The Reasoning Behind the Practice of Seclusion

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Constitution of Man Series · 7 pages

A closing note appended to a long letter from Dhunjibhoy Jamsetjee on the various astral entities named in the Zend-Avesta, from The Theosophist of June 1885 and reprinted in Blavatsky Collected Writings VI as an editor's note to Zoroastrianism. The philological work comes first: from the quotations his letter supplies, she concludes that by Devas, Drugs and Drug-nasus the ancient Zoroastrian writers meant black magicians, elementaries and elementals respectively, the other names cited indicating subdivisions of those two latter classes.

The customs are then explained on that basis, as precautions rather than as taboos about purity. The injunction to bury hair and nail clippings is presented as a safeguard against sorcerers, who generally try to obtain such things in order to establish a link between an intended victim and the agencies they evoke. Mantras are explained on the same principle — as implorations of good spirits friendly to man, to counteract black magic or possession and drive away evil elemental spirits, effective only when the recitation is accompanied by appropriate ceremonies rendered effective by concentrated will. The seclusion the title asks about is given the same rationale: not that the woman is unclean, but that she is held to be more exposed at that time to the influence of those same entities.

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