Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft / Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy

by Henry Ridgely Evans

“The probation will be sufficiently severe to deter persons seeking to gratify curiosity from trying to enter. No trifler could stand the test. There will be a number of degrees. Extremely few will be able to enter the highest, as eligibility to it requires eradication of every human fault and weakness. Those strong enough to pass through this become adepts.”

The Masonic Fraternity, with its 33d degree and its elaborate initiations, will have to look to its laurels, as soon as the Theosophical College of Mystery is in good running order. Everyone loves mysteries, especially when they are of the Egyptian kind. Cagliostro, the High Priest of Humbug, knew this when he evolved the Egyptian Rite of Masonry, in the eighteenth century. Speaking of Freemasonry, it is interesting to note the fact, as stated by Colonel Olcott in “Old Diary Leaves,” that Madame Blavatsky and her coadjutors once seriously debated the question as to the advisability of engrafting the Theosophical Society on the Masonic fraternity, as a sort of higher degree,—Masonry representing the lesser mysteries, modern Theosophy the greater mysteries. But little encouragement was given to the Priestess of Isis by eminent Freemasons, for Masonry has always been the advocate of theistic doctrines, and opposed to the pantheistic cult. At another time, the leaders of Theosophy talked of imitating Masonry by having degrees, an elaborate ritual, etc.; also pass words, signs and grips, in order that “one occult brother might know another in the darkness as well as in the astral light.” This, however, was abandoned. The founding of the Temple of Magic and Mystery in this country, with ceremonies of initiation, etc., seems to me to be a palingenesis of Mme. Blavatsky’s ideas on the subject of occult Masonry.

8. Conclusions.

The temple of modern Theosophy, the foundation of which was laid by Madame Blavatsky, rests upon the truth of the Mahatma stories. Disbelieve these, and the entire structure falls to the ground like a house of cards. After the numerous exposures, recorded in the preceding chapters, it is difficult to place any reliance in the accounts of Mahatmic miracles. There may, or may not, be sages in the East, acquainted with spiritual laws of being, but that these masters, or adepts, used Madame Blavatsky as a medium to announce certain esoteric doctrines to the Western world, is exceedingly dubious.

The first work of any literary pretensions to call attention to Theosophy was Sinnett’s “Esoteric Buddhism.” Of that production, William Emmette Coleman says:

“‘Esoteric Buddhism,’ by A. P. Sinnett, was based upon statements contained in letters received by Mr. Sinnett and Mr. A. O. Hume, through Madame Blavatsky, purporting to be written by the Mahatmas Koot Hoomi and Morya—principally the former. Mr. Richard Hodgson has kindly lent me a considerable number of the original letters of the Mahatmas that leading to the production of ‘Esoteric Buddhism.’ I find in them overwhelming evidence that all of them were written by Madame Blavatsky. In these letters are a number of extracts from Buddhist Books, alleged to be translations from the originals by the Mahatmic writers themselves. These letters claim for the adepts a knowledge of Sanskrit, Thibetan, Pali and Chinese. I have traced to its source each quotation from the Buddhist Scriptures in the letters, and they were all copied from current English translations, including even the notes and explanations of the English translators. They were principally copied from Beal’s ‘Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese.’ In other places where the ‘adept’ is using his own language in explanation of Buddhistic terms and ideas, I find that his presumed original language was copied nearly word for word from Rhys Davids’ ‘Buddhism,’ and other books. I have traced every Buddhistic idea in these letters and in ‘Esoteric Buddhism,’ and every Buddhistic term, such as Devachan, Avitchi, etc., to the books whence Helena Petrovna Blavatsky derived them. Although said to be proficient in the knowledge of Thibetan and Sanskrit the words and terms in these languages in the letters of the adepts were nearly all used in a ludicrously erroneous and absurd manner. The writer of those letters was an ignoramus in Sanskrit and Thibetan; and the mistakes and blunders in them, in these languages, are in exact accordance with the known ignorance of Madame Blavatsky concerning these languages. ‘Esoteric Buddhism,’ like all of Madame Blavatsky’s works, was based upon wholesale plagiarism and ignorance.”

FIG. 40. MADAME BLAVATSKY’S AUTOGRAPH.

Madame Blavatsky never succeeded in penetrating into Thibet, in whose sacred “lamaseries” and temples dwell the wonderful Mahatmas of modern Theosophy, but William Woodville Rockhill, the American traveller and Oriental scholar, did, and we have a record of his adventures in “The Land of the Laas,” published in 1891. While at Serkok, he visited a famous monastery inhabited by 700 lamas. He says (page 102): “They asked endless questions concerning the state of Buddhism in foreign lands. They were astonished that it no longer existed in India, and that the church of Ceylon was so like the ancient Buddhist one. When told of our esoteric Buddhists, the Mahatmas, and of the wonderful doctrines they claimed to have obtained from Thibet, they were immensely amused. They declared that though in ancient times there were, doubtless, saints and sages who could perform some of the miracles now claimed by the Esoterists, none were living at the present day; and they looked upon this new school as rankly heretical, and as something approaching an imposition on our credulity.”

“Isis Unveiled,” and the “Secret Doctrine,” by Madame Blavatsky, are supposed to contain the completest exposition of Theosophy, or the inner spiritual meaning of the great religious cults of the world, but, as we have seen, they are full of plagiarisms and garbled statements, to say nothing of “spurious quotations from Buddhist sacred books, manufactured by the writer to embody her own peculiar views, under the fictitious guise of genuine Buddhism.” This last quotation from Coleman strikes the keynote of the whole subject. Esoteric Buddhism is a product of Occidental manufacture, a figment of Madame Blavatsky’s romantic imagination, and by no means represents the truth of Oriental philosophy.