The following intriguing passage from H. P. Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled I, Chap. 8, pp.
273-279, (abridged) touches upon certain collective esoteric influences on society, which to my knowledge, have not seen much investigation from an occult perspective since then, and thus remain quite relevant, offering original explanations for many a phenomena in today's highly collectivized, fad-driven modern world.
Thus
if science cannot explain the cause of this physical influence, what can she
know of the moral and occult influences that may be exercised by the celestial
bodies on men and their destiny; and why contradict that which it is impossible
for her to prove false? If certain aspects of the moon effect tangible results
so familiar in the experience of men throughout all time, what violence are we
doing to logic in assuming the possibility that a certain combination of
sidereal influences may also be more or less potential?
If
the reader will recall what is said by the learned authors of the Unseen Universe, as to the positive
effect produced upon the universal ether by so small a cause as the evolution
of thought in a single human brain, how reasonable will it not appear that the
terrific impulses imparted to this common medium by the sweep of the myriad
blazing orbs that are rushing through "the interstellar depths,"
should affect us and the earth upon which we live, in a powerful degree? If
astronomers cannot explain to us the occult law by which the drifting particles
of cosmic matter aggregate into worlds, and then take their places in the
majestic procession which is ceaselessly moving around some central point of
attraction, how can anyone assume to say what mystic influences may or may not
be darting through space and affecting the issues of life upon this and other
planets?
Almost nothing is known of the laws of magnetism and the other imponderable agents; almost nothing of their effects upon our bodies and minds; even that which is known and moreover perfectly demonstrated, is attributed to chance, and curious coincidences. But we do know, by these coincidences,* that "there are periods when certain diseases, propensities, fortunes, and misfortunes of humanity are more rife than at others." There are times of epidemic in moral and physical affairs. In one epoch "the spirit of religious controversy will arouse the most ferocious passions of which human nature is susceptible, provoking mutual persecution, bloodshed, and wars; at another, an epidemic of resistance to constituted authority will spread over half the world (as in the year 1848), rapid and simultaneous as the most virulent bodily disorder."
Almost nothing is known of the laws of magnetism and the other imponderable agents; almost nothing of their effects upon our bodies and minds; even that which is known and moreover perfectly demonstrated, is attributed to chance, and curious coincidences. But we do know, by these coincidences,* that "there are periods when certain diseases, propensities, fortunes, and misfortunes of humanity are more rife than at others." There are times of epidemic in moral and physical affairs. In one epoch "the spirit of religious controversy will arouse the most ferocious passions of which human nature is susceptible, provoking mutual persecution, bloodshed, and wars; at another, an epidemic of resistance to constituted authority will spread over half the world (as in the year 1848), rapid and simultaneous as the most virulent bodily disorder."
Again,
the collective character of
mental phenomena is illustrated by an anomalous psychological condition
invading and dominating over thousands upon thousands, depriving them of
everything but automatic action, and giving rise to the popular opinion of demoniacal
possession, an opinion in some sense justified by the satanic passions,
emotions, and acts which accompany the condition. At one period, the aggregate
tendency is to retirement and contemplation; hence, the countless votaries of
monachism and anchoretism; at another the mania is directed toward action, having for its proposed end
some utopian scheme, equally impracticable and useless; hence, the myriads who
have forsaken their kindred, their homes, and their country, to seek a land
whose stones were gold, or to wage exterminating war for the possession of
worthless cities and trackless deserts.†
The
author from whom the above is quoted says that "the seeds of vice and
crime appear to be sown under the surface of society, and to spring up and
bring forth fruit with appalling rapidity and paralyzing succession."
In
the presence of these striking phenomena science stands speechless; she does
not even attempt to conjecture as to their cause, and naturally, for she has
not yet learned to look outside of this ball of dirt upon which we live, and
its heavy atmosphere, for the hidden influences which are affecting us day by
day, and even minute by minute. But the ancients, whose "ignorance"
is assumed by Mr. Proctor, fully realized the fact that the reciprocal
relations between the planetary bodies is as perfect as those between the
corpuscles of the blood, which float in a common fluid; and that each one is
affected by the combined influences of all the rest, as each in its turn
affects each of the others. As the planets differ in size, distance, and
activity, so differ in intensity their impulses upon the ether or astral light,
and the magnetic and other subtile forces radiated by them in certain aspects
of the heavens. Music is the combination and modulation of sounds, and sound is
the effect produced by the vibration of the ether. Now, if the impulses
communicated to the ether by the different planets may be likened to the tones
produced by the different notes of a musical instrument, it is not difficult to
conceive that the Pythagorean "music of the spheres" is something
more than a mere fancy, and that certain planetary aspects may imply
disturbances in the ether of our planet, and certain others rest and harmony.
Certain kinds of music throw us into frenzy; some exalt the soul to religious
aspirations. In fine, there is scarcely a human creation which does not respond
to certain vibrations of the atmosphere. It is the same with colors; some
excite us, some soothe and please. The nun clothes herself in black to typify
the despondency of a faith crushed under the sense of original sin; the bride
robes herself in white; red inflames the anger of certain animals. If we and
the animals are affected by vibrations acting upon a very minute scale, why may
we not be influenced in the mass by vibrations acting upon a grand scale as the
effect of combined stellar influences?
"We
know," says Dr. Elam,
"that certain pathological conditions have a tendency to become epidemic, influenced by causes not yet investigated.
. . . We see how strong is the tendency of opinion once promulgated to run into
an epidemic form — no opinion, no delusion, is too absurd to assume this
collective character. We observe, also, how remarkably the same ideas reproduce
themselves and reappear in successive
ages; . . . no crime is too horrible to become popular, homicide,
infanticide, suicide, poisoning, or any other diabolical human conception.
.
. . In epidemics, the cause of the rapid spread at that particular period remains a mystery!"
These
few lines contain an undeniable psychological
fact, sketched with a masterly pen, and at the same time a half-confession of utter ignorance —
"Causes not yet investigated."
Why not be honest and add at once, "impossible
to investigate with present scientific methods"?
Noticing
an epidemic of incendiarism, Dr. Elam quotes from the Annales d'Hygiene Publique the
following cases: "A girl about seventeen years of age was arrested on
suspicion . . . she confessed that twice she had set fire to dwellings by instinct, by irresistible necessity. . . . A boy
about eighteen committed many acts of this nature. He was not moved by any
passion, but the bursting-out of the flames excited a profoundly pleasing
emotion."
Who
but has noticed in the columns of the daily press similar incidents? They meet
the eye constantly. In cases of murder, of every description, and of other
crimes of a diabolical character, the act is attributed, in nine cases out of
ten, by the offenders themselves, to irresistible
obsessions. "Something
whispered constantly in my ear. . . . Somebody
was incessantly pushing and leading me on." Such are the too-frequent
confessions of the criminals. Physicians attribute them to hallucinations of
disordered brains, and call the homicidal impulse temporary lunacy. But is lunacy itself well
understood by any psychologist? Has its cause ever been brought under a
hypothesis capable of withstanding the challenge of an uncompromising
investigator? Let the controversial works of our contemporary alienists answer
for themselves.
Plato
acknowledges man to be the toy of the element of necessity, which he enters
upon in appearing in this world of matter; he is influenced by external causes,
and these causes are daimonia,
like that of Socrates. Happy is the man physically pure, for if his external soul (body) is pure, it will
strengthen the second one (astral body), or the soul which is termed by him the
higher mortal soul, which
though liable to err from its own motives, will always side with reason against
the animal proclivities of the body. The lusts of man arise in consequence of
his perishable material body, so do other diseases; but though he regards
crimes as involuntary
sometimes, for they result like bodily disease from external causes, Plato
clearly makes a wide distinction between these causes. The fatalism which he concedes to humanity, does
not preclude the possibility of avoiding them, for though pain, fear, anger,
and other feelings are given to men by necessity,
"if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were
conquered by them, unrighteously."(
Jowett: "Timaeus.")
But
Dr. Elam
thinks otherwise. On page 194 of his book, A
Physician's Problems, he says that the cause of the rapid spread of
certain epidemics of disease which he is noticing "remains a
mystery"; but as regards the incendiarism he remarks that "in all
this we find nothing mysterious," though the epidemic is strongly
developed. Strange contradiction! De Quincey, in his paper, entitled Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,
treats of the epidemic of assassination, between 1588 and 1635, by which seven
of the most distinguished characters of the time lost their lives at the hands
of assassins, and neither he, nor any other commentator has been able to
explain the mysterious cause of this homicidal mania.
If
we press these gentlemen for an explanation, which as pretended philosophers
they are bound to give us, we are answered that it is a great deal more scientific to assign for such epidemics
"agitation of the mind," " . . . a time of political excitement
(1830)" " . . . imitation and impulse," " . . . excitable
and idle boys," and "hysterical
girls," than to be
absurdly seeking for the verification of superstitious traditions in a
hypothetical astral light. "True science has no belief," says Dr.
Fenwick, in Bulwer-Lytton's Strange
Story; "true science knows but three states of mind: denial,
conviction, and the vast interval between the two, which is not belief, but the
suspension of judgment."
Such, perhaps, was true science in Dr. Fenwick's days. But the true science of
our modern times proceeds otherwise; it either denies point-blank, without any
preliminary investigation, or sits in the interim, between denial and
conviction, and, dictionary in hand, invents new Graeco-Latin appellations for
non-existing kinds of hysteria!
How
often have powerful clairvoyants and adepts in mesmerism described the
epidemics and physical
(though to others invisible) manifestations which science attributes to
epilepsy, haemato-nervous disorders, and what not, of somatic origin, as their lucid vision
saw them in the astral light. They affirm that the "electric waves"
were in violent perturbation, and that they discerned a direct relation between
this ethereal disturbance and the mental or physical epidemic then raging. But
science has heeded them not, but gone on with her encyclopaedic labor of
devising new names for old things.
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