Inner Guidance and
Inspiration in True Discipleship
Helena P. Blavatsky
The statue of Helena Blavatsky, on
the right, was made by Alexey Leonov
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Editorial Note:
The following text was first published in “The
Theosophist” magazine in June 1884. It is
here
reproduced from “Theosophical Articles”, by
Helena Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles,
California, U.S.A., 1981, vol. I, pp. 295-298.
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According to the
newest edition of the Imperial Dictionary,
by John Ogilvie, L.L.D., “A medium is a
person through whom the action of another being is said to be manifested and
transmitted by animal magnetism, or a person through whom spiritual
manifestations are claimed to be made; especially one who is said to be capable
of holding intercourse with the spirits of the deceased.”
As Occultists do not believe in any communication with
the “spirits of the deceased” in the ordinary acceptation of the term, for the
simple reason that they know that the spirits
of “the deceased” cannot and do not come down and communicate with us; and as
the above expression “by animal magnetism” would probably have been modified, if the editor of the Imperial Dictionary had been an Occultist, we therefore are only
concerned with the first part of the definition of the word “Medium”, which says: “A Medium is a person, through whom the
action of another being is said to be manifested and transmitted”; and we
should like to be permitted to add: “By
the either consciously or unconsciously active will of that other being.”
It would be extremely difficult to find on earth a
human being, who could not be more or less influenced by the “Animal Magnetism” or by the active Will (which sends out that “Magnetism”)
of another. If the beloved General rides along the front, the soldiers become
all “Mediums”. They become filled
with enthusiasm, they follow him without fear, and storm the death-dealing
battery. One common impulse pervades them all; each one becomes the “Medium” of
another, the coward becomes filled with heroism, and only he, who is no medium at all and therefore
insensible to epidemic or endemic moral influences, will make an exception,
assert his independence and run away.
The “revival preacher” will get up in his pulpit, and
although what he says is the most incongruous nonsense, still his actions and
the lamenting tone of his voice are sufficiently impressive to produce “a
change of heart” amongst, at least, the female part of his congregation, and if
he is a powerful man, even sceptics “that come to scoff, remain to pray”.
People go to the theatre and shed tears or “split their sides” with laughter
according to the character of the performance, whether it be a pantomime, a
tragedy or a farce. There is no man, except a genuine block-head, whose
emotions and consequently whose actions cannot be influenced in some way or
other, and thereby the action of another
be manifested or transmitted through him. All men and all women and
children are therefore Mediums, and a
person who is not a Medium is a
monster, an abortion of nature; because he stands without the pale of humanity.
The above definition can therefore hardly be
considered sufficient to express the meaning of the word “Medium” in the
popular acceptation of the term, unless we add a few words, and say:
“A medium is a person through whom the action of
another being is said to be manifested and transmitted to an abnormal extent by the consciously or unconsciously active
will of that other being.”
This reduces the number of “Mediums” in the world to
an extent proportionate to the space around which we draw the line between the
normal and abnormal, and it will be just as difficult to determine who is a
medium and who is not a medium, as it is to say where sanity ends and where
insanity begins. Every man has his little “weaknesses”, and every man has his
little “mediumship”; that is to say, some vulnerable point by which he may be
taken unawares. The one may therefore not be considered really insane; neither
can the other be called a “medium”. Opinions often differ, whether a man is
insane or not, and so they may differ as to his mediumship. Now in practical
life a man may be very eccentric, but he is not considered insane, until his
insanity reaches such a degree that he does not know any more what he is doing,
and is therefore unable to take care of himself or his business.
We may extend the same line of reasoning to Mediums,
and say that only such persons shall be considered mediums, who allow other
beings to influence them in the above described manner to such an extent that they lose their self-control and have no
more power or will of their own to regulate their own actions. Now such a
relinquishing of self-control may be either active or passive, conscious or
unconscious, voluntary or involuntary, and differs according to the nature of
the beings, who exercise the said active influence over the medium.
A person may consciously and voluntarily submit his
will to another being and become his slave. This other being may be a human
being, and the medium will then be his obedient servant and may be used by him
for good or for bad purposes. This other “being” may be an idea, such as love, greediness, hate, jealousy, avarice, or some
other passion, and the effect on the medium will be proportionate to the
strength of the idea and the amount of self-control left in the medium. This
“other being” may be an elementary or an elemental, and the poor medium become
an epileptic, a maniac or a criminal. This “other being” may be the man’s own
higher principle, either alone or put into rapport with another ray of the
collective universal spiritual principle, and the “medium” will then be a great
genius, a writer, a poet, an artist, a musician, an inventor, and so on. This
“other being” may be one of those exalted beings, called Mahatmas, and the
conscious and voluntary medium will then be called their “Chela”.
Again, a person may never in his life have heard the
word “Medium” and still be a strong Medium, although entirely unconscious of
the fact. His actions may be more or less influenced unconsciously by his
visible or invisible surroundings. He may become a prey to Elementaries or
Elementals, even without knowing the meaning of these words, and he may
consequently become a thief, a murderer, a ravisher, a drunkard or a
cut-throat, and it has often enough been proved that crimes frequently become
epidemic; or again he may by certain invisible influences be made to accomplish
acts which are not at all consistent with his character such as previously known.
He may be a great liar and for once by some unseen influence be induced to
speak the truth; he may be ordinarily very much afraid and yet on some great
occasion and on the spur of the moment commit an act of heroism; he may be a
street-robber and vagabond and suddenly do an act of generosity, etc.
Furthermore, a medium may know the sources from which
the influence comes, or in more explicit terms, “the nature of the being, whose action is transmitted through him”,
or he may not know it. He may be under the influence of his own seventh
principle and imagine to be in communication with a personal Jesus Christ, or a
saint; he may be in rapport with the “intellectual” ray of Shakespeare and
write Shakespearean poetry, and at the same time imagine that the personal
spirit of Shakespeare is writing through him, and the simple fact of his
believing this or that, would make his poetry neither better nor worse. He may
be influenced by some Adept to write a great scientific work and be entirely
ignorant of the source of his inspiration, or perhaps imagine that it was the
“spirit” of Faraday or Lord Bacon that is writing through him, while all the
while he would be acting as a “Chela”, although ignorant of the fact.
From all this it follows that the exercise of mediumship
consists in the more or less complete giving up of self-control, and whether
this exercise is good or bad, depends entirely on the use that is made of it
and the purpose for which it is done. This again depends on the degree of
knowledge which the mediumistic person possesses, in regard to the nature of
the being to whose care he either voluntarily or involuntarily relinquishes for
a time the guardianship of his physical or intellectual powers. A person who
entrusts indiscriminately those faculties to the influence of every unknown
power, is undoubtedly a “crank”, and cannot be considered less insane than the
one who would entrust his money and valuables to the first stranger or vagabond
that would ask him for the same. We meet occasionally such people, although
they are comparatively rare, and they are usually known by their idiotic stare
and by the fanaticism with which they cling to their ignorance. Such people
ought to be pitied instead of blamed, and if it were possible, they should be
enlightened in regard to the danger which they incur; but whether a Chela, who
consciously and willingly lends for a time his mental faculties to a superior
being, whom he knows, and in whose purity of motives, honesty of purpose,
intelligence, wisdom and power he has full confidence, can be considered a
“Medium” in the vulgar acceptation of the term, is a question which had better
be left to the reader - after a due consideration of the above - to decide for
himself.
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On the role of the esoteric movement in
the ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical
Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in
2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist,
the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.
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