Blavatsky's French New Year Message 1890

This is Blavatsky's second article on the New Year for 1890, written for a French Theosophical magazine. It continues the same themes of comparing pagan customs with Christian ones. She might have consulted La messe et ses mystères comparés aux mystères anciens, Jean Marie Ragon, E. Dentu, 1882 -464 pages, the end section which is an astrological comparison of ancient pagan feasts compared to modern Christian traditions. 

THOUGHTS ON THE NEW YEAR AND THE FALSE NOSES

[La Revue Théosophique. Paris, Vol. II, No. 11, January 21,
1890, pp. 193-98] [Translation of the foregoing original French text. Collected Writings, Vol. 12, pp. 99-102]

Hail, 1890!
“Annum novum faustum felicemque tibi!”

Such was the sacramental phrase on the lips of all Gentiles, great or lowly, rich or poor, during the day of the first of January, centuries before the Christian era; and we hear it even today, especially in Paris. This mutual greeting was exchanged on that day throughout the length and breadth of the Roman Empire. It awoke the echoes in the palaces of Caesars, made cheerful the poor hovel of the slave, and soared to the clouds in the spacious open galleries of the Colosseum, at the Capitol and the Forum, everywhere under the blue sky of Rome. On that day, everybody assumed, in honor of the double-faced Janus, a more or less prominent false nose of goodness, frank cordiality and sincerity.

“May the New Year bring you happiness and prosperity!” —we say to everyone of our readers. “Let it be light to you,” we say to our enemies and traducers. Brothers—we say to Theosophists in every part of the world—Brothers, let us discard, at least for today, all our respective false noses, in order to wish each other health and success, and, especially, a little more cordial mutual understanding than in the year 1889, now happily defunct. 

However, whether we repeat the old Latin formula one way or another, in French or in English, it will never be but a variation of the ancient pagan phrase. For the New Year, as well as every other festival, is but a legacy to the Christian people from the worshippers of the Olympian gods. Let us, by all means, exchange wishes and gifts (étrennes), but let us not be ungrateful, Theosophists! Let us not forget that these customs come to us from paganism; and that felicitations and gifts also came to us from the same source.

As a matter of fact, gifts (étrennes) are but the strenae, the presents exchanged by the Latins on the first of January,* the day that opened the New Year. As everybody does or does not know—which is all the same to me—this day was consecrated to Janus, who gave his name to the month of Januarius or January, and even to the Saint of that name, the patron of Naples and of its lazzarone [beggars]. But, after all, this amiable Saint is but one of the false noses of the god Bifrons. The old pagan was called in his early youth Diaus, after his Vedic name, the beautiful god of the day and of light. Having immigrated to Thessaly, and thence to Italy, where he established himself in the little hamlet of Janiculum, on the Tiber, latinizing his name and becoming Dianus, god of light (whence Diana). His false noses were many, and history has lost count of them. However, since those days he has let himself be converted. Thus it is that for more than eighteen centuries, having replaced his latest and more modest false nose with a more respectable, if not more impenetrable, mask—he is called Saint Peter.

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* From Janua—“door” or any kind of entrance; the door that opens up the year.
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Let the reader kindly abstain from protesting, and particularly from slinging offensive epithets at us, which would not harm us, but might well lower him in our estimation. I am but the humble interpreter of the more or less veiled truths and symbols, well known to all who have studied their Virgil and their Horace, as well as their Ovid. Neither a false nose nor a mask could prevent an old pagan from recognizing his double-faced Janus in the Apostle who denied his Master. The two are identical, and everybody has the right to take what is his own, wherever he finds it. Saint Peter is the coeli Janitor merely because Janus was that too. The old doorkeeper of heaven, who pulled the door-cord at the palace of the Sun, at every dawn and every New Year, and closed it again when ushering them out, is but too easily recognizable in his new role. 

It is written in the stars which rule the destiny of gods as well as mortals, that Janus—who held the key to heaven in one hand and a halberd in the other, just as St. Peter, having suceeded him, does—would relinquish his role of janitor to the Sun to him who would become the guardian of the portals to Paradise, the abode of Christ-Sun. The new coeli Janitor has become the successor to all the functions and privileges of the ancient one, and we see no harm in that. Solomon has said: “There is nothing new under the sun”; and he was right. It would be silly to invent new functions and new gods—which we fashion in our image—when our forefathers on the other side of the flood went to all the trouble of doing so for us. That is why everything has been allowed to remain as in the past, and why nothing has been changed in this world—except the names.

In all the religious ceremonies the name of Janus was always invoked first, for it was only through his immediate intercession that the prayers of the pagan devotees could reach the ear of the immortal gods. Thus it is even today. Anyone who would presume to communicate with one of the personages of the Trinity over the head of St. Peter would certainly be caught. His prayer would suffer the fate of a petition one sought to leave at the office of the janitor, after having had an argument with him and having called him “old door-keeper”; it would never reach the higher levels.

The fact is, the Great Army of the “Pipelets” and the “Anastasies”* should recognize Janus Bifrons as their patron, the god in whose image it was created. It is only then that it would have a legal right to its gifts, the first of the year, while its great patron would receive his mite from the beginning to the end of the year. Everything is relative in this world of illusion; nevertheless there should exist a difference of degree between a celestial and a terrestrial janitor. As for the gifts, they have existed in all ages both for lowly and great men alike. Caligula, emperor as he was, did not disdain remaining throughout New Year's day in the vestibule of his palace, in order to receive the strenae of his trembling subjects; sometimes, their own heads, for a change. The Virgin-Queen, “Queen Bess” of England, when she died, left three thousand court dresses, which represented her most recent gifts. Both great and lowly behave similarly even now, in the year of our Lord 1890, on this crazy ball we call Terra—the “footstool” of God.

Did not this same God of Abraham and of Jacob allow himself to be moved to pity by promises and presents, just like the gods of other nations? This God and these gods, did they not receive, just like mortals, gifts for services rendered or about to be rendered? Did not Jacob himself bargain with his God, promising him as gifts “the tithe of all that thou [God] wilt give me”? And he added, this good patriarch, at Luz near “Bethel”: “. . . . If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on . . . . then shall the Lord be my God.” Saying this he did not forget to make an offering (étrenner) to the stone “Bethel” which he had raised, by pouring some oil on its top, in a simple but beautiful phallic ceremony (Genesis xxviii, 18, 20-22).

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* [Monsieur and Madame Pipelet are characters in Eugène Sue’s work, Mystères de Paris (1842), who typify the curious habits and peculiarities of the French portier, or Janitor. “Anastasie” is the first name of Madame Pipelet.]
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This touching ceremony came to the Israelites direct from India, where the stone of Śiva, the lingam, is today the object of the same exoteric rite with oil and flowers, every time his worshippers celebrate the festival of the god of Destruction (of brute matter) and of the Yogis.

All has remained as of yore. In Christian countries, especially in France, the New Year makes its triumphal entrance just as it did two thousand years ago, when the Pagans celebrated it with indigestion caused by the figs and gilded prunes they ate. The latter fruit have migrated since to the Christmas tree, which does not alter the fact that they came to us from the temples of Janus. It is true that the priests no longer sacrifice a young white bull upon his altar; that is replaced by a lamb of the same color, but whole hecatombs of quadrupeds and fowl are slaughtered annually in his honor on that day. Certainly more innocent blood is spilled today to satisfy the voracious appetite of one Paris street alone, on New Year’s day, then was necessary to feed a whole Roman city in the time of the Caesars. 

The gentle Julian, the pagan who rediscovered his well-beloved gods in Lutetia—after the gods of Gaul had been disguised by order of Caesar, with the false noses of Roman divinities—spent his leisure hours taming doves in honor of Venus. The ferocious potentates who came after him, the elder sons of the Church, tamed only Venuses that made pigeons out of them. Servile history called the former Apostate, to please the Church, and added to the names of the others some high-sounding epithets: the “Great,” the “Saint,” the “Beautiful.” But if Julian became the “Apostate,” it was perhaps because he had a horror of false noses, while his Christian successors would hardly be presentable in good society without such an artificial appendage. A false nose, when necessary, becomes a guardian angel, and upon occasion even a god. This is history. The metamorphosis of the divinities of barbarous Gaul into the gods of Olympus and Parnassus did not stop there. In their turn, these Olympians had to undergo treatment by order of the successors of Janus St. Peter—namely, a forced baptism. With the help of tinsel and brass, of paste and cement, we find the beloved gods of Julian appearing, after their violent death, in the Golden Legend and the calendar of the good Pope Gregory, under the titles of beatified Saints.

The world is like the sea: it often changes in appearance, but remains basically the same. The false noses of civilization and of the bigots, however, have hardly embelished it: on the contrary, with every New Year it becomes more ugly and more dangerous. We ponder and compare, but in the sight of a philosopher comparison with its predecessors of ancient days does not reflect favorably upon the modern New Year’s Day. The millions stored in the safes and vaults of state banks do not make either the rich or the poor any happier. Ten bronze coins with the effigy of Janus, given as a gift, were worth more in those days than ten gold coins, with the effigy of the Republic or the Queen, are worth today; the baskets of gilded prunes, a few cents worth, contained less cause of indigestion than the boxes of candy exchanged on New Year’s Day today—these candies representing in Paris alone the sum of half a million francs. Five hundred thousand francs in candies, and the same number of men and women dying from hunger and privations! 

Let us go back in our minds, my readers, fifteen centuries, and try to make a comparison between a New Year’s dinner in the years 355 to 360, and a similar dinner in 1890. Let us seek out the same good and kind Julian, when he lived in the palace of Thermae, which is known today as the Hotel de Cluny—or what is left of it. Do you see him, this great general, at his dinner, surrounded by his soldiers whom he loves better than anyone else in the world outside of his gods, and who idolize him! It is the first of January and they are celebrating the day of Janus In two days, the third of January, they will render a similar homage to Isis, patroness of the good city of Lutetia Parisiorum. Since those days, the virgin-mother of ancient Egypt was rebaptized as Geneviève, and this Saint and Martyr (of Typhon?) has remained the patroness of the good city of Paris—true symbol of a false nose furnished by Rome for the Christian world. 

We see neither knives nor forks, neither silver nor porcelain of Sèvres, at that imperial table, not even a napkin; but the meats and other foods which the guests consume with so much appetite do not have to be inspected under the microscope of chemists attached to public health offices. No artificial or poisonous product is to be found in their bread or wine. Arsenic does not add to their vegetables the false nose of a deceptive freshness; rust does not hide itself in the corners of their preserved food containers, and red brick pulverized in a mortar does not play the role of their pepper. Their sugar (or that which takes its place) is not extracted from the tar in the wheels of their chariots of war; in swallowing their liqueurs and cognac, they do not swallow a solution made from the old boots of a policeman, found in the basket of a rag picker; they did not devour, with a casual smile on their lips, a bouillon condensed from the grease of corpses (of men as well as of animals) and the rags used in all the hospitals of Paris—as a substitute for butter. For all of this is a product of modern culture, the fruit of civilization and scientific progress, while Gaul at the time of Julian was but a barbarous and savage land. But what they ate on their New Year’s Day could be eaten with safety and with advantage (except for the doctors) at the dinners on the first of the year 1890.

“They had neither forks nor silver,” they will say; “and they ate with their fingers, those barbarians!” That’s true; they had no use for forks, and probably for handkerchiefs also; but on the other hand, they did not have to swallow their ancestors in their kitchen grease, and the bones of their dogs in their white bread, as we do daily. If given a choice, we would definitely not choose the gala dinner of the first of the year of grace 1890, at Paris, but the one of a thousand years ago, at Lutetia. A case of barbarian taste, don’t you see! A ridiculous and baroque preference, according to the opinion of the majority, for natural in the fourth century, attracts us infinitely more than the false noses and the artificiality of everything in the nineteenth century.

Blavatsky on Magic 2/2

An extract from Chapter 6, Fictional Practice: Magic, Narration, and the Power of Imagination: Magic and Literary Imagination in H. P. Blavatsky’s Theosophy

Marco Frenschkowski

https://brill.com/display/book/9789004466005/BP000007.xml?language=en  

 

In this part, Blavatsky's writings about the will and imagination are probably understated. See for example, the entry on Will in the Theosophical Glossary, among several others passages (see 'Will and Desire, Lucifer, Vol. I, No. 2, October, 1887 (p. 96) ) where it is given due importance. Evidently, the publication of the The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in 1923 made a significant impact on the Theosophical movement.

In Isis Unveiled, HPB gave a summary of her early views on magic as part of “the fundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy which we have elucidated, as yet', as it summarises the most basic ideas: 

1st. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result of law— eternal, immutable, ever active […]

4th. Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and of the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature’s forces may be acquired by the individual while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this knowledge in practice. 

5th. Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery; beneficiently used, true magic or wisdom. 

6th. Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the passive instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls himself and all inferior potencies. […] 

8th. Races of men differ in spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or any other external quality; among some peoples seership naturally prevails, among others mediumship. Some are addicted to sorcery, and transmit its secret rules of practice from generation to generation, with a range of psychical phenomena […] 

9th. […] The thaumaturgist, thoroughly skilled in occult science, can cause himself (that is, his physical body) to seem to disappear, or to apparently take on any shape that he may choose […]. Inert matter may be, in certain cases and under certain conditions, disintegrated, passed through walls, and recombined, but living animal organisms cannot. Swedenborgians believe and arcane science teaches that the abandonment of the living body by the soul frequently occurs, and that we encounter every day, in every condition of life, such living corpses. […]

10th. The corner- stone of magic is an intimate practical knowledge of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and potencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their effects in and upon the animal kingdom and man. […] To sum up all in a few words, magic is spiritual *)$',.; nature, the material ally, pupil and servant of the magician […]. )( 2: 587– 590; cf. ,!!, 2011, 560– 563 

In a letter written immediately after publication of Isis Unveiled, she writes: If I do not uncover altogether the Saitic goddess, I hope to have at least sufficiently indicated where the Veil of her shrine can be raised by those who are ready to conform to the four cardinal rules of the so called ‘Magic’ or occult Psychology— to Know, Will, Dare, and Keep Silent. Behind the veil lies the Key to modern Spiritualistic phenomena, and there alone can be discovered the Secret of Secrets: what is man, his origin, his powers, and destiny. 2@S: 1: 363 This passage so to say leads from Isis Unveiled to The Secret Doctrine. The magical and alchemical motto HPB quotes (Scire. Potere. Audere. Tacere) is usually ascribed to Zoroaster. 

As HPB did not want members of her Esoteric Section to participate in other occult groups, Westcott wrote her a not too friendly letter in early 1889 (Gomes 2010, 156), but she insisted on this rule, applying it only to the Esoteric Section, however. MacGregor Mathers was also held in high esteem: his Kabbala Denudata (a translation of Zoharic texts) HPB said she knew by heart (ibid., 375). This tradition was a major influence in the Golden Dawn, which after initially using rather simple magical practices in the 1890s became a “vehicle for effective magical initiations” (Godwin 1994, 224). The concentration on will and imagination in Crowley’s concept of “magick,” derived in part from the Golden Dawn, is not yet clearly expressed in HPB’s statements. In a study on the pentagram she writes in 1881, however: “What is in a sign?’ will our readers ask. ‘No more than in a name’ we shall reply— nothing except that, as said above, it helps to concentrate the attention, hence to nail the will of the operator to a certain spot” (-* 2: 253). This is essentially the theory of magic that became prevalent in twentieth- century magical occultism. (see The Six-Pointed And Five-Pointed Stars,  The Theosophist, November, 1881) 

Theosophists of the first generation see magic deeply connected to self- restraint: “The foundation of magic is the ability to restrain one’s own emotions and thoughts”._ The impact of Theosophy on more recent ideas of magic cannot be discussed here in more detail. Aleister Crowley’s complex relation with HPB would alone deserve separate treatment. In his Blue Equinox (Equinox 3, 1, from 1929) he included a book lengthay commentary on HPB’s The Voice of the Silence (“Liber 2##)”; cf. also Crowley 1979, 842). This work he included also in the recommended reading lists of his Magick. Liber #6# (Equinox 1, 8, written 1912– 1913), the most complete survey of his approach to “magick.” Isis Unveiled on the other side he regarded as an “hotch- potch of fact and fable” (Crowley 1979, 604), and he saw his “magick” as a “declaration of war” on Spiritualism and Theosophy as it had become, “though I agreed with much of Blavatsky’s teachings” (ibid., 582). This is a typical attitude in the world of magicians, where her deep scepticism about practical magic is never overlooked. B Hartmann 1920, 158: “Die Kunst, seine Gefühle und Gedanken zu beherrschen, ist die Grundlage der Magie” (my translation).  

In how far are the famous ‘phenomena’ of HPB related to her understanding of magic? Only a few remarks are possible at this place. They contributed as much to HPB’s fame as her writings (though the first printing of The Secret Doctrine was sold out on its very first day from the subscriptions alone), and kept her name for years in European, American, and Indian newspapers and magazines. They were partly strange acoustic occurrences (ringing bells to be heard from different places of the room, voices and others) that she could clearly produce at will (,'2 1: 424– 428; -* 6: 164), in some cases audible to some persons and not to others in the same room (Hartmann 2000, 30).

Much more noteworthy— and even more odd— were materialisation phenomena that have only little similarity to those familiar from spiritualism. They deserve some attention, and it must be emphasized that most secondary studies do not sufficiently acknowledge the deep ambivalence and conceptual reference frame of these stories already in early Theosophy, and through this neglect create a skewed and much overrated impression of what these phenomena meant for theosophists. In fact, they found them often rather embarrassing. HPB produced these phenomena (with help from her ‘Masters,’ as she understood it), but on the other side she quite ferociously ridiculed those who were too interested in them: for her such interest was a sign of a rather low spiritual standing, of a despicable sensationalism. This attitude, often overlooked in critical studies on Theosophy, exactly repeats Asiatic views, e.g., early Buddhist interpretations of siddhi (supernatural capacities or powers, Tibetan dngos grub). (Major sources for material are Sinnett 1881; ,'2 1 and 2; Barker 1926). 

Alfred Percy Sinnett (1840– 1921; cf. the autobiography Sinnett 1986) had been the Editor of the Pioneer, India’s largest daily newspaper, since 1871. He became a main recipient of the ‘Mahatma’ letters, and an early describer of ‘phenomena.’ The grotesqueness of some of the stories is not to be denied: when at a tea party a set of tableware was found to be lacking, and HPB was jokingly asked to supply such one by materialisation; after ‘mental conversation’ with her Masters she pointed to a special place, overgrown with grass and bushes. This place immediately was dug out, and a tea- cup and a saucer were found, not different from the other six cups and saucers brought from the Sinnetts’ house. Strangely plant roots around these items were found intact and had to be destroyed to reach them, and it was ascertained the place had not been dug out before (Sinnett 1881, 66– 68). This story and a large number of similar ones are explainable as elaborate hoaxes or simply hardly credible: and indeed Cf. on the spiritualist background of fairy bells, clairaudience and paranormal music, Hardinge Britten 1970, 57, 90, 105, 165, 173, 183, 200– 203, 301, 304, 463f.  they were never given any further attention by HPB, and certainly never used as arguments for anything (though the explanation of this particular story given by Emma Coulomb 1885, 28, is clearly a free invention). 

On the other side some ‘phenomena’ are well authenticated and often have a spontaneous, impromptu and playful character that makes elaborate preparation unlikely. Some reserve in judgment might be advisable. More important is her tireless insistence on the little value of such phenomena. Olcott even says her reputation in India suffered from these stories, which were taken as signs of an inferior spiritual standing (,'2 1: 99f.). HPB seems to have treated these phenomena dismissively as harmless amusement for children given by adults: which of course can be interpreted as a sign of ingenuous cunning, taking the wind out of the sails of her critics. Sceptics were allowed to introduce any regulations against fraud that they proposed. A diary entry from 1878 demonstrates nicely how she regarded media coverage: “A reporter from the Graphic comes to interview H. P. B. Is respectfully begged to go to the devil” (HPB 1: 155). Olcott and other theosophists saw these things more as maya, glamour, illusion, than as miracles. Franz Hartmann interpreted the phenomena as meant to attract popular attention, as a church bell is meant to attract people to come and hear a sermon, and not as intrinsically important (Hartmann 1915a, 33). This has been a common persuasion in theosophical circles, and it was also shared by HPB’s family (Solovyoff 1895, 286), by Franz Hartmann and others, and of course has been a controversial subject in the struggles with the Society for Psychical Research, a main competitor of the Theosophical Society for public recognition (cf. Hodgson 1885; Baird 1949, and the documents in Kelly 1990). 

The Master letters have been the most widely discussed of these 'phenomena,’ reaching their recipients in an often spectacular manner, flying down from no visible source, appearing inside of clothing or on a blank sheet of paper, once on a seat of a railway station the recipient just decided to enter, a.o.; cf. Cooper 1998; Barborka 1966). Precipitated letters had already been known in older spiritualism, as the letters the farmer Jonathan Koons in the name of his Spirit guide John King made to appear in 1852 in Millfield Township, Ohio (cf. also Hardinge Britten 1970, 195f., 201f., 252). Interestingly precipitated letters are also well- known as magical treats in Islam (cf. already Olcott 1875, 414f.), as of course in the Bible (Dan. 5). But HPB’s letters were said to have their origin with her hidden masters: and these were not spirits, but living though inaccessible spiritual teachers. In the early days of the Theosophical Society, precipitated letters were a prime medium of conveying advice and occult teaching, and as was to be expected they were immediately accompanied by criticism and ridicule from non- theosophists. 

Interestingly the letters lost much of their impact when HPB’s own larger books became available, and the discussion on the ‘authenticity’ (which can mean very different things) had in many cases lost almost all contact with a reasonable discussion of their content. The first one of such letters was received by HPB’s Russian family in 1870 (Barborka 1966, 140f.). Reading these ‘master letters’ today after reading HPB’s own publications leaves little doubt many of them were essentially written by HPB: herself or at least with her participation. 

Part 1