Helena Blavatsky: the "Russian witch" who became the "catcher of souls". Helena Blavatsky: life before and after death Where Blavatsky placed all the souls of the dead

USA, 1878. In his many years of practice, Dr. Robert Heriot saw this for the first time. He was called to treat the sick, but the woman lying in front of him on the bed was dead. To make sure of this, he felt the pulse on her hand and did not feel the beating, put a mirror to her lips - the glass did not fog up. Only one thing confused the doctor - the woman's gaze was meaningful. She stared straight ahead, like real people. And yet, by all formal indications, Helena Blavatsky was dead. The doctor picked up the phone and started calling the morgue to order a hearse. But as soon as he uttered the first words, someone's hand snatched the receiver from him.

The patient, to whom the doctor was called, was an unusual woman. Her name was known all over the world - Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Tens of thousands of people believed that she was able to work miracles. And the American doctor Robert Heriot believed only in the power of science and his own mind. He was convinced that miracles had a place in the pages of children's books, but not in real life. However, that day he had to reconsider his views. Colonel Henry Olcott snatched the tube from the doctor's hand. He introduced himself as a friend of the patient. “I asked you to raise her to her feet, and not take her to the morgue,” the colonel shouted, “Elena is alive, she simply could not die!”

The doctor tried to argue with the enraged colonel, but Olcott stood his ground. Robert Hariot served as the county's health inspector. He was obliged to take the dead body from the apartment building. But before the doctor could take a step towards Blavatsky's bed, he suddenly felt a cold blade on his neck. “I’ll cut you down…” the colonel hissed. Dr. Hariot forgot about the call of duty and thought only about how to quickly get out of this crazy house. Men did not even notice what was happening behind them. Finally, the colonel turned around and saw that Elena was sitting on the couch and calmly drinking tea.

This miracle forever turned the life of Robert Heriot. He gave up medical practice and instead of medicine began to study the occult sciences. Soon the doctor realized that at that time Blavatsky was not dying, but plunged into a deep trance, and her open eyes saw other worlds. The American doctor was not the first and not the last person whose life was turned upside down by the meeting with Helena Blavatsky. By the end of the 19th century, she had tens of thousands of followers.

And today, more than a hundred years later, Blavatsky's books are published in huge numbers, and the Theosophical Movement founded by her annually attracts hundreds of new followers. Theosophy first revealed to the inhabitants of the Western countries the secret wisdom of the East. The most surprising thing was that at the origins of Theosophy was not a man with a university education, but a Russian woman who had not even graduated from a gymnasium.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was born on August 12, 1831 in the city of Yekaterinoslav in the family of officer Peter Alekseevich von Hahn. Her father belonged to a well-known aristocratic family. Mother came from the ancient Russian family of Rurikovich. The mother of Helena Blavatsky, a famous writer, died very early, and her last words were: “Maybe it’s for the best that I’m dying. You don't have to see Elena's bitter fate. I am sure that her fate will not be female, she will have to suffer a lot ... ”.

The prophecy came true, Elena really had to suffer a lot. But her childhood was happy.

Grandmother, Elena Pavlovna Dolgorukova, brought her up in the best traditions of aristocratic families. Elena was an unusual child. Kind, smart, with strong intuition, sometimes bordering on clairvoyance. Once she was found in the attic with pigeons. And all the pigeons were in some kind of cataplexy state and did not fly anywhere. Elena said that she was putting them to bed according to Solomon's recipes. People were afraid of her sincerity, she always spoke only the truth. And in a decent society, this was considered a sign of bad taste. Indeed, how many people in the world are capable of telling only the truth? Even fewer are those who are able to perceive the truth.

The most original trick of the young lady was her marriage. In 1848, a 17-year-old girl told her family that she was marrying 40-year-old Nicephorus Blavatsky, who had been appointed vice-governor. Elena moved to Tiflis.

She confessed to her relatives - she married Blavatsky in order to get rid of the control of her relatives. The girls of that time simply had no other option to leave the family. The marriage remained fictitious, but all attempts to divorce were unsuccessful and she runs away from her husband.

On horseback, Elena escapes from Tiflis, crosses the Russian-Turkish border and "hare" on the ship gets to Constantinople. She forever left Russia and loved ones. For eight whole years after the escape, she did not let anyone know about herself - she was afraid that her husband would track her down. I only trusted my father. He realized that she would not return to her husband and reconciled. Thus began a new free life. Elena gave music lessons, performed as a pianist, wrote books and articles. The young aristocrat risked everything. And for what? It is clear that some higher power led her. Many years later, she confessed that a certain mysterious friend, a spiritual teacher, was always invisibly present next to her.

The appearance of the teacher never changed - a bright face, long black hair, white clothes. He taught her in her sleep and, as a child, saved her life more than once. And the relatives were amazed, what miracle saved their child? Much later she wrote: “I have always had a second life, incomprehensible even to myself. Until I met my mysterious teacher."

This happened in 1851 at the first world exhibition in London. Among the Indian delegation, she suddenly saw the one who had been appearing to her in a dream for a long time. Elena was shocked, her teacher is a real person. She had a conversation with him, in which he explained which way she should go further, about the matter related to the transfer of knowledge to mankind.

He told her that she had an important job ahead of her. But first, she must prepare for it and spend three years in Tibet. Blavatsky is only twenty years old and she understood what future was prepared for her - the path of discipleship and service to the truth. Elena knew that the task set before her by the teacher - to penetrate into Tibet - was extremely difficult. Of course, she completed the task, but it took her 17 years to do this.

During this time, she makes two unsuccessful attempts to enter Tibet and makes two trips around the world. She faces deadly dangers, but every time someone helps her, protects her and, most importantly, teaches her. She described two trips to India in the most interesting book "From the caves and wilds of Hindustan." Several times Blavatsky falls seriously ill and, without outside help, is miraculously healed. With each illness, her supernatural powers grow.

What abilities did Blavatsky possess? According to eyewitnesses, she predicted the future, freely read sealed letters, answered questions that were asked to her mentally. She could move seals and drawings from one sheet to another, and, at the request of people, she could communicate with their deceased relatives. She was able to evoke wonderful music with a wave of her hand, which literally poured from heaven. In her presence, things began to move, and for some this caused delight, and for others, fear. She always saw the dead on the day of their death, saw how it would happen. She wrote to relatives about what awaits them, and accurately guessed this date.

The amazing skills of Blavatsky made a lot of noise in Pskov, where she returned to her family after ten

years of absence. After living in Pskov for a year, Blavatsky left for Tiflis. On the way, she met His Grace Isidore, Exarch of Georgia, later Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Novgorod. His Grace questioned her, asked questions mentally and, having received sensible answers to them, was amazed. At parting, he blessed her and admonished her with the words: “There is no strength except from God. You never know the unknown forces in nature. It is not given to man to know all the forces, but he is not forbidden to recognize them. God bless you for all the good and kind."

Blavatsky lived in the Caucasus for another four years. In order not to depend on anyone, she tried to earn money herself. A great craftsman in needlework, she made artificial flowers. At one time she had a whole workshop, and it went very well. She even came up with a cheap way to get ink and subsequently sold it. But the main business of life was ahead, and she knew it.

1868, Blavatsky is 37 years old. One of the most mysterious periods in her life begins - studying in Tibet. She spoke little about it, but in her letters there are such lines: “Those to whom we wish to open ourselves will meet us at the border. The rest of us will not find us, even if they moved to Lhasa with a whole army. In these words there is a clue why no one can still find the country of great teachers - Shambhala. It is only open to a select few. The rest have no access.

Now a great number of magicians and initiates have bred. But it is not at all difficult to distinguish them from the disciples of Shambhala. The truly initiated will never talk about it. Initiates have no titles, they are simple in their lives and never boast of their knowledge. The truly initiated are under the influence of high rays of energy, and this happens only when their consciousness is ready to receive them. The old truth always remains unshakable - the teacher comes when the student is ready.

Blavatsky never talked about the three years of her life spent in Tibet, and only once wrote: “There are several pages from the history of my life. I would rather die than open them. They are too secret…” It is authentically known that she lived not far from the residence of the Tashi Lama and became a student of two teachers. Much later, Blavatsky wrote: “Teachers appear among people at turning points in history and bring new knowledge to the world. Such teachers were Krishna, Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus. Jesus descended to earth without the consent of others, driven by a desire to help humanity. He was warned that he chose not the best time. But he still went and was executed because of the intrigues of the priests.

Blavatsky also wrote: “Beyond the Himalayas there is a core of adepts of different nationalities. They work together, but their essence remains unknown to ordinary lamas, who are mostly ignorant.” No one knows how Blavatsky was trained. She kept a secret, because secret knowledge can be used for selfish purposes.

Three years have passed, the training is over. Blavatsky leaves Tibet and begins her service to humanity. Teachers set an important task for her - to reveal to people the secret teachings about the structure of the Universe, about nature and man. Eternal human values ​​must resist materialism, cruelty and hatred.

In 1873, following the instructions of her teachers, she went to New York. There is a meeting with a future friend, student and colleague, Colonel Henry Olcott. This well-known lawyer, journalist, highly educated and spiritual person, became her support for the rest of her life. On November 11, 1875, the Theosophical Society was organized by Elena Petrovna and Colonel Olcott. It set itself three goals: 1) brotherhood without distinction of religions, races and nationalities; 2) comparative study of religions, science and philosophy; 3) the study of the unknown laws of nature and the latent abilities of man.

A great spiritual movement within a few years quickly spread throughout the world and made a real revolution in the minds of people. In India and what was then Ceylon, the Theosophical Society contributed to the revival of Buddhism. Mahatma Gandhi fully shared the idea of ​​society, and it had a great influence on the Indian independence movement. The activities of the society significantly influenced the pragmatic Western culture.

In Russia, Blavatsky's ideas were brilliantly continued by the Roerich couple and Russian cosmic scientists Tsiolkovsky, Chizhevsky, Vernadsky. Members of the Theosophical Society became many people of various nationalities and religions. After all, faith should not divide people.

What is a god? Blavatsky wrote that God is the mystery of cosmic laws, he cannot belong to only one people. Buddha, Christ, Mohammed are the great teachers of mankind. Religious wars are the gravest crime against the laws of the cosmos and against all people. Remission of sins is impossible, they can only be expiated by merciful deeds. Blavatsky's first work, Isis Unveiled, written in 1877, was a resounding success.

Since 1878, Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Olcott have been living and working in India. In the city of Adyar they found

the world-famous headquarters of the Theosophical Society. It still remains the center of philosophers all over the world. But it was in India that the persecution of Blavatsky began. It was deployed by Christian missionaries, whom Elena Petrovna criticized more than once.

Blavatsky suffered from this, she was constantly ill and more than once was close to death. But Elena Petrovna was not afraid of death - she had not yet done everything for which she was sent to Earth. “There is no death,” Blavatsky wrote, “man continues to be the same. After death, the soul plunges into sleep, and then, waking up, goes either to the world of the living, if it is still attracted there, or to other, more developed worlds ... ".

Blavatsky is declared the swindler of the century. This is due to the verdict issued by the London Society for Psychical Research, published in 1885. Blavatsky was accused of being a complete fabrication of her great teachers. They were accused of many other, equally ridiculous sins. Upon learning of all this, the Indians bombarded her with letters. There was also a message from Indian scientists with seventy signatures: “We are surprised to read the report of the London Society. We dare to say that the existence of the Mahatmas is unthinkable. Our great-great-grandfathers, who lived long before the birth of Madame Blavatsky, communicated with them. And now there are people in India who are in constant contact with the teachers. Society has made a gross mistake by blaming "Madame Blavatsky".

But it took a whole hundred years for this mistake to be corrected. It was not until 1986 that a report was published by the London Society for Psychical Research on Blavatsky's activities. It began with the words: "According to the latest research, Madame Blavatsky was condemned unjustly ...". However, for a hundred years there have been enough fabrications on the subject of Blavatsky. Surprisingly, her Russian opponents did their best. It even got to the point that she was accused of murder, witchcraft and deviation from the foundations of Christianity.

She left India in 1884. Morally tired and terminally ill. She found her final resting place in England. Here in London, Blavatsky completes the main work of her life, The Secret Doctrine. This book gives such a synthesis of the teachings of different peoples, presents such a scope of knowledge that scientists of that time did not possess. Amazingly, two huge volumes of The Secret Doctrine were written within two years. Only a large team of researchers can do such work, and these books were written by a woman who did not even have a special education.

Published in 1888, The Secret Doctrine became the reference book of the most progressive scientists. Students and faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States and professors at the New York Harvard Club have been researching The Secret Doctrine for decades. The fact is that in this book Blavatsky predicted many discoveries in astronomy, astrophysics and many other sciences. Here is an example of a confirmed revelation: “The sun contracts as rhythmically as the human heart. It takes 11 years for this solar blood alone.” In the 20th century, this solar pulse was discovered by Alexander Chizhevsky.

Blavatsky's popularity in Russia, unfortunately, is not great. Although in America and Europe she is much more respected. Her works were studied by Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and many other scientists. Blavatsky explains the riddle of humanoid aliens and their mysterious appearances and disappearances as follows: “There are millions and millions of worlds invisible to us. They are with us, inside our own world. Their inhabitants can pass through us as you pass through empty space. Their dwellings and countries are intertwined with ours, and yet they do not interfere with our vision.”

“No great truth has ever been accepted by contemporaries, and it usually takes a century, or even two, before it is accepted by scientists. So my work will be justified in part or in whole in the 20th century ... ”, Blavatsky wrote prophetically in the second volume of The Secret Doctrine. Indeed, what Blavatsky wrote about found understanding a hundred years later. Elena Petrovna died in England in 1891, having almost completed work on The Secret Doctrine. This extraordinary woman fulfilled her mission. She conveyed the great ideas of Shambhala to the pragmatic consciousness of man.

Helena Blavatsky can be called one of the most influential women in world history. She was called the "Russian Sphinx"; she opened Tibet to the world and "seduced" the Western intelligentsia with occult sciences and Eastern philosophy.

Noblewoman from Rurikovich

Blavatsky's maiden name is von Hahn. Her father belonged to the family of the hereditary Macklenburg princes Gahn von Rotenstern-Gan. Through her grandmother, Blavatsky's genealogy goes back to the princely family of Rurikovich.

Blavatsky's mother, novelist Elena Andreevna Gan, Vissarion Belinsky called "Russian George Sand"

The future "modern Isis" was born on the night of July 30-31, 1831 (according to the old style) in Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk). In her childhood memoirs, she wrote sparingly: “My childhood? It contains pampering and leprosy on the one hand, punishments and bitterness on the other. Endless illnesses until the age of seven or eight ... Two governesses - a Frenchwoman Madame Peigne and Miss Augusta Sophia Jeffreys, an old maid from Yorkshire. Several nannies... My father's soldiers took care of me. My mother died when I was a child."

Blavatsky received an excellent education at home, learned several languages ​​as a child, studied music in London and Paris, was a good rider, and drew well.

All these skills later came in handy during her wanderings: she gave piano concerts, worked in the circus, made paints and made artificial flowers.

Blavatsky and ghosts

Blavatsky, even as a child, was different from her peers. She often told the household that she sees various strange creatures, hears the sounds of mysterious bells. She was especially impressed by the majestic Hindu, who was not noticed by others. He, according to her, appeared to her in dreams. She called him the Keeper and said that he saves her from all troubles.

As Elena Petrovna would write later, it was Mahatma Moriah, one of her spiritual teachers. She met him "live" in 1852 in London's Hyde Park. Countess Constance Wachtmeister, widow of the Swedish ambassador in London, according to Blavatsky, gave details of the conversation in which the Master said that he "required her participation in the work that he was going to undertake", and also that "she would have to spend three years in Tibet to prepare for this important task."

Traveler

Helena Blavatsky's habit of moving was formed during her childhood. Due to the official position of the father, the family often had to change their place of residence. After the death of her mother in 1842 from consumption, the upbringing of Elena and her sisters was taken over by her grandparents.

At the age of 18, Elena Petrovna was engaged to the 40-year-old vice-governor of the Erivan province, Nikifor Vasilyevich Blavatsky, but 3 months after the wedding, Blavatsky ran away from her husband.

Her grandfather sent her to her father with two escorts, but Elena managed to escape from them too. From Odessa, on the English sailing ship Commodore, Blavatsky sailed to Kerch, and then to Constantinople.

Of her marriage, Blavatsky later wrote: "I got engaged to take revenge on my governess, not thinking that I could not cancel the betrothal, but karma followed my mistake."

After fleeing from her husband, the story of the wanderings of Helena Blavatsky began. Their chronology is difficult to restore, since she herself did not keep diaries and none of her relatives was near her.

In just the years of her life, Blavatsky twice traveled around the world, was in Egypt, and in Europe, and in Tibet, and in India, and in South America. In 1873, she was the first Russian woman to receive American citizenship.

Theosophical Society

On November 17, 1875, the Theosophical Society was founded in New York by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Olcott. Blavatsky had already returned from Tibet, where she claimed to have been blessed by the mahatmas and lamas to pass on spiritual knowledge to the world.

The tasks at its creation were stated as follows: 1. Creation of the core of the Ecumenical Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, religion, sex, caste or skin color. 2. Promoting the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science. 3. The study of the unexplained laws of Nature and the forces hidden in man.

Blavatsky wrote in her diary that day: “A child has been born. Hosanna!".

Elena Petrovna wrote that “members of the Society retain complete freedom of religious beliefs and, entering the society, promise the same tolerance towards any other conviction and belief. Their connection is not in common beliefs, but in a common striving for Truth.

In September 1877, at the New York publishing house J.W. Bouton "a, the first monumental work of Helena Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, was published, and the first edition of a thousand copies was sold out within two days.

Opinions about Blavatsky's book were polar. Blavatsky's work was called "a big platter of leftovers" in The Republican, "discarded garbage" in The Sun, and the New York Tribune reviewer wrote: author's awareness.

However, the Theosophical Society continued to expand, in 1882 its headquarters was moved to India.

In 1879, the first issue of The Theosophist was published in India. In 1887, the Lucifer magazine began to be published in London, 10 years later it was renamed The Theosophical Review.

At the time of Blavatsky's death, the Theosophical Society had over 60,000 members. This organization had a great influence on social thought, it consisted of prominent people of their time, from the inventor Thomas Edison to the poet William Yeats.

Despite the ambiguity of Blavatsky's ideas, in 1975 the government of India issued a commemorative stamp dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Theosophical Society. The stamp depicts the seal of the Society and its motto: "There is no religion higher than truth."

Blavatsky and race theory

One of the controversial and controversial ideas in Blavatsky's work is the concept of the evolutionary cycle of races, part of which is set forth in the second volume of The Secret Doctrine.

Some researchers believe that the theory of races "from Blavatsky" was taken as a basis by the ideologists of the Third Reich.

American historians Jackson Speilvogel and David Redles wrote about this in their work Hitler's Racial Ideology: Content and Occult Roots.

In the second volume of The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky wrote: “Humanity is clearly divided into God-inspired people and lower beings. The difference in intelligence between the Aryans and other civilized peoples, and such savages as the South Sea Islanders, cannot be explained by any other cause.<…>The "Holy Spark" is absent in them, and only they are now the only lower races on this Planet, and fortunately - thanks to the wise balance of Nature, which is constantly working in this direction - they are quickly dying out.

Theosophists themselves, however, argue that Blavatsky in her works had in mind not anthropological types, but the stages of development through which all human souls pass.

Blavatsky, quackery and plagiarism

To draw attention to her work, Helena Blavatsky demonstrated her superpowers: letters from friends and teacher Kuta Hoomi fell from the ceiling of her room; the objects that she held in her hand disappeared, and then ended up in places where she had not been at all.

A commission was sent to check her abilities. A report published in 1885 by the London Society for Psychical Research said that Blavatsky was "the most learned, witty, and interesting liar that history knows." After the exposure, Blavatsky's popularity began to wane, and many of the Theosophical Societies broke up.

Helena Blavatsky's cousin, Sergei Witte, wrote about her in his memoirs:

“Telling unprecedented things and untruths, she, apparently, herself was sure that what she was saying really was, that it was true - therefore I cannot but say that there was something demonic in her, what was in her, simply saying something devilish, although, in essence, she was a very gentle, kind person.

In 1892-1893, the novelist Vsevolod Solovyov published a series of essays on meetings with Blavatsky under the general title "Modern Priestess of Isis" in the Russkiy Vestnik magazine. “In order to control people, it is necessary to deceive them,” Elena Petrovna advised him. “I have long understood these darlings of people, and their stupidity sometimes gives me great pleasure ... The simpler, stupider and cruder the phenomenon, the more surely it succeeds.”
Solovyov called this woman a "catcher of souls" and mercilessly exposed her in his book. As a result of his efforts, the Paris branch of the Theosophical Society ceased to exist.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky died on May 8, 1891. Her health was negatively affected by constant smoking - she smoked up to 200 cigarettes a day. After her death, she was burned, and the ashes were divided into three parts: one part of it remained in London, the other in New York, and the third in Adyar. Blavatsky's commemoration day is called White Lotus Day.

“Some Fragmentary Thoughts on...” Blavatskaya Elena Petrovna

the topic is complex, for those who understand what is at stake... this is an eternal dispute between Buddhism and Kabbalism about God, the Devil, life and death...

from correspondence

To the editor of The Theosophist

"Madame, Since you have published a posthumous letter from my Master and dear friend, the late Eliphas Levi, I believe that you might print, if you think it possible, some excerpts from the many manuscripts in my possession, written especially for me and transmitted to me by my A teacher whose passing I never cease to regret.

To begin with, I am sending you Some fragmentary thoughts about death and Satan, which came out from under his pen.
I cannot end this letter without expressing the deep indignation which has arisen in me at the sight of the base denunciations published in the London issue of the Spiritualist against your Society and its members. Every sincere person revolts at such unfair treatment, especially when it comes from such a noble person as Mr. Harrison (editor of the Spiritualist), who accepts anonymous articles in his journal, which is tantamount to publishing slander.
With the greatest respect, I remain devoted to you, madam,
Baron J. Spadalieri."

response to H. P. Blavatsky

"In every human creation there lies latent in the involuntary part of the being a sufficient amount of the omniscient, the absolute. In order to call up the hidden absolute, which is the involuntary part of our arbitrary conscious being, to make it manifest, it is essential that the arbitrary part of our being become hidden .

After a preliminary cleansing of acquired depravity, a kind of self-concentration is necessary; the involuntary must become voluntary through the voluntary becoming involuntary. When the conscious becomes semi-conscious, then what was at first unconscious to us becomes fully conscious.

The part of the omniscient that is within us, the vital and growing, restless, involuntary, occult or feminine principle, is allowed to express itself in the voluntary, rational, manifested, or male part of the human being, while the latter remains in a state of perfect passivity, the two originally separated the parts are reunited as one holy (totally) perfect being, and then divine manifestation is inevitable."

This is how Madame Blavatsky responded ironically and pompously to the equally high-flown utterance of J.K., the self-proclaimed Adept of London, whose anonymous and helpless abuse of the Theosophical Society and its members is rightly called Baron Spadalieri, which is tantamount to slander. This J.K. is a follower of Eliphas Levi, who was a learned cabalist and occultist. It must be said that HPB, to put it mildly, did not like the Kabbalists, as, indeed, the Christian Church, and "fought" with them with a pen and a sword...

and that the thought of H. P. Blavatsky on death and Satan may be understood, I will first quote the statements of this Mr. Spadalieri, to which she answered him in her journal The Theosophist.

_________________

Eliphas Levy(Alphonse Louis Constant 1810-1875)

Written by (late) Eliphas Levi

"Death is the necessary dissolution of imperfect combinations. It is the reabsorption of the gross outline of individual life into the great work of universal life; only the perfect is immortal.
This is the bath of oblivion. It is the fountain of youth, into which, on the one hand, old age sinks, and from which, on the other hand, infancy emerges.<<1>> (note by Blavatsky at the bottom of the article)

Death is the transformation of the living; corpses are but dead leaves on the Tree of Life, which will yet unfold all its leaves in the spring. The resurrection of people forever reminds of these leaves.
Perishable forms are conditioned by imperishable prototypes.

All those who have lived on earth still live in new copies of their prototypes, but souls who have transcended their prototypes receive elsewhere a new form based on a more perfect type, as they eternally ascend the ladder of worlds;<<2>> bad specimens are destroyed, and their substance is returned to the general mass.<<3>>

Our souls are, as it were, music, and our bodies are instruments for it. Music exists without instruments, but it cannot be heard without a material medium; the immaterial can neither be comprehended nor comprehended.

Man in his present existence remembers and retains only some of the predispositions of his past existences.

The invocations of the dead are only the compaction of memory, the imaginary coloring of shadows. To summon those who are no longer here is only to force their prototypes to reappear from the imagination of nature.<<4>>
To be in direct communion with the imagination of nature, one must be either in a state of sleep, intoxication, ecstasy or catalepsy, or insanity.

Eternal memory preserves only the imperishable; everything that is subject to Time is rightfully subject to oblivion.
The preservation of corpses is a violation of the laws of nature; it is an insult to the decency of death, which hides its work of destruction just as we hide our acts of reproduction. To preserve corpses is to create ghosts in the imagination of the earth;<<5>> ghosts of nightmares, hallucinations and fears are just amazing photographs of preserved corpses.

It is these preserved or badly destroyed corpses that spread plague, cholera, contagious diseases, despondency, skepticism and disappointment in life among living people.<<6>> Death is depleted by death. Cemetery poisons of the urban atmosphere and the miasma of corpses poison children even in the womb of their mothers.

Near Jerusalem, in the valley of Gehenna, a constant fire was maintained to burn the remains and skeletons of animals, and it is this eternal fire that Jesus refers to when he says that sinners will burn in ~Gehenna~, implying that the souls of the dead will be treated just like their bodies.
The Talmud says that the souls of those who did not believe in immortality will not become immortal. Faith alone gives personal immortality;<<7>> science and reason can only assert total immortality.

Mortal sin is the suicide of the soul. This suicide occurs when a man devotes himself to the service of evil with all the power of his mind, with perfect knowledge of good and evil, and complete freedom of action, which seems impossible in practice, but is possible in theory, because the essence of independent individuality is unlimited freedom. The Divine does not impose anything on man, not even existence. Man has the right even to withdraw from divine goodness, and the dogma of hellfire is but an affirmation of eternal free will.

God does not cast anyone into hell. This person is free to go there, irrevocably, definitively, and of his own choice.
Those who are in hell, that is, so to speak, in the darkness of evil<<8>> and the suffering of inevitable punishment, not wanting it at all, are called to get out of there. This hell is only purgatory for them. Cursed forever, absolutely and without any delay, is Satan, who is not something rationally existing, but simply a necessary hypothesis.
Satan is the last word of creation. He is the end of the infinitely liberated. He desired to be equal to God, of whom he is an adversary. God is the hypothesis necessary for reason, Satan the hypothesis necessary for recklessness asserting itself as free will.

In order to be immortal in goodness, one must identify oneself with God; to be immortal in evil with Satan. These are the two poles in the world of souls; Between these two poles, the useless part of humanity vegetates and dies without any memory.

Blavatsky's answer to H.P.

"This may seem incomprehensible to the average reader, for it is one of the more difficult teachings of the occult doctrine. Nature is dual: it has both a physical and material side, and a spiritual and moral side; and both good and evil exist in it, and the latter inevitably obscures its light. In order to penetrate the stream of immortality, or rather to achieve an endless series of rebirths in the form of conscious individuals, says the Book of Khiu-te, volume XXXI, one must become a collaborator of nature, either in ~good~ or in ~evil~, in her work of creation and reproduction, or in destruction.

And only useless drones she gets rid of, forcibly expelling them and forcing them to die by the millions as self-conscious beings. Thus, while the good and pure seek to achieve Nipang (nirvana, or that state of ~absolute~ existence and ~absolute~ consciousness which, in the world of finite perception, is ~non-existence and ~non~-consciousness) the sinful , on the contrary, will desire to have a series of lives in the form of conscious, defined existences or beings, preferring to suffer forever under the rule of the law of retributive justice than to give up their lives as parts of a single, universal whole.

Beings are well aware that they can never hope to find ultimate peace in pure spirit or nirvana, and they would rather cling to life in any form than give up this desire for life or tanha, which causes a new aggregate of skandhas to be generated, or individuality. Nature is a kind mother to both the cruel bird of prey and the harmless dove.

Mother Nature will punish her son, but if he becomes her ally in the cause of destruction, she will not be able to expel him. There are such completely depraved and vicious people who yet have the same high-intellectual development and spiritual insight for evil purposes, as those who are spiritual for good. The egos of such people can escape the law of final destruction or annihilation over the centuries.

This is what Eliphas Levi means by those who become immortal in evil through identification with Satan. "I know your deeds; you are neither ~cold~ nor ~hot~", says the ~Revelation~ of St. John (III. 15-16). "But since you are ~warm~, and not hot or cold, I will spew you out of My mouth." ~ Revelation~ is a fully Kabbalistic book. Heat and cold are two poles, that is, good and evil, ~spirit~ and ~matter~. Nature ~spews out~ the warm or useless part of humanity from its mouth, that is, it destroys it.

This notion that a significant portion of humanity may not eventually possess immortal souls will not be new even to European readers. Coleridge himself compared this case to an oak tree, which indeed bears millions of acorns, but of which, under normal conditions, hardly one in a thousand can ever develop into a tree, and suggested that since most acorns are powerless to grow into a new living tree, it is likely that most people will not be able to develop into a new living being after their earthly death.

Satan is just a symbol, not a real character.
This is a type that opposes the Divine type, which necessarily interferes with it in our imagination. It is an artificial shadow that makes visible to us the infinite light of the Divine.
If Satan were a real person, then there would be two Gods and the Manichean faith would be true.
Satan is an imaginary representation of absolute evil; a concept necessary for the full assertion of the freedom of the human will, which, with the help of this imaginary absolute, seems to be able to balance even the combined power of God. This is the most daring, the most impudent and, perhaps, the most sublime dream of human pride.

"You will be like gods, knowing good and evil," says the allegorical serpent in the Bible. Truly, to make evil a science is to create a devil out of God, and if any spirit can constantly resist God, then there is no longer one God, but there are two Gods.

Infinite force is needed to resist the Infinite, and two infinite forces opposed to one another must cancel each other out.<<9>> If resistance from Satan is possible, then the power of God can no longer exist, God and the Devil destroy each other, and man is left alone; he is left alone with the ghost of his gods, a hybrid sphinx, a winged bull, holding in his human hand a sword, from which flashing lightning bolts lead the imagination of man from one error to another, and from the despotism of light to the despotism of darkness.

The history of earthly calamities and suffering is only a novel about the war of the gods, the war is still not over, while Christians worship God in the Devil, and the Devil in God.

Antagonism of forces is anarchy in dogma. Thus, the church that affirms the existence of the devil, the world responds with terrifying logic: then God does not exist; and it is useless to try to avoid this argument by inventing the supremacy of God, which would allow the Devil to cause people to be damned; this permission would be monstrous and like complicity, and a god who could become an accomplice of the devil could not be God.

The dogmatic Devil is the personification of atheism. The devil in philosophy is an exaggerated ideal of human free will. The real or physical devil is the magnetism of evil.

To invoke the Devil is only to imagine for a moment this imaginary person. This entails that the border of insane depravity is crossed in the ego of a person, and he commits the most criminal and senseless acts.

The consequence of such an act is the death of the soul in madness, and often the death of the body, as if similar to a lightning strike, as a result of a stroke.
The devil always bothers with requests, but never gives anything in return.
Saint John calls him the Beast (la Bete) because his essence is human stupidity(la Betise humaine).
~~~------------

Here is the creed of Eliphas Levi (Bonae Memoriae) and his disciples...

We believe in God - the Principle, the essence of all that exists, all goodness and all justice, inseparable from nature, which is its law, and which reveals itself through reason and love.
We believe in humanity, the daughter of God, all members of which are inextricably linked with each other, so that all people should cooperate in the salvation of each, and each in the salvation of all.
We believe that in order to serve the Divine essence, it is necessary to serve humanity.
We believe in the correction of evil and in the victory of good in eternal life.

Blavatsky's explanation:

<<1>> Rebirth ~ego~ after death. The Eastern, and especially the Buddhist, doctrine of the evolution of the new ego from the old ego. Ed. Theosophist.

<<2>> From one loka to another, from the positive world of causes and activity to the negative world of effects and passivity. Ed. Theosophist.

<<3>> into cosmic matter, when they necessarily lose their self-consciousness or individuality, or are destroyed, as Eastern Kabbalists say. Ed. Theosophist.

<<4>> Passionately wishing to see a dead person, one should ~cause~ the image of this person, call him from the astral light or ether, in which images of the ~Past~ remain imprinted. This is exactly what is partly done in the séance rooms. Spiritualists are unconscious NECROMANCERS. Ed. Theosophist.

<<5>> Enhance these images in astral or starlight. Ed. Theosophist.

<<6>> People are beginning to intuitively realize the great truth, and in many countries of Europe today are societies in defense of the burning of bodies and ~crematoriums~. Ed. Theosophist.

<<7>> Faith and ~willpower~. Immortality is conditional, as we have always stated. This is the reward of the pure and the good. A sinful person, a person who is carried away by the sensual and material, only survives. One who values ​​only physical pleasures does not and ~cannot~ live in the afterlife as a self-conscious being. Ed. Theosophist.

<<8>> - ?
<<9>> And, since evil is infinite and eternal, because it is contemporary with matter, then the logical conclusion would be that there is neither God nor the Devil as personal beings, but there is only One Uncreated, Infinite, Unchanging and Absolute principle or Law: this is EVIL, or DEVIL, the deeper he plunges into matter, and GOOD or GOD, as soon as he is cleared of the latter and again becomes pure unclouded Spirit or ABSOLUTE in his eternal, immutable Subjectivity. Ed. Theosophist.

The Theosophist, October 1881

catch the difference?

original article on the site

E.P. Blavatsky

In a very old letter from the Master, written many years ago and addressed to a member of the Theosophical Society, we find the following instructive lines concerning the mental state of a dying person:

At the last moment, all life is reflected in our memory: from all the forgotten corners and nooks and crannies, picture after picture emerges, one event after another. The dying brain drives the memory out of its lair with a powerful, irresistible impulse, and the memory conscientiously reproduces every impression given to it for storage during the active activity of the brain. That impression and thought which proves to be the strongest naturally becomes the most vivid and overshadows, so to speak, all the others, which disappear, only to reappear in Devachan. No man dies in a state of madness or unconsciousness, contrary to the claims of some physiologists. Even an insane person or one who is seized with a delirium tremens attack has his moment of clearing his consciousness at the moment of death, he is simply not able to tell others about it. Often a person only seems to be dead. But even between the last pulsation of blood, the last beat of the heart and the moment when the last spark of animal warmth leaves the body, the brain thinks and the ego relives its whole life in these short seconds. Speak in a whisper - you who are present at the deathbed, for you are present at the solemn appearance of death. You should be especially calm immediately after Death seizes the body with his cold hand.

Speak in a whisper, I repeat, so as not to disturb the calm flow of thought and prevent the active work of the Past, projecting its shadow on the screen of the Future ...

Against the above opinion, materialists have repeatedly come out with active protests. Biology and (scientific) psychology insisted on rejecting this idea; and if the latter (psychology) did not have any proven facts to support its own hypotheses, then the former (biology) simply dismissed it as an empty "superstition". But progress does not bypass even biology; and this is what her latest discoveries testify to. Not so long ago, Dr. Ferret presented to the Biological Society of Paris a most curious report on the mental state of the dying, brilliantly confirming everything that was said in the above quotation. For Dr. Ferre draws the attention of biologists precisely to the amazing phenomenon of memories of a life lived and the collapse of the blank walls of memory that for a long time hid the long-forgotten "nooks and crannies" that are now emerging "picture after picture".

It is enough for us to mention only two examples that this scholar gives in his report to prove how scientifically sound are the teachings that we receive from our Eastern Masters.

The first example is connected with a man who died of consumption. His illness was exacerbated by a spinal injury. He had already passed out, but with two successive injections of a gram of ether, he was brought back to life. The sick man slightly raised his head and spoke quickly in Flemish, a language that neither those present nor the dying man himself understood. And when he was offered a pencil and a piece of cardboard, he sketched out a few words in the same language with amazing speed, and, as it turned out later, without a single mistake. When the inscription was finally translated, it turned out that its meaning was very prosaic. The dying man suddenly remembered that since 1868, that is, for more than twenty years, he owed fifteen francs to a certain person, and asked that they be returned to him.

But why did he write his last will in Flemish? The deceased was a native of Antwerp, but as a child he changed both the city and the country, without having time to really learn the local language. All his later life he lived in Paris and could speak and write only in French. It is quite obvious that the memories that returned to him - the last flash of consciousness that unfolded before him, like a retrospective panorama, his whole life, down to a trifling episode concerning a few francs borrowed from a friend twenty years ago, did not come only from the physical brain, but mainly from his spiritual memory - from the memory of the higher Ego (Manas, or reincarnating individuality). And the fact that he began to speak and write in Flemish - a language that he could hear in his life only when he himself could hardly speak - serves as additional confirmation of our correctness. In its immortal nature, the Ego knows almost everything.. For matter is nothing but "the last stage and shadow of existence," as Ravesson of the French Institute tells us.

Let's move on to the second example.

Another patient was dying of pulmonary tuberculosis and in the same way was brought back to consciousness before death by an injection of ether. He turned his head, looked at his wife and quickly said to her: "You will not find this pin now, since then all floors have been changed." The phrase referred to a scarf pin that had been lost eighteen years earlier, an event so insignificant that he could hardly remember it. Even such a trifle did not fail to flash in the last vision of the dying man, who managed to comment on what he saw in words before his breath stopped. Thus, it can be assumed that all the countless thousands of everyday events and incidents of a long human life flash before the fading consciousness at the very last and decisive moment of disappearance. In a single second, a person re-lives his entire previous life!

A third example can be mentioned, which convincingly proves the correctness of occultism, which raises all such memories to the thinking ability of the individual, and not to the personal (lower) ego. One young girl, who walked in her sleep until almost the age of twenty-two, was able to perform, while in a state of somnambulistic sleep, a wide variety of housework, which she could not remember anything about after waking up.

Among the psychic dispositions which she exhibited during sleep was a marked secretiveness, quite uncharacteristic of her in the waking state. When she was awake, she was quite open and sociable, and cared little for her property. But in a somnambulistic state, she used to hide her own and things that simply fell into her hand, and she did this with great ingenuity. Her relatives and friends knew about this habit, and even two servants specially hired to look after her during her nightly walks. They did this work for years and knew that the girl never created serious problems: only trifling things disappeared, which were then easy to return to their place. But one hot night, the maid dozed off, and the girl, getting out of bed, went to her father's office. The latter was a well-known notary and had a habit of working late. Just at that moment, he was absent for a short while, and the somnambulist, entering the room, deliberately stole from his desktop the will lying on it and a rather large sum of money, several thousand, in banknotes and bonds. She hid the stolen things in the library inside two hollow columns stylized as solid oak trunks, returned to her room before her father returned and went to bed without disturbing the maid dozing in the chair.

And as a result, the maid stubbornly denied that her young mistress had ever left her room at night, and the suspicion was removed from the real culprit, and the money could not be returned. In addition, the loss of the will, which was supposed to appear in court, practically ruined her father and deprived him of his good name, thereby plunging the entire family into real poverty. Approximately nine years later, the girl, who by that time had been rid of the habit of walking in her sleep for seven years, caught consumption, from which she eventually died. And on her deathbed, when the veil that previously hid her somnambulistic experiences from physical memory finally fell off, divine intuition awakened, and the pictures of her life lived in a swift stream poured before her inner vision, she saw, among others, the scene of her somnambulistic theft. At the same time, she woke up from an oblivion in which she had been staying for several hours in a row, her face was distorted by a grimace of terrible emotional experience, and she screamed: “What have I done?! It was I who took the will and the money... Look at the empty columns in the library; it's me...” She never finished the sentence, as the very outburst of emotion ended her life. However, the search was still made, and inside the oak columns - where she said, a will and money were found. This case seems even more strange due to the fact that the mentioned columns were so high that, even standing on a chair and having much more time left than the few seconds that the sleeping kidnapper had, she still could not reach them. tops to lower the stolen into their inner emptiness. In this connection, it can be noted that people who are in a state of ecstasy or frenzy seem to have anomalous abilities (See: Convulsionnaires de St. Medard et de Morzine) - can climb even sheer walls and jump even to the tops of trees.

If all these facts are accepted as they are, do they not convince that the lunatic has a mind and memory of his own, separate from the physical memory of the waking lower Entity, and that it is the former that are responsible for the memories in articulo mortis, since the body and the physical senses in this case, they gradually fade away, ceasing to function, the mind is steadily moving away along the psychic path, and it is the spiritual consciousness that lasts the longest of all? Why not? After all, even materialistic science is beginning to recognize many psychological facts that vainly demanded attention some twenty years ago. "True existence," says Ravesson, "life, before which all other life seems only a dim outline and a faint reflection, is the life of the Soul."

What the public usually calls "soul" we call "reborn ego". “To be is to live, and to live is to think and exercise will,” says this French scientist. But if the physical brain is really only a limited space, a sphere serving to capture the impetuous flashes of unlimited and infinite thought, then neither will nor thinking can be said to originate inside the brain, even from the point of view of materialistic science (remember the unbridgeable abyss between matter and mind, the existence of which was recognized by Tyndall and many others). And the thing is that the human brain is just a channel connecting two levels, psycho-spiritual and material; and through this channel all abstract and metaphysical ideas seep from the level of Manas into the lower human consciousness. Consequently, no conception of the infinite and the absolute enters and cannot enter our brain, because it exceeds its capacity. These categories can truly reflect only our spiritual consciousness, which then transfers their more or less distorted and dimmed projections to the tablets of our perceptions of the physical level. So, even memories of important events in our life often fall out of memory, but all of them, including the most insignificant trifles, are stored in the memory of the “soul”, because for it there is no memory at all, but only an ever-present reality at a level that surpasses ours. ideas about space and time. “Man is the measure of all things,” said Aristotle; and, of course, by this he did not mean the external form of a person, molded from flesh, bones and muscles!

Of all the great thinkers, Edgar Quinet - the author of "La Creation" - expresses this idea most clearly. Speaking of a person full of feelings and thoughts, which he himself does not even suspect or only vaguely perceives as some kind of fuzzy and incomprehensible motivating impulses, Kine argues that a person is aware of only a very small part of his own moral being. “Thoughts that come to our minds, but do not receive due recognition and formalization, once rejected, find refuge in the very foundations of our being ...” And when they are driven away by the persistent efforts of our will, “they retreat even further and even deeper - God knows in what fibers to reign there and gradually influence us, unconsciously for ourselves ... "

Yes, these thoughts become as imperceptible and inaccessible to us as the vibrations of sound and light, when they go beyond the range available to us. Invisible and avoiding our attention, they nevertheless continue to work, laying the foundation for our future thoughts and actions and gradually establishing their control over us, although we ourselves may not think about them at all and not even suspect their existence and presence. And it seems that Kine, this great connoisseur of Nature, in his observations was never closer to the truth than when, speaking of the secrets surrounding us on all sides, he made the following thoughtful conclusion, which is the most important thing for us: These are not the secrets of heaven or earth, but those that are hidden in the depths of our soul, in our brain cells, our nerves and fibers. There is no need, - he adds, - in search of the unknown to go deep into the star worlds, while right here - next to us and in us - much remains inaccessible ... As our world consists mainly of invisible beings who are true builders its continents, so is man."

It is true, as soon as a person is a mixture of unconscious and incomprehensible perceptions, vague feelings and emotions that come from nowhere, eternally unreliable memory and knowledge, which on the surface of his level turns into ignorance. But if the memory of a living and healthy person often turns out to be not up to par, since one fact in it is superimposed on another, suppressing and displacing the first, then at the moment of the great change that people call death, what we consider "memory" seems to return to us in all its power and fullness.

And how else can this be explained, if not by the simple fact that both our memories (or rather, two of its states corresponding to the higher and lower states of consciousness) merge together - at least for a few seconds, forming a single whole, and that the dying person is moving to a level where there is neither past nor future, but only one all-encompassing present? Memory, as we all know, is strengthened by earlier associations, and therefore becomes stronger with age than, say, in infancy; and it is more connected with the soul than with the body. But if memory is a part of our soul, then, as Thackeray once rightly noted, it must of necessity be eternal. Scientists deny it, but we Theosophists affirm it. In support of their theories, they can only give negative arguments, but we have countless facts in our arsenal, like the three that we described above as an example. The chain of cause and effect that determines the action of the mind still remains and will always remain terra incognita for the materialist. For if they are so unshakably sure that, following Pope's expression:

Our thoughts, closed in the cells of the brain, rest;

But invisible chains always connect them...

- however, to this day they cannot find these chains in any way, then how can they hope to unravel the secrets of the higher, Spiritual Mind!

Footnotes

1. ...In a very old letter from the Master, written many years ago and addressed to a member of the Theosophical Society...– H.P.B. refers to a letter from Master Koot Hoomi received by A. P. Sinnett around October 1882 while he was in Simla, India. This is a very detailed letter containing answers to the questions that Sinnett addressed to the Master. These questions and answers from the Master are printed in Mahatma Letters to AP Sinnett. Sinnett asks:

   “16) You say: “Remember that we create ourselves – our Devachan and our Avichi, and for the most part – during the last days and even moments of our sensual lives.”

   17) Does it mean that the thoughts that come to a person at the last moment are necessarily connected with the prevailing direction of the life he has lived? For, otherwise, the character of a personal Devachan or Avichi may be determined by the whim of chance, unjustly bringing some extraneous thought as the last?

   To this the Teacher replies:

   “16) It is widely believed among all Hindus that the future state of a person before a new birth and birth itself are determined by his last desire experienced at the time of death. But this dying desire, they add, necessarily depends on the images that a person has given to his desires, passions, etc., during his past life. For this very reason, namely, that our last desire does not harm our future progress, we must watch our actions and control our passions and desires all the time of our earthly life.

   17) It simply cannot be otherwise. The experience of dying people who drowned or survived some other accident, but were brought back to life, confirms our doctrine in almost all cases. Such thoughts are involuntary, and we have no more power to prevent them than to prevent the retina from perceiving the color that most actively affects it. (See Letters of the Mahatmas to Sinnett. - Samara: Agni, 1998.)

2. 2. ...See: Convulsionnaires de St. Medard et de Morline...– It is quite possible that this French reference refers to de Mirville's "Des Esprits, etc." in that part of it which is dedicated to the possessed; however, this assumption has not yet been confirmed for certain.
3. 3. Rapport sur la Philosophic en France au XlXme Steele.
4. 4 Vol. II, r. 377-78.