The method by which she was elected, however, is suggestive of the future course of the movement in India.
When nearing death, Colonel Olcott was induced by Mrs. Besant to invoke and to consult the "Masters"—the convenient ghosts of the dead—with a view to a choice of his successor in office. There was no doubt about his preference for the Englishwoman. The Mahatmas wisely agreed with the Colonel and Mrs. Besant, and a powerful fulcrum was secured for lifting her into the presidency. And Mrs. Besant to-day claims that it is better for her to have been chosen by the dead than to have been elected by the living. Upon her inauguration, she insisted upon it that all Theosophists must cling to the "Masters" and adhere to their decisions.
If we mistake not, this marks the beginning of a new era in Theosophy,—at least in India,—an era during which the movement will be entirely directed and worked by those who are the authorized mouthpieces of the glorified dead! Thus the movement is fairly launched upon a course which will inevitably lead it to something very much akin to a religion, with its accumulated mysteries and with a host of propelling superstitions of its own. More than any other land, India will lend itself admirably to the development and the propagation of such a cult.
Theosophy is not represented by a very large number of organizations and members. But the movement has the sympathy of many who have not taken upon them its name; and the society, at the present time, is certainly in favour with a large number of the educated classes.
Orthodox pandits, however, are thoroughly suspicious of the movement; and Mrs. Besant's recent attempts to thrust upon them her own interpretations of certain Hindu doctrines—interpretations, too, which are foreign to their own—has led to a spirit of opposition, where but recently appreciation and favour existed.
Theosophy, as a harmonizer of faiths, is not likely to accomplish much that will be permanently good. Religions to-day have lost much of their asperity one toward the other. The study of Comparative Religion has led men everywhere to magnify the assonances, rather than the dissonances, of the Great World Faiths. Theosophy magnifies into a cult this function of bringing religions together. It ignores, however, the fundamental differences which exist, brings all faiths into the same equational value, and assumes that they are equally effective as ways of salvation.
With such profound ignorance of the essential qualities of the faiths which are to be harmonized, and with a placid assumption that these religions are of the same efficacy, only to different peoples, it is impossible to see how Theosophy can ever render a service to any of the faiths or to the people who are their adherents which will not ultimately prove a disservice to all. Peace without truth, like peace without honour, will not ultimately redound to the promotion of religion or to the salvation of men.
Whatever Theosophy may render toward the development of an Oriental literature will depend largely upon its attitude toward truth and religion in general, and toward Hinduism and Christianity in particular. Its bitter attitude toward Christianity in the past does not encourage one to believe that hereafter the literature fostered by it will be either very impartial or very sane. And yet we shall be thankful for anything it may accomplish in the preservation of Sanskrit manuscripts and in the development of a wholesome literature of any kind on lines purely Oriental.