Theosophy

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The Parent Theosophical Society was formed at New York, U. S. A., in 1875, by H. P. Blavatsky, with whom were associated William Q. Judge, Henry S. Olcott, and others.

The defined Objects of the Society were as follows:

I. To form a nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color. II. The study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance of such study; and

III. The investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man.

Assent to the First Object only was obligatory on the part of all Fellows, the other Objects being subsidiary and optional.

HARVARD

JUN 20

LIB

tion.

AUM

Sacrifice, gifts, penance, study, observances and regulations, all this ends in destrucThere is no end for knowledge; therefore one whose self is tranquil, whose senses are subjugated, who is devoid of the idea that this or that is mine, who is devoid of egoism, is released from all sins by pure knowledge.-Anugita.

THEOSOPHY

Vol. VI

JUNE, 1918

No. 8

No Theosophical Society, as such, is responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document.

Where any article, or statement, has the author's name attached, he alone is responsible, and for those which are unsigned, the Editors will be accountable.

STUDIES IN ISIS UNVEILED
X.

MAGICAL PHENOMENA-MODERN AND ANCIENT.
The accompanying article is made up of textual extracts
from Isis Unveiled, topically and sequentially arranged. The
page references from which the statements are taken, are given
at the conclusion of the article.-EDITORS.

S

CIENCE is daily and rapidly moving toward the great discoveries in chemistry and physics, organology, and anthropology. Learned men ought to be free from preconceptions and prejudices of every kind; yet, although thought and opinion are now free, scientists are still the same men as of old. An Utopian dreamer is. he who thinks that man ever changes with the evolution and development of new ideas. The soil may be well fertilized and made to yield with every year a greater and better variety of fruit; but, dig a little deeper than the stratum required for the crop, and the same earth will be found in the subsoil as was there before the first furrow was turned.

For many years we have watched the development and growth of that apple of discord-MODERN SPIRITUALISM. Familiar with its literature both in Europe and America, we have closely and eagerly witnessed its interminable controversies and compared its contradictory hypotheses. Many educated men and women-heterodox spiritualists, of course-have tried to fathom the Protean phenomena. The only result was that they came to the following conclusion: whatever may be the reason of these constant failureswhether such are to be laid at the door of the investigators themselves, or of the secret Force at work-it is at least proved that, in propor

tion as the psychological manifestations increase in frequency and variety, the darkness surrounding their origin becomes more impenetrable.

Many years of wandering among "heathen" and "Christian" magicians, occultists, mesmerizers, and the tutti quanti of white and black art, ought to be sufficient, we think, to give us a certain right to feel competent to take a practical view of this doubted and very complicated question. We have associated with the fakirs, the holy men of India, and seen them when in intercourse with the Pitris. We have watched the proceedings and modus operandi of the howling and dancing dervishes; held friendly communications with the marabouts of European and Asiatic Turkey; and the serpentcharmers of Damascus and Benares have but few secrets that we have not had the fortune to study. Therefore, when scientists who have never had an opportunity of living among these. oriental jugglers and can judge at the best but superficially, tell us that there is naught in their performances but mere tricks of prestidigitation, we cannot help feeling a profound regret for such hasty conclusions. That such pretentious claims should be made to a thorough analysis of the powers of nature, and at the same time such unpardonable neglect displayed of questions of purely physiological and psychological character, and astounding phenomena rejected without either examination or appeal, is an exhibition of inconsistency, strongly savoring of timidity, if not of moral obliquity.

Learned investigators, all very skeptical as to spirits in general and "departed human spirits" in particular, during the last twenty years have taxed their brains to invent new names for an old thing. Thus, with Mr. Crookes and Sergeant Cox, it is the "psychic force." Professor Thury of Geneva calls it the "psychode" or ectenic force; Professor Balfour Stewart, the "electro-biological power;" Faraday, the "great master of experimental philosophy in physics," but apparently a novice in psychology, superciliously termed it an "unconscious muscular action," an "unconscious cerebration,” and what not? Sir William Hamilton, a "latent thought," Dr. Carpenter, "the ideo-motor principle," etc., etc. So many scientists—so

many names.

The psychic and ectenic forces, the "ideo-motor" and "electrobiological powers;" "latent thought" and even "unconscious cerebration" theories can be condensed in two words: the kabalistic ASTRAL LIGHT. The disputants are battling about mere words. Call the phenomena force, energy, electricity or magnetism, will, or spiritpower, it will ever be the partial manifestation of the soul, whether disembodied or imprisoned for a while in its body-of a portion of that intelligent, omnipotent, and individual WILL, pervading all nature, and known, through the insufficiency of human language to correctly express psychological images, as-GOD.

There are two kinds of seership-that of the soul and that of the spirit. The seership of the ancient Pythoness, or of the modern mesmerized subject, vary but in the artificial modes adopted to in

duce the state of clairvoyance. But, as the visions of both depend upon the greater or less acuteness of the senses of the astral body, they differ very widely from the perfect, omniscient spiritual state; for, at best, the subject can get but glimpses of truth, through the veil which physical nature interposes. The astral principle, or mind, is the sentient soul, inseparable from our physical brain, which it holds in subjection, and is in its turn equally trammeled by it. This is the ego, the intellectual life-principle of man, his conscious. entity.. While it is yet within the material body, the clearness and correctness of its spiritual visions depend on its more or less intimate relation with its higher Principle. When this relation is such as to allow the most ethereal portions of the soul-essence to act independently of its grosser particles and of the brain, it can unerringly comprehend what it sees; then only is it the pure, rational, supersentient soul. That state is known in India as the Samaddi; it is the highest condition of spirituality known to man on earth. The Hindu terms Pranayama, Pratyahara, and Dharana, all relate to different psychological states, and show how much more the Sanskrit is adapted to the clear elucidation of the phenomena that are encountered by those who study this branch of psychological science, than the tongues of modern peoples, whose experiences have not yet necessitated the invention of such descriptive terms.

When the body is in the state of Dharana—a total catalepsy of the physical frame, the soul of the clairvoyant may liberate itself, and perceive things subjectively. And yet, as the sentient principle of the brain is alive and active, these pictures of the past, present, and future will be tinctured with the terrestrial perceptions of the objective world; the physical memory and fancy will be in the way of clear vision. But the seer-adept knows how to suspend the mechanical action of the brain. His visions will be as clear as truth itself, uncolored and undistorted, whereas, the clairvoyant, unable to control the vibrations of the astral waves, will perceive but more or less broken images through the medium of the brain. The seer can never take flickering shadows for realities, for his memory being as completely subjected to his will as the rest of the body, he receives impressions directly from his spirit. Between his subjective and his objective selves there are no obstructive mediums. This is the real spiritual seership, in which, according to an expression of Plato, the soul is raised above all inferior good, when we reach "that which is supreme, which is simple, pure and unchangeable, without form, color, or human qualities: the God—our Nous."

This is the state which such seers as Plotinus and Apollonius termed "Union to the Deity;" which the ancient yogins called Isvara, and the modern call "Samaddi;" but this state is as far above modern clairvoyance as the stars above glow-worms.

In those visions there is as little to be attributed to hallucination as in the glimpses which the scientist, by the help of his optical instrument, gets into the microscopic world. A man cannot perceive, touch, and converse with pure spirit through any of his bodily