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Searchable Full Text of A
Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom by Alvin Boyd Kuhn
A Modern Revival
Of Ancient Wisdom
by
Alvin Boyd
Kuhn
Searchable
Full Text Version
The
Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
PREFACE
Since this work was
designed to be one of a series of studies in American
religions, the
treatment of the subject was consciously limited to those aspects
of Theosophy which are
in some manner distinctively related to
restriction has been
difficult to enforce for the reason that, though officially
born here, Theosophy
has never since its inception had its headquarters on this
continent. The springs
of the movement have emanated from foreign sources and
influences. Its prime
inspiration has come from ancient Oriental cultures.
conditions of her
native milieu. The main events in American Theosophic history
have been mostly
repercussions of events transpiring in English, Continental, or
Indian Theosophy. It
was thus virtually impossible to segregate American
Theosophy from its
connections with foreign leadership. But the attempt to do so
has made it necessary
to give meagre treatment to some of the major currents of
world-wide Theosophic
development. The book does not purport to be a complete
history of Theosophy,
but it is an attempt to present a unified picture of the
movement in its larger
aspects. No effort has been made to weigh the truth or
falsity of Theosophic
principles, but an effort has been made to understand
their significance in
relation to the historical situation and psychological
disposition of those
who have adopted it.
The author wises to
express his obligation to several persons without whose
assistance the
enterprise would have been more onerous and less successful. His
thanks are due in
largest measure to Professor Roy F. Mitchell of New York
University, and to
Mrs. Mitchell, for placing at his disposal much of their time
and of their wide
knowledge of Theosophical material; to Mr. L. W. Rogers,
President of the
American Theosophical Society,
co-operation in the
matter of the questionnaire, and to the many members of the
Society who took pains
to reply to the questions; to Mr. John Garrigues, of the
United Lodge of
Theosophists,
of Theosophic
information, and to several of the ladies at the U.L.T. Reading
Room for library
assistance; to Professor Louis H. Gray, of
for technical
criticism in Sanskrit terminology; to Mr. Arthur E. Christy, of
philosophy; and to
Professor Herbert W. Schneider, of
his painstaking
criticism of the study throughout.
A. B. K.
September, 1930.3
CONTENTS
------
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THEOSOPHY, AN
ANCIENT TRADITION
..4
II. THE AMERICAN
BACKGROUND OF THEOSOPHY
..12
III. HELENA P.
BLAVATSKY: HER LIFE AND PSYCHIC CAREER
..25
IV. FROM SPIRITUALISM
TO THEOSOPHY
..50
V.
VI. THE MAHATMAS AND
THEIR LETTERS
..83
VII. STORM, WRECK, AND
REBUILDING
..100
VIII. THE SECRET
DOCTRINE
..110
IX. EVOLUTION,
REBIRTH, AND KARMA
..131
X. ESOTERIC WISDOM AND
PHYSICAL SCIENCE
..142
XI. THEOSOPHY IN
ETHICAL PRACTICE
.149
XII. LATER
THEOSOPHICAL HISTORY
..170
XIII. SOME FACTS AND
FIGURES
..190
FOOTNOTES
.198
BIBLIOGRAPHY
.222
INDEX
.237.4
------
CHAPTER I THEOSOPHY
In the mind of the general
public Theosophy is classed with Spiritualism, New
Thought, Unity and
Christian Science, as one of the modern cults. It needs but a
slight acquaintance
with the facts in the case to reveal that Theosophy is
amenable to this
classification only in the most superficial sense. Though the
Theosophical Society
is recent, theosophy, in the sense of an esoteric
philosophic mystic
system of religious thought, must be ranked as one of the
most ancient
traditions. It is not a mere cult, in the sense of being the
expression of a quite
specialized form of devotion, practice, or theory,
propagated by a small
group. It is a summation and synthesis of many cults of
all times. It is as
broad and universal a motif, let us say, as mysticism. It is
one of the most
permanent phases of religion, and as such it has welled up again
and again in the life
of mankind. It is that "wisdom of the divine" which has
been in the world
practically continuously since ancient times. The movement of
today is but another
periodical recurrence of a phenomenon which has marked the
course of history from
classical antiquity. Not always visible in outward
organization-indeed
never formally organized as Theosophy under that name until
now-the thread of
theosophic teaching and temperament can be traced in almost
unbroken course from
ancient times to the present. It has often been
subterranean, inasmuch
as esotericism and secrecy have been essential elements
of its very
constitution. The modern presentation of theosophy differs from all
the past ones chiefly
in that it has lifted the veil that cloaked its teachings
in mystery, and
offered alleged secrets freely to the world. Theosophists tell
us that before the
launching of the latest "drive" to promulgate Theosophy in
the world, the
councils of the Great White Brotherhood of Adepts, or Mahatmas,
long debated whether
the times were ripe for the free propagation of the secret
Gnosis; whether the
modern world, with its Western dominance and with the
prevalence of
materialistic standards, could appropriate the sacred knowledge
without the risk of
serious misuse of high spiritual forces, which might be
diverted into selfish
channels. We are told that in these councils it was the
majority opinion that
broadcasting the Ancient Wisdom over the Occidental areas
would be a veritable
casting of pearls before swine; yet two of the Mahatmas
settled the question
by undertaking to assume all karmic debts for the move, to
take the
responsibility for all possible disturbances and ill effects.
If we look at the
matter through Theosophic eyes, we are led to believe that
when in the fall of
1875 Madame Blavatsky, Col. H. S. Olcott, and Mr. W. Q.
Judge took out the
charter for the Theosophical Society in
was witnessing a
really major event in human history. Not only did it signify
that one more of the
many recurrent waves of esoteric cultism was launched but
that this time
practically the whole body of occult lore, which had been so
sedulously guarded in
mystery schools, brotherhoods, secret societies, religious
orders, and other
varieties of organization, was finally to be given to the.5
world en pleine
lumiθre! At last the lid of antiquity's treasure chest would be
lifted and the
contents exposed to public gaze. There might even be found
therein the solution
to the riddle of the Sphynx! The great Secret Doctrine was
to be taught openly;
To understand the
periodical recurrence of the theosophic tendency in history it
is necessary to note
two cardinal features of the Theosophic theory of
development. The first
is that progress in religion, philosophy, science, or art
is not a direct
advance, but in advance in cyclical swirls. When you view
progress in small
sections, it may appear to be a development in a straight
line; but if your gaze
takes in the whole course of history, you will see the
outline of a quite
different method of progress. You will not see uninterrupted
unfolding of human
life, but advances and retreats, plunges and recessions.
Spring does not emerge
from winter by a steady rise of temperature, but by
successive rushes of
heat, each carrying the season a bit ahead. Movement in
nature is cyclical and
periodic. History progresses through the rise and fall of
nations. The true
symbol of progress is the helix, motion round and round, but
tending upward at each
swirl. But we must have large perspectives if we are to
see the gyrations of
the helix.
The application of
this interpretation of progress to philosophy and religion is
this: the evolution of
ideas apparently repeats itself at intervals time after
time, a closed circuit
of theories running through the same succession at many
points in history.
Scholars have discerned this fact in regard to the various
types of government:
monarchy working over into oligarchy, which shifts to
democracy, out of
which monarchy arises again. The round has also been observed
in the domain of
philosophy, where development starts with revelation and
proceeds through
rationalism to empiricism, and, in revulsion from that, swings
back to authority or
mystic revelation once more. Hegel's theory that progress
was not in a straight
line but in cycles formed by the manifestation of thesis,
antithesis, and then
synthesis, which in turn becomes the ground of a new
thesis, is but a
variation of this general theme.
Theosophists, then,
regard their movement as but the renaissance of the esoteric
and occult aspect of
human thought in this particular swing of the spiral.
The second aspect of
the occult theory of development is a method of
interpretation which
claims to furnish a key to the understanding of religious
history. Briefly, the
theory is that religions never evolve; they always
degenerate. Contrary
to the assumptions of comparative mythology, they do not
originate in crude
primitive feelings or ideas, and then transform themselves
slowly into loftier
and purer ones. They begin lofty and pure, and deteriorate
into crasser forms.
They come forth in the glow of spirituality and living power
and later pass into
empty forms and lifeless practices. From the might of the
spirit they contract
into the materialism of the letter. No religion can rise
above its source, can
surpass its founder; and the more exalted the founder and
his message, the more
certainly is degeneration to be looked for. There is
always gradual change
in the direction of obscuration and loss of primal vision,
initial force.
Religions tend constantly to wane, and need repeated revivals and
reformations. Nowhere
is it possible to discern anything remotely like steady
growth in spiritual
unfolding.
It is the occult
theory that what we find when we search the many religions of
the earth is but the
fragments, the dissociated and distorted units of what were
once profound and
coherent systems. It is difficult to trace in the isolated
remnants the contour
of the original structure. But it is this completed system
which the Theosophist
seeks to reconstruct from the scattered remnants..6
Religion, then, is a
phase of human life which is alleged to operate on a
principle exactly
opposite to evolution, and theosophy believes this key makes
it intelligible.
Religions never claim to have evolved from human society; they
claim to be gifts to
humanity. They come to man with the seal of some divine
authority and the
stamp of supreme perfection. Not only are they born above the
world, but they are
brought to the world by the embodied divinity of a great
Messenger, a Savior, a
World-Teacher, a Prophet, a Sage, a Son of God. These
bring their own
credentials in the form of a divine life. Their words and works
bespeak the glory that
earth can not engender.
The two phases of
theosophic explanation can now be linked into a unified
principle. Religions
come periodically; and they are given to men from high
sources, by supermen.
The theory of growth from crude beginnings to spirituality
tacitly assumes that
man is alone in the universe and left entirely to his own
devices; that he must
learn everything for himself from experience, which
somehow enlarges his
faculties and quickens them for higher conceptions. This
view, says occultism,
does unnatural violence to the fundamental economy of the
universe, wrenching
humanity out of its proper setting and relationship in an
order of harmony and
fitness. Humankind is made to be the sole manipulator of
intelligence, the
favored beneficiary of evolution, and as such is severed from
its natural connection
with the rest of the cosmic scheme. So small and poor a
view does pitiable
injustice to the wealth of the cosmic resources. Bruno,
Copernicus, and modern
science have taught us that man is not the darling of
creation, nor the only
child in the cosmic family, the pampered ward of the
gods. Far from it; he
is one among the order of beings, occupying his proper
place in relation to
vaster hierarchies than he has knowledge of, above and
below him.1
What is the character
of that relationship? It is, says the esoteric teaching,
that of guardian and
ward; of a young race in the tutelage of an older; of
infant humanity being
taught by more highly evolved beings, whose intelligence
is to that of early
man as an adept's to a tyro's. It is the relationship of
children to parents or
guardians. Throughout our history we have been the wards
of an elder race, or
at least of the elder brothers of our own race. The members
of a former
evolutionary school have turned back often, like the guardians in
Plato's cave allegory,
to instruct us in vital knowledge. The wisdom of the
ages, the knowledge of
the very Ancient of Days, has at times been handed down
to us. The human
family has produced some advanced Sages, Seers, Adepts,
Christs, and these
have cared for the less-advanced classes, and have from time
to time given out a
body of deeper wisdom than man's own. Theosophy claims that
it is the traditional
memory of these noble characters, their lives and
messages, which has
left the ancient field strewn with the legends of its Gods,
Kings, Magi, Rishis,
Avatars and its great semi-divine heroes. Such wisdom and
knowledge as they
could wisely and safely impart they have handed down, either
coming themselves to
earth from more ethereal realms, or commissioning competent
representatives. And
thus the world has periodically been given the boon of a
new religion and a new
stimulus from the earthly presence of a savior regarded
as divine. And always
the gospel contained milk for the babes and meat for grown
men. There was both an
exoteric and an esoteric doctrine. The former was
broadcast among the
masses, and did its proper and salutary work for them; the
latter, however, was
imparted only to the fit and disciplined initiates in
secret organizations.
Much real truth was hidden behind the veil of allegory;
myth and symbol were
employed. This aggregate of precious knowledge, this
innermost heart of the
secret teaching of the gods to mankind, is, needless to
say, the Ancient
Wisdom-is Theosophy. Or at least Theosophy claims the key to.7
all this body of
wisdom. It has always been in the world, but never publicly
promulgated until now.
To trace the currents
of esoteric influence in ancient religious literature
would be the work of
volumes. Theosophic or kindred doctrines are to be found in
a large number of the
world's sacred books or bibles. The lore of
Philosophy, not less
than religion, bears the stamp of theosophical ideology.
Traces of the occult
doctrine permeate most of the thought systems of the past.
All histories of
philosophy in the western world begin, with or without brief
apology to the
venerable systems of the Orient, with Thales of Miletus and the
early Greek thinkers
of about the sixth century B.C. In the dim background stand
Homer and Hesiod and
Pindar and the myths of the Olympian pantheon. Contemporary
religious faiths, too,
such as the cult of Pythagoreanism,2 and the Orphic and
Eleusinian Mysteries,
influenced philosophical speculation.
It needs no
extraordinary erudition to trace the stream of esoteric teaching
through the field of
Greek philosophy. What is really surprising is that the
world of modern
scholarship should have so long assumed that Greek speculation
developed without
reference to the wide-spread religious cult systems which
transfused the thought
of the near-Eastern nations. Esotericism was an ingrained
characteristic of the
Oriental mind and
contagion than could
that practically all
of early Greek philosophy dealt with material presented by
the Dionysiac and
Orphic Mysteries and later by the Pythagorean revisions of
these.3
Thales' fragments
contain Theosophical ideas in his identification of the physis
with the soul of the
universe, and in his affirmation that "the materiality of
physis is
supersensible." Thales thought that this physis or natural world was
"full of
gods."4 Both these conceptions of the impersonal and the personal
physis, the latter a
reasoning substance approaching Nous, came out of the
continuum of the group
soul, as a vehicle of magic power.5 Man was believed to
stand in a sympathetic
relation to this nature or physis, and the deepening of
his sympathetic
attitude was supposed to give him nothing less than magical
control over its
elements.
Prominent among the
Orphic tenets was that of reincarnation, possibly a
transference to man of
the annual rebirth in nature. Worship of heavenly bodies
as aiding periodical
harvests found a place here also.6 The conception of the
wheel of Dike and
Moira, the allotted flow and apportionment in time as well as
place, of all things,
nature and man together, was underlying in the ancient
Greek mind. Persian
occult ideas may have influenced the Orphic systems.7
Anaximander added to
the scientific doctrines of Thales the idea of compensatory
retribution for the
transgression of Moira's bounds which suggests Karma. The
sum of Heraclitus'
teaching is the One Soul of the universe, in ever-running
cycles of
expression-"Fire8 lives the death of air, air lives the death of fire;
earth lives the death
of water, water lives the death of earth."9 And interwoven
with it is a sort of
justice which resembles karmic force.10
Dionysiac influence
brought the theme of reincarnation prominently to the fore
in metaphysical
thinking.11
Socrates, in the
Phaedo, speaks of "the ancient doctrine that souls pass out of
this world to the
other, and there exist, and then come back hither from the.8
dead, and are born
again." In Hesiod's Works and Days there is the image of the
Wheel of Life. In the
mystical tradition there was prominent the wide-spread
notion of a fall of
higher forms of life into the human sphere of limitation and
misery. The Orphics
definitely taught that the soul of man fell from the stars
into the prison of
this earthly body, sinking from the upper regions of fire and
light into the misty
darkness of this dismal vale. The fall is ascribed to some
original sin, which
entailed expulsion from the purity and perfection of divine
existence and had to
be expiated by life on earth and by purgation in the nether
world.
The philosophies of
Parmenides, Empedocles, and Plato came directly out of the
Pythagorean movement.13 Aristotle
described Empedocles' poems as "Esoteric," and
it is thought that
Parmenides' poems were similarly so. Parmenides' theory that
the earth is the plane
of life outermost, most remotely descended from God, is
re-echoed in
theosophic schematism. Also his idea-"The downward fall of life
from the heavenly
fires is countered by an upward impulse which 'sends the soul
back from the seen to
the unseen'"-completes the Theosophic picture of outgoing
and return. Parmenides
"was really the 'associate' of a Pythagorean, Ameinias,
son of Diochartas, a
poor but noble man, to whom he afterwards built a shrine,
as to a hero."14 "Strabo
describes Parmenides and Zeno as Pythagoreans."15
Cornford's comment on
the philosophy of Empedocles leaves little doubt as to its
origin in the
Mysteries. 16 Strife causes the fall, love brings the return.
Empedocles was a
member of a Pythagorean society or school, for Diogenes tells
us that he and Plato
were expelled from the organization for having revealed the
secret teachings.17
Of Pythagoras as a
Theosophic type of philosopher there is no need to speak at
any length. What is
known of Pythagoreanism strongly resembles Theosophy.
As to Socrates, it is
interesting to note that Cornford's argument "points to
the conclusion that
Socrates was more familiar with Pythagorean ideas than has
commonly been
supposed."18 Socrates gave utterance to many Pythagorean
sentiments and he was
associated with members of the Pythagorean community at
Phlious, near
R. D. Hicks comments
on Plato's "imaginative sympathy with the whole mass of
floating legend, myth
and dogma, of a partly religious, partly ethical
character, which found
a wide, but not universal acceptance, at an early time in
the Orphic and
Pythagorean associations and brotherhoods."19
"The Platonic
myths afford ample evidence that Plato was perfectly familiar with
all the leading
features of this strange creed. The divine origin of the soul,
its fall from bliss
and the society of the gods, its long pilgrimage of penance
through hundreds of
generations, its task of purification from earthly
pollution, its
reincarnation in successive bodies, its upward and downward
progress, and the law
of retribution for all offences . . ."20
There is evidence
pointing to the fact that Plato was quite familiar with the
Mystery teachings, if
not actually an initiate.21 In the Phaedrus he says:
". . . being
initiated into those Mysteries which it is lawful to call the most
blessed of all
Mysteries . . . we were freed from the molestation of evils which
otherwise await us in
a future period of time. Likewise in consequence of this
divine initiation, we
become spectators of entire, simple, immovable and blessed
visions resident in
the pure light."22.9
And his immersion in
the prevalent esoteric attitude is hinted at in another
passage:
"You say that, in
my former discourse, I have not sufficiently explained to you
the nature of the
First. I purposely spoke enigmatically, for in case the tablet
should have happened
with any accident, either by land or sea, a person, without
some previous
knowledge of the subject, might not be able to understand its
contents."23
Aristotle left the
esoteric tradition, and went in the direction of naturalism
and empiricism. Yet in
him too there are many points of distinctly esoteric
ideology. His
distinction between the vegetative animal soul and the rational
soul, the latter alone
surviving while the former perished; his dualism of
heavenly and
terrestrial life; his belief that the heavenly bodies were great
living beings among
the hierarchies; and his theory that development is the
passing of
potentiality over into actualization, are all items of Theosophic
belief.
Greek philosophy is
said to have ended with Neo-Platonism-which is one of
history's greatest
waves of the esoteric tendency. It would be a long task to
detail the theosophic
ideas of the great Plotinus. He, Origen and Herrennius
were pupils of
Ammonius Saccas, whose teachings they promised never to reveal,
as being occult.
Plotinus' own teachings were given only to initiated circles of
students.24 Proclus25
gives astonishing corroboration to a fragment of
Theosophic doctrine in
any excerpt quoted in Isis Unveiled:
"After death, the
soul (the spirit) continueth to linger in the aerial (astral)
form till it is
entirely purified from all angry and voluptuous passions . . .
then doth it put off
by a second dying the aerial body as it did the earthly
one. Whereupon the
ancients say that there is a celestial body always joined
with the soul, and
which is immortal, luminous and star-like."26
The esotericist feels
that the evidence, a meagre portion of which has been thus
cursorily submitted,
is highly indicative that beneath the surface of ancient
pagan civilization
there were undercurrents of sacred wisdom, esoteric
traditions of high
knowledge, descended from revered sources, and really
cherished in secret.
Presumably the
Christian religion itself drew many of its basic concepts
directly or indirectly
from esoteric sources. It was born amid the various cults
and faiths that then
occupied the field of the Alexandrian East and the Roman
Empire, and it was
unable to escape the influences emanating from these sources.
Its immediate
predecessors were the Mystery-Religions, the Jewish faith, and the
syncretistic blend of
these with Syrian Orientalism and Greek philosophy.
Judaism was itself
deeply tinctured with Hellenistic and oriental influences.
The Mystery cults were
more or less esoteric; Judaism had received a highly
allegorical
formulation at the hands of Philo; the Hermetic Literature was
similar to Theosophy;
the Syrian faiths were saturated with the strain of
"Chaldean"
occultism; and Greek rationalism had yielded that final mysticism
which culminated in
Plotinus. Christianity was indebted to many of these sources
and many scholars
believe that it triumphed only because it was the most
successful syncretism
of many diverse elements. Numerous streams of esoteric
doctrine contributed
to Christianity; we can merely hint at the large body of
evidence available on
this point.
Christianity grew up
in the milieu of the Mysteries, and those early Fathers who
formulated the body of
Christian doctrine did not step drastically outside the.10
traditions of the
prevalent faiths. Their work was rather an incorporation of
some new elements into
the accepted systems of the time. In some cases, as in
Egyptian city were at
the same time connected with the Mystery cult of Serapis,
as many in
the most direct and
prominent product of the two systems is to be seen in St.
Paul, about whose
intimate relation to the Mysteries several volumes have been
written. Much of his
language so strikingly suggests his close contact with
Mystery formulae that
it is a moot question whether or not he was actually an
Initiate.28 At all
events many are of the opinion that he must have been
powerfully influenced
by the cult teachings and practices.29 He mentions some
psychic experiences of
his own, which are cited as savoring strongly of the
character of the
mystical exercises taught in the Mysteries.30
When in the third and
fourth centuries the Church Fathers began the task of
shaping a body of
doctrine for the new movement, the same theosophic tendencies
pressed upon them from
every side. Clement and Origen brought many phases of
theosophic doctrine to
prominence, a fact which tended later to exclude their
writings from the
canon. And when Augustine drew up the dogmatic schematism of
the new religion, he
was tremendously swayed by the work of the Neo-Platonist
Plotinus, who, along
with Ammonius Saccas, Numenius, Porphyry, and Proclus, had
been a member of one
or several of the Mystery bodies.31
The presence of
powerful currents of Neo-Platonic idealism in the early church
is attested by the
effects upon it of Manichaeism, Gnosticism and the
heresy, which
tendencies had to be exterminated before Christianity definitely
took its course of
orthodox development. Occult writers32 have indicated the
forces at work in the
formative period of the church's dogma which eradicated
the theory of
reincarnation and other aspects of esoteric knowledge from the
orthodox canons. The
point remains true, nevertheless, that Christianity took
its rise in an
atmosphere saturated with ideas resembling those of Theosophy.
Theosophy, the Gnosis,
having been to a large extant rejected from Catholic
theology, nevertheless
did not disappear from history. It possessed an
unquenchable vitality
and made its way through more or less submerged channels
down the centuries.
Movements, sects, and individuals that embodied its
cherished principles
could be enumerated at great length. A list would include
Paulicians, the
Bogomiles, the Bulgars, the Paterenes, the Comacines, the
Cathari; Albigensians,
and pietists; Joachim of Floris, Roger Bacon, Robert
Bradwardine, Raymond
Lully; the Alchemists, the Fire Philosophers; Paracelsus,
B. Figulus; the
Friends of God, led by Nicholas of Basle; L'Homme de Cuir, in
in the Tarot; the
great Aldus' Academy at
esoteric meanings in
the literature of the Troubadours, and in such writings as
The Romance of the
Rose, the Holy Grail legends and the Arthurian Cycle, if read
in an esoteric sense;
Gower's Confessio Amantis, Spencer's Faλrie Queen, the
works of Dietrich of
Berne, Wayland Smith, the Peredur Stories, and the
Mabinogian
compilations. German pietism expressed fundamentally Theosophic ideas
through Eckhardt,
Tauler, Suso, and Jacob Boehme. The names of such figures as
Count Rakowczi,
Cagliostro, Count St. Germain, and Francis Bacon have been
linked with the secret
orders. In fact there was hardly a period when the ghosts
of occult wisdom did
not hover in the background of European thought.
Sometimes its
predominant manifestation was mystically religious; again it was
cosmological and
philosophical; never did it quite lose its attachment to the
conceptions of
science, which was at times reduced nearly to magic. And it is.11
upon the implications
of this scientific interest that the occult theorist bases
his claim that
science, along with religion and philosophy, has sprung in the
beginning from
esoteric knowledge. Not overlooking the oldest scientific lore to
be found in the sacred
books of the East, our attention is called to the
astronomical science
of the "Chaldeans"; the similar knowledge among the
Egyptians, such, for
instance, as led them to construct the Pyramids on lines
conformable to
sidereal measurements and movements; the reputed knowledge of the
precession of the
equinoxes among the Persian Magi and the "Chaldeans"; the
later work of the
scientists among the Alexandrian savants, which had so
important a bearing
upon the direction of the nascent science in the minds of
Copernicus, Galileo,
Kepler, and
Robert Grosseteste,
Agrippa von Nettesheim, and Jerome Cardano in incipient
empiricism. It has
always been assumed that the strange mixture of true science
and grotesque magic
found, for instance, in the work of Roger Bacon, justifies
the implication that
the concern with magic operated as a hindrance to the
development of
science. It should not be forgotten that the stimulus to
scientific discovery
sprang from the presuppositions embodied in magical theory.
It is now beyond
dispute that the magnificent achievements of Copernicus,
Kepler, and Galileo
were actuated by their brooding over the significance of the
Pythagorean theories
of number and harmony. Both science and magic aim, each in
its special modus, at
the control of nature. Through the gateway of electricity,
says theosophy,
science has been admitted, part way at least, into the inner
sanctum of nature's
dynamic heart. Magic has sought an entry to the same citadel
by another road.
The Theosophist, then,
believes, on the strength of evidence only a fragment of
which has been touched
upon here, that esotericism has been weaving its web of
influence, powerful
even if subtle and unseen, throughout the religions,
philosophies, and
sciences of the world. It makes little difference what names
have been attached
from time to time to this esoteric tradition; and certainly
no attempt is made
here to prove an underlying unity or continuity in all this
"wisdom
literature." Suffice it to point out that in all ages there have been
movements analogous to
modern Theosophy, and that the modern cult regards itself
as merely a regular
revelation in the periodic resurgence of an ancient
learning..12
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER II THE AMERICAN BACKGROUND
An outline of the
circumstances which may be said to constitute the background
for the American
development of Theosophy should begin with the mass of strange
phenomena which took
place, and were widely reported, in connection with the
religious revivals
from 1740 through the Civil War period. A veritable epidemic
of what were known as
the "barks" and the "jerks" swept over the land. They were
most frequent in evangelical
meetings, but also became common outside. The
phenomena, such as
speaking in strange tongues, a condition of trance and swoon
frequently attendant
upon conversion, occasional illumination and ecstasy,
resembling medieval
mystic sainthood, and the apparently miraculous reformation
of many criminals and
drunkards. These phenomena impressed the general mind with
the sense of a higher
source of power that might be invoked in behalf of human
interests.
During this period,
too, several mathematical prodigies were publicly exhibited
in the performance of
quite unaccountable calculations, giving instantaneously
the correct results of
complicated manipulations of numbers.1 From about 1820,
rumors were beginning
to be heard of exceptional psychic powers possessed by the
Hindus.
But a more notable
stir was occasioned a little later when the country began to
be flooded with
reports of exhibitions of mesmerism and hypnotism. Couιism had
not yet come, but the
work of Mesmer, Janet, Charcot, Bernheim, and others in
apparently supernormal
segment of the human mind. "Healing by faith" had always
been a wide-spread
tradition; but when such people as Quimby and others added to
the cult of healing
the practice of mesmerism, and subjoined both to a set of
metaphysical or
spiritual formulae, the imaginative susceptibilities of the
people were vigorously
stimulated, and the ferment resulted in cults of "mind
healing." Quimby
was active with his public demonstrations throughout New
The cult of
Swedenborgianism, coming in chiefly from
preceding century as a
tremendous contribution to the feeling of mystic
supernaturalism.
Emanuel Swedenborg, who gave up his work as a noted
mineralogist to take
up the writing of his visions and prophecies, had
profoundly impressed
the religious world by the publication of his enormous
works, the Arcana
Coelestia, The Apocalypse Revealed, The Apocalypse Explained,
and others, in which
he claimed that his inner vision had been opened to a view
of celestial verities.
His descriptions of the heavenly spheres, and of the
relation of the life
of the Infinite to our finite existence, and his theory of
the actual
correspondence of every physical fact to some eternal truth,.13
impressed the mystic
sense of many people, who became his followers and
organized his Church
of the New Jerusalem. Though this following was never large
in number, it was
influential in the spread of a type of "arcane wisdom." In the
first place, Swedenborg's
statements that he had been granted direct glimpses of
the angelic worlds
carried a certain impressiveness in view of his detailed
descriptions of what
was there seen. He announced that the causes of all things
are in the Divine
Mind. The end of existence and creation is to bring man into
conjunction with the
higher spirit of the universe, so that he may become the
image of his creator.
The law of correspondence is the key to all the divine
treasures of wisdom.
He declared that he had witnessed the Last Judgment and
that he was told of
the second coming of the Lord. His teachings influenced
among others
Coleridge, Blake, Balzac, and, of course, Emerson and the James
family. Though not so
much of this influence was specifically Theosophic in
character, it all
served to bring much grist to the later Theosophical mill.
A certain identity of
aims and characters between Theosophy and Swedenborgianism
is revealed in the
fact that "in December, 1783, a little company of
sympathizers, with
similar aims, met in
Society,' among the
members of which were John Flaxman, the sculptor, William
Sharpe, the engraver,
and F. H. Barthelemon, the composer."2 It was dissolved
about 1788 when the
Swedenborgian churches began to function. Many such
religious
organizations could well be called theosophical associations, as was
the one founded by
Brand in
Another organization
which dealt hardly less with heavenly revelations, and
which must also be
regarded as conducive to theosophical attitudes, was the
"Children of the
Light," the Friends, or Quakers. With a history antedating the
nineteenth century by
more than a hundred and fifty years, these people held a
significant place in
the religious life of
delineating. Their
intense emphasis upon the direct and spontaneous irradiation
of the spirit of God
into the human consciousness strikes a deep note of genuine
mysticism. In fact,
like Methodism, Quakerism was born in the midst of a series
of spiritualistic
occurrences. George Fox heard the heavenly voices and received
inspirational messages
directly from spiritual visitants. The report of his
supernatural
experiences, and of the miracles of healing which he was enabled to
perform through spirit-given
powers, caused hundreds of people to flock to his
banner and gave the
movement its primary impetus. His gospel was essentially one
of spirit
manifestation, and his whole ethical system grew out of his conception
of the rιgime of
personal life, conduct and mentality which was best designed to
induce the visitations
of spirit influence. The spiritistic and mystical
experiences of the
celebrated Madame Guyon, of
Fox's testimony.Not
less inclined than the Friends to transcendental experiences
were the Shakers, who
had settled in eighteen communistic associations or
colonies in the
healing, prophecy,
glossolalia, and the singing of inspired songs. They were led
by the spirit into
deep and holy experiences, and claimed to be inspired by high
spiritual
intelligences with whom they were in hourly communion. One of their
number, F. W. Evans,
wrote to Robert Dale Owen, the Spiritualist, that the
Shakers had predicted
the advent of Spiritualism seven years previously, and
that the Shaker order
was the great medium between this world and the world of
spirits. He asserted
that "Spiritualism originated among the Shakers of America;
that there were
hundreds of mediums in the eighteen Shaker communities, and
that, in fact, nearly
all the Shakers were mediums. Mediumistic manifestations
are as common among us
as gold in
three degrees of
spiritual manifestation, the third of which is the
"ministration of
millennial truths to various nations, tribes, kindred and
people in the spirit
world who were hungering and thirsting after.14
righteousness."4
He further pronounced a panegyric upon Spiritualism, which is
evidence that the
Shakers were in sympathy with any phenomena which seemed to
indicate a connection
with the celestial planes:
"Spiritualism has
banished scepticism and infidelity from the minds of
thousands, comforted
the mourner with angelic consolations, lifted up the
unfortunate, the
outcast, the inebriate, taking away the sting of death, which
has kept mankind under
perpetual bondage through fear-so that death is now, to
its millions of
believers,
The kind and gentle
servant who unlocks,
With noiseless hand,
life's flower-encircled door,
To show us those we
loved."5
Still another movement
which had its origin in alleged supernaturalistic
manifestations and
helped to intensify a general belief in them, was the Church
of the Latter Day
Saints, or Mormons. In 1820, and again in 1823, Joseph Smith
had a vision of an
angel, who revealed to him the repository of certain records
inscribed on plates of
gold, containing the history of the aboriginal peoples of
embodied in these
records, constituted the special attribute of the seers of
antiquity. The
inscriptions on the gold plates were represented as the key to
the understanding of
ancient scriptures, and were said to be in a script known
as Reformed Egyptian.
The Book of Mormon claims to be an English translation of
these plates of gold.
It is not necessary
here to follow the history of Smith and his church, but it
is interesting to
point out the features of the case that touch either
Spiritualism or
Theosophy. We have already noted the origin of Smith's
motivating idea in a
direct message from the spirit world. We have also a
curious resemblance to
Theosophy in the fact that an alleged ancient document
was brought to light
as a book of authority, and that the material therein was
asserted to furnish a
key to the interpretation of the archaic scriptures of the
world. Of the twelve
articles of the Mormon creed, seven sections show a spirit
not incongruous with
the tendency of Theosophic sentiment. Article One professes
belief in the Trinity;
article Two asserts that men will be punished for their
own sins, not for
Adam's; Three refers to the salvation of all without
exception; Seven sets
forth belief in the gift of tongues, prophecy,
revelations, visions,
healing, etc.; Eight questions the Bible's accurate
translation; Nine
expresses the assurance that God will yet reveal many great
and important things
pertaining to his kingdom; and Eleven proclaims freedom of
worship and the
principle of toleration.
Orson Pratt, one of
the leading publicists of the Mormon cult, said that where
there is an end of
manifestation of new phenomena, such as visions, revelations
and inspiration, the
people are lost in blindness. When prophecies fail,
darkness hangs over
the people. In a tract issued by Pratt it is stated that the
Book of Mormon has
been abundantly confirmed by miracles.
"Nearly every
branch of the church has been blessed by miraculous signs and
gifts of the Holy
Ghost, by which they have been confirmed, and by which we know
of a surety that this
is the
lame walk, the deaf
hear, the dumb speak, that lepers are cleansed, that bones
are set, that the
cholera is rebuked, and that the most virulent diseases give
way through faith in
the name of Christ and the power of His gospel."6.15
About 1825, in a
meeting at the home of Josiah Quincy in
movement was launched
which may seem to have had but meagre influence
on the advent of
Theosophy later in the century, but which in its motive and
animating spirit was
probably one of the cult's most immediate precursors. The
Unitarian faith,
courageously agitated from 1812 to 1814 by William E. Channing,
Edward Everett, and
Francis Parkman, flowered into a religious denomination in
1825 and thenceforth
exercised, in a measure out of all proportion to its
numerical strength, a
powerful influence on American religious thought. Under
Emerson and Parker a
little later the principle of free expression of opinion
was carried to such
length that the formulation of an orthodox creed was next to
impossible.
They questioned not
only the Trinitarian doctrine, as pagan rather than
Christian (the
identical position taken by Madame Blavatsky in the volumes of
Isis Unveiled), but
the whole orthodox structure. The Bible was not to be
regarded as God's
infallible and inspired word, but a work of exalted human
agencies. Christ was
no heaven-born savior, but a worthy son of man. If he was
man and anything more,
his life is worthless to mere men. His life was a man's
life, his gospel a
man's gospel-otherwise inapplicable to us. Salvation is
within every person.
Death does not determine the state of the soul for all
eternity; the soul
passes on into spirit with all its earth-won character. In
the life that is to
be, as well as in the life that now is, the soul must reap
what it sows. If there
were a Unitarian creed, it might be summarized as
follows: The
fatherhood of God; the brotherhood of man; the leadership of Jesus;
salvation by
character; the progress of mankind onward and upward forever. All
this, as far it goes,
is strikingly harmonious with the Theosophic position.
That there was an
evident community of interests between the two movements is
indicated by the fact
that Unitarianism, like Theosophy, sought Hindu
connections, and
strangely enough made a sympathetic entente with the Brahmo-Somaj
Society, while
Theosophy later affiliated with the Arya-Somaj.7
No examination of the
American background of Theosophy can fail to take account
of that movement which
carried the minds of
pitch during the early
half of the nineteenth century, Transcendentalism. It has
generally been
attributed to the impact of German Romanticism, transmitted by
way of
really more direct and
dominating, but the powerful effect of Oriental religion
and philosophy on
Emerson, hitherto not considered seriously, should not be
overlooked. "All
of Emerson's notes on Oriental scriptures have been deleted
from Bliss Perry's
Heart of Emerson's Journals."8 No student conversant with the
characteristic marks
of Indian philosophy needs documentary corroboration of the
fact that Emerson's
thought was saturated with typically Eastern conceptions.
The evidence runs
through nearly all his works like a design in a woven cloth.
"Scores upon
scores of passages in his Journals and Essays show that he leaned
often on the Vedas for
inspiration, and paraphrased lines of the Puranas in his
poems."9 But
direct testimony from Emerson himself is not wanting. His Journals
prove that his reading
of the ancient Oriental classics was not sporadic, but
more or less constant.10
He refers to some of them in the lists of each year's
sources. In 1840 he
tells how in the heated days he read nothing but the "Bible
of the tropics, which
I find I come back upon every three or four years. It is
sublime as heat and
night and the breathless ocean. It contains every religious
sentiment. . . . It is
no use to put away the book; if I trust myself in the
woods or in a boat
upon the pond, Nature makes a Brahmin of me presently."11
This was at the age of
twenty-seven. In the Journal of 1845 he writes:
"The Indian
teaching, through its cloud of legends, has yet a simple and grand
religion, like a
queenly countenance seen through a rich veil. It teaches to.16
speak the truth, love
others as yourself, and to despise trifles. The East is
grand-and makes
and foe are of one
stuff . . . Cheerful and noble is the genius of this
cosmogony."12
Lecturing before
graduate classes at Harvard he later said: "Thought has
subsisted for the most
part on one root; the Norse mythology, the Vedas,
Shakespeare have
served the ages." In referring in one passage to the Bible he
says:
"I have used in
the above remarks the Bible for the ethical revelation
considered generally,
including, that is, the Vedas, the sacred writings of
every nation, and not
of the Hebrews alone."13
Elsewhere he says:
"Yes, the
Zoroastrian, the Indian, the Persian scriptures are majestic and more
to our daily purpose
than this year's almanac or this day's newspaper. I owed-my
friend and I owed-a
magnificent day to the Bhagavat-Gita. It was the first of
books; it was as if an
empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large,
serene, consistent,
the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and
another climate had
pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which
exercise us. . . . Let
us cherish the venerable oracle."14
The first stanza of
Emerson's poem "Brahma, Song of the Soul," runs as follows:
"If the red
slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain thinks
he is slain,
They know not well the
subtle ways
I keep, and pass and
turn again."
Could the strange
ideas and hardly less strange language of this verse have been
drawn elsewhere than
from the 19th verse of the Second Valli, of the Katha
Upanishad,15 which
reads?:
"If the slayer
thinks I slay; if the slain thinks I am slain, then both of them
do not know well. It
(the soul) does not slay nor is it slain."
His poem
"Hamatreya" comes next in importance as showing Hindu influence. In
another poem,
"Celestial Love," the wheel of birth and death is referred to:
"In a region
where the wheel
On which all beings
ride,
Visibly
revolves."
Emerson argues for
reincarnation in the Journal of 1845. "Traveling the path of
life through thousands
of births."
"By the long
rotation of fidelity they meet again in worthy forms." Emerson's
"oversoul"
is synonymous with a Sanskrit term. He regarded matter as the
negative manifestation
of the Universal Spirit. Mind was the expression of the
same Spirit in its
positive power. Man, himself, is nothing but the universal
spirit present in a
material organism. Soul is "part and parcel of God." He says
that "the soul in
man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all organs;
from within and from
behind a light shines through us upon things, and makes us
aware that we are
nothing, that the light is all."16 This is Vedanta philosophy.
In the Journal of 1866
he wrote:.17
"In the history
of intellect, there is no more important fact than the Hindu
theology, teaching
that the beatitude or supreme good is to be attained through
science: namely, by
the perception of the real from the unreal, setting aside
matter, and qualities
or affections or emotions, and persons and actions, as
mayas or illusions, and
thus arriving at the conception of the One eternal Life
and Cause, and a
perpetual approach and assimilation to Him, thus escaping new
births and
transmigrations. . . . Truth is the principle and the moral of Hindu
theology, Truth as
against the Maya which deceives Gods and men; Truth, the
principle, and
Retirement and Self-denial the means of attaining it."17
Mr. Christy18 states
that Emerson's concept of evolution must be thought of in
terms of emanation;
and a detailed examination of his concept of compensation
reduces it to the
doctrine of Karma.
The Journals are full
of quotable passages upon one or another phase of
Hinduism. And there
are his other poems "Illusions" and "Maya," whose names
bespeak Oriental
presentations. But Mr. Christy thinks the following excerpt is
Emerson's supreme
tribute to Orientalism:
"There is no
remedy for musty, self-conceited English life made up of fictitious
hating ideas-like
Orientalism. That astonishes and disconcerts English decorum.
For once there is
thunder he never heard, light he never saw, and power which
trifles with time and
space."19
It may seem ludicrous
to suggest that Emerson was the chief forerunner of Madame
Blavatsky, her John
the Baptist. Yet seriously, without Emerson, Madame
Blavatsky could hardly
have launched her gospel when she did with equal hope of
success. There is
every justification for the assertion that Emerson's
Orientalistic
contribution to the general Transcendental trend of thought was
preparatory to
Theosophy. It must not be forgotten that his advocacy of
Brahmanic ideas and
doctrines came at a time when the expression of a laudatory
opinion of the Asiatic
religions called forth an opprobrium from evangelistic
quarters hardly less
than vicious in its bitterness. Theosophy could not hope to
make headway until the
virulent edge of that orthodox prejudice had been
considerably blunted.
It was Emerson's magnanimous eclecticism which
administered the first
and severest rebuke to that prejudice, and inaugurated
that gradual
mollification of sentiment toward the Orientals which made possible
the welcome which
Hindu Yogis and Swamis received toward the end of the century.
The exposition of
Emerson's orientalism makes it unnecessary to trace the
evidences of a similar
influence running through the philosophical thinking of
Thoreau and Walt
Whitman. The robust cosmopolitanism of these two intellects
lifted them out of the
provincialisms of the current denominations into the
realm of universal
sympathies. We know that Thoreau became the recipient of
forty-four volumes of
the Hindu texts in 1854; but it is evident that he, like
Emerson, had had
contact with Brahmanical literature previous to that. His works
are replete with
references to Eastern ideas and beliefs. He could hardly have
associated so closely
with Emerson as he did and escaped the contagion of the
latter's Oriental
enthusiasm.
Mr. Horace L. Traubel,
one of the three literary executors of Whitman, had in
his possession the
poet's own copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Perry and Binns, in
their biographies of
Whitman, give lists of the literature with which he was
familiar; and many
ancient authors are mentioned. Among them are Confucius, the
Hindu poets, Persian
poets, Zoroaster; portions of the Vedas and Puranas,
Alger's Oriental
Poetry and other Eastern sources. Dr. Richard M. Bucke, another.18
of the three literary
executors, and a close friend and associate of "the good
gray poet," was
one of the prominent early Theosophists, and it is reasonable to
presume that Whitman
was familiar with Theosophic theory through the channel of
this friendship.
Whitman likewise gave form and body to another volume of
sentiment which has
contributed, no one can say how much, to the adoption of
Theosophy. This was
which the traditions
of the supernatural grew robust and realistic.
Attention must now be
directed to that wide-spread movement in
come to be known as
New Thought. It came, as has been hinted at, out of the
spiritualization, or
one might say, doctrinization, of mesmerism. Observation of
the surprising effects
of hypnotic control, indicating the presence of a psychic
energy in man
susceptible to external or self-generated suggestion, led to the
inference that a
linking of spiritual affirmation with the unconscious dynamism
would conduce to
invariably beneficent results, that might be made permanent for
character. If a
jocular suggestion by the stage mesmerist could lead the subject
into a ludicrous
performance; if a suggestion of illness, of pain, of a
headache, could
produce the veritable symptoms; why could not a suggestion of
adequate strength and
authority lead to the actualization of health, of
personality, of
well-being, of spirituality? The task was merely to transform
animal magnetism into
spiritual suggestion. The aim was to indoctrinate the
subconscious mind with
a fixation of spiritual sufficiency and opulence, until
the personality came
to embody and manifest on the physical plane of life the
character of the inner
motivation. Seeing what an obsession of a fixed abnormal
idea had done to the
body and mind in many cases, New Thought tried to
regenerate the life in
a positive and salutary direction by the conscious
implantation of a
higher spiritual concept, until it, too, became obsessive, and
wrought an effect on
the outer life coφrdinate with its own nature. The process
of hypnotic suggestion
became a moral technique, with a potent religious
formula, according to
which spiritual truth functioned in place of personal
magnetic force.
Essentially it reduced itself to the business of self-hypnotization
by a lofty conception.
Thought itself was seen to possess mesmeric
power. "As a man
thinketh in his heart" became the slogan of New Thought, and
the kindred Biblical
adjuration-"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind"-furnished
the needed incentive to positive mental aggression. The world of
today is familiar with
the line of phrases which convey the basic ideology of
the New Thought cults.
One hears much of being in tune with the Infinite, of
making the at-one-ment
with the powers of life, of getting into harmony with the
universe, of making
contact with the reservoir of Eternal Supply, of getting en
rapport with the
Cosmic Consciousness, of keeping ourselves puny and stunted
because we do not ask
more determinedly from the Boundless.
Here is unmistakable
evidence of a somewhat diluted Hinduism. Under the
pioneering of P. P.
Quimby, Horatio W. Dresser, and others, study clubs were
formed and lecture
courses given. Charles Brodie Patterson, W. J. Colville,
James Lane Allen, C.
D. Larson, Orison S. Marden, and a host of others, aided in
the popularization of
these ideas, until in the past few decades there has been
witnessed an almost
endless brood of ramifications from the parent conception,
with associations of
Spiritual Science, Divine Science, Cosmic Truth, Universal
Light and Harmony
carrying the message. So we have been called upon to witness
the odd spectacle of
what was essentially Hindu Yoga philosophy masquerading in
the guise of
commanding personality and forceful salesmanship! But grotesque as
these developments
have been, there is no doubting their importance in the
Theosophical
background. They have served to introduce the thought of the Orient
to thousands, and have
become stepping-stones to its deeper investigation..19
A concomitant episode
in the expansion of New Thought and Transcendentalism was
the direct program of
Hindu propaganda fathered by Hindu spokesmen themselves.
When it became
profitable, numerous Yogis, Swamis, "Adepts," and
"Mahatmas" came
to this country and
lectured on the doctrines and principles of Orientalism to
audiences of ιlite
people with mystical susceptibilities. Some time in the
seventies,
doctrines by the
eloquent P. C. Mazoomdar, author of The Oriental Christ, whose
campaign left its deep
impress. His work, in fact, formed one of the links
between Unitarianism
and Brahmanic thought, already noted. In 1893 Swami
Vivekananda, chosen as
a delegate to the World Congress of Religions at the
Columbian Exposition
at Chicago, and author of Yoga Philosophy, began preaching
the Yoga principles of
thought and discipline, and instituted in
Vedanta Society.
Almost every year since his coming has brought public lectures
and private
instruction courses by native Hindus in the large American cities.
Concomitant with the
evolution of New Thought came the sensational dissemination
of Mrs. Eddy's
Christian Science. Offspring of P. P. Quimby's mesmeric science,
and erected by Mrs.
Eddy's strange enthusiasm into a healing cult based on a
reinterpretation of
Christian doctrines-the allness of Spirit and the
nothingness of
matter-the organization has enjoyed a steady and pronounced
growth and drawn into
its pale thousands of Christian communicants who felt the
need of a more dynamic
or more fruitful gospel. The conception of the impotence
of matter, as
non-being, is as old as Greek and Hindu philosophy. Mrs. Eddy's
contribution in the
matter was her use of the philosophical idea as a
psychological mantram
for healing, and her adroitness in lining up the Christian
scriptures to support
the idea.
It would require a
fairly discerning insight to mark out clearly the inter-connection
of Christian Science
and Theosophy. There is basically little
similarity between the
two schools, or little common ground on which they might
meet. On the contrary
there is much direct antagonism in their views and dogma.
Nevertheless the
along the path toward
occultism. In the first place, like Unitarianism, it had
induced thousands of
sincere seekers for a new and liberal faith to sever the
ties of their former
servile attachment to an uninspiring orthodoxy. Secondly,
Christian Science does
yeoman service in "demonstrating" the spiritual
viewpoint. Its
emphasis on spirit, as opposed to material concepts of reality,
is entirely favorable
to the general theses of Theosophy. Thirdly, the
intellectual
limitations of the system develop the need of a larger philosophy,
which Theosophy stands
ready to supply. Christian Science, being primarily a
Christian healing
cult, with a body of ideas adequate to that function, often
leads the intelligent
and open-minded student in its ranks to become aware that
it falls far short of
offering a comprehensive philosophy of life. It has little
or nothing to say
about man's origin, his present rank in a universal order, or
his destiny. It leaves
the pivotal question of immortality in the same status as
does conventional
Christianity. Many Christian Science adherents have seen that
Theosophy offers a
fuller and more adequate cosmograph, and accordingly adopted
it. Their experience
in the Eddy system brought them to the outer court of the
Occult Temple.20
Among major movements
that paved the way for Theosophy, the one perhaps most
directly conducive to
it is Spiritualism, for the founder of the Theosophical
Society began her
career in the Spiritualistic ranks. On account of this close
relationship it is
necessary to outline the origin and spread of this strange
movement more fully..20
The weird behavior of
two country girls, the
the hamlet of
Hydesville, near
like a spark to power
for the release of religious fancy; for Margaret and Kate
Fox were supposed to
have picked up again the thread of communication between
the world of human
consciousness and the world of disembodied spirits, and thus
to have given fresh
reinforcement to man's assurance of immortality. From this
bizarre beginning the
movement spread rapidly to all parts of
and
manifestations and
fervently invoking the denizens of the unseen worlds. Various
methods and means were
provided whereby the disembodied entities could
communicate with dull
mundane faculties. Many and varied were the types of
response. Besides the
simple "raps," there were tinklings of tiny aerial bells,
flashings of light,
tipping of tables, levitation of furniture and of human
bodies, messages
through the planchette, free voice messages, trumpet speaking,
alphabet rapping,
materialization of the hands and of complete forms, trance
catalepsis and
inspiration, automatic writing, slate writing, glossolalia, and
many other variety of
phenomena. Mediums, clairvoyants, inspirational speakers
sprang forward
plentifully; and each one became the focus of a group activity.
It is somewhat
difficult for us to reconstruct the picture of this flare of
interest and activity,
the scope of this absorbing passion for spirit
manifestation. It
attests the eagerness of the human heart for tangible evidence
of survival. With
periodical ebb and flow it has persisted to the present day,
when its vogue is
hardly less general than at any former time. In the fifties
and sixties the
Spiritualistic agitation was in full flush, with many
extraordinary
occurrences accredited to its exponents.21
Spiritualism
encountered opposition among the clergy and the materialistic
scientists, yet it has
hardly ever been wanting in adherents among the members
of both groups. An
acquaintance with its supporters would reveal a surprising
list of high civil and
government officials, attorneys, clergymen, physicians,
professors, and scientists.22
One of the first
Spiritualistic writers of this country was Robert Dale Owen,
whose Footfalls on the
Boundary of Another World and The Debatable Land were
notable contributions.
Two of the most eminent representatives of the movement
in its earliest days
were Prof. Robert Hare, an eminent scientist and the
inventor of the
oxyhydrogen blow-pipe, and Judge Edmonds, a leading jurist. Both
these men had
approached the subject at first in a skeptical spirit, with the
intention of
disclosing its unsound premises; but they were fair enough to study
the evidence
impartially, with the result that both were convinced of the
genuineness of the
phenomena. Both avowed their convictions courageously in
public, and Judge
Edmonds made extensive lecture tours of the country, the
propaganda effect of
which was great.23 Before the actual launching of the
Theosophical Society
in 1875 at least four prominent later Theosophists had
played more or less
important rτles in the drama of Spiritualism. Madame
Blavatsky, as we shall
see, had identified herself with its activities; Mr. J.
R. Newton was a
vigorous worker; and it was Col. Olcott himself who brought the
manifestations taking
place in 1873 at the Eddy farmhouse near Chittenden,
covering these and
other phenomena in 1874, People From the Other World. The
fourth member was Mrs.
Emma Hardinge Britten, who had served as a medium with
the Bulwer-Lytton
group of psychic investigators in
books to
Spiritualistic literature-Art Magic and Nineteenth Century Miracles.
Col. Olcott, Madame
Blavatsky, and Mrs. Britten made material contributions to
several Spiritualistic
magazines, especially The Spiritual Scientist, edited in
Meantime
Spiritualistic investigation got under way and after the sixties a
stream of reports,
case histories, accounts of phenomena, and books from
prominent advocates
flooded the country. The Seybert Commission on Spiritualism,
composed of leading
officers and professors at the
submitted its report
in 1888. In the same year R. B. Davenport undertook to turn
the world away from
what he considered a delusion with his book Deathblow to
Spiritualism: The True
Story of the Fox Sisters; but he found that Spiritualism
had a strange vitality
that enabled it to survive many a "deathblow." As a
result of studies in
psychic phenomena in
impressive work, The
Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, in
which the foundations
for the theory of the subliminal or subconscious mind were
laid.
But the work of the
mediums themselves kept public feeling most keenly alert. A
list of some of the
most prominent ones includes Mrs. Hayden, Henry Slade,
Pierre L. O. A.
Keeler, the slate-writer, Robert Houdin (who bequeathed his name
and exploits to the
later Houdini), Ira and William Davenport, Anna Eva Fay,
Charles Slade, Eusapia
Paladino, Mrs. Leonara Piper. Robert Dale Owen, already
mentioned as author,
was a medium of no mean ability. In the same category was
J. M. Peebles, of
Spiritualists? and
whose public lecture tours, rendered him one of the most
prominent of all the
advocates of the cult. A career of inspirational public
speaking was staged by
Cora V. Richmond, who gave lectures on erudite themes
with an uncommon flow
of eloquence. W. J. Colville began where she ended, giving
unprepared addresses
on topics suggested by the audience.
The three most famous
American mediums deserve somewhat more extended treatment.
The first of the trio
is Daniel Dunglas Home, who was a poor Scottish boy
adopted in
his terror and
annoyance. Raps came around him on the table or desk, on the
chairs or walls. The
furniture moved about and was attracted toward him. His
aunt, with whom he
lived was in consternation at these phenomena, and, deeming
him possessed, sent
for three clergymen to exorcise the spirit; when they did
not succeed, she threw
his Sunday suit and linen out the window and pushed him
out-of-doors. He was
thus cast on the world without friends, but the power that
he possessed raised
him friends and sent him forth from
planter of
Spiritualism all over Europe.24
The second of the
triumvirate was Andrew Jackson Davis. His function seemed to
be that of the seer
and the scribe, rather than of the producer of material
operations. He was
born of poor parents, in 1826, in Orange Country,
He seems to have
inherited a clairvoyant faculty. He received only five months'
schooling in the
village, it being "found impossible to teach him anything
there."25 During
his solitary hours in the fields he saw visions and heard
voices. Removing to
lecturer, and in this
capacity began to excite wonder by his revelations. This
was before the
and prescribed for
scores who came to him, surprising both patients and
physicians by his
competence. Then he began to see "into the heart of things,"
to descry the
essential nature of the world and the spiritual constitution of
the universe. He could
see the interior of bodies and the metals hidden in the
earth. Adding his
testimony to that of Fox and Swedenborg, he asserted that
every animal
represented some human quality, some vice or virtue. He gave Greek
and Latin names of
things, without having a knowledge of these languages. In a
vision he beheld The
Magic Staff on which he was urged to learn during life; on
it was written his
life's motto: "Under all circumstances keep an open mind." In
1845 he delivered one
hundred and fifty-seven lectures in
announced a new
philosophy of the universe. They were published under the title,
Nature's Divine
Revelation, a book of eight hundred pages.
voluminous writer.26
Thomas L. Harris, the
third great representative, was much attracted by
The Divine Revelations
of Nature, but developed spiritistic powers along a
somewhat different
line, that of poetic inspiration. In his early exhibitions of
this supernormal faculty
he dictated who epics, containing occasionally
excellent verse, under
the alleged influence of Byron, Shelley, Keats and
others. The
interesting manner in which these poems-a whole volume of three or
four hundred pages at
a time-were created, is more amazing than their poetic
merit. Mr. Brittan, an
English publisher, tells us that Harris dictated and he
wrote down The Lyric
of the Golden Age, a poem of 381 pages, in ninety-four
hours! The Lyric of
the
in a similar manner.
"But," says
William Howitt in his History of the Supernatural, "the progress of
Harris into an
inspirational oratory is still more surprising. He claims, by
opening up his
interior being, to receive influx of divine intuition in such
abundance and power as
to throw off under its influence the most astonishing
strains of eloquence.
This receptive and communicative power he attributes to an
internal spiritual
breathing corresponding to the outer natural breathing. As
the body lungs imbibe
air, so, he contends, the spiritual lungs inspire and
respire the divine
aura, refluent with the highest thought and purest sentiment,
and that without any
labor or trial of brain."27
Spiritualism is one of
the most direct lines of approach to Theosophy, since an
acceptance of the
possibility of spiritistic phenomena is a prerequisite for the
adoption of the larger
scheme of occult truth. Spiritualism covers a portion of
the ground embraced by
the belief in reincarnation, and in so far constitutes an
introduction to it.
Theosophy is further, an endorsement of the primary position
of the Spiritualists
regarding the survival of the soul entity, and thus
commends itself to
their approbation. The Spiritualists have been considerably
vexed by the question
of reincarnation, and their ranks are split over the
subject. Some of the
message seem to endorse it, others evade it, and some
negate the idea. What
is significant at this point is that the Spiritualistic
agitation prepared the
way for Theosophic conceptions. A large percentage of the
first membership came
from the ranks of the Spiritualists.
But Spiritualism is
but one facet of a human interest which has expressed itself
in all ages, embracing
the various forms of mysticism, occultism, esotericism,
magic, healing,
wonder-working, arcane science, and theurgy. The growing
acquaintance with Yoga
practice and Hindu philosophy in this country under the
stimulus of many
eloquent Eastern representatives has already been mentioned.
The demonstrations of
mesmeric power lent much plausibility to Oriental
pretensions to
extraordinary genius for that sort of thing. More than might be
supposed, there was
prevalent in
tradition of magical
art, a survival of Medieval European beliefs in superhuman
activities and powers
both in man and nature. Among the rural and unschooled
populations this
tradition assumed the form of harmless superstitions. Among
more learned peoples
it issued in philosophic speculations dealing with the
spiritual energies of
nature, the hidden faculties of man, such as prophecy,
tongues and ecstatic
vision, and the extent and possibility of man's control
over the external
world through the manipulation of a subtle ether possessing
magnetic quality. The
heritage of Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, Thomas Vaughn and
Roger Bacon, Agrippa
von Nettesheim, the Florentine Platonists and their German,
French, and English
heirs still lingered. The Christian scriptures were.23
themselves replete
with incidents of the supernatural, with necromancy,
witchcraft, miracles,
ghost-walking, spirit messages, symbolical dreams, and the
whole armory of
thaumaturgical exploits. The doctrine of Satan was itself
calculated to enliven
the imagination with ideas of demoniac possession, and was
all the more credible
by reason of the prevalence of insanity which was ascribed
to spirit obsession.
The early nineteenth century was must closer to the Middle
Ages than our own time
is, not only because education was less general, but also
because a far larger
proportion of the population was agrarian instead of
metropolitan. Such
cults were, however, by no means restricted to "backwoods"
sections. They were
astonishingly prevalent in the larger centers. More
enlightened groups
accepted a less crude form of the practices. Where knowledge
ceases superstition
may begin; and the problems of life that press upon us for
solution and that are
still beyond our grasp, lead the mind into every sort of
rationalization or
speculation.
Perhaps more people
than acknowledge God in church pews believe in the existence
of intelligences that
play a part in life, whether in answer to prayer, in
suggestive dreams, in
occasional vision and apparitions, in messages through
mediums, or in
whatever guise; and out of such an unreflective theology arise
many of the types of
superstitious philosophy. To analyze this situation in its
entirety would take us
into extensive fields of folk-lore and involve every sort
of old wives' tale
imaginable. The chief point is that the varieties of chimney-corner
legend and omnipresent
superstition have had their origin in a larger
primitive
interpretation of the facts and forces of nature. They must be
recognized as the
modern progeny of ancient hylozoism and animism. In the
childhood of our
culture, as well as in the childhood of the race and of the
individual, there is a
close sympathy between man and nature which leads him to
ascribe living quality
to the external world. Countryside fables are doubtless
the jejune remnant of
what was once felt to be a vital magnetic relation between
man's spirit and the
spirit of the world. They are the distorted forms of some
of the ancient rites
for effecting magical intercourse between man and nature.
While it is not to be
inferred that Theosophy itself was built on the material
embodied in
countryside credulity, it will be seen that the native inclination
toward an animistic
interpretation of phenomena was in a measure true to the
deeper theses which
the new cult presented. Madame Blavatsky herself says in
Isis Unveiled that the
spontaneous responsiveness of the peasant mind is likely
to lead to a closer
apprehension of the living spirit of Nature than can be
attained by the
sophistications of reason.
The major tendencies
in the direction of Theosophy have now been enumerated. It
remains only to
mention the scattering of American students before 1875 whose
researches were taking
them into the realm where the fundamentals of Theosophy
itself were to be
found. We refer to the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, the
Kabalists,
Hermeticists, Egyptologists, Assyriologists, students of the
Mysteries, of the
Christian origins, of the pagan cults, and the small but
gradually increasing
number of Comparative Religionists and Philologists.28
There were men of
intelligence both in
track of ancient and
medieval esotericism, and the opening up of Sanskrit
literature gave a
decided impetus to a renaissance of research in those realms.
The material that went
into Frazer's Golden Bough, Ignatius Donnelley's
Atlantis: the
Antediluvian World, Hargrave Jennings' The Rosicrucians,and many
other compendious
works of the sort, was being collated out of the flotsam and
jetsam of ancient
survival and assembled into a picture beginning to assume
definite outline and
more than haphazard meaning. The great system of Neo-Platonism,
the Gnostics, with
Apollonius of Tyana, and Philo Judaeus were coming
under inspection. The
universality of religious myths and rites was being noted..24
In short, the large
body of ancient thought, so deeply imbued with the occult,
was beginning to be
scrutinized by the scholars of the nineteenth century.
It was into this
situation that Madame Blavatsky came. Her office, she said, was
that of a clavigera;
she bore a key which would provide students with a
principle of
integration for the loose material which would enable them to piece
together the scattered
stones and glittering jewels picked up here and there
into a structure of
surpassing grandeur and priceless worth. She would show that
the gems of
literature, whose mystic profundity astonished and perplexed the
savants, were but the
fragments of a once-glorious spiritual Gnosis..25
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER III
HELENA P. BLAVATSKY:
HER LIFE AND
PSYCHIC CAREER
Who was Madame Blavatsky?
Every new rιgime of belief or of social organization
must be studied with a
view to determining as far as possible how much of the
movement is a
contribution of the individuality of the founder and how much
represents a
traditional deposit. This inquiry is of first importance in a
consideration of the
Theosophical Society, because, more than in most systems,
the personal endowment
of its founder gave it its specific coloring, character
and form. It should be
said at this point that the career of Madame Blavatsky as
outlined here does not
purport to be a complete or authoritative biography. It
was obviously
impossible to undertake such an investigation of her life, as the
difficulties of
obscure research in three or four continents were practically
prohibitive. We have
been forced to base our study upon the body of biographical
material that has been
assembled around her name, emanating, first, from her
relatives, secondly,
from her followers and admirers, and thirdly, from her
critics. Her life, up
to the age of forty-two, narrowly escaped consignment to
the realm of
mythology, if not total oblivion, but was at least partially
redeemed to the status
of history by the exertions of Mr. A. P. Sinnett, who
procured information
from members of her own family in
Incidents in the Life
of Madame Blavatsky, has been our chief source of
information about her
youth and early career. The Countess Wachtmeister's
Reminiscences, Col.
Olcott's Old Diary Leaves, V. Solovyoff's A Modern Priestess
of Isis and William
Kingsland's The Real Helena P. Blavatsky, together with
Madame Blavatsky's own
letters, especially those to Mr. And Mrs. A. P. Sinnett,
are the main works
relied upon to guide our story. If the eventful life of our
subject is to be
further redeemed from mystery and sheer tradition into which it
already seems to be
fading, a more thorough critical study of it should be
undertaken, based upon
authentic data collected from first-hand sources as far
as this is possible.
It is to be
understood, then, that the aim in this treatise is to present her
career as it is told
and believed by Theosophists, although it is admittedly
already partly
legendary. The precise extent it is to be regarded as
mythological must be
left to the individual reader, and to future study, to
determine.
Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky was born in the Ukrainian city of
night between the 30th
and 31st of July, 1831. Her father was Col. Peter Hahn,
and her mother
previous to her marriage, Helene Fadeef. The father was the son
of Gen. Alexis Hahn
von Rottenstern Hahn, from a noble family of Mecklenberg,
Fadeef and the
Princess Helene Dolgorouky. Madame Blavatsky's grandfather was a
cousin of Countess Ida
Hahn-Hahn, the authoress. Her own mother was known in the
literary world between
1830 and 1840 under the nom de plume of Zenaοda R.-the.26
first novel writer
that had ever appeared in
she died before her
twenty-fifth year, she left some dozen novels of the
romantic school, most
of which have been translated into German. The theory of
heredity would thus
give us, apparently, abundant background for whatever
literary propensities
the daughter was later to display. On her mother's side
she was a scion of the
noble lineage of the Dolgorouky's, who could trace direct
connections with
Madame Blavatsky came
on to the Russian scene during a year fatal to the Slavic
nation, as to all
visitation of the
cholera. Her own birth was quickened by several deaths in the
household. She was
ushered into the world amid coffins and sorrowing. The infant
was so sickly that a
hurried baptism was resorted to in the effort to anticipate
death. During the
ceremony, which was signalized with elaborate Greek Catholic
paraphernalia of
lighted tapers, the child-aunt of the baby accidentally set
fire to the long robes
of the priest, who was severely burned. This incident was
interpreted as a bad
omen, and in the eyes of the townsfolk the infant was
doomed to a life of
trouble.
From the very date of
her birth, a peculiar tradition operated to invest the
life of the growing
child with an odor of superstition and mystic awe. In
each household was
supposed to be under the tutelary supervision of a Domovoy,
or house goblin, whose
guardianship was propitious, except on March 30th, when,
for mysterious
reasons, he became mischievous. But the tradition strangely
excepted from this
malevolent spell of the Domovoy those born on the night of
July 30-31, a time
closely associated in the annals of popular belief with
witches and their
doings. The child came early to learn why it was that, on
every recurring March
30th, she was carried around the house, stables and cowpen
and made personally to
sprinkle the four corners with water, while the nurse
repeated some mystic
incantation. Her first conscious recognition of herself
must thus have been
tinged with a feeling that she was in some particular
fashion set apart,
that she was somehow the object of special care and attention
from invisible powers.
The
Cossack of Southern
Ukraine ever crosses it without preparing himself for death.
Along its banks, where
the child strolled with her nurses, the Rusalky (undines,
nymphs) haunted the
willow trees and the rushes. She was told that she was
impervious to their
influences, and in this sense of superiority she alone dared
to approach those
sandy shores. She had heard the servants' tales of these
nymphs. Filled with
this realization of her favored standing with the Rusalky,
she one day threatened
a youngster who had roused her displeasure that she would
have the nymphs tickle
him to death, whereupon the lad ran wildly away and was
found dead on the
sands-whether from fright or from having stumbled into one of
the treacherous
sandpits which the swirling waters quickly turn into whirlpools.
Her mother died when
Mlle. Hahn was still a child. She and her younger sister
were taken to live
with her father, in barracks with his regiment, and until the
age of eleven, they
were entertained, amused and spoiled as les enfants du
rιgiment. After that
they went to live at Saratow with their grandmother, where
their grandfather was
civil governor. The child was "alternately petted and
punished, spoiled and
hardened," and was difficult to manage. She was of
uncertain health,
"ever sick and dying," a sleep walker, and given to abnormal
psychic peculiarities,
ascribed by her orthodox nurses to possession by the
devil; so that, as she
afterwards said, "she was drenched with enough holy water
to float a ship,"
and exorcised by priests. She was a born rebel against
restraint, and went
into ungovernable fits of passion, which left her violently.27
shaken; but at the
opposite apogee of her disposition she was filled with
impulses of the
extremest kindliness and affection. Through life she had this
dual temper. Those who
knew her better nature tolerated the irascible element.
She was lively,
highly-gifted, full of humor, and of remarkable doing. She had a
passionate curiosity
for everything savoring of the weird, the uncanny, the
mysterious; she was
strangely attracted by the theme of death. Her imagination,
wildly roaming,
appeared to create about her a world of fairy or elfish
creatures with whom
she held converse in whispers by the hour. She defied all
and everything. She
had to be watched lest she escape from the house and mingle
with ragged urchins.
She preferred to listen to the tales of Madame Peigneur
(her governess) than
do her lessons. She would openly rebel against her text-books
and run off to the
woods or hide in the dusky corridors of the basement of
the great house where
her grandfather lived. In a secluded dark recess in the
"Catacombs"
she had erected a barrier of old broken chairs and tables, and
there, up near the
ceiling under an iron-barred window, she would secrete
herself for hours,
reading a book of popular legends known as Solomon's Wisdom.
At times she bent to
her books in a spasm of scholarly devotion to amend for
mischief making. Her
grandparents' enormous library was then the object of her
constant interest. No
less passionately would she drink in the wonders of
narratives given in
her presence. Every fairy-tale became a living event to her.
She would be found
speaking to the stuffed animals and birds in the museum in
the old house. She
said the pigeons were cooing fairy-tales to her. She heard a
voice in every natural
object; nature was animate and, to her, articulate. She
seemed to know the inner
life and secrets of every species of insect, bird, and
reptile found about
the place. She would recreate their past and describe
vividly their
feelings. At this early date she detailed the events of the past
incarnations of the
stuffed animals in the museum.
Times without number
the little girl was heard conversing with playmates of her
own age, invisible to
others. There was in particular a little hunchback boy, a
favorite phantom
companion of her solitude, for whose neglect by the servants
and nurses she was
often excited to resentment.
"But amidst the
strange double life she thus led from her earliest
recollections, she
would sometimes have visions of a mature protector, whose
imposing appearance
dominated her imagination from a very early period. This
protector was always
the same, his features never changed; in after life she met
him as a living man
and knew him as though she had been brought up in his
presence."1
In the neighborhood of
the residence was an old man, a magician, whose doings
filled the mind of the
young seeress with wonder. The old man, a centenarian,
learned to know the
young girl and he used to say of her: "This little lady is
quite different from
all of you. There are great events lying in wait for her in
the future. I feel
sorry in thinking that I will not live to see my predictions
of her verified; but
they will all come to pass!"
Her whole career is
dotted with miraculous escapes from danger and still more
miraculous recoveries
from wounds, sicknesses and fevers. One of the first
appearances of a
protective hand in her life came far back in her childhood. She
had always entertained
a marked curiosity about a curtained portrait in her
grandfather's castle
at Saratow. It was hung so high that it was far beyond her
reach. Denied
permission to see it, she awaited her opportunity to catch a
glimpse of it by
stealth; and when left alone on one occasion she dragged a
table to the wall, set
another table on that, and a chair on top, and managed to
clamber up. On tiptoe
she just contrived to pull back the curtain. The sight of.28
the picture was so
startling that she made an involuntary movement backwards,
lost her balance and
toppled with her pyramid to the floor. In falling she lost
consciousness; but
when she came to her senses some moments afterwards, she was
amazed to see the
tables, chairs, and everything in proper order in the room.
The curtain was
slipped back again on the rings, and no mark of the episode was
left except the
imprint of her small hand on the wall high up beside the
picture.
At another time, when
she was nearing the age of fourteen, her riding horse
bolted and flung her,
with her foot caught in the stirrup. As the animal plunged
forward she expected
to be dragged to death, but felt herself buoyed up by a
strange force, and
escaped without a scratch.
It was not many years
more until the young girl's possession of gifts and
extraordinary
faculties, commonly classed as mediumistic, became an admitted
fact among her
relatives and close associates. She would answer questions
locating lost
property, or solving other perplexities of the household. She
sometimes blurted out
to visitors that they would die, or meet with misfortune
or accident; and her
prophecies usually came true.
In 1844 the father,
Col. Hahn, took
went with him to
Her youthful marriage
deserves narration with some fulness, if only because it
precipitated the lady
out of her home and into that phase of her career which
has been referred to
as her period of preparation and apprenticeship. As her
aunt, Madame Fadeef,
describes her marriage:
"she cared not
whether she should get married or not. She had been simply defied
one day by her
governess to find any man who would be her husband, in view of
her temper and
disposition. The governess, to emphasize the taunt, said that
even the old man she
had found so ugly and had laughed at so much calling him a
'plumeless raven,' that
even he would decline her for his wife. That was enough;
three days afterwards
she made him propose, and then, frightened at what she had
done, sought to escape
from her joking acceptance of his offer. But it was too
late. All she knew and
understood was-when too late-that she was now forced to
accept a master she
cared nothing for, nay, that she hated; that she was tied to
him by the law of the
country, hand and foot. A 'great horror' crept upon her,
as she explained it
later; one desire, ardent, unceasing, irresistible, got hold
of her entire being,
led her on, so to say, by the hand, forcing her to act
instinctively, as she
would have done if, in the act of saving her life, she had
been running away from
a mortal danger. There had been a distinct attempt to
impress her with the
solemnity of marriage, with her future obligations and her
duties to her husband
and married life. A few hours later at the altar she heard
the priest saying to
her: 'Thou shalt honor and obey thy husband,' and at this
hated word 'shalt' her
young face-for she was hardly seventeen-was seen to flush
angrily, then to
become deadly pale. She was overheard to mutter in response
through her set
teeth-'Surely I shall not.'
"And surely she
has not. Forthwith she determined to take the law and her future
life into her own
hands, and-she left her husband forever, without giving him an
opportunity to ever
even think of her as his wife.
"Thus Madame
Blavatsky abandoned her country at seventeen and passed ten long
years in strange and
out-of-the-way places,--in Central Asia, India, South
America, Africa and
Eastern Europe."2.29
True, before taking
this drastic step she acceded to her father's plea to do the
conventional thing;
and she let the old General take her, though even then not
without attempts to
escape, on what may by courtesy of language be called a
honeymoon, which
drawled out, amid bickerings, to a length of three months, and
was terminated after a
bitter quarrel by the bride's dash for freedom on
horseback. Gen.
Blavatsky by this time saw the impossibility of the situation
and acceded to the
inevitable.
Tracing the life of
Madame Blavatsky from this event through her personally-conducted
globe-roaming becomes
difficult, owing to the meagreness of
information. Her
relatives and her later Theosophic associates have done their
best to piece together
the crazy-quilt design of her wanderings and attendant
events of any
significance. She herself kept no chronicle of her journeys, and
it was only at long intervals,
when she emerged out of the deserts or jungles of
a country to visit its
metropolis, or when she needed to write for money, that
she sent letters back
home. The family was at first alarmed by her defection
from the fireside, but
were constrained to acquiesce in the situation by their
recognition of her
immitigable distaste for her veteran husband. If no other tie
kept her attached to
the home circle, her need of funds obliged her to keep in
touch with her father,
who supplied her with money without betraying her
confidences as to her
successive destinations. He acceded to her plans because
he had tried in vain
to secure a Russian divorce; and he felt that a few years
of travel for his
daughter might best ease the family situation. Ten years
elapsed before the
fugitive saw her relatives again.
Her first emergence
after her disappearance was in Egypt. She seems to have
traveled there with a
Countess K------, and at that time began to pick up some
occult teaching of a
poorer sort. She encountered an old Copt, a man with a
great reputation as a
magician. She proved an apt pupil, and the instructor
became so much
interested in her that when she revisited Egypt years later, the
special attention he
(then a retired ascetic) showed her, attracted the notice
of the populace at
Bulak.
After her appearance
in Egypt she seems to have bobbed up in Paris, where she
made the acquaintance
of many literary people, and where a famous mesmerist,
struck with her
psychic gifts, was eager to put her to work as a sensitive. To
escape his
importunities she appears to have gone to London. There she stayed
for a time with an old
Russian lady, a Countess B., at Mivart's Hotel. She
remained for some time
after her friend's departure, but could not afterwards
recall where she
resided.
Occasionally in her
travels she fell in with fellow Russians who were glad to
accompany her and
sometimes to befriend her. She indulged in a tour about Europe
in 1850 with the
Countess B., but was again in Paris when the New Year of 1851
was acclaimed. Her
next move was actuated by a passionate interest in the North
American Indians,
which she had acquired from a perusal of Fenimore Cooper's
Leatherstocking Tales.
Her zeal in this pursuit took her to Canada in July of
1851. At Quebec her
idealizations suffered a rude shock, when, being introduced
to a party of Indians,
both the noble Redskins and some articles of her property
disappeared while she
was trying to pry from the squaws a recital of the secret
powers of their
medicine men. Dropping the Indians, she turned her interest to
the rising sect of the
Mormons, being attracted doubtless by their possession of
an alleged Hermetic
document obtained through psychic revelation. But the
destruction of the
original Mormon city of Nauvoo, Missouri, by a mob, scattered
the sect across the
plains, and Madame Blavatsky thought the time propitious for
exploring the
traditions and arcana of Mexico. She came to New Orleans. Here the
Voodoo practices of a
settlement of Negroes from the West Indies engaged her.30
interest, and her
reckless curiosity might have led her into dangerous contact
with these magicians;
but her protective power reappeared to warn her in a
vision of the risk she
was running, and she hastened on to new experiences.
Through Texas she
reached Mexico, protected only by her own reckless daring and
by the occasional
intercession of some chance companion. She seems to have owed
much in this way to an
old Canadian, Pθre Jacques, who steered her safely
through many perils.
At Copau in Mexico she chanced to meet a Hindu, who styled
himself a
"chela" of the Masters (or adepts in Oriental occult science), and
she
resolved to seek that
land of mystic enchantment and penetrate northward into
the very lairs of the
mystic Brotherhood. She wrote to an Englishman, whom she
had met two years
before in Germany, and who shared her interest, to join them
in the West Indies.
Upon his arrival the three pilgrims took boat for India. The
party arrived at Bombay,
via the Cape to Ceylon, near the end of 1852. Madame's
own headstrong bent to
enter Tibet via Nepal in search of her Mahatmas broke up
the trio. She made the
hazardous attempt to enter the Forbidden Land of the
Lamas, but was
prevented, she always believed, by the opposition of a British
resident then in
Nepal. Baffled, she returned to Southern India, thence to Java
and Singapore and
thence back to England.
But that country's
embroilment in the Crimean War distressed her sense of
patriotism, and about
the end of the year 1853 she passed over again to America,
going to New York,
thence west to Chicago and on to the Far West across the
Rockies with emigrant
caravans. She halted a while at San Francisco. Her stay in
America this time
lengthened to nearly two years. She then once more made her
way to India, via
Japan and the Straits. She reached Calcutta in 1855.
In India, in 1856, she
was joined at Lahore by a German gentleman who had been
requested by Col. Hahn
to find his errant daughter. With him and his two
companions Madame
Blavatsky traveled through Kashmir to Leli in Ladakh in
company with a Tatar
Shaman, who was instrumental in procuring for the party the
favor of witnessing
some magic rites performed at a Buddhist monastery. Her
experiences there she
afterwards described in Isis,3 and they are too long for
recital here. One of
the exploits of the old priest was the psychic vivification
of the body of an
infant who (not yet of walking age) arose and spoke eloquently
of spiritual things
and prophesied, while dominated by a magnetic current from
the operator.4 The
psychic feat performed by her Shaman guide was even more
wonderful. Yielding to
Madame's importunities at a time when she was herself in
grave danger, he
released himself from his body as he lay in a tent, and carried
a message to a friend
of the young woman residing in Wallachia, from whom he
brought back an
answer.5 Shortly after this incident, perceiving their danger,
the Shaman, by mental
telepathy apprised a friendly tribal ruler of their
situation, and a band
of twenty-five horsemen was sent to rescue the two
travelers, finding
them in a locality to which they had been directed by their
chief, yet of which
the two had had no possible earthly means of informing him.
Safely out of the
Tibetan wilds-and she came out by roads and passes of which
she had no previous
knowledge-she was directed by her occult guardian to leave
the country, shortly
before the troubles which began in 1857. In 1858 she was
once more in Europe.
By this time her name
had accumulated some renown, and it was freely mentioned
in connection with
both the low and the high life of Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, and
Paris. Her alleged
absence from these places at the times throws doubt on the
accuracy of these
reports. After spending some months in France and Germany upon
her return from India,
she finally ended her self-imposed exile and rejoined her
own people in Russia,
arriving at Pskoff, about 180 miles from St. Petersburg,.31
in the midst of a
family wedding party on Christmas night. Her reason for going
to Pskoff was that her
sister Vera-then Madame Yahontoff-was at the time
residing there with
the family of her late husband, son of the General N. A.
Yahontoff, Marechal de
Noblesse of the place.
Soon afterwards, early
in 1859, Madame Blavatsky and her sister went to reside
with their father in a
country house belonging to Madame Yahontoff. This was at
Rougodevo, about 200
versts from St. Petersburg. About a year later, in the
spring of 1860, both
sisters left Rougodevo for the Caucasus on a visit to their
grandparents, whom
they had not seen for years. It was a three weeks' journey
from Moscow to Tiflis,
in coach with post horses. Madame Blavatsky remained in
Tiflis less than two
years, adding another year of roaming about in Imeretia,
Georgia, and
Mingrelia, exciting the superstitious sensibilities of the
inhabitants of the
Mingrelia region to an inordinate degree and gaining a
reputation for
witchcraft and sorcery. She was there taken down with a wasting
fever, which an old
army surgeon could make nothing of; but he had the good
sense to send her off
to Tiflis to her friends. Recovering after a time, she
left the Caucasus and
went to Italy. Here, the legend goes, she, with some other
European women,
volunteered to serve with Garibaldi and was under severe fire in
the battle of
Mentana.6
The four years
intervening between 1863 and 1867 seem to have been spent in
European travel,
though the records are barren of accurate detail. But the three
from 1867 to 1870 were
passed in the East,7 and were quite fruitful and
eventful.
In 1870 she returned
from the Orient, coming through the newly opened Suez
Canal, spent a short
time in Piraeus, and from there took passage for Spezzia on
board a Greek vessel.
On this voyage she was one of the very few saved from
death in a terrible
catastrophe, the vessel being blown to bits by an explosion
of gunpowder and
fireworks in the cargo. Rescued with only the clothes they
wore, the survivors
were looked after by the Greek government, which forwarded
them to various
destinations. Madame Blavatsky went to Alexandria and to Cairo,
tarrying at the latter
place until money reached her from Russia.
While awaiting the
arrival of funds, the energetic woman determined to found a
Sociιtι Spirite, for
the investigation of mediums and manifestations according
to the theories and
philosophy of Allen Kardec. The latter was an outstanding
advocate of
Spiritualistic philosophy on the Continent. He had correlated the
commonly reported
spiritistic exploits to a more profound and involved theory of
cosmic evolution and a
higher spirituality in man. His work, Life and Destiny,
written under the
pseudonym of Leon Denis, unfolded a comprehensive system of
spiritual truth
identical in its main features with Theosophy itself. His
interests were not
primarily in spiritistic phenomena for themselves, but for
what they revealed of
the inner spiritual capacities and potentialities of our
evolving Psyche.
It required but a few
weeks to disgust Madame Blavatsky with her fruitless
undertaking. Some
French female spiritists, whom she had drafted for service as
mediums, in lack of
better, proved to be adventuresses following in the wake of
M. de Lesseps' army of
engineers and workmen, and they concluded by stealing the
Society's funds. She
wrote home:
"To wind up the
comedy with a drama, I got nearly shot by a madman-a Greek, who
had been present at
the only two public sιances we held, and got possessed I
suppose, by some vile
spook."8.32
She terminated the
affairs of her Sociιtι and went to Bulak, where she renewed
her previous
acquaintance with the old Copt. His unconcealed interest in his
visitor aroused some
slanderous talk about her. Disgusted with the growing
gossip, she went home
by way of Palestine, making a side voyage to Palmyra and
other ruins, and
meeting there some Russian friends. At the end of 1872 she
returned without warning
to her family, then at Odessa.
In 1873 she again
abandoned her home, and Paris was her first objective. She
stayed there with a
cousin, Nicholas Hahn, for two months. While in Paris she
was directed by her
"spiritual overseers" to visit the United States, "where she
would meet a man by
the name of Olcott," with whom she was to undertake an
important enterprise.
Obedient to her orders she arrived at New York on July
7th, 1873.9 She was
for a time practically without funds; actually, as Col.
Olcott avers, "in
the most dismal want, having . . . to boil her coffee-dregs
over and over again
for lack of pence for buying a fresh supply; and to keep off
starvation, at last
had to work with her needle for a maker of cravats."10
During this interval
she was lodged in a wretched tenement house in the East
Side, and made cravats
for a kindly old Jew, whose help at this time she never
forgot.11 In her
squalid quarters she was sought out by a veteran journalist,
Miss Anna Ballard, in
search of copy for a Russian story. She received, in late
October, a legacy from
the estate of her father, who had died early in that
month. A draft of one
thousand rubles was first sent her, and later the entire
sum bequeathed to her.
Then in affluence she moved to better quarters, first to
Union Square, then to
East 16th Street, then to Irving Place. But her money did
not abide in her
keeping long. In regard to the sources of her income after her
patrimony had been
flung generously to the winds, we are told, upon Col.
Olcott's pledged
honor, that both his and her wants, after the organization of
the Theosophical
Society, were frequently provided for by the occult
ministrations of the
Masters. He claims that during the many years of their
joint campaigns for
Theosophy, especially in India, the treasure-chest at
headquarters, after
having been depleted, would be found supplied with funds
from unknown sources.
Shopping one day in New York with Colonel, she made
purchases to the
amount of about fifty dollars. He paid the bills. On returning
home she thrust some
banknotes into his hand, saying: "There are your fifty
dollars." He is
certain she had no money of her own, and no visitor had come in
from whom she could
have borrowed. Once during this period she created the
duplicate of a
thousand dollar note while it was held in the hand of the Hon.
John L. O'Sullivan,
formerly Ambassador to Portugal; but it faded away during
the two following
days. Its serial number was identical with that of its
prototype. The
knowledge that financial help would come at need, however, did
not dispose Madame
Blavatsky to relax her effort toward her own sustenance.12
During this time, and
for nearly all the remainder of her life, the Russian
noblewoman spent large
stretches of her time in writing occult, mystic, and
scientific articles
for Russian periodicals. This constituted her main source of
income. Col. Olcott
states that her Russian articles were so highly prized that
"the conductor of
the most important of their reviews actually besought her to
write constantly for
it, on terms as high as they gave Turgenev."13
A chronicle of her
life during this epoch may not omit her second marriage,
which proved ill-fated
at the first. It came about as follows: A Mr. B., a
Russian subject,
learning of her psychic gifts through Col. Olcott, asked the
Colonel to arrange for
him a meeting with his countrywoman. He proceeded to fall
into a profound state
of admiration for Madame Blavatsky, which deepened though
he was persistently
rebuffed, and he finally threatened to take his life unless
she would relent. He
proclaimed his motives to be only protective, and expressly
waived a husband's
claims to the privileges of married life. In what appears to
have been madness or
some sort of desperation, she agreed finally, on these.33
terms, to be his wife.
Even then it was specified that she retain her own name
and be free from all
restraint, for the sake of her work. A Unitarian clergyman
married them in Philadelphia,
and they lived for some few months in a house on
Sansom Street. When
taken to task by her friend Olcott, she explained that it
was a misfortune to
which she was doomed by an inexorable Karma; that it was a
punishment to her for
a streak of pride which was hindering her spiritual
development; but that
it would result in no harm to the young man. The husband
forgot his earlier
protestations of Platonic detachment, and became an
importunate lover.
Madame Blavatsky developed a dangerous illness at this time
as a result of a fall
upon an icy sidewalk in New York the previous winter, and
her knee became so
violently inflamed that a partial mortification of the leg
set in. The physician
declared that nothing but instant amputation could save
her life; but she
discarded his advice, called upon that source of help which
had come to her in a
number of exigencies, recovered immediately and left her
husband's "bed
and board." He, after some months of waiting, saw her obduracy
and procured a divorce
on the ground of desertion.14
During the latter part
of her stay in New York she and Col. Olcott took an
apartment of seven
rooms at the corner of 47th Street and 8th Avenue, which came
to be called "The
Lamasery," in jocular reference to her Tibetan connections.
"The
Lamasery" became a social and intellectual center during her residence
there. Col. Olcott
says:
". . . her
mirthfulness, epigrammatic wit, brilliance of conversation, careless
friendliness to those
she liked . . ., her fund of anecdote, and, chiefest
attraction to most of
her callers, her amazing psychical phenomena, made the
'Lamasery' the most
attractive salon of the metropolis from 1876 to the close of
1878."15
Madame spent her
day-hours in writing, her custom for years; and held open house
for visitors in the
evening. There was always discussion of one or another
aspect of occult
philosophy, in which she naturally took the commanding part.
She would pour out an
endless flow of argument and supporting data, augmented at
favorable times by a sudden
exhibition of magical power. She seemed tireless in
her psychic energy.
Several persons have
left good word-pictures of her. Col. Olcott graphically
describes her
appearance upon the occasion of their first meeting in the old
Eddy farmhouse, in
Vermont, where they both came in '74 to study the "spooks."
Col. Olcott had been
on the scene for some time, as a representative of the New
York Daily Graphic,
when Madame Blavatsky arrived. He was struck by her general
appearance, and he
contrived to introduce himself to her through the medium of a
gallant offer of a
light for her cigarette.
"It was a massive
Kalmuc face," he writes, "contrasting in its suggestion of
power, culture and
impressiveness, as strangely with the commonplace visages
about the room, as her
red garment did with the gray and white tones of the wall
and the woodwork, and
the dull costumes of the rest of the guests. All sorts of
cranky people were
continually coming and going at Eddy's, and it only struck
me, on seeing this
eccentric lady, that this was but one more of the sort.
Pausing on the
doorstep I whispered to Kappes, 'Good Gracious! Look at that
specimen, will
you!'"16
In her autobiography
the Princess Helene von Racowitza makes some interesting
references to Madame
Blavatsky, whom she knew intimately..34
"I discovered in
her the most remarkable being (for one hardly dare designate
her with the simple
name of woman). She gave me new life; . . . she brought new
interest into my
existence. Regarding her personal appearance, the head, which
rose from the dark
flowing garments, was immensely characteristic, although far
more ugly than
beautiful. A true Russian type, a short thick nose, prominent
cheek bones, a small
clever mobile mouth, with little fine teeth, brown and very
curly hair, and almost
like that of a negro's; a sallow complexion, but a pair
of eyes the like of
which I had never seen; pale blue, grey as water, but with a
glance deep and
penetrating, and as compelling as if it beheld the inner heart
of things. Sometimes
they held an expression as though fixed on something afar,
high and immeasurably
above all earthly things. She always wore long dark
flowing garments and
had ideally beautiful hands.
"But how shall I
attempt to describe . . . her being, her power, her abilities
and her character? She
was a combination of the most heterogeneous qualities. By
all she was considered
as a sort of Cagliostro or St. Germain. She conversed
with equal facility in
Russian, English, French, German, Italian and certain
dialects of
Hindustani; yet she lacked all positive knowledge-even the most
superficial European
school training.
"In matters of
social life she . . . joined an irresistible charm in
conversation, that
comprised chiefly an intense comprehension of everything
noble and great, with
the most original and often coarse humor, a mode of
expression which was
the comical despair of prudish Anglo-Saxons.
"Her contempt for
and rebellion against all social conventions made her appear
sometimes even coarser
than was her wont, and she hated and fought conventional
lying with real Don
Quixotic courage. But whoever approached her in poverty or
rags, hungry and
needing comfort, could be sure to find in her a warm heart and
an open hand. . . . No
drop of wine, beer or fermented liquors ever passed her
lips, and she had a
most fanatical hatred of everything intoxicating. Her
hospitality was
genuinely Oriental. She placed everything she possessed at the
disposal of her
friends."17
Mr. J. Ranson Bridges,
a none too kindly critic, who had considerable
correspondence with
her from 1888 till her death, says:
"Whatever may be
the ultimate verdict upon the life and work of this woman, her
place in history will
be unique. There was a Titanic display of strength in
everything she did.
The storms that raged within her were cyclones. Those
exposed to them often
felt, with Solovyoff, that if there were holy and sage
Mahatmas, they could
not remain holy and sage and have anything to do with
Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky. Yet she could be as tender and sympathetic as any
mother. Her mastery of
some natures seemed complete. . . . To these disciples
she was the greatest
thaumaturgist known to the world since the time of
Christ."18
In a moment of gayety
she once dashed off the following description of herself:
"An old woman,
whether 40, 50, 60 or 90 years old, it matters not; an old woman
whose
Kalmuco-Buddhisto-Tartaric features, even in youth, never made her appear
pretty; a woman whose
ungainly garb, uncouth manners, and masculine habits are
enough to frighten any
bustled and corseted fine lady of fashionable society out
of her wits."19
For all her psychic
insight, she seemed unable to protect herself against those
who fawned upon her,
cultivated her society, and then repaid her by desertion or.35
slander. She was open
to any one who professed occult interest, and she readily
took up with many such
persons who later became bitter critics.
Much ado was made by
delicate ladies in her day of her cigarette addiction. Her
evident masculinity,
her lack of many of the niceties which ladies commonly
affect, her scorn of
conventions, her failure to put on the airs of a woman of
noble rank, her
occasional coarse language, and her violence of temper over
petty things, have led
many people to infer that the message that she brought
could not have been
pure and lofty.
Theosophists put
forward an explanation of her irascibility and nervous
instability, in a
theory which must sound exotic to the uninitiated. They state
that when she studied
in Tibet under her Masters, and was initiated into the
mysteries of their
occult knowledge, they extricated, by processes in which they
are alleged to be
adepts, one of her astral bodies and retained it so as to be
able to maintain,
through an etheric radio vibration, a constant line of
communication with her
in any part of the world. This left her in a state of
unstable equilibrium
nervously, and rendered her subject to a greater degree of
irritation than would
normally have been the case.
Madame Blavatsky's
life story, covered now in its outward phases, is not
complete without
consideration of that remarkable series of psychic phenomena
which give inner
meaning to her career. In and of themselves they form a
narrative of great
interest, on a par with the legendary lives of many other
saints. The story is a
long one; a complete record of all her wonder-working, as
told in the Theosophic
accounts, would alone fill the space of this volume. A
digest of this
material must be made here, though a critical examination is, as
said above, not
attempted.
When, in 1858, she
returned home from her first exile of ten years, Spiritualism
was just looming on
the horizon of Europe. Nothing seems to be mentioned in the
several biographical
sketches, of her coming in contact with the sweep of the
Spiritualistic wave
that was at full height in the United States during the
early fifties, when
she passed through that country. However the case may be,
she returned home in
1858 with her occult powers already fully developed, and
proceeded to make
frequent display of them.
At Pskoff, with her
sister's husband's family, the Yahontoff's, raps, knocks,
and other sounds
occurred incessantly; furniture moved without any contact;
particles changed
their weight; and either absent living folk or the dead were
seen both by herself
and her relatives many times. Wherever the young woman went
"things"
happened. Laughing at the continued recurrence of these mysterious
activities, she
averred to her sisters that she could make them cease or
redouble their
frequency and power, by the sheer force of her own will.20 The
psychic demonstrations
supposedly took place in entire independence of her
coφperation, but she
could, if she chose, interject her will and assume control.
Her sister, Madame de
Jelihowsky, remembers Helena's laughing when addressed as
a medium, and assuring
her friends that "she was no medium, but only a mediator
between mortals and
beings we know nothing about."21 The reports of her
wonderful exploits
following her arrival at Pskoff in 1858 threw that town into
a swirl of excited
gossip. There was a great deal of fashionable company at the
Yahontoff home in
those days. Madame's presence itself attracted many. Seldom
did any of the numerous
callers go away unsatisfied, for to their inquiries the
raps gave answer,
often long ones in different languages, some of which were not
in Madame Blavatsky's
repertoire. The willing "medium" was subjected to every
kind of test, to which
she submitted gracefully..36
An instance of her
power was her mystification of her own brother, Leonide de
Hahn. A company was
gathered in the drawing room, and Leonide was walking
leisurely about,
unconcerned with the stunts which his gifted sister was
producing for the
diversion of the visitors. He stopped behind the girl's chair
just as some one was
telling how magicians change the avoirdupois of objects.
"And you mean to
say that you can do it?" he asked his sister ironically.
"Mediums can, and
I have done it occasionally," was the reply. "But would you
try?" some one
asked. "I will try, but promise nothing." Hereupon one of the
young men advanced and
lifted a light chess table with great ease. Madame then
told them to leave it
alone and stand back. She was not near it herself. In the
expectant silence that
ensued she merely looked intently at the table. Then she
invited the same young
man who had just lifted it to do so again. He tried, with
great assurance of his
ability, but could not stir the table an inch. He grew
red with the effort,
but without avail. The brother, thinking that his sister
had arranged the play
with his friend as a little joke on him, now advanced.
"May I also
try?" he asked her. "Please do, my dear," she laughed. He seized
the
table and struggled;
whereat his smile vanished. Try as he would, his effort was
futile. Others tried
it with the same result. After a while Helena urged Leonide
to try it once more.
He lifted it now with no effort.
A few months later,
Madame Blavatsky, her father and sister, having left Pskoff
and lodging at a hotel
in St. Petersburg, were visited by two old friends of
Col. Hahn, both now
much interested in Spiritualism. After witnessing some of
Helena's performances,
the two guests expressed great surprise at the father's
continued apathy
toward his daughter's abilities. After some bantering they
began to insist that
he should at least consent to an experiment, before denying
the importance of the
phenomena. They suggested that he retire to an adjoining
room, write a word on
a slip of paper, conceal it and see if his daughter could
persuade the raps to
reveal it. The old gentleman consented, believing he could
discredit the foolish
nonsense, as he termed it, once for all. He retired, wrote
the word and returned,
venturing in his confidence the assertion that if this
experiment were
successful, he "would believe in the devil, undines, sorcerers,
and witches, in the
whole paraphernalia, in short, of old woman's superstitions;
and you may prepare to
offer me as an inmate of a lunatic asylum."22 He went on
with his solitaire in
a corner, while the friends took note of the raps now
beginning. The younger
sister was repeating the alphabet, the raps sounding at
the desired letter;
one of the visitors marked it down. Madame Blavatsky did
nothing apparently. By
this means one single word was got, but it seemed so
grotesque and
meaningless that a sense of failure filled the minds of the
experimenters.
Questioning whether that one word was the entire message, the
raps sounded
"Yes-yes-yes!" The younger girl then turned to her father and told
them that they had got
but one word. "Well what is it?" he demanded.
"Zaοchik."23
It was a sight indeed to witness the change that came over the old
man's face at hearing
this one word. He became deadly pale. Adjusting his
spectacles with a
trembling hand, he stretched it out, saying, "Let me see it!
Hand it over. Is it
really so?" He took the slips of paper and read in a very
agitated voice
"Zaοchik." Yes; Zaοchik; so it is. How very strange!" Taking out
of his pocket the
paper he had written on in the next room, he handed it in
silence to his
daughter and guests. On it they found he had written: "What was
the name of my
favorite horse which I rode during my first Turkish campaign?"
And lower down, in parenthesis,
the answer,--" Zaοchik."
The old Colonel, now
assured there was more than child's play in his daughter's
pretensions, rushed
into the region of phenomena with great zeal. He did not
matriculate at an
asylum; instead he set Helena to work investigating his family
tree. He was
stimulated to this inquiry by having received the date of a certain
event in his ancestral
history of several hundred years before, which he.37
verified by reference
to old documents. Scores of historical events connected
with his family were
now given him; names unheard of, relationships unknown,
positions held,
marriages, deaths; and all were found on painstaking research to
have been correct in
every item! All this information was given rapidly and
unhesitatingly. The
investigation lasted for months.
In the spring of 1858
both sisters were living with their father in the country-house
in a village belonging
to Mme. Yahontoff. In consequence of a murder
committed near their
property, the Superintendent of the District Police passed
through the villages
and stopped at their house to make some inquiries. No one
in the village knew
who had committed the crime. During tea, as all were sitting
around the table, the
raps came, and there were the usual disturbances around
the room. Col. Hahn
suggested to the Superintendent that he had better try his
daughter's invisible
helpers for information. He laughed incredulously. He had
heard of
"spirits," he said, but was derisive of their ability to give
information in "a
real case." This scorn of her powers caused the young girl to
desire to humble the
arrogant officer. She turned fiercely upon him. "And
suppose I prove to you
the contrary?" she defiantly asked him. "Then," he
answered, "I
would resign my office and offer it to you, Madame, or, better
still, I would
strongly urge the authorities to place you at the head of the
Secret Police
Department." "Now look here, Captain," she said indignantly.
"I do
not like meddling in
such dirty business and helping you detectives. Yet, since
you defy me, let my
father say over the alphabet and you put down the letters
and record what will
be rapped out. My presence is not needed for this, and with
your permission I
shall even leave the room." She went out, with a book, to
read. The inquiry in
the next room produced the name of the murderer, the fact
that he had crossed
over into the next district and was then hiding in the hay
in the loft of a
peasant, Andrew Vlassof, in the village of Oreshkino. Further
information was
elicited to the effect that the murderer was an old soldier on
leave; he was drunk
and had quarreled with his victim. The murder was not
premeditated; rather a
misfortune than a crime. The Superintendent rushed
precipitately out of
the house and drove off to Oreshkino, more than 30 miles
distant. A letter came
by courier the following morning saying that everything
given by the raps had
proved absolutely correct. This incident produced a great
uproar in the district
and Madame's work was viewed in a more serious light. Her
family, however, had
some difficulty convincing the more distant authorities
that they had no
natural means of being familiar with the crime.
One evening while all
sat in the dining room, loud chords of music were struck
on the closed piano in
the next room, visible to all through the open door. On
another occasion
Madame's tobacco pouch, her box of matches and her handkerchief
came rushing to her
through the air, upon a mere look from her. Many visitors to
her apartment in later
years witnessed this same procedure. Again, one evening,
all lights were
suddenly extinguished, an amazing noise was heard, and though a
match was struck in a
moment, all the heavy furniture was found overturned on
the floor. The locked
piano played a loud march. The manifestations taking place
when the home circle
was unmixed with visitors were usually of the most
pronounced character.
Sometimes there were
alleged communications from the spirits of historical
personages, not the
inevitable Napoleon and Cleopatra, but Socrates, Cicero and
Martin Luther, and
they ranged from great power and vigor of thought to almost
flippant silliness.
Some from the shade of the Russian poet Pushkin were quite
beautiful..38
While the family read
aloud the Memoirs of Catherine Romanovna Dashkoff, they
were interrupted many
times by the alleged spirit of the authoress herself,
interjecting remarks,
making additions, offering explanations and refutations.
In the early part of
1859 the sister, Madame Jelihowsky, inherited a country
village from the
estate of her late husband at Rougodevo, and there the family,
including Helena, went
to reside for a period. No one in the party had ever
known any of the
previous occupants of the estate. Soon after settling down in
the old mansion,
Madame discerned the shades of half a dozen of the former
inhabitants in one of
the unoccupied wings and described them to her sister.
Seeking out several
old servants, she found that every one of the wraiths could
be identified and
named by the aged domestics. The young woman's description of
one man was that he
had long finger nails, like a Chinaman's. The servant stated
that one of the former
residents had contracted a disease in Lithuania, which
renders cutting of the
nails a certain road to death through bleeding.
Sometimes the other
members of the family would converse with the rapping forces
without disturbing
Helena at all. The forces played more strongly than every, it
seemed, when Madame
was asleep or sick. A physician once attending her illness
was almost frightened
away by the noises and moving furniture in the bedroom.
A terrible illness
befell her near the end of the stay at Rougodevo. Years
before, her relatives
believed during her solitary travels over the steppes of
Asia, she had received
a wound. This wound reopened occasionally, and then she
suffered intense
agony, which lasted three or four days and then the wound would
heal as suddenly as it
had opened, and her illness would vanish. On one occasion
a physician was
called; but he proved of little use, because the prodigious
phenomena which he
witnessed left him almost powerless to act. Having examined
the wound, the patient
being prostrated and unconscious, he saw a large dark
hand between his own
and the wound he was about to dress. The wound was near the
heart, and the hand
moved back and forth between the neck and the waist. To make
the apparition worse,
there came in the room a terrific noise, from ceiling,
floor, windows, and
furniture, so that the poor man begged not to be left alone
in the room with the
patient.
In the spring of 1860
the two sisters left Rougodevo for a visit to their
grandparents in the
south of Russia, and during the long slow journey many
incidents took place.
At one station, where a surly, half-drunken station-master
refused to lend them a
fresh relay of horses, and there was no fit room for
their accommodation
over the night, Helena terrified him into sense and reason
by whispering into his
ear some strange secret of his, which he believed no one
knew and which it was
to his interest to keep hidden.
At Jadonsk, where a
halt was made, they attended a church service, where the
prelate, the famous
and learned Isidore, who had known them in childhood,
recognized them and
invited them to visit him at the Metropolitan's house. He
received them when
they came with great kindliness; but hardly had they entered
the drawing room than
a terrible hubbub of noise and raps burst forth in every
direction. Every piece
of furniture strained and cracked, rocked and thumped.
The women were
confused by this demoniacal demonstration in the presence of the
amazed Churchman,
though the culprit in the case was hardly able to repress her
sense of humor. But
the priest saw the embarrassment of his guests and
understood the cause
of it. He inquired which of the two women possessed such
strange potencies. He
was told. Then he asked permission to put to her invisible
guide a mental
question. She assented. His query, a serious one, received an
instant reply, precise
and to the point; and he was so struck with it all that
he detained his
visitors for over three hours. He continued his conversation.39
with the unseen
presences and paid unstinted tribute to their seeming all-knowledge.
His farewell words to
his gifted guest were:
"As for you, let
not your heart be troubled by the gift you are possessed of . .
. for it was surely
given to you for some purpose, and you could not be held
responsible for it.
Quite the reverse! For if you but use it with discrimination
you will be enabled to
do much good to your fellow-creatures."
Her occult powers grew
at this period to their full development, and she seemed
to have completed the
subjection of every phase of manifestation to her own
volitional control.
Her fame throughout the Caucasus increased, breeding both
hostility and
admiration. She had risen above the necessity of resorting to the
slow process of raps,
and read people's states and gave them answers through her
own clairvoyance. She
seemed able, she said, to see a cloud around people in
whose luminous
substance their thoughts took visible form. The purely sporadic
phenomena were dying
away.
Her illness at the end
of her stay in Mingrelia has already been noted. A
psychic experience of
unusual nature even for her, through which she passed
during this severe
sickness, seems to have marked a definite epoch in her occult
development. She
apparently acquired the ability from that time to step out of
her physical body, investigate
distant scenes or events, and bring back reports
to her normal
consciousness. Sometimes she felt herself as now one person, H. P.
Blavatsky, and again
some one else. Returning to her own personality she could
remember herself as
the other character, but while functioning as the other
person she could not
remember herself as Madame Blavatsky. She later wrote of
these experiences:
"I was in another far-off country, a totally different
individuality from
myself, and had no connection at all with my actual life."24
The sickness,
prostrated her and appears to have brought a crisis in her inner
life. She herself felt
that she had barely escaped the fate that she afterwards
spoke of as befalling
so many mediums. She wrote in a letter to a relative:
"The last vestige
of my psycho-physical weakness is gone, to return no more. I
am cleansed and
purified of that dreadful attraction to myself of stray spooks
and ethereal
affinities. I am free, free, thanks to Those whom I now bless at
every hour of my
life." (Her Guardians in Tibet.)25
Madame Jelihowsky
writes too:
"After her
extraordinary and protracted illness at Tiflis she seemed to defy and
subject the
manifestations entirely to her will. In short, it is the firm belief
of all that there
where a less strong nature would have been surely wrecked in
the struggle, her
indomitable will found somehow or other the means of
subjecting the world
of the invisibles-to the denizens of which she had ever
refused the name of
'spirits' and souls-to her own control."26
As a sequel to this
experience her conception of a great and definite mission in
the world formulated
itself before her vision. It is seen to provide the motive
for her abortive
enterprise in Cairo in 1871; it is again seen to be operative
in her propagation of
Theosophy in 1875. It will be considered more at length in
the discussion of her
connection with American Spiritualism.
By 1871 her power in
certain phases had been greatly enhanced. She was able,
merely by looking
fixedly at objects, to set them in motion. In an illustrated
paper of the time
there was a story of her by a gentleman, who met her with some
friends in a hotel at
Alexandria. After dinner he engaged her in a long
discussion. Before
them stood a little tea tray, on which the waiter had placed.40
a bottle of liquor,
some wine, a wine glass and a tumbler. As the gentleman
raised the glass to
his lips it broke to pieces in his hands. Madame Blavatsky
laughed at the
occurrence, remarking that she hated liquor and could hardly
tolerate those who drank.
He knew the glass was thick and strong, but, to draw
her out, declared it
must have been an accidental crumbling of a thin glass in
his grasp. "What
do you bet I do not do it again?" she flashed at him. He then
half-filled another
tumbler. In his own words:
"But no sooner
had the glass touched my lips than I felt it shattered between my
fingers, and my hand
bled, wounded by a broken piece in my instinctive act of
grasping the tumbler
together when I felt myself losing hold of it."
"Entre les lθvres
et la coupe, il y a quelquefois une grande distance," she
observed, and left the
room, laughing in his face "most outrageously."27
Another gentleman, a
Russian, who encountered her in Egypt, sent the most
enthusiastic letters
to his friends about her wonders.
"She is a marvel,
an unfathomable mystery. That which she produces is simply
phenomenal; and
without believing any more in spirits than I ever did, I am
ready to believe in
witchcraft. If it is after all but jugglery, then we have in
Madame Blavatsky a woman
who beats all the Boscos and Robert Houdin's of the
country by her
address. . . . Once I showed her a closed medallion containing a
portrait of one person
and the hair of another, an object which I had had in my
possession but a few
months, which was made at Moscow, and of which very few
knew, and she told me
without touching it: 'Oh! It is your godmother's portrait
and your cousin's
hair. Both are dead,' and she proceeded forthwith to describe
them, as though she
had both before her eyes. How could she know?"28
At Cairo she wrote her
sister Vera that she had seen the astral forms of two of
the family's domestics
and chided her sister for not having written her about
their death during her
absence. She described the hospital in which one of them
had passed away, and
other circumstances connected with their history since she
had last been in touch
with them. It was only afterwards that she learned that
when her letter from
Egypt was received by Madame Jelihowsky, the latter was
herself not aware of
the death of the two servants. Upon inquiry she found every
circumstance in
relation to their late years and their death precisely as Helena
had depicted it.
Upon Madame
Blavatsky's arrival in America her open espousal of the cause of
Theosophy was prefaced
by much work done in and for the Spiritualistic movement.
Col. Olcott has
brought out the fact that the phenomena taking place at the Eddy
farmhouse in Vermont
in 1873 changed character quite decidedly the day she
entered the household.
Up to the time of her appearance on the scene the figures
that had shown
themselves were either Red Indians or Americans or Europeans
related to some one
present. But on the first evening of her stay spirits of
other nationalities
came up. A Georgian servant body from the Caucasus, a
Mussulman merchant
from Tiflis, a Russian peasant girl, and others, appeared.
Later a Kurdish
cavalier and a devilish-looking Negro sorcerer from Africa
joined the motley
group.
From the Vermont
homestead Madame Blavatsky went to New York, where Col. Olcott
joined her shortly
afterwards. Rappings and messages were much in evidence
during this sojourn in
the metropolis, the disembodied intelligence in the
background purporting
to be one "John King," a name familiar to all spiritists
for many years before.
The spirit finally declared itself to be the earth-haunting
soul of Sir Henry
Morgan, famous buccaneer, and so showed itself to the.41
sight of Col. Olcott
during the sιances with the Holmes mediums some months
later in Philadelphia.
From him as ostensible source came many messages both
grave and gay.
All the while Madame
Blavatsky posed as a Spiritualist and mingled in the Holmes
sιances in
Philadelphia for the purpose of lending some of her own power to the
rather feeble
demonstrations effected by Mr. and Mrs. Holmes to bolster their
reputation in the face
of Robert Dale Owen's public denunciation of them as
cheats. She says that
on one occasion Mrs. Holmes was herself frightened at the
real appearance of
spirits summoned by herself.
One of the first
indications Col. Olcott was to have of the interest of her
distant sages in his
own career was shown during the time that Madame Blavatsky
was in Philadelphia.
At her urgent invitation the Colonel determined quite
suddenly to run over
and spend a few days with her. On the evening of the same
day on which he left
his address at the Philadelphia Post Office the postman
brought him several
letters from widely distant places, all bearing the stamp of
the sending station,
but none that of the receiving station, New York. They were
addressed to him at
his New York office address, yet had come straight to him at
Philadelphia without
passing through the New York office. And nobody in New York
knew his Philadelphia
address. He took them himself from the postman's hand; so
they could not have
been tampered with by his occult friend. But the marvel did
not end there. Upon
opening them he found inside each something written in the
same handwriting as
that in letters he had received in New York from the
Masters, the writing
having been made either in the margins or on any other
space left blank by
the writers.
"These were the
precursors of a whole series of those phenomenal surprises
during the fortnight
or so that I spent in Philadelphia. I had many, and no
letter of the lot bore
the New York stamp, though all were addressed to me at my
office in that
city."29
The series of vivid
phenomena which took place during the Philadelphia visit may
be listed briefly as
follows:
1.-Col. Olcott
purchased a note-book in which to record the rap messages. On
taking it out of the
store wrapper he found inside the first cover: "John King,
Henry de Morgan, his
book, 4th of the fourth month in A.D. 1875." And underneath
this was a whole
pictorial design of Rosicrucian symbols, the word Fate, the
name Helen, the phrase
"Way of Providence," a monogram, a pair of compasses, and
various letters and
signs. No one had touched it since its purchase at the
stationary shop.
2.-Madame Blavatsky
caused a photograph on the wall to disappear suddenly from
its frame and give
place to a sketch portrait of "John King" while a spectator
was looking at it.
3.-Col. Olcott had
bought a dozen unhemmed towels. As his companion was no
seamstress, he
bantered her to let an elemental do the hemstitching on the lot.
She told him to put
the towels, needle and thread inside a bookcase, which had
glass doors curtained
with green silk. He did so. After twenty minutes she
announced that the job
was finished. He found them actually, if crudely, hemmed.
It was four P.M., and
no other persons were in the room.
4.-Madame Blavatsky
once suddenly disappeared from the Colonel's sight, could
not be seen for a
period, and then as suddenly reappeared. She could not explain
to him how she did
it..42
5.-The increase
overnight in the length of her hair, of about four to five
inches, and its later
recession to its normal length.
6.-The projection of a
drawing of a man's head on the ceiling above the
Colonel's head, where
he had seen nothing a minute before.
7.-The precipitation
by "John King," in answer to the Colonel's challenge to
duplicate a letter he
had in his pocket, of the said duplicate, correct in every
word.
8.-The precipitation
of a letter into the traveling bag of a Mr. B. while on the
train, the letter not
having been packed there originally.
9.-The same Mr. B.
begged Madame Blavatsky to create for him a portrait of his
deceased grandmother.
She went to the window, put a blank piece of paper against
the pane, and handed
it to him in a moment with the portrait of a little old
woman with many
wrinkles and a large wart, which Mr. B. declared a perfect
likeness of his
ancestor.
10.-The actual
production by an Italian artist, through "his control of the
spirits of the
air," during one evening of entirely clear sky, of a small shower
of rain, sufficient to
wet the sidewalks. Previously Madame Blavatsky had
created a butterfly,
following a similar production by the Italian visitor.
11.-The
materialization by Madame Blavatsky of a heavy gold ring in the heart of
a rose which had been
"created" shortly before by Mrs. Thayer, a medium whom
Col. Olcott was
testing with a view to sending her to Russia for experimentation
at a university there.
12.-The Colonel's own
beard grew in one night from his chin down to his chest.30
After the return from
Philadelphia psychic events continued with great frequency
at the apartments in
New York. In December of 1875, Madame Blavatsky, having
invited a challenge to
reproduce the portrait of the Chevalier Louis, reputed
Adept author of Mrs.
Emma Hardinge Britten's Art Magic, rubbed her hand over a
sheet of paper and the
desired photograph appeared on the under side. She had
laid the bare sheet on
the surface of the table. Col. Olcott had the opportunity
nine years later of
comparing this reproduction with the original photograph of
the Chevalier Louis,
and found the likeness perfect, yet the lines would not
meet precisely when
the one was superimposed on the other. It could not have
been a lithographic
reproduction.
Early in 1878, Mr.
O'Sullivan asked Madame Blavatsky for one of a chaplet of
large wooden beads
which she was wearing. She placed one in a bowl and produced
the bowlful of them.
For the same gentleman
in plain sight of several people, she triplicated a
beautiful handkerchief
which he had admired.
To amuse the child of
a caller, an English Spiritualist, one day she produced a
large toy sheep
mounted on wheels. Col. Olcott claimed it had not been there a
moment before.
On Christmas eve of
that year when she and the Colonel, went to his sister's
apartment, Madame
expressed regret that she had brought nothing for the
youngsters. But
saying, "Wait a minute," she took her bunch of keys from her.43
pocket, clutched three
of them together in one hand, and a moment later showed
the party a large iron
whistle hanging on the ring instead of the three keys.
Col. Olcott had to get
three new keys from a locksmith.
Another time to
placate a little girl Madame promised her "a nice present," and
indicated to Col.
Olcott that he should take it out of their luggage bag in the
hall. He unlocked the
already stuffed bag and immediately on top was a
harmonica, or glass
piano, about fifteen inches by four in size, with its cork
mallet beside it.
Colonel had himself packed the bag, having to use all his
strength to close it, had
reopened it on the train, and there was not a moment
when his friend could
have slipped an object of such size into it.
It was in New York at
this epoch that she took Col. Olcott's large signet ring,
rubbed it in her hands
and presently handed him his original and another like it
except that the new
one was mounted with a dark green bloodstone, whereas the
original was set with
a red carnelian. That ring she wore till her death, and it
has since been the
valued possession of Mrs. Annie Besant.
Once, in Boston,
Madame walked through the streets in a pelting rain and reached
her lodgings without
the trace of dampness or mud on her dress or shoes.
Similarly the Colonel
found a handsome velvet-covered chair entirely dry, not
even damp, after being
left out all night in a driving rain.
One time when the two
were talking about three members of the Colonel's family,
a crash was heard in
the next room. Rushing in he found that the photograph of
one of the three had
been turned face inward, the large water-color picture of
another lay smashed on
the floor, while the photograph of the third was
unmolested.
Madame once made
instantly a copy of a scurrilous letter received by the Colonel
from a person who had
done him an injustice. Again she duplicated a five-page
letter from the
eminent Spiritualist, W. Stainton Moses. There was not time for
the receipt of the
letter until its duplication for any one to have copied it.
The second sheets were
copies, but not strictly duplicate, as the lines would
not match when the two
were placed together and held before the light.
At "The
Lamasery" she produced an entire set of watercolors, which Mr. W. Q.
Judge needed in making
an Egyptian drawing. Next he needed some gold paint,
whereupon she took a
brass key, scraped it over the bottom of an empty saucer,
and found the required
paint instantly. The brass key was not consumed in the
process, but was
needed, she explained, to help aggregate the atomic material
for the gold color.
When Olcott stated one
evening that he would like to hear from one of the Adepts
(in India) upon a
certain subject, Madame told him to write his questions, seal
them in an envelope,
and place it where he could watch it. He did so, putting it
behind the clock on
the mantel, with one end projecting in plain view. The two
went on talking for an
hour, when she announced that the answer had come. He
drew out his own
envelope, the seal unbroken, found inside it his own letter,
and inside that the Mahatma's
answer in the script familiar to him, written on a
sheet of green paper,
such as he had not had in the house.
Through her agency the
portrait of the Rev. W. Stainton Moses was precipitated
on satin. It was a
distinct likeness, and the head was rayed around with
spiculae of light. It
was surrounded with rolling clouds of vapor, his astral
vehicle..44
Olcott, Judge and a
Dr. Marquette one evening asked her to produce the portrait
of a particular Hindu
Yogi on some stationery of the Lotus Club that the Colonel
had brought home that
same evening. She scraped some lead from a pencil on a
half sheet of the
paper, laid the other half-sheet over it, placed them between
her hands, and showed
the result. The likeness to the original could not be
verified, but it was
pronounced by Le Clear, the noted portrait painter, to be
one "that no
living artist within his knowledge could have produced."
Once Col. Olcott
desired a picture of his Guru, or Hindu teacher, as yet unseen
by him, and Madame
essayed to have it painted through the hand of a French
artist, M. Herisse.
The artist's only instructions were that his subject was a
Hindu. Madame
concentrated, and he painted. The features, finished in an hour,
were afterwards
vouched for by Col. Olcott as being the likeness of his Guru,
whom he met years
later.
The Colonel testified
to having seen Madame Blavatsky's astral form in a New
York street while she
was in Philadelphia; also that of a friend of his then in
the South; again that
of one of the Adepts, then in Asia, in an American railway
train and on a
steamboat. He stated that he took from the hand of another
Mahatma at Jummu a
telegram from H.P.B.31 who was in Madras, the messenger
vanishing a moment
later; and that he, H.P.B. and Damodar, a young Hindu devotee
of hers, were greeted
by one of these Teachers one evening in India. But the
occurrence of this
kind which he regarded as the most striking, affecting as it
did his whole future
career, happened at the close of one of his busy days, when
his evening's toil
with the composition of Isis was finished. He had retired to
his own room and was
reading, the room door locked. Suddenly he perceived a
white radiance at his
side and turning saw towering above him the great stature
of an Oriental, clad
in white garments and wearing a head-cloth of amber-striped
fabric,
hand-embroidered in yellow floss silk.
"Long raven hair
hung from under his turban to the shoulders; his black beard,
parted vertically on
the chin in the Rajput fashion, was twisted up at the ends
and carried over the
ears; his eyes were alive with soul-fire; eyes which were
at once benignant and
piercing in glance; the eyes of a mentor and judge, but
softened by the love
of a father who gazes on a son needing counsel and
guidance. He was so
grand a man, so imbued with the majesty of moral strength,
so luminously
spiritual, so evidently above average humanity, that I felt
abashed in his
presence, and bowed my head and bent my knee as one does before a
god or a god-like personage.
A hand was laid lightly on my head, a sweet though
strong voice bade me
be seated, and when I raised my eyes the Presence was
seated in the other
chair beyond the table. He told me that he had come at the
crisis when I needed
him; that my actions had brought me to this point; that it
lay with me alone
whether he and I should meet often in this life as coworkers
for the good of
mankind; that a great work was to be done for humanity and I had
the right to share in
it if I wished; that a mysterious tie, not now to be
explained to me, had
drawn my colleague and myself together; a tie which could
not be broken, however
strained it might be at times."32
Then he arose and
reading the Colonel's sudden but unexpressed wish that he
might leave behind him
some token of his visit, he untwisted the fehta from his
head, laid it on the
table, saluted benignantly and was gone.
Many a time, according
to the Colonel's version, they were regaled with most
exquisite music, or
single bell sounds, coming from anywhere in the room and
softly dying away..45
Olcott tells of the
deposit of one thousand dollars to his bank account by a
person described by
the bank clerk as a Hindu, while he (Olcott) was absent from
the city for two
months on business which he had undertaken at the behest of the
Master through H.P.B.
He had told her that his errand would cost him about five
hundred dollars per
month through his neglect of his business for the time.
In 1878 the Countess
Paschkoff brought to light an adventure which she had had
years before while
traveling with Madame Blavatsky in the Libanus. The two women
encountered each other
in the desert and camped together one night near the
river Orontes. Nearby
stood a great monument on the border of the village. The
Countess asked Madame
to tell her the history of the monument. At night the
thaumaturgist built a
fire, drew a circle about it and repeated several
"spells."
Soon balls of white flame appeared on the monument, then from a cloud
of vapor emerged the
spirit of the person to whom it had been dedicated. "Who
are you?" asked
the woman. "I am Hiero, one of the priests of the temple," said
the voice of the
spirit.
He then showed them
the temple in the midst of a vast city. Then the image
vanished and the
priest with it.
To round out the story
of her phenomena it is necessary to relate with the
utmost brevity the
incidents of the kind that transpired from the time of the
departure from America
to India at the end of 1878 until the latter days of her
life. This narrative
will include occurrences taking place in India, France,
Germany, and England.
It was in India that
the so-called Mahatma Letters were precipitated, upon which
the basic structure of
Theosophy is seen to rest. Mr. A. P. Sinnett, British
journalist, editor of
"The Pioneer," living in India, is the main authority for
the events of the
Indian period in Madame Blavatsky's life.
During the first visit
of six weeks to Mr. Sinnett's home at Allahabad there
were comparatively few
incidents, apart from raps. A convincing exploit of her
power was granted,
however, for one evening while the party was sitting in the
large hall of the
house of the Maharajah of Vizianagaram at Benares, three or
four large cut roses
fell from the ceiling. The ceiling was bare and the room
well lighted.
About the beginning of
September 1880 she visited the Sinnetts at their home in
Simla. Here some more
striking incidents took place. During an evening walk with
Mrs. Sinnett to a
neighboring hilltop, Madame, in response to a suddenly-expressed
wish of her companion,
obtained for her a little note from one of the
"Brothers."
Madame had torn off a blank corner of a sheet of a letter received
that day and held it
in her hand for the Master's use. It disappeared. Then Mrs.
Sinnett was asked
where she would like the paper to reappear. She whimsically
pointed up into a tree
a little to one side. Clambering up into the branches she
found the same little
corner of pink paper sticking on a sharp twig, now
containing a brief
message and signed by some Tibetan characters.
A little later the
most spectacular of the marvels said to have been performed
by the "Messenger
of the Great White Brotherhood" took place. A picnic party to
the woods some miles
distant was planned one morning and six persons prepared to
set off. Lunches were
packed for six, but a seventh person unexpectedly joined
the group at the
moment of departure. As the luncheon was unpacked for the
noontide meal, there
was a shortage of a coffee cup and saucer. Some one
laughingly suggested
that Madame should materialize an extra set. Madame
Blavatsky held a
moment's mental communication with one of her distant Brothers.46
and then indicated a
particular spot, covered with grass, weeds, and shrubbery.
A gentleman of the
party, with a knife, undertook to dig at the spot. A little
persistence brought
him shortly to the rim of a white object, which proved to be
a cup, and close to it
was a saucer, both of the design matching the other six
brought along from the
Sinnett cupboard. The plant roots around the China pieces
were manifestly
undisturbed by recent digging such as would have been necessary
if they had been
"planted" in anticipation of their being needed. Moreover, when
the party reached home
and Mrs. Sinnett counted their supply of cups and saucers
of that design, the
new ones were found to be additional to their previous
stock. And none of
that design could have been purchased in Simla.33
Before this same party
had disbanded it was permitted to witness another feat of
equal strangeness. The
gentleman who had dug up the buried pottery was so
impressed that he
decided then and there to join the Theosophical Society. As
Col. Olcott, President
of the Society, was in the party, all that was needed was
the usual parchment
diploma. Madame Blavatsky agreed to ask the Master to
produce such a
document for them. In a moment all were told to search in the
underbrush. It was
soon found and used in the induction ceremony.
This eventful picnic
brought forth still another wonder.
Every one of the water
bottles brought along had been emptied when the need for
more coffee arose. The
water in a neighborhood stream was unfit. A servant, sent
across the fields to
obtain some at a brewery, stupidly returned without any. In
the dilemma Madame
Blavatsky took one of the empty bottles, placed it in one of
the baskets, and in a
moment took it out filled with good water.
Some days later the
famous "brooch" incident occurred. The Sinnett party had
gone up the hill to
spend an evening with Mr. and Mrs. A. O. Hume, who were
likewise much
interested in the Blavatskian theories. Eleven persons were seated
around the table and
some one hinted at the possibility of a psychic exploit.
Madame appeared
disinclined, but suddenly gave a sign that the Master was
himself present. Then
she asked Mrs. Hume if there was anything in particular
that she wished to
have. Mrs. Hume thought of an old brooch which her mother had
given her long ago and
which had been lost. Neither she nor Mr. Hume had thought
of it for years. She
described it, saying it contained a lock of hair. The party
was told to search for
it in the garden at a certain spot; and there it was
found. Mrs. Hume
testified that it was the lost brooch, or one indistinguishable
from it.
According to the statements
of Alice Gordon, a visitor at the Sinnett home,
Madame Blavatsky
rolled a cigarette, and projected it ethereally to the house of
a Mrs. O'Meara in
another part of Simla, in advance of Miss Gordon's going
thither. To identify
it she tore off a small corner of the wrapper jaggedly, and
gave it to Miss
Gordon. The latter found it at the other home and the corner
piece matched.
Captain P. J. Maitland
recites a "cigarette" incident which occurred in Mr.
Sinnett's drawing
room. Madame took two cigarette papers, with a pencil drew
several parallel lines
clear across the face of both, then tore off across these
lines a piece of the
end of each paper and handed the short end pieces to
Captain Maitland; then
she rolled cigarettes out of the two larger portions,
moistened them on her
tongue, and caused them to disappear from her hands. The
Captain was told he
would find one on the piano and the other on a bracket. He
found them there,
still moist along the "seam," and unrolling them found that
the ragged edges of
the torn sections and the pencil lines exactly matched..47
Some days later came
the "pillow incident." Mr. Sinnett had the impression that
he had been in
communication with the Master one night. During the course of an
outing to a nearby
hill the following day, Madame Blavatsky turned to him (he
had not mentioned his
experience to her) and asked him where he would like some
evidence of the
Master's visit to him to appear. Thinking to choose a most
unlikely place, he
thought of the inside of a cushion against which one of the
ladies was leaning.
Then he changed to another. Cutting the latter open, they
found among the
feathers, inside two cloth casings, a little note in the now
familiar Mahatma
script, in the writing on which were the phrases-"the
difficulty you spoke
of last night" and "corresponding through-pillows!" While
he was reading this
his wife discovered a brooch in the feathers. It was one
which she had left at
home.
Perhaps it was these
cigarette feats which assured Madame Blavatsky that she now
had sufficient power
to dispatch a long letter to her Mahatma mentors. Mr.
Sinnett first
suggested the idea to her, and her success in that first attempt
was the beginning of
one of the most eventful and unique correspondences in the
world's history. It
began his exchange of letters with the Master Koot Hoomi Lal
Singh (abbreviated
usually to K.H.), on which Theosophy so largely rests.
On several telegrams
received by Mr. Sinnett were snatches of writing in K.H.'s
hand speaking of
events that transpired after the telegram had been sent.
Replies were received
a number of times in less time than it would have taken
Madame Blavatsky to
write them (instantaneously in a few cases), yet they dealt
in specific detail
with the material in his own missives. More than once his
unexpressed doubts and
queries were treated. In many cases his own letter in a
sealed envelope would
remain in sight and within a very short interval (thirty
seconds in one
instance) be found to contain the distant Master's reply, folded
inside his own sheets,
with an appropriate answer,--the seal not even having
been broken. Sometimes
he would place his letter in plain view on the table, and
shortly it would be
gone. For a time when the Master K.H. was called away to
other business, Mr.
Sinnett continued to receive communications from the brother
Adept, Master Morya,
while Madame Blavatsky was hundreds of miles away. They
continued in the
distant absence of both H.P.B. and Col. Olcott. And not only
were such letters
received by Mr. Sinnett, and Mr. Hume, but by other persons as
well. The list
includes Damodar K. Mavalankar; Ramaswamy, an educated English-speaking
native of Southern
India in Government service; Dharbagiri Nath; Mohini
Chatterji; and Bhavani
Rao. Dr. Hόbbe-Schleiden received a missive of the kind
later on a railway
train in Germany. Mr. Sinnett would frequently find the
letters on the inside
of his locked desk drawers or would see them drop upon his
desk. Their production
was attended with all manner of remarkable circumstances.
Then there was the
notable episode of the transmission by the Master of a mental
message to a Mr.
Eglinton, a Spiritualist, on board a vessel, the Vega, far out
at sea, and the
instantaneous transmission of the letter's response, written on
board ship, to some of
his friends in India, the whole thing done in accordance
with an arrangement
made by letter to Mr. Sinnett by the Adept two days before.
This incident has a
certain importance from the fact that the Master had said in
the preliminary letter
that he would visit Mr. Eglinton on the ship on a certain
night, impress him
with the untenability of the general Spiritualistic
hypothesis regarding
communications, and if possible lead him to a change of
mind on the point. Mr.
Eglinton's reply recorded the visit of the Mahatma on the
ship and admitted the
desirability of a change to the Theosophic theory of the
existence of the
Brothers.
An interesting
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER of events in the sojourn of the two Theosophic leaders in
India is that of the
thousands of healings made by Col. Olcott, who states that.48
he was given the power
by the Overlords of his activities for a limited time
with a special object
in view. He is said to have cured some eight thousand
Hindus of various
ailments by a sort of "laying on of hands." Like Christ he
felt
"virtue" go out of his body until exhaustion ensued; and he stated
that he
was instructed to
recharge his nervous depletion by sitting with his back
against the base of a
pine tree.
In 1885 Madame
Blavatsky herself experienced the healing touch of her Masters
when she was ordered
to meet them in the flesh north of Darjeeling. Going north
on this errand, she
was in the utmost despondency and near the point of death.
After two days spent
with the Adepts she emerged with physical health and morale
restored, her dynamic
self once more.
The last sheaf of
"miracles" takes us from India to France, Germany, Belgium,
and England. In Paris,
in 1884, her rooms were the resort of many people who
came if haply they
might get sight of a marvel, her thaumaturgic fame being now
world-wide. A Prof.
Thurmann reported that in his presence she filled the air of
the room with musical
sounds, from a variety of instruments. She demonstrated
that darkness was not
necessary for such manifestations.
Madame Jelihowsky is
authority for the account of the appearance and
disappearance of her
sister's picture in a medallion containing only the small
photograph of K.H.
A most baffling
display of Madame's gifts took place in the reception room of
the Paris Theosophical
Society on the morning of June 11th, 1884. Madame
Jelihowsky, Col.
Olcott, W. Q. Judge, V. Solovyoff and two others were present
and attested the bona
fide nature of the incident in a public letter. In sight
of all a servant took
a letter from the postman and brought it directly to
Madame Jelihowsky. It
was addressed to a lady, a relative of Madame Blavatsky,
who was then visiting
her, and came from another relative in Russia. Madame
Blavatsky, seeing that
it was a family letter, remarked that she would like to
know its contents. Her
sister ventured the suggestion that she read it before it
was opened. Helena
held the letter against her forehead and proceeded to read
aloud and then write
down what she said were the contents. Then, to demonstrate
her power further, she
declared that she would underscore her own name, wherever
it occurred within the
letter, in red crayon, and would precipitate in red a
double interlaced
triangle, or "Solomon's Seal," beneath the signature. When the
addressee opened the
letter, not only was H.P.B.'s version of its contents
correct to the word,
but the underscoring of her name and the monogram in red
were found, and oddly
enough, the wavering in several of the straight lines in
the triangle, as drawn
first by Madame Blavatsky outside the letter, were
precisely matched by
the red triangle inside. Postmarks indicated it had
actually come from
Russia.34
While at Elberfeld,
Germany, with her hospitable benefactress, Madame Gebhard,
some of the usual
manifestations were in evidence. Mr. Rudolph Gebhard, a son,
recounts several of
them. One was the receipt of a letter from one of the
Masters, giving
intelligence about an absent member of the household, found to
be correct.
The Countess Constance
Wachtmeister, who became Madame Blavatsky's guardian
angel, domestically
speaking, during the years of the composition of The Secret
Doctrine in Germany
and Belgium, has printed her account of a number of
extraordinary
occurrences of the period. She speaks of a succession of raps in
H.P.B.'s sleeping room
when there was special need of her Guardians' care. She
also tells of the
thrice-relighted lamp at the sleeper's bedside, she herself.49
having twice
extinguished it. She tells of her receiving a letter from the
Master, inside the
store-wrapper of a bar of soap which she had just purchased
at a drug store.
It was under the
Countess Wachtmeister's notice that there occurred the last of
Madame Blavatsky's
"miraculous" restorations to health. She had suffered for
years from a dropsical
or renal affection, which in those latter days had
progressed to such an
alarming stage that her highly competent physicians at one
crisis were convinced
that she could not survive a certain night. The great work
she was writing was
far from completed; the Countess was heart-broken to think
that, after all, that
heroic career was to be cut off just before the
consummation of its
labors for humanity; and she spent the night in grief and
despair. Arising in
the morning she found Madame at her desk, busy as before at
her task. She had been
revivified and restored during the night, and would not
say how.
The Countess records
the occasion of an intercession of the Masters in her own
affairs, on behalf of
their messenger. At her home in Sweden, while she was
packing her trunks in
preparation for a journey to some relatives in Italy, she
clairaudiently heard a
voice, which told her to place in her trunk a certain
note-book of her
containing notes on the Bohemian Tarot and the Kabala. It was
not a printed volume
but a collection of quotations from the above works in her
own hand. Surprised,
and not knowing the possible significance of the order, she
nevertheless complied.
Before reaching Italy she suddenly changed her plans, and
postponed the trip to
Italy and visited Madame Blavatsky in Belgium instead.
Upon arriving and
shortly after greeting her beloved friend, she was startled to
hear Madame say to her
that her Master had informed her that her guest was
bringing her a book
dealing with the Tarot and the Kabala, of which she was to
make use in the
writing of The Secret Doctrine.
This must end, but
does not by any means complete, the chronicle of "the
Blavatsky
phenomena." The list, long as it has become, is but a fragment of the
whole. Without the
narration of these phenomena an adequate impression of the
personality and the
legend back of them could not be given. Moreover they belong
in any study of
Theosophy, and their significance in relation to the principles
of the cult is perhaps
far other than casual or incidental. If her own display
of such powers was
made as a demonstration of what man is destined to become
capable of achieving
in his interior evolution, these things are to be regarded
as an integral part of
her message. They became, apparently in spite of herself,
a part of her program
and furnished a considerable impetus toward its
advancement. Theosophy
itself re-publishes the theory of man's inherent theurgic
capacity. It can
hardly be taken as an anomaly or as an irrelevant circumstance,
then, that its founder
should have been regarded as exemplifying the possession
of that capacity in
her own person..50
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER IV
FROM SPIRITUALISM TO
THEOSOPHY
Nothing seems more
certain than that Madame Blavatsky had no definite idea of
what the finished
product was to be when she gave the initial impulse to the
movement. She knew the
general direction in which it would have to move and also
many objectives which
it would have to seek. In her mind there had been
assembled a body of
material of a unique sort. She had spent many years of her
novitiate in moving
from continent to continent1 in search of data having to do
with a widespread
tradition as to the existence of a hidden knowledge and secret
cultivation of man's
higher psychic and spiritual capabilities. Supposedly the
wielder of unusual
abilities in this line, she was driven by the very character
of her endowment to
seek for the deeper science which pertained to the evolution
of such gifts, and at
the same time a philosophy of life in general which would
explain their hidden
significance. To establish, first, the reality of such
phenomena, and then to
construct a system that would furnish the possibility of
understanding this
mystifying segment of experience, was unquestionably the main
drive of her mental
interests in early middle life. Already well equipped to be
the exponent of the
higher psychological and theurgic science, she aimed to
become its philosophic
expounder.
But the philosophy
Madame Blavatsky was to give forth could not be oriented with
the science of the
universe as then generally conceived. To make her message
intelligible she was
forced to reconstruct the whole picture of the cosmos. She
had to frame a
universe in which her doctrine would be seen to have relevance
and into whose total
order it would fall with perfect articulation. She felt
sure that she had in
her possession an array of vital facts, but she could not
at once discern the
total implication of those facts for the cosmos which
explained them, and
which in turn they tended to explain. We may feel certain
that her ideas grow
more systematic from stage to stage, whether indeed they
were the product of
her own unaided intellect, or whether she but transcribed
the knowledge and
wisdom of more learned living men, the Mahatmas, as the
Theosophic legend has
it.
Guided by the
character of the situation in which she found herself, and also,
it seems, by the
advice of her Master, she chose to ride into her new venture
upon the crest of the
Spiritualist waves. America was chosen to be the hatching
center of Theosophy because
it was at the time the heart and center of the
Spiritualist movement.
It was felt that Theosophy would elicit a quick response
from persons already
imbued with spiritistic ideas. It cannot be disputed that
Madame Blavatsky and
Col. Olcott worked with the Spiritualists for a brief
period and launched
the Society from within the ranks of the cult. As a matter
of fact it was the
work of this pair of Theosophists that gave Spiritualism a
fresh impetus in this
country after a period of waning interest about 1874. Col.
Olcott's letters in
the Daily Graphic about the Eddy phenomena, and his book,.51
People From the Other
World, did much to revive popular discussion, and his
colleague's show of
new manifestations was giving encouragement to
Spiritualists. But the
Russian noblewoman suddenly disappointed the expectations
thus engendered by
assigning a different interpretation and much lower value to
the phenomena. Before
this she and Col. Olcott not only lent moral support to a
leading Spiritualist
journal, The Spiritual Scientist, of Boston, edited by Mr.
E. Gerry Brown, but
contributed its leading editorials and even advanced it
funds.
The motive behind
their participation in a movement which they so soon abandoned
has been misconstrued.
Spiritualists, and the
public generally, assumed that of course their activity
indicated that they
subscribed to the usual tenets of the sect; that they
accepted the phenomena
for what they purported to be, i.e., actual
communications in all
cases from the spirits of former human beings. However
true this estimate may
have been as appertaining to Col. Olcott-and even to him
it had a fast
diminishing applicability after his meeting with H.P.B.-it was
certainly not true of her.
Madame Blavatsky shortly became the mark of
Spiritualistic attack
for the falsification of her original attitude toward the
movement and her
presumed betrayal of the cause.
Her ill-timed attempt
to launch her Sociιtι Spirite at Cairo in 1871
foreshadowed her true
spirit and motive in this activity. It is evident to the
student of her life
that she felt a contempt for the banal type of sιance
phenomena. She so
expressed herself in writing from Cairo at the time. She felt
that while these
things were real and largely genuine, they were insignificant
in the view that took
in a larger field of psychic power. But the higher
phenomena of that more
important science were known to few, whereas she was
constantly
encountering interest in the other type. If she was to introduce a
nobler psychism to the
world, she seemed driven to resort to the method of
picking up people who
were absorbed in the lower modes of the spiritual science
and leading them on
into the higher. She would gather a nucleus of the best
Spiritualists and go
forward with them to the higher Spiritualism. To win their
confidence in herself,
it was necessary for her to start at their level, to make
a gesture of
friendliness toward their work and a show of interest in it.
Her own words may
bring light to the situation:
"As it is I have
only done my duty; first, toward Spiritualism, that I have
defended as well as I
could from the attacks of imposture under the too
transparent mask of
science; then towards two helpless slandered mediums [the
Holmeses]. . . . But I
am obliged to confess that I really do not believe in
having done any
good-to Spiritualism itself. . . . It is with a profound sadness
in my heart that I
acknowledge this fact, for I begin to think there is no help
for it. For over
fifteen years have I fought my battle for the blessed truth;
have traveled and
preached it-though I never was born for a lecturer-from the
snow-covered tops of
the Caucasian Mountains, as well as from the sandy valleys
of the Nile. I have
proved the truth of it practically and by persuasion. For
the sake of
Spiritualism2 I have left my home, an easy life amongst a civilized
society, and have
become a wanderer upon the face of the earth. I had already
seen my hopes realized,
beyond my most sanguine expectations, when my unlucky
star brought me to
America. Knowing this country to be the cradle of modern
Spiritualism, I came
over here from France with feelings not unlike those of a
Mohammedan approaching
the birthplace of his Prophet."3.52
After her death Col.
Olcott found among her papers a memorandum in her hand
entitled
"Important Note." In it she wrote:
"Yes, I am sorry
to say that I had to identify myself, during that shameful
exposure of the Holmes
mediums, with the Spiritualists. I had to save the
situation, for I was
sent from Paris to America on purpose to prove the
phenomena and their
reality, and show the fallacy of the spiritualistic theory
of spirits. But how
could I do it best? I did not want people at large to know
that I could produce
the same thing at will. I had received orders to the
contrary, and yet I
had to keep alive the reality, the genuineness and the
possibility of such
phenomena in the hearts of those who from Materialists had
turned Spiritualists,
but now, owing to the exposure of several mediums, fell
back again and
returned to their scepticism. . . . Did I do wrong? The world is
not prepared yet to
understand the philosophy of Occult Science; let them first
assure themselves that
there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'spirits'
of the dead or
elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man which are
capable of making a
god of him on earth."
"When I am dead
and gone people will, perhaps, appreciate my disinterested
motives. I have
pledged my word to help people on to Truth while living and I
will keep my word. Let
them abuse and revile me; let some call me a medium and a
Spiritualist, others
an impostor. The day will come when posterity will learn to
know me better."4
As long as it was a
question of the actuality of the phenomena, she was alert in
defence of
Spiritualism. In the Daily Graphic of November. 13, 1874, she printed
one of her very first
newspaper contributions in America, replying to an attack
of a Dr. George M.
Beard, an electropathic physician of New York, on the
validity of the Eddy
phenomena. She went so far in this article as to wager five
hundred dollars that
he could not make good his boast that he could imitate the
form-apparitions
"with three dollars' worth of drapery." She refers to herself
as a Spiritualist. In
her first letter to Co. Olcott after leaving Vermont she
wrote as follows:
"I speak to you
as a true friend to yourself and as a Spiritualist anxious to
save Spiritualism from
a danger."5
A little later she
even mentioned to her friend that the outburst of mediumistic
phenomena had been
caused by the Brotherhood of Adepts as an evolutionary
agency. She could, of
course, not believe the whole trend maleficent if it was
in the slightest
degree engineered by her trusted Confederates. She added later,
however, that the
Master soon realized the impracticability of using the
Spiritualistic
movement as a channel for the dissemination of the deeper occult
science and instructed
her to cease her advocacy of it.
Along with her reply
and challenge to Beard in the Graphic there was printed an
outline of her
biography from notes furnished by herself. In it she says:
"In 1858 I
returned to Paris and made the acquaintance of Daniel Home, the
Spiritualist. . . .
Home converted me to Spiritualism. . . . After this I went
to Russia. I converted
my father to Spiritualism."
Elsewhere she speaks
of Spiritualism as "our belief" and "our cause." In an
article in the
Spiritual Scientist of March eighth she uses the phrases "the
divine truth of our
faith (Spiritualism) and the teachings of our invisible
guardians (the spirits
of the circles).".53
Madame Blavatsky's
apparently double-faced attitude toward Spiritualism is
reflected in the
posture of most Theosophists toward the same subject today.
When Spiritualism, as
a demonstration of the possibility and actuality of
spiritistic phenomena,
is attacked by materialists or unbelievers, they at once
bristle in its
defense; when it is a question of the reliability and value of
the messages, or the
dignity and wholesomeness of the sιance procedure, they
respond negatively.
It is the opinion of
some Theosophic leaders, like Sinnett and Olcott, that
Madame Blavatsky made
a mistake in affiliating herself actively with
Spiritualism, inasmuch
as the early group of Spiritualistic members of her
Theosophic Society, as
soon as they were apprised of her true attitude, fell
away, and the
incipient movement was beset with much ill-feeling.
The controversy
between the two schools is important, since Madame Blavatsky's
dissent from
Spiritualistic theory gave rise to her first attempts to formulate
Theosophy. To justify
her defection from the movement she was led to enunciate
at least some of the
major postulates and principles of her higher science.
Theosophy was born in
this labor. It is necessary, therefore, to go into the
issues involved in the
perennial controversy.
To Spiritualists the
phenomena which purported to be communications from the
still-living spirits
of former human beings with those on the earth plane, were
assumed to be
genuinely what they seemed. As such they were believed to be far
the most significant
data in man's religious life, as furnishing a practically
irrefutable demonstration
of the truth of the soul's immortality. They were
regarded as the
central fact in any attempt to formulate an adequate religious
philosophy.
Spiritualists therefore elevated this assumption to the place of
supreme importance and
made everything else secondary.
Not so Madame
Blavatsky. To her the Spiritistic phenomena were but a meagre part
of a larger whole.
Furthermore-and this was her chief point of divergence,--she
vigorously protested
their being what Spiritualists asserted them to be. They
were not at all
genuine messages from genuine spirits of earth people-or were
not so in the vast
majority of cases. And besides, they were not any more
"divine" or
"spiritual" than ordinary human utterances, and were even in large
part impish and elfin,
when not downright demoniacal. They were mostly, she
said, the mere
"shells" or wraiths of the dead, animated not by their former
souls but by sprightly
roving nature-spirits or elementals, if nothing worse,--
such, for instance, as
the lowest and most besotted type of human spirit that
was held close to
earth by fiendish sensuality or hate. There were plenty of
these, she affirmed,
in the lower astral plane watching for opportunities to
vampirize negative
human beings. The souls of average well-meaning or of saintly
people are not within
human reach in the sιance. They have gone on into realms
of higher purity, more
etherealized being, and can not easily descend into the
heavy atmosphere of
the near-earth plane to give messages about that investment
or that journey
westward or that health condition that needs attention. At best
it is only on rare and
exceptional occasions that the real intelligence of a
disembodied mortal
comes "through." There are many types of living entities in
various realms of
nature, other than human souls. Certain of these rove the
astral plane and take
pleasure in playing upon gullible people who sit gravely
in the dark. Most of
the occurrences at circles are so much astral plane
rubbish; and, besides,
sιance-mongering is dangerous to all concerned and
eventually ruinous to
the medium. If the mediums, she bantered, were really in
the hands of
benevolent "guides" and "controls," why do not the latter
shield
their protιgιs from
the wrecked health and insanity so frequent among them? She.54
affirmed that she had
never seen a medium who had not developed scrofula or a
phthisical affection.6
Inevitably the
Spiritualists were stunned by their one-time champion's sudden
and amazed reversal of
her position. A campaign of abuse and condemnation began
in their ranks, echoes
of which are still heard at times.
What Madame Blavatsky
aimed to do was to teach that the phenomena of true
Spiritualism bore not
the faintest resemblance to those of table-tipping. True
Spiritualism should
envisage the phenomena of the divine spirit of man in their
higher manifestations,
the cultivation of which by the ancients and the East has
given man his most
sacred science and most vital knowledge. She wrote in a
letter to her sister
about 1875 that one of the purposes of her new Society was
"to show certain
fallacies of the Spiritualist. If we are anything we are
Spiritualists, only
not in the modern American fashion, but in that of the
ancient Alexandria
with its Theodidaktoi, Hypatias and Porphyries."7 In one of
the letters of Mahatma
K.H. to A. P. Sinnett the Master writes:
"It was H.P.B.
who, acting under the orders of Atrya (one whom you do not know)
was the first to
explain in the 'Spiritualist' the difference between psyche and
nous, nefesh and
ruach-Soul and Spirit. She had to bring the whole arsenal of
proofs with her
quotations from Paul to Plato, from Plutarch and James before
the Spiritualists
admitted that the Theosophists were right."8
In 1879 she wrote in
the magazine which she had just founded in India:
"We can never
know how much of the mediumistic phenomena we must attribute to
the disembodied until
it is settled how much can be done by the embodied human
soul, and to blind but
active powers at work within those regions which are yet
unexplored by
science."9
In other words
Spiritualism should be a culture of the spirits of the living,
not a commerce with
the souls of the dead. To live the life of the immortal
spirit while here in
the body is true Spiritualism. We can readily see that with
such a purpose in mind
she would not be long in discerning that the
Spiritualistic
enterprise could not be used to promulgate the type of spiritual
philosophy that she
had learned in the East.
When this conclusion
had fully ripened in her mind, she began the undisguised
formulation of her own
independent teaching. Her new philosophy was in effect
tantamount to an
attack on Spiritualism, and that from a quarter from which
Spiritualism was not
prepared to repulse an assault. It came not from the old
arch-enemy,
materialistic scepticism, but from a source which admitted the
authenticity of the
phenomena.
Her first aim was to
set forth the misconceptions under which the Spiritualists
labored. She says:
"We believe that
few of those physical phenomena which are genuine are caused by
disembodied human
spirits."10
Again she
"ventures the prediction that unless Spiritualists set about the study
of ancient philosophy
so as to learn to discriminate between spirits and to
guard themselves
against the baser sort, twenty-five years will not elapse
before they will have
to fly to the Romish communion to escape these 'guides'
and 'controls' that
they have fondled so long. The signs of this catastrophe
already exhibit
themselves."11.55
Again she declares
that
"it is not
mediums, real, true and genuine mediums, that we would ever blame,
but their patrons, the
Spiritualists."12
In Isis Unveiled she
rebukes Spiritualists for claiming that the Bible is full
of phenomena just like
those of modern mediums. She asserts that there were
Spiritualistic
phenomena in the Bible, but not mediumistic,--a distinction of
great import to her.
She declares that the ancients could tell the difference
between mediums who
harbored good spirits and those haunted by evil ones, and
branded the latter
type unclean, while reverencing the former. She positively
asserts that
"pure spirits will not and cannot show themselves objectively;
those that do are not
pure spirits, but elementary and impure. Woe to the medium
that falls a prey to
such!"13
Col. Olcott quotes her
as writing:
"Spiritualism in
the hands of an Adept becomes Magic, for he is learned in the
art of blending
together the laws of the universe without breaking any of them.
. . . In the hands of
an inexperienced medium Spiritualism becomes unconscious
sorcery, for . . . he
opens, unknown to himself, a door of communication between
the two worlds through
which emerges the blind forces of nature lurking in the
Astral Light, as well
as good and bad spirits."14
In The Key to
Theosophy15 written near the end of her life, she states what may
be assumed to be the
official Theosophic attitude on the subject:
"We assert that
the spirits of the dead cannot return to earth-save in rare and
exceptional cases-nor
do they communicate with men except by entirely subjective
means. That which does
appear objectively is often the phantom of the ex-physical
man. But in psychic
and, so to say, 'spiritual' Spiritualism we do
believe most
decidedly."16
One of her most
vigorous expressions upon this issue occurs toward the end of
Isis.
According to Olcott
the Hon. A. Aksakoff, eminent Russian Professor, states that
"Prince A.
Dolgorouki, the great authority on mesmerism, has written me that he
has ascertained that
spirits which play the most prominent part at sιances are
elementaries,--gnomes,
etc. His clairvoyants have seen them and describe them
thus."
"The totally
insufficient theory of the constant agency of disembodied human
spirits in the
production of Spiritualistic phenomena has been the bane of the
Cause. A thousand
mortifying rebuffs have failed to open their reason or
intuition to the
truth. Ignoring the teachings of the past, they have discovered
no substitute. We
offer them philosophical deduction instead of unverifiable
hypothesis, scientific
analysis and demonstration instead of indiscriminating
faith. Occult
philosophy gives them the means of meeting the reasonable
requirements of
science, and frees them from the humiliating necessity to accept
the oracular teachings
of 'intelligences' which, as a rule, have less
intelligence than a
child at school. So based and so strengthened, modern
phenomena would be in
a position to command the attention and enforce the
respect of those who
carry with them public opinion. Without invoking such help
Spiritualism must
continue to vegetate, equally repulsed-not without cause-both.56
by science and
theologians. In its modern aspect it is neither science, a
religion nor a
philosophy."17
In 1876, the writing
of Isis was committing her to a stand which made further
compromise with
Spiritualism impossible. Her statement reveals what she would
ostensibly have
labored to do for that movement had it shown itself more plastic
in her hands. She would
have striven to buttress the phenomena with a more
historical
interpretation and a more respectable rationale.
In this context,
however, the following passage from Isis is a bit difficult to
understand. It seems
to make a gesture of conciliation toward the Spiritualistic
hypothesis after all.
She says:
"We are far from
believing that all the spirits that communicate at circles are
of the classes called
'Elemental' and 'Elementary.' Many-especially among those
who control the medium
subjectively to speak, write and otherwise act in various
ways-are human
disembodied spirits. Whether the majority of such spirits are
good or bad, largely
depends on the private morality of the medium, much on the
circle present, and a
good deal on the intensity and object of their purpose. .
. . But in any case,
human spirits can never materialize themselves in propria
persona."18
If this seems a
recession from her consistent position elsewhere assumed, it
must be remembered
that she never, before or after, denied the possibility of
the occasional descent
of genuinely human spirits "in rare and exceptional
cases."
Before 1875 she wrote
to her sister that there was a law that sporadically,
though periodically,
the souls of the dead invade the realms of the living in an
epidemic, and the
intensity of the epidemic depends on the welcome they receive.
She called it
"the law of forced post-mortem assimilation." She elsewhere
clarified this idea by
the statement that our spirits here and now, being of
kindred nature with
the totality of spirit energy about us, unconsciously draw
certain vibrations or
currents from the life of the supermundane entities,
whether we know it or
not. Through this wireless circuit we sometimes drink in
emanations,
radiations, thought effluvia, so to speak, from the disembodied
lives. The veil, she
affirmed, between the two worlds is so thin that
unsuspected messages
are constantly passing across the divide, which is not
spatial but only a
discrepancy in receiving sets. And both she and the Master
K.H. stated that
during normal sleep we are en rapport with our loved ones as
much as our hearts
could desire. The reason we do not ordinarily know it is that
the rate and wave
length of that celestial communication can not be registered
on the clumsy apparatus
of our brains. It takes place through our astral or
spiritual brains and
can not arouse the coarser physical brain to synchronous
vibration.
Her critique of the
Spiritualistic thesis in general would be that something
like ninety per cent
of all ordinary "spirit" messages contain nothing to which
the quality of
spirituality, as we understand that term in its best
significance, can in
any measure be ascribed.
In rebuttal,
Spiritualists point to many previsions, admonitory dreams, verified
prophecies and other
messages of great beauty and lofty spirituality, some of
them leading to
genuine reform of character, and they advance the claim, that
genuine transference
of intelligence from the spirit realms to earth is vastly
more general than that
fraction of experience which could be subsumed under her
"rare and
exceptional cases of "spirituality.".57
In one of the last
works issued by Mr. Sinnett19 he deplores the unfortunate
clash that has come
between the two cults, points out that it is foolish and
unfounded, and reminds
both parties of the broad bases of agreement which are
found in the two
systems. He feels that there can be no insurmountable points of
antagonism, inasmuch
as Spiritualism, too, he asserts, is under the watch and
ward of a member of
the Great White Brotherhood, the Master known as Hilarion;
and that it would be
illogical to assume that members of that same spiritual
Fraternity could
foster movements among mankind that work at cross purposes with
each other. But Mr.
Sinnett does not give any authority for his statement as to
Hilarion's regency
over Spiritualism, and many Theosophists are inclined to
doubt it. He feels
that there is every good reason why Spiritualism should go
forward with Theosophy
in such a unity of purpose as would render their combined
influence the most
potent force in the world today against the menace of
materialism. Whenever
Spiritualists display an interest in the formulation of
some scheme of life or
cosmology in which their phenomena may find a meaningful
allocation, they can
hardly go in any other direction than straight into
Theosophy. This is
shown by their Articles of Faith, in which the idea of Karma,
the divine nature of
man, his spiritual constitution and other conceptions
equally theosophic
have found a place.
Perhaps Theosophists
and Spiritualists alike may discern the bases of harmony
between their opposing
faiths in a singular passage from The Mahatma Letters, an
utterance of the
Master K.H.
"It is this
[sweet blissful dream of devachanic Maya] during such a condition of
complete Maya that the
Souls or actual Egos of pure loving sensitivities,
laboring under the
same illusion, think their loved ones come down to them on
earth, while it is
their own Spirits that are raised towards those in the
Devachan. Many of the
subjective spiritual communications-most of them when the
sensitives are
pure-minded-are real; but it is most difficult for the
uninitiated medium to
fix in his mind the true and correct pictures of what he
sees and hears. Some
of the phenomena called psychography (though more rarely)
are also real. The
spirit of the sensitive getting idylized, so to say, by the
aura of the Spirit in
the Devachan, becomes for a few minutes that departed
personality, and
writes in the handwriting of the latter, in his language and in
his thoughts, as they
were during his life-time. The two spirits become blended
in one; and, the
preponderance of one over the other during such phenomena
determines the preponderance
of personality in the characteristics exhibited in
such writings and
'trance-speaking.' What you call 'rapport' is in plain fact an
identity of molecular
vibration between the astral part of the incarnate medium
and the astral part of
the discarnate personality . . . there is rapport between
medium and 'control'
when their astral molecules move in accord. And the
question whether the
communication shall reflect more of the one personal
idiosyncrasy or the
other, is determined by the relative intensity of the two
sets of vibrations in
the compound wave of Akasha. The less identical the
vibratory impulses the
more mediumistic and less spiritual will be the message.
So then measure your
medium's moral state by that of the alleged 'controlling'
Intelligence, and your
tests of genuineness leave nothing to be desired."20
This plank in the
Theosophic platform not having been laid down in 1875 to
bridge the chasm
between the two movements, Madame Blavatsky drew away from her
Spiritualistic
associates, and it became but a matter of time until some
propitious
circumstance should give to her divergent tendency a body and a name.
The break with
Spiritualism and the launching of the Theosophical Society were
practically contemporary.
The actual formation of the new organization does not.58
on the surface appear
to have been a deliberate act of Madame Blavatsky. While
it would never have
been organized without her presence and her influence, still
she was not the prime
mover in the steps which brought it into being. She seems
merely to have gone
along while others led. However her Society grew out of the
stimulus that had gone
forth from her.
It was Col. Henry
Steele Olcott who assumed the rτle of outward leader in the
young movement. He
gave over (eventually) a lucrative profession as a
corporation lawyer, an
agricultural expert, and an official of the government,
to expend all his
energies in this enterprise. He had acquired the title of
colonel during the
Civil War in the Union army's manoeuvres in North Carolina.
At the close of the
war he had been chosen by the government to conduct some
investigations into
conditions relative to army contracts in the Quartermaster's
Department and had
discharged his duties with great efficiency, receiving the
approbation of higher
officials. He was regarded as an authority on agriculture
and lectured before
representative bodies on that subject. He had established a
successful practice as
a corporation counsel, numbering the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company
among his clients. In addition to these activities he had done
much reportorial work
for the press, notably in connection with his
Spiritualistic
researches. His authorship of several works on the phenomena has
already been
mentioned. His career had achieved for him a record of high
intelligence, great
ability, and a character of probity and integrity.
It is the belief of
Theosophists that he was expressly chosen by the Mahatmas to
share with Madame
Blavatsky the honor and the labor of spreading her message in
the world. A passage
from the Mahatma Letters puts this in clear light. The
Master K.H. there
says:
"So, casting
about, we found in America the man to stand as leader-a man of
great moral courage,
unselfish, and having other good qualities. He was far from
being the best, but-he
was the best one available. . . . We sent her to America,
brought them
together-and the trial began. From the first both she and he were
given to understand
that the issue lay entirely with themselves."
In spite of
difficulties, caused by the clash of temperaments and policies, this
odd,
"divinely-constituted" partnership held firmly together until the
end.
Their relationship was
one of a loyal camaraderie, both being actuated by an
uncommon devotion to
the same cause.
As early as May, 1875,
the Colonel had suggested the formation of a "Miracle
Club," to
continue spiritistic investigation. His proposal was made in the
interest of psychic
research. It was not taken up. But Madame Blavatsky's
sprightly evening chatter
and her reported magical feats continued to draw
groups of intelligent
people to her rooms. Among those thus attracted was Mr.
George H. Felt, who
had made some careful studies in phases of Egyptology. He
was asked to lecture
on these subjects and on the 7th of September, 1875, a
score of people had
gathered in H.P.B.'s parlors to hear his address on "The
Lost Canon of
Proportion of the Egyptians." Dr. Seth Pancoast, a most erudite
Kabbalist was present,
and after the lecture he led the discussion to the
subject of the occult
powers of the ancient magicians. Mr. Felt said he had
proven those powers
and had with them evoked elemental creatures and "hundreds
of shadowy
forms." As the tense debate proceeded, acting on an impulse, Col.
Olcott wrote on a
scrap of paper, which he passed over to Madame Blavatsky
through the hands of
Mr. W. Q. Judge, the following: "Would it not be a good
thing to form a
Society for this kind of study?" She read it and indicated
assent..59
Col. Olcott arose and
"after briefly sketching the present condition of the
Spiritualistic
movement; the attitude of its antagonists, the Materialists; the
irrepressible conflict
between science and the religious sectaries; the
philosophical
character of the ancient theosophies and their sufficiency to
reconcile all existing
antagonisms; . . . he proposed to form a nucleus around
which might gather all
the enlightened and brave souls who are willing to work
together for the
collection and diffusion of knowledge. His plan was to organize
a Society of
Occultists and begin at once to collect a library; and to diffuse
information concerning
those secret laws of Nature which were so familiar to the
Chaldeans and
Egyptians, but are totally unknown to our modern world of
science."21
It was a plain
proposal to organize for occult research, for the extension of
human knowledge of the
esoteric sciences, and for a study of the psychic
possibilities in man's
nature. No religious or ethical or even philosophical
interest can be
detected in the first aims. The Brotherhood plank was a later
development, and the
philosophy was an outgrowth of the necessity of
rationalizing the
scientific data brought to light. The very nature of the
movement committed it,
of course, to an anti-materialistic view. Col. Olcott was
still predominantly
concerned to get demonstrative psychic displays. He was made
Chairman, and Mr.
Judge, Secretary.
It is interesting to
note the personnel of this first gathering of Theosophists.
"The company
included several persons of great learning and some of wide
personal influence.
The Managing Editors of two religious papers; the co-editors
of two literary
magazines; an Oxford LL.D.; a venerable Jewish scholar and
traveler of repute; an
editorial writer of one of the New York morning dailies;
the President of the
New York Society of Spiritualists; Mr. C. C. Massey an
English barrister at
law; Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten and Dr. Britten; two New
York lawyers besides
Col. Olcott; a partner in a Philadelphia publishing house;
a well-known
physician; and . . . Madame Blavatsky herself."22
At a late hour the
meeting adjourned until the following evening, when
organization could be
more fully effected. Those who were present at the Sept.
8th meeting, and who
thus became the actual formers (Col. Olcott insists on the
word instead of
Founders, reserving that title to Madame Blavatsky and himself)
of the Theosophical
Society, were: Col. Olcott, H. P. Blavatsky, Chas. Sotheran,
Dr. Chas. E. Simmons,
H. D. Monachesi, C. C. Massey, of London, W. L. Alden, G.
H. Felt, D. E. deLara,
Dr. W. Britten, Mrs. E. H. Britten, Henry J. Newton, John
Storer Cobb, J.
Hyslop. W. Q. Judge, H. M. Stevens. A By-Law Committee was
named, other routine
business attended to, a general discussion held and
adjournment taken to
Sept. 13th. Mr. Felt gave another lecture on Sept. 18th,
after which several
additional members were nominated, the name, "The
Theosophical
Society," proposed, and a committee on rooms chosen. Several
October meetings were
held in furtherance of the Society; and on the 17th of
November, 1875, the
movement reached the final stage of constitutional
organization. Its
President was Col. Henry Olcott; Vice-Presidents, Dr. Seth
Pancoast and G. H.
Felt; Corresponding Secretary, Madame H. P. Blavatsky;
Recording Secretary,
John S. Cobb; Treasurer, Henry J. Newton; Librarian, Chas.
Sotheran; Councillors,
Rev. H. Wiggin, R. P. Westbrook, LL. D., Mrs. E. H.
Britten, C. E.
Simmons, and Herbert D. Monachesi; Counsel to the Society, W. Q.
Judge. Mr. John W.
Lovell, the New York publisher, has the distinction of having
paid the first five
dollars (initiation fee) into the treasury, and is at the
present writing the
only surviving member of the founding group. At the November
17th meeting the
President delivered his inaugural address. It was an
amplification of his
remarks made at the meeting of Sept. 7th, with some.60
prognostications of
what the work of the Society was destined to mean in the
changing conceptions
of modern thought.
The infant Society did
not at once proceed to grow and expand. The chief reason
for this was that Mr.
Felt, whose theories had been the immediate object of
strongest interest,
and who was expected to be the leader and teacher in their
quest of the secrets
of ancient magic, for some unaccountable reason failed them
utterly. His promised
lectures were never scheduled, his demonstrations of
spirit-evocation never
shown. This disappointment weighed heavily upon some of
the members. Mrs.
Britten, Mr. Newton, and the other Spiritualists in the group,
finding that Madame
Blavatsky was not disposed to investigate mediums in the
conventional fashion,
or in any way to make the Society an adjunct of the
Spiritualistic
movement, suffered another disappointment and became inactive or
openly withdrew. Mr.
Judge and Col. Olcott were busy with their professional
labors, and Madame
Blavatsky had plunged into the writing of Isis Unveiled. The
Society fell into the
state of "innocuous desuetude," and was domiciled solely
in the hearts of three
persons, Olcott, Judge, and Madame Blavatsky. However
dead it might be to
all outward appearance, it still lived in the deep
convictions of this
trio. True, an occasional new recruit was admitted, two
names in particular
being worthy of remark. On April 5th, 1878, Col. Olcott
received the signed
application for membership from a young inventor, one Thomas
Alva Edison, and near
the same time General Abner W. Doubleday, veteran Major-General
in the Union Army,
united with the Society. Edison had been attracted by
the objects of the
Society, largely because of certain experiences he had had in
connection with the
genesis of some of his ideas for inventions. They had seemed
to come to him from an
inner intelligence independent of his voluntary thought
control. Also he had
experimented to determine the possibility of moving
physical objects by
exertion of the will. He was doubtless in close sympathy
with the purposes of
the Society, but the main currents of his mechanical
interests drew him
away from active coφperation with it. As for Major-General
Doubleday, Theosophy
gave articulate voice to theories as to life, death, and
human destiny which he
had long cherished without a formal label. He stated that
it was the Theosophic
idea of Karma which had maintained his courage throughout
the ordeals of the
Civil War and he testified that his understanding of this
doctrine nerved him to
pass with entire fearlessness through those crises in
which he was exposed
to fire.23 When Theosophy was brought to his notice he cast
in his lot with the
movement and was a devoted student and worker while he
lived. When the two
Founders left America at the end of 1878 for India, Col.
Olcott constituted
General Doubleday the President of the American body.24
Concerning Mr. W. Q.
Judge, there is only to be said that he was a young
barrister at the time,
practicing in New York and making his home in Brooklyn,
where until about 1928
a brother, John Judge, survived him. He was a man of
upright character and
had always manifested a quick interest in such matters as
Theosophy brought to
his attention. It is reported among Theosophists that
Madame Blavatsky
immediately saw in him a pupil upon whose entire sympathy with
her own deeper aims
and understanding of her esoteric situation she could rely
implicitly. He is
believed always to have stood closer to her in a spiritual
sense than Col.
Olcott; in fact it is hinted that there was a secret
understanding between
them as to the inner motivations behind the Society. Later
developments in the
history of the movement seem to give weight to this theory.
Mr. Judge and General
Doubleday were the captains of the frail Theosophic craft
in America during
something like four years, from 1878 to 1882, following the
sailing of the two
Founders for India. If little activity was displayed by the
Society during this
period, it was not in any measure the fault of those left in
charge. They were not
lacking in zeal for the cause. It is to be attributed.61
chiefly to a state of
suspended animation in which it was left by the departure
of the official heads.
This condition itself was brought about by the long
protracted delay in
carrying out a measure which in 1878 Col. Olcott had
designed to adopt for
the future expansion of the Society. Madame Blavatsky's
work in Isis had
disclosed the fact that there was an almost complete sympathy
of aims in certain
respects between the new Society and the Masonic Fraternity;
that the latter had
been the recipient and custodian down the ages of much of
the ancient esoteric
tradition which it was the purpose of Theosophy to revive.
The idea of converting
the Theosophical Society into a Masonic body with ritual
and degrees had been
under contemplation for some time, and overtures toward
that end had been made
to persons in the Masonic order. In fact the plan had
been so favorably
regarded that on his departure Col. Olcott left Mr. Judge and
General Doubleday
under instructions to hold all other activities in abeyance
until he should
prepare a form of ritual that would properly express the
Society's spiritual
motif and aims. It happened, however, that on reaching India
both his and his
colleague's time was so occupied with other work and other
interests that for
three years they never could give attention to the matter of
the ritual. By that
time they found the Society beginning to grow so rapidly
without the support
they had intended for it in the union with an old and
respected secret
order, that the project was abandoned. But it was this
tentative plan that
was responsible for the apparent lifelessness of the
American organization
during those years. A number of times the two American
leaders telegraphed
Olcott in India to hasten the ritual and hinted that its
non-appearance forced
them to keep the Society here embalmed in an aggravated
condition of status
quo. When the scheme was definitely abandoned,
straightforward
Theosophic propaganda was initiated and a period of healthy
expansion began.
It is of interest in
this connection to note that on March 8, 1876, on Madame
Blavatsky's own
motion, it was "resolved, that the Society adopt one or more
signs of recognition,
to be used among the Fellows of the Society or for
admissions to the
meetings." This might indicate her steady allegiance to the
principle of
esotericism. The practice fell into disuse after a time. Yet it was
this idea of secrecy
always lurking in the background of her mind that
eventually led to the
formation of a graded hierarchy in the Theosophical
Society when the
Esoteric School was formally organized.
Another development
that Col. Olcott says "I should prefer to omit altogether if
I could" from the
early history of the Society was the affiliation of the
organization with a
movement then being inaugurated in India toward the
resuscitation of pure
Vedic religion. This proceeded further than the
contemplated union
with Masonry, and it led to the necessity of a more succinct
pronouncement of their
creed by Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky.
Naturally Madame
Blavatsky's accounts of the existence of the great secret
Brotherhood of Adepts
in North India and her glorification of "Aryavarta" as the
home of the purest
occult knowledge, had served to engender a sort of nostalgia
in the hearts of the
two Founders for "Mother India." It seemed quite plausible
that, once the aims of
the Theosophical Society were broadcast in Hindustan, its
friendly attitude
toward the ancient religions of that country would act as an
open sesame to a quick
response on the part of thousands of native Hindus. It
was not illogical to
believe that the young Theosophical Society would advance
shortly to a position
of great influence among the Orientals, whose psychology,
ideals, and religious
conceptions it had undertaken to exalt, particularly in
the eyes of the
Western nations. India thus came to be looked upon as the land
of promise, and the
"return home," as Madame Blavatsky termed it, became more
and more a consummation
devoutly to be wished. With Isis completed and published.62
the call to India rang
ever louder, and finally in November, 1878, came the
Master's orders to
make ready. It was not until the 18th of December that the
ship bearing the two
pilgrims passed out of the Narrows.
There had seemed to be
no way opened for them to make an effective start in
India, no appropriate
channel of introduction to their work there, until 1878.
Then Col. Olcott
chanced to learn of a movement recently launched in India,
whose aims and ideals,
he was given to believe, were identical with those of his
own Society. It was
the Arya Samaj, founded by one Swami Dhyanand, who was
reputed to be a member
of the same occult Brotherhood as that to which their own
Masters, K.H. and M.,
belonged. This latter allegation was enough to win the
immediate interest of
the two devotees in its mission, and through
intermediaries Col.
Olcott was put in touch with the Swami, to whom he made
overtures to join
forces. The Arya Samaj was represented to the Colonel as
world-wide in its
eclecticism, devoted to a revival of the ancient purity of
Vedantism and pledged
to a conception of God as an eternal impersonal principle
which, under whatever
name, all people alike worshipped. An official linking of
the two bodies was
formally made in May, 1878, and the title of the Theosophical
Society was amended to
"The Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj." But before
long the Colonel
received a translation of the rules and doctrines of the Arya
Samaj, which gave him
a great shock. Swami Dhyanand's views had either radically
changed or had
originally been misrepresented. His cult was found to be
drastically
sectarian-merely a new sect of Hinduism-and quite narrow in certain
lines. Even then the
Colonel endeavored to bridge the gap, drawing up a new
definition of the aims
of his Society in such an open fashion that the way was
left clear for any
Theosophists to associate with the Samaj if they should so
desire. It was not
until several years after the arrival in India that final
disruption of all
connection between the two Societies was made, the Founders
having received what
Col. Olcott calls "much evil treatment" from the learned
Swami.
When the first
discovery of the real character of the Arya Samaj was made in
1878, it was deemed
necessary to issue a circular defining the Theosophical
Society in more
explicit terms than had yet been done. Olcott does not quote
from this circular of
his own, but gives the language of the circular issued by
the British
Theosophical Society, then just organized, as embodying the
essentials of his own
statement. This enables us to discern how far the
originally vague
Theosophical ideals had come on their way to explicit
enunciation.
1. The British
Theosophical Society is founded for the purpose of discovering
the nature and powers
of the human soul and spirit by investigation and
experiment.
2. The object of the
Society is to increase the amount of human health,
goodness, knowledge, wisdom,
and happiness.
3. The Fellows pledge
themselves to endeavor, to the best of their powers, to
live a life of
temperance, purity, and brotherly love. They believe in a Great
First Intelligent
Cause, and in the Divine Sonship of the spirit of man, and
hence in the
immortality of that spirit, and in the universal brotherhood of the
human race.
4. The Society is in
connection and sympathy with the Arya Samaj of Aryavarta,
one object of which
Society is to elevate, by a true spiritual education,
mankind out of
degenerate, idolatrous and impure forms of worship wherever
prevalent.25.63
In his own circular,
Olcott, with the concurrence of H.P.B., made the first
official statement of
the threefold hierarchical constitution of the
Theosophical Society.
This grouping naturally arose out of the basic facts in
the situation itself.
There were, first, at the summit of the movement, the
Brothers or Adepts;
then there were persons, like H.P.B., Olcott himself and
Judge, with perhaps a
few others, who were classified in the category of
"chelas" or
accepted pupils of the Masters; then there were just plain members
of the Society, having
no personal link as yet with the great Teachers. A
knowledge of this
graduation is essential to an understanding of much in the
later history of the
Society.
In the same circular
the President said:
"The objects of
the Society are various. It influences its Fellows to acquire an
intimate knowledge of
natural law, especially its occult manifestations."
Then follow some
sentences penned by Madame Blavatsky:
"As the highest
development, physically and spiritually, on earth of the
creative cause, man
should aim to solve the mystery of his being. He is the
procreator of his
species, physically, and having inherited the nature of the
unknown but palpable
cause of his own creation, must possess in his inner
psychical self this
creative power in lesser degree. He should, therefore, study
to develop his latent
powers, and inform himself respecting the laws of
magnetism, electricity
and all other forms of force, whether of the seen or
unseen
universes."
The President
proceeds:
"The Society
teaches and expects its Fellows to personally exemplify the highest
morality and religious
aspirations; to oppose the materialism of science and
every form of dogmatic
theology . . .; to make known, among Western nations, the
long-suppressed facts
about Oriental religious philosophies, their ethics,
chronology,
esotericism, symbolism . . . ; to disseminate a knowledge of the
sublime teachings of
the pure esoteric system of the archaic period which are
mirrored in the oldest
Vedas and in the philosophy of Gautauma Buddha,
Zoroaster, and
Confucius; finally and chiefly, to aid in the institution of a
Brotherhood of
Humanity, wherein all good and pure men of every race shall
recognize each other
as the equal effects (upon this planet) of one Uncreate,
Universal, Infinite
and Everlasting Cause."26
He sums up the central
ideas as being:
1. The study of occult
science.
2. The formation of a
nucleus of universal brotherhood.
3. The revival of
Oriental literature and philosophy.
And these three became
later substantially the permanent platform of the
Society. In their
final and present form they stand:
1. To form a nucleus
of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without
distinction of race,
creed, sex, caste, or color.
2. To encourage the
study of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Science..64
3. To investigate the
unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.
The inclusion of a
moral program to accompany occult research and comparative
religion was seen to
be necessary. Madame Blavatsky's disapprobation of
Spiritualism had as
its prime motivation that movement's lack of any moral bases
for psychic progress.
Therefore the ethical implications which she saw as
fundamental in any
true occult system were embodied in the Theosophic platform
in the Universal
Brotherhood plank. Brotherhood, a somewhat vague general term,
was made the only
creedal or ethical requirement for fellowship in the Society.
At that it is, as a
moral obligation, a matter of the individual's own
interpretation, and it
is the Society's only link with the ethical side of
religion. Not even the
member's clear violation of accepted or prevalent social
codes can disqualify
him from good standing. The Society refuses to be a judge
of what constitutes
morality or its breach, leaving that determination to the
member himself. At the
same time through its literature it declares that no
progress into genuine
spirituality is possible "without clean hands and a pure
heart." It
adheres to the principle that morality without freedom is not
morality. Thus the
movement which began with an impulse to investigate the
occult powers of
ancient magicians, was moulded by circumstances into a moral
discipline, which
placed little store in magic feats..65
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CHAPTER V
ISIS UNVEILED
One morning in the
summer of 1875 Madame Blavatsky showed her colleague some
sheets of manuscript
which she had written. She explained: "I wrote this last
night 'by order,' but
what the deuce it is to be I don't know. Perhaps it is for
a newspaper article,
perhaps for a book, perhaps for nothing: anyhow I did as I
was ordered."
She put it away in a
drawer and nothing more was said about it for some months.
In September of that
year she went to Syracuse on a visit to Prof. and Mrs.
Hiram Corson, of
Cornell University, and while there she began to expand the few
original pages. She
wrote back to Olcott in New York that "she was writing about
things she had never
studied and making quotations from books she had never read
in all her life; that,
to test her accuracy Prof. Corson had compared her
quotations with
classical works in the University Library and had found her to
be right."1
She had never
undertaken any extensive literary production in her life and her
unfamiliarity with
English at this time was a real handicap. When she returned
to the city Olcott
took two suites of rooms at 433 West 34th Street, and there
she set to work to
expound the rudiments of her great science. From 1875 to 1877
she worked with
unremitting energy, sitting from morning until night at her
desk. In the evenings,
after his day's professional labors, Olcott came to her
help, aiding her with
the English and with the systematic arrangement of the
heterogeneous mass of
material that poured forth. Later Dr. Alexander Wilder,
the Neo-Platonic
scholar, helped her with the spelling of the hundreds of
classical philological
terms she employed. But Madame Blavatsky wrote the book,
Isis Unveiled.
After the first flush
of its popularity it has been forgotten, outside of
Theosophic circles.
Even among Theosophists, or at any rate in the largest
organic group of the
Theosophical Society, the book is hardly better known than
in the world at large.
During the last twenty-five years there has been a
tendency in the
Society to read expositions of Madame Blavatsky's ponderous
volumes rather than
the original presentation; neophytes in the organization
have been urged to
pass up these books as being too recondite and abstruse. It
has even been hinted
that many things are better understood now than when the
Founder wrote, and
that certain crudities of dogma and inadequacies of
presentation can be
avoided by perusing the commentary literature. As a result
of this policy the
percentage of Theosophic students who know exactly what
Madame Blavatsky wrote
over fifty years ago is quite small. Thousands of members
of the Theosophical
Society have grown old in the cult's activities and have
never read the volumes
that launched the cult ideas..66
Isis must not,
however, be regarded as a text-book on Theosophy. The Secret
Doctrine, issued ten
years later, has a better claim to that title. Isis makes
no formulation,
certainly not a systematic one, of the creed of occultism. It is
far from being an
elucidation or exegesis of the basic principles of what is now
known as Theosophy.
Isis makes no attempt to organize the whole field of human
and divine knowledge,
as does The Secret Doctrine. It merely points to the
evidence for the
existence of that knowledge, and only dimly suggests the
outlines of the cosmic
scheme in which it must be made to fit. It is in a sense
a panoramic survey of
the world literature out of which she essayed in part to
draw the system of
Theosophy. If Theosophy is to be found in Isis, it is there
in seminal form, not
in organic expression. Perhaps it were better to say that
the book prepared the
soil for the planting of Madame Blavatsky's later
teaching. Her
impelling thought was to reveal the traces, in ancient and
medieval history and
literature, of a secret science whose principles had been
lost to view. She
aimed to show that the most vital science mankind had ever
controlled had sunk
further below general recognition now than in any former
times. She would
relight the lamp of that archaic wisdom, which would illuminate
the darkness of modern
scientific pride.
Her work, then, was to
make a restatement of the occult doctrine with its
ancient attestations.
This was a gigantic task. It meant little short of a
thorough search in the
entire field of ancient religion, philosophy, and
science, with an eye
to the discernment of the mystery tradition, teachings, and
practices wherever
manifested; and then the collation, correlation, and
systematic
presentation of this multifarious material in something like a
structural unity. The
many legends of mystic power, the hundreds of myths and
fables, were to be
traced to ancient rites, whose far-off symbolism threw light
on their significance.
It would be not merely an encyclopedia of the whole
mythical life of the
race, but a digest and codification, so to speak, of the
entire mass into a
system breathing intelligible meaning and common sense. Her
task, in a word, was
to redeem the whole ancient world from the modern stigma of
superstition, crude
ignorance, and childish imagination.
In view of the
immensity of her undertaking we are forced to wonder whence came
the self-assurance
that led her to believe she could successfully achieve it.
She was sadly
deficient in formal education; her opportunities for scholarship
and research had been
limited; her command of the English language was
imperfect. Yet her
actual accomplishment pointed to her possession of capital
and resources the
existence of which has furnished the ground for much of the
mystery now
enshrouding her life. There seems to be an obvious discrepancy
between her
qualifications and her product, to account for which diverse
theories have been
adduced.
Just how, when and
where Madame Blavatsky gained her acquaintance with
practically the entire
field of ancient religions, philosophies, and science, is
a query which probably
can never be satisfactorily answered. The history of many
portions of her life
before 1873 is unrecorded. We do not know when or where she
studied ancient
literature. Books from which she quoted were not within her
reach when she wrote
Isis. Can her knowledge be attributed to a phenomenal
memory? Olcott does
say:
"She constantly
drew upon a memory stored with a wealth of recollections of
personal perils and
adventures and of knowledge of occult science, not merely
unparalleled, but not
even approached by any other person who had ever appeared
in America, so far as
I have heard."2.67
Throughout the two
volumes of Isis there are frequent allusions to or actual
passages from ancient
writings, a list of which includes the following: The
Codex Nazareus; the
Zohar, the great Kabbalistic work of the Jews; Chaldean3
Oracles; Chaldean Book
of Numbers; Psellus' Works; Zoroastrian Oracles; Magical
and Philosophical
Precepts of Zoroaster; Egyptian Book of the Dead; Books of
Hermes; Quichι
Cosmogony; Book of Jasher; Kabala of the Tanaim; Sepher Jezira;
Book of Wisdom of
Schlomah (Solomon); Secret Treatise on Mukta and Badha; The
Stangyour of the
Tibetans; Desatir (pseudo-Persian4); Orphic Hymns; Sepher
Toldos Jeshu (Hebrew
MSS. of great antiquity); Laws of Manu; Book of Keys
(Hermetic Work);
Gospel of Nicodemus; The Shepherd of Hermas; (Spurious) Gospel
of the Infancy; Gospel
of St. Thomas; Book of Enoch; The History of Baarlam and
Josaphat; Book of
Evocations(of the Pagodas); Golden Verses of Pythagoras;
various Kabbalas;
Tarot of the Bohemians.
In the realm of more
widely-known literature, she uses material from Plato and
to a minor extent,
Aristotle; quotes the early Greek philosophers, Thales,
Heraclitus,
Parmenides, Empedocles, Democritus; is conversant with the Neo-Platonist
representatives,
Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and
Proclus; shows
familiarity with Plutarch, Philo, Apollonius of Tyana, the
Gnostics, Basilides,
Bardesanes, Marcion, and Valentinus. She had examined the
Church Fathers, from
Augustine to Justin Martyr, and was especially familiar
with Irenaeus,
Tertullian and Eusebius, whom she charged with having wrecked the
true ancient wisdom.
Beside this array she draws on the enormous Vedic,
Brahmanic, Vedantic,
and Buddhistic literatures; likewise the Chinese, Persian,
Babylonian,
"Chaldean," Syrian, and Egyptian. Nor does she neglect the ancient
American
contributions, such as the Popul Vuh. Her acquaintance also with the
vast literature of
occult magic and philosophy of the Middle Ages seems hardly
less inclusive. She
levies upon Averroλs, Maimonides, Paracelsus, Van Helmont,
Robert Fludd, Eugenius
Philalethes, Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Roger
Bacon, Bruno, Pletho,
Mirandolo, Henry More and many a lesser-known expounder of
mysticism and magic
art. She quotes incessantly from scores of compendious
modern works.
Because of this show
of prodigious learning some students later alleged that
Isis was not the work
of Madame Blavatsky, but of Dr. Alexander Wilder; others
declared that Col.
Olcott had written it.5
There are three main
sources of testimony bearing on the composition of the
books: (1) Statements
of her immediate associates and co-workers in the writing;
(2) Her own version;
(3) The evidence of critics who have traced the sources of
her materials.
First, there is the
testimony of her colleague, Olcott, who for two years
collaborated almost
daily with her in the work. He says:
"Whence, then,
did H.P.B. draw the materials which comprise Isis and which
cannot be traced to
accessible literary sources of quotation? From the Astral
Light, and by her
soul-senses, from her Teachers-the 'Brothers,' 'Adepts,'
'Sages,' 'Masters,' as
they have been variously called. How do I know it? By
working two years with
her on Isis and many more years on other literary work."6
He goes on:
"To watch her at
work was a rare and never-to-be-forgotten experience. We sat at
opposite sides of one
big table usually, and I could see her every movement. Her
pen would be flying
over the page; when she would suddenly stop, look out into
space with the vacant
eye of the clairvoyant seer, shorten her vision as though.68
to look at something
held invisibly in the air before her, and begin copying on
the paper what she
saw. The quotation finished, her eyes would resume their
natural expression,
and she would go on writing until again stopped by a similar
interruption."7
Still more remarkable
is the following:
"Most perfect of
all were the manuscripts which were written for her while she
was sleeping. The
beginning of the
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
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CHAPTER on the civilization of ancient Egypt
(Vol. I.,
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
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CHAPTER XIV) is an illustration. We had stopped work the evening
before at about 2 A.M.
as usual, both too tired to stop for our usual smoke and
chat before parting;
she almost fell asleep in her chair, while I was bidding
her goodnight; so I
hurried off to my bed room. The next morning, when I came
down after my
breakfast, she showed me a pile of at least thirty or forty pages
of beautifully written
H.P.B. manuscript, which, she said, she had had written
for her by-------, a
Master . . . It was perfect in every respect and went to
the printers without
revision."8
It is the theory of
Olcott that the mind of H.P.B. was receptive to the
impressions of three
or four intelligent entities-other persons living or dead-who
overshadowed her
mentally, and wrote through her brain. These personages
seemed to cast their
sentences upon an imperceptible screen in her mind. They
sometimes talked to
Olcott as themselves, not as Madame Blavatsky. Their
intermittent tenancy of
her mind he takes as accounting for the higgledy-piggledy
manner in which the
book was constructed. Each had his favorite themes
and the Colonel
learned what kind of material to expect when one gave place to
another. There was in
particular, in addition to several of the Oriental
"Sages," a
collaborator in the person of an old Platonist-"the pure soul of one
of the wisest
philosophers of modern times, one who was an ornament to our race,
a glory to his
country." He was so engrossed in his favorite earthly pursuits of
philosophy that he
projected his mind into the work of Madame Blavatsky and gave
her abundant aid.
"He did not
materialize and sit with us, nor obsess H.P.B. medium-fashion, he
would simply talk with
her-psychically, by the hour together, dictating copy,
telling her what
references to hunt up; answering my questions about details,
instructing me as to
principles; and, in fact, playing the part of a third
person in our literary
symposium. He gave me his portrait once-a rough sketch in
colored crayons on
flimsy paper . . . from first to last his relation to us both
was that of a mild,
kind, extremely learned teacher and elder friend."9
The medieval occultist
Paracelsus manifested his presence for a brief time one
evening.10 At another
time Madame produced two volumes necessary to verify
questions which Olcott
doubted.
"I went and found
the two volumes wanted, which, to my knowledge, had not been
in the house until
that very moment. I compared the texts with H.P.B.'s
quotation, showed her
that I was right in my suspicions as to the error, made
the proof correction,
and then . . . returned the two volumes to the place on
the ιtagθre from which
I had taken them. I resumed my seat and work, and when,
after while, I looked
again in that direction, the books had disappeared."11
As Olcott states, when
one or another of these unseen monitors was in evidence,
the work went on in
fine fashion. But, he notes, when Madame was left entirely
to her own devices,
she floundered in more or less helpless ineptitude. She
would write haltingly,
scratch it over, make a fresh start, work herself into a
fret and get nowhere..69
Olcott's testimony, as
that of Dr. Wilder, Mr. Judge, Dr. Corson, the Countess
Wachtmeister, the two
Keightleys, Mr. Fawcett and all the others who at one time
or another were in a
position to observe Madame Blavatsky at work, must be
accepted as sincere.
But if anybody could be supposed to know unmistakably what
was happening in her
mind, that person would be the subject herself. What has
she to say? She states
decisively that she was not the author, only the writer
of her books. In one
of her home letters she says, speaking of Isis:
"since neither
ideas nor teachings are mine."
In another letter to
Madame Jelihowsky she writes:
"Well, Vera,
whether you believe me or not, something miraculous is happening to
me. You cannot imagine
in what a charmed world of pictures and vision I live. I
am writing Isis; not
writing, rather copying out and drawing that which She
personally shows to
me. Upon my word, sometimes it seems to me that the ancient
goddess of Beauty in
person leads me through all the countries of past centuries
which I have to
describe. I sit with my eyes open and to all appearances see and
hear everything real
and actual around me, and yet at the same time I see and
hear that which I
write. I feel short of breath; I am afraid to make the
slightest movement for
fear the spell might be broken. Slowly century after
century, image after
image, float out of the distance and pass before me as if
in a magic panorama;
and meanwhile I put them together in my mind, fitting in
epochs and dates, and
know for sure that there can be no mistake. Races and
nations, countries and
cities, which have long disappeared in the darkness of
the prehistoric past,
emerge and then vanish, giving place to others; and then I
am told the
consecutive dates. Hoary antiquity makes way for historical periods;
myths are explained to
me with events and people who have really existed, and
every event which is
at all remarkable, every newly-turned page of this many-colored
book of life,
impresses itself on my brain with photographic exactitude.
My own reckonings and
calculations appear to me later on as separate colored
pieces of different
shapes in the game which is called casse-tκte (puzzles). I
gather them together
and try to match them one after the other, and at the end
there always comes out
a geometrical whole. . . . Most assuredly it is not I who
do it all, but my Ego,
the highest principle that lives in me. And even this
with the help of my
Guru and teacher who helps me in everything. If I happen to
forget something I
have just to address him, and another of the same kind in my
thought as what I have
forgotten rises once more before my eyes-sometimes whole
tables of numbers
passing before me, long inventories of events. They remember
everything. They know
everything. Without them, from whence could I gather my
knowledge? I certainly
refuse point blank to attribute it to my own knowledge or
memory, for I could
never arrive alone at either such premises or conclusions. I
tell you seriously I
am helped. And he who helps me is my Guru."12
In another letter to
the same sister Helena assures her relative about her
mental condition:
"Do not be afraid
that I am off my head; all I can say is that someone
positively inspires
me. . . . More than this; someone enters me. It is not I who
talk and write; it is
something within me; my higher and luminous Self; that
thinks and writes for
me. Do not ask me, my friend, what I experience, because I
could not explain it
to you clearly. I do not know myself! The one thing I know
is that now, when I am
about to reach old age, I have become a sort of
storehouse of somebody
else's knowledge. . . . Someone comes and envelops me as
a misty cloud and all
at once pushes me out of myself, and then I am not 'I' any
more-Helena P.
Blavatsky-but somebody else. Someone strong and powerful, born in.70
a totally different
region of the world; and as to myself it is almost as if I
were asleep, or lying
by not quite conscious-not in my own body, but close by,
held only by a thread
which ties me to it. However at times I see and hear
everything quite
clearly; I am perfectly conscious of what my body is saying and
doing-or at least its
new possessor. I can understand and remember it all so
well that afterwards I
can repeat it, and even write down his words. . . . At
such a time I see awe
and fear on the faces of Olcott and others, and follow
with interest the way
in which he half-pityingly regards them out of my own
eyes, and teaches them
with my physical tongue. Yet not with my mind, but his
own, which enwraps my
brain like a cloud. . . . Ah, but I really cannot explain
everything!"13
Again writing to her
relatives, she states:
"When I wrote
Isis I wrote it so easily that it was certainly no labor but a
real pleasure. Why
should I be praised for it? Whenever I am told to write I sit
down and obey, and
then I can write easily upon almost anything-metaphysics,
psychology,
philosophy, ancient religions, zoφlogy, natural sciences or what
not. I never put
myself the question: 'Can I write on this subject?' . . .or,
'Am I equal to the
task?' but I simply sit down and write. Why? Because someone
who knows all dictates
to me. My Master and occasionally others whom I knew on
my travels years ago.
. . . I tell you candidly, that whenever I write upon a
subject I know little
or nothing of, I address myself to them, and one of them
inspires me, i.e., he
allows me to simply copy what I write from manuscripts,
and even printed
matter, that pass before my eyes, in the air, during which
process I have never
been unconscious one single instant."14
To her aunt she wrote:
"At such times it
is no more I who write, but my inner Ego, my 'luminous Self,'
who thinks and writes
for me. Only see . . . you who know me. When was I ever so
learned as to write
such things? Whence was all this knowledge?"
Whatever the actual
authorship of the two volumes may have been, their
publication stirred
such wide-spread interest that the first editions were swept
up at once, and
Bouton, the publisher, was taken off guard, there being some
delay before
succeeding editions of the bulky tomes could be issued.
Professional reviewers
were not so generous; but the press critics were frankly
intrigued into
something like praise.15
Years after the
publication of Isis, Mr. Emmette Coleman, a former Theosophist
and contributor to
current magazines, stated that he spent three years upon a
critical and
exhaustive examination of the sources used by Madame Blavatsky in
her various works. He
attempted to discredit the whole Theosophic movement by
casting doubt upon the
genuineness of her knowledge. He accused her of outright
plagiarism and went to
great pains to collect and present his evidence. In 1893
he published his data.
We quote the following passage from his statement:
"In Isis
Unveiled, published in 1877, I discovered some 2,000 passages copied
from other books
without proper credit. By careful analysis I found that in
compiling Isis about
100 books were used. About 1,400 books are quoted from and
referred to in this
work; but, from the 100 books which its author possessed,
she copied everything
in Isis taken from and relating to the other 1,300. There
are in Isis about
2,100 quotations from and references to books that were
copied, at
second-hand, from books other than the originals; and of this number
only about 140 are
credited to the books from which Madame Blavatsky copied them
at second-hand. The
others are quoted in such a manner as to lead the reader to.71
think that Madame
Blavatsky had read and utilized the original works, and had
quoted from them at
first-hand,--the truth being that these originals had
evidently never been
read by Madame Blavatsky. By this means many readers of
Isis . . . have been
misled into thinking Madame Blavatsky an enormous reader,
possessed of vast
erudition; while the fact is her reading was very limited, and
her ignorance was
profound in all branches of knowledge."16
Coleman went on to
assert that "not a line of the quotations" made by H.P.B.
ostensibly from the
Kabala, from the old-time mystics at the time of Paracelsus,
from the classical
authors, Homer, Livy, Ovid, Virgil, Pliny, and others, from
the Church Fathers,
from the Neo-Platonists, was taken from the originals, but
all from second-hand
usage. He charged her with having picked all these passages
out of modern books
scattered throughout which she found the material from a
wide range of ancient
authorship. The reader of Isis will readily find her many
references to modern
authors. Coleman mentioned a half dozen standard works that
she used; it is well
worth while glancing at a fuller list. She had read, or was
more or less familiar
with: King's Gnostics; Jennings' Rosicrucians; Dunlop's
Sod, and Spirit
History of Man; Moor's Hindu Pantheon; Ennemoser's History of
Magic; Howitt's
History of the Supernatural; Salverte's Philosophy of Magic;
Barrett's Magus; Col.
H. Yule's The Book of Ser Marco Polo; Inman's Pagan and
Modern Christian
Symbolism and Ancient Faiths and Modern; the anonymous The
Unseen Universe and
Supernatural Religion; Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal
History; Lundy's
Monumental Christianity; Horst's Zauber-Bibliothek; Cardinal
Wiseman's Lectures on
Science and Religion; Draper's The Conflict of Science
with Religion; Dupuis'
Origin of All the Cults; Bailly's Ancient and Modern
Astronomy; Gibbon's
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Des Mousseaux's Roman
Catholic writings on
Magic, Mesmerism, Spiritualism; Eliphas Levi's works;
Jacolliot's
twenty-seven volumes on Oriental systems; Max Mόller's, Huxley's,
Tyndall's, and
Spencer's works.
It is hardly to be
doubted that Madame Blavatsky culled many of her ancient gems
from these works, and
she probably felt that it was a matter of minor importance
how she came by them.
What she was bent on saying was that the ancients had said
these things and that
they were confirmatory of her general theses. Yet
Coleman's findings
must not be disregarded. His work brought into clearer light
the meagreness of her
resources and her lack of scholarly preparation for so
pretentious a study.
We have adduced the
several hypotheses that have been advanced to account for
the writing of Isis
Unveiled. It must be left for the reader to arrive at what
conclusion he can on
the basis of the material presented. We pass on to an
examination of the
contents.
A hint as to the aim
of the work, is given in the sub-title: A Master-key to the
Mysteries of Ancient
and Modern Science and Theology. She says:
"The work now
submitted to the public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat
intimate acquaintance
with Eastern Adepts and study of their science. It is a
work on
magico-spiritual philosophy and occult science. It is an attempt to aid
the student to detect
the vital principles which underlie the philosophical
systems of
old."17
She affirms it to be
her aim "to show that the pretended authorities of the West
must go to the
Brahmans and Lamaists of the far Orient and respectfully ask them
to impart the alphabet
of true science."18.72
Isis, then, is a
glorification of the ancient Orientals. Their knowledge was so
profound that we are
incredulous when told about it. If we have "harnessed the
forces of Nature to do
our work," they had subjugated the world to their will.
They knew things we
have not yet dreamed of. She states:
"It is rather a
brief summary of the religions, philosophies and universal
traditions in the
spirit of those secret doctrines of which none,--thanks to
prejudice and
bigotry-have reached Christendom in so unmutilated a form as to
secure it a fair
judgment. Since the days of the unlucky Mediaeval philosophers,
the last to write upon
these secret doctrines of which they were the
depositaries, few men
have dared to brave persecution and prejudice by placing
their knowledge on
record. And these few have never, as a rule, written for the
public, but only for
those of their own and succeeding times who possessed the
key to their jargon. The
multitude, not understanding them or their doctrines,
have been accustomed
to regard them en masse as either charlatans or dreamers.
Hence the unmerited
contempt into which the study of the noblest of sciences-that
of the spiritual
man-has gradually fallen."19
She plans to restore
this lost and fairest of the sciences. Materialism is
menacing man's higher
spiritual unfoldment.
"To prevent the
crushing of these spiritual aspirations, the blighting of these
hopes, and the
deadening of that intuition which teaches us of a God and a
hereafter, we must
show our false theologies in their naked deformity and
distinguish between
divine religion and human dogmas. Our voice is raised for
spiritual freedom and
our plea made for the enfranchisement from all tyranny,
whether of Science or
Theology."20
She here sets forth
her attitude toward orthodox religionism as well as toward
materialistic science.
She intimates that since the days of the true esoteric
wisdom, mankind has
been thrown back and forth between the systems of an
unenlightening
theology and an equally erroneous science, both stultifying in
their influence on
spiritual aspiration, both blighting the delicate culture of
beauty and joyousness.
"It was while most
anxious to solve these perplexing problems [Who, where, what
is God? What is the
spirit in man?] that we came into contact with certain men,
endowed with such
mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may
truly designate them
as the Sages of the Orient. To their instruction we lent a
ready ear. They showed
us that by combining science with religion, the existence
of God and the
immortality of man's spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of
Euclid."
She adds:
"Such knowledge
is priceless; and it has been hidden only from those who
overlooked it, derided
it or denied its existence."21
The soul within
escapes their view, and the Divine Mother has no message for
them. To become
conversant with the powers of the soul we must develop the
higher faculties of
intuition and spiritual vision.22
She says that there
were colleges in the days of old for the teaching of
prophecy and occultism
in general. Samuel and Elisha were heads of such
academies, she
affirms. The study of magic or wisdom included every branch of
science, the
metaphysical as well as the physical, psychology and physiology, in
their common and
occult phases; and the study of alchemy was universal, for it.73
was both a physical
and a spiritual science. The ancients studied nature under
its double aspect and
the claim is that they discovered secrets which the modern
physicist, who studies
but the dead forms of things, can not unlock. There are
regions of nature
which will never yield their mysteries to the scientist armed
only with mechanical
apparatus. The ancients studied the outer forms of nature,
but in relation to the
inner life. Hence they saw more than we and were better
able to read meaning
in what they saw. They regarded everything in nature as the
materialization of
spirit. Thus they were able to find an adequate ground for
the harmonization of
science and religion. They saw spirit begetting force, and
force matter; spirit
and matter were but the two aspects of the one essence.
Matter is nothing
other than the crystallization of spirit on the outer
periphery of its
emanative range. The ancients worshipped, not nature, but the
power behind nature.
Madame Blavatsky
contrasts this fulness of the ancient wisdom with the
barrenness of modern
knowledge. She characterizes the eighteenth century as a
"barren
period," during which "the malignant fever of scepticism" has
spread
through the thought of
the age and transmitted "unbelief as an hereditary
disease on the
nineteenth." She challenges science to explain some of the
commonest phenomena of
nature; why, for instance, the moon affects insane
people, why the crises
of certain diseases correspond to lunar changes, why
certain flowers
alternately open and close their petals as clouds flit across
the face of the moon.
She says that science has not yet learned to look outside
this ball of dirt for
hidden influences which are affecting us day by day. The
ancients, she
declares, postulated reciprocal relations between the planetary
bodies as perfect as
those between the organs of the body and the corpuscles of
the blood. There is
not a plant or mineral which has disclosed the last of its
properties to the
scientist. She declares that theurgical magic is the last
expression of occult
psychological science; and denies the "Academicians" "the
right of expressing
their opinion on a subject which they have never
investigated."
"Their incompetence to determine the value of magic and
Spiritualism is as
demonstrable as that of the Fiji Islander to evaluate the
labors of Faraday or
Agassiz." There was no missing link in the ancient
knowledge, no hiatus
to be filled "with volumes of materialistic speculation
made necessary by the
absurd attempt to solve an equation with but one set of
quantities." She
runs on:
"Our 'ignorant'
ancestors traced the law of evolution throughout the whole
universe. As by
gradual progression from the star-cloudlet to the development of
the physical body of
man, the rule holds good, so from the universal ether to
the incarnate human
spirit, they traced one uninterrupted series of entities.
These evolutions were
from the world of spirit into the world of gross matter;
and through that back
again to the source of all things. The 'descent of
species' was to them a
descent from the spirit, primal source of all, to the
'degradation of
matter.' In this complete chain of unfoldings the elementary,
spiritual beings had
as distinct a place, midway between the extremes, as
Darwin's missing link
between the ape and man."23
Modern knowledge
posits only evolution; the old science held that evolution was
neither conceivable
nor understandable without a previous involution.
The existence of
myriads of orders of beings not human in a realm of nature to
which our senses do
not normally give us access, and of which science knows
nothing at all, is
posited in her arcane systems. She catches at Milton's lines
to bolster this
theory:
"Millions of
spiritual creatures walk this earth,.74
Unseen both when we
sleep and when we wake."
She says that if the
spiritual faculties of the soul are sharpened by intense
enthusiasm and
purified from earthly desire, man may learn to see some of these
denizens of the
illimitable air.
The physical world was
fashioned on the model of divine ideas, which, like the
unseen lines of force
radiated by the magnet, to throw the iron-filings into
determinate shape,
give form and nature to the physical manifestation. If man's
essential nature partakes
of this universal life, then it, too, must partake of
all the attributes of
the demiurgic power. As the Creator, breaking up the
chaotic mass of dead
inactive matter, shaped it into form, so man, if he knew
his powers, could to a
degree do the same.
To redeem the ancient
world from modern scorn Madame Blavatsky had to vindicate
magic-with all its
incubus of disrepute and ridicule-and lift its practitioners
to a lofty place in
the ranks of true science. She had to demonstrate that
genuine magic was a veritable
fact, an undeniable part of the history of man;
and not only true, but
the highest evidence of man's kinship with nature, the
topmost manifestation
of his power, the royal science among all sciences! To her
view the dearth of
magic in modern philosophies was at once the cause and the
effect of their
barrenness. If they are to be vitalized again, magic must be
revived. "That
magic is indeed possible is the moral of this book."24
And along with magic
she had to champion its aboriginal bed-fellows, astrology,
alchemy, healing,
mesmerism, trance subjection, and the whole brood of
"pseudo-science."
"It is an insult
to human nature to brand magic and the occult sciences with the
name of imposture. To
believe that for so many thousands of years one half of
mankind practiced
deception and fraud on the other half is equivalent to saying
that the human race is
composed only of knaves and incurable idiots. Where is
the country in which
magic was not practiced? At what age was it wholly
forgotten?"25
She explains magic as
based on a reciprocal sympathy between celestial and
terrestrial natures.
It is based on the mysterious affinities existing between
organic and inorganic
bodies, between the visible and the invisible powers of
the universe.
"That which science calls gravitation the ancient and the medieval
hermeticists called
magnetism, attraction, affinity." She continues:
"A thorough
familiarity with the occult faculties of everything existing in
Nature, visible as
well as invisible; their mutual relations, attractions and
repulsions; the cause
of these traced to the spiritual principle which pervades
and animates all
things; the ability to furnish the best conditions for this
principle to manifest
itself, in other words a profound and exhaustive knowledge
of natural law-this
was and is the basis of magic."26
Out of man's kinship
with nature, his identity of constitution with it, she
argues to his magical
powers:
"As God creates,
so man can create. Given a certain intensity of will, and the
shapes created by the
mind become subjective. Hallucinations they are called,
although to their
creator they are real as any visible object is to any one
else. Given a more
intense and intelligent concentration of this will, and the
forms become concrete,
visible, objective; the man has learned the secret of
secrets; he is a
Magician."27.75
She makes it clear
that this power is built on the conscious control of the
substrate of the
material universe. She states that the key to all magic is the
formula: "Every
insignificant atom is moved by spirit." Magic is thus
conditioned upon the
postulation of an omnipresent vital ether, electro-spiritual
in composition, to
which man has an affinity by virtue of his being
identical in essence
with it. Over it he can learn to exercise a voluntary
control by the
exploitation of his own psycho-dynamic faculties. If he can lay
his hand on the
elemental substance of the universe, if he can radiate from his
ganglionic batteries
currents of force equivalent to gamma rays, of course he
can step into the
cosmic scene with something of a magician's powers. That such
an ether exists she
states in a hundred places. She calls it the elementary
substance, the Astral
Light, the Alkahest, the Akasha. It is the universal
principle of all life,
the vehicle or battery of cosmic energy. She says Newton
knew of it and called
it "the soul of the world," the "divine sensorium." It is
the Book of Life; the
memory of God,--since it never gives up an impression.
Human memory is but a
looking into pictures on this ether. Clairvoyants and
psychometers but draw
upon its resources through synchronous vibrations.
"According to the
Kabalistic doctrine the future exits in the astral light in
embryo as the present
existed in embryo in the past . . . and our memories are
but the glimpses that
we catch of the reflections of this past in the currents
of the astral light,
as the psychometer catches them from the astral emanations
of the object held by
him."28
Madame Blavatsky goes
so far as to link the control of these properties with the
tiny pulsations of the
magnetic currents emanating from our brains, under the
impelling power of
will. Thus she attempts to unite magic with the most subtle
conceptions of our own
advanced physics and chemistry. She thus weds the most
arrant of
superstitions with the most respected of sciences.
The magnetic nature of
gravitation is set forth in more than one passage. She
wrote:
"The ethereal
spiritual fire, the soul and the spirit of the all-pervading
mysterious ether; the
despair and puzzle of the materialists, who will some day
find out that that
which causes the numberless forces to manifest themselves in
eternal correlation is
but a divine electricity, or rather galvanism, and that
the sun is one of the
myriad magnets disseminated through space. . . . There is
no gravitation in the
Newtonian sense, but only magnetic attraction and
repulsion; and it is
only by their magnetism that the planets of the solar
system have their motions
regulated in their respective orbits by the still more
powerful magnetism of
the sun; not by their weight or gravitation. . . . The
passage of light
through this (cosmic ether) must produce enormous friction.
Friction generates
electricity and it is this electricity and its correlative
magnetism which forms
those tremendous forces of nature. . . . It is not at all
to the sun that we are
indebted for light and heat; light is a creation sui
generis, which springs
into existence at the instant when the deity willed." She
"laughs at the
current theory of the incandescence of the sun and its gaseous
substance. . . . The
sun, planets, stars and nebulae are all magnets. . . .
There is but One
Magnet in the universe and from it proceeds the magnetization
of everything
existing."29
It is this same
universal ether and its inherent magnetic dynamism that sets the
field for astrology,
as a cosmic science. Of this she says that astrology is a
science as infallible
as astronomy itself, provided its interpreters are as
infallible as the
mathematicians. She carries the law of the instantaneous.76
interrelation of
everything in the cosmos to such an extent that, quoting
Eliphas Levi,
"even so small a thing as the birth of one child upon our
insignificant planet
has its effect upon the universe, as the whole universe has
its reflective
influence upon him." The bodies of the entire universe are bound
together by
attractions which hold them in equilibrium, and these magnetic
influences are the
bases of astrology.
With so much cosmic
power at his behest, man has done wonders; and we are asked
to accept the truth of
an amazing series of the most phenomenal occurrences ever
seriously given forth.
They range over so varied a field that any attempt at
classification is
impossible. Of physical phenomena she says that the ancients
could make marble
statues sweat, and even speak and leap! They had gold lamps
which burned in tombs
continuously for seven hundred to one thousand years
without refueling! One
hundred and seventy-three authorities are said to have
testified to the
existence of such lamps. Even "Aladdin's magical lamp has also
certain claims to
reality." There was an asbestos oil whose properties, when it
was rubbed on the
skin, made the body impervious to the action of fire.
Witnesses are quoted
as stating that they observed natives in Africa who
permitted themselves
to be fired at point blank with a revolver, having first
precipitated around
them an impervious layer of astral or akashic substance.
Cardinal de Rohan's testimony
is adduced to the effect that he had seen
Cagliostro make gold
and diamonds. The power of the evil eye is enlarged upon
and instances
recounted of persons hypnotizing, "charming," or even killing
birds and animals with
a look. She avers that she herself had seen Eastern
Adepts turn water into
blood. Observers are quoted who reported a rope-climbing
feat in China and
Batavia, in which the human climbers disappeared overhead,
their members fell in
portions on the ground, and shortly thereafter reunited to
form the original
living bodies! Stories are narrated of fakirs disemboweling
and re-embowling
themselves. She herself saw whirling dancers at Petrovsk in
1865, who cut
themselves in frenzy and evoked by the magical powers of blood the
spirits of the dead,
with whom they then danced. Twice she was nearly bitten by
poisonous snakes, but
was saved by a word of control from a Shaman or conjurer.
The close affinity
between man and nature is illustrated by the statement that
in one case a tree
died following the death of its human twin. Speaking of
magical trees, she
several times tells of the great tree Kumboum, of Tibet, over
whose leaves and bark
nature had imprinted ten thousand spiritual maxims. The
magical significance
of birthmarks is brought out, with remarkable instances.
She dwells at length
on the inability of medical men to tell definitely whether
the human body is dead
or not, and cites a dozen gruesome tales of reawakening
in the grave. This takes
her into vampirism, which she establishes on the basis
of numerous cases
taken mostly from Russian folklore. It is stated that the
Hindu pantheon claimed
330,000,000 types of spirits. Moses was familiar with
electricity; the
Egyptians had a high order of music and chess over five
thousand years ago;
and anaesthesia was known to the ancients. Perpetual motion,
the Elixer of Life,
the Fountain of Youth and the Philosopher's Stone are
declared to be real.
She adduces in every case a formidable show of testimony
other than her own.
And back of it all is her persistent assertion that purity
of life and thought is
a requisite for high magical performance.
"A man free from
worldly incentives and sensuality may cure in such a way the
most 'incurable'
diseases, and his vision may become clear and prophetic."30
"The magic power
is never possessed by those addicted to vicious indulgences."31
Phenomena come, she
feels, rather easily; spiritual life is harder won and
worthier..77
"With expectancy,
supplemented by faith, one can cure himself of almost any
morbific condition.
The tomb of a saint; a holy relic; a talisman; a bit of
paper or a garment
that has been handled by a supposed healer; a nostrum, a
penance; a ceremonial;
a laying on of hands; or a few words impressively
pronounced-will do. It
is a question of temperament, imagination, self-cure."32
"While phenomena
of a physical nature may have their value as a means of
arousing the interest
of materialists, and confirming, if not wholly, at least
inferentially, our
belief in the survival of our souls, it is questionable
whether, under their
present aspect, the modern phenomena are not doing more
harm than
good."33
Theosophists
themselves often quarrel with Isis because it seems to overstress
bizarre phenomena.
They should see that Volume I of the book aims to show the
traces of magic in
ancient science, in order to offset the Spiritualist claims
to new discoveries,
and to attract attention to the more philosophic ideas
underlying classic
magic. Volume II labors to reveal the presence of a vast
occultism behind the
religions and theologies of the world. Again the contention
is that the ancient
priests knew more than the modern expositor, that they kept
more concealed than
the present-day theologian has revealed. Modern theology has
lost its savor of
early truth and power, as modern technology no longer
possesses the
"lost arts." Paganism was to be vindicated as against
ecclesiastical
orthodoxies.
She believed that her
instruction under the Lamas or Adepts in Tibet had given
her this key, and that
therefore the whole vast territory of ancient religion
lay unfruitful for
modern understanding until she should come forward and put
the key to the lock.
The "key" makes her in a sense the exponent and depository
of "the essential
veracities of all the religions and philosophies that are or
ever were."
"Myth was the
favorite and universal method of teaching in archaic times."34
We can not be
oblivious of the use made by Plato of myths in his theoretical
constructions.
"Fairy tales do
not exclusively belong to nurseries; all mankind-except those
few who in all ages
have comprehended their hidden meaning, and tried to open
the eyes of the
superstitious-have listened to such tales in one shape or other,
and, after
transforming them into sacred symbols, called the product
Religion."35
"There are a few
myths in any religious system but have an historical as well as
a scientific foundation.
Myths, as Pococke ably expresses it, 'are now found to
be fables just in
proportion as we misunderstand them; truths, in proportion as
they were once
understood.'"36
The esotericism of the
teachings of Christ and the Buddha is manifest to anyone
who can reason, she
declares. Neither can be supposed to have given out all that
a divine being would
know.
"It is a poor
compliment paid the Supreme, this forcing upon him four gospels,
in which,
contradictory as they often are, there is not a single narrative,
sentence or peculiar
expression, whose parallel may not be found in some older
doctrine of
philosophy. Surely the Almighty-were it but to spare future
generations their
present perplexity-might have brought down with Him, at His
first and only
incarnation on earth, something original-something that would.78
trace a distinct line
of demarcation between Himself and the score or so of
incarnate Pagan gods,
who had been born of virgins, had all been saviors, and
were either killed or
were otherwise sacrificed for humanity."37
She says that not she
but the Christian Fathers and their successors in the
church have put their
divine Son of God in the position of a poor religious
plagiarist!
Ancient secret wisdom
was seldom written down at all; it was taught orally, and
imparted as a
priceless tradition by one set of students to their qualified
successors. Those
receiving it regarded themselves as its custodians and they
accepted their
stewardship conscientiously.
To understand the
reason for esotericism in science and religion in earlier
times, Madame
Blavatsky urges us to recall that freedom of speech invited
persecution.
"The Rosicrucian,
Hermetic and Theosophical Western writers, producing their
books in epochs of
religious ignorance and cruel bigotry, wrote, so to say, with
the headman's axe
suspended over their necks, or the executioner's fagots laid
under their chairs,
and hid their divine knowledge under quaint symbols and
misleading
metaphors."38
To give lesser people
what they could not appropriate, to stir complacent
conservatism with that
threat of disturbing old established habitudes which
higher knowledge
always brings, was unsafe in a world still actuated by codes of
arbitrary physical
power. High knowledge had to be esoteric until the progress
of general
enlightenment brought the masses to a point where the worst that
could happen to the
originator of revolutionary ideas would be the reputation of
an idiot, instead of
the doom of a Bruno or a Joan. Madame Blavatsky was willing
to be regarded as an
idiot, but her Masters could not send her forth until
autos-da-fι had gone
out of vogue.
We have seen in an
earlier
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CHAPTER that the Mystery Religions of the Eastern
Mediterranean world
harbored an esotericism that presumably influenced the
formulation of later
systems, notably Judaism and Christianity. In recent
decades more attention
has been given to the claims of these old secret
societies. St. Paul's
affiliation with them is claimed by Theosophists, and his
obvious indebtedness
to them is acknowledged by some students of early
Christianity. It is
impossible for Madame Blavatsky to understand the Church's
indifference to its
origins, and she arrays startling columns of evidence to
show that this neglect
may be fatal. The Mystery Schools, she proclaims, were
not shallow cults, but
the guardians of a deep lore already venerable.
"The Mysteries
are as old as the world, and one well versed in the esoteric
mythologies of various
nations, can trace them back to the days of the Ante-Vedic
period in
India."39
She does not soften
her animosity against those influences and agencies that she
charges with
culpability for smothering out the Gnosis. The culprit in the case
is Christianity.
"For over fifteen
centuries, thanks to the blindly-brutal persecution of those
great vandals of early
Christian history, Constantine and Justinian, ancient
wisdom slowly
degenerated until it gradually sank into the deepest mire of
monkish superstition
and ignorance. The Pythagorean 'knowledge of things that
are'; the profound
erudition of the Gnostics; the world- and time-honored.79
teachings of the great
philosophers; all were rejected as doctrines of
Antichrist and
Paganism and committed to the flames. With the last seven Wise
Men of the Orient, the
remnant group of Neo-Platonists, Hermias, Priscianus,
Diogenes, Eulalius,
Damaskius, Simplicius and Isodorus, who fled from the
fanatical persecutions
of Justinian to Persia, the reign of wisdom closed. The
books of Thoth . . .
containing within their sacred pages the spiritual and
physical history of
the creation and progress of our world, were left to mould
in oblivion and
contempt for ages. They found no interpreters in Christian
Europe; the Philalethians,
or wise 'lovers of truth' were no more; they were
replaced by the
light-fleers, the tonsured and hooded monks of Papal Rome, who
dread truth, in
whatever shape and from whatever quarter it appears, if it but
clashes in the least
with their dogmas."40
She speaks of the
"Jesuitical and
crafty spirit which prompted the Christian Church of the late
third century to
combat the expiring Neo-Platonic and Eclectic Schools. The
Church was afraid of
the Aristotelian dialectic and wished to conceal the true
meaning of the word
daemon, Rasit, asdt (emanations); for if the truth of the
emanations were
rightly understood, the whole structure of the new religion
would have crumbled
along with the Mysteries."41
This motive is
stressed again when she says that the Fathers had borrowed so
much from Paganism
that they had to obliterate the traces of their
appropriations or be
recognized by all as merely Neo-Platonists! She is keen to
point out the value of
the riches thus thrown away or blindly overlooked, and to
show how Christianity
has been placed at the mercy of hostile disrupting forces
because of its want of
a true Gnosis. She avers that atheists and materialists
now gnaw at the heart
of Christianity because it is helpless, lacking the
esoteric knowledge of
the spiritual constitution of the universe, to combat or
placate them.
Gnosticism taught man that he could attain the fulness of the
stature of his innate
divinity; Christianity substituted a weakling's reliance
upon a higher power.
Had Christianity held onto the Gnosis and Kabbalism, it
would not have had to
graft itself onto Judaism and thus tie itself down to many
of the developments of
a merely tribal religion. Had it not accepted the Jehovah
of Moses, she says, it
would not have been forced to look upon the Gnostic ideas
as heresies, and the
world would now have had a religion richly based on pure
Platonic philosophy
and "surely something would then have been gained." Rome
itself, Christianized,
paid a heavy penalty for spurning the wisdom of old:
"In burning the
works of the theurgists; in proscribing those who affected their
study; in affixing the
stigma of demonolatry to magic in general; Rome has left
her exoteric worship
and Bible to be helplessly riddled by every free-thinker,
her sexual emblems to
be identified with coarseness, and her priests to
unwittingly turn
magicians and sorcerers in their exorcisms. Thus retribution,
by the exquisite
adjustment of divine law, is made to overtake this scheme of
cruelty, injustice and
bigotry, through her own suicidal acts."42
Yet Christianity drew
heavily from paganism. It erected almost no novel
formulations.
Christian canonical books are hardly more than plagiarisms of
older literatures, she
affirms, compiled, deleted, revised, and twisted. She
believed that the
first
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CHAPTERs of Genesis were based on the "Chaldean" Kabbala
and an old Brahmanical
book of prophecies (really later than Genesis). The
doctrine of the
Trinity as purely Platonic, she says. It was Irenaeus who
identified Jesus with
the "mask of the Logos or Second Person of the Trinity."
The doctrine of the
Atonement came from the Gnostics. The Eucharist was common
before Christ's time.
Some Neo-Platonist, not John, is alleged to have written.80
the Fourth Gospel. The
Sermon on the Mount is an echo of the essential
principles of monastic
Buddhism.
Jesus is torn away
from allegiance to the Jewish system and stands neither as
its product nor its
Messiah. Wresting him away from Judaism, and likewise from
the emanational
Trinity, both of which rτles were thrust upon him gratuitously
by the Christian
Fathers, she declares him to have been a Nazarene, i.e., a
member of the mystic
cult of Essenes of Nazars, which perpetuated Oriental
systems of the Gnosis
on the shores of the Jordan.
"One Nazarene
sect is known to have existed some 150 years B.C. and to have
lived on the banks of
the Jordan, and on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea,
according to Pliny and
Josephus. But in King's 'Gnostics' we find quoted another
statement by Josephus
from verse 13 which says that the Essenes had been
established on the
shores of the Dead Sea 'for thousands of ages' before Pliny's
time."43
Jesus, one of this
cult, had become adept in the occult philosophies of Egypt
and Israel, and
endeavored to make of the two a synthesis, drawing at times on
more ancient knowledge
from the old Hindu doctrines. He was simply a devout
occultist and taught
among the people what they could receive of the esoteric
knowledge, reserving
his deeper teachings for his fellows in the Essene
monasteries. He had
learned in the East and in Egypt the high science of
theurgy, casting out
of demons, and control of nature's finer forces, and he
used these powers upon
occasion. He posed as no Messiah or Incarnation of the
Logos, but preached
the message of the anointing (Christos) of the human spirit
by its baptismal union
with the higher principles of our divine nature.44
In short, Madame Blavatsky
leaves to Christianity little but the very precarious
distinction of having
"copied all its rites, dogmas and ceremonies from
paganism" save
two that can be claimed as original inventions-the doctrine of
eternal damnation
(with the fiction of the Devil) "and the one custom, that of
the anathema."
"The Bible of the
Christian Church is the latest receptacle of this scheme of
disfigured allegories
which have been erected into an edifice of superstition,
such as never entered
into the conceptions of those from whom the Church
obtained her
knowledge. The abstract fictions of antiquity, which for ages had
filled the popular
fancy with but flickering shadows and uncertain images, have
in Christianity
assumed the shapes of real personages and become historical
facts. Allegory
metamorphosed, becomes sacred history, and Pagan myth is taught
to the people as a
revealed narrative of God's intercourse with His chosen
people."45
The final proposition
which Isis labors to establish is that the one source of
all the wisdom of the
past is India. Pythagoreanism, she says, is identical with
Buddhistic teachings.
"The laws of Manu are the doctrines of Plato, Philo,
Zoroaster, Pythagoras
and the Kabala." She quotes Jacolliot, the French writer:
"This philosophy,
the traces of which we find among the Magians, the Chaldeans,
the Egyptians, the
Hebrew Kabalists, and the Christians, is none other than that
of the Hindu Brahmans,
the sectarians of the pitris, or the spirits of the
invisible worlds which
surround us."46
She, with the key in
her hand, sees the solution of the problem of comparative
religion as an easy
one..81
"While we see the
few translators of the Kabala, the Nazarene Codex and other
abstruse works,
hopelessly floundering amid the interminable pantheon of names,
unable to agree as to
a system in which to classify them, for the one hypothesis
contradicts and
overturns the other, we can but wonder at all this trouble,
which could be so
easily overcome. But even now, when the translation and even
the perusal of the
ancient Sanskrit has become so easy as a point of comparison,
they would never think
it possible that every philosophy-whether Semitic,
Hamitic or Turanian,
as they call it, has its key in the Hindu sacred works.
Still, facts are there
and facts are not easily destroyed."47
"What has been
contemptuously termed Paganism was ancient Wisdom replete with
Deity. . . . Pre-Vedic
Brahmanism and Buddhism are the double source from which
all religions spring;
Nirvana is the ocean to which all tend."48
She says there are
many parallelisms between references to Buddha and to Christ.
Many points of
identity also exist between Lamaico-Buddhistic and Roman Catholic
ceremonies. The idea
here hinted at is the underlying thesis of the whole
Theosophic position.
Successive members of the great Oriental Brotherhood have
been incarnated at
intervals in the history of mankind, each giving out portions
of the one central
doctrine, which therefore must have a common base. The
puzzling identities
found in the study ofComparative Religion thus find an
explanation in the
identity of their authorship.
Mrs. Annie Besant
later elaborated this view in the early pages of her work,
Esoteric Christianity.
She contrasts it with the commonly accepted explanation
of religious origins
of the academicians of our day. Summing up this position
she writes:
"The Comparative
Mythologists contend that the common origin is a common
ignorance, and that
the loftiest religious doctrines are simply refined
expressions of the
crude and barbarous guesses of savages, of primitive men,
regarding themselves
and their surroundings. Animism, fetishism, nature-worship-these
are the constituents
of the primitive mud out of which has grown the
splendid lily of
religion. A Krishna, a Buddha, a Lao-Tze, a Jesus, are the
highly civilized, but
lineal descendants of the whirling medicine-men of the
savage. God is a
composite photograph of the innumerable gods who are the
personifications of
the forces of nature. It is all summed up in the phrase:
Religions are branches
from a common trunk-human ignorance.
"The Comparative
Religionists consider, on the other hand, that all religions
originated from the
teachings of Divine Men, who gave out to the different
nations, from time to
time, such parts of the verities of religion as the people
are capable of
receiving, teaching ever the same morality, inculcating the use
of similar means,
employing the same significant symbols. The savage religions-animism
and the rest-are
degenerations, the results of decadence, distorted and
dwarfed descendants of
true religious beliefs. Sun-worship and pure forms of
nature worship were,
in their day, noble religions, highly allegorical, but full
of profound truth and
knowledge. The great Teachers . . . form an enduring
Brotherhood of men,
who have risen beyond humanity, who appear at certain
periods to enlighten
the world, and who are the spiritual guardians of the human
race. This view may be
summed up in the phrase: Religions are branches from a
common trunk-Divine
Wisdom."49
This is the view of
religions which Madame Blavatsky presented in Isis.
Religions, it would
say, never rise; they only degenerate. Theosophic writers50
are at pains to point
out that once a pure high religious impulse is given by a
Master-Teacher, it
tends before long to gather about it the incrustations of the.82
human materializing
tendency, under which the spiritual truths are obscured and
finally lost amid the
crudities of literalism. Then after the world has
blundered on through a
period of darkness the time grows ripe for a new
revelation, and
another member of the Spiritual Fraternity comes into
terrestrial life.
Madame Blavatsky says:
"The very
corner-stone of their (Brahmans' and Buddhists') religious systems is
periodical
incarnations of the Deity. Whenever humanity is about merging into
materialism and moral
degradation, a Supreme Being incarnates himself in his
creature selected for
the purpose, . . . Christna saying to Arjuna (in the
Bhagavad Gita): 'As
often as virtue declines in the world, I make myself
manifest to save
it.'"51
Madame Blavatsky
stated that she was in contact with several of these supermen,
who sent her forth as
their messenger to impart, in new form, the old knowledge..83
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CHAPTER VI
THE MAHATMAS AND THEIR
LETTERS
The Masters whom
Theosophy presents to us are simply high-ranking students in
life's school of
experience. They are members of our own evolutionary group, not
visitants from the
celestial spheres. They are supermen only in that they have
attained knowledge of
the laws of life and mastery over its forces with which we
are still struggling.
They are also termed by Theosophists the "just men made
perfect," the
finished products of our terrene experience, those more earnest
souls of our own race
who have pressed forward to attain the fulness of the
stature of Christ, the
prize of the high calling of God in Christhood. They are
not Gods come down to
earth, but earthly mortals risen to the status of Christs.
They ask from us no
reverence, no worship; they demand no allegiance but that
which it is expected
we shall render to the principles of Truth and Fact, and to
the nobility of life.
They are our "Elder Brothers," not distant deities; and
will even make their
presence known to us and grant us the privilege of
coφperating with them
when we have shown ourselves capable of working
unselfishly for
mankind. They are not our Masters in the sense of holding
lordship over us; they
are the "Masters of Wisdom and Compassion." Moved by an
infinite sympathy with
the whole human race they have renounced their right to
go forward to more
splendid conquests in the evolutionary field, and have
remained in touch with
man in order to throw the weight of their personal force
on the side of progress.
But the rank of the
Mahatmas must not be underrated because they still fall
under the category of
human beings. They have accumulated vast stores of
knowledge about the
life of man and the universe; about the meaning and purpose
of evolution; the methods
of progress; the rationale of the expansion of the
powers latent in the
Ego; the choice and attainment of ends and values in life;
and the achievement of
beauty and grandeur in individual development. Upon all
these questions which
affect the life and happiness of mortals they possess
competent knowledge
which they are willing to impart to qualified students. They
have by virtue of
their own force of character mastered every human problem,
perfected their growth
in beauty, gained control over all the natural forces of
life. They stand at
the culmination of all human endeavor. They have lifted
mortality up to
immortality, have carried humanity aloft to divinity. Through
the mediatorship of
the Christos, or spiritual principle in them, they have
reconciled the carnal
nature of man, his animal soul, with the essential
divinity of his higher
Self. And they, if they have been lifted up, stand
patiently eager to
draw all men unto them.
Madame Blavatsky's
exploitation of the Adepts (or their exploitation of her) is
a startling event in
the modern religious drama. It was a unique procedure and
took the world by
surprise. To be sure, India and Tibet, even China, were
familiar with the idea
of supermen. India had its Buddhas, Boddhisatvas, and
Rishis. But what not
even India was prepared to view without suspicion was that.84
several of the
hierarchical Brotherhood should carry on a clandestine
intercourse with a
nondescript group, made up of a Russian, an American, and
several Englishmen,
and issue to them fragments of the ancient lore for
broadcasting to the
incredulous West, which would mock it, scorn it, and trample
it underfoot.
It was only justified,
according to Madame Blavatsky, by certain considerations
which influenced the
final decision of the Great White Brotherhood Council.
Majority opinion was
against the move; but the minority urged that two reasons
rendered it advisable.
The guillotine and the fagot pile had been eliminated
from the historical
forms of martyrdom; and, secondly, the esotericism of the
doctrines was, in a
manner, an automatic safety device. The teachings would
appeal to those who
were "ready" for them; their meaning would soar over the
heads of those for
whom they were not suited.
The matter was decided
affirmatively, we are informed, by the assumption of full
karmic responsibility
for the launching of the crusade by the two Adepts, Morya
and Koot Hoomi Lal
Singh. The latter, in the early portion of his present
incarnation, had been
a student at an English University and felt that he had
found sufficient
reliability on the part of intelligent Europeans to make them
worthy to receive the
great knowledge. Morya, we are told, had taken on Madame
Blavatsky as his personal
attachι, pupil or chela. She had earned in former
situations the right
to the high commission of carrying the old truth to the
world at large in the
last quarter of the nineteenth century.
It is hinted that
Madame Blavatsky had formed a close link with the Master Morya
in former births, when
she was known to him as a great personage. It is also
said that she was
herself kept from full admission to the Brotherhood only by
some special
"Karma" which needed to be "worked out" in a comparatively
humble
station and
personality during this life. She said the Masters knew what she was
accountable for,
though it was not the charlatanism the world at large charged
her with. We are led
to assume that the Master Morya exercised a guardianship
over her in early life,
and later, that he occasionally manifested himself to
her, giving her
suggestions and encouragement. One or two of these encounters
with her Master are
recorded. She met him in his physical body in London in
1851. In one of her
old note-books, which her aunt Madame Fadeef sent to her in
Wόrzburg in 1885,
there is a memorandum of her meeting with Morya in London. The
entry is as follows:
"Nuit mιmorable.
Certaine nuit par un clair de lune que se couchait ΰ-Ramsgate--
12 aoϋt,
1851,--lorsque je rencontrai le Maξtre de mes rκves."
Hints are thrown out
as to other meetings on her travels, and we are told that
she studied ancient
philosophy and science under the Master's direct tutelage in
Tibet covering periods
aggregating at least seven years of her life. The
testimony of Col.
Olcott is no less precise. He says:
"I had ocular
proof that at least some of those who worked with us were living
men, from having seen
them in the flesh in India, after having seen them in the
astral body in America
and in Europe; from having touched and talked with them.
Instead of telling me
that they were spirits, they told me they were as much
alive as myself, and
that each of them had his own peculiarities and
capabilities, in
short, his complete individuality. They told me that what they
had attained to I
should one day myself acquire, how soon would depend entirely
on myself; and that I
might not anticipate anything whatever from favor, but,
like them, must gain
every step, every inch, of progress by my own exertions."1.85
The fact that the
Masters were living human beings made their revelations of
cosmic and spiritual
truth, say the Theosophists, more valuable than alleged
revelations from
hypothetical Gods in other systems of belief. That their
knowledge is, in a
manner of speaking, human instead of heavenly or "divine"
should give it greater
validity for us. The Mahatmas were, it is said, in direct
contact with the next
higher grades of intelligent beings standing above them in
the hierarchical
order, so that their teachings have the double worth of high
human and supernal
authority. This, occultists believe, affords the most
trustworthy type of
revelation.
It was not until the
two Theosophic Founders had reached India, in whose
northernmost
vastnesses the members of the Great White Brotherhood were said to
maintain their earthly
residence, that continuous evidence of their reality and
their leadership was
vouchsafed. The Theosophic case for Adept revelation rests
upon a long-continued
correspondence between persons (Mr. A. P. Sinnett, mainly,
Mr. A. O. Hume,
Damodar and others in minor degree) of good intelligence, but
claiming no mystical
or psychical illumination, and the two Mahatmas, K.H. and
M. Sinnett, Editor of
The Pioneer, at Simla in northern India, was an English
journalist of
distinction and ability. Although he had manifested no special
temperamental
disposition toward the mystical or occult, he was the particular
recipient of the
attention and favors of the Mahatmas over a space of three or
four years, beginning
about 1879. It was at his own home in Simla, later at
Allahabad, that most
of the letters were received, addressed to him personally.
Most, if not all, were
in answer to the queries which he was permitted, if not
invited, to ask his
respected teachers.
Mr. Sinnett's book,
The Occult World, was the first direct statement to the West
of the existence of
the Masters and their activity as sponsors for the
Theosophical Society.
He undertook the onerous task of vindicating, as far as
argument and the
phenomenal material in his hands could, the title of these
supermen to the
possession of surpassing knowledge and sublime wisdom. His work
supplemented that of
Madame Blavatsky in Isis, yet it went beyond the latter in
asserting the
connection of the Theosophical Society with an alleged association
of perfected
individuals. It put the Theosophical Society squarely on record as
an organization, not
merely for the purpose of eclectic research, but standing
for the promulgation of
a body of basic truths of an esoteric sort and
arrogating to itself a
position of unique eminence in a spiritual world order.
In the Introduction to
The Occult World Mr. Sinnett elaborates his apologetic
for the general theory
of Mahatmic existence and knowledge. Fundamental for his
argument is, of
course, the theory of reincarnational continuity of development
which would enable
individual humans, through long experience, to attain degrees
of learning far in
advance of the majority of the race. But his "proofs" of both
the existence and the
superior knowledge of these exceptional beings are offered
in the book itself, in
which his experience with them, and the material of some
of their letters to
him, are presented. His introductory dissertation is a
justification of the
Mahatmic policy of maintaining their priceless knowledge in
futile obscurity
within the narrow confines of their exclusive Brotherhood. He
then attempts to
rectify our scornful point of view as regards esotericism. Of
the superlative wisdom
of the Masters he posits his own direct knowledge. The
Brothers are to him
empirically real. But the logical justification of their
attitude of seclusion
and aloofness, or worse, of their selfish appropriation of
knowledge which it
must be assumed would be of immense social value if
disseminated, is the
point upon which he chiefly labors.
"There is a
school of philosophy," he says, "still in existence of which modern
culture has lost sight
. . . modern metaphysics, and to a large extent modern.86
physical science, have
been groping for centuries blindly after knowledge which
occult philosophy has
enjoyed in full measure all the while. Owing to a train of
fortunate
circumstances I have come to know that this is the case; I have come
into contact with
persons who are heirs of a greater knowledge concerning the
mysteries of Nature
and humanity than modern culture has yet evolved. . . .
Modern science has
accomplished grand results by the open method of
investigation, and is
very impatient of the theory that persons who have
attained to real
knowledge, either in science or metaphysics, could have been
content to hide their
light under a bushel. . . . But there is no need to
construct hypotheses
in the matter. The facts are accessible if they are sought
for in the right
way."2
Spiritual science is
foremost with the Adepts; physical science being of
secondary importance.
The main strength of occultism has been devoted to the
science of
metaphysical energy and to the development of faculties in man, not
instruments outside
him, which will yield him actual experimental knowledge of
the subtle powers in
nature. It aims to gain actual and exact knowledge of
spiritual things
which, under all other systems, remain the subject of
speculation or blind
religious faith.
Summing up the
extraordinary powers which Adeptship gives its practitioners, he
says they are chiefly
the ability to dissociate consciousness from the body, to
put it instantaneously
in rapport with other minds anywhere on the earth, and to
exert magical control
over the sublimated energies of matter. Occultism
postulates a basic
differentiation between the principles of mind, soul, and
spirit, and gives a
formal technique for their interrelated development. It has
evolved a practique,
also, based on the spiritual constitution of matter, which,
it alleges, vastly
facilitates human growth. The skilled occultist is able to
shift his
consciousness from one to another plane of manifestation. In short,
his control over the
vibrational energies of the Akasha makes him veritably lord
of all the physical
creation.
The members of the
Brotherhood remain in more or less complete seclusion among
the Himalayas because,
as they have said, they find contact with the coarse
heavy currents of
ordinary human emotionalism-violent feeling, material
grasping, and base
ambitions-painful to their sensitive organization. This great
fraternity is at once
the least and most exclusive body in the world; it is
composed of the world's
very elect, yet any human being is eligible. He must
have demonstrated his
possession of the required qualifications, which are so
high that the average
mortal must figure on aeons of education before he can
knock at the portals
of their spiritual society. The road thither is beset with
many real perils,
which no one can safely pass till he has proven his mastery
over his own nature
and that of the world.
"The ultimate
development of the adept requires amongst other things a life of
absolute physical
purity, and the candidate must, from the beginning, give
practical evidence of
his willingness to adopt this. He must . . . for all the
years of his
probation, be perfectly chaste, perfectly abstemious, and
indifferent to
physical luxury of every sort. This regimen does not involve any
fantastic discipline
or obtrusive ascetism, nor withdrawal from the world. There
would be nothing to
prevent a gentleman in ordinary society from being in some
of the preliminary
stages of training without anybody about him being the wiser.
For true occultism,
the sublime achievement of the real adept, is not attained
through the loathsome
ascetism of the ordinary Indian fakeer, the yogi of the
woods and wilds, whose
dirt accumulates with his sanctity-of the fanatic who
fastens iron hooks
into his flesh or holds up an arm till it withers."3.87
How did the Mahatmas
impart their teaching? Mr. Sinnett was the channel of
transmission, and to
him the two Masters sent a long series of letters on
philosophical and
other subjects, they themselves remaining in the background.
The Mahatma Letters
themselves, as originally received by Mr. Sinnett, were not
published until 1925.4
Sinnett, early in his acquaintance with the Masters,
asked K.H. for the
privilege of a personal interview with him. The Master
declined. His messages
came in the form of long letters which dropped into his
possession by facile
means that would render the Post Office authorities of any
nation both envious
and sceptical. The correspondence began when Madame
Blavatsky suggested
that Mr. Sinnett write certain questions which were on his
mind in a letter
addressed to K.H., saying she would dispatch it to him, several
hundred miles distant,
by the exercise of her magnetic powers. She would
accompany it with the
request for a reply. The idea in Mr. Sinnett's mind was
one which he thought,
could the Adept actually carry it out, would demonstrate
at one stroke the
central theses of occultism and practically revolutionize the
whole trend of human
thinking. His suggestion to K.H. in that first letter was
that the Mahatma
should use his superior power to reproduce in far-off India, on
the same morning on
which it issued from the press, a full copy of the London
Times. Madame
Blavatsky disintegrated the missive and wafted its particles to
the hermit in the
mountains. The answer came in two days. The test of the London
newspaper, he wrote,
was inadmissible precisely because "it would close the
mouths of the
sceptics." The world is unprepared for so convincing a
demonstration of
supernormal powers, he argued, because, on the one hand the
event would throw the
principles and formulae of science into chaos, and on the
other, it would
demolish the structure of the concepts of natural law by the
restoration of the belief
in "miracle." The result would thus be disastrous for
both science and
faith. Incompetent as the thesis of mechanistic naturalism is
to provide mortals
with the ground of understanding of the deeper phenomena of
life and mind, it does
less harm on the whole than would a return to arrant
superstition such as
must follow in the wake of the wonder Sinnett had proposed.
The Master asked his
correspondent if the modern world had really thrown off the
shackles of ignorant
prejudice and religious bigotry to a sufficient extent to
enable it to withstand
the shock that such an occurrence would bring to its
fixed ideas. If this
one test were furnished, he went on, Western incredulity
would in a moment ask
for others and still others; shrewd ingenuity would devise
ever more bizarre
performances; and since not all the millions of sceptics could
be given ocular
demonstrations, the net outcome of the whole procedure would be
confusion and
unhappiness. The mass of humanity must feel its way slowly toward
these high powers, and
the premature exhibition of future capacity would but
overwhelm the mind and
unsettle the poise of people everywhere.
Mr. Sinnett replied,
venturing to believe "that the European mind was less
hopelessly intractable
than Koot Hoomi had represented it." The Master's second
letter continued his
protestations:
"The Mysteries
never were, never can be, put within reach of the general public,
not, at least, until
the longed-for day when our religious philosophy becomes
universal. At no time
have more than a scarcely appreciable minority of men
possessed Nature's
secret, though multitudes have witnessed the practical
evidences of the
possibility of their possession."
Letters followed on
both sides, Mr. Sinnett taking advantage of many
opportunities afforded
by varying circumstances in each case to fortify his
assurance that Madame
Blavatsky herself was not inditing the replies in the name
of the Adept.
Frequently replies came, containing specific reference to detailed
matters in his
missives, when she had not been out of his sight during the
interim between the
despatch and the return. The letters came and went as well.88
when she was hundreds
of miles away. The answers would often be found in his
locked desk drawer,
sometimes inside his own letter, the seal of which had not
been broken. On
occasion the Mahatma's reply dropped from the open air upon his
desk while he was
watching.
Madame Blavatsky and
the Master both explained the method by which the letters
were written.
Theoretically, they were not written at all, but "precipitated."
Among the Adept's
occult or "magical" powers is that of impressing upon the
surface of some
material, as paper, the images which he holds vividly before his
mind. He may thus
impress or imprint a photograph, a scene, or a word, or
sentence, upon
parchment. He uses materials, of course, paper, ink or pencil
graphite. But in his
ability to disintegrate atomic combinations of matter, he
can seize upon the
material present, or even at a distance, and "precipitate" or
reintegrate it, in
conformity with the lines of his strong thought-energies. He
can thus image a
sentence, word for word, in his mind, and then pour the current
of atomic material
into the given form of the letters, upon the plane of the
paper. The
idiosyncrasies of his own chirography would be carried through the
mental process. K.H.,
we are told, always used blue ink or blue pencil, while
the epistles from M.
always came in red. Specimens of the two handwritings are
given in the
frontispiece of the Mahatma Letters. The art of occult
precipitation appears
still more marvelous when we are told by Madame Blavatsky
that the Adept did not
attend to the actual precipitation himself but delegated
it to one of his
distant chelas, who caught his Master's thought-forms in the
Astral Light and set
them down by the chemical process which he had been taught
to employ. The Master
thus needed only to think vividly the words of his
sentences, so as to
impress them upon the mind of his pupil, and the latter did
the rest. This was
explained by H.P.B. in an article, Lodges of Magic, in
Lucifer, Oct., 1888,
while she was being accused of issuing false messages from
the Master.
"For it is hardly
one out of one hundred 'Occult' letters that is ever written
by the hand of the
Masters in whose names and on whose behalf they are sent, as
the Masters have
neither need nor leisure to write them; and that when a Master
says: 'I wrote that
letter,' it means only that every word in it was dictated by
him and impressed
under his direct supervision. Generally they make their chela
. . . write (or
precipitate) them. It depends entirely upon the chela's state of
development how
accurately the ideas may be transmitted and the writing model
imitated. Thus the
non-adept recipient is left in the dilemma of uncertainty
whether if one letter
is false, all may not be."
For example, when a
Mr. Henry Kiddle, an American lecturer on Spiritualism,
accused the writer of
the Mahatma Letters of having plagiarized whole passages
from his lecture
delivered at Mt. Pleasant, New York, in 1880, a year prior to
the publication of The
Occult World, the Master K.H. explained in a letter to
Mr. Sinnett that the
apparent forgery of words and ideas came about through a
bit of carelessness on
his part in the precipitation of his ideas through a
chela. While dictating
the letter to the latter, he had caught himself
"listening
in" on Mr. Kiddle's address being delivered at the moment in America;
and as a consequence
the chela took down portions of the actual lecture as
reflected from the
mind of K.H.
Mr. Sinnett used the
opportunity thus given him to draw from the Mahatma an
outline of a portion
of the esoteric philosophy and science which was presumed
to be in his custody.
The Master exhibited readiness to comply with Mr.
Sinnett's requests for
information upon all vital and important matters..89
Koot Hoomi tells
Sinnett first that the world must prepare itself for the
manifestation of
phenomenal elements in constantly augmenting volume and force.
The age of miracles,
he says, is not past; it really never was. Plato was right
in asserting that
ideas ruled the world; and as the human mind increases its
receptivity to larger
ideas, the world will advance, revolutions will spring
from the spreading
ferment, creeds and powers will crumble before their onward
march.
The duty set before
intelligent people is to sweep away as much as possible of
the dross left by our
pious forefathers to make ready for the apotheosis of
human life. The great
new ideas
"touch man's true
position in the universe, in relation to his previous and
future births; his
origin and ultimate destiny; the relation of the mortal to
the immortal; of the
temporary to the eternal; of the finite to the infinite;
ideas larger, grander,
more comprehensive, recognizing the universal reign of
Immutable Law,
unchanging and unchangeable in regard to which there is only an
Eternal Now, while to
uninitiated mortals time is past or future as related to
their finite existence
on this material speck of dirt. This is what we study and
what many have
solved."5
Many old idols must be
dethroned, chief of all being that of an
anthropomorphized
Deity, with its train of debasing superstitions.
"And now,"
says K.H., "after making due allowance for evils that are natural and
that cannot be avoided
. . . I will point out the greatest, the chief cause of
nearly two thirds of
the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became
a power. It is
religion, under whatever form and in whatever nation. It is the
sacerdotal caste, the
priesthood and the churches; it is in those illusions that
man looks upon as
sacred that he has to search out the source of that multitude
of evils which is the
great curse of humanity and that almost overwhelms
mankind. Ignorance
created gods and cunning took advantage of the opportunity.
Look at India and look
at Christendom and Islam, at Judaism and Fetichism. It is
priestly imposture
that rendered these Gods so terrible to man; it is religion
that makes of him the
selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates all mankind outside
his own sect without
rendering him any better or more moral for it. It is belief
in God and Gods that
makes two-thirds of humanity the slaves of a handful of
those who deceive them
under the false pretence of saving them. . . . Remember
the sum of human
misery will never be diminished unto that day when the better
portion of humanity
destroys in the name of Truth, Morality and universal
Charity the altars of
their false Gods."6
He goes on to clarify
and delimit his position:
"Neither our
philosophy nor ourselves believe in a God, least of all in one
whose pronoun
necessitates a capital G. Our philosophy falls under the
definition of Hobbes.
It is preλminently the science of effects by their causes
and of causes by their
effects, and since it is also the science of things
deduced from first
principle, as Bacon defines it, before we admit any such
principle we must know
it, and have no right to admit even its possibility. . .
. Therefore we deny
God both as philosophers and as Buddhists. We know there are
planetary and other
spiritual lives, and we know there is in our system no such
thing as God, either
personal or impersonal. Parabrahm is not a God, but
absolute immutable
law, and Ishwar is the effect of Avidya (ignorance) and Maya
(illusion), ignorance
based on the great delusion. The word 'God' was invented
to designate the
unknown cause of those effects which man has ever admired or
dreaded without
understanding them, and since we claim-and that we are able to.90
prove what we
claim-i.e., the knowledge of that cause and causes, we are in a
position to maintain
there is no God or Gods behind them."7
The causes assigned to
phenomena by the Mahatmas, he says, are natural,
sensible,
supernatural, unintelligible, and unknown. The God of the theologians
is simply an imaginary
power, that has never yet manifested itself to human
perception. The cause
posited by the Adept is that power whose activities we
behold in every
phenomenon in the universe. They are pantheists, never
agnostics. The Deity
they envisage is everywhere present, as well in matter as
elsewhere.
"In other words
we believe in Matter alone, in matter as visible nature and
matter in its
invisibility as the invisible omnipresent omnipotent Proteus with
its unceasing motion
which is its life, and which nature draws from herself,
since she is the great
whole outside of which nothing can exist. . . . The
existence of matter,
then, is a fact; the existence of motion is another fact,
their self-existence
and eternity or indestructibility is a third fact. And the
idea of pure Spirit as
a Being or an Existence-give it whatever name you will-is
a chimera, a gigantic
absurdity."8
Furthermore, says
K.H., your conceptions of an all-wise Cosmic Mind or Being
runs afoul of sound
logic on another count. You claim, he says, that the life
and being of this God
pervades and animates all the universe. But even your own
science predicates of
the cosmic material ether that it, too, already permeates
all the ranges of
being in nature. You are thus putting two distinct pervading
essences in the
universe. You are postulating two primordial substances, two
basic elemental
essences, where but one can be. Why posit an imaginary substrate
when you already have
a concrete one? Find your God in the material you are sure
is there; do not forge
a fiction and put it outside of real existence to account
for that existence.
Why constitute a false God when you have a real Universe?
There is an
illimitable Force in the universe, but even this Force is not God,
since man may learn to
bend it to his will. It is simply the visible and
objective expression
of the absolute substance in its invisible and subjective
form.
From this strict and
inexorable materialism K.H. seems to relent a moment when
he says to Mr. Hume:
"I do not protest
at all, as you seem to think, against your theism, or a belief
in abstract ideal of
some kind, but I cannot help asking you, how do you or can
you know that your God
is all-wise, omnipotent and love-ful, when everything in
nature, physical and
moral, proves such a being, if he does exist, to be quite
the reverse of all you
say of him? Strange delusion and one which seems to
overpower your very
intellect!"9
The intricate problem,
then, of how the blind and unintelligent forces of matter
in motion do breed and
have bred "highly intelligent beings like ourselves" "is
covered by the eternal
progression of cycles, and the process of evolution ever
perfecting its work as
it goes along." Intelligence lies somehow in the womb of
matter, and evolution
brings it to birth. Matter and spirit, we must constantly
be reminded, are but
the two polar aspects of the One Substance.
The great
philosophical problem of whether reality is monistic or pluralistic
finds clear statement
and elucidation in the Letters. It can be gathered from
all the argument of K.H.
that primordial nature is a monism, but that when the
hidden energy, or
sheer potentiality, of the unit principle deploys into action,.91
or what the occultists
speak of as manifestation, it splits, first into a
duality, or
polarization, and then into an infinity of modifications arising
from varying
intensities of vibration and modes of combination. Through the
spectacles of time and
space we see life as multiple; could we be freed from the
limitations of our
sensorium, however, we could see life whole, as a single
essence. Non-polarized
force is, in any terms of our apperceptive nature, an
impossibility and a
nonentity; pure spirit is a sheer abstraction. Spirit must
be changed into
matter, to be seen.
It is a silly
philosophy which would exalt spirit and debase matter, as many
ascetic or idealistic
religious systems have done. Matter is the garment of
spirit, and needs but
to be beautified and refined. Spirit is helpless without
it. "Bereaved of
Prakriti, Purusha (Spirit) is unable to manifest itself, hence
ceases to
exist-becomes nihil."10 Likewise Spirit is necessary to the faintest
stir of life in
matter.
"Without Spirit
or Force even that which Science styles as 'not-living' matter,
the so-called mineral
ingredients which feed plants, could never have been
called into
form."11
Form will vanish the
moment spirit is withdrawn from it.
"Matter, force
and motion are the trinity of physical objective nature, as the
trinitarian unity of
spirit-matter is that of the spiritual or subjective
nature. Motion is
eternal because spirit is eternal. But no modes of motion can
ever be conceived
unless they are in conjunction with matter."12
"Unconscious and
non-existing when separated, they become consciousness and life
when brought
together,"13
says K.H. in reference
to the two poles of being. If the spirit or force were to
fail, the electron
would cease to swirl about the proton, the atom would
collapse, the worlds
would vanish. The world is an illusion in the same way that
the solid appearance
of the revolving spokes of a wheel is an illusion. Stop the
swirl, and the
universe not only collapses-it goes out of manifestation.
A novel and startling
corollary of the teaching that the forces of nature are
"blind
unconscious" laws, is seen in the query of K.H. to Mr. Hume, whether it
had ever occurred to
him that "universal, like finite human mind, might have two
attributes or a dual
power-one, the voluntary and conscious, and the other the
involuntary and
unconscious, or the mechanical power. To reconcile the
difficulty of many
theistic and anti-theistic propositions, both these powers
are a philosophical
necessity. . . . Take the human mind in connection with the
body. Man has two
distinct physical brains; the cerebrum . . . the source of the
voluntary nerves; and
the cerebellum-the fountain of the involuntary nerves
which are the agents
of the unconscious or mechanical powers of the mind to act
through. And weak and
uncertain as may be the control of man over his
involuntary, such as
the blood circulation, the throbbings of the heart and
respiration,
especially during sleep-yet how far more powerful, how much more
potential appears man
as master and ruler over the blind molecular motion . . .
than that which you
will call God shows over the immutable laws of nature.
Contrary in that to
the finite, the 'infinite mind' . . . exhibits but the
functions of its
cerebellum."14
That Master admits
that he is arguing the case for such a duality of cosmic
mental function only
on the basis of the theory that the macrocosm is the.92
prototype of the
microcosm, and that the high planetary spirits themselves have
no more concrete
evidence of the operation of a "cosmic cerebrum" than we have.
The Master has taken
many pages to detail to Mr. Sinnett the information
relative to the
evolution of the worlds from the nebular mist, and the outline
of the whole
cosmogonic scheme. As this will be dealt with more fully in our
review of The Secret
Doctrine, it need only be glanced at here to give coherence
to the material in the
Letters. Force or spirit descends into matter and creates
or organizes the
universes. Its immersion in the mineral kingdom marks the
lowest or grossest
point of its descent, and from there it begins to return to
spirit, carrying
matter up with it to self-consciousness. Impulsions of life
energy emanate from
"the heart of the universe" and go quivering through the
various worlds,
vivifying them and bringing to each in turn its fitting grade of
living organisms. Thus
came the races of men on our Earth, which is now
harboring its Fifth
great family, the Aryan.
What is of great
interest in the scheme of Theosophy is that
"At the beginning
of each Round, when humanity reappears under quite different
conditions than those
afforded by the birth of each new race and its sub-races,
a 'Planetary' has to
mix with these primitive men, and to refresh their memories
and reveal to them the
truths they knew during the preceding Round. Hence the
confused traditions
about Jehovahs, Ormazds, Osirises, Brahms and the tutti
quanti. But that
happens only for the benefit of the First Race. It is the duty
of the latter to
choose the fit recipients among its sons, who are 'set apart'-to
use a Biblical
phrase-as the vessels to contain the whole stock of knowledge
to be divided among
the future races and generations until the close of that
Round. . . . Every
race has its Adepts; and with every new race we are allowed
to give them as much
of our knowledge as the men of that race deserve. The last
seventh race will have
its Buddha, as every one of its predecessors had."15
And then Koot Hoomi
undertakes to meet the inevitable query: What comes out of
the immense machinery
of the cycles and globes and rounds?
"What emerges at
the end of all things is not only 'pure and impersonal spirit,'
but the collected
'personal' remembrances" . . .16 The individual, imperishable,
will enjoy the fruits
of its collective lives.
If the Mahatma's
attempt to solve the eternal riddle of the "good" of earthly
life is not so
complete and satisfactory as might have been wished, we at least
gather from this
interesting passage that its ultimate meaning can be
ascertained only by
our personal experience with every changing form and aspect
of life itself. We
must taste of all the modes of existence. This inflicts upon
us the "cycle of
necessity," the imperative obligation to tread the weary wheel
of life on all the
globes. We will know the "good" of it all only by living
through it. There is
no vindication for ethics, for religion, for philosophy,
for teleology and
optimism, save in life and experience itself. Reason,
dialectic, can do
nothing for us if life does not first furnish us the material
content of the good.
All we can do is look to life with the confident
expectation that its
processes will justify our wishes. We must in the end stand
on faith. If life
prove not ultimately sweet to the tasting, no rationalization
will make it so.
We are assured,
however, that the unit of personal consciousness built up in the
process of cosmic
evolution is never annihilated, but expands until it becomes
inclusive of the
highest. It enjoys the fruitage of its dull incubations in the.93
lower worlds in its ever-enhancing
capacities for a life "whose glory and
splendor have no
limits."
But, says K.H.
immortality is quite a relative matter. Man, being a compound
creature, is not
entirely immortal. You know, he reminds us, that the physical
body has no immortality.
Neither the etheric double nor the kama rupa (astral
body), nor yet the
lower manasic (mental) principle survive disintegration. Only
the Ego in the causal
body holds its conscious existence between lives on earth.
Even the planetary
spirits, high as they are in the scale of being, suffer
breaks in their
conscious life,--the periods of pralaya. In the true sense of
the term only the one
life has absolute immortality, for it is the only
existence which has
neither beginning nor end, nor any break in its continuity.
All lower aspects and
embodiments have immortality, but with periodic recessions
into inanition.
The problem of evil
received treatment at K.H.'s hands, and is summarized in the
statement that
"Evil has no
existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for
him who is made its
victim. It proceeds from two causes, and no more than good
is it an independent
cause in nature. Nature is destitute of goodness or malice;
she follows only
immutable laws, when she either gives life and joy or sends
suffering and death
and destroys what she has created. Nature has an antidote
for every poison and
her laws a reward for every suffering. The butterfly
devoured by a bird
becomes that bird, and the little bird killed by an animal
goes into a higher
form. It is the blind law of necessity and the eternal
fitness of things, and
hence cannot be called evil in Nature. The real evil
proceeds from human
intelligence and its origin rests entirely with reasoning
man who dissociates
himself from Nature. Humanity then alone is the true source
of evil. Evil is the
exaggeration of good, the progeny of human selfishness and
greediness. Think
profoundly and you will find that save death-which is no evil
but a necessary law,
and accidents which will always find their reward in a
future life-the origin
of every evil, whether small or great, is in human
action, in man whose
intelligence makes him the one free agent in Nature. It is
not Nature that
creates diseases, but man. . . . Food, sexual relations, drink,
are all natural
necessities of life; yet excess in them brings on disease,
misery, suffering,
mental and physical. . . . Become a glutton, a debauchee, a
tyrant, and you become
the originator of diseases, of human suffering and
misery. Therefore it
is neither Nature nor an imaginary Deity that has to be
blamed, but human
nature made vile by selfishness."17
It will be of interest
to hear what K.H. says about "heaven."
"It (Devachan)18
is an idealed paradise in each case, of the
Ego's own making, and
by him filled with the scenery, crowded with the incidents
and thronged with the
people he would expect to find in such a sphere of
compassionate
bliss."19
Man makes his own
heaven or hell, and is in it while he is making it. It is
subjective; only, Theosophy
postulates a certain (refined and sublimated)
objectivity to the
forms of our subjectivity. Man does in heaven only what he
does on earth-forms a
conception and then hypostatizes or reifies it. Only, in
the case of nirvanic
states, the reification is instantaneously externalized. On
earth it is a slower
formation. The "Summerland" of the Spiritualists is but the
objectification of the
Ego's buoyant dreams, when freed from the heavy
limitations of the
earth body..94
"In Devachan the
dreams of the objective life become the realities of the
subjective."20
This means that the
ideal creations, the highest aspirations of man on earth,
become the substance
of his actual consciousness in heaven. They are the only
elements of his normal
human mind that are pitched at a vibration rate high
enough to impress the
matter or stuff of his permanent body, and hence they
alone cause a
repercussion or response in his pure subjective consciousness when
the lower bodies are
lost. On this theory the day dreams and the ideal longings
of the human soul
become the most vital and substantial, and abiding, activities
of his psychic life.
The only memories of
the earth life that intrude into this picture of heavenly
bliss are those
connected with the feelings of love and hate.
"Love and hatred
are the only immortal feelings, the only survivors from the
wreck of the Ye-damma
or phenomenal world."21
All other feelings
function at too low a rate to register on the ethereal body
of the Devachanee, and
are lost.
"Out of the
resurrected past nothing remains but what the Ego has felt
spiritually-that was
evolved by and through, and lived over by his spiritual
faculties-be it love
or hatred."22
Suicides, says K.H.,
must undergo a peculiar discipline following their
premature death. Since
they have arbitrarily interrupted a cycle of nature
before its normal
completion, the operation of law requires that they hang
suspended, so to
speak, in a condition of near-earthly existence until what
would have been their
natural life-term has expired.
"The suicides
who, foolishly hoping to escape life, found themselves still
alive, have suffering
enough in store for them from that very life. Their
punishment is in the
intensity of the latter."23
Their distress
consists, it seems, in remaining within the purview of their
earthly life without
being able to express its impulses. They are often tempted
to enjoy life again by
proxy, i.e., through mediums or by efforts at a sort of
vampiristic obsession.
Victims of death by accident have a happier fate. They
are more quickly
released from earth's lure to partake of the lethal existence
in the higher
Devachan.
All those souls who do
not slip down into the eighth sphere-Avichi-through a
"pull" of
the animal nature which proved too strong for their spiritual fibre to
resist, go on to the
Devachan-to Heaven. To the Theosophist heaven is not "that
bourne from which no
traveler e'er returns," nor is access to it a matter of
even rare exception.
Millions of persons in earth life have had glimpses through
its portals, in sleep,
trance, catalepsis, anaesthesia, hypnosis, or in the
open-eyed mystic's
vision. It is a realm of sweet surcease from pain and sorrow,
of happiness without
alloy. But it is far from being the same place, or from
providing identically
the same experience, for every soul. Each one's heaven is
determined by the
capacities for spiritual enjoyment developed on earth. Only
the spiritual senses
survive.
To enrich heaven one
must have laid up spiritual treasure on earth. Furthermore,
the life there is not
without break. The released Ego does not loll away an.95
eternal existence
there, but after due rest returns to earth. Nor is his
enjoyment of the
Devachan the same in each sojourn there. He bites deeper into
the bliss of heaven
each time he takes his flight from body. The constant
enrichment of his
experience in the upper spheres provides a never-ending
novelty.
To Mr. Sinnett's
assertion that a mental condition of happiness empty of
sensational,
emotional, and lower mental (manasic) content would be an
intolerable monotony
K.H. replies by asking him if he felt any sense of monotony
during that one moment
in his life when he experienced the utmost fulness of
conscious being. Devachan
is like that, he assured the complainant, only much
more so. As our
climatic moments in this life seem by their ineffable opulence
to swallow up the
weary sense of the time-drag, so the ecstatic consciousness of
the heaven state is
purged of all sense of ennui or successive movement. To put
it succinctly, there
is no sense of time in which to grow weary.
"No; there are no
clocks, no timepieces in Devachan, . . . though the whole
Cosmos is a gigantic
chronometer in one sense . . . I may also remind you in
this connection that
time is something created entirely by ourselves; that while
one short second of
intense agony may appear, even on earth, as an eternity to
one man, to another,
more fortunate, hours, days and sometimes whole years may
seem to flit like one
brief moment. . . . But finite similes are unfit to
express the abstract
and the infinite; nor can the objective ever mirror the
subjective. . . . To
realize the bliss in Devachan, or the woes in Avitchi, you
have to assimilate
them-as we do. . . . Space and time may be, as Kant has it,
not the product but
the regulators of the sensations, but only so far as our
sensations on earth
are concerned, not those in Devachan. . . Space and time
cease to act as 'the
frame of our experience' 'over there.'"24
The land of
distinctions is transcended and the here and there merge into the
everywhere, as the
everywhere into the here and there, and the now and then into
the now.
Koot Hoomi is sure
that the materialistic attitudes of the Occidental mind have
played havoc with the
subtle spirituality embodied in Eastern religions, in the
effort at translation
and interpretation.
"Oh, ye Max
Mόllers and Monier Williamses, what have ye done with our
philosophy?"25
You can not take the
higher spiritual degrees by mere study of books. Progress
here has to do largely
with the development of latent powers and faculties, the
cultivation of which
is attended with some dangers. In this juncture it avails
the student far more
to be able to call upon the personal help of a kindly
guardian who is truly
a Master of the hidden forces of life, than to depend upon
his own efforts,
however consecrated. Each grade in the hierarchy of evolved
beings stands ready to
tutor the members of the class below.
"The want of such
a 'guide, philosopher and friend' can never be supplied, try
as you may. All you
can do is to prepare the intellect: the impulse toward
'soul-culture must be
furnished by the individual. Thrice fortunate they who can
break through the vicious
circle of modern influence and come above the vapors!
. . . Unless regularly
initiated and trained-concerning the spiritual insight of
things and the
supposed revelations made unto man in all ages from Socrates down
to Swedenborg . . . no
self-tutored seer or clairvoyant ever saw or heard quite
correctly."26.96
The Master Morya has a
word to say to Sinnett about "the hankering of occult
students after
phenomena" of a psychic nature. It is a maya27 against which, he
says, they have always
been warned. It grows with gratification; the
Spiritualists, he
says, are thaumaturgic addicts. It adds no force to
metaphysical truth
that his own and K.H.'s letters drop into Sinnett's lap or
come under his pillow.
If the philosophy is wrong a "wonder" will not set it
right. Spiritual
knowledge, made effective for growth, is the desideratum.
Trance mediumship, he
reiterates, is itself both undesirable and unfruitful. No
mind should submit
itself passively to another. "We do not require a passive
mind, but on the
contrary are seeking for those most active." Nothing can give
the student insight
save the unfolding of his own inner powers.
Much of the Adept's
writing to Sinnett has to do with the conditions of
probation and
"chelaship" in the master science of soul-culture. He says there
are certain rigid laws
the fulfilment of which is absolutely essential to the
disciple's secure
advancement. They have to do with self-mastery, meditation,
purity of life, fixity
of purpose. These laws, which at first seem to the
neophyte to bar his
path, will be seen, as he persists in obedience to them, to
be the road to all he
can ask. But no one can break them without becoming their
victim. Too eager
expectation on the part of the aspirant is dangerous. It
disturbs the balance
of forces.
"Each warmer and
quicker throb of the heart wears so much life away. The
passions, the
affections, are not to be indulged in by him who seeks to know;
for they wear out the
earthly body with their own secret power; and he who would
gain his aim must be
cold."28
A hint as to the
occult desirability of vegetarianism is dropped in the
sentence:
"Never will the
Spiritualists find reliable trustworthy mediums and Seers (not
even to a degree) so
long as the latter and their 'circle' will saturate
themselves with animal
blood and the millions of infusoria of the fermented
fluids."29
Arcane knowledge has
always been presented in forms such that only the most
determined aspirants
could grasp the meanings. K.H. interjects that Sir Isaac
Newton understood the
principles of occult philosophy but "withheld his
knowledge very
prudently for his own reputation." The "scientific" attitude of
mind is declared to be
unpropitious for the attainment of clear insight into
truth, and the
pretensions of modern scientists that they comprehend "the limits
of the natural"
receive some of the Master's irony. "Oh, century of conceit and
mental
obscuration!" he jeers.
"All is secret
for them as yet in nature. Of man-they know but the skeleton and
the form . . . their
school science is a hotbed of doubts and conjectures."30
Furthermore, "to
give more knowledge to a man than he is fitted to receive is a
dangerous
experiment." In his ignorance or his passion he may make a use of it
fatal both to himself
and those about him. The Adepts, it appears also, have
their own reasons for
not wishing to impart knowledge more rapidly than the
pupil can assimilate
it. The misuse of knowledge by the pupil always reacts upon
the initiator; the
Teacher becomes responsible in a measure for the results. The
Master would only
hinder and complicate his own progress by indiscreet
generosity to his
chela..97
As one means of
lightening this responsibility the chela is required, when
accepted, to take a
vow of secrecy covering every order he may receive and the
specific information
imparted. The Master knows whether the vow is ever broken,
without a question
being put.
The prime
qualification for the favor of receiving the great knowledge is
rectitude of motive.
Wisdom must be sought only for its serviceability to
Brotherhood and
progress, not even as an end in itself:
"The quality of
wisdom ever was and will be yet for a long time-to the very
close of the fifth
race-denied to him who seeks the wealth of the mind for its
own sake, and for its
own enjoyment and result, without the secondary purpose of
turning it to account
in the attainment of material benefits."31
The applicant for
chelaship is tested-unknown to himself-in subtle ways before
he is accepted, and
often afterwards, too. It is not a system of secret
espionage, but a
method of drawing out the inner nature of the neophytes, so
that they may become
self-conquerors.
K.H. reminds Sinnett
that the efforts of theosophic adherents to restore or
propagate esoteric
doctrines have ever been met by the determined opposition of
the vested
ecclesiastical interests, which have not scrupled to resort to
forgery of documents,
alleged confessions of fraud, or other villainous
subterfuge, to crush
out the "heresy."
"Some of you
Theosophists are now wounded only in your 'honor' or your purses,
but those who held the
lamp in previous generations paid the penalty of their
lives for their
knowledge."32
He points out, too,
the distressful state into which certain over-eager
aspirants have brought
themselves by "snatching at forbidden power before their
moral nature is
developed to the point of fitness for its exercise." He says:
"it would be a
sorry day for mankind" if any sharper or deadlier powers-such as
those the high Adepts
are privileged to wield-were put in the hands of those
unaccustomed to use
them, or morally untrustworthy.
K.H. volunteers to
explain the occult significance of the interlaced black and
white triangles in the
circle which forms part of the monogram on the seal of
the Theosophical
Society. The Jewish Kabbalists viewed the insignia as Solomon's
Seal. It is "a
geometrical synthesis of the whole occult doctrine."
"The two
interlaced triangles . . . contain the 'squaring of the circle,' the
'philosophical stone,'
the great problems of Life and Death, and-the Mystery of
Evil."33
The upward-pointing
triangle is Wisdom concealed, and the downward-pointing one
is Wisdom revealed-in
the phenomenal world.
"The circle
indicates the bounding, circumscribing quality of the All, the
Universal Principle
which expands . . . to embrace all things."
The three sides
represent the three gunas, or finite attributes. The double
triangles likewise
symbolize the Great Passive and the Great Active principles,
the male and female,
Purusha (Spirit) and Prakriti (Matter).34 The one triangle
points upward to
Spirit, the other downward to Matter, and their interlacing
represents the
conjunction of Spirit and Matter in the manifested universe. The.98
six points of the two
triangles, with the central point, yield the significant
Seven, the symbol of
Universal Being.
Manifestation of the
Absolute Life creates universes, and starts evolutionary
processes; but, says
K.H. to Sinnett,
"neither you nor
any other man across the threshold has had or ever will have
the 'complete theory'
of Evolution taught him; or get it unless he guesses it
for himself. . . .
Some-have come very near to it. But there is always . . .
just enough error . .
. to prove the eternal law that only the unshackled Spirit
shall see the things
of the Spirit without a veil."35
Pride of intellect
grows enormously more dangerous the farther one goes toward
the higher realms; and
after that is overcome spiritual pride raises its head.
An average mortal
finds his share of sin and misery rather equally distributed
over his life; but a
chela has it concentrated all within one period of
probation. One who
essays the higher peaks of knowledge must overcome a heavier
drag of moral
gravitation than one who is content to walk the plain.
From a purely
political standpoint it is interesting to note that in 1883 K.H.
had taken hold of a
project to launch in India a journal to be named "The
Phoenix," which,
with Mr. Sinnett as editor, was to function as an agent for the
cultivation of native
Hindu patriotism, of which the Master saw a sore need in
India's critical
situation at that time. Native princes were looked to for
financial support, as
well as Theosophists, and propaganda for the venture had
already been set in
motion. But K.H. declares that his closer inspection of the
situation and his
discovery of the wretched political indifference of his
countrymen made the
enterprise dubious, financially and spiritually. He then
ordered Sinnett to
drop it entirely, as he saw certain failure ahead.
The Mahatma Letters,
in the latter portion, go deeply into the affairs of the
London Lodge, T. S.,
which Mr. Sinnett had founded on his return to England, and
they even advise as to
the "slate" of officers to stand for election. There was
a factional grouping
in the Lodge at the time, the Kingsford-Maitland party
standing for Christian
esotericism as against the paramount influence of the
Tibetan Masters, whose
existence was regarded by them as at least hypothetical;
and the Sinnett wing
adhering closely to H.P.B. and her Adepts. Mrs. Anna B.
Kingsford had had a
series of communications in her own right from high
teachers, which K.H.
himself stated were in accord with his own doctrine. These
were published in a
volume, The Perfect Way. The Master counsels harmony between
the two parties,
preaching, with Heraclitus, that harmony is the equilibrium
established by the
tension of two opposing forces.
Much or most of the
substance of the later Letters is personal, touching
Sinnett's relations
with persons of prominence in the Theosophical movement. The
Adepts make no claim
to omniscience-they themselves are in turn disciples of
higher and grander
beings whom they speak of as the Dhyan Chohans,36 and whom
they rank next to the
"planetaries"-but they assert their ability to look from
any distance into the
secret minds of Sinnett's associates as well as into his
own. They gave him the
benefit of this spiritual "shadowing" to guide him in the
Society's affairs.
Many complimentary
things are said to Mr. Sinnett for his encouragement; but he
is not spared personal
criticism of the sharpest sort. He is told that his
attitude of Western
pride stands in the way of his true spiritual progress.
While his admirable
qualities have won him the distinction of being used as a.99
literary aid to the
Mahatmas, still he is pronounced far from eligible for
chelaship.
Much of the material
in the Letters, being of a quite personal and intimate
nature, was, to be
sure, never intended for publication; in fact, was again and
again forbidden
publication. But the Sinnett estate was persuaded, in 1925, to
give out the Letters
for the good they might be expected to do in refutation of
the many bizarre
divergencies which Neo-Theosophy was making from the original
teachings. Their
publication came at the conclusion of the half-century period
of the existence of
the Theosophical Society and was supposed to terminate an
old and begin a new
cycle with some exceptional significance such as
Theosophists attribute
to times and tides in the flow of things.
To most Theosophists
the existence of the Masters and the contents of their
teaching form the very
corner-stone of their systematic faith. And ultimately
they point to the
wisdom and spirituality displayed in the Letters themselves as
being sufficient
vindication of that faith..100
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN WALES-------
CHAPTER VII
STORM, WRECK, AND
REBUILDING
Reverting from
philosophy to history we must now give some account of what
happened in India from
the date the two Founders left America late in 1878.
India welcomed
Theosophy with considerable warmth. Col. Olcott toured about,
founding Lodges
rapidly, and Madame Blavatsky bent herself to the more esoteric
work of corresponding
with her Masters and of establishing her official
mouthpiece, The
Theosophist. Though Isis Unveiled had been put forth in America,
Theosophy was first
really propagated in India.
The early history of
the Society in India need not concern us here, save as it
had repercussions in
the United States. But it is necessary to touch upon the
conspicuous events
that transpired there in 1884-85, for they shook the
Theosophic movement to
its foundations and for a time threatened to end it. We
refer to the official
Reports issued in those two years by the Society for
Psychical Research in
England upon the genuineness of the Theosophic phenomena.1
The S.P.R., having
been founded shortly before 1884 by prominent men interested
in the growing reports
of spiritistic and psychic phenomena (the early
membership included at
least three Theosophists, Prof. F. W. H. Myers, Mr. W.
Stainton Moses and Mr.
C. C. Massey), manifested a pronounced interest in the
recently-published and
widely-read works of Mr. Sinnett, The Occult World and
Esoteric Buddhism.
Madame Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled and the works and
experiments of Prof.
William Crookes had done much to foster this new study.
Accordingly when Col.
Olcott and Mohini M. Chatterji, a devoted follower of
H.P.B., were in Europe
in 1884, the S.P.R. requested the three to sit for
friendly questioning
concerning Madame Blavatsky's reported marvels. She was
herself interrogated
at this time. This procedure led to the publication "for
private and
confidential use" of the First Report of the Committee in the fall
of 1884. In sum the
Report expressed decided incredulity as to the genuine
nature of the
phenomena. Ascribing fraud only to Madame Blavatsky, it says:
"Now the evidence
in our opinion renders it impossible to avoid one or other of
two alternative
conclusions: Either that some of the phenomena recorded are
genuine, or that other
persons than Madame Blavatsky, of good standing in
society, and with
characters to lose, have taken part in deliberate imposture."
The conclusion was:
"On the whole,
however, (though with some serious reserves) it seems undeniable
that there is a prima
facie case for some part at least of the claim made, which
. . . cannot, with
consistency, be ignored."
Later in the same year
the S.P.R. sent one of its members, Mr. Richard Hodgson,
a young University
graduate, to India to conduct further investigation of the
phenomena reported to
have taken place at the Headquarters of the Theosophical
Society, at Madras. He
was given untrammeled access to the premises and.101
permitted to examine
in person members of the household who had witnessed some
of the events in
question.
H.P.B.'s nemesis in
these ill-started proceedings was one Madame Coulomb. In
1871, when Madame
Blavatsky had been brought to Cairo, along with other
survivors of their
wrecked vessel, the French woman, a claimant to the
possession of
mediumistic powers, became interested in H.P.B.'s psychic
abilities and rendered
her some assistance. When, in 1879, the Founders arrived
in India, Madame
Coulomb in her turn resorted to her Russian friend for aid, and
H.P.B. made her the
housekeeper, and her husband the general utility man, of the
little Theosophic
colony. They proved to be ungrateful, meddlesome, and
unscrupulous, became
jealous and discontented, and when left in charge of Madame
Blavatsky's own rooms
in the building during her absence on the journey to
Europe in 1884, they
fell into bickering and open conflict with Mr. Lane-Fox,
Dr. Franz Hartmann and
others of the personnel over questions of authority and
small matters of household
management. Both they and the Theosophists took up
the matters of dispute
by letter with H.P.B. and Col. Olcott in Europe, and the
two leaders urged
conciliation and peace on both sides. But finally the ill-repressed
resentment of Madame
Coulomb broke out into secret machinations with
the Christian
missionaries to expose Madame Blavatsky as a fraud. Madame Coulomb
placed in the hands of
the missionaries letters allegedly written to her by her
former friend, in
which evidence of the latter's connivance with her French
protιgι to perpetrate
deception in phenomena was revealed. Just before exploding
this bombshell the
Coulombs had become unendurable, and had finally been
compelled to leave the
premises.
Madame Coulomb
bartered her incriminating material to the missionaries for a
considerable sum of
money, and the purchasers spread the alleged exposure before
the public in their
organ, the Christian College Magazine.2 Madame Blavatsky, in
Europe, made brief
replies in the London Times and the Pall Mall Gazette,
stating that the
Coulomb letters were forgeries. She wished to bring
recrimination
proceedings against her accusers to vindicate herself and the
Society. Friends
dissuaded her, or deserted her, and nothing was done. But the
Founders prepared to
hasten back to India. Col. Olcott seems to have taken a
vacillating course,
and the resolution adopted at a Convention held in India
upon their return
expressed the opinion of the delegates that Madame Blavatsky
should take no legal
action.
She resigned her
office as Corresponding Secretary, but later was requested to
resume her old place.
Mr. Hodgson submitted
his report, which was published near the end of 1885.3 He
had not witnessed any
phenomena nor examined any. He questioned witnesses to
several of the wonders
a full year after the latter had taken place. He rendered
an entirely ex parte
judgment in that he acted as judge, accuser, and jury and
gave no hearing to the
defense. He ignored a mass of testimony of the witnesses
to the phenomena, and
accepted the words of the Coulombs whose conduct had
already put them under
suspicion.4 The merits of the entire case have been
carefully gone into by
William Kingsland in his The Real H. P. Blavatsky, and by
the anonymous authors
of The Theosophical Movement. The matter of most decisive
weight in Mr.
Hodgson's unfavorable judgment was the secret panel in H.P.B.'s
"shrine" or
cabinet built in the wall of her room, and a sliding door exhibited
by the Coulombs to the
investigators, and described as having been used by
Madame Blavatsky for
the insertion of alleged Mahatma letters from the next room
by one of the Coulomb
accomplices. The Theosophists resident at Headquarters
charged that the
secret window had been built in, at the instigation of the
missionaries, by M.
Coulomb during H.P.B.'s absence. He alone had the keys to.102
Madame's apartment,
and one of the points of his quarrel with the house members
was the possession of
the keys. He refused to give them up, alleging that Madame
Blavatsky had placed
him in exclusive charge of her rooms during her absence.
The charges of course
threw doubt upon the existence of the Masters, the
genuineness of their
purported letters and the whole Mahatmic foundation of
Theosophy.
A great point at issue
was the comparison of H.P.B.'s handwriting with that of
the Mahatma Letters.
Two experts, Mr. F. G. Netherclift and Mr. Sims, first
testified they were
not identical, but later reversed their testimony. Mr. F. W.
H. Myers confessed
there was entire similarity between the handwriting of the
Mahatma Letters and a
letter received by Madame Blavatsky's aunt, Madame Fadeef,
back in 1870 at
Odessa, Russia, from the hand of a Hindu personage who then
vanished from before
her eyes. (Madame Blavatsky was at some other quarter of
the globe at the
time.) A distinguished German handwriting expert later declared
there was no
similarity between H.P.B.'s chirography and those of the Master M.
and K.H.
It remained for Mr.
Hodgson to assign an adequate motive for Madame Blavatsky's
colossal career of
deception, and here he confesses difficulty. He finally
concludes that her
motive was patriotism for her native land: she was a Russian
spy! Mr. Solovyoff, in
his A Modern Priestess of Isis, gives some substance to
this charge. It is
conceivable that Madame Blavatsky could have felt sentimental
interest in the
Russianizing, rather than the Anglicizing, of India; yet it
appears preposterous
to think that she would have endured the privations and
hardships to which she
was subjected in her devotion to Theosophy merely to
cloak a subterranean
machination for Russian dominance in India. She was an
American citizen,
having been naturalized before she left the United States.
Mr. Hodgson declared
Madame Blavatsky to be "one of the most accomplished,
ingenious and
interesting impostors in history." In a letter to Sinnett, June
21, 1885, she records
her reciprocal opinion of Mr. Hodgson. She writes:
"They very nearly
succeeded [in killing both her and the Theosophical Society].
At any rate they have
succeeded in fooling Hume and the S.P.R. Poor Myers! and
still more, poor
Hodgson! How terribly they will be laughed at some day!"
The attack of the
S.P.R. upon Theosophy and its leaders fell with great force
upon the followers of
the movement everywhere and only a few remained loyal
through the storm.
Among the faithful in
America was Mr. W. Q. Judge. It remained for him to effect
a reorganization of
the forces in the United States in 1885, when the S.P.R.
attack was raging
abroad. In the previous year he had gone to France, had met
H.P.B., continued on
to India and back to America. In 1885 he reorganized the
sparse membership into
the Aryan Lodge. In 1886 he started the publication of
The Path, long the
American organ for his expression of Theosophy. Active study
and propaganda
followed quickly thereupon and the number of branches soon
tripled. Col. Olcott
had appointed an American Board of Control. This body met
at Cincinnati in 1886
and organized "The American Section of the Theosophical
Society." In
April, 1887, the branches held their first Convention, and adopted
constitution and
by-laws. Mr. Judge became General Secretary. The organization
was a copy of that of
the Federal Government, though allegiance was subscribed
to the General Council
in India. In 1888 the second Convention was held, with
Mr. Archibald
Keightley present as a representative from England. Theosophical
organization was at
last in full swing in America..103
Brief mention may be
made at this point of a somewhat divergent movement within
the ranks of Theosophy
itself about 1886. A Mr. W. T. Brown, of Glasgow, had had
close fellowship with
the Theosophists at Adyar, Madras, from 1884 to 1886. He
then came to this
country and associated himself with Mrs. Josephine W. Cables,
who had been a
Christian Spiritualist, but who had as early as 1882 organized
the Rochester
Theosophical Society. This was the first Theosophical Lodge
established in America
after the original founding in New York in 1875. But Mrs.
Cables tried to
represent Theosophy as a mixture of Christianity, Spiritualism,
Mysticism, personal
ideas on diet and occultism in general. She founded The
Occult World, a
magazine which Prof. Elliott Coues, then President of the
American Board of
Control, tried to make the official organ of Theosophy in
America. But Mr.
Judge's Path was in the field, and Mrs. Cables and Mr. Brown
gave expression to
some jealousy of the rival publication, alleging that the
Theosophical Society
was not a unique instrument for the spreading of occult
knowledge, but that
Christ was to be accepted as the final guide and authority.
They referred to the Theosophic
teaching as "husks," while Christ had fed the
world the real kernel.
To this H.P.B. replied through The Path for December,
1886, and cast the
blame for their losing touch with her Masters on Mrs. Cables
and Mr. Brown
themselves.5 Mrs. Cables turned her Rochester Theosophical Society
into the
"Rochester Brotherhood" and her magazine into an exponent of Mystical
Spiritualism. Mr.
Brown returned to the fold of orthodox Christianity. Prof.
Coues was destined to
contribute a sensational
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CHAPTER to Theosophic history
before he broke with
the movement forever.6
A close study of the
record will reveal that it was during these years that the
germ of a hierarchical
division in the Theosophical organization developed. In
the theory of the
existence and evolutionary attainments of the Masters
themselves was
enfolded the conception of a graded approach to their elevated
status. As the
Theosophical Society came to be understood as only an appanage of
the Masters in their
service of humanity, its inner intent was soon seen to be
that of affording a
means of access to these high beings. It was recognized as
an organization whose
supreme headship was vested in the Mahatmas and whose
corporate membership
formed a lower degree of spiritual discipleship. This
hierarchical grading
naturally fell into three degrees, predicated on the thesis
that the Adepts accept
pupils for personal tutelage. There were first, the
Masters, then their
accepted pupils or chelas, and lastly just plain
Theosophists or
members of the Society. The third class might or might not be
led to aspire to
chelaship, on the terms of a serious pledge to consecrate all
life's efforts to
spiritual mastery. These three divisions came to be called the
First, Second and
Third Sections of the Theosophical Society. It is the theory
advanced in the
Theosophic Movement that H.P.B. represented the First Section,
Mr. Judge the Second
and Col. Olcott the Third. The Russian noblewoman was
regarded as the only
bona fide or authoritative link of communication with the
First Section (though
the Masters might at any time grant the favor of their
special interest to
others, as they did to Mr. Sinnett); Judge was held to be an
accepted chela, in the
high confidence of Madame Blavatsky and her mentors,
their reliable agent to
head the order of lay chelaship; Col. Olcott was the
active and visible
head of the Theosophical Society, the accepted instrument of
the Masters in the
work of building up that organization which was to present
the ancient doctrine
of their existence to the world and mark out anew the path
of approach to them.
H.P.B. and Judge worked behind the scenes, while Olcott
stood in the gaze of
the world. To them belonged the task of bringing out the
teaching and keeping
it properly related to its sources; to him fell the
executive labor of
providing ways and means to serve it to a sceptical public.
The functions of the
former two were esoteric; those of Olcott exoteric. It was
understood that the
Colonel was not advanced beyond the position of a lay or.104
probationary chela. He
himself seems to have accepted this ranking as deserved,
and generously
admitted that
"to transform a
worldly man such as I was in 1874--a man of clubs, drinking
parties, mistresses, a
man absorbed in all sorts of worldly, public, and private
undertakings and
speculations-into that purest, wisest, noblest, and most
spiritual of human
beings-a 'Brother,' was a wonder demanding next to miraculous
efficacy. . . . No one
knows until he really tries it, how awful a task it is to
subdue all his evil
passions and animal instincts and develop his higher
nature."7
The Theosophical
Movement ascribes most of the trials and tribulations of
Theosophy to the
Colonel's indifferent success, at times, in the "awful task."
Years later, Olcott
says:
"She was the
teacher, I the pupil; she the misunderstood and insulted messenger
of the Great Ones, I
the practical brain to plan, the right hand to work out the
practical
details."8
Out of this situation
eventuated the formation of the Esoteric Section of the
Theosophical Society.
So many members were reaching out after the chelaship that
Judge wrote to H.P.B.
in 1887 for advice as to what to offer them. She replied,
telling him to go
ahead in America and she would soon do something herself. She
then began the publication
of Lucifer, in which the qualifications, dangers,
obstacles, and status
of chelaship were set forth in article after article.
Judge went to London;
and there, at the request of Madame Blavatsky drew the
plans and wrote the
rules for the guidance of the new body. Col. Olcott looked
on with some
perturbation while his spiritual superiors stepped lightly over his
authority to
inaugurate the higher enterprise. In October, 1888, the first
public statement
relative to the Esoteric Section appeared. It announced the
purpose of the
formation of the Esoteric Section to be:
"To promote the
esoteric interests of the Theosophical Society by the deeper
study of esoteric
philosophy."
All authority was
vested in Madame Blavatsky and official connection with the
Theosophical Society
itself was disclaimed.
A further hint as to
the impelling motive back of the new branch of activity was
given by H.P.B. in the
letter she addressed to the Convention of the American
Section meeting in
April, 1889. She says:
"Therefore it is
that the ethics of Theosophy are even more necessary to mankind
than the specific
aspects of the psychic facts of nature and man . . ."
She made a plea for
solidarity in the fellowship of the Theosophical Society, to
form a nucleus of true
Brotherhood.
Unity had to be
achieved to withstand exterior onslaught, as well as interior
discord. An attack
upon one must be equally met by all. The first object of the
Society is Universal
Brotherhood. She asked in the finale:
"How many of you
have helped humanity to carry its smallest burden, that you
should all regard
yourselves as Theosophists? Oh, men of the West, who would
play at being the
Saviors of mankind before they can spare the life of a
mosquito whose sting
threatens them! Would ye be partakers of Divine Wisdom or
true Theosophists?
Then do as the gods when incarnated do. Feel yourselves the.105
vehicles of the whole
humanity, mankind as part of yourselves, and act
accordingly . .
."
She then sent out a
formal letter, marked strictly private and confidential, to
all applicants for
entry into the new school. It contained an introductory
statement, the
"Rules of the Esoteric Section (Probationary) of the Theosophical
Society" and the
"Pledge of Probationers in the Esoteric Section." The latter
was as follows:
"I pledge myself
to support, before the world, the Theosophical Movement, its
leaders and its
members; and in particular to obey, without cavil or delay, the
orders of the Head of
the Section, in all that concerns my relation with the
Theosophical
Movement."
It can be seen that
such a pledge carried the possibility of far-reaching
consequences and might
be difficult to fulfil under certain precarious
conditions. Much
controversy in the Society from 1906 onwards hinges about this
pledge.
Madame Blavatsky went
on to say:
"It is through an
Esoteric Section alone . . . that the great exoteric Society
may be redeemed and
made to realize that in union and harmony alone lie its
strength and power.
The object of the Section, then, is to help the future
growth of the
Theosophical Society as a whole in the true direction, by
promoting brotherly
union at least among a choice minority."
The Book of Rules
provided that the work to be pursued was not practical
occultism, but mutual
help in the Theosophic life; it outlined measures for
suppressing gossip,
slander, cant, hypocrisy, and injustice; for limiting the
claims of occult
interests and psychic inclinations; it inculcated the widest
charity, tolerance,
and mutual helpfulness as the prime condition of all true
progress. Said the
Rule:
"The first test
of true apprenticeship is devotion to the interest of another."
It concludes:
"It is not the
individual or determined purpose of attaining oneself Nirvana,
which is, after all,
only an exalted and glorious selfishness, but the self-sacrificing
pursuit of the best
means to lead our neighbor on the right path . .
."
Conditions for
membership in the Esoteric Section were three: (1) one must be a
Fellow of the
Theosophical Society; (2) the pledge must be signed; (3) the
applicant must be
approved by the Head of the Section. And warning was issued
that, while no duties
would be required in the Order that would interfere with
one's family or professional
obligations, "it is certain that every member of
the Esoteric Section
will have to give up more than one personal habit . . . and
adopt some few ascetic
rules." The habits referred to were alcoholism and meat-eating,
mainly, and the
ascetic rules were those regulating meditation, sleep,
diet, kindly speech,
altruistic thought, etc.
The establishment of
the Esoteric Section was one of the moves undertaken to
rebuild the structure
of Theosophy which had been so badly shattered by the
S.P.R. attack and its
consequences. But while this was going forward, largely
under the direction of
Judge, Madame Blavatsky had already begun to devote her.106
tireless energies to
the accomplishment of another great work of reconstruction.
Its inception bore a
logical relation to the promulgation of the Esoteric
branch. If students
were to be taken deeper into the essentials of the occult
life, there was need
of a fuller statement of the scheme of the world's racial
and cosmogonic
history, so that the task of personal and social development
might be seen and
understood in its most intimate rapport with the larger
streams of life. The
arcane knowledge had to be further unveiled.
The combined attack of
the Coulombs, the Christian missionaries and the English
Psychic Research
Society on Madame Blavatsky in 1885 was indeed a fiery-furnace
test. She had
vigorously, in Isis and elsewhere, attacked orthodoxy and
conservative interests
in religion and science. She was now to feel the full
force of the blow
which society, through the representatives of these vested
interests, was
impelled to strike back at her, and it was greater than she had
anticipated. It nearly
ended her career. Not that she was one to cringe and
wince under attack.
Far from it. She wanted to bring suit against her
calumniators. She
burned under a sense of injustice. She even contemplated the
possibility of
startling a crowded court room with a display of her suspected
phenomena. But-the
trial would have necessitated dragging her beloved Masters
into the mire of low
human emotions, and this she could not do. Instead, the
storm within her soul
had to wear itself out by degrees. It nearly cost her life
itself; but she was
saved, as has been maintained, by the intervention of her
Master's power. She wished
to die, feeling that her life work was irreparably
defeated. At this
juncture she was summoned, as we gather from her letters to
the Sinnetts, to a
quiet nook north of Darjeeling, met the Mahatmas in person,
and returned after a
few days to her friends, "fixed" once more. Whatever the
"inside"
facts in the case, she went north broken in body and spirit, and two
days later emerged
from her retirement apparently well, and with a new zest for
life, ready to battle
again for her "Cause."
Not long thereafter
came the journey from India, which she was never to see
again, back to Europe,
where she spent more peaceful days of work among devoted
friends, the Gebhards
at Wόrzburg, Germany, the Countess Wachtmeister, the
Keightleys, and many
more in Belgium, France, and England. She said the secret
of her new lease on
life at this time was that the Master had indicated to her
that he wished her to
perform one more service in the interests of Theosophy
before she
relinquished the body. Her task was not finished. Isis was little
more than a clearing
away of old rubbish and the announcement that a great
secret science lay
buried amid the ruins of ancient cities. The Mahatma Letters
gave but a fragmentary
outline of the great Teaching, enough to stimulate
inquiry in the proper
direction. But the magnum opus, the fundamentals of the
Secret Doctrine, had
not yet been produced. The "Secret Doctrine" was still
secret. Restored to
comparative health, and given certain reassurances of
support from her
Masters, her courage we renewed. One finds the motive of
vindication running
strong in her mind at this time; all thought of defence, of
retaliation given up,
she would disprove all the charges of knavery, deception
and disingenuousness
of every stripe by a master-work before whose brilliance
all suggestion of
petty human motives would vanish. She writes in a letter to
Sinnett:
"As for [the
charges of] philosophy and doctrine invented, the Secret Doctrine
shall show. Now I am
here alone, with the Countess [Wachtmeister] for witness. I
have no books, no one
to help me. And I tell you that the Secret Doctrine will
be twenty times as
learned, philosophical and better than Isis, which will be
killed by it. Now
there are hundreds of things which I am permitted to say and
explain. I will show
what a Russian spy can do, an alleged forger-plagiarist,
etc. The whole
doctrine is shown to be the mother stone, the foundation of all.107
the religions
including Christianity, and on the strength of exoteric published
Hindu books, with
their symbols explained esoterically. The extreme lucidity of
'Esoteric Buddhism'
[Mr. Sinnett's book expounding the summarized teaching of
the Mahatma Letters]
will also be shown, and its doctrines proven correct,
mathematically,
geometrically, logically and scientifically. Hodgson is very
clever, but he is not
clever enough for truth, and it shall triumph, after which
I can die
peacefully."9
The work was intended
in its first conception to be an "expansion of Isis." It
was soon seen, however,
that the fuller clarification of the hints in the
earlier work would
necessitate the practically complete unveiling of the whole
occult knowledge. So
Isis was forgotten, and the new production made to stand on
its own feet.
The hint in her letter
just quoted that she would do the actual writing of the
new volumes
practically without the aid of reference or source books is to be
taken to mean,
doubtless, that the very manner of her production of the work
would constitute the final
irrefutable proof of the existence and powers of the
Mahatmas. The
composition as well as the contents of the book was to be
phenomenal. She says
in a letter to Madame Jelihowsky, her sister, written at
this time that
"it is the phenomena of Isis all over again." Yet there were some
variations. In a
Sinnett letter she writes:
"There's a new
development and scenery every morning. I live two lives again!
Master finds that it
is too difficult for me to be looking consciously into the
astral light for my Secret
Doctrine, and so, it is now about a fortnight, I am
made to see all I have
to as though in my dream. I see large and long rolls of
paper on which things
are written, and I recollect them. Thus all the Patriarchs
from Adam to Noah were
given me to see, parallel with the Rishis; and in the
middle between them
the meaning of these symbols or personifications. I was
ordered to . . . make
a rapid sketch of what was known historically and in
literature, in
classics and in profane and sacred histories-during the five
hundred years that
followed it; of magic, the existence of a universal Secret
Doctrine known to the
philosophers and Initiates of every country, and even to
several of the Church
Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen and others,
who had been initiated
themselves. Also to describe the Mysteries and some
rites; and I can
assure you that the most extraordinary things are given out
now, the whole story
of the Crucifixion, etc., being shown to be based on a rite
as old as the
world-the Crucifixion of the Lathe of the Candidate-trials, going
down to Hell, etc.,
all Aryan . . . I have facts for twenty volumes like Isis;
it is the language,
the cleverness for compiling them, that I lack."10
Writing to her niece,
Madame Vera Johnston, she said:
"You are very
green if you think that I actually know and understand all the
things I write. How
many times am I to repeat to you and your mother that the
things I write are
dictated to me; that sometimes I see manuscripts, numbers and
words before my eyes
of which I never knew anything?"11
In a letter to Judge
in America, March 24, 1886, H.P.B. says:
"Such facts, such
facts, Judge, as Masters are giving out, will rejoice your old
heart. . . . The thing
is becoming enormous, a wealth of facts."
Madame Johnston quotes
Franz Hartmann, who accompanied Madame Blavatsky on her
trip from Madras to
Europe in April, 1885, when she was so ill that she had to
be hoisted aboard, as
saying that.108
"while on board
the S.S. 'Tibre' and on the open sea, she very frequently
received in some
occult manner many pages of manuscript referring to the Secret
Doctrine, the material
of which she was collecting at the time. Miss Mary Flynn
was with us, and knows
more about it than I; because I did not take much
interest in those
matters, as the receiving of 'occult correspondence' had
become almost an
everyday occurrence with us."12
The person who had
most continuous and prolonged opportunity to witness whatever
display of
extraordinary assistance was afforded the compiler of The Secret
Doctrine was the
Countess Constance Wachtmeister, already mentioned as being the
companion and guardian
of Madame Blavatsky during must of the period of the
composition at
Wόrzburg, Ostend, and in London. In her Reminiscences of H. P.
Blavatsky, and The
Secret Doctrine she writes in detail of the many facts coming
under her observation
which pointed to exterior help in the work. She wrote:
"The Secret
Doctrine will be indeed a great and grand work. I have had the
privilege of watching
its progress, of reading the manuscripts, and witnessing
the occult way in
which she derived her information."
The Countess states
that on two or three occasions she saw on H.P.B.'s desk in
the morning numbers of
sheets of manuscript in the familiar handwriting of the
Masters. She writes
that at times a piece of paper was found on the desk in the
morning with
unfamiliar characters traced in red ink. It was an outline of the
author's work for the
day,--the "red and blue spook-like messages." Questioned
how it was
precipitated, H.P.B. stated that elementals were used for the
purpose, but that they
had nothing to do with the intelligence of the message,
only with the
mechanics of the feat.
More significant,
perhaps, than these details is the question of the origin of
the many quotations
and references, as in Isis, from old works, or from books
not in her possession.
The testimony on this score is more voluminous and
challenging than in
the case of Isis. 13
Madame Blavatsky was
practically without reference books and was too ill to
leave the house to
visit libraries. She worked from morning until night at her
desk. Dr.
Hόbbe-Schleiden, her German convert, says she had scarcely half-a-dozen
books. Her niece
writes:
"Later on when we
three went to Ostend [in the very midst of the work], it was I
who put aunt's things
and books in order, so I can testify that the first month
or two in Ostend she
decidedly had no other books but a few French novels,
bought at railway
stations and read whilst traveling, and several odd numbers of
some Russian
newspapers and magazines. So there was absolutely nothing where her
numerous quotations
could have come from."14
Two young Englishmen,
Dr. Bertram Keightley and his nephew Archibald, worked
with Madame Blavatsky
on the arrangement of her material. It fell to them
eventually to edit the
work for her. They contribute their testimony as to what
took place of a
phenomenal sort. Says Bertram:
"Of phenomena in
connection with The Secret Doctrine I have very little indeed
to say. Quotations,
with full references, from books which were never in the
house-quotations
verified after hours of search, sometimes at the British
Museum, for a rare
book-of such I saw and verified not a few."15.109
The nephew speaks to
the same effect. As a matter of fact, during the writing of
the latter portions of
the book in London, Madame Blavatsky kept two or three
young men, students
from the University of Dublin, busily engaged in the daily
search for quotations,
which she said would be found in books of which she gave
not only the titles,
but the exact location of the passages. These men have
repeatedly borne
testimony to the facts in this connection. They were Mr. E.
Douglass Fawcett, Mr.
S. L. McGregor Mathers, Mr. Edgar Saltus, and one or two
more.16
There were frequent
and notable visitors in the evenings, when the day's writing
was put aside. Mr.
Archibald Keightley tells that:
"Mr. J. G.
Romanes, a Fellow of the Royal Society, comes in to discuss the
evolutionary theory
set forth in her Secret Doctrine. Mr. W. T. Stead, Editor of
the Pall Mall Gazette,
who is a great admirer of The Secret Doctrine, finds much
in it that seems to
invite further elucidation. Lord Crawford, Earl of Crawford
and Balcarres, another
F.R.S.-who is deeply interested in occultism and
cosmography, and who
was a pupil of Lord Lytton and studied with him in Egypt-comes
to speak of his
special subject of concern. Mr. Sidney Whitman, widely
known for his scathing
criticism upon English cant, has ideas to express and
thoughts to interchange
upon the ethics of Theosophy; and so they come."17
Untiringly through
1885, 1886 and 1887, in Germany with the Gebhards, then in
Belgium and finally in
London, she labored to get the voluminous material in
form. Unable on
account of her dropsical condition to take exercise, she was
again and again
threatened with complete breakdown by the accumulation of toxins
in her system. A young
physician of London, Dr. Bennett, who attended her at
times, pronounced her
condition most grave, on one occasion declaring it
impossible for her to
survive the night. In our third
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
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CHAPTER we have seen
Countess
Wachtmeister's account of her surprising recovery. The Countess alleges
that Madame destroyed
many pages of manuscript already written, in obedience to
orders from the
Master. There was left, however, enough material for some
sixteen hundred
close-printed pages which now make up the two volumes commonly
accepted as her
genuine product. To an examination of the contents of this
pretentious work we
now invite the reader..110
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CHAPTER VIII
THE SECRET DOCTRINE
The Secret Doctrine
sets forth what purports to be the root knowledge out of
which all religion,
philosophy, and science have grown. The sub-title-"The
Synthesis of Science,
Religion, and Philosophy" reveals the daring aim and scope
of the undertaking. It
is an effort to present and align certain fundamental
principles in such a
way as to render possible a synthesis of all knowledge.
The first volume deals
with cosmogenesis, the second with anthropogenesis. A
third, to deal with
the lives of the great occultists down the ages, was in form
for the press, as
testified to by the Keightleys, who typed the manuscript, and
by Alice L. Cleather
and others, but never came to the public. A fourth was
projected and almost
entirely written, but likewise went to oblivion instead of
to the printer. A
third volume, issued five years after H.P.B.'s death under the
editorship of Mrs.
Annie Besant, is made up of some other writings of Madame
Blavatsky, dealing in
part with the Esoteric Section, but is not regarded by
close students as
having been the original third volume.
The whole book
professes to be a commentary on The Stanzas of Dzyan,1 which
H.P.B. alleged to be a
fragment of Tibetan sacred writings of two types, one
cosmological, the
other ethical and devotional. The Secret Doctrine elucidates
the former section of
the Stanzas, and her later work, The Voice of the Silence,
the latter. The
Stanzas of Dzyan are of great antiquity, she claimed, drawn from
the Mani Koumboum,2 or
sacred script of the Dzungarians,3 in the north of Tibet.
She is not sure of
their origin, but says she was permitted to memorize them
during her residence
in the Forbidden Land. They show a close parallel with the
Prajna Paramita Sutras
of Hindu sacred lore.
There are of course
charges that she invented the Stanzas herself or plagiarized
them from some source.
Max Mόller is reported to have said that in this matter
she was either a
remarkable forger or that she has made the most valuable gift
to archeological
research in the Orient. She says herself in the Preface:
"These truths are
in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the author
claim the position of
a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for the first
time in the world's
history. For what is contained in this work is to be found
scattered throughout
thousands of volumes embodying the scriptures of the great
Asiatic and early European
religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and
hitherto left
unnoticed because of this veil. What is now attempted is to gather
the oldest tenets
together and to make of them one harmonious and unbroken
whole. The sole
advantage which the writer has over her predecessors, is that
she need not resort to
personal speculation and theories. For this work is a
partial statement of
what she herself has been taught by more advanced students,
supplemented in a few
details only, by the results of her own study and
observation."4.111
Near the end of her
Introductory she printed in large type, quoting Montaigne:
"I have here made
only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of
my own but the string
that ties them."
Then she adds:
"Pull the 'string'
to pieces, if you will. As for the nosegay of facts-you will
never be able to make
away with these. You can only ignore them and no more."
In the Introductory
she presents once more the thesis of esotericism as the
method used throughout
former history for the preservation and propagation of
the precious deposit
of the Ancient Wisdom. She affirms that under the sandswept
plains of Tibet, under
many a desert of the Orient, cities lie buried in whose
secret recesses are
stored away the priceless books that the despoiling hands of
the bigot would have
tossed into the flames. Books which held the key to
thousands of others
yet extant, she alleges, unaccountably disappeared from
view-but are not lost.
There was a "primeval revelation," granted to the fathers
of the human race, and
it still exists. Furthermore, it will reappear. But
unless one possesses
the key, he will never unlock it, and the profane world
will search for it in
vain. The Golden Legend traces its symbolic pattern
mysteriously through
the warp and woof of the oldest literatures, but only the
initiated will see it.
A strange prophecy is dropped as she passes on.
"The rejection of
these teachings may be expected and must be accepted
beforehand. No one
styling himself a 'scholar,' in whatever department of exact
science, will be
permitted to regard these teachings seriously. They will be
derided and rejected a
priori in this century; but only in this one. For in the
twentieth century of
our era scholars will begin to recognize that the Secret
Doctrine has neither
been invented nor exaggerated, but on the contrary, simply
outlined; and finally
that its teachings antedate the Vedas."5
Her book is not the
Secret Doctrine in its entirety, but a select number of
fragments of its
fundamental tenets. But it will be centuries before much more
is given out. The keys
to the Zodiacal Mysteries "must be turned seven times
before the whole
system is divulged." One turn of the key was given in Isis.
Several turns more are
given in The Secret Doctrine.
"The Secret
Doctrine is not a treatise, or a series of vague theories, but
contains all that can
be given out to the world in this century."6
She is to deal with
the entire field of life, in all its manifestations, cosmic,
universal, planetary,
earthly, and human. Omnipresent eternal life is assumed as
given, without
beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations.
It is always in being
for Itself, yet for us it comes into and goes out of
existence with
periodical rhythm. Its one absolute attribute, which is itself,
is eternal causeless
motion, called the "Great Breath." Life eternal exhales and
inhales, and this
action produces the universes and withdraws them. It is in
regular and harmonious
succession either passive or active. These conditions are
the "Days"
and "Nights" of Brahm, when, so to say, universal life is either
awake or asleep. This
characteristic of the One Life stamps everything
everywhere with the
mark of an analogous process. No work of Life is free from
this law. It is the
immutable law of the All and of every part of the All. It is
the universal law of
Karma, and makes reincarnation the method of life
expression everywhere.
Life swings eternally back and forth between periods of
activity and rest.
Upon inaugurating an active period after a "Night" of rest,
life begins to expand,
and continues until it fills all space with cosmical.112
creation; in turn, at
the end of this activity, it contracts and withdraws all
the energy within itself.
The Secret Doctrine is an account of the activities of
the One Life from the
beginning of one of these periods of reawakening to its
end, treating the
cosmic processes generally, and the earth and human processes
specifically. It is
the cryptic story of how the universe is created, whence it
emanates, what Powers
fashion it, whither it goes and what it means.
The period of
universal rest is known in esoteric circles as "Pralaya,"7 the
active period as a
"Manvantara."8 A description of the Totality of Things is
nothing but an account
of the Life Force alternating, shuttle-like, between
these two conditions.
The universe comes out
of the Great Being and disappears into it. Life repeats
in any form it takes
the metaphor of this process. It vacillates forever between
the opposite poles of
Unity and Infinity, noumenon and phenomenon, absoluteness
and relativity,
homogeneity and heterogeneity, reality and appearance, the
unconditional and the
conditioned, the dimensionless and the dimensioned, the
eternal and the
temporal. What Life is when not manifest to us is as
indescribable, as
unthinkable as is space. The Absolute-God-is just this Space.
Space is neither a
"limitless void" nor a "conditioned fulness," but both. It
appears void to finite
minds, yet is the absolute container of all that is.
Where the universe
goes when it dissolves-and still remains in being-is where
anything else goes
when it dissolves,--into solution. Not in a purely mechanical
sense, yet that too.
It goes from infinite particularity back into the one
genus, from form back
to formlessness, from differentiation back to homogeneity.
Matter goes to bits,
finer, finer, till it is held in solution in the infinite
sea of pure Non-Being.
It goes from actuality to latency.
Occultism is the study
of the worlds in their latent state; material science is
the study of the same
worlds in their actual or manifest condition. Or, to use
Aristotelian terms,
since no attributes can be predicated of pure potentiality,
matter is privation.
Matter is sheer possibility, with no capacity but to be
acted upon, shaped,
formed, impregnated. Nothing can be affirmed of it save that
it is, and even then
it is not as matter, but the pure essence, germ, or root of
matter. It is just the
Absolute, i.e., freed from all marks of differentiation.
Since nothing can be
asserted of it, it is pure negation, non-being. Absolute
being, paradoxically,
ultimately equals non-being. Being has so far retreated
from actuality that it
ends in sheer Be-ness. The eternal "dance of life" is a
rhythmic movement of
the All from Be-ness to Being, through the path of
Becoming. This brings
us to the famous three fundamentals of the Secret
Doctrine, the three
basic principles of the Sacred Science. They are:
1. The Omnipresent,
Eternal, Boundless and Immutable Principle, on which all
speculation is
impossible-beyond the range and reach of thought-the One Absolute
Reality, Infinite
Cause, the Unknowable, the Unmoved Mover and Rootless Root of
all-pure Be-ness-Sat.
It is symbolized in esotericism under two aspects,
Absolute Space and
Absolute Motion; the latter representing unconditioned
Consciousness. The
impersonal reality of the cosmos is the pure noumenon of
thought. Parabrahm
(Be-ness) is out of all relation to conditioned existence. In
Sanskrit, parabrahman
means "the Supreme Spirit of Brahma." Whenever the life of
Parabrahm deploys into
manifestation, it assumes a dual aspect, giving rise to
the "pairs of
opposites," or the polarities of the conditioned universe. The One
Life splits into
Spirit-Matter, Subject-Object. The contrast and tension of
these two aspects are
essential to hold the universes in manifestation. Without
cosmic substance
cosmic ideation would not manifest as individual self-consciousness,
since only through
matter can there be effected a focus of this.113
undifferentiated
intelligence to form a conscious being. Similarly cosmic matter
apart from cosmic
ideation, would remain an empty abstraction.
Madame Blavatsky here
introduces the conception of a force whose function it is
to effect the linkage
between spirit and matter. This is an energy named Fohat
(supposedly a Tibetan
term), which becomes at once the solution of all mind-body
problems. It is the
"bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in the Divine
Intelligence are
impressed on cosmic substance as the "Laws of Nature." It is
the Force which
prescribes form to matter, and gives mode to its activity. It is
the agent of the
formative intelligences, the various sons of the various
trinities, for casting
the creations into forms of "logical structure."
2. The periodical
activity already noted, which makes Space the "playground of
numberless universes
incessantly manifesting and disappearing," the rhythmic
pulse which causes
"the appearance and disappearance of worlds like a regular
tidal ebb and
flow." This second fundamental affirms that absolute law of
periodicity, of flux
and reflux, which physical science has noted and recorded
in all departments of
nature, and which the old science termed the Law of Karma.
It has been treated
briefly above, and a later
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER will trace its operations
in nature more fully.
3. The identity and
fundamental unity of all individual Souls with the universal
Over-Soul, the
microcosm with the macrocosm. The history of the individual or
personalized Soul is
thus of necessity a miniature or copy of the larger life of
the universe, a
pilgrimage through the worlds of matter and sense, under the
cyclic karmic law,--"cycles
of necessity" and incarnation. In fact individual
self-consciousness is
only acquirable by the Spirit, in its separated though
still divine
aspect-the Soul-by an independent conscious existence that brings
it in contact with
every elementary form of the phenomenal world. This demands
of it a "descent
into matter" to its lowest and most inert forms, and a re-ascent
through every rising
grade until immaterial conditions are once more
attained. The road
downward and upward is marked by seven steps, grades or
planes of cosmic
formation, on each of which man acquires a nature and faculties
consonant with the
type of structure of the atom there encountered. On the
downward arc (or
Involution, a process unknown to modern science which deals
only with Evolution),
Life undergoes at each step an increased degree of
differentiation; and
the naming of the various potentialities emerging into
potencies, gives us
the dualities, the trinities, the tetractys, and the
numberless hierarchies
of the ancient Greeks and Orientals. The Gods, the
Mothers-Fathers-Sons,
Spirits, Logoi, Elohim, Demiurges, Jehovahs, Pitris,
Aeons, are but names
of the Intelligent Forces that are first emanated from the
impregnated womb of
time. The first emanated principles are sexless, but sex is
introduced (in
symbolic form) as soon as the dual polarization of Spirit-Matter
takes place. The whole
story of the Cosmogenesis (Volume I) is a recital of the
scheme according to
which the primal unity of unmanifest Being breaks up into
differentiation and
multiformity and so fills space with conscious evolving
beings.
Thus the three
fundamentals express respectively the Be-ness, the Becoming, and
the Being of the
everlasting That, which is Life.
The First Stanza
describes the state of the Absolute during Pralaya, the "Night
of Brahm," when
nothing is in existence, but everything only is. Such a
description can
obviously be only a grouping of symbolisms. The only fit symbol
of the Absolute is
darkness, "brooding over the face of the deep" (Space). It is
the night of Life, and
all Nature sleeps. The worlds were not. The only
description is
privative. Time was not; mind was not; "the seven ways to bliss,".114
or the evolutionary
paths, were not; the "causes of misery," of the worlds of
illusion, were not;
even the hierarchies who would direct the "new wheel," were
not. The first
differentiation of the That, viz., Spirit, had not been made.
("That" is a
reminiscence of the phrase tat tvam asi "that [i.e., the All] thou
art," found in
the Indian Upanishads.) Matter was not; but only its formless
essence.
Nature had thus slept
for "seven eternities," however they may have been
registered in a
timeless consciousness; for time was not, since there was no
differentiation, hence
no succession. Mind was not, having no organ to function
through. All was
noumenon. The Great Breath, on whose outgoing energy worlds
sprang into existence,
had not yet gone forth. The universe was a blank;
metaphysics had not
begun to generate physics; the universe held in solution had
not yet begun to
precipitate into crystallization. All life was hidden in the
formless embrace of
the protyle, or primal substance. Darkness is the "Father of
Lights," but the
Son had not yet been born. When day dawns, Father (Spirit) and
Mother (Substance)
unite to beget their Son, who will then cleave the Cimmerian
darkness and issue
forth to flood all space.
Stanza II continues
the description of the sleeping universe, pointing, however,
to the signs of
reawakening. "The hour had not yet struck; the ray had not yet
flashed into the germ;
the mother-lotus had not yet swollen." From the darkness
soon would issue the
streak of dawn, splitting open by its light and warmth the
shell of each atom of
virgin matter, and letting issue thence the Seven
Creators, who will
fashion the universe. In the Mundane Egg the germ of life was
deposited from the
preceding Manvantaras, and the Divine Energy, brooding over
it for aeons, caused
it to hatch out its brood of new worlds. In immaterial form
within the germ dwelt
the archetypal ideas, the (Platonic) memories of former
experiences, which
will determine the form of the new structures as the Divine
Architects of the
worlds. All things on earth are but patterns of things in the
heavens; spiritual
ideas crystallized into concretion on the plane of
manifestation-"sermons
in stones." The lotus is the symbol of esoteric teaching
because its seed
contains a miniature of the future plant, and because, like
man, it lives in three
worlds, the mud (material), the water (typifying the
emotional), and the
air (spiritual).
Creation starts with
incubation. The Cosmic Egg must be fertilized ere it can be
hatched. A ray, or
first emanation, from the Darkness opens the womb of the
Mother (Primal
Substance), and it then emanates as three, Father-Mother-Son,
which, with the energy
of Fohat makes the quaternary. Thus occultism explains
all the mysteries of
the trinity and the Immaculate Conception. The first dogma
of Occultism is
universal unity under three aspects. The Son was born from
virgin (i.e.,
unproductive, unfertilized) matter (Root Substance, the Mother),
when the latter was
fecundated by the Father (Spirit).
The archetypal ideas
do not imply a Divine Ideator, nor the Divine Thought a
Divine Thinker. The
Universe is Thought itself, reflected in a manifested
material. But the
Universe is the product, or "Son," which during the prologue
of the drama of the
creation lies buried in the Divine Thought. The latter has
"not yet
penetrated unto the Divine Bosom."
Stanza III rings with
the concluding vibrations of the seventh eternity as they
thrill through
boundless space, sounding the cock-crow of a new Manvantaric
daybreak. The Mother
(Substance) swells, expanding from within. The vibration
sweeps along,
impregnating the quiescent germs of life in the whole expanse.
Darkness gives out
light; light drops into virgin matter, opening every bud.
Divine Intelligence
impregnates chaos. The germs float together into the World-.115
Egg, the ancient
symbol of Nature fructified. The aggravation of units of matter
under the impulse of
dynamic spirit is symbolized by the term "curdling." Pure
Spirit curdles pure
matter into the incipient granules of hyle, or substance.
The serpent symbol is
prominent in the early cosmology, typifying at different
times the eternity,
infinitude, regeneration and rejuvenation of the universe,
and also wisdom. The
familiar serpent with its tail in its mouth was a symbol
not only of eternity
and infinitude, but of the globular form of all bodies
shaped out of the fire
mist. In general the "fiery serpent" represented the
movement of Divine
Wisdom over the face of the waters, or primary elements.
The text of the whole
doctrine of the early stages, in fact, of the entire
creative process, is
the statement "that there is but One Universal Element,
infinite, unborn and
undying, and that all the rest-as the world of phenomena-are
but so many various
differentiated aspects and transformations of that One,
from Cosmical down to
micro-cosmical effects, from superhuman down to human and
sub-human beings, the
totality in short of objective existence."9
Naturally but one tiny
segment of all that activity is cognizable by man, whose
perceptive powers are
limited to a small range of vibratory sensitivity. Only
that part of nature
which comes within hail of his sense equipment, only the
expressions of life
which take physical form, are known (directly) to him. Were
it not, says
Theosophy, for the fact that superhuman beings, whose cognitive
powers have been
vastly extended beyond ordinary human capacity, have imparted
to those qualified to
receive it information relative to the upper worlds and
the inner realities of
nature, we would know nothing of cosmology.
"In order to
obtain clear perception of it, one has first of all to admit the
postulate of a
universally diffused, omnipresent, eternal Deity in Nature;
secondly, to have
fathomed the meaning of electricity in its true essence; and
thirdly, to credit man
with being a septenary symbol, on the terrestrial plane,
of the One Great Unit,
(the Logos), which is itself the seven-vowelled sign, the
Breath, crystallized
into the Word."10
Madame Blavatsky
starts with the Absolute, the All-That-Is, not even the One,
but the No-Number.
In Stanza IV we see
this primordial essence awakening to activity. It emanates
or engenders the One,
the homogeneous substrate of all. It in turn projects or
splits itself into the
Two, Father-Mother, and these, interacting, produce the
"Sons" or
Rays, who by their word of power, the "Army of the Voice" (the laws
of
nature), build the
worlds of the universe. These sons are always seven in
number, and their
created works are thus given a seven-fold constitution.
Christians know them
as the Seven Logoi, or the Seven Archangels. These carry
the differentiation of
the one cosmic substrate to its furthest extent in the
production of the
ninety-two or more elements of our globe, which their forces
weld into an infinity
of combinations to compose our structural earth. All the
physical forces we
know, light, heat, cold, fire, water, gas, earth, ether, are
the progeny of the
great universal agent, Fohat, which we know under its form of
electricity. Electricity
is the universal agent employed by the Sons of God to
create and uphold our
world.
In bold outline this
is the whole story. But Madame Blavatsky supplies a wealth
of detail and a
richness of illustration that go far to clarify the various
phases of the process
and the diversified agents coφperating in it..116
When the One has
created the Two-Spirit and Matter-the allegory goes on to say,
the interaction of
these Two "spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit
and the lower one to
Matter." This web is the universe, ranging in constituent
elements from coarse
matter up to vibrant Spirit. Yet Spirit and Matter are but
two phases of one and
the same Prime Element.
Cosmic Fire, Fohat,
Divine Electricity, energizes the universe. But to the
natural concept of
electricity the occult science adds the property of
intelligence.
Cerebration is attended by electrical phenomena, it is said.
Humanity is a
materialized and as yet imperfect expression of the seven
hierarchical Devas, or
the seven conscious intelligent powers in nature. The
planetary deities, or
the planets as living beings, are fundamental in the
Theosophic view, as to
the Aristotelian and ancient Greek view generally.
Mankind is but
repeating the history of precedent life units, which have risen
to celestial heights
and magnitudes.
The forms of created
life are all determined by the geometrical forms in the
minds of the
Intelligences. "Nature geometrizes universally in all her
manifestations."
There is an inherent law by which nature coφrdinates or
correlates all her
geometrical forms, and her compound elements; and in it there
is no room for chance.
The worlds are all subject to Rulers or Regents, and the
apparent deviations
from precise natural programs are due to voluntary actions
on the part of those
great Beings who, like ourselves, are in the cycle of
experience and
evolution. The Solar Logoi can err in their spheres as we in
ours. Some of the
exceptional oddities in nature are the effects of their
efforts to experiment
and learn.
The "Lipika"
("scribes") "write" the eternal records of nature on the
imperishable scroll of
the Akashic ether. They are the "amanuenses of the
Eternal
Ideation," who copy the archetypal ideas and imprint them on the
material substance.
They write the Book of Eternal Life and exercise an
influence on the
science of horoscopy.
Stanza V elaborates in
more detail the creative process, controlled by the
various
"sevens," the "Breaths" (prana, basic category in Indian
philosophy) and
the "Sons."
The Doctrine teaches that to become a fully conscious divine "god,"
the spiritual primeval
Intelligence must pass through the human stage. And
"human" in
this usage is not limited to the humanity of our globe, but applies
also to the numberless
other mortal incarnations of varying types on other
planets. A human state
is one in which Intelligence is embodied in a condition
of material
organization in which there is established an equilibrium between
matter and
spirit,--and this state is reached in the middle point of the Fourth
Round on each chain of
globes, or when spirit is most deeply enmeshed in matter,
and is ready to begin
its emergence. The hierarchical entities must have won for
themselves the right
of divinity through self-experience, as we are doing. "The
'Breath' or first
emanation becomes a stone, the stone a plant, the plant an
animal, the animal a
man, the man a spirit and the spirit a god." All the great
planetary gods were
once men, and we men shall in the future take our places in
the skies as Lords of
planets, Regents of galaxies and wielders of fire-mist! As
our human wills (the
divine elements in us) are now masters over small
potencies, so our
expanded Intelligences will direct vast elemental energies,
and worlds will arise
under the impulsion of our thought. There is room in space
for us all. The
"flaming fire" (electricity) shall be our minister, to flash at
our bidding. The
"fiery wind" is the incandescent cosmic dust which follows the
impulsion of the will
as iron filings follow a magnet. Yet this cosmic dust is
"mind-stuff,"
has the potentiality of self-consciousness in it, and is, like the.117
Monad of Leibnitz, a
universe in itself and for itself. "It is an atom and an
angel." Fohat is
the universal fiery agent of Divine Will, and the electricity
we know is one aspect,
not by any means the highest, of it. In a higher state
Fohat is the
"objectivized thought of the gods," the Word made flesh. In another
aspect he is the
Universal Life Force, solar energy. He is said to take "three
and seven strides
through the seven regions above and the seven below," which is
taken to mean the
successive waves of vital force impregnating the seven levels
of nature. "God is
a living Fire,"-the Christians are fire-worshippers, too,
says Madame Blavatsky.
God is the One Flame. It burns within every material
thing. The ultimate
essence of each constituent part of the compounds of nature
is unitary, whether in
the spiritual, the intellectual or the physical world.
In order that the One
may become the many, there must be a principium
individuationis, and
this is provided by the qualities of matter. A spark of
Divine Fire, so to
speak, is wrapped in a vesture of matter, which circumscribes
the energies of spirit
with a "Ring Pass-Not." Each embodied Monad or Spiritual
Ego looks out through
its sense windows to perceive another Ego; but perceives
only the material
garment of that Ego. The process of evolution will make this
garment thinner, so
that the inner splendor of the Self can be seen luminously
through it.
The fiery energy of
the great planetary beings, our author says, will never "run
down," as it is
constantly being fed by intra-cosmic fuel, a theory which Prof.
Millikan has made
familiar in recent days.
Stanza VI carries out
the further stages of differentiation of the life
principle in its first
or virgin forms. Man's physical body is but one of seven
constituents of his
being, and a planet likewise presents only its outer
garment, its physical
vehicle, to our view. The stars, as beings, are septenary,
having astral, mental,
and spiritual bodies in addition to their physical
globes. It is affirmed
that this septiform constitution of man, which makes him
an analogue of the great
cosmic beings and of the cosmos itself, is to be taken
as the true
significance of the Biblical phrase "man, the image and likeness of
God." The more
real or more spiritual essences of the being of both man and
stars are not visible
to sense. The life impulsion animating man contacts the
material world only in
and through his physical body; the same thing is true of
the chain of globes.
Both man and the planet have one physical body on the
material plane, two on
the vital etheric plane, two on the mental plane, and two
on the upper plane of
spirit. The latter two are beyond the powers of human ken,
and to us are material
only in the sense that they are not entirely devoid of
differentiation. They
are still vestures of spirit, not spirit itself. But they
are the first garments
of "pure" spirit. A life wave, in man or planet, comes
forth from spirit,
enters one after the other the bodies of increasing material
density, until it has
descended to a perfect equilibrium between matter and
spirit, in the gross
physical or fourth body; and then begins its ascent through
three other vehicles
of increasingly tenuous organization. And it runs seven
times round each cycle
of bodies and dwells for milliards of years in each of
the seven kingdoms of
nature, the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human, and
three sub-mineral
kingdoms of an elementary character, not known to science. The
waves of life pass
successively from one globe to another, lifting one into
active existence as
another goes "dead." They traverse the seven globes of a
chain like a great
spiral serpent, revolving like a barber's pole, every turn of
the axis carrying a
kingdom of nature one stride higher. For instance, hitting
Globe A of the chain
the impulsion builds up the mineral kingdom there; as this
first wave swings
onward to Globe B (where it builds the mineral kingdom for it)
the second impulsion
hits Globe A and lifts the mineral kingdom erected by the
previous wave into the
vegetable evolution. As the first wave leaps over from.118
Globe B to Globe C, to
start mineral life there, the second wave has brought the
vegetable kingdom to
Globe B, and the animal kingdom on Globe A. The fourth
outgoing of force will
introduce the mineral world on Globe D, the vegetable on
Globe C, the animal on
Globe B, and the human on Globe A. After the human come
the superhuman or
spiritual evolutions. The detailed explanation of the entire
cycle of birth,
growth, life, and death of solar systems is of such complexity
that it is the work of
years for the Theosophic student to grasp it with any
clearness. It is
immensely involved, so that charts and graphs are generally
resorted to. The
student is referred to standard Theosophic works for the
minutiae of this
subject. We can but note here the principles of the system and
some of their
implications.
The earth, as the one
visible representative of its six invisible principles,
has to live through
seven Rounds. The first three take it through the process of
materialization; the
fourth fully crystallizes it, hardens it; the last three
take it gradually out
of physical, back to ethereal and finally spiritual form.
The Fourth Globe of
each chain is thus always the nadir of the process of
involution, and the
Fourth Round is always the time in which this process is
consummated. The earth
is now a little past the nethermost point of material
existence, as we have
passed the middle of the Fourth Round. We have finished
the descending arc and
have begun our return to Deity, both the globe and the
human family on it.
Exiles from God, prodigal sons in a far country, we have set
out on our homeward
journey.
Man came on our globe
at the beginning of the Fourth Round in the present series
of life cycles and
races, following the evolution of the mineral, vegetable, and
animal kingdoms
thereon. Every life cycle on our earth brings into being seven
Root Races. The First
Root Race were the progeny of "celestial men," or the
Lunar Pitris,11 of
which again there are seven hierarchies.
Human Egos continue to
come into the stream of our evolution on earth up to the
Fourth Round. But at
this point the door into the human kingdom closes. Those
Monads who have not
reached the human kingdom by this time will find themselves
so far behind that
they will have to wait over, in a state of suspended
vitality, until the
next wave bears them onward. But for their loss of
opportunity on this
chain they will be rewarded by becoming men on a higher
chain altogether.
The hosts of Monads are
divided into three classes: Lunar Pitris, present Men,
and the laggards. The
first class are advanced Egos who reached "Manhood" in the
First Round. The
laggards are those who come in last, and are still in an
undeveloped state.
The Moon is the parent
of our Earth-and this in spite of the fact that it is our
satellite. It is
older, and its spirit has passed from its now lifeless body
into our planet. In
brief, the Earth is the new body or reincarnation of the
Moon,--or more correctly,
of that great Spirit which tenanted the Moon aeons
ago. Madame Blavatsky
uses the apt illustration of a mother circling around her
child's cradle, to
vindicate the anomaly of a parent body in a satellitic
relation to its
offspring.
There exists in nature
a triple evolutionary scheme, or three separate schemes
of evolution, which
proceed contemporaneously in our system and are inextricably
interblended at every
point. These are the Monadic, the intellectual, and the
physical. Here again
analogy steps in to clarify thought. As man is a Monad, or
spark of the Infinite
Essence, which is evolving in connection both with a
principle of mind and
a physical body, so nature is a combination of three.119
streams of
development. The higher part must find its way to growth through
connection with the
lower and the lowest. But each of these three evolutions has
its own laws, and the
interconnection of them all in man makes him the complex
being he is. Every
speck of matter strives to reach its model in man; and every
man aspires to be a
self-conscious Monad.
Out of this assertion
of a threefold nature in man grows one of the unique
conceptions of
Theosophy: that Man, a divine spiritual Monad, is in this
evolution dwelling in
and controlling (if he has learned how to prevent it
controlling him) the
body of an animal. And the body is the animal's, not man's,
in the strict sense.
The body has its own type of consciousness, primal urgings,
its own independent
soul, but no intellect or spiritual nature. Through its
association with us in
the same house it is supposed to develop in a way it
could never do
unaided, first a mind and later the inkling of spirituality. But
every organism has its
principle, and the soul of the animal is capable of
attending to those
functions which pertain to the life of the body. Hence, the
commonplace functions
of our bodies are regulated by a cerebration which is so
far from being
directly our own that we are at any rate totally unconscious of
it. This amounts to saying
that our subconscious, or the operations of our
sympathetic, as
distinguished from our cerebral, nervous system, is the "soul"
of our animal mate.
The hope of the animal lies in his fairly ready
susceptibility to
training, so that he is able quickly to take up by an
automatism whatever
"we" do habitually.
Theosophy affirms that
man has to control, not his own lower nature, but a lower
order of being whose
body he is tenanting.
Theosophists point to
the development of a child as corroborative of this
theory. Before mind
develops, the child is an animal simply. Later comes
intellect, and after
more time comes spirituality. Man is not simple; he is a
congeries of
individuals in association. As the individual's unfoldment in his
own life is a
recapitulation of the growth of humanity as a unit, it follows the
same order of
evolution. The great Creative Lords did not implant the principle
of mind in our order
until, in the Fourth Race, appropriate bodies had been
built up. We are only
now beginning to evolve spiritual faculty.
The so-called Fall
"was the fall of Spirit into generation, not the fall of
mortal man."
Madame Blavatsky undertakes to show that on this point of theology,
as on that of the
Virgin Birth, Christian doctrine is childishly literal-minded.
It has taken a fact of
cosmology, which like all others in ancient thought had
been symbolized in
various forms, and rendered it in a literal historical sense.
The "Falls"
are but phases of the universal "descent into matter," which appears
under several aspects,
one being the general outgoing of spirit into the
material worlds,
another the "fall of the angels" and a third the "fall of
man."
The taint of sexuality
associated with certain conceptions of man's fall is a
reference to the fact
that when the spiritual Monads who descended to earth to
inhabit the bodies of
a lower race (the animals spoken of above), they were of
necessity forced into
sexual procreation, whereas they had propagated by powers
of the
intellectualized will in their previous high estate.
Then in regard to the
Satans, the Serpents, the Dragons, the Devils, the Demons,
the Demiurges, the
Adversaries, Madame Blavatsky delves deep into ancient lore
to prove that, when
read properly in their esoteric meaning, all the old legends
of the Evil Ones, the
Powers of Darkness, refer to no essentially evil beings,
great or small, but to
the Divine Wisdom of the Sons of Light (all light
emanates from
darkness) who impregnate the universe with the principle of
intelligence. Adam's
eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree gave him.120
knowledge of good and
evil. This can mean only that beings of a "pure" spiritual
nature represented
symbolically by resident life in Eden or Paradise, sought,
through incarnation in
physical bodies in a material world, the opportunity to
bring the latent
intelligence in their divine nature to actualization in self-conscious
knowledge. Dragons are
always found guarding a tree-the tree of
knowledge.
"When the Church,
therefore, curses Satan, it curses the cosmic reflection of
God; it anathematizes
God made manifest in matter or in the objective; it
maledicts God, or the
ever-incomprehensible Wisdom, revealing itself as Light
and Shadow, good and
evil in nature in the only manner comprehensible to the
limited intellect of
man."12
"Satan, once he
ceases to be viewed in the superstitious dogmatic
unphilosophical spirit
of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of one
who made of
terrestrial a divine Man; who gave him . . . the law of the Spirit
and Life and made him
free from the sin of ignorance, hence of death."13
All references to
Satan stood for an aspect of nature that was evil only as the
negative pole of
electricity is evil, i.e., as it stands in opposition to the
positive, a necessary
and benignant phase of activity. "Deus est Demon
inversus."
The globes, or their
constituent matter, go through seven fundamental
transformations in
their life history: (1), the homogeneous; (2), the aλriform
and radiant (gaseous);
(3), curd-like (nebulous); (4), atomic, ethereal
(beginning of
differentiation); (5), germinal, fiery; (6), vapory (the future
Earth); (7), cold,
depending on the sun for life.
When the worlds are
populated and the Monads have entered the human chain,
certain great beings
who have risen to knowledge on other chains supervise the
instruction of the
oncoming races, keeping closely in touch with the spiritual
condition of the
unenlightened masses. Either they themselves descend into the
world or they send
forth lesser teachers to keep alive the seed of spiritual
wisdom. Kapila,
Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, Krishna were a few of their emissaries.
They voluntarily
forego their own higher evolution, at least temporarily, "to
form the nursery for future
human adepts," during the rest of our cycle.
Stanza VII goes into
the numerology of the primal and later hierarchies, and
gives the inner
cosmological significance of the numbers. Two, of course,
symbolizes the
polarization of original essence into the duality of Spirit-Matter.
Three refers to the
triune constitution of the Divine Men, or Planetary
Beings, who manifest
the union of the three highest principles, Atma-Buddhi-Manas,
14 in one organism.
Man on his plane reflects this trinitarian union. The
quaternaries represent
the cardinal points which square the circle of infinity
and typify
manifestation. Four sometimes also stands for the basic states of
elementary essence, or
the four perceptible planes of material existence, earth,
water, air, and ether.
Five is the symbol of man in his present stage of
evolutionary
development, as he stands in the fifth lap of his progression round
the spiral, and has
consequently developed five of his ultimate seven
capacities. This
accounts for his having five senses, five fingers and toes. The
pentacle or
five-pointed star is often his symbol. The six-pointed star refers
to the six forces or
powers of nature, all synthesized by the seventh or central
point in the star.
Seven is, of course, the number of life in its final form of
organization on the
material plane. This is because the Logoi created man in
their own septenary
image. Man is really, in his totality, a sevenfold being, or
a being made up of the
union of seven distinct constituent parts. His threefold.121
nature is a truth for
his present status only. He is sevenfold potentially,
threefold actually.
This means that of his seven principles only the lower three
have been brought from
latency to activity, as he is engaged in awakening to
full function his fourth
or Buddhic principle. At the far-off summit of his life
in the seventh Round
he will have all his seven principles in full flower, and
will be the divine man
he was before-only now conscious of his divinity. At the
end of each Round,
"when the seventh
globe is reached the nature of everything that is evolving
returns to the
condition it was in at its starting point--plus, every time, a
new and superior
degree in the states of consciousness."15
The theory of an inner
permanent unit of life, repeatedly touching the outer
material worlds in
order to gain experience, is symbolized in Theosophy by the
Sutratma
("thread-soul"), or string of pearls. The permanent life principle is
the thread running
through all, and the successive generations in matter are the
beads strung along it.
To understand these
postulations, we must envisage man as dwelling only
partially in the
physical embodiment, and having segments of his constitution in
the invisible worlds.
In the latter lies the ground-plan of his earth life,
shaped by his previous
life histories. The present physical life will contribute
its quota of influence
to modify that ground-plan when it becomes in turn the
determinant of his
succeeding incarnation.
The Sabbath, according
to Madame Blavatsky, has an occult significance undreamed
of by our theologians.
It means the rest of Nirvana, and refers to the seventh
or final Round of each
emanation through the planes of nature. But the Sabbath
should be as long as
the days of activity.
A passage in a
footnote says that the introductory
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CHAPTERs of Genesis were
never meant to
represent even a remote allegory of the creation of our earth.
They
"embrace a
metaphysical conception of some indefinite period in the eternity,
when successive
attempts were being made by the law of evolution at the
formation of
universes. The idea is plainly stated in the Zohar."16
Had its purpose been
to give the true genesis, the narrative would have followed
the outline laid down
in The Secret Doctrine. The creation in which Adam Kadmon
("Primal
Man") has a part, did not take place on our earth, but in the depths of
primordial matter.
The theory is adduced
that each Round of the emanational wave of life engenders
one of the four
elements, of which the Greeks spoke so much. The First Round
developed one element,
"one-dimensional space," fiery energy. The Second Round
brought forth the
second element, air. Matter in the Second Round was two-dimensional.
The Third Round
brought water, and the Fourth produced earth in its
hard encrusted state.
The Fifth will beget ether, the gross body of the
immaterial Akasha.17
The senses of man in that distant day will be refined to
the point at which
responsiveness to ethereal vibrations will be general. Our
range of cognition
will be thus vastly enhanced, for whole realms of nature's
life now closed to us
because of our low pitch of faculty, will then be opened
up. Phenomena
manifesting the permeability of matter will be to our higher
senses then a daily
commonplace. We will have X-ray vision, so that we shall be
able "to see into
the heart of things.".122
If man's nature is
sevenfold, so is his evolution. The seven principles in him
are enumerated as
"the Spiritual or Divine; the psychic or semi-divine; the
intellectual; the
passional; the instinctual or cognitional; the semi-corporeal;
and the purely
material or physical. All these evolve and progress cyclically,
passing from one into
another . . . one in their ultimate essence, seven in
their aspects."
An important point is
made by the expounder of Occultism as to the way in which
we should think of all
spirits in the supersensible and the sub-sensible worlds.
Those superior to us
have all been men, whether in this or former evolutions on
other globes or in
other Manvantaras; and those below us, the elementaries,
nature spirits, will
be men in the future. If a spirit has intelligence he must
have got it in the
human stage, where alone that principle is developed. Spirits
are not to be regarded
as exotic products of nature, beings of a
17 "The fourth
dimension of space" enters the discussion at this point. The
phrase should be, says
the writer, "the fourth dimension of matter in space,"
since obviously space
has no dimensions. The dimensions, or characteristics of
matter are those
determinations which the five senses of man give to it. Matter
has extension, color,
motion (molecular), taste, and smell; and it is the
development of the
next sense in man-normal clairvoyance-that will give matter
its sixth characteristic,
which she calls permeability. Extension-which covers
all concepts of
dimension in our world-is limited to three directions. Only when
man's perceptive
faculties unfold will there be a real fourth dimension, a
foreign universe,
creatures of a type unrelated to ourselves. They are either
our lower or our
higher brothers.
"The whole order
of nature evinces a progressive march toward a higher life.
There is design in the
action of the seemingly blindest forces. The whole
process of evolution
with its endless adaptations, is a proof of this."18
All nature is animated
and controlled by lofty Intelligences, who could not be
supposed to act with
less of conscious design than ourselves. Design is
exhibited everywhere
in the universe, in proportion to the degree of
intelligence evolved.
There is no blind chance in the cosmos, but only varying
grades of
intelligence. The laws of nature are inviolable, but individual beings
of every grade of
intelligence move and act amid those laws, learning gradually
to bring their actions
into harmony with them. The deus implicitus within each
of us-in every
atom-must become the deus explicitus, and the difficulties and
risks of the process
are commensurate with its glorious rewards.
Some of these
Intelligences are veritable genii who preside over our lives. They
are our good or evil
demons. Hermes says
"they imprint
their likeness on our souls, they are present in our nerves, our
marrow, our veins and
our very brain substance. At the moment when each of us
receives life and
being he is taken in charge by the genii (Elementals) who
preside over births. .
. . The genii have then the control of mundane things and
our bodies serve them
as instruments."19
Part II of Book One
begins with an analysis of the evolution of Symbolism. No
traditional folk lore,
according to Madame Blavatsky, has ever been pure
fiction; it
represented a natural form of primitive language. Ideography was a
stage of growth in the
art of human communication. Symbolism was no mere
intellectual device of
idealistic algebra, but a natural idiom of thought.
Mythology was a
primitive pictographic mode of conveying truths. An ideograph
could be understood
"in any language.".123
A later development of
this art brought the mystery language, or particular set
of symbols to
represent the esoteric truths. The cross, the lamb, the bull, the
hawk, the serpent, the
dragon, the sword, the circle, the square, the triangle,
and many other signs
were adopted for special significances. There are seven
keys, however, to the
mystery tongue, and some of them, as well as the knowledge
of how to turn them,
have been lost. Only in Tibet, it is maintained, is the
code still intact. No
religion was ever more than a
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CHAPTER or two of the entire
volume of archaic
mysteries. No system except Eastern Occultism was ever in
possession of the full
secret, with its seven keys.
There is a
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CHAPTER on the Mundane Egg, which in all theologies is taken to
represent the
prototype of life hidden in the lotus symbol. Here we find a
special sacredness
attributed to the letter M, as symbolizing water, i.e.,
waves, or the great
deep, the sea of prime substance. And such sacred names as
Maitreya, Makara,
Messiah, Metis, Mithras, Monad, Maya, Mother, Minerva, Mary,
Miriam and others are
said to carry the hidden significance of the letter. The
Moon and its place in
symbolism is the subject of a
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CHAPTER. All the lunar
goddesses had a dual
aspect, the one divine, the other infernal. All were the
virgin mothers of an
immaculately born Son,--the sun. Here, as nearly everywhere
else, Christian dogmas
and terms are traced to an origin in pagan ideas. The
Satan myth is again
taken up in a separate
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CHAPTER, where it is said that the
only diabolical thing
about it are its perversions under Christian handling.
The Sevens are given
more thorough elucidation in another
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CHAPTER. There were
seven creations, or
rather creation had seven stages. The first was that of the
Divine Mind, Universal
Soul, Infinite Intellect; the second was the first
differentiation of
indiscrete Substance; the third was the stage of organic
evolution. These three
steps were sub-mineral, and had yet brought nothing
visible to being. The
fourth brought the minerals; the fifth brought animals, in
germ form; the sixth
produced sub-human divinities, and the seventh crowned the
work with man. Man is
thus the end and apex of the evolutionary effort. Man
completes all forms in
himself. But esoterically there is a primary creation and
a secondary creation,
and each is sevenfold. The first created Spirit, the
second Matter.
Madame Blavatsky
traces the working of the septenates in nature through many
forms not commonly
thought of. Many normal and abnormal processes have one or
more weeks (seven days)
as their period, such as the gestation of animals, the
duration of fevers,
etc. "The eggs of the pigeon are hatched in two weeks; those
of the fowl in three;
those of the duck in four; those of the goose in five; and
those of the ostrich
in seven." We are familiar with the incidence of seven in
many aspects of
physics, in color, in sound, the spectrum; in chemistry, in the
law of atomic weights;
in physiology; in nature. Madame Blavatsky cites a long
list of the occurrence
of the mystic number in the ceremonials, cosmologies,
architecture, and
theologies of all nations.
Scientific authorities
are adduced by the author to corroborate her contention
that the material
universe is ordered on a system which has seven as its
constitutional
groundplan.
"The birth,
growth, maturity, vital functions . . . change, diseases, decay, and
death, of insects,
reptiles, fishes, birds, mammals and even of man, are more or
less controlled by a
law of completion in weeks," or seven day periods.20
From the seven colors
of the rainbow to the seven-year climacterics in man's
life and his allotted
seven decades on earth, all the living universe seems to.124
run in sevens and
reflects the sevenfold nature of the precosmic patterns of
things.
Volume II concerns the
planetary history of our earth, the inception of human
life on it, and the
evolution of the latter through the previous races up to
now. Humanity is
assigned an age on the globe of infinitely greater length than
the science of her day
was willing to concede, which even outstretches the
ampler figures set
down by contemporary science.
We must start with the
earth's place in the solar cosmos. As will be recalled,
our planet is the one
physically perceptible (to ordinary human vision) globe of
a chain of seven (the
six others being of rarefied impalpable materials), this
chain being itself but
one of seven, each of which has a physical representative
revolving about our
sun. These physical globes are subject to the cyclic law
which brings to them
successive waves of vivification and sterility, and this
law operates as well
with all the productions of life on the globe as with the
globe itself.
The story of man then
becomes that of a succession of great world races
preceding the present
one, with the various continents inhabited by each, and
the form, the
condition and the progress of mankind in each manifestation.
Evolution is
postulated as the working modus, but it is evolution in cycles, not
in a straight line.
The very beginning of
life on our planet occurred with the first impact upon it
of the initial life
wave in the First Round. But this first wave brought life
only in the form and
to the degree of mineral organizations. When that life
impetus passed on to
the next globe in the septenary chain to integrate mineral
structure there, the
second wave struck the earth and carried evolution forward
from the mineral to
the vegetable stage. The third crest carried life on into
the animal kingdom;
and the Fourth Round then became the epoch of the entry of
man on the scene. The
advent of man on the physical or fourth globe of every
planetary chain is
coincident with the Fourth Round, because the middle of that
round is the central
point-three and one-half-in a seven series, and man's life
represents the perfect
balance between spirit and matter. This point would be
reached at the exact
half-way mark, where the impulsion of life energy would
have spent itself in
the outward or downward direction (from spirit to matter),
and the energies in
play would begin to gather force for the rebound or return
of spirit, bearing
matter with it to "its home on high." The middle of the
Fourth Round,
therefore, would find a perfect balance established between the
spiritual and the
physical; and that point would be located in the middle of the
fourth sub-race of the
fourth root-race of human life on the earth. As we are
now in the fifth
sub-race (the Anglo-Saxon) of the fifth root-race (the Aryan),
we are by some
millions of years past the turning point of our cosmical destiny.
On the reascending arc
spirit slowly reasserts itself at the expense of the
physical. At the close
of the seventh Round at the end of the Manvantara, the
Monad will find itself
again free from matter, as it was in the beginning, but
with the rich treasure
of experience stowed safely away in indestructible
consciousness, to
become in turn the germ of growth in the next Manvantara. On
the descending arc the
pressure is centrifugal for spirit, centripetal for
matter; the ascending
path will see these conditions reversed. Downward, the
spirit was being
nailed on the cross of matter and buried; upward, it is the
gradual resurrection
of spirit and the transfiguration of matter. Our fifth race
is struggling to
liberate itself from the inhibitions of matter; the sixth will
take us far from flesh
and material inertia. The cycle of spirituality will
begin, when all humans
are Adepts.21 Henceforward spirit will emerge victorious.125
as it has the whole
weight of cosmic "gravity" on its side. This is the cosmic
meaning of Easter.
The account in Genesis
of the appearance of man is not far awry, but must be
read esoterically, and
in several different senses. It is in no sense the record
of the Primary
Creation, which brought the heavenly hierarchies into purely
noumenal existence; it
is that of the Secondary Creation, in which the Divine
Builders bring
cosmical systems into material form. The accounts given in the
Puranas and the older
literature are of pre-cosmic creation; the one given in
Genesis is only of the
cosmic or phenomenal creation. The former deal with a
spiritual genesis, the
latter only with a material genesis.
Man was the first of
mammalian creatures to arrive in the Fourth Round. He came
in the first race of
the Round, several hundred million years ago. But he was
not then the kind of
being he is now. He was not then compounded of three
elements, body, mind,
and spirit. His body was being organized by the slow
accretion of material
around a purely ethereal or astral matrix or shell,
provided for the
purpose by the Lunar Pitris, in successive sojourns in the
mineral, vegetable,
and animal realms, during the three preceding Rounds. These
Lunar progenitors
started his mundane existence by furnishing first the
nucleating shell and
the earthly house made ready for occupancy finally by the
living Monad, the
indestructible spark of the Eternal Fire. The latter is the
true being, Man
himself. But at this early time he was, comparatively speaking,
in the condition of
formless spiritual essence. He had not yet come to live in a
physical body, but was
hovering over the scene, awaiting the preparation of that
body by the forces
guiding material evolution. He was temporarily clothed in
ethereal forms, which
became more densely material as he descended toward the
plane of embodiment.
He, a Divine Spirit, descended to meet the material form,
which rose to become
his fit vehicle. The two can not be conjoined, however,--
the gap between crass
materiality and sheer spirit being too great-without the
intermediating offices
of a principle that can stand between them and eventually
unify them. This
principle is Manas or Mind. As Fohat in the cosmos links spirit
with matter, so Manas
in the microcosmic man brings a Divine Monad into relation
with a physical form.
The complete conjunction of all three of these principles
in one organism was
not effected by nature until the middle of the Third Root-Race.
Then only can the life
of man properly be said to have begun. That date
was eighteen million
years ago. Men then first became "gods," responsible for
good and evil, divine
beings struggling with the conditions of terrestrial life,
undergoing further
tutelage in the school of experience under the teachers,
Nature and Evolution.
They were the Kumaras, "princes," "virgin youths"-beings
dwelling on the planes
of spiritual passivity, who yet yearned for the taste of
concrete life, and
whose further evolution made necessary their descent into
material condition on
earth. They were the rebels (against inane quiescence),
spirits longing for
activity, the angels who "fell" down to earth (not to hell),
but only to rise with
man to a state higher than their former angelhood. They
stepped down into
their earthly encasement in the Fourth Round. Their
prospective physical
bodies were not ready till then.
Humanity had run the
course of two races before having developed a physical body
comparable to the ones
we are familiar with. What and where were these two
races? The first is
given no specific name, but it inhabited the "Imperishable
Sacred Land,"
about which there is little information. It was a continent that
lay in a quarter of
the globe where the climate was suited to the forms of life
then prevalent. At the
end of its long history it was sunk by great cataclysms
beneath the ocean. Men
in this race were boneless, their bodies plastic; in fact
"organisms
without organs.".126
In due time the second
great continent appeared, to be the home of the Second
Race, the
Hyperboreans. This, we are told, lay around the present region of the
North Pole. But the
climate then was equable and even tropical, owing to the
position of the
earth's axis, which was then at a quite decided angle of
divergence from the
present inclination. The author claims that the axis had
twice shifted
radically; that Greenland once had a torrid climate and luxuriant
vegetation.
Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla are mentioned as remnants of the
Hyperborean Land.
The Third Race was the
Lemurian, and it occupied a vast continent extending
south from the Gobi
Desert and filling the area of the Indian Ocean, west to
Madagascar and east to
New Zealand. Madame Blavatsky gives its boundaries with
considerable
explicitness. Australia is one of its remnants and the much-discussed
Easter Island another.
Some of the Australian aborigines, some races
in China, and some
islanders, are lingering descendants of the Lemurians. It was
destroyed mainly by
fire, and eventually submerged.
As it sank its
successor arose in the Atlantic Ocean and became the seat of
Fourth Race
civilization. This is the fabled Atlantis, to which Plato and the
ancient writers have
alluded, the existence of which Madame Blavatsky says was a
general tradition
among the early nations.22 The Azores, Cape Verde, Canary
Islands and Teneriffe
are the highest peaks of the alleged Atlantean Land. The
Fourth Race flourished
there some 850,000 years ago, though the last portion,
the island of
Poseidonis, north of the Sahara region, carried the surviving
remnant of the race to
a watery doom only eleven thousand years ago. This final
cataclysm became the
basis of the world-wide deluge myth. The later Lemurians
and the Atlanteans
were men like the present humanity, fully compounded of mind,
body, and spirit or
soul. They had reached in some lines (the mechanical and the
psycho-spiritual) a
development far higher than our own, wielding psychic forces
with which we are not
generally familiar and having, beside airships, a more
ready method of
tapping electric and super-electric forces. In the early
centuries of the
race's history its members were gigantic in stature, and Madame
Blavatsky uses this
assertion to explain the historical riddle of the erection
of the Druidical
temples, the pyramids, and other colossal forms of their
architecture.23
It must be understood
that the races overlapped in temporal history, the former
ones being progenitors
of their successors. Nature never makes sudden leaps over
unbridged gaps. Her
progressions are gradual. Many circum-Mediterranean nations
were descendants of
the Atlanteans, and a few degenerate Lemurian stocks yet
linger on. Nor were
their several continents annihilated at one stroke. Portions
of the old lands
remained long after the new ones had risen from the waters.
This permitted migrations
and the continuity of propagation. The races were in
no sense special
creations, but attained distinct differentiations through the
modifying influences
of time and environment. The Atlanteans permitted their
ego-centric
development to outstrip their spiritual progress, fell into
dangerous practices of
sorcery and magic, and through the operation of karmic
law their civilization
had to be blotted out, so that a more normal evolution of
the Egos involved
could be initiated under new conditions in succeeding races.
The Fifth Race, our
present Aryan stock, took its rise in northern Asia, spread
south and west, and
ran the course that is known to history. The Anglo-Saxon is
the fifth sub-race of
the seven that will complete the life of this Root-Race.
The beginnings of the
sixth sub-race are taking form in America, we are told.
Mentality is the
special characteristic of human development which our fifth
sub-race is
emphasizing. Each race, so to say, sounds in its life one note in a
scale of seven..127
This in outline is the
story of the five races and their continental homes. Two
other great races are
yet to appear, before the cosmic life impulses complete
their expenditure of
energy in this Fourth Round. At the termination of that
period the present
humanity will have reached the end of its allotted cycle of
evolution and the life
impulse will withdraw from our globe. The latter will
lose its living
denizens and its own life and will be left in a condition of
deadness or pralaya,
to await the return of the wave on its fifth swing round
the chain of spheres.
Back in the first race
the "propagation of the species" was, strictly speaking,
creation, not
generation. The phrase, "fall into generation," applicable to the
Asuras (demons) or
Kumaras who descended into earthly bodies for physical
experience, has been
wrongly linked with "the fall of the angels." It was the
procedure which ensued
at that stage of evolution, occurring in the middle of
the Third Race period,
when spiritual methods of propagation were superseded by
sexual ones. Until
then the attraction of the sexes was not the incentive, or
the condition
precedent, to breeding, for there were no sexes. Man was male-female,
hermaphroditic. Before
that he was asexual, and earlier still he was
sexless. Coition was
by no means the only method employed by nature to carry
life forward. There
were several other methods prior to this, and there will be
others succeeding it
in the long course of growth. To the men of the First Race
sex union was
impossible since they did not possess physical bodies. Their
bodies were astral
shells. They were wraiths, umbrae, only ethereal counterparts
of dense bodies. In
matter of such tenuity, subject largely to the forces of
will, procreation
amounted to a renewal of old tissue rather than the upbuilding
of a new body exterior
to the old. Reproduction was thus a re-creation, a
constant or periodical
rejuvenation. The Stanzas state that the humanity of that
First Race never died.
Its members simply renewed their life, revivified their
organisms, from age to
age. The serpent was used as a sacred symbol for many
reasons, and one of
them is that it periodically casts off an old exterior
garment and emerges a
new creature from within. This process is somewhat
analogous to what took
place with the First Race men. Each individual at stated
periods, by the
exercise of some potency of the creative will described as
abstract meditation,
extruded from his form a new version of itself. Such bodies
could not be affected
by climate or temperature. The First Race men were known
as the Mind-Born.
Among the Second Race,
the Hyperboreans, reproduction was still spiritual, but
of a form designated
asexual. The early part of the race were the "fathers of
the Sweat-Born,"
the latter part were the Sweat-Born themselves. These terms,
taken from Sanskrit
literature, will have no meaning for the materialist. Yet
she declares that
analogues are not wanting in nature. The process comes closest
to what is known in
biology as "budding". The astral form clothing the spiritual
Monad, at the season
of reproduction,
"extrudes a
miniature of itself from the surrounding aura. This germ grows and
feeds on the aura till
it becomes fully developed, when it gradually separates
from its parent,
carrying with it its own sphere of aura; just as we see living
cells reproducing
their like by growth and subsequent division into two."24
The process of
reproduction had seven stages in each race, and this was one of
them. Each covered
aeons of time.
The later Second and
early Third Race men were oviparous and hermaphroditic. Man
in this race became
androgyne. But there were two stages of androgynous
development. In the
first stage, in the late Second and early Third Races,.128
reproduction took
place by a modification of the budding process. The first
exudations of spores
had separated from the parent and then grown to the size of
the latter, becoming a
reproduction of the old. Later the ejected spores
developed to such a
form that instead of being but miniature copies of the
parents, they became
an embryo or egg of the latter. This egg was formed within
the organism, later
extruded, and after a period it burst its shell, releasing
the young offspring.
But it was not fully androgyne, for the reason that it
required no
fertilization by a specialized male aspect or organ of the parent.
It was a process
midway between the Self-Born and the Sex-Born.
Later on this process
had become so modified by gradual evolution that the
embryonic egg produced
by one portion of the parent organism remained inert and
unproductive until
fructified by the positively polarized elements segregated in
another portion of the
procreator's body. Thus was developed the method of
fertilization of the
ovum by the male organs, when both were contained within
the same organism.
It seems that the
Third Race was marked by three distinct divisions, consisting
of three orders of men
differently procreated. "The first two were produced by
an oviparous method presumably
unknown to modern Natural History." The infants
of the two earlier
forms were entirely sexless, "shapeless even for all one
knows, but those of
the later races were born androgynous."
"It is in the
Third Race that the separation of the sexes occurred. From being
previously asexual,
Humanity became distinctly hermaphroditic or bisexual; and
finally the
man-bearing eggs began to give birth, . . . first to beings in which
one sex predominated
over the other, and finally to distinct men and women.
Enos, the son of Seth,
represents the first true men-and-women humanity. Adam
represents the pure
spiritual or androgyne races, who then separating into man
and woman, becomes
Jah-Heva in one form or race, and Cain and Abel (male and
female) in its other
form, the double-sexed Jehovah. Seth represents the later
Third Race."25
Thus man, at one time
more spiritual than physical, started by creating through
the inner powers of
his mind, and again in the distant future he will be
destined to create by
spiritual will,--Kriyasakti.26 Creation, we are told, "is
but the result of will
acting on phenomenal matter." There are yet many
mysteries in sex which
humanity will bring to light as it unfolds its knowledge
of the spiritual
control of nature.
Madame Blavatsky
weaves into her story the Promethean myth, the war of the
Titans against Zeus
being interpreted to mean the rebellion of the Asuras and
Kumaras against the
inertia and passivity of an unfruitful spiritual state, and
their consequent drive
for physical incarnation. This myth was the Greek version
of "the war in
heaven" and the succeeding "fall of the angels." The author
ridicules the idea
that mankind lacked fire in its common form before Prometheus
brought it from
heaven. The "fire" he brought as a divine gift was "the opening
of man's spiritual
perceptions." In the Greek allegory Zeus represents the hosts
of the primal
progenitors, the Pitris, or "Fathers" who created man senseless
and without mind, who
provided the first element of his nature, the chhaya or
astral shell about
which as a nucleus his material form was to be aggregated,
this combination later
to receive the gift of mind and later still that of
divine monadic
individuality or spirit. These Pitris represented the lower host,
who were masters of
all the purely blind cosmic and "titanic forces"; Prometheus
typified the higher
host, or the devas possessing the higher intellectual and
spiritual fire. Prometheus,
then, added to mindless man his endowment of
intellect and
spiritual wisdom. But once united with the lower being to render.129
it the service of
raising it to eventual Godhead, the divine Titan fell under
the partial dominance
of the fleshly nature, and suffered the humiliation of
having to procreate by
sexual union. This procreation was not unnatural, not
immoral, not a sin and
shame intrinsically; but it was a comparative degradation
for beings who
formerly created by free spiritual will. The vulture torture of
the legend is only the
constant preying of the carnal nature upon the higher
man.
"This drama of
the struggle of Prometheus with the Olympian tyrant, sensual
Zeus, one sees enacted
daily within our actual mankind; the lower passions chain
the higher aspirations
to the rock of matter, to generate in many cases the
vulture of sorrow,
pain and repentance.
"The divine Titan
is moved by altruism, but the mortal man by selfishness and
egoism in every
instance."27
The gift of Prometheus
thus became "the chief cause, if not the sole origin of
evil," since it
joined in an unstable equilibrium in one organism the free will
and spiritual purity
of the angel hosts with the heavy surgings of the bestial
nature; linked divine
aspiration with sensual appetence. Theosophists view this
situation as the
ground of man's whole moral struggle.
The Promethean gift,
the sacrifice of the devas for the apotheosis of humanity,
was received
18,000,000 years ago.
It is significant that
it came at the epoch of the separation of the sexes. This
fact would appear to
indicate that the independent privilege of procreation,
involving the free
action of two organisms, could not well be vouchsafed to man
until he was possessed
of the power of discriminative wisdom. This middle period
of the Third Race thus
marks the definite beginning of human life on the globe,
as the principle of
manas (Sanskrit man, to think) was essential to constitute
the complete thinking
entity.
These Titans or
Kumaras were themselves of seven grades of development, and as
they took birth in
different racial and national groups, their varying natures
at once gave
differentiation to the human divisions. Madame Blavatsky uses this
situation to explain
the origin of racial differences.
It will be noted that
Madame Blavatsky's account of human racial progression
explains how the first
life came onto the earth. Her postulations enable her to
declare that life came
hither not from the outside, from another planet, but
emerged from the inner
or ethereal vestures of its physical embodiment. Life
does not come from a
place, but from a state or condition. Life and its
materials are
everywhere; but the two need to pass from a static to an active
relation to each
other, and wherever certain processes of interaction between
the two take place,
there living things appear. They emerge from behind the veil
of invisibility. Their
localization on earth or elsewhere is simply a matter of
some fundamental
principle of differentiation. A great cosmical process
analogous to a change
of temperature will bring a cloud before our eyes where
none was before. Life,
says Madame Blavatsky, comes here in ethereal forms, from
ethereal realms, and
takes on physical semblance after it is here. All life
evolved by concretion
out of the fire-mist. The pathway of life is not from the
Moon, Mars, Venus, or
Mercury to the Earth, but from the metaphysical to the
physical.
Esoteric ethnology
extends the periodic law to world geography in keeping with
the moral evolution of
the races..130
"Our globe is
subject to seven periodical entire changes which go pari passu
with the races. For
the Secret Doctrine teaches that during this Round there
must be seven
terrestrial pralayas, three occasioned by the change in the
inclination of the
earth's axis. It is a law which acts at its appropriate time
and not at all
blindly, as science may think, but in strict accordance and
harmony with karmic
law. In occultism this inexorable law is referred to as "the
Great
Adjuster."28
There have already
been four such axial disturbances; when the old continents-save
the first one-were
sucked in the oceans. The face of the globe was
completely changed
each time; the survival of the fittest races and nations was
secured through timely
help; and the unfit ones-the failures-were disposed of by
being swept off the
earth.
"If the observer
is gifted with the faintest intuition, he will find how the
weal and woe of
nations is intimately connected with the beginning and close of
this sidereal cycle of
25,868 years."29
In each case the
continent destroyed met its fate in consequence of racial
degeneration or
degradation. This was notably the lot of Atlantis, the Fourth
Race home. As Lemuria
succumbed to fire and Atlantis to water, the Aryan Race
may expect that fiery
agencies (doubtless subterranean convulsions of the
earth's crust) will
prove its undoing..131
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER IX.
EVOLUTION, REBIRTH,
AND KARMA
The spiral sweep of
Madame Blavatsky's grandiose cosmology carries with it an
elaborate rationale of
human life. Life is a continuum, says Theosophy, and
reincarnation is its
evolutionary method, Karma its determinant.
Theosophists feel that
in fostering the renaissance in modern Western thought of
the idea of rebirth
they are presenting a conception of evolution which makes
Darwinism but an
incident in a larger process. It becomes but a corollary of a
more general truth.
Darwinism, according to Theosophy, conceives of the
evolution of a species
or class through the successive advances of a line of
individuals, who live
and die in the effort to carry some new development
forward for their
successors. For themselves, they reap no reward-save the
precarious
satisfaction, while living, of having fought the good fight and kept
the line intact.
But reincarnation
makes evolution significant for the only thing that does
evolve-the individual.
The race does not evolve, as it is nothing but a mental
figment, and has no
permanent organic individuality. It does not exist apart
from its individual
constituents. The latter are the real and, for Theosophy,
permanent existences,
and hence, if evolution is to have solid relevance, it
must appertain to the
continuing life of the conscious units or Monads. It is a
conclusion that can be
deduced from empirical observation that growth at any
stage leads to
conditions out of which continued growth springs in the future.
In short, the effect
of growth, and its significance, is-just more growth.1 The
entire program of
universal activity is just the procedure of endless growth.
with halts and rests
at relay stations, but with no termini. The meaning of
present growth only
comes to light in the products of later growth. But it is a
matter of infinite
importance whether the growth accruing from the individual's
exertions in his life
span are effects for him or for another. It is not growth-if
one struggle only to
die. How can race history have significance if the
history of the
individuals in it has none? Under Madame Blavatsky's thesis the
evolutionary reward of
effort will go to the rightful party.
Theosophists base
their endorsement of the reincarnation theory upon a number of
dialectical
considerations.
First there is the
"argument from justice." Briefly, this holds that the concept
of justice as
applicable to mundane affairs can not be upheld on the basis of
the data furnished by
a one-life existence of human beings, and that if justice
is to be predicated of
the mundane situation, reincarnation is dialectically a
necessary postulate to
render the concept tenable. Looking at the world we see
conditions that force
us to admit the presence of inequalities which, on the
theory of but one life
spent here, must be interpreted as inequities or
iniquities. If the
single life here is the entirety of mortal existence, then.132
the cosmos is socially
unjust. The concept of justice must go, if, with but one
chance for happiness,
two persons are placed by forces beyond their control in
conditions so
flagrantly at variance. The vaunted Love and Justice that are
alleged to rule at the
heart of Nature become a travesty of even human fair
play. No meanest man
could wreak such a havoc of injustice in the world; no
tyrant could so
pitilessly outrage the fitness of things.
But, one may ask the
Theosophists, how is it that obvious inequities can become
reconstrued as
equities, how can cosmic wrongs be turned to cosmic
righteousness, merely
by admitting additional existences? A wrong today is not
made right simply
because more days are to follow. Because, the reincarnationist
replies, that event
which when seen in its isolated setting in the one day's
activities, takes on
the appearance of injustice, when viewed in its relation to
former days' doings is
discerned to be a sequential event, proper in its time
and nature, and
fulfilling the requirements of justice in an enlarged scope of
reactions. By mounting
the hill of this evolutionary hypothesis, one becomes
able to locate the
grounds of justice over a wider area, to discover them,
perhaps, entirely
outside the bounds of the one-only life that was observable
from the lowlands. The
causes of all that one life unfolds for us can not in
most cases be found in
the occurrences of that life. The assumption that events
in life come raw and
uncolored ethically is only tenable if we are willing to
regard many
occurrences as unrelated and uncaused. Holding the theorem that
every event in the
world's history is a link in a chain of cause and effect, and
that no occurrence
stands alone as an absolute cause or final effect, modern
moral theory
(postulating but one life) arbitrarily breaks this continuum in
illogical fashion in
its assumption that the fortunes of a single life are not
exactly the resultants
of antecedents adequate to account for them. The vague
and uncertain
"laws of heredity" are dragged in to adjust the uneven balance of
accounts. But they are
found incompetent. Nothing can be found in Shakespeare's
parents, or in
Mozart's, or in Lincoln's to explain the flowering of power and
genius in their
progeny, or again the sterility of their descendants. Did this
man sin or his
parents, that he was born blind? Did Mozart learn to play the
organ or his parents,
that he could render a sonata on the pipe organ at four?
Biological science
stands in perplexity before the problems thus presented, and
ethical science stands
equally baffled by anomalous situations where right and
wrong are apparently
unaccountable. Theosophy says the difficulty here is that
modern theory is trying
to understand
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER XV of the Book of Life without
knowing that fourteen
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTERs have preceded it. The acts and the predicament of
an individual today
are inexplicable because he has had a long past, which is
not known, but which,
were it known, would enable us to say: nature is just
after all; he has
earned his present lot. What the reincarnation program offers
is the identification
of causation and justice. Things are justly caused. The
modern eye can not see
this because it has refused to view things in their true
perspective, and
instead sees them as partial, isolated, and out of their
context; yet justice
reaches its fulfilment in the individual
"Today or after
many days."2
One life does not give
Nature time to arrange her trial, hear the evidence, and
render a verdict. The
law of compensation must for the most part await the slow
grinding of the mills
of God, until its adjustments can be nicely achieved. When
we give up the
exaggerated mediaeval view of man's importance, and cease to
limit to a few
thousand years the time allotted the divine plan to work out our
salvation, we may be
open to the persuasion that to crowd the whole procedure of
the law of
compensation, with its millions of entangled situations, into the
span of a human life,
is as egregious an absurdity as that of trying to cram
into the Biblical six
thousand years the entire evolution of mankind, on a.133
planet which has been
fitted for habitation for millions of years. Theosophy
affirms that man's
life will never be properly interpreted until the whole long
course of its
unfoldment on the globe is envisaged. The individual is the
cumulative product of
a long experience, the fruits of which have passed into
his subjective life
and character, whence, though invisible, they will function
as the causes of
action. His relation to the past is the most substantial part
of his constitution.
His present can be explained only in the light of his past,
and if our gaze is
foreshortened to the scant confines of a single incarnation,
the materials for
understanding will be wanting.
The protagonist of
rebirth attacks the one-life theory also with the argument
that it defeats the
attempt of the mind to read "meaning" into the terms of the
life experience. To be
sure, he admits, nobody perhaps can tell just what this
consists of, or in
what particular aspect of experience it is to be found.3
Ultimate
"meaning" of world events is doubtless another of those abstract
finalities which we
reach only by a process of infinite regress to sheer
negation, like
ultimate being and ultimate reality, or ultimate substance. But
it is permissible to
employ the term for the purposes of the argument in its
commonly accepted
sense of the later outcome, result or eventuation of a set of
conditions at any time
prevalent, in accordance with the design of some
directing
intelligence. In this general sense the term is more or less
equivalent to effect
or consequence, now hidden but eventually revealed. The
present or past comes
to meaning in the future. The reincarnationist, of course,
casts his
"meanings" in the stream of an assumed teleological
evolution-process.
But if
"meaning" is thus assumed to be discoverable within the constant flow
of
things, the difficulty
arises that it proves to be an ever-receding entity like
a shadow. When we try
to stabilize or grasp it, it has moved forward out of
reach. The
Theosophist's solution is, of course, that the ultimate and stable
meaning of things in a
temporal sequence is to be found only in that higher
level of consciousness
in which past, present, and future are gathered up in one
eternal Now. The
meaning of events in their three-dimensional aspects of time,
space, and causality
must be located in a four-dimensional world of
consciousness, where
the extended life history of the series appears as a unit.
As all directions
merge into one in the center of a circle, or at the pole of
the earth, so all
relations merge into a fixity of character in the center of
consciousness. Down
(or out) here, says the Theosophist, we are in a realm of
relativity; we can not
look for absolute meaning. All significance is relative,
to the past, as cause,
to the future, as effect. No event can have meaning if
lifted out of the continuum
and viewed by itself alone. An occurrence is the
product of its
precedents and the cause of its consequents. A single life,
therefore, has
meaning, only when scanned as one of a series. It is admittedly
but a fragment of the
life of the race; Theosophy adds that it is but a fragment
of the life of the
individual.
By this line of
reasoning the occultist arrives at his grand conclusion: it is
meaningless, first
from man's viewpoint, for him to live but one physical life
on Earth or any
planet; it would be equally meaningless, from the viewpoint of a
Cosmic Mind (if the
laws of logic, the connotations of "meaning," are laws of
all mind) to have man
live but one such life. For a Deity to send us down here
but once would be
without logic or sense-as senseless as for a parent to send
the child to school
for one day only, or one term. Thus Theosophic argument sees
the one-life theory
reduced to absurdity.
The race's one sure
verdict about this life is that it wants completeness and
self-sufficiency. To
what larger experience is it then related? And if related
in some way to a
hidden history of infinite reach and significance, where is the.134
logic of the relation
which brings us out of that infinite sea of other being
for only one brief dip
into the life of matter? Certain metaphysical schools of
thought would answer
that we go on progressing infinitely in the ethereal
worlds. That very
affirmation, says the occultist, makes the one life here
infinitely illogical:
on what imaginable basis can one mundane life be
necessarily related to
an infinite spiritual existence? Even were it whole,
successful, and
well-rounded, it would stand as but one moment somehow
postulated as
determining eternity. But suppose that one dies in infancy, or has
every effort to live
well thwarted?--the necessary inclusion of one physical
life in a totality of
indefinite being is empirically shown as invalid. To get a
logical picture, in
the Theosophist's view, you must trace a long series of
short life-lines at
intervals along your line of infinite being, and only then
does the possibility
arise of discerning logical structure, interrelation, and
the
"meanings" hidden in successive stages of growth.
Occultism points to
another irrationality in the mundane situation if one life
is predicated. It says
briefly that we are only beginning to learn wisdom and
the art of life, when
we are torn away from the arena where those fruits of our
experience can best be
exploited. What irrationality possesses Nature that she
exerts a tremendous
effort to evolve in us gifts, faculties, and knowledge only
to throw her mechanism
away when she is just about to get us in shape for some
good? Nature is thus
convicted of being a prodigious spendthrift-unless she has
a means of conserving
the fruits of our present experience and putting them into
practice in a later
cycle. Unless we live again to profit by what we have
learned, Nature is
seen to create values only to destroy them. The only logical
alternative is to believe
that we reincarnate to carry on with the values and
the capacities we have
developed in our former turns at the earthly chores. Then
Nature does not waste
her products, but uses them as tools for further
operations.
Again, Theosophy
declares that philosophy in the West will find no place in
which to deposit value
unless it accepts the rebirth idea. Philosophy-the
attempt to locate
reality and permanent value-has been baffled in its effort
because the organism
in which it has presumed to find the value of evolution
localized persists in
dying under its eye. It has nowhere to place value except
in the race, the
components of which are constantly vanishing. Value can not be
located in any
structure which will continue to hold it. The race is a fiction,
at any rate, and if
the individual can not hold his gains, Nature can not be
said to have achieved
any progress that will be permanent. If the individual can
not reap what he has
sown, there is chaos in the counsels of evolution. If
experience is to head
up somewhere so as to become capital, Theosophy says it
must do so in the
individual. The very reason, affirms the esotericist, that the
Greeks, that all
races, "lost their nerve," lost their zest for earth life and
turned away from it to
an hypothecated heaven as a compensation for its
unbearable hardships,
was that in the face of death, at the relentless approach
of what appeared to
spell the doom of all one's efforts and one's loves, they
were not fortified
with the saving knowledge that the good done in this life was
"made safe for
permanency."
The Theosophist's case
for reincarnation may be concluded with a quotation from
L. Adams Beck,4
popular publicist of Orientalism, as follows:
"Therefore the
logic of the Orient has seen as necessary the return of man to
the area of experience
. . . and if the truth of that law be denied, I have
never heard from
either priest or prophet any explanation of the mysteries or
the apparent
injustices of life. Seen by its light they are set at once in
luminous clarity. That
the earliest Christianity was itself imbued with belief.135
in this fundamental
law there can be no doubt, though it was soon overlaid with
the easier, less
individually responsible and more primitive teaching of
interference by angry
or placated Deity, and of the general supernatural order
of things which
commends itself to more primitive man and places his interests
in the hands of
intercessors or priests. It is much simpler as well as more
comfortable to believe
that intercession can obliterate a life's transgressions
affecting millions of
men or events, and a moment's penance fix an eternal
destiny. So the
Western churches set aside the great stream of philosophy and
shut their eyes to its
implications."
Here, alleges the
Theosophist, was the real loss of nerve on the part of the
human race. And it was
the Christian theology that caused it. The Christian
doctrine of the
forgiveness of sins is regarded by the Orientals as a cheap and
tawdry device of a
cowardly spirit. The readoption of the rebirth hypothesis,
avers the Theosophist,
would yield for humanity the immense boon of a restored
faith in the universal
law of causality. Because our concept of inviolable law
in every realm of life
has been shattered, or left to stand unsupported by
cosmic fact, we have
reaped the natural harvest of a lawless age. The idea of
salvation has taught
us that law can be shirked, evaded, bought off.
The second great
argument for reincarnation is "the argument from cyclic law."
This is a deduction
from a known process of nature, and not the postulate of a
procedure in nature.
Nature's activity is said to be but the play of the one
Energy, manifesting to
our eyes in countless modifications of the same general
laws. There are not
many laws in nature, but one law, taking on a variety of
modes in adaptation to
varying conditions and instruments. In a certain deep
sense, then, all
natural processes are analogous, the occultist tells us. Life
knows but the one Law
and all its manifestations typify it. On this
generalization the
Theosophists have justified their employment of the law of
analogy, which figures
so extensively in the cosmology and methodology of the
cult. The principle is
stated in Theosophic terminology in the phrase, "As above
so below." As in
the macrocosm so in the microcosm. As in heaven (ideally), so
on earth (physically).
As in the universe at large, so in man, its image.
Conceiving this
principle as substantiated by empirical observation of the
universe itself, the
Theosophist proceeds to look at nature, and there observes
in her mechanics a
certain modus. She works by methods which suggest the terms
periodic, cyclic,
rhythmic. In the fields of natural science such processes are
to be noted with
considerable frequency. Chemistry, physics, music, biology,
astronomy, and
physiology yield instances. It was the thought of many an ancient
philosophy that life
runs in ever-revolving cycles. It has been affirmed that
rhythmic pulsation is
nature's invariable law. All life processes exhibit some
form or other of the
wave-motion principle. Inorganic nature shows it no less
than organic. The atom
itself displays an orbital swing; the stars gyrate in
cycles. All force
flows out in the form of a rhythmic or periodic beat in the
pulse of energy.
Vibration appears to be the very essence of such things as
light, color, sound,
music, electricity, magnetism, heat, pressure, radio wave,
X, N, alpha, beta,
gamma, and the cosmic rays. Next the process of plant life,
with startling
clearness, reveal the same orderly periodicity of function. The
pulse, the breathing,
alternation of work and rest, of expenditure and repair,
of intermittent fevers,
are some of the more pronounced and observable evidences
of this law, in the
realm of the bodily mechanism. Life appears to be
vibrational.
The Theosophist, too,
points to each day as a miniature cycle, representative of
the larger cycle of a
life. It exemplifies the endless succession of active life
and (comparative or
partial) death for the human personality, in which respect
the latter is seen as
reflecting the nature of the Absolute Being, Brahm. Each.136
day, furthermore, is
to a degree an actual reincarnation; for the soul returns
not to the same body,
but to one vastly changed in cell structure and component
elements throughout.
The same soul takes up its life in a renewed body each day!
Why, then, argues
Theosophy, should the idea of reincarnation seem so bizarre
and objectionable to
the mind, when it is the recognized daily law of our being?
Outside the life of
man, in the life of nature, the same procedure is revealed
on an even larger
scale. The life, the soul, of the vegetable kingdom (and of
even large portions of
the animal kingdom) reincarnates each springtime. The
life energies of the
plant world come to being in new forms. When these end
their cycle, life
withdraws into immaterial status for the winter. But it sleeps
only to wake again. There
is no commoner fact than reincarnation, the
Theosophist reminds
us; it is all about us and within us. And so we are asked:
Does nature omit human
life in its universal law of rhythmic progression? If so,
it is the only place
in the entire life of the cosmos, where periodical
repetition of process
is not found.
If it be objected that
this is mere reasoning from analogy, the occultist
rejoins that it is
more: it is the application of a law seen to be applicable
everywhere else in the
universe to a particular portion of the universe. It is
again, as in the
argument from justice, the postulation of law for an area of
experience to which
we-in the West-do not believe or know that the law applies.
The Oriental covers
all life with his blanket of law; we segregate a portion of
life from the rest and
make it lawless. He says that history is rhythmic, racial
life is rhythmic,
planetary life is rhythmic, solar life is rhythmic and that
even the life of God,
Brahm, the Absolute, is rhythmic. Is the life of man then
the only thing not
rhythmic? A single life from this point of view seems to be a
weird anomaly.
If one asks the
Theosophist,--How does the individual survive and carry forward
his values?--he
advances an elaborate scheme based on knowledge allegedly
obtained from the
Supermen.
The peregrinations of
the individual unit of consciousness through the worlds is
but a minor detail in
a vastly larger mechanism. Theosophy elaborates Platonic
psychology by teaching
that we have at least three principles lower than the
spiritual one which
survives. At any rate the outer part of us is but a
temporary
construction; the inner or subjective part of us is in truth the real
"we." The
body and several etheric or semi-material "souls" are but the
temples,
for a period, of the
immortal spirit. If we may use St. Paul's language again,
when the "natural
body" disintegrates, we still have a "spiritual body" in which
our unit of spirit
functions and retains its identity. The Theosophist calls
this underlying
vehicle his "causal body," because in it are gathered up the
effects of the causes
he has generated in his various earth lives. That more
ethereal vesture is
the principle or part of the principle, that links the
individual Ego to the
permanent home of the human entity.
Man in his real inner
nature is a unit portion of (originally) undifferentiated
cosmic Being. He is a
fragment of God, but plunged now in conditions described
as material, for the
purpose, as often stated, of lifting the blank spiritual
consciousness of the
Monad to acute spiritual self-consciousness. He must have
traversed the whole
vast gamut of the systems to make his experience complete.
For the purposes of
this varied experience he must clothe himself in garments of
the matter composing
the plane of life on which he finds himself; and as matter
subsists in varying
grades of density, as solid, liquid, gaseous, etheric, he
must be provided with
a garment of each type of material. This makes him a
multiple being. Each
garment of matter becomes his instrument of contact with.137
the life of that
plane. He thus expresses himself in a different capacity on
each plane. In the
world in which he now is he has his permanent body, the
causal, and three
temporary vestures through which he reacts to the vibrations
of sensation (through
his physical body), emotion (through his astral or kamic
body), and thought
(through his mental body). The Ego, the lord of the body, can
project his attention,
or his focus of force, into any one of the three. He is
the animating
principle of all. He himself dwells aloft and surveys the results
of his contact with
the three worlds below. These contacts constitute his
experience. No touch
of experience is ever lost or forgotten. It is the
postulate of Theosophy
that on the substrate ether of nature there is an
indelible record of
every impression. Each one has inscribed his own history
ineradicably on the
Astral Light or Akasha. The causal body, like the brain in
the nervous system,
receives the inner and ultimate impress of each stimulus
from the outer world
and records it there in perpetuity. So equipped, both for
time and for eternity,
man makes his dιbut upon the earth level again and again,
and takes back into
himself each time a harvest of experience. But what becomes
of him after physical
death? He lives on in his causal body on its own plane-Devachan,
the "heaven
world"-after having dropped first his physical body, then
his astral and finally
his lower mental. It is the soul's time for rest, for
assimilation, for
renewal. The soul is not omniscient in its own right, except
potentially. Its
experiences in the lower worlds are calculated to unfold its
latent powers.
Normally the spirit of man, on these sublimated levels of the
immaterial world, does
not have full cognizance of its every act while in the
lower realms. Our
sojourn on earth is in a manner an exile from our true home.
The difference in
vibration rate between the two levels of life makes it
impossible either for
the fragment of the soul in flesh to remember its former
high condition, except
in flashes, or for the higher Ego in the supernal regions
to know what its lower
counterpart is doing. However there are moments when a
line of communication
is established. During earth life the lower fragment is
occasionally elevated
to a momentary rapport with its higher Self, and in that
instant receives a
whole volume of helpful instruction, advice, or inspiration.
These are the
experiences that change the whole view and alter a life. On the
other hand the higher
principle at least twice during the sojourn of its lower
self in the causal
body is put in touch with its earthly life. Just after the
conclusion of each
earth period, and again just before the commencement of the
next, the soul is
granted a view of its total history, retrospective in the
first case and
prospective in the second. The first of these experiences may
occur while the soul
is still in the body just before death, or, most commonly,
in the finer sheaths
just after it.5 It is an elevation of normal consciousness
to a high pitch and
covers a complete survey of the whole past life, with
emphasis on the inner
moral value of its acts.6 The Ego, in the light of this
panoramic retrospect,
is put in position to reflect over its past, note its
progress, evaluate its
record in relation to total evolutionary requirements,
and is thus enabled to
fix permanently the gain made, the faculty sharpened, the
insight deepened, the
poise established, and the capacity developed.
In similar fashion,
just preceding its outgoing upon another mundane adventure
the Ego, aided by
higher and more resourceful beings known as the Lords of
Karma, is shown in a
summary manner the situation in which he stands in relation
to cosmic evolution,
the stage he has reached, the next succeeding problems to
be met, the ground to
be covered, and the possibilities of a variety of careers
open to him in his
next dip into concrete experience. In view of the most
important considerations
involved in this manifold situation, the Ego himself
makes the choice of
his next environment and personality! It is the man himself
who prearranges the
main outlines of his coming life on earth, and the great
Lords of Karma aid him
to carry his chosen plan into execution. We ourselves
preside over our
next-life destiny. But we make that choice, not at random, but.138
in strictly logical
relation to the total retrospective view. Being shown in a
moment of vivid
lucidity what we have next to learn, we make our selection of
ways and means to meet
the immediate requirements of the situation. Our choice
is not entirely free,
for we must choose with reference to past obligations and
karmic encumbrances,
which must be liquidated. The soul with vision opened in
the world of causes,
sees oftentimes that salvation, progress, lies in no other
course. The lower
entity would not so choose, to be sure, but the higher Ego
sees better what is
good for its lower self to undergo. An outwardly untoward
condition may provide
the requisite setting for the working out of some
particular moral
advance. So he chooses his own parents, the race, nation or
locale of his next
life, the type of physical personality he will animate, the
specific phases of
character he will seek to build up. It is likely that he will
aim to concentrate his
experience upon the development of some one virtue which
he has sadly lacked
hitherto, and will choose a situation with a view to its
influence in that
direction. He must acquire all the virtues one after another.
His choice once made,
the veil of Lethe is again drawn over his vision, the two
elements of his being
are again drawn apart into their separate spheres, and the
lower man descends
into the world of matter for another trial at life. But he is
now oblivious of the
fact that it was his own wish to be thrown into the habitat
where he finds
himself. He may either wonder at the fortunate fate that has
befallen him, or rebel
against a seeming injustice. He seeks happiness in
diverse ways, but is
seldom satisfied with what he gets. What he is sure to get,
however, in whatever
direction he may seek, is experience. And this is the one
thing that evolution
is concerned about. Growth, not happiness (except
incidentally), is the
goal of his life. Under the illusion that happiness may be
found in this
condition or in that, he will plunge into all sorts of
experiences, which
will prove educative.
There is much detail
in connection with the methods used by nature to effect the
transition of the soul
into and out of the successive bodies. At death the Ego
drops first the
physical vehicle, which goes back to its mineral components. For
a brief time
thereafter it has for its outermost and densest sheath the etheric
double, pictures of
which have been caught in photography, and the material of
which is the ectoplasm
of the Spiritualists. All the finer bodies, be it
understood,
interpenetrate the physical and each other in turn, as solid,
liquid, gas, and ether
might be put into the same earthly vessel. The dropping
of the outermost
leaves the others intact and capable of freer activity. The
occasional appearance
of the etheric double, which while it lasts, has an
affinity for the
physical body, gives us the basis for ghost stories. It is not
usually discernible by
normal vision, but can be seen by sensitives. After a few
weeks at most this
body likewise disintegrates, and the astral body is then the
peripheral envelope.
It keeps the Ego within the realm of emotional vibrations,
and in this world the
experiences which the Ego shared of this sort must be
digested. The
consciousness of the Ego must tarry on this plane until the
strength of his desire
and passional nature wears itself out, and he is purged
of gross feeling.
After months or a few years the astral in turn disintegrates.
This leaves but one of
the "onion-peels" to be thrown off before the soul is
released finally from
the interests and tendencies that held it on earth. This
is the lower manas, or
lower mental body, whose material responds to the
energies of thought.
As the physical body is absent, the forces going into
concrete thought
expend themselves, so to say, in thin air, until this body of
"mind-stuff"
eventually dissolves, like the others. The soul is then housed only
in its spirit body, in
which it abides until, after a long rest, it feels again
the urge for
additional physical experience..139
The nature of the
soul's life in the body of spirit is practically beyond the
resources of human
description. We can only conceive of it by making the effort
to picture the play of
immaterial vibrational energies apart from a mechanism.
Its manifestations in
terms of our cognitions are those of unimaginable bliss,
buoyancy, elation, and
vividness. It is the heaven world which all mystical
religions have striven
to depict. The tradition of its glories has served as the
basic fact in all
religions of post-modern compensation. Theosophy names it
Deva-Chan, the home of
the Devas. During the soul's residence there it bathes
itself in the currents
of finer energy, which serve to renew its vitality,
somewhat depleted by
its last contacts with the coarser vibrations of earth
life. (The analogy
with the nightly recuperation from the day's fatigues is
obvious here.) The Theosophists
and the Orientals have fixed the length of this
interim roughly at
1,500 years, but analogy with human life would indicate a
shorter duration. It
is said, however, that the rest periods shorten as
evolution proceeds,
until finally an advanced Ego requires but a few years
between incarnations.
The less experienced souls require more rest.
However long or short,
the soul's sleep, or life in the ethereal realms, comes
to an end and the
craving for another day's activities asserts itself. It is
given the preliminary
vision already spoken of, and then it begins its "descent"
from a world of subtle
to a world of coarse vibrations. A vibratory energy has
the power to organize
matter of appropriate constitution. The ideal forces of
the Ego, emanating
from the higher planes, contact in turn each lower plane,
throw the matter of
each plane into organization along the lines of magnetic
radiation marked out
by the subtle energies in play, and thus construct bodies
shaped by their own
inner nature. In this way the Ego builds up successively a
lower mental, an
astral, an etheric, and a new physical body. Taking possession
of the last is a
gradual process, which begins in reality about the age of seven
and is not completed,
we are told, until the later stages of youth. Before seven
the infant body is
said to be in control of an elemental entity or animal soul,
a being quite distinct
from the Ego himself. The Ego hovering over it, must make
a gradual adaptation
of its new home to its own nature, and the process is
sometimes not easy.
Sometimes the Ego realizes after a time of observation and
trial that the young
body is not capable of being properly used for a life
period, and re-nounces
its attempt to ensoul it. The body then languishes and is
carried off by death.
With all its new
vehicles gathered around it, the soul begins to function in the
earth life once more.
Its equipment is now complete for registering every type
of contact, physical,
emotional, and mental, and this activity constitutes its
life. The new bodies
are built on the model of the inner character, which as we
have seen, has been
preserved in germinal form within the depths of the
spiritual
organization, in a fashion analogous to the vegetable seed. All the
bodies are thus the
tell-tale indices of the inner nature. Our character comes
to expressive form in
our garments of flesh, feeling, and thought. The results
of former practice,
training, discipline, skill come to light as inherent
ability, natural
brilliancy, precocity, genius. We think these are the gifts of
the child's parents.
But the parents only furnish a fine body in which a fine
soul may fitly
incarnate. By the law of affinity a fine soul would not be drawn
to a coarse body. Such
a combination would also infringe the law of justice.
Naturally the question
as to why we do not remember our former lives arises
here. Theosophy
explains, firstly, that many people have remembered their former
lives, and, secondly,
that the reason most of us do not is that the Ego, which
does remember, can not
easily impress its memories upon the new personality. At
each rebirth the soul
finds itself in a totally new body of flesh, and the old
life must express
itself through a new nervous mechanism, with a new brain. The.140
lower personality does
not have any memory of its former experiences, because
they were strictly not
its experiences. Those experiences were registered on
another brain which is
now mouldered away, and only the digest, the moral
quintessence of those
activities has been preserved, and even they have accrued
to the higher Ego, not
to the personality. As it is the purpose of our long
evolution to effect
the union between the lower and the higher personalities, we
shall eventually come
to the time when the Ego will be able to bring its
accumulated memory of
all its past through to the brain of the man on earth.
The occult
psychologist asserts that by hypnotic methods one can be made to
catch glimpses of his
past life or lives through the subconscious mind. Likewise
Oriental Yoga claims that
without hypnotism, resolute mental control will enable
the consciousness to
penetrate into this past field. Theosophists allege that
their practiced
clairvoyants can at will direct their vision upon a person's
former lives, and many
records of these investigations have been published.
Indissolubly connected
with the idea of reincarnation is the doctrine of Karma.
If reincarnation is
the method by which the individual reaps what he has sown,
Karma is the principle
back of the method. Reincarnation is the technique of
justice in the
universe, and hence Karma is the ’rc" or deterministic principle.
It is the law of
necessity that determines the play of forces in evolution; it
is in plain terms the
law of cause and effect, of the equivalence of action and
reaction. The word in
Sanskrit etymology means "action." Acts bind the actor to
consequences. Actions
produce movements in the currents of evolutionary forces.
The law which guides
these forces into their inevitable courses and
eventuations, is the
law of Karma. It is the law of equilibrium and balance, the
law of compensation.
Nature abhors a moral vacuum (which the Theosophist alleges
exists in want of the
rebirth hypothesis) as she does a physical one, and Karma
is the pressure which
she brings to bear about and upon a moral deficiency to
remove it.
A widespread idea has
grown up among non-Theosophists that Karma means
retributive
punishment. This is essentially a misconception, though a certain
measure of the law's
operation may take a form roughly resembling that which
punishment might take.
But nature does not say to the culprit, "You have done
wrong; now take
that!" She says to him, "You have done wrong; now see what it
has brought you."
She does not hit back, even to redeem; she attaches
consequences to acts.
There is much
misunderstanding upon this point, even among Theosophists. It is a
common expression
among them, when some one is mentioned as having met with
mishap, that it is the
working out of his evil Karma. This may be crudely
correct, yet it is
more likely to be a misinterpretation of the doctrine. The
educative value of
experience may at times point to the future, and not always
to the past. We live
to learn, and we learn in order to move on to more expanded
life. We can not be
eternally paying off old scores. A strenuous ordeal may be
the beginning of a new
education, not the graduation from an old one. The Ego
must be confronted
with new problems and come into its heritage of evolved
capacity through the
solution of new difficulties. Much misconstrued "bad Karma"
is simply our
embroilment in new problems for our advanced lessons in the ars
maius vivendi. It is
thus difficult to dogmatize about the significance of
karmic disabilities or
predicaments. Strictly, in a sense, both past and future
references are
indicated in any experience. Karma links us all to the chain of
cause and effect
through the entire time process.
Not only are the
causes set up by the individual persons bound to work out to
fruition, but there is
also what is called collective Karma. Wherever bodies or.141
groups of people act
together, as in a senate, a tribe, or a mob, their
collective action must
bear its fruit like any other action. Karma engendered
aggregately must, of
course, be carried aggregately. A nation or a race may be
guilty of wrong on a
colossal scale; reincarnation must reassemble these groups
in order that the
totality of responsible persons may pay the debt. A senate
declares war: millions
are killed; that senate, acting well or ill, must be
brought within the
sweep of the reaction later on. So there is community Karma,
tribal Karma,
national, racial, and other types of collective Karma. An
organization such as
the Church, the Government, even conventional social
mentality, has its
Karma, and not only the individual members of these groups,
but more especially
the single heads of them, must bear in themselves the brunt
of nature's subsequent
reactions.7
We are now ready to
ask what the goal of all this long evolutionary training of
the individual or
groups may be. What is the purpose and in what will it
eventuate? Or will the
law of spiral growth carry us round and round eternally?
That the question is
one of primary importance is indicated by the fact that the
answers commonly advanced
for it have given determinate shape to most of the
Oriental religions.
The point at issue has been the central theme of the great
religious faiths, and
a dominant consideration in their ethical systems.
The answer accepted by
Theosophy is-Nirvana. In much Oriental thought mortal
life is endured only
because it leads to Nirvana. The Buddhist philosophies of
escape contemplate the
bliss of Nirvana as the eventual house of refuge from
these existences in
the conditions of time, relativity, and imperfection.
But the Oriental does
not seek annihilation. The West has discovered, or is
discovering, that the
interpretations forced upon the term Nirvana by its early
scholars and
Orientalists have missed the point quite decidedly. Opinion has
wavered for a long time
but inclines now to believe that the concept behind the
term does not connote
total extinction of conscious being. Oldenburg contended
that it meant "a
state beyond the conception or reason," and that satisfies most
Orientals. Theosophy
has, with practical unanimity, taken the position that it
implies in no sense an
annihilation of being, but that it does quite definitely
involve the extinction
of the personality of man. The personality, Theosophy
claims, is only a
temporary shadow of the man anyway, and its eventual
dispersion and
annihilation is highly desirable as liberating the true Self from
hampering obstruction
in the exercise of his full capacities for life. This
lower counterpart or
representative of the inner Self is what the Buddhists and
Theosophists declare
is destined for annihilation, partly at the end of each
life, completely at
the end of the cycle. But the eradication of his personality
permits him a grander,
freer life than ever before. Many schools of Hindu
thought regard Nirvana
as a life of bliss. This is a postulate of Theosophy
likewise. Nirvana,
then, instead of being the extinction of consciousness, is
the elevation of
consciousness to a state of ineffable splendor and ecstasy.
Feeling, thought,
sensation are lost in the beatific vision..142
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER X
ESOTERIC WISDOM AND
PHYSICAL SCIENCE
It is interesting to
scan Theosophic doctrine with an eye to noting its relation
to the discoveries of
modern science. We might begin by comparing it with the
Darwinian conception
of evolution. Madame Blavatsky puts the Theosophic view of
the evolution of man
in four propositions in The Secret Doctrine:
1. Man is a product of
animal evolution on our planet only with reference to his
physical body. The
Deva evolution in other worlds was the source of his
independent spirit and
his intellect, his will and his divine nature.
2. Man preceded the
mammalian animals on earth, instead of being evolved from
them.
3. Man is not at all a
descendant from any ape-like ancestor in an advancing
line of evolution; on
the contrary, the monkey is the descendent of (early) man.
4. Man has never been
other than man, though not always as now.
Darwinian evolution
and materialistic science envisage the development of matter
into organic form, and
out of that the unfolding of subjective ideation or
psychic
life-consciousness, reason, intuition-as products of the two elements,
matter and motion or
energy. Occultism views this process as predicable only of
the building of the
physical forms. Instead of regarding the body as having
evolved the faculties
of reason and intelligence, the secret teaching speaks of
a spiritual evolution
as going on concomitantly, and in attachment with, a
physical one. The
conscious intelligence in man is not the evolved expression of
the psychic life of
his organism. There is such a cell psychism in the body, and
its totality is the
subconscious mind, but it is in no sense the thinking,
willing soul of the
man. There are many "missing links" between organic instinct
and conscious
rationality. Evolution in its higher aspects can not be accounted
for if we limit the
agencies at work to the blind forces of matter and motion
acting under the
mechanical influences of environment. "Nature unaided fails."
The purely mechanical
or semi-intelligent energies are able to carry the growing
organisms of any
kingdom from the lower to the higher forms of life in that
kingdom, but without
the aid of the superior intelligences of the kingdom just
above them they are never
able to leap over the gap-the difference in the atomic
structure-which
separates them from the next realm of higher vibratory
existence. Plants
bring minerals over the gap to cell organization; animals
introduce plant cells
to some degree of sensation experience; man tutors the
higher animals right
up to the door of rudimentary intelligence. In similar.143
relationship the Deva
evolution, completed in the Venus chain, is linked with
animal man to bridge
the gap for him into the kingdom of spiritual intelligence.
In line with this
thesis Madame Blavatsky asserts that the principles of wisdom
and spiritual
aspiration never were evolved out of the material constitution of
man's bodily life.
They were superadded to his organism from the celestial
worlds. They could not
have come up to him from earth; they descended upon him
from the skies. Each
succeeding wave of outpouring life from the Logos carries
evolution a step
higher, and the law of the interrelation of all life is that
each higher grade
reaches back to help its lower neighbor ahead, the while it
reaches out to grasp
the hand of its superiors. This must be taken as accounting
for the fact that all
the religious Saviors have been depicted as Mediators
coming down from a
heavenly or celestial realm. Man's divine nature is the
beautified angelic
product of a former cycle of growth, and his true Self is
itself the Deva that
had consummated its salvation elsewhere. The fragment of
divinity that
constitutes our innermost Selfhood had itself been refined and
purged in the fiery
furnace of earlier experiences. Between man's purely
physical development
and the evolution of his spiritual nature "there exists an
abyss which will not
easily be crossed by any man in the full possession of his
intellectual faculties.
Physical evolution, as modern Science teaches it, is a
subject for open
controversy; spiritual and moral development on the same lines
is the insane dream of
a crass materialism."1
To trace the origin of
human morals back to the social instincts of the ant and
the bee, and to affirm
that our divine consciousness, our soul, intellect, and
aspirations have
worked their way up from the lower capacities of the simple
cell-soul of the
"gelatinous Bathybius," hopelessly condemns modern thought to
imbecility and renders
its efforts to understand our growth futile. Instead of
blind forces Madame
Blavatsky posits not only a germinal design, but Designers.
"They are neither
omnipotent nor omniscient in the absolute sense of the term.
They are simply
Builders, or Masons, working under the impulse given them by the
. . . Master-Mason,
the One Life and Law."2
Nature works not
blindly, but through her own highly perfected agents, the
Logoi, the Creators.
The second
proposition-that man preceded the mammalian orders-runs counter to
Darwinian hypothesis.
The Secret Doctrine affirms that the mammalia were the
products of early man.
Man had gone first over the evolutionary ground of the
stone, the plant, and
the animal realms. But these stones, plants, animals were
the astral prototypes,
the filmy presentments, of those of the Fourth Round, and
even those at the
beginning of the Fourth Round were the spectral shadows of the
present forms. No
forms of life had as yet become physical. Around these
ethereal shells, then,
in the succeeding Round, which brought them closer to the
physical scene, were
aggregated the bodily forms which brought them into
objective existence.
The cast-off shells of man's former embodiments became the
moulds of lower
species. Before astral man descended into physical begetting,
he had, it will be
remembered, the power of Kriyasakti, by which he could
procreate his replica
by "the will, by sight, by touch, and by Yoga." So before
the separation into
sexes, "all this vital energy, scattered far and wide from
him, was used by
Nature for the production of the first mammalian-animal
forms."3
All lower types,
struggling toward man as their "divine" goal, are helped by
receiving the effluvia
from man's own life as animating principles and
constructive models..144
The third proposition
follows: that man is not the descendant of any line of
animal evolution,
hence certainly not of the apes. The truth is, the monkey is
the descendant of man.
The case is stated as follows:
"Behold, then, in
the modern denizens of the great forests of Sumatra, the
degraded and dwarfed
examples-'blurred copies,' as Mr. Huxley has it-of
ourselves, as we (the
majority of mankind) were in the earliest sub-races of the
Fourth Root-Race. . .
. 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."4
The apes are millions
of years later than the speaking human being. They are
entities compelled by
their Karma to incarnate in the animal forms which
resulted from the
bestiality of the latest Third and earliest Fourth Race men.
The numberless
traditions about Satyrs are not fables, but represent an extinct
race of animal-men.
The animal Eves were their foremothers and the early human
Adams their
forefathers. All this means, as we are told, that the late Lemurian
or Third Race men
cohabited with huge female animals. This occurred when these
early forebears of
ours had not yet been endowed with the Manasic principle, or
Mind. Their animal
appetencies being fully active, with no check of mind or
discernment of good
and evil upon their acts, they thus committed the "Sin of
the Mindless" in
begetting hybrid monsters, half man, half animal. This is the
occult explanation of
the blending of both animal and human characteristics in
the one creature.
Later on in the Fourth or Atlantean Race, the men of that
epoch, who were now
endowed with Mind and should have known better, committed
the same crime with
the descendants of the Lemuro-animal conjunctions, and thus
established the breeds
of monkeys of the present era. But these semi-intelligent
creatures will reach
the human stage in the next cycle.
Madame Blavatsky
endeavors to show that in animal evolution we see anything but
an unbroken steady
drift toward perfection of form. Evidence of one continuous
line of unfoldment is
totally wanting. There are many diverse lines, and
furthermore, some of
them apparently are retrograding.
Then the argument
based on the study of the human embryo is pressed vigorously.
Occultism accepts the
evidence that the human foetus recapitulates quickly all
the previous stages of
racial evolution. Based on that fact there should be
found a stage of foetal
growth in which ape characteristics predominate. But
there is no monkey
stage of the foetus in evidence.
The fourth
proposition-that man has never been less than man, though to be sure
he has been
different-is the outcome of the basic statement that he is, in his
inner nature, a being
who had already perfected his evolution. Theosophy claims
that a thousand
oddities and disparities manifest in our present life are
elucidated by the
assumption that we are high beings functioning at a level far
beneath our proper
dignity-for the sake of lifting up a host of animal souls to
their next station. We
have never been less than divine; it is our animal lower
self that presents the
aspects of fallibility and depravity.
But in relation to all
these theories as to man's constitution, the question
always arises: What is
the authority for all this secret knowledge? Theosophy
stands firmly on the
affirmation that the only basis of authority in the
revelation of any
religion is long training in actual experience with life.
Knowledge can be
engendered only by living experience. There is no road to
knowledge other than
that of learning. Theosophic knowledge comes from our
Elders in the school
of life. They alone have been through enough of earthly
experience to have
acquired a master knowledge of its laws. Hence it is the.145
position of Theosophy
that no religion can claim more empirical authority than
the esoteric ancient
wisdom.
Madame Blavatsky
declared that occultism had no quarrel with so-called exact
science "where
the conclusions of the latter are grounded on a substratum of
unassailable
fact." It is only when its exponents attempt to "wrench the
formation of Cosmos
and its living Forces from Spirit, and attribute all to
blind matter, that the
Occultists claim the right to dispute their theories."
She declares that
Science is limited to the investigation of one single aspect
of human life, that
which falls within the range of sense objectivity and
rational inference.
There are other aspects of that life and of nature,--the
metaphysical, the
supersensual, for the cognition of which science has no
instrumentalities.
Science is devoting its energies to a study of the forces of
life as they come to
expression in the phenomenal or sense domain. Hence it is
constantly viewing
nothing but the residuary effects of the activity of such
forces. These are but
the shadow of reality, says Madame Blavatsky. Science is
thus dealing only with
appearances, hints, adumbrations, and effects of life,
and this is all it
ever can deal with so long as it shuts its eyes to the
postulates of
occultism. Science clings to the plane of effects; occultism rises
to the plane of
causes. Science studies the expressions of life; esotericism
looks at life itself,
the real force behind the phenomenon. To bring the
elements of real
causality within his cognition,
"the scientist
must develop faculties which are absolutely dormant-save in a few
rare and exceptional
cases-in the constitution of the offshoots of our present
Fifth Root-Race in
Europe and America. He can in no other conceivable manner
collect the facts on
which to bear his operations. Is this not apparent on the
principles of
Inductive Logic and Metaphysics alike?"5
Science, however, asserts
that we can predicate nothing of the nature of the
metaphysical realm,
unless and until our instruments bring its data within our
sensuous purview.
Occultists answer: earlier beings evolved on this or other
planets have already
developed the powers through which these metaphysical
realities are brought
under observation. Occultism adds that these claims are
not based on
imagination, but on the experience of those who have taken the
trouble by right
methods of discipline to prove for themselves the existence and
reach of the powers in
dispute. They are simply latent capacities of the human
soul, as all our other
capacities were once latent, and time and training will
convince any one of
their presence in the organism as an integral part of the
endowment of man. The
occultist rests his case at last, not on fantasy, but on a
fancy empiricism. He
ends by flaunting in the face of science its own present-day
admissions that the
door to further scientific knowledge of the world is
barred by the limitations
of its instruments and methods, not by the limitations
of human experience.
Madame Blavatsky,
fifty-odd years ago, prophesied the arrival of the present
scientific
predicament, and were she alive today she would doubtless register
the
"I-told-you-so" expression. She would tell the modern world that it
is at
the end of its survey
of the mechanical activities of matter and that the search
has left it
uninstructed and unenlightened; it has but driven the mystery from
the realm of the
actual into that of the occult.
The development of
Madame Blavatsky's treatise on the relation of the Old
Science to the upstart
modern pretender proceeds with the presentation of many
angles, sides, or
facets of the theories above propounded and the introduction
of much evidence in
support of the position. She begins by showing that science
admits knowing nothing
in reality of Matter, the Atom, Ether, Force. The atom is.146
a fanciful
construction, and variously constituted to suit the needs of each
separate department of
science, be it physics or chemistry. It is not known what
Light is, whether
corpuscular or not. First it was an undulation of matter,
waves in the ether;
then it was the passage of particles. Now it is discovered
or believed to be both
waves and particles, or wavicles.6 "The atom is the most
metaphysical object in
creation," she says. "It is an entified abstraction."
Matter, in its true
inner essence, can not be fathomed by physical science, for
the actual components
of it lie several degrees (of rarefaction) further back on
the inner planes. It
is ether, and the soul of that, in its turn, is the
elemental primordial
substance, the Akasha. "It is matter on quite another plane
of perception and
being," and only the occult science can apprehend it. Newton
is quoted7 as saying
that "there is some subtle spirit by the force and action
of which all movements
of matter are determined." He adds that it is
inconceivable that
inanimate brute matter should act upon other matter in the
billiard-ball fashion,
without the mediation of something else which is not
material. Occultism
sees the universe run by the Noumenon, "which is a distinct
and intelligent
individuality on the other side of the manifested mechanical
universe." Matter
is not the agent; it is rather the condition, the necessary
vehicle, or sine qua
non, for the exhibition of these subtler forces on the
material plane.
We have noted Madame
Blavatsky's references in Isis to the idea that gravitation
was the wrong concept
for the attractive power exerted by all bodies, and that
magnetism was the
better description. The same idea is emphasized in The Secret
Doctrine repeatedly.
She says that Kepler came to this "curious hypothesis"
nearly three hundred
years ago. It was what Empedocles meant by his Love and
Hate, symbols of the
intelligent forces of nature.
"That such
magnetism exists in Nature is as certain as that gravitation does
not; not at any rate
in the way in which it is taught by science."8
Matter, to the
occultist, has many more forms of existence than the one that
science knows, and
these more refined ones are the most important. Theosophy is
largely built up on
the supposed gradations of matter from the gross to the
ultimately fine. It is
the existence of the rarer ethereal grades which supply
to thought the data
essential for the construction of a metaphysical science.
The true or essential
nature of the higher potencies can never be inferred from
their remote
existential manifestations; and this is why science can never hope
to come upon more
fundamental knowledge while misled by the merely phenomenal
phalanx of outward
effects. Matter in its outer veil of solid substantiality is
illusive, for it is
the dead appearance of a living thing.
"It is on the
doctrine of the illusive nature of matter and the infinite
divisibility of the
atom that the whole science of Occultism is built."9
This, she says, opens
limitless horizons to states of substance of unimaginable
tenuity, but all
informed by the Divine Breath. Nature is as unlimited in her
possibilities of
fineness as she is in those of gross size, in the interior
direction as in
outward spatial extent.
Occult philosophy
describes the Sun as a living glowing magnet. The photosphere
is the reservoir of
solar vital energy, "the vital electricity that feeds the
whole system."
The real living Sun, its Spirit, is continually "self-generating
its vital fluid, and
ever receiving as much as it gives out."10 There is thus a
regular circulation-analogous
to that in the human body-of vital fluid
throughout our solar
system during its Manvantaric or life period. The sun.147
contracts rhythmically
at every return of it, as does the heart. Only it takes
the "solar
blood" eleven years to pass through its auricles and ventricles
before it washes the
lungs and passes thence to the great veins and arteries of
the system.
Madame Blavatsky notes
modern science's statements about the eleven-year
periodicity in the
increase and diminution of sunspot activity as corroboration
of her circulatory
theory. The universe breathes as men do, and as our globe
breathes every
twenty-four hours, she asserts.
Madame Blavatsky has
to reconcile the two seemingly contradictory statements of
occultism "that
matter is eternal" and that "the atom is periodical and not
eternal." The
trick is done by resorting to the distinction that matter, while
eternal in its
undifferentiated basic form, assumes periodically the atomic
structure during each
stage of manifestation. Sir William Crookes' "meta-elements"
are referred to and
his statement that atoms of certain elements
showed "sensitive
character" in effecting certain combinations. Sir William's
assertion that the
atoms share with all other creatures the attributes of decay
and death is also
noted. There will be a dissolution of the universe at the end
of the Manvantara; but
not a destruction, in the terms of physical science. That
is, the energy will
not be lost.
Sound is said to be--
"a stupendous
force, of which the electricity generated by a million of Niagaras
could never counteract
the smallest potentiality, when directed with occult
knowledge."11
In the
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CHAPTER on the "Elements and Atoms" chemistry is affirmed to be the
science that will lead
to the discovery of occult truth. Crookes, she says, is
near to the lair of
the "protyle." Scientists have often sought for an element
of sub-zero atomic
weight, hydrogen equalling 1. "A substance of negative weight
is not inconceivable,"
says Helmholtz. Such a substance would approach the
nature of the occult
protyle, or sub-atomic spirit-matter. In other spheres and
in interstellar
regions there are infinite variations of material composition,
of life formations, of
semi- and super-intelligent beings.
Yet the life forces of
these higher and lower existences are interblended with
our own objective
world; they are around us, and, what is more, in us; and they
vitally affect our
life. All forms of life are linked together in one immense
chain. Some of these
existent worlds may be as formless as Breathe, like the
tail of a comet, which
would sweep over our globe unknown to us, yet not without
influence upon us.
Chemistry, she
announces, once the unit protyle is hypothetically accepted, as
ether was, will
perish, to be reincarnated as the New Alchemy, or Metachemistry.
"The discoverer
of radiant matter will have vindicated in time the archaic Aryan
works on Occultism and
even the Vedas and Puranas."12
Madame Blavatsky
formulates a law of occult dynamics that a given amount of
energy expended on the
spiritual or astral plane is productive of far greater
results than the same
amount expended on the physical objective plane of
existence. This law
becomes fundamental in the Theosophic system of ethics.
On page 612 of Book I,
Madame Blavatsky makes a prophecy which was remarkably
fulfilled, that
"between this time (1886) and 1897 there will be a large rent
made in the veil of
nature and materialistic science will receive a death-blow.".148
All science is
familiar with the rapid incidence of new discoveries and
revelations that fell
within that period, crowned with the enunciation of the
electrical nature of
matter and the facts of radiant energy.
Madame Blavatsky's
position with regard to modern scientific discovery and
theory has been
provocative of much discussion since her day. The same general
situation obtains in
her case as with Paracelsus, Boehme, Swedenborg, and other
mystical prophets of science,
who spoke with a show of authority of the
hypotheses which
science has in recent years taken up. They have repeatedly
anticipated the
propositions of our most advanced learning. Madame Blavatsky's
achievement in this
line is notable; and it is the common assertion of
Theosophists that
science in the past five decades has done little but verify
their Founder's
scientific pronouncements. Dr. A. Marques' book, Scientific
Corroborations of
Theosophy and William Kingsland's The Physics of the Secret
Doctrine have set
forth the many basic confirmations of H.P.B.'s work by our
evolving physical
science.13 It must be remembered in this connection that the
scientific theories
put forth by Madame Blavatsky can not be credited to her as
spiritual intuitions
or guesses, a certain proportion of which chanced to be
well grounded. She did
not arrive at these constructions in her own mentality;
she gave them out as
elaborations of an ancient science, of which she was merely
the reinterpreter.
Furthermore the various theories are put forward, not as
isolated items of
knowledge, but as integral parts of a comprehensive system
which in its reach and
inclusiveness has hardly elsewhere been matched. While
science is obviously
not proving the correctness of that large portion of her
ideas which pass
beyond its domain, in those matters touching its special
province, into which
she so boldly ventured now and again, it has frequently
substantiated her
"re-discoveries," though not all of them.
It is significant that
Madame Blavatsky's occult philosophy aims to restore to
scientific method the
deductive procedure. It is her insistent claim that
materialistic science,
with its inductive method-an attempt to work from the
rind back into the
kernel, from effects back to causes-could never learn
anything deep or true
of the real universe. The world can only be explained in
the light of great
archaic principles; and these the modern world foolishly
contemns, not knowing
they were taught to disciplined students of old. They
postulated that all
things had their origin in spirit and thence they reasoned
outward and downward;
until they saw facts as items in a vast deductive plan. If
man persists in
rejecting such deduction, he will naturally never find the key
to the great mystery;
for by mulling around amongst the shadows of earthly
existence, he merely
learns to know the interplay of shadows. To understand the
shadows he must start
with the light..149
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CHAPTER XI
THEOSOPHY IN ETHICAL
PRACTICE
The Secret Doctrine
set forth the basic conceptions of Theosophy; there remained
for Madame Blavatsky
one more task of large proportions-to make an application
of the principles she
had expounded to the problem of practical living. This was
done to a large extent
in a work which occupied her during a portion of the
three or four years of
life left her after the completion of her major effort.
The Key to Theosophy
was put out by her in response to much questioning as to
how the vast body of
knowledge outlined in her works could be related more
closely to common
understanding. It is done in the form of a dialogue between a
questioner and a
Theosophist, Madame Blavatsky herself. The work shows as much
of the author's
dynamic mind as do her other publications, but there is no
attempt to make a further
display of scholarship. It was an endeavor to bring
out the intent and
meaning of the doctrines, to ease difficulties, and to
clarify and reλnforce
some earlier presentations. It was intended to serve as a
manual, but it is far
from elementary in parts. In it are two now notable items;
her warning against
Spiritualism in the early section, and near the end her
seemingly prophetic
statement that there would later develop an irresistible
trend among her
successors, in spite of her clarion warnings, to make a church
out of her Society.
Reflection, her own
experience, and her observations of the behavior of many
Theosophists, who were
figuratively staggering about under the intoxicating
spell of so strong a
stimulant, deeply impressed her with the necessity of
placing a far greater
emphasis upon the relation of occult philosophy and ethics
and spirituality. Her
own performances of extraordinary psychic feats, she saw,
had helped to create
the peril that lay in an overemphasis on the desirability
of unfolding the
latent powers of the soul. Madame Blavatsky was thus made
keenly aware of her
responsibility in giving out freely what supposedly had been
wisely guarded.
Her solicitude was
particularly aroused by the rush of many new devotees into
the cultivation of the
psychic senses, a feature implicit in the esoteric
teachings. The
persistent presupposition that psychic abilities were the
infallible badge of
lofty spirituality, soon showed its presence. Then, too, the
subtle temptation to
regard one's predisposition to Theosophy and one's
connection with it as
evidence that one has been singled out by the great
Masters as uniquely
worthy, or that one is far on in the line of evolution, was
certain to come to the
surface. Madame Blavatsky could be charitable to ordinary.150
human frailties in
these directions, but shallow spiritual pretension bought
forth her lash.
We are prepared, then,
to understand the vehemence with which she uttered her
first official
statement on this subject through the editorial pages of her new
magazine, Lucifer, May
15, 1888. The article had the suggestive title:
"Occultism versus
the Occult Arts." It is prefaced with a triad from Milton:
"I have oft
heard, but ne'er believed till now,
There are who can by
potent magic spells
Bend to their crooked
purpose Nature's laws."
She minces no words.
"Will these
candidates to wisdom and power feel very indignant if told the plain
truth? It is not only
useful, but it has now become necessary to disabuse most
of them and before it
is too late. The truth may be said in a few words: There
are not in the West
half a dozen among the fervent hundreds who call themselves
'Occultists' who have
even an approximately correct idea of the nature of the
science they seek to
master. With a few exceptions they are all on the highway
to Sorcery. Let them
restore some order in the chaos that reigns in their minds,
before they protest
against this statement. Let them first learn the true
relation in which the
occult sciences stand to occultism, and the difference
between the two, and
then feel wrathful if they still think themselves right.
Meanwhile let them
learn that Occultism differs from magic and other secret
sciences as the
glorious sun does from the rushlight, . . . as the immortal
Spirit of Man . . .
differs from the mortal clay . . . the human body."
She then enumerates
four kinds of Esoteric Knowledge or Sciences:
1. Yajna-Vidya:1
Occult powers awakened by ceremonies and rites.
2. Mahavidya:2 The
Great Knowledge, the magic of the Kabalists and the Tantrika
worship, often sorcery
of the worst description.
3. Guhya-Vidya:3
Knowledge of the mystic powers residing in sound; mantras and
hymns, rhythm and
melody; also knowledge of the forces of nature and their
correlation.
4. Atma-Vidya:4
Knowledge of the Soul, called true wisdom by the Orientalists,
but means much more.
It is the last of
these that constitutes the only real Occultism that a genuine
Theosophist ought to
seek after. "All the rest are based on things pertaining to
the realm of material
Nature, however invisible that essence may be, and however
much it has hitherto
eluded the grasp of science."
The article continues:
"Let him aspire
to no higher than he feels able to accomplish. Let him not take
a burden on himself
too heavy for him to carry.
Without ever becoming
a Mahatma, a Buddha, or a Great Saint, let him study the
philosophy and the
science of the Soul, and he can become one of the modest
benefactors of
humanity, without any superhuman 'powers.' Siddhis (or the Arhat
powers) are only for
those who are able to 'lead the life,' to comply with the
terrible sacrifices
required for such a training, and . . . to the very letter..151
Let them know at once
and remember always that true Occultism, or Theosophy, is
the 'Great
Renunciation of Self,' unconditionally and absolutely, in thought as
in action. It is
Altruism, and it throws him who practices it out of calculation
of the ranks of the
living altogether. 'Not for himself but for the world he
lives,' as soon as he
has pledged himself to the work. Much is forgiven during
the first years of
probation. But no sooner is he accepted than his personality
must disappear, and he
has to become a mere beneficent force in Nature. There
are two poles for him
after that, two paths, and no midward place of rest. He
has either to ascend
laboriously step by step, often through numerous
incarnations and no
Devachanic break, the golden ladder leading to Mahatmaship,
or-he will let himself
slide down the ladder at the first false step and roll
down into
Dugaship."
In another Lucifer
article near the same time entitled "Practical Occultism,"
she defines a
Theosophist as follows:
"Any person of
average intellectual capacities and a leaning towards the
metaphysical; of pure
unselfish life, who finds more joy in helping his neighbor
than in receiving help
himself; one who is ever ready to sacrifice his own
pleasures for the sake
of other people; and who loves Truth, Goodness and Wisdom
for their own sake,
not for the benefit they may confer-is a Theosophist.
"It is impossible
to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of
selfishness remaining
in the operator. For unless the intuition is entirely
unalloyed, the
spiritual will transform itself into the psychic, act on the
astral plane, and dire
results may be produced by it. The powers and forces of
animal nature can
equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the
unselfish and the
all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves
only to the perfectly
pure in heart-and this is Divine Magic."
The article proceeds
to set forth a list of conditions requisite for the
practice of the soul
science. The necessary conditions are eleven, taken from a
list of seventy-three
which she says are prescribed for Eastern neophytes. They
are: suitable magnetic
conditions of the spot selected (for meditation);
membership in a
company of harmonized students; a mind at peace and purified; a
sense of unity with
all that lives; renunciation of all vanities; obliteration
of a sense of
separateness or superiority; avoidance of impurely magnetized
contacts; the blunting
of the mind to terrestrial distractions; abstention from
all animal foods,
spirits, opium; expression of good will in thought, speech,
and act; and oblivion
of self. These precepts form much of the basis of
Theosophic cult
practice.
The result of such
decisive utterances from the leader was to give pause to the
fast-growing Society
membership in its haste to enter upon the Occult Path.
Enthusiasm was
chilled. As the nature of the Master Science was revealed and its
hardships and scant
earthly rewards envisioned, the high qualities demanded and
the perils depicted
frightened many from the deliberate attempt to enroll as
spiritual candidates.
Yet there were aspirants both sincere and resolute. The
needs of these had to
be met, at the same time that the folly of the rash had to
be rebuked.
To serve both purposes
Madame Blavatsky issued many articles through the pages
of Lucifer in London,
from 1888 onward. And along with them came a booklet of
one hundred and ten
small pages which has since taken its place as one of the
most beautiful
expressions of Oriental spirituality now extant. This was The
Voice of the Silence.
The Preface states that it is a translation of a portion
of the slokas or
verses from The Book of the Golden Precepts, one of the works.152
put into the hands of
students in the East.5 She had learned many of these
Precepts by heart, a
fact which made translation a relatively easy task for her.
The Book of the Golden
Precepts formed part of the same series as that from
which the
"Stanzas of Dzyan" were taken, on which The Secret Doctrine is based.
The Voice of the
Silence may be said to be the ethical corollary of the cosmic
and anthropological
teachings of The Secret Doctrine. Its maxims form part of
the basic system of
the Yogacharya school of Mahayana Buddhism. Of the ninety
distinct little
treatises which The Book of the Golden Precepts contains, Madame
Blavatsky states that
she had learned thirty-nine by heart years before. The
remainder is omitted.
"To translate the
rest," says the Preface, "I should have to resort to notes
scattered among a too
large number of papers and memoranda collected for the
last twenty years and
never put in order, to make it by any means an easy task.
Nor could they be all
translated and given to a world too selfish and too much
attached to objects of
sense to be in any way prepared to receive such exalted
ethics in the right
spirit. . . . Therefore it has been thought better to make a
judicious selection
only from those treatises which will best suit the few real
mystics in this
country and which are sure to answer their needs."
The opening sentence
says:
"These
instructions are for those ignorant of the dangers of the lower Iddhi,"
or psychic faculties.
The second page holds
two short sentences which have ever since rung in the ears
of occult students:
"The Mind is the
great slayer of the Real. Let the disciple slay the Slayer."
We must still the
restless outgoing mind before we can hope to see into the
depths of the reality
within. We must strive with our unclean thoughts and
overpower them, or
they will dominate us. Our deepest sympathies must be linked
with all that lives
and breathes, we must lend our ears to every cry of mortal
pain, or we can not
hope to merge our consciousness into the Universal Soul. It
is better to trust the
heart than the head, for "even ignorance is better than
head-learning with no
Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it." Asceticism is a
Via Dolorosa; it is
not by self-torture that the lower self can be lifted to
union with the higher.
Homiletic morality breathes in the following: "Sow kindly
acts and thou shalt
reap their fruition." But stinging rebuke to negative
righteousness echoes
in the next sentence, one that has assumed large
proportions in
Theosophic ethics: "Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action
in a deadly sin."
The basis of much Theosophic morality, as of equanimity and
serenity, is found in
this text as well as in its corollary, which assures us
that no efforts-not
the smallest-whether in right or wrong direction, can vanish
from the world of
causes. "If sun thou canst not be, then be the humble planet"
is our admonition to
stay modestly within the sphere of our capabilities, and
not strain after
things unmeet for us. We should humble ourselves before those
greater than ourselves
in wisdom, seek earnestly their counsel and strive to
tread the high path
they have traversed. At the same time we must not withhold
the blessing of what
knowledge we have acquired from the circle of lesser
evolved souls who may
come within our influence. We must be humble if we would
learn; we will be
humbler still when knowledge has begun to dawn. Reward for
patient striving is
held out to all devotees. The holy germs that took root in
the disciple's soul
will expand and send out shoots under the influence of
steady spiritual zeal;
the stalks will wax stronger at each new trial, they may
bend like reeds, but
will never break; and when the time of harvest comes, they.153
blossom forth. When the
persevering soul has crossed the seventh path "all
nature thrills with
joyous awe." But does the victorious pilgrim then enter
selfishly into the
enjoyment of his hard-won guerdon of bliss, forgetful of his
fellows who have
toiled less successfully than he? Is selfishness justified in
nature? The verses
ask, "Can there be bliss when all that lives must suffer?
Shalt though be saved
and hear the whole world cry?" The answer is the key to
all Theosophic ethic:
the Nirmanakaya (literally, the "possessor of a
transformation-body"),
even he, facing his natural right to enter upon a higher
state of being in the
upper cycle where he will be free from limitation, turns
back to aid the
"great orphan humanity." He takes his place in that high
Brotherhood whose members
form a "Guardian Wall" about mankind. He joins the
Society of the Masters
of Compassion who by spiritual masonry build the wall
"raised by their
tortures, by their blood cemented, protecting him (man) from
further and far
greater misery and sorrow." This is the Great Renunciation of
Self, the mighty
sacrifice, itself typical of the cosmic sacrifice of Deity in
its self-limitation
under the cross of matter, and again typified by every
symbolic sacrificial
rite of the religions. But the universal life can not
restrain a thrill of
gladness as the prodigal's long exile in the worlds of
matter is ended, and
he returns to the Father's house. For "Hark . . . from the
deep unfathomable
vortex of that golden light in which the Victor bathes, all
Nature's wordless
voice in thousand tones ariseth to proclaim: A New Arhan is
Born."
Such is The Voice of
the Silence. Its verses ripple on in a rhythmic cadence
aptly suited to assist
the feeling of mystical devotion. Like other of the
Oriental books it
consists of ethico-spiritual maxims, which hardly so much
attempt to give a
systematic exposition of moral principles, as to reduce the
spiritual essence of
these principles to a mantric form capable of exerting a
magical potency when
used ritually. But it is not difficult to discover in the
book the mainspring of
much of that distrust of the purely psychic which marks
Theosophy so
distinctively among the modern cults. To carry a heart "heavy with
a whole world's
woe" is accounted a far more substantial merit than to bend some
of the etheric and
electric forces of nature to one's will.
What The Voice of the
Silence aims to do is to strike the spiritual keynote of
the ancient science of
mystic union or Yoga as essentially a spiritual technique
and not a system of
magical practices. It is not at all a text-book of the great
Yoga philosophy and
its art, although it may be said that it in no way clashes
with the general
Oriental teachings on the subject of Yoga. Madame Blavatsky did
not find it needful to
formulate a distinctive technique of her own for the
cultivation of the
great science.
The Theosophical
science of Yoga will be found delineated in three or four books
which, along with The
Voice of the Silence, are: the Bhagavad Gita, Light on the
Path (a small
collection of precepts alleged to have been dictated mystically by
a Master to Mabel
Collins in London about 1885), and the several commentaries on
the Yoga Aphorisms (or
Sutras) of Patanjali, written, according to Vyasa,
perhaps 10,000 B.C.,
according to scholars, a few centuries B.C. Portions of the
New Testament, when
given esoteric interpretation, are accepted as descriptive
of Yoga development.
Light on the Path is highly mystico-spiritual in tone, a
companion work to The
Voice of the Silence. It is couched in allegorical and
figurative language,
depicting forms of nature as symbolical of spiritual truth.
The Bhagavad Gita, or
Lord's Lay, is a portion of the Mahabharata, and is by now
so widely disseminated
among Western students as to need no description or
comment in this
connection. It enjoys perhaps the place of foremost popularity
among all the Oriental
religious dissertations. But the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
come perhaps nearest
to being a definite text-book of Theosophic devotional.154
discipline. It is
therefore important to look carefully at the features of the
physical, moral,
intellectual, and spiritual regimen prescribed in this ancient
text for the
cultivation of the highest Theosophic virtue.
It is a handbook for
the practice of the Science of Yoga. Yoga, in brief, means
union,6 having
specific reference to the eventual merging of the individual Soul
or Monad into the
Universal or World Soul, and in a larger view the absorption
of all finite souls
into the Absolute. Its rules and injunctions are the natural
outgrowth of a
philosophy which holds that man is an ensemble of several
separate entities or
principles, whose harmonious evolution postulates a cultus
demanding the
unification under one central control of the different
individualities which,
till that harmonization is effected, live together at
odds and cross
purposes within the same organism. To mollify that discordance it
is requisite first of
all that man should rise above the delusion that he is
essentially his body,
or his feelings, or even his mind. He must first learn
through an inner
realization that he, in his true Self, is none of these, but
that he, the real
inner man, uses these as his servants. He must recognize
himself as the divine
imperishable Ego, the Jivatma,7 and in so doing he will
cease to commit the
error of identifying himself with those temporary and
transient aspects of
himself which he so long mistook for his real being. This
orientation of himself
from his lower manifestations into his true plane of
Selfhood will release
him from all the pain and distress that attends his
illusion that he is
the impermanent lower self.
This in brief is the
general aim of Eastern occult practices; but its complete
rationale involves an
understanding of the details of a labyrinthine science of
soul unfoldment that
in its intricacy staggers the psychological neophyte in the
West. It is necessary
in some degree to go into this psychological technology
for a better comprehension
of the theme.
Its adept devotees in
the East tell us that Yoga is no mere cult, but an exact
and complex science,
with precise rules, very definite stages, and a quite
scientific
methodology.
There are several
types or forms of Yoga practice, which must first be
differentiated. The
most definite forms are: (1), Karma Yoga; (2), Bhakti Yoga;
and (3), Raja Yoga.
Karma Yoga is the path of active exertion (Karma meaning
"action"),
by which the man at an early stage of evolution learns to acquire
control of his
physical organism and his sense apparatus for the purposes of an
energetic bodily
career in the world. It has been subdivided into two types,
called Hatha Yoga and
Laya Yoga. The first, or "forceful," gives control over
the physical mechanism
of the body; the second, or "inactive," governs the
emotional or etheric
component of man. In this process there are gradually
brought into active
operation the four force centers, wheels or chakras, which
lie below the
diaphragm. Karma Yoga is supposed to have been employed by the
Lemurian or Third Race
people, to enable them to perform their appropriate
functions in the line
of earthly racial evolution. It is not to be practiced by
us.
Bhakti
("Love") Yoga, the second type, awakens the heart and throat centers
in
the etheric body,
which latter is achieved by the exercise of devotion and
affectional qualities.
Love, affection, loyalty, attachment to personality, are
the powerful stimuli
that rouse the centers above the diaphragm to active
functioning. It is the
path of feeling and emotion, using the astral body. Its
use was credited to
the Atlanteans, or Fourth Race folk, as their most
appropriate type of
evolutionary expression, and is no longer our task..155
Raja
("King") Yoga, type three, is the specific discipline for our Fifth
Race,
the Aryan. It is
designed to awaken the centers in the head (the pineal gland
and the pituitary
body) crowning the work of the two earlier Yogas in the
development of the
functions of the etheric body. It is consequently the path of
mentality, which is
the Fifth principle in man; and hence it becomes the
appointed task of the
Fifth or Aryan Race to unfold it. As the work of Yoga is
to unify the various
principles in man into harmonious accord, it will be seen
that, as Karma Yoga
arouses the four lower centers, and Bhakti Yoga unites them
with the two middle
centers (the heart and throat), so it is the purpose of Raja
Yoga to link the
ascending forces with the centers in the head (the brain and
the two glands mentioned
above), and to use this uppermost station as the
controlling and
distributing center for all the energies of the unified
personality.8 There
are many stages in the long process of Yoga development.
First the physical
must be brought under control. Then the etheric centers must
be quickened and
linked with the head centers. Then the mind must be linked with
the true soul, and
eventually the latter with the common Soul of all things.
According to Mrs.
Bailey, Raja Yoga is a system giving the rules and means
whereby,
1. Conscious contact
can be made with the soul, the second aspect of the Christ
within.
2. Knowledge of the
Self can be achieved and its control over the Not-Self
maintained.
3. The power of the
Ego or Soul can be felt in daily life, and the soul powers
manifested.
4. The lower psychic
nature can be subdued and the higher psychic faculties
developed.
5. The brain can be
brought en rapport with the soul and the messages from the
latter received.
6. The "light in
the head" can be increased so that a man becomes a living
Flame.
7. The Path can be
found, and man himself becomes that Path.
The initial work of
Raja Yoga is the recognition of the true nature of the Self
as distinct from the
illusory character of man's life in the three lower worlds-the
difference between the
Man himself and his lower vestures. This is achieved
by a long course of
meditation, with thought turned inward, until one
empirically learns
that he is not either his body, or his feelings, or his
sensations, or even
his thoughts; that all these belong to the world of
evanescent things, and
that he himself is the entity, the point of conscious
being, which abides in
unaffected permanence at the center of this changing
world of experience.
This is his first task-to learn to distinguish that which
comes into being and
goes out from that which abides. And the work involves more
than a merely mental
grasp of the fact; it requires that one should act, feel,
and think, and at the
same time learn to stand aside from the act, the feeling,
the thought, and
remain unaffected by them. For ages during his preceding
evolution, before the
scales of illusion were torn from his eyes, the man was
under the delusion
that he was the lower objective self, as reported by his
senses. This
identification of himself with what is in reality but his outer
clothing, is the cause
of all the pain that besets his path. For this thinking
himself to be the
vestures which he wears subjects him to the vicissitudes which.156
they themselves must
undergo. He thus prescribes physical and sensuous limits to
his destiny. He puts
himself at the mercy of the fate which befalls his outward
life. Before serenity
can be achieved he must learn to detach himself from his
vehicles, so that he
can sit unaffected in the midst of changing fortunes. Ere
long he must realize
himself as part of the whole of being, yet as detached from
it, free from the
dominance of the world of form and the impressions of the
senses. He must learn
to use them, and no longer let them use him. His dominance
over matter is
achieved by a mastery of the subtle forces resident in the atom.
This is done by
developing a conscious control over what are called the Gunas,
the three qualities of
matter, which are Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas; or rhythm,
action or mobility,
and inertia. In Indian philosophy, however, these three
terms mean, rather,
"goodness, passion, and darkness," or "virtue, foulness, and
ignorance."
Therefore it is necessary to understand the theosophic
interpretation of
Gunas. Eventually the disciple must be able to command the
wind and the waves by
instituting the proper balance between the rhythmic and
the inert qualities of
matter. Thus he learns to know of a surety that he is not
those forms but a
dynamic entity immeasurably greater than them. The acquirement
of this knowledge is a
part of the process necessary to the realization of his
true character as a
living spirit, and to the gradual withdrawing of himself
from his entanglement
in the world of matter. The five elements, earth, water,
fire, air, and ether,
and the five senses, as well as the distinctive forms of
mental action, are the
specific results of the interplay of the three Gunas in
the world of material
forces. But back of these external manifestations there
are the
"unspecific" or subjective forms of ethereal force; and eventually
the
disciple has to touch
these unseen elements and control them.
To help detach himself
from the influence of visible forms, the seeker must aim
to actualize the
unseen force which operates behind every form, and thus look
through and beyond the
form, which is but the effect of some cause, to that
cause itself. The
crucial operation in every Yoga practice is to work back from
effects, which are
material and secondary, to causes, which are spiritual and
primary; from the
material periphery of life in to its spiritual core. This he
believes possible by
virtue of the theory that "the whole world of forms is the
result of the thought
activity of some life; the whole universe of matter is the
field for the
experience of some existence."9
All objective forms
are frozen thoughts of some mind, which gives its own
coloring to both the
objective and the subjective worlds presented to it. Hence,
one of the first
things the Ego has to do in seeking Yoga is to take the mind in
charge and render it a
perfect instrument for the Soul's higher vision. The
central aim of the
great discipline of meditation is summed up in the phrase "to
still the
modifications of the thinking principle." The mind's proper function,
in the Yoga system, is
to serve as a sublimated sixth sense, transcending yet
supplementing all the
others. Through persistent practice it is to be rendered
into a finely poised
spiritual sense, to become the organ of the Soul's
acquisition of the
higher knowledge. This is the use for which it is destined in
the unfolding economy
of nature; but it has hitherto failed to reveal this
purpose because it has
not been subjected-in the West-to the necessary
discipline. In
preceding aeons of evolution it subserved nature's intent by
growing facile and
mobile. It displayed the Rajas Guna, or mobility, to an
advanced degree. But
when spirit begins the long process of retirement from the
thraldom of the form,
this quality of the mind becomes more and more a
hindrance. Its
incessant activity must be poised. It must be brought under the
sway of the Sattva
Guna,--rhythm.
Hitherto the mind has
been the slave of every lower sense. This was its proper
service at the
Lemurian or Karma Yoga stage. It is so no longer. It must be made.157
blind and deaf to the
insistent cry of the outer world, so that it may become
prepared to picture
forth, like a clear lens, the realities of an inner world,
whose impressions it
was never focused to reflect heretofore.
As it turns away from
the clamorous din of sense contacts, it finds itself in a
realm, first, where
only emotions are left to be dwelt upon. The material world
shut out, there is
nothing but astral or feeling impulses to absorb its
attention. Next all
passional content must be rejected, leaving only
intellectual material
to deal with. At last even abstract thought must be
stilled, until the
mind is utterly emptied of content. It dwells in pure
abstraction, in a
state void of anything concrete. Or it may take an object,
concrete and
substantial, and by a supreme effort, successful after long trial,
lose sight of its
materiality and finally see it as a thing of pure spiritual
construction. The actual
substance of things disappears and only the noumenal
concept of it is seen.
The mind approaches nearer and nearer to sheer vacuity.
Is Yoga thus to end in
a blank of empty abstraction, with all concreteness gone
from experience?
For a time it may seem
so. But suddenly when the persevering devotee has at last
succeeded in holding
the mind calm and still as the placid surface of a lake,
there ensues an
experience of the light that never was on land or sea. With the
increasing glow of the
light there pours down into consciousness knowledge,
mystic vision, and
clear illumination, as the vibratory energies of the
Augoeides, or
Spiritual Soul, flood down into the brain. The mind now serves as
the luminous pathway
between the inner realm of spiritual light and the physical
brain, and over that
bridge the individual human soul may advance into a direct
knowledge of the
interior heart of nature.
"When a man can
detach his eyes from all that concerns the physical, emotional
and mental, and will
raise his eye and direct them away from himself, he will
become aware of 'the
overshadowing cloud of spiritual knowledge,' or the
'raincloud of knowable
things.'"
The human soul empties
itself of earthly content, in order that it may be filled
with heavenly light
and wisdom.
The perfecting of the
mind as a sublimated sense instrument thus enables the
Seer to do three
important things:
1. To see the world of
spiritual causation, as the eye sees the physical world.
2. To interpret that
causal world in terms of the intellect.
3. To transmit this
high knowledge to the physical brain.
The advance to this
superior consciousness is made through the gateway of a
number of Initiations,
or specific stages in the expansion of conscious
capacity. The training
requisite to unify the soul with its organism constitutes
the first stage called
the Probationary Path. Stage two brings one to the Third
Initiation, when the
union of the mind with the Ego on his own plane is
completed. The third
stage accomplishes the union of the whole lower personality
with the Monad, and
covers the final steps on the Path of Initiation.
These stages of the
Path are further symbolized in the literature of occultism
by three halls through
which man passes as he ascends: the Hall of Ignorance;
the Hall of Learning;
and the Hall of Wisdom. While he is in the realm of purely
human life and
identified with the phenomenal world, he is said to be in the.158
Hall of Ignorance. The
termination of his residence there brings him to the
entrance to the
Probationary Path. He then enters the Hall of Learning, wherein
he follows the path of
discipleship and instruction. This is the Mystic Life. At
its end he passes by
another initiation into the Occult Life and dwells within
the Hall of Wisdom.
Here he attains realization, undergoes heightened expansion
of his consciousness,
and identifies himself with the spiritual essence of his
being.
The central features
of occult discipline from the standpoint of the novitiate
is the oft-mentioned
"stilling of the senses and the mind." In the Bhagavad Gita
Arjuna, the disciple,
remonstrates with Krishna, the Lord, that he can not
accept the Yoga
teaching as to the steadfastness of the controlled mind. It is
hard to tame he says,
as the prancing horse or the fitful wind. Krishna answers:
"Well sayest
thou, O Prince, that the mind is restless and as difficult to
restrain as the winds.
Yet by constant practice, discipline and care may it be
mastered. . . . The
Soul, when it has recognized the master-touch of the real
Self, may attain unto
true Yoga by care and patience, coupled with firm
resolution and
determination."
A little later he
adds:
"Close tightly
those gates of the body which men call the avenues of the senses.
Concentrate thy mind
upon thine inner self. Let thine 'I' dwell in full strength
within its abode, not
seeking to move outward. . . . He who thinketh constantly
and fixedly on Me, O
Prince, letting not his mind ever stray toward another
object, will be able
to find Me without overmuch trouble,--yea, he will find Me,
will that devoted
one."
There is a law of
esotericism which governs the operation of all these psychic
forces in mind and
body. It is likewise the guarantee of the Soul's ultimate
hegemony among the
principles making up man's life. It is the occult law that
"energy follows
thought." It was this law which brought the universe into
existence out of the
Unmanifest; it is this law by which man has himself
fashioned the
instruments for his objective expression on the outer planes in
the lower worlds. He,
like the macrocosmic Logos before him, sent forth thought-waves,
which, vibrating and
impacting upon cosmic matter, moulded it to forms
commensurate with the
type of their activity. Thus he has built his own
universe, which,
however, binds him while it gives him expression. Now the same
law must, in reverse
motion, so to say, be utilized to release him from the
trammels of flesh and
sense, of feeling and mind-wandering. With energy flowing
in the grooves marked
by thought, he must cease to send thought outward to the
periphery of life, the
material world. Essentially a psychic being, he must
concern himself not
with things but with psychic states. He must withdraw his
attention from sense
contacts, whether pleasurable or painful, and end his
subjection to the
pairs of opposites, joy and sorrow, delight and anguish. He
must cease to set his
affections on things of desire; he must restrain wayward
streams of thought.
Refusing to direct further energies outward to these
spheres, he invokes
the law to terminate his further creations of form that will
bind him to the world
of the Not-Self.
The mind-stuff is
susceptible to vibrations both from the lower bodies and from
the Soul above. Man's
destiny is in his own hands; it is daily decreed by the
direction in which he
turns his mind. As a man changes the nature and direction
of his desires he
changes himself..159
Mind-control is
acquired through two lines of endeavor: tireless effort and non-attachment.
The first requirement
explains why the Yoga student must be
virtually a religious
devotee. From no other source than religious devotion to
the Way of Attainment
can the necessary persistence spring to carry the
candidate through to
eventual success. The second prerequisite, non-attachment,
is often spoken of as
"renunciation of the fruits of action." It signifies that
attitude toward things
and toward the life of the personality which enables the
Soul or Ego to regard
the events that touch these with a sense of equanimity or
nonchalance. It is the
sublimation of Stoic ataraxia, and is called vairagya in
Sanskrit. Our term
indifference does not convey the correct significance of the
concept. It connotes a
combination of positive and negative attitudes
practically unknown to
the West. Krishna explains to Arjuna the seeming paradox
in his injunction to
service through action, which is coupled with a similar
abjuration to ignore
the fruits of action. The devotee is enjoined to perform
right action for the
sake of dharma, or duty, as the West has it, but at the
same time to renounce
the fruits of the action. In our vernacular this would
mean to act with the
zeal born of an interesting objective, but to leave the
results with God. If
one binds himself to the fruits of his actions, he creates
ever new Karma for
future expiation. He must act, and act resolutely; yet
without thought of
reward. Says the Bhagavad Gita:
"The wise man,
setting himself free, mentally, from actions and their results,
dwelleth in the Temple
of the Spirit, even that which men call the body, resting
calmly therein, at
peace, and neither desiring to act nor causing to act, and
yet always willing to
play well his part in action, when Duty calleth him."10
Krishna clarifies the
contradictory demands of duty and renunciation in the
following:
". . . he who
performeth honorably and to the best of his ability, such Action
as may appear to him
to be plain and righteous Duty, remembering always that he
has nought to do with
the reward or fruits of the Action, is both a Renouncer of
Action, and also a
Performer of the Service of Right Action. More truly is he an
Ascetic and Renouncer
than he who merely refuses to perform Actions; for the one
hath the spirit of the
doctrine, while the other hath grasped merely the empty
shell of form and
letter. Know thou such Intelligent Right Action as
Renunciation; and also
that the best of Right Action without Intelligent
understanding of the
renunciation of results is not Right Action at all."11
On the road to
Seership, the aspirant advances by two stages. First there is the
long Path of
Probation; later the Path of Discipleship. He passes over many
steps, commencing with
the aspiration, entering upon Discipline, leading to
Purification, followed
by Initiation, Realization, and final union with the
Over-soul. There are
said to be seven major modifications of the thinking
principle, or seven
states of consciousness, as follows: desire for knowledge;
desire for freedom; desire
for happiness; desire to perform duty; sorrow; fear;
and doubt. These seven
basic yearnings severally reach their fulfillment as
illumination ensues
upon strenuous effort. These are called the seven stages of
bliss, or the seven
stations on the Way of the Cross.
The practice of Yoga
involves the employment of what are known as the Eight
Means. These are:
1. Yama: self-control,
restraint; it relates to the disciple's contacts with
others and with the
outside world..160
2. Nyana: right
observances; the keeping of the Five Commandments and the Five
Rules.
The Five Commandments
are:
(a) Harmlessness: the
aspirant must use the physical forces in the spirit of
beneficence to all
that lives. He hurts no thing.
(b) Truth: precise and
straightforward speech, expressing inward truth. The
voice must have lost
the power to injure.
(c) Abstention from
theft: rendering each his due; not using more than one's
share; making one's
maintenance cost no more than is right; not taking what
others need.
(d) Abstention from
incontinence: control of the relation between the sexes;
unloosing of the Soul
from too strong attachment to any physical or sense
expression.
(e) Abstention from
avarice: covetousness is theft on the mental plane.
The Five Rules enjoin:
(a) Magnetic purity:
internal and external purity of the three bodies;
unhindered flow of
Prana through the system.
(b) Contentment: mind
at rest; not a state of inertia, but one of poise and
balance of energies.
(c) Fiery aspiration:
a sine qua non before a disciple is accepted. Zeal to win
through is a primary
qualification.
(d) Spiritual reading:
power to discern things in their spiritual, not physical,
aspects; inner vision.
(e) Devotion to
Ishvara: consecration of the lower man to the service of the
higher. Devotion to
God, or the Divine Spark within us.
3. Asana: right poise;
correct physical, emotional and mental attitudes. It
coφrdinates the three
principles of the lower man into a perfect instrument.
4. Pranayama: breath
control; control of the subtle energies of the inner
sheaths; leads to
organization of the etheric or vital body.
5. Pratyahara:
abstraction; withdrawal of the Soul from the interests of the
outer life.
6. Dharana:
concentration; fixation of the mind; leads to coordination of the
mind as the sixth
sense of the Soul.
7. Dhyana: meditation;
development of the capability of the Soul to transmit to
the brain its higher
ideas.
8. Samadhi:
contemplation; dwelling consciously upon the "things of God"; leads
to full illumination.
It is the final stage of mystic vision, when the
individual Ego looks
upon the full splendor of the spiritual universe..161
As the purification of
the three lower vehicles proceeds, certain physical
changes are said to
occur within the head, following the awakening of the "lotus
centers" below.
"The vital airs" are organized to flow in regular currents up
and down the two
channels in the spinal cord; they rise to the head, circulate
around the temples and
pass inward to touch and arouse to active functioning the
pineal gland and the
pituitary body, located close to each other near the center
of the cranium. This
is the Kundalini or Serpent Fire, typified in may
symbolisms of the
ancients. Its play of force fills the whole body with light.
It is so high-powered
a current of etheric energy that its stirring to activity
is attended with much
danger, and, Theosophists say, should only be undertaken
with the help of a
Master.
No bizarre style of
ascetic living is demanded of a Yogi. "Celibacy is not
enjoined. Self-control
is." If we may use Mrs. Bailey's words once more,
"The right use of
the sex principle, along with entire conformity to the law of
the land, is
characteristic of every true aspirant."12
The basic principle of
personal conduct is subsumed under the one rule: "Let
every man attend to
his own Dharma." The meddler, the reformer, the uplifter is
looked upon askance in
the Orient. The individual's kingdom to conquer is
within. When he
becomes master there he will be given larger worlds to subdue to
law and harmony.
An interesting
development at a later stage is the Yogi's increasing power to
create on the mental
plane by the use of the word or of sounds. He becomes a
magician-a white one
if his motive is pure and selfless. This power is achieved
through continence,
pure living, and clean thinking, and not through any
perversions of the
occult, such as sex magic, as emphasized by some so-called
schools of occultism.
The latter are on the black path, which does not lead to
the portals of
initiation.
There are four types
of purity to be achieved, one for each vehicle: external
(for the physical
body); magnetic (of the etheric body); psychic (of the astral
body); and mental (of
the mental body). All kinds require refinement of the
matter of which each
body is composed. The law of synchronous and asynchronous
vibrations attends to
this, pure thoughts sifting out coarser particles from the
bodies and building in
finer ones. This is what is meant by burning out the
dross.
Mrs. Bailey tells us
that
"in this cycle
the interest of the hierarchy is being largely centered on the
question of psychic
purity, and this is the reason for the trend of the occult
teaching at present
developing. It is away from what is commonly understood as
psychic development,
lays no emphasis on the lower psychic powers and seeks to
train the aspirant in
the laws of the spiritual life."13
"The pure heart
shall see God,"-who is the higher inner principle which suddenly
manifests itself to
the open-visioned seeker.
It is most
necessary-Mrs. Bailey agrees with Madame Blavatsky-that students
should follow the
means of Yoga in the order laid down by Patanjali, and should
thence see to it that
the purificatory process, the discipline of the inner and
the outer life, and one-pointedness
of mind, should be undertaken prior to
attempting the
regulation of the etheric principle through breathing. The
premature awakening of
the centers is attended with positive danger, as before.162
noted. The natural
barriers between this world and the astral may be broken down
before the pupil is
ready to deal with the forces thus released. The untimely
development of the
lower psychism is regarded as the cause of insanity in many
cases.
One must be a mystic
before he becomes an occultist. The mystic rises to God
through the path of
feeling; the occultist through the path of knowledge. Each
person must become
both, but more fittingly the mystic first.
The eight final
siddhis or powers are given as:
1. Minuteness: the
ability to enter the infinitely small, the atom.
2. Magnitude: ability
to expand the vision to embrace the cosmos.
3. Gravity: the
ability to use the law of gravity.
4. Lightness: power to
counteract gravity, and cause levitation.
5. Attainment of one's
objective: the ability to gain one's purpose.
6. Irresistible will:
sovereignty over the forces of nature.
7. Creative power: art
of combining and recombining the elements.
8. Power to command:
power of the word to organize matter into form.
At this stage we are
at last dowered with some of the powers of gods. For "God
meditated, visualized,
spoke, and the worlds were made," and when our Christ
principle is awakened
to full functioning we become joint heirs of his power. At
the final stage knowledge
becomes possible even without the use of the senses,
though these have
themselves been refined to ethereal sensitivity and continue
to serve the Ego in
various capacities.
In the end spirit is
victor over matter, because the long struggle eventuates in
three attainments,
described as:
1. The inability of
matter and form to hold the Yogi confined.
2. The powerlessness
of substance to prevent the Yogi cognizing any aspect of
life he desires.
3. The helplessness of
matter to withstand the will of the Yogi.
Freedom from the
limitations of matter forms the basis of all white magic.
Through his
transcendent powers the Yogi now transforms the very vehicles into
instruments of more
expanded efficiency. The Soul and its vehicles now form a
unit, and the Son of
God can function unrestrictedly on earth, on any plane. The
human Ego has become
what he was all along, but had not demonstrated till now,--
a God. His life is now
hid with the Christos in the bosom of God, and for him
humanity is
transcended, and he needs no further rebirth as a mortal. The Spirit
has then transcended
space and time. Matter can no longer imprison him. He
dwells consciously in
the timeless Now.
A beautiful passage in
the Bhagavad Gita may fittingly summarize this entire
regimen of Yoga, which
is the ideal of the Theosophist:14.163
"Having purified
his mind and cleared his understanding; having mastered his
personal self by firm
resolution and having forsaken the objects of sense;
having delivered
himself from desire, dislike and passion; worshipping with
intelligent discretion
and understanding; eating with moderation and temperance;
with controlled
speech, body and mind; being well practiced in meditation and
concentration; being
dispassionate; having freed himself from ostentation,
egotism, tyranny,
vain-glory, lust, anger, avarice, covetousness and
selfishness-possessing
calmness and peace amidst the feverish unrest of the
world around him-such
a man is fitted to enter into the consciousness of the
Universal Life."
How naturally unfitted
Occidentals are to undertake the rigid discipline is
evidenced by Madame
Blavatsky's statement that hardly half a dozen of her
followers faced any
fair prospects of success in mastering the difficulties of
the thorny path. Her
own warming words disillusioned those whose hopeful and
enthusiastic efforts
had not already reaped for them a harvest of barren result.
Leading the occult
life was seen not to be at all the sensational and
spectacular road to a
magical victory. On the contrary it presented rather a
drab and dreary
prospect.
Thus while the life of
a Yogi is the ultimate Theosophic ideal, the accepted
code of morality and
devotion, like many another body of ideal teaching, it is
seldom actualized in
performance. It is too intense for the average sincere
person in the West.
And perhaps, too, its practice and exemplification would
mark the practitioner
as eccentric.
The outcome of this
disparity between goal and achievement is that the cult
practice of Theosophy
has become a sort of compromise; and the "life Theosophic"
may be said to have
been reduced for the rank and file of the membership to one
or other, or all, of
the following lines of endeavor: (1), the performance of
one's dharma; (2),
living the life of brotherhood; (3), practicing meditation;
(4) dietary
regulation; (5), a general effort to progress by reading, study, and
service, to grow by
enlarging the knowledge of life.
This menu is
interesting as affording concrete demonstration of just how far the
cult of Oriental
subjectivism can be carried out in real life by a large segment
of sincere and
intelligent persons in our Western milieu.
Many Theosophic
students at one time or another have seriously contemplated
attacking the whole
problem of spiritual attainment with all its obligations.
But for the greater
part they have elected the winding, if longer, road up the
mountain, rather than
challenge the rigors and the perils of the straight steep
path. The latter course
entails the "challenging of one's entire block of past
evil Karma"; one
undertakes to climb to the Mount of Transfiguration carrying
the whole bundle of
one's former wrongdoing. It is the testimony of hundreds of
Theosophic idealists
that their first virginal enthusiasm for a trial of the
higher life of
renunciation has in reality operated upon them in this way, so
that they have been
disposed by the severity of their experience to relinquish
the harder method and
be content with more gradual progress.
Yet in truth the
compromise is regarded more as the consequence of want of
resolute purpose than
as a necessity occasioned by untoward circumstances. The
claim is made that
quiet and leisure are by no means indispensable conditions of
success; that one can
as well cultivate the fruits of the spirit amid the noise
of modern life as in
sequestered solitudes. The voice of the silence can be
detected and heeded
above the roar of traffic. The asceticisms which the Buddha
decried are in no wise
essential to the conquest of the inner nature. It is not.164
outward circumstance
but inner resolution that determines achievement or
failure.
The five specified
forms of leading the life of Theosophic culture may now be
touched upon. The
first one is the performance of one's dharma, one of the
several translations
of which is our "duty." For many Theosophists this covers
their entire practice
of occultism. Dharma is not quite the same thing as Karma,
but it is taken to
mean the obligations and duties incumbent upon one by virtue
of one's karmic
situation. It is equivalent to the Right Action spoken of by
Krishna in the
Bhagavad Gita. It is the performance of our duty in that
particular place,
time, and circumstance in which our lot is cast.
It has often been
objected against Theosophic belief in reincarnation that its
influence would be to
narcotize earthly ambition and effort. On the
presupposition that
many more lives are to come, endeavor will be less
strenuous, it is
argued. But no Theosophist would concede the validity of this
reasoning. He will
contend that the effect of his philosophy is to energize his
activities. A definite
amount of work has to be done, and the sooner the better.
Further, evolution
couples its own peculiar penalties to wasted opportunity.
Therefore the
Theosophist will strive to be diligent in business and fervent in
spirit, he will not be
thrown off his balance by the urge to feverish haste
which the one-life
theory may engender. From his vastly extended perspective he
may derive that
calmness which comes from living in the spirit of eternity
instead of in that of
the temporal flux. An event which perturbs the mind of
another as being
absolute good or ill, is accepted by him in an equable mood, as
it is seen to be but
temporary and relative.
Contributing to his
attitude of mental poise also is the doctrine that each
fling of adverse
fortune is the final rendering of some particular account, the
last payment on some
old claim, which, if borne with some patience, will soon be
scratched off his
slate. Physical ills are regarded as the eventual outcropping
of spiritual faults on
the material plane; they are therefore on their way out.
Each stroke of ill is
thought of as one more debt paid off. The debtor rejoices
that he is thus one
step nearer freedom.
To keep striving in
the line of regular duty under every stress and strain is
therefore a primary
virtue. It makes Theosophists good, loyal, and dependable
citizens of the state.
Their native membership in any particular society is
looked upon as
entailing certain obligations laid upon them by the hand of
Karma.
Along with racial,
national, and professional dharma there is that other,
especially sacred to
the Theosophist, the family dharma. The relation of
helpfulness in the
family weighs with considerable impressiveness upon
Theosophists. This
function may be assumed from necessity, from the bare force
of the idea of dharma,
or from the belief that it may pay exceptional rewards
for meritorious
service to humanity.
The tenets of
Theosophy likewise dispose their practitioners to the happy
procedure of minding
their own business, in the main. The Bhagavad Gita is
insistent that one's
dharma, insignificant as it may seem, is energy
productively expended,
while the effort to perform that dharma of another is a
fruitless waste.
Theosophy believes that charity begins at home, and "know
thyself" is the
main call to duty. To render oneself whole and lovely is the
finest-ultimately the
only-service one can do for the world. The world can ask
no more from you than
this, and to it you should devote yourself chiefly, using.165
social contacts as in
part the means of growth. "One's own dharma is good; the
dharma of another is
bad"-for you.
But humanity forms a
brotherhood and the relation entails upon the Theosophist-who
proclaims it as his
central theme and only creedal requirement-a distinctive
course of behavior
toward his fellowmen. As Theosophy is an effort at scientific
altruism, the conduct
of members must involve no element that either positively
harms, or, negatively,
withholds good from a fellow mortal. "Do not hurt to any
creature,"-this
to insure peace and safety and good will as the basic condition
of fraternity among
mankind. Harmlessness is one of the Five Commandments, as we
have seen. Abstinence
from theft is another; and this is a further-reaching
prohibition than it
may seem at first sight. It means that one should not take
from the common store
more than one needs, lest another suffer privation. This
places a ban on all
ostentation, luxury, extravagance, which is living at the
expense of others'
labor.15
And herein is seen a
most important aspect of Theosophic morality, one that sets
a sharp contrast
between the cult and others that have fed on its fundamental
occult principles.
There is in Theosophy an absence of that preachment
concerning the
"demonstration of prosperity," success, material well-being,
which has been the
bait held out by so many cults especially in America.
Theosophists are
taught that service to one's fellows, and not demonstrations of
superiority over them,
or ability to tax their labors, is the truest
demonstration of godly
power and the most direct way to put one's shoulder to
evolution's wheel. To
demonstrate prosperity is but to demonstrate selfishness,
unless prosperity is
rigidly made utilitarian to brotherhood. The cults in
question regard
Theosophy as partaking too strongly of Oriental non-aggressiveness
in these respects, and
they have attempted to supply to Eastern
occultism the
desirable quality of Yankee thrift, which the originators of the
science were so
thoughtless as to leave out. But Theosophy, with Ruskin, affirms
that true spirituality
demands neither your prosperity nor your poverty, is not
signalized by either,
but may utilize either or both for its ends. On the whole
the possession of
spirituality has been marked throughout history by
demonstrations of
poverty rather than by a parade of material wealth. Though
there is no necessary
relation of cause and effect between the two, poverty has
probably engendered
more spirituality than has success. Prosperity is no
criterion of success,
and may be the road to spiritual ruin. A man may gain the
world and lose his
soul. So Theosophy is no party to the "how to get what you
want" ballyhoo,
and is so loyal to the true spiritual ideal of service that it
does not hesitate to
characterize New Thought, Christian Science, Unity, Applied
Psychology, and the
others as forms of sorcery, and gray, if not quite black,
magic.
Much the same
considerations restrain occultists from rushing into the healing
cults, which have
added therapy to the lure of "prosperity." Theosophy has
paused long enough to
reflect that there may be ethical factors in the matter of
healing. It is
inclined to feel that there is a breach of both natural and moral
law in the use of
spiritual energies to heal bodily diseases. If one is ill as
the result of intemperance
in living, eating, or as a consequence of wrong
thinking, the
disturbance is to be remedied by a rectification of ill-advised
habits, not by resort
to spiritual affirmation. Human welfare is to be achieved
and promoted by
obedience to the laws of life on all planes, not by jugglery of
so-called spiritual
forces. To use spiritual power as a means of escaping the
penalties of violated
physical laws is a perversion of high energies to base
ends. Furthermore, it
is a deduction from the technology of life on the several
planes that a physical
ill is the working out on the physical level of causes
engendered on the
inner planes, and that if ceremonial, or theurgical, or.166
psychological powers
are invoked to prevent its full deploying into the realm of
the body on its way
out to a final dispersion of its energies, it will be driven
back into the inner
bodies, only to emerge at some favorable time in the future
with more pain than
now. Mental healing but drowns the symptoms, which are the
effects, and does not
cause or prevent its discovery. Theosophists tell us that
there are infinitely
deeper laws governing the processes of healing than either
materia medica or cult
therapy dreams of, and it is foolish for uninstructed
zealots to rush into
this field. The program of Theosophy in the face of the
blatant cry for
healing directed at every sect and cult, is to learn the basic
laws of life, on all
planes. Obedience to them will obviate the necessity for
the special
intervention of exceptional forces. Moreover, disease is needed by
nature as a means to
apprise us of our errors, and hence to enlighten our
ignorance. Were it not
for pain we could not grow in knowledge. It is more
important that the
laws of life be mastered than that some pains be removed.
Likewise not even
happiness is made the criterion of Theosophical ethical
idealism. Mankind has
the right to happiness, to be sure, since Ananda (bliss)
is the ultimate nature
of the All. In the end, the abundant life, with happiness
as its concomitant,
will be the fruit of effort, and one of the marks of
attainment. But in the
present status of evolution, happiness is for the most
part only tentative,
or epiphenomenal, as transient as pain. Then, too, pain if
often likely to be a
more certain guide to progress than is joy. The primary
task is to master the
laws of life; and the processes of learning may not be the
happiest experience.
Dharma overshadows mere happiness.
Those Theosophists,
then, who lay stress upon the dharmic aspect of ethical
teaching may be said
to live their faith through the practice of a sort of Karma
Yoga. They follow
neither the path of mysticism nor those of occultism and
devotion in their
purely psychological phases. They seek to build character
through right action
and to reach the inner kingdom through "meritorious deeds."
They live Theosophy in
conduct rather than in thinking.
A second type of
occult practice is that which grows out of the emphasis laid
upon the principle of
Brotherhood.
One of the first and most
striking forms in which this spirit emerges into
practical conduct is
the control of speech in the avoidance of gossip. New
students of Theosophy
have often been surprised at the emphasis laid in the
ethical literature of
the cult on the primary importance of this item of
behavior. It is
therein regarded as one of the most direct forms of sin against
the law of love, the
law of brotherhood, since the victim is not present to
defend himself. It is
the subterfuge of weakness and baseness. It foments
discord and strife.
It is but the simplest
sort of homiletic wisdom to realize that the exercise of
brotherhood demands
the obliteration of such harsh and gross emotions as anger,
hatred, envy,
jealousy, greed, avarice, brutality. They all spring from "the
heresy of
separateness" and feed on the sense of self as isolated from the
common weal.
But perhaps the
highest virtue in the way of human solidarity in the occultist's
catalogue is that of
tolerance. Theosophists are asked to exemplify tolerance
because it is a prima
facie fundamentum of any scheme of social friendliness
whatever.
Esoterically the
Theosophical Society was organized to form a nucleus of
Universal Brotherhood,
to bring under a common stimulus a group of men and women.167
who should endeavor to
manifest perfect unity on the basis of that one
principle, who should
constitute a node of spiritual force giving vitality to
the evolution of the
unified racial consciousness. Tolerance was the
indispensable element
in this enterprise.
The third road to Yoga
followed by many in the movement is that of meditation.
The degree of its
actual employment by members of the Society is a variable
quantity. Meditation
was a requirement of the discipline in the Esoteric Section
to the minimum extent
of fifteen minutes a day. But outside that section few
students held
themselves to any set schedule. Its practice is intermittent and
irregular, when
undertaken at all. Avid beginners often bind themselves to a
course of daily
meditation, with fair results. But the task seems in most cases
to prove irksome or to
be attended with unsatisfactory consequences of one kind
or another. It many
cases it is eventually given up. The influences militating
against its fruitful
continuance are not entirely clear. Whether the pressure of
the actual in our
Western life is too heavy for steady progress in the art, or
whether our nervous
systems are not sufficiently receptive of the forces which
would take us deeper
into the core of consciousness, we are unable to determine.
This systematic
character of spiritual exercise under a technique that has the
sanction of hoary
antiquity is one of the features of Theosophy that commends it
to earnest folk in
contrast with the loose indefinite procedure of most
Christian practice.
The occult system provides a regimen of definite discipline,
with the promise of
growth in the conscious spiritualization of life. It does
not leave one in the
atmosphere of a vague idealism, but furnishes the formula
of an exact science.
Certain definite results are promised, in the event of
sustained effort.
Most Theosophic
meditation consists in concentrating upon a certain virtue of a
lofty nature that the
student desires to embody in his character. Working upon
the theory that
"a man becomes that upon which he thinks," he labors to implant
new elements into his
personality by the steady contemplation of desirable
qualities. The keynote
of the whole process is concentration. To focus
consciousness in a
steady stream upon one item of knowledge or one phase of
virtue is tremendously
to enhance the mental product. The effort of mind and
will is supplemented
here by the law of automatism, brought into operation by
repetition. It is a
variant of the old law of habit formation, and is regarded
by the occultists as
the only direct method of soul-culture that can be
consciously applied,
with safety, by the individual.
The objects of
contemplation may vary from those which are concrete to those
which are personal, or
intellectual, or abstract. One may think of virtue as
impersonal or as
personally embodied. It is an aid in the earlier stages to
visualize virtue,
beauty, nobility, wisdom, truth as exemplified in some strong
character. But
eventually the aim is to absorb the spirit of those qualities in
their pure or
impersonal form. As Adeptship is reached and some of the loftier
ranges of spirituality
are attained, meditation tends to empty the mind of all
content, whether
intellectual or rhapsodic, and to bring into consciousness the
cognition of sheer
pure Being itself.
The fourth avenue of
occult progress leads through a rιgime of bodily
purification by means
of diet. It grows out of the recognition of the relation
between body and
spirit, between the indwelling life and its various sheaths.
Hence progress in the
occult life is held to be materially conditioned by the
dietary rιgime one
follows..168
The occultist is
concerned with his food, then, with reference to its purity and
its magnetic
qualities, in addition to its general agency in sustaining life. It
is a question of kind
and quality first, and secondly of quantity. Theosophists
long ago talked of the
magnetic properties of foods. Certain ones tended to make
one sluggish, as they
contained heavier earthy elements. Others built coarse and
sensuous fibre into
the tissue and blood. Others heightened nervous instability.
Some coarsened, others
refined, the body. As the bodies of animals were attached
to undeveloped
intelligences, and were in the first place organized by the far
slower vibrations of
the soul of the beast, their edible flesh was indubitably
permeated with the
elemental constituents of sensuality and bestiality. To
partake of it would be
to introduce an inherent disposition to animal coarseness
into the human
vehicle, which would thus give freer course to the sensual
impulses. The
elemental qualities of the animal cells would stimulate the lower
energies of the astral
body. Meat would be a force retarding evolution, holding
the man closer to the
animal characteristics, which it is his task now to
transcend. Hence it
became catalogued as a definite enemy of the higher life,
and was taboo.
Very many Theosophists
have discarded it utterly from their diet for periods
ranging from months to
a score of years. Many have abandoned its use in their
homes, but indulge
when eating with others who use it. Thousands partake of it
only in the most
sparing degree. There are few who have not cut into their
consumption of it
drastically. Its total abandonment was once an obligatory
requirement in certain
degrees of the Esoteric Section. But members are under no
compulsion in the
matter. If the student eats no meat it is his own voluntary
action, though it may
have been determined by the suggestion of some one
regarded as a leader.
Some of these utterances have gone so far as to declare
that spiritual
progress beyond a certain point was impossible if one ate meat.
Mr. C. W. Leadbeater
listed eggs as hardly less detrimental.
Vegetable foods,
fruits, nuts, plants, are regarded as best adapted for human
use, as being most
Sattvic in quality. But it is a mistake to classify
Theosophists generally
as vegetarians. Few in fact are. Most of them have
eliminated meat in all
forms, but such animal product foods as milk, cheese,
eggs, butter, lard,
still figure in the diet. With large numbers of Theosophists
strict adherence to a
non-meat rιgime is tempered by the countervailing
influence of that
other precept of good occult behavior, which says that any
conduct becomes
discordant with the brotherhood platform if it makes of one a
spectacle of
eccentricity. To render oneself "queer" in the eyes of others is
largely to defeat
one's usefulness in the rτle of a promoter of human
solidarity. So it is
often regarded as better to eat meat than to bring
occultism into
disrepute as an oddity.
It is quite well to
reiterate, before dismissing this topic, that there is no
prescribed regimen of
life for Theosophists, and that many of the peculiarities
of dietary habit observed
here and there-and hardly more patently among
Theosophists than
among members of other sects-are to be assigned largely to
individual whims.
There remains the last
of our subdivisions of cult activity,--the constant
effort to progress in
the line of occult knowledge and wisdom. It is perhaps too
broad an aim to be
thus particularized, but it embraces the main currents in the
drift of the average
Theosophic life. Chiefly it consists in the steady endeavor
to learn more of the
occult version of life by continuous reading and study. It
is primarily an
intellectual enterprise. Its instrumentalities are study
classes, addresses,
magazines, and books, with the recent addition of.169
correspondence
courses. Originally captivated by the large cosmic graph which
the system outlines,
the disciple sets himself sedulously to the great task of
mastering the
complexities of the vast science. A few years will not complete
it. It is the
intellectual attempt to square oneself with the universe and with
life by means of the
rationale which the elaborate scheme of Theosophic ideology
unfolds. This entails
for the earnest student ever more reading, more study,
more reflection. Then
as the outlines are grasped and the basic doctrines
assimilated into the
thinking, there follows the serious problem of making a
readjustment of both
theoretical and practical attitudes toward a world that is
now differently
rationalized. The first practical outcome of the study of so
large a cosmic picture
is a certain relaxation of life strain, with the
acquisition of poise,
steadiness, patience, and eventually tolerance, all framed
against a background
of non-attachment. The long vista of an infinite evolution
to higher states,
replaced the hurry and flurry of a one-life conception, tends
to ground the life
firmly in complacency. There is a decided approach to
philosophic calm. From
the assurance of the general beneficence of the
evolutionary plan
there arises a broader charity, a pervading kindliness and
deep psychic sympathy,
all of which dispose to equanimity.
There is a brief
statement of the general aim and spirit of Theosophy that has
been used for years by
Lodges of the Society printed on leaflets for the benefit
of inquirers. It might
well have served as the text for this analysis.
"The Theosophical
Society is composed of students, belonging to any religion in
the world or to none,
who are united in their approval of the three objects
(brotherhood, psychism
and eclecticism) by their wish to remove religious
antagonisms and to
draw together men of good will whatsoever their religious
opinions, and by their
desire to study religious truths and to share the results
of their studies with
others. Their bond of union is not the profession of a
common belief, but a
common search and aspiration for truth. They hold that any
truth should be sought
by study, by reflection, by purity of life, by devotion
to high ideals, and
they regard truth as a prize to be striven for, not as a
dogma to be imposed by
authority. They consider that belief should be the result
of individual study or
intuition, and not its antecedent, and should rest on
knowledge, not on
assertion. They extend tolerance to all, even to the
intolerant, not as a
privilege they bestow, but as a duty they perform, and they
seek to remove
ignorance, not to punish it. They see every religion as an
expression of the
Divine Wisdom, and prefer its study to its condemnation, and
its practice to its
proselytism. Peace is their watchword as truth is their
aim."
Perhaps no one has
translated the ethics of this philosophy into its practical
expressions better
than has Madame Blavatsky herself. Her digest of Theosophic
morality, highly
treasured by her followers, is given in the little work of hers
entitled Practical
Occultism:
"A clean life, an
open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled
spiritual perception,
a brotherliness for all, a readiness to give and receive
advice and
instruction, a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave
declaration of
principles, a valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked,
a constant eye to the
ideal of human progression and perfection which the sacred
science depicts-these
are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner
must climb to the
Temple of Divine Wisdom.".170
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER XII
LATER THEOSOPHICAL
HISTORY
While Madame Blavatsky
in Europe was explaining the cosmos and acquainting
mankind with its own
origin, nature, and destiny, Theosophic affairs in America
were moving forward
under the steady guidance of Mr. Judge; but there was also a
series of disturbances
which culminated in the "Sun Libel Suit" in 1890.1 This
latter event had its
remote beginnings in a situation arising out of the
question of the
inspired authorship of Light on the Path, The Idyll of the White
Lotus, The Blossom and
the Fruit, and Through the Gates of Gold, four small
volumes given out by
Miss Mabel Collins in England after 1884. Miss Collins had
herself declared them
dictated to her by a mysterious Master, though later she
said that she had
merely "written them down" from their astral inscription on a
wall in the mystical
"Hall of Learning" described in one of the four books.
Aspiring eagerly for
leadership in the Theosophical Society in America at the
time was Prof. Elliott
F. Coues, a man of talent and ability, somewhat versed in
the field of science
and anthropology, who had been led through his interest in
psychic phenomena to
affiliate with the Theosophical Society. He seems to have
resented Mr. Judge's
preferment over him in the esoteric counsels and leadership
and urged himself upon
Madame Blavatsky as the logical choice for the supreme
office in the United
States. Rebuffed by H.P.B., he became embittered. In the
Religio-Philosophical
Journal, of Chicago, he published his correspondence with
Miss Collins relative
to the mooted authorship of the brochures. This magazine,
an organ of spiritistic-psychic
interests, had given an airing to Mr. W. Emmette
Coleman's attacks upon
the authenticity of Madame Blavatsky's classical
scholarship in Isis.
Prof. Coues now used its columns to discredit Madame
Blavatsky's theories
of Mahatmaship by presenting some of Miss Collins'
statements which
virtually cast the charge of intellectual dishonesty at
H.P.B.'s door. Miss
Collins had stated to Prof. Coues in the first of her
letters to him that
she had made her declaration as to the Mahatma-inspired
authorship of her
Idyll of the White Lotus only because Madame Blavatsky had
"implored and
begged her to do so." This was as much as to say that she had lied
about the
inspirational nature of the writings because Madame Blavatsky urged
her to do so.2 When
H.P.B. came to London in 1887 she associated Miss Collins
with herself as a
sub-editor of her magazine Lucifer. This relation subsisted
for two years, when
Miss Collins' name was dropped from the editorial staff and
her connection with
the publication ended. No reason for the breach was given
out publicly, but a
letter of Madame Blavatsky's later charged that her protιgι
had proved unreliable
and untrustworthy in her occult pledges.
Prof. Coues became
more openly hostile to the Blavatsky-Judge hegemony in
America and finally,
upon preferment of formal charges of untheosophical conduct
lodged against him by
Mr. Arthur B. Griggs, of Boston, he was expelled from the
Theosophical Society
in June, 1889. Now fighting in the open, Prof. Coues, early.171
in the next year, 1890,
gave interviews to a correspondent of the New York Sun
in Washington D.C.,
and painted his former cult-associates with the black hue of
out-and-out imposture.
In its Sunday issue, June 1, 1890, the Sun gave a half-column
to a general statement
of Theosophic and Blavatskian charlatanry. Tasting
blood, Prof. Coues
gave to the Sun representative an extended article detailing
the whole alleged
career of Madame Blavatsky and her dupes. It made a seven-column
finely printed article
in the Sun of Sunday, July 20. It included open
declarations that
Madame Blavatsky had in several instances been a member of the
demi-monde in Paris
and the mistress of two Russians mentioned by name, by one
of whom she had given
birth to a deformed child that died at Kieff in 1868.
Every untoward
incident in the life of his subject was revamped and given a
plausible rτle in a
vast scheme of deceptive posing, with the Russian spy motive
once more doing
service. This was considered going too far, and Mr. Judge at
once filed suit in New
York against the Sun for libel. The case was delayed by
congestion in the
courts, and before it ever came to trial Madame Blavatsky
passed from the stormy
scene. Her death left the newspaper free from further
legal responsibility.
But its efforts to procure material evidence to defend its
position revealed that
Prof. Coues had overreached himself and that the
allegations were for
the greater part, if not entirely, unjust to the deceased
leader. Finally, in
its issue of Sept. 26, 1892, the Sun voluntarily retracted
its offensive articles
of 1891, repudiated the Coues interview, and gave Mr.
Judge space to write a
devoted tribute to his late co-worker.
"We were
misled," the Sun observes, "into admitting into the Sun's columns an
article by Dr. E. F.
Coues, of Washington, in which allegations were made
against Madame
Blavatsky's character, and also against her followers, which
appear to have been
without solid foundation . . . we desire to say that his
allegations respecting
the Theosophical Society and Mr. Judge personally are not
sustained by evidence,
and should not have been printed."
The failure of so
well-equipped an agency as the New York Sun to secure
incriminating evidence
on any of the many charges lodged by Prof. Coues against
Madame Blavatsky is
pointed to by Theosophists as a complete vindication of her
name.
Charges too much the
same general effect were launched in a renewed attack on
the good faith of
H.P.B. by V. S. Solovyoff in his volume, A Modern Priestess of
Isis, after her death.
Solovyoff, a Russian of good family, had met Madame
Blavatsky in Paris in
1884, had been fascinated by her personality and her
intriguing philosophy
and occult powers and had joined her Society. He
manifested every
desire to be admitted to the inner mysteries of occultism, and
it is the opinion of
impartial students of the data of this controversy that
Madame Blavatsky's
knowledge of his spiritual unpreparedness for acceptance as a
chela under her Master
and her refusal to have him admitted to this exalted
relationship turned
his worship of her into feelings of another kind.3 His own
letters during the
years of his acquaintance with Madame Blavatsky and her
sister Madame
Jelihowsky discloses his enthusiastic interest in the esoteric
program, and his own
description of a number of psychic experiences which
occurred to him in
person through the agency of his compatriot and her Adept
aides is noteworthy.
He recounts the personal appearance to him one night of the
Master Morya himself,
and gives the gist of the conversation he had with the
exalted personage who
stood before him in his astral (materialized) form. M.
Solovyoff's testimony
was considerably weakened later when he repudiated the
reality of this phenomenon
and endeavored to explain it away with the statement
that he was at the
time suffering from overwrought nerves. The current of his
entire narrative in
the Modern Priestess thinly disguises a general
inconsistency between
the attitude his letters show at the time of his close.172
association with
H.P.B. (and her sister) and that which he assumed when he came
to write his books
after her death. Madame Jelihowsky's letters to him and her
rebuttal of many of
his specific charges, which are appended to his book as a
supplement, indicate
that the foundation of his accusations is erected on very
shifty sands. M.
Solovyoff shows the capabilities of a good novelist, and
Theosophists are
persuaded, after painstaking analysis of the entire situation,
that he drew largely
for the material of his book upon the romantic
inventiveness of his
literary genius. In any case, his book is added testimony
to H.P.B.'s powerful
personality, whatever inferences one draws from it
regarding her methods.
In 1888 the General
Convention in India adopted the policy of reorganizing the
Theosophical Society
on the plan of autonomous sections. The Society was thus
changed from a
quasi-autocracy to a constitutional federation, each part
independent as to its
internal and local affairs, but responsible to every other
part for its loyal
support of the movement, and to the headship which bound the
sections together.
As Col. Olcott and his
partner were driving each in his own direction-the one
for an exoteric goal
and the other toward an esoteric one-the history of the
Society in the years
antedating Madame Blavatsky's death reflects a struggle
between the aims and
interests of the two. Col. Olcott was cool to the
establishment of the
Esoteric Section. He frequently resented H.P.B.'s arbitrary
overriding of his
authority. It was in miniature the clash between church and
state, the spiritual
and the temporal power, all over again. While the priestess
lived she left no
doubts as to which had supremacy. And hardly less than in her
day, the later
developments of Theosophic history can be understood only in the
light of the reverence
given the Masters. A word dropped from their lips is the
highest law in the
Theosophic kingdom. Material interest or temporal expediency
must bend before its
authority.
Curiously also the
attitudes taken toward their common enterprise by the two
Founders reflect the
views of two opposing schools of thought. Col. Olcott
looked upon the growth
of the movement as a development, not a teleological
unfoldment. It had no
determinate purpose in the beginning, no definite lines of
direction, but was
largely the product of unintended and unexpected events. Even
its declared objects
were a "development." His views on these matters were
reflected in an article,
"The Theosophical Society," signed by "F.T.S." (thought
to have been Mr.
Richard Harte, one of the Colonel's lieutenants at Adyar),
published in
Theosophist for Jan, 1889. But at least one gesture of assent to
the contrary view is
made in the article when it says:
"This variation
in the declared objects of the Society must not be taken as
indicating any real
change in the intentions of the Founders. There is abundant
evidence in their
writings and speeches that from the first their purposes were
to stimulate the
spiritual development of the individual and to awaken in the
race the sentiment of
Brotherhood."
Nevertheless, the
Theosophist, during 1889, and thereafter, kept printing
articles from Mr.
Harte's pen, emphasizing the need of the Society's standing
before the world
divested of secret and mystical connection with, or at any rate
vital dependence upon,
the mysterious wire-pullers behind the scenes, the
Mahatmas. Olcott's
party, including Mr. Sinnett, Mr. Hume, and other prominent
members, desired to
avoid the inevitable storm of worldly contumely which
adherence to the
legend of the Masters provoked. They claimed that the
organization rested on
high scientific, philosophical, and ethical principles
that stood on their
own merits without adventitious supernatural aid. They.173
wished it thus to take
on the colors of anthroposophism and humanism. They
desired first of all
that the Theosophical Society should appear eminently
respectable in the
sight of intelligent people and not expose the questionable
Masters to public
view. To the Masters, on the other hand, H.P.B. and Mr. Judge
were irretrievably
committed. From the standpoint of these two the danger to be
guarded against was
that the exoteric leaders might make of the Society a
worldly success, at
the risk of occult failure. They feared that Theosophy might
gain the whole world
but lose its own soul. This division of aims explains most
of the internal
troubles which have arisen on board the ship of Theosophy.
In one of the Harte
articles mention was made of Madame Blavatsky's "loyalty to
Adyar," i.e., to
Col. Olcott's outer headship and authority. She replied by
saying that:
"H.P.B. is loyal
to death to the Theosophic Cause, and those great Teachers
whose philosophy alone
can bind the whole of humanity into one Brotherhood."
She would be loyal to
Olcott and the Theosophic officialdom only so long as they
held true to the
Masters and their Cause. Her loyalty to the Colonel was based
on his tireless labors
for that Cause. If he deserted it her nexus of loyalty to
him was broken.
Events moved on from
year to year, with "crises" and storms every few years, yet
with rapid increase in
membership. In 1886 there were 8 Lodges in the United
States; in 1887, 12;
in 1888, 19; in 1889, 26; in 1890, 45; in 1891, 57; and in
1892, 69. The American
Section worked for the ethical ideals of Theosophy. In
Europe and India the
interests of Fellows were largely centered upon the second
and third objects, comparative
religion and psychism.
In 1889 the Esoteric
Section was changed to the "Eastern School of Theosophy,"
and about the same
time the European branches and unattached Fellows were
incorporated in a
separate autonomous organization known as the Theosophical
Society in Europe, of
which Madame Blavatsky was constituted President.
In 1888 a most notable
event in the life of Theosophy occurred in England, soon
to be followed by
momentous consequences for the movement everywhere. This was
the accession to the
ranks of Mrs. Annie Besant, the noted and eloquent radical
leader in England. Her
life is now so well known4 that it is needless here to
recount the events of
her long and notable public career in her native country.
A child of deep
religious feeling and almost Catholic devotion, she passed
through the stages of
doubt and unbelief to atheism; threw herself ardently into
such movements as the
Fabian Society, Socialism, and the Secular Society; worked
for birth control and
slum amelioration and education; and finally found her
destiny and her
spiritual refuge when in 1888 she was asked by Mr. W. T. Stead
to write for his
magazine a review of the new publication-The Secret Doctrine.
She testifies that
here, in the great scheme of cosmogony and wedded science and
faith, she saw the
light that she had so earnestly been seeking. She instantly
adopted the new
teaching, met H.P.B., and threw her great abilities for service
at her feet. She was
accepted, and soon became the very right hand of the aging
messenger. One of the
most eloquent orators of her sex in history, she brought
the message of
Theosophy to crowded halls in most convincing terms. Her advocacy
gave to Theosophy a
vigorous stimulus. She had attended the American General
Convention in 1890,
and her second visit to this country was made in 1891. Her
name and standing made
her lecture tour in that year a great success..174
Mrs. Besant again
visited America in 1892, her speaking tour of leading cities
lasting from her
arrival in November of that year until February of 1893. The
largest halls were
packed, and a new wave of public interest surged forward.
She and Mr. Judge had
been made the two heads of the Esoteric Section, to carry
on the functions of
that body after Madame Blavatsky should have passed from
earth. H.P.B. had in
writing (1888) constituted Mr. Judge as her "only
representative for
said Section in America"; and she had appointed Mrs. Besant
as "Chief
Secretary of the Inner Group and Recorder of the Teachings" given in
the organization.
After Judge's death (Saturday, March 21, 1896) she was left as
the sole guardian of
the inner society, and through it she wielded for the years
to come a potent sway
over the destinies of the whole Theosophic body.
On May 8, 1891, not
quite sixty years of age, Madame Blavatsky ceased her earthy
labors for Theosophy.
There was for a brief time a feeling of disorganization
and helpless
bewilderment when her leadership and strong guardian hand were
withdrawn; but her
death at the same time served to unite Theosophists
everywhere, at least
temporarily, in a glow of fraternal good will and renewed
loyalty to her
message. The leader gone, the message became the thing of
paramount importance.
She had held no office save that of Recording Secretary,
which was declared
unique and abolished with her death. So she could properly
have no successor. But
innumerable mystics, mediums, and psychics the world over
sprang forth with
assertions that they had had commissions from her spirit to
step into her earthly
place. Probably most prominent among these was Mr. Henry
B. Foulke, of
Philadelphia, who declared that H.P.B.'s spirit had appeared to
him, reproduced her
portrait to identify herself, and given him her mantle of
leadership. His claims
were officially repudiated by Mr. Judge.
In 1892 Col. Olcott
presented his resignation as President of the whole Society,
alleging ill-health as
the reason. He was requested by the American Section to
withdraw his action
and later in the year did so, after a vacation in the
Nilgiri Hills. The
American Section had gone so far, however, as to vote for the
election of Mr. Judge
as his successor in office, and this choice was endorsed
by similar action on
the part of the European Section a little later. Mr. Judge
was Vice-President of
the Theosophical Society as well as head of the General
Council in America.
In March, 1892, Col.
Olcott began the serial publication of Old Diary Leaves,
with the sub-title,
"The True History of the Theosophical Society," in his
magazine The
Theosophist. He represented Madame Blavatsky as a very human
person, with great
weaknesses and foibles. He apparently wished to combat a
natural disposition on
the part of members to erect a "worship" of H.P.B., and
to accept her writings
as Theosophic "dogma." The Diary ran on for many years,
and its effect was to
weaken her prestige to an extent hardly less than the open
attack of the Society
for Psychical Research had done in 1885. There is reason
to believe that the
Colonel's representation of her in this narrative is an
uncritical account.
His estimate of her does not accord with several other
statements he had at
times made as to her greatness. Even to those who had
associated most
closely with her she remained an enigma, an insoluble mystery.
One of Koot Hoomi's
letters had intimated that she was a great soul (Mahatma) in
her own right, a far
greater Adept in the spiritual hierarchy than her outward
personality seemed to
indicate. This, at any rate, is the Blavatsky legend in
some quarters of the movement.
But the Colonel reduced the emphasis on this note
in his reminiscences.
He had always felt that the Theosophical Society could
succeed, even without
her and her invisible Sages..175
In 1895 occurred the
next momentous episode in American Theosophical history-the
"Judge
Case." It is a long story. It arose out of the elements of the situation
already noted, viz.,
the emphasis of Col. Olcott and his party on the exoteric
work of the Society,
and the opposing attitude of Mr. Judge, consistently
supported at first by
Mrs. Besant, who emphasized Madame Blavatsky's esoteric
teachings. The actual
bone of contention was found in the articles put forth by
Mr. T. Subba Row
(Rao), eminent Hindu Theosophist and high chela, as far back at
1886, questioning Mr.
Sinnett's transcriptions of the Master's teachings
regarding the
sevenfold constitution of man in Esoteric Buddhism, and the debate
involving the status
of Mars and Mercury in the solar chain. Madame Blavatsky's
The Secret Doctrine
had reversed the earlier cosmological teaching of K.H. as
given out through
Sinnett. The situation, of course, threw doubt on the
trustworthy character
of Mahatmic instruction and, by inference, on Madame
Blavatsky's rτle as
the agent of higher Sages. From this point discussion was
carried further into
the domain of Mahatmic messages in general, and the
spurious or genuine
nature of their reception by individuals. This question was
thrown into more
violent agitation about 1892 when Mr. Judge, together with his
editorial assistant on
The Path, Julia Campbell-Ver Planck (the "Jasper Niemand"
of editorial
prominence), and Mrs. Annie Besant, the latter most startlingly in
her farewell address
to her former Secularist associates, all publicly declared
that they had had bona
fide messages from the living Mahatmas. The significance
of these
declarations-H.P.B., the accused agent of all Mahatmic communication
while she lived, being
now not on the scene-was hardly to be exaggerated. But in
the eyes of the
Olcott-Sinnett faction they tended to lengthen the shadow of
H.P.B., where its
shortening was to be desired in furtherance of their partisan
interests. They fell
in opposition, too, to the hosts of psychic and mediumistic
messages received by
numerous members of the Society at sιances and circles. Mr.
Judge stood out for
the authenticity of these messages, some of which he stated
came to him, though he
refused to submit, in corroboration of their genuineness,
the "seal,"
handwriting or the other usual outward marks of the Master's
letters. His opponents
began more and more to allege forgery or invention on his
part. The leading
articles in the Theosophist, Lucifer, and The Path at this
epoch dealt with
phases of this debate. The insistent charges emanating from the
exoteric party were
that Judge and Mrs. Besant were trying to erect, in the
matter of Mahatmic
messages, a Theosophic dogmatism or orthodoxy. They
reasserted the right
of every Theosophist to accept or reject messages, and
reiterated the
cardinal principle of Theosophic free-thought. In fine, it was
Judge's firm adherence
to the fundamental thesis of Blavatskian hierarchical
deputyship that made
him more and more a thorn in the flesh of the other group.
As long as Mrs. Besant
stood with him it was difficult to weaken his position.
The
"anti-Blavatsky conspirators" then sought to wean her away from his
support,
and this was
accomplished in 1893 through a series of circumstances.
In the fall of that
year the notable Congress of Religions was held at Chicago
in connection with the
Columbian Exposition, and Mrs. Besant was the
representative of
Theosophy. Through Theosophical influence and financial
assistance, the
delegate chosen to represent Brahmanism in the Congress was one
Prof. Gyanendra Nath
Chakravarti, instructor in India and a member of the
Theosophical Society.
He and Mrs. Besant became almost the leading sensations of
the convention, she
through her eloquence and power, he through his dignity,
suavity, and show of
erudition. Interesting as they proved to be to outsiders,
they shortly became
far more so to each other. It was the delight of Chakravarti
to keep watch and ward
over the brilliant Western champion of his country's
traditions, and on
Mrs. Besant's part his reputed possession of great psychic
abilities was a lure
which, with her mental and spiritual leanings, became well
nigh irresistible. It
is said that Chakravarti slept outside her room door at
the hotel to guard her
from intrusion.5 A close association began between the.176
two which lasted for
some ten or twelve years, when Chakravarti's place of
foremost psychic
interest in her regard was usurped by Mr. C. W. Leadbeater. It
appears beyond
question that the Brahmin's influence upon the mind of Mrs.
Besant was profound,
and in directions which the future course of Theosophical
history readily
reveals.
In the late fall of
1893 Mrs. Besant went for the first time to India, her tours
there veritably
"trailing clouds of glory" for herself and the cause of
Theosophy. At the
annual General Convention, always held near Christmas, Col.
Olcott announced in
his presidential address that a complete accord had been
reached between his
office and the renowned leader, and that the latter would
shortly measure up to
the spiritual status of H.P.B. herself. This accord
indicated, among other
things, that Mrs. Besant had admitted into her mind some
of the animus against
the purely esoteric view of Theosophy, as upheld by H.P.B.
and Judge. She had
begun to look upon the latter with suspicion. Chakravarti's
influence in her
"conversion" brought into view the conflicting ethics of
Brahmanism and
Buddhism. Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy adhered to the Tibetan
Buddhistic, or
Mahayana, theory of the sacrifice by the Nirmanakayas of their
Nirvanic bliss for a
service in behalf of humanity. The Brahmanical philosophy,
on the other hand,
held before its followers the acceptance, rather than the
renunciation, of the
higher blessedness. The latter taught individual salvation,
the former the
"Great Renunciation." Madame Blavatsky's principle of Brotherhood
rather than mystical
isolation and exaltation, would be undermined by the
Brahmanical
hypothesis. Hence Chakravarti's influence tended to reduce the high
status of H.P.B. in
the eyes of Mrs. Besant, and to increase her animus toward
Judge.
The specific charges
brought by Mrs. Besant (founded on "complaints" of members,
so it was stated)
against Judge were "alleged misuse of the Mahatmas' names and
handwriting."
Mrs. Besant became the mouthpiece of the "demand for an
investigation."
Mr. Judge denied the charges as absolutely false, and demurred
to the trial as
illegal under the Constitution of the Theosophical Society
because it would
involve a decision by the President of the Society as to the
existence or
non-existence of the Mahatmas, which would of itself establish at
least one dogma of
Theosophy, a thing forbidden. The Society must remain neutral
on this as on all
other questions of belief, save Brotherhood.
"Letters from
Mahatmas," he says in his answer, "prove nothing at all except to
the recipient, and
then only when in his inner nature is the standard of proof
and the power of
judgment. Precipitation does not prove Mahatmas. . . . By one's
soul alone can this
matter be judged. . . . By following the course prescribed
in all ages the inner
faculties may be awakened so as to furnish the true
confirmatory
evidence."6
He reasserted that he
had received letters from Masters, both during and since
the life of Madame
Blavatsky.
Before the charges had
even been formulated or his accuser named to him, Mr.
Judge received an
ultimatum from Col. Olcott, giving him the choice of resigning
or of being
investigated. Judge, instead of accepting either alternative, denied
his guilt. At the
ensuing Convention of the Theosophical Society in America, the
Section unanimously
upheld Judge, and urged that if he could be tried for
allegations of having
received Mahatmic letters, so, in fairness, could Mr.
Sinnett, Col. Olcott,
Mrs. Besant, and the others who had stated publicly that
they had been favored
with such letters..177
The Secretaries of
both the European and the Indian Sections issued letters to
the membership
condemning the President's unconstitutional methods of attacking
Mr. Judge. Col.
Olcott, thus thrown unexpectedly on the defensive, was aided by
a new National
Section, the Australian, which Mrs. Besant founded at that time
and which voted on his
side; and on the advice of Chakravarti and other lawyers
at Adyar he appointed
a Judicial Committee, to meet in London on June 27, 1894,
to try the charges
against the accused. He himself, contrary to his earlier
intentions, found it
imperative to attend the "trial" in person. The General
Council did not meet
in London until July 7. Its first act was to pass the
motion that Mr. Judge
could not be tried as an official of the Society, his
guilt, if any, being
that of an individual and hence not litigable.
The Special Judicial
Committee met on July 10. Col. Olcott's party was in
control. Mr. Judge was
represented by his friends, Mr. Oliver Firth and Mr. E.
T. Hargrove. Some of
the eleven members of the Committee were convinced of the
guilt of Judge
beforehand; three or four were impartial, rather feeling he could
not be tried; four
others were convinced of his innocence. Probably half of them
felt that the whole
proceeding was a stupid business. Under the circumstances it
was not surprising
that the accusers saw the shabby nature of their accusation,
and, with what grace
they could muster, practically backed out of the
transaction. Mr.
Judge's dignity, frankness, and discretion turned the tables
against his accusers.
He denied the truth of the charges, protested that he
could not be
officially tried for his acts as an individual, but averred his
readiness to produce
actual proofs of his intercourse with Mahatmas. The
opposition was forced
to admit the legality of his position, and was naturally
inclined to refrain
from letting him produce his evidence on the last point. The
Judicial Committee of
July 10 adjourned after arriving at the decision that it
had no jurisdiction to
inquire into the charges. Col. Olcott reinstated Mr.
Judge in his office of
Vice-President of the Society.
Two days thereafter
Mrs. Besant, stung by the failure of the procedure against
Judge, read a full
statement of her side of the case before the British-European
Sections' Convention
(the "trial" having been set to antedate the annual meeting
by a few days). She
said in one place, after telling how messages may be
received in a variety
of ways from invisible Intelligences,
"Any good medium
may be used for precipitating messages by any of the varied
entities in the occult
world; and the outcome of these proceedings will be, I
hope, to put an end to
the craze for receiving letters and messages, which are
more likely to be
sublunary or human in their origin than superhuman, and to
throw people back on
the evolution of their own spiritual nature, by which alone
they can be safely
guided through the mazes of the superphysical world."
Nowhere, perhaps, is
she truer to the cause of Blavatskian Spiritualism, or the
true occult and sacred
science of the Ancient Wisdom, than in this utterance;
and nowhere are the
contrasting aims of Theosophy and Spiritism so clearly
delineated. She ended
by asking Judge's pardon for any pain she may have given
him in trying to do
her duty.
A plan had been agreed
upon that both accuser and accused should issue
statements elucidating
their positions. Mr. Judge gave his review of the case.
He repeated his denial
of having forged the names or writing of the Masters; he
readmitted having
received what he regarded as genuine letters from them; he
declared himself to be
an agent of the said Masters, but repudiated the claim
that he was their only
channel-that communication with them was "open to any
human being who, by
endeavoring to serve mankind, affords the necessary
conditions." He
agreed that there were diverse methods of receiving messages.178
from higher
intelligences, but that the genuineness of such communications must
be tested by the inner
subjective evidences in each case. He ended by admitting
his human fallibility
and forgiving "anyone who may be thought to have injured
or tried to injure
me."
The questions raised
in the "Judge Case" are of great significance, for they are
the key to most of the
controversial history of the Theosophical movement. The
question of alleged
messages from the High Ones has been the opening wedge of
most of the schisms of
the cult. This should be kept in mind during the
remaining sections of
the history.
It is of interest to
note that in her editorial in Lucifer following the
dismissal of the case,
Mrs. Besant ends with the statement that the disturbance
caused by her bringing
the charges against Mr. Judge will have been of value to
the Society in having
aired and settled the point at issue, that the
precipitation of a
letter gives it no authoritative character; and she adds that
the Society would now
be freer from "credulity and superstition, two of the
deadliest foes of a
true spiritual movement." Her critics have reminded her
since that those were
precisely the things that H.P.B. and Judge had tried to
impress on Theosophic
students from time to time. The episode did not clear the
air of one persistent
obsession for which Madame Blavatsky might, on Theosophic
reasoning, be held
karmically responsible to some extent. It was now understood,
in theory at least,
that "occult" phenomena, genuine or false, mediumistic or
adept, formed no part
of the legitimate pursuit of the Theosophical Society.
Madame Blavatsky had
insisted upon this fact, yet the very weight of interest
aroused by her own
performances in that line exerted its natural gravitational
force.
Another outgrowth of
the case was the realization "that occult phenomena cannot
in the present state
of human evolution be proved . . . in the same sense and to
the same extent that
physical phenomena can be proved."7
They must continue to
rest on subjective evidence. The trial threw the whole
case for the Mahatmas,
their superior teachings, their hierarchical position,
back into the locale
of faith and inner sanction. Here such ideas had always
been kept in
antiquity. The West, true to mechanistic instinct, tried to "prove"
them empirically.
At any rate, Madame
Blavatsky had, in the Preliminary Memorandum sent out at the
time of the formation
of the Esoteric Section, expressly declared that in the
higher section
"the student will not be taught how to produce physical
phenomena, nor will
any magical powers be allowed to develop in him,"-that a
mastery of self,
ethically and psychologically, was the antecedent condition. If
Judge or any other
already had phenomenal abilities, their use must be
subordinated to the
needs of morality and unselfishness. One of the ethical
prescriptions of the
Esoteric Section itself was that no member should attack
another. One was
forbidden to bring charges against a fellow member or to hold
suspicious or
malevolent feelings towards him. Mrs. Besant in opposing Judge was
charged with violating
these rules though her opposition was not, strictly
speaking, personal.
But the storm,
temporarily lulled, was to rage again. Some wounded feelings and
sullen resentments
were not fully allayed. In October, 1894, the London
Westminster Gazette
commenced a series of articles by Edmund Garrett entitled
"Isis Very Much
Unveiled: The Story of the Great Mahatmic Hoax." It was an
attempt to expose
Madame Blavatsky's and Mr. Judge's alleged invention of the
whole Mahatmic
structure. His material had been furnished him by Mr. W. R. Old,.179
one of Col. Olcott's
sub-editors on the Theosophist, who was nursing a grudge
for having been suspended
from the Esoteric Section by Mrs. Besant for violation
of his pledge of
secrecy. With a mass of authentic data in his hand, Mr. Garrett
made a vicious assault
upon Theosophy and its Society. The attack stimulated the
anti-Judge faction
into renewed hostility, and they rushed again to the fray. On
his part Judge,
believing Mrs. Besant had violated her pledges to the Esoteric
Section, by virtue of
his authority as H.P.B.'s American representative in that
organization,
summarily deposed Mrs. Besant from her joint-headship with him. In
his written notice to
that effect, he stated that Mrs. Besant had fallen under
the influence of minds
hostile to the "tradition clustering around the work of
H.P.B.," and
named Chakravarti as the chief culprit. Judge in this connection
reminded all concerned
of the "Prayag Letter" (one sent to Mr. Sinnett in 1881
by Master K.H.) in
which the Master himself had warned the Allahabad Lodge (the
branch in which
Sinnett, Hume, and Chakravarti were leading members), of the
false occultism in the
Brahmanical teachings. Judge set forth the conflict of
two views in the
Theosophical Society regarding the movement itself. The first
one, implanted by
H.P.B. herself, was that Theosophy is a body of eternal
knowledge, unchanging,
known of old, held in custody by Adept Guardians, of whom
H.P.B. was the
responsible and accredited agent in the world for her century.
The other was that the
whole teaching was itself a growth, a development, and as
such had taken gradual
shape as changing circumstances had led Madame Blavatsky
onward to new vistas.
He, Judge, was the official upholder of the first view,
and would use his
proxy from Madame Blavatsky to maintain her tradition. If his
mentor could be proven
false in one matter, doubt would be thrown upon all her
work. Either Theosophy
and its promulgator were what she said they were, or the
Society might as well
close its doors.
Mrs. Besant saw the
order dismissing her from the Esoteric Section office, but
refused to heed it.
Instead of resigning she called upon loyal members to follow
her. Her action thus
split the Esoteric Section organization. She sent out a
circular stating that
not only had Madame Blavatsky made her the Chief Secretary
of the Inner Group and
Recorder of the Teachings, but had named her as her
"Successor."
She thus stood out against Judge's authority and proceeded to lay
plans to drive him out
of the Society. She made a journey to Australia and
thence to India in the
fall of 1894, and at the annual holiday Convention in
India she and Olcott
managed to swing the whole body of delegates against Judge,
on the old charge of
sending out forged Mahatma messages. He was vilified openly
by a dozen orators,
and a resolution was carried upon Col. Olcott to demand his
resignation from the
Vice-Presidency or his expulsion from the Society. Judge's
first response was a
statement that he could not reply to the charges because
they had never been
given to him. He refused to resign from the Vice-Presidency.
In April of 1895 the
Convention of the American Section was held at Boston. With
practical unanimity it
upheld Mr. Judge. It went further. A resolution presented
by Mr. C. A. Griscom,
Jr., urged that the American Section declare its autonomy
and take a new name,
The Theosophical Society in America. The resolution was
carried by a vote of
nine to one and a new organization effected. A fraternal
greeting, with a
pledge of solidarity in the movement, was drawn up and sent to
the Convention of the
European Section then meeting. Judge was elected
President. This act
placed the Movement as paramount in importance to the
Society. (A minority
faction remained true to the old organization, and this
became later the
nucleus of the restored American Section of the Theosophical
Society, now the
largest numerical body.)
In London the
overtures of the new American autonomous body were coldly received
by the European
Convention, dominated by Mrs. Besant. Olcott declared the
greeting out of order,
but it was read and "laid on the table." It amounted to.180
an actual rejection of
the overtures. The step taken by the American Section was
spoken of as
"secession."
The new organization
in the United States got quietly to work, but Mr. Judge had
been broken in health
by the long struggle and his death came on March 21, 1896.
He had conducted
himself, all the while he was the target of the heavy attacks
against his integrity,
with a dignity, a lack of rancor, and a poise which in
the light of later
developments stand out in marked contrast to the fury and
venom exhibited by his
assailants. Whatever the merit or demerit of his position
in the Theosophic
movement, the fact is that he adhered with firm loyalty to his
avowed principles of
belief and conduct. He was at least free from that
inconstancy to program
or to theory which has since been so conspicuous a
characteristic of
Theosophic leadership. It is of record that Mr. Sinnett later
"forgave"
him, and that Mrs. Besant and Col. Olcott repented of having
persecuted him on
personal charges to the detriment of Theosophical practice.
His death plunged
Theosophy in America into its darkest days. It precipitated a
period marked not so
much by attacks from outside as by increasing dissensions
and divergences within
the ranks. Although Mrs. Katherine Tingley came forward
almost immediately as
Outer Head and successor to Judge, she did not long
command the support
and esteem of American Theosophists which he had enjoyed.
One after another,
small groups refused to follow her and established themselves
as independent
organizations, until the ranks were decimated by separate
societies, each
claiming to be the embodiment of true Theosophy, and each
tracing its lineage to
Madame Blavatsky. From this condition Theosophy in
America has not yet
recovered; consequently, it remains for us to describe the
origins and aims of
these various groups, leaving it to the reason of the reader
and to the logic of
history to decide the issues involved. The records of the
time are none too
clear, and the literature highly controversial. Since many of
the documents of the
Esoteric Section are necessarily secret, and since many of
the issues are
centered in personalities, it is impossible to get a clear
picture of the events
without an intimate acquaintance with the temperaments,
the incidental
circumstances, and the petty details which gave color and
direction to the
theoretical issues debated on paper and platform.
Immediately upon
Judge's death a group of leading Theosophists in New York City,
with Mr. E. T.
Hargrove as an active spirit, called meetings as early as March
29 to consider a
course of action. Mr. Hargrove read a statement to the effect
that Mr. Judge had not
left his followers without guidance; that among his
private papers
directions had been found as to successorship and future
leadership; and that
the form of assistance which Judge had enjoyed from the
Hierarchy would be
continued to them. This announcement was signed by E. T.
Hargrove, James M.
Pryse, Joseph H. Fussell, H. T. Patterson, Claude Falls
Wright, Genevieve L.
Griscom, C. A. Griscom, Jr., and E. Aug. Neresheimer,
all people of
character and prominence. Circulars and announcements were
repeatedly issued to
the membership from this group in New York, intimating that
Mr. Judge's wishes
concerning his successor were known and would be carried
out.8 It was also
announced that the Masters had imposed a condition, namely,
that the name of the
new head must be withheld for a year. Presumably this was
to be a trial period
during which the new leader was to test his abilities and
readiness to assume
the heavy responsibilities borne by Judge. Veiled references
were made to him under
the name of "Promise." It was stated that "a new light
had gone out from the
Lodge," and that this "Promise" was a person of psychic
gifts and the
recipient of messages from the Masters. From a speech made by Mrs.
Tingley at this time
we quote:.181
"Today the needs
of humanity are embodied in one great call: 'Oh God, my God, is
there no help for us?'
All people should heed the call of the Master and help to
belt the world within
the compass of the 'cable-tow' of the crusaders, for in
their force is the
quality of the 'golden promise'-the Light of the Lodge. It
will radiate
throughout the world, and with the aid of the widow's mite will
make perfect the
Master's plan."
At the end of April,
1896, the Annual Convention of the Theosophical Society in
America met in New
York City. Mr. Hargrove was elected President of the
organization. The Path
was changed to Theosophy. Mrs. Tingley was present and
spoke. She announced
plans for founding a "School for the Revival of the Lost
Mysteries of
Antiquity." Money was contributed liberally, and the leaders went
ahead with their plans
for the expansion of the movement.
Suddenly, on May 17,
Mrs. Tingley announced to her associates that she had been
informed that the New
York press had discovered that she was the person referred
to as the new Outer
Head, and that they would publish the news the next day. To
avoid such a
"leak," Mr. Hargrove, as President of the Society, that morning
anticipated the
newspapers and made a public announcement to the effect that
Mrs. Tingley had been
designated as Judge's successor. On the following morning,
May 18, 1896, a long
article appeared in the New York Tribune on the subject.
Thus the safeguard of
anonymity, originally prescribed as a condition of Mrs.
Tingley's appointment,
was abrogated.
Meanwhile the leaders
had announced their plans for a "Crusade" to carry the
message of Theosophy
around the world and more especially to vindicate the
strength and
authenticity of Judge's American Society before the eyes of
Theosophists in Europe
and India. Accordingly in June Mrs. Tingley, Mr.
Hargrove, Mr. and Mrs.
Claude F. Wright, Mr. Pierce, and two or three others,
set sail for a trip
around the world. They made numerous addresses at various
points en route defending
their cause. They also completed plans for the
establishment of the
School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity
at Point Loma,
California, and on the return voyage Mrs. Tingley laid the
corner-stone of the
school. Returning to New York early in 1897, they began the
task of consolidating
and organizing "The Universal Brotherhood."
But dissension arose
almost immediately after their return from the "Crusade." A
group of the leaders
became increasingly suspicious that Mrs. Tingley's policies
and practices were not
in line with those established by Judge. The forces of
ambition and jealousy
also entered into the scene. Whatever the deeper issues
were, the external
friction came to a head in the dispute between Mrs. Keightley
and Mr. Neresheimer
over the control of the publishing business and the
editorial policy of
the magazine, Theosophy. Mr. Neresheimer was supported by
Mrs. Tingley, whereas
Mrs. Keightley, Mr. Hargrove, and their friends, took a
firm stand against
him. As a result of this disagreement, Mr. Hargrove resigned
the presidency of the
Theosophical Society in America, and Dr. Keightley
resigned the
presidency of the affiliated Theosophical Society in England. In
January, 1898, Mrs.
Tingley called representatives of the Theosophical Society
from different parts
of the United States to her home, and they drew up and
adopted the
Constitution of The Universal Brotherhood Organization. Meanwhile
some of the friends of
Mr. Hargrove proposed a rival plan calling for the
election of Mr.
Hargrove as President and Mrs. Tingley as "Corresponding
Secretary"
(H.P.B.'s former title). But Mrs. Tingley repudiated this scheme and
in return Mr. Hargrove
and his friends rejected Mrs. Tingley's leadership.
At the Annual
Convention in Chicago, February, 1898, the whole issue was
decided. Mrs. Tingley
proceeded aggressively with her plans for The Universal.182
Brotherhood, which she
wished to absorb the Theosophic Society in America. Mr.
Hargrove and his
friends, on the other hand, refused to recognize the legitimacy
of the new
organization. When the issue was put to a vote, over ninety per cent
of the delegates
followed Mrs. Tingley.
Thereupon Mr. Hargrove
and his associates withdrew with a few dozen delegates to
another hall, declared
the action of the majority to be illegal, and agreed to
maintain the
Theosophical Society as a distinct body. A month later they
formally announced
Mrs. Tingley's removal as Outer Head on the grounds that by
slandering fellow
members she had violated her vows and conducted her
organization on
policies unworthy of Theosophy.9 Several E.S.T. pamphlets were
issued explaining the
causes of their repudiation of Mrs. Tingley and
incidentally throwing
additional light on the circumstances of Mrs. Tingley's
coming into power.
This body then published The Theosophical Forum, in which it
further defined its
stand and claimed to be the legitimate continuation of
Judge's work and
organization. Legal proceedings were begun to recover the
membership lists and
archives of the Society from The Universal Brother-
hood, but this move
was unsuccessful. During the next few months several hundred
Theosophists expressed
their adherence to this Society. This group, now known
simply as The
Theosophical Society, with headquarters in the New York Branch,
continues to carry on
its work through local branches. It publishes The
Theosophic Quarterly,
to which Mrs. Charles Johnston has contributed
extensively. It
naturally has its own Esoteric Section and has made many
scholarly
contributions to Theosophic research and literature. True to the
spirit of Judge, it
has emphasized Western rather than Oriental esoteric
traditions,
emphasizing the mystic elements in Christianity. It venerates the
wisdom of the Master,
Jesus, and some of the Christian Saints, but it has no
ecclesiastical
tendencies. It refuses to commit its members to any Theosophic
creed, to any official
pronouncements on the subject of "phenomena," or in
general to any matters
which concern personalities and personal beliefs. Its
meetings are devoted
largely to study, discussion, and meditation upon the
writings of H.P.B. and
other Theosophic classics. It remains a small but
distinguished group.
After the Chicago
Convention of 1898, the vast majority of American Theosophists
followed Mrs. Tingley
in The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society,
with headquarters at
Point Loma. Its official organ, The Searchlight, conducted
a vigorous campaign
and under the leadership of Mrs. Tingley, the organization
flourished for several
years. Through Mr. A. G. Spalding, of baseball fame, Ex-Secretary
of the Treasury Lyman
J. Gage, and others, sufficient funds were
secured to establish
permanent headquarters at Point Loma, a beautiful site
overlooking the Pacific.
The place became a colony, where new ventures in the
education of children
according to Theosophic ideas were embarked on, with
results said to be
exceptional. In 1900 the Rβja-Yoga School was founded which
was later expanded
into the Theosophical University. An Aryan Memorial Temple
was erected, now known
as the Temple of Peace; and a Greek theatre was built,
the first in the
country, where Greek and Shakespearean dramas have been
performed. The
Headquarters are now conducted under the direction of Dr.
Gottfried de Purucker
and Mr. J. H. Fussell, both of whom were associated with
Mrs. Tingley from
1898.
Mrs. Tingley lived
until July 11, 1929, when her death was announced from
Visingso, Sweden,
where she had gone to a Theosophic community to recover from
an automobile accident
suffered in Germany.10 She had done much work of a
humanitarian nature.
Besides the School of Antiquity at Point Loma she had
founded an
International Brotherhood League, a summer home for children at.183
Spring Valley, New
York, and a home for orphan children at Buffalo. She had
opened three schools
in Cuba.
Another group of
Theosophists in 1899 drifted into "The Temple of the People,"
sponsored by Dr. W. H.
Dower and Frances J. Meyers, of Syracuse, New York.
Messages coming
through a Mrs. Francia A. La Due, known mediumistically as "Blue
Star," were its
inspiration until her death in 1923. A remnant of this group is
established in a
colony at Halcyon, California.
In 1899 another
offshoot came to growth in "The Theosophical Society of New
York," which is
to be distinguished from "The New York Branch of the
Theosophical
Society" mentioned above. Dr. H. H. Salisbury, long a friend of Mr.
Judge, Mr. Donald
Nicholson, editor of the New York Tribune, also a friend of
Judge and H.P.B., and
Mr. Harold W. Percival, headed a group which numbered Dr.
Alexander Wilder and
Mrs. Laura Langford among its adherents. Mr. Percival for
years edited a
successful magazine, The Word.
Dr. J. D. Buck, of
Cincinnati, an early member of the American Section and
devoted supporter of
Judge, later threw his strong influence on the side of the
claims of a Mr.
Richardson-known as "T.K."-and Mrs. Florence Huntley, to
represent the Masters.
Some of his friends went with him in this allegiance, but
the exposure of
"T.K." undermined his movement and he died shortly afterward.
Mrs. Alice L.
Cleather, one of the inner group of students around Madame
Blavatsky during the
years preceding her death, formed a "Blavatsky
Association,"
organized to combat the successorship of Mrs. Besant in
particular. It was
declared that Mr. Judge had fallen under the deception of
Mrs. Tingley. Mrs.
Cleather wrote three or four books upholding the esoteric
character of Madame
Blavatsky's mission.
In England Mr. G. R.
S. Mead, long co-editor with Mrs. Besant of Lucifer, parted
from her after 1907
and founded "The Quest Society," which until recently
published The Quest.
His Society has a highly respectable membership and devotes
its energies to
comparative religion and psychical research. Mr. Mead is most
active in the
scholarly activities of the Society.
In California, home of
many cults, Mr. Max Heindel, originally a Theosophist,
launched later a
Rosicrucian Society, and published a valuable work, Rosicrucian
Cosmo-Conception. His
association maintains headquarters at Oceanside,
California, and
following his death his wife has continued the direction of its
activities.
Likewise in California
Mr. Robert Crosbie established the parent United Lodge of
Theosophists at Los
Angeles in 1909. Mr. Crosbie adhered to the conviction that
Mr. Judge alone worked
in the true direction of H.P.B.'s movement, and he gave
to his organization the
task of perpetuating the original teaching of
Blavatskian Theosophy,
as promulgated by Judge. He founded the periodical
Theosophy, a revival
of The Path. He labored to restore the unique status of
H.P.B. and Judge as
esoteric teachers, and his society thus became a "drift back
to source." As
H.P.B. herself had looked after the spiritual side of the
movement, regarding
that as more important than its outward organization, so the
United Lodge of
Theosophists has discounted the value of organization and of
personalities in it.
The names of the speakers are usually not attached to
lecture announcements,
nor those of authors to books and articles. The interests
of the association are
primarily in Theosophy and the movement, not in any
Society; in Theosophic
truth, not in any individual expression of it. A spirit
of accord binds
together various Lodges, isolated groups and scattered.184
associates throughout
the United States, and in recent years there has been
marked growth, as the
disturbances in the larger "Besant" section drove many of
its old adherents into
the U.L.T. The defection of Mr. P. B. Wadia, eloquent
Hindu Theosophist,
from the Besant fold and his affiliation with the United
Lodge in 1922,
furnished no small impetus to the latter's increased power. Mr.
John Garrigues, of Los
Angeles, has devoted indefatigable energy to the work of
this body, and few
persons have a wider acquaintance with the facts of
Theosophic history
than he. Residing in New York until 1930, he exerted a
pronounced influence
in the councils of the U.L.T. throughout the country.
In Washington, D.C.,
there has been published for many years by Mr. H. N.
Stokes, a leaflet
called The Oriental Esoteric Library Critic. Mr. Stokes
conducts a circulating
library of occult and Theosophic books, but finds time in
addition to edit his
diminutive sheet, which has been a veritable thorn in the
flesh of the Besant
leadership for many years. He seizes upon every
inconsistency in the
statements or policies of the Besant-Leadbeater-Wedgewood
hegemony and subjects
it to critical analysis. Many Theosophists tolerate his
belligerent spirit and
strong language for the sake of the facts he adduces,
which have usually
great pertinence to Theosophic affairs. He is particularly
hostile to the
developments of Neo-Theosophy under the Besant and Leadbeater
rιgime, and above all
to the institution of the Liberal Catholic Church as a
Theosophic appanage.
As a result of the
great impetus given by the Theosophical movement, scores of
organizations with
aims mystic, occult, divine, spiritual, Oriental,
astrological,
fraternal, and inspirational, have sprung up on all sides, to
emphasize one or
another aspect of the teaching, real or fancied. A reference to
Hartmann's Who's Who
in Occult, Psychic, and Spiritual Realms will astonish one
with the number and
diversified character of these bodies. Their existence marks
one of the surprising
phenomena of our contemporary religious life.
It remains to sketch
with the greatest brevity the history since 1896 of the
large international
body of the Theosophical Society over which Mrs. Annie
Besant has presided
since 1907.
It will be recalled
that when in Boston in 1895 the American Section, out of
loyalty to its leader,
Judge, "seceded" from the parent organization and became
autonomous, a minority
dissented from the action of the Convention and remained
in adherence to Col.
Olcott's Society. Prominent in this party were Dr. Mary
Weeks Burnett, Mr.
Alexander Fullerton, Dr. La Pierre, and others. This faction
became the nucleus
around which, as the larger Judge group disintegrated,
gradual accretions of
strength materialized. This was in part due to the
prestige which
officialdom and regularity carries with it, and in part to the
position and
prominence of Col. Olcott and the great influence wielded by Mrs.
Besant. In a few years
it became numerically far the strongest group, and today
includes some ninety
per cent of American Theosophical membership.
After Judge passed
from the scene, Col. Olcott and Mrs. Besant could devote
their undivided
energies to Theosophic propaganda, both in the Society at large
and in the Esoteric
Section, so that the movement expanded rapidly in all parts
of the world. Charters
were given to National Sections in most of the countries
on the map. The
Society flourished outwardly and organically. The question as to
whether it held true
to its original spirit and purpose is of course a debatable
one. It was at this
time that the beginnings of the drift toward those later
presentations of
Theosophical teaching which have come to be known as Neo-Theosophy
were becoming
manifest. Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater stood out
unrivalled as the
literary exponents and formulators of Theosophy. Their.185
statements were hailed
with as much respect and authority as those of Madame
Blavatsky in the
earlier days. Both of them wrote assiduously and lectured with
great frequency, and
their publications rapidly began to supplant all other
works on the
Theosophic shelves. With The Ancient Wisdom, A Study in
Consciousness, and
Esoteric Christianity Mrs. Besant began a literary output
which has been rarely
matched in volume. Some eighty or more works now stand in
her name. Mr.
Leadbeater's total may reach twenty, but they are mostly of a more
pretentious character
than Mrs. Besant's, being accounts of his clairvoyant
investigations into
the nature and history of the world and man. His works had
to do mostly with subjects
connected with the Third Object of the Society, the
psychic powers latent
in man. Mrs. Besant touched alike on all three of the
objects, not
neglecting the ethical aspects of Theosophy, which she emphasized
in such works as The
Path of Discipleship and In The Outer Court. Predominantly
under the influence of
these two leaders the power of Theosophy spread widely in
the world.
Mr. Leadbeater was one
of the participants with Mr. Sinnett and others in occult
investigations carried
on in the London Lodge, an autonomous group not fully in
sympathy with some
phases of Madame Blavatsky's work. He developed, as was
reported, great
psychic abilities, as the result of which, notwithstanding his
frequent disclaiming
of occult authority, he exercised great influence over the
thought of a large
number of members of the Society. His studies and his books
reflected the attitude
of "scientific common sense." He claims to have brought
the phenomena of the
superphysical realms of life, of the astral and the mental
plane, of the future
disembodied life, and of the past and future of this and
other spheres, under
his direct clairvoyant gaze. He wrote elaborate
descriptions of these
things in a style of simplicity and clearness. He asserted
that such powers
enabled one to review any event in the past history of the
race, inasmuch as all
that ever happened is imprinted indelibly on the substance
of the Astral Light or
the Akasha, and the psychic faculties of trained
occultists permit them
to bring these pictures under observation. With the same
faculties he asserted
his ability to investigate the facts of nature in both her
realms of the infinite
and the infinitesimal. Hence he explored the nature of
the atom, its
electrons and its whorls, and in collaboration with Mrs. Besant,
who was alleged also
to possess high psychic powers, published a work entitled
Occult Chemistry. For
years he stood as perhaps the world's greatest "seer," and
in books dealing with
Clairvoyance, Dreams, The Astral Plane, Some Glimpses of
Occultism, The Inner
Life, The Hidden Side of Things, Man: Whence, How and
Whither, he labored to
particularize and complement Madame Blavatsky's sweeping
outline of cosmic
evolution and human character, as given in The Secret
Doctrine. Certain
schools of his critics assert flatly that he has only
succeeded in vitiating
her original presentation. Two years ago The Canadian
Theosophist, a
magazine published under the editorship of Mr. Albert Smythe at
Toronto, published a
series of articles in which parallel passages from the
writings of Madame
Blavatsky and the Mahatma Letters on one side, and from the
books of Mrs. Besant,
Mr. Leadbeater, Mr. C. Jinarajadasa, on the other, give
specific evidence
bearing on the claims of perversion of the original theories
by those whom they
call Neo-Theosophists. The articles indicate wide deviations,
in some cases complete
reversal, made by the later interpreters from the
fundamental statements
of the Russian Messenger and her Overlords. The
differences concern
such matters as the personality of God, the historicity of
Jesus, his identity as
an individual or a principle, the desirability of
churches, priestcraft
and religious ceremonial, the genuineness of an apostolic
succession, and a
vicarious atonement, the authority of Sacraments, the nature
and nomenclature of
the seven planes of man's constitution, the planetary
chains, the monad, the
course of evolution, and many other important phases of
Theosophic doctrine.
This exhaustive research has made it apparent that the.186
later exponents have
allowed themselves to depart in many important points from
the teachings of
H.P.B.11
Whatever may be the
causes operating to influence their intellectual
developments, they
have succeeded in giving Theosophy a somewhat different
direction which, on
the whole, has emphasized the religious temper and content
of its doctrines. It
should be added that these criticisms are not
representative of the
great majority of followers of the movement, who regard
the later elaborations
from fundamentals as both logical and desirable.
For years Mr.
Leadbeater was looked upon as the genuine link between the Society
and its Mahatmic
Wardens, and his utterances were received as law and authority
by members of the
organization from the President downward. But at the height of
his influence in 1906
came charges of privately teaching to boys under his care
sexual practices
similar to some of those practiced in certain Hindu temple
rites. They cleft
through the ranks of the Society like a bolt of lightning.
Mrs. Besant,
horrified, asked for his resignation. Mr. Leadbeater admitted the
charges, explained his
occult and hygienic reasons for his instruction, and
resigned. But not many
months had passed before Mrs. Besant reversed her
position and began a
campaign to restore Mr. Leadbeater to fellowship and good
repute, she having
received from him a promise to discontinue such teaching.
Col. Olcott had
conducted an inquiry at London, and the disclosure probably
hastened the aging
President's death, though the main contributing cause was an
accident on board
ship. He died early in 1907, and the event caused a conflict
over the matter of
succession. It was noised about Adyar, Madras, where his
death occurred, that
there had been a visitation of a number of the Masters at
the bedside of the
dying President-Founder and that the succession had there
been indicated. The
extraordinary occurrence was said to have been witnessed by
those present in the
death chamber, who were Mrs. Besant, Mrs. Marie Russak
Hotchener, and two or
three others. As the matter is one of considerable moment
in the history of the
Theosophical Society, I take the liberty to quote several
sentences from a
personal letter which Mrs. Hotchener wrote me from Los Angeles
under date of August
3, 1915, relative to the event:
"I was present
when the Masters came to Col. Olcott. There was no possibility of
hallucination, for too
many things occurred physically which could be proven. I
did some writing even,
and did two or three things I was told to do, and besides
the whole visit of the
Masters to Colonel Olcott was to help him and to better
the future of the
Society. I also saw the Master lift Colonel from the floor
where he had
prostrated himself as HIS feet, and put him on the bed as though
the Colonel were a
baby. Master M. (Morya) did it, who is seven feet tall. When
the Doctor came a few
minutes later (when the Masters had gone) he scolded the
nurse and myself for
the fact that Colonel had been out of bed-his heart and
condition of the body
showed it and the terrible excitement. We were told of
things which were
afterwards proven and which none of us knew at the time; whole
sentences were quoted
from the Master's letters to H.P.B. which none of us had
seen, and objects
mentioned the existence of which none of us knew, and many
other things. Then,
too, the Colonel had seen the Masters with H.P.B. and there
was no possibility of
his being deceived. Their coming saved the Society from
going into an era of
the 'letter of the law' dominating completely the spirit,
and both Mr.
Leadbeater and Mrs. Besant have confirmed their coming and in their
physical bodies. There
is sufficient proof, but I could not write it all now."
The witnesses affirmed
that the Masters had designated Mrs. Besant as the
successor of Col.
Olcott, as she was already that of H.P.B. This demonstration.187
of the living interest
of the Masters in the affairs of the Society12 vitally
enhanced Mrs. Besant's
prestige, and as she was already in control of the
"throbbing heart
of the Theosophical Society," viz., the Esoteric Section, the
ensuing world-wide
election of a new President, held in 1907, could have but one
result. She had
practically no opposition, and has been re-elected at intervals
since that time. Mr.
Leadbeater was restored soon after these events, and the
exposition of the
major phases of the Neo-Theosophy began in earnest. Many old
and loyal members were
forced out by the advent of one disagreeable situation or
utterance after
another, as they saw the old teachings warped or strangely
reinterpreted; but the
new interest brought in others in larger numbers. Perhaps
the most spectacular
of all Mrs. Besant's enterprises was inaugurated in 1909--
the formation of The
Order of the Star in the East, for spreading the idea,
which she and Mr.
Leadbeater had promulgated, of the approaching manifestation
of the Lord Maitreya
as the World Teacher. The basis of her grandiose scheme was
Mr. Leadbeater's
psychic discovery that the very body which the Lord was to
occupy during the
years of His coming earthly sojourn was already among them in
the person of one
Jiddu Krishnamurti, a fine young Brahmin, then in his early
'teens. Mrs. Besant forthwith
legally adopted the youth, aided with his
education, part of
which was gained in England, and successfully resisted a law-suit
of the boy's father to
regain control of him. She then exploited him before
the world as the
"vehicle" of the coming World Teacher. An abundance of
effective publicity
was gained, if nothing more substantial. Several times the
lad's body seemed to
have been obsessed by an overshadowing presence, and his
lips at such times
spoke unwonted words of wisdom. The young man was elevated to
the headship of the
Order of the Star in the East; a neat magazine, The Herald
of the Star, was
established for propaganda purposes, and the thousands of
Theosophists and some
outsiders who followed Mrs. Besant in this new field were
worked up to a high
pitch of hushed expectancy of the dιnouement. Krishnamurti's
sponsors had
originally stated that the spirit of the Great Lord could be
expected to use the
body of the young Hindu fully in some fifteen or twenty-five
years, but on the
occasion of the visit of Mrs. Besant and the youth to America
in August of 1926, the
announcement was made that the consummation of the divine
event was certain to
be delayed no longer than Christmas of that year. The
affable young man
bravely carried the mantle of near-divinity during all the
intervening years; but
finally in the course of the year 1929, speaking at a
meeting of the
followers of his cult at their European headquarters at Ommen, in
Holland, he rather
suddenly executed what he had intimated to some of his
friends, who had noted
his utterances against organizations for spiritual
purposes, by
dissolving the Order of the Star, by refusing to be regarded as an
authority, and
retaining for himself only the humble rτle of spiritual teacher.
In spite of the exalted
position gratuitously foisted upon him, he had evidently
grown restive under
Mrs. Besant's dominance. His action has been generally
interpreted as a
courageous assertion of his independence of mind and spirit. By
it he has apparently
gained rather than lost prestige. His public appearances
continue to draw large
audiences which express sympathy with his aims and react
kindly to the appeal
of his personality and spiritual cast of mind. Mrs. Besant
was left to find devices
of her own to explain the twenty-year-long fiasco. She
has explained that Mr.
Krishnamurti is a teacher in his own right.
In the early days of
the Krishnamurti agitation, probably about 1912, Mr.
Leadbeater published
in serial form the results of a pretentious clairvoyant
investigation, being
no less than an account in much detail of the last forty
reincarnations of the
Indian lad in various nations including the Atlantean
countries, with the
concurrent lives of some score or more of individuals,
nearly all prominent
then in the Theosophical Society, who had been keeping in
the same group life
after life down through the ages. His work was styled The.188
Lives of Alcyone, the
latter appellation having been given to Krishnamurti as
his true or cosmic name.13
About 1914 Mrs. Marie
Russak was commissioned to introduce a ritualistic order
within the Theosophic
Society and in the course of the next two or three years
she installed some
twenty or more
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CHAPTERs of an organization given the name of
"The Temple of
the Rosy Cross." An elaborate regalia was required and a
ceremonial was devised
which a member of the Masonic body told the author
equalled in beauty and
dignity anything he was conversant with in the higher
degrees of Masonry.
The initiates took a solemn pledge to do nothing contrary to
the interests of their
Higher Selves and the ceremonies were said to have been
attended with elevated
types of spiritual experience. Great emphasis was laid on
the "magnetic
purity" of everything handled by the officiants. Powerful
sublimations of
spiritual forces were thought to be operative through the
instrumentality of the
ritual. Mrs. Russak had proved to be an efficient
organizer and the
"Temple" had apparently done much to spiritualize the appeal
of Theosophy. But
suddenly after an existence of about three years the
organization was
declared at an end, for reasons never given out frankly to the
membership.
Coincident with the
"Alcyone" campaign a movement within the Theosophical
Society was launched,
again actuated by Mr. Leadbeater's mystic observations,
that went in direct
contradiction to Madame Blavatsky's warnings and
prognostications on
the subject of religious sectarianism. This was the
establishment of
"The Old Catholic Church" (later changed to "The Liberal
Catholic Church")
as carrying the true apostolic succession from the original
non-Roman Catholic
Church, the primitive Christian Church. The link of
succession brought
down from the early Middle Ages was picked up in Holland in
the remnants of the
Old Catholic Church still lingering there, and the first
Bishop consecrated
from the old line was Mr. James I. Wedgewood, English
Theosophist. He in
turn anointed Mr. Leadbeater, who thus received the title of
Bishop, by which he is
now known. It was declared that the true unction of the
original consecration
was thus transmitted down to the present and reawakened to
new virility in
Theosophic hands. Mr. Leadbeater wrote The Science of the
Sacraments to give a
new and living potency to ritual through occult science,
and the new Church was
declared to be the felicitous channel of expression for
such Theosophists as
needed the uplifting virtue of a dynamic ceremonial. The
teachings of Theosophy
might be intellectually satisfying; the Liberal Catholic
Church would round out
the Theosophic life by providing for the nourishment of
the aesthetic and
emotional nature, through means of white-magical potency. Mr.
Leadbeater was more
Catholic than any Roman in his claims of marvelous efficacy
in the performance of
the rituals. His pictures of the congregational thought-forms,
the aggregate
vibrational energies set in motion by devotion, which he
says take definite
shapes and hover over the edifice during a service, are
daring and original.14
Agitation over Mr.
Leadbeater's sex ideas cropped out at intervals, and in 1922
there was a renewed
stir over this subject when a Mr. Martyn, of Sydney,
Australia, a
Theosophist of high standing, gave out a letter in which he
recounted certain
incidents which he alleged took place while Mr. Leadbeater was
a guest in his home
some time before.
There were charges and
denials; and it should in fairness be said that Mr.
Leadbeater had
confided to personal friends that through his clairvoyant vision
he was enabled to
discern that much suffering could be saved the boys later on
in their lives if some
of the pent-up sexual energies could be given vent in the
way he prescribed. He
asserted that the "bad Karma" of such sex expression would.189
be confined to the
boys themselves and easily lived down, whereas otherwise they
would be led to
actions which would involve them in the sex Karma of others.
Some Theosophists,
including one or two medical men and women, have gone on
record as declaring
that the principles underlying Mr. Leadbeater's sexual
philosophy in this
particular might well save the world some of the misery and
evil that arises from
improper understanding of the issues involved. Mrs. Besant
herself may have seen
some such saving grace in the situation, which would
account for her sudden
and definite swing to Mr. Leadbeater's support following
her first outraged
sensibilities. The issue is not at present a live one.
Certainly Mr.
Leadbeater's ideas on sex, though tolerated by some, are to be
regarded as generally
repudiated by the vast majority of Theosophists.
Later Theosophical
leadership in America passed successively through the hands
of Dr. Weller Van
Hook, of Chicago, Mr. A. P. Warrington, an attorney from
Virginia and Mr. L. W.
Rogers, a capable business executive, who is now the
President of the large
American Section. It was in Mr. Warrington's rιgime that
the Theosophical
settlement, under the name of Krotona, was located in
Hollywood, Los
Angeles, California. This settlement was the outcome of a plan
conceived by Mr.
Warrington quite apart from any Theosophical connection, and it
was not until after
the leaders of the movement learned of the plan that it was
determined to carry it
out in the interest of Theosophists. After an exhaustive
search of the South
and the West for a suitable site, covering a period of five
years or more,15 it
was finally decided to locate in California; acreage was
secured in the
Hollywood hills, some beautiful buildings erected, and the
Theosophical
Headquarters was transferred from Chicago. The Headquarters has
since been transferred
to Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, for the
advantage of a
centralized location; and the Krotona settlement has been removed
to a beautiful site in
Ojai Valley where it now flourishes and is known as
Krotona, as before.
Here institute courses in Theosophy and related subjects are
given and headquarters
are maintained for the E.S. in the Western Hemisphere.16
When Mrs. Besant's
"Karma" (as Theosophists phrase it) took her to India, she
saw India moving
towards the fulfilment of her vision and (as has been recently
publicly asserted) the
wish of the Himalayan Adepts, in the constituting of
India as a Dominion of
the British Commonwealth. The Theosophical headquarters
at Adyar, in Madras,
has long been recognized as a center of educational reform
in India, and of
propaganda for the modern revival of Hindu painting in the
oriental manner.
Dr. Besant, still a
prominent figure, is advancing into the eighties, and Mr.
Leadbeater, too, is
aging. What direction the course of future Theosophic
activity will take
when these two dominant figures have been withdrawn, is
matter for current
speculation. Their policies have alienated some of the
staunchest early
adherents of Madame Blavatsky and Judge. Already certain trends
are discernible which
indicate the setting in of a back-to-Blavatsky movement
within the ranks of
the Theosophical Society. There is already in full swing in
the West a tendency to
turn to a study of oriental spiritual science, and the
contributions of
Madame Blavatsky to this field are hardly likely to diminish in
importance during the
coming decades. She herself prophesied that her
Captain Kidd could be
discovered-by clairvoyant means-and utilized to finance
the undertaking. A
rusty key was actually found in the hands of a skeleton
discovered where the
clairvoyant described it as lying buried, but evidently the
treasure chests were
not unearthed. This item was given to the author by one of
the group meeting with
the clairvoyant at the time..190
The Secret Doctrine
would be accepted as a text-book on modern science in the
twentieth century.
Whether that prophecy be fulfilled or not, it is of note that
the list of students
who are dragging it down from dusty shelves is rapidly
increasing at the
present writing. Through the efforts mainly of the United
Lodge of Theosophists
reprints of the original plates of the two (First and
Second) volumes have
been made, and the book made more readily available to the
public. Announcement
has also been made from Adyar that H. P. Blavatsky's first
draft of volume one of
The Secret Doctrine will be published in 1931.17
Some statistics as to
book circulation are indicative of the spread of this
stream of philosophic
thought. Officials at the United Lodge of Theosophists,
New York City,
supplied data on this score. As the U.L.T. is one of the lesser
bodies propagating
Theosophy, the figures here given would cover but a minor
fraction of the actual
circulation of Theosophic literature. In recent years the
United Lodge
organization has sold:
Ocean of Theosophy, W.
Q. Judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50,000
Translation of the
Bhagavad Gita, W. Q. Judge . . . . . . .40,000
The Voice of the
Silence, H. P. Blavatsky . . . . . . . . .30,000
Patanjali's Yoga
Sutras, W. Q. Judge. . . . . . . . . . . .25,000
Key to Theosophy, H.
P. Blavatsky (Original Text). . . . . 10,000
Conversations on
Theosophy: Pamphlet. . . . . . . . . . . 150,000
In addition, there are
constantly increasing calls for the two ponderous
Blavatskian works,
Isis and The Secret Doctrine. These figures may be indicative
of the strength of the
back-to-Blavatsky movement in Theosophic ranks.
Theosophy is now
organized in more than forty countries of the world, with an
active enrolled
membership of more than fifty thousand. There are said to be
some ten thousand
members in America with over two hundred forty branches or
lodges. Many more
thousands have come in and gone out of the Society. Various
reasons account for
these desertions, but in few cases does relinquishment of
formal membership
indicate a rejection of Theosophical fundamentals of doctrine.
"Once a
Theosophist always a Theosophist," is approximately true, pointing to
the profound influence
which the sweeping cosmology and anthropology of the
system exercises over
a mind that has once absorbed it. It may then be said that
there are several
millions of people who have assimilated organically the
teachings of
Theosophy, and who yield a degree of assent to those formulations..191
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CHAPTER XIII
SOME FACTS AND FIGURES
The Theosophical
Society is therefore not composed of a band of believers in
certain creedal items,
but a body of students and seekers. They are travelers on
a quest, not the
settled dwellers in a creed. They seek to keep fluidic the
impulses, intuitions,
and propensities of the life of spiritual aspiration, in
opposition to the
tendency to harden them into dogma.
It is quite impossible
for any one to trace with precision the influence of the
Theosophic ideology,
first, upon the psychology and then upon the conduct of
devotees. It can be
done only within the limits of general outlines. The one
consideration that
determines for the Theosophist the value of any thought or
act is whether it
tends to promote that unification of human mass consciousness
along the spiritual
ideals pictured in the Ancient Wisdom. This demands of the
individual Theosophist
that he make of himself, through the gradual expansion of
his own consciousness,
a channel for the increased flow of high cosmic forces
that will work like
leaven through the corporate body of humanity and dissipate
human misery by the
power of light and virtue.
Nevertheless it seems
possible to attempt to ascertain the type of people who
have been attracted to
Theosophy and to examine the special traits and
environments, if any
such were manifest, which have afforded the most fruitful
ground for the seed of
the Theosophic faith. Likewise it seems desirable to
estimate the influence
of Theosophy upon the lives of its votaries. Through the
cordial coφperation of
the Theosophical Headquarters at Wheaton, Illinois, a
questionnaire was sent
out.1 Answers were received from nearly seventy per cent
of the two hundred
addresses-an unusually high return-and they have been
carefully tabulated.
The names submitted for the mailing of the questionnaire
were selected by the
President of the American Section of the Theosophical
Society, and they must
therefore presumably be considered to represent, not all
Theosophists, but
those of the "Besant Society" exclusively.2
The professions and
occupations represented an average cross-section of American
life. A few admitted
membership in no profession. There were included editor,
bishop, railroad
executive, corporation president, manufacturer, doctor, lawyer,
dentist, teacher,
musician, artist, writer, nurse, college tutor, house painter,
army officer,
insurance agent, draughtsman, carpenter, stenographer, merchant,
realtor, business
manager, engineer, college secretary, hotel consultant,
photographer,
advertising writer, Post Office inspector, restaurant proprietor,
public accountant,
social service worker, veterinary, beauty culturist, oil.192
operator, jeweler,
optometrist, Braille worker, and a college teacher of
biology. In the list
also were a motor car company president, a newspaper
publisher, a life
insurance superintendent, an educator, a motion picture
producer, a city
sanitary engineer, a sheet metal contractor, a factory head,
and a railroad
comptroller. It may be said that these Theosophists are a picked
group and hardly to be
regarded as truly typical of the rank and file of the
personnel. Whether
this be true or no, it appears that Theosophists are
representative American
people, gaining their livelihood in conventional and
respectable ways. The
mark of their Theosophy would have to be looked for in
their avocations, not
in how they earn their living. They seem to be of the
typical urban middle
class, with few farmers or workers.
The ages of those
answering the letters ranged from 21 to 86, with an average at
about 45. The average
length of time the respondents had been actively
affiliated with
Theosophy was about 15 years. The replies chanced to come from
an exactly equal
number of men and women. This proportion is hardly to be
explained as a result
of artificial selection in the mailing list and is
significant in view of
the fact that in practically all Christian denominations
women considerably
outnumber men. Indirect evidence of this fact was revealed by
the preponderance of
women over men among those who came to Theosophy from the
various Christian
churches; which was offset by the preponderance of men over
women among those who
had previously been members of no religious organizations.
Geographically the
distribution revealed that the strength of the movement lies
in the Middle West.
Illinois, California, and New York are the headquarters of
the Society, and the
replies indicated that the most active Theosophists were
concentrated in these
areas. New England and the South (with the exception of
Florida) show only a
very slight membership.
As to the matter of
the former religious connections, the figures brought out
several interesting
facts. The complete table follows:
Methodists . . . . . .
. . . . . . 32
Greek Catholics . . .
. . . . . 2
Episcopalians . . . .
. . . . . . 26
Christian
(unspecified) . . . 2
Presbyterians . . . .
. . . . . . 11
Spiritualists . . . .
. . . . . . . 2
Congregationalists . .
. . . . 10
Atheists . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 2
Lutherans . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 9
Reformed . . . . . . .
. . . . . 1
Roman Catholics . . .
. . . . 8
Masonic . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 1
Baptists . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 6
Freethinkers . . . . .
. . . . . . 1
Unitarians . . . . . .
. . . . . . 6
Agnostic . . . . . . .
. . . . . . 1
Jewish . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . 3
Non-Church . . . . . .
. . . . 27
Aligning these into
significant groups we get:
Evangelicals . . . . .
. . . . . . .69
Episcopalians . . . .
. . . . . . . 26
Catholics . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 10
Non-Church . . . . . .
. . . . . . .31
Scattering . . . . . .
. . . . . . .14.193
As might be expected,
those who had been Episcopalians were most numerous in the
East and South. The
Evangelical denominations were, of course, most strongly
represented in the
Middle West, and they prove to be the most fertile soil for
the inroads of
Theosophy. The reasons for this fact are suggested below. About
eighteen per cent of
the respondents explicitly spoke of themselves as still
Christians. About ten
per cent came to Theosophy through an interest in psychic
phenomena, healing or
magic, of whom about fifty per cent came from Evangelical
churches and none from
the Catholic churches. The number of those who came to
Theosophy from
non-church environments is seen to be a fairly large proportion
of the total. As to
this element Illinois showed the heaviest rating, with
California next,
though the group was on the whole fairly evenly distributed
over the country.
Those from the non-church group supplied a disproportionately
large percentage of
the most active workers and leaders. The Liberal Catholic
members seemed to come
almost exclusively from the Episcopalian and the
Evangelical groups,
and those who had been Catholics were practically
negligible. The
reasons given for the abandonment of their former faiths to
embrace Theosophy are
of interest. Theosophy came in the main to people who had
already experienced a
pronounced distaste for the creeds of the churches.
However suddenly the
transfer of loyalty and faith may have come, the way
thereto had apparently
been long in preparation. There is in the letters either
a tacit inference or a
direct statement that the espousal of Theosophy was
largely attributable
to the failure of the churches in meeting their
intellectual needs.
The increasing inadequacy of the church doctrines made
Theosophy seem richer,
or, to put the same fact positively, the largeness of the
Theosophical system
made Christian theology seem impoverished. The percentage of
those explicitly
noting their dissatisfaction with the churches was 47, while
almost all the
remainder emphasized the positive intellectual stimulation given
them by Theosophy.
However, such vague personal testimony must be received with
a measure of caution
until we estimate what particular elements were most
effective.
While the specific
motives for shifting from religious regularity, or from no
institutional or
creedal anchorage over to a new and exotic cult, have been
quite variously set
forth by the respondents, almost all of them used the
general formula:
Theosophy rendered life more intelligible than any other
system. All the more
detailed statements as to the reason for faith in Theosophy
are but amplifications
of this one theme. It is the only cult, we are told, that
furnishes to the
seeker after light and understanding an adequate rational
support for the
assumption of Law, Order, Love, Wisdom, Purpose, and
Intelligence in the
Course of Things. A closer examination into the meaning of
these phrases soon
reveals that certain specific issues were uppermost.
Theosophy appeared to
reconcile science (especially evolutionary science) with
religion; it enlarged
the moral drama to the vast proportions of cosmic epochs
demanded by evolution.
It gave a teleological explanation of evolution which was
nevertheless not
narrowly anthropocentric, and an explanation of the origin of
evil which was not
arbitrary or cruel. Then, too, as many replies definitely
stated, the doctrine
of reincarnation was regarded as an improvement over the
orthodox doctrine of
resurrection, day of judgment, heaven and hell, as well as
over the vague liberal
doctrine of immortality. And the law of Karma was felt to
be more rational than
salvation by forgiveness, vicarious atonement, or "faith"
or "grace."
Some of the writers found a higher form of theism in Theosophy, but
the majority said
little about God, and were quite content to substitute
meditation and study
for praying to a personal God. Here are a few typical
statements:
"Theosophy
answered the great problems. It made life intelligible on the basis
of Love, Law,
Intelligence.".194
"Orthodoxy
nowhere furnished a satisfactory solution to the riddles of life."
"Theosophy
presented a logical and reasonable theory of life,which in turn
served as an
inspiration to self-discipline and right living. It provides the
only sure 'ground for
morals.'"
"The general
narrowness and inconsistency of religions and particularly their
inability to explain
wrong and suffering turned me away from the churches.
Theosophy brought
satisfaction, peace and happiness."
"Theosophy
reconciled science and religion with each other, and both with
philosophy, and me
with all of them in one great synthesis."
"Theosophy gave
me a satisfying philosophy of life and religion and restored me
to Christianity after
the church had lost me."
"I never knew
there existed so rational and complete a theory of life until I
met with Theosophy."
"Theosophy alone
answered the questions that must be raised by any reflective
mind."
"Theosophy
appealed to me by its vast comprehensibility. It leaves no fact of
life unexplained in a
system into which the single facts fit with amazing
aptness."
"Theosophy came
to me through the death of my husband, when I stood face to face
with a disenchanted
universe and sought to break through to a rational
understanding of the
meaning of things."
"I felt the need
for some way out such as that provided by reincarnation. I
found Theosophy a
complete philosophy answering my mental demands to the full."
"Christianity
could not stand the test of thinking; Theosophy gave me the larger
truths which could
bear the brunt of logical questioning."
"Theosophy
presented the only rational scheme of life that I had ever heard of."
"The laws of
reincarnation and Karma for the first time enabled me to see life
as under the reign of
Order and Love."
"Theosophy was
the first system I ever met with that reconciled me with the
universe. I was a
rebel before."
"I was happy to
find in Theosophy an acceptable explanation of the soul-harrying
problems connected
with the apparent cruelty of life."
"Not only did
Theosophy solve for me the riddles of the universe but it opened
up new vistas of
meaning in the service, rituals and traditions of the church
itself."
"Theosophy
quieted my feeling of uneasiness over the fact that so many religions
must be wrong, by
revealing the synthesis of truth back of all religions alike."
"My special
studies in the lines of Social and Criminal Psychology made
reincarnation a
necessity for my thinking, and no longer a speculative luxury.".195
"While the church
evades the main issues, Theosophy courageously attacks the
vital problems at their
root and succeeds in solving their meaning by revealing
the hidden side of
truth."
"I revolted at
the fear which the churches, through some of their repellent
doctrines, instil into
the minds of children. Theosophy dispelled all this dark
shadow and let in the
light."
"I felt the
hypocrisies of the religious leaders. I went from Applied Psychology
to Christian Science,
to Spiritualism and found rest only in Theosophy at last."
"The shallowness
of church teaching drove me to agnosticism, from which happily
Theosophy rescued
me."
"From Christian
Science I went to occultism, and I was once more happy to be
shown that life could
be understood after all."
"I found in
Theosophy an unshakable foundation on which to base my logic."
"Theosophy came
to me in the crisis of a nervous breakdown, and by giving me a
flashing clear
understanding of life and its problems, brought me safely through
the ordeal. It
revealed that I was part of the plan and gave me a new zest for
living."
"Perhaps nothing
within the scope of mind can solve the Mystery of Life, but
Theosophy rendered it
no longer a mystification."
"There were the
sneers of skeptics and unbelievers on one side and horrified
piety of believers on
the other. Neither had any rational scheme of life to
offer. Theosophy was a
joyous refuge from this dilemma."
"There was
something clearly wanting and illogical in the doctrine of salvation
through the vicarious
sacrifice and atonement; now all is clear."
"I found here a
body of ideas systematized and unified, which, furthermore, rang
true when tested out
against the hard facts of life itself."
"I was a
freethinker by nature, but after all one must think systematically, not
loosely, and Theosophy
presented to me a marvelous compact and well-knit
structure."
"Work in the
slums brought a sense of the breakdown of orthodox faith in the
face of social
disaster. I saw religion as a drug and curse to the lowly. I
wanted Truth rather
than religion. I found it in Theosophy."
"Theosophy gave
me light after I had long been immersed in the grossness of
materialism."
"Exactly where
the church fell down Theosophy held its ground."
"A Sunday School
teacher, what I taught choked me. Theosophy was like a cup of
water to one dying of
thirst."3
Some sixty-five per
cent of the replies indicated that the philosophical and
scientific aspects of
Theosophy were the primary interests, leaving about
thirty-five per cent
attracted chiefly to the religious or devotional phases..196
Forty-two per cent
gave definite time to daily meditation. Thirty- six per cent
explicitly avowed a
non-meat diet, though the proportion of abstainers from
animal food is
undoubtedly must larger. A few ladies testified to having
forsworn the wearing
of furs on humanitarian grounds. Alcohol and tobacco were
taboo along with flesh
foods in the case of several.
Whereas almost all the
respondents spontaneously emphasized the intellectual
aspects of Theosophy,
comparatively few were explicit on the element which is
supposed to be central
in their faith, viz., the practice of universal
brotherhood. Only
about twenty per cent emphasized such interests (brotherhood,
social service, etc.)
as in Theosophic terminology would belong to the practice
of Karma Yoga; and of
these an unusually large percentage were women. They came
mostly from
Evangelical churches or no-church; few were Episcopalians. This
group, emphasizing
Karma Yoga, proved to be fairly distinct from the group which
emphasized meditation,
though both groups were recruited largely from former
Evangelical
Protestants. The practice of meditation seemed to have little
measurable effect one
way or the other on the amount of time and energy devoted
to work for the
Theosophical Society. About fifty per cent said they gave a
definite amount of time
to specific Theosophic activities, and of these about
thirteen per cent gave
at least one-half of their time to the cause. Many gave
from a half-hour to
three, four, five hours per day; some "three evenings a
week, with home
study"; others "one-fourth to one-half of all time." Many
devoted "all
spare time" to it. But a significant element that crept into quite
a large percentage of
the answers was the statement that the pursuit of
Theosophy
"permeates all my activity"; "enters into my whole life as an
undercurrent";
"colors all my behavior, modifies my attitude toward all I do";
is "a
subconscious influence directing my entire life"; is "the background
of my
life, polarizing all I
do to the one central principle of brotherhood"; forms
"the pervasive
spirit of all I do;" is "the motivating agent in all my efforts
to work and to
serve"; and the like expressions. In other words there is the
persuasion with these
people that one is a Theosophist all the time, whatever be
one's momentary mode
of activity. "The specific time I give to it is impossible
to estimate,"
says one; and "it absorbs my thought and is the determining motive
in every act of my
life," avers another. The percentage so declaring themselves
ran as high as
seventy-four.
The query desiring to
ascertain which leaders and which Theosophic organizations
commanded higher
allegiance brought answers which were a foregone conclusion
from the fact that all
the respondents were attached to the "Besant"
organization. The
favored leaders were naturally Mr. C. Jinarajadasa, Mr. A. P.
Sinnett, Mr. G. S.
Arundale, Mr. L. W. Rogers, Mr. Max Wardall, Bishop Irving
Cooper, and others.
Although the name of the Society's great Founder, Madame
Blavatsky, was brought
in apparantly in most cases incidentally or as an after-thought,
she or her writings
were mentioned by one out of every three. Only two
failed to name Mrs.
Besant or Mr. Leadbeater at all. As to favored writings,
those of Mrs. Besant
and her colleague again led the list, with J.
Krishnamurti's books a
good third. As to choice of organization the
International
Theosophical Society, of which Mrs. Besant is the presiding
genius, found a
unanimous approval in this selected group. Only two declared
they were impartial or
indifferent to all organization.
As a secondary
interest (all Theosophists are urged to devote some energy to at
least one outside
humanitarian movement) many expressed allegiance to the Order
of the Star in the
East, Mrs. Besant's vehicle to prepare the way for the
reception of the
announced Avatar (since renounced by Krishnamurti himself and
disbanded by him), the
Order of Service, the League of Brotherhood, the Karma
and Reincarnation
Legion, the Liberal Catholic Church, the Co-Masonic Order,.197
Anti-Vivisection
Societies, the League for Prison Work, the Order of the Round
Table (for children),
and other subsidiary forms of extra-Theosophic activity..198
FOOTNOTES
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER I THEOSOPHY
1 The
same idea is voiced by William James (Pragmatism, p. 299): "I thoroughly
disbelieve, myself,
that our human experience is the highest form of experience
extant in the
universe. I believe rather that we stand in much the same relation
to the whole of the
universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of
human life. They
inhabit our drawing rooms and libraries. They take part in
scenes of whose
significance they have no inkling. They are merely tangent to
curves of history, the
beginnings and ends and forms of which pass wholly beyond
their ken. So we are
tangent to the wider life of things."
2 See in particular
such works as From Religion to Philosophy, by F. M. Cornford
(London, 1912), and
From Orpheus to Paul, by Prof. Vittorio D. Macchioro (New
York, Henry Holt &
Co., 1930).
3 "The work of
philosophy thus appears as an elucidation and clarifying of
religious material. It
does not create its new conceptual tools; it rather
discovers them by ever
subtler analysis and closer definition of the elements
confused in the
original datum."-From Religion to Philosophy, by F. M. Cornford,
p. 126.
4 Ibid., pp. 94 ff.
5 "Physis was not
an object, but a metaphysical substance. It differs from
modern ether in being
thought actual. It is important to notice that Greek
speculation was not
based on observation of external nature. It is more easily
understood as an echo
from the Orphic teachings."-Ibid., pp. 136 ff.
6 "The fate of
man was sympathetically related to the circling lights of
heaven."-Ibid.,
p. 171.
7 Ibid., pp. 176 ff
8 The universal soul
substance.
9 Quoted by F. M. Cornford,
From Religion to Philosophy, p. 185.
10 For the Orphic
origin of Heraclitus' philosophy consult From Orpheus to Paul,
by Prof. Vittorio D.
Macchioro, pp. 169 ff.
11 "The most
primitive of these (cardinal doctrines of mysticism) is
Reincarnation (palingenesis).
This life, which is perpetually renewed, is reborn
out of that opposite
state called 'death,' into which, at the other end of its
arc, it passes again.
In this idea of Reincarnation . . . we have the first
conception of a cycle
of existence, a Wheel of Life, divided into two hemicycles
of light and darkness,
through which the one life, or soul, continuously
revolves."-From
Religion to Philosophy, p. 160.
12 "Caught in the
wheel of birth, the soul passes through the forms of man and
beast and
plant."-From Religion to Philosophy, p. 178.
13 From Religion to
Philosophy, p. 197. Also From Orpheus to Paul,
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER VIII..199
14 John Burnet, Early
Greek Philosophy (London, 1920), p. 138.
15 Ibid., p. 156.
16 "That the
doctrine (exile of the soul from God) . . . was not invented by
Empedocles is certain
from the fact that the essential features of it are found
in Pindar's second
Olympian, written for Theron of Acragas, where Empedocles was
born, at a date when
Empedocles was a boy. Throughout the course of that
majestic Ode revolves
the Wheel of Time, Destiny and Judgment. The doctrine can
be classed
unhesitatingly as 'Orphic.' The soul is conceived as falling from the
region of light down
into the 'roofed-in cave,' the 'dark meadow of Ate.' (Frag.
119, 120, 121.) This
fall is a penalty for sin, flesh-eating or oath-breaking.
Caught in the Wheel of
Time, the soul, preserving its individual identity,
passes through all
shapes of life. This implies that man's soul is not 'human';
human life is only one
of the shapes it passes through. Its substance is divine
and immutable, and it
is the same substance as all other soul in the world. In
this sense the unity
of all life is maintained; but, on the other hand, each
soul is an atomic
individual, which persists throughout its ten thousand years'
cycle of
reincarnations. The soul travels the round of the four elements: 'For I
have been ere now, a
body, and a girl, a bush (earth), a bird (air) and a dumb
fish in the sea.'
(Frag. 117.) These four elements compose the bodies which it
successively inhabits.
"The soul is
further called 'an exile from God' and a wanderer, and its offence,
which entailed this
exile, is described as 'following Strife,' 'putting trust in
Strife.' At the end of
the cycle of births, men may hope to 'appear among
mortals as prophets,
song-writers, physicians and princes; and thence they rise
up, as gods exalted in
honor, sharing the hearth of the other immortals and the
same table, free from
human woes, delivered from destiny and harm.' (Frags. 146,
147.) Thus the course
of the soul begins with separation from God, and ends in
reunion with him,
after passing through all the moirai of the elements."-From
Religion to Philosophy,
p. 228.
17 By comparison with
the passage expounding Empedocles' theory of rebirth
(supra), the following
assumes significance: "From these (Golden Verses of
Pythagoras) we learn
that it had some striking resemblance to the beliefs
prevalent in India
about the same time, though it is really impossible to assume
any Indian influence
on Greece at this date. In any case the main purpose of the
Orphic observances and
rites was to release the soul from the 'wheel of birth,'
that is, from
reincarnation in animal or vegetable forms. The soul so released
became once more a god
enjoying everlasting bliss."-John Burnet, Early Greek
Philosophy, p. 82.
18 From Religion to
Philosophy, p. 247.
19 R. D. Hicks:
Introduction to Aristotle's De Anima, (Cambridge, 1907).
20 Ibid. "It is
now generally agreed that we may distinguish a group of early
dialogues commonly
called 'Socratic' from a larger group in which the doctrines
characteristic of
Orphism and Pythagoreanism for the first time make their
appearance"-From
Religion to Philosophy, p. 242.
"Thus, the
Megarian and Eleatic doctrines, though they had not satisfied him,
had impelled Plato to
look for a point of union of the One and the Many; but he
was enabled to find it
only by a more thorough acquaintance with the
Pythagoreans. It is
only after his return from Italy that his doctrine appears.200
fully established and
rounded off into a complete system."-Johann Edward
Erdmann: History of
Philosophy (London, 1891), Vol. I, p. 231.
21 "Constantly
perfecting himself in perfect Mysteries, a man in them alone
becomes truly perfect,
says he in the Phaedrus."-Isaac Preston Cory: Ancient
Fragments: Plato;
Phaedrus, I, p. 328.
22 This passage, from
Cory's Ancient Fragments, is in a translation somewhat
different from that of
Jowett and other editors, though Jowett (Plato's Works,
Vol. I, Phaedrus, p.
450) gives the following: ". . . and he who has part in
this gift, and is
truly possessed and duly out of his mind, is by the use of
purifications and
mysteries made whole and exempt from evil. . . ." The term
"pure light"
appears to be a reference to the Astral Light, or Akasha, of the
Theosophists. For this
term, Astral Light, Madame Blavatsky gives in the
Theosophical Glossary
the following definition: "A subtle essence visible only
to the clairvoyant
eye, and the lowest but one (viz., the earth) of the Seven
Akashic or Kosmic
principles." She further says that it corresponds to the
astral body in man.
28 See argument in Dr.
Annie Besant's Esoteric Christianity (London, 1895).
29 See Samuel Angus:
The Mystery Religions and Christianity; and H. A. A.
Kennedy: St. Paul and
the Mystery Religions (London, New York, Bombay, Madras,
Calcutta; Hodder and
Stoughton, 1913).
30 As in 2
Corinthians, XII, 1-5.
31 "Plotinus,
read in a Latin translation, was the schoolmaster who brought
Augustine to Christ.
There is therefore nothing startling in the considered
opinion of Rudolph
Eucken that Plotinus has influenced Christian theology more
than any other
thinker."-Dean R. W. Inge: The Philosophy of Plotinus (New York,
London, 1918), Vol. I.
23 I. P. Cory: Ancient
Fragments, Plato, Ep. II, p. 312.
24 Porphyry: Life of
Plotinus, in the Introduction to Vol. I, of the Works of
Plotinus, edited by
Dr. Kenneth S. Guthrie.
25 "Proclus
maintained that the philosophical doctrines (chiefly Platonism) are
of the same content as
the mystic revelations, that philosophy in fact borrowed
from the Mysteries,
from Orphism, through Pythagoras, from whom Plato
borrowed."-Samuel
Angus: The Mystery Religions and Christianity (London, J.
Murray, 1925), p. 267.
26 Quoted by Madame
Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled (New York, J. W. Bouton, 1877),
Vol. I, p. 432.
Proclus' familiarity with the Mysteries is revealed in the
following, also quoted
by Madame Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, p. 113:
"In all the
Initiations and Mysteries the gods exhibit many forms of themselves,
and appear in a
variety of shapes, and sometimes indeed a formless light of
themselves is held forth
to view; sometimes this light is according to a human
form and sometimes it
proceeds into a different shape."
27 "For over a
thousand years the ancient Mediterranean world was familiar with
a type of religion
known as Mystery-Religions, which changed the religious
outlook of the Western
world and which are operative in European philosophy and
in the Christian
Church to this day. Dean Inge, in his Christian Mysticism, p.
354, says that
Catholicism owes to the Mysteries . . . the notions of secrecy,.201
of symbolism, of
mystical brotherhood, of sacramental grace, and above all, of
the three stages of
the spiritual life; ascetic purification, illumination and
epopteia as the
crown."-Samuel Angus: The Mystery Religions and Christianity:
Foreword.
32 C. W. Leadbeater:
The Christian Creed (London, 1897); Dr. Annie Besant:
Esoteric Christianity.
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CHAPTER II THE AMERICAN BACKGROUND
1 Paul Morphy, a chess
"wizard" of startling capabilities, excited wonder at the
time, like the
eight-year-old Polish lad of more recent times.
2 Encyclopedia
Britannica: Article, "Swedenborgianism."
3 William Howitt:
History of the Supernatural (J. B. Lippincott & Co.,
Philadelphia, 1863),
Vol. II, p. 213.
4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., p.
214.
6 Ibid.
7 As early as 1824
Unitarians in America took a lively interest in the Hindu
leader Rammohun Roy,
who had "adopted Unitarianism," and also in the work of the
Rev. William Adam, a
Baptist missionary, who had become converted to
Unitarianism in India.
A British-Indian Unitarian Association was formed, and
the Rev. Chas. H. A.
Dall was sent to Calcutta, where he effected the alliance
with the Brahmo-Somaj.
8 Article: Emerson's
Debt to the Orient, by Arthur E. Christy, in The Monist,
January, 1928.
9 Ibid.
10 The Journal shows
that as early as 1822 he had looked into Zoroaster. In 1823
he refers to two
articles in Hindu mathematics and mythology in Vol. 29 of the
Edinburgh Review. By
1832 he had dipped into Pythagoras. In 1836 he quotes
Confucius, Empedocles,
and Xenophanes. By 1838 he had read the Institutes of
Menu, and again quoted
Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius. The first reference to
the Vedas is made in
1839. In 1841 he had seen the Vishnu Sarna (a corrupt
spelling of Vishnu
Sharman), together with Hermes Trismegistus and the Neo-Platonists,
Iamblichus, and
Proclus. The She-King and the Chinese Classics are
noted in 1843, and the
first reference to the Bhagavad Gita in 1845. In 1847
comes the Vishnu
Purana, and in 1849 the Desatir, a supposedly Persian work, and
in 1855 the Rig Veda
Sanhita.
11 This passage is
found in Letters of Emerson to a Friend, edited by Charles
Eliot Norton.
12 Emerson's Journal
for 1845, p. 130.
13 Emerson's Journals,
Vol. V, p. 334.
14 Emerson's Journals,
Vol. VII, p. 241.
15 Biblioteca Indica,
Vol. XV, translated by E. Roer, Calcutta, 1853..202
16 Emerson's Works
(Centenary Edition), Vol. II, p. 270.
17 Emerson's Journals,
Vol. X, p. 162.
18 Article:
"Emerson's Debt to the Orient," Arthur E. Christy, The Monist,
January, 1928.
19 In 1854 a most
significant fact was recorded in New England history. A young
Englishman, Thomas
Cholmondeley, friend of Arthur Hugh Clough, and nephew of
Bishop Heber, came to
Concord with letters of introduction to Emerson. The
latter sent him to
board at Mrs. John Thoreau's. A short time after
Cholmondeley's return
to England, Henry Thoreau received forty-four volumes of
Hindu literature as a
gift from the young nobleman. Of these, twenty-three were
bequeathed to Emerson
at Thoreau's death. The list contained the names of such
eminent translators as
H. H. Milman, H. H. Wilson, M. E. Burnouff and Sir
William Jones. The
books were the texts from the Vedas, the Vishnu Purana, the
Mahabarhata, with the
Bhagavad Gita. Tradition has it that Emerson died with a
copy of the Bhagavad
Gita (said to have been one of three copies in the country
at the time) in his
faltering grasp. It is known that he read, besides, numerous
volumes of Persian
poetry, translations of Confucius and other Chinese
philosophers, by James
Ligge, Marshman and David Collier, and books on Hindu
mathematics and
mythology. The poem "Brahma" first appeared in the Journal of
July, 1856, and in the
Atlantic Monthly, for November, 1867. He did not receive
Thoreau's bequest
until 1852, but it requires no stretch of imagination to
presume that the two
friends had access to each other's libraries in the
interval between 1854
and 1862.
20 This difference
between the two cults may perhaps be best depicted by quoting
the words used in the
author's presence by a woman of intelligence who had
founded two Christian
Science churches and had been notably successful as a
healing practitioner,
but who later united with the Theosophical Society. She
said: "Christian
Science had rather well satisfied my spiritual needs, but had
totally starved my
intellect." Her experience is doubtless typical of that of
many others, in whom,
after the first burst of sensational interest in healing
has receded, the
yearning for a satisfactory philosophy of life and the cosmos
surged uppermost
again.
21 It has been
conservatively estimated that in 1852 there were three hundred
mediumistic circles in
Philadelphia. The number of mediums in the United States
in 1853 was thirty
thousand. In 1855 there were two and a half million
Spiritualists in the
land, with an increase of three hundred each year. The rate
of increase far outran
those of the Lutheran and Methodist denominations. An
interesting feature of
this rapid spread of the movement was its political
significance and
results. Not inherently concerned with politics, its devotees
mostly adopted strong
anti-slavery tenets. Judge Edmonds, an eminent jurist,
converted to
Spiritualism by his (at first skeptical) investigations of it,
asserted that the
Spiritualist vote came near to carrying the election of 1856,
and actually did carry
that of 1860 for the North against the Democratic party.
Another most
interesting side-light is the fact that the sweep of Spiritualistic
excitement redeemed
thousands of atheists to an acceptance of religious
verities. (For these
and other interesting data see Howitt's History of the
Supernatural, Vol.
II.)
22 Spiritualists say
that Lincoln was eventually moved to emancipate the slaves
by his reception of a
spirit message through Hattie Colburn, a medium who came
to see him about a
furlough for her son. Horace Greeley was favorably impressed.203
by the evidence
presented. And a later President, McKinley, maintained a deep
concern in the
phenomena, along with his powerful political manager, Senator
Mark Hanna, who seldom
undertook a move of any consequence without first
consulting a medium,
Mrs. Gutekunst, to whom, for purposes of ready
availability, he had
given a residence in his home. Senators and Cabinet members
were by no means
immune.
23 Others prominent in
the movement at the time were Governor N. P. Tallmadge,
of Wisconsin, Rev.
Adin Ballou, J. P. Davis and Benjamin Coleman; and Profs.
Bush, Mapes, Gray, and
Channing from leading universities. Mr. Epes Sargeant, of
Boston, added prestige
to the cult. A Dr. Gardner, of Boston, and the Unitarian
Theodore Parker gave
testimony as to the beneficent influence exerted by the
Spiritualistic faith.
24 By strange and
fortuitous circumstances he became the guest of the Emperor of
the French, of the
King of Holland, of the Czar of Russia, and of many lesser
princes. His
demonstrations before these grandees were extensions of the
phenomena occurring in
his youth. See Howitt's History of the Supernatural, Vol.
II, pp. 222 ff.
25 Howitt's History of
the Supernatural, Vol. II, p. 225.
26 He published his
The Great Harmonia (Boston 1850); The Philosophy of
Spiritual Intercourse
(New York, 1851); The Penetralia (Boston, 1856); The
Present Age and Inner
Life (New York, 1853); and The Magic Staff (Boston, 1858).
He edited a
periodical, The Herald of Progress.
27 Howitt's The
History of the Supernatural, Vol. II, p. 228.
28 That there was much
very real theosophy among the early German Pietists who
settled north and west
of Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania colony is indicated
by the following
extract from The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, by Julius
Friedrich Sachse (Vol.
I, pp. 457 ff.). He says: "Thus far but little attention
has been given by
writers on Pennsylvania history to the influences exercised by
the various mystical,
theosophical and cabbalistic societies and fraternities of
Europe in the
evangelization of this Province and in reclaiming the German
settlers from the
rationalism with which they were threatened by their contact
with the English
Quakers.
"Labadie's
teachings; Boehme's visions; the true Rosicrucianism of the original
Kelpius party; the
Philadelphian Society, whose chief apostle was Jane Leade;
the fraternity which
taught the restitution of all things; the mystical
fraternity led by Dr.
Julian Wilhelm Petersen and his wife Eleanor von Merlau-both
members of the
Frankfort community-all found a foothold upon the soil of
Penn's colony and
exercised a much larger share in the development of this
country than is
accorded to them. It has even been claimed by some superficial
writers and historians
of the day that there was no strain of mysticism whatever
in the Ephrata
Community, or, in fact, connected with any of the early German
movements in
Pennsylvania. Such a view is refuted by the writings of Kelpius,
Beissel, Miller, and
many others who then lived, sought the Celestial Bridegroom
and awaited the
millennium which they earnestly believed to be near.
"With the advent
of the Moravian Brethren in Pennsylvania the number of these
mystical orders was
increased by the introduction of two others, viz., The Order
of the Passion of
Jesus (Der Orden des Leidens Jesu), of which Count Zinzendorf
was Grand Commander,
and the Order of the Mustard Seed (Der Senfkorn Orden).".204
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CHAPTER III HELENA P. BLAVATSKY: HER LIFE AND PSYCHIC CAREER
1 Incidents in the
Life of Madame Blavatsky, by A. P. Sinnett (Theosophical
Publishing Society,
London, 1913), p. 35. See also footnote at bottom of page
155, in Letters of H.
P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett (New York, Frederick A.
Stokes Co.,
2 Incidents in the
Life of Madame Blavatsky, by A. P. Sinnett, pp. 39-40.
3 Vol. II, p. 599.
4 Her recital of
marvels seen in Tibet corresponds in the main with similar
narratives related by
the Abbι Huc in the first edition of his Recollections of
Travel in Tartary,
Tibet and China. Mr. Sinnett makes the statement, without
giving his evidence,
that the "miracles" related by the Abbι in his first
edition were
expurgated by Catholic authority in the later editions of the work.
5 Madame Blavatsky
later verified the long distance phenomenon by receiving in
writing, in response
to an inquiry by mail, a letter from the Rumanian friend
stating that at the
identical time of the Shaman's concentration she had
swooned, but dreamed
she saw Madame Blavatsky in a tent in a wild country among
menacing tribes, and
that she had communicated with her. Madame Blavatsky states
that the friend's
astral form was visible in the tent.
6 In 1873 while at the
Eddy farmhouse with her new friend Col. Olcott, she
revealed to him this
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CHAPTER in her life, proving it by showing him where her
left arm had been
broken in two places by a saber stroke, and having him feel a
musket ball in her
right shoulder and another in her leg, revealing also a scar
just below the heart
where she had been stabbed by a stiletto.
7 It must have been
about this time that Madame did some traveling in an
altogether different
capacity than occult research. She is known by her family
to have made tours in
Italy and Russia under a pseudonym, giving piano concerts.
She had been a pupil
of Moscheles, and when with her father in London as a young
girl she had played at
a charity concert with Madame Clara Schumann and Madame
Arabella Goddard in a
piece for three pianos.
8 Incidents in the
Life of Madame Blavatsky, by A. P. Sinnett, p. 125.
9 An incident highly
characteristic of her nature marked her coming to this
country, and her
followers would hardly pardon our omitting it. Having purchased
her steamer ticket,
she was about to board the vessel when her attention was
attracted to a peasant
woman weeping bitterly on the wharf. Her quick sympathies
touched, Madame Blavatsky
approached her and inquired the trouble. She soon
gathered that a
"sharp" had sold the woman a worthless ticket, and that she was
stranded without
funds. Madame Blavatsky's finances had barely sufficed to
procure her own
passage, she having sent a dispatch to Russia instructing her
father to forward her
additional money in New York. In the emergency she did not
hesitate. Going to the
office of the Company, she arranged to exchange her cabin
ticket for two
steerage ones, and packed the grateful emigrant on board along
with her.-See Old
Diary Leaves, by Col. H. S. Olcott (New York and London, G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1895),
pp. 28-29.
10 Old Diary Leaves,
by Col. H. S. Olcott, Vol. I, p. 440.
11 Col. Olcott (Old
Diary Leaves, Vol. I, p. 440) states that during this period
of her own need she
held in custody the sum of about 23,000 francs, which she
later told him her
"guardians" had charged her to deliver a person in the United
States whose definite
location would be given her after her arrival here. The.205
order came after a
time, and she went to Buffalo, was given a name and street
number,
where she delivered
the money without question to a man who was on the point of
committing suicide. It
was understood that she had been made the agent of
rectifying a great
wrong done him.
12 Mr. O'Sullivan
rallied her about her possession of so easy a road to wealth.
"No,
indeed," she answered, "'tis but a psychological trick. We who have
the
power of doing this,
dare not use it for our own or any other's interests, any
more than you would
dare commit the forgery by methods of the counterfeiters. It
would be stealing from
the government in either case."-Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I,
p. 435.
13 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I., p. 106.
14 Mr. W. Q. Judge as
her counsel and the decree was granted on May 25, 1878.
Col. Olcott had
retained the original papers in the case.
15 Old Diary Letters,
Vol. I, p. 417.
16 Ibid., p. 4.
17 Published by The
Constables, London, 1910.
18 The Arena, April,
1895.
19 Quoted in Old Diary
Leaves, Vol. I, p. 4 (footnote), from a letter written by
her entitled "The
Knout" to the R. P. Journal of March 16, 1878.
20 Mr. Sinnett
(Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky,
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CHAPTER VI)
emphasizes the fact
that she was about this time in a transition state from
passive mediumship to
active control over her phenomena. He doubtless wishes to
make this matter clear
in view of its important bearing upon the divergence
between Spiritualism
and Theosophy which was accentuated when the latter put
forth claims somewhat
at variance with the usual theses presented by the former.
21 Incidents in the
Life of Madame Blavatsky, p. 61.
22 Ibid., p. 72.
23 In Russian,
"little hare."
24 Incidents in the
Life of Madame Blavatsky, p. 116.
25 Ibid., p. 120
26 Ibid., p. 120
27 Ibid., p. 128
28 Ibid., p. 127
29 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 36. In this work Col. Olcott undertakes to
classify the various
types of phenomena produced by Madame Blavatsky.
30 Ibid., Vol. I,
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CHAPTER III, pp. 40 ff..206
31 Theosophists are so
much in the habit of referring to their leader by her
three initials that we
may be pardoned for falling into the same convenient
usage at times.
32 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 380.
33 Mr. Sinnett devotes
some pages of his little volume, The Occult World, to a
critical examination
of every conceivable possibility of this incident's being
other than it
ostensibly was, and he is unable to find a loophole for the
admission of any
theory of deception. All the witnesses to the event made
affidavit to the
effect of its evident genuineness. The reader is referred to
his analysis of the
case, to be found on pages 64-71 in the work just mentioned.
For close scrutiny of
the other events of the same period the same volume should
be consulted.
34 Vlesevold
Solovyoff, who afterwards sought to discredit Madame Blavatsky's
genuine status,
himself witnessed this scene. In fact he wrote out his own
statement of the
occurrence and sent it for publication to the St. Petersburg
Rebus, which printed
it on July 1, 1884, over his signature. He closes that
account with the
following paragraph: "The circumstances under which the
phenomenon occurred in
its smallest details, carefully checked by myself, do not
leave in me the
smallest doubt as to its genuineness and reality. Deception or
fraud in this
particular case are really out of the question."
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CHAPTER IV FROM SPIRITUALISM TO THEOSOPHY
1 It seems that she
had been in Peru and Brazil in 1857, according to her later
statement to A. P.
Sinnett as found on page 154 of the Letters of H. P.
Blavatsky to A. P.
Sinnett. A sentence in Vol. I, of Isis Unveiled makes mention
of her personal
knowledge of great underground labyrinths in Peru.
2 Not assuredly of the
sιance-room type. She is obviously using the term here in
the wider sense that
it came to have in her larger Theosophic system, as
expounded in this
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CHAPTER.
3 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 12.
4 Ibid., p. 13.
5 Ibid., p. 68.
6 Mrs. Emma Hardinge
Britten, herself a medium and among the foremost
Spiritualists of her
day-also a charter member of the Theosophical Society-made
a statement to the
same effect to Col. Olcott in 1875. See Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 83.
7 Quoted in William
Kingsland's The Real H. P. Blavatsky (J. M. Watkins, London,
1928), p. 123.
8 Mahatma Letters to
A. P. Sinnett (New York, Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1924), p.
289.
9 The Theosophist,
Vol. I, 1879.
10 Isis Unveiled, Vol.
I, p. 13..207
11 Ibid., p. 53.
12 Ibid., p. 489.
13 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
586.
14 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 110.
15 Page 27.
16 That H. P. B. was
by no means alone in predicating the existence of other
than human spirits
denizening the astral world is shown by Col. Olcott, who (Old
Diary Leaves, Vol. I,
p. 438), cites Mrs. Britten's statement printed in an
article in The Banner
of Light, as follows: "I know of the existence of other
than human spirits and
have seen apparitions of spiritual or elementary
existences evoked by
cabalistic words and practices."
17 Isis Unveiled, Vol.
II, p. 636. 18 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 67
19 Collected Fruits of
Occult Teaching (London, T. F. Unwin, Ltd., 1919).
20 Mahatma Letters to
A. P. Sinnett, p. 101.
21 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 119. From notes taken at the meeting by Mrs.
Emma Hardinge Britten,
and published a day or two later in a New York daily.
22 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
119.
23 He was in active
command of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of
Gettysburg, following
the death of General Reynolds on the 1st of July until the
arrival of General
Meade.
24 He devised the
modern game of baseball.
25 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 399.
26 Ibid., Vol. I., p.
400.
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CHAPTER V ISIS UNVEILED
1 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 203.
2 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
33.
3 The term Chaldean in
these titles is thought by modern scholars to veil an
actual Greek origin of
the texts in question. The existence of Chaldea and
Chaldeans appears to
be regarded as highly uncertain. Of the Chaldeans Madame
Blavatsky says in The
Theosophical Glossary: "Chaldeans, or Kasdim. At first a
tribe, then a caste of
learned Kabbalists. They were the savants, the magians of
Babylonia, astrologers
and diviners." Of the Chaldean Book of Numbers she says:
"A work which
contains all that is found in the Zohar of Simeon Ben-Jochai and
much more. . . . It
contains all the fundamental principles taught in the Jewish
Kabbalistic works, but
none of their blinds. It is very rare indeed, there being
perhaps only two or
three copies extant and these in private hands.".208
4 Scholars have thrown
doubt on the Persian authorship of this book. Madame
Blavatsky in the
Glossary describes it as "a very ancient Persian work called
the Book of Shet. It
speaks of the thirteen Zoroasters and is very mystical."
5 It is clear that
Madame Blavatsky was not a literary person before the epoch
of the writing of
Isis. She herself, in the last article for Lucifer that she
wrote before her death
in 1891, entitled My Books, wrote:
1. When I came to
America in 1873 I had not spoken English-which I had
learned in my
childhood colloquially-for over thirty years. I could understand
when I read it, but
could hardly speak the language.
2 I had never been at
any college, and what I knew I had taught myself; I
had never pretended to
any scholarship in the sense of modern research; I had
then hardly read any
scientific European works, knew little of Western
philosophy and
sciences. The little which I had studied and learned of these
disgusted me with its
materialism, its limitations, narrow cut-and-dried spirit
of dogmatism and air
of superiority over the philosophies and sciences of
antiquity.
3. Until 1874 I had
never written one word in English, nor had I published
any work in any
language. Therefore:--
4. I had not the least
idea of literary rules. The art of writing books,
of preparing them for
print and publication, reading and correcting proofs, were
so many closed secrets
to me.
5. When I started to
write that which later developed into Isis Unveiled,
I had no more idea
than the man in the moon what would come of it. I had no
plan; . . . I knew
that I had to write it, that was all.-Old Diary Leaves, Vol.
I, p. 223.
6 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, p. 208.
7 Ibid., p. 208.
8 Ibid., p. 211. The
Countess Wachtmeister testified to similar productions of
pages of manuscript in
connection with the writing of The Secret Doctrine ten
years later.
9 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I. p. 239.
10 Ibid., p. 240.
11. Ibid., p. 210.
12 Published in The
Path, Vol. IX, p. 300.
13 The Path, Vol. IX,
p. 266
14 Letter quoted in
Mr. Sinnett's Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, p.
205..209
15 It is of some
interest to see how it was received in 1877. The Boston
Transcript says:
"It must be acknowledged that she is a remarkable woman, who
has read more, seen
more and thought more than most wise men. Her work abounds
in quotations from a
dozen different languages, not for the purpose of vain
display of erudition,
but to substantiate her peculiar views. Her pages are
garnished with
footnotes, establishing as her authorities some of the
profoundest writers of
the past. To a large class of readers this remarkable
work will prove of
absorbing interest . . . it demands the earnest attention of
thinkers and merits an
analytic reading."
From the New York
Independent came the following: "The appearance of erudition
is stupendous.
References to and quotations from the most unknown and obscure
writers in all
languages abound; interspersed with allusions to writers of the
highest repute, which
have evidently been more than skimmed through."
This from the New York
World: "An extremely readable and exhaustive essay upon
the paramount
importance of reλstablishing the Hermetic philosophy in a world
which blindly believes
that it has outgrown it."
Olcott's own paper,
The New York Daily Graphic, said: "A marvelous book, both in
matter and manner of
treatment. Some idea may be formed of the rarity and extent
of its contents when
the index alone comprises 50 pages, and we venture nothing
in saying that such an
index of subjects was never before compiled by any human
being."
The New York Tribune
confined itself to saying: "The present work is the fruit
of her remarkable
course of education and amply confirms her claims to the
character of an adept
in secret science, and even to the rank of an hierophant
in the exposition of
its mystic lore."
And the New York
Herald: "It is easy to forecast the reception of this book.
With its striking
peculiarities, its audacity, its versatility and the
prodigious variety of
subjects which it notices and handles, it is one of the
remarkable productions
of the century."
16 Appendix to V. S.
Solovyoff's A Modern Priestess of Isis (London, 1895), p.
354.
17 Isis Unveiled, Vol.
I, p. 165.
18 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
xiv.
19 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
xlii.
20 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
xiv.
21 Ibid., Vol. I,
Preface, p. 1.
22 Perhaps the
following excerpt states the intent of Isis more specifically:
"What we desire
to prove is that underlying every ancient popular religion was
the same ancient
wisdom-doctrine, one and identical, professed and practiced by
the initiates of every
country, who alone were aware of its existence and
importance. To
ascertain its origin and precise age in which it was matured, is
now beyond human
possibility. A single glance, however, is enough to assure one
that it could not have
attained the marvelous perfection in which we find it.210
pictured to us in the
relics of the various esoteric systems, except after a
succession of ages. A
philosophy so profound, a moral code so ennobling, and
practical results so
conclusive and so uniformly demonstrable, is not the growth
of a generation. . . .
Myriads of the brightest human intellects must have
reflected upon the
laws of nature before this ancient doctrine had taken
concrete shape. The
proofs of this identity of fundamental doctrine in the old
religions are found in
the prevalence of a system of initiation; in the secret
sacerdotal castes, who
had the guardianship of mystical words of power, and a
public display of a
phenomenal control over natural forces, indicating
association with
preter-human beings. Every approach to the Mysteries of all
these nations was
guarded with the same jealous care, and in all, the penalty of
death was inflicted
upon initiates of any degree who divulged secrets entrusted
to them."
23 Isis Unveiled, Vol.
I, p. 281.
24 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
36.
25 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
14.
26 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
243.
27 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
62.
28 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
184. Theosophists appear to be in the habit of using the
terms Akasha and
Astral Light more or less synonymously. In the Glossary Madame
Blavatsky defines
Akasha (Akasa, Akaz) as "the subtle supersensuous spiritual
essence which pervades
all spaces; the primordial substance erroneously
identified with Ether.
But it is to Ether what Spirit is to Matter, or Atma to
Kamarupa. It is in
fact the Universal Space in which lies inherent the eternal
Ideation of the
Universe in its ever-changing aspects on the plane of matter and
objectivity. This
power is the . . . same anima mundi on the higher plane as the
astral light is on the
lower."
29 Isis Unveiled, Vol.
I, p . 271 ff.
30 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
210.
31 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
218.
32 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
216.
33 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
218.
34 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
493.
35 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
406.
36 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
431.
37 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
337.
38 Quoted in Old Diary
Leaves, Vol. I, p. 106..211
39 Isis Unveiled, Vol.
II, p. 98.
40 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
32.
41 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
34.
42 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
121
43 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
139.
44 A wealth of curious
citations is drawn up behind these positions. The whole
Passion Week story is
stated to be the reproduction of the drama of initiation
into the Mysteries,
and not to have taken place in historical fact. And
practically every
other
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CHAPTER of Christ's life story is paralleled in the
lives of the twenty or
more "World Saviors," including Thoth, Orpheus, Vyasa,
Buddha, Krishna,
Dionysus, Osiris, Zoroaster, Zagreus, Apollonius, and others.
45 Isis Unveiled, Vol.
II, p. 406.
46 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
38.
47 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
227.
48 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
639.
49 Dr. Annie Besant:
Esoteric Christianity, p. 8.
50 E.g., cf. C. W.
Leadbeater: The Christian Creed.
51 Isis Unveiled, Vol.
II, p. 535.
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CHAPTER VI THE MAHATMAS AND THEIR LETTERS
1 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. I, of June, 1893.
2 A. P. Sinnett: The
Occult World, p. 1.
3 Ibid., p. 14. More
detailed requirements in the way of preparation for
Adeptship will be set
forth when we undertake the general critique of the occult
life, in
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CHAPTER XI.
4 In 1883 he published
the general outlines of the cosmology involved in their
communications in a
work called Esoteric Buddhism.
5 Mahatma Letters to
A. P. Sinnett, p. 24.
6 Ibid., p. 57.
7 Ibid., p. 52.
8 Ibid., p. 56..212
9 Ibid., p. 141.
10 Ibid., p. 142.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., p. 71.
14 Ibid., p. 137.
15 Ibid., p. 167.
"En passant to show you that not only were not the 'Races'
invented by us, but
that they are a cardinal dogma with the Lama Buddhists, and
with all who study our
esoteric doctrines, I send you an explanation on a page
or two of Rhys Davids'
Buddhism,--otherwise incomprehensible, meaningless and
absurd. It is written
with the special permission of the Chohan (my Master) and-for
your benefit. No
Orientalist has ever suspected the truths contained in it,
and-you are the first
Western man (outside Tibet) to whom it is now explained."-The
Mahatma Letters, p.
158.
16 Mahatma Letters to
A. P. Sinnett, p. 158.
17 Ibid., p. 52.
18 Devachanna would be
equivalent to the Sanskrit devachhanna, hidden (abode) of
the gods. On page 373
of the Mahatma Letters the Master K.H. writes: "The
meaning of the terms
'Devachan' and 'Deva-Loka,' is identical; 'chan' and 'loka'
equally signifying
place or abode. Deva is a word too indiscriminately used in
Eastern writings, and
is at times merely a blind." Deva may be roughly
translated as
"the shining one" or god. Devachan written alternatively Deva-Chan)
is thus used to
signify "the abode of the gods." Theosophists interchange
it with our term
"heaven-world."
19 Mahatma Letters to
A. P. Sinnett, p. 179.
20 Ibid., p. 197.
21 Ibid., p. 187.
22 Ibid., p. 187.
23 Ibid., p. 183.
24 Ibid., p. 194.
25 Ibid., p. 241
26 Ibid., p. 255.
27 Maya, a word
frequent in several schools of Indian Philosophy, commonly used
to denote the illusory
or merely phenomenal character of man's experience which
he gains through his
sense equipment. It is often identified with avidya or
ajnana and contrasted
with Brahmavidya or knowledge of truth and reality, in
their unconditioned
form..213
28 Mahatma Letters to
A. P. Sinnett, p. 274.
29 Ibid., p. 276.
30 Ibid., p. 281.
31 Ibid., p. 305.
32 Ibid., p. 322.
33 Ibid., p. 337
34 The terms Purusha
and Prakriti are employed in the Sankhya school of Indian
philosophy to
designate spirit and matter as the two opposing phases of the one
life when in active
manifestation.
35 Mahatma Letters to
A. P. Sinnett, p. 348.
36 Of the Dhyan
Chohans Madame Blavatsky speaks in the Glossary as follows: "The
Lords of Light,"
the highest gods, answering to the Roman Catholic Archangels,
the divine
intelligences charged with the supervision of Kosmos. Dhyan is a
Sanskrit term
signifying "wisdom" or "illumination," but the name Chohans
seems
to be more obscure in
origin, and is probably Tibetan, used in the general sense
of "Lords"
of "Masters."
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CHAPTER VII STORM, WRECK, AND REBUILDING
1 The official reports
of the S.P.R. are to be found in Vol. III, pages 201 to
400 of the Proceedings
of the S.P.R. A very adequate review of the entire affair
is made by William
Kingsland in the text and appendix of his recent work, The
Real H. P. Blavatsky
(M. Watkins, London, 1928). Partial accounts are found in
many other works, as
for instance, The Theosophical Movement.
2 It was from some
three hundred native students of this same Christian College
that Madame Blavatsky
received a welcoming ovation on her return from Paris to
India, and was given a
testimonial of their assured faith in her lofty motives.
3 In The Proceedings
of the S.P.R., Vol. III, pp. 201 to 400.
4 Further distrust of
the Coulomb's charges against H.P.B. is justifiable in
view of the statement
given on June 5, 1879 by Madame Coulomb to the Ceylon
Times, of which she
sent the subject of her remarks a copy. She wrote: "I have
known this lady for
the last eight years and I must say the truth that there is
nothing against her
character. We lived in the same town, and on the contrary
she was considered one
of the cleverest ladies of the age. Madame Blavatsky is a
musician, a painter, a
linguist, an author, and I may say that very few ladies
and indeed few
gentlemen, have a knowledge of things as general as Madame
Blavatsky."
5 It is in this
article that Madame Blavatsky gives out that important
declaration of hers,
that as soon as the sincere aspirant steps upon the Path.214
leading to the higher
initiations, his accumulated Karma is thrown upon him, in
condensed form. The
determination to pursue the occult life is therefore often
spoken of as involving
the "challenging of one's Karma."
6 He was the
instigator of the "Sun Libel Case," which will be outlined in
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CHAPTER XII.
7 The Theosophical
Movement, p. 132.
8 Old Diary Leaves,
Vol. IV.
9 Found in the
Appendix to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, pp. 480-481.
10 Letters of H. P.
Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett (New York: Frederick A. Stokes
Co.), p. 194.
11 The Path, Vol. IX,
p. 300.
12 Ibid., p. 266.
13 The Countess
Wachtmeister herself went to the pains of verifying a quotation
already written out by
Madame Blavatsky, which the latter said would be found in
a volume in the
Bodleian Library. She found the excerpt to be correct as to
wording, page,
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CHAPTER, and title of the book quoted. She adds that Miss Emily
Kislingbury, a devoted
member of the Society, verified a quotation from Cardinal
Weisman's Lectures on
Science and Religion.
14 Reminiscences of H.
P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine, Appendix, p. 105
ff.
15 Ibid., Appendix, p.
89 ff.
16 The experience of
Mr. C. Carter Blake, a scientist is pertinent on this
point. He asserts that
her learning was extraordinary, in consideration of her
lack of early
education and her want of books. He testifies that she knew more
than he did on his own
lines of anthropology, specifying her abstruse knowledge
on the subject of the
Naulette jaw. He says: "Page 744 in the Second Volume of
the Secret Doctrine
refers to facts which she could not easily have gathered
from any published
book." She had declared that the raised beaches of Tarija
were pliocene, when
Blake argued that they were pleistocene. She was afterwards
proved correct. On
page 755 of Vol. II, she mentions the fossil footprints at
Carson, Indiana. Says
Blake: "When Madame Blavatsky spoke to me of the
footprints I did not
know of their existence, and Mr. G. W. Bloxam, Assistant
Secretary of the
Anthropological Institute, afterwards told me that a pamphlet
on the subject in the
library had never been out. Madame Blavatsky certainly had
sources of information
(I don't say what) transcending the knowledge of experts
on their own
lines."-Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine,
Appendix, pp. 117 ff.
17 Reminiscences of H.
P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine, Appendix, pp. 96
ff.
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CHAPTER VIII THE SECRET DOCTRINE.215
1 The word Dzyan
presents some etymological difficulties. Madame Blavatsky in
the Glossary states
that Dzyan (also written Dzyn and Dzen) is a corruption of
the Sanskrit Dhyana,
meaning meditation. In Tibetan, learning is called Dzin.
2 This document
(spelled variously Koumboum, Kumbum, Kounboum, etc.) was a
Buddhist text
connected with the Koumboum monastery, in Tibet. On the monastery
grounds grew the
sacred Tree of Tibet, the 'tree of the ten thousand images,' as
Huc describes it. . .
. "Tradition has it that it grew out of the hair of
Tsonka-pa, who was
buried on that spot. . . . In the words of the Abbι Huc, who
lived several months
with another missionary, named Gabet, near this phenomenal
tree: 'Each of its leaves
in opening, bears either a letter or a religious
sentence, written in
sacred characters, and these letters are, of their kind, of
such a perfection that
the type-foundries of Didot contain nothing to excel
them. Open the leaves,
which vegetation is about to unroll, and you will there
discover, on the point
of appearing, the letters or the distinct words which are
the marvel of this
unique tree. Turn your attention from the plant to the bark
of its branches, and
new characters will meet your eyes! Do not allow your
interest to flag;
raise the layers of this bark and still other characters will
show themselves below
those whose beauty has surprised you. For, do not fancy
that these superposed
layers repeat the same printing. No, quite the contrary;
for each lamina you
lift presents to view its distinct type. How, then, can we
suspect jugglery? I
have done my best in that direction to discover the
slightest trace of
human trick, and my baffled mind could not retain the
slightest suspicion.'
Yet promptly the kind French Abbι suspects-the Devil."-Quoted
from Madame Blavatsky,
article Kounboum in The Theosophical Glossary.
3 The Dzungarians were
a section of the Mongolian Empire at its height, whose
name now remains only
as the name of a mountain range. They have disappeared
geographically.
4 Page vii.
5 The Secret Doctrine,
Introductory, p. xxxvii.
6 Ibid., p. xxxviii.
7 Pralaya, as given in
Sanskrit dictionaries, means "dissolution, reabsorption,
destruction,
annihilation, death"; especially the destruction of the whole world
at the end of a Kalpa;
also "fainting, loss of sense of consciousness; sleep."
It apparently is
derived from the Sanskrit stem li, one of whose meanings is to
disappear or vanish.
Madame Blavatsky describes Pralaya in the Glossary as "a
period of obscuration
or repose-planetary, cosmic or universal-the opposite of
Manvantara."
8 Manvantara (Manu
plus antara, between) is described as the period or age of a
Manu. It comprised a
period of 4,320,000 human years, supposedly the period
intervening between
two Manus.
9 The Secret Doctrine,
Vol. I, p. 75.
10 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
83.
11 The word Pitris
commonly means "fathers, ancestors, progenitors." Madame
Blavatsky, however, on
the authority of her Mahatmic instructors, employs the
term in a wider sense.
She uses it in a racial sense. In the Glossary she speaks
of the Pitris as
"the ancestors or creators of mankind. They are of the seven.216
classes, three of
which are incorporeal. In popular theology they are said to be
created from Brahma's
side. . . . The Pitris are not the ancestors of the
present living men,
but those of the human kind or Adamic races; the spirits of
the human races, which
on the great scale of descending evolution preceded our
races of men, and they
were physically, as well as spiritually, far superior to
our modern pigmies. In
Manava Dharma Shastra they are called the Lunar
Ancestors."
12 The Secret
Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 235.
13 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
198.
14 The term
Atma-Buddhi-Manas is the Theosophical manner of designating the
"higher
triplicity" in man, the union of the three higher principles which
constitutes him an
individual Ego. If one were to say, man is composed of mind,
soul and spirit in his
higher nature, it would roughly approximate the
Theosophic
description. Sanskrit dictionaries give Atma as meaning, "breath,
life, soul";
Buddhi as meaning "intelligence, reason, intellect, mind,
discernment, judgment,
the power of forming and retaining conceptions and
general notions;
perception, apprehension, understanding"; and Manas as "the
principle of mind or
spirit."
15 The Secret
Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 103.
16 Ibid., p. 246.
17 "The fourth
dimension of space" enters the discussion at this point. The
phrase should be, says
the writer, "the fourth dimension of matter in space,"
since obviously space
has no dimensions. The dimensions, or characteristics of
matter are those
determinations which the five senses of man give to it. Matter
has extension, color,
motion (molecular), taste, and smell; and it is the
development of the
next sense in man-normal clairvoyance-that will give matter
its sixth
characteristic, which she calls permeability. Extension-which covers
all concepts of
dimension in our world-is limited to three directions. Only when
man's perceptive
faculties unfold will there be a real fourth dimension.
18 The Secret
Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 277.
19 Quoted in The
Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 295.
20 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
311. Quoted from H. Grattan Guinness, F. R. G. S.: The
Approaching End of the
Age.
21 The races of
"intelligent" animals and semi-human apes will then be advanced
to our present
station.
22 Ignatius Donnelley
endeavored to substantiate the claims for its existence in
an elaborate work,
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, some sixty or seventy years
ago. By tracing numberless
similarities in the languages, customs, and ideas of
Old World
civilizations with those of Central America he adduced a formidable
body of evidence
pointing to the former existence of a linking area. Madame
Blavatsky counts more
heavily than science has done upon this authority.
Soundings have
revealed the presence of a great raised plateau on the ocean
floor at about
one-third the depth of the general main, extending from Northern
Brazil toward Ireland.
23 She assigns a
tentative date of 78,000 years ago for the erection of the
great pyramid of
Cheops, reaching this conclusion from reasoning and.217
calculations based on
the Dendera Zodiac, which indicates that three sidereal
years (25,686 years
each) had passed since the pole star was in a position
suggested by the
various features of the great pile's construction.
25 The sexless (First)
race was Adam solus. Then came the Second Race; Adam-Eve,
or Jah-Heva, inactive
androgynes; and finally the Third, or the "separating
hermaphrodite,"
Cain and Abel, who produced the Fourth, Seth-Enos, etc.-The
Secret Doctrine, Vol.
II, p. 134.
26 Kriyasakti means
"capacity to act, a sakti or supernatural power as appearing
in actions." By
Madame Blavatsky the term is taken as meaning creative power or
capability of doing
work.
27 The Secret
Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 517.
28 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
328.
29 Ibid., p. 330.
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CHAPTER IX EVOLUTION, REBIRTH AND KARMA
1 "Growth is
regarded as having an end instead of being and end. . . . In
reality there is
nothing to which growth is relative save more growth."-John
Dewey: Democracy and
Education.
2 Sir Edwin Arnold,
The Light of Asia.
3 See Ogden and
Richards, The Meaning of Meaning.
4 Article in The
Atlantic Monthly, May, 1926.
5 The instantaneous
(from our point of view) retrospect of our whole past life
in elaborate detail
recounted by thousands of persons who had drowned or
suffocated or fallen
or been struck a blow, and lived to tell the tale, are, say
Theosophists,
instances of the vision falling this side of death. Nor is the
phenomenon wanting
with persons who pass out peacefully on their beds. The
rapturous prevision of
heaven usually includes elements of a life review.
6 Persons who have
slept but ten seconds of clock time have told of the richness
and vividness of this
type of consciousness, in which the events of a lifetime
are reviewed, weighed,
and morally judged in a moment.
7 On page 646 of Vol.
I, our seeress makes what looks like a prophecy of the
World War of 1914:
"Europe in general is threatened with, or rather is on the
eve of, a cataclysm
which her own cycle of racial Karma has led her to."
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CHAPTER X ESOTERIC WISOM AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE
1 The Secret Doctrine,
Vol. II, p. 650.
2 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
654.
3 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
170..218
4 Ibid., Vol. II, p.
262.
5 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
478.
6 A. S. Eddington: The
Nature of the Physical World (Cambridge, 1928). Madame
Blavatsky had long ago
hypothecated this dual nature of light. See The Secret
Doctrine, passim.
7 Section XI of the
Introduction to the Principia.
8 The Secret Doctrine,
Vol. I, p. 517.
9 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
520.
10 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
541. Prof. Millikan's recent conclusions as to the constant
refueling of the
spheres by the influx of atomic structures "fixated" out of the
ether of space may
perhaps be regarded as in some sense corroborative of Madame
Blavatsky's statement
on this subject.
11 The Secret
Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 547.
12 Ibid., Vol. I, p.
631.13 The magazine Theosophy, published monthly by The
United Lodge of
Theosophists, runs a "Lookout Section" in which for fifteen or
more years comment has
been made upon the argument of current scientific
discovery with Madame
Blavatsky's systemology.
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CHAPTER XI THEOSOPHY IN ETHICAL PRACTICE
1 Yajnavidya in
Sanskrit means "knowledge of (or through) sacrifice;" but in the
Vedanta and the
Upanishads it ranks low in the scheme of wisdom. Madame
Blavatsky in the
Glossary gives Yajna as meaning "sacrifice" and describes it as
"one of the forms
of Akasa within which the mystic Word (or its underlying
'sound') calls it into
existence. Pronounced by the Priest-Initiate or Yogi this
word receives creative
powers and is communicated as an impulse on the
terrestrial plane
through a trained Will-Power."
2 In Sanskrit
mahavidya means "great or exalted knowledge;" it ranks high in the
scheme of wisdom.
Madame Blavatsky calls it the great esoteric science and says
that the highest
Initiates alone are in possession of it. It embraces almost
universal knowledge.
3 In Sanskrit this
term means "knowledge to be hidden, esoteric knowledge,"
especially of the use
of incantations and spells. Madame Blavatsky so describes
it in the Glossary.
4 Atma (Sanskrit
"breath, soul") and Vidya. The term connotes knowledge of the
Soul or Supreme Spirit
in man. This is in agreement with Madame Blavatsky's use
of the term.
5 "The knowledge
of them is obligatory in that School the teachings of which are
accepted by many
Theosophists."-From the Preface.
6 The term Yoga is
commonly taken to mean union and its root is the same as that
of our word yoke.
However, Sanskrit dictionaries give other meanings of the
word, several of which
have relevance to its use to denote a system of spiritual
practice. So far as
the use of the word in Indian philosophy goes, it is a.219
matter of dispute
whether yoga is union of the individual soul with Brahma or
the subjection of the
human senses and emotions. Madame Blavatsky characterizes
it as the practice of
meditation as leading to spiritual liberation.
7 In Sanskrit jivatman
means "the living or personal or individual soul" as
distinguished from
paramatma, the universal soul. By Theosophists, too, it is
applied only to the
individual.
8 Raja Yoga is thus
characterized in The Light of the Soul, a commentary on the
Yoga Sutras of
Pantanjali, by Alice A. Bailey: "Raja Yoga stands by itself and
is the king science of
them all; it is the summation of all the others, it is
the climax of the work
of development in the human kingdom. It is the science of
the mind and the
purposeful will, and brings the higher of man's sheaths under
the subjection of the
inner Ruler. This science coφrdinates the entire lower
threefold man, forcing
him into a position where he is nothing but the vehicle
for the soul, or the
God within. It includes the other Yogas and profits by
their achievements. It
synthesizes the work of evolution and crowns man as
king."
9 Alice A. Bailey, The
Light of the Soul, p. 164.
10 Page 65.
11 Ibid., p. 60.
12 The Light of the
Soul, p. 234.
13 Ibid., p. 241.
14 Bhagavad Gita, p.
177.
15 John Ruskin,
English art critic and economist, labored to impress this theory
on modern attention.
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CHAPTER XII LATER THEOSOPHICAL HISTORY
1 The material of this
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CHAPTER has been drawn largely from the anonymous work,
The Theosophical
Movement, the statements in which are fortified throughout with
an abundance of
documentary data, and from the Theosophic periodical literature
of the years covered
by the narrative, as well as in a number of instances from
the author's
first-hand acquaintance with the events narrated.
2 Evidence arrived at
by comparison of dates and known facts as to Madame
Blavatsky's slight
acquaintance with Miss Collins before 1887, and the testimony
of prefatory remarks
in each of the four books in question, leads to the
definite conclusion
that Miss Collins did herself ascribe the source of her
books to Mahatmic or
other high dictation, and that she had taken this position
without any influence
whatever from H.P.B. The whole matter is set forth in
elaborate detail in
The Theosophical Movement, pp. 195-210.
3 See statement of A.
Trevor Barker, in his Introduction to Letters of H.P.
Blavatsky to A. P.
Sinnett, p. vii, as follows: "Much fresh light is thrown on .
. . her relation with
the notorious Solovyoff, who in his rage and resentment at
being refused the
privilege of chelaship, did so much to injure her reputation.".220
4 See her
Autobiography, and a recent work by Jeoffrey West, The Life of Annie
Besant (Gerald Howe,
Limited, London, 1929).
5 See statement made
in The Theosophical Movement, p. 453. The author has been
informed by several
veteran Theosophists that this is not likely, that perhaps
Chakravarti deputed
others to guard her in this way. She regarded him at this
time as actually her
Master, and he could not with dignity have assumed a rτle
of such condescension.
6 The Theosophical
Movement, p. 479.7 Ibid., p. 559.
8 Mr. Judge's papers
concerning Theosophy were turned over to the Theosophical
Society in the
presence of Mrs. Judge and are now in the possession of the
International
Headquarters at Point Loma, California. As most of them pertained
to the Esoteric
Section, their contents have naturally been kept secret.
Consequently the
evidence on which the claims that Mr. Judge had made his wishes
known are based is
still unavailable.
9 See signed statement
by E. T. Hargrove in the New York Sun of March 13, 1898.
10 The career of the
Theosophic leader was beset with at least three law-suits
instituted against her
by relatives of wealthy followers contesting the
disposition of funds
allotted to her under the terms of wills. Both the Thurston
and the Spalding suits
were settled with compromise agreements. In still another
sensational case Mrs.
Tingley was sued by Irene M. Mohn for damages in the
amount of $200,000 for
alienation of the affections of her husband, George F.
Mohn, a follower of
Theosophy. Mrs. Mohn was awarded $100,000 by a California
jury, but Mrs. Tingley
won a reversal of the judgment before the California
Supreme Court.
11 The work of an
independent Theosophist, Mr. Roy Mitchell, lecturing in New
York and Toronto, has
also emphasized the extent of these variations. He lays
particular emphasis on
the Blavatskian doctrine of the descent of angelic hosts
into the Adamic races
of humanity to perform the work of redeeming them from a
fallen estate, by
means of the gift of Promethean fire or wisdom.
12 The occurrence came
to be known among the Theosophists as "the Adyar
Manifestations."
13 Persons who have
lived at the Theosophical headquarters at Adyar at the
period of the
publication of The Lives of Alcyone, have intimated to the author
that certain residents
of the colony who were not "put in" the early "Lives"
went to Mr. Leadbeater
and requested that he look into their past and if
possible bring them
into the story, with the result that he did as requested in
certain instances.
About 1925 also there was published in England, by Mr. W.
Loftus Hare, in The
Occult Review, an exposι of the whole "Alcyone" proceeding,
the alleged sources of
Mr. Leadbeater's material being divulged in the shape of
some articles in old
encyclopedias.
14 Brief mention
should here be made of an incident arising out of the general
situation occasioned
by the founding of this Church, in view of the principles
involved. Dr. William
L. Robins, of Washington, D.C., long an honored member of
the Theosophical
Society, looked with disfavor upon the establishment of an
ecclesiastical order
in connection with Theosophy, and went so far as to adduce
considerable evidence
to show that the Liberal Catholic Church was not free from
subserviency to the
Roman Catholic Church. He resented the movement as an
attempt to saddle
religionism upon Theosophy, and endeavored to show the hand of
Roman machination in
the whole business. His statements and letters, coming to.221
the notice of Mrs.
Besant, were taken as an open attack upon the religion of
members of the
Theosophical Society, and as such constituted a breach of
Theosophic conduct.
Mrs. Besant straightway asked Dr. Robins to resign from the
Esoteric Section, with
a statement to the effect that no member ought to attack
the religious
affiliations of any member of the Theosophical Society.
15 It was his
intention first to locate the colony somewhere in the James River
region in Virginia,
and it was thought for a time that some of the pirate gold
of
16 In 1929 an order
was issued from Adyar by Dr. Besant suspending the Esoteric
Section. A later order
revived it in 1930.
17 Although Dr. Besant
and her friends deny any substantial significance in the
claims made, yet the
two Keightleys, who typed the manuscript of H.P.B.'s The
Secret Doctrine for
the press, stated that Madame Blavatsky had completed not
only a third volume which
dealt with the lives of outstanding occultists down
the ages, but
practically a fourth volume, also; and Mrs. Alice L. Cleather has
been quoted as saying
that she herself saw literally hundreds of changes made in
Madame Blavatsky's
manuscripts in the handwriting of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Mead.
As to these changes,
Mr. C. Jinarajadasa, when Vice-President of the
Theosophical Society,
made a statement which will be found on page 110 of The
Golden Book of The
Theosophical Society:
"The facts are
that H.P.B. always recognized that her English was often
defective. . . . When
The Secret Doctrine was published, she realized that there
were many emendations
necessary in a subsequent edition. . . . This very heavy
task of checking and
revising was largely the work of G. R. S. Mead, who devoted
a great deal of his
time to carrying out H.P.B.'s wishes in the matter. . . .
"After H.P.B.'s
death, all her remaining manuscript material was published as a
third volume of The
Secret Doctrine. She was under the impression that the
material she had
slowly collected during many years would make five volumes in
all of The Secret
Doctrine. But steadily as she wrote the first two volumes of
The Secret Doctrine
more and more of her material was incorporated into the
first two volumes, and
the remaining manuscript material made only one more
volume."
The Keightleys
insisted, however, that they had carefully revised the language
of the first edition,
working with H.P.B. through the various stages of proof,
and that the extensive
revisions in the second edition were uncalled for. They
also stated that they
had seen the manuscript of the third volume "ready to be
given to the
printers," and Alice Cleather pointed out that H.P.B. had made
several direct
references to it in the first edition which were deleted in the
second. Because so
little of the data has been made public, the issue is still
too much beclouded for
judgment.
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER XIII SOME FACTS AND FIGURES
1 An official of the
United Lodge of Theosophists declined to aid in sending
letters to persons in
that branch, stating that a questionnaire was irrelevant
to the interests of
true Theosophy.
2 The questions asked
covered the points of age, sex, profession, and length of
time connected with
Theosophy; previous church affiliations, if any, and reason
for abandoning them
for Theosophy; the phase of Theosophy appealing most
strongly to the
individual, whether its philosophical, its religious and.222
devotional side, or
its scientific aspect; meditational practice and adherence
to non-meat diet;
favorite Theosophic authors and literature; and lastly the
amount of time devoted
to the Theosophic cause in one form or another.
3 But one person adds:
"I heard a Theosophic lecturer who had something in his
face no other man had
ever had save Bishop Brent."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
OF MADAME HELENA P. BLAVATSKY
A Trevor Barker:
Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett,Edited by A. Trevor
Barker. London;
Theosophical Publishing House, 1924. 381 pp.
G. Baseden Butt: Life
of Madame Blavatsky. Philadelphia; David McKay Co., 1927.
268 pp.
Alice L. Cleather: H.
P. Blavatsky; Her Life and Work for Humanity. Calcutta;
Thatcher, Spink &
Co., 1922. 124 pp.
--------
H. P. Blavatsky, As I Knew Her; with an addendum by Basil Crump.
Calcutta; Thatcher,
Spink & Co., 1923.76 pp.
--------
H. P. Blavatsky: A Great Betrayal. Calcutta; Thatcher,Spink & Co.,
1922. 96 pp.
Mme. E. Coulomb: Some
Accounts of My Intercourse with Madame Blavatsky from 1872
to 1884. London, 1885.
John N. Farquhar:
Modern Religious Movements in India.
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
CHAPTER, "Theosophy."
London, 1915.
Franz Hartmann:
Observations during a Nine Months' Stay at the Headquarters of
the Theosophical
Society. Madras, 1884.
Richard Hodgson:
Report on the Theosophic psychic phenomena,published in the
Proceedings of the
British Society for Psychic Research, Vol. III, 1885.
William Kingsland: The
Real H. P. Blavatsky. London; John M.Watkins, 1928. 278
pp.
Arthur Lillie: Madame
Blavatsky and Her Theosophy. London, 1895.Col. H. S.
Olcott: Old Diary
Leaves. Madras; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1910, Four
Vols. 1927 pp.
A. P. Sinnett: Early
Days of Theosophy in Europe. London; Theosophical
Publishing House,
1922. 118 pp.
--------
Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky; based largely on a
narrative
in Russian by her
sister, Madame Vera Jelihowsky. London; Theosophical
Publishing Society,
1913. 256 pp.
Vsevolod S. Solovyoff:
A Modern Priestess of Isis; Abridged and translated on
behalf of the Society
for Psychic Research from the Russian of V. S. Solovyoff
by Walter Leaf,
Litt.D., with appendices. London and New York; Longmans,Green
and Co., 1895. xix and
366 pp..223
Zinaida Vengerova:
Sketch in Russian in the Kritico-biograficheskii slovar
russkikh pisatelsi i
uchenikh. St. Petersburg,1889-1904, Vol. III. (On this are
mostly based the
sketches in other Russian Encyclopedias.)Princess Helene von
Racowitza:
Autobiography; Translated from the German by Cecil Marr and published
by the Constables,
London, 1910.
Countess Constance
Wachtmeister: Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and the Secret
Doctrine. London;
Theosophical Publishing Society, 1893. 138 pp.
Herbert Whyte: H. P.
Blavatsky; An Outline of Her Life. London; The Lotus
Journal, 1909. 60 pp.
LITERATURE ON THE
GENERAL SUBJECT OF
THEOSOPHY
NOTE: Literature
bearing more or less directly upon the general theme of
Theosophy is so
enormous that several thousand titles would not exhaust the body
of works touching upon
the subject. Books written by modern students of
Theosophy alone run
into the hundreds. Mr. Roy Mitchell, Theosophic lecturer, of
New York City, has
estimated some two hundred to three hundred early Theosophic
books that are now out
of print. It is difficult to determine a specifically
Theosophic book from
those that deal with phases of mysticism, esotericism and
occultism in general.
Books of the sort are all more or less amenable to
classification as
Theosophic. The list of several hundred here given is highly
representative of the
books to be found in a good library of a Theosophical
Society. There are
hundreds of ancient and mediζval theosophic works that have
never been translated
into modern tongues. The Moorish literature of Spain is
particularly a rich
mine of theosophic treatises.
A. Square (Edwin
Abbott): Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions; with
Introduction by
William Garnett, M. A., D.C.L. Boston; Little, Brown & Co.,
1928. 151 pp.
Swami Abhedananda:
Reincarnation; (three lectures). Published by the Vedanta
Society, New York. 57
pp.
--------
Spiritual Unfoldment; (three lectures). New York; The Vedanta Society,
1901.
Sri Ananda Acharya:
Brahmadarsanam; being an introduction to the study of Hindu
Philosophy. New York;
The Macmillan Co., 1917. 210 pp.
W. R. C. Coode Adams:
A Primer of Occult Physics. London; The Theosophical
Publishing House,
Ltd., 1927. 65 pp.
W. Marsham Adams: The
Book of The Master; or, The Egyptian Doctrine of Light
Born of the Virgin
Mother. London; John Murray; New York; G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1898.204 pp.
--------
The House of the Hidden Places; A Clue to the Creed of Early Egypt;
from Egyptian Sources.
London; John Murray, 1893. 249 pp.
Helen R. Albee: The
Gleam. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1911.
312 pp.
Jerome A. Anderson; M.
D., F.T.S.: Septenary Man; or, The Microcosm. A Study of
the Human Soul. San
Francisco; The Lotus Publishing Co., 1895. 122 pp.
Anonymous: Christ in
You. New York; Dodd, Mead & Co., 1918. 184 pp.
--------
The Theosophical Movement: 1875-1925. A History and a Survey. New
York;
E. P. Dutton &
Co., 1925. 705 pp..224
--------
Man: Fragments of Forgotten History. (By two chelas of the
Theosophical
Society.) London,
1874.
Sir Edwin Arnold: The
Light of Asia; The life and teachings of Gautama Buddha,
in verse.
Philadelphia, Henry Altemus. 239 pp.
--------
The Light of the World; or, The Great Consummation. New York, Funk and
Wagnalls, 1891. 286
pp.
G. S. Arundale:
Thoughts on 'At the Feet of the Master.' Madras,Theosophical
Publishing House,
1919. 315 pp.
--------
Thoughts of the Great. Madras, Theosophical Publishing House, 1925.
222
pp.
--------
Nirvana. Chicago; The Theosophical Press, 1926. 192 pp. Adolph
D'Assier: Posthumous
Humanity; A Study of Phantoms; Translated and annotated by
Henry S. Olcott.
London; George Redway, 1887. 360 pp.
"Brother
Atisha": Exposition of the Doctrine of Karma. London; Theosophical
Publishing Society,
1920. 120 pp.
May Anne Atwood: A
Suggestive Inquiry Into the Hermetic Mystery, with a
dissertation on the
more celebrated of the Alchemical Philosophers. Being an
attempt toward the
recovery of the ancient Experiment of Nature. Belfast;
William Tait; London;
J. M. Watkins, 1920. 64, xxv,597 pp.
E. D. Babbitt, M. D.,
LL.D.: The Principles of Light and Color.The Harmonic Laws
of the Universe; the
Etherio-Atomic Philosophy of Force, Chromo-Chemistry,
Chromo-Therapeutics,
and the General Philosophy of the Finer Forces,
etc.) Pub. by the
author, at the College of Finer Forces,E. Orange, N. J., 1896.
560 pp.
--------
Religion: As Revealed by the Material and Spiritual Universe. New
York;
Babbitt & Co.,
1881. 358 pp.
Benjamin Wisner Bacon:
The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate; A series of
lessons on problems
concerning the origin and value of the anonymous writings
attributed to the
Apostle John. New York; Moffat Yard & Co., 1910. 544 pp.
Alice A. Bailey: The
Consciousness of the Atom. New York; Lucifer Publishing
Co., 1922. 104 pp.
--------
Initiation: Human and Solar. New York; Lucifer Publishing Co., 1922.
255 pp.
--------
Letters on Occult Meditation. New York; Lucifer Publishing Co., 1922.
357 pp.
James L. M. Bain:
Corpus meum. London; Percy Lund, Humphries & Co., Ltd., 1911.
104 pp.
--------
The Christ of the Holy Grail; or, The Great Christ of the Cosmos and
the Little Christ of
the Soul. London; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1909.
116 pp.
The Right Honorable J.
W. Balfour: The Ear of Dionysius. New York; Henry Holt &
Co., 1920. 127 pp.
Mrs. L. Dow Balliett:
The Philosophy of Numbers. Published by the author,
Atlantic City, N. J.,
1908. 161 pp.
--------
Nature's Symphony; or, Lessons in Number Vibration. Published by the
author, Atlantic City,
N. J., 1911. 132 pp.
A. Trevor Barker:
Mahatma Letters To A. P. Sinnett from the Mahatmas M. and K.
H. Transcribed,
compiled and with an Introduction by A. Trevor Barker. New York;
Frederick A. Stokes
Co., 1924. 492 pp..225
Harriet Tuttle
Bartlett: An Esoteric Reading of Biblical Symbolism. Krotona,
Hollywood, Los
Angeles, Cal.; Theosophical Publishing Co., 1920. 218 pp.
L. Adams Beck (E.
Barrington): The Story of Oriental Philosophy. New York;
Cosmopolitan Book
Corporation, 1928. 429 pp.
Dr. Annie Besant:
Ancient Ideals in Modern Life. Four lectures delivered at
Benares, December
1900. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing Society,
1901. 145 pp.
--------
The Ancient Wisdom; An Outline of Theosophical Teachings. Adyar,
Madras, India;
Theosophical Publishing House, 1897. 328 pp.
--------
Annie Besant; An Autobiography. London; T. Fisher Unwin, 1908. 368 pp.
--------
Australian Lectures; delivered in 1908. Sydney; George Robertson &
Co.,
Ltd., 1908. 163 pp.
--------
Avatars; Four lectures delivered at Adyar, Madras, India, 1900.
Theosophical
Publishing Society, London, 1900. 124 pp.
--------
H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of the Wisdom. Krotona,Hollywood,
California;
Theosophical Publishing House,1918. 109 pp.
--------
Britain's Place in the Great Plan: Four lectures delivered in London,
1921. London;
Theosophical Publishing House, 1921. 104 pp.
--------
Buddhist Popular Lectures; Delivered in Ceylon, 1907.Madras, India;
The
Theosophist Office,
1908. 129 pp.
--------
The Building of the Cosmos, and other lectures. Delivered at Adyar,
Madras, India, 1893.
London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1894. 157 pp.
--------
The Changing World, and Lectures to Theosophical Students. Lectures
delivered in London,
1909. Chicago; Theosophical Book Concern, 1910. 333 pp.
--------
Civilization's Deadlock, and the Keys. Five lectures delivered in
London, 1924. London;
Theosophical Publishing House, Ltd., 1924. 142 pp.
--------
Death-And After? London; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1894. 94 pp.
--------
Karma; Three lectures delivered at Benares, 1898. Benares;
Theosophical
Publishing Society,
1899. 70 pp.
--------
Sanatana Dharma; an elementary textbook on Hindu religion and morals.
Benares; the Board of
Trustees, Central Hindu College, 1902. 229 pp.
--------
Esoteric Christianity; or, The Lesser Mysteries. New York; John Lane;
The Bodley Head, 1904.
384 pp.
--------
The Evolution of Life and Form.
Society, 1900. 161 pp.
--------
Evolution and Man's Destiny.
--------
Evolution and Occultism.
295 pp.
--------
For
Questions.
--------
Four Great Religions; Four lectures delivered at Adyar.
Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1897. 183 pp.
--------
The Great Plan. Four lectures delivered at Adyar, 1920.
Theosophical
Publishing House, 1921. 109 pp.
--------
How a World Teacher Comes; as seen by ancient and modern psychology.
Four lectures
delivered in
--------
The Ideals of Theosophy. Four lectures delivered at Ben-
ares, 1911. Adyar,
--------
The Immediate Future. Lectures delivered in
1912. The Rajput
Press, 1911. 176 pp..226
--------
In Defense of Hinduism.
Society. 72 pp.
--------
Initiation: The Perfecting of
1923. 149 pp.
--------
In The Outer Court. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House, 1914. 176
pp.
--------
An Introduction to the Science of Peace. Adyar; The Theosophist
Office,
1912. 86 pp.
--------
An Introduction to Yoga. Four lectures delivered at Ben-
ares, 1907. Adyar;
Theosophical Publishing House, 1913. 159 pp.
--------
Karma.
--------
A Study in Karma. Krotona,
Publishing House,
1918. 114 pp.
--------
Society, 1907. 198 pp.
--------
Man and His Bodies. Krotona, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif.;
Theosophical
Publishing House, 1918. 111 pp.
--------
Man's Life In This and Other Worlds. Adyar, Madras,India; Theosophical
Publishing House,
1913. 101 pp.
--------
The Masters. Adyar, Madras; The Theosophist Office, 1912. 66 pp.
--------
Mysticism. London; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1914,
143 pp.
--------
The Path of Discipleship. Four lectures delivered at Adyar. 1895.
--------
The Pedigree of
and
--------
Reincarnation. Krotona,
Publishing House,
1919. 73 pp.
--------
Psychology.
311 pp.
--------
The Riddle of Life; And How Theosophy Explains It. London;
Theosophical
Publishing Society,
1911. 58 pp.
--------
The Self and Its Sheaths. Four lectures delivered at Adyar, 1894.
London; Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1903.
120 pp.
--------
The Seven Principles of Man. London; Theosophical Publishing Society.
90 pp.
--------
Shri Rama Chandra; The Ideal King. Some Lessons from the Ramayana, for
the use of Hindu
students in the schools of
Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1905. 188 pp.
--------
Some Problems of Life.
139 pp.
--------
The Spiritual Life.
pp.
--------
The Story of the Great War. Some Lessons from the Mahabharata. For the
use of Hindu students
in the schools of
Publishing Society,
1899. 271 pp.
--------
A Study in Consciousness; A Contribution to the Science of Psychology.
--------
Superhuman Men, in History and in Religion.
Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1913. 133 pp.
--------
Theosophy and Human Life. Four lectures delivered at
--------
Theosophy and the New Psychology.
Theosophical
Publishing House, 1918. 124 pp.
--------
The Theosophical Society and the Occult Hierarchy.
Publishing House,
Ltd., 1925. 62 pp..227
--------
Theosophy and the Theosophical Society. Four lectures delivered at
Adyar, 1912. Adyar;
Theosophical Publishing House, 1913. 112 pp.
--------
Theosophy and World Problems. Four letters delivered at
by Annie Besant, C.
Jinarajadasa, J. Krishnamurti, and G. S. Arundale. Adyar;
Theosophical
Publishing House, 1922. 104 pp.
--------
Thought Power: Its Culture and Control. Krotona: Theosophical
Publishing House,
1918. 133 pp.
--------
The Three Paths and Dharma.
1922. 157 pp.
--------
The Universal Text Book of Religion and Morals. Edited by Annie
Besant.
Adyar; Theosophical
Publishing House.157 pp.
--------
The War and Its Lessons. Four lectures delivered at
--------
The Wisdom of the Upanishads. Four lectures delivered at Adyar, 1906.
--------
World Problems of Today. London; Theosophical Publishing House, Ltd.,
1925. 144 pp.
C. H. A. Bjerregaard:
The Great Mother; A Gospel of the Eternal Feminine. Occult
and scientific studies
and experiences in the sacred and secret life. New York;
The Inner Life
Publishing Co., 1913. 325 pp.
Algernon Blackwood:
Karma-A Reincarnation Play. By Algernon Blackwood and Violet
Pearn. New York; E. P.
Dutton & Co., 1918. 207 pp.
Helena P. Blavatsky:
Alchemy and the Secret Doctrine; Compiled and Edited by
Alexander Horne.
Wheaton, Ill.; The Theosophical Press, 1927. 205 pp.
--------
First Steps in Occultism; Reprint from Lucifer. San Francisco; Mercury
Publishing Co., 1898.
135 pp.
--------
From the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan. Translated from the Russian
of
H. P. Blavatsky.
London; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1892. 318 pp.
--------
The Key to Theosophy; being a clear exposition in the form of question
and answer, of the
Ethics, Science and Philosophy for the study of which the
Theosophical Society
has been founded.
phists, 1920. 243 pp.
--------
A Modern Panarion; A Collection of Fugitive Fragments.
Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1895. 504 pp.
--------
Science and Theology.
Two Vols.
--------
Nightmare Tales.
--------
The Secret Doctrine; The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and
Philosophy.
Vols.
--------
The Voice of the Silence, and other chosen fragments from the Book of
the Golden Precepts,
for the daily use of Lanoos.
Publishing House of
--------
The Theosophical Glossary. Krotona; Theosophical Publishing House,
1918. 360 pp.
Jacob Boehme: The Way
to Christ.
--------
The Signature of All Things.
E. P. Dutton &
Co., 1912. 295 pp.
--------
Six Theosophic Points, and other writings; Newly translated into
English by John
Rolleston Earle, M. A. London; Constable & Co., Ltd., 1919. 208
pp.
--------
The Threefold Life of Man; According to the three principles.
J. M. Watkins, 1909.
547 pp.
1901. 362 pp.
Claude Bragdon: The
Beautiful Necessity; Seven Essays on Theosophy and
Architecture.
--------
Four-Dimensional Vistas.
--------
Old Lamps for New; The Ancient Wisdom in the Modern World.
Alfred A. Knopf, 1925.
206 pp.
--------
A Primer of Higher Space.
Robert T. Browne: The
Mystery of Space; A Study of the Hyperspace Movement in
the Light of the Evolution
of New Psychic Faculties; and, An Inquiry into the
Genesis and Essential
Nature of Space. New York; E. P. Dutton & Co., 1919. 358
pp.
Joseph Rodes Buchanan:
Psychometry: The Dawn of a New Civilization. Boston;
Published by the
Author, 1883.288 pp.
J. D. Buck, M. D.: A
Study of
pp.
Dr. Rickard Maurice
Bucke: Cosmic Consciousness.
1905. 318 pp.
Marie, Countess of
Contained in the
Secret Doctrine of All Religions.
1887. 541 pp.
Edward Carpenter: The
Art of Creation; Essays on the Self and its Powers.
--------
Pagan and Christian Creeds; Their Origin and Meaning.
Harcourt, Brace &
Co., 1920. 308 pp.
Paul Carus: The Gospel
of Buddha. Chicago; The Open Court Publishing Co., 1909.
260 pp.
Clara M. Codd:
Theosophy as the Masters See It. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing
House, 1926. 369 pp.
--------
Masters and Disciples.
94 pp.
Mabel Collins (Mrs. K.
Cook): A Cry From Afar.
Society, 1905. 54 pp.
--------
As the Flower Grows: Some Visions and an Interpretation.
Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1915. 112 pp.
--------
The Awakening.
--------
The Blossom and the Fruit: A True Story of a Black Magician.
Theosophical
Publishing Society.
332 pp.
--------
The Transparent Jewel:
--------
The Idyll of the White Lotus. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House,
1919. 168 pp.
--------
Fragments of Thought and Life.
1908. 121 pp.
--------
The Crucible.
--------
The Builders.
--------
Illusions.
--------
Light on the Path.
--------
Our Glorious Future.
--------
Through the Gates of Gold.
--------
When the Sun Moves Northward.
Ltd., 1923. 183 pp.
Irving S. Cooper:
Methods of Psychic Development.
Press, 1926. 113 pp.
--------
Reincarnation: The Hope of the World. Chicago; The Theosophical Press,
1927. 121 pp.
James H. Cousins: The
Basis of Theosophy. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House,
1913, 64 pp.
Bhagavan Das: The
Science of the Emotions. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House,
1924. 524 pp..229
--------
The Science of Peace.
332 pp.
--------
The Science of Social Organization; or, The Laws of Manu in the Light
of Theosophy.
--------
The Science of the Sacred Word: Being a summarized translation of The
Pranava-Vada of
Gargyayana, by Bhagavan Das. Adyar; The Theosophist Office,
1910. 374 pp.
Surendranath Dasgupta:
Yoga: As Philosophy and Religion.
Trench, Trubner &
Co., Ltd., 1924. 187 pp.
Rev. John
Attesting the
Temptation and Fall of
475 pp.
Leon Denis (Leon
Denizarth Hippolyte Rivail): Here and Hereafter.
Rider and Son, Ltd.,
1910. 352 pp.
--------
Jeanne D'Arc, Medium; ses voix, ses visions, ses prιmonitions, ses
vues
actuelles exprimιes en
ses propres messages.
Psychiques, 1910. 450
pp.
--------
Life and Destiny; Translated into English by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
--------
The Mystery of Joan of Arc. Translated by Arthur Conan Doyle. London:
J. Murray, 1924. 233
pp.
Ignatius Donnelly:
Atlantis; The Antediluvian World. New York and London; Harper
and Brother, 1882. 480
pp.
J. W. Dunne: An
Experiment with Time. New York; The Macmillan Co., 1927. 208 pp.
A. E. (George
Russell): The Candle of Vision. London; The Macmillan Co., Ltd.,
1920. 175 pp.
Lillian Edger, M. A.:
The Elements of Theosophy. London; Theosophical Publishing
House, 1903. 202 pp.
W. Scott-Elliot: The
Lost Lemuria. London; Theosophical Publishing Society,
1904. 44 pp.
--------
Man's Place in the Universe. London and Benares; Theosophical
Publishing Society,
1902. 132 pp.
--------
The Story of Atlantis. London; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1914.
87 pp.
Edward C. Farnsworth:
Special Teachings From the Arcane Science. Portland: Smith
& Sale, Printers.
1918. 189 pp.
Benedictus Figulus: A
Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, concerning
the blessed mystery of
the Philosopher's Stone, containing the Revelation of the
most illuminated
Egyptian King and Philosopher, Hermes Trismegistus. Published
by Benedictus Figulus
of Utenhofen. 357 pp.
Adolph Francke: The
Kabbalah; or, The Religious Philosophy of the Hebrews. New
York; The Kabbalah
Publishing Co.,1926. 311 pp.
Will L. Garver:
Brother of the Third Degree. Chicago; Purdy Publishing Co.,
1894. 377 pp.
Elias Gewurz: The
Hidden Treasures of the Ancient Qabalah. Vol. I. (The
Transmutation of
Passion Into Power.) Krotona; The Theosophical Publishing
House, 1915. 133 pp.
L. Hayden Guest:
Theosophy and Social Reconstruction.
Publishing Society,
1912. 138 pp.
H. Fielding Hall: The
Soul of a People.
314 pp.
Franz Hartmann, M. D.:
Among the Gnomes. An Occult Tale of Adventure in the
Untersburg.
--------
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme, the God-Taught Philosopher.
New
York; Macoy Publishing
Co., 1929. 336 pp..230
--------
The Life of Jehoshua, The Prophet of
Key to the Bible.
--------
The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim-known by the
name of Paracelsus,
and the substance of his teachings. London; Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner &
Co., Ltd., 1896. 304 pp.
--------
Occult Science in Medicine. New York; Theosophical Publishing Society.
1890, 100 pp.
--------
The Talking Image of Urur.
--------
In the Pronaos of the
the False
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--------
Magic, White and Black; or, The Science of Finite and Infinite Life.
--------
With the Adepts; An Adventure Among the Rosicrucians.
Theosophical
Publishing Co., 1910. 180 pp.
William C. Hartmann,
Ph. D.: Who's Who in Occult, Psychic, and Spiritual Realms.
Max Heindel: The
Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception.
Fellowship, 1910. 542
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C. H. Hinton, M. A.:
The Fourth Dimension.
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--------
A New Era of Thought.
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Scientific Romances.
Geoffrey Hodson: The
Ltd., 1927. 112 pp.
--------
The Fairies at Work and at Play.
Ltd., 1925. 126 pp.
--------
An Occult View of Health and Disease.
House, Ltd., 1925. 52
pp.
--------
The Science of Seership.
Alexander Horne:
Theosophy and the Fourth Dimension.
Publishing House,
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Powis Hoult: A
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Olive Stevenson
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Thomas Inman: Ancient
Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism. New York; J. W.
Bouton, 1876. 175 pp.
--------
Ancient Faiths and Modern. New York; J. W. Bouton, 1876. 498 pp.
Hargrave Jennings: The
Rosicrucians; Their Rites and Mysteries. London; George
Routledge & Sons,
Ltd. 464 pp.
C. Jinarajadasa: The
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292 pp.
--------
The Early Teachings of the Masters. Chicago; The Theosophical Press,
1923. 245 pp.
--------
The Golden Book of the Theosophical Society, edited by C.
Jinarajadasa.
A Brief History of the
Society's Growth from 1875 to 1925. Adyar; Theosophical
Publishing House,
1925. 421 pp.
--------
How We Remember Our Past Lives. Chicago; Theosophical Press, 1923. 110
pp.
--------
Letters From the Masters of the Wisdom.
Press, 1926. 220 pp.
--------
The Message of the Future.
--------
Theosophy and Modern Thought. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House,
1915. 171 pp.
Charles Johnston:
Karma: Works and Wisdom.
--------
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
--------
The Memory of Past Births.
1909. 55 pp.
William Q. Judge:
Echoes From the Orient.
--------
Letters That Have Helped
Path. 90 pp.
--------
The
1915. 154 pp.
--------
The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali; An Interpretation.
1889. 64 pp.
Anna B. Kingsford:
Clothed with the Sun. Birmingham; The Ruskin Press, 1906. 340
pp.
--------
The
1909. 357 pp.
--------
The Virgin of the World; or, Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus.
Spiritualistic Book
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William Kingsland: The
Esoteric Basis of Christianity.
Publishing Society,
1895. 195 pp.
--------
The Mystic Quest; A Tale of Two Incarnations.
Unwin, 1891. 215 pp.
--------
Our Infinite Life.
--------
The Physics of the Secret Doctrine.
Society. 1910. 152 pp.
J. Krishnamurti: At the
Feet of the Master. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing
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--------
Education as Service. Chicago; The Rajput Press, 1912. 160 pp.
--------
The
--------
Life in Freedom.
--------
The Pool of Wisdom, and Poems. Eerde, Ommen,
Publishing Trust,
1928. 99 pp.
--------
Self-Preparation. Eerde, Ommen,
94 pp.
--------
Towards Discipleship. Chicago; The Theosophical Press, 1926. 106 pp.
Charles W. Leadbeater:
The Astral Plane; Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena.
Krotona, California;
Theosophical Publishing House, 1918. 127 pp.
--------
The Devachanic Plane; or, The Heaven World. Krotona; Theosophical
Publishing House,
1919. 120 pp.
--------
Dreams-What They Are and How They Are Caused. London; Theosophical
Publishing Society,
1903. 69 pp.
--------
Clairvoyance. Krotona; Theosophical Publishing House, 1918. 161 pp.
--------
The Christian Creed: Its Origin and Signification. London;
Theosophical
Publishing House,
1904. 172 pp.
--------
Glimpses of Masonic History. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House,
1926. 380 pp.
--------
The Hidden Life in Freemasonry. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House,
1926. 352 pp.
--------
The Hidden Side of Things. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House, 1918.
482 pp.
--------
The Hidden Side of Christian Festivals. London and Sydney; The St.
Alban Press, 1920. 499
pp.
--------
The Inner Life. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House,1911. 2 Vols. 324
and 318 pp.
--------
Man, Visible and Invisible. London; Theosophical Publishing House,
1920. (Reprint.) 149
pp.
--------
Invisible Helpers. Chicago; Theosophical Book Concern, 1915. 133 pp.
--------
The Life After Death-And How Theosophy Unveils It.London; Theosophical
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1912. 58 pp..232
--------
The Lives of Alcyone. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House, 1924. 351
and 383 pp. (2 Vols.)
--------
The Masters and the Path. Chicago; The Theosophical Press, 1925. 328
pp.
--------
The Monad; And Other Essays Upon the Higher Consciousness. Adyar;
Theosophical
Publishing House, 1920. 133 pp.
--------
The Other Side of Death; Scientifically Examined and Carefully
Described. Adyar;
Theosophical Publishing House, 1928. 826 pp.
--------
An Outline of Theosophy. Chicago; Theosophical Book Concern, 1916. 99
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--------
The Perfume of Egypt, and Other Weird Stories. Adyar; The Theosophist
Office, 1912. 306 pp.
--------
The Science of the Sacraments. London and Sydney; St. Alban Press,
920.
550 pp.
--------
Some Glimpses of Occultism, Ancient and Modern. Chicago; Theosophical
Book Concern, 1903.
391 pp.
--------
Talks on 'At the Feet of the Master.' Chicago; The Theosophical Press,
923. 514 pp.
--------
A Textbook of Theosophy. Krotona; Theosophical Publishing House, 1918.
148 pp.
Annie Besant and C. W.
Leadbeater (in collaboration): Thought Forms. (With 58
illustrations.) London
and Benares; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1905. 84
pp.
--------
Talks on the Path of Occultism. Adyar; Theosophical Publishing House,
1926. 925 pp.
--------
Man: Whence, How, and Whither? A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation.
Chicago; The
Theosophical Press,1922. 483 pp.
--------
Occult Chemistry. Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements.
Eliphas Levi (Baron
Alphonse Louis Constant): The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the
Christ.
--------
The History of Magic; Including a Clear and Precise Exposition of Its
Procedure, Its Rites,
and Its Mysteries.(Translated by A. E. Waite.)
Rider & Son, 1913.
525 pp.
Sir Oliver Lodge:
Science and Immortality.
294 pp.
--------
The Survival of Man; A Study in Unrecognized Human Faculty.
Moffat, Yard &
Co., 1916. 357 pp.
Sir Edward
Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race.
248 pp.
--------
A Strange Story. London; George Routledge & Sons, 1876. 531 pp.
--------
Zanoni. Boston; Little, Brown & Co., 1927. 540 pp. Dr. A. Marques:
Scientific
Corporations of Theosophy. London;Theosophical Publishing Society,
1908. 152 pp.
Gerald Massey: A Book
of Beginnings; Containing an attempt to recover and
reconstitute the lost
origins of the myths and mysteries, types and symbols,
religion and
language,with Egypt for the mouthpiece and Africa as the
birthplace. London;
Williams and Norgate, 1881. 503 pp.
S. L. MacGregor
Mathers: The Kabbalah Unveiled. London; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1905. 341 pp.
George R. S. Mead:
Echoes from the Gnosis: The Gnosis of the Mind. London and
Benares; Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1906. 69 pp.
--------
The Hymns of Hermes. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1907. 84 pp.
--------
The Hymn of Jesus. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society,
1907. 83 pp..233
--------
The Mysteries of Mithra. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1907. 90 pp.
--------
The Vision of Aridζus. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1907. 74 pp.
--------
Did Jesus Live 100 B. C.? An inquiry into the Talmud Jesus stories,
the
Toldoth Jeschu, and
other curious statements of Epiphanius, being a contribution
to the study of
Christian origins. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1903. 436 pp.
--------
Fragments of a Faith Forgotten. Some short sketches among the
Gnostics,
mainly of the First
and Second centuries, based on the most recently recovered
material. London and
Benares; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1900.607 pp.
--------
Simon Magus: An Essay. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1902. 92 pp.
--------
The World Mystery. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society,
1907. 185 pp.
--------
The Theosophy of the Vedas.
Society, 1905. 2 Vols.
--------
The Pistis Sophia; A Gnostic Gospel.
Publishing Society,
1898. 394 pp.
--------
The Gnostic John the Baptizer. Selections from the Mandζan John-Book.
Together with studies
on John and Christian origins; the Slavonic Josephus'
account of John and
Jesus, and John and the Fourth Gospel Proem.
--------
The Gospels and the Gospel. A study in the most recent results of the
lower and the higher
criticism.
Society, 1902. 214 pp.
--------
Orpheus: The Theosophy of the Greeks. London and Benares; Theosophical
Publishing Society,
1896. 320 pp.
--------
Plotinus. London; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1895. 48 pp.
--------
Quests Old and New. London; G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1913.328 pp.
--------
Some Mystical Adventures. London; J. M. Watkins, 1910.303 pp.
--------
Thrice Greatest Hermes. Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis.
330 pp.
Roy F. Mitchell: The
Creative Theater. New York, John Day Co.,1930. 256 pp.
Frederic W. H. Myers:
Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. New
York; Longmans, Green
& Co., 1904.2 Vols. 700 and 627 pp.
Robert W. Norwood: The
Heresy of
Doran & Co., 1928.
303 pp.
Isabel Cooper-Oakley:
The Comte De St. Germain, The Secret Emissary of Kings.
--------
Mystical Traditions.
1909. 296 pp.
--------
Traces of a Hidden Tradition in Masonry and Mediζval Mysticism.
Theosophical
Publishing Society, 1900. 192 pp.
Col. Henry S. Olcott:
People of the Other World.
Publishing
--------
Old Diary Leaves. Madras; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1910. Four
Vols. 491, 476, 446,
and 514 pp.
--------
Theosophy, Religion, and Occult Science. London; John Redway, 1885.
385
pp.
Walter Gorn Old: The
Shu King. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1904. 306 pp.
--------
What is Theosophy? London; Hay, Nisbet & Co., 1892. 128 pp.
P. D. Ouspensky:
Tertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought; A Key to the
Enigmas of the World.
New York; Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. 336 pp..234
Dr. Th. Pascal:
Reincarnation: A Study in Human Evolution. London; Theosophical
Publishing Society,
1910. 303 pp.
P. Pavri: Theosophy
Explained in Questions and Answers. Adyar; Theosophical
Publishing House,
1921. 276 pp.
A. J. Penny: Studies
in Jacob Boehme. London; J. M. Watkins,1912. 473 pp.
James Morgan Pryse:
Reincarnation in the New Testament. New York; Elliott B.
Page & Co., 1900.
92 pp.
--------
The Apocalypse Unsealed; being an esoteric interpretation of the
initiation of Ioannes.
New York; J. M. Pryse, 1910. 222 pp.
--------
The Magical Message According to Ioannes. New York; Theosophical
Publishing Co. of New
York, 1909. 230 pp.
--------
The Restored New Testament. The Jewish Fragments, freed from the
Pseudo-Jewish
Interpolations. New York; J. M. Pryse; London; John M. Watkins,
1914. 817 pp.
W. Winwood Reade: The
Veil of Isis: or, Mysteries of the Druids. New York; Peter
Eckler Publishing Co.,
1917. 250 pp.
H. Stanley Redgrove:
Alchemy Ancient and Modern. London; William Rider & Son,
Ltd., 1911. 141 pp.
L. W. Rogers: Dreams
and Premonitions. Los Angeles; Theosophic Book Concern,
916. 121 pp.
--------
Elementary Theosophy. Chicago; Theosophical Book Concern, 1923. 260
pp.
--------
Gods in the Making; and other lectures. Chicago; Theosophical Book
Concern, 1925. 133 pp.
--------
The Ghosts in Shakespeare. Chicago; Thesophical Book Concern, 1925.
185
pp.
--------
The Hidden Side of Evolution. Chicago; Theosophical Book Concern,
1926.
195 pp.
--------
The Purpose of Life, and other lectures. Chicago; Theosophical Book
Concern, 1925. 140 pp.
--------
Reincarnation, and other lectures. Chicago; TheosophicalBook Concern,
1925. 138 pp.
G. Krishna Sastri: The
Tattvasarayana, The Occult Philosophy Taught by the Great
Sage Sri Vasishtha.
(Translated by Sri Rama Gita.) Madras; Published by the
translator,1902. 135
pp.
Edouard Schure: The
Great Initiates. Sketch of the Secret History of Religions.
--------
Hermes and Plato.
--------
Jesus, the Last Great Initiate. Chicago; Yogi Publishing Society, 125
pp.
--------
Yogi Publishing
Society, 1908.121 pp.
--------
The Priestess of
--------
Rama and Moses.
Sir Walter Scott:
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. With an Introduction by
Henry Morley.
William Simpson: The
Buddhist Praying Wheel.
1896. 294 pp.
A. P. Sinnett:
Esoteric Buddhism.
1884. 330 pp.
--------
The Early Days of Theosophy in
House, Ltd., 1922. 118
pp.
--------
Collected Fruits of Occult Teaching.
1920. 307 pp.
--------
The Growth of the Soul.
Society, 1905. 483
pp..235
--------
In the Next World. Actual Narratives of Personal Experiences by Some
Who have Passed On.
--------
Karma. A novel. Chicago; Rand, McNally & Co., 1887.
285 pp.
--------
Nature's Mysteries. London and Benares; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1901. 184 pp.
--------
Occult Essays. London; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1905. 226 pp.
--------
The Occult World. London; Theosophical Publishing Society, 1884. 194
pp.
--------
The Rationale of Mesmerism. Boston and New York; Houghton, Mifflin
&
Co., 1892. 228 pp.
--------
Tennyson an Occultist; As His Writings Prove. London; Theosophical
Publishing House,
1920. 89 pp.
Lewis Spence: Atlantis
in America. New York; Brentano's, 1925. 232 pp.
--------
The Problem of Atlantis. New York; Brentano's, 1928. 205 pp.
Rudolf Steiner:
Atlantis and Lemuria. Their History and Civili-
zation. Chicago; The
Rajput Press, 1911. 231 pp.
--------
Initiation and Its Results. New York; Macoy Publishing
and Masonic Supply
Co., 1909. 134 pp.
--------
Mystics of the Renaissance. New York and London; G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1911. 278 pp.
--------
The Philosophy of Freedom. New York and London; G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1916. 301 pp.
--------
A Road to Self-Knowledge. London and New York; G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1918. 124 pp.
--------
Theosophy. Chicago and New York; Rand, McNally & Co.,1910. 230 pp.
--------
Three Essays on Haeckel and Karma. London; Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1914. 223 pp.
--------
The Way of Initiation. Chicago; The Occult Publishing Co., 1908. 210
pp.
J. C. Street: The
Hidden Way Across the Threshold. Boston; Lee and Shepard,
1887. 587 pp.
Arthur Edward Waite:
Lives of the Alchemistical Philosophers.London; George
Redway, 1888. 275 pp.
--------
The Turba Philosophorum; or, Assembly of the Sages. London; George
Redway, 1896. 207 pp.
--------
The Way of Divine Union. London; William Rider & Son, 1915. 327
pp.
E. D. Walker:
Reincarnation: A study of Forgotten Truth. New York; Theosophical
Publishing Co., 1916.
325 pp.
W. Wynn Westcott:
Numbers, Their Occult Power and Mystical Virtues. London and
Benares; Theosophical
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Charles J. Whitby: The
Wisdom of Plotinus. A Metaphysical Study. London; William
Rider & Son, 1909.
130 pp.
F. Milton Willis:
Recurring Earth Lives; How and Why? New York; E. P. Dutton &
Co., 1921. 92 pp.
--------
The Return of the World Teacher; Purifying Christianity.The Common
Voice of Religion. New
York; E. P. Dutton & Co., 1924. 121 pp.
--------
The Spiritual Life; How to Attain It and Prepare Children for It. New
York; E. P. Dutton
& Co., 1922. 99 pp.
--------
The Truth About Christ and the Atonement. New York; E. P. Dutton &
Co.,
1922. 96 pp.
Ernest Wood: Character
Building. Chicago; The Theosophical Press, 1924. 129 pp.
--------
Concentration; A Practical Course. Chicago; The Theosophical Press,
1923. 172 pp.
--------
Memory Training. Chicago; The Theosophical Press, 1925. 158 pp.
--------
The Seven Rays. Chicago; The Theosophical Press, 1925. 185 pp..236
Transactions of the
London Lodge of the Theosophical Society. 20 Vols.
Transactions of the
First Annual Congress of the Federation of European Sections
of the Theosophical
Society held in Amsterdam, June, 1904. Edited by Johan Van
Manen,Amsterdam, 1906.
398 pp.
Transactions of the
Second and Third Annual Congresses in London and Paris,
1907. 444 and 366 pp.
PERIODICALS
In Bound Volumes
The Theosophic Review
(formerly Lucifer).
The Theosophist.
The Path.
The Word.
The Herald of the
Star.
Extracts from the
Vahan.
The Theosophical
Messenger.
The Canadian
Theosophist.
Theosophy.
The Theosophical
Quarterly.
The American
Theosophist.
The Quest.
The Occult Review..237
INDEX
Abel, 228.
Bacon, Roger, 15, 16,
39, 119
Absolute, The, 198,
199, 201, 240, 273.
Balzac, Honorι, 19.
Adam, 189, 212, 228,
256.
Beck, L. Adams, 238,
239
Adam Kadmon, 215
Besant, Dr. Annie, 76,
145, 194, 307 ff.,
Adepts, The, 2, 5, 31,
112, 120, 129, 136,
310 ff., 349.
138, 152 ff., 171,
174, 182, 221, 296,
Bhagavad Gita, The,
25, 28, 29, 273, 280.
304.
Bible, The, 23, 25.
Akasha, 134, 153, 206,
216, 243, 260,
Blake, C. Carter, 192.
329.
Blake, William, 19.
Albigenses, The, 15.
Blavatsky, Helena P.,
biography:
Alchemists, The, 15.
birth, 43; childhood,
45; disposition,
Alchemy, 130, 132.
46; invisible playmates,
47; marriages,
Aldus Academy, The,
15.
49, 50, 58;
wanderings, 50 ff.; founds
Altruism, 291.
Sociιtι Spirite in
Cairo, 57, 91; funds
Analogy, Law of, 239.
supplied, 57;
illnesses, 54, 58, 68, 70,
Androgynes, 226 ff.
84, 87; personal appearance,
59, 60,
Angels, 225, 228.
61; tribute to, by J.
Ransom Bridges,
Anglo-Saxons, 225.
61; description of, by
Countess
Anthropogenesis, 194.
Racowitza, 60;
irascibility, 62; psy-
Apollonius of Tyana,
41, 119.
chic phenomena, 62-88;
in Spiritu-
Archangels, 205.
alism, 90-94;
divergence from Spiritu-
Arhat, 272.
alism, 95, 96; writing
of Isis Un-
Aristotle, 9, 10, 12,
119, 199, 205.
veiled, 114-127;
relation to Mahatma
Arjuna, 280, 282.
Morya, 149 ff.;
production of The
Aryans, The, 225, 231,
275.
Mahatma Letters, 154
ff.; accused by
Arya-Somaj, The, 24,
110, 111.
Madame Coulomb, 178
ff.; repre-
Asana, 284.
sented First Section
T.S., 183; exposi-.238
Astral body, The, 208,
222, 229, 275,
tion of The Secret
Doctrine, 194 ff.;
286.
attitude of teachings
to modern
Astral light, The,
120, 133, 243, 329.
science, 265 ff.;
exposition of spiritual
Astrology, 132, 135.
ethics, 265 ff.; Sun
Libel Suit, 301 ff.;
Asuras, The, 225, 228.
relations with V. S.
Solovyoff, 304 ff.;
Atlantis, 224, 231,
257, 275.
death, 308; relation
to the Judge Case,
Atma, 213.
310 ff.; et passim.
Atom, The, 259, 262,
277.
Boehme, Jacob, 15,
263.
Atonement, The, 142.
Bogomiles, The, 15.
Augoλides, The, 279.
Bradwardine, Robert,
15.
Augustine, 14, 119.
Brahm, 156, 163, 240,
241, 242.
Avatars, 6.
Brahmanism, 312, 318.
Averroλs, 119.
Brahmo-Somaj, 24.
Avichi, 167.
Britten, Mrs. Emma H.,
35.
Avidya, 159.
Brotherhood, The Great
White, 2, 101,
110, 144, 148, 150,
271, 321.
Babylon, 6.
Brotherhood of
Humanity, 113, 184,
Bacon, Francis, 15,
159.
185, 294, 295, 306,
310 ff., 327 ff.
375
Brown, W. T., 181
Crosbie, Robert, 326.
Bruno, Giordano, 5,
119, 139.
Cycle of necessity, 9,
164, 200.
Bucke, Richard M., 29.
Cycles, Law of, 3, 239
ff.
Buddha, The, 25, 112,
138, 144, 145,
268, 289
Darwinism, 232 ff.,
253 ff.
Buddhi, 213, 214.
Davis, Andrew Jackson,
37, 38.
Buddhism, 312.
Demiurge, 201.
Bulgars, The, 15.
Democritus, 119.
Bulwer-Lytton, Sir
Edward, 35, 192.
Devachan, 165 ff., 245
ff.
Devas, 205, 253, 254..239
Cables, Josephine W.,
181 ff.
Development,
Theosophic theory of, 2,
Cagliostro, 15, 136.
3, 305.
Cain, 228.
Dharana, 284.
Cardano, Jerome, 16.
Dharma, 282, 285, 288,
291, 294.
Carlyle, Thomas, 24.
Dhyan Chohans, The,
174.
Cathari, The, 15.
Dhyana, 284.
Catholicism, Roman,
144.
Dhyanand, Swami, 110,
111.
Causal body, 242.
Dietrich of Berne, 15.
Chakras, 275.
Dike, 8.
Chakravarti, G. N.,
311 ff.
Dimension, The Fourth,
216.
Chaldeans, The, 13,
16, 104, 144.
Discipleship, Path of,
280, 283.
Channing, William E.,
23.
Domovoy (house spirit),
45.
Chatterji, Mohini M.,
84, 177.
Donnelley, Ignatius,
41, 231.
Chelaship, 170, 175.
Double, The etheric,
246, 284, 286.
Children of the Light,
20.
Doubleday, Gen. Abner
W., 107-109.
China, 6.
Dresser, Horatio W.,
30.
Christ, The, 23, 144,
147, 182, 276.
Druids, The, 224.
Christianity, 13, 140
ff., 181, 188, 207,
Dzyan, stanzas of,
194.
211, 218, 239.
Christian Science, 31,
32.
Easter, 221.
Christos, The, 148,
287.
Easter Islands, 223.
Cleather, Alice L.,
194, 325, 339.
Eckhardt, Meister, 15.
Clement of Alexandria,
14, 189.
Eddy, Mary Baker, 31,
32.
Coleman, W. Emmette,
125 ff., 302.
Eden, 212.
Coleridge, Samuel T.,
19, 24.
Edison, Thomas A.,
107.
Collins, Mabel, 301
ff.
Edmonds, Judge, 35.
Colville, W. J., 30,
36.
Egg, The mundane, 202,
203, 218.
Comacines, The, 15.
Ego, The, 242 ff.,
274, 276, 278, 282,
Comparative Mythology,
3, 145..240
285.
Comparative Religion,
41, 113, 145.
Egypt and Egyptians,
6, 7, 16, 104, 144.
Conception, The
Immaculate, 203.
Elder brothers, 5,
147, 183, 258.
Confucius, 25, 29,
112.
Electricity, 204, 205,
207.
Constantine, Emperor,
140.
Elementals, 99, 131,
191, 216, 217.
Copernicus, 5, 16.
Elements, The, 262,
277.
Corson, Prof. Hiram,
115, 122.
Elisha (The Prophet),
130.
Cosmic Cerebrum,
Doctrine of, 162.
Elixer of Life, The,
137.
Cosmogenesis, 194, 201
ff.
Elohim, 201.
Coues, Prof. Elliott
W., 181, 301 ff.
Emanations, 141.
Coulomb, Madame E.,
177, 187.
Emerson, R. W., 19,
23, 24, 25, 26, 27,
Creation, 221, 225,
228.
28.
Crookes, Sir William,
36, 262.
Empedocles, 9, 10, 25,
119, 260.
376
Enoch, 213.
Griscom, C. A., Jr.,
319, 321.
Enos, 228.
Grosseteste, Robert,
16.
Esoteric section T.S.,
184 ff., 194, 295,
Gunas, The, 277.
297, 305, 307, 308,
317, 328.
Guyon, Madame, 20.
Esotericism, 5, 7, 13,
39, 112, 138-140,
148, 152, 184, 196,
267, 281.
Hare, Prof. Robert,
35.
Essenes, 142 ff.
Hargrove, E. T., 314,
321 ff.
Ether, 259 ff.
Harris, Thomas L., 38.
Ethics, of Theosophy,
265 ff., 307.
Harte, Richard, 306.
Eucharist, 142.
Hartmann, Franz, 178,
190.
Eusebius, 119.
Healing, Faith, 18,
21, 22, 23, 39, 132.
Eve, 256.
Heaven, 165 ff., 247
ff.
Everett, Edward, 23.
Hebrews, The, 26.
Evil, problem of, 165.
Hegel, G. W. F., 3.
Evil eye, The, 136.
Heindel, Max, 326.
Evolution, 173, 201,
209, 210, 216, 218,.241
Helix, The, 3.
219, 220, 232, 253 ff.
Helmholtz, 262.
Exotericism, 6, 188.
Heraclitus, 8, 119,
174.
Heresies, 14.
Fall of man, 8, 10,
212.
Hermaphrodites, 225
ff.
Fawcett, E. Douglass,
192.
Hermes Trismegistus,
140, 213, 217.
Felt, George H.,
104-106.
Hermeticism, 41, 139.
Fetichism, 158.
Hesiod, 6, 8.
Figulus, Benedictus,
15.
Hilarion, Master, 101.
Fire Philosophers,
The, 15.
Hindu philosophy, 27,
31, 32, 39.
Florentine Academy,
The, 15, 39.
Hobbes, Thomas, 159.
Fludd, Robert, 39,
119.
Holy Grail, The, 15.
Fohat, 200, 203, 205,
207, 222.
Home, D. D., 36, 37,
93.
Fountain of Youth,
137.
Homer, 6, 126.
Fox, George, 20, 37.
Hotchener, Mrs. Marie
R., 331, 334 ff.
Fox, Margaret and
Kate, 33.
Houdin, Robert, 36.
Freemasons, The, 41,
255, 335.
Huc, L'Abbι, 195.
Friends, The, 20.
Hume, A. O., 150, 160,
162, 180, 306,
Friends of God, The,
15.
318.
Fullerton, Alexander,
328.
Huxley, Thomas, 126.
Hyperboreans, The,
223.
Gage, Lyman J., 325.
Hypnotism, 18.
Galileo, 16.
Garrett, Edmund, 317.
Iamblichus, 25, 119.
Garrigues, John, 326.
Ignorance, Hall of,
280.
Gebhards, The, 187,
193.
Immortality, 164.
Generation, Fall into,
225, 229.
India, 6, 10, 143,
148, 150, 158, 176 ff.
Genesis, 142, 215,
221.
Initiates, 14.
Genii, 217.
Initiations, 280..242
Globes, Chains of,
205, 207, 213.
Involution, 201, 209.
Glossolalia, 21, 22,
33, 39.
Irenaeus, 119, 142.
Gnosis, The, 2, 15,
42, 141.
Ishvara, 284.
Gnostics, The, 14, 41,
119, 140, 142.
Isis Unveiled, purpose
of, 116, 117,
Gower's Confessio
Amantis, 15.
127 ff.; mystery of
authorship, 114-
Greece, 6, 10, 216.
127; works quoted in,
118, 119; mod-
Greek philosophy, 7,
12, 13, 32.
ern knowledge barren,
130 ff.; ex-
377
position of magic, 132
ff.; magical
Leadbeater, C. W.,
297, 311, 320, 349.
phenomena in, 135 ff.;
gravitation
Learning, Hall of,
280.
defined, 260;
references to, 23, 98,
Leibnitz, G. W., 207.
99, 107, 115-146.
Lemuria, 223 ff., 231,
256, 275, 279.
Islam, 158.
L'Homme de Cuir, 15.
Liberal Catholic
Church, The, 327, 335.
James, William, 19.
Light, nature of, 259.
Jehovah, 141, 163,
201, 228.
Lipika, The, 206.
Jelihowsky, Madame,
189, 304 ff.
Lodge, The Aryan, 181.
Jennings, Hargrave,
41.
Logoi, The, 255.
Jesus, 142, 145.
Lully, Raymond, 15.
Jinarajadasa, C., 330,
349.
Joachim of Flores, 15.
Mabinogian Legends,
The, 15.
Joan of Arc, 139.
Magi, 6, 16, 144.
John, the Evangelist,
142.
Magic, 39, 98, 114,
130, 131, 132, 133,
Johnston, Charles,
325.
142, 153, 225, 285,
292.
Johnston, Madame Vera,
189, 190, 191.
Magnetism, cosmic, 134
ff., 260, 261.
Josephus, 142.
Mahatma, K.H., 96,
100, 101, 103, 110,
Judaism, 13, 140, 141,
142, 158.
149, 150, 154, 156,
162 ff., 180, 309
Judge, William Q., 85,
104-114, 181,
310, 318.
183, 186, 190, 301
ff., 310 ff.
Mahatma Letters, The,
101, 102, 103,.243
154, 156, 174, 179,
180, 188, 330.
Kabbala, The, 119,
126, 144.
Mahatma Morya, 110,
149, 150, 156,
Kabbalism, 141.
169, 180, 304.
Kabbalists, The, 41,
144, 172.
Mahatmas, 2, 31, 102,
147, 182, 187,
Kant, Emanuel, 168.
189, 268, 306, 313
ff., 321 ff.
Kapila, 213.
Mahayana, 313.
Karma, 8, 27, 182,
197, 200, 232 ff.,
Maitreya, Lord, 218.
249 ff., 256, 274,
275, 280, 289, 290.
Manas (Mind), 168,
213, 222, 230,
Karma, Lords of, 244.
246, 256.
Keightley, Dr.
Archibald, 122, 181, 187,
Manichaeism, 14.
191, 192, 194, 339.
Manu, Laws of, 144.
Keightley, Bertram,
122, 187, 191, 194,
Manvantara, 198, 216,
221, 261.
339.
Marden, Orison S., 31.
Kepler, 16, 260.
Mars, 230, 310.
Kiddle Incident, The,
157.
Masonry, 108, 109.
Kingsford, Anna B.,
174.
Massey, C. C., 105,
176.
Kingsland, William,
43, 179.
Masters, The, 147, 150
ff., 169, 176,
Koumboum, magical
tree, 136.
179, 182, 187, 188,
191, 266, 272, 305,
Krishna, 145, 213,
280, 282, 290.
310 ff.
Krishnamurti, Jiddu,
333 ff., 338, 349.
Materialism, 159, 160
ff., 258 ff., 261,
Kriyasakti, 228, 256.
264.
Krotona, (California),
337.
Mathers, S. L.
MacGregor, 192.
Kumaras, 222, 225,
228, 230.
Maya, 27, 159, 164,
218.
Kundalini, The, 285.
Mazoomdar, P. C., 31.
Mead, G. R. S., 325,
339.
"Lamasery,
The," 59.
Meaning, significance
of, 235 ff.
Land, The Imperishable
Sacred, 223.
Mercury, 230, 310.
Lao-Tze, 145.
Mesmerism, 18, 19, 29,
30, 31, 39, 132.
Larson, C. D., 31..244
Metachemistry, 263.
Latter Day Saints, 22.
Methodism, 20.
378
Millikan, Prof. Robert
A., 207.
Ormazd, 163.
Milton, John, 266.
Orpheus, 213.
Mind-Born, The, 226.
Orphism, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11.
Mindless, Sin of the,
256.
Osiris, 163.
Miracle Club, The,
104.
Oversoul, The, 27,
200.
Mirandola, Pico della,
119.
Owen, Robert Dale, 21,
34, 36.
Missionaries,
Christian, 178, 179, 187.
Mitchell, Roy F., 330.
Pagan gods, 139.
Moira, 8, 10.
Paganism vindicated,
138 ff., 141.
Monad, The, 207, 210,
211, 218, 221,
Paladino, Eusapia, 36.
222, 227, 332, 242,
273, 280.
Pancoast, Dr. Seth,
104.
Monism, 160, 161.
Paracelsus, 15, 39,
119, 122, 126, 263.
Moon, The, 210, 213,
218, 226 ff.
Paradise, 212.
Morality, Theosophic,
113, 114.
Parker, Theodore, 23,
35.
More, Henry, 119.
Parkman, Francis, 23.
Mormons, The, 22, 51.
Parmenides, 9, 119.
Moses, 141.
Patanjali, 273, 286.
Moses, W. Stainton,
176.
Paterenes, The, 15.
Mόller, Max, 127, 169,
195.
Patristics, 15, 119,
126, 141, 142.
Myers, F. W. H., 36,
176, 180.
Patterson, Charles
Brodie, 30.
Mystery Religions,
The, 2, 7, 8, 11, 13,
Paulicians, The, 15.
14, 41, 140, 141, 155,
189.
Peebles, J. M., 36.
Mysticism, 39.
Pennsylvania
Theosophy, 41.
Mythology, 140, 143.
Percival, Harold W.,
325.
Peredur stories, 15.
Nazarenes, The, 142.
Perpetual motion, 137.
Necromancy, 39..245
Persia, 6, 7, 8.
Neo-Platonism, 12, 25,
41, 119, 126,
Philalethians, 140.
140, 141.
Philo Judaeus, 13, 42,
119, 144.
Neo-Theosophy, 175,
327, 328 ff.
Philosopher's Stone,
The, 137, 172.
Nettesheim, Agrippa
von, 16, 39, 119.
Phaedrus, The, II.
New Thought, 29, 30,
31.
Phoenix, The
(Journal), 173.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 16,
134, 170, 260.
Physis, 7.
Nicholas of Basle, 15.
Pietism, German, 15.
Nirmanakayas, 271,
312.
Pindar, 6, 9.
Nirvana, 186, 215, 251
ff., 312.
Piper, Mrs. Leonora,
36.
Noah, 189.
Pitris, 144, 201, 209,
222, 229.
Noumenon, 260.
Planetary spirits,
174, 205, 206, 213.
Numenius, 14.
Plato, 5, 9, 10, 11,
119, 138, 144, 157,
Numerology, 213.
224, 242.
Nyana, 283.
Pletho, Gemistus, 15,
119.
Pliny, 126, 142.
Occultism, 39, 199,
218.
Plotinus, 12, 14, 25,
119.
Olcott, Col. Henry S.,
35, 56, 57, 58, 59,
Plutarch, 119.
77, 78, 79, 84, 85,
90, 94, 98, 103, 105-
Popul Vuh, The, 119.
114, 119, 120, 122,
176, 183, 305 ff.,
Porphyry, 14, 119.
310 ff., 328 ff.
Poseidonis, 224.
Old, W. R., 317.
Prakriti, 161.
Oriental philosophy,
113.
Pralaya, 164, 198,
201, 225, 231.
Origen, 12, 14, 189.
Prana, 284.
Original Sin, 9.
Pranayama, 284.
379
Pratt, Orson, 22.
Saviors, 255.
Pratyahara, 284.
Science, 199, 253 ff.
Prayag Letter, The,
318.
Secret Doctrine, The,
116, 162, 188 ff.
Precipitation of
writing, 156 ff..246
194 ff., 253 ff., 308.
Probation, Path of,
280, 283.
Serapis, 14.
Probationers, Pledge
of, 185.
Sermon on the Mount,
The, 142.
Proclus, 12, 14, 119.
Serpent, Symbol, The,
203, 212, 226.
Prodigies,
mathematical, 18.
Seth, 228.
Prometheus, 228.
Sevens, 206, 214, 218,
219.
Protyle, 202, 262.
Seybert Commission on
Spiritualism, 35.
Psychic experiences,
14, 62-88.
Shakers, The, 21.
Puranas, The, 263.
Shells, astral, 222,
229, 255.
Purusha, 161.
Siddhis, The, 286.
Pythagoreanism, 7, 9,
10, 11, 25, 119,
Sinnett, Albert P.,
43, 80-84, 94, 96,
140, 144.
100, 150, 151, 154
ff., 176 ff., 183,
306, 310 ff., 329,
349.
Quakers, The, 20.
Slate writing, 33.
Quimby, P. P., 19, 30,
31.
Smith, Joseph, 22.
Quincy, Josiah, 23.
Smith, Wayland, 15.
Smythe, Albert, 330.
Races, Root- and Sub-,
209, 210, 222 ff.
Society for Psychical
Research, 176 ff.,
Racowitza, Princess
Helene von, 60.
186, 187.
Rakowczi, Count, 15.
Socrates, 8, 10, 169.
Reincarnation, 7, 8,
11, 15, 26, 38, 157,
Solomon's Seal,
significance of, 172.
197, 232 ff., 290.
Solovyoff, V. S., 43,
85, 86, 180, 304 ff.
Religion,
deterioration of, 3, 4, 158.
Sorcery, 225, 266,
282.
Reproduction, 226 ff.
Spalding, A. G., 324.
Revivals, American
religious, 18.
Spencer, Herbert, 127.
Richmond, Cora V., 36.
Spiritualism, 21,
33-38, 62, 64, 72, 84,
Rishis, 6, 150, 189.
89-102, 166, 169, 181,
246, 265, 315.
Robins, Dr. William
L., 336.
St. Germain, Count,
15.
Rochester Theosophical
Society, 181.
St. Paul, 14, 140..247
Rogers, L. W., 337,
349.
Stead, W. T., 192,
307.
Romance of the Rose,
The, 15.
Suicides, 167.
Romanes, J. G., 192.
Sun, The New York,
261.
Romanticism, German,
24.
Supermen, 4, 150 ff.,
241.
Rosicrucians, The, 15,
41, 139, 326.
Supernaturalism, 19,
20.
Rounds, Cosmical, 206,
209, 210, 214,
Superstitions, 40, 158
ff.
216, 220, 222.
Suso (The Mystic), 15.
Row, T. Subba, 310.
Swamis, 31.
Roy, Rammohun, 24.
Sweat-Born, The, 226.
Rusalky, (Water
Sprites), 45.
Swedenborgianism, 19,
20, 37, 119, 263.
Ruskin, John, 292.
Symbolism, 217 ff.
Syncretism of
Theosophy, 13.
Sabbath, The, 215.
Saccas, Ammonius, 12,
14, 119.
Tarot of the
Bohemians, 15, 119.
Saltus, Edgar, 192.
Tauler, John, 15.
Samadhi, 284.
Teleology, 217, 236.
Samuel (The Prophet),
130.
Tertullian, 119.
Satan, 39, 212, 213,
218.
Thales, 6, 7, 119.
Satyrs, 256.
Thaumaturgy, 39.
380
Theurgy, 39, 142, 143.
Wachtmeister, Countess
Constance, 43,
Thoreau, Henry, 28.
86, 87, 122, 187, 188,
190, 193.
Tibet, 148, 150.
Wadia, P. B., 326.
Tingley, Katherine,
320 ff.
Waldenses, The, 15.
Titans, The, 228 ff.
Warrington, Albert P.,
337.
Tolerance, 295, 299.
Wedgewood, Bishop
James I., 327, 335,
Transcendentalism, 24,
31.
349.
Traubel, Horace L.,
29.
Wheel of Life, The, 8,
9, 26, 164.
Triangles, The
Interlaced, 172.
Whitman, Walt, 28,
29..248
Trinity, Doctrine of,
22, 23, 142.
Wilder, Dr. Alexander,
115, 119, 122.
Troubadours, The, 15.
Wisdom, The Ancient,
2-6.
Tyndall, 127.
Wisdom, Hall of, 280.
Witchcraft, 39.
Unitarianism, 23, 24,
31, 32.
Wordsworth, William,
24.
Wright, Claude F., 321
ff.
Vampirism, 136, 167.
Writing, automatic,
33.
Van Helmont, 119.
Van Hook, Dr. Weller,
337.
Xenophanes, 25.
Vaughn, Thomas, 39.
Vedanta Society, The,
31.
Yama, 283.
Vedantism, 110.
Yoga, Bhakti, 275;
Hatha, 275; Karma,
Vedas, The, 25, 29,
119, 197, 263.
274 ff., 294, 348;
Laya, 275; Raja, 275;
Vegetarianism, 170.
philosophy of, 39,
249, 256, 272 ff.
Venus (planet), 230,
254.
Yogis, 31, 285 ff.
Virgil, 126.
Virgin Birth, 212.
Zeno, 9.
Vivekananda, Swami,
31.
Zeus, 228 ff.
Voodooism, 51.
Zoroaster, 25, 29,
113, 144.
381
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