Chapter XIII : Realities and Illusions
Pages covered : 466 to 474
The propositions one to five of Asiatic Psychology, out of the ten propositions, state as follows :
Proposition 1 : There are no miracles. Everything that happens is the result of law—eternal, immutable, ever active.
Proposition 2 : Nature is triune; there is a visible, objective nature; and invisible, indwelling, energizing nature, the exact model of the other, and its vital principle; and above these two, spirit, source of all forces, alone eternal, and indestructible. The lower two constantly change; the higher third does not.
Proposition 3 : Man is also triune : he has his objective, physical body; his vitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man; and these two are brooded over and illuminated by the third—the sovereign, immortal spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with the latter, he becomes an immortal entity.
Propositions 4 : Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature’s forces may be acquired by the individual while still in the body. Magic as an art, is an application of this knowledge in practice.
Proposition 5 : Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery; beneficently used, true magic or WISDOM.
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The propositions show that the modern learning and research is confined to the outer Nature, and modern science ignores the inner psychic and still deeper spiritual aspects of Man and Nature. The ancient Science, on the other hand, had penetrated the hidden mysteries of Occult Nature, discovered the potent creative laws and powers, and applied them in practice. Science, by its methods, can know only physical and chemical properties of things, and is unaware of their hidden occult potencies. Science studies only the body of man but is ignorant of the psycho-physiological, psycho-spiritual and divine powers and faculties latent in Man.
Hence to science there are innumerable unexplained mysteries, and those presumably explained hardly one may be said to have become absolutely intelligible. There is not a plant or mineral which has disclosed the last of its properties to scientists. How can they be sure that for every one of the discovered properties there may not be many powers concealed in the inner nature of the plant or stone? And that they are waiting to be brought in relation with some other plant, mineral, or force of nature to manifest themselves in what is called a “super-natural manner.”
Pliny, the ancient naturalist, Aelian, Diodorus, through their own researches into the hidden meaning in ancient fables and extricated from them the truth that some plants and minerals occult properties unknown to moderns. But our modern day schools dismiss such claims as absurd and ignore them.
The mystery of vital principle
Professor Joseph Le Conte posed a question to his fellow-scientists : what is the difference between a living and a dead organism? He says he can detect none so far as physical and chemical properties are concerned, till the dead body is gradually disintegrated. He asks, can the nature of the difference expressed in formula of material science? What is that is gone and whither is it gone? There is something here science cannot yet understand.. Yet it is this loss which takes place at death. It is the Vital Force.
This Vital Force is the universal motor of all – Life. To explain its nature, even to suggest a reasonable hypothesis, the mystery is but a half mystery, not only for the great Adepts and Seers, but to the believer in a spiritual world too.
Divine Faith, unerring Intuition
To the simple believer there remains divine Faith, which is rooted in his inner senses. It is his unerring intuition with which cold reason has noting to do. It is ineradicable from human psyche.
Experiments which prove that animals possess clairvoyance
Every animal is more or less endowed with the faculty of perceiving things which are not visible to common men, and which can only be discovered by a clairvoyant. H.P.B., in her long study and research all over the world, said she witnessed hundreds of experiments being done with cats, dogs, monkeys, and once with a tamed tiger. Two experiments were done in India—one by a holy mendicant and the other by a sorcerer. Besides confirming possession of clairvoyant faculty by the tiger, the experiments also brought out the difference between White Magic and Black Magic, as the experiments were performed one after the other by the two Magicians. A black mirror known as “magic crystal” was strongly mesmerized by the Hindu Fakir and the tiger made to look into it. The animal’s sight was transfixed to the image, invisible to others, which it saw, unable to take its sight off it, its eyes following the movements of the image.
When it was the sorcerer’s turn, he too went though similar magnetization of the mirror. The tiger howled, groaned and terrified by the image it saw, and at last, breaking the chain with which it was bound, dashed out of the open window.
They demonstrated that animals possess naturally the clairvoyant faculty, and even able to discern between good and bad spirits.
Both these magicians possessed masterly control over animals. They would make the most ferocious beast like a tiger as harmless as a kitten in their presence, such that even children could tease and pull their ears and so on, and the animal would just submit itself.
Demonstration of sovereign Will of man in controlling forces of Nature
HPB quotes from a report of a French traveller which was published in a New York news paper called Franco American.
One Indian Fakir, Chib Chondar, demonstrated his magical skills. Ten deadly cobras were entwining the limbs of his body. He took out a small pipe tuck in his hair and produced sounds resembling the call of a bird. The serpents uncoiled themselves from his body, came on the ground, raised one-third of their body and kept time with their master’s music. The Fakir drops his instrument and makes several passes over the serpents which became motionless and rigid like a stick. His eyes assume a strange expression. The French reporter and others who were witnessing the performance felt uneasy and sought to turn away from his gaze, and they later said that if continued his gaze for some more time they would have succumbed to irresistible sleep which came over them. The monkey, his companion, which was trained by him to bring him fire in a brazier, had fallen asleep. He ordered the sleeping monkey to fetch him fire. Obeying the master it does so, even though in a fit of sleep, and then lay down asleep again. The witnesses pulled pinched the monkey to ensure it was really asleep, yet in sleep it obeyed its master’s orders.
They examined the snakes. They all lay in a cataleptic state, like hard wooden sticks. Fakir then awakens them with a few mesmeric passes, and they all slither towards him and coil themselves round his limbs as before.
The Fakir made mesmeric passes over the limbs of witnesses and suddenly they lose control over their own limbs, nor could they raise from their seats. He makes some more passes and they regain control.
He then went on to show the power of will on inanimate objects. By mere passes of his hands in the direction of the objects he acted on them without moving from his seat. He paled and extinguished lights in the room, moved furniture without touching them, catching sight of gardener outside who was drawing water from a well he makes passes in the direction and the rope which was being lowered in to the well stopped moving to the astonishment of the gardener. He makes another pass and the rope obeys the gravity and descends into the well.
When asked how he performed such feats, his answer was simple : “I have only one means. ..The will. Man, who is the end of all intellectual and material forces, must dominate over all. The Brahmans know nothing besides this.”
DHARANI – the Hindu mystic charm
Colonel Yule (google search will tell information about him) speaks of this charm. Such feats are produced :
-Sticking pegs into hard rock.
-restoring dead to life.
-turning a dead body into gold.
-penetrating everywhere as air does (in astral form).
-flying.
-Catching wild beasts by hand.
-reading thoughts.
-Making water flow backward.
-eating tiles.
-sitting in the air with legs doubled under. Etc.
Simon the Magus, the contemporary of St. Paul, the Apostle, is credited to have performed all these feats. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church denounced him and accused him of performing his phenomena with the help of the “Devil”—a theological invention.
HPB says in answer :
“We believe WILL-POWER the most powerful of magnets. The existence of such magical power in certain persons is proved, but the existence of the Devil is a fiction which no theology is able to demonstrate.”
A detail account of trustworthy witnesses if given of the famous Indian rope trick : The juggler throwing one end of a rope high into the air, sends a boy up the rope, who disappears in the sky. The juggler call his down. Not coming down in obedience to his order, the infuriated juggler takes a knife and climbs up the rope so high as to disappear from sight. Then fall on the ground one by one bloody limbs and flesh and severed head of the boy on the ground. The juggler climbs down, puts all the limbs together and the boy comes alive as before to the astonishment of audience.
This is again an exhibition of power of Imagination and Will by which the performer can make people see what he wills them to see.
Next the phenomenon of reanimation of the apparently dead and the rational of it will be considered.
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