Are human beings risen apes or fallen angels? It is believed that gorillas cannot swim and are fearful of water. Yet, recently, some photographs were produced by scientists, showing one female gorilla getting into a deep pool of water and using a stick for support as well as to plumb the depth of the pool, and another female laying the stick across the swampy ground, creating a bridge. These photographs make us rethink man's relationship with the animal world and his place in nature. "It may only be the first step on a journey on which we humans have advanced a million miles," writes Desmond Morris (Times International, October 5, 2005 courtesy Daily Mail). Jane Goodall had observed during her field studies that the wild chimpanzees made and used tools to obtain termites as food. It only proves that tool-making is not unique to humans. American researchers could communicate with apes by teaching them a simplified form of sign language used by the human deaf. One young chimp called Nim was able to learn 125 signs and could combine these to make statements such as "banana me eat" or "more drink" or "give ball" or "tickle there." Observation of Japanese monkeys and groups of chimpanzees, etc., has shown that the ability to develop different cultures, to communicate ideas, to make pictures and create art, etc.—that were once thought to be uniquely human, have been discovered in other, closely related species. Desmond Morris, the author of well-known books like The Naked Ape and The Human Zoo, writes that human qualities are magnification of ape properties. Morris writes:

They [apes] can use a walking stick, we can fly to the moon; they can combine a few words, we can write great literature, they can make abstract patterns, we can paint masterpieces. We may differ from apes only in degree, but it is a huge difference.

We may be the most remarkable animal on the planet, but we are still animals. I was once criticized for saying that we are "risen apes, not fallen angels," but I continue to believe this most fervently. Accepting this means that we must see ourselves as part of nature and not above it.

Although, a great similarity in anatomical structure and behaviour had led scientists to think that man has descended from the apes, or that man and apes have common ancestors, the adepts say that we have neither descended from apes nor have we risen from the apes. The adepts, standing on the immeasurable height where centuries lie under their glance, possess certain and definite knowledge regarding the evolution of man. Occult science teaches that at a certain point in evolution, man was mindless. These mindless men of the Third Race committed the sin of uniting with animals, producing huge man-like monsters. As time passed, these semi-astral forms consolidated into physical, and later dwindled in size, producing the lower apes of the Miocene period. Man was then endowed with mind, and hence with the power to think and choose. After this, once again the sin of the mindless men was repeated by the men of the Atlantean Race—this time with a full responsibility, giving rise to species of ape—orangoutang, gorilla and chimpanzee—now known as the Anthropoids. This explains the similarity between man and ape. (S.D., II, 683 and 689). These animals described as "human presentments" are half descended from man, and are the distorted copies of early humanity. They are the "dumb races," whose Monads are already within the human stage. Thus:

The ape we know is not the product of natural evolution but an accident, a cross-breed between an animal being or form and man....The Ape is, indeed..."a transformation of species most directly connected with that of the human family—a hybrid branch engrafted on their own stock before the final perfection of the latter"—or man....The latter (Apes) are truly "speechless men," and will become speaking animals (or men of a lower order) in the Fifth Round, while the adepts of a certain school hope that some of the Egos of the apes of a higher intelligence will reappear at the close of the Sixth Root-race. (S.D., II, 262)

The Hollywood film "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" released on October 7 this year in Italy, is based on the life of a 22 year-old girl, Anneliese Michel, who was suffering from epilepsy and prone to seizures. Two local priests tried to exorcise her for 10 months, but the girl died in 1975, weighing only 31 kilos, as she was denied food and water during the exorcism. "The movie has now reignited a decades-old controversy," writes Barbie Nadeau (Newsweek, October 24, 2005). Interest in satanic worship has risen sharply across Europe, with 5000 Italians involved in 650 active satanic cults in the country—more than double the number a decade ago. According to the Italian Association of Psychiatrists and Psychologists, half a million Italians seek exorcisms each year. There have been several deaths outside of Italy from exorcisms gone wrong around the world. For instance, recently in Romania, when a novice nun who was being medically treated for schizophrenia, complained of hearing voices, a priest and four nuns, killed her in the process of exorcising by tying her to a wooden cross and gagging her with a holy vestment. Her doctor insists that she was suffering from schizophrenia and was probably having her first episode. Dr. Scott Lilienfield, professor of psychology at Emory University in Atlanta and an expert in exorcism, says, "Exorcism is the most dangerous hoax in treating mental illness." In response, the Vatican has begun offering bona fide medical training to its exorcists to help them distinguish between psychological and pathological ailments and possession by the Devil. Scientists and doctors insist that there is no scientific basis for making such distinction, "for the simple fact that possession is not a valid medical condition."

Obsession or possession is a very old phenomenon. H. P. Blavatsky mentions several cases of obsession and exorcism in her book Isis Unveiled. The more passive a person is, the more he becomes suggestible. A time comes when that medium becomes perfectly and completely passive. It is then that, as H. P. Blavatsky writes, "his own astral body may be benumbed and even crowded out of his physical body, which is then occupied by an elemental [or even the 'elementary,' i.e., disincarnate spirit] who proceeds to use it as his own. But too often the cause of the most celebrated crime is to be sought in such possession....Spirits never control persons of positive character who are determined to resist all extraneous influences. The weak and feeble-minded whom they can make their victims they drive into vice" (Isis, I, 490). It can be seen that the disincarnate spirits are those who had always delighted in evil, and now being without a body they take every opportunity to enter someone else's body to commit the evil acts. Like the purity of the mesmerizer in healing the sick, the purity of the exorcist is emphasized. People like Appollonius, Plotinus, Porphyry, etc., had around them the atmosphere of such divine beneficence, created through superhuman morality and sanctity of their lives, that they caused evil spirits to flee before them. (Isis, I, 487). H.P.B. writes:

These demons seek to introduce themselves into the bodies of the simple-minded idiots, and remain there until dislodged therefrom by a powerful and pure will. Jesus, Apollonius, and some of the apostles, had the power to cast out devils, by purifying the atmosphere within and without the patient, so as to force the unwelcome tenant to flight. (Isis, I, 356)

In the article "A Case of Obsession," H.P.B. makes the following suggestion for the cure of obsession:

The sensitive must have his sensitiveness destroyed....He can be helped by a magnetizer who understands the nature of obsession, and who is morally pure and physically healthy; it must be a powerful magnetizer, a man of commanding will-force. But the fight for freedom will, after all, have to be fought by the patient himself. His will-power must be aroused. His diet must be of the simplest, he must neither eat animal food, nor touch any stimulant....[He must] control his toughts and compel them to dwell upon pure, elevating spiritual things. (H.P.B. Series No. 9, p. 44)

"How much more future is still there waiting to catch up with us unexpectedly from the past?" asks Mukul Sharma (Times International, October 4, 2005). In 1900, divers discovered a 2000-yeal-old shipwreck off the greek Island of Antikythera, and found, among other ancient artefacts, the remnants of an elaborate mechanical device. After elaborate X-ray analyses, when the device—that came to be known as Antikythera Mechanism—was reconstructed, it turned out to be "an analog calculator used to model not only the motions of the Sun and Moon, but those of every celestial body known to the ancient Greeks such as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Also, by winding the knob on the side, the bodies could be made to advance and retreat, so that their positions could be determined for any date." A science historian, who wrote about it in Scientific American in 1959, said it was "like finding a jet plane inside Tutankhamen's tomb."

Similarly, in the Baghdad museum there is another artefact, consisting of a 13 centimetre clay jar containing a copper cylinder that encases an iron rod. After close examination, the German archaeologist, Wilhelm Konig, concluded that it was a primitive type of battery. When a German Egyptologist constructed a replica of the battery and filled it with freshly pressed grape juice, it was found to generate 0.87 volts of electricity that was used to electroplate a silver statuette with gold. The "Baghdad battery," as it is called, is claimed to be invented 1800 years before the modern battery by Allessandro Volta.

There is nothing new under the sun, said the wise Solomon. In the article, "The Mind in Nature," H.P.B. comments that many modern, distinguished scholars and scientists have derived honour and credit, by merely dressing up the ideas of old philosophers, and yet, many of them have been contemptuous of the ancients, describing their knowledge as "the untenable conceptions of an uncultivated past." (H.P.B. Series No. 14). In the article "The Babel of Modern Thought," H.P.B. gives several instances to prove that the ancients anticipated modern knowledge in numerous ways. For instance, the works of Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest among the scientists, reflects the ideas put forward by old philosophers like Anaxagoras, Democritus, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Lucretius, Plutarch, etc. In Isis Unveiled, we are told that Gunpowder which has long been thought an invention of Bacon and Schwartz, was known to and used by the Chinese for levelling hills and blasting rocks, centuries before our era (I, 241). H.P.B. writes:

Show us, if you can, that mortal who in the historical cycle of our human race has taught the world something entirely new....At best, you are but the modern popularizers of very ancient ideas. Consciously and unconsciously you have pilfered from old classics and philosophers, who were themselves by the superficial recorders....Ragon was right in saying..."Humanity only seems to progress in achieving one discovery after the other, as in truth, it only finds that which it had lost. Most of our modern inventions for which we claim such glory, are, after all, things people were acquainted with three and four thousand years back [H.P.B. comments that it would be more appropriate to add a few more zeroes to four thousand years]. Lost to us through wars, floods and fire, their very existence became obliterated from the memory of man. And now modern thinkers begin to rediscover them once more." (H.P.B. Series No. 1, pp. 4-5)

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine;
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine,
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Safely through the world we go.

—William Blake