Madame H.P. Blavatsky wrote Isis Unveiled 1 by reading invisible records in the astral light (also called the akashic records). She also received help from the Masters. All that has ever transpired, has ever been spoken or written can be read in the invisible records in space surrounding our globe, which is also called the "etheric body of our globe".
According to Madame Blavatsky the Astral Light is identical with the Hindu Akasa.2 Akasa is the subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space; It is the veil or concretization of the highest spiritual, while the earth is the concretization of the astral light.3
The purpose of her book was and is to reveal the dogmatic assumptions of modern science and theology and to offer the Platonic philosophy as the only middle ground. She also explores the vast domain of the paranormal. The motivating power behind man and the universe, she shows to be spiritual, not material.
To appreciate the prejudice which has marked the treatment of psychological subjects in the past, she reviewed the book "Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes" published by its author, Dr. Figuier. It has teems of quotations from the most conspicuous authorities in psychology, psychology and medicine. It was not facts but merely the way in which such facts were regarded by those, who were recognized as authorities, that she wanted to demonstrate to the reader.
Blavatsky begins with the Convulsionnaires of Cevennes, the epidemic of whose astounding phenomena occurred during the latter part of 1700. They were a French religious sect.4 A mere handful of men, women, and children, not exceeding 2,000 persons in number, could withstand for years king's troops, which, with the militia, amounted to 60,000 men. That is a miracle in itself. On page 370 she writes: "There is in existence an official report which was sent to Rome by the ferocious Abbe' Chayla, the prior of Laval, in which he complains that the evil one is so powerful, that no torture, no amount of inquisitorial exorcism, is able to dislodge him from the Cevennois. He closed their hands with burning coals and they were not even singed. He wrapped their whole persons in cotton soaked with oil, and had set them on fire, and in many cases did not find one blister on their skins; that balls were shot at them, and found flattened between the skin and clothes, without injuring them.
"Accepting the whole of the above as a solid ground-work for his learned arguments, this is what Dr. Figuier says: "Toward the close of the seventeenth century, an old maid imports into Cevennes the spirit of prophecy. She communicates it (?) to young boys and girls, who transpire it in their turn, and spread it in the surrounding atmosphere. . .Women and children become the most sensitive to the infection" (vol. II., p. 261) "Men, women and babies speak under inspiration, not in ordinary patois, but in the purest French -- a language at that time utterly unknown in the country. Children of twelve months, and even less, as we learn from the proces verbaux, who previously could hardly utter a few short syllables, spoke fluently and prophesied." "Eight thousand prophets" says Figuier, "were scattered over the country; doctors and eminent physicians were sent for." Half of the medical schools of France, among others, the Faculty of Montpellier, hastened to the spot. Consultations were held, and the physicians declared themselves "delighted, lost in wonder and admiration, upon hearing young girls and boys, ignorant and illiterate, deliver discourses on things they had never learned.” The sentence pronounced by Figuier against these treacherous professional brethren, for being so delighted with the young prophets, is that they "did not understand, themselves, what they saw." Many of the prophets forcibly communicated their spirit to those who tried to break the spell. A great number of them were between three and twelve years of age; still others were at the breast, and spoke French distinctly and correctly. These discourses which often lasted for several hours, would have been impossible to the little orators, were the latter in their natural state.
"Now" asks the reviewer, "what was the meaning of such a series of prodigies, all of them freely admitted in Figuier's book? "No meaning at all! It was nothing," he says, "except the effect of a 'momentary exaltation of the intellectual faculties'" "These phenomena," he adds, "are observable in many of the cerebral affection."5
Oh miracle of physiology! Prodigy ought to be thy name!
Blavatsky continues on page 372: "Abbe' Paris was a Jansenist, who died in 1727. Immediately after his decease the most surprising phenomena began to occur at his tomb. The churchyard was crowded from morning to night. Jesuits, exasperated at seeing heretics perform wonders in healing, and other works, got from the magistrates an order to close all access to the tomb of the Abbe'. But, notwithstanding every opposition, the wonders lasted for over twenty years. . . The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind, were everywhere talked of as the effects of the holy sepulchre. But, what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world. . .The phenomena so well authenticated by thousands of witnesses before magistrates, and in spite of the Catholic clergy, are among the most wonderful in history. Carre' de Montgeron, a member of parliament and a man who became famous for his connection with the Jansenists, enumerates them carefully in his work. It comprises four thick quarto volumes. . .For speaking disrespectfully of the Roman clergy, Montgeron was thrown into the Bastille, but his work was accepted. 6
"And now for the views of Dr. Figuier upon these remarkable and unquestionably historical phenomena:
"A Convulsionary bends back into an arc, her loins supported by the sharp point of a peg. The pleasure she begs for is to be pounded by a stone weighing fifty pounds, and suspended by a rope passing over a pulley fixed to the ceiling. The stone, being hoisted to its extreme height, falls with all its weight upon the patient's stomach, her back resting all the while on the sharp point of the peg. Montgeron and numerous other witnesses testified to the fact that neither the flesh nor the skin of the back were ever marked in the least, and that the girl, to show she suffered no pain whatever, kept crying out, 'Strike harder -- harder.'7
"Now the learned critic, the eminent physician and psychologist would necessarily startle the reading public with some extraordinary scientific explanation. To all this he quietly observes: "Recourse was had to marriage to bring to a stop these disorders of the Convulsionnaires!" This does startle us! 8
This insensibility of the human body to the impact of heavy blows, and resistance to penetration by sharp points and musket-bullets, is a phenomenon sufficiently familiar in the experience of all times and all countries. While science is entirely unable to give any reasonable explanation of the mystery, the question offers no difficulty to mesmerists, who have well studied the properties of the fluid. The man, who by a few passes over a limb can produce a local paralysis so as to render it utterly insensible to burns, cuts, etc. need be but very little astonished at the phenomena of the Jansenists. As to the adepts of magic, especially in Siam and in the East Indies, they are too familiar with the properties of the Akasa, the mysterious life-fluid, to even regard the insensibility of the Convulsionnaires as a very great phenomenon. The astral fluid can be compressed about a person so as to form an elastic shell, absolutely non-penetrable by any physical object, however great the velocity with which it travels. In a word, this fluid can be made to equal and even excel in resisting power, water and air.9 It can also be compressed about a city or nation to prevent missiles.
Paracelsus says that his spirit, without the help of the body, and through a fiery will alone, with without a sword, can stab and wound others. "It is also possible that I can bring the spirit of my adversary into an image, and then double him up and lame him. . . .the exertion of will is a great point in medicine..."10 This energy of the spirit is also used to heal others.
In 1568 the Prince of Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. The soldiers tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. They at last stripped him to see what armor he wore, but found only an amulet. When this was taken from him, he fell dead at the first shot.
A few years ago there lived in an African village, an Abyssinian who passed for a sorcerer. . .A German who was in search of ostrich feathers, offered the magician a five-franc piece if he would allow him to fire his gun with the muzzle touching his body. The man at first refused; but, finally, after appearing to hold conversation with somebody inside the ground, consented. The experimenter carefully loaded, and pressing the muzzle of the weapon against the sorcerer's body, after a moment's hesitation, fired. . .the barrel burst into fragments as far down as the stock, and the man walked off unhurt.
This quality of invulnerability can be imparted to persons both by living adepts and by spirits. In our own time several well-known mediums have frequently, in the presence of the most respectable witnesses, not only handled blazing coals and actually placed their face upon a fire without singeing a hair, but even laid flaming coals upon the heads and hands of by-standers, as in the case of Lord Lindsay and Lord Adair.. ..In fact, many great commanders have been believed by their soldiers to bear what is called "a charmed life".11
In "Art-Magic", one of the most delightful pictures presented to us is that of an innocent little child medium, in whose presence, during the past three years, four volumes of MSS, in the ancient Sanskrit, have been written by the spirits, without pens, pencils or ink. It is enough," says the author, "to lay the blank sheets on a tripod, carefully screened from the direct rays of light, but still dimly visible to the eyes of attentive observers. The child sits on the ground and lays her head on the tripod, embracing its supports with her little arms. In this attitude she most commonly sleeps for an hour, during which time the sheets lying on the tripod are filled up with exquisitely formed characters in the ancient sanskrit."12
There is a difference between a medium and a magician. An adept, an anonymous author of Art-Magic, states: "The reader may inquire wherein consists the difference between a medium and a magician?. . .The medium is one through whose astral spirit other spirits can manifest, making their presence known by various kinds of phenomena. Whatever these consist in, the medium is only a passive agent in their hands. He can neither command their presence, nor will their absence; can never compel the performance of any special act, nor direct its nature. The magician, on the contrary, can summon and dismiss spirits at will; can perform many feats of occult power through his own spirit; can compel the presence and assistance of spirits of lower grades of being than himself, and effect transformations in the realm of nature upon animate and inanimate bodies." 13
Marguerite dar Boggia presently serves as Secretary and Membership Chairperson of ISAR (the International Society for Astrological Research). She formerly served as publisher of Kosmos, the ISAR Journal and as Secretary and Director of ISAR and UAC, (the United Astrology Congress). She was a co-founder of UAC. Her articles are published in the ISAR journal and in other publications. At this time she offers FREE of charge three pages weekly online of the Ancient Wisdom Teachings as was known by Pythagoras.
References
1 Blavatsky H.P. Isis Unveiled, Theosophical University Press, 1972
2 Ibid, XXVII
3de Purucker, G., Occult Glossary, Theosophical University Press, 1972 pp. 9-10
4 Wikipedia - Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard was a group of 18th-century French religious pilgrims who exhibited convulsions and later constituted a religious sect and a political movement. This practice originated at the tomb of François de Pâris, an ascetic Jansenist deacon who was buried at the cemetery of the parish of Saint-Médard in Paris. The convulsionnaires were associated with the Jansenist movement, which became more politically active after the papal bull Unigenitus officially banned the sect.
5 Ibid Blavatsky pp. 370-371
6 Ibid pp. 372-373
7 Ibid pp. 373-374
8 Ibid pp. 374-375
9 Ibid p. 378
10 Ibid p. 361
11 Ibid pp. 378-379
12 Ibid p 368
13 Ibid pp. 159-160
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