Olcott H.S. - The Barisal Guns

This text was extracted from an image and needs proofreading.

Information about the work

Comprehensive Theosophical Dictionary

Terms (+) • Literature (+) • Persons (+) • Periodicals (+) • Sources

H A L P S

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The Barisal Guns

Henry Steel Olcott

(English: H.S. Olcott, The Barisal Guns)

Publications:

• Lucifer, vol. 3, no. 13, September 1888, pp. 4-14

Read:

• Electronic journal edition in Teopedia

Download:

• Original volume (PDF)

DATA

Title for references: Olcott H.S. - The Barisal Guns
Short description:

4

The Barisal Guns

IT occasionally happens that our knowledge of the finer forces of Nature is increased by the researches of sceptical scientists who are working on quite another theory. They may be intending to prove a purely physical phenomenon, but find themselves confronted by a psychical revelation. If open to conviction, they may, like Prof. Hare, Prof. Gregory, Mr. Crookes, Prof. Zollner, Prof. Buchanan, and Mr. Wallace, step outside the circle of sciolism and become the brave defenders of occult truth; if the contrary, they remain Brewsters, Faradays, Carpenters, Huxleys and Tyndalls, that is to say, prejudiced adversaries of a spiritual truth for whose comprehension they lack aptitude. When, in 1840, Dr. Buchanan was told by Bishop Polk that the touching of a brass door-knob gave him a brassy taste in the mouth, the stupendous fact of psychometrical law sprang up in his mind, and he set to testing experimentally the theory. When Baron Von Reichenbach – until then merely a renowned metallurgical chemist – found that a certain patient in hospital was affected injuriously by lying with her head to the east or west, and suffered muscular spasms at the approach of a magnet, his great and open mind instantly set to work upon a line of research which gave the world his discovery of Odyle.

Conversely, it has frequently occurred that popular superstitions have been uprooted and destroyed upon scientific examination of their basic facts. And so, the wise investigator, mindful of both these circumstances, will suspend theory and avoid prejudice until he has got at the bottom of his subject.

Bacon’s rule, we know, was this: “We have set it down as a law to ourselves to examine things to the bottom, and not to receive upon credit, or reject upon improbabilities, until there hath passed a due examination.”

The mystery of what is known as “The Barisâl Guns” offers an excellent occasion to exemplify this sound principle. For the benefit of distant readers let me explain what are these “guns”; but first as to the locality of Barisâl. This is a small town on the western bank of the Beeghaye River, one of the numberless smaller channels of the sacred Ganges. As the crow flies, it is some 65 miles due north of the Bay of Bengal. Like the entire Gangetic Delta, the land about is flat, the surface only a few feet above the water level. There are no mountains, or even hills, indicated on the map until we come to the ranges to the north-east, which separate Bengal from Burma, and in which the place called Cherra Poonjee is distant from Barisâl in a straight line

5

about 195 miles. Due east, the Hill Tipperah district lies over 100 miles away from Barisâl, and there is a long and narrow hill bordering Sundeep Channel, which rises to the height only of 1,155 feet. The united delta of the Ganges and Brahmapootra covers a space of between 50,000 and 60,000 square miles. These physical features of the country must be kept in mind when speculating upon the acoustic phenomenon now to be described.

If the reader will turn to the September (1886) number of the Theosophist, he will find, in a note upon my official tour, the following:

“There occurs at Barisâl one of the most startling and hitherto inexplicable of nature’s phenomena: it is called the “Barisâl Gun,” and so mentioned in the History of Bakargunj District. Suddenly, without any antecedent atmospheric disturbance or other noticeable cause, there will come the sharp report of a heavy gun from the direction of the Bay of Bengal. Usually, it will be followed by six other reports equally loud. The phenomenon is most frequent in the monsoon and after a fall of rain, but its cause is a complete puzzle to all; possibly it must be placed within the category of astral phenomena produced by elementals, etc.”

This tentative hypothesis was, of course, suggested only after every physical theory put forward to account for the explosive sounds had been pondered and found wanting. The sounds, as I heard them at Barisâl, could only be compared to the booming of a heavy gun. I have had some experience, and ought to know a cannon-shot when I hear it. As I was leaving the hall where I had been lecturing, say at 8.45 p.m., the first report occurred – unmistakably a gun – and seemed to come from some point within the town limits. I fancied it at first the evening gun, until, upon looking at my watch, I saw it was full three-quarters of an hour later than the usual time, 8 o’clock. I had scarcely taken a few steps before there came a second report, and then successively five more at regular intervals, of about the same length. Surprised at this cannonade in such a quiet part of the Gangetic Delta, far from the sea and with no military cantonments near, I asked what it all meant. Then, for the first time in my life, I heard about the Barisâl Gun. Old men told me they had heard it from boyhood, and I learned that it was familiar to the inhabitants of Dacca, 75 miles to the northward, and was not unknown at Chittagong, which lies 100 miles to the eastward. Among my Barisâl friends were men of splendid education and bright intelligence, and with these I discussed the several theories propounded in connection with the sounds. Neither the hydraulic, pneumatic, seismic, nor electric seemed to meet the facts. What, then? Physical, apparently nothing; if the guns were not made by the tide, the surf, the crumbling of river banks, the crash of tumbling cliffs, the impact of wind in caves or hill-corners, echoes reverberating from rocky sounding-boards, the escape of steam-puffs from submarine volcanoes, nor were electric detonations resulting from observable

6

causes, then what next hypothesis should be weighed by reason? My Barisâl friends had stopped just at this point; not caring to trouble themselves about a matter which habit had made as vulgarly familiar, as the dropping of apples had been to every lounger under English apple-trees, until one Newton made it the pivot for the sublimest theory ever conceived by a scientific man. One of the most learned of living Hindus, one whose name is known to every Orientalist in the Western world, once described to me what he had with his own eyes seen Hassan Khan Djinni, the famous sorcerer, do: his own watch, locked by himself in a cash-box, and that box put inside one or more larger boxes, each locked in turn, was instantaneously withdrawn into the juggler’s hand, unharmed and still running. “Well?” I said, when Dr. R. had finished his story. “Well, what?” he rejoined. “What light did that throw into your mind about the occult laws of nature and powers in man?” “Pon my word, I did not follow it up. It simply seemed something unaccountable.” “Sir,” said I, “remember Newton’s apple, and Franklin’s kite. If modern Hindus are ignorant of that divine Vidya which was once universally appreciated and largely proved experimentally by their ancestors, it is because, like you, they are indifferent to the working of natural law, and live only for the social interests of the passing moment.” I have been struck with this trait in connection with the Barisâl Gun mystery. The weird artillery has from time immemorial been firing its challenge to study its cause, and suggesting possible inferences of the deepest importance; yet without result. A physician once told me at Niagara that he had grown so accustomed to the roar of the falls, he now did not hear it unless somebody brought it to his attention; so also the Barisâl graduates pay so little heed to their mysterious cannonading, that the stranger gets conflicting reports from different inhabitants as to the number, frequency, and atmospheric concomitants of the guns. One of the brightest Hindus I know is Babu Aswini Kumar Datta, of Barisâl In response to my recent inquiries, he writes:

“The Barisâl Guns are a curious phenomenon. I have not yet been able to ascertain anything about them. The sounds are very irregular. Sometimes you hear 20 or 25 reports continuously; sometimes only 10 or 12. I have often heard the reports in clear weather. I never remember to have heard them when it was raining. They are neither preceded nor followed, as a rule, by downpours of rain. I heard them often in April. We don’t hear them so often now [letter dated 12th July]. The sounds come from the south-west quarter.”

Most of the facts above noted are important. It is here seen (a) that

7

there is no uniformity in the number of successive reports; (b) that they occur in clear weather as well as rainy; (c) that apparently they are not connected with a super-abundance of atmospheric moisture; (d) that there is a certain season more favourable to them than another season; and (e) that they come from a certain direction. The irregularity of the sounds would seem to suggest that they are not due to the boom of surf upon the beach along the Bay of Bengal; their occurrence in dry weather, that they are not echoes of distant noises, thrown back from the sky, like the roll of thunder; and their greater frequency in the monsoon, that they are not persistent volcanic discharges, even if it were possible that any active marine volcano could go one month, let alone centuries, without being detected! But why do they seem to come from the south-west? There is no mountain-range to the west of Barisâl, that might reflect sound rippling or rushing towards it from the Bay: all is a flat, alluvial plain. Then, again, it is reported that at Kúkri Múkri, the most southerly island in the Bakarganj District, the sounds seem to come from out at sea, to the southward, and that “they are distinct from the noise of breakers or of the tide coming in.” The natives say “it is the sound of the opening and shutting of Ravan’s gates in the Island of Lanka” (Ceylon); but in his paper on the “Antiquities of Bagirhát” (Journ. As. Soc., Beng. 1867) Babu Gaurdás Bysack says that the popular explanation is that the cannonade is fired by aerial hands (of course, he means the elementals – Devatas) in honour of Khanja Ali or Khán Jáhan who was tehsildar of Bagirhát some 400 years ago. Mr. Beveridge, the Bakarganj historian, thinks the Ravan-gates theory at Kúkri Múkri “valuable, because it shows that the sound comes from the south.” From the south, certainly, but from what nucleus or source to the southward? Yet not always from the south: sometimes from the north and south-west. As an occultist, I think the Ravana theory quite as important as indicating, in connection with the Khán Jahán theory, the survival of tradition that the Devatas cause the guns, and that they are explosions, not in the grosser atmosphere, but in the akaz. Since we have nothing better than several physical hypotheses, each more inapplicable than the other to the actual facts, I think we may venture to put in our vote to, at least, consider the occult aspect of the question.

The occasion for the present essay is the fact that the Asiatic Society of Bengal has decided to try and solve the puzzle of the Barisâl Gun, and that the Honorary Secretary has done me the honour to accept the assistance I offered when I heard that the enquiry was on foot. Even before leaving Barisâl, in August last, I had arranged with an amiable Catholic friar there for a series of daily observations and records throughout an entire year, so that we might try to get some light upon the phenomenon; but he was unfortunately transferred soon after to another station. In connection with the enquiry in question, Lt.-Col.

8

Waterhouse, B. S. C., has issued a valuable and exhaustive pamphlet embodying all hitherto-observed facts and theories put forth upon the subject of the guns. A map of the Gangetic Delta which accompanies it, adds greatly to its value. Among other theories, Mr. Beveridge’s connecting the sounds with “that curious submarine depression in front of Jessore and Bakarganj which is known by the name of the ‘Swash-of-no-ground,’” may, I think, be set aside unceremoniously. The depression, we are told by Commander Carpenter, R.N., of the Marine Survey, is caused by the convergence towards this region of all the channels through the shoals formed off the mouths of all the rivers of the Delta: hence, the theory of the reports being subterraneous explosions finding vent and sound through an extinct submarine volcano there, is quite untenable. If they invariably came from that spot, the thing would have a different look, but at Bagirhát which is due west from Barisâl, they are often heard coming from the north, the quarter of Fureedpur, whereas at Fureedpur they are heard as if from the south.

It is an undoubted fact that sounds like cannon-shots sometimes accompany severe earthquakes. For example, I find in Nature for June 28th 1888, the following narrative of an earthquake in the same month:

“A severe shock of earthquake was felt in the Hernö, an island in the Baltic, on June 7th at 7.24 a.m. Houses shook and furniture moved. The shock went in a direction north-north-west (N.N.W.) At the Lungö Lighthouse the shock was felt at 9.50, and was accompanied by a detonation like that of heavy artillery. Here the shock went in a direction N.E. to S.W. The shock was also felt in the town of Hernösand.”

So, also, the like detonations are observed in movements of floe-ice. Arctic explorers describe the noise of the breaking up of the ice-fields as making a series of detonations like the roar of artillery. The same number of Nature contains the following paragraph:

“Advices from the fishing-village of Kerschkaranza, in the Kola Peninsula, on the White Sea, state that on January 5th, a curious and destructive phenomenon occurred there. At 4 a.m. the inhabitants were awakened by a peculiar, dull, heavy detonation like that of distant artillery. Piled up to a height of several hundred feet, the ice – in consequence, no doubt of the enormous pressure of the ocean-ice without – was seen to begin moving from the north-west towards the shore. The gigantic ice-wall moved irresistibly forward and soon reached the shore of the village, which it completely buried, the ice extending a mile inland. The forward movement of the ice lasted four hours.

This is all definite and void of mystery: in both earthquake and ice-floe we have the sounds of cannon firing imitated, but we know they come from these two physical disturbances. But where is the earthquake or ice-field that fires the salvo of the Barisâl Guns? Mr. Medlicott, one of the observers quoted in Col. Waterhouse’s paper, heard the sounds at Cherra Punji, which hill-station is, as above noted, some 200 miles north

9

of the Bay of Bengal; and Col. W. suggests that those reports “would appear more probably connected with volcanic or seismic agency than with any water-borne sounds.” Yet we are not in possession of any records of the occurrence of earthquakes in that hill-range coincidently with the mysterious detonations at Cherra Punji, hence it is quite an unwarranted proceeding to put forward the theory of possible seismic action to account for them. And do not let us forget that these sounds have been familiar to the living generation from their earliest recollections, and are traditionally traced back through four centuries. Would the learned Colonel Waterhouse wish us to adopt the extremely unlikely notion that unrecorded and unsuspected seismic convulsions have been firing Barisâl Guns at Cherra Punji from time immemorial?

So, we see, the laws of acoustics seem to suggest no solution of the mystery. One obscure fact is highly puzzling, viz. the guns will be heard at a given place, but not at places just in its vicinity. This is noticed at Bagirhát. And they are more audible there when the sky is clear and the weather fair than in stormy weather.

Twenty observers give a score of theories, some very foolish. For example, one is that the crumbling of the river-banks may make the cannonade. Well, I can only say that I have twice made the trip from Khulna to Barisâl and return, and once that from Chittagong viâ Noakhali to Barisâl; have seen the mud banks slump into the water; and they made no noise that could be heard at a distance of 100 yards. And would any one have us believe that a crumbling of banks five or ten feet high is going on so consecutively and uproariously as to imitate the report of a forty-pounder cannon! Let us hope that the systematized observations now undertaken by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, with the possible help of Government, and covering both sides of the head of the Bay of Bengal, from Belasore to Diamond Island, and the whole enclosed area of the Gangetic Delta, may result in a solution of the problem. Any reader of this magazine within the territory indicated who may be willing to assist, should communicate with the Honorary Secretary of the Asiatic Society, 57 Park Street, Calcutta, and apply for the printed forms.

Colonel Waterhouse summarizes in his instructive paper the several theories of the guns as follows:

(I.) The breaking of enormous surf rollers on the shores of the upper part of the Bay of Bengal: the sound of this travelling inland along the surface of the rivers, and to long distances under the favourable atmospheric conditions of the S. W. monsoon.

This theory is scientifically insufficient to account for the cannonading in even a single place, to say nothing of many places. We have, firstly, the irregularity in the reports – sometimes one gun, sometimes seven, and again a dozen, twenty, or more. In the monsoon the wind blows from a fixed quarter, and if the sonorous waves are travelling thence

10

towards the observer, then they ought – unless it is a case of Echoes – to be heard successively all along the track. We have seen however that the guns will be heard at some one locality, but not at others close by. Then the boom of surf is monotonously consecutive; whether loud or dull it matters not. It requires a fixed time for the wave to rise and dash upon the beach; one may time the rhythm by the watch; and so long as the storm lasts and the wind blows from the same quarter, so long will the surf-beats follow each other in their rhythmic measure. At the moment of writing I hear the surf rolling upon the Adyar beach, a half mile away, and not the wildest imagination would note any resemblance to the eight o’clock gun which just now was fired at Fort St. George, four miles away. Now the Barisâl Guns I heard at Barisâl sounded as if fired a half mile from my point of observation; and though I have listened to the surf in various parts of the world, I never heard any that resembled a cannon-shot, though some say they have where surges were plunging into cavernous cliffs. But no observer has, to my recollection, recorded the fact that such marine salvos would resound a few times and then suddenly cease, notwithstanding that the swell of angry ocean continued and the winds still blew as hard as before from the same quarter and in the same direction!

(II.) The breaking down of the banks of the rivers in the vicinity of places where they are heard.

Considering that these river-banks are of alluvium and but a few feet high, and that their erosion is never known to occur rhythmically, nor ever, save when rivers are in flood, this theory may be passed.

(III.) The firing of bombs or guns on the occasion of marriages.

Bosh!

(IV.) Subterranean or sub-aqueous volcanic or seismic agencies.

No evidence supports this conjecture. There are no such reports from the Marine Survey Department; from navigators – to whom the Bay is as familiar, almost, as the streets of their native town or village; nor from the swarms of fishermen who are constantly going over the ground. Referring to the supposition of Capt. Stewart that the sounds have some connection with the “Swash-of-no-ground,” and rejecting as unfounded the theory that it is the crater of an extinct volcano, Col. Waterhouse says, “it would be most important to have further observations as to the state of the sea during the monsoon over this depression, and whether the contending currents (in the sea) cause such disturbance as would produce explosive sounds loud enough to be heard miles inland.” But I would ask the learned gentleman what importance attaches to the conflict of ocean-currents capable of making such detonations as the Barisâl Guns, unless the recurrence of the sounds were as continuous and rhythmic as the clash of the currents would be. If they – the latter – go on night and day the same throughout the monsoon, and the wind blows almost constantly from the Swash towards the Delta, then the guns should also

11

be persistent and not intermittent as they are; no two days giving the same number of guns nor reports of the same loudness. And, again, in what other delta, in any other part of the world, do people hear Barisâl Guns, though the same conditions prevail of mighty rivers entering the sea by many channels, and through alluvial plains? If the portions of the Gangetic Delta where these sounds have been heard were walled in by an amphitheatre of hills of the right conformation to act as reverberators, one might fancy it worth while to consider the theory that the explosions were traceable to the motions of the sea. But, save the low range of hills of Arrakan and Akyab to the eastward, and a right angle with them formed by the lower ranges of the Himalayas, the physical aspect of the Delta is an enormous plain, absolutely flat, with no hills to modify, repeat, reflect, or deflect sonorous waves, and intersected by a network of streams and water-courses.

(V.) Atmospheric electricity.

This theory is ruled out like the others by Col. Waterhouse; and very properly, in my humble opinion. We have learnt enough about electricity by this time to be sure that it is not going about the world firing ghostly salvoes in sheer sport. When there are electric detonations, we are at no loss to trace them to their source in some atmospheric disturbance: for, whatever may be the state of the earth electrically, these phenomena require for their development a complementary state of the atmosphere. None of the observers report any facts tending to show such a connection of opposite polarities in the present instance, though two or three offered general theoretical guess that the guns may be an electrical phenomenon.

Col. Waterhouse sums up the case in the following terms:

“In the present very imperfect state of our knowledge regarding this mysterious phenomenon, it is impossible to form any decided opinion as to its cause, though from the evidence it would appear that the balance of probability favours the connection of the sounds in some way with the sea; the sodden state of the soil, the vapour-laden state of the atmosphere, and the direction of the wind being exceptionally favourable for the transmission of such sounds, which seem to be heard most frequently at times of the year when the sea is at its highest, and the contending influences of the river floods against wind and tides strongest. At the same time, some of the evidence seems to decidedly negative this theory, and it is quite possible that more causes than one may be active in producing similar sounds. The more or less intimate connection of the sounds with the river system of the Delta also seems to be established, but whence the sounds proceed there is nothing to show.”

In his “Natural Magic,” Sir David Brewster gives some interesting facts in regard to sound. On the extended heath, he says, where there are no solid objects capable of reflecting or modifying sound – the peculiarity of the Gangetic Delta – the sportsman must frequently have noticed the unaccountable variety of sounds which are produced by the report of his fowling-piece. Sometimes they are flat and prolonged, at other times short and sharp, and sometimes the noise is so strange that

12

it is referred to some mistake in the loading of the gun. These variations arise entirely from the state of the air, and from the nature and proximity of the superjacent clouds. In pure air of uniform density the sound is sharp and soon over, as the undulations of the air advance without any interrupting obstacle. In a foggy atmosphere, or where the vapours produced by heat are seen dancing as it were in the air, the sound is dull and prolonged, and when these clouds are immediately overhead, a succession of echoes from them produces a continued or reverberating sound. When the French astronomers were determining the velocity of sound by firing great guns, they observed that the report was always single and sharp under a perfectly clear sky, but indistinct, and attended by a long continued roll like thunder, when a cloud covered a considerable part of the horizon. This being so, the Barisâl salvoes should, in the monsoon, be changed from the sharp boom of a cannon to a rumbling like thunder, provided that they are caused by either of the agencies suggested in the several theories above. And like the rumble of thunder, if heard at one place, they should be so also at all points in the neighbourhood. The boom of great guns has been heard at distances of from 120 to 200 miles; but for such an acoustic phenomenon there is required a stretch of hard and dry ground of an uniform character, or one where a thin soil rests upon a continuous stratum of rock. Do we find any of these physical conditions in and about Barisâl? Again: they cannot be echoes, as some suppose, for there is no smooth rocky acclivity athwart the Delta to reflect a sonorous wave travelling northward from the Bay of Bengal. And for a gunshot to be heard as an echo at Barisâl, a monster cannon would have to be fired a short distance just due south of the observer, and the sound travel northward at the velocity of 1,090 feet in a second, until it met and was reflected back to him by a smooth perpendicular wall or hill. Moreover, it is a law of acoustics that the waves of sound are enfeebled by reflexion from ordinary surfaces, and the echo is in such cases feebler than the original sound. On the other hand, if the reflecting surface is circular, sound may be condensed and rendered stronger in the same manner as light. (Nat. Mag. 224.) Where is the circular reflecting barrier to the north of Barisâl and Furidpore standing athwart the line of travel of a sound-wave coming from the “Swash-of-no-Ground”? And if there were any – which there is not – why are the guns heard sporadically, in varying number, while the sound-waves should be flowing continuously and persistently northward from the Swash, day and night throughout the monsoon, each wave capable of causing its distinct echo by reflexion? I think we may “pass” on this echo theory.

And now, that the ground is cleared for the Asiatic Society’s observers, by disposing of all the weak theories heretofore put forward to account for this unique phenomenon of the Barisâl Guns, I cannot give a better idea of the depth of the mystery, and the scheme in view for its solution,

13

than by copying verbatim the circular kindly sent me by the Honorary Secretary. It reads as follows: –

“V. Observers at river stations should note any unusual floods, bores, high or low tides, or any other occurrence which might be the cause of banks falling in or otherwise might be connected with the occurrence of the sounds.

VI. The forms overleaf should be filled up while recollection is fresh, and forwarded immediately to the Secretary, Asiatic Society, by whom more forms will be supplied if required.

VII. Besides recording current observations, observers who have heard these sounds would oblige by giving any information they can as to the locality; the circumstances under which the sounds were heard; their character and direction, and the causes to which the observer would attribute them. Also as to: –

(a.) The time of day or night and season of the year at which they were heard most frequently, and whether they were always from the same direction.

(b.) The farthest place inland at which the observer has heard them or knows personally of their having been heard, and at what time of year.

Observations of Barisâl Guns.

Place of observation. Height above mean sea-level and nature of surrounding country.

Date – month – day – year.

Time of day.

Character of the sounds.

Duration of intervals between the sounds; and whether regular or no.

Total duration of the sounds.

Direction from which the sounds appeared to come.

Direction and strength of the wind at the time of observation.

State of the weather at the time of observation. Sky cloudy or clear?

State of the weather during the previous 24 hours.

Whether rain has fallen at or about the time when the sounds were heard, and, if so, how much and at what period?

Were electrical disturbances or thunder observed either locally or at a distance, before or after, or at the time of the occurrence of the sounds?

If thunder was observed, did the sounds appear to come from the direction of the storm?

State of the sea at coast stations, with reference to the breaking of surf-rollers.

Bores, floods, or specially high or low tides at River stations. The state of the tide at the time the sounds were heard.

Any other fact or occurrence at the time which strikes the observer as important.

Cause to which the observer believes the sounds may be attributed.”

Though a professed amateur of occult science, it has ever been my habit, when studying any supposed psychical phenomenon, to first consider and dispose of every physical hypothesis that may seem pertinent. Readers of my book “People from the Other World” will recollect my laying down that rule for my guidance in my inquiry into the Eddy “materialisation” wonders.

The spirit which actuated me then does so now, and I could not better define the temper in which the Asiatic Society should approach the present subject than in these words, which are taken from the Preface to the book in question:

14

“Much as the author desires to see this subject inquired into by men of scientific attainments, he could regard it as only a misfortune if they should set out with a disposition to prescribe impossible conditions. Before they reach the point where they would have the right to dictate their own terms, it would be necessary for them to make many observations, collect many data, and inform themselves about many things of which they are necessarily ignorant. . . Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, F. R. S., says, in his pamphlet entitled A Defence of Modern Spiritualism, that ‘scientific men almost invariably assume that, in this inquiry, they should be permitted to impose conditions; and if, under such conditions, nothing happens, they consider it a proof of imposture or delusion. But they well know that, in all other branches of research, Nature, not they, determines the essential conditions, without a compliance with which no experiment will succeed. These conditions have to be learnt by a patient questioning of Nature, and they are different for each branch of science. How much more may they be expected to differ in an inquiry which deals with subtle forces of the nature of which the physicist is wholly and absolutely ignorant! To ask to be allowed to deal with these unknown phenomena, as he has hitherto dealt with known phenomena, is practically to prejudge the question, since it assumes that both are governed by the same laws’.”

I have tried to be loyal to science in the present instance, and am open to correction if I have failed to present the exoteric side of the case with perfectly impartiality. I am prepared to learn that the inquiry begun by the Asiatic Society of Bengal has resulted in tracing this acoustic marvel of the centuries to a purely physical cause. I am also prepared to hear of the utter failure of the inquest and the discomfiture of the materialistic party.

The weak point in their tactics is that the possible alternative of the phenomenon having an occult cause back of the simply physical agency or agencies, employed by the masked operators, is completely ignored by the Committee in charge of the research. For all that is to be seen in their Circular, one would never suspect that such a thing as an occult phenomenon had ever happened. Some of the observers quoted in Colonel Waterhouse’s pamphlet are Hindus – Babus Gaurdás Bysack, P. N. Mittra, and B. C. Chatterji – yet neither ventures a word in favor of the superstitious theory of the poor, benighted natives of Bagirhát, that the salutes are “fired by aerial hands,” or that of the Maghs of Kúkri Múkri, that the noise is that of the slamming of the brazen gates of the Palace of Ravana. Perhaps such theories are not embraced in the B. Sc. course at Calcutta University, and, therefore, are unthinkable for any Hindu with a decent regard for the honour of his ancestors!

It seems to me – who am not a Hindu (this time) but only a believer in the Aryans and their wisdom – more than likely that the Barisâl Guns are occult phenomena, that the Devatas, or nature-spirits, are the artillerymen, and that possibly the thing traces back to some awful tragedy in or near the Gangetic Delta. About such astral detonations, in quality if not degree, there is a mass of accessible testimony in European books; but, as no more space can be spared in the present number of the magazine for enlargement upon the topic, I shall reserve for a future number what can be said on the occult side of the question. Our friends, the spiritualists, should be interested, as the discussion will have to deal with their own familiar phenomena.

H. S. Olcott.

Footnotes

---