This is the sixth chapter of the
series of articles titled “Studies in Isis
Unveiled” published by Theosophy
journal.
Contact with higher entities vs contact with lower
entities
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
MAGIC is spiritual WISDOM; nature,
the material ally, pupil and servant of the magician. One common vital
principle pervades all things, and this is controllable by the perfected human
will. The trinity of nature is the lock of magic, the trinity of man the key
that fits it.
To comprehend the principles of
natural law involved, the reader must keep in mind the fundamental propositions
of the Oriental philosophy.
1st. There is no miracle. Everything
that happens is the result of law – eternal, immutable, ever active. Apparent
miracle is but the operation of forces antagonistic to what Dr. W. B.
Carpenter, F.R.S. – a man of great learning but little knowledge – calls
"the well-ascertained laws of nature." Like many of his class, Dr.
Carpenter ignores the fact that there may be laws once "known," now
unknown to science.
2nd. Nature is triune: there is a
visible, objective nature; an invisible, indwelling, energizing nature, the
exact model of the other, and its vital principle; and, above these two, spirit,
source of all forces, alone eternal, and indestructible. The lower two
constantly change; the higher third does not.
3rd. Man is also triune: he has his
objective, physical body; his vitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man;
and these two are brooded over and illuminated by the third – the sovereign,
the immortal spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with the
latter, he becomes an immortal entity.
4th. Magic, as a science, is the
knowledge of these principles, and of the way by which the omniscience and
omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature's forces may be acquired
by the individual while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application
of this knowledge in practice.
5th. Arcane knowledge misapplied, is
sorcery; beneficently used, true magic or WISDOM.
6th. Mediumship is the opposite of
adeptship; the medium is the passive instrument of foreign influences; the
adept actively controls himself and all inferior potencies.
7th. All things that ever were, that
are, or that will be, having their record upon the astral light, or tablet of
the unseen universe, the initiated adept, by using the vision of his own
spirit, can know all that has been known or can be known.
8th. Races of men differ in
spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or any other external quality; among some
peoples seership naturally prevails, among others mediumship. Some are addicted
to sorcery, and transmit its secret rules of practice from generation to
generation, with a range of psychical phenomena, more or less wide, as the
result.
9th. One phase of magical skill is
the voluntary and conscious withdrawal of the inner man (astral form) from the
outer man (physical body). In the cases of some mediums withdrawal occurs, but
it is unconscious and involuntary. With the latter the body is more or less
cataleptic at such times; but with the adept the absence of the astral form
would not be noticed, for the physical senses are alert, and the individual
appears only as though in a fit of abstraction – "a brown study," as
some call it.
To the movements of the wandering
astral form neither time nor space offer obstacles. The thaumaturgist,
thoroughly skilled in occult science, can cause himself (that is, his physical
body) to seem to disappear, or to apparently take on any shape that he
may choose. He may make his astral form visible, or he may give it protean
appearances. In both cases these results will be achieved by a mesmeric
hallucination of the senses of all witnesses, simultaneously brought on. This
hallucination is so perfect that the subject of it would stake his life that he
saw a reality, when it is but a picture in his own mind, impressed upon his
consciousness by the irresistible will of the mesmerizer.
But, while the astral form can go
anywhere, penetrate any obstacle, and be seen at any distance from the physical
body, the latter is dependent upon ordinary methods of transportation. It may
be levitated under prescribed magnetic conditions, but not pass from one
locality to another. Hence we discredit all stories of the aerial flight of
mediums in body, for such would be miracle, and miracle we repudiate. Inert
matter may be, in certain cases and under certain conditions, disintegrated,
passed through walls, and recombined, but living animal organisms cannot.
The adept can stimulate the
movements of the natural forces in plants and animals in a preternatural
degree. Such experiments are not obstructions of nature, but quickenings; the
conditions of intenser vital action are given.
The adept can control the sensations
and alter the conditions of the physical and astral bodies of other persons not
adepts; he can also govern and employ, as he chooses, the spirits of the
elements. He cannot control the immortal spirit of any human being, living or
dead, for all such spirits are alike sparks of the Divine Essence, and not subject
to any foreign domination.
A familiar example of one phase of
the power of the soul or astral body to manifest itself, is the phenomenon of
the so-called spirit-hand. In the presence of certain mediums these seemingly
detached members will gradually develop from a luminous nebula, pick up a
pencil, write messages, and then dissolve before the eyes of the witnesses.
Many such cases are recorded by competent and trustworthy persons. These
phenomena are real, and require serious consideration.
The fluttering phantom-hand is an
emanation from the medium. The "force concerned in the phenomenon" is
the will of the medium, exercised unconsciously to the outer man, which for the
time is semi-paralyzed and cataleptic; the phantom-hand is an extrusion of the
man's inner or astral member.
The same principle involved in the
unconscious extrusion of a phantom limb by the cataleptic medium, applies to
the projection of his entire "double" or astral body. This may be
withdrawn by the will of the medium's own inner self, without his retaining in
his physical brain any recollection of such an intent – that is one phase of
man's dual capacity. It may also be effected by elementary and elemental
spirits, to whom he may stand in the relation of mesmeric subject.
Dr. Fairfield is right in one
position taken, viz.: mediums are usually diseased, and in many if not most
cases the children or near connection of mediums. But he is wholly wrong in attributing
all psychical phenomena to morbid physiological conditions. The adepts of
Eastern magic are uniformly in perfect mental and bodily health, and in fact
the voluntary and independent production of phenomena is impossible to any
others. We have known many, and never a sick man among them. The adept retains
perfect consciousness; shows no change of bodily temperature, or other sign of
morbidity, but will do his feats anywhere and everywhere; and instead of being
passive and in subjection to a foreign influence, rules the force with an iron
will. The medium and the adept are as opposed as the poles. The body, soul, and
spirit of the adept are all conscious and working in harmony, and the body of
the medium is an inert clod, and even his soul may be away in a dream while its
habitation is occupied by another.
A medium needs either a foreign
intelligence – whether it be spirit or living mesmerizer – to overpower his
physical and mental parts, or some factitious means to induce trance. An adept
requires but a few minutes of "self-contemplation." The adept has no
need of extraneous aids – the simple exertion of his will-power is
all-sufficient.
The mediums for real manifestations
are least able, as a rule, to comprehend or explain them. The medium need not
exercise any will-power. It suffices that she or he shall know what is
expected by the investigators. The medium's "spiritual" entity, when
not obsessed by other spirits, will act outside the will or consciousness of
the physical being, as surely as it acts when within the body during a fit of
somnambulism. Its perceptions, external and internal, will be acuter and far
more developed, precisely as they are in the sleep-walker. And this is why
"the materialized form sometimes knows more than the medium," for the
intellectual perception of the astral entity is proportionately as much higher
than the corporeal intelligence of the medium in its normal state, as the
spirit entity is finer than itself. Generally the medium will be found cold,
the pulse will have visibly changed, and a state of nervous prostration
succeeds the phenomena, bunglingly and without discrimination attributed to
disembodied spirits; whereas, but one-third of them may be produced by the
latter, another third by elementals, and the rest by the astral double of the
medium himself.
The mesmerizer wills a thing, and if
he is powerful enough, that thing is done. The medium, even if he had an honest purpose to
succeed, may get no manifestation at all; the less he exercises his will,
the better the phenomena: the more he feels anxious, the less he is likely to
get anything; to mesmerize requires a positive nature, to be a medium a
perfectly passive one. This is the Alphabet of Spiritualism, and no medium is
ignorant of it.
It is erroneous to speak of a medium
having powers developed. A passive medium has no power. He has a certain
moral and physical condition which induces emanations, or an aura, in which his
controlling intelligences can live, and by which they manifest themselves. He
is only the vehicle through which they display their power. This aura
varies day by day. It is an external effect resulting from interior causes. The
medium's moral state determines the kind of spirits that come; and the spirits
that come reciprocally influence the medium, intellectually, physically, and
morally. The perfection of his mediumship is in ratio to his passivity, and the
danger he incurs is in equal ratio. When he is fully "developed" –
perfectly passive – his own astral spirit may be benumbed, and even crowded out
of his body, which is then occupied by an elemental, or, what is worse, by a
human fiend of the eighth sphere, who proceeds to use it as his own. But too
often the cause of the most celebrated crime is to be sought in such
possessions.
The reader may inquire wherein
consists the difference between a medium and a magician? The medium is one
through whose astral spirit other spirits can manifest, making their presence
known by various kinds of phenomena. Whatever these consist in, the medium is only
a passive agent in their hands. He can neither command their presence,
nor will their absence; can never compel the performance of any special
act, nor direct its nature. The magician, on the contrary, can summon and
dismiss spirits at will; can perform many feats of occult power through his
own spirit; can compel the presence and assistance of spirits of lower grades
than himself, and effect transformations in the realm of nature upon animate
and inanimate bodies.
Physical phenomena are the result of
the manipulation of forces through the physical system of the medium, by the
unseen intelligences, of whatever class. In a word, physical mediumship depends
on a peculiar organization of the physical system; spiritual mediumship,
which is accompanied by a display of subjective, intellectual phenomena,
depends upon a like peculiar organization of the spiritual nature of the
medium. As the potter from one lump of clay fashions a vessel of dishonor, and
from another a vessel of honor, so, among physical mediums, the plastic astral
spirit of one may be prepared for a certain class of objective phenomena, and
that of another for a different one. Once so prepared, it appears difficult to
alter the phase of mediumship. As a rule, mediums who have been developed for
one class of phenomena, rarely change to another, but repeat the same
performance ad infinitum.
The majority of these spirits have
naught to do with the phenomena consciously and deliberately produced by the
Eastern magicians. The latter leave to sorcerers the help even of elemental
spirits and the elementary spooks. The adept has an unlimited power over both,
but he rarely uses it. For the production of physical phenomena he summons the
nature-spirits as obedient powers, not as intelligences.
Were these god-like men
"mediums," as the orthodox spiritualists will have it?
By no means, if by the term we
understand those "sick-sensitives" who are born with a peculiar
organization, and who in proportion as their powers are developed become more
and more subject to the irresistible influence of miscellaneous spirits, purely
human, elementary, or elemental. Unquestionably so, if we consider every
individual a medium in whose magnetic atmosphere the denizens of higher
invisible spheres can move, and act, and live. In such a sense every person is
a medium. Mediumship may be either 1st, self-developed; 2nd, by extraneous
influences; or 3rd, may remain latent throughout life. The reader must bear
in mind the definition of the term, for, unless this is clearly understood,
confusion will be inevitable. Mediumship of this kind may be either active
or passive, repellent or receptive, positive or negative. Mediumship is
measured by the quality of the aura with which the individual is surrounded.
This may be dense, cloudy, noisome, mephitic, nauseating to the pure spirit,
and attract only those foul beings who delight in it, as the eel does in turbid
waters, or, it may be pure, crystalline, limpid, opalescent as the morning dew.
All depends upon the moral character of the medium.
About such men as Apollonius there
gathered this heavenly nimbus. It was evolved by the power of their own souls
in close unison with their spirits; by the superhuman morality and sanctity of
their lives, and aided by frequent interior ecstatic contemplation. Such holy
men pure spiritual influences could approach. Radiating around an atmosphere of
divine beneficence, they caused evil spirits to flee before them. Not only is
it not possible for such to exist in their aura, but they cannot even remain in
that of obsessed persons, if the thaumaturgist exercises his will, or even
approaches them. This is MEDIATORSHIP, not mediumship. Such persons are
temples in which dwells the spirit of the living God [The Higher Self]; but if
the temple is defiled by the admission of an evil passion, thought or desire,
the mediator falls into the sphere of sorcery. The door is opened; the pure
spirits retire and the evil ones rush in. This is still mediatorship, evil as
it is; the sorcerer, like the pure magician, forms his own aura and subjects to
his will congenial inferior spirits.
But mediumship, as now understood
and manifested, is a different thing. Circumstances, independent of his own
volition, may, either at birth or subsequently, modify a person's aura, so that
strange manifestations, physical or mental, diabolical or angelic, may take
place. Such mediumship, as well as the above-mentioned mediatorship, has
existed on earth since the first appearance here of living man. The former is
the yielding of weak, mortal flesh to the control and suggestion of spirits and
intelligences other than one's own immortal demon [The Higher Self]. It is literally
obsession and possession; and mediums who pride themselves on
being the faithful slaves of their "guides," and who repudiate with
indignation the idea of "controlling the manifestations," could not
very well deny the fact without inconsistency. This mediumship, whether
beneficent or maleficent, is always passive. Happy are the pure in heart
who repel unconsciously, by that very cleanness of their inner nature, the dark
spirits of evil. For verily they have no other weapons of defense but that
inborn goodness and purity. Mediumism, as practiced in our days, is a more
undesirable gift than the robe of Nessus.
Physical mediumship depending upon
passivity, its antidote suggests itself naturally; let the medium cease
being passive. Spirits never control persons of positive character who are
determined to resist all extraneous influences. The weak and feeble-minded whom
they can make their victims they drive into vice. It is notorious that the best
physical mediums are either sickly, or, sometimes, what is still worse,
inclined to some abnormal vice or other.
"The tree is known by its
fruits." Side by side with passive mediums appear active mediators. We
designate them by this name for lack of a better one. The ancient witches and
wizards, and those who had a "familiar spirit," generally made of
their gifts a trade. Not so with the mediators, or hierophants. These men were
guided merely by their own personal spirit, or divine soul, and availing
themselves of the help of spirits but so far as these remain in the right path.
What we have said of mediums and the
tendency of their mediumship is not based upon conjecture, but upon actual
experience and observation. There is scarcely one phase of mediumship that we
have not seen exemplified during the past twenty-five years [from 1851 to 18764] in various countries. India, Thibet, Borneo, Siam, Egypt, Asia
Minor, America (North and South) and other parts of the world, have each
displayed to us its peculiar phase of mediumistic phenomena and magical power.
Our varied experience has taught us two important truths, viz.: that for the
exercise of the latter personal purity and the exercise of a trained and
indomitable willpower are indispensable; and that spiritualists can never
assure themselves of the genuineness of mediumistic manifestations, unless they
occur in the light and under such reasonable test conditions as would make an
attempted fraud instantly noticed.
(Note: The volume and page
references to Isis Unveiled, from which the foregoing chapter is compiled, are,
in the order of the excerpts as follows:– Volume II, 590, 635, 588, 589, 590,
594, 595, 596, 592, 594, 596; volume I, 109, 490, 367, 457, 487, 488, 490, 488.)
(Theosophy,
Los Angeles, March 1918, p.193-199)
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