THE THEOSOPHICAL

“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.”

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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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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

E. T. Hargrove’s theosophical group—the “Temple of the People” A. Neresheimer’s affidavit—J. H. Fussell a faith-

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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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

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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

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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

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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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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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-

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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

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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-

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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

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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

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(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-

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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.

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.

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    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 ones to absorb their mediums. Such is the explanation of Magic—the real, existing, White or Sacred Magic, which ought to be in the hands of science now, and would be, if science had profited by the lessons which Spiritualism has inductively taught for these last twenty-seven years.

Magic exists, and has existed, ever since prehistoric ages. Beginning in history with the Samothracian Mysteries, it followed its course uninterruptedly, and ended for a time with the expiring theurgic rites and ceremonies of Christianized Greece; then reappeared for a time again with the Neoplatonic, Alexandrian school, and, passing by initiation to sundry solitary students and philosophers, safely crossed the medieval ages, and notwithstanding the furious persecutions of the Church, resumed its fame in the hands of such Adepts as Paracelsus and several others, and finally died out in Europe with the Count St. Germain and Cagliostro, to seek refuge from frozen-hearted scepticism in its native country of the East.

In India, Magic has never died out, and blossoms there as well as ever. Practiced, as in ancient Egypt, only within the secret enclosure of the temples, it was, and still is, called the “Sacred Science.” For it is a science, based on the occult forces of Nature; and not merely a blind belief in the poll-parrot talking of crafty elementaries, ready to forcibly prevent real, dis-embodied spirits from communicating with their loved ones whenever they can do so.

The Spiritualists of 1875 knew nothing of these matters; one need only turn the pages of the journals devoted to Spiritualistic phenomena and religion to discover the striking contrast between the philosophic vigor of the writings of Madame Blavatsky and the psychic fancies of conventional Spiritualism. The doctrines of the Spiritualists were a shallow reflection of wishful thinking, well-intentioned, but without either intellectual strength or firm moral foundation. Lacking in philosophy, the religious ideas of the Spiritualists drew support from fanatical conviction rather than from metaphysical depth, tending to repel rather than to invite intelligent inquiry. Theirs was a faith in which inherited sentiments united with intense emotionalism—a faith cut off from the possibilities of rational development. To accept, therefore, the line of investigation proposed by H. P. Blavatsky meant for the Spiritualists a willingness to admit the pitiful inadequacy of their explanations of psychic phenomena and to con-

37————————————————————THE SPIRITUALISTS’ DILEMMA

fess the moral weaknesses of all their doctrines. Would they be willing to forego the slack simplicity of trusting to Indian “spirit guides” for their teachings? Could they acknowledge that twenty-seven years of seances had brought them no genuine progress, but only a vast accumulation of trivial psychic messages, of no particular importance save for the “miraculous” manner of their communication?

The task assumed by Madame Blavatsky involved winning the attention of the public for the teachings she had to impart. Her defense of the Spiritualists, so far as the reality of their phenomena was concerned, had made the members of this outcast sect her friends and temporary allies; but what would they say when she repudiated as false and even dangerously misleading their claims and theories of “spirit survival”? As she disclosed that her intent was to expose the errors of Spiritualism, as well as to establish the fact of psychic phenomena, would the devotees of nineteenth-century Necromancy be able to recognize the larger meaning of their movement, and to become, like the ancient hierophants, masters of psychic phenomena instead of its fetish-worshipping slaves?

What she could say openly on behalf of the Spiritualists, she did, with that generosity of spirit which characterized all her public utterances. And while the majority of them drew back in injured alarm at the occult critique of spiritualistic theories, there were a few who saw the promise of these ideas, and were reflective enough to admit the justice of Madame Blavatsky’s strictures on the low moral tone of most séance communications. Her real labors were with these few, and with Olcott and Judge, who met with her night after night during 1875, to be instructed in the philosophy of occultism and the rationale of psychic or spiritualistic phenomena. From Col. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, published many years later in the Theosophist, we learn how the hours of his early acquaintance with Madame Blavatsky were spent. To the evening gatherings in her “lamasery” came Spiritualists, Kabalists, Platonists, students of science and of ancient religion, the skeptical, the curious, and seekers after the marvelous. Olcott’s own interest was heavily weighted by his spiritualistic tendencies. Slow to grasp the full significance of Madame Blavatsky’s analysis of the dangers of mediumship

38 ————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

and phenomena-hunting, his account of these days during 1875 places undue emphasis on occult powers and reveals his limited understanding of the great intent of the movement he was to help found. He never quite quenched his Spiritualistic thirst for “miracles,” and his ingenuous boasting of the wonders performed by Madame Blavatsky, his letters to the press concerning occult phenomena, and his failure to realize what the inevitable results of this emphasis would be, were to exact heavy penalties in the future—obscuring, for the public, the authentic moral inspiration of the Theosophical Movement, and exposing his teacher and benefactress to popular ridicule and unjust accusations. Read between the lines, the pages of Old Diary Leaves help to explain why Madame Blavatsky has been ignorantly called a “medium” and a Spiritualist, and show, also, her incalculable patience with Olcott’s personal weaknesses and love for “phenomena.” His admiration for her was too much based upon awe of her powers, and his devotion to her work, which became the cause of the Theosophical Society, often found expression in verbal extravagances. He was nevertheless determined in his efforts, and a true friend and co-worker, despite many mistakes. For this, he gained the undying gratitude of Madame Blavatsky.

William Q. Judge, the youthful Irish-American lawyer, left no detailed record of the period before the founding of the Society, but certain of his published statements reveal the character of his relationship with Madame Blavatsky. On the occasion of her death, in 1891, he referred to their first meeting at her rooms in Irving Place, in January, 1875. The meeting of these two, thereafter to be inseparably joined in labors for the Theosophical Movement, was no casual event. In Judge’s words:

“It was her eye that attracted me, the eye of one whom I must have known in lives long passed away. She looked at me in recognition at that first hour, and never since has that look changed. Not as a questioner of philosophies did I come before her, not as one groping in the dark for lights that schools and fanciful theories had obscured, but as one who, wandering many periods through the corridors of life, was seeking the friends who could show where the designs for the work had been hidden. And true to the call she responded, revealing the plans once

39—————————————————————H. P. B.’S “DEMONSTRATIONS”

again, and speaking no words to explain, simply pointed them out and went on with the task. It was as if but the evening before we had parted, leaving yet to be done some detail of a task taken up with one common end; it was teacher and pupil, elder brother and younger, both bent on the one single end, but she with the power and the knowledge that belong but to lions and sages.’’

Judge, like Olcott, was witness to numerous demonstrations of occult powers by Madame Blavatsky, done in illustration of some principle or tenet in which they were being instructed. Her purpose, in these demonstrations, was to establish the difference between the perfectly controlled powers of the adept, and the involuntary wonders produced by mediums in Spiritualistic trance. Judge’s later works show the fruit of this training, for he discusses occult subjects as one writing from personal experience—a quality lacking in most Theosophical authors other than Madame Blavatsky herself. Years afterward, he spoke of these “amazing feats of magic, hundreds of which I witnessed in broad daylight or in blazing gas-light, from 1875 to 1878.”°

During 1875, Olcott and Judge learned from Madame Blavatsky more or less of her travels and their purpose. Among many other things, she told them of her unsuccessful attempt to establish a group at Cairo, Egypt, in 1871, to investigate the rationale of mediumship and its phenomena. Moved by what he had seen and heard, and by his ardent desire to explore more deeply the phenomena which fascinated him, Col. Olcott, in May, 1875, proposed the formation of a private “Miracle Club” for psychic research. This project, however, failed for lack of a medium. Olcott next became interested in the “occult” promises of a Mr. George Felt, an Egyptologist who claimed to be able to control the “elementals” or nature-spirits. On the evening of September 7, 1875, Mr. Felt lectured in Madame Blavatsky’s apartment on “The Lost Canon of Proportion of the Egyptians.” While those present were discussing the talk, Col. Olcott passed a note to Judge bearing these words: “Would it not be a good thing to form a society for this kind of study?” Mr. Judge read the note, passed it to Madame Blavatsky, who nodded assent, and Judge proposed that the assemblage come to order and that Col. Olcott act as chairman to consider the proposal. It was unanimously

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agreed that a society should be formed, and on the following evening, sixteen persons met and expressed their desire to join in founding a society for occult study. Other meetings were held at Col. Olcott’s law offices, and at the residence of Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, a well-known Spiritualist author. The name, “The Theosophical Society,” was chosen on September 13 and several new members were then added to the list of “Founders.” On October 30, Olcott’s Preamble was approved, by-laws were adopted, and officers and a Council were elected. Among the officers were Col. Olcott as President, Madame Blavatsky as Corresponding Secretary, and Mr. Judge as Counsel. On the evening of November 17, a formal meeting was held at Mott Memorial Hall, 64 Madison Avenue. Col. Olcott delivered an “Inaugural Address” and 500 copies were ordered for “immediate distribution.”

    Looking back on the event of the founding of the Society, Madame Blavatsky wrote in 1881:

    Our Society as a body might certainly be wrecked by mismanagement or the death of its founders, but the IDEA which it represents and which has gained so wide a currency, will run on like a crested wave of thought until it dashes upon the hard beach where materialism is picking and sorting its pebbles. Of the thirteen persons who composed our first board of officers, in 1875, nine were Spiritualists of greater or less experience. It goes without saying, then, that the aim of the Society was not to destroy but to better and purify spiritualism. The phenomena we knew to be real, and we believed them to be the most important of all current subjects for investigation. For, whether they should finally prove to be traceable to the agency of the departed, or but manifestations of occult natural forces acting in concert with latent psycho-physiological human powers, they opened up a great field of research, the outcome of which must be enlightenment upon the master problem of life, Man and his Relations. We had seen phenomenalism running riot and twenty millions of believers clutching at one drifting theory after another in the hope to gain the truth. We had reason to know that the whole truth could only be found in one quarter, the Asiatic schools of philosophy, and we felt convinced that the truth could never be discovered until men of all races and creeds should join like brothers in the search. So, taking our stand upon that ground, we began to point the way eastward.

    This was Madame Blavatsky’s attitude toward Spiritualism in 1875—a qualified interest in the possibilities of psychic

41—————————————————————OLCOTT AND THE “OCCULT”

research, as a door to knowledge of the inner nature of man. Spiritualist phenomena, for her, were a point of departure, not ends in themselves. Olcott partly understood this viewpoint, but enthusiasm for “occult” revelations unbalanced his judgment. His state of mind is faithfully reflected in the Inaugural Address delivered on November 17. Not content with defining the broad philosophical purpose of the Society, Olcott made extravagant claims for Mr. Felt’s “magical” powers, ending on a note of gleeful anticipation of the embarrassment which he expected would overtake the Spiritualists when Felt’s experiments were successful. While Madame Blavatsky, during this early period, exercised great tact in her effort to open up a wider horizon of understanding for the Spiritualists, Olcott’s naïve assertions made many of the Spiritualists furious. Professor Corson, the scholarly Spiritualist whom H.P.B. had visited in Ithaca. attacked Olcott rather unjustly in a letter to the Banner of Light, but there was some substance in his charges. It was Madame Blavatsky, of course, in this case as in so many others, who bore the brunt of the reaction to Olcott’s injudicious behavior. She at once wrote to Corson, attempting to moderate the sting in Olcott’s boasting address, and to qualify his strictures on Spiritualist morality. Taking her learned friend into strict confidence, she accounted for the extreme tone of the Inaugural Address by describing the sudden reform in Olcott’s personal life, due to his occult aspirations. She wrote:

“Olcott is a fanatic, so much so, that I am afraid that this abrupt change from a comfortable life, good eating and drinking and indulging in all sorts of worldly things, will either bring him to insanity or death. . . . He eats no more meat, renounces supper and wine; his only aim in life is to become purified, as he says, of his past life, of the stains he has inflicted on his soul. I can do nothing with him. I have evoked the spirit of fanaticism in him, and now I cruelly repent, for this man does nothing by halves. . . . Because Olcott views spiritualism perhaps too exultingly, and expresses himself in too strong terms,—for I agree with you in that—why should people misunderstand him for that which never entered his mind? Many and many times, day after day, I repeat to him that he must not brag of what is not done yet
Of Felt’s claims, she said, “I do not know whether or when he will make his promise good.” Prof. Corson was mollified

42————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

by this letter, but his main interest was Spiritualism, not Theosophy, as later became plain. This incident is of importance chiefly as illustrating Olcott’s habitual emphasis on the phenomenal aspects of occultism, and his tendency, never entirely overcome, to hope for conversion of others to Theosophy through miraculous demonstrations, for which he turned, usually in vain, to his wiser colleague. Olcott’s folly in promoting Felt as one who would amaze the world with occult phenomena was soon evident, for that gentleman, after obtaining one hundred dollars for “expenses” from the Society’s treasury, failed to produce any Elementals at all— “not even the tip end of the tail of the tiniest Nature spirit,” as Olcott mournfully related. He found this a “mortifying disappointment” which resulted in the departure from the Society of several whose interest was limited to sensation-seeking.

At this time, the affairs of the Society were largely in Olcott’s hands. Meetings were held irregularly, and many plans for occult experimentation were proposed. Neither Madame Blavatsky nor Judge took any active part in the meetings after the first few sessions. The former, Olcott complains in Old Diary Leaves, “refused to do the slightest phenomenon.” She was then extremely busy with correspondence, with letters to the press and with the steady stream of visitors to the “lamasery.” She had also begun the writing of her first book, Isis Unveiled. Mr. Judge was occupied with practicing law during the day, and he gave his evenings to study under Madame Blavatsky’s direction.

As originally constituted, the Theosophical Society was entirely democratic in its by-laws and organization. All officers were elective. The by-laws provided for three classes of Fellows: Active, Corresponding, and Honorary. The earlier Societies established after the foundation of the Parent body adopted its preamble and made additional rules and by-laws, not in conflict, to suit themselves. Intercourse between the various Societies was more or less desultory and informal, but all Fellows received their diplomas from the Parent Society until branch Societies began to be formed in India, when diplomas were signed by Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky. There were various arrangements in the issuing of diplomas until

43—————————————————————THE T. S. ORGANIZATION

1885, after which time, Madame Blavatsky being in Europe, Mr. Judge in America, and Col. Olcott in India, all regular diplomas were signed by Col. Olcott as President of the Theosophical Society. These diplomas were recognized as certificates of Fellowship by all lodges, wherever situated.

No formal Convention of all the Societies was ever held during the existence of the Parent body, but in India a species of gathering or “Anniversary Convention” was held as early as 1880, and thereafter annually at the end of each year. These were attended by delegates from the Indian and Ceylon Lodges and by occasional visitors from Europe and America

THE PARENT THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY had three declared Objects, known to some from the first, and formally adopted by the Society and most of the branches in the 1880’s. They were:

I.     To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of
         Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste,
        or color.

II.     The study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies
         and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance
        of such study; and

III.     The investigation of the unexplained laws of Nature
          and the psychical powers latent in man.’

    From the vantage-point of the twentieth century, these Objects may seem unexceptionable, but seventy-five years ago they represented almost entirely new ideas. It should be realized that Brotherhood, as a universal ideal, is now frequently spoken of chiefly because of the extensive sufferings that distinctions of race, creed and color have brought about in recent years. The Theosophical Movement sought to make universal brotherhood the basis for human relations before the wars of the twentieth century. The present interest in ancient philosophy, particularly that of the Orient, grows from recognition of the weaknesses of Western religion, which has proved incapable of uniting Christian peoples in peace, and it may be noted that theosophical books have played an important part in bringing the great scriptures of India to the attention of the West. The Third Object was equally a pioneering conception, anticipating the complex psychological problems of the present period. No great argument should be necessary to show that these objects formulated three great needs of the future, and that the Theosophical Movement, established to serve those needs, was intended as a great and beneficent force in human history.

45—————————————————————THE “BROTHERHOOD PLANK”

    The “Three Objects” of the original Theosophical Society are now well known to all serious students of Theosophy and the subject of no dispute. They were not, however, explicitly stated at the time of the founding of the Society. Olcott, in Old Diary Leaves, asserts that when the idea of the Society was first proposed, “the idea of Universal Brotherhood was not there,” and did not occur until, in 1878, the Society’s “sphere of influence extended so as to bring us into relations with Asiatics and their religions and social systems,” thus making “the Brotherhood plank . . . a necessity, and, in fact, the corner-stone of our edifice.” The by-laws adopted in 1875 simply state, “The objects of the society are to collect and diffuse a knowledge of the laws which govern the universe.”

    Discussing the Objects in Old Diary Leaves, Olcott quotes a press account of the founding of the Society, which said:
“[His Olcott’s] plan was to organise a society of Occultists and begin at once to collect a library; and to diffuse information concerning those secret laws of Nature which were so familiar to the Chaldeans and Egyptians, but are totally unknown by our modern world of science.” This, the Colonel comments, “shows conclusively what I had in mind when proposing the formation of our Society.” As he understood it, the Society was primarily a body devoted to “occult research.”

    In repeating the events of these early days, Olcott seems determined to limit the conception of the Society to the ideas which he held at that time. An almost childlike vanity convinced him that the Society was his personal “creation,” and he was quick to reject any implication that others beside himself might have possessed a larger vision of its purposes than his own. His easily wounded self-esteem caused him to fall into the habit of petty criticisms of his comrade and teacher, Madame Blavatsky, and it played a similar part in his belittling attitude toward William Q. Judge. Many of the later difficulties of the Society may be attributed to these weaknesses in Olcott’s character, which made it difficult for him to distinguish between the dynamic moral reform represented by the Theosophical movement and the organization or society of that name.

46———————————————————— THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

    Madame Blavatsky often referred to the founding of the Society as the result of occult direction from her Teachers. In the Theosophist for July, 1882, she wrote that “our Society was founded at the direct suggestion of Indian and Tibetan adepts,” and during the course of her life she made many similar statements, both in print and in correspondence. In a letter dated December 6, 1887, she reminded Olcott that she came to the United States “to see what could be done to stop necromancy and the unconscious black magic exercised by the Spiritualists.” She continued:

    ‘The Society was formed, then gradually made to merge into and evolve hints of the teachings from the Secret Doctrine of the oldest school of Occult Philosophy in the whole world—a school to reform which, finally, the Lord Gautama was made to appear. These teachings could not be given abruptly. They had to be in stilled gradually.

    As one who came to the modern world in the service of an ancient “occult school,” Madame Blavatsky was confronted by peculiar difficulties. First of all, the idea of occult or “secret” knowledge and of its possessors was virtually unknown or forgotten, with only a handful of obscure Kabalists to represent the fading tradition of the Gnosis in the West. Since the persecution of the Gnostics in the early centuries of Christian History, occasional revivals of adept teachings in Europe had been zealously suppressed by the heresy hunters of the Church, until, with the rise of scientific scepticism, belief in secret fraternities of wise men came to be classed with the fantasies of the Arabian Nights, or on a par with medieval superstition. While the phenomena of the Spiritualists had opened the way to acceptance of super-physical power, this was true only of a small minority of enthusiasts, and Spiritualism itself was rapidly becoming a fanatical sect whose believers would give occult ideas small welcome. Madame Blavatsky might win the interest of the Spiritualists by phenomenal demonstrations, but she could not retain their support without adopting the Spiritualist version of soul-survival and “spirit intercourse,” and, as she later explained, it was her mission to controvert these crude teachings by presenting the Theosophic explanation of psychic phenomena.

    While in her public statements Madame Blavatsky took account of the need for a gradual introduction of the idea of

47—————————————————————THE TRUE FOUNDERS

adept teachers, to her friends, her intimates in the work of the Theosophical Movement, she explained much more, telling them at almost the very first of the source of her wisdom. The sages under whose direction she had traveled to America she called her “Masters”—certain Eastern adepts she had come to know during her travels in India and Tibet. These Masters, she said, were the inspirers of the Theosophical Movement, its true founders, for whom she acted as agent in the world. Olcott, as he reports in 0/d Diary Leaves, came under the influence of more than one of these Teachers before the Society was formed, becoming firmly convinced of their reality and wonderful powers. As a Spiritualist, however, Olcott was more easily affected by the occult phenomena of this Eastern fraternity than by their project of moral reform. His diary is a naïve record of the fascination which phenomena held for him, and of how his mind fed on dreams of startling the world with miraculous occurrences, to be produced at his suggestion by Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical adepts. It is not remarkable, therefore, that he failed to appreciate the full meaning of the Movement at the outset, and could suppose that “the Brotherhood plank” was virtually an afterthought.

The understanding, and memory, of William Q. Judge were different. Years after, writing in the Path for April, 1888, he said:
At that first meeting I proposed Colonel Olcott as President of the Society, and was made temporary Secretary myself. A Committee appointed to select a name for the infant met several times after that at Olcott’s office, 7 Beckman Street, New York, and decided upon the present name. The objects of the Society had been given to Col. Olcott by the Masters before that; they were adopted and have never been changed.

In her Key to Theosophy, a text for students, Madame Blavatsky wrote that the objects of the Society “are three, and have been so from the beginning.” In 1878, three months before her departure with Col. Olcott for India, she wrote to an inquirer:

“It [the Society] is a brotherhood of humanity, established to make away with all and every dogmatic religion founded on dead-letter interpretation, and to teach people and every member to believe in but one impersonal God; to rely upon his (man’s) own powers; to consider himself his only savior; to learn the

48 ————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

infinitude of the occult psychological powers hidden within his own physical man; to develop these powers; and to give him the assurance of the immortality of his divine spirit and the survival of his soul; to make him regard every man of whatever race, color, or creed, and to prove to him that the only truths revealed to man by superior men (not a god) are contained in the Vedas of the ancient Aryas of India. Finally, to demonstrate to him that there never were, will be, nor are, any miracles; that there can be nothing super-natural’ in this universe, and that on earth, at least, the only god is man himself.”

    With the Society established and its public activities under way, Madame Blavatsky turned to the work of recording the Theosophical philosophy. In Olcott’s words:

    H.P.B., then working night and day upon her first book, Isis Unveiled, soon refused to even attend our meetings, let alone do so much at them as make the smallest phenomenon—though she was continually astounding her visitors with them at her own house—and so, naturally enough, the leading Spiritualists in the Society became dissatisfied and dropped out. Forced, contrary to all my expectations, to keep up interest at the meetings and carry the whole load myself, while at the same time attending to my professional business and helping H.P.B. on “Isis,” I did what I could in the way of getting psychometers, clairvoyants, mesmerisers, and spiritual mediums to show us sundry phases of psychical science.

    In the beginning, the Parent Theosophical Society and the other Theosophical bodies had no literature of their own. For students of the present generation, to whom “Theosophy” means the specific doctrines found in the Theosophical books, it is difficult to realize the difference between the outward character of the Movement, then and now. These teachings, as H.P.B. wrote to Olcott in 1887, “could not be given abruptly.” Her task, quite literally, was to “incarnate” progressively in the English language an entire system of principles, metaphysical tenets, and ethical teachings, and this meant the slow elaboration of appropriate intellectual forms for these ideas. Until the publication of Isis Unveiled, in 1877, the Society was limited in materials for study to Kabbalistic works, translations of Plato and the Neoplatonists, the available books on Oriental philosophy and religion, the Spiritualist literature, writings of the Christian mystics, and various works on magic, mesmerism, hypnotism and related subjects. Isis, as its sub-title states, was to be “A Master-Key to the

49————————————————————THE PUBLICATION OF “ISIS”

Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology.” Actually, it was an attempt to gather into a single work those elements of the cultural heritage of the West which could serve as the foundation of a new religious philosophy, and to unite them by means of the occult and spiritual teachings she had learned in the East. As part of Madame Blavatsky’s purpose was to declare the reality of occult forces and secret knowledge, she began her preface to Isis Unveiled with these words:

The work now submitted to public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their science. It is offered to such as are willing to accept truth wherever it may be found, and to defend it, even looking popular prejudice straight in the face. It is an attempt to aid the student to detect the vital principles which underlie the philosophical systems of old. That “popular prejudice” would be aroused by a book so introduced was a foregone conclusion. Who were these mysterious “Eastern adepts” who dared to challenge the accepted truths of religious orthodoxy, and to question the conclusions of Western Science? Such a book could expect support only from those open-minded enough to form their judgments of it by a careful study of its contents, instead of invoking orthodox opinions. The evidence for the existence of “adepts” presented by Madame Blavatsky was their philosophy—the “master-key” referred to in her title. She might, of course, have suppressed all mention of these Teachers whom she met in the Orient, and have presented simply a synthesis of religious philosophy and scientific conceptions, as the culmination of painstaking research. Little or no animosity against her would have resulted from this method. Her book would have been classed with many others of a similar character, eclectic compilations of religious ideas drawn from many obscure sources, and fused into the philosophic unity of speculative metaphysics.

But this Madame Blavatsky would not, could not, do. The concept of adeptship, of perfected human beings, was a necessary conclusion from the logic of spiritual evolution; it was also the key to her explanation of the phenomena of the Spiritualistic mediums. A further reading of the Preface to Isis shows

50———————————————————— THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

how inseparable in this book are its philosophic teachings from the idea of human perfection. She continues:

When, years ago, we first travelled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted sanctuaries, two saddening and ever-recurring questions oppressed our thoughts: Where, WHO, WHAT is GOD? Who ever saw the IMMORTAL SPIRIT of man, so as to be able to assure himself of man’s immortality?

It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems that we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their instructions we lent a ready ear. They showed us that by combining science with religion, the existence of God and immortality of man’s spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid. For the first time we received the assurance that the Oriental philosophy has room for no other faith than an absolute and immovable faith in the omnipotence of man’s own immortal self. We were taught that this omnipotence comes from the kinship of man’s spirit with the Universal Soul—God! The latter, they said, can never be demonstrated but by the former. Man-spirit proves God-spirit, as the one drop of water proves a source from which it must have come. Tell one who had never seen water, that there is an ocean of water, and he must accept it on faith or reject it altogether. But let one drop fall upon his hand, and he then has the fact from which all the rest may be inferred. After that he could by degrees understand that a boundless and fathomless ocean of water existed. Blind faith would no longer be necessary; he would have supplanted it with KNOWLEDGE. When one sees mortal man displaying tremendous capabilities, controlling the forces of nature and opening up to view the world of spirit, the reflective mind is overwhelmed with the conviction that if one man’s spiritual Ego can do this much, the capabilities of the FATHLR SPIRIT must be relatively as much vaster as the whole ocean surpasses the single drop in volume and potency. Ex nihlo nihil fit; prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers— you have proved God!

These statements, offered at the outset, showed the character of the authority claimed for the Theosophical teachings: it is the authority within each human being, his own potential powers of perception and understanding. But pending the full development of those faculties within himself, the reader or student is invited to consider the philosophical validity of the Wisdom-Religion, the analyses of history and tradition, of religious symbolism and scientific evidence of various sorts,

51———————————————————THE NEED FOR ANCIENT RELIGIONS

as the basis of acceptance or rejection of the Theosophical method of inquiry.

From the idea of highly evolved human beings as the source of her teaching, Madame Blavatsky passed, in the introductory chapter of Isis Unveiled, to the need for study of ancient religions. Reviewing the corruptions of Western religion and the reaction of animalism taught by science, she introduced the subject of Spiritualism as offering “a possible last refuge of compromise between the two.” But neither religion nor science was competent to explain the phenomena of the Spiritualists. She comments:

while the clergy, following their own interpretations of the Bible, and science its self-made Codex of possibilities in nature, refuse it [Spiritualism] a fair hearing, real science and true religion are silent, and gravely wait further developments.

    The whole question of phenomena rests on the correct comprehension of old philosophies. Whither, then, should we turn, in our perplexity, but to the ancient sages, since, on the pretext of superstition, we are refused an explanation by the modern? Let us ask them what they know of genuine science and religion; not in the matter of mere details, but in all the broad conception of these twin truths—so strong in their unity, so weak when divided. Besides, we may find our profit in comparing this boasted modern science with ancient ignorance; this improved modern theology with the “Secret doctrines” of the ancient universal religion. Perhaps we may thus discover a neutral ground whence we can reach and profit by both.

    In this quest among the ancients, Madame Blavatsky turns first to Plato. She calls the Platonic philosophy “the most elaborate compend of the abstruse systems of old India,” which “can alone afford us this middle ground.” In Plato she saw the link between eastern and western thought:

    He [Plato] was, in the fullest sense of the word, the world’s interpreter. And the greatest philosopher of the pre-Christian era mirrored faithfully in his works the spiritualism of the Vedic philosophers who lived thousands of years before himself, and its metaphysical expression.

    Just as Plato had summed up the knowledge of the ancient East in his philosophy, transmitting to the Western world the accumulated wisdom of the prehistoric past, so Madame Blavatsky, also, became a transmitter of ancient teachings, “the world’s interpreter” of the nineteenth century. Starting from

52 ————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

the plateau of Platonic philosophy, Isis Unveiled explores the entire continent of human experience and thought, gathering evidence for the few fundamental ideas which constitute the first principles of the Theosophical philosophy. The existence of Adepts and their common philosophy of moral regeneration is the central theme. Also discussed are the missions and teachings of great adepts through history, as the source of the universal belief in gods, Saviors and “divine incarnations”; their teachings regarding the “mysteries” are investigated as ancient sources which provided the materials for the greatest philosophical and ethical treatises. Madame Blavatsky shows that everywhere, from the remotest antiquity, there are abundant indications that the arts and sciences, as re-discovered in our times, were known and practiced in the distant past; and further, that the ancients knew many things which are hidden from modern civilization.

The postulates laid down in Isis Unveiled form the foundation for subsequent theosophical study. The most important among them may be summarized as follows:
I. The reality of man as a spiritual being, with a life independent of as well as in a physical body.

II. An almost incredible antiquity for the human race, through millions of years of rises and falls in civilization, the vicissitudes of which are governed by the great law of Cycles (Karma), which law does not affect all mankind at one and the same time, thus explaining the existence of the most advanced races side by side with tribes sunk in savagery.

III. An intellectual and spiritual evolution as well as the physical evolution of modern science, the former proceeding under well-defined principles of soul-development.

The last chapter of the second volume of Isis provides a recapitulation of the entire work, in ten basic propositions, which state in substance: (1) There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result of law—eternal and ever active. (2) Nature is triune: there is a visible, objective nature; an invisible, indwelling, energizing nature, the exact model of the other, and its vital principle; and, above these two, spirit, source of all forces, alone eternal and indestructible. The

53————————————————————TEN BASIC PROPOSITIONS

lower two constantly change; the higher third does not. (3) Man is also triune: he has his objective, physical body; his vitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man; and these two are brooded over and illuminated by the third—the sovereign, the immortal spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with the latter, he becomes an immortal entity. (4) Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and of the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature’s forces may be acquired by the individual while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this knowledge in practice. (5) Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery; beneficently used, true magic or Wisdom. (6) Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the passive instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls himself and all inferior potencies. (7) All things that ever were, that are, or will be, having their record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe, the initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know all that has been known or can be known. (8) Races of men differ in spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or any other external quality; among some peoples seer-ship naturally prevails, among others mediumship. (9) One phase of magical skill is the voluntary and conscious withdrawal of the inner man (astral form) from the outer man (physical body). In the cases of some mediums withdrawal occurs, but it is unconscious and involuntary. (10) The corner-stone of magic is an intimate practical knowledge of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and potencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their effects in and upon the animal kingdom and man. To sum up all in a few words, Magic is spiritual wisdom; nature, the material ally, pupil and servant of the magician. One common vital principle pervades all things, and this is controllable by the perfected human will.

These ideas were not presented by Madame Blavatsky as merely theoretical considerations, but as principles of practical explanation to which she constantly referred. Applying them to Spiritualist mediums, she showed that their phenomena could be accounted for as the involuntary productions of aberrant psychic factors in man’s nature. The various forms of clairvoyance are explained as functions of the astral light.

54 ————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

The message of Isis Unveiled is predominantly ethical, but, unlike either the precepts of contemporary religion or the moral speculations of Western philosophers, an endeavor is made in this book to correlate ethical ideas with super-physical laws of nature; to show, in short, that religion can have a basis in scientific law and fact. Starting with the interests of her age—both popular and learned—the phenomena of Spiritualism, the conflict of Science and Religion, and the researches of students of symbology and mysticism—Madame Blavatsky examined these several aspects of human experience in the light of the Theosophical teachings, drawing them together for study and review in the single perspective of a philosophy of soul. Her method, in this sense, was inductive and scientific, for Isis Unveiled rejects no fact, whether of past history or contemporary development, but it is deductive in the crucial process of relating the data of man’s moral and psychic life, individual and collective, under general laws which serve, in the Theosophic scheme, as integrating principles.

    Much of Isis Unveiled is devoted to a critique of historical and theological Christianity. The closing paragraphs of the Preface to the second volume say:

    An analysis of religious beliefs in general, this volume is in particular directed against theological Christianity, the chief opponent of free thought. It contains not one word against the pure teachings of Jesus, but unsparingly denounces their debasement into pernicious ecclesiastical systems that are ruinous to man’s faith in his immortality and his God, and subversive of all moral restraint.

    We cast our gauntlet at the dogmatic theologians who would enslave both history and science; and especially at the Vatican, whose despotic pretensions have become hateful to the greater portion of enlightened Christendom. The clergy apart, none but the logician, the investigator, the dauntless explorer should meddle with books like this. Such delvers after truth have the courage of their opinions.

    In this volume is to be found an explanation for the bitter enmity Madame Blavatsky provoked among representatives of religious orthodoxy, particularly the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout her life she was the object of vicious attacks by certain spokesmen of organized Christianity, who sought to bring her into personal disrepute and who lost no opportunity

55————————————————————“ISIS” AND RELIGIOUS ORTHODOXY

to assert that she was a fraud and a charlatan. Actually, the best evidence for the sincerity of Madame Blavatsky is her courageous study of the psychological and temporal power of religious institutions. One who dares to examine the hoary sanctions of revealed religion invariably exposes himself to vindictive retaliations, and all history is witness to the fact that hell hath no fury like an angry priest, whose authority to speak in the name of the Deity has been challenged, and whose casuistry is subjected to the light of reason.

Isis Unveiled was a book which could be understood, and would be welcomed, only by those few who were prepared, or at least willing, to do their own thinking. It was a text for those who had resolved to make the Objects of the Theosophical Society the guiding principles of their own lives. Its author dedicated its two volumes to the Theosophical Society, which was founded, she declared, “to study the subjects on which they treat.”

WITH THE DEPARTURE OF Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky from New York on December 18, 1878, the scene of Theosophical activity shifted from the United States to India. For H.P.B., the journey was to “India and HOME!” For Olcott, it was the beginning of a great adventure—a new life in the mysterious East, where the part he would play was much more than that of a curious traveler, coming from the New World to the Old. He arrived in India already apprenticed in the service of a secret fraternity of Eastern adepts, sages held in extreme reverence by all Indians who still believed in the ancient traditions of Rishis and Mahatmas. For a Westerner, an American business man and former Army officer, to have personal contact with these august personages was an extraordinary distinction, making him unique in the eyes of many of the Indian people.

The establishment in India of a public center of Theosophical education was an essential part of the larger scheme of the Theosophical Movement. India was the Motherland of both ancient and modern Western civilizations, and her great scriptures and traditions were indispensable source-materials for metaphysical studies and research into the original meaning of world religions. In India, too, there still existed among the people an intuitive faith in the spiritual nature of man. Hindu and Buddhist teachings afforded conceptions of moral psychology and of inner, psychic development more in harmony with the doctrines that H.P.B. intended to disclose than could be found in any other religious or philosophical system. Further, the founding of a Theosophical headquarters in India might be the means of awakening a genuine renaissance of ancient Hindu culture, by restoring old philosophic truths to recognition and reviving the devotion of modern Hindus to their ancestral religious philosophy. Finally, it was in India, or rather, in the high country to the north of the Indian peninsula included within the bounds of ancient India, or Arya-

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varta—that Madame Blavatsky had come into intimate contact with her Adept teachers, and the inauguration in India of the work of the Society gave opportunity for the relation of those Teachers to the Theosophical Movement to become publicly known.

These were the advantages for the spread of Theosophical ideas from an Indian headquarters. The disadvantages, however, were considerable. India had been subjected to Mohammedan domination for many centuries. After the tolerant rule of the great Mogul sovereign, Akbar, the power of the Mohammedan kingdoms decreased, giving way, in some regions to a Hindu uprising led by the Mahrattas, a people of mixed origin. The control of India by Great Britain resulted from the ascendancy of the East India Company, one of the largest trading corporations known to history, which first settled in coastal cities in 1653, gradually taking over the rule of the Mahratta Empire. Early in the nineteenth century the domination of India passed into the hands of the British Government, and after the suppression of the Sepoy Rebellion, in 1857, the rule of the East India Company ceased to exist.

Filled with memories of their ancient glory, the Indian people found this subjection to Western invaders a severe blow to national pride. Cultivated Indians in particular, who regarded European civilization as barbarous in comparison with their own, suffered deep humiliation from the British colonial policy of race superiority, withdrawing behind barriers of proud reserve. In British India there was little or no natural mingling of the two races, the Indians never forgetting their bondage to a conquering race, the white-skinned rulers always maintaining their exclusive position of political authority. Formal relationships, of course, between eminent Indians and the officials of the British Government were maintained, and numerous young Hindus of the higher castes were sent to England to be educated and learn the ways of the ruling nation, leading, in time, to a hybrid “Anglo-Indian” culture. As a result, an increasing number of Hindus came by degrees to adopt European standards of civilization and to assimilate attitudes which may be termed simply “Western materialism.” The prestige of British arms and the evident helplessness of

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the Indian people to accomplish their freedom increased the native respect for Western ideas, and by the latter part of the nineteenth century the devotion of the younger Hindus to their own religious traditions was waning rapidly.

While these tendencies affected the youth of India, the learned men of the earlier generation remained secure in the belief that their inheritance of the great treatises of Oriental religion made them superior to all others in moral philosophy. This was a habit of mind confirmed by the extensive caste system which governed the social relationships among the Hindu people, establishing “spiritual distinctions” sanctified by the usage of centuries and justified by the priestly authority of the Brahmins. There were, in the 1880’s, a total of some eighty-four sub-divisions in the Brahmanical caste alone, each with its specifications of status and rules that separated its members from other castes and subdivisions. Worst among the abuses of the caste system was “untouchability,” which for centuries barred some forty million Hindus from all contact with members of the higher castes. “Untouchability” was at last outlawed by an official act of the Constituent Assembly of India in 1947, the year in which the British Government pledged itself to relinquish control over the Indian people and to transfer all authority to a free National Government of India. The Indian National Congress had campaigned for generations against “untouchability,” but not until the added moral impetus of national freedom came to India was this inhuman practice finally abolished.

Untouchability, child-brides, and similar degrading customs illustrate the social and religious decadence of India in the nineteenth century. There was also a characteristic passivity among the people, partially due to centuries of subjection to first the Mogul and then the British conquerors, which had weakened the will of this once free and independent race. It was widely believed, too, that in the Dark Age or Kali Yuga—a period of moral decline prophesied in the Sacred Books of the Hindus—nothing could be done to revive the spirit of the past, but that all oppressions must be suffered in weakness and patient despair. Such religious pessimism made India apathetic and gained for her the reputation of being “backward” in comparison with the vigorous and aggressive policies

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of Western nations. These, then, were some of the circumstances and difficulties under which Madame Blavatsky labored in coming to India in 1879. Her purpose was to revive the spirit of ancient India, to replace sectarian pride with mutual understanding and respect, and to dissolve the barriers of caste and religious differences in a renaissance of true philosophic inquiry.

    Before leaving the United States, Col. Olcott had been in correspondence with a Hindu acquaintance—Moolji Thackersey— whom he had met during an Atlantic voyage in 1870. Moolji, when told about the Theosophical Society and its objectives, referred Olcott to one Hurrychund Chintamon, who was president of the Bombay branch of the Arya Samaj, an organization devoted to the resuscitation of Vedic religion in India. Hurrychund wrote to Olcott concerning the work of a Hindu pandit, Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, to whom the Samaj movement owed its existence, and proposed an amalgamation of the two societies. Some steps in this direction were taken, but later information convinced Olcott of the sectarian character of the Arya Samaj, and instead he formed a third, intermediate” society, the “Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj of Aryavart,” which Western theosophists could join or not, as they pleased. The two societies remained in this friendly relation until later difficulties, which developed in India.

    The voyage to India was broken by a stay of two weeks in England, where H.P.B. and Olcott were welcomed by London friends and correspondents. On January 5, 1879, Olcott presided at a meeting of the British Theosophical Society, which had been organized some six months earlier as the result of a visit to London by John Storer Cobb, Treasurer of the Parent Society. Also active in forming the London group was C. C. Massey, a London barrister and writer on Spiritualism, who had been in New York in 1875 and had joined the Society at the organization meeting on September 8. While in London, the two Founders stayed at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Billing, the latter being a medium of unusual integrity who also had joined the Society in New York.

    The Speke Hall, which carried Olcott and Madame Blavatsky to India, left English shores on January 19, steaming

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into the harbor of Bombay on February 16—twenty-nine days later. The Founders were met by Hindu members of the Society, among them the Samajist, Hurrychund Chintamon, who soon installed them in a small house on Girgaum Back Road. At once a round of receptions and interviews began, Hindus, Parsis and members of the Arya Samaj coming by the hundreds to greet and talk with Madame Blavatsky. The arrival of H.P.B. and Olcott in India was marred by one unpleasant event, occurring when Hurrychund amazed the newcomers by presenting an enormous bill for rent and other services, and it developed that a sum sent to him from America for the Arya Samaj had never left his hands. Exposed before a meeting of the Samaj, Hurrychund promised restitution, but the Founders at once moved to a house of their own, at 108 Girgaum Road, which became their headquarters for two busy years. Soon after settling in Bombay, Moolji Thackersey found for H.P.B. the Hindi boy, Babula, then only fifteen years old, who was to be her personal servant for many years.

From her arrival in 1879 until the end of March, 1885, when H.P.B. left India for the last time, was a period of rapid growth for the Theosophical Movement. During this time the Theosophical Adepts—H.P.B. ‘s Teachers—were brought into public notice by the English journalist, A. P. Sinnett; the Society gained numerous members among the learned men of India; the first number of H.P.B.’s magazine, The Theosophist, appeared in October, 1879; branches of the Society were established in many parts of India and Ceylon. and in general. the Movement was launched on a course leading to international recognition and respect. In the same period, however, powerful adverse forces threatened the progress of the Movement from without, while disloyalties, faint-heartedness and betrayals from within kept the Society in turmoil, greatly weakening its power and harming its reputation before the world. It must be realized that the principles of Theosophy, while apparently without offence to anyone, were uncompromisingly opposed to all forms of sectarianism, and that any effort to establish the spirit of universal brotherhood on rational foundations must inevitably conflict with the interests of partisan religious institutions. The Christian missions in India, therefore, soon learned to regard the Theosophical Society as a dangerous

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enemy, neglecting no opportunity to discredit Theosophy and attack the founders of the Movement.

A less obvious opposition to the Theosophical Movement arose from the complex egotism of Western civilization, which was offended by the idea of a quest for truth not in the European centers of academic learning, nor in the laboratories of science, but in the “superstitious”—even the “barbarous”—East. There were at least three reasons for this Western conceit. First of all, European culture was nominally Christian, and if the ethics of Jesus have been ignored by Western nations, the Christian claim of exclusive Revelation, maintained through many centuries, had infected the people of both Europe and America with a moral arrogance which remained long after effective belief in Christian dogmas had died away. The epithet “heathen” or “pagan” still flatters its user with the presumption of a superior religion, regardless of his personal beliefs. Second, the triumph of science and technology in the West, as contrasted with the primitive ways of the Orient, gave practical justification to this feeling of superiority. Finally, the ease with which European arms subjected the East to modern imperialism made it virtually impossible for fighting and trading Westerners to respect the conquered nations—peoples which could be held in political bondage by a few regiments of troops belonging to the “superior” white race!

Today, in the perspective of nearly seventy-five years, the power of these psychological barriers to Theosophical ideals can be more easily appreciated than when Madame Blavatsky, assisted by a single American supporter, began her revolutionary labors in India in 1879. At the outset H.P.B. made no effort to attract the interest of members of the ruling race in India. Her time was wholly occupied in discussions of philosophy with Hindu scholars and pundits. “The soul,” Olcott writes, “was the burning topic of debate.” Questions of politics, color, business or wealth were scarcely mentioned. Because of this unconventional neglect of the European circle in Bombay, the Society was soon suspected by the British officials as being a cover for political machinations, and Government agents were set to watch Madame Blavatsky, whose Russian origin also excited suspicion. In view of the unpopularity of the Society with the ruling class, it was the more remarkable,

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therefore, that only nine days after the landing of the Founders at Bombay, Col. Olcott received a letter from Mr. A. P. Sinnett, the editor of the Allahabad Pioneer, expressing a desire to meet them and to publish any interesting facts concerning their work in India. The Pioneer was a strong pro-Government organ, and this attention of its editor to the purposes of the Theosophical Movement brought the Society to the notice of the more cosmopolitan English residents. Mr. Sinnett’s unusual interest in Theosophy, which soon became manifest, was also the means of disabusing officials of the British Government of the notion that Madame Blavatsky was a Russian spy, and Olcott her tool.

In December, 1879, the Founders visited the Sinnetts in Allahabad. Experiences during the six weeks of this visit convinced Sinnett that H.P.B. possessed powers unknown to ordinary persons and his interest in occultism was thereby intensified. In his first book, The Occult World,’ he tells of the character of these experiences and gives his impressions of Madame Blavatsky. Sinnett, like Olcott, was greatly affected by the ‘phenomena” performed by H.P.B. He was, however, a man of unusual intellectual capacity, as his early writings on Theosophy show, and, despite the materialistic outlook common to his generation, was able to present a fairly comprehensive account of the Theosophical metaphysics. Through Madame Blavatsky he gained contact with the personages described by her as her “occult teachers,” with whom he carried on an extensive correspondence. The first several letters received by Mr. Sinnett from one of these adepts are printed in The Occult World. The entire series of letters by the Theosophical Adepts to Mr. Sinnett and to another eminent Englishman—Allan 0. Hume, former Secretary of the Government of India—was published many years later, in 1923, in a volume called The Mahatma Letters.

Mr. Sinnett’s Occult World, appearing in 1885, unfolded a strange story of seeming miracles to the complacent world of the nineteenth century. The book is a sober account of happenings which none of the laws of nature known to Western science could explain. Probably the most startling of the phenomena it describes is the “precipitation,” secure within the double lining of a small cushion, of a brooch belonging to

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Mrs. Sinnett. With it, among the feathers, was a brief note to Mr. Sinnett. His book provides many descriptions of similar occult phenomena, adding the testimony of various other witnesses. Of far greater interest, however, are the letters which Mr. Sinnett received from one of the adepts, who are called, in this book, simply “the Brothers.” The first of these communications was in reply to a proposal Sinnett had made, forwarded to his correspondent by H.P.B., suggesting that if the adepts would produce in Simla—where the Sinnetts were then living—a copy of the London Times on the day of its appearance in England, then he would undertake to “convert” everyone in that community to the fact of occult powers “beyond the control of ordinary science.” The answer, which he found on his writing table one evening, began directly with this proposal, explaining the reluctance of the adepts to perform “miracles” a la carte. The following extracts are taken from The Occult World.

“Precisely,” the Mahatma wrote, “because the test of the London newspaper would close the mouths of the sceptics,” it was inadmissable. “See it in what light you will, the world is yet in its first stage of disenthralment . . . . hence unprepared. Very true we work by natural, not supernatural, means and laws. But as on the one hand science would find itself unable, in its present state, to account for the wonders given in its name, and on the other the ignorant masses would still be left to view the phenomenon in the light of a miracle, everyone who would thus be a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance, and the result would be deplorable. Believe me it would be so especially for yourself, who originated the idea, and for the devoted woman who so foolishly rushes into the wide open door leading to notoriety. This door, though opened by so friendly a hand is yours, would prove very soon a trap and a fatal one, indeed, for her. And such is not surely your object. . . . Were we to accede to your desires, know you really what consequences would follow in the trail of success? The inexorable shadow which follows all human innovations moves on, yet few are they who are ever conscious of its approach and dangers. What are, then, they to expect who would offer the world an innovation which, owing to human ignorance, if believed in, will surely be attributed to those dark agencies the two-thirds of humanity believe in and dread as yet

“The success of an attempt of such a kind as the one you propose must be calculated and based upon a thorough knowledge of
the people around you. It depends entirely upon the social and

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moral conditions of the people in their bearing on these deepest and most mysterious questions which can stir the human mind—the deific powers in man and the possibilities contained in Nature. How many, even of your best friends, of those who surround you, are more than superficially interested in these abstruse problems ?”
Of the spirit and methods of modern science, the adept wrote:

“We doubt not but the men of your science are open to conviction; yet facts must be first demonstrated to them; they must first have become their own property, have proved amenable to their modes of investigation, before you find them ready to admit them as facts your modern men of science are less anxious to suggest a physical connection of facts which might unlock for them many an occult force in Nature, than to provide a convenient classification of scientific experiments, so that the most essential quality of a hypothesis is, not that it should be trite, but only plausible, in their opinion.
So far for science—as much as we know of it. As for human nature in general it is the same now as it was a million years ago. Prejudice, based upon selfishness, a general unwillingness to give up an established order of things for new modes of life and thought—and occult study requires all that and much more— pride and stubborn resistance to truth, if it but upsets their previous notions of things—such are the characteristics of your age.

“What, then, would be the results of the most astounding phenomena, supposing we consented to have them produced? However successful, danger would be growing proportionately with success. No choice would soon remain but to go on, ever crescendo, or to fall in this endless struggle with prejudice and ignorance, killed by your own weapons. .

“The ignorant, unable to grapple with the invisible operators, might some day vent their rage on the visible agents at work; the higher and educated classes would go on disbelieving, as ever, tearing you to shreds as before. In common with many, you blame us for our great secrecy. Yet we know something of human nature, for the experience of long centuries—ay, ages, has taught us. And we know that so long as science has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the hearts of the multitudes, the world’s prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not at a rush. . . the only salvation of the genuine proficient in occult sciences lies in the scepticism of the public: the charlatans and the jugglers are the natural shields of the adepts. The public safety is only ensured by our

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keeping secret the terrible weapons which might otherwise be used against it, and which, as you have been told, become deadly in the hands of the wicked and selfish.”

This letter, received by Mr. Sinnett during the summer of 1880, reveals the contrast between the European mind, anxious for “scientific demonstrations,” and the profoundly educational purposes of the Theosophical Adepts. The next letter, which concerned Mr. Hume as well as Sinnett, deals with the elevated moral ideas upon which the Theosophical Movement is based. Hume had read the first letter Sinnett received and together they had proposed the formation of a small group of cultured individuals for the study of occultism, which would be under the direct tutelage of their adept- correspondents, with the two Englishmen as intermediaries.

The second reply to Sinnett continued the explanation of the first letter, enlarging on the difference between the spirit of Eastern occultism and the mental and moral attitudes of even the most cultivated Europeans brought up under the influence of Western materialism and Christian ideas in religion.

It begins:
“We will be at cross purposes in our correspondence until it has been made entirely plain that occult science has its own methods of research, as fixed and arbitrary as the methods of its antithesis, physical science, are in their way. If the latter has its dicta, so also has the former; . . . . The mysteries never were, never can be, put within the reach of the general public, not, at least, until that longed-for day when our religious philosophy becomes universal. At no time have more than a scarcely appreciable minority of men possessed Nature’s secrets, though multitudes have witnessed the practical evidences of the possibility of their possession. The adept is the rare efflorescence of a generation of inquirers; and to become one, he must obey the inward impulse of his soul, irrespective of the prudential considerations of worldly science or sagacity.”

The writer now passes to the question of favoring Mr. Sinnett with personal instruction, in order that he may transmit the secrets of occultism to the public in an “appropriate” manner. Sinnett, in the early pages of The Occult World, shows his disapproval of Madame Blavatsky’s unconventional ways, referring to her failure to give “the British ruling classes of India” the proper attention. He speaks of her “attitude of obtrusive sympathy with the natives of the soil as compared

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with the Europeans,” deploring “mistakes” which, in his opinion, retarded the establishment of the Theosophical Society on a “dignified footing.” It is evident that Mr. Sinnett regarded Madame Blavatsky as an extraordinary woman, possessing many admirable qualities, but sadly incompetent for the task of instructing the intellectual classes of the nineteenth century. His attitude of condescension toward her, while less obvious than Olcott’s proprietary airs and fits of personal pique, is evinced by such judgments as these, implying that he, Sinnett, was far better fitted than H.P.B. for teaching Theosophy or occultism to civilized people. The fact is that this cosmopolitan British journalist was quite unable to lay down the “White Man’s Burden.” His ways of doing things were undoubtedly the best. In after years, Sinnett’s inability to understand Madame Blavatsky slowly transformed his annoyance at her “eccentricities” into a jealousy which finally ended his usefulness to the Theosophical cause.

In this second letter, Mr. Sinnett is given reasons why Madame Blavatsky is the agent of the adept-fraternity, and reminded of the sacrifices that she, and Olcott also, have made in order to serve the Theosophical Movement. Concerning the motives and manner of life of those who would have direct correspondence with the adepts, the letter says:

Your desire is to be brought to communicate with one of us directly, without the agency of Madame Blavatsky.
Your idea would be, as I understand it, to obtain such communications, either by letters, as the present one, or by audible words, so as to be guided by one of us in the management, and principally in the instruction of the Society. You seek all this, and yet, as you say yourself, hitherto you have not found sufficient reasons to even give up your modes of life, directly hostile to such modes of communication. This is hardly reasonable. He who would lift up high the banner of mysticism and proclaim its reign near at hand must give the example to others. He must be the first to change his modes of life, and, regarding the study of the occult mysteries as the upper step in the ladder of knowledge, must loudly proclaim it as such, despite exact science and the opposition of society.

The letter proceeds with an analysis of the motives causing Sinnett to make his proposal, which are said to be, briefly, a personal desire to know the nature of and to possess power over the occult forces in Nature; to demonstrate their existence

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to “a few chosen Western minds”; to assure himself of the reality of a life after death, and, finally, to gain positive knowledge that the “adepts” spoken of by Madame Blavatsky actually exist, and are not “fictions of a disordered, hallucinated brain.” The letter continues:

    “To our minds, then, these motives, sincere and worthy of every serious consideration from the worldly standpoint, appear selfish. (You have to pardon me what you might view as crudeness of language, if your desire is that which you really profess—to learn truth and get instruction from us who belong to quite a different world from the one you move in.) They are selfish, because you must be aware that the chief object of the Theosophical Society is not so much to gratify individual aspirations as to serve our fellow-men, and the real value of this term ‘selfish,’ which may jar upon your ear, has a peculiar significance with us which it cannot have with you; therefore, to begin with, you must not accept it otherwise than in the former sense. Perhaps you will better appreciate our meaning when told that in our view the highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity become tainted with selfishness, if, in the mind of the philanthropist, there lurks the shadow of a desire for self-benefit, or a tendency to do injustice, even where these exist unconsciously to himself. Yet you have ever discussed, but to put down, the idea of a Universal Brotherhood, questioned its usefulness, and advised to remodel the Theosophical Society on the principle of a college for the special study of occultism.

    These early letters of the Adepts, like all the others that were to come, leave no doubt as to the basic intent of the occult fraternity. The Adepts cared only for the great ethical ideal of human brotherhood. They would teach, assist and lend their powers of occult demonstration only to those who held the cause of brotherhood first in their hearts, and who would steadfastly labor for its realization in the world of men. These were the conditions, laid down with unending emphasis, to all who applied for instruction from the Theosophical Teachers.

    A. 0. Hume, who joined with Sinnett in suggesting the formation of a society in which they would be the leading lay figures, also received a letter which states even more forcibly the conditions of success in occult philosophy. Hume was a man of exceptional intelligence and personal discipline, but, like most Westerners, he found it difficult to understand why the teachers of H.P.B. would not meet him on his terms, in

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stead of their own. The letter to Hume is a long one, answering several questions. It begins by a consideration of the idea of a special Society, explaining what might be practicable in this direction, and welcoming the interest of so cultivated and capable an Englishman. This done, the abyss which separates occultism from Western conceptions is again described:

You say there are few branches of science with which you do not possess more or less acquaintance, and that you believe you are doing a certain amount of good, having acquired the position to do this by long years of study. Doubtless you do; but will you permit me to sketch for you still more clearly the difference between the modes of physical (called exact often out of mere compliment) and metaphysical sciences. The latter, as you know, being incapable of verification before mixed audiences, is classed by Mr. Tyndall with the fictions of poetry. The realistic science of fact on the other hand is utterly prosaic. Now, for us, poor unknown philanthropists, no fact of either of these sciences is interesting except in the degree of its potentiality of moral results, and in the ratio of its usefulness to mankind. And what, in its proud isolation, can be more utterly indifferent to everyone and everything, or more bound to nothing but the selfish requisites for its advancement, than this materialistic science of fact? May I ask then what have the laws of Faraday, Tyndall, or others to do with philanthropy in their abstract relations with humanity, viewed as an intelligent whole? What care they for Man as an isolated atom of this great and harmonious whole, even though they may sometimes be of practical use to him? .

“Exact experimental science has nothing to do with morality, virtue, philanthropy—therefore, can make no claim upon our help until it blends itself with metaphysics. Being but a cold classification of facts outside man, and existing before and after him, her domain of usefulness ceases for us at the outer boundary of these facts; and whatever the inferences and results for humanity from the materials acquired by her method, she little cares. .
“Were the sun, the great nourishing father of our planetary system, to hatch granite chickens out of a boulder ‘under test conditions’ to-morrow, they (the men of science) would accept it as a scientific fact without wasting a regret that the fowls were not alive so as to feed the hungry and the starving. But let a shaberon cross the Himalayas in a time of famine and multiply sacks of rice for the perishing multitudes—as he could—and your magistrates and collectors would probably lodge him in jail to make him confess what granary he had robbed. This is exact science and your realistic world. And though, as you say, you

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are impressed by the vast extent of the world’s ignorance on every subject, which you pertinently designate as a few palpable facts collected and roughly generalized, and a technical jargon invented to hide man’s ignorance of all that lies behind these facts,’ and though you speak of your faith in the infinite possibilities of Nature, yet you are content to spend your life in a work which aids only that same exact science.

    In answer to Hume’s query as to what good he might accomplish from the study of occultism, his correspondent wrote:

    “When the natives see that an interest is taken by the English, and even by some high officials in India, in their ancestral science and philosophies, they will themselves take openly to their study. And when they come to realize that the old ‘divine’ phenomena were not miracles, but scientific effects, superstition will abate. Thus, the greatest evil that now oppresses and retards the revival of Indian civilization will in time disappear. The present tendency of education is to make them materialistic and root out spirituality. With a proper understanding of what their ancestors meant by their writings and teachings, education would become a blessing, whereas now it is often a curse.

    “The same causes that are materializing the Hindu mind are equally affecting all Western thought. Education enthrones skepticism, but imprisons spirituality. You can do immense good by helping to give the Western nations a secure basis upon which to reconstruct their crumbling faith. And what they need is the evidence that Asiatic psychology alone supplies. Give this, and you will confer happiness of mind on thousands. The era of blind faith is gone; that of inquiry is here. Inquiry that only unmasks error, without discovering anything upon which the soul can build, will but make iconoclasts. Iconoclasm, from its very destructiveness, can give nothing; it can only raze. But man cannot rest satisfied with bare negation. Agnosticism is but a temporary halt. This is the moment to guide the recurrent impulse which must soon come, and which will push the age towards extreme atheism, or drag it back to extreme sacerdotalism, if it is not led to the primitive soul-satisfying philosophy of the Aryans.

    “He who observes what is going on to-day, on the one hand among the Catholics, who are breeding miracles as fast as the white ants do their young, on the other among the free-thinkers, who are converting, by masses, into Agnostics—will see the drift of things. The age is revelling at a debauch of phenomena. The same marvels that the spiritualists quote in opposition to the dogmas of eternal perdition and atonement, the Catholics swarm to witness as proof of their faith in miracles. The skeptics make game of both. All are blind, and there is no one to lead them.

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    “You and your colleagues may help to furnish the materials for a needed universal religious philosophy; one impregnable to scientific assault, because itself the finality of absolute science, and a religion that is indeed worthy of the name since it includes the relations of man physical to man psychical, and of the two to all that is above and below them. Is not this worth a slight sacrifice? And if, after reflection, you should decide to enter this new career, let it be known that your society is no miracle-mongering or banqueting club, nor specially given to the study of phenomenalism. Its chief aim is to extirpate current superstitions and skepticism, and from long-sealed ancient fountains to draw the proof that man may shape his own future destiny, and know for a certainty that he can live hereafter, if he only wills, and that all ‘phenomena’ are but manifestations of natural law, to try to comprehend which is the duty of every intelligent being.”

     The correspondence begun by these letters continued for a number of years, and while the foregoing extracts will serve to illustrate the general character of the Mahatma letters, later communications became long treatises on the occult philosophy—statements of the Theosophical teaching upon which Mr. Sinnett based his second book, Esoteric Buddhism. Although Sinnett developed a deep human affection and reverence for his distant instructor, and for a time gave unstinting service to the work of the Theosophical Movement, his antagonism and injustice to H.P.B. were his undoing. He finally fell back into spiritualistic practices, losing all touch with the real inspiration of the Theosophical Movement. Hume became disaffected in 1882 and later left the Society completely. He never gave himself whole-heartedly to the Theosophical Movement, and the reservations which he maintained in his correspondence with the adepts led to an estrangement ostensibly caused by philosophic differences with them, but actually by his immeasurable vanity, making it impossible for him to learn from anyone but himself.

    For the first few years, however, the interest of these highly placed Englishmen was an important factor in the spread of Theosophy, in both India and Europe. Sinnett’s book, The Occult World, attracted wide attention throughout the West, and when he returned to England he became active in the London branch of the Theosophical Society. Hume, although he finally severed himself from the Theosophical Movement, continued in humanitarian pursuits, becoming a prime mover

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in the formation of the Indian National Congress. In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi’s book on Indian Home Rule, Hume’s counsels to Indian patriots are more than once quoted as the wise words of a Founding Father. There is no question but that, whatever the final outcome of their affiliation, the Theosophical Movement was furthered by both Mr. Sinnett and Mr. Hume, during the period of their active participation in its work.

THE GREATEST EVENT of Madame Blavatsky’s stay in India, so far as the future work of the Movement was concerned, was the starting of her magazine, The Theosophist, in October, 1879. This publication became a primary record of the Theosophical literature, printing many basic articles on both the philosophy and the educational activities of theosophists. The early issues at once established the editorial tone which was to pervade the magazine so long as H.P.B. remained in India. The first issue contains four articles giving categorical statements of the nature and purposes of the Theosophical Movement. “What Is Theosophy?”—which follows the opening editorial—makes clear that Theosophy is neither a new “revelation” nor a man-made creed, but, fundamentally, a spirit of impartial inquiry moving from philosophical first principles which are to be found in every great religion and metaphysical system. Theosophy, however, is shown to be much more than a merely speculative inquiry: the profound conceptions of Vedic philosophy and of Buddhism, the teachings of the Egyptians hierophants, of Pythagoras and Plato, the Neoplatonic system, Gnostic mysticism, the metaphysical ideas of Leibniz and Spinoza, Hegel and Fichte, as well as Kabalistic doctrines and the medieval teachings of alchemical regeneration, and finally, the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, are all related in this article and considered as either direct or indirect expressions of “the archaic Wisdom-Religion.” Having outlined these various historical sources of Theosophy, Madame Blavatsky adds:

Every Theosophist, then, holding to a theory of Deity “which has not revelation, but an inspiration of his own for its basis,” may accept any of the above definitions or belong to any of these religions, and yet remain strictly within the boundaries of Theosophy. For the latter is belief in the Deity as the ALL, the source of all existence, the infinite that cannot be either comprehended or known, the universe alone revealing It, or, as some prefer it, Him, thus giving a sex to that, to anthropomorphize which is blasphemy.

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    This article also refers to the doctrine of Reincarnation, pointing out that numerous great thinkers of the West, from Pythagoras down to David Hume and Shelley, have inclined to this conception of soul evolution.

    The second article—“What Are the Theosophists ?”—speaks of the Objects of the Theosophical Society, “the most important of which is to revive the work of Ammonius Saccas, and make the various nations remember that they are “children of one mother.” Madame Blavatsky now deals with the question of what theosophists “believe”:

    With how much, then, of this nature-searching, God-seeking science of the ancient Aryan and Greek mystics,...does the Society agree? Our answer is:—with it all. But if asked what it believes in, the reply will be:—“as a body—Nothing.” The Society, as a body, has no creed, as creeds are but the shells around spiritual knowledge; and Theosophy in its fruition is spiritual knowledge itself—the very essence of philosophical and theistic enquiry. Visible representative of Universal Theosophy, it can be no more sectarian than a Geographical Society, which represents universal geographical exploration without caring whether the explorers be of one creed or another. The religion of the Society is an algebraical equation, in which, so long as the sign—of equality is not omitted, each member is allowed to substitute quantities of his own, which better accord with climatic and other exigencies of his native land, with the idiosyncrasies of his people, or even with his own. Having no accepted creed, our Society is very ready to give and take, to learn and teach, by practical experimentation, as opposed to mere passive and credulous acceptance of enforced dogma The very root idea of the Society is free and fearless investigation.

    As a body, the Theosophical Society holds that all original thinkers and investigators of the hidden side of nature, whether materialist—those who find matter “the promise and potency of all terrestrial life,’’ or spiritualists—that is, those who discover in spirit the source of all energy and of matter as well, were and are, properly, Theosophists. . . . It will be seen now, that whether classed as Theists, Pantheists or Atheists, such men are near kinsmen to the rest. Be what he may, once that a student abandons the old and trodden highway of routine, and enters upon the solitary path of independent thought—God-ward—he is a theosophist; an original thinker, a seeker after the eternal truth with an inspiration of his own” to solve the universal problems.

    Theosophy, Madame Blavatsky writes, is the friend and supporter of scientific inquiry, so long as scientists avoid

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dogmatizing in the domains of psychology and metaphysics. It is also allied with every effort to understand the manifestations of the Divine Principle. True to its motto, “There is no Religion Higher than Truth,” the Society was conceived as a vehicle for the exercise of absolute religious freedom:

Born in the United States of America, the Society was constituted on the model of its Mother Land. The latter, omitting the name of God from its constitution lest it should afford a pretext one day to make a state religion, gives absolute equality to all religions in its laws. All support and each is in turn protected by the State. The Society, modelled upon this constitution, may fairly be termed a “Republic of Conscience.”

The importance of these fundamental conceptions of the Theosophical Movement hardly needs emphasis in the troubled years of the twentieth century. There have been numerous reform movements and organizations expressing verbal devotion to non-sectarian ideals, but in time almost all lapse into some form of dogma or creed, or become academic debating societies. The principles of the Theosophical Movement, however, so clearly expressed in the years of its foundation, contain implicit safeguards against the usual fate of such benevolent organizations or societies. Students of Theosophy, if once they attain to genuine understanding of these principles, will find themselves unable to fall into sectarian habits of mind. First of all, the aim of forming a nucleus of Universal brotherhood is a dynamic which calls forth from men the spiritual resources which no lesser ideal can command. Second, the idea of gaining knowledge through experience—from the “Book of Nature”—is uncompromisingly opposed to the moral and intellectual passivity which characterizes Western religion, and which is the root-cause of sectarianism. Finally, the joining of metaphysical study with mystical religion introduces the factor of gradual growth in mind, making progress in Theosophy a matter of definite steps to be taken by the inquirer. This progress, moreover, cannot be neglected without losing the spirit of the Theosophical ideal, for Theosophy, as defined in these early articles by Madame Blavatsky, must be studied, practiced and lived in order to be understood. It is these requirements which differentiate Theosophy from any particular religion or “faith,” and which establish the high responsibilities of those who undertake to tread the Theosophic path.

75 ————————————————————NO CONCERN WITH POLITICS

    Toward the close of “What Are the Theosophists ?” Madame Blavatsky writes:

    In conclusion, we may state that, broader and far more universal in its views than any existing mere scientific Society, it has plus science its belief in every possibility, and determined will to penetrate into those unknown spiritual regions which exact science pretends that its votaries have no business to explore. And, it has one quality more than any religion in that it makes no difference between Gentile, Jew or Christian. It is in this spirit that the Society has been established upon the footing of Universal Brotherhood.

    Unconcerned about politics; hostile to the insane dreams of Socialism and Communism, which it abhors—as both are but disguised conspiracies of brutal force and sluggishness against honest labor; the Society cares but little about the outward human management of the material world. The whole of its aspirations are directed towards the occult truths of the visible and invisible worlds. Whether the physical man be under the rule of an empire or a republic, concerns only the man of matter. His body may be enslaved; as to his Soul, he has the right to give to his rulers the proud answer of Socrates to his Judges. They have no sway over the inner man.

    Here the implication is that the Theosophical Movement is an endeavor to brush aside all superficial “solutions” to the problems of life and to approach them in their essential nature. Theosophy is impatient of the scientific rule that human knowledge is dependent upon evidence perceptible to the physical senses. It postulates the reality of inner senses which may be used with scientific exactitude by those who develop them.

    The indifference to politics expressed by Madame Blavatsky is in cognizance of the fact that the mere manipulation of social relationships, whether by violent over-turnings of established government, or through ordinary legislative processes, can accomplish no lasting good when separated from the larger purposes of moral education. The achievements of politics, conceived as the quest for power, will always disappoint humanitarians who choose this method of reform, for the reason that the rearrangement of social organization can never of itself bring about the betterment of human beings in any real sense; the betterment of man is the betterment of human understanding, and when this is gained, the difficulties of social organization will take care of themselves, or at least will no longer be the apparently insoluble problems they re-

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present today. Preoccupation with politics obscures the real processes of moral and social change which ought to be the study of men of good will.
Madame Blavatsky’s strictures against Socialism might puzzle the modern liberal, save for the undoubted fact that she warmly approved of the ethical principle of absolute sharing and had little use for the entrenched selfishness of the economic system of private property. In this passage, she is obviously castigating the brutal conception of the class struggle common to European socialist doctrine. Elsewhere, speaking of the indigenous American socialism of Edward Bellamy, she calls the organization of society as depicted in Looking Back Ward a representation of “what should be the first great step towards the full realization of universal brotherhood.” She refers to both Buddha and Jesus as “ardent philanthropists and practical altruists—preaching most unmistakably Socialism of the noblest and highest type, self-sacrifice to the bitter end.” Plainly, Socialism of this sort is unconnected with any special economic or political theory, but embodies that generous spirit of human brotherhood which is the principal inspiration of the Theosophical Movement.

The two remaining articles of the four referred to are “The Drift of Western Spiritualism” and “Antiquity of the Vedas.” The first reiterates the Theosophical attitude toward Spiritualistic phenomena, the second corrects the mistakes of Christian scholars and Western orientalists who have attempted to prove that the sacred Literature of the East is of recent historical origin. Many more discussions of these important subjects were to appear in later numbers of the Theosophist.

As interest in Theosophy spread in India, the pages of the Theosophist reflected the progress of the Society. The issues are filled with profound discussions of Hindu metaphysics, commentaries and translations of sacred literature. European contributors provided articles dealing with various phases of Western metaphysics and mysticism, making the magazine the most cosmopolitan philosophical publication of its time; and, while conducted by H.P.B., it was pervaded with a living devotion to truth that inspired and energized theosophists everywhere in the world.

77————————————————————ATTITUDE OF MISSIONARIES

The following gained by the Society among the Hindus soon aroused concerted opposition from Christian missionaries in India. While these enemies of the Society could accomplish nothing by direct criticism of Theosophical ideas, Madame Blavatsky herself suffered considerable annoyance and harrassment from the false reports concerning her life and work that were circulated by the missionaries. She, of course, was outspoken in her condemnation of all attempts to pervert the Hindus from their ancestral religion, regarding them as an impudent invasion of the personal affairs of the Indian people. This attitude of hers toward the Christians, as well as her great reverence for the Vedic philosophy of India, naturally increased her popularity with learned Hindus, whom the missionaries had never been able to affect at all. Sensing the danger that the Theosophical Society constituted toward their proselytizing activities, the missionaries imported from the United States one Rev. Joseph Cook, who came ostensibly on a tour, but who occupied himself with a series of public lectures misrepresenting Theosophy. He was repeatedly challenged to meet the theosophists in debate, but always avoided so conclusive a test of his statements. After being publicly denounced by a British Army officer, he left the country. The attacks of the Christian Missions on the work of the Theosophical Movement, which began with a whispering campaign against the Founders of the Society, but came to a climax in connection with the affair known to theosophists as the “Coulomb Conspiracy,” would have been relatively harmless irritations, had it not been for the weakness and vacillations of theosophists themselves.

H.P.B. and Olcott continued to live in Bombay until December, 1882, when the headquarters of the Theosophical Society were permanently established at Adyar. During these first years in India, the Founders traveled much, the adventures encountered on one of their journeys, which included a visit to the Karli Caves, becoming the basis for H.P.B.’s collection of writings entitled From the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan (originally a series of letters appearing in a Russian newspaper) A visit to Rajputana is also chronicled in that volume. In 1880 the two went by boat to Ceylon, where Theosophical meetings were held and on May 25 both Olcott and H.P.B.

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“took pansil,” and were formally acknowledged as Buddhists. Both, as Olcott says, had previously declared themselves Buddhists many times, their allegiance, however, being to the original teaching of Gautama Buddha which is the same as the Wisdom Religion of the Upanishads, and not to any Buddhist sect. Olcott later returned to Ceylon alone to work for more effective education of Buddhist youth and to help in the raising of a National Education Fund. During his second visit he compiled the Buddhist Catechism and obtained for this succinct statement of southern Buddhism the approval of the High Priest Sumangala of Widyodaya College. Olcott was stimulated to do this work by the general ignorance of Buddhism and by the absurd misrepresentations of Buddha’s teachings spread by Christian zealots in Ceylon and elsewhere. He discovered that eight out of the eleven schools of the island of Ceylon were entirely in the hands of the Missionaries, and he wrote the Catechism to help young Buddhists to cope with the false statements of these foes of their religion.

In 1882, Olcott again visited Ceylon, infusing new life in the campaign for Buddhist and national education. He was now fifty years old. It was at this time, while in Galle, a city of Ceylon, that Olcott first performed the mesmeric cures for which he became famous. The Catholics were attempting to convert the house-well of one of their communicants into a healing shrine, after the fashion of Lourdes. Concerned for the progress of his education fund, Olcott feared that ignorant Buddhists might be converted to Catholicism in the hope of being cured of their ills. It was soon after this problem arose that Olcott, meeting a half-paralyzed Buddhist of Galle, felt an inner suggestion to attempt a mesmeric treatment of the sufferer. The result was extraordinary, for the paralytic was soon able to sign a statement testifying to his cure with a hand that had been entirely useless. Within a few days, Olcott found himself surrounded by crowds of suppliant sick, and for years, until instructed by the Theosophical Adepts to stop in order to preserve his health, he continued to use his mesmeric power to bring relief to persons whom doctors had been unable to help.

Among the Hindus attracted to the Society were two Brahmins of exceptional capacity. The first was Damodar K. Mava-

79————————————————————DAMODAR AND SUBBA ROW

lankar, who became a member of the Society in August, 1879. Damodar was like William Q. Judge in his loyalty and devotion to H.P.B. Contact with her, and study of the teachings of Theosophy caused a sudden revolution in his life, to the extent that it brought a break with his orthodox Brahmin family, although not with his wife, who understood and upheld him in his course. Damodar gave all his energies to the service of the Theosophic cause, working early and late for the Movement. In 1880 he abandoned his status in the Brahman caste and announced his action in an article in the Theosophist entitled “Castes in India.” In this article, Damodar pointed out the unbrotherliness of all caste distinctions and called upon his brother Hindus to break away from the evils of the caste system by following his example. Damodar remained a tireless servant of the Society until H.P.B. left India for the last time. Then, after several months, he disappeared, it being reported that he had gone to Tibet at the call of the Theosophical Adepts.
T. Subba Row, also a Brahmin, was a man of extraordinary learning and was capable of great philosophic subtlety. Although reserved in his relations with Europeans, as were nearly all Hindu scholars, Subba Row recognized the importance of the Theosophical Movement and for a while contributed excellent articles to the Theosophist. He joined the Society in 1882, while H.P.B. and Olcott were visiting in Madras. His brilliance, Olcott relates in Old Diary Leaves, was a factor in the determination of the Founders to establish the headquarters of the Society in the Madras Presidency. In 1883, Subba Row took part in a controversy which developed around Mr. Sinnett’s second volume, Esoteric Buddhism. With the approval of H.P.B. he issued a pamphlet discussing this book, largely in its defence, but adding also some corrections to cover certain mistakes of the author in explaining occult tenets. That Subba Row was able to do this is itself evidence of his own great learning, and even, perhaps, of his occult discipleship. His most notable work was a series entitled, “Lectures on the Bhagavad-Gita,” which revealed his mastery of Oriental metaphysics. Brahmin pride, however, was his undoing, and in 1887 he began to dispute with Madame Blavatsky on the number of “principles” in the human constitution. Subba

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Row was a Vedantin and insisted upon the Brahmanical division, while H.P.B. held to the seven-fold classification of the trans-Himalayan “Arhat Esoteric School.” In consequence of this difference, Subba Row withdrew his cooperation with H.P.B.

The relationship of the Arya Samaj with the Theosophical Society, originally established while the Founders of the Society were in New York, continued for a time in India on much the same footing—that of sympathy and cooperation without any organic connection between the two organizations. Olcott and H.P.B. met with Dayanand Saraswati on several occasions and they published a series of autobiographical articles by the Swami in the Theosophist and reported his public tilts with Christian missionaries. In 1882, however, the leader of the Arya Samaj turned against the Society, charging that its founders had renounced for Buddhism their “belief” in the Swami’s interpretation of the nature of Deity. After this attack, Olcott printed Dayanand Saraswati’s own self-contradictory statements in parallel columns in the Theosophist and the friendly alliance between the two movements was at an end. The Swami’s bitterness against the theosophists seemed chiefly based on the fact that they would not adopt his theological teachings derived from orthodox Hinduism. He also accused the theosophists of forsaking the Vedas and of doing no practical good for India. When these charges became known, numerous Hindus contributed letters to the Theosophist dissociating themselves from the strictures of the aggrieved Swami and expressing deep gratitude to the Society for its labors on behalf of the Aryan philosophy. However, on the occasion of Dayanand’s death, in October, 1883, the Theosophist published a moving tribute to the memory of his life, which was spent in a determined effort to clear away the superstitions which had become associated with Vedic religion. Today, works of reference speak of him as a forerunner of modern Indian nationalism, one who helped to check the disintegrating influences of European culture on India’s educated youth.

A curiosity of occult phenomena which was to have later repercussions was disclosed in 1883, in connection with The Occult World. During the summer of that year, the London Spiritualist publication, Light, printed a review of this book,

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which elicited from Henry Kiddle, an American spiritualist, a letter charging Mr. Sinnett’s Himalayan Teacher with having plagiarized an address given by Mr. Kiddle in August, 1880, at Lake Pleasant, New York. In a letter to Light, Kiddle reproduced portions of his address in comparison with extracts from one of the occult communications as evidence supporting his charge. Pleased with this apparent proof of fraud, the Spiritualists began a triumphant hue and cry, eager to discredit the “adepts” of the Theosophists. Little or no explanation was given at first by Mr. Sinnett, but in the course of time Subba Row wrote for the Theosophist a cautious account of what had happened. An Anglo-Indian member of the Society, Major-General Morgan, gave further hints, and finally, in the fourth edition of The Occult World, Mr. Sinnett printed in full the explanation provided him by his adept-correspondent. It had to do with the recondite process of occult precipitation, involving also the imperfect perception of a youthful disciple who had served as the amanuensis of the author of the letter. On the whole, the “Kiddie” incident afforded a useful check on the tendency of religious-minded theosophists to regard the Theosophical adepts and all their activities as entirely infallible. It also served as theoretical instruction in the occult method of thought-transference and precipitation used by the adepts, which doubtless had been regarded by many as a kind of Theosophical “miracle.” Theosophists, as a body, were rather puzzled than disturbed by the affair, being wholly satisfied when they learned the explanation given in the Appendix to The Occult World. The theosophists were already familiar with the considerable body of philosophical teaching made public in Esoteric Buddhism, which appeared in 1883, and in the pages of the Theosophist, and that the authors of these profound teachings should need to copy from a spiritualist orator was not a serious possibility for any informed member of the Society.

From the time of the first publication of The Occult World, in June,1881, an increasing number of Europeans sought out Madame Blavatsky in India. The headquarters of the Society soon became a focus of attraction for all those whose interests went beyond the limits of conventional thought. Besides this influence of the Theosophical publications, Madame

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Blavatsky, as Corresponding Secretary of the Theosophical Society, maintained a swelling correspondence with inquirers in all parts of the world. Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, while egocentric in viewpoint and garrulous to excess, allows no doubt that the Founders worked unceasingly through all their waking hours for the progress of the Theosophic cause. While some visitors came from mere curiosity, others were drawn to H.P.B. by an inner yearning to know the truth, and these, if they were able, often remained to give of their time and energy to the work. Thus the headquarters was increasingly a center where volunteer workers were to be found, each helping according to his talents and capacity.

Madame Emma Coulomb, an English woman, who had befriended H.P.B. in Egypt, early appeared on the Indian scene. In August, 1879, she wrote to H.P.B. a pathetic appeal from Ceylon where she and her husband were stranded and penniless. The Coulombs were sent for, and in 1880 were installed at the Bombay headquarters, Madame Coulomb helping with the household tasks, Mr. Coulomb working as a carpenter and gardener. These two were to be a source of much difficulty to H.P.B. in years to come, for, although they pledged themselves as members of the Society, Madame Coulomb was a Spiritualist and a bigoted Christian, and her husband a willing tool in her later plot to avenge fancied injustices against them. The shrewish temperament of the wife was a source of frequent quarrels in the Theosophical household, leading, in 1881, to the desertion of two of the workers who found the Coulombs intolerable companions. H.P.B., however, bore their presence with patience, mindful of the obligation she had incurred in 1870 in Cairo, when Madame Coulomb had taken her in after a disastrous shipwreck which left her temporarily without either personal possessions or financial resources.

When the Coulombs felt their position in India to be fairly secure, and as they became acquainted with various members, visitors and inquirers, they began to express dissatisfaction with their relatively humble lot. Before long Madame Coulomb tried to extort or beg money from wealthy persons interested in the Society, notably from the native prince, Harrisinji Rupsinji. Madame Coulomb whispered about tales of her own powers and of her ability to find “hidden treasures,”

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sometimes intimating that Madame Blavatsky’s powers were from the “Evil One.” The Coulombs were more or less constantly in communication with the establishments of the missionaries near by, and Madame Coulomb, in particular, engaged in fractious religious disputes with resident members of the Society. Col. Olcott took her to task for these needless difficulties on several occasions, but in general, the Coulombs were looked upon as harmless meddlers. Their misfortunes caused them to be viewed with charity, and the known gratitude of H.P.B. helped to reconcile the theosophists to the annoyance and disturbances they created.

Just prior to the departure of H.P.B. and Col. Olcott for Europe in February, 1884, a Council was appointed to take charge of affairs at headquarters during the absence of the Founders. Among the members of the Council were Dr. Franz Hartmann and Mr. St. George Lane-Fox, with whom the Coulombs had been in almost constant wrangles. They desired to dispense with the Coulombs altogether, but on the prayers of Madame Coulomb, H.P.B. permitted the couple to remain, and, in order to remove sources of disagreement as much as possible, she gave the Coulombs “authority” to do the housework, to have charge of the upkeep of the premises, and to keep her own rooms in order.

With H.P.B. and Olcott gone, the Coulombs refused to accept any orders or obey any instructions from the resident members of the Council; they opposed access to H.P.B.’s apartments and declared that she had placed them in independent control of her quarters and the conduct of the household. On the other hand, the members of the Council living at headquarters, distrusting the Coulombs utterly, were more or less harsh and contemptuous toward them, communicating with them only by letter, and refusing to eat with them, or to eat the food provided by Madame Coulomb. Her they charged with extravagance and waste, and suspecting that she profited personally from the handling of the domestic funds, they set about auditing her daily expenditures. Vain, sensitive, and smarting under their grievances, both real and imaginary, the Coulombs planned a dual revenge. They wrote to H.P.B., reciting their wrongs, asserting their own loyalty and innocence of any wrong-doing, and making sundry charges against

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the Council members. At the same time the Council members were also writing the Founders, telling circumstantially the actions of the Coulombs and their whispered insinuations against the good faith of the theosophists and H.P.B. While this war of charges and recriminations was going on by mail, there can be little doubt but that the Coulombs were busy fortifying themselves for their ultimate treachery by constructing false doors and sliding panels in the so-called “occult room” in H.P.B.’s apartments, so as to give such an appearance of mechanical contrivance as might support charges of fraud in the phenomena taking place at headquarters. It seems clear that at this time the Coulombs were already in active conspiracy with the missionaries and were carefully following able but sinister instructions. By temporizing with the resident members of the Council, by their written denials and protestations to H.P.B. and Col. Olcott, they were gaining the time needed to perfect the foundation for their subsequent accusations.

Both H.P.B. and Olcott wrote the Coulombs and the Council, endeavoring to patch up the quarrel, and appealing to all to exercise mutual forbearance and tolerance for the sake of the Society and its work. This effort at reconciliation failing, the Council members summoned the Coulombs before a meeting to answer charges of bad faith, of treachery, and of circulating false stories about H.P.B. and the phenomena at headquarters. The Council also discovered what had been going on in the “occult room.” The Coulombs neither affirmed nor denied the statements made in the several affidavits read concerning their behavior. When they declined to produce any evidence to support their allegations, they were expelled from the Society and ordered to vacate the premises. Legal proceedings were then threatened to eject them, and in the wrangling St. George Lane-Fox struck M. Coulomb, who had him arrested and held for assault and battery. The Coulombs offered, during the disputes and negotiations, to leave the country and go to America if paid 3,000 rupees and given their passage. This was refused. Finally, at the end of May, 1884, on the direct approval of H.P.B., to whom both the Coulombs and the Council members had appealed, and after Madame Coulomb had threatened H.P.B. with what Franz

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Hartmann called a “blackmailing letter,” the Coulombs were compelled to leave.

    The resentful couple went at once to the missionaries and were received with open arms. They were given money and their living was provided them. In the ensuing three months, plans were perfected for an assault intended once and for all to destroy the reputation of Madame Blavatsky, and, as a result, to ruin the Theosophical Society. The purpose of the Coulombs became plain when the September, 1884, issue of the Christian College Magazine began a series of articles containing letters alleged to have been written by Madame Blavatsky to Madame Coulomb. The obvious intent in publishing these letters was to make H.P.B. appear a conscienceless swindler, and her phenomena, frauds.

    The immediate effect of the publication of Madame Coulomb’s charges in the Christian College Magazine was to touch off the resentments of every orthodoxy in both India and England which had reason to dislike the idol-smashing tendency of the Theosophical Movement and which feared the undogmatic philosophical appeal of Theosophy. All possible capital was made of the Coulomb accusations, with, of course, a renewal of every old and exploded charge against Madame Blavatsky, her teachers, and the Theosophical Society. The Christen sects, the Spiritualist publications, the daily press which welcomed any sensation as “copy,” all exploited the “revelation” of the missionary magazine.

    When news of the attack reached Madame Blavatsky in England, she at once took steps to protect the good name of the Society by offering her resignation as Corresponding Secretary to Col. Olcott. Because of the pressure from leading English members, he refused to accept it. H.P.B. then wrote the following letter, which appeared in the London Times for October :

    Sir,—With reference to the alleged exposure at Madras of a dishonourable conspiracy between myself and two persons of the name of Coulomb to deceive the public with occult phenomena, I have to say that the letters purporting to have been written by me are certainly not mine. Sentences here and there I recognise, taken from old notes of mine on different matters, but they are mingled with interpolations that entirely pervert their meaning. With these exceptions the whole of the letters are a fabrication.

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The fabricators must have been grossly ignorant of Indian affairs, since they make me speak of a “Maharajah of Lahore,” when every Indian schoolboy knows that no such person exists.

    With regard to the suggestion that I attempted to promote the financial prosperity” of the Theosophical Society by means of occult phenomena, I say that I have never at any time received, or attempted to obtain, from any person any money either for myself or for the Society by any such means. I defy anyone to come forward and prove the contrary. Such money as I have received has been earned by literary work of my own, and these earnings, and what remained of my inherited property when I went to India, have been devoted to the Theosophical Society. I am a poorer woman to-day than I was when, with others, I founded the Society.
                                                                                               Your obedient Servant,
                                                                                                             H. P. Blavatsky
    On October 23, 1884, the Pall Mall Gazette published a long interview with H.P.B., in which she denied authorship of the letters attributed to her by the Coulombs, repeated the facts of the Coulombs’ bad faith, and called attention to the further fact that two letters attributed by the Coulombs to other members of the Society had already been proved forgeries.

   Immediate preparations were made by the Founders to return to India. Col. Olcott arrived at headquarters in November. H.P.B. stopped off in Egypt to obtain information in regard to the Coulombs and did not reach India till December. On her arrival she was met and presented with an Address signed by hundreds of the native students of the Christian College, expressing gratitude for what she had done for India, and disclaiming any part or sympathy in the attacks of the Christian College Magazine.

    The Convention of the Society in India met at headquarters near the end of December. From the first H.P.B. had insisted that the Coulombs and the proprietors of the Christian College Magazine must be met in Court by legal proceedings for libel. The future of the Society, the authenticity of her teachings, she declared, were wrapped up in the assaults made upon her own reputation, and if her good name were destroyed, both the Society and Theosophy would suffer irreparable injury. For herself, she avowed, she cared nothing personally, but the fierce onset was in reality directed against

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her work, and that work could not be separated in the public mind from herself as its leading exponent. To destroy the one was to inflict disaster on the other.
Col. Olcott was irresolute. His long personal friendship and common spiritualistic past with Mr. W. Stainton Moses and Mr. C. C. Massey, both of whom believed that H.P.B. had been the agency both for genuine and spurious phenomena, undoubtedly affected him powerfully. He knew that Mr. Sinnett had ideas similar to his own regarding the nature of H.P.B. On his return to India he found that A. 0. Hume, formerly a responsible Government official and. next to Mr. Sinnett, the most influential friend of the Society in India, had become infected with doubts and suspicions and believed that, while some of H.P.B.’s phenomena were undoubtedly genuine, others had been produced by collusion with the Coulombs. Olcott found, also, that the more prominent Hindu members of the Society, although willing to speak politely in favor of H.P.B., were wholly opposed to legal proceedings in which religious convictions and subjects sacred to them would be publicly argued and dissected by the defendants’ attorneys in an alien Court. On every hand Olcott was urged to consider that psychical powers and principles could be proved only by actual production of phenomena in Court—a thing forbidden alike by their religious training and the rules of Occultism. Others insisted that a judgment, even if obtained, would be valueless before the world, since the mischief was already done; those who believed the phenomena fraudulent would still think so, judgment or no judgment; those who believed them genuine would continue to hold that view if the matter were allowed to drop, while an adverse judgment would forever brand H.P.B. and destroy the Society beyond any hope of resuscitation.
But H.P.B. stood firm for legal prosecution of the defamers, declaring her own innocence; the Masters, she said, would not countenance disloyalty and ingratitude, and that, at worst, it would be better for the theosophists to go down fighting for what they held to be true than to live on by evading the issue. Torn by his fears and doubts, Col. Olcott took what was doubtless to him the only possible road. He proposed a compromise which was in effect a betrayal; he demanded that

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H.P.B. place the matter in the hands of the Convention and abide by its decision, threatening, if this were not done, that he and others would abandon the Society. Deserted by her only friends, H.P.B. agreed. Accordingly, the Convention appointed a Committee which unanimously reported:
    Resolved—That the letters published in the Christian College Magazine under the heading “Collapse of Koot Hoomi” are only a pretext to injure the cause of Theosophy; and as these letters necessarily appear absurd to those who are acquainted with our philosophy and facts, and as those who are not acquainted with those facts could not have their opinion changed, even by a judicial verdict given in favour of Madame Blavatsky, therefore it is the unanimous opinion of this Committee that Madame Blavatsky should not prosecute her defamers in a Court of Law.
    This report, unanimously adopted by the Convention, was received by the Indian and sectarian press with prolonged jeers. The great majority of public journals and intelligent observers considered it to be a tacit admission by Theosophists that the Coulomb charges were true.
    The blow was well-nigh mortal to the body of H.P.B. During the succeeding three months she was rarely able to leave her bed. Finally, toward the end of March, yielding to the solicitations of the few who still remained devotedly loyal to her, she prepared to leave India and go to Europe. On March 21 she once more tendered her resignation as Corresponding Secretary, closing her letter with these words:

   I leave with you, one and all, and to every one of my friends and sympathizers, my loving farewell. Should this be my last word, I would implore you all, as you have regard for the welfare of mankind and your own Karma, to be true to the Society and not to permit it to be overthrown by the enemy. Fraternally and ever yours—in life or death.
                                                                                                                                        H. P. Blavatsky.

   Her resignation was accepted by the Council with fulsome compliments, even as the cowardly action of the Convention and its Committee had been accompanied with brave words.
    The failure of her closest associates in India to give H.P.B. anything more than nominal support was the crucial disaster. Prejudiced and vindictive attacks from without she was used to, but against betrayal from within, covered over with verbal solicitude, she had no defense. The behavior of Olcott, Sinnett, and the Indian theosophists had placed the Society in a

89————————————————————MEMBERS WEAK IN TRIAL

class with all the other convention-bound bodies which prefer an existence of dubious “respectability” to the hazards of a militant stand on principle. H.P.B. had come to India to lay the foundations for a vital, non-sectarian movement, and now the allies she found there hid dragged the Society down to the level of a timid church organization, unwilling to face a public test of their convictions. This was the first real trial of the Theosophical Society. Others were coming.
If the claims of the Theosophic teaching were not mere verbiage, then individuals who adopted the high aims of the Society might have expected to meet the ordeals which every occult disciple must face sooner or later. Occultism, they had been told, is a school of experience as well as of theory and metaphysical study. The occultist must prove himself capable of absolute self reliance in any situation. He must be loyal to principle to the very end. Few, however, of the members of the Theosophical Society were able to recognize occult trials in the commonplace guises of the nineteenth century. They supposed that true initiations must be conducted in subterranean crypts, according to literary tradition; that tests would be announced according to some ritual. Threatened loss of social prestige, the merciless impersonality of public ridicule, the vulgar laughter and contempt of the ignorant masses—these were dragons more fearsome than any bold hero of old had to conquer, and the theosophists of India, unable to realize that their weaknesses were psychological and moral, failed miserably without even knowing what had happened. Their desertion of H.P.B. had the further consequence of setting the stage for another and even more damaging attack on the Theosophical Movement.

TODAY, THE LONDON Society for Psychical Research is a well-known and respected body, with records of its investigations more voluminous than any other research organization in the field. Less known is the fact that it was founded in 1882 by a group which included several prominent members of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society. The latter were Prof. F. W. H. Myers, W. Stainton Moses—who wrote under the pseudonym of “M. A. (Oxon) ”—and C. C. Massey. It is evident that these founders of the Society for Psychical Research had been more attracted to Theosophy by its connection with psychical phenomena than by the ethical principles which were the primary consideration of H. P. Blavatsky.
In any event, the preliminary announcement of the new Society declared that “the present is an opportune time for making an organized and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and Spiritualistic.” Committees were to be appointed to investigate and report upon such subjects as telepathy, hypnotism, trance, clairvoyance, sensitives, apparitions, etc. The announcement stated that “the aim of the Society will be to approach these various problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled science to solve so many problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated.” The new Society almost immediately attracted to its Fellowship some hundreds of men and women of reputation and ability in their several fields. By 1884 the Society had made numerous investigations, had begun publishing its Proceedings, and was established in the public confidence as a serious scientific body.
The announcement of the formation of the London Society for Psychical Research received a warm welcome in the Theosophist. An editorial called attention to the similarity of the

91—————————————————————FIRST S. P. R. COMMITTEE

aims of the new Society to some of the Theosophical objectives and offered full cooperation, concluding:
    The new Psychic Research Society, then, has our best wishes, and may count upon the assistance of our thirty-seven Asiatic Branches in carrying out their investigations, if our help is not disdained. We will be only too happy to enlist in this movement, which is for the world’s good, the friendly services of a body of Hindu, Parsi and Sinhalese gentlemen of education, who have access to the vernacular, Sanskrit and Pali literature of their respective countries, and who were never yet brought, either by governmental or any private agency, into collaboration with European students of Psychology. . . . Let us, by all means, have an international, rather than a local, investigation of the most important of all subjects of human study—PSYCHOLOGY.
    There is no evidence that the London group accepted this invitation to collaborate. The London Lodge was largely under the influence of Mr. Sinnett, who had returned to England, and the interest of most of the members was upon the phenomenal aspect of “the occult.” The London Lodge, therefore, was a center of eager investigations and experiments nominally in line with the Third Object of the Theosophical Society. Rumors were afloat regarding “astral appearances,” “Occult letters” and other phenomena connected with the mysterious “Brothers” supposed to be the invisible directors behind the Theosophical activities.
    When Col. Olcott arrived in London early in the summer of 1884, followed a little later by H.P.B., interest rose to a genuine excitement. This excitement, coupled with the fact that a number of members of the Society for Psychical Research were also Fellows of the Theosophical Society, made it natural and plausible for the S.P.R. to turn its attention to the inviting possibilities at hand. Accordingly, on May 2, 1884, the Council of the S.P.R. appointed a “Committee for the purpose of taking such evidence as to the alleged phenomena connected with the Theosophical Society as might be offered by members of that body at the time in England, or as could be collected elsewhere.” Out of this beginning grew the famous “exposure” that for a time threatened the ruin of the Theosophical Society.
    The S.P.R. Committee as originally constituted consisted of Profs. E. Gurney, F.W.H. Myers, F. Podmore, and J. H. Stack.

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To these were subsequently added Prof. Henry Sidgwick, Mrs. Sidgwick, and Mr. Richard Hodgson, a young University graduate.
    In May the Committee questioned Col. Olcott, he narrating the details of various phenomena he had witnessed during the years of his connection with H.P.B. Mohini M. Chatterji, a young Hindu who had accompanied the Founders from India, was also questioned. Mr. Sinnett repeated to the Committee his observations on the phenomena described in his Occult World. During the summer the meetings of the Cambridge Branch of the S.P.R. on several occasions invited Col. Olcott, Chatterji, and Madame Blavatsky to attend. According to the preliminary Report, the visitors permitted themselves to be questioned on many topics.” Additional reports were obtained by the Committee from many sources testifying to a wide range and variety of phenomena through the preceding ten years, in America and Europe as well as in India. All the witnesses were persons of repute.
    In the autumn of 1884 the Committee published “for private and confidential use” the “first report of the Committee,” a pamphlet of 130 pages, now very rare. It contains a description of the basis and nature of the investigations, the Committee’s comments and tentative conclusions, and two notes, one relating to the Coulombs, the other, by Prof. Myers, giving a brief digest of the Theosophical views and explanations of the phenomena in question. Also included in this Report were a number of appendices summarizing the evidence obtained from the many witnesses.
    The phenomena investigated by the Committee were chiefly (1) “astral appearances” of living men; (2) the transportation by “Occult” means of physical substances; (3) the “precipitation” of letters and other messages; (4) “Occult” sounds and voices. In the earlier portion of the Report the Committee says that in considering evidences of abnormal occurrences it “has altogether declined to accept the evidence of a paid medium as to any abnormal event.” It goes on to say that, “in dealing with these matters, it is admitted that special stringency is necessary, and one obvious precaution lies in the exclusion of all the commoner and baser motives to fraud or exaggeration.” But with regard to suspicion of the motives of the Theosophi-

93———————————————————“OCCULT PERSONS AND METHODS”

cal exponents it says, “we may say at once that no trustworthy evidence supporting such a view has been brought to our notice.”
    Although the witnesses emphasized that the Theosophical phenomena were not of the kind familiarly known as mediumistic, and although Madame Blavatsky declined to produce any phenomena for the consideration of the Committee, as her purpose was to promulgate certain doctrines, not to prove her possession of Occult powers, the Committee’s approach and its theories to account for the phenomena were the familiar ones employed in Spiritualistic investigations. The Committee stated that there were three points calling for the greatest care on its part. The first of these is “that it is certain that fraud has been practiced by persons connected with the Society.” This refers to the charges brought by the Coulombs, who were members of the Theosophical Society, against Madame Blavatsky; to the “Kiddie incident,” and to certain “evidence privately brought before us by Mr. C. C. Massey.” On this matter the Committee says that it suggests, “to the Western mind at any rate, that no amount of caution can be excessive in dealing with evidence of this kind.”
    The second point raised by the Committee is that “Theosophy appeals to Occult persons and methods.” Accustomed to dealing with mediums and mediumistic manifestations, where the moral and philosophical factors have no bearing, accustomed to believe that where there is reticence there must be fraud, the Committee did not like the idea made plain at all times by H.P.B. that the subject of Occult phenomena, their production and laws, would not be submitted to scientific exploitation, but would only be made known to those who qualify themselves under the strictest pledges of secrecy and discipleship. Finally, the Committee recognized that—Theosophy makes claims which, though avowedly based on occult science, do, in fact, ultimately cover much more than a merely scientific field.
    This, also, is not agreeable to the Committee, which remarks:
    The history of religions would have been written in vain if we still fancied that a Judas or a Joe Smith was the only kind of apostle who needed watching. . . . Suspicions of this kind are necessarily somewhat vague; but it is not our place to give them definiteness. What we have to point out is that it is our

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duty, as investigators, in examining the evidence for Theosophic marvels, to suppose the possibility of a deliberate combination to deceive on the part of certain Theosophists. We cannot regard this possibility as excluded by the fact that we find no reason to attribute to any of the persons whose evidence we have to consider, any vulgar or sordid motive for such combination.
    But in spite of its suspicions, its doubts, fears and mental reservations, occasioned by ignorance of the laws governing metaphysical phenomena; by the absolute refusal of H.P.B. to disclose the processes of practical Occultism; by the atmosphere of mystery surrounding the whole subject of the hidden “Brothers” and their powers; by the charges of fraud laid by the Coulombs at the door of H.P.B.; by the undisclosed “evidence privately brought before us by Mr. C. C. Massey”—in spite of all these disturbing elements, the testimony amassed by the Committee was so absolutely overwhelming as to the fact of the alleged phenomena that the Committee found itself compelled to make certain admissions:
    It is obvious that if we could account for all the phenomena described by the mere assumption of clever conjuring on the part of Madame Blavatsky and the Coulombs, assisted by any number of Hindu servants, we could hardly, under present circumstances, regard ourselves as having adequate ground for further inquiry. But this assumption would by no means meet the case. The statements of the Coulombs implicate no one in the alleged fraud except Madame Blavatsky. The other Theosophists, according to them, are all dupes. Now the evidence given in the Appendix in our opinion renders it impossible to avoid one or other of two alternative conclusions: Either that some of the phenomena recorded are genuine, or that other persons of good standing in society, and with characters to lose, have taken part in deliberate imposture.
    Accordingly, the Committee expressed these conclusions:
    On the whole, however (though with some serious reserves), it seems undeniable that there is a prima facie case, for some part at least of the claim made, which, at the point which the investigations of the Society of Psychical Research have now reached, cannot, with consistency, be ignored.
    The Committee decided to send one of its members to India to investigate the charges made by the Coulombs, to interview the numerous witnesses to phenomena testified to by Hindus and Europeans in India, and to report on the results of such examination. Mr. Richard Hodgson was the member chosen.

95—————————————————————MR. HODGSON’S REPORT

His report is the foundation and superstructure of the celebrated exposure” embodied in Volume III of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.
    Hodgson arrived at headquarters in December, passed three months in pursuing his inquiries, and returned to England in April, 1885. He was, therefore, present in India during the period of fierce attack and witnessed the wavering defense. He saw the bold confidence of the accusers and observed the timid, the cautious, the doubting and fearing attitude of Col. Olcott and other leading theosophists. Had there been no other influence at work upon his mind, these alone might have been ample to persuade him that Theosophy, the Theosophical Society, the “Adept Brothers” and their teachings were, with the phenomena of H.P.B., nothing but a vast fraud devised and perpetrated for some secret purpose.
    Mr. Hodgson’s report of his investigations was submitted to the Committee of the S.P.R.. by them endorsed, and at the General Meeting of the Society on June 24, 1885, Prof. Sidgwick of the Committee read its Conclusions. Certain difficulties developing, the ensuing six months were spent by Mr. Hodgson in revising his report. As time passed it became generally understood that the report of the Committee of the S.P.R. was entirely adverse to the Theosophical phenomena. But, as in the Coulomb case, the preparations for this more “respectable” attack were carried on in secrecy and silence. No opportunity was given the Theosophists to inspect Mr. Hodgsons report, no chance was offered for correction, criticism, objection, or counter-statement, and during the long delay, rumors of the Committee’s conclusions were allowed to prejudice public opinion before any evidence had been presented. Meanwhile, the Theosophists could only await the production of charges the particular character of which they knew nothing and to which, therefore, no reply was possible.
    The Conclusions of the Committee and the full text of Mr. Hodgson’s report were finally embodied in the Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. III, pp. 201-400, issued in December, 1885.
    The essential conclusions of the Committee are embodied in the following extracts:
    After carefully weighing all the evidence before them, the Committee unanimously arrived at the following conclusions.

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(1) That of the letters put forward by Madame Coulomb, all those, at least, which the Committee have had the opportunity of themselves examining, and of submitting to the judgment of experts, are undoubtedly written by Madame Blavatsky; and suffice to prove that she has been engaged in a long-continued combination with other persons to produce by ordinary means a series of apparent marvels for the support of the Theosophic movement.

(2) That, in particular, the Shrine at Adyar, through which letters, purporting to come from Mahatmas were received, was elaborately arranged with a view to the secret insertion of letters and other objects through a sliding panel at the back, and regularly used for this purpose by Madame Blavatsky or her agents.

(3) That there is consequently a very strong general presumption that all the marvelous narratives put forward as evidence of the existence and occult power of the Mahatmas are to be explained as due either (a) to deliberate deception carried out by or at the instigation of Madame Blavatsky, or (b) to spontaneous illusion, or hallucination, or unconscious misrepresentation or invention on the part of the witnesses.

(4) That after examining Mr. Hodgson’s report of the results of his personal inquiries, they are of the opinion that the testimony to these marvels is in no case sufficient, taking amount and character together, to resist the force of the general presumption above mentioned.
    Accordingly, they think that it would be a waste of time to prolong the investigation.

With reference to Madame Blavatsky herself, the Committee says:
    For our own part, we regard her neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to permanent remembrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting impostors in history.
    The preliminary and final reports of the Committee should be taken together. A careful examination of these documents will prove as nothing else can the monstrous injustice of the S.P.R. investigation and report. In the first place, the investigation was entirely ex parte. The Committee laid out its own course of procedure, determined its own basis, admitted what it chose, rejected what it chose, reported what it chose of the evidence—subject to no supervision, no safeguards to insure impartiality or afford redress if bias were present. Of its own motion and decision it declared itself court, judge, and jury;

97———————————————————OPPOSED MOTIVES OF T. S. AND S. P. R.

at its pleasure it finally took upon itself the role of prosecutor without allowing or permitting to those it thus constituted “defendants” any right of cross-examination or rebuttal. That which began ostensibly as a mere inquiry into the evidences available concerning the Theosophical phenomena degenerated into something very like a criminal prosecution, in which a verdict of “guilty” was pronounced upon H. P. Blavatsky—without a hearing, without appeal, without recourse. Had the Committee been a duly and legally constituted Court, its procedure would have been likened to that of the Committee of Public Safety of the French Revolution.
    But in fact the Committee was that of a rival society whose objects, methods, and purposes were radically different from those proclaimed by
H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society for ten years preceding the investigation. The Society for Psychical Research was interested solely in phenomena and was moved by mere scientific curiosity. It specifically disclaimed any interest in philosophical research, any concern in Occult laws, any regard for the moral factor. The Theosophical Society and H.P.B., on the contrary, specifically avowed that the primary Object of its existence was the moral factor of Universal Brotherhood, its second Object the serious study and comparison of religions and philosophies, and its third Object the investigation of laws and powers as yet unexplained and misunderstood; not phenomena at all, save as these might be incidental and illustrative. These differences were recognized by the Committee. The preliminary report says:
    The difference between The Theosophical Society and the Society for Psychical Research is . . . almost diametrical. The Society for Psychical Research exists merely as a machinery for investigation. . . . The Theosophical Society exists mainly to promulgate certain doctrines already formulated, those doctrines being supported by phenomena which are avowedly intended and adapted rather for the influencing of individual minds than for the wholesale instruction of the scientific world.
    The Committee’s attitude toward the “certain doctrines already formulated” for the promulgation of which the Theosophical Society “mainly exists” is shown by its own reports. In the preliminary report it is said that “The Theosophical Society was founded . . . for certain philanthropic and literary

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purposes, with which we are not now concerned.” In the final report the statement is made: “The Theosophical Society was founded ostensibly for certain philanthropic and literary purposes . . . with these doctrines (or so-called “Wisdom-Religion”) the Committee have, of course, no concern.”
    It should be understood in connection with this use of the word “ostensibly” that not a shred of evidence is introduced to show that the Theosophical Society ever had any other objects than its proclaimed ones.
    The Committee took enough note of the Theosophical doctrines to recognize their extensive implications:
    The teaching . . . comprises a cosmogony, a philosophy, a religion. With the value of this teaching per se we are not at present concerned. But it is obvious that were it widely accepted a great change would be induced in human thought in almost every department, To take one point only, the spiritual and intellectual relationship of East to West would be for the time in great measure reversed. “Ex oriente lux” would be more than a metaphor and a memory; it would be the expression of actual contemporary fact. (Italics added.)
    Why was the Committee “not concerned” with the value of this teaching? Was it because the West or the Committee already possessed abundant knowledge as to the existence of superphysical phenomena and the laws and processes by which such phenomena are produced? Here is what was proclaimed in the prospectus of the S.P.R. in 1882:
    The founders of this Society fully recognize the exceptional difficulties which surround this branch of research; but they evertheless hope that by patient and systematic effort some results of permanent value may be attained.
    And the Committee itself declares in the preliminary report that the evidence for these phenomena “ is of a kind which it is peculiarly difficult to disentangle or to evaluate. The claims advanced are so enormous, and the lines of testimony converge and inosculate in a manner so perplexing that it is almost equally hard to say what statements are to be accepted, and what inferences as to other statements are to be drawn from the acceptance of any.”
    To have concerned itself seriously with Madame Blavatsky’s teachings, to have investigated and studied the principles and processes she inculcated would have called for the same self-

99—————————————————————S. P. R. AVOIDS CHALLENGE

sacrificing devotion that was expected of the theosophists themselves. There was no middle ground. Rejection of this course left the Committee stranded on the shores of conventional opinion. Its members chose the “safe” policy of avoiding any direct challenge to the “cosmogony, philosophy and religion” of the times. Nor did they in any way question the prevailing idea of the complete superiority of “the spiritual and intellectual relationship” of the West to the East. Apparently the Committee had no urge to conduct researches in a direction that might result in making ex oriente lux” something more than “a metaphor and a memory.”
The next question involves the competency of the Committee to inquire into the Theosophical phenomena. The history of Spiritualistic phenomena without exception shows that the occurrences are involuntary on the part of the medium, as regards both their production and control, and that their rationale and processes are not understood by either mediums or investigators. On the other hand, all the evidence amassed by the Committee shows that the Theosophical phenomena were voluntary—that is, consciously produced and consciously controlled by the operators, and those operators themselves claimed that the explanation of laws and processes could be acquired only through the Theosophical teachings. Nevertheless, the Committee and Mr. Hodgson took the position that the Theosophical phenomena were of the same character as Spiritualistic manifestations, and were to be approached in the same way. Their deliberations increasingly assumed a tone of suspicion, their serious hypotheses concerning the phenomena becoming limited to those founded on presumption of fraud. The preliminary report shows that the Coulomb accusations, the “Kiddle incident,” and Mr. Massey’s “private evidence” weighed heavily on the minds of the members of the Committee. Nevertheless, other phenomena were so overwhelmingly convincing that the Committee is obliged to conclude:—“Either that some of the phenomena recorded are genuine, or that other persons of good standing in society, and with characters to lose, have taken part in deliberate imposture.” It should be realized that no evidence can be found in the final Report to controvert this testimony, nor to impeach the “persons of good standing in society, and with characters

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to lose.” These witnesses, at least, are not charged with having taken part in deliberate imposture.”
    How, then, does the Committee explain the phenomena so overwhelmingly testified to? It says they were due “to spontaneous illusion, or hallucination, or unconscious misrepresentation or invention on the part of the witnesses.” But no evidence is offered to support this wholesale “explanation.”
    Neither the members of the Committee nor Mr. Hodgson were able themselves to produce any phenomena, nor, with one or two exceptions, had they been witness to any of the Theosophical phenomena. They did not claim for themselves any knowledge of their own as to how such phenomena could or could not he produced. All that they had originally set out to do was to secure the testimony of witnesses who had seen phenomena. The two reports show that, except for the accusations of the Coulombs, and the testimony of one or two others, such as that of Major Henderson, chief of the Indian Secret Service, the more than one hundred persons whose statements were obtained all testified to the occurrence of phenomena under circumstances that precluded any other conclusions than that the phenomena were genuine.
    Upon what, then, did the Committee rely for its conclusions? Upon the Coulombs; upon the “Kiddie incident”; upon Mr. Massey’s “private evidence”; upon the “expert opinions” of Netherclift and Sims on handwriting; most of all, on the “opinions” of Mr. Hodgson.
    The Coulombs and their charges have already been discussed. Their story had no independent corroboration of any significance; it was directly denied by Madame Blavatsky and contradicted point-blank by the testimony of scores of actual witnesses of the phenomena. William Q. Judge, who arrived in India soon after the Coulombs had been sent away from headquarters, made a detailed examination of the false doors M. Coulomb had constructed in Madame Blavatsky’s “occult room.” He showed the product of Coulomb’s interrupted labors to some three hundred witnesses, who signed their names to a description of the place. He then removed the “shrine,” in which the Coulombs had attempted to plant evidence of fraud. Hodgson never saw this portion of the “evidence” for his case, but relied upon the second-hand reports of H.P.B.’s enemies.

101—————————————————————JUDGE DISCLOSES PLOT

    Judge relates that after the Coulombs were caught at their work and sent away, the Principal of the Christian College visited headquarters, asking to see the occult room. Mr. Judge writes: “He [the missionary] was then asked in my presence by Dr. Hartmann what he had paid to Coulomb for his work, and replied, somewhat off his guard, that he had paid him somewhere about one hundred rupees.” Hartmann himself reported that Coulomb came to him and said that ten thousand rupees were at his disposal if he could ruin the Society—which was doubtless an exaggeration of the amount offered him. Apparently, the Coulombs hoped by such means to extort more money for their silence.
    It is evident that the unfinished work of the Coulombs was supplemented by the imagination of the missionaries and the lies of the former, and that Hodgson preferred the testimony of these witnesses to the ingenuous and confusing statements of many of the theosophical witnesses. Hindu students, in particular, were appalled by the whole idea of an “investigation,” and Hodgson made no effort to understand their attitude.
    So far as Hodgson is concerned, however, there is no extenuation for his failure to make a more critical examination of the letters which Madame Coulomb claimed to have received from H.P.B. He did not submit these letters to handwriting experts to determine their true authorship. In claiming them to be genuine, he ignored the illiterate French they contain—as though the cosmopolitan Madame Blavatsky could have composed these passages! Hodgson, it seems, gave way to his predisposition to believe Madame Blavatsky guilty of fraud; his impartiality succumbing to prejudice, he became the self-righteous representative of conventional society—its defender against any disturber of the status quo and its well-established beliefs.
    Hodgson was under a similar necessity to brand the “Mahatma Letters” as spurious. After his return to England, he found himself in a quandary on this phase of his report. Hodgson and the Committee had declared that, in their opinion, Madame Blavatsky had herself written the adept letters to Mr. Sinnett and Mr. Hume. But when some of the letters were submitted to Mr. Sims of the British Museum, and F. G. Netherclift, a London handwriting expert, along with samples

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of the writing of H.P.B., both these “experts” concluded independently that the Mahatma letters were not written by
H.P.B. But if she did not write them, who did?
    The investigator for the Psychical Research Society thereupon presented “new evidence” to the experts, and agreeably, they reversed their opinions and decided that the letters were written by Madame Blavatsky! The need for this change in expert opinion was one of the causes of the delay in publication of Mr. Hodgson’s report. (Further evidence of the fallibility of this sort of “expert” opinion is furnished by Mr. Netherclift himself, for a few years later, in the case of Charles Parnell against the London Times, he swore positively that the signature to the famous “Pigott letters” was in Parnell’s handwriting; then later on, Pigott confessed in open court that he had forged the signatures.)
    “The Kiddie incident” has been described, and whatever opinion may be formed in regard to it, there is no evidence whatever of fraud in connection with it, or of any bad faith on the part of Mr. Sinnett or H.P.B. or any other theosophist. Mr. Massey’s “private evidence” is given at page 97 of the S.P.R. Report and anyone who reads it can determine for himself that, whatever of the mysterious and the unexplained there may be in connection with the matter, there is no evidence whatever of any fraud on H.P.B.’s part. As in other cases, something occurred which Mr. Massey could not understand; his doubts were aroused; H.P.B. denied absolutely any wrongdoing, but refused as absolutely to explain the mystery; hence she was “guilty of fraud.”
    The “prosecution” of Madame Blavatsky by the Society for Psychical Research was for the crime of nonconformity to the “accepted” methods of the nineteenth century. Science, said the authorities of the day, must maintain complete ethical neutrality. “Facts,” they maintained, may be discovered without reference to their moral implications. This element in the theory of scientific method was categorically rejected by H.P.B., who said that the ultimate facts of life are essentially moral in nature, as man is essentially a moral being, and that the quest for truth can never be divorced from the study and practice of natural moral law. She would not submit to the

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methods of “psychic research” evolved according to the theories of Western science, but demanded that its investigators adopt the principles and method of Occult science. The choice was a hard one for the average Westerner. Either he must acknowledge that his canons of knowledge were inadequate for occult inquiry, and humbly accept the conditions prescribed by H.P.B., or disregard occultism as a subject unworthy of his attention.
The latter course would have been easy, except for the Theosophical phenomena. These extraordinary happenings, if they were real, could not be ignored. Occult phenomena had intruded themselves into his circumstantial world of familiar fact and experience; there they were, and they could not be accounted for by any known theory. Fraud, therefore, was the only “comfortable” explanation of them, the alternative being an acceptance of the revolutionary views of the theosophists. Thus the relation of the London Society for Psychical Research with the Theosophical Movement was far more than an “investigation” of certain phenomena and of the occult powers of Madame Blavatsky: it was the collision of two radically opposed and fundamentally incompatible theories of knowledge. The dramatic character of the phenomena precipitated this trial of theory, and the force of prejudice
—the moral inertia of the age—predetermined the result.
In no one thing, perhaps, is the weakness of the S.P.R. investigation more fatally self-betraying than in the motive assigned to account for the “long-continued combination and deliberate deception instigated and carried out by Madame Blavatsky.” That anyone should for ten or more years make endless personal sacrifices of effort, time, money, health, and reputation in three continents, merely to deceive those who trusted her, with no possible benefit to herself; should succeed in so deceiving hundreds of intelligent men and women that they were convinced of the reality of her powers, her teachings, her mission as well as her phenomena, only to be unmasked by an investigator who, after interviewing some of the witnesses and hearing their stories, is able infallibly to see what they could not see, is able to suspect what they could find no occasion for suspecting, is able to detect a sufficient motive for inspiring H.P.B. to the most monumental career of

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c
hicanery in all history—this is what one has to swallow in order to attach credibility to the elaborate tissue of conjecture and suspicion woven by Mr. Hodgson to offset the solid weight of testimony that the phenomena were genuine.
    What, then, was the motive attributed by Mr. Hodgson and the Committee to make credible their conclusion that she was “one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting impostors in history”? She was a Russian spy, and her motive was to destroy British rule in India!
    It is interesting to observe the successive steps of the Committee’s struggle with this question of the possible motive of H.P.B. In the preliminary report the Committee raises the question of “all the commoner and baser motives to fraud or exaggeration,” and dismisses them: “We may say at once that no trustworthy evidence supporting such a view has been brought under our notice.” Next the Committee considers the possibility of “good” motives for bad conduct: ‘Now we know, indeed, that the suspicions which the Anglo-Indian authorities at first entertained as to the political objects of the Theosophical Society have been abandoned as groundless.” Next the Committee says, “But we can imagine schemes and intentions of a patriotic kind . . . we must be on our guard against men’s highest instincts quite as much as their lowest.”
    In the final report Mr. Hodgson goes over the grounds of possible motives: “The question which will now inevitably arise is—what induced Madame Blavatsky to live so many laborious days in such a fantastic work of imposture? .
I should consider this Report incomplete unless I suggest what I myself believe to be an adequate explanation of her ten years’ toil on behalf of the Theosophical Society.”
    Was it egotism? “A closer knowledge of her character would show such a supposition to be quite untenable.”
    Was she a plain, unvarnished fraud? “She is, indeed, a rare psychological study, almost as rare as a ‘Mahatma’! She was terrible exceedingly when she expressed her overpowering thought that perhaps her ‘twenty years’ work, might be spoiled through Madame Coulomb.”
    Was it religious mania, a morbid yearning for notoriety? “I must confess that the problem of her motives ... caused me no little perplexity. . . . The sordid motive of pecuniary

105———————————————————WHAT WAS H. P. B.’S MOTIVE?

gain would be a solution still less satisfactory than the hypothesis of religious mania. . . . But even this hypothesis I was unable to adopt, and reconcile with my understanding of her character.”
What, then, was the compelling motive that induced the labors of a Hercules, the sacrifices of a Christ, to carry on a career of deception worthy of the Prince of Deceivers himself? “At last a casual conversation opened my eyes. I cannot profess, myself, after my personal experiences with Madame Blavatsky, to feel much doubt that her real object has been the furtherance of Russian interests. . . . I suggest it here only as a supposition which appears best to cover the known incidents of her career during the past 13 or 14 years.”
H. P. Blavatsky lived and died a martyr, physically, mentally, and in all that men hold dear; she forsook relatives, friends, ease and high social standing, became an expatriate and naturalized citizen of an alien land on the other side of the globe; she founded a Society to which she gave unremitting and unthanked devotion; she wrote Isis Unveiled, The Secret Doctrine. The Voice of the Silence, all of which were proscribed in Russia; she became a veritable Wandering Jew devoted to the propagation of teachings and ideas hateful to the world of “reactionary forces”; she eschewed all concern with political objects of any kind, all attachment to “race, creed, sex, caste, or color,” and formed and sustained with her lifeblood a Society sworn to the same ideals; she lived and she died without personal possessions of any kind—slandered, calumniated, betrayed, and misunderstood; she never, from 1873 to the day of her death, set foot on Russian soil, an exile from family and country.
Why did she do these things? “In furtherance of Russian interests”.!

MADAME BLAVATSKY sailed from India on March 30, 1885. She was seriously ill and had to be carried on board the vessel. Accompanied by her physician and an attendant she voyaged to Naples, where she remained for several months. In August she went to Wurzburg, Germany, where she was visited and sustained by the Gebhards, devoted admirers living nearby in Elberfeld, whom she had met during a visit to Europe the year before. H.P.B. was later joined in Wurzburg by the Countess Wachtmeister, widow of the late Swedish Ambassador to England, who had become a member of the London Lodge in 1884. On her way to Italy in the summer of 1885, the Countess had stopped at Elberfeld to spend some time with the Gebhards, and learning of H.P.B.'s illness and isolation in Wurzburg, went to see her. What she saw and felt caused her to remain, and to become the companion, secretary, friend and voluntary servant of H.P.B. Here, in Wurzburg, where she lived for nearly a year, Madame Blavatsky began the enormous task of writing The Secret Doctrine, which was to be the systematic treatise of the Theosophical teachings.
In May, 1886, H.P.B. was ordered by physicians to find a more favorable climate, if she were to regain her health. Her next place of residence was Ostend, Belgium, where, less than a year later, she nearly died. In the spring of 1887 she yielded to the pleas of a small group of English students, who brought her to England. She passed the summer in a small cottage in Norwood, and in the autumn was installed in the house at 17 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park, West, where she lived until her death. These last five years of H.P.B.’s life were spent in the kindly care of English theosophists who shared her household and gave her the assistance she needed to complete The Secret Doctrine.
With H.P.B. no longer in India, the Movement there began to sink to the level of faint-heartedness and timidity which had characterized the Society’s “defense” against the attack

107—————————————————————INDIA MINUS H. P. B.

of the Coulombs. Olcott, recalled from a tour by the extreme sickness of Madame Blavatsky, early in 1885, before her departure, found many of the Indian Lodges lapsing into dormancy, others threatening to dissolve. Some members, filled with a growing realization of the injustice done to H.P.B. by the Convention of 1884, were inclined to blame Olcott for the multiplying weaknesses of the Movement in India. Olcott found his autocratic rule of the Society’s affairs called into question by a growing number, and only H.P.B’s support enabled him to smooth over the dissatisfaction and to regain the security of his position. Meanwhile, he tried to make amends to H.P.B., although his attempt to persuade Hodgson to adopt a more impartial or friendly attitude was hardly a course to inspire the confidence of the young investigator of the Society for Psychical Research.
The theosophists of India convened their December, 1885 Convention in a chastened spirit. Resolutions passed by the delegates invited H.P.B. to resume the office of Corresponding Secretary when her health would permit, affirmed that the charges against her were unproved, and refused to consider Olcott’s retirement as President-Founder. Olcott’s critics in the Society had questioned his competency for this office, and the action of the Convention helped to restore his confidence. H.P.B. made a will leaving Olcott her interest in the Theosophist. She gave him the entire revenue of the publication and continued to send him articles for publication from Europe. These several expressions of fraternal accord strengthened the Society and hastened the revival of the work in India. The Movement there, however, never regained the vigor it had possessed in the early days. It is evident, too, that Olcott could not make full moral recovery from his vacillation during the Coulomb attacks. Both his articles in the Theosophist and the asides in Old Diary Leaves show that, separated from H.P.B., he increasingly cherished and guarded his personal authority and prestige as the head of an organization, instead of giving his best energies to cooperation with the one who had been his teacher and closest friend from the beginning.
Insight into the disastrous effects of Olcott’s attitude is provided by some notes left by H.P.B. in the form of a memo-

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randum of a talk with one of the Theosophical Adepts. A portion of this memorandum, written in pencil by H.P.B., reports the Master as saying:
the Society has liberated itself from our grasp and influence and we have let it go—we make no unwilling slaves. He (Col. Olcott) says he has saved it? He saved its body, but he allowed through sheer fear, . . . its soul to escape, and it is now a soulless corpse, a machine run so far well enough, but which will fall to pieces when he is gone. Out of the three objects the second alone is attended to, but it is no longer either a brotherhood, nor a body over the face of which broods the Spirit from beyond the Great Range. His kindness and love of peace are great and truly Gautamic in their spirit; but he has misapplied that kindness;
This this [his] policy has done more harm to the spirit of the Society and its growth than several Coulombs could do. .
The history of the Society in India after 1885 becomes a monotonous record of the politics of religious organization, of personal frictions and legalistic disputes. These controversies are reflected in the pages of the Supplements to the Theosophist, which were devoted to the activities of the Society. For the living spirit of the Theosophical Movement, Olcott substituted the Theosophical Society as his object of worship, and he tended to identify the Society with himself as President-Founder. His subsequent conflicts with H.P.B. were always the result of his mistaking the human institution of the “Society” for the dynamic cause which H.P.B. served. She always subordinated the merely mechanical arrangements of “organization” to the larger purposes for which the organization was created. Olcott, however, interpreted her policy as the erratic behavior of a crotchety woman, and he found endless occasions to express himself to this effect, both directly and by innuendo. His opposition to Judge, in later years, was primarily due to the same cause. As the basic conceptions of the philosophy were gradually made into dogmas by Olcott and others who wanted formulas and rules, Judge continued to embody the original spirit of the teaching—a course which, by contrast, violated Olcott’s crystallized ideas and made him Judge’s bitter and self-righteous enemy.
Two of Madame Blavatsky’s writings, one a letter addressed to the Indian theosophists, the other an article published in Lucifer in 1889, provide a summary of the Indian cycle of the

109———————————————————WHY H. P. B. DID NOT RETURN

nineteenth-century Theosophical Movement. In the letter, addressed “To my Brothers of Aryavarta,” H.P.B. explains why she never returned to India after 1885. The article, “Our Three Objects,” lists some of the achievements that may be attributed to the work of the Movement in India.
    The letter, which was written in 1890, five years after H.P.B. left India, begins by speaking of the warm communications she had received from Hindu theosophists. These friendly demonstrations, she explains, make her feel obligated to tell why she does not return to India. Ill health, she says, is not the only reason:
    There is a far more serious reason. A line of conduct has been traced for me here, and I have found among the English and Americans what I have so far vainly sought for in India. I have met with hundreds of men and women who have the courage to avow their conviction of the real existence of the Masters, and who are working for Theosophy on Their lines and under Their guidance, given through my humble self.
    In India, on the other hand, ever since my departure, the true spirit of devotion to the Masters and the courage to avow it has steadily dwindled away. At Adyar itself, increasing strife and conflict has raged between personalities; uncalled for and utterly undeserved animosity—almost hatred—has been shown towards me by several members of the staff. There seems to have been something strange and uncanny going on at Adyar, during these last years. No sooner does a European, most Theosophically inclined, most devoted to the Cause, and the personal friend of myself or the President, set his foot in Headquarters, than he becomes forthwith a personal enemy to one or other of us, and what is worse, ends by injuring and deserting the Cause. .
Of the Coulomb attack and the S.P.R. Report, she writes:
    If, I say, at that critical moment, the members of the Society, and especially its leaders at Adyar, Hindu and European, had stood together as one man, firm in their conviction of the reality and power of the Masters, Theosophy would have come out more triumphantly than ever, and none of their fears would have ever been realized, however cunning the legal traps set for me, and whatever mistakes and errors of judgment I, their humble representative, might have made in the executive conduct of the matter.
    But the loyalty and courage of the Adyar Authorities, and of the few Europeans who had trusted in the Masters, were not equal to the trial when it came. In spite of my protests, I was

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hurried away from Headquarters. Ill as I was, almost dying in truth, as the physicians said, yet I protested, and would have battled for Theosophy in India to my last breath, had I found loyal support. But some feared legal entanglements, some the Government, while my best friends believed in the doctors’ threats that I must die if I remained in India. So I was sent to Europe to regain my strength, with a promise of speedy return to my beloved Aryavarta.
Then, in Europe—
In a letter received from Damodar in 1886, he notified me that the Masters’ influence was becoming with every day weaker at Adyar. . . . Finally, he urged me very strongly to return, saying that of course the Masters would see that my health should not suffer from it. I wrote to that effect to Colonel Olcott, imploring him to let me return, and promising that I would live at Pondicherry, if needed, should my presence not be desirable at Adyar. To this I received the ridiculous answer that no sooner should I return, than I should be sent to the Andaman Islands as a Russian spy, which of course Colonel Olcott subsequently found out to be absolutely untrue. The readiness with which such a futile pretext for keeping me from Adyar was seized upon, shows in clear colours the ingratitude of those to whom I had given my life and health. Nay more, urged on. as I understood, by the Executive Council, under the entirely absurd pretext that, in case of my death, my heirs might claim a share in the Adyar property, the President sent me a legal paper to sign, by which I formally renounced any right to the Headquarters or even to live there without the Council’s permission. This, although I had spent several thousand rupees of my own private money, and had devoted my share of the profits of The-Theosophist to the purchase of the house and its furniture. Nevertheless I signed the renunciation without one word of protest. I saw I was not wanted, and remained in Europe in spite of my ardent desire to return to India. How could I do otherwise than feel that all my labours had been rewarded with ingratitude, when my most urgent wishes to return were met with flimsy excuses and answers inspired by those who were hostile to me?
The result of this is too apparent. You know too well the state of affairs in India for me to dwell longer upon details. In a word, since my departure, not only has the activity of the movement there gradually slackened, but those for whom I had the deepest affections, regarding them as a mother would her own sons, have turned against me. While in the West, no sooner had I accepted the invitation to come to London, than I found people—the S.P.R. Report and wild suspicion and hypotheses

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rampant in every direction notwithstanding—to believe in the truth of the great Cause I have struggled for, and in my own bona fides.
    Acting under the Master’s orders I began a new movement in the West on the original lines; I founded Lucifer, and the Lodge which bears my name. Recognizing the splendid work done at Adyar by Colonel Olcott and others to carry out the second of the three objects of the T. S., viz., to promote the study of Oriental Literature, I was determined to carry out here the two others. All know with what success this has been attended. Twice Colonel Olcott was asked to come over, and then I learned that I was once more wanted in India—at any rate by some. But the invitation came too late; neither would my doctor permit it, nor can I, if I would be true to my life-pledge and vows, now live at the Headquarters from which the Masters and Their spirit are virtually banished. The presence of Their portraits will not help; They are a dead letter. The truth is that I can never return to India in any other capacity than as Their faithful agent. And as, unless They appear among the Council in propria persona (which They will certainly never do now), no advice of mine on occult lines seems likely to be accepted, as the fact of my relations with the Masters is doubted, even totally denied by some; and I myself having no right to the Headquarters, what reason is there, therefore, for me to live at Adyar?
    The fact is this: In my position, half-measures are worse than none. People have either to believe entirely in me, or to honestly disbelieve. No one, no Theosophist, is compelled to believe, but it is worse than useless for people to ask me to help them, if they do not believe in me.
    The only claim, therefore, which India could ever have upon me would be strong only in proportion to the activity of the Fellows there for Theosophy and their loyalty to the Masters.
    The letter ends with an appeal to the Theosophists of India to “turn a new leaf in the history of the Theosophical Movement” and to join with other loyal theosophists, bidding defiance “to all calumniators and ambitious malcontents—both without and within the Theosophical Society.”
    This communication shows, as nothing else could, the tragic situation of the Theosophical Movement in India after 1885. The members there wished to remain theosophists, yet feared to support H.P.B. in her hour of need. Their attempt to compromise, with “half-measures,” had placed them in the curious position of having virtually conceded to the opposition that H.P.B. was not to be wholly trusted—that she was

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only half-honest !—while they still pretended to be followers of a movement of which she had been, and still was, the living inspiration. A Society with this sort of leadership was worse than none, for its policy was one of semi-conscious hypocrisy, justified by fear. It may be added that there has been no appreciable change in the Adyar Society from that day to this. In 1929, when portions of the letter quoted above finally appeared for the first time in the Theosophist, all passages reproachful of the members in India were carefully excised. To this day, readers of the Theosophist are ignorant of H.P.B.’s real feelings concerning the Adyar Society and what it became after her departure.
But whatever the ingratitude and betrayal H.P.B. met in India, she was uncompromising in her own defense of the Indian people, especially when they were deprecated in comparison with European civilization. In 1886 Mr. Sinnett sent her an article on Mesmerism which he had published in the July Transactions of the London Lodge. In this discussion he chanced to express the opinion that the people of India “are on a somewhat lower level of cosmic evolution” than those of Europe. H.P.B.’s reply was characteristically vigorous:
Thanks for the Transactions. Very interesting, your mesmerism. Only why can’t you ever write about India or Indians without allowing your pen to run away with your ineradicable prejudices at the expense of truth and fact? . . . You want to write esoteric facts and you give instead English race prejudice. Believe me, I speak seriously. You cannot remodel esoteric History to suit your little likings and dislikes. . . . How many times have I told you that if, as a race, they are lower than Europeans it is only physically and in the matter of civilization or rather what you yourselves have agreed to regard as civilization—the purely external, skin deep polish, or a whitened sepulchre with rottenness inside, of the Gospel. Hindus are spiritually intellectual and we are physically spiritual. Spiritually they are immensely higher than we are. The physical point of evolution we have reached only now—they have reached it 100,000 years ago, perhaps. And what they are now spiritually you may not hope to reach in Europe before some millenniums yet. . . .You must have written your Transaction—in sulks. However it may be I am sorry to have to contradict you in the Secret D. I have written that long ago_and it is diametrically opposite to what you say_and as it was dictated to me.4

113————————————————————T. S. ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The article, “Our Three Objects,”5 reviews the accomplishments of the Theosophical Movement in India, under the headings of Brotherhood, the study of Aryan literature, and occult science. H.P.B.’s observations concerning the work of the Society on behalf of Universal Brotherhood will illustrate both the spirit of her undertaking and its practical result. She wrote:
“When we arrived in India, in February, 1879, there was no unity between the races and sects of the Peninsula, no sense of a common public interest, no disposition to find the mutual relation between the several sects of ancient Hinduism, or that between them and the creeds of Islam, Jainism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. Between the Brahmanical Hindus of India and their kinsmen, the modern Sinhalese Buddhists, there had been no religious intercourse since some remote epoch. And again, between the several castes of the Sinhalese—for, true to their archaic Hindu parentage, the Sinhalese do still cling to caste despite the letter and spirit of their Buddhist religion—there was a complete disunity, no intermarriages, no spirit of patriotic homogeneity, but a rancorous sectarian and caste ill-feeling. As for any international reciprocity, in either social or religious affairs, between the Sinhalese and the Northern Buddhistic nations, such a thing had never existed. Each was absolutely ignorant of and indifferent about the other’s views, wants or aspirations.
“Finally, between the races of Asia and those of Europe and America there was the most complete absence of sympathy as to religious and philosophical questions. The labours of the Orientalists from Sir William Jones and Burnouf down to Prof. Max Muller, had created among the learned a philosophical interest, but among the masses not even that. If to the above we add that all the Oriental religions, without exception, were being asphyxiated to death by the poisonous gas of Western official science, through the medium of the educational agencies of European administrations and Missionary propagandists, and that the Native graduates and undergraduates of India, Ceylon and Japan had largely turned agnostics and revilers of the old religions, it will be seen how difficult a task it must have been to bring something like harmony out of this chaos, and make a tolerant if not a

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friendly feeling spring up and banish these hatreds, evil suspicions, ill feelings, and mutual ignorance.
“Ten years have passed and what do we see? Taking the points seriatim we find—that throughout India unity and brotherhood have replaced the old disunity; one hundred and twenty-five Branches of our Society have sprung up in India alone, each a nucleus of our idea of fraternity, a centre of religious and social unity. Their membership embraces representatives of all the better castes and all Hindu sects, and a majority are of that class of hereditary savants and philosophers, the Brahmans, to pervert whom to Christianity has been the futile struggle of the Missionary and the self- appointed task of that high-class forlorn hope, the Oxford and Cambridge Missions. The President of our Society, Col. Olcott, has traversed the whole of India several times, upon invitation, addressing vast crowds upon theosophic themes and sowing the seed from which, in time, will be garnered the full harvest of our evangel of brotherhood and mutual dependence.
The growth of this kindly feeling has been proven in a variety of ways: first, in the unprecedented gathering of races, castes, and sects in the annual Conventions of the Theosophical Society: second, in the rapid growth of a theosophical literature advocating our altruistic views, in the founding of various journals and magazines in several languages, and in the rapid cessation of sectarian controversies; third, in the sudden birth and phenomenally rapid growth of the patriotic movement which is centralized in the organisation called the Indian National Congress. This remarkable political body was planned by certain of our Anglo-Indian and Hindu members after the model and on the lines of the Theosophical Society, and has from the first been directed by our own colleagues; men among the most influential in the Indian Empire. At the same time, there is no connection whatever, barring that through the personalities of individuals, between the Congress and its mother body, our Society. It would never have come into existence, in all probability, if Col. Olcott had suffered himself to be tempted into the side paths of human brotherhood, politics, social reforms, etc., as many have wanted him to do. We aroused the dormant spirit and

115—————————————————————PROGRESS IN CEYLON

warmed the Aryan blood of the Hindus, and one vent the new life made for itself was this Congress. All this is simple history and passes unchallenged.
“Crossing over to Ceylon, behold the miracles our Society has wrought, upon the evidence of many addresses, reports, and other official documents heretofore brought under the notice of our readers and the general public. The castemen affiliating; the sectarian ill-feeling almost obliterated; sixteen Branches of the Society formed in the Island, the entire Sinhalese community, one may almost say, looking to us for counsel, example and leadership; a committee of Buddhists going over to India with Col. Olcott to plant a cocoanut—ancient symbol of affection and good-will—in the compound of the Hindu Temple in Tinnevelly, and Kandyan nobles, until now holding aloof from the low-country people with the haughty disdain of their feudal traditions, becoming Presidents of our Branches, and even travelling as Buddhist lecturers.
    “Ceylon was the foyer from which the religion of Gautama streamed out to Cambodia, Siam and Burma; what, then, could be more appropriate than that there should be borne from this Holy Land a message of Brotherhood to Japan! How this message was taken, how delivered by our President, and with what magnificent results, is too well known to the whole Western World to need reiteration of the story in the present connection. Suffice it to say, it ranks among the most dramatic events in history, and is the all sufficient, unanswerable and crowning proof of the vital reality of our scheme to beget the feeling of Universal Brotherhood among all peoples, races, kindreds, castes, and colours.”

    Thus the Theosophical Movement, under the inspiration of H.P.Blavatsky, sought to overcome the divisions of sectarianism in organized religion, not merely by criticism, but by providing the philosophic verities which could dissolve the superficial differences of doctrine among the religions of the world, showing them all to have the common foundation of the archaic Wisdom Religion.
    We turn, now, to the United States, where a new cycle of activity began about the time Madame Blavatsky left India.

THE REAL BEGINNING of the work of the Theosophical Movement in the United States came in 1886, when William Q. Judge established The Path, an independent Theosophical magazine. Until this time, not much had been accomplished in the way of growth of the Society in America. Even before the departure of Olcott and H.P.B. for India, as early as the close of 1876, as Olcott says, “The Theosophical Society as a body was comparatively inactive: its By-laws became a dead letter, its meetings almost ceased.” When the journey of the two Founders to India was decided upon, General Abner Doubleday was chosen to serve as the President in America, pro tem., and Judge was made Recording Secretary.
While Judge kept in close contact with both H.P.B. and Olcott through correspondence, there was little if any organizational activity for the next several years. The difficulties confronting him during this period are illustrated by a biographical passage written by Mrs. Archibald Keightley and included by her in the second volume of Letters That Have Helped Me. It was a time when Madame Blavatsky—she, who was then the one great exponent, had left the field, and the curiosity and interest excited by her original and striking mission had died down. The T. S. was henceforth to subsist on its philosophical basis, and this, after long years of toil and unyielding persistence, was the point attained by Mr. Judge. From his twenty-third year until his death, his best efforts and all the fiery energies of his undaunted soul were given to this Work. We have a word picture of him, opening meetings, reading a chapter of the Bhagaz’ad Gila, entering the Minutes, and carrying on all the details of the same, as if he were not the only person present; and this he did, time after time, determined to have a society.
In these early days, Mr. Judge was a young practicing lawyer who had to give much of his time to earning a living. He had married in 1874, shortly before meeting H.P.B. There was only one child, a girl, who died while very young. Business affairs took him to South America in 1876, where he con-

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tracted Chagres fever, and he was ever after a sufferer from this torturing disease. Other phases of his South American experiences are recorded in his writings, often allegorical, suggesting the character of the occult contacts which may have been established on this journey. In 1883, with some others, Mr. Judge established a branch society, the Aryan Theosophical Society of New York, which was chartered by Col. Olcott. In later years, under Judge’s guidance, the Aryan Society was to set an example to all other American branches in effective promulgation of Theosophy. In the first number of the Path, Mr. Judge described the Aryan Society as a branch “formed with the idea of cementing together the New York members taken into the Parent Society while Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky were here.” He adds, however, that “it was found that a good many had joined [the Parent Society] under the impression that it was a new kind of spiritualism, and then had retired.” The real activity of the Aryan branch began in 1886, with the publication of the Path.
In 1884, at Judge’s suggestion, Col. Olcott had organized an American Board of Control for the government of the Society in the United States. This executive body superseded the Presidency of Abner Doubleday. Early in 1884, Judge went to London, where he met Sinnett and other English members. A few weeks later he went to Paris where, on March 28, he was joined by H.P.B. and Olcott, who had come from India. Judge remained in Madame Blavatsky’s company for several weeks in France—for him a pleasant change from the moral atmosphere of London, which he had found extremely depressing. Actually, this period early in 1884 seems to have been a critical interlude in the preparation of Mr. Judge for the work which lay ahead of him. Correspondence to friends, written in London, and some of his Paris letters also, reveal that he was suffering from an extraordinary despondency which lasted several weeks or months. It was a time, he explained to his intimates, when certain influences from the distant past returned to disturb his psychic well-being. Both the simplicity and the strength of the young Irish-American are shown by this passage from one of his Paris letters:
“These last days (12) have been a trial to me. Quite vividly the question of sticking fast or letting go has come up. I believe

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that I have been left alone to try me. But I have conquered. I will not give up; and no matter what the annoyance or bitterness, I will stand. Last night I opened the Theosophist that Mme. has here, and almost at once came across those articles about chelaship, its trials and dangers. It seemed like a confirmation of my thoughts, and while the picture in one sense was rather dismal, yet they strengthened me.
    In April, 1884, intimations of the plot of the Coulombs were received in Paris and Judge was sent to India with, as he put it, “full power from the president of the society to do whatever seemed best for our protection against an attack we had information was about to be made in conjunction with the missionaries who conducted the Christian College at Madras.” He arrived at Adyar shortly after the Coulombs had been expelled and at once took charge. He called a number of witnesses to see the handiwork of the Coulombs, and then closed H.P.B. ‘s quarters to the public. As an interesting footnote to the attack of the missionaries on H.P.B., Judge makes this statement:
    The very next day Missionary Patterson, expert Gribble & Co., came to examine. It was too late. The law was already in existence; and Mr. Gribbie, who had come as an “impartial expert,” with, however, a report in full in his pocket against us, had to go away depending on his imagination for damaging facts. He then drew upon that fountain.
    Mr. Judge remained in India only long enough to attend to his duties in connection with the Coulomb conspiracy, but during this period he strengthened the bond of fraternity with Damodar and other Hindu members whom he knew only by correspondence. In 1885, after his return to America, he set to work to revitalize the Movement in the United States. Seeing that the Board of Control established by Olcott provided a “somewhat paternal and unrepresentative government” for the American branches, he appealed to Olcott and H.P.B. to cooperate with him in establishing an “American Section” of the Parent Society, in which all the branches would have a voice. This was finally accomplished through a meeting of the Board of Control in Cincinnati in October, 1886. Following the suggestion of a resolution by the General Council in India, the American theosophists at this meeting dissolved the Board of Control and “formed the American

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Section of the General Council of the Theosophical Society, but deferred the question of adopting a formal constitution and laws until some other date when a more complete representation could be secured.” In 1887 a second meeting was held and the Constitution of the American Section was regularly adopted by instructed delegates.
   At the time of the 1886 meeting of the Board of Control, there were twelve branches of the Theosophical Society in the United States. These were in Rochester, Chicago, Boston, MaIden (Mass.), Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco, Washington, D. C., and two in New York. The members of these branches made up a total of 264. By the 1887 Convention, held in New York City, there were still twelve branches, but the membership had increased to 302. At the second annual convention of the American Section—its first large meeting—in Chicago, April 22 and 23, 1888, Mr. Judge, who was General Secretary, reported the addition of ten new branches, and an aggregate membership of about 460. This extraordinary rate of the Society’s growth in America continued for a number of years. By 1896, there were 103 branches in the United States.
    The first number of the Path appeared in April, 1886. Its opening editorial struck the keynote of the policy it was to maintain for ten years, under the editorship of Mr. Judge. He began by explaining that the magazine was not the official organ of the Theosophical Society, but an independent journal “the impulse for which arose directly from Theosophical teachings and literature.” The magazine’s founders, he said, have resolved to try on the one hand to point out to their fellows a Path in which they have found hope for man, and on the other to investigate all systems of ethics and philosophy claiming to lead directly to such a path, regardless of the possibility that the highway may, after all, be in another direction from the one in which they are looking. From their present standpoint it appears to them that the true path lies in the way pointed out by our Aryan forefathers, philosophers, and sages, whose light is still shining brightly, albeit that this is now Kali Yuga, or the age of darkness.
    The editorial concludes:
    The very first step in true mysticism and true occultism is to try to apprehend the meaning of Universal Brotherhood, with-

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out which the very highest progress in the practice of magic turns to ashes in the mouth.
    We appeal, therefore, to all who wish to raise themselves and their fellow creatures—man and beast—out of the thoughtless jog trot of selfish everyday life. It is not thought that Utopia can be established in a day; but through the spreading of the idea of Universal Brotherhood, the truth in all things may be discovered. Certainly, if we all say that it is useless, that such highly-strung, sentimental notions cannot obtain currency, nothing will ever be done. A beginning must be made, and it has been, by the Theosophical Society. Although philanthropic institutions and schemes are constantly being brought forward by good and noble men and women, vice, selfishness, brutality, and the resulting misery, seem to grow no less. Riches are accumulating in the hands of the few, while the poor are ground harder every day as they increase in number. Prisons, asylums for the outcast and the magdalen, can be filled much faster than it is possible to erect them. All this points unerringly to the existence of a vital error somewhere. It shows that merely healing the outside by hanging a murderer or providing asylums and prisons will never reduce the number of criminals nor the hordes of children born and growing up in hot-beds of vice.
    What is wanted is true knowledge of the spiritual condition of man, his aim and destiny. This is offered to a reasonable certainty in the Aryan literature, and those who must begin the reform are those who are so fortunate as to be placed in the world where they can see and think out the problems all are endeavoring to so he, even if they know that the great day may not come until after their death. Such a study leads us to accept the utterance of Prajapati to his sons: “Be restrained, be liberal, be merciful”; it is the death of selfishness.
    While Madame Blavatsky wrote about Theosophy with great erudition and out of her immense store of occult knowledge, Mr. Judge addressed the common man in homely language and with simple reason. The Path, from its beginning, was evidence that he had completely found himself, and was now intent upon cultivating the area of his greatest usefulness to the Movement. His natural interest in the welfare of others affected everything he did, so that his articles and Theosophical talks are cast in the idiom of the man in the street. There was nothing of the poseur in Mr. Judge, and his simple, unaffected style sometimes has the effect of concealing his wisdom from those who expect certain mannerisms or pretensions in “occult” or “deep” writing. As the years went by, Mr. Judge revealed himself as a skillful organizer and a

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self-effacing administrator who knew how to help other men to develop their talents and take responsibilities. He wrote for the Path under a variety of pseudonyms, thus hiding from the public his large personal part in that publication, although he signed with his own name all decisive statements of policy for which individual responsibility ought to be assumed.
    His knowledge of Theosophy emerged in the pages of the Path in the form of endlessly varied applications of the philosophy. His method is suggestive rather than dogmatic. Everything he wrote of a metaphysical nature can be found supported, directly or indirectly, in the works of Madame Blavatsky. He attempted no new “revelation,” but illustrated in his own works the ideal use of the concepts of the Theosophical teachings. At the conclusion of the first volume of the Path, he presented a view of the law of cycles showing that, to him, this law was no abstraction, but a principle having direct bearing on the work of the Movement and on the psychological and moral needs of the human race at this time. He wrote:
     The “Christian” nations have dazzled themselves with the baneful glitter of material progress. They are not the peoples who will furnish the clearest clues to the Path. A few short years and they will have abandoned the systems now held so dear, because their mad rush to the perfection of their civilization will give them control over now undreamed of forces. Then will come the moment when they must choose which of two kinds of fruit they will take.
     In the year just passing we have been cheered by much encouragement from without and within. Theosophy has grown not only in ten years, but during the year past. A new age is not far away. The huge, unwieldy flower of the 19th century civilization, has almost fully bloomed, and preparation must be made for the wonderful new flower which is to rise from the old. We have not pinned our faith on Vedas nor Christian scriptures, nor desired any others to do so. All our devotion to Aryan literature and philosophy arises from a belief that the millions of minds who have trodden weary steps before ours, left a path which might be followed with profit, yet with discrimination. For we implicitly believe that in this curve of the cycle, the final authority is the man himself. In former times the disclosed Vedas, and later, the teachings of the great Buddha, were the right authority, in whose authoritative teachings and enjoined practices were found the necessary steps to raise Man to an upright position. But the grand clock of the Universe

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points to another hour, and now Man must seize the key in his hands and himself—as a whole—open the gate. Hitherto he has depended upon the great souls whose hands have stayed impending doom. Let us then together enter upon another year, fearing nothing, assured of strength in the Union of Brotherhood. For how can we fear death, or life, or any horror or evil, at any place or time, when we well know that even death itself is a part of the dream which we are weaving before our eyes.
    Our belief may be summed up in the motto of the Theosophical Society: ‘There is no religion higher than Truth,” and our practice consists in a disregard of any authority in matters of religion and philosophy except such propositions as from their innate quality we feel to be true.
    This editorial was Judge’s way of repeating the doctrine—implied in Isis Unveiled and to be stated explicitly in The Secret Doctrine and in numerous articles and letters by Madame Blavatsky—that the twentieth century would be a period of vast psychic mutation in human history, during which the faculties of the human mind would be heightened and the psycho-emotional susceptibilities of all men would be greatly increased. The need, in this coming cycle, would be for greater moral stability and intellectual self-reliance, in order to avoid the catastrophic psychological disorders which would afflict the race unless this stability were gained. Here, in his Path editorial, Mr. Judge put into simple terms a teaching of crucial importance to the future of Western civilization, but it was not labelled or accompanied by any fanfare to attract attention. The ideas were given, and readers were left to recognize their significance for themselves.
    It was natural that in the course of years Mr. Judge attracted to the Movement in America a nucleus of devoted individuals who supported and helped with the work in various ways. One of these was J. D. Buck, who became a member of the Society in 1878, after reading Isis Unveiled. Dr. Buck maintained a correspondence with H.P.B. while she was in India. Col. Olcott appointed him to serve on the American Board of Control, which met in Dr. Buck’s home in Fregonia, N.Y., in 1884 to consider plans for a Theosophical revival in the United States. Other meetings of the Board convened in 1885 and 1886 in his house in Cincinnati. Dr. Buck wrote numerous excellent articles for the Path, both under his own name and under the pseudonym of

123 —————————————————————— JUDGE’S HELPERS

“Hiraj.” His personal affection for Mr. Judge made him a loyal worker throughout the former’s life, but after Judge died, Dr. Buck was confused by the various claims to “spiritual authority” and became a follower of “TK,” an “occult” writer with pretensions to higher Masonic knowledge.
Another worker was Julia Campbell VerPlanck, later Mrs. Archibald Keightley, who was probably more help to Judge than any one else in getting out the Path. She wrote for the Path under the names of “Julius,” “August Waldensee,” and “Jasper Niemand.” She used the latter name as editor of the volume of Mr. Judge’s letters to her, which she published as Letters That Have Helped Me.
Alexander Fullerton, an Episcopalian clergyman who had been Mrs. VerPlanck’s pastor, was attracted to Theosophy by her and gave up his position in the church, in 1890 he became a member of the Council of the American Section of the T. S. He was well educated, could write and speak, and his offer of services at the busy headquarters of the General Secretary was gladly accepted. Mr. Fullerton soon became known as Mr. Judge’s right-hand man. He contributed many articles to the Path, edited the Forum—a small periodical devoted to Theosophical questions and answers—and attended to much of the correspondence coming to the Path editorial office and the headquarters of the American Section. Another prominent American worker was Jerome A. Anderson, active on the Pacific Coast, who was author of elementary books on Reincarnation and Karma, Immortality, and Septenary Man. Mr. Anderson was a frequent contributor to the pages of the New Californian, a Theosophical monthly founded in Los Angeles in 1891. The editor of this magazine, Miss Louise A. Off, was among the most active members on the Pacific Coast, writing on Theosophical subjects for the California newspapers as well as in the New Californian. She also conducted in her home well-attended weekly meetings for the discussion of Theosophy. Although Miss Off was not physically strong, having to discontinue publication of the magazine after two volumes were completed, she worked strenuously for Theosophy and continued to write in the service of the Movement until her death in 1895.

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    The spirit of the work of the Movement in America is best discovered by a reading of the first ten volumes of the Path, of Jasper Niemand’s compilation of Letters That Have Helped Me, and of the letters of H. P. Blavatsky to the annual conventions of the American Section. There were five of these messages from H.P.B. to the American Theosophists. The first, which was read to the delegates to the convention held in Chicago in April, 1888, she addressed to Mr. Judge as “Brother and Co-Founder of the Theosophical Society.” This letter is of particular interest for several reasons, among them the evidence it provides of the position occupied by Mr. Judge in her regard. She began with greetings to the Delegates and Fellows of the Society, adding—”and to yourself [Judge]—the heart and soul of that Body in America.” The letter continues:
    We were several, to call it to life in 1875. Since then you have remained alone to preserve that life through good and evil report. It is to you chiefly, if not entirely, that the Theosophical Society owes its existence in 1888. Let me then thank you for it, for the first, and perhaps for the last, time publicly, and from the bottom of my heart, which beats only for the cause you represent so well and serve so faithfully.
    The remainder of the letter is occupied with practical advice for carrying on the work of the Theosophical Movement. H.P.B. expressed herself on the various problems confronting the Society, noting both the opportunities and the dangers which lay ahead. She wrote:
    Theosophy has lately taken a new start in America which marks the commencement of a new Cycle in the affairs of the Society in the West. And the policy you are now following is admirably adapted to give scope for the widest expansion of the movement, and to establish on a firm basis an organization which, while promoting feelings of fraternal sympathy, social unity, and solidarity, will leave ample room for individual freedom and exertion in the common cause—that of helping mankind.
    The multiplication of local centres should be a foremost consideration in your minds, and each man should strive to be a centre of work in himself. When his inner development has reached a certain point, he will naturally draw those with whom he is in contact under the same influence; a nucleus will be formed, round which other people will gather, forming a

125———————————————————H. P. B.’S MESSAGE TO AMERICANS

centre from which information and spiritual influence radiate, and towards which higher influences are directed.
    But let no man set up a popery instead of Theosophy, as this would be suicidal and has ever ended most fatally. We are all fellow-students, more or less advanced; but no one belonging to the Theosophical Society ought to count himself as more than, at best, a pupil-teacher—one who has no right to dogmatize.
    Since the Society was founded, a distinct change has come over the spirit of the age. Those who gave us commission to found the Society foresaw this, now rapidly growing, wave of transcendental influence following that other wave of mere phenomenalism. Even the journals of Spiritualism are gradually eliminating the phenomena and wonders, to replace them with philosophy. The Theosophical Society led the van of this movement; but, although Theosophical ideas have entered into every development or form which awakening spirituality has assumed, yet Theosophy pure and simple has still a severe battle to fight for recognition. The days of old are gone to return no more, and many are the Theosophists who, taught by bitter experience, have pledged themselves to make of the Society a “miracle club” no longer. The faint-hearted have asked in all ages for signs and wonders, and when these failed to be granted, they refused to believe. Such are not those who will ever comprehend Theosophy pure and simple. But there are others among us who realize intuitionally that the recognition of pure Theosophy—the philosophy of the rational explanation of things and not the tenets—is of the most vital importance in the Society, inasmuch as it alone can furnish the beacon-light needed to guide humanity on its true path.
    This should never be forgotten, nor should the following fact be overlooked. On the day when Theosophy will have accomplished its most holy and most important mission—namely, to unite firmly a body of men of all nations in brotherly love and bent on a pure altruistic work, not on a labour with selfish motives—on that day only will Theosophy become higher than any nominal brotherhood of man. This will be a wonder and a miracle truly, for the realization of which Humanity is vainly waiting for the last 18 centuries, and which every association has hitherto failed to accomplish.
    H.P.B. spoke prophetically in this letter. She wrote also of the awakening interest in Theosophy in England. In addition to Lucifer, H.P.B.’s magazine, English theosophists were supporting a new organization, the Theosophical Publication Society, which was issuing literature for public use—undertaking, as the letter said, “the very necessary work of breaking down the barrier of prejudice and ignorance which has formed

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so great an impediment to the spread of Theosophy.” She wrote also that The Secret Doctrine, her great work for which so many students were waiting impatiently, was now ready for the printer. She ended by expressing her intention of staying in England—”where for the moment the hardest fight against prejudice and ignorance has to be fought”—but added that “much of my hope for Theosophy lies with you in the United States, where the Theosophical Society was founded, and of which country I myself am proud of being a citizen.”
These annual messages to the American theosophists from H.P.B. continued until her death in 1891. Taken together, they form an inspiring manual of Theosophical work and counsel, full of the enthusiasm of the most tireless worker of them all, and pervaded by that practical knowledge of human needs which all true philanthropists must possess. The “five messages” are regarded by most theosophists as a succinct statement of the “lines” of Theosophical work, to be followed carefully in order to make the Theosophical Movement of the greatest possible benefit to the modern world.

                                                                                                 CHAPTER X
                                                                         LUCIFER AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE

MADAME BLAVATSKY had come to England in May, 1887, living for several months in the cottage, “Maycot,” occupied by Mabel Collins. in Norwood. Miss Collins was a psychic. in the sense that many writers are, who in 1885 had published Light on the Path, a devotional manual bearing internal evidence of high spiritual inspiration. She was eager to be of assistance when H.P.B. arrived, and her small cottage was soon transformed into a working center for Theosophy. Three projects were afoot: revision and final preparation for the press of The Secret Doctrine; publication of another Theosophical magazine, Lucifer, which was to be H.P.B.’s own organ of expression, and the formation of an active Lodge for the promulgation of Theosophy in England. Miss Collins’ home was found too small for these extensive undertakings, and in October H.P.B. removed to London, establishing headquarters in a more capacious house at 17 Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill Gate. Countess Wachtmeister arrived from Sweden, bringing two servants to run the household. The two Keightleys, Bertram and Archibald, who had helped to bring H.P.B. to England, were on hand to continue the work of organizing the MS. of The Secret Doctrine.
    Bertram Keightley tells of the formation of the Blavatsky Lodge in his memoir, Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky:
H.P.B. from the day of her arrival at “Maycot” wanted “something done”—something active and more or less public. So we decided—as the London Lodge seemed altogether hopelessly asleep, if not dead—that we would form a new Lodge of the Theosophical Society on our own, and to emphasize our position and by way of nailing our colours to the mast, we decided to take the name of “The Blavatsky Lodge.”
    After a time, the weekly meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge drew a large attendance of those who wished to hear H.P.B. speak on the recondite matters dealt with in The Secret Doctrine. Her answers to questions proposed at these meetings were later published as the Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge and include discussions of abstruse scientific problems as well as her comment on metaphysical profundities. A

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unique value of the Transactions is a long appendix on the subject of Dreams, in which the psychology of dreaming is explained according to the Theosophical philosophy.
    Sheltered, cared for, and aided in her work by her English friends, H.P.B. measurably regained strength, with which she poured new energy into the Theosophical Movement. From May, 1887, she had but four years more to live, but these were years of extraordinary industry and fruitfulness for the Theosophic cause. During this period she completed and published The Secret Doctrine, wrote The Key to Theosophy, The Voice of the Silence, and the Theosophical Glossary. The first issue of Lucifer appeared September 15, 1887. This “Theosophical Monthly” was edited by Madame Blavatsky with the assistance of Mabel Collins, and in it were printed a number of important editorials dealing with contemporary events and social conditions. For Lucifer, H.P.B. wrote her most challenging cornmentaries on modern civilization. Her contributions to the Theosophist had been largely concerned with the philosophy itself and the work of the Movement. Now, in Lucifer, her editorial articles carried the struggle of the Theosophical Movement into “enemy” territory, for they amounted to direct challenges to the bigotry of established religion and were calculated to shock the complacency of the well-to-do classes into an awareness of the moral contradictions in their lives.
    The title of he magazine was alone sufficient to arouse adverse comment, even before the first issue appeared, giving H.P.B. opportunity to expose the identification of “Lucifer” with the “Evil One” as a theological fallacy. The opening editorial provided this explanation:
    Now, the first and most important, if not the sole object of the magazine, is expressed in the line from the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, on its title page. It is to bring light to “the hidden things of darkness” (iv.5); to show in their true aspect and their original real meaning things and names, men and their doings and customs; it is finally to fight prejudice, hypocrisy and shams in every nation, in every class of Society, as in every department of life.      The task is a laborious one but it is neither impracticable nor useless, if even as an experiment.
    Thus, for an attempt of such nature, no better title could ever be found than the one chosen. “Lucifer” is the pale morning-star, the precursor of the full blaze of the noon-day sun— the “Eosphoros” of the Greeks. It shines timidly at dawn to

129————————————————————— H. P. B. AND “LUCIFER”

gather forces and dazzle the eye after sunset as its own brother “Hesperos”—the radiant evening star, or the planet Venus. No fitter symbol exists for the proposed work—that of throwing a ray of truth on everything hidden by the darkness of prejudice, by social or religious misconceptions; especially by that idiotic routine in life, which, once that a certain action, a thing, a name, has been branded by slanderous inventions, however unjust, makes respectable people, so called, turn away shiveringly, refusing to even look at it from any other aspect than the one sanctioned by public opinion. Such an endeavour then, to force the weak-hearted to look truth straight in the face, is helped most efficaciously by a title belonging to the category of branded names.
    The only “sin” of Lucifer, or Satan, H.P.B. pointed out, was his “assertion of free will and independent thought.” The name, Lucifer, means “light-bringer,” and by using it for her magazine H.P.B. threw “the first ray of light and truth on a ridiculous prejudice which ought to have no room made for it in this our ‘age of facts and discovery’.” The readers of Lucifer soon learned that the announced policy of the maga.zine was no rhetorical boast. Its second number began a probing analysis of hypnotism as then practiced in the name of “research.” The cases described showed the unlimited criminal possibilities implied by hypnotic experiments. H.P.B. wrote:
    From the moral standpoint, such processes and suggestions leave an indelible stain upon the purity of the subject’s nature. Even the innocent mind of a ten year old child can thus be inoculated with vice, the poison-germ of which will develop in his subsequent life. . . . Suffice to say that it is this characteristic feature of the hypnotic state—the absolute surrender of will and self-consciousness to the hypnotiser—which possesses such importance, from its bearing upon crime, in the eyes of legal authorities.
    Noting the attempt at control of hypnotism in France, she concluded:
    But the keynote has been struck, and many are the ways in which this black art may be used—laws notwithstanding. That it will be so used, the vile passions inherent in human nature are sufficient guarantee.
    Many and strange will be the romances yet enacted; for truth is often stranger than fiction, and what is thought fiction is still more often truth.
No wonder then that occult literature is growing with every day. Occultism and sorcery are in the air, with no true philosophical knowledge to guide the experimenters and thus check

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evil results. ‘Works of fiction,” the various novels and romances are called. . . . These are no fictions, but true presentiments of what lies in the bosom of the future, and much of which is already born—nay corroborated by scientific experiments. Sign of the times! Close of a psychic cycle! The time for phenomena with, or through mediums, whether professional or otherwise, is gone by. . . . the tree of Occultism is now preparing for “fruiting,” and the Spirit of the Occult is awakening in the blood of the new generations. If the old men only “dream dreams,” the young ones see already visions, and—record them in novels and works of fiction. Woe to the ignorant and the unprepared, and those who listen to the sirens of materialistic science!
    These Lucifer editorials were themselves “visions” into the future, laying the foundation for the self-protection of humanity against the psychic crimes and abuses that would emerge with the maturing of the next cycle of race evolution in the West. The month following this analysis of hypnotism, H.P.B. discussed the difficulties involved in practical philanthropy and social welfare work, bringing the light of Karma and Reincarnation to bear on these questions. The theosophists, she wrote, “cannot pose as a body of philanthropists, though secretly they may adventure on the path of good works. They profess to be a body of learners merely, pledged to help each other and all the rest of humanity, so far as in them lies, to a better understanding of the mystery of life, and to a better knowledge of the peace which lies beyond it.” She continued:
    Schemes for Universal Brotherhood, and the redemption of mankind, might be given out plentifully by the great adepts of life, and would be mere dead-letter utterances while individuals remain ignorant, and unable to grasp the great meanng of their teachers. To Theosophists we say, let us carry out the rules given us for our society before we ask for any further schemes or laws. To the public and our critics we say, try to understand the value of good works before you demand them of others, or enter upon them rashly yourselves. Yet it is an absolute fact that without good works the spirit of brotherhood would die in the world; and this can never be. Therefore is the double activity of learning and doing most necessary; we have to do good, and we have to do it rightly, with knowledge.
    It is well known that the first rule of the society is to carry Out the object of forming the nucleus of a universal brotherhood. The practical working of this rule was explained by those who laid it down, to the following effect:—

131 ————————————————————THE FUNCTION OF “LUCIFER”

“HE WHO DOES NOT PRACTISE ALTRUISM; HE WHO IS NOT
PREPARED TO SHARE HIS LAST MORSEL WITH A WEAKER OR
POORER THAN HIMSELF; HE WHO NEGLECTS TO HELP HIS
BROTHER MAN, OF WHATEVER RACE. NATION OR CREED,
WHENEVER AND WHEREVER HE MEETS SUFFERING, AND WHO TURNS
A DEAF EAR TO THE CRY OF HUMAN MISERY; HE WHO HEARS AN
INNOCENT PERSON SLANDERED, WHETHER A BROTHER THEOSOPHIST
OR NOT, AND DOES NOT UNDERTAKE HIS DEFENSE AS HE
WOULD UNDERTAKE HIS OWN—IS NO THEOSOPHIST.”!

    In December, the fourth number of Lucifer, H.P.B. printed an open letter (written by a contributor) to the Archbishop of Canterbury, examining the pretensions of organized Christianity and inviting the Lord Primate of England to reply. This editorial letter gave evidence to show that “in almost every point the doctrines of the churches and the practices of Christians are in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus.” The Archbishop remained silent, but correspondence elicited by the open letter indicated widespread approval and admiration for the bold course adopted by Lucifer. Fifteen thousand reprints of the article were issued to give general circulation to this challenge to organized religion in England. As a result of the vigorous policy of its editor, Lucifer soon gained circulation among theosophists and others, in both England and the United States. Its finances, however, remained uncertain until a special appeal for help was made. In 1891, less than a month before her death, H.P.B. wrote to the American theosophists thanking them for their support:
    The mention of Lucifer reminds me that the now assured position of that magazine is very largely due to the help rendered at a critical moment by the American Fellows. As my one absolutely unfettered medium of communication with Theosophists all over the World, its continuance was of grave importance to the whole Society. In its pages, month by month, I give such public teaching as is possible on Theosophical doctrines and so carry on the most important of our Theosophical work.
    The vitality brought to the Movement by Lucifer was the climax of developments in Europe that had been under way since H.P.B. left India. Her presence on the Continent resulted in a revival of courage, confidence and action on the part of those who had remained steadfast during the Coulomb charges, the S.P.R. investigation and report, and the attacks on H.P.B.

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and the Society in the press. Work began in Germany and France with fresh interest, and new lodges were formed in addition to the existing ones. Many new fellows entered the Society, some of them persons of considerable reputation. Two new Theosophical periodicals were established, The Sphinx in Germany, and Le Lotus in France. After the removal of H.P.B. to England, additional lodges were formed in Ireland, Scotland and several English cities.
The revival of the Movement during these years was helped appreciably by the work of Mr. Sinnett, who early in 1886 published a strong reply to the S.P.R. Report. Both this and other of his writings in defense of H.P.B. went far to stem the tide of unfavorable press comment growing from the
S.P.R. Report. Publication in the summer of 1886 of his incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky had a further constructive influence. The common sense and pervading sincerity of this book helped the reading public to see H.P.B. as an extraordinary person, but exceedingly human and warmly sympathetic, steadily giving herself, soul, mind, and heart, to the cause that was sacred to her. She appears, in its pages, as a good-natured, unrevengeful fighter, undismayed by the mountains of hatred and calumny heaped upon her, and one whose personal life was filled with astonishing phenomena and ever-present elements of the mysterious. The incidents created a profound impression far and wide, turning to good account the curiosity aroused by the adverse report of the S.P.R. and bringing many into the ranks of the Society.
The Secret Doctrine, on which Madame Blavatsky had been laboring for years, appeared in December, 1888. The first edition, of 500 copies, was immediately exhausted and succeeding editions were printed to satisfy the demand for this epoch-making work. Its two volumes, totalling some 1,500 pages, placed the Theosophical philosophy on record in systematic form. The first volume deals with Cosmogenesis, the second with Anthropogenesis. Here, for the first time in the history of Western thought, was a work which dealt exhaustively with the problem of physical and human origins from a viewpoint which included both religion and science. In form, The Secret Doctrine was an extended commentary on the Stanzas of an extremely ancient treatise—the “Book of Dzyan.”

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The Stanzas are presented as forming the occult history of the earth, and are followed by H.P.B.’s explanation of their meaning. The symbolism of the great religions of the world is shown to have originated in the archaic teachings of the Book of Dzyan, and discoveries by modern science are interpreted in the light of the same spiritual doctrines.
    Madame Blavatsky was under no illusion as to the reception that would be accorded her work by the world of learning. In the section entitled “Introductory,” she referred to certain secret records of Eastern Adepts as the source of her teachings. The founders of all the great religions, she said, “were all transmitters, not original teachers.” All drank at the same fountain of spiritual inspiration:
    They were the authors of new forms and interpretations, while the truths upon which the latter were based were as old as mankind. Selecting one or more of those grand verities—actualities visible only to the eye of the real Sage and Seer—out of the many orally revealed to man in the beginning, preserved and perpetuated in the adyta of the temples through initiation, during the MYSTERIES and by personal transmission—they revealed these truths to the masses. Thus every nation received in its turn some of the said truths, under the veil of its own local and special symbolism;
Speaking of herself as author, Madame Blavatsky says:
    she now transmits that which she has received and learnt herself to all those who will accept it. As to those who may reject her testimony,—i.e., the great majority—she will bear them no malice, for they will be as right in their way in denying, as she is right in hers in affirming, since they look at TRUTH from two entirely different stand-points. Agreeably with the rules of critical scholarship, the Orientalist has to reject a priori whatever evidence he cannot fully verify for himself. And how can a Western scholar accept on hearsay that which he knows nothing about? Indeed, that which is given in these volumes is selected from oral, as much as from written teachings. This first instalment of the esoteric doctrines is based upon Stanzas, which are the records of a people unknown to ethnology; it is claimed that they are written in a tongue absent from the nomenclature of languages and dialects with which philology is acquainted; they are said to emanate from a source (Occultism) repudiated by science; and, finally, they are offered through an agency, incessantly discredited before the world by all those who hate unwelcome truths, or have some special hobby of their

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own to defend. Therefore, the rejection of these teachings may be expected, and must be accepted beforehand. No one styling himself a “scholar,” in whatever department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these teachings seriously. They will be derided and rejected a priori in this century; but only in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era scholars will begin to recognize that the Secret Doctrine has neither been invented nor exaggerated, but, on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally, that its teachings antedate the Vedas.
    This is no pretension to prophecy, but simply a statement based on the knowledge of facts. Every century an attempt is made to show the world that Occultism is no vain superstition. Once the door [is] permitted to be kept a little ajar, it will be opened wider with every new century. The times are ripe for a more serious knowledge than hitherto permitted, though still very limited, so far.”
    Madame Blavatsky was never devious as to her own basic position when appealing to the world for a hearing. She stated openly that she was the pupil—and representative—of wise men, hidden from the rest of the world, whom she called Adepts. Willing to use Western methods of scholarship whenever possible, she never rested her case on scholarly apparatus. She acknowledged the basis for learned skepticism toward the Theosophical teachings, according to technical standards of research, but she herself rejected academic limitations in the search for truth and invited her readers to do likewise. Science, religion, philosophy, all figure in her writings, but, essentially, she was neither scientist, religionist nor philosopher; she was one who gave to the world fundamental moral teachings to be judged on their merits by each man for himself. Her Preface concludes:
    It is needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in its entirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets, special attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon by various writers, and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.
    But it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into

135———————————————————H. P. B. AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE

their original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised.
    It is more than probable that the book will be regarded by a large section of the public as a romance of the wildest kind; for who has ever even heard of the book of Dzyan?
    The writer, therefore, is fully prepared to take all the responsibility for what is contained in this work, and even to face the charge of having invented the whole of it. That it has many shortcomings she is fully aware; all that she claims for it is that, romantic as it may seem to many, its logical coherence and consistency entitle this new Genesis to rank, at any rate, on a level with the working hypotheses” so freely accepted by modern science. Further, it claims consideration, not by reason of any appeal to dogmatic authority, but because it closely adheres to Nature, and follows the laws of uniformity and analogy.
    The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not “a fortuitous concurrence of atoms,” and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization.
    If this is in any degree accomplished, the writer is content. It is written in the service of humanity, and by humanity and the future generations it must be judged. Its author recognizes no inferior court of appeal. Abuse she is accustomed to; calumny she is daily acquainted with; at slander she smiles in silent con tempt H.P.B.
    The title of this work, “The Secret Doctrine,” gave deliberate prominence to an idea which has pervaded every expression of the Theosophical Movement throughout human history. It was H.P.B. ‘s declaration of the reality of esoteric teachings. Jesus, when asked by his disciples why he spoke to the multitude in parables, answered: “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” Similarly, the wise among the ancient Greeks were “initiates” into the Mysteries—those entitled to receive from the hierophants the secret teachings handed down from generation to generation of adepts. Every great religion bears evidence of occult or hidden lore, explained only to the few. To call attention to the idea of occultism and to identify the contents of her work as in large

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part an exposition of hitherto secret teachings, Madame Blavatsky employed a title that described precisely the book she had written.
By the year 1888, the conception of secret or esoteric teachings was by no means new to members of the Theosophical Society. In the revised Rules and By-Laws published in the Theosophist for April, 1880, it was announced that “The Society consists of three sections”— The highest or First Section is composed exclusively of proficients or initiates in Esoteric Science and Philosophy, who take a deep interest in the Society’s affairs.
    The Second Section embraces such Theosophists as have proved by their fidelity, zeal, and courage, and their devotion to the Society, that they have become able to regard all men as equally their brothers, irrespective of caste, colour, race, or creed; and who are ready to defend the life or honour of a brother Theosophist even at the risk of their own lives.
    The administration of the superior Sections need not be dealt with at present in a code of rules laid before the public. No responsibilities, connected with these superior grades, are incurred by persons who merely desire ordinary membership of the third class.
    The Third is the Section of Probationers. All new Fellows are on probation, until their purpose to remain in the Society has become fixed, their usefulness shown, and their ability to conquer evil habits and unwarrantable prejudices demonstrated. In the years following 1880, H.P.B. printed in the Theosophist several articles which described the qualifications for discipleship and set forth the laws of accelerated spiritual evolution to which all disciples must conform. Long known in India, the term “chela” gradually became familiar to European and American theosophists, as indicating the special relationship existing between the aspirant to occult knowledge and his adept teacher. An early discussion of this subject, “Chelas and Lay Chelas,” provided students with definitions and amplifications:
A “Chela,” ... is one who has offered himself or herself as a pupil to learn practically the “hidden mysteries of Nature and the psychical powers latent in man.” The spiritual teacher to whom he proposes his candidature is called in India a Guru. and the real Guru is always an Adept in the Occult Science. A man of profound knowledge, exoteric and esoteric, especially the latter; and one who has brought his carnal nature under sub-

137—————————————————————ORDEALS OF CHELASHIP

jection of the WILL; who has developed in himself both the power (Siddhi) to control the forces of nature, and the capacity to probe her secrets by the help of the formerly latent but now active powers of his being:—this is the real Guru. To offer oneself as a candidate for Chelaship is easy enough, to develop into an Adept, the most difficult task any man could possibly undertake. There are scores of “natural-born” poets, mathematicians, mechanics, statesmen, etc., but a natural-born Adept is something practically impossible. For, though we do hear at very rare intervals of one who has an extraordinary innate capacity for the acquisition of occult knowledge and power, yet even he has to pass the self-same tests and probations, and go through the same self-training as any less endowed fellow aspirant. In this matter it is most true that there is no royal road by which favorites may travel.
For centuries the selection of Chelas—outside the hereditary group within the gon-pa (temple)_has been made by the Himalayan Mahatmas themselves from among the class—in Tibet, a considerable one as to number—of natural mystics. The only exceptions have been in the cases of Western men like Fludd, Thomas Vaughn, Paracelsus, Pico di Mirandola, Count St. Germain, etc., whose temperamental affinity to this celestial science more or less forced the distant Adepts to come into personal relations with them, and enabled them to get such small (or large) proportion of the whole truth as was possible under their social surroundings.
Madame Blavatsky then gave seven qualifications for chelaship—requirements so exacting as to seem to make it quite impossible for an ordinary Westerner to hope for acceptance. She added, however, that “since the advent of the Theosophical Society, one of whose arduous tasks it was to re-awaken in the Aryan mind the dormant memory of the existence of this science and of those transcendent human capabilities, the rules of Chela selection have become slightly relaxed in one respect.” Some members of the Theosophical Society were permitted to pledge themselves as chelas. The results, far from encouraging, led H.P.B. to publish this article of clarification and warning. She wrote to explain the numerous failures among the chelas and lay chelas (married individuals) of European descent:
Now there is a terrible law operative in nature, one which cannot be altered, and whose operation clears up the apparent mystery of the selection of certain “Chelas” who have turned out sorry specimens of morality, these few years past. Does

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the reader recall the old proverb, “Let sleeping dogs lie”? There is a world of occult meaning in it. No man or woman knows his or her moral strength until it is tried. Thousands go through life very respectably, because they were never put to the pinch. This is a truism doubtless, but it is most pertinent to the present case. One who undertakes to try for Chelaship by that very act rouses and lashes to desperation every sleeping passion of his animal nature. For this is the commencement of a struggle for the mastery in which quarter is neither to be given nor taken. It is, once for all, “To be, or Not to be”; to conquer, means ADEPTSHIP; to fail, an ignoble Martyrdom; for to fall victim to lust, pride, avarice, vanity, selfishness, cowardice, or any other of the lower propensities, is indeed ignoble, if measured by the standard of true manhood. The Chela is not only called upon to face all the latent evil propensities of his nature, but, in addition, the whole volume of maleficent power accumulated by the community and nation to which he belongs. For he is an integral part of those aggregates, and what affects either the individual man, or the group (town or nation) reacts upon the other. And in this instance his struggle for goodness jars upon the whole body of badness in his environment, and draws its fury upon him. If he is content to go along with his neighbours and be almost as they are—perhaps a little better or somewhat worse than the average no one may give him a thought. But let it be known that be has been able to detect the hollow mockery of social life, its hypocrisy, selfishness, sensuality, cupidity and other bad features, and has determined to lift himself up to a higher level, at once he is hated, and every bad, or bigoted, or malicious nature sends at him a current of opposing will power. If he is innately strong be shakes it off, as the powerful swimmer dashes through the current that would bear a weaker one away. But in this moral battle, if the Chela has one single hidden blemish—do what he may, it shall and will be brought to light. The varnish of conventionalities which “civilization” overlays us all with must come off to the last coat, and the Inner Self, naked and without the slightest veil to conceal its reality, is exposed.’
This was the ordeal which over-ardent theosophists were inviting upon themselves, by insisting that they be accepted as “chelas” to the Theosophical adepts. As the failures increased, it became evident that the average Westerner had no conception of the seriousness of this first step upon the path of practical occultism. Warnings such as “Chelas and Lay Chelas” appeared frequently in the Theosophical publications, until, in the course of time, some glimmering realization

139————————————————————FORMATION OF ESOTERIC SECTION

of the true meaning of discipleship was gained by the more intuitive members of the Society. Then, in 1888, in the October number of Lucifer, the following announcement appeared:
    Owing to the fact that a large number of Fellows of the Society have felt the necessity for the formation of a body of Esoteric students. to be organized on the ORIGINAL LINES devised by the real founders of the T. S., the following order has been issued by the President-Founder:—

I.     To promote the esoteric interests of the Theosophical Society by the deeper study of esoteric philosophy, there is hereby organized a body, to     be known as the ‘Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society.”
II.     The constitution and sole direction of the same is vested in Madame H. P. Blavatsky, as its Head; she is solely responsible to the Members for results; and the section has no official or corporate connection with the Exoteric Society save in the person of the President-Founder.
III.     Persons wishing to join the Section, and willing to abide by its rules, should communicate directly with :—Mme. H. P. BLAVATSKY,
57 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park, London, W.
                                                                                                               (signed) H. S. OLC0TT
Attest:—H. P. BLAVATSKY                                                                                  President in Council

    With the formation of the Esoteric Section, a new influence began to make itself felt in Theosophical history. While little was printed in the Theosophical journals concerning the Section—all its activities being carried on under strict pledge of secrecy—the effect of this new organization was to consolidate the energies and devotion of the most ardent members of the Society, with obvious benefits to the work of the Movement. As head of the Section, H.P.B. was freed of organizational procedures in her relations with esoteric students, whom she regarded as her pupils, and she gave such private teachings to them as would serve the cycle of inner development they were undergoing. In December, 1888, Madame Blavatsky wrote to one of her correspondents:
    “The Esoteric Section is to be a School for earnest Theosophists who would learn more (than they can from published works) of the true Esoteric tenets. . . . There is no room for despotism or ruling in it; no money to pay or make; no glory for me, but a series of misconceptions, slanders, suspicions, and ingratitude in almost an immediate future: but if out of the...

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Theosophists who have already pledged themselves I can place on the right and true path half a dozen or so, I will die happy. Many are called, few are chosen. Unless they comply with the lines you speak of, traced originally by the Masters, they cannot succeed. [The person to whom she was writing had quoted the Simla letter in The Occult World, extracts from which appear in Chapter V of this volume.) I can only show the way to those whose eyes are open to the truth, whose souls are full of altruism, charity, and love for the whole creation, and who think of themselves last. . . . The Esoteric Section is not of the earth, earthy; it does not interfere with the exoteric administration of Lodges; takes no stock in external Theosophy; has no officers or staff; needs no halls or meeting rooms. . . . Finally, it requires neither subscription fees nor money, for ‘as I have not so received it, I shall not so impart it,’ and that I would rather starve in the gutter than take one penny for my teaching the sacred truths.
While Olcott issued the public announcement of the Esoteric Section, it was William Q. Judge, in America, who had urged H.P.B. to bring it into being. Immediately after the formation of the American Section of the Theosophical Society, in April, 1887, Judge wrote to H.P.B.: “So many people are beginning to ask me to be Chelas that I must do something. . . . I know a good many good ones who will do well and who will form a rock on which the enemy will founder.”
A year or so later, Mr. Judge went to London and there, at the request of H.P.B., he drew up the plans and wrote the rules for the guidance of the forthcoming esoteric section. In the meantime, both Lucifer and the Path, since 1887, and before, had been printing articles concerned with chelaship. “Practical Occultism,” which appeared in Lucifer for April, 1888, gave the “rules” of the Eastern school of occultism, and, in the month following, “Occultism versus the Occult Arts” stressed the dangers of impure chelaship and the appalling consequences of using for selfish ends the powers gained by occult training. Mr. Judge, in his turn, contributed “Living the Higher Life” to the Path for July and August, 1886. In March, 1887, he printed “Considerations on Magic,” an article among the most powerful of all his writings, dealing with the gravity of undertaking the study of practical occultism. “To Aspirants for Chelaship,” Path, July, 1888, contains

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counsel for those desiring to come into more direct contact with the Theosophical adepts. The quality of his writing on this subject may be seen in a passage from “Occultism: What Is It?” appearing in the Path for May, 1890:
    Not only in the Theosophical Society, but out of it, are tyros in Occultism. They are dabblers in a fine art, a mighty science, an almost impenetrable mystery. The motives that bring them to the study are as various as the number of individuals engaged in it, and as hidden from even themselves as is the centre of the earth from the eye of science. Yet the motive is more important than any other factor.
    These dilettanti in this science have always been abroad. No age or country has been without them, and they have left after them many books—of no particular value. Those of today are making them now, for the irresistible impulse of vanity drives them to collate the more or less unsound hypotheses of their predecessors, which, seasoned with a proper dash of mystery, are put forth to the crowd of those who would fain acquire wisdom at the cost-price of a book. Meanwhile the world of real occultists smiles silently, and goes on with the laborious process of sifting out the living germs from the masses of men. For occultists must be found and fostered and prepared for coming ages when power will be needed and pretension will go for nothing.
     Any estimate formed of the occult position of William Q. Judge—or of any one else—in the Theosophical Movement must be based on evidence inherent in his life and works. From 1875 until the present day, there have been many claims and counter-claims to occult or spiritual “authority,” leading to a great confusion in the public mind regarding Theosophy, and a still greater confusion among Theosophical students themselves. If those calling themselves theosophists had followed the example of Madame Blavatsky and made no claims at all, but simply relied upon the inherent merit of the philosophy they taught—its appeal to reason and analogy, to natural law—the question of “occult status” and “apostolic succession” in the Theosophical Movement would never have arisen. The viewpoint adopted in the present volume is that a comparison of the writings and activities of Mr. Judge with those of Madame Blavatsky is quite sufficient to show that he was in fact her true colleague in an occult sense, even as she declared him to be on several occasions.

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It is important for the reader to clarify his own view of this question, for the reason that, after the death of H.P.B. serious differences arose between Olcott and Judge, ending, finally, in a split in the Society. The basis for understanding this phase of Theosophical history lies in an extended investigation of the contributions to and influence upon the Theosophical Movement of both Olcott and Judge. Judge, for example, was the one whom H.P.B. called upon to assist her in the formation of the Esoteric Section. She had written to Olcott in July, 1886, from Ostend, recommending that such a step be taken in India. “You ought,” she said to him, “to form an inner occult group among yourselves. I tell you, Olcott, without the Mahatma and occult element you will not have such devoted fellows as . . . Damodar and a few others.” Olcott, however, ignored this advice.
Although, a year after the formation of the E.S., H.P.B. appointed Olcott as her “confidential agent and sole official representative of the Esoteric Section for Asiatic countries,” he remained apart in spirit from the esoteric aspect of the Movement. In Old Diary Leaves, Fourth Series, Olcott ungraciously explained his reason for making the official announcement of the E.S. read that H.P.B. is “solely responsible to the members for results.” “The reason,” he said, “for my throwing the whole responsibility for results upon H.P.B. was that she had already made one failure in this direction at Adyar in 1884, when she, with T. Subba Rao, Oakley, Damodar, and others, tried to organize a secret class or group, whose members were to have been brought more closely into relations with the Masters, but which failed, and I did not care to be responsible for the fulfilment of any special engagements she might make with the new set of students she was now gathering about her, in her disturbed state of mind.” He went on to say that he had helped H.P.B. prepare some of her occult teachings, and that when he found those who entered the E.S. “were satisfied with what they were getting,” he “took a more decided stand in the matter....” His personal attitude, throughout, however, was that of a reluctant participant, chiefly concerned with guarding the exoteric Society against “undue influence” from the members of the Esoteric Section.

BY 1889, despite the numerous obstacles in its path, the Theosophical Movement had gained such headway that the word “Theosophy” was part of the vocabulary of every intelligent person. The Theosophical Society was established in every civilized country and in every large city. The work was expanding in both England and America, and three Theosophical magazines provided ample material for reading and study. It was during this and the following year that Madame Blavatsky sustained another vicious attack upon her character.
On May 11, 1889, the Religio-Philosophical Journal, a leading Spiritualist publication of Chicago, printed a letter from Prof. Elliott Coues embodying a letter to him from Miss Mabel Collins, the young woman in whose house H.P.B. lived upon first arriving in England in 1887. The Coues-Collins letters, and other communications from the same source in later issues of the Religio-Philosophical Journal, made grave charges against H.P.B. The gist of Miss Collins’ claim was that she had been persuaded by H.P.B. to write Prof. Coues that one of the Theosophical adepts had dictated the text of Light on the Path to her. She now denied this to be the fact and told Coues that her original statement had been made “merely to please” Madame Blavatsky. In brief, Mabel Collins sought to damage H.P.B.’s reputation by exactly the same means as those adopted by Madame Coulomb—by “confessing” that she had collaborated with H.P.B. in a Theosophical “hoax.”
Elliot Coues, who used Miss Collins in his attempted exposé, was a man of some standing in scientific and literary circles. His education and cultivation were sufficient to secure him an invitation to edit that portion of the Century Dictionary dealing with his specialties. His multifarious interests led him, early in the 80’s, to conduct psychic experiments, and he soon became a member of the London Society for Psychical Research. While in London during the summer of 1884, he met

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Col. Olcott and joined the Theosophical Society. Olcott, impressed by Coues’ background and obvious capabilities as a writer and speaker, appointed him a member of the American Board of Control, of which, in the course of time, he was elected chairman. Prof. Coues organized the “Gnostic” branch of the Society in Washington, D.C., a body which seems to have served principally as a sounding board for its founder and presiding officer.
By 1886, it was evident that the Board of Control, originally established by Col. Olcott at Mr. Judge’s request in order to avoid delays in official routine, was in the hands of Prof. Coues a mere exchange of the paternal autocracy of Col. Olcott for the arbitrary autocracy of Prof. Coues. Judge’s request for an American Section resulted in a plan, sent by Olcott from India, for the absorption of the Board of Control by the General Council of the American Section. Apparently disliking this development, Coues returned to Washington and issued an announcement headed, “American Board of Control—Office of the President,” declaring that the Occult Word, a magazine published in Rochester by Mrs. J. W. Cables and William T. Brown—both known to be disaffected with the Society—would henceforth be “the official organ of the American Board of Control of the Theosophical Society.” A few months later both Mrs. Cables and Mr. Brown broke openly with the Society, to return to the fold of “the Master, Jesus.” Later in the year, Olcott issued his official order for the formation of the American Section of the Theosophical Society, and the first convention of the new Section was held in New York in April, 1887.
Meantime, a “lively interchange of letters,” as Olcott phrased it in Old Diary Leaves, was going on, not only between H.P.B. and Col. Olcott over the threatening breach between them on matters of policy and the forthcoming Esoteric Section, but as well among Prof. Coues, Mr. Judge, Col. Olcott, and H.P.B. concerning affairs in America. Olcott, doubtless, found himself sympathetic to elements of the position assumed by Coues. In a letter to the latter, Olcott spoke condescendingly about H.P.B.’s telegraphic request that he “abolish the Board of Control,” saying that he (Olcott) would “neither ratify what she has done, nor anything of the

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sort she may in future do.” With encouragement of this sort from the President-Founder, and well informed of the critical feelings of Mr. Sinnett toward H.P.B., Coues probably thought he could successfully effect a change in the leadership of the Society in America and win all the disaffected to his support. Audacious as well as clever, he was writing in one strain to Col. Olcott, in another to H.P.B., and in a third to Judge. But like so many others, he was entirely unaware that H.P.B. and Judge, working together as one, made no important moves without mutual consultation, nor ever wrote letters on moot Theosophical matters without supplying each other with copies. It appears evident, also, that Coues supposed the occultism of both H.P.B. and Judge to be either some form of mediumship or simply spurious.
Coues’ own methods received some special publicity in the Chicago Tribune following the Chicago Convention of the American Section in 1888. Without disclosing the source of its “news,” the Tribune published the text and facsimile of an alleged “message from a Mahatma” to Prof. Coues. Judge wrote to Coues about the affair, and in his reply Coues tacitly admitted he had released the story to the press. In another letter, he accused Judge of standing in the way of his advancement in the Society. His correspondence with H.P.B. included one letter urging her to use her influence to have him elected President of the American Section. The height of his egotism was reached in a letter dated April 17, 1889, in which he said to H.P.B.:
do you know you are getting great discredit in this country and for what do you suppose? for being jealous of me! . . You are not moved by abuse, but you want to know how people think and what they say, and a great many are talking loudly and wildly, that your silence respecting my books in the ‘Secret Doctrine,” and the absence of my name from “Lucifer” (as well as from ‘The Path”) means that you are afraid of my growing power.
Failing entirely to enlist H.P.B.’s support, Coues remained absent from the 1889 convention, held later that month, and soon after he received from her a letter in which she dealt patiently but plainly with his claims and behavior, and added:
“You speak of your earnestness ‘to defend and help a woman who has been sadly persecuted, because misunderstood.’ Permit

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me to say to you for the last time that no bitterest enemy of mine has ever misunderstood me as you do
    In May, after his hopes for the Presidency of the American Section had been dashed, Coues gave his letter containing Mabel Collins’ “confession” to the Religio-Philosophical Journal. The June 1 issue contained additional correspondence attacking H.P.B. In England, a similar campaign raged, the Spiritualist journal, Light, repeating the charges first published in the United States. Prof. Coues also found an ally in a renegade theosophist, Michael Angelo Lane, who had been exposed as a carrier of slanderous tales about Madame Blavatsky.
    Coues based his charges against H.P.B. on an unsigned and undated note from Mabel Collins which he claimed she sent him in 1885, in response to his inquiry to her concerning the authorship of Light on the Path. This note, which Coues published in the Religio-Philosophical Journal for June 1, read as follows:
    The writer of “The Gates of Gold” is Mabel Collins, who had it as well as “Light on the Path” and the “Idyll of the White Lotus” dictated to her by one of the adepts of the group which through Madame Blavatsky first communicated with the Western world. The name of this inspirer cannot be given, as the personal names of the Masters have already been sufficiently desecrated.
    Prof. Coues asserted that after receiving this answer to his question on Light on the Path, he had no further word from Miss Collins until May 2, 1889, when her letter “recanting” the above explanation arrived. With her cabled permission to publish this second letter, Coues rushed into print in the Religio, thinking he had proved H.P.B. a fraud.
    Actually, he only convicted himself of slandering H.P.B., since she had refused to further his ambition to be President of the American Section of the Society. In saying that he had received the above brief note from Mabel Collins in 1885, he inadvertently revealed that he was “building a case” against H.P.B., for The Gates of Gold was not written until 1826, and was published early in 1887. The Idyll of the White Lotus was written before Mabel Collins ever met H.P.B., and Miss Collins had told several persons how it had been “inspired.” The first edition of the Idyll was published with the dedica-

147—————————————————————CLAIMS OF MABEL COLLINS

tion, “To the True Author, the Inspirer of this work.” A note in the Theosophist for March, 1885, written by Bertram Keightley, reports that the writing of the Idyll commenced in 1877, and that the work was resumed by Miss Collins after she had been treated for a serious illness by Col. Olcott. To his kindness and encouragement she attributed in large part “the successful restoration of her interrupted communication with the adept who bad inspired the book.”
    The claim in 1889 that H.P.B. “dictated” Mabel Collins’ answer to Coues’ alleged inquiry of 1885 was transparently an invention, for Miss Collins had previously let it be widely known that she believed her inspirer to be a member of the occult brotherhood. After the Coues-Collins charges had been printed in Light, H.P.B. contributed a letter to that journal, observing:
    “When I met her [Mabel Collins] she had just completed the Idyll of the White Lotus, which, as she stated to Col. Olcott, had been dictated to her by some ‘mysterious person.’ Guided by her description, we both recognized an old friend of ours, a Greek, and no Mahatma, though an Adept; further developments proving we were right. This fact, acknowledged by . . . her dedication of the Idyll, sets aside the idea that the work was either inspired or dictated by Koot Hoomi or any other Mahatma.”
    H.P.B. did not circulate the story that one of the Theosophical Mahatmas—her own Teachers, and the correspondents of Sinnett and Hume—was the inspirer of Light on the Path. And not until Mabel Collins had met the theosophists, and had told them of her psychic experiences, did she have any idea of the nature of the personage from whom she received these elevating communications. All she was able to say was that they came from some “mysterious person.” That this was her impression regarding the source of the Idyll was well known to all the members of Sinnett’s London Lodge in 1885. But in her “confession” to Coues, she claimed that H.P.B. had “begged and implored” her to say that Light on the Path had come from “one of the Masters who guide Madame Blavatsky.” She then asserted to Coues that she had lied to him in her first letter, that Light on the Path “was not inspired by anyone,” but that she “saw it written on the walls of a place I visit spiritually

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     H.P.B., commenting on the dedication of the Idyll, had this to say:
    Was the dedication invented, and a Master and inspirer” suggested by [Mme. Blavatsky] before the latter had ever seen his amanuensis
[Mabel Collins]? For that only she proclaims herself in her dedication, by speaking of the “true author,” who thus must be regarded as some kind of Master, at all events. Moreover, heaps of letters may be produced all written between 1872 and 1884, and signed ∆: the well-known seal of one who became an adept only in 1886. Did Mme. Blavatsky send to “Miss Mabel Collins” this signature, when neither knew of the other’s existence ?
    As the evidence piled up, showing Mabel Collins to be the “fraud” rather than H.P.B., the former’s sister wrote to Light saying that Miss Collins was too ill to speak for herself, but that she would reply in “a few days.” Months passed, but Miss Collins made no statement. In the meantime, pamphlets by Judge and H.P.B., and statements by the two Keightleys, both of whom had been intimately acquainted with Miss Collins in 1887, proved beyond doubt the baseless character of the Coues-Collins charges. Prof. Coues was thoroughly exposed. The charter of the Gnostic branch of the Society was revoked and Coues was expelled from membership.
    Mabel Collins brought suit against H.P.B. for libel in London in 1890. When the case came up for trial, in July, a certain letter written by Miss Collins was shown by H.P.B. ‘s attorney to the counsel for Miss Collins, who thereupon asked the Court to take the case off the docket, which was done.
    It will be recalled that Mabel Collins began as co-editor of Lucifer with H.P.B. in September, 1887, when that magazine first appeared. With the issue of February 15, 1889, the name of Mabel Collins disappeared from the magazine. No explanation was offered for this change, either in Lucifer, or by Miss Collins, who retired into privacy until her letter to Prof. Coues appeared in the Religio-Philosophical Journal in May. Some time later it became known that Miss Collins had pleaded with H.P.B. to accept her in the Esoteric Section, but that H.P.B. was reluctant to do so. She was finally placed on probation, and within four days, in the words of H.P.B., she “broke her vows, becoming guilty of the blackest treachery and disloyalty to her HIGHER SELF. And when I could no

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longer keep in the E.S. either herself or her friend, the two convulsed the whole Society with their calumnies and falsehoods.”
    The question naturally provoked by these events is, How could Mabel Collins have been chosen as the channel for high spiritual teachings, when the defects in her character were so great? First of all, her case gives emphasis to the difference between psychic and spiritual development. To be “psychic” is merely to be sensitive to impressions at a subtle level of perception, making possible the phenomena of clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-transference, and the like. This capacity Mabel Collins undoubtedly possessed. In addition, her egoic affinities must have been such as to allow her to be the recipient of psychic communications from an Adept—a fact that rests upon the internal evidence of Light on the Path. But psychic sensitivity may or may not be allied with moral stability. In many, many cases, a strong moral nature is precisely what is lacking in the psychic, for the reason that vanity —pride in a “gift” not manifested in the ordinary man—tends to make the psychic individual intensely personal, vain, and prone to acts of impulsive egotism.
    In the perspective of the Theosophical teaching, it appears that Mabel Collins had in past incarnations allowed herself to drift into mediumistic habits, at the same time maintaining some connection with the adepts of the occult school. During the nineteenth-century cycle of the Theosophical Movement, she had, perhaps, an opportunity to recover her balance and to return to the disciplined life of an aspirant on the path of adeptship. The philosophic treatise for which she was the instrument of transmission could have been itself the best corrective for her personal weaknesses, for Light on the Path is peculiarly addressed to those in whom psychic tendencies are strong. She was, therefore, in a position to help, not only others of similar nature, by affording a channel for publication of this book, but also to gain help from it herself. Her failure and its train of ugly consequences illustrate the dangers in any attempt to “mix” psychic and mediumistic practices with occult aspirations.
    Expelled from the Society and discredited among theosophists, Prof. Coues plotted revenge upon H.P.B. He used

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his scientific reputation to gain access to the pages of the New York Sun, where, in the form of an interview with him as a staff member of the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, he spread the most complete set of libelous statements and innuendoes ever directed at Madame Blavatsky. The attack began with a preliminary editorial in the Sun for June I, 1890. The editorial writer calls Theosophy a “humbug religion” and claims that Prof. Coues “showed up the lying and trickery of the Blavatsky woman after having been one of her dupes for several years.” The rest of the editorial is in this vein. In the Sunday edition of July 20, the Sun printed a full-page feature interview with Prof. Coues, entitled, “The history of a Humbug,” in which he accused H.P.B. of immorality, fraud, plagiarism, and systematic deception of her followers.
    The Coues interview fills seven closely printed columns of small type. The charges made and the alleged evidence procured by Prof. Coues ostensibly exposed the facts of H.P.B.’s career from 1857 onward. They include virtually every one of the multitude of attacks, before and since, upon H.P.B. and Theosophy. On the statements of D. D. Home, the medium, and of W. Emmette Coleman (a writer of malicious slanders against H.P.B. in the Religio-Philosophical Journal), Prof. Coues charged H.P.B. with having been one of the demi-monde of Paris in 1857-58, and mistress of a Russian nobleman by whom, he asserted, she bore a deformed son who later died. Besides these and similar lies concerning her private life, Coues turned the events of Theosophical history to his purpose, quoting Hodgson’s S.P.R. Report and other assaults upon H.P.B.’s character. Judge, also, was the object of attack, he being represented as Madame Blavatsky’s tool.
    Following the Sun articles, Mr. Judge in The Path for August, 1890, advised all whom it might concern that he had brought suit for libel. Manifestly he had done this only for the protection of the Society and the good name of H.P.B., and to head off similar attacks in other publications, for he himself had been mentioned only incidentally and as rather dupe and tool than arch deceiver, and the same as to Col. Olcott. In his notice Mr. Judge made the significant statement:
    The animus of the writer is so plainly disclosed that it might well serve as an ample answer to the attack. Inasmuch, however,

151————————————————————— H.P.B. SUES FOR LIBEL

as certain moral charges cannot be permitted utterance with impunity, I have brought suit for libel . . . and am awaiting instructions from Madame Blavatsky as to her own course.
    In The Path for September, 1890, is printed a letter from Madame Blavatsky whose tone and spirit is in shining contrast with the course and animus of her calumniators. The letter reads:
    While I fully agree to the proposition that we should forgive our enemies, yet I do not thereby lose “my appeal unto Caesar,” and in that appeal, which is now made to the Law and not to the Emperor, I may keep the command to forgive, while for the protection of the name of a dead friend and the security in the future of Theosophists, I hale into the Courts of the land those who, having no sense of what is right or just, see fit to publish broadcast wicked and unfounded slanders.
    For some fifteen years I have calmly stood by and seen my good name assailed by newspaper gossips who delight to dwell upon the personal peculiarities of those who are well known, and have worked on for the spread of our Theosophical ideas, feeling confident that, though I might be assailed by small minds who try their best to bring me into reproach, the Society which I helped to found would withstand the attacks, and, indeed, grow under them. This latter has been the case. It may be asked by some members why I have never replied to those attacks which were directed against Occultism and phenomena. For two reasons: Occultism will remain forever, no matter how assailed, and Occult phenomena can never he proved in a Court of Law during this century. Besides, I have never given public currency to any of the latter, but have always objected to the giving out of things the profane cannot understand.
     But now a great metropolitan daily in New York, with no knowledge of the facts in the case, throws broadcast before the public many charges against me, the most of which meet their refutation in my life for over a decade. But as one of them reflects strongly upon my moral character and brings into disrepute the honorable name of a dead man, an old family friend, it is impossible for me to remain silent, and so I have directed my lawyers in New York to bring an action against the New York Sun for libel.
     This paper accuses me of being a member of the demi-monde in ‘58 and ‘68 and of having improper relations with Prince Emile Wittgenstein, by whom the paper says I had an illegitimate son.
    The first part of the charge is so ridiculous as to arouse laughter, but the second and third hold others up to reprobation. Prince Wittgenstein, now dead, was an old friend of my

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family, whom I saw for the last time when I was eighteen years old, and he and his wife remained until his death in close correspondence with me. He was a cousin of the late Empress of Russia, and little thought that upon his grave would be thrown the filth of a modern New York newspaper. This insult to him and to me I am bound by all the dictates of my duty to repel, and am also obliged to protect the honor of all Theosophists who guide their lives by the teachings of Theosophy; hence my appeal to the Law and to a jury of my fellow Americans. I gave up my allegiance to the Czar of Russia in the hope that America would protect her citizens; may that hope not prove vain !—H.P.B.

At the time, the Sun was perhaps the most widely circulated and influential of American newspapers. It had at its command every resource of ability, influence, and money, and it is not to be supposed that it was unfamiliar with the technicalities of the New York State laws relating to libel or the difficulties in the way of any one who might try to obtain a verdict against it in such a suit. It had but to establish in court its own good faith and prove or show reasonable cause for belief in and circulation of a single one of its major charges, and the whole history of American jurisprudence in similar cases showed that it would be acquitted. But one thing favored the suit of H.P.B.: the fact that this time, quite the contrary of the Coulomb charges, the S.P.R. report, and the numerous prior attacks upon her and her mission—this time the charges were direct, made as statements of fact, not of opinion, hearsay, conclusion, inference, or innuendo. If H.P.B. was actually guilty of a single one of the offenses charged against her, she was ruined, ineradicably branded with the stigma of a convicted rogue—her enemies triumphant, her Society exploded, her followers buried in ignominy, her mission and her “Theosophy” a thing of contempt and of derision.
The issue was squarely joined, with no possibility of evasion by either party to the suit. This time it was not a friendless and slandered woman forced into the position where she must suffer in silence or essay the hopeless task of proving herself innocent of the fabrications of irresponsible evil and malicious minded assassins of her good name. It was a great and powerful newspaper faced with the simple task of proving her

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guilty of a single one of its numerous charges by the simple process of bringing into Court in its behalf all the living “witnesses” who had fathered or circulated the “evidence” which for so many years had been industriously spread before the public to “prove” H.P.B. a fraud, her phenomena bogus, her teachings a theft or a plagiarism. Certainly, on the assumption that at some time in her life H.P.B. had been indiscreet in her relations with men, at some time participant in questionable transactions, at some time engaged in anything disreputable, at some time party to fraudulent phenomena, at some time profiting by her “hoax”—the task before the Sun was an easy one.
    The case was pressed with the utmost vigor by H.P.B.’s attorneys, but the usual “law’s delays” were invoked and taken advantage of in the defense. In The Path for March, 1891, a statement of what was then the status of the suit was published under the caption, “The Libel Suits Against New York Sun and Elliott Coues.” The article reads:
    Several letters inquiring about these suits having been received, and various rumors about them having arisen, facts are given.

    It is not possible to bring any suit to trial in New York very quickly, as all the calendars are crowded and suitors have to await their turn.

    It is not possible in New York to have newspapers notice the progress of suits for libel against other newspapers, as an agreement exists between the various editors that no such publication will be made. Hence the silence about the above-mentioned actions.

    The actions were begun in earnest and are awaiting trial. They will be continued until a verdict is reached or a retraction given.
    One victory has been gained in this way. The New York Sun put in a long answer to Mme. Blavatsky’s complaint and her lawyers demurred to its sufficiency as a defence. That question of law was argued before Judge Beach in the Supreme Court, and on the argument the lawyers for the Sun confessed in open court their inability to prove the charge of immorality on which the suit lies, and asked to be allowed to retain the mass of irrelevant matter in the answer. These matters could only have been meant to be used to prejudice a jury. But Judge Beach sustained Mme. Blavatsky’s objection and ordered that the objectionable matter be stricken out. The case now looks merely like one in which the only question will be the amount of damages, and

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everything must now stand until the case is reached in the Trial Term. This decision on the demurrer was a substantial victory. The suit against Dr. Elliott Coues is in exactly the same condition.
    Madame Blavatsky died in May of the same year—1891—and, under the Laws of New York, her death automatically terminated the suit brought by her against the Sun. Mr. Judge, however, continued to press his suit, although the allegations originally made against himself were rather ridicule than slander. Finally, on September 26, 1892, the Sun, which by this time had become convinced of the great wrong perpetrated in its pages, voluntarily published, in partial amends, an editorial article repudiating the Coues interview, and a long article by Mr. Judge devoted to a tribute to the life-work and character of H. P. Blavatsky. The retraction reads:

    We print on another page an article in which WILLIAM Q. JUDGE deals with the romantic and extraordinary career of the late Madame HELENA P. BLAVATSKY. We take occasion to observe that on July 20, 1890, we were misled into admitting into the Sun’s columns an article by Dr. E. F. COUES of Washington, in which allegations were made against Madame BLAVATSKY’S character, and also against her followers, which appear to have been without solid foundation. Mr. JUDGE’S article disposes of all questions relating to Madame BLAVATSKY as presented by Dr. Coues, and we desire to say that his allegations respecting the Theosophical Society and Mr. JUDGE personally are not sustained by evidence, and should not have been printed.

    “The Esoteric She,” the article written by Mr. Judge on H.P.B. at the invitation of the Sun, received editorial sanction from the words, “Mr. Judge’s article disposes of all questions relating to Madame Blavatsky as presented by Dr. Coues.” Thus this article and its editorial endorsement amounted to a complete reversal of the position of the Sun. This can be accounted for on only two grounds: (1) that the Sun after vigorous and prolonged efforts to find evidence to support even one of the charges found that they were mere calumnies, and (2) that its publishers were men honorable enough voluntarily to make amends for the wrong done by publishing a retraction, even after the death of H.P.B. had freed them from all risk of damages.
    All those who have in any way benefitted by the message of Theosophy would do well to inform themselves fully on

155—————————————————————THE “SUN’S” RETRACTION

the Coues-Collins attack and the Sun case, for they cover every accusation ever directed at H.P.Blavatsky; and they constitute the only case where the charges were made directly, and by a responsible channel. The outcome of the case constitutes an absolute vindication of H.P.B. and an equally emphatic exposure of the bad faith or the ignorance of those who have since repeated those slanders. Yet years later one and another of the Coues-Collins-Sun charges have been repeated and have gained very wide publicity because of the supposed high character of the parties making them, for example, by “Margot Tennant” (wife of Herbert Asquith, ex—Prime Minister of Great Britain, in her “Intimate Diary”), and by the late Count Witte, for many years one of the leading Ministers of the Russian Empire under the regime of the last Czar. Count Witte was a cousin of H.P.B., but as he was very much her junior, he saw her but a few times when a mere boy. In his published “Memoirs” the old charges of immorality first directly made by Coues and the Sun are circumstantially repeated. He does not profess to speak from knowledge, but for the same inscrutable reasons that have prompted so many others, does not hesitate to repeat these abominable calumnies at second-hand. The outcome of the Sun case gives the lie to the Witte slanders upon the dead. Students may be interested to know that Count Witte’s own mother, a devoted member of the orthodox Greek Catholic Church, remained to her dying day the warm friend and champion of H.P.B. Vile as must be considered the characters of those who originate or circulate unverified base charges against the living, they are respectable in comparison with those who continue to revile the defenseless dead.
After the battle in the Sun and its sequence, Dr. Coues fled ingloriously from the field; his Gnostic society melted away like a shadow, his prestige waned, and he died in obscurity in 1899.

IN MAY, 1889, the month in which Prof. Coues launched his public attack on Madame Blavatsky, the society gained a new member who was destined to dominate its future history for many years. This new member was Annie Besant, already famous throughout England as a crusader for Secularism and Free thought. Mrs. Besant became a socialist in 1885, thereafter dividing her energies between the Socialist and Free-thought causes. She was by this time an accomplished speaker and a writer, well-known and respected in liberal circles. During the next few years, she began to have doubts as to the philosophic sufficiency of materialism. She read A. P. Sinnett’s Occult World and was impressed by the larger conceptions of natural law contained in this work. Then, early in 1889, Mr. William T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, gave her the two large volumes of The Secret Doctrine to review. The illumination she found in this work stirred her deeply. She said later of this experience:
I was dazzled, blinded by the light in which disjointed facts were seen as parts of a mighty whole, and all my puzzles, riddles, problems, seemed to disappear. The effect was partially illusory in one sense, in that they all had to be slowly unravelled later, the brain gradually assimilating that which the swift intuition had grasped as truth. But the light had been seen, and in that flash of illumination I knew that the weary search was over and the very Truth was found.
Mrs. Besant secured an introduction to Madame Blavatsky through Mr. Stead, and with Herbert Burrows, a Socialist colleague, as her companion, she called at 17 Lansdowne Road. She soon went a second time, requesting information about the Theosophical Society. H.P.B. asked her: “Have you read the report about me of the Society for Psychical Research?” . . . “Go and read it, and if, after reading it, you come back—well.” Mrs. Besant was not deterred in her interest in Theosophy by Hodgson’s report. On the contrary, she found its allegations “incredible” and joined the Society at once. She then returned to 17 Lansdowne Road, offering

157———————————————————MRS. BESANT JOINS THE T. S.

herself as worker for Theosophy and pupil to Madame Blavatsky. This was on May 10, 1889, just two years before H.P.B.’s death.
Mrs. Besant became a member of H.P.B’s household, was admitted to the Esoteric Section, and was made co-editor of Lucifer. Within a few months, her reputation, her ardor, and her intellectual abilities made her the right hand of H.P.B. In the eyes of the world and of most members of the Society, she was, next to Madame Blavatsky, by far the most capable person in the Society. It was largely through the efforts of Mrs. Besant that the movement to establish H.P.B. in charge of an autonomous Society in Europe was successful in 1890, thus freeing the English and Continental members from Olcott’s “political” control.
    Early in 1890, difficulties had arisen in the Paris Branch of the Society, and Olcott intervened to “settle” the dispute. The various European Lodges, the English branches and numerous unattached Fellows in Britain and on the Continent bombarded H.P.B. with letters, resolutions and petitions to clear the situation once and for all from any further “orders” from Adyar. On July 2, 1890, the Council of the British Section held an extraordinary session with Mrs. Besant in the chair. After full discussion, “it was proposed that a requisition, embodying the following views, be drawn up and addressed to the President of the Society”:
    The Continental Lodges and unattached members having made an appeal to H.P.B. that they may place themselves directly under her authority, the British Section joins in their demand that the constitutional powers at present exercised by Colonel H. S. Olcott in Europe, shall be transferred to H.P.B. and her Advisory Council, already appointed to exercise part of such functions in the United Kingdom.
    With typical circumlocution, Olcott printed in the Supplement to the Theosophist for August, 1890, a “cancellation” of this resolution of the British section, as “a usurpation of the Presidential prerogative,” but published also an order conforming with H.P.B’s cabled request that he accept the decision of the resolution. In Lucifer for September, 1890, H.P.B. announced her new responsibilities, assumed “in obedience to the almost unanimous voice of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society in Europe,” and added that she would

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be assisted in her presidential duties by an advisory Council which included Annie Besant, William Kingsland, Herbert Burrows, A. P. Sinnett, H. A. W. Coryn, E. T. Sturdy and G. R. S. Mead. She appointed this Council, she said, “to avoid even the appearance of autocracy.”
Some ten months later, on May 8, 1891, H. P. Blavatsky died, leaving behind her the record of her stupendous achievement in her books, in the world-wide activities of the Theosophical Society, and in the moral power unleashed in the lives of hundreds and thousands of individuals who had been stirred to give their energies to the Theosophic cause. She died, in her sixtieth year, only because her body would no longer hold together and permit her to continue working. Already weakened by her previous illnesses, she was overtaken by a high fever, diagnosed as influenza, on April 23. Within a few days, a quinsy had formed in her throat, and next her bronchial tubes became infected. On May 6 she told her doctor she was dying, and two days later H.P.B. left the body quietly in the presence of Claude Falls Wright, Walter R. Old, and Laura Cooper. Her last moments were spent sitting in the chair in which she had worked during the final years in England. Laura Cooper described the end: “. . . suddenly there was a further change, and when I tried to moisten her lips I saw the dear eyes were already becoming dim, though she retained full consciousness to the last. In life H.P.B. had a habit of moving one foot when she was thinking intently, and she continued that movement almost to the moment she ceased to breathe.”
At this time, Mr. Judge was in New York, Mrs. Besant in mid-ocean on her homeward voyage from America where she had been H.P.B.’s messenger to the Convention of the American Section, and Col. Olcott in Australia. Hearing the news, Judge cabled that he would come at once to London, requesting that H.P.B’s effects he kept intact until his arrival. Olcott, also, left for England. H.P.B’s death naturally aroused uncertainties as to the future of the Society, and in particular, of the Esoteric Section. Although her “official” position in the Parent-Society was the almost nominal office of Corresponding Secretary, H.P.B. had been in reality the inspiring genius of its foundation, and her steady hand and unifying influence

159———————————————————JUDGE AND THE E. S. PROBLEM

had guided its course through many difficult situations. Members everywhere were asking what would happen, now that she was gone.
The circumstances confronting Mr. Judge in London grew out of this great question, as well as from other complicating factors. On the one hand was the jealousy felt by Col. Olcott, Mr. Sinnett, and others, over the influence of the Esoteric Section. On the other hand was the problem of Mrs. Besant, as placed before him by H.P.B. in a letter dated March 27, 1891, shortly before her death. Although of great ability, strong will, and intense feeling, Mrs. Besant was described in that letter as “not psychic or spiritual in the least—all intellect.” From being a confirmed materialist for many years, she had been a student of Theosophy, and a probationer in the Esoteric Section for only two years, while the rules of Occultism, according to H.P.B.’s teaching, required a minimum of seven years’ probation before accepted chelaship could be attained. Mrs. Besant’s trials and ordeals of discipleship, therefore, were yet to come. She was nevertheless the most prominent member of both the exoteric Society and the Esoteric Section, and looked to for leadership by the English and Continental members.
Upon reaching London, Judge, as Vice-President of the Society, called a preliminary meeting of the members of the European and British Councils, and it was decided to hold a special Convention at the London headquarters in July. He also convened a meeting of the Advisory Council of the Esoteric Section on May 27. This meeting was attended by Mrs. Besant, and both she and Mr. Judge, with the approval of the Council, issued a memorandum to E. S. members declaring “that the highest officials in the School for the present are Annie Besant and William Q. Judge,” its “full charge and management” resting with these two. In this conference of the Advisory Council, Mr. Judge represented the American Councilors, and he also “attended as the representative of H.P.B. under a general power”—which “general power” was contained in an E. S. document written by H.P.B., dated December 14, 1888, stating Mr. Judge’s position of sole authority as representative of H.P.B. in America.

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    The circular making this general announcement concerning the conduct of the Esoteric Section (now called the Eastern School of Theosophy, or E.S.T.) was signed by the members of the Advisory Council. The circular stated that H.P.B.’s last words in reference to the Esoteric School were: “KEEP THE LINK UNBROKEN! DO NOT LET MY LAST INCARNATION BE A FAILURE.” The crisis in the School occasioned by the death of H.P.B. was met by the decision embodied in this circular, and the participants in its announcement declared that the School would henceforth be conducted “on the lines laid down by her, and with the matter left in writing or dictated by her before her departure.”
    Col. Olcott arrived in England at the end of June, Mr. Judge remaining to meet him and to take part in the Convention of the European Section called for July 9. Olcott, while never a member of the Esoteric Section, had been appointed by H.P.B. as her agent in Asia concerning esoteric affairs, and it was natural that he be informed in a general way as to what had taken place concerning the affairs of the Section. The time was auspicious for a new beginning in the work of the Society. With H.P.B. no longer among them, the theosophists now had opportunity to shoulder larger responsibilities themselves, and thought of the future helped to allay frictions, dispel rivalries, and to arouse the spirit of fraternity—at least for a time. Inasmuch as the best known and most respected leaders of the Society from Asia, England and America were gathered at the London headquarters, the Convention held on July 9 was actually the first general convention of the whole Society since its foundation.
    Col. Olcott presided as President-Founder. Mr. Judge was present as Vice-President of the Society and General Secretary of the American Section, Mrs. Besant as President of the Blavatsky Lodge. The various British and Continental lodges were represented by delegates or proxies. In addition there were numerous visiting fellows from the United States, from India, and from Australia. The London Lodge, however, was not represented, either by Mr. Sinnett as President, or by any proxy. The London Lodge held itself aloof from the general activities of the Society. Mr. Sinnett’s interests were turning more and more to psychic phenomena and his Lodge

161——————————————————“AUTONOMY” OF THE LONDON LODGE

held only closed meetings. The formation of the Blavatsky Lodge, publication of The Secret Doctrine with its corrections of the errors in his book, Esoteric Buddhism, and other matters which he did not approve, had tended to alienate his sympathies from the work of the Movement at large. The friendly efforts of Olcott, Judge, and Mrs. Besant had only the effect of gaining a reserved and formal letter from the London Lodge to the Convention, signed by its Secretary, C. W. Leadbeater. The letter recapitulated the history of the London Lodge, which was that of complete autonomy from the beginning. It remained outside the British Section, organized by H.P.B. in 1889, and was only nominally included in the European Section formed under H.P.B.’s presidency in 1890. It now reverted to its former status of autonomy, and, as the letter stated, “while heartily in sympathy with all bodies recognized as parts of the world-wide Theosophical Society, which Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott founded, it the London [Lodge] will not take any share in the administration or control of any other branches, and will continue responsible alone to the original authority from which it sprang in reference to the conduct of its own affairs.”
The convention concluded its business on the strong note of continuing the mission undertaken by H.P.B., Col. Olcott, Mr. Judge, and Mrs. Besant spoke feelingly of the need for unity and cooperation. Judge offered a resolution providing for an H.P.B. Memorial Fund to issue publications tending “to promote that intimate union between the life of the Orient and the Occident, to the bringing about of which her [H.P.B.’s] life was devoted.” In his final remarks as President, Olcott said:
The outside world are looking with curiosity to see what effect the death of H.P.B. will have upon us. The answer is to be obtained in the proceedings of this Convention. In her death H.P.B. speaks more potently to us even than she did in her life. The tattered veil of the personality has been drawn aside, and the individuality which we knew only as a light shining from afar, is now before us to guide us on our way. • • • No greater shock could possibly have come to us than the death of Mme. Blavatsky, and if the movement has survived it, then take my assurance that nothing whatever can affect us so long as we keep in view the principles upon which our move-

162———————————————————— THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

ment is based and go fearlessly on to what lies to our hand to do. . .

    Lucifer for June, July, and August, 1891, contains a great number of articles on H.P.B. by leading members of the Society. These articles were reprinted in a volume entitled “H.P.B., in Memoriam, by Some of Her Pupils.” Like the proceedings of the Council of the Esoteric Section and those of the European Convention, these articles breathe the best and purest spirit, betokening a renaissance of the gratitude, the loyalty, the reverence felt for H.P.B. Jealousies, ambitions, vanities, misunderstandings of all kinds were for the moment dormant. It was as if, for the time being, her freed spirit enveloped them, putting lesser feelings aside and lending to each and all some measure of the inspiration which for so many years burned in her with an unwavering flame.
    After the Convention, Mrs. Besant took entire charge of the conduct of Lucifer, with Mr. G. R. S. Mead associated with her as sub-editor. She herself plunged into incessant activities, writing, lecturing, encouraging and inspiring all those who surrounded her to an energy and devotion second only to her own. This as to the public work of the exoteric Society. Within the ranks of the Esoteric Section she was not less earnest and untiring. As Co-Head of the Section with Mr. Judge, practically the entire interests of the School in Britain, on the Continent, and in the Orient were in her care. Her reputation, gained before her entrance into the Theosophical world, made of her a constant subject of newspaper comment, and her presence at any meeting was enough to attract a large audience. Theosophical activities and growth doubled and tripled in England under her influence and example, and a secondary benefit throughout the world was felt by every worker in every land. Wherever her name was mentioned, Theosophy was equally the subject of discussion. Wherever Theosophy was spoken of, Annie Besant was naturally looked upon as its unequalled exponent and she was hailed by members and outsiders alike as the great and worthy successor of H.P.B.
    Mr. Judge returned to America and resumed the active conduct of his magazine, the Path. The work of the American

163———————————————————ACTIVITIES AFTER CONVENTION

Section made heavy inroads upon his time and energies. The active American membership in the T. S. was at that time larger than in all the rest of the world, and growing rapidly. The American membership of the Esoteric Section comprised two thirds of the entire body and called for unceasing attention. Next to H.P.B.’s, Mr. Judge’s personal correspondence with members throughout the world was by far the heaviest. His health had been undermined by the drain of recent years and by the relentless and sustained attacks and antagonisms without and within the Society, but the good-will and good feeling reached during the London conferences gave him new vigor and a strength sufficient for his increased burdens.

Col. Olcott, now past sixty, patriarchal in appearance, cordial by nature, looked upon with the utmost respect and reverence by the rank and file of the membership as being the President-Founder of the Society, the earliest as the life-long colleague of H.P.B., and the one chosen by the Masters as Head of the Society, might be said to have had his cup of glory full at this epoch. His journey had restored his physical health; the reception accorded him at London had reassured him as to the solid place he held in the affections of the membership in the Occident as in the Orient; the pledges of devotion by all the Western leaders in the Society to H.P.B., to the Cause, to his beloved Society, and to him personally, had brought out all that was generous, genial, and optimistic in his nature. He could see everywhere the work to which he had given his all through long years of hardship, often of ignominy, now sustained by able and devoted lieutenants, respected where it had once been despised, spoken of in flattering terms where once both it and himself had been received with contumely. Wherever he went he was the Chief. He determined to return to India by America, and his journey was broken from city to city by meetings at which he was the commanding figure. His entire journey during the months of his absence from Adyar was a kind of triumphal progress, strewn with testimonials of the love and gratitude of his colleagues and of the world-wide membership of the Society. Returned to India, his arrival was signalized by the Indian members in a manner not less warmly appreciative of his services.

164———————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

    In December, 1890, while H.P.B. lay between life and death, Mrs. Besant had published without the knowledge of H.P.B., a ringing article in Lucifer entitled “The Theosophical Society and H.P.B.” The occasion for this article was the private propaganda that was diligently being promoted in derogation of H.P.B. by adherents of Col. Olcott and Mr. Sinnett for her action in taking over the Headship of the newly formed Theosophical Society in Europe. In this article Mrs. Besant wrote with great force and conviction in support of H.P.B.:

Now touching the position of H.P.B. to and in the Theosophical Society, the following is a brief exposition of it, as it appears to many of us:
(1) Either she is a messenger from the Masters, or else she is a fraud.
(2) In either case the Theosophical Society would have had no existence without her.
(3) If she is a fraud, she is a woman of wonderful ability and learning, giving all the credit of these to some persons who do not exist.
(4) If H.P.B. is a true messenger, opposition to her is opposition to the Masters, she being their only channel to the Western World.
(5) If there are no Masters, the Theosophical Society is an absurdity, and there is no use in keeping it up. But if there are Masters, and H.P.B. is their messenger, and the Theosophical Society their foundation, the Theosophical Society and H.P.B. cannot be separated before the world.
From these propositions, Mrs. Besant concluded:

    If the members care at all for the future of the Society, if they wish to know that the Twentieth Century will see it standing high above the strife of parties, a beacon-light in the darkness for the guiding of men, if they believe in the Teacher who founded it for human service, let them now arouse themselves from slothful indifference, sternly silence all dissensions over petty follies in their ranks, and march shoulder to shoulder for the achievement of the heavy task laid upon their strength and courage. If Theosophy is worth anything, it is worth living for and worth dying for. If it is worth nothing, let it go at once and for all. It is not a thing to play with, it is not a thing to trifle with. . . . let each Theosophist, and above all, let each Occultist, calmly review his position, carefully make his choice, and if that choice be for Theosophy, let him sternly determine

165——————————————————MRS. BESANT’S PROCLAMATION

that neither open foes nor treacherous friends shall shake his loyalty for all time to come to his great Cause and Leader, which twain are one.
    Such a proclamation as this, coming from one who was, in the eyes of the world, even more than in the Society, the foremost power in the movement, after H.P.B. herself, could but align the ranks and silence, for the time being, all covert as well as open belittling of the Teacher.
    After the death of H.P.B., as the no less clear proclamation in the E. S. circular became common knowledge throughout the Society, the determination of the Council, of Mr. Judge and Mrs. Besant, to follow strictly the aims and lines and teachings of H.P.B. produced such a revival of activity, such an exhibition of common Brotherhood and loyalty to the First Object and, no less, to H.P.B., the Teacher, as had never been witnessed during her lifetime. Followed the Convention of the British and European Sections with their renewed asseverations, and the many articles breathing the most profound respect and devotion to H.P.B. and her mission from the lips of every well-known Theosophist.
    On August 30, 1891, Mrs. Besant bade farewell to the Secularists with whom, in collaboration with Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, she had labored for so many years. Her address was entitled “1875 to 1891: A Fragment of Autobiography.” This memorable speech was circulated far and wide. After recounting her fifteen years of battle and achievement, her hard-won steps of progress to her conversion to Theosophy through her reviewing The Secret Doctrine, her meeting with H.P.B., her examination of the famous S.P.R. Report with its charges of fraud against H.P.B., Mrs. Besant astounded the meeting, the world, and the members of the Theosophical Society with this bold and categorical statement:
    You have known me in this hall for sixteen and a half years. You have never known me tell a lie to you. My worst public enemy has never cast a slur upon my integrity. I tell you that since Madame Blavatsky left I have had letters in the same handwriting [the same as the handwriting of the disputed ‘Mahatma” letters alleged in the S.P.R. Report to have been written by H.P.B.] as the letters which she received. Unless you think dead persons can write, surely that is a remarkable fact. You are surprised; I do not ask you to believe me; but I tell you it

166———————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

is so. All the evidence I had of the existence of Madame Blavatsky’s teachers and of the so-called abnormal powers came through her. It is not so now. Unless every sense can at the same time deceive me, unless a person can at the same time be sane and insane, I have exactly the same certainty for the truth of the statements I have made as I know that you are here. I refuse to be false to the knowledge of my intellect and the perception of my reasoning faculties. Every month which has passed since Madame Blavatsky left has given me more and more light.

Lucifer for October, 1891, contained another unequivocal declaration by Mrs. Besant in its leading article, “Theosophy and Christianity.” She says:
      THEOSOPHY is a body of knowledge, clearly and distinctly formulated in part and proclaimed to the world. Members of the Society may or may not be students of this knowledge, but none the less is it the sure foundation on which the MASTERS have built the Society, and on which its central teaching of the Brotherhood of Man is based. Without Theosophy Universal Brotherhood may be proclaimed as an Ideal, but it cannot be demonstrated as a Fact.
    Now by Theosophy I mean the ‘Wisdom Religion,” or the “Secret Doctrine,” and our only knowledge of the Wisdom Religion at the present time comes to us from the Messenger of its Custodians, H. P. BLAVATSKY. Knowing what she taught, we can recognise fragments of the same teachings in other writings, but her message remains for us the test of Theosophy everywhere. . . . Only, none of us has any right to put forward his own views as

    “Theosophy,” in conflict with hers, for all that we know of Theosophy comes from her. When she says “The Secret Doctrine teaches,” none can say her nay; we may disagree with the teaching, but it remains “the Secret Doctrine,” or Theosophy; she always encouraged independent thought and criticism, and never resented difference of opinion, but she never wavered in the distinct proclamation “The Secret Doctrine is” so-and-so.
Theosophists have it in charge not to whittle away the Secret Doctrine. . . . Steadily, calmly, without anger but also without fear, they must stand by the Secret Doctrine as she gave it, who carried unflinchingly through the storms of well-nigh seventeen years the torch of the Eastern Wisdom. The condition of success is perfect loyalty. . .
    These several proclamations referred alike to those within and without the Society who found it to their interest to disparage or calumniate H.P.B. In the months following, the

167————————————————————COL. OLCOTT ON “IDOLATRY”

natural impulse of inchoate gratitude on the part of the rank and file of the membership toward H.P.B. gained articulate expression in Mrs. Besant’s affirmations of the status of H.P.B. Those who before had belittled publicly and privately the authoritative character of H.P.B. as the Messenger of the Masters, now found it prudent to remain silent.
    But after Col. Olcott’s tour and return to India, it is clear that the testimonials of the respect accorded to him and his position of President-Founder reinforced his feeling of security and strength. Likewise, from his past conduct, it is evident he had expected that with the death of H.P.B. she would no longer remain a living power in the Society. That part of his nature which so often had risen in rebellion against H.P.B. living, as the dominant factor in the Society of which he felt himself the true and competent Head, once more became restive and decisive of his action. The current of his thoughts is clearly discernible in his Address to the “Sixteenth Convention and Anniversary of the Theosophical Society, at the Headquarters, Adyar, Madras,” India, at the end of December, 1891. He made this address an occasion for warning against any “idolatry” of H.P.B.:

As the Co-Founder of the Society, as one who has had constant opportunities for knowing the chosen policy and wishes of our Masters, as one who has, under them and with their assent, borne our flag through sixteen years of battle, I protest against the first giving way to the temptation to elevate either them, their agents, or any other living or dead personage, to the divine status, of their teachings to that of infallible doctrine. .
    If she [H.P.B.] had lived, she would have undoubtedly left her protest against her friends making a saint of her or a bible out of her magnificent, though not infallible writings. I helped to compile her Isis Unveiled” while Mr. Keightley and several others did the same by “The Secret Doctrine.” Surely we know how far from infallible are our portions of the books, to say nothing about hers. She did not discover, nor invent Theosophy, nor was she the first or the ablest agent, scribe or messenger of the Hidden Teachers of the Snowy Mountains. The various scriptures of the ancient nations contain every idea now put forth, and in some cases possess far greater beauties and merits than any of her or our books. We need not fall into idolatry to signify our lasting reverence and love for her, the contemporary teacher, nor offend the literary world by pretending that she wrote with the pen of inspiration. Nobody living was a more staunch and

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loyal friend of hers than I, nobody will cherish her memory more lovingly. I was true to her to the end of her life, and now I shall continue to be true to her memory. But I never worshipped her, never blinded my eyes to her faults, never dreamt that she was as perfect a channel for the transmission of occult teaching as some others in history have been, or as the Masters would have been glad to have found. As her tried friend, then, as one who worked most intimately with her, and is most anxious that she may be taken by posterity at her true high value; as her coworker; as one long ago accepted, though humble, agent of the Masters; and finally, as the official head of the Society and guardian of the personal rights of its Fellows, I place on record my protest against all attempts to create an H.P.B. school, sect or cult, or to take her utterances as in the least degree above criticism. The importance of the subject must be my excuse for thus dwelling upon it at some length. I single out no individuals, mean to hurt nobody’s feelings. I am not sure of being alive very many years longer, and what duty demands I must say while I can.

Mr. Judge, during the same period, sounded a different key in the Path:

    The death of H. P. Blavatsky should have the effect on the Society of making the work go on with increased vigor free from all personalities. The movement was not started for the glory of any person, but for the elevation of Mankind. The organization is not affected as such by her death, for her official positions were those of Corresponding Secretary and President of the European Section. The Constitution has long provided that after her death the office of Corresponding Secretary should not be filled. The vacancy in the European Section will be filled by election in that Section, as that is matter with which only the European Branches have to deal. She held no position in the exoteric American Section, and had no jurisdiction over it in any way. Hence there is no vacancy to fill and no disturbance to be felt in the purely corporate part of the American work. The work here is going on as it always has done, under the efforts of its members who now will draw their inspiration from the books and works of H.P.B. and from the purity of their own motive.
    All that the Society needs now to make it the great power it was intended to be is first, so1idarty, and second, Theosophical education. These are wholly in the hands of its members. The first gives that resistless strength which is found only in Union, the second gives that judgment and wisdom needed to properly direct energy and zeal.
    Read these words from H. P. Blavatsky’s Key to Theosophy:

169———————————————————THE FAMOUS “PATH” MESSAGE

     “If the present attempt, in the form of our Society, succeeds better than its predecessors have done, then it will be in existence as an organized, living and healthy body when the time comes for the effort of the XXth century. The general condition of men’s minds and hearts will have been improved and purified by the spread of its teachings, and, as I have said, their prejudices and dogmatic illusions will have been, to some extent, at least, removed. Not only so, but besides a large and accessible literature ready to men’s hands, the next impulse will find a numerous and united body of people ready to welcome the new torch-bearer of Truth. He will find the minds of men prepared for his message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival, which will remove the merely mechanical, material obstacles and difficulties from his path. Think how much one, to whom such an opportunity is given, could accomplish. Measure it by comparison with what the Theosophical Society actually has achieved in the last fourteen years, without any of these advantages and surrounded by hosts of hindrances which would not hamper the new leader. Consider all this, and then tell me whether I am too sanguine when I say that if the Theosophical Society survives and lives true to its mission, to its original impulses, through the next hundred years—tell me, I say, if I go too far in asserting that earth will be a heaven in the twenty-first century in comparison with what it is now!
    In the Path for August, 1891, appeared an article that, in the course of later years, was to create turmoil in the ranks of the Society. The article began with this quotation:

      INGRATITUDE IS NOT ONE OF OUR FAULTS.” WE ALWAYS HELP THOSE WHO HELP US. TACT, DISCRETION,
AND ZEAL ARE MORE THAN EVER NEEDED. THE HUMBLEST WORKER IS SEEN AND HELPED.
    The text immediately following runs thus:
     To a student theosophist, serving whenever and however he could, there came very recently—since the departure from this plane of H. P. Blavatsky—these words of highest cheer from that Master of whom H.P.B. was the reverent pupil. Attested by His real signature and seal, they are given here for the encouragement and support of all those who serve the Theosophical Society—and through it, humanity—as best they can; given in the belief that it was not intended that the recipient should sequestrate or absorb them silently, but rather that he should understand them to be his only in the sense that he might share them with his comrades, that his was permitted to be the happy hand to pass them on as the common right, the universal benediction of one and all

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    The article is signed “Jasper Niemand.” This pen name had by that time become known and respected throughout the Theosophical world as the recipient of the famous “Letters That Have Helped Me” from “Z.L.Z., the Greatest of the Exiles,” originally published in the Path during the lifetime of H.P.B., and supposed by many Theosophists to have been written by her. Not till some years later was it made known that “Z.L.Z.” was Mr. Judge, and “Jasper Niemand” Mrs. Archibald Keightley (previously Julia Campbell-Ver Planck). The article quoted above was written and published during the absence of Mr. Judge in England following H.P.B.’s death, and without his knowledge, as Mrs. Keightley edited the Path whenever he was away. The article, and especially the message from the Masters, stirred Col. Olcott to the depths. He wrote to Mr. Judge about it in strong terms, as he saw in it nothing but an attempt to attract attention to H.P.B., Masters and Mr. Judge himself. Mr. Judge replied at length to Col. Olcott, and his letter was later published in Lucifer.
    Succeeding issues of the Path gave respectful attention to Col. Olcott’s place in the T.S. and noted Mrs. Besant’s claim to the receipt of messages subsequent to H.P.B.’s death. In January, 1892, the Path had for its leading article, “Dogmatism in Theosophy.” This article was evidently written by Mr. Judge, partly to make clear the real position to be assumed by all theosophists, partly to moderate the intemperate zeal of enthusiasts who were wont to quote H.P.B. triumphantly to opponents whose views of H.P.B. or her teachings were not the same as their own; and partly in response to Col. Olcott’s criticisms and public statements. Mr. Judge wrote:
    The Theosophical Society was founded to destroy dogmatism. This is one of the meanings of its first object—Universal Brotherhood. .
In the Key to Theosophy, in the “Conclusion,” H.P.B. again refers to this subject and expresses the hope that the Society might not, after her death, become dogmatic or crystallize on some phase of thought or philosophy, but that it might remain free and open, with its members wise and unselfish. And in all her writings and remarks, privately or publicly, she constantly reiterated this idea. .

171————————————————————JUDGE STRIKES AT DOGMATISM

    If our effort is to succeed, we must avoid dogmatism in theosophy as much as in anything else, for the moment we dogmatise and insist on our construction of theosophy, that moment we lose sight of Universal Brotherhood and sow the seeds of future trouble.
        Even though nine-tenths of the members believe in Reincarnation, Karma, the sevenfold constitution, and all the rest, and even though its prominent ones are engaged in promulgating these doctrines as well as others, the ranks of the Society must always be kept open, and no one should be told that he is not orthodox or not a good Theosophist because he does not believe in these doctrines. .
        But at the same time it is obvious that to enter the Society and then, under our plea of tolerance, assert that theosophy shall not be studied shall not be investigated, is untheosophical, unpractical. and absurd, for it were to nullify the very object of our organization; .
        And as the great body of philosophy, science, and ethics offered by H. P. Blavatsky and her teachers has upon it the seal of research, of reasonableness, of antiquity, and of wisdom, it demands our first and best consideration.
        So, then, a member of the Society, no matter how high or how low his or her position in its ranks, has the right to promulgate all the philosophical and ethical ideas found in our literature to the best ability possessed, and no one else has the right to object, provided such promulgation is accompanied by a clear statement that it is not authorized or made orthodox by any declaration from the body corporate of the T. S.

ALTHOUGH A CAUSE with the highest conceivable ideals, capable of drawing out from men their best efforts and stirring them to unselfish determination, the Theosophical Movement was nevertheless subject to the common weaknesses and failures of human nature. Again and again, the Movement suffered setbacks from the failure of theosophists to distinguish between the real work they had to do—popularizing the fundamental ideals of brotherhood, moral law, and cyclic spiritual evolution—and the merely incidental issues of personality and organization. H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge are singled out in the present volume as the real founders of the Theosophical Movement, not because of any particular regard for them as personalities, but because their work reveals that they understood and practiced the principles of soul-education, that they knew the needs of the race and time and met those needs with self-effacing devotion and unparalleled efficiency.
Until her death in 1891, H.P.B. bore the brunt of the inner and outer reactions generated by the moral power of the Theosophical Movement. Fated from the beginning to suffer alike from the enmity of sceptics and the emotional enthusiasm of mere “believers,” she did her work without regard for any personal consideration. She found Olcott, instructed him in as much as he could learn, and with his help established the Society. In Judge she nurtured the seed of inner perception and made him her colleague in the occult tasks she had undertaken. She wrote down the Theosophical philosophy in systematic form, re-established in the West the School for Disciples of the Wisdom-Religion, and bore with fortitude the vicious attacks that seemed to dissolve all that she had attempted to accomplish, always returning to her labors with undaunted vigor and an infinite supply of energy and inspiration.

173———————————————————OLCOTT’S ATTITUDE TOWARD H. P. B.

H.P.B. cared nothing for the nominal achievement of a large “Society.” She cared only for the Theosophical Movement, which was, for her, a living power in the hearts of men. More than once she found it necessary to declare to Olcott that if he continued to obstruct her work, or if he failed to support her in some important decision, she would leave the Society entirely and work with those who understood what she was trying to do. Olcott, on his part, was fanatically devoted to the Society as an institution. From the attack of the Coulombs to the machinations of Prof. Coues, Olcott’s policy was always to protect the Society first, with the result that if he believed H.P.B. had acted injudiciously in relation to the Society’s welfare, his defense of her was half-hearted at best. The President-Founder’s reverence for “organization” naturally led him to oppose those of H.P.B.’s actions which, as he saw them, might disturb the harmony or lessen the prestige of the Society. He complains repeatedly in Old Diary Leaves of H.P.B.’s “interference” in the practical affairs of the Society and attempts to convey the impression to his readers that he was the long-suffering wheel-horse of the Theosophical Movement, who patiently endured the results of H.P.B.’s erratic policies and adjusted as best he could the conflicts and difficulties arising from her mistakes.
Olcott’s attitude toward H.P.B. in 1888 is disclosed by events which followed his visit to Europe in that year. He had traveled from India in order to deal with a quarrel among the Paris members, and in arbitrating the issue he acted against the wishes of H.P.B. As the differences between them became increasingly evident to the members of the Society, the two Founders felt it advisable to issue a joint note, which appeared in both the Theosophist and Lucifer, affirming “that there is no enmity, rivalry, strife, or even coldness, between us, nor ever was; nor any weakening of our joint devotion to the Masters, or to our work, with the execution of which they have honoured us. Widely dissimilar in temperament and mental characteristics, and differing sometimes in views as to methods of propagandism, we are yet of absolutely one mind as to that work.”
In the same issue of Lucifer in which the Joint Note of the Founders appeared (October, 1888), Olcott permitted publica-

174————————————————————THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

tion of extracts from a letter he had received a few weeks previously from one of the Theosophical adepts. This letter, he recounts in Old Diary Leaves, was received “phenomenally” in his cabin aboard the Shannon, the boat which brought him to England in 1888. It is to Olcott’s credit that he authorized publication of passages from the letter, for it is a direct warning to him as to his feelings toward H.P.B. Years later, this letter was published in its entirety in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, a slim volume issued by the Adyar Theosophical Society in 1919. In Lucifer, lines seriously critical of the President were excised, as needlessly exposing Olcott’s weaknesses. A portion of the letter appears below, with brackets around lines omitted from the Lucifer extracts:
[Put all needed restraint upon your feelings, so that you may do the right thing in this Western imbroglio. Watch your first impressions. The mistakes you make spring from failure to do this. Let neither your personal predilections, affections, suspicions nor antipathies affect your action.]
“Misunderstandings have grown up between Fellows both in London and Paris, which imperil the interests of the movement. You will be told that the chief originator of most, if not of all these disturbances is H.P.B. This is not so; though her presence in England has, of course, a share in them. But the largest share rests with others, whose serene unconsciousness of their own defects is very marked and much to be blamed. One of the most valuable effects of Upasika’s mission is that it drives men to self-study and destroys in them blind servility for persons. Observe your own case, for example. But your revolt, good friend, against her infallibility—as you once thought it—has gone too far and you have been unjust to her, for which I am sorry [to say, you will have to suffer hereafter along with others. Just now, on deck, your thoughts about her were dark and sinful, and so I find the moment a fitting one to put you on your guard.]
Try to remove such misconceptions as you will find, by kind persuasion and an appeal to the feeling of loyalty to the Cause of truth if not to us. Make all these men feel that we have no favourites, nor affections for persons, but only for their good acts and humanity as a whole. But we employ agents—the best available. Of these for the past thirty years the chief has been the personality known as H.P.B. to the world (but other wise to us). Imperfect and very troublesome, no doubt, she proves to some; nevertheless, there is no likelihood of our finding a better one for years to come—and your theosophists

175 ——————————————————— THE ADEPTS’ VIEW OF H. P. B.

should be made to understand it. Since 1885 I have not written, nor caused to be written save thro’ her agency, direct or remote, a letter or line to anybody in Europe or America, nor communicated orally with, or thro’ any third party. Theosophists should learn it, You will understand later the significance of this declaration, so keep it in mind. Her fidelity to our work being constant, and her sufferings having come upon her thro’ it, neither I nor either of my Brother associates will desert or supplant her, As I once before remarked, ingratitude is not among our vices.
     “To help you in your present perplexity: H.P.B. has next to no concern with administrative details, and should be kept clear of them [so far as her strong nature can be controlled]. But this you must tell to all:—W7ith occult matters she has everything to do. We have not abandoned her; she is not ‘given over to chelas.’ She is our direct agent. [I warn you against permitting your suspicions and resentment against ‘her many follies’ to bias your intuitive loyalty to her.] In the adjustment of this European business, you will have two things to consider—the external and administrative, and the internal and psychical. Keep the former under your control and that of your most prudent associates, jointly; leave the latter to her. You are left to devise the practical details. . . . Only be careful, I say, to discriminate when some emergent interference of hers in practical affairs is referred to you on appeal, between that which is merely exoteric in origin and effects, and that which beginning on the practical tends to beget consequences on the spiritual plane. As to the former you are the best judge, as to the latter, she......
    The importance of this counsel to Olcott cannot be overestimated.* It was he, not she, who “interfered,” and in a way calculated to disturb and subvert the real work of H.P.B..
    In April, 1886, H.P.B. wrote a long letter to Franz Hartmann, who, it will be remembered, was at Adyar during the Coulomb episode, and who witnessed the Indian Convention’s practical desertion of H.P.B. Hartmann had written to her at length, asking a number of questions. Her reply throws light on Olcott’s shortcomings:
    As to . . . that portion of your letter where you speak of the “army” of the deluded—and the “imaginary” Mahatmas of
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* As early as 1884, Olcott had received from the same source another letter bearing much the same advice: “You have never understood Upasika, nor the laws thro’ which her apparent life has been made to work since you knew her. You are ungrateful and unjust and even cruel, You take maya for reality and reality for illusion,” (See Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Second Series, Adyar, 1925, pp. 87, 89-90.)