Searchable Theosophical Texts
Theosophy House
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
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 Greece could no more escape the
contagion than could Egypt or Persia. The occultist endeavors to make
the point
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 Thebes.
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
Alexandria, the two faiths were actually blended, for many Christians
in the
Egyptian city were at the same time connected with the Mystery cult of
Serapis,
as many in Greece and Judea were connected with that of Dionysus. But
perhaps
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
Antioch
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
Switzerland in the Engadine; the early Waldenses; the Bohemian
tradition given
in the Tarot; the great Aldus' Academy at Venice; the Rosicrucians and
the
Florentine Academy founded by Pletho. Some theosophists have attempted
to find
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 Newton; the known achievements of
Roger Bacon,
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
Kentucky revivals in the early years of the nineteenth century produced
many odd
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
France had excited the amazement of the world by its revelations of an
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
England in the fifties and sixties.
The cult of Swedenborgianism, coming in chiefly from England, survived
from the
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 London and founded the
'Theosophical
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 Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1825.
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 America during the period we
are
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 France, enhanced the
force 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 United States. They claimed to enjoy the power of
apostolic
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 California."3 He maintained that
there were
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
America. The ability to employ the mystic powers of Urim and Thummim,
which are
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 Church of Christ. They know that the blind
see, 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 Boston, a
philosophic-religious
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 New England thinkers to a
lofty
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 England through Carlyle, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. French
influence was
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 Europe appear the land of trifles. Identity! Identity!
Friend
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 America's own native mysticism. It created an
atmosphere in
which the traditions of the supernatural grew robust and realistic.
Attention must now be directed to that wide-spread movement in America
which has
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, Boston was galvanized into a veritable quiver of interest in
Eastern
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 New
York the
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 Boston cult tended indirectly to bring some of its
votaries
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 one twelve and the other
nine, in
the hamlet of Hydesville, near Rochester, New York, in the spring of
1847, was
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 America,
England,
and France. In nearly every town in America groups were soon meeting,
eager for
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,
Vermont, to public notice and who put forth one of the first large
volumes
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 England, and who
added two
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
Boston..21
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 University of
Pennsylvania,
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 England came F. W. H. Myers'
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 California, whose books, Seers of the Ages and Who
Are These
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 America. While a child, spiritual power manifested itself to
him to
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 America to be
the
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, New
York.
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 Poughkeepsie, he became the clairvoyant of a
mesmeric
lecturer, and in this capacity began to excite wonder by his
revelations. This
was before the Rochester knockings were heard. He diagnosed and healed
diseases,
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 New York
which.22
announced a new philosophy of the universe. They were published under
the title,
Nature's Divine Revelation, a book of eight hundred pages. Davis then
became a
voluminous writer.26
Thomas L. Harris, the third great representative, was much attracted by
Davis'
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 Morning Land and other pretentious works were
produced
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 Europe and America alike a never-dying
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 Europe and America, who had kept
on the
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 Russia. His
book,
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
Ekaterinoslaw on the
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,
Germany, settled in Russia. Her mother's parents were Privy Councillor
Andrew
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 Russia, says the account.
Though
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 Russia's founder, Rurik, and the Imperial line.
Madame Blavatsky came on to the Russian scene during a year fatal to
the Slavic
nation, as to all Europe, owing to the decimation of the population by
the first
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 Russia
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 Dnieper aided in weaving a spell of enchantment about her infancy.
No
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 Helena for her first journey
abroad. She
went with him to Paris and London, but proved a troublesome charge.
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
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
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
WALES-------
CHAPTER on the civilization of ancient Egypt
(Vol. I.,
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
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
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
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
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
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
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
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
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
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
WALES-------
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
------CARDIFF THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN
WALES-------
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