Theos-Talk Archives (June 2004 Message tt00223)

Leon,

Thanks for your recent posting at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/17089

I am still somewhat puzzled by some of your
statements about materializations.

In your original statement which I excerpted at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/17062

you make some categorical statements such as:

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

I seriously doubt that anyone,
including those on the level of a Master
occultist, could actually manifest a physical
cup that someone can drink out of, or
dematerialize such a cup and re-materialize
it at a remote location. 

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

You go on to assert:

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

It therefore becomes quite evident that all
this talk of actual teleportation of real objects
and their dematerialization and materialization is
just a lot of speculative whistling in the wind,
and a waste of time... 

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

And you tell your readers:

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

If you carefully read "all" the writings of
HPB (as I have) you will find that she has consistently
denied such possibilities....

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

I made several observations and even quoted HPB
on the subject. You have now replied to these
in your posting at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/17089

Before I reply to your specific comments, I want to
give more primary source material that shows that
both HPB and Master KH asserted that they were
able to perform (to quote your words) "actual 
teleportation of real objects and their dematerialization and 
materialization."

In THE OCCULT WORLD, A.P. Sinnett
writes about the "Pillow Incident" that occured on
Oct. 20, 1880. Note this specific comment by Sinnett:

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

...before starting for the hill, I had penned a few lines of thanks 
for the promise contained in the note then received as described. 
This note I gave to Madame Blavatsky, to despatch by occult 
methods if she had an opportunity. And she carried it in her 
hand as she and my wife went on in advance, in jampans, along the 
Simla Mall, not finding an opportunity until about halfway to our 
destination. Then she got rid of the note, occultism only knows how.

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

Regarding this note given by Sinnett to Blavatsky, Master KH
wrote in a note later that same day:

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

". . . your last note. . . was received in my room about half a 
minute after the [akasic] currents for the production of the pillow 
dak had been set ready and in full play."

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

According to KH's own words, he was NOT in Simla at that time
but in a Kashmir Valley.

Thus the Master KH himself contradicts your statement which
reads:

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

I seriously doubt that anyone,
including those on the level of a Master
occultist, could actually manifest a physical
cup that someone can drink out of, or
dematerialize such a cup and re-materialize
it at a remote location.

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

Now in the incident I am quoting the physical note written by
Sinnett (was according to KH) transported from Simla to KH's room.

You may still choose to ignore or disbelieve his statement. That of 
course is your choice. 

Many more examples could be given including material from THE MAHATMA 
LETTERS TO A.P. SINNETT.

One outstanding example is the Vega Incident. For some of the
primary source documents on this teleportation, see:

http://blavatskyarchives.com/eglinton1.htm

http://blavatskyarchives.com/gordon3.htm

http://blavatskyarchives.com/gordon4.htm

Numerous other examples can be found in Geoffrey A. Barborka's
book H.P. BLAVATSKY, TIBET AND TULKU. See, for example, Chapter
XIII --- Writing by Precipitation, pp. 222-299.

Also many examples in my own book THE ESOTERIC WORLD OF MADAME 
BLAVATSKY. Online edition at:
http://theosophical.org/theosophy/books/esotericworld/index.html

Moving on.

Regarding your assertion about what HPB denies, below I give
some quotes from one of HPB's letters to the Countess Wachtmeister:

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

I have to burn the letter with a stone I have (matches and common
fire would never do), and the ashes caught by the current become more 
minute than atoms would be, and are re-materialized at any distance 
where Master was.....

Think only (a case with Solovioff at Elberfeld) I sick 
in my bed; a letter of his, an old letter of his received in 
London and torn by me, rematerialised in my own sight, 
I looking at the thing; five or six times in the Russian language, 
in Mahatma K.H.'s handwriting in blue , the words taken from my head, 
the letter old and crumpled travelling slowly alone (even I could not 
see the astral hand of the chela performing the operation) across the 
bedroom, then slipping into and among Solovioff's papers who was 
writing in the little drawing-room, correcting my manuscripts; 
Olcott standing closely by him and having just handled the papers 
looking over them with Solovioff. The latter finding it, 
and like I flash I see in his head in Russian the thought: 
"The old impostor (meaning Olcott) must have put it there!"....

Suppose a chela receives an order from his Master to precipitate a 
letter....Paper and envelope are materialized before him, and he has 
only to form and shape theideas into his English and precipitate them.

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

Elsewhere HP Blavatksy writes:

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

Here we approach a comprehension of what may have been the course of 
events as regards the production of the mysterious cup and saucer 
described in Mr. Sinnett's book. It is in no way inconceivable that 
if the production of manifestation in matter is the act accomplished 
by what is ordinarily called creation that the power of the human 
will in some of its transcendent developments may be enabled 
to impose on unmanifested matter or chaos, the change which brings it 
within the cognisance of the ordinary human senses. 
==============================================================

Yet, Leon, apparently it is inconceivable to you.....

And in light of what I just quoted from HPB, it should be pointed
out that you have conceded that the cup and saucer was really
physical. Therefore, what is the implication of HPB's words just 
quoted?

Much more could be quoted from H.P. Blavatsky.

Moving on.

Let me now briefly look at your most recent replies and make a few
additional comments.

In light of your initial statement excerpted at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/17062

I wrote:

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

So Leon, what are you telling us about the cup and saucer
at the picnic? Are you saying that no real physical cup and
saucer was ever dug up by Mr. Henderson? Are you telling
us that what they thought was a real physical cup and saucer
was ONLY a mental "hologram", a thought-form you might say?

A clarification of this would be appreciated.

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

Now your clarification reads:

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

No, I said it could have been. But I doubt it in the present case, 
where a real cup was supposedly found, added to the set, and 
presumedly used to serve tea to the new guest who came on the scene.

However, saying this reminds me that the real cup and saucer could 
have been lost years before (and the tree roots grown over and around 
it) by the owners who may have visited that spot earlier -- since it 
was near a Temple where many picnickers who lived nearby may have 
gone in the past. HPB, being clairvoyant, supposedly, could have 
then "found" the lost items in one of her "brown studies" or trance 
states. Of course I understand this is only a "possibility"
like many of those arguments used by skeptics.

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

I realize that you say "this is only a 'possibility' like many of 
those arguments used by skeptics."

Nevertheless, I believe this argument of yours is as implausible as 
those skeptical arguments advanced by Bart.

First of all, your "possibility" only confirms Hyman's statement that
"it is always possible to 'imagine' some scenario....."

Secondly, your "possibility" is not plausible in light of the 
testimonial evidence of both Sinnett and Olcott.

Remember what Olcott wrote:

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

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

He found the ground hard and full of small roots of a young cedar
tree near by. These he cut through and pulled up to a depth of say 6
inches, when something white was seen in the black soil; it was dug
out, and lo! a cup decorated in green and gold, exactly matching the
others Mrs. Sinnett's servants had brought.

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

And Sinnett reported:

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

The cup and saucer both corresponded exactly, as
regards their pattern, with those that had been
brought to the picnic, and constituted a seventh
cup and saucer when brought back to where we were
to have breakfast. Afterwards, when we got home, my
wife questioned our principal khitmutgar as to how
many cups and saucers of that particular kind we
possessed. In the progress of years, as the set was
an old set, some had been broken, but the man at once
said that nine teacups were left. When collected and
counted that number was found to be right, without
reckoning the excavated cup. That made ten, and as
regards the pattern, it was one of a somewhat peculiar
kind, bought a good many years previously in London,
and which assuredly could never have been matched
in Simla.

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

Therefore, in light of the testimonial evidence that the "cup and 
saucer both corresponded exactly, as regards their pattern, with 
those that had been brought to the picnic," how likely is it that
your possibility is at all plausible?

Remember you wrote:

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

...the real cup and saucer could have been lost years before (and the 
tree roots grown over and around it) by the owners who may have 
visited that spot earlier -- since it was near a Temple where many 
picnickers who lived nearby may have gone in the past. HPB, being 
clairvoyant, supposedly, could have then "found" the lost items in 
one of her "brown studies" or trance states.

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

As far as I can tell, this possibility is as "silly" as one dreamed
up by Steve Stubbs a year or so ago and just as "silly" as what Bart 
has suggested.

Of course, nothing is firm and evidential when one wants to ignore 
the actual facts of the case and talk vaguely about possibly this or 
possibly that.

Apparently not only extreme skeptics of the paranormal like Randi and 
Kurtz indulge in such speculation but even students of Theosophy and 
Blavatsky. Amazing!!

Finally let me quote what HPB wrote several years later about the 
occult phenomena of this time period:

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

Never were the phenomena presented in any other character than that
of instances of a power over perfectly natural though unrecognized
forces, and incidentally over matter, possessed by certain
individuals who have attained to a larger and higher knowledge of the
Universe than has been reached by scientists and theologians, or can
ever be reached by them, by the roads they are now respectively
pursuing. Yet this power is latent in all men, and could, in time, be
wielded by anyone who would cultivate the knowledge and conform to
the conditions necessary for its development.

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

Notice her emphasis on "a power over perfectly natural though 
unrecognized forces, and incidentally over matter...."

This confirms HPB's words quoted earlier which read:

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

... the power of the human will in some of its transcendent 
developments may be enabled to impose on unmanifested matter or 
chaos, the change which brings it within the cognisance of the 
ordinary human senses.

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

...the power of the human will ... may be enabled to impose on 
unmanifested matter....

This is 180 degrees different from Leon's contention which reads:

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

That is, manipulating the mind of the viewer rather than the actual 
forces that make up the objects themselves.....

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

I advise students to go directly to Blavatsky's and the Masters' 
writings instead of depending on statements by students who claim to 
have read all of their writings.

Daniel
http://hpb.cc
http://theosophy.info