< New York, 29 May 1876 (Νεα Υορκη Μαίον 29 1876) (continued from page 4-41) >
together from deep in their heart, and some left. The reader can make a choice, which reaction was appropriate. After the end of the prayer, the following dialogue took place, as in a church service, between the hierophant and Mr. Thomson, with the musical instrument accompanying each reply.
– What is the condition of the invisible world?
There is no invisible world but only perfections of different degrees in the human organs, and that is what exists. The body is the greatest performance, it is an ephemeral cover of the soul.
– What is death?
We call death the transition, as we die and we are reborn every day. Real death does not exist in nature. Everything lives.
– What is the meaning of the motion in death?
That death does not exist. This dying body does not decompose. All atoms that contribute to it, they retain life and they tend to a change.
– How the equilibrium of motion is retained?
By antagonism: Life and death; light and darkness; good and bad; spirit and matter. Those are the balances that exist for ever in counterpoise.
At last the master of ceremonies spoke as follows:
“There is only one cause, uncreated, eternal, infinite and unknown. Man’s soul is immortal and earthly life is a simple point in the center of eternity. Harmony is in balance and this exists due to the analogous relationship of two opposites.”
Then Mr. Olcott delivered a funeral oration for the deceased, of which I quote only the following: “The Theosophical Society does not aspire to anything else than science; does not belong to religious or beneficial societies. The Society’s name does not imply that all its members are Theosophists, but the aim of the Society is that somehow they will acquire theosophical knowledge. The Society’s members are of all kinds and of all places. We have materialists of all trends, spiritualists, Christian priests, doctors of philosophy, doctors of law, mathematicians and physicists, doctors of medicine, mesmerists, orientalists and cabbalists, theoreticians and practitioners, and many professors, correspondents, newspaper editors, one prince, barons and baronesses, etc. We have members in Greece, England, France, Austria, Germany and in many other countries.”
This was in brief the funeral ceremony for Baron de Palm. After this, the deceased was placed on a simple carriage and driven to the Lutheran cemetery where was kept until a permit could be obtained for his cremation. In 1835 the general Synode of the Presbyterians had voted the following: “The Church of Rome, as an apostate of the Church of Jesus the Christ, cannot be regarded as Christian, but a satanic gathering.” The last Synode that took place in 1875, somehow changed the resolution of the 1835 Synode, recognizing the baptism of the Catholics and of some other doctrines. Alas, unfortunately this aroused a fury of many Protestant priests.
One of them, Mr. Breckeridge, last week delivered an important speech at the Synode (on which he referred in his last one in Brooklyn), calling the Church of Rome as ethnic and idolatrous, using the following words: “A people that bows and worships anything else than God, is an idolater, even the Virgin Mary and all the saints included.” Therefore, even the Orthodox Church, according to these gentlemen is idolatrous! And because of this, they act as missionaries in Athens proselytizing some Greeks, including one or two that are here now studying the new religion. Missionaries in Africa, deep in America and in Asia, I say myself as an Englishman, that is alright, but what about Greece! What our fathers would say?
The present Synode in Brooklyn has jurisdiction on 13 theological schools, 304 prolytes and 676 probationers for hieratical work. And the merciful donations in the last year were raised to seven million “talera”.
Many bloody fights amongst white gold-diggers and the Indians took place recently, to a large damage of the first, many of them loosing not only their wallets, but even their hair and their lives, after very painful tortures. This resulted in the government army’s intervention, which dealt with “the redskins in the valley”. And those gathering in large groups, bravely waited the arrival of the American soldiers.
Since the talk is about the Indians, I refer to a custom, that has become known recently, while it has long been established by the native Indians: When an Indian woman dies, leaving behind a baby that cannot be fed by itself, the relatives and friends open a grave in which they first lay the mother and they place the baby alive on her chest and after that, they cover both with shrubs and stones. An Indian was asked about this barbarian custom and he replied that after the mother’s death, the baby would not have any milk, and will die soon without its mother. So they put it in the grave with her!
The Cremation of Baron de Palm
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<... continues on page 4-43 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ The Cremation of Baron de Palm by Simpson A.C., Banner of Light