I asked, secondly, where does Colonel Olcott say or imply that the soul of a physical medium has lost its spirit? The answer is the citation of a passage about the separation of soul and spirit, in which there is not one word about physical mediums or their souls, which is evidently confined in its application to debased and materialised souls, and which, if it was not so confined, must apply to all souls, good, bad, and indifferent alike, without any special reference to mediums. It is only a trifling addition to this confusion that “M.A., Cantab.,” regards the progress of the soul during the incalculable period (which, by the by, may be short or long) of purification as equivalent to its annihilation. Then, thirdly, I quoted Colonel Olcott (from the same letter) that in a particular case of physical mediumship the phenomena must have been produced by the medium’s own soul, because of her purity, rather than by an alternative cause, which would, in his opinion, have implied impure affinities. Oh, says “M.A., Cantab.,” Colonel Olcott makes an exception of this young lady. He is the best judge whether this sort of thing does justice to himself, but I venture to suggest that he pays a poor compliment to his readers in saying that he repeats a statement so supported in justice to them. One mystery, which sorely perplexed me, I am glad to have cleared up. It was that two independent minds—“M.A., Cantab.,” and “ Scrutator”—should have read Colonel Olcott’s letter in the same unaccountably perverse manner. That appeared to be a coincidence likely to mislead many into supposing that an interpretation thus independently arrived at, must have something to say for itself. I confess the hypothesis of identity did occur to me, but I repelled it as an unworthy suspicion. Probably, sir, you will be of opinion that the “double,” however interesting as a phenomenon, is not to be encouraged in literary controversy.
In taking leave of “M.A., Cantab.,” I may explain that the “compulsion,” about which he is curious, simply refers to the repeated invitations of the editor of this journal in its pages, to the Theosophical Society to come out and explain themselves, and which at length elicited Colonel Olcott’s letter.
I have only to add my cordial concurrence with Dr. Carter Blake in acknowledging the liberality with which the most opposite opinions are allowed expression in The Spiritualist.
Winchester, March 10th, 1878.
<Untitled> (I am no stranger to you)
Sir,—I am no stranger to you, and you know that I read The Spiritualist with one of my friends, and that we both are Spiritualists in the real sense of the word. I have seen and heard much, and thought more about what we may safely call “our religion,” because we Spiritualists know. I am virtually in the position of St. Thomas, who felt the wounds of Jesus. I know. Therefore I am very sorry that a kind of war is going on between the Spiritualists and the Theosophists, and for this reason I should like Madame Blavatsky to read the recent work of Professor Zollner, Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, 1878, Leipzig. I will not take up the gauntlet which Theosophy has thrown to us. My sole desire is to give to our brethren a generally accepted definition of Theosophy.
Theosophy (from theos and sophia, divine science) is the science which pretends to be inspired from God Himself, without however being a positive revelation. The Theosophists form a school of mystical philosophers, who declare human reason nonsense and impossible, and who believe themselves inspired and enlightened by a supernatural principle; they add to all this enthusiasm the observation of nature, and the study of metaphysics and medicine. It is in reality nothing new, for the same thing is found among the mystics of all times—among the Gnostics, the Neoplatonists, and the Philosophers of Hermes. The real Theosophists date, however, from the year XVI., or thereabouts, and begin with Paracelsus. They are there divided into two parts, the one more popular and more mystic than learned, to whom belong J. Boehm, Swedenborg, Martinez, Pasqualis, and St. Martin; the other branch is more scientific, philosophical, and theological, and includes Paracelsus, Cornelius, Agrippa, Val. Weigel, R. Fludd, and Von Helmont.
In tracing the history of Theosophists, we come to those who considered themselves Illumines. These were persons who believed themselves to have received the light of truth direct from above, i.e., the reflection of divine wisdom. The root of this belief may be found in India among the Brahmins and others. We find the Indian Gnosticisms revived by Boehm, about A.D. 1700, and again in 1800 by Pasquales and others.
I have no intention to continue this historical resume of what Theosophists claim to be, who at the eleventh hour wish de marier leur <... continues on page 7-21 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ image by unknown author
- ↑ image by unknown author
- ↑ The editorial privilege of the “last word” by Massey, C. C., London Spiritualist, No. 290, March 15, 1878, p. 128
- ↑ image by unknown author
- ↑ I am no stranger to you by unknown author (signed as Alpha), London Spiritualist, No. 290, March 15, 1878, pp. 128-9
Sources
London Spiritualist, No. 290, March 15, 1878, p. 128