HPB-SB-8-219

T i

vol. 8, p. 219

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

vol. 8 (September 1878 - September 1879)

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eng • рус

Un Nouveau Martin Luther daus L'Inde

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Reflexions de L'Astronome Zollner

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Banquet de Mesmer

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Requem

The Text-Book of Astrology. By Alfred J. Pearce, Author

of The Weather Guide Book, etc. Vol. I. Genethlialogy.

London: Cousins and Co., 3, York Street, Covent Garden, 1879.

No apology is needed for introducing the latest, and perhaps, the most elaborate of the many text-books of astrology to the readers of The Spiritualist. These columns have occasionally testified to a very wide-spread interest in the subject, which is also known to engage the attention of many who are in sympathy, if not in avowed connection, with our own movement.

Astrology, like Spiritualism, challenges belief upon the evidences of experience; and the proofs which it can adduce have the advantage of being less easily gainsaid or neglected than those which rest upon the testimony of observers. The general public is more impressed by a single prediction unmistakably verified than by the best attested facts of spirit agency. The predictions accomplished by the deaths of Victor Emmanuel and the Princess Alice last year, and those relating to the Isandlana disaster and the Dinas Colliery explosion have obtained a wide publicity. Even “Science” itself, notwithstanding Mr. Proctor’s recent phillipic, is becoming thoughtful on the subject, and the Royal Astronomical Society has already a Paper, by one of its own members, before it, dealing- with the relation of the movements of planets in their orbits to the prevalence of mundane epidemics,* At the hands of scholars, at least, astrology should be protected from insult by its fathomless antiquity, its universality, and by the great names of its believers in ancient, mediaeval, and even modern times. Of these, Mr. Pearce gives an imposing list in his interesting introduction to the volume now under review. He quotes a passage from an article in the Saturday Review some years ago, which speaks of the countenance afforded to Zadkiel by “the many wise, great, and learned of the land,” and which adds, that “Society believes in astrology.” Without going quite so far as this, it must be admitted that the prejudice is less, and certainly far less offensively expressed, than that against which Spiritualists have to contend. But the latter will be wise to perceive that the recognition of whatever truth there is in astrology cannot fail to prepare the public mind for the reception of facts which gives the lie more directly to the negations of materialism. Next to Spiritualism itself, it is impossible to conceive a science of experience more repugnant than astrology to the shallow “enlightenment” that rejects even facts of the senses, when these cannot be accommodated to the sensual understanding.’ It is certain that any real explanation of celestial influences on the constitution, dispositions, and affairs of mundane beings would carry us into a very deep philosophy, and one which would only be rightly appreciated in relation to still higher truths. That such a philosophy has always existed students of Occultism and Theosophy need not to be reminded. To Spiritualists generally, such terms as “Astral Light,” “Astral Body,” and so on, are of mysterious import; but at least it is vaguely understood that the recognition of a common life-element, and some insight into the sympathies that pervade the universe, might help us to a better understanding of many of the phenomena which cannot be referred simply, and without explanation or qualification, to the agency of spirits. As a system of divination, astrology stands in significant relation to the prophetic dreams, occult warnings, and “inexplicable” coincidences with which our records abound. That the future cannot be foreseen and communicated without being in some sense predetermined, appears an inference from which there is no escape. To the philosophy which represents time as phenomenal, the mere condition of conscious intelligence—and perhaps not even this in higher stages of development—the reproach of fatalism—has no meaning or application. But for a completely satisfactory answer to it, we must have recourse to the theosophic doctrine, that freedom belongs to a sphere above the astral and elementary, to the infinite spirit of which all finite intelligences are partakers, and to <... continues on page 8-220 >

* See a letter in the Pall Mall Gazette, March 7th, 1879, on “Epidemics and the Stars,” by Mr. B. G. Jenkins, F.R.A.S.

Editor's notes

Sources

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  London Spiritualist, No. 349, May 2, 1879, pp. 207-9