Blavatsky H.P. - Karmic Visions: Difference between revisions

  | alternatives = [https://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v9/y1888_048.htm KH], [https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/nightmar/night-3.htm TS]

<center>[Lucifer, Vol. II, No. 10, June, 1888, pp. 311-322]</center>

In the January, 1888, issue of Lucifer, H.P.B. had written in her New Year Editorial:

In connection with the present story, the following remarks from H.P.B.’s pen should also be borne in mind. They occur in her essay on the nature of Dreams, originally published as an Appendix to the Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge of the Theosophical Society, Part I (1890), summarising the discussions held at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, on December 20 and 27, 1888. She says:

“. . . Our ‘dreams,’ being simply the waking state and actions of the true Self, must be, of course, recorded somewhere. Read ‘Karmic Visions’ in Lucifer, and note the description of the real {{Page aside|319}}Ego, sitting as a spectator of the life of the hero, and perhaps something will strike you.”

Before reading H.P.B.’s amazing story, the serious student is recommended to peruse the biographical sketches concerning Clovis, Frederick III, and his physician, Sir Morell Mackenzie, in the BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX of this volume.—Compiler.]

{{Style P-Poem|poem=Oh sad No More! Oh sweet No More!

Oh strange No More!

{{Style P-Signature|—TENNYSON ( The Gem, 1831 ).<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[There is an interesting story connected with this particular poem. According to Bertram Keightley (Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky, pp. 21-23. Adyar: Theos. Publ. House, 1931; orig. publ. in The Theosophist, September, 1931), H.P.B. always wrote her Lucifer Editorials herself, “and she had a fancy for very often heading [them] with some quotation, and it used to be one of my troubles that she very seldom gave any reference for these, so that I had much work, and even visits to the British Museum Reading Room, in order to verify and check them, even when I did manage, with much entreaty, and after being most heartily ‘cussed,’ to extract some reference from her.<br>

“One day she handed me as usual the copy of her contribution, a story for the next issue headed with a couple of four line stanzas. I went and plagued her for a reference and would not be satisfied without one. She took the MS. and when I came back for it, I found she had just written the name ‘Alfred Tennyson’ under the verses. Seeing this I was at a loss: for I knew my Tennyson pretty well and was certain that I had never read these lines in any poem of his, nor were they at all in his style. I hunted up my Tennyson, could not find them: consulted every one I could get at—also in vain. Then back I went to H.P.B. and told her all this and said that I was sure these lines could not be Tennyson’s, and I dared not print them with his name attached, unless I could give an exact reference. H.P.B. just damned me and told me to get out and go to Hell. It happened that the Lucifer copy must go to the printers that same day. So I just told her that I should strike out Tennyson’s name when I went, unless she gave me a reference before I started. Just on starting I went to her again, and she handed me a scrap of paper on which were written the words: The Gem—1831. ‘Well, H.P.B.,’ I said, ‘this is worse than ever: for I am dead certain that Tennyson has never written any poem called The Gem.’ All H.P.B. said was just: Go out and be off.’<br>

“So I went to the British Museum Reading Room and consulted the folk there; but they could give me no help and they one and all agreed that the verses could not be, and were not Tennyson’s. As a last resort, I asked to see Mr. Richard Garnett, the famous Head of the Reading Room in those days, and was taken to him. I explained to him the situation and he also agreed in feeling sure the verses were not Tennyson’s. But after thinking quite a while, he asked me if I had consulted the Catalogue of Periodical Publications. I said no, and asked where that came in. ‘Well,’ said Mr. Garnett, ‘I have a dim recollection that there was once a brief-lived magazine called the Gem. It might be worth your looking it up.’ I did so, and in the volume for the year given in H.P.B.’s note, I found a poem of a few stanzas signed ‘Alfred Tennyson’ and containing the two stanzas quoted by H.P.B. verbatim as she had written them down. And anyone can now read them in the second volume of Lucifer: but I have never found them even in the supposedly most complete and perfect edition of Tennyson’s Works.”<br>

We reproduce herewith in facsimile the title page of the magazine called The Gem, as found in the holdings of the British Museum, and the page on which appears the poem entitled “No More.”—Compiler.]}}</ref>}}}}

<center><big>'''I'''</big></center>

A regal tent, gaudy in its barbaric splendour. Its linen walls are weighed down under the burden of arms.

 

{{Page aside|320}}

In its centre a raised seat covered with skins, and on it a

It is a flowery chain,––

To wear unfading poison-flowers,––

And long to die, through deathless hours!}}

<center>BY. A TENNYSON, ESQ.</center>

{{Style P-Poem|poem=OH sad No More! Oh sweet No More!

Oh stranger No More!

Low buried fathomdeep beneath with thee, No MORE!}}

stalwart, savage-looking warrior. He passes in review prisoners of war brought in turn before him, who are disposed of according to the whim of the heartless despot.

“Aye, King,” she says, in a loud, ringing voice. “Aye, thou art great and mighty now, but thy days are numbered, and thou shalt reign but three summers longer. Wicked thou wert born . . . perfidious thou art to thy friends and allies, robbing more than one of his lawful crown. Murderer of thy next-of-kin, thou who addest to the knife and spear in open warfare, dagger, poison, and treason, beware how thou dealest with the servant of Nerthus!”<ref>“The Nourishing” (Tacitus, De Germania, 40)––the Earth, a Mother-Goddess, the most beneficent deity of the ancient Germans.</ref>. . .

“So, so,” replies the Sibyl. “All know that Clovis has abandoned the gods of his fathers; that he has lost all faith in the warning voice of the white horse of the Sun, and that out of fear of the Allemanni he went serving on his knees Remigius, the servant of the Nazarene, at Rheims. But hast thou become any truer in thy new faith? Hast thou not murdered in cold blood all thy brethren who trusted in thee, after, as well as before, thy apostasy?

Hast not thou plighted troth to Alaric, the King of the West Goths, and hast thou not killed him by stealth, running thy spear into his back while he was bravely fighting an enemy? And is it thy new faith and thy new gods that teach thee to be devising in thy black soul even now foul means against Theodoric, who put thee down? . . . Beware, Clovis, beware! For now the gods of thy fathers have risen against thee! Beware, I say, for. . . .”

<center><big>'''II'''</big></center>

<center><big>'''III'''</big></center>

<center><big>'''IV'''</big></center>

<center><big>'''V'''</big></center>

Beautiful are the resorts on the midland sea. An endless line of surf-beaten, black, rugged rocks stretches, hemmed in between the golden sands of the coast and the deep blue waters of the gulf. They offer their granite breast to the fierce blows of the north-west wind and thus protect the dwellings of the rich that nestle at their foot on the inland side. The half-ruined cottages on the open shore are the insufficient shelter of the poor. Their squalid bodies are often crushed under the walls torn and washed down by wind and angry wave. But they only follow the great law of the survival of the fittest. Why should they be protected?

How calm is the approaching noon as the shadow creeps steadily on the sundial towards the hour of rest!

 

{{Page aside|328}}

Now the hot sun begins to melt the clouds in the limpid air and the last shreds of the morning mist that lingers on the tops of the distant hills vanish in it. All nature is prepared to rest at the hot and lazy hour of midday. The feathered tribes cease their song; their soft, gaudy wings droop, and they hang their drowsy heads, seeking refuge from the burning heat. A morning lark is busy nestling in the bordering bushes under the clustering flowers of the pomegranate and the sweet bay of the Mediterranean. The active songster has become voiceless.

Everything returns to life in the cool, old bower at hour of sunset. The shadows on the sun-dial become with every moment thicker, and animate nature awakens busier than ever in the cooler hours of approaching night. Birds and insects chirrup and buzz their last evening hymns around the tall and still powerful Form, as it paces slowly and wearily along the gravel walk. And now its heavy gaze falls wistfully on the azure bosom of the tranquil sea. The gulf sparkles like a gem-studded carpet of blue-velvet in the farewell dancing sunbeams, and smiles like a thoughtless, drowsy child, weary of tossing about. Further on, calm and serene in its perfidious beauty, the open sea stretches far and wide the smooth mirror of its cool waters—salt and bitter as human tears.

 

{{Page aside|329}}

It lies in its treacherous repose like a gorgeous, sleeping monster, watching over the unfathomed mystery of its dark abysses. Truly the monumentless cemetery of the millions sunk in its depths . . . .

{{Style P-Quote|“Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.”<ref>[Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV, clxxix.]</ref>}}

Thus glides past one day after the other; and as swift-winged Time urges his flight, every vanishing hour destroying some thread in the tissue of life, the Soul-Ego is gradually transformed in its views of things and men.  

Flitting between two eternities, far away from its birthplace, solitary among its crowd of physicians, and attendants, the Form is drawn with every day nearer to its Spirit-Soul. Another light unapproached and unapproachable in days of joy, softly descends upon the weary prisoner. It sees now that which it had never perceived before. . . . .

<center><big>'''VI'''</big></center>

How grand, how mysterious are the spring nights on the seashore when the winds are chained and the elements lulled ! A solemn silence reigns in nature. Alone the silvery, scarcely audible ripple of the wave, as it runs caressingly over the moist sand, kissing shells and pebbles on its up and down journey, reaches the ear like the regular soft breathing of a sleeping bosom. How small, how {{Page aside|330}}insignificant and helpless feels man, during these quiet hours, as he stands between the two gigantic magnitudes, the star-hung dome above, and the slumbering earth below. Heaven and earth are plunged in sleep, but their souls are awake, and they confabulate, whispering one to the other mysteries unspeakable. It is then that the occult side of Nature lifts her dark veils for us, and reveals secrets we would vainly seek to extort from her during the day. The firmament, so distant, so far away from earth, now seems to approach and bend over her. The sidereal meadows exchange embraces with their more humble sisters of the earth—the daisy-decked valleys and the green slumbering fields. The heavenly dome falls prostrate into the arms of the great quiet sea; and the millions of stars that stud the former peep into and bathe in every lakelet and pool. To the grief-furrowed soul those twinkling orbs are the eyes of angels. They look down with ineffable pity on the suffering of mankind. It is not the night dew that falls on the sleeping flowers, but sympathetic tears that drop from those orbs, at the sight of the Great HUMAN SORROW. . . .

<center><big>'''VII'''</big></center>

<center><big>'''VIII'''</big></center>

A hideous dream detaches itself from a group of passing visions, and alights heavily on his aching chest. The nightmare shows him men, expiring on the battle field with a curse on those who led them to their destruction.

 

{{Page aside|332}}

Every pang in his own wasting body brings to him in dream the recollection of pangs still worse, of pangs suffered through and for him. He sees and feels the torture of the fallen millions, who die after long hours of terrible mental and physical agony; who expire in forest and plain, in stagnant ditches by the road-side; in pools of blood under a sky made black with smoke. His eyes are once more rivetted to the torrents of blood, every drop of which represents a tear of despair, a heart-rent cry, a life-long sorrow. He hears again the thrilling sighs of desolation, and the shrill cries ringing through mount, forest and valley. He sees the old mothers who have lost the light of their souls; families, the hand that fed them. He beholds widowed young wives thrown on the wide, cold world, and beggared orphans wailing in the streets by the thousands. He finds the young daughters of his bravest old soldiers exchanging their mourning garments for the gaudy frippery of prostitution, and the Soul-Ego shudders in the sleeping Form. . . . His heart is rent by the groans of the famished; his eyes blinded by the smoke of burning hamlets, of homes destroyed, of towns and cities in smouldering ruins. . . .

<center><big>'''IX'''</big></center>

<center><big>'''X'''</big></center>

“Never, oh, never shall I, henceforth, sacrifice for vainglorious fame or ambition a single son of my motherland! Our world is so full of unavoidable misery, so poor with joys and bliss, and shall I add to its cup of bitterness the fathomless ocean of woe and blood, called WAR? Avaunt, such thought! . . . . Oh, never, more. . . .”

<center><big>'''XI'''</big></center>

Strange sight and change. . . . The broken palm which stands before the mental sight of the Soul-Ego suddenly lifts up its drooping trunk and becomes erect and verdant as before. Still greater bliss, the Soul-Ego finds himself as strong and as healthy as he ever was. In a stentorian voice he sings to the four winds a loud and a joyous song. He feels a wave of joy and bliss in him, and seems to know why he is happy.

 

He is suddenly transported into what looks a fairylike Hall, lit with most glowing lights and built of materials, the like of which he had never seen before. He perceives the heirs and descendants of all the monarchs of the globe gathered in that Hall in one happy family. They wear no longer the insignia of royalty, but, as he seems to know, those who are the reigning Princes, reign by virtue of their personal merits. It is the greatness of heart, the nobility of character, their superior qualities of observation, wisdom, love of Truth and Justice, that have raised them to the dignity of heirs to the Thrones, of Kings and Queens. The crowns, by authority and the grace of God, have been thrown off, and they now rule by “the grace of divine humanity,” chosen unanimously by recognition of their fitness to rule, and the reverential love of their voluntary subjects.

All around seems strangely changed. Ambition, grasping greediness or envy—miscalled Patriotism—exist no longer. Cruel selfishness has made room for just altruism, and cold indifference to the wants of the millions no longer finds favour in the sight of the favoured few.

{{Page aside|338}}

Useless luxury, sham pretences—social and religious—all has disappeared. No more wars are possible, for the armies are abolished. Soldiers have turned into diligent, hard-working tillers of the ground, and the whole globe echoes his song in rapturous joy. Kingdoms and countries around him live like brothers. The great, the glorious hour has come at last! That which he hardly dared to hope and think about in the stillness of his long, suffering nights, is now realized. The great curse is taken off, and the world stands absolved and redeemed in its regeneration! . . . .

“NEW ERA: 970,995 YEARS SINCE THE INSTANTANEOUS DESTRUCTION BY PNEUMO-DYNO-VRIL OF THE LAST 2,000,000 OF SOLDIERS IN THE FIELD, ON THE WESTERN PORTION OF THE GLOBE. 971,000 SOLAR YEARS SINCE THE SUBMERSION OF THE EUROPEAN CONTINENTS AND ISLES. SUCH ARE THE DECREE OF ORLOG AND THE ANSWER OF SKULD. . . . .”

{{Style P-Signature|SANJNA.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[A nom-de-plume used by H.P.B. only once, and which stands most likely for one of the five skandhas in Buddhist philosophy, namely samjñâ, which means perception. It also means agreement, mutual understanding, harmony, consciousness, clear knowledge.—Compiler.]}}</ref>}}