[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
unnecessary controversial criticism as is found in Mr. Waite s book. For one thing he accuses her of
employing a turgid, difficult style. This is certainly true. But the psychological mechanism of projection
must operate here, for Mr. Waite s style is hardly beyond criticism in these very respects. However, it is
not to the literary aspect of his criticisms that attention need be called at length. He remarks towards the
end of his book that
it is of common knowledge that the psychic state of many entranced subjects conveyed an
impression of purity, refinement, beauty, as if the actual or comparative grosser part has been put to
sleep for the time being. But this state is as far removed from the spiritual attainment envisaged by
Platonic successors as are the records of trance mediumship from the realizations of Eckhart and
Ruysbroeck, speaking in the light of the union.
Why Mr. Waite should utter this criticism against the Atwood hypothesis, it is hard to realize. It is
particularly out of place, for the point he raises is precisely the argument of Mrs. Atwood. She argues
that if we compare the first effects of mesmerism, that is the somnambulistic state in which the so-called
higher phenomena of community of sense and feeling manifest, with the sacred art of the ancients, the
former appears but trivial. The supreme spiritual wisdom attained in divine union, the self-knowledge
the ancients desired and the perfection of life and immortality their system promised and said to have
been bestowed on those initiated into the higher mysteries, these are objects quite outside of the vision
of the mesmerists. What has Mesmerism to do with spiritual ends such as these? What is its philosophy,
she asked? Has it yet attempted to investigate consciousness and its deeps and origins? Naturally, the
ordinary mesmeric state bore no resemblance to the sublime mystic state of the great saints and
philosophers. And it is her hypothesis that this was realized by and known to the alchemists who
employed magnetism only as the first step towards the consummation of the divine mystery. It was by
this means that the hermetic solution was accomplished. From this the other steps could be perceived
and climbed. To effect this solution was only the beginning of the Hermetic art.
The medium (that is the astro-mental sheath) in its natural state is volatile, immanifest,
fantastic, irrational and impotent, compared with what it subsequently is able and by artificial
conception suffers itself to become. The Alchemists, we repeat therefore, did not remain satisfied
with a few passes of the hand or any first phenomena whatever, but they proceeded at once
scientifically to purify, depriving the ether of its wild affections and impressures by a dissolution of
the circulating body in its own blood. For this is the brazen Wall celebrated by Antiquity. Take the
occult Nature, which is our Brass, says Albertus, and wash it that it may be pure and clean.
Thus it is seen that the strictures of Mr. Waite are wholly without foundation. And I confess to a
sense of sad disappointment in him. The Atwood theory of mesmerism as applied to the Hermetic
mystery is, in my opinion, so important and so suggestive that it may be well to quote from her work at
greater length in order to clarify exactly what it is that she proposes. When commenting upon The Six
Keys Eudoxus I shall attempt to dilate upon this theory, simplifying her terminology and employing the
comparative method.
First of all it was her belief that there was a secret connected with the Mystery celebrations of the
ancients which no modern so-called intellectual criticism has explained away or divulged.
A few writers on Animal Magnetism [she notes], having within these few years become
enlightened by that singular discovery, suggest their Trance and its phenomena as a revelation of
the Temple Mysteries and various religious rites. But no one, that we are aware, has developed this
suggestion or carried the idea sufficiently above the therapeutic sphere; they appear to have taken a
broad view, without particular inquiry into the nature of the rites from the ancients themselves. Had
they done this (we speak of the more advanced minds) we are persuaded that with that key in hand,
their attention would have been drawn in new directions and their satisfaction about the modern use
Page 39
Israel Regardie - The Philosophers Stone
of it become much modified by observing the far superior results which through their Theurgic
disciplines, the ancients aspired after, different too, as they were superior to any that we are
accustomed to imagine even at the present day.
The ordinary effects of Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism, or vital Magnetism, or by
whatever other term the unknown agency is better expressed, are now so familiarly known in
practice that it will be unnecessary to describe them; they have attracted the attention of the best
and leading minds of the present age, who have hailed with admiration a discovery which enables
man to alleviate pain and maladies insurmountable by other means . . . . But years have passed and
the science has not grown, but retrograded rather in interest and power, since de Mainaduc,
Puységer, Colquhoun, Elliotson, Townsend, Dupotet, and the rest, faithful spirits, first set their
fellow men on the road of inquiry. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl szamanka888.keep.pl
unnecessary controversial criticism as is found in Mr. Waite s book. For one thing he accuses her of
employing a turgid, difficult style. This is certainly true. But the psychological mechanism of projection
must operate here, for Mr. Waite s style is hardly beyond criticism in these very respects. However, it is
not to the literary aspect of his criticisms that attention need be called at length. He remarks towards the
end of his book that
it is of common knowledge that the psychic state of many entranced subjects conveyed an
impression of purity, refinement, beauty, as if the actual or comparative grosser part has been put to
sleep for the time being. But this state is as far removed from the spiritual attainment envisaged by
Platonic successors as are the records of trance mediumship from the realizations of Eckhart and
Ruysbroeck, speaking in the light of the union.
Why Mr. Waite should utter this criticism against the Atwood hypothesis, it is hard to realize. It is
particularly out of place, for the point he raises is precisely the argument of Mrs. Atwood. She argues
that if we compare the first effects of mesmerism, that is the somnambulistic state in which the so-called
higher phenomena of community of sense and feeling manifest, with the sacred art of the ancients, the
former appears but trivial. The supreme spiritual wisdom attained in divine union, the self-knowledge
the ancients desired and the perfection of life and immortality their system promised and said to have
been bestowed on those initiated into the higher mysteries, these are objects quite outside of the vision
of the mesmerists. What has Mesmerism to do with spiritual ends such as these? What is its philosophy,
she asked? Has it yet attempted to investigate consciousness and its deeps and origins? Naturally, the
ordinary mesmeric state bore no resemblance to the sublime mystic state of the great saints and
philosophers. And it is her hypothesis that this was realized by and known to the alchemists who
employed magnetism only as the first step towards the consummation of the divine mystery. It was by
this means that the hermetic solution was accomplished. From this the other steps could be perceived
and climbed. To effect this solution was only the beginning of the Hermetic art.
The medium (that is the astro-mental sheath) in its natural state is volatile, immanifest,
fantastic, irrational and impotent, compared with what it subsequently is able and by artificial
conception suffers itself to become. The Alchemists, we repeat therefore, did not remain satisfied
with a few passes of the hand or any first phenomena whatever, but they proceeded at once
scientifically to purify, depriving the ether of its wild affections and impressures by a dissolution of
the circulating body in its own blood. For this is the brazen Wall celebrated by Antiquity. Take the
occult Nature, which is our Brass, says Albertus, and wash it that it may be pure and clean.
Thus it is seen that the strictures of Mr. Waite are wholly without foundation. And I confess to a
sense of sad disappointment in him. The Atwood theory of mesmerism as applied to the Hermetic
mystery is, in my opinion, so important and so suggestive that it may be well to quote from her work at
greater length in order to clarify exactly what it is that she proposes. When commenting upon The Six
Keys Eudoxus I shall attempt to dilate upon this theory, simplifying her terminology and employing the
comparative method.
First of all it was her belief that there was a secret connected with the Mystery celebrations of the
ancients which no modern so-called intellectual criticism has explained away or divulged.
A few writers on Animal Magnetism [she notes], having within these few years become
enlightened by that singular discovery, suggest their Trance and its phenomena as a revelation of
the Temple Mysteries and various religious rites. But no one, that we are aware, has developed this
suggestion or carried the idea sufficiently above the therapeutic sphere; they appear to have taken a
broad view, without particular inquiry into the nature of the rites from the ancients themselves. Had
they done this (we speak of the more advanced minds) we are persuaded that with that key in hand,
their attention would have been drawn in new directions and their satisfaction about the modern use
Page 39
Israel Regardie - The Philosophers Stone
of it become much modified by observing the far superior results which through their Theurgic
disciplines, the ancients aspired after, different too, as they were superior to any that we are
accustomed to imagine even at the present day.
The ordinary effects of Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism, or vital Magnetism, or by
whatever other term the unknown agency is better expressed, are now so familiarly known in
practice that it will be unnecessary to describe them; they have attracted the attention of the best
and leading minds of the present age, who have hailed with admiration a discovery which enables
man to alleviate pain and maladies insurmountable by other means . . . . But years have passed and
the science has not grown, but retrograded rather in interest and power, since de Mainaduc,
Puységer, Colquhoun, Elliotson, Townsend, Dupotet, and the rest, faithful spirits, first set their
fellow men on the road of inquiry. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]