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Judge W.Q. - Answers to Questioners (view source)

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Add the February 1888 installment, checked against the 1887-88 scan
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  | description = The first installment of the "Zadok" question-and-answer department announced the previous month: on celibacy and spiritual attainment, vegetarianism, whether one can be an occultist without consciously experiencing the Astral, and the two paths of out-of-body travel.
  | description = The first installment of the "Zadok" question-and-answer department announced the previous month: on celibacy and spiritual attainment, vegetarianism, whether one can be an occultist without consciously experiencing the Astral, and the two paths of out-of-body travel.
  | work type = articles
  | work type = articles
  | publication date = November, December 1887, January 1888
  | publication date = November, December 1887, January, February 1888
  | publication date sortable = 1887-11
  | publication date sortable = 1887-11
  | publication place = ''The Path''
  | publication place = ''The Path''
  | read links = [[Path/Vol2/Text|Electronic journal edition in Teopedia]]
  | read links = [[Path/Vol2/Text|Electronic journal edition in Teopedia]]
  | publications = [[Path/Vol2/Text|''The Path'', vol. II, no. 8]], November 1887, pp. 249-251; no. 9, December 1887, pp. 278-281; no. 10, January 1888, pp. 309-310
  | publications = [[Path/Vol2/Text|''The Path'', vol. II, no. 8]], November 1887, pp. 249-251; no. 9, December 1887, pp. 278-281; no. 10, January 1888, pp. 309-310; no. 11, February 1888, pp. 344-346
  | ctd rus = Джадж У.К. - Ответы спрашивающим
  | ctd rus = Джадж У.К. - Ответы спрашивающим
  | note = Signed "Zadok," the pseudonym established the previous month in [[Judge W.Q. - Notice to Inquirers|"Notice to Inquirers"]] (October 1887). The December installment's final answer is signed "Julius," a pseudonym of [[Keightley, Julia|Julia Keightley]]; the rest are signed "Zadok."
  | note = Signed "Zadok," the pseudonym established the previous month in [[Judge W.Q. - Notice to Inquirers|"Notice to Inquirers"]] (October 1887). The December and February installments' final answers are signed "Julius," a pseudonym of [[Keightley, Julia|Julia Keightley]]; the rest are signed "Zadok."
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{{Style P-Signature|Zadok.}}
{{Style P-Signature|Zadok.}}


{{Style P-No indent|Mr. J. & Adelphi:—The questions will be answered in February Path.}}
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<hr>
 
{{Page aside in Path|v=2|n=11|p=344}}
{{Style P-Subtitle|From Adelphi.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|A most perplexed individual is writing to you. I have been for three years endeavoring to study Theosophy. I have heard lectures, have read an immense amount of literature devoted to that cult, from the sages of old down to the Sinnetts, Olcotts, and Blavatskys of the present day. I have conned the Yoga Philosophy and I read The Path. Light on the Path aids me not, nor does Bhagavad-Gita, and why? Because I am yet without the first steps towards practice. (Surely Theosophy—like other sciences—must have something practical about it?) Guide me with your friendly hints. Imagine me alone in a room. How to commence? Show me the first step upon the practical ladder! All I have heard and read seemeth to me so elaborately unintelligible that I lay it aside and beg you to instruct me in my Theosophical ABC. Astral Light! Is it a figurative light, i. e. Revelation? or is it a light, as electricity—the Heavens—coal—gives light? If abstraction (into insensibility) is necessary, can you instruct me upon Hypnotism (self mesmerism)? "A shining object" is advised to stare at! A mirror is a shining object, for instance. But of what avail to stare at a mirror and see reflected ugliness!}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|''Answer''—You say that for three years you have been endeavoring to study Theosophy. Such being the case, you will meet with but little success. Divine Wisdom can not be a subject for study, but it may be an object of search. With the love for this same wisdom uppermost in our hearts, we ask you if it would not be wiser to lay aside the study of so called Theosophy and study yourself. Knowing yourself you know all men, the worlds seen and occult, and find Theo-Sophia. One cannot absorb Theosophy as a sponge does water, to be expelled at the slightest touch. Our conception of Theosophy is apt to be based upon the idea that it is an especial line of teaching—a larger, wider, and greater doctrine than others perhaps, but still a doctrine, and therefore limited. We must bear in mind that the true Theosophist belongs to no cult or sect, yet belongs to each and all; that he can find the true object of his search equally as well in the Hebrew bible as in the Yoga philosophy, in the New Testament equally as well as in the Bhagavad-Gita.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|You say you have "conned the Yoga philosophy." This is not enough; merely to "con" it is not to know it. It is in fact a most practical system (if you refer to that of Patanjali), and one that will meet all requirements you have in the way of difficulty; for it is one of the most difficult. It is not possible for you to judge its merits without practice; and it gives full directions. If for three years you study and practice it—aye for one year—you will find that you need no other. In these matters there is no child's play nor the usual English and American method of mere book-learning,—we must absorb and work into the practice and the theory laid down, for they are not written merely for the intellect, but for the whole spiritual nature. There must be within the man something which he
 
{{Page aside in Path|v=2|n=11|p=345}}
already knows, that leaps up and out when he scans the books of wisdom; a thing already existing, which only takes an added life or confirmation from books. True Theosophy has all that is practical, but many forget this; there is no greater system of practise than that required by it.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|Desire wisdom; love all men; do your duty; forget yourself; let each thought and act of your life have for its aim the finding of divine wisdom; strive to apply that wisdom for the good of other men. If you search in every direction, Light must come to you. Let the place in which you now are be the lonely room you speak of, and seek to find in everything the meaning. Strive to know what they are, and by what governed or caused. This is the first step. Live your life with this ever before you. Purify your thought as well as your body. Reason all you can, feel all with your heart you may, and when intellect and heart fail you, seek for something higher. This is the A. B. C.; it is enough for the present.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|It is not Theosophy that is a science, but its application. It is not a "cult," for it covers and includes all.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|The Astral Light is an actuality. It is not revelation, but a means through which that which causes revelation acts. Electricity, the heavens, all lower fires, are but the shadows of the Astral Light, just as the Astral Light is but the darkness of the Ineffable Light.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|Abstraction into insensibility is not intended. If it had been so intended it would be unnecessary for us to be in these bodies. If you can forget yourself sufficiently—forget that you exist as a human body, you will not need to stare at a mirror; but so long as you realize, when staring into a glass, whether you be pretty or ugly, you can not reach Celestial sensibility or terrestrial insensibility.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|Hypnotism is the controlling of other personalities. Under this you would be but a puppet for the thought of another. Your outer self had better become a puppet for your own thought.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|We seek to make the body alive, not to kill it.}}
 
{{Style P-Signature|Zadok.}}
 
{{Style P-Subtitle|To Julius, From M. J. G.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|My question was perverted in December Path, and I don't know whether to be vexed or annoyed at it. I did not ask what the effect of hasheesh was; in a theosophic book I saw it was said anæsthetics opened the doors of the astral world, and made inquiry to that effect. What I wished to know was the explanation of the experience of finding myself, while walking down the village street, feeling as if I had walked interminably, or, as illustrated by Bayard Taylor, who, after taking hasheesh, thought that while walking only a block in the city he had walked for ages.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|If you can explain my condition or its cause at the times I speak of—they occurred twice—last summer when I had the sensation, I should be glad.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|''Answer''—We intended no perversion. The seeming drift of the first question was as to anæsthetics opening the doors of the astral world. That seemed more important than a single experience of any individual. Unless
 
{{Page aside in Path|v=2|n=11|p=346}}
we knew the state of your health last summer, occupation, kind of food, and many other matters not in our purview, we could not give the cause of, much less explain, your condition at the time you speak of. It seemed in December, as it does now, that it was highly important to strangle a possible error as to anæsthetics and the astral world. Hasheesh is a partial anæsthetic, and as it apparently caused Bayard Taylor's feeling, our previous reply applies quite fairly.}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|But where such an experience is not brought on by drugs or other substances, it may occur from various causes, nearly all of them having relation to some derangement or obstruction in the body. Certain movements or affections of the spleen bring it on, and at other times the brain may cause it; but in nearly all cases it is felt by means of the brain. The sensation is analogous to the dream-state in which time disappears, for we know that during the sounding of the crash of a breaking plate one can dream an experience of 20 years, with all their circumstances. In your case—whatever the physical predisposing cause—you had a waking dream interlaced with waking consciousness and connotation of objects. This double state enabled you to register the experience clearly; it gave you a glimpse of what is meant by Proclus when he says, "The period of the first soul is measured by the whole of time." It gave only a glimpse, because the sensation had relation to only one of many states composing the whole. We can refer you to many other sensations similarly partial, while at the same time very different from yours. As, for instance: feeling and hearing that the slightest sound—made even by a fly creeping on a paper—had the force and mighty energy of Niagara's roar. It also gives some meaning to the statement that "one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years as one day, to God."}}
 
{{Style P-No indent|Inasmuch as we do our best to answer, we are sorry that your "vexation and annoyance at the perversion" has apparently prevented you from seeing what we did mean in December. We thank you for addressing the questions and enabling us to obtain some ideas thereupon.}}
 
{{Style P-Signature|Julius.}}
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