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

It is this difficulty that lies at the root of the recent troubles of Theosophy; and a few words upon the subject will not be out of season, the more so as the whole question lies in a nut-shell. Those Theosophists who are not Occultists cannot help the investigators, let alone the men of science. Those who are Occultists work on certain lines that they dare not trespass. Their mouth is closed; their explanations and demonstrations are limited. What can they do? Science will never be satisfied with a half-explanation.

To know, to dare, to will and to remain silent—is so well known as the motto of the Kabbalists, that to repeat it here may perhaps seem superfluous. Still it may act as a reminder. As it is, we have either said too much, or too little. I am very much afraid it is the former. If so, then we have atoned for it, for we were the first to suffer for saying too much. Even that little might have placed us in worse difficulties hardly a quarter of a century ago.

Science—I mean Western Science—has to proceed on strictly defined lines. She glories in her powers of observation, induction, analysis and inference. Whenever a phenomenon of an abnormal nature comes before her for investigation, she has to sift it to its very bottom, or let it go. And this she has to do, and she cannot, as we have shown, proceed on any other than the inductive methods based entirely on the evidence of physical senses. If these, aided by the scientific acumen, do not prove equal to the task, the investigators will resort to, and will not scruple to use, the police of the land, as in the historical cases of Loudun, Salem Witchcraft, Morzine, etc.: The Royal Society calling in Scotland Yard, and the French Academy her native mouchards, all of whom will, of course, proceed in their own detective-like way to help science out of difficulty. Two or three cases of “an extremely suspicious character” will be chosen, on the external plane of course, and the rest proclaimed of no importance, as contaminated by those selected. The testimony of eye-witnesses will be rejected, and the evidence of ill-disposed persons speaking on hearsay accepted as {{Page aside|79}}“unimpeachable.” Let the reader go over the 20 odd volumes of de Mirville’s and des Mousseaux’s works, embracing over a century of forced enquiry into various phenomena by science, and he will be better able to judge the ways in which scientific, often honourable, men-proceed in such cases.

What can be expected then, even from the idealistic school of science, whose members are in so small a minority. Laborious students they are, and some of them open to every truth and without equivocation. Even though they may have no personal hobbies to lose, should their previous views be shown to err, still there are such dogmas in orthodox science that even they would never dare to trespass. Such, for instance, are their axiomatic views upon the law of gravitation and the modern conceptions of Force, Matter, Light, etc., etc.

“The theoretical materialistic science recognizes nought but SUBSTANCE. Substance is its deity, its only God.” We are told that practical materialism, on the other hand, concerns itself with nothing that does not lead directly or indirectly to personal benefit. “Gold is its idol,” justly observes Professor Butleroff<ref>Scientific Letters, X.</ref> (a spiritualist, yet one who could never accept even the elementary truths of occultism, for he “cannot understand them”). “A lump of matter,” he adds, the beloved substance of the theoretical materialists, is transformed into a lump of mud in the unclean hands of ethical materialism. And if the former gives but little importance to inner (psychic) states that are not perfectly demonstrated by their exterior states, the latter disregards entirely the inner states of life. . . . . The spiritual aspect of life has no meaning for practical materialism, everything being {{Page aside|80}}summed up for it in the external. The adoration of this external finds its principal and basic justification in the dogma of materialism, which has legalized it.

Unfortunately it does not. No one speaks so much as the materialists of the accuracy of scientific observation, of a proper use of one’s senses and one’s reason thoroughly liberated from every prejudice. Yet, no sooner is the same privilege claimed in favour of phenomena by one who has investigated them in that same scientific spirit of impartiality and justice, than his testimony becomes worthless. “Yet if such a number of scientific minds,” writes Prof. Butleroff “accustomed by years of training to the minutest observation and verification, testify to certain facts, then there is a prima facie improbability that they should be collectively mistaken.” “But they have and in the most ludicrous way,” answer his opponents; and this time we are at one with them.

This brings us back to an old axiom of esoteric philosophy: “nothing of that which does not exist somewhere, whether in the visible or invisible kosmos, can be reproduced artificially, or even in human thought.”

<center>Reproduced from Isabel de Steiger’s Memorabilia.</center>

Speaking of the evidence and the reliability of senses—even the greatest men of science got caught once upon a time, in not only believing such a thing, but in actually teaching it as a scientific fact—as it appears.

“When was that?” was the incredulous question. “Not so far back, after all; some 280 years ago—in England.” The strange belief that there was a kind of a sea-fowl that hatched out of a fruit was not limited at the very end of the XVIth century to the inhabitants of English sea-port towns only. There was a time when most of the men of science firmly believed it to be a fact, and taught it accordingly. The fruit of certain trees growing on the sea shore—a kind of Magnolia—with its branches dipping generally in the water, had its fruits—as it was asserted—transformed gradually by the action of salt water into some special Crustacean formation, from which emerged in good time a living sea-bird, known in the old natural histories as the “Barnacle-goose.” Some naturalists accepted the story as an undeniable fact. They observed and investigated it for several years, and the discovery was accepted and approved by the {{Page aside|82}}greatest authorities of the day and published under the auspices of some learned society. One of such believers in the “Barnacle-goose” was John Gerard, a botanist, who notified the world of the amazing phenomenon in an erudite work published in 1596. In it he describes it, and declares it “a fact on the evidence of his own senses.” “He has seen it himself,” he says, “ touched the fruit-egg day after day,” watched its growth and development personally, and had the good luck of presiding at the birth of one such bird. He saw first the legs of the chicken oozing out through the broken shell, then the whole body of the little Barnacle-goose “which begun forthwith swimming.” <ref>From the Scientific Letters––Letter XXIV, Against Scientific Evidence in the Question of Phenomena.</ref> So much was the botanist convinced of the truth of the whole thing, that he ends his description by inviting any doubter of the reality of what he had seen to come and see him, John Gerard, and then he would undertake to make of him an eye-witness to the whole proceeding. Robert Murray another English savant and an authority in his day, vouches for the reality of the transformation of which he was also an eye-witness.<ref>He speaks of that transformation in the following words, as translated from the Latin: “In every conch (or shell) that I opened, after the transformation of the fruits on the branches into shells, I found the exact picture in miniature in it of the sea-fowl: a little beak like that of a goose, well dotted eyes; the head, the neck, the breast, the wings, and the already formed legs and feet, with well marked feathers on the tail, of a dark colour, etc., etc.”</ref> And other learned men, the contemporaries of Gerard and Murray—Funck, Aldrovandi, and many others shared that conviction.<ref>It is evident that this idea was commonly held in the latter half of the 17th century, seeing that it found a place in Hudibras, which was an accurate reflection of the opinions of the day:—<br>

“As barnacles turn Soland Geese<br>

[by Samuel Butler, Pt. III, Canto II, line 9.]</ref> So what do you say to this “Barnacle-goose”?

Well, I would rather call it the “Gerard-Murray goose,” that’s all. And no cause to laugh at such mistakes of those early scientists. Before two hundred years are over our descendants will have far better opportunities to make fun of the present generations of the F.R.S. and their followers. But the opponent of phenomena who quoted the story about the “Barnacle-goose” is quite right there; only that instance cuts both ways, of course, and when one brings it as a proof that even the scientific authorities, who believe in spiritualism and phenomena, may have been grossly mistaken with all their observation and scientific training, we may reverse the weapon and quote it the other way; as an evidence as strong that no “acumen” and support of science can prove a phenomenon “referable to fraud and credulity,” when the eye-witnesses who have seen it know it for a fact at least. It only shows that the evidence of even the scientific and well trained senses and powers of observation may be in both cases at fault as those of any other mortal, especially in cases where phenomenal occurrences are sought to be disproved. Even collective observation would go for nought, whenever a phenomenon happens to belong to a plane of being, called (improperly so in their case) by some men of science the fourth dimension of space; and when other scientists who investigate it lack the sixth sense in them, that corresponds to that plane.

In a literary cross-firing that happened some years ago between two eminent professors, much was said of that now for ever famous fourth dimension. One of them, telling his readers that while he accepted the possibility of only the “terrestrial natural sciences,” viz., the direct or inductive science, “or the exact investigation of those phenomena only which take place in our earthly conditions of space and time,” says he can never permit himself to overlook the possibilities of the future. “I would remind my colleagues,” adds the Professor-Spiritualist,  

The occultist would answer, that our senses can most undeniably be reached on this plane, not only from a four-dimensional but even a fifth and sixth-dimensional world. Only those senses must become sufficiently spiritualized for it, in so far as it is our inner sense only that can become the medium for such a transmission. Like “the projection of an object that exists in a space of three dimensions can be made to appear on the flat surface of a screen of only two dimensions”—four-dimensional beings and things can be reflected in our three-dimensional world of gross matter. But, as it would require a skilful physicist to make his audience believe that the things “real as life” they see on his screen are not shadows but realities, so it would take a wiser one than any of us to persuade a man of science—let alone a crowd of scientific men—that what he sees reflected on our three-dimensional “screen” may be, at times, and under certain conditions, a very real phenomenon, reflected from, and produced by “four-dimensional powers,” for his private delectation, and as a means to convince him. “Nothing so false in appearance as naked truth”—is a Kabbalistic saying;—“truth is often stranger than fiction”—is a world-known axiom.

Indeed, “what else?”—for no one of the men of science, who advocate it, perhaps only because they are sincere spiritualists and anxious to explain phenomena by the means of that space, seem to know it themselves. Is it the “passage of matter through matter”? Then why should they insist upon it being a “space” when it is simply another plane of existence—or at least that is what ought to be meant by it—if it means anything. We occultists say and maintain, that if a name is needed to satisfy the material conceptions of men on our low plane, let them call it by its Hindu name Mahar (or Maharloka)—the fourth world of the higher septenary, and one that corresponds to Rasatala (the fourth of the septenary string of the nether worlds)—the fourteen worlds that “sprung from the quintuplicated elements”; for these two worlds are enveloping, so to say, our present fourth-round world. Every Hindu will understand what is meant. Mahar is a higher world, or plane of existence rather; as that plane to which belongs the ant just spoken of, is perchance a {{Page aside|86}}lower one of the nether septenary chains. And if they call it so—they will be right.

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . the confession of the possible existence of spaces of different dimensions than our own does not afford us (the high mathematicians) the slightest conception of what those dimensions really are. To accept a higher “four-dimensional” space is like accepting infinitude: such an acceptation does not afford us the smallest help by which we might represent to ourselves either of these . . . . . . all we know of such higher spaces is, that they have nothing in common with our conceptions of space.” (Scientific Letters.)}}

“Our conception”—means of course the conception of materialistic Science, thus leaving a pretty wide margin for other less scientific, withal more spiritual, minds.

To show the hopelessness of ever bringing a materialistic mind to realize or even conceive in the most remote and hazy way the presence among us, in our three-dimensional world of other higher planes of being, I may quote from the very interesting objections made by one of the two learned opponents,* already referred to, with regard to this “Space.”

Perchance, there are such, who may “know” something, who are not so hopelessly ignorant. If an occultist were appealed to, he would say—No; exact physical science has to reject its very being, otherwise that science would become metaphysical. It cannot be analyzed—hence explained, on either biological or even physiological data. Nevertheless, it might, inductively––as gravitation for instance, of which you know no more than that its effects may be observed on our three-dimensional earth.

Again (1) “It is said” (by the advocates of the theory) “that we live unconditionally in our three-dimensional space! Perchance” (unconditionally) “just because we are able to comprehend only such space, and absolutely incapable, owing to our organization, to realize it in any other, but a three-dimensional way!”

(2) In other words, “even our three-dimensional space is not something existing independently, but represents merely the product of our understanding and perceptions.”

To the first statement Occultism answers that those “incapable to realize” any other space but a three-dimensional one, do well to leave alone all others. But it is not “owing to our [human] organization,” but only to the intellectual organization of those who are not able to conceive of any other; to organisms undeveloped spiritually and even mentally in the right direction. To the second statement it would reply, that the “opponent” is absolutely wrong in the first, and absolutely right in the last portion of his sentence. For, though the “fourth dimension”—if we must so call it––exists no more independently of our perceptions and senses than our three-dimensional imagined space, nor as a locality, it still is, and exists for the beings evoluted and born in it as “a product of their understanding and their perceptions.” Nature never draws too harsh lines of demarcation, never builds impassable walls, and her unbridged “chasms” exist merely in the tame conceptions of certain naturalists. The two (and more) “spaces,” or planes of being, are sufficiently interblended to allow of a communication {{Page aside|88}}between those of their respective inhabitants who are capable of conceiving both a higher and a lower plane. There may be amphibian beings intellectually as there are amphibious creatures terrestrially.

{{Style P-Quote|they took to explaining them on the hypothesis of a fourth dimension. Do we see the hand of a Katie King, which disappears in “unknown space”—forthwith on the proscenium—the fourth dimension; do we get knots on a rope whose two ends are tied and sealed—again that fourth dimension. From this standpoint space is viewed as something objective. It is believed that there are indeed in nature three, four and five-dimensional spaces. But, firstly, by the means of mathematical analysis, we might arrive, in this way, at an endless series of spaces. Only think, what would become of exact sciences, if, to explain phenomena, such hypothetical spaces were called to its help. If one should fail, we could evoke another, a still higher one, and so on . . . .}}

But why should exact science be thought in danger only because spiritualists try to explain their phenomena on that plane? And on what other could they explain that which is inexplicable if we undertake to analyze it on the three-dimensional conceptions of terrestrial science, if not by the fourth-dimensional conception? No sane man would undertake to explain the Daïmon of Socrates by the shape of the great sage’s nose, or attribute the inspiration of The Light of Asia to Mr. Edwin Arnold’s skull cap. What would become of science—verily, were the phenomena left to be explained on the said hypothesis? Nothing worse, we hope, than what became of {{Page aside|89}}science, after the Royal Society had accepted its modern theory of Light, on the hypothesis of an universal Ether. Ether is no less “a product of our understanding” than Space is. And if one could be accepted, then why reject the other? Is it because one can be materialized in our conceptions, or shall we say had to be, since there was no help for it; and that the other, being useless as a hypothesis for the purposes of exact science, is not, so far?

So far as the Occultists are concerned, they are at one with the man of strict orthodox science, when to the offer made “to experiment and to observe whether there may not occur in our three-dimensional world phenomena, explainable only on the hypothesis of the existence of a space of four dimensions,” they answer as they do. “Well”—they say—”and shall observation and experiment give us a satisfactory answer to our question concerning the real existence of a higher four-dimensional space? Or, solve for us a dilemma unsolvable from whatever side we approach it? How can our human observation and our human experiments, possible only unconditionally within the limits of a space of three dimensions, serve us as a point of departure for the recognition of phenomena which can be explained “only if we admit the existence of a four-dimensional space”?

{{Style P-Align right|—Compiler.]}}}}</ref> matter, which evolutes, progresses and changes, as we do along with the rest of the kingdoms of nature, shall acquire its fourth sense, as it acquires an additional one with every new Race. Therefore, to an Occultist there is nothing surprising in the idea that the physical world should be developing and acquiring new faculties—a simple modification of matter, new as it now seems to science, as incomprehensible as were at first the powers of steam, sound, electricity. . . But what does seem surprising is the spiritual stagnation in the world of intellect, and of the highest exoteric knowledge.

{{Style P-Signature|H. P. Blavatsky}}