Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00507)

-----Original Message-----
From: Morten 
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 7:58 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: anti semitism in the list


My views are: Blavatsky might be helpful on this one: "ON
PSEUDO-THEOSOPHY"

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ON PSEUDO-THEOSOPHY
Article by H. P. Blavatsky

The more
honesty a man has, the less he
affects the air of a saint. The affectation of
sanctity is a blotch on the face of devotion.
--LAVATER
  
The most difficult thing in life is to know
yourself . 
--THALES 


SHALL WE WINNOW THE CORN, BUT FEED UPON THE CHAFF?


THE presiding genius in the Daily News Office runs amuck at LUCIFER in
his issue of February 16th. He makes merry over the presumed distress of
some theosophists who see in our serial novel, "The Talking Image of
Urur"--by our colleague, Dr. F. Hartmann--an attempt to poke fun at the
Theosophical Society. Thereupon, the witty editor quizzes "Madame
Blavatsky" for observing that she "does not agree with the view" taken
by some pessimists; and ends by expressing fear that "the misgivings
that have been awakened will not easily be laid to rest." 

Ride, si sapis. It is precisely because it is our desire that the
"misgivings" awakened should reach those in whom the sense of
personality and conceit has not yet entirely stifled their better
feelings, and force them to recognize themselves in the mirror offered
to them in the "Talking Image," that we publish the "satirical" novel. 
This proceeding of ours--rather unusual, to be sure, for editors --to
publish a satire, which seems to the short-sighted to be aimed at their
gods and parties only because they are unable to sense the underlying
philosophy and moral in them, has created quite a stir in the dailies. 
The various Metropolitan Press Cutting Agencies are pouring every
morning on our breakfast-table their load of criticism, advice, and
comment upon the rather novel policy. So, for instance, a
kindly-disposed correspondent of the Lancashire Evening Post (February
18) writes as follows: 

The editor of LUCIFER has done a bold thing. She is publishing a story
called "The Talking Image of Urur," which is designed to satirise the
false prophets of Theosophy in order that the true prophets may be
justified. I appreciate the motive entirely, but, unfortunately, there
are weak-minded theosophists who can see nothing in Dr. Hartmann's
spirited talk but a caricature of their whole belief. So they have
remonstrated with Madame Blavatsky, and she replies in LUCIFER that "the
story casts more just ridicule upon the enemies and detractors of the
Theosophic Society than upon the few theosophists whose enthusiasm may
have carried them into extremes." Unfortunately, this is not strictly
accurate. The hero of the tale, a certain Pancho, is one of these
enthusiasts, and it is upon him and upon the mock "adepts" who deceive
him that the ridicule is thrown. But it never seems to have occurred to
Madame Blavatsky and Dr. Hartmann that the moment you begin to ridicule
one element, even though it be a false element, in the faith, you are
apt to shake the confidence of many if not most believers, for the
simple reason that they have no sense of humour. The high priestess of
the cult may have this sense for obvious reasons,1 but her disciples are
likely to be lost if they begin to laugh, and if they can't laugh they
will be bewildered and indignant. I offer this explanation with all
humility to Madame Blavatsky, who has had some experience of the effects
of satire. 
The more so as, according to those members of the T.S. who have read the
whole story, it is precisely "Madame Blavatsky" against whom its satire
is the most directed. And if "Mme. Blavatsky"--presumably "the Talking
Image"--does not object to finding herself represented as a kind of
mediumistic poll parrot, why should other "theosophists" object? A
theosophist above all men ought ever to bear in mind the advice of
Epictetus: "If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself;
if it be a lie, laugh at it." We welcome a witty satire always, and defy
ridicule or any efforts in this direction to kill the Theosophical
Society, so long as it, as a body, remains true to its original
principles. 
As to the other dangers so kindly urged by the Post, the "high
priestess" acknowledges the benevolent objections by answering and
giving her reasons, which are these: The chosen motto of the
Theosophical Society has been for years--"There is no religion higher
than truth"; the object of LUCIFER is in the epigraph on its cover,
which is "to bring to light the hidden things of darkness." If the
editor of LUCIFER and the Theosophists would not belie these two
propositions and be true to their colours, they have to deal with
perfect impartiality, sparing no more themselves than outsiders, or even
their enemies. As to the "weak-minded theosophists"--if any--they can
take care of themselves in the way they please. If the "false prophets
of Theosophy" are to be left untouched, the true prophets will be very
soon--as they have already been--confused with the false. It is nigh
time to winnow our corn and cast away the chaff. The T.S. is becoming
enormous in its numbers, and if the false prophets, the pretenders
(e.g., the "H.B. of L.," exposed in Yorkshire by Theosophists two years
ago, and the "G.N.K.R." just exposed in America), or even the
weak-minded dupes, are left alone, then the Society threatens to become
very soon a fanatical body split into three hundred sects--like
Protestantism--each hating the other, and all bent on destroying the
truth by monstrous exaggerations and idiotic schemes and shams. We do
not believe in allowing the presence of sham elements in Theosophy,
because of the fear, forsooth, that if even "a false element in the
faith" is ridiculed, the latter "is apt to shake the confidence" in the
whole. At this rate Christianity would be the first to die out centuries
ago under the sledge-hammer blows dealt to its various churches by its
many reformers. No philosopher, no mystic or student of symbolism, can
ever laugh at or disbelieve in the sublime allegory and conception of
the "Second Advent"--whether in the person of Christ, Krishna, Sosiosh,
or Buddha. The Kalki Avatar, or last (not "second") Advent, to wit, the
appearance of the "Saviour of Humanity" or the "Faithful" light of
Truth, on the White Horse of Death--death to falsehood, illusion, and
idol, or self-worship--is a universal belief. Shall we for all that
abstain from denouncing the behaviour of certain "Second Adventists" (as
in America)? What true Christians shall see their co-religionists making
fools of themselves, or disgracing their faith, and still abstain from
rebuking them publicly as privately, for fear lest this false element
should throw out of Christianity the rest of the believers? Can any of
them praise his co-religionists for climbing periodically, in a state of
paradisiacal decolleté, on the top of their houses, trees, and high
places, there to await the "advent"? No doubt those who hope by stealing
a march on their slower Brethren to find themselves hooked up the first,
and carried bodily into Heaven, are as good Christians as any. Should
they not be rebuked for their folly all the same? Strange logic! 

THE WISE MAN COURTS TRUTH; THE FOOL, FLATTERY

However it may be, let rather our ranks be made thinner, than the
Theosophical Society go on being made a spectacle to the world through
the exaggerations of some fanatics, and the attempts of various
charlatans to profit by a ready-made programme. These, by disfiguring
and adapting Occultism to their own filthy and immoral ends, bring
disgrace upon the whole movement. Some writer remarked that if one would
know the enemy against whom he has to guard himself the most, the
looking-glass will give him the best likeness of his face. This is quite
true. If the first object of our Society be not to study one's own self,
but to find fault with all except that self, then, indeed, the T.S. is
doomed to become--and it already has in certain centres--a Society for
mutual admiration; a fit subject for the satire of so acute an observer
as we know the author of "The Talking Image of Urur" to be. This is our
view and our policy. "And be it, indeed, that I have erred, mine error
remaineth with myself." 

That such, however, is the policy of no other paper we know a daily, a
weekly, a monthly, or a quarterly--we are quite aware. But, then, they
are the public organs of the masses. Each has to pander to this or that
other faction of politics or Society, and is doomed "to howl with the
wolves," whether it likes or not. But our organs--LUCIFER
pre-eminently--are, or ought to be, the phonographs, so to speak, of the
Theosophical Society, a body which is placed outside and beyond all
centres of forced policy. We are painfully conscious that "he who tells
the truth is turned out of nine cities"; that truth is unpalatable to
most men; and that--since men must learn to love the truth before they
thoroughly believe it--the truths we utter in our magazine are often as
bitter as gall to many. This cannot be helped. Were we to adopt any
other kind of policy, not only LUCIFER--a very humble organ of
Theosophy--but the Theosophical Society itself, would soon lose all its
raison d'être and become an anomaly. 

But "who shall sit in the seat of the scorner?" Is it the timid in
heart, who tremble at every opinion too boldly expressed in LUCIFER lest
it should displease this faction of readers or give offense to that
other class of subscribers? Is it the "self-admirers," who resent every
remark, however kindly expressed, if it happens to clash with their
notions, or fails to show respect to their hobbies? 

. . . I am Sir Oracle 
And when I open my lips, let no dog bark!

Surely we learn better and profit more by criticism than by flattery,
and we amend our ways more through the abuse of our enemies than the
blind pandering of friends. Such satires as the "Fallen Idol," and such
chelas as Nebelsen, have done more good to our Society, and certain of
its members, than any "theosophical" novel; for they have shown up and
touched au vif the foolish exaggerations of more than one enthusiast. 

Self abnegation is possible only to those who have learnt to know
themselves; to such as will never mistake the echo of their own inner
voice--that of selfish desire or passion--for the voice of divine
inspiration or an appeal from their MASTER. Nor is chelaship consonant
with mediumistic sensitiveness and its hallucinations; and therefore all
the sensitives who have hitherto forced themselves into discipleship
have generally made fools of themselves, and? sooner or later, thrown
ridicule upon the T.S. But after the publication of the "Fallen Idol"
more than one such exhibition was stopped. "The Talking Image of Urur"
may then render the same, if not better, service. If some traits in its
various dramatis personæ fit in some particulars certain members who
still belong to the Society, other characters--and the most successful
of them--resemble rather certain EX-members; fanatics, in the past,
bitter enemies now--conceited fools at all times. Furthermore "Puffer"
is a compound and very vivid photograph. It may be that of several
members of the T.S., but it looks also like a deluded victim of other
bogus Esoteric and Occult Societies. One of such just sprung up at
Boston U.S.A., is now being nipped in the bud and exposed by our own
Theosophists. 

These are the "Solar adepts" spoken of in our January editorial, the
âmes damnées of shameful commercial enterprises. No event could
vindicate the policy of our journal better than the timely exposure of
these pseudo-adepts, those "Sages of the Ages" who bethought themselves
of trading upon the public hunger for the marvellous ad absurdum. We did
well to speak of them in the editorial as we have. It was timely and
lucky for us to have pointed to the ringleaders of that shameful
speculation--the sale of bogus occult knowledge. For we have averted
thereby a great and new danger to the Society--namely that of
unscrupulous charlatans being taken for Theosophists. Misled by their
lies and their publications filled with terms from Eastern philosophy
and with ideas they had bodily stolen from us only to disfigure and
misapply them--the American press has already referred to them as
Theosophists. Whether out of sheer flippancy, or actual malice, some
dailies have headed their sensational articles with "Theosophic Knaves,"
and "Pantognomostic Theosophs," etc., etc. This is pure fiction. The
editor of the "Esoteric" had never been at any time a member of our
society, or of any of its numerous Branches. "ADHY-APAKA, alias the
Hellenic ETHNOMEDON and ENPHORON, alias the Greco-Tibetan, Ens-movens OM
mane padmi AUM" (sic) was our enemy from the beginning of his career. As
impudently stated by him to a reporter, we theosophists hated him for
his "many virtues"! Nor has the Sage "bent under the weight of
centuries," the VIDYA NYAIKA, said to be represented by a person called
Eli Ohmart, had anything to do with the T.S. The two worthies had, like
two venomous wily spiders, spread their webs far and wide, and numerous
are the Yankee flies caught in them. But thanks to the energy of some of
our Boston Members, the two hideous desecrators of Eastern philosophy
are exposed. In the words of the "Boston Globe," this is the—

WEIRD TALE WHICH MAY HAVE A SEQUEL IN COURT

"If there are no arrests made, I shall go right on with the work; but if
they make trouble, I shall stay and face the music." 

Hiram Erastus Butler, the esoteric philosopher of 478 Shawmut avenue,
uttered the foregoing sentiment to a GLOBE reporter last evening as
calmly as one would make a casual remark about the weather. 
Thereby hangs a tale, a long, complicated, involuted, weird, mystical,
scientific, hysterical tale--a tale of love and intrigue, of adventure,
of alleged and to some extent of admitted swindling, of charges of a
horrible and unspeakable immorality, of communion with embodied and
disembodied spirits, and especially of money. In short, a tale that
would make your head weary and your heart faint if you attempted to
follow out all its labyrinthine details and count the cogs on its wheels
within wheels. A tale that quite possibly may find its sequel in the
courts, where judge, jury, and counsel will have a chance to cudgel
their brains over almost every mystery in the known universe. 

These are the heroes whom certain timid Theosophists--those who raised
their voices against the publication of the "Talking Image of
Urur--"advised us to leave alone. Had it not been for that unwillingness
to expose even impersonal things and deeds, our editorial would have
been more explicit. Far from us be the desire to "attack" or "expose"
even our enemies, so long as they harm only ourselves, personally and
individually. But here the whole of the Theosophical body--already so
maligned, opposed, and persecuted--was endangered, and its destinies
were hanging in the balance, because of that impudent pseudo esoteric
speculation. He, therefore, who maintains in the face of the Boston
scandal, that we did not act rightly in tearing off the sanctimonious
mask of Pecksniffian piety and the "Wisdom of the Ages" which covered
the grimacing face of a most bestial immorality, of insatiable
greediness for lucre and impudence, fire, water, and police proof--is no
true Theosophist. How minds, even of an average intelligence, could be
caught by such transparent snares as these publicly exhibited by the two
worthies, to wit: Adhy-Apaka and Vidya Nyaika--traced by the American
press to one Hiram E. Butler and Eli Ohmart--passes all comprehension!
Suffice to read the pamphlet issued by the two confederates, to see at
the first glance that it was a mere repetition--more enlarged and
barefaced, and with a wider, bolder programme, still a repetition --of
the now defunct "H.B. of L." with its mysterious appeals of four years
ago to the "Dissatisfied" with "the Theosophical Mahatmas." The two
hundred pages of the wildest balderdash constitute their "Appeal from
the Unseen and the Unknown" and the "Interior of the Inmost" (?) to "the
Awakened." Pantognomos and Ekphoron offer to teach the unwary "the laws
of ENS, MOVENS, and OM," and appeal for money. Vidya Nyaika and
Ethnomedon propose to initiate the ignorant into the "a priori
Sambudhistic (?) philosophy of Kapila" and--beg for hard cash. The story
is so sickening that we dislike to stain our pages with its details. But
now to the moral of the fable. 

YE SPURNED THE SUBSTANCE AND HAVE CLUTCHED THE SHADOW

For fourteen years our Theosophical Society has been before the public.
Born with the three-fold object of infusing a little more mutual
brotherly feeling in mankind; of investigating the mysteries of nature
from the Spiritual and Psychic aspect; and, of doing a tardy justice to
the civilizations and Wisdom of Eastern pre-Christian nations and
literature, if it did not do all the good that a richer Society might,
it certainly did no harm. It appealed only to those who found no help
for their perplexities anywhere else. To those lost in the psychic
riddles of Spiritualism, or such, again, as, unable to stand the morbid
atmosphere of modern unbelief, and seeking light in vain from the
unfathomable mysteries taught by the theology of the thousand and one
Christian sects, had given up all hope of solving any of the problems of
life. There was no entrance fee during the first two years of the
Society's existence; afterwards, when the correspondence and postage
alone demanded hundreds of pounds a year, new members had to pay £I for
their diploma. Unless one wanted to support the movement, one could
remain a Fellow all his life without being asked for a penny, and
two-thirds of our members have never put their hand in their pocket, nor
were they asked to do so. 

Those who supported the cause were from the first a few devoted
Theosophists who laboured without conditions or any hope for reward. Yet
no association was more insulted and laughed at than was the
Theosophical Society. No members of any body were spoken of in more
contemptuous terms than the Fellows of the T.S. from the first. The
Society was born in America, and therefore it was regarded in England
with disfavour and suspicion. We were considered as fools and knaves,
victims and frauds before the benevolent interference of the Psychic
Research Society, which tried to build its reputation on the downfall of
Theosophy and Spiritualism, but really harmed neither. Nevertheless,
when our enemies got the upper hand, and by dint of slander and
inventions had most maliciously succeeded in placing before the
credulous public, ever hungry for scandals and sensations, mere
conjectures as undeniable and proven facts, it was the American press
which became the most bitter in its denunciations of Theosophy, and the
American public the most willing to drink in and giggle over the
undeserved calumnies upon the Founders of the T.S. Yet it is they who
were the first told, through our Society, of the actual existence of
Eastern Adepts in Occult Sciences. But both the English and the
Americans spurned and scoffed at the very idea, while even the
Spiritualists and Mystics, who ought to have known better, would, with a
few exceptions, have nothing to do with heathen Masters of Wisdom. The
latter were, they maintained, "invented by the Theosophists": it was all
"moonshine." For these "Masters," whom no member was ever asked to
accept, unless he liked to do so himself, on whose behalf no
supernatural claim was ever made, unless, perhaps, in the too ardent
imagination of enthusiasts; these Masters who gave to, and often helped
with money, poor Theosophists, but never asked anything of the
rich--these MASTERS were too much like real men. They neither claimed to
be gods nor spirits, nor did they pander to people's gush and
sentimental creeds. And now those Americans have got at last what their
hearts yearned for: a bona fide ideal of an adept and magician. A
creature several thousand years old. A true-blue "Buddhist-Brahmin" who
appeals to Jehovah, or Jahveh, speaks of Christ and the Messianic cycle,
and blesses them with an AMEN and an "OM MANE PADMI HUM" in the same
breath, relieving them at the same time of 40,000 dollars before they
are a month old in their worship of him . . . Wullahy! Allah is great
and--"Vidya Nyaika" is his only prophet. Indeed we feel little pity for
the victims. What is the psychology that some Theosophists are accused
of exercising over their victims in comparison with this? And this
necessitates a few words of explanation. 

IGNORANCE NOT ALTOGETHER BLISS

All know that there is a tacit, often openly-expressed, belief among a
few of the Fellows of the T.S. that a certain prominent Theosophist
among the leaders of the Society psychologizes all those who happen to
come within the area of that individual's influence. Dozens, nay,
hundreds, were, and still are, "psychologized." The hypnotic effect
seems so strong as to virtually transform all such "unfortunates" into
irresponsible nincompoops, mere cyphers and tools of that theosophical
Circe. This idiotic belief was originally started by some "wise men" of
the West. Unwilling to admit that the said person had either any
knowledge or powers, bent on discrediting their victim, and yet unable
to explain certain abnormal occurrences, they hit upon this happy and
logical loop-hole to get out of their difficulties. The theory found a
grateful and fruitful soil. Henceforth, whenever any Fellows connected
theosophically with the said "psychologizer" happen to disagree in their
views upon questions, metaphysical or even purely administrative, with
some other member--"on despotism bent," forthwith the latter comes out
with the favourite solution: "Oh, they are psychologized!" The magic
WORD springs out on the arena of discussion like a Jack-in-a-box, and
forthwith the attitude of the "rebels" is explained and plausibly
accounted for. 

Of course the alleged "psychology" has really no existence outside the
imagination of those who are too vain to allow any opposition to their
all-wise and autocratic decrees on any other ground than
phenomenal--nay, magical--interference with their will. A short analysis
of the Karmic effects that would be produced by the exercise of such
powers may prove interesting to theosophists. 

Even on the terrestrial, purely physical plane, moral irresponsibility
ensures impunity. Parents are answerable for their children, tutors and
guardians for their pupils and wards, and even the Supreme Courts have
admitted extenuating circumstances for criminals who are proved to have
been led to crime by a will or influences stronger than their own. How
much more forcibly this law of simple retributive justice must act on
the psychic plane; and what, therefore, may be the responsibility
incurred by using such psychological powers, in the face of Karma and
its punitive laws, may be easily inferred. Is it not evident that, if
even human justice recognizes the impossibility of punishing an
irrational idiot, a child, a minor, etc., taking into account even
hereditary causes and bad family influences--that the divine Law of
Retribution, which we call KARMA, must visit with hundredfold severity
one who deprives reasonable, thinking men of their free will and powers
of ratiocination? From the occult standpoint, the charge is simply one
of black magic, of envoûtement. Alone a Dugpa, with "Avitchi" yawning at
the further end of his life cycle, could risk such a thing. Have those
so prompt to hurl the charge at the head of persons in their way, ever
understood the whole terrible meaning implied in the accusation? We
doubt it. No occultist, no intelligent student of the mysterious laws of
the "night side of Nature," no one who knows anything of Karma, would
ever suggest such an explanation. What adept or even a
moderately-informed chela would ever risk an endless future by
interfering with, and therefore taking upon himself, the Karmic debit of
all those whom he would so psychologize as to make of them merely the
tools of his own sweet will! 

This fact seems so evident and palpably flagrant, that it is absurd to
have to recall it to those who boast of knowing all about Karma. 

Is it not enough to bear the burden of the knowledge that from birth to
death, the least, the most unimportant, unit of the human family
exercises an influence over, and receives in his turn, as unconsciously
as he breathes, that of every other unit whom he approaches, or who
comes in contact with him? Each of us either adds to or diminishes the
sum total of human happiness and human misery, "not only of the present,
but of every subsequent age of humanity," as shown so ably by Elihu
Burritt, who says: 

There is no sequestered spot in the Universe, no dark niche along the
disc of non-existence, from which he (man) can retreat from his
relations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of his
existence upon the moral destiny of the world; everywhere his presence
or absence will be felt--everywhere he will have companions who will be
better or worse for his influence. It is an old saying, and one of
fearful and fathoming import, that we are forming characters for
eternity. Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others'? Both--and in
that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.
Who is sufficient for the thought? Thousands of my fellow-beings will
yearly enter eternity2 with characters differing from those they would
have carried thither had I never lived. The sunlight of that world will
reveal my finger-marks in their primary formations, and in their
successive strata of thought and life. 
These are the words of a profound thinker. And if the simple fact of our
living changes the sum of human weal and woe--in a way for which we are,
owing to our ignorance, entirely irresponsible--what must be the Karmic
decree in the matter of influencing hundreds of people by an act
perpetrated and carried on for years in premeditation and the full
consciousness of what we are doing! 

Verily the man or woman in the unconscious possession of such dangerous
powers had much better never be born. 

The Occultist who exercises them consciously will be caught up by the
whirlwind of successive rebirths, without even an hour of rest. Woe to
him, then, in that ceaseless, dreary series of terrestrial Avitchis; in
that interminable a on of torture, suffering, and despair, during which,
like the squirrel doomed to turn the wheel at every motion, he will
launch from one life of misery into another, only to awake each time
with a fresh burden of other people's Karma, which he will have drawn
upon himself! Is it not enough, indeed, to be regarded as "frauds,
cranks, and infidels," by the outsiders, without being identified with
wizards and witches by our own members! 

THE GENUS "INFIDEL" AND ITS VARIETIES

It is true to say that the varieties of infidels are many, and that one
"infidel" differs from another infidel as a Danish boar-hound differs
from the street mongrel. A man may be the most heterodox infidel with
regard to orthodox dogmas. Yet, provided he proclaims himself loudly a
Christian, that heterodoxy--when even going to the length of saying that
"revealed religion is an imposture"--will be regarded by some as simply
"of that exalted kind which rises above all human forms."3 

A "Christian" of such a kind may--as the late Laurence Oliphant
has--give vent to a still more startling theory. He may affirm that he
considers that "from time to time the Divine Influence emanates itself,
so to speak, in phenomenal persons. Sakyamouni was such; Christ was
such; and such I consider Mr. (Lake) Harris to be--in fact, he is a new
avatar,"4 and still remain a Christian of an "exalted kind" in the sight
of the "Upper Ten." But let an "infidel" of the Theosophical Society say
just the same (minus the absurdity of including the American Lake Harris
in the list of the Avatars), and no contumely heaped upon him by clergy
and servile newspapers will ever be found too strong! 
But this belongs properly to the paradoxes of the Age; though the
Avataric idea has much to do with Karma and rebirth, and that belief in
reincarnation has nothing in it that can militate against the teachings
of Christ. We affirm, furthermore, that the great Nazarene Adept
distinctly taught it. So did Paul and the Synoptics, and nearly all the
earliest Church Fathers, with scarcely an exception, accepted it, while
some actually taught the doctrine. 

DO NOT START TWO HARES AT ONCE

>From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step, and Karma acts
along every line, on nations as on men. The Japanese Mikado is tottering
towards his end for having played too long at hide and seek with his
worshippers. Hundreds of shrewd Americans have been taken in through
disbelieving in truths and lending a too credulous ear to bold lies. A
French abbé has fallen under Karmic penalty for coquetting too openly
with Theosophy, and attempted to mirror himself, like a modern clerical
Narcissus, in the too deep waters of Eastern Occultism. The Abbé Roca,
an honourary chanoine (canon) in the diocese of Perpignan, our old
friend and irrepressible adversary in the French Lotus a year ago--has
come to grief. Yet his ambition was quite an innocent one, if rather
difficult of realization. It was founded on a dream of his; a
reconciliation between Pantheistic Theosophy and a Socialistic Latin
Church, with a fancy Pope at the head of it. He longed to see the
Masters of Wisdom of old India and Eastern Occultism under the sway of
Rome regenerated, and amused himself with predicting the same. Hence a
frantic race between his meridional phantasy and the clerical bent of
his thought. Poor, eloquent abbe! Did he not already perceive the
Kingdom of Heaven in the new Rome-Jerusalem? A new Pontiff seated on a
throne made out of the cranium of Macroprosopus, with the Zohar in his
right pocket, Chochmah, the male Sephiroth (transformed by the good abbe
into the Mother of God), in his left, and a "Lamb" stuffed with
dynamite, in the paternal Popish embrace. The "Wise Men" of the East
were even now, he said, crossing the Himalayas, and, "led by the Star"
of Theosophy, would soon be worshipping at the shrine of the reformed
Pope and Lamb. It was a glorious dream-- alas, still but a dream. But he
persisted in calling us the "greatest of Christian-Buddhists." (Lotus,
February, 1888.) Unfortunately for himself he also called the Pope of
the "Cæsaro-papal Rome" "the Satan of the seven hills," in the same
number. Result: Pope Leo XIII asserts once more the proverbial
ingratitude of theological Rome. He has just deprived our poetical and
eloquent friend and adversary, the Abbé Roca, of the-- 

exercise of all his functions in Holy Orders, as also of his living, for
refusing to submit to a decree by which his works were placed on the
Index Expurgatorius. These works bore the titles of "Christ, the Pope,
and the Democracy"; "The Fatal Crisis and the Salvation of Europe"; and
"The End of the World." Even in the face of the present papal decision,
he is advertising the appearance of a fourth work, entitled "Glorieux
Centenaire,' 1889. "Monde Nouveau." "Nouveaux Cieux, nouvelle Terre." 

According to Galignani--(and his own articles and letters in
theosophical organs, we may add) the fearless-- 
Abbé has for some time, (says Galignani), been denouncing the Papacy as
a creature of Cæsar, and as wholly preoccupied with the question of its
temporalities in face of the crying needs of humanity. According to his
view, the Divine aid was promised the Church until the end of the world,
or of the age; and the Cæsarean age having passed away, all things are
to be made new. He looks forward to a spiritual coming of Christ by the
spread of the modern sentiment of "liberty, equality, fraternity,
toleration, solidarity, and mutuality," in the atmosphere of the Gospel.
Although his views do not appear to be very clear, he argues that the
Gospel is passing from "the mystico-sentimental phase to the
organico-social phase," thanks to the progress of science, which will
illumine everything. (The Globe. ) 

This is only what had to be expected. The Abbé would not accept our
joint warnings and took no heed of them. The sad epilogue of our
polemics is given (not altogether correctly as regards the present
writer) in the same Globe, wherein the news is wound up in the following
words: 

He has been contending, in the Lotus, in favour of a union of the East
and the West by means of a fusion between Buddhism and the Christian
Gospel; but Mdme. Blavatsky, the foremost European convert to the Indian
religion, has emphatically repudiated all attempts at such union,
because she cannot or will not accept the authority of Christ. The Abbe
Roca is therefore left out in the cold. 

This is not so. What "Mdme. Blavatsky" replied in the Lotus December
1887) to the Abbé's assertions that the said fusion between his Church
and Theosophy would surely come, was this: 

. . . "We are not as optimistic as he (the Abbé Roca) is. His church
sees in vain her greatest 'mysteries' unmasked and the fact proclaimed
in every country by scholars versed in Orientalism and Symbology as by
Theosophists; and we refuse to believe that she will ever accept our
truths or confess her errors. And as, on the other hand, no true
theosophist will accept any more a carnalised Christ according to the
Latin dogma than an anthropomorphic God, and still less a 'Pastor' in
the person of a Pope, it is not the adepts who will ever go toward 'the
Mount of Salvation,' (as invited by the Abbe). They will rather wait
that the Mahomet of Rome should go to the trouble of taking the path
which leads to Mount Meru." . . . 

This is not rejecting "the authority of Christ" if the latter be
regarded as we and Laurence Oliphant regarded Him, i.e. as an Avatar
like Gautama Buddha and other great adepts who became the vehicles or
Reincarnations of the "one" Divine influence. What most of us will never
accept is the anthropomorphized "charmant docteur" of Renan, or the
Christ of Torquemada and Calvin rolled into one. Jesus, the Adept we
believe in, taught our Eastern doctrines, KARMA and REINCARNATION
foremost of all. When the so-called Christians will have learnt to read
the New Testament between the lines, their eyes will be opened and--they
will see. 

We propose to deal with the subject of Karma and Reincarnation in our
next issue. Meanwhile, we are happy to see that a fair wind is blowing
over Christendom and propels European thought more and more Eastward. 

LUCIFER, March, 1889 

--------------------------FOOTNOTES--------------------------
 
1 The "obvious reasons" so delicately worded are these: "the high
priestess of the cult" is almost universally supposed, outside of the
T.S., to have exercised her own satirical powers and "sense of humour"
on her alleged and numerous victims by bamboozling them into a belief of
her own invention. So be it. The tree is known by its fruits, and it is
posterity which will have to decide on the nature of the fruit.--ED.] 
 
2 Devachan, rather; the entr'acte between two incarnations. 
 
3 Vide Lady Grant Duff's article "Laurence Oliphant" in the Contemporary
Review for February: pages 185 and 188.
 
4 Ibid. Quoted from Sir Thomas Wade's notes, by Lady Grant Duff--page
186, 
 
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Article by HPB		

DTB