“IMPRESSIONS FROM THE INFINITE”

[The Theosophist, Vol. V, No. 1(49), October, 1883, pp. 27-28.]

For some time past, M. C. W. Rohner, M.D. of Benalla, was busy translating from the Spanish of Balmes trance-utterances of the name that heads this note. Whether the “Impressions from the Infinite” is a name given to the series by the Spanish recorder (or compiler), or by the able Australian translator, we are unable to tell. However it may be, the work is finished, and after the word FINIS, Dr. Rohner has the following:—

EPILOGUE BY THE TRANSLATOR

Readers of The Theosophist, and of the Theosophical writings generally, will have perceived that the “Impressions from the Infinite,” as published in the Harbinger of Light for the last eight or ten months, bear a certain resemblance to some of the more advanced teachings of Eastern Occultism, which circumstance appears to me to illustrate the fact, still doubted in certain quarters, that the “Brothers” exert a silent and world-wide influence on receptive minds. and that the spiritual press in both hemispheres is gradually getting impregnated with theosophical doctrines and the spirit of Occult science. Of Balmes, the inspired writer of the “Impressions,” I know personally nothing more than he, or she, is a Mexican medium of great refinement and spiritual comprehension.
BENALLA, April 1883.

The conjecture is more than possible as far as the general tenor of mediumistic utterances and so-called “Spirit” teachings is concerned. But, although we have not had the time to read as carefully as it may deserve the able translation given by Mr. Rohner, yet from what one is being able to gather from the concluding portion of it, there seems to be a wide difference between one of the essential or, so to say, cardinal tenets of Eastern Occultism and the said “Impressions.” Too much is assumed hypothetically with regard to God—as a “Creator” and a Being distinct from the universe—an extra-cosmic deity, in fine; and too little attention is bestowed upon the only concrete symbol of the latter

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—inner man. While the personal deity has and ever will elude scientific proof of its existence, man, its hitherto solitary synthesis as manifested on this earth, is allowing himself, in the case under notice, to be mastered and guided by invisible powers perchance as blind as himself—instead of seeking to obtain mastery over them, and thus solve the mysteries of the Infinite and the Invisible REALITIES. Preconceived Impressions, accepted on blind faith, and along the old theological grooves, can never yield us the whole truth; at best they will be hazy and distorted images of the Infinite as reflected in the astral and deceptive light of the Kama loka. Yet the style of the “Impressions” is beautiful—perchance owing more to the translation than the original.

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