LATE advices from various parts of the world seem
to indicate that, while there is an increasing interest in the phenomena
of spiritualism, especially among eminent men of science, there is also
a growing desire to learn the views of the Theosophists. The first impulse
of hostility has nearly spent itself, and the moment approaches when a
patient hearing will be given to our arguments. This was foreseen by us
from the beginning. The founders of our Society were mainly veteran Spiritualists,
who had outgrown their first amazement at the strange phenomena, and felt
the necessity to investigate the laws of mediumship to the very bottom.
Their reading of mediaeval and ancient works upon the occult sciences
had shown them that our modern phenomena were but repetitions of what
had been seen, studied, and comprehended in former epochs. In the biographies
of ascetics, mystics, theurgists, prophets, ecstatics; of astrologers,
"diviners," "magicians," "sorcerers," and
other students, subjects, or practitioners of the Occult Power in its
many branches, they found ample evidence that Western Spiritualism could
only be comprehended by the creation of a science of Comparative Psychology.
By a like synthetic method the philologists, under the lead of Eugéne
Burnouf, had unlocked the secrets of religious and philological heredity,
and exploded Western theological theories and dogmas until then deemed
impregnable.
Proceeding in this spirit, the Theosophists thought they discovered
some reasons to doubt the correctness of the spiritualistic theory that
all the phenomena of the circles must of necessity be attributed solely
to the action of spirits of our deceased friends. The ancients knew
and classified other supracorporeal entities that are capable of moving
objects, floating the bodies of mediums through the air, giving apparent
tests of the identity of dead persons, and controlling sensitives to write
and speak strange languages, paint pictures, and play on unfamiliar musical
instruments. And not only knew them, but showed how these invisible powers
might be controlled by man, and made to work these wonders at his bidding.
They found, moreover, that there were two sides of Occultism--a good and
an evil side; and that it was a dangerous and fearful thing for the inexperienced
to meddle with the latter,--dangerous to our moral as to our physical
nature. The conviction forced itself upon their minds, then, that while
the weird wonders of Spiritualism were among the most important of all
that could be studied, mediumship, without the most careful attention
to every condition, was fraught with peril.
Thus thinking, and impressed with the great importance of a thorough
knowledge of mesmerism and all other branches of Occultism, these founders
established the Theosophical Society, to read, inquire, compare, study,
experiment and expound, the mysteries of Psychology. This range of inquiry,
of course, included an investigation of Vedic, Brahmanical and other ancient
Oriental literature; for in that--especially the former, the grandest
repository of wisdom ever accessible to humanity--lay the entire mystery
of nature and of man. To comprehend modern mediumship it is, in short,
indispensable to familiarize oneself with the Yoga Philosophy; and the
aphorisms of Patanjali are even more essential than the "Divine Revelations"
of Andrew Jackson Davis. We can never know how much of the mediumistic
phenomena we must attribute to the disembodied, until it is settled
how much can be done by the embodied, human soul, and the blind
but active powers at work within those regions which are yet unexplored
by science. Not even proof of an existence beyond the grave, if it must
come to us in a phenomenal shape. This will be conceded without qualification,
we think, provided that the records of history be admitted as corroborating
the statements we have made.
The reader will observe that the primary issue between the theosophical
and spiritualistic theories of mediumistic phenomena is that the Theosophists
say the phenomena may be produced by more agencies than one, and the latter
that but one agency can be conceded, namely--the disembodied souls. There
are other differences--as, for instance, that there can be such
a thing as the obliteration of the human individuality as the result of
very evil environment; that good spirits seldom, if ever, cause physical
"manifestations"; etc. But the first point to settle is the
one here first stated; and we have shown how and in what directions the
Theosophists maintain that the investigations should be pushed.
Our East Indian readers, unlike those of Western countries who may see
these lines, do not know how warmly and stoutly these issues have been
debated, these past three or four years. Suffice it to say that, a point
having been reached where arguments seemed no longer profitable, the controversy
ceased; and that the present visit of the New York Theosophists, and their
establishment of the Bombay Headquarters, with the library, lectures,
and this journal, are its tangible results. That this step must have a
very great influence upon Western psychological science is apparent. Whether
our Committee are themselves fully competent to observe and properly expound
Eastern Psychology or not, no one will deny that Western Science must
inevitably be enriched by the contributions of the Indian, Sinhalese,
and other mystics who will now find in THE THEOSOPHIST
a channel by which to reach European and American students of Occultism,
such as was never imagined, not to say seen, before. It is our earnest
hope and belief that after the broad principles of our Society, its earnestness,
and exceptional facilities for gathering Oriental wisdom are well understood,
it will be better thought of than now by Spiritualists, and attract into
its fellowship many more of their brightest and best intellects.
Theosophy can be styled the enemy of Spiritualism with no more propriety
than of Mesmerism, or any other branch of Psychology. In this wondrous
outburst of phenomena that the Western world has been seeing since 1848,
is presented such an opportunity to investigate the hidden mysteries of
being as the world has scarcely known before. Theosophists only urge that
these phenomena shall be studied so thoroughly that our epoch shall not
pass away with the mighty problem unsolved. Whatever obstructs this--whether
the narrowness of sciolism, the dogmatism of theology or the prejudice
of any other class, should be swept aside as something hostile to the
public interest. Theosophy, with its design to search back into historic
records for proof, may be regarded as the natural outcome of phenomenalistic
Spiritualism, or as a touchstone to show the value of its pure gold. One
must know both to comprehend what is Man.
Theosophist, October, 1879 |
