Our brother, W. Wynn Westcott, desires to have our opinion on the following.
Dreamland. By C. D. S.
In the year 1887 I became acquainted through correspondence with a Dr. G——, of H—— C——, a physician, and clairvoyant. Our acquaintance soon ripened into more than friendship, we became brothers in heart and spirit, the affinity which existed between us was intense, we felt a longing desire to see each other. I invited the Dr. to visit me at Weston-super-Mare, which invitation he accepted, continuing our almost daily correspondence in the meanwhile. On the 4th August, 1887, my thoughts were so intense all day about Dr. G——, that on retiring to rest about 10-30 p.m., I soon fell asleep while thinking of him. Willing to myself a determination, if possible, to obtain a description of his person, my will power succeeded, for on the following morning I was enabled to write to Dr. G—— as follows: “Dear Frater G——,—Last evening while asleep, I had a vision, and saw you most distinctly (spiritually); you appeared to me to be a person about 5ft. 6in. in height, 11 stone in weight, long oval face with gray hair and beard, and sitting in your bedroom in a large armchair covered with black leather cloth; you had divested yourself of your coat and sat at a table, your arm resting thereon supporting your face, and apparently asleep from over-exertion. My spiritual form on floating into your room, became horizontal with your face, and I kissed your forehead; the touch instantly broke the spiritual affinity, and I awoke from sleep. Can you describe the cause of this most extraordinary vision? . . . .” On the 10th August, 1887, the Dr. wrote me as follows: “Dear Friend,—Yours to hand, the description of my person is very accurate. I am 5ft. 6½in. high, 10½ stone weight, long oval face, going gray rapidly, this in the hair; while thinking deeply I sit as you say; I have no doubt you saw me, I felt languid next day, so I must have been away from my body; I have undertaken the cure of a gentleman at Nunhead, London, of Bright’s disease and in diagnosing the condition of his kidneys my attitude would be such as you describe, I was looking at him from my bedroom, and sitting in a large cushioned easy chair at the time 11 p.m., I was also thinking of you, and fell into a profound sleep while doing so, etc., etc., etc., . . . .” I immediately wrote to Dr. G——, asking again for his explanation of this most extraordinary sympathetic vision. On the 15th August, 1887, I received his reply, wherein he said: “In answering your question, I must say that I forgot in my last letter to explain how you were brought here. H——s, my spiritual friend and adviser, saw there was great affinity between thee and me, he also saw your desire to get a glimpse of me, and as you did not possess the gift of clairvoyance (like myself) he had no other alternative but to bring you here. The modus operandi is as follows: If they wish to bring you bodily, they deprive you of consciousness, they then de-materialise your physical body, and reduce it to gaseous atoms, they then leave intact the attachment between the soul and de-materialised atoms, the latter follow the soul in its flight to where it is wanted, and by a magnetic pass the physical body is again restored to its natural conditions. But if they merely bring the soul (in sleep it is free of the body save the umbilical cord) the umbilical cord must be attached to the body and becomes attenuated according to distance. If the spiritual cord uniting the physical and spiritual bodies get severed, the soul cannot again return to its tenement, and physical death is the result. The last mode is the one practised upon you . . . . Au revoir; croyez tout à mon coeur.
“Faithfully yours,
“E. G——.”
Letter from the Dreamer to W. W. Westcott.
Care Frater,
I do not think my seer-friend’s theory of my vision the right one; let me give my adeptship’s description of it. The vision might be active with the light of this world, but his explanation of my clairvoyant journey is far from the truth; there is no need for de-materialization whatever, even in the case of one not clairvoyant naturally. The Dr. says that I was abstracted from the physical body and by the attenuation of the umbilical cord (or what corresponds to it in the spiritual body) I was carried into his presence and saw him. Now if I saw him at all it was by the spiritual eye, and this being so, I should not see his material body, but would see his spiritual body, which I cannot think was in the arm-chair, but was occupied elsewhere, just as mine is now in talking to you and trying to explain these things, as if I saw you face to face regardless of where I am until the moment when my spirit returns again. Note this, the spiritual body does not correspond to the natural, which is born of connubium of fathers and mothers, but is in size and form and quality according to the degree of power attained by experience of wisdom and love in Heaven, and of truth and charity on Earth. I would therefore be unable to describe my best friend in the spirit-form unless simultaneously we were both in the spirit; but on coming back into the natural world I would instantly forget that form and remember his natural form. When I sleep I forget the forms of the world and see new forms, recognizing them as persons then in the flesh; but on waking I retain only the impression of having seen them, but do not remember them otherwise than in the natural or fleshly form; the reason is, that the spiritual life is the natural death, and the natural death the spiritual life; then the memory of one closes as that of the other opens. This is true as to forms only; principles remain the same, thus I may be a good man on earth, and the same principles would follow me, because they are motives or affections from which I live and which make me what I am; my form here might be crippled or distorted, but it would not be otherwise than beautiful in the world of spirits, and in the celestial world more beautiful still and more powerful and greater in stature. I will now sum up in a few words. In my case (vision) I consider my spiritual eyes were partially opened, and that the brain became impressed by thought sufficiently to remember the form conveyed. I did not see; it was spiritual attendants who saw the Doctor’s spirit and projected the image upon my brain through my mind, and upon re-waking I received a corresponding physical impression. The spirits do not see the material body as we see it, but they see the spiritual body and can only receive the material form by reading it off the memory of the man; but then it is only an imagination or thought with them, and not a reality as with us; the spiritual body is the one they see and feel and act upon.
I trust my remarks in attempting to reason the matter will let you consider the subject yourself, then I would feel greatly obliged by your candid opinion as to which theory may seem to you the most reasonable, viz: the Doctor’s or mine.
Your frater in the Spirit of Truth,
Chabrath-zereh-aur-boker.
25, 6, 90
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Ed. Note. [H.P.B.]—According to Theosophical teachings, though the theory of the “dreamer” is far more philosophical than that of the “Seer”—yet, the latter is, also, philosophically incorrect. It seems rather disrespectful to contradict “a spiritual friend and adviser” of whatever description, but if the said personage insists upon his extraordinary modus operandi—then we are compelled to reiterate our old and never varying charge, namely that “Spirits” knowing rarely, if ever, what they are talking about, wool-gather most of the time. And little wonder if the “Dreamer” (passionate affinity notwithstanding) refuses point blank to accept his “affinity’s” fantastic explanation. Let us analyze the latter: Spirits first deprive one of one’s consciousness, then they dematerialize one’s physical body (?!); after which they reduce it “to gaseous atoms,” leaving intact only the attachment (?) between the Soul and said atoms—like the grin between Alice and her Cheshire cat. But the atoms, we are told, follow the soul in its aerial flight, to be found ready at a magnetic pass (by whom?) to be once more rematerialized, etc., etc. This theory reminds one of the old Spiritualistic claim that a medium’s body may be disintegrated by the Spirits and carried by them through walls to any distance, and rematerialized as easily. Mrs. Marshall, we are asked to believe, was so disintegrated, and carried three miles off from her bedroom and re-built and dropped on a table of a dark séance room. Occultism, however, denies such possibility. It teaches that no living creature, man or mosquito, can be so disintegrated and live. This may be done with flowers and minerals, plants and other things which may be made to pass through “solid” roofs and walls; but no living man or being can be dealt with in such fashion without death ensuing. This is what Occultism, backed by logic and common sense, teaches us, for it admits no such thing as a supernatural miracle. Nor has the “umbilical cord” anything to do with “Soul,” but only with the astral body (the “Double”) whenever the latter is projected outside the body.
The explanation of the “Dreamer” is far more near to the teachings of Occultism, although the statement that it was not himself who saw but that the image upon his brain and through his mind was projected by “spiritual attendants” seems a new phrase which sounds very vague and unsatisfactory. The image of his friend, the Seer, was of course projected upon his brain and through his mind; but as the latter was his lower physical mind (Kama-manas) so the “projector” was his higher, or Spiritual mind (Manas proper). There is no need, indeed, of any “Spiritual attendant,” man having always in him his own attendant, the reincarnating Higher Ego. Notwithstanding the pitying fling at him by his friend, the “Seer,” who denies him any clairvoyance, the “Dreamer” must undeniably be a clairvoyant, to have seen, as he did, so vividly and so correctly, his “Frater G.” The vision is very easily explained. He fell asleep thinking of his friend whom he had never seen in body, willing to see him, and thus passing immediately from the waking to the dreaming state. What wonder then, that his will stirred to powerful action by strong desire, his human mind (the lower Manas) being paralyzed, moreover, by the sudden sleep of the body, acted through the divine and omniscient “Seer” instead of doing so through his uncertain, human principle of thought, which confuses and throws into confusion all it sees in sleep, upon awakening? “Kshetragna” (our Higher Ego), says Indian philosophy, is the embodied Spirit, that which knows all and informs at times our Kshetra (the mortal body). The case of the “Dreamer” was one of such special cases. He saw through and with the spiritual, all-seeing eye of his divine Ego. Impressing the sight upon its human sleeping, and therefore plastic and passive mind and memory, the latter remembered what the Ego had seen upon awakening. This is quite natural and no miracle is involved.