THE THEOSOPHICAL
MOVEMENT
1875 -1950
THE CUNNINGHAM PRESS
Los ANGELES 32, CALIFORNIA
COPYRIGHT, 1951
BY THE CUNNINGHAM PRESS
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
“Night before last I was shown a bird’s eye view of the theosophical societies. I saw a few earnest reliable theosophists in a death struggle with the world in general and with other—nominal and ambitious theosophists. The former are greater in number than you may think, and they prevailed—as you in America will prevail, if you only remain staunch to the Master’s programme and true to yourselves.”
—H. P. B., 1888
PREFACE
IN 1925, just fifty years after the founding of the Theosophical Society in New York, the first accurate and thorough history of the Theosophical Movement was published by E. P. Dutton and Company. This volume, entitled The Theosophical Movement, 1875-1925, a History and a Survey, was com piled by the editors of Theosophy, a monthly journal devoted to the original objects of the Theosophical Movement. It provided theosophical students and others interested in the subject with a detailed and documented study of the lifework of H. P. Blavatsky and other leading figures of the Theosophical Movement. Encompassed in the 700 pages of the book were careful accounts of all the major events of Theosophical history, with enough evidence assembled for every reader to form his own conclusions regarding matters of controversy; or at least, sufficient to place serious inquirers well along on the path of individual investigation.
During the years since publication of The Theosophical Movement, no material errors, either of fact or of interpretation, have ben disclosed, although, due to the various claims of “successorship” and ‘spiritual leadership” that have been maintained by some of the Theosophical organizations, the appearance of the book was the occasion for discomfort and complaint in some quarters. Actually, the volume was published in the face of a threatened libel suit, but no action was brought, doubtless for the reason that the statements made are all supported by facts.
The present book is a continuance of the earlier work published in 1925. Since that time there have been many developments in the Theosophical area. “Leaders” have died, and other personalities have taken their places. The vicissitudes of the various Theosophical Societies are now of less concern to the inquirer, and the philosophy itself, in the form of the original teachings, is gradually replacing organizational activities and disputes as the focus of Theosophic interest. Even the enemies of the Theosophical Movement are showing
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MOVEMENT
by their methods of attack
that its real vitality lies in the life and work of H. P. Blavatsky. Other
figures of the early days of the Movement are increasingly forgotten, but the
power and influence of H.P.B. grows with the years, as students of Theosophy,
regardless of organization, seek the inspiration of her undiluted teachings.
Thus, pseudo-Theosophy is more easily recognized, and theosophical “sects” find
it more difficult to maintain a distinctive identity. The course of these
developments in the Theosophical Movement since 1925 gives occasion for the new
material in this book, as well as for the consolidation of the treatment of
earlier events. The 1925 volume will remain as the more detailed work of
reference on the initial cycle of Theosophical history, its existence making
possible the publication of another book, briefer in some respects, and
covering the later phases of the Movement to 1950.
For those who find in this book their first contact with Theosophy, something may be said on the subject of “authority.” It will soon become evident to such readers that the study of Theosophy is an undertaking with more than ordinary implications. What, it may be asked, is the authority for statements which seem to go far beyond the familiar facts of experience? Obviously, any philosophy attempting to grapple with the dilemmas of Western civilization must draw upon some source of explanation relatively unfamiliar to Western man. It is virtually certain that any real analysis of the deep dissatisfactions of the modern world will contain hitherto unconsidered or neglected elements; and these, therefore, ought not to be set aside simply because they are unfamiliar. On the contrary, sole reliance on the well-known formulas of what men commonly esteem as knowledge—either scientific or religious—may well be responsible for the multiplying failures of Western civilization. In contrast to the odd mixture of empirical science, eclectic speculation, and dying religious tradition that passes for “knowledge” today, Theosophy offers for consideration the teaching of the Gnosis, a body of practical psychological and moral truth which can be tested and verified by each man for himself.
The Theosophical teachings were defined by Madame Blavatsky as constituting, in essence, a synthesis of working principles. By learning to use these principles, she said, any
v—————————————————————————PREFACE
man can gain independent
knowledge of the laws of nature and the underlying realities of human
experience. This proposition she founded on the
actual existence of men whose lives reveal a mastery of the use of those
principles. Such men, Madame Blavatsky said, were her teachers. But while Theosophy was thus identified by
its nineteenth-century expositor, inquirers were repeatedly warned against
accepting its teachings “on faith.” The Theosophical Movement sought no
credulous devotees, but serious students.
In Theosophy, the inquirer will find much to think about, little to believe. There are “teachings,” it is true—definite metaphysical conceptions, which give the Theosophical philosophy its systematic character. These teachings were presented by Madame Blavatsky, without claim of “originality,” as the natural heritage from the intellectual and moral evolution of the human race. She offered them, not as dogmas, but as meta physical developments of principles verifiable in experience. A doctrine or teaching which forms part of this heritage, before it has been tested by the individual inquirer, may be compared to the “hypothesis” of the scientist. It invites neither belief nor denial, but investigation.
This book, it is hoped, will serve as an introduction to further study of the Theosophical philosophy. Basically, Theosophy is an outlook on life which should have natural appeal for all men and women who believe in the inalienable spiritual potentialities of every human being, and who sense the futility of both scientific scepticism and sectarian religion. Most of all, Theosophy should appeal to those who are weary of human hatred, of the incessant conflicts, born of fear and ignorance, among men and nations, and who have resolved to discover, if they can, a practical philosophy of soul—a way of thinking and acting that will slowly but surely change the world.
April 13, 1951
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . V
CHAPTER I. THE PATH OF PROGRESS . . . . . . . . 1
Steps in achieving freedom of thought—the nineteenth century era—the impact of Darwinism—the function of Spiritualism—the decline of religious faith—the perspective of the theosophical Founders—higher evolution—the cyclic law of progress—great reformers—the discovery of Oriental philosophy—the Eastern heritage.
CHAPTER II. NINETEENTH CENTURY SPIRITUALISM . . . . 12
Beginnings of Spiritualism—the London Dialectical Society and its Report—early pioneers in psychic research—the experiments of Prof. Crookes—the scientific “wall of belief”—the appeal by Alfred Russel Wallace—atheists and materialism—Mesmer’s mission—animal magnetism and hypnotism psychic stirrings in America—evidence from Neoplatonism.
CHAPTER III. THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND ITS
FOUNDERS . . . . . . . . . . . 27
H. P. Blavatsky’s arrival in
America—meeting of H.P.B. and Olcott—the Eddy brothers—H.P.B. defends honest
mediums—the “lamasery”
—W. Q. Judge joins the Movement—H.P.B.’s earliest
articles—first hints of theosophical purpose—the “Hiraf” letter—Occultism: a
“positive science”—Magic and Spiritualism
compared—the Spiritualists’ dilemma—H.P.B. instructs Olcott and Judge—Judge
describes first meeting with H.P.B.—H.P.B.’s “demonstrations”—the founding of
the Theosophical Society—Olcott and the “occult”—T.S. organization.
CHAPTER IV. OBJECTS AND
LITERATURE . . . . .
. . .
. 44
The Three Objects of the T.S.—the “Brotherhood plank”—the
true Founders—H.P.B. declares aims of T.S.—the publication of Isis
Unveiled—Adepts and their philosophy—the need for ancient religions—ten basic
propositions.
CHAPTER V. INDIA . . . . . . . .. 56
Indian center established of Theosophy in India—the problem of caste—Arya Samaj—The Theosophist launched—forces of opposition—how the T.S. took hold in India—Sinnett’s Occult World—the Adepts and modern
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science—intent of the Adept Fraternity—Hume’s proposal discussed by Adepts—science devoid of philanthropy—in roads of materialism—a “soul-satisfying” philosophy offered—Esoteric Buddhism—the Indian National Congress.
CHAPTER VI. THEOSOPHISTS IN INDIA . . . . . . 72
Spirit of The Theosophist—what are the Theosophists?— the T.S. a “Republic of Conscience”—no concern with politics—attitude of Missionaries—origin of Caves and Jungles of Hindustan—Theosophical activity in Ceylon—Damodar and Subba Row—the break with Arya Samaj—the “Kiddie incident”—the Coulombs—the Missionary Attack—H.P.B. demands trial—Olcott’s compromise—H.P.B.’s resignation as Corresponding Secretary—members weak in trial.
CHAPTER VII. THE LONDON S0CIETY FOR PSYCHICAL
RESEARCH . . . . . . . . . . . 90
The Theosophist welcomes the new Society—investigation of theosophical phenomena begins—the first S.P.R. Report— Theosophy’s appeal to “Occult persons and methods”— H.P.B. declines to disclose occult laws—Mr. Hodgson’s Report—results of ex parte investigation—opposed motives of T.S. and S.P.R.—S.P.R. avoids challenge—involuntary mediumship vs. voluntary theosophical phenomena—basis for Committee’s conclusion—Judge discloses Coulomb plot— the handwriting “experts”—collision of theories between T.S. and S.P.R.—what was H.P.B.’s motive?
CHAPTER VIII. FAREWELL TO INDIA . . . . . . 106
H.P.B. departs for Europe—India minus H.P.B.—an Adept’s view of Olcott—Olcott’s organizational fervor—why H.P.B. did not return—H.P.B. begins movement in the West— Indian culture and English prejudice—T.S. accomplishments.
CHAPTER IX. THEOSOPHY IN AMERICA . . . . . . 116
Early days of T.S. work in America—Judge’s time of preparation—Judge visits H.P.B. in Paris—Judge witnesses Coulomb conspiracy—membership increases in America—establishment of The Path—Path keynote: brotherhood—Judge’s genius for application—Judge’s helpers—Letters That Have Helped Me—H.P.B.’s five messages to Americans.
CHAPTER X. LUCIFER AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE . . . . . 127
H.P.B. in London—the Blavatsky Lodge—H.P.B. and Lucifer function of Lucifer—Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky published by Sinnett—The Secret Doc-
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trine appears—H.P.B. the transmitter—H.P.B. and the Secret Doctrine—the three sections of the T.S.—ordeals of chelaship—formation of Esoteric Section—Judge’s articles on occultism—occult status of H.P.B. and Judge—Olcott’s opposition to the E.S.
CHAPTER XI. THE COUES-COLLINS CHARGES . . .. . .. . 143
Ambitions of Prof. Coues—claims of Mabel Collins—the disputed inspiration of Light on the Path—Mabel Collins’ “gifts”—the New York Sun prints Coues’ attack—H.P.B. sues for libel—preliminary victory—death of H.P.B.—the Sun’s retraction—Judge on “The Esoteric She.”
CHAPTER XII. H.P.B.’s DEATH
AND AFTER . . .. .
.. .
.. 156
Mrs. Besant joins the T.S.—London and European branches
protest “orders” from Adyar—H.P.B. avoids autocracy— the passing of H.P.B.—
Judge
and the E.S. problem—first worldwide Convention held—“autonomy” of the London Lodge—activities after Convention—Annie Besant’s reputation—Olcott’s
position—Mrs. Besant’s proclamation on H.P.B.—Mrs. Besant claims messages from
Masters—H.P.B. the Messenger—Col. Olcott on “idolatry”—Judge speaks for
impersonality—the famous Path message—“Jasper Niemand”—Judge strikes at dogmatism.
CHAPTER XIII. THE SOCIETY
VERSUS THE MOVEMENT .
. .. 172
H.P.B.’s devotion to Movement—Olcott’s attitude toward
H.P.B.—the Adepts’ view of H.P.B.—H.P.B.’s support of Olcott—the Subba Row
controversy—Richard Harte and the Theosophist—the T.S. a new Rome?—H.P.B.’s
“interference”—Harte’s attitude toward the E.S.—Judge takes issue with Harte—the
real “Centre”: H.P.B.—H.P.B. loyal to CAUSE, not place—theosophical societies
autonomous—H.P.B. appeals to colleagues.
CHAPTER XIV. COL. OLCOTT,
ANNIE BESANT, AND
W. Q. JUDGE .
. ..
. ..
. ..
. .. 190
Charges against Olcott—Olcott resigns Presidency—Judge voted Olcott’s successor—Mrs. Besant violates E.S. neutrality—E.S. and T.S. distinct entities—progress of American Section—Judge’s declarations in Path—Sinnett’s quarrel with the S.D.—Sinnett asserts “independent” occult teaching—H.P.B. the only agency for Masters’ letters—Olcott on H.P.B.'s “defects”—Old Diary Leaves—Judge’s counsel on Masters—the T.S. and the World’s Parliament of Religions—Chakravarti and Mrs. Besant—Annie Besant prefers charges against Judge—Olcott’s ultimatum to Judge.
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CHAPTER XV. THE CASE AGAINST WILLIAM Q. JUDGE . . .. .206
Judge denies charges—no basis for having investigating committee—how to judge Mahatma Letters—protest by Keightley and Mead—can the T.S. decide on “Messages” ?—American Convention of 1894—T.S. cannot fix a dogma—resolutions upholding Judge—Council proceedings in London—Judge acted not as Vice-President—judicial enquiry begins—Olcott switches the issue—Olcott admits impropriety of “charges”— Olcott revokes Judge’s suspension—Committee decision: Judge case not within its jurisdiction—Judge’s silence.
CHAPTER XVI. AFTERMATH OF THE JUDGE CASE . .. . .. . 228
London Convention of European section—”Jury of Honor” proposed—Mrs. Besant’s charges against Judge—Mrs. Besant discusses transmission of Messages—why Mrs. Besant changed—Judge repeats denial of “charges”—H.P.B. on “precipitation”—Judge case “settled”—Mrs. Besant consults with ‘W. R. Old in India—Westminster Gazette attack—calumnies against Judge spread broadcast—Judge’s circular of Nov. 3, 1894—Chakravarti's influence on Mrs. Besant—Judge deposes Annie Besant—Mrs. Besant’s counter-circular—the “Judge case” again—Mrs. Besant publishes “charges” and “testimony”—H.P.B. quoted on Annie Besant.
CHAPTER XVII. THE T. S. IN AMERICA. . . . . . .. . .. 250
American Convention of 1895 forms Theosophical Society in America—Judge the Life President of T.S.A.—Judge’s letter to European Convention defines Theosophical Movement—the Prayag Letter—Besant and Olcott deny Prayag Letter—Sinnett’s private suspicions of H.P.B.—causes of animus toward Judge—Leadbeater’s removal—J. D. Buck’s testimony for Judge.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE DEATH OF WILLIAM Q. JUDGE . . . .. . 264
Judge’s associates allege a “successor”—the “occult successor” heralded—Convention of 1896—“Promise” identified as Mrs. Tingley—Theosophical World Crusade—Point Loma headquarters established—Hargrove repudiates Mrs. Tingley—1898 Convention and splits in T.S.A.—Fussell contradicts himself—Dr. de Purucker claims “succession”—gesture of “fraternization’‘—“succession” of Col. Conger—publicizing of esoteric teaching.
CHAPTER XIX. AFTERMATH IN AMERICA . . . . .. . .. . 279
E. T. Hargrove’s theosophical group—the “Temple of the People” A. Neresheimer’s affidavit—J. H. Fussell a faith-
xiii———————————————————————TABLE OF CONTENTS
ful witness—Mr. Ryan’s case for “successorship”—H.P.B.'s own statement on apostolic succession—Judge’s “orderly succession’‘—the so-called “occult diary’‘—Mrs. Cleather’s disclosures—psychic origin of Tingley succession—new “explanations” of succession.
CHAPTER XX. THE ADYAR SOCIETY . . . . .. .. .. .. .. 290
Leadbeater case—Olcott’s death—Mrs. Besant invites Leadbeater to return—Mrs. Besant creates orders, organizations, and “Liberal Catholic Church”—the “Star” Congress of 1925—“Arhats,” “World-Mother,” and “Messiah”—Krishnamurti’s defection—the passing of Mrs. Besant and Leadbeater—Mr. Arundale recommends the S.D.—Jinarajadasa and “God”—Letter of warning to Mrs. Besant—Mrs. Besant and Olcott admit privately wrong done Judge.
CHAPTER XXI. CONTINUING CURRENTS . . . .. .. .. .. .. 301
The prolific year 1898—Theosophical Society of New York—the Word—Dr. Wilder—Mrs. Langford—Dr. Dower’s “Temple of the People”—Francia LaDue: “Blue Star”—Alice Cleather—writings by students on H.P.B.—Steiner’s Anthroposophy—G.R.S. Mead’s Quest Society—Max Heindel—split-off branches of T.S.—Manly P. Hall—the Ballards and the “I Am” movement—AMORC—Lemurian Fellowship—“swamis” and “yogis”—Æ faithful to Judge—other phases of Theosophic influence—“Yoga” and Western psychology—Gerald Heard—Judge’s warning on Hindu “teachers’‘—Theosophical Movement a tidal phenomenon—the genuine successorship—H. P. Blavatsky still “alive”—stand of the Canadian Theosophist—impartiality of the Peace Lodge ( Eirenicon )—the platform of U.L.T.—the contribution of Robert Crosbie.
CHAPTER XXII. PRESENT AND FUTURE . . . . . .. .. .. .. .319
The outlook in 1950—predicts psychic cycle—psychic vulnerability increasing—psychic factors in politics—H. P. Blavatsky’s purpose—effect of Theosophical Movement on world history—return to Nature and Community movements—influence of Gandhi—war-resistance—evidence of new growth—developments in psychiatry and psychology—progressive and adult education—the real Theosophical Movement.
NOTES . . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 333
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 345
THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
CHAPTER I
THE PATH OF PROGRESS
WHEREVER THOUGHT has struggled to be free, wherever spiritual ideas, as opposed to forms and dogmatism, have been promulgated, there is to be discerned that great surge of moral evolution which H. P. Blavatsky described and named as the Theosophical Movement. It may, therefore, be considered simply as the path of spiritual progress, individually and collectively, of human beings. The continuous effort of men to act upon their aspiration toward a higher and nobler life is always pressing against and bursting through the limitations of the established social order. Organized religion, invariably a bastion of the status quo, gives formal structure to the compromise between idealism and the forces of human timidity—the longing of men for external security. In this sense, churches, governments, parties, sects, are all “political” adaptations—expedient arrangements on behalf of the “practical” rather than the ideal. They all in time become irredeemably corrupt, and must change, as the times change, as human defects come out, and as the necessities of intellectual and moral evolution compel such alterations.
The Protestant Reformation, while ending in a multitude of Christian sects, began as a revolutionary challenge to sacerdotal authority, and was thus a part of the greater Theosophical Movement. Masonry, with its constructive ideals and devotion to religious liberty, served the purposes of the Move-ment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and still does to some extent, through its elevating symbolism and by its continuing defense of freedom of thought. The formation of the American Republic with its noble Declaration of Independence, its equality of all men before the law, its ideals of
2———————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL
MOVEMENT
brotherhood and
non-sectarianism, must be accounted a great forward step in the Theosophical
Movement. And with the abolition of human slavery by all the great Western
nations during the nineteenth century, another stride toward the emancipation of
the race may be acclaimed.
Notable achievements in human liberation are commonly marked by the successful overthrow of some form of religious oppression. The divine right” of an orthodox God speaking through a vested clergy was repudiated by every voice raised against the presumptions of Catholic hierarchy. The “divine right” of kings became an empty superstition after the American and French Revolutions. The “divine right” of one man or caste of men to enslave others was the real issue of the American Civil War. It is a fact attested by countless social historians that the heavy hand of religious authority always adds to the burdens of the simple and the poor. Religion, while containing keys to the highest mysteries, in its organized forms has seldom failed to confirm the hold of the intelligently selfish over the great mass of mankind—either directly, by siding with autocratic government, or more subtly, through fear-laden dogmas and by a “spiritual” escapism which ignores evil conditions and human injustice. Since the Renaissance, men devoted to the cause of human freedom have been anti clerical almost by instinct, having discovered through long experience the numerous common interests allying established religion with the agencies of social oppression. Thus the secular movements of recent centuries, Democracy and Socialism, the drive for universal suffrage, the Class Struggle and the endless controversies between capital and labor, have all been characterized at some stage in their history by a yearning for freedom of thought, for moral emancipation as well as for an end to economic and political bondage. In this aspect, they represent the rising current of the Theosophical Movement, however mistaken, misguided, or perverted to narrow or destructive purposes and ends.
The nineteenth century was above all a period of conflict between the old and the new, a time of ferment in the intellectual and moral world, and of growing self-consciousness in the field of social philosophy. Nineteenth-century science was the fecund parent of scores of new doctrines and theories
3————————————————————THE
IMPACT OF DARWINISM
about the nature of things. The
first half of the century was a sort of Indian summer, in which both Europe and
America gathered in the rich harvest of Revolutionary freedom secured by the
struggles of the eighteenth century. Transcendentalist idealism brightened the
Western world, concealing for a time the maturing forces of materialism in
science and masking the decline of revolutionary ideals into mere shibboleths of
reorganizing conservativism. During the middle years of the century, however,
two new factors of disturbance emerged—Darwinism and Spiritualism.
The far-reaching effects of Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 are still to be measured. The most important result of this theory was the final transformation of the idea of progress from the confining theological teaching of salvation into the modern concept of evolution. While the eighteenth century had opened up undreamed-of possibilities of political reform, and while the old relationships of caste and status, fixed institutions during the Middle Ages, were dissolving into other social patterns, there was, until Darwin, no popular idea of Evolution. Darwin provided an integrating principle for the loose rationalist conception of Progress. According to his theory, a desirable future for mankind was to be obtained only by furthering the growth-processes possible under natural law, and he supported this idea by exhaustive researches in natural history. It was a principle easy to grasp, and soon seen as an attractive alternative to dependence on “divine grace”—the latter being a thoroughly irrational affair.
The response of free-thinking men to this doctrine was enthusiastic and immediate. The Theory of Evolution would serve as the foundation for deliberate human striving in all fields of human betterment. Its social and philosophical implications were endless. The materialism of the theory was hardly an objection; to the scientifically minded, eager for weapons in the war on theology, any plausible materialistic theory was welcome, and Evolution had the advantage of a great mass of scientific evidence in its support. Although the Darwinian theory was bitterly opposed by the clergy, and its author subjected to every form of ridicule, slander and calumny that religious bigotry could invent, the doctrine gained headway through the years, and Darwin himself lived to see
4———————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
his facts admitted, his
conclusions adopted, in whole or in part, even by many of his detractors.
While limited in its view of “evolution” from the stand point of occult philosophy, the Darwinian Theory was nevertheless the greatest advance in basic scientific inquiry since the time of Newton, and was indispensable in preparing the ground for the conception of spiritual evolution outlined in The Secret Doctrine. Whatever the defects of the Darwinian Theory, they are due to no lack of honesty, zeal or industry on the part of its great author, but rather to his mode of research, the assumptions of his age, and the inherent limitations of all inductive reasoning. So immense has been the influence of the Darwinian doctrine of evolution on the prevailing ideas of recent generations that it is difficult for the average mind of today to realize how this theory of physical evolution could ever have been questioned, denied, or opposed.
The impact of Darwinism on modern thought is well known, but the effects of Spiritualism have been seriously neglected by contemporary historians. Quite possibly, Spiritualism had more to do than any other single factor in producing among millions that transitional state of mind into which the rigid ideas of previous centuries had already begun to disintegrate. It struck a death-blow at all priestly claims to special knowledge of post-mortem existence, for the clergy had no better explanation of psychic phenomena than any one else. To the bereaved, who are often indifferent to orthodox vagaries on a future life, Spiritualism offered the prospect of immediate assurance and consolation. To the unreligious but curious, it brought a fascinating area for experimentation, resulting, in later years, in the semi-respectable science of Psychic Research. Spiritualistic phenomena also served as contemporary “miracles” on which might be founded a strongly emotional religion, undemanding in its moral requirements, and powerful in “conversion.” One could become a Spiritualist without too great sacrifice of cherished religious ideas. It is a fact of incidental interest that Spiritualist doctrines permitted an illegitimate union of religious fervor with the new scientific idea of evolution—for the “Summer land” of departed “spirits” soon assumed the character of an evolutionary series of states or degrees of progress after
5————————————————————THE
FUNCTION OF SPIRITUALISM
death. But the multiplicity of
“revelations” offered by mediums, who sprang up by the hundreds, each providing
another version of the processes and modes of life after death, made any unity
of doctrine or consistent philosophy out of the question. The function of
Spiritualism was iconoclastic toward dogma, and personal for its believers. It
disturbed, rather than replaced, conventional religious ideas.
The last half of the nineteenth century, therefore, formed an epoch during which old orthodoxies were undermined and discredited, while the possibilities of new faiths seemed limitless, although the chaotic expression of these new tendencies remained unharnessed by any central belief. In retrospect, nearly every cry for intellectual or moral unity during those troubled years may now be recognized as a partisan appeal which ignored or denied some important aspect of human affairs. It was, pre-eminently, an age of enthusiastic and specialized research, giving birth to at least a dozen new departments of science, and stirring the human imagination to strike out in directions overlooked by earlier generations. At its conclusion, the cosmopolitan thinker, William James, summed up the philosophical issue of its rich productiveness with the term, “Pluralism,” so naming the agnostic credo that Reality is not one, but many, and that a unified conception of human experience is not possible for the modern world. The skepticism of James, apparently justified by the overwhelming flood of unrelated “brute facts” pouring from every field of inquiry, gave sophisticated sanction to the conscious materialism of the twentieth century.
The same broad forces which undermined the speculative idealism of philosophers swept away the common man’s security in traditional religion. While the extraordinary progress in applied science filled for a time the ethical vacuum left by the decline of religious faith, so-called “practical” interests and labors blinded the great majority of men to the accumulating moral contradictions of Western civilization. Pseudo-philosophies founded on the biological concept of evolution, on the Freudian interpretation of emotions, and on the Rotarian slogans of business and trade, withheld for a time the ultimate disillusionment of the twentieth century, but these rule-of-thumb moralities lacked the vigor to with-
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MOVEMENT
stand the physical and moral
destruction of modern war. The world of today is a world without faith. It is a
world, therefore, in somber preparation for despair—the condition of mind and
feeling reached by men who have no foundation for their aspirations, no resting
place for hopes.
One purpose of this book is to show that the Theosophical Movement, in the conception of its Founders, was inaugurated with a clear perspective of the historical forces that were recreating the mind and society of the Western world in the nineteenth century, and with foresight of the social and moral dilemmas that would confront all mankind during the present epoch. The Theosophical Society of 1875 opened a great channel for labors on behalf of the general welfare and enlightenment of the human race. It was not founded as a cult or sect to bring personal deliverance or special knowledge to the fortunate few who might accept its doctrines. The Founders of the Theosophical Movement had little interest in starting “societies,” or groups for “occult study,” as such. Their concern was with the long-term view of human evolution, with the spiritual and moral needs of the race for generations and centuries to come.
If Theosophy does indeed offer knowledge of the laws of human evolution, then the course of the Theosophical Movement, its progress, as well as the character of the obstacles impeding its advance, provide the means of testing the validity of that teaching in practical experience. At this point, therefore, certain basic Theosophical conceptions of evolutionary law may be stated.
So far as humanity is concerned, Theosophy teaches a triple evolutionary scheme, in which, at the present time, the physical is subordinated to the processes of intellectual and spiritual, or moral, development. In short, Evolution is soul evolution, proceeding under moral law which is an essential part of the natural order. The ideal goal toward which man kind slowly moves is a great brotherhood of all human beings, in which, finally, will flower every evolutionary potentiality. Reaching this goal, however, is conditional upon deliberate human striving toward it, upon the achievement of knowledge of man’s nature and destiny, and upon the factors of moral decision which make every human being a free agent, capable
7—————————————————————THE
HIGHER EVOLUTION
of choosing to become either a
Christ or a Judas, either an altruist or a self-seeking egotist. For the race,
as for the individual, Theosophy preaches the doctrine of “salvation by works.”
Such “works,” however, must be informed by knowledge of human needs; hence,
mastery of Theosophy means study of the philosophical doctrines which it
teaches, as well as their practical application in individual life and toward
larger social ends.
If there is an underlying spiritual and intellectual evolution with visible effects in history, a study of the past should disclose that the formation of the Theosophical Society and the permeation of the mind of the race by Theosophical ideas were preceded and accomplished by numerous collateral efforts. In his History of Civilization in England, a work foremost among such influences, the great English historian, H. T. Buckle, sums up the lessons of the past in a statement which may serve equally as a prophecy of the future of Theosophy and the Theosophical Movement. In the first volume of this work, Buckle wrote:
Owing to circumstances still unknown, there appear, from time to time, great thinkers, who, devoting their lives to a single purpose, are able to anticipate the progress of mankind, and to produce a religion or a philosophy, by which important effects are eventually brought about. But if we look into history, we shall clearly see that, although the origin of a new opinion may be thus due to a single man, the result which the new opinion produces will depend on the condition of the people among whom it is propagated. If either a religion or a philosophy is too much in advance of a nation, it can do no present service, but must bide its time, until the minds of men are ripe for its reception. . . . Every science and every creed has had its martyrs; . . According to the ordinary course of affairs, a few generations pass away, and then there comes a period, when these very truths are looked upon as commonplace facts; and a little later, there comes another period, in which they are declared to be necessary, and even the dullest intellects wonder how they could ever have been denied.’
According to the Theosophic view of history, Buckle’s “circumstances still unknown” are in fact due to what may be termed the karmic provision of spiritual and intellectual evolution. Under the great moral Law, called “Karma” by the Buddhists, and at transitional periods in the cyclic progress
8—————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL
MOVEMENT
of humanity, wise teachers
restore to mankind through both direct and indirect channels some of the
knowledge once known in the past, but which in the lapse of time has become lost
or obscured by the complexities of psychic and personal evolution. These
teachers, sometimes termed “Elder Brothers,” in the Theosophical literature, are
themselves at the forefront of the stream of evolution to which we belong. As
such, they have a natural function to perform, taking an active, although often
undisclosed, part in human history. And while this aspect of the operation of
cyclic law is frequently delayed, even obstructed, by the ignorance of human
beings, each rise and fall of civilization is succeeded by a regeneration and
further progression.
The scene of the nineteenth-century cycle of the Theosophical Movement included the United States, Europe and India. In America, the rising energies of a new nation gave promise of great success for this movement of self-reform based upon a psychology of soul-knowledge. India, an ancient source of the Wisdom-Religion, was slowly awakening from the lethargy of centuries, getting ready for a cultural renaissance that would revive her former glory and give contemporary vigor to the Eastern heritage of spiritual philosophy. England, where Madame Blavatsky made her headquarters during the closing years of her mission, was a natural link between the ancient East and the youthful West, both politically and geographically, and served also as a vantage-point from which to affect the main continent of Europe.
The flow of Theosophic ideas from these centers entered the ferment of nineteenth-century thought, leavening its spirit, and challenging both the bigotry of inherited religion and the arrogant assurance of scientific materialism. The establishment of the Movement in the West followed close upon a cycle of sudden progress in material achievement by Western nations. Change was in the air. The practical consequences of the great developments in invention, scientific discovery, transportation, manufacture and communication were bringing the members of the human family closer together. Old ways of life were rapidly transformed. Traditions died. Customs were altered. Natural as well as cultural barriers to human fraternity were falling all about.
9———————————————————————GREAT
REFORMERS
These great transitions were
signalized in the political field by the careers of such leaders and reformers
as Lincoln, Mazzini, Garibaldi, John Bright, and others who served the Rights of
Man. The moral apathy of the Churches was exposed by freethinkers of enduring
fame—Robert G. Ingersoll in America, Charles Bradlaugh in England, and in the
church itself by such men as Charles Kingsley and W. E. Channing. By these and
many others, trip-hammer blows were struck at complacent orthodoxy. Whether
apparently pursuing the path of agnosticism, of a purely socialistic or materialistic altruism, or of a liberalized version of conventional belief, the efforts
of these reformers commanded a wide following and to a large extent broke down
the habitual acceptance of provincial and intolerant opinions.
Philosophical speculations like those of Herbert Spencer, the esthetic revolt of men like Ruskin, the penetrating truculence of Carlyle, and the rejection of conventional attitudes by such writers as Dickens, Eliot, Balzac, Tolstoy, Whitman, and Dostoevsky, all aided in the pioneer work of the Theosophical Movement. All fought for the unrestricted domain of individual conscience, a larger outlook upon human life and human duty, as opposed to anyone’s ipse dixit or “thus saith the Lord.”
Another tide of change began with the discovery by scholars and travelers of the philosophic wealth of the Orient. Until the nineteenth century, the masses of the West existed in almost complete isolation from the living East with its immense but alien stores of psychological and metaphysical teachings. The sources of Western culture had been limited by natural barriers to ancient Greece and Rome, and it was little suspected that the first civilized peoples of Europe, no less than their modern successors, had in fact derived both their inspiration and their learning from the exhaustless treasury of Oriental thought.
The first translation of The Bhagavad-Gita by Charles Wilkins, appeared toward the close of the eighteenth century. In 1807 William Jones rendered into English the Hindu classic, The Institutes of Manu, telling his readers that an understanding of Hindu custom and belief would assist in the administration of a colony destined to “add largely to
10————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL
MOVEMENT
the wealth of Britain.” A
little later, Arthur Schopenhauer read a Latin translation of the Upanishads,
done from a Persian version by Anquetil-Duperron, pioneer in Avesta scholarship,
and its inspiration became manifest throughout the writings of the great German
pessimist. Emerson’s journals teem with references to Oriental literature.
Manu, the Gita, the Upanishads, the Vedas, and numerous other works found place
in his library beside the riches of Platonism. Thoreau also, and Edward Bellamy,
the prophet of social reform, were steeped in the mysticism and philosophy of
the ancient East.
Sir Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia arrived in America in 1879, arousing extraordinary admiration among the Transcendentalists. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote twenty-six pages about it in a contemporary review. Lafcadio Hearn, having read this poetic account of the life and teachings of Buddha, predicted that “Buddhism in some esoteric form may prove the religion of the future.” He dreamed of a revolution in “the whole occidental religious world” through this Oriental faith. Many thousands in the West were led by this book to realize for the first time in their lives that the great ethical ideas of Jesus were all anticipated by Buddha, and were joined in his teaching with a rational philosophy entirely absent from the Christian tradition.
Multiplication of influences of this sort began to wear away the familiar Western contempt for “heathen” teachings, and with the appearance of many-volumed editions of Oriental religion, such as Max Muller’s Sacred Books of the East, the world of learning was forced to admit that in many respects the Eastern sages were our peers, if not our superiors, in matters of philosophy and ethical insight.
These, then, were some of the factors which had opened up the Western mind to new possibilities, had made men question old beliefs, causing them to look about for some affirmative doctrine that might synthesize the widening diversities of human experience and knowledge. The latter years of the nineteenth century offered great opportunity to one who could present facts rather than theories, principles rather than beliefs. Thus, in founding the Theosophical Society and making her first public exposition of the Theo-
11——————————————————————THE
EASTERN HERITAGE
sophical philosophy, H. P.
Blavatsky maintained that the hour had come for bringing some unified
explanation to the besetting problems of the modern world. Religion claimed man
to be a creature, tainted from his origin, ensouled by an outside God on whose
favor depended all human happiness, in both this world and the next. Science,
while challenging the authority of all religious beliefs, offered the
alternative of bestial ancestors for the human species, traced from a ferment in
the primordial slime, and allowed no idea of moral reality or spiritual
existence to color the consistency of its materialism. Spiritualism, the third
combatant in the struggle for human faith, was an intruder with no allies but
its own fanatical conviction—a weird apostle from another world, bringing
promise of release from great personal sorrow for some; for others, a nauseous
revival of medieval witchcraft and necromancy.
It was among the Spiritualists, the friendless outcasts of both Science and Religion, that H. P. Blavatsky began her mission, because they had penetrated somewhat into the hidden realms of nature, and had brought to light the reality of forces disbelieved and laughed at for generations in the West. Understood and controlled, those forces might be used to restore a living faith in the immortal soul—in the godlike potentialities of the entire human race.
CHAPTER II
NINETEENTH CENTURY SPIRITUALISM
AS THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY in its earliest days, found most of its supporters among the more thoughtful of the Spiritualists, or among those stirred by Spiritualistic phenomena to investigate the subject of psychic powers, it is pertinent to notice some of the events and fortunes of the Spiritualistic movement before 1875. Modern Spiritualism began with the mediumistic manifestations of the Fox sisters at Hydesville, New York, in 1848. Within a few years it had spread throughout the Western world. In the words of Alfred Russel Wallace, “other mediums were discovered in different parts of the country, as if a special development of this abnormal power were then occurring.” Famous mediums travelled Europe, demonstrating their wonders and gaining the patronage of royalty. Psychics and sensitives were found among all classes and the forthcoming revelations and physical manifestations shook to their foundations the established authorities of the day. Men began to wonder at these strange happenings, to ask questions, and some—although only the few—to think for themselves. It was the inner voice of the masses, their spiritual intuition—that traditional enemy of cold intellectual reasoning, the legitimate progenitor of Materialism—which had awakened from its long cataleptic sleep. However unsatisfactory their philosophical interpretation, these phenomena came to be regarded as evident proofs of a life beyond—opening, moreover, a wide range for the admission of every metaphysical possibility.
By 1850, seances were being held in California, Oregon, Texas, and in several southern states. Spiritualist revealers bloomed like the Hebrew prophets of old, and occasionally some figure of eminence made public admission of his interest in Spiritualism. Horace Greeley, famous editor of the New York Tribune, testified to the genuineness of the “rappings” produced by the Fox sisters, exonerating them from charges of fraud. J. W. Edmonds, a Justice of the New York Supreme
13—————————————————————BEGINNINGS
OF SPIRITUALISM
Court, known for his integrity,
defended mediums in the press. N. P. Tallmadge, a former Governor of Wisconsin,
publicly supported the claims of the mediums. During the years 1851 and 1852,
sufficient interest in Spiritualism developed to support the establishment of
several journals entirely devoted to its phenomena and their interpretation.
From these beginnings, modern Spiritualism gained wide spread popular attention, and while nearly all scientists of any reputation maintained a lofty skepticism, the few exceptions to this rule had the effect of increasing the fascination that the subject held for the man in the street. The impressive personal-experience aspect of Spiritualism commonly led to a fierce will-to-believe on the part of people hungry for spiritual verity, so that the handful of intellectually honest scientists who dared to admit the reality of psychic phenomena became heroes ceaselessly quoted by intoxicated enthusiasts. One such American scientist was Dr. Robert Hare, professor of chemistry at the University of Pennyslvania, who in 1854 published Spiritualism Scientifically Demonstrated, an account of elaborate experiments which convinced him the manifestations were genuine. He had originally undertaken the task of investigation in order, he said, to destroy with scientific weapons “the gross delusion called Spiritualism,” but was soon overwhelmed by concrete evidences of the supernormal. He failed, however, to interest the American Association for the Promotion of Science, which at one of its conventions rejected all his proposals for scientific study of psychic phenomena. No more successful in overcoming the unbelief of his colleagues was Prof. James J. Mapes, president of the Mechanics Institute of New York, a distinguished chemist who had been honored internationally by scientific bodies. Beginning a study of Spiritualism to redeem respected friends, who, he declared, were “fast running to mental seed and imbecility,” he ended as a determined witness for the phenomena.
The appeal of Spiritualism was unique in the nineteenth century. With the rise of the rationalist spirit, fairly established by the revolutionary thinkers of the preceding epoch, Western intellectuality had made disbelief in ghostly or “occult” pheonmena into a virtual dogma—a dogma, more-
14————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL
MOVEMENT
over, enjoying the emphatic endorsement of scientific authority. But Spiritualism, as a historical influence, was much more than an “intellectual” affair. It dealt directly with feelings, hopes and fears that are basic in all humans. “Death,” as The Bhagavad-Gita says, “is certain to all mortals.” Psychic or “spiritual” phenomena, promising more than empty theological phrases about life after death, were events which could arouse the intense interest and excitement of thousands who had despaired of any instruction on this subject from either religion or science. The facts of Spiritualism, if genuine, implied a whole universe of human experience untouched by modern thought. Investigators of psychic phenomena found themselves in possession of a stupendous discovery; they spoke to the world with impassioned declarations. Meeting disdain or contempt from the representatives of orthodoxy, they proceeded to form societies, cults and religious sects which rapidly grew to astonishing proportions, drawing a host of followers from the disillusioned, the bereaved, and the honestly curious. The shock of immediate psychic experience was a force that could not be denied.
The first serious attempt to investigate the possibility of metaphysical or psychic phenomena by a quasi-scientific body was instituted in 1869 by the London Dialectical Society. For eighteen months the Society’s Committee of thirty-four well-known persons took evidence, submitting a full Report to the Council of the Society in 1870. The Council, however, declined to publish the Report, whereupon the Committee itself published the results of the investigation, including a collection of startling opinions as to the “supernatural origin” of psychic phenomena. “A large majority of the members of your Committee,” the Report stated, “have become actual witnesses to several phases of the phenomena without the aid or presence of any professional medium, although the greater part of them commenced their investigations in an avowedly skeptical spirit.” The Report concludes:
your Committee, taking into consideration the high character and great intelligence of many of the witnesses to the more extraordinary facts, the extent to which their testimony is supported by the reports of the sub-committees, and the absence of any proof of imposture or delusion as regards a large portion
15———————————————————THE
DIALECTICAL SOCIETY’S REPORT
of the phenomena; . .
the large number of persons in every grade
of society and over the whole civilized world who are more or less influenced by
a belief in their supernatural origin, and to the fact that no philosophical
explanation of them has yet been arrived at, deem it incumbent upon them
to state their conviction that the subject is worthy of more serious attention
and careful investigation than it has hitherto received.
One would suppose that a report of this sort, conservatively drawn by
serious-minded and reputable persons, but with findings that seemed of
extraordinary significance, would gain immediate and serious attention. However,
the unwillingness of the Council of the Dialectical Society to publish the
Report was symptomatic of the public reception it received when independently
printed by the Committee. That organ of enthroned respectability, the London
Times, called the Report ‘a farrago of impotent conclusions, garnished by a
mass of the most monstrous rubbish it has ever been our misfortune to sit in
judgment upon.” Other expressions of the London press were in a similar vein.
The Saturday Review denounced spiritualism as “one of the most unequivocally
degrading superstitions that have ever found currency amongst reasonable
beings.” The Sporting Times recommended that “a few of the leading
professional Spiritualists should be sent as rogues and vagabonds to the
treadmill for a few weeks,” characterizing their ‘dupes” as “contemptibly
stupid” or “insane.”
A few papers were more reserved, admitting the Report to be worth reading and
allowing justification for the Committee’s belief that its evidence called for
“further cautious investigation.” Strangely enough, it was the medical journals
in particular which regarded the Report with some respect. The Medical Times
and Gazette spoke of the volume as “a very curious one, and deserving of
attention for several reasons.” The London Medical Journal found it “a
mine of information,” throwing light “upon both sides of many important
psychological questions.” The London Spiritualist offered this pertinent
comment: “So the Report, when it was presented, was in favour of Spiritualism;
at this unexpected result the Dialectical Society took fright. The Council ran
away and refused to publish it, leaving its Committee in the lurch.” What the
Dialectical Society avoided by “running
16———————————————————— THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
away” was evident from the public scorn heaped upon the members of the
Committee, despite the presence among them of so eminent a scientist as Alfred
Russel Wallace.
Except for Wallace and one or two others, the pioneers of modern psychic
research found it difficult to persuade any scientist of note even to attend
psychic demonstrations. Thomas Huxley, famous champion of the Darwinian theory,
replied to an invitation of the Committee to cooperate by saying that he “had no
time for such an inquiry.” He added:
“But supposing the phenomena to be genuine—they do not interest me.” The
physicist, John Tyndall, was aggressively opposed to Spiritualism, as shown by a
passage in his Fragments
of
Science:
“The world will have a religion of some kind, even though it should fly for it
to the intellectual whoredom of Spiritualism.” Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter, a leading
physiologist and Vice President of the Royal Society, glibly explained as
“unconscious cerebration” all spiritualistic manifestations not the result of
“intentional imposture.”
The full weight of scientific disapprobation of Spiritualistic inquiry in
England fell upon the shoulders of William Crookes, then known to science as the
discoverer of the element Thallium, and as the editor of Chemical News.
In July, 1870—the month in which the Council of the Dialectical Society
refused to publish the Report of its Committee—Crookes announced in the
Quarterly Journal of Science his intention of “investigating spiritualism,
so-called.” His biographer, E. E. Fournier d’Albe, is certain that the scientist
was already much inclined toward Spiritualism and hoped “to furnish, if
possible, a rigid scientific proof of the objectivity and genuineness of the
‘physical phenomena of spiritualism,’ so as to convert the scientific world at
large and open a new era of human advancement.” Accordingly, after conducting
experiments with the best mediums available, Crookes described his results in a
series of articles which appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Science
during the years 1870-72. For the most part, his conclusions were based
on sittings with three mediums—D. D. Home, famous for levitation and other
notable phenomena, Miss Kate Fox, youngest of the renowned Fox sisters who had
so startled the world in 1848; and Miss Florence Cook, from whom he obtained
manifestations among
17——————————————————THE
EXPERIMENTS OF PROF. CROOKES
the most extraordinary in the annals of psychic research. The articles
recounting these experiments, together with a general summary of the results,
and the controversial correspondence in which their author became involved, were
later presented in book form under the title, Researches in the Phenomena of
Spiritualism.
This book records a fundamental achievement in psychic research. It may be
said that no subsequent work, similar in scope, has added anything essentially
new to the dramatic report of these researches. Crookes brought the patience and
meticulous care of a man trained in scientific method to the strange problems of
Spiritualism, and he had the good fortune to become acquainted with mediums
worthy of his attention. In his ‘Summary,” he describes thirteen classes of
phenomena which he observed personally, including the levitation of human
beings; the rising off the ground of heavy objects without human or other
physical contact; alteration in the weight of human bodies; the appearance of
luminous objects, and of human hands which were either self-luminous or visible
by ordinary light; phantom forms and faces; sounds of various sorts; direct
writing without human agency; and finally, in some notes of Miss Cook’s
mediumship, Crookes reported full materializations in which the “apparition”
acted and talked like a living person.
After spending four years in a fruitless attempt to win the scientific world to
impartial psychic research, Crookes withdrew from the public arena, thereafter
devoting himself to strictly scientific pursuits. The response he had gained
from other scientists was contemptuous, at times abusive, and he concluded that
the loss of his professional reputation was too great a price to pay for
continued championship of psychic wonders, however much he might believe in them
himself. Crookes had learned, to his chagrin, that the boasted willingness of
scientists to regard with interest all the facets of human experience,
was, in this case at least, more of a pose than a principle. He resigned himself
to the view which he clearly expressed, some twenty-five years later, as
President of the British Association: “I have nothing to retract. I adhere to my
already published statements. I only regret a certain crudity in those early
expositions which, no doubt justly, mili-
18——————————————————— THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
tated against their acceptance by the scientific world.” Crookes allowed the
words of an old friend, written to him in a letter, to account for the strange
reluctance of men of science to admit the facts disclosed by his experiments.
This friend, a scientist of some eminence, had said:
“Any intellectual reply to your facts I cannot see. Yet it is a
curious fact that even I, with all my tendency and desire to believe
spiritualistically, and with all my faith in your power of observing and your
thorough truthfulness, feel as if I wanted to see for myself; and it is
quite painful to me to think how much more proof I want. Painful, I say, because
I see that it is not reason which convinces a man, unless a fact is repeated so
frequently that the impression becomes like a habit of mind, an old
acquaintance, a thing known so long that it cannot be doubted. This is a
curious phase of man’s mind, and it is remarkably strong in scientific
men—stronger than in others, I think. For this reason we must not always call a
man dishonest because he does not yield to evidence for a long time. The old
wall of belief must be broken down by much battering.”
The granitic impenetrability of this “old wall of belief” was such that Crookes
could do little more than scratch its surface. Some sixty-five years later, a
leading American psychologist, Dr. Joseph Jastrow, gave a similar though less
sympathetic explanation of scientific scepticism. In a discussion of
Spiritualistic phenomena, and of the experiments in extra sensory perception
carried on at Duke University, Dr. Jastrow referred to the unbelief in telepathy
by psychologists as growing “out of a profound philosophical conviction.” This
view was expressed to him by a colleague:
‘ESP [extra sensory perception) is so contrary to the general scientific world
picture, that to accept the former would compel the abandonment of the latter. I
am unwilling to give up the body of scientific knowledge so painfully acquired
in the Western world during the last 300 years, on the basis of a few
anecdotes and a few badly reported experiments.”
If, well along in the twentieth century, Jastrow could confidently claim the
support of “four-fifths of the psychologists”
in discrediting telepathy, how much more certain it was that in the nineteenth
century, scientists would give no hearing at all to the daring experiments of
William Crookes!
In his contention for the reality of psychic phenomena, Crookes had one eminent
scientific ally—Lord Alfred Wallace, who shared with Darwin the fame of
originating the theory
19————————————————————THE
SCIENTIFIC “WALL OF BELIEF”
of Natural Selection. In 1875 Wallace published a small volume
entitled Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, devoted to the thesis that
what men commonly call “miracles” may be capable of explanation in terms of
cause and effect, by reference to superphysical agencies acting under unfamiliar
laws, and contending that such apparently miraculous events do in fact occur.
Wallace presented many sober arguments, drawing on both reason and human
experience, to persuade his readers that the phenomena called “Spiritual” would
bear looking into. He subjected the scepticism of David Hume to effective
criticism and collected much historical testimony for the occurrence of psychic
wonders. But so far as his fellow scientists were concerned, Wallace’s appeal to
facts was ignored, and his appeal to reason fell upon ears more attuned to
denunciation of the Spiritualists than to impartial arguments on their behalf.
In those days, as many years later, the challenge of psychic phenomena to “the
general scientific world-picture” was so unwelcome to the men who had played a
major part in its construction that neither Crookes nor Wallace nor anyone else
could obtain a fair hearing for what seemed to them to be the revolutionary
discoveries of psychic research. The robust and proudly materialistic
intellectuality of the West had just gained emancipation from the confining
doctrines of the Christian religion, and it was, perhaps, too much to expect
that the victorious combatants, flushed with triumph over the theological dogma
of a seven days’ Creation, would now turn eagerly to a theory which seemed
founded on equally abhorrent assumptions of supernatural power.
This characteristic mind-set of modern science is so firmly established as to
invite a brief examination of its origins. The positive bent of science to
practical experiment and its demand for evidence perceptible to the senses were
of course due to the extraordinary achievements of such men as Copernicus,
Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Harvey, and many others. The negative side of the
scientific spirit, resulting in the great struggle described by John W. Draper
as The Conflict between Religion and Science, drew inspiration from the
critical reflections of the Enlightenment, which preceded and prepared for the
French Revolution. The themes developed by the early English Deists, by
Lamettrie, d’Holbach, Rousseau, Voltaire
20———————————————————— THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
and Diderot in France, and by David Hume and the historian, Gibbon, were
either covert or open attacks on historical Christianity, its theology, its
creeds, and its priests. Whatever the subject ostensibly considered by these
founders of modern scepticism, “God,” as a historian has put it, “was on trial.”
Although many of them were condemned as “atheists” during their lifetime, and
avowed infidels like Lamettrie and d’Holbach were shunned in pious horror by
polite society, their iconoclastic work was well done. In the succeeding
century, however, the doctrines of the Enlightenment became rationalist dogmas
which were as bigoted as any religion in their contempt for the superphysical.
Thus the materialism of the nineteenth century grew from an embattled rejection
of priestcraft by freedom-loving men—thinkers who over-reached their original
inspiration and bequeathed to their scientific successors an a priori
denial of even the possibility of psychic phenomena. The French intellectuals of
the time of Louis XVI had already adopted this blindly sceptical position. In
1784, when the Academicians were invited by the King to investigate the
extraordinary claims made on behalf of Franz Anton Mesmer, a Viennese physician
exciting much comment in Paris, the Commission of learned men who interviewed
Mesmer and attempted to duplicate his methods reported that they could discover
no merit in his “cures,” and that, in fact, Mesmer’s famous “fluid” was
nonexistent. Among the members of this Commission were several of the most
illustrious men of the eighteenth century—one, Benjamin Franklin, ambassador
from the United States, another, the famous Lavoisier, soon to die by the
machine invented by the eminent Dr. Guillotin, who was also a signer of the
Commission’s final report.
The scholars of the French Academy of Sciences were interested only in
“mechanical” explanations of the processes of Nature. They believed, with David
Hume, that the whole world was nothing but “one great machine, subdivided into
an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions How,
then, could they listen seriously to Mesmer, who explained his cures by a series
of metaphysical propositions concerning an invisible fluid called “Animal
Magnetism,” by which, he claimed, nervous diseases could be
21——————————————————————MESMER’S
MISSION
cured directly, and other diseases indirectly? The thing was impossible—mere
“imagination.” This was precisely the charge laid against William Crookes nearly
a century later when he dared to argue for the strange phenomena produced by the
invisible forces of Spiritualism. Crookes, said his critics, was bemused by an
appetite for miracles, and had lost his capacity for scientific judgment. Mesmer
and Crookes were but two of many victims of the materializing spirit of the age,
which drew deep emotional support for its denials from memories of a millennium
of priestly imposture and of endless crimes and oppressions in the name of
supernatural religion.
Mesmer, however, has a more important connection with modern Spiritualism than
simply as an illustration of how scientific scepticism would deal with
innovators in psychic research. Mesmer’s theories and experiments bore hidden
relationships with the Spiritualistic phenomena of the nineteenth century, as
later history would make plain. Had his views been widely accepted,
Spiritualists might have been spared many of their delusions, and scientists the
embarrassment of having to recant certain categorical denials. Fortunately, the
conservative institutions of medicine, of academic scholarship and organized
science, are not the sole arbiters of human belief. Mesmer’s mission was at
least partially accomplished. The broad, popular effect of his work was to turn
the attention of thousands of inquiring minds to the mysteries of man’s inner
life.
The reality of Mesmerism might be denied by scientific authority, but its
influence was irrepressible. There were numerous students of medicine who
recognized in Mesmer’s ideas the clue to physiological and psychological
mysteries. Despite the extravagances so often found in doctrines developed in
defiance of accepted authority, these ideas made their way into the thought of
the time. During the 1840’s, two English doctors courted professional
martyrdom by demonstrating that surgical operations could be performed without
pain to patients in mesmeric trances. In Germany, Joseph Ennemoser wrote his
comprehensive study of Animal Magnetism, bringing such scholarship to the
subject that William Howitt entitled his translation of it a History of Magic
22————————————————————THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
(London, 1854). Another German physician, J. F. C. Hecker, compiled a
history of the Epidemics of the Middle Ages in which the Black Plague
was explained as an effect of a cosmic sickness of the earth’s “organism”—a
theory wholly conformable to Mesmer’s ideas.
In the area of practical psychological experiment, while his metaphysical
philosophy was increasingly neglected, Mesmer’s disciples and imitators worked
tirelessly with various aspects and correlations of Animal Magnetism. The
results, however, were not always the most desirable. The Hypnotism of James
Braid was an illegitimate offspring of Animal Magnetism, and Mesmer, had he been
alive, would have been the first to oppose both the theory and the practice of
the English hypnotists. He would have looked with equal disfavor on the doings
of the French magnetizers, who, by 1850, were devoted to “mind-reading”
demonstrations and other forms of miracle-mongering with somnambulistic
subjects. Persons like these later unhappy victims of psychic experiment were
soon to be known as the “mediums” of nineteenth-century Spiritualism. Before he
died, Mesmer noticed the beginnings of such tendencies in some of his followers.
He spoke regretfully of the methods of the Puységurs, who inducted their
subjects into a trance-like sleep. “Their experiments,” he said, “which show a
lack of understanding, may harm the cause.”
Early in the nineteenth century, European mesmerists visited America, stirring
to activity the latent psychic capacities that were later to burst forth in
Spiritualistic phenomena. Andrew Jackson Davis, the chief prophet and leader of
the Spiritualistic movement in the United States, underwent a period of psychic
“development” as the somnambulistic subject of a traveling mesmerist, William
Levingston. In 1830, John Bovee Dods lectured in New England on
“Electrical Psychology,” proclaiming electricity to be the connecting link
between mind and matter. A Frenchman, Charles Poyen, began giving public
demonstrations of Mesmerism in America in 1836. Instructed by Poyen, Phineas
Quimby of Belfast, Maine, learned to diagnose the ills of the people of his
village, using the clairvoyant perception of a sensitive. He found by experiment
that it made little difference what medicine he advised, becoming convinced that
his cures were effected by mental
23———————————————————PSYCHIC
STIRRINGS IN AMERICA
nfluences alone. Quimby evolved the idea that all disease is a mental delusion
which can he eradicated by thought, and in 1859 he began to set down his
theories—now familiar to many as “Christian Science”—in what became the famous
Quimby Manuscripts.
ALL these developments proceeded in alienation from orthodox scientific inquiry.
While great and original thinkers were too wise to deny the hidden
potentialities of the human soul, strong barriers of scepticism prevented the
great majority from even considering the idea of superphysical realities. It
remained for a cultured elite, on the one hand, to acknowledge and adopt some of
the implications of psychic inquiry, while half-educated fanatics and outcasts
from conventional science carried them in degraded form to the masses,
practising their strange lore among the humble and the ignorant. Meanwhile, the
unbelief of the scientific fraternity drove William Howitt, Ennemoser’s
translator, to write:
How can a petrified man believe? And the scientific, as a class, are petrified
by their education in the unspiritual principles of the last generation. These
principles are the residuum of the atheistic and materialistic school of the
French Revolution. The atheism is disavowed, but the disbelieving leaven
remains, and will long remain. It will cling to the scientific like a
death-pall, and totally disqualify them for independent research into the
internal nature of man, and of his properties and prospects as an immortal
being. This education has sealed up their spiritual eye, and left them only
their physical one. They are as utterly disqualified for psychological research
as a blind man for physical research.
. . .
Our scientific and literary men stick by the
death-creed of Hobbes, Diderot, and Co., and yet, not knowing it, cannot
believe any great new spiritual fact on any amount of evidence.
Howitt’s analysis of scientific scepticism obtains interesting confirmation
from the later opinion of William Crookes’ friend and correspondent. The world
of physical inquiry that was so hospitable to Faraday’s dynamo found nothing of
interest in the weird aspect of the human “dynamo” that Crookes’ experiments
revealed. Enormously preoccupied with the evolution of bodies, biologists
fascinated by the Darwinian Theory had no ear for a scientific revelation which
might bear upon the evolution of souls. Spiritualistic phenomena and
claims were regarded as disgraceful distractions from the main busi-
24
————————————————————THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
ness of science, which was to establish on undoubted ‘physical” facts the
laws of the physical world, leaving no place for “spiritual” theories of any
sort. And because Science, as an increasingly authoritative cultural
institution, would not allow even the beginnings of a rational explanation of
psychic phenomena, no hypothesis, however cautious, to explain these wonderful
events was available to assist the few individuals who did approach them with
open and inquiring minds. The result, therefore, was a chaotic growth of
sectarian fanaticism around the facts of Spiritualism, rather than disciplined
investigation of their meaning. One reads with dismay the curious expressions of
faith in the supernatural by men who distinguished themselves as careful
thinkers in other fields. The deficiencies of the nineteenth century are nowhere
more evident than in the enthusiastic acceptance by intelligent men of the
sentimental Spiritualistic doctrines of an after-life. Persuaded of the reality
of the phenomena by undeniable personal experience, they could find no
principles of explanation, no acceptable rationale of psychic phenomena,
in either scientific theory or religious tradition. With minds confused,
therefore, such investigators accepted the inadequate explanations of the
mediums and the “spirits.”
A curious and lonely exception to this baffling ignorance of psychic phenomena
appeared in the United States in 1854, under the intriguing if pedantic
title, The Apocatastasis, or Progress Backwards. The author of this
scholarly work, Dr. Leonard Marsh, a professor of physiology at the University
of Vermont, was by no means a Spiritualist; rather, he opposed the
Spiritualistic movement with all the resources his prodigious classical learning
could bring to bear upon the subject. What is of interest in his book is the
fact, clearly disclosed, that the Neoplatonic philosophers and other learned men
of antiquity were well acquainted with the strange events which Spiritualists
hailed as introducing a new and great dispensation of miraculous religion. Dr.
Marsh began by quoting from Synesius the doctrine of cycles—teaching a return,
at regular intervals, of “lives on earth, generations, educations, dispositions
and fortunes,” which, as Synesius put it, “will be the same with those that
formerly existed.” Spiritualistic phenomena, Dr. Marsh declared, were a return
of
25————————————————————EVIDENCE FROM
NEOPLATONISM
what had been before, and he found cause for disturbance in what seemed to
him a modern acceptance of the “heathen” teachings of “spirits”—a “progress
backwards.” His book nevertheless reveals the superior knowledge of the ancients
with respect to the identity of the spirit “guides” and “controls” of the
mediums. He repeats the opinion of Porphyry, “a very competent judge of them in
the ancient period, that ‘it is their very nature to lie!!’
“
Porphyry, Iamblichus, Plutarch, Minutius Felix and
many others are made to testify concerning “spirits” which are “depraved
demons”—entities that deceive and obsess human beings, and which are invoked by
the necromantic practices of men who, in Porphyry’s phrase, “lead, as it were,
to things of a divine nature in an illegal and disorderly manner.” Such was the
ancient opinion of “seances.”
Somewhat against his pious purpose, Dr. Marsh was obliged by his extensive
quotation of pagan authorities to expose the inability of the Christian religion
to account for the wide variety of psychic phenomena known to both the Platonic
philosophers and the modern Spiritualists, although in radically different
terms. Without this classical support, his attempt to controvert the claims of
the Spiritualists would have been weak indeed. But despite the help of the
theurgists, his learned strictures against Spiritualism could bear little weight
at a time when ancient psychology—that of the Neoplatonists in particular—was
indiscriminately classed with medieval superstition by the “physical” scientists
of the nineteenth century. The Apocatastasis remained a curiosity of
erudite research which, in later years, may have influenced a few independent
thinkers like William James to conduct investigations of their own, but which
certainly left unaffected the minds of both the Spiritualists and the scientists
of the same generation as its author.
The nineteenth century, however, was not wholly without psychical and
philosophical interests that might help the West to understand Spiritualistic
phenomena. The genius of Baizac had created a suggestive atmosphere for mystical
events, his Seraphita containing many germs of occult teaching. Bulwer
Lytton’s novels, also, were destined to serve, in Theosophical literature, as
illustrations of certain obscure tenets of the Wisdom Religion. Europe had its
own occult tradition in the lore
26
————————————————————THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
of the Rosicrucians, and there was something like a philosophy of
Spiritualism in the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg. A few learned Masons
and Kabalists in Europe and America still pored over ancient volumes and sought
the elusive secrets of ceremonial magic from medievalists who concealed more
than they taught. Writers like Wallace, Howitt, and Catherine Crowe with her
curious Night Side of Nature, helped to acquaint the Spiritualist
Movement with earlier cycles of psycho-religious phenomena, providing the
beginnings of a contemporary literature on the subject. The treatises of
Reichenbach, Du Potet and Deleuze, dealing with important ramifications of
mesmeric or magnetic phenomena, showed that a new universe of subjective life
awaited exploration by Western man.
But who would provide the charts for such exploration? Who could gather into one
great scheme of man’s psychic and spiritual existence these disparate currents
of experience and bizarre and bookish learning? Was there anyone who could
reduce this clamor and competition of ideas, theories and unrelated facts to
some semblance of order? And who could add—what was needed most of all—a
foundation of moral verity which, in a world of decaying faiths, the heart of
man might welcome, and his intellect accept?
This was the great task assumed by H. P. Blavatsky, and after her, by the men
and women who became disciples in the course of the Theosophical Movement.
CHAPTER III
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
AND ITS FOUNDERS
THE HISTORY of the Theosophical Society, as the first practical
vehicle of the Theosophical Movement of the nineteenth century, is inextricably
bound up with the life and work of H. P. Blavatsky. Whatever the outward steps
leading to the formation of the Theosophical Society, it was her sense of
mission that recognized the need for the Society and generated the interest of
others who became associated with her in that enterprise.
By birth a Russian of noble family, Madame Blavatsky had been a wanderer for
more than twenty years in many lands, both East and West. The record of these
journeyings is partly contained in her own writings, and an account of her early
years is provided by A. P. Sinnett in his Incidents in the Life of Madame
Blavatsky.’ Although the events of this period may at times cast a
suggestive light on obscure problems of the Movement, such details have no
fitting place in the present work, nor could they be properly understood without
a thorough grasp of the Theosophical philosophy. We are at present concerned
with her public work in the world, which began soon after her arrival in New
York in July of 1873. She lived in retirement in Manhattan and Brooklyn
for more than a year. In October of 1874 she visited the Eddy farmhouse
near Chittenden, Vermont, where the brothers, William and Horatio Eddy, had
gained notoriety by the production of extraordinary spiritualistic phenomena.
There she became acquainted with Col. Henry S. Olcott, who had been commissioned
by the New York Graphic to investigate the Eddy phenomena and to report
on them for its readers.
Olcott was an American who had acquired his title during the Civil War. At the
time of meeting Madame Blavatsky, he was forty-two years old—her junior by a
year. He had been agricultural editor of the New York Tribune, had
written numerous articles on various subjects for many publications,
28
———————————————————THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
and was at the time a well-known lawyer with a wide acquaintance among
prominent men. For years a Spiritualist, he had written an eye-witness account
of the mediumship of the Eddy brothers for the New York Sun, earlier in
the year, and in September returned to the Eddy Homestead for the Graphic.
The phenomena of the Eddy brothers, described in detail by Col. Olcott in
letters to the Graphic, and later, in his book,
People
from
the Other World
(published in January, 1875), were of the
sort known to Spiritualists as “materializations.” His dramatic account of these
phenomena, including his careful precautions against fraud, aroused much
attention, likewise his description of the remarkable effect of the presence of
Madame Blavatsky on the “Spiritual” manifestations. As he relates, the
phenomena changed greatly in character and variety immediately after her arrival
at the Eddy homestead, Asiatic “ghosts” in bizarre native dress being added to
the throng of American Indian and other “spirit guides” of William and Horatio
Eddy. Intrigued by these developments, Olcott continued his acquaintance with
Madame Blavatsky after their return to New York.
The first communications by Madame Blavatsky that appeared publicly in the
United States were her letters to the Daily Graphic, dated October 27
and November 10, 1874, in which she defended the Eddy brothers
against charges of fraud by Dr. George M. Beard, “an electropathic physician of
New York City.” Beard’s arrogant assault on the genuineness of the Eddy
phenomena brought a fiery and brilliant reply from the Russian woman, who,
through this and similar letters to the press, soon gained the reputation of
being one of Spiritualism’s ablest advocates. In the character of a champion of
honest mediums, her letters and articles were frequently reprinted in
Spiritualistic journals, with the result that her fame spread rapidly among all
serious students of psychic or spiritual phenomena. During the winter of
1874-5, Madame Blavatsky visited Philadelphia, where she made the
acquaintance of several leading Spiritualists, among them Robert Dale Owen,
author of Footfalls
from
Another World,
and a son of Robert Owen, the economic reformer.
While in this city she became involved in another defense of mediums,
29——————————————————————THE
LAMASERY”
this time of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Holmes, who were charged with imposture by
an erstwhile colleague. In defending the Holmes’, Madame Blavatsky was placed in
the difficult position of having to admit that some of their phenomena
were fraudulent, while other exhibitions, she maintained, were unmistakably
genuine. Her skill in marshalling facts and in intellectual controversy is
effectively displayed in these early articles on behalf of authentic psychic
phenomena. (A number of Madame Blavatsky’s articles and letters to the press,
published in 1874 and 1875, were reprinted in A Modern Panarion,
a volume issued in 1895 by the Theosophical Publishing Society.)
Through these writings, she attracted the attention of the more intelligent
Spiritualists, and upon returning to New York, her days were crowded with
correspondence, her evenings given to long discussions with numerous visitors. A
newspaper reporter dubbed her apartment at 46 Irving Place “the lamasery,” and
the name quickly became current as typifying the flavor of mystery surrounding
her and the subjects discussed at these soirees. Olcott was nearly always
present, and also a young lawyer, William
Q.
Judge, whom Olcott had introduced to Madame
Blavatsky at her request. Judge, then in his early twenties—he was born in
1851—was of Irish parentage and had come to America while still a boy. His youth
had been characterized by an intense interest in religious philosophy,
mysticism, mesmerism and Spiritualism.
With the coming together of these three, the Founders of the Theosophical
Movement were joined in an association that was to last throughout their lives:
Madame Blavatsky, who was soon to excite public attention by extraordinary
demonstrations of occult power, and by equally extraordinary, though less
sensational, teachings of occult philosophy; H. S. Olcott, journalist, man of
the world, and well-known Spiritualist; and W.
Q.
Judge, young, ardent, and, as the years would show,
endowed with a rare sagacity and an unparalleled fixity of purpose, although, in
those days, he was an unknown quantity, and would so remain for a decade or
more.
During the early months of 1875, Olcott and Judge were made to realize
that Madame Blavatsky was no ordinary “Spiritualist’ ‘—if, indeed, she was a
Spiritualist at all. While
30
————————————————————THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
she began her public work as a militant defender of honest mediums, another
note, guarded, but unmistakable, soon became apparent in her writings. Although
of necessity adopting much of the Spiritualistic vocabulary, she wrote with
increasing philosophic power, displaying an obvious familiarity with the
conceptions and practices of both the ancient and the medieval theurgists. To
certain of her correspondents she disclosed hints of a great mission with which
she had been entrusted by occult Teachers. On February 16, 1874, she
wrote to Professor Hiram Corson, of Cornell University, who had been attracted
by her analysis of the mediumship of the Holmes’ of Philadelphia:
“I am here in this country sent by my Lodge on behalf of Truth in modern
spiritualism, and it is my most sacred duty to unveil what is, and expose
what is not. Perhaps did I arrive here one hundred years too soon. May be, and I
am afraid it is so, . .
. in this present state of mental confusion.
. . .
In my eyes, Allan Kardec and Flammarion, Andrew
Jackson Davis and Judge Edmonds, are but school boys just trying to spell their
ABC and sorely blundering sometimes.”
First public evidence of her knowledge
and purpose appeared in the Spiritual Scientist, an independent Boston
weekly devoted to the Spiritualist cause. Under instruction from her “Lodge,”
and because this paper, edited by Elbridge Gerry Brown, had shown philosophic
qualities absent from most Spiritualist journals, Madame Blavatsky began to
support it and to contribute to its pages. In the Spiritual Scientist for
April 17,
1875, there
appeared a notice headed, “Important to Spiritualists,” and signed, “Brotherhood
of Luxor.” Olcott had written this notice, known as the “Luxor” circular, at the
request of this occult brotherhood of which Madame Blavatsky was a member. The
circular reviewed briefly the situation of Spiritualism in the United States.
Noting that twenty-seven years had passed since the outbreak of Western
Spiritualism in 1848, it reproached American Spiritualists for teaching
“so few things worthy of a thoughtful man’s attention,” and proposed that the
Spiritual Scientist become the organ of a more fundamental inquiry into “the
laws which lie back of the phenomena.”
This announcement, of course, drew fire. One writer challenged the existence of
the “Brotherhood of Luxor.” Another,
31—————————————————————THE
“HIRAF” LETTER
over the signature, “Hiraf,” contributed to the Spiritual Scientist
an article devoted to the lore of the Rosicrucians, thus providing Madame
Blavatsky with an opportunity to launch a discussion of occultism, which
appeared during July (later reprinted in A Modern Panarion under the
title, “Occultism or Magic”). This exposition, referred to by Col. Olcott as the
“Hiraf” letter, and by Madame Blavatsky as her “first occult shot,” is of
peculiar importance in that it outlines several of the major conceptions of what
was later to become known as the Theosophical philosophy; and establishes, also,
certain historical facts relating to the theosophical movement in the West.
“Hiraf” was the pseudonym of a young lawyer named Failes who apparently had read
much on the Rosicrucians. His article, which ran in two issues of the
Spiritual Scientist, was said by Olcott to be “full of theosophical ideas
interpreted in terms of Rosicrucianism.’ Madame Blavatsky, however, while
considerate of this effort to explore a subject that was virtually unknown in
America, turns the “Hiraf” article to her own purpose. Her answer to “Hiraf”
lays the foundation for themes that would recur again and again in the
literature of the Theosophical Movement. At the outset, she stresses the
inadequacy of “book-learning” alone, in the field of Occultism, emphasizing the
necessity for “personal experience and practice.” She refers to her own “long
travels throughout the length and breadth of the East—that cradle of Occultism’
and assures the reader of the fact (doubted by “Hiraf”) that colleges for the
training of neophytes in occult science still exist in India, Asia Minor, and
other countries. She finds erroneous the assumption by “Hiraf” that practical
knowledge of the secret science died out with the Rosicrucians and criticizes
his identification of all “adepts” as Rosicrucians.
To correct these misconceptions she reviews the history of the Rosicrucian
order, from its founding by the German ritter, Christian Rosencranz, and tells
her readers that the Rosicrucian Kabalah is based on the more ancient and
complete Oriental Kabalah, which treatise, she says, “is carefully preserved” at
the headquarters of an Eastern Brotherhood—a mysterious Lodge which still exists
and “has lost none of the primitive secret powers of the ancient Chaldeans.” The
lodges of this Brotherhood, she continues, are few in number and “are divided
32
————————————————————THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
into sections and known but to the Adepts; no one would be likely to find
them out, unless the Sages themselves found the neophyte worthy of initiation.”
We are informed that the doctrines of the Oriental Kabalah, possessed by these
living sages, have been transmitted from generation to generation of wise men,
and their purity jealously guarded by the initiates of Chaldea, India, Persia
and Egypt, suffering distortion only in the Hebrew Kabalah, in which some of the
symbols of the ancient teaching were purposely misinterpreted. But the Oriental
Kabalah remained uncorrupted, and Madame Blavatsky declared her adherence to its
doctrines by saying:
“As a practical follower of Eastern Spiritualism, I can
confidently wait for the time, when, with the timely help of those ‘who know,’
American Spiritualism, which even in its present shape has proved such a sore in
the side of the materialists, will become a science and a thing of mathematical
certitude, instead of being regarded only as the crazy delusion of epileptic
monomaniacs.”
Previous to the appearance of the “Hiraf” letter, Madame Blavatsky’s public
writings had been restricted to polemics on behalf of mediums who were unjustly
attacked, or to letters advocating impartial investigation of psychic phenomena.
After July, 1875, her contributions became powerful asseverations of the
reality of occult science. By this time her personal correspondence was full of
inquiries concerning occultism, and in another article for the Spiritual
Scientist she established the principles that, she said, would have to be
adopted in the quest for secret knowledge. Occultism, she wrote, was not for
dabblers, the half-hearted, nor the merely curious. She would recommend no books
on this mysterious subject, for the reason that—”What may be dear to one who is
intuitional, if read in the same book by another person might prove meaningless.
Unless one is prepared to devote to it his whole life, the superficial knowledge
of Occult Sciences will lead him surely to become the target for millions of
ignorant scoffers
She continued:
If a man would follow in the steps of the Hermetic philosophers, he must prepare
himself beforehand for martyrdom. He must give up personal pride and all
selfish purposes, and be ready for everlasting encounters with friends and foes.
He must part, once for all, with every remembrance of his earlier ideas, on all
and on everything. Existing religions, knowledge,
33————————————————————OCCULTISM—A
‘POSITIVE SCIENCE”
science, must rebecome a blank book for him, as in the days of his babyhood, for
if he wants to succeed he must learn a new alphabet on the lap of Mother Nature,
every letter of which will afford a new insight to him, every syllable and word
an unexpected revelation.
To science it will be the duty—arid and sterile as a matter of course—of the Kabalist to prove that from the beginning of time there was but one positive
science—Occultism; that it was the mysterious lever of all intellectual forces,
the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil of the allegorical paradise, from whose
gigantic trunk sprang in every direction boughs, branches and twigs, the former
shooting forth straight enough at first, the latter deviating with every inch of
growth, assuming more and more fantastical appearances, till at last one after
the other lost its vital juice, got deformed, and, drying up, finally broke off,
scattering the ground afar with heaps of rubbish.
To theology the Occultist of the future will have to demonstrate that the Gods
of the mythologies, the Elohim of Israel as well as the religious and
theological mysteries of Christianity, to begin with the Trinity, sprang from
the sanctuaries of Memphis and Thebes; that their mother Eve is but the
spiritualized Psyche of old, both of them paying a like penalty for their
curiosity, descending to Hades or hell, the latter to bring back to earth the
famous Pandora’s box, the former to search out and crush the head of the
serpent—symbol of time and evil—the crime of both expiated by the pagan
Prometheus and the Christian Lucifer; the first delivered by Hercules, the
second conquered by the Saviour.
Here was more than Spiritualist controversy, however brilliant and skillful.
Mastery of her subject is evident in every line of this article by Madame
Blavatsky. She writes with accents of certainty and power, projecting the
far-seeing gaze of the disciplined occultist upon the contemporary scene; she
defines with the surety of one who has triumphed over them the obstacles which
stand in the way of the seeker after secret truth. The authentic credentials of
H. P. Blavatsky, as Teacher and Adept, are in these articles printed in the
Spiritual Scientist in 1875. Intimate, first-hand knowledge is
the context of what she wrote; her words are joined with meaning that grows, not
from “literary research,” but from evident personal power based on practical
experience in the science of occultism.
34
————————————————————THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
Having vividly described the ardors of the path to certain knowledge, she
passes to the hazards that face every occultist who would use what he has
discovered for the general good—the contemptuous negations of scientific materialism, and the vindictive
opposition of orthodox religion. Prophetic of her own tragic future, and of the
attacks that the Theosophical Movement would sustain, she wrote of the vicious
enmity of Public Opinion, ever responsive to the demagogue’s whip, that would
condemn without a hearing the efforts of occult students to lead the masses to
truths ignored by both science and religion. Occultists, she said, must be
prepared to meet and deal with the pitiless forces of bigotry and prejudice—enemies which seldom err in recognizing any genuine threat to their control over
the minds of the masses, and—which “never conspire except against
real
Power.”
Even before the founding of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky made her
true opinion concerning mediums and Spiritualistic phenomena unequivocally
clear. When a prominent Spiritualist editor, Luther Colby, of the Banner of
Light, implied that “the notion that there is such a thing as magic” is mere
“humbug,” she contributed a challenging article to the Spiritual Scientist,
offering a scientific definition of magic, and distinguishing the exercise
of magical or occult powers from the involuntary phenomena of the Spiritualist
mediums. She addresses Mr. Colby:
Did you suppose that Magic is confined to witches riding astride broomsticks and
then turning themselves into black cats? Even the latter superstitious trash,
though it was never called Magic, but Sorcery, does not appear so great an
absurdity for one to accept who firmly believes in the transfiguration of Mrs.
Compton into Katie Brinks.
The exercise of magical power is the exorcise of powers natural,
but superior to the ordinary functions of Nature. A miracle is not a violation
of the laws of Nature, except for ignorant people. Magic is but a science,
a profound knowledge of the Occult forces in Nature, and of the laws
governing the visible or the invisible world. 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 and thereby violating Nature. In
the hands of an experienced medium, Spiritualism becomes unconscious sorcery;
for, by allowing himself to become the helpless tool of a variety of
spirits,
35———————————————————MAGIC AND
SPIRITUALISM COMPARED
of whom he knows nothing save what the latter permit him to know, he opens,
unknown to himself, a door of communication between the two worlds, through
which emerge the blind forces of Nature lurking in the astral light, as well as
good and bad spirits.
This candor regarding mediums was to earn Madame Blavatsky the hatred of many a
“spirit-guide,” and evoked streams of vituperation from emotional Spiritualists
who quickly forgot her courageous defense of their phenomena and thereafter
devoted themselves to venomous attacks upon theosophists and the Theosophical
teachings. She was not done, however, in this important article, with her
critical comparison between Magic and Spiritualism. Spiritualist writers had
been claiming all great teachers and wonder-workers of the past as “mediums”—a
misconception which had to be corrected:
To doubt Magic is to reject History itself, as well as the testimony of ocular
witnesses thereof, during a period embracing over
4,000
years. Beginning with Homer, Moses, Hermes,
Herodotus, Cicero, Plutarch, Pythagoras, Apollonius of Tyana, Simon the
Magician, Plato, Pausanias, Iamblichus, and following this endless string of
great men—historians and philosophers, who all of them either believed in Magic
or were magicians themselves—and ending with our modern authors, such as W. Howitt, Ennernoser, G. des Mousseaux, Marquis de Mirville and the late Eliphas
Levi, who was a magician himself—among all of these great names and authors, we
find but the solitary Mr. Colby, editor of The Banner of Light, who
ignores that there ever was such a science as Magic. He innocently believes the
whole of the sacred army of Bible prophets, commencing with Father
Abraham, including Christ, to be merely mediums; in the eyes of Mr. Colby, they
were all of them acting under control!
Fancy Christ, Moses, or an Apollonius of Tyana, controlled by an Indian guide!
The venerable editor ignores, perhaps, that spiritual mediums were better known
in those days to the ancients, than they are now to us, and he seems to be
equally unaware of the fact that the inspired sibyls, pythonesses, and other
mediums were entirely guided by their high priest and those who were initiated
into the esoteric theurgy and mysteries of the temples. Theurgy was Magic; as in
modern times, the sibyls and pythonesses were mediums; but their high
priests were magicians. All the secrets of their theology, which included Magic,
or the art of invoking ministering spirits, were in their hands. They possessed
the science of discerning spirits; a science which Mr. Colby does not
possess at all—to his great
36———————————————————— THE
THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
regret, no doubt. By this power they controlled the spirits at will,
allowing but the good