Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00753)

Apl 15 2005

Dear G:

As I understand the teachings of THEOSOPHY :

"Meddling" to me means amusing ones' self with experiences in another plane
or medium OF Nature than the physical, and usually without as much knowledge
as is available to act as preview and protection. Some have that knowledge
and also have studied the area of such relationships. (see below) 

The astral plane is not a normal plane at this time of the cycle, though
some have a natural born ability to contact and even channel it. To them it
is "natural" to do this, but they may not always know how it happens or how
it is controlled around them; nor does everyone realize the dangers that
lie in wait for others not so naturally endowed. It is a vast area for
careful investigation. THEOSOPHY accumulates information about these, and
provides it, but also warns of dangers identified by those who have mastered
the art of control of these forces. 

ISIS UNVEILED is full of examples; and subsequent articles in THEOSOPHIST
and PATH give advice and warnings. But few seem to think those reports are
from those who are both experienced and wise.  

THEOSOPHY, provides since its beginning, adequate warnings on this and
reasons for not "dabbling" (for amusement) in psychic experiences. 

Best wishes,

Dallas

PS see notes below, please

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NATURE'S HUMAN MAGNETS


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 unravelled 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. 

MIRACLES ?

The Hindu, however, believes that miracles did once occur, while the
scientist does not. As for the bigoted Christians, this is not a Kali Yug
but--if one might judge by what they say--a golden era of light, in which
the splendour of the Gospel is illuminating humanity and pushing it onward
towards greater intellectual triumphs. And as they base all their faith upon
miracles, they pretend that miracles are being wrought now by God and the
Virgin--principally the latter--just as in ancient times. 

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. The smile of incredulity is
too often followed by the insulting challenge of one's veracity or the
attempted impugnment of one's character. An hundred impossible theories will
be broached to escape accepting the only right one. Your brain must have
been sur-excited, your nerves are hallucinated, a "glamour" has been cast
over you. If the phenomenon has left behind a positive, tangible, undeniable
proof then comes the sceptic's last resource--confederacy, involving an
amount of expenditure, time and trouble totally incommensurate with the
results to be hoped for, and despite the absence of the least possible evil
motive. 

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, this
presumptuous science having never seen your phenomenon denies both your
premise and conclusion, and falls to calling you harsh names. So it all
comes back to the question of personal credibility as a witness, and the man
of science, until some happy accident forces the new fact upon his
attention, is like the child who screams at the veiled figure he takes for a
ghost, but which is only his nurse after all. If we but wait with patience
we shall see some day a majority of the professors coming over to the side
where Hare, De Morgan, Flammarion, Crookes, Wallace, Zöllner, Weber, Wagner,
and Butlerof have ranged themselves, and then, though "miracles" will be
considered as much an absurdity as now, yet occult phenomena will be duly
taken inside the domain of exact science and men will be wiser.

These circumscribing barriers are being vigorously assaulted just now at St.
Petersburg. A young girl-medium is "shocking" all the wiseacres of the
University. 
For years mediumship seemed to be represented in the Russian metropolis but
by American, English and French mediums on flying visits, with great
pecuniary pretensions and, except Dr. Slade, the New York medium, with
powers already waning. Very naturally the representatives of science found a
good pretext to decline. But now all excuses are futile. 

Not far from Petersburg, in a small hamlet inhabited by three families of
German colonists, 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. She loved her masters fondly and
was beloved in the house. Notwithstanding her good looks and sympathetic
person, no village lad ever thought of offering himself as a husband. The
young men said she "awed" them. They looked upon her as people look in those
regions upon the image of a saint. So at least say the Russian papers and
the Police Gazette from which we quote the report of the District Police
Officer sent to investigate certain facts of diablerie. For this innocent
young creature has just become the victim of "the weird doings of some
incomprehensible, invisible agency," says the report.
 
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. During a period of three weeks they succeeded each other
with such a rapidity that if we were to translate the entire official Report
it might fill this whole issue of the Theosophist. 

We will cite but a few. 

>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. Hardly does the girl
stretch out her hand to reach from the shelf some needed piece of crockery,
than the whole of the earthenware, cups, tureens and plates, as if snatched
from their places by a whirlwind, begin to jump and tremble, and then fall
with a crash at her feet. 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. One day, having gone to the shed to do her usual evening work of
feeding the cattle, Pelagueya, after performing her duty, was preparing to
leave it with two other servants, when the most extraordinary scene took
place. All the cows and pigs seemed to become suddenly possessed. The
former, frightening the whole village with the most infuriating bellowing,
tried to climb up the mangers, while the latter knocked their heads against
the walls, running round as if pursued by some wild animal. Pitchforks,
shovels, benches and feeding trough, snatching away from their places,
pursued the terrified girls, who escaped within an inch of their lives by
violently shutting and locking the door of the stables. But, as soon as this
was done every noise ceased inside as if by magic. 

All such phenomena took place not in darkness or during night, but in the
daytime, and in the full view of the inhabitants of the little hamlet;
moreover, they were always preceded by an extraordinary noise, as if of a
howling wind, a cracking in the walls, and raps in the window-frames and
glass. A real panic got hold of the household and the inhabitants of the
hamlet, which went on increasing at every new manifestation. A priest was
called of course--as though priests knew anything of magnetism!--but with no
good results: a couple of pots danced a jig on the shelf, an oven-fork went
stamping and jumping on the floor, and a heavy sewing-machine followed suit.


The news about the young witch and her struggle with the invisible imps ran
round the whole district. Men and women from neighboring villages flocked to
see the marvels. The same phenomena, often intensified, took place in their
presence. Once when a crowd of men upon entering, placed their caps upon the
table, every one of these jumped from it to the floor, and a heavy leather
glove, circling round, struck its owner a pretty sound thump on his face and
rejoined the fallen caps. Finally, notwithstanding the real affection the
widow Beetch felt for the poor orphan, towards the beginning of December,
Pelagueya and her boxes were placed upon a cart, and after many a tear and
warm expression of regret, she was sent off to the Superintendent of the
Foundling Hospital--the Institution in which she was brought up. This
gentleman, returning with the girl on the following day, was made a witness
to the pranks of the same force, called in the Police, and, after a careful
inquest, had a proces verbal signed by the authorities, and departed. 

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. The prologue finished, we are put in a position to follow the
subsequent development of the power in this wonderful medium, as we find
them commented upon in all the serious and arch-official papers of the
metropolis. 

"A new star on the horizon of spiritism has suddenly appeared at St.
Petersburg--one Mlle. Pelagueya"--thus speaketh an editorial in the Novoye
Vremya, January 1, 1881 "The manifestations which have taken place in her
presence are so extraordinary and powerful that more than one devout
spiritualist seems to have been upset by them--literally and by the agency
of a heavy table." "But," adds the paper, "the spiritual victims do not seem
to have felt in the least annoyed by such striking proofs. On the contrary,
hardly had they picked themselves up from the floor (one of them before
being able to resume his perpendicular position had to crawl out from
beneath a sofa whither he had been launched by a heavy table) than,
forgetting their bruises, they proceeded to embrace each other in rapturous
joy, and with eyes overflowing with tears, congratulate each other upon this
new manifestation of the mysterious force." 

In the St.Petersburg Gazette, a merry reporter gives the following
details:--"Miss Pelagueya is a young girl of about nineteen, the daughter of
poor but dishonest parents (who had thrust her in the Foundling Hospital, as
given above), 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,1
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 whose system appears to be also abnormally
charged with vital magnetism. The report, which is from the Catholic Mirror,
says that the boy is the son of a Mr. and Mrs. John C. Collins, of St. Paul,
in the state of 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." 


EXPERIMENTS by Baron von REICHENBACH 

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. 

His discoveries were so important that they can only be fully appreciated by
a careful reading of his book, Researches on Magnetism, Electricity, Heat,
Light, Crystallization, and Chemical Attraction, in their relations to the
Vital Force;--unfortunately out of print, but of which copies may be
occasionally procured in London, second-hand. 


MAGNETO-AURIC FLUID

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. The
experiment was tried by Professors Zöllner and W. Weber (Professor of
Physics, founder of the doctrine of Vibration of Forces) at Leipzig.
Professor Weber "placed on the table a compass, enclosed in glass, the
needle of which we could all observe very distinctly by the bright
candlelight, while we had our hands joined with those of Slade, which were
over a foot distant from the compass. 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." 2 


MAGNETISM OF CRYSTALS

Baron Reichenbach's first branch of inquiry was that of the effect of the
magnet upon animal nerves; 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 Asyan 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." 

Did space permit, this most interesting analysis of the accumulated facts
respecting the occasional abnormal magnetic surcharge of human beings might
be greatly prolonged without fatiguing the intelligent reader. But we may at
once say that since Reichenbach 3 proves magnetism to be a compound instead
of a simple force, and that every human being is charged with one of these
forces, Odyle; and since the Slade experiments, and the phenomena of Russia
and St. Paul, show that the human body does also at times discharge the true
magnetic aura, such as is found in the lodestone; therefore the explanation
is that in these latter abnormal cases the individual has simply evolved an
excess of the one instead of the other of the forces which together form
what is commonly known as magnetism. There is, therefore, nothing whatever
of supernatural in the cases. 

Why this happens is, we conceive, quite capable of explanation, but as this
would take us too far afield in the less commonly known region of occult
science it had better be passed over for the present. 
H. P. B.  

THEOSOPHIST. April, 1881 

--------------------------------------	Footnotes
----------------------------
 
1 We seriously doubt whether there ever will be more than there are now
believers in Spiritualism among the middle and lower classes of Russia.
These are too sincerely devout, and believe too fervently in the devil to
have any faith in "spirits."
 
2 Transcendental Physics, p. 47.
 
3 Reichenbach. op. cit., pp. 25, 46, 210.

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2

ASTRAL INTOXICATION


THERE is such a thing as being intoxicated in the course of an unwise
pursuit of what we erroneously imagine is spirituality. 

In the Christian Bible it is very wisely directed to "prove all" and to hold
only to that which is good; this advice is just as important to the student
of occultism who thinks that he has separated himself from those "inferior"
people engaged either in following a dogma or in tipping tables for messages
from deceased relatives - or enemies - as it is to spiritists who believe in
the "summerland" and "returning spirits."

The placid surface of the sea of spirit is the only mirror in which can be
caught undisturbed the reflections of spiritual things. 

When a student starts upon the path and begins to see spots of light flash
out now and then, or balls of golden fire roll past him, it does not mean
that he is beginning to see the real Self - pure spirit. A moment of deepest
peace or wonderful revealings given to the student, is not the awful moment
when one is about to see his spiritual guide, much less his own soul. Nor
are psychical splashes of blue flame, nor visions of things that afterwards
come to pass, nor sights of small sections of the astral light with its
wonderful photographs of past or future, nor the sudden ringing of distant
fairy-like bells, any proof that you are cultivating spirituality. 

These things, and still more curious things, will occur when you have passed
a little distance on the way, but they are only the mere outposts of a new
land which is itself wholly material, and only one remove from the plane of
gross physical consciousness.

The liability to be carried off and intoxicated by these phenomena is to be
guarded against. We should watch, note and discriminate in all these cases;
place them down for future reference, to be related to some law, or for
comparison with other circumstances of a like sort. 

The power that Nature has of deluding us is endless, and if we stop at these
matters she will let us go no further. It is not that any person or power in
nature has declared that if we do so and so we must stop, but when one is
carried off by what Boehme calls "God's wonders," the result is an
intoxication that produces confusion of the intellect. 

Were one, for instance, to regard every picture seen in the astral light as
a spiritual experience, he might truly after a while brook no contradiction
upon the subject, but that would be merely because he was drunk with this
kind of wine. While he proceeded with his indulgence and neglected his true
progress, which is always dependent upon his purity of motive and conquest
of his known or ascertain-able defects, nature went on accumulating the
store of illusory appearances with which he satiated himself.

It is certain that any student who devotes himself to these astral
happenings will see them increase. But were our whole life devoted to and
rewarded by an enormous succession of phenomena, it is also equally certain
that the casting off of the body would be the end of all that sort of
experience, without our having added really anything to our stock of true
knowledge.

The astral plane, which is the same as that of our psychic senses, is as
full of strange sights and sounds as an untrodden South American forest, and
has to be well understood before the student can stay there long without
danger. 
While we can overcome the dangers of a forest by the use of human
inventions, whose entire object is the physical destruction of the noxious
things encountered there, we have no such aids when treading the astral
labyrinth. We may be physically brave and say that no fear can enter into
us, but no untrained or merely curious seeker is able to say just what
effect will result to his outer senses from the attack or influence
encountered by the psychical senses.

And the person who revolves selfishly around himself as a center is in
greater danger of delusion than any one else, for he has not the assistance
that comes from being united in thought with all other sincere seekers. One
may stand in a dark house where none of the objects can be distinguished and
quite plainly see all that is illuminated outside; in the same way we can
see from out of the blackness of our own house our hearts - the objects now
and then illuminated outside by the astral light; but we gain nothing. We
must first dispel the inner darkness before trying to see into the darkness
without; we must know ourselves before knowing things extraneous to
ourselves.

This is not the road that seems easiest to students. Most of them find it
far pleasanter and, as they think, faster work, to look on all these outside
allurements, and to cultivate all psychic senses, to the exclusion of real
spiritual work.
The true road is plain and easy to find, it is so easy that very many would
- be students miss it because they cannot believe it to be so simple.

"The way lies through the heart";
Ask there and wander not;
Knock loud, nor hesitate
Because at first the sounds
Reverberating, seem to mock thee.
Nor, when the door swings wide,
Revealing shadows black as night,
Must thou recoil.
Within, the Master's messengers
Have waited patiently:
That Master is Thyself!
 
PATH, October, 1887

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald 
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 1:32 AM
To: 
Subject: Astral Body

<<THEOSOPHY warns that meddling by untrained and unprepared
individuals with the Astral Body may cause by repercussion, severe
dislocations in the physical -- resulting in ailments, both physical and
psychic, as well as mental and consciousness aberrations. (Hence THEOSOPHY
recommends that no practices be indulged in that involve the astral Body or
the Astral Light.) >>
 
Dallas, in order for this to mean anything, you have to define "meddling." 
Your directive in the last paren is nonsense as far as I am concerned, and
certainly not what Theosophy recommends to me. What happened to the third
objective? 
CUT