THE MOTHER-12/..3-5. Tlemcen — The Second Visit (1907) Mirra arrived for her second stay with the Théons on 18 July 1907. There is a huge difference between Mirra’s relationship to the Tlemcen masters and that of somebody like Claire Thémanlys. Claire was a neophyte, still curious to have Alma show her powers and as yet hardly receptive to the influence of the occult force the masters were trying out on her. Mirra, on the contrary, was already an experienced occultist before her first visit to Tlemcen and had already had her first major spiritual realization. True, Théon and Alma taught her a lot, and she would remain thankful for this even long after they were gone; but she also ‘worked together’ with them, especially during her second stay. Of that work we know little. The Mother has told that it was quite perilous, for she exteriorized all the sheaths of her being from her material body, which remained behind in a cataleptic state under the surveillance of Théon. Surveillance on such occasions is an absolute necessity, for the only tie then remaining with the material body is the ‘silver cord,’ the existence of which is common knowledge in occultism. If that link snaps or is cut off, the person loses contact with the material world; in other words, he or she dies. Mirra also learned to exteriorize twelve times in succession up to the upper limit of the manifestation, just like Alma, and she had learned how to talk during her trance, an ability mastered only by the most advanced occultists. ‘My body was in a cataleptic state and I was in a conscious trance, but it was a special kind of catalepsy, in that my body could speak. I could speak, although very slowly. Théon had taught me how to do it.’105 And the Mother added: ‘However, this state is not without danger, the proof being that during my work, for some reason or other — obviously due to some negligence on Théon’s part, who was there to watch over me — the cord was cut... The link was cut malevolently.’ What happened? In some world visited by Mirra during her exteriorization under the direction of Théon, she found the ‘Mantra of Life.’ This is the formula by which one can give life and also take it, create life and also destroy it. ‘This mantra was shut away, sealed, with my name on it in Sanskrit. I didn’t know Sanskrit at that time, but he did.’ Still, Mirra was aware that it was Sanskrit, told Théon so and started to describe the characters to him. Théon, for some reason, ‘got very interested.’ He told Mirra to break the seal and tell him what was hidden there. Then ‘something in me knew at once,’ and she refused to tell him. This made Théon violently angry and his anger cut the cord. Mirra was dead. Théon, because Mirra had been able to warn him in the nick of time, became frightened and used all his occult knowledge and powers to pull her back into her material body. But the Mother said that the friction of re-entering her material body was an extremely painful experience. ‘I returned as a result of the power and the will, because... simply because I still had something to do on the Earth... He made me drink half a glass of cognac. He always made me take some every day after the session, because I remained working in trance for more than an hour, which generally is a forbidden practice.’106 Mirra had brought her music scores with her on this visit, for there was a piano at the house of the Théons, normally played by Teresa. Do toads have a sense of music? The fat and warty one, which came and sat on the threshold of the open door while Mirra was playing Mozart and Beethoven, must have felt something, for it remained listening as if transfixed; and when Mirra stopped playing, it thanked her for the recital with a couple of deep-throated croaks, then hopped away into the night. When after a stay of two months Mirra left for France, Max Théon, who was going on a tour of Europe, accompanied her. While they were crossing the Mediterranean, a violent storm arose. Everybody on the ship grew nervous and scared, except Théon and Mirra. He looked at her and said: ‘Go and stop it.’ She entered her cabin, lay down and went out of her body — to find that huge beings, invisible to humans, were dancing wildly on the water and making the ship bob up and down like a cork. She pleaded with those beings ‘for half an hour’ to refrain and save the lives of the humans on the ship. Finally they consented and the troubled sea calmed down. ‘I then went back into my body and came out of the cabin. When I went on deck I found all the people gathered there happily engaged in jovial talk.’107 There is no evidence that after that journey Mirra ever saw Max Théon and Alma again. One has the impression that Alma withdrew from life of her own will. After she and her husband had spent the summer of 1908 in France with Louis and Claire Thémanlys, she wanted, at the beginning of September, to visit the British Channel Islands. (She had been born on the Isle of Wight.) Before the departure of the ferry-boat from the harbour of Côteret, there was time for a stroll along a rather dangerous path between rocks protruding over the sea. Eyewitnesses say that she slipped, probably in trance as usual, and fell into the cold waters. She did not want to postpone her outing but became ill during the crossing. On her arrival in the port of Gorey, on the island of Jersey, she was taken to a hotel, where she died that very day, 10 September.’108 His wife’s death was a heavy blow for Théon and he never got over it. He stopped the publication of the Revue cosmique in December of the same year, 1908. Afterwards he lived sequestered in Tlemcen, so much so that the Mother, like most others who had known him, thought that he had died in 1913. In that year Théon, who was a reckless car driver, did meet with a serious accident, having to walk on crutches for a long time afterwards. He died many years later, in 1927, with the faithful Teresa at his side. She would survive him for less than a year. The red-painted house of wonders in Tlemcen was empty. Sri Aurobindo would reportedly say: ‘Théon knew that he was not meant to succeed but had only come to prepare the way to a certain extent for others to come and perfect it. But later the disciples around him made him believe himself to be the man destined to bring down the Supermind into the physical plane, and naturally the whole thing came to a smash. His wife saw that the Supermind was not to be attained by them and that the venture had failed for the time being, and so she gave up her body. It was she who had been supporting Théon with her knowledge and powers; without her he was nothing, and naturally after her death the entire project suffered shipwreck.’109 More than sixty years later the Mother would look back in amazement: ‘Théon and Sri Aurobindo did not know each other. They never met, they did not know of each other’s existence, till, without having at all proceeded along the same lines, they reached the same conclusion. In totally different countries, without ever having met, and at the same moment they knew the same thing. And I have known the one as well as the other.’
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 11:54:29 +0000
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