Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00328)

Are 18 2005


WHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS?  
[ THEOSOPHIST, October, 1879 ]

WHAT IS THE POLICY OF "THE THEOSOPHIST"


Friends:


Recent weeks show that it is valuable to reprint H P B’s original definition
of a “theosophist.”

When the magazine the THEOSOPHIST was first issued in October 1879 in
Bombay, India, a forum was opened in which questions, definitions,
information and discussion might be made public. In 1877 ISIS UNVEILED had
been published.  

Col. Olcott, P T S, and H P Blavatsky, Corresponding Secretary, T S, two of
the founding members of the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY had been formally delegated
by Resolution as a Committee, to travel to India, and there to found further
Branches of the T S. [ see Blavatsky: COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 1 ]

These definitions, along with the other primary article: WHAT IS THEOSOPHY
that was published in the same issue [THEOSOPHIST, October, 1879 ] help make
clear these vital and basic facts.

------------------------------------

I strongly recommend that Mr A. Gholap read the first volume of THE
THEOSOPHIST and a few of HPB's articles, before he lays himself open to
further inaccuracies.

The THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY can hardly approve of what he writes, ostensibly on
its behalf. 

Best wishes,

Dallas

=============================

WHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS?

Article by H. P. Blavatsky

ARE they what they claim to be--students of natural law, of ancient and
modern philosophy, and even of exact science? Are they Deists, Atheists,
Socialists, Materialists, or Idealists; or are they but a schism of modern
Spiritualism,--mere visionaries? Are they entitled to any consideration, as
capable of discussing philosophy and promoting real science; or should they
be treated with the compassionate toleration which one gives to "harmless
enthusiasts"?
 
The Theosophical Society has been variously charged with a belief in
"miracles," and "miracle-working"; with a secret political object--like the
Carbonari; with being spies of an autocratic Czar; with preaching
socialistic and nihilistic doctrines; and, mirabile dictu, with having a
covert understanding with the French Jesuits, to disrupt modern Spiritualism
for a pecuniary consideration! 

With equal violence they have been denounced as dreamers, by the American
Positivists; as fetish-worshippers, by some of the New York press; as
revivalists of "mouldy superstitions," by the Spiritualists; as infidel
emissaries of Satan, by the Christian Church; as the very types of
"gobe-mouche," by Professor W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S.; and, finally, and most
absurdly, some Hindu opponents, with a view to lessening their influence,
have flatly charged them with the employment of demons to perform certain
phenomena. Out of all this pother of opinions, one fact stands
conspicuous--the Society, its members, and their views, are deemed of enough
importance to be discussed and denounced: Men slander only those whom they
hate--or fear. 

But, if the Society has had its enemies and traducers, it has also had its
friends and advocates. For every word of censure, there has been a word of
praise. Beginning with a party of about a dozen earnest men and women, a
month later its members had so increased as to necessitate the hiring of a
public hall for its meetings; within two years, it had working branches in
European countries. Still later, it found itself in alliance with the Indian
Arya Samaj, headed by the learned Pandit Dayanand Saraswati Swami, and the
Ceylonese Buddhists, under the erudite H. Sumangala, High Priest of Adam's
Peak and President of the Widyodaya College, Colombo. 

He who would seriously attempt to fathom the psychological sciences, must
come to the sacred land of ancient Aryâvarta. None is older than she in
esoteric wisdom and civilization, however fallen may be her poor
shadow--modern India. Holding this country, as we do, for the fruitful
hot-bed whence proceeded all subsequent philosophical systems, to this
source of all psychology and philosophy a portion of our Society has come to
learn its ancient wisdom and ask for the impartation of its weird secrets.
Philology has made too much progress to require at this late day a
demonstration of this fact of the primogenitive nationality of Aryâvart. 

The unproved and prejudiced hypothesis of modern Chronology is not worthy of
a moment's thought, and it will vanish in time like so many other unproved
hypotheses. The line of philosophical heredity, from Kapila through Epicurus
to James Mill; from Patanjali through Plotinus to Jacob Böhme, can be traced
like the course of a river through a landscape. 

One of the objects of the Society's organization was to examine the too
transcendent views of the Spiritualists in regard to the powers of
disembodied spirits; and, having told them what, in our opinion at least, a
portion of their phenomena are not, it will become incumbent upon us now to
show what they are. So apparent is it that it is in the East, and especially
in India, that the key to the alleged "supernatural" phenomena of the
Spiritualists must be sought, that it has recently been conceded in the
Allahabad PIONEER (Aug. 11th, 1879), an Anglo-Indian daily journal which has
not the reputation of saying what it does not mean. Blaming the men of
science who "intent upon physical discovery, for some generations have been
too prone to neglect super-physical investigation," it mentions "the new
wave of doubt" ( spiritualism) which has "latterly disturbed this
conviction." To a large number of persons including many of high culture and
intelligence, it adds, "the supernatural has again asserted itself as a fit
subject of inquiry and research. And there are plausible hypotheses in
favour of the idea that among the 'sages' of the East . . . there may be
found in a higher degree than among the more modernised inhabitants of the
West traces of those personal peculiarities, whatever they may be, which are
required as a condition precedent to the occurrence of supernatural
phenomena." And then, unaware that the cause he pleads is one of the chief
aims and objects of our Society, the editorial writer remarks that it is
"the only direction in which, it seems to us, the efforts of the
Theosophists in India might possibly be useful. The leading members of the
Theosophical Society in India are known to be very advanced students of
occult phenomena, already, and we cannot but hope that their professions of
interest in Oriental philosophy . . . may cover a reserved intention of
carrying out explorations of the kind we indicate." 

While, as observed, one of our objects, it yet is but one of many; the most
important of which is to revive the work of Ammonius Saccas, and make
various nations remember that they are the children "of one mother." As to
the transcendental side of the ancient Theosophy, it is also high time that
the Theosophical Society should explain. With how much, then, of this
nature-searching, God-seeking science of the ancient Aryan and Greek
mystics, and of the powers of modern spiritual mediumship, does the Society
agree? Our answer is: with it all. But if asked what it believes in, the
reply will be: "As a body--Nothing." 

The Society, as a body, has no creed, as creeds are but the shells around
spiritual knowledge; and Theosophy in its fruition is spiritual knowledge
itself--the very essence of philosophical and theistic enquiry. Visible
representative of Universal Theosophy, it can be no more sectarian than a
Geographical Society, which represents universal geographical exploration
without caring whether the explorers be of one creed or another. 

The religion of the Society is an algebraical equation, in which so long as
the sign = of equality is not omitted, each member is allowed to substitute
quantities of his own, which better accord with climatic and other
exigencies of his native land, with the idiosyncrasies of his people, or
even with his own. Having no accepted creed, our Society is very ready to
give and take, to learn and teach, by practical experimentation, as opposed
to mere passive and credulous acceptance of enforced dogma. It is willing to
accept every result claimed by any of the foregoing schools or systems, that
can be logically and experimentally demonstrated. Conversely, it can take
nothing on mere faith, no matter by whom the demand may be made. 

But, when we come to consider ourselves individually, it is quite another
thing. The Society's members represent the most varied nationalities and
races, and were born and educated in the most dissimilar creeds and social
conditions. Some of them believe in one thing, others in another. Some
incline towards the ancient magic, or secret wisdom that was taught in the
sanctuaries, which was the very opposite of supernaturalism or diabolism;
others in modern spiritualism, or intercourse with the spirits of the dead;
still others in mesmerism or animal magnetism, or only an occult dynamic
force in nature. 

A certain number have scarcely yet acquired any definite belief, but are in
a state of attentive expectancy; and there are even those who call
themselves materialists, in a certain sense. Of atheists and bigoted
sectarians of any religion, there are none in the Society; for the very fact
of a man's joining it proves that he is in search of the final truth as to
the ultimate essence of things. If there be such a thing as a speculative
atheist, which philosophers may deny, he would have to reject both cause and
effect, whether in this world of matter, or in that of spirit. 

There may be members who, like the poet Shelley, have let their imagination
soar from cause to prior cause ad infinitum, as each in its turn became
logically transformed into a result necessitating a prior cause, until they
have thinned the Eternal into a mere mist. But even they are not atheist in
the speculative sense, whether they identify the material forces of the
universe with the functions with which the theists endow their God, or
otherwise; for once that they cannot free themselves from the conception of
the abstract ideal of power, cause, necessity, and effect, they can be
considered as atheists only in respect to a personal God, and not to the
Universal Soul of the Pantheist. 

On the other hand the bigoted sectarian, fenced in, as he is, with a creed
upon every paling of which is written the warning "No Thoroughfare," can
neither come out of his enclosure to join the Theosophical Society, nor, if
he could, has it room for one whose very religion forbids examination. The
very root idea of the Society is free and fearless investigation. 


As a body, the Theosophical Society holds that all original thinkers and
investigators of the hidden side of nature whether materialists--those who
find in matter "the promise and potency of all terrestrial life," or
spiritualists--that is, those who discover in spirit the source of all
energy and of matter as well, were and are, properly, Theosophists. For to
be one, one need not necessarily recognize the existence of any special God
or a deity. One need but worship the spirit of living nature, and try to
identify oneself with it. 


To revere that Presence, the invisible Cause, which is yet ever manifesting
itself in its incessant results; the intangible, omnipotent, and omnipresent
Proteus: indivisible in its Essence, and eluding form, yet appearing under
all and every form; who is here and there, and everywhere and nowhere; is
ALL, and NOTHING; ubiquitous yet one; the Essence filling, binding,
bounding, containing everything, contained in all. It will, we think, be
seen now, that whether classed as Theists, Pantheists or Atheists, such men
are near kinsmen to the rest. 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.
 
With every man that is earnestly searching in his own way after a knowledge
of the Divine Principle, of man's relations to it, and nature's
manifestations of it, Theosophy is allied. It is likewise the ally of honest
science, as distinguished from much that passes for exact, physical science,
so long as the latter does not poach on the domains of psychology and
metaphysics. 

And it is also the ally of every honest religion--to wit, a religion willing
to be judged by the same tests as it applies to the others. Those books,
which contain the most self-evident truth, are to it inspired (not
revealed). But all books it regards, on account of the human element
contained in them, as inferior to the Book of Nature; to read which and
comprehend it correctly, the innate powers of the soul must be highly
developed. Ideal laws can be perceived by the intuitive faculty alone; they
are beyond the domain of argument and dialectics, and no one can understand
or rightly appreciate them through the explanations of another mind, even
though this mind be claiming a direct revelation.

And, as this Society, which allows the widest sweep in the realms of the
pure ideal, is no less firm in the sphere of facts, its deference to modern
science and its just representatives is sincere. Despite all their lack of a
higher spiritual intuition, the world's debt to the representatives of
modern physical science is immense; hence, the Society endorses heartily the
noble and indignant protest of that gifted and eloquent preacher, the Rev.
O. B. Frothingham, against those who try to undervalue the services of our
great naturalists. "Talk of Science as being irreligious, atheistic," he
exclaimed in a recent lecture, delivered at New York, "Science is creating a
new idea of God. It is due to Science that we have any conception at all of
a living God. If we do not become atheists one of these days under the
maddening effect of Protestantism, it will be due to Science, because it is
disabusing us of hideous illusions that tease and embarrass us, and putting
us in the way of knowing how to reason about the things we see. . . ." 

And it is also due to the unremitting labors of such Orientalists as Sir W.
Jones, Max Müller, Burnouf, Colebrooke, Haug, St. Hilaire, and so many
others, that the Society, as a body, feels equal respect and veneration for
Vedic, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and other old religions of the world; and, a
like brotherly feeling toward its Hindu, Sinhalese, Parsi, Jain, Hebrew, and
Christian members as individual students of "self," of nature, and of the
divine in nature. 

Born in the United States of America, the Society was constituted on the
model of its Mother Land. The latter, omitting the name of God from its
constitution lest it should afford a pretext one day to make a state
religion, gives absolute equality to all religions in its laws. All support
and each is in turn protected by the State. The Society, modelled upon this
constitution, may fairly be termed a "Republic of Conscience." 

We have now, we think, made clear why our members, as individuals, are free
to stay outside or inside any creed they please, provided they do not
pretend that none but themselves shall enjoy the privilege of conscience,
and try to force their opinions upon the others. In this respect the Rules
of the Society are very strict: It tries to act upon the wisdom of the old
Buddhistic axiom, "Honour thine own faith, and do not slander that of
others"; echoed back in our present century, in the "Declaration of
Principles" of the Brahmo Samaj, which so nobly states that: "no sect shall
be vilified, ridiculed, or hated." In Section VI of the Revised Rules of the
Theosophical Society, recently adopted in General Council, at Bombay, is
this mandate: 


It is not lawful for any officer of the Parent Society to express, by word
or act, any hostility to, or preference for, any one section (sectarian
division, or group within the Society) more than another. All must be
regarded and treated as equally the objects of the Society's solicitude and
exertions. All have an equal right to have the essential features of their
religious belief laid before the tribunal of an impartial world. 


In their individual capacity, members may, when attacked, occasionally break
this Rule, but, nevertheless, as officers they are restrained, and the Rule
is strictly enforced during the meetings. For, above all human sects stands
Theosophy in its abstract sense; Theosophy which is too wide for any of them
to contain but which easily contains them. 

In conclusion, we may state that, broader and far more universal in its
views than any existing mere scientific Society, it has plus science its
belief in every possibility, and determined will to penetrate into those
unknown spiritual regions which exact science pretends that its votaries
have no business to explore. And, it has one quality more than any religion
in that it makes no difference between Gentile, Jew, or Christian. It is in
this spirit that the Society has been established upon the footing of a
Universal Brotherhood. 

Unconcerned about politics; hostile to the insane dreams of Socialism and of
Communism, which it abhors--as both are but disguised conspiracies of brutal
force and sluggishness against honest labour; the Society cares but little
about the outward human management of the material world. The whole of its
aspirations are directed towards the occult truths of the visible and
invisible worlds. Whether the physical man be under the rule of an empire or
a republic, concerns only the man of matter. His body may be enslaved; as to
his soul, he has the right to give to his rulers the proud answer of
Socrates to his judges. They have no sway over the inner man. 


Such, then, is the Theosophical Society, and such its principles, its
multifarious aims, and its objects. Need we wonder at the past
misconceptions of the general public, and the easy hold the enemy has been
able to find to lower it in the public estimation. The true student has ever
been a recluse, a man of silence and meditation. With the busy world his
habits and tastes are so little in common that, while he is studying, his
enemies and slanderers have undisturbed opportunities. But time cures all
and lies are but ephemera. Truth alone is eternal.
 
About a few of the Fellows of the Society who have made great scientific
discoveries, and some others to whom the psychologist and the biologist are
indebted for the new light thrown upon the darker problems of the inner man,
we will speak later on. 

Our object now was but to prove to the reader that Theosophy is neither "a
new fangled doctrine," a political cabal, nor one of those societies of
enthusiasts which are born today but to die tomorrow. 

That not all of its members can think alike, is proved by the Society having
organized into two great Divisions--the Eastern and the Western--and the
latter being divided into numerous sections, according to races and
religious views. 
One man's thought, infinitely various as are its manifestations, is not
all-embracing. Denied ubiquity, it must necessarily speculate but in one
direction; and once transcending the boundaries of exact human knowledge, it
has to err and wander, for the ramifications of the one Central and absolute
Truth are infinite. Hence, we occasionally find even the greater
philosophers losing themselves in the labyrinths of speculations, thereby
provoking the criticism of posterity. 

But as all work for one and the same object, namely, the disenthralment of
human thought, the elimination of superstitions, and the discovery of truth,
all are equally welcome. The attainment of these objects, all agree, can
best be secured by convincing the reason and warming the enthusiasm of the
generation of fresh young minds, that are just ripening into maturity, and
making ready to take the place of their prejudiced and conservative fathers.
And, as each--the great ones as well as small--have trodden the royal road
to knowledge, we listen to all, and take both small and great into our
fellowship. For no honest searcher comes back empty-handed, and even he who
has enjoyed the least share of popular favor can lay at least his mite upon
the one altar of Truth. 

H. P. Blavatsky

THEOSOPHIST, October, 1879 

Copied by

Dallas
 
===========================================

-----Original Message-----
From: Anand Gholap 
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 3:03 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: Criticizing revered leaders under sweet name of philosophizing



 
> Perry's question concerned the contradictions between the teachings 
> of Madame Blavatsky and Bishop Leadbeater and whether there was any 
> policy which disallowed debate of this subject in the Adyar 
> Theosophical Society's official "publications and journals."

>From the beginning 'The Theosophist' magazine is mouthpiece of the 
President. So members who say that debates shold be done in that 
magazine don't understand role of the magazine.
They might as well demand that President Bush should criticize his 
own policies in his State of the Union address. This demand is 
ridiculous. 

Anand Gholap