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  | author =Vay, Adelma Von

  | author =Vay, Adelma Von

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  | source title =Spiritualist, The

  | source title = London Spiritualist

  | source details =Jan., 18, 1878

  | source details = No. 282, January 18, 1878, pp. 29-30

  | publication date =1878-01-18

  | publication date = 1878-01-18

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{{Style S-Small capitals|Having}} read Mrs. Blavatsky’s deeply interesting work, ''Isis Unveiled, ''I desire to make a few remarks upon it. In many things Mrs. Blavatsky has my earnest admiration and warm sympathy; but I cannot say I agree with her in all she has written, and the doctrine of the annihilation of all bad men’s souls is especially repugnant to me. My spirit-guides have never told me anything which corroborates the truth of this, as I consider, most dangerous doctrine. If annihilated, where would be the punishment of sin? Annihilation is no punishment to a murderer or one laden with a bad conscience; it is rather a solace and benefit. What a charm it must be to lose all consciousness when conscience is bad! No. This doctrine would rather encourage men who had once fallen, to further crime, than help them to raise themselves to a better state: and I repeat I think it a most dangerous doctrine. I have had communication with several spirits who in their earth-life were murderers. They came to me begging for prayers, and after a time praying ''with ''me. They told me how horrible were the pangs of a bad conscience; how their bad deeds were, in. a spiritual sense, “written down” before them, and never could be blotted out but by repentance and penance. They said to me—“Oh! if we only could be killed—annihilated! If our individuality could but die!—but it ''cannot" ''The Soul once born of man must and will live eternally, be he a Messiah or a Pariah. This doctrine of annihilation would be worse than that of eternal hell, for so long as a soul still lives there is some hope of rescue; but if it be annihilated it is lost for ever: there is no hope— no rescue. Again, there is no justice in this doctrine, for it takes away from us all responsibility for sin. Thus, to the Materialist it is a welcome dogma, for he would be glad to lose the responsibility of his sins. To such I would say— No one—not even the basest man—can be annihilated. Every man is responsible for all his deeds; and after death must give a good reckoning for them. He will see his life before him: he will have to work and to suffer; and conscience will be the spur to urge him onward. That very many sinful spirits are at work in nature, doing penance as elementaries, has often been told to us. They are spirits trying to amend, and placed as workers in the elements for their purification or as a punishment. Between these spirits and the elementals of Mrs. Blavatsky there is a great distinction; for while our elementaries are spirits doing penance for past sin, and preparing themselves for a better state of existence, her elementals are souls which have already lost their spirits, and will themselves, in process of time, become annihilated.{{Style S-HPB SB. HPB note|*)}} I do not believe that soul and spirit, once united, can ever be separated. All men are God’s children, and each of us, being responsible for all his actions, will live after death in a higher or lower sphere according to his deserts. Not one soul will be lost, but each and every one must, whether he will or no, live, work, and suffer, purifying and ennobling himself—a living witness to the power of the Almighty God, who, having once erected a human soul, will never let it sink into void and oblivion.

... for a better state of existence, her elementals are souls which have already lost their spirits, and will themselves, in process of time, become annihilated.{{Style S-HPB SB. HPB note|*)}}

It is curious that in many things there is a great accordance between the communications I have received and the If views taken by Mrs. Blavatsky. For instance, the whole theory of u the triune”—spirit, soul, matter—called man. My guides wrote the book ''Geist, Kraft, Staff ''(Spirit, Force, Matter) through me at the commencement of my mediumship, and before I had read any of the ancient philosophers, or any scientific book. They gave me a full system of numbers, beginning with the A, the three first numbers, which are three in one—viz., God, Spirit, Force. ''Urlicht ''is the same as the ''akasa, ''or astral light. I am sure any Theosophist or earnest Spiritualist who would study this book would find many things corresponding to the doctrines of Pythagoras and the Buddhists.

...

With regard to half-death, my guides have written to the same effect as Mrs. Blavatsky. (1st vol., page 452.) We have received many instructions as to how we should treat the dead. One spirit wrote that hospitals should be erected for receiving them, where, instead of being stretched out in a cold room, they should be kept warm, rubbed with oil, and treated, not as dead, but as cataleptic, until corruption sets in: that a third of our deceased were buried much too quickly, before the spirit with its astral body had left its shell; that there often remains a ''perisprit ''life in the body which explains the nature of vampires.

{{Style S-HPB SB. HPB note|(*) Quite the reverse. Never said such a thing and the “Isis” is then to show the mistake. Either the fair Baroness has not read at attention, or she did not understatnd it.}}

{{Style S-HPB SB. HPB note|(*) Quite the reverse. Never said such a thing and the “Isis” is then to show the mistake. Either the fair Baroness has not read at attention, or she did not understatnd it.}}

{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on |4-153}}

 

london_spiritualist_n.282_1878-01-18.pdf|page=7|London Spiritualist, No. 282, January 18, 1878, pp. 29-30