Theos-Talk Archives (March 2009 Message tt00491)

Madame Blavatsky warns her students and readers:

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"?.save us from the impudent distortion of our theosophical teachings?."

"....deliver us. . . from . . . the 'Solar Adepts' as they dub themselves, and their sun-struck followers. . . ." 

". . . . They plagiarized from our books, set up sham schools of magic, waylaid seekers after truth by deceiving them with holy names. . . [and] misused and desecrated the sacred science?."

"?.Before the appearance of modern Theosophical literature it was 'Spirits' and 'Controls' that were ever in the mouths of these folk; now the living 'adepts' are served up with every sauce. It is ever and always Adepts here, Hierophants there. . . ." 

"The angels from the 'Summer Land' are going out of fashion just now, for Spiritualists begin to know better and to discriminate. But because the 'adept' idea, or rather their philosophy, begins to gain ground, this is no reason why pretenders of every description should travesty in their . . . productions the teachings, phraseology, and Sanskrit terms out of theosophical books; or why, again, they should turn round and make people believe that these were given them by other 'Hierophants,' in their opinion, far higher, nobler and grander than our teachers."

"The great evil of the whole thing is, not that the truths of Theosophy are adopted by these blind teachers, for we should gladly welcome any spread, by whatever means, of ideals so powerful to wean the world from its dire materialism - but that they are so interwoven with mis-statements and absurdities that the wheat cannot be winnowed from the chaff, and ridicule, if not worse, is brought to bear upon. . . [the Theosophical] movement. . . ."

"How shall men discern good from evil, when they find it in its close embrace?"

"The very words, 'Arhat,' 'Karma,' 'Maya,' 'Nirvana,' must turn enquirers from our threshold when they have been taught to associate them with such a teeming mass of ignorance and presumption. . . ." 

"Though false coin is the best proof of the existence of genuine gold, yet, the false deceives the unwary. . . ." (1)

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"?.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." 

"? 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?."

"?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?."

"?.One . . . such [bogus Esoteric and Occult Society] just sprung up . . . is now being nipped in the bud and exposed by our own Theosophists." 

"These are the 'Solar adepts' . . . No event could vindicate the policy of our journal [Lucifer] 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. "

". . . . 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. . . ."  (2) 
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(1) Blavatsky, H.P. "The Year Is Dead, Long Live The Year!," Lucifer (London), January, 1889.

(2) Blavatsky, H.P. "On Pseudo-Theosophy,"  Lucifer (London), March, 1889. 

Read more at:

http://blavatskyarchives.com/onpseudotheosophy.htm

Also:

http://blavatskyarchives.com/psychicversusinitiate.htm

Daniel
http://hpb.cc