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HPB-SB-14-122: Difference between revisions
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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Theosophic Teachings.|14-121}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Theosophic Teachings.|14-121}} | ||
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| style="text-align:right;" | [December 16, 1882. | |||
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{{Style P-No indent|when he seeks to prove annihilation of the unspiritual by this instance of the disintegrating corpse. The elements, are not individuals. No monad, no self-centred subjectivity, though it may deteriorate, can disintegrate. The elements restrained from following their affinities, were not nobler then when permitted to do so. The two antagonistic processes together make life, which implies function, quite as much as nutrition. But if the absence of full spiritual life leads to annihilation, how explain the actual existence of a long-lived elephant, or indeed, of any ordinary human being? A large-brained, self-willed Napoleon has nothing about him that looks like disintegration.}} | |||
And does not “C. C. M.” see that, when he talks of the influence of the Ego remaining in the Kama Rupa to make it hold together and simulate the Ego, if he endorses the view maintained by Fechner and myself about influence, which I had supposed he did, by his own admission the Ego ''is'' present in this shell after all, because the influence of a person or thing ''is'' the energy of the person, or thing, ''and cannot be divorced from him or it?'' He, moreover, seems to find this admission even in the very teaching of the Adepts themselves, judging by his final paragraph, where he apparently grants all he has denied, and all I have contended for—that shells in every case ''are'' animated by the Ego they belonged to. Anyhow, “C. C. M.” admits that they must be animated by the medium, or adept who invokes them, and through whom they manifest. Then they at once get some Ego behind them. And then the question becomes one of evidence. Do they, or do they not shew individuality apart from that of the evoker, or circle of spectators? In my judgment, they decidedly do over and over again; and it is not mere memory, but intelligent response to present circumstance—fresh self-adaptation. By the way, I never yet heard even any individual, “automatically,” or “without reflection,” talk Latin and Greek, however good his classical scholarship might be; certainly not if he talked it appropriately to the immediate occasion—which is a power ascribed by “C. C. M.” to the shell ''deprived'' of its individuality! | |||
(2.) But has “C. C. M.” considered that we do not derive our notion of the cell-components of our organism from themselves alone? Certainly the categorized sensations which indicate them are not ''their'' representation of themselves, but ''ours,'' and so far as ''these are external to us'' they are derived, not from them chiefly, but either, as Hinton thought, direct from God and the higher angels by limitation in us, or, as I have argued in my book on Immortality, ultimately, indeed, thus, but more immediately from other Spirits more on a level with us who transfer these ideas to us, the latter again appearing in us, according to the moulding, and modifying power of our own minds. If, then, we have modified the protoplasm of our organism, we have also modified these other Spirits, who reveal this protoplasm to us, modified them externally and internally. The habits we have formed, therefore, are partly transferred to them, at least have affected them, and return from them to us. There are thus many other Spirits concerned in the objectivity of our habits, besides the cells of our organism, and whatever corresponding individuals may be represented by the ethereal body. Our bodies, as I have argued in my book, express not only ourselves, but a myriad other intelligences also. | |||
(3.) Then the essential part of these habits of ours, even though we may be unconscious of them just now, are represented in our higher and truer consciousness, since they belong to us, and radiate thence into phenomenal conditions as we experience them. Now does not “C. C. M.” see that the inferior organic individuals, whether of cell or ether, are not by themselves, as ''ding an Sich,'' the vehicles of our spontaneous habits, and automatic reactions at all? ''Their own consciousness is somewhat wholly different; they are totally incapable of representing ours;'' they are in isolation, and in another sphere. They are only vehicles of our habits, when our superior consciousness ''reflects'' the peculiar subjective and objective moulding we have imparted to them, and ''transmutes it in reflecting;'' but in this process also you have other Spirits, more on the same plane of development as ourselves, necessarily engaged, as I have explained; and you have also the transcendent Ego or Spirit in its higher sphere. So we find the Ego, to whom a special organism belonged, necessarily behind it whatever it is, and many other Egos beside. Wherefore the mere “shell” is altogether excluded from any conditions of possibility. It is far more true that we make the cells of our organism, and their character, than that they make us. And it is again the World-Soul, who makes us. It is no answer to my arguments to urge that Occultists do not attribute personality to the shell, for what I argue is—(1) that there can be no consciousness at all without personality behind it; but consciousness is attributed to the shell, and is certainly characteristic of the entities that manifest at séances; and (2) the habits which “C. C. M.” thinks can be entirely divorced from a person, ''and yet exist by themselves, did'' confessedly belong to him; hence the unity of personal consciousness ''is'' violated by such a theory. I fear we cannot so easily throw off our habits! I am glad to see that “C. C. M.” does not adopt the absurd theory of “human automatism,” and “unconscious cerebration” advocated by some scientists. He could be ''in no sense'' an idealist if he did. | |||
P.S.—“C. C. M.” rightly argues that an idealist may reason about physical phenomena in the language of physical science, tacitly, ''but not expressly,'' postulating his own principles. But if he maintains not only that there are bodies, but bodies with a consciousness out of relation to thinkers, consciousness without the integrating conscious unit, then he not only violates the first principles of idealism, but also those of reason itself. Bodies are phenomena in us, or in other minds, external to us. He who believes that can discuss their properties with the materialist, and use the same language. But he cannot say that these phenomena themselves (bodies) ''think, and think out of relation to synthetic thinking units, or Egos.'' For if he does, he virtually denies their merely phenomenal character, and also asserts that an integer may still exist when you have taken away one of the factors essential to the very idea of it. This is both materialism and fatuity, as absolutely inconsistent with any idealism I ever heard of, or can imagine, as with common sense itself. Again, physiological psychologists absurdly assert that our one self-identical consciousness is made up of the sum of sensations belonging to the unity of our organism. (See Bain, for instance.) “C. C. M.” sees the absurdity of this. But does he reflect that no one of these units can have, or represent, one of our sensations, even if the adding them up could make our indivisible selves? Even a ''single'' sensation, ''as we feel'' it, implies our own proper selves to discriminate it in feeling. A sensation, as a cell feels it, we cannot at all represent to ourselves. And there is no reason why ethereal units in ''Akasa'' should be more capable of performing self-contradictory acts than protoplasmic cells are. They are alike isolated pulses of consciousness unimaginable by us, ''till transformed in and by us.'' But if they cannot feel like us, how much less can they remember our deeds, thoughts, and feelings! | |||
<center>''(To be continued.)''</center> | |||
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| title = Mr. Epes Sargent, Mr. Roden Noel, and the “Spiritual Body.” | | title = Mr. Epes Sargent, Mr. Roden Noel, and the “Spiritual Body.” | ||
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| author signed = C. C. M. | | author signed = C. C. M. | ||
| source title = Light | | source title = Light | ||
| source details = December16,1882 | | source details = December16,1882 | ||
| publication date = 1882-12-16 | | publication date = 1882-12-16 | ||
| original date = | | original date = | ||
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{{Style P-Title|MR. EPES SARGENT, MR. RODEN NOEL, AND<br>THE “SPIRITUAL BODY.”}} | |||
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In his “Philosophy of Immortality,” Mr. Roden Noel includes Mr. Epes Sargent among those who seem to confound the Spiritual body with the Spirit. I rather doubted the justice of this censure when I was reviewing Mr. Noel’s book for “Light” some time ago, because of all writers on modern Spiritualism, with, perhaps, the single exception of Mr. Noel himself, Sargent was the best read in philosophy, and the most familiar with its distinctions. Mr. Noel refers to the “Proof Palpable,” but I will vindicate the distinguished American author by citing the following from his latest work, “The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism.”<sup>*</sup><ref name="editor-122-restored-footnote">The newspaper’s footnote is missing from the pasted clipping. Restored from Light, No. 102, December 16, 1882, PDF page 7 (printed page 567).</ref> Speaking of the “trichotomy of physical body, spirit-body (or soul), and spirit,—a trinity of principles, physical, psycho-physiological and Spiritual, all proceeding from the Infinite Force, but the last, like God Himself, inscrutable,” he quotes from Lord Bacon, and refers to early Christian belief. He then proceeds: “Such is not only the early Christian belief, but such, so far as relates to the spirit-body, is the so-called ''animism'' of the barbarous tribes. It is consistent also with the views of both Plato and Aristotle. In the progress of philosophical speculation this simple idea, explaining so many of the phenomena which have puzzled metaphysicians as to how an immaterial, unextended principle can act upon a physical body, was superseded by a doctrine which identified spirit-body and spirit in substance, and distinguished them only in function. Aquinas, and after him Calvin, pronounced in favour of this dualistic rendering; but it was chiefly through the influence of Descartes that the belief in a psychical organism or spirit-body, distinct from the physical, was ruled out of philosophy, literature, and religion. Then began to arise the clamour, still kept up, against the ‘gross materialism’ of the Pauline doctrine of{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|14-123}} | |||
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<sup>*</sup> {{Style S-HPB SB. Restored|Pp. 208-9.}} | |||
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Light v.02 n.102 1882-12-16.pdf|page=7|Light, v. 2, No. 102, December 16, 1882, pp. 567, 570 | |||
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