As Max Mueller, one of the greatest living Oriental scholars, has repeatedly stated, any attempt to read into Oriental thought our Western science and philosophy or to reconcile them, is futile to a degree; the two schools are as opposite to each other, as the negative and positive poles of a magnet, Orientalism representing the former, Occidentalism, the latter. Oriental philosophy with its Indeterminate Being (or pure nothing as the Absolute) ends in the utter negation of everything and affords no clue to the secret of the Universe. If to believe that all is maya, (illusion), and that to be one with Brahma (absorbed like the rain drop in the ocean) constitutes the summum bonum of thinking, then there is no explanation of, or use for, evolution or progress of any kind. The effect of Hindoo philosophy has been stagnation, indifferentism, and, as a result, the Hindoo has no recorded history, no science, no art worthy the name. Compared to it see what Greek philosophy has done: it has transformed the Western world: Starting with Self-Determined Being, reason, self-activity, at the heart of the Universe, and the creation of individual souls by a process of evolution in time and space, and the unfolding of a splendid civilization are logical consequences. In the East, it is the destruction of self-hood; in the West the destruction of selfishness, and the preservation of self-hood.
Many noted Theosophists claim that modern Theosophy is not a religious cult, but simply an exposition of the esoteric, or inner spiritual meaning of the great religious teachers of the world. Let me quote what Solovyoff says on this point:
“The Theosophical Society shockingly deceived those who joined it as members, in reliance on the regulations. It gradually grew evident that it was no universal scientific brotherhood, to which the followers of all religions might with a clear conscience belong, but a group of persons who had begun to preach in their organ, The Theosophist, and in their other publications, a mixed religious doctrine. Finally, in the last years of Madame Blavatsky’s life, even this doctrine gave place to a direct and open propaganda of the most orthodox exoteric Buddhism, under the motto of ‘Our Lord Buddha,’ combined with incessant attacks on Christianity. * * * Now, in 1893, as the direct effect of this cause, we see an entire religious movement, we see a prosperous and growing plantation of Buddhism in Western Europe.”
As a last word let me add that if, in my opinion, modern Theosophy has no right to the high place it claims in the world of thought, it has performed its share in the noble fight against the crass materialism of our day, and, freed from the frauds that have too long darkened its poetical aspects, it may yet help to diffuse through the world the pure light of brotherly love and spiritual development.
List of Works Consulted in the Preparation of this Volume
AKSAKOFF, ALEXANDER N. Animism and Spiritism: an attempt at a critical investigation of mediumistic phenomena, with special reference to the hypotheses of hallucination and of the unconscious; an answer to Dr. E. von Hartmann’s work, “Der Spiritismus.” 2 vols. Leipsic, 1890. 8vo. (A profoundly interesting work by an impartial Russian savant. Judicial, critical and scientific.)
AZAM, DR. Hypnotisme et Altérations de la Personnalité. Paris, 1887. 8vo.
BERNHEIM, HIPPOLYTE. Suggestive Therapeutics: A study of the nature and use of hypnotism. Translated from the French. New York, 1889. 4to.