HPB-SB-12-82

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

T i

vol. 12, p. 82

vol. 12

page 82

 

SBT, DT

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< Notes by the Way (continued from page 12-81) >

guess your supposed secret, and who are, in fact, far indeed from having discovered the truth.

Hamilton.”

“Messrs. Davenport. —I have returned from one of your stances quite astonished. Like all other persons, I was admitted to examine your cabinet and instruments. I went through that examination with the greatest care, but failed to discover anything that could justify legitimate suspicion. . .

I must also declare that, your cabinet being completely isolated, all participation in the manifestation of your phenomena by strangers is absolutely impossible; that the knots are made by persons selected indiscriminately; and that the public has been admitted to watch them; and I shall add that, under these conditions, no one has ever yet produced anything similar to the phenomenal witnessed.

Rhys.”

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The expectation of the dawn of a new epoch is not confined to Christians. The Spectator devotes an article in a recent number to the general expectation among Mahomedans of the arrival of a Mehdi, or Teacher, sent from God to restore Islam, reunite the fathful, and be, in brief, a Messiah. This idea, it is affirmed, “has lately taken a strong hold of the general Mussulman mind; has become a dogma instead of a recognised idea; and is so general in Arabia and Syria that the Turks watch the family from whom the Mehdi is to spring with a dangerous intentness.” It is the same in Egypt and Tripoli, in which latter district a well-informed correspondent of the Times declares that there is one who calls himself the promised Mehdi, and will so proclaim himself on November 12th of this year, in accordance with a prophecy which has been widely made known in the Mussulman world: “On the 1st of Muharram in the year 1300 (November 12th, 1882), will appear El Mehdi, the Messiah. He will be exactly 40, and of noble bearing. One arm will be longer than the other; his father’s name will be Muhammed; his mother’s Fatima, and he will be hidden, for a time, prior to his manifestation.” The man has the above physical peculiarities, his right arm reaching to his knee, and he has been four years in hiding.

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“Who loves not knowledge? Who shall rail Against her beauty? May she mix With men and prosper! . . . .... “Half grown as yet, a child, and vain— She cannot fight the fear of death. .... “A higher hand must make her mild, If all be not in vain; and guide Her footsteps, moving side by side With Wisdom, like the younger child.”

So Tennyson wrote of true science or knowledge. The Knowledge that lies before me, the journal of Mr. Proctor, “Science plainly worded, exactly described,” is of another type, and hardly merits the Laureate’s praise, though his advice is very pertinent. “Modern science,” it seems, according to Dr. Andrew Wilson, has abolished apparitions; and any perfect scheme of education in the future will so instruct the young. Knowledge quotes with approval this: “It is important that young persons should be made thoroughly aware of the fact that there never was, and never will be, any such fancy which is not capable of being explained upon natural grounds.” “Plainly worded, exactly expressed”! So Professor Lankester, whom Professor Barrett in the current Psychological Review sarcastically calls “the omniscient young biologist,” when asked to look with his keen eye into the phenomena of thought reading, replied that it was “puerile to experiment on an impossible hypothesis” I Like Mr. Proctor, he “not only has all the complex manifestations of life in the past and present completely within his grasp, but he knows also all its possibilities in the future. All things arc naked and open to the sight of him who, having eaten of the tree of knowledge [the doctrine of Evolution] has become a veritable God!” I am afraid that there is a plurality of little gods of this description, and their assumption of omniscience would be very funny, if it were not so misleading to their worshippers.

“M.A. (Oxon.)”

<Untitled> (Littre defines religion...)

Littre defines religion as totality of doctrines and practices constituting the relationship of mankind to the Divine power.

An Advertisement of the contents of last week’s “Light” was accepted by the Daily Telegraph, the Standard, and the Rock, but was refused by the Daily News!

"Doubles" of Entranced Mediums

I have read “M.A. (Oxon’s)” response to Dr. Wyld’s call upon him to answer certain propositions, the second and third of which were as follows :—

“2. I believe that many individuals in the flesh can project their own Spirits as visible objective doubles, and that these doubles can present themselves to third parties and operate as physical identities.

“3. If so, then the Spirits of entranced mediums, being external to the body, can do likewise, and assume any form and perform a variety of physical work.”

To the latter proposition “M.A. (Oxon.)” answers: “The Spirit of an entranced medium, is, at all events usually, in a state of perfect passivity. If it be temporarily separated from the physical body, it is (with rare exceptions) kept perfectly passive and still, and certainly does not go about to ‘perform a variety of physical work.’”

Now, that the double of an entranced medium does sometimes come forth out of him is quite certain. I can give you two cases of real proof to that effect.

I. When the Davenport brothers first came to London and exhibited physical manifestations to crowded audiences at the Hanover-square Rooms, some eighteen or nineteen years ago, two good and earnest Spiritualists (Benjamin Coleman, Esq., and another) sat once in the front row and close to the brothers as they sat secured by the bonds in which they were tied by a committee of the audience; and also still more perfectly secured by the flour placed in the palms of their closed hands. The flying about and the playing of the musical instruments overhead, &c., had been going on with the usual activity, when the lights were suddenly turned on, apparently a little too quickly, for those gentlemen caught sight, distinctly though but for one instant, of a form which flashed through the air and disappeared close to William Davenport, whom they at the same time saw seated, and asleep. The form thus seen was, as they declared, that of William Davenport himself, or rather his double. That it was not himself in the flesh was certain, for not only were both forms seen simultaneously—the man himself seated and this flashing double of him—but within two or three seconds the seated and entranced medium was found by the public seated in all his bonds, and with none of the flour spilled from his hands. No public mention was made about it at the time, because it would have been regarded by the general public as an indication of trickery, but it was privately talked about among some of the Spiritualists, and must be in the memory of others besides myself. This form would seem (or would have been naturally Supposed by us) to have been actively busy in the production of the manifestations. I have called it the double of the medium, though it is conceivable that it might have been a different Spirit materialised in his form, and perhaps partly out of his form.

II. My second proof is now before me, and has been seen both by yourself and by “M.A. (Oxon.),” as well as by many others of my brother Spiritualists. In my marvellous collection of photographs of Spirits taken in the absolute dark by Count de Bullet, myself and another American gentleman, there are three which exhibit the medium Firman and his double (this was before that medium had, as a medium, “fall’n, fall’ll, fall’ll from his high estate”). The Count had asked “John King” whether the mortal man in the flesh could also be photographed in the dark, as Spirits had so often been done for us; which was answered in the affirmative. In one of the three photographs referred to is seen the medium lying in the deep trance sleep into which he was always thrown on these occasions, while behind and above him stands the shadowy outline form of his double. The second is substantially like the first, while besides the double there appears also an imperfect treble, so to speak—just as we sometimes see a third reflected rainbow. The third photograph shews the, medium and his double both erect, and confronting each other, and both, not shadowy, but complete pictures, as though of men in the flesh, and both good likenesses of him. Tho one, though erect, is evidently asleep; the other, awake, has his two hands raised in manifest amazement at beholding another self-opposite to himself. I have since asked “John King” which of these two figures was the living medium and which his double. He answered that the one asleep was the double, and the other, awake and with a terrified expression, was the man himself—I should have supposed the reverse. But the man was in trance, and afterwards retained no memory of what had taken place. <... continues on page 12-83 >

Editor's notes

Sources

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  Light, v. 2, No. 56, January 28, 1882, p. 38

• 

  Light, v. 2, No. 56, January 28, 1882, p. 45