Theos-Talk Archives (April 2012 Message tt00128)

Recently found this piece
Cass
It was after Madame Blavatskyâs departure from Ithaca that there fell upon Professor Corson, the Spiritualist, the full weight of what his son calls The Theosophical Societyâs âpronounced antagonism to spiritualism as it was at that time constituted in this country and in England.â The Professor received by mail his printed copy of Colonel OlcottâsÂInaugural Address. As Dr. Corson observes, âOlcott stressed this opposition in his inaugural address, and there was at once a great reaction, an uproar from the entire body of spiritualists, and from the Press generally a biting ridicule. . . . Now this was not all Olcott, of course; H.P.B. had much to do with it. Both in her spoken words and in her writings she continually stressed the point of the danger of the ordinary seance except under the most rigid conditions of the medium and the surroundings. We must admit that the modern critical attitude and methods of psychical research are
 along the same lines of her caution and warnings.âÂ(19)

But it was not merely that this Address should express the unwelcome truth about âimposture, tricky mediums, lying spirits, and revolting theoriesâ or recognize that âmany immoral people have fastened upon the cause. . . .â It also contained the provocative assertion that âOccultists. . . recognize in most of the physical phenomena called spiritual the agency of elementary spirits who often falsely personate persons not communicating with the circles, answer the thoughts which lie visible to them. . . and echo and respond to every fanciful vagary which agitates the questionerâs mind.â

This was a startling explanation to be given to the public fifty years before the foremost European authorities in Psychical Research, Professor Enrico Morselli, Dr. Gustave Geley, and the Baron Dr. von Schrenck Notzing, through their pioneering, unprejudiced experiments in the psycho-kinetic and teleplasmic phenomena of the seance room, were to discover independently much of the same truth, each discarding the âspiritâ theory though without fully comprehending the totality of the informing mechanism of these psychicÂsimulations.ÂÂDr. Nandor Fodor in his standard work,ÂEncyclopaedia of Psychic ScienceÂ(1933, with Preface by Sir Oliver Lodge, O.M.), translates from the latterâsÂPhysikalische Phenomene des MediumismusÂas concluding: âThe telekinetic and teleplasmic phenomenaÂare only different degrees of the same animistic process, they depend in the end upon physical manifestations in the subconscious sphere of the medium.Â
 TheÂsoi-distantÂoccult intelligences which manifest and materialise themselves in the seance, never display any higher spiritual faculty than is owned by the medium and the sitters; they are wholly of oneiric type, dream personifications that correspond to detached memories, to beliefs, to all the miscellaneous things that lie dormant in the minds of the participants. It is not on a foundation of extra-corporeal beings one will find the secret of the psycho-dynamical phenomena of these subjects, but rather through consideration of hitherto unknown transformations of the bio-physical forces of the mediumâs organism.â

âThe bio-physical forces of the mediumâs organismâ are simply the âastral bodyâ of the Occultistsâ teachings, whether or not assisted by âelementary spiritsâ as part of itsÂcomponents. Seeking to refine the common term, âelementary,â Madame Blavatsky in 1877 noted that it had been used by Eliphas Levi, the French Kabalist, âto coverâÂbothÂâhuman spiritsâ that had âlost every connection with a purer immortal worldâ (âthe disembodiedÂsoulsÂof the depravedâ who had âsometime prior to death separated themselves from their divine spiritsâ)ÂandÂthe ânature-spiritsâ (âevolved in the four kingdoms of earth, air, fire, and water and called by the Kabalists gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undinesâ). Reserving for the former the âspecial termâÂelementary, H.P.B. was the first to call the latterÂelementalsÂ(with a result that the term now has entered accepted usage. See Merriam-WebsterâsÂThird
 New International Dictionary, page 734: âElemental. . . Spirit, spectre, wraithâ). She described the elementals as âcenters of force,â responsive to the human will, changeable and plastic in appearance, taking on varying forms modeled by human imagination, conscious or unconscious.

These âelementalsâ --- or what earlier, in Col. OlcottâsÂInaugural Address, had been called âthe elementary spiritsâ --- were regarded by Occultists, H.P.B. noted, as the âsole agents in all the meaningless physical phenomena at seances.â Such phenomena, she added, âwill be produced unless they be dominated by wills more powerful than their own. Such a will may be that of a living adept, or as there are none such at Western spiritualistÂseances, these ready agents are at the disposal of every strong, vicious, earth-bound, human elementary who has been attracted to the place. By such they can be used in connection with the astral emanations of the circle and medium, as stuff out of which to make materialized spirits.â These âspirits, spectres, wraiths,â she called âportrait-statuesâ of the dead orÂliving; and maintained that these âpictures in the Astral Lightâ were palpably objectified through theÂLinga Sharira,
 the Astral Body, of the medium who âassimilat(es), unconsciously to himself, the pictures of the dead relatives and friends from the aura of the sitters.â Thus, âThe unintellectual âelementalsâ are drawn in unconsciously . . . as component parts of the grosser astral body. . . .âÂÂ(20)


http://blavatskyfoundation.org/founding.htm





>________________________________
> From: Mark  Jaqua <hozro@_DFxuSGUP9OGXf2MZcpzhcpvdnA2aWqPYtnS8wHQEnd8kjjxYU9oKcxp3CuXuMw-37qFXeoTCzg5VfKg.yahoo.invalid>
>To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
>Sent: Saturday, 21 April 2012 12:02 AM
>Subject: theos-talk Re: Rare Pamphlet Account by WT Brown
> 
>
>Â 
>Cass writes:  >Which raises the question Mark, that although we might through our selfish or evil thoughts attract these elemental demons, how do we get rid of them when attached to us?<
>
>Like Mark inferred, a lot of it is our own mind-created reality.  HPB has 11 references to Obsession in BCW Index, and other references.  Here's a quote from her article "A Case of Obsession" (BCW II, pp 395-400) and I supposed what is good for big cases is so for little ones as well.
>
>"What remedy is there to suggest? Does not our very diagnosis indicate that? The sensitive must have his sensitiveness destroyed; the negative polarity must be changed to a positive; he must become active instead of passive. He can be helped by a magnetiser who understands the nature of obsession, and who is morally pure and physically healthy; it must be a powerful magnetiser, a man of commanding will-force. But the fight for freedom will, after all, have to be fought by the patient himself. His will-power must be aroused. He must expel the poison from his system. Inch by inch he must win back the lost ground. He must realize that it is a question of life or death, salvation or ruin, and strive for victory, like one who makes a last and heroic effort to save his life. His diet must be of the simplest, he must neither eat animal food, nor touch any stimulant, nor put himself in any company where there is the smallest chance for unclean thoughts to be
 provoked. He should be alone as little as possible, but his companions should be carefully chosen. He should take exercise and be much in the open air; use wood-fire, instead of coals. Every indication that the bad influence was still working within him should be taken as a challenge to control his thoughts and compel them to dwell upon pure, elevating, spiritual things, at every hazard and with a determination to suffer anything rather than give way. If this man can have such a spirit infused into him, and his physician can secure the benevolent help of a strong, healthy magnetiser, of pure character, he may be saved. A case almost exactly like this one, except that the patient was a lady, came under our notice in America; the same advice as the above was given and followed, and the obsessing "devil" was driven out and has been kept out ever since. "
>-----------
>
>>4a. Re: Rare Pamphlet Account by WT Brown on HPB & the Master KH
>Posted by: "Cass Silva" silva_cass@yGB2updwPep7Ax1RjiWg0D9HQBvXgmNLvBqU-EEikEkRWpXMjchBvykj8B5nV1zCWiDa_DgdgM_afj0.yahoo.invalid silva_cass
>Date: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:05 pm ((PDT))
>
>>Which raises the question Mark, that although we might through our selfish or evil thoughts attract these elemental demons, how do we get rid of them when attached to us?
>
>>Cass
>------------
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
> 
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]