In
this article, Blavatsky reflects on what it is to be a medium:
According to the newest edition of
the Imperial Dictionary, by John Ogilvie, LL.D., a medium “is a person through
whom the action of another being is said to be manifested and transmitted by
animal magnetism, or a person through whom spiritual manifestations are claimed
to be made, especially one who is said to be capable of holding intercourse
with the spirits of the deceased.”
As Occultists do not believe in any
communication with the “spirits of the deceased” in the ordinary acceptation of
the term, for the simple reason that they know that the spirits of “the
deceased” cannot and do not come down and communicate with us; and as the above
expression “by animal magnetism” would probably have been modified, if the
editor of the Imperial Dictionary had been an Occultist, we therefore are only
concerned with the first part of the definition of the word “Medium,” which
says: a medium “is a person through whom the action of another being is said to
be manifested and transmitted”; and we should like to be permitted to add: “By
the either consciously or unconsciously active will of that other being.”
It would be extremely difficult to
find on earth a human being, who could not be more or less influenced by the
“Animal Magnetism” or by the active Will (which sends out that “Magnetism”) of
another. If the beloved General rides along the front, the soldiers become all
“Mediums.” They become filled with enthusiasm, they follow him without fear,
and storm the death-dealing battery. One common impulse pervades them all; each
one becomes the “Medium” of another, the coward becomes filled with heroism,
and only he, who is no medium at all and therefore insensible to epidemic or
endemic moral influences, will make an exception, assert his independence and
run away.
The “revival preacher” will get up
in his pulpit, and although what he says is the most incongruous nonsense,
still his actions and the lamenting tone of his voice are sufficiently
impressive to produce “a change of heart” amongst, at least, the female part of
his congregation, and if he is a powerful man, even sceptics “that came to
scoff, remain to pray.” People go to the theatre and shed tears or “split their
sides” with laughter according to the character of the performance, whether it
be a pantomime, a tragedy or a farce.
There is no man, except a genuine
block-head, whose emotions and consequently whose actions cannot be influenced
in some way or other, and thereby the action of another be manifested or
transmitted through him. All men and all women and children are therefore
Mediums, and a person who is not a Medium is a monster, an abortion of nature;
because he stands without the pale of humanity.
The above definition can therefore
hardly be considered sufficient to express the meaning of the word “Medium” in
the popular acceptation of the term, unless we add a few words, and say: “A
medium is a person through whom the action of another being is said to be
manifested and transmitted to an abnormal extent by the consciously or
unconsciously active will of that other being.”
This reduces the number of “Mediums”
in the world to an extent proportionate to the space around which we draw the
line between the normal and abnormal, and it will be just as difficult to
determine who is a medium and who is not a medium, as it is to say where sanity
ends and where insanity begins. Every man has his little “weaknesses,” and
every man has his little “mediumship”; that is to say, some vulnerable point,
by which he may be taken unawares.
The one may therefore not be
considered really insane; neither can the other be called a “medium.” Opinions
often differ, whether a man is insane or not, and so they may differ as to his
mediumship. Now in practical life a man may be very eccentric, but he is not
considered insane, until his insanity reaches such a degree, that he does not
know any more what he is doing, and is therefore unable to take care of himself
or his business.
We may extend the same line of
reasoning to Mediums, and say that only such persons shall be considered
mediums, who allow other beings to influence them in the above described manner
to such an extent that they lose their self-control and have no more power or
will of their own to regulate their own actions. Now such a relinquishing of
self-control may be either active or passive, conscious or unconscious,
voluntary or involuntary, and differs according to the nature of the beings,
who exercise the said active influence over the medium.
A person may consciously and
voluntarily submit his will to another being and become his slave. This other
being may be a human being, and the medium will then be his obedient servant
and may be used by him for good or bad purposes.
This other “being” may be an idea,
such as love, greediness, hate, jealousy, avarice, or some other passion, and
the effect on the medium will be proportionate to the strength of the idea and
the amount of self-control left in the medium.
This “other being” may be an
elementary or an elemental, and the poor medium become an epileptic, a maniac
or a criminal.
This “other being” may be the man’s
own higher principle, either alone or put into rapport with another ray of the
collective universal spiritual principle, and the “medium” will then be a great
genius, a writer, a poet, an artist, a musician, an inventor, and so on.
This “other being” may be one of
those exalted beings, called Mahatmas, and the conscious and voluntary medium
will then be called their “Chela.”
Again, a person may never in his
life have heard the word “Medium” and still be a strong Medium, although
entirely unconscious of the fact. His actions may be more or less influenced
unconsciously by his visible or invisible surroundings. He may become a prey to
Elementaries or Elementals, even without knowing the meaning of these words,
and he may consequently become a thief, a murderer, a ravisher, a drunkard or a
cut-throat, and it has often enough been proved that crimes frequently become
epidemic
Or again he may by certain invisible
influences be made to accomplish acts which are not at all consistent with his
character such as previously known. He may be a great liar and for once by some
unseen influence be induced to speak the truth; he may be ordinarily very much
afraid and yet on some great occasion and on the spur of the moment commit an
act of heroism; he may be a street-robber and vagabond and suddenly do an act
of generosity, etc.
Furthermore, a medium may know the
sources from which the influence comes, or in more explicit terms, the nature
of the being, whose action is transmitted through him, or he may not know it.
He may be under the influence of his own seventh principle and imagine to be in
communication with a personal Jesus Christ, or a saint; he may be in rapport
with the “intellectual” ray of Shakespeare and write Shakespearean poetry, and
at the same time imagine that the personal spirit of Shakespeare is writing
through him, and the simple fact of his believing this or that, would make his
poetry neither better nor worse.
He may be influenced by some Adept
to write a great scientific work and be entirely ignorant of the source of his
inspiration, or perhaps imagine that it was the “spirit” of Faraday or Lord
Bacon that is writing through him, while all the while he would be acting as a
“Chela,” although ignorant of the fact.
From all this it follows that the
exercise of mediumship consists in the more or less complete giving up of
self-control, and whether this exercise is good or bad, depends entirely on the
use that is made of it and the purpose for which it is done. This again depends
on the degree of knowledge which the mediumistic person possesses, in regard to
the nature of the being to whose care he either voluntarily or involuntarily
relinquishes for a time the guardianship of his physical or intellectual
powers.
A person who entrusts
indiscriminately those faculties to the influences of every unknown power, is
undoubtedly a “crank,” and cannot be considered less insane than the one who
would entrust his money and valuables to the first stranger or vagabond that
would ask him for the same. We meet occasionally such people, although they are
comparatively rare, and they are usually known by their idiotic stare and by
the fanaticism with which they cling to their ignorance.
Such people ought to be pitied
instead of blamed, and if it were possible, they should be enlightened in
regard to the danger which they incur; but whether a Chela, who consciously and
willingly lends for a time his mental faculties to a superior being, whom he
knows, and in whose purity of motives, honesty of purpose, intelligence, wisdom
and power he has full confidence, can be considered a “Medium” in the vulgar
acceptation of the term, is a question which had better be left to the reader —
after due consideration of the above to decide for himself.
(“Are chelas mediums?” Theosophist,
June 1884, p.210-211; CW 6, p.223-227)
No comments:
Post a Comment