Flowers of Freethought (Second Series)

by G. W. Foote

Mrs. Besant's new superstition of Theosophy is, in our judgment, more foolish and less dignified than Christianity. We are therefore moved to say that she does injustice to Christianity in representing it as responsible for all the black paraphernalia and lugubrious ceremonies of death. There was, indeed, nothing of all this among the primitive Christians. Such things belong to the world's common customs and superstitions. Black was not merely a sign of sorrow, or at least of depression; it was also thought to be protective against ghosts; so that these trappings and suits of woe belong to the very "spookology" which is an integral part of Theosophy. Of course I freely admit that the ordinary gloom of death has been deepened by the Christian doctrine of hell, though Mrs. Besant seems to think otherwise. She inclines to the belief that the Western fear of death is ethnological, being the antithesis of its vigorous life. But it may be objected that the old Romans were comparatively free from this terror. On the other hand, it must be allowed that Mrs. Besant is right in her observation that "the more mystical dreamy East" has little dread of the "shadow cloaked from head to foot," since it is ever ever seeking to escape from "from the thraldom of the senses," and is apt to look upon "the disembodied state as eminently desirable and as most conducive to unfettered thought." In other words, that "when the brains are out," as Macbeth says, man's intellect undergoes a wonderful improvement; an opinion, by the way, which is quite in harmony with Theosophical teaching.

After giving the Theosophical view of the "body," Mrs. Besant says that when once we thus come to regard it, death loses all its terrors. But this is not the sole achievement of Theosophy. What terror had death to Charles Bradlaugh? What terror had death to Mrs. Besant while she was an Atheist? There are thousands of sceptics who do not want Theosophy to redeem them from a terror which they have long cast behind them, with the superstition by which it was bred and cherished.

Let us pause to remark that Mrs. Besant quotes from Paradise Lost its magnificent description of Death. She appreciates at least the splendor of the diction, but she does not notice how poor in comparison are the words she quotes from her "Masters." How is it that Milton beats the Mahatmas? What objects they look when the great English poet rises "with his singing robes about him"! How thin their music when he strikes upon his thrilling lyre, or blows his rousing trumpet, or rolls from his mighty organ the floods of entrancing harmony!

But to return to the main subject. It is absurd, as Mrs. Besant points out, to claim for Christianity that it "brought life and immortality to light." The belief in a future life was an intense conviction—or, perhaps we should say, a perfect truism—among the people of ancient India and Egypt. Yet here again, with her taste for dogmatic rhetoric, Mrs. Besant gratuitously exaggerates. "The whole ancient world," she says, "basked in the full sunshine of belief in the immortality of man, lived in it daily, voiced it in their literature, and went with it in calm serenity through the gate of Death." Now "calm serenity" is bad tautology, and the general assertion of this passage is equally open to censure. "The whole ancient world," as the Americans would say, is a large order. Greece and Rome (to say nothing of the pre-Maccabean Jews) were very important parts of "the whole ancient world," and whoever asserts that their citizens "basked in the sunshine of belief in immortality" is simply making a confession of ignorance. Greek and Roman poets and philosophers in many cases doubted, or even denied, a life beyond the grave. Even when the doctrine was entertained it does not appear to have been productive of much "sunshine." Does not the poet make the shade of the great Achilles say that he would rather be the veriest day-drudge on earth than command all the armies of the ghosts in the cold pale realm of the dead? We do not ignore, on the other hand, the Islands of the Blest; we are only objecting to Mrs. Besant's loose and sweeping assertions, which prove very clearly that her new "faith" is not remarkable in the cultivation of accuracy.

With regard to man—the entire human being, mortal and immortal—Mrs. Besant remarks that "un-instructed Christians" chop him into two, the body-that perishes at death, and the "something that survives death." She omits to notice that a good many Christians chop him into three, to say nothing of others, like the Christadelphians, who leave him one and indivisible. Mrs. Besant, for her part, as a true Theo-sophist, goes farther than the sharpest Christian dissectors. She chops man into seven. When she was a Materialist she never suspected that her nature was so composite, and we are still in the same benighted condition. One begins to feel that the injunction, "Man, know thyself," is a terrible burden. It is hard enough to get a fair knowledge of our organism, its physical constitution, its intellectual faculties, and its moral tendencies; but the task is absolutely appalling when, we have to get a satisfactory knowledge of our Atma, our Buddhi, our Manas, our Kama, our Prana, our Linga Sharira, and our Sthula Sharira. Anyone who can master all that may as well go on unto seventy times seven.

The immortal soul consists of the upper three, which are a trinity in everlasting unity. The heavens may wax old as a garment, but they "go on for ever," and flourish in immortal youth. Death is the first step in the process of their separation from the lower and perishable four. One after another of these is shed, as the serpent sloughs its skin, or the butterfly its chrysalis; or, to use a more familiar and pungent illustration, which we make a present of to Mrs. Besant, as you peel an onion, fold after fold, until you get to the tender core. Sthula Sharira goes first, and the organism becomes a corpse, which is buried, or cremated, or eaten by cannibals. Linga Sharira, the Astral Double, had been attached to it by a "delicate cord," which is our old friend "the thread of life"—a convenient metaphor turned into a positive proposition. This delicate cord is snapped, not immediately, "but some hours" (as many as thirty-six occasionally) after "apparent death." It is necessary, therefore, to be very quiet in the death-chamber, while the Linga Sharira is eloping. One shudders to think of what might happen, of the indecent haste to which Number Six might be compelled, if a corpse were cremated a few hours after death; the corpse, for instance, of a man who died from cholera or the plague.

This "delicate cord" which attaches Number Seven to Number Six is perceptible if your eyes are constructed that way; that is, if you are a clairvoyant, one who is able to see beyond the real. Mrs. Besant does not say she has seen it herself; indeed, she is always relying on someone else. She refers us to Andrew Jackson Davis, the "Poughkeepsie Seer" (and a Spiritist, though she does not say so), who "watched this escape of the ethereal body" and states that "the magnetic cord did not break for some thirty-six hours." "Others," says Mrs. Besant, "have described, in similar terms, how they saw a faint violet mist rise from the dying body, gradually condensing into a figure which was the counterpart of the expiring person, and attached to that person by a glittering thread." Thus the attachment is "delicate," "magnetic," and "glittering." In the course of time, we dare say, it will be decorated with a much larger variety of adjectives. Meanwhile we may observe that if Mrs. Besant were to preach this sort of "higher wisdom" to savages she would find an attentive and sympathetic audience. The violet mist, the Astral Double, and the delicate, magnetic, glittering cord, are things that they are to some extent already familiar with; and if she could only get them to accept her terminology, and talk of Sthula Sharira and Linga Sharira, they would be extremely promising candidates for the Theosophical kingdom of heaven.

Mrs. Besant tells us that the Linga Sharira, or Astral Double, rots away (disintegrates) in time. It is "the ethereal counterpart of the gross body of man," and takes a longer time in dropping into nothingness.

"Sometimes this Double is seen by persons in the house, or in the neighborhood... the Double may be seen or heard; when seen it shows the dreamy hazy consciousness alluded to, is silent, vague in its aspect, and unresponsive.... This astral corpse remains near the physical one, and they disintegrate together; clairvoyants see these astral wraiths in churchyards, sometimes showing likeness of the dead body, sometimes as violet mists or lights. Such an astral corpse has been seen by a friend of my own."

At this point we think it well to part company with Mrs. Besant. Who would have imagined, ten years ago, that the colleague of Charles Bradlaugh would ever descend so far into superstition as to write and talk seriously about churchyard spooks? What she may have to say about Theosophy after this can hardly be of interest to any thoroughly sane person. We therefore close with an expression of profound regret that an earnest, eloquent lady who once did such service in the cause of progress, should thus fall a victim to some of the most childish superstitions of the human race.