Human Animals

"For the impure soul of man, who in this life contracted too great a habit to its body, doth by a certain inward affection of the elemental body frame another body to itself of the vapours of the elements, refreshing as it were from an easy matter as it were with a suck that body which is continually vanishing...."

These souls sometimes do inhabit not these kind of bodies only, but by a too great affection of flesh and blood transmute themselves into other animals, and seize upon the bodies of creeping things, and brutes, entering into them what kind soever they be of, possessing them like demons.

Such herbs as belladonna, aconite, parsley, poplar leaves, and drugs like opium, hyoscyamine and other ingredients, as the blood of the bat, were used among other strange ingredients for making the ointments, which were rubbed upon the skin until it reddened with the friction. This had the effect of making the recipient believe he was being transported through the air, and as the ingredients mounted more and more to his brain, he was filled with imaginary visions of lovely gardens, and forests, banquets, music, and dancing, probably also less pleasant ideas of devils and mocking ghoulish faces.

Perfumes too had strange effects in producing states of exaltation or trance.

Mexican priests rubbed the body with a pomade or salve to which they attributed magical virtues, and at night they wandered in the forests without fear of wild beasts, but not necessarily believing they had been transformed, yet the idea of metamorphosis can surely be regarded as a possible hypothesis when it is remembered that Man's body is composed fundamentally of the same substances as the bodies of animals, that the same elements murmur in the waters, rush in the winds and form the insensate soil of the earth, that the cells in the human being are not essentially different in composition or structure from the cells in the bodies of animals, that all cells are formed primarily of protoplasm, a compound of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, and that scientists have already solved the problem of separating matter into electrons, and of measuring vibrations even to the million and trillion per infinitesimal division of time. Is it to be wondered at that in investigating such theories strange results have been obtained and curious sights and sounds have been seen and heard by the student?

The Chaldeans, who were among the world's greatest magicians, like the Egyptians, represented demons under such monstrous forms, with combined human and animal characteristics, that it was thought sufficient to show them their own image to cause them to flee away in alarm. One such specimen, for instance, had the body of a dog, the feet of an eagle, the claws of a lion, the tail of a scorpion, the head of a skeleton but half decayed, and adorned with goats' horns and the eyes still remaining, and four great expanded wings. Such hideous forms, borrowed as they were from the most different animals as well as from man, were thought to have the characteristic features of the first rudimentary beings born in the darkness of chaos. The magical documents of the day throw light upon the interpretation of these uncanny monsters. They undoubtedly were possessed of a talismanic character and were intended to avert fatal influences, on the principle that an image has the same value as an incantation, and like it, acts in a direct manner on wicked spirits.

Winged bulls with human heads which flanked the entrance gates to palaces were thought to be genii which kept real guard for the whole time that their images dwelt there without disturbance. Expressive of this was the ancient inscription:

May the guardian bull, the guardian genius, who protects the strength of my throne, always preserve my name in joy and honour until his feet move themselves from their place.

In one of the magnificent palaces at Nineveh enormous figures are represented having the body of a man, the head of a lion and the feet of an eagle. These were arranged in groups of two figures fighting with daggers and clubs. Sometimes the groups represent the struggle of gods against malevolent spirits. Occasionally the gods were depicted wrestling with one or many bulls or bull-headed men whom they assail with swords. Demons of this character, called Telal by the Accadians and Gallu by the Assyrians were believed to be particularly harmful to man. The following fragment of a conjuration applies to a struggle of two persons combating two bulls, or creatures which are half-men, half-bulls.

In ancient Egypt incantations and exorcisms were used in order to protect the departing soul of man from malevolent beasts and also to keep the body from becoming, during its separation from the soul, the prey of some wicked spirit which might enter, reanimate, and cause it to rise again in the form of a vampire.

The following formula has been translated by M. Chabas:—

O sheep, son of a sheep! lamb, son of a sheep, that suckest the milk of thy mother the sheep, do not allow the deceased to be bitten by any serpent, male or female, by any scorpion, by any reptile; do not allow their venom to overpower his members. May no deceased male or female penetrate to him! May the shadow of no spirit haunt him! May the mouth of the serpent have no power over him! He, he is the sheep!

O thou which enterest, do not enter into any of the members of the deceased! O thou which killest, do not kill him with thyself! O thou which entwinest, do not entwine thyself round him!

In another incantation, which was directed against various noxious animals, the man who wished to obtain shelter from their attacks invoked the aid of a god, as being himself a god.

In a third formula the enchanter entreats the support of Isis and Nephthys

These magical words did not communicate divine virtue alone to man; animals could also participate in them for the protection of man, as they caused an invincible power to dwell in creatures, like, for instance, the watch-dog, to increase his strength by enchantment, the formula for which commences:

Through solemn incantations, through desire and by will power it may thus be possible to strengthen animal-qualities for purposes best known to those who employ such means. A modern writer on occult matters explains the existence of wer-wolves and vampires on some such psychic basis.

"The popular legends about them," he says,[190] "are probably often considerably exaggerated, but there is nevertheless a terribly serious substratum of truth beneath the eerie stories which pass from mouth to mouth among the peasantry of Central Europe.... All readers of Theosophical literature are familiar with the idea that it is possible for a man to live a life so absolutely degraded and selfish, so utterly wicked and brutal, that the whole of his lower Manas may become entirely unmeshed in Kama, and finally separated from its spiritual source in the higher Ego.... To attain the appalling pre-eminence in evil which thus involves the entire loss of a personality and the weakening of the developing individuality behind, a man must stifle every gleam of unselfishness or spirituality and must have absolutely no redeeming points whatever. And when we remember how often, even in the worst of villains there is to be found something not wholly bad, we shall realize that the abandoned personalities must always be a very small minority. Still comparatively few though they be, they do exist and it is from their ranks that the still rarer vampire is drawn...."

The wer-wolf, though equally horrible, is the product of a somewhat different Karma, and indeed ought perhaps to have found a place under the first instead of the second division of the human inhabitants of Kâmalôka, since it is always during a man's lifetime that he first manifests under this form. It invariably implies some knowledge of magical arts—sufficient at any rate to be able to project the astral body. When a perfectly cruel and brutal man does this, there are certain circumstances under which the body may be seized upon by other astral entities and materialised, not in the human form but into that of some wild animal, usually the wolf; and in that condition it will range the surrounding country killing the animals and even human beings, thus satisfying not only its own craving for blood, but that of the fiends who drive it on. In this case, as so often with the ordinary astral body, any wound inflicted upon the animal materialisation will be reproduced upon the human physical body by the extraordinary phenomenon of repercussion....

"The vast majority of animals have not as yet acquired permanent individualisation and when one of them dies the Monadic essence which has been manifesting through it flows back again into the particular stratum from which it came.... The Kamic aura of the animal forms itself into a Kamarupa ... and the animal has a real existence on the astral plane, the length of which, though never great, varies according to the intelligence which it has developed."[191]

There is, says J. C. Street in "The Hidden Way Across the Threshold," an electro-magnetic invisible liquid in which we all float like fish in water. We are living continually immersed in this ethereal fluid, which is always in motion in a whirling vibration. "A cat-like soul-force can only find satisfaction in a cat-like body, a dog-like soul-force in a dog-like body. In every case the soul-force, or essence shadow, has a corresponding material body. An ape soul-force could no more mould and clothe itself in a human body than a mouse soul-force could do the same with an elephant body,[192] "yet the elements that go to make up the human, animal, or floral envelopes or bodies, are held in solution in the atmosphere, and can through a knowledge of the laws governing it, be utilised to construct instantaneously any of the multitudinous forms that exist in Nature." Further than this it is impossible at the present moment to explain or to grasp this strange theory of transformation which has held a place in human thought since the earliest times, as is proved by the foregoing collection of traditional phenomena.

CHAPTER XXV

CONCLUSION

No completely satisfactory explanation of the phenomena with which this book deals has as yet been formulated, but the elucidation of the problems of transformation, collected from many sources, should be sought primarily in the latent power innate in man which enables him to exert or project thought-forces, but little understood to-day, of which, however, hypnotism and suggestion are the most familiar forms of manifestation. Such power, acting upon the plastic mind-substance of the spiritual world, may, as far as we know, produce forms, animal or otherwise, in accordance with the desire (conscious or subconscious) and the will of the projector. To bring about his purpose and procure manifestation he has to induce a suitable state of mind, and to this end he employs ritual and accessories of various kinds.

To take a single illustrative case in point. The animal masks used in Indian theatrical shows serve as a means of suggestive illusion. In mystical shows anticipatory fear is evoked by such means. Indians are easily brought to a stage of inability to grasp the difference between the real and the suggested wild beast. But Indians and other primitive races are not the only ones to succumb to a strong will bent on producing phenomena. These things affect all kinds of people, even in the so-called higher grades of civilisation, and the effect of auto-suggestion is quite as curious as that of hypnotism. A case has recently come under notice of a woman who acquired the habit of going down on all fours and making a noise of barking, firmly believing that she has been turned into a dog. In how much is she removed from the hyæna-woman of Abyssinia? The cure is much the same, and is brought about by counter-suggestion in one form or another. In such instances, of course, it is not to be supposed that actual transformation has taken place, but spectators may nevertheless be hypnotised into believing what the victim believes. By some such means, too, Nebuchadnezzar may have been made to think himself a subject of boanthropy when "he was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen," continuing this occupation until his body was soaked with the dews of heaven, till his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws.

What difference is there between such a belief and that of the spectator who thinks he sees the devil depart from a woman possessed in the shape of a huge black slug? He also may have been influenced by concentrated thought on the subject, and the question arises how far can human credulity be worked upon by the almost limitless and as yet little-understood power of the human mind. Much depends on the nature of the individual, the environment, and the receptivity to the kind of pressure brought to bear. Love of mystery and awe of the unknown are also strong factors in establishing faith, the first principle necessary for producing creative power. Even the wildest superstition enshrines something of reality and a stratum of truth underlies most widespread beliefs.

Research on these psychical subjects should be carried on earnestly and with untiring patience, always with a view to eliminate the false and preserve the true, wherever possible transmuting apparently evil elements and bringing forth the fundamental good. Such methods should make the prospects of discovering scientific facts more and more favourable in the future.

Unfortunately a miscellaneous study of "isms" and "ogonies" is often unproductive. Byron described the state of mind induced by ill-judged efforts in this direction in "Don Juan," Canto IX, 20:

The seeker after the facts about animal-metamorphosis, confused by many undigested propositions, might thus also attempt to salve his conscience, for man is certainly sometimes near enough to the animal without physical change, but he would be fleeing to a subterfuge suitable only for the idle and the ignorant. To the earnest student there can be no rest until this obscure branch of occult science is cleared up, though it may be but a side issue leading to more important facts. If in the foregoing chapters a grain of truth lies hidden which will help to elucidate the problem with which they deal, they will have served their purpose in pushing a step or two through the darkness which shrouds so many secrets of Nature.

INDEX

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