Occult or Exact Science? E-Book

H. P. Blavatsky

• Herausgeber: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 64

Beschreibung

Every new discovery made by modern science vindicates the truths of the archaic philosophy. The true occultist is acquainted with no single problem that esoteric science is unable to solve, if approached in the right direction; the scientific bodies of the West have as yet no phenomenon of natural science that they can fathom to its innermost depths, or explain in all its aspects. Exact science fails to do so—in this cycle, for reasons that will be given further on. Nevertheless the pride of the age, which revolts against the intrusion into the empire of science of old—especially of transcendental—truths, is growing every year more intolerant. Soon the world will behold it soaring in the clouds of self-sufficiency like a new tower of Babel, to share, perchance, the fate of the Biblical monument. 

Leseprobe

H. P. Blavatsky

Occult or Exact Science?

Every new discovery made by modern science vindicates the truths of the archaic philosophy. The true occultist is acquainted with no single problem that esoteric science is unable to solve, if approached in the right direction; the scientific bodies of the West have as yet no phenomenon of natural science that they can fathom to its innermost depths, or explain in all its aspects. Exact science fails to do so—in this cycle, for reasons that will be given further on. Nevertheless the pride of the age, which revolts against the intrusion into the empire of science of old—especially of transcendental—truths, is growing every year more intolerant. Soon the world will behold it soaring in the clouds of self-sufficiency like a new tower of Babel, to share, perchance, the fate of the Biblical monument.

Table of Contents

H. P. Blavatsky

Occult or Exact Science?

I

II

I

Ecce signum! Behold the sign foreseen in a brighter future; the problem that will be the question of the forthcoming age, that every thoughtful, earnest father will be asking himself with regard to his children’s education in the XXth century. And let it be stated at once, that by “Occult Science” neither the life of a chela nor the austerities of an ascetic are here meant; but simply the study of that which alone can furnish the key to the mysteries of nature, and unveil the problems of the universe and of psycho-physical man-even though one should not feel inclined to go any deeper.

Every new discovery made by modern science vindicates the truths of the archaic philosophy. The true occultist is acquainted with no single problem that esoteric science is unable to solve, if approached in the right direction; the scientific bodies of the West have as yet no phenomenon of natural science that they can fathom to its innermost depths, or explain in all its aspects. Exact science fails to do so-in this cycle, for reasons that will be given further on. Nevertheless the pride of the age, which revolts against the intrusion into the empire of science of old especially of transcendental-truths, is growing every year more intolerant. Soon the world will behold it soaring in the clouds of self-sufficiency like a new tower of Babel, to share, perchance, the fate of the Biblical monument.

In a recent scientific work on Anthropology,[1] one can read the following: “It is then given to us, at last, to know (?), to grasp, to handle and measure the forces through which it is claimed, that God proceeded…. We have made electricity our postman, light our draughts-man, affinity our journeyman,” etc., etc. This is in a French work. One who knows something of the perplexities of exact science, of the mistakes and daily confessions of her staff, feels inclined, after reading such pompous stuff, to exclaim with the malcontent of the Bible: Tradidit mundum ut non sciant. Verily-“the world was delivered to them that they should never know it.”

How likely the scientists are to succeed in this direction may be inferred from the fact that the great Humboldt himself could give expression to such erroneous axioms as this one: “Science begins for man only when his mind has mastered MATTER!”[2] The word “spirit” for “matter” might perhaps have expressed a greater truth. But E. Renan would not have complimented the venerable author of the Kosmos in the terms he did, had the term matter been replaced by spirit.

I intend to give a few illustrations to show that the knowledge of matter alone, with the quondam “imponderable” force-whatever the adjective may have meant with the French Academy and Royal Society at the time it was invented-is not sufficient for the purposes of true science. Nor will it ever prove efficient to explain the simplest phenomenon even in objective physical nature, let alone the abnormal cases in which physiologists and biologists at present manifest such interest. As Father Secchi, the famous Roman astronomer expressed it in his work,[3]“if but a few of the new forces were proven, they would necessitate the admission in space of agents of quite another order than those of gravitation.”

“I have read a great deal about occultism and studied Kabbalistic books: I have never understood one word in them!”-was a recent remark made by a learned experimenter in “thought-transference,” “colour-sounds,” and so on.

Very likely. One has to study his letters before he can spell and read, or understand what he reads.

Some forty years back, I knew a child-a little girl of seven or eight-who very seriously frightened her parents by saying:

“Now, mama, I love you. You are good and kind to me to-day. Your words are quite blue”….

“What do you mean?”.… asked the mother.

“Your words are all blue-because they are so caressing, but when you scold me they are red… so red! But it is worse when you fly in a passion with papa for then they are orange… horrid… like that”.…

And the child pointed to the hearth, with a big roaring fire and huge flames in it. The mother turned pale.

After that the little sensitive was heard very often associating sounds with colours. The melody played by the mother on the piano threw her into ecstasies of delight; she saw “such beautiful rainbows,” she explained, but when her aunt played, it was “fire-works and stars, brilliant stars shooting pistols-and then… bursting…”

The parents got frightened and suspected that something had gone wrong with the child’s brain. The family physician was sent for.

“Exuberance of childish fancy,” he said. “Innocent hallucinations… Don’t let her drink tea, and make her play more with her little brothers-fight with them, and have physical exercise…”

And he departed.

In a large Russian city, on the banks of the Volga, stands an hospital with a lunatic asylum attached to it. There a poor woman was locked up for over twenty years -to the day of her death in fact-as a “harmless” though insane patient. No other proofs of her insanity could be found on the case-books than the fact that the splash and murmur of the river-waves produced the finest “God’s rainbows” for her; while the voice of the superintendent caused her to see “black and crimson”-the colours of the Evil one.

About that same period, namely in 1840, something similar to this phenomenon was heralded by the French papers. Such an abnormal state of feelings-physicians thought in those days-could be due but to one reason; such impressions whenever experienced without any traceable cause, denoted an ill-balanced mind, a weak brain-likely to lead its possessor to lunacy. Such was the decree of science. The views of the piously inclined, supported by the affirmations of the village curés, inclined the other way. The brain had nought to do with the “obsession” for it was simply the work or tricks of the much slandered “old gentleman” with cloven foot and shining horns. Both the men of learning and the superstitious “good women” have had somewhat to alter their opinions since 1840.

Even in that early period and before the “Rochester” wave of spiritualism had swept over any considerable portion of civilized society in Europe, it was shown that the same phenomenon could be produced by means of various narcotics and drugs. Some bolder people, who feared neither a charge of lunacy nor the unpleasant prospect of being regarded as wards in “Old Nick’s Chancery,” made experiments and declared the results publicly. One was Théophile Gautier, the famous French author