Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00003)

June 1 2005
Dear Friends:
This is presented as a result of recent discussions.

Did They know the INTERNET was coming ?
Dallas

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THE ADEPTS AND MODERN SCIENCE


Modern science is a bugbear for many a good Theosophist, causing him to hide
his real opinions for fear they should conflict with science. But the latter
is an unstable quantity, always shifting its ground, although never devoid
of an overbearing assurance, even when it takes back what it had previously
asserted. 

The views of scientific men have frequently been brought forward as a strong
objection to the possibility of the existence of Adepts, Masters, Mahatmas,
perfected men who have a complete knowledge of all that modern science is
endeavoring to discover. Many trembling members of the Society, who do not
doubt the Masters and their powers, would fain have those beings make their
peace with science, so that the views of nature and man put forward by the
Mahatmas might coincide with the ideas of modern investigators. It will be
profitable to try to discover what is the attitude of the Adepts towards
modern science.

The question was raised quite early in the history of the Society in the
correspondence which Mr. Sinnett had with the Adept K. H. in India, and
there is in the answers published by Mr. Sinnett in the Occult World enough
to indicate clearly what is the attitude of such beings to modern science.
That book will often have to be referred to in future years, because the
letters given in its pages are valuable in more senses than has been
thought; they ought to be studied by every member of the Society, and the
ideas contained therein made a part of our mental furniture.

It is evident from the remarks made in the Occult World that the persons to
whom the letters were written had a high respect for modern science; that
they would have liked to see science convinced of the machinery of the
occult Cosmos, with all that that implies; that they thought if modern
scientific men could be convinced by extraordinary phenomena or otherwise
about the Masters and Theosophy, very beneficial results to the Society
would follow. 

There can be no doubt that if such a convincing were possible the results
would have followed, but the hope of convincing our scientists seemed vain,
because no way exists to alter the attitude of materialistic modern science
except by a complete reform in its methods and theories. This would be a
bringing back of ancient thought, and not agreeable to modern men. 

To pander in any way to science would be impossible to the Masters. They
hold the position that if the rules and conclusions of nineteenth century
science differ from those of the Lodge of the Brothers, then so much the
worse for modern conclusions, as they must all be revised in the future. The
radical difference between occult and modern materialistic science is that
the former has philanthropy as its basis, whereas the latter has no such
basis. Let us now see what can be discovered from the letters written by
K.H. to Mr. Sinnett and another.

BRING THE "LONDON TIMES" TO India TODAY !

Mr. Sinnett writes,

"The idea I had especially in my mind when I wrote the letter above
referred to was that, of all tests of phenomena one could wish for, the best
would be the production in our presence in India of a copy of the London
Times of that day's date. 

With such a piece of evidence in my hand, I argued, I would
undertake to convert everybody in Simla who was capable of linking two ideas
together, to a belief in the possibility of obtaining by occult agency
physical results which were beyond the control of modern science."

To this he received a reply from K.H., who said:

"Precisely because the test of the London newspaper would close the
mouths of the sceptics it is inadmissible. See it in what light you will,
the world is yet in its first stage of disenthralment, hence unprepared. . .
. But as on the one hand science would find itself unable in its present
state to account for the wonders given in its name, and on the other the
ignorant masses would still be left to view the phenomenon in the light of a
miracle, every one who would be thus made a witness to the occurrence would
be thrown off his balance and the result would be deplorable.

In this is the first indication of the philanthropic basis, although
later it is definitely stated. For here we see that the Adepts would not do
that which might result in the mental confusion of so many persons as are
included in "ignorant masses." He then goes on to say:

Were we to accede to your desires, know you really what consequence
would follow in the trail of success? The inexorable shadow which follows
all human innovations moves on, yet few are they who are ever conscious of
its approach and dangers. What are they then to expect who would offer to
the world an innovation which, owing to human ignorance, if believed in will
surely be attributed to those dark agencies that two-thirds of humanity
believe in and dread as yet?"

Here again we see that Adepts will not do that which, however agreeable to
science, extraordinary and interesting in itself, might result in causing
the masses once more to consider that they had proof of the agency of devils
or other dreaded unseen beings. 

The object of the Adepts being to increase the knowledge of the greater
number and to destroy dogmatism with superstition, they will not do that
which would in any way tend to defeat what they have in view. In the letter
quoted from, the Adept then goes on to show that the number of persons free
from ignorant prejudice and religious bigotry is still very small. 

It is very true that such an extraordinary thing as the production of the
Times in India across several thousand miles of ocean might convince even
hundreds of scientific men of the possibility of this being done by a
knowledge of law, but their belief would have but little effect on the
immense masses of uneducated persons in the West who are still bound up in
religious bigotry and prejudice. 

The Adept hints that "the inexorable shadow that follows all human
innovations" would be a sudden blazing forth again of ignorant superstition
among the masses, which, gaining force, and sweeping all other men along in
the immense current thus generated, the very purpose of the phenomenon would
then be negatived. 

On this the Adept writes a little further on,

"As for human nature in general, it is the same now as it was a
million years ago, prejudice based upon selfishness, a general unwillingness
to give up an established order of things for new modes of life and thought
- and occult study requires all that and much more - proud and stubborn
resistance to truth if it but upsets the previous notion of things: such are
the characteristics of the age. However successful, the danger would be
growing proportionately with success, that is, the danger would grow in
proportion to the success of the phenomenon produced.

"No choice would soon remain but to go on, ever crescendo, or to
fall, in this endless struggle with prejudice and ignorance, killed by your
own weapons. Test after test would be required and would have to be
furnished; every subsequent phenomenon expected to be more marvelous than
the preceding one. Your daily remark is that one cannot be expected to
believe unless he becomes an eye-witness. Would the lifetime of a man
suffice to satisfy the whole world of skeptics? . . . In common with many
you blame us for our great secrecy. 

"Yet we know something of human nature, for the experience of long
centuries, aye of ages, has taught us. And we know that so long as science
has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the
hearts of the multitudes, the world's prejudices have to be conquered step
by step, not at a rush."

These simple remarks are philosophical, historically accurate, and perfectly
true. All spiritualistic mediums know that their visitors require test after
test. Even the dabbler in psychic matters is aware that his audience or his
friends require a constant increase of phenomena and results, and every
earnest student of occultism is aware of the fact that in his own circle
there are fifty unbelievers to one believer, and that the believers require
that they shall see the same thing over again that others report.

Proceeding with this matter to another letter, the Adept says:

"We will be at cross purposes in our correspondence until it has
been made entirely plain that occult science has its own methods of research
as fixed and arbitrary as the methods of its antithesis, physical science,
are in their way. If the latter has its dicta, so also has the former."

He then goes on to show that the person desiring to know their science must
abide by their rules, and taking his correspondent as an illustration, he
says:

"You seek all this, and yet, as you say yourself, hitherto you have
not found sufficient reasons to even give up your modes of life, directly
hostile to such communication."

This means of course that scientific men as well as other inquirers must
conform to the rules of occult science if they wish to know it, and must
themselves change their modes of thought and action. 

MOTIVE

He then goes on to analyze the motives of his correspondent, and these
motives would be the same as those impelling science to investigate. They
are described to be the desire to have positive proofs of forces in nature
unknown to science, the hope to appropriate them, the wish to demonstrate
their existence to some others in the West, the ability to contemplate
future life as an objective reality built upon knowledge and not faith, and
to learn the truth about the Lodge and the Brothers. These motives, he says,
are selfish from the standpoint of the Adepts, and this again emphasizes the
philanthropy behind occult science. The motives are selfish because, as he
says:

"The highest aspiration for the welfare of humanity become tainted
with selfishness if in the mind of the philanthropist there lurks a shadow
of a desire for self-benefit, or a tendency to do injustice, even where
these exist unconsciously to himself. Yet you have ever discussed but to put
down the idea of a universal brotherhood, questioned its usefulness, and
advised to remodel the Theosophical Society on the principle of a college
for the special study of occultism."

The Adept makes it very clear that such a proposition could not be
entertained, showing once more that the Brotherhood, and not the study of
secret laws of nature, is the real object the inner Lodge has in view.
Brotherhood as an object is the highest philanthropy, and especially so when
connected with science.

In another letter, written after consultation with much higher Adepts, who
have never been mentioned and who are utterly unknown even to Theosophists,
being too high to be encountered, he takes up the same subject, saying,

"In conformity with exact science you define but one cosmic energy,
and see no difference between the energy expended by the traveller who
pushes aside the bush that obstructs his path and the scientific
experimenter who expends an equal amount of energy in setting the pendulum
in motion. We do; for we know there is a world of difference between the
two. 

"The one uselessly dissipates and scatters force; the other
concentrates and stores it; and here please understand that I do not refer
to the relative utility of the two, as one might imagine, but only to the
fact that in the one case there is brute force flung out without any
transmutation of that brute energy into the higher potential form of
spiritual dynamics, and in the other there is just that. . . . 

"Now for us poor unknown philanthropists no fact of either of these
sciences is interesting except in the degree of its potentiality for moral
results, and in the ratio of its usefulness to mankind. And what, in its
proud isolation, can be more utterly indifferent to every one and
everything, or more bound to nothing but the selfish requisites for its
advancement, than this materialistic science of fact? 

"May I ask, then, what have the laws of Faraday, Tyndall, or others
to do with philanthropy in their abstract relations with humanity, viewed as
an intelligent whole? What care they for man as an isolated atom of this
great and harmonious whole, even though they may be sometimes of practical
use to him? 


COSMIC ENERGY

"Cosmic energy is something eternal and incessant; matter is
indestructible: and there stand the scientific facts. Doubt them and you are
an ignoramus; deny them, a dangerous lunatic, a bigot: pretend to improve
upon the theories, an impertinent charlatan. And yet even these scientific
facts never suggested any proof to the world of experimenters that nature
consciously prefers that matter should be indestructible under organic
rather than inorganic forms, and that she works slowly but incessantly
towards the realization of this object - the evolution of conscious life out
of unconscious material. . . . 

Still less does exact science perceive that while the building ant,
the busy bee, the nidifacient bird, accumulates each in its own humble way
as much cosmic energy in its potential form as a Hayden, a Plato, or a
ploughman turning his furrow. . . . The hunter who kills game for his
pleasure or profit, the positivist who applies his intellect to proving that
plus multiplied by plus equals minus, are wasting and scattering energy no
less than the tiger which springs upon its prey. They all rob nature instead
of enriching her, and will all in the degree of their intelligence find
themselves accountable. . . . 

"Exact experimental science has nothing to do with morality, virtue,
philanthropy - therefore can make no claim upon our help until it blends
itself with metaphysics. Being a cold classification of facts outside of
man, and existing before and after him, her domain of usefulness ceases for
us at the outer boundary of these facts; and whatever the inferences and
results for humanity from the materials acquired by her method, she little
cares. 

"Therefore as our sphere lies entirely outside of hers, - as far as
the path of Uranus is outside the earth's, - we distinctly refuse to be
broken on any wheel of her construction. . . . The truths and mysteries of
Occultism constitute, indeed, a body of the highest spiritual importance, at
once profound and practical for the world at-large, yet it is not as an
addition to the tangled mass of theory or speculation that they are being
given to you, but for their practical bearing on the interests of mankind."

We have in these extracts a clear outline of the exact position of the
Adepts towards modern science, together with the statement of the reasons
why they do not come forth by astounding phenomena to convince the world of
their existence. 

The reason for the refusal is that the world is not ready, but is in such a
condition that the end would be obstructed and damage be the result. Their
attitude to modern science is that they accept the facts of science wherever
they prove the truths of Occultism, but they consider modern science to be
materialistic and also devoid of philanthropy. 

This we must admit to be the case, and as the student who has had experience
in these matters knows for himself that the Adepts have the truth and
possess a knowledge of nature's laws, he approves of their refusing to come
down to science and of their demand that science must rise to them. He also
knows that in the course of the cycles the mass of men will have been
educated and developed to such a position that a new school, at once
religious and scientific, will have possession of the earth and rule among
all men who possess civilization.

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE	Path, August, 1893
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COPIED BY

Dallas