Volume II

SUCH has been the manner in which our beloved teacher and friend always concluded her letters to me. And now, though we are all of us committing to paper some account of that departed friend and teacher, I feel ever near and ever potent the magic of that resistless power, as of a mighty rushing river, which those who wholly trusted her always came to understand. Fortunate indeed is that Karma which, for all the years since I first met her, in 1875, has kept me faithful to the friend who, masquerading under the outer mortal garment known as H. P. Blavatsky, was ever faithful to me, ever kind, ever the teacher and the guide.

In 1874, in the City of New York, I first met H.P.B. in this life. By her request, sent through Colonel H. S. Olcott, the call was made in her rooms in Irving Place, when then, as afterwards, through the remainder of her stormy career, she was surrounded by the anxious, the intellectual, the bohemian, the rich and the poor. It was her eye that attracted me, the eye of one whom I must have known in lives long passed away. She looked at me in recognition at that first hour, and never since has that look changed. Not as a questioner of philosophies did I come before her, not as one groping in the dark for lights that schools and fanciful theories had obscured, but as one who, wandering many periods through the corridors of life, was seeking the friends who could show where the designs for the work had been hidden. And true to the call she responded, revealing the plans once again, and speaking no words to explain, simply pointed them out and went on with the task. It was as if but the evening before we had parted, leaving yet to be done some detail of a task taken up with one common end; it was teacher and pupil, elder brother and younger, both bent on the one single end, but she with the power and the knowledge that belong but to lions and

sages. So, friends from the first, I felt safe. Others I know have looked with suspicion on an appearance they could not fathom, and though it is true they adduce many proofs which, hugged to the breast, would damn sages and gods, yet it is only through blindness they failed to see the lion's glance, the diamond heart of H.P.B.

The entire space of this whole magazine would not suffice to enable me to record the phenomena she performed for me through all these years, nor would I wish to put them down. As she so often said, they prove nothing, but only lead some souls to doubt and others to despair. And again, I do not think they were done just for me, but only that in those early days she was laying down the lines of force all over the land and I, so fortunate, was at the centre of the energy and saw the play of forces in visible phenomena. The explanation has been offered by some too anxious friends that the earlier phenomena were mistakes in judgment, attempted to be rectified in later years by confining their area and limiting their number, but until some one shall produce in the writing of H.P.B. her concurrence with that view, I shall hold to her own explanation made in advance and never changed. That I have given above. For many it is easier to take refuge behind a charge of bad judgment than to understand the strange and powerful laws which control in matters such as these.

Amid all the turmoil of her life, above the din produced by those who charged her with deceit and fraud and others who defended, while month after month, and year after year, witnessed men and women entering the theosophical movement only to leave it soon with malignant phrases for H.P.B., there stands a fact we all might imitate―devotion absolute to her Master. "It was He," she writes, "who told me to devote myself to this, and I will never disobey and never turn back."

"Well, my only friend, you ought to know better. Look into my life and try to realize it―in its outer course at least, as the rest is hidden. I am under the curse of ever writing, as the wandering Jew was under that of being ever on the move, never

stopping one moment to rest. Three ordinary healthy persons could hardly do what I have to do. I live an artificial life; I am an automaton running full steam until the power of generating steam stops, and then―good-bye! . . . Night before last I was shown a bird's-eye view of the Theosophical Societies. I saw a few earnest reliable Theosophists in a death struggle with the world in general, with other―nominal but ambitious―Theosophists. The former are greater in numbers than you may think, and they prevailed, as you in America will prevail, if you only remain staunch to the Master's programme and true to yourselves. And last night I saw ∴ and now I feel strong―such as I am in my body―and ready to fight for Theosophy and the few true ones to my last breath. The defending forces have to be judiciously―so scanty they are―distributed over the globe, where ever Theosophy is struggling against the powers of darkness."

Such she ever was; devoted to Theosophy and the Society organized to carry out a programme embracing the world in its scope. Willing in the service of the cause to offer up hope, money, reputation, life itself, provided the Society might be saved from every hurt, whether small or great. And thus bound body, heart and soul to this entity called the Theosophical Society, bound to protect it at all hazards, in face of every loss, she often incurred the resentment of many who became her friends but would not always care for the infant organization as she had sworn to do. And when they acted as if opposed to the Society, her instant opposition seemed to them to nullify professions of friendship. Thus she had but few friends, for it required a keen insight, untinged with personal feeling, to see even a small part of the real H. P. Blavatsky.

But was her object merely to form a Society whose strength should lie in numbers? No so. She worked under directors who, operating from behind the scene, knew that the Theosophical Society was, and was to be, the nucleus from which help might spread to all the people of the day, without thanks and without acknowledgment. Once, in London, I asked her what was the chance of drawing the people into the Society in view of the enormous disproportion between the number of members and the millions of Europe and America who neither knew of nor cared for it. Leaning back in her chair, in which she was sitting before her writing desk, she said:―

"When you consider and remember those days in 1875 and after, in which you could not find any people interested in your thoughts, and now look at the wide-spreading influence of theosophical ideas―however labelled―it is not so bad. We are not working merely that people may call themselves Theosophists, but that the doctrines we cherish may affect and leaven the whole mind of this century. This alone can be accomplished by a small earnest band of workers, who work for no human reward, no earthly recognition, but who, supported and sustained by a belief in that Universal Brotherhood of which our Masters are a part, work steadily, faithfully, in understanding and putting forth for consideration the doctrines of life and duty that have come down to us from immemorial time. Falter not so long as a few devoted ones will work to keep the nucleus existing. You were not directed to found and realise a Universal Brotherhood, but to form the nucleus for one; for it is only when the nucleus is formed that the accumulations can begin that will end in future years, however far, in the formation of that body which we have in view."

H.P.B. had a lion heart, and on the work traced out for her she had the lion's grasp; let us, her friends, companions and disciples, sustain ourselves in carrying out the designs laid down on the trestle-board, by the memory of her devotion and the consciousness that behind her task there stood, and still remain, those Elder Brothers who, above the clatter and the din of our battle, ever see the end and direct the forces distributed in array for the salvation of "that great orphan―Humanity."

H.P.B. ∴

On the shore stood Hiawatha,
Turned and waved his hand at parting;
On the clear and luminous water
Launched his birch canoe for sailing,
From the pebbles of the margin
Shoved it forth into the water;
Whispered to it, "Westward! Westward!"
And with speed it darted forward.
And the evening sun descending
Set the clouds on fire with redness,
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,
Left upon the level water
One long track and trail of splendor,
Down whose stream, as down a river,
Westward, Westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.

Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the beloved, . . .
To the Islands of the Blessed.

THAT which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame, a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals. The Lord of this body is nameless; dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go; but neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured. So our old friend

and fellow-worker has merely passed for a short time out of sight, but has not given up the work begun so many years ago―the uplifting of humanity, the destruction of the shackles that enslave the human mind.

I met H.P.B. in 1875 in the city of New York where she was living in Irving Place. There she suggested the formation of the Theosophical Society, lending to its beginning the power of her individuality and giving to its President and those who have stood by it ever since the knowledge of the existence of the Blessed Masters. In 1877 she wrote Isis Unveiled in my presence, and helped in the proof reading by the President of the Society. This book she declared to me then was intended to aid the cause for the advancement of which the Theosophical Society was founded. Of this I speak with knowledge, for I was present and at her request drew up the contract for its publication between her and her New York publisher. When that document was signed she said to me in the street, "Now I must go to India."

In November, 1878, she went to India and continued the work of helping her colleagues to spread the Society's influence there, working in that mysterious land until she returned to London in 1887. There was then in London but one Branch of the Society―the London Lodge―the leaders of which thought it should work only with the upper and cultured classes. The effect of H.P.B.'s coming there was that Branches began to spring up, so that now they are in many English towns, in Scotland, and in Ireland. There she founded her magazine Lucifer, there worked night and day for the Society loved by the core of her heart, there wrote the Secret Doctrine, the Key to Theosophy, and the Voice of the Silence, and there passed away from a body that had been worn out by unselfish work for the good of [not only] the few of our century but of the many in the centuries to come.

It has been said by detractors that she went to India because she merely left a barren field here, by sudden impulse and without a purpose. But the contrary is the fact. In the very beginning of the Society I drew up with my own hand

at her request the diplomas of some members here and there in India who were in correspondence and were of different faiths. Some of them were Parsees. She always said she would have to go to India as soon as the Society was under way here and Isis should be finished. And when she had been in India some time, her many letters to me expressed her intention to return to England so as to open the movement actively and outwardly there in order that the three great points on the world's surface―India, England, and America―should have active centres of Theosophical work. This determination was expressed to me before the attempt made by the Psychical Research Society on her reputation,―of which also I know a good deal to be used at a future time, as I was present in India before and after the alleged exposé―and she returned to England to carry out her purpose even in the face of charges that she could not stay in India. But to disprove these she went back to Madras, and then again rejourneyed to London.

That she always knew what would be done by the world in the way of slander and abuse I also know, for in 1875 she told me that she was then embarking on a work that would draw upon her unmerited slander, implacable malice, uninterrupted misunderstanding, constant work, and no worldly reward. Yet in the face of this her lion heart carried her on. Nor was she unaware of the future of the Society. In 1876 she told me in detail the course of the Society's growth for future years, of its infancy, of its struggles, of its rise into the "luminous zone" of the public mind; and these prophecies are being all fulfilled.

Much has been said about her "phenomena," some denying them, others alleging trick and device. Knowing her for so many years so well, and having seen at her hands in private the production of more and more varied phenomena than it has been the good fortune of all others of her friends put together to see, I know for myself that she had control of hidden powerful laws of nature not known to our science, and I also know that she never boasted of her powers, never advertised their possession, never publicly advised anyone to at-

tempt their acquirement, but always turned the eyes of those who could understand her to a life of altruism based on a knowledge of true philosophy. If the world thinks that her days were spent in deluding her followers by pretended phenomena, it is solely because her injudicious friends, against her expressed wish, gave out wonderful stories of "miracles" which can not be proved to a skeptical public and which are not the aim of the Society nor were ever more than mere incidents in the life of H. P. Blavatsky.

Her aim was to elevate the race. Her method was to deal with the mind of the century as she found it, by trying to lead it on step by step; to seek out and educate a few who, appreciating the majesty of the Secret Science and devoted to "the great orphan Humanity," could carry on her work with zeal and wisdom; to found a Society whose efforts―however small itself might be―would inject into the thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of the Wisdom Religion, so that when the next century shall have seen its 75th year the new messenger coming again into the world would find the Society still at work, the ideas sown broadcast, the nomenclature ready to give expression and body to the immutable truth, and thus to make easy the task which for her since 1875 was so difficult and so encompassed with obstacles in the very paucity of the language,―obstacles harder than all else to work against.

MASTERS, ADEPTS, TEACHERS, AND DISCIPLES

THIS article is meant for members of the T.S., and chiefly for those who keep H.P.B. much in mind, whether out of respect and love or from fear and envy. Those members who believe that such beings as the Masters may exist must come to one of two conclusions in regard to H.P.B.: either that she invented her Masters, who therefore have no real existence, or that she did not invent them but spoke in the names and by the orders of such beings. If we say she invented the Mahatmas, then, of course, as so often was said by her, all that she has taught and written is the product of her own brain, from which we would be bound to conclude that her position on the roll of great and powerful persons must be higher than people have been willing to place her. But I take it most of us believe in the truth of her statement that she had those teachers whom she called Masters and that they are more perfect beings than ordinary men.

The case I wish to briefly deal with, then, is this: H.P.B. and her relations to the Masters and to us; her books and teachings; the general question of disciples or chelas with their grades, and whether a high chela would appear as almost a Master in comparison to us, including every member from the President down to the most recent applicant.

The last point in the inquiry is extremely important, and has been much overlooked by members in my observation, which has extended over the larger part of the T.S. An idea has become quite general that chelas and disciples are all of one grade, and that therefore one chela is the same as another in knowledge and wisdom. The contrary, however, is the case. Chelas and disciples are of many grades, and some of the Adepts are themselves the chelas of higher Adepts. There is therefore the greatest difference between the classes of chelas, since among them has to be counted the very humblest and

most ignorant person who has devoted himself or herself to the service of mankind and the pursuit of the knowledge of the Self. On the other hand, there are those chelas high in grade, actual pupils of the Masters themselves, and these latter have so much knowledge and power as to seem to us to be Adepts. Indeed, they are such when one compares them with oneself as a mere product of the nineteenth century. They have gained through knowledge and discipline those powers over mind, matter, space, and time which to us are the glittering prizes of the future. But yet these persons are not the Masters spoken of by H.P.B. So much being laid down, we may next ask how we are to look at H.P.B.

In the first place, every one has the right to place her if he pleases for himself on the highest plane, because he may not be able to formulate the qualities and nature of those who are higher than she was. But taking her own sayings, she was a chela or disciple of the Masters, and therefore stood in relation to them as one who might be chided or corrected or reproved. She called them her Masters, and asseverated a devotion to their behests and a respect and confidence in and for their utterances which the chela has always for one who is high enough to be his Master. But looking at her powers exhibited to the world, and as to which one of her Masters wrote that they had puzzled and astonished the brightest minds of the age, we see that compared with ourselves she was an Adept. In private as in public she spoke of her Masters much in the same way as did Subba Row to the writer when he declared in 1884, "The Mahatmas are in fact some of the great Rishees and Sages of the past, and people have been too much in the habit of lowering them to the petty standard of this age." But with this reverence for her teachers she had for them at the same time a love and friendship not often found on earth. All this indicates her chelaship to Them, but in no way lowers her to us or warrants us in deciding that we are right in a hurried or modern judgment of her.

Now some Theosophists ask if there are other letters extant from her Masters in which she is called to account, is called

their chela, and is chided now and then, besides those published. Perhaps yes. And what of it? Let them be published by all means, and let us have the full and complete record of all letters sent during her life; those put forward as dated after her death will count for naught in respect to any judgment passed on her, since the Masters do not indulge in any criticisms on the disciples who have gone from earth. As she has herself published letters and parts of letters from the Masters to her in which she is called a chela and is chided, it certainly cannot matter if we know of others of the same sort. For over against all such we have common sense, and also the declarations of her Masters that she was the sole instrument possible for the work to be done, that They sent her to do it, and that They approved in general all she did. And she was the first direct channel to and from the Lodge, and the only one up to date through which came the objective presence of the Adepts. We cannot ignore the messenger, take the message, and laugh at or give scorn to the one who brought it to us. There is nothing new in the idea that letters are still unpublished wherein the Masters put her below them, and there is no cause for any apprehension. But it certainly is true that not a single such letter has anything in it putting her below us; she must ever remain the greatest of chelas.

There only remains, then, the position taken by some and without a knowledge of the rules governing these matters, that chelas sometimes write messages claimed to be from the Masters when they are not. This is an artificial position not supportable by law or rule. It is due to ignorance of what is and is not chelaship, and also to confusion between grades in discipleship. It has been used as to H.P.B. The false conclusion has first been made that an accepted chela of high grade may become accustomed to dictation given by the Master and then may fall into the false pretense of giving something from himself and pretending it is from the Master. It is impossible. The bond in her case was not of such a character to be dealt with thus. One instance of it would destroy the possibility of any more communication from the teacher.

It may be quite true that probationers now and then have imagined themselves as ordered to say so and so, but that is not the case of an accepted and high chela who is irrevocably pledged, nor anything like it. This idea, then, ought to be abandoned; it is absurd, contrary to law, to rule, and to what must be the case when such relations are established as existed between H.P.B. and her Masters.

H.P.B. WAS NOT DESERTED BY THE MASTERS

THERE are certain things connected with the personality of the great leader which have to be referred to and explained every now and again even in a Society whose effort is as much as possible to avoid the discussion of personalities. Sometimes they are disagreeable, especially when, as in the present instance, some other persons have to be brought in. And when the great leader is H.P. Blavatsky, a whole host of principles and postulates as to certain laws of nature cluster around her name. For not only was she one who brought to us from the wiser brothers of the human family a consistent philosophy of the solar system, but in herself she illustrated practically the existence of the supersensuous world and of the powers of the inner and astral man. Hence any theory or assertion touching on her relations with the unseen and with the Masters she spoke for inevitably opens up the discussion of some law or principle. This of course would not be the case if we were dealing with a mere ordinary person.

Many things were said about H.P.B. in her lifetime by those who tried to understand her, some of them being silly and some positively pernicious. The most pernicious was that made by Mr. A.P. Sinnett in London in the lifetime of H.P.B., and before the writing of the Secret Doctrine, that she was deserted by the Masters and was the prey of elementals and elemental forces. He was courageous about it, for he said it to her face, just as he had often told her he thought she was a fraud in other directions.

This theory was far-reaching, as can be seen at a glance. For if true, then anything she might say as from the Masters which did not agree with the opinion of the one addressed could be disposed of as being only the vaporing of some elementals. And that very use was made of it. It was not discussed only in the charmed seclusion of the London Lodge,

but was talked of by nearly all of the many disciples and would-be disciples crowding around H.P.B. It has left its mark even unto this day. And when the total disagreement arose between H.P.B. and Mr. Sinnett as to the relation of Mars and Mercury to this earth, and as to the metaphysical character of the universe―H.P.B. having produced an explanation from the Master―then the pernicious theory and others like it were brought forward to show she was wrong, did not have word from the Master, and that Mr. Sinnett's narrow and materialistic views of the Master's statement―which had been made before the alleged desertion and elemental possession―were the correct ones. The dispute is imbedded in the Secret Doctrine. The whole philosophy hangs upon it. The disagreement came about because Mr. Sinnett held that his view of one of the letters from the Master received in India―through the hand of H.P.B.―was the correct view, whereas she said it was not. He kept rigidly to his position, and she asked the Master for further explanation. When this was received by her and shown to Mr. Sinnett he denied its authenticity, and then the desertion theory would explain the rest. He seemed to forget that she was the channel and he was not.

Although wide publicity was not given to the charge then, it was fully discussed by the many visitors to both camps, and its effect remains to this day among those who of late have turned in private against H.P.B. Among themselves they explain her away very easily, and in public they oppose those who adhere firmly to her memory, her honor, and the truth of her statements about the Masters and their communications to her. They think that by dragging her down to the mediocre level on which they stand they may pretend to understand her, and look wise as they tell when she was and when she was not obsessed. This effort will, of course, be unsuccessful; and some will think the matter need not be brought forward. There are many reasons why it should be discussed and left no longer as a secret poison: because it leads to a negation of brotherhood; to an upholding of ingratitude, one of the blackest crimes; and, if believed, will inevitably lead to the destruc-

If, as claimed by Mr. Sinnett, H.P.B. was deserted by the Masters after they had used her for many years as their agent and channel of communication, such desertion would be evidence of unimaginable disloyalty on their part, utterly opposed to their principles as stated by themselves. For when the advisability of similar desertion was in Mr. Sinnett's mind many years before, when he did not approve of H.P.B.'s methods of conducting the movement in India, Master K.H. emphatically wrote him that "ingratitude is not among our vices," asking him if he would consider it just, "supposing you were thus to come," as H.P.B. did, and were to "abandon all for the truth; to toil wearily for years up the hard, steep road, not daunted by obstacles, firm under every temptation; were to faithfully keep within your heart the secrets entrusted to you as a trial; had worked with all your energies, and unselfishly to spread the truth and provoke men to correct thinking and a correct life―would you consider it just, if, after all your efforts," you were to be treated as you propose Mdme. Blavatsky should be treated? But this warning evidently produced only a transient effect, for in a few years' time, as stated, Mr. Sinnett came to the conclusion that his suggestion had been acted upon to an even greater extent than he had originally intended. At first he had only wished that H.P.B. should be put on one side as channel between himself and the Master, leaving a newly organized T.S. to his own management under those conditions;but he afterwards thought that H.P.B. had been put on one side as a channel of any sort so far as the Masters were concerned. This wholesale later desertion would mean that in the meantime Master K. H. had entirely changed in character and had become capable of gross ingratitude, which is absurd. Masters are above all things loyal to those who serve them and who sacrifice health, position and their entire lives to the work which is the Master's; and H.P.B did all this and more, as the Master wrote. To take the other view and imagine that after years of such service as is de-

scribed in the above quotation, H.P.B. was left to be figuratively devoured by elementals, would prove Masters to be merely monsters of selfishness, using a tool not made of iron but of a wonderful human heart and soul, and throwing this tool away without protection the moment they had done with it.

And how about the members and more faithful disciples who were left in ignorance of this alleged desertion? Would it have been loyal to them? They had been taught for years to look with respect upon H.P.B. and the teachings she gave out, and to regard her as the Masters' channel. They received no warning that the plan Mr. Sinnett had for so long carried in his mind could possibly be carried out, but on the contrary often received personally from the Masters endorsements of H.P.B.'s actions and teachings. Those who harbored constant doubts of her veracity were reproved; and yet it would seem for no other apparent reason than a necessary correction by her of Mr. Sinnett's wrong interpretation of earlier teachings she was abandoned by her old teachers and friends who had spent years in training her for just this work!

So the whole of this far-fetched supposition is alike contrary to brotherhood and to occultism. It violates every law of true ethics and of the Lodge, and to crown its absurdity would make the Secret Doctrine in large measure the work of elementals. Deserted before the explanation of Mr. Sinnett's mistakes appeared in that book, H.P,B. was obsessed to some advantage, it may be thought! But in fact a great depth of ignorance is shown by those who assert that she was deserted and who add that elementals controlled her, doing the work for her. They do not know the limitations of the elemental: an elemental can only copy what already exists, cannot originate or invent, can only carry out the exact impulse or order given, which if incomplete will cause the result to be similarly incomplete, and will not start work unless pushed on by a human mind and will. In no case is this elemental supposition tenable.

The ignorance shown on this point is an example of the mental standing of most of H.P.B.'s critics. Materialists in their

bias, they were unable to understand her teachings, methods or character, and after badly assimilating and materializing the ideas they got originally from her, they proceeded to apply the result to an explanation of everything about her that they could not understand, as if they were fitting together the wooden blocks of several different puzzles. But if in spite of all reason this view of desertion were to be accepted, it would certainly lead in the end, as I have said, to the destruction of the Theosophical philosophy. Its indirect effect would be as detrimental as the direct effect of degrading the ideal of Masters. This is clearly shown in the Secret Doctrine.

After pointing out in her "Introductory" to the Secret Doctrine (p. xviii) the preliminary mistake made by the author of Esoteric Buddhism in claiming that "two years ago (i.e., 1883) neither I nor any other European living knew the alphabet of the Science, here for the first time put into scientific shape," when as a matter of fact not only H.P.B. had known all that and much more years before, but two other Europeans and an American as well;―she proceeds to give the Master's own explanation of his earlier letters in regard to the Earth Chain of Globes and the relation of Mars and Mercury thereto (vol. i, pp. 160-170, o.e.). Mr Sinnett himself confesses that he had "an untrained mind" in Occultism when he received the letters through H.P.B. on which Esoteric Buddhism was based. He had a better knowledge of modern astronomical speculations than of the occult doctrines, and so it was not to be wondered at, as H.P.B. remarks, that he formed a materialistic view of a metaphysical subject. But these are the Master's own words in reply to an application from H.P.B. for an explanation of what she well knew was a mistake on Mr. Sinnett's part―the inclusion of Mars and Mercury as globes of the Earth Chain:

"Both (Mars and Mercury) are septenary chains, as independent of the earth's sidereal lords and superiors and as you are independent of the 'principles' of Daumling." "Unless less trouble is taken to reconcile the irreconcilable―that is to say, the metaphysical and spiritual sciences with physical or

natural philosophy, 'natural' being a synonym to them (men of science) of that matter which falls under the perception of their corporal senses―no progress can be really achieved. Our Globe, as taught from the first, is at the bottom of the arc of descent, where the matter of our perceptions exhibits itself in its grossest form Hence it only stands to reason that the globes which overshadow our Earth must be on different and superior planes. In short, as Globes, they are in coadunition but not in consubstantiality with our Earth, and thus pertain to quite another state of consciousness."

Unless this be accepted as the correct explanation, the entire philosophy becomes materialistic and contradictory, analogy ceases to be of any value, and both the base and superstructure of Theosophy must be swept away as useless rubbish. But there is no fear of this, for the Master's explanation will continue to be accepted by the large majority of Theosophists.

And as to H.P.B. personally, these words might possibly be remembered with advantage: "Masters say that Nature's laws have set apart woe for those who spit back in the face of their teacher, for those who try to belittle her work and make her out to be part good and part fraud; those who have started on the path through her must not try to belittle her work and aim. They do not ask for slavish idolatry of a person, but loyalty is required. They say that the Ego of that body she uses was and is a great and brave servant of the Lodge, sent to the West for a mission with full knowledge of the insult and obloquy to be surely heaped upon that devoted head; and they add; 'Those who cannot understand her had best not try to explain her; those who do not find themselves strong enough for the task she outlined from the very first had best not attempt it'."

"BLAVATSKIANISM" IN AND OUT OF SEASON

THEOSOPHISTS! let us consult together. Let us survey the army, the field of battle, and the fighters. Let us examine our ways and our speech, so that we may know what we are doing in this great affray which may last for ages and in which every act has a future. What do we see? A Theosophical Society struggling as a whole against the world. A few devoted members struggling against the world and some opponents within its ranks. A Society grown to its eighteenth year, after the expenditure of much time and energy and fame by those who have been with it in infancy, those who have come in from time to time, those who worked and left it for this generation. It has its karma like any other body, for it is a living thing and not a mere paper organization; and with that karma is also woven the karma of the units composing it.

How does it live and grow? Not alone by study and work, but by propriety of method of work; by due attention paid by the members to thought and speech in their theosophic promulgations. Wise workers, likewise generals, survey the field now and then to see if their methods are good or bad, even though fully convinced of the nobility and righteousness of their cause; they trust not only to the virtue of their aim and work, but attend to any defects now and then indicated by the assaults of the enemy; they listen to warnings of those who see or think they see errors of omission and commission. Let us all do this.

It happens to be the fact that most of those who work the hardest for the Society are at the same time devoted disciples,

open or non-professed, of H.P. Blavatsky, but that leaves still a large number of members who, with the first-named, may be variously classified. First, there are those who do not rely at all on H.P. Blavatsky, while not distinctly opposed and none the less good members. Next are those who are openly opposed to her name and fame, who, while reading her works and profiting by them as well as by the work aroused by her in others, are averse from hearing her name, oppose the free assertion of devotion to her, would like now and then to have Theosophy stripped of her altogether, and opine that many good and true possible members are kept away from the T.S. by her personality's being bound up in it. The two last things of course are impossible to meet, because if it had not been for her the Theosophical Society with its literature would not have come into existence. Lastly are those in the world who do not belong to our ranks, composed of persons holding in respect to the T.S. the various positions of for, against, and indifferent.

who accentuate the value of the whole field of occult phenomena, and sincerely supposing, however mistaken the notion, that occult and psychical phenomena will arrest attention, draw out interest, inspire confidence; when, in fact, the almost certain results are, to first arouse curiosity, then create distrust and disappointment; for nearly every one is a doubting Thomas who requires, while the desire cannot be satisfied, a duplicate of every phenomenon for himself. In The Occult World, the Adept writing on this very subject says that the demand for new phenomena would go on crescendo until at last one would be crushed by doubt, or the other and worse result of creating superstition and blind faith would come about. Every thoughtful person must surely see that such must be the consequence.

It is true that the movement has grown most in consequence of the effort of those who are devoted to an ideal, inspired by enthusiasm, filled with a lasting gratitude to H. P. Blavatsky. Their ideal is the service of Humanity, the ultimate potential perfectibility of man as exemplified by the Masters and Adepts of all ages, including the present. Their enthusiasm is born from the devotion which the ideal arouses, their gratitude is a noble quality engendered by the untiring zeal of the soul who brought to their attention the priceless gems of the wisdom religion. Ingratitude is the basest vice of which man can be guilty, and it will be base for them to receive the grand message and despise the messenger.

But does devotion, loyalty, or gratitude require that we should thrust our estimate of a person forward to the attention of the public in a way that is certain to bring on opposition? Should our work in a great movement, meant to include all men, intended to condense the truth from all religions, be impeded or imperiled by over-zealous personal loyalty? I think not. We should be wise as serpents. Wisdom does not consist in throwing the object of our heart's gratitude in the faces of those who have no similar feeling, for when we do that it may easily result that personal considerations will nullify our efforts for the good of those we address.

Now it is charged in several quarters that we are dogmatic as a Society. This is extremely easy of disproof as a fact, and some trouble has been taken to disprove it. But is there not a danger that we might go too far on this line, and by continuing the disproof too long increase the very belief which we say is baseless? "The more proof offered the less believed" is how often true. Our constitution is the supreme law. It's being non-dogmatic is proof enough. Years of notification on almost every document have prepared the proofs which every one can see. I would seem that enough has been said on the subject of our non-dogmatism.

But the charge then is altered, and "dogmatism" is supplanted by "Blavatskiansim," and here the critics have a slight ground to stand on; here is where a danger may exist and where the generals, the captains, the whole army, should properly pay attention and be on their guard. In the words and methods of the various classes of members above mentioned is the cause for the charge. I am not directing any remarks to the question whether members "believe in Blavatsky or not," for the charge made is intended to imply that there is too much said about H. P. Blavatsky as authority, as source, as guide, too little original thinking, too much reliance on the words of a single person.

In the years that are gone, necessity existed for repelling mean personal attacks on H. P. Blavatsky's character. To take up arms in her behalf then was wise. Now her works remain. The necessity for constant repulse of attacks on her does not exist. Judgment can be used in doing so. Loyalty is not thrown to the winds when good judgment says there is no need to reply. One of the best replies is to carry on the work in the noble and altruistic spirit she always pointed out. Take, for instance, the almost senile attacks periodically made by the Society for Psychical Research. What good can be possibly accomplished by paying any attention to them? None at all, except what results to that body by inflating it with the idea that its shafts have hit a vulnerable spot. Ever since their ex post facto agent went to India to play at psychical investigation they have

almost lived by their attacks, for by them, more than anything else, they gain some attention; her personality, even to this day, adds spice to their wide-of-the-mark discussions. Even at the Chicago World's Congresses their discussions were mostly given up to re-hashing the same stories, as if they were proud that, even though they knew nothing of psychic law, they had at least discovered one human being whose nature they could not fathom, and desired to for ever parade her with the various labels their fancy suggested. But in districts or new publications, where a new attack is made, good judgment may suggest an answer bringing up the statement of charges and copiousness of former answers. Now our work goes on in meetings, in publications, in discussions, and here is where the old idea of repelling attack may run into an unnecessary parade of the person to whom in heart we are loyal, while at the same time the voluminousness of her writings is often an excuse for not investigating for oneself, and this leads to quoting her too frequently by name as authority.

She never claimed authority, but, contrariwise, disclaimed it. But few of the theories broached by her were new to our day, albeit those are the key-ideas. Yet these very key-ideas are not those on which the quotations and personal references to her are made so often. She neither invented, nor claimed as new, the doctrines of Karma, Reincarnation, Devachan, Cycles, and the like. These are all exhaustively treated in various literatures―Buddhistic, Jain, Brahmanical, Zoroastrian. They are capable, like all theosophic doctrines, of independent examination, of philosophical, logical, and analogical proof. But, if we state them parrot-like, and then bring forward a quotation from H. P. Blavatsky to prove them, has not an opponent, has not any one, member or non-member, a right to say that the offending person is not doing independent thinking, is not holding a belief after due consideration, but is merely acting blindly on faith in matters where blind faith is not required? And if many members do the same thing, it is quite natural that a cry should be raised by some one of "Blavatskianism."

If this were an age in the West when any respect or reverence existed as a general thing in the people, the sayings of a sage could be quoted as authority. But it is not such an age. Reverence is paralyzed for the time, and the words of a sage are of no moment as such. H. P. Blavatsky came in this irreverent time, holding herself only as a messenger and indicator, not as a sage pure and simple. Hence to merely quote her words out of due place will but arouse a needless irritation. It may indicate in oneself a failure to think out the problem independently, an absence of diligence in working out our own salvation in the way directed by Gautama Buddha. What, then, are the right times and places, and which are out of place and time?

When the assembly and the subject are both meant to deal with the life and works of H. P. Blavatsky, then it is right and proper and wise to speak of her and her works, her acts, and words. If one is dealing with an analysis or compilation of her writings on any subject, then must she and what she wrote be used, named and quoted. But even at those times her words should not be quoted as and for authority, inasmuch as she said they were not. Those who consider them to be authority will quickly enough accept them. As she never put forward anything as original investigation of hers in the realm of science, in the line of experiments in hypnotism, in clairvoyance, mind-reading, or the like, we ought to be careful how and when we bring her statements forward to an unbelieving public.

But in an assembly of members coming together to discuss theosophical doctrines in general, say such as Karma, Reincarnation, the Septenary Constitution, and the like, it is certainly unwise to give quotation after quotation from H. P. Blavatsky's works on the matter in hand. This is not fair to the hearers, and it shows only a power of memory or compilation that argues nothing as to the comprehension of the subject on the reader's part. It is very easy to compile, to quote sentence after sentence, to weave a long series of extracts together, but it is not progress, nor independence, nor wisdom. On the other

hand, it is a complete nullification of the life-work of the one who has directed us to the path; it is contrary to the spirit and genius of the Society. And if in such an assembly much time is given to recounting phenomena performed by H.P.B., or telling how she once said this and at another time did that, the time is out of joint with the remarks.

Meetings of branches are meant for giving to the members and enquirers a knowledge of theosophical doctrines by which alone true progress is to come to our movement.

New and good members are constantly needed; they cannot be fished out of the sea of enquirers by such a process as the personal history of anyone, they cannot be retained by relations of matters that do not teach them the true aim and philosophy of life, they will be driven off if assailed with quotations.

If there is power in a grateful loyalty to H. P. Blavatsky, as for my part I fully believe, it does not have its effect by being put forward all the time, or so often as to be too noticeable, but from its depth, its true basis, its wise foundation, its effect on our work, our act, and thought. Hence to my mind there is no disloyalty in reserving the mention of her name and qualities for right and timely occasions. It is certain that as Theosophy brings forward no new system of ethics, but only enforces the ethics always preached, the claim, if made, that our ethics, our high endeavor, are to be found nowhere else described save in the works left by H.P. Blavatsky, is baseless, will lead to wrong conclusions, and bring up a reaction that no amount of argument can suppress. No greater illustration of an old and world-wide religion can be found than that provided by Buddhism, but what did Buddha say to his disciples when they brought up the question of the honours to be paid to his remains? He told them not to hinder themselves about it, not to dwell on it, but to work out their own salvation with diligence.¹

That the views held by H. P. Blavatsky herself coincided with this can be seen by reading the pamphlet entitled The Theosophical Society and H.P.B., being a reprint of articles

that appeared in LUCIFER of December, 1890. She requested the reprint, and some of her notes are appended to the articles. In those Bro. Patterson took somewhat the same ground as this article, and she commended it in most positive terms.

THE ESOTERIC SHE

A WOMAN who, for one reason or another, has kept the world―first her little child world and afterward two hemispheres―talking of her, disputing about her, defending or assailing her character and motives, joining her enterprise or opposing it might and main, and in her death being as much telegraphed about between two continents as an emperor, must have been a remarkable person. Such was Mme. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, born under the power of the holy Tzar, in the family of the Hahns, descended on one side from the famous crusader, Count Rottenstern, who added Hahn, a cock, to his name because that bird saved his life from a wily Saracen who had come into his tent to murder him.

Hardly any circumstance or epoch in Mme. Blavatsky's career was prosaic. She chose to be born into this life at Ekaterinoslaw, Russia, in the year 1831, when coffins and desolation were everywhere from the plague of cholera. The child was so delicate that the family decided upon immediate baptism under the rites of the Greek Catholic Church. This was in itself not common, but the ceremony was―under the luck that ever was with Helena―more remarkable and startling still. At this ceremony all the relatives are present and stand holding lighted candles. As one was absent a young child, aunt of the infant Helena, was made proxy for the absentee, and given a candle like the rest. Tired out by the effort, this young proxy sank down to the floor unnoticed by the others, and, just as the sponsors were renouncing the evil one on the babe's behalf, by three times spitting on the floor,

the sitting witness with her candle accidentally set fire to the robes of the officiating priest, and instantly there was a small conflagration, in which many of those present were seriously burned. Thus amid the scourge of death in the land was Mme. Blavatsky ushered into our world, and in the flames baptized by the priests of a Church whose fallacious dogmas she did much in her life to expose.

She was connected with the rulers of Russia. Speaking in 1881, her uncle, Gen. Fadeef, joint Councillor of State of Russia, said that, as daughter of Col. Peter Hahn, she was grand-daughter of Gen. Alexis Hahn von Rottenstern Hahn of old Mecklenburg stock, settled in Russia, and on her mother's side daughter of Héléne Fadeef and granddaughter of Princess Helena Dolgorouky. Her maternal ancestors were of the oldest families in Russia and direct descendants of the Prince or Grand Duke Rurik, the first ruler of Russia. Several ladies of the family belonged to the imperial house, becoming Czarinas by marriage. One of them, a Dolgorouky, married the grandfather of Peter the Great, and another was betrothed to Czar Peter II. Through these connections it naturally resulted that Mme. Blavatsky was acquainted personally with many noble Russians. In Paris I met three princes of Russia and one well-known General, who told of her youth and the wonderful things related about her then; and in Germany I met the Prince Emile de Wittgenstein of one of the many Russo-German families, and himself cousin to the Empress of Russia and aide-de-camp to the Czar, who told me that he was an old family friend of hers, who heard much about her in early years, but, to his regret, had never had the fortune to see her again after a brief visit made with her father to his house. But he joined her famous Theosophical Society by correspondence, and wrote, after the war with Turkey, that he had been told in a letter from her that no hurt would come to him during the campaign, and such turned out to be the fact.

As a child she was the wonder of the neighborhood and the terror of the simpler serfs. Russia teems with superstitions and omens, and as Helena was born on the seventh month and

between the 30th and 31st day, she was supposed by the nurses and servants to have powers and virtues possessed by no one else. And these supposed powers made her the cynosure of all in her early youth. She was allowed liberties given none others, and as soon as she could understand she was given by her nurses the chief part in a mystic Russian ceremony performed about the house and grounds on the 30th of July with the object of propitiating the house demon. The education she got was fragmentary, and in itself so inadequate as to be one more cause among many for the belief of her friends in later life that she was endowed with abnormal psychic powers, or else in verity assisted by those unseen beings who she asserted were her helpers and who were men living on the earth, but possessed of developed senses that laughed at time and space. In girlhood she was bound by no restraint of conventionality, but rode any Cossack horse in a man's saddle, and later on spent a long time with her father with his regiment in the field, where, with her sister, she became the pet of the soldiers. In 1844, when 14, her father took her to London and Paris, where some progress was made in music, and before 1848 she returned home.

Her marriage in 1848 to Gen. Nicephore Blavatsky, the Governor of Erivan in the Caucasus, gave her the name of Blavatsky, borne till her death. This marriage, like all other events in her life, was full of pyrotechnics. Her abrupt style had led her female friends to say that she could not make the old Blavatsky marry her, and out of sheer bravado she declared she could, and sure enough, he did propose and was accepted. Then the awful fact obtruded itself on Helena's mind that this could not―in Russia―be undone. They were married, but the affair was signalized by Mme. Blavatsky's breaking a candlestick over his head and precipitately leaving the house, never to see him again. After her determination was evident, her father assisted her in a life of travel which began from that date, and not until 1858 did she return to Russia. Meanwhile her steps led her to America in 1851, to Canada, to New Orleans, to Mexico, off to India, and back again in

1853 to the United States. Then her relatives lost sight of her once more until 1858, when her coming back was like other events in her history. It was a wintry night, and a wedding party was on at the home in Russia. Guests had arrived, and suddenly, interrupting the meal, the bell rang violently, and there, unannounced, was Mme. Blavatsky at the door.

From this point the family and many friends testify, both by letter and by articles in the Rebus, a well-known journal in Russia, and in other papers, a constant series of marvels wholly unexplainable on the theory of jugglery was constantly occurring. They were of such a character that hundreds of friends from great distances were constantly visiting the house to see the wonderful Mme. Blavatsky. Many were incredulous, many believed it was magic, and others started charges of fraud. The superstitious Gooriel and Mingrelian nobility came in crowds and talked incessantly after, calling her a magician. They came to see the marvels others reported, to see her sitting quietly reading while tables and chairs moved of themselves and low raps in every direction seemed to reply to questions. Among many testified to was one done for her brother, who doubted her powers. A small chess table stood on the floor. Very light―a child could lift it and a man break it. One asked if Mme. Blavatsky could fasten it by will to the floor. She then said to examine it, and they found it loose. After that, and being some distance off, she said, "Try it again." They then found that no power of theirs could stir it, and her brother supposing from his great strength that this "trick" could easily be exposed, embraced the little table and shook and pulled it without effect, except to make it groan and creak. So with wall and furniture rapping, objects moving, messages about distant happenings arriving by aerial port, the whole family and neighborhood were in a constant state of excitement. Mme. Blavatsky said herself that this was a period when she was letting her psychic forces play, and learning fully to understand and control them.

But the spirit of unrest came freshly again, and she started out once more to find, as she wrote to me, "the men and

women whom I want to prepare for the work of a great philosophical and ethical movement that I expect to start in a later time." Going to Spezzia in a Greek vessel, the usual display of natural circumstances took place, and the boat was blown up by an explosion of gunpowder in the cargo. Only a few of those on board were saved, she among them. This led her to Cairo, in Egypt, where, in 1871, she started a society with the object of investigating spiritualism so as to expose its fallacies, if any, and to put its facts on a firm, scientific, and reasonable basis, if possible. But it only lasted fourteen days, and she wrote about it then: "It is a heap of ruins―majestic, but as suggestive as those of the Pharoahs' tombs."

It was, however, in the United States that she really began the work that has made her name well known in Europe, Asia, and America; made her notorious in the eyes of those who dislike all reformers, but great and famous for those who say her works have benefited them. Prior to 1875 she was again investigating the claims of spiritualism in this country, and wrote home then analyzing it, declaring false its assertion that the dead were heard from, and showing that, on the other hand, the phenomena exhibited a great psycho-physiological change going on here, which, if allowed to go on in our present merely material civilization, would bring about great disaster, morally and physically.

Then in 1875, in New York, she started the Theosophical Society, aided by Col. H. S. Olcott and others, declaring its objects to be the making of a nucleus for a universal brotherhood, the study of ancient and other religions and sciences, and the investigation of the psychical and recondite laws affecting man and nature. There certainly was no selfish object in this, nor any desire to raise money. She was in receipt of funds from sources in Russia and other places until they were cut off by reason of her becoming an American citizen, and also because her unremunerated labors for the society prevented her doing literary work on Russian magazines, where all her writings would be taken eagerly. As soon as the Theo-

sophical Society was started she said to the writer that a book had to be written for its use. Isis Unveiled was then begun, and unremittingly she worked at it night and day until the moment when a publisher was secured for it.

Meanwhile crowds of visitors were constantly calling at her rooms in Irving Place, later in Thirty-fourth street, and last in Forty-seventh street and Eighth avenue. The newspapers were full of her supposed powers or of laughter at the possibilities in man that she and her society asserted. A prominent New York daily wrote of her thus: "A woman of as remarkable characteristics as Cagliostro himself, and one who is every day as differently judged by different people as the renowned Count was in his day. By those who know her slightly she is called a charlatan; better acquaintance made you think she was learned; and those who were intimate with her were either carried away with belief in her power or completely puzzled." Isis Unveiled attracted wide attention, and all the New York papers reviewed it, each saying that it exhibited immense research. The strange part of this is, as I and many others can testify as eyewitnesses to the production of the book, that the writer had no library in which to make researches and possessed no notes of investigation or reading previously done. All was written straight out of hand. And yet it is full of references to books in the British Museum and other great libraries, and every reference is correct. Either, then, we have, as to that book, a woman who was capable of storing in her memory a mass of facts, dates, numbers, titles, and subjects such as no other human being ever was capable of, or her claim to help from unseen beings is just.

In 1878, Isis Unveiled having been published, Mme. Blavatsky informed her friends that she must go to India and start there the same movement of the Theosophical Society. So in December of that year she and Col. Olcott and two more went out to India, stopping at London for a while. Arriving in Bombay, they found three or four Hindoos to meet them who had heard from afar of the matter. A place was hired in the native part of the town, and soon she and Col.

Olcott started the Theosophist, a magazine that became at once well known there and was widely bought in the West.

There in Bombay and later in Adyar, Madras, Mme. Blavatsky worked day after day in all seasons, editing her magazine and carrying on an immense correspondence with people in every part of the world interested in theosophy, and also daily disputing and discussing with learned Hindoos who constantly called. Phenomena occurred there also very often, and later the society for discovering nothing about the psychic world investigated these, and came to the conclusion that this woman of no fortune, who was never before publicly heard of in India, had managed, in some way they could not explain, to get up a vast conspiracy that ramified all over India, including men of all ranks, by means of which she was enabled to produce pretended phenomena. I give this conclusion as one adopted by many. For any one who knew her and who knows India, with its hundreds of different languages, none of which she knew, the conclusion is absurd. The Hindoos believed in her, said always that she could explain to them their own scriptures and philosophies where the Brahmins had lost or concealed the key, and that by her efforts and the work of the society founded through her, India's young men were being saved from the blank materialism which is the only religion the West can ever give a Hindoo.

In 1887 Mme. Blavatsky returned to England, and there started another theosophical magazine, called Lucifer, and immediately stirred up the movement in Europe. Day and night there, as in New York and India, she wrote and spoke, incessantly corresponding with people everywhere, editing Lucifer, and making more books for her beloved society, and never possessed of means, never getting from the world at large anything save abuse wholly undeserved. The Key to Theosophy was written in London, and also The Secret Doctrine, which is the great text book for Theosophists. The Voice of the Silence was written there too, and is meant for devotional Theosophists. Writing, writing, writing from morn till night was her fate here. Yet, although scandalized and abused here as

elsewhere, she made many devoted friends, for there never was anything half way in her history. Those who met her or heard of her were always either staunch friends or bitter enemies.

The Secret Doctrine led to the coming into the society of Mrs. Annie Besant, and then Mme. Blavatsky began to say that her labors were coming to an end, for here was a woman who had the courage of the ancient reformers and who would help carry on the movement in England unflinchingly. The Secret Doctrine was sent to Mr. Stead of the Pall Mall Gazette to review, but none of his usual reviewers felt equal to it and he asked Mrs. Besant if she could review it. She accepted the task, reviewed, and then wanted an introduction to the writer. Soon after that she joined the society, first fully investigating Mme. Blavatsky's character, and threw in her entire forces with the Theosophists. Then a permanent London headquarters was started and still exists. And there Mme. Blavatsky passed away, with the knowledge that the society she had striven so hard for at any cost was at last an entity able to struggle for itself.

In her dying moment she showed that her life had been spent for an idea, with full consciousness that in the eyes of the world it was Utopian, but in her own necessary for the race. She implored her friends not to allow her then ending incarnation to become a failure by the failure of the movement started and carried on with so much of suffering. She never in all her life made money or asked for it. Venal writers and spiteful men and women have said she strove to get money from so-called dupes, but all her intimate friends know that over and over again she has refused money; that always she has had friends who would give her all they had if she would take it, but she never took any nor asked it. On the other hand, her philosophy and her high ideals have caused others to try to help all those in need. Impelled by such incentive, one rich Theosophist gave her $5,000 to found a working girls' club at Bow, in London, and one day, after Mrs. Besant had made the arrangements for the house and the rest, Mme. Blavatsky,

although sick and old, went down there herself and opened the club in the name of the society.

The aim and object of her life were to strike off the shackles forged by priestcraft for the mind of man. She wished all men to know that they are God in fact, and that as men they must bear the burden of their own sins, for no one else can do it. Hence she brought forward to the West the old Eastern doctrines of karma and reincarnation. Under the first, the law of justice, she said each must answer for himself, and under the second make answer on the earth where all his acts were done. She also desired that science should be brought back to the true ground where life and intelligence are admitted to be within and acting on and through every atom in the universe. Hence her object was to make religion scientific and science religious, so that the dogmatism of each might disappear.

Her life since 1875 was spent in the unremitting endeavor to draw within the Theosophical Society those who could work unselfishly to propagate an ethics and philosophy tending to realize the brotherhood of man by showing the real unity and essential non-separateness of every being. And her books were written with the declared object of furnishing the material for intellectual and scientific progress on those lines. The theory of man's origin, powers, and destiny brought forward by her, drawn from ancient Indian sources, places us upon a higher pedestal that that given by either religion or science, for it gives to each the possibility of developing the godlike powers within and of at last becoming a co-worker with nature.

As every one must die at last, we will not say that her demise was a loss; but if she had not lived and done what she did humanity would not have had the impulse and the ideas toward the good which it was her mission to give and to proclaim. And there are today scores, nay, hundreds, of devout, earnest men and women intent on purifying their own lives and sweetening the lives of others, who trace their hopes and aspirations to the wisdom-religion revived in the West

through her efforts, and who gratefully avow that their dearest possessions are the result of her toilsome and self-sacrificing life. If they, in turn, live aright and do good, they will be but illustrating the doctrine which she daily taught and hourly practised.

THE ALLEGORICAL UMBRELLA

IN the Buddhist stories there are numerous references to umbrellas. When Buddha is said to have granted to his disciples the power of seeing what they called "Buddha Fields," they saw myriads of Buddhas sitting under trees and jewelled umbrellas. There are not wanting in the Hindu books and monuments references to and representations of umbrellas being held over personages. In a very curious and extremely old stone relievo at the Seven Pagodas in India, showing the conflict between Durga and the demons, the umbrella is figured over the heads of the Chiefs. It is not our intention to exalt this common and useful article to a high place in occultism, but we wish to present an idea in connection with it that has some value for the true student.

In the Upanishads we read the invocation: "Reveal, O Pushan, that face of the true sun which is now hidden by a golden lid." This has reference to the belief of all genuine occultists, from the earliest times to the present day, that there is a "true sun," and that the sun we see is a secondary one; or, to put it in plainer language, that there is an influence or power in the sun which may be used, if obtained by the mystic, for beneficent purposes, and which, if not guarded, hidden or obscured by a cover, would work destruction to those who might succeed in drawing it out. This was well known in ancient Chaldea, and also to the old Chinese astronomers: the latter had certain instruments which they used for the purpose of concentrating particular rays of sunlight as yet unknown to modern science and now forgotten by the flowery

land philosophers. So much for that sun we see, whose probable death is calculated by some aspiring scientists who deal in absurdities. But there is the true centre of which the sun in heaven is a symbol and partial reflection. This centre let us place for the time with the Dhyan Chohans or planetary spirits. It is all knowing, and so intensely powerful that, were a struggling disciple to be suddenly introduced to its presence unprepared, he would be consumed, both body and soul. And this is the goal we are all striving after, and many of us asking to see even at the opening of the race. But for our protection a cover, or umbrella, has been placed beneath IT. The ribs are the Rishees, or Adepts, or Mahatmas; the Elder Brothers of the race. The handle is in every man's hand. And although each man is, or is to be, connected with some particular one of those Adepts, he can also receive the influence from the true centre coming down through the handle.

The light, life, knowledge, and power falling upon this cover permeate in innumerable streams the whole mass of men beneath, whether they be students or not. As the disciple strives upward, he begins to separate himself from the great mass of human beings, and becomes in a more or less definite manner connected with the ribs. Just as the streams of water flow down from the points of the ribs of our umbrellas, so the spiritual influences pour out from the adepts who form the frame of the protecting cover, without which poor humanity would be destroyed by the blaze from the spiritual world.

THE MAHATMAS AS IDEALS AND FACTS

A VISITOR from one of the other planets of the solar system who might learn the term Mahatma after arriving here would certainly suppose that the etymology of the word undoubtedly inspired the believers in Mahatmas with the devotion, fearlessness, hope, and energy which such an ideal should arouse in those who have the welfare of the human race at heart. Such a supposition would be correct in respect to some, but the heavenly visitor after examining all the members of the Theosophical Society could not fail to meet disappointment when the fact was clear to him that many of the believers were afraid of their own ideals, hesitated to proclaim them, were slothful in finding arguments to give reasons for their hope, and all because the wicked and scoffing materialistic world might laugh at such a belief.

The whole sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are contained in the word Mahatma. Maha is "great," Atma is "soul," and both compounded into one mean those great souls who have triumphed before us not because they are made of different stuff and are of some strange family, but just because they are of the human race. Reincarnation, karma, the sevenfold division, retribution, reward, struggle, failure, success, illumination, power, and a vast embracing love for man, al1 these lie in that single word. The soul emerges from the unknown, begins to work in and with matter, is reborn again and again, makes karma, developes the six vehicles for itself, meets retribution for sin and punishment for mistake, grows strong by suffering, succeeds in bursting through the gloom, is enlightened by the true illumination, grasps power, retains

charity, expands with love for orphaned humanity, and thenceforth helps all others who remain in darkness until all may be raised up to the place with the "Father in Heaven" who is the Higher Self. This would be the argument of the visitor from the distant planet, and he in it would describe a great ideal for all members of a Society such as ours which had its first impulse from some of these very Mahatmas.

Without going into any argument further than to say that evolution demands that such beings should exist or there is a gap in the chain―and this position is even held by a man of science like Professor Huxley, who in his latest essays puts it in almost as definite language as mine―this article is meant for those who believe in the existence of the Mahatmas, whether that faith has arisen of itself or is the result of argument. It is meant also for all classes of the believers, for they are of several varieties. Some believe without wavering; others believe unwaveringly but are afraid to tell of their belief; a few believe, yet are always thinking that they must be able to say they have set eyes on an Adept before they can infuse their belief into others; and a certain number deliberately hide the belief as a sort of individual possession which separates them from the profane mortals who have never heard of the Adepts or who having heard scoff at the notion. To all these I wish to speak. Those unfortunate persons who are ever trying to measure exalted men and sages by the conventional rules of a transition civilization, or who are seemingly afraid of a vast possibility for man and therefore deny, may be well left to themselves and to time, for it is more than likely they will fall into the general belief when it is formed, as it surely will be in the course of no long time. For a belief in Mahatmas―whatever name you give the idea―is a common property of the whole race, and all the efforts of all the men of empirical science and dogmatic religion can never kill out the soul's own memory of its past.

We should declare our belief in the Adepts, while at the same time we demand no one's adherence. It is not necessary to give the names of any of the Adepts, for a name is an invention of a family, and but few persons ever think of them-

selves by name but by the phrase 'I am myself.' To name these beings, then, is no proof, and to seek for mystery names is to invite condemnation for profanation. The ideal without the name is large and grand enough for all purposes.

Some years ago the Adepts wrote and said to H.P.B. and to several persons that more help could be given to the movement in America because the fact of their existence was not concealed from motives of either fear or doubt. This statement of course carries with it by contradistinction the conclusion that where, from fear of schools of science or of religion, the members had not referred much to the belief in Mahatmas, the power to help was for some reason inhibited. This is the interesting point, and brings up the question "Can the power to help of the Mahatmas be for any cause inhibited?" The answer is, It can. But why?

All effects on every plane are the result of forces set in motion, and cannot be the result of nothing, but must ever flow from causes in which they are wrapped up. If the channel through which water is meant to flow is stopped up, the water will not run there, but if a clear channel is provided the current will pass forward. Occult help from Masters requires a channel just as much as any other help does, and the fact that the currents to be used are occult makes the need for a channel greater. The persons to be acted on must take part in making the channel or line for the force to act, for if we will not have it they cannot give it. Now as we are dealing with the mind and nature of man, we have to throw out the words which will arouse the ideas connected with the forces we desire to have employed. In this case the words are those which bring up the doctrine of the existence of Adepts, Mahatmas, Masters of wisdom. Hence the value of the declaration of our belief. It arouses dormant ideas in others, it opens up a channel in the mind, it serves to make the conducting lines for the forces to use which the Mahatmas wish to give out. Many a young man who could never hope to see great modern professors of science like Huxley and Tyndall and Darwin has been excited to action, moved to self-help, impelled to seek for knowledge, by having heard that such men

actually exist and are human beings. Without stopping to ask if the proof of their living in Europe is complete, men have sought to follow their example. Shall we not take advantage of the same law of the human mind and let the vast power of the Lodge work with our assistance and not against our opposition or doubt or fear? Those who are devoted know how they have had unseen help which showed itself in results. Those who fear may take courage, for they will find that not all their fellow beings are devoid of an underlying belief in the possibilities outlined by the doctrine of the existence of the Adepts.

And if we look over the work of the Society we find wherever the members boldly avow their belief and are not afraid to speak of this high ideal, the interest in theosophy is awake, the work goes on, the people are benefited. To the contrary, where there are constant doubt, ceaseless asking for material proof, incessant fear of what the world or science or friends will think, there the work is dead, the field is not cultivated, and the town or city receives no benefit from the efforts of those who while formally in a universal brotherhood are not living out the great ideal.

Very wisely and as an occultist, Jesus said his followers must give up all and follow him. We must give up the desire to save ourselves and acquire the opposite one,―the wish to save others. Let us remember the story in ancient writ of Arjuna, who, entering heaven and finding that his dog was not admitted and some of his friends in hell, refused to remain and said that while one creature was out of heaven he would not enter it. This is true devotion, and this joined to an intelligent declaration of belief in the great initiation of the human race will lead to results of magnitude, will call out the forces that are behind, will prevail against hell itself and all the minions of hell now striving to retard the progress of the human soul.

AN INTERESTING LETTER

DEAR Brother,―I have your last long and welcome letter. The fears you express of the T.S. leading to dogmatism or fanaticism seem to be groundless to me. If we had a creed there would be danger; if the Society declared any particular doctrine to be true, or to be the accepted view of the T.S., great danger would result. But we have no creed, and the T.S. has not declared for any doctrine. Its members have asserted certain beliefs, but that is their right. They do not force them on others. Their declaration of their own beliefs does not unfit them to be members. I have my own settled beliefs, but I do not say that another must accept these. The eternal duty of right thought, act, and speech, is not affected by my theories. Hence all I ask of another is, to do his own duty and let me do mine. Such, indeed is the very genius of our Society, and that is the very reason why it still lives and has an influence.

And when we come to examine the work and the foundation of the T.S. and its policy, I find it perfectly proper for me to assert, as I do, in accordance with my own knowledge and belief, that our true progress lies in fidelity to Masters as ideals and facts. Likewise is it perfectly proper for another to say that he does not know anything about the Masters―if such be his case―but is willing to work in and for the T.S. But he has no right to go further and deny my privilege of asserting my belief in those Beings.

So also further; I have the right to say that I think a constant reliance on Masters as such ideals and facts―or either―will lead the T.S. on to greater work. And he has his right to say that he can work without that reliance. But neither has he nor have you any right to say that my belief in this, or any assertion of it, is wrong or in any way improper.

I belong to that class of persons in the T.S. who out of their own experience know that the Masters exist and actually help the T.S. You belong to a class which―as I read your letters and those of others who write similarly―express a doubt on this, that, or the other, seeming to question the expediency, propriety and wisdom of a man's boldly asserting confidence and belief in Beings who are unprovable for many, although you say (as in your present letter) that you believe in and revere the same Masters as I do. What, then, must I conclude? Am I not forced to the conclusion that inasmuch as you say you believe in these Beings, you think it unwise in me to assert publicly and boldly my belief? Well, then, if this is a correct statement of the case, why cannot you go on your way of belief and concealment of it, and let me proceed with my proclamations? I will take the Karma of my own beliefs. I force no man to accept my assertions.

But I am not acting impulsively in my many public statements as to the existence of Masters and help from Them. It is done upon an old order of Theirs and under a law of mind. The existence of Masters being a fact, the assertion of that fact made so often in America has opened up channels in men's minds which would have remained closed had silence been observed about the existence of those Beings. The giving out of names is another matter; that, I do not sanction nor practise. Experience has shown that a springing up of interest in Theosophy has followed declaration, and men's minds are more and more powerfully drawn away from the blank Materialism which is rooted in English, French, and German teaching. And the Masters have said "It is easier to help in America than Europe because in the former our existence has been persistently declared by so many." You may, perhaps, call this a commonplace remark, as you do some others, but

for me it has a deep significance and contains a high endorsement. A very truism when uttered by a Mahatma has a deeper meaning for which the student must seek, but which he will lose if he stops to criticize and weigh the words in mere ordinary scales.

Now, I may as well say it out very plainly that the latter half of your letter in which you refer to a message printed in the Path in 1891 in August is the part you consider of most importance. To that part of your letter you gave the most attention, and to the same portion you wish for a reply more than to the preliminary pages. Now, on the contrary, I consider the preceding half of your letter the important half. This last bit, all about the printed message, is not important at all. Why? Because your basic facts are wrong.

It is true I had later the privilege of seeing his message, but only read the text, did not examine the signature, and do not remember if even it had a signature. The signature is not important. The means for identification are not located in signatures at all. If you have not the means yourself for proving and identifying such a message, then signature, seal, papers, watermarks, what not, all are useless.

As the "Master's seal," about which you put me the question, I do not know. Whether He has a seal or uses one is something on which I am ignorant. In my experience I have had messages from the Master, but they bear no seal and I attach no significance to the point. A seal on other messages of His goes for nothing with me; the presence or absence of a seal is nothing to me; my means of proof and identification are within myself and everything else is trumpery. Can I be more definite? Anticipating―as a brother lawyer―your question, I say in reply that I have no recollection as to any signature or seal on this message to Jasper Niemand, because I read it but once.

Further, I think it a useful message. The qualities spoken of were more than ever needed at that crisis, and words of encouragement from Masters, however trite, were useful and stimulating. We do not―at least I do not―want Masters to utter veiled, mystical, or portentous phrases. The commonplace ones suit me best and are best understood. Perhaps, if you were satisfied with simple words from Them you might have had them. Who knows? They have written much of high import, enough for fifty years of effort in the letters published by Mr. Sinnett in the Occult World, and attributed to K.H. Why should one desire private messages in addition? I do not. Some men would sell their lives for the most commonplace phrase from Masters.

But as Masters are still living in bodies, and that in your own country and not so far from you as I am. I consider you privileged in, so to say, breathing the same air with those exalted personages. Yet I know beyond doubt or cavil that we, so far away, are not exempt from Masters' care and help. Knowing this we are content to "wait, to work, and to hope."

P.S.―Perhaps I ought to say somewhat more fully that the message in Path from Master, had, in my judgment, far more value than you attribute to it. There are in this Section many members who need precisely its assurance that no worker, however feeble or insignificant, is outside the range of Master's eye and help. My co-workers in New York were so impressed with the value to the Section of this particular message, that one of them paid the cost of printing it on slips and sending it to every member of the Section in good standing. Of course its worth and importance are better understood here than they can be by anyone not familiar with the Section and I can see ample justification of the Master's wisdom in sending the words He did.

OUR CONVICTIONS

TO THE PATH:―Please resolve a doubt. Are members of the T.S. required to become flabby in character upon entering the Society, and to give up their convictions for fear of a vague future dogmatism? I ask this because in some of our magazines I have seen objections raised to a free promulgation of one's ideas on such subjects, for instance, as the Adepts or Masters, Reincarnation, Karma, and so on. If we are so required, then I would ask why we have a free platform in the T.S., and when were the statements made in the President's inaugural address of 1875 withdrawn?

THIS question seems easy to answer. It is presumed that the correspondent refers to an objection to my plainly stating either in our journals or in any other way my own personal beliefs. It is evident that S.F.H. is thinking of the objection made in the Theosophist by N.D.K. to my plainly saying I believe in the existence of the Masters of whom so often H.P.B. spoke. N.D.K., taking up a letter of mine, quoted this sentence: "And when we come to examine the work and the foundation of the T.S. and its policy, I find it perfectly proper for me to assert, as I do in accordance with my own knowledge and belief, that our true progress lies in our fidelity to Masters as ideals and facts." S.F.H. is perplexed because N.D.K. seemed to object to that, but the perplexity need not exist nor need we become flabby in our convictions.

For, as will be seen by reading, and not straining, the sentence quoted, the "policy" of the T.S. referred to by me

therein is that of leaving everyone quite free to express his views on all these points. Although N.D.K. would appear to think I meant that the T.S. policy was for it to make these declarations, it is easy to see by consulting the constitution that its policy is the opposite. The policy is freedom to members and perfect neutrality on the part of the T.S. To have any other, or to say that merely because one is in a society such as ours, or is an officer, he cannot give his own opinions so long as he accords the same privilege to another, would be a monstrous thing, contrary to our constitution and quite against a long history in which, from H.P.B. and Col. Olcott down, all members have had perfect freedom of expression. So S.F.H. need have no fear; our policy of freedom is not altered; all have a right to their convictions; and it is certain that if anyone is becoming flabby the oldest members of the T.S. will at once adjure him to strengthen his sincere convictions and not hesitate to give them expression, always allowing to everyone else the same liberty of thought and speech. And to aid our correspondent we will give some further light if possible.

Let us take first H. P. Blavatsky. She began in the T.S., with its free platform, immediately to preach and promulgate her own personal view that the Masters were facts, and facts of very great magnitude, and this she did and continued against the most violent opposition and the fiercest ridicule. She also proclaimed unequivocally, as Cagliostro did many years before in Paris, a belief in the occult machinery of the Cosmos with all that that implies. Moreover, in the name of the Master she did very wonderful phenomena, which one of the same Masters has said, as published by Mr. Sinnett, have puzzled men for a good part of a century. And while thus freely expressing her own views she allowed the same freedom to all others, and was herself the agent for the taking into the T.S. of many who did not believe as she did but who often scouted at her convictions. Then, further, she proclaimed a system of philosophy with all her ardor just as she had a right to do, and merely laid it before the world within the pale of a free Society, which is not compelled to accept but whose members

fortunately do in great part. And in saying they are thus fortunate I am now giving expression to my own views.

Next consider the career of Col. H. S. Olcott since he began the work of the T.S., President then as he now is, and as we hope he will remain. He is our highest officer. Yet he has not failed to assert his undying belief in the Adepts and Masters universal and particular. It is a good example for those who have the same belief. It was done in the T.S., not as officer but as man, as individual member, and it would be a poor sort of constitution that would have prevented him. Long ago he said they existed and tried to prove it. He worked with the Psychical Research Society of London to prove to them the existence of the Masters and the truth of the doctrines given out by them as to occult phenomena. That may have appeared to be disastrous, but it was done with good intent and still under the constitution, for if against the constitution why was he not charged and put out? Because it was within his right. And in various places since then he has made the same assertions. At the Convention of the European Section in 1891 he publicly said on the platform that the Masters existed and that he had seen them himself, and spoke also of more than the two most spoken of in the T.S. and its literature. Then last, and now, he repeats it all with greater detail and particularity in his own series of Diary Leaves in his own magazine which has always been called the only organ the T.S. has. For, mark you, the PATH and Lucifer have never been made the organs of the T.S.; nor, indeed, should they be.

Mr. Sinnett stands out in high relief among those who have in public and private, within the T.S., asserted with all his strength his belief in the Masters' existence and tried his very best to prove his assertion. His books, his pamphlets, his speeches in public and private, all show this. Was he wrong, was he not fully justified under the constitution? And has he not gone even further and taken up the cudgels in battle for his views?

It very clearly appears, then, that under the Constitution we all have the fullest right to proclaim our views, not once but as often as we see fit, so long as we give others the same

right and do not say that the T.S. as a body is responsible, for it is not. This is the beauty of our law. We are free just as the United States constitution is free and proclaims for no creed and no sort of god but leaves all men to say what they please, if they do not interfere with the liberty of others.

Entry into our ranks in no way infers a becoming flabby, by which is supposed the querent means a fear of saying what and in what each individual believes, because this is a brotherhood free from dogmatism. Earnestness and sincerity are not dogmatism at all, and it is undeniable that a reform in philosophy and thought such as ours could never prosper if our members were to grow flabby in this or in any other particular. Then again, if some of us have found that for us the Masters exist, it is our human universal duty to tell others, so that they may find out also or be able to show by good substantial proof that we are wrong. When they shall have proved this to our satisfaction it will be time for us to disband, for then will have fallen the theory of the possible spiritual evolution of man, and we can then leave the field to the scientific materialists who not long ago declared the possibility of that high evolution. But as this is a reductio ad absurdum we may all continue our preachments of views, some for and some against man's great inheritance. The PATH will continue to say its editor believes in humanity and in the great Masters of Wisdom.

THE ADEPTS

IN this I purpose to give but the condensed form of some objections made to the theory of the existence of the Adepts, and of the answers which might be made. The objections are variously founded, applying as well to the names Masters and Mahatmas as to other designations.

"MASTERS" IS OBJECTIONABLE because contrary to Republicanism or Democracy or Individualism.

But master comes from magister, who is a teacher, an expounder as well as applier of the law; hence magistrate. Every one, in fact, has a master, whether it be physically, mentally, or morally; and this objection is but the old and foolish exhibition of contempt for regulations of a government from which America escaped long ago.

THE OBJECTOR HAS NEVER SEEN AN ADEPT. This would apply equally to the assertion of the existence of Napoleon or any other character one has not seen, and with more force. For there was but one Napoleon, while there have been and are many Adepts. The ancients all relate histories of Adepts; the Hindus of today do the same; many of the writers of the middle ages and the traditions of the same period speak of them as accepted facts; the traditions of all countries not so new as this give similar testimony; the Chinese, Tibetans, Burmese, and other Oriental people tell of such personages, while Chinese, Buddhist, and Hindu literature teems with testimony. Hence to support the doctrine there is a mass of human testimony larger than that which declares that Buona-

parte once dominated Europe. Lastly, several reputable Europeans and Americans, members of the Theosophical Society, affirm on their own knowledge the existence of these Adepts.

THE MODERN CRITIC SAYS: First, why do not these Adepts come out to satisfy curiosity if they are men? This question is out of the same spirit that creates the sensational, vulgar, and prying newspaper which spreads before the public, because it is called for by the public, the private details of everyone's existence. Second, why not appear and destroy evil if they have great powers? The Adepts have replied that there is no power to destroy the evil man has produced but in the efforts he himself makes for purification. Thirdly, why not come and wipe out abuses? Fourthly, why not multiply food in famine time?

H.P.B. ON MESSAGES FROM MASTERS

SOME years ago H.P.B. was charged with misuse of Mahâtmâs' names and handwritings, with forgery of messages from the Mahâtmâs, and with humbugging the public and the T.S. therewith. Those charges had floated vaguely about for sometime and at last came the explosion. Afterward when writing on the subject of "Lodges of Magic" in Lucifer¹ the question of the genuineness or the opposite of such messages was dealt with, and what she wrote is here presented for reconsideration. It covers two matters.

First, it proves out of her own mouth what the PATH not long ago said that "if one letter has to be doubted then all have" to be doubted. Hence, if the Letter to some Brahmans is a fraud, as Col. Olcott and another say, then all the rest are, also.

Second, it applies precisely to the present state of affairs in respect to messages from Masters, just as if she had so long ago foreseen the present and left the article so that tyros in occultism, such as the present agitators are, might have something to show them how to use their judgment. The portion selected from her article reads:

We have been asked by a correspondent why he should not "be free to suspect some of the so-called 'precipitated' letters as being forgeries," giving as his reason for it that while some of them bear the stamp of (to him) undeniable genuineness, others seem from their contents and style, to be imitations. This is equivalent to saying that he has such an unerring spiritual insight as to be able to detect the false from the true, though

he has never met a Master, nor been given any key by which to test his alleged communications. The inevitable consequence of applying his untrained judgment in such cases, would be to make him as likely as not to declare false what was genuine and genuine what was false. Thus what criterion has any one to decide between one "precipitated" letter, or another such letter? Who except their authors, or those whom they employ as their amanuenses (the chelas and disciples) can tell? For it is hardly one out of a hundred "occult" letters that is ever written by the hand of the Master, in whose name and on whose behalf they are sent, as the Masters have neither need nor leisure to write them; and when a Master says "I wrote that letter" it means only that every word in it was dictated by him and impressed under his direct supervision. Generally they make their chela, whether near or far away, write (or precipitate) them, by impressing upon his mind the ideas they wish expressed, and if necessary aiding him in the picture-printing process of precipitation. It depends entirely upon the chela's state of development, how accurately the ideas may be transmitted and the writing-model imitated. Thus the non-adept recipient is left in the dilemma of uncertainty, whether if one letter is false all may not be, for as far as intrinsic evidence goes, all come from the same source, and all are brought by the same mysterious means. But there is another and far worse condition implied. All the so-called occult letters being supported by identical proofs, they have all to stand or fall together. If one is to be doubted, then all have, and the series of letters in the Occult World, Esoteric Buddhism, etc., etc., may be, and there is no reason why they should not be in such a case,―frauds, "clever impostures," and "forgeries" such as the ingenuous though stupid agent of the "S.P.R." has made them out to be, in order to raise in the public estimation the scientific acumen and standard of his "Principles." . . .

AUTHORSHIP OF SECRET DOCTRINE

A GOOD deal has been said about the writing of Isis Unveiled, and later of the Secret Doctrine, both by H. P. Blavatsky. A writer in the spiritualistic journals took great pains to show how many books the first work seems to quote from, and the conclusion to be arrived at after reading his diatribes is that H.P.B. had an enormous library at her disposal, and of course in her house, for she never went out, or that she had agents at great expense copying books, or, lastly, that by some process or power not known to the world was able to read books at a distance, as, for instance, in the Vatican at Rome and the British Museum. The last is the fact. She lived in a small flat when writing the first book and had very few works on hand, all she had being of the ordinary common sort. She herself very often told how she gained her information as to modern books. No secret was made of it, for those who were with her saw day after day that she could gaze with ease into the astral light and glean whatever she wanted. But in the early days she did not say precisely to the public that she was in fact helped in that work by the Masters, who gave from time to time certain facts she could not get otherwise. The Secret Doctrine, however, makes no disguise of the real help, and she asserts, as also many of us believe, that the Masters had a hand in that great production. The letters sent to Mr. Sinnett formed the ground for Esoteric Buddhism, as was intended, but as time went on it was seen that some more of the veil had to be lifted and certain misconceptions cleared up; hence the Secret Doctrine was written, and mostly by the Masters themselves, except that she did

For some time it was too much the custom of those who had received at the hands of H.P.B. words and letters from her Masters to please themselves with the imagination that she was no more in touch with the original fount, and that, forsooth, these people could decide for themselves what was from her brain and what from the Masters. But it is now time to give out a certificate given when the Secret Doctrine was being written, a certificate signed by the Masters who have given out all that is new in our theosophical books. It was sent to one who had then a few doubts, and at the same time copies were given from the same source to others for use in the future, which is now. The first certificate runs thus:

I wonder if this note of mine is worthy of occupying a select spot with the documents reproduced, and which of the peculiarities of the "Blavatskian" style of writing it will be found to most resemble? The present is simply to satisfy the Doctor that "the more proof given the less believed." Let him take my advice and not make these two documents public. It is for his own satisfaction the undersigned is happy to assure him that the Secret Doctrine, when ready, will be the triple production of [here are the names of one of the Masters and of H.P.B.] and most humble servant, [signed by the other.]

On the back of this was the following, signed by the Master who is mentioned in the above:

If this can be of any use or help to , though I doubt it, I, the humble undersigned Faquir, certify that the Secret Doctrine is dictated to [name of H.P.B.], partly by myself and partly by my brother .

A year after this, certain doubts having arisen in the minds of individuals, another letter from one of the signers of the foregoing was sent and reads as follows. As the prophecy in it has come true, it is now the time to publish it for the benefit of those who know something of how to take and understand such letters. For the outside it will all be so much nonsense.

The certificate given last year saying the Secret Doctrine would be when finished the triple production of [H.P.B.'s name], , and myself was and is correct, although some have doubted not only the facts given in it but also the authenticity of the message in which it was contained. Copy this and also keep the copy of the aforesaid certificate. You will find them

both of use on the day when you shall, as will happen without your asking, receive from the hands of the very person to whom the certificate was given, the original for the purpose of allowing you to copy it; and then you can verify the correctness of this presently forwarded copy. And it may then be well to indicate to those wishing to know what portions in the Secret Doctrine have been copied by the pen of [H.P.B.'s name] into its pages, though without quotation marks, from my own manuscript and perhaps from , though the last is more difficult from the rarity of his known writing and greater ignorance of his style. All this and more will be found necessary as time goes on, but for which you are well qualified to wait.

A WORD ON THE "SECRET DOCTRINE"

There is so much discussion going on just now in the Theosophical movement as to the value of the Secret Doctrine, and as to the amount of aid given to H. P. Blavatsky in the compilation of it, and as to her position as a Teacher in Occult matters, that it appears to us that the republication of an old letter―published in 1888―which bears on these questions, is peculiarly timely, and may be of service to many who did not have the opportunity of reading it on its first issue. The letter is, of course, of no authority for those members of the T.S. who do not share our sentiments of reverence for the Masters, but for those who do, the interest of it will be great. It was received in mid-ocean by Col. Olcott, P.T.S., and was originally published with his consent in a small pamphlet entitled "An Explanation important to all Theosophists," issued by H.P.B.

Misunderstandings have grown up between Fellows both in London and Paris which imperil the interests of the movement. You will be told that the chief originator of most if not of all these disturbances is H.P.B. This is not so; though her presence in England has, of course, a share in them. But the largest share rest with others, whose serene unconsciousness of their own defects is very marked and much to be blamed. One of the most valuable effects of Upasika's mission is that it drives men to self-study and destroys in them blind servility for persons. Observe your own case, for example. But your revolt, good friend, against her "infallibility"―as you once thought it―has gone too far, and you have been unjust to her. . . .

. . . Try to remove such misconceptions as you will find, by kind persuasion and an appeal to the feelings of loyalty to the cause of truth, if not to us. Make all these men feel that we have no favorites, nor affections for persons, but only for their good acts and humanity as a whole. But we employ agents―the best available. Of these, for the last thirty years, the chief has been the personality known as H.P.B. to the world (but otherwise to us). Imperfect and very "troublesome" no doubt she proves to some; nevertheless there is no likelihood of our finding a better one for years to come, and your Theosophists should be made to understand it. . . .

. . . Since 1885 I have not written nor caused to be written save through her agency direct or remote a letter or a line to anybody in Europe or America, nor communicated orally with or through any third party. Theosophists should learn it. You will understand later the significance of this declaration, so keep it in mind. . . . Her fidelity to our work being constant and her sufferings having come upon her through it, neither I nor either of my Brother Associates will desert or supplant her. As I once before remarked, ingratitude is not among our vices. . . . To help you in your present perplexity, H.P.B. has next to no concern with administrative details and should be kept clear of them so far as her strong nature can be controlled. But this you must tell to all; with occult matters she has everything to do. . . . We have not "abandoned her." She is not "given over to chelas." She is our direct agent. I warn you against permitting your suspicions and resentment against her "many follies" to bias your intuitive loyalty to her. In the adjustment of this European business you will have two things to consider,―the external and administrative, and the internal and psychical. Keep the former under your control and that of your most prudent associates jointly; leave the latter to her. You are left to devise the practical details.

I have also noted your thoughts about the Secret Doctrine. Be assured that what she has not annotated from scientific and other works we have given or suggested to her. Every mistake or erroneous notion corrected and explained by her

from the works of other Theosophists was corrected by me or under my instruction. It is a more valuable work than its predecessor,―an epitome of occult truths that will make it a source of information and instruction for the earnest student for long years to come.

. . . (This letter) is merely given you as a warning and a guide; to others as a warning only; for you may use it discreetly if needs be . . . Prepare, however, to have the authenticity of the present denied in certain quarters.

THE ADEPTS AND MODERN SCIENCE

MODERN science is a bugbear for many a good Theosophist, causing him to hide his real opinions for fear they should conflict with science. But the latter is an unstable quantity, always shifting its ground, although never devoid of an overbearing assurance, even when it takes back what it had previously asserted. The views of scientific men have frequently been brought forward as a strong objection to the possibility of the existence of Adepts, Masters, Mahatmas, perfected men who have a complete knowledge of all that modern science is endeavoring to discover. Many trembling members of the Society, who do not doubt the Masters and their powers, would fain have those beings make their peace with science, so that the views of nature and man put forward by the Mahatmas might coincide with the ideas of modern investigators. It will be profitable to try to discover what is the attitude of the Adepts towards modern science.

The question was raised quite early in the history of the Society in the correspondence which Mr. Sinnett had with the Adept K. H. in India, and there is in the answers published by Mr. Sinnett in the Occult World enough to indicate clearly what is the attitude of such beings to modern science. That book will often have to be referred to in future years, because the letters given in its pages are valuable in more senses than has been thought; they ought to be studied by every member of the Society, and the ideas contained therein made a part of our mental furniture.

It is evident from the remarks made in the Occult World that the persons to whom the letters were written had a high respect for modern science; that they would have liked to

see science convinced of the machinery of the occult Cosmos, with all that that implies; that they thought if modern scientific men could be convinced by extraordinary phenomena or otherwise about the Masters and Theosophy, very beneficial results to the Society would follow. There can be no doubt that if such a convincing were possible the results would have followed, but the hope of convincing our scientists seemed vain, because no way exists to alter the attitude of materialistic modern science except by a complete reform in its methods and theories. This would be a bringing back of ancient thought, and not agreeable to modern men. To pander in any way to science would be impossible to the Masters. They hold the position that if the rules and conclusions of nineteenth century science differ from those of the Lodge of the Brothers, then so much the worse for modern conclusions, as they must all be revised in the future. The radical difference between occult and modern materialistic science is that the former has philanthropy as its basis, whereas the latter has no such basis. Let us now see what can be discovered from the letters written by K.H. to Mr. Sinnett and another.

The idea I had especially in my mind when I wrote the letter above referred to was that, of all tests of phenomena one could wish for, the best would be the production in our presence in India of a copy of the London Times of that day's date. With such a piece of evidence in my hand, I argued, I would undertake to convert everybody in Simla who was capable of linking two ideas together, to a belief in the possibility of obtaining by occult agency physical results which were beyond the control of modern science.

Precisely because the test of the London newspaper would close the mouths of the sceptics it is inadmissible. See it in what light you will, the world is yet in its first stage of disenthralment, hence unprepared But as on the one hand science would find itself unable in its present state to account for the wonders given in its name, and on the other the ignorant masses would still be left to view the phenomenon in the light of a miracle, every one who would be thus made a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance and the result would be deplorable.

In this is the first indication of the philanthropic basis, although later it is definitely stated. For here we see that the Adepts would not do that which might result in the mental confusion of so many persons as are included in "ignorant masses." He then goes on to say:

Were we to accede to your desires, know you really what consequence would follow in the trail of success? The inexorable shadow which follows all human innovations moves on, yet few are they who are ever conscious of its approach and dangers. What are they then to expect who would offer to the world an innovation which, owing to human ignorance, if believed in will surely be attributed to those dark agencies that two-thirds of humanity believe in and dread as yet?

Here again we see that Adepts will not do that which, however agreeable to science, extraordinary and interesting in itself, might result in causing the masses once more to consider that they had proof of the agency of devils or other dreaded unseen beings.

The object of the Adepts being to increase the knowledge of the greater number and to destroy dogmatism with superstition, they will not do that which would in any way tend to defeat what they have in view. In the letter quoted from, the Adept then goes on to show that the number of persons free from ignorant prejudice and religious bigotry is still very small. It is very true that such an extraordinary thing as the production of the Times in India across several thousand miles of ocean might convince even hundreds of scientific men of the possibility of this being done by a knowledge of law, but their belief would have but little effect on the immense masses of uneducated persons in the West who are still bound up in religious bigotry and prejudice. The Adept hints that "the inexorable shadow that follows all human innovations" would be a sudden blazing forth again of ignorant superstition among the masses, which, gaining force, and sweeping all other men along in the immense current thus generated, the very purpose of the phenomenon would then be negatived. On this the Adept writes a little further on,

As for human nature in general, it is the same now as it was a million years ago, prejudice based upon selfishness, a

general unwillingness to give up an established order of things for new modes of life and thought―and occult study requires all that and much more―proud and stubborn resistance to truth if it but upsets the previous notion of things: such are the characteristics of the age. However successful, the danger would be growing proportionately with success,

that is, the danger would grow in proportion to the success of the phenomenon produced.

No choice would soon remain but to go on, ever crescendo, or to fall, in this endless struggle with prejudice and ignorance, killed by your own weapons. Test after test would be required and would have to be furnished; every subsequent phenomenon expected to be more marvelous than the preceding one. Your daily remark is that one cannot be expected to believe unless he becomes an eyewitness. Would the lifetime of a man suffice to satisfy the whole world of skeptics? . . . In common with many you blame us for our great secrecy. Yet we know something of human nature, for the experience of long centuries, aye of ages, has taught us. And we know that so long as science has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the hearts of the multitudes, the world's prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not at a rush.

These simple remarks are philosophical, historically accurate, and perfectly true. All spiritualistic mediums know that their visitors require test after test. Even the dabbler in psychic matters is aware that his audience or his friends require a constant increase of phenomena and results, and every earnest student of occultism is aware of the fact that in his own circle there are fifty unbelievers to one believer, and that the believers require that they shall see the same thing over again that others report.

We will be at cross purposes in our correspondence until it has been made entirely plain that occult science has its own methods of research as fixed and arbitrary as the methods of its antithesis, physical science, are in their way. If the latter has its dicta, so also has the former.

He then goes on to show that the person desiring to know their science must abide by their rules, and taking his correspondent as an illustration, he says:

You seek all this, and yet, as you say yourself, hitherto you have not found sufficient reasons to even give up your modes of

This means of course that scientific men as well as other inquirers must conform to the rules of occult science if they wish to know it, and must themselves change their modes of thought and action. He then goes on to analyze the motives of his correspondent, and these motives would be the same as those impelling science to investigate. They are described to be the desire to have positive proofs of forces in nature unknown to science, the hope to appropriate them, the wish to demonstrate their existence to some others in the West, the ability to contemplate future life as an objective reality built upon knowledge and not faith, and to learn the truth about the Lodge and the Brothers. These motives, he says, are selfish from the standpoint of the Adepts, and this again emphasizes the philanthropy behind occult science. The motives are selfish because, as he says:

The highest aspiration for the welfare of humanity become tainted with selfishness if in the mind of the philanthropist there lurks a shadow of a desire for self-benefit, or a tendency to do injustice, even where these exist unconsciously to himself. Yet you have ever discussed but to put down the idea of a universal brotherhood, questioned its usefulness, and advised to remodel the Theosophical Society on the principle of a college for the special study of occultism.

The Adept makes it very clear that such a proposition could not be entertained, showing once more that the Brotherhood, and not the study of secret laws of nature, is the real object the inner Lodge has in view. Brotherhood as an object is the highest philanthropy, and especially so when connected with science.

In another letter, written after consultation with much higher Adepts, who have never been mentioned and who are utterly unknown even to Theosophists, being too high to be encountered, he takes up the same subject, saying,

In conformity with exact science you define but one cosmic energy, and see no difference between the energy expended by the traveller who pushes aside the bush that obstructs his path and the scientific experimenter who expends an equal amount of energy in setting the pendulum in motion. We do; for we know there is a world of difference between the two. The one

uselessly dissipates and scatters force; the other concentrates and stores it; and here please understand that I do not refer to the relative utility of the two, as one might imagine, but only to the fact that in the one case there is brute force flung out without any transmutation of that brute energy into the higher potential form of spiritual dynamics, and in the other there is just that Now for us poor unknown philanthropists no fact of either of these sciences is interesting except in the degree of its potentiality for moral results, and in the ratio of its usefulness to mankind. And what, in its proud isolation, can be more utterly indifferent to every one and everything, or more bound to nothing but the selfish requisites for its advancement, than this materialistic science of fact? May I ask, then, what have the laws of Faraday, Tyndall, or others to do with philanthropy in their abstract relations with humanity, viewed as an intelligent whole? What care they for man as an isolated atom of this great and harmonious whole, even though they may be sometimes of practical use to him? Cosmic energy is something eternal and incessant; matter is indestructible: and there stand the scientific facts. Doubt them and you are an ignoramus; deny them, a dangerous lunatic, a bigot: pretend to improve upon the theories, an impertinent charlatan. And yet even these scientific facts never suggested any proof to the world of experimenters that nature consciously prefers that matter should be indestructible under organic rather than inorganic forms, and that she works slowly but incessantly towards the realization of this object―the evolution of conscious life out of unconscious material Still less does exact science perceive that while the building ant, the busy bee, the nidifacient bird, accumulates each in its own humble way as much cosmic energy in its potential form as a Hayden, a Plato, or a ploughman turning his furrow The hunter who kills game for his pleasure or profit, the positivist who applies his intellect to proving that plus multiplied by plus equals minus, are wasting and scattering energy no less than the tiger which springs upon its prey. They all rob nature instead of enriching her, and will all in the degree of their intelligence find themselves accountable Exact experimental science has nothing to do with morality, virtue, philanthropy―therefore can make no claim upon our help until it blends itself with metaphysics. Being a cold classification of facts outside of man, and existing before and after him, her domain of usefulness ceases for us at the outer boundary of these facts; and whatever the inferences and results for humanity from the materials acquired by her method, she little cares. Therefore as our sphere lies entirely outside of hers,―as far as the path of Uranus is outside the earth's,―we distinctly refuse to be broken on any wheel of her construction The truths and mysteries of Occultism constitute, indeed, a body of the high-

est spiritual importance, at once profound and practical for the world at-large, yet it is not as an addition to the tangled mass of theory or speculation that they are being given to you, but for their practical bearing on the interests of mankind.

We have in these extracts a clear outline of the exact position of the Adepts towards modern science, together with the statement of the reasons why they do not come forth by astounding phenomena to convince the world of their existence. The reason for the refusal is that the world is not ready, but is in such a condition that the end would be obstructed and damage be the result. Their attitude to modern science is that they accept the facts of science wherever they prove the truths of Occultism, but they consider modern science to be materialistic and also devoid of philanthropy. This we must admit to be the case, and as the student who has had experience in these matters knows for himself that the Adepts have the truth and possess a knowledge of nature's laws, he approves of their refusing to come down to science and of their demand that science must rise to them. He also knows that in the course of the cycles the mass of men will have been educated and developed to such a position that a new school, at once religious and scientific, will have possession of the earth and rule among all men who possess civilization.

THE ADEPTS IN AMERICA IN 1776

THE following suggestions and statements are made entirely upon the personal responsibility of the writer, and without the knowledge or consent―as far as he knows―of the adepts who are in general terms therein referred to.

The reflecting mind is filled with astonishment upon reviewing the history of the rise of the United States of N. America, when it perceives that dogmatic theology has no foundation in any part of the Declaration of Independence or Constitution for the structure which it fain would raise and has so often since tried to erect within and upon the government. We are astonished because those documents were formulated and that government established at a time when dogmatism of one kind or another had supreme sway. Although the Puritans and others had come to America for religious freedom, they were still very dogmatic and tenacious of their own peculiar theories and creed; so that if we found in this fundamental law much about religion and religious establishments, we would not be surprised. But in vain do we look for it, in vain did the supporters of the iron church attempt to lay the needed corner stone, and today America rejoices at it, and has thereby found it possible to grow with the marvellous growth that has been the wonder of Europe.

The nullification of these efforts made by bigotry in 1776 was due to the adepts who now look over and give the countenance of their great name to the Theosophical Society.

They oversaw the drafting of the Declaration and the drawing of the Constitution, and that is why no foothold is to be found for these blatant Christians who desire to inject God into the constitution.

In the declaration, from which freedom sprang, "nature and nature's god" are referred to. In the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs the natural rights of man are specified, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The king is spoken of as being unworthy to be "the head of a civilized nation," nothing being said as to whether he was the head, or worthy to be, of a Christian one.

In appealing to their British brethren, the declaration says the appeal is "made to their native justice and magnanimity." All reference to religion and Christianity or God's commands are left out. This was for the very good reason that for 1700 years religion had battled against progress, against justice, against magnanimity, against the rights of man. And in the concluding sentence the signers mutually pledge each other to its support ignoring all appeals to God.

In the constitution of 1787 the preamble declares that the instrument was made for union, for justice, for tranquillity and defence, the general good and liberty. Art. VI says no religious test as a qualification for office shall ever be required, and the 1st Amendment prohibits an establishment of religion or restraint of its free exercise.

The great Theosophical Adepts in looking around the world for a mind through which they could produce in America the reaction which was then needed, found in England, Thomas Paine. In 1774 they influenced him, through the help of that worthy Brother Benjamin Franklin, to come to America. He came here and was the main instigator of the separation of the Colonies from the British Crown. At the suggestion of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and other Freemasons, whose minds through the teachings of the symbolic degrees of masonry were fitted to reason correctly, and to reject theological conservation, he wrote "Common Sense," which was the torch to the pile whose blaze burned away the bonds between England and America. For "Common Sense" he was often publicly thanked. George Washington wrote September 10th, 1783, to Paine: "I shall be exceedingly happy to see you. Your presence may remind Congress of your past services to this country, and if it is in my power to impress them, com-

mand my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your works." And again in June 1784, in a letter to Madison, Washington says: "Can nothing be done in our assembly for poor Paine? Must the merits and services of 'Common Sense' continue to glide down the stream of time unrewarded by this country? His writings certainly have had a powerful effect upon the public mind. Ought they not then to meet an adequate return?" ¹

In the "Age of Reason" which he wrote in Paris several years after, Paine says: "I saw, or at least I thought I saw, a vast scene opening itself to the world in the affairs of America; and it appeared to me that unless the Americans changed the plan they were then pursuing and declared themselves independent, they would not only involve themselves in a multiplicity of new difficulties, but shut out the prospect that was then offering itself to mankind through their means." Further on he says: "There are two distinct classes of thoughts; those produced by reflection, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always made it a rule to treat these voluntary visitors with civility, and it is from them I have acquired all the knowledge that I have."

These "voluntary visitors" were injected into his brain by the Adepts, Theosophists. Seeing that a new order of ages was about to commence and that there was a new chance for freedom and the brotherhood of man, they laid before the eye of Thomas Paine―who they knew could be trusted to stand almost alone with the lamp of truth in his hand amidst others who in "times that tried men's souls" quaked with fear,―a "vast scene opening itself to Mankind in the affairs of America." The result was the Declaration, the Constitution for America. And as if to give point to these words and to his declaration that he saw this vast scene opening itself, this new order of ages, the design of the reverse side of the U.S. great seal is a pyramid whose capstone is removed with the blazing eye in a triangle over it dazzling the sight, above it are the words "the heavens approve," while underneath appears the

That he had in his mind's eye a new order of ages we cannot doubt upon reading in his "Rights of Man," Part 2, Chap. 2, "no beginning could be made in Asia, Africa or Europe, to reform the political condition of man. She (America) made a stand not for herself alone, but for the world, and looked beyond the advantage she could receive." In Chap. 4, "The case and circumstances of America present themselves as in the beginning of a world . . . there is a morning of reason rising upon man, on the subject of Government, that has not appeared before."

The design "of the seal" was not an accident, but was actually intended to symbolize the building and firm founding of a new order of ages. It was putting into form the idea which by means of a "voluntary visitor" was presented to the mind of Thomas Paine, of a vast scene opening itself, the beginning in America of "a new order of ages." That side of the seal has never been cut or used, and at this day the side in use has not the sanction of law. In the spring of 1841, when Daniel Webster was Secretary of State, a new seal was cut, and instead of the eagle holding in his sinister claw 13 arrows as intended, he holds only six. Not only was this change unauthorized, but the cause for it is unknown.(2) When the other side is cut and used, will not the new order of ages have actually been established?

More then is claimed for the Theosophical Adepts than the changing of baser metal into gold, or the possession of such a merely material thing as the elixir of life. They watch the progress of man and help him on in his halting flight up the steep plane of progress. They hovered over Washington, Jefferson, and all the other brave freemasons who dared to found a free Government in the West, which could be pure from the dross of dogmatism, they cleared their minds, inspired their pens and left upon the great seal of this mighty nation the memorial of their presence.

ADEPTS AND POLITICS

The communication in your December number from Chhabigram Dolatram, headed as above, is a piece of special pleading, directed against the adepts, and flowing from a source not friendly to either the cause of Theosophy or to the Masters. Personally, I do not believe Mr. Dolatram wrote the article; he simply allowed his name to be appended to it. It is, to my thinking, the emanation of a European Christian and royalist mind.

It is quite true, as you say, in your comment that I referred in my article to adepts in general. But my own unsupported opinion was and is that the American revolution was a just one, started to accomplish a beneficial end, and that the Hindu or Tibetan Mahatmas would not be disgraced by any connection with it, notwithstanding the royalist and anti-republican feelings of the real authors of Mr. Dolatram's paper. That revolution was not degraded, in the American side, by the shedding of blood except in lawful battle for human rights.

Allow me to point to a historical fact in connection with the Count St. Germain, which will shed some light on the question of what, if any, connection do some adepts have with justifiable revolutions.

One of the well-known generals who fought with Washington, in the Continental army against the British, was General Fred. Wm. Von Stueben, a Prussian. In 1777 he was in Paris, and at the same time the Count St. Germain was Minister of War there. They were well acquainted with each other,

and the Count induced Von Steuben to come over to America and offer his sword to Genl. Washington. He did so, was gladly received, and did splendid service in the cause of liberty. Everybody knows that St. Germain was an Adept, and the fact above detailed is set forth in many publications and letters of authentic force.

Mr. Dolatram picks up the expression "brother Franklin." I never heard, nor ever said, that Franklin was a Theosophist. He was a Freemason, and therefore a "brother," so was Washington and also Jefferson. A sincere mason will be a just man who reveres liberty and abhors a tyrant.

As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita of himself, we may hear the Adept saying: "I am manifested in every age for the purpose of restoring duty and destroying evil doing."

WILL MASTERS' HELP BE WITHDRAWN IN 1898 UNTIL 1975?

THE theory is widely known among the members of the Society that at the close of each century a spiritual movement is made in the world by the Mahatmas, which begins with the last twenty-five years of the century and does not in that form begin again after the close of twenty-five years until the last quarter of the following period. But this has been exaggerated and much misunderstood. Some, indeed many, go so far as to conclude that then in the course of the next few years the Mahatmas will entirely recede from all work in the world and leave us all to our fate. One person went so far as to argue that it meant the coming of the sixth race in '98, and hence asked how it could be, or what matter it would be, as the sixth race would have sufficient knowledge of itself. But the major part seem to think that no help will be given after that time. I think this is incorrect, and will try to explain it as it was explained to me by the promulgator of the theory, H.P.B.

The Masters are governed by the law of action and reaction, and are wise enough always not to do that which might result in undoing all their prior work. The law of reaction applies as much to the mind of man as to physical things and forces. By going too far at any one time with the throwing-out of great force in the mental plane, the consequence would be that a reaction of superstition and evil of all sort would undo everything. Superstition rules yet in the world, and the world is not confined for the Masters to the Western peoples. In the

West, following the historical cycles, a great and definite effort is made among the people―for instance, as the Theosophical Society―so as to aid the psychical and spiritual development of man. Among other reasons for not keeping up the display of much force is that if it went too far many unprepared persons whose moral senses are not rightly governed would take up with all our theories and follow them out along the lines of pure selfishness for business and other purposes.

For that reason, among others, H.P.B. began to slacken her phenomena some time before her departure, although to my own certain knowledge she was able to do them to the last, and did do many of them, and some of the most wonderful sort, up to the last. But publicly it was not so. Some have taken on themselves to say that the reason for this alteration was because she came to the conclusion it was a mistake to do them, but I do not believe this at all. It was a part of a well-understood campaign and order.

At the end of the twenty-five years the Masters will not send out in such a wide and sweeping volume the force they send during the twenty-five years. But that does not mean they will withdraw. They will leave the ideas to germinate in the minds of the people at large, but never will they take away from those who deserve it the help that is due and given to all. However, many will have gone on further by that time than others, and to those who have thus gone on from altruism and unselfish devotion to the good of the race continual help and guiding will be given. Many, however, in and out of the T.S. will continue so selfish and personal that they will have to content themselves with what they will get from others and from the general development. H.P.B. was quite definite on this. It agrees with history. During all the centuries there have been many persons who have had direct and valuable help from Masters, and to suppose that at the end of our first twenty-five years all of that will be finished is an absurdity in itself.

ARE WE DESERTED?

FOLLOWING on the departure of H.P.B. from the scene of action, some weak voices in the Society have asked, "Have the Adepts deserted us?" This question has also come from those who are not weak in character, but who certainly do not understand very clearly what the Adepts are or how They work. And in the use of the term "Adept" are included also "Mahatmas," "Brothers," "Masters."

That these beings exist we have no manner of doubt, since for those who have studied in the right way plenty of proof has been offered; for others the proofs exist within themselves. The former class has had tangible evidence in the way of letters and appearances of the Adepts before their eyes; the latter long ago concluded that the Masters are necessities of evolution. Those who received proof palpable were those whose karma and past work entitled them to it; the others, having in previous lives gone through the experience and the argument, now quickly decided that, inasmuch as there are grades of intelligence and wisdom and power below ourselves, so there must beyond us be still other grades, all leading up, ex necessitate rei, to the Adept or Master of whatever degree.

Now in the Society's ranks there have always been three mental positions held in respect to the question whether or not the Adepts―once admitted as existing―have anything in particular to do with the Theosophical Society. These are, first, that they have; second, that they have not; third, sometimes doubt about it, at others surety that they have,―in fact, wavering.

Those who think that the T.S. movement is merely a natural development of thought cannot be affected by the present discussion; the first and third classes are interested in the matter. To those it should at once occur that in the West the idea of the existence of the Adepts and of Their connection with our movement was first brought forward in this century and in our Society by H.P. Blavatsky, who, consistently throughout her career, has declared that the Adepts―whom she was pleased to call her Masters―directed her to engage in this work and have always helped and directed her throughout. That They should so direct her and then desert the Society she founded merely because her body came to its dissolution seems so illogical as to be unthinkable. Many persons have affirmed to the reception of messages in writing from the same Masters, in which They said that some of Their efforts were for the benefit of the T.S. Among these persons we may mention Mr. A.P. Sinnett, who has never abandoned that position, and who today possesses a great number of such letters. Why should the unseen founders withdraw Their help when the work of the Society has but just begun to have its due effect upon the age? There seems to be no reasonable reply.

Once that we admit the existence of the Adepts and that They have adopted the T.S. as one of Their agents in this century for disseminating the truth about man and nature, we are bound to suppose that ordinary common-sense rules would govern as to the continuance of help or its withdrawal. Now one of the most obvious conclusions is that the Society should not be deserted until it had accomplished its mission or had utterly failed. Sixteen years of steady work show an enormous effect produced upon the thought of America, Europe, and Asia; but that portion of the work has been in the line of fighting against odds and breaking down of opposition, with a beginning in this sixteenth year of an interest in the doctrines brought to the attention of the West by the efforts of our members. From that we must, as reasonable and foresighted beings, deduce the necessity for continuance of assistance. It is plain that our work of clear promulgation and wise building-up is still before us. Why then should the

But considering what we know of the motives and methods held and pursued by the Adepts, we cannot for a moment suppose our real founders and constant helpers could yet leave us to fight alone. In letters and messages from Them we read that Their motive is to help the moral―and hence external―progress of humanity, and Their methods to work from behind the scenes by means of agents suited for the work. Those letters and messages also say that the agency is not restricted to one person, but that all sincere lovers of truth are used to that end, whether they know of it or not. The departure of H.P.B. does not remove the other sincere lovers of truth from the scene, nor does it prevent the Adepts from sending messages if needed. Such messages have been received before H.P.B.'s departure by persons in no way connected with her, and have since that sad event also come to encourage those who are entitled to such encouragement. The contents of these are not for the public, nor indeed for any one save those to whom they have come.

Yet even if no such messages had been received, there is ample evidence, for those who are not blind, of the help of the Masters. For, as They said long ago that the work would be helped, so it has been; no other reason can be given for the increase of the work in America, since their personal effort put forth by the members will not account for the spreading of the movement. And now let it stand as a prophecy made in the messages spoken of, that in the kingdom of Great Britain and in Europe there will in five years be seen a similar spreading of Theosophy. Let no one of us, then, be in any way cast down. As the Masters exist, so They help us; and as we deserve, so will they repay.

PROPHECIES BY H. P. BLAVATSKY

IN the introduction to the Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky boldly affirms the existence of a great Fraternity of Men, Adepts, who preserve the true philosophy through all changes, now revealing it, and again, at certain eras, withdrawing it from a degraded age; and emphatically she says that the doctrine is never a new one, but only a handing on again of what was always the system. Then referring to the reception her works would receive in this century (Introd. xxxvii), she says that scholars with reputations would not regard the teachings seriously, but that "they will be derided and rejected à priori in this century."

This is quite definite, and was a prophetical statement. All Theosophists have witnessed its confirmation, for surely both she and the old teachings given out have been derided and rejected. Derision arose first on the ground that such things could not be. If there was no strength in the theories advanced, derision would have been all they should have met, but soon their power compelled enough attention to bring on rejection. So this prophecy is fulfilled.

The next one is in the same sentence, and may serve to give courage to those who have found light, hope, and strength in Theosophy, and to those ardent members who are not so old as to fail in living a few more years. Continuing, she declares that the derision and rejection met in this century would be "only in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era scholars will begin to recognize that the Secret Doctrine has neither been invented nor exaggerated, but, on the contrary,

We have but eight years to wait for this recognition, and then, as she has said in a private letter of some years ago, after her death―already accomplished―Theosophists and the world will know what they have lost. It is not long to wait, and here is a prophecy easy to watch and profit by. These words of hers are not the cry of a martyr, but the clear, bold tone of the sage who, while giving out right teachings in a transitory, a preparatory age, knows full well that present recognition is an impossibility; there is no regret and no note of disappointed hope in it, for she had no such hopes or ambitions to be defeated, and perchance will be on the scene at the time of the prophesied indorsement.

The bearing of the statement about the Vedas is important for those Theosophists to remember who, whether Hindus or Westerns, have now and then fancied that H.P.B. rested on and worked for the Indian sacred books. For if her teachings will be one day shown to antedate the Vedas, then they must be superior to the latter and to all Shastras, Puranas, and Sutras. What, then, of caste and any school of peripatetics founded upon individual constructions? The answer is easy for those who shall believe in the superior doctrine.

Then passing on to the next page (Introd. xxxviii) to touch upon the subject of the Messenger from the great Fraternity―she herself being the one for this Century―she observes significantly: that "In Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable proofs that there exists a science called Gupta-Vidya; and that, like the once-mysterious sources of the Nile, the source of all religions and philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages forgotten and lost to men, but is at last found."

Herein are two prophetical intimations. The first, that in the Century just at hand the Masters may send another Messenger with power, learning, strength, and credentials to carry on the work she began and in which we have been so fortunate as to be companions; the second, that this Messen-

ger will make clear the sources we have sought. The first will be glorious, the second satisfying; and both will help humanity. It is not long to wait, eight years! And cannot indiscreet Theosophists put off attempts at the making of dogmas they might have trouble to give up?

To close these words on the future she says (Introd. xliv), "And then the last prophecy contained in that book (the first volume of the prophetic record for the Black Age) will be accomplished. We have not long to wait, and many of us will witness the Dawn of the New Cycle, at the end of which not a few accounts will be settled and squared between the races."

This new cycle begins in the next century, and when the end of it is reached much that is now unknown will have been revealed; the earth itself will give up the secrets of the past, in ignorance of which our day has laughed at the ancients; the Fraternity will have caused "accidental discoveries" of manuscripts and objects, the finding of which will make many a theologian quake and bring to the barbarian followers of the ancients great joy that they did not bow down and worship the Golden Calf of today. And even if that great day should be some centuries away, we know that we shall all be present in better bodies with better minds, if only we have patience, fidelity, and courage now.

THE IMPUDENCE OF MODERN PHILOSOPHERS

IN Herbert Spencer's new book Justice, he defines that principle thus: "Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man," and then goes on to say in his appendix that for more than thirty years he was the first to recognize this "equal freedom" as the summing up of justice in the abstract. But not till 1883 did this modern philosopher discover that Kant had made the same formula. He does not appear to know or recognize the French method of putting it in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, nor the attempt to insist upon it in the American Revolution, nor, indeed, in the thousands of declarations make long before the birth of Spencer.

We have nothing to say against Mr. Spencer's motives, but a great deal against the impudence, perhaps of an unconscious kind, of the schools of modern philosophers of which he forms one. Laboriously for years they write books and construct systems of thought called new by themselves, but as old as any Egyptian pyramid. These systems and formulas they make up in the most refreshing ignorance of what the ancients said about the same things, for "surely," they seem to be saying, "what could the ancients have known of such deep matters?" The theory that no energy is lost was not for the first time known in the world when our moderns gave it out, nor is Mr. Spencer's theory of evolution, nor even his statement of it, his invention or discovery. All these were known to the Ancients. They are found in the Bhagavad-Gita and in many another eastern philosophical book.

If these modern philosophers confined themselves to their studies and had no influence in the world and upon the minds of young men who make the new nation, we would not have a word to say. But since they influence many minds and have enormous weight in the thinking of our day, it seems well to point out that it savors of impudence on their part to ignore the development of philosophy in the East, where nearly all the mooted philosophical questions of the day were ages ago discussed and disposed of. If Herbert Spencer could be so blind as he confesses himself to be as to suppose that he was the first to recognize the abstract formula of justice, only to discover that Kant had hit upon it before him, then of course we are justified in presuming that he is equally ignorant of what has been said and decided in the six great schools of India. If such minds as Spencer's would acquaint themselves with all human thought upon any doctrine they may be considering, then they might save valuable time and maybe avoid confusion in their own minds and the minds of the vast numbers of men who read their books.

Our position, clearly stated by H.P.B. long ago, is that the present day has no philosophy and can have none that will not be a copy or a distortion of some truth or long-discarded notion once held by our superiors the Ancients, and that modern philosophers are only engaged in reproducing out of the astral light and out of their own past-lives' recollections that which was known, published, declared, and accepted or rejected by the men of old time, some of whom are now here in the garb of philosophers turning over and over again the squirrels'-wheels they invented many lives ago. For "there is nothing new under the sun."

INDIA A STOREHOUSE FOR US

HINDUSTAN has been called the land of mystery by many writers. For years it has been to the English a land for plunder by officials and younger sons seeking favors from fortune; for us it has been a far distant country surrounded with a halo of romance, enveloped in a cloud of memories that include the royal Sages, the Adepts, the wonderworkers, and countless monuments of human skill or limitless power. Among buildings its beautiful Taj Mahal stands unrivalled since the days of its builder Shah-Jehan; of marvellous structures its rock-cut temples challenge admiration, while its innumerable miles of underground temples and passages invite exploration and pique curiosity.

The singular vicissitudes of its fortune under conquest by the Moguls and the English point to its future and the great part it has to play in the destiny of the wide-branching Anglo-Saxon race. It has always been a storehouse, a perfect mine for plunder wherein looters have always revelled. And this fact has ingrained in its people reserve and secretiveness that are not equalled anywhere. The Mogul invaders took all the treasures in money or valuable objects that they could, and remained in the country to enjoy them. The quantity of precious things they confiscated cannot be calculated. At one place they entered the town and were beseeched by the priests to take all but not to molest the statue of the God. But the commander raised his mighty sword and clave the image to the breast. From its interior there fell out fortunes in gems and diamonds. So also the English. They overran the land, and

of the great booty taken by common soldiers and officers back to Europe it has been declared by competent English writers no accurate estimate could be made, so great was the amount. In these two conquests occurred the events in the beginning which unerringly point to the destiny of India. For as at first she was a receptacle from which was taken an enormous treasure in material wealth and goods, so at the last her treasures of literature and philosophy are destined to cover the lands of English-speaking peoples, to infiltrate into the western mind, and finally drive out the puerile, degrading dogmas of christendom, replacing them with a noble and elevating scheme of philosophy which alone can save the world. This will never be done by the Hindu of today, to whom we need not look, but will come about, just as in the conquest, by the appropriation of the philosophy from the storehouse and receptacle in India by the vigorous, eager mind of the West.

But what I feel convinced of, and hope to convince you of, is that Sanskrit literature, if studied only in the right spirit, is full of human interest, full of lessons which even Greek could never teach us, a subject worthy to occupy the leisure, and more than the leisure, of every Indian Civil servant There are other things, and, in one sense, very important things, which we too may learn from India If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found the solution of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant―I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself what literature we here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life―again I should point to India I am thinking chiefly of India such as it was a thousand, two thousand, it may be three thousand, years ago. That India is full of problems the solutions of which concern all of us, even us in this Europe of the nineteenth century.

This quotation from such an eminent scholar supports the view I have held from youth that India is our great storehouse

and as such ought to be used with all the means at our command and at every opportunity. Just as Prof. Müller says, I am not thinking of the Indian people of today, but of the minds of her past who have left to us an enormous mass of records of their studies and solutions of the greatest problems that can engage the attention of the human mind. It has become somewhat the fashion for members of the Theosophical Society to suppose that the intention of the leaders of the Society was and is to make us follow the example of the swarming millions of Hindustan in ascetic or caste practices. To this some have mistakenly adhered and attempted the task, while others have railed against the man of straw of their own creation.

Others again, not taking the pains to understand the matter, have permitted outsiders to exclaim against the absurdity of following the lead of the Hindus, who are, they say, much below us in all respects. These weak members have by silence allowed the assertions to pass as proven and our Society to remain misrepresented. But while I cannot wholly agree that even the Hindu of today cannot be an example for us in anything, I leave it out of the question, inasmuch as he as well as ourselves is engaged in studying the records of the past for the same purpose that we should have in the same pursuit, as pointed out by Max Müller.

The student of Occultism, on hearing only the facts about the conquests of India, would see therein the finger of fate pointing to the future as fully indicated by the present circumstances.

For the great material and temporal events happening at the conquest of a nation always show to him who can see what is to be its future, in some respects at least. But long years have passed since that conquest, and we now have history to aid the purblind eye of the nineteenth century mind that is hardly able to see anything save dollars and cents or the mere daily benefits growing out of their possession and use. As orientalists and archaeologists have abundantly shown, it is known that our fables come from India, that the Greeks

drew much from that source, and that we are indebted to her for more than we have yet been able to acknowledge. Müller and Schopenhauer and others have been delving into the Upanishads and Vedas, and every day there is growing more and more a widespread interest in ideas purely Hindu in their origin. Even poets of the female sex write sonnets in our magazines upon great doctrines such as Nirvana,(1) which, although utterly wrong in conception of that doctrine, yet show the flowing of the tide of old Brahmanical pondering. All of this pictures to me a new conquest of the West by India, the great land for conquerors. It is the rising from the grave of the mighty men of some thousands of years ago that constitutes this invasion and will bring about our conquest. And this silent leavening of the lump goes on while Mr. Gladstone is attempting with much show to prove that the Christian Bible is the only bible, as his friends in various Jerusalem Societies spend time and money in the attempt to establish the notion that a single semitic nation is the one that the West has received all her benefits from, and that it is necessary to prove the semitic narrative true in order to stem the tide of materialism.

If I were convinced by any reasonable proof or argument that Palestine was ever the cradle of our civilization or philosophy, or other than the seat of a people who are the true exponents of a fine social materialism, I would advocate great attention to her records. But it is not a single small nation we should look to. The fountain head is better than a secondary receptacle, a mere cistern that takes the overflow from the source. The fountain is old India, and to that the members of the Theosophical Society who are not only desirous of saving time but also of aiding the sages of the past in the evolution of doctrines which, applied to our great new civilization, can alone save it from failure, will bend themselves to the task of carrying out our second object―the investigation of Aryan literature, religion, and science.

We must prepare. There are men in India today who are qualified and willing to aid in translating works hitherto un-

¹ See Current Literature, Jan., 1890, p. 48, "Nirvana," by Carrie Stevens Walter.

translated, in collecting that which shall enable us to disseminate and popularize true doctrines of man's life and destiny. Time is very short and cannot be spent by all of us in learning Sanskrit. But if every member of the Society gave all he could to its funds, the treasury of the American Section could afford the employment in India of pandits who would delve into their old stores for us, and we then could print and distribute results to every member. Ought not the year 1891 to mark a step in advance? Ought not the many members to now come to the aid of the few who hitherto have borne the greater part of the burden of the work and expense? Let us then get ready to use the material in the ancient storehouse of India, treasures that no man can be called a thief for taking, since the truths acquired by the mind respecting man's life, conduct, constitution, and destiny are the common property of the human race, a treasure that is lost by monopoly and expanded by dissemination.

VAST WORKS OF THE PAST

THE objection is often urged against Theosophical theories that they were produced by Eastern nations, and if we are to judge by India of today these beliefs will result in stagnating human effort. But the facts do not support the objection. Indeed, if we think of the present works of man in the West and make any comparison with the older days, we must conclude that ours are the most fragile and will the sooner yield to the destroying touch of time. What modern work is to be compared to the pyramid of Ghizeh in Egypt? None in respect to any of the elements involved. Which of our huge buildings will last for more than ten thousand years? In Chicago the place where most, perhaps, the tall buildings are found in one spot, they say the foundation is really mud, and even now the tallest tower of all must come down and other buildings show signs of weakness. A slight convulsion would wreck them all. And what of our records both of literature and science? All will wither, disappear, be eaten up by moth and worm, and after a time not a line be left. What do we record on our inscriptions on buildings when we make any? Only some unimportant names of builder, contractor, or official in the municipality. There are no sentences of art or science or philosophy. And even the foundation stones contain but silly remains and small things of no use to future men. Most of our energy is devoted to getting mere coin that must soon or late be lost or given up, be melted, and altogether done away with. Yet though the Egyptians, who long ago left the scene, held beliefs that we might regard as superstitious,

they made buildings and inscriptions and pictures which confront us today as the mute proofs of the mightiness of a nation that rules its life by theories we do not accept.

But in India and the rest of the East is where the objection is directed. Even there the facts are to the contrary. What of their tanks for watering towns and fields; of their great temples; of their awe-inspiring underground constructions; of those buildings cut out of the solid mountain with mathematical precision. Can these be the work of people whose beliefs tend to stagnate human effort? I think not.

The caves of Ellora and Elephanta contain immense images and carvings which would do credit to this day. The caves of Kailas are 401 feet deep and 185 feet wide. Man made these. Inside is a conical pagoda 100 feet high, with a music gallery, five large chapels, a large court, and a colonnade. Three immense elephants are there cut from the stone. An image of Lakshmi reposes with two elephants standing on their hind legs as if pouring water over her. A passage then opens right and left. Thirty feet on there are two obelisks carved, being 41 feet high and 11 feet square. Thirty feet more and you find a great pagoda carved inside and out. There are sixteen pillars, twenty-two pilasters, and five entrances. The roof is carved to represent cross beams, and each pillar is different from the other.

At Ajanta are twenty-seven cut caves, the inscription seeming to give the date of 200 years B.C. What is the temple of Solomon to all this?

Then look at India's tanks. We would call them reservoirs. That of Lingamputti is a great triangle 2½ miles long, 1 broad at the base, and 200 years old. Bhusrapatanam tank is 13 miles in circumference; Guntoor 8 miles; Gurgi 12 miles; Shengalmalla 11 miles; Duraji 9 miles. Chambrambakam was twenty miles, and watered sixty-eight villages. Vivanam has a dam 12 miles long. At Hyderabad is a great tank about 20 square miles, watering the city.

could not duplicate, and which our sordid civilization would not permit us to think of "wasting" money upon. If we seek further and inquire of the works of the mind, the ancient astronomy confronts us. Were it not for it, our astronomers might now be wondering what was the meaning of the backward motion of the sun in the Zodiac, if they knew anything at all about it. It is fair, then, to say that there is no force at all in the objection to Theosophical thought as an Eastern product on the ground that it will or might inhibit effort. On the contrary, it will broaden our civilization and make us create works as great if not greater than those of the past. But we must not ignore the past, for to do so is to incur a sure if mysterious retribution, because that past belongs to ourselves and was a part of our own doing and begetting.

CITIES UNDER CITIES

THE theory that the remains of ancient cities exist under those of the present is not a new one. Dr. Schliemann held it, and working upon the clues found in Homer unearthed the buried Troy. Some have held it in respect to London, asserting that St. Paul's stands over the ruins of an old Pagan temple, and Roman ruins have been excavated in different parts of England. In India there is a mass of traditions telling of many modern cities said to stand over ancient ones that lie buried intact many feet below the present level. Lucifer for September noticed the "find" of an Amorite fortress sixty feet below the surface, with walls twenty-eight feet thick. It is well known to those who enjoyed intimate conversations with H. P. Blavatsky that she frequently gave more detailed and precise statements about great cities being built on the exact spots where others had stood long ages ago, and also about those over which only villages stand now. And as the constant explorations of the present day―reaching almost to the North Pole―give promise that perhaps soon the prophecies about revelations from mother Earth made by her will be fulfilled, I am emboldened to give the old theory, very likely known to many other students, to account for this building and rebuilding of cities over each other after such intervals that there can be no suspicion of communication between present and past inhabitants.

As man's civilization has traveled around the globe many times, filling now one country and now another with populous places, creating an enormous metropolis here and another

there, his influence has been left on nearly every spot upon the earth, and that as well upon lands now beneath the seas as on those above them. If we can imagine the first coming of a population to a place never before inhabited, the old theory asks us to believe that certain classes of elementals―called devas generically by the Hindus―are gathered over the place and present pictures of houses, of occupations of busy life on every hand, and, as it were, beckon to the men to stay and build. These "fairies," as the Irish call them, at last prevail, and habitations are erected until a city springs up. During its occupation the pictures in the astral light are increased and deepened until the day of desertion arrives, when the genii, demons, elementals, or fairies have the store of naturally impressed pictures in the ether to add to their own. These remain during the abandonment of the place, and when man comes that way again the process is repeated. The pictures of buildings and human activity act telepathically upon the new brains, and the first settlers think they have been independent thinkers in selecting a place to remain. So they build again and again. Nature's processes of distributing earth and accumulating it hide from view the traces of old habitations, giving the spot a virgin appearance to the new coming people. And thus are not only cities built in advantageous positions, but also in places less convenient.

Evidence is accessible and plentiful in every country to show that the winds, the trees, birds, and beasts can in time cover over completely, while leaving them intact, the remains of roads and buildings once used and occupied by men. In Central America there are vast masses of ruins among which trees of considerable girth are now growing. In other districts the remains of well-made roads are sometimes found creeping out from tangled underbrush and disappearing under a covering of earth. At Elephanta near Bombay, and in other places in India, the earth has been blown gradually under pillars and gateways, rendering entrance impossible. On the Pacific Coast, in one of the Mexican States, there is old and new San Blas, the one on the hill, deserted and almost covered with

trees and debris of all sorts which is surely constructing a covering that will ere long be some feet in thickness. So without regard to volcanic eruptions or landslides, which of course suddenly and forcibly overlay a city, it is quite possible for Nature through her slower processes to add to thickness of earthy covering at any place abandoned by man, and the very best illustration of this is in the coral islands which rise out of the ocean to be soon covered with earth and trees.

But, our ancient theory says, no process of a mechanical or physical kind has any power over the pictures impressed in the retentive ether, nor over those classes of elementals which find their natural work in presenting pictures of cities and buildings to the receptive brain of man. if he is materialistic he will recognize these pictures only subconsciously. But the subconscious impressions will translate themselves into acts just as hypnotized subjects respond to a suggestion they have no memory of. When, however, these elementals encounter a race of men who are psychically developed enough to see not only the pictures but also those entities which present them, it will then result that a conscious choice will be made, leading to a deliberate selection of one place for building on and the rejection of another.

I present this interesting old theory without proof except such as can be obtained by those few persons who are themselves able to see the devas at work on their own plane.

IRELAND

ERIN'S ISLE has always been somewhat of a mystery. Its people are so different from the English just across the channel that one who spends some time in London and then crosses over to Dublin will at once see the vast gulf that in the matter of temperament separates the two peoples.

And any one who studies the Irish, especially on the West Coast, and lives among them, will soon discover a deeply-seated belief in what is commonly called the supernatural that can only come from some distant past. Even the educated Irish are not free from this.

There is a willingness in the peasant to express belief in fairies, ghosts, and the like, which in the better classes is covered up from sight but still there. In the country districts the people will stone the lights out of the windows of a newly-vacated house, and in the city the educated man may frequently be found who will say, when his attention is called to such an occurrence, "And why shouldn't they? Do you want the devil to stay in the house?" The theory of course is that the elementals of the departed tenants can only escape through the broken window panes unless they have been used―as is not always the case―to open doors.

Belief in fairies is the old Hindu belief in the "devas" or lesser gods. I know many educated people who have declared they often heard fairy talking and singing. In fact, unless we take in the northern Irishman―who is not truly of that blood―we will never find a native of that land who is not born with a

It is called the Isle of Destiny, and its hill-men will tell you that it has always been a "saintly island." It teems with tales exactly duplicating those of Hindu yogis; the very grass seems to whisper as with the footfalls of unseen beings. One tradition is that in very ancient times, before the island of Albion rose from under the water, there was an ancient college―or Ashram as the Hindus would call it―on the island, where great adepts lived and taught disciples who from there went out to all lands. They stayed there until a certain great cataclysm, and then migrated to In connection with this the following quotation from some remarks by H.P. Blavatsky in Lucifer will be of interest, in reading which one can also profitably remember the Greek tradition that near Britain there was an island called Ierna to which men went in order to learn more about the secret mysteries. She says(1):

It is a tradition among Occultists in general, and taught as an historical fact in Occult philosophy, that what is now Ireland was once upon a time the abode of the Atlanteans, emigrants from the submerged island mentioned by Plato. Of all the British Isles, Ireland is the most ancient by several thousands of years. Inferences and "working hypotheses" are left to the Ethnologists, Anthropologists, and Geologists. The Masters and Keepers of the old science claim to have preserved genuine records, and we Theosophists―i.e., most of us―believe it implicitly. Official Science may deny, but what does it matter? Has not Science begun by denying almost everything it accepts now?

ARE THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS" ALL FICTION?

FOR many years it has been customary to regard that collection of interesting stories called "The Arabian Nights," as pure fiction arising out of Oriental brains at a time when every ruler had his story-teller to amuse him or put him to sleep. But many a man who has down in his heart believed in the stories he heard in his youth about fairies and ghosts, has felt a revival of his young fancies upon perusing these tales of prodigies and magic. Others, however, have laughed at them as pure fables, and the entire scientific world does nothing but preserve contemptuous silence.

The question here to be answered by men of science is how did such ideas arise? Taking them on their own ground, one must believe that with so much smoke there must at one time have been some fire. Just as the prevalence of a myth―such as the Devil or Serpent myth―over large numbers of people or vast periods of time points to the fact that there must have been something, whatever it was, that gave rise to the idea.

In this enquiry our minds range over that portion of the world which is near the Red Sea, Arabia and Persia, and we are brought very close to places, now covered with water, that once formed part of ancient Lemuria. The name Red Sea may have arisen from the fact that it was believed really to cover hell: and its lower entrance at the island of Perim is called "Babel Mandeb," or "the Gate of Hell." This Red Sea plays a prominent part in the Arabian Nights tales and has some significance. We should also recollect that Arabia once had her men of science, the mark of whose minds has not yet

been effaced from our own age. These men were many of them magicians, and they learned their lore either from the Lemurian adepts, or from the Black Magicians of the other famous land of Atlantis.

We may safely conclude that the Arabian Nights stories are not all pure fiction, but are the faint reverberations of a louder echo which reached their authors from the times of Lemuria and Atlantis.

Solomon is now and then mentioned in them, and Solomon, wherever he was, has always been reckoned as a great adept. The Jewish Cabala and Talmud speak of Solomon with great reverence. His power and the power of his seal―the interlaced triangles―constantly crop up among the other magical processes adverted to in these tales. And in nearly all cases where he is represented as dealing with wicked genii, he buried them in the Red Sea. Now if Solomon was a Jewish King far away in Palestine, how did he get down to the Red Sea, and where is there any mention made of his travelling at all? These genii were elemental spirits, and Solomon is merely a name standing for the vast knowledge of magic arts possessed by adepts at a time buried in the darkness of the past. In one tale, a fisherman hauls up a heavy load, which turns out to be a large iron pot, with a metal cover, on which was engraved Solomon's Seal. The unlucky man opened the pot, when at once a vapour rose out of it that spread itself over the whole heavens at first, and then condensed again into a monstrous form who addressed the fisherman saying, that ages before he had been confined there by Solomon; that after two hundred years he swore he would make rich the man lucky enough to let him out; after five hundred years that he would reward his liberator with power; but after one thousand years of captivity he would kill the one who should free him. Then he ordered the man to prepare for death. The fisherman, however, said he doubted that the genii had really been in the pot as he was too large. To prove that he had been, the spirit immediately assumed the vaporous condition and slowly with spiral motion sank into the iron pot again, when at once the fisherman clapped on

the cover and was about to cast him back into the sea. The djin then begged for mercy and agreed to serve the man and not to kill him, whereupon he was released.

Many persons will laugh at this story. But no one who has seen the wonders of spiritualism, or who knows that at this day there are many persons in India, as well as elsewhere who have dealings with elemental spirits that bring them objects instantaneously, &c., will laugh before reflecting on the circumstances.

Observe that the pot in which he was confined was made of metal, and that the talismanic seal was on the cover. The metal prevented him from making magnetic connection for the purpose of escaping, and the seal on the cover barred that way. There were no marks on the sides of the pot. His spreading himself into a vast vapour shows that he was one of the elementals of the airy kingdom―the most powerful and malignant; and his malignancy is show in the mean, ungrateful oath he took to destroy whomsoever should be his liberator. His spreading into vapour, instead of at once springing out of the pot, refers to his invisibility, for we see that in order to enter it he was compelled to assume his vaporous state, in which he again put himself into the pot.

In another story we see a young man visiting an elemental of the nature of a Succubus, who permits him now and then to go out and perform wonders. But the entrance to her retreat is unseen and kept invisible to others. In India there are those who are foolish enough to make magnetic connection with elementals of this class, by means of processes which we will not detail here. The elemental will then at your wish instantaneously produce any article which the operator may have touched, no matter how far away it may be or how tightly locked up. The consequences of this uncanny partnership are very injurious to the human partner. The records of spiritualism in America will give other cases of almost like character, sufficient to show that a compact can be entered into between a human being and an intelligence or force outside of our sensuous perceptions.

In other stories various people have power over men and animals and the forces of nature. They change men into animals and do other wonders. When they wish to cause the metamorphosis, they dash a handful of water into the unfortunate's face, crying; "Quit that form of man and assume the form of a dog." The terrible Maugraby is a Black Magician, such as can now be found in Bhootan, who had changed many persons, and the story of his destruction shows that his life and power as well as his death lay in the nasty practices of Black Magic. When the figure and the talisman were destroyed he was also. The white magician has no talisman but his Atman, and as that cannot be destroyed, he is beyond all fear.

But this paper is already too long. We are not forcing a conclusion when we say that these admirable and amusing tales are not all fiction. There is much nonsense in them, but they have come to us from the very land―now bleak and desolate―where at one time the fourth race men held sway and dabbled in both White and Black Magic.

ASTROLOGY VERIFIED

WRITING in the Theosophist upon the subject of Astrology, C.C.Massey says that he thinks at present we are not fully acquainted with the science, and that, as now practiced, it is not always reliable.

His remarks as to its unreliability are justly applicable to that branch of it which relates to nativities alone, and so far I agree with him, because I have encountered numerous cases where judgments upon nativities have been most erroneous. That department of the science is very abstruse and beset with difficulties requiring constant years of study to master. Can we wonder then at the mistakes made by the professional astrologer? He cannot afford these years of patient toil, for even with but one foot upon the threshold of the hoary art he begins to dispense his judgments and prognostications.

The three first divisions of the science: Genethliacal Astrology, or telling what shall be the individual's fate; Mundane Astrology, or foretelling the circumstances of nations, the occurrence of wars and pestilence; and Atmospherical Astrology, or indicating the weather from certain aspects of the planets, are by no means easy to understand or practice, as they require not only a close application for several years, but a good education too. But here is another branch of the subject called Horary Astrology, or the answering of questions put to the Astrologer at any time upon any subject whatever about which the questioner is anxious. This can be soon learned by close attention, and its practice will be found to reward the student with answers having in them as much of

certainty as we can hope for in this illusionary world. Nor, need one wait for years before trusting himself to make replies to questions or to solve problems, excepting always Elections, or the determining of days and times for beginning or doing anything.

Zadkiel, who was a well-educated man, an ex-officer of the English Navy, in writing on this subject, says that any one of average intelligence can soon learn by Horary Astrology, whom to do business with, what things to avoid, and what will be the result of any particular business engaged in or proposed. That Zadkiel was right I have had for some years abundant proof. And we have Lilly who preceded Zadkiel, saying the same as his follower. In Lilly's Introduction to Astrology there are given hundreds of instances where Horary Astrology has furnished correct answers to questions then put. Lilly was the astrologer who predicted the great fire which in 1666 burnt down London, and also the plague that took off a vast number of her inhabitants. No matter how much the so-called scientific world may sneer at this, it remains a fact quite susceptible of proof.

In my experience with Horary Astrology I have found that some persons have not naturally the proper cast of mind for giving a correct reply to a question, which, by another reader of the figure, would be justly answered, and, again, that one who will always be correct in Horary questions may be quite unable to do well with a nativity.

It is permissible to name those professors who are dead, because then we cannot be accused of advertising them. In the city of New York there resided, up to within a short time ago, one Dr. Charles Winterburn who practiced medicine and incidentally Horary Astrology. I consulted him may times for which he would take no pay, and I cannot remember a case in which he made a wrong answer. His mind was peculiarly fitted to give a sound reply to any question astrologically put, and it was with a sincere sorrow that I heard of his death. From among the many questions answered by him I have taken

a few as well as some upon which judgments were given by other astrologers, by myself and some other amateurs.

Two years ago, at exactly 3 p.m., I signed a contract relating to the use of the electric light. The conditions were favourable, and every one interested thought much money would be made. I sent to Dr. Winterburn and three other astrologers―each being unaware that the others had the question and one living in a distant city―this question: "At 3 p.m. today I signed a contract; what will come of it?" No other data were given. With starling unanimity, they all replied that nothing would come of it, but that it would be abandoned. Dr. Winterburn said that I might get from it a small sum, but expenses would eat that up, and one of the others said that the opposite parties to the contract were disagreeing amongst themselves and had no funds. This I afterwards found to be true. Eleven weeks was the length of time given by astrology for it to last. Within eleven weeks the whole matter was abandoned, and I made nothing whatever from it.

Subsequently, I entered into a matter having some connection with the Government and a certain manufactured article. For the sake of collecting evidence for, or against, Astrology, I obtained judgments on the affair laying them away without paying enough attention to them to even read them. The business went forward with apparently good prospects, but at last it began to assume an unfavourable turn, and then I looked into the replies I had received. With one accord, as before, they declared I had better not go on; all stating that there appeared to be evidence of some money, but also of a greater amount of expense. Dr. Winterburn, in reply to a letter written on this point, said: "On the 20th of this month you will get some return from it, but then you should drop it. However, I see that you will give it up, and it will slip away from your neighbourhood in toto." On the 20th I received the only money ever paid in the case, and from that day to this have had no more to do with it than if I had never heard of it.

In the year 1879, I contemplated a removal of my offices, and asked Dr. Winterburn for an astrological judgment. He

replied: "Do not move yet, the place offered is not good, and you will have great annoyance and loss there; wait." Soon after a room, apparently no better in another building, was offered. Dr. Winterburn and others with the same unanimity said; "Move; the new offer is good, it will be pleasant in every way." As the new place was good and cheap I moved, and not because Astrology said so. But, singular as it may appear, in eight months afterwards the place against which they advised me―and the location and description of which they were perfectly unaware of―was invaded by masons and carpenters, the wall torn down in midwinter by order of the Municipal Government, and the whole place exposed for half a year to weather and dirt. Had I been there the expense would have been great, and the annoyance immeasurable. Let me say further that when their replies were given, neither the landlord nor the Government had these alterations in contemplation.

When President Garfield was shot, some friends and myself erected different astrological figures on the event, and construing by the rules, we all said he would die. I placed his death about a week off. Our mistakes were of time and were not the mistakes of the art.

Previous to my father's death, Dr. Winterburn, having no acquaintance with him and never having seen him, said: "All the indications are bad; I think the direction I have named will be fatal. He will die in a few days, but his death will be easy and calm." He died in fifteen days as calmly and sweetly as a child would drop to sleep. The only datum given to the astrologer was the question:―"My father is sick; what will come of it?"

Such are a few of many instances I have had of the preciseness and truth of this ancient art. I could give hundreds.

These experiences lead me to the conclusion that Horary Astrology is a correct mode of divination. Those ancient men, who, with minds unfettered by the shackles of bigotry or theology, but having an overflowing desire to benefit that "great orphan Humanity," were wont in the part of India and Egypt

to inquire into all of Nature's works, found that Nature is one vast machine whose wheels work one within the other. Calculate the motion and know the mode of motion of one, and you have a key for all. So they took the planets with the heavenly road in which they travel, and erected a scheme based on experience and the universal reign of law, which enabled them and will enable us to guide the faltering steps of man through the dark and rugged valley of this life. Anxiety is one of man's greatest and most insidious foes. It fetters his energy and defeats his ends. If Astrology will relieve one at any crisis from anxiety, is it not well to foster its pursuit and spread its fame? It has relieved me often from anxiety which, without it, I would have felt for months. It will do the same for any one.

Let the light then shine from the East where Astrology began: let those whose forefathers gave to Claudius Ptolemy the materials for his Tetrabiblos, give to us what aid they can for the greater understanding and development of this most ancient art.

DIREFUL PROPHECIES

THE whole mystic fraternity of Astrologers is now engaged in showing how the heavens portend great changes on this our earth. They agree with H.P.B., who said that her Eastern friends told her of coming cyclic changes now very near at hand. Beyond doubt there is some truth in all these sayings, although here and there the astrologers definitely prognosticating are not supported by fact. Sepharial, for instance, staked his reputation on the death of the Prince of Wales, which did not come off, and now where is the reputation? Just as good as ever, for astrologers know that either the judgment of the astrologer may be at fault from sundry causes, or that the birth-hour may be wrong, or that some saving aspect of the stars has been overlooked. Great earthquakes like that of Zante or the one in Kuchan come up, and the astrologers, while they regularly in those years foresaw earthquakes, did not seem able to locate them for any spot. They were afraid to say Persia for fear it might be in London. But earth quakes were foretold. A steady prognostication of disturbance has been indulged in, and this general outlook would seem right. The disturbances were expected in the realm of mind, morals, and religion by those true astrologers who seldom speak, and the increase of crime like that of bomb-throwing justifies each month the general prediction. Seismic disturbance is the physical sign of disturbance in the moral, psychic, and mental fields. This is an old axiom in the East. In the record of the earthquake said to have taken place when Jesus died we have the Christian reflection of the same idea.

That earthquakes, floods, and great social changes would go on increasing has been known to Theosophists since the day Tom Paine saw psychically "a new order of things for the human race opening in the affairs of America," before the revolution. And ever since the increment of disaster has been great. The motto adopted by the makers of the Union―"A new order of ages"―was an echo from the realm of soul to the ears of men on earth. It marked a point in the cycle. The record of the disasters during the years since then would be found appalling. It takes in Asia and Europe, and would show millions of sudden deaths by violent earth-convulsions. And now in 1894 even Herbert Spencer, looking at the mental and social fields of human life, says in a magazine article:

A nation of which the legislators vote as they were bid and of which the workers surrender their rights of selling their labor where they please has neither the ideas nor the sentiments needed for the maintenance of liberty. . . . We are on the way back to the rule of the strong hand in the shape of the bureaucratic despotism of a socialistic organization and then of the military despotism which must follow it; if, indeed, some social crash does not bring the latter upon us more quickly.

Evidently this deeply philosophical and statistical writer feels the pressure in the atmosphere of social and material life. There is much unconscious prophecy in what he says. Earthquakes and deaths from them are dreadful, but they can be avoided when their probable place is known. But social earthquakes, moral pestilence, mental change belong to man, go with him where he goes, and cannot be averted by any alteration of place.

In the Illustrated American a writer on astrology gives definite prophecy of disaster. He erects a figure of the heavens for noon of November 12, 1894, showing a conjunction of Sun, Uranus, Venus, and Mercury in Scorpio, with Saturn only fifteen degrees away. Astrologically this is very bad. With the moon at the full in Taurus―the bull―it is ominous of floods and earthquakes. But we may add that in the psychic Zodiac it shows floods and heaving in the moral and social structure of the poor orphan man. Uranus and Saturn are

bad planets anyway; they are erratic and heavy, subtle, dark, and menacing. This writer predicts ominously, but remains indefinite as to place. We will add that dying nations like those of Persia and China will feel most whatever physical effects shall be due; and in Europe, while there will be physical disturbance, the greater trouble will be in the social and governmental structures.

The astrologer then runs forward to December 30, 1901, when he says six planets will be in one sign and in a line, with a seventh opposite on the same line projected. This, it is said by such an ancient sage as Berosus, will bring a flood when it takes place in the zodiacal sign Capricornus, as is to be the case in 1901.

Many Theosophists believe these prognostications, others deride them. The former ask what shall we do? Nothing. Stay where you are. If you remove, it is more than likely you will run into the jaws of a blacker fate. Do your duty where you find yourself, and if from your goodness you are a favorite of the gods you will escape, while if you are not their favorite it is better for you to die and take another chance at bettering your character. Death will come when it will, and why should we fear, since it is "a necessary end." Theosophists too often occupy themselves with these woful lookings into the future, to the detriment of their present work. They should try to discover the fine line of duty and endeavor, leaving the astrologers of today, who are more at sea than any other mystics, to con over a zodiac that is out of place and calculate with tables which delude with the subtle power that figures have to lie when the basis of calculation is wrong.

AN ANCIENT TELEPHONE

IT has been the custom of many people to belittle the ancients by assuming that they knew but little of mechanics, certainly not so much as we do. The builders of the pyramids have been described by modern guessers as making their calculations and carrying on the most wonderful engineering operations with the aid of pools of water for obtaining levels and star angles: they could not, it was assumed, have instruments except the most crude. So also the old Chinese were mere rude workmen, although it is well known that they discovered the precession of the equinoxes over 2,000 years ago. Of late, evidence has been slowly coming out that tends to show the ancients as perhaps having as much, if not more, than we have. So the following from the New York Evening Sun, an influential daily paper, will be of interest. It says, on May 31, 1894:

An English officer by the name of Harrington has discovered in India a working telephone between two native temples which stand over a mile apart. The testimony of the Hindus, which, it is said, is backed up by documentary proof, shows that the system has been in operation for over 2,000 years. Scientists engaged in excavating the ruins of ancient Egyptian temples have repeatedly found unmistakable evidence of wire communication between some of the temples of the earlier Egyptian dynasties.

It will probably be found, in the course of time, that the oft-repeated statements of H. P. Blavatsky that the ancients had all of our arts and mechanical devices were true. She asserted that they had flying machines. In Buddhist books is a

story of Buddha which refers to a flying machine or mechanical bird used in a former life of the Lord, and Indian tradition speaks also of air walking machines. Reading this item in the newspaper reminds me too of a conversation I had with H. P. Blavatsky in New York before the phonograph came out, in which she said that some Indian friends of hers had a machine by which they spoke with each other over distances of miles with great ease. Perhaps when the great West is convinced that the old Aryans had mechanical contrivances equalling our own, it will be ready to lead a readier ear than now to the philosophies the East has so long held in keeping.

WRONG POPULAR NOTIONS

WHAT are your proofs?" is often asked of the Theosophical student who believes in reincarnation and Karma, who holds to the existence of the astral body, and who thinks that evolution demands a place in the cosmos for Mahâtmâs (or great souls) as facts and ideals. "If you cannot prove reincarnation just as you would a fact in a court of law, I will not believe," says one, while another says, "Make such objective demonstrations as science does, and then you may expect me to agree with you." But in truth all these objectors accept as proven in the way they demand for Theosophy many things which on a slight examination are seen to rest as much on theory and metaphysical argument as do any of the doctrines found in Theosophical literature. The axioms of mathematics are unprovable; the very word assumes that they have to be accepted. Being accepted, we go forward and on the basis of their unproved truth demonstrate other and succedent matters. The theories of modern astronomy are taken as true because by their means eclipses are foretold and other great achievements of that science made possible. But many centuries ago quite different theories of the relations and motions and structure of the heavens allowed the old astronomers to make the same deductions. Let us examine a few words and things.

The atom and the molecule are very influential words. They are constantly used by people claiming to follow science, but

who indulge in criticisms on the uncertainties of Theosophical speculation. Yet no one ever saw an atom or a molecule. They are accepted as facts by science―just as the spiritually-inclined accept the existence of the invisible soul―yet it is impossible to objectively prove either the one or the other. They are deemed to be proven because they are necessary. But let a Theosophist say that the astral body exists, and Mahâtmâs also, because both are necessary in evolution, and at once a demand arises for demonstration" by objective proofs.

The sun is the apparent source of energy, and is confidently supposed by many to be a mass of burning material. No one, however, knows this to be so. No one was ever there, and the whole set of theories regarding the luminary rests on assumptions. Many natural facts are against some of the theories. The great fact that the higher the mountain the more cold it is on top would be one, not wholly accounted for by theories as to radiation. And when we remember the great, the immense, difference between the various scientific estimates of the sun's heat, doubt increases. Seeing that electricity is now so much better known, and that it is apparently all pervading, the ancient idea that the sun is a center of electrical or magnetic energy which turns into heat as well as other things on reaching here, becomes plausible and throws some spice of illusion into the doctrine that our sun is a mass of burning matter.

Again, the sun is seen as if over the horizon in full view every clear evening, when in fact he has been some minutes down below the line of sight. Refraction partly accounts for his, but none the less is his apparent visibility or position above the horizon an illusion.

Many of those that are known as fixed stars are immeasurably far away. Sirius is at an immense distance, and has been receding always many thousands of miles each minute. Others are so far off that it takes one hundred thousand years for their light to reach here.

Yet since records began they have all remained apparently in one place and in the same relation to each other. They constitute a vast illusion. They are moving and yet they remain still. We point the telescope at one of our sister planets, and knowing that its light takes fifteen minutes or more to get to us, we must be continually directing the glass to a point where the planet is not, and by no possibility can we point to where it actually is. Still, for all this uncertainty, many complicated and definite calculations are based on these observations of mere illusions.

These are practically used every hour of the day for the safe-guarding of human life and property. But they exist only in the brains of men, for they are not in the sky or on land. They are theoretical divisions made by man, and they are possible only because the sole reality in nature is that which is jeered at by many as the ideal. But if the ancients are said to be constructors of a great human chart in the Zodiac, the divisions of which have a bearing on the navigation of the great ocean of human evolution, the proud practical man says that you have but shown the ancients to be fanciful, superstitious, grotesque. But they were not so. Doubtless the saying recorded of Jesus about the time when we should see "the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens" will not so far from now be found to have a practical meaning in human life.

The ancient Sage was like the modern captain. The captain takes an observation of the illusionary stars and the blazing sun, thus discovering whether his ship is near or far from land. The Sage observed the Zodiac, and from the manner it and its boats were related to each other he was able to calculate whether the human freight in the boat of human evolution was near a rock or on the free, open sea in its eternal and momentous journey.

Every one is accustomed to say that he has touched this or that object on which his fingers may have rested. But this is not

so. We do not touch anything; we only perceive and report a sensation which we call touch. If that sensation is due to actual contact between the skin and object, then the harder we pressed, and thus the nearer we came to the object's surface, the more accurate should be the sensation. If fact, however, if we press hard we dull the sensation and turn it into one of pain for the skin. There is always a space between the skin and the surface dealt with, just as there is always a space between the molecules of each mass. If two smooth planes be pushed on to each other they well adhere, and the smoother they are the more difficult it will be to get them apart. If we could actually touch the hand to any surface so as to cover all of it with a touching surface, we could not withdraw the hand at all. All that we get, then, by what we call touch is the idea produced by the vibration and by than much of contact as is possible in the case.

Quite Theosophical is the scientist when he says that "we cannot know anything of the actual nature of matter in itself, but can only know the sensation or the phenomena." The mineral or metal called even the hardest is not solid or continuous in itself. This is now admitted by all scientific men. Even the diamond, "hardest of all," is a mass of moving molecules made up of like moving atoms. Its hardness is only relative. It is simply harder than glass because its atoms are moving at a more rapid rate. In a recent lecture in London Mr. Bell, a scientific light, told how the edge or point of the diamond cuts the glass because the molecules on the diamond move rapidly and get in between the slower ones of the glass and thus cut it. And so it is with all other masses of matter. They are only masses of molecules in different rates of vibration; none of them solid or hard save in a relative sense. Is it not true, then, as so often held by philosophers and so insisted on by those Adepts who gave us information through H. P. Blavatsky that the world we are in is to be properly considered in a metaphysical sense and not as a mere mechanism that can be explained on mechanical principles? And in the face of all the illusions and all the

speculations of life and science, why should the Theosophist be asked to make or give any different sort of proofs than those availed of by science in all its investigations? There is no reason.

COMETS

THE probable genesis, the constitution, the movements, and the functions of comets have engaged the greatest attention of astronomers. They very often appear to defy laws which apply to other celestial bodies. That the laws governing the heavenly bodies are not all known must be admitted upon very little reflection. Two things alone would raise doubts as to whether modern astronomers are acquainted with all those laws. The first is that although the great fixed stars are known to be moving at enormous rates―for instance, that Sirius is receding from us with great velocity every moment―yet for ages they all appear to stand in the same relative positions, and are therefore called "fixed" stars in comparison with the planetary bodies nearer to us, which move with apparently greater rapidity. The other is that some of the planets having one moon seem to have a different law prevailing over them, in that one of the moons will move in a direction opposite to the others. There are, in the first volume of the Secret Doctrine (first ed. pp. 203-209), two paragraphs which indicate some of the views of the Adepts in respect to comets.

Born in the unfathomable depths of Space, out of the homogeneous Element called the World-Soul, every nucleus of Cosmic matter suddenly launched into being begins life under the most hostile circumstances. Through a series of countless ages it has to conquer for itself a place in the infinitudes. It circles round and round between denser and already fixed bodies, moving by jerks, and pulling toward some given point or center that attracts it, trying to avoid, like a ship drawn into a channel dotted with reefs and sunken rocks, other bodies that draw and repel it in turn; many perish, their mass disintegrating through stronger masses and, when born within a system, chiefly within the insatiable stomachs of various suns. Those which move slower and are propelled into an elliptic course are doomed to annihilation

sooner or later. Others moving in parabolic curves generally escape destruction, owing to their velocity.

Some very critical readers will perhaps imagine that this teaching as to the cometary stage passed through by all heavenly bodies is in contradiction with the statements just made as to the moon's being the mother of the earth. They will perhaps fancy that intuition is needed to harmonize the two. But no intuition is, in truth, required. What does science know of comets, their genesis, growth, and ultimate behavior? Nothing―absolutely nothing! And what is there so impossible that a laya center―a lump of cosmic protoplasm, homogeneous and latent―when suddenly animated or fired up, should rush from its bed in Space and whirl throughout the abysmal depths in order to strengthen its homogeneous organism by an accumulation and addition of differentiated elements? And why should not such a comet settle in life, live, and become an inhabited globe!

It is to be observed here that the same war which we see going on upon this plane goes on upon the cosmic planes also, it being stated that when a nucleus of matter begins life it does so under the most hostile circumstances. On this plane, the moment the soul leaves the body the never-ceasing life-energy begins to tear the particles apart and separate them into smaller lives. And it is known that the theory is held by the Adepts that during life one set of cells or points of life wars against another set, and that what we call death results from the balance being destroyed, so that the mass of cells which work for destruction, of any composition in nature, gaining the upper hand, immediately begin to devour the other, and, at last, turn upon themselves for their own destruction as composite masses. That is to say, not that there is one distinct quantity of cells which are destroyers, opposed by another distinct quantity which are conservers, but that the negative and positive forces in nature are constantly acting and reacting against each other. The equilibrium, or natural state, is due to the balancing of these two opposite forces. The positive is destructive, and if that force gains the upper hand it converts all those cells over which it has control for the moment into destroyers of the other, negative, cells. Hence a negative cell might at some time become a positive cell, and vice versa. After the balance is destroyed, then the positive forces accumulate to themselves more cells under their influence, and then again a division of

the two forces takes place, so that a portion of the positive become negative, and in that way, continually dividing and subdividing, so-called death, as known to us, takes place.

It has not been understood what comets are, but these paragraphs indicate that the opinion of the Adepts is that they are the beginning of worlds, i.e., that we see in comets the possible beginnings of worlds. The sentence beginning the quotations―"Born in the unfathomable depths of Space," etc.―means that, a laya center being formed, the homogeneous mass of matter is condensed at that point, and, the energy of nature being thrown into it, it starts up, a fiery mass, to become a comet. It will then either pursue its course in evolution, if it is accumulating to its matter from other masses, or will be drawn into them for their aggrandizement. The hint is thrown out that the parabolic moving masses, owing to their velocity, escape destruction because they are able to evade the attraction from greater masses.

In the second paragraph quoted a clue is given to those who would be likely to think that this theory could not be consistent with the other, viz., that the moon is the mother of the earth. It is intended to be shown in the paragraph that the starting-up, as before suggested, of a mass of matter from the laya center is due to the energy propelled into that center from a dying globe, such as the moon is. This having been begun, no matter what may be the wanderings of the fast-moving mass, it will at last come back to the place from which it started, when it shall have grown to a greater maturity. And this is indicated in the last statement―"Why should not such a comet settle in life, live, and become an inhabited globe?"

This theory is as useful, consistent, and reasonable as any that materialistic science has invented in respect to comets or any other heavenly bodies, and, being perfectly in accord with the rest of the theories given out by the Adepts, there can be no objection raised to it, that it violates the general system which they have outlined.

OUR SUN AND THE TRUE SUN

CONSIDERING how little is known of the sun of this system, it is not to be wondered at that still more is this the case respecting the true sun. Science laughs, of course, at the mystic's "true sun," for it sees none other than the one shining in the heavens. This at least they pretend to know, for it rises and sets each day and can be to some extent observed during eclipses or when spots appear on it, and with their usual audacity the 19th century astronomers learnedly declare all that they do not know about the mighty orb, relegating the ancient ideas on the subject to the limbo of superstitious nonsense. It is not to the modern schools that I would go for information on this subject, because in my opinion, however presumptuous it may seem, they really know but little about either Moon or Sun.

A dispute is still going on as to whether the sun throws out heat.(1) On one hand it is asserted that he does; on the other, that the heat is produced by the combination of the forces from the sun with the elements on and around this earth. The latter would seem to the mystic to be true. Another difference of opinion exists among modern astronomers as to the distance of the sun from us, leaving the poor mystic to figure it out as he may. Even on the subject of spots on our great luminary, everything nowadays is mere conjecture. It is accepted hypothetically―and no more―that there may be a connection between

¹ Among great scientists such as Newton, Secchi, Pouillet, Spaeren, Rosetti, and others, there is a difference as to estimated heat of the sun shown by their figures, for Pouillet says 1,461° and Waterston 9,000,000°or a variation of 8,998,600°!

those spots and electrical disturbances here. Some years ago Nasmyth discovered (2) objects (or changes) on the photosphere consisting of what he called "willow leaves," 1000 miles long and 300 miles broad, that constantly moved and appeared to be in shoals. But what are these? No one knows. Science can do no more about informing us than any keen sighted ordinary mortal using a fine telescope. And as to whether these "willow leaves" have any connection with the spots or themselves have relation to earthly disturbances, there is equal silence. To sum it up, then, our scientific men know but little about the visible sun. A few things they must some day find out, such as other effects from sun spots than mere electrical disturbances; the real meaning of sun spots; the meaning of the peculiar color of the sun sometimes observed―such as that a few years ago attributed to "cosmic dust," for the want of a better explanation to veil ignorance; and a few other matters of interest.

But we say that this sun they have been examining is not the real one, nor any sun at all, but is only an appearance, a mere reflection to us of part of the true sun. And, indeed, we have some support even from modern astronomers, for they have begun to admit that our entire solar system is in motion around some far off undetermined centre which is so powerful that it attracts our solar orb and thus draws his entire system with him. But they know not if this unknown centre be a sun. They conjecture that it is, but will only assert that it is a centre of attraction for us. Now it may be simply a larger body, or a stronger centre of energy, than the sun, and in turn quite possibly it may be itself revolving about a still more distant and more powerful centre. In this matter the modern telescope and power of calculation are quickly baffled, because they very soon arrive at a limit in the starry field where, all being apparently stationary because of immense distances, there are no means of arriving at a conclusion. All these distant orbs may be in motion, and therefore it cannot be said where the true centre is. Your astronomer will admit that even the con-

² See Source of Heat in the Sun, R. Hunt, F.R.S. Pop. Sc. Rev. Vol. IV, p. 148.

stellations in the Zodiac, immovable during ages past, may in truth be moving, but at such enormous and awful distances that for us they appear not to move.

My object, however, is to draw your attention to the doctrine that there is a true sun of which the visible one is a reflection, and that in this true one there is spiritual energy and help, just as our own beloved luminary contains the spring of our physical life and motion. It is useless now to speculate on which of the many stars in the heavens may be the real sun, for I opine it is none of them, since, as I said before, a physical centre of attraction for this system may only be a grade higher than ours, and the servant of a centre still farther removed. We must work in our several degrees, and it is not in our power to overleap one step in the chain that leads to the highest. Our own sun is, then, for us the symbol of the true one he reflects, and by meditating on "the most excellent light of the true sun" we can gain help in our struggle to assist humanity. Our physical sun is for physics, not metaphysics, while that true one shines down within us. The orb of day guards and sustains the animal economy; the true sun shines into us through its medium within our nature. We should then direct our thought to that true sun and prepare the ground within for its influence, just as we do the ground without for the vivifying rays of the King of Day.

THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

THERE is a very great difference between the Theosophical Movement and any Theosophical Society. The Movement is moral, ethical, spiritual, universal, invisible save in effect, and continuous. A Society formed for theosophical work is a visible organization, an effect, a machine for conserving energy and putting it to use; it is not nor can it be universal, nor is it continuous. Organized Theosophical bodies are made by men for their better cooperation, but, being mere outer shells, they must change from time to time as human defects come out, as the times change, and as the great underlying spiritual movement compels such alterations.

The Theosophical Movement being continuous, it is to be found in all times and in all nations. Wherever thought has struggled to be free, wherever spiritual ideas, as opposed to forms and dogmatism, have been promulgated, there the great movement is to be discerned. Jacob Boehme's work was a part of it, and so also was the Theosophical Society of over one hundred years ago; Luther's reformation must be reckoned as a portion of it; and the great struggle between Science and Religion, clearly portrayed by Draper, was every bit as much a motion of the Theosophical Movement as is the present Society of that name―indeed that struggle, and the freedom thereby gained for science, were really as important in the advance of the world, as are our different organizations. And among political examples of the movement is to be counted the Independence of the American colonies, ending in the formation of a great nation, theoretically based on Brotherhood. One can therefore see that to worship an organization, even though it be the beloved theosophical one, is to fall down before Form, and to become the slave once more of that dog-

matism which our portion of the Theosophical Movement, the T.S., was meant to overthrow.

Some members have worshipped the so-called "Theosophical Society," thinking it to be all in all, and not properly perceiving its de facto and piecemeal character as an organization nor that it was likely that this devotion to mere form would lead to a nullification of Brotherhood at the first strain. And this latter, indeed, did occur with several members. They even forgot, and still forget, that H. P. Blavatsky herself declared that it were better to do away with the Society rather than to destroy Brotherhood, and that she herself declared the European part of it free and independent. These worshippers think that there must be a continuance of the old form in order for the Society to have an international character.

But the real unity and prevalence, and the real internationalism, do not consist in having a single organization. They are found in the similarity of aim, of aspiration, of purpose, of teaching, of ethics. Freemasonry―a great and important part of the true Theosophical Movement―is universally international; and yet its organizations are numerous, autonomous, sovereign, independent. The Grand Lodge of the state of New York, including its different Lodges, is independent of all others in any state, yet every member is a Mason and all are working on a single plan. Freemasons over all the world belong to the great International Masonic Body, yet they have everywhere their free and independent government.

When the Theosophical Society was young and small, it was necessary that it should have but one government for the whole of it. But now that it has grown wide and strong, having spread among nations so different from each other as the American, the English, the Spanish, the Swedish and others in Europe, and the Hindû, it is essential that a change in the outward form be made. This is that it become like the Freemasons―independent in government wherever the geographical or national conditions indicate that necessity. And that this will be done in time, no matter what certain persons may say to the contrary, there is not the slightest doubt.

The American Group, being by geographical and other conditions outwardly separate, began the change so as to be in government free and independent, but in basis, aspiration, aim and work united with all true Theosophists.

We have not changed the work of H.P.B.; we have enlarged it. We assert that any person who has been admitted to any Theosophical Society should be received everywhere among Theosophists, just as Masons are received among Masons. It is untheosophical to denounce the change made by the American Group; it is not Theosophy nor conducive to its spread to make legal claims to theosophical names, symbols and seals so as to prevent if possible others from using them. Everyone should be invited to use our theosophical property as freely as he wishes. Those who desire to keep up H.P.B.'s war against dogmatism will applaud and encourage the American movement because their liberated minds permit; but those who do not know true Theosophy, nor see the difference between forms and the soul of things, will continue to worship Form and to sacrifice Brotherhood to a shell.

ONE OF THE SIGNS OF THE CYCLE

THE people of all nations now turn their eyes to America, and that name for them stands for the United States. Its energy, activity, and freedom hold the imagination of the foreigner, and here he thinks aspirations may be realized, unfettered by the chains of caste, kingly prerogative, or religious restraint. With all that, Europeans often laugh at the newness and crudity of America, yet admiration cannot be withheld for the tremendous nerve power, the facile adaptability, the swift onward rush of the civilization beginning to bloom in the United States. It is the occult forces working in this land and really affecting all men, whether they know it or not, that is the reason.

Men who are not counted seers often see centuries into the future; and Tom Paine, the last who could be called a seer, had one such sight about America, although he called it a thought or "that which he saw with his mind's eye." When he was yet in England he wrote that he seemed to see a great vista opening for the world in the affairs in America. This was before he wrote Common Sense, which, as George Washington said, did more for our independence than any other thing. Paine was destined to be a great factor in American affairs, and naturally―in the occultist's eyes at least―he would see in advance some slight vision of the "great experiment" in which he was so soon to take an influential share. This experiment was not conceived alone by mortal minds, but is a part of the evolutionary plan, for here the next great movement has already begun and will reach a high development.

Its greatest importance for us is theosophically. We think, quite naturally, that the theosophic ideas and culture are supreme, but if we needed confirmation from the outer bar-

barians we have it in the lately-written words of the great Frenchman, Emile Burnouf, who said that one of the three great factors in religious development of today is the Theosophical Society. If we assume this to be true, a glance at statistics will point to one of the signs of the cycle.

In England there are almost 30 million people, yet for fifteen years the Theosophical Society has not made much progress there. For some years but one branch existed―the London Lodge, and now there are not ten. India has a population of 350,000,000, but if a count were taken we should find that the possible material available for the creation of T.S. Branches would not reach 1,000,000 souls. The reason for this is that out of the whole of 350,000,000 there are an immense number who cannot sympathise with the movement, indeed can hardly know of it, because they are uneducated and unable to speak or read English; the English-speaking Hindu is one who joins us there. And we find in India say 175 active Branches.

Turning now to America―to the United States where Theosophy has been promulgated―we can only reckon on a population of say 50,000,000. Yet those 50,000,000 have furnished us with 36 Branches, and more rapidly coming into existence. Those who work for and in the T.S. in the United States know of the great interest there is in the subject in every part of the country, and can feel quite sure that not only may there very soon be one hundred Branches here, but also that nearly every man, woman, and child will ere long know of the word Theosophy and of the Society bearing its name. Several causes make this possible in the United States as nowhere else. There is a wider spread of general English education, a more constant reading of newspapers and magazines by all classes from lowest to highest, and a keener spirit of inquiry working in a freer mental atmosphere, than in any other country.

The statistics given lead to but one conclusion: they place the possibilities of theosophical growth in the United States ahead of India. Any one can calculate the proportions in the

proposition: given the U.S. with 50 million people and 36 Branches, more than two-thirds of which have been formed within the last three years, and India numbering one million available people and 175 Branches, of which the greater number have been in existence many years, which is greater proportional growth and which gives greater promise for the future?

But the analysis must not end here, for the conditions and the people are different. Most of India's people will probably for many centuries remain as they are, some technical idolaters, some Jains, some Mohammedans, some Fire worshippers, and some Buddhists. But here the lines of demarcation between the different sects are being shaded into disappearance, there are no great differences of religion and of caste, and people of all avowed religions are daily finding theosophy creeping into their thoughts and their literature. It is a sign of the Cycle; it points to India as the conserver of the ancient wisdom-religion, and to America as its new and vigorous champion who will adopt those old truths without fear of caste or prejudice, and exemplify them through the new race to be brought forth in the old Fifth continent. The careful student of Theosophy will not fail to see that America alone, of all lands, meets all the requirements respecting the problem. "Where is the new race to be born?" H.P. Blavatsky in the Secret Doctrine calls it the Fifth continent, although for the time including Europe under that head. Here we see the fusion of all races going on before our eyes, and here too is the greatest push of energy, of inquiry, and of achievement.

ON THE FUTURE: A FEW REFLECTIONS

ALTHOUGH I am an American citizen, the place of my birth was in Ireland, and in what I am about to say I cannot be accused of Columbiamania, for no matter how long might be my life I could never be an American. For that perhaps it is right, since it is compulsory, to wait for some distant incarnation.

Now, either H. P. B. was right or she was wrong in what she says in the Secret Doctrine about the future of America. If wrong, then all this may be dismissed as idle speculation. But, if right, then all thoughtful Theosophists must take heed, weigh well, mentally appropriate and always remember what are her words as well as the conclusions to which they lead.

In the first pages of the second volume she speaks of five great Continents. First, the Imperishable Sacred Land [this is at the North Pole, W.Q.J.; second, the Hyperborean, now part of it is in Northern Asia; third, Lemuria, sunk long ago, but leaving some remains, islands, the points of high mountain ranges; fourth, Atlantis, presumably in the Atlantic Ocean, now below the level of the water, but with perhaps Teneriffe and Atlas as reminders; and fifth, "was America."

From a survey of the book, digging in notes and culling from the text here and there, the conclusion is irresistible that although the present America is not the actual Continent as it is to be, it is a portion of it; and certainly is now the nursery for the race that will in the future occupy the sixth Continent, which for the sixth Great Root-Race will emerge from the waters. Where? Perhaps when the present America has been split up by tremendous cataclysms, leaving here and there large pieces on its western side, it is in the Pacific Ocean that the great mass of the new one will come up from the long sleep below the sea. Rightly then will the great far western ocean have been named Pacific, for that Race will not be

given to contest nor hear of wars or rumours of war, since it will be too near the seventh, whose mission it must be to attain to the consummation, to seize and hold the Holy Grail.

Turn to page 444 and onward of the second volume. Read there that the Americans have become in only three hundred years a primary race pro tem., in short, the germs of the sixth sub-race, to blossom in a few more centuries into the pioneers of that one which must succeed to the present European fifth sub-race in all its characteristics. Then after about 25,000 years, which you will note is meant for a great sidereal cycle of a little over that length of time, this new race will prepare for the seventh sub-race. Cataclysms will then fall upon you; lands and nations will be swept away, first of all being the European, including the British Isles―if not gone before―and then parts of both North and South America. And how puny, mongrel, indeed, will be the remains of the scientists of today, great masters of microbes now, but then to be looked upon as strange remains of the Nineteenth Century, when, as the people will tell each other then, so many, with Truth before them, laughed at it and stoned its apostles, dancing a fantastic dance meanwhile around the altar of invisible matter.

It seems as if some power, deliberately planning, had selected North and South America for the place where a new primary root-race should be begun. These two continents were evidently the seats of ancient races and not the habitat of wild undeveloped men. The red man of the Northern one has all the appearance and beliefs of a once great race. He believes in one God, a Devachan of happy hunting after death. Some tribes have diagrams of how the world was formed and peopled, that strangely resemble the Hindû cosmogony, and their folklore bears deep marks of having come down from an older and better time. Following the course of exploration southwards, we find accumulating evidences all the way of a prior civilization now gone with the cyclic wave which brought it up. Central America is crowded with remains in stone and brick; and so on south still we discover similar proofs. In course of time these continents became what might be called

arable land, lying waiting, recuperating, until the European streams of men began to pour upon it. The Spanish overflowed South America and settled California and Mexico; the English, French, and Spanish took the North, and later all nations came, so that now in both continents nearly every race is mixed and still mixing. Chinese even have married women of European blood; Hindûs are also here; the ancient Parsî race has its representatives; the Spanish mixed with the aborigines, and the slaveholders with the Africans. I doubt not but that some one from every race known to us has been here and has left, within the last two hundred years, some impression through mixture of blood.

But the last remnants of the fifth Continent, America, will not disappear until the new race has been some time born. Then a new Dwelling, the sixth Continent, will have appeared over the waters to receive the youth who will tower above us as we do above the pigmies of Africa. But no America as we now know it will exist. Yet these men must be the descendants of the race that is now rising here. Otherwise our philosophy is all wrong. So then, in America now is forming the new sub-race, and in this land was founded the present Theosophical Society: two matters of great importance. It was to the United States, observe, that the messenger of the Masters came, although Europe was just as accessible for the enterprise set on foot. Later, this messenger went to India and then to Europe, settling down in the British Isles. All of this is of importance in our reflections. For why in America at first does she begin the movement, and why end her part of it in England? One might be led to ask why was not an effort made at all costs to give the last impulse outwardly in the land of promise where she began the work?

Do not imagine for one moment, O ye English brothers of mine, that London was selected for this because the beauties of your island called her, or for that she had decided at the finish that after all a mistake had been made in not going there first. It was all out of stern necessity, with a wisdom derived from many older heads, having in view the cycles

as they sweep resistlessly forward. The point where the great energy is started, the centre of force, is the more important, and not the place at which it is ended. And this remains true, no matter how essential the place of ending may be in the scheme. What, do you suppose India is not as important? and would not that land have offered seemingly a better spot than all for the beginning of the magnum opus? Adepts do not make mistakes like that.

America's discovery is ascribed to Christopher Columbus. Although it is doubted, yet no one doubts that the Spanish people did the most at first in peopling it, meanwhile working off some old and making some new Karma, by killing many of the aborigines. Thus it is that doomed people rush on to their doom, even as the troops of insects, animals and men were seen by Arjuna to rush into Krishna's flaming mouths. But later came the sturdy stock from England, who, in the greatest nation, the most enduring on this continent, have left their impress indelibly in the people, in its laws, in its constitution, its customs, its literature and language. Perhaps England and Ireland are the gateways for the Egos who incarnate here in the silent work of making a new race. Maybe there is some significance in the fact that more lines of steamships conveying human freight come to the United States from England, passing Ireland on the way as the last seen land of the old world, than from anywhere else. The deeds of men, the enterprises of merchants, and the wars of soldiers all follow implicitly a law that is fixed in the stars, and while they copy the past they ever symbolize the future.

Did H. P. B. only joke when she wrote in her book that Ireland is an ancient Atlantean remnant, and England a younger Isle, whose rising from the sea was watched by wise men from Erin's shore? Perhaps the people of that old land may have an important influence in the new race of America. It would appear from comparison that they might have had, and probably will in the future. Perhaps, politically, since many expect social disturbances in America. In such a case any student of character will admit that the Irish, ignorant or not, will stand for law and order―for her sons are not battling here with

an ancient foe. Why, too, by strange freak of fate is the great stone of destiny in Westminster Abbey fixed under the coronation chair on which the Queen was crowned? Let us also be informed if there be any finger-shadow pointing to the future in the fact that England's Queen, crowned over that stone,¹ is Empress of India, from which we claim the Aryans came, and where their glorious long-forgotten knowledge is preserved? Her name is Victory. It is the victory for "the new order of Ages"; and that new order began in America, its advent noted and cut on the as yet unused obverse side of the present seal of the United States Government. A victory in the union of the Egos from East and West; for England stretches one hand over to the home of the new race, which she can never own, with the other governing India, and completes the circuit. It may be a fleeting picture, perhaps to be wiped out for a while in a stream of blood, but such is the way the cycles roll and how we may learn to read the future. For England's destiny is not complete, nor has the time struck. None of us hug foolish delusions too long, and even if Ireland were once a most sacred place, that is no reason why we should want to go there. For in America those whose Karma has led them there will work for the same end and brotherhood as others left in India and Europe. The dominant language and style of thought in America is English, albeit transforming itself every day. It is there that silently the work goes on; there European fathers and mothers have gone, establishing currents of attraction that will inevitably and unceasingly draw into reincarnation Egos similar to themselves. And the great forward and backward rush is completed by the retarded Egos as they die out of other nations, coming meanwhile into flesh again among the older races left behind.

At least such seemed the view while the clouds lifted―and then once more there was silence.

¹ It is an interesting fact that in India there is an important ceremony called "mounting the stone."

ORGANIZED LIFE OF THE T.S.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS―It is now my duty to attempt to deal further with the subject of the Organized Life of the Theosophical Society. Brother Wright has taken up some points which I would have taken up in other circumstances; Brother Chakravarti has outlined to you as a Brahman, as a member of the Indian Section, what he thinks is the mission of the Theosophical Society and what its mission there so far has resulted in. You have had from Brother Wright a great deal of fact I think that you will believe him, that we have accomplished an enormous amount of work in eighteen years against most strenuous and bitter opposition. And it is the custom in America, and especially in the West, and most especially in Chicago, to measure results by money. How could we have accomplished all this, how could we have printed all those books without printing presses, without paper, without salaries, without people to do the work, and that you think takes money?

Perhaps you think we have a secret fund from which we have drawn some millions, laid away amongst the buried treasures of India, which one or two of us can draw from now and then, so as to enable us to do work which other bodies can accomplish only by the use of money. But it is not so. We have little money and never had much. We do not want it, do not expect it, and the day when we shall have a large fund and be able to collect $5,000,000 in imitation of Western missionary bodies will be the day when the Theosophical Society will die. It is not money that has done this. It is the energy of the human heart. These people who are here with me are only representatives of many, many persons all over the world who are willing to give their life, their

NOTE.— This article was an address given by Mr. Judge before the Theosophical Congress at the Parliament of Religions, World's Fair, Chicago, in 1893. It has been slightly amended to omit occasional colloquialisms.

energy, their time to a movement which they think will benefit man. They get nothing for it; they get no preference. What is it of honor to preside at a meeting like this? What is it for any person to be a member of a Branch? What is it to be the President of the Theosophical Society? Nothing at all. There is no honor in it whatever. There are no places, no salaries, nothing at all but work.

Brother Chakravarti gave you an idea of our future. It has been said against us that this movement of ours was an invention of the East, but he must have made you suspect that perhaps this movement is unique, that it came neither from the East nor from the West. The East has solidified, crystallized, stood still; it would never have commenced such a movement. The West did not know about such things; it did not want them. We are wrapped up in material progress, and never would have started such a movement. Where, then, was the movement really started? It was started in the spiritual world above both East and West, by living men. Not by spirits of dead men, but by living spirits, living spirits like yourselves, who have risen above creeds and nations and castes and peoples, and are simply human beings. They started this movement by giving the impulse and the message; that is why we who have been in it so long have the confidence born of knowledge, knowledge that it will succeed.

We began at the time under direction, when we knew that materialism was spreading, not only over the West, but insidiously all over the East. It was turning the mind of the East, not to Christianity―never could that be done―but into the grossest forms of materialism. That is to say, the West itself with its missionaries was corrupting a vast mass of men and turning them into men who believed in nothing but annihilation after this life. If you could have succeeded in converting them to Christianity, it would have been well enough, for then they could rise up higher into another spiritual life. But instead of succeeding with them in that, as I know from facts, from having been there, you were simply flinging them from their own beliefs into materialism, which the Theosophic Society was started to prevent, both there and in the

West. It has done something―it has not been the one cause, but it has been the little lever, the little point in the centre, around which we are all working with all effectual means for the good of humanity. It is trying to offer the key to all these Congresses and to show all men where the truth is.

Now, when the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 . . . there was nothing else but laughter and jokes. The Society was an immense joke, they said, a new kind of spiritualism, something of that sort to tickle men's fancies―and we have had that to contend with all the time. But we have succeeded always in remaining at the post and saying just what we meant to say all the time for all the laughter. We took no salaries, but we had belief in the human heart.

The objects of the Theosophical Society having been explained to you, you know the Society has but one doctrine, that of Universal Brotherhood. You cannot belong to it unless you believe in that; you won't want to belong to it unless you believe in that. But you are not required to believe anything else. You are not required to believe in Brother Chakravarti; you are not required to believe what, as the newspapers say, are the doctrines of "that woman Besant"; you are not required to believe in Madame Blavatsky, who was a woman, a human being, just the same as the rest of us; you are not required to believe in those great beings of whom Brother Chakravarti has been speaking. It has been supposed by some that in order to be a Theosophist you must believe in Mahatmas, that you must believe in H. P. Blavatsky, in reincarnation, in Karma; but you do not have to believe in any of those things at all. But, I take it, you must believe in Universal Brotherhood.

The reason why people have been a little confused is this: they have seen the Theosophical Society absolutely without a creed, absolutely without any dogma, and as inside of it they know of a large number of people who believe in those ideas and doctrines, they think that is what the Theosophist must believe. But it is not. For, don't you see, if we started a Universal Brotherhood, and started a Society to find out the truth, and then fixed a dogma, that moment we would be

telling a lie and forfeiting the whole object we started to accomplish. We can never have a creed. We do not know what the truth is. It may be that we are wrong; it may be we will find out more. It is true we will never go back to those old dogmas and creeds, although there are still many members on the books of the powerful churches. We can never go back there, but we may go further on, and we are quite willing to.

We are promulgating our philosophies which we talk about as individuals, and on our own account. As Vice-President of the Society I have no right to say that any particular thing is true, and I never do say so. But I have the right to say, as I myself emphatically do, that I as an individual believe certain things are true, and I would be a poor sort of man if, believing certain things to be true, I did not try to show that they are. But at the same time I have no right to say, as man or official, you must believe it because I do. I simply present it to you for your consideration, and it is for you to decide, not for me. I am not going to stop saying that I believe so-and-so because a few other persons cannot believe it. They can go on with me and we will agree to disagree, and we will only forward the cause of Universal Brotherhood.

Beliefs in particular creeds have nothing to do with how you treat another man. What creed is there in the statement republished by Jesus, promulgated by him, to do to others as you would have them do unto you? No creed about that; no paving of hell with the skulls of infants about that; no belief in a particular sort of transmission of the spiritual life from St. Peter or Paul in that; nothing at all to abridge the treatment of man and woman by man and woman in the way they should treat them. We have no creed, then, and we should have none.

But the question is often, asked: What have you as an organization to do with labor, with legal questions, laborsaving forces, with education, with society? We have nothing to do with them. Is it not true that man, if he has a knowledge as to how he ought to live, needs no law whatever? Was not St. Paul right when he spoke of that and said you could become your own law; knowing the truth, you need no law.

What, then, has the Theosophical Society to do with law? If there are to be laws, let them be passed and execute them, but the Theosophical Society has nothing to do with it as such. Every brother in the Theosophical Society must obey the law of the land in which he lives, for he would be a poor Theosophist if he did not. The Theosophical Society has nothing to do with education. Its members may have as much to do with it as they please, but they have no right to say what is the Theosophical Society's idea of education. They can only say "That is my idea of it." And always they must and shall preserve these distinctions.

We have been asked why we do not join the Bellamyites and other cooperative societies? If you want to go in, go in. The Theosophical Society, as such, has nothing to do with it. I am perfectly satisfied to live where I am and do my duty where I stand, without any new law of property, or with it, whichever you please. The religion of the West which logically ought to support all the various socialists and anarchists and nihilists is the Christian religion, because in the beginning it was communal. Jesus' system was a community in which everything was common property, and the early Christians threw all their money and property into one common box. Why, then, should not the Christian religion logically carry out all the plans of the socialists, anarchists, nihilists, and all the other ists who want to change the face of the earth by legislation?

The Theosophist knows that legislation changes nothing whatever. There are laws now on every statute book in every State in the United States―laws enough, if men would only execute them and live up to them. But a law that socialists shall share in this, or that there shall be no Trust in that, is passed; and then there are the lawyers to get around the law, as they always can. So what is the use of passing the law at all? There is no use whatever. Hence the Theosophical Society, as such, has nothing to do with such trumpery and democratic things as legislation. Let the men engaged in legislation go on legislating. If a Theosophist is born to be a legislator, let him legislate as a citizen and not as a Theosophist, or if he is born

to be a judge, let him be a judge and skilled lawyer. If they would know that philosophy which shows them what human life is, they will have begun to follow the law without knowing what the law is.

America is the only land of all countries where the law is followed without the people knowing much of it. In America the people are orderly; they understand life a little better than other people in the world, but they don't know so much about the masses of laws they have on their books. I believe personally that the day is coming when America is to be the country where the new race will be born that will know all about the true laws and what is right, and will be able to perform it. So, then, the Theosophical Society is not prepared to give out promulgations as to this or that particular item of legislation or education or civic affairs that people would have taught.

They ask also about marriage. Why, you understand about marriage. You know how it is accomplished. We have nothing to do with it as a Society. We know there are many kinds of marriage, sometimes merely by tying a string, sometimes by walking around the fire. As a body we have nothing to do with these forms nor interfere with them. And as to prayer, if you want to pray, pray. But if you pray, and if you say you have a certain belief, live up to it. If you do not do so you are no Theosophist, nor a man, nor a proper living person. You are only a hypocrite.

Now, the Theosophical Society is an unsectarian body. It does not have a creed. It never will have one if those persons in it now can possibly prevent it. It does not need a creed. It is open to everybody, of all sects and faiths, and for that reason it has been possible to bring into it men of all religions, men from India, China, Japan, Brahmins―as you have seen and as you have already before your eyes, which could not have been accomplished by any sect, Christian, or Buddhist, or Brahman. If the Buddhists started in India a Buddhist society, the Brahmins would not accept it. And if the Brahmins started a Brahmin propagandist society, the Buddhists would say they did not want it. So it is with the various Christian denominations; the Baptists, the Catholics, the Methodists,

the Presbyterians. If anyone of them, as a society, asked others to come in, none of the other different stripes or classes of Christians would come in. Each says it teaches the truth; still the others do not come in.

Theosophy comes forward boldly and says: "All religions have underneath one single truth. None of the religions are perfectly true. It is impossible that they should be, because man is prone to err. Come into the Society in which as brothers helping each other we will examine all these faiths so that we may find out the truth under all. For we believe that in the beginning of human evolution great teachers gave the truth out―one single truth before the mingling of tongues on the tower of Babel―to man." That single truth was variously accepted and variously perceived, and out of these different perceptions they built up different creeds, and so they made a great many different sorts of faiths. But suppose you look into all of them. You find the Christians teaching for many years that man has a soul. Do you think that the Christians are the only ones who taught about the soul? The Hindus have been teaching about the soul for ages. They have said always that man has a soul. The Japanese do the same thing. So do other races and religions. So in that one point they have always together been teaching the same thing.

The Christians have been teaching about heaven and hell; about a sort of heaven which is very material, I admit, with pearly gates and golden streets and angels with robes such as no one ever saw and crowns upon their heads; and hell full of fire and brimstone, with devils throwing people around with forks into the fire. The Buddhists have been teaching the same thing for ages. I can read to you out of their books about a copper vessel full of boiling oil into which they say fate puts a man. In this he goes down and down for thousands and thousands of years until he gets to the bottom; then he begins to rise again to the top, rising for ages again, and when he gets to the top and thinks he is going to be let out, he begins to sink again, and that goes on for ages more. Is not that as bad and as material as the Christian hell? And then the Eastern teaching of heaven, of an inimitable and incom-

The Abbe Huc went to Tartary many years ago. He was a Catholic priest. There he found ministers, monks, nuns, similar ceremonies to the Romish, the ministers using the different vestments and draperies of the Catholics, the taper, bell, candle, the book, the rosary, what not, everything. He brought back the tale to Europe and he published it. The explanations of the priests―of course they would not say so now―was that it was the invention of the Devil, who, knowing that Christianity was going to be abroad, went ahead of it and founded that imitation in the East so that Christian people would be confused. Well, now, that is not the way to explain it. The proper way is, that man has these things as a universal property and always makes some mistakes. And so it is in Buddhism and every other religion. In Tibet they have a pope who is the great successor of the original founder of the thing, just the same as the Catholic pope.

No matter what sort of Western religion you bring forward; the religions of the East are the older religions and the fountain, but there is a single stream of truth underneath all, and that single stream is what the Theosophical Society digs for and implores these religious men to find out. We ask them not to go before each other and say their own religion is the true one. But they ask if we can give mercy to a man's soul, wash away the blood from his hand, and take away his sin? We say, Come, we will wash away your sin. How? By giving men reasons to make them do differently. The history of the past shows that belief does not make men better. We think there is a philosophy which will compel them from within to do right, and that is what this search will reveal. It will reveal underneath all these religions this one diamond which shows its light through them all; then all men can perceive it, then there will no longer be any necessity for the Theosophical Society, or for either creed or church; it will simply be truth and the people will know.

Look fairly and squarely at Christianity. I am simply asking you to consider facts. Here we have Jesus saying: Worship

in secret. The Christians do not do it. Then there are all the different and contradictory statements made by the same religion. How can churches have the enormous cathedrals, the immense wealth, the cannons and soldiers in their possession, if they are the representatives of Christ? How can that be possible unless men are running after creeds and not truth? Even in the words of Jesus is to be found everything we want. I simply repeat to you that old truth taught by him long ago, for to find out the truth in respect to ethics is the chief object of the Theosophical Society, and to establish by Universal Brotherhood a basis from which that ethic may be preached, practiced, and followed without any mistake.

Therefore, then, we ask you this: You have seen us here and you have seen our heathen; some of them are now on the platform. We would like to know what you think of our heathen, and what you think of this heathen Society that has been so much abused? Is it a Society for spiritualism, for wonders, or for folly? It is here to talk common sense and not merely to talk about H. P. Blavatsky, a woman who is dead, but who was the grandest woman or man that I ever knew. It is not for that. It is to bring back the truth about the soul, which truth these heathens represent as well as we, and they themselves are just as much in error as we. They do not know much more about it than we do. But these poor heathens have in their philosophy a little better statement of the truth than we have been able to invent. So I would ask you to wipe out of your mind that hymn which has done so much harm to Christian men and women, which reads:

What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,
Where every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile.

Wipe that idea completely out with a sponge, and then you will see that we are all brothers and that by tolerating each other, by looking into each other's beliefs, not setting up creeds and dogmas, we shall at last realize that great ideal germ of perfection―human brotherhood―which object has equally engaged the attention of the great Initiates of all the human race.

THE FUTURE AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

Night before last I was shown a bird's eye view of the theosophical societies. I saw a few earnest reliable theosophists in a death struggle with the world in general and with other―nominal and ambitious― theosophists. The former are greater in number than you may think, and they prevailed―as you in America will prevail, if you only remain staunch to the Master's programme and true to yourselves. And last night I saw . . . The defending forces have to be judiciously―so scanty are they― distributed over the globe wherever theosophy is struggling with the powers of darkness.¹

If the present attempt in the form of our Society succeeds better than its predecessors have done, then it will be in existence as an organized living and healthy body when the time comes for the effort of the twentieth century. Not only so, but besides a large and accessible literature ready to men's hands, the next impulse will find a numerous and united body of people ready to welcome the new torch-bearer of truth. He will find the minds of men prepared for his message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival which will remove the merely mechanical material obstacles and difficulties from his path. Think how much one to whom such an opportunity is given could accomplish. Measure it by comparison with what the Theosophical Society actually has achieved in the last fourteen years without any of these advantages and surrounded by hosts of hindrances which would not hamper the new leader.

Every member of the Society should be, and many are, deeply interested in the above words. The outlook, the difficulties, the dangers, the necessities are the same now as then, and as they were in the beginning of this attempt in 1875. For, as she has often said, this is not the first nor will it be the last effort to spread the truths and to undertake the same

mission as that taken up by Ammonius Saccas some centuries ago―to lead men to look for the one truth that underlies all religions and which alone can guide science in the direction of ideal progress. In every century such attempts are made, and many of them have been actually named "theosophical." Each time they have to be adapted to the era in which they appear. And this is the era―marked by the appearance and the success of the great American republic―of freedom for thought and for investigation.

In the first quotation there is a prophecy that those few reliable theosophists, who are engaged in a struggle with the opposition of the world and that coming from weak or ambitious members, will prevail, but it has annexed to it a condition that is of importance. There must be an adherence to the program of the Masters. That can only be ascertained by consulting her and the letters given out by her as from those to whom she refers. There is not much doubt about that program. It excludes the idea that the Society was founded or is intended as "a School for Occultism," for that has been said in so many words long ago in some letters published by Mr. Sinnett and in those not published.

Referring to a letter received (1884) from the same source we find: "Let the Society flourish on its moral worth, and not by phenomena made so often degrading." The need of the west for such doctrines as Karma and Reincarnation and the actual Unity of the whole human family is dwelt upon at length in another. And referring to some of the effects of certain phenomena, it is said,² "They have to prove . . . constructive of new institutions of a genuine practical brotherhood of Humanity, where all will become coworkers with Nature." Speaking of present materialistic tendencies, the same authority says:

"Exact experimental science has nothing to do with morality, virtue, philanthropy―therefore, can make no claim upon our help until it blends itself with metaphysics The same causes that are materializing the Hindu mind are equally affecting all Western thought. Education enthrones scepticism, but imprisons spirituality. You can do immense good by helping to give the

Western nations a secure basis upon which to reconstruct their crumbling faith. And what they need is the evidence that Asiatic psychology alone supplies. Give this, and you will confer happiness of mind on thousands. . . . This is the moment to guide the recurrent impulse which must soon come, and which will push the age towards extreme atheism or drag it back to extreme sacerdotalism, if it is not led to the primitive soul-satisfying philosophy of the Aryans."

This is the great tone running through all the words from these sources. It is a call to work for the race and not for self, a request to bring to the west and the east the doctrines that have most effect on human conduct, on the relations of man to man, and hence the greatest possibility of forming at last a true universal brotherhood. We must follow this program and supply the world with a system of philosophy which gives a sure and logical basis for ethics, and that can only be gotten from those to which I have adverted; there is no basis for morals in phenomena, because a man might learn to do the most wonderful things by the aid of occult forces and yet at the same time be the very worst of men.

A subsidiary condition, but quite as important as the other, is laid down by H.P.B. in her words that we must "remain true to ourselves." This means true to our better selves and the dictates of conscience. We cannot promulgate the doctrines and the rules of life found in theosophy and at the same time ourselves not live up to them as far as possible. We must practice what we preach, and make as far as we can a small brotherhood with the Theosophical Society. Not only should we do this because the world is looking on, but also from a knowledge of the fact that by our unity the smallest effort made by us will have tenfold the power of any obstacle before us or any opposition offered by the world.

The history of our sixteen years of life shows that our efforts put forth in every quarter of the globe have modified the thought of the day, and that once more the word "Theosophy," and many of the old ideas that science and agnosticism supposed were buried forever under the great wide dollar of present civilization, have come again to the front. We do not claim to be the sole force that began the uprooting of

dogmatism and priestcraft, but only that we have supplied a link, given words, stirred up thoughts of the very highest importance just at a time when the age was swinging back to anything but what the reformers had fought for. The old faiths were crumbling, and no one stood ready to supply that which by joining religion and science together would make the one scientific and the other religious. We have done exactly what the letter quoted asked for, led the times a step "to the primitive soul-satisfying philosophy of the Aryans."

But we can never hope to see the churches and the ministers coming over in a body to our ranks. It would be asking too much of human nature. Churches are so much property that has to be preserved, and ministers are so many men who get salaries they have to earn, with families to support and reputations to sustain. Many "houses of worship" are intimately connected with the material progress of the town, and the personal element would prevent their sinking the old and glorious identity in an organization like to ours. Congregations hire their priests at so much a year to give out a definite sort of theology, and do not like to be told the truth about themselves nor to have too high a standard of altruism held up to them in a way from which, under the theosophical doctrines, there would be no escape. They may all gradually change, heresy trials will continue and heretical ministers be acquitted, but the old buildings will remain and the speakers go on in new grooves to make other reputations, but we may not hope to see any universal rush to join us.

Our destiny is to continue the wide work of the past in affecting literature and thought throughout the world, while our ranks see many changing quantities but always holding those who remain true to the program and refuse to become dogmatic or to give up common-sense in theosophy. Thus will we wait for the new messenger, striving to keep the organization alive that he may use it and have the great opportunity H.P.B. outlines when she says, "Think how much one to whom such an opportunity is given could accomplish."

SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO AND NOW

IN November, 1875―seventeen years ago―the Inaugural Address of Col. Henry S. Olcott as President of the Theosophical Society was delivered at Mott Memorial Hall in the City of New York. The members present included a great many who have since abandoned our ranks. The spiritualists were perhaps in the majority on that day, but they soon retired. Col. Olcott remains in the same office; the Secretary of the meeting, Bro. John Storer Cobb, is yet a member in Boston; but H. P. Blavatsky, who then as afterwards was really the central figure, has for the present left this life. The first great change, then, between seventeen years ago and now is the removal from the scene of the personage who for so long was the pivot of the whole movement. The other differences are in the geographical distribution of Branch Societies, our status both in workers and means for accomplishing our work, the increase of members, and the sphere as well as the depth of the influence wielded by the Society and the literature bearing its name.

Until H. P. B. and Col. Olcott went to India in 1879 the Society was confined to New York, with a few scattered members in India and other foreign lands. The foreign diplomas and those given in America were for a long time engrossed by hand, and among the first European members were some in Corfu, Greece. But upon the advent of the two pioneers in Asia Branches sprang up there, and in England the London Lodge was started by Mr. A. P. Sinnett. For some time the centre of activity was in Asia, because there, in a nation which had been for centuries under the heel of a conqueror, the pioneers were working to gain its confidence in order that the influence of the mysterious and dis-

tant East might react upon the West and enable us to bring to light again important religious and philosophical truths. This reaction came, and manifesting itself first in America with full force, a host of Branches began to arise in different cities throughout the United States, until now they number over sixty, reaching to California, entering Canada and British Columbia, and running down to New Orleans.

The so-called "Coulomb expose" in Madras resulted in H. P. B.'s coming again to Europe, where she settled down in London and once more became, even in old age, the centre of an active propaganda. This last outburst of the same energy and force which were manifested at New York in 1875 led to the founding of the Blavatsky Lodge, now having over four-hundred members, the inclusion among the workers of such a well-known, active, and sincere woman as Annie Besant, to the foundation of many lodges throughout Europe, and at last to the formation of the European Section.

Thus in seventeen years the whole movement spread itself over the globe, with three principal official centres, in India, Europe, and America.

December, 1878, witnessed the departure of H. P. B. and Col. Olcott from New York, leaving not more than three persons who could carry on any official work here, although there were quite a number of members in the country. The movement was still so young that it was weak, but one book had appeared which was distinctively its own. That was Isis Unveiled. This was the forerunner of many another. Upon reaching the hospitable shores of India the two pioneers founded the Theosophist, which began to emit article after article from the pens of both editors as well as from those of more or less learned Hindus. In it also appeared those articles called Fragments of Occult Truth―which were afterwards embodied in Esoteric Buddhism. Today, instead of having but Isis Unveiled, we have a long list of works all distinctively Theosophical and creating almost a new language for the needs of a very metaphysical philosophy. Humbler workers arose too on every hand. At first Damodar K. Mavalankar at the Indian Headquarters, then others in Europe and else-

where. Today the sun never sets on the labors of those devoted men and women who in the face of every obstacle diligently work for the movement which was laughed at in 1875, so that now when the busy Theosophist lays the work aside in India it is taken up in Europe to be carried forward in New York, travelling with the light across the wide United States, until upon the Pacific Slope the band of devotees hands it over again to the lands beyond the Western sea. Yet, strange to say, this is all done without wealth but with nearly empty purses. We thus have to our hand organized Branches, smoothly working Sections, many books to offer enquirers, pamphlets and leaflets uncountable, magazines at all the centres in English and other languages, everywhere activity and energy, while all with one accord must draw their chief inspiration from the life, the labors, and the words of that wonderful and still but faintly understood woman, Helena P. Blavatsky.

A handful of members but seventeen years ago―today enrolled friends of the movement in every land on the planet.

When the Society began its work but little attention was paid to psychical research except among the spiritualists, and that continued in a rut made some forty years before: it was profitless; it represented an immense opportunity unused. The world of science, and those whose thoughts are affected by science, thought hardly at all about the psychic nature of man. General literature was devoid of it. The great and ancient doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation were unknown to our people, all reference to them being rare and fugitive. Today the literature of the West is full of all these things, and "Theosophy" has become a word so familiar that it can be found even in our humorous publications, a sure sign that it has ceased to be unknown. When such a weekly as Harper's prints a column about the shrine in London for the ashes of H.P.B., illustrating it with a picture reproduced from the photograph brought from Europe by the General Secretary, we can see what extension the influence of our labors has had.

H.P.B. and her teachers declared in 1875 that the age, in the West, was about to swing back from a materialism "which

enthroned scepticism while it destroyed spirituality," and an effort had to be made to furnish the only philosophy which would prevent a return to dogmatism or superstition by giving a rational explanation to the race mind now about to put questions that science is yet unable to answer and the churches had never pretended needed any reply save a reference to the mercy or the favor of God. This satisfying system of philosophy was once more brought out from its place of preservation, and today it brings comfort to many who without it would be forced to blaspheme against nature. Nothing but the influence of these doctrines could have raised up on every hand men and women who without money or hope of fame work on for the real man who is mind and not body. The sphere of influence of the Society is, then, not so much in works of a material character, where physical wants are supplied for the moment and the real man left to his own devices for the perpetuation of a civilization that breeds poverty and a criminal class, but is in the field of man's real nature, which lasts through crash of civilization or cataclysm of nature. Its depth therefore is measurable only by a plummet which touches the depths beyond today. It will be known in its entirety when the present centre of eternity shall have moved itself into the far-distant future and become a new present, a glorious reincarnation.

THE CLOSING CYCLE

IN the November number the "expiring Cycle" is referred to by Mr. Sinnett, and members are rightly warned not to be so absurd (though that is my word) as to think that after 1897 "some mysterious extinguisher will descend upon us."

Who is the person who gave out the concrete statement that 1897 was to be the close of a cycle when something would happen? It was H.P. Blavatsky. There is not the slightest doubt about it that she did say so, nor that she fully explained it to several persons. Nor is there any doubt at all that she said, as had been so long said from the year 1875, and that 1897 would witness the shutting of a door. What door? Door to what? What was or is to end? Is the T.S. to end and close all the books?

Nothing is more plain than that H.P. Blavatsky said, on the direct authority of the Masters, that in the last twenty-five years of each century an effort is made by the Lodge and its agents with the West, and that is ceases in its direct and public form and influence with the twenty-fifth year. Those who believe her will believe this; those who think they know more about it than she did will invent other ideas suited to their fancies.

She explained, as will all those who are taught (as are many) by the same Masters, that were the public effort to go on any longer than that, a reaction would set in very similar to indigestion. Time must be given for assimilation, or the "dark shadow which follows all innovations" would crush the soul of man. The great public, the mass, must have time and also material. Time is ever. The matter has been furnished by the Masters in the work done by H.P Blavatsky in her books, and what has grown out of those. She has said, the

Masters have said, and I again assert it for the benefit of those who have any faith in me, that the Masters have told me that they helped her write the Secret Doctrine so that the future seventy-five and more years should have some material to work on, and that in the coming years that book and its theories would be widely studied. The material given has then to be worked over, to be assimilated for the welfare of all. No extinguisher will fall therefore on us. The T.S., as a whole, will not have the incessant care of the Masters in every part, but must grow up to maturity on what it has with the help to come from those few who are "chosen." H.P. Blavatsky has clearly pointed out in the Key, in her conclusion, that the plan is to keep the T.S. alive as an active, free, unsectarian body during all the time of waiting for the next great messenger, who will be herself beyond question. Thereby will be furnished the well-made tool with which to work again in grander scale, and without the fearful opposition she had without and within when she began this time. And in all this time of waiting the Master, "that great Initiate, whose single will upholds the entire movement," will have his mighty hand spread out wide behind the Society.

Up to 1897 the door is open to anyone who has the courage, the force, and the virtue to TRY, so that he can go in and make a communication with the Lodge which shall not be broken at all when the cycle ends. But at the striking of the hour the door will shut, and not all your pleadings and cryings will open it to you. Those who have made the connection will have their own door open, but the public general door will be closed. That is the true relation of the "extinguisher" as given by H.P. Blavatsky and the Master. It seems very easy to understand.

"Many are called but few are chosen," because they would not allow it. The unchosen are those who have worked for themselves alone; those who have sought for knowledge for themselves without a care about the rest; those who have had the time, the money, and the ability to give good help to Masters' cause, long ago defined by them to be work for mankind and not for self, but have not used it thus. And

sadly, too, some of the unmarked and unchosen are those who walked a long distance to the threshold, but stopped too long to hunt for the failings and the sins they were sure some brother pilgrim had, and then they went back farther and farther, building walls behind them as they went. They were called and almost chosen; the first faint lines of their names were beginning to develop in the book of this century; but as they retreated, thinking indeed, they were inside the door, the lines faded out, and other names flashed into view. Those other names are those belonging to humble persons here and there whom these proud aristocrats of occultism thought unworthy of a moment's notice.

What seems to me either a printer's error or a genuine mistake in Mr. Sinnett's article is on page 26, where he says: "will be knowledge generally diffused throughout the cultured classes." The italics are mine. No greater error could seem possible. The cultured classes are perfectly worthless, as a whole, to the Master-builders of the Lodge. They are good in the place they have, but they represent the "established order" and the acme of selfishness. Substitute masses for cultured classes, and you will come nearer the truth. Not the cultured but the ignorant masses have kept alive the belief in the occult and the psychic now fanned into flame once more. Had we trusted to the cultured the small ember would long ago have been extinguished. We may drag in the cultured, but it will be but to have a languid and unenthusiastic interest.

We have entered on the dim beginning of a new era already. It is the era of Western Occultism and of special and definite treatment and exposition of theories hitherto generally considered. We have to do as Buddha told his disciples: preach, promulgate, expound, illustrate, and make clear in detail all the great things we have learned. That is our work, and not the bringing out of surprising things about clairvoyance and other astral matters, not the blinding of the eye of science by discoveries impossible for them but easy for the occultist. The Master's plan has not altered. He gave it out long ago. It is to make the world at large better, to prepare a right soil for

the growing out of the powers of the soul, which are dangerous if they spring up in our present selfish soil. It is not the Black Lodge that tries to keep back psychic development; it is the White Lodge. The Black would fain have all the psychic powers full flower now, because in our wicked, mean, hypocritical, and money-getting people they would soon wreck the race. This idea may seem strange, but for those who will believe my unsupported word I say it is the Master's saying.

THE T.S. AND ITS BASIS

AS one of those who helped to form the Theosophical Society, I may claim to speak with personal knowledge of the facts, and having worked in its ranks ever since its first day, a few words respecting its basis and spirit will be of use. The society was founded in New York in 1875, the inaugural address of the president being delivered on the 17th of November. The preliminary meeting was held before that date, at the rooms of H. P. Blavatsky, in Irving Place, New York. [The minutes] read thus, in substance: "Mr. William Q. Judge took the chair, and calling the meeting to order, nominated Col. H. S. Olcott as permanent chairman, who, being elected, suggested Mr. Judge as secretary. The latter was elected as secretary." Formal organization was provided for, and the minute is signed by myself. In November the constitution was reported and the President's address delivered.

Although the objects of the society were then expressed more elaborately than now, they even then carried the same idea as now, and the basis and spirit of the organization were the same then as now. Its basis was intended to rest on equality, autonomy and toleration, its prime object being universal brotherhood, of which it was hoped the germ or nucleus might be formed. All members are on an equal footing, as is shown by its rule that caste, color, religion, creed, sex have no bearing on the question of membership in any way. The founders did not hold the idea that all men are equal in all things, but they did lay it down that in respect to membership they were

Autonomy as a principle put into practice meant that each branch should govern itself so long as it did not contravene the law of the whole, but should be under the general federal jurisdiction of any section it might help to form or be formed in. Similarly each section is autonomous within its own borders, and cannot be interfered with so long as it does not violate the general law and is loyal to the whole. And as the whole cannot have a creed or dogma, no section is put under bonds in matters of belief.

Toleration can only really exist where brotherhood is admitted as a truth and a necessity. Hence its principle of toleration means that every member has the right to believe as he or she pleases in all matters of religion, philosophy, and the like, but must not try to force that belief on others, though not prevented from promulgating it. The Society as a body has no belief save in universal brotherhood, and from that it gets its strength. The moment it should declare a creed or dogma, that moment its strength would begin to leave it, for division would arise and sides would be taken. Hence, also, it includes in its ranks men of all religions: Brahmins, Buddhists, Christians, Mahommedans and every other variety, as they all know that the T. S. furnishes them a common ground on which to work. The bigoted dogmatist cannot feel moved to join the body, because its freedom is opposed to bigotry, and the member who is a Buddhist is just as good as the Christian or the Agnostic. Many times have persons asked that the society formulate some doctrines as authoritative, but that has always been refused, and, indeed, would be its deathknell.

Its three objects cover the whole field of research and the first is essential because without brotherliness and toleration no calm inquiry would be possible. The second calls for an investigation of the religions and philosophies of all men, and for demonstrating the importance of that study. Its importance lies in the fact that the religions and philosophies of man are his revelations made by his greater better self, or

God within, to his lower self, and must be all studied if we are to arrive at the one fountain or basis from which they have arisen and in which they are based. Hence the scriptures of the Christian do not rule, nor likewise do those of the Brahmin or the Buddhist, even though the last be the older.

But some people think the Society is a Buddhist one or Hindu one. This is because as a fact the religions of the West have come from those of the East, and the great age, and the similarity of the older ones to the newer ones of the West, must soon be apparent. And further, it is inevitable that a large body of members must come to a general tacit agreement or belief which is prominent because of their great devotion and constant work. But no one has to believe with this body of persons on any point. Reincarnation, Karma, the sevenfold nature of man, and the doctrine of the Masters, may be rejected, and one may still be a good member so long as he or she believes in and tries to practice Universal Brotherhood.

The main underlying effort of the work of the members of the Society should be to furnish a real and philosophical basis for ethics, seeing that the ancient ethics re-promulgated by Jesus are not practised by the nations who profess them. In this respect the work of the Society in Christian lands is ever tending to bring forth a real Christianity, and not to oppose it. Opposition to mere dogma is not opposition to truth, and hence the Society is a builder up and not a mere destroyer of old beliefs. In other lands it has its distinct work also; as in India it will be to revive the old pure spiritual life now covered with much dogma, and among the Buddhists it will show men how to live by the ethics of Buddha, which, promulgated centuries before the birth of Jesus, are the same ipsissima verba as those of the latter.

Apart from all religious views, the philosophy put forth by members of the Society gives reasonable explanations of life, of man, and of nature; tends to remove superstition by showing what physical phenomena are, and why they occur, instead of denying them and thus leaving thousands without

any solution for that which they know does happen, but which is generally denied by science and the church. This philosophy, though old, meets all the facts and solves them, and shows how man may, if he will, reach to the power hinted at by all the great teachers of the world, offered by Jesus to his disciples but denied by the dogmatist of the West. And all this philosophy may be brought out in the ranks of the organization, while at the same time the Society itself puts no seal of approval or disapproval thereupon. From this great freedom it has resulted in 19 years that the organization embraces the world, with members and branches in every nation, having the sympathy of those who think the mind of man should be free, and being hated only by those who prefer dogmatism and superstition to toleration and brotherly love.

A REMINISCENCE

THE interesting series of historical papers now running in the Theosophist entitled "Old Diary Leaves" by Col. Olcott naturally recalls to the mind various small events of the early years of the Theosophical Society, but nearly all the first members have disappeared from sight, some wholly uninterested in our work, others gone over to the other side of death. But some remain who do not concur in all the details written by Col. Olcott.

The origin of our seal is one of the things yet to be cleared up, and which will be at the proper time. The cut here shown is from the original electroplate made in 1874 or '75 or even earlier from a wood-cut produced at the same time. The wood-cut would have been used in this printing but that the impression might destroy it. Both, the plate and the wood-cut, have been many years quietly resting in a drawer. Very plainly this cut is substantially our seal. The omitted portion is the Egyptian cross in the centre. In place of that cross the letters "E. B." appear, and those letters mean "Elena Blavatsky," the initial E being aspirated. Above is the coronet of a Countess. Added within the circle are astrological and cabalistic signs referring to the owner who used it. That owner was H. P. Blavatsky. It has been used often by her for stamping letter paper, and a quantity of the same letter-paper she used is in the drawer with the wood-cut.

Who, then, is the person from whom came the idea of our seal? Is it H.P.B. or some one else? If not H.P.B. how is it that she was using this design for her paper so many years ago? Several persons have claimed to be the founders of the

Society, or designers of its seal, or first movers in its early years. A Philadelphia Doctor some years ago had the hardihood to write to the New York Headquarters saying that he was the one who designed our seal. Since then he has passed away. The plain unvarnished truth, which hurts no one save the man who denies it, is that H. P. Blavatsky was the head, front, bottom, top, outskirts, past and future of the Theosophical Society. We were all but pawns on the chessboard. What is the use of permitting vanity to influence us toward denying the facts?

No game, no battle, no diplomacy can go forward without agents, subordinates, generals, privates, but there is always a moving head without whom there would be no success. Not only was H. P. B. predominant with us in 1875, but she is yet. The very organization was suggested by her in a letter which will be published in facsimile if anyone feels disposed to deny the foregoing assertion. She wrote that we ought to model our Society on the United States, which is a collection of sovereign bodies united in one aim.

In the "Diary Leaves" Col. Olcott says that it was proposed to make the Theosophical Society an extra-Masonic degree. The impossibility of this may be seen when we reflect that such a thing―out of the question in itself―would leave out H. P. B. But, you say, he refers to letters from William Q. Judge and Gen. Doubleday asking for the ritual. This is but one of the little errors that creep in after lapse of years. An examination of the correspondence shows that Brothers Judge and Doubleday wrote―often―that if there was to be a ritual for the initiation into the Theosophical Society, then it should be sent, or the whole initiation abandoned. And many members recollect how much was said pro and con about abolishing initiation and accompanying ritual altogether, until at last it so came about. Masonic degrees were not once talked of, unless Col. Olcott may have said he would have wished us to be affiliated with Masons. This item in the "Dairy Leaves" is clearly lapsus calami. In the same number of the "Leaves" there is a reference to G. H. Felt and a long draft of

a letter of his as to which Col. Olcott is not clear. This is easy to settle. The letter was drafted by William Q. Judge and copied out by Felt, and the person he speaks of in the letter as experimenting with is Brother Judge. These things I state advisedly and with permission. It was intended for use at a meeting of the T. S. in 1876, but instead of using that a paper was read by Bro. Judge embodying the facts and including many other records of different experiments.

Other flitting scenes will recur later. Some embrace the funeral of Baron de Palm and what led up to it, others the making of our early diplomas by hand, and so on. But however the facts may come out, it remains a fact that the T. S. stands or falls by H. P. Blavatsky. Give her up as an idea, withdraw from the path traced by her under orders, belittle her, and the organization will rot; but remember her and what she represented, and we triumph.

ANSWER―Since the February article was written I have obtained proof positive that H.

P. B. used the seal, as given in that article, upon her letter paper and envelopes as early as June, 1875. The Society was founded in November, 1875, so that she was using the symbol for four months before we adopted it. If the writer of the article "A Reminiscence" had known of this he might have gone further and positively asserted that her private symbol became our public corporate seal―another proof of the predominance of herself and her Masters in the Theosophical movement. The positive evidence secured during the month consists in old letters and envelopes of June and earlier in 1875, bearing the seal in colors, red, gold, and white. There lies before the writer a letter with its envelope, written by her from Philadelphia on June 10, 1875, each having the symbol precisely as printed in February PATH and from the same plate.

SUGGESTIONS TO BRANCHES

THIS paper is to give newly-formed Branches some idea of the methods which experience has shown to be the best for the conduct of T.S. work; to make some suggestions as to the opening of Branches; and incidentally to warn against certain mistakes which are easily made.

The Theosophical Society was founded with well-defined objects; nevertheless, because of the tendency to Occultism inbred in the character of almost everyone of its members, most of them sooner or later become students of that, and unless the original lines of work are adhered to strictly, few can escape the dangers and pitfalls surrounding the field of investigation of that science. The suggestions made herein are the result of many years of experience.

First. At the opening or inaugural meeting it is advisable that all the members and visitors present should grasp fully, and without any fear of misunderstanding, the objects and aim of the Theosophical body. For this purpose it is well to have some prominent member of the Society or well-known student present to address the meeting. But in order to avoid misconceptions as to who are and who are not members of the T.S.―so many pretenders being abroad at present―information and advice as to this should first be obtained from the General Secretary's office. If such a member cannot be present, then as a substitute this circular itself should be read and discussed.

Second. Many Branches newly-forming desire to have some kind of ceremony at the opening meeting; there is no objection to this, though no particular value is attached to it. But there is no ritual in the T.S., and none should be used at ordinary meetings, nor can anyone be obliged to attend or take part in a ritual or ceremony as an obligation of membership.

While it is true that the Society was organized in November, 1875, at a meeting in New York at which Col. H. S. Olcott was made presiding officer under the chairmanship of William Q. Judge, and that thereafter Col. Olcott was made President for life with H. P. Blavatsky as Corresponding Secretary, it is also the fact that the impulse and direction for such beginning came, as is asserted by the three persons named, from a body of Adepts or perfected men who have come to be called in theosophical writings the Mahatmas, the Masters, Initiates, and the like. These, H. P. Blavatsky said, told her to have the Society begun on a broad and free platform and to help Col. Olcott and all others in doing it, to the end that a definite attempt might be made to form the nucleus of a universal brotherhood through the means of which the truth as to Man and Nature might be discovered, and toward which latter end the said Masters promised their help in messages sent to H. P. Blavatsky. These general facts and assertions were always made from the beginning. But at the same time the Society has not and cannot as a body officially declare those beliefs, and no

one is asked to assent to them, nor does dissent disqualify anyone from membership. All that is asked is adherence to Universal Brotherhood. So too, while H. P. Blavatsky, Col. Olcott, and many others firmly believe that the Society is the outer body which for this century represents the great Inner one composed of the Adepts of whom H. P. Blavatsky spoke, members are not obliged to believe it nor debarred from membership or help because they do not believe it. But it is well for all members to know in the beginning what the founder said on the subject, and that she also said, claiming to speak for the Adepts, that once in every hundred years an attempt is made by them to bring to the world's attention the great and universal truths taught by all great world-religions in their beginnings, and that this Society represents the attempt made for this century.

By reading the last of the Key to Theosophy, written by H. P. Blavatsky, you will find on pages 304-307 what she says on the matter of the end and aim of the T.S., of its opportunity, and of what is needed. Certainly all that should be looked into by those who have joined the body in which she was so important a person at its founding.

Before pointing out what would lead to the failure of the real mission of the Society, it is necessary to advert to the fact that in consequence of the success of the T.S. movement a number of so-called occult societies have sprung into existence, all of them bad copies of the original, and our members should be warned against them. These spurious and misleading bodies and teachers have come up since the T.S. was founded, and a very large number of them take a part of what this Society has given out or portions of what has come out of the Eastern Occult methods and use them for their own ends. There could be no objection to promulgation of good ideas, even without any acknowledgment, provided they were correctly given. But there is a distinct objection to the presentation of a mangled and distorted portion of the information merely to back up some wild theories of their own, as many have done. Through most of them some one or other Theo-

sophical doctrine has been partially expressed, the rest of their teachings being platitude or unverifiable, unphilosophical matter, and the trusting student has frequently to pay large sums of money to get but a bad imitation of the teaching which is all given out in Theosophical literature free of charge. It is therefore necessary to point out definitely to all members that before hurrying away from the Theosophical Society to obtain what may seem to them spiritual food from "occult" bodies they should examine carefully the literature now before the world to see if all that is or may be taught in these schools does not already exist in print, and if it be not merely a copy of that which has been said hundreds of times before.

Dogmatism. That is, the definite statement by the Society as a body that this or that is an absolute teaching or doctrine of the Society. This has been the ruin of every organization of the kind so far formed, and this time it must be carefully guarded against. The Society was formed without distinction of creeds, and for any member to lay down the law to any other member or to any person as to what he should or should not accept as a belief of the T.S., is to commit a distinct breach of the contract he made an applying to join the ranks of the body. So too, members must not abuse their individual rights, asserting that belief in any doctrine or person is necessary in order to be a member or a Theosophist.

Priesthood. The possibility of forming a priesthood in a Society as free as this one may seem almost to have no existence. Nevertheless, so strongly is superstition grounded in the natures of the present race of men (although freer than their forefathers), and so weak is our race-character, that unless constantly freed from these tendencies and reminded of the necessity of leaning on our own Higher Selves for spiritual guidance, the danger is always present of priest-craft. This can be readily seen in the fact that not a new self-styled instructor turns up without his easily finding same pupils, and nearly

every Hindu that visits our shores is run after by and often receives pledges, and also money, from persons who are too weak to think for themselves. This has to be guarded against.

Materialism. By this is meant a forgetfulness, on the part of the members, of their Spiritual Selves. Of course the study of the writings of agnostics and so-called materialists is invaluable in order that the Western ways of viewing life may be known, but it should be recollected that we too easily tend to be drawn away from a study of the causes of things―the spiritual side of Nature―to mere examination of their effects. And one risks losing much of his true perceptive power, and perhaps more than he imagines, unless ever on the alert to avoid crystallization, or falling into ruts or grooves. That is a reason why the study of the ancient occult teaching is recommended.

Non-Cosmopolitanism. Many of the attempts made in past centuries have failed because they were kept confined to the minority, or to some particular race, or to some selected stratum of society. As far as possible, the work done by each Branch should extend all over the city or locality in which it is placed; the members not failing to recollect the existence of the law in Nature of compensation,―the more help that is given to the race necessitating a greater help in return from Nature.

These are the main causes of possible failure in the Society as a whole and in the Branches as parts. And now another warning:

In the true Spiritual Philosophy there has always been one fixed and unchanging law with regard to spiritual teaching: that it cannot be bought or sold. Hence if any member hears of a society or of a person giving occult instruction for money first to be paid, let him be sure that it is "of the earth, earthy." He will not be aided by it in the long run, but only led astray; and he will form Karmic bonds to it which it may take years for him to sever. Many members who failed to take benefit by this warning, given out when the Society was first established and repeated at intervals ever since, have found by experience

its truth. Besides that, it seems only just and right that members should first help the T.S. before they spend money on self-styled occult guides who wish to be paid.

The Theosophical Society is formed on such a basis that each member can think as he chooses, yet maintain a willingness to learn from and to help others. In it all members are helped to learn, and will receive what aid can be given them through its ranks, and through older members, and through the information periodically given out by the Great Order of which it is a part. Like a great mother, the Spirit of the T.S. constantly keeps watch over the members, her children, permitting them to take what they can from every source of learning, spiritual and otherwise, silently instructing them in the best methods by which to help their fellowmen, but ever watchful lest they should go too far along some of the innumerable side-paths that lead off from that most dangerous and difficult of roads, the road of the Study of the Self.

A Branch should never be formed consisting of those who have not read Theosophical literature. Hence if a Branch happens to be composed of those who have not so studied, then its first few months of existence ought to be used in private meetings for reading and study, so that members may have an acquaintance with Theosophy sufficient to enable them later to help others along that line. But where the Branch is the result of previous study and investigation, then it ought to hold open meetings to which all enquirers may come.

Publicity should not be avoided, once open meetings are started. If Theosophy has benefitted its members, the first of its objects demands that those benefits shall be extended to all accessible persons.

Discussion and argument by strangers are not a wise thing; they ought to be allowed to put questions on the subjects of the meeting, but those should be answered by members then or at the next meeting after consideration. No encouragement should be given to those who often come to ventilate their own views

Lectures by non-members, no matter who, ought not to be allowed. If they are, it is certain the Branch will not get on, because the genius and spirit of this movement is to make each member a worker and thinker for himself. It is becoming now the habit of those outsiders who have ends of their own to serve to ask Branches to allow them to speak before them. Each one of these has a different personal aim, and none of them cares at all for the T.S. but only wishes to use it as a means for securing an audience. When it is proposed to a branch to have such speakers, it will be wise to first write to the General Secretary, who nearly always can give valuable information about these persons. At the present time sundry persons, some Americans, some Hindus and other foreigners, have been going around the T.S. offering to lecture to Branches for fees or for the expectation of subsequent payment. They should all in the most kindly spirit be avoided. Only a strong and large Branch can afford to let such a stranger occasionally appear before it. Our first duty is to the Branch, so that it, out of its own material, may grow to a healthy state and a right degree of Theosophical intelligence. And members ought to remember that the writing of articles in popular magazines taking up Oriental subjects constitutes no passport to a Branch. If such people are really interested in the T.S. they will join it and work for it freely, as all true workers do.

Some ways for work are: (1) Reading of papers on Theosophical topics and discussion of the same at meetings. In this all should take part by asking questions and by having ready some matter taken from the mass of Theosophical books which bear on the subject at hand. (2) Reading of selections from T.S. books and magazines, followed by discussion or interspersed with questions and discussion as the reading proceeds. (3) Regular reading and discussion by the whole class of some good Theosophical work. (4) Formation of classes to be held on a night or a time different from the regular open evening, which shall study systematically the best books

on the subject. (5) Formation of committees of one or more persons for circulation of tracts, circulars, and other means for propaganda among the people at large. (6) Helping other Branches by attending their meetings and giving lectures, reading papers, or otherwise taking part in their work. This can be done by any Branch that is well advanced, and often by a new one of exceptional ability. (7) Holding on Sunday or any other selected night an open free lecture to be given by one member for the benefit of inquirers and to be well prepared; it will be as effective through a written paper as by means of extempore speech. (8) Preparation of a syllabus or list of subjects to be considered for a month or longer, and for the carrying out of which members pledge themselves.

Large Branches such as those in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and other places have added to their work committees for looking after the welfare of members who really need help and for extending help to needy people in the locality. And Sunday afternoon meetings for the young have been also started under the name of Lotus Circles, which have done a great deal of good. Information about these can be obtained from the League at New York and at other cities. We should not confine ourselves wholly to metaphysics, but try also to arouse the hearts of all our members.

The following is offered as a good order to take in the reading of books: Ocean of Theosophy, Modern Theosophy, Esoteric Buddhism, Theosophical Manuals Nos. I to 3, Key to Theosophy, Bhagavad-Gita, Letters that have helped Me, Voice of the Silence.

The following are for deeper study: Secret Doctrine, Magic White and Black, Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, and many others.

As there are a number of books of all sorts put forth outside of the T.S. as truly Theosophical while they are not so in fact, it will be well for Branches to write to the General

Secretary, who will always be glad to reply to all questions relating to Theosophical work. One of such books deserves special mention because of its audacity. It is the Hidden Way across the Threshold, compiled by one Dr. Street, who also offers to have classes for teaching occultism. The book is a clear steal from our literature. When it was published it was pointed out in public that the first page was a deliberate taking of the first article of the first number of the Path of 1886 with but small change needed in the insertion of one or two words used to connect mutilated sentences. The body of the book steals pages from H. P. Blavatsky's works, and also from other issues of the Path and various publications. Yet it was put forth as the inspiration of spirits or Adepts. This will illustrate what may be found in other directions.

Again, certain persons who cannot be accused of fraud are flooding the Branches with circulars offering to teach the science of the soul and Yoga and psychic law for so much per course. This is all misleading, and will only take from the T.S. the funds it ought to have. Members have gone into such classes in the vain hope of getting wonderful knowledge. All that is given is merely matter taken from books published by individual members and by oriental publishers. It is often garbled and will do harm, for Yoga cannot thus be properly taught. The warning has often been given that many of the practices do result in altering the system of the person, but the ignorance on the subject does not show at the same time the counteracting processes which are not known; it is well known that many have been ruined in health by it. In one place the teacher kept the members breathing through the nose until some of them became stupefied, while he told them nothing of the dangers nor the counteractions. And as some Hindus now in America are making the same offers, it is well for members to know that in India it is common knowledge that these Hatha Yoga practices are not to be indulged in until many years have been devoted to philosophy and discipline, and that many more years are required to get even the right rudiments of the practice. If the members wish to aid the enemies of Truth in

the attempt to throw discredit on Theosophy which will surely come from continuing that which will after a while put the whole movement in a ridiculous position, they will encourage these things, otherwise they will not give any countenance to them.

Branch Paper No. 8 has important suggestions regarding Branch work. That paper is already in possession of the Branches."¹

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD AND ADMISSION OF MEMBERS

SOME confusion has at times arisen in the minds of Branch officers and members on the point of admitting persons to the T.S. It has been asked, Why, if we hold to Universal Brotherhood, should we refuse to admit those to whom there is objection? The answer seems to be the same as one would give if the question related to admitting all persons to one's family or house. Indeed, the relation of Branches to the T.S. is much like that of the family to the State. Every individual not positively criminal has the right to citizenship, and may, subject to the statutes, take part in civic affairs, express his convictions as to public policy, join in meetings of citizens for discussion or new movements, and everywhere be regarded as on a par with his fellows. But this gives him no right to entrance into any family, and a claim that his citizenship entitled him to cross whatever threshold he liked and establish himself as a member of the domestic circle would be laughed at. Every one would say that families had a right to their privacy and to select their associates, and that if they saw fit to exclude any person from their home, there was no canon of justice or proper feeling which should constrain them to do otherwise. It was wholly for them to say who was congenial, acceptable, welcome.

Just so in Branches of the T.S. Every sincere and reputable person is free to join the Society, and as a member of it to enjoy all the privileges belonging to membership. He can attend all meetings of Theosophists as such, join in petition to the constitutional authorities, use his diploma for purpose of

identification, claim the documents due to F.T.S., and, in general, have full possession of every right conferred by our rules. But this does not empower him to demand admission to private meetings of a Branch, much less to election to its membership; nor can there be any ground of complaint if its existing members decline to elect him.

This will be clearer if we consider the nature and purpose of a Branch. It is a union of a group of members having a common ground of interest in Theosophic study or work, a certain general conception of desired methods, and a more or less intellectual or social or personal sympathy. The basis must of course be Theosophy, but the local superstructure takes shape and color from the quality of those who plan its erection. Now it is the continued harmony of the constituents which is to determine both its endurance and its activity. If an applicant for Branch membership is known to have views as to its policy which are in marked contrast to those prevalent within it, or to be offensive in manner, of ill-repute in the community, quarrelsome, heady, flighty, certain to excite discord inside or to compromise the Society outside, there is no possible reason why he should be accepted. To admit him would do him no good, for he is not in harmony with the rest of the organization, and would simply be introducing an element of discord certain to eventuate in ill feeling, contention, a check to work, and possible disintegration. One factious or indiscreet Branch member may paralyze a Branch. Nor is his exclusion an injury. He has no claim to entrance, and consequently no grievance at denial; and he is altogether at liberty to join the Society as member-at-large, to assist its operations, and to study its literature. He can be a citizen of the commonwealth without being a member of a particular household in it.

More than this. Where a Branch is aware that a person is sure to cause trouble or to act as a stumbling-block to other and worthy men and women, it is its duty to prevent that catastrophe. Sentiment should not be a bar to justice. To protect the Society and to secure peace to existing workers is of

more importance than the self-love of a single individual. Indeed, if he resents the expression of the Branch's preference in the case, he shows that he has not that respect for others' rights, judgments, and feelings which is essential to any true Theosophist, and is destitute of the elementary qualifications for close union in Branch life. His very pique justifies the Branch action and affirms it.

Of course it cannot be said that no sacrifice of personal desires or preference is ever to be made by Branch members in elections. That would be queer Theosophy. It may very well happen that a person somewhat distasteful in ways may yet give promise of a valuable future, and a sincere member may, and should, concede personal considerations to a larger good. But this is a different case from that radical unfitness which cannot be smoothed over by tolerance or by phrases, and which demands the blackball for protection.

To recapitulate. We believe in unity, but at the same time we know that it is not possible for all to live intimately with each other because of various differences existing among individuals as to race, manners, and style of mind as well as of nature. Brotherhood does not require that we shall take into our home the vicious, even though we are working for their reformation; nor that we should bring into our own circle those whose manners and development are vastly different from our own. And just as it is in our private life as human beings, so it is in the Theosophical Society.

We have no right to deny to anyone the right to be alive and one of the human family, and neither have we the right to deny to anyone the right to belong to the Society so long as the applicant is not a criminal unreformed. But in the Society the Branch represents the family, and it has a right to draw a line or make limit, and to say who shall and who shall not belong to that family. Hence each Branch has to decide upon whom it will admit. If some apply who are sure to bring trouble to the Branch or who are of a nature that will not permit free and harmonious work with the others, the Branch has the right from all points of view not to admit to the

Branch roll. This very question was once raised very needlessly in a place where there were many colored people and where a sentiment existed against their associating intimately with whites. It was settled by deciding that if colored people desired a Branch of their own they could have it and would be helped by the other. Brotherhood does not demand that elements wholly dissimilar must be violently mixed. Neither party would be comfortable in such circumstances. They can work apart for the common aim.

But the rules provide for cases where applicants wish to enter the T.S., as any Branch President may admit the applicant as a member-at-large if willing to endorse his character in general. In such an event the transaction is between the president, the applicant, and the office of the General Secretary. It does not concern the Branch at all.

And so the union of right feeling and sound reason will usually solve duty when uncertainty occurs, and the Branches be secured the largest proportion of good material, with a minimum of risk to harmony, effectiveness, and continuing life.

THEOSOPHICAL OBJECTS

THE Theosophical Society has been in existence since November, 1875, having been then founded in New York with the following objects:

First.―To form the nucleus of a UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD OF HUMANITY, without distinction of race, creed, caste or color.

Second.―To promote the study of Aryan and other Eastern literatures, religions, and sciences, and demonstrate the importance of that study.

Third.―To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man.

The Society appeals for support and encouragement to all who truly love their fellowmen and desire the eradication of the evils caused by the barriers raised by race, creed, or color, which have so long impeded human progress; to all scholars, to all sincere lovers of TRUTH, wheresoever it may be found, and to all philosophers, alike in the East and in the West; and lastly, to all who aspire to higher and better things than the mere pleasures and interests of a worldly life, and are prepared to make the sacrifices by which alone a knowledge of them can be attained.

The Society represents no particular creed, is entirely unsectarian, and includes professors of all faiths. No person's religious beliefs are interfered with, and all that is exacted

Note.―This information apparently was drawn up in June 1893 and circulated by William Q. Judge as General Secretary of the American Section of the Theosophical Society.

from each member is the same toleration of the views of others which he desires them to exhibit towards his own.

The Society, as a body, eschews politics and all subjects outside its declared sphere of work, the rules stringently forbidding members to compromise its strict neutrality in these matters.

As a condition precedent to membership, belief in and adherence to the first of the above named objects is required; as to the other two, members may pursue them or not, as they see fit. The act of joining the Society, therefore, carries with it no obligation whatever to profess belief in either the practicability of presently realizing the brotherhood of mankind, or in the superior value of Aryan over modern science, or the existence of occult powers latent in man. It implies only intellectual sympathy in the attempt to disseminate tolerant and brotherly feelings, to discover as much truth as can be uncovered by diligent study and careful experimentation, and to essay the formation of a nucleus of a universal brotherhood.

The promoters of the Society's objects do not declare that in our time there can be established on earth a living brotherhood of peoples and governments. Nor do they expect or desire to sweep away at one blow the various distinctions which now exist in society and government. They believe that, in the natural order of things, with the progress of enlightenment, whatever is an obstacle and encumbrance to the development of human knowledge and happiness will pass away, as the morning mist before the sun.

What the Society hopes and means to achieve is, the bringing together a large body of the most reasonable and best educated persons of all extant races and religious groups, all of whom shall accept and put into practice the theory that, by mutual help and a generous tolerance of each other's preconceptions, mankind may be benefited largely and the chances for discovering hidden truth greatly improved.

The Society sows the seed, leaving it to germinate in the fulness of time, for the benefit of future generations. It repre-

sents all creeds and every branch of science, for it believes that science and true religion should be one; it is the opponent of bigotry, no matter where, and the foe of vice, together with whatever tends towards its propagation. At the same time, a man whose past has been bad cannot be refused admittance, if he has a sincere desire to improve himself while he endeavors to benefit mankind. Nor in its members does it look for saint-like perfection, insisting only that each shall, as nearly as he can, live up to his best ideal.

The last of the three objects of the Society appeals to many persons, but not to the greater number. There are both exoteric and esoteric activities, or circles, or groups, at work in the Society, and some persons are desirous of seeking, that they may obtain, psychic powers. The rules for such pursuits are laid down with minuteness in the ancient Hindu books, to which all seekers are referred. No sacred teacher can be supplied to aspirants, nor messages sent to or conveyed from the Adepts. Those who are thus seeking for powers should know that within themselves lies the key to unlock the door; that the very first step toward the place where that key may be found is the acquirement, in truth, of the feeling of universal brotherhood, and that the selfish desire to obtain psychic powers is a bar to such attainment.

At the same time, however, there are many devoted members in various countries who have acquired some information as to ways and means of investigation, and who are so bound up in the work that they consider it their sacred duty to help all inquirers, and, as far as possible, to put all Theosophists who ask them on the same road they themselves are trying to tread.

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND REFORMS

ZEALOUS THEOSOPHIST. Don't you think the Theosophical Society ought to take some definite stand on the questions of reform?

Constitutional Theosophist. What put that into your head? Are you a Nationalist or a Single Taxer?

Z.T. I was reading that "Chat on the Roof" in February Theosophist, where one of the chatters says: "I believe the T.S. must sooner or later adopt a definite attitude toward this question of reform," and although he speaks in reference to Hindu social problems, still it is just as important here as there, while the circumstances are different. The "chat" did not in any way settle the point, but left it all up in the clouds of talk. But we ought to do something.

C.T. Evidently the conversation published is an expression of a desire to get a prominent Theosophist like Mrs. Besant to throw herself on the side of some social question there, forgetting that it is not one or two persons who make up our movement and that our Constitution rules in such matters and not persons. If you mean that the Society should as an organization take "a definite stand" such as seems called for in that "chat," I cannot agree with you.

C.T. No, I do not. Whatever reforms are needed―and there are many―they should be taken up by individuals or

the State, but that is a very different thing from asking the Theosophical Society to adopt a definite attitude either way. It has been proposed that the T.S. should formally approve of hypnotic suggestion as a means of curing drunkenness, lying, and stealing. Why not have us go in for that as well as social reforms? Those vices have a great deal to do with social difficulties.

Z.T. Well, why not? Take definite corporate action, and then members will have something tangible to talk of and to work for.

C.T. A few members, you mean; the rest would leave the Society. Divisions would arise and sides be taken. But the proposal is contrary to our Constitution, it is against the very reason for our existence, it nullifies our organic law, it is contrary to the spirit of the Society. The Constitution wisely prohibits the adoption of such definite attitudes. This applies to every doctrine, to all schemes, save the doctrine of Universal Brotherhood, the one idea on which men of all religions will agree. Other doctrines and plans have supporters and opponents; they have no majority; but Universal Brotherhood has a constant and growing majority of supporters. One would have supposed that this "Chat on the Roof" of the building where was reposing the recently revised Constitution of the T.S., certified and published, should have led to some of the chatters adverting to this fundamental point before the conversation was printed. That revision puts the matter in strong terms, thus:

The society does not interfere with caste rules or other social observances, nor with politics, and any such interference in its name is a breach of the Constitution.

Z.T. Then you place social questions and reforms under the same ban as religious doctrines and creeds, in so far as definite corporate action by the T.S. goes?

C.T. Most certainly. Why, man, reflect a moment. Is it not true that H. P. Blavatsky, H. S. Olcott, and William Q.

Judge have always since 1875 proclaimed their personal belief in the Mahatmas or Masters as facts and ideals?

Z.T. Yes, they have; and of course had a perfect right to do so, as they never said it was a T.S. belief.

C.T. Well, have they not persistently said that this belief, regarded by many as vital, has no place in our Constitution and cannot be―must not be―erected into a T.S. dogma either directly or inferentially? It stands precisely with social reforms so far as "definite attitude" is concerned. But, curiously enough, there are those who loudly object to the expression of personal beliefs by such as have firm ones regarding Mahatmas, while at the same time the objectors would heedlessly violate the Constitution by having us adopt some definite attitude toward a passing question of social reform.

Z.T. I think I begin to see that in zealousness for getting into the gaze of the world I had almost forgotten that we are a free Society, wholly unattached, founded on toleration, neutrally situated between all contentions, and drawing our support from men considered as souls and not from any sectarian or separatist feeling. That must be why you did not encourage or discourage nationalism, but opposed the endorsement of it by the T.S.

C.T. Precisely. Had we endorsed that social movement, where should we be now? Opposed by every man and woman who is not a nationalist. But at the same time recollect that many members of the T.S. were prominent in the starting of that movement when it began in Boston. Similarly with questions in India. Were the T.S. involved with widow-remarriage, it would be violently opposed by a large body of men who found their opposition to such marriages on the religious books of the land. We might as well be asked to endorse and support Moslemism against purely theological Hinduism. A good man can live under any form of government or social order. What we should strive to do is to increase that toleration for every one which alone will open up men's minds to the truth.

Z.T. Do you know of any striking instance in our history to illustrate these points?

C.T. Yes. In the Indian Headquarters once, while H.P.B. was there, a prominent Hindu asked her to get the opinion of her Masters on a question relating to widow-remarriage or that of child-marriage. The opinion was authoritatively refused, although there was an opportunity to enlist many prominent Hindus interested in the question. Had the distinct opinion been given, we should now have to be fighting far it or against it as a dogma. Happily we are free, and supporters and opponents alike of both sides are yet in our ranks.

Z.T. But what definitely is the proper function and attitude of the T.S. in and to social and other reforms?

C.T. Its attitude should be neutral as to any form or method, but not neutral as to the general doctrines of justice and Universal Brotherhood. The latter doctrine supports all applications of justice; it is sufficiently declared in the Constitution; there is no need for further declarations. The function of the T.S. is to give its members aspiration to high ideals; to furnish a free, tolerant platform where all men may assemble if they wish. The bigot―social or theological―who asserts that no one else is right violates in himself the principle of toleration, and has no place on our platform because his nature is intolerant; hence he will either leave the T.S. if he cannot ruin it, or he will be gradually altered by the silent but powerful influence of the toleration, even for his bigotry, which surrounds him in our ranks. Toleration, then, is our watchword, for it is one effect and one expression of brotherhood; that will bring unity in diversity, and with diverse elements held in one bond our strength would be invincible.

WHY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IS POOR

A VERY great difference is to be observed between the condition of the treasury of our society, especially of the East Indian section, and that of almost any religious sect in either Europe or America. Enormous salaries are paid to celebrated ministers of the Methodist, Unitarian, Presbyterian, and Congregational Churches; millions of dollars are donated for keeping up the expensive missionary establishments that convert nobody in India, while their home secretaries accumulate property out of the savings from the compensation paid for doing the Lord's work at home, while the work of the Theosophical Society is carried on by a few who have but small means. And that the churches have funds is no proof that they are in the right, nor are we shown to be wrong because we have little wealth, or because those in the world who have it do not offer means to us. If we argue strictly on the lines laid down by Jesus, the founder of Christianity, then the conclusion is inevitable that the churches are not doing his work, for, poor himself, he commanded his disciples and apostles to go with no money in their purses and to take no thought for the morrow.

The reason for our poverty is not far to seek. It lies in this, that we offer no dogmatic creed, and, instead of leading men by definite statements of what exactly they must believe, we try to make them stand upon their feet and exercise their reason unawed by superstitious theories. Long ago the leaders of the society could have filled its coffers to overflowing, had they chosen to pander to weak and wealthy persons who

will pay for the privilege of being led by the nose. Even in the United States, if we had set up a new Buddhist Church, many members would have come into its folds and plenty of money filled the Treasury. But such a policy should never find lodgment in the minds of our members. There is a curse attendant upon money. Very few are born with the ability to accumulate wealth who at the same time have not a love for it or a large estimate of its power, for the Karma that gives them the ability carries with it the other qualities generally found in wealthy men, impelling them to require something in return for expenditure; in the churches, the return they receive is a measurable assurance of happiness after death.

So it is found that the Theosophical Society is poor in money, but rich in effort, and we can safely say that no movement of the past few centuries has ever made without money such strides in fourteen years as ours.

And from this date it is likely that the society will be poorer than ever in India, for at the Convention held there last December, the Indian section resolved to abolish all fees in India, depending upon donations of money for its support there. It remains to be seen whether hereafter the Indian Section will be helped by members and sympathizers in the same way that other missionary bodies are assisted.

HOW THE SOCIETY IS RUN

A FEW facts may be useful to stimulate and interest by way of chronicle. The Theosophical Society entered on its sixteenth year in November, 1890. It was founded without cash, it has worked in every quarter of the world; by its efforts the thought of the day has been affected in both East and West, all in the face of ridicule, without capital, and with but small contributions in its first ten years. How, then, has it been run, and who pays? It has been run on faith, and the few have paid while the many have benefited. Those few never begrudged the money, deeming it a duty to spend and be spent in a great and noble effort. But now that we have passed the fifteenth milestone and entered on the dawn preceding another important era in our history, it is surely time that more liberal contributions by those who have means should be made, and that those who can each spare a small sum, but hitherto have spent all on self or family, should donate that infinitesimal amount to enable the seed so carefully and painfully sown to be tended and made to yield a harvest.

Ever member knows, or ought to know, that in the office of the General Secretary an enormous quantity of work is done. Not mere formal official work―for of that there is a minimum―but good, honest, painstaking work in attending to the needs of the whole body and of each and every member who indicates a want. Tracts by the hundred thousand sown over the land. Who paid? A few earnest men and women in money or work. Would our general treasury have

permitted this? Every month a carefully prepared copy of the Forum is sent each member, and a carefully written article to each Branch. The printing of these, some $27 per month, was paid for by the treasury. Who paid for the labor, the intellect, the hire, the interest, the sympathy of the editor and assistants? No one but himself. And yet he, too, paid out largely in cash for the privilege of working in a noble cause. Every day occupied from nine o'clock to four in receiving, reading and answering with care and theosophic interest the numerous letters from members and enquirers. Who paid? No one; it was free. When, then, did the Forum have the needful mental attention? At night, when the hard work of the day was over. For what profit? For no worldly profit, but at a loss of pleasures of the theater, the music hall, the favorite study, while careless members in every corner almost hesitated to pay their dues.

Has the Society a complete record of its numerous members, of when and where admitted, and by whom endorsed? Yes, accurate in every particular. Who did it? The same persons in the same day's work. Who paid? No one, not even the treasury. And yet, indeed, some captious persons would even berate these unfortunate slaves of theosophy for an occasional whiff of the fragrant weed―their only dissipation. Thus the work goes on from day to day and week to week, no matter whether the members pay or not, and also in the face of many annoyances caused by the failure of Branch officials to read or follow the rules. But there is still other work done for the cause. Many persons talked with about theosophy, many articles written for the papers so that the name of theosophy may be made more widely known. When is that done, and who pays? In the evening, and it produces no pay.

Is pay desired, is it right to ask for it, is it the object of this to grumble at so much outlay? Not at all. But members ought to know these facts so that they may understand that a few persons in fact furnish the money for the very large expenses of the Society. This ought not to be so. One great

reason why it should not be is that, when the necessary money is given by but a few, the resulting special karmic benefit flows to and follows after those few persons, whereas if the whole Society gave the means, not only greater work would be done, but also to every member would be recorded in the great karmic ledger the credit for such acts.

And just now there are great opportunities arising. The American Section should have in its special pay a number of learned men―they are called pandits―in India for the purpose of sending translations to us for general use and the education of the people in respect to what has been and is being done in the great cause of philosophy in Eastern lands. The present state of the general treasury will not permit of this now, although the amount of money per month needed for the object is not very large. We have in India from the efforts of Col. Olcott a library which will one day be a great institution. We ought to have the staff of pandits there too, for the especial use of this Section. It remains to be seen whether we shall be able to accomplish this. There is no reason why we should not. Other societies are able to get the money for all sorts of purposes, such, for instance, as paying the salaries of useless missionaries to people who cannot be converted and are better unconverted. And we need also theosophical apostles.

Turn now to London. There we see that by the noble sacrifices of the few there is a headquarters, a real building, in which the work is carried on unceasingly. How could they ever have gotten a house if Mrs. Annie Besant had not given one to them, and how could they ever have produced the mass of literature given out by H.P. Blavatsky for our benefit if the Society had depended upon paid work for the procurement of it? See how much the English government and the colleges pay for the work of such men as Max Müller and others, which, although it is good work in its way and has been going on for many years, has made no sensible change in the people by its weak and wavering impact upon their minds. Yet in fifteen short years the efforts of H.P. Blavatsky,

Col. Olcott, and others have made the entire world look with longing and respect and hope to the vast stores left to us by the ancient philosophers of the East. And all of this by the few for no pay and for no honor, and in the face of calumny and scorn from the world at large.

Is it not the duty of every member of the Society to now, if never before, give what he can in time, money, and effort for the pushing on the work so well begun?

A few practical words. There is hardly a man or woman in the Society who is not able to spare in the course of the year at least five dollars. It may be saved by men in a hundred different ways, and by women in ways they know. The accumulation of these small sums would in the end be enough to carry on the various old plans so long in use, and forward others just formulated and to be made in the future. And such contributions given to a cause that has no dogma, no creed to enforce, no particular set of bishops and ministers to feed and pamper, would carry with them a force and energy great enough to make the name of theosophy known to every human being in the world, and at last to bring about the realization of the first object of the Society―the brotherhood of man―among men, which now sadly enough resides above, in the ideal, in the field of the stars.

A SERVANT OF THE MASTERS

A PIONEER in a great movement, such as that represented by the Theosophical Society, should be known to the contemporary members of the organization, who ought in justice to have information of the work performed by that pioneer. This is especially the case in our Society, for, although it was started in the United States, Colonel Olcott very soon went to India, and there continued the work begun here. When he left this country there was but one Branch in America, and comparatively few members, but now theosophists are found in nearly every State of the Union. Few of them have had time and opportunity to become acquainted with the facts in respect to Colonel Olcott's connection with the movement, and it is for their information that this statement is especially intended. As his work in India has absorbed most of his time, it has necessarily followed that nearly all new members here were deprived of that attention from him which some of them would perhaps be pleased to receive, and, India being so far distant, he has remained for them almost a stranger. Were that effect of distance not rectified in some way, we might be in danger of taking the position temporarily assumed a few years ago by new members similarly situated in India, who, not concurring in his methods as an American, and feeling that they could perhaps suggest a line of action more suited to the English mind and habits, proposed to the Masters a radical change which would involve his retirement from his then prominent position. The reply from The Brothers is worthy of consideration from every

Having disposed of personal motives, let us analyze your terms for helping us to do public good. Broadly stated, these terms are―first, that an independent Anglo-Indian Theosophical Society shall be founded through your kind services, in the management of which our present representatives (Col. Olcott and H.P. Blavatsky) shall not have any voice.¹ . . . And supposing you were thus to come―as Madame B. did and Mr. O. will―, supposing you were to abandon all for the truth, to toil wearily for years up the hard, steep road, not daunted by obstacles, firm under every temptation; were to faithfully keep within your hearts the secrets entrusted to you as a trial; had worked with all your energies and unselfishly to spread the truth and provoke men to correct thinking and a correct life; would you consider it just, if, after all your efforts, we were to grant to Madame B. or Mr. O. as "outsiders" the terms you now ask for yourselves? Of these two persons, one has already given three-fourths of a life, the other six years of manhood's prime, to us, and both will so labor to the close of their days: though ever working for their merited reward, yet never demanding it, nor murmuring when disappointed. Even though they respectively could accomplish far less than they do, would it not be a palpable injustice to ignore them in an important field of Theosophical effort? Ingratitude is not among our vices, nor do we imagine you would wish to advise it.²

What They wanted, and what the Society needs, is a man of intelligence who can and will work for a high and far Ideal regardless of all opposition, unconcerned as to his future reward. In Colonel Olcott such a man has been found, and by knowing what he has done we shall be able to give reasons for our esteem and loyalty.

Colonel Olcott is a lawyer, and for several years practised law in the city of New York. It is a somewhat curious fact that very many of those well known in the theosophical field are lawyers. I might mention Subba Row and Sreenevasa Row, of Madras. The first is a prominent Hindu pleader; the other is Sub-Judge in Madras. Many Americans have met Mohini M. Chatterji, who was admitted to the Bar in Bengal. A prominent member in Poona, India, is Judge N.D. Khandalavalla and all over India theosophists are to be found acting as

lawyers or judges. In England, a former President of the London Lodge was a well known solicitor, and some of the earnest members there now are in the same profession. In America we of course have a great many members who are lawyers.

When I met Colonel Olcott in 1875, the Theosophical Society had not yet been formed. In October of that year a meeting was held in the apartment of H.P. Blavatsky at 46 Irving Place, New York, at which it was proposed to form a Society for the study of those subjects which have since engaged our attention. In a book now lying before me I have the original minutes of that meeting and of others following it, with the names of all present. So if there be persons anxious to claim the honor of being among the founders of the Society it will be wise first to be sure that their names are in this book. Possibly such registration will some day be accounted an honor by all, as it now is by advanced minds.

At that first meeting I proposed Colonel Olcott as President of the Society, and was made temporary Secretary myself. A Committee appointed to select a name for the infant met several times after that at Olcott's office, 7 Beekman Street, New York, and decided upon the present name. The objects of the Society had been given to Col. Olcott by the Masters before that; they were adopted and have never been changed. Up to this time Olcott had been a well know Club man, and no one supposed that he would ever show such abnegation as he since has in respect to the things of this world. The wisdom of his selection as President has been vindicated by our history. The Society was unpopular from the outset, and had indeed so little money that all the first diplomas were engrossed by hand by one of the members in this city.

During the period between October 1875, and November 1878, Col. Olcott received many letters from the Masters on the subject of the Society, in which no promises were made that have not since been fulfilled. He worked steadily with the Society until 1878, and then, in December, went to India with H.P. Blavatsky. When they arrived there, full as many difficulties had to be met as in America, with the additional dis-

advantage to Col. Olcott, of being upon strange ground, but they persevered against all opposition. Among such troubles were those caused by the English police, who for a time suspected H.P. Blavatsky to be a Russian spy, a mistake happily remedied by orders from their superiors. In all I say here, it must not be forgotten that the part played by H.P. Blavatsky can never be rightly given to the world, because it would not be understood. Her service and efforts can never be estimated, but they may be glimpsed by intuitional natures.

In Bombay, in 1878, Col. Olcott hired a bungalow as temporary Headquarters. He had then no help and no acquaintance with Indian methods, but Madame Blavatsky and himself started the publication of the Theosophist, and Masters promised to give certain hints through its pages, a promise fulfilled by the publication of "Fragments of Occult Truth" (since embodied in Esoteric Buddhism) and other articles. A young Hindu gentleman, Damodar Mavalankar, soon came and cast in his lot with the Founders, to be later called to Thibet by his Master. In these early days enough troubles of all kinds were experienced to bend any ordinary man of soft metal, but Col. Olcott went straight onward, depending upon the help of Masters to enable him to overcome all obstacles. When the project of starting a real Headquarters took shape he removed to Madras, where he was helped by Iyaloo Naidoo (now of Hyderbad) and others in getting the present building at Adyar. Various Branches had been established and interest was gradually spreading, but nothing could be done anywhere without Col. Olcott, upon whom all the Hindu members had come to rely. This necessitated much travel on his part at a time when his office assistance only comprised Messrs. Damodar, Ananda, and Babajee. Damodar attended to a vast mass of correspondence and worked night and day, snatching his brief rest on skins spread upon the marble floor. Ananda, with similar devotion, gave up a clerkship under Government to work at the accounts and general routine, while Col. Olcott traveled North, South, East, and West, lecturing and stirring up the natives to the truths of ancient phi-

losophy, and, in spite of severe and hurried journeys in a country where all our modern luxury of travel is unknown, his speeches are all excellent and many of them are thrilling from their exquisite eloquence and diction. He also took complete charge of all Conventions, a step which always resulted in greater unity. Going to Ceylon, he inaugurated a great movement there, and was received into the Buddhist Church by the High Priest, who authorized him to admit others also. He had previously been invested with the Brahminical thread by Brahmins in India, an honor by them considered as the highest possible mark of respect and friendship. The Ceylon movement prospered largely, and now has instituted Sunday Schools, a newspaper, and Headquarters of its own. Each year Col. Olcott makes a tour through India, working with indescribable energy, received everywhere with enthusiasm, lecturing to hundreds in crowded halls, opening schools and other reform societies for boys, and increasing the size and usefulness of Branches in all directions. When he conceived the idea of a grand Asiatic Library at Headquarters in Adyar, he pursued it so vigorously that it soon became a fact, and one of the highest importance. Many palm-leaf MSS. which would otherwise be lost will be preserved there, and many rare and often hitherto unknown books will be presented. The Library already numbers 460 volumes in Sanscrit (inclusive of MSS.), 263 volumes in other Indian languages and about 2,000 volumes in Western languages, including the Classics and Hebrew. The very learned N. Bhashyacharya of Cuddapah has consented to become its Director and Professor. A Permanent Fund was also started by Col. Olcott with the object of providing sufficient income for the maintenance and repair of Headquarters, and, as this Fund is slowly growing, it is hoped that it may also pay the expenses of propaganda in time. Hitherto all excess of expenditure above the small sums received from dues and charters has been met by private means of the two Founders.

Envious minds may think that Col. Olcott, now known all over India and Ceylon as well as being a name of note in

Western countries, knew that he should gain a greater fame and wider acquaintance by resigning all that most men esteem as most pleasant and valued in life, just at a time too when the tendency is to grow fast to the personal centre, and going to a far land, there to pass his days in unremitting and arduous labors for the good of humanity, for a sublime Ideal. This is seen to be wrong when we consider that he had no certainty of success, nothing to go upon but promises made by Masters, who do not mix in public matters. Moreover, he had a wide acquaintance here, and all his American friends thought him foolish to go to a distant country on what they call "a wild goose chase," and an impracticable affair all round that "has no money in it." On the other hand, if they now say that he knew well what he was doing when he thus depended on promises made by the Adepts, there is no escape from the conclusion that those Adepts can be trusted, and on their part know the future and what is best for man. The faith of Col. Olcott himself in these great Beings has always remained unshaken, as his last act evinces. He has been several times urged by members to promulgate a creed to be accepted, but has always refused to go one step beyond the original lines and objects laid down by Masters, so that he has been thus greatly instrumental in producing an unsectarian and united Society devoted to spiritual things.

The following extract from a letter to the Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society from the Masters, on this subject, sustains him in his position:

It is time that Theosophy should enter the arena. The sons of Theosophists are more likely to become in their turn Theosophists than anything else. No messenger of Truth, no prophet, has ever achieved during his lifetime a complete triumph,―not even Buddha. The Theosophical Society was chosen as the corner stone, the foundation, of the future religion of humanity. To achieve the proposed object, a greater, wider, and especially more benevolent intermingling of the high and the low, of the alpha and omega, of society was determined upon. The white race must be the first to stretch out the hand of fellowship to the dark nations. This prospect may not smile to all alike. He is no theosophist who objects to the principle and it is we, the humble disciples of the perfect Lamas, who are expected to

allow the Theosophical Society to drop its noblest title, "The Brotherhood of Humanity," to become a simple school of philosophy. Let us understand each other. He who does not feel competent enough to grasp the noble idea sufficiently to work for it, need not undertake a task too heavy for him. But there is hardly a theosophist in the whole society unable to effectually help it by correcting the erroneous impression of outsiders, if not by actually propagating himself this idea.

In his loyalty and faith he has found a power which enables him to go on and on under immense strain, ill at times, often in utter darkness as to the morrow's trials, but ever upheld by a self forgetful enthusiasm, ever devoted and forceful as only those men are who live out their inner convictions, who will throw aside all life seems to hold rather than renounce one of these beliefs, and who have based them upon the holy Cause of Universal Brotherhood and the existence of those Masters Who are sharers in the divine and eternal, Who live but for Humanity.

THEOSOPHY AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

UNDERLYING the Doctrines of Theosophy is one fundamental proposition, namely, "the essential Unity of all life and being." Manifestation of life is differentiation of this unity, the purpose of differentiation is evolution, and the destiny of evolution is the return of all manifestation into its source and original unity.

Of the manifestation of life there are two phases, poles, or aspects: the descent of Spirit into matter and the ascent of matter into Spirit. The infinite variety of gradation in development between these two poles marks the degree of differentiation from the Unity, in its downward or upward course. This universal truth of the essential unity of all life and being throughout nature was the basis upon which the ideal undertaking was grounded of providing a vehicle for its dissemination; therefore the T. S. was founded for the purpose of establishing a practical working centre for the exposition of these doctrines, but foremost with the object of the amelioration of human affairs, to point out the identity of interest, the common source of origin, the relative position in life to the rest of nature, and the probable destiny of the human being in the grand scheme of evolution. Besides this primary purpose of thus forming the nucleus to a Universal Brotherhood of humanity, its other objects are to promote the study of Aryan and other Eastern Literatures, Religions, and Sciences, and to draw attention to and investigate unexplained laws of nature and the psychic powers of man.

Theosophy is not a new invention but the essential underlying truth of all philosophies; it is a body of doctrine in philosophy, science, and ethics, principally derived from the Eastern archaic sacred Theories, which were worked out by a brotherhood of devotees and initiates who used every method of scientific investigation known to us, as well as their own highly developed practises of observation, experiment, concentration, and meditation to reach the truth. They traced all phenomena by every possible means from their significance to their source, and by comparison of their independent searches and observations recorded their conclusions and accepted such results only as could stand the test of applicability and verification from every point and in every conceivable direction.

This slowly accumulating body of facts furnished the basis for these great universal doctrines, and the psychic development of these devotees and students gave them great power over nature and insight into the mystic side of the universe and man.

These doctrines were handed down from generation to generation since time immemorial, and were guarded by the most sacredly pledged disciples, who had devoted their whole lives to the development of their psychic and spiritual faculties. The reason why these doctrines had been so strenuously guarded from the profane and unripe is because the possession of their knowledge gives great power for use or abuse. It embraces the science of the finer forces in nature, their relation and correspondences in themselves, and the knowledge of their uses and application for the benefit or destruction of humanity.

Although this transcendental knowledge was accessible at all times to those who were ripe and who felt the craving for it strong enough to make the unremitting sacrifice, it would be acquired only by those whose supreme intensity of excitement and enthusiasm made it possible in those times to incur the self-denial and renunciation of worldly concerns necessary to initiation. Nor is it any different now, and never will

be, except that portions of the doctrine are given out from time to time, such as may be safely trusted to an advancing age, because to penetrate into the mystery of nature requires a state of the greatest purity and perfection, and this final perfection is not a gift to be expected from without, but is to be worked for by those who desire it.

It is often queried why this grand philosophy has existed for so long a time and yet so little of it has reached our all-conquering civilization.

This is due to the fact that our civilization has mainly occupied itself with material and intellectual progress, refusing to even recognize the superior faculties of intuition and man's capability of spiritual culture. These higher faculties have been allowed to remain dormant during the race for material aggrandizement and personal recognition.

Though it was hoped that the mystery of life and the power over nature could be obtained in our time by mere intellectual development, very little indeed has been accomplished, but instead we find ourselves―as a result of misdirected energies―in the abyss of modern materialism.

The abolition alone of these tendencies, and the insight into the inability to find the secret into the mystery of the all-pervading and unerring law of nature by physical means, the abolition and destruction of these tendencies is the bridge over which alone we may arrive at the enlightened shore of transcendental wisdom.

At this present restless stage of discontent and the fruitless search for peace, the T. S. appeared with truly altruistic motives, reminding the perplexed age of the mistaken course it had taken in its illusion of separateness and in its denial of man's better nature.

It is the aim of the T. S. to bring to the notice of those who are inclined to admit the spiritual nature of man and his progressive evolution, that on another plane of existence, a plane which partakes of a wider field of consciousness and which lies within the capability of development in every individual, that on that higher plane there is a spiritual unity,

a universal brotherhood of mankind, and on that plane of being there is no separateness from homogeneous existence; and further that no permanent progress is possible through fostering the illusion of separateness, and that man's true duty at all times and in all circumstances is the love of his kind and the preservation of harmony around him. It is with the endeavor to learn something concerning our position in life and our spiritual relation to each other that we come together weekly, some of us daily, to exchange our observations and experiences.

It is premised that man is the product of an advanced stage of evolution, which is demonstrated by his possession of the more developed faculties of perception and consciousness compared with other organisms, his capability of analysis of physical nature, his inherent sense of moral duty, and his aspirations to know his relative position in cosmic evolution.

The spiritual unity of mankind is the basis of our moral life. Regard, consideration, love, kindness are qualities which are exhibited and practiced intuitively during the greatest part of daily life; the voice of conscience which meddles in every thought and act is indicative of a brotherhood founded upon the sympathy of man for man, which is a fundamental fact of human nature.

When we observe the great intelligence and justice with which the minutest object in nature is governed, we can draw inference by analogy and apply to the human being. The same conditions prevail; the great universality of government, embracing all and moving all with inexorable certainty in obedience to one law and design, the interdependence of everything, suggest the unity of all.

Unity of life and being means brotherhood of all the units which make up that unity of life and being, and it is the conscious realization of this unity, the universal, all-pervading principle of brotherhood, that lends a basis and meaning to the phenomena of life and existence.

Besides, the degree of relative brotherhood of mankind to itself must be closer than to anything else, because humanity

is composed of one kind of units (more or less), and in the same stage or degree of development, at least as compared to other kingdoms in nature.

This essential unity of all being, however, becomes only realizable in the ratio in which consciousness on a higher plane is awakened, and this superior consciousness regards our present conception of all separateness apart from the whole as an illusion, because there it is no separation in reality; it only appears so to us on our present plane of consciousness. Therefore this tenet, although it is a fact in nature, is not so easily demonstrable on physical lines, because the problem itself transcends perception on this lower physical plane; in other words, it cannot be seen or heard, felt, smelt, or tasted, nor sensed with any physical instrument; still it is a fact which is at once plausible by conceding to the human being spiritual life at all, and perfectly realizable to those who have penetrated beyond the veil which surrounds gross matter.

Although the consciousness beyond the veil of matter may be very limited for us at present, cultivation of the mystic side of our nature will open vistas undreamed of, and widen our consciousness.

For instance, the investigation of the significance of our consciousness during the dream state and that in dreamless sleep. Our ideal life is derived from the state of dreamless sleep. During that time of the entire oblivion of our self-consciousness we are quite on another plane.

Intelligent and persistent scrutiny and searching into the dreamless sleep will soon reveal, first, the fact that it is a state of great purity, entirely uninfluenced by good or bad actions which we may have performed during the day; and second, that we receive ideal impulses during our daily life which come to our perception quite unawares and are, as we think, perfectly natural, but which are in reality reflections in the physical brain from the dreamless sleep.

Man leads a dual life even in the waking state. In every thought and deed is a dual aspect. The first and most pressing

one in our day is that which concerns our personality, the second how it affects our relations with the world at large.

The process itself is so automaton-like that it eludes notice, but to these two aspects all our activities are subjected.

If the predilections of the personality predominate, the result will be correspondingly selfish; if, on the other hand, the ideal aspect is duly regarded, the act will be corresponding to and means better intuition. This latter is the ideal side of man's dual life, a state of higher consciousness, the exploration of which will greatly expand the conception of the part man is playing in the drama of life, and that "Ideal Unity" or "Universal brotherhood of mankind" is a "fact" and the notion of separateness of humanity is an illusion.

THEOSOPHICAL STUDY AND WORK

THE birth and life of a Branch of the Theosophical Society are very like to those of an individual. As with persons so with a body of theosophists engaged in theosophical endeavor and study, the parentage and the subsequent environment have much to do with the continuance of life and with the power of the influence exerted over the units which compose the association, as well as that which radiates from the Branch to others outside. And in a Theosophical Society its authorship is divided among all those who come together in order to start and carry it on. If the authors of its being are unintelligent, or confused, or uncertain, or self-seeking in the formation of the Society, its life and work will be the same. Growth will be stopped, influence hindered, and results―nothing. The work and influence of a Branch hinge upon the knowledge of theosophical doctrine, upon the motives, ideas, and ideals of the members, and so we have to consider what is the knowledge required and what should be the aims, ideas, and ideals of those who form and are to work in a Branch T.S. An inquiry should also be made into the methods which ought to be adopted as well as those that are to be avoided.

The work of a Branch has two objective points where it is intended, in the theosophical order of things, that its help and influence are to be felt. The first is in and among its members, and the other upon that portion of the world which lies within its purview. If, as I firmly believe, the theory of universal brotherhood is based upon a law―a fact―in nature that all men are spiritual beings who are indissolubly linked and united together in one vast whole, then no Branch, no

individual theosophist, can be regarded as without significance and influence, nor is any member justified in supposing that he or she is too obscure, too unprogressed, to be of any benefit to the movement and thus to mankind at large.

The fact that a branch T.S. is a body of individuals makes stronger the certainty that by means of the subtile link which, under the law of unity, connects together all the men who are on this planet, a wider and more potent influence for good or evil may be exerted through a Branch than through any single individual. For just as man is composed of atoms descended to him in various lines from many forefathers, all of which have a part in the influence he exerts, so a Branch is a being composed of the atoms―its members―included within its borders. And it is no fancy, no fantastic dream, to say that this being may be intelligent, or forceful, or weak, or wicked as a whole, just as it is made the one or the other by its component parts. And the declarations made by the adepts respecting individual theosophists should have weight with such a body. Those Beings have said that each member can aid the movement by explaining its fundamental doctrines or at least by doing away with misconceptions, and that no single unit in the whole should be so ignorant as to suppose that he or she has a special karma of his own unconnected with the rest. Not a single good example in theosophic life is lost, They say, but every one of us affects not only the immediate associates but also projects into the great universal current an influence that has its weight in the destiny of the race. Some of these golden words are as follows:

"Let not the fruit of good karma be your motive; for your karma, good or bad, being one and the common property of all mankind, nothing good or bad can happen to you that is not shared by many others." Hence, if the motive be for yourself it is selfish and can only generate a double effect―good and bad―and will either nullify your good actions or turn them to some other man's profit. "There is no happiness for one who is ever thinking of self and forgetting other selves."

intelligent being quite as much under the government of karma as any individual. It will feel the karma of its actions, and the responsibility will rest upon the members who have neglected or obeyed the dictates of theosophic duty. And the karma of the entire international body will react upon it for benefit or the reverse, according to the good, bad, or indifferent karma which the Branch may have acquired by its course of action. It is a part of the whole, and no portion can be exempt from the influences belonging to the total mass of workers. Thus a Branch which has been indifferent, or selfish, or full of doubt or disloyalty regarding the ideals it promised to follow, will attract out of the international theosophic karma just enough to accentuate its weakness and doubt, and on the other hand a Branch which has worked hard, unselfishly, and earnestly will attract the good from the whole sum of karma, and that, added to its own, will enable it to resist bad effects and will further strengthen the vital elements in its own corporate body.

The good or bad karma of the whole Theosophic Society may be figured as surrounding it from one end of the world to the other in the shape of layers or spheres of light or darkness. The light is good karma and the darkness is bad. Those units―Branches―which contain the elements of light within them will attract from the sphere of light as much of that as they are capable of holding, and the darkness will be drawn in by those which have darkness already. Thus we are all, theosophically speaking, keepers and helpers of each other, not only in the United States but in England, in Bombay, in Calcutta, in Madras. If we do not do our duty it may happen that some struggling Branch in some far off place will by reason of its newness or weakness be the recipient, not of help but of damage from us. Each Branch is separately responsible for its own actions, and yet every one is helped or injured by every other. These reciprocating influences work on the real though unseen plane where every man is dynamically united to every fellow man. And I am not uncharitable in saying that if the Indian Branches had worked more for the far-distant

United States when it was unable to stand alone, we should now be the possessors of more in the way of elucidation and statistics and other aids from that far-distant land than we can show. But even if the early-formed United States' Branches had worked with more zeal and energy toward the real ends of the Society, we should have been able earlier to materially aid and comfort our sincere brother and sacrificing worker, Col. H. S. Olcott. And now the newer Branches of the Society in this country have a better opportunity than others in the past, for all the fighting has been done and much work is ready to their hand.

So the most obscure has a place in the scheme as important as the one that is large and well known, while those that are lazy or doubting or selfish must compensate some time or another for their acts of commission, as well as for any failure to add to the general sum of good.

With this in view we may conclude that a single Branch has the power to efficiently aid and benefit not only its members but also the whole theosophic body corporate. This may be made clearer by remembering how often in the history of the world a family or even a man has sometimes been for the nation or race a power for the greatest good or evil.

Under this doctrine of unity and selflessness the work of a Branch ought to be entered into by all the members with an unselfish spirit which will lead them to have patience with the weaker brethren, for a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and therefore endeavor should be made to bring to the minds of the weakest the truths that the others see with less difficulty. And next, every individual, by eliminating the desire to get knowledge for himself, will thereby make the Branch as a whole open and porous to the unseen but real and powerful influences managed from behind the scenes by the great personages who have as a part of their work in the world the theosophic movement, and who are constantly at work among us for the purpose of aiding those who are sincere and unselfish. If the testimony of those who have been long in the Society is to be believed, then, as they assert, there are among

us every day many disciples (who are known in our literature by the name of "Chelas") who are engaged in fanning the flame of spiritual illumination wherever they find it among the members. Their influence in not exerted because of wealth or personal prominence, but upon any one of any class who has tried to understand theosophy for the sake of others and in order that he may communicate to others in his turn. Not only has this been asserted by the leaders in the movement, but in the experience of many of us we have seen help extended to those who are in earnest for their fellow-man.

And this is peculiarly and more strongly applicable to those members who have as one of their aims the acquisition of psychic and abnormal powers. These powers cannot be safely found and used by the man who desires them for himself, and his mere statement in his heart or in words that he desires them for others goes for naught unless the deeper and inner motive and object coincide with the high one which is expressed. Our members, new and old, might as well become acquainted with the bald and naked truth on this subject now, as to wait for years of bitter experience to burn it into them. There are such powers and man may acquire them, but each age and each race has its limitations that it is not possible for the average man to overcome. Hardly any member who has desires for these would admit that he would be willing to become a black magician in order to acquire them, that is, would sacrifice his chances for emancipation for their sake. Yet without altruism one cannot get them except as a black magician. One has to deliberately make up his mind that he will sacrifice everything and everybody else to his design if it is his intention to obtain them without following the rules laid down by the White Adepts inculcating truth, purity, charity, and all the virtues―in fact, altruism. There is no secret about the fact that two ways and no more lie open to the one who wishes for the powers of an adept, and those are on the right hand, that of virtue and altruism, and on the left―the black side―that of intense and unrelenting selfishness. No compromise, no mere dabbling, is allowed or possible, and more so in the

selfish path, for there every one's hand is against every other one; none will help at any crisis, and, when the hour arrives that the student in that school is in peril from the unseen and terrible forces of nature, his companions on the road will but sneer at his weakness and rejoice at his downfall. And indeed, the line of demarcation between these two ways, for students of the grade of most of the members of our Society, is very thin. It is like the hair line which the Mohammedan mystic says divides the false from the true. One has to be very careful so as to know if his motive is really so unselfish as he pretends it to himself to be. But it can always be tested by the reality of the feeling of brotherhood that he has in him. A mere intellectual longing to know and to discover further in this field is selfish and of the black variety, for unless every desire to know the truth is in order that one may give it to others, it is full of taint. Moreover, it will lead to no powers and to no real knowledge, for success on either side depends upon the burning of desire in the heart. With the white school this is for the sake of fellow-man, and on the dark hand the same fierce desire is for self alone.

Many persons, however, think that they can belong to the Society, and while negatively selfish, that is, ready and willing to sit down and hear others expound theosophical doctrine and never work for the body themselves, they may receive benefit in the way of comprehension of the doctrines of man and nature which are promulgated among us. But they forget a law in these matters of great importance, one, indeed, that they may not be willing to admit, and which is much opposed to our modern ideas of the powers and functions of the human mind. It is that such an attitude by reason of its selfishness builds up a hard wall between their minds and the very truths they wish to know. I speak of an actual dynamic effect which is as plain to the eye of the trained seer as is any object to the healthy eye.

We have been so accustomed for many years to vague ideas about the human mind, what it is, and what its powers really are, that people in general have no definite notion whether

there be or not any material effect in the human economy from thoughts, or whether they are like what is usually called "imagination," a something very unreal and wholly without objectivity. But it is a fact that the mind of the selfish person is always making about itself a hard reflecting surface which throws off and away from its grasp the very knowledge the man himself would take if he but knew the reason why he fails.

This brings us naturally to the proposition that the aims of the members in a Branch should be to eradicate selfishness and to promulgate and illustrate the doctrine of universal brotherhood, basing the explanation upon the actual unity of all beings. This of itself will lead to the explanation of many other doctrines, as it underlies them all, great and small. And in order to do this the members ought to study the system as a whole, so that its parts may be comprehended. It is for the want of such study that we so often hear members, when asked to explain their theosophy, saying, "Well, to tell the truth, I know how it all is, but am not able to make it clear to you." They are not clear because they have not taken the time and trouble to learn the few fundamental propositions and how to apply them to any and every question.

A very common error is the supposition that new men, new enquirers, can be converted to theosophy and brought into its ranks by taking up and enforcing phenomena. In the term "phenomena" I include all such as spiritualism, clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry, hypnotism, mesmerism, thought-reading, and the like. These convert but few if any, because there is not much known about them and so many proofs are required before belief is induced. And even a belief in these things gives no sound basis of a theosophical character. A perfect illustration of this is seen in the history of H. P. Blavatsky, who for many years has permitted phenomena to occur with herself for the benefit of certain specific persons. These have been talked about by the whole world, and the Psychical Society saw fit to send a man to look into them after they had taken place, but although the very persons

who saw them happen testified to their genuineness, they were denied by him and all laid to fraud and confederation. Everyone who was inclined from the first to believe in them continued to so believe, and those who never believed remained in the same state as before.

The best attested phenomena are ever subject to doubt so long as the philosophy on which they depend is not understood.

Furthermore, the mass of men and women in the world are not troubled about phenomena. These they think can be left alone for the present because more pressing things engage their attention and call for solution. The great problems of life: why we are here, why we suffer, and where may justice be found that will show the reason for the sufferings of the good man, or, indeed, for the sufferings of any one, press upon us. For each man thinks he is unjustly borne hard upon by fate when his cherished plans go for nothing, or his family is carried off by death, or his name is disgraced by a wayward child, or when, as is very often the case, he is unjustly accused and injured by his fellow-men. There are many who find themselves born poor when others less worthy are rich, and they ask why it is all thus and get no reply from the common religious systems of the day. It is the life and its sorrows that destroy our peace, and every human heart wants to know the reason for it.

We must therefore offer theories that will give the answer, and these theories are the great doctrines of karma and reincarnation. These show justice triumphant in the world, meting out reward or punishment as it is deserved in any state of life. After an experience of fifteen years in the Society's work I have seen that more good and useful men and women have been attracted to our movement by these doctrines than have ever come to it by reason of phenomena, and that a great many have left our ranks who began on the phenomenal side. The members in general may not be aware of the fact that when the Society was formed the greater number of its New York members were spiritualists and that they nearly all left

There is a mysterious power in these doctrines of karma and reincarnation which at last forces them upon the belief of those who take them up for study. It is due to the fact that the ego is itself the experiencer of rebirth and karma and has within a clear recollection of both, and rejoices, as it were, when it finds the lower mind taking them up for study. Each person is the concentration and result of karma, and is compelled from within to believe. The ethics of theosophy as enforced and illuminated by these twin doctrines should therefore be the object of our search and promulgation.

Furthermore, this course is authorized, for those who believe in the Adepts, by their words written about us. I quote:

"It is the insatiable craving for phenomena made so often degrading that has caused you so much trouble. Let the Society henceforth flourish upon its moral worth and the study of philosophy and ethics put into practice."

Third, by establishing a library, at first with the few important books, which few can be added to by the members from time to time through donations of books which they have read.

Fourth, by always having an article, original or otherwise, for reading and discussion.

If literary talent is not available, its want can be supplied from the great quantity of articles which have come out in the Society's magazines during the last fifteen years. In those nearly every subject of theosophical interest has been written upon and explained. They can be looked up with very little labor, and used at each meeting. And they can be carried on upon settled lines so as to go over each subject fully. It will be found that nearly all the questions that now puzzle new members have been at one time or

Fifth, by a careful elementary study of our doctrines from one or two books until the main outline of all is grasped. Take, for instance, Esoteric Buddhism. This gives the system in the main, and many persons have read it, but a great many of these have done this but once. For them there often arise questions they might easily solve if they had made the system as a whole a part of their mental furniture. This book can be corrected by the Secret Doctrine, in which Mme. Blavatsky has said that Esoteric Buddhism is in the main correct, and she gives the means for supplying its deficiencies. Then there is that most useful book, Five Years of Theosophy, containing some of the most valuable articles that appeared in the Theosophist.

Sixth, by a method of discussion which does not permit any one person in the Branch to assert that his or her views are the correct ones. We cannot get at truth by assertion, but only by calm consideration of views advanced, and the self-asserting person is very nearly always close to error. I know this view is contrary to that of American independence, which leads us on forever to assert ourselves. The true philosophy annuls this and teaches that it is only from the concurrence of investigation that the truth can be arrived at. And the deeper occultism says that the self-asserter debars himself from truth forever. No one mind has all the knowledge possible, and each one is naturally capable of seeing but the one side that is easy for him by reason of his race inheritance and the engrafted tendencies of his education.

Seventh, by remembering that we cannot at once alter the constitutional tendencies of the atoms of our brains, nor in a flash change ourselves. We are insensibly affected by our education, by the ideas of our youth, by the thought, whatever it was, that preceded our entrance upon theosophy. We require to have patience, not with the system of theosophy, but with ourselves, and be willing to wait for the gradual effect of the new ideas upon us.

carnation, and we, just as is the case of a new manvantara, have to evolve from the old estate and with care gradually eradicate the former bias. It is taught in the Secret Doctrine that the moon is the parent of the earth and has given to us all that we are now working over in our world. It is the same in the case under consideration. Our former mental state is our mental moon, and has given us certain material which we must work over, for otherwise we attempt to go contrary to a law of nature and will be defeated.

Some may ask if there is not any sort of study that will enable us to shave off these old erroneous modes of thought. To them I can only give the experience of many of my friends in the same direction. They say, and they are supported by the very highest authority, that the one process is to enquire into and attempt to understand the law of spiritual unity and the fact that no one is separate but that all are one in the plane of spirit, and that no single person has a particular spirit of his own, but that atman, called the "seventh principle," is, in fact, the synthesis of the whole and is the common property of every being high and low, human, animal, animate, inanimate, or divine. This is the teaching of the Mundaka Upanishad of the Hindus, and the meaning of the title "Mundaka" is "Shaving," because it shaves off the errors which stand in the way of truth, permitting then the brilliant lamp of spiritual knowledge to illuminate our inner nature.

And for those who desire to find the highest ethics and philosophy condensed in one book, I would recommend the Bhagavad Gîtâ, studied with the aid of such lectures as those of our Hindu brother―now deceased―Subba Row of Madras.¹ They have been reprinted from the Theosophist and can be procured by any one. In the Secret Doctrine Mme. Blavatsky says: "The best metaphysical definition of primeval theogony in the spirit of the Vedantins may be found" in these lectures.

In the conclusion of The Key to Theosophy H. P. Blavatsky, speaking of the future of the Theosophical Society,

Its future will depend almost entirely upon the degree of selflessness, earnestness, devotion, and last but not least, upon the amount of knowledge and wisdom possessed by those members on whom it will fall to carry on the work and to direct the Society after the death of the Founders. If they cannot be free from the bias of theological education, the result can only be that the Society will drift off on to some sandbank of thought or another, and there remain a stranded carcass to moulder and die. But if that danger be averted the Society will live on into and through the twentieth century. It will burst asunder the iron fetters of creed and caste. The West will learn to understand and appreciate the East at its full value. The development of psychic powers will proceed healthily and normally, and mankind will be saved from terrible bodily and mental dangers which are inevitable where those powers develop in a hotbed of selfishness and passion as they now threaten to do.

At the last quarter of every century one or more persons appear in the world as the agents of the masters, and a greater or less amount of occult knowledge is given out.

She concludes by stating that the present T. S. is one of those attempts to help the world, and the duty of every member is made plain that they should preserve this body with its literature and original plans so as to hand it on to our successors who shall have it ready at the last quarter of the next century for the messenger of the Masters who will then, as now, reappear. Failure or success in this duty presents no obscure outcome. If we succeed, then in the twentieth century that messenger will find the materials in books, in thought and in popular terms, to permit him or her to carry forward the great work to another stage without the fierce opposition and the tremendous obstacles which have frowned upon us during the last fifteen years just closed. If we fail, then the messenger will waste again many precious years in repreparing the ground, and ours will be the responsibility.

WHAT OUR SOCIETY NEEDS MOST

THE first object of our Society is the formation of a nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood. This is a practical object and at the same time a fact in nature. It has been long regarded by the greater number of men as an Utopian ideal, one that might be held up, talked about, desired, but impossible of attainment. And it was no wonder that people so regarded it, because the ordinary religious view of God, nature, and man placed everything on a selfish basis, offered personal distinction in heaven to the saints who might die in the odor of sanctity, and thus made impossible the realization of this beautiful dream. But when the Theosophical philosophy shows that there is a unity among beings not only in their better natures but also on the physical plane, our first object becomes most practical. For if all men are brothers in fact, that is, joined one to another by a tie which no one can break, then the formation of the nucleus for the future brotherhood is something that has to do with all the affairs of man, affects civilizations, and leads to the physical as well as moral betterment of each member of the great family.

This first object means philanthropy. Each Theosophist should therefore not only continue his private or public acts of charity, but also strive to so understand Theosophical philosophy as to be able to expound it in a practical and easily understood manner, so that he may be a wider philanthropist by ministering to the needs of the inner man. This inner man is a thinking being who feeds upon a right or wrong philosophy. If he is given one which is wrong, then, becoming warped and diseased, he leads his instrument, the outer man, into bewilderment and sorrow.

Now as Theosophical theories were and are still quite strange, fascinating, and peculiar when contrasted with the usual doctrines of men and things, very many members have occupied themselves with much metaphysical speculation or with diving into the occult and the wonderful, forgetting that the higher philanthropy calls for a spreading among men of a right basis for ethics, for thought, for action. So we often find Theosophists among themselves debating complicated doctrines that have no present application to practical life, and at the same time other members and some enquirers breathing a sigh of relief when anyone directs the inquiries into such a channel as shall cause all the doctrines to be extended to daily life and there applied.

What we most need is such a Theosophical education as will give us the ability to expound Theosophy in a way to be understood by the ordinary person. This practical, clear exposition is entirely possible. That it is of the highest importance there can be no doubt whatever. It relates to and affects ethics, every day life, every thought, and consequently every act. The most learned, astute, and successful church, the Roman Catholic, proceeds on this basis. Should we refrain from a good practise because a bigot takes the same method? The priests of Rome do not explain, nor attempt to explain or expound, the highly metaphysical and obscure, though important, basis of their various doctrines. They touch the people in their daily life, a knowledge of their own system in all its details enabling them to put deep doctrine into every man's language, although the learning of the preacher may be temporarily concealed. With them the appeal is to fear; with us it is to reason and experience. So we have a natural advantage which ought not to be overlooked.

High scholarship and a knowledge of metaphysics are good things to have, but the mass of the people are neither scholars nor metaphysicians. If our doctrines are of any such use as to command the efforts of sages in helping on to their promulgation, then it must be that those sages―our Masters―desire the doctrines to be placed before as many of the mass as we

can reach. This our Theosophical scholars and metaphysicians can do by a little effort. It is indeed a little difficult, because slightly disagreeable, for a member who is naturally metaphysical to come down to the ordinary level of human minds in general, but it can be done. And when one does do this, the reward is great from the evident relief and satisfaction of the enquirer.

It is pre-eminently our duty to be thus practical in exposition as often as possible. Intellectual study only of our Theosophy will not speedily better the world. It must, of course, have effect through immortal ideas once more set in motion, but while we are waiting for those ideas to bear fruit among men a revolution may break out and sweep us away. We should do as Buddha taught his disciples, preach, practise, promulgate, and illustrate our doctrines. He spoke to the meanest of men with effect, although having a deeper doctrine for greater and more learned minds. Let us, then, acquire the art of practical exposition of ethics based on our theories and enforced by the fact of Universal Brotherhood.

WHAT THE MASTERS HAVE SAID

IN 1888, speaking of Col. Olcott, an article in this magazine quoted from letters from the Adepts sent to Mr. Sinnett at a time some objections were made to the work of the Society on the ground that enough attention was not paid to men of science and to science itself.¹ Since the year in which those letters were written many persons have joined the Theosophical Society and its sphere of work has greatly extended. And now no less than then, the workers have begun to pay too much attention to the intellectual side of Theosophy and too little to that phase on which the Masters who are behind insist and which is called by H.P.B. in The Voice of the Silence the "heart doctrine." Others also have said that they do not want any of the heart doctrine, but wish us to be highly respectable and scientific. Let us consult the Masters, those of us who believe in them.

When the letters to the Simla Lodge were written it was said by objecting Theosophists that it was time now to take a different tack and to work for men of science, and there was a slight suspicion of a repulsion between the Hindus, who are black, and the Europeans, as well as an openly expressed condemnation of the methods of Col. Olcott and H. P. Blavatsky. The reply from the Adepts, made after consultation with others very much higher still, runs in part:

No messenger of truth, no prophet, has ever achieved during his lifetime a complete triumph―not even Buddha. The Theosophical Society was chosen as the corner-stone, the foundation of the future religion of humanity. To achieve the proposed object a greater, wider, and especially a more benevolent

intermingling of the high and the low, of the alpha and omega of society was determined on.

Who determined this? The Adepts and those who are yet still behind them, that is to say, for the Theosophist, the Dhyan Chohans who have control of such matters. Why was it decided? Because the world is sunk in sorrow and in selfishness which keeps the one side of society from helping the other. The letter goes on:

The white race must be the first to stretch out the hand of fellowship to the dark nations. This prospect may not smile to all alike. He is no Theosophist who objects to the principle. . . and it is we, the humble disciples of the perfect Lamas, who are expected to allow the Theosophical Society to drop its noblest title, The Brotherhood of Humanity, to become a simple school of philosophy. Let us understand each other. He who does not feel competent enough to grasp the noble idea sufficiently to work for it need not undertake a task too heavy for him.

The depth of the sarcasm here cannot be measured, and at the same time it is almost impossible to fully understand the opportunity pointed out in those words and the loss of progress one may suffer by not heeding them. They apply to all, and not merely to the persons they were written to, for the Masters always say what applies universally. The letter continues:

But there is hardly a Theosophist in the whole Society unable to effectually help it by correcting the erroneous impression of outsiders, if not by actually himself propagating this idea.

Later on, near the time when H.P.B. was in Germany, others came and asked what they might do, how they might work, and what "sphere of influence" they might find. The Master known as K. H. then wrote a letter to one, and at the same time sent copies with fuller notes on the communication to others. A part of that letter has lately been published in the German magazine, the Sphinx. In it the Master said among other things:

Spheres of influence can be found everywhere. The first object of the Theosophical Society is philanthropy. The true Theosophist is a philanthropist, who "Not for himself but for the world he lives." This, and philosophy, the right compre-

hension of life and its mysteries, will give the "necessary basis" and show the right path to pursue. Yet the best "sphere of influence" for the applicant is now in [his own land].

The reference to a basis and a sphere of influence is to the idea of those who held that a scientific or at least a very long preparation to get a basis and a sphere for work was needed first. But the answer shows the Adept as not agreeing, and as pointing out the way to work along the line of the heart doctrine. And some of the fuller notes annexed to the copy of this letter sent at the same time to others read:

My reference to "philanthropy" was meant in its broadest sense, and to draw attention to the absolute need of the "doctrine of the heart" as opposed to that which is merely "of the eye." And before, I have written that our society is not a mere intellectual school for occultism, and those greater than we have said that he who thinks the task of working for others too hard had better not undertake it. The moral and spiritual sufferings of the world are more important and need help and cure more than science needs aid from us in any field of discovery. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."―K.H.

After seventeen years of work it is now time that the whole Society should pay a little more attention to the words of those Masters of wisdom who have thus indicated the road, and these are the "original lines" traced out and meant to be followed. All those who do not follow them are those who feel dissatisfied with our work, and those who try to go upon these lines are those who feel and know that help is always given to the sincere Theosophist who ever tries not only to understand the philosophy but also to make it forceful for the proving and the exemplifying of the doctrine and object of Universal Brotherhood.

DOGMATISM IN THEOSOPHY

THE Theosophical Society was founded to destroy dogmatism. This is one of the meanings of its first object―Universal Brotherhood. And Col. H. S. Olcott in his inaugural address in 1875, at Mott Memorial Hall, New York, said that such was the object in view, citing the bad effect that intolerance had had in the past. That address was read by Mme. H. P. Blavatsky before its delivery, or its contents were communicated to her, so that it had her assent, for she was present when it was delivered.

In the Key to Theosophy, in the "Conclusion," H.P.B. again refers to this subject and expresses the hope that the Society might not, after her death, become dogmatic or crystallize on some phase of thought or philosophy, but that it might remain free and open, with its members wise and unselfish. And in all her writings and remarks, privately or publicly, she constantly reiterated this idea. Of this the writer has direct evidence as to her statements in private.

If our effort is to succeed, we must avoid dogmatism in theosophy as much as in anything else, for the moment we dogmatise and insist on our construction of theosophy, that moment we lose sight of Universal Brotherhood and sow the seeds of future trouble.

There is a great likelihood that members of the Society will insist on a certain orthodoxy in our ranks. They are already doing it here and there, and this is a note of warning to draw their attention to the danger. There is no orthodoxy in our Society. Even though nine-tenths of the members believe in Reincarnation, Karma, the sevenfold constitution, and all the

rest, and even though its prominent ones are engaged in promulgating these doctrines as well as others, the ranks of the Society must always be kept open, and no one should be told that he is not orthodox or not a good Theosophist because he does not believe in these doctrines. All that anyone is asked to subscribe to is Universal Brotherhood, and its practice in the search for truth. For the efforts of those who are thus promulgating specific ideas are made under the sanction of the second object of the Society, which any one is free to follow or to refuse to follow as he sees fit. One may deny―undogmatically―reincarnation and other doctrines, or may assert belief in a personal or impersonal God, and still be a good member of the Society, provided Universal Brotherhood is subscribed to and put into practice.

If a member says he must formulate a God, or cannot believe in Reincarnation, none other should condemn or draw comparisons, or point to the writings of H.P.B. or any one else to show that such a member is untheosophical. The greatest minds on earth are puzzled by great ideas such as these, and yet, holding them, can still search for truth with others in a perfect spirit of toleration.

But at the same time it is obvious that to enter the Society and then, under our plea of tolerance, assert that theosophy shall not be studied, that the great body of thought and philosophy offered in our literature shall not be investigated, is untheosophical, unpractical, and absurd, for it were to nullify the very object of our organization; it is a dogmatism that flows from negation and indifference. We must study the philosophy and the doctrines offered to us before we are in a position to pass judgment and say that they are not true or that they shall be rejected. To judge or reject before examination is the province of little minds or prejudiced dogmatists.

And as the great body of philosophy, science, and ethics offered by H. P. Blavatsky and her teachers has upon it the seal of research, of reasonableness, of antiquity, and of wisdom, it demands our first and best consideration in order that we may with fitness conclude upon its acceptation or rejection.

So, then, a member of the Society, no matter how high or how low his or her position in its ranks, has the right to promulgate all the philosophical and ethical ideas found in our literature to the best ability possessed, and no one else has the right to object, provided such promulgation is accompanied by a clear statement that it is not authorized or made orthodox by any declaration from the body corporate of the T.S. Our Society must be kept free and open, no matter if, because we refuse to formulate beliefs as a Society, we remain small in number, for we can always be strong in influence.

CLOSED OR OPEN LODGES

THE Theosophical Society has never prohibited Private Branches. If five Members-at-large can exist separately, they can exist together; for they are no worse off when organized than when not. It is conceivable, moreover, that there may be special circumstances where publicity is undesirable―as where there is exceptional local bitterness against Theosophy, or where the Charter-members are as yet too few or too ill-instructed to furnish papers and discussions of value to outsiders, or where want of intellectual capacity might excite derision in the community instead of respect. Another case is possible―where the Charter-members organize for the express purpose of providing open meetings, but temporarily hold only closed ones while studying and otherwise preparing themselves for fitness to edify visitors. In any one of these cases a provisional privacy is altogether legitimate.

But there is another case less commendable. It is where a group of Theosophists choose exclusiveness because they desire only those of their own set, or because they fear ridicule if known as F.T.S., or because they intend organization merely as a furtherance to their own intellectual culture or to the attainment of psychic power. The foundation of such a Lodge is timidity or selfishness, and on neither can a sound Theosophical superstructure be erected.

And what, in fact, has been the fate of Private Branches in the American Section? Five Charters to such have thus far been issued. Of these five Branches, two died quietly and soon, one surrendered its Charter, one is virtually extinct, and one is

of too recent formation to have a history. No one has contributed to the strength of the Society, to the extension of its teachings, or to the multiplication of its members.

There must be a reason for this. Nor is it hard of detection. The reason is simply that the essential idea of a permanently closed Lodge and the essential idea of a Theosophical Branch are directly opposed. There is, indeed, a contradiction in the very words "Private Branch." A "Branch" is an offshoot of a parent tree, not underground but above ground. If you take away exposure to the sunlight and the air and the hardening forces of Nature, confining the young shoot to darkness and mystery and isolation, you not only deprive it of the very nourishment essential to its growth, but you perpetuate the interior forces which will ensure its decay. Nor only so. A "Private Branch" lacks the very marrow of Theosophical life―altruism. Theosophy is not a bank-deposit which one hoards in secret for contemplation and delectation; it is a purse of Fortunatus, which fills up as fast as one empties it for the benefit of others. The true Theosophic spirit fixes its eye on the needs of a vast humanity in ignorance, knows that there is no other way to overcome ignorance and its consequences than by imparting truth, and queries how most efficaciously this may be done. The Theosophist thus animated joins the Society to help it, feels the want of sympathetic intercourse and of organized strength, exerts himself to form a Branch of the like-minded, projects work for it, values it because it makes possible a systematic outflow of knowledge and influence on the vicinage. He knows very well that, as the measure of his own Theosophic vitality is the degree in which he works and not merely meditates, so also it is with a Branch. In truth, a vigorous Theosophic spirit, filled with philanthropic earnestness to propagate truth, must feel somewhat repressed when discussing Cosmogony and the Seven Principles in a closely-styled Lodge, and have a suspicion of incongruity and discomfort. The spectacle of a snug and smug group gravely examining eternal verities which nobody else is allowed to hear of, verges somewhat on the ludicrous. This is

one of the cases where a sense of humor keeps people out of the absurdities as well as out of errors.

It can never be too often repeated that real Theosophy is not contemplation or introspection or philosophizing or talk, but work, work for others, work for the world. We are told that the one fatal bar to progress is selfishness in some one of its Protean forms. It will never be overcome by thinking about oneself, but by not thinking about oneself. And as we have to think about something, the alternative is thought for others and how to help them. As the mind fills with such schemes and the hands take hold of them, self-interest is displaced and egoism fades out. Selfishness dies of inanition, and altruism grows because constantly fed. And all this time true progress goes insensibly on. The mind clears of prejudices and fogs, the spirit grows more sunny and cheerful, peacefulness settles over the whole interior being, and truth is seen with greater distinctness. For the great hindrance to evolution is decaying away.

This is equally true of a Branch. So long as it exists only for the improvement or entertainment of its members, the selfish principle is dominant, for selfishness is not the less genuine because applied to purposes in themselves high. Such a Branch does not expect to grow, it probably does not desire to grow, and it surely will not grow. What is there to make it grow? It lacks that essence of all life and growth which pervades everything vital. The opposite conception of a Branch, that of an organized force for the better propagation of truth, supplies just such a lack. Preparation of papers or discussion does not mean the mere exhibition of personal ideas, still less speculation on curious and recondite problems, but the arrangement in lucid language of those apprehensions of truth which the thinker believes to have intellectual or practical value. It is a gift to others, not a display of self. The life-principle of all Nature flows through the being, clarifying thought, vivifying motive, energizing speech. Then it flows without, warming dull or listless ears, arousing attention, exciting interest, stimulating inquiry. So the influence spreads, attendance increases, the Branch grows.

The history of open Branches demonstrates what might otherwise seem theory. As they have kept in view a missionary purpose and exerted themselves to make meetings interesting and instructive to outsiders, they have thriven. One Branch through years rarely adding a member to its small list, made its meetings open. In two years it enlarged between three and fourfold. Very naturally so. The fact of publicity becoming known, visitors drop in. Some suggestive topic pleases them, they attend again, feel an interest, then a charm, then a devotion. Then they join the Branch and invite others. Progress and prosperity follow.

While it would not be right for the T.S. to prohibit Private Branches, it would be wrong for it to look upon them as other than temporary and provisional, the missionary function being in abeyance only. Those who prepare the way for and those who organize Branch Societies would do well to lay stress upon the true conception of a Branch as a living, active, aggressive agency, not a proselyting scheme, but a means for circulating truth. Its outside effects are the main ones. If the members strive to benefit non-members, they will surely edify themselves. And between the energy of a Branch and its growth, there will always be a relation. Stationary membership almost certainly implies apathy, as an increasing one implies the reverse.

And, on the other hand, Branch members need to feel that public notice and Branch growth are only possible as meetings are made interesting. It is exactly so with the Churches. If the service is tame and the preaching imbecile, people will not go. Nor, perhaps, should they. Life is too short to be bored. The Oxford Don who passed his Sundays in the fields rather than in Church said that he "preferred sermons from stones to sermons from sticks"; and Theosophists, much more non-Theosophists, will choose an evening with books if the alternative is a Branch meeting which is lifeless, or where everything is left to chance, or where the intelligent are outraged with drivel. But where the leading speeches are duly and truly prepared, and the essayists worthy and well qualified, a state

of things is brought about when attendants will seek to gain admission to further rights and benefits. Thoughtful contribution to open Branch discussions is as truly an aid to Theosophy as is sustentation of its periodicals or its work, and immediately tends to bring about that enlargement of the Society which we hope for as impressive to the public, conducive to our strength, and expressive of our advance.

EACH MEMBER A CENTRE

SOME years ago one of those Masters in whom so many of our members believe directed H.P.B. to write a letter for him to a certain body of Theosophists. In this he said that each member could become, in his own town or city, if earnest, sincere and unselfish, an active centre from which would radiate unseen powerful forces able to influence men and women in the vicinity for good; and that soon enquirers would appear, a Branch in time be organized and thus the whole neighbourhood would receive benefit. This seems just and reasonable in addition to its being stated by such high authority. Members ought to consider and think over it so that action may follow.

Too many who think themselves theosophically alone in their own town, have folded their hands and shut up their minds, saying to themselves that they could do nothing, that no one was near who could possibly care for Theosophy, and that that particular town was the "most difficult for the work."

The great mistake in these cases is forgetting the law indicated in what H.P.B. wrote. It is one that every member ought to know―that the mind of man is capable of bringing about results through means of other minds about him. If we sit and think that nothing can be done, then our subtle mind meets other minds within the radius of our sphere―not small―and shouts into them: "Nothing can be done." Of course then nothing is done. But if unselfishly and earnestly we think Theosophy, and desire that others should, like us, be benefited by it, then to the minds we meet in stray moments of the day and in many hours of the night we cry "Theosophy," and "Help

and hope for thee." The result must be an awakening of interest upon the slightest provocative occasion.

Such an inner attitude, added to every sort of attempt at promulgation, will disclose many unsuspected persons who are thinking along this very line. Thus will the opportunity of the hour be taken advantage of.

Our last Convention marked an era: the dying away of strife and opening of greater chances, the enlargement and extension of inquiry and interest on the part of the great public. This is a very great opportunity. Branches and members alike ought to rise to meet and use all that this will afford. Remember that we are not fighting for any form of organization, nor for badges, nor for petty personal ends, but for Theosophy; for the benefit, the advantage and the good of our fellow-men. As was said not long ago, those of us who follow after and worship a mere organization are making fetishes and worshipping a shell. Unselfishness is the real keynote.

Those of us who still, after years and after much instruction, are seeking and wishing for personal progress or preferment in the occult side of life, are destroying that quality first referred to―of being a living, breathing centre of light and hope for others. And the self-seekers thus also lessen their possible chances in the next life here.

Close up the ranks! Each member a centre; each Branch a centre; the whole a vast, whirling centre of light and force and energy for the benefit of the nation and of the race.

METHODS OF THEOSOPHICAL WORK

IN my experience with the Theosophical Society I have noticed a disposition on the part of some members to often object to the methods of others or to their plans on the ground that they are unwise, or not suitable, or what not. These objections are not put in a spirit of discord, but more often arise merely from a want of knowledge of the working of the laws which govern our efforts.

H.P.B. always said―following the rules laid down by high teachers―that no proposal for theosophical work should be rejected or opposed provided the proposer has the sincere motive of doing good to the movement and to his fellows. Of course that does not mean that distinctly bad or pernicious purposes are to be forwarded. Seldom, however, does a sincere theosophist propose such bad acts. But they often desire to begin some small work for the Society, and are frequently opposed by those who think the juncture unfavorable or the thing itself unwise. These objections always have at bottom the assumption that there is only one certain method to be followed. One man objects to the fact that a Branch holds open public meetings, another that it does not. Others think the Branch should be distinctly metaphysical, still more that it should be entirely ethical. Sometimes when a member who has not much capacity proposes an insignificant work in his own way, his fellows think it ought not to be done. But the true way is to bid good-speed to every sincere attempt to spread theosophy, even if you cannot agree with the method. As it is not your proposal, you are not concerned at all in the matter. You praise the desire to benefit; nature takes care of results.

A few examples may illustrate. Once in New York a most untrue newspaper article about theosophy appeared. It was a lying interview. All that it had in it true was the address of an

official of the T.S. It was sent by an enemy of the Society to a gentleman who had long desired to find us. He read it, took down the address, and became one of our most valued members. In England a lady of influence had desired to find out the Society's place but could not. By accident a placard that some members thought unwise fell into her hands noticing an address on theosophy in an obscure place. She attended, and there met those who directed her to the Society. In the same town a member who is not in the upper classes throws cards about at meetings directing those who want to know theosophical doctrines where to go. In several cases these chance cards, undignifiedly scattered, have brought into the ranks excellent members who had no other means of finding out about the Society. Certainly the most of us would think that scattering cards in this manner is too undignified to be our work.

But no one method is to be insisted on. Each man is a potency in himself, and only by working on the lines which suggest themselves to him can he bring to bear the forces that are his. We should deny no man and interfere with none; for our duty is to discover what we ourselves can do without criticizing the actions of another. The laws of karmic action have much to do with this. We interfere for a time with good results to come when we attempt to judge according to our own standards the methods of work which a fellow member proposes for himself. Ramifying in every direction are the levers that move and bring about results, some of those levers―absolutely necessary for the greatest of results―being very small and obscure. They are all of them human beings, and hence we must carefully watch that by no word of ours the levers are obstructed. If we attend strictly to our own duty all will act in harmony, for the duty of another is dangerous for us. Therefore if any member proposes to spread the doctrines of theosophy in a way that seems wise to him, wish him success even if his method be one that would not commend itself to you for your own guidance.

HYPOCRISY OR IGNORANCE

THERE are some members of the Theosophical Society who expose themselves to the charges of indulging in hypocrisy or being ignorant about their own failings and shortcomings. They are those who, having studied the literature of the movement and accepted most of its doctrines, then talk either to fellow-members or to outsiders as if the goal of renunciation and universal knowledge had been reached in their case, when a very slight observation reveals them as quite ordinary human beings.

If one accepts the doctrine of Universal Brotherhood, which is based on the essential unity of all human beings, there is a long distance yet intervening between that acceptation and its realization, even in those who have adopted the doctrine. It is just the difference between intellectual assent to a moral, philosophical, or occult law, and its perfect development in one's being so that it has become an actual part of ourselves. So when we hear a theosophist say that he could see his children, wife, or parents die and not feel anything whatever, we must infer that there is a hypocritical pretension or very great ignorance. There is one other conclusion left, which is that we have before us a monster who is incapable of any feeling whatever, selfishness being over-dominant.

The doctrines of Theosophy do not ask for nor lead to the cutting out of the human heart of every human feeling. Indeed, that is an impossibility, one would think, seeing that the feelings are an integral part of the constitution of man, for in the principle called Kama―the desires and feelings―we have

the basis of all our emotions, and if it is prematurely cut out of any being death or worse must result. It is very true that theosophy as well as all ethical systems demands that the being who has conscience and will, such as are found in man, shall control this principle of Kama and not be carried away by it nor be under its sway. This is self-control, mastery of the human body, steadiness in the face of affliction, but it is not extirpation of the feelings which one has to control. If any theosophical book deals with this subject it is the Bhagavad Gita, and in that Krishna is constantly engaged in enforcing the doctrine that all the emotions are to be controlled, that one is not to grieve over the inevitable―such as death, nor to be unduly elated at success, nor to be cast down by failure, but to maintain an equal mind in every event, whatever it may be, satisfied and assured that the qualities move in the body in their own sphere. In no place does he say that we are to attempt the impossible task of cutting out of the inner man an integral part of himself.

But, unlike most other systems of ethics, theosophy is scientific as well, and this science is not attained just when one approaching it for the first time in this incarnation hears of and intellectually agrees to these high doctrines. For one cannot pretend to have reached the perfection and detachment from human affairs involved in the pretentious statement referred to, when even as the words are uttered the hearer perceives remaining in the speaker all the peculiarities of family, not to speak of those pertaining to nation, including education, and to the race in which he was born. And this scientific part of theosophy, beginning and ending with universal brotherhood, insists upon such an intense and ever-present thought upon the subject, coupled with a constant watch over all faults of mind and speech, that in time an actual change is produced in the material person, as well as in the immaterial one within who is the mediator or way between the purely corporal lower man and his Higher divine self. This change, it is very obvious, cannot come about at once nor in the course of years of effort.

The charge of pretension and ignorance is more grave still in the case of those theosophists guilty of the fault, who happen to believe―as so many do―that even in those disciples whose duties in the world are nil from the very beginning, and who have devoted themselves to self-renunciation and self-study so long that they are immeasurably beyond the members of our Society, the defects due to family, tribal and national inheritance are now and then observable.

It seems to be time, then, that no theosophist shall ever by guilty of making pretension to any one that he or she has attained to the high place which now and then some assume to have reached. Much better is it to be conscious of our defects and weaknesses, always ready to acknowledge the truth that, being human, we are not able to always or quickly reach the goal of effort.

CAUTIONS IN PARAGRAPHS

DO not make statements that tend to mix up the Theosophical Society with any religious belief, political theory, or social observance or non-observance.

Beware of the proposition that the rich or those in social life needing theosophy as much as the humbler ranks should therefore have special efforts made for them while they fail or refuse to openly help the Society with their countenance and effort.

Do not be misled by the fancy that special effort to "convert" a scientific celebrity will lead to any great benefit to the theosophical movement, or sufficiently offset the time thereby lost from the general work among those who are ready to listen.

Never cry down the efforts of a sincere member to disseminate theosophy merely because it does not meet your standards of method or propriety.

Always discountenance any proposal to establish a censorship of either literature or effort in theosophical ranks, for such a censorship is against the broad and free platform on which the Society rests.

Suffer not yourself to be annoyed because scientific men claim as their new and original discoveries that which theosophical literature has always claimed: remember we are not

in this movement for glory, but that men shall know the truth regardless of where the credit for discovery is given.

Never forget that a theosophical Branch is for the study of theosophy, and not for discussion upon outside topics.

Let not sentimentality make you fear to bring forward what you believe to be theosophy, even though some persons threaten to leave the ranks because their own fad seems endangered by the strength of your theory; but beware you do not mistake self-assertion in yourself for the strength of your theories.

Be not deluded by the idea that you can do great good by entering a church society in which you do not believe. Theosophy is not benefited by being thrown among those who declare they do not want it.

Beware of the person who offers to sell spiritual science in so many lessons for a sum of money. Expositions by lectures in public of general theosophical principles for an admission fee are proper, but courses of lessons on magic arts, spiritual science, secrets of nature, and the like are eternally improper, emanate from cupidity or undisciplined intellect, and lead to nothing.

Be charitable enough to remember that the theosophist is human, and perhaps has to struggle all the harder with our common failings just because he has entered on the battle with the lower nature.

Do not fancy that because ours is called a brotherhood any exclusion of woman is inferred. English is not the only language on earth, and in many others the same terms describes both feminine and masculine. Theosophy does not concern sex distinctions, and talks more of souls, which are sexless, than it does of the bodies they inhabit.

Carefully avoid confounding Brahmanism with Buddhism, and the religions flourishing outside of India with those of that

country. Buddhism not being the religion of India, confusion of uttered sounds and knowledge results from calling Hindus Buddhists.

Very carefully refrain from confusing Christianity with the religion of Jesus. The latter is not the former, inasmuch as Christianity is split up into over three hundred different sects, whereas Jesus had but one doctrine.

Pay the highest respect to the sermons of Jesus, from the remembrance of the fact that in his discourses he but gave forth once again the old doctrine taught to him by the ancient theosophists of whom he was a disciple.

Do not make the blunder of mistaking the glitter of our civilization for true progress. Weigh fine houses, good clothes, mechanical devices, and universal male suffrage against the poverty, misery, vice, crime, and ignorance which go with the former, before you conclude what is the best civilization.

THEOSOPHICAL DON'TS

THE following suggestions arise from experience and are due to facts in the Theosophical world.

Don't speak or write as if morality and ethics were unknown before H.P.B. wrote the Voice of the Silence. Some of our devoted band have been heard to speak in such a way that hearers thought the speaker meant to convey the idea that only in the Voice or other similar books of ours could be found the high and correct ethics by which one ought to guide his life. Buddhism, Christianity, and all the other religions teach the same morals, and literature is full of it.

Don't say that all the Theosophical doctrines were first given out by the Mahâtmas through their Theosophical chelas. Attributing everything solely to the Mahâtmas is foolish, as it is easily controverted. And do not be forever saying, "We are taught this and are told that." The number of doctrines found mentioned for the first time by the Mahâtmas through H.P.B. are few, extraordinary in conception and scope, and easily recognized.

Don't explain everything by one theory. To wit: do not be so inadequate as to brush off the whole of Spiritualism with one word, "all spooks and shells." You will be wrong if you do so, and the result will be antagonism.

Don't say that science is all wrong and that men of science are materialists. Huxley has done us good service; he has but lately admitted consciousness to be a third factor in the universe, not a part of force and matter; and Spencer has many a good thing in his works. Besides, if you want H.P.B. on the

matter, you can read her words that the truth is to be found in a union of science with occultism.

Don't think or say that phenomena are good steppingstones to Theosophy. They are not, for those who stand upon them will fall from them to their hurt.

Don't run down the spirit of true Christianity, nor imagine that we can get ministers and congregations en masse to change into Theosophists. The true spirit of Christianity, as meant to be taught in the beginning, is doubtless Theosophy, but truth is not aided by running amuck among the faith of a whole people.

Don't say that H.P.B. has been reincarnated unless you know it and are able to prove it. To say you think so is not proof. She may or may not be, and either way the work must go on.

Don't talk as if messages from the Masters are all precipitated on rice paper, the writing incorporated in the paper, and such child's talk, indulged in only by those who do not know. And forget not that precipitation proves only that something was precipitated. It can be done by mediums and by various sorts of occultists.

Don't think or say that the only true occultism is found in the East, or that we must go to the East for it, or that the West has none of it. Remember that the greatest known Adept was a Western woman, a Russian, and that the energy of the lodge of Masters was first expended here in the West in this age. If so, is it not reasonable to suppose that the West has its occultists even though hidden? Recollect also that H.P.B. received in her house in New York before witnesses Western men of occult science who worked wonders there at times. Perhaps it is as has been hinted many a time, that the true thing is to be found in a union of the East and the West. The terms Guru and Chela have been misused so that all too many are looking to India for help, from which they will get but little until the West is itself full of wise students of occultism who know the

meaning of being placed by karma in the West. The fact is, again, that in the East the men are looking to the great Russian woman for the very spiritual help that first shed its rays upon the West unmistakably. Again, there is extant a letter from the Mahâtma K. H. to a Western man wherein it said that he should work in his own land and forget not that Karma so demanded.

Don't teach that vegetarianism is the road to heaven and spiritual growth. Was not the great Nazarene right when he intimated that, the kingdom of heaven being within, it did not come from eating or drinking? And has not our old friend H.P.B. written suggestively that cows and elephants are pure vegetarians? Reflect on the fact that some of the very best people on earth were meat-eaters, and that wicked or gross thoughts are more hurtful than the eating of a ton of flesh. In fact, . . .

THE PATH OF ACTION

THE Mohammedan teacher directs his disciples to tread carefully the razor's edge between the good and the bad; only a hair line divides the false from the true. In this the Asiatic took an excellent illustration, for the "hair line" is the same stroke alif, which, placed in a word, may alter the sense from the true to the false.

In chapter four of the Bhagavad-Gita, entitled, "Jnana-Yog," or the book of the Religion of Knowledge, the blessed Krishna instructs Arjuna upon the nature of action, saying: "Renunciation of and devotion through works, are both means of final emancipation; but of these two, devotion through works is more highly esteemed (by Him) than the renunciation of them," and, "the nature of action, of forbidden action, and of inaction must be well learned. The Path of Action is obscure and difficult to discern."

In ordinary humdrum life these words of Krishna are true enough, but their force is strangely felt in the mind of the devoted student of Theosophy, and especially if he happens to be a member of the Theosophical Society.

That body of investigators has now passed its probationary period, so that, as a whole, it is an accepted chela of the Blessed Masters who gave the impulse that brought it into being. Every member of it, therefore, stands to the whole Society as every fibre in the body of any single chela does to the whole man. Thus now, more than ever before, does each member of the Society feel disturbing influences; and the Path of Action becomes more and more likely to be obscured.

Always existing or coming into existence in our ranks, have been centres of emotional disturbance. Those who expect that

these perturbations ought now to cease and grow less likely to recur, will find themselves mistaken. The increase of interest that is being taken in the Society's work, and the larger number of earnest students who are with us than at any previous period, constitute elements of agitation. Each new member is another nature added, and everyone acts after his own nature. Thus the chances for being discomposed are sure to increase; and it is better thus, for peace with stagnation partakes of the nature of what is called in the Bhagavad-Gita, Tamagunam, or, of the quality of darkness. This quality of darkness, than which there is nothing worse, is the chief component of indifference, and indifference leads only to extinction.

Still another element in this equation that every earnest Theosophist has to solve, and which in itself contains the potency of manifold commotions, is a law, hard to define, yet inexorable in its action. For its clearer comprehension we may say that it is shown in nature by the rising of the sun. In the night when the moon's rays flooded the scene, every object was covered with a romantic light, and when that luminary went down, it left everything in a partial obscurity wherein many doubtful characters could conceal their identity or even masquerade for that which they were not. But on the sun's arising all objects stand out in their true colors; the rugged bark of the oak has lost the softening cover of partial day; the rank weeds can no longer be imagined as the malwa flowers. The powerful hand of the God of day has unveiled the character of all.

It must not be supposed that a record has been kept by any officials, from which are to be taken and published the characters of our members. There is no need of that; circumstances taking place in natural order, or apparently from eccentric motion, will cause us all, whether we will or not, to stand forth for what we are.

Every one of us will have to stop and learn in the cave outside of the Hall of Learning, before we can enter there. Very true that cave, with all its dark shadows and agitating influences, is an illusion, but it is one that very few will fail to

create, for hard indeed to be overcome are the illusions of matter. In that shall we discover the nature of action and inaction; there we will come to admit that although the quality of action partakes of the nature of badness, yet it is nearer to the quality of truth than is that which we have called darkness, quietude, indifference. Out of the turmoil and the strife of an apparently untamed life may arise one who is a warrior for Truth. A thousand errors of judgment made by an earnest student, who with a pure and high motive strives to push on the Cause, are better than the outward goodness of those who are judges of their fellows. All these errors made in a good cause, while sowing good seed, will be atoned by the motive.

We must not then be judges of any man. We cannot assume to say who shall or shall not be allowed to enter and to work in the Theosophical Society: The Masters who founded it, wish us to offer its influence and its light to all regardless of what we may ourselves think; we are to sow the seed, and when it falls on stony ground no blame attaches to the sower.

Nor is our Society for good and respectable people only. Now, as much as when Jesus of Nazareth spoke, is it true that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth, than over ninety-nine just men who need no repentance.

Remembering then, that the Path of Action is obscure and difficult to be discerned, let us beware of the illusions of matter.

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

THE death of H. P. Blavatsky should have the effect on the Society of making the work go on with increased vigor free from all personalities. The movement was not started for the glory of any person, but for the elevation of Mankind. The organization is not effected as such by her death for her official positions were those of Corresponding Secretary and President of the European Section. The Constitution has long provided that after her death the office of Corresponding Secretary should not be filled. The vacancy in the European Section will be filled by election in that Section, as that is matter with which only the European Branches have to deal. She held no position in the exoteric American Section, and had no jurisdiction over it in any way. Hence there is no vacancy to fill and no disturbance to be felt in the purely corporate part of the American work. The work here is going on as it always has done, under the efforts of its members who now will draw their inspiration from the books and works of H.P.B. and from the purity of their own motive.

All that the Society needs now to make it the great power it was intended to be is first, solidarity, and second, Theosophical education. These are wholly in the hands of its members. The first gives that resistless strength which is found only in Union, the second gives that judgment and wisdom needed to properly direct energy and zeal.

"If the present attempt in the form of our Society succeeds better than its predecessors have done, then it will be in existence as an organized, living, and healthy body when the

time comes for the effort of the XXth century. The general condition of men's minds and hearts will have been improved and purified by the spread of its teachings, and, as I have said, their prejudices and dogmatic illusions will have been, to some extent, at least, removed. Not only so, but besides a large and accessible literature ready to men's hands, the next impulse will find a numerous and united body of people ready to welcome the new torch-bearer of Truth. He will find the minds of men prepared for his message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival which will remove the merely mechanical, material obstacles and difficulties from his path. Think how much one to whom such an opportunity is given could accomplish. Measure it by comparison with what the Theosophical Society actually has achieved in the last fourteen years without any of these advantages and surrounded by hosts of hindrances which would not hamper the new leader. Consider all this and then tell me whether I am too sanguine when I say that, if the Theosophical Society survives and lives true to its mission, to its original impulses, through the next hundred years―tell me, I say, if I go too far in asserting that this earth will be a heaven in the twenty-first century in comparison with what it is now!"

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

THEOSOPHY AS A CULT IN INDIA

THE pictures fabricated in our youthful minds, with infinite care by missionary zeal, regarding India, are fast fading away. And, as the unreal image dissolves into the nebulous recesses of the missionary headquarters, the outlines of things as they really are in that country come into view. What reasons these paid servants of the Church had for thus beginning a deception, and for now keeping it up, we need not inquire into. It is sufficient to know that they do so.

The other day, in Brooklyn, N.Y., a returned missionary said, in a public meeting, that the poor Hindus need and are asking for the gospel of the Christians; that the condition of their women is deplorable; and lastly, to cap the climax, that Buddhism never could satisfy the intellectual needs of the people there, that it is fast losing ground, and that now is the time for the good Christian here to step in, pay out his money, and send more men―like the speaker―to bring these poor people into the true fold. Such is the constant cry at every missionary meeting.

In order intelligently to consider the question of Theosophy as a cult in India, it is necessary first to see how much truth there is in the statements we have just quoted.

They are undoubtedly false, and flow either from ignorance or from willful tergiversation. The proposition that Buddhism will not satisfy the needs of the people is a species of trick, because the Hindus do not, except in some few cases, hold to

Buddhism. They are of the Brahmanical and Mohammedan faiths, and of course do not pay any attention to Buddhism. But those who are Buddhists―in Ceylon nearly all the people, and many in India―could never accept Christianity, because the latter is based on as much faith, suppression of intelligence, and miracle as the most corrupt form of Buddhism; while it is well known and accepted among students and thinkers that pure Buddhism is of the highest metaphysical and intellectual character. The experiment only succeeds in cases where, as has been done in Ceylon, the Roman Catholic Church makes converts by adopting and adapting later and popular Buddhist practices and legends as a part of the religion offered to the people, just as was done in the early part of our era, when pagan feasts, fasts, and saints were incorporated into the new religion.

For about the last fifty years, the English government has been giving to the Hindus free education in the colleges which confer degrees; and, if there is anything a Hindu of the better class likes, it is a degree given by a competent college. But these colleges are absolutely unsectarian; while those schools and colleges which the missionaries established are, of course, sectarian, according to the particular sect to which the missionaries belong. Previous to the establishment of these governmental institutions, almost the only way in which Hindus could learn English―absolutely necessary to them from the ever-growing English influences with which so much trade had to be done―was by going to the schools of the missionaries, in which English was taught. Several Hindu merchants have said to me, in India, that that was their only reason for attending those schools, and that they had a feeling of gratitude to the missionaries for the service thus rendered, but that they never did and never could accept their religion. Since the spreading of the governmental colleges, the natives attend there, to the sorrow of the missionaries. But the natives like it better for two reasons: first, because they give degrees under government auspices; and, second, because they are let completely alone in their religious convictions. To all this,

the missionaries have made and are now making violent objection; and each issue of the Epiphany in Calcutta, and other organs in their interest, are full of the matter. They have even gone so far as to try to influence the British government.

Having understood this, let us now pass to another branch of the subject. The young Hindus of whom we have been speaking are, by nature, in possession of metaphysical faculties of the highest order, transmitted to them by heredity, and necessarily cultivated not only by the system of religious teaching, but also by the very structure of the language in which they have to study their religious and philosophical tenets. In Madras, I have given out prizes at Sanskrit schools to little boys of from four to five years of age, as well as to those older. The Sanskrit is not, properly speaking, a dead language; for it is in constant use at any gathering of pandits met for religious or sociologic discussion, and of these there occur many. I remember one which was held at Madras in 1884, to consider the subject of child marriages. The Deputy Collector of Madras, Mr. Ragonath Row, who is also a prominent member of the Theosophical Society in India, came from the meeting to see me, and told me about the discussion, and that it was conducted altogether in Sanskrit. I have also numerous young and old Hindu friends who all read, and can, if needed, speak in Sanskrit.

At the same time, with these changes in the matter of education, there was also going on another change among the young men of India, in that they were beginning to run after and follow English manners and style of thought. They were giving up all hope of reviving Aryan literature, morals, or manners, adopting as much as they might of Western scientific thought in its most materialistic phase. Some of them, deluded by Huxley, Tyndall, Mill, Bain, and others, began to hold to such negations that they believed there was no such thing as Aryan literature or thought. And one of the learned Hindu founders (behind the scenes) of the Theosophical Society said he "went down to Calcutta, and there saw some of the descendants of ancient Aryavarta wearing the philosophical

and mental garb of Western pessimism and Western materialism, boldly asserting that Patanjali was an ancient fool." All the older Hindus deplored this state of things, and vainly longed for a revival of pure Hindu thought and philosophy. The hope seemed indeed vain.

At the same time, here in the West, it was thought by some that Christianity had turned out a failure, leaving the people floundering into agnosticism and all forms of materialism.

At this point, in 1875, the Theosophical Society was formed in New York, with the distinct design in view of benefiting India and the whole of the Western world at the same time. This was its main object, and is expressed in its first declaration, "Universal Brotherhood." The means for accomplishing that were only to be found in India; and, therefore, after it had acquired some corporeal form, its headquarters were transferred to Bombay.

At first, it was viewed by the government with suspicion; for, as Madame Blavatsky was at its head, and she being a Russian, the ridiculous rumor was spread that she was a spy in the pay of the Russian emperor. After a time, that was given up; and the English officials declared that it was no longer tenable, resulting in a real triumph; for many of those high in authority declared that the society was an instrument of great good for India.

As soon as this spy theory was abandoned, the Hindus, heretofore deterred from affiliating, began to join in large numbers; for they saw that it [the Society] really was determined to unearth all that is good in the philosophy, in the religions, and in the sciences of ancient India.

Instead of being engaged, as so many self-styled scientists in England so often declared, in exploiting phenomena or in getting up a new kind of Spiritualism, it was really organizing Buddhist schools in Ceylon, Sanskrit schools in Hindustan, encouraging Mohammedans to see what, if anything, was to be found of truth in the philosophy of the Sufis, and in bringing together, on one platform, men of the most widely diver-

gent creeds for the purpose of finding out the one truth which must underlie all religion.

Since the writing of the preceding article in the April Index, I have been asked by several persons, "Why do you speak so oracularly on the subject of Theosophy as a Cult in India?" If any of the statements in that article has an oracular sound, it is due only to faults in expression, caused perhaps by the writer's profound convictions upon the subject. In consequence of having been in correspondence for over ten years with various learned Hindus, and from personal observations made in India,―not as a foreigner, who is refused intimate relations with the Hindus, but as a theosophist, who, so to say, had known them for years and was entirely in their confidence,―the writer had arrived at certainty as to the facts in the case. This feeling naturally produces what some call dogmatic statement and what others feel to be oracular enunciation. But, for all allegations of fact, I can produce evidence in written and printed reports from Indian daily newspapers, the words of others and myself, as well as correspondence.

The Rev. Mr. Ashburner, in the Independent of a recent date, indulged in very congratulatory reflections upon the collapse in India of theosophy since the learned report of the London Psychical Research Society. Mr. Ashburner styles himself a missionary to the heathen of the blessed religion of Jesus the Jew, and pleasantly supposes that because the London expert, in a truly British style, declares that Madame Blavatsky invented the Mahatmas and adepts, therefore the Hindus will now abandon this new delusion called theosophy. This idea, although ridiculous, leads us to a point which ought to be cleared up in our inquiry into the cultivation of theosophy in Hindustan. Theosophy presents itself in one aspect to the Hindu, and in quite a different one to the European and American. In this country and in Europe, the doctrines which have filtered out to the world, through theosophical literature, seem to us new. They are in fact quite novel to us, so they

color our conception of what theosophy is, representing themselves to us to be theosophy. And, as we have nothing in our past, in our literature, or in our ideas like them, it is quite natural that an ignorant missionary, learned in Christian rhetoric, should imagine, when a reputable Englishman declares the Mahatmas to have been evolved from Blavatsky's brain, that therefore there are no Mahatmas, because his first knowledge of them came from her. Even the learned Swedenborg, who saw many things clearly, did not speak of these great Beings. He only said that, "if the Freemasons desired to find the lost word, they must search for it in the deserts of Tibet." However, he did not explain himself; and our only conclusion must be, that in some way he found out that in Tibet exist persons who are so far advanced in knowledge that they are acquainted with that much-sought-for lost word.

The aspect in which theosophy presents itself to the Oriental is quite different from our appreciation of it. He sees in it that which will help him to inquire into his own religion and philosophy. The numerous books which have issued from our various presses here, would make him laugh in their endeavors to lay before readers, subjects which, with him, have been household words for ages. If Marion Crawford's novels, Mr. Isaacs, and Zoroaster, were respectively translated into Persian and Sanskrit or Singhalese, the Hindus, Ceylonese, and Parsees would burst with laughter at such struggling with an ancient plot, as if it were new. So a thousand reports of the Psychical Society would not for an instant shake the faith of Hindus that there are Mahatmas. The word is a common one, derived from two others, meaning together Great Soul. In some parts of India, it grew so common, in the lapse of centuries, that now and then it is used in derision of blusterers or those who are given to placing themselves on a pinnacle. Many Hindus have told me of various Mahatmas whom they had heard of in various parts of India. One lived on an island, another in a forest, another in a cave, and so on. In Bombay, a Hindu related to me a story, whether false or true I know not, of a man whose wife was dying. In despair, he went into

the forest where a Mahatma was said to live, and had the happiness to meet a man of calm and venerable aspect. Convinced that this was the one he had heard of, he implored him to cure his wife. The sage repulsed him; and, in sorrow, he returned home, to find that the wife had suddenly completely recovered at the time when he had been refused by the sage. Next day, he returned to the forest to offer thanks, but the so-called Mahatma had disappeared. This is only one of a thousand such stories, many of them being filled in with details of a highly sensational character, and all of them very old. The very children know that their forefathers believed in Mahatmas or Arhats or Rishees, or whichever be the name, all meaning the same.

If, then, we assume, as some malignant persons have asserted, that Blavatsky, aided by Olcott, introduced this cult into India with a design of mere personal aggrandizement, it must be further admitted that they displayed a deep knowledge of Indian life and manners in thus adopting the Mahatmas. But neither of them can be proved to have been in India before 1878. Certainly, Olcott had, up to that year, to my certain knowledge, but a limited knowledge of the subject.

Yet at the same time there were many Brahmins who had about given up beliefs in Mahatmas now; for they said, "This is Kali Yuga (the dark age), and no Mahatmas will work with men until the next yuga." So, of course, they, while thoroughly appreciating the object which theosophy had in the revivification of Aryan thought, remained agnostics as to Arhats and Mahatmas being in the society. Others had never lost their faith in them; and a great body of Hindus, unknown before the advent of the society, for years had had personal knowledge of those great beings, had been in their company, and now have, in several instances, publicly declared their belief. Some of these declarations are contained in protests published in India, deprecating the constant degradation of the names of their teachers. To this last class belonged a Brahmin friend of mine, who said to me, in Central India,

"I have been for fifteen years personally convinced of the existence of Mahatmas, and have had messages from them." And the class of agnostics mentioned above, is fitly described in a letter, now in print, from a Brahmin holding an official position, running thus:-

Many of my friends, out of sheer love to me, take me to task for being a member of the Theosophical Society. . . . Theosophy means "a science of divine things." . . . The society has no Pope, no Grand Lama, no Saviour, no Mohammed, no Buddha, no Sankara Chariar, no Ramanuja Chariar, no Madhwa Chariar. . . . It is a society for the inculcation of universal brotherhood and its actual practice. Of this society I am a member, and shall continue one so long as the object of the society is not changed, whether I be blamed or pitied or loved in consequence.

Among this class of men, then, the society was hailed as a benefactor just as soon as they became convinced by deeds of the founders, that it was not another European trick for acquiring money, or territory, or power. And, in consequence of the old-time knowledge of the various doctrines which seem new to the Western mind, the Hindu section of our society regards theosophy as a power which has begun to make it respectable once more to be an Aryan who believes in Aryan literature. It rose upon the devoted minds of India as a lamp which would help them and their fellows to unearth the ancient treasures of the golden age, and has now become, for even the young men who had begun to follow the false gods of English money and English culture, a society, the initials of which, "F.T.S.," can be appended to their names as an honorable title.

MADAME BLAVATSKY IN INDIA

THERE are three reasons why I reply to Moncure D. Conway's article in the October ARENA, entitled "Madame Blavatsky at Adyar."

First, I am an old and intimate friend of hers, while Mr. Conway met her but twice according to his own account, and then only for a short time. Second, she has given up her mortal body and cannot reply here to his attacks. Third, because, although his article is given as an account of her, it is, in fact, an attack on the Theosophical Society I had the honor to take part in founding with Madame Blavatsky and others, and with the history of which in all its details I am well acquainted, from having been one of its secretaries ever since its organization in 1875.

The October article covers twelve pages, and is mainly a rehashing of old charges made by other people, and about which Mr. Conway has no personal knowledge whatever, besides a good deal of matter in which the mistakes are too evident to mislead anyone who has really given the theosophical movement any study.

Let us observe in the beginning the qualifications which Mr. Conway possesses as a reporter. He says Adyar is fifteen miles from Madras when at the most it is only six, and the extent of Madras itself is only fifteen. "Palms" are described as being at the entrance, whereas the only palms on the place were a few weak ones at the seaside of the compound and where the road did not run. No doubt the "palms" he speaks

of are to give a better color to the luxuriousness of the self-sacrifice he does not approve. In the next few lines the "guru" of a chela is described as a "mahatma" (page 580), a definition invented solely by the critic. In this little scene he gives the command of a mahatma as the reason for a Hindu's not shaking his hand; all travelers know that the Hindus do not shake hands with one another, much less with strangers; Mr. Conway must have observed this as I did when there, if he met any but the official English. His description of the "shrine," on page 582, is so far removed from fact that I am constrained to doubt the accuracy even of his recollection of what was said to him by Madame Blavatsky. I know the shrine well, have examined it fully, and just after he was there, and not only that, but by my own orders it was taken from the wall, and its contents removed soon after he left India, and in that removal I took chief part just before the famous so-called exposé, in the Christian College magazine. According to Mr. Conway "it reached nearly to the ceiling," the fact being that it was a wall cabinet and nothing more, and its total height from bottom to top was not four feet, which would be a very low ceiling. Its doors were painted black and varnished, but his recollection attributes to it a decoration of "mystical emblems and figures," perhaps to accord with what he thought a theosophical shrine out to have. "The interior of the shrine was inlaid with metal work," he says, and evidently he saw it but once in haste. I saw it for several days together, examined it fully, took charge of it, with my own hands removed the objects within it, and instead of its interior being inlaid with metal work it was lined with common red plush. The description given by Mr. Conway makes a better newspaper story, however. Painting the interior with his imagination, he says there was a Buddha there, which is not so; and then occurs the crowning absurdity that the portrait of Koothumi "holds a small barrel-shaped praying machine on his head." This is a curious instance of hypnotism and bad memory mixing facts, for there was a tibetan prayer wheel in the shrine, but it lay on the bottom shelf, and the picture of

Koothumi which I then removed, gives him with a fur cap on. It sounds like a bad dream that the learned doctor had. But further, and this is a case when any good journalist would have verified the mere facts of record, he says, speaking of the effect of the scandals on the branches of the society in India, that the seventy-seven branches there in 1879 are now (in 1891) "withering away under the Blavatsky scandal," the fact being that now over one hundred and fifty branches exist there which pass resolutions of high respect for her memory, and continue the work she incited them to begin, included in that being a growing correspondence with the increasing membership in America, and the helping forward of a special department of the society's work, especially devoted to the translation of their old books and the procurement of manuscripts and treatises that Max Müller and others wish to have. If Mr. Conway had never before taken part in attacks upon Madame Blavatsky and the society, some inaccuracy might be attributed to inexperience; but as the case is otherwise, one is led to the conclusion that some other motive than zeal for fact must have stimulated the present article. And it may interest him to know that Madame Blavatsky herself said to me of him after he had seen her:―"The gentleman is in his decadence, with a great disappointment hanging over his life; from this point he will find himself of less and less importance in the world, and you will find him at last for a paltry pay attacking over my shoulders the cause you wish to serve," a part of which we know to be now true.

Since I am trying to defend a friend who has passed beyond the veil, it is impossible to overlook the statement made in the note on page 582 of Mr. Conway's article, in which he leaves the impression that that article is his first presentation of the matter to the public; indeed, such is his declaration, the only indefiniteness being the omission of the names of the "friends of Madame Blavatsky" to whom he mentioned the affair so as to give them the chance of replying. The omission of their names now prevents my having their testimony, for I know all her friends and they are a sort who

would not fail to give me the facts. It may have escaped Mr. Conway's recollection that after he had made his visit to Adyar and had his conversation with Mme. Blavatsky, he wrote a long account of it to the Glasgow Herald published in Glasgow, Scotland, in which he showed the same spirit as in the one under review, and that I wrote a reply to it for the same paper, which the paper published: and that later when I was in London on my way to Adyar he met Colonel Olcott and myself after one of the services in South Place Chapel, in which he had advertised himself as to speak on theosophy and spiritualism, but wholly omitted any reference to theosophy when he saw us there; and that our conversation was in the underground railroad, in the course of which he referred to the articles in the Glasgow Herald, and exhibited the same vexation of which he accuses himself in the present one at page 581, when he found that the shrine had been permanently closed just three days before he got there. Perhaps the "glamour" of Adyar still lingers around his recollections.

I come now to the particular incident around which the October article revolves. It is the explanation supposed to have been offered by Madame Blavatsky of all her life and work to a visitor who told her he wanted an explanation to give to his flock (in South Place Chapel) who were always ready to admit facts. From his account it is clear that he did not inquire of her as to the philosophical doctrines of man and mind, and theories as to cosmogenesis she had been engaged in promulgating, nor of the objects and purposes of the Theosophical Society to which her life was devoted, and then as now an active body working not only in India but in Europe and America. His sole inquiry was about paltry phenomena that she never spoke of with any particular interest. For, he goes on: "Now,' I said, 'what do these rumors mean? I hear of your lifting teapots from beneath your chair, summoning lost jewels, conversing with Mahatmas a thousand miles away."

If this is all that passed―and no more is given of questions by him―there is not a word in it relating to philosophy nor

any of the many other important subjects upon which Madame Blavatsky had been for long before assiduously writing and talking. Her reply therefore attaches solely to the question. It is given by him: "It is glamour, people think they see what they do not. That is the whole of it." This reply has naught to do with the existence of Mahatmas, nor with their powers, nor with the theories of cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis given by her, nor with the aims and work of her society, nor with her views as to many hidden and natural powers of man, on which she had before that spoken and written much. It simply offered an explanation she had never failed to give, included in the "glamour." This power of producing glamour is now well known to the French and other schools of hypnotists, and it is a correct explanation of many of her very best and most wonderful phenomena. It is the explanation of numerous extraordinary feats to be witnessed in India. By its means a letter could be brought into the room and deposited anywhere without a person present seeing either letter or messenger. For grant the power, and the limits of the exercise cannot be fixed. Take the production of a teacup from beneath a chair where a moment or two before it had not been. The same power of glamouring would enable her to leave the room, still seeming to be present, to procure a teacup from the adjoining apartment and then to produce it suddenly from beneath the chair, all the while the spectators thinking they saw her sitting there. This is one of the possibilities of the realm of glamour, and admitted by Mr. Conway in my presence as I shall show. Glamour is only another name for hypnotism, partly understood by Dr. Charcot and his pupils, but fully known to Madame Blavatsky, who was taught in a school were the science is elaborated with a detail that western schools have not yet reached to but eventually will. And this she has often asserted of many of her own phenomena, for she has deliberately called them "psychological frauds."

I have said Mr. Conway admitted in my presence something germane to this inquiry. It was in his own South Place Chapel where I went in 1884 to hear him discourse on a

subject which he advertised to be upon spiritualism and theosophy. For some reason unknown to me, he omitted all reference to theosophy, but dwelt at length on his experiences in India with fakirs, jugglers, and yogis. He related with a sober mien marvels of magic, of hypnotism, or of fraud that outshine anything he has criticised in Madame Blavatsky. Among those, he told of seeing an old fakir or yogi make coins dance about a table at the word of command and following Mr. Conway's unexpressed wish, there being no connection between the operator and the table, as he averred. "This," he said, "is very wonderful. I do not know how to explain it. But some day I will go back and inquire further." And yet Madame Blavatsky explained it for him at the Adyar conversation.

I do not think, as some have said, that she was making fun of him by thinking: "You soft-headed and innocent old goose, do you really suppose that I am going seriously to answer a person who proclaims in advance his mission here as you did and expects to see me execute phenomena whereon he may write a sermon for his London babes?"¹ On the contrary, she was ready to go on with him further if he chose to proceed beyond mere marvels that she had often dubbed with the name of glamour before he came. But he went no further, and calmly proceeded, plodding along with grotesque solemnity that is refreshing in the extreme.

In fine, all that Mr. Conway's somewhat labored article amounts to is that we are asked by him to believe that after Madame Blavatsky had duped some of the brightest minds of both West and East, and secured a firm hold on their loyalty, reverence, and affection,―including many hundred Hindus of learning and wide experience in their own land of marvels, as they have told me with their own lips―had succeeded in establishing a system of imposture upon which, if we accept his view, she must depend, she was ready in a casual conversation to confess all her acts to be frauds and to throw herself on the mercy of Mr. Conway merely because he

preached in South Place Chapel and had a congregation―hardly. If confession,―"an unwitnessed confession" as he calls it,―were her determination at the interview, it is interesting to ask why she did not confess to him that there were trap-doors and sliding panels to help phenomena? But there was no such confession, no trap-doors, no frauds.

On p. 587, Mr. Conway says: "The most curious thing about this turbaned spiritualism is its development of the Koothoomi myth. I asked Sir. W. W. Hunter, Gazetteer-General of India, and other orientalists about the name of this alleged Mahatma or Rahat (Sic), and they declared Koothoomi to be without analogies in any Hindu tongue ancient or modern."

It is easy to lose one's self in the ocean of Indian literature with its vast number of names, so perhaps Mr. Conway can be forgiven. But the name of Sir. W. W. Hunter is not that of a great orientalist, and those of the "other orientalists" whom he asked are not given, so they must be considered of doubtful authority. On turning to The Classical Dictionary of India (by Mr. John Garrett, Director of Public Instruction at Mysore, India, printed in 1871 at Madras, Higginbotham & Co.) under K we find,

The name is the same as the one spelled "Koothoomi" in The Arena, for the double "o" stands for "u".

Proceeding with his peculiar analysis of this "myth," Mr. Conway says: "I was assured on good authority that the name was originally 'Cotthume' and a mere mixture of Ol-Cott and Hume, Madame Blavatsky's principal adherents." The evident recklessness of statement here is noticeable and inexcusable. No name of the "good authority" is given; certainly it was not Mr. Sinnett who first gave publicity to the name Koothoomi; perhaps it was some learned orientalist who never read John Garrett's book. But as I knew H. P. Blavatsky well in 1874, before she met Messrs. Sinnett or Hume, and before

this name―now dubbed a myth―was ever given to the public, I may be allowed to say that it was not originally "Cotthume," but was one that I and others in New York were perfectly familiar with through his correspondence with us at that time on matters connected with the society. And when Mr. Sinnett published his Esoteric Buddhism, giving this name to the world, we all felt that ribaldry would follow. I wrote then to Madame Blavatsky expressing regret that the name was given out. To this she replied:

Do not be alarmed nor grieved. The name was bound to come out some day, and as it is a real one its use instead of the New York substitute is better, because the latter was unreal. The mud that you fear is now to be thrown at sacred names will not hurt them, but inevitably will fly back in the faces of those who throw it.

The remainder of the article shows an utter lack of acquaintance with the theosophical movement which has been classed by the great Frenchman Emile Burnouf, as one of the three great religious movements of the day. Mr. Conway appears to think it depends on Colonel Olcott, ignoring the many other persons who give life to the "propaganda." Such men as Mr. A.P. Sinnett, and women like Mrs. Annie Besant, are left out of account, to say nothing of the omission to notice the fact that in each of the three great divisions of the globe, Europe, Asia, and America, there is a well-organized section of the society, and that there is a great body of literature devoted to the work. This was so well known to others that shortly before her death an article by Madame Blavatsky was printed by the North American Review, describing the progress of the movement. But Mr. Conway would have us suppose that Colonel Olcott's few published speeches represent us or indicate our future, and he gravely advises that headquarters should be fixed in Ceylon, so that through a union with Buddhism, a lasting vitality may be assured. This can never be done. The society has had for several years a headquarters in Ceylon, just as it has others in London, New York, San Francisco, and Madras, but it is not, nor is it to be, a Buddhist society. A slight review of its literature, emanating from those

centres, would have shown this to Mr. Conway, and perhaps enabled him to give us a better and broader article. Again, the interest it has excited in England makes the last sentence of his article, "If theosophy is to live, it must 'take refuge in Buddha' " a stale, emaciated joke. The convention of the society in London, in July last, attracted over twelve hundred people to a public meeting at Portman Rooms, and later St. James Hall and St. George's were crammed with people, including such men as Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Justice Pollock, to hear Mrs. Annie Besant lecture as a theosophist on "Reincarnation," while her lecture on theosophy at the Democratic Club brought such a crush that doors and windows were pressed in. All of this was the subject of newspaper reports, column after column having been devoted to it, with an immediate exhaustion of morning editions. It seems more likely that theosophy will "take refuge" in London than in "Buddha."

Having now directly answered Mr. Conway's article I will take advantage of the opportunity to append some facts directly known to myself, about the "shrine" and the rooms at Adyar.

I went to Adyar in the early part of the year 1884, with full power from the president of the society to do whatever seemed best for our protection against an attack we had information was about to be made in conjunction with the missionaries who conducted the Christian College at Madras. I found that Mr. Coulomb had partly finished a hole in the wall behind the shrine. It was so new that its edges were ragged with the ends of laths and the plaster was still on the floor. Against it he had placed an unfinished teak-wood cupboard, made for the occasion, and having a false panel in the back that hid the hole in the wall. But the panel was too new to work and had to be violently kicked in to show that it was there. It was all unplaned, unoiled, and not rubbed down. He had been dismissed before he had time to finish. In the hall that opened on the stairs he had made a cunning panel, opening the back of a cupboard belonging to the "occult room." This was not finished and force had to be used to make it open, and then

only by using a mallet. Another movable panel he also made in the front room, but even the agent of the psychical society admitted that it was very new. It was of teak, and I had to use a mallet and file to open it. All these things were discovered and examined in the presence of many people, who then and there wrote their opinions in a book I provided for the purpose, and which is now at headquarters. The whole arrangement was evidently made up after the facts to fit them on the theory of fraud. That it was done for money was admitted, for a few days after we had completed our examination the principal of the Christian College came to the place―a thing he had never done before―and asked that he and his friends be allowed to see the room and the shrine.

He almost implored us to let him go up, but we would not, as we saw he merely desired to finish what he called his "exposure." He was then asked in my presence by Dr. Hartmann what he had paid to Coulomb for his work, and replied, somewhat off his guard, that he had paid him somewhere about one hundred rupees. This supports the statement by Dr. Hartmann (made in print), that Coulomb came to him and said that ten thousand rupees were at his disposal if he could ruin the society. He merely exaggerated the amount to see if we would give him more to be silent.

The assailants of H.P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society have ever seemed to be beset by a singular fatuity. It seems that they must, as it were by force, deny all accepted laws of motive and of life in judging these things, explaining the conduct of members of the society on principles the reverse of any ever known to human beings, facts as plain as noonday being ignored, and other facts construed on theories which require the most tremendous credulity to accept. They perceive no fine impulse, and laugh at the idea of our desiring to give a basis for ethics although not a word in all the writing of Madame Blavatsky shows her or us in any other light.

THE SO-CALLED EXPOSÉ OF MADAME BLAVATSKY

Will you give me a little space in your valuable paper for a few words regarding the so-called exposé of Madame H. P. Blavatsky, and the report of the Society for Psychical Research of London upon theosophic phenomena?

It must not be forgotten that, first, the investigation was self-constituted, and not requested by the Theosophical Society; and, secondly, that it related to a part of the history of theosophy which is not of great importance, nor dwelt on much by its members. We are a society devoted to Universal Brotherhood and Philosophy. It was true that Col. Olcott, the President, related to Mr. Hodgson nearly all the phenomena he had ever seen; but that was only injudicious, for they were not performed publicly nor for the public.

Now, I was the third person engaged in founding the society here, in 1875. Have been very active in it ever since. Went to India, via London, in 1884. And yet Mr. Hodgson did not interrogate me, nor did he get the facts he relates in his report at first hand.

He says, among other things, that "Mr. Judge, an American, was at Adyar, and was not allowed to see the shrine or its room." This is false. I went to India expressly to be concerned in the coming exposure by the Coulombs, and I took charge of everything the moment I arrived there. I had the final and exhaustive examination made. I myself removed the

shrine to an adjoining room, from which that night it disappeared. This was months before Hodgson arrived in India. If he saw what he thought was a part of the shrine, it was a joke put on him by Dr. Hartmann, who would be pleased to lead such a wild investigator into a trap. No part of it was retained by Hartmann.

Again, he describes a hole in the wall behind the shrine. There was none, and he gets it all at second hand. There was an unfinished opening in the second wall, behind the shrine, having jagged projections of lath ends all around it,―just as Coulomb had to leave it, when we stopped him. The cupboard put up against it was unfinished, and the false door thereof could only be opened with mallet and pryer. All this was Coulomb's concoction, ready to be opened to Missionary Patterson at the proper time. But the proper time never arrived, and I will tell you why. I was in Paris in April, 1884; and, while there, a message was received―in the very way which Hodgson thinks he has exploded,―informing us that the Coulombs had begun operations, and that, unless someone went and stopped them, they would get their traps finely finished, with a due appearance of age and use to carry out the conspiracy. So I started for Adyar, with full authority. But, while on the way, the people had received there a similar intimation, so that I found the Coulombs just out of the place when I arrived. At once, a register was opened there. Over three hundred people examined the place, who signed their names to a declaration of the condition and appearance of things; and then a resolution prohibiting further prying by the curious was passed. The very next day Missionary Patterson, expert Gribble & Co., came to examine. It was too late. The law was already in existence; and Mr. Gribble, who had come as an "impartial expert," with, however, a report in full in his pocket against us, had to go away depending on his imagination for damaging facts. He then drew upon that fountain.

I tell you, Mr. Editor, the report of Hodgson is only half done work. No account has been taken of the numerous letters received by me and others, during these years between 1874

and 1884, from various adepts, under circumstances entirely free from Blavatskyism. And he has failed to get the evidence regarding things at Adyar, of the only person who went there free from excitement, and who remained cool while the rest were wild. An experience of ten years had placed my mind where the puerile traps of missionaries, or resemblances of letters from adepts to Blavatsky's writing, could not affect it. For I will divulge to you this, sir, that, if an adept wanted to write to you, the curious circumstance might be found that the writing would resemble your own. I once saw a message thrown upon the leaf of a book; and it was in the handwriting of him holding it, who was as much amazed as any one else.

One word more. Mr. Hodgson's argument on the evidence proceeds thus: Damodar says, in a separate examination, that the figure of the adept "went over a tree and disappeared," while Mohini says, "The figure seemed to melt away." Ergo, they lie, because they disagree as to the disappearance. This is sheer folly. Then he goes through what happened in Paris when I was present, asking Mohini and Keightley if a man might not have entered the window. They had forgotten the window. I say the window was in my room; and its height from the stone courtyard was over twenty feet, with no means of reaching by climbing.

Finally, I received in Paris several letters from American friends, ignorant of adepts; and inside were pencilled notes in the familiar handwriting which Hodgson has exploded and proved "fraudulent."

The report is valuable as a contribution to history; and when Mr. Hodgson has gained same acquaintance with the several adepts, of whom he does not dream, who are engaged with the society, he and your readers may be pleased to revise conclusions, as science has so often been compelled to do.

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AS RELATED TO BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM

The subjoined circular has been sent by me to as many Brahmins as I could reach. I have purposely used the words "Brahmins of India" in the title because I hold to the view of the Vedas and the ancient laws that the Brahmin is not merely he who is born of a Brahmin father. In America lack of accurate knowledge respecting Indian religions causes a good deal of misapprehension about Brahmanism and Buddhism, as very many think Buddhism to be India's religion, whereas in fact it is not, but, on the contrary, the prevailing form of belief in India is Brahmanism. This necessary distinction should be remembered and false notions upon the subject dissipated as much as possible. Buddhism does not prevail in India, but in countries outside it, such as Burmah, Japan, Ceylon, and others. The misconception by so many Americans about the true home of Buddhism if not corrected may tend to cause the Brahmins to suppose that the T.S. here spreads abroad the wrong notion; and no form of religion should be preferred in the T. S. above another.

TO THE BRAHMINS OF INDIA

In the English Theosophical magazine, Lucifer, for the month of February, 1893, is an admirable article by Rai B. K. Laheri of Ludhiana, Punjab, in which he asks his fellow Theosophists to remember that no religious form of belief should be prominently brought forward or disparaged by members of the Theosophical Society, and his words appeared at the very time I was contemplating a fraternal letter to you to show you that that Society is not engaged in any attempt to bring forward the Buddhist religion. I was the pupil and intimate friend of H. P. Blavatsky who founded the Theosophy Society; I

took part with her in its first organization; I was conversant with her sleepless devotion and untiring zeal in the work she wanted that Society to do, which was to follow out the plan laid down for it by some of your own Indian Rishees, the Mahâtmas who were her Gurus; I was told by her in the very beginning of that work that her object as directed by her Guru was to bring to the attention of the West the great truths of philosophy contained in the old books and thought of India; I know that her first friends in the work in your country, even before she left this one, were Indians, Brahmins, sons of Aryavarta: hence my sensitiveness to any misapprehension by you of its purposes or of its supporters can be easily understood by you. I am not a Christian nor a member of any religious body; as I was born out of India in this incarnation I could not be a Brahmin under your present laws; but if I am anything I am a follower of and believer in the Vedas; I have therefore a peculiarly deep interest in the philosophy and religious literature of the Indian Aryans, am in strong sympathy with its convictions and spiritual quality, and have in all ways, but especially for the last seven years in my own magazine, the PATH, labored constantly to bring its treasures to the attention of students in this Western World.

Having, then, this triple devotion,―to the teaching of Indian sages, the ideals of the Messenger of your own Rishees, and the welfare of the Theosophical Society, it will be evident to you why the evil so strongly felt by my honored Brahmin co-worker, Bro. Laheri, and by myself should lead me, as an individual and as Vice-President of the T. S., to address as many of you as these words can reach. The evil is this: that a suspicion is spreading through the Brahmin community that the Theosophical Society is losing its impartial character as the equal friend to all religions and is becoming distinctly Buddhistic in its sympathies and affiliations. And the evil is not a mere mistake as to fact: it is evolving the practical consequences that interest in the Society diminishes among its natural friends in Brahmanism, that they hesitate to enter its membership or coöperate in its work, and that they withhold

the aid without which the priceless treasures of their literature, so indispensable to the efforts we Theosophists are making to throw light upon the great problems of existence now agitating the Western mind, and thus unite East and West, cannot be used in the spiritual mission the ancient Rishees have approved. In brief, Brahmins will not sustain the Theosophical Society if they believe it a Buddhistic propaganda; nor can they be expected to. No more could Christians, Mahammedans, or Parsees.

Although, as I am unreservedly convinced, this evil is due to misapprehension, it must none the less have had some cause to originate it. I believe this cause to have been threefold. First, the name Esoteric Buddhism given to one of our books. This book, as many of you know, was the first important attempt to bring the truths of real Indian spiritual philosophy to the knowledge of Europe and America. But it was not Buddhism. It was first named Fragments of Occult Truth, and might just as properly have been published with the title Esoteric Brahmanism. Its enormous circulation and influence, both on a constant increase, show the readiness of the Western mind for just this teaching. But its title, adopted from lack of a more accurate term at the time, has naturally led many to suppose it an exposition of mere Buddhism, although its author, Mr. Sinnett, has been at pains to explain the contrary and Madame Blavatsky has also pointed out the mistake.

Second, the well-known membership in the Buddhist Church of Col. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society, and his earnest efforts to unite the two schools of Buddhism, as well as to popularize their teaching and to restore the temple at Buddha-Gaya. And yet you must remember that Col. Olcott was himself invested by Brahmin authorities with the Brahminical thread, the highest possible evidence of confidence in his character, and that he has recently lectured with enthusiasm on the essential unity of the inner teachings of Buddha with your own religion. Nor should any of us forget that any personal predilections for his own faith are as much the right of the President as of any private member of the So-

ciety; and that the very Constitution of that Society, the Constitution he himself was active in shaping, forbids the identification of the Society by any officer or member with his personal beliefs in either politics or religion. Those of you who know Col. Olcott must be aware how utterly he would repudiate any wish, or even willingness, to thus abuse his official station.

Third, the incautious remarks of Buddhist members of the Society. No doubt such have at times been made, and in the warmth of personal zeal or in momentary forgetfulness of the scrupulous impartiality a true Theosophist owes to all other lovers of truth, our Buddhist friends have occasionally used comparisons which were unwise. Yet even here we need remembrance that absolute fidelity to the highest ideal, ceaseless prudence in speech and pen, total faultlessness as to tact and wisdom, are not vouchsafed to any body of religionists or to any individual of them. In this, as in other departments of human conduct, there will be lapses of discretion, and it would be unfair to refuse to an inconsistent F.T.S. the allowance we concede to an inconsistent citizen or an inconsistent moralist. Certainly it would be unfair to antagonize the Society because same of its members proved defective in its spirit.

It is my conviction, then, that the suspicion which has thus interfered with the Society's work and impaired your own interest in it has no real basis. And I think you will share it if you recall such additional facts as these:―the explicit statements of the Society in its Constitution; the absolutely unsectarian spirit and proclamations of its great Head, Madame Blavatsky; the total freedom from sectarian affiliation exhibited in the actual conduct of the Society; the whole-souled devotion to its mission of many, both in East and West, who are not Buddhists in belief; the eager effort by many after all the light and truth your invaluable literature contains; the unqualified welcome given by Western Theosophists to such of your co-believers as they have been privileged to meet in their own lands. And possibly you may give weight to the unreserved assurance from myself, who have been close to Madame

Blavatsky from the first and in constant conference and cooperation with her, an active worker in the Society and familiar with its history and genius, that it has not been, is not, and is most unlikely to become the organ of any sect or faith, the thing essential to its operations, nay, even to its existence, being the most absolute catholicity of thought and sympathy and respect. And I may go further, assuring you also that no one would more immediately, sternly, uncompromisingly, ceaselessly resist the contrary policy than would I. I use these words in their fullest significance.

And so the purpose of this letter is to invite a revival of your confidence in the Theosophical Society. In many of you it has never declined. Where it has done so I would restore it. In my own country and in Europe the interest in the work of the Theosophical Society and in Indian philosophy and thought has had an expansion in the last few years which is simply amazing. I can hardly give you adequate idea of the change in the press, in public sentiment, in private study. The Society itself is growing steadily. In America we have seventy-three Branches and shall have seventy-five before this reaches you. Only one is really moribund. This means an increasing zeal for Oriental truth. More expositions of Eastern philosophy are demanded. The three editions I myself published of the Bhagavad-Gita have been exhausted, and a fourth is just coming out. Ancient Aryan ideas and views of life are permeating the land and moulding the convictions of its people. We need help to increase and fix them. Much of this can come only from yourselves and others in India. By your own identification with the Society you can strengthen it for its local work, aiding it to dissolve the barriers between religions and sects and to enliven fraternal feeling through all, assisting in the attempt to uplift higher ideals among your countrymen. And if you cannot join the Society, you can help it by countenancing its work. On our behalf you can transmit those valued treatises which throw light on the great problems of destiny which concern us and you alike, and can thus take part in the truly philanthropic work of giving truth to those

who need and ask it. We who are, with you, fellow-seekers after light and aspirants after progress know the joy of sharing our treasures with the sincere, and we invite you to give us more towards such sharing. Like you we are workers in the Rishees' cause, and we seek the most efficient aids in that work. If you do not give this aid or if you continue to rest under the wrong impression I have spoken of above, you will interfere with a work that is for the direct benefit of India and of your religion. For our work is meant also to bring the attention of the West to the philosophical and religious truths of the Sacred Books of India, to the end that India may be helped to lift itself up once more to spiritual heights of power and thus in its turn benefit the whole race of man. It is only by teaching the West the soul-satisfying philosophy of the ancient Aryans that we can lead them on as parts of the human family, and as, indeed, perhaps the very nations where some of you may be drawn by Karma to incarnation in some future life. By having a wrong impression of the work of the Society you will be led to speak against it and to throw your powerful influence in the scale opposite to it, and thus very materially hold it back.

I invite you to communicate freely with me in answer to this letter, and to give the letter itself the widest circulation possible among Brahmins. I shall arrange for its translation into a native tongue. And so with respect and sympathy and fraternal spirit, and with the hope that these words may avail to correct an error which has distressed and alarmed me, I am

THE LETTER TO THE BRAHMANS

IN April, 1893¹, an open letter to the Brahmans was sent by William Q. Judge. It called them "Brahmans of India," because its writer holds that there are Brahmans of the past now living in Western bodies, and because the term "Brahman" more properly refers in reality to character than to birth. Copies of the letter were sent all over the T.S. in India. Many criticisms were offered, but none were received pointing to the addition of the words "of India." The letter was translated into Sanscrit, Bengali, and Hindi, and in that form was sent all over India.

Although some F.T.S., without corresponding with the Brahmans to whom the letter was directed, said that it was needless and that no idea existed among the orthodox Brahmans that the T.S. favored Buddhism as against other religions, and although the sender of the letter was chided for it, yet the many letters from the Brahmans who are not in the T.S. all state how glad they were to hear definitely that the T.S. was not to be confounded with a Buddhist propaganda. These letters are in Sanscrit, Hindi, Bengali, and English, and may easily be seen at New York.

In the second place the letter aroused discussion of an important point, for in the West the idea is prevalent that the T.S. is a Buddhist propaganda, and T.S. lecturers have to constantly combat this false notion. It is essential that the public shall not misconstrue us and say that because some doctrines given by Theosophists are Buddhistic therefore the Society is also.

So, carrying out the idea of the Letter to the Brahmans, Bro. Rai B. K. Laheri of Ludhiana, India, himself a Brahman and an F.T.S., went to the great Bharat Dharma Mandala held at Delhi in November, 1893, by the orthodox Brahman

pundits, and laid before them the letter referred to. They discussed it and the T.S., and he reports that they passed resolutions to help the T.S., and showed they were satisfied that the Society is not a Buddhist propaganda. They then separated for their homes, to carry the letter and their own ideas thereon to the remotest corner of orthodox India. This result will of itself justify the letter. Western readers will the better understand when they know that this Mandala is a great orthodox Brahmanical gathering. They will see that the T.S. cannot afford to shut its eyes to the fact that some millions of Hindus do not use English, in which so much of our literature is written, and that it might be well if we could in some way spread our work among them.

The vernacular work of Bellary members is in line with this. It was brought up at last Indian Convention, but so far as the T.S. is concerned it is now in the hands of a committee. Bros. Jagannathiah and Swaminathiah hope to be successful in the Bellary work. Bro. Laheri also will work to the same end, and many Americans are willing to help with needed money. It would be perfectly competent for the American Section to raise funds for a work that might result in awakening a great current in India, leading to a revival of interest among Hindus themselves, to a looking up of MSS, both paper and palm leaf, to that change in India herself which must come so as to supplement fully the Western activity and devotion.

Brahmans are poor. They are disheartened. No one helps them. Old MSS lie rotting away. Despair is around many a Brahman who formerly had pupils whom he fed, for now he cannot feed himself. Western glitter of invention and materialistic thought has drawn off the young, and some hand must be stretched out to help until the willing ones there are able to help themselves. Such help will be given, and even the letter to Brahmans has aroused a hope in the breast of many a man in India. Any one wishing to aid in the matter can address the General Secretary, American Section, or Bro. R. B. K. Laheri, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.

INDIA AND HER THEOSOPHISTS*

I AM moved to say a word, not by way of fomenting controversy, but merely to express my own view about a thing which needs discussion. I distinctly disclaim the right or the desire to criticize the life or manners of the Hindu nation; nor have I any proposals to make for sweeping reforms in their life and manners. What I would direct myself to is the Theosophical movement there in relation to the national character of the Hindu, and to matters connected therewith.

I cannot agree with the statement that the Hindus and Hindu Theosophists are not intellectually active. They are, and always, have been too active, intellectually, altogether and at the expense of some other activities more important. That the peculiar characteristic of the educated Hindu is intellectual activity can hardly be doubted. It is exhibited on all occasions; in hair-splitting dialogues; in endless commentaries; in fine controversies over distinctions; in long explanations; in fact, in every possible place and manner. This is the real difficulty: it was the cause of India's decadence as it has become the obstacle against her rising to her proper place among nations. Too much intellectual activity in a nation like this, living in the tropics, with religion as a heritage and the guide for every act, is sure to lead, in any age, to spiritual pride; and spiritual pride in them then brings on stagnation. That stagnation will last until gradually there arise men of the same nation who, without fear of caste, or favor, or loss, or ostracism, or any other punishment or pain, will boldly bring about the reaction that shall result in the death of spiritual pride and the acquirement of the counterbalancing wheel to pure intellectual activity.

Intellectualism represents the letter of the law, and the letter killeth, while the spirit maketh alive. For seventeen years we have had constant and complete evidence that the above views are correct. The THEOSOPHIST full of articles by Hindus, al-

* Note-The publication of the following article was inadvertently delayed. -H.S.O.

ways intellectual: Lucifer printing similar ones by Hindus; the Path now and then doing the same; articles on mighty themes of abstract scope by Brahmins who yet belong to one of the eighty-four castes of Brahmins. But if the spiritual activity prevailed we would have seen articles, heard orations, known of efforts, to show that a sub-division of the highest of the four castes into eight-four is not sanctioned by the Vedas, but is diametrically against them and out to be instantly abandoned. I should not suggest the destruction of the four castes, as those are national divisions which exist everywhere. The Hindu, however, has the tradition, and the family lines, and the power to restore this disturbed state of things to equilibrium. And until it is restored the day of Aryavarta's restoration is delayed. The disturbance began in the Brahmanical caste and there it must be harmonized first. Spiritual pride caused it and that pride must be killed out.

Here then is the real opportunity for Indian Theosophists. It is the same sort of call that the Christians' Jesus made on the young man whom he told to take up the cross and follow him. No foreigner could do this; no European Secretary could hope to succeed at it unless he were an incarnation of Vishnu. It means loss, trouble, fight, patience, steadiness, altruism, sacrifice. Where then are the Indian Theosophists―most of whom are in the Brahmanical caste―who will preach all over India to the Brahmins to give up their eighty-four divisions and coalesce into one, so that they, as the natural teachers and priests, may then reform the other castes? This is the real need and also the opportunity. All the castes will follow the highest. Just now they all, even to the outcastes, divide and sub-divide themselves infinitely in accordance with the example set.

Have those Indian Theosophists who believed that the Mahatmas are behind the Theosophical movement ever asked themselves why those Masters saw fit to start the Society in America and not in India, the home of the Adepts? It was not for political reasons, nor religious, but simply and solely because of the purely "intellectual activity" and spiritual pride

of the Hindu.¹ For the West is every bit as selfish as the East. Those in Europe and America who know of Karma think selfishly on it; those who do not know, live for self. There is no difference in this respect.

In the West there is as much to be fought and reformed as in India, but the problem is differently conditioned. Each hemisphere must work upon itself. But the Western Theosophists finds himself in a very uncomfortable corner when, as the champion of Eastern doctrine and metaphysic, he is required to describe the actual present state of India and her Theosophists. He begins to tell of such a show of Branches, of Headquarters buildings, of collecting manuscripts, of translation into English, of rendering into vernaculars, of learned Pundits in the ranks, of wonderful Yogis, of the gigantic works of long dead Hindus, and then he stops, hoping his interlocutor has been dazzled, amazed, silenced. But pitilessly his examiner pushes, and enquires if it be true that every one of the four castes is sub-divided into nearly hundreds, if women are educated, if educated Hindu women are active in the Society, if the Hindu Theosophists are actively and ever as martyrs working to reform within itself, to remove superstition;if he is showing by the act of personal sacrifice―the only one that will ever bring on a real reform―that he is determined to restore India to her real place? No reply is possible that does not involve his confusion. For his merciless questioner asks if it be true that one of the Mahatmas behind the Society had written to Mr. Sinnett that he had ventured

¹ I dissent from this theory as being unsound. Admitting H.P.B. to have been the agent of the Masters, would not that imply that she and they were unable to foresee and prevent the ignominious collapse of the Cairo attempt of 1871 at founding an Occult Society; although she did her best to make it succeed, and fortified her influence with psychical phenomena quite as strange as those we saw, four year later, at New York? But for that fiasco, a T.S. would have been formed by French, Russians, Arabs and Copts, in one of the moral pest-holes of the world. And, furthermore, although it was actually started at New York, it had fallen almost into the article of death by the close of 1878, when the two Founders [Estela Piscope -of which there were three, HSO did not recognize until very late in his life the importance of Judge, and then only begrudgingly.] sailed for India; and it was not until its dry bones were electrified by the smouldering spiritual life of India that it sprang with resistless rush along the path of its Karmic mission. [Estela Piscope―Actually, it was due to the efforts of Judge that the American section flourished, while the Indian section diminished notwithstanding the efforts of HSO and others.] When Mr. Judge becomes my successor and comes to live in India, he will know more about the Hindus and what is possible and impossible for their would-be reformers. [Estela Piscope―meaning that HSO accepted the caste system of India and thereby obliterated one of the main principles of Theosophy, that of Universal Brotherhood.] He writes now, in all kindness and good intent, in the strain of an Arya Samajist, and as H.P.B. and I did before and just after coming to India and replacing theory with actual knowledge of the Indian situation of affairs. -H.S.O.

down into the cities of his native land and had to fly almost immediately from the vile and heavy atmosphere produced by the psychical condition of his people?² The reply is in the affirmative. No Rishi, however great, can alter a people; they must alter themselves. The "minor currents" that the Adepts can deflect have to be sought in other nations so as to, if possible, affect all by general reaction. This is truth, or else the Mahatmas lie. I believe them; I have seen the evidence to support their statement.

So there is no question of comparison of nations. The Indian Section must work out its own problem. The West is bad enough, the heavens know, but out of badness―the rajasika quality―there is a rising up to truth; from tamogunam comes only death. If there are men in India with the diamond hearts possessed by the martyrs of the ages, I call upon them from across these oceans that roll between us to rise and tell their fellow Theosophists and their country what they ought to know. If such men are there they will, of themselves, know what words to use, for the Spirit will, in that day and hour, give the words and the influence. Those who ask for particularity of advice are not yet grown to the stature of the hero who, being all, dareth all; who having fought many a fight in other lives rejoices in his strength, and fears neither life nor death, neither sorrow nor abuse, and wisheth no ease for himself while others suffer.

²Mr. Judge should not convey the false impression that the Mahatmas find the spiritual aura of India worse than those of Europe and America, for everybody knows that H.P.B. reiterated continually the assertion that the spiritual state of the West was unbearable, and she yearned for our transfer to India. What Mahatma K.H. wrote Mr. Sinnett (vide Occult World. p. 120, 2nd Edition) was that he had seen drunken Sikhs at the Golden Temple, at Amritsar, and heard an educated Hindu vakil declaring Yoga a delusion and the alleged Siddhis impossible; and that he could not endure even for a few days the stifling magnetism "even of his own countrymen"; i.e., that it was as stifling as those of other races. What he found the magnetism of London and New York, has often been described by H.P.B. to a host of witnesses. Mr. Judge has forgotten that every true Yogi of our day finds the same state of things and flies to the jungle to escape it. It is the evil effect of modern education devoid of spiritual stimulus which has made the whole world spiritually leprous as it is.―H.S.O.

NIGAMAGAMA DHARMA SABHA

THIS is the name of a society in India which has also members in the ranks of the Theosophical Society in America and elsewhere. It has been noticed by Col. H. S. Olcott in the Theosophist of April, 1894, under the title of "The Hindu Revival," and it is now well that we should all know the facts more fully. This article will attempt to give some information. Col. Olcott says:

The foregoing remarks are introductory to the notice we are about to make of the founding at the recent Magh Mela at Prayag of a new association of Hindu ascetics and laymen under the title of Nigamagama Dharma Sabha. Our theosophical colleagues Rai B. K. Laheri and Pandit Jagneshwar Mukhapadaya are among the promoters and most active managers of this important movement, and are thus forging one more link in the chain of sympathy which ought to bind every wellwisher of the Aryan religion to the cause of theosophy.

Since the adoption of the above rules nearly five hundred Sadhus, Brahmacharyas, and pandits have signed for membership.

Strange as it may seem to some, this is an American movement, and was begun about January, 1893. Feeling that such a society should be started, I wrote to Brother Laheri and asked him to aid me in doing it, I promising on my part to raise money as I was able for helping on the work, and a little society was begun under a different name. Brother Laheri took hold of it at once, and after consulting with some pandits suggested that the name be altered to the present one. NIGAMAGAMA DHARMA SABHA. This was agreed to, and one of the rules affecting the West is that members from the West

must be members of the T.S., and they should furnish means and also now and then give other help. One of its first works was the "Letter to the Brahmans," to which many replies were received from India and for which gratitude was expressed. The object of that open letter was to remove from the minds of the Hindus, if possible, the wrong notion that the T.S. was a Buddhist propaganda, so that future work with the aid of the Society might be possible. It had a good effect. Brother Laheri acting for the new society went also, as before noticed, to a great meeting of orthodox Brahmans in India, and after his lecture to them they endorsed the movement of the T.S. Money has been raised in America and sent to India for the N.D.S. with the object of beginning the following as might be possible.

Under (d) it has been proposed to aid effectively the work so long carried on by Jagannathiah and Swaminathiah, F.T.S., at Bellary, India, where they have a small vernacular section and a little journal. It is proposed to them, in a letter sent by me, to include their work in that of the N.D.S. without in any way impeding them or having them alter the name they have adopted. To this they will no doubt agree; and money has already been sent them for their help.

The fact is that N.D.S. is now all over India in some form or other. In the Northwest it is under the guidance of J. Mukerjee, and several Dandiswamis, Brahmacharyas, and Paramahansas are among the members. I am in touch with the orthodox Brahmans in the Punjab and Northwest, and in Madras have the same relation through the Sanmarga Samaj, Bellary. I do not wish to make members at random nor to expend in useless matters the money they our most beloved brothers in America send in love, affection, and sympathy to their poor Hindu brothers. Hundreds of plans will have to be formed and hundred given up as we learn by experience. You have got the best wishes of India for you because you really try to improve her cause; people are simply delighted to see that America sends money through you to help in that.

Now this whole enterprise is for the benefit of the T. S. in India, and is not outside of its work. It was begun privately so as to prevent suspicion and distrust, but now there is no need for keeping it so. It is a fact that while Theosophy is forwarded best in the West by our own methods, those methods will not do for India, and such is the opinion of many Brahmans who know their own land. But help must be extended to them so that they can rise to their feet and help themselves. So the work of the N.D.S. in so far as the West is concerned is to furnish the means and later some of the men, so that under strictly Hindu ways and in the tongues of the land our objects may be forwarded by attempting to arouse a new spiritual aspiration. It is not competent for the T. S. as yet to donate money from its funds for this work, but it is right and proper that members should, if they see fit, give some of their money to it. This they have done, and several have sent me some subscriptions. These of course ought not to limit that which is needed for our own work, and it is not expected that members will cut off from the latter to give to the former, but that the aid given to N.D.S. shall be additional to all other. It is also intended to procure through the N.D.S. such rare palm-leaf manuscripts as will not only be of interest here but also perhaps a means of obtaining funds from those who would not give them to the T.S.

and many given up until at last the best shall be discovered. But the plan of aiding the already-started work at Bellary is for the present permanent. It may result in a printing press there soon or late. American members become such by certificate issued by me under authority of Brother Laheri, and will be informed as the work goes on of its progress. So far, since May 1893, I have received $548.00 and have disbursed $360.00 in drafts to India exclusive of a small bill for needed printing. Any one wishing to know more and to help can address me, as all names in the West have to go through my hands.

THE TRUTH ABOUT EAST AND WEST

MRS. BESANT and others have joined together to try and show that I am attempting to create discord in the Theosophical Society between the East and West. In this case they seem to consider India as the East. I may say myself that I do not consider it the East alone. The charge is made publicly and privately, as well as in a set of resolutions offered by Mrs. Besant and passed at a meeting in India in December. It is based on the fact that in a circular issued by me privately in the E.S.T., I stated the fact that the spiritual crest, the center, of the wave of evolution is in the West and not in the East. A mere sentimental desire to preserve an apparent but not actual peace among the officials of the T. S. has no power to prevent me from stating facts and bringing forward ideas which are of the highest importance to the human family and to the right progress of that part of the Theosophical movement represented by the T. S. The attempt to create discord is on the side of those who take up, for personal ends only, my statement as to the relative position of the East and West―a statement supported by facts, and given also to me by the Masters, who know. This cry against me of fomenting discord is due also to a limited knowledge of the evolutionary wave and tendency, to a mere craze about India, and also to a narrow view of what is included in the term "East."

Of course I must say in the very beginning that if we deny H. P. Blavatsky had any knowledge on this matter and deny that she has brought from the Masters definite statements re-

lating to some matters connected with it which are greatly beyond our knowledge; if we intend to reduce her to the position of an untrained and irresponsible psychic; if it is our purpose to accept her reports of what Masters say only when those agree with our preconceived notions; then of course there will only be a continual and unsettled dispute, inflaming sectional and race feelings, and leading to nothing but strife. But those who exercise calm judgment and try to divest themselves of personal pride, whether natural or acquired, in respect to any race or country; those who are not afraid to look at facts will be able to view this matter in such a way as to see that no discord should arise, and certainly that it is not intended by me to create any.

Let us once for all give up the notion that the East is India. India is but a small part of it. There are China, Japan, Persia, Arabia, Turkey, Russia in Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Ceylon, and other parts. Tibet is a large country, and the place where it was constantly said by H.P.B. the Masters are, if anywhere. India has been regarded carelessly as "the East" among Theosophists, because it is under English rule and hence more heard of than other parts. Were Tibet open and under English or French rule, we would speak of it as the East quite as much as, if not more than, we have done of India.

And when we examine into what, if anything, India has done for the great East of which she is a part, we find that for hundreds of years she has done nothing whatever, and apparently has no intention of doing anything. Her dominant religion―Brahmanism―is crystallized and allows for no propaganda. Other nations may die in their sins, unless, perchance, they are fortunate enough to be born among the Brahmans for good conduct.

Mrs. Besant has referred to the sayings of the Masters about India to support her assertion that I am trying for discord. Let us refer to the published record which is in The Occult World,

I had come for a few days, but now find that I myself cannot endure for any length of time the stifling magnetism even of my own countrymen. [Italics mine.―J.] I have seen some of our proud old Sikhs drunk and staggering over the marble pavement of their sacred temple. . . . I turn my face homeward tomorrow (p. 120-121)

Imagine, then, that since we are all convinced that the degradation of India is largely due to the suffocation of her ancient spirituality. . . . But you know, as any man who has read history, that patriots may burst their hearts in vain if circumstances are against them. Sometimes it has happened that no human power, not even the fury and force of the loftiest patriotism, has been able to bend an iron destiny aside from its fixed course, and nations have gone out like torches dropped into the water in the engulfing blackness of ruin. Thus, we who have the sense of our country's fall, though not the power to lift her up at once, cannot do as we would. . . . (p. 126)

The present tendency of education is to make them (Hindus) materialistic and to root out spirituality. With a proper understanding of what their ancestors meant by their writings, education would become a blessing, whereas it is now often a curse (p. 136).

He finds the magnetism of his countrymen too stifling to be borne; asserts that India is spiritually degraded; hints that her destiny is to go out "in the engulfing blackness of ruin," unless she is raised up, which would arouse a doubt as to her ability to uplift any other nation. It also explains why she has not, for so many centuries, done anything to help other countries. He says the Hindus are getting materialistic―referring to those who take English education―and ends by declaring himself a follower of his Patron Buddha. The Letter to Some Brahmans, published in the PATH, enforces the point about Buddhism, and also shows how dense is the surrounding aura of those Brahmans who are strictly orthodox, and how much easier it is for the Adepts to affect the Westerners than the Hindus. And if the wall around the educated Brahman is impenetrable, how much more so is that surrounding the mass of ignorant, superstitious people who take their religion from the Brahman? The spiritual degradation of India to which the Master referred is an indisputable fact. The great majority of

Brahmans are theologically and metaphysically as fixed and dogmatic as the Romish Church; they also keep up idol-worship and a great number of degrading caste observances. The poor, uneducated, common people, forming the core of the Hindu population, are gentle, it is true, but they are ignorant and superstitious. Their superstitions are theological; the Brahman fosters this. The other class, consisting of those who take up English, have lost faith and are, as the Master wrote, materialized.

This is Master's picture. It is also the actual picture. Now where is the wrong in knowing the fact, and in asserting that such an India of today, no matter how glorious it may have been 10,000 years ago, is not the teacher of the West. Rather is it that the West is to lead the reform and raise up the fallen country with all others.

India, Tibet, and other Eastern countries cannot draw, fix, and hold the attention of the civilized world. Their position is negative or imitative. But the Western nations are the conquerors who compel attention, first perhaps by arms, but at last by triumphs of science and industry. It is through the West's material power that our mental horizon has been enlarged by a knowledge of other nations, of their literature, their ancient philosophy, and their religion. Had we waited for them to give us this, we never would have obtained it.

The Theosophical movement was founded and flourishes in the West preëminently and under Western influence. It began in America, farthest West, started there by the Masters. A very pertinent question here is, why it was not begun in India if that country is the one of all we are to look to? Very evidently the beginning was made so far West because, as so often stated by H.P.B., the next new race is to appear in the Americas, where already preparations in nature for the event are going on. This means that the centre, the top, the force of the cyclic wave of evolution is in the West―including

This evolutionary wave is not a mere theoretical thing, but is a mass of revolving energy composed of human egos from all the ancient ages of the past. It cannot be stopped; it should not be hindered in any way. This is what makes the importance of the West. The Masters work scientifically, and not sentimentally or by hysterical impulse. Hence they take advantage of such a cyclic wave, well knowing that to have begun in the East would have been child's play. They desired, one can see by viewing the history and the words from them of the last twenty years, the new and growing West to take from all the East whatever philosophy and metaphysics were needed; to assimilate them, to put them into practice; to change the whole social and economic order; and then react back, compulsorily, upon the East for its good and uplifting.

We have had an accentuation of India in the T. S. just because this movement is a Western one and also an English-language movement. It is heard of in India precisely because the English conqueror is there with his language, which the lawyer, the government servant, and many merchants must know if they wish to get on. If, on the other hand, Russian were the governmental language of India, not much of this movement would ever have been there. So the T. S. movement is in India slightly―in proportion to population almost microscopically―because some English prevails there; it is in Europe in English; to a slight extent in other languages. But it cannot yet reach the masses of France, Germany, Spain, Russia, because of the languages. But while America has only sixty million or so of people, it already pays more attention to Theosophy than any other nation, because, although made up of all nations, it has English as its tongue for law, government, business, and social life.

If, as some experts say, the United States' population doubles every twenty-five years, then in a quarter of a century it will have over 120,000,000 people, and probably 1,920,

000,000 in a century. All these will speak English or its derived future language.

Now in the face of all these facts, and of many more which could be brought forward, where is the brotherliness, the Theosophy, the truth in starting against me a charge that I wish or try to set the East and West against each other? If in India are Initiates―which H.P.B. often denied, if there is the highest spiritual wisdom, why so many Hindus trying to reform it; why so many Hindus at the feet of H.P.B. asking for truth and how to find the Master; why so many Hindus in the E.S.T. for the purpose of getting teaching from Westerners? The answers are easy. Let those who are not carried away by a mere name, who can calmly examine facts, see that the West is the advancing conqueror of human destiny; that the Eastern lands, both India and other places, are storehouses for the world, holding from the past treasures that the West alone can make avail of and teach the East how to use. Let sectional jealousy cease, and let us all be careful that we do not inject into the mental sphere of the Theosophical Society any ideas, arising from sentiment or from insufficient reflection, which might become a hindrance, however slight, to the evolutionary impulse, or which might tend concretely to limit the expansion of the great work begun by H.P.B. To create such a hindrance is an act, the gravity of which, though it may be not appreciated, is nevertheless very great.

It is the destiny of the West to raise the East from its darkness, superstition, and ignorance, to save the world; it is its destiny to send Theosophical principles, literature, and teachers into even such a remote land as Tibet, whose language we as yet can scarcely learn.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS EIGHTH ANNUAL CONVENTION

W. Q. JUDGE: As a member of the Council of the Theosophical Society, as a question of privilege, I beg to bring before you another matter which I have been requested to do in order to get the opinion of the Section. On the twelfth of March I received the following letter:

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: I desire to submit the following statement of facts for your consideration and opinion as a member of the Council of T.S.

A member, in good standing, of the T.S. has, at various times and until quite recently, sent me letters and messages which purport to emanate from one of the Masters spoken of by H. P. Blavatsky and supposed to be interested in the welfare of the said Society. In these letters and messages there is no attempt to imitate the supposed handwriting of the Master nor to convey any idea of so-called precipitation, but one letter is signed with the name, in full, of the Master whose message it purports to be, and others, whether signed or not, contain internal evidence that they are accepted as emanating from the same high source.

It has been suggested to me that a committee should be appointed to inquire into this matter on charges to be made that the sending of messages purporting to come from a Mas-

ter, or Masters, is untheosophical, or that the proper officers of the T.S. should consider the matter to the same end.

I have replied that I consider this a matter into which a committee of the T.S. may not properly inquire; that I do not, for a moment, entertain the idea that it may be brought within the jurisdiction of the Society under any clause of its Constitution; that it can rightly be regarded as a matter between individuals only; that any such inquiry or determination of such a subject would only tend to raise a dogma in the Society, and, furthermore, that it seems desirable that some official statement of a general character should be made defining the Society's position on questions of this nature.

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: I have your letter of 12th inst. informing me that a member of the T.S. (whose name you have privately given me) has sent you at various times "letters and messages which purport to emanate from one of the Masters spoken of by H. P. Blavatsky and supposed to be interested in the welfare of the said Society, and that one of the letters is signed with the name in full of the Master whose message it purports to be, but that in the letters there is no attempt to imitate the supposed handwriting of the Masters, etc." and asking me officially whether a committee could be properly appointed to consider the matter on the ground that such actions by said member are untheosophical. This could only be considered by the Society acting through a committee on the ground of being an offence under the Constitution of the T.S.; it is also a matter which should first be submitted

to the Council and the President; it is competent in my opinion for you to raise the question as one of information, asking for a decision or opinion from the proper officers or Council. I shall therefore give you my opinion officially and then forward, the same to the President and the Council. My opinion is:

First: The matter stated is not one which the Society or its officers can consider; it stands on the same ground as the affirmation of a member that he or she has seen or heard of or from a Mahâtmâ. On this see the public utterances of the President, Colonel Olcott; also those of Mrs. Besant; and the late publication by Mr. Sinnett, President of the London Lodge, to the effect that what he (Mr. Sinnett) published was directly from said Mahâtmâs. These are not offences in the T.S. for the reason that cognizable offences are these: Slander of members; violation of the T.S. neutrality on questions of legislation, politics, religion, caste, and social rules; violation of the rule that we have no dogma by proclaiming a dogma or belief as that of the T.S.; willfully hurting the religious feelings of members at a meeting of Branch or Section; conviction of crime under the law of the land, and the like. In no place are the Mahâtmâs, their powers, existence, or functions mentioned. It is solely and simply a personal matter whether one shall or shall not affirm he has messages from the Mahâtmâs; it is also a personal matter whether other members shall or shall not believe him.

Second: It would be a violation of the Constitution to decide either negatively or affirmatively under the official shield of a T.S. Committee whether a person had or had not a message from the Mahâtmâs, and to consider the facts cited by you would involve preliminarily that affirmative or negative. The Society would thus through its Committee fix a dogma one way or the other; either the dogma that Mahâtmâs exist and may be heard from, or the opposite dogmatic statement that such Mahâtmâs do not exist.

President in his Executive Notice of May 27, 1893 respecting the T.S. Congress at the Parliament of Religions. He said:

Of course it is to be distinctly understood that nothing shall be said or done by any delegate or committee of the Society to identify it, as a body, with any special form of religion, creed, sect, or any religious or ethical teacher or leader; our duty being to affirm and defend its perfect corporate neutrality in these matters.

This goes directly to the point, and was meant, as intimated to me by the President, to cover precisely the existence of the Mahâtmâs under the word "teacher" and to prevent any fixing of the T.S. to H. P. Blavatsky by means of the use of the word "leader." Hence we have in advance the decision in general of the President, in which the other members of the Council will concur, as I now do in advance.

Fraternally Yours,
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
Gen'l Sec'y Am. Sec. and
Member of T.S. Council

I have sent this to London to the Indian and European Secretaries, and have received a reply that it will be submitted to the Council, and I now present it to this Convention.

On motion the report was received and committed to the Committee on Resolutions.

MR. JUDGE: I received from Col. Olcott a letter addressed to me as General Secretary informing me that he had suspended me as Vice-President, and requesting me as General Secretary to notify the Convention of his action, which I do now.

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: In compliance with Section 3 of Article VI of the Revised Rules, I enclose herewith a

copy of certain charges preferred against Mr. William Q. Judge, Vice President T.S. and General Secretary of the American Section, by Mrs. Annie Besant, F.T.S.; which charges will be laid before a Judicial Committee, to be convened at our London Headquarters on the 27th June next, for the consideration and disposal of the same, as provided for in the Section of the Article above specified.

Upon receipt of this you will kindly take the orders of your Executive Committee for the nomination of two members of the said Judicial Committee, to sit as representatives of the American Section, and consider and dispose of the charges.

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: As required by the provisions of Article VI of our Revised Rules, I herewith enclose for your information and action a copy of certain charges preferred against you by Mrs. Annie Besant, F.T.S., and notify you that for their consideration and disposal a Judicial Committee will be convened at our London Headquarters on the 27th June next. I have to request that you will nominate to me the two additional members of the Committee whom you wish to sit and adjudge the case as your personal representatives.

As the accused party you will, of course, be debarred from sitting and voting in the Committee either as Vice President T.S. or General Secretary of the American Section; but you are entitled to enjoy the full opportunity to disprove the charges brought against you.

Pending the decision of the Judicial Committee, I hereby suspend you from the office of Vice President T.S. as required by our Revised Rules.

WHEREAS: The American Section is officially informed that the Vice-President has been officially notified that Col. Olcott, the President, has suspended the Vice-President, pending his trial for alleged "misusing of Mahâtmâs' names and handwriting, "

RESOLVED: That this Convention, after careful deliberation, finds that such suspension of the Vice-President is without the slightest warrant in the Constitution and altogether transcends the discretionary power given the President by the, Constitution, and is therefore null and void.

RESOLVED: That this Section, in Convention assembled, hereby expresses its unqualified protest against the said illegal action by the President of the Society, and can see no necessity for such action, and that even did the Constitution contain any provision for a suspension such action would be wholly needless and unbrotherly, inasmuch as, by the Constitution, the Vice-President has no duties or power save in case of death, resignation, or accusation of the President.

Colonel E. T. Blackmer asked for a rising vote, and it being so ordered the motion was carried. On motion it was then put to those members present who were not delegates, and they all rose affirmatively. Nays called for and none responded.

WHEREAS, many members of the Theosophical Society, including the late Madame Blavatsky, Col. Olcott, W. Q. Judge, Mrs. Annie Besant, A. P. Sinnett, and others, have

at various times and places expressed their belief in the existence of certain Mahâtmâs or Masters, and have claimed to be in communication with the same; and

WHEREAS, the President, Col. Olcott, at the request of one of the members, Mrs. Annie Besant, has recently demanded an official investigation by means of a judicial Committee of the Theosophical Society, to decide whether or not Wm. Q. Judge is in communication with the said Mahatmas, and whether or not the said Wm. Q. Judge has "misused the names and handwriting of the said Mahatmas"; and

WHEREAS, under the Constitution and Rules of the Theosophical Society it is declared that the Society, as such, is not responsible for the personal opinions of its Fellows, nor for any expression thereof, and that no Fellow, Officer, or Council of the Theosophical Society, or of any Section or Branch thereof, shall promulgate or maintain any doctrine, dogma, or belief as being that advanced or advocated by the Society [Art. XIII]; and the President having officially and Constitutionally in his executive order of May 27th, 1893, relative to the World's Religious Parliament, declared this neutrality, especially in these words:

"Of course it is to be distinctly understood that nothing shall be said or done by any Delegate or Committee of the Society to identify it as a Body with any special form of religion, creed, sect, or any religious or ethical teacher or leader; our duty being to affirm and defend its perfect corporate neutrality in these matters." Therefore

RESOLVED: That, in the opinion of this Convention, the action of the President, Col. Olcott, in calling such Judicial Committee to consider said charge was uncalled for, unconstitutional, illegal, and improper.

RESOLVED: That this Convention hereby cordially endorses the interpretation of the Rules and Constitution of the T.S. recently expressed in a circular to members signed by the General Secretaries of the European and Indian Sections, and in the private circular of March 15th, 1894, issued by

RESOLVED: That this Convention hereby reaffirms the entire freedom of the platform of the T.S. and the religious and other opinions of its members, which entitles all and any of them to claim to be in communication with, to receive letters from, or to act as agents for, those above referred to as Mahâtmâs or Masters; or, on the other hand, to express disbelief in the proper title of any member to make such claim or claims or disbelief in the existence of said Mahâtmâs.

RESOLVED: That this Convention declares its unswerving belief in the integrity and uprightness of the Vice-President of the T.S., Wm. Q. Judge, and expresses to him the most cordial thanks of the Section for his unrecompensed and self-sacrificing years of labor on behalf of the T.S. as a whole.

On motion of Dr. W. E. Copeland the motion was carried unanimously. Dr. Anderson then moved:

WHEREAS: This Section regards official investigation into the existence and methods of Mahâtmâs, and a dogmatic verdict rendered upon such investigation, as not only illegal under the Constitution but impossible in the absence of more profound knowledge of the science of Occultism, and, therefore, absurd in the present instance, although such inquiry and investigation are always proper privileges of individual members as such, therefore

RESOLVED, That, if in the face of this protest and opinion of this Section, there is to be an investigation to decide whether or not William Q. Judge is or was in communication with said Mahâtmâs, and whether or not he has "misused the names and handwriting of said Mahatmas," or whether or not pretended or real communications or orders from said alleged Mahatmas have been issued or given out by him, then, in the opinion of this Section, an investigation should also be had to decide whether or not Col. Olcott, A. P. Sinnett, Annie Besant, and others have had, given, or promulgated such or any communication from the Mahatmas, whether real or pretended; and that they be required to show evidence of the

possession of a commission from said Mahâtmâs, and of the truthfulness of their claims as heretofore frequently made and announced by them in public.

RESOLVED: That, in the opinion of this Section, only a Body of Mahâtmâs appearing at the Sessions of the Committee could decide whether or not any communication was or is a genuine or fraudulent Mahâtmic message.

Mr. Evan Williams then moved that the resolutions be considered now and voted on, which being seconded was carried. Discussion was called for, and several said it had been discussed and decided for weeks and the question was demanded. The motion on the resolutions was then put and carried unanimously.

Col. H. S. Olcott, the President of the Society, notifies me that he is requested to have an investigation through a committee under Article 6 of the Revised Rules, into the charge that I have "misused the names and handwritings of the Mahâtmâs." The President has addressed me as Vice-President, and "charges" under Article 6 refer to that officer, but I refuse to accept these charges as against the Vice-President, and now act thereon as an individual member of the Society.

No specifications accompany this notice, which was received from him March 10, 1894; but he has telegraphed me that he will fix the 27th of June next for the sittings of the proposed committee in London. If any specifications do arrive before this is laid before you I may annex them thereto; and I make this communication now in advance, as there is no need to wait to take action after your adjournment; hence I leave the matter with you to take such action as is right and proper under the circumstances and the Rules.

It is disagreeable to talk much of oneself, but sometimes it is necessary, and in this case it has been made a necessity by the action of others, as also by the existence of many vague and suppressed rumors which have been flying about in quarters not public but sufficiently active to compel action on my part. Hence I now make known in advance that which has been spoken obscurely for some time, and which is now before me officially from the President, Col. H. S. Olcott, to the end that all members of the Society and friends of my own in all parts of the world shall be in possession of facts so that surprise and perhaps confusion may be prevented.

The assertion is made in India that I have been guilty of "misuse of the names and handwriting of the Mahâtmâs," and this has been officially communicated to the President, who, writing from Agra, India, under date of February 7th (received here March 10th, 1894), says an investigation is demanded through

an official inquiry by means of a committee into the matter of your alleged misuse of the Mahatmas names and handwriting.

Conceiving himself required and authorized to take action, the President proceeds thus:

By virtue of the discretionary powers given me in Article 6 of the Revised Rules, I place before you the following options:

In either alternative, you will observe, a public explanation is found necessary: in the one case general; in the other, to be full and covering all the details.

diate reply "first," to mean that I resign, and "second," that I demand a committee.

Charge absolutely false. You can take what proceedings you see fit; going [to] London [in] July.

The charge is made against me as Vice-President: I have replied as an individual and shall so continue, inasmuch as in my capacity of Vice-President my duties are nominal, have once been exercised by communicating to the Society, as required by the Constitution, the resignation of the President, and once by acting for the President at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The only charges that could be made against the Vice-President would be those of failing to perform his duties, or misusing the office when there were any duties attached to it. On the face of this very vague charge, then, it is evident that there is nothing in it relating to the official Vice-President.

Inasmuch as I was the first presiding officer of the Theosophical Society at its preliminary meeting in September, 1875, and its first Secretary at such meeting; that I was not only H. P. Blavatsky's intimate friend and direct pupil but that I have been conspicuous as an upholder of Theosophical doctrine, as also an upholder, with many other friends in every part of the globe, of H. P. Blavatsky's good name, high motive, and great powers against the ridicule of the world and much opposition from certain members of the Society she founded; that I have been elected to succeed Col. Olcott as President of the Society and have been officially declared his successor by him; it is important and imperative that I should make this matter public, and I now do so, and state my unqualified, explicit, exhaustive denial of the said charge, asserting most unreservedly that it has absolutely no foundation.

Under the Constitution the President is directed to call a Judicial Committee to consider charges. The committee is

to consist of the members of the General Council, who are now the President, the three General Secretaries, and the Vice-President. In this case, one member of the Council could not sit, being the General Secretary of American Section, Vice-President, and the accused. The person charged has the right to nominate two additional members on the Committee, and each of the Sections two. This would call for eleven members. The accused person has the right to fix the place of trial. When the President calls the committee, I shall fix on London as the place for its meeting, as I am going to attend the European Section Convention next July.

Hence I shall request the American Section Convention in April to make selection in advance of the two members from this Section, either by then naming them or by empowering the Executive Committee to do so whenever the official notice comes to the Section from the President. It is certainly useless to wait the long time required by the distance of India from here, inasmuch as it is perfectly evident that the Committee will be convened by the President. Perhaps when the Committee is convened I shall, for the first time, have particulars as to persons, dates, and the like of the charges made, none of which up to this time I have had except in the form of rumor.

More acutely than any personal grievance, do I feel the probability of a deplorable influence being at first exercised on the Theosophical movement by the making of these charges. I do not think it will have a lasting effect for injury. The rumors to which I have referred have been used by the enemies of the Society to show, if possible, dissension among us and to found a charge of rottenness; they have printed the matter in a scandalous form in both Europe and America, pretending that in my official and private capacities I am in the habit of sending alleged "Mahatma messages," and then they added ribald jokes of their own. This I have not hitherto noticed, because all members know that the correspondence and work of the Society are open to all and entirely devoid of the elements alleged to exist by these opponents; we are

all perfectly aware that our strength lies in our devotion and constant work. The present situation will therefore result in clearing the air and consolidating our ranks in all directions.

As to my failure to cable the word "second," meaning "I demand a Committee." The reason is not that an investigation is avoided. Such an investigation will not be avoided. But on constitutional and executive principle I shall object from beginning to end to any committee of the Theosophical Society considering any charge against any person which involves an inquiry and decision as to the existence, names, powers, functions, or methods of the "Mahatmas or Masters." I shall do this for the protection of the Theosophical Society now and hereafter, regardless of the result to myself. The Society has no dogma as to the existence of such Masters; but the deliberations of an official committee of the Society on such a question, and that is the first inquiry and decision necessarily beginning such a deliberation, would mean that the Theosophical Society after over nineteen years of unsectarian work is determined to settle this dogma and affix it to the Constitution of the Society. To this I will never consent, but shall object, and shall charge the Committee itself with a violation of the Constitution if it decides the question of the existence of the "Masters" or Mahatmas; if it should affirm the "Masters'" existence it will violate the law; if it should deny Their existence a like violation will result; both decisions would affirm a dogma, and the negative decision would in addition violate that provision of our law, in Art. XIII, Revised Rules, which makes it an offense to "willfully offend the religious feelings of any Fellow" of the Society, inasmuch as the belief so negatived is religiously held by many hundreds of the Fellows of the Society. I intend to try once for all to definitely have settled this important question, and to procure an official decision affirming now and forever the freedom of our Society.

Hence the President's alternatives, offered as above, are mistakes, and are the initial steps to the promulgation of the dogma of belief in the "Masters." The first alternative is

furthermore a judgment in advance, ridiculous in itself, yet serious as emanating from our highest official. It precludes him from sitting on the Committee, and that point also I shall raise before the Committee. The whole proposal he makes brings up serious and complicated questions of occultism touching upon the matter of the existence, powers, functions, and methods of those "Masters" in whom many Theosophists believe but as to whom the Theosophical Society is perfectly agnostic and neutral as an organized body. For that reason no one in official position ever thought of making a public matter of the many assertions made here and there by members of the Society, that they individually communicated with beings whom they called "Masters, Mahatmas," nor of the assertions publicly made by prominent members that certain philosophical statements recently published in our literature were directly from the very "Masters" referred to by Col. Olcott, although these statements contradicted others made by H. P. Blavatsky on the declared authority of the same "Masters."

On all these grounds, then, I shall object to a Theosophical Society Committee, while of course there will never be any objection from me to a proper investigation by a body of persons who know enough of Occultism as well as of Theosophy to understandingly inquire into these matters.

But some of you may wonder if all this leaves in doubt the question whether I believe in the "Masters." I believe the Masters exist, that They actually help the T.S. Cause, that They energize and make fruitful the work of all sincere members; all this I can say to myself I know, but to prove objectively to another that such beings exist is impossible now so far as my intelligence can perceive. "Letters from Mahatmas" prove nothing at all except to the recipient, and then only when in his inner nature is the standard of proof and the power of judgment. Precipitation does not prove Mahatmas, for the reason that mere mediums and non-mahatmas can make precipitations. This I have always asserted. By one's soul alone can this matter be judged, and only by his work and acts can one judge at first as to whether any other

person is an agent of the Masters; by following the course prescribed in all ages the inner faculties may be awakened so as to furnish the true confirmatory evidence. I have not lost any of my belief in these beings, but more than ever believe in Their existence and in Their help and care to and over our Society's work.

Finally I may say that my personal belief in Mahatmas is based on even stronger evidence than Theosophical arguments or the experience of others. As is known to some Theosophists, I have not been entirely without guidance and help from these exalted friends of the T.S. The form which the whole matter has taken now compels me to say what I have never before said publicly, namely, that not only have I received direct communications from Masters during and since the life of H. P. Blavatsky, but that I have on certain occasions repeated such to certain persons for their own guidance, and also that I have guided some of my own work under suggestions from the same sources, though without mentioning the fact.

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE'S STATEMENT AT THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION

Since March last charges have been going round the world against me to which the name of Annie Besant has been attached, without her consent as she now says, that I have been guilty of forging the names and handwritings of the Mahatmas and of misusing the said names and handwritings. The charge has also arisen that I suppressed the name of Annie Besant as mover in the matter from fear of the same. All this has been causing great trouble and working injury to all concerned, that is, to all our members. It is now time that this should be put an end to once for all, if possible.

Resolved: That this meeting accepts with pleasure the adjustment arrived at by Annie Besant and William Q. Judge as a final settlement of matters pending hitherto between them as prosecutor and defendant with the hope that it may be thus buried and forgotten and:

Resolved: That we will join hands with them to further the Cause of genuine Brotherhood in which we all believe.

Col. H. S. Olcott, acting as chairman, then put the Resolutions to the meeting, which crowded the hall, and they were carried unanimously with loud applause.

THE CHARGES AGAINST WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

The matter of charges against me seems not yet to be at an end, as I am informed that The Westminster Gazette has made a long story of the whole thing, as it was once before given in California and other places, and has added to it various falsifications of fact. All this has led some European members of the T.S. to say that they think I should make a reply and explanation. One would suppose that the legal maxim that a man is called innocent until he is proven guilty is but a form in England, and that a man's friends are not obliged to defend him when accused until he has made all his proofs.

All I have to say for the present is this: that at the proper time and place I will have to say what I wish and find right and proper. Let us wait until all the innuendos, charges and accusations are fully presented. One who knows, as I do, that he is guided and helped by the Masters, knows also that there is a time and a place for everything, and is able to bide his time. That is what I am doing. When the true moment comes I will be able to speak, and then facts and circumstances will join in speaking for me.

AN OLD MESSAGE FROM THE MASTER

The following message was not among those which Mrs. Besant intended to use against me―because it was not known to the prosecutors―in the recent proceedings, which never should have been begun because unconstitutional. I obtained it Nov. 1st, 1891, in the distant State of Wyoming, U.S. It reads:

We sent him to London and made him stay so long in order to lay down currents which have since operated, for inasmuch as "sacred names" were assailed long ago the present reaction in England more than counterbalances the assault on us which you so much deplore. But the only thing we deplore is the sorrow of the world, which can only be cut off by the philosophy you were such a potent factor in bringing to the West, and which now other disciples are promulgating also. This is the age of the common people although you may not agree―but so it is―and as we see forces at work and gathering by you unseen, we must commend all efforts that give wide-spread notice to even one word of the philosophy.

I had the courage, copied it at the time it was received, and sent the original to Mr. Sinnett by mail from Wyoming. He must have received it, because otherwise it would have come back to me in accordance with directions on the envelope. If there ever was a genuine message this is one. It refers to the great public excitement in England, about that time, about Theosophy, in the course of which the "sacred names" of the Masters were mentioned. The person referred to as being in London "to lay down currents" is myself. I invite the attention of the prosecutors to this message.

Very probably Mr. Sinnett will not contest the genuineness of the message, because he sent me, nearly about that time, a letter from himself addressed to the Master, requesting me to transmit it and procure the answer, if any. Many of us―those who accept the above as genuine―will find it of interest, seeing that it confirms what several hold, that this is the era of the masses, and that Master has more interest in efforts for their good than on the progress of any particular person or class.

Being under no obligation to secrecy I cannot be blamed for giving out the foregoing facts at this time, when I am attacked at every point; it will certainly derogate nothing from Mr. Sinnett's standing to admit the fact of his believing, at the time mentioned, that I could transmit a request or letter to the Master.

THE CHARGES AGAINST WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

A long and sustained attack has been made on me and charges have been brought forward by Mrs. Besant, and in The Westminster Gazette, which it is thought I should reply to more fully than I have as yet. A very good and decisive reason exists for my not making that full reply and explanation, and it is time Theosophists should know it. It is as follows:

I have not been furnished with copies of the documentary evidence by which the charges are said to be supported. These documents―being letters written by myself and some of them ten years old―have been in the possession of Mrs. Besant from about February, 1894, to July 19th, 1894, and open enemies of mine have been allowed to make copies of them, and also to take facsimiles, but they have been kept from me, although I have demanded and should have them. It must be obvious to all fair-minded persons that it is impossible for me to make a full and definite reply to charges without having certified copies of those documents.

I arrived in London July 4th, 1894, and constantly, each day, asked for the copies and for an inspection of the papers. Mrs. Besant promised both, but never performed her promise. The proceedings and the Convention closed July 13th, and for six days thereafter I daily asked for the copies and inspection, getting the same promise with the same failure,

until July 19th, when I peremptorily demanded them. Mrs. Besant then said she had just given them to Colonel Olcott, to whom I at once applied. He said he had sent them all to India. I at once told this to Mrs. Besant, saying I would give the facts to the daily papers, whereupon she went to Colonel Olcott, who said he had made a mistake as they were in his box. He then―I being in a hurry to leave from Liverpool on the 21st―let me hastily see the papers in Dr. Buck's presence, promising to send me copies. I had time to copy only two or three short letters. He has never fulfilled that promise.

These facts the members should know, as they ought at last to understand the animus under the prosecution. I shall not reply until I have full certified copies. It would seem that I am in this matter entitled to as much opportunity and consideration as my open enemies have had.

THE PERSECUTION OF WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

THE design from the beginning was to get me out of the way to the Presidency of the T.S. Mrs. Besant was to demand my resignation, after that Col. Olcott was to resign his office, then Mrs. Besant was to be nominated as President; Vice-Presidency probably to go to Bert. Keightley, though on that the outer proofs are not yet definite. In London last July Mrs. Besant said several times that the object of the proceeding was to prevent my succeeding to the Presidency. But here are a few samples from her letters.

Calcutta, Jan. 11, 1894. You must resign the outer headship (of E.S.T.) held jointly with myself, or the evidence which goes to prove the wrong done must be laid before a committee of T.S And you must resign the position of President-elect.

Delhi, Feb. 14, 1894. He [Chakravarti] endorsed the idea that I should take sole charge of the School Indeed, he told me last summer [about Aug., 1893.―J.] that it had to be so presently.

Agra, Feb. 8, 1894. As you know, I refused the offer to nominate me as President; since then I have been told [by whom?―J.] "not to oppose," so I remain passive and wait.

, Feb. 14, 1894. That you had made an intellectual blunder, misled by a high example. [This means H.P.B.] would not take the Presidency at any price. If I have to, pity me. [Italics are mine.―J.]

In July she told me the first day, as explaining the sentence above quoted about a "higher example" and another, that I was "largely a victim," that her theory was first, that H.P.B. had committed several frauds for good ends and made bogus messages; second, that I was misled by her example; and third, that H.P.B. had given me permission to do such acts. She then asked me to confess thus and that would clear up all. I peremptorily denied such a horrible lie, and warned her that everywhere I would resist such attack on H.P.B. These are facts, and the real issue is around H.P.B.

Some European Lodges, and the Indian Section, have asked me to resign as Vice-President. I have refused and shall refuse. The attempt to force me by saying "all honorable men resign when attacked" is silly nonsense. No office in T.S. has any attraction for me, but I will not be forced. An "Anniversary Meeting" in India, with no power, and being, in fact, only an extra meeting of the Indian Section, passed resolutions asking my resignation. To that I replied that I do not recognize either the meeting or the resolutions. T.S. Anniversary Meetings are unknown to our Constitution.

By reading the Vice-President's letter to the European General Secretary printed hereunder, members will see that I cannot make any explanation without copies of my letters and alleged memoranda. In addition, I find that some of the documents have up to this day been kept back from me, so that I have not seen them at all. It is quite true that Mrs. Besant gave me a copy of her proposed statement as prosecutor; but that contained only references and a few garbled extracts; and besides, it did not cover the items they have since added to the number.

LETTER TO EUROPEAN GENERAL SECRETARY

SIR and BROTHER:―I have received some seven requests by resolution from Branches and Centers of your Section to the effect, (a) that I should resign the office of Vice-President of the T.S., (b) that I should answer charges published against me by a paper inimical to the T.S. or give reasons for not replying, (c) that I should offer myself for trial on said charges; and I have also read the full publications of these requests and other matter connected therewith in the Vahan. I now beg to ask you to act as the proper official channel for the general reply to those requests, and to inform your Executive Committee also.

First. I am amazed at the undue, precipitate, and untheosophical haste displayed in the requests to me to reply to the public attack made on me before I could have time to do so or had refused, when the slightest reflection would show I could not possibly reply in such a hurry, and when a true brotherly feeling would seem to require that before making the demands, means should be taken to discover whether I had an intention to reply or explain. The Barcelona Lodge, however, asked you to inquire of me whether the charges made in said paper were true or not. Please let them know that I again say the charges are absolutely false.

Second. When the Judicial Commitee met in July and when thereafter Mrs. Besant, as prosecutor, publicly assented, in apparent good faith, to a general resolution declaring the matter closed and dropped, she was then in possession of all the alleged evidence now in her possession. Inasmuch as her name and her opinions have been used in a part of the above-mentioned correspondence, as some sort of proof of something. I draw your Lodges' attention to the fact that she had in her possession all said evidence at the time when she, as your public leader, publicly assented to two statements and a solemn resolution closing the matter passed at your Convention. It now appears that some Lodges desire to nullify and override that action; hence either (a) the resolution was not passed in good faith, or (b) it was procured through hoodwinking and deceiving the Convention. If you and those Lodges say that they did not have the said alleged evidence, and would not have passed the resolution had you possessed the said alleged evidence, then their present desire to avoid the resolution―for that is what the requests indicate―is due to a feeling that you were hoodwinked into passing it. This being so, I must refer you to Mrs. Besant, for I had no part whatever in proposing, forwarding, or passing the resolution.

Third. In reply to the request that I shall resign the office of Vice-President, please say that I am obliged to refuse the request. If it is proper I should now resign, it was just as much so in July when your leading prosecutors had all the alleged evidence in their possession. I regard resignation as evidence of guilt. If I resigned that office I could not be in any way tried on any charges, and very soon after a resignation the same persons might say I resigned to evade responsibility.

Fourth. I have replied to the public newspaper in the only way it deserves. I have still under consideration a full reply to the T.S. respecting the real charges, but I refuse to be hurried until the right time, for the cogent reasons given below. And as I have seen that new misstatements of fact

and charges are being circulated against me by F.T.S. who are keeping up this disgraceful pursuit, I have additional reasons for waiting until all possible innuendos and distortions shall have come forth, even were I now fully prepared to reply.

I cannot make a proper reply to the charges until I have in my possession a copy of the documentary evidence which it was, or is, proposed to use in support of the charges. These documents consist of various letters of mine on which are memoranda not in my handwriting. Some of them are letters written over ten years ago. They have been deliberately kept away from me, although open enemies have been given and allowed to take complete copies and facsimiles. No fair person would ask that I should answer without them.

I arrived in London July 5th, 1894, and at once demanded, first, copies of letters, and second, an inspection of all the evidence. Mrs. Besant promised these, but did not perform. The Council met informally July 6, when I again demanded the evidence and received the same promise as before with the same failure to perform. July 7th the formal meeting of the Council took place. The same demand was again made with the same result. Each day until the second day before departure I made the request and met the same promise followed by failure to perform. The Judicial Committee met and I then made the same demand, and at the meeting Mrs. Besant and others said, "Oh, of course Mr. Judge should have copies of the proposed evidence." But the papers were neither copied nor shown me up to July 19th, almost a week after Convention, and when I was packing my trunk. All this time until the 19th, Mrs. Besant had the papers. On the 19th I formally and peremptorily demanded them. She said she had given them to Col. Olcott, who said they had been just sent off to the mail to go to India; this I repeated to Mrs. Besant and said I would publish the fact to the public. She hastened to Col. Olcott and he said he had made a mistake, as the papers were in his travelling case. He then, in Dr. Buck's presence, in a great hurry, as I sailed on the 21st, allowed me

a hasty look at the papers on July 19th, I taking a copy of one or two short ones. But several being lengthy, and especially the one by which they hoped to destroy my general credibility, I could not copy them. Col. Olcott then promised to send copies; Mrs. Besant declared herself quit of the matter. Up to this date the promises made have not been fulfilled. I am without copies of the documents on which the charges are based.

Mrs. Besant, as prosecutor, never fulfilled her promise nor her duty. I then believed and still believe that they never intended to give me copies nor to permit inspection but hoped to hurry me into a trial unprepared in every respect. These facts, with the fact that they allowed Mr. Old to copy everything, will throw some light on the matter and on the opinions of the parties. I shall certainly not reply until I have before me the documentary evidence or copies and know the precise offenses with which I am charged. This is common justice.

A FURTHER COMMUNICATION FROM MR. JUDGE

On January 25th, I sent to you as General Secretary of your Section, a general letter replying to several communications from some of your Lodges, so that you, as the proper officer, might communicate it. But instead of pursuing the impartial course as required by your office, you have taken up the position of prosecutor, attorney, and pleader against me, making a long argumentative reply, full of assertions and conclusions of your own, and signed officially, so that you might print it, as you say, with my letter, in THE VAHAN.

Your rights and duties as General Secretary do not require nor permit such action; all that you had the right to do was to promulgate my letter or refuse to do so, but you have now made your office a partisan one in this matter, using it improperly for partisan ends.

I do not intend to controvert your intemperate letter, but I ask that this be published so that some at least of your misleading statements may be corrected.

You say that "in July you (I) argued that the charges did not lie against you (me) as Vice-President, and now you argue the exact contrary." This is an untruth as well as absurd. I have made no such contradictory statements.

You refer me to the fact that Mrs. Besant sent me a copy of what she meant to say to the Committee, and you attempt

to make it appear that that very amateur attempt at a legal brief contained the testimony and the documents I require. It did not and does not. I have it. It is a special plea full of distortions, devoid of evidence, containing scraps of documents, devoid of documents referred to, and wholly incompetent. Mrs. Besant's intentions as to what she would say, do not settle matters. And to give instances: her statement did not contain the message I sent Col. Olcott about his resignation, nor the letter relied on to sustain a charge of forgery. Furthermore, I am entitled to have the entire contents of letters used in evidence, though she sought to introduce disjointed scraps only.

You say I demanded that my letters be handed over to my possession. This I could have done but did not. Very true, I may have privately asked Col. Olcott to give me my old letters written to H.P.B., he to keep copies, as I had both moral and legal right. But it is useless for you and others to try to obscure the fact that no inspection of the documents was given me until July 19th, nearly six days after the Convention, and that no copies have been given; and you yourself heard Mrs. Besant promise in Committee the copies to me, and Mr. Burrows say, "Of course Mr. Judge should have copies."

Lastly, the charges have been extended far beyond those got up by Mrs. Besant, and after all the publicity due to enemies, it seems untheosophical to read your words in which you say that you will take steps so that all may know what the charges are. Do you intend to circulate anew the Westminster Gazette's book?

A MAHATMA'S MESSAGE TO SOME BRAHMANS

A COPY of the letter hereunder printed was sent me in 1893 by the Brahman gentleman mentioned therein, whose full name is Benee Madhab Battacharya and who was at one time president of the Prayag T.S. at Allahabad. He sent it to me after the publication of my "Letter to the Brahmans" in order to try and show me that the T.S. was in fact a Buddhist propaganda. The original is in the possession of Mr. Sinnett, who informed me not long ago that he thought he had it among his papers but had no leisure to look for it. I print it now for reasons which will appear. It reads:

Message which Mr. Sinnett is directed by one of the Brothers writing through Madame B[lavatsky], to convey to the native members of the Prayag Branch of the Theosophical Society.

The Brothers desire me to inform one and all of you natives that unless a man is prepared to become a thorough Theosophist, i.e., to do what D. Mavalankar did―give up entirely caste, his old superstitions, and show himself a true reformer (especially in the case of child-marriage), he will remain simply a member of the Society, with no hope whatever of ever hearing from us. The Society, acting in this directly in accord with our orders, forces no one to become a Theosophist of the Second Section. It is left with himself at his choice. It is useless for a member to argue "I am one of a pure life, I am a teetotaller and an abstainer from meat and vice, all my aspirations are for good, etc." and he at the same time building by his acts and deeds an impassible barrier on the road between himself and us. What have we, the disciples of the Arhats of Esoteric Budhism and of Sang-gyas, to do with the Shasters and orthodox Brahmanism? There are 100 of thousands of Fakirs, Sannyasis,

or Sadhus leading the most pure lives and yet being, as they are, on the path of error, never having had an opportunity to meet, see, or even hear of us. Their forefathers have driven the followers of the only true philosophy upon earth away from India, and now it is not for the latter to come to them but for them to come to us, if they want us. Which of them, is ready to become a Budhist, a Nastika, as they call us? None. Those who have believed and followed us have had their reward. Mr. Sinnett and Hume are exceptions. Their beliefs are no barriers to us, for they have none. They may have bad influences around them, bad magnetic emanations, the result of drink, society and promiscous physical associations (resulting even from shaking hands with impure men), but all this is physical and material impediments which with a little effort we could counteract, and even clear away, without much detriment to ourselves. Not so with the magnetic and invisible results proceeding from erroneous and sincere beliefs. Faith in the gods or god and other superstition attracts millions of foreign influences, living entities and powerful Agents round them, with which we would have to use more than ordinary exercise of power to drive them away. We do not choose to do so. We do not find it either necessary or profitable to lose our time waging war on the unprogressed planetaries who delight in personating gods and sometimes well-known characters who have lived on earth. There are Dhyan Chohans and Chohans of darkness. Not what they term devils, but imperfect intelligences who have never been born on this or any other earth or sphere no more than the Dhyan Chohans have, and who will never belong to the "Children of the Universe," the pure planetary intelligences who preside at every Manvantara, while the Dark Chohans preside at the Pralaya.

Now this is a genuine message from the Master, allowing of course, for any minor errors in copying. Its philosophical and occult references are furthermore confirmed by the manuscript of part of the third volume of the Secret Doctrine, not yet printed. We know also that Master K. H. informed Mr. Sinnett and others that he was an esoteric Budhist; H.P.B. declared herself a Buddhist; on my asking her in 1875 what could the Masters' belief be called she told me they might be designated "pre-Vedic Budhists," but that no one would now admit there was any Buddhism before the Vedas, so I had best think of them as Esoteric Buddhists.

But I am informed that Mrs. Besant has several times privately stated that in her opinion the letter first above

printed was a "forgery or humbug" gotten up by H.P.B. I know that Mr. Chakravarti has said the same thing, because he said it to me in New York. It is for Mrs. Besant to deny the correctness of my information as to what she said: she can affirm her belief in the genuineness of the letter. If she does so, we shall all be glad to know. If she merely denies that she ever impugned it, then it will be necessary for her to say affirmatively what is her belief, for silence will be assent to its genuineness. I affirm that it is from one of the Masters, and that, if it be shown to be a fraud, then all of H.P.B.'s claims of connection with and teaching from the Master must fall to the ground. It is now time that this important point be cleared up.

"THE JUDGE CASE"

IN order to give the prosecutors every opportunity I wrote in February to Colonel Olcott, asking again for copies of the written documents in his possession forming the basis of Mrs. Besant's charges, and reminded him of his promise at London last July to send me the copies. While doubtful as to the result, I thought that perhaps he would see the propriety and wisdom of giving me the copies. But it is now quite evident that no intention ever existed to deal fairly. He replies under date of Feb. 26th, 1895, as follows:

My Dear Judge,

. . . I don't know where you get your law from, but hang me if I ever heard of an accused who has been furnished with a copy of the charges pending against him, expecting that the documentary proofs in the hands of the prosecuting attorney shall be given him before the issue is on for trial. . . . I have given copies to nobody; Old's copies were taken by him before the action began and while he was the custodian [italics mine.―J.] of the documents prior to their coming into my possession. He had no right to take them or to use them. How many duplicates he may have made and given out I cannot imagine. . . . ―H.S.O.

The law requires inspection and copies of letter if demanded by the accused; Theosophy and brotherhood would not require less than law.

It is singular that Mr. Old was the "custodian before" Olcott got the letters, when many of them were letters to Olcott himself. This part of the letter is, of course, untrue―to call a spade by its name. He calmly admits that Old as an enemy was allowed to take

copies―Olcott having handed the originals over to Old out of his despatch box―and shows he does not care really how many duplicates were made. But the accused cannot have the copies.

It may be that as Olcott is coming to London this summer "to settle the Judge case," as he says himself, he is keeping the copies from me because of some new campaign he is aiding the virulent prosecutors to begin.

The Theosophical Society has become, in Europe and India, a detective bureau, an organization for assaults on character, for punishments, and has ceased to be a portion of the real theosophical movement.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS NINTH ANNUAL CONVENTION

. . . It is now my duty to officially report to you what has taken place and been done in the matter of the charges made against me as Vice-President, and which you considered last April. Generally I can say that the resolutions you passed were in substance carried out. Although every member knows the fact, yet I must report that your delegate proceeded to the Committee of Inquiry at London, and the said Committee sat after the T.S. Council held a session. At that meeting of the Council it was decided that it would be a breach of the Constitution and of the neutrality of the T.S. to try the question raised, because involving the existence or non-existence of Mahatmas, and that I could not be tried by the Committee because that can only deal with the Vice-President for acts done as such. The Committee followed the decision of the President and Council. The total expense of the Committee, counting the distances travelled from India and America and the time lost, must have run up into the thousands. The whole proceeding, as well as some other matter, was printed in a pamphlet entitled by Col. Olcott himself The Neutrality of the Theosophical Society, and that has been circulated all over the Section. Statements were made at the local Convention by Mrs. Besant and by me, and a resolution to close the whole matter was passed, and these were included in the pamphlet. This was intended in good faith to stop the whole thing in the T.S., but almost the next day Mrs. Besant issued

a circular to the world, sending it to all the London papers, entitled Occultism and Truth, as a direct attack on me, asserting that the doctrine of "the end justifies the means" must not be allowed to prevail in the T.S., though she did not name me. Since then she has admitted that it was intended for me. With such a spirit, and after such an immediate going back upon a solemn resolution declaring the matter closed, it was plain that the matter was not closed.

Shortly afterwards The Westminster Gazette reopened the whole matter with additional and elaborate charges of fraud and duplicity in the matter of messages from Masters, and this was immediately seized upon by prominent English members, by Mrs. Besant and B. Keightley, as a reason for reopening the disgraceful persecution of a fellow-member. Since then the attacks have been incessant, and the end and purport of them all was to secure a vacancy in the Vice-Presidency. Mrs. Besant and B. Keightley attended Indian meetings and, proposing and seconding, had carried a set of resolutions reiterating charges and requesting the President to demand my resignation as Vice-President. In passing I may say that a so-called Anniversary meeting, which is unknown to the Constitution and without power of any sort, was held at the same time at Adyar and passed the same sort of resolutions. It was an illegal action. It is necessary to refer to this because in public reports prominence has been given to this Anniversary-meeting resolution, and a report asserted that one E. M. Sasseville was a delegate from this Section. No delegate or representative was sent to the meeting, and all such claims are false. They have been apparently made to try and cause it to appear that a supposed American delegate did not speak well of the Vice-President. I think it is prejudicial, not to say unconstitutional, to allow our members in all parts to suppose that these voluntary meetings at Adyar are legal. There has been too much ignoring of the Constitution. It is for this Section to consider these points. The July decisions showed that the great Committee―our largest―should never have been called together at all. Atten-

tion to the Constitution would have resulted in an immediate decision by the President that no Committee could be called, but that the accused should be tried before his Branch.

And, again, I beg to point out to you that the Constitution recognizes no such office as Federal Correspondent, and gives no power to the President to create any office. The President has promulgated (July or August last) an order creating the office of "Federal Correspondent," and has appointed thereto Mrs. I. Cooper-Oakley, and has printed the name of office and officer among the list of T.S. officials. This is absolutely illegal. I will frankly say that I am personally exceedingly fatigued with these constant breaches―for I consider it a breach to have allowed the Judicial Committee to be called at all―and some sort of end must be put to this kind of thing one way or another.

Some European Lodges passed resolutions asking me to resign until full explanation and clearance were made. This, it seems, is a sort of English custom, but it certainly is not American. To these and the President I have replied, refusing to resign the Vice-Presidency. And to the newspaper attack I have made a provisional and partial reply, as much as such a lying and sensational paper deserved. In my official answer to the letter of the General Secretary of the European Section conveying to me such expressions as had reached his office, I drew attention to the fact that I could not reply properly without documents or copies of them, as all the charges are based on documents: that I did not have such copies; and that Mrs. Besant and Col. Olcott had kept from me both inspection and copies of the documents during the whole time I was in London, until July 19th, when they allowed a hasty glance―about thirteen days after the Inquiry had closed. I made a hasty copy of a few short documents, but long letters to H.P.B., to Damodar, and to Col. Olcott―all included in the matter―I could not copy. And aside from that, I am entitled to certified copies. Again, several items of charges are made, the documents regarding which I have never seen. Before the Inquiry, at it, and after, I demanded

copies. Mrs. Besant promised and failed; when she had delivered back the papers to Col. Olcott she could give none. Col. Olcott promised to furnish them. I demanded them as long ago as when the charges were first sent to me from India. Up to this writing I am not in possession of these needful copies. If they are furnished me before the sitting of this Convention I shall be able to make an explanation. Otherwise I cannot say whether or not such could be made save of same of the cases, thus leaving the matter incomplete; and this would be unsatisfactory. But I have an explanation, and I renew my declaration of innocence of the offenses charged. As I have said in London and since, the messages I delivered, privately, are genuine messages from the Master, procured through me as the channel, and that the basis of the attack on me is unbelief in my being a channel. The object in view in beginning the proceedings was, as is proved by the prosecutor's own letters, to procure my resignation of the office of Vice-President and the supposed (but non-existent) office of Successor to the Presidency. . . .

Convention Reports of
The Theosophical Society
American Section
April 28-29, 1895

FAREWELL REMARKS OF MR. JUDGE ON THE VICE-PRESIDENCY

Last June and July I laid before you the point that I was never elected Vice-President of the "Theosophical Society," consequently that office was then known to you to be vacant. The decision then arrived at by you, Mr. Bertram Keightley, and Mr. George R.S. Mead that I was Vice-President was invalid, of no effect, and quite contrary to the fact. The original notification to the public that my name was attached to the office was merely a notice of your selection, without the authority of the Society you are the President-Founder of, and without any election by a competent, regular and representative convention of that Society. I also informed you in July that no notice was ever given to me of the said invalid selection.

A long and bitter fight has been waged by Mrs. Annie Besant and others, one of the objects of which is to compel me to resign the said office which I do not hold. I have refused to accede to their requests, and would refuse even did I hold that I was legally the Vice-President.

But as I have worked a long time with you in the cause of Theosophy, and am with you one of those who helped H.P.B. to start the American movement in 1875, as I would aid you in all proper ways, and since I hear that you are to be in London this summer to "settle the Judge case," as you have proclaimed, I now beg to again point out to you that I do not hold and never have held the office of Vice-President of

any Theosophical Society of which I am a member, and that you can consider this as my declaration that I cannot and will not oppose you filling the said so-called office in any way you may see fit, either arbitrarily or otherwise.

While on this point I would say to you, that my signing my name hitherto as "Vice-President" was in ignorance of the important facts since ascertained, showing conclusively the de facto character of the act. Should you ask why then I raised the objection so long ago as July, I reply that the Master whom you think I do not hear from directed me to do so, and at that time I found only the fact of non-election in support of it.

H. S. OLCOTT vs. H.P.B.

IN the April Theosophist Col. Olcott makes public what we have long known to be his private opinion―a private opinion hinted at through the pages of Old Diary Leaves,―that H.P.B. was a fraud, a medium, and a forger of bogus messages form the Masters. This final ingrate's blow is delivered in a Postscript to the magazine for which the presses were stopped. The hurry was so great that he could not wait another month before hurling the last handful of mud at his spiritual and material benefactor, our departed H.P.B. The next prominent person for whom we wait to make a similar public statement, has long made it privately.

Col. Olcott "stops the press" and rushes off the Postscript, "for the honor of the Masters." He wishes to defend those Masters, who sent H.P.B. as their messenger, by declaring that she "cooked up," forged, and humbugged with, a long and important message to Brahmans at Allahabad in 1881. The Colonel is H.P.B.'s first Western disciple, ignorant to this day of practical occultism and not able to propound a question to the Masters; never heard of Masters except through H.P.B. He now preserves the honor of Masters by blackening the character of their messenger. Splendid defence, this, of the Masters!

How does he explain the long silence of the Masters since 1881 on the subject? And another very pertinent question is this: How does this "defender of the Masters" explain his own silence in 1881 and since? He was present when the message was sent and knew of it. If he knew then that it

was bogus why did he not divulge? If he did not know then, was it because he was unable to tell? If he has since been told by one of the Masters―á la Besant in the Judge case―will he kindly let us know which of the Masters told him, and when?

All these questions ought to be answered, and many proofs given by him showing the least occult ability to decide on false or genuine messages, because he has attempted to classify H.P.B. with frauds, forgers and mediums. Hence the Masters who sent her are put by him in similar categories. Observe that the forgery now alleged by him was at the very time H.P.B. was giving out from the Masters the series of messages which have become known to all. If we believe him, then the delivery by this irresponsible medium of one false message must throw doubt on every message. Certainly Col. Olcott is no occultist whose decision we will accept. Each of us will be left to decide for this, that, or the other message according to our fancy. Olcott does not like the one in question because he lives in India, and it is too gallingly true. Perhaps others may like it, and not be willing to accept other messages that contradict their partisan view of the London Lodge papers or metaphysics and science. For my part, the message in question testifies to its genuineness by its text, except for those who are hit by it, or those who have the Indian craze and think themselves Brahmans, or those whose self-interest and comfort are against it.

The message condemns bigotry. The persons to whom it was sent were then of the most theologically bigoted families. They were wondering, like Pharisees, how it was possible that the Mahatmas could communicate with a beef-eating wine-drinking Sinnet and not with them, who took no such things and never shook hands. To these very points, to their superstitions, to their upholding idolatry, to the horrors of caste, the letter adverts. The whole letter rings true and strong. Were one at all disposed to join Olcott in his absurd explanations by mediumship, this letter is the one that would be selected as true.

If for a moment we accept this view of H.P.B. put forward by Olcott then there is, as she published herself, no certainty about any message. Who is to decide? If she hoodwinked with one message, all may be the same―bogus―and the great force and strength derived from a firm belief in Masters will be swept away, because she, their first messenger to us, is made out a fraud. All this is precisely what Olcott et al wish to do. He cannot tolerate the idea that H.P.B. was greater than himself, so he throws around her memory the dirty cloak of tricky and irresponsible mediumship. That done, anything can be explained and anything accounted for.

Well, for my part, I will not accept such nonsense; Col. Olcott being incompetent to decide on Mahatmic messages on occult lines, and being a disciple of H.P.B. is certainly much below her. His present utterance settles nothing about her character, about her mediumship or about the message; but it does serve to brand him as an ingrate and to place him plainly in view as one who calls that great teacher a fraud and a medium.

Now let the next and the next come on, so that we may have the lines clearly drawn and the hypocrisies unveiled.

Mrs. Besant has sent an advance copy of an article to appear in Lucifer entitled "East and West." It is a very long article devoted chiefly to William Q. Judge, but in it she takes up the message from the Master to the Allahabad Brahmans, which Col. Olcott deals with in his April Postscript. She says the message is not genuine, and thus walks beside Col. Olcott in abuse of H.P.B., for everyone with correct information knows that the message came through H.P.B.

LETTER TO EUROPEAN CONVENTION

Following is a copy of a letter from the Executive Committee to be read at the forthcoming European Convention on July 4th:

From the Theosophical Society in America to the European Theosophists, in Convention Assembled as, "The European Section of the Theosophical Society."

BROTHERS and SISTERS:―We send you our fraternal greeting, and fullest sympathy in all works sincerely sought to be performed for the good of Humanity. Separated though we are from you by very great distance we are none the less certain that you and we, as well as all other congregations of people who love Brotherhood, are parts of that great whole denominated The Theosophical Movement, which began far back in the night of Time and has since been moving through many and various peoples, places and environments. That grand work does not depend upon forms, ceremonies, particular persons or set organizations,―"Its unity throughout the world does not consist in the existence and action of any single organization, but depends upon the similarity of work and aspiration of those in the world who are working for it." Hence organizations of theosophists must vary and change in accordance with place, time, exigency and people. To hold that in and by a sole organization for the whole world is the only way to work would be boyish in conception and not in accord with experience or nature's laws.

Recognizing the foregoing, we, who were once the body called The American Section of the T.S., resolved to make

our organization, or merely outer form for government and administration, entirely free and independent of all others; but retained our theosophical ideals, aspirations, aims and objects, continuing to be a part of the theosophical movement. This change was an inevitable one, and perhaps will ere long be made also by you as well as by others. It has been and will be forced, as it were, by nature itself under the sway of the irresistible law of human development and progress.

But while the change would have been made before many years by us as an inevitable and logical development, we have to admit that it was hastened by reason of what we considered to be strife, bitterness and anger existing in other Sections of the theosophical world which were preventing us from doing our best work in the field assigned to us by Karma. In order to more quickly free ourself from these obstructions we made the change in this, instead of in some later year. It is, then, a mere matter of government and has nothing to do with theosophical propaganda or ethics, except that it will enable us to do more and better work.

Therefore we come to you as fellow-students and workers in the field of theosophical effort, and holding out the hand of fellowship we again declare the complete unity of all theosophical workers in every part of the world. This you surely cannot and will not reject from heated, rashly-conceived counsels, or from personalities indulged in by anyone, or from any cause whatever. To reject the proffer would mean that you reject and nullify the principle of Universal Brotherhood upon which alone all true theosophical work is based. And we could not indulge in those reflections nor put forward that reason but for the knowledge that certain persons of weight and prominence in your ranks have given utterance hastily to expressions of pleasure that our change of government above referred to has freed them from nearly every one of the thousands of earnest, studious and enthusiastic workers in our American group of Theosophical Societies. This injudicious and untheosophical attitude we cannot attribute to

Let us then press forward together in the great work of the real Theosophical Movement which is aided by working organizations, but is above them all. Together we can devise more and better ways for spreading the light of truth through all the earth. Mutually assisting and encouraging one another we may learn how to put Theosophy into practice so as to be able to teach and enforce it by example to others. We will then each and all be members of that Universal Lodge of Free and Independent Theosophists which embraces every friend of the human race. And to all this we beg your corporate official answer for our more definite and certain information, and to the end that this and your favorable reply may remain as evidence and monuments between us.

(Signed)
Elliot B. Page
A.P. Buchman
C.A. GRISCOM, Jr.
H.T. Patterson
Jerome A. Anderson Frank I. blodgett
Members of the Executive Committee
Path, July, 1895

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN EUROPE

In last month's issue we published a copy of the kindly and courteous letter of greeting from the Executive Committee of the Theosophical Society in America to the European Theosophists assembling in Convention on July 4th. We have now to inform our readers that by a majority vote of the delegates and proxies at that convention this letter was laid on the table, after a speech by Mrs. Annie Besant in which she declared it a personal attack on herself and an insult to those upholding her. While strongly deprecating

such a unfortunate action, and lamenting deeply that in the name of "Theosophy" any gathering of persons should ever have permitted personality and suspicion thus to override justice and judgement, nevertheless, to all upholders of high theosophic principles, it must be a source of reassurance that the inspiration of the unseen powers behind the Movement has not been entirely clouded in some quarters, when we add that fully half the hall arose and protested against the purblind and fanatical attitude that had brought about the repudiation of a document intended to draw harmoniously together for the greater advancement of our cause all workers in the Movement. Step by step have those who sacrifice the highest theosophical principles to personal attacks on their fellow students, descended the scale or discernment; hour by hour their position has been made more fatally clear; and now finally, in an unguarded moment, they stand self-confessed, their attitude made plain that all who have eyes to see can perceive the unveiled truth. Further comment is out of place; we would fain have made workers of all, have united all in the work, and made this great Movement an undivided Power―differing for different places in external organization, yet one and undivided in Spirit. But some have temporarily placed themselves outside its pale; though members of the "Theosophical Society," by this very vote they account themselves non-Theosophists.

THEOSOPHICAL STUDIES

Study all scriptures written near and far;
Worship all images and saints of earth;
But if you do not study who and what you are,
All your vast studies are as nothing worth.

THERE are a great many people who are always reading, reading, reading. They read each book that they can get hold of upon theosophical or occult subjects. Yet they do not seem to get on in their studies and so state with an air that seems to amount to an indictment of the thing they are studying.

Then there are others who are not known to read much, yet they seem to have a very complete grasp of the subject. I know two Theosophists, one of whom has read probably more than all the students in the Western Societies. He often refers to some new book just out, asking if we have read it. Yet he is hopelessly, at present, entangled in the vast net he has thrown around himself, composed almost wholly of the different ideas put forth by other minds, and has thus voluntarily placed himself under their domination. The other one has read but few books, just enough to know what theories are brought forward, yet he exhibits an extraordinary knowledge upon most Theosophical propositions and upon things not quite generally known.

The reason is that truth is in fact very simple and quite on the surface, but most people prefer to bury it deep in a well, so that they may have the pleasure of digging for it.

be applied in all directions, and with their aid most difficulties can be cleared away, and there is one great doctrine which overshadows them all, binding them together. This latter is the doctrine of universal brotherhood. It should not be merely accepted as a great and high idea―so great in fact that it cannot be understood―but constant inquiry should be made by all earnest people to find out its actual, logical and scientific basis. For if it has no such basis, then it ought to be abandoned as a mere illusion, a mere juggle with words.

"Of making many books there is no end," has been very well said of old. It is easy to make a book, but it is difficult to write one. To make one all that has to be done is to read enough of those formerly written and then cast it all into your own language. There are too many books thus made up and cast forth upon theosophical waters, to the confusion of the poor student. Why read all these? There are many of them full of the misconceptions of their authors, who, although sincere, are themselves struggling to get into clear air.

But all this prevalence of authorship has produced in our people a habit of desiring more books, and a resulting disregard for what has been written of old time. Humanity has not changed much in many ages, and has always been pursuing its investigations, leaving behind it a record. But in the lapse of time the only books which endure are those which contain truth, and are thus real books. And we in this age are ceaselessly and needlessly writing and reading as those of the past ages did, with the same inevitable result: that our real books will in the end be identical with those now left to us as a heritage from the past. So we ought to turn to those old books and with their aid look within! And in order to use them, all we have to do is by a little careful preliminary study come to comprehend the position of their authors, so that what at first appears strange in their writings will soon take on a different meaning, enabling us to see that, "that small, old path leading far away on which the sages walk," has been all found and pointed out to us with infinite care and pains, by the sometimes despised sages of eastern lands.

But even all this good study if not combined with practice is "nothing worth." It is time thrown away. And that practice does not consist in forming secret or exclusive bodies, either in or out of the Theosophical Society. Such so-called "exclusive" bodies are known to exist, but the excluded ones need not have any regret. Those exclusive of others are not practicing; they are not finding out anything of real profit; nor will their studies come to much more than dust and ashes in the mouth, for they are ignoring universal Brotherhood, and the first of the great law, that "the first step in true magic is devotion to the interests of others."

So we come to the last words of the first verse, that we must study ourselves. To do that we must help others and study them. The great self, which is the fountain and giver of all knowledge and power, is reflected in every man, and the wise student cannot afford to ignore the plain deduction that our first effort must be to remove from our minds the sense of being separate from any other person, his deeds or his thoughts. This is said to be a difficult task; but that difficulty arises on the one hand from selfishness and on the other from a natural averseness to accepting such a simple solution.

It is in fact not possible for us to gain from others. We cannot be told truths which do not already potentially exist in ourselves. We may hear them but they pass by and leave no trace. This is what Jesus meant when he said: "To him that hath shall be given"; and in the Hermetic philosophy it is plainly stated: "Do not think that I tell you what you know not; I only tell what you knew before."

It is therefore better to take up two or three books such as Isis Unveiled, the Bhagavad Gita and Light on the Path, study them with care and allow their influence to cause the old knowledge within to revive, and the good seeds left over from past lives to germinate and grow into noble trees.

MUCH READING, LITTLE THOUGHT

THE wise man sagely said that of making books there is no end. If true in his day, it is the same now. Among members of the Theosophical Society the defects are widespread, of reading too many of the ever coming books and too little thought upon the matter read. Anyone who is in a position to see the letters of inquiry received by those in the Society who are prominent, knows that the greater number of the questions asked are due to want of thought, to the failure on the part of the questioners to lay down a sure foundation of general principles.

It is so easy for some to sit down and write a book containing nothing new save its difference of style from others, that the pilgrim theosophist may be quickly bewildered if he pays any attention. This bewilderment is chiefly due to the fact that no writer can express his thoughts in a way that will be exactly and wholly comprehended by every reader, and authors in theosophic literature are only, in fact, trying to present their own particular understanding of old doctrines which the readers would do much better with if they devoted more time to thinking them out for themselves.

In the field of every day books there is so much light reading that the superficial habit of skimming is plainly everywhere apparent, and it threatens to show itself in theosophical ranks.

So well am I convinced there are too many superfluous books in our particular field, that, if I had a youth to train in that department, I should confine him to the Bhagavad-Gita,

the Upanishads, and the Secret Doctrine for a very long time, until he was able to make books for himself out of those, and to apply the principles found in them to every circumstance and to his own life and thought.

Those theosophists who only wish to indulge in a constant variety of new theosophical dishes will go on reading all that appears, but the others who are in earnest, who know that we are here to learn and not solely for our pleasure, are beginning to see that a few books well read, well analysed, and thoroughly digested are better than many books read over once. They have learned how all that part of a book which they clearly understand at first is already their own, and that the rest, which is not so clear or quite obscure, is the portion they are to study, so that it also, if found true, may become an integral part of their constant thought.

OF STUDYING THEOSOPHY

In beginning this study a series of "don'ts" should first engage the student's attention. Don't imagine that you know everything, or that any man in scientific circles has uttered the last word on any subject; don't suppose that the present day is the best, or that the ancients were superstitious, with no knowledge of natural laws. Don't forget that arts, sciences, and metaphysics did not have their rise with European civilization; and don't forget that the influence of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle of ancient Greece is still imposed upon the modern mind. Don't think that our astronomers would have made anything but a mess of the zodiac if the old Chaldeans had not left us the one we use. Don't forget that it is easy to prove that civilization of the highest order has periodically rolled around this globe and left traces great and small behind. Don't confuse Buddhism with Brahmanism, or imagine that the Hindus are Buddhists; and don't take the word of English or German sanscrit scholars in explanation of the writings and scriptures of eastern nations whose thoughts are as foreign in their form to ours as our countries are. One should first be prepared to examine with a clear and unbiased mind.

But suppose the enquirer is disposed at the outset to take the word of theosophical writers, then caution is just as necessary, for theosophical literature does not bear the stamp of authority. We should all be able to give a reason for the hope that is within us, and we cannot do that if we have swallowed without study the words of others.

rather long, earnest, careful thought upon that which we have taken up. If a student accepts reincarnation and karma as true doctrines, the work is but begun. Many theosophists accept doctrines of that name, but are not able to say what it is they have accepted. They do not pause to find out what reincarnates, or how, when, or why karma has its effects, and often do not know what the word means. Some at first think that when they die they will reincarnate, without reflecting that it is the lower personal I they mean, which cannot be born again in a body. Others think that karma is―well, karma, with no clear idea of classes of karma, or whether or not it is punishment or reward or both. Hence a careful learning from one or two books of the statement of the doctrines, and then a more careful study of them, are absolutely necessary.

There is too little of such right study among theosophists, and too much reading of new books. No student can tell whether Mr. Sinnett in Esoteric Buddhism writes reasonably unless his book is learned and not merely skimmed. Although his style is clear, the matter treated is difficult, needing firm lodgment in the mind, followed by careful thought. A proper use of his book, The Secret Doctrine, The Key to Theosophy, and all other matter written upon the constitution of man, leads to an acquaintance with the doctrines as to the being most concerned, and only when that acquaintance is obtained is one fitted to understand the rest.

Another branch of study is that pursued by natural devotees, those who desire to enter into the work itself for the good of humanity. Those should study all branches of theosophical literature all the harder, in order to be able to clearly explain it to others, for a weak reasoner or an apparently credulous believer has not much weight with others.

Western theosophists need patience, determination, discrimination, and memory, if they ever intend to seize and hold the attention of the world for the doctrines they disseminate.

THEOSOPHICAL THEORIES OF THE MICROCOSM

THE greatest schisms often come about through the supporters of one cause disputing over mere terminology. Mr. Subba Row, in his able addresses on Bhagavad Gita, condemned "the sevenfold classification" which has come to be very largely accepted among Theosophists all over the world, and declared, that as that particular classification seemed to him unscientific and misleading, he preferred to adopt another. This brought out a reply which was published in The Path, and one which H. P. Blavatsky wrote for the Theosophist. As editor of the first named magazine I saw no occasion to enter into any part of the small contest, although at the time the first reply was not really on its face an argument newly propounded for the theory, but rather one pointing out possible inconsistencies in Mr. Subba Row's position. In the May Theosophist Mr. Subba Row goes at more length into the matter, and it seems that if his two articles are taken together a way out of the difficulty may be found.

As his articles appeal to my eyes and mind, the real difficulty seems to be, not with any and all sevenfold classifications, but with the particular sevenfold classification found in Esoteric Buddhism and other theosophical works. He has in many places given his adherence to the number seven as a perfect number, but that does not necessarily bind him to the sevenfold division of Esoteric Buddhism. And although I have been an adherent of the Theosophical Society longer than our brother Subba Row, as well as an admirer and supporter of H. P. Blavatsky for many years and am still, yet I cannot

adopt the manner in which the terms in the equation of man have been allotted by the author of Esoteric Buddhism. I have all along thought that that allotment was more or less tentative, but still have always believed that man―taken as a whole―could be called a sevenfold composition. While the changes of position given to the various "principles" have been going on, I have preferred to stick to the threefold division of Body, Soul and Spirit, leaving it open to me to say whether or not I would adopt a fourth―that is, the whole three together.

On page 506, May Theosophist, I find Mr. Subba Row saying:―"I am yet to be convinced that the sevenfold classification we have adopted was the real sevenfold classification of this ancient school of occultism." (The italics are mine.) From this we must conclude that he believes the ancient school did have a sevenfold classification, but that ours is not the same. In this―if it be his position―I agree with him. But we should never quarrel over mere words or numbers. If one should say "I believe in duality, and not in the septenary," he would be right so long as he admits that one of two making up the duad was not perfectly known to him in all its parts; for in the duality could be found every one of the seven or the nine, or the twenty-five principles into which some other philosopher chose to divide the human subject. So for the present, I say I believe in the ternary division, that being one more easily comprehended by the minds of this Kali-Yuga.

This brings us to the question:―"Is it possible for the mind of this Yuga or perhaps of this part of it―to thoroughly comprehend a psychological enumeration which includes seven numbers?" We can grasp seven easily enough in lower things, such as mathematics, the days of the week, and so on, but I doubt if the undeveloped man can, with his unregenerated mind, grasp seven when applied to the unknown quantities of the higher nature. The more especially is this difficult when one considers the poverty of the English language in psychological things.

and war. Very true that it has taken over words from almost all languages, but for what purposes? To suit the uses of nations bound on the path of self aggrandisement, of mere money getting, of individualism. How could European minds understand the statement that there may be an astral body and an astral shape also, each distinct from the other, when they have always known that body is a thing due to accretions from beef and beer? And if one were to tell them that upon approaching the hall of Brahman a point is reached where the flavour of Brahman is perceived, while at another point the glory of Brahman becomes apparent, they would understand the flavour as something due to seasoning or sauce, and the glory to be a mere effulgence or wide extended fame. But it was necessary to direct their minds to the fact that there is more of man than mere body, and therefore such books as Esoteric Buddhism, Zanoni and others came before them. And in Mr. Sinnett's book some division had to be adopted that Western minds could grasp until they were able to go higher. But for my part I have never understood that his book was gospel truth. The great basis of our Society would be undermined by any such doctrine, just as much as his own progress would be retarded did he fancy that the views expressed by him were his own invention. In his work he has been careful to show that his teachers hold that a comprehension of numbers is coincident with a development of certain inner senses or principles in man; and as he says that our "fifth principle" is only in germ, it must follow under the law of correspondences,―that it is impossible for the present man to grasp an equation, relating to these higher states, which includes more than five terms. The result then is that when we deal with these matters we will have to use the unknown quantity x, and leave every one who deals intellectually with the problem to his own manner of placing the different terms. Those who investigate the subject, however, by means of the inner guide, will discover upon attempting to convey their experiences to their intellect―using fellows, that it is not possible to put their hearers into complete possession of the in-

formation gained in that way. But even if both of these classes in the West are left to their own devices, many decades will pass away, and many false as well as ridiculous systems will arise, grow up and disappear, before the whole truth will be known. But if that object of our Society which calls for a demonstration of the value of the ancient Aryan philosophy and psychology is sedulously pursued, we may hope for an earlier dawn of a better day. Who then are to be foremost in this? Our brothers who now possess Hindu bodies! They are within reach of the material, they are now in bodies that have grown on Indian soil, they are charged with a debt to the great sages of the past. Let them faithfully translate those books into English, explaining the terms as nearly as possible in every case, and not go on with mere transliterations of words that do not exist for the West. Thus the power and energy of the West will be wedded to the metaphysics and spiritual inheritance of the East, while both will be saved from a greater darkness. If this is not done, the day will come when the Hindu of today will find that he has failed to help his Western brothers who were in reality once themselves Hindus. Mr. Subba Row can very easily―owing to his mastery of English―enlighten us all by giving us better translations, or, if his time will not allow that, by inducing many Brahmans in India by whom he is held in high esteem, to act upon suggestion of his in that direction.

STUMBLING BLOCKS IN WORDS

A FELLOW student came to me the other day and asked, "What is the relation of 'space' to 'sat'? Is there any difference? In the Secret Doctrine I find that H.P.B., quoting from the disciples' catechism, says that 'space is that which is and ever was and is not created.' "

There is as much stumbling on mere words by students of Theosophy as on anything else. A simple word will often keep out the truth, and not only cause us to reach wrong conclusions, but frequently to enter upon disputes which sometimes end in quarrels. But in the question asked about "space" and "sat" there is an error in postulating "relation" for things which are without relation. "Sat" means being or beness, so it must be indivisible and unrelateable; "space" must be the same as "sat" because it is everywhere, being the one thing or aspect of things from which there is no escape. The moment we speak of "sat" or beness, we are forced to say that it exists somewhere, using the word "somewhere" in the abstract sense, and that "somewhere" is space. They cannot be dissociated from each other. So when I met the extract from the disciples' catechism in the Secret Doctrine, I at once came to the conclusion that "sat" is the word to metaphysically express the same idea as we have in mind when we think of space, the one being abstract existence and the other abstract locality in which to place the existence.

At one time some Theosophists were discussing the true sort of life and practice for a Theosophist. And one said that he thought that the body ought to be "cultivated." The rest at

once entered into a discussion which lasted some time, during which the various arguments and illustrations of each were brought forward, when at the end it was suddenly discovered that there was not, in fact, any disagreement. The whole misunderstanding grew out of the one word "cultivation," which should have been "purification."

We should all be careful not only to use the right word to express the idea intended to be conveyed, but also to accurately understand what is the idea the other person is trying to express, and to do this regardless of what words may have been used. In doing so it is absolutely necessary to remember what aspect the terms are being used in. Take "Jiva" for instance. It means life, and may be made to mean soul or ego. Mr. Sinnett has adopted Jiva to designate the mere life-principle of the human organism. But all through the metaphysical writings of the Hindoos we can find the word used to describe the immortal self. And there is no more confusion in these writings than there is in those of English speaking nations. Napoleon used to say that he paid attention to find out what idea might be behind anything that was said to him, and did not listen so much to the words as to the ideas which they were used to shadow forth. Words do no more than shadow forth the ideas, and a great deal depends upon the mental touch, taste, and power of smell of the person to whom the words are addressed. Remembering that there are such stumbling blocks as these in the way, the wise Theosophist will not be made to fall.

"THE GATES OF GOLD"

When the strong man has crossed the threshold he speaks no more to those at the other (this) side. And even the words he utters when he is outside are so full of mystery, so veiled and profound, that only those who follow in his steps can see the light within them. - Through the Gates of Gold, p. 19.

HE fails to speak when he has crossed, because, if he did, they would neither hear nor understand him. All the language he can use when on this side is language based upon experience gained outside the Gates, and when he uses that language, it calls up in the minds of his hearers only the ideas corresponding to the plane they are on and experience they have undergone; for if he speaks of that kind of idea and experience which he has found on the other side, his hearers do not know what is beneath his words, and therefore his utterances seem profound. They are not veiled and profound because he wishes to be a mystic whose words no one can expound, but solely because of the necessities of the case. He is willing and anxious to tell all who wish to know, but cannot convey what he desires, and he is sometimes accused of being unnecessarily vague and misleading.

But there are some who pretend to have passed through these Gates and who utter mere nothings, mere juggles of words that cannot be understood because there is nothing behind them rooted in experience. Then the question arises, "How are we to distinguish between these two?"

pretending individual who speaks in veiled language only mere nothingness will never vibrate within us those wires which correspond to truth. But when one who has been to and through those Gates speaks ordinary words really veiling grand ideas, then all the invisible wires within immediately vibrate in unison. The inner monitor has struck them, and we feel that he has said what is true, and whether we understand him or not we feel the power of the vibration and the value of the words we have heard.

Many persons are inclined to doubt the existence in themselves of this intuition, who in fact possess it. It is a common heritage of man, and only needs unselfish effort to develop it. Many selfish men have it in their selfish lives; many a great financier and manager has it and exercises it. This is merely its lowest use and expression.

By constantly referring mentally all propositions to it and thus giving it an opportunity for growth, it will grow and speak soon with no uncertain tones. This is what is meant in old Hindu books by the expression, "a knowledge of the real meaning of sacred books." It ought to be cultivated because it is one of the first steps in knowing ourselves and understanding others.

In this civilization especially we are inclined to look outside instead of inside ourselves. Nearly all our progress is material and thus superficial. Spirit is neglected or forgotten, while that which is not spirit is enshrined as such. The intuitions of the little child are stifled until at last they are almost lost, leaving the many at the mercy of judgments based upon exterior reason. How, then, can one who has been near the Golden Gates―much more he who passed through them―be other than silent in surroundings where the golden refulgence is unknown or denied. Obliged to use the words of his fellow travellers, he gives them a meaning unknown to them, or detaches them from their accustomed relation. Hence he is sometimes vague, often misleading, seldom properly understood. But not lost are any of these words, for they sound through the ages, and in future eras they will turn themselves into sentences of gold in the hearts of disciples yet to come.

ICONOCLASM TOWARD ILLUSIONS

A DISPOSITION not to interfere in any way with beliefs which are illusions prevails with many who dislike the pain caused by such tearing away of the veil. And the argument that illusionary beliefs, creeds, and dogmas should not be done away with so long as the believer is happy or good has been used by the Christian Church―and more especially by the Roman Catholic branch of it―as a potent means of keeping the mind of man in an iron chain. They are accustomed to add that unless such creeds and beliefs shall stand, morality will die out altogether. But experience does not prove the position to be correct.

For numerous examples exist in the dissenting or Protestant form of Christianity showing that the important doctrines of the Church are not necessary for the prevailing of good morals; and, on the other hand, immorality, vice, and crime in places high and low coexist with a formal declaration of belief in the church dogmas. In many parts of Italy the grossest superstition and murderous vengefulness and crooked hearts are found side by side with an outwardly pious compliance with the ordinances of the Church and a superstitious belief in its dogmas. The whole Christian assembly of nations officially violates the commands of Jesus every day and hour.

Shall it be worse or better, or kind or harsh, to tear away the veil as quickly as possible? And if the iconoclastic attack should be made, for what reason ought one to hesitate because the operation and the attack may result in mental pain?

The only reason for hesitation lies in this fear to give pain; there can be nothing but good result from the change from an untrue and illogical, and therefore debasing, creed, if a system

Were we dealing with children or with a race mind which though dwelling in an adult body is but that of a child, then, indeed, it would be right to lead them on by what may be entirely an illusion. But the day of man's childhood as an immortal being has passed away. He is now grown up, his mind has arrived at the point where it must know, and when, if knowledge be refused, this violation of our being will result in the grossest and vilest superstition or the most appalling materialism. No child is born without the accompanying pains, and now the soul-mind of man is struggling for birth. Shall we aid in preventing it merely for the avoidance of preliminary pain? Shall we help a vast brood of priests to refasten the clamps of steel which for so many centuries they have held tightly on the race-mind? Never, if we see the great truth that we are preparing for a cycle when reason is to take her place beside the soul and guide the pilgrim to the tree of life eternal.

Be not beguiled by the argument that 'tis unwise to tell the truth. It is but the song of the siren, intended to lure the traveler to his doom.

Tell the truth, but do not force it. If even a pious soul should lose the historical Jesus Christ and see instead the glorious image of the Self in every man, that were a gain worth all the pain the first rude shock might give. The danger of lifting the veil of Isis lies not in the doctrines of Unity, Reincarnation, and Karma, but in untaught mysteries which no Theosophist is able to reveal. The change from dogma or creed to a belief in law and justice impartial will bring perhaps some tears to the soul, but the end thereof is peace and freedom.

The "great orphan Humanity," now grown up, no longer needs the toys of a thousand years ago, but requires, and with a voice like the rush of mighty waters demands, that every veil shall be lifted, every lie unveiled, and every light be lighted that can shed a ray upon the remainder of its toilsome road.

HOW SHOULD WE TREAT OTHERS?

THE subject relates to our conduct toward and treatment of our fellows, including in that term all people with whom we have any dealings. No particular mode of treatment is given by Theosophy. It simply lays down the law that governs us in all our acts, and declares the consequences of those acts. It is for us to follow the line of action which shall result first in harmony now and forever, and second, in the reduction of the general sum of hate and opposition in thought or act which now darkens the world.

The great law which Theosophy first speaks of is the law of karma, and this is the one which must be held in view in considering the question. Karma is called by some the "law of ethical causation," but it is also the law of action and reaction; and in all departments of nature the reaction is equal to the action, and sometimes the reaction from the unseen but permanent world seems to be much greater than the physical act or word would appear to warrant on the physical plane. This is because the hidden force on the unseen plane was just as strong and powerful as the reaction is seen by us to be. The ordinary view takes in but half of the facts in any such case and judges wholly by superficial observation.

If we look at the subject only from the point of view of the person who knows not of Theosophy and of the nature of man, nor of the forces Theosophy knows to be operating all the time, then the reply to the question will be just the same as the everyday man makes. That is, that he has certain rights he must and will and ought to protect; that he has prop-

erty he will and may keep and use any way he pleases; and if a man injure him he ought to and will resent it; that if he is insulted by word or deed he will at once fly not only to administer punishment on the offender, but also try to reform, to admonish, and very often to give that offender up to the arm of the law; that if he knows of a criminal he will denounce him to the police and see that he has meted out to him the punishment provided by the law of man. Thus in everything he will proceed as is the custom and as is thought to be the right way by those who live under the Mosaic retaliatory law.

But if we are to inquire into the subject as Theosophists, and as Theosophists who know certain laws and who insist on the absolute sway of karma, and as people who know what the real constitution of man is, then the whole matter takes on, or ought to take on, a wholly different aspect.

The untheosophical view is based on separation, the Theosophical upon unity absolute and actual. Of course if Theosophists talk of unity but as a dream or a mere metaphysical thing, then they will cease to be Theosophists, and be mere professors, as the Christian world is today, of a code not followed. If we are separate one from the other the world is right and resistance is a duty, and the failure to condemn those who offend is a distinct breach of propriety, of law, and of duty. But if we are all united as a physical and psychical fact, then the act of condemning, the fact of resistance, the insistance upon rights on all occasions―all of which means the entire lack of charity and mercy―will bring consequences as certain as the rising of the sun tomorrow.

They are simply this, that the real man, the entity, the thinker, will react back on you just exactly in proportion to the way you act to him, and this reaction will be in another life, if not now, and even if now felt will still return in the next life.

The fact that the person whom you condemn, or oppose, or judge seems now in this life to deserve it for his acts in

this life, does not alter the other fact that his nature will react against you when the time comes. The reaction is a law not subject to nor altered by any sentiment on your part. He may have, truly, offended you and even hurt you, and done that which in the eye of man is blameworthy, but all this does not have anything to do with the dynamic fact that if you arouse his enmity by your condemnation or judgment there will be a reaction on you, and consequently on the whole of society in any century when the reaction takes place. This is the law and the fact as given by the Adepts, as told by all sages, as reported by those who have seen the inner side of nature, as taught by our philosophy and easily provable by anyone who will take the trouble to examine carefully. Logic and small facts of one day or one life, or arguments on lines laid down by men of the world who do not know the real power and place of thought nor the real nature of man cannot sweep this away. After all argument and logic it will remain. The logic used against it is always lacking in certain premises based on facts, and while seeming to be good logic, because the missing facts are unknown to the logician, it is false logic. Hence an appeal to logic that ignores facts which we know are certain is of no use in this inquiry. And the ordinary argument always uses a number of assumptions which are destroyed by the actual inner facts about thought, about karma, about the reaction by the inner man.

The Master "K. H.," once writing to Mr. Sinnett in the Occult World, and speaking for his whole order and not for himself only, distinctly wrote that the man who goes to denounce a criminal or an offender works not with nature and harmony but against both, and that such act tends to destruction instead of construction. Whether the act be large or small, whether it be the denunciation of a criminal, or only your own insistence on rules or laws or rights, does not alter the matter or take it out of the rule laid down by that Adept. For the only difference between the acts mentioned is a difference of degree alone; the act is the same in kind as the violent denunciation of a criminal. Either this Adept was right or

wrong. If wrong, why do we follow the philosophy laid down by him and his messenger, and concurred in by all the sages and teachers of the past? If right, why this swimming in an adverse current, as he said himself, why this attempt to show that we can set aside karma and act as we please without consequences following us to the end of time? I know not. I prefer to follow the Adept, and especially so when I see that what he says is in line with facts in nature and is a certain conclusion from the system of philosophy I have found in Theosophy.

I have never found an insistence on my so-called rights at all necessary. They preserve themselves, and it must be true if the law of karma is the truth that no man offends against me unless I in the past have offended against him.

In respect to man, karma has no existence without two or more persons being considered. You act, another person is affected, karma follows. It follows on the thought of each and not on the act, for the other person is moved to thought by your act. Here are two sorts of karma, yours and his, and both are intermixed. There is the karma or effect on you of your own thought and act, the result on you of the other person's thought; and there is the karma on or with the other person consisting of the direct result of your act and his thoughts engendered by your act and thought. This is all permanent. As affecting you there may be various effects. If you have condemned, for instance, we may mention some: (a) the increased tendency in yourself to indulge in condemnation, which will remain and increase from life to life; (b) this will at last in you change into violence and all that anger and condemnation may naturally lead to; (c) an opposition to you is set up in the other person, which will remain forever until one day both suffer for it, and this may be in a tendency in the other person in any subsequent life to do you harm and hurt you in the million ways possible in life, and often also unconsciously. Thus it may all widen out and affect the whole body of society. Hence no matter how justifiable it may seem to you to condemn or denounce or punish another, you set up

cause for sorrow in the whole race that must work out some day. And you must feel it.

The opposite conduct, that is, entire charity, constant forgiveness, wipes out the opposition from others, expends the old enmity and at the same time makes no new similar causes. Any other sort of thought or conduct is sure to increase the sum of hate in the world, to make cause for sorrow, to continually keep up the crime and misery in the world. Each man can for himself decide which of the two ways is the right one to adopt.

Self-love and what people call self-respect may shrink from following the Adept's view I give above, but the Theosophist who wishes to follow the law and reduce the general sum of hate will know how to act and to think, for he will follow the words of the Master of H.P.B. who said: "Do not be ever thinking of yourself and forgetting that there are others; for you have no karma of your own, but the karma of each one is the karma of all." And these words were sent by H.P.B. to the American Section and called by her words of wisdom, as they seem also to me to be, for they accord with law. They hurt the personality of the nineteenth century, but the personality is for a day, and soon it will be changed if Theosophists try to follow the law of charity as enforced by the inexorable law of karma. We should all constantly remember that if we believe in the Masters we should at least try to imitate them in the charity they show for our weakness and faults. In no other way can we hope to reach their high estate, for by beginning thus we set up a tendency which will one day perhaps bring us near to their development; by not beginning we put off the day forever.

THEOSOPHY AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

FROM ignorance of the truth about man's real nature and faculties and their action and condition after bodily death, a number of evils flow. The effect of such want of knowledge is much wider than the concerns of one or several persons. Government and the administration of human justice under man-made laws will improve in proportion as there exists a greater amount of information on this all-important subject. When a wide and deep knowledge and belief in respect to the occult side of nature and of man shall have become the property of the people then may we expect a great change in the matter of capital punishment.

The killing of a human being by the authority of the state is morally wrong and also an injury to all the people; no criminal should be executed no matter what the offence. If the administration of the law is so faulty as to permit the release of the hardened criminal before the term of his sentence has expired, that has nothing to do with the question of killing him.

Under Christianity this killing is contrary to the law supposed to have emanated from the Supreme Lawgiver. The commandment is: "Thou shalt not kill!" No exception is made for states or governments; it does not even except the animal kingdom. Under this law therefore it is not right to kill a dog, to say nothing of human beings. But the commandment has always been and still is ignored. The Theology of man is always able to argue away any regulation whatever; and the Christian nations once rioted in executions. At one time for stealing a loaf of bread or a few nails a man might be hanged.

This, however, has been so altered that death at the hands of the law is imposed for murder only,―omitting some unimportant exceptions.

We can safely divide the criminals who have been or will be killed under our laws into two classes: i.e., those persons who are hardened, vicious, murderous in nature; and those who are not so, but who, in a moment of passion, fear, or anger, have slain another. The last may be again divided into those who are sorry for what they did, and those who are not. But even though those of the second class are not by intention enemies of Society, as are the others, they too before their execution may have their anger, resentment, desire for revenge and other feelings besides remorse, all aroused against Society which persecutes them and against those who directly take part in their trial and execution. The nature, passions, state of mind and bitterness of the criminal have, hence, to be taken into account in considering the question. For the condition which he is in when cut off from mundane life has much to do with the whole subject.

All the modes of execution are violent, whether by the knife, the sword, the bullet, by poison, rope, or electricity. And for the Theosophist the term violent as applied to death must mean more than it does to those who do not hold theosophical views. For the latter, a violent death is distinguished from an easy natural one solely by the violence used against the victim. But for us such a death is the violent separation of the man from his body, and is a serious matter, of interest to the whole state. It creates in fact a paradox, for such persons are not dead; they remain with us as unseen criminals, able to do harm to the living and to cause damage to the whole of Society.

What happens? All the onlooker sees is that the sudden cutting off is accomplished; but what of the reality? A natural death is like the falling of a leaf near the winter time. The time is fully ripe, all the powers of the leaf having separated; those acting no longer, its stem has but a slight hold on the branch and the slightest wind takes it away. So with us; we begin to

separate our different inner powers and parts one from the other because their full term has ended, and when the final tremor comes the various inner component parts of the man fall away from each other and let the soul go free. But the poor criminal has not come to the natural end of his life. His astral body is not ready to separate from his physical body, nor is the vital, nervous energy ready to leave. The entire inner man is closely knit together, and he is the reality. I have said these parts are not ready to separate―they are in fact not able to separate because they are bound together by law and a force over which only great Nature has control.

When then the mere physical body is so treated that a sudden, premature separation from the real man is effected, he is merely dazed for a time, after which he wakes up in the atmosphere of the earth, fully a sentient living being save for the body. He sees the people, he sees and feels again the pursuit of him by the law. His passions are alive. He has become a raging fire, a mass of hate; the victim of his fellows and of his own crime. Few of us are able, even under favorable circumstances, to admit ourselves as wholly wrong and to say that punishment inflicted on us by man is right and just, and the criminal has only hate and desire for revenge.

If now we remember that his state of mind was made worse by his trial and execution, we can see that he has become a menace to the living. Even if he be not so bad and full of revenge as said, he is himself the repository of his own deeds; he carries with him into the astral realm surrounding us the pictures of his crimes, and these are ever living creatures, as it were. In any case he is dangerous. Floating as he does in the very realm in which our mind and senses operate, he is forever coming in contact with the mind and senses of the living. More people than we suspect are nervous and sensitive. If these sensitives are touched by this invisible criminal they have injected into them at once the pictures of his crime and punishment, the vibrations from his hate, malice and revenge. Like creates like, and thus these vibrations create their like. Many a person has been impelled by some unknown

force to commit crime; and that force came from such an inhabitant of our sphere.

And even with those not called "sensitive" these floating criminals have an effect, arousing evil thoughts where any basis for such exist in those individuals. We cannot argue away the immense force of hate, revenge, fear, vanity, all combined. Take the case of Guiteau, who shot President Garfield. He went through many days of trial. His hate, anger and vanity were aroused to the highest pitch every day and until the last, and he died full of curses for every one who had anything to do with his troubles. Can we be so foolish as to say that all the force he thus generated was at once dissipated? Of course it was not. In time it will be transformed into other forces, but during the long time before that takes place the living Guiteau will float through our mind and senses carrying with him and dragging over us the awful pictures drawn and frightful passions engendered.

The Theosophist who believes in the multiple nature of man and in the complexity of his inner nature, and knows that that is governed by law and not by mere chance or by the fancy of those who prate of the need for protecting society when they do not know the right way to do it, relying only on the punitive and retaliatory Mosaic law―will oppose capital punishment. He sees it is unjust to the living, a danger to the state, and that it allows no chance whatever for any reformation of the criminal.

SUICIDE IS NOT DEATH

AS a student of Theosophy and human nature I have been interested in the discussion of the subject of self-murder to which The World has given a place in its columns. The eloquent agnostic, Col. Ingersoll, planted his views in the ground with the roots of them in the grave, giving the poor felo de se nothing beyond the cold earth to cheer him in his act, save perhaps the cowardly chance of escape, from responsibility or pain. Those who, as Nym Crinkle says, occupy themselves with replying to Col. Ingersoll fall back on the mere assertion that it is a sin to kill the body in which the Lord saw fit to confine a man. Neither of these views is either satisfactory or scientific.

If suicide is to be approved it can only be on the ground that the man is only a body, which, being a clod, may well be put out of its sufferings. From this it would be an easy step to justify the killing of other bodies that may be in the way, or old, or insane, or decrepit, or vicious. For if the mass of clay called body is all that we are, if man is not a spirit unborn and changeless in essence, then what wrong can there be in destroying it when you own it, or are it, and how easy to find good and sufficient reason for disposing similarly of others? The priest condemns suicide, but one may be a Christian and yet hold the opinion that a quick release from earth brings possible heaven several years nearer. The Christian is not deterred from suicide by any good reasons advanced in his religion, but rather from cowardice. Death, whenever natural

or forced has become a terror, is named "The King of Terrors." This is because, although a vague heaven is offered on the other side, life and death are so little understood that men had rather bear the ills they know than fly to others which are feared through ignorance of what those are.

Suicide, like any other murder is a sin because it is a sudden disturbance of the harmony of the world. It is a sin because it defeats nature. Nature exists for the sake of the soul and for no other reason, it has the design, so to say, of giving the soul experience and self-consciousness. These can only be had by means of a body through which the soul comes in contact with nature, and to violently sever the connection before the natural time defeats the aim of nature, for the present compelling her, by her own slow processes, to restore the task left unfinished. And as those processes must go on through the soul that permitted the murder, more pain and suffering must follow.

And the disturbance of the general harmony is a greater sin than most men think. They consider themselves alone, as separate, as not connected with others. But they are connected throughout the whole world with all other souls and minds. A subtle, actual, powerful band links them all together, and the instant one of all these millions disturbs the link the whole mass feels it by reaction through soul and mind, and can only return to a normal state through a painful adjustment. This adjustment is on the unseen, but all-important, planes of being in which the real man exists. Thus each murderer of self or of another imposes on entire humanity an unjustifiable burden. From this injustice he cannot escape, for his body's death does not cut him off from the rest; it only places him, deprived of nature's instruments, in the clutch of laws that are powerful and implacable, ceaseless in their operation and compulsory in their demands.

Suicide is a huge folly, because it places the committer of it in an infinitely worse position than he was in under the conditions from which he foolishly hoped to escape. It is not death. It is only a leaving of one well-known house in

familiar surroundings to go into a new place where terror and despair alone have place. It is but a preliminary death done to the clay, which is put in the "cold embrace of the grave," leaving the man himself naked and alive, but out of mortal life and not in either heaven or hell.

The Theosophist sees that man is a complex being full of forces and faculties, which he uses in a body on earth. The body is only a part of his clothing; he himself lives also in other places. In sleep he lives in one, awakes in another, in thought in another. He is a threefold being of body, soul and spirit. And this trinity can be divided again into its necessary seven constituents. And just as he is threefold, so also is nature―material, psychical or astral, and spiritual. The material part of nature governs the body, the psychical affects the soul and the spirit lives in the spiritual, all being bound together. Were we but bodies, we might well commit them to material nature and the grave, but if we rush out of the material we must project ourselves into the psychical or astral. And as all nature proceeds with regularity under the government of law, we know that each combination has its own term of life before a natural and easy separation of the component parts can take place. A tree or a mineral or a man is a combination of elements or parts, and each must have its projected life term. If we violently and prematurely cut them off one from the other, certain consequences must ensue. Each constituent requires its own time for dissolution. And suicide being a violent destruction of the first element―body―the other two, of soul and spirit, are left without their natural instrument. The man then is but half dead, and is compelled by the law of his own being to wait until the natural term is reached.

The fate of the suicide is horrible in general. He has cut himself off from his body by using mechanical means that affect the body, but cannot touch the real man. He then is projected into the astral world, for he has to live somewhere. There the remorseless law, which acts really for his good, compels him to wait until he can properly die. Naturally

he must wait, half dead, the months or years which, in the order of nature, would have rolled over him before body and soul and spirit could rightly separate. He becomes a shade; he lives in purgatory, so to say, called by the Theosophist the "place of desire and passion," or "Kama Loka." He exists in the astral realm entirely, eaten up by his own thoughts. Continually repeating in vivid thoughts the act by which he tried to stop his life's pilgrimage, he at the same time sees the people and the place he left, but is not able to communicate with any one except, now and then, with some poor sensitive, who often is frightened by the visit. And often he fills the minds of living persons who may be sensitive to his thoughts with the picture of his own taking off, occasionally leading them to commit upon themselves the act of which he was guilty.

To put it theosophically, the suicide has cut himself off on one side from the body and life which were necessary for his experience and evolution, and on the other from his spirit, his guide and "Father in heaven." He is composed now of astral body, which is of great tensile strength, informed and inflamed by his passions and desires. But a portion of his mind, called manas, is with him. He can think and perceive, but, ignorant of how to use the forces of that realm, he is swept hither and thither, unable to guide himself. His whole nature is in distress, and with it to a certain degree the whole of humanity, for through the spirit all are united. Thus he goes on, until the law of nature acting on his astral body, that begins to die, and then he falls into a sleep from which he awakens in time for a season of rest before beginning once more a life on earth. In his next reincarnation he may, if he sees fit, retrieve or compensate or suffer over again.

There is no escape from responsibility. The "sweet embrace of the wet clay" is a delusion. It is better to bravely accept the inevitable, since it must be due to our errors in other older lives, and fill every duty, try to improve all opportunity. To teach suicide is a sin, for it leads some to commit it. To prohibit it without reason is useless, for our minds must have reasons for doing or not doing. And if we literally construe

the words of the Bible, then there we find it says no murderer has a place but in hell. Such constructions satisfy but few in an age of critical investigation and hard analysis. But give men the key to their own natures, show them how law governs both here and beyond the grave, and their good sense will do the rest. An illogical nepenthe of the grave is as foolish as an illogical heaven for nothing.

"REWARD FOR UNMERITED SUFFERINGS"

IN the Key to Theosophy, on page 161, the author uses a phrase which has been objected to on the ground that a strict construction of it overthrows the whole doctrine of Karma. The words referred to and the contiguous sentences are:

Our philosophy teaches that Karmic punishment reaches the Ego only in its next incarnation. After death it receives only the reward for the unmerited sufferings endured during its past incarnation.

The italicised portion is the part objected to, and the objection raised is that, if all that happens to us so happens because it is our Karma, then it cannot be unmerited: hence, either the statement is incorrect or Karma is not the law of justice, but there must be some other one governing man and the vicissitudes of his life.

Let us go further down the same page and see if some sentences in the same paragraph do not bear upon the meaning of the author. She says:

If it may be said that there is not a mental or physical suffering in the life of a mortal which is not the direct fruit and consequence of some sin in a preceding existence; on the other hand, since he does not preserve the slightest recollection of it in his actual life and feels himself not deserving of such punishment, and therefore thinks he suffers for no guilt of his own, this alone is sufficient to entitle the human soul to the fullest consolation, rest, and bliss in his post-mortem existence. Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend.

is the great governing law, that all suffering and reward come from and through Karma; and, as I understand from the published and unpublished views of H. P. Blavatsky, she holds the same opinion. Therefore, such being the case, what we have to enquire into is the meaning intended to be conveyed by the passages cited. There is no doubt whatever that the author of the Key agrees, except perhaps about hell, with the Buddhist priest who, writing several years ago in the Theosophist¹ upon this subject, said:

In this light Karma may be defined as . . . that irresistible force which drags the criminal into the hell fire amidst his loud lamentations, the powerful hand that rescues the wretch from the merciless hands of the infernal angels and takes him to a happier place for the amelioration of his miserable condition, or the heavenly angel who bears away, as it were, the enraptured soul to the blissful abodes above and takes it back after a very long course of heavenly enjoyments to this world, or to hell itself, paying little or no attention to the sorrowful tales of the reluctant soul.

Construing together the sentences in the paragraph from the Key to Theosophy, we find that she says, in effect, in the later sentences on the same page, that all suffering is the direct fruit and consequence of some sin committed in a previous existence, but that as the personality in the life when the suffering comes has no recollection of the cause which brought it about, the punishment is felt by that personality to be undeserved, and another cause is thus set up which has its action in the post mortem condition. The difficulty raised by the objection put is that the whole matter has been made objective, and Karma has been looked upon as a material or objective law, and the post mortem state placed in the same category. The true Ego neither suffers nor enjoys, and is not bound at any time by Karma; but as Devachan is a subjective condition in which the Ego therein creates for itself out of its own thoughts the surroundings fit for it, so we may say, without at all interfering with our conceptions of Karma, that after death this Ego receives the reward for the sufferings which it thought were unmerited in the life just quitted. The word

"unmerited" as written in The Key is not to be construed as being used by any Karmic power, but as the conception formed by the Ego during life of the propriety or impropriety of whatever suffering may have been then endured.

For, as we have seen in other studies, Devachan―the post mortem state under consideration―is a condition wherein no objective experiences are undergone by the Ego, but in which the thoughts of a certain sort had during life act in producing about it, or rather within its sphere, the blissful subjective experiences necessary for the resting of the soul. Hence if when in the mortal frame it considered itself unjustly treated by fate or nature, it set up then and there the causes for bringing about a so-called reward for the suffering which to it seemed unmerited, just so soon as it would be released from the body and the causes be able to act in the only place or state which will permit their action.

This blissful state, as intimated in the quotation made from the Theosophist, is Karmic reward in the plane of Devachan. The "Karmic punishment" referred to in the Key is not the opposite of this, but is the opposite of Karmic reward acting on the plane of objective earth life. For the opposite of devachanic reward or bliss must be on a similar plane, such as the "hell" spoken of by the Buddhist priest, or Avitchi. If these distinctions are clearly borne in mind, there cannot be much difficulty with any of these questions.

To me Karma is not only judge, it is also friend and deliverer. It is essentially just. The conditions are laid down. If I comply, the result inevitably follows. It is my friend because it will, just as inevitably as life and death, give me a rest in devachan where the tired soul which needs recuperation as well as the body will find what is best for it. And a mere phrase like "unmerited suffering" invented by me in my ignorance here upon earth will be one of the factors used by this very Karma to bring about my peace and joy, albeit that still again inexorable Karma awaits me at the threshold of Devachan to mete out in my next appearance upon this ter-

restrial stage my just deserts. And thus on and ever on and upward we shall be led from life to life and stage to stage, until at last the conviction has become an inherent portion of our being that Karma is not only just but merciful.

DEVACHAN

A LETTER to the editor from Holland upon this subject deserves reply, as it must give utterance to the questions of many other students.

The complaint in this letter is that when one goes to Devachan much time is lost away from earth life, where otherwise unselfish work for others might be continued by instantly returning to it after death. The reason given is that Devachan is an illusion, while the so-called illusions of earthly existence are in such a sense real that they are preferable to those of Devachan. In illustration of this, the supposed case is given of a parent in Devachan imagining that the beloved child is also there, when, in fact, the child not yet physically dead remains on earth perhaps in misery or leading a life of vice. This is the root of the objection―the supposed illusionary character of Devachan as compared to earth-life.

Now these feelings are always due to the thirst for life in the form which presently is most known to us,―that is, in a physical body. We cannot argue Devachan away any more than we can the necessity of incarnation upon this earth; the one is as philosophically necessary as is the other. A very easy way out of the difficulty―which arises almost wholly from our feelings―would be to calmly accept the law as it stands, being willing to take whatever may be our fate, whether that be in Devachan or in this earth-life. Our likes and dislikes can have no effect on the course of nature, but they may have an effect on ourselves which will be far from beneficial. For the dwelling upon pleasure or the constant desire to fly from "pain not yet

But perhaps there are some considerations on the subject of Devachan which may be of use. In the first place, I have never believed that the period given by Mr. Sinnett in Esoteric Buddhism of fifteen hundred years for the stay in that state was a fixed fact in nature. It might be fifteen minutes as well as fifteen hundred years. But it is quite likely that for the majority of those who so constantly wish for a release and for an enjoyment of heaven, the period would be more than fifteen hundred years. Indeed, the Hindu Scriptures give many special ceremonies for the attainment of heaven, or the regions of Indra, which is Devachan; and those ceremonies or practices are said to cause a stay in Indraloka "for years of infinite number."

The first question, however, must be "What is the cause for passing into Devachan?" Some have said that it is good Karma or good acts that take us and keep us there, but this is a very incomplete reply. Of course, in the sense that it is happiness to go into that state, it may be called good Karma. But it does not follow that the man whose life is good, passed in constant unselfish work for others without repining, and free from desire to have somewhere his reward, will go to Devachan. Yet his Karma must be good; it must act on him, however, in other lives, for the earth-life is the place where such Karma has its operation. But if at the same time that he is thus working for others he wishes for release or for some place or time when and where he may have rest, then, of course, he must go to Devachan for a period which will be in proportion to the intensity of those desires.

Again, it should not be forgotten that the soul must have some rest. Were it, before becoming bright as the diamond, hard as adamant, and strong as steel, to go on working, working through earth-life after earth-life without a break between, it must at last succumb to the strain and come to nothing. Nature therefore has provided for it a place of rest―in Devachan; and that we should thankfully accept if it falls to our lot.

But does Devachan suffer in the comparison made between it and this life on earth? To me it seems not. Human life is as great an illusion as any. To the sage Ribhu, Vishnu said it was the longest-lived reign of fancy. To say that it is a terrible thing to think of a mother in Devachan enjoying its bliss while the child is suffering on earth, is to prefer one illusion over another, to hug a philosophical error to the breast. Both states are out of the true, while the Ego, who is the real witness, sees the lower personality struggling with these phantoms while it, whether the body be living or its other parts be in Devachan, enjoys eternal felicity. It sits on high unmoved, immovable. The great verse in the Isa-Upanishad settles this matter for me in these words: "What room is there for sorrow and what for doubt in him who knows that all spiritual beings are the same in kind, though differing in degree." Therefore if I believe this, I must also know that, no matter whether I and my best beloved are in Devachan or on earth, they and I must forever partake of the highest development attained by the greatest of sages, for, as they and I are spiritual beings, we must have communion forever on the higher planes of our being.

Then, again, the fact seems to be lost sight of that each night we go into a sort of Devachan―the dream state or sleep without dream. The loving mother, no matter how unfortunate or evil her child, must sleep, and in that state she may have dreams of her loved ones around her in just the very condition of mind and body she would have them enjoy. If Devachan be objectionable, why not also rebel against our necessary sleep which acts on our physical frame to give it rest, as Devachan does upon our more ethereal parts?

Lying unnoticed at the foot of this matter is the question of time. It goes to the very root of the objection, for the aversion to the stay in Devachan is based upon the conception of a period of time. This period―given or supposed as 1,500 years―is another great illusion which can be easily proved to be so. What we call time, measured by our seconds and minutes and hours, is not necessarily actual time itself. It is not the ultimate precedence and succession of moments in the abstract. For

us it depends on and flows from the revolutions of our solar orb, and even with that standard it can be shown that we do not apprehend it correctly. We speak of seconds, but those are such as our watchmakers give us in the watch. They might be made longer or shorter. They are arrived at through a division of a diurnal solar revolution, the observation of which is not necessarily mathematically accurate. If we lived on Mercury―where we must believe intelligent beings live―our conception of time would be different. From our childhood's experience we know that even in this life our appreciation of the passage of time rises and falls, for in early youth the 12 months from one Christmas to another seemed very, very long, while now they pass all too quickly. And from watching the mental processes in dreams we know that, in the space of time taken for a bell to drop from the table to the floor, one may dream through a whole lifetime, with all the incidents of each day and hour packed into such a limited period. Who can tell but that in a Devachanic state of three months the person may go through experiences that seem to cover thousands of years? If so, why not say for him―since time as we know it is an illusion―that he was in Devachan for those thousands?

Devachan, however, is not a meaningless or useless state. In it we are rested; that part of us which could not bloom under the chilling skies of earth-life bursts forth into flower and goes back with us to another life stronger and more a part of our nature than before; our strength is revived for another journey between deaths. Why shall we repine that nature kindly aids us in the interminable struggle; why thus ever keep the mind revolving about this petty personality and its good or evil fortune?

MODERNIZED UPANISHAD

THE Master was asked by the pupil to tell at whose wish the mind of man, when sent forth for any act, proceeds on its errand, by whose command the first breath goeth forth, and at whose wish do men utter speech. He was also asked to tell what intelligent power directs the eye or the ear in the performance of natural functions.

The reply given by the Master, thus approached by the pupil, was that in respect to the ear, the brain, the speech of man, the breathing, and the eye, the other organs are of themselves wholly unable to act, but are the means whereby the real, but unseen, inner organs of sight, speech, hearing, seeing, and breathing obtain touch with nature, make themselves manifest, and become able to cognize outside objects.

The perfectly trained man, one fully grounded in philosophy, who has gained control of these organs both within and without, and who can locate his consciousness in the inner being, becomes really immortal when death releases him from the connection with the body. But the ordinary man, by reason of his being fully entrapped and deluded by the outer senses which are always intimately connected with the inner ones, is compelled after death to go into the Devachanic state and to

return again to earthly life where he takes up a fresh set of material organs and sense connections.

But there is another sort of consciousness which cannot be expounded to one who has not himself gained an experience of it. It is beyond description in words used on this plane. For it is different from the known, above what we suppose to be the unknown, and not that which people here adore as their highest conception of being.

Know, therefore, that the basis for the operations of the mind, of the senses, of the organs is Brahman alone. Without that we could neither taste, smell, hear, see, nor think.

Then to the pupil the Master said, so as to impress it on his mind, "If thou thinkest I know the form of Brahman well, thou are not wise; but perhaps thou newest it thyself, if so then tell me."

To this the pupil replied that we cannot know or describe Brahman, the substratum of all, in the ordinary manner by connecting him with some things already known to us, but at the same time we are not able to say that we do not know him. We feel the actuality of Brahman, but cannot enter into a description of it as we would of an object, by giving its known characteristics, or of a piece of land by its metes and bounds, its quality and its vegetation. The knowing of it at last, its full realization, is a species of awakening out of the present state, and then the knowledge bursts upon us. By the real Self we gain and keep strength in the interior nature, and by knowledge we become able to destroy the bonds of material reincarnation, thus attaining conscious immortality. And by knowing this, one has discovered the true aim of life. If this is not understood while a man is existing here on earth in a body, then he will be compelled to reincarnate until he does comprehend it. But the wise, who have directed their thoughts to all things, and have at last come to recognize the real Self within themselves, are possessors of conscious immortality and pass unfettered out of this life never to return.

The elemental spirits of all grades that work in nature on every plane, in air, water, earth, and fire in all their correlations and combinations, were evolved from lower and less conscious states through aeons of effort by the highest mind. This was a constant struggle between the informing power of the mind and the heavy non-conscious material base which alone existed before what we now call matter had been differentiated from primordial cosmic substance. It was in ages long passed away, while the elemental model of all material things was under construction. Without the informing power, which was itself brought over from previous and incalculably distant periods of evolution, the elemental spirits would not have come into existence, as they had no power of their own to stir the depths of cosmic matter. Hence their evolution is called the "Victory of Brahman."

They were evolved on many planes, each in a different degree², and among them were the higher order related to fire, air, and nascent mind. These being the highest were in possession of a consciousness peculiar to their own plane of existence and were destined to become the conscious human beings of the future. But it seemed to them that they had themselves obtained the victory over cosmic substance and brought about their own evolution.

And in order to raise these cosmic spirits by gentle steps to a higher state of development, the highly progressed entities from other Manvantaras appeared to them on their own plane and in their own spheres of consciousness, but were not comprehended. Then the ruling spirits of fire were unable to burn, and those of air unable to move, a straw that was created before them. Next, Indra, representing the nascent power of mind and imagination, advanced toward those who came to teach, but instead of them perceived only the primordial root and basis of matter³. For spirit as distinguished from matter cannot be perceived. It is from spirit―the eternal purusha

―that matter is emanated, and together they form the two phases of the one Absolute and Unknowable.

The elemental spirits had to fall down into material existence, suffer in its toils, and at last by experience gain further development through evolution.

But the principles of fire and air, and the thinking man, are nearest to Brahman in the eternal scheme of nature's evolution.

And as Brahman flashed forth only to at once disappear from the sight of the gods, so in like manner a knowledge of the elemental spirits in this manvantara is evanescent and fitful. And in respect to the psychological being called Man, he perceives the truth either directly or by reflection. When he has perceived it by reflection, his imagination keeps the images together through the means of the eternal base which is Brahman itself. After repeated experiences of these reflections of truth he is at last able to look directly on it, and then he may become consciously immortal.

A name of Brahman is expressed by the words "The desire of it," and by that name it may be pondered upon. He who has discovered what the true aim of life is should meditate upon it and make all his desires bend to it. And as he progresses toward a knowledge of it, so all beings are insensibly impelled to aid him in the search, because there exists in all the desire to know the root of all things.

Thus you have been told the teaching of Brahman. It stands upon penance, restraint of self, and sacrifice; the Holy books are its limbs and the True is it abode. He who comprehends in their entirety and subtle connection these teachings, and has shaken off all evil, has become conscious of the endless, unconquerable world of spiritual knowledge.

AN ALLEGORY

WALKING within the garden of his heart, the pupil suddenly came upon the Master, and was glad, for he had but just finished a task in His service which he hastened to lay at His feet.

The Master looked upon him sadly yet indulgently, as one might upon a child which can not understand.

"There are already many to teach intellectual conceptions of the Truth," he replied. "Thinkest thou to serve best by adding thyself to their number?"

"Ought we not to proclaim the Truth from the very housetops, until the whole world shall have heard?" he asked.

"Nay," replied the Master, "the Truth is not of the intellect, but of the heart. See!"

The pupil looked, and saw the Truth as though it were a White Light, flooding the whole earth; yet none reaching the green and living plants which so sorely needed its rays, because of dense layers of clouds intervening.

Intently gazing, the pupil saw here and there faint rifts in the clouds, through which the Light struggled in broken, feeble beams. Each rift was caused by a little vortex of vibrations,

and looking down through the openings thus made the pupil perceived that each vortex had its origin in a human heart.

Only by adding to and enlarging the rifts will the Light ever reach the earth," said the Master. "Is it best, then, to pour out more Light upon the clouds, or to establish a vortex of heart force? The latter thou must accomplish unseen and unnoticed, and even unthanked. The former will bring thee praise and notice among men. Both are necessary: both are Our work; but―the rifts are so few! Art strong enough to forego the praise and make of thyself a heart center of pure impersonal force?"

SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND THEIR ATTAINMENT

ONE of the questions which a Theosophist is apt to ask, and to ask with some earnestness and intensity is, How can I make progress in the higher life? How can I attain spiritual gifts? For the phrase "spiritual gifts," which is a rather loose-jointed expression, we are indebted to Paul, the Apostle and Adept, who thus wrote to the Corinthian Church: "Concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant." Among the "gifts" which he goes on to enumerate are these,―wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, the speaking of divers tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. And while the Apostle urges the Corinthians to "covet earnestly the best gifts," he yet proceeds to show them a more excellent way, namely the supreme law of love. "Now abideth," he says, "faith, hope, charity (or love), these three; but the greatest of these is charity." Spiritual gifts, then, however desirable their possession may be, are plainly not, in the opinion of this good Adept, on the highest plane, not the supreme object of human attainment, or the most excellent way of reaching human perfection. They may doubtless properly be regarded as evidences of advancement on the higher planes of thought and spiritual life, and may be coveted and used for the benefit of others; but they are not in themselves the chief object of human desire. For man's supreme aim should be to become God, and "God is love."

But let us look at the matter a little more closely. In the first place, what is a "gift"? What is the common acceptance of

the word? Clearly something given to or bestowed upon a recipient, not something which a man already possesses, or which he may obtain by a process of growth or development. The latter, strictly speaking, would be a "fruit," not a gift. A tree which has been producing nothing but leaves and branches for many years finally breaks out into blossom and fruit. No new "gift" has been conferred upon it; it has simply reached a stage of development in its natural growth where certain powers, inherent in the tree form the beginning, have an opportunity to assert themselves. In the same way the transcendental powers possessed by the Adepts are not gifts; but the natural result of growth in certain directions, and the necessary efflorescence, so to speak, of the profound development in their cases of those spiritual potentialities which are the birthright of all men.

Taking this view of the meaning of the word, I think most Theosophists will be ready to admit that the phrase "spiritual gifts" is a misnomer. There are and can be no gifts for man to receive. Whatever the student of the higher life is, he is as the result of his past labors. Whatever he may become in the future will be due to his own efforts. He may develop his latent faculties and in time become an Adept, or he may drift along the currents of life without aim or effort, till he finally sinks into oblivion. His destiny is in his own hands, and is in no way dependent upon "gifts."

Bearing in mind, however, the manifold nature of man, the subject may be looked at from another point of view. For all practical purposes man may be said to consist of body, soul, and spirit, the soul being the true ego, and the spirit one with the Supreme. And regarding these for the time as separate entities, it is perfectly true, as James, another apostle, puts it, that "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." Every aspiration of the soul for spiritual things, every resolve of man to lead a purer life, every helping outstretched hand to a weaker brother, every desire for the truth, all hungering and thirsting after righteousness:―these and like yearnings and strivings of the soul have first of all

come from above, from the Divine within. In this sense they may be called "gifts,"―gifts from the higher nature to the lower, from the spiritual to the human. And this action of the above upon the below is seen in those humane attributes, or qualities, or virtues―whatever one may be pleased to call them―which Paul in another place enumerates as the "fruits of the spirit,―love, joy, peace, long suffering gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

Looked at from either of these points of view, how can we attain spiritual gifts? The answer would seem to depend upon what we are really striving for. If the extraordinary powers of the Adepts have captivated our fancy and fired our ambition, then we must possess our souls in patience. Few, if any, of us are at all fitted for a "forcing" process.

We must be content to wait and work; to grow and develop; line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, till, ages hence perhaps, we come to the full stature of the perfect man. If, however, wisely recognizing our limitations, we strive instead after what may be termed the ordinary manifestations of the spirit, two obvious lines of conduct suggest themselves.

Every impulse from above, every prompting of the Divine within, should meet at once with a hearty welcome and response. If you feel as if something urged you to visit some sick or afflicted neighbor or friend, obey the suggestion without delay. If the wish to turn over a new leaf comes into the lower consciousness, don't wait till next New Year's before actually turning it over; turn it now. If some pathetic story of suffering has moved you, act on the emotion while your cheeks are still wet with tears. In short, put yourself at once in line with the Divine ways, in harmony with the Divine laws. More light, more wisdom, more spirituality must necessarily come to one thus prepared, thus expectant. How can a bar of iron be permeated with the earth's magnetism if it is placed across instead of in line with the magnetic meridian? How can a man expect spiritual gifts or powers if he persists in ignoring spiritual conditions, in violating spiritual laws? To obtain the good, we must think good thoughts; we must be filled with good desires; in short, we must be good.

And this practical suggestion is to fulfill faithfully and conscientiously every known duty. It is in and through the incidents of daily life, in work well done, in duties thoroughly performed, that we today can most readily make progress in the higher life,―slow progress, it may be, but at any rate sure. These are stepping stones to better things. We advance most rapidly when we stop to help other wayfarers. We receive most when we sacrifice most. We attain to the largest measure of Divine love when we most unselfishly love the brethren. We become one with the Supreme most surely when we lose ourselves in work for Humanity.

HIT THE MARK

Having taken the bow, the great weapon, let him place on it the arrow, sharpened by devotion. Then, having drawn it with a thought directed to that which is, hit the mark, O friend,―the Indestructible. OM is the bow, the Self is the arrow, Brahman is called its aim. It is to be hit by a man who is not thoughtless; and then as the arrow becomes one with the target, he will become one with Brahman. Know him alone as the Self, and leave off other words. He is the bridge of the Immortal. Meditate on the self as OM. Hail to you that you may cross beyond the sea of darkness.
―MUNDAKA UPANISHAD

ARCHERY has always been in vogue, whether in nations civilized or among people of barbarous manners. We find Arjuna, prince of India, the possessor of a wonderful bow called Gandiva, the gift of the gods. None but its owner could string it, and in war it spread terror in the ranks of the enemy. Arjuna was a wonderful archer too. He could use Gandiva as well with his right as with his left hand, and so was once addressed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita dialogue as "thou both-handed." The bow figures in the lives of Greek heroes, and just now the novelist Louis Stevenson is publishing a book in which he sings the praises of a bow, the bow of war possessed by Ulysses; when war was at hand it sang its own peculiar, shrill, clear song, and the arrows shot from it hit the mark.

Archery is a practice that symbolizes concentration. There is the archer, the arrow, the bow, and the target to be hit. To reach the mark it is necessary to concentrate the mind, the eye, and the body upon many points at once, while at the same time the string must be let go without disturbing the aim. The

draw of the string with the arrow must be even and steady on the line of sight, and when grasp, draw, aim, and line are perfected, the arrow must be loosed smoothly at the moment of full draw, so that by the bow's recoil it may be carried straight to the mark. So those who truly seek wisdom are archers trying to hit the mark. This is spiritual archery, and it is to this sort that the verse from the Mundaka Upanishad refers.

In archery among men a firm position must be assumed, and in the pursuit of truth this firm position must be taken up and not relaxed, if the object in view is to be ever attained. The eye must not wander from the target, for, if it does, the arrow will fly wide or fall short of its goal. So if we start out to reach the goal of wisdom, the mind and heart must not be permitted to wander, for the path is narrow and the wanderings of a day may cause us years of effort to find the road again.

The quality of the bow makes a great difference in the results attained by the archer. If it is not a good bow of strong texture and with a good spring to it, the missiles will not fly straight or with sufficient force to do the work required; and so with the man himself who is his own bow, if he has not the sort of nature that enables him to meet all the requirements, his work as a spiritual archer will fall that much short. But even as the bow made of wood or steel is subject to alterations of state, so we are encouraged by the thought that the laws of karma and reincarnation show us that in other lives and new bodies we may do better work. The archer says too that the bow often seems to alter with the weather or other earthly changes, and will on some days do much better work than on others. The same thing is found by the observing theosophist, who comes to know that he too is subject from time to time to changes in his nature which enable him to accomplish more and to be nearer the spiritual condition. But the string of the bow must always be strung tight; and this, in spiritual archery, is the fixed determination to always strive for the goal.

When the arrow is aimed and loosed it must be slightly raised to allow for the trajectory, for if not it will fall short. This corresponds on its plane with one of the necessities of our

human constitution, in that we must have a high mental and spiritual aim if we are to hit high. We cannot go quite as high as the aim, but have to thus allow for the trajectory that comes about from the limitations of our nature; the trajectory of the arrow is due to the force of gravity acting on it, and our aspirations have the same curve in consequence of the calls of the senses, hereditary defects, and wrong habits that never permit us to do as much as we would wish to do.

Let us hit the mark, O friend! and that mark is the indestructible, the highest spiritual life we are at any time capable of.

MECHANICAL THEOSOPHY

THE earnest, devoted student can hardly believe that there exist any theosophists sincerely holding a belief in theosophical doctrines but who are, at the same time, found to have such a mechanical conception of them as permits one to retain undisturbed many old dogmas which are diametrically opposed to theosophy. Yet we have such among us.

It comes about in this manner. First, Theosophy and its doctrines are well received because affording an explanation of the sorrows of life and a partial answer to the query, "Why is there anything?" Then a deeper examination and larger comprehension of the wide-embracing doctrines of Unity, Reincarnation, Karma, the Sevenfold Classification, cause the person to perceive that either a means of reconciling certain old time dogmas and ideas with Theosophy must be found, or the disaster of giving the old one up must fall on him.

Contemplating the criminal class and laws thereon the mechanical theosophist sees that perhaps the retaliatory law of Moses must be abandoned if the modus vivendi is not found. Ah! of course, are not men agents for karma? Hence the criminal who has murdered may be executed, may be violently thrust out of life, because that is his karma. Besides, Society must be protected. You cite the bearing on this of the subtile, inner, living nature of man. The mechanical theosophist necessarily must shut his eyes to something, so he replies that all of that has no bearing, the criminal did murder and must be murdered; it was his own fault. So at one sweep away goes compassion, and, as well, any scientific view of criminals and sud-

den death, in order that there may be a retaliatory Mosaic principle, which is really bound up in our personal selfish natures.

Our naturalistic mechanician in the philosophy of life then finds quite a satisfaction. Why, of course, being in his own opinion a karmic agent he has the right to decide when he shall act as such. He will be a conscious agent. And so he executes karma upon his fellows according to his own desires and opinions; but he will not give to the beggar because that has been shown to encourage mendicity, nor would he rescue the drunken woman from the gutter because that is her fault and karma to be there. He assumes certainly to act justly, and perhaps in his narrowness of mind he thinks he is doing so, but real justice is not followed because it is unknown to him, being bound up in the long, invisible karmic streams of himself and his victim. However, he has saved his old theories and yet calls himself a theosophist.

Then again the mechanical view, being narrow and of necessity held by those who have no native knowledge of the occult, sees but the mechanical, outer operations of karma. Hence the subtile relation of parent and child, not only on this plane but on all the hidden planes of nature, is ignored. Instead of seeing that the child is of that parent just because of karma and for definite purposes; and that parentage is not merely bringing an ego into this life but for wider and greater reasons; the mechanical and naturalistic theosophist is delighted to find that his Theosophy allows one to ignore the relation, and even to curse a parent, because parentage is held to be merely a door into life and nothing more.

Mechanical Theosophy is just as bad as that form of Christianity which permits a man to call his religion the religion of love, while he at the same time may grasp, retaliate, be selfish, and sanction his government's construction of death-dealing appliances and in going to war, although Jesus was opposed to both. Mechanical Theosophy would not condemn―as Christianity does not―those missionaries of Jesus who, finding themselves in danger of death in a land where the people do not want them, appeal to their government for warships,

for soldiers, guns and forcible protection in a territory they do not own. It was the mechanical view of Christianity that created an Inquisition. This sort of religion has driven out the true religion of Jesus, and the mechanical view of our doctrines will, if persisted in, do the same for Theosophy.

Our philosophy of life is one grand whole, every part necessary and fitting into every other part. Every one of its doctrines can and must be carried to its ultimate conclusion. Its ethical application must proceed similarly. If it conflict with old opinions those must be cast off. It can never conflict with true morality. But it will with many views touching our dealings with one another. The spirit of Theosophy must be sought for; a sincere application of its principles to life and act should be made. Thus mechanical Theosophy, which inevitably leads―as in many cases it already has―to a negation of brotherhood, will be impossible, and instead there will be a living, actual Theosophy. This will then raise in our hearts the hope that at least a small nucleus of Universal Brotherhood may be formed before we of this generation are all dead.

PRACTICAL THEOSOPHY

THE ethics of life propounded by Jesus are not different from those found in theosophy, but the latter holds in its doctrines a compelling power which is absent from Christianity and from those systems which require a man to be good for virtue's sake alone. It is not easy to practice virtue for the simple reason that we ought to do so, since the desire for reward is inherent in humanity, and is a reflection of the evolutionary law which draws the universe ever upward to higher points of development. A man reads the command of Jesus to turn the other cheek to the smiter, to resist not evil, to forgive without stint, and to take no thought for the morrow, and then―pauses. His next thought is that such a canon is wholly utopian, and would if followed subvert society. In this he is sustained by eminent authority as well as by example, for a great Bishop has declared that no state can exist under such a system.

Theosophic doctrine, however, on either the selfish or spiritual line of life, convinces that the moral law must be obeyed. If we regard only the selfish side, we find when people are convinced that evil done in this life will be met with sure punishment in another reincarnation, they hesitate to continue the old careless life when they lived for themselves alone.

Hence practical theosophy must enter into every detail of life in our dealings with others and our discipline of ourselves. It reminds us that we should be more critical of ourselves than of others, that we must help all men if we are to be helped ourselves. And herein the theosophist may escape the accusation

of selfishness, for if in desiring to lay up for a future incarnation a store of help from others by giving assistance now himself, he does so in order that he may then be in a still better position to help humanity, there is no selfishness. It is the same as if a man were to desire to acquire this world's goods in order to help those dependent on him, and surely this is not selfish.

The practical theosophist adds to his charitable deeds upon the material plane the still greater charity of giving to his fellow men a system of thought and life which explains their doubts while it furnishes a logical reason for the practice of virtue. He extinguishes a hell that never could burn, and the terrors of which soon faded from the mind of the sinners; but he lights the lamp of truth and throws its beams upon the mortal's path so that not only the real danger, the real punishment, can be seen, but also the reward and compensation.

The civilized man cannot be guided by fear or superstition, but reason may take hold of him. Theosophy being not only practicable but also reasonable as well as just, its doctrines are destined to be those of the civilized man. They will gradually drive out the time-worn shibboleths of the theologian and the scientist, giving the people of coming centuries a wisdom-religion deeply-based and all-embracing.

Were theosophical practice universal, we should not see the unjust Judge plotting beforehand with the officials of a railroad company about the decision he should render, nor the venal public officer engaged with the Judge and the officials in arranging the virtuous protest to be offered in court against the foreordained decree, for both would fear to rouse a cause which in their next life might issue in unjust accusation and punishment. Nor would men save their lives, as now they often do, at another's expense, since in succeeding incarnations that person might be the means of depriving them of life twice over. The rich man who now hoards his wealth or spends it on himself alone would not be thus guilty, seeing that, as compensation in another life, his friends would forsake him and nature seem to withdraw subsistence.

The practical theosophist will do well if he follows the advice of the Masters now many years in print, to spread, explain,

and illustrate the laws of Karma and Reincarnation so that they may enter into the lives of the people. Technical occultism and all the allurements of the Astral Light may be left for other times. Men's thoughts must be affected, and this can only be done now by giving them these two great laws. They not only explain many things, but they have also an inherent power due to their truth and their intimate connection with man, to compel attention.

Once heard they are seldom forgotten, and even if rebelled against they have a mysterious power of keeping in the man's mind, until at last, even against his first determination, he is forced to accept them. The appreciation of justice is common to all, and the exact justice of Karma appeals even to the person who is unfortunate enough to be undergoing heavy punishment: even if, ignoring justice, he does good in order to make good Karma, it is well, for he will be reborn under conditions that may favor the coming out of unselfish motive.

"Teach, preach, and practice this good law for the benefit of the world, even as all the Buddhas do."

AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?

MANY students, in their search for light, find divers problems presented to them for solution; questions so puzzling from the contradictory aspects which they present, that the true course is difficult of attainment for those who seek Right Living.

One of these questions, Is it our duty to interfere if we see a wrong being done? arises.

The question of duty is one that can be decided fully only by each individual himself. No code of laws or table of rules unchanging and inflexible will be given, under which all must act, or find duty.

We are so ignorant or so newly acquainted with a portion of the Divine Will that generally we are poorly fitted to declare decisively what is wrong, or evil.

Each man is the law unto himself―the law as to right and wrong, good and evil. No other individual may violate the law of that man, any more than any other law, without producing the inevitable result, the penalty of an infracted law.

I dare not declare that any one thing or course is evil in another. For me it may be evil. I am not wise enough to know what it is for another. Only the Supreme knows, for He only can read the heart, the mind, the soul of each. "Thou shalt not judge," saith the sacred writing.

My duty is clear in many places, but in the performing of it I may neither act as a judge or hold animosity, anger, or disgust.

Were a man to abuse an animal, surely I must interfere to prevent suffering to the helpless, dumb and weak, for so we are enjoined. This done, my duty lies in helping my brother, for he knew not what he did.

My aim is to find Wisdom, and my duty, to do away with ignorance wherever it is encountered. His act was caused by ignorance. Were a man to abuse wife or child through unwise use of wine or drug truly it is my duty to prevent suffering or sorrow for either wife or child, and also to prevent greater misery―perhaps murder. They are human beings, my fellows. This done, my duty lies toward the man, not in condemnation, but seeking the cause that makes him unwise, strive to alleviate―if not free him from it. He also is my brother.

If men steal, lie, cheat, betray the innocent or are betrayed by the knowing, my duty lies in preventing for others, if I may, sorrow and anguish, pain and want, misery, suicide or bloodshed, which may be, for others the result of these acts.

My duty lies in preventing effects such as these from love for and a desire to help all men, not because men's actions seem to me wrong or their courses evil. I know not the causes of their actions, nor all the reasons why they are permitted. How then may I say this or that man is evil, this or that thing is wrong? The effects may to me seem evil, inasmuch as such appears to be the result for others. Here my duty is to prevent evil to other mortals in the way that seems most wise.

Finally this is better that one do
His own task as he may even though he fail,
Than take tasks not his own, though they seem good.
―Song Celestial (Bhagavat-Gita)

He who seeks "the small old path" has many duties to perform. His duty to mankind, his family―nature―himself and his creator, but duty here means something very different from that which is conveyed by the time and lip-worn word, Duty. Our comprehension of the term is generally based upon society's or man's selfish interpretation. It is quite generally

thought that duty means the performance of a series of acts which others think I ought to perform, whereas, it more truly means the performance of actions by me which I know are good for others, or the wisest at the moment.

It would be quite dangerous for me to take upon myself the duty of another, either because he told me it was good, or that it was duty. It would be dangerous for him and me if I assumed that which he felt it was good to do, for that is his duty, and cannot be mine. That which is given him to do I cannot do for him. That which is given me to do no living thing can do for me. If I attempt to do another's duty then I assume that which belongs not to me, was not given me. I am a thief, taking that which does not belong to me. My brother consenting thereto becomes an idler, fails to comprehend the lesson, shifts the responsibility, and between us we accomplish nothing.

We are instructed to do good. That is duty. In doing good all that we do is covered, that for which we are here is being accomplished and that is―duty. We are enjoined to do good where it is safe. Not safe for ourselves, but safe for the objects toward which our duty points. Often we behold beings suffering great wrong. Our emotions prompt us to rush forward and in some way prevent the continuance of it. Still the wise man knows it is not safe. Were he to do so his efforts would only arouse the antagonism and passions of superior numbers, whose unrestrained and ungoverned wills would culminate in the perpetration of greater wrongs upon the one who already suffers. It is safe to do good, or my duty, after I find how to do it in the way that will not create evil, harm others or beget greater evils.

For him who seeks the upward way there is no duty―for nothing is a duty. He has learned that the word conveys an erroneous meaning when applied to the doings of the Seeker. It implies the performance of that which savors of a task, or a certain required or demanded act necessary before progress is made or other deeds be performed. Of duty, there is none such as this.

the time, forgetting self so fully that he only knows his doing good to others―forgetting self so far that he forgets to think whether he is doing his duty or not―entering Nirvana to this extent that he does not remember that he is doing his duty. That for him is duty.

"Resist not evil," saith one of the Wise. He who said this knew full well his duty, and desired to convey to us knowledge. That he did not mean men to sit idly by while ignorance let slip the dogs of pain, anguish, suffering, want and murder, is surely true. That he did not mean men to kneel in puerile simulation of holiness by the roadside, while their fellow men suffer torture, wrong or abuse, is still more true. That he did not intend a man to sit silently a looker-on while that which is called evil worked its will upon others when by the lifting of a finger, perhaps, its intentions might be thwarted and annulled―is truth itself. These all would be neglect of a portion of the whole duty of man. He who taught that men should "resist not evil" desired them only to forget themselves. Men think that all things which are disagreeable to them, are evil. By resistance he meant complaint, anger and objection to or against the inevitable, disagreeable or sorrowful things of life, that come to self, and he did not mean man to go forth in the guise of a martyr, hugging these same penalties to his bosom while he proclaims himself thereby the possessor of the magic pass word (which he will never own and which is never uttered in that way): I have Suffered.

If men revile, persecute or wrong one, why resist? Perhaps it is evil, but so long as it affects one's-self only, it is no great matter. If want, sorrow or pain come to one why resist or cry out? In the resistance or war against them we create greater evils. Coming to one's-self, they should have little weight, while at the same time they carry invaluable lessons in their hands. Rightly studied they cause one to forget himself in the desire to assist others when similarly placed, and the Lotus of duty―or love for man―to bloom out of the Nile mire of life. Resist not evil, for it is inseparable from life. It is our duty to live, and

accept uncomplainingly, all of life. Resist not evil, but rather learn of it all the good which in reality it only veils.

Seek in it, as well as in the gleaming good, for the Mystery, and there will come forth from both the self-same form upon whose forehead is written "Duty," which being interpreted, meaneth efforts for the good of all other men, and over whose heart is written: "I am my brother's keeper."

PAPYRUS―THE GEM

THE roads were thronged with the people moving toward the great square, for it was a feast of the Goddess. The temples were crowded, while long lines of men and maidens in the robes of "The Sacred" wound in and out toward the river.

Music and song rose and fell upon the evening breeze, like the pulse of a throbbing heart. Here and there could be seen the Scribes, and seated in an open space, the Tale-tellers. One of these, as I rested near him, told the tale of

"In the land of the Wise-men, there dwelt a young man. Many years had he labored in a strange mine; the 'Mine of the Priceless Gems';―hopefully, bravely, but fruitlessly. He had long known that he who should find the Master Stone, would be free, be full of peace and dig no more, for nothing better could be found. He also knew that he who found the stone should seek to share it with all men.

"Many small stones had he found, but they were laid aside to be used when the great stone was reached.

"Silently and steadily he worked on, until one gloomy day when he had grown so weak that he could make but one more effort, that effort was rewarded, and before him lay the great gem. Weary, weak, but joyful, he gathered it into his bosom, and went forth to share it with others; for he who told not of his gem, or shared it not with all men, must lose the stone.

the Priceless Stone―the stone that made men greater, wiser, more loving than all things living; the stone that no man could keep unless he gave it away.

"Far he wandered in his own country, seeking to tell his story and give of the Stone to each one he met. Silently they listened―gravely they meditated and gently they said to him: 'This is Kali-yuga, the dark age. Come to us a hundred thousand years from now. Until then―the stone is not for us. It is Karma.'

"Far into another land he wandered, ever trying for the same end. Gravely they listened, quietly they spoke: 'Peace be with you. When the Lotus ceases to bloom and our Sacred River runs dry, come to us. Until then we need not the stone.'

"Over the seas unto another land he went, for fully he believed that there they would hear and share with him. The many days of wandering and the long journey across the sea had made him thin and ragged. He had not thought of this, but as he told his story he was reminded of it and many other things, for here the people answered in many ways, and not always gently.

"Some listened, for his story was new to them, but the gem was uncut, and they wished it polished.

"Others paused and desired him to tell his story in their tents, for that would make them exalted and famous, but they wanted not the gem. As he did not belong to their tribe, it would bring discredit upon them to receive anything from him.

"One paused to listen and desired some of the stone, but he desired to use it to elevate his own position and assist him in overreaching his fellows in bartering and bargaining. The Wanderer was unable to give any of the stone to such as this one.

"Another listened, but inasmuch as the Wanderer refused to make the gem float in the air, he would [have] none of it.

"Another heard, but he already knew of a better stone, and was sure he would find it, because he ate nothing but star-light and moon-beams.

story, for the Wanderer was poor and ragged. Unless he was dressed in purple and fine linen and told his story in words of oil and honey, he could not be the possessor of the gem.

"Still another heard, but he knew it was not the gem. As the Wanderer had been unsuccessful before, surely he could not have found the stone. Even had he found it, he could not have the proper judgment to divide it. So he wanted none of the stone.

"Near and far went the Wanderer. Still ever the same. Some wanted it, but the stone was too hard, or not bright enough. He was not of their people, or was ignorant. He was too ragged and worn to suit their ideas, so they wanted none of the stone.

"Saddened, aged and heart-sore, he wandered back to the land of the Wise men. To one of these he went, telling of his journeyings and that no man would share with him the magnificent stone, and also of his sorrow that he too must lose it.

"'Be not troubled, my son,' said the Wise One, 'the stone is for you, nor can you lose it. He who makes the effort to help his fellow man is the rightful owner and still possesses the entire stone, although he has shared it with all the world. To each and every one to whom you have spoken, although they knew it not, you have given one of the smaller stones which you first found. It is enough. When the Master Stone is cut and polished, then is the labor of the fortunate possessor ended. The long journeying and weary wandering, the sorrow laden heart and tear-dimmed eyes, have cut and polished your gem. Behold, it is a white and a fair stone!'

"Drawing it from his bosom, the Wanderer gazed into the wonderful light of the stone while an expression of great peace stole over his face. Folding the gem close to his bosom his eyelids closed, and he fell asleep, a wanderer no more."

THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD

HAS such a being any existence? Has any one ever seen it? Are there many or several, and has it any sex? Such are the questions asked by nearly all students who read theosophical books. Some of those who all their life believed in fairies in secret and in the old tales of giants, have proceeded to test the question by calling upon the horrid shade to appear and freeze their blood with the awful eyes that Bulwer Lytton has made so famous in his "Zanoni." But the Dweller is not to be wooed in such a way, and has not appeared at all, but by absolute silence leads the invoker to at last scout the idea altogether.

But this same inquirer then studies theosophical books with diligence, and enters after a time on the attempt to find out his own inner nature. All this while the Dweller has waited, and, indeed, we may say, in complete ignorance as yet of the neophyte's existence. When the study has proceeded far enough to wake up long dormant senses and tendencies, the Dweller begins to feel that such a person as this student is at work. Certain influences are then felt, but not always with clearness, and at first never ascribed to the agency of what had long ago been relegated to the lumber-room of exploded superstitions. The study goes still farther and yet farther, until the awful Thing has revealed itself; and when that happens, it is not a superstition nor is it disbelieved. It can then never be gotten rid of, but will stay as a constant menace until it is triumphed over and left behind.

Italy, he found two vases which he had received direction not to open. But disobeying these he took out the stoppers, and at once the room was filled with intoxication, and soon the awful, loathsome creature appeared whose blazing eyes shone with malignant glare and penetrated to Glyndon's soul with a rush of horror such as he had never known.

In this story Lytton desired to show that the opening of the vases is like the approach of an enquirer to the secret recesses of his own nature. He opens the receptacles, and at first is full of joy and a sort of intoxication due to the new solutions offered for every problem in life and to the dimly seen vistas of power and advancement that open before him. If the vases are kept open long enough, the Dweller of the Threshold surely appears, and no man is exempt from the sight. Goodness is not sufficient to prevent its appearance, because even the good man who finds a muddy place in the way to his destination must of necessity pass through it to reach the end.

We must ask next, WHAT is the Dweller? It is the combined evil influence that is the result of the wicked thoughts and acts of the age in which any one may live, and it assumes to each student a definite shape at each appearance, being always either of one sort or changing each time. So that with one it may be as Bulwer Lytton pictured it, or with another only a dread horror, or even of any other sort of shape. It is specialized for each student and given its form by the tendencies and natural physical and psychical combinations that belong to his family and nation.

Where, then, does it dwell? is the very natural inquiry which will follow. It dwells in its own plane, and that may be understood in this manner.

Around each person are planes or zones, beginning with spirit and running down to gross matter. These zones extend, within their lateral boundaries, all around the being. That is to say, if we figure ourselves as being in the center of a sphere, we will find that there is no way of escaping or skipping any one zone, because it extends in every direction until we pass its lateral boundary.

When the student has at last gotten hold of a real aspiration and some glimmer of the blazing goal of truth where Masters stand, and has also aroused the determination to know and to be, the whole bent of his nature, day and night, is to reach out beyond the limitations that hitherto had fettered his soul. No sooner does he begin thus to step a little forward, than he reaches the zone just beyond mere bodily and mental sensations. At first the minor dwellers of the threshold are aroused, and they in temptation, in bewilderment, in doubt or confusion, assail him. He only feels the effect, for they do not reveal themselves as shapes. But persistence in the work takes the inner man farther along, and with that progress comes a realization to the outer mind of the experiences met, until at last he has waked up the whole force of the evil power that naturally is arrayed against the good end he has set before him. Then the Dweller takes what form it may. That it does take some definite shape or impress itself with palpable horror is a fact testified to by many students.

One of those related to me that he saw it as an enormous slug with evil eyes whose malignancy could not be described. As he retreated―that is, grew fearful―, it seemed joyful and portentous, and when retreat was complete it was not. Then he fell further back in thought and action, having occasionally moments of determination to retrieve his lost ground. Whenever these came to him, the dreadful slug again appeared, only to leave him when he had given up again his aspirations. And he knew that he was only making the fight, if ever he should take it up again, all the harder.

Another says that he has seen the Dweller concentrated in the apparent form of a dark and sinister-looking man, whose slightest motions, whose merest glance, expressed the intention and ability to destroy the student's reason, and only the strongest effort of will and faith could dispel the evil influence. And the same student at other times has felt it as a vague, yet terrible, horror that seemed to enwrap him in its folds. Before this he has retreated for the time to prepare himself by strong self-study to be pure and brave for the next attack.

These things are not the same as the temptations of Saint Anthony. In his case he seems to have induced an hysterical erotic condition, in which the unvanquished secret thoughts of his own heart found visible appearance.

The Dweller of the Threshold is not the product of the brain, but is an influence found in a plane that is extraneous to the student, but in which his success or failure will be due to his own purity. It is not a thing to be dreaded by mere dilettanti theosophists; and no earnest one who feels himself absolutely called to work persistently to the highest planes of development for the good of humanity, and not for his own, need fear aught that heaven or hell holds.

MUSINGS ON THE TRUE THEOSOPHIST'S PATH

THE way of inward peace is in all things to conform to the pleasure and disposition of the Divine Will. Such as would have all things succeed and come to pass according to their own fancy, are not come to know this way; and therefore lead a harsh and bitter life; always restless and out of humor, without treading the way of peace."

Know then Oh Man, that he who seeks the hidden way, can only find it through the door of life. In the hearts of all, at some time, there arises the desire for knowledge. He who thinks his desire will be fulfilled, as the little bird in the nest, who has only to open his mouth to be fed, will very truly be disappointed.

In all nature we can find no instance where effort of some kind is not required. We find there is a natural result from such effort. He who would live the life or find wisdom can only do so by continued effort. If one becomes a student, and learns to look partially within the veil, or has found within his own being something that is greater than his outer self, it gives no authority for one to sit down in idleness or fence himself in from contact with the world. Because one sees the gleam of the light ahead he cannot say to his fellow "I am holier than thee" or draw the mantle of seclusion around himself.

The soul develops like the flower, in God's sunlight, and unconsciously to the soil in which it grows. Shut out the light and the soil grows damp and sterile, the flower withers or

grows pale and sickly. Each and every one is here for a good and wise reason. If we find partially the why we are here, then is there the more reason that we should by intelligent contact with life, seek in it the farther elucidation of the problem. It is not the study of ourselves so much, as the thought for others that opens this door. The events of life and their causes lead to knowledge. They must be studied when they are manifested in daily life.

There is no idleness for the Mystic. He finds his daily life among the roughest and hardest of the labors and trials of the world perhaps, but goes his way with smiling face and joyful heart, nor grows too sensitive for association with this fellows, nor so extremely spiritual as to forget that some other body is perhaps hungering for food.

It was said by one who pretended to teach the mysteries "It is needful that I have a pleasant location and beautiful surroundings." He who is a true Theosoph will wait for nothing of the sort, either before teaching, or what is first needful, learning. It would perhaps, be agreeable, but if the Divine Inspiration comes only under those conditions, then indeed is the Divine afar from the most of us. He only can be a factor for good or teach how to approach the way, who forgetting his own surroundings, strives to beautify and illumine those of others. The effort must be for the good of others, not the gratifying of our own senses, or love for the agreeable or pleasant.

Giving thought to self will most truly prevent and overthrow your aims and objects, particularly when directed toward the occult.

Again there arises the thought "I am a student, a holder of a portion of the mystic lore." Insidiously there steals in the thought "Behold I am a little more than other men, who have not penetrated so far." Know then oh man, that you are not as great even as they. He who thinks he is wise is the most ignorant of men, and he who begins to believe he is wise is in greater danger than any other man who lives.

tion of occult knowledge, that it entitles you to withdraw from contact with the rest of mankind. It is not so. If you have obtained true knowledge it forces you to meet all men not only half way, but more than that to seek them. It urges you not to retire but, seeking contact, to plunge into the misery and sorrow of the world, and with your cheering word, if you have no more (the Mystic has little else) strive to lighten the burden for some struggling soul.

You dream of fame. We know no such thing as fame. He who seeks the upward path finds that all is truth; that evil is the good gone astray. Why should we ask for fame? It is only the commendation of those we strive to help.

Desire neither notice, fame or wealth. Unknown you are in retirement. Being fameless you are undisturbed in your seclusion, and can walk the broad face of the earth fulfilling your duty, as commanded, unrecognized.

If the duty grows hard, or you faint by the way, be not discouraged, fearful or weary of the world. Remember that "Thou may'st look for silence in tumult, solitude in company, light in darkness, forgetfulness in pressures, vigor in despondency, courage in fear, resistance in temptation, peace in war, and quiet in tribulation."

Work as those work who are ambitious.―Respect life as those do who desire it.―Be happy as those are who live for happiness.―Light on the Path

We are tried in wondrous ways, and in the seemingly unimportant affairs of life, there often lie the most dangerous of the temptations.

Labor, at best, is frequently disagreeable owing either to mental or physical repugnance. When he who seeks the upward path, begins to find it, labor grows more burdensome, while at the time, he is, owing to his physical condition, not so well fitted to struggle with it. This is all true, but there must be no giving in to it. It must be forgotten. He must work, and if he cannot have the sort he desires or deems best suited to

him, then must he take and perform that which presents itself. It is that which he most needs. It is not intended either, that he do it to have it done. It is intended that he work as if it was the object of his life, as if his whole heart was in it. Perhaps he may be wise enough to know that there is something else, or that the future holds better gifts for him, still this also must to all intents be forgotten, while he takes up his labor, as if there were no tomorrow.

Remember that life is the outcome of the Ever-Living. If you have come to comprehend a little of the mystery of life, and can value its attractions according to their worth; these are no reasons why you should walk forth with solemn countenance to blight the enjoyments of other men. Life to them is as real, as the mystery is to you. Their time will come as yours has, so hasten it for them, if you can, by making life brighter, more joyous, better.

If it be your time to fast, put on the best raiment you have, and go forth, not as one who fasts, but as one who lives for life.

Do your sighing and crying within you. If you can not receive the small events of life and their meanings without crying them out to all the world, think you that you are fitted to be trusted with the mysteries?

The doing away with one or certain articles of diet, in itself, will not open the sealed portals. If this contained the key, what wise beings must the beasts of the field be, and what a profound Mystic must Nebuchadnezzar have been, after he was "turned out to grass!"

There are some adherents of a faith, which has risen in the land, who deem it wise to cast away all things that are distasteful to them; to cut asunder the ties of marriage because they deem it will interfere with their spiritual development, or because the other pilgrim is not progressed enough. Brothers, there lives not the man who is wise enough to sit as a judge upon the spiritual development of any living being. He is not only unwise but blasphemous who says to another: "Depart! you impede my exalted spiritual development."

The greatest of all truths lies frequently in plain sight, or veiled in contraries. The impression has gone abroad that the Adept or the Mystic of high degree, has only attained his station by forsaking the association of his fellow creatures or refusing the marriage tie. It is the belief of very wise Teachers that all men who had risen to the highest degrees of Initiation, have at some time passed through the married state. Many men, failing in the trials, have ascribed their failure to being wedded, precisely as that other coward, Adam, after being the first transgressor cried out "It was Eve."

One of the most exalted of the Divine Mysteries lies hidden here―therefore, Oh Man, it is wise to cherish that which holds so much of God and seek to know its meaning; not by dissolution and cutting asunder, but by binding and strengthening the ties. Our most Ancient Masters knew of this and Paul also speaks of it. (Ephesians v. 32.)

Be patient, kindly and wise, for perhaps in the next moment of life, the light will shine out upon thy companion, and you discover that you are but a blind man, claiming to see. Remember this, that you own not one thing in this world. Your wife is but a gift, your children are but loaned to you. All else you possess is given to you only while you use it wisely. Your body is not yours, for Nature claims it as her property. Do you not think, Oh Man, that it is the height of arrogance for you to sit in judgment upon any other created thing, while you, a beggar, are going about in a borrowed robe?

If misery, want and sorrow are thy portion for a time, be happy that it is not death. If it is death be happy there is no more life.

You would have wealth, and tell of the good you would do with it. Truly will you lose your way under these conditions. It is quite possible, that you are as rich as you ever will be, therefore, desire to do good with what you have―and do it. If you have nothing, know that it is best and wisest for you. Just so surely as you murmur and complain just so surely will you find that "from him that hath not, shall be taken even that which he hath." This sounds contradictory, but in reality

is in most harmonious agreement. Work in life and the Occult are similar; all is the result of your own effort and will. You are not rash enough to believe that you will be lifted up into Heaven like the Prophet of old―but you really hope some one will come along and give you a good shove toward it.

Know then, Disciples, that you only can lift yourselves by your own efforts. When this is done, you may have the knowledge that you will find many to accompany you on your heretofore lonely journey; but neither they or your Teacher will be permitted to push or pull you one step onward.

You look and wait for some great and astounding occurrence, to show you that you are going to be permitted to enter behind the veil; that you are to be Initiated. It will never come. He only who studies all things and learns from them, as he finds them, will be permitted to enter, and for him there are no flashing lightnings or rolling thunder. He who enters the door, does so as gently and imperceptibly, as the tide rises in the nighttime.

Live well your life. Seek to realize the meaning of every event. Strive to find the Ever Living and wait for more light. The True Initiate does not fully realize what he is passing through, until his degree is received. If you are striving for light and Initiation, remember this, that your cares will increase, your trials thicken, your family make new demands upon you. He who can understand and pass through these patiently, wisely, placidly―may hope.

If you desire to labor for the good of the world, it will be unwise for you to strive to include it all at once in your efforts. If you can help elevate or teach but one soul―that is a good beginning, and more than is given to many.

Fear nothing that is in Nature and visible. Dread no influence exerted by sect, faith, or society. Each and every one of

them originated upon the same basis―Truth, or a portion of it at least. You may not assume that you have a greater share than they, it being needful only, that you find all the truth each one possesses. You are at war with none. It is peace you are seeking, therefore it is best that the good in everything is found. For this brings peace.

It has been written that he who lives the Life shall know the doctrine. Few there be who realize the significance of The Life.

It is not by intellectually philosophizing upon it, until reason ceases to solve the problem, nor by listening in ecstatic delight to the ravings of an Elemental clothed―whose hallucinations are but the offspring of the Astral―that the life is realized. Nor will it be realized by the accounts of the experience of other students. For there be some who will not realize Divine Truth itself, when written, unless it be properly punctuated or expressed in flowery flowing words.

Remember this: that as you live your life each day with an uplifted purpose and unselfish desire, each and every event will bear for you a deep significance―an occult meaning―and as you learn their import, so do you fit yourself for higher work.

There are no rose-gardens upon the way in which to loiter about, nor fawning slaves to fan one with golden rods of Ostrich plumes. The Ineffable Light will not stream out upon you every time you may think you have turned up the wick, nor will you find yourself sailing about in an astral body, to the delight of yourself and the astonishment of the rest of the world, simply because you are making the effort to find wisdom.

He who is bound in any way―he who is narrow in his thoughts―find it doubly difficult to pass onward. You may equally as well gain wisdom and light in a church as by sitting upon a post while your nails grow through your hands. It is not by going to extremes or growing fanatical in any direction that the life will be realized.

Be temperate in all things, most of all in the condemnation of other men. It is unwise to be intemperate or drunken with wine. It is equally unwise to be drunken with temperance. Men would gain the powers; or the way of working wonders. Do you know, O man, what the powers of the Mystic are? Do you know that for each gift of this kind he give a part of himself? That it is only with mental anguish, earthly sorrow and almost his heart's blood, these gifts are gained? Is it true, think you, my brother, that he who truly possess them desires to sell them at a dollar a peep, or any other price? He who would trade upon these things finds himself farther from his goal than when he was born.

There are gifts and powers. Not just such as you have created in your imagination, perhaps. Harken to one of these powers: He who has passed onward to a certain point, finds that the hearts of men lie spread before him as an open book, and from there onward the motives of men are clear. In other words he can read the hearts of men. But not selfishly; should he but once use this knowledge selfishly, the book is closed―and he reads no more. Think you, my brothers, he would permit himself to sell a page out of this book?

Time―that which does not exist outside the inner circle of this little world―seems of vast importance to the physical man. There comes to him at times, the thought that he is not making any progress, and that he is receiving nothing from some Mystic source. From the fact that he has the thought that no progress is being made the evidence is gained that he is working onward. Only the dead in living bodies need fear. That which men would receive from Mystic sources is frequently often repeated, and in such a quiet, unobtrusive voice, that he who is waiting to hear it shouted in his ear, is apt to pass on unheeding.

Urge no man to see as yourself, as it is quite possible you may see differently when you awake in the morning. It is wiser to let the matter rest without argument. No man is absolutely convinced by that. It is but blowing your breath against the whirlwind.

It was once written over the door: "Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here." It has taken hundreds of years for a few to come to the realization that the wise men had not the slightest desire for the company of a lot of hopeless incurables in the mysteries. There is to be abandoned hope for the gratification of our passions, our curiosities, our ambition or desire for gain. There is also another Hope―the true; and he is a wise man who comes to the knowledge of it. Sister to Patience, they together are the Godmothers of Right Living, and two of the ten who assist the Teacher.

PAPYRUS

THE Tale-teller, shading his gentle eyes from the evening sun, paused a moment while he listened to the soft strains of the music as it floated out from the open Temple. The joyous crowd swept by unheeding except for one or two who dropped out of the current and were left stranded among those who had gathered at his feet. Presently he came back from the realm of harmony whither he had drifted, and as the world-light once more stole over his face he told the tale of:

Word has gone forth over all lands "that all who sought earnestly and in the true manner should find the way to the mysterious Temple of the Veiled Goddess."

Three kings of the land, moved by the power of the words, determined that they also would become students and reach the goal.

Intu, the Illustrious, making ready for the search, deemed nothing else could be more potent in his quest than the seal of his kingdom. Thereupon he bound on his forehead the Great Seal, a hawk.

Kour, the Magnificent, making ready for the way thought nothing could be more powerful in his searching than the seal of his kingdom. Making ready he bound upon his breast the Great Seal, a golden heart.

Kadmon, the Sorrowful―a king only by sufferance, for his kingdom consisted only of that which the others did not value

―Kadmon deemed it wise also, inasmuch as they would all journey together, to take his seal; which was the two others in union; but furthermore, he blindfolded his eyes.

The three passing onward encountered many strange and unfamiliar things, for the road was new, and no wayfarer could know more than one step onward, which was the one he was taking. Upon each side, and frequently in front, barring the way, were curious objects, sometimes pleasant and agreeable, but more often quite the reverse. The foliage of the trees was new and strange, while the fruits were perplexing in their incongruity. At times the fruits grew on different sorts of trees, while at others the same sort of trees bore entirely dissimilar fruits. The path which they were pursuing was quite the opposite of an ordinary one, for before them it was visible but one step, while it stretched far into the distance behind them. Intu, however, had already made all plain to himself by a process of reasoning entirely his own. It was, that these things being the direct opposite of all in his own country which he ruled, therefore they could only be caused by some one different from himself―a superior being, that being must be the Goddess―therefore they were upon the right path, at least he was.

Kour thought these things delightful, they were so strange, so new. In fact they were phenomenal and he love phenomena. They gave him such queer sensations, and anything which did that or made him feel other than when in his own land―must be caused by the Goddess―oh yes, there were on the right path, at least he was. As for Kadmon, he seeing none of these things, could only judge by that which he remembered of his own country. Each of the others, told him of their existence in their own way. This was confusing. He determined, therefore to walk onward as if he were in his own land, but to press steadily on. They were thus, in reality treading three separate paths, and in their several ways they passed many persons who had stopped to rest―to eat or sleep―or because the way was dark and difficult; some because they were too poor, others because they were ill, footsore or blind. Intu lost some time, for he stopped to argue with many on the pecu-

liarities of the way and the logical reasonableness of it, but he had no time to pause for aught else.

Kour felt for the wayfarers, he was sorry for and loved them. If they would only feel as he did they could go on easily, but he had no time to stop to make them feel that way.

Both Intu and he had all such people in their own lands. There was no time to waste on natural things. It was the supernatural in a metaphysical or soul-stirring way they sought.

And Kadmon, the Sorrowful, paused. In his land these were to be found also. He too realized the reasonableness of the way. He too loved it and was exalted by it. He too felt for and loved the other wayfarers. He did more―he sorrowed for them. What mattered it if he did not find the temple immediately, he was young, the others growing old and blind, there were sorrowful and weary. So he stopped and gave his thoughts and help to the ill, cheering the weary, helping the poor, and blindfolded as he was, led the blind over the step he had just passed. So interested did he become in these labors he forgot he was himself seeking the Goddess.

It was but a little distance farther on that they caught up with Intu, which was not surprising as he had reached the end of his path. It had ended at a stone wall. As he could not scale the wall, he sat down to reason "why an ordinary stone wall should obstruct such an extraordinary path?" Being a very perplexing intellectual problem―there he remained. A little farther and Kour was passed. He had encountered a radiant maiden, partially veiled, who told him wondrous tales of strange happenings. Her manner was very mysterious, and he felt she was the Goddess. Taking her hand in his and leaning his head upon her bosom, he was so happy that he knew she was the Goddess and there he remained to dream.

And Kadmon, tarrying with the sorrowful and weary, felt the bandage slip from his eyes, as the light from the rising sun streaming in red and gold over the path fell upon and glorified the ragged wayfarers. In the brilliance over their heads he read the words: "This way lies the path to the Temple" while

a soft voice breathed into his soul: "By the way of Intu alone, the path is not found. By that of Kour alone, it is not gained. Both wisely used in unison are guides, while on the road. By something, which is greater than either, only, is the Temple reached. Work on!:

And the sorrowful, taking in his own, the hands of the weary and weak, passed on.

OF "METAPHYSICAL HEALING"

THE time for temporizing or for silence in respect to what are severally styled "Mind Cure," "Mental Science," "Christian Science," and the like has now come to an end, and the moment has arrived when something definite should be said on these as well as some other subjects. The first note was sounded at the theosophical convention for 1890¹ when in the message sent by H. P. Blavatsky she wrote that some of these practises were of the nature of black magic as explained by her in that message. She says "In other words, whenever the healer interferes―consciously or unconsciously―with the free mental action of the person he treats, it is Black Magic." At that time many persons were hurt, some on their own account and others on account of the feeling they had that people of the class who believe in and practise these so-called sciences would be thus driven away from the Society. Several members accordingly studiously refrained from mentioning the matter, and in many quarters it fell into silence absolute.

In the first place, it cannot be said that no cures have ever been accomplished by means of the practises referred to. There have been cases of cure. For, indeed, one would have to be blind to the records of the medical profession to say that the mind has no part to play in the cure of diseases. That it does have, as any physician knows, for if the patient continues to be depressed in mind there may be a failure or even a death.

an assistance to the regular treatment. And as very many of the troubles of people are imaginary, sometimes in the acute form because of imagination, it does happen in those cases that a cure may be effected by the schools we are speaking of. Some nervous derangements may be thus cured. And if that is brought about by directing the mind of the patient to high thoughts, there can be no objection to it. But if the mind is filled with wrong philosophy, or if the affirmations and denials found in these "sciences" are used, or the "construction of the divine and spiritual form" be gone into, the whole thing is bad.

And here it is well to state our position about the cure of bodily ailments. It is that inasmuch as they are of and in the body, those that come from a wrong attitude of mind will disappear when we are contented and self-centered, while those that are chronic, being mechanical and physical, ought to be treated by such means and not by an attempt to drag the spiritual and divine down to this plane of being. In none of the ancient schools was it permitted to one to use for himself, or to sell, the divine or spiritual powers. Furthermore we see that the savages are the most healthy of men. Yet they know none of these things and do not care for such ideas. Yet although the Red Indian of the early days did much murder and lived not righteously, he was a fine specimen of physical health. This shows that health may be maintained by attention to the ordinary laws of nature on the material plane by attending to hygiene and exercise. Yet again, looking at the prize-fighter and the athlete, it is plain that they, by attending to the same rules and wholly disregarding the fine theories of the mental healers, become well and strong and able to bear the greatest fatigue and hardship. It was the same in the days of the athletes of Rome and Greece.

A number of fallacies have to be noticed in these systems. Using the word "thought," they say that our diseases are the product of our thought, but they ignore the fact that young children of the tenderest age often have very violent diseases when no one will say they have had time or power to think.

Babies have been found to have Bright's disease and other troubles. This is a fact that looms up before the arguments of the mental healer and that never will down.

But regarding it from the theosophical side, we know that the thoughts of the preceding life are the causes for the troubles and the joys of this, and therefore those troubles are now being exhausted here by the proper channel, the body, and are on the way down and out. Their exit ought not to be stopped. But by the attempt to cure in the way of the healer they are stopped often and are sent back to the place they came from, and thus once more are planted in the mind as unexpended causes sure at some other time to come out again, whether in this or in another life. This is one of the greatest of dangers. It will in many instances lead to insanity.

The next fallacy is in the system of affirmations and denials. To assert as they do that there is no matter, that all is spirit, and that there is no evil but that all is good, and that "this my body is pure and sweet and free from trouble," is philosophically and as a mere use of English false in every respect. "Spirit" and "Matter" are terms that must exist together, and if one is given up so must the other disappear. They are the two great opposites. As the Bhagavad-Gita says, there is no spirit without also matter. They are the two eternities, the two manifestations, one at one pole and one at the other, of the absolute, which is neither matter nor spirit but wholly indescribable except as said―it is at once spirit and matter. Likewise Good and Evil are two opposites mutually existing, the one necessary in order to know the other, for if there were no evil we should not know what to call the good. One might as well say that there is no darkness but that all is light. By these foolish affirmations all relativity is abolished, and we are asked to abandon all proper use of words in order to satisfy those who wish to show that optimism in all things and at all times is the right position. The "Christian Scientist" goes further and says God is all good, the argument being in fact nothing at all but a play on the word god. It would not work in Spanish, for there good is bueno and god is dios. This

assertion calmly refuses any admission of the patent fact that if God exists he must be evil as well as good, unless we revert to the old Catholic idea that the devil is as strong as God. And even if we say that God made the devil and will one day stop him, the evil is a part of God unless in some respects he is not responsible for the world and beings. But the last affirmation, that one's body is sweet and pure and free from disease, is degrading as well as false. It may be true that bodies are illusions, but they are not the illusions of single individuals but of the great mind of the race, and therefore they are relatively real―as they are now constructed―for the minor beings who make up the race. No one has the power to escape from this great illusion of the total mind until he has risen to an actual conscious realization of that mind in all its departments. The affirmation has its refutation in itself, for if one person can thus destroy this relativity so far as he is concerned by merely affirming against it, how is it that the illusion still remains for and has sway over the remaining millions? Still more we know that the body is a mass of things that are not good nor pure, and that in the abstract sense of these affirmations the most unnoticed physiological operations are actually disgusting.

The line of demarcation between black and white magic is very thin, but it is quite plain when one sees the art of healing by means of such high forces as are claimed by these schools practised for purely selfish ends or for money in addition. There is danger in it, and all theosophists ought to look well that they do not fall themselves or cause others to.

The great danger is from the disturbances that are brought about by the practise. It is a sort of yoga without any right knowledge of method; it is blind wandering among forces so subtle and so violent that they are liable to explode at any moment. By continuing in the way taught a person actually from the first arouses latent currents of the body that act and re-act on the astral and physical and at last bring about injury. I have in mind several cases, and some of them those of actual insanity due wholly to these practises. Of these I will

say more at another time, and may be able to present a record that will astonish those who, merely to cure some ailment that medicine is fully able to deal with, go aside instead and play with forces they have no knowledge of, and put them also into the hands of others still more ignorant, all the while deluding themselves with the idea that they are dealing with high philosophy. The philosophy has nothing to do with it except to act as a means to centre the thought so that inner currents may come into play. The same result might be brought about by any system of talk or thought, no matter how erroneous.

[A Path reader found fault with the foregoing article, proposing that "Divine Science" did not deserve the criticisms Mr. Judge had made. He responded by publishing the article, making the following Editor's Note.}

EDITOR'S NOTE.―The PATH has no desire to seem unfair, and hence the foregoing article is inserted at the request of a friend. It cannot be considered as a reply to the article in January issue, nor does it deal with the important points then raised and which will be further discussed at a later date. Very few earnest theosophists will share with Mrs. Gestefeld, however much they respect her, the assumption made in her second paragraph that because they give time and attention to the study of Theosophy they "also therefore" do not give attention "to the teaching covered by the term Divine Science." Such assumption assumes the total non-existence of Theosophical literature. Divine Science is a term used ages ago in Indian writing, and is well understood to cover a real science of psychology, physiology, and spirit; but if a number of people in America appropriate the term to cover a few half-truths from the whole, it does not necessarily follow that others who are not of that cult do not study the real thing. There is no sequence between her premise and her conclusion.

The next point on which we must differ from our contributor is where she says this "Divine Science" of which she speaks―and which is different in her opinion from Mental Science, etc., as promulgated illogically―must be studied by throwing away all standards save those adopted by its exponents, "accepting for the time being the terms as used with the meanings attached to them" (by its exponents), and "following them" to conclusion "without weighing and measuring them by another standard than their premise." This is just the difficulty. The terms used are strained in general, and thus false conclusions are arrived at if we thus throwaway right standards long ago fixed by the use of English by wiser and better educated people than most of us can claim to be. We cannot do that, even to show that "Divine Science" is the same as theosophy; nor can we with the same object in view abandon words from foreign tongues to express ideas for which materialistic English has no counters. By such a process the students of Modern Divine Science may be saved the trouble of investigating and classifying the manifold divisions in man's personality―and which even now the celebrated hypnotists call number I, 2, and so on. The resulting calm ignorance of these vital matters might be pleasant, but it would not destroy the existence of the subtle form of matter called akasa, nor the subtle body temporarily called sukshma sarira, nor the Mayavi rupa, nor those negative and positive astral currents known as Ida and Pingala but not yet perceived distinctly by either scientific men or "metaphysical or divine healers." When, diving into Greek or Latin, the authorities of the day shall have adopted distinctive terms for these things as they discover their existence, use, and function, then we will take those more familiar terms and drop Sanscrit. For, digressing, we may remind our readers that it is a tradition in the Lodge "which seeth all, holding all, as it were, in its eye," that our language will creep slowly back by way of Greek and Latin to the ancient Sanscrit.

AFFIRMATIONS AND DENIALS

IN the PATH of January a discussion on the subjects of "Mind Cure" and the like was begun. Since then we have had some letters from and conversations with those who think that the article is not right, or that it takes a wrong view, or that it does not state all the views of all the schools, and when we referred the enquirers to publications of "professors" of these schools we were told that they do not represent the thing properly, and so on. In this article it is purposed to refer to some of these published utterances of the said professors, so that they may be examined.

In a journal called Christian Science for the month of January, published in Boston apparently under the auspices of a college of the cult, is the following from an article entitled "My Healing Message," by Minna Peckham:

I now declare all pain, sickness, or death to be nothing―nothing. There is no sickness. I deny that there ever was any sickness. I do not believe in poverty; I know there is no poverty; there never was any poverty; there never will be any poverty. We have great stores of wealth; every man, woman, and child is rich. They want for nothing. I do not believe in storms. I know there are no storms. There never were any storms; there never will be any. I deny the reality of storms henceforth and forevermore. I do not believe in accidents, I know there never were any accidents and there never never shall be any.

And all this raving is uttered in serious earnest, winding through many more paragraphs, and ending as follows: "I am a messenger of God's love and a bearer of good tidings of what is true."

But we are told by some that this sort of thing "is not the Simon pure straight; it is not representative." The difficulty is that the different "metaphysicians" say the same of each other, and when they are cornered by something like this they say "O that is not the proper thing." But a still greater diffi-

culty is that the folly just quoted is the exact outcome of the other systems, for they all have a system of affirming and denying that must, if carried to its logical conclusion, lead to just what Miss Peckham says. She is evidently not afraid to boldly go to the end and reduce herself and all other things and beings on this plane to nothing. Indeed, it is quite proper to go still further than her "message" in order to carry out the line of argument laid down, in the way: "There is nothing; I do not think, I never did, I never will, and the thoughts I have just uttered have no existence, and therefore all that I have said is nothing, and hence all that I have denied is just the opposite." This is quite logical and proper, and reduces the whole matter to its right position. The whole set of affirmations and denials reminds one of the passages in the writings of the great Seer Swedenborg, where he describes those souls who affirm and deny anything at all and reduce any statement to the very opposite of what may have been said. We are not joking, but are in sober earnest and call on all forms of argument and all schools of real literature to support our position. Of course some will not agree, but we are willing to rest the case with those who have been educated to understand the true course of an argument. There are rules of logic which must be followed unless we are come upon an age when all these things have passed away. And the "Healing Message" has been taken up now because the publication appeals to theosophists and advertises theosophical books.

As soon as the Absolute began to manifest itself, or, if you like, immediately that Almighty God created things and beings, relativity begins, and all minds are caught in its net and are obliged to look at things relatively. And so it comes about that we have to say "good" and "evil," as well as all the other words that connote these relative things and ideas. If there were no matter there would be no spirit, and also if there were no evil there would be no good. It is therefore wrong in logic and common sense to say there is no evil. It is

only the desire of the optimist, who will not look at things as they are, that causes people to affirm that all is good or that there is no evil. It is all relative, and there is both evil and good, just as light and darkness exist. For if there were not the one we would never know anything about the other, since these ideas arise from contrasts.

In the so-called metaphysical arts or "sciences" the relativity of things and ideas is constantly ignored from the desire to have everything right and just as we want it. But how can these optimists know they are right when they sweep away relativity? and how shall any of us say that sorrow and poverty do not exist? Poverty is a fact―the fact of being without means or the things that can be bought with means, and this is so whether the general wants of the nation you live in are small or large. It is in no sense a sentiment or due to imagination. Hence poverty here will be riches for the man in India, and so on, but all the time there is poverty in any land, no matter how the relativity in respect to that sort of poverty alters in another.

So it is against the experience of all to say there is no poverty, and it is also contrary to logic. But it is not wrong to say that the effect on your mind may alter as you look at the matter; and so you may be poor yet at the same time be contented. This, though spiritual or moral richness, is none the less actual poverty. But proper contentment does not come from violations of logic and fact, but from a right view of this universe of relativity. And such right view will never be attained by denials that can not be sustained.

Many of the objections made to the views in the January article were wide of the mark, for they took the ground that the writer held, as they said other members of the Society do, the opinion that we should go on thinking we are sick when we are not, and that we are miserable when it is only a result of morbidity of mind. Such is not the position at all. Much of our misery is due to discontent and to selfishness, and will disappear as we grow contented and whole-souled. Many of our bodily complaints fade away when we have restored the

mind to normal action. But this normal action is not secured by bad logic and worse statistics. It is done by recognizing the fact that "the mind is its own place, and can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell." As we see that one set of circumstances make one man happy and another the very opposite, we know that much depends on the way in which we look at our surroundings; but this is an old idea, one always held by the most ancient of the ancients. What right have the "metaphysicians" to arrogate it to themselves? All good physicians have said that much depends on the mind of the patient, but that does not do away with the necessity for good physicians; it only calls for more sense on the part of the patients.

Let us suppose a nation imbued from birth to death with the absurd denials and affirmations we have quoted, and try to imagine what would be the effect on the next incarnation of such a people. Probably Miss Peckham does not believe in reincarnation, but, if she did, might say the effect would be good. But would all the poverty and the storms and earthquakes have come to an end? Hardly, since in the case of the natural throes of mother Earth what thoughts may cause them are beyond our purview and unaffected by our denials. Would the contrasts that really constitute poverty, no matter what the sphere of being, cease to have existence? We think not, unless everything by the remarkable process outlined in the paper quoted from had been reduced to one dead level. But we know at least this, that evolution is the law of nature in all departments and that no dead level is possible, and under the law of evolution there must be these contrasts, no matter how high we go or how long continue in the great stream. Hence if these affirmations and denials should have the effect of removing us from this sphere to another, there the deniers and affirmers would have to begin the weary process over again of plunging themselves into a sea of illusionary thought devoid of logic and merely optimistic. If this picture be correct, is it wise to continue the system or in any way to give it moral support?

THE CURE OF DISEASES

MORTAL ills and the needs of the stomach rank next after the instinct of self-preservation among all the subjects which engage the attention of the race. If we do not go on living we cannot do the work we think there is to do; if we remain hungry we will lose the power to work properly or to enjoy, and at last come to the door of death. From bad or scanty food follows a train of physical ills called generally disease. Disease reaches us also through too much food. So in every direction these ills attack us; even when our feeding is correct and sufficient it is found that we fall a prey because our Karma, settled by ourselves is some previous life, ordains that we enter on this one handicapped by the hereditary taint due to the wickedness or the errors of our fathers and mothers. And the records of science show that the taint in the blood or the lymph may jump over many lives, attacking with virulence some generation distant very far from the source. What wonder, then that the cure of disease is an all-absorbing subject with every one! The Christian knows that it is decreed by Almighty God that He will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children even to the third and fourth generation, and the non-believer sees that by some power in nature the penalty is felt even so far.

All of this has given to the schools of mental and so-called "metaphysical" healing a strong pull on the fears, the feelings, the wishes, and the bodies of those to whom they address themselves, and especially in the United States. That there is more attention given to the subject in America seems true

to those who have been on the other side of the Atlantic and noticed how small is the proportion of people there who know anything about the subject. But in the United States in every town many can be found who know about these schools and practice after their methods. Why it has more hold here can be left to conjecture, as the point under consideration is why it has any hold at all. It is something like patent medicine. Offer a cure to people for their many ills, and they will take it up; offer it cheap, and they will use it; offer it as an easy method, and they will rush for it under certain conditions. Metaphysical healing is easy for some because it declares, first, that no money need be paid to doctors for medicine; second, that medical fluids and drugs may be dispensed with; and third that it is easily learned and practiced. The difficulties that arise out of the necessities of logic are not present for those who never studied it, but are somewhat potent with those who reason correctly;―but that is not usual for the general run of minds. They see certain effects and accept the assumed cause as the right one. But many persons will not even investigate the system, because they think it requires them to postulate the non-existence of that which they see before their eyes. The statements quoted from the monthly Christian Science in March PATH are bars in the way of such minds. If they could be induced to just try the method offered for cure, belief might result, for effects indeed often follow. But the popular mind is not in favor of "mind cure," and more prominence is given in the daily papers to cases of death under it than to cures. And very full reports always appear of a case such as one in March, where "faith curers," in order to restore life, went to praying over the dead body of one of the members of a believing family.

During a recent tour over this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back, I had the opportunity of meeting hundreds of disciples of these schools, and found in nearly all cases that they were not addicted to logic but calmly ignored very plain propositions, satisfied that if cures were accomplished the cause claimed must be the right one, and al-

most without exception they denied the existence of evil or pain or suffering. There was a concurrence of testimony from all to show that the dominant idea in their minds was the cure of their bodily ills and the continuance of health. The accent was not on the beauty of holiness or the value to them and the community of a right moral system and right life, but on the cure of their diseases. So the conclusion has been forced home that all these schools exist because people desire to be well more than they desire to be good, although they do not object to goodness if that shall bring wholeness.

And, indeed, one does not have to be good to gain the benefit of the teachings. It is enough to have confidence, to assert boldly that this does not exist and that that has no power to hurt one. I do not say the teachers of the "science" agree with me herein, but only that whether you are good or bad the results will follow the firm practice of the method enjoined, irrespective of the ideas of the teachers.

For in pure mind-cure as compared with its congener "Christian Science," you do not have to believe in Jesus and the gospels, yet the same results are claimed, for Jesus taught that whatever you prayed for with faith, that you should have.

Scientific research discloses that the bodies of our race are infected with taints that cause nearly all of our diseases, and school after school of medicine has tried and still tries to find the remedy that will dislodge the foulness in the blood. This is scientific, since it seeks the real physical cause; metaphysical healing says it cures, but cannot prove that the cause is destroyed and not merely palliated. That there is some room for doubt history shows us, for none will deny that many a pure thinking and acting pair have brought forth children who displayed some taint derived from a distant ancestor. Evidently their pure individual thoughts had no power over the great universal development of the matter used by those human bodies.

Turning now to medicine we find the Italian Count Mattei promulgating a system of cure by the homeopathic use of subtle

vegetable essences which may well give pause to those who would make universal the curing by faith or mind alone. Some of his liquids will instantly stop violent pain, restore sight, give back hearing, and dissipate abnormal growths. His globules will make a drunken man sober, and, given to the nurse who suckles a babe, will cure the child who takes the milk. The drunkard and the child do not think about or have faith in the remedies, yet they cure. Is it not better to restore health by physical means and leave the high teachings of the healers, all taken from well know sources, for the benefit of our moral nature?

And if Christian healers read these lines, should they not remember that when the prophet restored the widow's son he used physical means―his own magnetism applied simultaneously to every member of the child's body, and Jesus, when the woman who touched his garment was cured, lost a portion of his vitality―not his thoughts―for he said "virtue" had gone out from him? The Apostle also gave directions that if any were sick the others should assemble about the bed and anoint with oil, laying on their hands meanwhile: simply physical therapeutics following a long line of ancient precedent dating back to Noah. Moses taught how to cure diseases and to disinfect places where contagion lurked. It was not by using the high power of thought, but by processes deemed by him to be effectual, such as sprinkling blood of animals slaughtered in peculiar circumstances. Without declaring for or against his methods, it is very certain that he supposed by these means subtle forces of a physical nature would be liberated and brought to bear on the case in hand.

The mass of testimony through the ages is against healing physical ills by the use of the higher forces in nature, and the reason, once well known but later on forgotten, is the one given in the article of January, 1892,―that diseases are gross manifestations showing themselves on their way out of the nature so that one may be purified. To arrest them though thought ignorantly directed is to throw them back into their cause and replant them in their mental plane.

This is the true ground of our objection to metaphysical healing practices, which we distinguish from the assumptions and so-called philosophy on which those methods are claimed to stand. For we distinctly urge that the effects are not brought about by any philosophical system whatever, but by the practical though ignorant use of psycho-physiological processes.

REPLANTING DISEASES FOR FUTURE USE

THE ills I wish to speak of now are those of the body. Our moral nature will be purified and ennobled, widened and strengthened, by attention to the precepts of the saints and sages who through all the ages continue speaking for our benefit. And I refer to these with a view to "mind-cure" and "metaphysical healing."

In the article on the "Cure of Diseases" I stated our real ground of objection to the practices demonstrated variously, as the practitioners have been Theosophists, Christians, or followers of mind healers, to be directed to methods which in fact introduce a new sort of palliative that throws back into our inner, hidden planes of life diseases otherwise passing down and out through the natural gateway, our bodily frame.

A consideration of this subject requires that we enquire awhile into the complete nature of man. This inquiry has been made before by much greater minds than mine, and I only hand on what they have found and what I have corroborated for myself. Mind-healers and Spiritual Scientists and the rest do not make any reference to this subtle nature of ours except to admit thought to be powerful and to say that the "spiritual body is pure and free from disease." Mind itself is not described by them, nor is it stated that the "spiritual body" has any anatomy possible of description. But the field of Theosophic research is not devoid of an anatomical enumeration, so to say, of the parts of the inner body―the "spiritual body" of some of these schools―nor of the "mind" spoken of by them all.

The mind is manas of the Hindus. It is a part of the immortal man. The "spiritual body" is not immortal. It is compounded of astral body with the passions and desires. Mind is the container of the efficient causes of our circumstances, our inherent character and the seeds that sprout again and again as physical diseases as well as those purely mental. It is the mover who is either voluntary in his motion, free if it will, or moved hither and thither by every object and influence and colored by every idea. From life to life it occupies body after body, using a new brain instrument in each incarnation. As Patanjali put it ages ago, in mind lie planted all seeds with self-reproductive power inherent in them, only waiting for time and circumstances to sprout again. Here are the causes for our diseases. Product of thought truly, but thought long finished and now transformed into cause beyond our present thought. Lying like tigers by the edge of the jungle's pool ready to spring when the hour arrives, they may come forward accompanied by counteractions due to other causes, or they may come alone.

When these seeds sprout and liberate their forces they show themselves in diseases in the body, where they exhaust themselves. To attack them with the forces belonging to the plane of mind is to force them again to their hiding place, to inhibit their development, to stop their exhaustion and transfer to the grosser level of life. They are forcibly dragged back, only to lie waiting once more for their natural expression in some other life. That natural expression is through a body, or rather through the lowest vehicle in use in any evolutionary period.

This is a great wheel that ever revolves, and no man can stop it. To imagine we can escape from any cause connected with us is to suppose that law and order desert the manifested universe. No such divorce is possible. We must work everything out to the last item. The moment we evolve a thought and thus a cause, it must go on producing its effects, all becoming in turn causes for other effects and sweeping down the great evolutionary current in order to rise again. To sup-

pose we can stop this ebb and flow is chimerical in the extreme. Hence the great sages have always said we have to let the Karmic effects roll on while we set new and better causes in motion, and that even the perfect sage has to endure in his bodily frame that which belongs to it through Karma.

The inner anatomical structure should also be known. The ethereal body has its own currents―nerves, for want of a better word, changes and method of growth and action, just as the gross body has. It is, in fact, the real body, for it seldom alters throughout life, while the physical counterpart changes every moment, its atoms going and coming upon the matrix or model furnished by the ethereal body.

The inner currents emanate from their own centers and are constantly in motion. They are affected by thoughts and the reflection of the body in its physiological changes. They each act upon the other incessantly. (Every center of the inner body has its appropriate correspondent in the physical one, which it affects and through which it is in turn acted upon.) It is by means of these subtle currents―called vital airs when translated from the Sanscrit―that impressions are conveyed to the mind above, and through them also are the extraordinary feats of the sèance room and the Indian Yogi accomplished.

And just as one may injure his body by ignorantly using drugs or physical practices, so can the finer currents and nerves of the inner man be thrown out of adjustment if one in pride or ignorance attempts, uninstructed to deal with them.

The seeds of disease being located primarily in the mind, they begin to exhaust themselves through the agency of the inner currents that carry the appropriate vibrations down upon the physical plane. If left to themselves―aside from palliations and aids in throwing off―they pass out into the great crucible of nature and one is free from them forever. Therefore pain is said to be a kind friend who relieves the real man of a load of sin.

Now the moment the practices of the mind-curer are begun, what happens is that the hidden inner currents are violently grasped, and, if concentration is persisted in, the downward vibrations are thrown up and altered so as to carry back the cause to the mind, where it is replanted with the addition of the purely selfish desires that led to the practice. It is impossible to destroy the cause; it must be allowed to transform itself. And when it is replaced in the mind, it waits there until an opportunity occurs either in this life or in the next rebirth.

In some cases the physical and psychological structures are not able to stand the strain, so that sometimes the return of the downward vibrations is so great and sudden that insanity results; in other cases disease with violent characteristics set in.

The high tone of thought enjoined by some schools of healers has the effect of making the cause of trouble sink deeper into hiding, and probably adds to concentration. But any thought would do as well, provided concentration is persisted in, for it is the concentration that makes the effect, and not the philosophy. The system of affirming and denying make concentration easier.

For when the practitioner begins, he immediately brings to play certain inner forces by virtue of his dwelling on one thing. The veriest savages do the same. They have long taught it for various purposes, and their ideals go no higher than food and sleep, fetishes and superstitions.

When one is thus operating on another who is willing, the change of inner nerve currents is brought by sympathy, which in these cases is the same as the phenomenon so well known in physics by the name of induction. When a person is operated on―or against, I call it―the effect is either repelled or produced. If produced, it is by the same induction brought about without his knowledge and because he was not stronger than the operator.

Here is the danger again. The schools of hypnotists are teaching how to do it. The mind-curers and "metaphysicians" are

doing the same. An army of possibilities lurks under it all: for already there are those practitioners who deliberately practice against their opponents, sitting day after day to paralyze the efforts of other people. It is like dynamite in the hands of a child. Some day it will explode, and those who taught it will be responsible, since instead of being taught it ought to be warned against. The world could get along with what disease there is, if it only turned attention to high ethics and altruistic endeavor. For after a few centuries of right living the nations would have purged themselves and built up a right moral building well founded on the rocks of true philosophy, charity, and love.

IF METHUSELAH EXISTED, WHY SO SHORT OUR LIVES?

AT a Theosophical Society meeting the other day, it was stated that in the early races, say the second and third, referred to in the Secret Doctrine, man had a much more ethereal body, which lived many more years than Methuselah, the aged. In elaborating this, the objection was advanced that the body of man is now much more compact and stable than it was in those early races, because the atoms of which it is composed know their business better now than then, have greater affinity for certain combinations and for each other, and are not so readily scattered and disintegrated; and, if so, how is it explained that the length of human life now is only three-score and ten years, against several hundred in primitive times?

At first sight this seems to be perhaps a strong objection, but a careful consideration will dissipate it.

In the first place, when the human body was in a nebulous state the friction between the particles was much less than when they had drawn closer together. If the theory of ultimate atoms is admitted, we must also assent to the law that there is friction between them which will develop heat or tend to reduce the cohesive power. The heat evolved will have a tendency to destroy the intervening medium, or at least to so alter its state as to make it useless as a medium for cohesions to act.

Further, if we suppose, as is perfectly justifiable, that there are large and small combinations of atoms in each of which the units are closer to each other, the heat evolved will destroy

the constitution of the element, whatever it may be, that is between that combination of atoms and the adjoining one. And, still further, the friction between any two such bodies will also tend to rub off or draw off atoms from either of two to unite with the stronger, or be thrown entirely out of both collections.

Such a process as described will in the end bring about the disintegration of the entire mass of atoms. Thus at first, the atoms being farther removed, the destructive means can only act at intervals or more slowly than when the union is more intimate, and from this we reach the reason why the age of the combination of atoms would be greater in the one case than in the other.

Coming down to the present period we find that, in addition to the closer association of atoms in the physical frame, there is also another disturbing element tending to destruction of the union, that is, the force of the mind and the emotions.

It is well known that as man increases his brain use and power and the play of his emotions, he is able to affect his physical frame thereby. Today many hold that the American people are becoming too nervously organized. This reacts upon the atoms in the body, and must make the average age less than those ancient races when the mental and emotional natures did not have such sway over the human being.

This is perfectly in accord with the Secret Doctrine, as it is shown that in the early ages everything went slower in all departments and that now in Kali Yuga all things move with great rapidity.

So it may be properly concluded that the great law of conservation of energy, of correlation of forces, makes it now out of the ordinary for men to live to the age of Methuselah.

WHY YOGA PRACTICE IS DANGEROUS

A GOOD deal has been said in Theosophical literature about the danger of pursuing Yoga practice, such as regulating the breathing, assuming certain postures of the body, etc., and several persons, not satisfied with simple declarations by such writers as H. P. B. that these practices are prejudicial, have frequently asked for reasons. Many of the reasons given in the PATH and elsewhere have been merely further declarations. I have instituted some experiments for the purpose of showing what is the effect, if any, upon the physical system of a certain sort of breathing used in Hatha Yoga practices, and desire to record one for the benefit of inquirers.

The persons present were myself, a well-known physician whose name I can give, and the practitioner. The physician first took the person's pulse for three minutes and found it to be running at 96 beats per minute, and then the experiment began with the practice with the following result:

First minute. Pulse fell to 91 beats. Second minute. Pulse fell to 81 beats. Third minute. Pulse remained at 81 beats.

A delay of five minutes then occurred, when the practice was begun again for six minutes, with the following result:

This shows a reduction in the pulse action of 20 beats in 14 minutes. It also shows that after the first three minutes the intermission of five minutes was not enough to enable the pulse to go back to 96 beats, at which it started. The first three minutes showed a fall of five beats in the first minute and ten in the next minute, making fifteen beats reduction for the three minutes.

It therefore appears that one of the accompaniments of this practice is a distinct effect upon the action of the heart, and as all the Hindu books invariably state that great caution should be used and that there are dangers, we can see here a very great danger found in an effect upon the heart's action, resulting in a reduction of pulse beats of twenty beats in fourteen minutes. The Hindu books to which I have referred, and which are the only works through which inquirers have heard about these practices, also say that a guide who is fully acquainted with the subject is necessary for each student, and that every one of these practices requires an antidote for its effects through other regulations tending to neutralize the bad physical effects. Students have been too anxious to try these experiments without paying any attention to the cautions given out, and I know of some cases in which, while well remembering that the cautions had been uttered, persons have pursued these practices by themselves without assistance. I hope that the above record will not only justify the cautionary remarks which have been so often made by sincere Theosophical writers, but will also serve to warn off Theosophical students from this dangerous ground.

THEOSOPHIC DIET

THE question "whether to eat meat or not to eat it" is one which is uppermost in the minds of many theosophists today. Some will eat no meat, while others still use it, and a few who are vegetarians seem to think that the meat eaters are sinners and cannot be spiritual.

Although I belong to the Spanish-speaking people, I am a vegetarian and a theosophist; and I hope that the difference in race will not have any effect on my American readers, brother theosophists.

Let us examine the different standpoints taken, and look at the matter without any bias in favor of either vegetarianism or carnivorous diet.

The meat eaters say that in nature we find cows and elephants eating no meat, and yet they seem to have no additional spirituality as a result, and that among men we often see those who, although they eat meat, are at the same time highly spiritualized. This is their case.

The vegetarians have these arguments: (a) that animal food necessarily imparts to the eater the qualities of the animal, and that the eating of meat not only may give us the diseases of the animal, but also tends to inflame the blood and makes the gross envelope of the body more dense than ever; (b) that it is wrong to kill animals for food, because, as we did not give them life, we have no right to take it away from them; (c) that by living on vegetable food we make the gross body more permeable to higher influences. There may be finer divisions of the argument, but the above will give their case in general.

It must make much difference in the conclusion whether one is speaking of a man belonging to the western nations or of one who, like the Hindu, comes of a race which for ages has taken

no animal food. It is held by many physiologists that the stomach is an organ for the digesting of animal food only, and that in a vegetarian the pyloric valve leading from the stomach is so paralyzed from want of use that the food passes directly into the intestines. It must therefore follow that the western man may be placing himself in danger of fatal derangement of his system when he leaves meat eating and takes up vegetarianism. This has, indeed, been proved in many cases to be a real danger. I have before me the reports of several theosophists who found that it was not possible for them to make the change; at the same time others have made it with perfect safety. The trouble did not arise from weakness following lack of meat, but from imperfect digestion causing disease. This is due to the retention in the stomach of vegetable matter for so long a time that yeast and other growths were thrown into the circulation; these are sufficient to bring on tuberculosis, nervous diseases, and other manifold derangements. It is well known that a man who has melancholia due to systenemia cannot expect to reach a high development in occultism.

We next find that there are powerful black magicians in farther India and in many other places who do not deny themselves meat but take as much as they wish, and also stimulants. From this we conclude that power over nature's forces is not solely in the hands of the vegetarian. We need not stop to consider the fate of such magicians, as that has been often dilated upon.

Now although the Hindu has been always a vegetarian, it is a fact that for him the acquirement of knowledge of absolute truth is as difficult as it is for the western man who eats meat. In the books of the Hindoo on the subject of spiritual culture or soul development, the rules laid down are extremely hard to follow. The eating of meat is not definitely referred to, but the attainment of union with the Supreme, from which alone knowledge of absolute truth results, is hedged about with difficulties in comparison with which the eating of meat sinks into the shade; but we must remember that it is assumed

in India that the student is not a meat eater. The reason for the prohibition, however, is that a man has no right to kill animals for his food or for any other reason. He must refrain, not because the act is forbidden, but because his whole nature, through the great love and pity that he feels, naturally recoils from such an act. It is plain, if this rule be the correct one―and I think it is―, that a person who stops the eating of meat in order that he may by complying with that condition attain to a development he has set before him misses the mark, and has acquired a selfish motive for the line thus adopted. It is an old and true saying that the kingdom of God cometh not from taking or refraining from meat, nor from the refraining from anything whatever, but that it is within us. In another place it is said that this kingdom of heaven is taken by violence; that is, it requires all knowledge and all goodness to attain at last to that union with the spirit which is the kingdom of heaven. And such attainments are not in the reach of either those who, on the one hand, long for sentimental religion only, or those who, on the other, work that they may reach the blissful result for themselves. The first, although extremely good, are barred from want of knowledge, and the other by the selfish motive at the bottom of their practice. In the "Great Journey," translated from the Sanscrit by Mr. Arnold, is a beautiful illustration of the spirit and motive which must actuate us. Yudishthira reached heaven after losing his friends on the way, and was at the gate accompanied by his dog who looked to him as his only friend; and when he was refused admission because the dog was with him, he declined to enter. He was let in, and the dog revealed himself as one of the gods; then the king found that his friends were not there, and was told that they were in hell. He asked to go there, and was sent. He found it an awful place and was on the point of returning, when the pitiful voices of his friends called him back, saying that he gave them some comfort by his presence, and he then said he would stay in hell for them. This was reported to the gods, and they in a body went to hell and rescued all the denizens of the place for his sake. The selfishness or selflessness

We find, on referring to the great Indian work of Patanjali on the Philosophy of Yogam, that nothing is said about meat eating. The disciple is not met with the regulation at the outset, "You must refrain from eating meat." This is not because the people were all vegetarians at the time it was written, because even then permissions were extended to certain classes of men for the eating of flesh. The warrior was allowed to eat meat, and out of the warrior caste arose many who attained to the supreme heights of adeptship. To say that carnivorous diet will in itself exclude you from spiritual attainments is of like character with the statement that one cannot attain unless he is of the unsullied Brahmin caste. That was sometimes said by some Brahmins, but is easily met by the fact that the great Krishna was a shepherd by caste.

What, then, is the true theosophic diet? It is that which best agrees with you, taken in moderation, neither too much nor too little. If your constitution and temperament will permit vegetarianism, then that will give less heat to the blood; and, if it is practiced from the sincere conviction that it is not true brotherhood to destroy living creatures so highly organized as animals, then so much the better. But if you refrain from meat in order to develop your psychic powers and senses, and continue the same sort of thoughts you have always had, neither cultivating nor practicing the highest altruism, the vegetarianism is in vain.

The inner nature has a diet out of our thoughts and motives. If those are low or gross or selfish, it is equivalent to feeding that nature upon gross food. True theosophic diet is therefore not of either meat or wine; it is unselfish thoughts and deeds, untiring devotion to the welfare of "the great orphan Humanity," absolute abnegation of self, unutterable aspiration to the Divine―the Supreme Soul. This only is what we can grow upon. And vain are the hopes of those who pin their faith on any other doctrine.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONERS

THE notice published last month, that questions might be asked, addressed to "Zadok," has elicited several queries, from which we select the following. Hereafter "Zadok" will continue his answers, but they will be given through the Path's columns, except where their private nature may call for personal correspondence.

From C.―(1) Is celibacy necessary to the highest spiritual life and attainment? Is this your idea of true occultism?

Answer―By no single way is the highest spiritual life attained. The highest Adept and the true occult student, have at some time been wedded to woman. The highest attainment is never reached until a man has passed through this experience. Under certain conditions and at a certain time celibacy is a great aid, but if the student is wedded then it is his duty to continue in that condition, and instead of proving a barrier it will be an assistance to his progress if he rightly comprehends its significance. All the lessons which are taught the true occult student are given in daily life and through nature's laws. The celibate loses some of these lessons―lessons which he must inevitably learn―because he violates a great law of nature.

The result of celibacy is that the student works by intellect alone. It is necessary for true occult work that the heart be used also. One of the greater of the "mysteries" can never be learned by the celibate, for he never stands as hand in hand with God a controller of a creative force.

(2) Is a purely vegetable diet indispensable to a high and serene spiritual life?

Answer―One might eat grass, grain and turnips, a million years, but that of itself would not produce a high or serene spiritual life. All these things are aids, not necessities.

If the physical condition is such that animal food can be dispensed with, or without disturbing other people or neglecting the labor given, then it is wise to do away with it. The physical is thereby purified, making it less gross, material and animal like. But "one man's meat is another's poison." Use that which seems the wisest to you. "It is not that which goeth into the mouth but that which cometh out that defileth a man." The right thought, the proper motive, the true Will have more to do with true Occultism than any exterior acts or practices.

From T.―(1) Am I the result of a series of existences or a series of co-existences?

Answer―That which is known as you is the result of continuous existence of an entity. Your present body and your soul (or the personality) are the results of a series of existences. Your Karma is a result of co-existence. The individuality, or spirit, is the cause of the soul and personality, or what is called "you." You are the manifestation of an entity and are the result of many appearances of that entity upon this stage of action in various personalities.

(2) May one walk for any distance along the Path without being able to see into the Astral Light, or without recognizing anything extraordinary?

Answer―One may journey an entire life time on "The Path" and not see into the Astral Light consciously. All men see into it, for all who dream are looking there, the body being asleep and not receptive.

One may journey a long distance and not see, for all do not work in the same manner.

Some may hear "ages before they see," or may feel a long time before either seeing or hearing. The tool most efficient at a certain period is the one used.

We may journey the entire way without recognizing anything extraordinary or encountering phenomena. The most extraordinary things are found in the most ordinary, and are overlooked because of their seeming familiarity. When the understanding is directed to the natural, one finds the supra-natural or supra-human things.

All questions are vital so long as they remain unsolved but all will be answered. It requires patience in ourselves, for many times the answers do not come until years after the question has been propounded. If I can be of further use to you please consider me at your service.

From J.V.―"There are two ways to ascend and descend, the direct and indirect." Tea Table, Oct. Path. (1) What are these ways?

Answer―The thistle down is blown hither and thither with every breath of wind: The arrow speeds straight to the mark from the powerful bow.

The indirect way is that of the thistle down; the Astral going out when the body is asleep, does so in a diffused condition―a passive state―with no adequate force to control it or master unseen forces. It floats at the mercy of every current in the Astral, gleaning here and there as a butterfly but taking the good and bad indiscriminately. It may reach high spheres, but is more likely to remain in those nearest to the physical. This way is travelled by all when asleep, and there dreams are made. It is the passive state where desire is the ruler, and is sometimes travelled in the waking conscious state, but is uncontrollable and unreliable.

The direct way is that of the arrow from the bow. The Astral speeds directly to the sphere which holds the knowledge it is to receive. It does so in obedience to an irresistible force―the Will: Will in accordance with divine law. It is concrete going and returning in obedience to this force, bringing little with it from intermediate spheres other than that for which it is seeking. This occurs in dreamless slumber and the knowledge acquired is not communicated in a dream. This way is travelled in the conscious state for it is the way of the student of

the Occult. Unless the man's thought and motive are pure, he is incapable of using the true will, and his Astral goes where other wills or forces drive it. It pauses when other forces interfere―learns from the place it happens to be in, and brings back a horrible jumble sometimes.

The other to consideration of self―ordinary living with its erroneous conceptions―as an Occult way, to love of phenomena and spiritism.

They lead to spheres within the astral, for the astral body passes not beyond astral limits. Only when the soul is freed from the astral and material bodies does it pass to higher spheres. These ways also lead to planets, stars, and other worlds, for all these may be within the astral of this globe.

From C.H.V.―Apollonius is said to have worn a mantle of wool to aid in insulating himself from the astral currents. Has wool in itself any such property as is seemingly ascribed to it? The question has the value, perhaps, whether the occult laws which govern the merely physical regulation of the toiler toward adept-ship, may not be of great value from a sanitary point of view and form, if properly understood, a useful medical creed.

Answer―Wool in itself has no especial occult power. It is a nonabsorbent to the exhalations of the human body; is lighter, cooler in hot and warmer in cold weather than any other fabric. The late discoveries of a German scientist prove it the best of all materials from a sanitary point of view. It is a conductor for electricity and other unseen forces. Apollonius, as well as other occult students, knew its value and uses. Being a student of nature's laws he was well aware of nature's requirements. Upon the knowledge gained by occult students touching the human body are founded all the schools of medicine. Bathing is essential, a woolen dress where per-

missible, as little animal food as possible, a sparing diet at best―a high ideal―an exalted motive and strong will, a total forgetting of self otherwise, and neither elementals or human beings will oppress one.

From J.C.V.―What is true Will? Is it a faculty of the soul? How is it one with the Divine Will and how may we make our will at one with the Divine? Is it something which now we know not, or may we perceive its germ in our own Will, or is it an instinctive movement of the soul?

Answer―(1) The will as known to man is that force which he exerts for the accomplishment of his aims―he uses it blindly and ignorantly―and self is always the one for which he uses it. It is used as a brute force. As ordinarily used it has little tendency to lift the personality farther than the attainment of material results. It has for its source, the lower elements of the soul. The true will is a concentrated force working steadily yet gently, dominating both soul and person, having its source in the spirit and highest elements of the soul. It is never used for the gratification of self, is inspired by the highest of motives, is never interposed to violate a law, but works in harmony with the unseen as well as the seen. It is manifested through the human will for things visible.

striving to find how to use it in harmony with the laws of God. By proper use in the right direction the human will becomes purified, elevated, and being exerted only in conformity with our highest ideal, eventually becomes at one

In our ordinary material state we know only the human will. Through the human will we reach the divine will. We become aware of the true will through the ordinary will just as we become aware of the soul through the body. It is not instinctive of the soul.

From E.L.T.―"A great deal depends on purity of thought and motive," Oct. Path, p. 220. Please explain what should be the actuating motive in developing psychic capacities.

Answer―The desire to find God, the desire to know one's self, our possibilities and capabilities, that we may be of true use to the world, these are the motives. The thought should be unselfish, undisturbed by material affairs―free from wonder-seeking curiosity, concentrated, and in entire accord with the motive, the search for God.

Is Sinnett's explanation of the origin and extinction of "Intermediate Forms," accepted as being clear and satisfactory by the majority of students who are beginning the study of Buddhism?

Answer―By the majority who are beginning yes―but not by those who are advanced.

Sinnett claims that Kama Loka is (like earth) a condition of unsatisfied longings, progressive idealization. It might be the "ne plus ultra" at the time of entrance, but how after a period of years?

Answer―All these states may be entered into while in the body. The condition of unsatisfied longings does not cease except in Nirvana. Beyond a certain point the intellect is useless. Up to and at that point the intellect is increased in its powers. It is never decayed or paralyzed. It is useless because a better tool is used.

Do advanced students contemplate "Rupa Loka" and "Arupa Loka" as at present desirable conditions? If desirable then in what sense: absolutely or comparatively as regards earth life? Is Sinnett's statement of the entire satisfaction of the soul's longings, to be regarded as "Ex Catherdra," or is it only Sinnett's personal conception?

Answer―All states and conditions above the ordinary material are desirable. In the absolute sense, any "conditioned" existence is undesirable. "Advanced students" try to be free from desires. "Rupaloka" means place of form; "Arupaloka," place of no form. There are many Lokas.

His statements are his personal interpretation of the teachings he has received. Read Nov. Path, p. 252.

Are we to understand that the "medium" who provokes a representation of phenomena from departed spirits is thereby riveting the chains by which the said "spirit" is held fast to low conditions?

Is Sinnett's use of the word "spirituality" to be used as synonymous with our word conscientiousness?

How do Buddhists regard this faculty as compared with conscientiousness, self-sacrifice and integrity?

Answer―It is not a faculty. Conscientiousness, self-sacrifice, integrity, duty, are all portions of the whole, which is spirituality.

Do they not accord respect and honor to preponderance of intellect over purity of heart?

Answer―By continual exercise of the power. By concentrated thought in obedience to the will. By purifying the thoughts as well as the body. But your aim must be higher than the mere acquirement of a wonder-working power, or you will fail. With all the power you possess concentrate your

thought upon the object you desire, and receive that which is given by what is termed intuition.

From M.E.C.―What steps must I take to open the heart so as to exercise the Will for governing the Astral body?

Answer―There is but one way to open the heart. That is by living the life. It is a simple matter to govern the will, but this is not the true will. The governing of the Astral body is the smallest of the tasks of the true will. The will should be used to obtain wisdom, and when so used it will control the Astral body without effort. We should exert psychic powers only to benefit others, never to free ourselves from the disagreeable. Let you aim be to find God; your motive, to know yourself for the sake of Theo-Sophia and humanity: you desire, to help humanity, and the True Will will be developed, the heart opened and you will not only control the Astral body but all in the Astral. You must seek beyond the Astral for powers, but it is not wise to desire the acquisition of powers. Let your aim be beyond that, and the powers will grow of themselves. If the strong-willed or sick depress you, seek to aid each in some way, forget that you are depressed, forget your self, and they will not affect you. The life of the Occult student is full of sorrow, anguish and depressing influences. These go to make him a student in the Occult. A portion of his training is to become aware of these only in so far as they affect others. As to their affecting his own personality, he does not know they exist. If you desire to help humanity, then you possess the true motive. If you use your will in this cause, wisdom, peace and all the powers will be given.

From Walter B.―(1) Is it well to cultivate the intellect at the expense of the heart? Do we not pay too much attention to intellectual progress, and in so doing allow the Heart-Mind to wander where it may?

of the other. Each alone will end at the same place―The Threshold. Both are excellent means for the manifestation of that which is higher than either, when cultivated to their highest in unison. Both are useless after a certain point, except as tools for truth. Metaphysics, logic and emotion all end at a dead wall.

(2) Do not the words and teachings of Jesus, taken in their esoteric sense, point one (the) way to the Theosophic Path?

Answer―Taken in the sense he intended the people to take them, they lead to the way. Taken in the sense in which he desired his Disciples to receive them, they are teachings upon the way. Taken in their esoteric sense―as he knew them―they are the way. Were the wisdom of Egypt and India today blotted out from both the seen and unseen worlds ―the true seeker would find in his teachings, when rightly studied, all the teachings of Isis and Buddha. As he received his instruction from Egypt, heired from India, it is more than probable that esoterically his teachings are identical with both.

From F.F.―Will the Devachanic period form an interruption to the work for humanity in the case of one devoted to this during earth life? Is Devachan then a rejuvenating, strengthening period necessary for us while in the bonds of flesh, and is the Elixir of Life the only escape from this egoistic period? May an answer be given to this?

Answer―As the Devachanic period is a result of work for humanity―the true and pure devachanic state being only thus obtained―it should form no interruption to such work. It only does become such when the soul is selfish enough to prefer Devachan to a continuance of work for other men, and even then to a certain extent the soul continues its work. There is rest in Devachan, but not idleness. As this state is frequently entered and passed through while yet in the body, it should be an aid, not a hindrance, to true work. In truth it is a state of reward, but in that state no rewards are received. There is no state up to Nirvana that can be an obstacle to work for humanity for those who are devoted to that work. The Elixir of Life is the only means by which we

can pass beyond both Devachan and the thoughts of it; the Magnum Opus is the only thing that entitles us to it.

From M.E.S.―(1) Are the Astral and the lowest plane of mental life synonymous terms?

Answer―They are not. The impulses for all mental life originate beyond the Astral.

The outer man with his mind interprets these as he conceives they should be. The lowest as well as the highest mental life may receive knowledge from the Astral, but it is not the Astral. All that all forms of mental life produce is indelibly impressed upon the Astral.

(2) Is the "rising above the Astral" in effect rising above the stings and probation of public opinion?

Answer―For us, there is no public opinion. We know neither sting nor approbation. Rising above public opinion is merely rising above the material. Until men forget the material, they can not rise above self. Until they forget self, they can not rise above the Astral: All things that please as well as those that distress men are in and through the Astral. Rise above both.

From M.J.G.―Whence come the visions seen just before dropping to sleep? They are uncontrollable―sometimes unpleasant, and have increased since childhood, and since beginning the study of Occultism.

Answer―When we enter that condition called sleep, we open wide the doors and windows of the body or this house we live in, and the soul goes forth as a bird freed from its cage. In partial unconsciousness or falling into sleep, the body has, to a great extent, ceased to act, but the brain is still sensitive or receptive to the pictures or impressions of the Astral. Of the lower principles the Astral is the last to cease action either in sleep or death. The brain is its instrument. In the partial somnolent condition, the pictures of the Astral are conveyed to the brain; through that the outer man realizes and beholds the visions. If he were fully asleep these visions would be dreams. Precisely, as dreams, they may be either pleasant or the reverse. Like dreams they are uncon-

trollable by the ordinary every day mortal. The Occultist being master of himself beholds only that which he desires, either in vision, or dream, or neither. As one makes himself more sensitive to impressions from the Astral when and after he begins the study of Occultism, visions and dreams will increase in frequency for a time.

From Adelphi―A most perplexed individual is writing to you. I have been for three years endeavoring to study Theosophy. I have heard lectures, have read an immense amount of literature devoted to that cult, from the sages of old down to the Sinnetts, Olcotts, and Blavatskys of the present day. I have conned the Yoga Philosophy and I read The Path. Light on the Path aids me not, nor does Bhagavad Gita, and why? Because I am yet without the first steps towards practice. (Surely Theosophy―like other sciences―must have something practical about it?) Guide me with your friendly hints. Imagine me alone in a room. How to commence? Show me the first step upon the practical ladder! All I have heard and read seemeth to me so elaborately unintelligible that I lay it aside and beg you to instruct me in my Theosophical A B C, Astral Light! Is it a figurative light, i.e. Revelation? or is it a light, as electricity―the Heavens ―coal―gives light? If abstract (into insensibility) is necessary, can you instruct me upon Hypnotism (self mesmerism)? "A shining object" is advised to stare at! A mirror is a shining object, for instance. But of what avail to stare at a mirror and see reflected ugliness!

Answer―You say that for three years you have been endeavoring to study Theosophy. Such being the case, you will meet with but little success. Divine Wisdom can not be a subject for study, but it may be an object of search. With the love for this same wisdom uppermost in our hearts, we ask you if it would not be wiser to lay aside the study of so called Theosophy and study yourself. Knowing yourself you know all men, the worlds seen and occult, and find Theo-Sophia. One cannot absorb Theosophy as a sponge does water, to be expelled at the slightest touch. Our conception of Theosophy is apt to be based upon the idea that it is an especial line of teaching―a larger, wider, and greater doctrine than others perhaps, but still a doctrine, and therefore limited. We must

bear in mind that the true Theosophist belongs to no cult or sect, yet belongs to each and all; that he can find the true object of his search equally as well in the Hebrew bible as in the Yoga philosophy, in the New Testament equally as well as in the Bhagavad-Gita.

You say you have "conned the Yoga philosophy." This is not enough; merely to "con" it is not to know it. It is in fact a most practical system (if you refer to that of Patanjali), and one that will meet all requirements you have in the way of difficulty; for it is one of the most difficult. It is not possible for you to judge its merits without practice: and it gives full directions. If for three years you study and practice it―aye for one year―, you will find that you need no other. In these matters there is no child's play nor the usual English and American method of mere book-learning,―we must absorb and work into the practice and the theory laid down, for they are not written merely for the intellect, but for the whole spiritual nature. There must be within the man something which he already knows, that leaps up and out when he scans the books of wisdom; a thing already existing, which only takes an added life or confirmation from books. True Theosophy has all that is practical, but many forget this; there is no greater system of practice than that required by it.

Desire wisdom; love all men; do your duty; forget yourself; let each thought and act of your life have for its aim the finding of divine wisdom; strive to apply that wisdom for the good of other men. If you search in every direction, Light must come to you. Let the place in which you now are be the lonely room you speak of, and seek to find in everything the meaning. Strive to know what they are, and by what governed or caused. This is the first step. Live your life with this ever before you. Purify your thought as well as your body. Reason all you can, feel all with your heart you may, and when intellect and heart fail you, seek for something higher. This is the A.B.C.; it is enough for the present.

It is not Theosophy that is a science, but its application. It is not a "cult," for it covers and includes all.

The Astral Light is an actuality. It is not revelation, but a means through which that which causes revelation acts. Electricity, the heavens, all lower fires, are but the shadows of the Astral Light, just as the Astral Light is but the darkness of the Ineffable Light.

Abstraction into insensibility is not intended. If it had been so intended it would be unnecessary for us to be in these bodies. If you can forget yourself sufficiently―forget that you exist as a human body, you will not need to stare at a mirror; but so long as you realize, when staring into a glass, whether you be pretty or ugly, you can not reach Celestial sensibility or terrestrial insensibility.

Hypnotism is the controlling of other personalities. Under this you would be but a puppet for the thought of another. Your outer self had better become a puppet for your own thought.

To Zadok―Suppose persons have reason to believe they have found the beginning of the Way, and then find they do not care to investigate the mysteries of Occultism; that they are content to remain without knowledge on these subjects, though they found Truth through Theosophy, and that they are happy because they feel that whatever God orders in their lives must be right, whether it is pleasure or pain.

Suppose also that such persons, though having put themselves in a spiritually receptive condition, feel no weight of Karma, though willing to suffer to whatever extent is needed from it. Do you not think such persons may be deceiving themselves in thinking they are Theosophists, when they have lived many weeks in this condition? Do you think it harder for women to attain spirituality than men? and if so, still should they not strive all the more to obtain it? I know we should not avoid anything merely because it is irksome or uninteresting.

Do not Theosophists allow themselves to feel happy if happiness comes to them without their desiring it? Also why do Theosophists wish to avoid feeling pain or pleasure, if God orders the circumstances which produce them, after we have subjected our will to His?

Answer―Men attach an erroneous meaning to Occultism. If one has found the beginning of the Way he has found some of the mysteries of Occultism, for none find the Way until they find something of the Unseen. It is impossible for one to put himself in a spiritually receptive condition without "investigation" of or being under the sway of Occultism or Occult conditions; and it is through these same conditions that he knows that pain and pleasure are one and all wise. Karma does not always manifest itself as suffering, by any means; it is quite as likely to produce joy as sorrow, and Karma is not always weighty. Such persons of whom you speak may be trying to become Theosophists, but are not Theosophists. A seeker for Divine wisdom seeks in all directions and refuses none.

(2) It is as hard for man as for woman to enter the mysteries. Man works through the intellect, woman through the emotions or heart. Both are equally useless after a time, and of the two the heart is the better tool. But woman becomes engrossed or overwhelmed by her emotions, and passes no farther. The greatest Teachers have been those who have had most of the womanly in their natures. It is more difficult to master the body as a woman than as a man. This can be answered only partially in print.

(3) The True Theosophist allows himself, or is taught to feel, both pain and pleasure, happiness and sorrow, for he knows them all to be wise. Men long for and desire; they fight for happiness and do not find it. We have given to us peace, which is far beyond happiness. Happiness is of this world and is a mockery of the True; yet as all other men we feel it, for we feel all things, for in all these things lie the lessons to be learned as men. I dare not speak for other men, but were I to wish to avoid either pleasure or pain, knowing them to be God's will, then would I utterly fail. Once having subjected my will―my human will―to His, then I avoid nothing that is His will.

to make the descent into matter, or―as some put it―by this process alone came to Him a realizing sense of His being, in the manifestation through and by matter, why should this be considered a "fall," or, indeed, an evil at all, since, being the work and choice of the Deity, it must necessarily have been both wisdom and goodness which dictated the "descent"; and, as Theosophy teaches the inner Light and indwelling Emanuel (God with us) to be ever present in all forms of life, wherein consists the evil of this divine descent, and why must this experience be necessarily associated with evil at all?

(2) I met an F.T.S. the other day who believes he has arrived at "Saintship" and cannot therefore err. He cannot bear the slightest contradiction, believing that he has arrived at such a state of "enlightenment" that he is infallible, whereas we less gifted mortals feel that he often makes grave mistakes. Of course this assumption is untenable in this case, but are sainthood and consequent infallibility likely to result from the humdrum every-day life of an ordinary nineteenth century man?

Answer―For the Deity there is no fall. He can not fall. In the so-called descent into matter, He must manifest through something. Never does the Ineffable stand unveiled before mortal man. When the All Wise deemed it good to manifest Himself as individualities, He did so through the soul. After creating the human man with the soul that all things possess, "He breathed into his nostrils and man became a living soul," or the Deity manifested Himself through the soul in the man. Nothing below man is immortal. Man is not immortal; his soul is not immortal; but the breath of God, which is God's life or God himself, is forever. Man was to have lived as the angels, "for they also were made"; but, although by the grosser elements of matter or nature, by its lusts and desires, its seductive beauties and deceptive pleasures, realized most fully through the senses of the human body, the soul was drawn down instead of upward, into ignorance of the true instead of toward the wisdom of God, holding and binding thus the spirit in the meshes of the grossest part of nature, and so fell. God did not fall,―the spirit; nor did man as the human man; but the soul, being a free agent, did so, causing the spirit to be limited, and entailing pain and anguish upon the human man. Man with the Divine manifest in him was to know only the good, or wisdom; but, not content, he must eat of the tree of

the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, or the misapplication of the good, and fell into ignorance. There can be no greater evil than losing the wisdom of a God for the ignorance of a man. Herein consists the only evil of the fall after the descent into matter.

(2) How do you know that he makes grave mistakes? I may not say that anyone errs or makes mistakes, other than my own self. Neither you nor I may say another is saint or devil from our own standpoint of what makes either. Both you and I have been taught, however, that one who has arrived at the state of "Saintship" never lays claim to it or to "enlightenment."

Saintship and a certain measure of infallibility will result from humdrum ever-day life in the nineteenth century, and in no other way, if rightly comprehended. Otherwise one would not be here at all, or would have lived in some other time, before time was. To become a saint one must know what sinners are and what sin is. The best way to arrive at this knowledge is through the nineteenth century or the time in which we live, through life and all it tells us. Believing that one cannot err and in one's infallibility is however not a characteristic of saintship.

From G.M.―(1) During sleep I have a feeling that I can fly by an intense act of will. I then do float in dream over the ground, my body seeming rigid. The force exhausts, then I have to descend. What is your explanation of this?

Answer―It is part of the effort of your inner man to demonstrate to your outer self the existence and action of unrecognized and unfamiliar forces, which every man has in him the latent power to use. Dreamless slumber is better.

(2) In Theosophical books I find occult or magical phenomena referred to. I am disposed to reject these and consider their publication of a very questionable character in light of matter for the improvement of intelligent seekers after truth. Still I do not deny

Answer―Why then bother yourself with the phenomena of your dream state? The dream of flying is as much a phenomena as any other that Theosophical literature contains. The proper attitude for true theosophists is not to be ready or anxious to bring conviction as to any phenomena to inquirers. Hence we cannot enter into proofs. We know personally that phenomena of a most extraordinary character have taken place, and are still occurring; we also agree with you that the constant publication of accounts of phenomena is unwise. Still it must sometimes be done, as some minds have to advance through the aid of these things.

We also know that the Masters who are behind the Theosophical Society have, in writing, condemned the thirst for phenomena made so often degrading, and stated that the Society ought to progress through its moral worth. One phenomenon can be seen by but a limited number of people, some of whom even will always doubt, and each one hearing of it afterwards will want a repetition for himself. Further than that, it would be certain to bring on a thirst for mere sight-seeing, resulting in a total forgetfulness of spirit. But, on the other hand, there are laws that cannot be guessed at without phenomena. And in each human being is a complete universe in which daily occur phenomena that should be studied. This is the proper realm for each student to investigate, for therein―and nowhere else―is placed the gate through which each one must advance.

From G.B.―Why does the Baron in Mr. Sinnett's "Karma" advise Mrs. Lakesby not to communicate with the "astral spectres" she saw about the Professor?

Answer―The answer to this will not yet be well understood. The English language has not acquired the needed words. The Baron's reply was that thereby the real ego of the deceased would be retarded in its advancement, and Mrs. Lakesby might lay herself open to influences from the astral

This answer opens fire at once upon the whole "philosophy" of spiritualism, and contains a challenge of the ignorance of most seers and nearly every student of psychical laws. The ordinary spiritualist sees complete proof for the returning of deceased friends in the phenomena of the séance room, and nearly every seer is fascinated with his or her own pictures in the astral light and the absolute truth of what is seen.

Mrs. Lakesby did not see the spirit of any person, but only the reliquæ. The spirit is never seen, and the soul is engaged in experiencing a certain portion of its deserts in other states. These states are unnameable and incomprehensible to English speaking people. But for a period there is a magnetic connection between that soul and the reliquæ seen at séances and by seers. By means of that connection the soul is prevented―against its will, except when it is extremely wicked―from passing through its purification preparatory to entering into devachan. This purification, or preparatory state anterior to devachan, has not been explained by theosophical writers. It is, nevertheless, a fact of the highest importance.

The second portion of the Baron's reply is also valuable. When a seer or medium perceives these shades of the departed and desires to communicate with them, a crowd of nature spirits, of no moral character but solely moved by magnetic impulse, rush into the shade of the deceased and give it a temporary life. They too are then able, on their part, to see the seer or medium, and may and do often transfer themselves from the shade to the medium, whose lower, baser nature they occupy and vivify. By thus incorporating themselves with the relilquæ of dead persons, these elementals stop the process of disintegration of the atoms of matter composing the shade, which would have gone on to completion if left to nature. As soon as this disintegrating process is inhibited, the soul itself is held, so to say, in a vise which it is powerless to open, and unaware as well from whence comes the disturbance. Thus, then, these who run after their deceased friends' shades or reappearances are each day condemning

their loved ones to a longer and more painful stay in a state that closely corresponds to the Christian hell.

I know my words will sweep unheeded over the forest in which our spiritualistic friends are wandering, but some sincere students will believe me.

From M.C.D.―I am told that an Adept has said "that one can help or cure another if his Karma does not prevent it." Am I to understand that when suffering is before me I am not to relieve it if in my power to do so, on the ground that the suffering person's Karma has brought him there and I must not interfere? Some Theosophists have enunciated this rule.

Answer―If an Adept said this it is not incorrect. But no Adept ever drew the conclusion you give. Some Theosophists have, we are sorry to say, declared that they may not help for the reason stated. It is not theosophical to take such a position. The sufferer's Karma truly produced the suffering, but your Karma offers the opportunity for a kind deed that my relieve him; it may be his Karma to be relieved by you. It is your duty to do this kind act, of whatever nature it be. The meaning of the declaration attributed to the Adept is that you are to try to relieve suffering, which effort will have a beneficial effect unless the Karma of the sufferer prevents: but you know nothing of his Karma and must not judge it; your duty lies in the act presented to you for performance, and not with its result nor with the possible hindrances resulting from the Karma. The wrong view given by you in your question arises from the conceited attitude of persons who, having slight knowledge, presume to be the judges of others and of the great and hidden causes springing from Karma. Knowledge of these causes and of their operation in any particular case comes only to those who have reached Adeptship; for, in order to rightly judge how to rightly act, you must know absolutely the other's Karma, together with your own, in order not to fall into the awful error of deliberately sinning.

It would be wiser for all students to seek to do their duty and to act as true brothers on every occasion than to run about endeavoring to imitate Sages and Adepts.

From B.J.―What can you tell me about the Mind Cure and Christian Science? Are they true, are they theosophical? Ought I to study them so as to be mens sana in corpore sano, as it were?

Answer―As we have not made a thorough study of these, we could not assume to tell you much about them, and hence cannot say if they are true or theosophical. Many earnest theosophists are believers and followers of both. We, however, have been trained in the Eastern theosophical school. Following the teaching of the latter, our advice is to have a healthy body by paying regard to rules for health, so that your mind, whether it be healthy or not, may exhibit its workings untrammeled. And the teacher has ever said, as taught by the Sages of old, that the body must not be the object of the student's care. The same teacher also warned us that, as the body is a material thing, the proper remedies needed to counteract extreme discordant vibrations are also of a material nature. Our work lies not with your body, but with your mind and heart. See to it that the latter is right. The quantity and quality of mind that are yours may be little or poor, but even if great and good, the heart and soul are greater, and mind has its limits beyond which it passes not.

A change of circumstances having made it necessary for Zadok to remove to another sphere of action, no more answers to queries will appear from his pen. Queries, however, will be answered to the best of the ability of one or two others who have agreed to undertake the work, and they may be addressed to the Path as usual.

Society of Boston and the Theosophic Society, and is that difference very serious?

Answer―The last clause of the question shows that the questioner probably means "disagreement" instead of "difference." There can be no disagreement, inasmuch as the Boston Society is no part of the Theosophical Society. By reading the objects of the Theosophical body and those of the Boston Society, any difference which may exist may be discovered. I cannot say if there be any, as I know nothing of the latter.

(2) Do members of the T.S. practice the method of regeneration propounded by Hiram E. Butler?

Answer―I cannot say. The T.S. imposes no "method of regeneration" on its members; it only asks them to cultivate and exemplify Universal Brotherhood. As to a method of regeneration, it would seem that there can be but one regeneration.

Answer―There may be some who do. The term "Solar Biology" is an example of the ability of the American mind to strain English terms out of their usual meaning. Ordinarily it would mean some biological effect produced by the sun of our system, or, as equally, biologizing the sun himself. Since, however, acceptance of a particular dogma or system is not required of members of the Theosophical Society, one should not waste any time in trying to find out whether persons who are members believe in certain isms or sciences. The same amount of time devoted to a careful, cold, and passionless scrutiny of our own outer and inner nature will lead us nearer to compliance with the old direction, "Man, know Thyself." This is the only science worth knowing, for, as the old sacred books say, "In the heart of man are all things, sun, moon, and stars, all is contained within it."

From L.C.―What are the "peace" and the "voice of the silence" spoken of in the Light on the Path? Are they easy to attain to?

Answer―The peace is that period succeeding a storm set up in your nature by any attempt to conquer the lower self. It follows each such conflict if the battle has been waged to victory for the higher. But few modern men can wage the battle with more than one thing at a time. Hence, we have many such storms. Each peculiarity, passion, or propensity has to be attacked singly and overcome. When that happens, a period of inner silence arrives in which the soul grows and attempts to instruct us. This is the voice. And, as Light on the Path says (Rule 21 part I), "It cannot be described by any metaphor." The silence has its counterpart in nature when, after storms or cataclysms, silence occurs. The silence after a storm is due to the effect of water falling through the air upon earth, vegetation, insects, and animals, and to the peculiar results of loud reverberations of thunder. All these combine to produce a silence quite appreciable by any one accustomed to nature. And when a cataclysm takes place, such as the falling of a tremendous avalanche of snow, another sort of silence is brought about, during which many things in the astral and natural world not at other times evident can be perceived. Each of these silences comes to an end because the ordinary normal operations of nature reassert themselves. So it is with ourselves. Storms of disappointment, or terrible upheavals from tremendous sorrows, or the effect of our own intense will, bring about those silences in which the voice of the soul has perchance a better opportunity of being heard.

A.C.R. asks if a long definition of Karma given in the letter is in harmony with the Asiatic definition.

Answer―We do not think that the definition of A.C.R. is good, for the reason that it is not clear what is meant. One

thing is certain, and that is that Karma is the governor of all our circumstances, and is also in part a cause of acts, and is again the act and the circumstance also. The Universe itself is the Karma of the Supreme. Karma means work or action, and, as action is performed in more ways than by the bodily organs, the field of Karma must not be limited to the body. As A.C.R. says, the most important thing to consider is how we think and what is the motive with which we do any act.

Karma is the cause of connection of Jivatma―or the particular spirit―with matter in the shape of Karanasarira, as well as the cause of misery or happiness. Karma is the producing cause of birth, death, rebirth, and every kind of body. Karma is the result of the conscious action of Jivatma, whether good or bad. Good Karma is that which results in pleasing, and bad Karma is that which results in displeasing, Ishwara. [He is held to be the particular spirit in each body ―our Higher-Self.] The action of Jiva produces Karma through ignorance, and this ignorance is of two sorts: one the confounding of the attributes of one thing with those of another; and the second the confounding of one thing with another. Thus, the Jivatma first confounds the body with itself, and then such attributes as birth, death, and so on, with the attributes which really belong to Jivatma only; then certain actions are done, and they lead to other karma composed of ignorance and of habit. Thus Karma works without any definite beginning, and the causes of Karma mentioned above remain latent during a pralaya or night of Brahma, and when a new evolution begins they again become active and produce results as before.

Karma even works in Swarga or heaven, for, as soon as the causes that take us there are exhausted, we are brought back to rebirth under the operation of Karma; thus it is seen to be stronger than the blissful state of Heaven. This going to and returning from Swarga goes on until salvation is obtained,―one who attains that state is called Jivanmukta. This condition is defined as "an entire separation of Jiva from all connection with matter, and complete destruction of Karma whether good or bad." The word Moksha literally means "release from bondage."

From L.―(1) What plan of life should a theosophist adopt? Take one who does not aspire to chelaship, but who is anxious to live rightly. Should he give up literature, or music, or art; and ought he to give up thoughts of marriage?

Answer―The plan of life should be that which shall appear to the student the best one under his lights; any sort of life may have as a plan under it the good of the race. It is not required that literature or art should be given up: theosophy seeks to round men out and not to produce moral skeletons. As to marriage, we have nothing to say.

Answer―It was written for all who strive to understand the meaning under the language; its real sense is not that conveyed by the mere words in it.

Why do so many warn against rashly attempting chelaship? If it is right, why not for all? Will it be easier in some future life, or will it be always a struggle? If the necessity for leaders makes it right for some to essay this, how is one to tell which is his duty, to try or not?

Answer―The reason for the warning has been given over and over again. A chela calls upon himself awful possibilities of disaster, and voluntarily exposes himself to the most pitiless foes the race has, ―those within the mind's plane and in the astral world. These are not figments, and every one who forces himself must meet the consequences, for the kingdom of heaven is surrounded by monsters, and the way to it is enveloped with the black cloud of the soul's despair at a place where knowledge, power, and faith are needed and where sentiment plays no part.

The road winds up hill all the way even to the very end; but in this life we may prepare ourselves to be ready to make a farther advance in our next reincarnation.

Any one who is to be a leader will easily find that out. We are not to try and discover that we are leaders, but to do our every duty; if they are performed, the Law of Karma will find those who are the real leaders, and all sham captains will disappear.

From "An Outsider"―in England―If I write to you sometimes anonymously, will you answer?

There must be many like myself, lonely and ignorant, who need help and might find it in the Path. My health is poor; how can I regain it? I have not the "superb audacity" you speak of.

Answer―Those who answer questions for us will attempt replies to all reasonable questions, but we are not an oracle. As to health we cannot say; each case is special, but cheerfulness and faith in the implicit justice of Karma and in the Great Souls who help all earnest students may give better health. All diseases begin within, but the way to health is not found by brooding on disease; some diseases proceed from causes generated in other lives, and may have a given period during which they run and cannot be stayed. But we cannot go into personal questions relating to the physical body's ailments.

Maggie Crawford writes stating that she judges the truth of theosophic doctrine by the characters of those who promulgate it, and that she finds Mme. Blavatsky an objection to the truth of theosophy. Charges are brought against other prominent persons who are named by her A, B, and C; we cannot notice these, as they are anonymous, or rather straw defendants. But as to H.P. Blavatsky, we desire to say to the questioner that we have known her many, many years and think her character is not ungoverned nor uncontrolled; we also know her to be generous and just, as well as wise and farseeing. But truth must never be judged by any personal standard; and we advise our friend to pursue truth for its own sake, and not because any person says it is true.

From Hadji―What is the meaning of newspaper references to Mme. Blavatsky thus: "Theosophy, too, despite the exposure of Mme. Blavatsky's impudent impostures is still flourishing."?

Answer―In 1885 the London Psychic Research Society took upon itself to investigate the alleged letters from Adepts

received by Mr. Sinnett and others in India, and sent out a young man named Hodgson to inquire into facts that had happened months and years before. He reported that they were all frauds by Mme. Blavatsky, and that she had a tremendous combination of conspirators ramifying all over India. His report was published by the P. R. Society. It is so preposterous however, that no well-informed Theosophist believes it. The newspapers and superficial thinkers often refer to it. Mr. Hodgson, in addition to inventing the great conspiracy theory, was full of prejudice which he has since displayed in various cities of the United States by declaiming against H. P. Blavatsky although he says she is not worth pursuing.

Answer―Strictly there is not. Such a term would imply a separate parent body which gave out Charters or Diplomas. The Society is composed of its members who are, for administrative purposes, in Branches or unattached; the latter are called "members-at-large," but all are fellows of the T.S. The government is in the General Council, which now meets in India, in which all sections of the Society have a voice, and which issues charters and diplomas. But aside from Branch members and those at-large, there is no parent Society; The term "parent" should be abandoned, as it implies separation.

(2) Is there an Esoteric Section of the Society in America different from that governed by H.P. Blavatsky?

Answer―There is not, and there never was. In the first establishment of the T.S. other degrees than that of a mere diplomaed member were recognized, but no one save H. P. Blavatsky has had the authority to confer those degrees. She has now fully announced the first of those, although during all these 14 years they have existed and included certain members who were also fellows of the T.S.

Some misguided persons may have pretended to confer those degrees, but such a thing was improper on their part, and absolutely worthless to the recipient. These real degrees in occultism may not be trifled with, and yet they protect themselves because pretenders and triflers can make neither entry nor progress.

In 1875 H.P. Blavatsky directed a certain fellow of the Society to attend to the needs of all the members of the T.S., who were then called "entered apprentices" by her, and her letter of that date is still extant in which the present Esoteric Section was plainly referred to.

Why has H.P. Blavatsky waited until now to so publicly proclaim the Esoteric Section?

Answer―As a matter of fact she has not so waited. In 1875 and since many knew of its existence and have been in it, and she has frequently spoken of it; but until now there have not been enough members interested in the realities of theosophy to justify her in a definitive statement and organization. These efforts have to proceed slowly; people must first be waked up and directed towards theosophical doctrines before it is wise to open up that which is plain to those who know how to use their intuition. But the Western mind, for all its boasted progressiveness, is generally unable to know what is behind a wall unless a hole is cut through it; others, however, can guess what is hidden when they perceive signs and sounds that are quite plain and made on purpose.

But for the first 14 years of a theosophical effort―periodically made in every century― the work of such persons as H.P. Blavatsky is always directed to preparing the ground, and then more open invitation is extended. It is so done in the last 25 years of each century.

Answer―Such is one of the appellations given to an Adept who, in order to devote himself to mankind, has consciously

given up his right to pass into Nirvana. He has no material body, but possesses all the other principles; and for such an one space is no obstacle. There are many of them, and they perform various works; some take full possession of great reformers, or statesmen who carry on a beneficial policy; others overshadow sometimes several persons, causing them to act, speak, and write in such a way as to produce needed changes in their fellow men. These Nirmanakayas pass through the haunts of men unseen and unknown; only the effects of their influence and presence are perceived, and these results are attributed to the genius of the individual or to chance alone.

Answer―No. The pronoun "He" has been used because it has a general application just as "man" or "men" has. In such a development as that of a Nirmanakaya the distinctions of sex have disappeared, because in the spiritual plane there is no sex.

From T.D.―If there be any defect in the Mind Cure system, what would you say it is?

Answer―I should say the constant assertion that there is no evil or badness is that prime defect. For if one so asserts, he should also admit that there is no good. These two opportunities stand or fall together; and they cannot disappear until all has passed to that plane which is above all good and all evil. Yet those who say that there is no evil are on the plane of consciousness where they perceive these two opposites. It appears to me that here in the Western world the old Hindu doctrine that all is illusion because impermanent is half-used. The illusionary quality is attributed only to so-called "evil," whereas the good is equally illusionary, since it as well as evil is so judged to be from some human standard. As in a community in which death is a blessing disease will be called "good," since it hastens death's advent; or, in another where

insanity is supposed to be due to the presence of some god, such a condition is not esteemed to be evil.

M.E.A.―We all know that the population of the earth is increasing yearly, and that in time this globe will not be able to support its population unless the future inhabitants can get along on air. Does Theosophy teach us that new souls are created? Each one of these future unfortunates must have a soul. Will the Path please explain?

Answer―There are some assumptions in this inquiry about which no one has positive information. It is not settled that the population "is increasing yearly." For the apparent increase may be only a more accurate knowledge of the number of inhabitants, following from a more accurate knowledge of the globe on which we live. For instance: we have only lately acquired information of vast quantities of people in Africa previously unheard of.

Nor does it follow that the earth will not be able to support its population in time. A great many well-informed persons think exactly the opposite. Not very long ago several millions of people were destroyed in China, Japan, and elsewhere in a single week; this would leave a good deal of room for a population―in the United States for instance―to expand. Hence the question is narrowed down to the single one―"Does Theosophy teach us that new souls are created?" Mme. Blavatsky answers this in the Secret Doctrine by stating that from now until the end of this period of manifestation there will be no new Monads (which will answer to the word "souls" of the questioner), but the old ones will be reincarnated on this globe. If her view is the correct one, then the reincarnations from now onwards will be incarnations of Monads who have been here many times before. That is to say, we will all be worked over many times. This opinion of Mme. Blavatsky's is held by many Theosophists.

If we started as spirit and therefore perfect, why need we these reincarnations of suffering, only to finally attain what we started with?

Answer―This is the old question, the old inquiry, "What has the Absolute in view, and why is there anything?" The question contains its own answer, for if we started as "spirit," and therefore "perfect," we must still be and so remain forever perfect. But in the Upanishads it is said that "These radiations from the Great All are like sparks from a central fire, which emanate from it and return again for its own purposes." Furthermore, there is nothing more distinctly and frequently taught in Theosophical literature than this, that it is the personal, the illusory, the lower "I," who asks such questions as these, and that the real person within, the spirit, sees no such thing as suffering but rejoices forever in immeasurable bliss. "We" did not start perfect, but imperfect, and "our" progress to union with spirit is the perfection of the lower "we" and "our."

THE ENQUIRER

Query―Is it well to talk about Occultism to the ordinary enquirer into Theosophy?

W.Q.J.―It is better not to do so. Ordinary enquirers may be attracted to Theosophy because of its mysterious appearance, but that is no reason for giving them just what they demand. For surely later on they will find that the pursuit of the mysteries and the occult is hedged about with many difficulties and that it demands an acquaintance with every other philosophy that ought to have been offered to them when they first enquired. Furthermore it is not the many who are fitted for Occultism, but rather the few, and those few will soon find their way into the path no matter how they may have approached it. Enquirers will then be directed to this philosophy and the ethics of the Theosophical system, as true Occultism springs from philosophy, and its practice is alone safely possible for those who have a right system of ethics.

Query―How is it that H.P.B. so severely criticizes the Western systems of Occultism and yet admits in some of her writings that they lead to the same end as the Eastern system?

W.Q.J.―It is very true that all systems of Occultism lead to the same end, since all must be based on similar principles however distorted some may be in practice, but the road by one will be more difficult than by another until the real highway of Universal Occultism is reached. It was thought by H.P.B. that true Eastern Occultism was the primeval system and hence better than the Western. For the Western is all overgrown with the weeds sown by Judaism in the beginning

and mediæval Christianity in the end. So it will be found that although at bottom Western Occultism has the same doctrines as the Eastern, a vast mass of rubbish has to be carried off in order to get at the truth. Any one who will dive into Rosicrucianism will find those difficulties. It must always be borne in mind, too, that H.P.B. in speaking of Eastern Occultism had in view the real thing and not the many systems in India which would juggle the student quite as much as the things in the Western schools.

Speaking for my own beliefs, I do not think Western Occultism is worthy of the name and is only a hodge-podge that produces confusion when the mere outer crust of virtuous living is mastered. It leads to saintliness but not to that higher knowledge which must be added to the good in order to make them also the wise.

W.P.―I am very much interested in Theosophy and should like to help the Society. What work can I do?

W.Q.J.―This is a Theosophical business question. Service is rendered in many different ways: by work in the Branches, by spreading literature, by explaining the doctrines and doing away with misconceptions, by contributing money to be used in the work, by constituting oneself a loyal unit if ability and time be lacking; and chiefly always by acquiring a knowledge of Theosophical doctrines so as to be able to give a clear answer to inquiry. One could also procure some inquiring correspondent and by means of letters answer questions as to Theosophical literature and doctrines. These are all general answers, while the question requires almost a personal examination. Any work that is sincerely done in the Society with good motive and to the best of one's ability is good Theosophical work.

If another by altruistic service benefits one, is not such action vicarious and inconsistent with Karma?

W.Q.J.―A common error, which arises from incompletely viewing the doctrine of Karma, is the idea that we interfere with Karma when we benefit another. The question is equally applicable to the doing of any injury to another. It cuts both ways; so we might as well ask if it is not inconsistent with the law and vicarious for one to do any evil act which results harmfully to fellow creature. In neither case is there vicarious atonement or interference. If we can do good to our fellows, that is their good karma and ours also; if we have the opportunity to thus confer benefits and refuse to do so then that is our bad Karma in that we neglect a chance to help another. The Masters once wrote that we should not be thinking on our good or bad Karma, but should do our duty on every hand and at every opportunity, unmindful of what may result to us. It is only a curious kind of conceit, which seems to be the product of nineteenth century civilization, that causes us to falsely imagine that we, weak and ignorant human beings, can interfere with Karma or be vicarious atoners for others. We are all bound up together in one coil of Karma and should ever strive by good acts, good thoughts and high aspirations, to lift a little of the world's heavy Karma, of which our own is a part. Indeed, no man has any Karma of his own unshared by others; we share each one in the common Karma, and the sooner we perceive this and act accordingly the better it will be for us and for the world.

What place have mercy and forgiveness in Theosophy, and are they consistent with Karma?

W.Q.J.―Mercy and forgiveness should have the highest place in that branch of Theosophy which treats of ethics as applied to our conduct. And were it not for the prefect mercifulness of Karma―which is merciful because it is just―we ought long ago to have been wiped out of existence. The very fact that the oppressor, the unjust, the wicked, live out their lives is proof of mercy in the great heart of Nature. They are thus given chance after chance to retrieve their errors and climb, if even on the ladder of pain, to the height of perfection. It is true that Karma is just, because it exacts payment

to the last farthing, but on the other hand it is eternally merciful, since it unerringly pays out its compensations. Nor is the shielding from necessary pain true mercy, but is indeed the opposite, for sometimes it is only through pain that the soul acquires the precise knowledge and strength it requires. In my view, mercy and justice go hand in hand when Karma issues it decrees, because that law is accurate, faithful, powerful, and not subject to the weakness, the failure in judgment, the ignorance that always accompany the workings of the ordinary human judgment and action.

G.E.L.―I am a married man, without children, and my wife, who takes no interest in Theosophy, complains that I am neglecting her to attend Theosophical meetings or lectures in the evenings. Should I give up the lectures?

W.Q.J.―Justice to ourselves and those dependent on us would seem to answer that no wife has the right to demand the whole of a man's time. If she cannot attend a lecture or meeting once a week, she ought to be willing that her husband may. But if she considers herself the "legal owner" of the man she married to the extent that she wishes to eat up his entire attention, then of course dissatisfaction will supervene, unjustly founded and wholly inexcusable. If her complaint of neglect is based upon one night in a week devoted to a Theosophical meeting which she has no taste for, the man who submits is his own task-master, who ought not to ask other Theosophists to lay down his duty in daily life. Questions between man and wife ought to be settled in the family forum, and not dragged into the field of Theosophical discussion, where they are utterly out of place.

B.M.―In both Europe and America, I have met a good many Theosophists who enquire into and appear to dabble in practical applications of the directions found in some of our literature, in the "Upanishads" and in a little book by one Sabapathi Swamy, respecting psychic development, by means of postures, regulating the breath and the like. What can be said upon this?

W.Q.Judge―These attempts at practical Yoga―as it is called―are most dangerous, and in addition presumptuous and foolish. It is well understood in the right circles in India, that the directions found in many of the Upanishads should never be practiced except under the following conditions: (a) a complete knowledge of all, and of the consequences, with a knowledge of the correctives to be applied when changes take place; and (b) the possession of a thoroughly competent guide to point out errors, to restrain endeavor and to indicate danger, as well as to cure troubles that ensue. Yet in the face of all this, and of repeated warnings, there are those who will foolhardily begin the practices in complete ignorance. They do not even pursue the ethical regulations that accompany all the other, such as the doing away with all vices, bad habits, uncharitable thoughts and so on; but go in for the practices, merely in the hope of procuring psychic powers. It is time it were stopped, and time that those who give out this literature looked into what they give out to a grasping and stiff-necked generation. That damage has been wrought both to the Society and some of its members cannot be contested, in face of actual experience in all parts of both countries. It is well known that these postures, even when ignorantly used, bring on physiological changes in the body, with great nervous derangements. Further than that the enquiring public is frightened off from our movement by the ill-balanced view of Theosophy and of the Society which these dabblers promulgate. Let us halt before it is too late. Let us give out the ethical and philosophical doctrines for the promulgation of which the Theosophical Society was founded. Thus alone can we accomplish our mission, which is to the world at large and not for the benefit of a few cranky investigators in a field that can only be safely trodden by the thoroughly prepared, the fully armed and the deeply experienced man who has a sound mind and high, pure aspirations, joined with a sound body.

of Idolatry is necessary for the poor in mind?" I made and still make a very strong objection to any phase of Idolatry being necessary.

W.Q.J.―Common-sense, truth, discrimination and right rules of life all seem to declare that idolatry is not necessary for the Western world; but we cannot judge the mind of the East any more than we can understand why a Western hero-worshipper should indulge in such a practice.

G.W.R.―The Ego passes through a series of incarnations, in some of which it may inform the body of a man, in others of a woman. Is the sex of the vehicle chosen consciously by the spiritual Ego to perfect knowledge, or does it depend upon the Karma engendered in a preceding life? Can any principle be said to preponderate in one sex more than in another?

W.Q.J.―If masculine quality is the predominant characteristic, the Ego probably will be next in a male body; if not, the other sex. But the whole question is answered by that doctrine of Visishadwaitism which says that "Good Karma is that which is pleasing to Ishwara (the Ego), and bad Karma that which is displeasing to it."

P.C.W.―If animals do not reincarnate, how do they receive a just reparation for the life of suffering which some have to endure?

W.Q.J.―The answer is easy. They do reincarnate, but that which from them goes forth to reincarnation is not similar to the reincarnating principle of the human being. Were we to suppose that the monads now going through the present animal life were reincarnating in a haphazard way, then surely law disappears, our philosophy tumbles to the ground, and a reign of terror in the scheme of evolution ensues.

F.J.D.―What is the difference between forms seen in dreams or vision on an astral plane and those seen on a Kama-Manasic plane? And which of the two are considered as having the greater objective reality? If Kama-Manasic forms accompany Devachanic consciousness, how is this connected with the Higher Ego?

W.Q.J.―Forms seen in dreams and visions are almost always pictures; those on the Kama-Manasic are more often actual forms of that sort of matter. The difference―when existing―is that which there is between a photograph of a form

and the form itself. The "forms" of Devachanic consciousness are not objective to us, but are to the being in the Devachanic state of consciousness. As the entity is not free―hence in Devachan―the mind creates for itself all its surroundings in every detail, and also thereby cultivates departments of the nature which could not be cultivated to the same extent elsewhere. The connection with the Higher Ego, as to which F.J.D.'s ideas are vague, is the same connection as in earth-life, only operating by a different channel.

F.G.B.―How am I to reconcile these two statements? ―(a) The Seven planes of Cosmic Consciousness correspond to the Seven States of consciousness in man, ( S.D. I. p. 199, O, Ed.; I, p. 221, 3rd Ed.); (b) The Seven States of consciousness in man pertain to quite another question (than the planes of Cosmic Consciousness). ( S.D. I, p. 200, O. Ed; I, p. 221, foot-note, 3rd Ed.)

W.Q.J.―Quotation (b) does not conflict with (a), as attempted to be shown in the question. On p. 199 the seven planes are said to correspond to the seven states of consciousness in man; the third note on p. 200 says that the reference in the diagram to the fourth plane and above includes―or refers to―the four lower planes of cosmic consciousness―which is a totally different thing from human consciousness―and that the three higher planes of cosmic consciousness are inaccessible to present human intellect; and that the seven states of human consciousness pertain to another question. Quite so, and quite plain. The querent left out the word "human" in quotation (b) thus making "a totally different question" of the matter, for there is a great difference between saying "human consciousness" and "consciousness in man." The entire seven planes of cosmic consciousness must correspond with, and may yet not be the same as, the seven states of our present human consciousness for there is a radical dissimilarity between a plane and a state, for you may be in a certain state of consciousness and yet function on a plane quiet different; as when the drunken man has all his consciousness in a Kamic state and functions with it on the earthly plane. Further, the seven states of human consciousness may perfectly well be our possession and not be developed for the

race beyond the first four states of cosmic consciousness, its seven-fold character being potential with its own upper four divisions based on those of the cosmic. The confusion lies in the words plane and state.

S.M. - I can believe in the idea of continual progress of the soul in higher spheres, but cannot understand the idea of its returning again and again to this same earth; can Theosophists give any reason for the latter?

W.Q.J.―Ought to be answered by politely requesting the querent to read what has been for years written hereupon, and after having digested it, then to see if the question is not answered.

M.R.―Is not the Brahmanical faith the antipodes of Universal Brotherhood, in that no one who is not born a Brahman can ever be received into their religion?

W.Q.J.―That faith is not such antipodes, for the Brahmanical faith is not the same as the Brahmanical law of caste, now only a perversion of the actual and eternal divisions among men. Rightly understood and practiced, the real, the pure Brahmanical faith increases universal brotherhood and furnishes for Egos the right stream of heredity for future true progress. But nowadays it is corrupted and hence fulfils not its objects.

S.C.―Can any one explain the following sentence, quoted from H.P.B. in the Path for June: "Those who fall off from our living human Mahatmas to fall into the Saptarishis―the Star Rishis―are no Theosophists."

William Q. Judge―This is explained by the fact that there are two classes of beings able to influence mankind at large; the one being the "living human Mahatmas," and the other the non-human beings, who, though not strictly in our stream of evolution, can and sometimes do affect certain human beings. For

the purposes of this answer―but not at all as a full description―the Saptarishis, as meant by H.P.B., are in a very advanced class of elementals, able sometimes to communicate with man, and by their apparent knowledge to make him suppose them to be high spiritual beings regularly evolved from the human stage. But, in fact, they are not human spirits, but of the same character as some of the Devas of the Hindus, and only by accident, as it were, work to the real benefit of the race. That is to say, by communicating with them one is deflected from the normal line of human development. In some cases they have influenced certain mediums, who, being deluded, or rather dazzled, by the extraordinary experiences passed through, do not lean to the human side of spiritual evolution. On the other hand, the "living human Mahatmas" form the direct link with the human spirits of all degrees, who have charge of human spiritual evolution.

THE STREAM OF THOUGHT AND QUERIES

I have watched the stream of thought, the battalions of questions pouring along the channels that reach out from THE PATH, and am asked to put a few on these pages with some answers.

In what way are we to understand this word, as it is used, for instance, on p. 35 of May PATH? If it is used in a special sense, that should be made clear.

This word was not used in a special sense. Theosophists should strive not to strain speech or specially allot terms. The English language has quite enough words to meet most of our present wants. The intention was to give the deepest meaning possible to the term. Resignation was used in the sense of a total mental resignation, not a mere appearance or pretence. We must do as commanded by Krishna, resign all interest in the event of things, and be able to say that any event whatever that comes to us is our just due. This is perfect resignation: it is difficult and yet easy to reach. We reach it by reflecting that the object of the soul is union with the Supreme Soul, and that all our desires grow out of our bodily nature alone. It is really the first step; as the author in the May PATH said, it is the one seldom thought of by students.

Karma is action. The law of Karma operates to bring about rewards as well as punishment. The man who is now enjoying a life of ease and wealth has obtained it through Karma; the sage who has attained to great knowledge and power reached

them through Karma; the disciple drinking the bitter drops from the cup of failure mixed the draught himself through Karma; Buddha's great disciple Magallana―greater than any other―was suddenly killed, apparently in the height of his usefulness, by robbers: it was Karma; the happy mother seeing all her children respected and virtuous dies the favorite of Karma, while her miserable sister living a life of shame in the same city curses God by her life because she knows not that it is Karma. The world itself rolls on in its orbit, carried further and further with the sun in his greater orbit, and grows old through the cycles, changes its appearance, and comes under laws and states of matter undreamed of by us: it is the Karma of the world; soon or late, even while revolving in its orbit, it will slowly move its poles and carry the cold band of ice to where now are summer scenes,―the Karma of the world and its inhabitants.

How then shall Karma be applied only to reward or punishment, when its sweep is so vast, its power so tremendous?

I have seen pictures and symbols of wonderful beauty in the Astral Light. A beautiful face surrounded with light . . . a head with wings which soon seemed to sink into my brain. Were these seen through the action of manas and buddhi?

I do not think so. These beautiful things belong to a lower plane and are seen by several senses and departments of senses. Many different causes might have produced them. Today you might see the face of a woman or a child whom you will not meet for the next ten years and have never yet seen; or a long-forgotten and slightly-noticed object in the past of the present life may be suddenly opened to clairvoyant sight; again, there may be deeply laid in your nature mental deposits from long past lives, and these may tinge your visions. I cannot answer individual cases; such is the work of a vulgar fortune teller. Each one must with patience study his own experience through many years, carefully noting and verifying and eliminating as time goes on. Each person who has clairvoyance has his or her own special phase―and there are

millions of phases; hence five separate clairvoyants may see five different pictures or symbols, all produced by one and the same cause; or four of them may see four different pictures while the fifth sees the result of a combination of his own with the other four phases.

The world is so old that man's acts and thoughts for many millions of years have stamped the Astral Light full of pictures. But the Astral Light itself has cycles, tides, and changes, so those must be allowed for; it is useless to try to explain this, but in the changing of the cycles the symbols sometimes are mixed and interblended. When a class of elementals is fully developed and ready to run its appointed course from the beginning of an Age, there is a symbol for it that can be used until the complete decadence or extinction of that class, but at the change of certain cycles the symbol ceases to have power because that to which it once applied has altered and we know not the new symbol. You ask to know more about these symbols? It is not useful or necessary.

I have heard and read much about cycles and their changes. I believe in cyclic law, and in the greater and lesser cycles, although I know them not. But are the cycles definite in limit, or are they shadowy?

Much that has been said on this subject is vague except as regards the number of years included in certain cycles. The lunar cycle and some others are known, but it is well to clear up some of the shadows. Many persons think of one cycle beginning, say today, just as another has ended. This, however, is not correct, for the cycles overlap each other, and before one has really closed another has begun. The best way to understand it is to draw two circles intersecting each other thus.

beginning of No. 2 at B, and it is seen that it had its inception while No. I was finishing. The real point of ending for one and commencement for the other is probably at a point found by drawing a line through where the circles touch at top and bottom, and let the spaces on either side of that line be called the dawn and twilight.

Then, again, there are some important cycles which begin and end wholly within the limits of larger ones, and, in fact, it is these smaller cycles that we notice most, for they are more quickly felt. All of this relates to physical cycles; there are others of a higher and more spiritual nature very difficult to trace and comprehend. It may be partially understood by anyone who has observed a man working for several years at some occupation in itself not particularly elevating, but who at the end of this period has altered his mental attitude in such a degree as to vastly change his entire life and development. In his case the occupation represented a cycle of debasement or expiation, and all the while another cycle of a higher character was running its course in his mental and moral nature quite unknown to anyone else and perhaps also to himself. There are also great cosmic cycles that proceed slowly to our comprehension because they cover such stupendous periods, but they powerfully affect mankind and can only be faintly imagined by students.

The ancient Egyptian civilization illustrates the power of one of the greater cycles long since run down. That brilliant civilization rolled on through a vast stretch of years with no appearance of diminishing glory, but gradually the change took place. We can imagine the hopeless and frantic efforts of her sages to counteract the decay. But they were powerless, and Egypt gradually sank to the place where we find her blazing in the records so far discovered and yet then in her decline; and at last all that remains are sand heaps and degraded ignorant Copts.

But the sweep of that mighty cycle merely moved on to other spheres, and when Earth again meets the same impulse the old civilization will return, the old force revive within a

It has been well said by H. P. Blavatsky that "each one has a potential black magician within." The black magician is the fruit and perfection of selfishness; selfishness is the triumph of the lower nature. The black magician is the opposite pole in human development to the white Adept, and the latter is the fruit and perfection of the highest qualities in man conjoined with entire communion with spirit; this is the triumph of all that is best in the human being; it is the conscious union with the divine. The black magician stands for self alone, and therefore for discard, separation, and destruction; the white one is the embodiment of union, harmony, and love. In the words of Bhagavad-Gita the white adept "is the perfection of spiritual cultivation," and it must follow that the black one is the perfection of material cultivation. In this question, "black" represents self and "white" the spiritual whole.

The query then arises, "Why are there now only white magicians and merely embryo black ones?" We think there are but few black adepts existing today, but of the white school there are many. The age and the cycle have not yet come to that point where the black magician has blossomed, and it is easy to understand why there are perfect white ones. The question is answered in Bhagavad-Gita where it says, "At the night of Brahma the Jivanmuktas are not absorbed nor destroyed, but all others are; and at the coming forth of the new creation those Jivanmuktas (white adepts) come forth intact and conscious."¹ This means that at the preceding pralaya―or dissolution―all the black adepts were destroyed; and as now but the first 5,000 years of Kali Yuga have elapsed, there has not yet been time to evolve enough full black ma-

gicians to make a sensible impression upon us. The first part of the question, therefore,―"How are we to treat a black magician"―is premature.

Each one of us may become a black magician if we let selfishness have its course, and hence we should ask ourselves, "How may we prevent the possibility of our becoming black magicians in some future age?"

As to the latter part of the question regarding the treatment to be accorded to these as yet mythical beings, it also is very far ahead of time. If such an adept were to appear to you now, he would laugh your threats to scorn. But the sole and sovereign protection against such things and persons is a pure heart and right motive.

Several questions have been received on the subject of the best method to be pursued by members of the Theosophical Society for the development of occult powers.

This desire for such development cannot be commended. Such a desire, standing by itself, while seeming to the questioners to be of great importance, is really of the very least consequence for beginners or to the present state of the theosophical movement. The Society was not organized for the purpose of teaching the practice of occult arts, and it has been distinctly stated in a letter from one of the Masters, who are themselves fully acquainted with all the laws of occultism, that our body was never intended to be a hall of occultism or for the training of aspirants to chelaship. But in the face of that declaration and in spite of all that has been said and written in the magazines of the Society, there are numbers of members still thinking that they will be helped in such sort of study and practice, and who have for some time used what leisure they had in endeavoring to cultivate their psychic powers to the exclusion of work upon the lines laid down by the founders of the Society.

reading such works upon practical yoga―or Hatha Yoga―as they could procure, and trying to follow the rules laid down, notwithstanding the distinct caution in all such books that the practices should not be pursued by the student unless he has a competent guide and teacher to help and protect him on the way. Now as there are no such guides in the United States―but all here being alike mere tyros, students, or probationers―it is evident that the very first rules have been violated.

All these practices and studies, so long as they are pursued merely for the powers to be developed, will lead to trouble only and greater ignorance. This is not because there is no truth in practical yoga, but solely from the method adopted and the pure selfishness of the aim before the mind.

We answer by saying that the sincere study of the philosophy and rules of Patanjali's Yoga System may be taken up by any theosophist―on one condition. That is that he shall, as a theosophist, try to carry out the fundamental object of the Society―Universal Brotherhood. In no other way can he receive assistance from any source. Altruism must be made the aim of life, or all practices are absolutely void of lasting effect. We do not speak from a mere theory but from experience; nor do we claim to have perfected altruism in ourselves, but only that, as far as possible, we are trying to make altruism the rule of life.

This may be stoutly denied, but what matters it? The fact remains patent to all that among western people there are few persons masters of any part of occult practice. Partial concentration of mind, even―the first step for any practical use of the recondite laws of nature―is conspicuously absent from our people. Altruism has been for so many centuries a dead letter, and individualism has been so much cultivated,

that the soil has become almost barren. Western peoples are not even fitted to attain perfection in Black Magic, which is supposed to be easy to pursue, though in fact not so; but we are able to lay the seeds in this incarnation for further development upon the evil side of our nature in future lives. The practice of altruism as far as we can is the only way in which to avoid suffering in the future.

If Students believe that Adepts are behind the Society, they should follow Their Advice

Those aspirants for whom these words are written have been laboring under a mistake. They have entered a society formed by Beings in whose existence they profess belief, and have not acted upon the instructions given, but have selected such portion of those as suited them. The Adepts have distinctly said that occult powers can be obtained, but They have also said that the Society, which has Their protection and assistance, is not for occult development, and that the latter cannot be forwarded by Them unless members will preach, teach, and practice Altruism. There is therefore no sort of obligation upon either, the Adepts, or the disciples who do know, to help members whose chief aim is occult development. We must deserve before we can desire.

While we are endeavoring to understand and practice altruism, and while spreading broadcast the doctrines given out by the Adepts' respecting man, his status, future fate, and right way of living, each theosophist can devote some of his time to daily meditation and concentration, and all of his time to extirpating his faults and vices; when he has made some progress in this, the good karma he may have acquired by working for the cause of Humanity, which is the same as Universal Brotherhood, will help him to get ready to begin occult practices.

It is supposed by some that initiation is always and in every case a set and solemn occasion for which the candidate is pre-

pared and notified of in advance. While there are same initiations surrounded by such solemnities as these, the daily one, without success in which no aspirant will ever have the chance to try for those that are higher, comes to the disciple with almost each moment. It is met in our relations with our fellows, and in the effects upon us of all the circumstances of life. And if we fail in these, we never get to the point where greater ones are offered. If we cannot bear momentary defeat, or if a chance word that strikes our self-love finds us unprepared, or if we give way to the desire to harshly judge others, or if we remain in ignorance of some of our most apparent faults, we do not build up that knowledge and strength imperatively demanded from whoever is to be master of nature.

It is in the life of every one to have a moment of choice, but that moment is not set for any particular day. It is the sum total of all days; and it may be put off until the day of death, and then it is beyond our power, for the choice has then been fixed by all the acts and thoughts of the lifetime. We are self-doomed at that hour to just the sort of life, body, environment, and tendencies which will best carry out our karma. This is a thing solemn enough, and one that makes the "daily initiation" of the very greatest importance to each earnest student. But all of this has been said before, and it is a pity that students persist in ignoring the good advice they receive.

Do you think that if a Master accepted you He would put you to same strange test? No, He would not, but simply permitting the small events of your life to have their course, the result would determine your standing. It may be a child's school, but it takes a man to go through it.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

M.―I read in the New York Sun in October an editorial on the Maha Bodhi Society of Calcutta which designed to restore Buddha-Gya to the Buddhists and spread Buddhism. Although the article was full of chaff yet I thought there must be something underneath. Is that Society a Theosophical Section? Does Buddhism grow in America?

Answer―The Maha Bodhi Society is, in my opinion, more of a real-estate venture, for sentiment however and not for gain. Col. H. S. Olcott is its Honorary Director and intended, as a professed Buddhist, to make great efforts towards raising the large sum needed to put the property in Buddhist hands, this being the main object. The Secretary is Dharmapala, an F.T.S. But the Society is not a Theosophical Section. It cannot be successfully held that the getting of property and a temple is Buddhism, for that religion teaches asceticism, poverty and renunciation of material things. Certainly Buddha would not have his followers waste their energies on such a venture. They did not do it in his lifetime.

Buddhism does not grow in America, though many persons call themselves Buddhists. Some doctrines, which are not only Buddhistic but also Brahmanic, have been widely spread, and it is easier to say one is a Buddhist than Brahmanical. To be a Brahmin you must be born in that sort of family; to profess Brahmanism and not be able to explain its complicated system is disgraceful. Besides this, the popular poem by Arnold, The Light of Asia, has given currency to the term Buddhism all over the land, whereas but few know what the other oriental religions are. The useful doctrines of both Buddhism and Brahmanism are believed in by many as a result of the wide

and systematic propaganda of the Theosophical Society in America. Reincarnation, karma, devachan and the rest, are in both religions, but to believe them does not make a man a Buddhist. And if the people knew fully the superstitions and absurdities of those two old religions they would never call themselves by either name. It cannot be possible that the Buddhism of today will ever be adopted, as such, by any western nation; but the doctrines promulgated by Theosophists will so mould the coming mind that the new religion will be a theosophical one.

Now and then there appears in some newspaper an article giving false statements about Buddhism in America. The writers have heard so much about theosophical doctrines,―which they do not understand and which they label Buddhist because, perhaps, all they ever knew of the religion they obtained from the Light of Asia,―that they put down all Theosophists as Buddhists. But were you to consult the agent in New York of the Buddha-Gya movement you would discover how few Buddhists there are here.

As another correspondent asks for the principal reason why the West will not adopt Buddhism, I will reply to that now.

One of the main teachings of Buddha was that any kind of existence is a misery. It is misery to be born either as man or deva, because this involves a perpetual series of reincarnations which may be happy or unfavorable as happens. To escape this, Nirvana is offered. Of course I am not now speaking of other doctrines the educated may understand. This one is for the multitude. Now the western people will not accept this pessimistic view of life, and when they come to know that that is Buddhism they will not take the religion.

A.P.―Have you any idea of the proportion between the population of India and the members of the T.S. there?

Answer―There are 360 millions of people in India, and there are 90 Theosophical Societies there. As only about 40 of the latter are active we can conclude there are not 3000 F.T.S. in India. The rest of the 360 millions, except those who read

English, know nothing of the Society. The major part of the people do not read English. Hence hundreds of millions are uninfluenced by theosophical propaganda. Of course it is the custom for the reports emanating from Adyar to speak of hundreds of Branches there; this is possible by counting in the hundred and more dead Branches existing only on paper for the authorities disliked to cut off from the roll the dead ones as is done in America.

T.H.―I would like to have a concrete practice pointed out to me as something to begin with in self-discipline.

Answer―Begin by trying to conquer the habit, almost universal, of pushing yourself forward. This arises from personality. Do not monopolize the conversation. Keep in the background. If someone begins to tell you about himself and his doings do not take first chance to tell him about yourself, but listen to him and talk solely to bring him out. And when he has finished suppress in yourself the desire to tell about yourself, your opinions and your experiences. Do not ask a question unless you intend to listen to the answer and inquire into its value. Try to recollect that you are a very small affair in the world, and that the people around do not value you at all and grieve not when you are absent. Your only greatness lies in your inner true self and it is not desirous of obtaining the applause of others. If you will follow these directions for one week you will find they will take considerable effort, and you will begin to discover a part of the meaning of the saying, "Man, know thyself."

T.T.―In the November PATH there is a reply about Buddhism. May I ask whether reference was intended to the outside exoteric form of the religion or to the esoteric side?

Buddhism, because the esoteric teachings of Buddha, if known, would undoubtedly be found to be the same as those of Jesus and the Brahmans―since we hold that both had secret doctrines for the few. The old Jews had their secret religion―the Kaballah―and Jesus, following his Jewish teachers, taught his disciples many things in private which were not recorded. But there is a good deal of evidence that that secret teaching was in all probability like Gnosticism. What Buddha secretly taught we do not know.

If all the superstitions and gross absurdities of outer Buddhism were fully known in the West you would see why it will not be adopted; just as you would be convinced that we will not adopt Brahmanism either, with all its idolatry and superstitions.

E.M.―Has the identity of Chew-Yew-Tsâng been revealed? When I was in London the people in the T.S. centre there were wild about him and some said he was an Adept. What is the truth about this?

Chew-Yew-Tsâng was a nom-de-plume adopted by Mr. E. T. Hargrove, who is now lecturing for us here. He had some good ideas and sent them to Lucifer over that name. Many did go wild over the articles, especially its sub-editor. In time it was divulged who the author was and then the amusing part happened. The disputes about some charges in the Society were raging and Mr. Hargrove sided with the defendant. So those who had admired Chew, almost fallen at his symbolical feet, who had engrossed some of his sentences and hung them on the wall, arose quite angry at being led into praising the writing of such a young man―in fact it was a sort of reunion for the purpose of "eating crow." If there was any Adept in the matter he was in the far background and has not yet divulged himself. But it remains that the articles by Chew are well written and inspiring.

B.―Some of those who refused to agree to our proceedings at Boston Convention are feeling hurt because in the PATH they have been slightingly referred to, as they think. Is it not better to be as kind as possible to all of them?

It is always best to be as kind as possible to friends and enemies, to those who are with us as to those who remain neutral. If the PATH was unkind it sincerely apologizes for such a fault. In going over the ground after a very short struggle in which the small minority is of course beaten, the detailing of facts for information of the great constituency which could not attend the festivities, it is very natural that something unpleasant would take place―for bald facts are sometimes not agreeable. So the PATH writer―and it was not the Editor―merely intended to point out that in some cases the bolting branch would be found to be one of those which had never been of the slightest use―in one case such a branch had been dead a year―and in others that the really earnest and devoted workers were not those who bolted after the Boston vote.

And indeed this magazine was very much milder in the matter than Col. H. S. Olcott himself. He declared it seemed as if all the best brain and energy of the American movement had gone with the vote and with that dreadful person―

P.B.―The other evening, after a day of great activity, and being very tired, not thinking of my friend X, but rather of the passing business I had been in, I had a vision suddenly of X with whom I seemed to have a long conversation of benefit to both. Now how was this when I had not been thinking of him at all?

In the first place, experience shows, and those who know the laws of such matters say, that the fact of not having thought of a person is not a cause for preventing one from seeing the person in dream or vision. It makes no difference if you haven't thought of the person for twenty years.

Secondly, being wearied and much occupied during the day with absorbing business is in general likely to furnish just the condition in you for a vision or dream of a person or a place you have not thought of for a long time. But extreme and absolute fatigue, going to the extreme, is likely to plunge one into such a deep sleep as to prevent any such experience.

In consequence of bodily and brain fatigue those organs are temporarily paralyzed, sometimes, just enough to allow some of the astral senses to work. We then have a vision or dream of place or person, all depending upon the extent to which the inner astral person is able to impress the material brain cells. Sometimes it is forgotten save as the mere trace of something that took place but cannot be identified. When we are awake and active the brain has such a hold on the astral body that the latter (very fortunately) can work only with the brain and as that organ dictates. And when we fall naturally, unfatigued, into the state when it might be supposed we would have a vision, it does not come. But the pictures and recollections of the day pass before us because the brain is not tired enough to give up its hold on the astral body. Fatigue, however, stills the imperative brain and it releases its hold.

A.M.―Who is your authority for the statement in November PATH that there are only about 90 active branches in India of which only about 40 have activity?

First, Mr. B. Keightley, who, as General Secretary there, reported―and it was so printed in the Theosophist―to the effect stated. In fact his report was even worse. Secondly, a member who had been at Adyar many months helping with reports and accounts. He stated not much over a year ago that it was as I have said. In fact it now is a thoroughly well known fact that the great parade of branches in India―some hundreds―is all a show, just like counting in your assets and reporting as alive a lot of long dead and valueless bonds or scrip. These other branches have long been dead and ought to have been taken off the record. But the presiding genius likes to parade the names of back numbers so as to make a noise. We and the American public have been too long deluded about this flock of theosophical doves over there which are mere phantasms.

C.―I have heard some members talking about attracting elementals, and of this or that place being full of elementals. Not seeing these beings myself, and not knowing much about it, I would like to know if the phrases used are correct.

Answer―It is quite probable that these persons never saw an elemental, and know still less, perhaps, than yourself of the subject and of the laws that may govern such entities. So do not be abashed by their assumption of knowledge. It is incorrect to talk of one place being more full of elementals than another place. We might as well say there is more of space in one spot of space than another. Elementals are everywhere, just as animalculæ fill the air; they obey the laws peculiar to themselves, and move in the currents of ether. If now and then they make themselves manifest, it does not hence follow that additional number have been attracted to the spot, but only that conditions have altered so as to cause some disturbance.

T.C. and F.O.R.―In some formerly published articles something is said of a future date marking the withdrawal of certain portions of the influence of the Adepts, and that those who have not gotten past the obstacles before that will have to wait until next incarnation. Is it necessary that one should be aware of having passed sufficiently far; must one be conscious of it? If so, I, for one, am "not in it."

Answer―It is not necessary to be conscious of the progress one has made. Nor is the date in any sense an extinguisher, as some have styled it. In these days we are too prone to wish to know everything all at once, especially in relation to ourselves. It may be desirable and encouraging to be thus conscious, but it is not necessary. We make a good deal of progress in our inner, hidden life of which we are not at all conscious. We may not know of it until some later life. So in this case many may be quite beyond the obstacles and not be conscious of it. It is best to go on with duty, and to refrain from this trying to take stock and measuring of progress. All of our progress is in the inner nature, and not in the physical where lives the brain, and from which the present question comes. The apparent physical progress is evanescent. It is

ended when the body dies, at which time, if the inner man has not been allowed to guide us, the natural record against us will be a cipher, or "failure." Now, as the great Adepts live in the plane of our inner nature, it must follow that they might be actively helping every one of us after the date referred to, and we, as physical brain men, not be conscious of it on this plane.

REFLECTIONS

WHEN I am annoyed by an ungovernable animal, I am reminded that the brutes would not oppose man if man understood and entered into his true relations with all things. The brutes are unconsciously aware of the general human opposition, which they see focalized in each human being. When I am in harmony with all things, men cannot and brutes will not oppose me. In underrating instinct, the brute is more true than is the man, to the unwritten Law.

The "idle word" condemned by Jesus is inactivity of Being. It is the cessation of the homogeneous resonance, the Logos or Word. The Word in its highest activity is pure spirit; in stagnation it is hell. To each man it is given in trust for all men; if he misinterprets it he is tortured. If he sequestrates it, he is condemned to eternal death that it may be free; for it is eternally free. Through misuse, he may learn its use. If he denies it, he is lost; for by it alone he lives.

It is better for a man to sin deliberately against the Law than to chafe under the mandates of conscience. The first is a renegade who chooses another King; the second is coward and slave who rebels but dares not disobey. The energy of direct sin may, by reaction, compel return, but the lethargy of fear bears no fruit.

If you wish to receive, give. If you wish to ascend, descend. If you wish to live, die. If you wish to understand these words, read them by the lamp of the spirit, and reject that of the understanding.

Apparent evil is a necessary result of manifestation or duality. The good alone is in Time inactive. Evil is the balance of good: the Equilibrating power reigns above and is alone eternal.

When the silent Eternal gives birth to the activity of Spirit in Space the worlds are evolved, and, seeking equilibrium, return again to the eternal silence. So with the soul of man.

More saving grace may be found in the society of thieves than in that of fine persons who never reverberate to a true thought. In the first there is rebound; the latter is the negation of life.

Expiation is the kernel of sin. "Evil" containing its own punishment continually defeats itself, and sows the seed of "good" in its own regeneration.

He who would see Perfection must become It. How? By beginning the attempt. Its first step is the full realization of imperfection in himself.

STRAY MEMORANDA

WHY not," I said to a Master's messenger, "give to all these gaping theosophical children throughout the Society, the whole truth at once? Collect all the doctrines and the interlocking prophecies together, whether about the world of men or the world of the Gods; arrange all the facts respecting the evolution of men on the planet, with all the details about dividing of races and the hidden descent of tribes: then give it out for good and all."

Looking at me seriously, he said, "Would they believe it? "I think not." But he left behind him some stray jottings. . . .

"The science-worshipping theosophist, thinking that the brighter day will only come when men of science are convinced that the Masters know all that is to be known, would have revelations regarding 'missing links' and the dispersion of races. But the dawn of a new age is not heralded by such divulgements; and to tell the facts before the time would only result in strife, bitterness, and laughter.

"Not even the devotees of the Worship of the Dead, who follow after mediums and say that the souls of the deceased return to detestable surroundings in heated cabinets, would admit a single fact that militated against pet theories. Yet we know that the souls of good men who have died do not trouble the world. They leave behind them the 'coat of skin,' full of what wickedness they were unable to disperse in life. This unsavory remainder is worshipped by the medium-hunter, and because out of the astral light it reports facts and words not thought of by the sitters, the real man is accused, and by default convicted, of returning here. Such spiritualists as believe thus are consecrating corpses and making Gods of the demons of the air. Will they believe this?

"The extraordinary psychical manifestations occurring during the last forty years all over the Western world have been dubbed by the 'spiritists' as the awakening of men and the new, best, last philosophy, whereas they merely marked the changes beginning in the great heart and mind of the collective Western man. In relation to what is heralded and will be, they are as is the changing voice of the youthful chorister to its full development into a basso profundo.

"By careful and painstaking attention to this worship of the dead, new forms are created in the astral light, compounded of the reliquæ of deceased people and the matter added by elementals; they imitate the dead in word, gesture, recollection, and other indicia of identity, and delude the living, because these elementals like the new surroundings thus found. One small section only of the elemental nature is thus affected, but it likes not to relinquish a grasp once taken upon us mortal-gods.

"Although this Death-Cult calls itself scientific, we have not yet heard of any careful or other collecting of statistics about appearances through mediums of the same deceased person at more than two places at once. But any careful reader can find that such things are reported every day and no deduction drawn from it.

"The real deceased one in his blissful state after death feels a twinge every time his shade is called up in the charnel house of a living medium's body.

"The money paid to mediums for 'spirit communications' is haunted by astral beings of a certain order. They plunge upon the medium, and find their appropriate dwelling in the bad and not in the good part of his nature. The temple of the Holy Ghost is thus turned into a den of thieves.

"The trajectory of a spiritual being through space is visible to the human eye from only one point, and very often it is seen as a curved line when in fact it is otherwise. One sort of elemental being moves in an epicycloidal curve. Looked at by one person's eye it is a straight line, to the other observer it is a curve, while a third sees it as a triangle.

"Every thought has with it in its journey all the physical, mental, and moral attributes of the thinker; but the recipient may be able only to perceive one of those attributes, and then, instead of getting the thinker's thought, he may hear the rate of vibration in the body of the thinker, and all he sees then is a small white star.

"There are beings who have their existence in your body. Some live but a moment, others for longer periods.

"Where cities are 'destined' to be built, whole armies of celestial beings build an imaginary city and try to induce men to erect the objective structures there; and the founding of a city is an occasion of joy or deep sorrow for those who can see the nature of its builders.

"There are certain spots in the land now uninhabited, over which swarm hosts of elementals. They have their own city there, and when men pass that way they whisper to them, show pictures of a city, of its buildings, and its future; and soon or late the human beings come and erect their dwellings there.

"Your American continent is full of these spots, and crowded with memories of past glories that elbow each other for space.

"Although each thought goes on through infinite space, many thoughts sent out from your mind are, so to say, lost on the way; for they meet opposite thoughts or stronger ones which deflect them from the course desired, and they thus fly on to a goal not in the mind of the thinker, or through weakness of impulse they fall easily away from the appointed orbit.

"In one aspect the Astral Light may be compared to a howling mob of rival musicians, each engaged on a different tune. Who enters there has need to know how to distinguish the right tune, or dire confusion will result in his mind."

ON DISAPPEARANCE

ED. NOTE.―The aphorism of Patanjali on the subject of this article is No. 21, Book III, and in the American edition reads as follows:

By performing concentration in regard to the properties and essential nature of form, especially that of the human body, the ascetic acquires the power of causing the disappearance of his corporeal frame from the sight of others, because thereby its property of being apprehended by the eye is checked, and that property of sattva which exhibits itself as luminousness is disconnected from the spectator's organ of sight.

In the old edition and in that published later by M. N. Dvivedi, the word used for concentration is sanyama. This is to be translated as concentration, and also "restraint," which comes to the same thing. The aphorism raises the issues made by modern science that no disappearance is possible if the object be in line with a normal eye and there be light and the like. Hypnotism has for some made the modern view a little doubtful, but many deny hypnotism, and the cases of disappearance in those experiments have all been but disappearances for the senses of but one person who is admittedly under some influence and is not normal in organ and function. The author cites alleged cases of complete disappearance of ascetics from the sight of normal persons normally exercising their senses. It is not a case of hypnotism collectively or otherwise, but should be distinguished from all such. In hypnotic cases normal function is abated and the mind imposed with an inhibiting idea or picture which seems real in action to the subject. In the cases of the ascetics there is left to those about perfect control of their organs and senses, the powerful mental action

of the ascetic bringing into play another law, as indicated in the aphorism, which prevents the senses, however normal, from seeing the form of the ascetic. Form, it is held by the occultists of the school to which Patanjali must have belonged, is an illusion itself, which remains for the generality of people because they are subject to a grand common limitation due to the non-development of other than the usual senses. It would seem that all clairvoyance might prove this, as in that it is known by the seer that every form visible to our eye has extensions and variations in the subtler parts of its constitution which are not visible on the material plane. The illusionary nature of form in its essence being meditated on, one becomes able, it is held, to check the "luminousness of sattva" and thus prevent sight. This does not mean that ordinary light is obstructed, but something different. All light, gross or fine, is due to the universal sattva, which is one of the qualities of the basis of manifested nature. And besides showing as ordinary light, it is also present, unseen by us it is true, but absolutely necessary for any sense-perception of that sort, whether by men, animals, or insects. If the finer plane of this luminousness is obstructed, the ordinary light is none the less, but the result will be that no eye can see the body of that person whose mind is operative at the time to cause the obstruction of the luminous quality mentioned. This may seem labored, but it is in consequence of our language and ideas that such is the case. I have known some cases in the West of disappearances similar to those mentioned by the foregoing article, and in Secret Doctrine and, I think, Isis Unveiled are some references to the matter where the author says the power conferred by this is wonderful as well as full of responsibility. While very likely no Theosophist or scientist will be able to use this power, still the cases cited and the explanation will go towards showing that the ancient Rishees knew more of man and his nature than moderns are prone to allow, and it may also serve to draw the attention of the mind of young Indians who worship the shrine of modern science to the works and thoughts of their ancestors.

RIG-VEDA ON GAMBLING

The following excellent remarks are probably the oldest in the world upon the vice of gambling. They are found in Rig Veda, x, 34. It is admitted that these Vedic hymns are anterior to the time of Homer and Hesiod. The Hindus claim an antiquity for them which carries us back thousands upon thousands of years prior to the oldest date allowed by European Orientalists. Those who have a theosophical acquaintance with the Vedas will incline to the estimate of the Hindus, inasmuch as European opinion is constantly altering on the subject, and besides has not had quite a century of experience in which to form itself. Muir says these hymns were composed certainly 1000 years before our era, but that is too ridiculously low an estimate and will have ere long to be revised upon further proofs and discoveries. The present hymn is given as showing what was then thought of gambling.

THE tumbling airborne products¹ of the great Vibhidaka tree delight me as they continue to roll upon the diceboard. The exciting dice seem to me like a draught of the soma-plant growing on Mount Miyavat. My wife never quarrelled with me nor despised me; she was kind to me and to my friends. But I for the sake of the partial dice have spurned my devoted spouse. My mother-in-law detests me, my wife rejects me. In my need I find no comforter.

I cannot discover what is the enjoyment of the gambler any more than I can perceive what is the happiness of a worn-out hack horse. Others pay court to the wife of the man whose wealth is coveted by the impetuous dice. His father, mother, brothers cry out: "We know nothing of him; take him away bound!"

When I resolve not to be tormented by them because I am abandoned by my friends who withdraw from me, yet as

soon as the brown dice, when they are thrown, make a rattling sound I hasten to their rendezvous like a woman to her paramour. The gamester comes to the assembly glowing in body, asking himself "Shall I win?" The dice inflame his desire by making over his winnings to his opponent. Hooking, piercing, deceitful, vexatious, delighting to torment, the dice dispense transient gifts and again ruin the winner; they appear to the gambler covered with honey. Their troop of fifty-three disports itself, itself disposing men's destinies like the God Savatri whose ordinances never fail. They bow not before the wrath of the fiercest. The king himself makes obeisance to them. They roll downward, they bound upward. Having no hands they overcome him who has. These celestial coals when thrown on the dice-board scorch the heart though cold themselves.

The destitute wife of the gamester is distressed, and so too is the mother of a son who goes she knows not whither. In debt and seeking after money the gambler approaches with trepidation the houses of other people at night. It vexes the gamester to see his own wife and then to observe the wives and happy homes of others. In the morning he yokes the brown horses―the dice; by the time when the fire goes out he has sunk into a degraded wretch. He who is the general of your board, the first king of your troop, to him I stretch forth my ten fingers to the east in reverence. I do not reject wealth, but I declare that which is right when I say:

Never play with dice; practice husbandry; rejoice in thy prosperity, esteeming it sufficient. Be satisfied with thy cattle and thy wife, the god advises.

O dice, be friendly to us and no more bewitch us powerfully with your influence. Let your wrath and hostility abate: let others than we be subject to the fetters of the brown ones, the dice.

CULLED FROM ARYAN SCIENCE

"During eight months of the year the sun attracts the waters and then pours them upon the earth as rain"; and,

"The water which the clouds shed upon the earth is the ambrosia of the living beings, for it gives fertility to the plants which are the support of their existence. By this all vegetables grow and are matured and become the means of maintaining life."

In the Vishnu Purana Jupiter is name Brihaspati, and is described as having a golden car drawn by eight pale-colored horses. This refers to his satellites.

The Puranas have a legend that the moon was originally in Jupiter's house but was seduced into living with Tara (the present path of the moon), the result of which was the birth of Mercury, meaning that Mercury was withdrawn from its original orbit into its present one nearer the sun.

This event is brought about, the Puranas state, by the rays of the sun dilating into seven suns which then burn up the world.

The earth, situated in the middle of the heavens and composed of the five elements, is spherical in shape.

A hundredth part of the circumference of a circle appears to be a straight line. Our earth is a big sphere, and the portion visible to man being exceedingly small, the earth appears to be flat.

Some fancy that those on the other side of the earth have their heads hanging down.

Those at the north have for their zenith the north, and those at the south, the south pole; the equator forms the horizon for both, and both find the heavens move from left to right and right to left, respectively.―Goladhyaya

The atmosphere surrounds the earth to the height of 60 miles, and clouds, lightning and the like are all phenomena connected with it.―Ibid.

For the period when the sun is north it is visible for six months at the north pole and invisible at the south, and vice versa.―Ibid.

The earth, the planets and the comets all receive their light from the sun, that half towards the sun being always bright, the color varying with the peculiarity of the substance of each.―Laghvaryahattiyam

Just in the same way as there are arteries for the circulation of blood in the human body, the earth has undercurrents lying one over the other.―Varahasamhita [We find now that the gulf-stream is a well defined current in a great body of water, and in the Mediterranean two currents run out and in over one another. On land are many well-defined rivers running all their course underground.]

A PROPHECY ABOUT THEOSOPHY

THERE are alleged to exist in India certain Sibylline books called Nadigrandhams. As the name indicates, they are compilations of astrological statements or predictions, and are supposed to contain actual prophecies fitting into the lives of inquirers as well as into the history of a village. They resemble the Sibylline books of Rome, which prophesied, it is said, for over two hundred years, all the important events in the affairs of the Eternal City.

In May, 1885, Col. H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society, hearing of some of these books in Madras, had an interview at the headquarters with the astrologer who possessed them, in the presence of two witnesses.

In reporting the predictions in the May article¹ he left certain blanks saying that he would speak regarding it in twelve months, and that the unpublished portion concerned the welfare of the society. The prophecy was:―

The society is now, April 3, 1885, passing through a dark cycle, which began August 24, 1884; it will last nine months and sixteen days more, making seventeen months for the whole period. By the end of fourteen months next following the seventeen dark months, the society will have increased threefold in power and strength, and some who have joined it and worked for its advancement shall attain gnyanam.² The society will live and survive its founders for many years, becoming a lasting power for good; it will survive the fall of governments.

¹ See No. 68 (May, 1885) Theosophist.

² Gnyanam is translated "higher knowledge," which does not merely mean acquirement of greater so-called mortal or ordinary knowledge, but that kind of knowledge which is only attained by rising to higher spiritual planes, and which transcends the highest of ordinary knowledge of the greatest literati or scientist.

And you (H.S.O.) will live from this hour, twenty-eight years, five months, six days, fourteen hours, and on your death the society will have 156 principal branches, not counting minor ones, with 50,000 enrolled members; before that, many branches will rise and expire, and many members come and go.

At the time the society was founded in 1875, the editor of this journal was present in New York when the proposed name was discussed, and it was prophesied after the selection had been made that the organization was destined to accomplish a great work, far beyond the ideas of those present. Since then many members have followed the example of Buddha's proud disciples and deserted the cause―others have remained.

In Paris, in 1884, the Coulomb scandal had not exploded, but warnings of it were heard. One night in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, an astrologer consulted a nadigrandham for a reply to queries as to what was brewing. The reply was: "A conspiracy; but all will be suddenly discovered, and will come to nothing."³ Such was the result as to the discovery, and for the balance of the later prophecy let time disclose.

³ This was written then to various persons in Paris, London, New York, and India.

THE PRESS AND OCCULTISM

WHEN THE PATH first appeared on the scene, the World and the Sun, two prominent daily newspapers of New York, devoted a large space to a criticism of this journal anent a prophecy concerning the Theosophical Society based on certain books in India called Nadigrandhams, and took pains to say that we were all only superficial dreamers and dabblers, but at the same time the Sun itself displayed ignorance of the subject. We then went on to record, among others, a prophecy as follows:

The Sanscrit language will one day be again the language used by man upon this earth, first in science and metaphysics, and then in common life. Even in the lifetime of the SUN'S witty writer, he will see the terms now preserved in that noblest of languages creeping into the literature and press of the day.¹

Already our words are coming true, and even in the paper that abused while it advertised us. In that paper of January 2d, appears this editorial paragraph:

For the space of 111 years from today we are to have the figure 9 in our years, and the occultists, who put much stress upon numbers, predict that the condition of mankind will be greatly improved over all past times during this period. It is the age of Kal Yuga.

In this is a reference, in seriousness, to "the Occultists," together with more superficial statements of what those persons say, nearly all of it wrong, chiefly that the Occultists "predict that the condition of mankind will be greatly improved over all past time during this period." What they do

say is, that things will grow worse in reality instead of better. But at the end of the paragraph we find the paper referring to the present age as the age of "Kal Yuga,"―which ought to be Kali Yuga. The same "witty writer" who criticised our superficial oriental knowledge probably wrote the lines above and forgot to inform himself that Kali Yuga means Dark Age, and hence he grew tautological. Still, we can forgive him, inasmuch as probably several hundred thousand readers of the Sun read the statement, and will remember "Kali Yuga," two words from the Sanscrit, after the journalist who wrote them has ceased airing his superficial attainments.

In other journals we can find numerous references to such Sanscrit terms as Nirvana, Satwa, Devachan, Ishwara, and a host of others, all taken from Sanscrit metaphysics and philosophy.

On the whole, therefore, we begin to see a beginning of the fulfilment of the prophecy made so long ago.

THE SCREEN OF TIME

FOREVER hiding futurity, the Screen of Time hangs before us, impenetrable. Nor can it be lifted. Its other side may have pictures and words upon it which we would like to read. There is such a desire in the human heart to know what the coming days may hold, that if there be pictures on the hidden side of the Screen we long to see them. But fortunately for us in our present weak condition we may not look behind. Standing in front, all we are privileged to perceive are the reflections from human life thrown upon this side known as the present, while the pictures that have been there in the past turn themselves into background and distance, sometimes bright, but oftener gloomy and grey.

A very pernicious doctrine is again making an appearance. It is weak, truly, but now is the time to deal with and destroy it if possible. It is the theory that the best way to overcome a tendency―of any sort―of the physical nature, is to give way to it. This is the dreadful doctrine of Satiation: that the only way to deal with lust and other things of the lower plane is to satisfy all cravings. By argument this may be shown to be an evil doctrine: but fact overcomes all argument, and it is easy to discern the truth to be that satiation of a craving does not remove its cause. If we eat, and dissipate hunger, the need for food will soon be felt again. And so with all cravings and tendencies which are classified as bad or low, or those which

we wish to get rid of. They must be opposed. To satisfy and give way to them will produce but a temporary dullness. The real cause of them all is in the inner man, on the plane of desire whether mental or physical. So long as no effort is made to remove them they remain there. The Voice of the Silence is against the doctrine of satiation most clearly, and so are the voices of all the sages. We must all wish that this pernicious idea may never obtain a hold in Theosophical ranks.

The desire to see the fulfilment of lugubrious and awful prophecies is a singular one for good men to hold. Yet many Theosophists have this most strange peculiarity. They have read and heard of certain prophecies said to have been made by H.P.B. about calamitous and disastrous times to come in Europe; of a new reign of terror; of sinking continents and destroyed nations. They add to these the improbable, vague and sometimes hoaxing prophecies by astrologers and old women. Then they begin to wish all these most terrifying things would come to pass so that their prophets may be justified. Every time a slight jar occurs in Europe they feel the terreur is at hand. But it does not arrive. Surely we ought to be satisfied with an ominous prophecy, if we believe in it, and be content to let its fulfilment be delayed for an extremely long period. We do not need prophecies, in any case, because out of our present deeds future events are made. Those among us who wish, as I said, for the realization of forebodings are the croakers of the movement. Even among the singular people called Theosophists they are singular, but their peculiarity is both unhealthy and useless.

In 1888 I had a morning conversation with H.P.B. at the Lansdowne Road house in London, upon the spread or weight of the Theosophical movement. I said that it was sometimes appalling to remember the millions of people in America alone, in comparison with the few Theosophists and Theosophical branches: what hope was there of our making a change in national character in any land? Her reply was that,

while it might seem discouraging looked at in that way, it was really not so. "Look," she said, "at our beginnings in 1875, when no one knew of Theosophy, and only jokes greeted our amazing efforts for publicity. But now we have come into the papers and magazines. We have made a distinct impression on the mind and literature of the time. This is much to have done."

There is abundant proof of this on every hand. Our name is now well understood. Writers may allude in their sketches to Theosophists and Theosophy without fear of castigation by the editor. There are two recent conspicuous instances. The N. Y. Herald, in December last, had an article in which this occurs:

"No man on the globe knows how to keep a hotel as the American does. He is a perfect Mahatma at the business."

Here is this great word abused, it is true; but that does not damage it. It has reached in less than twenty years the familiar treatment which it took in India centuries to come to. There they often use it as a term of reproach, on the principle that to call a man that high and great thing which he cannot be is to abuse him.

Again, in the Cosmopolitan for December last―a magazine widely read―there is a story by Zangwill called "Choice of Parents," on the abolition of compulsory reincarnation. The sketch deals entirely with the ante-natal world and reincarnation on the earth. Not long before the author had something in the English Pall Mall Magazine wherein Theosophy, Theosophists and reincarnation were mentioned. I do not know who will have the hardihood to deny the great share the Theosophical movement has had in bringing about this change.

At the present time one of the most urgent needs is for a simplification of Theosophical teachings. Theosophy is simple enough; it is the fault of its exponents if it is made complicated, abstruse or vague. Yet enquiring people are always complaining that it is too difficult a subject for them,

and that their education has not been deep enough to enable them to understand it. This is greatly the fault of the members who have put it in such a manner that the people sadly turn away. At public meetings or when trying to interest an enquirer it is absolutely useless to use Sanskrit, Greek or other foreign words. Nine times out of ten the habit of doing so is due to laziness or conceit. Sometimes it is due to having merely learned certain terms without knowing and assimilating the ideas underneath. The ideas of Theosophy should be mastered, and once that is done it will be easy to express those in the simplest possible terms. And discussions about the Absolute, the Hierarchies, and so forth, are worse than useless. Such ideas as Karma, Reincarnation, the Perfectibility of Man, the Dual Nature, are the subjects to put forward. These can be expounded―if you have grasped the ideas and made them part of your thought―from a thousand different points of view. At all meetings the strongest effort should be made to simplify by using the words of our own language in expressing that which we believe.

There will be a change in the title of this magazine when issued next month. It will appear as THEOSOPHY instead of as THE PATH. This change is thought advisable for many reasons, one of which is the indistinctiveness of the present name. "Theosophy," as a word, has become familiar throughout the civilized world, and a certain definite though not always correct meaning has been attached to it. One of our chief objects will be to spread a proper understanding of its significance, as well as to remove false impressions concerning it. One of the chief results of the change will be an increased familiarity on the part of the public with the word; and it is a word that has a power in it, sufficient in itself to change the tenor of a man's life, as experience has shown in more than one instance.

the change, one of which I have already touched on, a very considerable increase in the circulation will be effected, it is hoped. Each reader will doubtless help to bring this about by reading THEOSOPHY on the street-cars, in the trains, and in other public places where many eyes will be caught by the well-known name on the cover of a magazine. Once seen it will not be forgotten. So as this is a Theosophical venture I invite the cooperation of Theosophists the world over in making it a success. Nothing can be accomplished without you; everything with you; and the last and apparently least of you is not always the most helpless.

"In Lucifer's 'Watch-Tower' (December, 1895) the editor undertakes to explain finally the question of Mars and the Earth-chain of Globes. Considerable assurance is shown in the expression of the views thus put forward, only surpassed, perhaps, by the assurance shown when the same writer expressed diametrically opposite views about two years ago in an article on 'Mars and the Earth' (THE PATH, vol. viii, p. 270; Lucifer, vol. xiii, p. 206). That article was written by its author in New York for publication in both journals.

"The editor of Lucifer, now saying, 'The facts [recently revised] are these, proceeds to state that Mars and Mercury are globes of the Earth-chain. In the article on 'Mars and the Earth,' already referred to, the same writer stated that Mars and Mercury were not globes of the Earth-chain, correctly pointing out that to hold that they were would violate the fundamental principles of H.P.B.'s teaching, and concluding with the words, 'And so, once more, we find the Masters' doctrines self-consistent.'

"It would be useless to revive all the points in a discussion which was amply ventilated nearly two years ago. In an article entitled 'Mars and Mercury,' by William Q. Judge, which appeared in the PATH (vol. viii, pp. 97-100) the matter was

The two Masters who had to do with Esoteric Buddhism and the Secret Doctrine have distinctly said: first, that none of the other globes of the earth-chain are visible from its surface; second, that various planets are visible in the sky to us because they are in their own turn fourth-plane planets, representing to our sight their own septenary chains; third, that the six companion globes of the earth are united with it in one mass, but differ from it as to class of substance; fourth, that Mr. Sinnett misunderstood them when he thought they meant to say that Mars and Mercury were two of the six fellow-globes of the earth,―and this correction they make most positively in the Secret Doctrine; lastly, they have said that the entire philosophy is one of correspondences, and must be so viewed in every part If we admit that Mars and Mercury are two visible planets of the sevenfold chain belonging to the earth, then the consistency of the philosophy is destroyed, for as it is with planets, so it is with man. Every planet, considered for the moment as an individual, is to be analyzed in the same way as a single human being, subject to the same laws in the same way. Hence, if two of the principles of the earth are visible, that is, Mars and Mercury, then why is it that two of man's seven principles are not visible, in addition to his body? In his sevenfold constitution his body represents the earth in her septenary chain, but he cannot see objectively any other of his principles. The philosophy must be consistent throughout.

"If the editor of Lucifer carries these recently revised 'facts,' as given in the last December issue, to their logical conclusion, we may expect in future issues of that magazine a record of some entertaining experiments in clairvoyance with the object of 'finding Smith's physical body,' with the possible result that it will be discovered as Jones, a wanderer on another continent, blissfully ignorant that Smith is his Kama or lower mind, as the case may be. Smith's Buddhic or other principle will perhaps be found objectivized as a Hindu yogi―but what would happen if the yogi were to die before Smith? And how about Smith's four invisible principles (Globes A, B, F, and G), supposed to be careering through space in bewildering independence of law, rhyme, reason or analogy?

"On the whole, the teaching of the Secret Doctrine is likely to remain the standard, at least of common-sense, and I for

one prefer to think that neither the principles of the Earth-chain nor the principles of man are physically separate from each other in different parts of space, but that all are in 'coadunition,' as the Master wrote."

Students will do well to refer to the former discussion on this subject, sufficiently complete to render further comment needless. The following articles should be read in this connection: PATH, "The Earth-Chain of Globes," vol. vii, pp. 351 and 377, continued in vol. viii, p.11; "Mars and Mercury," vol. viii, p. 97; "How to Square the Teachings," vol. viii, p. 172 (this follows an article by A. P. Sinnett on "Esoteric Teaching"); "Mars and the Earth," vol. viii, p. 270. Lucifer: vol. xiii, pp. 55-58, giving short criticisms by W. Kingsland, "C.J." and "G.R.S.M." of Mr. Sinnett's article; vol. xiii, p. 206, "Mars and the Earth," by Annie Besant. Students should also refer to "A Word on the Secret Doctrine," giving quotations from a letter of Master K.H.'s to Col. Olcott, which appeared in the PATH, vol. viii, p. 202, with a preliminary note signed jointly by Annie Besant and William Q. Judge.

The recent remarkable discovery by Professor W. C. Röntgen of the fact that a photograph can be obtained of an object surrounded by an opaque covering is of immense value to Theosophy and Theosophists. If a living human hand, for instance, be interposed between a Crooke's or Lenard's tube (through which is passed a discharge from a large induction coil) and a photographic plate, a shadow photograph can be obtained which shows all the outlines and joints of the bones most distinctly. It is even stated as a result of later developments of this discovery that a dense body can in the same way be made transparent to the human eye.

These researches show that opaque matter so-called is not impenetrable to light-rays. It is an old Theosophical statement that matter is permeable, and to human sight, and is no

obstacle to the astral senses. In these discoveries by Prof. Röntgen and others it is even shown as permeable to gross physical light. H.P.B.'s statement should not be forgotten that before many years important discoveries would be made by science tending to vindicate the teachings of occultism.

And once more science has the "spiritualist" on the hip; for the latter never heard from his spooks about these "cathode rays" that make a hard iron box transparent. Why is it that the spirits in Summerland never give out these things, but prophesy all sorts of matters and events that don't fall true?

Mr. Edward Maitland has recently issued a memoir of Dr. Anna Kingsford, in which there is an interesting account of her continuous attack on vivisection and vivisectionists. So bitter was her feeling against all those who practised this form of "scientific research," as it is called, that she claimed to have turned the force of her will against two of them with a view to, their destruction―with success, she afterwards said. Certain it is that the two vivisectionists died. Elated by her achievement, she wrote to Mme. Blavatsky proposing a joint psychic onslaught on these miserable sinners wherever they could be found, in the hope of killing them off en masse. To this proposal H.P.B. is recorded as having replied in the following clear and noteworthy words:

I feel sure and know that Master approves your opposing the principle of vivisection, but not the practical way you do it, injuring yourself and doing injury to others, without much benefitting the poor animals. Of course it is Karma in the case of Paul Bert. But so it is in the case of every murdered man. Nevertheless the weapon of Karma, unless he acts unconsciously, is a murderer in the sight of that same Karma that used him. Let us work against the principle, then; not against personalities. For it is a weed that requires more than seven, or seven times seven, of us to extirpate it.

H. P. B.'s words are of great importance. Mania to act as Chief Executioner of all disapproved and disapprovable things was not confined to Anna Kingsford. Members of the

Theosophical Society have been known to burn with a passionate longing to act as agents far Karma, forgetting that the sword of the Executioner is a two-edged sword, forgetting also that they do not know Karma, and are held responsible by Karma for the mischief they will inevitably work. The absurdity of such an attitude of mind does not deprive it of a certain pathetic aspect. See these people, impure themselves, thinking they can either forcibly purify the world or can legitimately punish others for their impurity! The pathetic aspect comes in when they are so deluded as to call the proceeding "self-sacrifice." It would be real self-sacrifice for such people to sit still and attend to their immediate duty.

The Indian Section of the Theosophical Society proposes to take away the first object of the Theosophical Society, to-wit, the attempt to form a nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood, and insert in its place same high-sounding phrases, derived from the Brahmans who now control that Section, about spirituality and identity. These phrases will allow Universal Brotherhood to sink slowly out of sight. A Committee of Revision, appointed by the "European Section T.S." in July, 1895, has reported in favor of these words: "To promote the recognition of the spiritual Brotherhood of Humanity." A majority voted in favor of this alteration, but there are minority reports. But as the reigning magnates and high-cock-alarums of 19 Avenue Road favor the change, it will probably be made by the Convention of the "European Section T.S.," to be held next July. The Theosophical Society in America, with the similar Societies in Europe and Australasia, will thus be left as the only part of the movement upholding Universal Brotherhood.

This magazine enters upon the eleventh year of its existence with the present number. Its new name will in no way alter its purpose or character, but, as stated in the last "Screen

of Time," THEOSOPHY will more explicitly proclaim these to the general public than the old title―The Path. Already the good results of the change have become evident, for soon after the announcement of the alteration had been made new subscribers came forward and will doubtless continue to do so. But the efforts to increase the circulation of this magazine are made with the sole aim of spreading a true understanding of the Theosophical philosophy among the people, and only in so far as THEOSOPHY can be of use in that giant undertaking will it fulfil its mission. It is to be hoped that readers will keep he same aim in view, and will make the watchword for the present year that given elsewhere in these pages by Dr. Buck―Organize and Work; for work, unfaltering work, is the first expression of brotherhood, and organized work is the second as well as the last expression of the same ideal. Masters, knowing how to work with nature, are the most perfectly organized body in the world; for nature as a whole and in all her departments is the faultless type of organization, and, as one of the Masters wrote, they "but follow and servilely copy nature in her works." Let this year, then, be one of Work and Organization.

There are several hindrances to the doing of good work by individuals, with resulting loss to the movement. These are all surmountable, for hindrances that are insurmountable are nature's own limitations that can be used as means instead of being left as barriers. One of these surmountable and unnecessary hindrances is the prevalent habit of reading trashy and sensational literature, both in newspaper and other form. This stupifies and degrades the mind, wastes time and energy, and makes the brain a storehouse of mere brute force rather than what it should be―a generator of cosmic power. Many people seem to "read from the pricking of some cerebral itch," with a motive similar to that which ends in the ruin of a dipsomaniac: a desire to deaden the personal consciousness. Sensation temporarily succeeds in drowning the voice of conscience and the pressure that comes from the soul that so

many men and women unintelligently feel. So they seek acute sensation in a thousand different ways, while others strive to attain the same end by killing both sensation and consciousness with the help of drugs or alcohol. Reading of a certain sort is simply the alcohol habit removed to another plane, and just as some unfortunates live to drink instead of drinking that they may live, so other unfortunates live to read instead of reading that they may learn how to live. Gautama Buddha went so far as to forbid his disciples to read novels―or what stood for novels in those days―holding that to do so was most injurious. People are responsible for the use they make of their brains, for the brain can be used for the noblest purposes and can evolve the most refined quality of energy, and to occupy it continually with matters not only trivial but often antagonistic to Theosophical principles is to be untrue to a grave trust. This does not mean that the news of the day should be ignored, for those who live in the world should keep themselves acquainted with the world's doings: but a fair test is that nothing not worth remembering is worth reading. To read for the sake of reading, and so filling the sphere of the mind with a mass of half-dead images, is a hindrance to service and a barrier to individual development.

When two or three or more Theosophists meet together socially, what should they talk about in the absence of uninterested strangers? It may be said that they should talk like any other people, but this ought not to be the case. The usual worldly custom is to bring up for conversation unimportant matters, often in regard to persons, not infrequently to their detriment, or in regard to transient events, and to discuss these without relating them to permanent and basic principles. Many people talk for the sake of talking, as others read for the sake of reading, regardless of results. But those who know that a "single word may ruin a whole city or put the spirit of a lion into a dead fox" will be more careful of their words. Apart from that aspect of the question, it should be evident

that for people who profess to be interested in Theosophy to meet together without discussing it is to fritter away their time and opportunity. To babble out words does not help on the evolution of humanity or inspire any other idea but the natural one that such conversation borders on the idiotic. Nor is there any reason why conversation should not be at once interesting and instructive. It can easily be led into such channels by anyone present. No one has a right to excuse himself on the ground that "the others" would talk gossip, or about clothes or games or similar things; for a few words and, more important still, a proper attitude of mind will at once lead the conversation into the proper channel. And here again any extreme should be avoided. There is a right time and a wrong time for the discussion of games, clothes, food, and so forth, and there is a decided limit to the usefulness of such discussion. Other topics should be dealt with when fellow students are so fortunate as to meet together. They at least should never part without conversing on some ennobling and uplifting subject that will help them in their work and study. To make that a rule would not only insure much positive good; it would insure against much positive harm.

The French press has recently been thoroughly aroused by the tragic fate of young Max Lebaudy, the multi-millionaire. Inheriting a huge fortune from his father while quite young, he soon became notorious on account of his eccentric extravagance and folly. On reaching the age of twenty he was obliged to serve his time in the army like any other of his countrymen, rich or poor. As he had already succeeded in gaining an unenviable notoriety he was constantly watched by newspaper reporters, especially by those of the radical and socialist press, for fear he would not be treated like the son of some poorer man. But he was not strong, and though his health soon gave way his superior officers did not dare allow him relaxations that would have been granted to other conscripts, for fear of the outcry that would have been raised by the radicals. So Lebaudy had soon to be sent to a hospital, well-

nigh dead. The press, disbelieving in his illness, at once proclaimed this an outrage, hinting that he had bought up the officers and doctors and was shirking active service by means of his wealth. Afraid of newspaper disapprobation the doctors sent him from hospital to hospital, trying to pass on the responsibility to others, till at last Lebaudy died. Then came the usual reaction in the public mind and he was soon glorified as a martyr by the opposing section of the press. As pointed out by Francisque Sarcey in the March Cosmopolitan, the whole story well illustrates the abject fear of public opinion in which so many people stand. They will abandon any duty and almost commit a crime to avoid condemnation or harsh criticism by a majority of their fellow men. They act and talk with one predominating idea in their minds―what other people will say. As a failing this is more marked in some parts of the world than in others, it being particularly active in the more conservative countries where class distinctions are a matter of much greater moment than they are in America. But even in America this failing is not unknown, though there is less excuse for it here. Such pandering to the opinions of other people is despicable, and should be eradicated from the mind where questions of right and wrong are concerned. It is one thing to conform to custom in matters of form, so long as the form is not harmful, and this should be done as an acceptance of the environment in which one is born. Freedom does not consist in violating either national or social laws, written or unwritten; but in boldly living up to one's standard of what is right, in the strict performance of duty in spite of any condemnation from others, and in unswerving obedience to principle rather than to precept. Such freedom absolves men from mental allegiance to the daily press. The question "What will they say?" then ceases to be of any importance, since in no case should it be a factor in the determination of what should be done.

Max Lebaudy's case further offers a good example of Karmic action in one of its aspects. His great wealth was derived

in the first place from the French people. Its possession placed him in a prominent public position, so that he no longer belonged to himself; he belonged to France. He was played upon, as it were, by the Karma of France. His follies, his deeds, and especially his misdeeds, appeared on a proportionately large scale. His prominence, due solely to his wealth, caused his destruction; and though people envied him for this wealth they would not have accepted it if they could have foreseen to what it would lead. In the same way a person of international reputation shares to a certain extent in the Karma of the nations that look upon him as a celebrity and whose thoughts are turned towards him. He has to suffer for it while the poor man and the man of apparent insignificance are affected in correspondingly less degree by national and international Karma.

Another lesson that can be drawn from Lebaudy's history is the one-sidedness of the brotherhood proposed by people of all nationalities who make a great parade of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity," but whose brotherhood is one of hate rather than of love. With them it is too often a question of forcibly depriving the rich man of his possessions for the supposed benefit of the poor man, and of inspiring the poor man with hatred for everyone who is better off than himself. A great many political movements whose party cry is brotherhood actually produce the reverse effect, and, instead of working for a universal brotherhood, they work for a carefully selected brotherhood exclusive of most.

It is fortunate for the Christian Church that every now and then a popular preacher comes forward to vindicate truth at the expense of orthodoxy. It would be difficult to find a successor in this respect to Henry Ward Beecher, whose oratory was famous throughout the English-speaking world, and whose fearlessness of thought made him at once a terror to all straight laced believers in verbal inspiration and a religious saviour to those who wished to cling to a church, but who had been

embued with the then novel theory of evolution. A not unworthy successor seems, however, to have appeared in the person of Dr. Lyman Abbott, the pastor of the large and influential church in Brooklyn to which Beecher used to draw such an immense congregation. He preached a sermon a short time ago on "The Theology of Evolution" that was widely reported in the press. In it he ridiculed the idea of a manufactured universe, strongly supported evolution, and attempted to prove that a man might still "hold the Christian faith" while believing in the gradual development of humanity and the rest of nature. Telling his congregation that it was not uncommon in past centuries to discuss at what season of the year God created the world, he is reported as having quoted one mediæval writer who argued that it must have occurred in the autumn because apples were ripe then―at which there was naturally "a laugh all over the house," as the reports state. If this liberal preacher continues to think as well as to talk, he may yet discover that reincarnation is the outcome of a belief in evolution, and that this doctrine is as much a part of Christianity, in the true sense of that word, as it is of Buddhism and Hinduism.

THEOSOPHY

"It rejoices us all here more than I can tell you, to know that you have made such a start in America with Theosophy. We have had so many things to pull us back, that it has been quite as much as we could manage to keep our heads above water, and this not so much from the action of our enemies as from the apathy of our friends. It is strange to me to see how little faith there is in the power of truth, even among those who aught to realize this most strongly. Why should we fear and fold our hands when men speak evil of us or of the cause; why should we imagine that any attack on individual members can effect the position we take as a group or that theosophy can be endangered thereby? How few understand what theosophy is; they look upon it as solely an intellectual movement that can be damned by the folly of its adherents; they little dream of the strength that underlies the apparently inconsistent workings of this manifestation of truth which we call the Theosophical Society. And there is one thing which I believe establishes more than any other, the fact that the Society as a whole has true vitality within it, and that is the visible action of Karma in its developments.

"See how the mistaken value given to phenomena in the early history of the Society, brought immediately its Karmic development in the troubles then, and whenever any undue importance has been given either to individualities or any particular line of practice, it is always on that particular point that the next attack comes. So that while fully realizing that as an organization, the T. S. is defective in some things, I yet believe that there is a power within it that will purge it from its defects and carry it on in spite of the attacks of its enemies and what is worse still, the follies of its friends. What I do feel more and more is the necessity that we should remember and

constantly keep before us what it is we are working for and not think we accomplish our end when we number our converts in the world of fashion, and gather around us men and women who vainly hope for psychic powers and the arts of fortune telling and reading the future. I do not fear black magic in our midst, but I do feel very strongly that there are many who will sink to the level of mere wonder-seekers and that they will become the prey of elemental influences.

"What can be done to make men realize, as you say, a sense of universal brotherhood and the true meaning of Theosophy. Well, let us join you in America and the few here who do realize that psychism is not spirituality, and let us try to stir the hearts of men with the living truths of Theosophy.

"I am most anxious, and have been for a long time, that we should address ourselves to another stratum of society than that (the intellectual and the fashionable) which we have sought. It is not that I would depreciate intellect; if I err in that matter it is in putting too much stress on intellectual development. But I am beginning to realize that the lower intellect can only deal with physical facts and that it can never develop ideas; these can only be apprehended by the higher intellectual faculties, and the ethical and emotional nature of man has also its higher and lower aspects.

"I wish very much that we had a literature calculated to appeal to the general masses, and I think that we should resolutely turn our attention to this object. I think the little book that Dr. Buck has just published very useful and I should be glad to see many more such little works treating of the various points of doctrine such as Reincarnation, Karma, &c. It is also encouraging to see such efforts as that contained in the small book lately out―What is Theosophy? Doubtless, in connection with that, for it seems to have been written for the author's children, you will call to mind what was written by one of the adepts, not so long ago: 'there is a great likelihood that the sons of theosophists will become theosophists,' and will quite agree with me in the idea that we need a literature, not

solely for highly intellectual persons, but of a more simple character, which attempts to appeal to ordinary common sense minds, who are really fainting for such mental and moral assistance, which is not reached by the more pretentious works. Indeed, we all need this. It is fortunate that we have been able to live through the tide of mere psychism and bare intellectuality which threatened nearly to swamp us. And you know to whom we owe our escape, and now, that there are ten or twelve members left who are prepared to work on independently of perturbation, I think it a clear gain. What does it matter to us whether H. P. Blavatsky has or has not fulfilled all of her duties, or whether investigation has cast doubt into the minds of some. In so far as she has done her duty, her work will remain, and if perchance she has come to the end of her capabilities―which I do not admit―it is for us to carry on what she has thus far done.

"In America I hope you will not fall into running after wonders and psychic gifts to the detriment of true philosophical and moral progress.

NOTE―The whole of this letter should be carefully studied, and in particular the point that Karma brings its attacks just on the point or persons where or by whom stress has been laid on phenomena. It may be accepted as almost axiomatic by our members, that if any group or single person has paid too undue attention to phenomena, to astralism, psychism, or whatever it is called, there will develop the next trouble or attack upon the Society. It has been authoritatively stated by one of the great Beings who are behind this movement, that it must prosper by moral worth and philosophy, and not by phenomena. Let us well beware then. Phenomena, powers―or siddhis as the Hindu say―are only incidental. Our real object is to spread Universal Brotherhood, in which task we necessarily explain phenomena, but the Society is not a Hall for Occultism, and that has also been asserted by an adept in India in reply to letters written him by certain well-known Englishmen who desired to establish a Branch then which should control all literature and phenomena. There are no secrets to be given out to any select persons, for no one receives a secret inaccessible to the rest, until he has acquired the right to it, and the proper sense to know when and to whom it is to be given out.―Ed.

ASTROLOGICAL

Over the ambitious signature of "Magus" a correspondent asks in your July issue, "What is planetary influence and how does it act on man?" "Nemo" in his reply answers other questions but fails to answer this one.

Not being myself a Magus I will not assume to fully describe planetary influence, since to do so would lead us into realms quite beyond our comprehension. But we will get a better idea of the subject by recollecting that the ancients always considered the "ambient"―or entire heaven―at birth, as being that which affected man, and that planets were only the pointers or indices showing when and where the influence of the "ambient" would be felt. The modern astrologers, following those great leaders, but unable to grasp the enormous subject, reduced the scheme to the influences of planets.

They have thus come to leave out, to a great extent, influences cast by powerful stars, which often produce effects not to be sought for under planets: "When such stars have rule nor wise nor fool can stay their influence." The planets were held, rightly as I think, to be only foci for "the influence of the whole ambient," having however a power of their own of a secondary nature exercisable when the ambient influence was weak.

When London was burnt a mighty star―not a planet―had rule, and Napoleon was prefigured by a star also, his fall being due in fact to the aspect of the heavens as a whole, and not to the ruling of Wellington's significator. A slight accident might have thrown the power of the latter out of the horary field. Similarly, the cyclic vicissitudes of this globe will not be shown by any planetary scheme, but by certain stars that fix the destiny of poor Earth. When they have their day and term the wise man will be unable to rule his own stars or any others.

A WORD ON PRONOUNS

It is claimed that civilization cannot alter the nature of the savage. If there be any withdrawal of the restraining influences of civilization, his tendency is inevitably "back to the blanket," and to snake-worship, or whatever form of worship his ancestors may have been given to. This desire to fall down and worship something, or somebody, appears to be one of the proclivities of the human mind not to be eradicated,―not in this age, at least. It was born in the blood, and does not seem to have been civilized out of it, whether the blood be black or white. Carlyle calls it "hero-worship."

These reflections were started by seeing the personal pronouns of the Himalayan Brothers printed with "caps," as the printers say. As, in their case, the name "Brothers" has become a proper name, it may legitimately be capitalized to distinguish it from the name of any, or all other brothers; but why capitalize their pronouns? Those referring to Christ are usually printed with caps, but it would seem much better to omit them. Can a capital letter add to his glory, or the absence of it detract therefrom? Neither does it add to that of the Himalayan Brothers. The only thing is does do is, in some sort of fashion, to gratify the craving of the human heart to worship in some way, even if it be only the weak sort of adoration expressed through an enlarged letter. These Brothers themselves, if they are what they are represented, would, I fancy, look upon these capitalized pronouns (if their attention were called to them at all) with a smile of pity for this desire to worship and adore. They, of all others, would not wish this empty honor. The higher one rises in the scale of life, the farther the desire for worship and empty honors re-

cedes from him or her. Let us honor all true worth and nobility of character, but never "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee" to any. The Brothers on the Asiatic mountains are simply human like the rest of us, for have we not all within us the promise and the potency of that higher life which awaits but our self-sacrificing efforts to develop it?

While we all have the germs of adepthood within us, but few have the character to lead a life that shall bring it out. And so we may justly honor those who do succeed, but the silly worship of the past let us strive to outgrow.

NOTE-We have printed the above because the subject has been referred to before by us, and we think the ideas expressed are of some importance―to students, but not to the "Brothers" spoken of by the writer. We distinctly disagree with Miss Burr when she describes the capitalizing in PATH or elsewhere of the pronouns used for the "Brothers" as "hero worship," and also with her suggestion that the use of such capitals shall be dispensed with. Her article has not been thus disfigured, since she herself omitted the caps. Nor can we agree that the Adepts referred to are, as she says, "simply human like the rest of us," for that statement is too Americanly independent for us to adopt it, and also somewhat wide of the mark.

True independence we believe in, but not in that sort which, merely from the influence of ideas of political freedom based on theoretical equality, causes a man to place himself on such an equal footing with others that he will not accord to beings infinitely beyond him in degree the highest marks of respect.

Sages do not concern themselves with small questions of etiquette or address, but that should not prevent us when we write to each other of those sages from capitalizing the pronouns used. Every one is at liberty to do this if he pleases, or to refrain; and we have no blame to attach. But the Adepts, while human, are not "simply like the rest of us." The highest divine being is truly a human ego in perfection, but the difference between the state of such an ego and these lower unperfected human gods is beyond our power to measure. And the difference is so great that the writer's second last sentence should be altered to read that, "while a few amongst tens of thousands have the power to strive for Adeptship, hardly one in all those thousands is able to comprehend the Mahatma as He is." -ED.

AUTHORITY

In the July PATH is an article entitled―"Shall We Know Our Friends in Heaven?" I would like to ask if the Swedish Seer Swedenborg, has not answered that question to the satisfaction of theosophists. If he is accepted as an authority I should think his answer complete and satisfactory.

Inasmuch as theosophists are of all shades of belief, and as Swedenborg was of one sort in regard to the matter referred to, his answer cannot be satisfactory to all theosophists, nor can it be authoritative. The Society, as such, has no authorities. It was founded with the object of breaking down that reliance upon "authority" which has been the bane of man for ages, and it would be strange now if we could admit authority for theosophists. It is true that sometimes the impression has been conveyed by individuals, that the final arbiters in matters of belief are the Mahatmas, but at no time has any Mahatma given out such an idea. We are engaged in trying to develop a truer appreciation of the Light of Life which is hidden in every man, and so the "final authority" is the man himself.

It makes very little difference whether Swedenborg or Mr. Chas. Johnston is right as to the question of meeting our friends in heaven; their beliefs will not alter the fact whatever it may turn out to be; but even if it is not a matter of the highest importance, we cannot even in that permit any "theosophical authority."

Each of us is the master of his own destiny; each one can read Swedenborg or Luther as to these matters; but from all such thinkers it can be gathered that the ancient Bhagavad-Gita is true where it says, that "whatever nature a man thinks on when he abandons the body at last, to that only does he go, having been always conformed to that nature," and such is the doctrine of Swedenborg.

ABOUT KILLING ANIMALS

Will you kindly explain why, if you think it wrong to kill a water bug, that you should consider it right to slay larger animals for food?

I do not remember having said it was wrong to kill a water bug: hence there is no conclusion to be made from that to the question of feeding on animals, so far as I am concerned.

The questions of right and wrong are somewhat mixed on this subject. If one says it is morally wrong to kill a water bug, then it follows that it is wrong to live at all, inasmuch as in the air we breathe and the water imbibed there are many millions of animals in structure more complicated than bugs. Though these are called infusoria and animalculae, yet they are living, moving beings as much as are bugs. We draw them in and at once they are destroyed, slain to the last one. Shall we therefore stop living? The whole of life is a battle, a destruction and a compromise as long as we are on this material plane. As human beings we have to keep on living, while in our destructive path millions of beings are hourly put to death. Even by living and earning a living each one of us is preventing some one else from doing the same, who, if we were dead, might step into our shoes. But if we abandoned the fight―were we, indeed, able to so do―then the ends of evolution could not be attained. Hence we have to stay and endure what Karma falls from the necessary deaths we occasion.

So the true position seems to me to be this, that in certain environments, at certain stages of evolution, we have to do

an amount of injury to others that we cannot avoid. So while we thus live we must eat, some of flesh and others of the vegetable. Neither class is wholly right or wrong. It becomes a wrong when we deliberately without actual need destroy the lives of animals or insects. So the man who was born in a family and generation of meat-eaters and eats the meat of slaughtered animals does less wrong than the woman who, though a vegetarian, wears the feathers of slaughtered birds in her hats, since it was not necessary to her life that such decoration should be indulged in. So the epicure who tickles his palate with many dishes of meats not necessary for sustentation is in the same case as the woman who wears bird's feathers. Again as to shoes, saddles, bridles, pocketbooks, and what not, of leather. These are all procured from the skins of slain animals. Shall they be abolished? Are the users of them in the wrong? Any one can answer. Or did we live near the north pole we would be compelled to live on bears' and wolves' meat and fat. Man, like all material beings, lives at the expense of some others. Even our death is brought about by the defeat of one party of microbes who are devoured by the others, who then themselves turn round and devour each other.

But the real man is a spirit-mind, not destructible nor destroying; and the kingdom of heaven is not of meat nor of drink: it cometh not from eating nor refraining―it cometh of itself. ―ED

THE FORMATION OF CRYSTALS

In the writings of Froëbel, the German mineralogist and educator, there are some interesting passages on the formation of crystals. He says, "The world of crystals proclaimed to me in distinct and unequivocal terms the laws of human life."

"What the spiritual eye sees inwardly in the world of thought and mind, it sees outwardly in the world of crystals."

"Man in his external manifestation, like the crystal, bearing within himself the living unity, shows at first more one-sidedness, individuality, and incompleteness, and only at a later period rises to all-sidedness, harmony, and completeness."

Having thus perceived intuitionally the inner meaning of development as seen in crystals, he describes in detail the action of force in its tendency "to represent each thing in unity, individuality, and diversity; to generalize the most particular and to represent the most general in the most particular; and lastly, to make the internal external, the external internal, and to represent both in harmony and union." He speaks especially of "the tendency of force to derive the line and the plane from the point, to represent the point as a line and as a plane, the line as a point and as a plane, to contract the line into a point and expand it into a plane," etc. These processes are illustrated in the formation of the different crystal forms. The inner nature of the force is always spherical, and the crystal having passed through various stages tends to return to the spherical form.

"The force at last reaches so high a degree of tension of inner and outer opposition that even the external results show

that the tendency to relieve this antithesis has become the chief tendency of the force."

This is the story of evolution and involution given in a few words, and is even more significant for us with our wider knowledge than it was for Froëbel himself. Yet he says that to him the crystals were "a mirror of the development and history of mankind." Much more are they so for the student of evolution.

He describes the development of the cube form according to the law of necessity. The force proceeds from a centre, and there is always at that centre a set of three bilateral directions perpendicular to one another.

"The result of the predominance of these three bilateral perpendicular directions must be a crystal limited by straight lines and planes, revealing in every part the inner nature and action of the force."

The cube is the only form which fulfills these conditions. For "each of the eight corners shows the perpendicularity of the three bilateral directions at the centre, and thus indicates externally the centre of the cube. Similarly, the three sets of four parallel edges show each of the inner directions fourfold. The six faces mark in their centres the six terminal points of the three bilateral directions, and thus determine the invisible centre of the cube."

He then explains the development of other regular forms from the cube―the tetrahedron and octahedron, by the tendency of the corners to become planes, the faces to become points, etc., and thus traces the inner meaning of the development of form. Following his line of thought carefully, one is not surprised that he saw so clearly the analogy between human development and the development of crystals, and that he saw in crystallography "the possibility of direct proof of the inner connection of all things."

EDITOR'S NOTE―The foregoing short article is highly suggestive, and a study of the laws governing formation of crystals would be

very instructive for Theosophists. The whole scheme of evolution on the planet had to be gone through in the mineral kingdom before the materials could be gotten ready for animal and present human bodies. These laws therefore are at the bottom of our mental and physical acts, inclusive of occult phenomena of every sort. Next after this are chemical laws, which must be understood as well as the first before the student can do anything practical in occultism. And when students study these and comprehend their complexity and vast range, it will be seen how foolish it is to wish to be Adepts when we are only children, and how much better it would be for the world if Theosophists hungered to seek and to save the world from its sorrow, rather than to be ever wishing to see wonders in nature and to do what only scientific training for lives can enable us to do. Disciples are many, but earnest, devoted, self-sacrificing disciples are few.

THE SECRET DOCTRINE AND PHYSIOLOGY

I find on p. 92 of Vol. II, Secret Doctrine, the heart of man described as consisting of four lower cavities and three higher divisions. I cannot reconcile this statement with human anatomy. If the two auricles and two ventricles are to be regarded as the four lower cavities, which are the three higher divisions? If the aorta and pulmonary artery are to be regarded as two of them, then the two vena cavae and the pulmonary veins must also be counted. Again on the same page it is asserted that there are seven nervous plexuses, which (each of them, I suppose, is meant) radiate seven rays There are sixty nervous plexuses enumerated in works on anatomy. Of all of these, one only (the epigastric) has seven subdivisions (included in the above sixty). On the same page it is asserted there are seven layers of skin; physiology counts only four. If there are seven, which are they and where to be found? These difficulties present a serious obstacle to the acceptance of the statements of The Secret Doctrine on matters less capable of verification.

In that part of the Secret Doctrine which is referred to by Dr. Leverson, it cannot be strictly said that the author "describes" the heart as consisting, etc., but she does speak as if taking it for granted that such is the division. I therefore understand her to refer to the true division or analysis of the heart, and not to the one presently accepted among physicians. The medical fraternity have not always been right, and their conclusions have from time to time been revised. It was thought that the discovery of the circulation of the blood was unique in the West, but in fact it has been known in the East for many centuries. Even the nervous system has been known and is spoken of in ancient Hindu books. In one place it is said, "a thousand and one roads lead from the heart in every direction," and goes on to state that in those ramifications the

inner person resides or functions during sleep. This may very well refer to the use of the nervous system, especially in sleep.

In respect to the divisions of the skin, Occultism says that there are actually seven divisions, and medical scientists can only state that they do not know of those seven, but have no right to say that there are not seven. If one reads the Secret Doctrine and takes its statements in respect to science as intending to refer to science as it now is, and then finds a difficulty because the author does not agree with science, there never of course could be any reliance placed upon it; but that book does not agree with science and does not pretend to, except in so far as science is absolutely correct. It is well to suspend judgment in regard to matters where there is a disagreement between the Secret Doctrine and Science, inasmuch as medical and other schools have not yet uttered the last words in their respective departments, and much has to be found out and many revisions of theories made before science will have come to its final determinations. But I have no doubt that these final conclusions will be in concordance with the Secret Doctrine.

The "seven nervous plexuses" spoken of are the seven main divisions, of greater importance in the human frame, known to Occultism, and the masters of that science do not deny that Western science has enumerated sixty on its own account, but these sixty are all included in the seven great plexuses. These latter are well known to students of Occultism who have proceeded by the road which leads to a knowledge of them. And it is known to those students that these seven control all the rest in the human organism, whatever they may be. The only divergence, then, on this point, is that science places every nervous plexus that it knows by itself, and is not aware of the fact that they are classified in natural law into seven great divisions. This can be verified, but not by consulting books on anatomy nor by ordinary modern dissections.

WOULD UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE AID UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD?

One language for all men would greatly help their progress to brotherhood; but diversity of language is an obstacle in the path. The T.S. ought therefore to have a common medium of intercommunication, able to stand of its own strength side by side with mother speech, supplementing but not supplanting it. It ought, moreover, to be of speedy acquirement; for life is short and we have many other things to learn.

Such a medium exists in the invention of John Martin Schleyer. It is as universal and as well established as is mathematical, chemical, or musical notation.

Why not adopt English or some other natural language? Consider the difficulties. Natural language, evolved out of fusion and confusion, still retains a mass of irregularities and idioms which, though they charm the philologist, distress the student and exhaust his time and energy. The majority of beginners drop a foreign language on encountering the irregular verb. The gem of English scintillates many a ray, but not for foreigners; they find our language as difficult as we find theirs. Translation is often neglected, and at best is slow and imperfect. Unfathomed literatures bear many a gem unseen. Would you hide from the major portion of humanity the jewels that sparkle on the brow of Truth? You have only to refract them through a natural idiom.

Why not, then, adopt this invented language? There is no reason why not. Consider the advantages: a common speech in international conventions, correspondents in all parts of the world, increased literature for students, increased clientage for authors, wider dissemination of doctrine. In less than a

year after its adoption, the Theosophical world would be solidified. Babel would cease. Workers would reorganize and complete the path to the sky.

Is it not a kind of outlandish jargon? By no means. It is not English, you know; but its every sound is found in our language except that of dotted u, which is quickly acquired by the practice of saying "ye" with the mouth adjusted for saying "you."

Is it difficult? On the contrary, it is ridiculously easy. It has no artificial genders, no irregularities of any kind. There is but one declension and but one conjugation.

Is it serviceable? Very. It can express any thought; for it is extremely flexible. Nouns, for instance, have tense forms when capable of tense meanings.

How long will it take to learn it? That depends. The question resembles: How long will a shoe wear? Premising the intellectual activity of a Theosophist, it will require no more than five seconds to learn declension, five minutes to learn conjugation, five hours to learn the whole grammar; and after five days' practice one can speak and correspond.

NOTE―With the merits of Volapuk we have but little to do, and not knowing it cannot criticise its structure or use for present business purposes. The article above is interesting as raising the question whether a language universal which was manufactured would aid universal brotherhood; and another one, would any language aid it? As it is seemingly clear that violations of universal brotherhood grow out of the character and not the language of the violators, it would seem to follow that no new language would prevent the violation. We see that peoples who have one language are at war with each other and kill one another. The American revolution arose among and against those who all had English as their one language and at that time very well understood by the revolutionists. Now if they had Volapuk it would not have been different. The war and strife and blood grew out of regulations having their foundation in character, for the ideas of the English caused those governmental regulations that set the fathers on fire; yet both sides used English as their universal tongue. Evident-

ly it was character, idea, rule, regulation, and the like that made the occasion for conduct opposed to brotherhood, on whichever side you put the onus of the violation. Races like the Chinese have a common mode of writing which people of vastly different tongues can read universally, but they are and have been plunged in war; would any other common language have made the slightest difference? I think not. While it is true that a universal language would be a good thing, still it is also true that the average level of intelligence is low and that the highly-cultivated person is far above the average. The universal tongue would have to be limited to the low level of the mediocre average so as to be understood by all, or else the cultured ones would have to deal in another set of terms to express their higher ideas; this would be tantamount to a newer language than the first, and so on ad infinitum. When, however, the race is entirely raised up to a right level of morals, conduct, character, aspiration, and ideal, then we will be ready with profit to have the universal tongue. The confusion of tongues grew out of change of nature due to evolutionary differences in races, and each made its own language, based fundamentally on national character. Meanwhile it would seem that Volapuk will be confined to a limited circle of the human family.

The universal method of writing used in the occult lodges forms no ground for the argument in the article by Mr. Kademal, because the use of that language is preceded by a change of conduct, ideal, and character. This universal method actually exists today and in several forms, while it is probably true also that a still older system was used in the very ancient records to some of which H.P.B. had access; but still and again the characters of those who used that form were noble, high, world-dominating, and not such as the average of this century.

A CHAT WITH CORRESPONDENTS

One illustration of the expansion of Theosophical interest through this country is found in the growth of business during the last two years in the joint office of the PATH, and the General Secretary of the American Section. In the PATH department, this appears in the new subscriptions from various quarters; in the remittances for books and documents kept on hand or ordered from publishers as needed; and in the subscriptions transmitted to Lucifer, the Theosophist, and the T.P.S. In the General Secretary's department, it appears in the growing list of members, with the consequent addition to the work of recording such, issuing Diplomas and Charters, and forwarding the Applications and the dues to India; in the increasing official correspondence with Branches and members; in the many requests from outsiders for information and for guidance in reading; in the larger number of cases requiring the issue of circulars or documents to each F.T.S.―involving no small labor in the addressing of wrappers or envelopes; in the occasional supply of items or corrections to the press. And a very large additional work has accrued to the office from (a) the preparation and issue of The Theosophical Forum each month, (b) the establishment of the Theosophical Circulating Library, (c) the printing and distribution―thanks to private assistance―of thousands of leaflets or tracts expounding the principles of Theosophy in a popular way. And to all this must be added the great labor accruing to the General Secretary, and unshareable by others, from his new function as Secretary of the . . . Section.

Besides occasional aid from kind friends, the Editor and General Secretary has had the constant presence of one or another volunteer. This proving inadequate to the growing work, he was obliged to secure the permanent services of an office-boy, and, later on, of a stenographer. It was to cover the expense of these that the late Convention authorized an appeal to members. Such, then, is the present staff.

But the work has not ceased its growth. Let us hope and trust that it never will. New openings and opportunities continually present themselves, and must be promptly met. It is not, however, to solicit funds that the present Chat takes place. It is to solicit consideration.

It is evident that in an office with so much and such increasing duty, every time-saving appliance is a necessity. Hence the stenographer and the type-writing machine. Some of our friends dislike this. They wish a sweet note of sympathy direct from the General Secretary's own pen, and the intervention of machinery seems to chill the sympathetic current and dispel the fraternal aroma. But, Brethren, have you any right to expect that office business is to be disordered and important affairs put off in order that you may extort a fancied privilege and nurse a sentimental notion? Is it not more rational and manly (using this word as the antithesis to "childish" rather than to "feminine") to see that the Society's work is of more moment than your fancies, and that truth should have the same value to you whether its words are written or printed? Were the Editor of the PATH and the General Secretary to pen and not dictate answers to the letters received, his present life-work would lie over to his next incarnation.

Another thing. The same exigency of scant time makes imperative the obvious duty of condensed statement. But not a few F.T.S. of both sexes imagine it needful to inform the General Secretary of their varying spiritual moods, of their abounding faith in the Cause, and of their feelings and emotions and anticipations. How can any man read such outpourings; how reply to them? If half a page can state your wants,

have you any right to send a sheet? With the utmost desire to give you every help, is it possible for the General Secretary to do so otherwise than briefly?

Still another thing,―this time from the editorial side of the duplex rôle. Zealous Theosophists not infrequently send us communications for the PATH. These, with the exception of poetry, are always welcomed. But it does not follow that they can be always used. For, to the publication of any literary matter, there are certain conditions. It must be fresh, readable, instructive, valuable for the end sought. That it should be true is not enough. A friend, hearing a parishioner's comments on the sermons of a well-known clergyman, replied, "But they are true." "Yes," said the parishioner, "that is the trouble; they are too true." An article may be so true as to be truism, so obvious as to be common-place. It may want point or life or finish or verve, and hence, to the larger experience of the editor, discerning quickly what is suitable or otherwise for his columns, may not be useful. Be not offended, Brethren, if your offerings, sincere and honest as they undoubtedly are, and prepared with care and love and zeal, fail to appear in type. Therein is no slight to you, for the decision is not personal but judicial, and the judge―in such matters―is wiser than you can be.

In these things, then, and perhaps in others, the Editor and General Secretary asks consideration,―consideration in making letters concise, clear, and explicit, in remembering his many duties and his little time, in recalling the scores of other correspondents with equal claims to attention, in contentment with the brief replies and the mechanical help a busy man finds imperative. In thus exemplifying Practical Theosophy, you will show that you have not joined the Society and read the PATH in vain.

CORRESPONDENCE

DEAR BROTHER: Is there any dictionary or book giving the correct pronunciation of the Oriental words so current in theosophical literature?

In Sanscrit dictionaries the true pronunciation is found. But if our correspondent will, in these words, always read a as ah, e as eh, i as ee, u as oo, and o as oh, she will be right. Arjuna is sounded as Arjoona, Veda as Vaydah, Brahma as Brähmä, Prakriti as Präkreetee, Mulaprakriti as Moolah-pra-kreetee, and so on.―Ed.

Several letters have been written and inquiries propounded to the Editor regarding Sanscrit, and in one or two instances the assertion has been made that we were incorrect in saying that Sanscrit is not really a dead language. In reply to those asking about the language, we refer them to Perry's Sanscrit Primer (Ginn & Co., Boston), Lanman's Sanscrit Reader and Whitney's Sanscrit Grammar.

To the others, we quote from Perry's Primer, § 21, p.7: "The Sanscrit is used in India to this day very much as Latin was used in Europe in the previous century; it is a common medium of communication between the learned, be their native tongues what they may, and it is not the vernacular of any district whatever." And in India, the Editor was told by many Brahmins that it is in constant use in all religious convocations and assemblies convened among people of learning who come from widely separated parts of Hindustan.

DEAR SIR: - Could you explain the following?

A friend of mine, a physician, who is a rational agnostic and scoffer at all so-called supernatural things, relates the following curious mystery, which happened to him the other day.

He was sitting in his office holding in his hand a letter from one of his regular patients, which asked him to come as soon as he could. It being then towards 5 p.m., when his office hours are over, he was thinking whether he could go that day or not as he has an extensive practice. While thinking he found that the letter was gone. He searched for it on his table, but in vain. A strange feeling came over him as he could not even remember when he had received the letter, nor when he had opened it. A feeling that the letter had after all been a physical delusion he dismissed with scorn; he was sure it would by and by easily explain itself. However the servant was sure that no letter had since 2 p.m. been delivered, as she never leaves the door during that time.

The next morning he called on his patient, who was very glad to see him, though being a little astonished that her daughter had been very sick the preceding day for an hour or two. It had soon passed over. "I am glad to hear that it is nothing serious," the doctor said, "I wanted to excuse myself for not coming yesterday, I received your letter only at 5 p.m." "My letter?" the lady answered, "I never wrote to you; it is impossible, for about that time I was with my sick daughter, and thought very intensely to write, but as I had but one servant in the house I concluded to wait till my son came in. By the time he came, my daughter felt better, and so we concluded not to trouble you."

My friend went home, perfectly sure that in spite of all appearance, though no letter could be found after repeated searching―the lady had written but forgotten it. I can vouch for the truth of the story.

Remain yours fraternally,
H. P. L.

The explanation by those who adhere to mediumship would be, that this was what they call, "a spirit letter." But at this time we cannot accept that proposition; it seems rather a degradation of what we call "spirit," and many alleged "controls" of mediums have deprecated the constant referring of everything to spirit agency, when in perhaps the majority of cases, "spirits" have nothing to do in the matter. Many so called extraordinary things occur every day which are attributed to

spirits, or classed as hallucination, which really are due to the powers of the living man, their laws of operation being almost unknown to western people.

The true student of Raj Yoga knows that everything has its origin in the mind; that even this universe is the passing before the Divine Mind of the images he desires to appear.

Now in the case before us, the doctor must be a sensitive man who has the power, unknown to himself, of seeing very clearly the mental images passing in the minds of those with whom he is in sympathy. These impressions are quite common, but they are not usually seen as apparently visible things. Some receive them as images, others as thoughts and ideas. We are all constantly affecting each other in this way every day of our lives, but not everyone receives the impression in the same way. The variations of the operations of manas, which may be properly called "mind," are infinite.

The lady whose daughter was sick, desired very intently to see the doctor, and the message was probably formulated in her mind at once. This is evident, for she awaited the arrival of the son to whom she would at once have given it. That message thus formed was impressed in the astral light, and because of the sympathy existing between patient and doctor it immediately rushed into the sphere of the doctor, registering itself in his mind. He then saw in his hand a letter, which apparently he could feel and read. This was either, (a) the reflection from his mind, or (b) an actual momentary appearance in his hand of the astral message. It was never found again because it had no corporeal existence.

It would be easy to cry "spirits," but it would not be common sense. We might also say elementals did it, but that would infer that either the doctor or the patient has elementals devoted to them. Elementals do perform such things but the cases are not common, and therefore we are not justified in taking that explanation when neither party knows of elementals.

have received the message and repeated it to himself as a sudden thought of that particular patient.

We know several persons of our acquaintance who habitually obey sudden impressions, causing them to write to absent friends, &c., always finding that they answer the other person's thought or written letter when on the way and undelivered until after the reply had been sent.

Let us then pay attention to these things in this light and not allow ourselves, except in known cases, to fly into the arms of alleged spirits or elementals.―ED.

(1) A young lady practicing on the piano a new and difficult piece felt a voice say "Stop! play no more." She paid no attention, but soon her arms felt heavy as lead. Persisting she spoke, "I will learn this," when a mighty crash as upon the outside of the house alarmed her, but no cause for it could be discovered. Returning she began again when the window was violently shaken as if by unseen hands. Her nephew, a musician, had died a short time before this.

Answer―If it be admitted that the noises were not produced quite naturally, then it is probable they were psychical. Such loud noises may be internal or psychic and only heard by the subject. The symptom of heaviness of arms indicates that she is mediumistic to a slight degree, or was at the time. Had she persisted and not given up, quite likely nothing more would have happened,―but she desisted and left thus a mental deposit for a repetition. If she were then mediumistic, it is probable that through elementals and the innumerable means for causing the production of such physical effects the noises resulted. Almost each such case is sui generis, and needs not only careful diagnosis but an equally careful record of the circumstances at the time.

(2) An aunt―a Spiritualist―of a young girl promised to return after death. One day the girl was intently studying arithmetic when a cold shiver ran over her, and looking up she saw form on the mirror a mist that soon took shape as the aunt who had died. Her shoulders were roughly shaken, and as the shape disappeared the aunt's voice was heard singing a favorite hymn.

Answer―Mere "spooks" and elementals aided by tendencies left in the family aura by the spiritualistic aunt. The rude shaking of the shoulders while a favorite hymn was sung was not gentle nor consistent, but strangely like the pranks played by elementals. There must have been on the girl's part some favoring predisposition of a psychic nature, and that, operating during the intent state of her mind while studying the lesson, tended to bring about those conditions which permitted the life-desire of the aunt for reappearance after death to be used by nature's forces, and produced the misty picture on the mirror. We do not believe the aunt knew anything about the matter. Her intentions and desires in life were enough as soon as the conditions favored, and the producing of a picture together with the favorite hymn were only tricks of the astral light. But the shaking of the shoulder was done by an elemental. Could you open your ears and eyes to what goes on in the astral light, you would hear all the hymns ever sung still resounding, and see all the acts ever done being reënacted. Given the photographic plate, the object, the sun, and the chemicals, and you will produce the picture, but never apply the chemicals and there will be no picture; and it is obvious that no intelligence on the part of plate or chemicals is needed to produce the well-known result. It is much the same on the occult side of things.

In the August number of THE PATH is an article entitled "The Worship of the Dead," which incidentally discusses the condition in Kama-loka of those taken off untimely by suicide or accident. Does the law affect in the same way those who die in early life of disease?

Answer―We think that those who "die in early life of disease" may be said to have reached their natural limit of life, and that all their "principles" had been separated so as to prevent the fate of the others spoken of. The life of an individual is the expression of his Karma in action; in the case of suicide or accident―both of which are the sudden cutting off

of a fixed term―the lower principles have not separated, while in death from disease the natural term of life is fixed by Karma at the limit when death occurs from the disease.―ED.

I noticed in PATH an article on the "change which is coming," accompanied with a guess that this change might be the manufacture of gold. Has not Bellamy come nearer guessing the change―brotherhood and cooperation? B.

Answer―The article referred to, "A Dream of Gold," was only the speculation of one as to what would occur if gold could be made. He was not "guessing at the coming change." Edward Bellamy guessed well at a, but not at the, change. The state Bellamy pictures will not be arrived at except through blood and fire, and perhaps after the fall in value of gold shall have driven the thought of values out of the people's mind. The working man is no doubt oppressed, but he is still human, and, given power, will exhibit the faults of those who now have it.―ED.

DEAR PATH: Is it advisable for me to go to India to forward my psychic and spiritual progress? I am told there they know about such matters. Would you advise me to go?

We would advise you to stay at home and find out that "the kingdom of heaven is within you," and not in India nor America. India is the land of mystery truly, and the cradle of the race, but you will get on no more there than here in your spiritual development. The Hindus of today are not those of the past; their ancient philosophy is ours as we find it; but to go there expecting immediate efflorescence of knowledge and power would cause you disappointment. You would probably find your Hindu fellows asking you for aid in the same road. H.P.B. and Mr. Sinnett report one of the Masters as writing some years ago that the Master could not stay among the Hin-

dus of today because of their condition. Could you stand it any better? Stay here and do your duty, looking within for light; there alone―no matter where your body is―can it be found.―ED.

DEAR PATH: The article in February about our seal interested me, but the writer only hints that perhaps the seal used by H.P.B. on her letter paper was the origin of our seal. Is there any proof as to dates? May she not have adopted it from our seal?

Answer―Since the February article was written I have obtained proof positive that H.P.B used the seal, as given in that article, upon her letter paper and envelopes as early as June, 1875. The Society was founded in November, 1875, so that she was using the symbol for four months before we adopted it. If the writer of the article "A Reminiscence" had known of this he might have gone further and positively asserted that her private symbol became our public corporate seal―another proof of the predominance of herself and her Masters in the Theosophical movement. The positive evidence secured during the month consists in old letters and envelopes of June and earlier in 1875, bearing the seal in colors, red, gold, and white. There lies before the writer a letter with its envelope, written by her from Philadelphia on June 10, 1875, each having the symbol precisely as printed in February Path and from the same plate.

Sir: Will you kindly explain a little more fully what you mean by the following passage in the Ocean of Theosophy, p. 36: "So in sleep we are again absorbing and not resisting the Life Energy; when we wake we are throwing it off. But as is exists around us like an ocean in which we swim, our power to throw it off is necessarily limited. Just when we wake we are in equilibrium as to our organs and life; when

we fall asleep we are yet more full of life than in the morning. It has exhausted us; it finally kills the body."

If we are throwing off the life energy during the day, how is it that we are more full of life in the evening than in the morning?

Manchester, England

Student

As said above, our power to throw off the life force accumulated is limited. From this limitation it results that we come to a point when our resistance grows less, just as in the entire life-span a year comes when we begin to go down the hill of life. As it lessens we are drawing near to the hour when the need of sleep will arise. Sleep is that condition of the body needed for procuring the equilibrium between Jiva and the body. Equilibrium is about established when we wake, and then the organs begin to resist the further influx of life and to throw off some of what we have taken in. Life constantly presses us just as the electric fluid tries to fill the object placed in the electric field; we cannot resist this pressure every day beyond a certain number of hours, and we fall asleep because Life has disturbed the equilibrium. Resting in sleep, that equilibrium is again established, to be again overcome the next day, or rather, in the next period of activity. This constant struggle being kept up for years, the bodily organs are not able to stand the wear and tear, and hence the body dies. Thus Life destroys the body.

Construe the words "throwing it off" as meaning resisting it, and you will dispel the slight confusion arising in a book written so quickly as this one.

Sir: (1) On p. 97 of Ocean you refer to the treatment of the Red Indians by the Americans, and seem to take for granted that the Indians did not merit such treatment. (2) Again, you say those Indians will be reborn in conquering peoples. If so, would not this process of retaliation go on constantly? (3) Animals seem to suffer and enjoy. If absolute justice rules, how do you account for their case? E.L.

Answer―(1) I fully agree that if people go on retaliating or hurting each other, evils will never cease and there will be an endless series of hates. But I do not take it for granted that the Indians did not merit in the eye of Karma as a law

what they received. But man is not that law. His duty is compassion. The Americans as a higher race should have treated the Indians kindly instead of robbing and murdering them. Inevitably they will on their next rebirth follow out that practice and influence. But if we know Karma as the law, then we must act in the line of compassion and slowly but surely destroy the hate that exists, replacing it by love. We are not conscious agents of Karma. If we assume that position we assume to judge and execute, and may refuse to take up the good Karma of helping another who has offended. It is just the constant retaliation of men educated under such laws as the Mosaic or any like it, which has created a civilization of retaliation, of selfishness, and egotistical individualism. No. 2 is included in this reply. (3) Animals have Karma, or consequence of act, but they have not man's responsibility. While they seem to suffer and enjoy, it is all without any self-consciousness, and hence is less in itself and less lasting in effect. Their karma is bound up with man; and he is the responsible one and will have to bear the responsibility, although they feel the burden directly. All of the foregoing is, of course, my own opinion.

DEAR PATH: Seeing in April issue the statement that the Letters compiled by Jasper Niemand were written by William Q. Judge, I would ask further: Were the Letters real, that is, not written for publication, and was each one written by the same person?

Answer―The Letters were written by me in the regular course of correspondence with the persons to whom they were sent, and were not then intended for publication, nor did I even dream of subsequent publication. Each letter as found in the book was written by one person, that is to say, myself.

Dear Sir and Brother: I beg to call your attention to a very important and vital mistake which has been made by Brother Keightley in paragraph 5 of his letter to the Indian Section, published in Supplement to July Theosophist, and beg to request that this letter be given the same publicity in the journal as was given to his.

In that paragraph, page xxxvii, he asks the Indian Section to make an emphatic protest against what he called "the proposal of the American Section to remove the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society as such away from the sacred soil of India." This extraordinary request must have been made without consideration of the full report of the last American Convention. At that Convention the Countess Wachtmeister, as delegate for the Indian Section, made a proposition for such removal and went into the matter at some length, but the proposal was voted down so far as the American Section is concerned by a resolution which you will find on page 34 of our report; and that resolution was drawn up by myself. We did not wish to consider the matter at all; my personal view is that no such removal should be made, and that idea I hitherto definitely expressed in writing to the President and Mr. Keightley over a year ago; but it would have been discourteous to have paid no attention to the proposition brought forward by the delegate of the Indian Section, and consequently the resolution, which is the third one on the page cited, was drawn in such terms as to politely dismiss the matter. I am in a position to state that at the time this resolution came up I took the same position privately in respect to the matter, stating that I did not think the General Headquarters of the Society should be removed from India; the question of removing the Indian Section Headquarters was one with which we have nothing to do as a Section. And the American Section wishes the Indian

Section to clearly understand that it has taken no position in respect to the General Headquarters, except as stated in the Report in which it has stated that it is premature to consider any such change.

Resolved, That in our opinion it would be premature at the present time to consider any question relating to the removal of the Indian General Headquarters, deeming it advisable to leave such matters to be adjusted when the time for action shall have arrived.

Dear Sir: (1) I understand lately that for some years you were in the habit of using many pen names―fictitious names in fact―to articles you printed in the PATH. The articles were valuable to many. But may I ask were these items included in the charges brought against you; and if they were not, is there any way of having them inserted and brought forward? Excuse me, however, I forgot to ask first if what I heard was true.

(2) Is it true that by merely rubbing your hand over your forehead four or five times―some say seven―you can write in any language and in any man's hand; and is it true that you are naturally a good writer, but for years have systematically written badly so that people might be deceived about your chirography? HOMOS

Answer―(1) It is too true that I have written many articles under "pen names." Letters that helped Jasper Niemand I wrote, and under "X" and other marks I allowed to be published. Many of my articles thus written have been of use. Would you advise me to collect and destroy all that I can find? These items were not in the charges, yet, though some subsequent edition may have them perhaps. In that case this will be a confession.

(2) I have not yet discovered that rubbing-the-forehead trick. But I am a good writer when I have time. I was a law copyist once for a few months and the writing was praised.

THE PATH

THIS Magazine is not intended either to replace or to rival in America The Theosophist, nor any other journal now published in the interest of Theosophy.

Whether we are right in starting it the future alone will determine. To us it appears that there is a field and a need for it in this country. No cultivating of this field is necessary, for it is already ripe.

The Theosophist is the organ of the Theosophical Society, now spread all over the civilized world, its readers and subscribers are everywhere, and yet there are many persons who will not subscribe for it although they are aware of its existence; and furthermore, being an Indian publication, it necessarily follows, because of certain peculiar circumstances, that it cannot be brought to the attention of a large class of persons whom this journal will endeavor to reach.

But while the founders of THE PATH are Theosophists, they do not speak authoritatively for the Theosophical Society. It is true that had they never heard of Theosophy, or were they not members of the Society, they would not have thought of bringing out this magazine, the impulse for which arose directly from Theosophical teachings and literature.

It is because they are men, and therefore interested in anything concerning the human race, that they have resolved to try on the one hand to point out to their fellows a Path in which they have found hope for man, and on the other to investigate all systems of ethics and philosophy claiming to lead directly to such a path, regardless of the possibility that the highway may, after all, be in another direction from the one

in which they are looking. From their present standpoint it appears to them that the true path lies in the way pointed out by our Aryan forefathers, philosophers, and sages, whose light is still shining brightly, albeit that this is now Kali Yuga, or the age of darkness.

The solution of the problem, "What and Where is the Path to Happiness," has been discovered by those of old time. They thought it was in the pursuit of Raja Yoga, which is the highest science and the highest religion―a union of both. In elaborating this, they wrote much more than we can hope to master in the life time of this journal, and they have had many kinds of followers, many devotees, who, while earnestly desiring to arrive at truth, have erred in favor of the letter of the teachings. Such are some of the mendicants of Hindoostan who insist upon the verbal repetition of OM for thousands of times, or upon the practice of postures and breathing alone, forgetting that over all stands the real man, at once the spectator of and sufferer, by these mistakes. This is not the path.

At the same time we do not intend to slight the results arrived at by others who lived within our own era. They shall receive attention, for it may be that the mind of the race has changed so as to make it necessary now to present truths in a garb which in former times was of no utility. Whatever the outer veil, the truth remains ever the same.

The study of what is now called "practical occultism" has some interest for us, and will receive the attention it may merit, but it is not the object of this journal. We regard it as incidental to the journey along the path. The traveller, in going from one city to another, has, perhaps, to cross several rivers; may be his conveyance fails him and he is obliged to swim, or he must, in order to pass a great mountain, know engineering in order to tunnel through it, or is compelled to exercise the art of locating his exact position by observation of the sun; but all that is only incidental to his main object of reaching his destination. We admit the existence of hidden, powerful forces in nature, and believe that every day greater progress is made toward an understanding of them. Astral body

formation, clairvoyance, looking into the astral light, and controlling elementals, are all possible, but not all profitable. The electrical current, which, when resisted in the carbon, produces intense light, may be brought into existence by any ignoramus who has the key to the engine room and can turn the crank that starts the dynamo, but is unable to prevent his fellow man or himself from being instantly killed, should that current accidentally be diverted through his body. The control of these hidden forces is not easily obtained, nor can phenomena be produced without danger, and in our view the attainment of true wisdom is not by means of phenomena, but through the development which begins within. Besides that, mankind in the mass are not able to reach to phenomena, while every one can understand right thought, right speech, and right action.

True occultism is clearly set forth in the Bhagavad-Gita and Light on the Path, where sufficient stress is laid upon practical occultism, but after all, Krishna says, the kingly science and the kingly mystery is devotion to and study of the light which comes from within. The very first step in true mysticism and true occultism is to try to apprehend the meaning of Universal Brotherhood, without which the very highest progress in the practice of magic turns to ashes in the mouth.

We appeal, therefore, to all who wish to raise themselves and their fellow creatures―man and beast―out of the thoughtless jog trot of selfish everyday life. It is not thought that Utopia can be established in a day; but through the spreading of the idea of Universal Brotherhood, the truth in all things may be discovered. Certainly, if we all say that it is useless, that such highly-strung, sentimental notions cannot obtain currency, nothing will ever be done. A beginning must be made, and it has been by the Theosophical Society. Although philanthropic institutions and schemes are constantly being brought forward by good and noble men and women, vice, selfishness, brutality, and the resulting misery, seem to grow no less. Riches are accumulating in the hands of the few, while the poor are ground harder every day as they in-

crease in number. Prisons, asylums for the outcast and the magdalen, can be filled much faster than it is possible to erect them. All this points unerringly to the existence of a vital error somewhere. It shows that merely healing the outside by hanging a murderer or providing asylums and prisons will never reduce the number of criminals nor the hordes of children born and growing up in hot-beds of vice. What is wanted is true knowledge of the spiritual condition of man, his aim and destiny. This is offered to a reasonable certainty in the Aryan literature, and those who must begin the reform are those who are so fortunate as to be placed in the world where they can see and think out the problems all are endeavoring to solve, even if they know that the great day may not come until after their death. Such a study leads us to accept the utterance of Prajapati to his sons: "Be restrained, be liberal, be merciful"; it is the death of selfishness.

A YEAR ON THE PATH

THE present issue of this Magazine closes the first year of its publication. It was not started because its projectors thought that they alone knew the true Path, but solely out of an intense longing to direct inquiring minds towards a way which had seemed to many persons who had tried it, to hold out the possibility of finding an answer to the burning questions that vex the human heart.

The question is always naturally asked "What is the Path?" or "What is the Philosophy?" which is the same thing, for of course the following of any path whatever will depend upon the particular philosophy or doctrines believed in. The path we had in view is held by us to be the same one which in all ages had been sought by Heathen, Jew and Christian alike. By some called the path to Heaven, by others the path to Jesus, the path to Nirvana, and by the Theosophists the path to Truth. Jesus has defined it as a narrow, difficult and straight path. By the ancient Brahmins it has been called, "the small old path leading far away on which those sages walk who reach salvation"; and Buddha thought it was a noble fourfold path by which alone the miseries of existence can be truly surmounted.

But of course mental diversities inevitably cause diversity in the understanding of any proposition. Thus it happens that Theosophists have many different views of how the path should be followed, but none of them disagree with the statement that there must be one Truth, and that no religion can be called higher that Truth. We therefore have pursued, as far as possible, a course which is the result of the belief that the prevalence of similar doctrines in the writings and traditions of all peoples point to the fact that the true religion is that one which will find the basic ideas common to all philosophies and religions.

We turned most readily and frequently to the simple declarations found in the ancient books of India, esteeming most highly that wonderful epic poem―the Bhagavad-Gita. And in that is found a verse that seems to truly express in powerful words what philosophers have been blindly grasping after in many directions.

"It is even a portion of myself (the Supreme) that in this material world is the universal spirit of all things. It draweth together the five organs and the mind, which is the sixth, in order that it may obtain a body, and that it may leave it again; and that portion of myself (Ishwar) having taken them under his charge, accompanieth them from his own abode as the breeze the fragrance from the flower."¹

To catch the light which gleams through this verse, is not for mortal minds an easy task, and thus it becomes necessary to present as many views from all minds as can be obtained. But it seems plain that in every religion is found the belief that that part of man which is immortal must be a part of the Supreme Being, for there cannot be two immortalities at once, since that would give to each a beginning, and therefore the immortal portion of man must be derived from the true and only immortality.

This immortal spark has manifested itself in many different classes of men, giving rise to all the varied religions, many of which have forever disappeared from view. Not any one of them could have been the whole Truth, but each must have presented one of the facettes of the great gem, and thus through the whole surely run ideas shared by all. These common ideas point to truth. They grow out of man's inner nature and are not the result of revealed books. But some one people or another must have paid more attention to the deep things of life that another. The "Christian" nations have dazzled themselves with the baneful glitter of material progress. They are not the peoples who will furnish the clearest clues to the Path. A few short years and they will have abandoned the systems now held so dear, because their mad rush to the perfection of their

civilization will give them control over now undreamed of forces. Then will come the moment when they must choose which of two kinds of fruit they will take. In the meantime it is well to try and show a relation between their present system and the old, or at least to pick out what grains of truth are in the mass.

In the year just passing we have been cheered by much encouragement from without and within. Theosophy has grown not only in ten years, but during the year past. A new age is not far away. The huge, unwieldy flower of the 19th century civilization, has almost fully bloomed, and preparation must be made for the wonderful new flower which is to rise from the old. We have not pinned our faith on Vedas nor Christian scriptures, nor desired any others to do so. All our devotion to Aryan literature and philosophy arises from a belief that the millions of minds who have trodden weary steps before ours, left a path which might be followed with profit, yet with discrimination. For we implicitly believe that in this curve of the cycle, the final authority is the man himself. In former times the disclosed Vedas, and later, the teachings of the great Buddha, were the right authority, in whose authoritative teachings and enjoined practices were found the necessary steps to raise Man to an upright position. But the grand clock of the Universe points to another hour, and now Man must seize the key in his hands and himself―as a whole―open the gate. Hitherto he has depended upon the great souls whose hands have stayed impending doom. Let us then together enter upon another year, fearing nothing, assured of strength in the Union of Brotherhood. For how can we fear death, or life, or any horror or evil, at any place or time, when we well know that even death itself is part of the dream which we are weaving before our eyes.

Our belief may be summed up in the motto of the Theosophical Society, "There is no religion higher than Truth," and our practice consists in a disregard of any authority in matters of religion and philosophy except such propositions as from their innate quality we feel to be true.

THE SECOND YEAR

The first number of this magazine naturally appealed to the future to show whether there was any need for its existence, any field ripe already unto the harvest. The beginning of the second volume may be claimed to mark the turning point of THE PATH; in its upward spiral from the regions of experiment to the plane of assured and growing success; and while the Editor tenders his hearty thanks to the friends who have loyally served it with pen and purse, he deems it proper to express his conviction that a mighty, if unseen, power has been behind it from the first, and will continue to aid it. In no other way can its phenomenal success be accounted for. Starting without money or regular contributors, treating of matters not widely known and too little understood, entering a field entirely new, and appealing, as was feared, to a comparatively small class, it has steadily grown in favor from the very first number; none of the ordinary means of pushing it into notice have been resorted to, and not ten dollars spent in advertising; yet new names are added to its list almost daily, and of the hundreds of its old subscribers only three have withdrawn. In this country its regular circulation extends from Sandy Hook to the Golden Gate, and from the Green Mountains to the Crescent City; it reaches through England, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia; it is read alike beneath the North Star in Sweden and under the Southern Cross in New Zealand; it is a welcome guest on the immemorial shores of India, and has received the cordial approval of the heads of the Theosophical Society in Adyar. It would be impossible

not to feel gratification at such results, even were it an ordinary money-making enterprise; how much more when it is remembered that it is devoted, not to any selfish end, but to the spread of that idea of universal Brotherhood which aims to benefit all, from highest to lowest.

THE PATH will continue its policy of independent devotion to the Cause of Theosophy, without professing to be the organ either of the Society or of any Branch; it is loyal to the great Founders of the Society, but does not concern itself with dissensions or differences of individual opinion. The work it has on hand, and the end it keeps in view, are too absorbing and too lofty to leave it the time or inclination to take part in side issues; yet its columns are open to all Theosophists who may desire to express their views on matters of real importance to the cause in which all should be interested. New features will be added as the need seems to arise; the first will probably be a department devoted to answers to correspondents. A large and constantly increasing number of letters of inquiry are received, and the present editorial staff finds it impossible to answer each separately; besides which, many of them naturally relate to the same or similar matters. By thus printing general replies, not only will the inquirers be answered, but others may have their unspoken questions replied to, or a similar line of thought will be suggested, or other views be elicited, to the mutual advantage of writers and readers.

In this joyous season of returning Spring, THE PATH wishes all its readers a "Happy New Year" in the fullest and best sense of the term,―a progress in the knowledge of the great and vital truths of Theosophy, a truer realization of The Self, a profounder conviction of Universal Brotherhood.

TWO YEARS ON THE PATH

Twenty-four months ago this Magazine was started. It was then the second periodical devoted solely to the Theosophical Society's aims, and the only one in the Western Hemisphere. Subsequently in France Le Lotus appeared, and later Lucifer in London, while the pioneer, The Theosophist, continues at Madras, India.

It has never been claimed that these journals alone knew of and expounded Truth; all that their conductors asserted for them was that they desired truth, and that they intended to remain devoted to the aims formulated by the Theosophical Society and to the Masters they believe are behind that body. There are many other magazines engaged in the search for the ultimate respecting Nature and Man; there are other Societies who try to reform the age, but none other, we believe, can point to the same measure of success or to the same literature devoted to the one end.

When THE PATH was launched we knew not―nor asked―how long it would float, nor to whom it would reach. No capitalists or companies offered their assistance, and none could then say how it was to obtain a circulation. The suggestion to start it came from minds greater than ours, and the derivation of its name is from the same source. Nor was there a staff of writers employed or promised. No, articles were on hand waiting for insertion, and, besides all that, its founders had other matters of a material nature calling for attention and occupying time. The promise of its future lay alone in supreme faith.

Its course during these two years has been for its conductors full of encouragement and instruction; letters from numerous subscribers testify that its readers have had some benefit also; none have written a word of disapproval, and those

The object before our eyes when we agreed to carry on this project was to hold Truth as something for which no sacrifice could be too great, and to admit no dogma to be more binding than the motto of the Theosophical Society,―"There is no religion higher than Truth."

In addition we intended to steadily draw all our articles and exposition toward the Light which comes from the East, not because we ourselves are of Eastern birth, but because the fathers of men living in the East ages ago went over the philosophical and scientific disputes that now engage the 19th century.

The only true Science must also be a religion, and that is The Wisdom Religion. A Religion which ignores patent facts and laws that govern our lives, our deaths, and our sad or happy hereafter, is no religion; and so last March we wrote,―"The true religion is that one which will find the basic ideas common to all philosophies and religions."

Western writers have been in the habit of pooh-poohing the idea that we could learn anything from Indian books, and such as Max Müller in no small degree supported the contention. But we believe in the cyclic theory, and it teaches us that in the ages man has been upon the earth he has evolved all systems of philosophy over and over again. The reason we turned to Indian books is that that land of all the rest has preserved its old knowledge both in books and monuments. We never for a moment intended to rely upon or be guided by superstitious ideas that prevailed in India as they do in Christendom, but even in those superstitions can be seen the corruptions of the truth. In the Vedas, in Patanjali's Yoga System, the Bhagavad-Gita, and hundreds of other works, can be found the highest morality and the deepest knowledge. What need, then, to bother with crude beginnings of the same things put forth in Europe for the admiration of scholiasts and the confusion of the multitude?

with entirely baseless or inadequate explanations attached to them. These expositions, accepted by some millions of Americans, lead to error as we are taught. We find it denominated in the Aryan books as the worship of the Pretas, Bhutes, and Pisachas. Through many weary centuries the Aryans pursued that line of investigation to find at last the truth about the matter. What reason can we give for not examining their theories? They do not degrade our manhood, but rather raise its power and glory higher. Besides, we well know that there is no separation of nations. We of America were perhaps the very individuals who in those by-gone ages helped to elaborate that philosophy, and the men now living there were, maybe, the then inhabitants of bodies in this continent. It is Truth we want, and not the petty glorification of either America or India.

In the same way would we have used the literature and learning of ancient Egypt, had it been accessible. But that lies buried under wastes of sand, waiting for the time to come when it shall be useful and for the man to arrive who knows.

Our readers are nearly all students. Some are disciples. But few are not in earnest. All are sympathetic. They have helped us with appreciation, and assisted the progress of all by striving for the calmness which comes from trying to exemplify Brotherhood. Some perhaps disagree from us upon minor points, nearly all of them resolvable to a personal basis―that is, having their root in some divergence as to particular persons.

We wish not to hide or to fail to state our attitude. As one of the founders of the Theosophical Society and as an old friend of Madame H. P. Blavatsky and Col. H. S. Olcott, we adhere staunchly to the Society, which we firmly believe was ordered to be founded in 1875 by those beings who have since been variously designated as Adepts, Mahatmas, Masters, and Brothers. In 1875 we knew them by the name "Brothers"; and now, as then, we pin our faith upon Their knowledge, wisdom, power, and Justice. That much mud has been thrown at these ideals makes no difference to us; we have never allowed the insinuations and proofs of fraud or of delusion offered on all

hands to alter our faith in Them and in the Supreme Law that carries us into existence, governing us there with mercy and giving peace when we submit completely to it.

The Society has had, like all sentient beings, its period of growth, and now we believe it has become an entity capable of feeling and having intelligence. Its body is composed of molecules, each one of which is a member of the Society; its mental power is derived from many quarters, and it has a sensibility that is felt and shared by each one of us. For these reasons we think it a wise thing for a person to join this body, and a wiser yet to work heart and soul for it. And we would have no one misunderstand how we look upon H. P. Blavatsky. She is the greatest woman in this world in our opinion, and greater than any man now moving among men. Disputes and slanders about what she has said and done move us not, for we know by personal experience her real virtues and powers. Since 1875 she has stood as the champion and helper of every theosophist; each member of the Society has to thank her for the store of knowledge and spiritual help that has lifted so many of us from doubt to certainty of where and how Truth might be found; lovers of truth and seekers after occultism will know her worth only when she has passed from earth; had she had more help and less captious criticism from those who called themselves co-laborers, our Society would today be better and more able to inform its separate units while it resisted its foes. During all these years, upon her devoted head has concentrated the weighty Karma accumulated in every direction by the unthinking body of theosophists; and, whether they will believe it or not, the Society had died long ago, were it not for her. Next to the Brothers, then, we pin our faith on her: let none mistake our attitude.

Readers! the third year of THE PATH is upon us; Theosophists! the thirteenth year of our Society's formation has opened; let us go on with a firm faith in the mercy and supremacy of the Law to whose fiat we bow.

THE THIRD YEAR

This magazine begins its third year with the present number. While we are not sectarian, we acknowledge having a definite object in view in all the articles so far admitted to our columns. That object is to spread a knowledge of the Wisdom-Religion as we understand it, and to lay before the readers what we consider the true view of Theosophy and the aims of the Theosophical Society. THE PATH, however, while devoted to that Cause, is not an official organ; for, if it were, some responsibility for its utterances might be placed upon the Society on the one hand, and the Magazine itself limited in its operations on the other. We aspire to fulfil the wishes of the Masters who impelled the organization of the Society, that men may be led to study, believe in, and practice the immemorial doctrines of the Wisdom-Religion once widespread and now preserved in Tibet to be given to the world as it becomes ready to receive.

May the Blessed Masters guide us to the everlasting Truth! May we tread the small old path on which the sages walk who know Brahman! May we all pass beyond the sea of darkness! Hari! Om!

With this number the third year of THE PATH'S existence comes to an end. The only definite rule we made in the conduct of the Magazine has been to treat all with fairness and calmness. We have not indulged in flattery of any person, and have endeavored as much as possible to keep personalities, whether adverse or otherwise, out of our columns; and with the result of the past year's work we now have no concern, be-

cause, that work having been done, it remains in the hands of the great law of Karma and not in ours.

It is with a trace of sorrow that we record the fact that the PATH has not been supported by subscribing theosophists, but mainly by those who are not members of the Society. This is strange but true, and resembles another curious fact, which is that the Theosophical Publication Society of London, organized by theosophists, draws its subscribers and helpers from America. We have no hope of changing human nature now, and, knowing its tendency to materiality, we would never have brought out this Magazine did we not have supreme faith in those Beings and forces controlling the destiny of nations and individuals, well knowing that They will see that these efforts, made for the cause of humanity, shall not be devoid of fruit. That desired fruit is not money or any material profit, but solely a change in the thoughts and ethics of the people. And we would have all sincere theosophists of the same mind, to the end that they may work unceasingly for the cause of theosophy in the channel at present fixed by Masters―the Theosophical Society, without hope of profit or material reward, and, if possible, even without hope of any profit whatever.

To those who have helped us with thoughts, with means, and with pen, we extend our thanks; we may have enemies, but as yet they have not made their appearance: to them, if in existence, we tender our sympathy, for fear is not a quality we possess, and enmity we hold for none.

Some of our readers have wondered what is the end and what should be the watchwords; the end is truth and brotherhood; the watchwords, faith, courage, and constancy.

THE PATH'S FIFTH YEAR

Our Magazine has turned the last corner of the square and now enters upon it's fifth year. Whether it shall live ten or twenty years longer we know not, but as the future grows from the present and the past is ever being repeated in the future, so its four years of activity just ended are not dead, for they will reproduce their influence in the years that are to come until their force is increased by being swallowed up in those that are stronger.

In the third month of the first year of THE PATH its death within the year was predicted, but fate has ruled otherwise, and we have been accorded the opportunity of attempting to erect the four pillars of Sincerity, Devotion, Determination of Purpose, and Integrity. This year will decide what success has attended the attempt. For as five is the number of Light, it will reveal all, and by its power as Justice and Nemesis it will appropriately measure out the compensation, since its position in the centre between I and 9 makes of it the middle of the balance, for although the series of 9 is not completed, yet when 5 is reached the future is potentially present up to 9. We can rely then only on the Law and not upon the favor of any one;―this we do with cheerfulness.

The year just closed has been a pleasant one, revealing new earnest hearts and willing hands. Let us press forward with new energy in the work of the next four years, for when the second fifth is reached an important era for theosophists and the world will be at hand, when the result of again being weighed in the balance of events will be more serious than it is now.

"Point out the 'Way'―however dimly and lost among the host―as does the evening star to those who tread their Path in darkness."

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Fifteen years ago in November the Theosophical Society was started at the residence of H.P. Blavatsky in Irving Place, New York City, and was inaugurated in Mott Memorial Hall not far away. Since then the great Emile Bournouf has said in a prominent Parisian journal that the Theosophical Society is one of the three great movements of the age, the other two being Roman Catholicism and Buddhism. Of those who helped to start it, but few remain in the ranks. Nearly all the spiritualists dropped out in disgust, because they saw in it a foe to the worship of the dead. The Society has been often since then solemnly declared dead by a coroner's inquest composed of those who neither knew nor cared.

Its centre of activity was moved to India in pursuance of a deliberate purpose, a purpose which has been accomplished. That was to affect the thought of the age even if in doing so the Society itself should meet its death. There, too, the coroner's inquest was held, but by those who knew and feared, and who rendered the same verdict, rehashed last month by Major Twigg in Chicago, who informed astonished members and the world that the Society was dead in India. However, we may disbelieve his report in view of over 160 branches there and an imposing headquarters building erected upon 21 acres of land.

The wave of interest once more arose in the United States, and upon our records are 49 Branches reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and after rolling over this country it suddenly raised itself in England where the sphinx of the Century, the original founder, took hold of the work in 1886. Then there was in England one Branch; now there are many,

and the Society there owns a building for its centre of activity from which the wave is bound to roll again even unto far Cathay.

The work of those Fifteen years is not to be measured by the number of Branches or by the three magazines carried on in the three great countries, India, England, and the United States. It is to be measured by the thoughts of men. What are they now? They are full of the great doctrines the Adepts said should be taught once more, drawn from Brahmanism and Buddhism,―Karma and Reincarnation; with all the other doctrines brought forward prominently to the Occident. It was once impossible to find three men in New York or London who knew the word theosophy. Now the Reviews print articles upon it, people in drawing rooms speak of it, the clerk, the merchant, and the professor read of it. But surer sign than all, though sadder than any, is the adoption of the terms found in Theosophical literature by men who design thereby to gain a living or get fame. They could not do this with that which was unfashionable, unfamiliar, or repulsive. Next comes literature in general. It is full of the words so long used by our members. The greatest publishers do not fear to print books ground out by writers whose knowledge of theosophy is derived for its popularity. They are sure barometers. They indicate an area of pressure or of high expansion.

Who did this, How was it? You may say that it would have been anyway. But you cannot rub out an historical fact, nor postulate for the past reasons which are impossible by reason of their non-existence. There is a sequence in cause and effect that compels us to accept all the factors. The Theosophical Society for many years has been giving out theosophical ideas and language, and now the whole world is using them. These fifteen years of its work just fading out to reincarnate in its sixteenth have been of use to the world, even though the world should deny it.

And who has held the position for strong and weak members alike? Two figures, a woman and a man, Helena P. Blavatsky and Henry S. Olcott. His devotion and her tremendous

strength have carried us to this point, and been the main agents for the influence our movement now has upon the thought of the world.

Such work can not be stayed or counteracted. The flimsy edifice of dogmatism is crumbling, the period of total disintegration is near, and our work has only begun. We have to hasten on with the materials for the future, so that ere the old structure is demolished the new one shall be ready for occupation. In five more years the Society will be of age, and must then be able to stand upon its feet, to think for itself, to act upon its convictions. Every day of this sixteenth year should be used wisely, earnestly, thoroughly, so that we shall be able at each anniversary to feel that we have lived nearer to our highest ideals and at least tried to do the work which of all others humanity needs.

About eighteen hundred and twenty-five days have slipped away since the PATH was started, and now we enter upon the sixth year without any prospect of having to abandon the work. If asked whether we feel satisfaction regarding the five years finished last month, the reply must be that it is too soon to look for satisfaction. A great many persons have praised and blamed the magazine and its editor; he himself never had any great concern with what people think about it, but an effort has always been made to present what we feel is true, free from bias or desire for gain. In the course of a few centuries and in other lives, it will be possible to find out just what influence the PATH has exerted. Just now we must content ourselves with offering thanks to those who with pen or money have assisted this most obscure journal, and to direct their attention to the new American theosophical year, which, beginning in April with the PATH's, has so much of promise and potency for the future. Let us grasp the thread once more!

SIX YEARS GONE

Six years have gone into the void since the PATH was started, and we are still in the middle of eternity. Doubtless other ages have had their magazines, with their articles, their hopes and fears, their subscribers, their complainers, their friends. This journal has had the usual complainers, but can best and most easily remember that its friends are numerous.

The original program has been adhered to, the propelling motive is the same, the guiding object remains in view, the policy outlined has not been departed from. The PATH has no party to placate, no ulterior aims to forward. Hence its independence is secured, since it bows the knee to no man, to no authority, although it seeks and will so seek to abide by the rules of the Theosophical Society as well as those prescribed of old for conduct and for intercourse.

In its pages attempt has been made to present the common-sense of theosophy, because it knows that, sadly enough, many theosophists cease to use their natural common-sense when dealing with the movement and its literature. One will say "Theosophy tells me to give up my duties and my family ties, to neglect my friends, and to live in morbid mental condition," while Theosophy looks sadly on and wonders why men and women will thus misconstrue.

These six years have witnessed the rise and fall of some men and women, but the last year now finished has had to chronicle the departure of our great leader, our friend, our champion, adept in all the noble arts of righteous war―H. P. Blavatsky. It was as if a mighty tower had fallen, causing the whole theosophic body corporate to quiver for a space. That was but

momentary, for the great forces that had held the tower in place at once transferred themselves throughout the whole range of the Society, informing it with added energy, new zeal, and greater strength.

So this year, while seeing such a catastrophe, saw also but three short months afterwards the whole Society welded together under one working plan, with a single method, a Constitution in all its sections modelled on brotherhood and following the plan of the American Section which this journal always advocated. To our feelings the death of the body called H.P. Blavatsky was a shock and loss, but for our true progress, for the health of our real nature, it was a gain because it makes us stand alone. Man was born alone, must stand alone, die alone,―so he must needs be strong.

Thanks, then, comrades, for your help, your appreciation, your judgment and suggestions. The year is past in form, 'tis true, but still it is with us. We need no resolves for the future, for we never touch it; we need no regret for the past, for we have not lost anything, but have the gaining eternally of experience. Adieu, twelve months, the path still stretches on and ever upward!

SEVEN STEPS FORWARD

With this issue PATH starts on the seventh year of life, and the seven past years have been full of action, of work, and of results. We began without an office or capital: it might be said that the business was carried on in a hat at first. Then it moved into a cell or den on Park Row, where no man could enter by the door if the occupant within did not rise to make room for the portal to swing. Subsequently a larger room―cramped in fact―was hired and exultingly then called "commodious" by the factotum. Later back again to Park Row and even more commodious, as the quarters of a bee might seem so, by comparison, to an ant. Then again to larger quarters on Nassau street, until now it expects to move into the Society's permanent house.

So to signalize the event it puts on a new cover, and were subscribers more numerous it might enlarge the number of its pages. But the penalty of independence in business conduct is frequently lack of support from a world that acts on convention and delights in pandering and being pandered to. But it may as well be known that the PATH will pander to nothing.

Once more, too, the editor declares he sees no excuse for the existence of this or any other magazine. He wearies of the eternal printing that goes on, for there is nothing new under the sun and we are like squirrels repeating the words spoken by bodies long since dead which were inhabited by ourselves whom now we fail to recognize. But since this is the age of black on white impressed by machinery, we are compelled to publish so that the opportunity of saying the same thing once more to a rebellious and stiff-necked generation shall not be neglected.

The editorial in April PATH has been thought by some to mean that it is the Editor's intention to cease publication, and one newspaper wanted to know what we meant by repeating words we spoke long ago. There is no intention of stopping this Magazine; indeed, if Theosophists patronized the PATH more, it would be enlarged to twice its present size. What was stated was, that the Editor thinks it to be impossible to say anything new, and all that can be said was published centuries ago by the ancients. He also holds that nowadays there is a thirst for more, more, more articles and books, all repeating the old ideas while they pretend to be giving out original thoughts. Why not read and re-read the thoughts as given? And the reply is that it is not pleasant to take so much trouble; besides, the modern method is not the same; and, above all, we are lazy of mind as well as superficial, therefore there must be constant re-statement. Give out the doctrines found in the Upanishads in the old form and they are scouted, but rewrite them with a modern title and it will be considered. Hence while seeing no excuse for the existence of any magazine, the Editor is forced by circumstances to continue the publication of his own, however faulty it may be.

The PATH was started in April, 1886, and with this month completes the first seven years of its life. Many things have happened here in these years.

In April, 1886, we had no sectional organization here: by the next year our organization was completed and became the model for Europe and India. No Headquarters existed then; today we have the large General Headquarters in New York, with smaller local ones in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington, and elsewhere. Our literature included few books; now enquirers are assisted by many works from the pens of many Theosophists. For some time after 1886 ridicule was our portion day by day; but now Theosophy is a familiar word, our books are constantly sought, our ideas have affected general literature. Even the worthless novels which

stream weekly from the press try to catch readers by introducing quasi-occult ideas and superphysical phenomena. The newspapers which are written to sell and which used, at the most, to fill a corner with a jeer at the Theosophical cranks, now send their brightest reporters to interview any Theosophical speaker visiting their town, because their public wants to know what the Theosophist has to say. Considering the opposition, much has been effected toward the end in view, that is, to break down materialism, revive spirituality, and create a nucleus for a Universal Brotherhood.

The era of apostolic work has come in since we first opened the PATH. Then no one was speaking for Theosophy in America. Today there is the lecturer on the Pacific Coast going up and down the land; Bro. Claude F. Wright making extended tours as far West from the Atlantic as Kansas City; several members of the New York and Brooklyn Branches lecturing in cities of adjacent States; and last, but not least, we have secured since 1886 the interest, efforts, abilities, voice and pen of Annie Besant. Seven years have seen many things with us. We salute the Brethren!

THE WORK SINCE MAY

THIS month ends the year and gives us, for examination and review, seven months of experience in theosophical work. Last April, after the Boston Convention, there were some who had fears that great difficulty, perhaps disaster, was soon to come upon the work. It was a sort of superstition for which they could hardly account―a superstition connected solely with the mere framework of an organization. In the general mental development of the world there could be found no basis for the notion that Theosophy was decaying. So the superstition was connected with forms as a ghost is with a house. But there were others who had no fears and no sort of superstition. They perceived the truth of the idea thrown out by others wiser than we that the unity of the movement depends on singleness of purpose and aspiration and not on a world-wide single organization. By this time the fears of the first must be allayed and the hopes of the second justified.

The echoes of the Convention had not died away when active, widespread work went on as before, without a halt. We reported to the meeting, and before any voting on the Constitution, that there were 102 branches in the jurisdiction. This was true as to the record, but some of those were even then so inactive as to be subjects of grave consideration. Today―when this is penned―notwithstanding losses and prophecies and croakings, domestic and foreign, we have ninety branches. These ninety have among them several new ones formed since April, out of new material and not resulting from a split. This part of the seven months' history is in itself enough to show the wisdom of our course, and to give to everyone the greatest encouragement.

The very first result of the vote at Boston was to infuse into all "loyal" branches new energy and determination in increase the activity while trying to make brotherhood practical. All the new branches are made up of good working material. In those cases where―as in some cities―the new body was formed by half of the old, the branch was doubly determined to be of still more use than was the old. So now the entire body of branches may be regarded as strong, active, inspired for action and trying to work for brotherhood.

Official activities began the day after Convention. The Forum was made of greater value by changing its plan and shape. Reports from everywhere commend it and show that its usefulness has increased. The other official papers were continued as before. Almost immediately a new, active, and actual working committee was formed for propaganda in the Central States―a vast territory. Another was formed in New England. While the Central Committee was being formed Mr. Burcham Harding worked in the New England district, lecturing in public and visiting branches. When everything was ready he started work in the State of Indiana, and succeeded in spreading Theosophy in nearly every town, and by means of the reports given by newspapers, must have reached nearly every inhabitant. The best sort of people came to hear him. When, as did happen, bigoted ministers publicly denounced him, the people came to his rescue and snubbed the priest. Everybody seemed to want to know about theosophy, and papers would give columns to his lectures. This may be taken as an indication of the liveliness of Theosophy and as proof that more people desire this philosophy than members seemed to think. The case of Indiana I select out of many because it furnishes a condensed example. At the same time the New England, the Atlantic and the Californian work went on unabated. The San Francisco members had for some time been holding Sunday theosophical services for the convicts in the prison there. This is continued. And there, also, every Sunday a free public lecture is given, to which very good audiences come.

The old Pacific Coast Committee did not stop work a day and its lectures went up and down among the people as usual, finding as much interest as ever in Theosophy. In New York an additional series of popular lectures was started at Chickering Hall by Mr. Claude Falls Wright with the aid of the Aryan T.S. These seem to be likely to attract large audiences very shortly. All this time the correspondence with enquirers went on and new members came in as before and in greater numbers.

I have brought forward these facts―and they are not all that might be selected―to show in a measure what the seven months' work has been since the eventful last Convention. It proves once more that "the Theosophical Movement is greater than any Theosophical Society." It ought to show that the Theosophical Society in America is a strong, active, intelligent body, not depending on personalities but upon hard, common-sense work. And behind that hard work there are forces and a spirit which will keep it alive for more than a century if members always look for the spirit and not for the letter. No member has now the right to be gloomy or afraid. If seven months can show such facts, where is there cause for fear? There is none. The future grows from the present, and nothing but a cataclysm can stop our progress.

THE TEST OF THEOSOPHIC INTEREST

The test of Theosophic interest is precisely the test of every other kind of interest,―What one will do to promote it. And here, obviously, two considerations arise.

The first is that no act which is superficial, or perfunctory, or for personal benefit, can at all gauge devotion to a cause which is both impersonal and deep-reaching. It is easy to descant on the glory of a system so elevated as the Wisdom-Religion. It is as easy to proclaim one's own appreciation of its tenets. It is not difficult to attend punctiliously the meetings of a Theosophical Society, and to absorb with readiness, perhaps with profit, whatever of truth may be there disclosed. It may not be easy, but it is entirely possible, to read every Theosophical work of repute, to extract its main thought, and to digest well the learning acquired. And yet, very evidently, the first two are exercises only of the voice, the last two only of the mind. If Theosophy was a matter of the breath or the brains, this participation in it would not only be salutary but ample.

In truth, however, Theosophy gives but a light benediction to either the mere talker or the mere student. It by no means undervalues sincere homage or zealous inquiry, but it is so intent on the work of transferring interest from the lower to the higher levels of being, so eager to excite the unselfish enthusiasm for others' good which, subordinating its own advancement, shall be most thrilled at the chance to advance Humanity, that its ideal is the man who is exerting himself to help others, rather than the man who is exerting himself to get ahead. And, as it believes that the present most efficacious agency for extending truth, vivifying motive, and elevating the race is the Theosophical Society, Theosophy regards as its best expositors, those who are working most for, the Society it has founded.

once cry, "But this is only the Church and its motive over again!" Not at all. There is no question of doctrinal triumphs, of sect growth, of rival temples, of missionary comparisons. The elements of social distinction, of clerical rank, of legislative influence are all absent. There is not even the ambition to push the Society into the area of recognized religious organizations, for it not only disclaims competition with Churches, but is disqualified for such competition by its lack of creed, its slight coherency of organism, and its vigorous assertion of individualism in opinion and in training.

Moreover, before assuming the danger of possible ecclesiasticism, one must remember that the standard applied to the Theosophical Society is exactly the same as that applied to a Theosophist,―self-forgetfulness in work for others. If the individual member is held to the doctrine that he best realizes Theosophical aims through the obliteration of ambition and the substitution therefore of an altruistic life, similarly as to the Society. Self-aggrandizement, as a pursuit, might evolve a Black Magician; it might even evolve a Church; but it never could evolve a Theosophical Society.

Of the three objects contemplated in the establishment of the T.S., the first and greatest is the promotion of Universal Brotherhood. But this does not mean merely a sentimental recognition of a general human fraternity; it means an active beneficence towards the rest of the family. And if correct views, loftier ideals, richer motives, finer principles, healthier aspirations are more attainable through the Theosophic system than through other systems of faith or morals, the Theosophist is best serving the interests of his brother-men by giving that system all the publicity he can. And if, still further, he accepts the fact that the Masters have adopted the Society as their channel for conveying and distributing Truth to the human family, he reaches the conclusion that in laboring for the Society he is conforming most closely to their desires, benefiting most efficiently the race of which he is a part, using most hopefully the best agency for spiritual good. Practically, therefore, the truest Theosophist at the present day is he who is most in-

And now has been reached the point where the test of Theosophic interest may be applied to a Theosophist. What is he doing to sustain the Society? Not how many times does he place F.T.S. after his surname; not how loud his voice in benediction on the Founders; not how warm in praise his letters to active members; not how many meetings he attends, or books he reads, or intricate problems in Occultism he explores; not what food he eats, or clothes he wears, or opinions he proclaims; but what is he doing to help? He may be copious in phrases and efflorescent in gracious speech, or, as are some, mysteriously mournful over the faults of others which so impede their own progression; he may fold hands before the needs of the Cause, and piously avow trust in the interposition of Mahatmas, or he may point out that the time is unpropitious, or that a spiritual system has no claim for cash, or that it degrades Theosophy to make a collection; he may suggest that in giving his name he does better than give funds, or that there seems as yet no opening for the expression of his zeal, or that his sympathies are with us and his one aspiration is to be upon the path, And yet the inexorable test, inexorable because in the nature of things and therefore not amenable to cajolery or humbug, stands before him,―What is he doing to help?

The second consideration referred to at the outset is that the test of Theosophic interest is not the absolute amount of help given, but that amount as related to the capacity of the giver. Five cents, five hours, constitute a far larger proportion of one man's available means or time, than five thousand dollars or five months do of another's. Hence it is not the figures, but their fractional value, which determines the extent of the interest. Just so is it in every other human interest. How much one cares for a relation, for a friend, for a philanthropic cause, for a public object, is unerringly shown by the proportion of outlay he devotes thereto. And this does not mean a careless profusion with superfluous goods, but the cutting-off of personal indulgences, cherished but dispensable, for the

better sustentation of a cause,―in other words, self-sacrifice. Nor does self-sacrifice mean the sacrifice of other people, as some think; the bearing with great fortitude privations one does not share, the consecration of money or time or effort which really belongs to one's family or entourage. It means the sacrifice of yourself, of your own habits and enjoyments and expenses, in order to build up a cause you profess to love. And the extent to which this is done gauges the proportion of your love for that cause to your love for yourself.

Now Theosophy is not unreasonable or captious. It does not advise any man to starve himself, or to wear rags, or to scout at the conditions of life in the civilization wherein he was born and which express the laws of sociology. It does not enjoin monasticism, or seclusion, or parsimony, or want of public spirit, or abnegation of social amenities, or one-sidedness, or bigotry, or folly under any name. We are to be men, rational men, civilized men, cultivated men, and we promote no noble cause, least of all the noblest, if we are unsocial, unpractical, or fantastic. But while all this is true, it is equally true that in one's own private affairs, in that sphere of personal belongings outside the claims of others and wherein absolute freedom is unquestioned, the test of Theosophic interest is directly applicable. It is, as has been shown, the proportion of time, money, literary or other effort, one is willing to give up for the Theosophical Society.

Not a few sincere readers may honestly ask, What is there for me to do? The answer to this is the showing what there is to be done, and then each may inquire within himself how and to what extent he can aid. First, there is the support of the Theosophical Society itself, its organic action and work. Hardly anyone is too poor to become a member-at-large and aid to the extent of $1.00 a year. If able to contribute more, he can do so with the certainty that its growing needs in printing, postage, circulation of documents, advertising, the occasional schemes for Theosophic advance, for which direct help is asked, constitute an ample channel for any donation. Then there is Theosophic Literature. Its periodicals need to be sustained,

sustained by the subscriptions of those who believe them useful, sustained by those who both take them for their own reading, and order them sent to points where they may do good. Pamphlets, tracts, documents may be bought by the zealous and sent to individuals where budding interest is suspected, thus aiding to make possible new ones and giving circulation to those now printed. Theosophical books may be presented to Public Libraries, and, as current facts show, with the certainty that they will be read. In private conversations a Theosophical idea or phrase may be dropped, enough to provoke inquiry, possibly investigation. Openings for the impartation of truth may be judiciously used. Then there is the establishment of a Branch. Every member of the Society in a town without a Branch may well judge its foundation his special mission. In many ways and in many hearts the seed may be sown, confident that time, possibly short time, will bring that harvest. If a member of a Branch, he has before him work in strengthening it, enlarging its Library, enlivening its meetings, helping to feed and not merely feeding, thinking out schemes by which its existence may be known through the community and it be recognized as a distributing centre of light. If having, access to the press, he can secure the insertion of brief items or clippings which will keep the topic before the public. If competent to write, he can present some truth he finds potent or correct some mistake he sees popular.

What is there for me to do? Everything that you can do. A word, a hint, a tract, a volume, a subscription. If it costs you nothing, your interest is nothing. If it costs you little, your interest is little. If it costs till you feel it, then it is that you feel your interest. And when you yourself, body, soul, and spirit, are devoted, to the doing, when you thrill with that topic as with no other topic, when your pleasure is in self-sacrificing efforts for its promotion, when you forget yourself, have lost yourself, in it, then will you have become in measure what are the Founders,―may one not even say, what are the Masters Themselves.

A CIRCULATING LIBRARY

A theosophical circulating Library has been established at the General Secretary's office in New York, Room 47, 21 Park Row. Donations of money and books have been made by members of the Aryan T.S. sufficient to start it, and it is expected that students throughout the country will be benefited by its use. The rules read as follows:

This Library is at the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society, Room 47, 21 Park Row, New York.

All the best theosophical works will be kept on hand, and also as many useful books on psychological, mystical, and metaphysical subjects as the funds will permit. Among other books already on hand are: The Secret Doctrine, 2 sets; Isis Unveiled, 2 sets; Esoteric Buddhism, Occult World, Purpose of Theosophy, Magic, Paracelsus, THE PATH, Bhagavad Gita, Among the Rosicrucians, Bible Myths, &c.

It is intended for the use of all members throughout the United States. Borrowers will be careful to give accurate addresses and to take care of the books when taken out.

Donation of either money or books will be gladly received, and may be sent in care of THE PATH.

THEOSOPHICAL TRACTS

Earnest Theosophists, of small means and opportunity, often inquire what one thing they can do to further the spread of Truth and contribute to the upbuilding of the Society. There is certainly one which is simple, inexpensive, and often most efficient, and which can be systematically carried on in precise proportion to spareable funds. It is the mailing of a Theosophic tract to any name in any place in any State. One cent stamped envelopes are sold by the P.O. at the rate of $5.90 per 500, and each of the two tracts thus far issued from the PATH office is furnished at the rate of 50 cts. per 100, smaller quantities in either case being in proportion.

The two tracts referred to were printed and electrotyped by private funds, and were then presented to the office, so that receipts from sales make possible new editions. Moreover, the PATH has been informed that provision will be made for the reprinting in this country of certain others which are successively to appear in the pamphlets of the T. P. S., so that in time a series of these brief circulars, treating condensedly of some Theosophical topic and bearing the address, etc. of the General Secretary, will be available to any one wishing to purchase them for distribution. Due notice of each new issue will appear in the PATH.

In the press, in private correspondence, and in social life, a Theosophist on the alert for an opportunity to sow seed finds many a name whereto may be sent a circular. It simply requires to be folded, placed in a stamped envelope, addressed, and mailed. The donor is unknown. Possibly the circular may

be wasted; yet who can foretell that? The ground may be altogether ready for the sowing.

Of the two tracts referred to, there have been sold within the last two months, of the "Epitome of Theosophy" 1024 copies, of "Theosophy as a Guide in Life" 2254 copies. From the PATH office there have now been issued, of the former about 10,000, of the later about 6,000. The latter is perhaps more fitted for general public use, but almost every Theosophist could keep on hand a small supply of each, and be prepared to use either when opportunity arose.

For some 18 months past, private zeal has carried out a system by which a single copy of one of the tracts expounding popularly some Theosophic topic has been mailed to names gathered from newspapers published in the smaller towns through the United States. In this simple way the seed of much Theosophic truth has been scattered broadcast, and many minds have thus for the first time received word of that Wisdom which is in time to reform humanity. To take part in such sowing is a privilege to all who love their fellow-men, and, while it is impossible to learn the results achieved, we may be sure that no such effort can be wholly without fruit. The present time is peculiarly ripe therefore. Ample evidence demonstrates that "Theosophy is in the air," and every judicious publication of its doctrines hastens the day when its motives too shall become operative and its reforms be realized.

The system referred to above appears the only way by which a knowledge of Theosophy can be carried direct to every town, village, and hamlet in the land. In a smaller form it was recommended to Theosophists in a brief article on Page 154 of the PATH for August, 1889. Through responses to this, and otherwise, the General Secretary has been enabled to thoroughly organize a scheme by which a proffer of help from any Theosophist willing to devote from $1.00 up and some

time may be utilized, while all danger of duplicating addresses is avoided. To each one thus proffering, the General Secretary will supply a printed circular of instructions and assign a definite field. It is only needful to inform the General Secretary of the amount of money the offerer feels prepared to expend, and thereupon he will be furnished with the circular and the field, as well as with printed blanks for convenience in ordering the copies of the newspapers indicated.

Every theosophist desirous to aid the Society, to promulgate its teachings, and to serve the highest interests of man is invited to communicate with the General Secretary briefly and to the point. No name is divulged. A few score of earnest, active, generous brethren can thus in time sow seed over this whole continent, and prepare the harvest which is sure to come, but which will come the sooner if we fail not in our labor.

The General Secretary heartily thanks those Brethren who have responded to the call "To Theosophists Willing to Work," and congratulates them that the number now reaches 47. Thousands of tracts are now on their beneficent way through the land. It may very well be that there are many Theosophists thoroughly sympathetic with this work, but unable, some to spare the time, others to pay the cost, of taking part. Several of the former have contributed the funds wherewith several of the latter have been set to work, and if those Brethren who have money but no time will donate money, and if those who have time but no money will donate time, the operations of the Tract-mailing Scheme can be enormously increased. The General Secretary, upon receiving a gift of money, supplies the necessary tracts and envelopes to the profferer of time,

It is also suggested that any friend able to contribute both time and money, and thus personally participate in this missionary effort, should decide upon the sum he can at present spare and remit about one-third thereof to the General Secretary. Tracts to that amount will be sent him, and he will find that the stamped envelopes and newspapers just complete the sum to be expended.

One other thing. This is a scheme which should be permanent. It can go on year after year with the same benefit, for the country is vast and new towns are ever growing up. Each F. T. S. can feel that his efforts are helping to ensure the future of the Cause and of the Society, and can apply for a new field as soon as his resources enable him to do so. To missionize one town is no small gift: what would it not be to missionize several towns a year throughout life!

T.S. CORRESPONDENCE STAFF

PREAMBLE: The great number of inquiries received by the General Secretary has shown the necessity for more attention being paid to this class of letters, whether from members of the Society or otherwise, than he or his immediate assistants have been able to give. To meet this, and at the same time to give to earnest, capable Theosophists the chance to do good work, it has been determined:

2d―That the headquarters of the Staff shall be the address of the General Secretary, and that he shall keep a record of the staff and of the work.

3d―That the General Secretary will give to the Staff-members from time to time the names of persons who desire to enter on Theosophical correspondence.

4th―That the members of the Staff will correspond with such inquirers on Theosophical topics and no others, except in cases of private correspondence, and that postage will be paid by the inquirers and Staff-members themselves.

5th―That the paper used in this work shall be dated from the office of the General Secretary, and may or may not be furnished by him, as shall seem best.

6th―That the Staff-members may use if they see fit a nom de plume, in which case their names shall not be given to correspondents.

7th―That the Staff in beginning any correspondence shall disclaim any authoritative utterances.

THE NEW "DEPARTMENT OF BRANCH WORK"

The following circular addressed to Branches will explain itself. It is proper, however, to state that the original plan, dictated by the need for economy, contemplated a division of the country into three Sections, the production upon a typewriter, by the multiple process, of three copies of a selected paper, and the transmission of a copy from Branch to Branch through each Section. But this was open to grave objections. There would always be danger of loss in the transmission, in which case all succeeding Branches would have no paper; complaints of dilatoriness in preceding Branches would be incessant; Branches would necessarily have to read the paper at their next meeting or forward it unread; and the last Branch in one Section would not receive the paper until 4 months after is issue. Besides, the General Secretary could not supply new Branches with back papers, and the Branches could not retain papers for future study or reference. Upon conference with several active Theosophists in New York, he was proffered aid towards printing the papers, and so the consent of the Executive Committee was obtained to the use of the General Fund. By the present arrangement a Branch retains its papers and can bind them in a volume from time to time, as well as circulate them among members absent from the meetings where they were read, and the General Secretary will be able to supply new Branches with complete sets from the beginning.

Every Branch is invited to forward for examination any paper which has been read before it and found pleasing. But it is well to state in advance that it is useless to forward papers

which are common-place or incorrectly spelled. There are some hints on this subject in PATH for Sept. '89, page 192.

Into what this new Department may ultimately develop, cannot be now foreseen. But at present no papers can be furnished to individuals, nor at any time can unaccepted papers be returned unless postage shall have been enclosed.

I had not expected so soon to encounter the need to avail myself of the authority granted by the Convention to appeal to the Branches for a renewal of their subscriptions towards the expenses of the General Secretary's office, but a proffer of mechanical help towards one of several important schemes I have had much at heart has determined me to ask your aid thus early in the year. If the Branches respond at all liberally, I may be able to effectuate the others. The one now pressing upon me is expounded below, and will be known as the

The General Secretary has long been conscious of that deplorable waste by which valuable and interesting papers, once read at a Branch meeting, are unused again, and has desired some arrangement making possible their circulation among other Branches, particularly among those weak in membership or in capacity for originating discussion. It is needless to enumerate the various difficulties, but a leading one has been the expense. He believes that the result of an organized and regular system of circulation will be threefold; 1st, to greatly extend the range of the best and newest Theosophical thought; 2d, to supply weak Branches with interesting matter for instruction and debate; 3d, to promote that attractiveness in Branch meetings which will make them sought by intelligent outsiders, thus giving the Branches a status in their communities, and tending to increase both their growth and influence.

the plan, he now purposes to print from time to time on the Aryan Press a selected paper, and mail a copy to each Branch. The number of papers issued will depend upon the amount of attention he and his aids can spare from the constantly-increasing work of the office, and also upon the funds placed at his disposal by the Branches and individuals. While no certain periodicity can be pledged, it is thought that a bi-weekly issue will prove practicable.

If the plan commends itself to your Branch, I invite you to apprise me what contribution, if any, it can make towards the expenses of the General Secretary's office during the present fiscal year. It must be distinctly understood that any Branch desiring the papers will be supplied with them, whether contributing financially or not, it being not doubted that the stronger Branches will feel it their privilege to assist the more liberally because there are weak Branches really unable to give at all. As the summer season is that wherein most time can be found for effectuating much of the work involved, I shall be glad of as early a reply as you can make.

Although the General Secretary has twice announced (once in italics) that Branch papers cannot be furnished to individuals, applications continue to come in―and to be refused. The matter was carefully considered at the outset, and the decision reached for the following reasons:-

Now these considerations were and are conclusive. There need not be any arguments upon them and there cannot be any reversal. ONLY THE BRANCHES ARE TO HAVE BRANCH PAPERS. And this being so, the General Secretary invites Branch Members to attend their meetings more regularly so as to hear these Papers, and invites Members-at-large to a degree of missionary work in their localities which will create new Branches and thereby ensure Papers. Meantime let them regard him as resolute, even inexorable, and let them write him no letters of either expostulation or blandishment.

COMMITTEE WORK

THE "LEAGUE OF THEOSOPHICAL WORKERS" has been formed in accordance with the report of the committee appointed at the last annual convention of the American Section of the Theosophical Society for founding such league. Its central office is in New York City. Its officers are:

Under it local leagues may be formed, which leagues by the provisions of the Constitution of the society will be nearly autonomous.

Membership is only open to members of the Theosophical Society, though others may take part in its work as associate members.

Notice will shortly be sent out with full particulars as to the provisions of the Constitution, and suggestions as to the best methods to be followed by the local leagues.

THE STANDING COMMITTEE appointed at the last annual Convention of the American Section of the Theosophical Society for making of branch work more effective have their first suggestions nearly ready. It makes a somewhat voluminous paper, and will either be published in a subsequent number of the PATH, or sent out by the committee itself direct to the Branches. It embodies plans for the running of large and small, and formal and informal meetings. Also a draft of fifty-two subjects for discussion, the subjects being arranged in groups under different headings―this scheme being adopted in toto from the Brooklyn branch. There are in addition recommendations for study at subsidiary meetings, and outlines as to co-operative home work, with a valuable paper summarizing the entire Secret Doctrine on the topic of "hierarchies"―this summarization being the result of such work already done.

THE ORIENTAL DEPARTMENT

The year 1891 is to mark an era in the Theosophical Society. The General Secretary desires to announce that with the consent of the Executive Committee he will begin this month the work of the ORIENTAL DEPARTMENT in order to carry out more effectually than ever before the second object of the Society―the investigation of Aryan and other religions, sciences, and literature. It is purposed to procure articles or translations relating to eastern religions, philosophies, literature, folk-lore, social customs and observances from competent Hindus, Parsees, and other Asiatic members and persons. These will be issued in pamphlet form monthly or oftener as funds allow, and will be distributed free to all Branches and members-at-large in good standing.

An extension of this scheme includes the employment of pandits―scholars―in India and elsewhere as soon as the funds come to hand. It is obvious to anyone who will inspect the cash book that our funds will not now permit of the enlargement of this scheme, but it could be put into extensive operation at once if members would give more than the small fee required by the Constitution. Through this Department the General Secretary hopes to be able to furnish a fund of valuable and interesting information such as cannot be otherwise obtained except at great expense for books and other means of study. It is certain that what little has been said to our people by interested missionaries and travellers has been very wide of truth in respect to the people of Asia, their manners, customs, literature, and social life. Indeed, but little can be got from

Asiatics by such agents, and it is believed that only through our Society the real truth may be reached. Such a general and correct knowledge of distant people, all brothers of the human family, will do much to enlarge the boundaries of our thoughts, to abate race prejudice, and in all ways tend to strengthen the feeling of brotherhood which it is the aim of the Theosophical Society to arouse. Nor is there any reason why the T.S. should not be a great Asiatic investigating Society.

Any one desiring to aid the Society in this work can do so by making donations to the General Treasury, as the Executive Committee has passed an order that the general fund may be used for this purpose in addition to the items of rent, clerk hire, Forum and Branch paper printing to which it is now devoted.

This Department of our work was set on foot in the U.S. with the object of bringing about a closer union between East and West by giving our American members a more complete knowledge of India than they could otherwise obtain. The example has been followed in Europe, where the new European Section has started a similar activity.

In order to make the work more uniform, the European Convention directed its Secretary to endeavor to have the American Oriental Department act in concurrence with the European, and this will no doubt be done. As the General Secretary here has been enabled to secure the services of a pundit in India, it will be easy to transmit to Europe paper matrices of the matter set up here, and the Blavatsky Press can cast metal stereos so that the two issues may correspond.

As the Adyar Oriental Library is gradually growing in importance, that may also be regarded is a part of our Oriental work, and it is purposed to utilize it as much as possible. Indeed, if circumstances had permitted it, the pundit secured for

us would have resided there so that it might be made the central office for this branch of the Society's activity. But all this will come in time. With such great distances between us it is difficult to perfect our system quickly, and racial differences of method have also delayed us slightly in the beginning. As time goes on, all defects will be corrected and greater efficiency acquired.

Nor should our members judge the Oriental Department by the issues already published, for they have been necessarily hurried and somewhat imperfect in form. Indeed, there are so many difficulties to overcome that some time must elapse before every thing will be running smoothly. Our funds as yet will not permit the employment of an American with the ability and time to thoroughly examine each issue so as to find and correct every error in style, fact, or transliteration and translation of words. As the General Secretary's entire time is already engrossed, as well as that of his staff, mistakes will creep in because of the ease with which words in a foreign language, carelessly indited, may be misunderstood. But as we have not yet claimed to be orientalists, any slurs cast upon the Department can be easily passed aside. Time, which proves all things, will prove this enterprise to be of use and value, or will show the necessity of giving it up. The latter contingency is not regarded as possible.

THE GENERAL SECRETARY'S TOUR

The General Secretary was to have started for the West upon the very day when the death of Madame Blavatsky caused him to sail for Europe, and upon his return the new date was fixed for Sept. 5th, but sickness caused postponement till the 8th, at which time he left for Omaha. From Omaha he went to Washington Terr., visiting the 3 Branches therein, thence to Portland, Oregon, and to San Francisco, arriving about the 23d. It had been arranged that his route through California should be made out by the Pacific Coast Committee, they being conversant with the State. It is hardly probable that the route can be completed before the close of October, after which occurs the series of visitations on his journey homewards, beginning with Salt Lake City. Branches and groups desiring a visit and a public lecture are desired to address him before Oct. 25th, Care Dr. J.A. Anderson, 4 Odd Fellows Bdg., San Francisco, stating what provision can be made for a hall, for his entertainment, and for the expense of travel. He will make out his schedule before leaving California, and will notify successive points of his date and length of stay.

This is the longest and most carefully planned tour yet made in America for Theosophical purposes, and is expected to produce good results. H.P.B.'s departure has sounded the word "Theosophy" all over the land and opened thousands of ears to an exposition of it, and there never was a time when a series of public lectures was so certain of attendance and of press notice. Every Western Branch may be quickened and its growth fostered by now receiving a visit during this tour, for

the field is prepared for the seed and the sower is at hand. While no human arithmetic can ever figure the precise effect of a wide distribution of truth, it is reasonably certain that enough will be palpable to affirm the wisdom of the tour and to make American Theosophists long and labor for the time when a Permanent Lecturer will be part of the outfit of Headquarters. This is not at all an impossible thing. The Convention endorsed the project, and $1200 a year have been guaranteed towards expenses. If the General Secretary's present journey stimulates Theosophists in this direction it will be doing one of the many things expected from it.

PACIFIC COAST LECTURER. Bro. Allen Griffiths of San Francisco has been appointed Lecturer for the Pacific Coast by the Committee for T.S. work there, and with the consent of the Executive Committee, to begin March 15th. The Branches and Members in California, Oregon, and Washington subscribed for the purpose. No doubt the result will be very beneficial to the movement on the coast.

THE PRESS SCHEME

Into the T.M.S. the General Secretary has now incorporated the operations of that invaluable "Press Scheme," devised and carried an single-handed by a most devoted Theosophist, "F.T.S.," whereby short articles an Theosophy and Theosophical news are secured publication in a large number of newspapers all over the country. Not thousands, but millions, of readers are thus becoming familiarized with our thought and terms, all from, the energy of one man who uses thus his Sundays and his evenings after days of toil. The Tract Mailing Scheme will now become responsible for its postage and stationery, as well as for incidental expenses of printing and electrotyping, and this with the hope that its operations may be indefinitely extended as our Brother receives more manual aid from friends.

Since the Convention Report, 51,000 tracts have been printed and a large number of cities missionized through Directories. Yet how few have taken part in this great work! During July, August, and September the contributions were $228.33, of which $157 were given by two persons and $71.33 by twenty-two. In three months only twenty-four F.T.S. gave anything thereto! Now that the "Press Scheme" has been adopted, more funds will be needed to effectuate the work. The General Secretary can but state these facts to his Brethren, far it is they who must decide how far he can venture in his operations, and whether they shall be expanded or curtailed. It seems hard to curtail them when the time is more promising than ever before and when "zeal is more than ever needed."

For some months past the Press Scheme has been growing in importance and value, more and more periodicals opening their columns to articles, and the resources of the T.M.S. have been increasingly applied in this direction as the more efficacious. The Press Scheme has still further expanded this invaluable means to reach the public. The General Secretary has now determined to advance to the new level, to re-organize this department of work under the title of THE PROPAGANDA, to devote its main energy to newspaper articles, and to confine Tract-mailing to a few special localities and to hours otherwise unoccupied by his own staff. THE PROPAGANDA will mean a systematic effort to spread the truths of Theosophy over the land, and it will accomplish it just as F.T.S. provide the means. Every day is now of moment, and no words of urgency can be too strong to impress the zeal with which Theosophists should utilize the years still left us of the cycle. The General Secretary asks that each Member of the Society will do something to make THE PROPAGANDA what he purposes it,―a continuous, vigorous agency in disseminating Theosophy. It is limited only by its funds. But for the self-denial of a few, the work would have already ceased. They have not the means to maintain it, and it must reject opportunities unless other Theosophists aid. Will not each thus aid, and so from the very first make this new department a success?

THE THEOSOPHICAL CONGRESS

THE Congress of the Theosophical Society in September as a part of the Great Parliament of Religions was a significant as well as successful event. In another article the Chicago Chairman shows how we had but little hope at first of having any place whatever in either the merely intellectual or the religious side of the World's Fair; how we found the old yet senseless opposition to Theosophy obstructing the path for so long as to cause us to cease efforts; and how suddenly the scene changed and the managers of the Parliament of Religions became our friends and helpers. This change will never be explained by those who do not know the forces working behind the acts and thoughts of men. It not only took us into the Parliament, but gave us the best date of all sittings and made our Congress the real Parliament itself.

Not at any time but now during eighteen centuries could such a meeting have been possible, and it was distinctly a Theosophical step because, being an effort to get on one platform representatives of all religions, it was just what our Society has been accomplishing steadily during the past eighteen years, and what our objects and constitution have always expressed.

It marked a cycle in the development of religious thought. For centuries until the American Republic was founded men's minds in western civilizations were chained to bigotry and dogma. Then, as expressed on the seal of the United States, "a new order of ages" began. Steadily creeds and churches, religious ideas and religious interpretations altered, the freedom

of America making it a possibility that men should here think more boldly and act upon their thoughts, should not be afraid of their opinions but be more willing to proclaim them unchecked by state interference, until at last among the hosts of the dissenters from Roman Catholicism the idea of a Religious Parliament was born. And that the presiding officer of the Parliament should be a Presbyterian was still more significant, as that cult is surely the fatalistic iron-bound one of all the different stripes of Christianity. The cycle being almost complete, its ending and the beginning of another were fitly marked by the calling of the gathering at Chicago. In ending his opening speech, Dr. Barrows, the president, said the whole world is bound by chains of gold about the feet of God.

Our part in the Parliament was not merely to prove that the Society had grown strong enough and sufficiently respectable to compel a place therein, but chiefly to show, as an integral portion of the whole body, that the true attitude for all religious bodies to take is to seek for and disclose the truths in each, and not confine themselves merely to their own pet theories. And as we exemplified this in truth, the other bodies confining themselves to explications of particular creeds or views of salvation―and one, the Raman Catholic, declaring that only in that sort of Christianity were truth, ethics, and salvation―it follows that the Theosophical Congress was in actuality, though not in form, the Parliament of Religions.

The occasion enabled us to present a great object-lesson illustrating what we had been saying for years, that the Oriental is no heathen, that he should not be treated as such, and that an examination of his religions will show them to be the real source of those professed by the Occident. And when all those Greeks, Chinamen, Japanese, Buddhists, Shintos, Hindus, and Confucians appeared on the platform, beyond doubt the Brahmin we brought towered above them all by virtue of the ancient system he represented as prime source of all religions. Our Buddhist Dharmapala, with Annie Besant an old agnostic, combined with all others, proved that the Theosophical movement, though small by comparison with the world's

great set systems of religion, voices the great underlying note of the mental, moral, and religious evolution of the human race. This note is changed, distorted, and colored by any and every form of religion, but in Theosophy it sounds forth without fault. No one religion gives it clearly, no single system will present it to the perception; only by the combination and from the examination of all can it be discovered for the delight and benefit of humanity.

And that the minds of Western people are beginning to hear the first faint vibrations of this great sound was evident at our congress. All our meetings were crowded to overflowing, every shade of opinion was on our platform as well as in our audiences, and, recognizing the effect produced by such an epoch-making Congress as ours, the newspapers of the city, which only attend to that which forces itself to the surface, gave us in their reports the greatest prominence, saying one day, "The Theosophical Congress is a competitor of the whole Parliament."

But remembering the words of our old Teacher, the Master's Messenger―H.P.B., that it may be dangerous for the T.S. to grow too fast, out of proportion to its strength, let us one and all try to make ourselves centres for Theosophical influence, so as to constitute a body of power from the power of each element duly fostered and educed. This we shall do only by personal effort, by attention and by service to others; and thus, and in no other way, we may reap for the Theosophical Society all the benefits that such a congress and such success should justly lead us to expect.

THEOSOPHICAL CORRESPONDENCE CLASS

The increase of the purely routine work of the General Secretary's office has made it impossible to fully reply to all the numerous questions put in letters, and enquirers have to be referred to books after the first usual correspondence has passed. But this does not do away with the needs of sincere enquirers, nor with the necessity for study and the obligation to help members to grasp the teachings of Theosophy so that they may be able to help others in their turn by presenting Theosophy and the aims of the T.S. in a reasonably clear manner to questioners. Many members also require help because of the hurry of our present life and from previous lack of training in metaphysical investigation. The different needs cannot be fully met by the issuance of Branch Papers and the Forum, as these are necessarily limited in area of influence.

Having been offered assistance by some competent members, I have decided to start a CORRESPONDENCE CLASS as a part of the work of the American Section T.S., to enable those members desiring to avail themselves of it to pursue their studies in Theosophy more systematically so that they may thereby gain a better understanding of the philosophy of Theosophy and its application to daily life, thus making it more certain that the growth of the Society shall not merely be in numbers but also in the Theosophical education of the units composing the whole body―at least in so far as concerns the American Section.

These regulations and methods are subject to alteration at the discretion of the office.

It is hoped that no member of the Society will take up membership in this Correspondence Class unless with the determination to keep up the work. Some of the questions may appear to be very simple, but in that case the student should endeavor to make more complete answers and to throw fresh light upon the subject.

As there will necessarily be expenses of postages, paper, and some printing, members of the class are requested to help in this matter by sending stamps for the return of their papers, and also, if they can, by sending an extra two or five cent stamp. The class ought to be self-supporting, though as yet that is not demanded.

All members joining the class are requested to answer the following questions for the information of the Officers.

All communications relating to the Correspondence Class are to be addressed to: Secretary T.S. Correspondence Class, 144 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y.

Correspondents are asked not to mix, the business of this class in letters relating to any other matter: if this request is not complied with, all such letters will remain unanswered so far as concerns the Correspondence Class, as the various departments of work in the General Secretary's Office are distinct from each other.

The Theosophical Society is not responsible as an organization for any view or opinion to be expressed or intimated in any of the papers, documents, questions, or answers in this class: nor is the Society in any way bound thereby: nor are any such views or opinions authoritative or to be deemed as the views or opinions of the T.S.: they are only individual views and opinions of those who express them.

CHANGE OF NAME

Commencing with the next, April, number, the PATH, which has been published for ten years under that name, will drop the title and thereafter will be issued under the name of THEOSOPHY. Its management, aims, and policy will in no way be altered, but will continue on the lines laid down at the outset of its career.

It is hoped that the change of name will not result in any disappointment to the present friends and readers of the magazine. All existing subscriptions will be filled by sending THEOSOPHY, unless other instructions are given, in which case the wishes of subscribers will be carried out as nearly as may be possible.

The change of name will necessitate a change of title under which the publishing and book business is conducted, and this, beginning with the first of April, will be the Theosophical Publishing Company.

It is therefore requested that all business communications, and all orders and subscriptions shall be addressed to the Theosophical Publishing Company, and all drafts, checks, money-orders and other forms of remittance be made payable to the same. Nothing intended for this department should be personally addressed, and only such matters as have been mentioned should be included in letters intended for it.

Serious delay and much annoyance will be avoided if our friends will kindly observe this request.

All communications intended for publications should be sent to "Editor of THEOSOPHY."

Sharable Highlight

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Theosophical ARTICLES

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

CONTENTS

"YOURS TILL DEATH AND AFTER, H.P.B."

H.P.B. ∴

MASTERS, ADEPTS, TEACHERS, AND DISCIPLES

H.P.B. WAS NOT DESERTED BY THE MASTERS

"BLAVATSKIANISM" IN AND OUT OF SEASON

THE ESOTERIC SHE

THE ALLEGORICAL UMBRELLA

THE MAHATMAS AS IDEALS AND FACTS

AN INTERESTING LETTER

OUR CONVICTIONS

THE ADEPTS

H.P.B. ON MESSAGES FROM MASTERS

AUTHORSHIP OF SECRET DOCTRINE

A WORD ON THE "SECRET DOCTRINE"

THE ADEPTS AND MODERN SCIENCE

THE ADEPTS IN AMERICA IN 1776

ADEPTS AND POLITICS

WILL MASTERS' HELP BE WITHDRAWN IN 1898 UNTIL 1975?

ARE WE DESERTED?

PROPHECIES BY H. P. BLAVATSKY

THE IMPUDENCE OF MODERN PHILOSOPHERS

INDIA A STOREHOUSE FOR US

VAST WORKS OF THE PAST

CITIES UNDER CITIES

IRELAND

ARE THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS" ALL FICTION?

ASTROLOGY VERIFIED

DIREFUL PROPHECIES

AN ANCIENT TELEPHONE

WRONG POPULAR NOTIONS

COMETS

OUR SUN AND THE TRUE SUN

THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT

ONE OF THE SIGNS OF THE CYCLE

ON THE FUTURE: A FEW REFLECTIONS

ORGANIZED LIFE OF THE T.S.

THE FUTURE AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO AND NOW

THE CLOSING CYCLE

THE T.S. AND ITS BASIS

A REMINISCENCE

SUGGESTIONS TO BRANCHES

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD AND ADMISSION OF MEMBERS

THEOSOPHICAL OBJECTS

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND REFORMS

WHY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IS POOR

HOW THE SOCIETY IS RUN

A SERVANT OF THE MASTERS

THEOSOPHY AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

THEOSOPHICAL STUDY AND WORK

WHAT OUR SOCIETY NEEDS MOST

WHAT THE MASTERS HAVE SAID

DOGMATISM IN THEOSOPHY

CLOSED OR OPEN LODGES

EACH MEMBER A CENTRE

METHODS OF THEOSOPHICAL WORK

HYPOCRISY OR IGNORANCE

CAUTIONS IN PARAGRAPHS

THEOSOPHICAL DON'TS

THE PATH OF ACTION

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

THEOSOPHY AS A CULT IN INDIA

MADAME BLAVATSKY IN INDIA

THE SO-CALLED EXPOSÉ OF MADAME BLAVATSKY

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AS RELATED TO BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM

TO THE BRAHMINS OF INDIA

THE LETTER TO THE BRAHMANS

INDIA AND HER THEOSOPHISTS*

NIGAMAGAMA DHARMA SABHA

THE TRUTH ABOUT EAST AND WEST

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS EIGHTH ANNUAL CONVENTION

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE'S STATEMENT AT THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION

THE CHARGES AGAINST WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

AN OLD MESSAGE FROM THE MASTER