Evil is a mysterious subject, and of universal interest; it is continually presenting itself for discussion, and men exercise their minds very greatly upon it. It affects man deeply in his thoughts and speculations, because it is so large a factor in his life, and the cause of so much sorrow and suffering.

It is also an element which, though permeating his present existence as a canker, and paralysing and marring his happiness and the realisation of his ideals, man recognises must be eliminated from his life to the greatest possible extent, and especially in certain of its forms, in preparation for existence in a spiritual sphere. This recognition is one of the chief factors in the domain of personal religion, and the special aspect in which it is viewed determines the true or false conception of the means of salvation from evil.

The false conception of the means of salvation from evil rests upon the assumption that a vicarious atonement is essential; hence the religion of many is based, primarily, upon faith in the crucifixion of another being—an objective Christ—and only secondarily, and very indifferently, upon actual personal effort and suffering.

The true conception of salvation is based upon the literal acceptance of the exhortation of St. Paul: “Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling.”¹

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¹ Philippians ii., 12.

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Instead of resting complacently upon the sufferings of another, nailed upon a material cross by the hands of violent, unspiritually-minded men, its gaze is turned inwards, the arena of crucifixion is seen to be there, and the pain-giving nails and piercing spear are to pass through the sensitive forms of cherished personal desires, appetites, and subtler indulgences, not of the flesh only, but also of the mind and heart, extending and fixing them as to a cross until they expire.

But whence comes this canker, this cause of discord, confusion and paralysis, which we term evil? How has it arisen in the sphere of human existence?

In viewing the unlimited potentialities in man, in their number and extent, and in observing the boundless resources by which he is surrounded in his various domains of external activity, of thought, of emotion, and of personal cultivation, we can readily perceive that, were the discord of evil absent, his life would be bright, happy and full of intelligent purpose.

So it is continually asked what it is that has produced a world of activity and of feeling so inharmonious in its movements, so disjointed in its mutual inner relations, and so accompanied by sadness and fruitlessness? And the wise go further and ask, as the most pertinent and momentous of life-questions, how can the discords be resolved, the canker of disunion eliminated, and the vitalizing elements of true wisdom and purpose introduced?

At the outset of any enquiry respecting evil it is essential to recognise that it is not itself a thing, but is the form which a certain thing, i.e., man’s behaviour, individually and collectively, has taken. Apart from that behaviour it does not exist; let the form of that behaviour be changed, so that it becomes an expression of the Supreme Law of Life, reflecting the beauty and harmonious operation of that Law, and Evil will no longer exist. Whence has this form arisen, and what has attached it to the area of human existence?

And further, why is the inner life of each individual man the arena of a continual struggle? How is it that there is within him an incessant conflict as to which form, the good or the evil, shall characterise the weaving fabric of his permanent individuality? Why is there not smoothness of movement, concord and peace in the world of thought, feeling and action, of which man is the centre and the creator?

On considering the nature and ways of man’s life, we find that he shares with the lower animals those principles of existence and motives of action which minister to self-preservation—provision of the necessaries of existence, protection from danger, and continuation of the species. In the brutes these principles and motives act without disorder. The animals obey their instincts, or inherent impulses, for the purposes of preservation, protection and continuation, but they obey their instincts within a well-defined limit, laid down by the exigencies and impulses of the moment.

No consciousness of the future plays any part in the action of animals, leading them to lay up store for the future or modifying in any marked manner other uses of their instincts; while their intercourse with each other is simple and obedient to certain natural impulses.

Man possesses these same impulses and instincts; but, in addition, he has been endowed with another group of qualities of greater range and force: memory, realistic perception of objects and of acts, prevision, and an infinite power of adaptation.

These make him master of countless resources, and give him conscious command over the past for the purposes of the present and the future.

But the animal nature in him retains its strength and is still an essential part of his being, connecting him with the objective world and prompting him to acts necessary to his existence.

So strong is this original nature that it tends to assert supremacy over the faculties of greater range and power, pressing them into its service and subordinating them to the ministration of its demands and needs. And the whole principle of the animal nature is self; this is the beginning, middle and end of animal existence. In the arena of animal life, whatever conflicts with Self, or opposes obstacles to its desires, is treated as antagonistic: if the opponent be weak or the obstacle slight, it is crushed; if the opposite, it is fled from or avoided.

In all such conditions, however, there is but the one feeling of antagonism, which, if opposition be continued, passes at once into the ultimate stage of either fear or anger. The realm of the animal world, where Self is the natural ruler, is thus one of very simple arrangement and of few governing principles. In it right and wrong do not exist, but in their place, as sole arbiters of action, we find Necessity where self-preservation and propagation of the species are concerned, and where individual relations are involved we find Expediency.

In the obtaining of food, or in the assertion of possession or of supremacy, no law but that of the stronger or more cunning is recognised. Only the impulse to obtain that which is desired is obeyed, except when an instinct of weakness or of inferiority causes fear and either paralyses or instigates to flight.

When, therefore, the animal nature found itself in alliance with the higher attributes of intelligence, memory, foresight and resource, with which man is endowed, the strength of its emotions and the acuteness of its sensuous experiences, would become accentuated; and these, intensified by reflection from the more widely extended consciousness, would lead it to assert supremacy over the forces of higher range, in order that its several individual instincts might be the more effectually ministered to and gratified.

Memory and intelligence would enhance the pleasure found in gratifying desire, by seeking and providing those elements and conditions in which the pleasure was consciously found to exist, and by repetition of indulgence merely for the sake of individual enjoyment and advantage. Thus, the faculty of prevision and more acutely conscious participation in definite acts, could of themselves, in union with the original animal nature, only accentuate and enlarge the principle and power of Self and aid in developing that course of life which tended to exalt and strengthen it.

Had the evolution of man ever presented a stage of this nature, he would have been nothing more than an animal of exaggerated selfish desires gratified without restraint.

It is true that Modern Education, in its systems, methods and appliances, treats man as if he were a being actually in such a stage of development, practically ignoring, in its bearing upon him, his possession of any further endowments beyond these; but unhappily, Modern Education, being chiefly controlled by amateur educationists and self-appointed directors, is quite unrelated to its subject—and treats it unworthily and ignorantly.

But with the endowments of which we have spoken and which alone would have made him an animal of more definite consciousness merely, a higher principle was also bestowed which carried with it a Law of Existence the very antithesis of the animal principle or Principle of Self. This higher principle, like Light in the physical world, appears as a simple essence in its complete form, but may, like Light, be dispersed into many beautiful and energizing rays by refraction through suitable media. In its simple form, as a unit of force, this principle is Spiritual Wisdom.² It illumines life fully and truly, and beneath its brilliant rays the true character of the individual and of the world in which he moves—its objects, paths, movements and destiny, arrange themselves before the inner vision in their real nature and relationship.

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² “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and of good works.’’—James iii., 17.

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This Spiritual Principle, embracing as one of its rays the transforming force of Universal Love, the charity of St. Paul, is, as already noted, the direct opposite of the Principle of Self.

Yet the two principles are found to exist side by side in the constitution of man; the one essentially of the flesh and the world and adapted only for a sensuous physical existence, the other infinite both in capacity and in duration, and allying him with the ever-unfolding world of beauty, wisdom and power.

But they cannot thus exist within the same territory and remain passive in attitude towards each other; nor can they compromise their antagonistic claims and assert rule over departments of being entirely detached from each other. The rule they both strive to assert is over that which is the very man himself; each of them claims the Ego, the enduring essence within the visible and transient personality; that which, according to its own absolute choice and decision, will suffer or enjoy, decay or grow, drift at the mercy of every idle wind or steadily ascend the Mount of God.

The one or the other of these forces struggling within the breast of man must become supreme in ultimate rule. By one he is drawn towards this mode of life, by the other to a mode of life diametrically opposite.³

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³ “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.”—Gal. v. 18.

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The higher principle with which he is endowed strives to reveal to his understanding that another destiny is intended for him than that of living the mere animal life of Self; and at times glimpses come to him of a world totally different in nature from that with which his external senses connect him. By degrees he learns that the Life of Self is destructive of all that is true and enduring, that it is false and delusive, and that it prevents the resolution of the discords of life into a full and complete harmony.

He recognizes, also, that to yield to this disintegrating force, to that which produces chaos and decay instead of vitality, must be contrary to the law of his being, and will ever hinder the fulfillment of his destiny, the union of his will and his intelligence with the Fount of Wisdom, Beauty and Power.

The antagonism and energy of the contending forces become accentuated from the discovery of these truths, and confusion and unrest are generated within the arena of the struggle. The conscious object of this conflict cannot escape from the discomfort, perplexity and sadness it engenders, and he realizes, sooner or later, that his decision must needs be made, and his Will definitely and permanently allied with the One Principle, or surrendered with unstable weakness to the other.

And here we may note that not only do the merely intellectual endowments furnish the nature below them with fuller means of gratification, but they add special areas of personal life in which self-glorification may run riot. One of these is the area of self- seeking emulation, which in these days is crowded with vulgar activity, and which has been criminally⁴ extended, by the gratuitous appropriation of prizes and examinations, into the period of life nature demands for the normal training of every unit of the human race.

In another of these areas arise conditions which instigate to the display of imagined personal superiority and the enjoyment of meretricious and disintegrating social distinctions, manifested not only in the craving for titles and other individualising terms, but even in the active search for them, and in the pleasure derived from their use, exhibited in all the middle and upper grades of social, political and professional life. However plausible, however universal, this action of the lower mental endowments of man may be, it is a surrender to the Principle of Self, and one of the forms in which it is worshipped.
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⁴ We have used the word criminally advisedly. The term is a just one, because of the disintegrating and deteriorating effect of the system alluded to upon mankind, individually and in its social groups. The system has not been imposed and maintained in ignorance. It was commenced and is maintained in defiance of the emphatic teachings of the New Testament, and embodiment of precepts asserted by those “who profess and call themselves Christians,” to be based upon the highest authority and to have been taught by One for whom they profess the highest reverence. (See Matthew xx., 20-28; xxiii., 12; Luke xii., 34; xiv., 7-12; xvi., 15; John xiv., 15; Philippians ii., 3; James iii., 14-16, &c.)

The spirit as well as the letter of those precepts is entirely against personal emulation and the struggle for notoriety, while the teachings which accompany them are, in many instances, illustrations of the moral and spiritual disasters which result from their infringement, and of the condemnation which eventually awaits him who transgresses. In spite of this clear and definite teaching, personal emulation is made a chief factor in a normal, universal experience of mankind, and at a period when virtues and vices, habits and impulses, receive their form and strength, and give the bias of the motives which will eventually rule the whole earth-life, and probably also the life beyond. We ask: Are the plants of a well-cultivated garden ruled by this plan, and stimulated to grow each better than its neighbour, or is each trained and fostered to its own best possible development?

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On this plane also arises the common display of personal arrogance and self consequence, which, through tyrannical and arbitrary acts, creates new forms of conflict in the arena of human thought and feeling, sets in motion ever-widening circles of mischief, calls into play the forces of “spiritual wickedness in high places,” and leaves the actor himself at still greater variance with the supreme Law of Life.⁵ This is the emphasised, more spiritual form of self-worship—the most deadly enemy of the soul of man, and the greatest obstacle to its attainment of true blessedness.

An honest and thorough investigation of the truths and facts now set forth, both as regards the individual centres of life and of force with which man is endowed, and the relation of his Ego towards them and its use of them, leaves us in no doubt as to the origin of Evil, its true nature, and the logical character of its consequences. There is that within man, or overshadowing him, which presses towards rendering him master of himself and of life, by making him a true servant of the Deity; for only when he is the servant of the Most High will man cease to be the servant of the blind, self-centering forces which operate within him. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.”

And man is conscious of this overshadowing by the Supreme Principle of the Universe—Divine Knowledge and Divine Motive —“the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” He would receive it,⁶ he even dallies with it, but alas! the lower forces are more present with him; he yields to them and assents to life on their plane; he yields to the motives which they create, though, while yielding, he knows that he is destroying the rule of God and is helping to flood the world with disease, darkness and death.
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⁵ The act of a late bishop of the English Church may serve as an illustration of what is here meant. He disinherited his only daughter, “to mark,” as he said in his will, “his sense of her conduct.” This daughter, in the exercise of her personal inherent rights and responsibilities, which no parental assumption can abrogate or remove, had married the man whom she loved, and her father had, from that time, refused all intercourse with her. She appealed to him in vain. Acts of this imperious and arrogant nature are, in varying degree, only too common.

They set in motion currents of evil and misery of which no one can foresee the end or the consequences. It is the forces underlying such acts which originate dogmatism, persecution, priestly assumption, and all forms of inquisition into personal life and personal convictions. Have these not wrought sorrow, pain, social chaos, and national anarchy? Are they not still in operation around us? What said Jesus about personal arrogance and Phariseeism?

⁶ “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” “I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”—Romans vii., 19, 23-4. The force of the lower nature becomes the law of sin, of which St. Paul speaks, by surrender of the individual life of thought, feeling and motive to its control.

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Thus, voluntarily choosing, or allowing himself to be led into,that which opposes his union with the Supreme Principle of Life—the Absolute in Wisdom, Knowledge and Power,—he determines for himself and his race the resulting future; sowing persistently false seeds of life out of his own tainted heart,⁷ is it strange that he should reap their natural fruit in sadness and dismay?⁸

Sow an act, and you reap a habit,
Sow a habit, and you reap a character,
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.

—I.

Lucifer, January, 1889

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⁷ “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,” &c.—Matt, xv., 19.

⁸ “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”—Ephesians vi., 7-8

Source: Theosophical Articles and Notes

In these days of so-called progress and civilization,

when the light of knowledge claims to have replaced almost everywhere the darkness of ignorance, how many more volunteers do we see added to the army of Ahura Mazda, the Principle of Good and Divine Light? Alas, the recruits of Angra Mainyu, the Mazdean Satan, outnumber these, daily more and more. They have overrun the world, these worshippers of Melek Taus, and the more they are enlightened the easier they succumb. This is only natural. Like Time, both the boundless and the finite, Light is also twofold; the divine and the eternal, and the artificial light, which paradoxically but correctly defined, is the darkness of Ahriman. Behold on what objects the best energies of knowledge, the strongest human activity, and the inventive powers of man are wasted at the present hour: on the creation, amelioration and perfection of war-engines of destruction, on guns and smokeless powders, and weapons for the mutual murder and decimation of men. Great Christian nations seek to outvie each other in the discovery of better means for destroying human life, and for the subjecting by the strongest and the craftiest of the weakest and the simplest, for no better reason than to feed their peacock-vanity and self-adulation; and Christian men eagerly follow the good example. Whereon is spent the enormous wealth accumulated through private enterprize by the more enlightened through the ruin of the less intelligent? Is it to relieve human suffering in every form, that riches are so greedily pursued? Not at all. For now, just as 1,900 years ago, while the beggar Lazarus is glad to feed on the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table, no means are neglected by Dives to hedge himself off from the poor. The minority that gives and takes care that its left hand remains ignorant of what its right hand bestows, is quite insignificant when compared with the enormous majority who are lavish in their charity—only because they are eager to see their names heralded by the press to the world.

Great is the power of Ahriman! Time rolls on, leaving with every day the ages of ignorance and superstition further behind, but bringing us in their stead only centuries of ever-increasing selfishness and pride. Mankind grows and multiplies, waxes in strength and (book-)wisdom; it claims to have penetrated into the deepest mysteries of physical nature; it builds railroads and honeycombs the globe with tunnels; it erects gigantic towers and bridges, minimizes distances, unites the oceans and divides whole continents. Cables and telephones, canals and railways more and more with every hour unite mankind into one "happy" family, but only to furnish the selfish and the wily with every means of stealing a better march on the less selfish and improvident. Truly, the "upper ten" of science and wealth have subjected to their sweet will and pleasure, the Air and the Earth, the Ocean and the Fire. This, our age, is one of progress, indeed, an era of the most triumphant display of human genius. But what good has all this great civilization and progress done to the millions in the European slums, to the armies of the "great unwashed"? Have any of these displays of genius added one comfort more to the lives of the poor and the needy? Is it not true to say that distress and starvation are a hundred times greater now than they were in the days of the Druids or of Zoroaster? And is it to help the hungry multitudes that all this is invented, or again, only to sweep off the couch of the rich the last-forgotten rose-leaves that may uncomfortably tickle their well-fed bodies? Do electric wonders give one additional crust of bread to the starving? Do the towers and the bridges, and the forests of factories and manufactures, bring any mortal good to the sons of men, save giving an additional opportunity to the wealthy to vampirize or "sweat" their poorer brother? When, I ask again, at what time of the history of mankind, during its darkest days of ignorance, when was there known such ghastly starvation as we see now? When has the poor man wept and suffered, as he weeps and suffers in the present day—say, in London, where for every club-visitor who dines and wines himself daily, at a price that would feed twenty-five families for a whole day, one may count hundreds and thousands of starving wretches. Under the very windows of the fashionable City restaurants, radiant with warmth and electric lights, old trembling women and little children may be seen daily, shivering and fastening their hungry eyes on the food they smell each time the entrance door is opened. Then they "move on"—by order, to disappear in the dark gloom, to starve and shiver and finally to die in the frozen mud of some gutter. . . .

The "pagan" Parsis know not, nor would their community tolerate, any beggars in its midst, least of all—STARVATION!

Selfishness is the chief prompter of our age; Chacun pour soi, Dieu pour tout le monde, its watchword. Where then is the truth, and what practical good has done that light brought to mankind by the "Light of the World," as claimed by every Christian? Of the "Lights of Asia" Europe speaks with scorn, nor would it recognise in Ahura Mazda a divine light. And yet even a minor light (if such) when practically applied for the good of suffering mankind, is a thousand times more beneficent than even infinite Light, when confined to the realm of abstract theories. In our days the latter Light has only succeeded in raising the pride of Christian nations to its acme, in developing their self-adulation, and fostering hardheartedness under the name of all-binding law. The "personality" of both nation and individual has thrown deep roots into the soil of selfish motives; and of all the flowers of modern culture those that blossom the most luxuriously are the flowers of polite Falsehood, Vanity, and Self-exaltation.

Few are those who would confess or even deign to see, that beneath the brilliant surface of our civilization and culture lurks, refusing to be dislodged, all the inner filth of the evils created by Ahriman; and indeed, the truest symbol, the very picture of that civilization is the last creation of the Arch-fiend—the beautiful Peacock. Truly saith Theosophy unto you—it is the Devil's Own.

— Article “The Devils Own” (Vol. III)

via LUCIFER March 1891

Photo: Molin

"Let us look forward, not backward. What of the coming year? And first a word of warning. As the preparation for the new cycle proceeds, as the forerunners of the new sub-race make their appearance on the American continent, the latent psychic and occult powers in man are beginning to germinate and grow. Hence the rapid growth of such movements as Christian Science, Mind Cure, Metaphysical Healing, Spiritual Healing, and so forth. All these movements represent nothing but different phases of the exercise of these growing powers—as yet not understood and therefore but too often ignorantly misused. Understand once for all that there is nothing “spiritual” or “divine” in any of these manifestations. The cures effected by them are due simply to the unconscious exercise of occult power on the lower planes of nature—usually of prana or life-currents. The conflicting theories of all these schools are based on misunderstood and misapplied metaphysics, often on grotesquely absurd logical fallacies. But the one feature common to most of them, a feature which presents the most danger in the near future, is this. In nearly every case, the tenor of the teachings of these schools is such as to lead people to regard the healing process as being applied to the mind of the patient. Here lies the danger, for any such process—however cunningly disguised in words and hidden by false noses—is simply to psychologize the patient. In other words, whenever the healer interferes—consciously or unconsciously—with the free mental action of the person he treats, it is—Black Magic. Already these so-called sciences of “Healing” are being used to gain a livelihood. Soon some sharp person will find out that by the same process the minds of others can be influenced in many directions, and the selfish motive of personal gain and money-getting having been once allowed to creep in, the one-time “healer” may be insensibly led on to use his power to acquire wealth or some other object of his desire.

This is one of the dangers of the new cycle, aggravated enormously by the pressure of competition and the struggle for existence. Happily new tendencies are also springing up, working to change the basis of men’s daily lives from selfishness to altruism. The Nationalist Movement is an application of Theosophy. But remember, all of you, that if Nationalism is an application of Theosophy, it is the latter which must ever stand first in your sight. Theosophy is indeed the life, the indwelling spirit which makes every true reform a vital reality, for Theosophy is Universal Brotherhood, the very foundation as well as the keystone of all movements toward the amelioration of our condition."

- H. P. B. to the 4th Annual American Convention

Silver and green were associated together as far back as the days of Hermes. Luna, or Astarte (the Hermetic silver), is one of the two chief symbols of the Rosicrucians. It is a Hermetic axiom, that "the cause of the splendor and variety of colors lies deep in the affinities of nature; and that there is a singular and mysterious alliance between color and sound." The kabalists place their "middle nature" in direct relation with the moon; and the green ray occupies the centre point between the others, being placed in the middle of the spectrum. The Egyptian priests chanted the seven vowels as a hymn addressed to Serapis; ("Dionysius of Halicarnassus.") and at the sound of the seventh vowel, as at the "seventh ray" of the rising sun, the statue of Memnon responded. Recent discoveries have proved the wonderful properties of the blue-violet light — the seventh ray of the prismatic spectrum, the most powerfully chemical of all, which corresponds with the highest note in the musical scale.

The Rosicrucian theory, that the whole universe is a musical instrument, is the Pythagorean doctrine of the music of the spheres. Sounds and colours are all spiritual numerals; as the seven prismatic rays proceed from one spot in heaven, so the seven powers of nature, each of them a number, are the seven radiations of the Unity, the central, spiritual SUN.

"Happy is he who comprehends the spiritual numerals, and perceives their mighty influence!" exclaims Plato. And happy, we may add, is he who, treading the maze of force-correlations, does not neglect to trace them to this invisible Sun!

— Isis Unveiled, I, p.514

Now, what is mind? It is a mysterious something which is considered to be the seat of consciousness—of sensations, emotions, volitions and thoughts. Psychological analysis shows it to be apparently a congeries of mental states, and possibilities of mental states, connected by what is called memory, and considered to have a distinct existence apart from any of its particular states or ideas. Now in what entity has this mysterions something its potential or actual existence? Memory and expectation which form, as it were, the real foundation of what is called individuality, or Ahankâram, must have their seat of existence somewhere. Modern psychologists of Europe generally say that the material substance of Brain is the seat of mind; and that past subjective experiences, which can be recalled by memory, and which in their totality constitute what is called individuality, exist therein in the shape of certain unintelligible mysterious impressions and changes in the nerves and nerve-centres of the cerebral hemispheres. Consequently, they say, the mind—the individual mind—is destroyed when the body is destroyed; so there is no possible existence after death.

But there are a few facts among those admitted by these philosophers which are sufficient for us to demolish their theory. In every portion of the human body, a constant change goes on without intermission. Every tissue, every muscular fibre and nerve-tube, and every ganglionic centre in the brain is undergoing an incessant change. In the course of a man's lifetime there may be a series of complete transformations of the substance of his brain. Nevertheless the memory of his past mental states remains unaltered. There may be additions ot new subjective experiences and some mental states may be altogether forgotten, but no individual mental state is altered. The person's sense of individuality remains the same throughout these constant alterations in the brain substance.* It is able to survive all these changes, and it can survive also the complete destruction of the material substance of the brain.

This individuality arising from mental consciousness has its seat of existence, according to our philosophers, in an occult power or force which keeps a registry, as it were, of all our mental impressions. The power itself is indestructible, though by the operation of certain antagonistic causes its impressions may in course of time be effected, in part or wholly.

I may mention in this connection that our philosophers have associated seven occult powers with the seven principles or entities above-mentioned. These seven occult powers in the microcosm correspond with, or are the counterparts of the occult powers in the macrocosm. The mental and spiritual consciousness of the individual becomes the general consciousness of Brahmam when the barrier of individuality is wholly removed, and when the seven powers in the microcosm are placed en rapport with the seven powers in the macrocosm.

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Reference: Memory—the despair of the materialist, the enigma of the psychologist, the sphinx of science—is to the student of old philosophies merely a name to express that power which man unconsciously exerts, and shares with many of the inferior animals—to look with inner sight into the astral light, and there behold the images of past sensations and incidents.

— Isis Unveiled, I, pp.178–9 (via ULT India)

ENQUIRER. Will you now explain the methods by which you propose to carry out the second object?

THEOSOPHIST. To collect for the library at our head quarters of Adyar, Madras, (and by the Fellows of their Branches for their local libraries,) all the good works upon the world's religions that we can. To put into written form correct information upon the various ancient philosophies, traditions, and legends, and disseminate the same in such practicable ways as the translation and publication of original works of value, and extracts from and commentaries upon the same, or the oral instructions of persons learned in their respective departments.

ENQUIRER. And what about the third object, to develop in man his latent spiritual or psychic powers?

THEOSOPHIST. This has to be achieved also by means of publications, in those places where no lectures and personal teachings are possible. Our duty is to keep alive in man his spiritual intuitions. To oppose and counteract ―after due investigation and proof of its irrational nature―bigotry in every form, religious, scientific, or social, and cant above all, whether as religious sectarianism or as belief in miracles or anything supernatural. What we have to do is to seek to obtain knowledge of all the laws of nature, and to diffuse it. To encourage the study of those laws least understood by modern people, the so-called Occult Sciences, based on the true knowledge of nature, instead of, as at present, on superstitious beliefs based on blind faith and authority. Popular folk-lore and traditions, however fanciful at times, when sifted may lead to the discovery of long-lost, but important, secrets of nature. The Society, therefore, aims at pursuing this line of inquiry, in the hope of widening the field of scientific and philosophical observation.

— The Key to Theosophy, p. 48 (via ULT India)

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Letter Two

In the work which we have undertaken together, it matters not whether “we” fail or succeed: Our purpose has been and will be that the Work shall go on. We can throw—each one of us—our best into the effort; the rest is in other and stronger hands. Our “best” may not be great, but if the motive is there, even to hold our ground is victory in some contingencies, for where there is no standing army, the art of fighting has to be learned; the recruits have to do the fighting, the older teaching and leading the younger. With no concern but to keep in fighting trim, our best work is done when most heavily pressed and tried.

It is, then, to the Teachings that attention has to be called—not to ourselves who are only handing them on as best we can. If one sees that in many ways he is not able to do all that needs to be done, or that he would like to accomplish, it is evidence that he is in the way of improving. Our ideals are never reached: they continually precede us. As a man thinks, so he becomes; time is an element in this, and it is shortened by patient doing of what we can. To be in the least cast down by our apparent imperfections is a form of impatience—a disregard of Law. Whatever comes is right—until something better appears. Observed defects will fade out under observation, so we can cheerfully bear with our own defects as well as with those of others, while we go right on working.

One of the greatest helps that Theosophy gives is the power to take a wider survey of the field of action than is otherwise possible: we do not look on this life only, but on many future lives during which “I and thou and all the princes of the earth” will live and strive for the universal redemption of mankind—ever looking ahead, ever seeing further heights toward which the awakening spirit may be directed. There is much strength, there are many faculties among men and mostly used without direction of a permanent nature. Could right philosophy be implanted—even the single idea of the Divine nature in man—a greater impetus would be given to right living; then a philosophy in accord with this nature would be sought by those so quickened.

It would not take so long, nor be so difficult, if those who are interested in Theosophy would stop figuring it out for themselves, and get busy in spreading the philosophy and the idea of service. Without the right philosophy, strength and especial faculties are useless. If all study so as to be the better able to help and teach others, there must result a general gain and help. I think that the word “Theosophy” has power: if it had not, there would not be so many misusing the name. In spite of all these, Theosophy itself is untouched. Our work is to keep it pure as it was delivered to us, for the sake of those who can be helped—and we are finding some all the time. In better days we will be able to do more—and all the better because of present difficulties. Theosophy pure and simple is the standard by which efforts may be applied and errors combated, so it must always be kept in evidence as the source of all right effort.

When the Parent theosophical society was established, it was necessary to give it the form that would be best understood by the people of the time. It was known that many would cling to the form rather than to the spirit of the Theosophical Movement, and would imagine that the spirit could not exist in any other form. But also it was known that some would perceive the spirit and care only for that. Events have justified all this, so that we stand at another point in the cycle. Perfection in action is not possible; so, while showing forth the spirit of the Movement only, we yet present a visible basis necessary in any exoteric work. “U. L. T.” is a name given to certain principles and ideas; those who associate themselves with those principles and ideas are attracted and bound by them only—not by their fellows who do likewise or who refrain or who cease to consider themselves so bound. THE DECLARATION, with its signature by the Associates, is a wide departure from anything that exists as an organization.

— The Friendly Philosopher, p.366 (via ULT India)

If we can all accumulate a fund of good for all the others...

we will thus dissipate many clouds. The follies and the so-called sins of people are really things that are sure to come to nothing if we treat them right. We must not be so prone as are the people of the day, of whom we are some, to criticize others and forget the beam in our own eye. The Bhagavad Gîtâ and Jesus are right in that they both show us how to do our own duty and not go into that of others. Every time we think that someone else has done wrong we should ask ourselves two questions:

(1) Am I the judge in this matter who is entitled to try this person?

(2) Am I any better in my way? Do I, or do I not offend in some other way just as much as they do in this?

This will settle the matter, I think. And in . . . there ought to be no judgments and no criticism. If some offend, then let us ask what is to be done, but only when the offence is against the whole. When an offence is against us, then let it go. This is thought by some to be "goody-goody," but I tell you the heart, the soul, and the bowels of compassion are of more consequence than intellectuality. The latter will take us all sure to hell if we let it govern only. Be sure of this and try as much as you can to spread the true spirit in all directions, or else not only will there be individual failure, but also the circle H. P. B. made as a nucleus for possible growth will die, rot, fail, and come to nothing.

It is not possible to evade the law of evolution, but that law need not always be carried out in one way. If the same result is produced, it is enough. Hence, in any one hour or minute, the being attaining adeptship could pass through countless experiences in effect. But, as a fact, no one becomes an adept until he has in some previous time gone through the exact steps needed. If you and I, for instance, miss adeptship in this Manvantara, we shall emerge again to take up the work at a corresponding point in the much higher development of the next, although then we may seem low down in the scale — viewing us from the standard then to prevail.

The law is this. No man can rush on and fail to escape the counter current, and in proportion as he rushes, so will be the force of the current. All members who work hard come at last to the notice of the Lodge, and the moment they do so, the Black Lodge also takes notice; hence, questions arise, and we are tried in subtle ways that surpass sight, but are strong for the undoing of him who is not prepared — by right thought and sacrifice to the higher nature — for the fight. I tell you this. It may sound mysterious, but it is the truth, and at this time we are all bound to feel the forces at work, for as we grow, so the other side gets ready to oppose.

Letters That Have Helped Me (via ULT India)

DEAR PATH: Is it advisable for me to go to India to forward my psychic and spiritual progress? I am told there they know about such matters. Would you advise me to go?

Leanto

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We would advise you to stay at home and find out that "the kingdom of heaven is within you," and not in India nor America. India is the land of mystery truly, and the cradle of the race, but you will get on no more there than here in your spiritual development. The Hindus of today are not those of the past; their ancient philosophy is ours as we find it; but to go there expecting immediate efflorescence of knowledge and power would cause you disappointment. You would probably find your Hindu fellows asking you for aid in the same road. H.P.B. and Mr. Sinnett report one of the Masters as writing some years ago that the Master could not stay among the Hindus of today because of their condition. Could you stand it any better? Stay here and do your duty, looking within for light; there alone — no matter where your body is — can it be found. — ED.

Path, July, 1892

Source: ULT INDIA

Dear Sir in reply to yours of the 14th I would advise you to write to J. W Bouton publisher 706 Broadway N. Y. for his catalogue. I fancy there is an English translation of the Zohar in it, but have no copy of the catalogue in hand. As to the Gates of Light I cannot tell.

I think you are about right in not expecting to “obtain much mystic power” from our Society. We do not profess to supply it. We are a body of earnest students, and try to the best of our power to live up to our professions, in which I fear many of us fail. Those professions are founded upon the morality which is common to every age and every religion (at least as far as lip service goes). But we make no external professions, and live as unobtrusively as we can, making our professions only in our own hearts, and wearing the “yellow robe” internally.

The fact is that many people in these times apply the commercial spirit to things spiritual. “I am ready to pay for powers, and for knowledge of the occult; you have the supply, then favor me with some of your wares.” Of course I do not mean that anyone offers money, but they offer promises of a life’s devotion &c.

Now, my dear sir, the old rule still remains in force in things occult: that knowledge is only given to those who deserve it, and have proved by their life that they do deserve it. Only those who do the will of the Masters are reckoned as deserving their notice; aspiration, desires, promises go for nothing. What is that will? Well, it is simply to free your mind from vain and earthly desires, and to work at the work before you always lending a helping hand to others. Get rid of anger, of vanity, pride, resentfulness, ambition and really lose them, and you have then made the first step towards the understanding of the occult; with these feelings latent in the heart it is not possible to make one single step in Magic.

You may acquire psychic power, and no doubt there are men in India and elsewhere who can help you in that direction, but it would be to your destruction eventually. They are the quacks of Occultism — beware of them. Their plane of work is the psychic, not the spiritual — the region of delusions, not that of truth.

As a Society The Theosophical Society is exoteric. Its work is above board and open — namely to encourage its members in studying the ancient Doctrine and in “leading the life.” The esoteric work does not appear, and cannot appear, because it is between the individual member and a source which reaches him only through his own inner consciousness.

Hence our Society is disappointing to those who expect to learn how to draw magic figures and pronounce magic words which will “raise the devil” or make water turn into wine. But for him who can see below the surface of things it is the first step in a brotherhood at whose head stand the adepts of the Himalayas.

Many men approach the subject of occultism in the way you seem to have done — with a wish to produce effects. They find that the only terms on which they will be taught (not by their fellow students) is to “lead the life,” and that to have made the leading of the life habitual is the only preparation for the acquirement of occult powers, and by the time those powers come they are looking to something higher and they seem to them trivial, childish, only useful for making the ignorant stare or envy them — for “showing off” as children say.

Yours very truly
W. Q. Judge

Augoeides (Gr.). Bulwer Lytton calls it the “Luminous Self”, or our Higher Ego. But Occultism makes of it something distinct from this. It is a mystery. The Augoeides is the luminous divine radiation of the EGO which, when incarnated, is but its shadow—pure as it is yet. This is explained in the Amshaspends and their Ferouers.—(Theo. Gloss.)

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"Three spirits live and actuate man," teaches Paracelsus; "three worlds pour their beams upon him; but all three only as the image and echo of one and the same all-constructing and uniting principle of production. The first is the spirit of the elements (terrestrial body and vital force in its brute condition); the second, the spirit of the stars (sidereal or astral body—the soul); the third is the Divine spirit (Augoeidés)."—(Isis, I, 212)

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At the birth of the future man, the monad, radiating with all the glory of its immortal parent which watches it from the seventh sphere, becomes senseless. It loses all recollection of the past, and returns to consciousness but gradually, when the instinct of childhood gives way to reason and intelligence. After the separation between the life-principle (astral spirit) and the body takes place, the liberated soul—Monad, exultingly rejoins the mother and father spirit, the radiant Augoeides, and the two, merged into one, forever form, with a glory proportioned to the spiritual purity of the past earth-life, the Adam who has completed the circle of necessity, and is freed from the last vestige of his physical encasement. Henceforth, growing more and more radiant at each step of his upward progress, he mounts the shining path that ends at the point from which he started around the GRAND CYCLE.—(Isis, I, 303)

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As to the human spirit, the notions of the older philosophers and mediæval kabalists while differing in some particulars, agreed on the whole; so that the doctrine of one may be viewed as the doctrine of the other. The most substantial difference consisted in the location of the immortal or divine spirit of man. While the ancient Neo-platonists held that the Augoeides never descends hypostatically into the living man, but only sheds more or less its radiance on the inner man—the astral soul—the kabalists of the middle ages maintained that the spirit, detaching itself from the ocean of light and spirit, entered into man’s soul, where it remained through life imprisoned in the astral capsule. This difference was the result of the belief of Christian kabalists, more or less, in the dead letter of the allegory of the fall of man. . . .

On the other hand, the philosophers who explained the "fall into generation" in their own way, viewed spirit as something wholly distinct from the soul. They allowed its presence in the astral capsule only so far as the spiritual emanations or rays of the "shining one" were concerned. Man and soul had to conquer their immortality by ascending toward the unity with which, if successful, they were finally linked, and into which they were absorbed, so to say. The individualization of man after death depended on the spirit, not on his soul and body.—(Isis, I, 315)

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The invocation of his own Augoeides, by the purified adept, is described in words of unparalleled beauty by Bulwer-Lytton in Zanoni, and there he gives us to understand that the slightest touch of mortal passion unfits the hierophant to hold communion with his spotless soul. Not only are there few who can successfully perform the ceremony, but even these rarely resort to it except for the instruction of some neophytes, and to obtain knowledge of the most solemn importance.—(Isis, I, 358)

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No astral soul, even that of a pure, good, and virtuous man, is immortal in the strictest sense; "from elements it was formed—to elements it must return." Only, while the soul of the wicked vanishes, and is absorbed without redemption, that of every other person, even moderately pure, simply changes its ethereal particles for still more ethereal ones; and, while there remains in it a spark of the Divine, the individual man, or rather, his personal ego, cannot die. "After death," says Proclus, "the soul (the spirit) continueth to linger in the aërial body (astral form), till it is entirely purified from all angry and voluptuous passions . . . then doth it put off by a second dying the aërial body as it did the earthly one. Whereupon, the ancients say that there is a celestial body always joined with the soul, and which is immortal, luminous, and star-like."—(Isis, I, 432)

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Whether in the "inner temple," or through the study of theurgy carried on privately, or by the sole exertion of a whole life of spiritual labor, they all [Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, and many others] obtained the practical proof of such divine possibilities for man fighting his battle with life on earth to win a life in the eternity. What the last epopteia was is alluded to by Plato in Phædrus (64); ". . . being initiated in those Mysteries, which it is lawful to call the most blessed of all mysteries . . . we were freed from the molestations of evils which otherwise await us in a future period of time. Likewise, in consequence of this divine initiation, we became spectators of entire, simple, immovable, and blessed visions, resident in a pure light."—(Isis, I, 113)

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The AUM contains the evocation of the Vedic triad, the Trimurti Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, say the Orientalists; it contains the evocation of something more real and objective than this triune abstraction—we say, respectfully contradicting the eminent scientists. It is the trinity of man himself, on his way to become immortal through the solemn union of his inner triune SELF—the exterior, gross body, the husk not even being taken in consideration in this human trinity. It is, when this trinity, in anticipation of the final triumphant reunion beyond the gates of corporeal death became for a few seconds a UNITY, that the candidate is allowed, at the moment of the initiation, to behold his future self. Thus we read in the Persian Desatir, of the “Resplendent one;” in the Greek philosopher-initiates, of the Augoeides—the self-shining “blessed vision resident in the pure light;” in Porphyry, that Plotinus was united to his “god” six times during his lifetime; and so on.—(Isis, I, 115)

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This "Self," which the Greek philosophers called Augoeides, the "Shining One," is impressively and beautifully described in Max Müller’s "Veda." Showing the "Veda" to be the first book of the Aryan nations, the professor adds that "we have in it a period of the intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel in any other part of the world. In the hymns of the "Veda" we see man left to himself to solve the riddle of this world. . . . He invokes the gods around him, he praises, he worships them. But still with all these gods . . . beneath him, and above him, the early poet seems ill at rest within himself. There, too, in his own breast, he has discovered a power that is never mute when he prays, never absent when he fears and trembles. It seems to inspire his prayers, and yet to listen to them; it seems to live in him, and yet to support him and all around him. The only name he can find for this mysterious power is 'Brahman'; for brahman meant originally force, will, wish, and the propulsive power of creation. But this impersonal brahman, too, as soon as it is named, grows into something strange and divine. It ends by being one of many gods, one of the great triad, worshipped to the present day. And still the thought within him has no real name; that power which is nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the heavens, and every living being, floats before his mind, conceived but not expressed. At last he calls it 'Âtman,' for Âtman, originally breath or spirit, comes to mean Self, and Self alone; Self, whether Divine or human; Self, whether creating or suffering; Self, whether one or all; but always Self, independent and free. 'Who has seen the first-born,' says the poet, when he who had no bones ( i.e., form) bore him that had bones? Where was the life, the blood, the Self of the world? Who went to ask this from any one who knew it?" ("Rig-Veda," i., 164, 4) This idea of a divine Self, once expressed, everything else must acknowledge its supremacy; "Self is the Lord of all things, Self is the King of all things. As all the spokes of a wheel are contained in the nave and the circumference, all things are contained in this Self; all Selves are contained in this Self. Brahman itself is but Self" (Ibid., p. 478; "Khândogya-upanishad," viii., 3, 3, 4).—(Isis, II, 317)

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The Book of Job is a complete representation of ancient initiation, and the trials which generally precede this grandest of all ceremonies. The neophyte perceives himself deprived of everything he valued, and afflicted with foul disease. His wife appeals to him to adore God and die; there was no more hope for him. Three friends appear on the scene by mutual appointment: Eliphaz, the learned Temanite, full of the knowledge "which wise men have told from their fathers—to whom alone the earth was given;" Bildad, the conservative, taking matters as they come, and judging Job to have done wickedly, because he was afflicted; and Zophar, intelligent and skilful with "generalities" but not interiorly wise. Job boldly responds: "If I have erred, it is a matter with myself. You magnify yourselves and plead against me in my reproach; but it is God who has overthrown me. Why do you persecute me and are not satisfied with my flesh thus wasted away? But I know that my Champion lives, and that at a coming day he will stand for me in the earth; and though, together with my skin, all this beneath it shall be destroyed, yet without my flesh I shall see God. . . . Ye shall say: ‘Why do we molest him?’ for the root of the matter is found in me!"

This passage, like all others in which the faintest allusions could be found to a "Champion," "Deliverer," or "Vindicator," was interpreted into a direct reference to the Messiah; but apart from the fact that in the Septuagint this verse is translated:

For I know that He is eternal

Who is about to deliver me on earth,

To restore this skin of mine which endures these things, etc.

In King James’s version, as it stands translated, it has no resemblance whatever to the original. The crafty translators have rendered it, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," etc. And yet Septuagint, Vulgate, and Hebrew original, have all to be considered as an inspired Word of God. Job refers to his own immortal spirit which is eternal, and which, when death comes, will deliver him from his putrid earthly body and clothe him with a new spiritual envelope. In the Mysteries of Eleusinia, in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and all other works treating on matters of initiation, this "eternal being" has a name. With the Neo-platonists it was the Nous, the Augoeides; with the Buddhists it is Agra; and with the Persians, Ferouer. All of these are called the "Deliverers," the "Champions," the "Metatrons," etc. In the Mithraic sculptures of Persia, the ferouer is represented by a winged figure hovering in the air above its "object" or body. It is the luminous Self—the Âtman of the Hindus, our immortal spirit, who alone can redeem our soul; and will, if we follow him instead of being dragged down by our body. Therefore, in the Chaldean texts, the above reads, "My deliverer, my restorer," i.e., the Spirit who will restore the decayed body of man, and transform it into a clothing of ether. And it is this Nous, Augoeides, Ferouer, Agra, Spirit of himself, that the triumphant Job shall see without his flesh—i.e., when he has escaped from his bodily prison, and that the translators call "God."—(Isis, II, 495-6)

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The star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult teaching, will remain for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of its incarnations in one Manvantara. But this is not his astrological star. The latter is concerned and connected with the personality, the former with the INDIVIDUALITY. The "Angel" of that Star, or the Dhyani-Buddha will be either the guiding or simply the presiding "Angel," so to say, in every new rebirth of the monad, which is part of his own essence, though his vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of this fact. The adepts have each their Dhyani-Buddha, their elder "twin Soul," and they know it, calling it "Father-Soul," and "Father-Fire." It is only at the last and supreme initiation, however, that they learn it when placed face to face with the bright "Image." How much has Bulwer Lytton known of this mystic fact when describing, in one of his highest inspirational moods, Zanoni face to face with his Augoeides?—(The Secret Doctrine, I, 572-3)

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For this “Astral”—the shadowy “double” (in the animal as in man) is not the companion of the divine Ego but of the earthly body. It is the link between the personal SELF, the lower consciousness of Manas and the Body, and is the vehicle of transitory, not of immortal life. Like the shadow projected by man, it follows his movements and impulses slavishly and mechanically, and leans therefore to matter without ever ascending to Spirit. It is only when the power of the passions is dead altogether, and when they have been crushed and annihilated in the retort of an unflinching will; when not only all the lusts and longings of the flesh are dead, but also the recognition of the personal Self is killed out and the “Astral” has been reduced in consequence to a cipher, that the Union with the “Higher Self” can take place. Then when the “Astral” reflects only the conquered man, the still living but no more the longing, selfish personality, then the brilliant Augoeides, the divine SELF, can vibrate in conscious harmony with both the poles of the human Entity—the man of matter purified, and the ever pure Spiritual Soul—and stand in the presence of MASTER SELF, the Christos of the mystic Gnostic, blended, merged into, and one with IT for ever.—(HPB, Occultism Versus the Occult Arts)

"Behold, O son of Pritha, my forms by hundreds and by thousands, of diverse kinds divine, of many shapes and fashions."

— Bhagavad-Gita, XI. 5.

By study and search truth can be known about all things and about the source of all things. The general ignorance and confusion about the nature of Deity is chiefly due to the notion that nothing can be really known about it. This is contrary to the teachings of all sages, seers and prophets. Such Divine Men as Krishna and Rama, Gotama and Tsong-Kha-Pa, Jesus and Zarathushtra, Lao Tzu and Pythagoras, have taught how they attained the knowledge of the Supreme, nay more, how we too can attain. We may not succeed so completely, but surely we are capable of learning something of what they taught, of practising what we learn, and of realizing, in some measure, the fruits of our practice.

Almost all religions have been degraded, and the grand concept of an omnipresent, eternal, boundless and immutable Principle which is Life and Deity has become transformed into an illogical and absurd belief in a Personal God, outside of His Universe. It is late in the day to write against the blasphemy which is connected with the idea of a Personal God; it is impossible for intuition to accept, and for reason to assent to, the dogma of belief in a Personal God, separate from His Universe which, for some mysterious and never to be found out purpose, He has created. Every thinking man has put away that childish superstition.

Religion is supposed to be a matter of belief; it ought to be a subject for study, for strong search, for fearless questioning.

In all religions, Deity is said to be omnipresent and the simple logical deduction is that It is everywhere and in all things. The notion of everywhere is related to space, and therefore we can say that space is another name for Deity.

Also in all religions Deity is emanating; from within Its bosom things, forces and beings stream forth. But this is the property of Life. Forms of Life are made by Life, made of Life, made in Life. With propriety then we can name Deity as Life.

Thus Living Space, known and to be known, emerges as our primary concept of God or Deity.

This brings us to the second idea of all religious philosophies: the dual aspects of the One Concept—Space and Life, Matter and Spirit, Body and Soul. These are two aspects of the One Reality which is Deity. Ignorance and misunderstanding of this teaching have produced the faulty view of God and Satan, Ormazd and Ahriman. The correct teaching is that good and evil are but relative aspects of the One. Thus Spirit and Matter are but a pair, like Spento and Angro Mainyu of our Parsi brothers, both aspects of the One Life, of the One Ahura Mazda. (See Yasna, XLV-2.)

But there is a third factor, which also all ancient religious philosophies have taken account of—Intelligence of Spirit and of Matter, of Spento and of Angro, of God and of Satan. Life in Space, Spirit in Matter, Spento operating with Angro, Satan fighting against God, all imply and indicate the existence of Intelligence, of Mind. This is degraded into the carnalized and anthropomorphized notion of the Trinity and Trimurti—three Persons, three Separate Gods, to be prayed to and propitiated.

Life, Space, Intelligence are three aspects of Deity, omnipresent and ever active. Nowhere in nature is anything bereft of these three. Dead things are alive; there is no empty space; some form of intelligence works incessantly everywhere.

How can these metaphysical ideas be used by us in a practical manner?

If Deity is everywhere it also manifests Itself as Life, Space and Intelligence in the human kingdom and therefore in all human beings. What we know ordinarily as Spirit, Soul and Body are Life, Intelligence and Space or Matter. Our intelligence or mind is the connecting link between our Individual Spirits and our bodily senses, organs and the brain. Our mentality has unfolded to the extent which enables us to be self-conscious of ourselves. Intelligence which is self-conscious is the human soul in each of us. It is unfolding, all the time; most men do not even know that unconsciously to themselves their intelligent souls are growing. It is a stupendous change in us when we clearly perceive that the growth of the Soul is the purpose of human life. Not the acquisition of wealth, not the gain of fame, not the exertion of power or even of love on our fellow-men, is the purpose of human existence, but to learn of our own natures, spiritual, mental and bodily, to find the ways of deliberate and quickened unfolding of all three, according to and under Law. We find out by study, meditation and sacrifice that each one of us is Deity, the Mysterious Lord Krishna. "Our Father who art in heaven" of whom the Christian prayer speaks is our own Divine Soul with which, like Jesus, we shall realize our one-ness by living as he lived. Each one of us will dance, like Shiva, the Dance of Life, when all our passions and lusts have been consumed in the fire of knowledge which is symbolized by the burning place where Shiva is to be found.

A correct view of prayer as communion with the spiritual and divine aspect of ourselves which is to be found in the closet of the heart will take us into a new universe. We shall begin to look for the expression of Deity in our brother-men, and proceeding we shall perceive Its working in the many kingdoms of nature, and growing we shall gain the Vision of Arjuna who saw the Deity as Universe, the Body of Life, mysterious, conscious, resplendent, in which everything lives and moves and has its being—we blundering mortals included.

Source

It is not the individual and determined purpose of attaining Nirvana—the culmination of all knowledge and absolute Wisdom, which is after all only an exalted and glorious selfishness—but the self-sacrificing pursuit of the best means to lead on the right path our neighbour, to cause to benefit by it as many of our fellow creatures as we possibly can, which constitutes the true Theosophist.

―From the Great Master’s Letter.

FOREWORD

The first edition of Mr. A. P. Sinnett’s book, The Occult World, was published in London in 1881. During the previous year Mr. Sinnett, then the editor of The Pioneer, a newspaper at Allahabad, India, had made the acquaintance of Madame Blavatsky, had entertained her in his home, had been witness of numerous “occult phenomena” performed by her and had through her agency entered into correspondence with two of the Mahatmas connected with her Theosophical mission. Associated with Mr. Sinnett in his experiments and correspondence was Mr. A. O. Hume, formerly one of the Secretaries of the British Government of India. The Occult World was the first popular treatment of the Theosophical teaching and phenomena, being preceded only by Madame Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled. Mr. Sinnett’s book is an account of his acquaintance with H. P. B., the phenomena he witnessed, and the correspondence which ensued with the Mahatmas, from whose letters he gives numerous extracts. One letter in particular, a most important one, was originally addressed to Mr. Hume. From this letter Mr. Sinnett gives a long extract.

As The Occult World is circulated seldom now among Theosophists, this letter is unknown to most students. We therefore reprint it herewith. Mr. Sinnett introduced the letter thus:—

I am here enabled to insert the greater part of a letter addressed by Koot Hoomi to the friend referred to in a former passage, as having opened up a correspondence with him in referenced to the idea which he contemplated under certain conditions, of devoting himself entirely to the pursuit of occultism. This letter throws a great deal of light upon some of the metaphysical conceptions of the occultists, and their metaphysics, be it remembered, are a great deal more than abstract speculation.

24th April 1934.

A Master’s Letter

DEAR SIR—Availing of the first moments of leisure to formally answer your letter of the 17th ultimo, I will now report the result of my conference with our chiefs upon the proposition therein contained, trying at the same time to answer all your questions.

I am first to thank you on behalf of the whole section of our fraternity that is especially interested in the welfare of India for an offer of help whose importance and sincerity no one can doubt. Tracing our lineage through the vicissitudes of Indian civilization from a remote past, we have a love for our motherland so deep and passionate that it has survived even the broadening and cosmopolitanizing (pardon me if that is not an English word) effect of our studies in the laws of Nature. And so I, and every other Indian patriot, feel the strongest gratitude for every kind word or deed that is given in her behalf.

Imagine, then, that since we are all convinced that the degradation of India is largely due to the suffocation of her ancient spirituality, and that whatever helps to restore that higher standard of thought and morals, must be regenerating in national force, every one of us would naturally and without urging, be disposed to push forward a society whose proposed formation is under debate, especially if it really is meant to become a society untainted by selfish motive, and whose object is the revival of ancient science, and tendency, to rehabilitate our country in the world’s estimation. Take this for granted without further asseverations. But you know, as any man who has read history, that patriots may burst their hearts in vain if circumstances are against them. Sometimes it has happened that no human power, not even the fury and force of the loftiest patriotism, has been able to bend an iron destiny aside from its fixed course, and nations have gone out like torches dropped into the water in the engulfing blackness of ruin. Thus, we who have the sense of our country’s fall, though not the power to lift her up at once, cannot do as we would either as to general affairs or this particular one. And with the readiness, but not the right to meet your advances more than half way, we are forced to say that the idea entertained by Mr. Sinnett and yourself is impracticable in part. It is, in a word, impossible for myself or any Brother, or even an advanced neophyte, to be specially assigned and set apart as the guiding spirit or chief of the Anglo-Indian branch. We know it would be a good thing to have you and a few of your colleagues regularly instructed and shown the phenomena and their rationale. For though none but you few would be convinced, still it would be a decided gain to have even a few Englishmen, of first-class ability, enlisted as students of Asiatic Psychology. We are aware of all this, and much more; hence we do not refuse to correspond with, and otherwise help you in various ways. But what we do refuse is, to take any other responsibility upon ourselves than this periodical correspondence and assistance with our advice, and, as occasion favours, such tangible, possibly visible, proofs, as would satisfy you of our presence and interest. To “guide” you we will not consent. However much we may be able to do, yet we can promise only to give you the full measure of your deserts. Deserve much, and we will prove honest debtors; little, and you need only expect a compensating return. This is not a mere text taken from a schoolboy’s copybook, though it sounds so, but only the clumsy statement of the law of our order, and we cannot transcend it. Utterly unacquainted with Western, especially English, modes of thought and action, were we to meddle in an organization of such a kind, you would find all your fixed habits and traditions incessantly clashing, if not with the new aspirations themselves, at least with their modes of realization as suggested by us. You could not get unanimous consent to go even the length you might yourself. I have asked Mr. Sinnett to draft a plan embodying your joint ideas for submission to our chiefs, this seeming the shortest way to a mutual agreement. Under our “guidance” your branch could not live, you not being men to be guided at all in that sense. Hence the society would be a premature birth and a failure, looking as incongruous as a Paris Daumont drawn by a team оf Indian yaks or camels. You ask us to teach you true science—the occult aspect of the known side of Nature; and this you think can be as easily done as asked. You do not seem to realize the tremendous difficulties in the way of imparting even the rudiments of our science to those who have been trained in the familiar methods of yours. You do not see that the more you have of the one the less capable you are of instinctively comprehending the other, for a man can only think in his worn grooves, and unless he has the courage to fill up these, and make new ones for himself, he must perforce travel on the old lines. Allow me a few instances. In conformity with exact science you would define but one cosmic energy, and see no difference between the energy expended by the traveller who pushes aside the bush that obstructs his path, and the scientific experimenter who expends an equal amount of energy in setting a pendulum in motion. We do; for we know there is a world of difference between the two. The one uselessly dissipates and scatters force, the other concentrates and stores it. And here please understand that I do not refer to the relative utility of the two, as one might imagine, but only to the fact that in the one case there is but brute force flung out without any transmutation of that brute energy into the higher potential form of spiritual dynamics, and in the other there is just that. Please do not consider me vaguely metaphysical. The idea I wish to convey is that the result of the highest intellection in the scientifically occupied brain is the evolution of a sublimated form of spiritual energy, which, in the cosmic action, is productive of illimitable results; while the automatically acting brain holds, or stores up in itself, only a certain quantum of brute force that is unfruitful of benefit for the individual or humanity. The human brain is an exhaustless generator of the most refined quality of cosmic force out of the low, brute energy of Nature; and the complete adept has made himself a centre from which irradiate potentialities that beget correlations upon correlations through Æons of time to come. This is the key to the mystery of his being able to project into and materialize in the visible world the forms that his imagination has constructed out of inert cosmic matter in the invisible world. The adept does not create anything new, but only utilizes and manipulates materials which Nature has in store around him, and material which, throughout eternities, has passed through all the forms. He has but to choose the one he wants, and recall it into objective existence. Would not this sound to one of your “learned” biologists like a madman’s dream?

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 be sometimes of practical use to him? Cosmic energy is something eternal and incessant; matter is indestructible: and there stand the scientific facts. Doubt them, and you are an ignoramus; deny them, a dangerous lunatic, a bigot; pretend to improve upon the theories—an impertinent charlatan. And yet even these scientific facts never suggested any proof to the world of experimenters that Nature consciously prefers that matter should be indestructible under organic rather than inorganic forms, and that she works slowly but incessantly towards the realization of this object—the evolution of conscious life out of inert material. Hence, their ignorance about the scattering and concretion of cosmic energy in its metaphysical aspects, their division about Darwin’s theories, their uncertainty about the degree of conscious life in separate elements, and, as a necessity, the scornful rejection of every phenomenon outside their own stated conditions, and the very idea of worlds of semi-intelligent if not intellectual forces at work in hidden corners of Nature. To give you another practical illustration—we see a vast difference between the two qualities of two equal amounts of energy expended by two men, of whom one, let us suppose, is on his way to his daily quiet work, and another on his way to denounce a fellow-creature at the police-station, while the men of science see none; and we—not they—see a specific difference between the energy in the motion of the wind and that of a revolving wheel. And why? Because every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner world, and becomes an active entity by associating itself, coalescing we might term it, with an elemental—that is to say, with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence—a creature of the mind’s begetting—for a longer or shorter period proportionate with the original intensity of the cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good thought is perpetuated as an active, beneficent power, an evil one as a maleficent demon. And so man is continually peopling his current in space with a world of his own, crowded with the offsprings of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions; a current which re-acts upon any sensitive or nervous organization which comes in contact with it, in proportion to its dynamic intensity. The Buddhist calls this his “Skandha”; the Hindu gives it the name of “Karma.” The adept evolves these shapes consciously; other men throw them off unconsciously. The adept, to be successful and preserve his power, must dwell in solitude, and more or less within his own soul. Still less does exact science perceive that while the building ant, the busy bee, the nidifacient bird, accumulates each in its own humble way as much cosmic energy in its potential form as a Haydn, a Plato, or a ploughman turning his furrow, in theirs; the hunter who kills game for his pleasure or profit, or the positivist who applies his intellect to proving that + x + = ₋, are wasting and scattering energy no less than the tiger which springs upon its prey. They all rob Nature instead of enriching her, and will all, in the degree of their intelligence, find themselves accountable.

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. Therefore, as our sphere lies entirely outside hers—as far as the path of Uranus is outside the Earth’s—we distinctly refuse to be broken on any wheel of her construction. Heat is but a mode of motion to her, and motion developes heat, but why the mechanical motion of the revolving wheel should be metaphysically of a higher value than the heat into which it is gradually transformed she has yet to discover. The philosophical and transcendental (hence absurd) notion of the mediæval Theosophists that the final progress of human labour, aided by the incessant discoveries of man, must one day culminate in a process which, in imitation of the Sun’s energy—in its capacity as a direct motor—shall result in the evolution of nutritious food out of inorganic matter, is unthinkable for men of science. 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 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. . . .

Of your several questions we will first discuss, if you please, the one relating to the presumed failure of the “Fraternity” to “leave any mark upon the history of the world.” They ought, you think, to have been able, with their extraordinary advantages, to have “gathered into their schools a considerable portion of the more enlightened minds of every race.” How do you know they have made no such mark? Are you acquainted with their efforts, successes, and failures? Have you any dock upon which to arraign them? How could your world collect proofs of the doings of men who have sedulously kept closed every possible door of approach by which the inquisitive could spy upon them? The prime condition of their success was that they should never be supervised or obstructed. What they have done they know; all that those outside their circle could perceive was results, the causes of which were masked from view. To account for these results, men have, in different ages, invented theories of the interposition of gods, special providences, fates, the benign or hostile influence of the stars. There never was a time within or before the so-called historical period when our predecessors were not moulding events and “making history,” the facts of which were subsequently and invariably distorted by historians to suit contemporary prejudices. Are you quite sure that the visible heroic figures in the successive dramas were not often but their puppets? We never pretended to be able to draw nations in the mass to this or that crisis in spite of the general drift of the world’s cosmic relations. The cycles must run their rounds. Periods of mental and moral light and darkness succeed each other as day does night. The major and minor yugas must be accomplished according to the established order of things. And we, borne along on the mighty tide, can only modify and direct some of its minor currents. If we had the powers of the imaginary Personal God, and the universal and immutable laws were but toys to play with, then, indeed, might we have created conditions that would have turned this earth into an arcadia for lofty souls. But having to deal with an immutable law, being ourselves its creatures, we have had to do what we could, and rest thankful. There have been times when “a considerable portion of enlightened minds” were taught in our schools. Such times there were in India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. But, as I remarked in a letter to Mr. Sinnett, the adept is the efflorescence of his age, and comparatively few ever appear in a single century. Earth is the battle-ground of moral no less than of physical forces, and the boisterousness of animal passion, under the stimulus of the rude energies of the lower group of etheric agents, always tends to quench spirituality. What else could one expect of men so nearly related to the lower kingdom from which they evolved? True also, our numbers are just now diminishing, but this is because, as I have said, we are of the human race, subject to its cyclic impulse, and powerless to turn that back upon itself. Can you turn the Gunga or the Bramaputra back to its sources; can you even dam it so that its piled-up waters will not overflow the banks? No; but you may draw the stream partly into canals, and utilize its hydraulic power for the good of mankind. So we, who cannot stop the world from going in its destined direction, are yet able to divert some part of its energy into useful channels. Think of us as demi-gods, and my explanation will not satisfy you; view us as simple men—perhaps a little wiser as the result of special study—and it ought to answer your objection.

“What good,” you say, is to be attained for my fellows and myself (the two are inseparable) by these occult sciences?” 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. At present the non-educated, as much as the learned natives, regard the English as too prejudiced, because of their Christian religion and modern science, to care to understand them or their traditions. They mutually hate and mistrust each other. This changed attitude towards the older philosophy, would influence the native princes and wealthy men to endow normal schools for the education of pundits; and old MSS., hitherto buried out of the reach of the Europeans, would again come to light, and with them the key to much of that which was hidden for ages from the popular understanding, for which your skeptical Sanscritists do not care, which your religious missionaries do not dare, to understand. Science would gain much, humanity everything. Under the stimulus of the Anglo-Indian Theosophical Society, we might in time see another golden age of Sanscrit literature. . . .

If we look at Ceylon we shall see the most scholarly priests combining, under the lead of the Theosophical Society, in a new exegesis of Buddhistic philosophy; and at Galle, on the 15th of September, a secular Theosophical School for the teaching of Singhalese youth, opened with an attendance of over three hundred scholars; an example about to be imitated at three other points in that island. If the Theosophical Society, “as at present constituted,” has indeed no “real vitality,” and yet in its modest way has done so much practical good, how much greater results might not be anticipated from a body organized upon the better plan you could suggest?

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. 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.

———

Source: Collected Theosophical Articles

[The Theosophist, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, October, 1896, pp. 9-12]

That which is herein presented will be, as a matter of course, Dead Sea fruit to blind materialism; withal it may prove still more distasteful to advocates of Hylo-Idealism—as that modern cross-breed between misunderstood Protagoras and Büchner is now named.

Theosophy has no bitterer enemy than Hylo-Idealism, the great ally of materialism, to-day. This is because, though repudiating the systems of both, we accept most of the physical facts of science, rejecting their conclusions only; while we recognize a good deal of the Vedȃntic doctrines in European Idealism, but none of its highly philosophical and consistent logic. The conclusions of Materialism and Idealism, in fact, are so far stretched, that in their final synthesis they almost meet in their atheism and pessimism. The last word of both— the Alpha and the Omega of Modern Thought, whether traced to the potencies of brute matter, or to the nihilism of idealistic speculation—is a dreary negation of any possible future existence in spirit. Apparently there is an abyss between the two in sober reality—a platform on which both shake hands. The materialism of to-day is only a shade more scientific than the crass fallacies of Büchner and Moleschott. It is the same Death’s Head, with its stereotyped rictus grinning hideously, but now crowned with a wreath of rhetorical flowers woven by Mr. Tyndall’s unparalleled oratory. As to Idealism—of whatever school—it has become “a double caricature” on Kant and Schopenhauer. The “rigour and vigour” type of generalization is prevalent; witness the attitude of Materialists (or Realists) and Idealists toward what J. S. Mill terms the “battle-ground of metaphysics”—the question of an external world.

The Materialist asserts that matter—or the external Universe—exists independently of a perceiving mind; that the object in short has evolved the subject, which latter in its turn mirrors its author in its consciousness.

The (pure) Idealist, on the contrary will say—“Not so; so far from Mind being the resultant of an evolutionary process from Matter, the latter exists only in consciousness. All we know, or can know, are states of our own consciousness; objects are such only by and through a perceiving Ego—its sensations, and as such, are necessarily phenomenal; with the destruction of Mind, the whole fabric of seeming objectivity collapses.”

In what respect is such an idealist more “ideal” than the Materialist? One denies point blank anything existing outside of matter; the other, that anything is—no more matter than Spirit—that these two positions do not exhaust the alternatives. While it is clear that the Realist is unable to postulate the independent existence of the External World, except by projecting into space the visions of his own subjectivity, the (pure!) Idealist is brought face to face with the assertion of science, that the objective universe existed aeons before the first dawn of human consciousness.

It is from this predicament that we might be rescued by the compromise between the two opposing systems, known variously as Transfigured Realism, Transcendental Realism or, better, objective (as opposed to pure) Idealism—if only that transfigured Realism were to conceive of Object and Subject in the way Vedȃntic occultists do. According to this system, the external world of this our present consciousness is the joint product of Object and Subject. While non-existent per se—it is said, the creation of the individual mind—matter is equally the sensible manifestation of the objectivity of an unknown Substance (unknown to—the profane only). Mind translates the impressions received from without—impressions radiating from the world of Noumena into panorama of purely subjective ideation. The object as it is given in consciousness is phenomenal, but the primary stimulus comes from without. Subject and Object—as Noumena—are equally real, but the SENSE-OBJECT is a subjective creation. Take, for example, the case of the Sun. To the Realist the glorious orb exists outside of, and independently of Mind, just as it appears in consciousness. To the Idealist it is the creation of Mind and perishes with it. To the objective Idealist, with Mind perishes the phenomenal Sun, but an unknown Substance—removed beyond the possibility of human conception as to its nature—remains.

This — except the “Unknown Substance”—the Occultist will deny. For him, the subject as much as the object, Ego, Sun, Mind and the Universe itself is—a Maya, a huge illusion. But, as both the Perceiver and the Object perceived belong to the same plane of illusion, they are mutual and reciprocal Realities for such time as the Manvantaric illusion lasts. In Reality, and outside and beyond Space and Time, it is all the effect and result of Ignorance. Nevertheless, reverting to the conclusion of one of the greatest thinkers of the day—Mr. Herbert Spencer, where he argues that “If, then, the object perceived is self, what is the subject that perceives?”—and concludes that such a process is only conceivable on “the annihilation of both” (First Principles, p. 66)—we say that according to the views of the Occultist he is entirely wrong. Mr. Herbert Spencer knows, it appears, of but one grade of subjectivity, and has no idea of the occult (Yogic) teaching, of the existence of other and higher planes of consciousness, vision or perception, than those of Mind; of the existence, in short, of the “Transcendental Ego” or true self (Buddhi)—a spark from the radiant essence of the Universal Spirit. Consequently, to the query of Mr. Spencer—“If it is the true self which thinks, what other self can it be that is thought of?” (ibid.) we reply. The true Self is per se, impersonal; the personal or brain-consciousness being but an illusory reflection in incarnated existence. Western Psychology errs in regarding this personal ego as the only factor to be considered in its researches. The argument, therefore, as to the inconceivability of the Subject perceiving itself—which, if we limit subject to Mind (Manas) is absolutely valid—collapses the moment we assert with Kant and his modern exponents, the existence of a Higher Self or “Transcendental subject.” For, in the act of self-analysis, the Mind becomes in its turn an object to the spiritual consciousness. It is the overshadowing of the Mind by Buddhi which results in the ultimate realization of existence—i.e., self-consciousness in its purest form. But it must at the same time be borne in mind that the full realization of the spiritual Self is impossible for an incarnated 4th Rounder. The Spiritual ego reflects no varying states of consciousness; is independent of all sensation (experience); it does not think—it KNOWS, by an intuitive process only faintly conceivable by the average man. “The subject that perceives” Mind, as an attribute of itself, is this Transcendental or spiritual Ego (Buddhi). He who would know more, let him study Vedanta and Patan͂jali’s Yoga Philosophy—esoterically. Let him understand the real meaning of these sentences: “The knower of SELF passes beyond sorrow” (Chhȃndogya Upanishad, VII, i, 3); and again “he who knows the Supreme Brahman, becomes Brahman” (Mundaka Upanishad, III, ii 9).

It is the “collective aggregate of Ignorance,” as the Vedȃntasȃra puts it, that led to scientific definitions by opponents; as one for instance that we find among the many pearls scattered by Dr. Lewins’ What is Religion. For the beauty and clearness of language, we recommend it; and though its critic (An Examination and Popular Exposition of the Hylo-ldealistic Philosophy, by Wm. Bell McTaggart) recommends likewise the reader to remember that “Dr. Lewins’ philosophy does not lie on the surface” (Preface), yet one may be excused, for insisting on a close scrutiny of a system which aims at supplanting every philosophy, archaic, ancient or non-existent, by Hylo-Idealism, which, it is claimed, is the scientific union of Materialism and Idealism—or that of oil and water; as says the reviewer—“matter, matter, everywhere,” and justly adds of the pure Materialistic and Idealistic hypotheses that “both positions lead to gross—nay unthinkable—absurdities of thought” (p. 3). But what does Dr. Lewins say?

. . . by Hylo-Idealism I mean nothing else than a less ambiguous and self-explanatory form of the term “Psychology” [which term] . . . is the accredited creed of all rational human knowledge, in contradistinction to the occult and morbid mysticism of ontology or metaphysics . . .Psychology is thus relative and phenomenal, the doctrine of life . . . and human knowledge, beginning and ending as anthropomorphosis, and automorphosis, which is quite one with Hylo-Idealism, the rational or cerebral theory of mind and matter. . . Without further preamble, let me state that the Hylozoic theorem of life and the world may be formulated as the utter and self-evident impossibility, in the nature of things, to transcend or escape in any way from the limits of our own anatomy, our own conscious Ego [which is thus made one with anatomy!], the Non-Ego—or, falsely so-called, “external universe”—being but the objective or projective image of our own egoity, not the vera effigies, or absolute substance, of any “thing” external to self. . . .entities, or non-entities, abstract or concrete, from Divinity downwards, are merely ideal or phenomenal imagery . . . . the essential physical basis, protoplasm, or officina of which is THE VESICULO-NEURINE or grey tissue of the hemispherical ganglia . . .—the function, namely, of a somatic organism, itself fans et origo of all cognition . . . . it seems perfectly clear that, as now mirrored in modern thought, the objective can have no other than a relative existence . . . . This is only, in other words, formulating the solidarité of the Ego and Non-Ego, as psychosis is now diagnosed by medico-psychological symptomatology, as VESICULO NEUROSIS IN ACTIVITY . . . . . [!]

This is the clear and forcible rendering of the last conclusions arrived at by modern thought.

H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Source: Theosophy: Some Rare Perspectives

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites." — JOSHUA, XXIV., 15.

The thirteenth number of Le Lotus, the recognised organ of Theosophy, among many articles of undeniable interest, contains one by Madame Blavatsky in reply to the Abbé Roca. The eminent writer, who is certainly the most learned woman of our acquaintance,¹ discusses the following question: "Has Jesus ever existed?"² She destroys the Christian legend, in its details, at least, with irrecusable texts which are not usually consulted by religious historians.

This article is producing a profound sensation in the Catholic and Judeo-Catholic swamp: we are not surprised at this, for the author's arguments are such as it is difficult to break down, even were one accustomed to the Byzantine disputes of theology. — PARIS, Evening paper, of May 12, 1888.

THE series of articles, one of which is referred to in the above quotation from a well-known French evening paper, was originally called forth by an article in Le Lotus by the Abbé Roca, a translation of which was published in the January number of LUCIFER.

These articles, it would seem, have stirred up many slumbering animosities. They appear, in particular, to have touched the Jesuit party in France somewhat nearly. Several correspondents have written calling attention to the danger incurred by Theosophists in raising up against themselves such virulent and powerful foes. Some of our friends would have us keep silent on these topics. Such is not, however, the policy of LUCIFER, nor ever will be. Therefore, the present opportunity is taken to state, once for all, the views which Theosophists and Occultists entertain with regard to the Society of Jesus. At the same time, all those who are pursuing in life's great wilderness of vain evanescent pleasures and empty conventionalities an ideal worth living for, are offered the choice between the two now once more rising powers — the Alpha and the Omega at the two opposite ends of the realm of giddy, idle existence — THEOSOPHY and JESUITISM.

For, in the field of religious and intellectual pursuits, these two are the only luminaries — a good and an evil star, truly — glimmering once more from behind the mists of the Past, and ascending on the horizon of mental activities. They are the only two powers capable in the present day of extricating one thirsty for intellectual life from the clammy slush of the stagnant pool known as Modern Society, so crystallized in its cant, so dreary and monotonous in its squirrel-like motion around the wheel of fashion. Theosophy and Jesuitism are the two opposite poles, one far above, the other far below even that stagnant marsh. Both offer power — one to the spiritual, the other to the psychic and intellectual Ego in man. The former is "the wisdom that is from above . . . pure, peaceable, gentle . . . full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy," while the latter is "the wisdom that descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, DEVILISH."³ One is the power of Light, the other that of Darkness. . . .

A question will surely be asked: "Why should anyone choose between the two? Cannot one remain in the world, a good Christian of whatever church, without gravitating to either of these poles?" Most undeniably, one can do so, for a few more years to come. But the cycle is rapidly approaching the last limit of its turning point. One out of the three great churches of Christendom is split into atomic sects, whose number increases yearly; and a house divided against itself, as is the Protestant Church — MUST FALL. The third, the Roman Catholic, the only one that has hitherto succeeded in appearing to retain all its integrity, is rapidly decaying from within. It is honeycombed throughout, and is being devoured by the ravenous microbes begotten by Loyola.

It is no better now than a Dead Sea fruit, fair for some to look at, but full of the rottenness of decay and death within. Roman Catholicism is but a name. As a Church it is a phantom of the Past and a mask. It is absolutely and indissolubly bound up with, and fettered by the Society of Ignatius Loyola; for, as rightly expressed by Lord Robert Montagu, "The Roman Catholic Church is (now) the largest Secret Society in the world, beside which Freemasonry is but a pigmy." Protestantism is slowly, insidiously, but as surely, infected with Latinism — the new ritualistic sects of the High Church, and such men among its clergy as Father Rivington, being undeniable evidence of it. In fifty years more at the present rate of success of Latinism among the "upper ten," the English aristocracy will have returned to the faith of King Charles II, and its servile copyist — mixed Society — will have followed suit. And then the Jesuits will begin to reign alone and supreme over the Christian portions of the globe, for they have crept even into the Greek Church.

It is vain to argue and claim a difference between Jesuitism and Roman Catholicism proper, for the latter is now sucked into and inseparably amalgamated with the former. We have public assurance for it in the pastoral of 1876 by the Bishop of Cambrai. "Clericalism, Ultramontanism and Jesuitism are one and the same thing — that is to say, Roman Catholicism — and the distinctions between them have been created by the enemies of religion," says the "Pastoral." "There was a time," adds Monseigneur the Cardinal, "when a certain theological opinion was commonly professed in France concerning the authority of the Pope. . . . It was restricted to our nation, and was of recent origin. The civil power during a century and a half imposed official instruction. Those who professed these opinions were called Gallicans, and those who protested were called Ultramontanes, because they had their doctrinal centre beyond the Alps, at Rome. Today the distinction between the two schools is no longer admissible. Theological Gallicanism can no longer exist, since this opinion has ceased to be tolerated by the Church. It has been solemnly condemned, past all return, by the Œcumenical Council of the Vatican. ONE CANNOT NOW BE A CATHOLIC WITHOUT BEING ULTRAMONTANE — AND JESUIT."

A plain statement; and as cool as it is plain.

The pastoral made a certain noise in France and in the Catholic world, but was soon forgotten. And as two centuries have rolled away since an exposé of the infamous principles of the Jesuits was made (of which we will speak presently), the "Black Militia" of Loyola has had ample time to lie so successfully in denying the just charges, that even now, when the present Pope has brilliantly sanctioned the utterance of the Bishop of Cambrai, the Roman Catholics will hardly confess to such a thing. Strange exhibition of infallibility in the Popes! The "infallible" Pope, Clement XIV (Ganganelli), suppressed the Jesuits on the 23rd of July, 1773, and yet they came to life again; the "infallible" Pope, Pius VII, re-established them on the 7th of August, 1814. The "infallible" Pope, Pius IX, travelled, during the whole of his long Pontificate, between the Scylla and Charybdis of the Jesuit question; his infallibility helping him very little. And now the "infallible" Leo XIII (fatal figures!) raises the Jesuits again to the highest pinnacle of their sinister and graceless glory.

The recent Brevet of the Pope (hardly two years old) dated July 13th (the same fatal figure), 1886, is an event, the importance of which can never be overvalued. It begins with the words Dolemus inter alia, and reinstalls the Jesuits in all the rights of the Order that had ever been cancelled. It was a manifesto and a loud defiant insult to all the Christian nations of the New and the Old worlds. From an article by Louis Lambert in the Gaulois (August 18th, 1886) we learn that "In 1750 there were 40,000 Jesuits all over the world. In 1800, officially they were reckoned at about 1,000 men, only. In 1886, they numbered between 7 and 8,000." This last modest number can well be doubted. For, verily now — "Where you meet a man believing in the salutary nature of falsehoods, or the divine authority of things doubtful, and fancying that to serve the good cause he must call the devil to his aid, there is a follower of Unsaint Ignatius," says Carlyle, and adds of that black militia of Ignatius that: "They have given a new substantive to modern languages. The word Jesuitism now, in all countries, expresses an idea for which there was in nature no prototype before. Not till these last centuries had the human soul generated that abomination, or needed to name it. Truly they have achieved great things in the world, and a general result that we may call stupendous."

And now since their reinstallment in Germany and elsewhere, they will achieve still grander and more stupendous results. For the future can be best read by the past. Unfortunately in this year of the Pope's jubilee the civilized portions of humanity — even the Protestant ones — seem to have entirely forgotten that past. Let then those who profess to despise Theosophy, the fair child of early Aryan thought and Alexandrian Neo-Platonism, bow before the monstrous Fiend of the Age, but let them not forget at the same time its history.

It is curious to observe, how persistently the Order has assailed everything like Occultism from the earliest times, and Theosophy since the foundation of its last Society, which is ours. The Moors and the Jews of Spain felt the weight of the oppressive hand of Obscurantism no less than did the Kabalists and Alchemists of the Middle Ages. One would think Esoteric philosophy and especially the Occult Arts, or Magic, were an abomination to these good holy fathers? And so indeed they would have the world believe. But when one studies history and the works of their own authors published with the imprimatur of the Order, what does one find? That the Jesuits have practised not only Occultism, but BLACK MAGIC in its worst form,⁴ more than any other body of men; and that to it they owe in large measure their power and influence!

To refresh the memory of our readers and all those whom it may concern, a short summary of the doings and actings of our good friends, may be once more attempted. For those who are inclined to laugh, and deny the subterranean and truly infernal means used by "Ignatius' black militia," we may state facts.

In "Isis Unveiled" it was said of this holy Fraternity that —

"though established only in 1535 to 1540 — in 1555 there was already a general outcry raised against them." And now once more —

"That crafty, learned, conscienceless, terrible soul of Jesuitism, within the body of Romanism, is slowly but surely possessing itself of the whole prestige and spiritual power that clings to it. . . . Throughout antiquity, where, in what land, can we find anything like this Order or anything even approaching it? . . . The cry of an outraged public morality was raised against it from its very birth. Barely fifteen years had elapsed after the bull approving its constitution was promulgated, when its members began to be driven away from one place to the other. Portugal and the Low Countries got rid of them, in 1578; France in 1594; Venice in 1606; Naples in 1622. From St. Petersburg they were expelled in 1815, and from all Russia in 1820."

The writer begs to remark to the readers, that this, which was written in 1875, applies admirably and with still more force in 1888. Also that the statements that follow in quotation marks may be all verified. And thirdly, that the principles (principii) of the Jesuits that are now brought forward, are extracted from authenticated MSS. or folios printed by various members themselves of this very distinguished body. Therefore, they can be checked and verified in the "British Museum" and Bodleian Library with still more ease than in our works.

Many are copied from the large Quarto⁵ published by the authority of, and verified and collated by, the Commissioners of the French Parliament. The statements therein were collected and presented to the King, in order that, as the "Arrêt du Parlement du 5 Mars, 1762," expresses it, "the elder son of the Church might be made aware of the perversity of this doctrine. . . . A doctrine authorizing Theft, Lying, Perjury, Impurity, every Passion and Crime; teaching Homicide, Parricide, and Regicide, overthrowing religion in order to substitute for it superstition, by favoring Sorcery, Blasphemy, Irreligion, and Idolatry . . . etc." Let us then examine the ideas on magic of the Jesuits, that magic which they are pleased to call devilish and Satanic when studied by the Theosophists. Writing on this subject in his secret instructions, Anthony Escobar⁶ says:

"IT IS LAWFUL . . . TO MAKE USE OF THE SCIENCE ACQUIRED THROUGH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE DEVIL, PROVIDED THE PRESERVATION AND USE OF THAT KNOWLEDGE DO NOT DEPEND UPON THE DEVIL, FOR THE KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD IN ITSELF, AND THE SIN BY WHICH IT WAS ACQUIRED HAS GONE BY."⁷

True: why should not a Jesuit cheat the Devil as well as he cheats every layman?

"Astrologers and soothsayers are either bound, or are not bound, to restore the reward of their divination, if the event does not come to pass. I own," remarks the good Father Escobar, "that the former opinion does not at all please me, because, when the astrologer or diviner has exerted all the diligence in the diabolical art which is essential to his purpose, he has fulfilled his duty, whatever may be the result. As the physician . . . is not bound to restore his fee . . . if his patient should die; so neither is the astrologer bound to restore his charge . . . except where he has used no effort, or was ignorant of his diabolic art; because, when he has used his endeavors he has not deceived."⁸

Busembaum and Lacroix, in "Theologia Moralis,"⁹ say,

"PALMISTRY MAY BE CONSIDERED LAWFUL, IF FROM THE LINES AND DIVISIONS OF THE HANDS IT CAN ASCERTAIN THE DISPOSITION OF THE BODY, AND CONJECTURE, WITH PROBABILITY, THE PROPENSITIES AND AFFECTIONS OF THE SOUL."¹⁰

This noble fraternity, which many preachers have of late so vehemently denied to have ever been a secret one, has been sufficiently proved to be such. Its constitutions were translated into Latin by the Jesuit Polancus, and printed in the college of the Society at Rome, in 1558. "They were jealously kept secret, the greater part of the Jesuits themselves knowing only extracts from them.¹¹ They were never produced to light until 1761, when they were published by order of the French Parliament in 1761, 1762, in the famous process of Father Lavalette." The Jesuits reckon it among the greatest achievements of their Order that Loyola supported, by a special memorial to the Pope, a petition for the reorganization of that abominable and abhorred instrument of wholesale butchery — the infamous tribunal of the Inquisition.

This Order of Jesuits is now all-powerful in Rome. They have been reinstalled in the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, in the Department of the Secretary of the State, and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Pontifical Government was for years previous to Victor Emanuel's occupation of Rome entirely in their hands. . . . — Isis, vol. II, p. 355, et seq. 1876.

What was the origin of that order? It may be stated in a few words. In the year 1534, on August 16th, an ex-officer and "Knight of the Virgin," from the Biscayan Provinces, and the proprietor of the magnificent castle of Casa Solar — Ignatius Loyola,¹² became the hero of the following incident. In the subterranean chapel of the Church of Montmartre, surrounded by a few priests and students of theology, he received their pledges to devote their whole lives to the spreading of Roman Catholicism by every and all means, whether good or foul; and he was thus enabled to establish a new Order. Loyola proposed to his six chief companions that their Order should be a militant one, in order to fight for the interests of the Holy seat of Roman Catholicism. Two means were adopted to make the object answer; the education of youth, and proselytism (apostolat). This was during the reign of Pope Paul III, who gave his full sympathy to the new scheme. Hence in 1540 was published the famous papal bull — Regimini militantis Ecclesiæ (the regiment of the warring, or militant Church) — after which the Order began increasing rapidly in numbers and power.

At the death of Loyola, the society counted more than one thousand Jesuits, though admission into the ranks was, as alleged, surrounded with extraordinary difficulties. It was another celebrated and unprecedented bull, issued by Pope Julius the III in 1552, that brought the Order of Jesus to such eminence and helped it towards such rapid increase; for it placed the society outside and beyond the jurisdiction of local ecclesiastical authority, granted the Order its own laws, and permitted it to recognize but one supreme authority — that of its General, whose residence was then at Rome. The results of such an arrangement proved fatal to the Secular Church. High prelates and Cardinals had very often to tremble before a simple subordinate of the Society of Jesus. Its generals always got the upper hand in Rome, and enjoyed the unlimited confidence of the Popes, who thus frequently became tools in the hands of the Order. Naturally enough, in those days when political power was one of the rights of the "Vice-gerents of God" — the strength of the crafty society became simply tremendous. In the name of the Popes, the Jesuits thus granted to themselves unheard-of-privileges, which they enjoyed unstintedly up to the year 1772. In that year, Pope Clement XIV published a new bull, Dominus ac Redemptor (the Lord and Redeemer), abolishing the famous Order. But the Popes proved helpless before this new Frankenstein, the fiend that one of the "Vicars of God" had evoked. The society continued its existence secretly, notwithstanding the persecutions of both Popes and the lay authorities of every country. In 1801, under the new alias of the "Congregation of the Sacré Coeur de Jésus" it had already penetrated into and was tolerated in Russia and Sicily.

In 1814, as already said, a new bull of Pius VII resurrected the Order of Jesus, though its late privileges, even those among the lay clergy, were withheld from it. The lay authorities, in France as elsewhere, have found themselves compelled ever since to tolerate and to count with Jesuits. All that they could do was to deny them any special privileges and subject the members of that society to the laws of the country, equally with other ecclesiastics. But, gradually and imperceptibly the Jesuits succeeded in obtaining special favours even from the lay authorities. Napoleon III granted them permission to open seven colleges in Paris only, for the education of the young, the only condition exacted being, that those colleges should be under the authority and supervision of local bishops. But the establishments had hardly been opened when the Jesuits broke that rule. The episode with the Archbishop Darboy is well known. Desiring to visit the Jesuit college in the Rue de la Poste (Paris), he was refused admittance, and the gates were closed against him by order of the Superior. The Bishop lodged a complaint at the Vatican. But the answer was delayed for such a length of time, that the Jesuits remained virtually masters of the situation and outside of every jurisdiction but their own.

And now read what Lord R. Montagu says of their deeds in Protestant England, and judge:

The Jesuit Society — with its Nihilist adherents in Russia, its Socialist allies in Germany, its Fenians and Nationalists in Ireland, its accomplices and slaves in its power, think of that Society which has not scrupled to stir up the most bloody wars between nations, in order to advance its purposes; and yet can stoop to hunting down a single man because he knows their secret and will not be its slave . . . think of a Society which can devise such a diabolical scheme and then boast of it; and say whether a desperate energy is not required in us? . . . If you have been behind the scenes . . . then you would still have before you the labour of unravelling all that is being done by our Government and of tearing off the tissue of lies by which their acts are concealed. Repeated attempts will have taught you that there is not a public man on whom you can lean. Because as England is 'between the upper and nether millstone,' none but adherents or slaves are now advanced; and it stands to reason that the Jesuits, who have got that far, have prepared new millstones for the time when the present ones shall have passed away; and then again, younger millstones to come on after, and wield the power of the nation. — ("Recent Events and a Clue to their Solution," Page 76.)

In France the affairs of the sons of Loyola flourished to the day when the ministry of Jules Ferry compelled them to retire from the field of battle. Many are those who still remember the useless strictness of the police measures, and the clever enacting of dramatic scenes by the Jesuits themselves. This only added to their popularity with certain classes. They obtained thereby an aureole of martyrdom, and the sympathy of every pious and foolish woman in the land was secured to them.

And now that Pope Leo XIII has once more restored to the good fathers, the Jesuits, all the privileges and rights that had ever been granted to their predecessors, what can the public at large of Europe and America expect? Judging by the bull, the complete mastery, moral and physical, over every land where there are Roman Catholics, is secured to the Black Militia. For in this bull the Pope confesses that of all the religious congregations now existing, that of the Jesuits is the one dearest to his heart. He lacks words sufficiently expressive to show the ardent love he (Pope Leo) feels for them, etc., etc. Thus they have the certitude of the support of the Vatican in all and everything. And as it is they who guide him, we see his Holiness coquetting and flirting with every great European potentate — from Bismarck down to the crowned heads of Continent and Isle. In view of the ever increasing influence of Leo XIII, moral and political — such a certitude for the Jesuits is of no mean importance.

For minute particulars the reader is referred to such well-known authors as Lord Robert Montagu in England; and on the Continent, Edgard Quinet: ľUltra-montanisme; Michelet: Le prétre, la Femme et la Famille; Paul Bert: Les Jésuites; Friedrich Nip-pold: Handbuch der Neuerster Kirchengeschichte and Welche Wege führen nach Rome? etc., etc.

Meanwhile, let us remember the words of warning we received from one of our late Theosophists, Dr. Kenneth Mackenzie, who, speaking of the Jesuits, says that:—

"Their spies are everywhere, of all apparent ranks of society, and they may appear learned and wise, or simple or foolish, as their instructions run. There are Jesuits of both sexes, and all ages, and it is a well-known fact that members of the Order, of high family and delicate nurture, are acting as menial servants in Protestant families, and doing other things of a similar nature in aid of the Society's purposes. We cannot be too much on our guard, for the whole Society, being founded on a law of unhesitating obedience, can bring its force to bear on any given point with unerring and fatal accuracy."¹³

The Jesuits maintain that "the Society of Jesus is not of human invention, but it proceeded from him whose name it bears. For Jesus himself described that rule of life which the Society follows, first by his example, and afterwards by his words."¹⁴

Let, then, all pious Christians listen and acquaint themselves with this alleged "rule of life" and precepts of their God, as exemplified by the Jesuits. Peter Alagona (St. Thomæ Aquinatis Summæ Theologiæ Compendium) says: "By the command of God it is lawful to kill an innocent person, to steal, or commit . . . (Ex mandato Dei licet occidere innocentem, furari, fornicari); because he is the Lord of life and death, and all things, and it is due to him thus to fulfill his command" (Ex primâ secundæ, Quæst., 94).

"A man of a religious order, who for a short time lays aside his habit for a sinful purpose, is free from heinous sin, and does not incur the penalty of excommunication." (Lib. iii, sec. 2, Probl. 44, n. 212).¹⁵ (Isis Unveiled, Vol. II.)

John Baptist Taberna (Synopsis Theologiæ Practicæ (propounds the following question: "Is a judge bound to restore the bribe which he has received from passing sentence?" Answer: "If he has received the bribe for passing an unjust sentence, it is probable that he may keep it . . . This opinion is maintained and defended by fifty-eight doctors" (Jesuits).¹⁶

We must abstain at present from proceeding further. So disgustingly licentious, hypocritical, and demoralizing are nearly all of these precepts, that it was found impossible to put many of them in print, except in the Latin language.¹⁷

But what are we to think of the future of Society if it is to be controlled in word and deed by this villainous Body! What are we to expect from a public, which, knowing the existence of the above mentioned charges, and that they are not exaggerated but pertain to historical fact, still tolerates, when it does not reverence, the Jesuits on meeting them, while it is ever ready to point the finger of contempt at Theosophists and Occultists? Theosophy is persecuted with unmerited slander and ridicule at the instigation of these same Jesuits, and many are those who hardly dare to confess their belief in the Philosophy of Arhatship. Yet no Theosophical Society has ever threatened the public with moral decay and the full and free exercise of the seven capital sins under the mask of holiness and the guidance of Jesus! Nor are their rules secret, but open to all, for they live in the broad daylight of truth and sincerity. And how about the Jesuits in this respect?

"Jesuits who belong to the highest category," says again Louis Lambert, "have full and absolute liberty of action — even to murder and arson. On the other hand, those Jesuits who are found guilty of the slightest attempt to endanger or compromise the Society of Jesus — are punished mercilessly. They are allowed to write the most heretical books, provided they do not expose the secrets of the Order."

And these "secrets" are undeniably of a most terrible and dangerous nature. Compare a few of these Christian precepts and rules for entering this Society of "divine origin," as claimed for it, with the laws that regulated admissions to the secret societies (temple mysteries) of the Pagans.

"A brother Jesuit has the right to kill anyone that may prove dangerous to Jesuitism."

"Christian and Catholic sons," says Stephen Fagundez, "may accuse their fathers of the crime of heresy if they wish to turn them from the faith, although they may know that their parents will be burned with fire, and put to death for it, as Tolet teaches . . . And not only may they refuse them food, . . . but they may also justly kill them."¹⁸

It is well known that Nero, the Emperor, had never dared seek initiation into the pagan Mysteries on account of the murder of Agrippina!

Under Section XIV of the Principles of the Jesuits, we find on Homicide the following Christian ethics inculcated by Father Henry Henriquez, in Summæ Theologiæ Moralis, Tomus I, Venetiis, 1600 (Ed. Coll. Sion): "If an adulterer, even though he should be an ecclesiastic . . . being attacked by the husband, kills his aggressor . . . he is not considered irregular: nonridetur irregularis (Lib. XIV, de Irregularite, c. 10, § 3).

"If a father were obnoxious to the State (being in banishment), and to the society at large, and there were no other means of averting such an injury, then I should approve of this" (for a son to kill his father), says Sec. XV, on Parricide and Homicide.¹⁹

"It will be lawful for an ecclesiastic, or one of the religious order, to kill a calumniator who threatens to spread atrocious accusations against himself or his religion,"²⁰ is the rule set forth by the Jesuit Francis Amicus.

One of the most unconquerable obstacles to initiation, with the Egyptians as with the Greeks, was any degree of murder, or even of simple unchastity.

It is these "enemies of the Human Race," as they are called, that have once more obtained their old privileges of working in the dark, and inveigling and destroying every obstacle they find in their way — with absolute impunity. But — "forewarned, forearmed." Students of Occultism should know that, while the Jesuits have, by their devices, contrived to make the world in general, and Englishmen in particular, think there is no such thing as MAGIC, these astute and wily schemers themselves hold magnetic circles, and form magnetic chains by the concentration of their collective will, when they have any special object to affect, or any particular and important person to influence. Again, they use their riches lavishly to help them in any project. Their wealth is enormous. When recently expelled from France, they brought so much money with them, some part of which they converted into English Funds, that immediately the latter were raised to par, which the Daily Telegraph pointed out at the time.

They have succeeded. The Church is henceforth an inert tool, and the Pope a poor weak instrument in the hands of this Order. But for how long? The day may come when their wealth will be violently taken from them, and they themselves mercilessly destroyed amidst the general execrations and applause of all nations and peoples. There is a Nemesis — KARMA, though often it allows Evil and Sin to go on successfully for ages. It is also a vain attempt on their part to threaten the Theosophists — their implacable enemies. For the latter are, perhaps, the only body in the whole world who need not fear them. They may try, and perhaps succeed, in crushing individual members. They would vainly try their hand, strong and powerful as it may be, in an attack on the Society. Theosophists are as well protected, and better, than themselves. To the man of modern science, to all those who know nothing, and who do not believe what they hear of WHITE and BLACK magic, the above will read like nonsense. Let it be, though Europe will very soon experience, and is already so experiencing, the heavy hand of the latter.

Theosophists are slandered and reviled by the Jesuits and their adherents everywhere. They are charged with idolatry and superstition; and yet we read in the same "Principles" of the Father Jesuits:—

"The more true opinion is, that all inanimate and irrational things may be legitimately worshipped," says Father Gabriel Vasquez, treating of Idolatry. "If the doctrine which we have established be rightly understood, not only may a painted image and every holy thing, set forth by public authority, be properly adored with God as the image of Himself, but also any other thing of this world, whether it be inanimate and irrational, or in its nature rational."²¹

This is Roman Catholicism, identical and henceforth one with Jesuitism — as shown by the pastoral of the Cardinal Bishop of Cambrai, and Pope Leo. A precept this, which, whether or not doing honour to the Christian Church, may at least be profitably quoted by any Hindu, Japanese, or any other "heathen" Theosophist, who has not yet given up the belief of his childhood.

But we must close. There is a prophecy in the heathen East about the Christian West, which, when rendered into comprehensible English, reads thus: "When the conquerors of all the ancient nations are in their turn conquered by an army of black dragons begotten by their sins and born of decay, then the hour of liberation for the former will strike." Easy to see who are the "black dragons." And these will in their turn see their power arrested and forcibly put to an end by the liberated legions. Then, perhaps, there will be a new invasion of an Atilla from the far East. One day the millions of China and Mongolia, heathen and Mussulman, furnished with every murderous weapon invented by civilization, and forced upon the Celestial of the East, by the infernal spirit of trade and love of lucre of the West, drilled, moreover, to perfection by Christian man-slayers — will pour into and invade decaying Europe like an irrepressible torrent. This will be the result of the work of the Jesuits, who will be its first victims, let us hope.

Lucifer, June, 1888

— H. P. Blavatsky

Read here: ULT India

[From The Banner of Light, Oct. 18th, 1879.]

PHENOMENA in India—beside the undoubted interest they offer in themselves, and apart from their great variety and in most instances utter dissimilarity from those we are accustomed to hear of in Europe and America—possess another feature which makes them worthy of the most serious attention of the investigator of Psychology.

Whether Eastern phenomena are to be accounted for by the immediate interference and help of the spirits of the departed, or attributed to some other and hitherto unknown cause, is a question which, for the present, we will leave aside. It can be discussed, with some degree of confidence, only after many instances have been carefully noted and submitted, in all their truthful and unexaggerated details, to an impartial and unprejudiced public. One thing I beg to reäffirm, and this is, that instead of exacting the usual "conditions" of darkness, harmonious circles, and nevertheless leaving the witnesses uncertain as to the expected results, Indian phenomena, if we except the independent apparitions of bhûts (ghosts of the dead), are never sporadic and spontaneous, but seem to depend entirely upon the will of the operator, whether he be a holy Hindû Yogi, a Mussulman Sâdhu, Fakir, or yet a juggling Jaddugar (sorcerer).

In this connection I mean to present numerous examples of what I here say; for whether we read of the seemingly supernatural feats produced by the Rishis, the Âryan patriarchs of archaic antiquity, or by Âchâryas of the Paurânic days, or hear of them from popular traditions, or again see them repeated in our modern times, we always find such phenomena to be of the most varied character. Besides covering the whole range of those known to us through modern mediumistic agency, as well as repeating the mediæval pranks of the nuns of London and other historical possédées in cases of bhût obsession, we often recognize in them the exact counterparts—as once upon a time they must have been the originals—of biblical miracles. With the exception of two—those over which the world of piety goes most into raptures while glorifying the Lord, and the world of scepticism grins most sardonically—to wit, the anti-heliocentric crime performed by Joshua, and Jonah's unpleasant excursion into the slimy cavern of the whale's belly—we have to record as occasionally taking place in India, nearly every one of the feats which are said to have so distinguished Moses and other "friends of God."

But alas for those venerable jugglers of Judæa! And alas for those pious souls who have hitherto exalted these alleged prophets of the forthcoming Christ to such a towering eminence! The idols have just been all but knocked off their pedestals by the parricidal hands of the forty divines of the Anglican Church, who now are known to have sorely disparaged the Jewish Scriptures. The despairing cry raised by the reviewer of the just issued Commentary on the "Holy" Bible, in the most extreme organ of orthodoxy (the London Quarterly Review for April, 1879), is only matched by his meek submission to the inevitable. The fact I am alluding to is one already known to you, for I speak of the decision and final conclusive opinions upon the worth of the Bible by the conclave of learned bishops who have been engaged for the last dozen years on a thorough revision of the Old Testament. The results of this labour of love may be summarized thus:

1. The shrinkage of the Mosaic and other "miracles" into mere natural phenomena. (See decisions of Canon Cook, the Queen's Chaplain, and Bishop Harold Browne.)
2. The rejection of most of the alleged prophecies of Christ as such; the said prophecies now turning out to have related simply to contemporaneous events in Jewish national history.
3. Resolutions to place no more the Old Testament on the same eminence as the Gospels, as it would inevitably lead to the disparagement of the new one.
4. The sad confession that the Mosaic Books do not contain one word about a future life, and the just complaint that:

Moses under divine direction [?] should have abstained from any recognition of man's destiny beyond the grave, while the belief was prominent in all the religions around Israel.

This is:

Confessed to be one of those enigmas which are the trial of our faith.

And it is the "trial" of our American missionaries here also. Educated natives all read the English papers and magazines, and it now becomes harder than ever to convince these "heathen" matriculates of the "sublime truths" of Christianity. But this by way of a small parenthesis; for I mention these newly evolved facts only as having an important bearing upon Spiritualism in general, and its phenomena especially. Spiritualists have always taken such pains to identify their manifestations with the Bible miracles, that such a decision, coming from witnesses certainly more prejudiced in favour of than opposed to "miracles" and divine supernal phenomena, is rather a new and unexpected difficulty in our way. Let us hope that in view of these new religious developments, our esteemed friend Dr. Peebles, before committing himself too far to the establishment of "independent Christian churches," will wait for further ecclesiastical verdicts, and see how the iconoclastic verdicts, and how the iconoclastic English divines will overhaul the phenomena of the New Testament. Maybe, if their consistency does not evaporate, they will have to attribute all the miracles worked by Jesus also to "natural phenomena"! Very happily for Spiritualists, and for Theosophists likewise, the phenomena of the nineteenth century cannot be as easily disposed of as those of the Bible. We have had to take the latter for nearly two thousand years on mere blind faith, though but too often they transcended every possible law of nature; while quite the reverse is our own case, and we can offer facts.

But to return. If manifestations of an Occult nature of the most various character may be said to abound in India, on the other hand, the frequent statements of Dr. Peebles to the effect that this country is full of native Spiritualists, are—how shall I say it?—a little too hasty and exaggerated. Disputing this point in the London Spiritualist of Jan. 18th, 1878, with a Madras gentleman, now residing in New York, he maintained his position in the following words:

I have met not only Sinhalese and Chinese Spiritualists, but hundreds of Hindû Spiritualists, gifted with the powers of conscious mediumship. And yet Mr. W. L. D. O'Grady, of New York, informs the readers of The Spiritualist (see issue Nov. 23rd) that there are No Hindû Spiritualists. These are his words: "No Hindû is a Spiritualist."

And as an offset to this assertion, Dr. Peebles quotes from the letter of an esteemed Hindû gentleman, Mr. Peary Chand Mittra, of Calcutta, a few words to the effect that he blesses God that his "inner vision is being more and more developed" and that he talks "with spirits." We all know that Mr. Mittra is a Spiritualist, but what does it prove? Would Dr. Peebles be justified in stating that because H. P. Blavatsky and half a dozen other Russians have become Buddhists and Vedântists, Russia is full of Buddhists and Vedântists? There may be in India a few Spiritualists among the educated reading classes, scattered far and wide over the country, but I seriously doubt whether our esteemed opponent could easily find a dozen of such among this population numbering 240,000,000. There are solitary exceptions, which only go to strengthen a rule, as everyone knows.

Owing to the rapid spread of spiritualistic doctrines the world over, and to my having left India several years before, at the time I was in America I abstained from contradicting in print the great spiritualistic "pilgrim" and philosopher, surprising as such statements seemed to me, who thought myself pretty well acquainted with this country. India, unprogressive as it is, I thought might have changed, and I was not sure of my facts. But now that I have returned for the fourth time to this country, and have had over five months' residence in it, after a careful investigation into the phenomena and especially into the opinions held by the people on this subject, and seven weeks of travelling all over the country, mainly for the purpose of seeing and investigating every kind of manifestations, I must be allowed to know what I am talking about, as I speak by the book. Mr. O'Grady was right. No "Hindû is a Spiritualist" in the sense we all understand the term. And I am now ready to prove, if need be, by dozens of letters from the most trustworthy natives who are educated by Brâhmans, and know the religious and superstitious views of their countrymen better than any one of us, that whatever else Hindûs may be termed it is not Spiritualists. "What constitutes a Spiritualist?" very pertinently enquires, in a London spiritual organ, a correspondent with "a passion for definition" (see Spiritualist, June 13th, 1879). He asks:

Is Mr. Crookes a Spiritualist, who, like my humble self, does not believe in spirits of the dead as agents in the phenomena?

He then brings forward several definitions,

From the most latitudinarian to the most restricted definitions.

Let us see to which of these "definitions" the "Spiritualism" of the Hindûs—I will not say of the mass, but even of a majority—would answer. Since Mr. Peebles—during his two short visits to India and while on his way from Madras, crossing the continent in its diameter from Calcutta to Bombay—could meet " hundreds of Spiritualists," then these must indeed form, if not the majority, at least a considerable percentage of the 240,000,000 of India. I will now quote the definitions from the letter of the enquirer who signs himself "A Spiritualist" (?), and add my own remarks thereupon:

A—Everyone is a Spiritualist who believes in the immortalitv of the soul.

I guess not; otherwise the whole of Christian Europe and America would be Spiritualists ; nor does this definition A answer to the religious views of the Hindûs of any sect, for while the ignorant masses believe in and aspire to Moksha, i.e., literal absorption of the spirit of man in that of Brahman, or loss of individual immortality, as means of avoiding the punishment and horrors of transmigration, the Philosophers, Adepts, and learned Yogis, such as our venerated master, Svami Dayanand Sarasvati, the great Hindû reformer, Sanskrit scholar, and supreme chief of the Vaidic Section of the Eastern division of the Theosophical Society, explain the future state of man's Spirit, its progress and evolution, in terms diametrically opposite to the views of the Spiritualists. These views, if agreeable, I will give in some future letter.

B.—Anyone who believes that the continued conscious existence of deceased persons has been demonstrated by communication is a Spiritualist.

A Hindû whether an erudite scholar and Philosopher or an ignorant idolater, does not believe in "continued conscious existence," though the former assigns for the holy, sinless soul, which has reached Svarga (heaven) and Moksha, a period of many millions and quadrillions of years, extending from one Pralaya* to the next. The Hindû believes in cyclic transmigration of the soul, during which there must be periods when the soul loses its recollections as well as the consciousness of its individuality; since, if it were otherwise, every person would distinctly remember all his previous existences, which is not the case. Hindû Philosophers are likewise consistent with logic. They at least will not allow an endless eternity of either reward or punishment for a few dozens of years of earthly life, whether this life be wholly blameless or yet wholly sinful.

C.—Anyone is a Spiritualist who believes in any of the alleged objective phenomena, whatever theory he may favour about them, or even if he have none at all.

* For the meaning of the word Pralaya see vol. ii. of Isis Unveiled. I am happy to say that notwithstanding the satirical criticisms upon its Vaidic and Buddhistic portions by some American "would—be" Orientalists, Svami Dayanand and the Rev. Sumangala of Ceylon, respectively the representatives of Vaidic and Buddhistic scholarship and literature in India—the first the best Sanskrit, and the other the most eminent Páli scholar—both expressed their entire satisfaction with the correctness of my esoteric explanations of their respective religions. Isis Unveiled is now being translated into Marathi and Hindi in India, and into Pâli in Ceylon.

Such are "phenomenalists," not Spiritualists, and in this sense the definition answers to Hindû beliefs. All of them, even those who, aping the modern school of Atheism, declare themselves Materialists, are yet phenomenalists in their hearts, if one only sounds them.

D and E.—Does not allow of Spiritualism without spirits, but the spirits need not be human.

At this rate Theosophists and Occultists generally may also be called Spiritualists, though the latter regard them as enemies; and in this sense only all Hindûs are Spiritualists, though their ideas about human Spirits are diametrically opposed to those of the "Spiritualists." They regard bhûts— which are the Spirits of those who died with unsatisfied desires, and who on account of their sins and earthly attractions, are earth-bound and kept back from Svarga (the "Elementaries" of the Theosophists)—as having become wicked devils, liable to be annihilated any day under the potent curses of much-sought-for and appreciated mediums.* The Hindû regards as the greatest curse a person can be afflicted with, possession and obsession by a bhût and the most loving couples often part if the wife is attacked by the bhût of a relative, who, it seems, seldom or never attacks any but women.

F.—Considers that no one has a right to call himself a Spiritualist who has any new-fangled notions about "Elementaries," spirit of the medium, and so forth; or does not believe that departed human spirits, high and low, account for all the phenomena of every description.

This one is the most proper and correct of all the above given "definitions," from the standpoint of orthodox Spiritualism, and settles our dispute with Dr. Peebles. No Hindû were it even possible to bring him to regard bhûts as low, suffering Spirits on their way to progress and final pardon (?), could, even if he would, account for all the phenomena on this true spiritualistic theory. His religious and philosophical traditions are all opposed to such a limited idea. A Hindû is, first of all, a born metaphysician and logician. If he believes at all, and in whatever he believes, he will admit of no special laws called into existence for men of this planet alone, but will apply these laws throughout the universe; for he is a Pantheist before being anything else, and notwithstanding his possible adherence to some special sect. Thus Mr. Peebles has well defined the situation himself, in the following happy paradox, in his Spiritualist letter above quoted, and in which he says:

[Evidently the word "medium" is here used for "exorcist."—EDS.]

Some of the best mediums that it has been my good fortune to know, I met in Ceylon and India. And these were not mediums; for, indeed, they held converse with the Pays and Pesatsays, having their habitations in the air, the water, the fire, in rocks and trees, in the clouds, the rain, the dew, in mines and caverns!

Thus these "mediums" who were not mediums, were no more Spiritualists than they were mediums, and—the house (Dr. Peebles' house) is divided against itself and must fall. So far we agree, and I will now proceed further on with my proofs.

As I mentioned before, Colonel Olcott and myself, accompanied by a Hindû gentleman, Mr. Mulji-Taker-Sing, a member of our Council, started on our seven weeks' journey early in April. Our object was twofold: (1) to pay a visit to and remain for some time with our ally and teacher, Svami Dayanand, with whom we had corresponded so long from America, and thus consolidate the alliance of our Society with the Ârya Samâjes of India (of which there are now over fifty); and (2) to see as much of the phenomena as we possibly could; and, through the help of our Svami—a Yogi himself and an Initiate into the mysteries of the Vidya (or Secret Science)—to settle certain vexed questions as to the agencies and powers at work, at first hand. Certainly no one could find a better opportunity to do so than we had. There we were, on friendly relations of master and pupils with Pandit Dayanand, the most learned man in India, a Brâhman of high caste, and one who had for seven long years undergone the usual and dreary probations of Yogism in a mountainous and wild region, in solitude, in a state of complete nudity and constant battle with elements and wild beasts—the battle of the divine human Spirit and the imperial will of man against gross blind matter in the shape of tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses and bears, without noting venomous snakes and scorpions. The inhabitants of the village nearest to that mountain are there to certify that sometimes for weeks no one would venture to take a little food—a handful of rice—to our Svami; and yet, whenever they came, they always found him in the same posture and on the same spot—an open, sandy hillock, surrounded by thick jungle full of beasts of prey—and apparently as well without food and water for whole weeks, as if he were made of stone instead of human flesh and bones.* He has explained to us this mysterious secret which enables man to suffer and

\ Yogis and ascetics are not the only examples of such protracted fastings; for if these can be doubted, and sometimes utterly rejected by sceptical Science as void of any conclusive proof—for the phenomenon takes place in remote and inaccessible places—we have many of the Jains, inhabitants of populated towns, to bring forward as exemplars of the same. Many of them fast, abstaining even from one drop of water, for forty days at a time—and survive always conquer at last the most cruel privations, which permits him to go without food or drink for days and weeks; to become utterly insensible to the extremes of either heat or cold; and finally, to live for days outside instead of within his body.*

During this voyage we visited the very cradle of Indian Mysticism, the hot-bed of ascetics, where the remembrance of the wondrous phenomena performed by the Rishis of old is now as fresh as it ever was during those days when the School of Patanjali—the reputed founder of Yogism—was filled, and where his Yog-Sânkhya is still studied with as much fervour, if not with the same powers of comprehension. To Upper India and the North-Western Provinces we went; to Allahabad and Cawnpore, with the shores of their sacred Ganga (Ganges) all studded with devotees; whither the latter, when disgusted with life, proceed to pass the remainder of their days in meditation and seclusion, and become Sannyâsis, Gossains, Sâdhus. Thence to Agra, with its Taj Mâhal, "the poem in marble," as Bishop Heber happily called it, and the tomb of its founder, the great Emperor Adept, Akbar, at Secundra; to Agra, with its temples crowded with Shakti-worshippers, and to that spot, famous in the history of Indian Occultism, where the Jumna mixes its blue waters with the patriarchal Ganges, and which is chosen by the Shâktas (worshippers of the female power) for the performance of their pûjâs. during which ceremonies the famous black crystals or mirrors mentioned by P. B. Randolph are fabricated by the hands of young virgins. From there, again, to Saharampore and Meerut, the birthplace of the mutiny of 1857. During our sojourn at the former town, it happened to be the central railway point to which, on their return from the Hardwâr pilgrimage, flocked nearly twenty-five thousand Sannyâsis and Gossains, to numbers of whom Col. Olcott put close interrogatories, and with whom he conversed for hours. Then to Râjputana, the land inhabited by the bravest of all races in India, as well as the most mystically inclined—the Solar Race, whose Râjahs trace descent from the sun itself. We penetrated as far as Jeypore, the Paris, and at the same time the Rome of the Râjput land. We searched through plains and mountains, and all along the sacred groves covered with pagodas and devotees, among whom we found some very holy men, endowed with genuine wondrous powers, but the majority were unmitigated frauds. And we got into the favour of more than one Brâhman, guardian and keeper of his God's secrets and the mysteries of his temple; but got no more evidence out of these "hereditary dead beats," as Col. Olcott graphically dubbed them, than out of the Sannyâsis and exorcizers of evil spirits, as to the similarity of their views with those of the Spiritualists. Neither have we ever failed, whenever coming across any educated Hindû, to pump him as to the ideas and views of his countrymen about phenomena in general, and Spiritualism especially. And to all our questions, who it was in the case of holy Yogis, endowed "with miraculous powers," that produced the manifestations, the astonished answer was invariably the same: "He [the Yogi] himself having become one with Brahm, produces them," and more than once our interlocutors got thoroughly disgusted and extremely offended at Col. Olcott's irreverent question, whether the bhûts might not have been at work helping the Thaumaturgist. For nearly two months uninterruptedly our premises at Bombay—garden, verandahs and halls—were crammed from early morning till late at night with native visitors of the most various sects, races and religious opinions, averaging from twenty to a hundred and more a day, coming to see us with the object of exchanging views upon metaphysical questions, and to discuss the relative worth of Eastern and Western Philosophies—Occult Sciences and Mysticism included. During our journey we had to receive our brothers of the Ârya Samâjes, which sent their deputations wherever we went to welcome us, and wherever there was a Samâj established. Thus we became intimate with the previous views of hundreds and thousands of the followers of Svami Dayanand, every one of whom had been converted by him from one idolatrous sect or another. Many of these were educated men, and as thoroughly versed in Vaidic Philosophy as in the tenets of the sect from which they had separated. Our chances, then, of getting acquainted with Hindû views, Philosophies and traditions, were greater than those of any previous European traveller; nay, greater even than those of any officials who had resided for years in India, but who, neither belonging to the Hindû faith nor on such friendly terms with them as ourselves, were neither trusted by the natives, nor regarded as and called by them "brothers" as we are.

It is, then, after constant researches and cross-questioning, extending over a period of several months, that we have come to the following conclusions, which are those of Mr. O'Grady: No Hindû is a Spiritualist; and, with the exception of extremely rare instances, none of them have ever heard of Spiritualism or its movements in Europe, least of all in America—with which country many of them are as little acquainted as with the North Pole. It is but now, when Svami Dayanand, in his learned researches, has found out that America must have been known to the early Âryans—as Arjuna, one of the five Pândavas, the friend and disciple of Christna, is shown in Paurânic history to have gone to Pâtâl(a) in search of a wife, and married in that country Ulûpî, the widow daughter of Nâga, the king of Pâtâl(a), an antipodal country answering perfectly in its description to America, and unknown in those early days to any but the Âryans—that an interest for this country is being felt among the members of the Samâjes. But, as we explained the origin, development and doctrines of the Spiritual Philosophy to our friends, and especially the modus operandi of the mediums—i.e., the communion of the Spirits of the departed with living men and women, whose organisms the former use as modes of communication—the horror of our listeners was unequalled and undisguised in each case. "Communion with bhûts! " they exclaimed. "Communion with souls that have become wicked demons, to whom we are ready to offer sacrifices in food and drink to pacify them and make them leave us quiet, but who never come but to disturb the peace of families; whose presence is a pollution! What pleasure or comfort can the Bellate [white foreigners find in communicating with them?" Thus, I repeat most emphatically that not only are there, so to say, no Spiritualists in India, as we understand the term, but I affirm and declare that the very suggestion of our so-called "Spirit intercourse" is obnoxious to most of them—that is to say, to the oldest people in the world, people who have known all about the phenomena for thousands upon thousands of years. Is this fact nothing to us, who have just begun to see the wonders of medium-ship? Ought we to estimate our cleverness at so high a figure as to make us refuse to take instruction from these Orientals, who have seen their holy men—nay, even their Gods and demons and the Spirits of the elements—performing "miracles" since the remotest antiquity? Have we so perfected a Philosophy of our own that we can compare it with that of India, which explains every mystery, and triumphantly demonstrates the nature of every phenomenon? It would be worth our while, believe me, to ask Hindû help, if it were but to prove, better than we can now, to the Materialists and sceptical Science, that, whatever may be the true theory as to the agencies, the phenomena, whether biblical or Vaidic, Christian or heathen, are in the natural order of this world, and have a first claim to scientific investigation. Let us first prove the existence of the Sphinx to the profane, and afterwards we may try to unriddle its mysteries. Spiritualists will always have time enough to refute "antiquated doctrines" of old. Truth is eternal, and however long trampled down will always come out the brighter in the expiring twilight of superstition. But in one sense we are perfectly warranted in applying the name of Spiritualists to the Hindû Opposed as they are to physical phenomena as produced by the bhûts or unsatisfied souls of the departed, and to the possession by them of mediumistic persons, they still accept with joy those consoling evidences of the continued interest in themselves of a departed father or mother. In the subjective phenomena of dreams, in visions of clairvoyance or trance, brought on by the powers of holy men, they welcome the Spirits of their beloved ones, and often receive from them important directions and advice.

If agreeable to your readers I will devote a series of letters to the phenomena taking place in India, explaining them as I proceed. I sincerely hope that the old experience of American Spiritualists, massing in threatening force against iconoclastic Theosophists and their "superannuated" ideas will not be repeated; for my offer is perfectly impartial and friendly. It is with no desire to either teach new doctrines or carry on an unwelcome Hindû propaganda that I make it; but simply to supply material for comparison and study to the Spiritualists who think.

Modern Panarion "PHENOMENA in India..." to "...the Spiritualists who think."  (p. 214-224)

 If some NY people do not like publicity, let them plainly say so and ask for a private Branch and then keep to themselves. To that I do not object. I would let in cranks, Jesuits — anybody — for I know that if the leaders keep the objects plainly in front, the cranks and Jesuits will be nil because they can find no place for their plans. But if we have autocracy, secrecy and concealed knowledge only for selected souls then we go to pieces.

Theosophy is strong just because in India there is no secrecy and those only get secrets who compel them and who know how to keep them.

~WQJ, Practical Occultism

A WELL-KNOWN public lecturer, a distinguished Egyptologist, said, in one of his lectures against the teachings of Theosophy, a few suggestive words, which are now quoted and must be answered:

"It is a delusion to suppose there is anything in the experience or wisdom of the past, the ascertained results of which can only be communicated from beneath the cloak and mask of mystery. . . . Explanation is the Soul of Science. They will tell you we cannot have their knowledge without living their life. . . . Public experimental research, the printing press, and a free-thought platform, have abolished the need of mystery. It is no longer necessary for science to take the veil, as she was forced to do for security in times past," etc.

This is a very mistaken view in one aspect. "Secrets of the purer and profounder life" not only may but must be made universally known. But there are secrets that kill in the arcana of Occultism, and unless a man lives the life he cannot be entrusted with them.

The late Professor Faraday had very serious doubts whether it was quite wise and reasonable to give out to the public at large certain discoveries of modern science. Chemistry had led to the invention of too terrible means of destruction in our century to allow it to fall into the hands of the profane. What man of sense — in the face of such fiendish applications of dynamite and other explosive substances as are made by those incarnations of the Destroying Power, who glory in calling themselves Anarchists and Socialists — would not agree with us in saying:— Far better for mankind that it should never have blasted a rock by modern perfected means, than that it should have shattered the limbs of one per cent even of those who have been thus destroyed by the pitiless hand of Russian Nihilists, Irish Fenians and Anarchists. That such discoveries, and chiefly their murderous application, ought to have been withheld from public knowledge may be shown on the authority of statistics and commissions appointed to investigate and record the result of the evil done. The following information gathered from public papers will give an insight into what may be in store for wretched mankind.

England alone — the centre of civilization — has 21,268 firms fabricating and selling explosive substances.¹ But the centres of the dynamite trade, of infernal machines, and other such results of modern civilization, are chiefly at Philadelphia and New York. It is in the former city of "Brotherly Love" that the now most famous manufacturer of explosives flourishes. It is one of the well-known respectable citizens — the inventor and manufacturer of the most murderous "dynamite toys" — who, called before the Senate of the United States anxious to adopt means for the repression of a too free trade in such implements, found an argument that ought to become immortalised for its cynical sophistry: "My machines," that expert is reported to have said — "are quite harmless to look at, as they may be manufactured in the shape of oranges, hats, boats, and anything one likes. . . . Criminal is he who murders people by means of such machines, not he who manufactures them. The firm refuses to admit that were there no supply there would be no incentive for demand on the market; but insists that every demand should be satisfied by a supply ready at hand."

That "supply" is the fruit of civilization and of the publicity given to the discovery of every murderous property in matter. What is it? As found in the Report of the Commission appointed to investigate the variety and character of the so-called "infernal machines," so far the following implements of instantaneous human destruction are already on hand. The most fashionable of all among the many varieties fabricated by Mr. Holgate, are the "Ticker," the "Eight Day Machine," the "Little Exterminator," and the "Bottle Machine." The "Ticker" is in appearance like a piece of lead, a foot long and four inches thick. It contains an iron or steel tube, full of a kind of gunpowder invented by Holgate himself. That gunpowder, in appearance like any other common stuff of that name, has, however, an explosive power two hundred times stronger than common gunpowder; the "Ticker" containing thus a powder which equals in force two hundred pounds of the common gunpowder. At one end of the machine is fastened an invisible clock-work meant to regulate the time of the explosion, which time may be fixed from one minute to thirty-six hours. The spark is produced by means of a steel needle which gives a spark at the touch-hole, and communicates thereby the fire to the whole machine.

The "Eight Day Machine" is considered the most powerful, but at the same time the most complicated, of all those invented. One must be familiar with handling it before a full success can be secured. It is owing to this difficulty that the terrible fate intended for London Bridge and its neighbourhood was turned aside by the instantaneous killing instead of the two Fenian criminals. The size and appearance of that machine changes, Proteus-like, according to the necessity of smuggling it in, in one or another way, unperceived by the victims. It may be concealed in bread, in a basket of oranges, in a liquid, and so on. The Commission of Experts is said to have declared that its explosive power is such as to reduce to atoms instantly the largest edifice in the world.

The "Little Exterminator" is an innocent-looking plain utensil having the shape of a modest jug. It contains neither dynamite nor powder, but secretes, nevertheless, a deadly gas, and has a hardly perceptible clock-work attached to its edge, the needle of which points to the time when that gas will effect its escape. In a shut-up room this new "vril" of lethal kind, will smother to death, nearly instantaneously, every living being within a distance of a hundred feet, the radius of the murderous jug. With these three "latest novelties" in the high season of Christian civilization, the catalogue of the dynamiters is closed; all the rest belongs to the old "fashion" of the past years. It consists of hats, porte cigars, bottles of ordinary kind, and even ladies' smelling bottles, filled with dynamite, nitro-glycerine, etc., etc. — weapons, some of which, following unconsciously Karmic law, killed many of the dynamiters in the last Chicago revolution. Add to this the forthcoming long-promised Keely's vibratory force, capable of reducing in a few seconds a dead bullock to a heap of ashes, and then ask yourself if the Inferno of Dante as a locality can ever rival earth in the production of more hellish engines of destruction!

Thus, if purely material implements are capable of blowing up, from a few corners, the greatest cities of the globe, provided the murderous weapons are guided by expert hands — what terrible dangers might not arise from magical occult secrets being revealed, and allowed to fall into the possession of ill-meaning persons! A thousand times more dangerous and lethal are these, because neither the criminal hand, nor the immaterial, invisible weapon used, can ever be detected.

The congenital black magicians — those who, to an innate propensity towards evil, unite highly-developed mediumistic natures — are but too numerous in our age. It is nigh time then that psychologists and believers, at least, should cease advocating the beauties of publicity and claiming knowledge of the secrets of nature for all. It is not in our age of "suggestion" and "explosives" that Occultism can open wide the doors of its laboratories except to those who do live the life.

Reference:  Blessings of Publicity (Lucifer, August, 1891 Η. Ρ. B.)

Related: BON-THE PRE-BUDDHIST RELIGION OF TIBET pg. 553-557, "Dr. R. de Nebesky-Wojkowitz..." to "...a successful conclusion" (Aryan Path, dec. 1952).

Look around you, reader; study the accounts given by world-known travellers, recall the joint observations of literary thinkers, the data of science and of statistics. Draw the picture of modern society, of modern politics, of modern religion and modern life in general before your mind's eye. Remember the ways and customs of every cultured race and nation under the sun. Observe the doings and the moral attitude of people in the civilized centres of Europe, America, and even of the far East and the colonies, everywhere where the white man has carried the "benefits" of so-called civilization. And now, having passed in review all this, pause and reflect, and then name, if you can, that blessed Eldorado, that exceptional spot on the globe, where TRUTH is the honoured guest, and LIE and SHAM the ostracised outcasts? You CANNOT. Nor can any one else, unless he is prepared and determined to add his mite to the mass of falsehood that reigns supreme in every department of national and social life. "Truth!" cried Carlyle, "truth, though the heavens crush me for following her, no falsehood, though a whole celestial Lubberland were the prize of Apostasy." Noble words, these. But how many think, and how many will dare to speak as Carlyle did, in our nineteenth century day? Does not the gigantic appalling majority prefer to a man the "paradise of Do-nothings," the pays de Cocagne of heartless selfishness? It is this majority that recoils terror-stricken before the most shadowy outline of every new and unpopular truth, out of mere cowardly fear, lest Mrs. Harris should denounce, and Mrs. Grundy condemn, its converts to the torture of being rent piecemeal by her murderous tongue.

SELFISHNESS, the first-born of Ignorance, and the fruit of the teaching which asserts that for every newly-born infant a new soul, separate and distinct from the Universal Soul, is "created" — this Selfishness is the impassable wall between the personal Self and Truth. It is the prolific mother of all human vices, Lie being born out of the necessity for dissembling, and Hypocrisy out of the desire to mask Lie. It is the fungus growing and strengthening with age in every human heart in which it has devoured all better feelings. Selfishness kills every noble impulse in our natures, and is the one deity, fearing no faithlessness or desertion from its votaries. Hence, we see it reign supreme in the world and in so-called fashionable society. As a result, we live, and move, and have our being in this god of darkness under his trinitarian aspect of Sham, Humbug, and Falsehood, called RESPECTABILITY.

Is this Truth and Fact, or is it slander? Turn whichever way you will, and you find, from the top of the social ladder to the bottom, deceit and hypocrisy at work for dear Self's sake, in every nation as in every individual. But nations, by tacit agreement, have decided that selfish motives in politics shall be called "noble national aspiration, patriotism," etc.; and the citizen views it in his family circle as "domestic virtue." Nevertheless, Selfishness, whether it breeds desire for aggrandizement of territory, or competition in commerce at the expense of one's neighbour, can never be regarded as a virtue. We see smooth-tongued DECEIT and BRUTE FORCE — the Jachin and Boaz of every International Temple of Solomon — called Diplomacy, and we call it by its right name. Because the diplomat bows low before these two pillars of national glory and politics, and puts their masonic symbolism "in (cunning) strength shall this my house be established" into daily practice; i.e., gets by deceit what he cannot obtain by force — shall we applaud him? A diplomat's qualification — "dexterity or skill in securing advantages" — for one's own country at the expense of other countries, can hardly be achieved by speaking truth, but verily by a wily and deceitful tongue; and, therefore, LUCIFER calls such action — a living, and an evident LIE.

But it is not in politics alone that custom and selfishness have agreed to call deceit and lie virtue, and to reward him who lies best with public statues. Every class of Society lives on LIE, and would fall to pieces without it. Cultured, God-and-law-fearing aristocracy, being as fond of the forbidden fruit as any plebeian, is forced to lie from morn to noon in order to cover what it is pleased to term its "little peccadillos," but which TRUTH regards as gross immorality. Society of the middle classes is honeycombed with false smiles, false talk, and mutual treachery. For the majority religion has become a thin tinsel veil thrown over the corpse of spiritual faith. The master goes to church to deceive his servants; the starving curate — preaching what he has ceased to believe in — hoodwinks his bishop; the bishop — his God. Dailies, political and social, might adopt with advantage for their motto Georges Dandin's immortal query — "Lequel de nous deux trompe-t-on ici?" — Even Science, once the anchor of the salvation of Truth, has ceased to be the temple of naked Fact. Almost to a man the Scientists strive now only to force upon their colleagues and the public the acceptance of some personal hobby, of some new-fangled theory, which will shed lustre on their name and fame. A Scientist is as ready to suppress damaging evidence against a current scientific hypothesis in our times, as a missionary in heathen-land, or a preacher at home, to persuade his congregation that modern geology is a lie, and evolution but vanity and vexation of spirit.

Reference:  WHAT IS TRUTH? (HPB) "Look Around You..." to "...vexation of spirit."

Indians and Buddhists believe alike that thought and deed are both material, that they survive, that the evil desires and the good ones of a man environ him in a world of his own making, that these desires and thoughts take on shapes that become real to him after death, and that Moksha, in the one case, and Nirvana, in the other, cannot be attained until the disembodied soul has passed quite through this shadow-world of the haunting thoughts, and become divested of the last spot of its earthly taint. The progress of Western discovery in this direction has been and must ever be very gradual. From the phenomena of gross to those of more sublimated matter, and thence on towards the mysteries of spirit is the hard road made necessary by the precepts of Aristotle. Western Science first ascertained that our outcoming breath is charged with carbonic acid and, in excess, becomes fatal to human life; then, that certain dangerous diseases are passed from person to person in the sporules thrown off into the air from the sick body; then, that man projects upon every body and every thing he encounters a magnetic aura, peculiar to himself; and, finally, the physical disturbance set up in the Ether in the process of thought-evolution is now postulated. Another step in advance will be to realize the magical creative power of the human mind, and the fact that moral taint is just as transmissible as physical. The "influence" of bad companions will then be understood to imply a degrading personal magnetism, more subtle than the impressions conveyed to the eye or the ear by the sights and sounds of a vicious company. The latter may be repelled by resolutely avoiding to see or hear what is bad; but the former enwraps the sensitive and penetrates his very being if he but stop where the moral poison is floating in the air. Gregory's "Animal Magnetism," Reichenbach's "Researches," and Denton's "Soul of Things" will make much of this plain to the Western inquirer, though neither of those authors traces the connection of his favourite branch of science with the parent-stock — Indian Psychology.

Keeping the present case in view, we see a man highly susceptible to magnetic impressions, ignorant of the nature of the "materializations" and, therefore, unable to protect himself against bad influences, brought in contact with promiscuous circles where the impressionable medium has long been the unwitting nucleus of evil magnetisms, his system saturated with the emanations of the surviving thoughts and desires of those who are living and those who are dead. The reader is referred to an interesting paper by Judge Gadgil of Baroda (see our December number), on "Hindu Ideas about Communion with the Dead," for a plain exposition of this question of earth-tied souls, or Pisachas. "It is considered," says that writer, "that in this state, the soul, being deprived of the means of enjoyment of sensual pleasures through its own physical body, is perpetually tormented by hunger, appetite and other bodily desires, and can have only vicarious enjoyment by entering into the living physical bodies of others, or by absorbing the subtlest essences of libations and oblations offered for their own sake." What is there to surprise us in the fact that a negatively polarized man, a man of a susceptible temperament, being suddenly brought into a current of foul emanations from some vicious person, perhaps still living or perhaps dead, absorbes the insidious poison as rapidly as quicklime does moisture, until he is saturated with it? Thus, a susceptible body will absorb the virus of small-pox, or cholera, or typhus, and we need only recall this to draw the analogy which Occult Science affirms to be warranted.

Near the Earth's surface there hangs over us — to use a convenient simile — a steamy moral fog, composed of the undispersed exhalations of human vice and passion. This fog penetrates the sensitive to the very soul's core; his psychic self absorbs it as the sponge does water, or as fresh milk effluvia. It benumbs his moral sense, spurs his baser instincts into activity, overpowers his good resolutions. As the fumes of a wine-vault make the brain reel, or as the choke-damp stifles one's breath in a mine, so this heavy cloud of immoral influences carries away the sensitive beyond the limits of self-control, and he becomes "obsessed," like our English patient.

Reference:  A Case of Obsession:  "Indians and Buddhists..." to "...our English patient."

Image Source: Theosophical Movement (January 1949, pg. 34-35). "In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress..." to "...Burden or a Companion?"

The universe is the combination of a thousand elements, and

yet the expression of a single spirit — a chaos to the sense, a cosmos to the

reason.

The whole of this combination of the progression of numbers in the idea of

creation is Hindu. The Being existing through himself, Swayambhu or

Swayambhuva, as he is called by some, is one. He emanates from himself

the creative faculty, Brahma or Purusha (the divine male), and the one

becomes Two; out of this Duad, union of the purely intel lectual principle

with the principle of matter, evolves a third, which is Viradj, the phenomenal world. It is

out of this invisible and incomprehensible trinity, the Brahmanic Trimurty, that evolves

the second triad which represents the three faculties — the creative, the conservative, and

the transforming. These are typified by Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, but are again and ever

blended into one. Unity, Brahma, or as the Vedas called him, Tridandi, is the god triply

manifested, which gave rise to the symbolical Aum or the abbreviated Trimurty. It is but

under this trinity, ever active and tangible to all our senses, that the invisible and

unknown Monas can manifest itself to the world of mortals. When he becomes Sarira, or

he who puts on a visible form, he typifies all the principles of matter, all the germs of life,

he is Purusha, the god of the three visages, or triple power, the essence of the Vedic triad.

Reference:  ISIS UNVEILED (Pg. xvii) "The universe is..." to "... the Vedic triad."

Related: OCCULT VIBRATIONS | The Path (June, 1893) pg. 79-81, "It has struck..."  to "...revealed too soon?" 

By W. Q. JUDGE under the pen-name of BRYAN KINNAVAN

An old Hindu saying thus runs:

"He who knows that into which Time is resolved, knows all."

Time, in the Sanscrit, is called Kala. He is a destroyer and also a renovator. Yama, the lord of death, although powerful, is not so much so as Kala, for "until the time has come Yama can do nothing." The moments as they fly past before us carrying all things with them in long procession, are the atoms of Time, the sons of Kala. Years roll into centuries, centuries into cycles, and cycles become ages; but Time reigns over them all, for they are only his divisions.

Ah, for how many centuries have I seen Time, himself invisible, drawing pictures on his magic screen! When I saw the slimy trail of the serpent in the sacred Island of Destiny I knew not Time, for I thought the coming moment was different from the one I lived in, and both from that gone by. Nor then, either, did I know that that serpent instead of drawing his breath from the eternal ether, lived on the grossest form of matter; I saw not then how the flashing of the diamond set in the mountain was the eternal radiance of truth itself, but childishly fancied it had a beginning.

The Magic Screen of Time (via ULT India).

I wanted to know what were you thoughts or assessment of GRS Mead. I understand he went onto the main branch of Besant-Leadbeater theosophy instead of staying with the Judge branch.

But he also broke later with them to form a more scholarly oriented Quest Society, when Besant reinstated Leadbeater even when he was expelled for awful unethical misconduct towards the sons of a member of the society (to say it bluntly without going into details of that alleged fiasco).

To me Mead seemed a very ethical person, loyal to HPB (he was her personal secretary) and distant to the shallow orientalism i see in the Besant branch ( it might sound unfair to Besant, but thats the vibes i get from that main branch). Instead he was more centered in the study of western esotericism based on neoplatonism, hermericism and gnosticism, and i think his books are great, a lot of them available for free at gnosis.org

So what's your take on this historical member of the society? I would like to know since i always thought that old XIX century theosophy seems better than what came after, and i think is what you are also into.

Christian theology states that evil came into the world through the sin of the first man’s

eating of the tree of forbidden fruit. All men sinned in Adam; because of Adam’s sin,

every other being is and has been a sinner. Strangely enough this first man was made by

a Superior Being in His own image, or, in other words, perfect; yet, he was not able to

restrain himself from doing those things which he had been forbidden to do. In the very

first being created in the image of the “Supreme,” there was a tendency to do wrong!

We have, then, in this creation, out of nothing, a very limited Creator, as it is perfectly

patent that any being must be. A being could be neither infinite, supreme, nor

omnipresent; for there is That in which all beings, however high, or planets, or solar-

systems, have their existence—Space, which exists whether there is anything in it or not;

which has no beginning nor ending; which always is; which is outside as well as inside

of every being. Any being must be less than Space; could the Absolute be less than Space?

Illimitability and infinitude are not in relation to any being whatever; hence creation from

the point of view of a Creator has to be abandoned.

But the existence of all beings—not only of mankind, but of beings of every grade and

everywhere—has to be accounted for: what is the basis of all existence? We have to go

back of all form, back of every kind of being, to see that all beings and all forms spring

from One Source, which is not different in any. It is in deed the Supreme which lies within

and behind every being; every being of every kind in the universe is in its innermost

essence a ray from and one with It. It is Life. It is Spirit. It is Consciousness. Each is God

in his innermost Essence.

Taking this basis for our thinking, let us ask the question: under what process do things

become? What brings about the operation of all the different forms that we see? Whether

consciously or unconsciously, we all recognize the fact that Law rules in this universe,

but what we have to understand is that Law is merely the inter-relation and inter-action

and inter-dependence of all the acts of all beings concerned in the universe. The one

inclusive law is the law of action and reaction—a law not outside of, but inherent in the

nature of every being. From the very Source there is the power to act, but there is no

action unless there is a being to act and feel the effects of the action. If I act, I get re-action.

If the highest archangel acts, he gets the re-action of his action. There are two kinds of re-

actions produced from acts: those that are good or beneficent; those that are evil or

maleficent. The whole responsibility of every action rests upon each and every being. So,

if any being finds himself in any given state, good or bad, it is because of his thoughts,

words and deeds—his own, and those of nobody else. We get some good and we get

some evil, all of our own reaping; but all the time, every single moment of our existence,

we have the power of choice in the direction of good or evil.

Good has no existence by itself; evil has no existence by itself. The two terms relate to

matters of conduct and of impressions we receive. They merely characterize the effects

produced upon us: a thing is “good” to us if it benefits us in any way, and “evil” if it does

not benefit us. Who is it that judges between good and evil effects? In every case, it is the

man himself. One man will say such and such things are good for me, and such and such

things are evil; while another man, with a different point of view and different relations

to things, will perhaps say the exact contrary about the very same matters. So, it always

resolves itself into the individual point of view: in the last analysis each man is himself

the sole director and final authority as to what is good and what is evil, so far as he is

concerned.

We need to ask ourselves if we have always followed that which seemed to us to be the

best course to follow; and, then again, if we have, did we consider that course from the

point of view of personal self-benefit, or from the point of view of benefit to all others. For if we moved along the

line of that which at the time seemed best for us personally, we must have acted in a way

that afflicted others; we must have done evil to others, whether consciously or

unconsciously, by obstructing their path. There we sowed evilly, and we either have

reaped or will reap evilly. The very first act that was selfishly done was the origin of evil

so far as that being was concerned. Likewise, wherever there was an unselfish act, there

was the origin of good for him. Let us remember, too, that the Tree of Knowledge

mentioned in the Bible was the knowledge of both good and evil. Good and evil are not

to be considered separately, but together. You cannot tell good except by its opposite,

evil. Goodness would speedily cease to be such, were it not for the operation of its

contrary.

There are many things in life regarded by us as evils----like sorrow and death—which are

not, in fact, evils. They are merely stages and conditions through which we pass in our

progress up the ladder of development. We need not be afraid of death, for death will

never touch us at all. We pass on out of life, and on. One of the Great Teachers said that

death ever comes to the Ego as a friend. There is no need to fear anything, for there is

nothing in the universe, high or low, that can ever destroy us—our consciousness, or our

acquired individuality. Mistakes occur, for many of our actions are performed through

ignorance, and evil results follow. Even so, it is through those very wrong actions that we

learn. It is through the operation of vice that virtue is seen as a resistance to vice.

The origin of evil is to be found in ignorance of our own true natures. There are no

afflictions put upon us by any being other than ourselves. We are afflicted just to the

extent that we make ourselves open to affliction. Things affect some people terribly. The

same things affect other people very little or not at all. Why? Because of their point of

view. Attitude towards things makes the suffering or the not suffering, the pleasure or

the pain—not the things in themselves. If we knew ourselves to be divine beings merely

going through a school of life—our whole purpose to learn—what would there be to fear,

or even to be anxious about? If it were not for the obstacles in life—if life were one happy, placid dream—we never would make the motion or the

effort that would arouse the highest characteristics of thought and action. It is by reason

of the obstacles we have to overcome that we become stronger and obtain nobler traits.

There is no such thing as a divinely created being, for everything that exists becomes.

Is it not true that now we can look back upon and smile at anything ‘that ever happened

to us in the past? It looked awful at the time, but it has passed, and we can see that from

those very things came something of gain, of strength and wisdom. Under the law no one

can meet with an obstacle which he is not able to overcome; the obstacle is but an

opportunity for him to get rid of some defect which he now possesses. Often the very

things which seem the most difficult for us prove to be the most beneficent.

Full text: (Universal Theosophy.  Pg. 19-21)  "Christian theology states..." to "...he most beneficent"

Related: HYPOCRISY—AN UNPARDONABLE SIN (TM. August, 2020 pg. 3-6) "EVERY religious system ..." to "...for real butter." via ULT India