On this subject, William Judge wrote
the following:
«
THE PRECIPITATION PHENOMENON
The word "precipitation"
means to throw upon or within. This term is used in chemistry to describe the
fact of a substance, held or suspended in fluid, being made to disengage itself
from the intimate union with the fluid and to fall upon the bottom of the
receptacle in which it is held; in the use of applied electricity it may be
used to describe the throwing upon a metal or other plate, of particles of
another metal held in suspension in the fluid of the electric bath.
These two things are done every day in
nearly all the cities of the world, and are so common as to be ordinary. In
photography the same effect is described by the word "develop", which
is the appearing on the surface of the sensitized gelatine plate of the image
caught by the camera.
In chemical precipitation the atoms
fall together and become visible as a separate substance in the fluid; in
photography the image made by an alteration of the atoms composing the whole
surface appears in the mass of the sensitized plate.
In both cases we have the coming
forth into visibility of that which before was invisible. In the case of
precipitation of a substance in the form of a powder at the bottom of the
receptacle containing the fluid, there is distinctly, (a) before the
operation an invisibility of a mass of powder, (b) upon applying the
simple means for precipitation the sudden coming into sight of that which was
before unseen.
And precisely as the powder may be
precipitated in the fluid, so also from the air there can be drawn and
precipitated the various metals and substances suspended therein. This has been
so often done by chemists and others that no proofs are needed.
The ancients and all the occultists
of past and present have always asserted that all metals, substances, pigments,
and materials exist in the air held in suspension, and this has been admitted
by modern science. Gold, silver, iron and other metals may be volatilized by
heat so as to float unseen in the air, and this is also brought about every day
in various mines and factories of the world.
It may therefore be regarded as
established beyond controversy that as a physical fact precipitation of
substances, whether as merely carbon or metal, is possible and is done every
day. We can then take another step with the subject.
Is it possible to precipitate by
will-power and use of occult laws upon a surface of wood, paper, metal, stone,
or glass a mass of substance in lines or letters or other combinations so as to
produce an intelligible picture or a legible message?
For modern science this is not
possible yet; for the Adept it is possible, has been done, and will be still
performed. It has also been done unintelligently and as mere passive agents or
channels, among mediums in the ranks of European and American spiritualists.
But in this latter case it has the
value, and no more than that, of the operations of nature upon and with natural
objects, to be imitated by conscious and intelligently-acting man when he has
learned how, by what means, and when. The medium is only a passive controlled
agent or channel who is ignorant of the laws and forces employed, as well as
not knowing what is the intelligence at work, nor whether that intelligence is
outside or a part of the medium.
The Adept, on the other hand, knows
how such a precipitation can be done, what materials may be used, where those
materials are obtainable, how they can be drawn out of the air, and what
general and special laws must be taken into account. That this operation can be
performed I know of my own knowledge; I have seen it done, watching the process
as it proceeded, and have seen the effect produced without a failure. One of
these instances I will give later on.
PARTICULARITIES IN THE PRECIPITATION
OF THE LETTERS OF THE MASTERS
Precipitation of words or messages
from Adepts has been much spoken of in the Theosophical Society's work, and the
generality of persons have come to some wrong conclusions as to what they must
be like, as well as how they are done and what materials may be and are used.
Most suppose as follows:
1.
That the precipitated messages are on rice paper;
2.
That they are invariably in one or two colors of some
sort of chalk or carbon;
3.
That in every case they are incorporated into the
fibre of the paper so as to be ineradicable;
4.
That in each case when finished they came from Tibet
or some other distant place invisibly through the air.
5.
That all of them are done by the hand of the Adept and
are in his handwriting as commonly used by him or them.
While it is true in fact that each
of the above particulars may have been present in some of the cases and that
every one of the above is possible, it is not correct that the above are right
as settled facts and conclusions. For the way, means, methods, conditions, and
results of precipitation are as varied and numerous as any other operation of
nature.
The following is laid down by some
of the masters of this art as proper to be kept in mind:
a)
A precipitated picture or message may be on any sort
of paper.
b)
It may be in black or any other pigment.
c)
It may be in carbon, chalk, ink, paint, or other fluid
or substance.
d)
It may be on any sort of surface or any kind of
material.
e)
It may be incorporated in the fibre of the paper and
be thus ineffacable, or lie upon the surface and be easily eradicated.
f)
It may come through the air as a finished message on
paper or otherwise, or it may be precipitated at once at the place of reception
on any kind of substance and in any sort of place.
g)
It is not necessarily in the handwriting of the Adept,
and may be in the hand comprehended by the recipient and a language foreign to
the Adept, or it may be in the actual hand of the Adept, or lastly in a cipher
known to a few and not decipherable by any one without its key.
As matter of fact the majority of
the messages precipitated or sent by the Adepts in the history of the
Theosophical Society have been in certain forms of English writing not the
usual writing of those Adepts, but adopted for use in the Theosophical movement
because of a fore-knowledge that the principal language of that movement would
for some time be the English.
Some messages have been written and
precipitated in Hindi or Urdu, some in Hindustani, and some in a cipher
perfectly unintelligible to all but a few persons. These assertions I make upon
personal knowledge founded on observation, on confirmation through an
inspection of messages, and on logical deduction made from facts and
philosophical propositions.
In the first place, the Adepts
referred to [Kuthumi and Morya] — and
not including silent ones of European birth — are Asiatics whose languages are
two different Indian ones: hence their usual handwriting is not English and not
Roman in the letters.
Secondly, it is a fact long suspected and to
many well known both in and out of the Theosophical Society that the Fraternity
of Adepts has a cipher which they employ for many of their communications:
that, being universal, is not their handwriting.
Thirdly, in order to send any one a
precipitated message in English it is not necessary for the Adept to know that
language; if you know it, that is enough; for, putting the thought in your
brain, he sees it there as your language in your brain, and using that model
causes the message to appear. But if he is acquainted with the language you
use, it is all the easier for the Adept to give you the message exactly as he forms
it in his brain at first.
(Note: Blavatsky explained that the Master sends the message through his
thoughts to one of his disciples, who is going to make the precipitation, and
the disciple who knows English can transcribe the teacher's thoughts in that
language.)
The same law applies to all cases of
precipitation by an alleged spirit through a medium who does not know at all
how it is done: in such a case it is all done by natural and chiefly
irresponsible agents who can only imitate what is in the brains concerned in
the matter.
These points being considered, the
questions remain,
How is it all done, what is the
process, what are the standards of judgment, of criticism, and of proof to the
outer sense, is imposition possible, and, if so, how may it be prevented?
THE PRECIPITATED LETTERS CAN ALSO BE
FAKE
As to the last, the element of faith
or confidence can never be omitted until one has gotten to a stage where within
oneself the true standard and power of judging are developed. Just as forgery
may be done on this physical plane, so also may it be done on the other and
unseen planes and its results shown on this.
Ill-disposed souls may work
spiritual wickedness, and ignorant living persons may furnish idle, insincere,
and lying models for not only ill-disposed souls that are out of the body, but
also for mere sprites that are forces in nature of considerable power but
devoid of conscience and mind.
Mind is not needed in them, for they
use the mind of man, and merely with this aid work the hidden laws of matter. But
this furnishes some protection illustrated in the history of spiritualism,
where so many messages are received that on their face are nonsense and
evidently but the work of elementals who simply copy what the medium or the
sitter is vainly holding in mind. In those cases some good things have come,
but they are never beyond the best thought of the persons who, living, thus attempt
to speak with the dead.
Any form of writing once written on
earth is imprinted in the astral light and remains there as model. And if it
has been used much, it is all the more deeply imprinted. Hence the fact that H.
P. Blavatsky, who once was the means for messages coming from the living
Adepts, is dead and gone is not a reason why the same writing should not be
used again.
It was used so much in letters to
Mr. Sinnett from which Esoteric Buddhism was written and in many other
letters from the same source that its model or matrix is deeply cut in the
astral light. For it would be folly and waste of time for the Adepts to make
new models every time any one died. They would naturally use the old model.
There is no special sanctity in the
particular model used by them, and any good clairvoyant can find that matrix in
the astral light. Hence from this, if true, two things follow:
a)
that new communications need not be in a new style of
writing, and
b)
there is a danger that persons who seek either
clairvoyants or mezmerized lucides may be imposed on and made to think
they have messages from the Adepts, when in fact they have only imitations.
The safeguard therein is that, if
these new messages are not in concordance with old ones known to be from their
first appointed channel, they are not genuine in their source, however
phenomenally made.
Of course for the person who has the
power inside to see for himself, the safeguard is different and more certain.
This position accords with occult philosophy, it has been stated by the Adepts
themselves, it is supported by the facts of psychic investigation inside the
ranks of Spiritualism, of Theosophy, of human life.
It is well known that mediums have
precipitated messages on slates, on paper, and on even the human skin, which in
form and manner exactly copied the hand of one dead and gone, and also of the
living. The model for the writing was in the aura of the enquirer, as most
mediums are not trained enough to be able independently to seek out and copy
astral models not connected with some one present.
I exclude all cases where the
physical or astral hand of the medium wrote the message, for the first is fraud
and the second a psychological trick. In the last case, the medium gazing into
the astral light sees the copy or model there and merely makes a facsimile
of what is thus seen, but which is invisible to the sitter.
There is no exemption from law in
favor of the Adepts, and the images they make or cause to be made in astral ether
remain as the property of the race; indeed in their case, as they have a sharp
and vivid power of engraving, so to say, in the astral light, all the images
made there by them are deeper and more lasting than those cut by the ordinary
and weak thoughts and acts of our undeveloped humanity.
The best rule for those who happen
to think they are in communication with Adepts through written messages is to
avoid those that contradict what the Adepts have said before; that give the lie
to their system of philosophy; that, as has happened, pretend that H.P. Blavatsky
was mistaken in her life for what she said and is now sorry.
All such, whether done with
intention or without it, are merely bombinans in vacuo, sound that has
no significance, a confusion between words and knowledge delusive and vain
altogether. And as we know that the Adepts have written that they have no
concern with the progress of selfish science, it must be true that messages
which go on merely to the end of establishing some scientific proposition or
that are not for the furtherance especially of Brotherhood cannot be from them,
but are the product of other minds, a mere extension through occult natural law
of theories of weak men.
This leads to the proposition that: Precipitation
of a message is not per se evidence that it is from one of our White
Adepts of the Great Lodge.
HOW TO DIFFER THE FALSE MESSAGES
FROM THE TRUE MESSAGES?
The outer senses cannot give a safe
final judgment upon a precipitated message, they can only settle such physical
questions as how it came, through whom, the credibility of the person, and
whether any deception on the objective plane has been practiced.
The inner senses, including the
great combining faculty or power of intuition, are the final judges. The outer
have to do solely with the phenomenal part, the inner deal with the causes and
the real actors and powers.
As precipitations have been
phenomenally made through "controlled" mediums who are themselves
ignorant of the laws and forces at work, these are but strange phenomena
proving the existence of a power in Nature either related to human mind or
wholly unrelated to it. These are not the exercise of Occult Arts, but simply
the operation of natural law, however recondite and obscure.
They are like the burning of a
flame, the falling of water, or the rush of the lightning, whereas when the
Adept causes a flame to appear where there is no wick, or a sound to come where
there is no vibrating visible surface, occult art is using the same laws and
forces which with the medium are automatically and unconsciously operated by
subtle parts of the medium's nature and "nature spirits", as well as
what we know as kama-lokic human entities, in combination.
And here the outer senses deal solely
with the outer phenomena, being unable to touch in the least on the unseen
workings behind. So they can only decide whether a physical fraud has been
practiced; they can note the day, the hour, the surrounding circumstances, but
no more.
But if one hitherto supposed to be
in communication with the White Adepts comes to us and says "Here is a
message from one of Those", then if we have not independent power in
ourselves of deciding the question on inner knowledge, the next step is either
to believe the report or disbelieve it.
In the case of H.P. Blavatsky, in
whose presence and through whom messages were said to come from the White
Adepts, it was all the time, at the final analysis, a matter of faith in those
who confessedly had and have no independent personal power to know by the use
of their own inner senses. But there intuition, one of the inner powers,
decided for the genuineness of the report and the authentication of the
messages.
She herself put it tersely in this
way:
-
"If you think no Mahatma wrote the theories I
have given of man and nature and if you do not believe my report, then you have
to conclude that I did it all".
The latter conclusion would lead to
the position that her acts, phenomena, and writings put her in the position
usually accorded by us to a Mahatma. As to the letters or messages of a
personal nature, each one had and has to decide for himself whether or not to
follow the advice given.
MESSAGES FROM THE MASTERS INCLUDED
IN OTHER LETTERS
Another class of cases is where a
message is found in a closed letter, on the margin or elsewhere on the sheet.
The outer senses decide whether the writer of the letter inserted the supposed
message or had some one else do it, and that must be decided on what is known
of the character of the person. If you decide that the correspondent did not
write it nor have anyone else do so, but that it was injected phenomenally,
then the inner senses must be used.
If they are untrained, certainly the
matter becomes one of faith entirely, unless intuition is strong enough to
decide correctly that a wise as well as powerful person caused the writing to
appear there.
Many such messages have been
received in the history of the Theosophical Society. Some came in one way, some
in another; one might be in a letter from a member of the Society, another in a
letter from a outsider wholly ignorant of these matters. In every case, unless
the recipient had independent powers developed within, no judgment on mere
outer phenomena would be safe.
It is very difficult to find cases
such as the above, because first, they are extremely rare, and second,
the persons involved do not wish to relate them, since the matter transmitted
had a purely personal bearing.
A fancy may exist that in America or
England or London such messages, generally considered bogus by enemies and
outsiders, are being constantly sent and received, and that persons in various
quarters are influenced to this or that course of action by them, but this is
pure fancy, without basis in fact so far as the knowledge and experience of the
writer extend.
While precipitations phenomenally by
the use of occult power and in a way unknown to science are possible and have
occurred, that is not the means employed by the White Adepts in communicating
with those thus favored. They have disciples with whom communication is already
established and carried on, most generally through the inner ear and eye, but
sometimes through the prosaic mail.
In these cases no one else is
involved and no one else has the right to put questions. The disciple reserves
his communications for the guidance of his own action, unless he or she is
directed to tell another. To spread broad-cast a mass of written communications
among those who are willing to accept them without knowing how to judge would
be the sheerest folly, only productive of superstition and blind credulity.
This is not the aim of the Adepts
nor the method they pursue. And this digression will be excused, it being
necessary because the subject of precipitation as a fact has been brought up
very prominently.
I may further digress to say that no
amount of precipitations, however clear of doubt and fraud as to time, place,
and outward method, would have the slightest effect on my mind or action unless
my own intuition and inner senses confirmed them and showed them to be from a
source which should call for my attention and concurrence.
How, then, is this precipitation
done, and what is the process?
HOW IS PRECIPITATION CARRIED OUT?
This question brings up the whole of
the philosophy offered in the Secret Doctrine. For if the postulate of the
metaphysical character of the Cosmos is denied, if the supreme power of the
disciplined mind is not admitted, if the actual existence of an inner and real
world is negatived, if the necessity and power of the image-making faculty are
disallowed, then such precipitation is an impossibility, always was, and always
will be.
Power over mind, matter, space, and
time depends on several things and positions. Needed for this are: Imagination
raised to its highest limit, desire combined with will that wavers not, and a
knowledge of the occult chemistry of Nature. All must be present or there will
be no result.
Imagination is the power to make in
the ether an image. This faculty is limited by any want of the training of mind
and increased by good mental development. In ordinary persons imagination is
only a vain and fleeting fancy which makes but a small impression comparatively
in the ether.
This power, when well-trained, makes
a matrix in ether wherein each line, word, letter, sentence, color, or other
mark is firmly and definitely made. Will, well-trained, must then be used to
draw from the ether the matter to be deposited, and then, according to the laws
of such an operation, the depositing matter collects in masses within the
limits of the matrix and becomes from its accumulation visible on the surface
selected. The will, still at work, has then to cut off the mass of matter from
its attraction to that from whence it came.
This is the whole operation, and who
then is the wiser?
Those learned in the schools laugh,
and well they may, for there is not in science anything to correspond, and many
of the positions laid down are contrary to several received opinions. But in
Nature there are vast numbers of natural effects produced by ways wholly
unknown to science, and Nature does not mind the laughter, nor should any
disciple.
But how is it possible to inject
such a precipitation into a closed letter? The ether is all-pervading, and the
envelope or any other material bar is no bar to it. In it is carried the matter
to be deposited, and as the whole operation is done on the other side of
visible nature up to the actual appearance of the deposit, physical
obstructions do not make the slightest difference.
It is necessary to return for a
moment to the case of precipitations through mediums. Here the matrix needs no
trained imagination to make it nor trained will to hold it. In the astral light
the impressions are cut and remain immovable; these are used by the elementals
and other forces at work, and no disturbing will of sitter being able to
interfere — simply from blind ignorance — there is no disturbance of the
automatic unconscious work. In the sitter's aura are thousands of impressions
which remain unmoved because all attention has been long ago withdrawn. And the
older or simpler they are the more firmly do they exist. These constitute also
a matrix through which the nature spirits work.
BLAVATSKY’S PRECIPITATION
I can properly finish this with the
incident mentioned at the beginning. It was with H.P. Blavatsky. I was sitting
in her room beside her, the distance between us being some four feet. In my
hand I held a book she never had had in her possession and that I had just
taken from the mail. It was clear of all marks, its title page was fresh and
clean, no one had touched it since it left the bookseller.
I examined its pages and began to
read. In about five minutes a very powerful current of what felt like
electricity ran up and down my side on the skin, and I looked up at her. She
was looking at me and said:
- "What do you read?"
I had forgotten the title, as it was
one I had never seen before, and so I turned back to the title page. There at
the top on the margin where it had not been before was a sentence of two lines
of writing in ink, and the ink was wet, and the writing was that of H.P. Blavatsky
who sat before me.
She had not touched the book, but by
her knowledge of occult law, occult chemistry, and occult will, she had
projected out of the ink-bottle before her the ink to make the sentence, and of
course it was in her own handwriting, as that was the easiest way to do it.
Hence my own physical system was used to do the work, and the instant of its
doing was when I felt the shock on the skin.
This is to be explained in the way I
have outlined, or it is to be all brushed aside as a lie or as a delusion of
mine. But those last I can not accept, for I know to the contrary, and further
I know that the advice, for such it was, in that sentence was good. I followed
it, and the result was good.
Several other times also have I seen
her precipitate on different surfaces, and she always said it was no proof of
anything whatever save the power to do the thing, admitting that black and
white magicians could do the same thing, and saying that the only safety for
any one in the range of such forces was to be pure in motive, in thought, and
in act. »
(The Path, October and November 1894)
(Note: and in another article William Judge detailed more
on how Masters send and materialize their letters, and what he said about it,
you can read here.)
