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(p. 138)
CHAPTER XXVI
A TIME
OF CONTROVERSY
IN his preface to Esoteric Buddhism, Mr. Sinnett
expressed himself respecting our work as follows: –
“Let me add that I do not regard myself as the sole exponent for the outer
world, at this crisis, of esoteric truth. These teachings are the final outcome,
as regards philosophical knowledge, of the relations with the outer world which
have been established by the custodians of esoteric truth, through me. And it is
only regarding the acts and intentions of those esoteric teachers who have
chosen to work through me that I can have any certain knowledge. But, in
different ways, some other writers are engaged in expounding for the benefit of
the world – and, as I believe, in accordance with a great plan, of which this
volume is a part – the same truths, in different aspects, that I am commissioned
to unfold. A remarkable book, published within the last year or two,
The Perfect Way, may be specially mentioned as showing how more roads
than one may lead to a mountain-top. The inner inspirations of The Perfect Way appear to
me identical with the philosophy that I have learned. The symbols in which those
inspirations are clothed, in my opinion, I am bound to add, are liable to
mislead the student; but this is a natural consequence of the circumstances
under which the inner inspiration has been received. Far more important and
interesting to me than the discrepancies between the teachings of The
Perfect Way and my own are the identities that may be traced between the
clear scientific explanations now conveyed to me, on the plane of the physical
intellect, and the ideas which manifestly underlie those communicated on an
altogether different system to the authors of the book I mention. These
identities are a great deal too close to be the result either of coincidence or
parallel speculation.”
Esoteric Buddhism was, then, the book which, as the chiefs of the London
Lodge of the Theosophical Society, we were bound to study, and upon which, as
the writers of The Perfect Way, we were equally bound to pass judgment, and
this not for the sake merely of the members of the Society, but for the sake of
our own work, and for the vindication before the world of the teaching committed
to us, and which we knew of ourselves to be true,
(p. 139)
while – as the writer of
Esoteric Buddhism frankly admitted – he was entirely dependent for his
knowledge upon teachers of whom he had no personal knowledge, but whom,
nevertheless, he had learnt to trust implicitly.
Such being the position, our course seemed to us to be clear. This was to ignore
persons, and judge the doctrine on its own sole merits, making appeal only to
the understanding. Having ourselves insisted on the possibility of man’s
attainment of knowledges and powers even transcending those claimed for the
Eastern Adepts, we were by no means averse to the idea that such persons may
actually exist. But there was no sufficient evidence of their existence, or of
the possession by those who asserted their existence of the ability to recognise
them, even in the case of contact with them. For, as only they who possess the
Christ-Spirit in a measure can recognise the Christ, so only they who are
themselves adepts in a measure can recognise the Adept. And even if the teaching
in question really came from the source alleged, what guarantee was there that
it had not undergone in transmission a change sufficient to vitiate it? Our own
position in regard to the current Christianity was that the Church had all the
truth, having received it from a Divine source, but that the priests had
materialised it, making themselves and their followers idolaters. (1)
And might not the same thing have happened with the teaching now propounded, and
this while its propounders were acting in the best faith, owing to the lack of
spiritual insight on the part of the recipients? The very designation,
Esoteric Buddhism, moreover, was open to grave question. And there was
the further consideration, that to accept it upon authority, and independently
of the understanding, would be but to establish a new sacerdotalism in place of
that which we and they alike sought to dethrone.
And, indeed, it very soon became evident that matters were not only in danger of
tending in this direction, but had already gone far in it. The idea of a group
of divinised men, dwelling high up in the fastnesses of the Himalayas, and
endowed with transcendent knowledges and powers, possessed a fascination for all
but the strongest heads; and that many had succumbed to the glamour of the
supposed “Mahatmas,” as the adept masters were called,
(p. 140)
was evidenced by their readiness to accept
implicitly all that was put forward in their name, even to resenting as
blasphemous the suggestion of need for caution and deliberation, and their
refusal to recognise the presence of an esoteric element in Christianity
corresponding to that which was claimed for Buddhism.
There was also much in the tone and character of the publications issued from
the headquarters of the parent Society in India of which we disapproved as not
only calculated to impair the credit of the Society with the public, but as
harmful in itself and incompatible with its real aims. For, while we recognised
the Society as at once representing high aims and possessed of invaluable
knowledges, we were compelled to recognise the presence of other and conflicting
elements which, unless eliminated, would assuredly wreck the whole movement.
This is to say that, although, owing to the heterogeneous nature of its
elements, chiefly as regarded the personalities of its foremost representatives,
it was but a chaos, we discerned in it the possibilities of a kosmos, provided
only those elements could be duly redeemed from their limitations and fused into
harmonious accord. For us its promoters were as children who, having become
possessed of a valuable instrument which they were as yet incapable of
appreciating, were in danger of destroying it through the exuberance of their
child-nature, and their consequent disposition to play with it, instead of
setting seriously to work to apply it to its proper uses.
In view of these objections, “Mary” addressed the following letter of
remonstrance to Colonel Olcott in his capacity of President of the Parent
Society. (1)
“
“DEAR SIR AND BROTHER, – It gives me great pleasure to address you
officially for the first time, as President of the British Theosophical Society.
This letter must do duty as a delegate from our Lodge to your Anniversary
Meeting of December, it being impracticable to send you any one of our brethren
as a representative.
“I venture, therefore, to ask that you will permit me, as chief of your British
Fellows, to lay first before you in your official capacity, and subsequently
before the readers of the Theosophist, a brief resumé
of what I believe to be the right aim and method of our work in future, and the
wisest policy possible to our Society.
(p. 141)
“I have read with interest, and hail with joy, the evidence published in the
October number of your Journal (pp. 10 and 11 of Supplement) of a
rapprochement
between the Theosophical Society of India and the Christian Mission established
in that country.
“To me, personally, it has always been a matter of regret that in attacking the
orthodox presentation of Christianity, your Society has hitherto been hardly
careful to guard itself against the imputation of antagonism to the essential
mysteries of that religion.
“In my inaugural address, delivered at the Soirée, held by the London Lodge last
July, (1) – an account of which is given on p. 4 of the Supplement to
the October Theosophist, – I endeavoured to put
before our Fellows and our guests what I hold to be the true attitude of
Theosophy towards all the great popular creeds of past and present; and I was
gratified to hear read quite unexpectedly in the course of Mr. Sinnett’s
subsequent discourse, a letter from one of the Indian adepts, in which my own
view was emphatically endorsed and ratified. The writer said: –
“‘Once delivered from the dead weight of dogmatic interpretations and
anthropomorphic conceptions, the fundamental doctrines of all religions will be
found to be identical in their esoteric meaning. Osiris, Chrishna, Buddha,
Christ, will be shown as different means for one and the same highway to final
bliss. Mystical Christianity, that is to say, that Christianity which teaches self-redemption
through one’s own seventh principle, – the liberated Para-atma or Augoeides,
called by the one, Christ, by the other, Buddha, and equivalent to regeneration
or rebirth in spirit – will be just the same truth as the Nirvâna of Buddhism.’
“These are wide and far-seeing words, and ought to sound for us the keynote of
our policy and aims, especially in regard to the work of the Society in
Christian lands like
“In the country in which your labours are conducted, you are undoubtedly right
in adopting as your platform the exposition of that form and system of doctrine
which is indigenous to the race and soil of
“And if this be the case with Fellows of the Society, it is easy to
(p. 142)
judge of the insuperable difficulties which such
reading must present to those who are altogether strangers to our system and
design. It is too much to ask English-speaking people, with but little leisure,
to devote the necessary time, toil, and trouble to the study of a foreign
language and theology as a preliminary to the explanation of problems which are
related to that theology, and which do not immediately involve or concern their
own, so far as they can see. Much more, the mysteries of existence, which
underlie all religious structures, ought to be expounded in familiar terms, as
well to Occidental as to Eastern inquirers, without need of recourse to foreign
epithets or reference to processes which, to the Western mind, must necessarily
be so obscure and difficult of comprehension, as to repel it from the serious
consideration such matters demand.
“Orthodox Christianity, both in Catholic and in Protestant countries, is
languishing on account of a radical defect in its method, – to wit, the exoteric
and historical sense in which, exclusively, its dogmas are taught and enforced.
It should be the task of Theosophy in these countries to convert the material –
and therefore idolatrous – interpretation of the ancestral faith and doctrine
into a spiritual one; to lift the plane of the Christian creed from the exoteric
to the esoteric level, and thus, without touching a stone or displacing a beam
of the holy city, to carry it all up intact from earth to heaven. Such a
transmutation, such a translation as this, would at once silence the objections
and accusations now legitimately and reasonably brought by thinkers, scholars,
and scientists against ecclesiastical teaching. For it would lift Religion into
its only proper sphere; it would enfranchise the concerns and interests of the
Soul from the bondage of the Letter and the Form, of Time and of Criticism, and
thus from the harassing and always ineffectual endeavour to keep pace with the
flux and reflux of material speculation and scientific discovery.
“Nor is the task thus proposed by any means a hard one. It needs but to be
demonstrated, first, that the dogmas and central figures of Christianity are
identical with those of all other past and present religious systems – a
demonstration already largely before the world; next, that these dogmas being
manifestly untrue and untenable in a material sense, and these figures clearly
unhistorical, their true plane is to be sought not where hitherto it has been
the endeavour of the Church to find them – in the sepulchre of tradition, among
the dry bones of the Past, but rather in the living and immutable Heaven to
which we, who truly desire to find the ‘Lord,’ must in heart and mind ascend.
“‘Why seek ye the Living among the dead?
He is not here, He is risen.’
“Lastly, it should be demonstrated that these events and personages, hitherto
wrongly supposed to be purely historical, accurately represent the processes and
principles concerned in interior development, and respond perfectly to the definite and
eternal needs of the human Ego. And that thus the Initiate has no quarrel with
the true Christian religion or with its symbolism, but only with the current
orthodox interpretation of that religion and symbolism. For he
(p. 143)
knows that it is in the noumenal and not in the
phenomenal world, on the spiritual, not on the material plane, that he must look
for the whole process of the Fall, the Exile, the Immaculate Conception, the
Incarnation, the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and
the Coming of the Holy Spirit. And any mode of interpretation which implies
other than this, is not celestial but terrene, and due to that intrusion of
earthy elements into things divine, that conversion of the inner into the outer,
that materialisation of the Spiritual, which constitutes idolatry.
“For, such of us as know and live the inner life are saved, not by any Cross on
Calvary eighteen hundred years ago, not by any physical blood-shedding, not by
any vicarious passion of tears and scourge and spear; but by the Christ Jesus,
the God with us, the Immanuel of the heart, born and working mighty works, and
offering oblation in our own lives, in our own persons, redeeming us from the
world and making us sons of God and heirs of everlasting life. (1)
“It is because I earnestly desire to rescue the Divine and lovely teaching of
Christianity from the abyss of anthropomorphism, idolatry, and contempt, that I
have deprecated with fervour the apparent endorsement given by the
Theosophist
to the coarse and ignorant ribaldry with which these teachings are befouled by
such writers as the authors of certain anti-Christian tracts. These persons are
materialists of the grossest type, and their indecent onslaughts on Christian
faith and doctrine are wholly devoid of intelligence and learning. They are
ignorant of the very alphabet of the sacred tongue in which are written the
Mysteries they presume to criticise and vilify. It is no love for orthodoxy, nor
desire to spare it, that calls forth from me this protest. Bigotry and religious
exclusivism are intolerable to me; such movements and demonstrations as that
afforded by the ‘Salvation Army’ are to me the very type of the abomination that
maketh desolate. But it is inconsistent with the whole end and aim of Theosophy
– the Science of the Divine – that it should lend its countenance to the
desecration of Divine things, and to the dissemination of shallow witticisms and
flippant suggestions bordering on the obscene. Many of the men who perpetrate
these attacks on the Christian mysteries are upholders of the worst cruelties of
materialism; the special organ of their school advocates Vivisection and
Malthusianism, and pleads the lowest utilities and the most sensual enjoyments
as a sufficient vindication of practices alike repugnant to justice, to
morality, and to the highest interests of the race. Surely our Society would
wish its fair fame cleared of the suspicion of approving such views of Man’s
destiny and place in Nature as their teachings imply.
“Confident as I am that the idea I have thus ventured to put forward of the
attitude which our Society ought to take in respect of Christian doctrine, will
meet with the approbation of those highest in authority among you, I venture to
add a few words on a kindred subject affecting the direction to be taken, in
this country above all, in regard to what I may fairly call the Theosophical
creed. That creed should be essentially spiritual, and all its articles
should relate to interior conditions, principles, and processes. It should be
based
(p. 144)
upon experimental knowledge, not on authority,
and its central figures should be attributes, qualities, and sacraments
(mysteries), not persons, nor events, however great or remarkable. For persons
and events belong to time and to the phenomenal, while principles and processes
are eternal and noumenal. The historical method has been the bane of the
Churches. Let Theosophy and Theosophists remember that history and individual
entities must be ever regarded by them as constituting the accidental, and not
the essential element in a system which aims at repairing the errors of the
theologians, by reconstituting the Mysteries on a scientific and intelligent
basis.
“Suffer me, in conclusion, to expound for your readers’ meditation a certain
passage in the Christian evangel (1) which has hitherto been supposed
to bear a meaning purely circumstantial, but which, in the light of the
interpretative method, appears to carry a signification closely related to the
work which I trust to see inaugurated under the auspices of a truly Catholic
Theosophy.
“‘And it came to pass that as the multitudes pressed upon Him to hear the word
of God, He stood by the
“‘And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of
them, and were washing their nets.
“‘And going into one of the ships, that was Simon’s, He desired him to draw back
a little from the land. And sitting, He taught the multitudes out of the ship.
“‘Now when He had ceased to speak, He said to Simon: Launch out into the deep,
and let down your nets for a draught.
“‘And Simon answering said to Him: Master, we have laboured all the night, and
have taken nothing: but at Thy word I will let down the net. And when they had
done this, they enclosed a very great multitude of fishes, and their net broke.
And they beckoned to their partners that were in the other ship, that they
should come and help them. And they came and filled both the ships, so that they
were almost sinking.
“‘Which when Simon Peter saw, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying: Depart from
me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
“‘For he was wholly astonished and all that were with him, at the draught of the
fishes which they had taken.
“‘And so were also James and John the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s
partners.
“‘And Jesus saith to Simon: Fear not: from henceforth thou shalt catch men.’
“In this parable the Christ standing by the water-side is the Logos, the Word of
God, and the lake by which He stands is the Psychic element, the soul of the
Macrocosm and Microcosm (Gennesareth, the
(p. 145)
dead and gone out of them, the glory of their
ancient oracles and hierarchies was no more, the nets with which they once had
caught the
Gnosis
and spiritual graces needed cleansing and renovation; the vivifying Spirits or
Angels which had animated these two Churches had forsaken their shrines.
“And the Christ, the Word, entered into one of them, which was Peter’s, and
desired him to thrust out a little from the land. The ship into
which the Christian Logos thus entered at its outset was undoubtedly the
“Peter is the universally accepted representative of the Genius of Rome. Peter’s
ship is the Roman Church of this day, even as the ship of Janus was in
pre-Christian times the appropriate symbol of Pagan Rome. Peter is the opener
and shutter of the Gates of the Church, even as Janus was of the portals of
heaven. It is, therefore, into this Pagan Church of Rome that the Logos enters,
and prays its Genius to thrust out a little from the land. Now, in sacred
allegory, the ‘land’ or earth is always a figure for the bodily element, as
opposed to water, or the soul. It represents Matter, and the material plane and
affinities.
“We see, then, that the Word, or ‘Christ,’ demanded in this first age of the
Christian dispensation the partial spiritualisation of the existing Church, –
demanded the basis of doctrine and dogma to be shifted from the mere dry earthy
bottom of materialism and hero-worship on which it had become stranded, to the
more appropriate element of ethical religion, the province of the soul, – not
yet, however, far removed from the shallows of literalism and dogma. This done,
the Word abides in the renovated Church, and, for a time, teaches the people
from its midst.
“Then comes the age which is now upon us, the age in which the Logos ceases to
speak in the Christian Church; and the injunction is given to the Angel of the
Church: – Launch out into the deep and let down your net for a draught. Quit the
very shores and coasts of materialism, give up the accessories of human
tradition which, in this era of science, are both apt to offend and so to narrow
your horizon as to prevent you from reaping your due harvest of truth; abandon
all appeals to mere historical exegesis, and launch out into the deeps of a
purely spiritual and metaphysical element. Recognise this, and this alone
henceforward, as the true and proper sphere of the Church.
“And the Apostle of the Church answers, Master, all through the dark ages, the
mediaeval times in which superstition and sacerdotalism reigned supreme and
unquestioned – the night of Christendom, – we toiled in vain; the Church
acquired no real light, she gained no solid truth or living knowledges. But now,
at last, at thy word, she shall launch out into the deep of thought, and let
down her net for a draught.
(p. 146)
“And a mighty success is prophesied to follow this change in the method and
system of religious doctrine. The net of the Church encloses a vast multitude of
mystic truths and knowledges – more even than a single Church is able to deal
with. Their number and importance are such that the Apostles or Hierarchs of the
Christian Church find themselves well-nigh overwhelmed by the wealth of the
treasury they have laid open. They call in the aid of the ancient
“From that day forth, the Church Catholic and Christian need have no fear, for
she shall indeed ‘catch men.’
“And so, dear partner and fellow-fisherman of the
“A TOILER IN THE SHIP OF PETER, AND PRESIDENT
“OF THE BRITISH THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.”
Our dissent from Mr. Sinnett’s book, and our altitude towards the alleged
“Masters,” produced in the Society a feeling which called forth the following
letter from Mary: –
“THE VICARAGE, ATCHAM, November 2, 1883.
“DEAR MADAME DE STEIGER, – l do not know what view you may have taken
of the manifestation of feeling elicited at last Lodge meeting by the reading of
my Letter. I can only say that, for some reason or other unknown to me, you all
took a view of that Letter which was certainly not in my mind when l wrote it. I never dreamed of disparaging the Brothers, nor of imputing that I did
not believe in them. But you must be aware that experience has shown the
folly of the course pursued in the latter half of last season by Mr. Sinnett, of
dragging the names of the Brothers forward into undue prominence, and so making
our Society ridiculous in the eyes of the world and of the press, so that in
more than one paper we have been held up to public ridicule, as followers of a
company of ‘Indian jugglers,’ on ‘whose alleged feats’ we have built our whole
system. It is deplorable that we should figure thus before the public. Yet this
statement actually occurred in a leading article of the Standard at the close of this summer.
Mr. Sinnett dislikes my being President for reasons of his own, and if I were to
retire would not be slow to accept the vacant Chair. A hint is enough on this
matter. The fact is patent to all who have eyes to see. Following his lead, you
have, most of you, read into my address a meaning I had not the least wish to
convey, and I am heartily sorry so many of my friends should so much have
misunderstood me. Mr. C.C. Massey, at whose lead, as you know, I first joined
the T.S. and became your President, under what we all then thought such happy
auspices, is coming up to town specially to be present at Sunday’s meeting,
(p. 147)
the 4th, and to do his best to break down the
cabal raised against me. I hope you will support him, and I hope also that
others of my friends will do likewise. Can you manage to get a little private
conversation with Mr. Massey before the meeting, and exchange ideas with him?
You will then learn exactly what it is he proposes to do. I have written him a
letter to read at the meeting. Mr. Sinnett will doubtless propose to call on me
to retire from the Chair and from the Society; because this is his policy.
Do not be misled by him. Both Madame Blavatsky and ‘Mahatma K.H.’ himself are, I
have reason to believe, anxious to retain me as President. I
had a long and cordial letter from Madame B. herself yesterday, with a kindly
message from ‘K.H.’ I feel sure they would all be grieved to hear I was
displaced. – Yours affectionately,
“ANNA KlNGSFORD.”
“ATCHAM VICARAGE, November 5, 1883.
“DEAR MME. DE STEIGER, – In thanking you for your letter, which is, I
suppose, a fair exposition of the present views of the London Lodge T.S., it
would not be honest in me to leave you without a clear statement of my position
in the matter that has arisen between us.
“(1) When I was invited to join the Society, I was emphatically and distinctly
told that no allegiance would be required of me to the ‘Mahatmas,’ to Mme.
Blavatsky, or to any other person real or otherwise, but only to Principles and
Objects.
“(2) Consequently, I am no traitor to the express conditions on which I entered
the Society when I say that I neither owe nor do I acknowledge the allegiance
which now appears to be required of me to persons of whose existence and claims
I am utterly unable to affirm or deny anything positively.
“(3) If, then, it is the deliberate opinion of the whole Lodge – which it
certainly was not six months ago – that it ‘must have a President whose
allegiance to the Mahatmas is sans peur et sans reproche,’
then I certainly am not, from the nature of things, fitted to occupy your Chair.
And I do not see how anyone can occupy it, on such terms, who is not, of his own
personal experience, in a position to testify to the existence and claims of the
‘Brothers.’ This even Mr. Sinnett cannot do, as he only knows them ‘through a
glass darkly, and not face to face.’
“(4) I cannot consent to pose before the world in the absurd position of a
person claiming to act on principles of exact knowledge and scientific methods,
who has abandoned the platform of Historical Christianity because its so-called
events and personages are impossible of verification, and who yet accepts as
indubitable another set of events and personages the evidence for which is
meagre and unsatisfactory in a degree surpassing even that of Historical
Christianity. All that is affirmed may be true; but I am not in a position to
know of its truth, and cannot therefore say I believe it, or
disbelieve
it.
“The utmost I can say in the present matter is – and this I say cordially – that
I am heartily willing and anxious to hear all that comes to us from the East,
with serious attention, provided I am not called upon to connect it with
subservience to any personal
(p. 148)
authority claiming my belief and confidence as a
duty; and provided also that I may fairly and freely criticise what I hear, and
test it by reason and experience.
“(5) Madame Blavatsky calls the ‘Mahatmas’ Masters. Her experience
and evidence may justify this epithet for her, but they do not justify me in
using it. I do not, therefore, and will not, apply that term to any earthly
being soever.
“I may add that it is not I who seek to separate Esoteric Buddhism from Esoteric Christianity.
First, the system expounded by Mr. Sinnett is not – so far as I can see – esoteric at all, being simply a scheme of transcendental
physics; and, secondly, he is deliberately seeking to silence every other voice
but that of the ‘Mahatmas.’ If there is to be unification and brotherhood, there
must be equality. It now seems to me that I
am the only representative of Christian doctrine left among you!
“In conclusion, I would like to add that, personally, I sincerely thank Dr. Wyld
for the criticisms he has from time to time contributed to Light on the subject of
Mr. Sinnett’s book. I think he is a wholesome check upon extravagances and
assumptions which, but for the timely part he plays, might land some of us in
abject fetishism. – Always affectionately yours,
ANNA KINGSFORD.”
Meanwhile, with a view to the vindication of our own position in regard to [Mr.
Sinnett’s] Esoteric Buddhism, we wrote a pamphlet in two parts [the two
parts covering twenty-nine pages], the first of which (1) was by Mary, and the
second (2) by myself, addressed to the London Lodge. (3)
In her part of it, after recapitulating the circumstances under which we had
been induced to join the Society, and citing some passages from the address
delivered by her at the Princes’ Hall meeting, (4) she said: –
“I had not at that time had an opportunity of carefully and critically studying
the work to which Mr. Sinnett has put his name, and which had then but just
issued from the press, nor had it occurred to me that the system set forth in
that work was intended by its compilers to supplant every other and to
monopolise for themselves the exclusive allegiance of the Theosophical Society.
Had I been in the least degree apprehensive of such pretensions as these, I
could not have spoken as I did in introducing Mr. Sinnett to the public. But the
attitude subsequently assumed by him as
(p. 149)
the apostle of this system, the positive
prohibition laid upon any expression of dissent from or criticism of it, or of
its supreme authority, and the tone taken respecting certain attempts of my own
to stem the current of a tide that appeared to me likely to lead us into an
undesirable channel, induced me to give to Esoteric Buddhism a more special
examination than I had hitherto bestowed on it.
“This study, shared by Mr. Maitland, resulted in the abstract of its doctrine
appended to this Preface, (1) to which abstract I shall add
only a few remarks of my own: –
“It may not be generally known that those points in Esoteric Buddhism which
are really attractive to students of metaphysical philosophy are not by any
means peculiar to the doctrine of the school introduced to us by Mr. Sinnett,
but are derived mainly from an Oriental system older even than Buddhism itself,
of which in some measure it was the basis, that of Kapila, known as the Sânkhya.
This philosophy affirms two primary principles, Purusha (soul or spirit), and
Prakriti (essential substance). Prakriti is the primary root from which are
produced what Kapila calls the ‘seven productive principles’ not as external
resultants, but as modifications of the pre-subsistent principle itself. These
are: (1) Buddhi, or Mahat, the Great one, or supreme Mind. (2) Ahankara, or
self-consciousness, the individual ego; and these two alone are indestructible
in their nature. The other five principles are the ‘subtile rudiments,’ the
ground of outer personality and of cognition. Of these seven principles, Buddhi
is defined as the seat of virtue, knowledge, and power, power being defined as
the subjugation of Nature.
“Here, in inverted order, is the exact classification given in Esoteric Buddhism, a
classification with which, in its original order and purity, I am far
from wishing to find fault, since it is precisely that followed by all esoteric
doctrine. But the inversion it has suffered at the hands of those who have taken
it from the Sânkhya is profoundly significant, and due to the fact that, as I
shall presently show, they have given to the root-principle – Prakriti – a
meaning quite other than that intended by Kapila’s doctrine.
“Again, all the theories of Karma, of transmigration, of evolution in obedience
to law, of Nirvâna, of Avitchi, of the devachanic and astral states, have been
presented to us over and over again in Vedantic, Buddhist, Bhagavat, Hermetic,
and even Christian theosophy, so that for these no originality can be claimed.
And in this fact, indeed, lies their value and importance; wherefore I again
emphatically disclaim any wish to disparage them as true doctrine.
“Further, with regard to the passage of souls from planet to planet, this
doctrine, of which traces may be found in many Western theosophies, was accepted
in popular Buddhist schools, and is thus formulated in Colonel Olcott’s
Catechism, issued under the sanction of the Southern Church, which
differs radically from the Thibetan section whence Mr. Sinnett’s teaching is
derived, and which, according to Colonel Olcott’s own statement, has produced no
‘adepts’ and no so-called ‘esoteric’ doctrine: –
“(I translate from the French edition, p. 41.)
(p. 150)
“‘Q. Does Buddhism teach that man is reborn only on our earth?’
“‘A. No. We learn that the inhabited worlds are innumerable. It is the
preponderance of individual merit or demerit which determines the world in which
a person is to be reborn, as well as the nature of the reincarnation. In other
words, the ulterior lot is, as science would say, influenced by anterior
attractions.
“‘Q. Are some of these worlds more perfect and developed than our earth, and
others less so?
“‘A. So Buddhism teaches, and also that the inhabitants of every world have a
development corresponding to the condition of that world.’
“I venture to submit that this doctrine is far more in accord with the
suggestions of scientific and spiritual thought, cognisant and considerate of
the innumerable and subtile differentiations and potencies of human character,
than the mathematical precision of the clock-work arrangement invoked by Mr.
Sinnett’s mechanical system.
“Be this as it may, it is once more evident that the doctrine in question is the
property of the
“There appear, however, to be good grounds for believing that the elaborate
scheme presented to us in the name of the latter, of a ‘planetary chain’ of
physical globes, has its real origin in an entirely metaphysical and esoteric
doctrine – one of the profoundest and most beautiful of the subtile Buddhist
theosophy. In the course of spiritual progress towards Nirvâna, Buddhism teaches
that the Saint must pass through four
dhyanas,
or mental stages of abstraction, known as ‘worlds of form’; and after these,
through certain still more interior conditions of pure thought, or
‘formless worlds,’ the last of which is Nirvâna. These ‘worlds,’ it
seems, may, and perhaps must, be traversed many times before final and absolute
beatitude is attained; and he who will, after reaching the last round, and
standing, as it were, on the very brink of fruition, may forgo it for the
benefit of mankind, and return out of pure love to redeem other souls yet in the
earlier stages, and point them to the ‘path of release.’ (1)
“Analogous conceptions are found in the Greek Gnosis. A well-known exponent and critic of Oriental
theosophy says, in commenting on the above system of metaphysical stages and
transitions, that the endless repetitions and recurrences of
numbers
involved in its details, “are not to be taken in a literal sense; they indicate
simply the perpetual monotone by which the thinker’s
imagination is limited, and to which it perpetually returns’; a ‘cadence of
formulas’ expressing varying and renewed approximations in orderly series to a
definite and transcendent ideal (Samuel Johnston).
“We find, indeed, in Buddhism, the germ of all the apparently novel
doctrines contained in Mr. Sinnett’s book, from which
(p. 151)
doctrines, as presented by him, I am compelled
to dissent; for Buddhism, as Buddha and his disciples taught it, represents an
esoteric and spiritual philosophy of which Mr. Sinnett’s version is a
materialised reproduction. To give a more special instance, there is no doctrine
in his book which is more repugnant to common sense, and to the intuitive
conception of the fitness of things, than that which attributes the physical
creation of the worlds to perfected men, or Dhyan Chohans. We are told that they
and they alone are the artificers of the planets and the reconstructors of the
universe. This doctrine is but a materialised presentation of one which is
common to Buddhist and to Christian belief. It is taught by the former of these
religions that whenever a Buddha passes into Nirvana, his Karma is poured out
through the worlds as a fullness of living moral energy, whereby a fresh influx
of spiritual life is developed. And from all the great souls (Mahatmas) who thus
pass into the highest or seventh sphere of Divinity or Rest, flow miraculous
energies which, spiritually, revivify Nature. It is through the merits of all
beings in these higher stages that the worlds are renewed; and it is through the
vices of all degraded beings that they are destroyed. Buddhistic substantialism
personified spiritual energy, and made of Karma a separable entity or ‘genius’
regarding it in much the same light as that in which Christianity regards the
Holy Ghost, and represents Christ as declaring – ‘If I go not away, the
Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.’ Thus, on
Buddha’s assumption into Nirvâna, as on Christs ascension into Heaven, the Karma
or energy of the one, and the Divine Spirit of the other, is shed abroad over
the earth, and re-creation, the special function of the third Person in the
Trinity, occurs on the spiritual plane, as originally occurred by the operation
of the same Power, creation on the physical plane.
“And, carrying on the idea thus conceived in regard to the regenerative function
of the Effluence proceeding from an ascended Christ and a glorified Buddha, it
is held by the followers of both that the merit, or Karma, of all beatified
Saints is effectual for the release and assistance of souls still on the earthly
plane, and can be applied to their spiritual renovation. Conversely, the vicious
Karma of evil-doers, even after their departure from the world, infects its
mental atmosphere, and becomes a cause of spiritual depression, harassment, and
obscuration, though, being not positive, but negative in its mode of action, it
is a cause far less potent than that of the good Karma of the Saints. This last
point, however, Buddhistic teaching leaves somewhat indefinite, because it is
connected with that mystery of the ‘eighth sphere,’ of which I venture to assert
that Mr. Sinnett’s exposition has completely distorted the meaning.
“Thus it is evident that conceptions sound in principle and spiritual in
application, have furnished the nucleus of the materialised doctrine given us in
a book, which, far from representing esoteric Buddhism, is in reality a
more
exoteric
version of it than all the Eastern sects together – and their name is legion –
have yet dared to formulate openly. For the doctrine of spiritual renovation and
recreation by means of the beneficent and life-giving energy of the Blessed in
Nirvâna, is substituted that of material creation by the
(p. 152)
‘Past Grand Masters’ of occult science; and for
the conception of the effluent evil proceeding from disintegrating egos as an
element of spiritual contamination infecting the mental world, is substituted
the notion of physical cataclysms, terrestrial catastrophes, and dooms with
which esoteric religion can have no
immediate concern, and the dogmatic enunciation of which at once removes the
system credited to the Thibetan ‘adepts’ from the altitude of spiritual science
to the low level of mere exoteric history.
“A similar process of degradation has been applied to the Sânkhya and Buddhist
idea of Prakriti, which, in the hands of the compilers of the book under notice,
has become molecular matter, but which, in its
original and only proper meaning, is not ‘divisible’ at all, but is the ideal
root-principle or self-subsistent Archè taught in Greece by
Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, having ‘no property of body’; that ‘immutable
essence which enfolds and evolves mind and sense through the presence and
purpose of Spirit.’
“This, again, is the Hermetic, Kabalistic, and Alexandrian doctrine necessary to
the true scientific conception of the genesis and unity of existence; but
throughout Mr. Sinnett’s book we find the word Matter substituted for Essence,
and the idea persistently conveyed that divine (?) and human volition, and the
creative principle itself, are but ‘matter in motion.’ Of course, this
perversion of the words ‘Prakriti’ and ‘Purusha’ into Matter and Motion accounts
for the important inversion already noticed of the order of the seven
principles, since it is obviously impossible to derive pure spirit (Atma, or
supreme Mind) immediately from unconscious and molecular agents, Thus the first
in the true series becomes the last in the travesty, and the celestial
generation is presented to us upside down in the order of terrestrial evolution.
And hence many of the strange inconsistencies and incongruities of the later
pages of the book.
“Pure Buddhism is in no radical respect different from pure Christianity,
because esoteric religion is identical throughout all time and conditions, being
eternal in its truth and immanent in the human spirit. I am myself as much the
disciple of Buddha as of Christ, because the two Masters are one in Doctrine.
But, in my view, such a system as Mr. Sinnett’s book reveals to us is as opposed
to Buddhism as it is to Christianity, and is utterly incompatible with the
avowed aims and teachings of the Society under whose ægis it is issued. No universal
religion, no catholic brotherhood, can be built on such a foundation as this; –
it is but the germ of a new sect, and one more materialistic, exoteric, and
unscientific than has ever yet been presented with serious claims to the modern
world. Its tendency is to divide, to scatter, to repel, making all chance of
unification impossible, instead of reconstructing, consolidating, and
reconciling. East and West will never meet on such a bridge as this doctrine,
nor will the conflicting testimonies of history and scientific criticism be
silenced by enunciations of transcendental physics which directly impinge on
their domain. In a word, this book is neither ‘Buddhistic’ nor ‘esoteric.’
“But a solution of the riddle it offers, the only solution of a satisfactory
nature possible, remains to be put forward. My co-worker has touched on it in
his ‘criticism,’ and I shall but offer a few further suggestions in support of
it.
(p. 153)
“It is a well-known custom of Oriental Masters to subject aspirants to occult
science, seeking instruction at their lips, to severe ordeals, with a view to
test their fitness for the reception of the knowledge sought. These ordeals are
as often addressed to the mind as to the body, and we are expressly told in the
Theosophist, by accredited authorities, that not infrequently ‘chelas’
will be tempted by their own ‘Gurus,’ and traps set in their way into which, if
wanting in intelligence and perception, they may fall, and thus give evidence of
their unfitness for higher initiation. Traces of this kind of ordeal are to be
found scattered throughout the sacred books of the West also, and it is even
asserted of Christ that He was Himself ‘tempted’ or tried, and that He taught
His doctrine in ‘hard sayings’ that only those who had ears might hear. It is possible that ‘Esoteric Buddhism’
may be a ‘hard saying’ of this nature, intended to test the capacity of the
would-be ‘chelas’ of the West, and that not until these have vindicated their
powers of discernment by penetrating and unveiling the true purpose of the
Masters, will the veritable ‘esoteric’ secrets of the East be trusted to them.
It may be that, if we steadily refuse to accept as serious the system now
presented to us, we shall find it declared to be after all but a fable, in which
true meanings have been purposely reversed and inverted, spiritual verities
materialised, and essentials converted into images, not so much to delude as to
test us. Mr. Yarker, F.T.S., in his Mysteries of Antiquity, writing of the customs of initiation
observed by the Bektask Dervishes, says: – ‘Before reception, a year’s probation
is required, during which false secrets are given to test the candidate.’
Perhaps it is too much to expect the adept Mahatmas of the East to yield at once
and without trial into strange and unknown hands the treasured wisdom and lore
of ages. If such as this prove to be indeed the true solution of this Sphynx’s
riddle, I shall rejoice at finding myself in the position of Oedipus.
“Meanwhile my co-worker and I wish to lay before the London Lodge, of which as
yet we have the honour to be respectively Vice-President and President, the
following proposition: –
“That, on the recurrence of the elections for 1884, two Sections be created in
the London Lodge, one of which shall be formed by those Fellows who desire to
pursue exclusively the teaching of the Thibetan Mahatmas, and to recognise them
as Masters; and that the Presidency of this Section be conferred on Mr. Sinnett,
the only person now in this country competent to fill such a position. The other
Section should be composed by Fellows desirous, like myself, to adopt a broader
basis, and to extend research into other directions, more especially with the
object of encouraging the study of Esoteric Christianity, and of the Occidental
theosophy out of which it arose. In this Section we should welcome papers from
students of Hellenic thought, we should inquire into the relation of Greek
Individualism to Vedantic Pantheism, and should endeavour to find a ground of
reconciliation between the hitherto apparently antagonistic conceptions of Life,
posited on the one hand by the Oriental philosophy of ‘illusion,’ and on the
other by the Hellenic idea of the joyous reality of existence. I should myself
hope to lay before this Section certain studies in thought which might conduce
to the inauguration of that
Eirenicon
after which I so earnestly aspire.
(p. 154)
“This Section might be known as ‘The Catholic Section of the London Lodge.’
“Of course, Fellows belonging to either Section might belong to both, and freely
attend each other’s meetings, but it would be understood that at those held
under Mr. Sinnett’s Presidency, the attention of Fellows would be exclusively
directed to the development of the system recently presented by him to the
public; while in the Catholic Section that system would be regarded as occupying
but a minor share of recognition, our principal studies being addressed to the
analysis of the great religions and philosophies which have swayed mankind in
the past, and which divide their allegiance in the present.
“In concluding, I may mention that the Letter closing this pamphlet, (1)
has been sent by me to the President Founder of the Parent Society, in
connection with one, conceived in similar tone, from the President of the French
Theosophical Society, with whom I am in perfect accord, and hope always, as now,
to work in concert.
“It is certain that sooner or later Esoteric Christianity will be proclaimed as
a religious science to the Western half of the world. I ask you by your
endorsement of the proposition just suggested – to wit – by the creation of a
Catholic Section in your Lodge, to ensure to the Theosophical Society the
distinction of bearing the renewed Evangel to our race, and of making known to a
desponding and divided Christendom the advent of the ‘Christ that is to be.’”
My portion of the pamphlet, which is far too long for reproduction here,
consisted in a criticism which, by contrasting various statements in the book
with each other, and with sound reason, convicted it of incoherencies and
inconsistencies fatal to its claims to be regarded at all as a system of
thought. And as there was no one on this side who felt competent to reply to us,
our protest was referred to the Society’s headquarters in
(p. 155)
of the position and the personal conflicts
engendered were distasteful to us in the extreme; and only the hope of saving
the Society from its own discordant elements, to become a redeeming influence in
the world, reconciled us to a continued association with it. Meanwhile both
sides represented their views of the situation to the Founders, Mary writing a
letter of some 4000 words to Madame Blavatsky, and one nearly as long to Colonel
Olcott. While awaiting the election we received the following letter from Dr.
Gryzanowsky: –
“
“MY DEAR SIR, – I trust you have received my post-card in
which I acknowledged the receipt of your interesting letter of Nov. 17, begging
you at the same time to convey my thanks to Mrs. Kingsford for the gracious
promise of her photograph. As to the two pamphlets I received together with your
letter, I do not know whether I have to thank her or you for them.
“Roi
ou Tyran? I had read already, and very good it is – too good, one might
say, for M. Richet. But even more valuable, it appears to me, is her English
essay on ‘Unscientific Science.’ That is the nail which our hammer must
hit (at least in quarters where other arguments are not understood). Science
deceives herself about her own dignity and the firmness of her foundation. The
modern (Darwinian) habit of considering the organic and the in-organic worlds as
a continuous whole has led to the false
belief in the validity and legitimacy of a single method of research. This
illusion has to be destroyed, and the exactness of experimental physics must not
be allowed to be a feather in the biologist’s cap. Even physical science is not
quite so ‘exact’ as it appears to be, but it has
corpora vilia at its disposal, which biology has not. You say nothing
about Le
Zoophile, which sprang so unexpectedly from Miss Cobbe’s jovial head,
nor whether the Champion has any chance of starting
into existence after this. However this may be, I am glad of Le
Zoophile, as I should have been glad of Le Champion, for purely
linguistic reasons.
“I now come to Mr. Sinnett’s book, and to your critical remarks about it. And
let me begin by telling you that I agree with you as far as the atheistic
character of the doctrine is concerned. It is curious to see how often theosophy
becomes atheistic. In Gunther’s and (I think) also in Baader’s theosophic
philosophy the processus of the universe consists in
a gradual self-creation or self-evolution of God. God is its
consummation, not its beginning and origin. In the beginning there was
unconscious causation; in the end there will be conscious effect, the divine Ego
as a result. Strictly speaking, we find the same in Hegel’s philosophy, where
the processus begins (as Schelling calls
it ironically) with the ennui of the Parabrahm, and ends by his
becoming the Absolute in the ideal end.
“In
Esoteric Buddhism there is a dormant or potential God, as seventh
principle, in every human being. This principle may, or may not, develop itself,
but the result is sure to be a plurality of
(p. 156)
godlike beings whose ultimate late is Nirvâna,
or (as Mr. Sinnett defines it on p. 163) ‘conscious rest in omniscience.’
Although Mr. Sinnett disclaims Agnosticism, he is agnostic himself on p. 179
with regard to the world outside our solar system. Within that system the Adept
knows everything (p. 177) and considers everything as knowable, i.e. as subject to law.
“This would, indeed, be a grossly materialistic view (such as our men of science
are wont to take), if he had not added the words ‘plus the guiding and
modifying influence of the ... Dhyan Chohans.’ Where, one might ask, does this
influence, which negates and corrects the law, where does this divinely free
will come from? As an outcome of evolution it cannot negate and disturb
evolution. It must come from somewhere else. But whence? What is an
influxus divinus without the Deus?
“This inconsistency spoils the Adept’s theosophy, which is theistic by
implication, atheistic in appearance, and agnostic involuntarily.
“You call it a ‘transcendental Materialism.’ But this judgment seems to me a
little too severe. It is true Mr. Sinnett himself calls Buddhism a
transcendental Materialism (p. 153), but duobus dicentibus idem, non est idem,
one might say here. For your remark implies the reproach of non-spirituality.
‘It deals, not with the spiritual,’ you say, ‘but with the occult.’ And this, it
seems to me, is only partly true. I do not know how far Mr. Sinnett is
authorised to speak in the name of the great Buddhist priesthood, but he
certainly insists, in many passages, on the eminently spiritual character of
Oriental philosophies in contrast with the purely intellectual character of
Western philosophy and of Western civilisation in general. He admits the practical dangers of incomplete or
un-merited initiation, the temptation to jugglery. But the jugglers are only the
thieves of the mystery, the burglars of the Sanctuary, and although Mr. Sinnett
does not use this simile, he certainly condemns such practices. In fact, one
might say, there are similar dangers and abuses in the Christian Church. Witness
the liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro and other miracles of the
Hagiology; and I, for one, would insist on the necessity of making the same
distinction between Esoteric and Exoteric Christianity as the Adepts make
between Esoteric and Exoteric Buddhism. If the visible Christianity were the
Esoteric one, the many learned Hindoos who come to
“Before I tell you why I do not agree with these Pundits, I feel bound, in
justice bound, to mention the many valuable truths and exquisite beauties I have
found in Mr. Sinnett’s representation of Esoteric Buddhism. It opens long vistas
of thought and speculation, and the Adepts horizon is altogether so wide, so
immeasurably vast, that the sphere of Western thought, and even that of
Christian eschatology, appears, at first sight, painfully small. Moreover, there
are a great many metaphysical and logical riddles which we Occidentals can never
solve, but which the Buddhist solves by not putting them. I am not speaking of
the antinomy of free will and prescience, which the Buddhist avoids by
eliminating the prescient God. But such puzzling problems as the origin of the
different races of mankind, the ‘missing link,’ the phenomena of mediumship,
(p. 157)
the born cripple, the apparently revolting
inequality of our start in life, the fate of dying infants, the effects of
suicide and of all violent deaths – all these things find a surprisingly
plausible solution or explanation in this esoteric doctrine, and there is a
singular charm in the dry common sense with which the mystic revelation is at
times suffused. For instance, when Mr. Sinnett says a sudden or violent death
cannot be a death at all, one hardly requires any proof of the assertion. The
theory of the seven Principles, of the occasional subdivision of the fifth, of
the occasional separate existence of the two upper ones, which have to ‘grow a
new astral principle’ for incarnation, are most convenient keys with which many
a lock can be opened.
“Having read quite recently a highly interesting review (in the Bayreuther Blätter) of
Count Gobincan’s work, Sur l’Inégalité des Races, I was
particularly glad to find in the ‘Esoteric Doctrine’ an easy (albeit mystic)
explanation of these wonderful inequalities which sorely puzzle us, not only
scientifically, but morally. Not only are the yellow races separated from the
white ones by a great gulf, but there are similar gulfs between European races
too. I am quite willing (indeed I am anxious) to consider the Latin races as
Atlanteans whose native island vanished long after the Aryans had peopled the
East and North with heroes and prophets. But where did the Buddhists get the
idea of Lemuria from? I thought this fatherland of the anthropoid Ape was a
creation of Professor Häckel, our German Darwin.
“The Cycles and Manvantaras help us over a great many difficulties, and thus
far I am ready to go with Mr. Sinnett. But his Planetary Chains I do not
understand and cannot appreciate. He talks of the seven chains of seven planets
each, four of which are always in pralaya (or Brahma’s night). But what
are we to say to such things, even if we
know nothing of astronomy? You justly complain of a want of
vraisemblance,
but an Adept might retort that if vraisemblance were a criterion of
truth, Buddhism would belong to the intellectual plane of Western science. The Credo
quia absurdum may be one of the ordeals of the would-be initiate.
“I agree with you in admiring the doctrine of Karma and the description of the
“Yet, on the whole, I miss the moral element in Buddhism. Whatever
Mr. Sinnett may say about it, and whatever Max Müller (p. 158) may say about the
perfection of Buddha’s moral code, Buddhism is (as far as I can see) essentially
and above all a system of revealed dogmatic philosophy in
which there is a place for everything, even for evil. But in its cold serenity,
Buddhism has no wrath, no scorn, no indignation, no passion. With what weapons
could it battle against the iniquities of life if it talks of evil as of
something ‘necessary’ (sic!), and of Satan as something
rather heroic (p. 128), more likely to secure immortality than human mediocrity?
There is no message of peace and of hope to the weak
(p. 158)
and the ‘poor in spirit,’ nothing like Paul’s
mighty dialectic paradox proclaiming the strong of the world to be God’s waifs,
and the sages of the world to be God’s fools. Buddhism, after all, is (and that
is the curse of all evolutionary doctrines) a sort of struggle for life (à
“The historical Buddha was a converted profligate. He preached moderation and
wisdom, temperance rather than abstention and asceticism. His doctrine is
practical, and fits into human nature. He died of flesh-eating. He utilises evil
as we utilise steam, as a motive-power, and he offers to destroy human suffering
on condition of the sufferer’s being susceptible of certain knowledge.
“Christ, the historical Jesus, was pure and spotless, apparently divine. He
preached love and mercy, but also perfection: ‘Thou shalt be perfect as thy
Father in heaven is perfect.’ His doctrine was unpractical, unearthly, heavenly,
and has never fitted into human nature or human life. Christianity has never
existed; it is a thing to come, a beacon in the rough sea of life and in the
dark night of history. Christ makes no bargain with existing evil. He has temper
enough to curse the fig-tree, and to whip the usurers out of the
“I could never accept Buddhism as more than a most interesting and (partly at
least) most satisfactory (revealed) philosophy. It is, somehow, too Asiatic for
me. Without being a Christian believer, I miss Golgotha in it, and only under
the Cross can we find the passion and the weapons for our crusade against the
dragon.
“I am glad you have taken some steps towards ascertaining whether, and how far,
your London Lodge can make its programme compatible with the Hindoo doctrine,
and whether the Indian chiefs can be induced to make their programme more
catholic. Your book (The Perfect Way) is, on the whole,
more congenial to me than Mr. Sinnett’s. They agree in a good many points, even
on the androgynous nature of the First Cause (though Mr. Sinnett does not call
it Cause). But further comparisons would lead me too far. Even as it is, I must
apologise for the great length of this letter.
“I thank you beforehand for the promised ‘little Christmas book’ on the end of
the world in 1881. If I could offer you an exchange of photographs (which, at
this moment, I cannot), I would take the liberty of asking you for yours, with
the promise of mine for the spring.
&n