The Spiritualist newspaper > No.288, March 1st 1878

March 1, 1878.
THE SPIRITUALIST.
105
Cantab.” and “ Scrutator.’’ Nor by the light of the several
communications from Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky (Spiritualist,
December 7th and February 8th) can they be regarded* as excusable.
The epithets “ uncharitable,” “ self-righteous,” a slanderous,” “ effron¬
tery,” “ absurd,” “cruel,” may be considered by these writers a fitting
response to the appeal with which Madame Blavatsky’s letter concludes.
“In the name of logic and common sense, let us, before bandying
epithets, submit our differences to the arbitrament of reason.” But
there is one precaution in controversy which it is never safe, not to say
fair, to neglect. Whenever you are about to impute to an opponent, not
being a notorious and previously convicted fool, some transparently
absurd, monstrous, and even wicked opinion, first make sure that he
holds, or, at least, that he may plausibly be represented as holding it,
by possible construction or intendment. Both. “ M.A., Cantab,” and
“ Scrutator,” distinctly attribute to Colonel Olcott the dogma, inference,
or assumption, which is stated by “ Scrutator ” in these wonderful
terms:—“ Every physical medium is already an astral man, that is, a
mere soul, who has already lost his trinity.” Colonel Olcott had said,
“ Mediumistic physical phenomena are not produced by pure spirits,
but by * souls,’ embodied or disembodied, and usually with the help of
elementals,” and “ the whole range of physical phenomena, from rap¬
ping to full form presentations, are manifestations of the power of either
earth bound elementaries, helped by elementals, or the souls of the
mediums themselves,” thatis, says “ Scrutator,” “ souls that have lost their
spirits.” “There is no disguising,” he continues, “thatthe dictum of
Colonel Olcott assumes ” the proposition above quoted. It is scarcely
worth pausing to notice that Col. Olcott’s proposition is in the alterna¬
tive, “ by elementaries or by the soul of the medium,” and thus that
even if “Scrutator” had rightly understood instead of having ludi¬
crously misapprehended the meaning of the “ soul ” or u astral man,” it
does not follow that all physical mediums produce the phenomena by
their own “ souls,” which might, therefore, not have lost their “ spirits.”
“Scrutator” vaults over this difficulty by saying “the ‘soul’ disem¬
bodied only comes through the mediumship of the ‘ soul ’ embodied, his
confrere” So that if the elementary does it, “ Scrutator ” appears to
think that the medium cannot be an (embodied) elementary also. Where
does “ Scrutator ” find it laid down that mediums must be as bad as the
bad spirits, or as good as the good spirits, influencing them, or who,
not necessarily influencing their thoughts or actions, merely use their
mediumship for the production of physical effects ? Such effects do not
suppose, and are not usually accompanied by even the temporary “ con¬
trol ” of the medium during their production. Admitting, therefore, for
the moment, the extraordinary assumption incomprehensibly ascribed
by “ Scrutator ” and “ M.A., Cantab.,” to Colonel Olcott, that only
elementaries and embodied “souls,” which resemble elementaries in
having lost their spirits, can effect physical phenomena, it follows that
only those mediums who produce the phenomena themselves need be
considered in that condition. But the real answer, of course, is that
Colonel Olcott’s conception of the “soul” is radically different from
what your correspondents suppose it to be. Colonel Olcott, in fact,
regards physical phenomena, produced by the “ soul ” or double, as
quite consistent with the purest character, whereas those produced by
elementaries do suppose proximity, and therefore a certain affinity, to
the medium of these spirits. Witness this passage: “ The Katie King of
Miss Florence Cook may have been her own double or soul; in fact, I
am quite sure it could not have been an elementary, since I am
assured that she was a young girl of unblemished character f I do
not like to use Scrutator’s word “ effrontery,” but how otherwise
in the face of this passage (I could quote others, if necessary) are we
to characterise the assertion that Colonel Olcott holds all “souls”
producing physical phenomena (including “ full form presentations ”)
to be in the dire condition suggested ? Where, in any communication
of either Madame Blavatsky or Col. Olcott, does “M.A., Cantab.,” find
the proposition, or anything like, or leading to, or possibly involving the
proposition that “ the astral man, or double or soul,” is “ a soul that has
lost its divine vovc”? “ Scrutator ” quotes from Colonel Olcott what
he calls a “ definition” of the astral man, but which is not a definition,
but an account of the progress of the astral man who has not lost, and
will not lose, his spirit, and of the sinking and ultimate annihilation of
the astral man who has lost it. Colonel Olcott does not expressly
“ define ” the soul or astral body. He says we all have it “ inside the
physical body; ” it is that which is disengaged by the death of the
physical body ; it is simply the “ spiritual body ” which all Spiritualists
believe in. The Theosophists hold that it is sooner or later dissolved,
either by the man having become identified with his divine spirit, the
avyotiSrig,* or, if the man has become identified with his astral body by
loss of all affinity with this spirit, then the dissolution of this astral
body is no less the annihilation of “ the man ”—or, as I ventured to
interpret the teaching, of what is then more properly called the
elementary, since the trinity of man, which must include the spirit, no
longer exists. Madame Blavatsky has defined the “ astral man” in a
passage too long for quotation (Spiritualist, February 8 th), and to that
I must refer those who would like to estimate the care which “ Scrutator ”
and “ M.A., Cantab,” have taken to inform themselves of the opinions
which they make haste to denounce. Madame Blavatsky had in that
letter to deal with the blunder that the astral soul is the spirit. I fear
she will despair of English intelligence when she finds that
the next absurdity ascribed to her is the opposite blunder,
that the soul has no spirit at all! In The Spiritualist of
February 8th, Colonel Olcott says, “ the adept’s astral spirit ”
(soul) “ works with, through, and in perfect accord with either pure
disembodied spirits or his own immortal spirit.” According
to his critics, Colonel Olcott ought to have denied to the adept the
* The aiyoeiSijs is not perhaps to be considered the spirit itself, but the pure, etherial, and
lueiform vehicle of the spirit. This was the opinion of some ancient philosophers. The
Buddhist Nirvana, on the other hand, contemplates the ultimate freedom of spirit from all
embodiment. Upon this subject, the best single book to consult is that great mine of
ancient Theosophy, Cuchoorttis InieUeciual System,
possession of any astral spirit or soul at all, since the adept has not lost
his immortal spirit. But I could multiply extracts indefinitely, which
ought to have saved these gentlemen from the possibility of miscon¬
struing Colonel Olcott as they have done. I have only dwelt so long*
on the subject because “ Scrutator” “ calls particular attention ” to it,
and accuses Colonel Olcott of “ a very slanderous imputation.” It
remains to be seen whether carelessness in bringing the charge is atoned
for by promptitude in acknpwledging its groundlessness. It is certainly
not a light charge, as any one will admit who knows some good, worthy,
and even very noble and high-minded persons, I could name,
who are, or have been, physical mediums. It is only necessary to expose
the mistake which identifies the “ astral man ” with the “ elementary,”
to show the utter inapplicability of all the reasoning by which
“ Scrutator” attempts to involve me in an inconsistency with Colonel
Olcott for suggesting that the spiritless being or elementary, in or out of
the flesh, is no longer “ man ” according to the Theosophic definition of
man as a trinity. But I must notice another “ spoke in our wheel,”
which “ M.A., Cantab,” thinks he has detected in my quotation (March
10th, 1876) from “a very learned occultist.” Because that writer, in
describing the processes of evolution in the lower forms, speaks of all
matter as “ imbued with that vital principle called spirit,” and says that
“each grain of sand, equally with each minutest atom of the human
body, has its inherent latent spark of the Divine light,” this, says
“M.A., Cantab,” is inconsistent with the loss of the spirit by the astral
body, which is itself, at least, matter. If this were so, if the Divine
spirit of man were identical with the principle of life, or with the latent
spark of Divine light in the grain of sand, identical, that is, not only as
affirming their common source, but as negating their differentiation,
then is evolution alike needless and impossible. But this same writer
I quoted says further on—“ When this double evolution has reached a
certain point, it is possible for the third principle to come into union,
that is, the immortal spirit which makes of man a triad,” But if this
ascent was not maintained, and this third principle had departed from
the form no longer fitted for it, the form would return to the condition
it was in before the union, and in its gradual dissolution (which means
not, of course, annihilation, but dispersion of its elements, as in the
case of the physical body) would be destroyed as a form, its component
particles recommencing the process of evolution from the beginning.
The “man” in such case is rightly said to be annihilated, for his
individual consciousness depends, not on the dispersed elements, but on
their combination into an organism through which consciousness can
exist and manifest. So much for this “flat contradiction” between
this writer and our New York friends.
I must return to “ Scrutator,” who speaks of “ this new-fangled and
ill-defined term ‘ elementary,’ not yet two years old.” Has “ Scrutator ”
ever heard of Eliphas Levi, of the “ Count de G-abalis,” or of the
Rosicrucians of the middle ages ? He has evidently not read a line of
their writings, or of what has been written of their doctrines, and of
the terms they used. Let him begin with the Dogme et Rituel de
la Haute Magie, published, I think, about twenty years ago, and
he will find enough about the “ elementaries,” though not always,
I admit, in a well-defined sense, still under that name, to
make him wish, perhaps, that he had not been so ready to
publish his confusion between what he does not know and what does not
exist. I may also refer him to the same work (second edition, Yol. I.,
p. 262-3) for the idea (“ annihilation ”) so “ entirely novel to Europe
and America.” Mr. Maitland, who has, or, at least, at that time had
no relations with the Theosophical Society, gave the same idea as a
revelation received through his “ Seeress,” in his book The Soul, and
How it Found Me, If I do not refer to far older authorities, it is only
because I cannot, at this moment, give chapter and verse of import
wholly free from question, but I have no doubt that the doctrine of
“ potential immortality ” is as old as it is, to my mind, probable and
philosophical. Before talking of our “ effrontery ” in putting forward
(and that even by the way, under a sort of compulsion) opinions which
he dislikes, “ Scrutator” should, at least, ascertain whether ours is the
greater guilt of originating, or the more venial offence of transmitting
these views.
Then there is “ the babe.” Well, I have not committed myself to the
opinion that the spirit only comes to the child at the age of understand¬
ing, though I do conceive that without reason it cannot be manifested.
But, in fact, this part of the teaching of my society was new to me, and
I only referred to it in a former letter, because I believed I had found
what might prove to be historical evidence of its having been an ancient
opinion of the church; and in this I am confirmed by a very competent
authority, as I believe. The child’s early innocence is not to me a
formidable objection. Sheep and oxen are innocent.
“Scrutator” seems to think that all students of Theosophy should
hold identical opinions on these most difficult subjects, and that any
difference amongst them is fatal to the whole teaching. Madame
Blavatsky, expressly disclaims the thorough knowledge of the relations
between spirit, soul, and body, which could alone render such an
unanimity possible; and really the disclaimer, comical as it would
otherwise sound, seems to be necessary. There are expressions in
Colonel Olcott’s letters to you, the meaning of which I do not clearly
perceive—probably my ignorance will be found to be the fault. But,
on the whole, and especially taken in connection with Madame
Blavatsky’s, they seem to me a singularly clear exposition, consider¬
ing the difficulty and unfamiliarity of the subjects, and the requisite
conciseness. I am sorry they have not been more carefully read
by others, who make their own misconceptions the occasion of flying
at him and all who agree with him, with epithets wholly unwarrantable.
C. C. Massey.
Temple, February 24tli, 1878.
Sir,—I cannot resist the impression that at this most important
and critical juncture of occult and theosophical debate, there must be