The pupils of the powers of evil work ... untiringly to thwart every real advance of the human race, to pull down whatever civilization painfully builds, that makes for light and true development and spiritual growth.... It would not be difficult to suggest reasons why these pupils and co-workers of the powers of darkness choose the chief clauses of their creed: Internationalism, Communism, the destruction of the higher class through the despotic rule of the lowest class, the corruption of family life. The attack on religion hardly needs comment.
It will be seen, then, that Socialism and Internationalism are not an essential part of Theosophical teaching, and that the more enlightened Theosophists recognize the danger of these destructive doctrines. At a Special Convention in England on April 6 of this year, seven Lodges entered a protest against recent departures from the original policy of the Society. Amongst the resolutions put forward was one urging the President (Mrs. Besant) to establish a tribunal "to investigate matters affecting the good name of the Society, and the conduct of certain members"; this was lost by "an overwhelming majority." Another resolution regretted that "the Administration, the Magazine, and the influence of the Society have been used for controversial political ends and sectarian religious propaganda." Unhappily these resolutions were not met in the fraternal spirit that might be expected from a Society setting out to establish Universal Brotherhood and were stigmatized in a proposed amendment as "destructive motions ... at variance with the objects for which the Society stands." This clause in the amendment was lost by a small majority, but a very large majority supported the further clauses in which the Special Convention affirmed "its complete confidence in the administration of the Society and its beloved and revered President Dr. Annie Besant, the chosen leader of whom it is justly proud," and sent "its cordial greetings to Bishop Leadbeater, F.T.S.," thanking him "for his invaluable work and his unswerving devotion to the cause of Theosophy and the service of the Theosophical Society."
There are, then, a certain number of Theosophists in this country who have the courage and public spirit to protest against the use of the Society for political ends and against infractions of the moral code which they believe certain members to have committed. But this party unfortunately constitutes only a small minority; the rest are prepared to render blind and unquestioning obedience to the dictates of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater. In this respect the Theosophical Society follows the usual plan of secret societies. For although not nominally a secret society it is one in effect, being composed of outer and inner circles and absolutely controlled by supreme directors. The inner circle, known as the Esoteric Section, or rather the Eastern School of Theosophy--usually referred to as the E.S.--is in reality a secret society, consisting in its turn of three further circles, the innermost composed of the Mahatmas or Masters of the White Lodge, the second of the Accepted Pupils or Initiates, and the third of the Learners or ordinary members. The E.S. and Co-Masonry thus compose two secret societies within the open order controlled by people who are frequently members of both. Whether even these higher initiates are really in the secret is another question. Dr. Weller van Hook who is said to have been also a Rosicrucian and an important member of the Grand Orient once cryptically observed that "Theosophy is not the hierarchy," implying that it was only part of a world-organization, and darkly hinting that if it did not carry out the work allotted to it, the Rosicrucians would take control. That this is more than probable we shall see later.
The outer ranks of the Theosophical Society seem to be largely composed of harmless enthusiasts who imagine that they are receiving genuine instruction in the religions and occult doctrines of the East. That the teaching of the E.S. would not be taken seriously by any real Orientalist and that they could learn far more by studying the works of recognized authorities on these subjects at a University or at the British Museum does not occur to them for a moment. Nor would this fulfil the purpose of the leaders. For the Theosophical Society is not a study group, but essentially a propagandist society which aims at substituting for the pure and simple teaching of Christianity the amazing compound of Eastern superstition, Cabalism, and eighteenth-century charlatanism which Mrs. Besant and her coadjutors have devised. Yet even were the doctrines of Mrs. Besant those of true Buddhism or of Brahmanism, to what extent are they likely to benefit Western civilization? Setting the question of Christianity aside, experience shows that the attempt to orientalize Occidentals may prove no less disastrous than the attempt to occidentalize Orientals, and that to transport Eastern mysticism to the West is to vulgarize it and to produce a debased form of occultism that frequently ends in moral deterioration or mental derangement.[721] I attribute the scandals that have taken place amongst Theosophists directly to this cause.
But it is time to turn to another society in which this debased occultism plays a still more important part.
Rosicrucianism
At the present time, as in the eighteenth century, the term "Rosicrucianism" is used to cover a number of associations differing in their aims and doctrines.
The first of these societies to be founded in England was the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, founded in 1867 by Robert Wentworth Little on instructions received from abroad. Only Master Masons are admitted--a procedure not condemned by Grand Lodge of England, which regards the S.R.I.A. as a perfectly innocuous body. Although neither polical nor anti-Christian, but, on the contrary, containing distinctly Christian elements and claiming to descend from Christian Rosenkreutz--a claim which must be dismissed as an absurdity--the S.R.I.A. is nevertheless largely Cabalistic,[722] dealing with the forces of Nature, alchemy, etc. If its progenitors are really to be traced further back than the Rosicrucians of the nineteenth century--Ragon, Eliphas Lévi, and Kenneth Mackenzie--they must be sought amongst certain esoteric Masons in Hungary and also amongst the French Martinistes, whose rituals doubtless derived from a kindred source. It will be remembered that Marlines Pasqually bequeathed to his disciples a large number of Jewish manuscripts which were presumably preserved in the archives of the Martiniste Lodge at Lyons. The Order of Martinistes has never ceased to exist, and the President of the Suprême Conseil, Dr. Gérard Encausse, well known as "Papus," an avowed Cabalist, only died in 1916. To these archives another famous Cabalist, the renegade Abbé, Alphonse Louis Constant, who assumed the name of Eliphas Lévi, may well have had access. It is said that one of Eliphas Lévi's most distinguished disciples, the occultist Baron Spedalieri of Marseilles, was a member of the "Grand Lodge of Solitary Brethren of the Mountain," an "Illumined Brother of the Ancient Restored Order of Manicheans," a high member of the Grand Orient, and also a "High Illuminate of the Martinistes." Before his death in 1875 Eliphas Lévi announced that in 1879 a new political and religious "universal Kingdom" would be established, and that it would be possessed by "him who would have the keys of the East." The manuscript containing this prophecy was passed on by Baron Spedalieri to Edward Maitland, who in his turn gave it to a leading member of S.R.I.A., by whom it was published in English.[723]
But, as we have already seen, the principal centre of Cabalism was in Eastern Europe, whilst Germany was the principal home of Rosicrucianism, and it was from these directions that, a few years later, a new Rosicrucian Order in England derived its inspiration. It is curious to notice that the eighties of the last century were marked by a simultaneous recrudescence of secret societies and of Socialist organizations. In 1880 Leopold Engel reorganized Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati, which, according to M. Guénon, played thenceforth "an extremely suspect political rôle," and soon after this in 1884 it is said that a strange incident took place in London. The Rev. A.F.A. Woodford, a F∴ M∴, happened to be turning over the contents of a second-hand bookstall in Farringdon Street when he came upon some cypher MSS., attached to which was a letter in German saying that if the finder were to communicate with Sapiens Dominabatur Astris, c/o Fraulein Anna Sprengel, in Germany, he would receive further interesting information.
This, at any rate, is the story told to initiates of the Order which came to be founded according to the instructions given in the cypher. But when we remember that precisely the same story was told by Cagliostro concerning his discovery of a MS. in London by the mysterious George Cofton on which he had founded his Egyptian rite, we begin to wonder whether the placing of a MS. in a spot where it is certain to be discovered by precisely the people qualified to decipher it forms one of the traditional methods of secret-society adepts for extending their sphere of influence without betraying their identity or revealing the centre of direction.