HPB-SB-10-152

T i

vol. 10, p. 152

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

vol. 10

 

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< Can the Use of Anesthetics Demonstrate the Existence of the Soul? (continued from page 10-151) >

been in Paradise, and beheld things impossible to utter. Although St. Paul says that when caught up into Paradise he beheld things not lawful to utter, he knew not whether he was in or out of the body.

The sceptic will say all this proves nothing but hallucination and dreams.

In reply to this objection, I would say that trance is a condition entirely beyond mere sleep, and that visions of the. spirit are entirely distinct from the dreams of imperfect sleep.

No one in mere sleep can submit to painful operations, not only without flinching, but with the smile of joy on his face; and no one dreams that he is outside his body; he dreams that he is with his body; and sceptics who merely suggest explanations cannot have the weight of those who assert their beliefs from experience.

I therefore submit that sceptics have, with the use of anæsthetics, a physical and scientific means of testing the beliefs and assertions of pneumologists as to the existence outside the body of the soul or ego as a scientific fact.

The sceptic will deny that the all but universal belief of human beings in the existence of the soul has any scientific weight. He will further deny the authority of spiritual revelations. He will discredit the experiments of mesmerists, and deny the assertions of Hindu or Christian ecstatics; but if he experiment with medicinal anæsthetics on his own person, and find out, as I and others have done, that the soul may be projected outside the body, and externally exist as the true ego, he may then be induced to believe in the existence of the human soul.

If thus the soul can be demonstrated as a fret, the next step is to postulate that the ego, or soul, or mind is a unity.

All visible substances arc compounds, and as compounds are liable to disintegration, decay, and death. Even the royal gold can thus be, from its liability to slow decay, shown to be not an elementary but a compound substance. But the soul as a unity is incapable of division, therefore incapable of decay, and is therefore immortal.

12, Great Cumberland-place, Hyde Park, London, December 16th, 1879.

Personal Observations*

By Gustav Theodore Fechner.

Zollner, in the account which he has given in his “Scientific Treatises” of the spiritualistic sittings at Leipsic with the American medium, Slade, has made mention of my testimony as well as that of W. Weber and Scheibner; nor have I disclaimed this testimony, only it falls far short of, and weighs even with myself much less than that of Zollner himself and of his other co-observers, for I was only present at two of the first series of sittings, which were not among the most decisive, and even then much more as a mere looker-on than as an experimenter; and this would certainly not have sufficed, for myself even, conclusively to repel the suspicion of trickery, But taking what I saw myself, without being able to discover any deception by the closest attention, with the results of the recorded observations and actual experiments of my scientific friends in the latter sittings, and with those of English investigators, and taking also into consideration that the same phenomena, which are here suspected to be fraud and trickery are established by good observers as having occurred elsewhere through mediums who were exempt from all suspicion in this respect: all this influences me with a force of conviction from which I cannot escape, much as should like to do so in regard to certain phenomena.

Yes, incredible as the spiritualistic facts from the first may appear, it is, nevertheless, my opinion that, given generally faith in persons, and the possibility of establishing facts by observations, all empirical science must be abandoned, if we will not yield to the mass and weight of testimony which are forthcoming for the actuality of the spiritualistic phenomena. Without regarding the multitude of voices, I will here speak only of one voice, reference to which not only influences me most strongly, but has also the greatest contemporary interest.

If Zollner, who may be considered as the principal champion of the actuality of spiritualistic phenomena in Germany, as well as myself, who make no pretension to independent authority as an observer in this field, but rely upon his observations, is u regarded as a visionary, who secs what he wishes to see, it should first be asked whether he has ever shown himself such in the province of observation, and whether his fine inventions and discoveries, so faithful for the exact natural sciences, are illusions. But should one insist upon confounding the boldness with which he builds conclusions upon facts with defective observation of the facts themselves, and upon opposing the personality of his critique, to which I will not commit myself, to the respect due to his person (which is to return a blow with a death-blow), yet his account of spiritualistic facts rests not solely on his authority, but also upon the authority of a man in whom the very spirit, so to say, of exact observation and induction is embodied, W. Weber, whose renown in this respect has never been impugned up to the moment when he avouched the reality of spiritualistic phenomena. To hold him also from this moment for a bad observer, who has let himself be duped by a conjurer, or for a visionary, seduced by a predilection for mystical things, is truly somewhat strong, or much rather weak, and yet that is implied in the rejection of his testimony. For my own part I confess that after he, in a whole series of sittings together with Zollner and, for the most part, also Scheibner, one of the most acute and rigorous mathematicians, not only looked on at the experiments with Slade, but took in hand and had in hand all appliances and measures adopted at them, one word of his testimony for the reality of the spiritualistic phenomena weighs more with me than all that has been said or written on the other side by those who have never been themselves observers in this field, or have only observed it as one looks on at <... continues on page 10-153 >

* From “The Day-View versus the Night-View,” of Gustav Theodore Fechner (Leipsic, 1879). Translation of part of an extract from the above, published in Phychische Studien for December.

Editor's notes

Sources

• 

  London Spiritualist, No. 383, December 26, 1879, pp. 308-9