Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00402)

Part IV PSYCHICAL PHENOMENA in ISIS UNVEILED I 493


-------------------------------------------------.

One of the greatest reasons for it was the doctrine of the ancients,
that no soul from the "abode of the blessed" will return to earth,
unless, indeed, upon rare occasions its apparition might be required to
accomplish some great object in view, and so bring benefit upon
humanity. In this latter instance the "soul" has no need to be evoked.
It sent its portentous message either by an evanescent simulacrum of
itself, or through messengers, who could appear in material form, and
personate faithfully the departed. The souls that could so easily be
evoked were deemed neither safe nor useful to commune with. They were
the souls, or larvae rather, from the infernal region of the limbo --
the sheol, the region known by the kabalists as the eighth sphere, but
far different from the orthodox Hell or Hades of the ancient
mythologists. Horace describes this evocation and the ceremonial
accompanying it, and Maimonides gives us particulars of the Jewish rite.
Every necromantic ceremony was performed on high places and hills, and
blood was used for the purpose of placating these human ghouls.*

"I cannot prevent the witches from picking up their bones," says the
poet. "See the blood they pour in the ditch to allure the souls that
will utter their oracles!"** "Cruor in fossam confusus, ut inde manes
elicirent, animas responsa daturas."

"The souls," says Porphyry, "prefer, to everything else, freshly-spilt
blood, which seems for a short time to restore to them some of the
faculties of life."**

As for materializations, they are many and various in the sacred
records. But, were they effected under the same conditions as at modern
seances? Darkness, it appears, was not required in those days of
patriarchs and magic powers. The three angels who appeared to Abraham
drank in the full blaze of the sun, for "he sat in the tent-door in the
heat of the day,"*** says the book of Genesis. The spirits of Elias and
Moses appeared equally in daytime, as it is not probable that Christ and
the Apostles would be climbing a high mountain during the night. Jesus
is represented as having appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden in the
early morning; to the Apostles, at three distinct times, and generally
by day; once "when the morning was come" (John xxi. 4). Even when the
ass of Balaam saw the "materialized" angel, it was in the full light of
noon.

We are fully prepared to agree with the writer in question, that we find
in the life of Christ -- and we may add in the Old Testament, too --


494 

"an uninterrupted record of spiritualistic manifestations," but nothing
mediumistic, of a physical character though, if we except the visit of
Saul to Sedecla, the Obeah woman of Endor. This is a distinction of
vital importance.

True, the promise of the Master was clearly stated: "Aye, and greater
works than these shall ye do" -- works of mediatorship. According to
Joel, the time would come when there would be an outpouring of the
divine spirit: "Your sons and your daughters," says he, "shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." The
time has come and they do all these things now; Spiritualism has its
seers and martyrs, its prophets and healers. Like Moses, and David, and
Jehoram, there are mediums who have direct writings from genuine
planetary and human spirits; and the best of it brings the mediums no
pecuniary recompense. The greatest friend of the cause in France,
Leymarie, now languishes in a prison-cell, and, as he says with touching
pathos, is "no longer a man, but a number" on the prison register.

There are a few, a very few, orators on the spiritualistic platform who
speak by inspiration, and if they know what is said at all they are in
the condition described by Daniel: "And I retained no strength. Yet
heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words,
then was I in a deep sleep."* And there are mediums, these whom we have
spoken of, for whom the prophecy in Samuel might have been written: "The
spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, thou shalt prophesy with them,
and shalt be turned into another man."** But where, in the long line of
Bible-wonders, do we read of flying guitars, and tinkling tambourines,
and jangling bells being offered in pitch-dark rooms as evidences of
immortality?

When Christ was accused of casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub,
he denied it, and sharply retorted by asking, "By whom do your sons or
disciples cast them out?" Again, spiritualists affirm that Jesus was a
medium, that he was controlled by one or many spirits; but when the
charge was made to him direct he said that he was nothing of the kind.
"Say we not well, that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?"
daimonion, an Obeah, or familiar spirit in the Hebrew text. Jesus
answered, "I have not a devil."***
The writer from whom we have above quoted, attempts also a parallel
between the aerial flights of Philip and Ezekiel and of Mrs. Guppy and
other modern mediums. He is ignorant or oblivious of the fact that



495 A SIAMESE PRIEST WALKS THE AIR.

while levitation occurred as an effect in both classes of cases, the
producing causes were totally dissimilar. The nature of this difference
we have adverted to already. Levitation may be produced consciously or
unconsciously to the subject. The juggler determines beforehand that he
will be levitated, for how long a time, and to what height; he regulates
the occult forces accordingly. The fakir produces the same effect by the
power of his aspiration and will, and, except when in the ecstatic
state, keeps control over his movements. So does the priest of Siam,
when, in the sacred pagoda, he mounts fifty feet in the air with taper
in hand, and flits from idol to idol, lighting up the niches,
self-supported, and stepping as confidently as though he were upon solid
ground. This, persons have seen and testify to. The officers of the
Russian squadron which recently circumnavigated the globe, and was
stationed for a long time in Japanese waters, relate the fact that,
besides many other marvels, they saw jugglers walk in mid-air from
tree-top to tree-top, without the slightest support.* They also saw the
pole and tape-climbing feats, described by Colonel Olcott in his People
from the Other World, and which have been so much called in question by
certain spiritualists and mediums whose zeal is greater than their
learning. The quotations from Col. Yule and other writers, elsewhere
given in this work, seem to place the matter beyond doubt that these
effects are produced.

Such phenomena, when occurring apart from religious rites, in India,
Japan, Thibet, Siam, and other "heathen" countries, phenomena a hundred
times more various and astounding than ever seen in civilized Europe or
America, are never attributed to the spirits of the departed. The Pitris
have naught to do with such public exhibitions. And we have but to
consult the list of the principal demons or elemental spirits to find
that their very names indicate their professions, or, to express it
clearly, the tricks to which each variety is best adapted. So we have
the Madan, a generic name indicating wicked elemental spirits, half
brutes, half monsters, for Madan signifies one that looks like a cow. He
is the friend of the malicious sorcerers and helps them to effect their
evil purposes of revenge by striking men and cattle with sudden illness
and death.

The Shudala-Madan, or graveyard fiend, answers to our ghouls. He
delights where crime and murder were committed, near burial-spots and
places of execution. He helps the juggler in all the fire-phenomena as
well as Kutti Shattan, the little juggling imps. Shudala, they say, is a
half-fire, half-water demon, for he received from Siva permission to
assume any shape he chose, transform one thing into another; and when

[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------

* Our informant, who was an eye-witness, is Mr. N----ff of St.
Petersburg, who was attached to the flag-ship Almaz, if we are not
mistaken.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------


496 

he is not in fire, he is in water. It is he who blinds people "to see
that which they do not see." Shula Madan, is another mischievous spook.
He is the furnace-demon, skilled in pottery and baking. If you keep
friends with him, he will not injure you; but woe to him who incurs his
wrath. Shula likes compliments and flattery, and as he generally keeps
underground it is to him that a juggler must look to help him raise a
tree from a seed in a quarter of an hour and ripen its fruit.

Kumil-Madan, is the undine proper. He is an elemental spirit of the
water, and his name means blowing like a bubble. He is a very merry imp;
and will help a friend in anything relative to his department; he will
shower rain and show the future and the present to those who will resort
to hydromancy or divination by water.

Poruthu Madan, is the "wrestling" demon; he is the strongest of all; and
whenever there are feats shown in which physical force is required, such
as levitations, or taming of wild animals, he will help the performer by
keeping him above the soil or will overpower a wild beast before the
tamer has time to utter his incantation. So, every "physical
manifestation" has its own class of elemental spirits to superintend
them.

Returning now to levitations of human bodies and inanimate bodies, in
modern circle-rooms, we must refer the reader to the Introductory
chapter of this work. (See "AEthrobasy.") In connection with the story
of Simon the Magician, we have shown the explanation of the ancients as
to how the levitation and transport of heavy bodies could be produced.
We will now try and suggest a hypothesis for the same in relation to
mediums, i.e., persons supposed to be unconscious at the moment of the
phenomena, which the believers claim to be produced by disembodied
"spirits." We need not repeat that which has been sufficiently explained
before. Conscious aethrobasy under magneto-electrical conditions is
possible only to adepts who can never be overpowered by an influence
foreign to themselves, but remain sole masters of their WILL.

Thus levitation, we will say, must always occur in obedience to law -- a
law as inexorable as that which makes a body unaffected by it remain
upon the ground. And where should we seek for that law outside of the
theory of molecular attraction? It is a scientific hypothesis that the
form of force which first brings nebulous or star matter together into a
whirling vortex is electricity; and modern chemistry is being totally
reconstructed upon the theory of electric polarities of atoms. The
waterspout, the tornado, the whirlwind, the cyclone, and the hurricane,
are all doubtless the result of electrical action. This phenomenon has
been studied from above as well as from below, observations having been
made both upon the ground and from a balloon floating above the vortex
of a thunder-storm.


497 WHAT LIFTS THE ADEPT, AND WHAT THE MEDIUM?

Observe now, that this force, under the conditions of a dry and warm
atmosphere at the earth's surface, can accumulate a dynamic energy
capable of lifting enormous bodies of water, of compressing the
particles of atmosphere, and of sweeping across a country, tearing up
forests, lifting rocks, and scattering buildings in fragments over the
ground. Wild's electric machine causes induced currents of
magneto-electricity so enormously powerful as to produce light by which
small print may be read, on a dark night, at a distance of two miles
from the place where it is operating.

As long ago as the year 1600, Gilbert, in his De Magnete, enunciated the
principle that the globe itself is one vast magnet, and some of our
advanced electricians are now beginning to realize that man, too,
possesses this property, and that the mutual attractions and repulsions
of individuals toward each other may at least in part find their
explanation in this fact. The experience of attendants upon
spiritualistic circles corroborates this opinion. Says Professor
Nicholas Wagner, of the University of St. Petersburg: "Heat, or perhaps
the electricity of the investigators sitting in the circle, must
concentrate itself in the table and gradually develop into motions. At
the same time, or a little afterward, the psychical force unites to
assist the two other powers. By psychical force, I mean that which
evolves itself out of all the other forces of our organism. The
combination into one general something of several separate forces, and
capable, when combined, of manifesting itself in degree, according to
the individuality." The progress of the phenomena he considers to be
affected by the cold or the dryness of the atmosphere. Now, remembering
what has been said as to the subtler forms of energy which the
Hermetists have proved to exist in nature, and accepting the hypothesis
enunciated by Mr. Wagner that "the power which calls out these
manifestations is centred in the mediums," may not the medium, by
furnishing in himself a nucleus as perfect in its way as the system of
permanent steel magnets in Wild's battery, produce astral currents
sufficiently strong to lift in their vortex a body even as ponderable as
a human form? It is not necessary that the object lifted should assume a
gyratory motion, for the phenomenon we are observing, unlike the
whirlwind, is directed by an intelligence, which is capable of keeping
the body to be raised within the ascending current and preventing its
rotation.

Levitation in this case would be a purely mechanical phenomenon. The
inert body of the passive medium is lifted by a vortex created either by
the elemental spirits -- possibly, in some cases, by human ones, and
sometimes through purely morbific causes, as in the cases of Professor
Perty's sick somnambules. The levitation of the adept is, on the
contrary, a magneto-electric effect, as we have just stated. He has made


498 

the polarity of his body opposite to that of the atmosphere, and
identical with that of the earth; hence, attractable by the former,
retaining his consciousness the while. A like phenomenal levitation is
possible, also, when disease has changed the corporeal polarity of a
patient, as disease always does in a greater or lesser degree. But, in
such case, the lifted person would not be likely to remain conscious. "

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

I hope this will give some an idea of one aspect of the scope of ISIS
UNVEILED - it unveiled the wealth of evidence available in 1877 on
abnormal events and asked that they be examined and their rationale be
derived as laws inherent in Nature but hitherto unknown.

We have to realize that nature has supported mankind for aeons and that
all her laws and workings are still to be discovered.

It also implied that the Lodge of Adepts was familiar with those laws
and had studied them for many centuries.

Best wishes,

DTB

Dallas