Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Dear Friends:
Please allow me to offer some corrections of fact.
Again, an abysmal (if not a childish) ignorance of THEOSOPHY, and
its modern representation as history through the THEOSOPHICAL
SOCIETY is offered for us marvel at. It is harmonious with a
long string of misrepresentations and confusing, unreferenced,
one-sided views offered at random in recent postings. One is
again made aware of the partisanship and biases published
irresponsibly that have assailed the intelligence and knowledge
of members of our discussion-group.
Continuously, for the last several months, we have witnessed the
demonstration of a surprising ignorance of THEOSOPHY as a
philosophy, and of the development in history through the
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. Item after item has been raised, and as
they have been raised a number of those who know THEOSOPHY and
its history have systematically refuted unfounded, unreferenced,
and gratuitous caricatures offered to us, supposedly, as valid
criticism. That it continues at all shows lack of shame, or an
ulterior motive which is yet to be defined, if it can be, or
dares to be so disclosed.
1. ESOTERIC BUDDHISM was published by Sinnett in 1883. FACT
2. The SECRET DOCTRINE was published in 1888, 5 years later. FACT
The SECRET DOCTRINE was a project that was first undertaken as a
re-write of ISIS UNVEILED -- but it was seen that that had to be
abandoned, and an entirely new book needed to be issued because
of the interest aroused by ISIS UNVEILED and Sinnett's two books
(published in 1883 and 1885). These latter quoted from the
correspondence with the Adepts, and showed that there was
available with them, a continuous record of pre-history that
needed to be exposed as a logical alternative to the many
theories Science was evolving. Accordingly, The SECRET DOCTRINE
was divided into the historical report on 1. Cosmogenesis: the
evolution of the physical Universe out of the Spiritual and Ideal
UNIVERSE; and 2. Anthropogenesis, the evolution of Man, as a
physical FORM preparing itself for the embodiment of a Mind that
was derived from the Divine MONAD (ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS) that is
central to the Spiritual core of everyone.
3. H P Blavatsky has made it repeatedly clear that Theosophy is
no pastiche, and not a collage.
4. In ISIS UNVEILED she displays a knowledge of the way in which
Theosophy was employed and diffused in several of the ancient
religious and philosophical systems of antiquity. She also shows
traces of its presence from the time of Christ up to the modern
days in which she wrote (1877).
5. The claim, that THEOSOPHY is the WISDOM OF THE AGES; and that
it has been sustained, preserved, investigated and made available
in the past is shown to have been a fact, by appealing to the
records, fragmentary or complete, of antiquity, and to the
similarity of religious moral and ethical tenets in present day
religions.
6. The unity of knowledge, and the common basis for human
interaction is shown to be very ancient and is also invariable as
well as universal.
7. The magazine THEOSOPHIST was commenced in Bombay in 1879, and
was designed to consider, discuss, answer, and add to the
information that was first made available through ISIS UNVEILED.
8. Arising from the perusal of ISIS UNVEILED by Mr. A. P.
Sinnett, correspondence was initiated between him, Mr. A. O.
Hume, and members of the FIRST SECTION: the Adepts, the Elder
Brothers of Humanity -- also called the Masters of Wisdom.
9. From this correspondence arose the books that Sinnett
published: ESOTERIC BUDDHISM (1883) and THE OCCULT WORLD (1885).
10. Whatever may be the personal evaluation of a critic, one may
well wonder at the capacity of a mind such as H. P. Blavatsky's,
which was able to encompass and unite this mass of information
into the 1500 pages of that 2 volume book ISIS UNVEILED. If we
have not at least read through it with attention we suffer from a
lack of that basic need: -- the universal basis of facts and a
knowledge of the practices that make of humanity an ever-learning
and united FAMILY of immortals -- all aimed at eventually
achieving a perfection of wisdom -- their birthright -- proofs of
which are made plain in Theosophy beginning with those first
offered for consideration in ISIS UNVEILED
11. It was in 1875 that the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY was mooted and
then started (BLAVATSKY: Collected Works (TPH) Vol. I) The
sequence of meetings was Sept 7, Sept. 8, Sept. 13, Oct. 16th,
and Oct 30th. On Nov 17th 1875 that inaugural meeting of the
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY took place. Col. Olcott delivered an
address.
12. The 7 principles of Man and the psychological bridge that
united the SPIRIT on one hand and the physical FORM on the other
(in man and nature), were discussed in the pages of THEOSOPHIST
by the Vedantin Subba Row and others, before being discussed and
explained in The SECRET DOCTRINE ( Vol. I pp 157, 200, II
596 ) No serious difficulties have ever been found with those
descriptions of the faculties and powers of the human being,
13. I recently posted:
Similarly the 7-fold divisions as given in SECRET DOCTRINE I p.
157 and also II 596 were first offered many years earlier in
the THEOSOPHIST. Also see FIVE YEARS OF THEOSOPHY pp. 92, 123.
THEOSOPHIST Vol. 9, p 417-9; Vol. 5, pp 225.
The KEY TO THEOSOPHY (HPB) also gives over 100 pages to tracing
the 7-fold constitution though antiquity and placing a reasoned
system in front of us for our use."
14. Emma H Britten discontinued her Founding membership in the
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
15. Only three of the original Founders remained affiliated with
it until their death: Col. Olcott, Mme. Blavatsky, and Mr. Wm.
Q. Judge.
If one desires reliable details on modern Theosophical History
they will be found in
The THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT (1875-1925)
published by Cunningham Press, LOS ANGELES (1951), and available
trough the Theosophy Company, 245 W. 33rd St., LOS ANGELES, 9007;
or through the bookshop at http://www.blavatsky.net
Best wishes,
Dallas
======================
Dallas
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 8:43 AM
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Subject:
That the terms in the SD were all borrowed or concocted on the
fly is
I believe frankly admitted by Sinnett in his ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
They
started out with no nomenclature at all.
In Theosophy various words and ideas from mostly western
occultism
(see the books of occultists like B.P.Randolph and many others
that
have been mentioned ) where taken and given either another
meaning
or old ideas from the Renaisance just given new names, with no
basis
in reality whatsoever. Blavatskyan Theosophy is purely made
up,put
together as per end 19th century, no need for "Mahatmas" thereby.
Even co-founders of the Theosophical Society it self said so
that it
was made up. For example Emma H. Britten co-founder of the
original
TS in 1875, in whose house the by-laws of the TS where written,
and
where most of the first meetings took place. Refers to the non-
reality of "the cutting up the one human soul at death into
seven parts, each drifting off on its own account to unprovable
places", she wrote :
In the year 1876 a society was founded, some of the earliest
meetings
of which took place in the house of the present writer in New
York
City. The first projectors of that society were Madame Blavatsky
and
Mr. Henry Olcott, and after a few preliminare meetings they were
called "The Theosophical Society." Its alleged aims were to study
the literature and experiences of the Ancients, investigate the
nature of Elemental Spirits, and promote "modern Spiritualism."
For
one year I saw, conversed, and was intimate with the founders of
that
Society every day.-Mr. Olcott managed some of the New York
Spiritual
meetings at which I was engaged, and Madame Blavatsky purchased
and
kept, in her capacity of librarian of the Society, many rare
volumes,
many of the contents of which now appear in "Isis Unveiled." The
society was neither popular nor well supported.
Some years elapsed before I heard of Madame Blavatsky again. When
I
did, she had been to India, seen the necessity of picking up some
new
doctrines to gratify her English supporters, and, having realised
the truth of Carlyle's opinion of his countrymen, lived here,
founded a society of Theosophical worshippers, and died in the
odour
of sanctity, adored by those to whom she had taught belief in the
creatures of her vivid imagination, in the shape
of "Mahatmas," "Higher and Lower Egos," "Devachans". I have
no blame to attach to Madame Blavatsky. I liked her, because she
amused me. The results of her policy to herself I leave to her
present surroundings in the higher life. To her worshippers the
effect of that policy has been to establish a perfectly baseless
and
utterly unproven set of theories, without one demonstrable fact
to
rest upon. Amongst these are (as before named) Lower and
Higher "Egos"; the cutting up the one human soul at death into
seven
parts, each drifting off on its own account to unprovable places;
and
the doctrines of Re-incarnation, invisible "Mahatmas". I have in
the room in which I now write a photograph portrait of Madame
Blavatsky, together with an autograph inscription in her
well-known
handwriting, in which she announces herself as my "unworthy
follower."
(from:
http://blavatskyarchives.com/brittenhigherego.htm#Finally,
where does this unfounded )
Of course E.H.Britten' own theory where also old fashioned and
untenable.
However everything points to the fact that Olcott and Blavatsky
at
first simple didn't know much if anything about genuine oriental
philosohys including the different forms of Buddhism , wich is
why
even in the Mahatma letters one finds these things mixed up
including
copied parts of american occultist P.B.Randolh and other
plagiarisms .
Paul Johnson by many researchers agknowledged to be one of the
foremost experts on Blavatsky posted:
I know Theosophists believe that Vernon Harrison has "vindicated"
HPB, but he recoiled from that word when I asked him about it,
and
said not at all-- he had simply demonstrated that Hodgson's case
against her was unproven. I find the question of handwriting
rather
irrelevant and uninteresting, since if I were going to compose
letters and attribute them to someone else, and knew that people
would suspect me of authorship, I'd certainly not send them in my
own
handwriting. And HPB was shrewder than I. The real question is
not
who physically wrote the versions Sinnett received, but who
composed
the contents. And Marion Meade makes these telling (if not always
entirely fair) observations about K.H.'s letters: He does not,
however, speak or write German, Punjabi, Hindi or Tibetan; his
Latin
is faulty, his Sanskrit non-existent, his French impeccable,
his
English queer. He also has a habit of overlining his m's, a
mannerism
of Russians writing in English or French. Although his letters
are
written in English, it is not the English of an educated Indian
and
they sometimes falter in the use of punctuation, spelling, and
grammar. For example, he inserted commas between subject and
predicate. Worse yet, K.H. is fond of American slang and his
awkward
sentence constructions lead one to believe he is thinking in
French
but translating his thoughts into English...[examples] K.H. is in
semi-command of Western literature, science, and philosophy. He
quotes Shakespeare correctly, and Swift incorrectly, has a
passing
acquaintance with Thackeray, Tennyson and Dickens, and keeps au
courant by reading English novels. "My knowledge of your Western
science is *very* limited," he insists, which does not prevent
him
from aiming barbs at Darwin, Edison, Tyndall, and some thirty
others.
In personality, he was alternately witty, stern, cheerful,
spiteful,
highly idealistic, petty, and downright bitchy. (end quote)
Bri.: I have shown in a series of postings called "invented
Egypt"
Blavatsky at first simple imported standard motifs of Western
esotericism into India and simple adjusted it to somehow match
pseudo-
hinduist terms , thus fashioning an Indicised esotericism claimed
to
come from "Tibet" but which simple was just an invention. For
example
her Globes and Planes Model is her own twist on the Qabalistic
Tree
of Life, which is Western and not Indian or Tibetan at all.
Only later did Blavatsky started to understand more of genuine
orientalism, not yet even in the SD which Subba Row in spite of
having been influenced by westernized theosophical notions (see
my
previous posting) was still upset about the SD as not true.
Instead as has been abundantly shown Blavatsky copy'd "most"
from
western books, and what that concerns there is a complete
compatibility between Steve , Paul, and myself that we all agree
on
that.
If Isis really was inspired by "Masters who had been observing
mankind from its beginning" as Blavatsky and current day
Theosophists still claim, why did 10 years later she already felt
the need to "re-write" it, and why the idea would be to far
fetched
that 10-20 years later she would have re-written the SD to the
same
degree as she did with Isis, expecially if we see the trend of
the
Voice of Silence just 2 years after the SD. See:
http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/colemansources1895.htm
The SD just aswell mixes up history entirely, for example the SD
places the Corpus Hermetic in early Pharaoh times instead of
during the Hellenistic period. She placed the Kabbala of the
middle
ages in Rabbinistic time periods and assumed that the Greek
mysteries
had similar contents as the cabbalist- neoplatonic ideas.
Blavatsky
therefore was not so much interested in Gnosticism as she was in
Hermetism, because for her, Gnosis derived from Hermetism,
whereby
today we know it is the other way around.
Bri.
