Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00138)

Hi Dallas and all of you,

Thank so very much for the most parts of the below email.
I deeply appreciated it.

I would like to ask you i you have any further comments on an issue, which to me must be of importance, when we are dealing with fair critisism - of Theosophy in general - as it is today year 2002. 
You wrote the following in the below:

"The Society, as such, has no authorities. It was founded with
the object of breaking down that reliance upon "authority" which
has been the bane of man for ages, and it would be strange now in
we could admit authority for theosophists...We are engaged in
trying to develop a truer appreciation of the Light of Life which
is hidden in every man, and so the "final authority" is the man
himself." -- WQJ "AUTHORITY," The Path, Nov. 1887, WQJ
Art. II 543, 575


*****QUESTION: Do you think Dallas that Theosphy today - have done a propereffort in deling with the issue "Authority". Has the proper PR - so to speak always been promoted??
And if not, - the when not, - and why?
I find this important to ask, because, to me the above qoute - is hardly followed by the majority of Theosophical organizations of today - well as faras I know. Maybe Caldwell also have a view here ??*****



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dalval14@earthlink.net>
To: "AA-B-Study" <study@blavatsky.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 10:27 AM
Subject: Theos-World RE: Is Thyeosophy a "Belief System ?"


> January 8, 2002
> 
> Re: Is Theosophy possibly a "Belief system ?
> 
> 
> Dear Friends:
> 
> What precisely is a "BELIEF SYSTEM?"
> 
> To most, any understanding of "belief" implies: "NO PROOF
> EXISTS," or "AUTHORITY SAYS. "
> 
> We might even say that it is a series of statements that cannot
> be verified, or assembled in harmony together. Possibly it
> arises from insecurity, inability to reason and observe, and,
> from that, it is natural to see that fear may arise.
> 
> Theosophy on the other hand asks for close investigation and
> offers proofs and demonstrations.
> 
> "If one criticism is hurtful, so is another; so also is every
> innovation, or even the presentation of some old thing under a
> new aspect, as both have necessarily to clash with the views of
> this, or another "authority."...criticism is the great benefactor
> of thought in general; and still more so of those men who never
> think for themselves but rely in everything upon acknowledged
> "authorities" and social routine.
> 
> For what is an "authority" upon any question...No more...than a
> light streaming upon a certain object through one single, more or
> less wide, chink, and illuminating it from one side only. Such
> light, besides being the faithful reflector of the personal views
> of but one man--very often merely that of his special hobby--can
> never help in the examination of a question or a subject from all
> its aspects and sides...Criticism is the sole salvation from
> intellectual stagnation...(391)To reject the infallibility of a
> man of Science is not quite the same as to repudiate his
> learning. A specialist is one, precisely because he has some one
> specialty, and is therefore less reliable in other branches of
> Science, and even in the general appreciation of his own subject.
> Official school Science is based upon temporary foundations, so
> far...Truth belongs to all...excepting always those few special
> branches of knowledge which should be preserved ever secret, like
> those two-edged weapons that both kill and save..." -- HPB
> Literary Jottings by "Unpopular Philosopher"
> LUCIFER, Sept. 1892 (posthumous) HPB Art. II 389-391
> 
> 
> "Be what he may, once that a student abandons the old and trodden
> highway of routine, and enters upon the solitary path of
> independent thought--Godward--he is a Theosophist; an original
> thinker, a seeker after the eternal truth with "an inspiration of
> his own" to solve the universal problems." -- HPB " What are
> the Theosophists ?" Theosophist, Oct. 1879. HPB Art. I p.
> 52
> 
> 
> "The Authority which we recognize is not what men term authority,
> which comes from outside and which demands obedience, but an
> internal recognition of the value of that which flows through any
> given point, focus, or individual. This is the authority of
> one's Self-discrimination, intuition, the highest intellection.
> If we follow what we recognize in that way, and still find it
> good, we naturally keep our faces in that direction. This means
> no slavish following of any person--a distinction which some are
> unable to grasp. H.P.B. wrote: "Do not follow me or my path.
> Follow the path I show, the Masters who are behind"...the most
> and best anyone can do is to follow the lines laid down by H.P.B.
> regardless of any others." F. P. p. 372-3
> [ Reminiscences - C. Wachtmeister p. 122 ]
> 
> 
> "No true Theosophist...would consent to become the fetish of a
> fashionable doctrine, any more than he would make himself the
> slave of a decaying dead-letter system, the spirit from which has
> disappeared forever. Neither would he pander to anyone or
> anything, and therefore would always decline to show belief in
> that in which he does not, nor can he believe, which is lying to
> his own soul...we will keep to that pure ray "that comes from
> above," from the light of the "Ancient."
> --HPB "DUAL ASPECT OF WISDOM", LUCIFER, Sept. 1890, HPB
> Articles I 36-7
> 
> 
> For thinking persons, this aspect of free investigation is very
> satisfactory. But for those who have not penetrated with their
> minds the Objects of Theosophical study and work, they remain a
> kind of threat. What to do? One of the oldest methods of
> discrediting anything is to make wild, unsupported and
> unverified, unreferenced statements in a kind of attack. It
> startles, confuses and disgusts many. Others, it leaves totally
> unmoved. Yet, there is always a desire to "hear the other side."
> 
> "Its [Theosophical] doctrines, if seriously studied, call forth,
> by stimulating one's reasoning powers and awakening the inner in
> the animal man, every hitherto dormant power for good in us, and
> also the perception of the true and the real, as opposed to the
> false and the unreal.
> 
> "The Society, as such, has no authorities. It was founded with
> the object of breaking down that reliance upon "authority" which
> has been the bane of man for ages, and it would be strange now in
> we could admit authority for theosophists...We are engaged in
> trying to develop a truer appreciation of the Light of Life which
> is hidden in every man, and so the "final authority" is the man
> himself." -- WQJ "AUTHORITY," The Path, Nov. 1887, WQJ
> Art. II 543, 575
> 
> 
> Although some seem to dislike hearing what the Originators of
> modern-day Theosophy had to say, yet, they (those Originators)
> seem to make it plain. One said that Theosophy was "sanctified
> common-sense." Of course, that has to be proved.
> 
> Belief systems seem to rely on the apathy, ignorance and the
> inertia of most of their adherents. But who wants to be
> satisfied with unreferenced labels, when Wisdom is to be had
> freely?
> 
> "It is just because we have devoted our whole life to the
> research of truth...that we never accept on faith any authority
> upon any question whatsoever; nor, pursuing, as we do, Truth and
> progress through a full and fearless enquiry, untrammeled by any
> consideration, would we advise any of our friends to do
> otherwise." --HPB "Notes on 'A Land of Mystery'" HPB Art III
> 342-3 Theosophist, Vol. 1, p. 278-9
> 
> Theosophy is an embodiment of the universal dynamism which we
> call LIFE. " Lets study it, learn what it implies, then, go and
> find out," seems to be the basic approach. And those who are
> true students say further: " Let us see if they are true for
> ourselves."
> 
> 
> H P B, the Master's "Messenger," wrote some definitions as to
> what THEOSOPHY is:
> 
> 
> "Theosophy is an all-embracing Science; many are the ways
> leading to it...which began with the sublime in the days of
> Ammonius Saccas...There were theosophists and Theosophical
> Schools for the last 2,000 years, from Plato down to the medieval
> Alchemists, who knew the value of the term...
> 
> Belief in the Masters, was never made an article of faith in the
> T.S. But for its Founders, the commands received from Them when
> it was established have ever been sacred. And this is what one
> of them wrote...:
> 
> "Theosophy must not present merely a collection of moral
> verities, a bundle of metaphysical Ethics epitomized in
> theoretical dissertations. Theosophy must be made practical, and
> has, therefore, to be disencumbered of useless discussion ...It
> has to find objective expression in an all-embracing code of life
> thoroughly impregnated with its spirit--the spirit of mutual
> tolerance, charity, and love...The problem of true theosophy and
> its great mission is the working out of clear, unequivocal
> conceptions of ethic ideas and duties which would satisfy most
> and best the altruistic and right feelings in us; and the
> modeling of these conceptions for their adaptation into such
> forms of daily life where they may be applied with most
> equitableness...Such is the common work in view for all those who
> are willing to act on these principles...none is held to weed out
> a larger plot of ground than his strength and capacity will
> permit him..." HPB "THE ORGANIZATION OF THE T.S."
> THEOSOPHIST, June 1924, and again in August 1931.
> 
> 
> H P B said: "...the undersigned accepts for her views and
> walk in life no authority dead or living, no system of philosophy
> or religion but one--namely, the esoteric teachings of ethics and
> philosophy of those she calls Masters--answers have to be given
> strictly in accordance with these teachings...his first duty is
> to be ever ready to help if he can, without stopping to
> philosophize...there may be those who are starving for truth, in
> every department of the science of nature, and who consequently
> are yearning to learn the esoteric views about "cosmology, the
> evolution of man and of the Universe." ... what I do believe in
> is:
> 
> (1), the unbroken oral teachings revealed by living *divine* men
> during the infancy of mankind to the elect among men;
> 
> (2), that it has reached us unaltered; and
> 
> (3), that the MASTERS are thoroughly versed in the science based
> on such uninterrupted teaching.."
> (Blavatsky: Collected Writings, Vol. 11, pages 466-467)
> 
> 
> In 1877 in ISIS UNVEILED, H P B wrote:
> 
> 
> "The work now submitted to public judgment is the fruit of a
> somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern Adepts and study of
> their SCIENCE ... we came into contact with certain men, endowed
> with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we
> may truly designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their
> instructions we lent a ready ear ... " ( ISIS I, v, vi)
> Caps added
> 
> "... FROM THE FIRST AGES OF MAN, THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF ALL
> THAT WE ARE PERMITTED TO KNOW ON EARTH WAS IN THE SAFE KEEPING OF
> THE ADEPTS of the sanctuary ... those guardians of the PRIMITIVE
> DIVINE REVELATION, who had solved every problem that is within
> the grasp of human intellect, were bound together by a universal
> freemasonry of science and philosophy, which formed one unbroken
> chain around the globe." ISIS I, 37-38, Caps added
> 
> "There are, scattered throughout the world, a handful of
> thoughtful and solitary students, who pass their lives in
> obscurity, far from the rumors of the world, studying the great
> problems of the physical and spiritual universes. They have their
> SECRET RECORDS in which are preserved the fruits of the
> scholastic labors of the LONG LINE of recluses whose successors
> they are ... "
> ISIS I, 557. Caps added
> 
> "... the SECRET DOCTRINE is the Truth ..." ( ISIS UNVEILED II,
> 292)
> 
> "... many are those who ... will remain in doubt and mortal agony
> as to whether, when man dies, he will live again, although the
> question has been solved by long bygone generations of sages ....
> Except the initiates, no one has understood the mystic writing.
> The key was in the keeping of those who knew how to commune with
> the invisible Presence, and who had received, from the lips of
> mother Nature herself, her grand truths ... " ( ISIS I,
> 573)
> 
> "... This 'SECRET DOCTRINE' contains the alpha and omega of
> universal SCIENCE; therein lies the corner and the keystone of
> all the ancient and modern knowledge; and alone in this ...
> doctrine remains buried the absolute in the philosophy of the
> dark problems of life and death ... " ( ISIS I, 511) caps
> added
> 
> "Thus is it that all the religious monuments of old, in whatever
> land or under whatever climate, ARE THE EXPRESSION OF THE SAME
> IDENTICAL THOUGHTS, THE KEY TO WHICH IS IN THE ESOTERIC DOCTRINE
> ... And the clergy of every nation, though practicing rites and
> ceremonies which may have differed externally, had evidently been
> initiated into the same traditional mysteries which were taught
> all over the world ..." ( ISIS I, 561)
> 
> "... the Northern seer Swedenborg, advises people to search for
> the LOST WORD among the hierophants of Tartary, China and Thibet;
> for it is there, and only there now ... " ( ISIS I 580 )
> 
> "... the four Vedas; the Books of Hermes; the Chaldean Book of
> Numbers; the Nazarene Codex; the Kabala ... ; the Sepher
> Jezira; the Book of Wisdom ... ; the Brahmanas; the Stan-gyour,
> of the Thibetans; all these volumes have the same ground-work.
> Varying but in allegories THEY TEACH THE SAME SECRET DOCTRINE
> which ... will prove to be the Ultima Thule of true philosophy,
> and disclose what is this lost word." ( ISIS I, 580)
> 
> "... the 'secret doctrine' or wisdom was identical in every
> country ..." ( ISIS I, 444)
> 
> "... What we desire to prove is, that underlying every ancient
> popular religion was THE SAME ANCIENT WISDOM-DOCTRINE, ONE AND
> IDENTICAL, professed and practiced BY THE INITIATES OF EVERY
> COUNTRY, who alone were aware of its existence and importance ...
> A single glance ... is enough to assure one that it could not
> have attained the marvelous perfection in which we find it
> pictured to us in the relics of the various esoteric systems,
> except after a succession of ages.
> 
> "A PHILOSOPHY SO PROFOUND, A MORAL CODE SO ENNOBLING, AND
> PRACTICAL RESULTS SO CONCLUSIVE AND SO UNIFORMLY DEMONSTRABLE IS
> NOT THE GROWTH OF A GENERATION, OR EVEN A SINGLE EPOCH."
> 
> Fact must have been piled upon fact, deduction upon deduction,
> science have begotten science, and myriads of the brightest human
> intellects have reflected upon the laws of nature, before this
> ancient doctrine had taken concrete shape.
> 
> THE PROOFS OF THIS IDENTITY OF FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE IN THE OLD
> RELIGIONS ARE FOUND IN THE PREVALENCE OF A SYSTEM OF INITIATION;
> in the secret sacerdotal castes who had the guardianship of
> mystical words of power, and a public display of a phenomenal
> control over natural forces, indicating association with
> preterhuman beings ... " ( ISIS II 90 )
> 
> "As we proceed, we will point out the evidences of this identity
> of vows, formulas, rites, and doctrines, between the ancient
> faiths. We will also show that not only their memory is still
> preserved in India, but also that the SECRET ASSOCIATION is still
> alive and as active as ever ... the chief pontiff and hierophant,
> the BRAHMATMA, is still accessible to those 'who know,' though
> perhaps recognized by another name; and that the ramifications of
> his influence extend throughout the world ..."
> ( ISIS II, 99-100) Caps Added
> 
> "Our examination of the multitudinous religious faiths that
> mankind, early and late, have professed, most assuredly indicates
> that THEY HAVE ALL BEEN DERIVED FROM ONE PRIMITIVE SOURCE. It
> would seem as if they were all but different modes of expressing
> the yearning of the imprisoned human soul for intercourse with
> supernal spheres.
> 
> As the while ray of light is decomposed by the prism into the
> various colors of the solar spectrum, so the beam of divine
> truth, in passing through the three-sided prism of man's nature,
> has been broken up into vari-colored fragments called religions.
> And, as the rays of the spectrum, by imperceptible shadings,
> merge into each other, so the great theologies that have appeared
> at different degrees of divergence from the original source, have
> been connected by minor schisms, schools, and off-shoots from the
> one side or the other.
> 
> COMBINED, THEIR AGGREGATE REPRESENTS ONE ETERNAL TRUTH; separate,
> they are but shades of human error and the signs of imperfection
> ... "What has been contemptuously termed Paganism, was ancient
> wisdom replete with Deity; and Judaism and its offspring,
> Christianity and Islamism, derived whatever of inspiration they
> contained from this ethic parent.
> 
> PRE-VEDIC BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM ARE THE DOUBLE SOURCE FROM
> WHICH ALL RELIGIONS SPRUNG; NIRVANA IS THE OCEAN TO WHICH ALL
> TEND." ISIS II, 639)
> 
> 
> H P B writing on criticism about the book The SECRET DOCTRINE
> said:
> 
> "We are quite ready to admit the faults charged...that it is
> badly arranged, discursive, over-burdened with digressions into
> by-ways of mythology, etc., But then it is neither a
> philosophical system nor the Doctrine, called secret or esoteric,
> but only a record of a few of its facts and a witness to it. It
> has never claimed to be the full exposition of the system...in
> its totality; a) because the writer does not boast of being a
> great Initiate... b) because had she been one, she would have
> divulged still less. It has never been contemplated to make of
> the sacred truths an integral system for the ribaldry and sneers
> of the profane and iconoclastic public...the Secret Doctrine
> merely asserts that a system, known as the Wisdom Religion, the
> work of generations of adepts and seers, the sacred heirloom of
> pre-historic times--actually exists, though hitherto preserved in
> the greatest secrecy by the present Initiates...Giving a few
> fragments only, it there shows how these explain the religious
> dogmas of the present day, and how they might serve Western
> religions, philosophies and science, as sign-posts along the
> untrodden paths of discovery...No new philosophy is set up in the
> Secret Doctrine, only the hidden meaning of some of the religious
> allegories of antiquity is given...and the common source is
> pointed out...however divergent...the agreement between all
> becomes perfect, so soon as the esoteric or inner side of these
> beliefs and their symbology is examined...It is also maintained
> that its doctrines and sciences, which form an integral cycle of
> universal cosmic facts and metaphysical axioms and truths,
> represent a complete and unbroken system; and that he who is
> brave and persevering enough, ready to crush the animal in
> himself, and forgetting the human self, sacrifices it to his
> Higher Ego, can always find his way to become initiated into
> these mysteries. This is all the Secret Doctrine
> ms." --HPB "THE BABEL OF MODERN THOUGHT," LUCIFER, Jan.,
> Feb. 1891, HPB Articles III 43-44
> 
> 
> "IF ANY AUTHORITY PERTAINS TO THE SECRET DOCTRINE, IT MUST BE
> SOUGHT INSIDE, NOT OUTSIDE. IT MUST REST ON ITS
> COMPREHENSIVENESS, ITS COMPLETENESS, ITS CONTINUITY AND
> REASONABLENESS; IN OTHER WORDS, ON ITS PHILOSOPHICAL SYNTHESIS,
> A THING MISSED ALIKE BY THE SUPERFICIAL AND THE CONTENTIOUS, BY
> THE INDOLENT, THE SUPERSTITIOUS, AND THE DOGMATIC."
> -- WQJ "THE SYNTHESIS OF OCCULT SCIENCE," WQJ Art I
> 36
> 
> 
> 
> 2) Let us also consider what has been said concerning the
> THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
> 
> 
> 
> THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
> 
> 
> 
> "When the ancient founders of your philosophical schools came
> East, to acquire the lore of our predecessors, they filed no
> claims, except the single one of a sincere and unselfish hunger
> for the truth. If any now aspire to found new schools of science
> and philosophy the same plan will win--if the searchers have in
> them the elements of success...H.S.Olcott has been trying to
> convert each of the Indian Branches into such a school of
> research, but the capacity for sustained independent study for
> knowledge's sake is lacking, and must be developed..."
> M L, p. 342
> 
> "Solidarity of thought and action within the broad outline of the
> chief and general principles of the Society there must always be
> between the parent and Branch bodies; yet the latter must be
> allowed each their own independent action in everything that does
> not clash with those principles." M L , p. 318-9
> 
> "The Theosophical Society was constituted on the model of its
> mother country...they wanted to grant absolute equality in its
> laws to all religions so that all would support the State and all
> in their turn would be protected...each branch as well as each
> member, having the right to profess the religion and to study the
> sciences or philosophies it or he prefers, provided that the
> whole remains united by bonds of solidarity and fraternity--our
> Society may be truly called the "Republic of Conscience."...
> 
> All of us must work for the liberation of human thought, for the
> elimination of selfish and sectarian superstitions, and for the
> discovery of all the truths that are within the reach of the
> human mind. This goal cannot be attained with greater certainty
> than through the culture of solidarity on the plane of mental
> work. No honest worker, no serious seeker, has ever returned
> therefrom empty-handed..." --HPB "THE NEW CYCLE" La Revue
> Theosophique, March 21, 1889. HPB Articles I 402
> 
> "No true Theosophist...would consent to become the fetish of a
> fashionable doctrine, any more than he would make himself the
> slave of a decaying dead-letter system, the spirit from which has
> disappeared forever. Neither would he pander to anyone or
> anything, and therefore would always decline to show belief in
> that in which he does not, nor can he believe, which is lying to
> his own soul...we will keep to that pure ray "that comes from
> above," from the light of the "Ancient."
> --HPB "Dual Aspect of Wisdom", Lucifer, Sept. 1890, HPB
> Articles I 36-7
> 
> "The Theosophical Society was chosen as the cornerstone, the
> foundation of the future religions of humanity. To achieve the
> proposed object, a greater, wiser, and especially a more
> benevolent intermingling of the high and the low, the alpha and
> the omega of society, was determined upon." LUCIFER, Aug.
> 1896 "The Great Master's Letter" Theos. Art & Notes, p. 190
> 
> "The society was founded to become the Brotherhood of Humanity--a
> centre, philosophical and religious, common to all--not as a
> propaganda for Buddhism merely...the T.S. is open to all, without
> distinction of "origin, caste, nation, colour, or sex...or of
> creed." HPB -- "The Theosophical Society," LUCIFER, Aug. 1888
> 
> "HPB is loyal to the death to the Theosophical Cause, and those
> great Teachers whose philosophy can alone bind the whole Humanity
> into one Brotherhood...Therefore the degree of her sympathies
> with the "Theosophical Society and Adyar" depends upon the degree
> of the loyalty of that society to the CAUSE. Let it break away
> from the original lines and show disloyalty in its policy to the
> CAUSE and the original programme of the Society and HPB, calling
> the T.S. disloyal, will shake it off like dust from her
> feet....There is no longer a "Parent Society;" it is abolished
> and replaced by an aggregate body of Theosophical Societies, all
> autonomous, as are the States of America, and all under one Head
> President, who, together with H.P.Blavatsky, will champion the
> CAUSE against the whole
> world..." HPB - A PUZZLE FROM ADYAR, Lucifer, August
> 1889.
> 
> "There is a very great difference between the Theosophical
> Movement and any Theosophical Society. The Movement is moral,
> ethical, spiritual, universal, invisible save in effect, and
> continuous. A Society formed for theosophical work is a visible
> organization, an effect, a machine for conserving energy and
> putting it to use; It is not nor can it be universal, nor is it
> continuous...
> 
> The Theosophical Movement being continuous, it is to be found at
> all times and in all nations. Wherever thought has struggled to
> be free, wherever spiritual ideas, as opposed to forms and
> dogmatism, have been promulgated, there the great movement is to
> be discerned." WQJ - "The Theosophical Movement" WQJ
> Articles, II, p. 124
> 
> 
> "It has always been held that a true Theosophist must have no
> personal ends to serve, no favourite hobby to propagate, no
> special doctrine to enforce or to defend. For, to merit the
> honorable title of Theosophist one must be an altruist, above
> all; one ever ready to help equally foe or friend; to act,
> rather than to speak; and urge others to action, while never
> losing an opportunity to work himself. But if no true
> Theosophist will ever dictate to his fellow, brother or neighbor,
> what this one should believe or disbelieve in, nor force him to
> act on lines which may be distasteful to him, however proper they
> may appear to himself, there are other duties which he has to
> attend to:
> 
> a) to warn his brother of any danger the latter may fail to see;
> and
> 
> b) to share his knowledge--if he has acquired such--with those
> who have been less fortunate than himself in opportunities for
> acquiring it...
> 
> Therefore, we say to-day to all: "If you would really help the
> noble cause--you must do so now; for a few years more and your,
> as well as our efforts, will be in vain."...
> 
> Unless we succeed in placing the T.S...on the safe side of the
> spiritual current, it will be swept away irretrievably into the
> Deep called "Failure." ...Thus will have ingloriously perished
> the only association whose aims, rules and original purposes
> answer in every particular and detail--if strictly carried
> out--to the innermost, fundamental thought of every great Adept
> Reformer, the beautiful dream of a Universal Brotherhood Of Man."
> HPB "Why the Vahan ?" Dec. 1890 HPB Art.
> I 284-5
> 
> 
> H P B sent a letter to the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY in Adyar with Mr.
> Bertram Keightley in April 1890. It was not published in
> THEOSOPHIST until 32 years later: January 1922. It says
> clearly in her characteristic way:
> 
> [ From HPB: "Why I do not Return to India" -- letter
> April, 1890
> 
> "...the name alone of the holy Masters...has wrought a mighty
> change for the better in your land [India]...so long as I
> remained at Adyar, things went on smoothly enough, because one or
> other of the Masters was almost constantly present among us, and
> their spirit ever protected the T.S. from real harm...[1884] It
> was during that time and Colonel Olcott's absence in Burma, that
> the seeds of all future strifes, and...disintegration of the
> T.S., were planned by our enemies... I say, at that critical
> moment, if the members of the Society, and especially its leaders
> at Adyar, Hindu and European, had stood together as one man, firm
> in their conviction of the reality and power of the Masters,
> Theosophy would have come out more triumphantly than ever, and
> none of their fears would have ever been realized...In spite of
> my protests, I was hurried away from Headquarters...and
> immediately intrigues and rumors began...it was rumored that I
> had been abandoned by the Masters, been disloyal to Them...I was
> accused of being, at best, a hallucinated medium, who had
> mistaken "spooks" for living Masters...others declared that the
> real H.P.Blavatsky was dead...and that the form had been
> forthwith seized upon by a Dugpa Chela...I was a witch, a
> sorceress...In fact the powers of psychology attributed to me by
> my enemies...are so great that they alone would have made of me a
> most remarkable Adept--independently of any Masters or Mahatmas.
> with the exception of Colonel Olcott, everyone seemed to banish
> the Masters from their thoughts and Their spirit from
> Adyar...since my departure...the activity of the movement there
> gradually slackened...
> 
> Acting under Master's orders I began a new movement in the West
> on the original lines; I founded LUCIFER, and the Lodge which
> bears my name...I learned that I was once more wanted in
> India--at any rate by some. But the invitation came too late;
> neither would my doctor permit it, nor can I, if I would remain
> true to my life-pledge and vows, now live at the Headquarters
> from which the Masters and Their spirit are virtually banished.
> The presence of Their portraits will not help; They are a dead
> letter...no advice of mine on occult lines seems likely to be
> accepted, as the fact of my relations with the Masters is
> doubted, even totally denied by some...the spread of Theosophy
> and of the T.S. in the West, during the last three years, has
> been extraordinary...I was enabled and encouraged by the devotion
> of an ever increasing number of members to the Cause and to Those
> who guide it, to establish an Esoteric Section, in which I can
> teach something of what I have learned to those who have
> confidence in me, and who prove this by their disinterested work
> for Theosophy and the T.S. (113) The only claim, therefore,
> which India could ever have upon me would be strong only in
> proportion to the activity of the Fellows there for Theosophy and
> their loyalty to the Masters.
> 
> Thenceforth let it be clearly understood that the rest of my life
> is devoted only to those who believe in the Masters, and are
> willing to work for Theosophy as They understand it, and for the
> T.S. on the lines upon which They originally established it."
> -- HPB "Why I do not Return to India,"
> 
> [ This letter from HPB was written and sent with B. Keightley,
> April 1890. Published in Theosophist, January 1922.
> HPB Articles I pp 108 - 114 ]
> 
> 
> 
> Best wishes to all,
> 
> Dallas
> 
>