Theosophical Society,
H P Blavatsky
The
Credential of H P Blavatsky
from
Theosophy
Magazine
Vol. 14,
No. 7, May, 1926
Pages
289-291
H
P BLAVATSKY died May 8, 1891. As a person she ceased to be on that date. All
that survives is a name, a memory, one of countless other names and memories,
the remains of a generation almost extinguished and fast fading into the
indistinguishable monument we call the past. She is now a mere episode in
written and unwritten History -- the occidental term for the Skandhas of the
human race and the personal human being. As a body, as a mind, as an actor, she
has played her part, passed from the stage and been replaced.
But
the play goes on. The great drama of life and death, of good and evil fortune,
is not of yesterday and to-day only but of all time, and each new person, each
incoming generation must perforce become both spectator and actor in the
Mysteries. Like many another, H. P.
Blavatsky
was one who purported to speak from behind the screen of time, to bear witness
and to teach of things hidden from mortal sight, even that of the wisest among
us. What are the credentials of H. P. Blavatsky, Messenger of the Masters of
Wisdom, Elder Brothers of the human race, to us Their younger brothers in the
Nearest
to us of all such Messengers, the claims or credentials of H. P. Blavatsky are
of vital moment to all searchers for truth and are more readily and searchingly
possible of examination. To determine between claims and credentials is the
prime necessity of the student of life and action. As matters stand from
generation to generation the average searcher for truth is bewildered by the
cloud of witnesses, by the apparently hopeless contradictions in their
testimony,
by his own inability to distinguish the true from the false in witnesses and in
their testimony.
The
experience of the race is that of a continual alteration and alternation of
opinion. We reach a decision one day, one generation, only to reverse it the
next,
though all men are aware that the essential facts of life never vary, that
Truth must be in its own nature changeless.
Unless
we are prepared to admit, and to ourselves act upon the
admission,
not only that Truth exists but that we are capable of discerning the truth in
all things, we but stultify our Self in giving any attention at all to the
search for Truth as reflected in such mighty subjects as philosophy, religion,
ethics, science. If we contradict the terms of our own inmost Being, if we
render our Self foolish, incompetent to prove all things and to hold fast to
that which is true, if we allege our Self insane and incapable of determining
Truth, who or what can validate the Truth to us, can make us reasonable?
But,
granting that we are "open to reason," it must follow that we are
bewildered, that we err and wander in our search for Truth, not because
credentials and evidences are lacking to us, but because we do not examine them
in the light of reason and experience.
The
all-inclusive credential of H.P.B. as messenger and witness is that she
addressed herself exclusively to the intelligence of mankind -- that is to say,
to the universal experience, the common sense, the innate reason of all men,
therefore of every man. Her teachings were put forward as in no sense a
revelation. She appealed to the Truth in us, to the truth as known to us, to
our capacity to assimilate additional truth -- to what the Masters have in
common
with
us, to what all men have in common with the Masters, as the bridge of progress,
the Antaskarana of spiritual, as of all other evolution.
What
she knew that is to us unknown, she put forward as a theory, as
a
working hypothesis which every man is invited to examine, test,
verify
for himself, step by step, proceeding from the known to the
unknown.
Compare
and contrast this credential with those submitted by the revealers, the
prophets, the priests of every religion and of every sect. Always it is a
revelation of one sort or another from a higher to a lower being -- a
revelation which demands belief, which in its very nature is impossible of
proof or disproof by the ones to whom it is offered, and which promises rewards
or threatens penalties to those who do or do not accept it out of hand on the
ipse dixit of
the
revealer.
Compare
and contrast the credential of H.P.B. with the "working hypotheses"
so freely offered and accepted in modern "exact" science -- working
hypotheses which do not "work," and of which there is not a single
one submitted by any scientist that other equally eminent scientists have not
exposed as faulty, incomplete, contradicted by known facts. Not a theory or
hypothesis propounded by H. P. Blavatsky has ever been upset philosophically,
logically,
historically
or evidentially. Hundreds and thousands have tried it, as invited first and
foremost by H.P.B. herself. The most that any have achieved has been a
"Scotch verdict": "Not proven." This is an admission of her
impregnability; a confession of their own inability to impeach her testimony
after rigid cross-examination.
Invariably
the religious or scientific investigator of the credential of H.P.B. has tested
her theories in the light of his own. If her propositions agreed with his, well
and good; if not, they must be false or erroneous, "not proved," --
that is, "not approved." Assume for one moment that her theories are
true, and the
inverted
logic of these investigators is instantly self-evident.
They
did not, and they do not, compare and contrast theory with theory, hypothesis
with hypothesis, for relative consistency and synthesis, for relative accord
with known facts. It stands to-day as it has stood from the beginning; no known
fact conflicts with or discredits a single theorem advanced by H.P.B., while
her propositions do shed the light of reason on all the problems of life, all
the missing links in science and religion; do bring into order and relation,
into ethical and moral purposiveness, all the otherwise bewildering and confused
mass of the facts which constitute the experience of the race and the
individual; do point out the causes of those failures and miseries which our
religions
and
our sciences seek in vain to explain or alleviate.
The
individual and personal credential of H. P. Blavatsky to every sincere searcher
for truth is the spiritual fact that her mission is educative. She was and is a
Teacher of truth. It is through the Hall of Learning alone that we can hope to
arrive at Wisdom on our own account. Not miracle, not prayer, not revelation,
not even the devotion of implicit faith can ever bring any of us one step
nearer
to
the Masters of Wisdom, to real Knowledge. Her life, her labor, her writings,
constitute a
Cardiff Blavatsky Archive
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