Category: Isis Unveiled: H. P. Blavatsky (1877)

"In the number of the London Spiritualist for July 14th, we find a long article, in which the author seeks to prove that "the marvelous wonders of the present day, which belong to so-called modern spiritualism, are identical in character with the experiences of the patriarchs and apostles of old." We are forced to contradict, [...]

"If we apply the above law of mediumship and mediatorship to the subject of levitation, with which we opened our present discussion, what shall we find? Here we have a medium and one of the mediator-class levitated, the former at a seance, the latter at prayer, or in ecstatic contemplation. The medium being passive must [...]

"It is erroneous to speak of a medium having powers developed. A passive medium has no power. He has a certain moral and physical condition which induces emanations, or an aura, in which his controlling intelligences can live, and by which they manifest themselves. He is only the vehicle through which they display their power. [...]

"Plotinus, when asked to attend public worship of the gods, is said to have proudly answered: "It is for them (the spirits) to come to me." Iamblichus asserted and proved in his own case, that our soul can attain communion with the highest intelligences, with "natures loftier than itself", and carefully drove away from his [...]

""The tree is known by its fruits." Side by side with passive mediums in the progress of the world's history, appear active mediators. We designate them by this name for a lack of a better one. The ancient witches and wizards, and those who had a "familiar spirit", generally made of their gifts a trade; [...]

"But mediumship, as now understood and manifested, is a different thing. Circumstances, independent of his own volition, may, either at birth or subsequently, modify a person's aura, so that strange manifestations, physical or mental, diabolical or angelic, may take place. Such mediumship, as well as the above-mentioned mediatorship, has existed on earth since the first [...]

"Were these God-like men "mediums", as the orthodox spiritualists will have it? By no means, if by the term we understand those "sick-sensitives" who are born with a peculiar organization, and who in proportion as their powers are developed become more and more subject to the irresistible influence of miscellaneous spirits, purely human, elementary, or [...]

"When the present perfected European civilization was yet in an inchoate state, occult philosophy, already hoary with age, speculated upon the attributes of man by analogy with those of his Creator. Individuals later, whose names will remain forever immortal, inscribed on the portal of the spiritual history of man, have afforded in their persons examples [...]

"We are now on such firm ground,  that we will take another step in advance. The same knowledge and control of the occult forces, including the vital force which enabled the fakir temporarily to leave and then reenter his body, and Jesus, Apollonius, and Elisha to recall their several subjects to Life, made it possible [...]

"Dion Boucicault makes use of an incident of this kind in his powerful drama Louis XI.; and Charles Kean created a profound impression in the character of the French monarch, when the dead man revives for an instant and clutches the crown as the heir-apparent approaches it. Levi says that resuscitation is not impossible while [...]