The Dedalus Meyrink Reader

by Gustav Meyrink

  Those who are interested in mysticism (the others, of course, will not even have bothered to repress the usual grins) will object that all mystics recorded in history, even Buddha Gautama, preached and taught: turn away from the world. The Buddha, for example, called it a house on fire which truth, common sense and reason would demand we flee as quickly as possible. I am aware of that, but everything within me cries, wrong, wrong, wrong. There is a certain truth in their teaching, but it can, indeed I am convinced it must, be interpreted quite differently. At least for a person of the present day. In this respect I beg to differ from the eminent models of the past. The past is always a poison when it is understood as dogma.

  As I have already mentioned, of all the disciples of the man in Hesse I, along with my friend L., was the only one who did not experience the transformation of the body in the way that corresponded to the intentions of our ‘guide’ and to what, at the time, were also mine. His reassurance that I only needed to wait in patience kept me languishing in fervent hope for thirteen years. Later, after his death — which knocked more than a few holes in his prophecies and those of his disciples — L. told me that our ‘guide’ had confided in him that the fact that I did not melt in the furnace of the exercises was because deep down inside I was aiming for a quite different goal from the Christian one he taught. He saw his task, he said, as bringing me onto the ‘right’ road. I was astonished when my friend told me that. I had never revealed, not even by vague hints, how alien to me not only the Christianity of the church was and remained, but also the Rosicrucian-Gnostic variant of our ‘guide’. ‘Semitic superstition’ Schopenhauer once said, when he acknowledged the importance of the book The Oupknethat (containing the wisdom of the Vedic Upanishads). Even when I read them as a youth Schopenhauer’s words affected me like invigorating rays of light.

  It is naturally not my intention to denigrate Christianity in any way in saying that; on the contrary, I am convinced the world would be a wonderful place if there were more (genuine) Christians. I simply wanted to confess that, despite the most fervent efforts, I have never managed to make the Christian faith my own, even though I was brought up in it from childhood. That kind of thing may well be child’s play for the lukewarm.

  I called the thirteen years I was a disciple of that ‘guide’ a thorny path. And that it was truly, not only spiritually but also physically. It may sound strange, but all exercises, not only the ones I have described here but all yoga exercises, whether they are right or wrong, not only change one’s blood, they of necessity change our outward destiny as well. Naturally. You miss favourable opportunities and suchlike if you spend eight hours a day murmuring phrases to yourself instead of ‘knuckling down’ and ‘getting on with it’ (busy, busy, busy, eh!) — like the complete fool who’s writing this stuff, the enlightened citizen will say, preening himself on his great cleverness. True, for a while yoga has these consequences for a person, but even those who devote their lives to outward things do not have control over ‘chance’. Has mankind created anything really lasting? If we had, there ought to be gigantic remains surviving from primaeval times, unless your view is that in those days people went on all fours. The culture of an Atlantis has sunk, Egypt been destroyed, Niniveh laid waste, just as our creations will be swept away. Today people are saying that in the course of the last few decades the materialistic view of life has reached its end. Nonsense! If anything it has become even more crass, if that is possible. It has only been finished off in theory, and that only for the few who have followed the progress in epistemology or contributed to it. The rest have remained as blinkered as they always were. What do we hear if we tell a layman that our senses deceive us and that the things we perceive through them do not at all correspond to reality, which is not something that has only become known during the last few decades? Even people who have made such progress in ‘culture’ that they no longer eat fish with two knives and thus imagine themselves uncommonly superior, even such people say, ‘Ridiculous. If that were the case we wouldn’t be able to photograph the world!’ And, what is even more astonishing, even scientists, scholars and philosophers who believe the perceptible world is mere surface appearance and that everything is relative, even they rear up like a horse with the staggers when you ask them, ‘If that is the case, why don’t you admit the possibility of certain spiritualist phenomena, for example the materialisation of human and animal figures, the ability to pass through matter, the apport of objects from distant places? Such phenomena would be extremely easy to explain with the hypothesis — and I’m sure it’s correct — which you gentlemen have put forward. Why do you insist on denying their possibility so obstinately? They simply demonstrate that things that don’t happen every day do not have to be permanently excluded.’ Professor Wilhelm Ostwald, one of the most prominent scientists of the materialist school, has put forward an explanation of what movement basically is; it is eminently suited to explaining spiritualist and magic phenomena. How baffling, then, to hear what Ostwald has to say about the impossibility of occult phenomena. If that is the way our scientific luminaries behave, then how can we be surprised that the philistines laugh when they hear people talk of philosophical values?

  The facts teach us that it will never be possible to overthrow the materialist view of the world by means of theory; the eels cannot be converted and diverted from their path that easily. It has to happen in another way. The practical application of the doctrine of yoga could prove to be the means to that end. For a while it looked as if spiritualism would have the honour of making the first breach, but then the swindlers managed to bring it into disrepute, with the result that the laws which underlie it and could provide a key to spiritual values are as hidden from view as ever. And even assuming that we succeeded in getting spiritualist phenomena generally recognised, it would still be quite likely that materialism would turn it into a further triumph based on the discovery of a new, more rarified material side of nature. For example the invention of the distillation of alcohol from potatoes, that is of a volatile, subtle substance from a coarse one, did not manage to undermine the materialist view of the world. We will only have taken the first real step when we can prove that thoughts can produce physical changes in matter. But that will not remove the last obstacle, for science will say, perhaps even prove that, despite appearances to the contrary, thoughts belong to the field of physics or chemistry — say to the realm of electricity. The victory of the purely spiritual view will only come when people can demonstrate in practical terms to themselves and to others that matter as such does not exist at all but, as the Vedanta and other similar systems of knowledge teach, is an illusion of the senses, an idea that has coagulated into apparent materiality. The only way to come to such a conviction, which cannot be shaken by anything, is through yoga.

  What is yoga?

  Yoga encompasses all exercises involving the soul and the mind, a practical activity, that is, in which people today are hardly involved at all. I would put it this way: yoga is the leaven, theoretical knowledge merely flour and water.

  Everything connected with yoga seems to come from Asia. Does that mean the Asians are masters in this area? It is possible that they had the knowledge in ages from which nothing has come down to us; legends claim that is the case. The undeniable fact is that there is no one with us today whom we could approach as a master of yoga. Theosophists and occultists maintain that the true yoga masters live in solitary seclusion, inaccessible to people who live ordinary lives, but that is naturally difficult to prove. We have little more than faith and trust to rely on. Who can guarantee that those you come across here and there in India who do practise yoga are not simply seekers? Does not almost everything suggest that the lofty path of yoga, leading to marvellous destinations, has been blocked since prehistoric times, to be replaced by schizophrenia, hysteria, mediumism and other pathological conditions, instead of the opposite: the perfection of mankind? Campbell Oman, the author of a remarkable book on the ascetics, mystics and saints o
f India, tells of a European by the name of Charles de Russette, who had become a sadhu (a kind of penitent) and retired to a solitary existence in the vicinity of Simla. Russette told him he had seen Indian fakirs do the most wonderful things.

  That kind of report can be read by the dozen; unfortunately most, when you look into them, turn out to be pure invention. When the British government was looking for a fakir who could perform one of the famous yogi miracles for the Wembley Exhibition, they could not find a single one! It is mostly travelling showmen who are wrongly seen as yogis — a result of the general ignorance as to what a yogi really is. Even an ascetic is not by any means a yogi, usually the opposite, in fact, namely someone who has taken piety to such an extreme that they have become schizophrenic. Yoga means something like ‘union’. A bhakta yogi such as Ramakrishna or, to name a European, Ruysbroeck, claim that in their ecstasies they achieve union with God, but one could just as well say they were experiencing schizophrenia. The fact that Ramakrishna sometimes worked ‘miracles’, as his disciples unanimously assert, does not prove that schizophrenia is out of the question; similar things happen with spiritualist mediums and people who have been hypnotised.

  The ‘union’ the yogi aims for is, rather, the indissoluble oneness of a person with himself. Such union with oneself is not present in ordinary people, as is generally assumed. Every person has split consciousness, as has every animal. One only realises this after one has practised yoga for some time. Which is rather strange, since it would take only a little power of observation for everyone to realise that their self-awareness is anything but unified. The way our heart and digestion work independently, our powerlessness to resist moods and thoughts, which ‘occur’ to us and do not let go of us for a long time, dreams, our inability to resist our need for sleep and many other things are clear proof that we are by no means masters in our own house. Schizophrenics, then, in the wider sense of the word! Myths, fairy tales and legends indicate these defects: the broken sword that Siegfried forges anew, which the ‘dwarf’ was unable to do, despite his cunning and inventiveness; Sleeping Beauty, who must be wakened with a kiss, the Fall in the Bible. These all bear witness to the state we are in at present, at the same time pointing to a possibility of becoming whole — to yoga! The religions — this word also means union! — of the advanced nations do not simply set up moral laws but also aim, for those who take them seriously, at union with God. Yoga has nothing to do with God; the Buddhists have not included any gods at all in their system and still practise yoga!

  The union yoga is aiming for is the amalgamation of the subconscious — or superconscious, if you will allow that word — with our everyday consciousness. Coué, the French pharmacist who caused such a stir with his successful cures a while ago, tried to achieve something similar with his method of autosuggestion. In my opinion he made the same mistake as all dualists, even the religious ones: he addresses the inner person, that is the one we are unconscious of, as tu, the familiar ‘you’! That only exacerbates the schizophrenia people are suffering from. I believe that anyone who follows Coué’s method conscientiously will wake up one day to find himself a complete hysteric. They will pay dearly enough for any cure which they may have brought about through Coué’s method.

  The Christian Scientists are widely known today. The founder, the American Mrs Baker Eddy, claimed the Bible teaches that there are no illnesses, people just imagine they have them. The constant increase in the membership of the Church of Christ, Scientist, might suggest that actual cures sometimes occur when Mrs Eddy’s instructions are followed. Looked at in the clear light of day, Mrs Eddy’s theory is not much other than a deformed notion from the Vedanta. Coué made the mistake of addressing our subconscious as ‘you’ instead of as ‘I’ — if at all; Mrs Eddy, who, like all Anglo-Saxon females, remains tied to theism, calls on the Dear Lord as witness — as a strong-minded American she is naturally aware of all His intentions and in accordance with His will she preaches that one can conquer illness by thought. In a way, then, she addresses our subconscious as God. Once again we see the doctrine of yoga watered down! And the consequence? The method works for some and doesn’t work for others. Depending on whether they are profoundly or mildly schizophrenic.

  In my case it both worked and failed. In 1900, to celebrate the new century, so to speak, I was struck down with the most awful illness of the spinal cord. Today I still believe it was the result of J…’s exercises, which were so contrary to my inner nature. The doctors, including Krafft-Ebing and Professor Arnold Pick, in brief, the most renowned specialists for such diseases, diagnosed spinal paralysis in the lumbar region. Three years later the symptoms had moderated slightly, but I could still only walk with the help of two sticks, and that with difficulty. For a long time I had tried to follow the rules and instructions of the Christian Scientists to rid myself of my illness. In vain. Then, one night, I was making my way home to the apartment I had at the time in Žižkov in Prague. It was at the end of a steep street, which was covered in ice so that I could only climb it with great difficulty, step by step, keeping my shoulder against the walls of the buildings. I stopped, despairing of ever getting home in the darkness. Then I suddenly recalled the Christian Scientists’ teaching of ‘thinking away’ an illness. I then performed the recommended exercise, with not the least hope that it would work, when I suddenly felt my feet, which for three years had been like numb lumps hanging from my ankles, come alive. One minute later I was completely well again, or so it seemed. Putting the two sticks under my arm, I literally sprinted up to my apartment, sliding on the ice like a schoolboy when the road flattened out. I went to bed, overjoyed at having recovered my health. When I tried to get up the next morning, I was as lame and ill as I had been before. However hard I tried, I could not regain the state I had been in the previous night. The doctor I told about this smiled to himself. I could tell what he was thinking: ‘The man’s a writer of fantasy, the story’s just a product of his overactive imagination.’ He explained: ‘You have suffered a physical change to the membrane of the spinal cord. That cannot be reversed by autosuggestion; and even assuming that is what happened during that night, it is impossible that it should return to its former state within a few hours.’

  That incident made me think long and hard. For almost thirty years now I have looked on life as a kind of conditioning to which some invisible being (I used the image of the Masked Figure at the beginning of this article) is subjecting me. If anything happened to me which many other people would have regarded as meaningless or malicious, I immediately asked myself, ‘What is wanted of me?’ If I had toothache, I didn’t go straight to the dentist but tried for a few days to get rid of it by various methods of autosuggestion, for its ‘message’ seemed to be: ‘Learn to master your recalcitrant body.’ That miserable affliction, caused by nerves as thin as threads, seemed to me to be the ideal testing ground for me to practise the exercise of will-power. At the time I was, like everyone else I assume, under the delusion that the two little words: ‘I will’ could pull the stars down from the sky. In reality, they cannot even pull up a blade of grass. Since the effort of will always had the strange effect of making the toothache worse, I tried faith. Faith which, it is said, can move mountains. It turned out to be completely impotent, the nerve in my tooth took absolutely no notice of it whatsoever and did as it pleased. Didn’t even get worse. At least the effort of will seemed to have annoyed it; faith, on the other hand, did no more than elicit a smile. Then I tried all kinds of crazy cures, especially those Paracelsus — God rest his soul! — serves up in his treatises on the so-called ‘Mumia’. For example I took a little stick of wood, poked about on the nerve with it, then threw it into the fire thinking, ‘Ha, pain, you nasty little beast, now you’re getting burnt up. What do you say to that, eh?’ Sometimes the effect was astonishing. The pain seemed to have taken a fright and held its breath. Not for long, unfortunately, it very quickly saw through the ruse and got its own back with a renewed outburst of fury.<
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  It was only slowly, very slowly in the course of my life that I came to understand the apparently mysterious law at work here. I will go into it at a later point. It is the overcoming of our congenital schizophrenia which is the universal remedy — through the transformation of the blood. Naturally this transformation proceeds at snail’s pace, for it is no mean feat to turn an ape-man into a perfected being. Nevertheless later on, when I had gone deeper and deeper into yoga, I managed almost every time to get rid of toothache by means of certain ‘exercises’, or whatever you might call them, and the effect was immediate and permanent, so that the dentist’s diagnosis was ‘arrested caries’.

  The Asian yoga books appear to be very ancient. The Orientals obviously derive their knowledge from these books, especially from the Yoga-sutras of Patanjali, a legendary initiate. If the physiologists of today were to include this book in their investigations into the practical side, I do not doubt they would make discoveries in their own field which would astonish the world. Unfortunately it is only philologists and similar outsiders who have examined the book to determine its age and origins or to see how often the subjunctive is used, which is hardly designed to whet anyone’s appetite to go into it more deeply. A second book, on the surface a miscellaneous collection of utter nonsense, is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The Hatha Yoga system is abhorred by so-called authorities in India for it teaches how to master one’s own body and the Indians consider that stupid and contemptible since the be-all and end-all for them is to fly from reality and, connected with that, to leave everything that is crudely sensual behind them. Did not the venerable Sankaracharya, the founder of the Advaita school of philosophy and creator of the most sublime monism, teach that, ‘Man is like someone riding through the water on a crocodile, thinking is it a piece of wood. At any moment the beast could drag him down into the depths. Therefore man should get off the crocodile (the body and everything connected with it).’ In contrast to Hatha Yoga, Patanjali gives instructions in his Raja Yoga on how to master oneself by thought control.