- BOOK CLUB -
Notes by
Mrs H.M. Graham
Four readers of Round Robin pooled funds and subscribed to the Psychic Book Club, 5 Bloomsbury Court, London W.C. 1. A book a month for one year for $8.00. These books are paper bound, 100-150 pages of good print. The June selection was The Mediumship of Helen Hughes, by the veteran reporter Bernard Upton. The July issue, The University of Spiritualism, by Harry Boddington, contains interesting chapters on 'Healers Thru the Ages', 'The Rationale of Psychic Healing' and similar topics. Those interested in the human aura and the Work of Kilner and Bagnall will not want to miss the chapter entitled 'Marvels of the Human Aura'. Boddington improved on Kilner's flat dicyanin containers and used goggles registered as 'Aurospecs', later discarded for glass made up in Czechoslovakia to the same spectroscopic tint. F.O. Roberts popularized its use and added to the stores of information already accumulated by mediums. He exhibits 500 colored charts showing appearances in the aura of disease, emotion, inspiration, and mediumistic mechanisms. The magnetism from magnets, perfume of flowers, leakages of electricity or gas in the streets, have been discovered by its use. He has also classified healers' auras so that the type of disease they are best fitted to treat can be known.
Mr. Boddington claims that a new form of psychic vision is evolving which he calls auric sight. It is a combination of the aura seen by normal sight amalgamated with clairvoyance, and forms a basis from which scientists can start investigation. Use of the glass above mentioned seems to develop clairvoyance more than crystal gazing or other formerly used devices. Boddington disagrees with Dr. Kilner as to the effect of the chemical on the optic nerve ... It is not the chemical but the peculiar color combination forcing little used rods and cones in the retina to become sensitive and responsive to a field of vision immediately adjacent to the octave of color perceived by normal sight. Relaxation is the keynote and many eye troubles are removed by use of the screen, while others find they can reduce the strength of glasses or remove them entirely.
Mr Boddington tells also of a girl who following his instructions succeeded in lighting gas with her finger tips, and says that "correspondents in America assure me there is a wide belt of territory, around Los Angeles where this feat is common" (!!!) (Perhaps we may hear from Mr Long and Walter Graham about this).
Mr. Boddington thinks that the reason some healers are successful in treating some diseases and not others is because the qualities of their auras differ.
He gives an account of a strange case reported in the London Daily Express of Nov. 3, 1928. A Frenchman of Lyons, George Gaillard, age 33, had a mysterious power, accidentally discovered, whereby he could petrify an orange or convert chops and beef steak into leather by a few mystic passes.§ With meat at its present prices we doubt if Mr. Gaillard's gift would be much in demand here, just now.
________ ________
§ That's nothin'! We know any number of restaurant cooks who can do it. (Ed.)
Opinions of Mr. Maby:
One J. Cecil Maby (B.Sc., A.R.C.S., F.R.S.A., B.S.D.) has been lecturing to the London Spiritualist Association, and LIGHT prints an account of his utterances. He doesn't like psychical research, because of its statistical methods, which are too stuffy for him and lack drama and spirituality (tho the P.R. fellows mean well). Also, he thinks statistical studies are not very useful in psycho-biological happenings, because all they give is certain uniformities and fail to get at the "truth."
Mr. Maby is very strong, however, for the scientific development of radiesthetics (cp. article on Pendology in this RR issue) and thinks such data is going to be of immense importance in connection with all psychic and paranormal studies, as of persons, places, objects, weather, magnetic and electrical conditions, and give many clues to erratic and sporadic nature of such happenings. Also he believes in guidance, and in the existence of "runs of good (or bad) luck," so-called. There's more to it than meets the eye, believes Mr. Maby; Guides and friends, or poltergeists and Jinxes in the invisible. Of course, RR agrees with this idea, and it's lucky for us that we do, because otherwise we would be (frankly speaking) "obtuse, unobservant, insensitive, and dogmatic" and a victim of the "ignorance and superstition that flourishes in official scientific circles."
The item which chiefly interests this writer, is a glancing reference to "apparent spirit invasion and possession by a deceased and a living relative, respectively" (italics ours). The effects in the cases cited were said to be beneficent - but the possibility (or fact) of possession by a here-living person is seldom reckoned. With, even in occult circles... Mr. Maby also takes note of an arrival ghost, seen by several persons at the same time, and apparently by a dog, and says that "confirmation of intense thought projection by the agent, at the same time, was obtained."
To this maybe Maby attitude about statistical methods, one can only reply, "Yes, no, of course, and certainly not!" If he means to say that these methods (as we read the report) are "outmoded legacies of late-Victorian mechanical science" (and worse than that, "antediluvian") first-aid treatment from somebody (a sophomore physicist will do) seems imperative. At the same time, the limitations of these methods in their application to (say) ESP and PK effects should be critically examined, as a highly important issue... About cyclic effects and "runs" of bad (or good) "luck", probably every astrologer thinks he could set M. Maby right in no time - but he never so much as mentioned them.
____ _____
How much do you
know?
Vito Mangiamele, age 10 years, was a mathematical prodigy, and the famous Arago went to visit him. (That was in 1837). When Arago wanted to know the cubed root of 3,796,416 he got his correct answer in 30 seconds. "What satisfies the condition that its cube plus five times its square is equal to 42 times itself increased by 40?" That took 10-year-old Vito nearly a minute. Then for good measure he gave Arago the correct tenth root of 282,475,211. PREDICTION for September prints this, and add the inane comment, "If telepathy is adduced in explanation, the prodigies should [15] have been marvellous mind-readers."
Telepathy from whom? It made no difference to Vito, according to our information, whether his interrogator had worked out the answer in advance, or not. But the questions involved in all such performances is more abstruse. That 10th root for example, existed as "discoverable actuality" or discoverable fact. Where, and how? In the cosmic mind? How comes it to pop up into small-boy consciousness? Spiritualists, some of them, lay it to a communicating intelligence. We murmur 'maybe, unprovable, and unlikely.' What's the difference between the 10th root of nine figures and the 3rd root of 27, which is 3? Only that the latter is familiar and accessible to everyone. We have come across cases where the communicator could give the 10th root of 20 digits almost as easily as we give the square of 10,(100). Where did the Communicator get that information? Was it part of his habitual mental equipment, just as 2 x 2 is with us? Indications are, such data has to be looked up, somewhere; it always takes a little time, a minute or several minutes.
We seem to be laboring this point beyond reason, but there's a mighty issue involved. Psychologists, when they become audible at all, tuck such phenomena away into the 'subconscious' - maybe the unconscious, which sounds better. The superconscious, or High Self, is distinctly not persona grate, or Ens grata to most of them. The subconscious, at least after the Freudians overhauled it, is not a very likely resort for anything except human depravities, - but where else to look for that 10th root? But where can one look for the source of the inspirations genius, the poetry and the music and the dream in carven stone, that arise by sheer automatism, or like uninvited Angels in our mind darkness? ... It is incredible, to our limited knowledge at least, that the concept of the superconscious, the High Self, the Great Person has been so long outcast and despised. We suggest that this High Self, with a type of mentation all its own, is in rapport with all other High Selves, and perhaps with some kind of cosmic mind also. Its ways and motives are unpredictable - but It can give to the brain consciousness the 10th root of ten figures, or Kubla Khan and the Commedia, or a sure cure for corns, or describe a potato patch at the antipodes - if It chooses. And all these items seem to be of about equal value to it, or equally valueless.
________ ________
What is man, that
Thou art mindful
of him?
The answer of the Ancient Wisdom to this question is much the same in all ages and all parts of the world, once we learn to cross-translate the terminology and discard minor differences. Body, mind, and spirit, with a nondescript "soul" added somewhere, have long served the simplicity of most of Us - or maybe body and soul have been sufficient. But we set down here the scheme of the constitution of man as held by Western theosophical thinking - tho it is doubtless familiar to many:
There is SPIRIT - SOUL - BODY
The Spirit is two-fold; the Divine Monad, or Self, and its Spiritual Soul or First Veil.
The Soul is three-fold: The High Mind, or Reincarnating Ego; the ordinary brain-mind or human ego; the element of Desire, which is the driving energy.
The Body is three-fold, It has the vital energy, or life principle, or prana. There is also the model body or etheric frame-work on which the dense body is fashioned (the Linga-sarira).
Finally, the physical body itself (the Sthula-sarira).
(If you wish to add the Sanskrit terms, the Spirit is constituted of Atman and Buddhi; the Soul is of Higher Manas, Lower Manas, and Kama (Desire). The Body has the Prana, Linga-sarira, sthula-sarira.)
(We take this from the Theosophical Forum for July, from an article by Lydia Ross and C.J. Ryan).
We might add the remark that in proper spiritualist usage, the word soul means the vehicle in which the discarnate personality is functioning - an etheric, astral or mental body. This of course is not adhered to in popular usage; the average spiritualist is nearly as confused as the orthodox protestant or catholic, if asked to define precisely what he means by this or similar words.
________ ________
Genevieve Landaker, psychic and medium, writing in Chimes, describes very distressing experiences attendant on a premature effort at astral projection, chiefly acute nausea and severe pain throughout the body, apparently lasting for several minutes. She effected the escape, but remained immobile in space, unable to move or to see anything. Later in her development, and under instruction from the Guides, she was able to effect the projection easily and safely. She urges all experimenters to take their time and never to try to hasten the process. Warnings of this sort have often been issued, but present-day interest in projection experiments is so wide-spread that it seems worth While to reiterate them.
Owen Washburn, also writing in Chimes comments on certain cases of earth-bound spirits. One was held by anger and desire for revenge; a second was "an old-time advocate of damnation theories" who was still preaching but could make very few converts; a third was an Italian Catholic who believed he could find no rest until his body was buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery. "Not all the lower plane spirits who have lived selfish lives are in any way really evil. Their state is due to lack of interest in good works and a higher type of pleasure. Justice demands that any communicating spirit be given advice and encouragement. Instead of being scorned they should be helped."
We would not, perhaps, say "any" communicator, as Mr. Washburn does - but his whole article is a plea in exact concordance with what Round Robin advocates most earnestly, in this and other issues. There is perhaps no duty of equal importance which is equally ignored - that of intelligent, organized service to the distressful multitudes of the earth-bound spirits, for whose condition we ourselves are deeply responsible.
________ ________
We quote, as of considerable interest to many of our readers, the utterances of a learned Rabbi concerning the Jewish attitude toward spiritualism (Dr. A.E. Silverstone, quoted by Sunflower, July-Aug. issue):
"The conclusion one inevitably arrives at is that spiritualism deserves closer attention and will repay further scientific investigation. No preconceived notions must bar an unbiased survey.... as to the Jewish attitude, a direct Biblical prohibition confronts us (Lev. xix 31 - xx, 6-27.- Deut. xviii, 10-11)... Does not this debar Jews from the study of spiritualism? By no means. The practise of consulting Ob (a ghost), or Yiddeoni (a familiar spirit), and of Doresh el hamethim (enquiring of the dead, necromancy) were forms of idolatry and were on that account prohibited" (Certain fonts and ceremonies were involved, which were considered idolatrous and therefore forbidden) ... "There is no prohibition against study and investigation for scientific purposes. There need be no qualms as to the permissibility of interesting one's self in the investigation of spiritualistic phenomena... that it would bear fruit cannot be doubted in view of the mass of evidence."
If (as we are inclined to believe) this is really typical of the attitude of the educated Jew, it is profoundly interesting, profoundly to their credit, and in sharp and favorable contrast to frequent pronouncements of both Protestant and Catholic clergy... The pursuit of right knowledge, the service of humanity and of ourselves, and (if you like) of God, are all exactly one and the same thing - or so, at any rate, is our own deepest conviction.
________ ________
From the Cayce
Readings.
The duration of the period of unconsciousness after death is governed by the development of the individual.
Whatever one thinks continually, he becomes, physically as well as mentally and spiritually. After death the soul and spirit are in a sense possessed by that which was created by the mind in earth experience.
Death does not bring a release from matter; the soul continues to exist in a material body, of matter of a finer type, which responds to the action of the mind.
The cord (uniting spirit to dense body) does not, as usually thought, extend from the center, but is broken from the forehead... Old people gain strength from youth by kissing there.
"Do not consider for a moment that an individual soul entity passing from the earth-plane as a Catholic, a Methodist, and Episcopalian, is something else because he's dead. He's only a dead Episcopalian, Methodist, or Catholic."
An individual moves (after death) from one level of consciousness to another. The controlling factor is "not what one knows of spiritual law, but what one does about it."
"All spirits remain about the physical plane until their development carries them onward. While they remain in the plane of communication or with this sphere, any may be communicated with."
"There are many phases of the manifestation of psychic forces in the material world. There are those that seek, seek that they may find an expression, that they may still be a portion of evolution in the earth, not considering their present state. And the e bring turmoil, strife."
The material plane is the shadow-duplicate of the invisible plane which lies near to it. (It is our earth plane which has the lesser reality.)
- IN THE CIRCLE OF ARTE -
"This is the harmony of the world, that the supercelestial be drawn down by the celestial, and things supernatural by those natural, because there is one Operative Virtue diffused thru all ... as manifest things are produced out of occult causes, so a magician doth make use of things manifest to draw forth things that are occult." - Cornelius Agrippa.
The paths of unfoldment are three: good works, right meditation, right ritual. Meditation gives the wisdom, without which good intent is perverted or brought to naught. In ritual lies the invocation of Power and the evocation of Beings and Forces for definite ends.
There are great numbers of people who cannot practise meditation, or labor at it long and earnestly without any results being perceived by them. For the average adult Western mind, inexperienced in discipline, effective meditation is almost impossible.
The substitute for this (tho indeed far more than substitute) is Ritual - as religion has long recognized. Or, it is ritualistic prayer. Of right ritual we may say also, that it is scientific prayer. That a science of prayer is possible, is plain from the fact that prayer is sometimes effective. And the experiment which "works" once, can always be reproduced if we know enough. This knowing, or organization of knowledge, is science. Ritual is knowledgeable prayer.
We cannot quarrel with those who say of Ritual, "It is a psychological device". For so is speech, and all communication, and learning, and mental healing, and all forms and methods of mind activity. All are psychological devices. Ritual is the great weapon of Magic, and Magic is the art and process of drawing power from Unseen planes, thru the mind-and-body channel of the magician. Therefore the "psychological device" is what is needed - tho all the Gods and devils of the Pantheons be addressees of the rite. As to what beings and Powers may respond, that is another question; let the ritualist seek, learn, and find for himself such answer as he is then fitted to receive.
Ritual and High Magic have almost the same definition; they both create channels for the manifestation of Power. A dynamo is a magical weapon; it is a ritual dance of the electrons, devised by the brain of true magicians, for it draws power straight from the heart of the universe. Because the laws and knowledge of it are verifiable and accessible to all, it is called an achievement of science. But the magical ceremony, worked with intention and power, is also an effective and scientific operation. Because its laws are recondite, obscure and subtle, men call it magic and not science. But the magician is first of all a psychologist, and psychology is at least "the possibility of a science" - and often, in the hands of the few, much more than possibility.
We suggest these points, in order that by taking thought we may place Ritual on the plane of commonsense, and of high utility, and of the accessible secrets of Power, or prayer of healing, and of knowledge. In Ritual there is binding and loosing, a bringing in and a shutting out, and strength, and security, and exaltation of spirit. It is the Door, and it is the key of the Door, and great is our loss that we have so much despised it...
Great words and many have been written of these things. If the theme pleases you and you, we shall return to it.
M.L.
The Value of Membership
in Certain Organizations, as to its Influence at
Time of Death and Afterward
by F.G.H.
(Note: The Editor is informed by mutual acquaintances that the writer of this article is a clairvoyant and competent occultist.)
It is little known that membership, active and in good standing, in many organizations, has a great influence on what happens at death and soon after.
Death to the uninitiated is usually a shock. The person finds itself suddenly in strange surroundings, removed from old associates, in a new land among new people, functioning under new laws.
Many organizations have what might be called reception committees. These, with the greatest number of old friends available, receive the new comer, reassure him, and proceed to install him in the new surroundings. This also greatly lightens the work of the Helpers, the band of workers so well described by Leadbeater.
As a Helper I was able to witness many arrivals on the other side a few of which stand out. There was the reception of a man beloved by all who came in contact with him, who had fought for the good of all, but especially for the downtrodden. As a writer and poet, he had made himself felt widely. His fight against the despoilers of our lands had also made him a friend of all Nature spirits. When he died at a ripe age there was a welcoming throng of over 300,000 men, women and Nature spirits. They had created a landscape depicting his beloved Southland at its best, to make him feel at home. Never was any of the mighty ones of earth received with such high honors. The love poured out by this multitude swelled in a gigantic symphony of voice and color. In triumph he was led to a replica of his earthly home, where his wife of many decades awaited him.
But I also watched the arrival of a great leader who had led his nation into war and victory and whose name was known all over the world. But only a few absolutely necessary helpers were in attendance. Since then he has lived in absolute isolation amongst the multitudes. His voice, to which millions listened, does not attract the attention of a single passer-by. His punishment will be utter loneliness, until he has suffered the pangs of the suffering he caused, and which he could have avoided causing.
Love is the only wealth one can take across the boundary line of death. Those who sow love here on earth, are rich forever after, because they have many friends and have earned the blessed life.
Love is the means by which organizations can reach those members who pass over. It is love which has created these groups, if they are of the right kind, and only through love can they reach out to their members and make contact with them. Love determines the spiritual gravity by which the dead are classified into groups and levels. The greater the love, the higher the level and the greater the happiness.
________ ________
All the occultism of which I know anything is simply an apotheosis of common sense.
(Leadbeater; Inner Life)
With Our Correspondents
In June issue of Round Robin we took note of something-or-other that fell in a back yard (Sturgis, So. Dak.), made a hole 35 ft. deep. There was a "blinding flash of light ... edges of the hole were smooth ... large rocks had been sheared away." So. Dak. School of Mines guessed it might have been a meteor - but it didn't even wake up the family. We called it Fortean data and remarked on the usual "scientific brush-off."
Two days later, June 3, a second UP item appeared, saying that the incident and been "explained." "Two meteorite authorities from the State School of Mines investigated and found a gypsum bed several feet below the surface had dissolved, and the red shale strata above collapsed, allowing earth to fall with a resulting cavity 35 ft. deep." We didn't see this second item or we would have reported it. But Round Robin friend Philip Rasch copied it out for us.
Rasch comments, that "by no stretch of the imagination can it be said that this is Fortean data, or that it received the brush-off from scientists," and thinks we ought to clear the record - which is what we too would like to do, only we still don't think the second item does it. The two striking features alleged in the first report - the brilliant flash of light, and the "shearing away" of large rocks, remain unaccounted far. Of course, "sheared away" might be newspaper English for "fallen in," but we doubt it; and the edges of the hole were said to be "smooth". It's useless to debate the case without detailed first-hand information, out as it stands the "explanation" is exactly the kind of pseudo-scientific brush-off that Fort derided a thousand times. At least, that's our reaction to it. but We thank Mr. Rasch for his critical attention to the incident, and gladly offer our readers his opinion.
___ ___ ___
Mr. Rasch also objects to our comments on the abuse of the principle of parsimony, or economy of causes, also called Ockham's (or Occam's) Razor. We think this is a misunderstanding, because we certainly do not deride so important a principle of reasoning, but only the travesty of it. "A stage magician can take rabbits out of hats; doesn't that show that apports and things like that are tricks?" We set that down as an example of the kind of thing one actually hears, over and over again.
"Surely," says Mr Rasch, "you are familiar with the fallacy of a universal conclusion from a particular premise. It is difficult to believe you are serious in adducing these as serious examples." We adduce them as serious examples of the abuse of the principle, and do not consider that this abuse is confined to the ignorance of layman... The chief trouble seems to be, that an investigator has a preliminary bias, comes across some phenomenon, immediately thinks of some familiar and possible explanation, or maybe-possible one, and so dismisses the subject as unworthy of further study. "Real" scientists don't do that, but scientific workers ("scientism") have been doing it for 50-years, where psychic phenomena are concerned.
With regard to fire-walking, Mr. Rasch agrees that a "hardening of the auric sheath" gives a clue and formula, tho the details of the operation remain a mystery to us. But he makes the important point, that this alleged hardening can be conveyed to others, in the most casual manner - as when Home handed the live coals to Lord Adare and others. Mr. Rasch accepts fire-immunity as a fact (in some instances), and his previous criticism of RR articles has been on the mode of presentation, and the reasoning used, rather than against the factuality of the phenomena.
- Correspondents -
We Acknowledge
Lycanthropy as a Psychic Mechanism, pamphlet by Dr. Nandor Fodor, reprinted from Journal of American Folklore, Oct.-Dec. '45. Dr. Fodor does not attempt to deal with "the reality or illusory nature" of alleged transformations of human beings into animal form, but with the psychic mechanism of beliefs and dreams of this sort; the study is brilliant and highly instructive... There is something to be said for the fantastic notion that such happenings are "real". We need not fall back on Montague Summers, whose extensive learning is vitiated by his religious and theological bias, but on a considerable accumulation of experiences, by both occultists and other folk. We recall Dion Fortune's account of the wolf shape she created involuntarily through resentment; the thing was etheric or astral, a thought-form primarily, but vital and semi-materialized, and quite capable of hunting on its own, once the etheric cord was broken. Projection of vitalized shapes, in various ways and manners, is no new phenomenon; it may occur involuntarily and the forms may be dense to the point of visibility. These appearance of these, we suggest, may account for many werewolf tales, and be the principle element of reality in them.
SUNFLOWER
Dr Israel Shotz, Editor of this progressive spiritualist bi-monthly, commends the courage of Max Freedom Long, in his Flying Roll article The Thrice-Coiled Serpent (sex inhibition in occult practises). "Brahmacharya is impossible to a well-balanced individual residing in the Western world. Sex repression is violation of natural law ... the individual may become sensitive but is erratic. Sublimation often leads to perversion." (Sunflower publishes at 15 No. Maryland Ave. Atlantic City, N.J.)
We Acknowledge
"Witchcraft in Pennsylvania", article, by A.H. and collaborator --- "Religion in India", article, by M.N. "Reteron", article, by B.W. "Stone which the Builders Rejected," review of Roerich's "HEART", by M.S. Material of first-rate importance to occult research, from Professor Ryan... Promise of data bearing on Enochian, from Attorney William G. Randall ... and a study of hypnosis in relation to psychic development, by research friend Krieger. Not all this material is ready but we hope to use most of in next 2-3 issues. And we are grateful for many letters, items, words of approval and helpful criticism.
Queries
"Three Interpretations of the Universe" by Boodin, also "God", by same author, are published by Macmillan, N.Y. 1934. The address of The Canadian Theosophist is 5 Rockwood Pl., Hamilton, Ontario; The Theosophical Forum prints at Covina, Calif. These magazines are too important to miss, quite apart from any special Theosophical teachings... We want to find a copy of Working of the Stars in Earthly Substances (2 vols.), or address of publisher, by Frau Dr. L. Koliskio... Concerning the Devil, Cotton Mather talked with him, said he spoke Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, but his English had an accent. There's increased interest in him lately, since he has been accused of dictating Oahspe. (Mrs. Graham of N.M. sends the item, thinks it would be interesting to know to whom Mather was really talking)... To several apprehensive ones: Huna is NOT a "new religion"; it is a simple formulation of the very heart and essence of the most ancient Wisdom of earth; its virtue lies in simplicity, power, practical applicability.
References
- Upton, Bernard. The Mediumship of Helen Hughes. London: The Psychic Book Club, 1946. Print. <http://amzn.to/1D5yC8p>
- Boddington, Harry. The University of Spiritualism. London: The Psychic Book Club, 1946. Print. <http://amzn.to/1I8GxRX>
- Leadbeater, C W. The Inner Life. Benares, India: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1910. Print. [Digital: <https://archive.org/details/innerlife00lead>]
- Fodor, Nandor. "Lycanthropy As a Psychic Mechanism." The Journal of American Folklore. 58.230 (1945): 310-316. Print. [Digital: <http://jstor.org/stable/537184>]
- Boodin, John E. God and Creation: Three Interpretations of the Universe. New York: Macmillan, 1934. Print. <http://amzn.to/1DeEqhH>
- Boodin, John E. God: A Cosmic Philosophy of Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1934. Print. <http://amzn.to/1D5zj1E>
- Kolisko, L. Workings of the Stars in Earthly Substances: Experimental Studies from the Biological Institute of the Goetheanum. Stuttgart: Orien-Occident Verlag, 1928. Print.
Kolisko, L. Workings of the Stars in Earthly Substances: The Solar Eclipse, June 29th, 1927. Stuttgart: Orien-Occident Verlag, 1928. Print.