Theosophy - Theosophy and Its Evidences - by Annie Besant - Adyar Pamphlets No. 32
Adyar
Pamphlets No.32
Theosophy and Its Evidences by Annie Besant
Theosophical
Publishing House, Adyar, Chennai [Madras], India
First
Edition, October 1913 - Second
Edition, May 1930
[Page
1] No more difficult work could
be proposed, perhaps, to any body of people, than the understanding of
Theosophy and the effectual carrying on of its propaganda. Its philosophy
is more abstruse than that of Hegel, while it is also far more subtle,
and many of its evidences require so much study and self-denial ere they
can be estimated, that they will certainly remain hidden from the majority,
not because they are themselves incomprehensible, but because average,
easy-going people have not the capacity of working them out. Yet the ethical
teachings rest finally on the philosophy, and those who cannot, or will
not, study the philosophy are reduced to accepting the ethics by themselves;
they can, indeed, be shown to be useful, by that most potent of all arguments,
the argument from experience; for they are most effective in promoting
morality, i.e., in
inducing social happiness. On this utilitarian ground they can be taught,
and can there hold their ground against any rivals in the same field. There
they can use the conditional, but not[Page
2] the categorical, Imperative;
the categorical remains veiled, the ultimate authority can be found only on
the metaphysical heights, and those heights can be scaled but by the strenuous
efforts of the patient and undaunted student. Each such student can, indeed,
bear his testimony to what he has seen and known, but to all, save himself,
his evidence remains secondhand. Personally won, it remains a personal possession,
priceless indeed to him, but of varying value to those who hear it from him.
Not on such evidence can Theosophy base itself in an appeal to the cultivated
intelligence of the West, intelligence trained in the skeptical habit, and
cautiously guarding itself against unproven assumptions. Nor let it be forgotten
that the West has, in its own eyes, this justification: that it has freed
itself from the bondage of superstition, and has won its intellectual victories,
by the wise use of scepticism and the prudent suspension of judgment until
assertion has been demonstrated by fact.
It is then necessary, if Theosophy is to make its way in the West, and to
give to it the much-needed basis of the scientifically spiritual, that
Theosophists should present to the indifferent, as to the enquirer, sufficient
primafacie evidence that it has something valuable to impart, evidence
which shall arouse the attention of the one class, and attract the other into
the investigation of its claims. The evidence must be such as can be
examined at first-hand by any person of ordinary[Page 3] intelligence, and it
need not seek to establish anything more than that Theosophy is worth
studying. Let the study be fairly begun, and the student be capable of
mastering its initial difficulties, and its acceptance is certain, though the
period of that full acceptance will depend on the student's mental
characteristics and the type of his intelligence. As Madame Blavatsky says:
Once
that the reader has gained a clear comprehension of them [the basic conceptions
on which the Secret Doctrine rests] and realized the light which they throw
on every problem of life, they will need no further justification in his
eyes, because their truth will be to him as evident as the sun in heaven. [The Secret Doctrine,Volume 1, Page 20]
In order, however, that the study may be begun, this prima facie evidence
must be given, and these basic conceptions of Theosophy must be roughly
outlined. Only when this is done, can anyone decide whether or not it is
worth while to enter on the study and the deeper evidences of Theosophy.
"The
value of this evidence is a point to be decided ere serious study is commenced". Often,
in our Lodges, when the members are engaged in a consecutive course of
study, a casual visitor, admitted by courtesy, will get up and suddenly
ask: '' What is the evidence on which Theosophy is based, and of what use
is it ?” as though a passer-by, dropping in and
listening to a teacher instructing a mathematical class on the theory of
equations, should suddenly challenge him to prove the use of numbers and
the[Page
4] rationale of the algebraical
signs. In any science, save that of Theosophy, a person who expected a class
of students to stop, while the reasons for their study were explained to a
stranger who knew nothing of their subject, would be recognized as taking up
a foolish and irrational position; but in Theosophy we are always expected
to break off our work in order to prove that we are not fools for doing it.
And if we show any unwillingness to do this, it is at once taken for granted
that our position is unsound, and that we are afraid of investigation. As a
matter of fact, we have not time to justify ourselves to each successive visitor
who may be led by curiosity to obtain from a member an introduction to our
Lodge meetings; and it is the purpose of this paper to present, once for all,
some of the evidences which have determined us to seek in Theosophy the light
which, elsewhere, we have failed to find.
The name Theosophy is
not ancient, dating only from the third century, being used first by Ammonius
Saccas and his school. But the teaching itself dates back many a thousand
years, unchanged in its main features, taught today in England to truth-seeking
students as it was taught when Buddha wandered over Indian plains, or earlier
still, when ancient Rishis guided their Chelas along the path which leads
to Wisdom.
What this teaching is may be briefly outlined.
Theosophy regards the
Universe as a transitory manifestation of Eternal Existence, the summer-day[Page
5] flower of an Eternal Root.
That Root is the One Reality, the only Permanent among the myriad and fleeting
phenomena which surround us on every hand, and among which we
ourselves are numbered. From that Unity proceeds all diversity; into that
Unity all diversity again returns. It is manifested in the atom as in the
man, in what is spoken of as the non-living as well as in the living.
The
infinite and eternal Cause — dimly formulated in the Unconscious and Unknowable of
current European philosophy — is the rootless root of “all
that was, is, or ever shall be” [The Secret Doctrine -
Volume 1, page 14]
Periodically
the aspect of the Eternal Existence that we call Life radiates as source
of the manifested Universe, the Universe being but “the variously
differentiated aspects” of the One Life. Thus, to the Theosophists, the
most differentiated forms are essentially one; matter and spirit are
but the two poles of the one magnet, inseparable, not thinkable as existing
apart from each other. To use clumsy phraseology, spirit is the One Life in
its early manifestations, matter is the One Life solidified: the objective
Universe “is, so to say, held in solution in space, to differentiate again
and crystallize out anew” , during a period of manifestation.
The spirit, the divine soul in man is a spark of the One Life undifferentiated
from its parent Fire, and therefore alike for every human being; it is the fate
of this spark to win self-consciousness by passing round the cycle of
forms, and in man[Page 6] reaching
and finally perfecting self-consciousness; the fully human stage once reached,
all further progress is a matter of personal endeavour, of conscious co-operation
with the spiritual forces in nature.
The pivotal doctrine
of the Esoteric Philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man,
save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit throughout
a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations. [The Secret
Doctrine, Volume 1, page 14]
This 'pilgrimage
of the Ego' is the central idea, so to speak, of Theosophy: this gaining
of self-consciousness is the very object and outcome of the Universe:
for this it was manifested, for this it exists, groaning and travailing
in pain to perfect and bring forth the self-conscious spirit.
This bald statement must suffice as to the teachings of Theosophy, for it is
not the purpose of this paper to expound Theosophical ideas, but to set
forth some prima facie evidence that Theosophy is worthy of attention. Let
us then turn to the evidence, and ere dealing with it in detail, let us consider
the general nature of the proof that may be fairly demanded by anyone who
is willing to study Theosophy, if it can be shown to him that the study is
likely to be fruitful.
Evidence must,
speaking generally, be congruous with the position which it is sought
to demonstrate. The aspect of the subject under consideration must
govern the nature of the evidence to be submitted. Problems of physical
life must be demonstrated by[Page
7] physical evidence:
problems of intellectual life must be demonstrated by intellectual
evidence: and if there be the spiritual life which Theosophy posits it
must be demonstrated by spiritual evidence. That the proof must be suited
to the subject is taken for granted, save where the spiritual is concerned:
to seek to prove to a blind man the existence of colour by holding up coloured
objects before his unseeing eyes would be considered absurd; but any suggestion
that there may be spiritual eyes which are blinded in some, and that the
use of those spiritual eyes may be needed for the discernment of certain
classes of verities, is scouted as superstitious or fraudulent. Every psychologist
recognizes the difference between the Object and the Subject World, and in
studying the subjective he knows that it is idle to demand objective proof.
The methods suited to the extended world are not suitable to the unextended:
and a proof addressed wholly to the reason is none the less cogent because
it has neither form nor colour. And, in verity, to the trained intellect
the purely intellectual proof has a certainty higher than that of any which
appeals to the senses, because the senses are more easily to be deluded than
the intellect, where the latter has been strictly trained and disciplined:
so where the spiritual intelligence has been duly evolved and trained, it
speaks with a certainty as much above that of the intellect, as the intellect
speaks with a certainty above that of the senses: it judges the conclusions
of[Page
8] the intellect as
the intellect judges those of the senses, and utters the final word on
every question presented for adjudication.
The average man is
apt to regard a physical demonstration as the most convincing that can
be given: it appeals to the senses, and “I must believe
the evidence of my senses” is a phrase that often drops from the lips of
the slightly instructed person. One of the early lessons learned by the
student of physiology is that the senses are very easily deceived, and are
subject to various illusions and hallucinations. Still, for demonstrating
physical facts, physical experiments are the most satisfactory, and, with
certain precautions, may be taken as trustworthy proof.
But physical
phenomena are not relevant as proofs of intellectual and spiritual
truths. No physical miracle can
demonstrate a moral maxim. The doctrine, “Love your enemies, do good to them
that hate you” , is neither
more nor less true because Buddha and Jesus could, or could not, cure
certain diseases by means not understood by their followers. The
demonstration of a problem in Euclid is in no way assisted by the teacher
being able to levitate himself, or to draw across the table to his hand
without contact a box of mathematical instruments. He might be able to
perform these feats, and yet make a blunder in the working out of his
demonstration: and he might be totally incapable of such performances,
and yet be a competent mathematical teacher.[Page
9] Mathematical and
logical proofs need no physical phenomena to accredit them: they stand on
their own ground, are tried by their appropriate tests. Many people cannot
follow a mathematical proof; it is impertinent to dazzle them into
acquiescence by the display of some irrelevant physical ability; if they
cannot appreciate the force of the demonstration, they must either suspend
their judgment on the conclusion, or accept it at second-hand, i.e.,
on authority. They will be very foolish if they deny the conclusion,
because the evidence for it is beyond their grasp; but they are perfectly
justified in withholding their belief where they cannot understand. If some
important line of action depends on their acceptance or rejection of the
conclusion, then they must make their own choice between acting on authority
or suspending action until able to understand: the responsibility is theirs,
and the loss of non-action, if loss follow, is theirs also. The propounder
of the proposition may fairly say: “This is true: I cannot make the proof
any easier for you than I have done. If you cannot see it, you only can decide
whether or not you will act on my assurance of its truth. Such and such
consequences will follow your rejection of the conclusion, but I have neither
the right nor the power to enforce on you action founded on that which I
personally know to be true, but which you do not understand” . In
Theosophy, the student will often find himselfin
such a dilemma: he will be left free either to [Page
10] proceed, accepting the authoritative
conclusion provisionally or fully as a guide to action, or to decline to
proceed, until the steps as well as the conclusion lie plainly before him.
He will never find himself driven, but if he always stops until he has personally
demonstrated a conclusion, he will often find himself losing what he might
have gained by fearless confidence in teachers of times proven.
For, after all, the
student of Theosophy is only advised to follow the methods adopted by pupils
in every other science. It is not the blind faith of the religionist in propositions
that cannot be verified that is asked from the Theosophical student: it is
the reasonable trust of a pupil in his master, the temporary acceptance of
conclusions, every one of which is to be demonstrated the moment the pupil's
progress makes the demonstration intelligible. The study carries the pupil
into the physical, the intellectual, the spiritual worlds, and in each the
appropriate tests and proofs will be forthcoming: as physical proofs are
out of court in the intellectual world, so physical and intellectual proofs
are not available in the spiritual. But here again Theosophy demands nothing
differing in kind from that which is freely granted to our logicians and
mathematicians by the physicists; as the former are unable to show to the
latter experimental physical evidences, so the spiritual adept is unable
to show to the logician and the mathematician proofs couched in their special
intellectual forms. Not therefore is his science[Page
11] superstition, nor his knowledge
folly; he stands in the realm of the Spiritual, as secure, nay, even more
secure, than they stand in the realms of the Reason and of the Material,
He can justify himself to them in their own worlds, by showing in the Material
that he knows more than the physicist of the powers latent in matter, and
in the Rational by showing that he knows more than the intellectual giants
as to the workings and capacities of the Reason; but in his own sphere he
is judged of none; he answers but to his Conscience and his Destiny.
The
words Teachers, Masters, Adepts, imply that Theosophy, like all other philosophies
and sciences, has its authoritative exponents; these form a Brotherhood,
consisting of men and women of various nations, who by patient study and
purity of life have acquired exceptional, but wholly natural, powers and
knowledge. The Hindûs speak of them as Mahatmas,
literally Great Souls — great in their wisdom, great in their
powers, great in their self-sacrifice. They are the custodians of a body of
doctrine, handed down from generation to generation, increased by the work
of each. Into this body of doctrine, this vast collection of cosmological and
historical facts, no new statement is allowed entrance until verified by repeated
investigations, reiterated experiments by different hands. This forms the
Secret Doctrine the Wisdom-Religion, and of this, from time to time,[Page
12]
portions have been given out,
and have been made the basis of the great philosophies, the great religions
of the world. By these we may essay to track our road through history, gaining,
as we go, for the evidence for the existence of this body of doctrine from
ancient down to modern times. We will seek (a) evidence from history; (b)
evidence from world-religions; then we will glance at; (c) the evidence from
experiment; and (d) the evidence from analogy. Thus may we hope to show that
Theosophy is worthy of the attention of the thoughtful, and so perform the
duty placed in our hands.
(a) As to the existence
of such a Secret Doctrine, no doubt was felt in the ancient world. What were
the famous Mysteries whether in India, in Egypt,
in Greece, or elsewhere — but the unveiling to the selected few of the
doctrines so carefully hidden from the outer world ? As said Voltaire:
In the chaos of popular
superstitions, there existed an institution which has ever prevented man
from falling into absolute barbarity: it was that of the Mysteries.
So Dr. Warburton also:
The wisest and best men in the Pagan world are unanimous in this, that the
Mysteries were instituted pure, and proposed the noblest ends by the
worthiest means.
These Mysteries,
we learn from Cicero, were open only to the upright and the good:
An
Initiate must practice all the virtues in his power: Justice, fidelity,
liberality, modesty, temperance. [Page
13]
Originating in India
in pre-Vedic times, the Mysteries were there, as later in more Western
lands, reserved as the reward of virtue and wisdom.
Resignation;
the act of rendering good for evil; temperance; probity; chastity;
repression of the physical senses; the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures;
that of the superior soul (spirit); worship of truth; abstinence
from anger;
such were the
virtues exacted from all candidates for initiation. They are the ten
virtues prescribed later in the Institutes of Manu.
No one who has
not practiced, during his whole life, the ten virtues which the divine
Manu makes incumbent as a duty, can be initiated into the Mysteries
of the Council.
In Egypt the
same strict rules of conduct were inculcated. Ere the neophyte could
become a 'Khristophoros' and receive the sacred cross, the Tau,
he must know and observe the rules:
Never
to desire or seek revenge; to be always ready to help a brother
in danger, even at the risk of his own life; to bury every dead
body; to honour his parents above all; to respect old age and
protect those weaker than himself; ever to bear in mind the hour
of death, and that of resurrection in a new and imperishable
body.
The
very names of the great Initiates of Greece are eloquent as the intellectual
and moral heights attained by these mighty men of the elder world: Pythagoras,
Thales, Democritus, Euclid, Solon, Plato, Archytas — these, with others
like Apollonius of Tyana, lamblichus, Porphyry, give us some idea of the
stature of the Initiate of old.
Now, it is beyond
doubt that in ancient times the distinction between exoteric and esoteric
teaching was strictly observed. In Buddhism we find the[Page
14] doctrine of the
Eye and the doctrine of the Heart,
and we read how Gautama, the Buddha, entrusted the secret teaching to his
disciple Kashyapa, and how Ananda preached abroad the doctrine of the
Eye, while the Heart was left in the possession of the Arhats — the
Masters of the Hidden Wisdom. Pythagoras divided his students into two classes,
for the reception of his exoteric and esoteric doctrines. Ammonius Saccas
had his higher doctrines, and those who received them were bound by
oath not to divulge them to the outer world. The Books of Thoth,
in the keeping of the Initiates of Memphis, were the treasury from which
Pythagoras and Plato gathered their intellectual riches, and Thales and
Democritus culled their knowledge. At Sais, Lycurgus and Solon
were trained in the principles of legislation, going back to their own lands
as Initiates, to lay the legislative foundations of ancient Greece. In the
Hebrew nation are manifold traces of the same traditional hidden wisdom;
Abraham, its founder, was a great astronomer and arithmetician, according
to Josephus, who also declares as a reference to him the passage in Berosus
about a Chaldean “skillful in the celestial
science” ; and the great Jewish Kabbalist Maimonides declares that the
true meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures is esoteric.
Whoever shall
find out the true meaning of the Book of Genesis ought to
take care not to divulge it. This is a maxim that all our sages repeat to us,
and above all respecting the work of the six days. If a person should
discover the true meaning of it by himself, or by the aid of another, then
he ought to be silent; or if he speaks, he ought to speak of it but
obscurely, in an [Page
15] enigmatical manner,
as I do myself, leaving the rest to be guessed by those who can understand
me.
Origen deals
with the Old Testament in similar fashion:
If
we hold to the letter, and must understand what is written in the
law after the manner of the Jews and common people, then I should
blush to confess aloud that it is God who has given these laws;
then the laws of man appear more excellent and reasonable.
And again:
What
man of sense will agree with the statement that the first, second,
and third days, in which the evening is named and the morning,
were without sun, moon, and stars, and the first day without a
heaven. What man is found such an idiot as to suppose that God
planted trees in Paradise, like a husbandman. ... I believe that
every man must hold these things for images, under which a hidden
sense lies concealed.
Paul
speaks in like manner, saying of the two sons of Abraham: “which
things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants”; and going on to
show that Hagar was Mount Sinai and Sarah, “Jerusalem, which is above” . The Zohar denounces
those who read the sacred writings in their literal sense:
Woe
be to the man who says that the Doctrine delivers common stories
and daily words. . . . Therefore we must believe that every word
of the Doctrine contains in it a loftier sense and a higher meaning.
The narratives of the Doctrine are its cloak. The simple look only
at the garment, that is, upon the narrative of the Doctrine; more
they know not. The instructed, however, see not merely the cloak,
but what the cloak covers.
The Essenes who
were divided into the brethren and the perfect only
admitted candidates into their order, we learn from Josephus, after a
prolonged probation, and then bound the successful neophyte[Page
16] by 'tremendous oaths' that
he would not (amongother
things):
Discover
any of their doctrines to others, no, not though anyone should
compel him so to do at the hazard of his life.
Jesus is said
to have reserved his special teaching for his chosen disciples.
Unto
you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but
unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.
Paul,
who, using a well-known metaphor, calls himself “a wise master-builder” , says
that he and his fellows “speak
wisdom among them that are perfect” , i.e., that are fully initiated,
and describes this wisdom as “the
wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom” . Clement
Alexandrinus says that “the mysteries of the faith are not to be divulged
to all” , and speaks of hiding “in a mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son
of God [the Initiate] taught” . Madame Blavatsky says in Isis Unveiled:
Among
the venerable sect of the Tanaim, or rather the Tananim, the wise
men, there were those who taught the secrets practically and initiated
some disciples into the grand and final mystery. But the MishnaKagiga,
second section, says that the table of contents of the Mercaba “must
only be delivered to wise old ones” . The Gemara is still more
emphatic: “The
more important secrets of the Mysteries were not even revealed to all
priests. Alone the Initiates had them divulged” .
It
would be easy to multiply testimonies to the existence of this body
of doctrine, at least down to the fourth century, A.D. The triumph
of the illiterate exoteric side of Christianity then swamped it,
so far as Europe was concerned, and we only catch[Page
17] glimpses
of its continued transmission by the occasional divulging of secrets of nature — great
discoveries' — by wise and learned men who, by the ruthless persecution
of the Churches, were compelled to hide their lights carefully under bushels.
But wherever in the Middle Ages we hear of alchemists, magicians
atheists, learned heretics, from whom impulses came towards rational
learning, towards the investigation of nature, we shall generally find, on
enquiry, that they have some connection with the East, whither had
retreated for safety, under the tolerant rule of Buddhism, the guardians
of the Hidden Wisdom, to be in security until the storm of Christian
persecution had exhausted itself by its own fury.
The knowledge
of physical nature was indeed part of the instruction received during
preparation for the higher initiations. The wonderful astronomical
calculations of the Hindus, their zodiacs, their cycles, are matters
of common knowledge. In the fifth degree of the Egyptian neophyte,
he was instructed in chemia, chemistry, including alchemy; in
the sixth he was taught astronomy. The knowledge of Pythagoras on the
globular form of the earth and on the heliocentric system, was imparted to
him during his preparation for full initiation. So were the secrets of alchemy
to Democritus of Abdera. Xenophantes thus learned that the moon had no
atmosphere save in its profound valleys. The extraordinary life of
Apollonius of Tyana —the[Page
18] Pagan
Christ as he has been called — is
familiar to all students. He also passed through the discipline of the
Mysteries, the “supposed journey to India” , related by Philostratus, being
but an allegorical account of the neophyte's experience as he treads thePath . As Master, he was at once teacher and healer, like others of
the Brotherhood, and it is curious to find Justin Martyr, in the second century,
asking:
How
is it that the talismans of Apollonius have power in certain members
of creation ? For they prevent, as we see, the fury of the waves, and
the violence of the winds, and the attacks of wild beasts; and whilst
our Lord's miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius
are most numerous, and actually manifested in present facts, so as to
lead astray all beholders
A strange testimony
from an opponent, although Apollonius worked no
miracles, but only utilized purely natural powers, which he understood,
but which were unknown to the people around him. Is it without significance
that the disappearance of the Mysteries coincides with the beginning of the
intellectual darkness which spread over Europe and deepened into the
night of ignorance of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries ? Is there
nothing strange in the contrast between the literary, scientific, and
philosophic eminence of Hindustan, Persia, Chaldea, Egypt, Greece, and
the arid waste of the early Middle Ages ? The dead letter triumphed over
the living spirit; the crust of dogmatic religion hardened over philosophy
and science; the exoteric symbol took the place of the esoteric truth, and
the latter —[Page
19] though
hidden unregarded, as is its image, the heart in the human body — the
very Heart of civilisation and of knowledge, whose unfelt beatings alone
circulated the life-blood in the veins of human society, that Heart was paralysed
in Europe, and the paralysis spread to every limb of the body politic and
social. Yet from time to time a throb was felt: Roger Bacon, the marvellous
monk who mastered mathematics and astounded Europe by his chemical discoveries,
who made gunpowder and predicted the use of steam as a motor, drew his knowledge
from his study of the ancients. Paracelsus came back from his captivity in
Tartary a learned physician and magician, curing, as at Nuremberg, incurable cases
of elephantiasis, laying in Europe the foundations of the practical use of
magnetism in curing disease, writing on medicine, botany, anatomy,
chemistry, astronomy, as well as on philosophical doctrines and magic .
He was the discoverer in Europe of hydrogen, and it is asserted that
a knowledge of oxygen is also shown in his writings. Van Helmont, his
follower and disciple, is described by Deleuze as creating “epochs in the
histories of medicine and physiology''; and indeed from Paracelsus came
the great impulse that started medicine, chemistry and the study of
electricity and magnetism on the lines along which such triumphs have
been won in modern times. Closely interwoven with his wonderfully
suggestive theories on these sciences, were his philosophic
teachings — [Page
20] teachings which are fundamentally
identical with those of Theosophy. His language and his terminology, adapted
to the conditions of his times, may often prove misleading and disconcerting;
but if his ideas
are studied, rather than the dialect in which he clothes them, it will be
found that he was in possession of true knowledge, and had been instructed
by the wise, passing as Madame Blavatsky says, in Isis Unveiled, “through
the true initiation” .
It
may be said the proofs of the existence of a great body of philosophic
and scientific doctrine in the past, demonstrate nothing as to its existence
in the present. That is so; but if it admittedly once existed; if it was
taught in schools, held in temples, and handed down for thousands of years
from generation to generation of Hierophants; if glimpses of its continued
existence can be caught in Mediaeval Europe; is it likely, is it reasonable
to suppose, that it disappeared wholly in the course of a few centuries
after enduring through millenniums; that the long succession of faithful
men came suddenly to an end, leaving no inheritors; that the vast mass
of accumulated knowledge, so loyally guarded, so carefully cherished,
suddenly went down into nothingness, all the garnered experience of
humanity vanishing like the “baseless fabric of a dream ” ?
It is this body
of doctrine that we assert is in the hands of the Masters of Wisdom,
heirs of the great Hierophants of the Past, and that we allege is still[Page
21] to be reached by those
who are strong enough to take on themselves the old obligation of the
Neophyte:
TO
KNOW; TO DARE; TO WILL; AND TO BE SILENT.
(b)
The study of comparative mythology has done much to prove the assertion
of the Theosophist, that the great world religions have, as basis, the
same occult truths. The Kosmic Trinity, the 'Father-Mother-Son', with
its correspondence, the human trinity, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, is the “Church's
one foundation” , by whatever name the Church may be called.
As Dr. Hartmann puts it:
The
doctrine of the Trinity is found in all the principal religious
systems: in the Christian religion, as Father, Son, and Spirit;
among the Hindus as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; the Buddhists [Vedântins,
A. B.] call it Mulaprakriti, Prakriti, and Purusha; the Persians
teach that Ormuzd produced light out of himself by the power of
his word. The Egyptians called the first cause Ammon, out of which
all things were created by the power of its own will. In Chinese,
Kwan-shai-Yin is the universally manifested Word, coming from the
unmanifested Absolute by the power of its own will, and being identical
with the former. The Greeks called it Zeus (Power), Minerva (Wisdom),
and Apollo (Beauty). The Germans, Wodan (the Supreme Cause), Thor
(Power), and Freia (Beauty). Jehovah and Allah are Trinities of
Will, Knowledge, and Power; and even the Materialist believes in
Causation, Matter and Energy.
The subject is
too familiar to be enlarged on; they are the stock in trade, these
myriad trinities, of every student of religions. Note further how these
trinities always spring from ONE, and mystically continue One. The Persian
Trinity has as its forerunner Boundless Time-and-Space. The Hindu is but
aspects of the supreme Brahma. The Vedantin has Parabrahm, the
Absolute, whereof [Page
22] Mulaprakriti is as a veil.
The Greeks had Kronos, greater than Zeus. The trinity is ever the creative
aspect of the ONE. Even in Christianity, with its uncompromising anthropomorphism,
the Son is
begotten by, the Spirit, proceeds from, the Father although
outside time and space relations; there is yet a gleam of the idea of the
original undifferentiated One.
Again, in all
religions God incarnates. Theosophy teaches of the Pilgrim
incarnating throughout countless cycles, the divine entity which is the
human Self learning its lessons of experience in the school of the universe.
This Self was the Khristos, crucified in matter, and by its voluntary sacrifice
redeeming the lower selves from animality, saving such part of the
personalities as could assimilate themselves to it, and weaving these into
its own immortality. In the Mysteries this pilgrimage was dramatically
shown in the person of the neophyte passing his initiations, until at last,
stretched cruciform on floor or altar of stone, he lay as dead, to rise as
the Hierophant, the Sun-Initiate, the risen Khristos, or Christ. In
many a form this story has been related as religious dogma, but whether Mithra,
Krishna, Bacchus, Osiris, Christ, the varying name has been but new label
for old truth. "Whom they ignorantly worship, Him declare we” .
The symbols of
the creeds are but esoteric glyphs, used in modern times without understanding.
The[Page
23] tau, or cross; the
waters of baptism; the ringed light round head of saint; the serpent,
whether of light or darkness, image of God or devil; the virgin Mother,
clothed with the sun and the moon about her feet; the archangels and
angels; the recording angels and the book of life. All, all, from
the Hidden Wisdom of the Sacred College, legible in their entirety
only to the trained eye of the Seer.
Whence all this
similarity if there be no identity of origin ? Clement Alexandrinus
very frankly said of the Eleusinian Mysteries:
The
doctrines there taught contained in them the end of all instructions,
as they were taken from Moses and the Prophets.
This is instructive,
as showing the identity of the Jewish, Pagan, and
Christian Mysteries, though Orientalists will not grant the priority of the
Jewish teaching. When the Theosophist finds the ancient symbols
decorating the sacred places of antagonizing modern creeds, each
claiming them as exclusively its own, is it wonderful that he sees in all the
creeds branches from a common stem, and that stem the truths taught in
the Mysteries, known to have been once established and revered in all the
countries now possessed by the rival faiths ?
(c) The evidence
by experiment is chiefly valuable to those who have conducted or seen
the experiments but there is an accumulating mass of this evidence
available at second-hand to those who have no opportunity of carrying
out direct personal investigations. The power of conveying a thought[Page
24] from one brain to another
at a distance, without any of the ordinary means of communication;
the obtaining of knowledge by clairvoyance or clairaudience, which
knowledge can afterwards be verified; the power of making an object
appear and disappear at will, so far as onlookers are concerned; the
power of projecting a simulacrum to a distance, being seen and heard
by persons there present, and bringing back information which can subsequently
be found to be correct , the power of moving articles without contact;
of rendering an object immovable; and so on, in will-nigh endless variety.
Then, more easily accessible than the above, are the phenomena obtainable
by the use of mesmerism and hypnotism, with the separability of consciousness
from brain-action, the immense stimulation of mental faculties under
conditions that would a priori negate any exercise
of them, the reducing of brain-activity correlated to the augmenting
of psychic activity. Experiments of this sort are useful as helping
to establish the independent existence of the Intellectual Self, as
an entity joined to, but not the mere outcome of, the physical body.
They are useful also as demonstrating that the consciousness of the
individual is far wider and fuller than the ordinary consciousness
of every-day life, that memory covers a far larger field than the remembered
of our usual active mind. But, above all, the result of pursuing this
line of study, the consideration[Page
25] of these obscure and
little understood phenomena, will be a growing desire to find some theory
which will draw them into rational relationship with the rest of a universe
of law, which will correlate them, and present them as the normal working
of natural causes. This great service to the intelligence is done by
Theosophy, and, accepted only as a working hypothesis, as a temporary
guide in experimentation, it will be found to speedily justify its
hypothetical acceptance, and will be seen to be verified by its alignment
with facts.
(d) The evidence
from analogy needs, of course, to be worked out in detail, step by
step, and it is impossible to do more here than hint at the kind of
use to which this tool may be put. Let us take as example (i) the seven-fold
planes of the universe, and (ii) the doctrine of reincarnation.
(i)
In studying the material world of which we are a part, we find the
constant emergence of the number seven: split up a beam of white
light, and we find the seven colours of the spectrum; take the musical
scale, and we have seven distinct notes in progression, and then
the octave; take the periods of gestation, and we find them occupying
set numbers of lunar months, i.e., of multiples of seven; take fevers which run a definite
course, and we find that course to be a multiple of seven; crises of madness
show this recurring seven; the moon marks its changes in sevens, and has
served as the basis for our seven-day week, and so I might go on, for a
page [Page
26] or two. All these seven-fold
periods can scarcely be matters of mere chance, mere coincidence; in a universe
of law they are surely likely to be the outcome of some deeply-seated principle
in nature; reasoning by analogy, the seven-fold division is likely to exist
in the universe as a whole, even as in its parts. Beyond this, for the moment,
we may not be able to go, for the bearing out of the analogy by the observation
of facts on the cosmic planes is work beyond the faculties of the ordinary
man as at present developed; it is claimed that there are men so highly evolved
that they can observe on the higher planes as we on the lower, but we are not
now concerned with proofs that can only be obtained by years, nay, by
lives, of patient endurance and study.
(ii) Once again,
in studying the material world, we note the frequent co-relation of
the relatively permanent and the transitory. A tree will last for a
century, putting forth yearly its crop of leaves, leaves which wither as the
finger of autumn touches them; the leaves pass, but the tree endures. So
the fern stem or the bulb will send up year by year its seasonal growth of
frond or flowers; the seasonal growth perishes with a season, but the plant
dies not. Tree and plant live through their periods of manifestation, giving
birth to innumerable lives, the outcome of the central individual. So is it,
Theosophy teaches, with man. As an individual he endures throughout his
period of manifestation,[Page
27] putting forth the leaf-crop
of unnumberable personalities, which die while he remains. But, it may be said,
the
leaves perish: they do not revive when the breath of the spring-tide
awakens nature; they are rotting in the ground, and it is their
successors, not they, that cover the tree with its glory. So, in very
truth, is it with the personalities likewise; they perish, and for them
there is no resurrection. But just as the leaves, living their life through
spring and summer and autumn, gather from air and draw up from soil substances
which they fashion into materials for the growth of the parent-tree from
which they spring; and just as these elaborated materials are drawn
from them by the parent, and the virtue and the use of them are over ere
they are cut off by the keen knife of winter's frost: so does the
personality gather knowledge and experience from its contact with the
world, and transmute these into forms that can be drawn from it into the
individual which endures, so that, when the knife of death severs it from
the parent trunk, all that it has gathered of true materials of the growth
of the Ego shall have passed over into its keeping, each life ere it perishes
thus adding its quota of nutriment to the Man who does not die.
In
this fashion, did time and space permit, I might continue, gathering
hints of the unseen from the seen, catching whispers of the Eternal
Mother, musical with the truths hidden beneath her veil. [Page
28]
But this paper
is intended to incite to study rather than to teach the student, to
suggest rather than to convince, to win audience for Theosophy rather
than to expound its doctrines. Science tells us how a myriad cords may be
stretched and mute, as a note of music comes pulsing through the empty
air, making motion where there was stillness, sound where silence reigned,
and here and there, as if in answer, from among the many silent cords,
past which the music swells unheeded, will sound out a note in harmony, in
rhythm responsive to the master-tone. It comes from those few cords that
have the same vibration-frequency, and that are therefore set throbbing as
the note peals by them, and give it back in music deep and melodious as
its own. That all do not answer lies not in the fault of the note as struck,
but in the incapacity of the strings to vibrate in unison. And so among
human souls in every generation, many will remain dumb as the organ-note
of Theosophy thrills out into the silence, and for them it will die
away unheeded into empty air. But one here and there will feel the
throb of the music, and give back in clear full resonance the chanted
tone. For such the note is sounded, the call is given. Let those who
can hear, respond.