THEOSOPHY.[H]
I have been frequently asked, What is Theosophy? A question more easily asked than answered, and in answering I may do even less justice to it than to Spiritualism. Theosophy is an intellectual speculation, having for its main object the supplanting of Christianity, by a Revised Version of Hindoo Metempsychosis. An attempt to foist upon our western ideas and exoteric habits of thought, the mysticisms and esoteric speculations of the mystics of India and Japan. Modern Spiritualism is not a religion. Theosophy not only claims to be a religion, but to be “the essential basis of all religions.” Modern Spiritualism may have its faults, and be as imperfect as human souls are here or hereafter. But we at least understand its faults and defects. The triple-crowned spiritual monarch—sitting on the seven hills of Rome—is not more infallible than the principles which underlie Theosophy—with its demi-gods, its Mahatmas, its adepts, miracle workers and wonders. To not understand and be able to accept these principles at once, is to proclaim oneself an ignoramus. Theosophy is a strangely fascinating religion for intellectual æsthetics.
Spiritualism is at least susceptible of being observed and investigated, and the hypothesis of Spiritualism is naturally a reasonable deduction from the facts. Not so Theosophy, which is merely a theory, an a priori assumption pleasing to those with more reflective and imaginative powers than capacity for practical observation. Spiritualism has given facts to be examined and tested, Theosophy nothing save gigantic and baseless assertions. Its astral shells and elementals are like its Mahatmas, flimsy phantasies, less tangible than the ghost seen and described by Dr. Jessop, or visions of the shade of shades, seen by psychometers. For these latter we have at least a basis in psychic phenomena.
Re-incarnation is the back bone of Theosophy, and Karma its necessary adjunct. The Kismet of Mahomet and the doctrines of election of Calvinism are not more inexorable than the Karma of Theosophy. Karma is a combination of earthly experiences and expiations of the soul of man in time, during its everlasting process of incarnating and re-incarnating in search of Wisdom, the Eternal Reality, and the final extinction of all individuality in the Nirvana. Devachan is the intermediate state of oblivion, in which personality is blotted out, and into which the spiritual soul, etc., enters between the periods of incarnation.
Theosophy—the Wisdom of God religion—attempts to explain all the inequalities of life, the intellectual and moral differences in men, of sin and suffering, by its working theory, Re-incarnation, which doubtless has many attractive features.
The phenomena Theosophists place so much reliance upon are the property of mankind—somnambulism, psychic consciousness, clairvoyance, psychometry, thought-transference, etc. The “Theosophic miracles of communication with persons in other parts of the world” are explicable by thought-transference, and in time may be no more inherently impossible than telegraphy without wires and poles. The physical wonders of Theosophy, akin to those of Spiritualism, are attributed to shells, the astral carcases of once embodied but now rapidly dissolving personality of man, and elementals, fragmentary spirit imps or sprites, who up to the present have not been as yet incorporated in some incarnated human soul.
As to the ethics of Theosophy, brotherly kindness, charity, and self-sacrifice—most desirable virtues and divine attainments—are neither new nor the special property of Theosophy. Such divine qualities and virtues are common to all religions and religious teaching, and if they ever reached their climax in human form, they did in the person of Jesus, the Lord’s Christ. He was the embodiment of these, and a living example for all time, long, long before unthinkable and “ungetatable” Mahatmas were announced by Madame Blavatsky, or believed in by Mrs. Besant.
Theosophists recognise seven distinct parts in man, i.e., four transitory and three eternal. The transitory elements are—the physical body, the vital principle, the astral body, and the animal soul. These four comprise man’s personality, and being transitory are perishable. Hence the personality of man is annihilated at death. The three eternal elements are—the spirit, the spiritual soul, and the mind. These being imperishable form man’s individuality, and constitute the immortal part of man. This immortal part incarnates and re-incarnates throughout innumerable personalities on this globe, and the rest of the planets, beside having alternate periods of “rosy slumber” and of activity. Our individuality has no sex, consequently we may be a little negro wench in one incarnation, an Egyptian monarch in another, a Nero in another, a John Knox in another, and so on. Others may not progress, but sink from incarnation to incarnation, from a mother in Israel, to a Deeming in Australia, and, finally, to utter annihilation. Those good souls who live the life, and perfect their souls through much suffering, will become as one with “the Eternal Reality, the Rootless Root of all that was, or is, or ever shall be.” The higher and ever advancing Theosophist may, however, stop short before he reaches the Nirvana, and elect to become a Mahatma, or great soul, and reside on this or some other planet to exercise power and precipitate wisdom, by letters and otherwise, to the world, through chosen adepts. The good Theosophist in this world and the next is surrounded by “thought-forms,” which influence him in his upward career. The Spiritualist has his departed friends for guides, and the Christian (Spiritualist) is comforted by “messengers sent forth to minister to them that are heirs of salvation.” I don’t know that “thought-forms” administering counsel to a spirit having no personality is an improvement on the old ideas.
It is impossible to do justice to this Wisdom-Religion with its orders, grades, and bewildering phraseology. It is a fancy religion for the intellectual, without a personal God or a personal soul. Its circles are masonic lodges for the rich. In no sense is it a religion to meet the wants of man as man, like that founded on the life and death of Jesus Christ. I do not pretend to explain Theosophy, for the task is beyond me. It is a religion intended for those who realise they are divine sparks of the Rootless Root, and not for the common people, who are incapable of understanding a system of morals thus veiled in allegory, and illustrated by signs and symbols. Amid the perplexities of many words, we learn that Theosophy teaches what St. Paul indicates as the divine order of morals by the words: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” To work out one’s own salvation is as old as the race. We may all be Theosophists without knowing it, as we don’t know who we are, what we were, or who we are going to be, such is Karma. Spiritualism and Theosophy are only referred to here seeing how largely the phenomena on which they are based, is explained by “How to Thought-Read.”