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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 |
Mr. Hare at Doughty Hall
On Sunday evening a very interesting meeting was held in Doughty Hall, addressed by Mr. R. H. Hare, son of the late Professor Hare, so famous for his researches in Spiritualism. Mr. Everitt presided in a genial manner, and made our distinguished visitor quite welcome to that free platform upon which so many distinguished thinkers have expressed their views of Spiritualism. We present a few of the thoughts offered by the speaker, which will be found of interest to deep thinkers.
It does not matter how many thousand years ago, but far back in the twilight of time, the philosophers of India attested the supremacy of will-force, which they termed acassa, and the subjectivity, or, as they termed it, the illusory nature of matter. This formed the basis, at a later period, of the teaching of Pythagoras and Plato. Were I to go into the theology elaborated first by the Indians, and afterwards adopted and more or less modified by the succeeding councils of the Christian Church, I should occupy more time than is at present at our disposal. Suffice it that the overlying mass had so encumbered the original conceptions that philosophy and religion were assumed as distinct names for what were supposed to be antagonistic and opposite systems. Whatever may be said by its antagonists, it is the glory of that system of a priori teaching known as Modern Spiritualism, that it has succeeded in presenting by experimental demonstration conclusive evidence of this original theorem; and that thus a firm basis has been at last found for the superstructure of human knowledge.
La Place, one of the greatest of modern philosophers, has well said the result of no experiment is to be disregarded, however improbable it may appear, provided the experiment can be repeated. Now it is well known to my auditors that whatever doubt may be cast by the Lankesters or Carpenters of science upon an individual experimenter, there exist hundreds, if not thousands, of mediums from whom direct writing may be had within enclosed surfaces, showing that there is an independent intelligence to which all the laws of matter, as we know them, are subordinated. I shall not enter upon further details in this matter, as it is to be presumed that you are acquainted with the lucid statement of them contained in the recent publication of “M.A. (Oxon.)” on “Psychography.” I shall presume that you are ready, upon these facts, to assume that atoms are only to be recognised in philosophy as centres of force.
While materialisation, or form manifestation, may be assumed by those who, like myself, have been fortunate enough to have become entirely satisfied of the human origin and identity of the substantial figures produced, it cannot be said that as regards the Ego or human origin and individuality of the intelligent force to which matter has been thus shown to be subordinated, La Place’s condition can be said to be complied with; for although the moral conviction of thousands may afford a better foundation for belief than any of the records upon which revealed religion is at present based, it remains to science by farther investigation to, if possible, evolve those laws to which these phenomena are to be attributed. The first effort in this direction was made several years ago by Col. Olcott, of New York. Placing the person of the medium upon a platform scale, he obtained evidence in a rough manner that the medium was very much diminished in weight during materialisation. Recent experiments made with more accurate apparatus, by a circle at 38, Great Russell Street, London, have resulted in the production of diagrams showing the astonishing fact that the medium is sometimes reduced to one fourth of his normal weight.
Now, it is well known that the great portion of all animal organism is fluid, and of this fluid portion the elementary principle is the protoplastic fluid of the blood. Some time since Prof. Huxley issued a startling monograph upon protoplasm, eminently instructive in all its details as to the conversion of protoplasm into force. About two or three years since, in a pamphlet on protoplasm, by Dr. Drysdale, based upon certain researches of the eminent microscopist Dr. Beale, he most emphatically contradicted the assumption that the result of the analyses of dead protoplasm could be assumed as a basis for the assertion that vital protoplasms of animals and plants—as, for example, the man and the thistle—could be found of like constitution.
Now, going all the way back to Leviticus, which, as far as I know, has never been found false in any of the facts which it asserts, and its prohibition, “The blood thereof, which is the life thereof, thou shalt not eat,” I think that the Spiritualists will be inclined to adopt the conclusions of Dr. Beale, rather than those of Prof. Huxley, since it is to the transformation of the fluid portion of the medium’s substance that we must look for the element employed in materialisation.
Scientific minds have for some time been searching for an explanation of anesthesia. Of anesthetics perhaps the most practically useful is nitrous oxide. You are aware that nitrous oxide has precisely the constituents of common air; the difference between them is due to the fact that in the air the nitrogen and oxygen are mixed, while in the nitrous oxide, precisely the same volumes of these gases are chemically united. The chief distinction in their property is that while the capacity of air—or its constituents, oxygen and nitrogen—for latent heat is represented by 1, that of nitrous oxide is 1860. Without pausing to dwell upon details, a somewhat similar analogy exists in the capacity for latent heat of sulphuric ether, chloroform, and the ethereal base of alcohol. Now then, let us suppose that by electrical or magnetised action the polarity of the molecules of the air contained in the breathing apparatus of a medium are so changed as to generate from it nitrous oxide, — have you not a sufficient hypothetical cause for the many momentous results which we have some of us witnessed? — have you not a simple explanation of mesmeric sleep as superinduced by the passes of the mesmeriser, or of entrancement by a disembodied spirit?
<Untitled> (The sects which...)
The sects which during the Hindoo occupation of India, prior to the Mahommedan conquest, amused the population of India with various tenets have lately received a new accession of strength. Now Juggernauth is at a discount, we have a new religion which has been just evolved from the consciousness of some dwellers in Bombay and at Amritsir. This is termed the “Arya Somaj.” The tenets of this Arya Somaj comprise a revival of most of the “fair humanities of old religion” which are associated with some of the mysterious rites of which the trustees of the British Museum prudently keep the memorials in a cellar. Few Hindoos as yet appear to have joined the standard of the “Arya Somaj,” and it is matter of credit to the Mahommedan population that, en masse, they are outside its ranks. Just now a new secret society in India, even though its avowed objects may be innocuously immoral, deserves some attention; and we doubt not that the Indian Government may, as heretofore, be attracted to the ramifications of an organization which may be devoted to more serious purposes than the fostering of that combination of religiosity and vice which for years past has been one of the most popular forms of Hindoo worship.
C.C. Blake ∵
<Untitled> (An English member...)
An English member of the Arya Somaj complains of an Occasional Note on the subject of his association. He declares that the Arya Somaj is “the purest religious movement of modern times, and a reformatory agitation which inculcates a morality of almost unattainable severity.” And he adds: “Allow me to conclude with three quotations from an authoritative paper before me:—‘The four texts of the Vedas shall be received and regarded as containing within themselves all that is necessary to constitute them an extraordinary authority in all matters relating to human conduct; and the Bramanas, beginning with the Shatapakta, the six Angas, or the limbs of the Vedas, beginning with the Shiksá; the four Upvedas, the six Darshanas, or the Schools of Philosophy, and the 1,127 lectures on the Vedas, called Shakhas, or the branches, shall be accepted as exponents of the meaning of the Vedas, as well as of the history of the Aryas. So far as these shall concur with the views of the Vedas, they shall be considered as an ordinary authority.’ ‘Adoration, prayer, and devotion shall be offered by the members to one God only, abstracted from all idea of shape and form, and without any second, as embodied in the Vedas.’ As to their schools: ‘Males and females shall be separately taught, and all instructors and servants shall be of the same sex as the pupils.’ Students of Oriental religions, and especially of the Vedas, will appreciate the difference between the religious philosophy recommended by the Arya Somaj and the Saktism imputed to it. Ordinary readers may form some notion of the interval between the two by turning to an article in the Contemporary Review of last month by Professor Monier Williams. I may add that, so far from being a ‘secret society,’ as alleged, the Arya Somaj is the most active and public propaganda now existing in India, or perhaps in the world, not excepting the Christian missionary enterprises, to which, no doubt, it is bitterly opposed.”
C.C. Massey
Editor's notes