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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 |
< Review (continued from page 8-220) >
after the event. In most cases the power of these directions must be too feeble, and their significance too obscure to make them worth calculation.*
On the important point of the measure of time for events, Mr. Pearce departs from the method of Placidus (prescribed also by Zadkiel, in the “Grammar”), and takes every degree of “arc” to signify a year of time, without converting the whole into right ascension, by addition of that of the sun at birth. This, again, is a matter which only experience can determine, and the experience of Mr. Pearce has been very extensive. But there are few objections to the science so difficult to answer as that experience should have left any doubt or discrepancy among authorities upon such a point. The most probable explanation of the uncertainty is the interference of subordinate astrological influences, such as lunations, transits, and secondary directions, in hastening or retarding the effects of the primary directions.
But with respect to the time of events, we encounter a question more profoundly perplexing to our ignorance, though it is not one that the practical astrologer, who relies on experience, is bound to answer. We speak of the “effects” of directions, as if there were a real coincidence in time between the formation of an aspect, zodiacal or mundane, and the corresponding event in life. Yet a few months, weeks, days, or hours suffice for the motion to the aspect that is said to “cause” an event which may be distant fifty years or more. Evidently, if astrology is the truth the writer believes it to be, it is a truth that can only be fully comprehended when the most mystic correspondences of time and nature are revealed to the enlightened reason. Yet the evidence of “transits” makes it certain that there is a temporal coincidence also. What can be more astonishing and inexplicable, in our present state of knowledge, than that the transit of Saturn, for example, over the zodiacal degree, or over an aspect to the degree in which the moon happened to be, say thirty years, some months, days, and hours ago, should injuriously, perhaps fatally, affect the health or family of a person then born? Yet this was what was predicted, and unhappily verified, in the case of the Princess Alice of Hesse.†
The appearance of this work is contemporaneous with the formation of an Astrological Society, and both are significant of the spirit of inquiry which creates a demand for such assistance. That Astrology, even now, is a science of such imperfect application to individual and public uses need not discourage students who will bring to it modern habits of precise and systematic investigation. Whether the inductive method will ever alone suffice to apply practically and with anything approaching to uniform success a system of such extreme complexity, may well be doubted. Yet accurate observation, and generalisations based upon sufficient evidence, should place its fundamental principles beyond the reach of controversy. There should be a division of labour among astrologers, as among the devotees of every other science. Statistics should be collected, and comparative analysis should be resorted to for the purposes of scientific induction. The public would greatly assist by keeping accurate records of times of birth, and making them available to students. If every parent who reads these lines would notify to the Secretary of the Astrological Society the exact time of a child’s birth as it occurs, and the fact of its death, should this ensue, sufficient data for one most important judgment—the probability of life beyond infancy—might soon be collected. Those who wish to know “the truth about Astrology” should render to investigators the important assistance which it is thus in their power to give. In the meanwhile, if they would see its present evidences, its authorities and processes, as set forth by a thoroughly competent, experienced, and educated adept, they cannot do better than read the work of which a very inadequate notice has been here attempted.
Temple.
* The writer has before him his own nativity, calculated by a most accomplished artist, and containing 237 primary directions, of which 109 are of past (if any observable) operation. Some of the more powerful are fairly coincident with their appropriate events, but, as to most, the effects would not be traceable (supposing them to have existed) unless, perhaps, in connection with transits of the same time and nature.
† A recent transit of Saturn over the place of the moon agreeing with a primary direction in the writer’s nativity was coincident with a rather serious illness of a near female relative; an astrologer having warned him, a year before, that this would be a time of danger to such relatives. An inspection of the lady’s horoscope showed that the moon was similarly situated at her birth.
The wonders of Spiritualism are insignificant in comparison with those the Theosophists, a sect of which the Countess Blavatsky is chief priestess, are credited with. This talented lady, who, when the last mail left, was displaying her skill in Bombay, makes music float in the air, effects the instantaneous duplication of documents and articles of clothing; and, still more wonderful, can render herself invisible. So at least a communication in a Bombay paper asks us to believe. Two instances of her powers since her arrival in India are given, one being the instantaneous substitution of one name for another on a piece of embroidery. The other is more complicated, and also more extraordinary. Before leaving England she was asked by a barrister, the son of a Liberal M.P., to give relief to his mother’s eyesight, now seriously impaired. For this purpose she took with her to India a pair of gloves, it being necessary, in order to establish a magnetic current between herself and the patient, that she should have some article that had been in constant contact with his person. On the day after the arrival of the Countess in India, bringing with her the pair of gloves, the barrister received a telegram from a lady “of the highest respectability,” to be at her house at a certain hour, as her “familiar spirit” had a message from Madame Blavatsky for him. He kept the appointment, as did also the spirit, which came loading the air with sweet perfume, and commenced the interview by throwing something, which turned out to be one of the gloves from Bombay, in his face. The interview took place in the dark, and the barrister is represented as remarking that under the circumstances it was a good shot. So it undoubtedly was, if the glove was aimed at him from Bombay. It will be observed that the spirits which make communications in bad grammar to the Spiritualists, and those which fetch and carry for the Theosophists, find darkness equally necessary. An unbelieving correspondent of the paper in which the above statements are made points out that some details are wanting in the story. For instance, nothing is said as to the effect of the glove on the old gentleman’s eyesight; and a further slight discrepancy is observable, namely, that the glove was sent to the son, between whom and the lady no magnetic current was established, instead of to the father. When the same correspondent goes on to inquire, in a tone of reprehensible levity, whether anyone had seen the glove on its way to England, and further to remark that he would be glad to receive from the Countess a few articles, such as gloves, boots, hats, &c., one feels that he would not be too severely punished if the lady were to grant his wish, and send him, say, a pair of tolerably heavy boots in a similar manner to that in which the glove was despatched to the barrister in England.
The Countess Blavatsky
Sir,—My attention has been called to an article in your evening edition of yesterday, in which you refer to a certain experiment in “occult” force by the Countess Blavatsky and other members of the Theosophical Society. As I am the “Barrister, and the son of a Liberal M.P.,” to whom allusion is made, perhaps you will allow me a few words of explanation.
In the first place, I understand from the lady in question that the matter was never intended for publication in Bombay, and such publication would certainly not have been authorised by me. There is nothing in the circumstances to satisfy the public, who are unacquainted with the parties, that the case was not one of simple collusion in a vulgar imposture between the Countess Blavatsky and the lady in London through whose mediumship the glove was returned to me. The Theosophical Society has no right to ask the public to share the perfect confidence which, I believe, all its members repose in these persons. The case was, therefore, wholly unsuited for publication in point of evidence.
I wish also to add that my father, the “Liberal M.P.,” was no party to the experiment, and has no faith whatever in either spiritualism or magic. I certainly did wish to ascertain if by these means a temporary ailment to his sight (which is not “seriously impaired,” or he could not fulfil the many onerous duties which devolve upon him) could be removed. But it was never expected that the glove which I obtained and gave to the Countess Blavatsky for a purpose connected with this object would alone be effectual in attaining it.
And you are mistaken in supposing that the Theosophical Society is addicted to dark séances, though in this particular instance there was no one present, on our side of the water, with the power, independent of darkness, which operated on the other side. Nor are ordinary spiritualistic phenomena in vogue among us, most of us being long since satisfied of their reality, and wishing to advance to the philosophy of them and to more interesting results.
A certain Countess Blavatsky has, it appears, been doing some marvellous feats in India as a spiritualist medium. The Indian police were disposed at first to look upon her and her companions of a so-called Theosophical party as a number of Russian spies; but if the trick which she has contrived to play with a glove does not convince them that the Countess herself is at any rate a far more extraordinary person than any spy, they must be very sceptical people. The story itself, like other wonders in the same scientific field, reads almost like a hoax; but a sober letter from a “Barrister, son of a well-known Liberal M.P.,” in the Standard shows that to him at least the affair is serious enough. According to the Indian papers, the Countess brought with her from England a pair of gloves. On the 17th of February also a pair of gloves was seen by Colonel Olcott in Bombay. About this there is no question, and the Countess informed the Colonel that she had been requested by “an English barrister, President of the British Theosophical Society and son of a Liberal M.P. whose name is well known throughout India”—the gentleman who writes to the Standard, in short—to send him one of these gloves immediately on her arrival, in order to improve his father’s eyesight. The scene changes to London. On the same day the barrister found a telegram at his chambers in the Temple from a lady medium in London, saying that her “spirit” had received a message from Mdme. Blavatsky in Bombay. Needless to say that this “message” was the glove sent off from Bombay that very day, with “the well-known signature on the inside of the kid and the less known and less decipherable symbols above it.” It was received by the gentleman full in the face in a darkened room, and he now gives evidence that he is quite satisfied that the transmission of the glove was effected by the Countess Blavatsky in Bombay and the less powerful medium in London between them. Ernest seekers after truth in Bombay have begged the Countess Blavatsky to send home their overland trunks by the same route, offering any reasonable price for the accommodation. So far, however, she has accepted no contract; though we believe this is only a question of terms—at least, that seems to be the opinion of the Indian papers.
Editor's notes