ARTICLES
BY H P BLAVATSKY
Black Magic in Science
By
H P Blavatsky
First Published 1890
. . . Commence research
where modern conjecture closes
its faithless wings (Bulwer's Zanoni).
The flat denial of
yesterday has become the scientific axiom of
to-day (Common Sense Aphorisms).
Thousands of years ago
the Phrygian Dactyls, the initiated priests, spoken of as the "magicians
and exorcists of sickness," healed diseases by magnetic processes. It was
claimed that they had obtained these curative powers from the powerful breath
of Cybele, the many-breasted goddess, the daughter of
Cœlus and Terra. Indeed, her genealogy and the myths
attached to it show Cybele as the personification and
type of the vital essence, whose source was located by the ancients between the
Earth and the starry sky, and who was regarded as the very fons
vitæ of all that lives and breathes. The mountain air
being placed nearer to that fount fortifies health and prolongs man's
existence; hence, Cybele's life, as an infant, is
shown in her myth as having been preserved on a mountain. This was before that
Magna and Bona Dea, the prolific Mater, became
transformed into Ceres-Demeter, the patroness of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Animal magnetism (now
called Suggestion and Hypnotism) was the principal agent in theurgic
mysteries as also in the Asclepieia – the healing
temples of Æsculapius, where the patients once
admitted were treated, during the process of "incubation,"
magnetically, during their sleep.
This creative and
life-giving Force – denied and laughed at when named theurgic
magic, accused for the last century of being principally based on superstition
and fraud, whenever referred to as mesmerism – is now called Hypnotism, Charcotism, Suggestion, "psychology," and what
not. But, whatever the expression chosen, it will ever be a loose one if used
without a proper qualification. For when epitomized with all its collateral
sciences – which are all sciences within the science – it will be found to
contain possibilities the nature of which has never been even dreamt of by the
oldest and most learned professors of the orthodox physical science. The
latter, "authorities" so-called, are no better, indeed, than innocent
bald infants, when brought face to face with the mysteries of antediluvian
"mesmerism." As stated repeatedly before, the blossoms of magic, whether
white or black, divine or infernal, spring all from one root. The "breath
of Cybele" – Akâsa tattwa, in
The key to the very
alphabet of these theurgic powers was lost after the
last gnostic had been hunted to death by the
ferocious persecution of the Church; and as gradually Mysteries, Hierophants, Theophany and Theurgy became
obliterated from the minds of men until they remained in them only as a vague
tradition, all this was finally forgotten. But at the period of the
Renaissance, in
In the large curative
establishment founded by Mesmer at
In 1774 he too happened
to come across the theurgic secret of direct vital
transmission; and so highly interested was he, that he abandoned all his old
methods to devote himself entirely to the new discovery. Henceforward he mesmerised by gaze and passes, the natural magnets being
abandoned. The mysterious effects of such manipulations were called by him –
animal magnetism. This brought to Mesmer a mass of
followers and disciples. The new force was experimented with in almost every city
and town of
About 1780, Mesmer settled in Paris, and soon the whole metropolis, from the Royal family down to the last hysterical bourgeoise, were at his feet. The clergy got
frightened and cried – "the Devil"! The licensed "leeches"
felt an ever-growing deficit in their pockets; and the aristocracy and the
Court found themselves on the verge of madness from mere excitement. No use
repeating too well-known facts, but the memory of the reader may be refreshed
with a few details he may have forgotten.
It so happened
that just about that time the official Academical
Science felt very proud. After centuries of mental stagnation in the realm of
medicine and general ignorance, several determined steps in the direction of
real knowledge had finally been made. Natural sciences had achieved a decided
success, and chemistry and physics were on a fair way to progress. As the
Savants of a century ago had not yet grown to that height of sublime modesty
which characterizes so pre-eminently their modern successors – they felt very
much puffed up with their greatness. The moment for praiseworthy humility,
followed by a confession of the relative insignificance of the knowledge of the
period – and even of modern knowledge for the matter of that – compared to that
which the ancients knew, had not yet arrived. Those were days of naive boasting
of the peacocks of science displaying in a body their tails, and demanding
universal recognition and admiration.
The Sir Oracles were not
as numerous as they are now, yet their number was considerable. And indeed, had
not the Dulcamaras of public fairs been just visited
with ostracism? Had not the leeches well nigh disappeared to make room for
diploma-ed physicians with royal licenses to kill and bury a piacere ad libitum? Hence, the
nodding "Immortal" in his academical chair
was regarded as the sole competent authority in the decision of questions he
had never studied, and for rendering verdicts about that which he had never
heard of. It was the REIGN OF REASON, and of Science – in its teens; the
beginning of the great deadly struggle between Theology and Facts, Spirituality
and Materialism.
In the educated classes
of Society too much faith had been succeeded by no faith at all The cycle of
Science-worship had just set in, with its pilgrimages to the Academy, the
Olympus where the "Forty Immortals" are enshrined, and its raids upon
every one who refused to manifest a noisy admiration, a kind of juvenile calf's
enthusiasm, at the door of the Fane of Science. When Mesmer
arrived,
But there were minds
which would not be satisfied with either of these
beliefs. Therefore, after Mesmer had forced all
This was in 1784. Every
one knows what was the report of the latter and the
final decision of the Academy. The whole transaction looks now like a general
rehearsal of the play, one of the acts of which was performed by the
"Dialectical Society" of
Indeed, notwithstanding
a counter report by Dr. Jussieu, an Academician of
the highest rank, and the Court physician D'Eslon,
who, as eye-witnesses to the most striking phenomena, demanded that a careful
investigation should be made by the Medical Faculty of the therapeutic effects
of the magnetic fluid – their demand fell through. The Academy disbelieved her
most eminent Scientists. Even Sir B. Franklin, so much at home with cosmic
electricity, would not recognize its fountain head and primordial source, and
along with Bailly, Lavoisier,
Magendie, and others, proclaimed Mesmerism a
delusion. Nor had the second investigation which followed the first – namely in
1825 – any better results. The report was once more squashed (vide "
Even now when experiment
has amply demonstrated that
"Mesmerism" or
animal magnetism, now known as hypnotism (a sorry effect, forsooth, of the
"Breath of Cybele") is a fact, we yet get
the majority of scientists denying its actual existence. Small fry as it is in
the majestic array of experimental psycho-magnetic phenomena,
even hypnotism seems too incredible, too mysterious, for our Darwinists and Hæckelians. One needs too much moral courage, you see, to
face the suspicion of one's colleagues, the doubt of the public, and the
giggling of fools. "Mystery and charlatanism go hand in hand," they
say; and "self-respect and the dignity of the profession," as Magendie remarks in his Physiologie
Humaine, "demand that the well informed
physician should remember how readily mystery glides into charlatanism."
Pity the "well informed physician" should fail to remember that
physiology among the rest is full of mystery – profound, inexplicable mystery
from A to Z – and ask whether, starting from the above "truism," he
should not throw overboard Biology and Physiology as the greatest pieces of
charlatanry in modern Science. Nevertheless, a few in the well-meaning minority
of our physicians have taken up seriously the investigation of hypnotism. But
even they, having been reluctantly compelled to confess the reality of its
phenomena, still persist in seeing in such manifestations no higher a factor at
work than the purely material and physical forces, and deny these their
legitimate name of animal magnetism. But as the Rev. Mr. Haweis
(of whom more presently) just said in the Daily Graphic . . . "The Charcot phenomena are, for all that, in many ways identical
with the mesmeric phenomena, and hypnotism must properly be considered rather
as a branch of mesmerism than as something distinct from it. Anyhow, Mesmer's facts, now generally accepted, were at first
stoutly denied." And they are still so denied.
But while they deny
Mesmerism, they rush into Hypnotism, despite the now scientifically recognised dangers of this science, in which medical
practitioners in
Thus the adverse Report
drawn by Bailly at the end of last century has had
dire effects in the present, but it had its Karma also. Intended to kill the
"Mesmeric" craze, it reacted as a death-blow to the public confidence
in scientific decrees. In our day the Non-Possumus of
the
Aye, to this tribunal
without appeal even liberal clergymen and famous
preachers make obeisance in our day. The parts have now changed hands, and in
many instances it is the successors of those who fought tooth and nail for the
reality of the Devil and his direct interference with psychic phenomena, for
long centuries, who come out publicly to upbraid science. A remarkable instance
of this is found in an excellent letter (just mentioned) by the Rev. Mr. Haweis to the Graphic. The learned preacher seems to share
our indignation at the unfairness of the modern scientists, at their
suppression of truth, and ingratitude to their ancient teachers. His letter is
so interesting that its best points must be immortalized in our magazine. Here
are some fragments of it. Thus he asks: –
Why can't our scientific
men say: "We have blundered about Mesmerism; it's practically true"?
Not because they are men of science, but simply because they are human. No
doubt it is humiliating when you have dogmatised in
the name of science to say, "I was wrong." But is it not more
humiliating to be found out; and is it not most humiliating, after shuffling
and wriggling hopelessly in the inexorable meshes of serried facts, to collapse
suddenly, and call the hated net a "suitable enclosure," in which
forsooth, you don't mind being caught? Now this, as it seems to me, is
precisely what Messrs. Charcot and the French hypnotists
and their medical admirers in
I care more for things
than names, but I reverence the pioneers of thought who have been cast out,
trodden under foot, and crucified by the orthodox of all ages, and I think the
least scientists can do for men like Mesmer, Du Potet, Puységur,
or Mayo and Elliotson, now they are gone, is to
"build their sepulchres."
But Mr. Haweis might have added instead, the amateur Hypnotists of
Science dig with their own hands the graves of many a man and woman's
intellect; they enslave and paralyse freewill in
their "subjects," turn immortal men into soulless, irresponsible
automata, and vivisect their souls with as much unconcern as they vivisect the
bodies of rabbits and dogs. In short, they are fast blooming into
"sorcerers," and are turning science into a vast field of black
magic. The rev. writer, however, lets the culprits off easily; and, remarking
that he accepts "the distinction" [between Mesmerism and Hypnotism]
"without pledging himself to any theory," he adds: –
I am mainly concerned
with the facts, and what I want to know is why these cures and abnormal states
are trumpeted about as modern discoveries, while the "faculty" still
deride or ignore their great predecessors without having themselves a theory
which they can agree upon or a single fact which can be called new. The truth
is we are just blundering back with toil to work over again the old disused
mines of the ancients; the rediscovery of these occult sciences is exactly
matched by the slow recovery of sculpture and painting in modern
Here is the history of
occult science in a nutshell.
(1) Once known.
(2) Lost.
(3) Rediscovered.
(4) Denied.
(5) Reaffirmed, and by
slow degrees, under new names, victorious.
The evidence for all
this is exhaustive and abundant. Here it may suffice to notice that Diodorus Siculus mentions how the
Egyptian priests, ages before Christ, attributed clairvoyance induced for
therapeutic purposes to
They do, they do. But so
did the scientists with regard to more than one truth. To deny "an animal
magnetic fluid" is surely no more absurd than to deny the circulation of
the blood, as they have so energetically done.
A few additional details
about Mesmerism given by Mr. Haweis may prove
interesting. Thus he reminds us of the answer written by the much wronged Mesmer to the Academicians after their unfavorable Report,
and refers to it as "prophetic words."
"You say that Mesmer will never hold up his head again. If such is the
destiny of the man it is not the destiny of the truth, which is in its nature
imperishable, and will shine forth sooner or later in the same or some other
country with more brilliancy than ever, and its triumph will annihilate its
miserable detractors." Mesmer left
Some twenty years ago I
became acquainted with perhaps the most illustrious disciple of Mesmer, the aged Baron du Potet.4
Round this man's therapeutic and mesmeric exploits raged, between 1830 and
1846, a bitter controversy throughout
A murderer had been
tracked, convicted, and executed solely on evidence supplied by one of Du Potet's clairvoyantes.
The Juge de Paix admitted
thus much in open court. This was too much for even sceptical
Then comes the turn of
this foggy island and its befogged scientists. "Meanwhile," goes on the writer,
We have accused science
of gliding full sail down to the Maëlström of Black
Magic, by practising that which ancient Psychology – the most important branch
of the Occult Sciences – has always declared as Sorcery in its application to
the inner man. We are prepared to maintain what we say. We mean to prove it one
of these days, in some future articles, basing ourselves on facts published and
the actions produced by the Hypnotism of Vivisectionists themselves. That they
are unconscious sorcerers does not make away with the fact that they do
practice the Black Art bel et
bien. In short the situation is this. The minority of
the learned physicians and other scientists experiment in "hypnotism"
because they have come to see something in it; while the majority of the
members of the R.C.P.'s still deny the actuality of
animal magnetism in its mesmeric form, even under its modern mask – hypnotism.
The former – entirely ignorant of the fundamental laws of animal magnetism –
experiment at hap-hazard, almost blindly. To remain consistent with their
declarations (a) that hypnotism is not mesmerism, and (b) that a magnetic aura
or fluid passing from the mesmeriser (or hypnotiser) is pure fallacy – they have no right, of
course, to apply the laws of the older to the younger science. Hence they
interfere with, and awaken to action the most dangerous forces of nature,
without being aware of it. Instead of healing diseases – the only use to which
animal magnetism under its new name can be legitimately applied – they often inoculate
the subjects with their own physical as well as mental ills and vices. For
this, and the ignorance of their colleagues of the minority, the disbelieving
majority of the Sadducees are greatly responsible. For, by opposing them, they
impede free action, and take advantage of the Hypocratic
oath, to make them powerless to admit and do much that the believers might and
would otherwise do. But as Dr. A. Teste truly says in
his work – "There are certain unfortunate truths which compromise those
who believe in them, and those especially who are so candid as to avow them
publicly." Thus the reason of hypnotism not being studied on its proper
lines is self-evident.
Years ago it was
remarked: "It is the duty of the Academy and medical authorities to study
Mesmerism (i.e., the occult sciences in its spirit) and to subject it to
trials; finally, to take away the use and practice of it from persons quite
strangers to the art, who abuse this means, and make it an object of lucre and
speculation." He who uttered this great truth was "the voice speaking
in the desert." But those having some experience in occult psychology
would go further. They would say it is incumbent on every scientific body –
nay, on every government – to put an end to public exhibitions of this sort. By
trying the magic effect of the human will on weaker wills, by deriding the
existence of occult forces in Nature – forces whose name is legion – and yet
calling out these, under the pretext that they are no independent forces at
all, not even psychic in their nature, but "connected with known physical
laws" (Binet and Féré),
men in authority are virtually responsible for all the dire effects that are
and will be following their dangerous public experiments. Verily Karma – the
terrible but just Retributive Law – will visit all those who develop the most
awful results in the future, generated at those public exhibitions for the
amusement of the profane. Let them only think of dangers bred, of new forms of
diseases, mental and physical, begotten by such insane handling of psychic
will! This is as bad on the moral plane as the artificial introduction of
animal matter into the human blood, by the infamous Brown Sequard
method, is on the physical. They laugh at the occult sciences and deride
Mesmerism? Yet this century will not have passed away before they have
undeniable proofs that the idea of a crime suggested for experiment's sake is
not removed by a reversed current of the will as easily as it is inspired. They
may learn that if the outward expression of the idea of a misdeed
"suggested" may fade out at the will of the operator, the active
living germ artificially implanted does not disappear with it; that once
dropped into the seat of the human – or, rather, the animal – passions, it may
lie dormant there for years sometimes, to become suddenly awakened by some
unforeseen circumstance into realisation. Crying
children frightened into silence by the suggestion of a monster, a devil
standing in the corner, by a foolish nurse, have been known to become insane
twenty or thirty years later on the same subject. There are mysterious, secret
drawers, dark nooks and hiding-places in the labyrinth of our memory, still
unknown to physiologists, and which open only once, rarely twice, in man's
lifetime, and that only under very abnormal and peculiar conditions. But when
they do, it is always some heroic deed committed by a person the least
calculated for it, or – a terrible crime perpetrated, the reason for which
remains for ever a mystery. . . .
Thus experiments in
"suggestion" by persons ignorant of the occult laws,
are the most dangerous of pastimes. The action and reaction of ideas on the
inner lower "Ego," has never been studied so far, because that Ego
itself is terra incognita (even when not denied) to the men of science.
Moreover, such performances before a promiscuous public are a danger in
themselves. Men of undeniable scientific education who
experiment on Hypnotism in public, lend thereby the sanction of their names to
such performances. And then every unworthy speculator acute enough to
understand the process may, by developing by practice and perseverance the same
force in himself, apply it to his own selfish, often
criminal, ends. Result on Karmic lines: every Hypnotist, every man of Science,
however well-meaning and honorable, once he has allowed himself to become the
unconscious instructor of one who learns but to abuse the sacred science,
becomes, of course, morally the confederate of every crime committed by this
means.
Such is the consequence of public "Hypnotic" experiments which thus
lead to, and virtually are, BLACK MAGIC.
Lucifer, June, 1890
H. P. Blavatsky
1 See the
review of his work in the Journal du Magnetisme, Mai, Juin, 1890,
founded in 1845 by Baron du Potet,
and now edited by H. Durville, in
2 This date is an error.
Paracelsus was born at
3 This is the date of
Van Helmont's death; he was born in 1577.
4 Baron du Potet was for years Honorary member of the Theosophical Society. Autograph
letters were received from him and preserved at Adyar, our Headquarters, in
which he deplores the flippant unscientific way in which Mesmerism (then on the
eve of becoming the "hypnotism" of science) was handled "par les
charlatans du jour." Had he lived to see the
secret science in its full travesty as hypnotism, his powerful voice might have
stopped its terrible present abuses and degradation into a commercial Punch and
Judy show. Luckily for him, and unluckily for truth, the greatest adept of
Mesmerism in
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