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FIG. 36. OATH OF SECRECY TAKEN BY CHARTER MEMBERS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
[Kindness of the New York Herald.]

The séances at the Eddy house must have been character studies indeed. The place where the ghosts were materialized was a large apartment over the dining room of the ancient homestead. A dark closet, at one end of the room, with a rough blanket stretched across it, served as a cabinet. Red Indians and pirates were the favorite materializations, but when Madame Blavatsky appeared on the scene, ghosts of Turks, Kurdish cavaliers, and Kalmucks visited this earthly scene, much to the surprise of every one. Olcott cites this fact as evidence of the genuineness of the materializations, remarking, “how could the ignorant Eddy boys, rough, rude, uncultured farmers, get the costumes and accessories for characters of this kind in a remote Vermont village.”

2. What is Theosophy.

Let us turn aside at this juncture to ask, “What is Theosophy.” The word Theosophy (Theosophia—divine knowledge) appears to have been used about the Third century, A. D., by the Neo-Platonists, or Gnostics of Alexandria, but the great principles of the doctrine, however, were taught hundreds of years prior to the mystical school established at Alexandria. “It is not,” says an interesting writer on the subject, “an outgrowth of Buddhism although many Buddhists see in its doctrines the reflection of Buddha. It proposes to give its followers the esoteric, or inner-spiritual meaning of the great religious teachers of the world. It asserts repeated re-incarnations, or rebirths of the soul on earth, until it is fully purged of evil, and becomes fit to be absorbed into the Deity whence it came, gaining thereby Nirvana, or unconsciousness.” Some Theosophists claim that Nirvana is not a state of unconsciousness, but just the converse, a state of the most intensified consciousness, during which the soul remembers all of its previous incarnations.

Madame Blavatsky claimed that “there exists in Thibet a brotherhood whose members have acquired a power over Nature which enables them to perform wonders beyond the reach of ordinary men. She declared herself to be a chela, or disciple of these brothers (spoken of also as ‘Adepts’ and as ‘Mahatmas’), and asserted that they took a special interest in the Theosophical Society and all initiates in occult lore, being able to cause apparitions of themselves in places where their bodies were not; and that they not only appeared but communicated intelligently with those whom they thus visited and themselves perceived what was going on where their phantoms appeared.” This phantasmal appearance she called the projection of the astral form. Many of the phenomena witnessed in the presence of the Sibyl were supposed to be the work of the mystic brotherhood who took so peculiar an interest in the Theosophical Society and its members. The Madame did not claim to be the founder of a new religious faith, but simply the reviver of a creed that has slumbered in the Orient for centuries, and declared herself to be the Messenger of these Mahatmas to the scoffing Western world.

Speaking of the Mahatmas, she says in “Isis Unveiled”: * * * “Travelers have met these adepts on the shores of the sacred Ganges, brushed against them on the silent ruins of Thebes, and in the mysterious deserted chambers of Luxor. Within the halls upon whose blue and golden vaults the weird signs attract attention, but whose secret meaning is never penetrated by the idle gazers, they have been seen, but seldom recognized. Historical memoirs have recorded their presence in the brilliantly illuminated salons of European aristocracy. They have been encountered again on the arid and desolate plains of the Great Sahara, or in the caves of Elephanta. They may be found everywhere, but make themselves known only to those who have devoted their lives to unselfish study, and are not likely to turn back.”

The Theosophical Society was organized in New York, Nov. 17, 1875.