Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00333)

Dec 10 2002

Dear Cesar:

The thanks from all of us, are to be given to H P B and to the
Masters of Wisdom. Their efforts and sacrifices have made this
knowledge available.

But then our responsibility begins. as we ought not stop there. We
ought to become more aware of all that was written in Theosophy. Then
we can use that to help others. Our duty is pass this information and
philosophy along so that others can also profit from them.

Will you help?

------------------------

Let me add a few more words about St. Thomas

St. Thomas, who followed some of the Gnostic traditions: -- He was
excommunicated, I believe, and then he made a pilgrimage to south
India; and there are still to be found "St. Thomas Christians" also
called "Syrian Christians" in the Madras and Cochin, Travancore areas.
They carry on the more ancient and least altered traditions of the
most early Christian traditions -- probably Gnostic.

A few miles south west of Madras ( now CHENNAI) is St. Thomas' Mount,
and a church still stands there in his honor.



Best wishes,

Dallas.

PS

May I ask what languages you usually employ and speak or write in.
Some of our students have made translations of H PB and other
Theosophical writings in many other languages and you might like to
have some made available to you ? Do let me know if you desire more
information.

==============================


-----Original Message-----
From: cesar joanino [mailto:adviser77@msn.com]
Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 4:24 PM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: RE: stigmata

Dear Dalval

thank you very much for this explations.It only shows that there is
really
hidden forces and phenomena around us that cannot be explain fully by
organised religion but by those who knows the spiritual side of
things.TRuly
indeed that there is magic,mesmerism,ancients teachings.
im happy to know and always believe that theosophy has the answer to
all of
this,truly a great society of learned personalities...again thank you
friend

cesar joanino


=========================================


>From: <dalval14@earthlink.net>
> >Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 13:22:10 -0800
>
>Dec 9 2002
>
>Dear Friend:
>
> Re: Astral cause of wounds: stigmata, teratology, etc
>
>
>Here are some statements on Stigmata from H P B's ISIS UNVEILED
>
>==================================
>
>STIGMATA
>
>
>"Catherine Crowe discusses at considerable length the question of the
>power of the mind over matter, and relates, in illustration, many
>well-authenticated instances of the same. Among others, that most
>curious phenomenon called the stigmata have a decided bearing upon
>this point.
>
>These marks come upon the bodies of persons of all ages, and always
as
>the result of exalted imagination. In the cases of the Tyrolese
>ecstatic, Catherine Emmerich, and many others, the wounds of the
>crucifixion are said to be as perfect as nature. A certain Mme. B.
von
>N. dreamed one night that a person offered her a red and a white
rose,
>and that she chose the latter. On awaking, she felt a burning pain in
>her arm, and by degrees there appeared the figure of a rose, perfect
>in form and color; it was rather raised above the skin. The mark
>increased in intensity till the eighth day, after which it faded
away,
>and by the fourteenth, was no longer perceptible. "
> ISIS UNVEILED I 398-9



>"The employment of the human breath by the sorcerer as an adjunct for
>the accomplishment of his nefarious purpose, is strikingly
illustrated
>in several terrible cases recorded in the French annals -- notably
>those of several Catholic priests. In fact, this species of sorcery
>was known from the oldest times. The Emperor Constantine (in Statute
>iv., Code de Malef., etc.) prescribed the severest penalties against
>such as should employ sorcery to do violence to chastity and excite
>unlawful passion. ...


>The above cases are cited in the official report of the famous case
of
>Father Girard, a Jesuit priest of very great influence, who, in 1731,
>was tried before the Parliament of Aix, France, for the seduction of
>his parishioner, Mlle. Catherine Cadiere, of Toulon, and certain
>revolting crimes in connection with the same.


The indictment charged
>that the offence was brought about by resort to sorcery. Mlle.
Cadiere
>was a young lady noted for her beauty, piety, and exemplary virtues.
>Her attention to her religious duties was exceptionally rigorous, and
>that was the cause of her perdition. Father Girard's eye fell upon
>her, and he began to maneuver for her ruin. Gaining the confidence of
>the girl and her family by his apparent great sanctity, he one day
>made a pretext to blow his breath upon her. The girl became instantly
>affected with a violent passion for him.


>She also had ecstatic visions of a religious character, stigmata, or
>blood-marks of the "Passion," and hysterical convulsions. The
>long-sought opportunity of seclusion with his penitent finally
>offering, the Jesuit breathed upon her again, and before the poor
girl
>recovered her senses, his object had been accomplished. By sophistry
>and the excitation of her religious fervor, he kept up this illicit
>relation for months, without her suspecting that she had done
anything
>wrong.


Finally, however, her eyes were opened, her parents informed,
>and the priest was arraigned. twelve voted to send him to the stake.
>The criminal priest was defended by all the power of the Society of
>Jesus, and it is said that a million francs were spent in trying to
>suppress the evidence produced at the trial. The facts, however, were
>printed in a work (in 5 vols., 16mo), now rare, entitled Recueil
>General des Pieces contenues au Procez du Pere Jean-Baptiste Girard,
>Jeuite, etc., etc.*


>We have noted the circumstance that, while under the sorcerous
>influence of Father Girard, and in illicit relations with him, Mlle.
>Cadiere's body was marked with the stigmata of the Passion, viz.: the
>bleeding wounds of thorns on her brow, of nails in her hands and
feet,
>and of a lance-cut in her side. It should be added that the same
marks
>were seen upon the bodies of six other penitents of this priest,
viz.:
>Mesdames Guyol, Laugier, Grodier, Allemande, Batarelle, and Reboul.
In
>fact, it became commonly remarked that Father Girard's handsome
>parishioners were strangely given to ecstasies and stigmata!
>


>Add this to the fact that, in the case of Father Gaufridy, above
>noted, the same thing was proved, upon surgical testimony, to have
>happened to Mlle. de Palud, and we have something worth the attention
>of all (especially spiritualists) who imagine these stigmata are
>produced by pure spirits. Barring the agency of the Devil, whom we
>have quietly put to rest in another chapter, Catholics would be
>puzzled, we fancy, despite all their infallibility, to distinguish
>between the stigmata of the sorcerers and those produced through the
>intervention of the Holy Ghost or the angels. The Church records
>abound in instances of alleged diabolical imitations of these signs
of
>saintship, but, as we have remarked, the Devil is out of court.
>By those who have followed us thus far, it will naturally be asked,
to
>what practical issue this book [ISIS UNVEILED ] tends; much has been
said about magic
>and its potentiality, much of the immense antiquity of its practice.



>Do we wish to affirm that the occult sciences ought to be studied and
>practiced throughout the world? Would we replace modern spiritualism
>with the ancient magic? Neither; the substitution could not be made,
>nor the study universally prosecuted, without incurring the risk of
>enormous public dangers. At this moment, a well-known spiritualist
and
>lecturer on mesmerism is imprisoned on the charge of raping a subject
>whom he had hypnotized. A sorcerer is a public enemy, and mesmerism
>may most readily be turned into the worst of sorceries.


>We would have neither scientists, theologians, nor spiritualists turn
>practical magicians, but all to realize that there was true science,
>profound religion, and genuine phenomena before this modern era.
>


>We would that all who have a voice in the education of the masses
>should first know and then teach that the safest guides to human
>happiness and enlightenment are those writings which have descended
to
>us from the remotest antiquity; and that nobler spiritual aspirations
>and a higher average morality prevail in the countries where the
>people take their precepts as the rule of their lives.
>


>We would have all to realize that magical, i.e., spiritual powers
>exist in every man, and those few to practice them who feel called to
>teach, and are ready to pay the price of discipline and self-conquest
>which their development exacts."
> ISIS UNVEILED II 634-5
>
>
>Additionally, we find that Mr. Judge gives the rationale of this
strange phenomenon:
>
>
>"...Man is a soul who lives on thoughts and perceives only thoughts.
>Every object or subject comes to him as a thought...these may be
>words, ideas or pictures. The soul-man has to have an intermediary
or
>connecting link with Nature through which and by which he may cognize
>and experience.
>
>This link is an ethereal double or counterpart of his physical body,
>dwelling in the latter; and the physical body is Nature so far as
the
>soul-man is concerned.
>
>In this ethereal double (called astral body) are the sense-organs and
>the centers of perception, the physical outer organs being only the
>external channels or means for concentrating the physical vibrations
>so as to transmit them to the astral organs and centers where the
soul
>perceives them as ideas or thoughts....
>
>Speaking physically, all outer stimulus from nature is sent from
>without to within.
>
>But in the same way stimuli may be sent from the astral man within to
>the periphery, the physical body; and may dominate the body so as
to
>alter it or bring on a lesion partial or total...
>
>...a suggestion of a blister may make a physical swelling, secretion,
>inflammation, and a sore on a subject who has submitted himself [ or
>herself] to the influence of the hypnotizer. The picture ... is
>impressed on the astral body, and that controls all the physical
>nerves, sensations, currents, and secretions. It is done through the
>sympathetic nervous plexi and ganglia.
>
>It was thus that ecstatic fanatical women and men by brooding on the
>pictured idea of the wounds of Jesus produced on their own bodies, by
>internal impression and stimulus projected to the surface, all the
>marks of crown of thorns and wounded side. It was
self-hypnotization,
>possible only in fanatical hysterical ecstasy. [which] imprinted the
>picture deeply on the astral body; then the physical molecules, ever
>changing, became impressed from within , and the stigmata were the
>result.
>
> JUDGE ARTICLES I 554-6
>
>
>"It is a from of will-power..."imagination"...is the only one that
>will express the necessities of the case. If...imagination cannot
>make a picture of the spot and of the force, [one] can never --except
>by accident--cause the forces to flow ...Hence the initial step is to
>cultivate the interior image-making power. ... with no image the
>forces have no place to focus upon... As each human being is
>sui-generis, he has his own methods interiorly, peculiar to himself
>and to no other...one should not look for hard and fast rules for
all,
>but go to work upon himself, find himself out, of whom he is the
most
>ignorant...


> THEOSOPHICAL FORUM, Answers by WQJ p. 15, [also p. 45, 52-3
>
>=================================================
>
>I hope these will prove useful in showing that Theosophy has always
>had answers for the most abstruse of subjects.
>
>I do not find a specific reference to the Gospel of St. Thomas, which
>followed some of the Gnostic traditions. He was excommunicated I
believe and then he made a pilgrimage to south India and there are
still to be found "St. Thomas Christians" also called "Syrian
Christians" in the Madras and Cochin, Travancore areas. A few miles
south west of Madras ( now CHENNAI) is St. Thomas' Mount, and a church
still stands there in his honor.


=================