The occult Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801 -1887)
The Theosophist for November (1930) in its series of “Echoes of the Past,” narrates how on July 8, 1881, Mr. A. P. Sinnett received a letter from the Master K.H. in which the latter remarked: “I may answer you, what I said to G.T. Fechner, one day, when he wanted to know the Hindu view on what he had written.”
This is to be found in The Mahatma Letters, p. 44. Mr. C.C. Massey, who was always skeptical about the Masters, set out to test this bit of evidence and wrote to Dr. Wernekke of Weimar with the hope of corroborating or perhaps of discrediting it. But Professor Fechner wrote back from Leipzig on April 25, 1883 to Dr. Wernekke the following letter which should be of the first interest to all real students of the Theosophical Movement:
“What Mr. Massey enquires about is undoubtedly in the main correct; the name of the Hindu concerned, when he was in Leipzig, was, however, Nisi Kanta Chattopadhyaya, not Koot Humi. In the middle of the seventies he lived for about one year in Leipzig and aroused a certain interest owing to his foreign nationality, without being otherwise conspicuous; he was introduced to several families and became a member of the Academic Philosophical society, to which you also belonged, where on one occasion he gave a lecture on Buddhism.
I have these notes from Mr. Wirth, the Librarian of the Society, who is good enough to read to me three times a week. I also heard him give a lecture in a private circle on the position of women among the Hindus. I remember very well that he visited me once, and though I cannot remember our conversation, his statement that I questioned him about the faith of the Hindus is very likely correct. Apart from this I have not had personal intercourse with him; but, after his complete dissappearance from Leipzig, I have been interested to hear about him, and especially to know that he plays an important role in his native country, such as undoubtedly he could not play here.”
– From Canadian Theosophist, Jan. 15, 1930, “Master in Europe”
Further information
Fechner, Gustav Theodor – Das Büchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode (1835, ed. 1947)
Original quotation
“Indem die höheren Geister nicht bloß in einzelnen Menschen wohnen, sondern indem jeder sich in mehrere hineinverzweigt, sind sie es, die diese Menschen auf geistige Weise verknüpfen, sei es zu einer Form des Glaubens, oder einer Wahrheit, einer moralischen oder politischen Bestrebung. Alle Menschen, die irgendeine geistige Gemeinschaft miteinander haben, gehören zum Leibe eines und desselben Geistes zusammen und gehorchen der Idee, die von ihm in sie eingegangen ist, wie zusammengehörige Glieder.
Oft lebt eine Idee in einem ganzen Volke auf einmal, off wird eine Masse Menschen zu einer und derselben Tat begeistert; das ist ein mächtiger Geist, der sie alle überkommt, in alle epidemisch hineinstrahlt. Freilich nicht bloß durch die Geister der Toten geschehen diese Verknüpfungen, sondern unzählige neugeborene Ideen wirken von den Lebenden in die Lebenden hinein; aber alle diese Ideen, die vom Lebenden in die Welt gehen, sind ja schon Glieder seines künftigen geistigen Organismus.
Wenn nun zwei verwandte Geister in der Menschheit sich begegnen und durch ihre gemeinschaftlichen Momente verwachsen, indes sie sich zugleich durch ihre verschiedenartigen wechselseitig bestimmen und bereichern, so treten zugleich die Gesellschaften, Geschlechter, Völker, denen sie erst einzeln innewohnten, in geistige Gemeinschaft und bereichern sich durch ihr geistiges Besitztum. So geht die Entwickelung des Geisterlebens dritter Stufe in der Menschheit untrennbar mit der Entwickelung, dem Fortschritte der Menschheit Hand in Hand.
Die allmähliche Ausbildung des Staates, der Wissenschaften, der Künste, des menschlichen Verkehrs, die Organisation dieser Lebenssphären zu immer größeren harmonisch gegliederten Ganzen ist die Folge dieses Zusammenwachsens von unzähligen geistigen Individualitäten, die in der Menschheit leben und weben, zu größeren geistigen Organismen.
Wie möchten auch sonst jene großartigen Sphären sich nach so unwandelbaren Ideen herausgestalten aus dem wirren egoistischen Treiben der einzelnen, die mit ihrem kurzsichtigen Auge nicht den Umfang und im Umfang nicht die Mitte erblicken, wenn nicht die klar durch das Ganze schauenden höheren Geister durchwirkten durch das Getriebe, und indem sie sich alle um das gemeinsame göttliche Zentrum drängen und dabei zusammenfließen mit ihren göttlichen Teilen, auch die Menschen, in denen sie wirken, dem höheren Ziele vereint zuführten.
Aber neben der Harmonie der Geister, die sich freundlich begegnen und gatten, besteht auch ein Kampf der Geister, deren Wesen im Widerspruch ist, ein Kampf, in dem alles in endlichem Zwist Befangene sich zuletzt aufreiben wird, damit das Ewige in seiner Reinheit allein übrigbleibe. Auch dieses Kampfes Spuren zeigt die Menschheit auf im Streit der Systeme, im Haß der Sekten, in den Kriegen und Empörungen zwischen den Fürsten und Völkern und den Völkern untereinander.
In alle diese großen geistigen Bewegungen tritt die Masse der Menschen hinein mit blindem Glauben, mit blindem Gehorsam, mit blindem Haß, mit blinder Wut; sie hört nicht und sieht nicht mit den Ohren und Augen des eigenen Geistes; sie wird getrieben von fremden Geistern nach Zwecken und Zielen, von denen sie selbst nicht weiß, sie läßt sich führen durch Sklaverei und Tod und greuliche Drangsale, wie eine Herde folgend dem Antriebe der höheren Geister.
Freilich gibt es auch Menschen, die mit klarem Selbstbewußtsein und mit innerer Selbständigkeit handelnd und leitend in diese große Bewegung eingreifen. Aber sie sind nur freiwillige Mittel zu großen vorbestimmten Zwecken; durch ihr freies Handeln zwar vermögend, die Art und Schnelligkeit, aber nicht das Ziel des Fortschritts zu bestimmen.
Nur die haben Großes in der Welt gewirkt, welche die geistige Richtung der Gegenwart, in der sie lebten, erkannt und ihr freies Handeln und Denken nach dieser Richtung gelenkt haben; wohl ebenso große Menschengeister, die ihr widerstrebten, sind untergegangen. Jene hat sich der Geist, der die besseren Ziele setzt und die besseren Wege dazu kennt, zu neuen Mittelpunkten seiner bewegenden Kraft ausersehen; nicht als blinde Werkzeuge, sondern als solche, welche aus eigenem Antriebe und mit eigenem Verstande seinen Rechten und seiner Weisheit dienen.
Nicht der gezwungene Sklave verrichtet den besseren Dienst. Womit sie aber Gott diesseits zu dienen beginnen, das werden sie jenseits als Teilhaber seiner himmlischen Herrschaft weiterführen.”
- Quotation from the edition above, pp. 19-21.
Seven decades later, Dr. Rudolf Steiner says the same thing, only now expanded in progressively higher quality to include the teachings of karma and reincarnation, which make the interconnectedness of life and the web of destiny in the school of Earth more understandable.
Theosophical reception of Fechner
Review of the English translation “The Little Book of Life after Death” in The Theosophist, vol. 4, No. 5 (February 1883), pp. 123-124. H. P. Blavatsky, or rather the editors, discuss Fechner’s doctrine of the three stages of life in detail, praise his ideas, but criticize his rejection of reincarnation and compare his view with Hindu-Buddhist teachings.
It is currently unclear whether Blavatsky was the reviewer or someone else. As editor, she often did not sign her work or used a pseudonym; however, this was also true for other editors. Her great-nephew, Baron Boris de Zirkoff, did not include this review in his Blavatsky Collected Writings (BCW), even though he did include several anonymous journal articles that he could attribute to Blavatsky with some certainty.
This does not appear to have been the case with this review. The first article from issue no. 5 that Boris de Zirkoff included in BCW IV is “Mistaken Notes” from pages 104-105. However, a portrait of Fechner is at least included in the BCW.
A stylometric comparison between the review and Blavatsky’s writings on the topics of death, devachan, and reincarnation is suggested and remains to be seen. The review contains several lines of thought that are typical of Blavatsky:
HPB often follows the same pattern:
- A Western scholar has recognized part of the truth.
- His insight is remarkable, but incomplete.
- Only Theosophy fully explains the matter.
In the recension this same pattern is applied to Fechner:
- Fechner correctly recognizes the continued existence of consciousness.
- However, he acknowledges neither karma nor reincarnation.
- Therefore, his explanation remains incomplete.
This corresponds to HPB’s assessments of other Western thinkers such as Carl du Prel, Hegel, Eduard von Hartmann, Alfred Russel Wallace, or William Crookes. Blavatsky’s dialectic is often a triad:
- First, generous praise for higher ideas beyond materialism,
- then sharp criticism due to insufficient justification, and
- finally, an evaluation from the perspective of the ancient wisdom (Dzyan).
However, it is not impossible that Blavatsky’s circle adopted her style. What is uncertain is the moderate tone, while she is often polemical and ironic.
The well thought out review discusses the three stages of life, Fechner’s concept of death, and the differences between death and reincarnation.
POST-MORTEM LIFE .*
This book before us is one of those from whose perusal one turns with a feeling of profound respect for the author, however much his views may differ from one’s own. Every line, every word, bears the stamp of simple honesty and absolute love of truth. Of course, nothing need be said with respect to its intellectnal quality, for the venerable professor of Leipzig, wlio gave the world his “Zend Avesta, on the Things of Heaven, and the Hereafter,” and his “Elements of Psychophysic,” could write nothing that was not scholarly, original, and thoughtful in a high degree.
And in Dr. Wernekke he has found a translator who, though himself a German, has rendered the text into English in a masterly manner. It would be scarcely possible to epitomize philosophy into more compact and nervous sentences than these before us. If we cannot wholly agree with the author’s premises, it must be conceded that his conclusions are stated with a clearness and terse vigour that presents his thought to the reader as translucent as crystal. Fechner’s proposition is packed within the opening paragraph:-
“Man lives on earth not once, but three times: the first stage of his life is continual sleeping; the second, sleeping and waking by turns ; the third, waking for ever.” And then he elaborates with care each of these three states, their relations and consequences.
In the first stage, the antenatal :- “Man lives in the dark, alone ; in the second, he lives associated with, yet separated from, his fellow men; in a light reflected from the surface of things ; in the third, his life, interwoven with the life of other spirits, is a higher life in the Highest of Spirits, with the power of looking to the bottom of finite things.“In the first stage his body develops itself from its germ, working out organs for the second; iu the second stage bis mind develops itself from its germ, working out organs for the third; in the third the divine germ develops itself, which lies hidden in every human mind, to direct him, through instinct, through feeling and believing, to the world beyond, wbich seems so dark at present, but shall be light as day hereafter.
“The act of leaving the first stage for the second we call Birth; that of leaving the second for the third, Death. Our way from the second to the third is not darker than our way from the first to second: one way leads us forth to see the world outwardly; the other, to see it inwardly.”
Where were these prime verities ever more succinctly stated than in this last paragraph? And the whole book is in this style. The Hindu reader will, of course, take excepticn to the postulate that in the natural course of development man passes his third or spirit stage of being upon earth. To him the very idea of continued relationship of the disembodied entity with this scene of physical activities is abhorrent.
He does indeed believe that we are born again and again, as the result of Karma; but he clings fondly to the hope that by works of merit and the practice of Yogum, the vicious Circle of Necessity may be broken through and the perfect release of Moksha be attained. Fechner’s is a philosophy of tripartite progression – from embryo to man, from man to immortal spirit. In the third epoch, the disembodied blend their being with the living.
“If you think of a dead person earnestly and intensely, not only the thought of him or her, but the dead person himself, will be in your mind immediately. You may inwardly conjure him, he must come to you; you may hold him, he must stay with you, if you only fix your thouglits upon him.” If this were literally true, would it not be within the power of the sorcerer or the selfish friend to enchain the dead to him, and prevent his progress? This is severe injustice, quite opposed to the laws of both universal progress and Karma.
And yet Fechner himself says, “Full justice is done to every man; it consists in the totality of the consequences of both good and evil actions.” That is Karma, and Karma is the one chief feature in Hinduism and Buddhism which make each, to our mind, so superior to Christianity, with its doctrine of unpunished sin forgiven through vicarious mediation.
This great thinker and philosopher had, unhappily for our generation, already passed his eightieth birthday in 1881. If his useful life could only have beon prolonged until he could have become acquainted with esoteric Arhat philosophy and found its striking merits, it would have been a blessed thing for a public which needs more than any thing else just now, competent guides to correct religious concepts. He holds to the spiritualistic theory that children dying ever so young go on developing to maturity in the spirit world.
“In the same way,” says he, “a child which has been alive only for a moment, can never die again. The shortest moment of conscious life produces a circle of actions around it, just as the briefest tone that seems gone in a second, produces a similar circle which carries the tone into endless space, far beyond the persons standing by to listen * * * The mind of the child will develop itself from that one conscious moment * * * but in a different way from what it would have done when beginning from a moro developed state.”
This is to say that, despite the evident law of progression by which each subsequent stage of his own tripartite course developes out of, and is the fruition of the next antecedent one, the day-old babe may attain full maturity of intellect as well as spirit, without having passed that round of nature’s ladder whereon “mind develops itself from its germ, working out organs” for the spiritual entity! Though mediums affirm this, it is hard to reconcile so evident an interruption of apparently universal law with either logic, mathematics, or the conservation of energy.
Asiatics will rather hold to their ancient esoteric teaching, that there are no exceptions to the necessity of passing through, as well as into, each state of being before entering the next, and that the baby entity must be reborn as man, and have man’s full experience, before passing ou to the next point in the circle of rebirth.
A philosophy like that impairs in no degree the noble idea of human destiny, while it does seem to agree with the highest intuitions of justice and cosmic harmony, more perfectly than an optimism which shows us nature constantly fruiting her Tree of Life, whether its buds and blossoms were perfected or not.
In a work published in 1848, and called by him “Nanna, or the Soul-Life of Plants,” the venerable author was more in harmony with Eastern thought, since we find embodied therein, a full conviction that there is not an atom in the universe but is possessed of soul. Indeed, in the words of his able translator he began in that book, “a course of investigation which soon led him from the convictions that the organized beings inferior to man have a soul, do not only consist of a body and soul, but rather are body and soul in one, like man himself, to the higher and grander conviction that the beings superior to man, the celestial bodies, must likewise have an inward life underlying and concomitant with, their outward life; that, in fact, the whole universe is alive, not a dead bulk, but an animated being, a wonderful organism of the sublimest order.”
* On Life after Death. From the German of Gustav Theodor Fechner; pp. 95, 16mo. By Hugo Wernekke, Head Master of Weimar Realschule. (London; Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882).
Fechner, Theodor
(1801-1887). One of the pioneers of experimental psychology whom Mahatma K.H. met in Germany. He founded psychophysics, an early attempt to study the relation between stimulus and sensation. His major work was Elemente der Psychophysik, published in 1860. His work was important in making psychology a science. The Mahatma K.H. apparently met Fechner during the former’s visit to Europe.
Fechner’s view of the universe was animistic. He believed that everything, including stars, are ensouled, and that God is the soul of the universe. The Mahatma K.H. wrote to A. P. SINNETT of their conversation about such views and on life after death: “I may answer you, what I said to G. Th. Fechner one day, when he wanted to know the Hindu view on what he had written — ‘You are right; … “every diamond, every crystal, every plant and star has its own individual soul, besides man and animal…” and, “there is a hierarchy of souls from the lowest forms of matter up to the World Soul,” but you are mistaken when adding to the above the assurance that “the spirits of the departed hold direct psychic communication with Souls that are still connected with a human body” — for, they do not”. (ML 18, p. 63).
Vicente R. Hao Chin, Jr.
- Entry in the Theosophical Encyclopdia (Theosophy World)