Blavatsky H.P. - Occult or Exact Science: Difference between revisions

If this is as yet but an inference, there exists a still better proof in the Vedas, for there the conceptions of the words “sound” and “light,” “to hear” and “to see,” are always associated. In Hymn X, 71, verse 4, we read: “One—though looking, sees not the speech, and the other seeing—does not hear it.” And again in verse 7th, in which a party of friends is represented as emulating each other in singing, they are charactered by the double epithet placed side by side: Akshavanta and Karnavanta, or “one finished with eyes” and “one furnished with ears.” The latter is natural—the singer has a good ear for music, and the epithet is comprehensible in view of the musical emulation. But what sense can the Akshavanta have in this case, with his good sight, unless there is a connection and a meaning in it that are not explained, because probably the hymn refers to days when sight and hearing were synonymous terms? Moreover, a philologist, a rising Orientalist,<ref>Professor D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, the Author of the Essay on the Bacchic Cults, etc.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[Vide OVSYANIKO-KULIKOVSKY in the Bio-Bibliogr. Index.––Compiler.]}}</ref> tells us that “ the Sanskrit verbal root ARCH is used to denote two meanings—(a) ‘to sing,’ and (b) ‘to shine,’ to radiate beams or rays. The substantives rich and archis, derived from the root ARCH, are used to signify (1) song, hymn, and (2) brilliancy, ray, sun. . . . In the conception of the ancients a speech could be seen . . . ,” he explains. What does the Esoteric Doctrine—that universal solvent indeed of all scientific difficulties and puzzles––say to this? It sends us to the chapter on the {{Page aside|68}}Evolution of Races, in which primitive man is shown in his special evolution advancing on the physical plane by developing a sense in each successive sub-race (of which there are seven) of the 1st Root-race during the 4th Round on this globe.<ref>See Esoteric Buddhism—for the Rounds, World-periods, and Subraces. The chapter referred to will appear in The Secret Doctrine, which will shortly be published.</ref> Human speech, as known to us, came into being in the Root-race that preceded ours—the Fourth or the “Atlantean”—at the very beginning of it, in sub-race No. 1; and simultaneously with it were developed sight—as a physical sense—while the four other senses (with the two additional—the 6th and 7th—of which science knows nothing as yet)—remained in their latent, undeveloped state as physical senses, although fully developed as spiritual faculties. Our sense of hearing developed only in the 3rd sub-race. Thus, if human “speech”—owing to that absence of the sense of hearing––was in the beginning even less than what we would call a whispered speech, for it was a mental articulation of sounds rather than anything else, something like the systems we now see worked out for the Deaf and Dumb, still it is easy to understand how, even from those early days, “speech” became associated with “sight,” or, in other words, people could understand each other and talk with the help of only sight and touch. “Sound is seen before it is heard”—says the Book of Kiu-ti. The flash of lightning precedes the clap of thunder. As ages went by mankind fell with every new generation lower and lower into matter, the physical smothering the spiritual, until the whole set of senses—that had formed during the first three Root-races but one SENSE, namely, spiritual perception—finally fell asunder to form henceforth five distinct senses.

But we are in the 5th race, and we have already passed the turning or axial point of our “sub-race cycle.” Eventually as the current phenomena and the increase of sensitive organisms in our age go to prove, this Humanity {{Page aside|69}}will be moving swiftly on the path of pure spirituality, and will reach the apex (of our Race) at the end of the 7th sub-race. In plainer and fuller language—plainer and fuller to some theosophists only, I am afraid—we shall be, at that period, on the same degree of spirituality that belonged to, and was natural in, the 1st sub-race of the 3rd Root-race of the FOURTH Round; and the second half of it (or that half in which we now are) will be, owing to the law of correspondence, on parallel lines with the first half of the THIRD Round. In the words of one in whom live Truth and Wisdom—however often His words may have been misunderstood and criticised, not alone by profane critics but even by some theosophists—“in the 1st half of the 3rd Round the primordial spirituality of man was eclipsed, because over-shadowed by nascent mentality”; Humanity was on its descending arc in the first half of that round and in the last half on its ascending arc: i.e., “ his [man’s] gigantic stature had decreased and his body improved in texture; and he had become a more rational being though still more an ape than a Deva-man.” <ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[H.P.B. makes reference to and quota from a Letter of Master K.H. received by A. O. Hume, July 9, 1882, answering questions on Globe-Rounds, etc. The original of this Letter does not seem to exist any longer. The text can be found in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, pp. 78-88, where it has been transcribed “from a copy in Mr. Sinnett’s handwriting.”<br>

“3rd Round.—He has now a perfectly concrete or compacted body; at first the form of a giant ape, and more intelligent (or rather cunning) than spiritual. For in the downward arc he has now reached the point where his primordial spirituality is eclipsed or over-shadowed by nascent mentality. In the last half of this third round his gigantic stature decreases, his body improves in texture (perhaps the microscope might help to demonstrate this) and he becomes a more rational being—though still more an ape than a Deva man.”<br>

{{Style P-Align right|––Compiler.]}}}}</ref> And, if so, then, according to that same law of correspondences—an immutable one in the system of cycles we have to infer the following:—that the latter half of our Round—as shown to correspond with the 1st {{Page aside|70}}half of the 3rd—must have already begun to be once more over-shadowed by re-nascent “primordial” spirituality, which, at the end of the 4th Round, will have nearly eclipsed our actual mentality—in the sense of cold human Reason.

On the principle of that same law of correspondences—as shall be shown and thoroughly explained in the forthcoming Secret Doctrine—civilized humanity will soon begin to show itself, if even less “rational” on the worldly plane, at any rate more Deva-like than “ape-like”—as we now actually are, and that in the most distressing degree.

I may conclude with the remark, that since our natural and still “ape-like” propensities make us dread, individually and collectively, to be thrown by public opinion out of that region where all the smaller bodies gravitate toward the luminary of our social solar system—Science and her authority—something has to be done to remedy such a disastrous state of things. I propose to show therefore, in my next, that as we are still only in the 5th subrace of the Parent race, and none of us shall live to see the 7th—when things shall mend naturally—that it is just as well not to hang our hopes on science, whether orthodox or semi-heretical. The men of science cannot help -the world to understand the rationale of phenomena, which for a little while longer in this cycle it will be quite impossible for them to account for, even to themselves. They can neither understand nor explain it, any more than anyone else can, who has not studied occultism and the hidden laws that govern nature and rule mankind. The men of science are helpless in this case, and it is unjust to charge them with malice, or even with unwillingness—as has been often done. Their rationality (taken in this case in the sense of intellectuality, not of reason) can never permit them to turn their attention to occult study. Therefore it is useless to demand or expect from the learned men of our age that which they are absolutely incapable of doing for us, until the next cycle changes and transforms entirely their inner nature by “improving the texture” of their spiritual minds.

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It has already been remarked that neither the medical faculties, nor the scientific bodies of physicists, could ever explain the primum mobile or rationale of the simplest phenomenon, outside of purely physiological causes; and that, unless they turned for help to occultism, they would have to bite the dust before the XXth century was very old.

This seems a bold assertion. Nevertheless, it is fully justified by that of certain medical celebrities: that no phenomenon is possible outside of physiological and purely physical causes. They might reverse this statement and say no final investigation is possible with the light of only physiological and physical causes. That would be correct. They might add that, as men of exact science, they could not employ other methods of investigation. Therefore, having conducted their experiments to a certain boundary, they would desist and declare their task accomplished. Then the phenomena might be passed on to transcendentalists and philosophers to speculate upon. Had they spoken in such a spirit of sincerity no one would have the right of saying that they had not done their duty: for they would have done the best they could under the circumstances, and, as will presently be shown, they could do no more. But at present the neuropathic physicians merely impede the progress of real psychological knowledge. Unless there is an opening, however small, for the passage of a ray from a man’s higher self to chase the darkness of purely material conceptions from the seat of his intellect, and to replace it by light from a plane of existence entirely unknown to the ordinary senses, his task can never be wrought to a successful termination. And as all such abnormal cases, in order to be manifested to our physical as well as spiritual senses, in other words, to become objective, must always have their generating causes interblended between the two spheres or planes of existence, the physical and the spiritual, it is but natural {{Page aside|72}}that a materialist should discern only those with which he is acquainted, and remain blind to any other.

When we speak of light, of heat and sound, and so on, what do we mean? Each of these natural phenomena exists per se. But for us it has no being independently of our senses, and exists only to that degree which is perceived by a sense corresponding to it in us. Without being in the least deaf or blind, some men are endowed with far less acute hearing and sight than their neighbours; and it is a well known fact that our senses can be developed and trained as well as our muscles by exercise and method. It is an old axiom that the sun needs an eye to manifest its light; and though the solar energy exists from the first flutter of our Manvantara and will exist to the first killing breath of Pralaya, still, if a certain portion of that energy did not call forth in us those modifications that we name perception of light, Cimmerian darkness would fill the Kosmos and we should be denying the very existence of the sun. Science makes a distinction between the two energies—that of heat and that of light. But the same science teaches us that the creature, or being, in which the corresponding external actions would cause a homogeneous modification, could not find any difference between heat and light. On the other hand, that the creature, or being, in which the dark rays of the solar spectrum would call forth the modifications that are produced in us by the bright rays, would see light there, where we saw nothing whatever.

Mr. A. Butleroff, a professor of chemistry and an eminent scientist, gives us many instances of the above. He points to the observations made by Sir John Lubbock on the sense of colour in ants. It was found by that distinguished man of science, that ants do not allow their eggs to remain subjected to light, and carry them off immediately from a sun-lit spot to a dark place. But when a ray of red light is turned on those eggs (the larvae), the ants leave them untouched as though they were in {{Page aside|73}}complete darkness: they place their eggs indifferently under a red light or in utter darkness. Red light is a non-existent thing for them: as they do not see it, it is for them darkness. The impressions made on them by bright rays are very weak, especially by those nearest to the red—the orange and yellow. To such rays, on the contrary, as light and dark blue and violet—they seem very impressionable. When their nests are lit partly with violet and partly with red rays, they transfer their eggs immediately from the violet onto the red field. To the ant, therefore, the violet ray is the brightest of all the spectral rays. Their sense of colour is therefore quite the opposite of the same sense in man.

But this contrast is still more strengthened by another fact. Besides the rays of light, the solar spectrum contains, as everyone knows, the so-called heat rays (for red) and the chemical (for violet). We see however neither the one nor the other, but term both of them dark rays: while the ants perceive them clearly. For, as soon as their eggs are subjected to the action of those dark rays, the ants drag them from that (to us) quite obscure field onto the one lighted by the red rays: therefore, for them, the chemical ray is violet. Hence says the professor—

{{Style P-Quote|Owing to such a peculiarity, the objects seen by the ants must appear to them quite different from what they seem to us; those insects find evidently in nature hues and colours of which we have not, nor can have, the slightest conception. Admit for one moment the existence in nature of such objects as would swallow up all the rays of the solar spectrum, and scatter only the chemical rays: these objects would remain invisible to us, while the ants would perceive them very well.}}

And now, let the reader imagine for one moment the following: that there may be a possibility within the powers of man, with the help of secret sciences, firstly of preparing an “object” (call it talisman if you will) which, detaining for a longer or shorter period the rays of the “solar spectrum” on some one given point, will cause the manipulator of it to remain invisible to all, because he places himself and keeps within the boundary of the {{Page aside|74}}chemical “dark” rays; and secondly—reversing it, to become enabled to see in nature by the help of those dark rays that which ordinary men, with no such “talisman” at hand, can never see with their natural, naked eye! This may be a simple supposition, or it may be a very serious statement, for all the men of science know. They protest only against that which is claimed to be supernatural, above or outside their Nature; they have no right to object to the acceptance of the supersensuous, if shown within the limits of our sensuous world.

Every organ of hearing is sensitive to vibrations of a given rapidity, but in cases of different creatures such rapidities may very easily not coincide. And not only in the case of creatures quite different from us men, but even in that of mortals whose organizations are peculiar—abnormal as they are termed—either naturally, or through training.<ref>The case of Kashmiri natives and especially girls who work on shawls is given in Isis [Vol. I, p. 211]. They perceive 300 hues more than Europeans do.</ref> Our ordinary ear, for instance, is insensible to vibrations surpassing 38,000 a second, whereas the auditive organ of not only ants but some mortals likewise—who know the way to secure the tympanum from damage, and that of provoking certain correlations in ether—may be very sensitive to vibrations exceeding by far the 38,000 in a second, and thus, such an auditive organ,—abnormal only in the limitations of exact science,—might naturally enable its possessor, whether man or ant, to enjoy sounds and melodies in nature, of which the ordinary tympanum gives no idea. “ There, where to our senses reigns dead silence, a thousand of the most varied and weird sounds {{Page aside|75}}may be gratifying to the hearing of ants,” says Professor Butleroff<ref>Scientific Letters, X.</ref>, citing Lubbock; “and these tiny, intelligent sects could, therefore, regard us with the same right as we have to regard them––as deaf, and utterly incapable of enjoying the music of nature, only because they remain insensible to the sound of a gun, human shouting, whistling, and so on.”

The aforesaid instances sufficiently show that the scientist’s knowledge of nature is incapable of coinciding wholly and entirely with all that exists and may be found in it. Even without trespassing on other and different spheres and planets, and keeping strictly within the boundaries of our globe, it becomes evident that there exist in it thousands upon thousands of things unseen, unheard, and impalpable to the ordinary human senses. But let us admit, only for the sake of argument, that there may be––quite apart from the supernatural—a science that teaches mortals what may be termed supersensuous chemistry and physics; in plainer language—alchemy and the metaphysics of concrete not abstract nature, and every difficulty will be removed. For, as the same Professor argues—

{{Style P-Quote|If we see light there, where another being is plunged in darkness; and see nothing there, where it experiences the action of the light waves; if we hear one kind of sounds and remain deaf to another kind of sounds, heard, nevertheless, by a tiny insect—is it not as clear as day, that it is not nature, in her, so to say, primeval nakedness, that is subject to our science and its analysis, but simply those modifications, feelings and perceptions that she awakens in us? It is in accordance with these modifications only that we can draw our conclusions about external things and nature’s actions, and thus create to ourselves the image of the world surrounding us. The same, with respect to every “ finite “ being: each judging of the external, only by the modifications that are created in him (or it) by the same.}}

Notwithstanding the strong position of those several eminent men of science who, becoming convinced of the actuality of “spiritual” phenomena, so-called, have become spiritualists; notwithstanding that—like Professors Wallace, Hare, Zöllner, Wagner, Butleroff—they have brought to bear upon the question all the arguments their great knowledge could suggest to them—their opponents have had, so far always the best of them. Some of these do not deny the fact of phenomenal occurrences but they maintain that the chief point in the great dispute between the transcendentalists of spiritualism and the materialists is simply the nature of the operative force, the primum mobile of the power at work. They insist on this main point: the spiritualists are unable to prove that this agency is that of intelligent spirits of departed human beings, “so as to satisfy the requirements of exact science, or of the unbelieving public for the matter of that.” And, viewed from this aspect, their position is impregnable.

The theosophical reader will easily understand that it is immaterial whether the denial is to the title of “spirit” pure and simple or to that of any other intelligent being, whether human, sub-human, or super-human, or even to a Force—if it is unknown to, and rejected a priori by science. For it seeks precisely to limit such manifestations to those forces only that are within the domain of natural sciences. In short, it rejects point blank the possibility of showing them mathematically to be that which the spiritualists claim them to be, insisting that they have been already demonstrated.

It becomes evident, therefore, that the Theosophist, or rather the Occultist, must find his position far more difficult than even the spiritualist ever can, with regard to modern science. For it is not to phenomena per se that most of the men of science are averse, but to the nature of the agency said to be at work. If, in the case of “Spiritual” phenomena these have only the materialists against them, not so in our case. The theory of “ Spirits” has only to contend against those who do not believe in the survival of man’s soul. Occultism raises {{Page aside|77}}against itself the whole legion of the Academies; because, while putting every kind of “Spirits,” good, bad and indifferent, in the second place, if not entirely in the background, it dares to deny several of the most vital scientific dogmas; and in this case, the Idealists and the Materialists of Science, feel equally indignant; for both, however much they may disagree in personal views, serve under the same banner. There is but one science, even though there are two distinct schools—the idealistic and the materialistic; and both of these are equally considered authoritative and orthodox in questions on science. Few are those among us who clamoured for a scientific opinion expressed upon Occultism, who have thought of this, or realized its importance in this respect. Science, unless remodelled entirely, can have no hand in occult teachings. Whenever investigated on the plan of the modern scientific methods, occult phenomena will prove ten times more difficult to explain than those of the spiritualists pure and simple.