BLAVATSKY COULD SPELL PEOPLE'S BRAINS

 

Below I am going to put the testimonies that I find about this theme.

 

 

WILLIAM JUDGE TESTIMONY

 

William Judge was Blavatsky's main collaborator, and on this subject he wrote the following:

 

« The word “glamour” was long ago defined in old dictionaries as “witchery or a charm on the eyes, making them see things differently from what they really are.” This is still the meaning of the word. Not long ago, before the strange things possible in hypnotic experiments became known to the Western world, it seemed as if everything would be reduced to mere matter and motion by the fiat of science.

 

Witchery was to fade away, be forgotten, be laughed out of sight, and what could not be ascribed to defective training of the senses was to have its explanation in the state of the liver, a most prosaic organ. But before science with its speculation and ever-altering canons could enlighten the unlearned multitude, hypnotism crept slowly and surely forward and at last began to buttress the positions of Theosophy. Glamour stands once more a fair chance for recognition. Indeed, H.P. Blavatsky uttered prophetic words when she said that in America more than anywhere else this art would be practiced by selfish men for selfish purposes, for money-getting and gratification of desire.

 

Hurriedly glancing over some fields of folk-lore, see what a mass of tales bearing on glamour produced by men, gods, or elementals. In India the gods every now and then, often the sages, appear before certain persons in various guises by means of a glamour which causes the eye to see what is not really there. In Ireland volumes of tales in which the person sees houses, men, and animals where they are not; he is suddenly given the power to see under the skin of natural things, and then perceives the field or the market-place full of fairies, men, and women gliding in and out among the people. Anon a man or woman is changed into the appearance of animal or bird, and only regains the old semblance when touched with the magic rod.

 

This change of appearance is not a change in fact, but always a glamour affecting the eyes of the other person. Such a mass of similar stories found during all time and among every people cannot be due to folly nor be without a basis. The basis is a fact and a law in man’s nature. It is glamour, the reason for glamour, and the power to bring it about. Just because there have always been those who, either by natural ability or training, had the power to bring on a “witchery over the eyes,” these stories have arisen.

 

A writer well-known in England and America once thought he had found a mare’s nest when he reported that Mme. Blavatsky had confessed to him that certain phenomena he enquired of had been caused by glamour.

 

“Ah, glamour” he said; “thus falls this Theosophic house of cards”; and he went away satisfied, for in truth he had been himself thoroughly glamoured. But Theosophists should not stumble and fall violently as this gentleman did over a word which, when enquired into, carries with it a good deal of science relating to an important branch of occultism.

 

When I read in an issue of the Arena all about this confession on glamour, I was quite ready to believe that H.P. Blavatsky did say to the learned enquirer what he reported, but at the same time, of course, knew that she never intended to apply her enchantment explanation to every phenomenon. She only intended to include certain classes, — although in every occult phenomenon there is some glamour upon some of the observers according to their individual physical idiosyncrasies.

 

The classes of phenomena covered by this word are referred to in part by Patanjali in his Yoga Aphorisms, where he says that if the luminousness natural to object and eye is interfered with the object will disappear, whether it be man or thing and whether it be day or night. This little aphorism covers a good deal of ground, and confutes, if accepted, some theories of the day. It declares, in fact, that not only is it necessary for rays of light to proceed from the object to the eye, but also light must also proceed from the eye towards the object. Cut off the latter and the object disappears; alter the character of the luminousness coming from the eye, and the object is altered in shape or color for the perceiver.

 

(Cid's observation: I think that here perhaps William Judge was wrong and I am inclined to consider that the bewitcher manages to manipulate the brain of the person so that she sees —or does not see— what he wants. And this is also what William Judge detailed below.)

 

Carrying this on further and connecting it with the well-known fact that we see no objects whatever, but only their ideal form as presented to the mind, and we arrive at an explanation in part of how glamour may be possible. For if in any way you can interfere with the vibrations proceeding to the eye on the way to affect the brain and then the percipient within, then you have the possibility of sensibly altering the ideal form which the mind is to cognize within before it declares the object to be without which produced the vibration.

 

Take up now imagination in its aspects of a power to make a clear and definite image. This is done in hypnotism and in spiritualism. If the image be definite enough and the perceiver or subject sensitive enough, a glamour will be produced. The person will see that which is not the normal shape or form or corporature of the other. But this new shape is as real as the normal, for the normal form is but that which is to last during a certain stage of human evolution and will certainly alter as new senses and organs develop in us.

 

Thus far having gone, is it not easy to see that if a person can make the definite and vivid mind-pictures spoken of, and if the minor organs can affect and be affected, it is quite probable and possible that trained persons may have glamoured the eyes of others so to make them see an elephant, snake, man, tree, pot, or any other object where only is empty space, or as an alteration of a thing or person actually there?

 

This is exactly what is done in experiments by the hypnotists, with this difference, that they have to put the subject into an abnormal state, while the other operators need no such adventitious aids. Glamour, then, has a very important place in magic. That it was frequently used by H.P. Blavatsky there is not the smallest doubt, just as there is no doubt that the yogi in India puts the same power into operation.

 

In many cases she could have used it by making the persons present think they saw her when she had gone into the next room, or that another person was also present who was not in fact. The same power of glamour would permit her to hide from sight any object in the room or in her hands. This is one of the difficult feats of magic, and not in the slightest degree dependent on legerdemain. Persons sometimes say this is folly even if true, but looked at in another light it is no folly, nor are those cases in which anyone was entitled to know all that was going on.

 

She exhibited these feats —seldom as it was— for the purpose of showing those who were learning from her that the human subject is a complicated and powerful being, not to be classed, as science so loves to do, with mere matter and motion. All these phenomena accomplished two objects. First, to help those who learned from her, and second, to spread abroad again in the West the belief in man’s real power and nature.

 

The last was a most necessary thing to do because in the West materialism was beginning to have too much sway and threatened to destroy spirituality. And it was done also in pursuance of the plans of the Great Lodge for the human race. As one of her Masters said, her phenomena puzzled skeptics for many years. Even now we see the effects, for when such men as Stead, the Editor of the Review of Reviews, and Du Prel, Schiaparelli, and others take up the facts of Spiritualism scientifically, one can perceive that another day for psychology is dawning.

 

This power of glamour is used more often than people think, and not excluding members of the Theosophical Society, by the Adepts. They are often among us from day to day appearing in a guise we do not recognize, and are dropping ideas into men’s minds about the spiritual world and the true life of the soul, as well as also inciting men and women to good acts. By this means they pass unrecognized and are able to accomplish more in this doubting and transition age than they could in any other way.

 

Sometimes as they pass they are recognized by those who have the right faculty; but a subtle and powerful bond and agreement prevents their secret from being divulged. This is something for members of the Theosophical Society to think of, for they may be entertaining now and then angels unawares. They may now and then be tried by their leaders when they least expect it, and the verdict is not given out but has its effect all the same.

 

But glamour covers only a small part of the field of occultism. The use of the astral body enters into nearly all of the phenomena, and in other directions the subject of occult chemistry, absolutely unknown to the man of the day, is of the utmost importance; if it is ever given out it will be a surprise to science, but certainly that divulgation will not soon be to such a selfish age. »

(The Path, May 1893, p.43-46)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLAVATSKY'S TESTIMONY

 

Several people began to accuse Blavatsky that she was putting spells on people, and that is why in an article she replied to them:

 

«

Ignorance not altogether bliss

 

All know that there is a tacit, often openly-expressed, belief among a few of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society that a certain prominent Theosophist among the leaders of the Theosophical Society psychologizes all those who happen to come within the area of that individual’s influence.

 

Dozens, nay, hundreds, were, and still are, “psychologized.” The hypnotic effect seems so strong as to virtually transform all such “unfortunates” into irresponsible nincompoops, mere cyphers and tools of that theosophical Circe.

 

This idiotic belief was originally started by some “wise men” of the West. Unwilling to admit that the said person had either any knowledge or powers, bent on discrediting their victim, and yet unable to explain certain abnormal occurrences, they hit upon this happy and logical loop-hole to get out of their difficulties.

 

The theory found a grateful and fruitful soil. Henceforth, whenever any Fellows connected theosophically with the said “psychologizer” happen to disagree in their views upon questions, metaphysical or even purely administrative, with some other member— “on despotism bent,” forthwith the latter comes out with the favorite solution :

 

“Oh, they are psychologized!”

 

The magic WORD springs out on the arena of discussion like a Jack-in-a-box, and forthwith the attitude of the “rebels” is explained and plausibly accounted for.

 

Of course the alleged “psychology” has really no existence outside the imagination of those who are too vain to allow any opposition to their all-wise and autocratic decrees on any other ground than phenomenal —nay, magical— interference with their will. A short analysis of the Karmic effects that would be produced by the exercise of such powers may prove interesting to theosophists.

 

Even on the terrestrial, purely physical plane, moral irresponsibility ensures impunity. Parents are answerable for their children, tutors and guardians for their pupils and wards, and even the Supreme Courts have admitted extenuating circumstances for criminals who are proved to have been led to crime by a will or influences stronger than their own.

 

How much more forcibly this law of simple retributive justice must act on the psychic plane; and what, therefore, may be the responsibility incurred by using such psychological powers, in the face of Karma and its punitive laws, may be easily inferred. Is it not evident that, if even human justice recognizes the impossibility of punishing an irrational idiot, a child, a minor, etc., taking into account even hereditary causes and bad family influences— that the divine Law of Retribution, which we call Karma, must visit with hundredfold severity one who deprives reasonable, thinking men of their free will and powers of ratiocination?

 

From the occult standpoint, the charge is simply one of black magic, of envoutement. Alone a Dugpa [a sorcerer], with “Avitchi” [hellish punishment] yawning at the further end of his life cycle, could risk such a thing.

 

Have those so prompt to hurl the charge at the head of persons in their way, ever understood the whole terrible meaning implied in the accusation?

 

We doubt it.

 

No occultist, no intelligent student of the mysterious laws of the “night side of Nature,” no one who knows anything of Karma, would ever suggest such an explanation. What adept or even a moderately-informed chela [disciple] would ever risk an endless future by interfering with, and therefore taking upon himself, the Karmic debit of all those whom he would so psychologize as to make of them merely the tools of his own sweet will!

 

This fact seems so evident and palpably flagrant, that it is absurd to have to recall it to those who boast of knowing all about Karma.

 

Is it not enough to bear the burden of the knowledge that from birth to death, the least, the most unimportant, unit of the human family exercises an influence over, and receives in his turn, as unconsciously as he breathes, that of every other unit whom he approaches, or who comes in contact with him ?

 

Each of us either adds to or diminishes the sum total of human happiness and human misery, “not only of the present, but of every subsequent age of humanity,” as shown so ably by Elihu Burritt, who says:

 

“There is no sequestered spot in the Universe, no dark niche along the disc of non-existence, from which he (man) can retreat from his relations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world; everywhere his presence or absence will be felt — everywhere he will have companions who will be better or worse for his influence. It is an old saying, and one of fearful and fathoming import, that we are forming characters for eternity.

 

Forming characters!

 

Whose? Our own or others?

 

Both—and in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.

 

Who is sufficient for the thought?

 

Thousands of my fellow-beings will yearly enter eternity* with characters differing from those they would have carried thither had I never lived. The sunlight of that world will reveal my finger-marks in their primary formations, and in their successive strata of thought and life.”

 

(* Devachan, rather; the entracte between two incarnations.)

 

These are the words of a profound thinker. And if the simple fact of our living changes the sum of human weal and woe —in a way for which we are, owing to our ignorance, entirely irresponsible— what must be the Karmic decree in the matter of influencing hundreds of people by an act perpetrated and carried on for years in premeditation and the full consciousness of what we are doing!

 

Verily the man or woman in the unconscious possession of such dangerous powers had much better never be born. The Occultist who exercises them consciously will be caught up by the whirlwind of successive rebirths, without even an hour of rest. Woe to him, then, in that ceaseless, dreary series of terrestrial Avitchis; in that interminable aeon of torture, suffering, and despair, during which, like the squirrel doomed to turn the wheel at every motion, he will launch from one life of misery into another, only to awake each time with a fresh burden of other people’s Karma, which he will have drawn upon himself! »

(Lucifer, March 1889, p.8-10)

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBSERVATIONS

 

Personally, I do see it as very feasible that Blavatsky possessed this ability, since it is something that the old fakirs used, and she having reached a much more advanced development than the fakirs; it would have been easy for her to be able to do it too.

 

But as William Judge pointed out, she only did it on a few occasions and with a pedagogical purpose, since as Blavatsky indicated in her article, she was very aware of the serious Karma that one generates if one bewitches the minds for manipulation purposes. .

 

And some individuals have used this data to argue that in reality the phenomena that Blavatsky produced were not real, but that she put a spell on people to make them believe that she had produced those phenomena.

 

In some cases it may have been the case, but in general I do not agree with this conclusion because several of the objects that she materialized are still in existence, and these are preserved by the Adyar Theosophical Society in a piece of furniture known as "the HPB Memorial Cabinet".