London Lectures of 1907 by Annie Besant (books to read for beginners txt) 📖

similar in nature to the problems that have been presented to our predecessors. Because always, in dealing with the problems of our own time, we are apt to be confused and bewildered by secondary issues that rise up around them, complicating them, perhaps largely clouding them, when we try to understand; whereas if we can catch sight of the underlying principle and study it apart from any difficulties of our own time, we are then able to apply that same principle, as discovered apart from the circumstances of the moment, and in that way there is a hope of applying it more justly amid the more exciting incidents of our own day. And it is that which I want to do in these lectures--to take our movement as a part of a world series, to study the principles that underlie the whole of that series, to trace out the working of these principles amongst the societies that have preceded us in the spiritual world, and then, having grasped them, to apply them to the solution of the problems of our own time. For there is a tendency in the Theosophical Society to narrow itself down to its time, instead of trying to widen out the thought of its time. It is a tendency which we see affecting every religion, every church, every great society, and it is useless to recognise this fact in the history of others unless we apply the fact for instruction in our own.

Now in all the religions of the past, so far as we have any knowledge of them in history or from what are called the "occult records," there is one thing we see in their early days--the presence of happenings regarded as abnormal. I have used the word "phenomena," but it is a very stupid word. One uses it because it is generally used; there is no justification in using that particular word in relation to some outer manifestations rather than to all. Properly speaking, "phenomena," of course, will cover the whole of the objects in the world, in the Not-Self, everything outside the Self; but the word has been narrowed down, especially in our own time, to those occurrences in the world around us, in the Not-Self, which are unusual, which seem to be abnormal, which are the results of laws which are not familiar, and therefore which are regarded by some people as supernatural, by others, speaking more carefully, simply as superphysical. And we lose much by separating off what we call "abnormal" happenings, the so-called "phenomena," from the normal every-day happenings of life. For there is no fundamental difference between them. All planes are equally within the realm of law; all worlds, denser or grosser in material organisation, are equally worlds moving by order and law. There is nothing really abnormal in Nature. Some things happen more seldom than others--are unusual; but the very idea of abnormal seems to me in many respects mischievous and harmful. It is better to look on the whole world-system--universe, call it what you will--as a part of a definite order in which all the things that happen happen by law, in which there no gaps, no abnormalities, but only limitations of our own knowledge at a certain time. All the gaps in Nature are gaps in the knowledge of the observers of Nature. There is nothing miraculous or supernatural, but everything is the orderly product of Nature working along definite lines and guided by definite intelligence.

And one reason why it is so important to recognise this is in order to clear away the atmosphere of wonder, of marvel, of awe, of reverence, that is apt, very much to the detriment of the observers, to enshroud everything unusual, every manifestation of a force with which we are not familiar, everything that in the old days was called "miraculous." And one thing I want strongly to impress upon you is, that in everything that can be called a "phenomenon," you ought to deal with it according to the same laws, according to the same canons of observation, as you deal with the phenomena with which you are most familiar on the physical plane. You should not regard an unusual phenomenon as one which is necessarily to be regarded with reverence in any way. You should not necessarily talk in whispers, when speaking about what we call "phenomena." It is better to talk in your natural voice, and apply your ordinary common sense and the laws of sane judgment in every case. If you do that instead of getting alarmed or astonished, if you will stand on your feet instead of falling on your knees, your study of the other worlds will be more profitable, and the dangers you are likely to meet will be very much diminished.

To come back to the point of the beginnings of all religious movements, we find that all begin in the atmosphere of "phenomena." The divine Man who founds the religion, and those who immediately surround Him, are always people who have a knowledge of more worlds than one. And because they are possessors of that first-hand knowledge, they are able to speak with authority. Now, the authority that should be recognised in all these matters is simply the authority of knowledge.

Another of the difficulties we want to clear away in studying phenomena is the idea that the happening of a certain thing by a law that we do not understand in the realm of matter gives any sort of authority on questions of spiritual knowledge, or gives a person a right to speak with authority on things not concerned with the particular laws under which that phenomena takes place. The mischief of the old idea of miracle was that it was supposed to be a proof, not of knowledge of another world or other forces, but of the title of the miracle-worker to speak with authority on religious and moral questions; while, as a matter of fact, the knowledge of what occurs on the astral plane, the knowledge of what occurs on the mental plane, or the power to utilise the forces of these planes in the production of certain happenings here which are not usual, these things by no means give a man any authority to speak on moral problems or to decide on spiritual questions. That is a matter of the utmost importance, for knowledge of the astral and mental worlds is the same in kind as knowledge of the physical world; and it no more follows that a clairvoyant or clairaudient, or a man who can use any of the powers of subtler planes down here, has more authority on religious and moral questions than a good mathematician, a good electrician, or a good chemist. You are not likely, on the physical plane, to fall into the blunder of thinking that because a man is a good chemist he has authority on moral problems: you will at once see the absurdity. But many of you do not see that the same is true when you deal with good chemists or electricians belonging to the astral or mental planes. They have no more authority _quâ_ their knowledge of these planes than the chemist. I often wish that in the Theosophical Society the old fable of the Jewish Rabbis was better remembered and applied. Two Rabbis were arguing, and one of them, to support his side of the argument, made a wall fall down; whereupon the other Rabbi sensibly remarked: "Since when have walls had a voice in our discussions?" That spirit is of enormous importance, and does not in any sense touch the fact that you find the great Founders of religions and the illuminated men who surrounded them were men who had power to produce phenomena of various kinds, to heal the sick, to make the lame to walk, and so on, and that phenomena always accompanied the great religious Teacher in the past. These things did not give Him His religious authority: they were simply the outcome of His knowledge of natural laws; for a man who is thoroughly spiritual has matter subject to him on every plane in Nature. But it by no means follows that the man who can manipulate matter on the lower planes is therefore able to speak with authority on the higher. The fact that the spiritual man is always a great psychic, always has power to utilise higher forces for controlling physical matter, that fact, while true, does not prove the truth of the opposite idea, that the man who has power over matter is necessarily highly unfolded as regards the spirit. It is true, of course, that the founders of religion were men surrounded with clouds of phenomena, and the reason for that is the one I have just stated: that to the truly spiritual man matter is an obedient servant; to use a quotation from an Indian book: "The truly spiritual man all the siḍḍhis stand ready to serve."

Now it was necessary for the founding of religions and for the teaching of many of the doctrines of religions which had to do with worlds invisible to the physical eye, that the man who first promulgated these doctrines should be a man who had a first-hand acquaintance with the conditions they described. For you must remember that in every religion there are two sides to its teaching: the side of the spiritual truths known only to the unfolded divine consciousness; the side of the existence of other worlds than this, and of the conditions existing in those worlds--important to men, as they have to pass into those worlds after death, important to men also, as much of the symbolism, the rites and ceremonies, are connected with what we may roughly call occult science. As the Buḍḍha said when speaking of worlds beyond the physical: "If you want to know your way to a village and particulars about the village, you ask a man who lives there and who has gone along the roads leading to it: and so you do right to come to me when you want to know about the Ḍevas and about the invisible worlds, for I know those worlds and I know the way thereto." So that looking back to these great spiritual Teachers and Revealers of the unseen, we find they are always men of first-hand knowledge. That first-hand knowledge was shared by Their immediate followers, who carried on the teaching of the system after the Teacher had withdrawn. And it matters not what religion you take, living or dead, you will find it equally true, that phenomena were common in the earlier days of the teaching of that religion.

Now let me take two typical religions, one Eastern and one Western, with regard to the continuance of the phenomena of the earlier days--the Hinḍu religion in the East for the Eastern example, and the Roman Catholic Church in the West for the Western example. In both these great religious movements we find a continuance of phenomena; neither Hinḍuism as typical of Eastern teaching, nor Roman Catholicism as the most widespread form of Christianity in the West, has ever taken up the position that the life which showed itself through the earlier teachers was cut off and no longer irrigated the fields of the religion. On the contrary, you find both these typical religions claiming continuity of life and of knowledge. Amongst the Hinḍus it is a commonplace to assert the possibilities of yoga, that a man can now, as much as in the days of the Manu or of the great Ṛiṣhis, do what They did, can free himself from the physical body, can travel into other worlds of the systems, can acquaint himself with the forces and objects of those worlds, and carry on as definite a study of the Not-Self in those worlds, as anyone who wishes to do so may