The Golden Star

VISION 5

Spiritualism

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“In an article in the Spiritual Scientist (Boston) of October 14th, 1875, she humorously refers to the ‘mighty army of Indian controls,’ and ‘Miscellaneous Guides’ of our bright ‘Summerland,’ and she mentions the elementary Diakka, Esprits malins et farfadets, and other such-like unreliable and ignorant denizens of the spirit-world, arraying themselves in pompous, world-known and famous names, who foist upon bewildered witnesses, or sitters at séances such deplorable, unheard-of slip-slop trash, and betimes something worse, that more than one person, who previously was an earnest believer in the spiritual philosophy, now suddenly and silently takes to his heels. She also mentions the invisible, mysterious worlds swarming with beings, the true nature of which is still an unriddled mystery to everyone, though their existence has been proved by millions of wise people through countless ages. Spiritualism, in the hands of an Adept, becomes Magic, for he is learned in the art of blending together the laws of the Universe without breaking any of them and thereby violating Nature. In the hands of an experienced medium, on the other hand, Spiritualism becomes unconscious sorcery; for, by allowing himself to become the helpless tool of a variety of spirits, of whom he knows nothing save what the latter permit him to know, the medium opens, unknown to himself, a door of communication between the two worlds, through which emerge the blind forces of Nature lurking in the Astral Light, as well as good and bad spirits. The Adept controls the spirits instead of being controlled by them. The inspired Sybils and Pythonesses of olden times were mediums too, but they were entirely guided by their High Priests and these were initiated into the Esoteric Theurgy and Mysteries of the Temples. These High Priests were Magicians of an elevated order, and all the secrets of their Theology, which included Magic, or the art of invoking ministering spirits, were in their hands. For these reasons the oracles of olden times were of a true and sacred nature, and far removed from the rubbish pronounced by most modern mediums in these ‘enlightened’ days, due to the pranks and capers of their controlling elementals. (*see Publisher’s note in sidebar)

“If similar attempts were made in ancient times by illegal mediums, outside the Temples, such mediums were judged to be obsessed or possessed, and according to the Bible ‘they had seven devils in them’ and were put to death. Such mediums, who are without the proper guidance of an Adept, deserve our pity, for it is quite possible for the elemental forces to compel them to cheat when under control. They become the helpless tools of unprogressed invisible beings, full of malice and wickedness. ‘It is a more dangerous thing to play with the mysteries of life and death than most Spiritualists imagine,’ says Blavatsky, and this is absolutely true.

“It is not without good cause that the authorities of the Roman Church are so opposed to Spiritualism; they know the dangers attending these practices, and in the Catholic World, vol. IX, p. 290, it is stated that: ‘The Church has declared that the practices of Spiritism, evocation of spirits, consulting them, or holding communication with them—that is, necromancy—to be unlawful, and she prohibits it all to her children in the most positive manner.’

“It is no manner of use to deny spiritual phenomena, as has been the easy way out of materialism by ascribing to epilepsy the divine entity of the Socratic Daimon, Cicero’s Divinum Quiddam, or the ghost of Caesar; or by saying that the prophetic oracles of the Jewish Bath-Kol are due to hereditary hysteria! This is mere unsupported assertion and false pretence.

“There is a further confusion of terms when elementaries and elementals are discussed and mixed up indiscriminately. Elementaries are earth-bound human spirits, and elementals are nature spirits. The elementaries are those human spirits who—according to the Kabalists—have irretrievably lost every chance of immortality.

“Communication between the Minds—or even Souls of the departed—is possible if the human being on the earth-plane knows how to reach out to the worlds where these Minds and Souls dwell between incarnations. But this is not for the average human being; and it requires strict training under expert guidance during many incarnations before such contacts can be made. They can never take place in the séance room which is filled with elemental spirits, through ‘inspirational’ mediums or ‘spirit’ guides. But communication between pure mortals and pure Souls is possible, just as it is possible between bad men and bad spirits. And I am afraid that ignorance of the technique of communication with pure Souls must also be classified as BAD, for if an ignorant person meddles with divine principles, he commits an evil action and draws evil results—in the form of evil or ignorant elementals—towards him. He becomes then a Sorcerer; or, if female, a Witch!

“For the Holy Communion between pure mortals and Divine Souls we require the Cosmic Mediator; not the passive, ignorant, and gullible medium, who does not know how to distinguish between good and bad spirits, elementaries, or elementals.

“By Spirits, I mean the Sons of God, and it is only the Highest Adept who can contact these Holy Beings.

“It is therefore debasing the term Spirit when the Spiritualists apply it to the impure, or imperfect beings who produce the majority of their phenomena.

“In the 16th chapter of the Harivamsha Parva—a supplement to the Mahâbhârata—you can read of the raising of Spirits and other spiritual phenomena. Now compare how East meets West in the teachings of Manu, Kapila, and other Philosophers of ancient India, when we consider what A. R. Wallace, F.R.S., said in his Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, and On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism.

“ ‘Having . . . been led, by a strict induction from facts, to a belief—firstly, in the existence of a number of preterhuman intelligences of various grades; and secondly, that some of these intelligences, although usually invisible and intangible to us, can and do act on matter, and do influence our minds—I am surely following a strictly logical and scientific course, in seeing how far this doctrine will enable us to account for some of those residual phenomena which Natural Selection alone will not explain. In the tenth chapter of my Contributions to the theory of Natural Selection I have pointed out what I consider to be some of these residual phenomena; and I have suggested that they may be due to the action of some of the various intelligences above referred to. I maintained, and still maintain, that this view is one which is logically tenable, and is in no way inconsistent with a thorough acceptance of the grand doctrine of evolution through Natural Selection.’

“In India there are no séances dependent upon ‘conditions’ of darkness, or ‘harmonious circles,’ and Indian phenomena are never sporadic and spontaneous (apart from the independent apparitions of ghosts), but they depend entirely upon the will of the operator, whether a Holy Yogî, a Sâddhu, or a Jaddugar, or sorcerer. These phenomena are often the counterparts of what are termed miracles in the Bible.

“In the London Spiritualist of January 18th, 1878, Dr. Peebles states: ‘I have met not only Singhalese and Chinese Spiritualists, but hundreds of Hindu Spiritualists, gifted with the powers of conscious mediumship.’ He quotes a Hindu gentleman, by the name of Peary Chand Mittra, of Calcutta, who blesses God that his ‘inner vision is being more and more developed’ and that he talks ‘with spirits.’ But when Dr. Peebles termed these people ‘Spiritualists’ he was under a misapprehension, for no Hindu is a Spiritualist as we understand the appellation in the Western World. A Hindu does not believe in continued conscious existence—as do the Spiritualists—though he assigns for the holy, sinless soul, which has reached Swarga, or heaven, and Moksha, a period of many millions and even quadrillions of years. The Hindu believes in cyclic transmigrations of the soul, during which there must be periods in which the soul loses its recollections as well as the consciousness of its individuality. The Hindus believe in ‘Bhûts’—which are the earthbound spirits, or elementaries, who, having become wicked devils, are liable to be annihilated any day under the potent curses of the Brâhman exorcist. Human beings are often obsessed by a Bhût, and the most loving couples are often parted when the woman is attacked by such a Bhût; who never attacks men. In the same letter quoted just now Dr. Peebles gives a very happy definition of what constitutes an Indian medium; he says: ‘Some of the best mediums that it has been my good fortune to know, I met in Ceylon and India. And these were not mediums; for, indeed, they held converse with the Pays and Pisachas, having their habitations in the air, the water, the fire, in rocks and trees, in the clouds, the rain, the dew, in mines and caverns.’

“Madame Blavatsky says: ‘This proves that these mediums who were not mediums, were no more Spiritualists than they were mediums!’ No, the Yogî, having successfully served his apprenticeship during his years of meditation and probation, suffering the most cruel privations in order to become utterly insensible to heat or cold, hunger or thirst, and to overcome the dominion of the fleshly body, and to elevate the material Mind into the higher vibrations of the Astral worlds, by means of existing outside the body instead of within—the Yogî, I repeat, can assume control of the elementals and elementaries only when he has first attained complete sovereignty over himself. He is horrified when told that the Spiritualists actually invite these beings to their séances and allow them to take control of a medium, when it is certain that their mere presence alone is a pollution. You see—these wise Yogîn know the powers they are dealing with, whilst the Spiritualist is ignorant of their dangers.

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