Theos-Talk Archives (January 2004 Message tt00447)

I don't think it much matters which HQ you "affiliate" with, as long as you=
are 
true to the Three Objectives. 

I personally like being in India and the Arya Samaj, even though it has no =

connection to the TS, is quite an interesting group. It is great to meet p=
eople 
from all over the world and especially the Tibetan Mahayana Buddhists who 
frequent the Society from time to time here in Adyar.

But I agree, NYC is definately the true original HQ of the TS. And WQJudge =
is 
one of the great Theosophists of all time. It was his integrity that preser=
ved 
much of the original teaching that the people of adyar turn back to after y=
ears 
of xhange and politics. 

So don't worry which TS you choose for if you live up to the Three Objectiv=
es 
you will be connected to the same Masters who are behind them all.

A^A^


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Dallas TenBroeck" <dalval14@e...> 
wrote:
> Thursday, January 29, 2004
> 
> 
> Re: T S History -- a correction
> 
> Where is the H Q of the T S ?
> 
> 
> Dear Friends:
> 
> I find a posting that reads in part: "an article by Blavatsky written
> in Bombay in 1879 - the year when the Theosophical Society's
> headquarters was transferred to India,"
> 
> Allow me to make a correction in fact of this view of T S history.
> 
> The H Q of the T S was never formally by Resolution "transferred" out of
> New York . The Minute Books of the original T S are with the T S in A
> in Pasadena, and they verify this as I have seen them.
> 
> Col. Olcott and HPB went to India in 1878, arriving in Bombay in 1879. 
> 
> The Resolution recorded in the T S Minute Book was that they were
> constituted a "Delegation."  
> 
> The T S had at that time proposed to affiliate itself with the ARYA
> SAMAJ [Assembly of the Nobles] movement of Pandit Dayanand Saraswati.
> They went to India and one of their objects was to cement this
> affiliation. It did not succeed because of Dayanand's insistence on
> absolute authority -- and therefore, complete obedience to his rules and
> decisions.
> 
> The freedom of the members of the T S being impugned, it was not
> possible for the "Delegation" to ratify the proposed affiliation. It
> was therefore abandoned and instead, it was decided to establish a
> Branch of the T S first in Bombay. Later many more Branches were
> established all over India. An Indian HQ became necessary. The Adyar
> property was bought with funds provided by Col. Olcott and HPB. Details
> of these matters will be found recorded in the early volumes of the
> THEOSOPHIST. They are also summarized in the book: The 
THEOSOPHICAL
> MOVEMENT (1875-1950).
> 
> Col. Olcott, when in India declared that the H Q was wherever he was
> encamped. This was the basis on which thereafter matters were
> conducted. It is called legally: a "de facto" decision. Whereas: "de
> jure," the T S as a Society never left the shores of America, its
> birthplace. And its HQ remained in New York.
> 
> The SEAL of the T S was changed in India, and then adopted generally as
> mentioned.
> 
> We may also take note of a judicial contribution made as to the legal
> nature of the T S (reprinted from The KEY TO THEOSOPHY :
> 
> -----------------------
> 
> 
> LEGAL STATUS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 
> Key. p. 309-10
> 
> 
> 
> THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
> 
> 
> The following Official Report, on which was granted a Decree of In to
> the St. Louis Theosophical Society, is art important document, as
> putting on record the view taken of the Theosophical Society—after a
> careful examination of witnesses on oath—by an American Court of Law.
>  
> First—The petitioner is not a religious body, I report this negative
> finding for the reason that the word "Theosophical" contained in
> petitioners' name conveys a possible religious implication. 
> 
> The statutory phrase "society formed for religious purposes" applies, I
> suppose, only to an organization formed in part for worship, worship
> being an individual act involving adoration and perhaps emotional power,
> both being of necessity individual acts, or else to an organization
> formed for a propagation of a religious faith. 
> 
> Merely to teach a religion as one may teach algebra, is not, I think, a
> religions work, as the word "religious" is used in the Statute and the
> Constitution. A man may occupy a collegiate chair of Professor of
> Religions and as such teach the tenets of many religions. These
> different religions being variant and antagonistic, the Professor could
> not by any possibility worship under all. Nay, he might even be
> irreligious. Hence, merely teaching religions is not a religions work in
> the statutory sense. 
> 
> It will be noted that in art. 2 of this society's constitution, the word
> religion is used in the plural. To teach religions is educational, not
> religious. "To promote the study of religions" is in part to promote the
> study of the history of man. I add the subordinate finding that the
> society has no religious creed and practices no worship. 
> 
> Second—The petitioner proposes to promote the study of literature and
> sciences. These objects are expressly within the terms of the Statute. 
> 
> Third—Cognate with the last object is that of investigating
> "unexplained laws of nature and psychical powers latent in man." These
> two phrases, taken in their apparent meaning, are unobjectionable. But
> there is reason to believe that they form a meaning other than the
> apparent one. 
> 
> The court will take notice of the commonly accepted meaning of the word
> "Theosophy." Though I am ignorant of Theosophy, I think it is supposed
> to include among other things manifestations and phenomena, physical and
> psychical, that are violative of the laws now known by physicists and
> metaphysicians, and perhaps not explained or claimed to be explained or
> understood even by Theosophists themselves. 
> 
> In this group may be included Spiritualism, mesmerism, clairvoyance,
> mind-healing, mind-reading, and the like. I took testimony on this
> question, and found that while a belief in any one of these sorts of
> manifestations and phenomena is not required, while each member of the
> society is at liberty to hold his own opinion, yet such questions form
> topics of inquiry and discussion, and the members as a mass are probably
> believers individually in phenomena that are abnormal and in powers that
> are superhuman as far as science now knows. 
> 
> It is undoubtedly the right of any citizen to hold whatever opinions he
> pleases on these subjects, and to endeavour at his pleasure to
> investigate the unexplained and to display the latent. 
> 
> But the question here is: Shall the Court grant a franchise in aid of
> such endeavour? 
> 
> Voodooism is a word applied to the practices of guileful men among the
> ignorant and superstitious who inflict impostures upon guileless men
> among the ignorant and superstitious. No Court would grant a franchise
> in furtherance of such practices. 
> 
> The Court then will stop to inquire into the practices and perhaps the
> reputableness of the enterprise which seeks judicial aid. I am not
> meaning to make a comparison between voodooism and this group of
> phenomena which for convenience (though I know not whether accurately) I
> will call occultism. I only take voodooism as a strong case to show the
> Court ought to inquire. 
> 
> If we now inquire into occultism we shall find that it has been
> occasionally used, as is reported, for the purposes of imposture. But
> this goes for nothing against its essential character. Always and
> everywhere bad men will make a bad use of anything for selfish ends. 
> 
> The object of this society, whether attainable or not, is undeniably
> laudable, assuming that there are physical and psychical phenomena
> unexplained, and that Theosophy seeks to explain them. Assuming that
> there are human powers yet latent, it seeks to discover them. It may be
> that absurdities and impostures are in fact incident to the nascent
> stage of its development. 
> 
> As to an understanding like that of occultism, which asserts powers
> commonly thought superhuman, and phenomena commonly thought
> supernatural, it seemed to me that the Court, though not assuming to
> determine judicially the question of their verity, would, before
> granting to occultism a franchise, inquire whether at least it had
> gained the position of being reputable or whether its adherents were
> merely men of narrow intelligence, mean intellect, and omnivorous
> credulity. 
> 
> I accordingly took testimony on that point, and find that a number of
> gentlemen in different countries of Europe, and also in this country,
> eminent in science, are believers in occultism. Sir Edward Bulwer
> Lytton, a writer of large and varied learning, and of solid intellect,
> is asserted to have been an occultist, an assertion countenanced by at
> least two of his books. 
> 
> The late President Wayland, of Brown University, writing of abnormal
> mental operations as shown in clairvoyance, says: "The subject seems to
> me well worthy of the most searching and candid examination. It is by no
> means deserving of ridicule, but demands the attention of the most
> philosophical inquiry." 
> 
> Sir William Hamilton, probably the most acute and, undeniably, the most
> learned of English metaphysicians that ever lived, said at least thirty
> years ago: "However astonishing, it is now proved beyond all rational
> doubt that in certain abnormal states of the nervous organism
> perceptions are possible through other than the ordinary channels of the
> senses." 
> 
> By such testimony Theosophy is at least placed on the footing of
> respectability. Whether by further labour it can make partial truths
> complete truths, whether it can eliminate extravagances and purge itself
> of impurities, if there are any, are probably questions upon which the
> Court will not feel called upon to pass. 
> 
> I perceive no other feature of the petitioners' constitution that is
> obnoxious to legal objection, and accordingly I have the honour to
> report that I show no cause why the prayer of the petitioners should not
> be granted.
> AUGUST W. ALEXANDER,
> Amicus Curæ.
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
> 
> 2
> 
> On Autonomy
> 
> 
> [ The following quotations deserve their place here in view of the
> assertion still made in the T S, Adyar that The American Theosophists
> and Mr. W.Q.Judge "seceded" from the T.S. --DTB ]
> 
> 
> A 1893 Letter from Col. Olcott
> 
> Mr. A.E.S. Smythe, President TS in Canada, wrote the Editors of
> Theosophy [ reported on p. 11 of the March 15th issue of Canadian
> Theosophist, for 1923, Vol. 4, # 1 ] quoting a letter addressed in 1893
> by Col. Olcott, P.T.S. to Mr. Judge in which he read the following :
> 
> 
> "If you want separate Theosophical Societies made out of the 	
> Sections, have them by all means. I offered this years ago 	
> to H.P.B. and even to A.P.S." [ from: Olcott, P T S ]
> 
> 
> In the CANADIAN THEOSOPHIST, Vol. X, July 1929, pp 156-7  
> 
> Mr. A.E.S.Smythe, President wrote:
> 
> 
> "The splitting of the Society was the act of Colonel Olcott who hated
> Judge. Judge had expected that the Colonel would recognize the
> autonomous T.S. in America and affiliate it with Adyar, but Olcott
> changed his mind and refused to do this, and Judge...was much
> disappointed with the Colonel's refusal. I was in the office at 144
> Madison Avenue when Judge received a letter from Olcott postmarked and
> stamped from Spain, and Judge remarked 'Now everything will be all
> right.' But the letter was not what Judge expected and his
> disappointment was very obvious. This phase of the situation has never
> been explained, and I have never been able to learn whether Judge
> counted with warrant on Olcott's support, or whether it was really a
> right-about-face on Olcott's part, for Judge certainly expected Olcott
> to support him. Judge had collected $ 17,000.00 in America and sent it
> to Olcott when the Adyar treasurer embezzled that amount...Judge and
> Besant were all right till H.P.B. died and we can honour and depend upon
> them up till that point. After May 8, 1891 we have had to depend upon
> ourselves and should be charitable to our neighbours. -- A. E. S.
> Smythe. "
> 
> 
> [ 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...(110) 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. (111)
> 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...(112)
>  
> 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 ]
> 
> 
> "...the Esoteric Section has nothing whatever to do with the T.S., its
> Council or officers. It is a Section entirely apart from the exoteric
> body, and independent of it. H.P.B. alone being responsible for its
> members...the E.S. as a body, owes no allegiance whatever to the T.S.,
> as a Society, least of all to Adyar...H.P.B. is loyal to the death to
> the Theosophical CAUSE, and those great Teachers whose philosophy can
> alone bind the whole of Humanity into one Brotherhood...Therefore the
> degree of her sympathies with the "T.S. 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 H.P.B. calling the T.S.
> disloyal, will shake it off like dust from her feet.
> 
> And what does "loyalty to Adyar" mean, in the name of all wonders? What
> is Adyar, apart from that CAUSE and the two (not one Founder) who
> represent it ? ...
>  
> 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. Such is
> the real state of things...a Council which is liable at any moment to
> issue silly and untheosophical ukases...in a Society which owes its life
> to them [she and Col. Olcott], and for which they are both karmically
> responsible...she will ever protest against the decision of the General
> Council, were it composed of Archangels and Dhyan Chohans themselves, 
if
> their decisions seem to her unjust or untheosophical, or fails to meet
> with the approval of the majority of the Fellows. No more than
> H.P.Blavatsky has the President Founder the right to exercise autocracy
> or papal powers...It is the two Founders and especially the President,
> who have virtually sworn allegiance to the Fellows, whom they have to
> protect, and teach those who want to be taught, and not to tyrannize and
> rule over them."	
> -- H P B "A Puzzle from Adyar" Lucif, Aug. 1889
> HPB Articles I 219-220
> 
> 
> "...Sections and Branches like the "London Lodge" and others which are
> autonomous...Is not the Blavatsky Lodge, like the London, Dublin, or any
> other "Lodge," a branch of, and a Theosophical Society ?"
> HPB Articles I 221
> 
> 
> 
> =====================================
> 
> 
> I hope this may prove use.
> 
> Best wishes, 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dallas
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mor
> Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 8:48 AM
> To: 
> Subject: Manas and Blavatsky on the Christian Massmedia...
> 
> Hallo all,
> 
> My views are:
> 
> 
> It could be of value to consider the following, when we talk about Manas
> and its development.
> 
> It is an article by Blavatsky written in Bombay in 1879 - the year when
> the Theosophical Society's headquarters was transferred to India, - and
> the Seal of the Society changed. The AUM symbol was added to it as well
> as the Motto: "There is no Religion higher than Truth".
> 
> The article is to me important because it is related to an issue, which
> is even more important today.
> It is the issue of the Mass-medias and the various religious groups
> influence upon them. 
> 
> 
> Today some of them act in a less visible and more "intelligent" manner
> to promote a certain cultural lifestyle supported by a Christian
> element, no matter how poisoness such a dogmatic element is, - even if
> it be an eternal hell. 
> 
> 
> Well that is my view. And Blavatsky shows a sort of similar view in her
> article, although it is somewhat old.
> "Not A Christian"! 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> 
> Before entering upon the main question that compels me to ask
> you kindly to accord me space in your esteemed paper, will you inform me
> as to the nature of that newly-born infant prodigy which calls itself
> The Bombay Review? Is it a bigoted, sectarian organ of the Christians,
> or an impartial journal, fair to all, and unprejudiced as every
> respectable paper styling itself "Review" ought to be, especially in a
> place like Bombay, where such a diversity of religious opinions is to be
> found? The two paragraphs in the number of February 22nd, which so
> honour the Theosophical Society by a double notice of its American
> members, would force me to incline toward the former opinion. Both the
> editorial which attacks my esteemed friend, Miss Bates, and the
> apocalyptic vision of the modern Ezekiel, alias "Anthropologist," who
> shoots his rather blunt arrows at Col. Olcott, require an answer, if it
> were but to show the advisability of using sharper darts against
> Theosophists. Leaving the seer to his prophetic dream of langoutis and
> cow-dung, I will simply review the editorial of this Review which tries
> to be at the same time satirical and severe and succeeds only in being
> nonsensical. Quoting from another paper a sentence relating to Miss
> Bates, which describes her as "not a Christian," it remarks in that
> bitter and selfish spirit of arrogance and would-be superiority, which
> so characterizes Christian sectarianism:
> 
> The public might have been spared the sight of the
> italicized personal explanations.
> 
> What "public" may I ask? The majority of the intelligent and
> reading public - especially of native papers - in Bombay as throughout
> India is, we believe, composed of non-Christians - of Parsîs, Hindûs,
> etc. And this public instead of resenting such "wanton aggressiveness,"
> as the writer pleases to call it, can but rejoice to find at least one
> European lady, who, at the same time that she is not a Christian, is
> quite ready, as a Theosophist, to call any respectable "heathen" her
> brother, and regard him with at least as much sympathy as she does a
> Christian. But this unfortunate thrust at Theosophy is explained by what
> follows:
> 
> In the young lady's own interest the insult ought not to
> have been flung into the teeth of the Christian public.
> 
> Without taking into consideration the old and wise axiom, that
> honesty is the best policy, we can only regret for our Christian
> opponents that they should so soon "unveil" their cunning policy. While
> in the eyes of every honest "heathen" Theosophist, there can be no
> higher recommendation for a person than to have the reputation of being
> truthful even at the expense of his or her "interest," our Christian
> Review unwittingly exposes the concealed rope of the mission machinery,
> by admitting that it is in the interest of every person here, at least -
> to appear a Christian or a possible convert, if he is not one de facto.
> We feel really very, very grateful to the Review for such a timely and
> generous confession. The writer's defence of the 'public" for which it
> speaks as one having authority is no less vague and unsatisfactory, as
> we all know that among the 240,000,000 of native population in India,
> Christians count but as a drop in an ocean. Or is it possible that no
> other public but the Christian is held worthy of the name or even of
> consideration? Had converted Brâhmans arrived here instead of
> Theosophists, and one of these announced his profession of faith by
> italicizing the words, not a heathen, we doubt whether the fear of
> hurting the feelings of many millions of Hindus would have ever entered
> the mind of our caustic paragraphist!
> 
> Nor do we find the sentence, "India owes too much to
> Christianity," anything but arrogant and presumptuous talk. India owes
> much and everything to the British Government, which protects its
> heathen subjects equally with those of English birth, and would no more
> allow the one class to insult the other than it would revive the
> Inquisition. India owes to Great Britain its educational system, its
> slow but sure progress, and its security from the aggression of other
> nations; to Christianity it owes nothing. And yet perhaps I am mistaken,
> and ought to have made one exception. India owes to Christianity its
> mutiny of 1857, which threw it back for a century. This we assert on the
> authority of general opinion and of Sir John Kay, who declares, in his
> Sepoy War, that the mutiny resulted from the intolerance of the
> crusading missions and the silly talk of the Friend of India.
> 
> I have done; adding but one more word of advice to the Review.
> In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the latest
> international revision of the Bible - that infallible and revealed Word
> of God! - reveals 64,000 mistranslations and other mistakes, it is not
> the Theosophists - a large number of whose members are English patriots
> and men of learning - but rather the Christians who ought to beware of
> "wanton aggressiveness" against people of other creeds. Their boomerangs
> may fly back from some unexpected parabola and hit the throwers.
> 
> 
> [From the Indian Spectator.]
> Bombay, Feb. 25th, 1879 
> H. P. Blavatsky 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> The fact that Blavatsky considered the Newspapers important and
> that she died when in juridical dispute with one of them - aught not to
> be just ignored, but rather taken to Heart !
> 
> And with our present year 2004 world situation, one should
> underestimate the people behind different Newspapers and the newer tools
> Television and including Web-TV and Web-papers are capeable of 
creating.
> 
> CUT