The Pitfalls of Occult Arts and Metaphysical Healing

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and William Quan Judge · Black versus White Magic Series · 45 pages

A compilation rather than a single article, and the natural companion to the several documents in this section on healing and hypnotism. Its spine is three pieces: Blavatsky's Practical Occultism in two parts, Judge's answers to questions on metaphysical healing, and Blavatsky's Occultism versus the Occult Arts — the essay that draws the line the whole series depends on, between the pursuit of occult knowledge for its own sake and its pursuit as a set of techniques.

Judge's section is the most immediately useful, because it is cast as replies to real questions from readers who wanted to do something and were unsure whether they should. If it is wrong to cure disease by mesmerism, how did Colonel Olcott heal so many in India? Has a mother the right to use her will to throw off illness from herself and her children? Is it wrong to say mentally to another person, you are well, if the motive is pure? He answers each of them, and is asked directly to draw the line between white and black magic in such work. Three appendices follow on Christian Science, including Blavatsky's own statement of its claims and her response to it.

Read the full text (PDF, 2.5 MB, 45 pages)