“Dearest Valeria!”
“Hush! Yes.”
“Hand me that cane—it is my fishing-rod, you know—through this hole; you can leavethe sketch-book and paint-box under the tree that the donkey fell against,—I will call for them some day soon. And, Valeria, don’t you think we could make our lips meet through this beastly hole?”
“Impossible. There’s my hand; heavens! Croppo would murder me if he knew. Now keep quiet till I give the signal. Oh, do let go my hand!”
“Remember, Valeria,bellissima,carissima, whatever happens, that I love you.”
But I don’t think she heard this, and I went and sat on the onions because I could see the hole better, and the smell of them kept me awake.
It was at least two hours after this that the faint light appeared at the hole in the wall, and a hand was pushed through. I rushed at the finger-tips.
“Here’s your fishing-rod,” she said when I had released them, and she had passed me my air-gun. “Now be very careful how you tread. There is one asleep across the door, but you can open it about two feet. Then step over him; then make for a gleam of moonlight that comes through the crack of the front door, open it very gently and slipout.Addio, caro Inglese; mind you wait till you hear me snoring.”
Then she lingered, and I heard a sigh. “What is it, sweet Valeria?” and I covered her hand with kisses.
“I wish Croppo had blue eyes like you.”
This was murmured so softly that I may have been mistaken, but I’m nearly sure that was what she said; then she drew softly away, and two minutes afterwards I heard her snoring. As the first sound issued from her lovely nostrils, I stealthily approached the door, gently pushed it open; stealthily stepped over a space which I trusted cleared the recumbent figure that I could not see; cleared him; stole gently on for the streak of moonlight; trod squarely on something that seemed like an outstretched hand, for it gave under my pressure and produced a yell; felt that I must now rush for my life; dashed the door open, and down the path with four yelling ruffians at my heels. I was a pretty good runner, but the moon was behind a cloud, and the way was rocky,—moreover, there must have been a short cut I did not know, for one of my pursuers gained upon me with unaccountable rapidity—he appearedsuddenly within ten yards of my heels. The others were at least a hundred yards behind. I had nothing for it but to turn round, let him almost run against the muzzle of my air-gun, pull the trigger, and see him fall in his tracks. It was the work of a second, but it checked my pursuers. They had heard no noise, but they found something that they did not bargain for, and lingered a moment, then they took up the chase with redoubled fury. But I had too good a start; and where the path joined the main road, instead of turning down towards the town, as they expected I would, I dodged round in the opposite direction, the uncertain light this time favouring me, and I heard their footsteps and their curses dying away on the wrong track. Nevertheless I ran on at full speed, and it was not till the day was dawning that I began to feel safe and relax my efforts. The sun had been up an hour when I reached a small town, and the littlelocandawas just opening for the day when I entered it, thankful for a hot cup of coffee, and a dirty little room, with a dirtier bed, where I could sleep off the fatigue and excitement of the night. I was strolling down almost the only streetin the afternoon when I met a couple of carabineers riding into it, and shortly after encountered the whole troop, to my great delight, in command of an intimate friend whom I had left a month before in Naples.
“Ah,caro mio!” he exclaimed, when he saw me, “well met. What on earth are you doing here?—looking for those brigands you were so anxious to find when you left Naples? Considering that you are in the heart of their country, you should not have much difficulty in gratifying your curiosity.”
“I have had an adventure or two,” I replied carelessly. “Indeed that is partly the reason you find me here. I was just thinking how I could get safely back to Ascoli, when your welcome escort appeared; for I suppose you are going there, and will let me take advantage of it.”
“Only too delighted; and you can tell me your adventures. Let us dine together tonight, and I will find you a horse to ride on with us in the morning.”
I am afraid my account of the episode with which I have acquainted the reader was not strictly accurate in all its details, as I did not wish to bring down my military friends onpoor Valeria, so I skipped all allusion to her and my detention in her home; merely saying that I had had a scuffle with brigands, and had been fortunate enough to escape under cover of the night. As we passed it next morning I recognised the path which led up to Valeria’s cottage, and shortly after observed that young woman herself coming up the glen.
“Holloa!” I said, with great presence of mind as she drew near, “my lovely model, I declare! Just you ride on, old fellow, while I stop and ask her when she can come and sit to me again.”
“You artists are sad rogues,—what chances your profession must give you!” remarked my companion, as he cast an admiring glance on Valeria, and rode discreetly on.
“There is nothing to be afraid of, lovely Valeria,” I said in a low tone, as I lingered behind; “be sure I will never betray either you or your rascally—hem! I mean your excellent Croppo. By the way, was that man much hurt that I was obliged to trip up?”
“Hurt! Santa Maria, he is dead, with a bullet through his heart. Croppo says it must have been magic; for he had searchedyou, and he knew you were not armed, and he was within a hundred yards of you when poor Pippo fell, and he heard no sound.”
“Croppo is not far wrong,” I said, glad of the opportunity thus offered of imposing on the ignorance and credulity of the natives. “He seemed surprised that he could not frighten me the other night. Tell him he was much more in my power than I was in his, dear Valeria,” I added, looking tenderly into her eyes. “I didn’t want to alarm you, that was the reason I let him off so easily; but I may not be so merciful next time. Now, sweetest, that kiss you owe me, and which the wall prevented your giving me the other night.” She held up her face with the innocence of a child, as I stooped from my saddle.
“I shall never see you again, Signer Inglese,” she said, with a sigh; “for Croppo says it is not safe, after what happened the night before last, to stay another hour. Indeed he went off yesterday, leaving me orders to follow to-day; but I went first to put your sketch-book under the bush where the donkey fell, and where you will find it.”
It took us another minute or two to partafter this; and when I had ridden away I turned to look back, and there was Valeria gazing after me. “Positively,” I reflected, “I am over head and ears in love with the girl, and I believe she is with me. I ought to have nipped my feelings in the bud when she told me she was his wife; but then he is a brigand, who threatened both my ears and my tongue, to say nothing of my life. To what extent is the domestic happiness of such a ruffian to be respected?” and I went on splitting the moral straws suggested by this train of thought, until I had recovered my sketch-book and overtaken my escort, with whom I rode triumphantly back into Ascoli, where my absence had been the cause of much anxiety, and my fate was even then being eagerly discussed. My friends with whom I usually sat round the chemist’s door, were much exercised by the reserve which I manifested in reply to the fire of cross-examination to which I was subjected for the next few days; and English eccentricity, which was proverbial even in this secluded town, received a fresh illustration in the light and airy manner with which I treated a capture and escape from brigands, which I regardedwith such indifference that I could not be induced even to condescend to details. “It was a mere scuffle; there were only four; and, being an Englishman, I polished them all off with the ‘box,’”—and I closed my fist, and struck a scientific attitude of self-defence, branching off into a learned disquisition on the pugilistic art, which filled my hearers with respect and amazement. From this time forward the sentiment with which I regarded my air-gun underwent a change. When a friend had made me a present of it a year before, I regarded it in the light of a toy, and rather resented the gift as too juvenile. I wonder he did not give me a kite or a hoop, I mentally reflected. Then I had found it useful among Italians, who are a trifling people, and like playthings; but now that it had saved my life, and sent a bullet through a man’s heart, I no longer entertained the same feeling of contempt for it. Not again would I make light of it,—this potent engine of destruction which had procured me the character of being a magician. I would hide it from human gaze, and cherish it as a sort of fetish. So I bought a walking-stick and an umbrella, and strapped it up with them, wrapped in myplaid; and when, shortly after, an unexpected remittance from an aunt supplied me with money enough to buy a horse from one of the officers of my friend’s regiment, which soon after arrived, I accepted their invitation to accompany them on their brigand-hunting expeditions, not one of them knew that I had such a weapon as an air-gun in my possession.
Ourmodus operandion these occasions was as follows: On receiving information from some proprietor that the brigands were threatening his property,—it was impossible to get intelligence from the peasantry, for they were all in league with the brigands; indeed they all took a holiday from regular work, and joined a band for a few weeks from time to time,—we proceeded, with a force sufficiently strong to cope with the supposed strength of the band, to the farm in question. The bands were all mounted, and averaged from 200 to 400 men each. It was calculated that upwards of 2000 men were thus engaged in harrying the country, and this enabled theNerito talk of the king’s forces engaged in legitimate warfare against those of Victor Emmanuel. Riding over the vast plains ofthe Capitanata, we would discern against the sky-outline the figure of a solitary horseman. This we knew to be a picket. Then there was no time to be lost, and away we would go for him helter-skelter across the plain; he would instantly gallop in on the main body, probably occupying amasseria. If they thought they were strong enough, they would show fight. If not, they would take to their heels in the direction of the mountains, with us in full cry after them. If they were hardly pressed they would scatter, and we were obliged to do the same, and the result would be that the swiftest horsemen might possibly effect a few captures. It was an exciting species of warfare, partaking a good deal more of the character of a hunting-field than of cavalry skirmishing. Sometimes, where the ground was hilly, we had Bersaglieri with us; and as the brigands took to the mountains, the warfare assumed a different character. Sometimes, in default of these active little troops, we took local volunteers, whom we found a very poor substitute. On more than one occasion when we came upon the brigands in a farm, they thought themselves sufficiently strong to hold itagainst us, and once the cowardice of the volunteers was amusingly illustrated. The band was estimated at about 200, and we had 100 volunteers and a detachment of 50 cavalry. On coming under the fire of the brigands, the cavalry captain, who was in command, ordered the volunteers to charge, intending when they had dislodged the enemy to ride him down on the open; but the volunteer officer did not repeat the word, and stood stock-still, his men all imitating his example.
“Charge! I say,” shouted the cavalry captain; “why don’t you charge? I believe you’re afraid!”
“E vero,” said the captain of volunteers, shrugging his shoulders.
“Here, take my horse—you’re only fit to be a groom; and you, men, dismount and let these cowards hold your horses, while you follow me,”—and jumping from his horse, the gallant fellow, followed by his men, charged the building, from which a hot fire was playing upon them, sword in hand. In less than a quarter of an hour the brigands were scampering, some on foot and some on horseback, out of the farm-buildings, followed by a fewstray and harmless shots from such of the volunteers as had their hands free. We lost three men killed and five wounded in this little skirmish, and killed six of the brigands, besides making a dozen prisoners. When I say we, I mean my companions; for having no weapon, I had discreetly remained with the volunteers. The scene of this gallant exploit was on the classic battle-field of Cannæ. This captain, who was not the friend I had joined the day after my brigand adventure, was a most plucky and dashing cavalry officer, and was well seconded by his men, who were all Piedmontese, and of very different temperament from the Neapolitans. On one occasion a band of 250 brigands waited for us on the top of a small hill, never dreaming that we should charge up it with the odds five to one against us—but we did; and after firing a volley at us, which emptied a couple of saddles, they broke and fled when we were about twenty yards from them. Then began one of the most exciting scurries across country it was ever my fortune to be engaged in. The brigands scattered—so did we; and I found myself with two troopers in chase of a pair of bandits, one of whom seemed to be thechief of the band. A small stream wound through the plain, which we dashed across. Just beyond was a tributary ditch, which would have been considered a fair jump in the hunting-field: both brigands took it in splendid style. The hindmost was not ten yards ahead of the leading trooper, who came a cropper, on which the brigand reined up, fired a pistol-shot into the prostrate horse and man, and was off: but the delay cost him dear. The other trooper, who was a little ahead of me, got safely over. I followed suit. In another moment he had fired his carbine into the brigand’s horse, and down they both came by the run. We instantly reined up, for I saw there was no chance of overtaking the remaining brigand, and the trooper was in the act of cutting down the man as he struggled to his feet, when to my horror I recognised the lovely features of—Valeria.
“Stay, man!” I shouted, throwing myself from my horse; “it’s a woman! touch her if you dare!” and then seeing the man’s eye gleam with indignation, I added, “Brave soldiers, such as you have proved yourself to be, do not kill women; though your traducers say you do, do not give them cause to speaktruth. I will be responsible for this woman’s safety. Here, to make it sure, you had better strap us together.” I piqued myself exceedingly on this happy inspiration, whereby I secured an arm-in-arm walk, of a peculiar kind it is true, with Valeria, and indeed my readiness to sacrifice myself seemed rather to astonish the soldier, who hesitated. However, his comrade, whose horse had been shot in the ditch, now came up, and seconded my proposal, as I offered him a mount on mine.
“How on earth am I to let you escape, dear Valeria?” I whispered, giving her a sort of affectionate nudge: the position of our arms prevented my squeezing hers, as I could have wished, and the two troopers kept behind us, watching us, I thought, suspiciously.
“It is quite impossible now—don’t attempt it,” she answered; “perhaps there may be an opportunity later.”
“Was that Croppo who got away?” I asked. “Yes. He could not get his cowardly men to stand on that hill.”
“What a bother those men are behind, dearest! Let me pretend to scratch my nose with this hand that is tied to yours, which I can thus bring to my lips.”
I accomplished this manœuvre rather neatly, but parties now came straggling in from other directions, and I was obliged to give up whispering and become circumspect. They all seemed rather astonished at our group, and the captain laughed heartily as he rode up and called out, “Who have you got tied to you there,caro mio?”
“Croppo’s wife. I had her tied to me for fear she should escape; besides, she is not bad-looking.”
“What a prize!” he exclaimed. “We have made a tolerable haul this time,—twenty prisoners in all—among them the priest of the band. Our colonel has just arrived, so I am in luck—he will be delighted. See, the prisoners are being brought up to him now: but you had better remount and present yours in a less singular fashion.”
When we reached the colonel we found him examining the priest. His breviary contained various interesting notes, written on some of the fly-leaves. For instance:—
“Administered extreme unction to A---, shot by Croppo’s orders: my share tenscudi.
“Ditto, ditto, to R---, hung by Croppo’s order; my share twoscudi.
“Ditto, ditto, to S---, roasted by Croppo’s order, to make him name an agent to bring his ransom: overdone by mistake, and died—so got nothing.
“Ditto, ditto, to P---, executed by the knife by Croppo’s order, for disobedience.
“M--- and F---, and D---, three new members, joined to-day: confessed them, and received the usual fees.”
He was a dark, beetle-browed-looking ruffian, this holy man; and the colonel, when he had finished examining his book of prayer and crime, tossed it to me, saying,—“There! that will show your friends in England the kind of politicians we make war against. Ha! what have we here? This is more serious.” And he unfolded a piece of paper which had been concealed in the breast of the priest. “This contains a little valuable information,” he added, with a grim smile. “Nobody like priests and women for carrying about political secrets, so you may have made a valuable capture,” and he turned to where I stood with Valeria; “let her be carefully searched.”
Now the colonel was a very pompous man,and the document he had just discovered on the priest added to his sense of self-importance. When, therefore, a large, carefully folded paper was produced from the neighbourhood of Valeria’s lovely bosom, his eyes sparkled with anticipation. “Ho, ho!” he exclaimed, as he clutched it eagerly, “the plot is thickening!” and he spread out triumphantly, before he had himself seen what it was, the exquisitely drawn portrait of a donkey. There was a suppressed titter, which exploded into a shout when the bystanders looked into the colonel’s indignant face. I only was affected differently, as my gaze fell upon this touching evidence of dear Valeria’s love for me, and I glanced at her tenderly. “This has a deeper significance than you think for,” said the colonel, looking round angrily. “Croppo’s wife does not carefully secrete a drawing like that on her person for nothing. See, it is done by no common artist. It means something, and must be preserved.”
“It may have a Biblical reference to the state of Italy. You remember Issachar was likened to an ass between two burdens. In that case it probably emanated from Rome,”I remarked; but nobody seemed to see the point of the allusion, and the observation fell flat.
That night I dined with the colonel, and after dinner I persuaded him to let me visit Valeria in prison, as I wished to take the portrait of the wife of the celebrated brigand chief. I thanked my stars that my friend who had seen her when we met in the glen, was away on duty with his detachment, and could not testify to our former acquaintance. My meeting with Valeria on this occasion was too touching and full of tender passages to be of any general interest. Valeria told me that she was still a bride; that she had only been married a few months, and that she had been compelled to become Croppo’s wife against her choice, as the brigand’s will was too powerful to be resisted; but that, though he was jealous and attached to her, he was stern and cruel, and so far from winning her love since her marriage, he had rather estranged it by his fits of passion and ferocity. As may be imagined, the portrait, which was really very successful, took some time in execution, the more especially as we had to discuss the possibilities of Valeria’s escape.
“We are going to be transferred to-morrow to the prison at Foggia,” she said. “If, while we were passing through the market-place, a disturbance of some sort could be created, as it is market day, and all the country people know me, and are my friends, a rescue might be attempted. I know how to arrange for that, only they must see some chance of success.”
A bright thought suddenly struck me; it was suggested by a trick I had played shortly after my arrival in Italy.
“You know I am something of a magician, Valeria; you have had proof of that. If I create a disturbance by magic to-morrow, when you are passing through the market-place, you won’t stay to wonder what is the cause of the confusion, but instantly take advantage of it to escape.”
“Trust me for that,caro mio.”
“And if you escape, when shall we meet again?”
“I am known too well now to risk another meeting. I shall be in hiding with Croppo, where it will be impossible for you to find me, nor while he lives could I ever dare to think of leaving him; but I shall never forgetyou”—and she pressed my hands to her lips—“though I shall no longer have the picture of the donkey to remember you by.”
“See, here’s my photograph; that will be better,” said I, feeling a little annoyed—foolishly, I admit. Then we strained each other to our respective hearts, and parted. Now it so happened that my room in thelocandain which I was lodging overlooked the market-place. Here at ten o’clock in the morning I posted myself—for that was the hour, as I had been careful to ascertain, when the prisoners were to start for Foggia. I opened the window about three inches, and fixed it there: I took out my gun, put eight balls in it, and looked down upon the square. It was crowded with the country people in their bright-coloured costumes, chaffering over their produce. I looked above them to the tall campanile of the church which filled one side of the square. I receded a step and adjusted my gun on the ledge of the window to my entire satisfaction. I then looked down the street in which the prison was situated, and which debouched on the square, and awaited events. At ten minutes past ten I saw the soldiers at the door of theprison form up, and then I knew that the twenty prisoners of whom they formed the escort were starting; but the moment they began to move, I fired at the big bell in the campanile, which responded with a loud clang. All the people in the square looked up. As the prisoners entered the square, which they had to cross in its whole breadth, I fired again and again. The bell banged twice, and the people began to buzz about. Now, I thought, I must let the old bell have it. By the time five more balls had struck the bell with a resounding din, the whole square was in commotion. A miracle was evidently in progress, or the campanile was bewitched. People began to run hither and thither; all the soldiers forming the escort gaped open-mouthed at the steeple as the clangour continued. As soon as the last shot had been fired, I looked down into the square and saw all this, and I saw that the prisoners were attempting to escape, and in more than one instance had succeeded, for the soldiers began to scatter in pursuit, and the country people to form themselves into impeding crowds, as though by accident, but nowhere could I see Valeria. When I was quite sure she had escaped, Iwent down and joined the crowd. I saw three prisoners captured and brought back; and when I asked the officer in command how many had escaped, he said three—Croppo’s wife, the priest, and another.
When I met my cavalry friends at dinner that evening, it was amusing to hear them speculate upon the remarkable occurrence which had, in fact, upset the wits of the whole town. Priests and vergers and sacristans had visited the campanile, and one of them had brought away a flattened piece of lead, which looked as if it might have been a bullet; but the suggestion that eight bullets could have hit the bell in succession without anybody hearing a sound, was treated with ridicule. I believe the bell was subsequently exorcised with holy water. I was afraid to remain with the regiment with my air-gun after this, lest some one should discover it, and unravel the mystery; besides, I felt a sort of traitor to the brave friends who had so generously offered me their hospitality, so I invented urgent private affairs, which demanded my immediate return to Naples, and on the morning of my departure found myself embraced by all the officers of the regiment,from the colonel downwards, who, in the fervour of their kisses, thrust sixteen waxed moustache-points against my cheeks.
About eighteen months after this, I heard of the capture and execution of Croppo, and I knew that Valeria was free; but I had unexpectedly inherited a property, and was engaged to be married. I am now a country gentleman with a large family. My sanctum is stocked with various mementoes of my youthful adventures, but none awakens in me such thrilling memories as are excited by the breviary of the brigand priest, and the portrait of the brigand’s bride.
It is now nearly twenty-seven years ago—long before the Theosophical Society was founded, or Esoteric Buddhism was known to exist in the form recently revealed to us by Mr Sinnett{81}—that I became thechela, or pupil, of an adept of Buddhist occultism in Khatmandhu. At that time Englishmen, unless attached to the Residency, were not permitted to reside in that picturesque Nepaulese town. Indeed I do not think that they are now; but I had had an opportunity during the Indian Mutiny, when I was attached to the Nepaulese contingent, of forming an intimacy with a “Guru” connected with the force. It was not until our acquaintance had ripened into a warm friendshipthat I gradually made the discovery that this interesting man held views which differed so widely from the popular conception of Buddhism as I had known it in Ceylon—where I had resided for some years—that my curiosity was roused,—the more especially as he was in the habit of sinking off gradually, even while I was speaking to him, into trance-conditions, which would last sometimes for a week, during which time he would remain without food; and upon more than one occasion I missed even his material body from my side, under circumstances which appeared to me at the time unaccountable. The Nepaulese troops were not very often engaged with the rebels during the Indian Mutiny; but when they were, the Guru was always to be seen under the hottest fire, and it was generally supposed by the army that his body, so far from being impervious to bullets, was so pervious to them that they could pass through it without producing any organic disturbance. I was not aware of this fact at first; and it was not until I observed that, while he stood directly in the line of fire, men were killed immediately behind him, that I ceased to accompany him intoaction, and determined, if possible, to solve a mystery which had begun to stimulate my curiosity to the highest pitch. It is not necessary for me to enter here into the nature of the conversations I had with him on the most important and vital points affecting universal cosmogony and the human race and its destiny. Suffice it to say, that they determined me to sever my connection with the Government of India; to apply privately, through my friend the Guru, to the late Jung Bahadoor for permission to reside in Nepaul; and finally, in the garb of an Oriental, to take up my residence in Khatmandhu, unknown to the British authorities. I should not now venture on this record of my experiences, or enter upon the revelation of a phase hitherto unknown and unsuspected, of that esoteric science which has, until now, been jealously guarded as a precious heritage belonging exclusively to regularly initiated members of mysteriously organised associations, had not Mr Sinnett, with the consent of a distinguished member of the Thibetan brotherhood, and, in fact, at his dictation, let, if I may venture to use so profane an expression in connection with such a sacred subject,“the cat out of the bag.” Since, however, thearhats, or illuminati, of the East, seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the Western mind is at last sufficiently prepared and advanced in spiritual knowledge to be capable of assimilating the occult doctrines of Esoteric Buddhism, and have allowed their pupil to burst them upon a thoughtless and frivolous society with the suddenness of a bomb-shell, I feel released from the obligations to secrecy by which I have hitherto felt bound, and will proceed to unfold a few arcana of a far more extraordinary character than any which are to be found even in the pages of the ‘Theosophist’ or of ‘Esoteric Buddhism.’
Owing to certain conditions connected with mylinga sharira, or “astral body”—which it would be difficult for me to explain to those who are not to some extent initiated—I passed through the various degrees ofchela-ship with remarkable rapidity. When I say that in less than fifteen years of spiritual absorption and profound contemplation of esoteric mysteries I became amahatma, or adept, some idea may be formed bychelaswho are now treading that path of severeordeal, of the rapidity of my progress: indeed, such extraordinary faculty did I manifest, that at one time the Guru, my master, was inclined to think that I was one of those exceptional cases which recur from time to time, where a child-body is selected as the human tenement of a reincarnated adept; and that though belonging by rights to the fourth round, I was actually born into the fifth round of the human race in the planetary chain. “The adept,” says an occult aphorism, “becomes; he is not made.” That was exactly my case. I attribute it principally to an overweening confidence in myself, and to a blind faith in others. As Mr Sinnett very properly remarks—
“Very much further than people generally imagine, will mere confidence carry the occult neophyte. How many European readers who would be quite incredulous if told of some results which occultchelasin the most incipient stages of their training have to accomplish by sheer force of confidence, hear constantly in church, nevertheless, the familiar Biblical assurances of the power which resides in faith, and let the words pass by like the wind, leaving no impression!”
“Very much further than people generally imagine, will mere confidence carry the occult neophyte. How many European readers who would be quite incredulous if told of some results which occultchelasin the most incipient stages of their training have to accomplish by sheer force of confidence, hear constantly in church, nevertheless, the familiar Biblical assurances of the power which resides in faith, and let the words pass by like the wind, leaving no impression!”
It is true that I had some reason for this confidence—which arose from the fact that prior to my initiation into Buddhist mysteries,and before I left England, I had developed, under the spiritual craze which was then prevalent in society, a remarkable faculty of clairvoyance. This gave me the power not merely of diagnosing the physical and moral conditions of my friends and acquaintances, and of prescribing for them when necessary, but of seeing what was happening in other parts of the world; hence my organism was peculiarly favourable for initiation into occult mysteries, and naturally—or rather spiritually—prepared for that method in the regular course of occult training by which adepts impart instruction to their pupils.
“They awaken,” as we are most accurately informed by Mr Sinnett, “the dormant sense in the pupil, and through this they imbue his mind with a knowledge that such and such a doctrine is the real truth. The whole scheme of evolution infiltrates into the regularchela’smind, by reason of the fact that he is made to see the process taking place by clairvoyant vision. There are no words used in his instruction at all. And adepts themselves, to whom the facts and processes of nature are as familiar as our five fingers to us, find it difficult to explain in a treatise which they cannot illustrate for us, by producing mental pictures in our dormant sixth sense, the complex anatomy of the planetary system.”
“They awaken,” as we are most accurately informed by Mr Sinnett, “the dormant sense in the pupil, and through this they imbue his mind with a knowledge that such and such a doctrine is the real truth. The whole scheme of evolution infiltrates into the regularchela’smind, by reason of the fact that he is made to see the process taking place by clairvoyant vision. There are no words used in his instruction at all. And adepts themselves, to whom the facts and processes of nature are as familiar as our five fingers to us, find it difficult to explain in a treatise which they cannot illustrate for us, by producing mental pictures in our dormant sixth sense, the complex anatomy of the planetary system.”
I have always felt—and my conviction onthe subject has led to some painful discussions between myself and some of mymahatmabrothers—that the extreme facility with which I was enabled to perceive at a glance “the complex anatomy of the planetary system,” and the rapid development of my “dormant sixth sense,” was due mainly to the fact that I was nothing more nor less than what spiritualists call a highly sensitive medium. Meantime this premature development of my sixth sense forced me right up through the obstacles which usually impede such an operation in the case of a fourth-round man, into that stage of evolution which awaits the rest of humanity—or rather, so much of humanity as may reach it in the ordinary course of nature—in the latter part of the fifth round. I merely mention this to give confidence to my readers, as I am about to describe a moral cataclysm which subsequently took place in my sixth sense, which would be of no importance in the case of an ordinarychela, but which was attended with the highest significance as occurring to amahatmawho had already attained the highest grade in the mystic brotherhood. It was not to be wondered at that when I arrived at this advancedcondition, Khatmandhu, though a pleasant town, was not altogether a convenient residence for an occultist of my eminence. In the first place, the streets were infested withdugpas, or red-caps, a heretical sect, some members of which havearhatpretensions of a very high order—indeed I am ready to admit that I have met with Shammar adepts, who, so far as supernatural powers were concerned, were second to none among ourselves. But this was only the result of that necromancy which Buddha in his sixth incarnation denounced in the person of Tsong-kha-pa, the great reformer. They even deny the spiritual supremacy of the Dalai Lama at Lhassa, and own allegiance to an impostor who lives at the monastery of Sakia Djong.
The presence of these men, and the presumption of their adepts, who maintained that through subjective or clairvoyant conditions, which they asserted were higher than ours, they had attained a more exalted degree of illumination which revealed a different cosmogony from that which has been handed down to us through countless generations of adepts, were a perpetual annoyance to me;but perhaps not greater than the proximity of the English Resident and the officers attached to him, the impure exhalations from whoserupas, or material bodies, infected as they were with magnetic elements drawn from Western civilisation, whenever I met them, used to send me to bed for a week. I therefore strongly felt the necessity of withdrawal to that isolated and guarded region where the most advanced adepts can pursue their contemplative existence without fear of interruption, and prepare theirkarma, or, in other words, the molecules of their fifth principle, for the ineffable bliss of appropriate development indevachan—a place, or rather “state,” somewhat resembling Purgatory with a dash of heaven in it; or even for the still more exquisite sensation which arises from having no sensations at all, and which characterisesnirvana, or a sublime condition of conscious rest in Omniscience.
That I am not drawing upon my imagination in alluding to this mysterious region, or imposing upon the credulity of my readers, I will support my assertion by the high authority of Mr Sinnett, or rather of his Guru; and here I may remark incidentally,that after a long experience of Gurus, I have never yet met one who would consciously tell a lie.
“From time immemorial,” says Mr Sinnett’s Guru, “there has been a certain region in Thibet, which to this day is quite unknown to and unapproachable by any but initiated persons, and inaccessible to the ordinary people of the country, as to any others, in which adepts have always congregated. But the country generally was not in Buddha’s time, as it has since become, the chosen habitation of the great brotherhood. Much more than they are at present, were themahatmasin former times distributed throughout the world.“The progress of civilisation engendering the magnetism they find so trying, had, however, by the date with which we are now dealing—the fourteenth century—already given rise to a very general movement towards Thibet on the part of the previously dissociated occultists. Far more widely than was held to be consistent with the safety of mankind was occult knowledge and power then found to be disseminated. To the task of putting it under a rigid system of rule and law did Tsong-kha-pa address himself.”
“From time immemorial,” says Mr Sinnett’s Guru, “there has been a certain region in Thibet, which to this day is quite unknown to and unapproachable by any but initiated persons, and inaccessible to the ordinary people of the country, as to any others, in which adepts have always congregated. But the country generally was not in Buddha’s time, as it has since become, the chosen habitation of the great brotherhood. Much more than they are at present, were themahatmasin former times distributed throughout the world.
“The progress of civilisation engendering the magnetism they find so trying, had, however, by the date with which we are now dealing—the fourteenth century—already given rise to a very general movement towards Thibet on the part of the previously dissociated occultists. Far more widely than was held to be consistent with the safety of mankind was occult knowledge and power then found to be disseminated. To the task of putting it under a rigid system of rule and law did Tsong-kha-pa address himself.”
Of course, before transferring my material body to this region, I was perfectly familiar with it by reason of the faculty which, as Mr Sinnett very truly tells us, is common to all adepts, of being able to flit about the world at will in your astral body; and here I wouldremark parenthetically, that I shall use the term “astral body” to save confusion, though, as Mr Sinnett again properly says, it is not strictly accurate under the circumstances. In order to make this clear, I will quote his very lucid observations on the subject:—
“During the last year or two, while hints and scraps of occult science have been finding their way out into the world, the expression ‘astral body’ has been applied to a certain semblance of the human form, fully inhabited by its higher principles, which can migrate to any distance from the physical body—projected consciously and with exact intention by a living adept, or unintentionally by the accidental application of certain mental forces to his loosened principles by any person at the moment of death. For ordinary purposes, there is no practical inconvenience in using the expression ‘astral body’ for the appearance so projected—indeed any more strictly accurate expression, as will be seen directly, would be cumbersome, and we must go on using the phrase in both meanings. No confusion need arise; but strictly speaking, thelinga sharira, or third principle, is the astral body, and that cannot be sent about as the vehicle of the higher principles.”
“During the last year or two, while hints and scraps of occult science have been finding their way out into the world, the expression ‘astral body’ has been applied to a certain semblance of the human form, fully inhabited by its higher principles, which can migrate to any distance from the physical body—projected consciously and with exact intention by a living adept, or unintentionally by the accidental application of certain mental forces to his loosened principles by any person at the moment of death. For ordinary purposes, there is no practical inconvenience in using the expression ‘astral body’ for the appearance so projected—indeed any more strictly accurate expression, as will be seen directly, would be cumbersome, and we must go on using the phrase in both meanings. No confusion need arise; but strictly speaking, thelinga sharira, or third principle, is the astral body, and that cannot be sent about as the vehicle of the higher principles.”
As, however, “no confusion need arise” from my describing how I went about in mylinga sharira, I will continue to use it as the term for my vehicle of transportation. Nor need there be any difficulty about my being in twoplaces at once. I have the authority of Mr Sinnett’s Guru for this statement, and it is fully confirmed by my own experience. For what says the Guru?—“The individual consciousness, it is argued, cannot be in two places at once. But first of all, to a certain extent it can.” It is unnecessary for me to add a word to this positive and most correct statement; but what the Guru has not told us is, that there is a certain discomfort attending the process. Whenever I went with my astral body, orlinga sharira, into the mysterious region of Thibet already alluded to, leaving myrupa, or natural body, in Khatmandhu, I was always conscious of a feeling of rawness; while the necessity of looking after myrupa—of keeping, so to speak, my astral eye upon it, lest some accident should befall it, which might prevent my getting back to it, and so prematurely terminate my physical or objective existence—was a constant source of anxiety to me. Some idea of the danger which attends this process may be gathered from the risks incidental to a much more difficult operation which I once attempted, and succeeded, after incredible effort, in accomplishing; this was the passage of my fifthprinciple, or ego-spirit, into the ineffable condition ofnirvana.
“Let it not be supposed,” says Mr Sinnett,—for it is not his Guru who is now speaking,—“that for any adept such a passage can be lightly undertaken. Only stray hints about the nature of this great mystery have reached me; but, putting these together, I believe I am right in saying that the achievement in question is one which only some of the high initiates are qualified to attempt, which exacts a total suspension of animation in the body for periods of time compared to which the longest cataleptic trances known to ordinary science are insignificant; the protection of the physical frame from natural decay during this period by means which the resources of occult science are strained to accomplish; and withal it is a process involving a double risk to the continued earthly life of the person who undertakes it. One of these risks is the doubt whether, when oncenirvanais attained, the ego will be willing to return. That the return will be a terrible effort and sacrifice is certain, and will only be prompted by the most devoted attachment, on the part of the spiritual traveller, to the idea of duty in its purest abstraction. The second great risk is that of allowing the sense of duty to predominate over the temptation to stay—a temptation, be it remembered, that is not weakened by the motive that any conceivable penalty can attach to it. Even then it is always doubtful whether the traveller will be able to return.”
“Let it not be supposed,” says Mr Sinnett,—for it is not his Guru who is now speaking,—“that for any adept such a passage can be lightly undertaken. Only stray hints about the nature of this great mystery have reached me; but, putting these together, I believe I am right in saying that the achievement in question is one which only some of the high initiates are qualified to attempt, which exacts a total suspension of animation in the body for periods of time compared to which the longest cataleptic trances known to ordinary science are insignificant; the protection of the physical frame from natural decay during this period by means which the resources of occult science are strained to accomplish; and withal it is a process involving a double risk to the continued earthly life of the person who undertakes it. One of these risks is the doubt whether, when oncenirvanais attained, the ego will be willing to return. That the return will be a terrible effort and sacrifice is certain, and will only be prompted by the most devoted attachment, on the part of the spiritual traveller, to the idea of duty in its purest abstraction. The second great risk is that of allowing the sense of duty to predominate over the temptation to stay—a temptation, be it remembered, that is not weakened by the motive that any conceivable penalty can attach to it. Even then it is always doubtful whether the traveller will be able to return.”
All this is exactly as Mr Sinnett has described it. I shall never forget the strugglethat I had with my ego when, ignoring “the idea of duty in its purest abstraction,” it refused to abandon the bliss ofnirvanafor the troubles of this mundane life; or the anxiety both of mymanas, or human soul, and mybuddhi, or spiritual soul, lest, after by our combined efforts we had overcome our ego, we should not be able to do our duty by ourrupa, or natural body, and get back into it.
Of course, my migrations to themahatmaregion of Thibet were accompanied by no such difficulty as this—as, to go with yourlinga sharira, or astral body, to another country, is a very different and much more simple process than it is to go with yourmanas, or human soul, intonirvana. Still it was a decided relief to find myself comfortably installed with my material body, orrupa, in the house of a Thibetan brother on that sacred soil which has for so many centuries remained unpolluted by a profane foot.
Here I passed a tranquil and contemplative existence for some years, broken only by such incidents as my passage intonirvana, and disturbed only by a certain subjective sensation of aching or void, by which I was occasionally attacked, and which I was finallycompelled to attribute, much to my mortification, to the absence of women. In the whole of this sacred region, the name of which I am compelled to withhold, there was not a single female. Everybody in it was given up to contemplation and ascetic absorption; and it is well known that profound contemplation, for any length of time, and the presence of the fair sex, are incompatible. I was much troubled by this vacuous sensation, which I felt to be in the highest degree derogatory to my fifth principle, and the secret of which I discovered, during a trance-condition which lasted for several months, to arise from a subtle magnetism, to which, owing to my peculiar organic condition, I was especially sensitive, and which penetrated themahatmaregion from a tract of country almost immediately contiguous to it in the Karakorum Mountains, which was as jealously guarded from foreign intrusion as our own, and which was occupied by the “Thibetan Sisters,” a body of female occultists of whom the Brothers never spoke except in terms of loathing and contempt. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that no mention is made either of them, or the lovely highland district they occupy, in Mr Sinnett’sbook. The attraction of this feminine sphere became at last so overpowering, that I determined to visit it in my astral body; and now occurred the first of many most remarkable experiences which were to follow. It is well known to the initiated, though difficult to explain to those who are not, that in a sense space ceases to exist for the astral body. When you get out of yourrupa, you are out of space as ordinary persons understand it, though it continues to have a certain subjective existence.
I was in this condition, and travelling rapidly in the desired direction, when I became conscious of the presence of the most exquisitely lovely female astral body which the imagination of man could conceive; and here I may incidentally remark, that no conception can be formed of the beauty to which woman can attain by those who have only seen her in herrupa—or, in other words, in the flesh. Woman’s real charm consists in herlinga sharira—that ethereal duplicate of the physical body which guidesjiva, or the second principle, in its work on the physical particles, and causes it to build up the shape which these assume in the material. Sometimesit makes rather a failure of it, so far as therupais concerned, but it always retains its own fascinating contour and deliciously diaphanous composition undisturbed. When my gaze fell upon this most enchanting object, or rather subject—for I was in a subjective condition at the time—I felt all the senses appertaining to my third principle thrill with emotion; but it seemed impossible—which will readily be understood by the initiated—to convey to her any clear idea of the admiration she excited, from the fact that we were neither of us in natural space. Still the sympathy between ourlinga shariraswas so intense, that I perceived that I had only to go back for myrupa, and travel in it to the region of the sisterhood, to recognise her in herrupaat once.
Everychelaeven knows how impossible it is to make love satisfactorily in nothing but yourlinga sharira. It is quite different after you are dead, and have gone in your fourth principle, orkama rupa, which is often translated “body of desire,” intodevachan; for, as Mr Sinnett most correctly remarks, “The purely sensual feelings and tastes of the late personality will drop off from it indevachan;but it does not follow that nothing is preservable in that state, except feelings and thoughts having a direct reference to religion or spiritual philosophy. On the contrary, all the superior phases, even of sensuous emotion, find their appropriate sphere of development indevachan.” Until you are obliged to go todevachan—which, in ordinary parlance, is the place good men go to when they die—my advice is, stick to yourrupa; and indeed it is the instinct of everybody who is not amahatmato do this. I admit—though in making this confession I am aware that I shall incur the contempt of allmahatmas—that on this occasion I found myrupaa distinct convenience, and was not sorry that it was still in existence. In it I crossed the neutral zone still inhabited by ordinary Thibetans, and after a few days’ travel, found myself on the frontiers of “the Sisters’” territory. The question which now presented itself was how to get in. To my surprise, I found the entrances guarded not by women, as I expected, but by men. These were for the most part young and handsome.
“So you imagined,” said one, who advanced to meet me with an engaging air,“that you could slip into our territory in your astral body; but you found that all the entrancesin vacuo”—I use this word for convenience—“are as well guarded as those in space. See, here is the Sister past whom you attempted to force your way: we look after the physical frontier, and leave the astral or spiritual to the ladies,”—saying which he politely drew back, and the apparition whose astral form I knew so well, now approached in her substantialrupa—in fact, she was a good deal stouter than I expected to find her; but I was agreeably surprised by her complexion, which was much fairer than is usual among Thibetans—indeed her whole type of countenance was Caucasian, which was not to be wondered at, considering, as I afterwards discovered, that she was by birth a Georgian. She greeted me, in the language common to all Thibetan occultists, as an old acquaintance, and one whose arrival was evidently expected—indeed she pointed laughingly to a bevy of damsels whom I now saw trooping towards us, some carrying garlands, some playing upon musical instruments, some dancing in lively measures, and singing their songs of welcome as they drewnear. Then Ushas—for that was the name (signifying “The Dawn”) of the illuminata whose acquaintance I had first madein vacuo—taking me by the hand, led me to them, and said—
“Rejoice, O my sisters, at the long-anticipated arrival of the Westernarhat, who, in spite of the eminence which he has attained in the mysteries of Esoteric Buddhism, and his intimate connection during so many years with the Thibetan fraternity, has yet retained enough of his original organic conditions to render him, even in the isolation of (here she mentioned the region I had come from) susceptible to the higher influence of the occult sisterhood. Receive him in your midst as thechelaof a new avatar which will be unfolded to him under your tender guidance. Take him in your arms, O my sisters, and comfort him with the doctrines of Ila, the Divine, the Beautiful.”
Taking me in their arms, I now found, was a mere formula or figure of speech, and consisted only in throwing garlands over me. Still I was much comforted, not merely by the grace and cordiality of their welcome, but by the mention of Ila, whose name willdoubtless be familiar to my readers as occurring in a Sanscrit poem of the age immediately following the Vedic period, called the Satapathabrahmana, when Manu was saved from the flood, and offered the sacrifice “to be the model of future generations.” By this sacrifice he obtained a daughter named Ila, who became supernaturally the mother of humanity, and who, I had always felt, has been treated with too little consideration by themahatmas—indeed her name is not so much as even mentioned in Mr Sinnett’s book. Of course it was rather a shock to my spiritual pride, that I, amahatmaof eminence myself, should be told that I was to be adopted as a merechelaby these ladies; but I remembered those beautiful lines of Buddha’s—I quote from memory—and I hesitated no longer:—
“To be long-suffering and meek,To associate with the tranquil,Religious talk at due seasons;This is the greatest blessing.”
“To be long-suffering and meek,To associate with the tranquil,Religious talk at due seasons;This is the greatest blessing.”
“To be long-suffering”—this was a virtue I should probably have a splendid opportunity of displaying under the circumstances,—“and meek”; what greater proof of meekness couldI give than by becoming thechelaof women? “To associate with the tranquil.” I should certainly obey this precept, and select the most tranquil as my associates, and with them look forward to enjoying “religious talk at due seasons.” Thus fortified by the precepts of the greatest of all teachers, my mind was at once made up, and, lifting up my voice, I chanted, in the language of the occult, some beautiful stanzas announcing my acceptance of their invitation, which evidently thrilled my hearers with delight. In order to save unnecessary fatigue, we now transferred ourselves through space, and, in the twinkling of an eye, I found myself in the enchanting abode which they called their home, ordama. Here a group of young malechelaswere in waiting to attend to our wants; and the remarkable fact now struck me, that not only were all the women lovely and the men handsome, but that no trace of age was visible on any of them. Ushas smiled as she saw what was passing in my mind, and said, without using any spoken words, for language had already become unnecessary between us, “This is one of the mysteries which will be explained to you when youhave reposed after the fatigues of your journey; in the meantime Asvin,”—and she pointed out achelawhose name signified “Twilight,”—“will show you to your room.” I would gladly linger, did my space allow, over the delights of this enchanting region, and the marvellously complete and well-organised system which prevailed in its curiously composed society. Suffice it to say, that in the fairy-like pavilion which was my home, dwelt twenty-four lovely Sisters and their twenty-threechelas—I was to make the twenty-fourth—in the most complete and absolute harmony, and that their lives presented the most charming combination of active industry, harmless gaiety, and innocent pleasures. By a proper distribution of work and proportionment of labour, in which all took part, the cultivation of the land, the tending of the exquisite gardens, with their plashing fountains, fragrant flowers, and inviting arbours, the herding of the cattle, and the heavier part of various handicrafts, fell upon the men; while the women looked after the domestic arrangements—cooked, made or mended and washed thechelas’ clothes and their own (both men and women were dressedaccording to the purest principles of æsthetic taste), looked after the dairy, and helped the men in the lighter parts of their industries.
Various inventions, known only to the occult sisterhood by means of their studies in the esoteric science of mechanics, contributed to shorten these labours to an extent which would be scarcely credited by the uninitiated; but some idea of their nature may be formed from the fact that methods of storing and applying electricity, unknown as yet in the West, have here been in operation for many centuries, while telephones, flying-machines, and many other contrivances still in their infancy with us, are carried to a high pitch of perfection. In a word, what struck me at once as the fundamental difference between this sisterhood and the fraternity of adepts with which I had been associated, was that the former turned all their occult experiences to practical account in their daily life in this world, instead of reserving them solely for the subjective conditions which are supposed bymahatmasto attach exclusively to another state of existence.
Owing to these appliances the heavy work of the day was got through usually in timefor a late breakfast, the plates and dishes being washed up and the knives cleaned by a mechanical process scarcely occupying two minutes; and the afternoon was usually devoted to the instruction ofchelasin esoteric branches of learning, and their practical application to mundane affairs, until the cool of the evening, when parties would be made up either for playing out-of-door games, in the less violent of which the women took part, or in riding the beautiful horses of the country, or in flying swiftly over its richly cultivated and variegated surface, paying visits to otherdamasor homes, each of which was occupied on the same scale and in the same manner as our own. After a late dinner, we usually had concerts, balls, and private theatricals.
On the day following my arrival, Ushas explained to me the relationship in which we were to stand towards each other. She said that marriage was an institution as yet unknown to them, because their organisms had not yet attained the conditions to which they were struggling. They had progressed so far, however, that they had discovered the secret of eternal youth. Indeed, Ushas herself was 590 years old. I was not surprised at this, assomething of the same kind has occurred more than once torishisor very advancedmahatmas. As a rule, however, they are too anxious to go tonirvana, to stay on earth a moment longer than necessary, and prefer rather to come back at intervals: this, we all know, has occurred at least six times in the case of Buddha, as Mr Sinnett so well explains. At the same time Ushas announced without words, but with a slight blush, and a smile of ineffable tenderness, that from the day of my birth she knew that I was destined to be her future husband, and that at the appointed time we should be brought together. We now had our period of probation to go through together, and she told me that all the otherchelashere were going through the necessary training preparatory to wedlock like myself, and that there would be a general marrying all round, when the long-expected culminating epoch should arrive.
Meantime, in order to enter upon the first stage of my newchela-ship, it became necessary for me to forget all the experiences which I had acquired during the last twenty years of my life, as she explained that itwould be impossible for my mind to receive the new truths which I had now to learn so long as I clung to what she called “the fantasies” of mymahatma-ship. I cannot describe the pang which this announcement produced. Still I felt that nothing must impede my search after truth; and I could not conceal from myself that, if in winning it I also won Ushas, I was not to be pitied. Nor to this day have I ever had reason to regret the determination at which I then arrived.
It would be impossible for me in the compass of this article to describe all my experiences in the new life to which I dedicated myself, nor indeed would it be proper to do so; suffice it to say, that I progressed beyond my Ushas’ most sanguine expectations. And here I would remark, that I found my chief stimulus to exertion to be one which had been completely wanting in my former experience. It consisted simply in this, that altruism had been substituted for egotism. Formerly, I made the most herculean spiritual effort to tide myself over the great period of danger—the middle of the fifth round. “That,” as Mr Sinnett correctly says, “is the stupendous achievement of the adept as regardshis own personal interests;” and of course our own interests were all that I or any of the othermahatmasever thought of. “He has reached,” pursues our author, “the farther shore of the sea in which so many of mankind will perish. He waits there, in a contentment which people cannot even realise without some glimmering of spirituality—the sixth sense—themselves, for the arrival of his future companions.” This is perfectly true. I always found that the full enjoyment of this sixth sense amongmahatmaswas heightened just in proportion to the numbers of other people who perish, so long as you were safe yourself.
Here among the Sisters, on the other hand, the principle which was inculcated was, “Never mind if you perish yourself, so long as you can save others;” and indeed the whole effort was to elaborate such a system by means of the concentration of spiritual forces upon earth, as should be powerful enough to redeem it from its present dislocated and unhappy condition. To this end had the efforts of the Sisters been directed for so many centuries, and I had reason to believe that the time was not far distantwhen we should emerge from our retirement to be the saviours and benefactors of the whole human race. It followed from this, of course, that I retained all the supernatural faculties which I had acquired as amahatma, and which I now determined to use, not for my own benefit as formerly, but for that of my fellow-creatures, and was soon able—thanks to additional faculties, acquired under Ushas’ tutorship—to flit about the world in my astral body without inconvenience.
I happened to be in London on business the other day in this ethereal condition, when Mr Sinnett’s book appeared, and I at once projected it on the astral current to Thibet. I immediately received a communication from Ushas to the effect that it compelled some words of reply from the sisterhood, and a few days since I received them. I regret that it has been necessary to occupy so much of the reader’s time with personal details. They were called for in order that he should understand the source of my information, and my peculiar qualifications for imparting it. It will be readily understood, after my long connection with the Thibetan brotherhood, how painful it must be to me to be theinstrument chosen not merely of throwing a doubt upon “the absolute truth concerning nature, man, the origin of the universe, and the destinies toward which its inhabitants are tending,” to use Mr Sinnett’s own words, but actually to demolish the whole structure of Esoteric Buddhism! Nor would I do this now were it not that the publication of the book called by that name has reluctantly compelled the sisterhood to break their long silence. If the Thibetan Brothers had only held their tongues and kept their secret as they have done hitherto, they would not now be so rudely disturbed by the Thibetan Sisters.
* * * * *
“The Sisters of Thibet,” writes Ushas, of course with an astral pen in astral ink, “owe their origin to a circumstance which occurred in the time of Sankaracharya, erroneously supposed by the initiated to be an incarnation of Buddha. This teacher, who lived more than a century before the Christian era, dwelt chiefly upon the necessity of pursuinggnyanamin order to obtainmoksha—that is to say, the importance of secret knowledge to spiritual progress, and the consummationthereof. And he even went so far as to maintain that a man ought to keep all such knowledge secret from his wife. Now the wife of Sankaracharya, whose name was Nandana, ‘she who rejoices,’ was a woman of very profound occult attainments; and when she found that her husband was acquiring knowledges which he did not impart to her, she did not upbraid him, but laboured all the more strenuously in her own sphere of esoteric science, and she even discovered that all esoteric science had a twofold element in it—masculine and feminine—and that all discoveries of occult mysteries engaged in by man alone, were, so to speak, lop-sided, and therefore valueless. So she conveyed herself secretly, by processes familiar to her, away from her husband, and took refuge in this region of Thibet in which we now dwell, and which, with all his knowledges, Sankaracharya was never able to discover, for they were all subjective, and dealt not with the material things of this world. And she associated herself here in the pursuit of knowledge with a learned man called Svasar, ‘he who is friendly,’ who considered secret knowledge merely the means to an end, and even spiritualprogress valuable only in so far as it could be used to help others; and they studied deep mysteries as brother and sister together—and he had been amahatmaorrishiof the highest grade—and, owing to the aid he derived from his female associate, he discovered that the subjective conditions ofnirvanaanddevachanwere the result of one-sided male imaginings which had their origin in male selfishness; and this conviction grew in him in the degree in which the Parthivi Mutar, or ‘Earth Mother,’ became incarnated in Nandana. Thus was revealed to him the astounding fact that the whole system of the occult adepts had originated in the natural brains of men who had given themselves up to egotistical transcendental speculation—in fact, I cannot better describe the process than in the words of Mr Sinnett himself, where he alludes to ‘the highly cultivated devotees to be met with occasionally in India, who build up a conception of nature, the universe and God, entirely on a metaphysical basis, and who have evolved their systems by sheer force of transcendental thinking—who will take some established system of philosophy as its groundwork, andamplify on this to an extent which only an oriental metaphysician could dream of.’
“This, Mr Sinnett chooses to assume, was not the fact with the Thibet Brothers; but, in reality, this was just what they did. The fact that they have outstripped other similar transcendentalists is due to the circumstance that the original founders of the system were men of more powerful will and higher attainments than any who have succeeded them. And on their death they formed a compact spiritual society in the other world, impregnating the wills and imaginations of their disciples still on earth with their fantastic theories, which they still retain there, of a planetary chain, and the spiral advance of the seven rounds, and the septenary law, and all the rest of it. In order for human beings to come into these occult knowledges, it is necessary, as Mr Sinnett admits, for the adepts to go into trance-conditions—in other words, to lose all control of their normal, or as they would probably call them, their objective faculties. While in this condition, they are the sport of any invisible intelligences that choose to play upon them; but fearing lest they may be accused of this, theyerroneously assert that no such intelligences of a high order have cognisance of what happens in this world. The fact thatmahatmashave powers which appear supernatural proves nothing, as Mr Sinnett also admits that innumerablefakirsandyojispossess these as well, whose authority on occultism he deems of no account, when he says that ‘careless inquirers are very apt to confound such persons with the great adepts of whom they vaguely hear.’ There can be no better evidence of the falsity of the whole conception than you are yourself. For to prove to you that you were the sport of a delusion, although your own experience as amahatmain regard to the secret processes of nature, and the sensations attendant upon subjective conditions, exactly corresponded to those of all othermahatmas, you have, under my tutelage, at various times allowed yourself to fall into trance-conditions, when, owing to occult influences which we have brought to bear, a totally different idea concerning ‘nature, man, the origin of the universe, and the destinies toward which its inhabitants are tending,’ was presented to your sixth sense, which appeared ‘absolutetruth’ at the time, and which would have continued to seem so, had I not had the power of intromitting you through trance-conditions into a totally different set of apparent truths on the same subject, which were no more to be relied upon than the other. The fact is, that no seer, be he Hindoo, Buddhist, Christian, or of any other religion, is to be depended upon the moment he throws himself into abnormal organic conditions. We see best, as you have now learnt, into the deepest mysteries with all our senses about us. And the discovery of this great fact was due to woman; and it is for this reason thatmahatmasshrink from femalechelas—they are afraid of them. According to their philosophy, women play a poor part in the system of the universe, and their chances of reaching the blissful condition ofnirvanaare practically not to be compared with those of the men.
“There is no such thing as subjectivity apart from objectivity. Mr Sinnett very properly tells you ‘that occult science regards force and matter as identical, and that it contemplates no principle in nature as wholly immaterial. The clue to the mysteryinvolved,’ he goes on to say, ‘lies in the fact, directly cognisable by occult experts, that matter exists in other states than those which are cognisable by the five senses;’ but it does not become only cognisable subjectively on that account. You know very well, as an oldmahatma, that you can cognise matter now with your sixth sense as well as with your five while in a perfectly normal condition, that you could not cognise except in trance-conditions before, and which even then you could only cognise incorrectly. The much-vaunted sixth sense ofmahatmasneeds sharpening as much as their logic, for you can no more separate subjectivity from objectivity than you can separate mind from matter. Christians, if they desire it, have a right to a heaven of subjective bliss, because they consider that they become immaterial when they go there; but Buddhists, who admit that they are in a sense material while indevachanornirvana, and deny that their consciousness in that condition is in the same sense objective as well as subjective, talk sheer nonsense.” Ushas used a stronger expression here, but out of consideration for my oldmahatmafriends, I suppress it.
“‘Devachan’, says our Guru—speaking through his disciple in order to escape from this dilemma—‘will seem as real as the chairs and tables round us; and remember that above all things, to the profound philosophy of occultism, are the chairs and tables, and the whole objective scenery of the world, unreal and merely transitory delusions of sense.’ If, as he admits, they are material, why should they be more unreal than the chairs and tables indevachan, which are also material, since occult science contemplates no principle in nature as wholly immaterial? The fact is, that there is no more unreal and transitory delusion of sense than those ‘states’ known to the adepts asdevachanornirvana; they are mere dreamlands, invented by metaphysicians, and lived in by them after death—which are used by them to encourage a set of dreamers here to evade the practical duties which they owe to their fellow-men in this world. ‘Hence it is possible,’ says our author, ‘for yet living persons to have visions ofdevachan, though such visions are rare and only one-sided, the entities indevachan, sighted by the earthly clairvoyant, being quite unconscious themselves of undergoingsuch observation.’ This is an erroneous and incorrect assumption on the Guru’s part. ‘The spirit of the clairvoyant,’ he goes on, ‘ascends into the condition ofdevachanin such rare visions, and thus becomes subject to the vivid delusions of that existence.’ Vivid delusions indeed, the fatal consequences of which are, that they separate their votaries from the practical duties of life, and create a class of idle visionaries who, wrapping themselves in their own vain conceits, would stand by and allow their fellow-creatures to starve to death, because, as Mr Sinnett frankly tells us, ‘if spiritual existence, vivid subjective consciousness, really does go on for periods greater than the periods of intellectual physical existence, in the ratio, as we have seen in discussing the devachanic condition, of 80 to 1 at least, then surely man’s subjective existence is more important than his physical existence and intellect in error, when all its efforts are bent on the amelioration of the physical existence.’