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The Occult World
By
Alfred Percy Sinnett
Theosophy Wales
are pleased to present this
Tour de Force of esoteric writing.
The Occult World is an treatise on the Occult and
Occult Phenomena, presented in readable style,
by an early giant of the Theosophical Movement.
Alfred Percy Sinnett and his wife Patience were
personally invited to join the Theosophical
Society by the founder of modern Theosophy,
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky herself
Theosophists nowadays hesitate to use the word “Occult”
as it has been kicked around, adapted
and reworked to suit many purposes and contexts.
A P Sinnett uses the word to describe the study
of a deeper spiritual reality that extends beyond
rigid rational thinking and the accepted
boundaries of the physical sciences.
The
Occult World
By
A
P Sinnett
Introduction
THERE is a
For,
strange as the statement will appear at first sight, modern metaphysics, and to
a large extent modern physical science, have been groping for centuries blindly
after knowledge which occult philosophy has enjoyed in full measure all the
while. Owing to a train of fortunate circumstances, I have come to know
that this is the case; I have come into some contact with persons who are heirs
of a greater knowledge concerning the mysteries of Nature and humanity than
modern culture has yet evolved; and my present wish is to sketch the outlines
of this knowledge, to record with exactitude the experimental proofs I have
obtained that occult science invest its adepts with a control of natural forces
superior to that enjoyed by physicists of the ordinary type, and the grounds
there are for bestowing the most respectful consideration on the theories
entertained by occult science concerning the constitution and destinies of the
human soul.
Of
course people in the present day will be slow to believe that any knowledge
worth considering can be found outside the bright focus of Western culture.
Modern science has accomplished grand results by the open method of
investigation, and is very impatient of the theory that persons who ever
attained to real knowledge, either in sciences or metaphysics, could have been
content to hide their light under a bushel. So the tendency has been to
conceive that occult philosophers of old- Egyptian priests, Chaldean Magi,
Essenes, Gnostics, theurgic Neo-Platonists, and the rest-who kept their
knowledge secret, must have adopted that policy to conceal the fact that they
knew very little. Mystery can only have been loved by charlatans who wished to
mystify.
The
conclusion is pardonable from the modern point of view, but it has given rise
to an impression in the popular mind that the ancient mystics have actually
been turned inside out, and found to know very little. This impression is
absolutely erroneous. Men of science in former ages worked in secret, and
instead of publishing their discoveries, taught them in secret to carefully
selected pupils. Their motives for adopting that policy are readily
intelligible, even if the merits of the policy may seem still open to
discussion. At all events, their teaching has not been forgotten; it has been
transmitted by secret initiation to men of our own time, and while its methods
and its practical achievements remain secrets in their hands, it is open to any
patient and earnest student of the question to satisfy himself that these
methods are of supreme efficacy, and these achievements far more admirable than
any yet standing to the credit of modern science.
For
the secrecy in which these operations have been shrouded has never disguised
their existence, and it is only in our own time that this has been forgotten.
Formerly at great public ceremonies, the initiates displayed the powers with
which their knowledge of natural laws invested them. We carelessly assume that
the narratives of such displays describe performances of magic: we have decided
that there is no such thing as magic, therefore the narratives must have been
false, the persons whom they refer to, impostors. But supposing that magic, of
old, was simply the science of magi, of learned men, there is no magic, in the
modern sense, left in the matter. And supposing that such science- even in
ancient times already the product of long ages of study- had gone in some directions
further than our much younger modern science has yet reached, it is reasonable
to conclude that some displays in connection with ancient mysteries may have
been strictly scientific experiments, though they sound like displays of magic,
and would look like displays of magic for us now if they could be repeated.
On
that hypothesis modem sagacity applying modem knowledge to the subject of
ancient mysteries, may be merely modem folly evolving erroneous conclusions
from modem ignorance.
But there is no need to construct hypotheses in the matter. The facts are
accessible if they are sought for in the right way, and the facts are these:
The wisdom of the ancient world-science and religion commingled, physics and
metaphysics combined- was a reality, and it still survives. It is that which
will be spoken of in these pages as Occult Philosophy. It was already a
complete system of knowledge that had been cultivated in secret, and handed
down to initiates for ages, before its professors performed experiments in
public to impress the popular mind in
Modern
science has discovered the circulation of the blood; occult science understands
the circulation of the life-principle. Modem physiology deals with the body
only; occultism with the soul as well- not as the subject of vague, religious
rhapsodies; but it is an actual entity, with properties that can be examined in
combination with, or apart from, those of the body.
It
is chiefly in the East that occultism is still kept up in
2
My
narrative of events must be preceded by some further general explanations, or
it would be unintelligible. The identity of occultism as practised in all ages,
must be kept in view, to account for the magnitude of its organization, and for
the astounding discovery that secluded Orientals may understand more about
electricity than Faraday, more about physics than Tyndall. The culture of
Its
main strength has been devoted to metaphysical inquiry, and to the latent
psychological faculties in man, faculties which, in their development, enable
the occultist to obtain actual experimental knowledge concerning the soul's
condition of extra-corporeal existence. There is thus something more than a
mere archaeological interest in the identification of the occult system with
the doctrines of the initiated organisations in all ages of the world's
history, and we are presented by this identification with the key to the
philosophy of religious development.
Occultism
is not merely an isolated discovery showing humanity to be possessed of certain
powers over Nature, which the narrower study of Nature from the merely
materialistic standpoint has failed to develop; it is an illumination cast over
all previous spiritual speculation worth anything, of a kind which knits together
some apparently divergent systems. It is to spiritual philosophy much what
Sanskrit was found to be to comparative philology ; it is a common stock of
philosophical roots. Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and the Egyptian theology
are thus brought into one family of ideas. Occultism, as it is no now
invention, is no specific sect, but the professors of no sect can afford to
dispense with the sidelights it throws upon the conception of Nature and Man's
destinies which they may have been induced by their own specific faith to form;
occultism, in fact, must be recognised by anyone who will take the trouble to
put before his mind clearly the problems with which it deals, as a study of the
most sublime importance to every man who cares to live a life worthy of his
human rank in creation, and who can realise the bearing on ethics of certain
knowledge concerning his own survival after death.
It
is one thing to follow the lead of a hazy impression that a life beyond the
grave, if there is one, may be somehow benefited by abstinence from wrongdoing
on this side; it will clearly be another to realise if that can be shown to be
the case, that the life beyond the grave must, with the certainty of a sum
total built up of a series of plus and minus quantities, be the final
expression of the use made of opportunities in this.
I
have said that the startling importance of occult knowledge turns on the manner
in which it affords exact and experimental knowledge concerning spiritual
things which under all other systems must remain the subject of speculation or
blind religious faith. It may be further asserted that occultism shows that the
harmony and smooth continuity of Nature observable in physics extend to those
operations of Nature that are concerned with the phenomena of metaphysical
existence.
Before
approaching an exposition of the conclusions concerning the nature of man that
occult philosophy has reached, it may be worth while to meet an objection that
may perhaps be raised by the reader on the threshold of the subject. How is it
that conclusions of such great weight have been kept the secret property of a
jealous body of initiates.
Is
it not a law of progress that truth asserts itself and courts the free air and
light ? Is it reasonable to suppose that the greatest of all truths-the
fundamental basis of truth concerning man and Nature- should be afraid to show
itself? With what object could the ancient professors of, or proficients in,
occult philosophy keep the priceless treasures of their researches to themselves
?
Now,
it is no business of mine to defend the extreme tenacity with which the
proficients in occultism have hitherto not only shut out the world from the
knowledge of their knowledge, but have almost left it in ignorance that such
knowledge exists [ See Appendix
A.]. It is enough here to point
out that it would be foolish to shut our eyes to a revelation that may now be
partially conceded, merely because we are piqued at the behaviour of those who
have been in a position to make it before, but have not chosen to do so.
Nor
would it be wiser to say that the reticence of the occultists so far discredits
anything we may now be told about their acquirements. When the sun is actually
shining it is no use to say that its light is discredited by the behaviour of
the barometer yesterday. I have to deal, in discussing the acquirements of
occultism, with facts that have actually taken place, and nothing can discredit
what is known to be true.
No
doubt it will be worth while later on to examine the motives which have
rendered the occultists of all ages so profoundly reserved. And there may be
more to say in justification of the course that has been pursued than is
visible at the first glance. Indeed, the reader will not go far in an
examination of the nature of the powers which proficients in occultism actually
possess, without seeing that it is supremely desirable to keep back the
practical exercise of such powers from the world at large. But it is one thing
to deny mankind generally the key which unlocks the mystery of occult power; it
is another to withhold the fact that there is a mystery to unlock.
However,
the further discussion of that question here would be premature. Enough for the
present to take note of the fact that secrecy after all is not complete if
external students of the subject are enabled to learn as much about the
mysteries as I shall have to tell. Manifestly, there is a great deal more
behind, but, at all events, a great deal is to be learned by inquirers who will
set to work in the right way, and that which may now be learned is no new
revelation at last capriciously extended to the outer world for the first time.
In
former periods of history , a great deal more has been known about the nature
of occultism by the world at large than is known at this moment to the modern
West.
The
bigotry of modem civilization, and not the jealousy of the occultist, is to
blame if the European races are at this moment more generally ignorant of the
extent to which psychological research has been carried, than the Egyptian
populace in the past, or the people of India in the present day. As regards the
latter, amongst whom the truth of the theory just suggested can easily be put
to the test, you will find the great majority of Hindus perfectly convinced of
the truth of the main statements which I am about to put forward.
They
do not generally or readily talk about such subjects with Europeans, because
these are so prone to stupid derision of views they do not understand or
believe in already. The Indian native is very timid in presence of such
ridicule. But it does not affect in the slightest degree the beliefs which rest
in his own mind on the fundamental teaching he will always have received, and
in many cases on odds and ends of experiences he may himself have had.
The
Hindus are thus well aware, as a body, of the fact that there are persons who
by entire devotion to certain modes of life acquire unusual powers in the
nature of such as Europeans would very erroneously call supernatural. They are
quite familiar with the notion that such persons live secluded lives, and are
inaccessible to ordinary curiosity, and that they are none the less
approachable by fit and determined candidates for admission to occult training.
Ask any cultivated Hindu if he has ever heard of Mahatmas and Yog Vidya or
occult science, and it is a hundred to one that you will find he has-and,
unless he happens to be one of the hybrid products of Anglo-Indian
Universities, that he fully believes in the reality of the powers ascribed to
Yoga.
It
does not follow that he will at once say " Yes" to a European asking
the question. He will probably say just the reverse from the apprehension I
have spoken of above, but push your questions home and you will discover the
truth, as I did, for example, in the case of a very intelligent
English-speaking native vakeel in an influential position and in constant
relations with high European officials, last year.
At
first my new acquaintance met my inquiries as to whether he knew anything about
these subjects with a wooden look of complete ignorance, and an explicit denial
of any knowledge as to what I meant at all. It was not till the second time I
saw him in private, at my own house, that by degrees it grew upon him that I
was in earnest, and knew something about Yoga myself, and then he quietly
opened out his real thoughts on the subject, and showed me that he knew not
only perfectly well what I meant all along, but was stocked with information
concerning occurrences and phenomena of an occult or apparently supernatural
order, many of which had been observed in his own family and some by himself.
The
point of all this is that Europeans are not justified in attributing to the
jealousy of the occultists the absolute and entire ignorance of all that
concerns them which pervades the modern society of the West. The West has been
occupied with the business of material progress to the exclusion of
psychological development. Perhaps it has done best for the world in confining
itself to its specially, but however this may be, it has only itself to blame
if its concentration of purpose has led to something like retrogression in
another branch of development.
Jacolliot,
a French writer, who has dealt at great length with various phases of Spiritism
in the East, was told by one who must have been an adept to judge by the
language used: " You have studied physical Nature, and you have obtained
through the laws of Nature marvellous results- steam, electricity, etc.,etc.
For twenty thousand years or more we have studied the intellectual forces; we
have discovered their laws, and we obtain, by making them act alone or in
concert with matter, phenomena still more astonishing than your own."
Jacolliot adds: " We have seen things such as one does not describe for
fear of making his readers doubt his intelligence......... but still we have
seen them."
3
Occult
phenomena must not be confused with the phenomena of spiritualism. The latter,
whatever they may be, are manifestations which mediums can neither control nor
understand in a scientific sense. The former are achievements of a conscious,
living operator comprehending the laws with which he works. If these
achievements appear miraculous, that is the fault of the observer's ignorance.
The
spiritualist knows perfectly well, in spite of ignorant mockery on the part of
outsiders content to laugh without knowing what they are laughing at, that all
kinds of occurrences distinctly outside the range of physical causation do
constantly take place for inquirers who hunt them with sufficient diligence.
But he has never been able to do more than frame hypotheses in respect to the
hidden laws of Nature by virtue of which they have been produced.
He
has taken up a certain hypothesis faute de mieux in the first instance,
and working always on this idea, has constructed such an elaborate edifice of
theory round the facts that he is very reluctant to tolerate the interposition
of a new hypothesis which will oblige him to revise his conclusions in some
very important particulars. There will be no way of avoiding this necessity,
however, if he belongs to the order of inquirers who care rather to be sure
they have laid hold of the truth than to fortify a doctrine they have espoused
for better or for worse.
Broadly
speaking, there is scarcely one of the phenomena of spiritualism that adepts in
occultism cannot reproduce by the force of their own will, supplemented by a
comprehension of the resources of Nature. As will be seen when I come to a direct
narrative of my own experiences, I have seen some of the most familiar
phenomena of spiritualism produced by purely human agency. The old original
spirit-rap which introduced the mightier phenomena of spiritualism has been
manifested for my edification in a countless variety of ways, and under
conditions which render the hypothesis of any spiritual agency in the matter
wholly preposterous. I have seen flowers fall from the blank ceiling of a room
under circumstances that gave me a practical assurance that no spiritual agency
was at work, though in a manner as absolutely " supernatural" in the
sense of being produced without the aid of any material appliances, as any of
the floral showers by which some spiritual mediums are attended. I have over
and over again received " direct writing," produced on paper in
sealed envelopes of my own, which was created or precipitated by a living human
correspondent. I have information, which, though second-hand, is very
trustworthy, of a great variety of other familiar spiritual phenomena produced
in the same way by human adepts in occultism.
But
it is not my present task to make war on spiritualism. The announcements I have
to make will, indeed, be probably received more readily among spiritualists
than in the outer circles of the ordinary world, for the spiritualists are at
all events aware, from their own experience, that the orthodox science of the
day does not know the last word concerning mind and matter, while the orthodox
outsider stupidly clings to a denial of facts when these are of a nature which
he foresees himself unable to explain. As the facts of spiritualism, though
accessible to any honest man who goes in search of them, are not of a kind
which anyone can carry about and fling in the faces of pragmatic" sceptics,"
these latter are enabled to keep up their professions of incredulity without
the foolishness of their position being obvious to each other, plain as it is
to" the initiated." However, although in this way the ordinary
scientific mind will be reluctant to admit either the trustworthiness of my
testimony or the conceivability of my explanations, it may allay some hostile
prejudices to make clear at the onset that occult science deals with no
guesswork concerning the post-mortem intervention of human beings in the
affairs of this world. Its methods are as precise, and its mental discipline as
rigid, as those of the laboratory or the university lecture-room. Wedding with
theosophic research, spiritualism itself might guard itself from all those
hasty inferences which have done so much to turn large sections of the
cultivated people against it, and if they will but take the trouble to approach
the subject from the point of view of occult science, students of physical
Nature will be enabled at last to handle the phenomena of spiritualism
freely, to consider them apart from the theories to which they have prematurely
given rise ; and thus relieved of the repugnance they feel for them at present,
to bring them within the area of that which they at last will willingly
recognise as true scientific generalisations.
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Concerns about
the fate of the wildlife as
Tekels Park is to be Sold to a
Developer
Concerns are raised about the fate of
the wildlife as
The Spiritual Retreat, Tekels Park in
Camberley,
Surrey, England is to be sold to a
developer.
Tekels Park is a 50 acre woodland
park, purchased
for the Adyar Theosophical Society in England
in 1929.
In addition to concern about the
park, many are
worried about the future of the Tekels Park
Deer
as they are not a protected species.
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A B C D EFG H IJ KL M N OP QR S T UV WXYZ
Complete Theosophical Glossary in Plain Text Format
1.22MB
Quick Explanations with Links to More
Detailed Info
What is Theosophy ? Theosophy Defined (More Detail)
Three Fundamental Propositions Key Concepts of Theosophy
Cosmogenesis
Anthropogenesis
Root Races
Karma
Ascended Masters After Death States Reincarnation
The Seven Principles of Man Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott William Quan Judge
The Start of the Theosophical Society
History of the Theosophical Society
Theosophical Society Presidents
History of the Theosophical Society in Wales
The Three Objectives of the Theosophical Society
Explanation of the Theosophical Society Emblem
Glossaries of Theosophical Terms
An Outstanding
Introduction to Theosophy
By a student of
Katherine Tingley
Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man? Body and Soul
Body, Soul and Spirit Reincarnation Karma
What Theosophy Is From the Absolute to Man
The Formation of a Solar System The Evolution of Life
The Constitution of Man After Death Reincarnation
The Purpose of Life The Planetary Chains
The Result of Theosophical Study
An Outline of Theosophy
Charles Webster Leadbeater
Theosophy - What it is How is it Known? The Method of Observation
General Principles The Three Great Truths The Deity
Advantage Gained from this
Knowledge The Divine Scheme
The Constitution of Man The True Man Reincarnation
The Wider Outlook Death Man’s Past and Future
Cause and Effect What Theosophy does for us
Wales Theosophy Links Summary
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