HPB-SB-12-151

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

T i

vol. 12, p. 151

vol. 12

page 151

 

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Notes by the Way

Contributed by “M.A. (Oxon.)”

The Journal of Science contains, as it now usually does, much that should interest the thoughtful student of Spiritualism. There is an evident disposition on the part of the editor to deal fairly, on the lines of accurate scientific investigation, with our phenomena. “Light contains a great—and we may say an increasing—array of incidents which demand serious consideration. In many cases the stale explanations of trickery or of ‘dominated ideas’ are utterly inapplicable.” “It is much to be regretted that scientific men are so generally deterred by public ridicule from investigating such [psychical] phenomena.” “Why is not mind-reading, like Spiritualism, proclaimed mere jugglery and imposture? Surely the evidence in the one case is as trustworthy as in the other, and amongst those who have accepted Spiritualism as truth there are men of attainments as high and of integrity as unspotted as any of the advocates of mind-reading can lay claim to”! These are specimens, selected from among several, of utterances that shew a temper of mind that seems to me to be truly scientific. It is another cheering sign of the times that a professedly and exclusively scientific periodical should venture to treat an unpopular subject in this manly way. I hope that calm and temperate students of the Occult, in all its varied aspects, will endeavour to set forth their facts and conclusions in the Journal of Science, so that they may command the attention of men of science who are worth attracting to their study. Light is frequently quoted and referred to, and the facts recorded in it are not infrequently transferred to the pages of the Journal. Such a case of haunting as Mr. Wedgwood recorded lately should be paralleled as frequently as possible. It is such cases that have weight with men accustomed to sift evidence.

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An article on “Mind-reading” decides against the muscle-reading theory of Dr. Beard as insufficient. An excellent letter from Mr. Henry Edmonds, B. Sc., Headmaster of the Brighton School of Science and Art, is quoted as evidence. He experimented after the manner of Bishop, and found not only that he could see the particular object thought of, but that he could distinguish colour. For instance, a reel of black cotton having been thought of (and hidden during his absence from the room), he says, “I saw plainly with my blindfolded eyes, as though in a dream, the figure of a reel of black cotton floating before me.” This, it is pointed out in an article full of acute suggestion, “seems fatal to the theory of unconscious muscular action.”

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Another article deals with the phenomena of Haunted Houses, and arrives at the conclusion (a little hastily as it seems to me) that they are chiefly subjective. Haunted houses (it is said) are rare; they are becoming rarer year by year, chiefly because modern architecture does not provide the tortuous passages, dark closets, and secret hiding places that ghosts love! The writer finishes his paper with a very good story of a mysterious light in a haunted house, which account he received from “a scientific friend, a gentleman chiefly engaged with the study of physics and chemistry, and very far from credulous.” The story is good and to the point, and rather successfully demolishes the subjective theory which the article was written to advocate. The truth is that until a serious attempt is made to sift out emotional exaggeration, wild theorising, and unimportant or misleading detail from such records, the facts will not stand out in such a way that they can be fairly judged. When this is done I entertain no doubt that all explanations short of that of the Spiritualist will be found inadequate.

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The following narrative, which I quote from the Journal of Science, is a good comment on scientific theorising. The Theosophists would say, I suppose, as the editor of the Theosophist does of a similar occurrence, that the apparition was that of one “whose figure was strongly impressed on the etheric waves:” or else was due to the roaming of the “animal soul” of the deceased, “the shell, or astral form,” “an earth-bound elementary.” Here is the narrative from the Journal of Science:—

The Gentleman’s Magazine gives the following “strange story”:—“While the subject of ghosts is attracting attention, I will offer a nut for our scientists to crack. For obvious reasons I am compelled to omit names. The wife of one of our most distinguished scientific men—I use the term most ‘distinguished’ advisedly, since the reputation of the man in question is cosmopolitan—saw nightly an old man seated in an arm-chair, near the fire-place in her bed-room. Being thoroughly imbued with her husband’s views upon scientific subjects, she held her peace, and tried with partial success to convince herself that it was a delusion. Somewhat later this room was converted into a night nursery, and ultimately into a spare bed-room, with the result that each successive occupant, juvenile or of mature years, described the curious old gentleman who came and sat by the fire. My scientific friend has ‘pished’ and ‘pshawed’ at those statements, and has treated the whole matter as ridiculous. He has, however, been compelled to concede something to the vision or the delusion, and to quit the house.”

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And here, clipped from the Theosophist, is the Indian narrative, respecting which the editor further says that “it is but Spiritualists who will insist that it was the Spirit or conscious Ego” of the assistant surgeon that thus manifested itself. Some Spiritualists, at any rate, would so maintain, inasmuch as such an explanation is the only one that seems to them to cover the facts. They do not know anything, except from recent Theosophical disquisitions, of these dissolving “shells,” denuded of consciousness, and vastated (as Swedenborg might put it) of self. Other Spiritualists see in the hypothesis a something that works in with experiences of their own. They would be glad that the hypothesis should be promoted to the dignity of a theory, on its way to acceptance as an explanation of a puzzling fact.

“The narrative was related in the presence of a large assemblage of friends and acquaintances by the late Babu Abhoy Charan Newgy, an assistant surgeon in the employ of the Government of Bengal. He had not long been in charge of a hospital at a certain station in the North-Western Provinces. Accustomed to sleep out of doors during the warm weather, he often slept on an open terrace adjoining the dispensary building. Once, on rather a sultry night, he had retired to bed and was composing himself to sleep. There were a few chairs left standing close to his couch. Suddenly a sound, as that of the rustling of a person’s dress or something like it, startled him. Opening his eyes he saw before him, sitting calmly in one of his chairs, his predecessor, the late assistant surgeon, who had died a month previous in the premises of that dispensary. Babu Abhoy was a stoutly-built man, and of a frame of mind quite proof to superstitious fears or anything like nervousness. As might be imagined, he was not in the least frightened. He simply ejaculated a low sound of surprise, when the apparition, floating over a high wall, gradually disappeared. The whole scene took place in a clear moonlight night.”

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I do not remember ever to have put down a paper with a more sickening feeling of disgust; helpless and yet full of loathing, than that which came upon me after reading Mrs. Kingsford’s recent address on the horrors of vivisection. One must purge oneself in some way of any sort of even tacit complicity with such deeds as she recites. The very fact that such horrors <... continues on page 12-152 >

Editor's notes

Sources

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  Light, v. 2, No. 59, February 18, 1882, pp. 73-4