Collected Works (Vol. II)

28a TIME sense of the Bible, thus degrading a sublime text-book of mystic lore into the merest nursery, or too often bawdy-house, twaddle and filth. You wili alter all this, my friends! Let Science keep the books: Scepl, For a cross between a plodding ass and an old stocking, she will do well! And what dividends do you promise? AJyst. In the first year. Dhyana; in the second, Samadhi; and inthe third, Nirvana. Scept, It is not the first year yet. Is this coin current? Afyst. Ah! I remember now your phrase ‘Dhyana a debaucn.’’ You are of course familiar with the name of Maudsley, perhaps the greatest living authority on the brain? Scept, None greater. Afjst. By rare gocd fortune, at the very moment when this aspect of the question was confronting me, and I was (so any one would have imagined) many thousand miles from expert opinion, I had the opportunity of putting the matter before him. Our conversa- tion was pretty much as foliows: ‘* What is the cause of the phenomenon I have de- scribed?” (I had given just such a sketch as we have drawn above, and added that it was the most cherished possession of all Eastern races. The state was familiar to him.) ‘‘ Excessive activity of one portion of the brain: relative lethargy of the rest.” ‘“ Of which portion ?”” “It is unknown.” ‘Is the phenomenon of pathological significance ?”’ ‘‘T cannot say so much: it would be a danger- ous habit to acquire: but since recovery is spontaneous, and is apparently complete, it isto be classed as physiological.’ I obtained the idea, however, that the danger was very serious, perhaps more so than the actual words used would imply. A further inquiry as to whether he could suggest any medical, surgical, or other means, by which this state inight be produced at will, led to no result. Scept. This is most interesting: for the very doubts which I did entertain as to the safety of mental methods directed to attain- ing this result, are dispelled by what is a cautious. if not altogether unfavourable, view from a naturally-inclined-to-be-unfavourable Western mind. (My mother was of German extraction.) How so? Because my teacher, himselfa Western scientific man of no mean attainments, thought no trouble too great, no language too violent (though he is ordinarily a man of unusual mildness and suavity of manner) to be used, to impress upon me the extreme danger of too vigorous attempts to reach the state of concentration. ‘If you feel the least tired in the course of your daily practice,” he never wearied of repeat- ing, ‘you have done too much, and must absolutely rest for four-and-twenty hours, However fresh you feel, however keen you are to pursue the work, rest you must, or you will but damage the apparatus you are endeavouring to perfect. Rest for longer if you like, never for less.” This adjuration recurs with great force to my mind at the present moment. Our Western *‘ Adepts ”— if you were a Western I would ask you to forgive the word—know, as the great brain specialist knows, the dangers of the practice ; the dangers of the training, the dangers of success. Adyst. Blavatsky’s mysteriously - phrased threats were to this effect. Maybe she knew. Scept. Maybe she did. Well, what I wished to point out was that, had you pressed Dr. Maudsley, he might possibly have ad- mitted that scientific precaution, under trained guidance and watching, might diminish the danger greatly, and permit the student to follow out this line of research without in- curring the stigma—if it be a stigma—of risking his sanity, or at least his general mental welfare?! 1 Dr. Maudsley, to whom I submitted the MS. of this portion of the dialogue, was good enough to say that it represented very much what he had said, and to add that ‘‘ the ‘ecstasy,’ if attained, signifies such a ‘stand- ing-out,’ éx-crag.s, quasi-spasmodic, of a special tract of the brain as, if persisted in, involves the risk of a permanent loss of power, almost in the end a paralysis of the other tracts. —Like other bad habits, it grows by what it feeds on, and may put the fine and complex co-ordinated machinery quite out of gear. The