Occultism - Some Stories

... You know, queer things are happening here. There are certain things that literally disappear, and then, after a few days, they reappear! (Mother looks for her note again) I prefer to exhaust all material explanations before making other suppositions. But even someone like Madame David-Neel (and God knows she was positivist in the extreme) herself told me an experience of that sort. I was explaining something to her and she replied, "I am not surprised, because the same thing happened to me...." She had a jewel (it was the time when she used to wear jewels) which she used to keep at the top of a box (inside the box, but at its top). It was a Chinese dragon, and she wanted to wear it one evening. She opened the box, the jewel wasn't there anymore (yet the box was locked inside a cupboard, and there wasn't any sign of theft). She tried, she searched for it, she couldn't find it. Then, four or five days afterwards, she opened the box again, and there was the jewel, just where it was supposed to be!

But the same thing happened to me. At the time, I used to go up on the terrace and I would take a parasol (I had one of those tubes in which umbrellas are put away, and my parasol was there). I looked for it, couldn't find it. I took another one and went upstairs (I looked carefully, examining all the umbrellas one after the other, not just casually; my parasol wasn't there). Then I came back downstairs, didn't bother about it anymore - two days later, it was there!

Things like that happen.... Probably little beings having fun.
...

31 July 1964
- The Mother

...
I had the experience—among innumerable instances—but precisely of two very striking cases, of two opposite things, only it was not the same beings.... There are little beings like fairies who are very sweet, very obliging, but they are not always there, they come from time to time when it pleases them. I remember the time I used to cook for Sri Aurobindo; I was also doing many other things at the same time, so I often happened to leave the milk on the fire and go for some other work or to see something with him, to discuss with somebody, and truly I was not always aware of time, I used to forget the milk on the fire. And whenever I forgot the milk on the fire, I felt suddenly (in those days I used to wear a sari) a little hand catching a fold of my sari and pulling it, like this. Then I used to run quickly and would see that the milk was just on the point of boiling over. This did not happen just once, but several times, and very clearly, like a little child's hand clutching and pulling.

The other story is of the days Sri Aurobindo had the habit of walking up and down in his rooms. He used to walk for several hours like that, it was his way of meditating. Only, he wanted to know the time, so a clock had been put in each room to enable him to see the time at any moment. There were three such clocks. One was in the room where I worked; it was, so to say, his starting point. One day he came and asked, "What time is it?" He looked and the clock had stopped. He went into the next room, saying, "I shall see the time there"—the clock had stopped. And it had stopped at the same minute as the other, you understand, with the difference of a few seconds. He went to the third room... the clock had stopped. He continued walking three times like that—all the clocks had stopped! Then he returned to my room and said, "But this is impossible! This is a bad joke!" and all the clocks, one after the other, started working again. I saw it myself, you know, it was a charming incident. He was angry, he said, "This is a bad joke!" And all the clocks started going again!

2 April 1951
- The Mother

...in Japan.... There was an epidemic of influenza, an influenza that came from the war (the 1914 war), and was generally fatal. People would get pneumonia after three days, and plop! finished. In Japan they never have epidemics (it's a country where epidemics are unknown), so they were caught unawares; it was an ideal breeding ground, absolutely unprepared—incredible: people died by the thousands every day, it was incredible! Everybody lived in terror, they didn't dare to go out without masks over their mouths. Then somebody whom I won't name asked me (in a brusque tone), "What Is this?" I answered him, "Better not think about it." "Why not?" he said, "It's very interesting! We must find out, at least you are able to find out whatever this is." Silly me, I was just about to go out; I had to visit a girl who lived at the other end of Tokyo (Tokyo is the largest city in the world, it takes a long time to go from one end to the other), and I wasn't so well-off I could go about in a car: I took the tram.... What an atmosphere! An atmosphere of panic in the city! You see, we lived in a house surrounded by a big park, secluded, but the atmosphere in the city was horrible. And the question, "What Is this?" naturally came to put me in contact—I came back home with the illness. I was sure to catch it, it had to happen! (laughing) I came home with it.

Like a bang on the head—I was completely dazed. They called a doctor. There were no medicines left in the city—there weren't enough medicines for people, but as we were considered important people (!) the doctor brought two tablets. I told him (laughing), "Doctor, I never take any medicines." "What!" he said. "It's so hard to get them!" "That's just the point," I replied, "they're very good for others!" Then, then ... suddenly (I was in bed, of course, with a first-rate fever), suddenly I felt seized by trance—the real trance, the kind that pushes you out of your body—and I knew. I knew: "It's the end; if I can't resist it, it's the end." So I looked. I looked and I saw it was a being whose head had been half blown off by a bomb and who didn't know he was dead, so he was hooking on to anybody he could to suck life. And each of those beings (I saw one over me, doing his "business"!) was one of the countless dead. Each had a sort of atmosphere—a very widespread atmosphere—of human decomposition, utterly pestilential, and that's what gave the illness. If it was merely that, you recovered, but if it was one of those beings with half a head or half a body, a being who had been killed so brutally that he didn't know he was dead and was trying to get hold of a body in order to continue his life (the atmosphere made thousands of people catch the illness every day, it was swarming, an infection), well, with such beings, you died. Within three days it was over—even before, within a day, sometimes. So once I saw and knew, I collected all the occult energy, all the occult power, and ... (Mother bangs down her fist, as if to force her way into her body) I found myself back in my bed, awake, and it was over. Not only was it over, but I stayed very quiet and began to work in the atmosphere.... From that moment on, mon petit, there were no new cases! It was so extraordinary that it appeared in the Japanese papers. They didn't know how it happened, but from that day on, from that night on, not a single fresh case. And people recovered little by little.

I told the story to our Japanese friend in whose house we were living, I told him, "Well, that's what this illness is—a remnant of the war; and here's the way it happens.... And that being was repaid for his attempt!" Naturally, the fact that I repelled his influence by turning around and fighting ... [dissolved the formation]. But what power it takes to do that! Extraordinary.

He told the story to some friends, who in turn told it to some friends, so in the end the story became known. There was even a sort of collective thanks from the city for my intervention.... But the whole thing stemmed from that: "What Is this illness? You're able to find out, aren't you?" (Laughter) Go and catch it!

But that feeling of being absolutely paralyzed, a prey to something—absolutely paralyzed, you can't ... You are no longer in your body, you understand, you can't act on it any more. And a sense of liberation when you are able to turn around.

I had a tremendous fever, which naturally dropped little by little—after a few days I was completely cured; even immediately, I was almost cured.

There, petit.

20 April 1963
- The Mother