Theos-Talk Archives (June 2003 Message tt00012)

Monday, June 02, 2003

Dear Laura:

Theosophy recognizes extraordinary events occurring in people's
lives.

The fundamental propositions are:

The whole Universe is under Karma and its immutable laws. It is
the Master of time and of all events everywhere. Nothing happens
by gift, prayer, chance or luck.

Hence there are no "miracles." No one need even "hope" for a
miracle.

Spontaneous or induced healing takes place when an individual's
Karma permits.

Look at this early statement (1877) from ISIS UNVEILED

-----------------------


PROPOSITIONS OF ORIENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

TEN ITEMS FROM "ISIS UNVEILED" (Vol. 2 p. 587)


To comprehend the principles of natural law involved in the
several phenomena hereinafter described, the reader must keep in
mind the fundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy
which we have successively elucidated. Let us recapitulate very
briefly:

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.

10th. The comer-stone of MAGIC is an intimate practical knowledge
of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and
potencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their
effects in and upon the animal kingdom and man.

To sum up all in a few words, 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.

(ISIS UNVEILED, Vol. 2 p. 587 et seq.)

-----------------------

In regard to Karma and it operations see this:


APHORISMS ON KARMA


(1) There is no Karma unless there is a being to make it or feel
its effects.[PARA][PARA](2) Karma is the adjustment of effects
flowing from causes, during which the being upon whom and through
whom that adjustment is effected experiences pain or
pleasure.[PARA][PARA](3) Karma is an undeviating and unerring
tendency in the Universe to restore equilibrium, and it operates
incessantly.[PARA][PARA](4) The apparent stoppage of this
restoration to equilibrium is due to the necessary adjustment of
disturbance at some other spot, place, or focus which is visible
only to the Yogi, to the Sage, or the perfect Seer: there is
therefore no stoppage, but only a hiding from
view.[PARA][PARA](5) Karma operates on all things and beings from
the minutest conceivable atom to Brahma. Proceeding in the three
worlds men, gods, and the elemental beings, no spot in the
manifested universe is exempt from its sway.[PARA][PARA](6) Karma
is not subject to time, and therefore he who knows what is the
ultimate division of time in this Universe knows
Karma.[PARA][PARA](7) For all other men Karma is in its essential
nature unknown and unknowable.[PARA][PARA](8) But its action may
be known by calculation from cause to effect; and this
calculation is possible because the effect is wrapped up in and
is not succedent to the cause.[PARA][PARA](9) The Karma of this
earth is the combination of the acts and thoughts of all beings
of every grade which were concerned in the preceding Manvantara
or evolutionary stream from which ours flows.[PARA][PARA](10) And
as those beings include Lords of Power and Holy Men, as well as
weak and wicked ones, the period of the earth's duration is
greater than that of any entity or race upon it.[PARA][PARA](11)
Because the Karma of this earth and its races began in a past too
far back for human minds to reach, an inquiry into its beginning
is useless and profitless.[PARA][PARA](12) Karmic causes already
set in motion must be allowed to sweep on until exhausted, but
this permits no man to refuse to help his fellows and every
sentient being.[PARA][PARA](13) The effects may be counteracted
or mitigated by the thoughts and acts of oneself or of another,
and then the resulting effects represent the combination and
interaction of the whole number of causes involved in producing
the effects.[PARA][PARA](14) In the life of worlds, races,
nations, and individuals, Karma cannot act unless there is an
appropriate instrument provided for its action.[PARA][PARA](15)
And until such appropriate instrument is found, that Karma
related to it remains unexpended.[PARA][PARA](16) While a man is
experiencing Karma in the instrument provided, his other
unexpended Karma is not exhausted through other beings or means,
but is held reserved for future operation; and lapse of time
during which no operation of that Karma is felt causes no
deterioration in its force or change in its
nature.[PARA][PARA](17) The appropriateness of an instrument for
the operation of Karma consists in the exact connection and
relation of the Karma with the body, mind, intellectual and
psychical nature acquired for use by the Ego in any
life.[PARA][PARA](18) Every instrument used by any Ego in any
life is appropriate to the Karma operating through
it.[PARA][PARA](19) Changes may occur in the instrument during
one life so as to make it appropriate for a new class of Karma,
and this may take place in two ways: (a) through intensity of
thought and the power of a vow, and (b) through natural
alterations due to complete exhaustion of old
causes.[PARA][PARA](20) As body and mind and soul have each a
power of independent action, any one of these may exhaust,
independently of the others, some Karmic causes more remote from
or nearer to the time of their inception than those operating
through other channels.[PARA][PARA](21) Karma is both merciful
and just. Mercy and Justice are only opposite poles of a single
whole; and Mercy without Justice is not possible in the
operations of Karma. That which man calls Mercy and Justice is
defective, errant, and impure.[PARA][PARA](22) Karma may be of
three sorts: (a) presently operative in this life through the
appropriate instruments; (b) that which is being made or stored
up to be exhausted in the future; Karma held over from past life
or lives and not operating yet because inhibited by
inappropriateness of the instrument in use by the Ego, or by the
force of Karma now operating.[PARA][PARA](23) Three fields of
operation are used in each being by Karma: (a) the body and the
circumstances; (b) the mind and intellect; the psychic and astral
planes.[PARA][PARA](24) Held-over Karma or present Karma may
each, or both at once, operate in all of the three fields of
Karmic operation at once, or in either of those fields a
different class of Karma from that using the others may operate
at the same time.[PARA][PARA](25) Birth into any sort of body and
to obtain the fruits of any sort of Karma is due to the
preponderance of the line of Karmic tendency.[PARA][PARA](26) The
sway of Karmic tendency will influence the incarnation of an Ego,
or any family of Egos, for three lives at least, when measures of
repression, elimination, or counteraction are not
adopted.[PARA][PARA](27) Measures taken by an Ego to repress
tendency, eliminate defects, and to counteract by setting up
different causes, will alter the sway of Karmic tendency and
shorten its influence in accordance with the strength or weakness
of the efforts expended in carrying out the measures
adopted.[PARA][PARA](28) No man but a sage or true seer can judge
another's Karma. Hence while each receives his deserts,
appearances may deceive, and birth into Poverty or heavy trial
may not be punishment for bad Karma, for Egos continually
incarnate into poor surroundings where they experience
difficulties and trials which are for the discipline of the Ego
and result in strength, fortitude, and sympathy.[PARA][PARA](29)
Race-Karma influences each unit in the race through the law of
Distribution. National Karma operates on the members of the
nation by the same law more concentrated. Family Karma governs
only with a nation where families have been kept pure and
distinct; for in any nation where there is a mixture of family -
as obtains in each Kaliyuga period - family Karma is in general
distributed over a nation. But even at such periods some families
remain coherent for long periods, and then the members feel the
sway of family Karma. The word "family" may include several
smaller families.[PARA][PARA](30) Karma operates to produce
cataclysms of nature by concatenation through the mental and
astral planes of being. A cataclysm may be traced to an immediate
physical cause such as internal fire and atmospheric disturbance,
but these have been brought on by the disturbance created through
the dynamic power of human thought.[PARA][PARA](31) Egos who have
no Karmic connection with a portion of the globe where a
cataclysm is coming on are kept without the latter's operation in
two ways: (a) by repulsion acting on their inner nature, and (b)
by being called and warned by those who watch the progress of the
world.[PARA][PARA]Path, March, 1893[PARA]
-- W Q Judge

----------------------------------

In regard to healing

[PARA]THE CURE OF DISEASES[PARA][PARA][PARA]MORTAL ills and the
needs of the stomach rank next after the instinct of
self-preservation among all the subjects which engage the
attention of the race. If we do not go on living we cannot do the
work we think there is to do; if we remain hungry we will lose
the power to work properly or to enjoy, and at last come to the
door of death. From bad or scanty food follows a train of
physical ills called generally disease. [PARA][PARA]Disease
reaches us also through too much food. So in every direction
these ills attack us; even when our feeding is correct and
sufficient it is found that we fall a prey because our Karma,
settled by ourselves is some previous life, ordains that we enter
on this one handicapped by the hereditary taint due to the
wickedness or the errors of our fathers and mothers. And the
records of science show that the taint in the blood or the lymph
may jump over many lives, attacking with virulence some
generation distant very far from the source. [PARA][PARA]What
wonder, then that the cure of disease is an all-absorbing subject
with every one! ... All of this has given to the schools of
mental and so-called "metaphysical" healing a strong pull on the
fears, the feelings, the wishes, and the bodies of those to whom
they address themselves, and especially in the United
States...Why it has more hold here can be left to conjecture, as
the point under consideration is why it has any hold at all. It
is something like patent medicine. [PARA][PARA]Offer a cure to
people for their many ills, and they will take it up; offer it
cheap, and they will use it; offer it as an easy method, and they
will rush for it under certain conditions.
[PARA][PARA]Metaphysical healing is easy for some because it
declares, first, that no money need be paid to doctors for
medicine; second, that medical fluids and drugs may be dispensed
with; and third that it is easily learned and practiced. The
difficulties that arise out of the necessities of logic are not
present for those who never studied it, but are somewhat potent
with those who reason correctly; - but that is not usual for the
general run of minds. They see certain effects and accept the
assumed cause as the right one. [PARA][PARA]But many persons will
not even investigate the system, because they think it requires
them to postulate the non-existence of that which they see before
their eyes...If they could be induced to just try the method
offered for cure, belief might result, for effects indeed often
follow. But the popular mind is not in favor of "mind cure," and
more prominence is given in the daily papers to cases of death
under it than to cures...[PARA] [PARA]I had the opportunity of
meeting hundreds of disciples of these schools, and found in
nearly all cases that they were not addicted to logic but calmly
ignored very plain propositions, satisfied that if cures were
accomplished the cause claimed must be the right one, and almost
without exception they denied the existence of evil or pain or
suffering. [PARA][PARA]There was a concurrence of testimony from
all to show that the dominant idea in their minds was the cure of
their bodily ills and the continuance of health. The accent was
not on the beauty of holiness or the value to them and the
community of a right moral system and right life, but on the cure
of their diseases. So the conclusion has been forced home that
all these schools exist because people desire to be well more
than they desire to be good, although they do not object to
goodness if that shall bring wholeness.[PARA][PARA]And, indeed,
one does not have to be good to gain the benefit of the
teachings. It is enough to have confidence, to assert boldly that
this does not exist and that that has no power to hurt one... but
only that whether you are good or bad the results will follow the
firm practice of the method enjoined, irrespective of the ideas
of the teachers...[PARA][PARA]Scientific research discloses that
the bodies of our race are infected with taints that cause nearly
all of our diseases, and school after school of medicine has
tried and still tries to find the remedy that will dislodge the
foulness in the blood. This is scientific, since it seeks the
real physical cause; metaphysical healing says it cures, but
cannot prove that the cause is destroyed and not merely
palliated...[PARA][PARA]Turning now to medicine we find the
Italian Count Mattei promulgating a system of cure by the
homeopathic use of subtle vegetable essences which may well give
pause to those who would make universal the curing by faith or
mind alone. Some of his liquids will instantly stop a violent
pain, restore sight, give back hearing, and dissipate abnormal
growths. His globules will make a drunken man sober, and, given
to the nurse who suckles a babe, will cure the child who takes
the milk. The drunkard and the child do not think about or have
faith in the remedies, yet they cure. Is it not better to restore
health by physical means and leave the high teachings of the
healers, all taken from well know sources, for the benefit of our
moral nature? ...[PARA][PARA][PARA]The Apostle also gave
directions that if any were sick the others should assemble about
the bed and anoint with oil, laying on their hands meanwhile:
simply physical therapeutics following a long line of ancient
precedent dating back to Noah. Moses taught how to cure diseases
and to disinfect places where contagion lurked.
...[PARA][PARA]The mass of testimony through the ages is against
healing physical ills by the use of the higher forces in nature,
and the reason, once well known but later on forgotten, is the
one given in the article of January, 1892, - that diseases are
gross manifestations showing themselves on their way out of the
nature so that one may be purified. To arrest them though thought
ignorantly directed is to throw them back into their cause and
replant them in their mental plane.[PARA][PARA]This is the true
ground of our objection to metaphysical healing practices, which
we distinguish from the assumptions and so-called philosophy on
which those methods are claimed to stand. For we distinctly urge
that the effects are not brought by any philosophical system
whatever, but by the practical though ignorant use of
psycho-physiological processes.[PARA][PARA]William Q.
Judge[PARA]Path, September, 1892[PARA]

--------------------------------------

NATURE'S HUMAN MAGNETS
Article by H. P. Blavatsky

IF any of us now-a-days ventures to relate some weird experience
or seemingly incomprehensible phenomenon, two classes of
objectors try to stop his mouth with the same gag. The scientist
cries--"I have unraveled all Nature's skein, and the thing is
impossible; this is no age for miracles!" The Hindu bigot
says--"This is the Kali Yug, the spiritual night-time of
humanity; miracles are no longer possible." Thus the one from
conceit, the other from ignorance reaches the same conclusion,
viz., that nothing that smacks of the supernatural is possible in
these latter days.

The Hindu, however, believes that miracles did once occur, while
the scientist does not...

Our own views are well-known--we do not believe a "miracle" ever
did occur or ever will; we do believe that strange phenomena,
falsely styled miraculous, always did occur, are occurring now,
and will to the end of time; that these are natural; and that
when this fact filters into the consciousness of materialistic
skeptics, science will go at leaps and bounds towards that
ultimate Truth she has so long been groping after. It is a
wearisome and disheartening experience to tell any one about the
phenomena of the less familiar side of nature...

If we lay down the proposition that everything is the result of
combined force and matter, science will approve; but when we move
on and say that we have seen phenomena and account for them under
this very law...These circumscribing barriers are being
vigorously assaulted just now at St. Petersburg. A young
girl-medium is "shocking" all the wiseacres of the University...

Not far from Petersburg, in a small hamlet...a few years ago a
widow, named Margaret Beetch, took a little girl from the House
of Foundlings into her service.

The little Pelagueya was liked in the family from the first for
her sweet disposition, her hard-working zeal, and her great
truthfulness. She found herself exceedingly happy in her new
home, and for several years no one ever had a cross word for her.
Pelagueya finally became a good-looking lass of seventeen, but
her temper never changed....

November 3, 1880, accompanied by a farm-servant, she descended
into the cellar under the house to get some potatoes. Hardly had
they opened the heavy door, when they found themselves pelted
with the vegetable. Believing some neighbor's boy must have
hidden himself on the wide shelf on which the potatoes were
heaped, Pelagueya, placing the basket upon her head, laughingly
remarked, "whoever you are, fill it with potatoes and so help
me!" In an instant the basket was filled to the brim. Then the
other girl tried the same, but the potatoes remained motionless.
Climbing upon the shelf, to their amazement the girls found no
one there. Having notified the widow Beetch of the strange
occurrence, the latter went herself, and unlocking the cellar
which had been securely locked by the two maids on leaving, found
no one concealed in it. This event was but the precursor of a
series of others...

>From the moment she left the cellar the invisible "power" which
had filled her basket with potatoes, began to assert its presence
incessantly, and in the most varied ways. Does Pelagueya Nikolaef
prepare to lay wood in the oven--the billets rise in the air and
like living things jump upon the fire-place; hardly does she
apply a match to them when they blaze already as if fanned by an
invisible hand. When she approaches the well, the water begins
rising, and soon overflowing the sides of the cistern runs in
torrents to her feet; does she happen to pass near a bucket of
water--the same thing happens...No sooner does an invalid
neighbor place herself for a moment's rest on the girl's bed,
than the heavy bedstead is seen levitating towards the very
ceiling, then turns upside down and tosses off the impertinent
intruder; after which it quietly resumes its former position...

This case having been narrated to a spiritist, a rich nobleman
residing at St. Petersburg, the latter betook himself immediately
after the young girl and carried her away with him to town.
The above officially-noted facts are being reprinted in every
Russian daily organ of note....

"A new star on the horizon of spiritism has suddenly appeared at
St. Petersburg-- speaketh an editorial in the Novoye Vremya,
January 1, 1881 ... In the St. Petersburg Gazette, a...reporter
gives the following details:--"Miss Pelagueya is a young girl of
about nineteen, the daughter of poor but dishonest parents...not
very pretty, but with a sympathetic face, very uneducated but
intelligent, small in stature but kind at heart,
well-proportioned--but nervous.

Miss Pelagueya has suddenly manifested most wonderful mediumistic
faculties. She is a 'first class Spiritistic Star' as they call
her. And, indeed, the young lady seems to have concentrated in
her extremities a phenomenal abundance of magnetic aura; thanks
to which, she communicates instantaneously to the objects
surrounding her hitherto unheard and unseen phenomenal motions.
About five days ago, at a séance at which were present the most
noted spiritualists and mediums of the St. Petersburg grand
monde, occurred the following. Having placed themselves with
Pelagueya around a table, they (the spiritists) had barely time
to sit down, when each of them received what seemed an electric
shock. Suddenly, the table violently upset chairs and all,
scattering the enthusiastic company to quite a respectable
distance. The medium found herself on the floor with the rest,
and her chair began to perform a series of such wonderful aërial
jumps that the terrified spiritists had to take to their heels
and left the room in a hurry."

Most opportunely, while the above case is under consideration,
there comes from America the account of a lad who is the son of a
Mr. John C. Collins, St. Paul, Minnesota. His age is ten years
and it is only recently that the magnetic condition has developed
itself--a curious circumstance to be noted. Intellectually he is
bright, his health is perfect, and he enters with zest into all
boyish sports.

His left hand has become "a wonderfully strong magnet. Metal
articles of light weight attach themselves to his hand so that
considerable force is required to remove them. Knives, pins,
needles, buttons, etc., enough to cover his hand, will thus
attach themselves so firmly that they cannot be shaken off. Still
more, the attraction is so strong that a common coalscuttle can
be lifted by it, and heavier implements have been lifted by
stronger persons taking hold of his arm. With heavy articles,
however, the boy complains of sharp pains darting along his arm.
In a lesser degree his left arm and the whole left side of his
body exerts the same power, but it is not at all manifest on his
right side."

The only man who has thrown any great light upon the natural and
abnormal magnetic conditions of the human body is the late Baron
von Reichenbach of Vienna, a renowned chemist and the discoverer
of a new force which is called Odyle. His experiments lasted more
than five years, and neither expense, time nor trouble were
grudged to make them conclusive.

Physiologists had long observed, especially among hospital
patients, that a large proportion of human beings can sensibly
feel a peculiar influence, or aura, proceeding from the magnet
when downward passes are made along their persons but without
touching them. And it was also observed that in such diseases as
St. Vitus's dance (chorea), and various forms of paralysis,
hysteria, &c., the patients showed this sensitiveness in a
peculiar degree. But though the great Berzelius and other
authorities in science had urged that men of science should
investigate it, yet this most important field of research had
been left almost untrodden until Baron Reichenbach undertook his
great task...

For the immediate purpose in view, it needs only be said that he
proves that the body of man is filled with an aura, "dynamide,"
"fluid," vapour, influence or whatever we may choose to call it;
that it is alike in both sexes; that it is specially given off at
the head, hands, and feet; that, like the aura from the magnet,
it is polar; that the whole left side is positive, and imparts a
sensation of warmth to a sensitive to whom we may apply our left
hand, while the whole right side of the body is negative, and
imparts a feeling of coolness. In some individuals this vital
magnetic (or, as he calls it, Odylic) force is intensely strong.
Thus, we may fearlessly consider and believe any phenomenal case
such as the two above-quoted without fear of outstepping the
limits of exact science, or of being open to the charge of
superstition or credulity. It must at the same time be noted that
Baron Reichenbach did not find one patient whose aura either
deflected a suspended magnetic needle, or attracted iron objects
like lodestone. His researches, therefore, do not cover the whole
ground; and of this he was himself fully aware.

Persons magnetically surcharged, like the Russian girl and the
American boy, are now and then encountered, and among the class
of mediums there have been a few famous ones. Thus, the medium
Slade's finger, when passed either way over a compass, will
attract the needle after it to any extent...So great was the
magnetic aura discharging from Slade's hands, however, that
"after about five minutes the needle began to swing violently in
arcs of from 40° to 60° till at length it several times turned
completely round." At a subsequent trial, Professor Weber
succeeded in having a common knitting-needle, tested with the
compass just before the experiment and found wholly unmagnetized,
converted into a permanent magnet. "Slade laid this needle upon a
slate, held the latter under the table . . . and in about four
minutes, when the slate with the knitting-needle was laid again
upon the table, the needle was so strongly magnetised at one end
(and only at one end) that iron shavings and sewing-needles stuck
to this end; the needle of the compass could be easily drawn
round in a circle. The originated pole was a south pole, inasmuch
as the north pole of the (compass) needle was attracted, the
south pole repelled."

Baron Reichenbach's first branch of inquiry was that of the
effect of the magnet upon animal nerve; after which he proceeded
to observe the effect upon the latter of a similar aura or power
found by him to exist in crystals. Not to enter into details--all
of which, however, should be read by every one pretending to
investigate Asian science--his conclusion he sums up as follows:
"With the magnetic force, as we are acquainted with it in the
lodestone and the magnetic needle, that force ("Odyle"--the new
force he discovered) is associated, with which, in crystals, we
have become acquainted." Hence: "The force of the magnet is not,
as has been hitherto taken for granted, one single force, but
consists of two, since, to that long known, a new hitherto
unknown, and decidedly distinct one, must be added, the force,
namely, which resides in crystals." One of his patients was a
Mlle. Nowotny, and her sensitiveness to the auras of the magnet
and crystal was phenomenally acute. When a magnet was held near
her hand. it was irresistibly attracted to follow the magnet
wherever the Baron moved it. The effect upon her hand "was the
same as if some one had seized her hand, and by means of this
drawn or bent her body towards her feet." (She was lying in bed,
sick, and the magnet was moved in that direction.) When
approached close to her hand "the hand adhered so firmly to it,
that when the magnet was raised, or moved sidewards, backwards,
or in any direction whatever, her hands stuck to it, as if
attached in the way in which a piece of iron would have been."
This, we see, is the exact reverse of the phenomenon in the
American boy Collins' case, for, instead of his hand being
attracted to anything, iron objects, light and heavy, seem
attracted irresistibly to his hand, and only his left hand.
Reichenbach naturally thought of testing Mlle. Nowotny's magnetic
condition. He says: "To try this, I took filings of iron, and
brought her finger over them. Not the smallest particle adhered
to the finger, even when it had just been in contact with the
magnet. . . . A magnetic needle finely suspended, to the poles of
which I caused her to approach her finger alternately, and in
different positions, did not exhibit the slightest tendency to
deviation or oscillation." ...

Theosophist. April, 1881


-----------------------------------

I hope these are of help,

Best wishes,

Dallas

===================================

-----Original Message-----
From: Laura
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 3:02 PM
To:
Subject: [bn-study] Miracles ~ Grace ~ Healing

I have tried to sort this out without much success.

Many of us can cite instances in our lives or others' that are so
extraordinary as to be termed miracles (minor or major),
occasions of
grace or healing. Sudden infusion of unexplainable perfection
that
overrides seemingly hopeless circumstances. Does Theosophy
recognize
the possibility of 'gifts' such as this. Or are they attributed
to the
coincidence of karmic balance tipping in the person's favor,
therefore
rendering it a 'natural' occurence. Then, how to account for the
exquisite "timing" of these events.

Thanks very much for shedding light.

LAM


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