1. Jocelyn Godwin writes (Arktos: The Polar Myth… 1996, Kempton, AUP, p83), as we saw in ES2: “Saint Yves could not get close enough to Agartha through his teacher, but… he had mastered the art of disengaging his astral body and in this way was able to visit Agartha for himself”. This is supposed to be a feature of esotericism. But before I proceed with the examination of other aspects of esotericism, I shall consider here some examples of monks’ visions from around 400 CE. They are all from the Lausiac History of Palladius (364-431), the disciple of St. John Chrysostom mainly, from Egypt. I use a Greek edition (1980, Stavronikita Monastery, Mount Athos, ed. by brother Symeon). I found no English translation, so I do my own translating.
a) Blessed Anthony narrated that he had prayed a full year for the revelation of the region of the righteous and the sinners. And I saw a giant, swarthy, tall giant up to the clouds with arms raised to the sky and beneath him a lake like the sea. I saw souls flying like birds. All those that flew above his raised hands were saved, but those he hit with his hands fell into the lake. And a voice came and said “Those that you see flying high are the souls of the righteous that are saved in Paradise. The others are those that remained with the desires of the flesh and spite: they tumble down into hell. (§21, end). A very strange vision because so wholly childish, uninformative and confused ….
The giant embodied Evil, Temptation and Sin?….
b) A man possessed by a demon was brought by Anthony to father Paul to cure him as he himself was otherwise engaged. Paul came out of his cell in burning midday… and stood on a rock and prayed: “Jesus Christ, you who were crucified at the time of Pontius Pilate, see that I shall not descend from this rock and I shall not eat or drink until I die, unless you expel this demon from this man and free him”. No sooner had he finished his prayer than the demon cried out “Oh, what calamity! I am being chased out! Paul’s purity drives me away – and where am I to go?” The unclean spirit came out immediately having the form of a huge dragon, 50 meters in length, and then crawled hastily its way into the Red Sea (§22, end).
c) Elizah the anchorite spent his property building a large monastery in Athribe and there he gathered all wandering female ascetics. He was between 35 and 40 and led a life of purity and compassion for all those women. He took great care of them and, as they came from different regions, they quarreled and he had to pacify them. All this he did for two years but, then, he felt the temptation of the flesh and leaving the monastery wandered in the desert for two days without food, praying continuously “Lord, either take my life so that I don’t drag the women to sin or relieve me of the sensual passion”. The second night came three Angels and when he confessed his fears of sinning, they told him: “We shall relieve you of the passion and you’ll go back to look after them”. They made him swear. Then one took him by the hands, the other by the legs and the third cut his member with a razor but only in his mind, not in the flesh. He felt ecstasy and was cured of the sinful passion. He returned then and looked after the ascetics for the next 40 years (§29).
2. Palladius narrates many more similar miracles, visions of angels and devils. Further down, I shall examine similar visions recorded in the Western Church, Catholic and Protestant. But of what value are the tales of Palladius? Can we really take them at face value? Can we believe them?
It can be observed that our mind has a faculty of creative imagination which can produce both narratives (poems, tales, dialogues, etc.) and images of objects, faces, creatures, scenes, etc. With little attention this faculty will vivify whatever is hanging about or circulating in the mind.
Now angels, demons, unclean spirits, and souls are incorporeal beings. How can they be seen since incorporeal beings have no cognizable material form? Can we actually believe that a swarthy giant reaching up to the sky separates righteous souls from unrighteous ones (all these in the form of birds)? And is not the lake an image from the lake in the Book of John’s Apocalypse?…
In the next tale, how can a demon come out of a person, take the form of a dragon (50 meters long!) and crawl its way into the sea? Why not just dissolve into thin air and disappear?… Surely it is all fantasy?
Andin the third tale, how can incorporeal angels grab a man by the legs and arms and with a razor (!) cut off his sexual organs – other than in imagination?…
Monks and religious persons of all kinds have their minds full of notions of paradise and hell, sin and salvation, angels, the Holy Trinity, God the Father, Satan and devils and what not. An overheated imagination can produce all kinds of visions and experiences of such nature. Just as writers write short stories or long novels with all kinds of scenes and events in prose while poets use this mental faculty to write short lyrics or long epics. It really depends on the training of the faculty of imagination and on the interests and contents of the store of memory in the mind.
3. There are also many and varied cases of apparitions or visions in the countries of Western Christianity, mainly Roman-catholic, of course. In the 1830’s and later, the Virgin appeared to several people at different times in different places in France. The most famous one is probably the one of 1858 at Lourdes to the young Bernadette Soubirous, who was seen by many to converse with someone invisible to them. A most noteworthy appearance was that in 1846 to Mélaine Calvat, a young shepherdess, at La Salette. The Virgin supposedly revealed an ominous secret to the youngster, according to Richard Griffiths (Reactionary Revolutions, London 1966). Thus Mélaine prophesied that in1864 Lucifer and his legions would pour out of Hell to destroy what faith had remained in humans. And this because of their increased impiety, which so angered Christ that he would no longer listen to his Mother’s pleas for mercy. This is similar to the vision of Eugene Vintras (one of the many priests-occultists of that period in France – called “the prophet of Tillly”. Vintras had been visited by the Archangel Michael and later by Christ, Mary and St Joseph, and was informed in 1858 that Raphael had already been dispatched to impose chastisement on Paris and London, the Nineveh and Babylon respectively, of the times. And he saw huge flames surrounding Paris and heard a multitude of cries… (Webb 1974, pp.136-139, and p. 152 note 81, citing L. Grange’s Le Prophéte de Tilly, Paris, 1897).
Much earlier there appeared saints with “mystical” visions like St Gertrude the Great in the13th cent. or John of Ruusbroec in the 14th century. In the 14th century too John Tauler had his visions: Once when he was weeping bitterly, two angels appeared to him to console him, whereupon he said unto the Lord: No consolation do I seek, my God, enough it is for me to keep the place where you, Lord, dwell in my soul, so that nothing may appear in it. When he had said this, he was completely surrounded by so much light that it cannot be described in words.
Of great fame is, of course, St Teresa of Avila and her transverberation vision, as it is called, where a cherub or seraph drove his lance repeatedly into her heart: “I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it”.
She most probably saw this in her mind and felt it, but whether an actual angel appeared and pierced her heart with an actual golden spear, is another matter.
4. Similarly, many other people with religious, apocryphal or occult interests claim that they have used “clairvoyance”, or their “astral” body, or whatever, and hear all kinds of voices and/or see all sorts of visions or “travel” to Agartha or Arthur’s round table or Atlantis or anywhere they fancy. Despite the fact that historical, real events belied these “visions” and “prophecies”, many people still believe such things.
I doubt there is the slightest veracity in all the above incidents, although the narrators themselves and many Christians may well believe them as “miracles”. I must add that they have not the slightest esoteric substance.
Madame Helena Blavatsky is another similar case. Some of her “visions” (or hearings) were given in the previous paper Es3 but her frauds are many more. In chapter 3 of his Atlantis & the Cycles of Time… (2011 Rochester, Inner Traditions) Jocelyn Godwin seems impressed by her writing “in an impossibly erudite stream of consciousness”. And he explains. “Blavatsky’s colleague Henry Steele Olcott observed her waiting it in a state of trance, as though taking dictation or copying from invisible books, as she herself confirmed in a letter to her sister: ‘Whenever I am told to write, I sit down and obey, and then I can write easily upon almost anything – metaphysics, psychology, philosophy, ancient religions, zoology, natural sciences or what not. Although the early theosophists helped her with it, especially as she had yet to master the English language, much of Isis [Unveiled] might qualify as channeled material [i.e. was dictated to her by another entity, or incorporeal being, like the masters or mahātmas ‘great souls’ who lived in Tibet.]”
5. To me all this seems bogus, fraudulent. (We examined the fraudulent manner of her “mediumistic” copying of her insightful information and its subsequent exposure in Es1, section §5.) Lots of people hear voices in their head ordering them to do things. Godwin himself in his formulation of her “channeled material” betrays his own unuttered doubt: her writing was “in an impossibly erudite stream of consciousness.” But there are four important points we should take into account.
a) In the summer of 1880, eager to demonstrate the reality of paranormal phenomena Blavatsky seemed to produce, some members of her circle suggested asking the all-knowing mighty Masters to present, a copy of the London Times on the vary day of its publication in Simla (India) where they were all staying so that they would not need to wait for it for a month. Instead of the Times on 15th October 1880, a letter from the Masters appeared: it was signed by Koot Hoomi Lal Singh and Morya. The incontrovertible proof of occult action by miraculously bringing the newspaper from London was side-stepped and covered by the cheap trick of a letter which could have been written and presented by anybody, in some cleverly and artificially mysterious fashion. Other letters followed. There was absolutely nothing at all in these “mysterious” letters (or in Blavatsky’s visions and utterances that could not have been found in earlier publications or invented by fantasy).
b) In 1884 a scandal broke out involving charges of charlatanism and fraud against the theosophists in Madras. Blavatsky’s occult practices and the messages from her masters aroused suspicions both in her circle and others: this led to an investigation and eventually an unfavorable report on her practices by the London Society for Psychical Research. A certain Madame Coulomb, who had struck some kind of partnership with Blavatsky when the latter was in Cairo and was now employed with her husband at Adyar gave, possibly incited by missionaries, some damning letters written by Blavatsky to the editor of a Madras Christian newspaper and published two articles in which she claimed that the famed occult phenomena produced by Madame Blavatsky were fraudulent and she (Mrs Coulomb) and her husband had helped in the deception. Thus, after several exposures Blavatsky was forced to confess; but she soon retracted and then accused the couple Coulomb of plotting with the missionaries for her destruction. (Webb 1974, p 89.)
Unfortunately for the theosophists the representative from London, Richard Hodgon, had no sympathy for them and decided against them. So, Blavatsky, the entourage of officials in the Society and her loyal theosophists sought a new Centre in London, leaving India in April 1885.
c) After Blavatsky’s death, as I showed in the paper Es3, §2, in 1891, W.E. Coleman showed in a publication in 1893 how she plagiarized many earlier writers. Then S.B. Liljegren in 1930 in a French publication disclosed more details and did the same in 1957 in an English publication.
d) Blavatsky’s successors, Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater discovered in the boy Jiddu Krishnamurti the new World Teacher and prepared him for his mission as the new Messiah; but in 1928 he declined the role and left the theosophists and their teaching altogether.
6. The later theosophists also heard voices from Masters or spirits and had visions and “astral travelling” and often vied among themselves.
Annie Besant had to fight with W. Q. Judge for the office of the Secretary of the Society, after Madame Blavatsky’s death. He was in charge of the American lodges and she of the European and Asiatic ones. They both claimed that they had been nominated by the Masters(!) and contended for years. It was only Colonel Olcott who later, in 1907, decided in favour of Mrs. Besant thanks to the appearance of the Masters at his deathbed!
Mrs. Besant’s partner in the running of the society was C. W. Leadbeater, another clairvoyant. They both “allowed their imagination to play on impressions” and with this technique they discovered the colour of thoughts. In their book Thought Forms they explained their theory that every thought is clothed in an “elemental essence” surrounding mankind and gives different colours to different thoughts. “Pure religious feeling” is sky-blue. “Selfish religious feeling” is shot through with brown. “Jealousy” is brown with orange streaks. “High spirituality” is pale violet. (Webb 1974, p 94-95.)
Annie Besant perhaps more than anybody else “foresaw” the ascent of the New Root Race and promoted the prophecy of the new World Teacher, the Spirit that had inhabited the person of the Lord Maitreya and then of Christ, and would now inhabit the new Teacher in Krishnamurti, to guide Humanity into the new age, preaching the theosophical teaching of universal love and brotherhood and the unity of all religions. And so she and Leadbeater organized the Order of the Star in the East that would support and promote the World Teacher.
When Krishnamurti withdrew and announced the dissolution of the Order, he manifested enough compassion and decency not to deride them or accuse them of pseudo-spirituality. But his subsequent career and independent teaching showed that he put no credence at all in the “esotericism” of those theosophists.
