HPB-SB-3-189

T i

vol. 3, p. 189

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

vol. 3 (1875-1878)

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< Egyptian Ornament (continued from page 3-188) >

All Egyptian ornament is symbolical or emblematical. The priesthood laid down certain laws and rules regarding art. Living objects were not allowed to be painted naturally. Hence we have their conventionalism. We see figures, flowers, and animals in their decoration and sculpture, but all alike conventionalized.

Two plants were used in their ornament, the lotus, a species of water-lily; and the papyrus, a reed; both of which were held sacred. After the yearly inundation of the Nile—only through which was the soil made fertile—the lotus was the first plant that sprung up. This was a sign of the coming vegetation, and it symbolized the approach of the harvest. The papyrus, from which their paper was made, was used in their architecture, the columns being architectural representations of bundles of papyri tied together and a lotus springing out of the top for the capitol; at the base of the column was a representation, in color, of the sheath out of which the papyrus grows. Some of the rooms in their palaces having these columns looking not unlike groves of papyri.

The sphenix, so often seen represented in Egyptian art, both in sculpture and in painting, has a man's head and a lion’s body, symbolizing intellect and physical force united. Cats, dogs, and serpents were sacred animals. The winged globe, which is a globe with wings spread horizontally on each side of it, is the emblem of divinity. This is painted over all the doors and some of the windows in the houses and palaces; it symbolized protection to the room in which it was painted.

Although Greek, Roman, Assyrian, and Byzantine, and later, Arabian and Moresque have all sprung from Egyptian ornament, none of them have the power and spirit of the parent stem. The Egyptians were a stern, inflexible, morose, and determined people, hence their ornament—which is so entirely original with themselves—is fully characteristic of its producers, To conventionalize a dower, they tock the sentiment of the natural dower and reproduced it poetically; or, in other words, they added art to nature by the impress of a man’s mind.

The Greeks received their first knowledge of art from the Egyptians—who were a prosperous people when Greece was in its infancy—and conventionalized the honey-suckle, which is very beautiful. They aimed more for refinement than for power, and looked more to detail than to general effect. The Assyrians had no originality whatever, but copied Egyptian ornament, and only altered it so far as the different customs of their country required them. When we go further we find in the Arabian or Moresque not the slightest trace of natural objects conventionalized, no decided plant portrayed, as the lotus or honey-suckle. The forms employed by the Moors in their ornament are purely ideal forms, beautifully drawn, and always truthfully expressed, the law of radiation in nature being strictly adhered to.

All Egyptian architecture is polychromatic. Their palaces were construbted of stone, then painted and decorated in distemper. The ceilings of their rooms were generally painted blue, with white stars sprinkled about, at unequal intervals, to give the idea of the heaven above.

In the first attempts at color by any people we always find the primary colors. Blue, red and yellow predominate, and usually with great success. These were the principal colors used on the Egyptians, with green, and, in their worst periods of art, purple brown and pink. All the painted decoration in their palaces, houses, and tombs, were painted in distemper.

As far as we know their ornament is absolutely original with themselves, and in all the styles and epochs, or period of ornamental art, which hare followed, none is so thoroughly adapted to the purpose for which it was designed as the pure and truthful ornament of the Egyptians.

Written expressly for the Spiritual Scientist.

An Abortive Seance

From what I had heard of the mediumship of Mrs. H. Wilson, of No. 4 Grand Street, New York City, 1 was led to hope that my first contribution to the Spiritual Scientist might embrace an account of successful materialization in her presence. I was told that in a brightly lighted room spirit faces were shown, that conversations were freely held with the audience, and that, occasionally, spirits in full form emerged from the cabinet, and stood in plain view of all. I was more than glad to be assured that these phenomena were occurring in New York City, where they could be investigated by those who form the public opinion of the country, and whence must come the impulse that shall bring about the needed reaction from the apathy with which spiritual affairs are regarded since the Philadelphia fiasco. Accordingly, in company with a well-known member of the Bar, I visited the lady’s rooms on the evening of Thursday, April 29th, ultimo.

We found a company of about twenty ladies and gentlemen assembled in a small room, in one corner of which stood a low, square, bottomless, portable cabinet, in the door of which was a lozenge-shaped window, covered, within, by a black muslin curtain, divided through the middle. The cabinet stood clear of the dead walls behind it, and there being no trap by which access could be gained to its interior by confederates, the problem presented very singular features: if anything appeared, it must either be the result of personation by the medium, or of a spiritual origin.

The seance began at 8.44 P. M., at which time Mrs. Wilson placed a chair within the cabinet and seated herself. She had first covered her mouth with four layers of transparent adhesive-plaster, and suffered herself to be tied by a young gentleman present, who adopted the excellent expedient of binding one of her hands against her bosom and the other against her back, and connecting the two by a single turn of the rope around her neck. This is the manner in which prisoners are secured in India, and its effect is that any attempt of the subject to loosen his hands, draws the cord more tightly about the neck, while if he remains at rest he suffers no inconvenience.

In three and one-half minutes, a male voice addressed us from the cabinet, in suppressed tones; almost, it appeared, as though issuing from a mouth that was covered. The voice claimed to be that of one “Uncle Ben,” a fresh-water sailor, who was second mate of a propellor on one of our lakes at the time of his death. Certain young lawyers, upon hearing these items of personal history, at once became fired with a holy zeal, and proceeded to cross-examine the unseen witness. They floored him upon almost every detail of nautical science, and made it clear that he either did not know, or would not gratify their eager thirst to know whether the helm, the wheel and the rudder turn the same way in steering, what sort of a rope is a stay, and what is the difference between a cable and a hawser. Elated with success, they proceeded with calm irony to slice up the wretched quasi sailor, and make sport of him for the delectation of the company: consuming, in this fanfarronade, precious time that I, at least, expected would have been devoted to the materialization of spirit forms. I am free to say that I could have had more amusment for my money at the negro-minstrels, and more edifying practice in legal skirmishing in any court, any morning of the year.

Frequent appeals from others of the company resulted in a partial state of passivity among us at last, and then, after a pull or so at the stock songs of the average circle, we had our first materialization. The light was quite dim, but still not so much so as that usual at Chittenden and Havana, (N. Y.). I was allowed to change my seat to one directly in front of the aperture, but still it was with great difficulty that I made out the face of a man wearing a long beard of a dark color, which he thrust partially through the aperture. A lady was quite positive that he was her son-in-law. and seemed much comforted thereat. Then confusion reigned again. It seemed as if at least a dozen of the twenty persons in the room, wanted to be simultaneously and categorically informed whether their uncles, aunts, children, cousins and friends were present, and “would materialize”; and the discomfited Ben was left busy in attempting the impossible task oi answering ten questions at once. The questioners stood ups crowded forward, broke the chain of hands, and some cams through the ranks and sat upon the floor within two feet of the cabinet door! Meanwhile, the young gentlemen of the legal profession shot barbed arrows of their wit into the melee, aiding to make confusion more confounded.

Fancy, Mr. Crookes, fancy such a scene, and say if one armed even with Sam Weller's million-power, double acting microscope, horoscope, or telescope, could discover if nay genuine materialization were going on inside the closed cabinet! The Spiritualists in the audience were angry, dis <... continues on page 3-190 >

Editor's notes

Sources

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  Spiritual Scientist, v. 2, No. 9, May 6, 1875, pp. 97-8