Writings of H P Blavatsky

 

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Helena Petrovna Blavatsky  (1831 – 1891)

The Founder of Modern Theosophy

 

Fakirs and Tables

By

H P Blavatsky

 

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[From the New York Sun, April 1st, 1877.]

 

HOWEVER ignorant I may be of the laws of the solar system, I am at all events so firm a believer in heliocentric journalism that I subscribe some remarks for The Sun upon my "iconoclasm."

 

No doubt it is a great honour for an unpretending foreigner to be thus crucified between the two greatest celebrities of your chivalrous country—the truly good Deacon Richard Smith, of the blue gauze trousers, and the nightingale of the willow and the cypress, G. Washington Childs, A. M. But I am not a Hindu Fakir, and therefore can not say that I enjoy crucifixion, especially when unmerited. I do not even fancy being swung round the "tall tower" with the steel hooks of your satire metaphorically thrust through my back. I have not invited the reporters to a show. I have not sought notoriety. I have only taken up a quiet corner in your free country, and, as a woman who has travelled much, shall try to tell a Western public the strange things I have seen among Eastern peoples. If I could have enjoyed this privilege at home I should not be here. Being here, I shall, as your old English proverb expresses it, "Tell the truth and shame the devil."

 

The World reporter who visited me wrote an article which mingled his souvenirs of my stuffed apes and my canaries, my tiger-heads and palms, with aerial music and the flitting doppelgängers of Adepts. It was a very interesting article and was certainly intended to be very impartial. If I appear in it to deny the immutability of natural law, and inferentially to affirm the possibility of miracle, it is either due to my faulty English or to the carelessness of the reader.

 

There are no such uncompromising believers in the immutability and universality of the laws of Nature as students of Occultism. Let us then, with your permission, leave the shade of the great Newton to rest in peace. It is not the principle of the law of gravitation, or the necessity of a central force acting toward the sun, that is denied, but the assumption that, behind the law which draws bodies toward the earth’s centre, and which is our most familiar example of gravitation, there is no other law, equally immutable, that under certain conditions appears to counteract the former.

 

If but once in a hundred years a table or a Fakir is seen to rise in the air, without a visible mechanical cause, then that rising is a manifestation of a natural law of which our scientists are as yet ignorant. Christians believe in miracles; Occultists credit them even less than pious scientists, Sir David Brewster, for instance. Show an Occultist an unfamiliar phenomenon, and he will never affirm a priori that it is either a trick or a miracle. He will search for the cause in the reason of causes.

 

There was an anecdote about Babinet, the astronomer, current in Paris in 1854, when the great war was raging between the Academy and the "waltzing tables." This sceptical man of science had proclaimed in the Revue des Deux Mondes (January, 1854, p. 414) that the levitation of furniture without contact "was simply as impossible as perpetual motion." A few days later, during an experimental séance, a table was levitated without contact in his presence. The result was that Babinet went straight to a dentist to have a molar tooth extracted, which the iconoclastic table in its aërial flight had seriously damaged. But it was too late to recall his article.

 

I suppose nine men out of ten, including editors, would maintain that the undulatory theory of light is one of the most firmly established. And yet if you will turn to page 22 of The New Chemistry, by Prof. Josiah P. Cooke, Jr., of Harvard University (New York, 1876), you will find him saying:

 

I cannot agree with those who regard the wave-theory of light as an established principle of science. . . . It requires a combination of qualities in the ether of space which I find it difficult to believe are actually realized.

 

What is this but iconoclasm?

 

Let us bear in mind that Newton himself accepted the corpuscular theory of Pythagoras and his predecessors, from whom he learned it, and that it was only en désespoir de cause that later scientists accepted the wave theory of Descartes and Huyghens. Kepler maintained the magnetic nature of the sun. Leibnitz ascribed the planetary motions to agitations of an ether. Borelli anticipated Newton in his discovery, although he failed to demonstrate it as triumphantly. Huyghens and Boyle, Horrocks and Hooke, Halley and Wren, all had ideas of a central force acting toward the sun, and of the true principle of diminution of action of the force in the ratio of the inverse square of the distance. The last word has not yet been spoken with respect to gravitation; its limitations can never be known until the nature of the sun is better understood.

 

They are just beginning to recognize—see Prof. Balfour Stewart’s lecture at Manchester, entitled, The Sun and the Earth, and Prof. A. M. Mayer’s lecture, The Earth a Great Magnet—the intimate connection between the sun’s spots and the position of the heavenly bodies. The interplanetary magnetic attractions are but just being demonstrated. Until gravitation is understood to be simply magnetic attraction and repulsion, and the part played by magnetism itself in the endless correlations of forces in the ether of space—that "hypothetical medium," as Webster terms it—is better grasped, I maintain that it is neither fair nor wise to deny the levitation of either Fakir or table. Bodies oppositely electrified attract each other; similarly electrified they repulse each other. Admit, therefore, that any body having weight, whether man or inanimate object, can by any cause whatever, external or internal, be given the same polarity as the spot on which it stands, and what is to prevent its rising?

 

Before charging me with falsehood when I affirm that I have seen both men and objects levitated, you must first dispose of the abundant testimony of persons far better known than my humble self. Mr. Crookes, Prof. Thury of Geneva, Louis Jacolliot, your own Dr. Gray and Dr. Warner, and hundreds of others, have, first and last, certified the fact of levitation.

 

I am surprised to find how little even the editors of your erudite contemporary, The World, are acquainted with Oriental metaphysics in general, and the trousers of the Hindû Fakirs in particular. It was bad enough to make those holy mendicants of the religion of Brahmâ graduate from the Buddhist Lamaseries of Tibet; but it is unpardonable to make them wear baggy breeches in the exercise of their religious functions.

 

This is as bad as if a Hindû journalist had represented the Rev. Mr. Beecher entering his pulpit in the scant costume of the Fakir—the dhoti, a cloth about the loins, "only that and nothing more." To account, therefore, for the oft-witnessed, open-air levitations of the Swamis and Gurus upon the theory of an iron frame concealed beneath the clothing, is as reasonable as Monsieur Babinet’s explanation of the table-tipping and tapping as unconscious ventriloquism.

 

You may object to the act of disembowelling, which I am compelled to affirm I have seen performed. It is as you say, "remarkable," but still not miraculous. Your suggestion that Dr. Hammond should go and see it is a good one. Science would be the gainer, and your humble correspondent be justified. Are you, however, in a position to guarantee that he would furnish the world of sceptics with an example of "veracious reporting," if his observation should tend to overthrow the pet theories of what we loosely call science?

 

Yours very respectfully,

 

H. P. BLAVATSKY.

 

New York, March 28th, 1877.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Glossaries of Theosophical Terms

 

Worldwide Theosophical Links

 

 

 

Index of Searchable

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H P Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine

 

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H P Blavatsky’s Esoteric Glossary

 

Mahatma Letters to A P Sinnett 1 - 25

 

A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom

Alvin Boyd Kuhn

 

Studies in Occultism

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The Conquest of Illusion

J J van der Leeuw

 

The Secret Doctrine – Volume 3

A compilation of H P Blavatsky’s

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Esoteric Christianity or the Lesser Mysteries

Annie Besant

 

The Ancient Wisdom

Annie Besant

 

Reincarnation

Annie Besant

 

The Early Teachings of The Masters

1881-1883

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Study in Consciousness

Annie Besant

 

 

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A Modern Panarion

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The Perfect Way or,

The Finding of Christ

Anna Bonus Kingsford

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The Perfect Way or,

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Anna Bonus Kingsford

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A Gnostic Gospel

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C. W. Leadbeater

 

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Translated from the Sanskrit

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Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy

G de Purucker

 

In The Outer Court

Annie Besant

 

Dreams and

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Anna Kingsford

 

My Path to Atheism

Annie Besant

 

From the Caves and

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H P Blavatsky

 

The Hidden Side

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C W Leadbeater

 

Glimpses of

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C W Leadbeater

 

Five Years Of

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Various Theosophical

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Spiritualism and Theosophy

C W Leadbeater

 

Commentary on

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Annie Besant and

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From Talks on the Path of Occultism - Vol. II

 

Is This Theosophy?

Ernest Egerton Wood

 

In The Twilight

Annie Besant

In the Twilight” Series of Articles

The In the Twilight” series appeared during

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from 1909-1913 in The Theosophist.

 

Incidents in the Life

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compiled from information supplied by

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The Friendly Philosopher

Robert Crosbie

Letters and Talks on Theosophy and the Theosophical Life

 

 

Obras Teosoficas En Espanol

 

La Sabiduria Antigua

Annie Besant

 

Glosario Teosofico

1892

H P Blavatsky

 

 

Theosophische Schriften Auf Deutsch

 

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(?- 1155)

Historia Regum Britanniae

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Nennius

Historia Brittanum

History of the Britons

800 CE

The first written mention of Arthur as a heroic figure

The British leader who fought twelve battles

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Where were Arthur’s Twelve

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King Arthur’s ninth victory at

The Battle of the City of the Legion

Chester

 

The Battle of Badon Hill

King Arthur ambushes an advancing Saxon

army then defeats them at Liddington Castle,

Badbury, Near Swindon, Wiltshire, England.

King Arthur’s twelfth and last victory against the Saxons

 

The Battle of Camlann

Traditionally Arthur’s last battle in which he was

mortally wounded although his side went on to win

 

Taliesin

The 6th century Welsh bard

No contemporary writings or accounts of his life

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King Arthur period. He refers to Arthur in his inspiring

poems but the earliest written record of these dates

from over three hundred years after Taliesin’s death.

 

The Elegy of Uther Pendragon

From the Book of Taliesin

 

Pendragon Castle

Mallerstang Valley, Nr Kirkby Stephen,

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The Prophecy of Merlin

From Geoffrey of Monmouth’s

History of the Kings of Britain

 

Merlin’s Vision

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Near Burnley Lancashire

 

Excalibur

Drawn from the Stone or received from the Lady of the Lake.

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in the 5th Century CE

 

Celtic Kingdoms Prior to the

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The Saxon Invasion of Britain

 

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5th & 6th Century Timeline of Britain

From the departure of the Romans from

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Glossary of

Arthurian Legend

 

Constans

Arthur’s uncle:- The puppet ruler of the Britons

controlled and eventually killed by Vortigern

Circa 440 -445CE

 

Hengist & Horsa

 

The Massacre of Amesbury

Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. Circa 450CE

An alleged massacre of Celtic Nobility by the Saxons

at a “Peace” conference

 

Caer-Anderida (Pevensey)

Falls to the Saxons 491 CE

 

King Arthur is Crowned

at Silchester

From Geoffrey of Monmouth’s

History of the Kings of Britain

 

King Arthwys of the Pennines

Born Circa 455 CE

Ruled the Kingdom of Ebrauc

(North Yorkshire)

 

Athrwys / Arthrwys
King of Ergyng

Circa  618 - 655 CE
Latin: Artorius; English: Arthur

A warrior King born in Gwent and associated with

Caerleon, a possible Camelot. Although over 100 years

later that the accepted Arthur period, the exploits of

Athrwys may have contributed to the King Arthur Legend.

He became King of Ergyng, a kingdom between

Gwent and Brycheiniog (Brecon)

 

King Morgan Bulc of Bernaccia

Angles under Ida seized the Celtic Kingdom of

Bernaccia in North East England in 547 CE forcing

King Morgan Bulc into exile.

Although much later than the accepted King Arthur

period, the events of Morgan Bulc’s 50 year campaign

to regain his kingdom may have contributed to

the King Arthur Legend.

 

 

Vortigern

Old Welsh: Guorthigirn; Anglo-Saxon: Wyrtgeorn;

Breton: Gurthiern; Modern Welsh; Gwrtheyrn;

Latin; Vertigernus:

*********************************

An earlier ruler than King Arthur and not a heroic figure.

He is credited with policies that weakened Celtic Britain

to a point from which it never recovered.

Although there are no contemporary accounts of

his rule, there is more written evidence for his

existence than of King Arthur.

 

How Sir Lancelot slew two giants,

And made a castle free.

From Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur

Published 1485

 

How Sir Lancelot rode disguised

in Sir Kay's harness, and how he

smote down a knight.

From Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur

Published 1485

 

How Sir Lancelot jousted against

four knights of the Round Table,

and overthrew them.

From Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur

Published 1485

 

The Passing of Arthur

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

 

 

 

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