Theos-Talk Archives (June 2004 Message tt00070)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel H. Caldwell" 
<danielhcaldwell@y...> wrote:
> Yes, given the proper stage, the proper equipment,
> and a number of assistants, magicians can
> outperform most if not all mediums. But does that
> mean therefore that ALL phenomena produced by mediums,
> psychics and occultists are thereforefake, not real,
> etc.? 

You have set up a staw man here by asking an unreasonable question.

> One must always ask: what were the conditions under
> which the phenomenon was produced or occurred?

Excellent restatement of the point at issue. It appeared to me the 
conditions under which the teacup materialization (and a small number 
of other phenomena) were produced precluded the possibility of 
fraud. The stories themselves therefore constituted a prima facie 
case that materialization does occur in nature. Bart has argued with 
some force that this is not the case, so that whether or not one 
believes the phenomenon was real or not is a matter of faith and not 
evidence. I appreciate his insights and at the same time find them 
rather discouraging. After reading the criticisms of K. Paul 
Johnson, Rich Taylor, Emmette Coleman, and others, this pulled the 
last prop out from under me.

We are therefore left with three facts which have not been dealt with 
and which bear on the credibility of the phenomena:

(1) Real phenomena are notoriously capricious, which is why people 
who are not fakes tend not to demo anything. Yet the theosophical 
phenomena seem to have been available constantly and whenever anyone 
wanted to see one.

(2) The materializations seem to be almost unique. There are no 
credible reports of others having done this, as there are with other 
phenomena attributed to Blavatsky. (We KNOW Sai Baba is a fake, for 
example.) Phenomena which are unique are intrinsically less credible 
(being less widely attested) than phenomena which are unusual but not 
unique. Credible reports of astral projection from a large number of 
sources, for example, mean that we can argue what the experiences 
MEAN (i.e., are they what they appear to be) but that we cannot 
reasonably discount the testimonies that they happen. There is still 
some controversy over ball lightning, but scientists are coming to 
the view that it exists becase so many witnesses claim to have seen 
it.

(3) In favor: There is a very interesting, complex, and well thought 
out theory of how materializations would be possible which is buried 
in the SD, the EST papers, and various magazine articles. It is 
written in such a way that most readers will never find it, as are 
many other things in these documents. As usual, this theory is of 
consderably higher quality than anything offered by others. There 
are also at least four ancient documents of Indian origin 
translations of which I have in my possession which describe the 
techniques and theories relating to this. Examining her comments 
carefully make it fairly certain that Blavatsky was familiar with the 
yoga texts in question and that if she did anything other than fake 
her phenomena she used the information contained in these texts. I 
think it reasonable based on this evidence to believe Blavatsky 
thought materialization was possible, but am no longer confident she 
could do it herself, after reading Bart Lidofsky's comments.