Theos-Talk Archives (January 2004 Message tt00457)

H.P. Blavatsky on Extraterrestrial Life

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. . . we find in the romances as in all the so-called
scientific fictions and spiritistic revelations from
moon, stars, and planets, merely fresh combinations or
modifications of the men and things, the passions and
forms of life with which we are familiar, when even on
the other planets of our own system nature and life
are entirely different from ours. Swedenborg was
pre-eminent in inculcating such an erroneous belief. 

But even more. The ordinary man has no experience of
any state of consciousness other than that to which
the physical senses link him. Men dream; they sleep
the profound sleep which is too deep for dreams to
impress the physical brain; and in these states there
must still be consciousness. How, then, while these
mysteries remain unexplored, can we hope to speculate
with profit on the nature of globes which, in the
economy of nature, must needs belong to states of
consciousness other and quite different from any which
man experiences here? 

And this is true to the letter. For even great adepts
(those initiated of course), trained seers though they
are, can claim thorough acquaintance with the nature
and appearance of planets and their inhabitants
belonging to our solar system only. They know that
almost all the planetary worlds are inhabited, but can
have access to -- even in spirit -- only those of our
system; and they are also aware how difficult it is,
even for them, to put themselves into full rapport
even with the planes of consciousness within our
system, but differing from the states of consciousness
possible on this globe; i.e., on the three planes of
the chain of spheres beyond our earth. Such knowledge
and intercourse are possible to them because they have
learned how to penetrate to planes of consciousness
which are closed to the perceptions of ordinary men;
but were they to communicate their knowledge, the
world would be no wiser, because it lacks that
experience of other forms of perception which alone
could enable them to grasp what was told them. 

Still the fact remains that most of the planets, as
the stars beyond our system, are inhabited, a fact
which has been admitted by the men of science
themselves. Laplace and Herschell believed it, though
they wisely abstained from imprudent speculation; and
the same conclusion has been worked out and supported
with an array of scientific considerations by C.
Flammarion, the well-known French Astronomer. The
arguments he brings forward are strictly scientific,
and such as to appeal even to a materialistic mind,
which would remain unmoved by such thoughts as those
of Sir David Brewster, the famous physicist, who
writes: -- 

"Those 'barren spirits' or 'base souls,' as the poet
calls them, who might be led to believe that the Earth
is the only inhabited body in the universe, would have
no difficulty in conceiving the earth also to have
been destitute of inhabitants. What is more, if such
minds were acquainted with the deductions of geology,
they would admit that it was uninhabited for myriads
of years; and here we come to the impossible
conclusion that during these myriads of years there
was not a single intelligent creature in the vast
domains of the Universal King, and that before the
protozoic formations there existed neither plant nor
animal in all the infinity of space"!** 

Flammarion shows, in addition, that all the conditions
of life -- even as we know it -- are present on some
at least of the planets, and points to the fact that
these conditions must be much more favourable on them
than they are on our Earth. 

Thus scientific reasoning, as well as observed facts,
concur with the statements of the seer and the innate
voice in man's own heart in declaring that life --
intelligent, conscious life -- must exist on other
worlds than ours. 

But this is the limit beyond which the ordinary
faculties of man cannot carry him. Many are the
romances and tales, some purely fanciful, others
bristling with scientific knowledge, which have
attempted to imagine and describe life on other
globes. But one and all, they give but some distorted
copy of the drama of life around us. It is either,
with Voltaire, the men of our own race under a
microscope, or, with de Bergerac, a graceful play of
fancy and satire; but we always find that at bottom
the new world is but the one we ourselves live in. So
strong is this tendency that even great natural,
though non-initiated seers, when untrained, fall a
victim to it; witness Swedenborg, who goes so far as
to dress the inhabitants of Mercury, whom he meets
with in the spirit-world, in clothes such as are worn
in Europe. 

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Quoted from:
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/hpb_alien.html

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Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY STUDY CENTER/BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com/introduction.htm

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"...Contrast alone can enable us to appreciate things at 
their right value; and unless a judge compares notes and 
hears both sides he can hardly come to a correct decision."
H.P. Blavatsky. The Theosophist, July, 1881, p. 2
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