"The aspirant has to choose absolutely between the life of the world and the life of Occultism.... It would be a ceaseless, a maddening struggle for almost any married man, who would pursue true practical Occultism, instead of its theoretical philosophy. For he would find himself ever hesitating between the voice of the impersonal divine love of Humanity, and that of the personal, terrestrial love.... Worse than this. For, whoever indulges, after having pledged himself to OCCULTISM, in the gratification of a terrestrial love or lust, must feel an almost immediate result—that of being irresistibly dragged from the impersonal divine state down to the lower plane of matter. Sensual, or even mental, self-gratification involves the immediate loss of the powers of spiritual discernment; the voice of the MASTER can no longer be distinguished from that of one's passions, or even that of a Dugpa; the right from wrong; sound morality from mere casuistry. The Dead Sea fruit assumes the most glorious mystic appearance ... although it is the intention that decides primarily whether white or black magic is exercised, yet the results even of involuntary sorcery cannot fail to be productive of bad Karma.... Sorcery is any kind of evil influence exercised upon other persons, who suffer, or make other persons to suffer, in consequence ... such causes produced have to call forth effects, and these are evidenced in the just laws of Retribution.
"Much of this may be avoided if people will only abstain from rushing into practices neither the nature nor importance of which they understand.... We are in the Kali-Yuga and its fatal influence is a thousand-fold more powerful in the West than it is in the East; hence the easy preys made by the Powers of the Age of Darkness in this cyclic struggle, and the many delusions under which the world is now labouring." (Italics mine—A. L. C.)
Applying this high and absolutely uncompromising moral standard, these grand and stern words, to the two pseudo-occultists under discussion, it is not difficult—even in the light of the little I have already given—to see that they themselves, and their actions, bear no sort of relation to real "Occultism" as here briefly outlined by H. P. Blavatsky. Their teaching concerning sex is indeed its antithesis, which inevitably leads to Dugpa-ship, as H. P. B. definitely states. The issue is clear, and cannot be evaded or explained away.
It is true that Mrs. Besant started well, even splendidly, in H. P. B.'s lifetime, and just after her death wrote a series of simple explanatory manuals which were of great value to beginners and enquirers. But only two years later she began, under Brahmin[10] inspiration, to make serious alterations in H. P. B.'s own works, and even to throw doubt on her occult knowledge (e.g., Mrs. Besant's Preface to the so-called Vol. III of The Secret Doctrine.) Unfortunately larger and more ambitious works which followed were vitiated by the same influences, and I well remember marking many passages in The Ancient Wisdom which were not in accordance with H. P. B.'s teachings. But the radical departure from them began when Mrs. Besant definitely threw in her lot with C. W. Leadbeater, the sex pervert, and thereby alienated and caused such deep sorrow to her former friends and supporters.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Dugpas. (Tibetan). Lit., "Red Caps," a sect in Tibet. Before the advent of Tsong-ka-pa in the fourteenth century, the Tibetans, whose Buddhism had deteriorated and been dreadfully adulterated with the tenets of the old Bhon religion—were all Dugpas. From that century, however, and after the rigid laws imposed upon the Gelukpas (Yellow Caps) and the general reform and purification of Buddhism (or Lamaism), the Dugpas have given themselves over more than ever to sorcery, immorality, and drunkenness. Since then the word Dugpa has become a synonym of "sorcerer", "adept of black magic" and everything vile. There are few, if any, Dugpas in Eastern Tibet, but they congregate in Bhutan, Sikkim, and the borderlands generally.—The Theosophical Glossary, by H. P. Blavatsky.
[9] Man is a trinity composed of Body, Soul, and Spirit; but man is nevertheless one, and is surely not his body. The three 'Egos' are MAN in his three aspects on the astral, intellectual or psychic, and Spiritual planes, or states.
[10] In making use of the word "Brahmin" in this connection, I mean only to indicate that "sacerdotal" spirit of the Brahmin caste which has always resisted (and quite reasonably, from their point of view) any revealing of esoteric teaching to the multitude, and especially to the West. The particular Brahmin whom Mrs. Besant followed at that period ([see post p. 56 Footnote]) induced her to adopt a line of action which disrupted the Society created by H. P. B., and diverted attention from her works.