Difference between revisions of "HPB-SB-3-122"

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“I’VE HAD A DEAL OF TROUBLE BUT THIS REPAYS ME FOR IT!"
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<hr>
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THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION.
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Another disgrace for science.—the st. Petersburg
 +
PROFESSORS IMITATE THOSE OF HARVARD AND LONDON.
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A. AKSAKOFF’S NOBLE PROTEST.<hr>
 +
To the Editor of The Spiritual Scientist:
 +
Dear Sir.—In advices just received from St. Petersburg, lam requested to
 +
translate and forward to the Scientist for publication, the protest of the Honora-
 +
ble Alexander Aksakoff, Imperial Counsellor of State, against the course of the
 +
professors of the university respecting the spiritualistic investigation. The docu-
 +
ment appears, in Russian, in the “Vedomostji,” the official journal of St. Peters-
 +
burgh.- This generous, high-minded, courageous gentleman has done the possible,
 +
and even the impossible, in order to open the spiritual eyes of those incurable
 +
moles who fear the daylight of truth as the burglar fears the policeman’ “bull’s
 +
eye.”
 +
The heart felt thanks and gratitude of every Spiritualist ought to be forwarded
 +
to this noble defender of the cause, who regretted neither his time, trouble or
 +
money to help the propagation of the truth. H. P. Blavatsky.
 +
New York, April 19, 1876.
 +
<hr>
 +
TO THE COMMISSION APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY OF PHYSI-
 +
CAL SCIENCES OF THE ST. PETERSBURG UNIVERSITY, FOR
 +
TliE INVESTIGATION OF MEDIUMISTIC MANIFESTATIONS.
 +
According to my promise to the Commission to help them
 +
in extending their invitations to mediums, I have neglected
 +
no effort to the accomplishment of the said purpose. Nev-
 +
ertheless but few mediums have shown any desire to come to
 +
Russia, and those who did were unsuitable for a preliminary
 +
examination, as their mediumistical powers were not of a
 +
nature to afford any chance to investigate physical phenom-
 +
ena. Finally, and for reasons previously detailed to the
 +
commission, I concluded to bring with rhe from England the
 +
P*o Petty boys. The mediumistic powers of these boys
 +
pjpved too weak, not only for them to be tested by a com-
 +
OVittee but even at private seances in my own house. Having
 +
obtained no manifestations worthy of any attention at all—as
 +
already published by me—at the committee’s investigation,
 +
filer four seances 1 declined to waste any more of its time in
 +
investigating the Petty boys.
 +
Immediately after that, on the 15th of December last,
 +
Professor Mendeleyeff delivered his lecture on Spiritism.
 +
The haste exhibited by him on this occasion, the precipitancy
 +
with which the failures of the four seances were reviewed,
 +
when the Scientific Commission had lust adopted a resolution
 +
to make not less than forty experimental examinations, did
 +
not agree, in my opinion, with'the impartial and serious char-
 +
acter which we have the right to expect in a truly scientific
 +
investigation. This lecture did not appear in print, ar\d it was
 +
therefore impossible to either reply to its errors cr to point
 +
<hr>
 +
out its one-sidedness. But in what was declared by M. Men-
 +
deleyeff the attitude of the commission toward the object of
 +
their examination was very clearly defined. Prof. Mendel-
 +
eveff—at whose suggestion the commission was organized,
 +
and under whose direction it acted—openly avowed himself
 +
an enemy of Spiritualism. The commission, acting in unity
 +
with M. Mendeleyeff, was evidently anxious that the results
 +
of its further investigations should prove as fruitless as the
 +
results of the first four seances with the Petty boys. The
 +
difficulties in the way of obtaining an impartial examination
 +
multiplied ten-fold ; and for my part I felt fully that it would
 +
be useless for me to attempt any further assistance to the
 +
commission. But as I had already taken steps to invite here
 +
othei mediums, and had succeeded in inducing a lady to-
 +
come—who is possessed of remarkable mediumistic powers,
 +
and perfectly answers the requirements of the commission’s
 +
investigation—I decided upon proceeding further. I hoped
 +
that I might be mistaken as to the predispositions of the
 +
commission. Furthermore, I desired to ascertain how it
 +
would conduct its investigations when it had to do with a true
 +
medium in the full acceptation of this word, and one more-
 +
over who was not professional. This lady was totally inde-
 +
pendent as to her social and financial position, and had con-
 +
sented to take part in such an unpopular position merely for
 +
the sake of promoting the scientific object ostensibly in view.
 +
I had the honor of introducing this medium to the commis-
 +
sion in the person of Mrs. C. From the very beginning of
 +
the seances, the physical manifestations which characterize
 +
this lady’s mediumship,—namely, loud raps, movements and
 +
levitations of the table,—occurred with great strength. Of
 +
the experimental seances, we had in this second series four—
 +
on the nth, 25th, 27th and 29th of January; The seance at
 +
which the medium, by reason of sickness, could not attend
 +
was, although the commission had been notified twenty-four
 +
hours beforehand, counted by its members as one of the forty
 +
which it had bound itself to hold.
 +
During the experiments of this second member series, we
 +
learned the following :—
 +
 
 +
1. The commission failed to act up to its resolution of May
 +
the 9th, 1875, that immediately after each seance a report
 +
should be written out and signed by the witnesses on both
 +
sides. Instead of that, the reports were filed several days
 +
later, and not in the presence of witnesses, but were present-
 +
ed to them for signature when already prepared by the com-
 +
mission, and when they could not be altered in any particular.
 +
 
 +
2. The plan itself of these reports underwent a thorough
 +
change. The commission saw fit to accept the private tes-
 +
timony of persons not belonging to the commission, but who
 +
may be said to have been present at the seances, since they
 +
had been eve-dropping and peeping through the key-holes.
 +
Such uncalled-for and personal testimony, based on subjec-
 +
tive impressions, either amounts to nothing at a scientific
 +
investigation and therefore is inadmissible, or if the contrary
 +
then the commission itself was useless, for it was organized,
 +
we must suppose, for the very reason of replacing such per-
 +
sonal and subjective evidence with unanimous and impersonal
 +
experiment.
 +
 
 +
3. Having found room for personal evidence of its own
 +
choosing, the commission nevertheless rejected my offer to
 +
select a lady of their acquaintance for the purpose of examin-
 +
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Revision as of 04:28, 17 July 2023

vol. 3, p. 122
from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society
vol. 3 (1875-1878)
 

Legend

  • HPB note
  • HPB highlighted
  • HPB underlined
  • HPB crossed out
  • <Editors note>
  • <Archivist note>
  • Lost or unclear
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<<   ☰   >>
eng • рус


SB-03-122-1.jpg
Ezra Ripley the ... of ... Library

...


The Russian Investigation

...

<... continues on page 3-123 >


SB-03-122-3.jpg

“I`ve Had a Dial of Trouble But This Repays Me for it!”


Editor's notes

  1. ↑ image by unknown author
  2. ↑ The Russian Investigation by Aksakoff, A. N. (signed as A. Aksakoff)
    This is also in Scrapbook I, p. 127 ... in "A Modern Panarion," p..... – Archivist
  3. ↑ “I`ve Had a Dial of Trouble But This Repays Me for it!” by Woof, N.. HPB's notes over the hawk: "<...> Occultism"; over the fledgeling: "The T.S."


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