Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XXIII – Uma Turnê no Exterior Seguinte: XXV – A Sociedade Teosófica
(p. 95)
CHAPTER XXIV
WINTER
AT
THE intimation given us of the probable early close of Mary’s life seemed
but to stimulate her efforts in the cause so dear to her, the rescue of animals
from their tormentors, scientific and others. She resolved accordingly to resume
her interrupted crusade in
The imprudence of this step, which I represented to her in vain, soon became
apparent. The resisting power of her system, never strong, had been enfeebled by
her recent illness, and she presented symptoms which the doctor, whom she
reluctantly consulted, declared to be of so serious a character as to afford
little prospect of recovery, or even of living beyond a few weeks, the most
imminent danger being due to tubercle. It was, moreover, not one malady but
several that affected her, as if she had contracted all the diseases which
prevailed in the wards she had visited. Nevertheless, alarming as was report,
and desperate as appeared to be her state, she rallied in a manner so surprising
as to lead him to distrust his own diagnosis in favour of the singular
supposition that her symptoms were not real but simulative, causing her to have
the appearance only of the ailments in question and not the ailments themselves;
and as if in confirmation of this explanation, she was shortly after shown a
vision of herself as a building in the form of a fortress, the citadel and
central positions of which were complete and sound, but the outer walls were
either broken down or but partially built, having gaps and openings through
which noxious creatures of various kinds made incursion. This, it was explained
(p. 96)
to her, was a type of her own state, physically,
morally, and spiritually. Her “outer walls” had yet to be built up to render her
inaccessible to extraneous influences. This experience recalled to our minds the
curious account given of her some time before by the spirit of Sir William
Fergusson, in which he had said, “The spirit in her is unclothed. It is, as it
were, naked”; and compared her symptoms to those of the disease called purpura haemorrhagica. (1)
Discussing the matter together, we found it fruitful of suggestion respecting
obsession as a possible factor in crime and insanity, as well as in ordinary
disease, under the influence of which persons may be constrained by extraneous
and parasitical influences to commit actions which, of themselves, they would
shrink from. In view of the injustice of punishing persons thus liable for
actions of which they are morally innocent, we were led to recognise the wisdom
of the ancients, who required of physicians that they be also priests, versed in
occult science, and competent to deal with spiritual maladies. The necessity of
training clairvoyants medically, for the purposes especially of diagnosis, was
continually being impressed on us by our own experiences.
The effect on Mary of her first lessons in philosophy was not only to perplex
but to distress her. The teaching was, of course, that of the materialistic
school of the day; but so insidious and specious was the mode of its
presentation that, even while discerning its falsity, she was at first unable to
formulate her objections to it satisfactorily to herself. As the event proved,
she had within herself the antidote to its poison, but aid was necessary to
enable her to find it. As had so often happened to her before, the extremity of
the man without was made the opportunity of the God within. And she had no
sooner recognised the need of such reinforcement than her appeal found response.
Such were the circumstances under which she received [chiefly in sleep] the
wonderful series of expositions concerning the constitution of the spiritual and
substantial, as distinguished from the physiological and phenomenal, Ego,
contained in the book of her illuminations. (2) We
(p. 97)
saw in them the most valuable contribution ever
made to psychological science. Their length precludes their insertion here. She
had already, in the previous year, (1) received the following answer to
an inquiry respecting the advisability of her studying occult science: –
“The adept, or ‘occultist’, is at best a religious scientist; he is not a
‘saint.’ If occultism were all, and held the key of heaven, there would be no
need of ‘Christ’. But occultism, although it holds the ‘power’, holds neither
the ‘kingdom’ nor the ‘glory’. For these are of Christ. The adept knows not the
kingdom of heaven, and ‘the least in this kingdom are greater than he.’ ‘Desire first the
(p. 98)
perchance her beauty may suffice. I say not, let
it suffice; it is better to know all things, for if you know not all, how can
you judge all? For as a man heareth, so must he judge. Will you therefore be
regenerate in the without, as well as in the within? For they are renewed in the
body, but you in the soul. It is well to be baptized into John’s baptism, if a
man receive also the Holy Ghost. But some know not so much as that there is any
Holy Ghost. Yet Jesus also, being Himself regenerate in the spirit, sought unto
the baptism of John, for thus it became Him to fulfil Himself in all things. And
having fulfilled, behold, the ‘Dove’ descended on Him. If then you will be
perfect, seek both that which is within and that which is without; and the
circle of being, which is the ‘wheel of life’, shall be complete in you”.
We had subsequently recognised this teaching as on the lines of the Kabala. It
was in pursuance of it that Mary had now undertaken a course of philosophy; and
the occasion was taken advantage of to make another and invaluable addition to
the New Gospel of Interpretation.
December 12 brought the following long-desired supplement and complement to the
stupendous revelation concerning the Immaculate Conception which had been
received in the summer of 1877. (1) It appears in her record, without
preface, note, or comment, as one of the regular course, showing that the
perceptive point of her mind was now so much accustomed to these altitudes that
she remained unexcited even by the disclosure of the significance of that
mystery of mysteries, the Church’s last and supreme dogma which still remains to
be promoted from a pious belief to an article of faith; which promotion is
implied in the insignia of Pope Leo XIII, as to take place during his
pontificate, though not therefore necessarily through his act. (2)
The utterance contains a further recognition of the divinity of the Kabala, and
also of the truth of the saying of
“The two terms of the history of creation or evolution are formulated by the
Catholic Church in two precious and all-important dogmas. These are, first, the
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and, secondly, the Assumption
of the Blessed Virgin
(p. 99)
Mary. By the doctrine of the first we are
secretly enlightened concerning the generation of the soul, who is begotten in
the womb of matter, and yet from the first instant of her being is pure and
incorrupt. Sin comes through the material and intellectual element, because
these belong to matter. But the soul, which is of the celestial and belongs to
heavenly conditions, is free of original sin. ‘
“As the Immaculate Conception is the foundation of the mysteries, so is the
Assumption their crown. For the entire object and end of kosmic evolution is
precisely this triumph and apotheosis of the soul. In the mystery presented by
this dogma, we behold the consummation of the whole scheme of creation – the
perpetuation and glorification of the individual human ego. The grave – the
material and astral consciousness – cannot retain the immaculate Mother of God.
She rises into the heavens; she assumes divinity. In her own proper person she
is taken up into the King’s chamber. From end to end the mystery of the soul’s
evolution – the history, that is, of humanity and of the kosmic drama – is
contained and enacted in the culture of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The acts and
the glories of Mary are the one supreme subject of the holy mysteries.”
Her lessons, and her illuminations in correction of them, were now intermitted
for a space. It had been my custom daily to pass some hours with her, and to
discuss together what had been received. She still suffered greatly with
weakness, and even positive illness, under the influence of which she was liable
at time to subside to a level at which she failed fully to appreciate the value
of her inspirations. It was therefore a great satisfaction to her to have my
unqualified recognition of them, and
(p. 100)
positive assurance of their inestimable value at
once to the science, the philosophy, and the religion of the future. Her next
entry in her Diary, which was dated December 20, was an extract from
This is the passage: –
“Tous, nous sommes les pauvres, les mendiants de Dieu, omnes mendici Dei sumus.
Mais c’est par les mains de Marie que Dieu veut nous accorder ses graces; tous
ses doivent passer par le Coeur de la Vierge Immaculée; de sa Mère. Totam nos habere voluit
per Mariam.”
Elsewhere he says, “Mary brings us to Jesus.” What is this but our own doctrine
that the finding of Christ is by the culture of the Soul, the Christ within us,
our spiritual and substantial Ego in which we are redeemed?
The next entry bears date Christmas Day: –
It is strange how I forget! This evening I have re-read several passages and
chapters written by my own hand, and conceived in my own mind, of The
Perfect Way, and they filled me with as great wonder and admiration as
though I had read them for the first time in some stranger’s work. Ought this
not to set me a thinking how little this outward and mundane memory has to do
with the true and interior consciousness? For, indeed, in my true self, I know
well all these things, and as hundredfold more than there lie written; yet my
exterior self forgetteth them right readily, and, once they are written, scarce
remembereth them more! And this sets me wondering whether, perchance, we are not
altogether out of the reckoning when we talk of memory as a necessary part of
selfhood; for memory, in the sense in which we use the word, signifies a
thinking back into the past, and an act by which past experience in time is
recalled. But how shall the true, essential self, which is without end or
beginning, have memory in any such sort, since the “eternal remembrance” of the
soul seeth all things at a glance, both past and to come? To that which is in
its nature Divine and of God, memory is no longer recollection, but knowledge.
Shall we say that God remembers? Nay, God
knoweth.
I thank thee, O my Divine Genius; thou art here! I feel thee; thine aura
encompasseth me; I burn under the glow of thy wonderful presence. Yes, it is
thus indeed!
Here meditation passes into illumination, and the Diary thus continues: –
This faculty which we call Memory is but the faint reflex and image in the
material brain of that function which, in all its celestial
(p. 101)
plenitude, can belong only to the heavenly man.
That which is of time and of matter must needs think by means of an organ and
material cells, and these can only work mechanically, and by slow processes. But
that which is of eternity and spirit needeth neither organ nor process, since
organism is related only to time, and its resultant is process. “Yea, thou shalt
see face to face! Thou shalt know even as thou art known!” And just as widely
and essentially as the heavenly memory differs from the earthly, so doth the
heavenly personality differ from that of the material creature.
Thou mayest the more easily gather somewhat of the character of the heavenly
personality by considering the quality of that of the highest type of mankind on
earth – the Poet.
The poet hath no self apart from his larger self. Other men pass indifferent
through life and the world, because the selfhood of earth and heaven is a thing
apart from them, and toucheth them not.
The wealth of beauty in earth and sky and sea lieth outside their being, and
speaketh not to their heart.
Their interests are individual and limited: their home is by one hearth: four
walls are the boundary of their kingdom, – so small is it!
But the personality of the poet is divine: and being divine, it hath no limits.
He is supreme and ubiquitous in consciousness: his heart beats in every element.
The pulses of all the infinite deep of heaven vibrate in his own: and responding
to their strength and their plenitude, he feels more intensely than other men.
Not merely he sees and examines these rocks and trees: these variable waters,
and these glittering peaks.
Not merely he hears this plaintive wind, these rolling peals.
But he is all these; and with them – nay, in
them – he rejoices and weeps, he shines and aspires, he sighs and thunders.
And when he sings, it is not he – the man – whose voice is heard: it is the
voice of all the manifold Nature herself.
In his verse the sunshine laughs: the mountains give forth their sonorous
echoes; the swift lightnings flash.
The great continual cadence of universe life moves and becomes articulate in
human language.
O joy profound! O boundless selfhood! O God-like personality!
All the gold of the sunset is thine; the pillars of chrysolite; and the purple
vault of immensity!
The sea is thine with its solemn speech, its misty distance, and its radiant
shallows!
The daughters of earth love thee; the water-nymphs tell thee their secrets; thou
knowest the spirit of all silent things!
Sunbeams are thy laughter, and the rain-drops of heaven thy tears; in the wrath
of the storm thine heart is shaken: and thy prayer goeth up with the wind unto
God.
Thou art multiplied in the conscience (1) of all living creatures; thou art
young with the youth of Nature; thou art all-seeing as the starry skies:
(p. 102)
Like unto the Gods, – therefore art thou their beloved: yea if thou wilt, they
shall tell thee all things;
Because thou only understandest, among all the sons of men!
Concerning memory; why should there any more be a difficulty in respect of it?
Reflect on this saying, – “Man sees as he knows.” To thee the deeps are more
visible than the surfaces of things; but to men generally the surfaces only are
visible. The material can perceive only the material, the astral the astral, and
the spiritual the spiritual. It all resolves itself, therefore, into a question
of condition and of quality. Thy hold on matter is but slight, and thine organic
memory is feeble and treacherous. It is hard for thee to perceive the surfaces
of things and to remember their aspect. But thy spiritual perception is the
stronger for this weakness, and the profound is that which thou seest the most
readily. It is hard for thee to understand and to retain the memory of material
facts; but their meaning thou knowest instantly and by intuition, which is the
memory of the soul. For the soul takes no pains to remember; she knows divinely.
Is it not said that the immaculate woman brings forth without a pang? The sorrow
and travail of conception belong to her whose desire is unto “Adam”.
By “Adam”, of course, was meant the outer and lower reason. For “these things
are an allegory”.
It was to the above glorious apostrophe, to the poet, that I referred when
describing the feelings evoked in her among the mountains of
I’ve jewels that cost nought, and are all joy;
Each dewdrop trembling on a leafy spray,
Lit by the morning sun, a diamond is;
And each bright star that gems the nightly sky
Doth lend a ray of beauty to my soul;
What more can thine?
All nature spread around is my domain;
Mine own peculiar park trough which I pass,
To cull rich thoughts from her redundant breast,
Hold converse grave with dark mysterious woods,
And gaily banter with the fluttering winds;
Thus all are mine.
Where flowers grow, sun shines, and trees make
shade,
Where waters flow, rains fall, and winds
refresh;
(p. 103)
Green earth, blue sky, and ever-changing sea,
And the grand rolling music of the clouds;
I have a right in all I ne’er would yield
For ten times thine.
Mary’s Diary continued: –
December
26 [1882]. – After waking this morning early I had a real Christmas vision, or
rather a Picture, for I was not asleep, but quite wide awake. First, it was dark
all around, with only the stars overhead, and these were cloudy. I sat on a
hillock thinking, and behind me I heard a sound of running water. All at once a
voice said “Anna!” and this startled me all the more because no one ever calls
me by that name. But I soon saw it was a play on the word, such as I have often
heard lately; for the next moment another voice, and another after it, cried
out, “The Year! The New Year!” Then it seemed to me that I was being called, and
I turned – for the voices came from behind me – and saw on the other side of my
hillock a broad river; and on the opposite bank I could just make out by the
starlight three misty and motionless shapes, that looked like men. One of them
lifted his hand and cried to me across the water, “Where is the Ford?” I stood
still, much puzzled, and looked right and left along the river, but could see no
Ford at all. And just as I was going to answer, “There is none,” behold! The
water where I stood, at my very feet, began to open and part, and a
path seemed to rise up from its midst as though by magic. And at that instant
the dawn broke, a clear line of horizontal light straight behind the three men.
So I saw they were coming from the East, and it flashed upon me that they were
the Three Kings, and that somewhere Christ was born that night.”
To which she might have added, but left it for me to do, “And that I myself was
the King’s ford.”
On the resumption of her lessons her illuminations recommenced, and continued at
short intervals until the course was completed, by which time she had received a
complete exposition of the evolution of the spiritual and substantial Ego, and
demonstration of the fallacy of the materialistic philosophy.
There seemed to be a special purpose in these communications to us at this
juncture. Whatever might be our relations to the movement [represented by the
Theosophical Society] we had consented to join – the importation into the West
of the corresponding philosophy of the East – it was necessary that we be
equipped with the means of testing and judging that philosophy by the light of
actual knowledge, in order to determine its true place in regard to the religion
of the future, and, perhaps, even to influence its course.
Respecting that Society, the then President of the English Branch, our valued
friend C.C. Massey, wrote as follows: –
(p. 104)
“For the attitude of the Society towards all the religions of the world, I may
refer you to the enclosed paper,
‘Individuality of Branches,’ now being issued, along with the enclosed
circular, to all our members. I believe there would be much opposition among us
to giving our own branch a sectarian designation or direction. One grand aim of
our Society is to show the underlying, or esoteric, identity of all religious
philosophies worthy of the name, and, while respecting the particular forms or
manifestations of the one truth, to cut away the ground of sectarian antagonism
which such partial or disguised presentations appear to contain. In
“If I hear from Mrs. Kingsford, I may be able to satisfy her and you more fully
on these points in my reply to her. I infer from your letter that the return to
The following is from the circular in which Mr. Massey notified the Society of
his intention to nominate Mrs. Kingsford as its President: –
“I have now to give notice of an important
proposition, which I shall submit to the general meeting, in the earnest hope
that it may meet with general and cordial approval, and in the belief that its
adoption will conduce to the future vitality, progress, and use of
(p. 105)
the Society. It is that Dr. Anna Kingsford shall
be elected President of the Society for the ensuing year. From information I
have received, I think there can be no doubt that this choice would be
acceptable to those with whom we are most anxious to come into direct relations,
while the knowledge many of ourselves possess of the genius, moral force, and
entire devotion to spiritual ideals of this accomplished lady seems to designate
her as the natural leader of a Society with beliefs and aims such as ours. Nor
are Dr. Kingsford’s scientific attainments an unimportant consideration to a
body of students who see and desire to trace in occult phenomena an extension of
the range of Natural Philosophy. It may also be allowable, in a private letter
like the present to refer to the well-known fact that she is one of the literary
authors of that remarkable work, The
When at length we gave consent, we did so on condition that we retain absolute
freedom of opinion, speech, and action, acknowledging no superiors, nor any
allegiance save to our own illuminators, and reserving the right to use as we
might deem fit any knowledges we might acquire. For, having obtained what we had
already received expressly for the world’s benefit, we were resolved to remain
unfettered in this respect. Our association was thus so ordered as to have for
its purpose a simple exchange of knowledges. They should tell us what they knew,
and we would tell them what we knew, both sides reserving the right of
criticism, acceptance, and rejection, the Understanding alone, and in no wise
Authority, being the criterion.
The election of Mary as President, and myself as Vice-President, of what was
subsequently called the London Lodge of
(p. 106)
the Theosophical Society took place at the first
meeting in 1883, which fell on Sunday, January 7. We discovered in the course of
the day that it was the Festival of the Three Kings of the East; whereupon Mary
made the following entry in her Diary: –
On the 7th of this month I was elected President of the British Theosophical
Society. The 7th was Epiphany Sunday, the Festival of the Kings. A strange
coincidence and augury.
“21 AVENUE CARNOT,
“DEAR MADAME DE STEIGER, – I salute you in my new character of
President of the British Theosophical Society; and though I shall not be able
for some time to come to take my place among you in the body, yet I hope that my
new dignity will serve as a fresh link in the tie of friendship already existing
between us, and that you will from time to time send me some account of your
proceedings in the Society, and of your own personal reflections on the teaching
we are now promised from the East.
“I pointed out to Mr. C.C. Massey in a recent letter the singular coincidence
that it was on Epiphany Sunday, the Festival of the Magi, that the T.S. elected
as its President for the new year a King’s ford; and I suggested that we
might regard this fact as a happy augury for the prosperity of the Society in
the immediate future; since now indeed the way seemed at last opened for the
passage of the Kings of the East, and, as it is said in the Apocalypse, the
River is dried up that the way of the Kings of the East may be prepared.
“My health, about which you are so kindly interested, is much better lately, and
I am able to get to work again. But I am sorry to learn from your letter that
you are not likely to remain in
“It gives me considerable surprise, and puzzles me not a little, to learn that
Dr. Wyld is still not only a member of the Theosophical Society, but is
absolutely accepted as co-Vice-President with Mr. Maitland! I quite understood
from Dr. Wyld himself, and also from the circular issued by Mr. Massey, that the
aims and programme of the T.S. had become so distasteful to the Doctor that he
had determined to resign his connection with it. Strange that he should withdraw
deliberately from the Presidency, only to come forward as Vice-President
so shortly after! Can you explain this riddle? I should be very glad to have it
solved.
“I have requested Mr. Massey to retain his place as my locum tenens until I
return, and feel sure that, as he is so manifestly in harmony both with our
Indian correspondents and with myself, you will all be glad of this arrangement.
“How are you going to treat the subject of Circe? It is a splendid subject for a
mystic artist. Do you intend to illustrate the allegory itself, or is it only an
ideal portrait that you contemplate? Remember me to all our friends, especially
to Miss Arundale and her mother, and accept my love and best wishes for the new
year. Mr. Maitland, who is spending the afternoon with me, sends his kindest
regards. – Affectionately yours,
“ANNA KINGSFORD.”
(p. 107)
A striking experience of Mary’s which occurred in this month was led up to in
this wise. We had been following with much interest a discussion in Light
between two of its most eminent contributors – the Hon. Roden Noel and C.C.
Massey – respecting the divisibility of the principles in man after death, and
the retention by them of consciousness when separated from each other. The
latter of the two disputants maintained the doctrine, held in common by us and
the Eastern occultists, which assigns consciousness and memory to the phantom or
astral shell when dissociated from the Soul and true Ego. And the former
maintained, in common with the spiritualists, the impossibility of such a
division on the ground that consciousness is necessarily one and indivisible,
and compared the detached phantom – supposing there to be such a thing – to a
cast-off coat. Some of Mary’s recent illuminations had borne directly on the
subject, and we proposed to contribute a paper to the discussion. It occurred to
me, however, to remark to her that I should like to know what the phantom itself
would say about the matter, and I begged her to question the next one she saw
about its own nature in this respect. A few nights afterwards she had this
experience: –
Being asleep, she found herself in a place resembling the
“Tell me, are you the soul of Sir Walter Raleigh, or only his phantom?
“His phantom,” he replied, speaking in a man’s voice, which seemed to come from
the air above him, “but without my head, for they cut that off and threw it into
a basket of papers.”
“Then tell me,” she said, “how, if only a phantom, you are able to understand
me, and to answer questions, and to remember. Ought you not to be merely like a
cast-off coat, as Roden Noel expresses it?”
(p. 108)
“Roden Noel knows nothing about it,” responded the ghost sharply. “He forgets
that a coat is a mere material spun in
“But,” said she, “if your soul, your thinker, be gone, how can you reason and
remember?”
“In and by the same method as Roden Noel’s old coat holds its parts and its woof
together when he takes it off. To everything belongs its proper behaviour. While
Noel wore this coat it behaved as a coat, and its business was to cover him and
to keep itself in shape and consistency. And when he takes it off, it still
remains such as it was, and continues to preserve all its characteristics. It was a coat when he wore it; it is a coat still. The proper
characteristic of this Ego in a man’s lifetime is to reason and think
electrically.
It is not a coat; it is Substance having life. And when the soul puts it off, it
goes on being what it was; for its very warp and woof is of thought-nature; and
it only keeps this nature, just as does the coat. It would be a miracle indeed
if the coat, when taken off, should suddenly change its nature and become
something else, say non-material. So equally would it be a miracle if, when the
soul departs, the phantom should suddenly change its nature, and become
something else, say non-substantial. Matter remains matter, psychic substance
remains psychic substance. Noel would make differentiation in the substantial
world impossible. If the Divine can differentiate into many protoplasmic selves,
and yet retain all these in Itself, so also can Man differentiate
protoplasmically. For there is but One Nature, and the part is essentially one
in potentiality with the whole.”
Here the colloquy ended, and she awoke. On the following night she was shown a
demonstration of the error involved in Noel’s conception, and was told: –
“If the Ego could not differentiate of its personality, the doctrine of the
Trinity, which, as you have it, is a true doctrine, would be impossible. Noel’s
conception is fatal to the Trinity.”
The soundness of the reasoning of the phantom left us no doubt that it truly
reflected the higher Ego and true soul of the
(p. 109)
speaker, and the experience tended to confirm us
in our conclusion that the detached astral portion of the individual may serve
as a lens through which the soul can communicate with persons in the earth-life.
It will be remembered that we had been told of Swedenborg, with reference to our
intercourse with him, that “a portion of him is still in this sphere, through
which he can communicate with those with whom he is in affinity.”
(1)
It served also to illustrate this statement in the instruction given us “Concerning the Hereafter”: – “The reason
why some communications are astral, and others celestial, is simply that some
persons – the greater number – communicate by means of the anima bruta in themselves; and others
– the few purified – by means of their anima divina, for like
attracts like.” (2) It is the key to all the
incoherences of “spiritualism.” Its votaries, as a rule, communicate only by
means of the astral in themselves, through lack of unfoldment of their spiritual
nature, and the results are of the astral, astral. To attain to the highest
without himself, man must seek to the highest within himself.
The fact that Mary had been attracted to this group of spirits tended to confirm
also the intimations given us of her identity with Anne Boleyn. It was not as a
stranger and an intruder that she had been received by them, but as one whom
they recognised and knew intimately, and regarded her presence among them as a
matter of course.
The appearance of our article on the subject in Light (February 10, 1883),
elicited the following letter from Mr. Massey: –
“I read with very great interest the letter in last Light from ‘The Writers of The Perfect Way’. It is a very able attempt to make the
conception of dual and divisible consciousness intelligible, and seems to have
succeeded in at least one unexpected quarter. For Mrs. Penny writes to me that
she finds it admirable, helping her much to understand the subject.
“I should like to know if your revelations include any information on the long
intermediate periods of rest, or ‘Devachan’, described by Sinnet in his recent
letter in Light. It now appears that the
‘spiritual individuality’ is never annihilated, only the personality when
Devachan is not attained, and after it is exhausted and re-birth takes place
into a world of causes. There seems some
(p. 110)
inconsistency here with former teachings in the
Fragments of Occult Truth.
“How, upon the principle you lay down, that the work of Spirit in the world must
have the co-operation of a couple male and female, do you reconcile the fact
that this has not been so in the case of the greater Avatars, or Revelators,
Buddha, Christ, etc.? The answer I suppose to be, either that in those cases the
two principles were perfectly united in equilibrium in one person; or that it is
only now that the epoch has arrived for
manifesting the feminine function. But in the latter case I should suppose that
the woman would work alone.
“The Psychical Research Society is too exclusively exoteric for such
considerations to be relevant. The presentation of objective evidence to the
world of certain facts is not a spiritual work at all, at least not directly and
consciously, and does not make the least pretence to being so.
“As yet we have had no instruction from
“I can easily believe that Mrs. Kingsford would make it very uncomfortable for
the
Ever mindful of the subject of this closing sentence, Mary had joined with a
band of resident friends in organising a French Society for the abolition of the
practice in question. Her success on this behalf is notified in the following
letter to the editor of the Herald of Health, which appeared in
the May number of that organ: –
“I dare say you may like to hear that I am still busy and successful. There is
now a Paris Anti-Vivisection Society, and, as you will see from our circular,
its President is no less a person than the great poet, Victor Hugo. I have been
much in the physiological laboratories of the École de Médecine lately,
and have been witness of the immense necessity which exists for some prompt and
decisive intervention by the public in this matter of scientific torture. It is
horrible to see and hear what goes on daily in these infamous dens.
“I think that possibly you may like to reproduce an article which has recently
appeared in a French newspaper, and of which, therefore, I enclose a
translation. I have seen several of the advertisements, ‘Bains de Sang’
(Baths of Blood), to which the article refers, and I know a Parisian lady whose
doctor told her that she
(p. 111)
would probably die if she did not consent to go
to the slaughter-house in the morning and drink blood. He said she had
tubercular symptoms, and that nothing else could save her. She refused to
comply, and recovered.
“This ‘blood mania’ is, in fact, the last new medical craze, and it may interest
your reader to see what is thus the practical outcome of vivisection and
carnivorous tastes, encouraged as they are here in this atheistic city of Paris.
“Have you seen the enclosed cutting from the Lancet? This, too, is one of the last
suggestions of the enlightened medical faculty.”
The article contained a graphic description of the scene at the abattoirs in the
Rue de Flandres, the files of elegant equipages of the upper classes drawn up
before them, and their dainty occupants awaiting in the buildings the
slaughtering of the “mild-eyed oxen,” and then quaffing bowls of the fresh-shed,
steaming blood; while others supplement or vary the process by having baths of
blood at home. (1)
Towards the middle of March we returned to
“Take off the night-dress thou wearest.”
I looked at my attire, and was about to answer, “This is not a night-dress,”
when she added, as though perceiving my thought –
(p. 112)
“The woman’s garb is a night-dress; it is a garment made to sleep in. The man’s
garb is the dress for the day. Look eastward.”
I raised my eyes, and behind the mail-clad shape I saw the dawn breaking,
blood-red, and with great clouds, like pillars of smoke, rolling up on either
side of the place where the sun was about to rise. But as yet the sun was not
visible. And as I looked she cried aloud, and her voice rang through the air
like the clash of steel: –
“Listen!”
And she struck her spear on the marble pavement. At the same moment there came
from afar off a confused sound of battle-cries, and human voices in conflict,
and the stir as of a vast multitude, the distant clang of arms, and the noise of
the galloping of many horses rushing furiously over the ground. And then, sudden
silence.
Again she smote the pavement, and again the sounds arose, nearer now, and more
tumultuous. Once more they ceased, and a third time she struck the pavement with
her spear.
Then the noises arose all about and around the very spot where we stood, and the
clang of the arms was so close that it shook and thrilled the very columns
beside me. And the neighing and snorting of horses, and the thud of their
ponderous hoofs flying over the earth, made, as it were, a wind in my ears, so
that it seemed as though a furious battle were raging all around us. But I could
see nothing. Only the sounds increased, and because so violent that they awoke
me; and even after waking I still seemed to catch the commotion of them in the
air.
Dr. Gryzanowsky’s appreciation of our work, as evinced in the following letters,
was highly gratifying to us: –
“
“DEAR SIR, – Your kind letter of March 25th
has given me a welcome opportunity of holding communication with you once more,
and of thus renewing an acquaintance which, if not personal, is certainly more
than merely epistolary, considering that you have spoken to me through your
Book. That Book seems to me not only your work, i.e. one of the many
possible productions of your mind, but a reflection of your whole and innermost
self, and as such it can be fully understood and appreciated only by those who
have a certain affinity (intellectual and moral) with its author. In this
respect, you have good reason to be satisfied with your reader who, in his turn,
feels grateful to you for the spiritual treasures he has found in its pages. To
say that your Book is brimful of information and of deep thought would be a mere
platitude which you could hardly care to hear. The question which alone can be
interesting to you in this case is whether or how far the
general
‘world-view’ propounded in your work may happen to tally with your reader’s
world-view, and whether or how far, in case of discrepancies, you may have
compelled the reader to accommodate his to yours. I say unhesitatingly – in
general terms at least, and quite apart from more or less irrelevant details –
that I fully acknowledge the fundamental truths of your
(p. 113)
philosophy, which is, without a doubt, the
noblest and purest form of spiritualism I have yet met with. It is, at the same
time, the most comprehensive form of spiritualism, containing or implying all
that is worth having in the so-called mystic lore of ancient and modern times.
“We meet, in the history of religion and of philosophy, with certain
ever-recurring ideas which seem altogether independent of the accidents of
tradition and of historic continuity. They are irrepressible, because they are
eternal verities, and if Philo’s works had all been destroyed by Omar’s fire in
the Alexandrian Library, the doctrine of correspondences would, sooner or later,
have been propounded anew. In all probability Swedenborg never read Philo’s
Liber Legis Allegoriarum, nor is it necessary to assume that Goethe had
read either Philo or Swedenborg when he wrote that short but wonderful Chorus
Mysticus at the end of his Faust.
“I believe with you that religion is nothing historical (p. 26), and that its
truths require, or, at all events, are capable of, repeated revelation. In this
way Christianity can be rationalised, not in the shallow sense of Strauss,
Rénan, or of the Unitarians, but in the sense of the German Theosophists, such
as Jacob Boehme and Baader, and even Hegel, who openly declared his belief in
the Triune God and all the mysteries of Christian dogma as in conceptual (and as
such eternal) truths whose validity had nothing whatever to do with historic
evidence or human testimony.
“I am not sure whether I can agree with your appreciation of Spinoza, whose All
and One has always appeared to me as sterile, as all monistic doctrines
must necessarily be. Without some form of dualism, sexual, dialectic, or
metaphysical, no fertility, no development seems possible, and I admire
particularly your way of affirming this dualism in your second Lecture (Parts I
and IV). There you reason like Philo, but Philo was the only Jew that could rise
(or descend) to dualism, the Hebrew mind being essentially monistic, while the
Aryan mind finds repose only when it has passed through the dual to the triune.
Once there one can easily go on to the Τετρακως, like Pythagoras, or to the Madonna, like the
Catholic Church; but what can Spinoza evolve from his solitary One? And whence
come his modi? From the Dual, from the God and ‘Non-God’ (as you have
it), I can find the modi, the relativities, and all the
rest, but not otherwise.
“I felt almost triumphant on reading your ideas about the limitations of the Creator
through His Creation. It is true you speak in the first place only of the
material creation, but evidently imply the same with regard to the plurality of
finite living beings. This ‘limitation’ of God by quasi-autonomous beings is
sufficient to account for the origin of Evil, and a ‘theodicea’ is possible only
if partial freedom is
assigned to the human will.
“But whither am I drifting? I hardly know where I should end if I wanted to
discuss the contents of your Book. Let me add, however, that I consider the
fourth and the fifth Lectures, and more particularly the third part of the
latter, as the most important and (to me) most interesting chapters of the work
– as far as I have read it. For, wishing to read it, not hastily, but carefully,
and having been interrupted by tasks which brooked no delay, I left the last two
(p. 114)
Lectures and the whole of the Appendix unread. I hope to read these
parts in the course of the present month, and I must trust to the future for
opportunities of exchanging notes with you and your fellow-author. Meanwhile
accept my warmest thanks for every ray of light and hope that has reached me,
thanks to this dual influx from brighter spheres.
“I had no knowledge of the ‘Adepts’ of Hindustan and Thibet, nor of the
existence of a Theosophic Society in
“You have chosen an inclement season for your trip, but you have come on a noble
errand. The foundation of a truly international Anti-Vivisection Journal would
be of the greatest importance. I have joined the newly-formed Paris Society, but
fear that such questions do not ripen on French soil.
“May I trouble you with the enclosed note to Mrs. Kingsford? In hopes that this
letter may still find you in
“E. GRYZANOWSKY.”
“
“DEAR MADAM, – I need not apologise, I believe, for
addressing you, as I have to thank you for what I must consider as a token of
good fellowship and goodwill. The French translation of your article in the
Nineteenth Century was the more welcome to me as I never had read the
original, which I only knew through Lord Coleridge’s quotation. I am glad to be
able to add that I made at once use of some of its passages
for three short articles for German newspapers, the mot d’ordre in our camp
being just now a frequent and anonymous discussion of the
Vivisection question in the daily press, as the most plausible mode of
influencing our lawgivers on the eve of the impending debates in the Reichstag
(on the 16th). Not that we expect any positive success, any tilting of the
scales, but we hope to find a change in the distribution of weights which would
be a sort of invisible success.
“I have often heart, and I rejoice to hear again, of your untiring and most
valuable services to the cause of Humanity. After all, our demands are but
negative. No bloody food, no bloody science. Yet how difficult it is to kill
these dragons! Even Miss Cobbe’s services, valuable though they are, would be
more efficient if she had less bitter feelings against vegetarians.
“I have joined the newly-formed French Society, but I attach greater importance
to the foundation of an international Anti-Vivisection Journal, which (Mr.
Maitland informs me) is one of the objects of your visit to
“Your excellent Inaugural Dissertation I have read in Aderholdt’s German
translation. But my indebtedness to you has, of late, been greatly enhanced by
my perusal of that wonderful Book which Mr.
(p. 115)
Maitland ascribes to your and his joint
authorship. Pray accept your share of my thanks, together with my
congratulations on your election to the Presidency of the Theosophical Society.
May the mystic meanings implied in the circumstances of this election be one day
affirmed and confirmed by the fruits of your activity, and may these fruits
ripen in the rays of the heavenly Light.
“With profound esteem and gratitude, I remain, dear Madam, yours sincerely,
“ERNST GRYZANOWSKY.”
FOOTNOTES
(96:1) See Vol. I, p. 148.
(96:2) Clothed with the Sun, Part I, Nºs. XLI-XLVII, inclusive.
These illuminations were received during the months of December 1882 and January
and February 1883.
(97:1) June 1881. Illumination, “Concerning Regeneration.”
(97:2) A term which signifies forethought, and as here
used implies distrust of the divine sufficiency. E.M.
(97:3) I.e. the flesh itself is their thorn.
(98:1) Vol. I, p. 195.
(98:2) For the explanation see The Perfect Way, V. 44, n.
13.
(101:1) An archaism for consciousness.
(109:1) Vol. I, p. 350.
(109:2) See Clothed with the Sun, Part I, Nº. XL.
(111:1) The Daily Express of July 16, 1908,
contains an account of the Blood Cure, as then recently practised, which is
reprinted in Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism, pp. 48-49 n. – S.H.H.
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XXIII – Uma Turnê no Exterior Seguinte: XXV – A Sociedade Teosófica