H
P Blavatsky
The Brothers" of Theosophy
by
A.P. Sinnett
A
P Sinnett
First Published in two articles in 1883
Article 1
The following paper was
read by Mr. Sinnett at a recent private gathering of Theosophists and their
friends: -
I have put down on paper
the few remarks I want to make this evening, in order that some views connected
with the Theosophical
Society may be presented for your consideration in a systematic way.
All persons who become
interested in any of the teachings which have found their way out into the
world through the intermediation of the Theosophical Society very soon turn to
the sanctions on which those teachings rest.
Now the orthodox occult
reply hitherto given to inquirers as to the authenticity of any small
statements in occult science that have hitherto been put forth, has simply been
this: - "Ascertain for yourself." That is to say, lead the pure spiritual
life, cultivate the inner faculties, and by degrees these will be awakened and
developed to the extent of enabling you to probe Nature for
yourself. But that advice is not of a kind which great numbers of
people have ever been ready to take, and hence knowledge concerning the truths
of occult science has remained in the hands of a few.
A new departure has now
been taken. Certain proficients in occult science
have broken through the old restrictions of their order, and have suddenly let
out a flood of statements into the world, together with some information
concerning the attributes and faculties they have themselves acquired, and by
means of
which they have learned what they now tell us.
It is very widely recognised that the teaching is interesting and coherent,
and even supported by analogies, but every new inquirer in turn must ask what assurance
can we have that the persons from whom this teaching emanates, are in a
position to ascertain so much. Most people, I think, would be ready to admit
that persons invested, as the Brothers of Theosophy are said to be invested,
with abnormal and extraordinary powers over Nature - even in the departments of
Nature with which we are familiar - may very probably have faculties which
enable them to obtain a deep insight into many of the generally hidden truths
of Nature. But then comes the primary question, "What assurance can you
give us that there really are behind the few people who stand forward as the
visible representatives of the Theosophical Society, any such persons as the
Adept Brothers at all?" This is an old question which is always recurring,
and which must go on recurring as long as new comers continue to approach the
threshold of the Theosophical Society. For many of us it has long been settled;
for some new inquirers the existence of psychological Adepts seems so probable
that the assurances of the leading representatives of the Society in India are
readily accepted; but for others, again, the existence of the Brothers must
first be established by altogether plain and unequivocal evidence before it
will seem worth while to pay attention to the report some of us may make as to
the specific doctrine they teach.
I propose, therefore, to
go over the evidence on this main question, which certainly underlies any with
which the Theosophical Society, so
far as it is concerned with the Indian teachings, can be engaged. Of course, I
am not going to trouble you with any repetition of particular incidents already
described in published writings. What I propose to do is briefly to review the
whole case as it now stands, very greatly enlarged and strengthened as it has
been during the last two years. The evidence, to begin with, divides itself
into two kinds.
First, we have the
general body of current belief, which in India goes to shew
that such persons as Mahatmas or Adepts are somewhere in existence; secondly,
the specific evidence which shews that the leaders of
the Theosophical Society are in relation with, and in the confidence of, such
Adepts.
As to the general body
of belief, it would hardly be too much to say that the whole mass of the sacred
literature of India rests on belief in the existence of Adepts; and a very
widely-spread belief, covering great areas of space and time, can rarely be
regarded as evolved from nothing, - as having had no basis of fact. But passing
over the Mahabharata and the Puranas and all they
tell us concerning "Rishis" or Adepts of
ancient date, I may call your attention to a paper in the Theosophist of May,
1882, on some relatively modern popular Indian books, recounting the lives of
various "Sadhus," another word for saint, yogee, or adept, who have lived within the last thousand
years. In this article a list is given of over seventy such persons, whose
memory is enshrined in a number of Marathi books, where the"miracles"
they are said to have wrought are recorded.
The historical value of
these narratives may, of course, be disputed. I mention them merely as
illustrations of the fact that belief in the persons having the powers now
ascribed to the Brothers is no new thing in
In Jaccolliot’s
books about his experiences in
yogee who was shut up in a vault, by his own consent, for a
considerable period, six weeks, I think, but I have not got the report at hand
just now to quote in detail - and emerged alive, at the end of that time, which
he had spent in Samadhi or trance. Such a man would, of course, be an
"Adept" of a very inferior type, but the record of his achievements
has the advantage of being very well authenticated as far as it goes. Again, up
to within a few years ago, a very highly spiritualised
ascetic and gifted seer was living at
amongst them since his death.
This event itself was an
effort of will accomplished at an appointed time. I have heard a good deal
about him from one of his principal followers, a cultivated and highly
respected native Government official, now living at
Thus, in
But none the less do all
inquiries after Adepts superior to them in attainments provoke the reply that
certainly there are such though they live in complete seclusion. The general
vague, indefinite belief, in fact, paves the way to the inquiry with which we
are more immediately concerned, - whether the leaders of
the Theosophical Society
are really in relation with some of the higher Adepts who do not habitually
live amongst the community at large, nor make known the fact of their adeptship to any but their own regularly accepted pupils.
Now the evidence on this
point divides itself as follows: -
First, we have the
primary evidence of witnesses who have personally seen certain of these Adepts,
both in the flesh and out of the flesh, who have seen their powers exercised,
and who have obtained certain knowledge as to their existence and attributes.
Secondly, the evidence
of those who have seen them in the astral form, identifying them in various
ways with the living men others have seen.
Thirdly, the testimony
of those who have acquired circumstantial evidence as to their existence.
Foremost among the
witnesses of the first group stand Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott
themselves. For those who see reason to trust Madame Blavatsky, her testimony
is, of course, ample and precise, and altogether satisfactory. She has lived
among the Adepts for many years. She has been in almost daily communication
with them ever since. She has returned to them, and they have visited her in
their natural bodies on several occasions since she emerged from
degrees in the vast
science to which she is devoted, and be in any doubt as to whether they are
living men or spirits? The conjecture is absurd. She is either speaking falsely
when she tells us that she has so lived among them, or the Adepts who taught
her are living men. The Spiritualists’ hypothesis about her
supposed "controls" is built upon the statement she makes
that the Adepts appear to her in the astral form when she is at a distance from
them. If they had never appeared to her in any other form, there would be room
to argue the matter from the Spiritualists’ point of view, or there might be,
but for other circumstances again. But her astral visitors are identical in all
respects with the men she has lived and studied amongst. At intervals, as I
have said, she has been enabled to go back again and see them in the flesh.
Her astral communication
with them merely fills up the gap of her personal intercourse with them, which has
extended over a long series of years. Her veracity may, of course, be challenged,
though I think it can be shewn that it is most
unreasonable to challenge this, but we might as reasonably doubt the living
reality of our nearest relations, of the people we live amongst most
intimately, as suppose that Madame Blavatsky can be herself mistaken in
describing the Brothers as living men. Either she must be right, or she has
consciously be en weaving an
enormous network of falsehood in all her writings, acts and
conversation for the last eight or nine years. And the plea
that she may be a loose talker and given to exaggeration will no more meet the
difficulty than the Spiritualists’ hypothesis. Pare away as much as you
like from the details of Madame Blavatsky’s statement on account of possible exaggeration, and that which remains is a great solid block
of residual statement which must be either true or a structure of conscious
falsehood. And even if Madame Blavatsky’s testimony stood alone, we should have
the wonderful fact of her total self-sacrifice in the cause of Theosophy to
make the hypothesis of her being a conscious impostor one of the most
extravagant that could be entertained.
At first when we in
India who specially became her friends, pointed this out, people said,
"But how do you know she had anything to sacrifice? she
may have been an adventurer from the beginning." We proved this
conjecture, as I have fully explained in my preface to the second edition of
the "Occult World," and from some of the foremost people in Russia,
her relations and affectionate friends, came abundant assurances of her
personal identity. If she had not given up her life to Occultism she might have
spent it in luxury among her own people, and in fact as a member of the
aristocratic class.
Difficult as the
hypothesis of her imposture thus becomes, we next find it in flagrant
incompatibility with all the facts of Colonel Olcott’s
life. As undeniably as in the case of Madame Blavatsky he has forsaken a life
of worldly prosperity to lead the theosophical life, under circumstances of
great physical
self-denial, in India. And he also tells us that he has seen the
Brothers both in the flesh and in the astral form. By a long series of the most
astounding thaumaturgic displays when he was first
introduced to the subject in
living man, his own special master, with whom he had first become
acquainted by seeing him in the astral form in
His life, for years, has
been surrounded with the abnormal occurrences which Spiritualists again will sometimes
conjecture - so wildly - to be Spiritualism, but which all hinge on to that
continuous chain of relationship with the Brothers, which for Colonel Olcott
has been partly a matter of occult phenomena and partly a matter of waking
intercourse between man and man. Again, in reference to Colonel Olcott, as in
reference to Madame Blavatsky, I assert, fearlessly, that there is no
compromise possible
between the extravagant assumption that he is consciously lying in all he says
about the Brothers, and the assumption that what he says establishes the
existence of the Brothers as a broad fact, for remember that Colonel Olcott has
now been a co-worker of Madame Blavatsky’s, and in constant intimate
association with her for eight years. The notion that she has been able to
deceive him all this while by fraudulent tricks, apart from its monstrosity in
other ways, is too unreasonable to be entertained. Colonel Olcott, at all
events, knows whether Madame Blavatsky is fraudulent or genuine, and he has
given up his whole life to the service of the cause she represents in testimony
of his conviction that she is genuine. Again the spiritualistic hypothesis
comes into play.
Madame Blavatsky may be
a medium whose presence surrounds Colonel Olcott with phenomena; but then she
is herself deceived by astral influences as to the true nature of the Brothers
who are the head and front of the whole phenomenal display, and we have already
seen reason, I think, to reject that hypothesis as absurd.
There is no logical
escape from the conclusion that things are broadly as she and Colonel Olcott
say, or they are both conscious impostors, rival champions of the age in this
respect, both sacrificing everything that worldly-minded people live for, to
revel in this life-long imposture which brings them nothing but hard living and
hard words.
But the case for the
authenticity of their statement, far from ending here, may in one sense be said
to begin here. Our native Indian witnesses now come to the front. First Damodar, of whom the well-known writer of "Hints on
Esoteric Theosophy" speaks as follows in that pamphlet: -
"You specially
in a former letter referred to Damodar, and you asked
how it could be believed that the Brothers would waste time with a
half-educated slip of a boy like him, and yet absolutely refuse to visit and
convince men like ----- and -----
Europeans of the highest education and marked abilities. But
do you know that this slip of a boy has deliberately given up
high caste, family and friends, and an ample fortune, all in pursuit of the
truth? That he has for years lived that pure, unworldly, self-denying life
which we are told is essential to direct intercourse with the Brothers? ‘Oh a
monomaniac’ you say, ‘Of course he sees anything and everything.’ But do not
you see whither
this leads you? Men who do not lead the life do not obtain direct
proof of the existence of the Brothers. A man does lead the life and avers that
he has obtained such proof, and you straightway call him a monomaniac and
refuse his testimony . . . . . quite a ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ sort of
position."
Damodar has seen some of the Brothers visit the headquarters of the
Society in the flesh. He has repeatedly been visited by them in the astral
shape. He has himself gone through certain initiations; he has acquired very
considerable powers, for he has been rapidly developed as regards these,
expressly that he might be an additional link of connection, independently of
Madame Blavatsky, between the Brothers, his masters, and the Theosophical
Society. The whole life he leads is impressive testimony to the fact that he
also knows the reality of the Brothers.
On any other hypothesis
we must include Damodar in the conscious imposture
supposed to be carried on by Madame Blavatsky, for he has been her intimate
associate and devoted assistant, sharing her meals, doing her work, living
under her roof at Bombay for several years.
Shall we, then, rather
than believe in the Brothers, accept the hypothesis that Madame Blavatsky,
Colonel Olcott, and Damodar, are a band of conscious impostors?
In that case Ramaswamy has to be accounted for. Ramaswamy is a very
respectable, educated, English speaking - native of Southern India, in Government
service as a registrar of a court in Tinnevelly, I
believe.
I have met him several
times. First, to indicate the course of his experience in a few words, - he
sees the astral form of Madame Blavatsky’s Guru, at Bombay; then he gets
clairaudient communication with him, while many hundred miles away from all the
Theosophists, at his own home in the South of India. Then he travels in
obedience to that voice to Darjeeling; then he plunges wildly into the Sikkim jungles in search of the Guru, whom he has reason to
believe in that neighbourhood, and after various
adventures meets him, - the same man he has seen before in astral shape, the
same man whose portrait Colonel Olcott has, and whom he has seen, the living
speaker of the voice that has been leading him on from Southern India. He has a
long interview with him, a waking, open-air, daylight interview, with a living
man, and returns his devoted chela as he is at this
moment, and assuredly ever will be.
Yet his master who called him from Tinnevelly
and received him in
Two more witnesses who
personally know the Brothers next come to me at Simla,
in the persons of two regular chelas who have been sent across the mountains on
some business, and are ordered en passant to visit me and tell me about their
master, my Adept correspondent. These men had just come, when I first saw them,
from living with the Adepts. One of them, Dhabagiri Nath, visited me several days running, talked to me for
hours about Koot Hoomi,
with whom he had been living for ten years, and impressed me and one or two
others who saw him as a very earnest, devoted, and trustworthy person. Later
on, during his visit to India, he was associated with many striking occult
phenomena directed to the satisfaction of native inquirers.
He, of course, must be a
false witness, invented to prop up Madame Blavatsky’s vast imposture, if he is
anything else than the chela of Koot
Hoomi that he declares himself to be. Another native, Mohini, soon after this
begins to get direct communication from Koot Hoomi independently altogether of Madame Blavatsky, and
when hundreds of miles away from her. He also becomes a devoted adherent
to the Theosophical cause; but Mohini must, as far as
I am aware, be ranked in the second group of our witnesses, those who have had
personal astral communication with the Brothers, but have not yet seen them in flesh.Bhavani Rao, a young native
candidate for chelaship, who came once in company
with Colonel Olcott, but at a time when Madame Blavatsky was in another part of
India, to see me at Allahabad, and spent two nights
under our roof there, is another witness who has had independent communication
with Koot Hoomi, and more
than that, who is able himself to act as a link of communication between Koot Hoomi and the outer world.
For during the visit I speak of, he was enabled to pass a letter of mine to the
master, to receive back his reply, to get off a second note of mine, and to
receive back a little note of a few words in reply again. I do not mean that he
did all this of his own power, but that his magnetism was such as to enable Koot Hoomi to do it through him.
The experience is
valuable because it affords a striking illustration of the fact that Madame
Blavatsky is not an essential intermediary in the correspondence between myself and my revered friend. Other illustrations are
afforded by the frequent passage of letters between Koot
Hoomi and myself through the mediation of Damodar at Bombay, at a time when both Madame Blavatsky and
Colonel Olcott were away at Madras, travelling about on a Theosophical tour, in
the course of which their presence at various places was constantly mentioned
in the local papers. I was at Allahabad, and I used,
during that time, to send my letters for Koot Hoomi to Damodar at Bombay, and
occasionally receive replies so promptly that it would have been impossible for
these to have been furnished by Madame Blavatsky, then four or more days
further from me in the course of post than Bombay.In
this way, my very voluminous correspondence is, demonstrably as regards
portions of it, and therefore by irresistible inference as regards the whole,
not the work of Madame Blavatsky, or Colonel Olcott, which, if the Brothers are
not a reality, it must be.
The correspondence is
visible on paper, a considerable mass of it. How has it come into existence;
reaching me at different places and times, and in different countries, and
through different people? I do not quite understand what hypotheses can be
framed by a non-believer in the Brothers about my correspondence. I can think
of none which are not at once negatived by some of
the facts about it.
It would be useless to
copy out from statements that from time to time have been published in the
Theosophist, the names of native witnesses who have seen the astral forms of
the Brothers - spectral shapes which they were informed were such - about the
headquarters of the Society at Bombay. Quite a cloud of
witnesses would testify to such experiences, and I myself, I may add,
saw such an appearance on one occasion at the Society’s present headquarters in
But, of course, it might
be suggested of such appearances that they were spiritualistic. On the other
hand, in that case the argument travels back to the considerations already
pointed out, which shew that the occult phenomena surrounding
Madame Blavatsky cannot be Spiritualism. They can be, in fact,
nothing but what we who
know her intimately and are now closely identified with the Society, believe
them to be with full conviction, viz., manifestations of the abnormal
psychological powers of those whom we speak of as the Brothers.
"The Brothers" of Theosophy. Article II
by
A P Sinnet
In continuation of the paper on this subject
, recently read
by Mr. Sinnett, the following
address by the same
author has been communicated
to us for publication: -
Many people
who approach the consideration of occult philosophy, are inclined to lay great
emphasis on the difference between believing in the existence of those whom we
call "the Brothers," and believing in the vast and complicated body
of teaching which has now been accumulated by their recent pupils. I think it
can really be shewn that there is no halting place at
which a man who sets out on this inquiry can rationally pause and say,
"Thus far will I go, and no farther."
The chain of
considerations which will lead any one who has once realised
the existence of the Adepts to feel sure that there can be no great errors in a
conception of nature obtained with their help, consists of many links, but is really
unbroken in its continuity, and equally capable of bearing a strain at any
point.
It consists of many
links, partly because no one at present among those who are in our position as
students - who are living, that is to say, an ordinary worldly life all the
while that they are intellectually studying Occultism - can ever obtain in his
own person a complete knowledge of the Adepts. He cannot, that is to say, come
to know of his own personal knowledge all about even any one Adept. The full
elucidation of this difficulty leads to a proper comprehension of the principle
on which the Adepts shroud themselves in a partial seclusion, a seclusion which
has only become partial within a very recent period, and was so complete until
then that the world at large was hardly
aware of the existence of any esoteric knowledge from which it
could be shut out.
This is a matter that is
all the more important because experience has shewn
how the world at large has been quick to take offence at the hesitating and
imperfect manner in which the Adepts have hitherto dealt with those who have
sought spiritual instruction at their hands. Judging the occult policy pursued by
comparison with inquiries on the plane of physical knowledge, the impatience of
inquirers is very natural, but none the less does even a limited acquaintance with
the conditions of mystic research shew the occult
policy to be reasonable likewise.
Of course everyone will
admit that Adepts are justified in exercising great caution in regard to
communicating any peculiar scientific knowledge which would put what are
commonly called magical powers within the reach of persons not morally
qualified for their exercise. But the considerations that prescribe this
caution do not seem to operate also in reference to the communication of
knowledge concerning the spiritual progress of man or the grander processes of
evolution. And in truth the Adepts have come to that very conclusion; they have
undertaken the communication to the general public of their safe theoretical
knowledge, and the effort they are making merely hangs fire or may seem to do
so to some observers, by reason of the magnitude of the task in hand, and the
novel aspect it wears, as well for the teachers as for the students.
For remember if there
has been that change of policy on the part of the Adepts to which I have just
referred, it has been a change of such recent origin that it may almost be
described as only just coming on. And if the question be then asked why has this safe theoretical knowledge not been communicated
sooner, it seems reasonable to find a reply to that question in the actual
state of the intellectual world around us at this moment. The freedom of thought
of which English writers often boast, is not very widely diffused over the
world as yet, and hardly, at all events, in any generation before this, could
the free promulgation of quite revolutionary tenets in religious matters have
been safely undertaken in any country.
Communities in which
such an undertaking would still be fraught with peril, are even now more
numerous than those in which it could be set on foot with any practical
advantage. One can thus readily understand how in the occult world the question
has been one of debate up to our own time, whether it was desirable as yet to
promote the dissemination of Esoteric philosophy in the world at large at the
risk of provoking the acrimonious controversies, and even more serious
disturbances, liable to arise from the premature disclosure of truths which
only a small minority would really be ready to accept.
Keeping this in view,
the mystery of the Adepts’ reserve, up till recently, can hardly be thought so
astounding as to drive us on violent alternative hypotheses at variance with
all the plain evidence concerning their present action. There is
manifest reason why they
should be careful in launching a body of newly won disciples on to the general
stream of human progress; and added to this, the force of their own training is
such as to make them habitually cautious to a far greater extent than the
utmost prudence of ordinary life would render ordinary
men. "But," it will be argued, "granting all
this, but assuming that at last some of the Adepts, at all events, have come to
the conclusion that some of their knowledge is ripe for presentation to the
world, why do they not present as much as they do present, under guarantees of
a more striking, irresistible, and conclusive kind than those which have
actually been furnished?" I think the
answer may be easily drawn from the consideration of the way in
which it would be natural to expect that a change of policy amongst the Adepts,
in a matter of this kind, would gradually be introduced.
By the hypothesis we
conceive them but just coming to the conclusion that it is desirable to teach
mankind at large some portions of that spiritual science hitherto conveyed
exclusively to those who give tremendous pledges in justification of their
claim to acquire it. They will naturally advance, in dealing with the world at large, along the same lines they have learned to trust in
dealing with aspirants for regular initiation.
Never in the history of
the world have they sought out such aspirants, courted them or advertised for
them in any way whatever. It has been found an invariable law of human progress
that some small percentage of mankind will always come
into the world invested
by nature with some of the attributes proper to adeptship,
and with minds so constituted as to catch conviction as to the possibilities of
the occult life, from the least little sparks of evidence on the subject that
may be floating about. Of persons so constituted some have always been found to
press forward into the ranks of chelaship, to resort,
that
is to say, to any devices or opportunities that circumstances
may afford them for fathoming occult knowledge. When thus besieged by the
aspirant the Adept has always, sooner or later, disclosed himself.
The change of policy now
introduced prescribes that the Adept shall make one step towards the disclosure
of himself in advance of the aspirant’s demand upon him, but we can easily
understand how the Adept, in first making this change, would argue that if many
chelas have hitherto come forward in the absence of any spontaneous action from
his side, it might be that an almost dangerous rush of ill-qualified aspirants
would be invited by any manifestation from him that should be more than a very
slight one. At any rate, the Adept would say it would be premature to begin by
too sensational a display of faculties inherent in advanced spiritual knowledge
with which the world at large is as yet unfamiliar. It will be better at first
to make such an offer as will only be calculated to inflame the imagination of
persons only one step removed beyond those whose natural instincts would lead
them into the occult life.
This appears actually to
have been the reasoning on which the Adepts have proceeded so far, and this may
help us to understand how it is that, as I began by saying, no one person
amongst those outer students, who have been called lay-chelas, has yet been
enabled to say that of his own personal knowledge he knows all about any of the
Adepts.
On the other hand,
putting together the various scattered revelations concerning the Brothers
which have been distributed amongst various people in India belonging to the Theosophical
Society, so much can be learned about the Adepts as to put us in a very strong
position in regard to estimating their
qualifications for speaking with confidence as they do about the actual
facts of nature on the super-physical plane. These scattered revelations, - if
my reasoning in what has gone before may be accepted, - have been broken up and
thrown about in fragments designedly, in order that as yet it should only be
possible to arrive at a full conviction concerning Adeptship after a certain amount of trouble spent in
piecing together the disjointed proofs.
But when this process is
accomplished we are provided with a certain block of knowledge concerning the
Adepts, out of which large inferences must necessarily grow. We find, to begin
with, that they do unequivocally possess the power of cognising
events and facts on the physical plane of knowledge with which we
are familiar, by other means than those connected with the five senses.
We find also that they
unequivocally possess the power of emerging from their proper bodies and
appearing at distant places in more or less ethereal counter-parts thereof
which are not only agencies for producing impressions on others, but
habitations for the time being of the Adepts’ own thinking principles, and thus
in themselves, if the proof went no further, demonstrations of the fact that a
human soul is something quite independent of brain matter and nerve centres. I
do not stop now to enumerate instances.
The record of evidence
must be disassociated from its manipulation in arguments like the present, but
the records are abundant and accessible for all who will take the trouble of
examining them. Now, if we know that the Adept’s soul can pass at his own
discretion into that state in which its perceptive faculties are independent of
corporeal machinery, it is not surprising that he should be enabled to make, of
his own knowledge, a great many statements concerning processes of nature,
reaching far beyond any knowledge that can be obtained by mere physical
observation. Take, for example, the Adepts’ statement that certain other
planets, besides this earth, are concerned with the growth of the great crop of
humanity of which we form a part. This is not advanced as a conjecture or
inference. The Adepts tell us that once out of the body they find they can cognise events on some other planets as well as in
distant parts of our own.
This is not the
exceptional belief of an exceptionally organised
individual, who may be regarded by doubters as hallucinated; there is no room
for doubting the fact that it is the concurrent testimony of a considerable
body of men engaged in the constant experimental exercise of similar faculties.
In this way the fact becomes as much a fact of true science, as the fact that
the great nebula in Orion, for instance, exhibits a gaseous spectrum, and is
therefore a true nebula.
All of us who have star
spectroscopes can ascertain that fact for ourselves, if we make use of a clear
night when the conditions of observation are possible. To doubt it, would not
be to shew greater caution than is exercised by those
who believe it, but merely an imperfect appreciation of the evidence. It is
true that in regard to the condition of the other planets our acceptance of the
Adepts’ statement must be governed by our impressions concerning the bona fides
of their intention in telling us that they have made such and such
observations. So far it is a matter of inference with us whether the Adepts are
saying what they believe to be true - when they speak of the septenary chain of planets to which the earth belongs, - or
consciously deluding us with a rigmarole of statements which they know to be
false. I think it can be shewn in a varriety of ways that the latter supposition is absurd. But
an exhaustive examination of its absurdity would be a considerable task in
itself. For the moment the position I am endeavouring
to establish is one which does not depend upon the question whether the Adepts
are telling us, in reference to the planets, what they know to be true, or
something which they know to be untrue.
My present position is
that at all events the Adepts themselves know what is true in the matter, and
that position, it will be observed, is not vitiated by the fact that, as yet,
we, their most recent pupils, are unable to follow in their footsteps and
repeat the experiments on which their teaching rests.
The same train of
reasoning may be applied to the whole body of teaching which the Theosophical
Society is now concerned in endeavouring to
assimilate. As offered now to the uninitiated world, it can only take the form
of a set of statements on authority. And that sort of statement is not one
which is most
agreeable to our methods or to the Adepts’ habitual methods of
teaching. For there is no chemical laboratory in England where the system of
teaching is more rigidly confined to the direction of the learner’s own
experiments, than that same system is adopted with occult chelas following the
regular course of initiation. Step by step, as the regular chela
is told that such and such is the
fact in regard to the inner mysteries of nature, he is shewn how to apply his own developing faculties to the
direct observation of such facts.
But those developing
faculties carry with them, as pointed out a-while ago, fresh powers over nature
which can only be entrusted to those from whom the Adepts take the recognised pledges. In teaching outsiders as they are
trying to do now, the Adepts must depart from their own habitual methods, - we must depart, if we wish to understand what
they are willing to teach, from our habitual methods of inquiry. We must
suspend our usual demand for proof of each statement made, in turn as it is advanced.
We must rest our
provisional trust in each statement on our broad general conviction which can
be satisfied along familiar lines of demonstration, - that such men as the
Adepts certainly exist, even though we cannot visit them at pleasure, that they
must understand an enormous block of Nature’s laws outside the range of those
which the physical senses cognise, that in any
statement they make to us, they must be in a position to know absolutely
whether that statement is or is not true.
This much fully realised, the truth is that each inquirer in turn becomes
satisfied, pari passu with
his realisation of the case so far, that reason
revolts against the notion that the Adepts can be engaged in their present
attempt to convey some of their own knowledge to the world at large in any
other than the purest good faith. It may be concluded that we who have come to
the conclusion that their teaching is altogether to be accepted, are rearing a
large inverted pyramid upon a small base. But the logical strength of our
position is not impaired by this objection. In every branch of human knowledge,
inferences far transcend the observed facts out of which they grow. And even in
the most exact science of all, a theorem is held to be proved if any
alternative hypothesis is found, on examination, to be irrational. Moreover,
the doctrine even of legal testimony recognises the
value of secondary evidence where in the nature of the case it is impossible
that primary evidence can be forthcoming.
That is exactly the state
of the case in regard to the present attempt to bridge the gulf that separates
the school of physical research from the school of spiritual knowledge. As long
as we of this side were justified in doubting whether there was anywhere on
earth such a thing as a school of spiritual knowledge, it may have been hardly
worth while to worry ourselves with the stray fragments of its teaching which
now and then broke loose in barely intelligible shapes. But to doubt the existence
of such a school now is equivalent, really, to doubting the statement about the
nebula in Orion, according to the illustration I adduced just now. It can only
arise from inattention to the facts of the whole case as these now stand, -
from reluctance to take that trouble to examine these thoroughly, which still,
as a sort of hedge, separates the Theosophical Society from the general
community in the midst of which it is planted. Regarded in the light of an
occult barrier - as an obstacle which corresponds in the case of the lay-chela, to the really serious ordeals which have to be
crossed by the regular chela, - the necessity of
taking this trouble
can hardly be regarded as a hedge that it is difficult to
traverse.
And on the other side
there lies a wealth of information concerning the mysteries of nature which
clearly lights up vast regions of the past and future hitherto shrouded in total
darkness for critical intelligences, and the prey for others of
untrustworthy conjecture. For those who once thoroughly go into the
matter, and obtain a complete mastery over all the considerations I have put
forward - who thus obtain full conviction the Brothers certainly exist, that
they must be
acquainted with the
actual facts about nature behind and beyond this life, that they are now ready
to convey a considerable block of their knowledge to us, and that it is
ridiculous to distrust their bona fides in doing this, - for all such true
Theosophists of the Theosophical Society, nothing, at present, connected with
spiritual success is comparable in importance with the study of the vast doctrine
now in process of delivery into our hands.
Find out more about
Theosophy
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The main criteria for the
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Topics include Quantum Theory
and Socks,
Dick Dastardly and Legendary Blues Singers.
An entertaining introduction to Theosophy
For everyone everywhere, not just in Wales
It’s all “water under the
bridge” but everything you do
makes an imprint on the Space-Time
Continuum.
A selection of articles on
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Blavatsky Wales Theosophy Group
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Spiritual Home of Urban Theosophy
The Earth Base for Evolutionary Theosophy
The Birmingham Annie Besant Lodge
_______________________
Tekels Park
to be Sold to a Developer
Concerns about the fate of the wildlife as
Tekels Park is to be Sold to a Developer
Concerns are raised about the fate of the wildlife as
The Spiritual Retreat, Tekels Park in Camberley,
Surrey, England is to be sold to a developer.
Tekels Park is a 50 acre woodland park, purchased
for the Adyar Theosophical Society in England in 1929.
In addition to concern about the park, many are
worried about the future of the Tekels Park Deer
as they are not a protected
species.
Confusion as the Theoversity
moves out of
Tekels Park to Southampton, Glastonbury &
Chorley in Lancashire while the leadership claim
that the Theosophical Society will
carry on using
Tekels Park despite its sale to a developer
Anyone planning a “Spiritual” stay at the
Tekels Park Guest House should be aware of the sale.
Tekels Park & the Loch Ness Monster
A Satirical view of the sale
of Tekels Park
in Camberley, Surrey to a
developer
The Toff’s Guide to the Sale of
Tekels Park
What the men in top hats have
to
say about the sale of Tekels Park
____________________
The Theosophy
The Theosophy
Cardiff Guide to
The Theosophy Cardiff
Guide to
The
Theosophy Cardiff Guide to
The Terraced Maze of Glastonbury Tor
Glastonbury and Joseph of Arimathea
The
Grave of King Arthur & Guinevere
Views
of Glastonbury High Street
The
Theosophy Cardiff Guide to
_____________________
A B C D EFG H IJ KL M N OP QR S T UV WXYZ
Complete
Theosophical Glossary in Plain Text Format
1.22MB
___________________________
Classic Introductory
Theosophy Text
A Text Book of Theosophy By C
What Theosophy Is From the Absolute to Man
The Formation of a Solar System The Evolution of Life
The Constitution of Man After Death Reincarnation
The Purpose of Life The Planetary Chains
The Result of Theosophical Study
_____________________
Preface to the American Edition Introduction
Occultism and its Adepts The Theosophical Society
First Occult Experiences Teachings of Occult Philosophy
Later Occult Phenomena Appendix
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