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vol. title: Vol Four of The Theosophical Society of The Arya Samaj of Arya-wart vol. period: Sept 1878 – Sept 1879 pages in vol.: 350 |
Un nouveau Martin Luther dans l’Inde.
Une lettre publiée récemment dans un journal indien (le Indian Tribune) nous donne des renseignements précieux sur le mouvement religieux qui s’opère en ce moment dans toute l’Inde, et dont les partisans de l’Arya-Samaj ont entrepris la réforme, comme au XVIe siècle, du temps de Luther. Les mêmes causes qui ont produit des changements immenses en Europe produisent aujourd’hui les mêmes effets dans l’Inde. Un « Swami » ou saint homme: Dija Nand Saraswati s’est levé, et a demandé à ses compatriotes, non de suivre une nouvelle religion, mais de remonter à la source pure de leur culte en professant les anciens rites, les Védas. Après avoir prêché à Bombay, à Calcutta, à Puna et dans les provinces du Nord-Ouest, il est venu s’établir dans le Punjaub, le véritable berceau de la religion védique. Swami Dija Nand Saraswati possède un physique remarquable, une attitude mâle, une érudition consommée, une éloquence et une logique devant lesquelles fléchit toute opposition.
Déjà plusieurs villes, Lahore en tête, ont lancé leurs proclamations. Les rajahs les plus puissants ont embrassé la doctrine du Swami, et la société des « Arya Samaj » compte aujourd’hui 47 loges et plus de 2 millions d’adhérents, dont un tiers pour le moins appartient à la société théosophique.
Le chef direct, Dija Nand Saraswati, connaissant tous les dialectes de l’Inde, s’adresse au peuple et trouve des auditeurs qui lui font le plus favorable accueil. Il fait pour le Brahmanisme ce que Sakya Muni ou Gautama Buddha fit pour le Bouddhisme dans le Ve siècle (avant le Christ).
Il lui est facile, du reste, de démontrer combien le parti prêtre est corrompu; le régime anglais, protégeant la liberté de conscience, est pour lui un auxiliaire.
Réflexions de l’Astronome Zollner.
Je jure, devant le Tout-Puissant que, jusqu’à mon dernier souffle, je combattrai ces savants qui, atteints de la pourriture morale, ne se couvrent du manteau d’une science faussée que pour servir leur égoïsme et leur orgueil, et empoisonner le cœur du peuple à l’aide de sophismes.
Mon Dieu, qui connaissez le cœur des hommes, ôtez-moi le dernier reste de pitié pour qu’aucune faiblesse ne me retienne; puisse-je devenir l’instrument de votre justice pour venger cet innocent, le docteur Slade.
Donnez-moi la force d’arracher le masque du visage des faux prophètes qui doivent être voués au mépris de la postérité; que leur expiation serve à laver cet outrage public aux sentiments humanitaires de notre époque actuelle. (Il s’agit de la négation de faits médianimiques importants pour la science, pour la vérité, obtenus par l’intermédiaire du docteur Slade.)
(Tiré du Traité scientifique par Frédéric Zöllner, professeur de l’Université de Leipzig. IIe volume, 1re partie, page 376.)
Banquet de Mesmer.
Chaque année, les adeptes du mesmérisme se réunissent dans un banquet pour fêter Mesmer; les partisans du magnétisme, désireux d’assister à cette agape fraternelle, qui aura lieu le 23 mai 1879, à 6 heures du soir, doivent s’adresser aux bureaux du Journal du magnétisme, à Paris: à M. d’Angerville, rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, 20; à M. G. Cochet, restaurateur, galerie de Valois, au Palais-Royal, 167.
Review.
No apology is needed for introducing the latest, and perhaps, the most elaborate of the many text-books of astrology to the readers of The Spiritualist. These columns have occasionally testified to a very wide-spread interest in the subject, which is also known to engage the attention of many who are in sympathy, if not in avowed connection, with our own movement.
Astrology, like Spiritualism, challenges belief upon the evidences of experience; and the proofs which it can adduce have the advantage of being less easily gainsaid or neglected than those which rest upon the testimony of observers. The general public is more impressed by a single prediction unmistakably verified than by the best attested facts of spirit agency. The predictions accomplished by the deaths of Victor Emmanuel and the Princess Alice last year, and those relating to the Isandlana disaster and the Dinas Colliery explosion have obtained a wide publicity. Even “Science” itself, notwithstanding Mr. Proctor’s recent phillipic, is becoming thoughtful on the subject, and the Royal Astronomical Society has already a Paper, by one of its own members, before it, dealing with the relation of the movements of planets in their orbits to the prevalence of mundane epidemics.* At the hands of scholars, at least, astrology should be protected from insult by its fathomless antiquity, its universality, and by the great names of its believers in ancient, mediaeval, and even modern times. Of these, Mr. Pearce gives an imposing list in his interesting introduction to the volume now under review. He quotes a passage from an article in the Saturday Review some years ago, which speaks of the countenance afforded to Zadkiel by “the many wise, great, and learned of the land,” and which adds, that “Society believes in astrology.” Without going quite so far as this, it must be admitted that the prejudice is less, and certainly far less offensively expressed, than that against which Spiritualists have to contend. But the latter will be wise to perceive that the recognition of whatever truth there is in astrology cannot fail to prepare the public mind for the reception of facts which gives the lie more directly to the negations of materialism. Next to Spiritualism itself, it is impossible to conceive a science of experience more repugnant than astrology to the shallow “enlightenment” that rejects even facts of the senses, when these cannot be accommodated to the sensual understanding. It is certain that any real explanation of celestial influences on the constitution, dispositions, and affairs of mundane beings would carry us into a very deep philosophy, and one which would only be rightly appreciated in relation to still higher truths. That such a philosophy has always existed students of Occultism and Theosophy need not to be reminded. To Spiritualists generally, such terms as “Astral Light,” “Astral Body,” and so on, are of mysterious import; but at least it is vaguely understood that the recognition of a common life-element, and some insight into the sympathies that pervade the universe, might help us to a better understanding of many of the phenomena which cannot be referred simply, and without explanation or qualification, to the agency of spirits. As a system of divination, astrology stands in significant relation to the prophetic dreams, occult warnings, and “inexplicable” coincidences with which our records abound. That the future cannot be foreseen and communicated without being in some sense predetermined, appears an inference from which there is no escape. To the philosophy which represents time as phenomenal, the mere condition of conscious intelligence—and perhaps not even this in higher stages of development—the reproach of fatalism—has no meaning or application. But for a completely satisfactory answer to it, we must have recourse to the theosophic doctrine, that freedom belongs to a sphere above the astral and elementary, to the infinite spirit of which all finite intelligences are partakers, and to <... continues on page 8-220 >
* See a letter in the Pall Mall Gazette, March 7th, 1879, on “Epidemics and the Stars,” by Mr. R. G. Jenkins, F.R.A.S.
Editor's notes
- ↑ Un nouveau Martin Luther dans l’Inde. by unknown author, Revue Spirite, 22e Année, No. 5, May 1879
- ↑ Réflexions de l’Astronome Zollner. by Zöllner, Johann Karl Friedrich, Revue Spirite, 22e Année, No. 5, May 1879
- ↑ Banquet de Mesmer. by unknown author, Revue Spirite, 22e Année, No. 5, May 1879
- ↑ Review. by Massey, C. C., London Spiritualist, No. 349, May 2, 1879
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 349, May 2, 1879, pp. 207-9