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H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

vol. 8 (September 1878 - September 1879)

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< A Theory of Mediumship (continued from page 8-342) >

consideration of Spiritualists of all shades and sects. Instead of regarding the action, power, or energy of a medium as exerted on and originating changes in the phenomenal thing, which would be simply treating the subject at once as a branch of physical science, I will begin by saying that it is just as maintainable a position that the changes originate in the thing-in-itself (which underlies the phenomenon, and is therefore external to consciousness), and which thing-in-itself we have a right to assume to be as equally related to all the onlookers as the phenomenal thing is, and to be thereby capable of affecting the phenomenal Ego in each and every instance when it, the thing-in-itself, is reached on through the physical peculiarities of the organism of any one of the members witnessing a given disturbance from the ordinary course of events. The machinery of sense thought in the medium being known to behave some-what differently at different times, the resultant product may not unnaturally be expected to vary. In other words, there may be a change in the loom, and not alone in the fabric. But the variation of the product being established experimentally, if the relation of machinery and manufactured article be acknowledged, the universality of the change in the product, i.e., its identical appearance to all men, implies the unopposed and free integration between that which I have typified as a loom and all other similar machines. In other words, that which becomes true for one man must remain so for all; a new possibility having been opened up for one, all equally avail themselves of it, from the very fact of their functional identity. It is, in fact, a functional revelation, and therefore one universal in its character, which I am trying to indicate under the imagery of mechanical actions, where an influence sufficiently strong (or special) to affect any one member of a I linked series is necessarily propagated through the whole chain when once it makes an impression any-where.

A doctrine of correspondence was not long since put forward by the late Professor IV. Kingden Clifford (See Mind, No. IX.), in which the thing-in-itself, or the reality which underlies phenomenon, is regarded as of the nature of mind, or, in fact, composed of the elements of feeling which underlie and enter into the composition of the woven something, which is to us our consciousness. Wherever there is motion of matter elemental mind stuff exists; and these elements, to use Professor Clifford’s own words, “are connected together in their sequence and coexistence by counterparts of the physical laws of matter. For otherwise the correspondence could not be kept up.”

This is, in my opinion, such a view of the relation existing between mind and matter, as we must adopt in endeavoring to bring the subject of mediumship down to the level of everyday science.

After being satisfied of the reality of manifestations produced by mediums, I was for years obliged to rest content with the bare acknowledgments of the matter of fact from the difficulty I felt in finding an answer to the question, How is it that the external reality is necessarily a reality for the whole world, as well as for the medium, whose life is the sine qua non in its manifestation, if it is merely by effort, analogous to will, conscious or unconscious, that the medium is the active agent in its production? This difficulty lay not so much in an answer to the above question as in that to the far more formidable question, How is it that external reality in general is a consequence of effort of the unconscious type?—for this appeared to me to be the necessary sequel to the former, if the mediumistic manifestation be taken as a specimen of the construction of the real in space. The difficulty was insurmountable to me, for I was convinced from experience of the extraordinary that the store of physical energy in the medium’s body, however determined to produce results in definite directions, was drawn upon during all manifestations without, necessarily, the slightest intention to deceive on the part of the medium regarded as a conscious moral being; of course, I mean in the respectable instances which we have all met with in our investigations. It is not till such a theory as that of Professor Clifford is advanced as the foundation from which to operate that these questions at all assume a soluble aspect. According to that view of correspondence all changes in the nervous system (and therefore the abnormal as well as the normal) have corresponding to them elements outside or below consciousness, but which, in certain instances, may, when manufactured into a complex structure, appear in consciousness as object. According to this view, when a change takes place in the objective order, or in the object or phenomenon, we must suppose the change to originate in what I may call the process of secretion, or in that of manufacture, or in both together, of that raw material of feeling which afterwards becomes organised into the matter of experience. As that which corresponds to an ultimate beyond consciousness and below matter is a mere nerve motion, we have in the abnormal objective order merely abnormal nerve activity, and this is the ground where the investigator must begin his labours, and where, I believe, I have already made some observations worth recording. Wherever there is a spiritual manifestation, so-called, i.e., a something contrary to the usual order of affairs, there is corresponding to it nervous activity out of the common course; but as it has produced its results as certified to by the real change on the phenomenal side, it may become a subject of experimental inquiry under improved methods of research. Manifestations are thus the certificates that there exists in connection with them abnormal nerve activity.

It would appear to the worker in the field of modern Spiritualism, who adopts Professor Clifford’s view of the nature of the material universe, that the possibility of constructing new objects and strangely affecting old ones, or to use a more general term, interfering with the objective order, arises from the fact that “eject-elements ” underlying consciousness can be supplied from a strange source, for that then the habit of grouping previously experienced elements from previously experienced sources is not present, to exert a guardian influence as it docs in maintaining the stability of the ordinary.

It may further be supposed, in the case of progressively developing manifestations, that new elements from new sources group themselves under certain available forms, which becoming integrated into the complex that underlies phenomenon, establish at the same time habits through which the corresponding feeling is easily reproduced; hence the <... continues on page 8-344 >

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 {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |A Theory of Mediumship|8-342}}
-{{Style P-No indent|That knots have come upon a closed cord is certainly a very wonderful fact; but it is well known that there are other facts equally wonderful which make as much against as for the necessity of calling in the aid of fourfold space. The strength of that position consists in the fact that threefold space may be regarded as a limited form of fourfold space, so that the removal of the limiting condition necessitates the transcending of ordinary experience which is built up on the lines of ordinary threefold space. Attention was called to this in the discussion on Kant's “View of Space,” consequent of the publication of a paper by J. J. Sylvester, Esq., the particulars of which will be found in one of the early volumes of ''Nature.''}}
+{{Style P-No indent|consideration of Spiritualists of all shades and sects. Instead of regarding the action, power, or energy of a medium as exerted on and originating changes in the phenomenal thing, which would be simply treating the subject at once as a branch of physical science, I will begin by saying that it is just as maintainable a position that the changes originate in the thing-in-itself (which underlies the phenomenon, and is therefore external to consciousness), and which thing-in-itself we have a right to assume to be as equally related to all the onlookers as the phenomenal thing is, and to be thereby capable of affecting the phenomenal Ego in each and every instance when it, the thing-in-itself, is reached on through the physical peculiarities of the organism of any one of the members witnessing a given disturbance from the ordinary course of events. The machinery of sense thought in the medium being known to behave some-what differently at different times, the resultant product may not unnaturally be expected to vary. In other words, there may be a change in the loom, and not alone in the fabric. But the variation of the product being established experimentally, if the relation of machinery and manufactured article be acknowledged, the universality of the change in the product, ''i.e., ''its identical appearance to all men, implies the unopposed and free integration between that which I have typified as a loom and all other similar machines. In other words, that which becomes true for one man must remain so for all; a new possibility having been opened up for one, all equally avail themselves of it, from the very fact of their functional identity. It is, in fact, a ''functional revelation, ''and therefore one universal in its character, which I am trying to indicate under the imagery of mechanical actions, where an influence sufficiently strong (or special) to affect any one member of a I linked series is necessarily propagated through the whole chain when once it makes an impression any-where.}}
-While I object to the assumption of space of four dimensions as illegitimate, both on the ground of breach of continuity of thought and on that of unnecessary multiplication of entities, I must say that I think it more than probable that a theory involving the assumption of a sense form of four elements may yet play its part in the treatment of the recondite problems of clairvoyance, mesmerism, &e., but. not in the manner objected to above.
+A doctrine of correspondence was not long since put forward by the late Professor IV. Kingden Clifford (See ''Mind, ''No. IX.), in which the thing-in-itself, or the reality which underlies phenomenon, is regarded as of the nature of mind, or, in fact, composed of the elements of feeling which underlie and enter into the composition of the woven something, which is to us our consciousness. Wherever there is motion of matter elemental mind stuff exists; and these elements, to use Professor Clifford’s own words, “are connected together in their sequence and coexistence by counterparts of the physical laws of matter. For otherwise the correspondence could not be kept up.”
-Sir W. R. Hamilton, the great Irish mathematician, was haunted with the idea of space of four dimensions, till his discovery of a true tridimensional space algebra, in 1843, rendered evident to him the significance of the fourth unit, which he regarded ever afterwards as related to time. He was also of opinion that his calculus would be applicable wherever the idea of polarity was involved, so that the application of the principles latent in his great discovery may not unnaturally be expected to play a leading part in reducing to a scientific order the scattered and disjointed elements of a theory of vital dynamics. The very objection urged by some mathematicians that the fourth element is uninterpretable in relation to geometrical and mechanical problems may be the advantage which will enable Hamilton’s symbolic method of reasoning to deal with questions involving feeling and sensation, and therefore ''time,''''''' '''''not forgetting to mention the double nervous system of the two sides of the body, differently related to space, and so forcing upon us the idea of polarity. Hamilton’s sciences of pure time and pure space were suggested to him by the internal and external sense forms of Kant; and it would be something extraordinary if the powerful instinct and insight of that man of genius guided him towards the construction of an instrument capable of dealing with the external and internal senses, the barrier between them having been broken down in the world of fact and experiment; the Kantian distinction of external and internal sense forms founded on purely empirical data, though suggestive to him, yet not leading him into a corresponding error in the nature of his instrument. Just as Hamilton’s algebra—the science of pure time—is not necessarily the first stage in the discovery of his quaternion calculus, so the internal sense form and its contents do not give us space and its contents; but the distinction does not hold when the terms arc reversed, for Hamilton’s space algebra does suggest the idea of time, and the progress of modern psychological thought forces us to the conclusion that space and its contents are real in the chronological order before time and its contents, the Ego and its affections (and so more comprehensive)—a fact used by Kant in his refutation of idealism. On grounds such as these I enter a disclaimer against the adoption of the four dimensions of space theory of Professor Zollner. Even granting that the hypothesis fully explained some of the phenomena, there are others more easily explained by making some justifiable assumptions which do not contradict established principles and laws. I mean in regard to those phenomena showing the construction and disintegration of the pseudo-material space reals which are so often reported on, now that a knowledge of mediumism is general. It is, after all, ''mailer ''which is ''to us''''''' '''''tridimensional and not space;''''' '''''and if into the construction of matter polar elements enter, which have their counterparts in the joint action of a double nervous system, we have in the study of diseased and disturbed human beings, and in the investigation of the extraordinary functional activity of those who produce real manifestations, the only true means of ascertaining such relationships and analogies, through the discovery of the part the medium plays, and the manner of it, in the construction of the pseudo-material but “phantasmal portraiture of wandering human thought,” The ultimate stuff of which these simulacra are composed is as far beyond the grasp of conscious sensibility as that ultimate stuff of matter from which we cannot differentiate it, with the moulding of which into the forms in the universe around us man has nothing to do, though he is inevitably bound to the dead and living things around by the attribute of a common materiality. Man has, however, the rare privilege of examining how a something very similar to matter, capable of reacting to impressed force, and in some way obedient to will, docs come into existence and take a definite form.
+This is, in my opinion, such a view of the relation existing between mind and matter, as we must adopt in endeavoring to bring the subject of mediumship down to the level of everyday science.
-But, to our experience, matter is not permanent and continuous in the same sense that a geometrical curve is. It is the ''slate of the feeling organism ''that puts matter out there and keeps it there, ''that is permanent and continuous. ''If there is one lesson more than another that the educated Spiritualist ought to have learned, it is this—the departure from the standard of the ordinary (as in manifestations) is invariably accompanied by departure from the physiological standard on the part of the medium. While the great fields of sense, perturbation, and functional nerve disturbance arc absolutely untouched in their relation to extraordinary manifestations, it is no better than hypothetical patchwork when space of four dimensions is used as a playground to permit us to account for changes in the phenomenal thing.
+After being satisfied of the reality of manifestations produced by mediums, I was for years obliged to rest content with the bare acknowledgments of the matter of fact from the difficulty I felt in finding an answer to the question, How is it that the external reality is necessarily a reality for the whole world, as well as for the medium, whose life is the ''sine qua non ''in its manifestation, if it is merely by effort, analogous to will, conscious or unconscious, that the medium is the active agent in its production? This difficulty lay not so much in an answer to the above question as in that to the far more formidable question, How is it that external reality in general is a consequence of effort of the unconscious type?—for this appeared to me to be the necessary sequel to the former, if the mediumistic manifestation be taken as a specimen of the construction of the real in space. The difficulty was insurmountable to me, for I was convinced from experience of the extraordinary that the store of physical energy in the medium’s body, however determined to produce results in definite directions, was drawn upon during all manifestations without, necessarily, the slightest intention to deceive on the part of the medium regarded as a conscious moral being; of course, I mean in the respectable instances which we have all met with in our investigations. It is not till such a theory as that of Professor Clifford is advanced as the foundation from which to operate that these questions at all assume a soluble aspect. According to that view of correspondence all changes in the nervous system (and therefore the abnormal as well as the normal) have corresponding to them elements outside or below consciousness, but which, in certain instances, may, when manufactured into a complex structure, appear in consciousness as object. According to this view, when a change takes place in the objective order, or in the object or phenomenon, we must suppose the change to originate in what I may call the process of secretion, or in that of manufacture, or in both together, of that raw material of feeling which afterwards becomes organised into the matter of experience. As that which corresponds to an ultimate beyond consciousness and below matter is a mere nerve motion, we have in the abnormal objective order merely abnormal nerve activity, and this is the ground where the investigator must begin his labours, and where, I believe, I have already made some observations worth recording. Wherever there is a spiritual manifestation, so-called, ''i.e., ''a something contrary to the usual order of affairs, there is corresponding to it nervous activity out of the common course; but as it has produced its results as certified to by the real change on the phenomenal side, it may become a subject of experimental inquiry under improved methods of research. Manifestations are thus the certificates that there exists in connection with them abnormal nerve activity.
-The truth is, a very varied and lengthened experience is necessary to enable one to regard the facts which mediumship reveals with an evenly-balanced mind, so startling and so impressive is the experience opened up. Each endeavours to grasp the subject from the standpoint of his own particular scientific platform, and so no real advance has been made towards the establishment of a general theory, which, without violating established principles or dislocating the recognised scientific order, calmly accepts the new with the hope of assimilating it with the old and known, shunning alike an offensive one-sidedness and a childish acceptance of unproven credentials.
+It would appear to the worker in the field of modern Spiritualism, who adopts Professor Clifford’s view of the nature of the material universe, that the possibility of constructing new objects and strangely affecting old ones, or to use a more general term, interfering with the objective order, arises from the fact that “eject-elements ” underlying consciousness can be supplied from a strange source, for that then the ''habit ''of grouping previously experienced elements from previously experienced sources is not present, to exert a guardian influence as it docs in maintaining the stability of the ordinary.
-I venture to put forward, in bare outline, the sketch of a rational theory of mediumship for the {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on |8-344}}
+It may further be supposed, in the case of progressively developing manifestations, that new elements from new sources group themselves under certain available forms, which becoming integrated into the complex that underlies phenomenon, establish at the same time habits through which the corresponding feeling is easily reproduced; hence the {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on |8-344}}