It is startling to realize that in many a commonplace flat ... occult rites are being celebrated as shocking as the ancient worship of Moloch and Baal. A long series of recent occurrences has proved that Oriental occultism in various forms has many followers in the United States.... Hindu occultism is leprous.
This kind certainly is; but should it not be the ambition of Hindûs to clear their name from such an aspersion? The article then recounts several cases of the breaking up of homes, suicides, and other calamities, of a kind with which we are daily becoming more familiar through the columns of the newspapers; and it traces all these to the subtle influence of the said poison. It goes on to speak of "Tantrikism," a cult which is said to have 100,000 followers in the United States and to have been introduced by the "Swamis," many of whom came over ostensibly to attend the Congress of Religions in 1893. We know of a certain class of Swâmis, sanctimonious and plausible individuals, who reap a harvest from a credulous and admiring public.
According to my interpretation of the following quotations, the basis of this cult is a deification of passion and sensuality. Indeed that seems to be the whole tenor of it. It exalts weakness and vice into an appearance of virtue and makes a religion of depravity. The fundamental principle is thus expressed:
Our emotional longings are not to be crushed, but we must lend brain, heart and muscle to secure their eternal gratification.
To quote again:
Some of the American Tantriks would persuade American parents that it is an honor to have their daughters chosen as nautch-girls, and it is sad to say that they sometimes succeed.
Oh, parents! Fond and foolish, but how ignorant!
All this fully justifies Theosophists in asserting that there is a cancer lurking at the roots of our racial vitality. How futile and frivolous, in face of this terrible fact, seem our puny efforts at reform by legislation and philanthropy, a mere tinkering at the symptoms. The sexual passion has obtained a fearful hold on us, as is manifested in numerous ways, in secret and open depravity, in the form of new religions and philosophies. Here we have a cult which exalts it into a worship and which is well calculated to ensnare the morbidly excited imaginations, debilitated nervous systems, and untrained minds of our ill-guided youth of either sex.
No doubt the above account will come as a revelation to many, and it may serve to enlighten them on some matters which before were dark, particularly as to the underground connexions between certain things which on the surface seem unconnected. One of these is the connexion between psychism and crank religions on the one hand and sexual depravity on the other. From the beginning Theosophists have insisted on this fact and issued warnings against the danger. It is a commonplace of the history of religions and cults that, when the devotees fail in following the path of light and duty, they lapse into sensual perversions. As far as we can trace back, we find instances of pure worship and sacred symbolism being perverted into gross license and corrupt teachings. In our times we have witnessed many eruptions of vice associated with crank religions. The connexion is not accidental; it simply means that when anyone dares to try and make the higher nature serve the lower he ends in a complete breakdown.
How well is illustrated the truth that psychic practices merely stimulate the animal centers, send up a foul current to the brain, and produce an emotional and erotic intoxication, which is often mistaken by the ignorant dabbler for divine inspiration!