Theosophy: Origin of the New Age

C.C. Martindale, S.J.

PART I

THE FOUNDERS OF MODERN THEOSOPHY

THOUGH both the word Theosophy and, in a sense, the thing, are (as
modern  Theosophists are the first to assert, and as we shall see
below) far older than the  movement which officially began on 17th
November, 1875, what is popularly known  among us as Theosophy can
never be dissociated from the names of Mme. Blavatsky, of  Mrs.  Annie
Besant, and, in a secondary measure, from that of Col. Henry  Streete
Olcott.

Madame Blavatsky

Helen Petrovna Hahn[1] (1831-1891) was born in South Russia of a  noble
Mecklenburg  family which had settled there. She lived in an
atmosphere of legend and popular fancy,  and was surrounded, being
born in the night from the 30th to the 31st of July (the  seventh
month of the year), with an elaborate and mystic ritual. She was,
owing to the  date of her birth, not only exempt from the power of  the
household goblin Domovoy, but  was enabled to bring  preternatural
powers to bear upon those less privileged who   offended her, and often
did so to their disaster.

She was a somnambulist and very psychic. She was supposed to be
possessed, and was  "drenched in enough holy water to have floated  a
ship"[2] (p. 25), and was exorcised.  However, she still spent  hours
and days whispering in dark corners "marvellous tales of   travel" and
the like, to companions visible only to herself. The  "enormous
library" of the  country-house where she lived failed to  satisfy her
omnivorous curiosity (p. 33); and she  was passionately  interested in
the extraordinary museum of natural history there   preserved (p. 35).
She haunted the "catacombs" of its cellars, and  its midnight park.
Miracles of all sorts attended her childhood;  she was clairvoyant and
clairaudient (p. 46).

Her governess rashly defied this erratic and unmanageable maiden  to
find a man who  would accept her as bride; "even," she said,  "old
General Blavatsky would decline you"  (p. 54). Piqued in her  pride and
passion, Helen married him in 1848. Immediately upon   discovering the
meaning of marriage, she fled Egypt, and initiated  a series of
journeys of  which the dates are disputed.

In the August of 1851 her diary says she was in London, and there,
during a moonlight  ramble by the Serpentine, "I met the Master of  my
dreams." She proceeds to South  America, then to India by way  Pacific.
After visiting England via China, Japan, and  America  about 1853, she
returns to America, and is back in England again  in 1855 or  1856.
Again she seeks India, passing through Egypt, and  makes a third
unsuccessful  effort to enter Tibet. She reappears in  Russia in 1858-
59; is in Tiflis from 1861-63; and  reaches Tibet at  last, through
Egypt and Persia, in 1864. There she witnesses  astounding
"phenomena."

On 11th November, 1870, her aunt Mme. Nadejka Fadeef receives
"phenomenally" a  letter from Tibet, by the hand of "a messenger  with
an Asiatic face who vanished before  my eyes," reassuring her  as to
her niece's safety (<H. P. B. and the Masters>, pp. 8, 9).

In 1871 she is in Egypt, and founds a <Societe Spirite> which ends  in
fraud and disaster.  She makes about this time the acquaintance  of the
Coulombs, who succour her, but  afterwards, for reasons  variously
given, will be found fighting against her. She returned   to America
and in 1874 met Col. Olcott, who had been an officer in  the Northern
Army.

At this time, however, he was an ex-medium and a journalist, and  was
in fact, examining  the spiritist phenomena connected with the
brothers Eddy. He came entirely under her  influence, and was
extremely pleased with his connection with her, though she seems  to
have had a poor enough opinion of him.[3] He was made, however,  first
President of the  Theosophical Society (the "T. S."), founded  in New
York, 17th November, 1875,[4] and  certainly displayed  extraordinary
talents for organization and for popular propaganda.

The infant Society, however, was soon all but wrecked, for though  it
existed professedly  to combat spiritualism equally with  materialism,
and to propagate belief in the existence  of certain  Eastern sages and
their lore, it made use of not a few of the  methods of  spiritualism,
and Mme. Blavatsky was constantly  accompanied by a perfect fusillade
of  rappings, and by other  phenomena. She insisted, however, that she
was no <medium>,  but a  <mediator> (i.e., between the sages and
ordinary men). Soon after  this H. S. O.  and H. P. B. (as it is the
curious but convenient  custom of Theosophists to designate their
founders) went to  Bombay, where they met once more the Coulombs, and
where the   conversion of Mr. A. P. Sinnett took place.

The stormy incidents of 1884-85, owing to the detection, as it was
generally held, of H.  P. B. in the wholesale "faking" of  phenomena,
were, as was quite admitted, a  "tremendous blow."

H. P. B. retired into temporary privacy in Europe, and actually
refused to return to India  if she were not allowed to prosecute  the
"dastard insinuation" of Mr. Hodgson, the  representative in  India of
the Society of Psychical Research, that she was a Russian  spy.  This,
however, her advisers forbade her to do.

She wrote, none the less, from Switzerland, approving of the  assertion
that "the T. S.,  minus Masters, is an absurdity"; and  that "I am the
only means of communication with  the Masters, and  for giving out
their philosophy-the Society, unless I continue to  work  for it as in
the past, is a dead thing." She did, in fact,  remain "the heart and
soul of the  Society" till her death, which  took place in London on
8th May, 1891. This date, known  to her  followers as White Lotus Day,
is observed by social and artistic  celebrations.

This extraordinary woman, whose magnificent, scarred, and scowling
features have  become famous in three continents, was possessed of
startling talents, unlimited  audacity, and of that personal  magnetism
so noticeable in all leaders of men. Her  principal  books, <The Secret
Doctrine, The Key to Theosophy>, and <Isis  Unveiled,>  her lesser
works, and her many articles in accredited  magazines (published under
the title  <A Modern Panarion>), carried  her influence even where her
restless personal activity  never  reached. Her information was
encyclopedic, but altogether  confused, always  inaccurate, often
entirely misleading, and wholly  at the mercy of her riotous
imagination  and unscrupulous methods.

The <chronique scandaleuse> of the early history of the  Theosophical
Society is in part  to be found in Mr. Maskelyne's  <Fraud of Theosophy
Exposed.> It is of no interest to us  to enter  into these sordid
details.

Miss Mabel Collins, however, sometime co-editress with H. P. B. of  the
Theosophical  periodical <Lucifer>, has bequeathed to us a  unique pen-
portrait of her associate. We  quote from Mr.  Maskelyne's book, p. 62:

"She (H. P. B.) taught me one great lesson. I learned from her how
foolish, how  'gullible,' how easily flattered human beings are,  taken
<en masse>. Her contempt for her  kind was on the same  gigantic scale
as everything else about her, except her   marvellously delicate taper
fingers. She had a greater power over  the weak and  credulous, a
greater capacity for making black appear  white, a larger waist,[5] a
more  voracious appetite, a more  confirmed passion for tobacco, a more
ceaseless and  insatiable  hatred of those whom she thought to be her
enemies, a greater  disrespect for  les convenances, a worse temper, a
greater command  of bad language and a greater  contempt for the
intelligence of her  fellow-beings than I had ever supposed possible to
be contained in  one person. These, I suppose, must be reckoned as her
vices,  though  whether a creature so indifferent to all ordinary
standards  of right and wrong can be held  to have virtues or vices I
know  not."

Col. Olcott, especially after H. P. B.'s circumstantial stories  began
to be refuted (and her  romances about Tibet and the charms  of Lh'asa
have been dissipated, not only by the  reports of the  explorer, Mr.
Rockhill, but by the observation of our own  soldiery),  perceived her
to be a "dual personality," at one moment  "fibbing Russian woman," at
another, inspired. But many mediums  seem to oscillate between obvious
fraud and the  inexplicable.

Mrs. Annie Besant

The following outline of Mrs. Besant's career is drawn front her  own
<Autobiography>.[6]

Annie Wood was born in London on 1st October, 1847 though "three-
quarters of my  blood and all my heart are Irish .... The Irish  tongue
is musical to my ear, and the Irish  nature dear to my  heart" (pp. 13,
14). Her father, indeed, was the son of a  Devonshire  man who had
married an Irish girl, and her mother's  descent was pure Irish.

Mr. Wood was a scholar and a philosopher, and "deeply and steadily
sceptical." He  indulged in "light, playful mockery of the tenets  of
the Christian faith"; he "partly  rationalized" his wife's  "dainty and
well-bred piety," till, abandoning such views as   "eternal punishment,
the vicarious atonement, the infallibility of  the Bible, the equality
of the Son with the Father," etc., she  found peace in the mental
atmosphere of "Jowett,  Colenso and  Stanley."

Mr. Wood's mother and sister were "strict Roman Catholics," but  the
priest whom they  "forced" into his sick-room was "promptly  ejected by
the wrath of the dying man, and by  the almost fierce  resolve of his
wife that no messenger of the creed he detested  should  trouble her
darling at the last" (pp. 22, 23).

His daughter, however, took her "religion strenuously"; she was  the
"stuff of which  fanatics are made"; was always "too  religious." She
nearly became a Catholic (p. 24),  had visions and  dreams, and
associated with angels, fairies, and dragons. She was  often  in fancy
martyred, by Roman judge and Dominican inquisitor,  on the rack and at
the  stake. Devoted to Paradise Lost, she always  hoped that Jesus, her
"ideal Prince," would  somehow save the  "beautiful shadowed Archangel"
(p. 24).

Meanwhile Miss Marryat, sister of the novelist, imparted to her a  wise
and practical  education, and took her to Germany and France,  but
failed to check her increasing  tendency to mysticism and  ritual. She
pores over the Fathers, studies Keble, Liddon, and   Pusey, fasts and
scourges herself (p. 57). The Crucifix claims her  ecstatic love. In
the  Holy Week of 1866 she writes out, in  parallel columns, the Gospel
accounts of the  Passion, hoping thus  to serve her piety. Their
"discrepancies" chill her with a first  doubt  (p. 61). She stifles it.
But she has seen her ghost. She  will never be the same again.

In 1867, ignorant of the nature of matrimony, and unskilled in  money
matters or  domestic life, she "drifts" (p. 70) into  engagement and
marriage with the Rev. F. Besant,  adored as a  "priest," but never
loved as husband. This clergyman, precise,  methodical,  authoritative,
and easily angered, demanded a  submission impossible to a girl
"impulsive, very hot-tempered, and  proud as Lucifer." Incredulous
wonder, then  indignant tears, ended  in "a proud, defiant resistance,
cold and hard as iron" (p. 81).

She tried to kill thought and to vary the unromantic duties of a  home
by writing; she fell  ill; she brooded over the cruel and  inexplicable
suffering of her children, and passed thus  into a  struggle of three
years and two months "which transformed me from  a Christian  into an
Atheist" (p. 88). Her religious doubts  increased; she contemplated
suicide. She  resolved "to take  Christianity as it had been taught in
the churches, and carefully  and  thoroughly examine its dogmas one by
one, so that I should  never again say 'I believe'  where I had not
proved" (p. 99).

She read widely, and always on "liberal" lines: Voysey welcomed  her;
Pusey repelled  her; Thomas Scott, whose house was "a  veritable
heretical salon" (p. 113), accepted  anonymous essays  from her pen.
She abandoned belief in Christ's Divinity, and, with  it,
Communion.[7] In 1873 she left her husband; legal separation was to
follow (p. 118).

She now earned a miserable pittance as cook, governess, and nurse.  She
studied at the  British Museum and wrote heterodox pamphlets  for
Thomas Scott; she faced semi- starvation with characteristic  pluck.

After facing the question: Is Christ God? and answering it, No,  she
faced the ultimate  problem: Does God exist? She had abandoned  prayer
as a "blasphemous absurdity," and  "God fades out of the  daily life of
those who never pray" (p. 133).

At this crisis she happened on a copy of the <National Reformer.>  She
inquired through  it the conditions of admission to the  National
Secular Society, and was told that "we can  see no logical  resting-
place between the entire acceptance of authority, as in  the Roman
Catholic Church, and the most extreme Rationalism." She  need not
profess herself an  Atheist, but must accept the  principles of the
Society. She sent in her name as an active   worker. It was Charles
Bradlaugh who gave her her certificate.

In the <Autobiography> there follows a chapter on "Atheism as I  knew
and taught it"  (pp. 141-175). Her atheism was "dogmatic" only  in so
far as she asserted that there was  no God in any of the  senses
assigned or assignable to that word by human intelligence,   though
underneath the Many she recognized the One.

She had, however, to be rebuked by Bradlaugh for writing "There is  no
God"; and was  made to alter this. Further, her "passionate  desire for
the betterment of the world, the  elevation of humanity"  (p. 153), led
her earnestly to seek a new basis for morality,  since  she considered
herself to have destroyed what she supposed  the only ethical
foundation  hitherto, revelation and intuition.  Her new basis was
Utility (p. 154).

She discarded the Man of Sorrows, "with weary eyes gazing up to  heaven
because  despairing of earth," for the "fair ideal Humanity  of the
Atheist . . . perfect in physical  development as the  Hercules of
Grecian art . . . the free man who knows no lord . . .  who  relies on
his own strength" (p. 158). "Virtue is its own  reward" (p. 160); and
faith in  Evolution shows her the "sources of  evil and the method of
its extinction" (p. 164).  Strong in this  "creed" and the ethical
programme consequent upon it, she lives  "from  1874 to 1886, and with
some misgivings to 1889" (p. 169).

Meanwhile she lectures and writes on social, political, and
freethought topics with  indescribable vivacity, with a total  neglect
of health, comfort, and reputation, and with  that personal
communication which won for her enthusiastic devotion when it did  not
provoke abuse, slander, persecution, and even assault and  physical
violence.

In 1877 Dr. Charles Knowlton's pamphlet, advocating the artificial
limitation of families,  brought about the prosecution of Bradlaugh
and Mrs. Besant, who published the  pamphlet as a sort of test case  to
see whether the "population question" could be freely  discussed  in
England. This roused a storm of obloquy, and Mrs. Besant was  legally
deprived of the custody of her daughter as she already had  been of
that of her little son.  The New Malthusianism which Mrs.  Besant at
this period did so much to propagate, she  abandoned in  1891 (p. 237),
when Theosophy had untaught her the materialism on   which alone she
saw that that practice and theory could be  founded.

Chapter X of the <Autobiography> is well entitled "At War All  Round."
"Christianity  had robbed me of my child and I struck  mercilessly at
it in return" (p. 245). She was  constantly in the  law courts, or in
violent conflict with distinguished persons on  every  conceivable
subject. In 1884 she turned her attention to  Socialism (p. 299), met
Hyndman and Shaw, and joined the Fabians.  But the Socialists were
bitterly opposed to  Bradlaugh; she now  hampered, not helped, his
political career, and had to resign the  co- editorship of the
<National Reformer>, breaking thus a close  association of thirteen
years (p. 321). But from this "turmoil and  stress" dawned a fairer
vision, a "New  Brotherhood," a Church, to  be founded largely with the
cooperation of Mr. Stead. She  flung  herself into organized
philanthropy.

But ever "since 1886 there had been slowly growing up a conviction
that my philosophy  was not sufficient; that life and mind were  other
than, more than, I had dreamed" (p.  339). Psychology,  hypnotism,
"fact after fact came hurtling in." "Into the darkness  shot  a ray of
light"-A. P. Sinnett's <Occult World.>

She takes to Spiritualism finds its phenomena "indubitable" and
"real," but the  "spiritualistic explanation of them was  incredible"
(ibid.). One evening a "voice that was  later to become  to me the
holiest sound on earth," bids her take courage: light is  near. A
fortnight passes, and Mr. Stead offers to her two large  volumes to
review. They are H. P.  B.'s <Secret Doctrine.> A  miracle of
conversion occurs. She is introduced to H. P. B., is   fascinated,
struggles against the fascination, yields, and on 10th  May, 1889, is
admitted  as a Fellow of the Theosophical Society (p.  344).

She sees that Science answers the <how> of much, the <why> of  nothing.
Experience  and intuition alone suffice, and these are  hers. "I know,
by personal experiment, that the  Soul exists . . .  that it can leave
the body at will. . .that the great sages spoken  of by H. P.
Blavatsky exist, that they wield powers and possess  knowledge before
which our control  of Nature . . . is as child's  play" (p. 346). Her
secularist friends-Bradlaugh soberly, Foote   with virulence-denounce
her; but the new period of storm is  quickly over.

She lived thereafter in "Theosophic peace," having her  headquarters at
Benares.  Inevitably, she was involved in the  dissensions briefly
alluded to below, with special  crises like the  Leadbeater one, with
Indian politics of a very ill-judged sort,  and for  some time lived in
great isolation and eclipse which,  visitors have assured me, were very
bitter to her restless  temperament despite the interior calm she
sought to cultivate.

She returned more than once to England and lectured to crowded
audiences with  astonishing vivacity. But she had nothing new to
contribute, and died on 20th  September, 1933. It is improbable  that
details of the profound desolation of her last days  will be  made
public. Her death leaves the movement for which she did so  much to
stand  or fall by its intrinsic merits.

The Theosophical Society

The Theosophical Society was founded in New York on 17th November,
1875, by Col.  Olcott and Mme. Blavatsky. This was immediately due  to
the promises of a Mr. Felt that  he would impart to the  associates
instruction "concerning those secret laws of Nature   which were so
familiar to the Chaldeans and Egyptians, but are  totally unknown by
our  modern world of science."

Mr. Felt failed, however, to redeem his pledge, and the Society  did
little, in its corporate  capacity, to realize its then highly
complicated programme. In 1878 it was to be  amalgamated with an
Indian society; this failed also; but the founders migrated to  India
and there remodelled the Society. Its objects were:

(i) To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,
without distinction of  race, creed, sex, caste, or colour.

(ii) To promote the study of Aryan and other Eastern literatures,
religions, and sciences.

(iii) To investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the psychical
powers of man.

It is unnecessary to give many details about the history of the T.  S.,
partly because it has  been so stormy and self-contradictory,  and also
because a kind of law governing the  quarrels, at least  after a time,
can be discerned, and is indeed indicated by Mr. A.  B.  Kuhn in his
<Theosophy,> especially from p. 301 onwards. Not  unnaturally, troubles
grew worse almost as soon as Mrs. Besant  appeared (1888), and it was
indeed unlikely  that two such forceful  women as she and H. P. B.
could well cooperate.

In that year the T. S. was reorganised by a General Convention in
India as a  constitutional federation of autonomous groups under a
head (H. P. B. was still  president). But crises and storms  occurred
"every few years" (Kuhn); the American  groups gravitated  towards the
ethical aspect of Theosophy, the European and Asiatic   ones towards
comparative religion and psychism. In 1891 H. P. B.  died, and
forthwith  two divergent currents defined themselves.

The struggle has been compared with that between State and Church.
Col. Olcott (with  Mr. Sinnett) went in the rationalising  direction;
they wished Theosophy to be exoteric,  respectable,  disinterested in
Mahatmas, refusing to "worship" H. P. B. or to  accept her  words as
dogma.

Mrs. Besant, at first in the company of Dr. W. Quan Judge,  remained
authoritative,  esoteric, Mahatmic. Col. Olcott in his  <Old Diary
Leaves>, offers a "true history" of the  T. S., and  narrates under the
date 1892 the story of his own resignation, and  speaks of  the
"treacherous policy" and "lack of principle" of Mr.  Judge, who is said
to have  laboured to evict him, and to have  forged numerous letters
from Mahatmas: H. S. O.  adds, alluding to  one of Judge's accusations:
"Without making any pretensions to   exceptional goodness, I certainly
never did anything to warrant  him in making, in a  forged letter, my
own teacher and adored Guru  seem to say that if Mrs. Besant should
carry out her intention of  visiting India, she might run the risk of
my poisoning her." But   Mrs. Besant separated from Judge in 1893, and
commented freely on  the provenance of  Judge's Mahatma letters. He
therefore issued a  manifesto declaring her headship to be at  an end,
for three  reasons:

"1. Mrs. Besant has practiced witchcraft and tried her weird  spells,
her 'psychic  experiments' (on Mr. Judge and others).

"2. Mrs. Besant has pronounced one of the letters of the Mahatma,
which was  precipitated in an orthodox manner and passed on to Mr.
Sinnett, 'a fraud by H. P. B.  herself, made up entirely, and not  from
the Master.' If that letter be a fraud, then all the  rest  sent
through our old teacher are the same.

"3. Mrs. Besant, in league with a Hindu named Chakravarti and  others,
has quite flooded  the Society with documents from  phantasmal Mahatmas
end 'black magicians.' They had  all sorts of  letters sent me from
India, with pretended messages from the  Master. The  plot exists among
the black magicians, who ever war  against the white."

Mr. Chakravarti had in fact been reducing H. P. B.'s influence  (and
Mr. Judge's) upon A.  B., by seeking to Brahmanise Theosophy,
especially by insisting on the acceptance of  the Brahmanic ideal  of
"Bliss" the moment it was attainable, whereas H. P. B. had   leaned
towards the Buddhist "renunciation" of bliss in favour of  working for
mankind.

America backed Judge; Europe and India condemned Olcott. Thereupon  the
whole topic  of Mahatmas, so fiercely insisted on at first as a  matter
verifiable and indeed verified by  experience, became  reduced to a
matter of pure faith. Judge, <The Theosophical   Movement>, p. 479,
wrote:

"Letters from Mahatmas prove nothing at all except to the  recipient,
and then only when  in his inner nature is the standard  of proof and
the power of judgment. Precipitation does  not prove  Mahatmas. By
following the course prescribed in all ages the inner  faculties  may
be awakened so as to furnish the true confirmatory  evidence." [The
upshot was, less  and less insistence on 'occult'  phenomena.] "Occult
phenomena, genuine or false,  mediumistic or  adept, form no part of
the legitimate pursuit of the T. S....  (they) cannot  be proved as
physical phenomena can. Mahatmas, their  existence, position, and
teaching,  become entirely an affair of  faith" (Kuhn, p. 316).

It may be worth pausing here to observe that Theosophy, unlike the
Christian religion,  never was clear whether or not it had a
"deposit," an unchangeable core or nucleus of  authoritatively
revealed truth. Judge considered that it had-a "deposit" given by  the
Masters to H. P. B. and transmitted by her intact to  posterity. But H.
P. B. herself  wavered in this, as she did in  everything else,
according to her mood. "The members of  the T. S.  at large are free to
profess whatever religion or philosophy they  like-or none, if  they so
prefer-provided they are in sympathy,  etc. The Society is a
philanthropical and  scientific body for the  propagation of the idea
of brotherhood on practical instead of   theoretical lines....
Theosophist is who Theosophist does" (<Key>,  p. 20; 2nd T. P. S.
edition, 1890).

Similarly, morals were entirely the individual member's affair. To
become a member of  the T. S. all one had to do was to give in  one's
name, Mrs. Besant declaring that the first  of its three  objects (see
above) alone was obligatory, though emphasis was laid  on study  as
likely to promote that toleration which is the  necessary preliminary
to brotherly love.

Mr. Kuhn says that in America the stock, so to say, of H. P. B. is
rising once more,  though her doctrine is being constantly  "revised."
Her works are taken down from library  shelves and  thumbed. But he
himself is most emphatic (p. 341) to the effect  that  Theosophists are
fluid, questers, nondogmatic. They have to  be channels for high ideals
pictured in ancient wisdom, for a  cosmic consciousness. And this
indeed is markedly the  tendency on  our side of the Atlantic, though
this does not imply that those  who now  fight shy of "phenomena"
dislike the "occult," as we shall  say below.

A direct consequence, however, of this "fluidity" of mind is the  taboo
upon one doctrine  only-that any existing or possible  institution is
in possession of Truth in a manner even  relatively  exclusive or
complete. Members must be prepared to gain new truths  or revise  their
old beliefs no matter whence the new illumination  may arrive.

Hence, every form of Christianity can find a home within  Theosophism,
save the  Catholic Church, which certainly regards  itself as in
possession of a unique and final  revelation. It also  regards any of
the truths attained to by Theosophists or anyone  else,  as
fragmentary, accidental, unguaranteed, and usually (in  the case of
Theosophy) very  badly stated.

The Church considers that special revelations granted even to her  own
members must be  tested by her authoritative creed, and can in  no case
be more than a fuller appreciation of  that creed. This is  responsible
for the extreme acerbity with which Theosophists   constantly allude to
the Catholic religion, save when they are  interpreting it in an
"occult" way, and in fact caricaturing it.

Theosophists, then, hold either that a "deposit" was, in some  sense,
revealed anew  through Masters, or a Master, to H. P. B.  (which
Catholics would deny), and that at most  this has become  clearer and
has been better understood as time goes on: or, that  she had  her
limited understanding of ancient and universal wisdom,  told what she
could of it to  the world, a world within which are  certain people
who, whether or no Masters exist, are  or become  able to achieve a
deeper insight into reality than others can win,  at any rate at
present.

Historically, however, Theosophy has obtained its notoriety or  indeed
even a minimum  of attention because of its special claims,  and its
offer of an esoteric lore. No Society  could repose on so  wholly fluid
a base as a membership of all who in any way seek   truth. Nor has the
T. S. ever reposed, we repeat, on anything of  the sort. Mrs. Besant,
indeed, had to distinguish very carefully  between the "neutrality" of
the T. S. as such and  the legitimate  occupations of its members, like
herself, who was never "neutral"  in  regard of anything whatsoever.

When she and others encouraged the Indians or Ceylonese to make  the
most of their own  religions, they knew perfectly well that  they were
thus embarking on political enterprises  and creating  nothing but
turmoil: moreover, "social" reforms, in India or  elsewhere,  though
claimed, as by Mrs. Besant, as due to theosophic  enterprise in so far
as they had  no political basis nor provoked  more trouble than they
allayed, were not really due to  any such  thing; and indeed the
isolation of Mrs. Besant's later life-she  had been almost a
pilgrimage-centre-was a tragedy due to that  fact. When Theosophists
cease to render  their lectures attractive  to the ill-balanced by
their lure of occult knowledge, they will   find that the residue
creates no interest: and why should it? It  has been said better, and
with better reason, by almost anyone  else.

To resume, Mr. Maskelyne quoted Mr. Judge, after H. P. B.'s death,
when the storm  broke, in the <Westminster Gazette>: in 1894 Mr. E.
Garrett revived the whole affair  there in his "Isis very much Un-
veiled."

Mrs. Besant was "dismissed" but refused to go, saying that H. P.  B.
had appointed her  "successor." In 1895 the U.S.A. section  practically
seceded, and in the next year Mr.  Judge died, calm and  not without
dignity, whereupon innumerable schisms began to  occur.  A Mrs.
Katherine Tingley, of California, wanted a "Universal  Brotherhood"
which created more splits than anything else did. She  eliminated in
1898 both the parent  and about 90 per cent. of the  membership of the
T. S. from her reckonings, and  considered  herself third in succession
from H. P. B., Judge being the second.

Theosophy had had no small success in Australia. A Mr. Leadbeater
(died 1st March,  1934), "esoteric" and pretentious, with no claim  to
be attended to at all, none the less was  responsible for great
upheavals. Older theosophists called his clients neo-theosophists,
perverting H. P. B. In 1906 a crash came. Mr. Leadbeater was  teaching
young boys  practices proper, it was said, to Hindu  temples. Mrs.
Besant, horrified, rejected him and  then revised her  horror. The
storm passed but blew up again in 1922.

He then explained that relief from the sexual urge was  justifiable,
lest these youths, who  would soon enough grow out of  their own karma
(see p. 29) should, by suppressing it,  entangle  other people in it.
In 1907 Col. Olcott died, miraculously visited  by Mahatmas  on his
death-bed. He appointed A. B. as his successor,  and she was forthwith
elected.

In 1909, an unfortunate episode was begun. An Order of the "Star  in
the East" was  inaugurated because it had been decided that the  World-
Teacher, the Lord Matreya, was  incarnate in the person of  Jiddu
Krishnamurti, who was, after a while, to go to Oxford  and  then
transform the world. He was, moreover, to come walking over  the waters
between the Heads into Sydney, and an enormous  "theatre" was built
overlooking the  harbour.

I gather that this was afterwards let out to various  entertainments. I
remember seeing it  from an aeroplane. In 1929  this young man, far
from devoid of modesty and good sense,   revolted, abandoned his
claims, and dissolved the Order. Mrs.  Besant said he was a  teacher
"in his own right." Mr. Leadbeater  had, however, written a "Lives of
Alcyone" (a  name suggestive of  his literary level): they were the
last 40 incarnations of   Krishnamurti: he also became (to the fury of
many Theosophists) a  religioniser of the  movement. He started a
Liberal (at first  "Old") Catholic Church.

A Mr. Wedgewood was, apparently, consecrated bishop, in Holland,  and
then  consecrated Mr. Leadbeater, who indeed presented himself  at the
Sydney Eucharistic  Congress in 1928, and saw (so we were  told) auras
round altars and round various  people's heads  including mine. This
ritualisation of Theosophy followed upon the   attempt in 1914 of Miss
M. Russak to evolve a ritual based on the  "magnetic purity" of
objects: she started the Temple of the Rosy  Cross which collapsed, no
explanation being  given, after three  years. This ritualising,
religionising, of Theosophy has not won   approval.

It is not possible to give accurate statistics of the T. S. or of  its
rivals. The "Golden  Book" carries its history up to 1925, and  a
further volume is being prepared; and a  curious collection of
documents can be read in <The Theosophic Society>, published in   1925,
containing reprints from H. S. O., A. B., and Mr. C.  Jinarajadasa, who
provides  also a letter from Maha-Chohan, the  great Adept, "to whose
insight the future lies like an  open page."  Written between 1881 and
1888, in poor English and more definitely  anti- Christian than usual,
it contains nothing new and merely  promises that evidence will be
given later on that the Theosophist  doctrine is "the only right one."

The actual address of the London H.Q. is 50 Gloucester Place, W.  1,
where we were  kindly received.

ENDNOTES

1. The most recent summary of her life is in A. B. Kuhn's <Theosophy>,
New York,  1930, c. 3 and following. It will probably be impossible
ever to write a proper history of  her first 42 years: she is already
lapsing into myth.

2. We quote from her sister, Mme. Vera de Jelihovsky, whose evidence is
given in A. P.  Sinnett's <Incidents.>

3. "Psychologized baby," she calls him; cf. <Proceedings of the Society
for Psychical  Research>, ix., London, 1885, p. 331. His writings are
always, certainly, very funny, the  more so because their quaintnesses
are unconscious. He and he alone supplies a note of  humour to
theosophic pages. Mme. Blavatsky's uproarious sense of the comic was
quite  different.

4. Col. Olcott describes its beginning and history from 1875 to 1878 in
<Old Diary  Leaves>, and in three more series bearing the same title,
to 1883, 1887, and 1892  respectively. All these are published by the
Theosophical Publishing Society, and another  volume is, we believe, in
preparation.

5. Mr. Maskelyne says she turned the scale at seventeen stone.

6. Fisher Unwin, pp. 368, 1893. <Her Autobiographical Sketches>,
Freethought  Publishing Company, pp. 169, 1885, carry her story no
further than 1879, the year of the  Knowlton pamphlet prosecution.

7. But when her mother lay dying, she refused to receive Communion,
however necessary  to salvation, unless Annie took it with her. "I
would sooner be lost with darling Annie  than saved without her." Her
daughter explained the case fully to Dean Stanley, who  made no
difficulty about administering Communion to mother and daughter alike
(pp.  122-125).

                         +++++++++++++++++++

This essay was published by the London-based Catholic Truth  Society as
part of its  "Studies in Comparative Religion" series.  The second part
of the essay will be published  in the next issue  of "This Rock."

This article was taken from the February 1996 issue of "This  Rock,"
published by  Catholic Answers, P.O. Box 17490, San Diego,  CA 92177,
(619) 541-1131, $24.00 per  year.

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