ENQ. Then why do not our physicians experiment and try if they could not do as much?[56]
THEO. Because, first of all, they are not Adepts with a thorough understanding of the secrets and laws of psychic and spiritual realms, but materialists, afraid to step outside the narrow groove of matter; and, secondly, because they _must fail_ at present, and indeed until they are brought to acknowledge that such powers are attainable.
THEO. Not unless they were first of all prepared, by having the materialistic dross they have accumulated in their brains swept away to the very last atom.
ENQ. This is very interesting. Tell me, have the Adepts thus inspired or dictated to many of your Theosophists?
THEO. No, on the contrary, to very few. Such operations require special conditions. An unscrupulous but skilled Adept of the Black Brotherhood (“Brothers of the Shadow,” and Dugpas, we call them) has far less difficulties to labour under. For, having no laws of the Spiritual kind to trammel his actions, such a Dugpa “sorcerer” will most unceremoniously obtain control over any mind, and subject it entirely to his evil powers. But our Masters will never do that. They have no right, except by falling into Black Magic, to obtain full mastery over anyone’s immortal Ego, and can therefore act only on the physical and psychic nature of the subject, leaving thereby the free will of the latter wholly undisturbed. Hence, unless a person has been brought into psychic relationship with the Masters, and is assisted by virtue of his full faith in, and devotion to, his Teachers, the latter, whenever transmitting their thoughts to one with whom these conditions are not fulfilled, experience great difficulties in penetrating into the cloudy chaos of that person’s sphere. But this is no place to treat of a subject of this nature. Suffice it to say, that if the power exists, then there are Intelligences (embodied or disembodied) which guide this power, and living conscious instruments through whom it is transmitted and by whom it is received. We have only to beware of _black_ magic.
ENQ. But what do you really mean by “black magic”?
THEO. Simply _abuse of psychic powers_, or of any _secret of nature_; the fact of applying to selfish and sinful ends the powers of Occultism. A hypnotiser, who, taking advantage of his powers of “suggestion,” forces a subject to steal or murder, would be called a _black magician_ by us. The famous “rejuvenating system” of Dr. Brown-Sequard, of Paris, through a loathsome _animal injection_ into human blood—a discovery all the medical papers of Europe are now discussing—if true, is _unconscious black magic_.