LECTURE ON OCCULTISM

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1172, 6 July 1911, Page 6

LECTURE ON OCCULTISM

fWHY HORSES SHY. Miss C. W. Christie, delivered another lecture in the Municipal Concert Chamber last night under the auspices of the Wellington Thcosophical Society. Mr. llardic Shaw, who presided, announced that tho subject would be "Ocultisai and Theosophy." At the outset, Miss Christie said thar, though she was grateful to the newspapers for the attention they had given to her lectures, she desired to remove a misunderstanding which might occur in tho minds of some readers of the press reports. She had not wished to convey the notion, that people who took money for teaching occultism were charlatans. What she meant was that they were dangerous. They might be perfectly honest, and they might think they were right, but no true occultist would take money for teaching anything. It was true that she had called tho buildings of the Theosophical Society at Adyar palatial, but they were only so outside. They were very bare within, and the students, of whom she was one, lived as much like nuns or monks as possible. The furniture in each of the bedrooms of the students consisted of bookshelves, a, wardrobe, a small chest of drawers, and a writing table. The floor was of stone, with 01:0 .or two of tho thinnest mats. The bed was on the balcony outside. There were no punkahs except in the diiiing-room. Heparato quarters of a comparatively luxurious character were provided for wealthy people who liked to pay long visits to the institution. The new build--would kc aj; simple <is possible. The students practised sleeping on tho floor-a useful habit, because when they went on lecturing tours, as she herself had found, tho beds that were available usually had large populations ot an undesirable character. • . Occultism, Miss Christie explained, was super-physical, and .super-normal, but not supernatural. There was, indeed, nothin" supernatural. Occultism was mysterious. Tt dealt with what was to most noonle, for the present, unknowable. Lhe 'system of Hatha Yoga, which many people regarded as occultism, we.s a dancer, because it sought to attain results through the physical body, with which occultism really Lad nothing to do. Occultism was not mysticism. It was not psvciiism. A\ by. cats, dog?, and horses "were much more psychic than manv human beings. 111 P :,r r ticular, were more psychic than most other animals.' That was why they shied al things that we could not see. If we saw in front of us something that looked like a person or an animal, and tlieu found ourselves, as we walked forward, passing right through it, we too should be frightened. That was how it was with tho horse, and, therefore, it was cruel to whip a lior?<! for shying. Tbo cruelty would come . back, upon oneself some 'day. At Adyar, they usually led tho frightened horse round another way. Occultism underlay everything visible, and the occult, wis thfl cause of all phenomena. Our actions ;and inst.itut'ons were linked oil faint memories, and the beginnings of the sight of things that lav underneath or beyond the visible. Our schools, our armies, our civil services, were the far-off reflex of reality, and of the.occult workings of nature. There were around us beings a little beyond the human. The world did not exist for us human beings. We were only one evolution, and not by any means the most numerous. We were of tlic Fifth Race, the intellectual race, anil lhe Sixth Race was now beeinning. to form. This also would be an intellectual race, but its note would be brotherhood, and its members wruld have spirituality as 'heir principal charuleristic. They i would be the product of repeated reiiii The experience of the soul was continuou--in many bodies. Criui'iials and other undeveloped per-ons were baby souls, and tbe higher characters were older soul*. There was hope for the lowest «oul in 1: ineai naMon. The icin-il would ("•< chance afte: chance in body after body. A gooci-azcd audience listened to the lecture with close attention, and a vote of thanks was heartily accorded.

Miss Christie will deliver a. Jootnro tonight an "Tlic Social Life of India."