Page Line bare arm into the air above his head, the hand open and empty; in another moment the dripping packet was in the hand, and he rolled out the watches on the table. . . . He then offered to bring anything that was in India. We chose a peculiar sweetmeat, only made in one place, and that place over a hundred miles away; he pulled out a drawer of his cabinet, and began shovelling out the sweetmeat with both hands; he continued to do so till there was a pile much larger than the cabinet, and we stopped him. The sweets were those asked for, and we distributed them among the village children." 3 10 Mrs. Besant continues: "The practice of black magic is, unfortunately, not unusual; men, for a sum of money, will injure or destroy an enemy of the donor."* Details are then given of the method of working. "The vibratory wave is directed against the victim, and he dies. A servant of my own, a strong, healthy young 15 fellow, fell a victim to this nefarious art. He had taken the place of a discharged servant, who vowed to do him injury. One morning he suddenly complained of feeling sick, and sat down; there was a violent rush of blood from his nose; he fell back, and was dead in twenty minutes, before the doctor we sent for had arrived. The 20 doctor could give no explanation. From the nature of the death, we concluded it was a 'murder by magic,' and, later, the performer went to the bereaved father-the victim was an only son-and confessed with many tears that the murder was his work, but pleaded that he did not know against whom his murderous work 25 was directed. The heartbroken father-who never recovered from the shock-forgave him, with the solid belief in divine law which is characteristic of the Indian. 35 "Such things surround us, who live in India, who have our eyes open to the ideas and ways of our fellow-citizens, and who study 30 what we do not at first understand, instead of deriding or despising it. Many powers has Nature locked away within her treasurehouse, and the only keys to that treasure-house are knowledge and will. Both white and black magicians possess these keys, and therefore the doors of the treasure-house swing open for both. The difference between the white and the black magician lies in motive and in action; the white works unselfishly to benefit others, and seeks nothing for himself; the black works for his own ends, and injures others, if it serves his own purposes; the one works in union with the principle of hate. And each reaps according to the 40 seed which he has sown; to the one, an ever-increasing change and turmoil, till he 'learns the law which is good, and the insight which is Light.'" It will be seen from the above that Mrs. Besant is still on the material plane, thinking that it is right to use the human mind to bring about things that the human being thinks are good, instead * When a man knows how to pray rightly, how to think rightly, a hypnotist, black magic worker, or mental worker using the human mind, cannot harm him. I am frequently consulted by those who are being attacked, and there is never any difficulty in the victim freeing himself. 45 50 of turning in thought to the reality and realising perfection, so leaving the action of the principle of good to destroy the evil. Working in this way, what is good for all concerned comes about; that is, we get a better sense of the spiritual world, the world of 5 reality, called heaven, instead of picking out and bringing about what our neighbour or the person concerned very likely thinks is bad. At the same time, it must be recognised that each of us can only work from our highest sense of good, and there can be no question 10 but that Mrs. Besant is doing this. Note P on page 189. The King's Touch.-Many miracles were attributed to Edward the Confessor, and, since his time, the healing by King's Touch was a recognised method of cure. Dr. Samuel Johnson was one of the 15 last persons to be touched, when, in 1712, he and about 200 others were touched by Queen Anne. 20 25 30 35 40 45 Dr. Tooker, the Queen's Chaplain, and William Cowles, the Queen's Surgeon, both testified to the healing done by Queen Elizabeth, who, however, stated, "God alone can cure your diseases." There are many records of cures by King Charles I. and King Charles II. The latter in one month touched 260 at Breda. In 1669 he touched 2,983 people, and in 1682, 8,500. According to Macaulay's "History of England," the total number touched in his reign was 92,107. In 1684 the throng was so great that six or seven of the sick were trampled to death. Note Q on page 221. Mysticism. The following appeared in the Oldham Weekly Chronicle of April 11th, 1914: "One of the strange anomalies of mysticism is the fact that you find most in the two widely different sects, Roman Catholicism and Quakerism-one a religion of forms and ceremonies, the other a religion that seeks to express itself without forms at all. This points to the fact that mysticism is a method of religion that is dependent on no sectarian creed for its development. It is a religion above all creeds, for it leads the mystic into direct touch with spiritual reality. Certainly it is individualistic, and usually is found in types of mind that are meditative and quiet. Natures that are practical, bustling, and go-ahead, see nothing in it. "The most dangerous type of mystic (to use a paradox) is the practical one. Then you get a spiritual anarchist, a destroyer of churchy conventionalism, a breaker-up of superstition and humbug that parades in the name of religion. The practical mystic is a religious reformer. His keen insight marks the empty formalism, the idolatry of ceremonies that have lost all spiritual value. He calls the people to worship the transcendent reality of God. He Page Line Page Line clears away the theological refuse, removes the obstructions created by priestcraft, and points the way and the method whereby a man can find and know God for himself. "The practical mystic may not be quite as advanced in insight as some of the more contemplative types, yet he is the most dangerous, because he brings his knowledge into the active life of the world. Yet there are mystics who will not reveal their innermost secrets save to those who are in affinity with them. Mystics who have attained unto union with God." Note R on pages 222 and 230. 66 The Key to the Miracles of Jesus.-Archdeacon Wilberforce, in his book, Mystic Immanence," quotes the following from a letter received after he had prayed in this way for one at death's door: "He was dying; the doctors had given him up, and he himself had no thought of recovery. He is well, and a new man; people 15 are expressing the greatest astonishment, declaring that no one understands it. They do not know the explanation." 'Another ecclesiastical leader, after studying "Life Understood," received numerous answers to his prayers, and wrote me follows: as "You translate the promises of God into the present momentthe eternal present-and in affirming them you seem to be actualising those words of our Lord in Mark 11, ver. 23, 24: 'He shall have whatsoever he saith.' I think this is the way that our Lord prayed and healed. He affirmed the Divine Ideal, and in doing so the Divine Power made it a living fact. "In so far as we live in union with Christ, it appears certain that he will pour through us his own living power; whenever we, speaking with the accent of unfaltering conviction, become the medium of his energy. "I have had a case lately, in which a man, who had been a terrible drunkard, has been suddenly and gloriously delivered, in answer to a distinct act of faith and affirmation of this kind. "Two conditions seem inevitable: (1) Union with Christ on the part of the operator; (2) A conviction that evil is an intrusion God's creation, and that where Christ comes it must be dissipated. on "The night of materialism is far spent, and the dawn of the new heaven and earth is breaking; but we may hasten the coming of the day of God, if, amid the delusions of the present, we live in, and affirm, the Eternal and Divine." Note S on page 234. issue Results According to Law.--The Christian Science Publication Committee has given some figures for an article in an of the Broadway Magazine. According to its figures 13,876 cases The 2,632 cases were treated in New York State between September, 1905, and September, 1906. Of this number 11,244 were either completely cured or permanently benefited, and of these 495 cases were taken over from physicians who had given them up or despaired of 5 affording relief. The number of deaths was 58. remaining were at the time still under treatment. are on file and accessible at the office of the Committee on Publication, located at No. 1, Madison Avenue, New York City, and can be easily verified. Amongst the cases 10 recorded were the following: These statements Nervous prostration Eye diseases Neuralgia Skin diseases, scrofula, etc. Tumours and hæmorrhoids Appendicitis, peritonitis, etc. Bright's disease ... 4 Locomotor 26 Cancer ataxia 22 23 4 6 ... During the same period, according to the State Department of Health, 129,833 (namely, 73 to the 1,000) people died under 25 medical treatment. The mortality amongst the Christian Science patients was 382 to the 1,000, and this percentage was not a percentage upon people the majority of whom were well, but a percentage of people who were ill when they came for help. 30 Note T on page 264. Production of Spiritualistic Phenomena Most Harmful. Professor von Schrenk-Notzing has recently written a book called "The Phenomena of Materialisation," dealing with certain objective phenomena. Mr. Godfrey Raupert, in the Daily Chronicle of May 14th, 1914, 35 writes of him: “Professor von Schrenk-Notzing is no amateur or dilettante in the sphere of psychical research. He is a doctor of medicine, foreign corresponding secretary of the University of Munich, member of many learned societies, and author of many standard treatises on criminal psychology and allied subjects; in 40 short, a German scientist of high standing and authority. And it goes without saying that, like all men of his stamp, he approached the study of the much-disputed phenomena with the conventional scientific attitude of mind, fully prepared to discover the secret of the thing in some form of self-deception or in the activity of some 45 hitherto unknown natural human faculty. But an experimental investigation of the phenomena, extending over a period of four years, carried on with the aid of a dozen photographic cameras, Page Line Page Line and under all the test conditions which the rigidly sceptical scientific mind can devise, has constrained him to abandon this mental attitude, and to make his public and unhesitating confession of faith. This confession is to the effect that the phenomena of materialisation are an objective fact of science, and that, so far, science has found itself utterly unable to discover the cause which is at work in their production. 5 "It would be difficult to over-estimate the significance of this publication and of the Professor's statement, especially when it is borne in mind that in Italy, too, a similar work, also from the pen 10 of a medical man, and illustrated by numerous striking photographs, and confirming all Professor von Schrenk-Notzing's observations, has just issued from the press. It will have to be admitted, therefore, that for the mind which is not hopelessly entangled in the net of conventional or constitutional scepticism, and which will 13 take the trouble to study the evidence, the entire question as to the reality and objectivity of these mysterious phenomena may now be regarded as settled. It would be difficult to add to the evidence available, or to produce experimenters and authorities of higher standing to testify in their favour." Mr. Raupert goes on to say: "Modern thought is increasingly occupying itself with the 'reconstruction of Christian belief,' and is steadily reverting to pagan necromantic practices." 20 "We hear nothing at all about the effects, moral and physical, which attend the evocation of these phenomena, of the permanent 25 undermining of health and character and well-being which result from them, and of the terrible disorder which the disclosures emanating from this source are apt to produce in the social and family life. "I will not here adduce the statements of the older and better- 30 known psychical experimenters, although it may be well to mention incidentally that so ardent a spiritist as Sir William Barrett was constrained to declare, some years ago, that he had observed the steady downward course of mediums who sit regularly,' and that so open-minded an investigator of the phenomena as Sir William Crookes wrote, after his experiments with Home: 'I could scarcely doubt that the evolution of psychic force is accompanied by a drain on vital force.' "Amongst the more recent scientific students of the phenomena we have the late Professor Lombroso, who wrote respecting the effects attending the evocation of the phenomena: 'After the seance she (the medium) is overcome by morbid sensitiveness, hyper-æsthesia, photophobia, and often by hallucinations and delirium (during which she asks to be watched from harm), and by serious disturbances of digestion, followed by vomiting if she has eaten before the seance, and, finally, by true paresis of the legs, on account of which it is necessary for her to be carried, and to be undressed by others. . . .' "To which Mr. Carrington adds: 'While her face becomes deeply 35 40 45 |