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The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950

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India

WITH THE DEPARTURE OF Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky from New York on December 18, 1878, the scene of Theosophical activity shifted from the United States to India. For H.P.B., the journey was to “India and HOME!” For Olcott, it was the beginning of a great adventure—a new life in the mysterious East, where the part he would play was much more than that of a curious traveler, coming from the New World to the Old. He arrived in India already apprenticed in the service of a secret fraternity of Eastern adepts, sages held in extreme reverence by all Indians who still believed in the ancient traditions of Rishis and Mahatmas. For a Westerner, an American business man and former Army officer, to have personal contact with these august personages was an extraordinary distinction, making him unique in the eyes of many of the Indian people.

 

The establishment in India of a public center of Theosophical education was an essential part of the larger scheme of the Theosophical Movement. India was the Motherland of both ancient and modern Western civilizations, and her great scriptures and traditions were indispensable source-materials for metaphysical studies and research into the original meaning of world religions. In India, too, there still existed among the people an intuitive faith in the spiritual nature of man. Hindu and Buddhist teachings afforded conceptions of moral psychology and of inner, psychic development more in harmony with
the doctrines that H.P.B. intended to disclose than could be found in any other religious or philosophical system. Further, the founding of a Theosophical headquarters in India might be the means of awakening a genuine renaissance of ancient Hindu culture, by restoring old philosophic truths to recognition
and reviving the devotion of modern Hindus to their ancestral religious philosophy. Finally, it was in India, or rather, in the high country to the north of the Indian peninsula included within the bounds of ancient India, or Arya- varta—that Madame Blavatsky had come into intimate contact with her Adept teachers, and the inauguration in India of the work of the Society gave opportunity for the relation of those Teachers to the Theosophical Movement to become publicly known.

 

These were the advantages for the spread of Theosophical ideas from an Indian headquarters. The disadvantages, however, were considerable. India had been subjected to Mohammedan domination for many centuries. After the tolerant rule of the great Mogul sovereign, Akbar, the power of the Mohammedan
kingdoms decreased, giving way, in some regions to a Hindu uprising led by the Mahrattas, a people of mixed origin. The control of India by Great Britain resulted from the ascendancy of the East India Company, one of the largest trading corporations known to history, which first settled in coastal cities in 1653, gradually taking over the rule of the Mahratta Empire. Early in the nineteenth century the domination of India passed into the hands of the British Government, and after the suppression of the Sepoy Rebellion, in 1857, the rule of the East India Company ceased to exist.

 

Filled with memories of their ancient glory, the Indian people found this subjection to Western invaders a severe blow to national pride. Cultivated Indians in particular, who regarded European civilization as barbarous in comparison with their own, suffered deep humiliation from the British colonial policy of race superiority, withdrawing behind barriers of proud reserve. In British India there was little or no natural mingling of the two races, the Indians never forgetting their bondage to a conquering race, the white-skinned rulers always maintaining their exclusive position of political authority. Formal relationships, of course, between eminent Indians and the officials of the British Government were maintained, and numerous young Hindus of the higher castes were sent to England to be educated and learn the ways of the ruling nation, leading, in time, to a hybrid “AngloIndian” culture. As a result, an increasing number of Hindus came by
degrees to adopt European standards of civilization and to assimilate attitudes which may be termed simply “Western materialism.” The prestige of British arms and the evident helplessness of the Indian people to accomplish their freedom increased the native respect for Western ideas, and by the latter part of the nineteenth century the devotion of the younger Hindus to their own religious traditions was waning rapidly. 

 

While these tendencies affected the youth of India, the learned men of the earlier generation remained secure in the belief that their inheritance of the great treatises of Oriental religion made them superior to all others in moral philosophy. This was a habit of mind confirmed by the extensive caste system which governed the social relationships among the Hindu people, establishing “spiritual distinctions” sanctified by the usage of centuries and justified by the
priestly authority of the Brahmins. There were, in the 1880’s, a total of some eighty-four sub-divisions in the Brahmanical caste alone, each with its specifications of status and rules that separated its members from other castes and subdivisions. Worst among the abuses of the caste system was “untouchability,” which for centuries barred some forty million Hindus from all contact with members of the higher castes. “Untouchability” was at last outlawed by an official act of the Constituent Assembly of India in 1947, the year in which the British Government pledged itself to relinquish control over the Indian people and to transfer all authority to a free National Government of India. The Indian National Congress had campaigned for generations against “untouchability,” but not until the added moral impetus of national freedom came to India was this inhuman practice finally abolished. 

 

Untouchability, child-brides, and similar degrading customs illustrate the social and religious decadence of India in the nineteenth century. There was also a characteristic passivity among the people, partially due to centuries of subjection to first the Mogul and then the British conquerors, which had weakened
the will of this once free and independent race. It was widely believed, too, that in the Dark Age or Kali Yuga—a period of moral decline prophesied in the Sacred Books of the Hindus—nothing could be done to revive the spirit of the past, but that all oppressions must be suffered in weakness and patient despair. Such religious pessimism made India apathetic and gained for her the reputation of being “backward” in comparison with the vigorous and aggressive policies of Western nations. These, then, were some of the circumstances and difficulties under which Madame Blavatsky labored in coming to India in 1879. Her purpose was to revive the spirit of ancient India, to replace sectarian pride with mutual understanding and respect, and to dissolve the barriers of caste and religious differences in a renaissance of true philosophic inquiry Before leaving the United States, Col. Olcott had been in correspondence with a Hindu acquaintance—Moolji Thackersey— whom he had met during an Atlantic voyage in 1870. Moolji, when told about the Theosophical Society and its objectives, referred Olcott to one Hurrychund Chintamon, who was president of the Bombay branch of the Arya Samaj, an organization devoted to the resuscitation of Vedic religion in India. Hurrychund wrote to Olcott concerning the work of a Hindu pandit, Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, to whom the Samaj movement owed its existence, and proposed an amalgamation of the two societies. Some steps in this direction were taken, but later information convinced Olcott of the sectarian character of the Arya Samaj, and instead he formed a third, “intermediate” society, the “Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj of Aryavart,” which Western theosophists could join or not, as they pleased. The two societies remained in this friendly relation until later difficulties, which developed in India. 

 

The voyage to India was broken by a stay of two weeks in England, where H.P.B. and Olcott were welcomed by London friends and correspondents. On January 5, 1879, Olcott presided at a meeting of the British Theosophical Society, which had been organized some six months earlier as the result of a visit
to London by John Storer Cobb, Treasurer of the Parent Society. Also active in forming the London group was C. C. Massey, a London barrister and writer on Spiritualism, who had been in New York in 1875 and had joined the Society at the organization meeting on September 8. While in London, the two Founders
stayed at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Billing, the latter being a medium of unusual integrity who also had joined the Society in New York. 

 

The Speke Hall, which carried Olcott and Madame Blavatsky to India, left English shores on January 19, steaming into the harbor of Bombay on February 16—twenty-nine days later. The Founders were met by Hindu members of the Society, among them the Samajist, Hurrychund Chintamon, who soon installed them in a small house on Girgaum Back Road. At once a round of receptions and interviews began, Hindus, Parsis and members of the Arya Samaj coming by the hundreds to greet and talk with Madame Blavatsky. The arrival of H.P.B. and Olcott in India was marred by one unpleasant event, occurring when Hurrychund amazed the newcomers by presenting an enormous bill for rent and other ervices, and it developed that a sum sent to him from America for the
Arya Samaj had never left his hands. Exposed before a meeting of the Samaj, Hurrychund promised restitution, but the Founders at once moved to a house of their own, at 108 Girgaum Road, which became their headquarters for two busy years. Soon after settling in Bombay, Moolji Thackersey found for H.P.B. the Hindi boy, Babula, then only fifteen years old, who was to be her personal servant for many years. 

 

From her arrival in 1879 until the end of March, 1885, when H.P.B. left India for the last time, was a period of rapid growth for the Theosophical Movement. During this time the Theosophical Adepts—H.P.B. 's Teachers—were brought into public notice by the English journalist, A. P. Sinnett; the Society gained numerous members among the learned men of India; the first number of H.P.B.'s magazine, The Theosophist, appeared in October, 1879; branches of the Society were established in many parts of India and Ceylon. and in general. the Movement was launched on a course leading to international recognition and respect.In the same period, however, powerful adverse forces threatened the progress of the Movement from without, while disloyalties, faintheartedness and betrayals from within kept the Society in turmoil, greatly weakening its power and harming its reputation before the world. It must be realized that the principles of Theosophy, while apparently without offence to anyone, were uncompromisingly opposed to all forms of sectarianism, and that any effort to
establish the spirit of universal brotherhood on rational foundations must inevitably conflict with the interests of partisan religious institutions. The Christian missions in India, therefore, soon learned to regard the Theosophical Society as a dangerous enemy, neglecting no opportunity to discredit Theosophy and attack the founders of the Movement. 

 

A less obvious opposition to the Theosophical Movement arose from the complex egotism of Western civilization, which was offended by the idea of a quest for truth not in the European centers of academic learning, nor in the laboratories of science, but in the “superstitious”—even the “barbarous”—East. There were at least three reasons for this Western conceit. First of all, European culture was nominally Christian, and if the ethics of Jesus have been ignored by Western nations, the Christian claim of exclusive Revelation, maintained through many centuries, had infected the people of both Europe and America with a moral arrogance which remained long after effective belief in Christian dogmas had died away. The epithet “heathen” or “pagan” still flatters its user with the presumption of a superior religion, regardless of his personal beliefs. Second, the triumph of science and technology in the West, as contrasted with the
primitive ways of the Orient, gave practical justification to this feeling of superiority. Finally, the ease with which European arms subjected the East to modern imperialism made it virtually impossible for fighting and trading Westerners to respect the conquered nations—peoples which could be held in political bondage by a few regiments of troops belonging to the “superior” white race! 

 

Today, in the perspective of nearly seventy-five years, the power of these psychological barriers to Theosophical ideals can be more easily appreciated than when Madame Blavatsky, assisted by a single American supporter, began her revolutionary labors in India in 1879. At the outset H.P.B. made no effort to attract the interest of members of the ruling race in India. Her time was wholly occupied in discussions of philosophy with Hindu scholars and pundits. “The soul,” Olcott writes, “was the burning topic of debate.” Questions of politics, color, business or wealth were scarcely mentioned. Because of this unconventional neglect of the European circle in Bombay, the Society was soon suspected by the British officials as being a cover for political machinations, and Government agents were set to watch Madame Blavatsky, whose Russian origin also excited suspicion. In view of the unpopularity
of the Society with the ruling class, it was the more remarkable, therefore, that only nine days after the landing of the Founders at Bombay, Col. Olcott received a letter from Mr. A. P. Sinnett, the editor of the Allahabad Pioneer, expressing a desire to meet them and to publish any interesting facts concerning their work in India. The Pioneer was a strong pro-Government organ, and this attention of its editor to the purposes of the Theosophical Movement brought the Society to the notice of the more cosmopolitan English residents. Mr. Sinnett’s unusual interest in Theosophy, which soon became manifest, was also the means of disabusing officials of the British Government of the notion that Madame Blavatsky was a Russian spy, and Olcott her tool.

 

In December, 1879, the Founders visited the Sinnetts in Allahabad. Experiences during the six weeks of this visit convinced Sinnett that H.P.B. possessed powers unknown to ordinary persons and his interest in occultism was thereby intensified. In his first book, The Occult World, he tells of the character of these
experiences and gives his impressions of Madame Blavatsky. Sinnett, like Olcott, was greatly affected by the ‘phenomena” performed by H.P.B. He was, however, a man of unusual intellectual capacity, as his early writings on Theosophy show, and, despite the materialistic outlook common to his generation, was able to present a fairly comprehensive account of the Theosophical metaphysics. Through Madame Blavatsky he gained contact with the personages
described by her as her “occult teachers,” with whom he carried on an extensive correspondence. The first several letters received by Mr. Sinnett from one of these adepts are printed in The Occult World. The entire series of letters by the Theosophical Adepts to Mr. Sinnett and to another eminent Englishman—Allan O. Hume, former Secreta r y of the Government of India—wa s published many years later, in 1923, in a volume called The Mahatma Letters. 

 

Mr. Sinnett’s Occult World, appearing in 1885, unfolded a strange story of seeming miracles to the complacent world of the nineteenth century. The book is a sober account of happenings which none of the laws of nature known to Western science could explain. Probably the most startling of the phenomena it describes is the “precipitation,” secure within the double lining of a small cushion, of a brooch belonging to Mrs. Sinnett. With it, among the feathers, was a brief note to Mr. Sinnett. His book provides many descriptions of similar occult phenomena, adding the testimony of various other witnesses. Of far greater interest, however, are the letters which Mr. Sinnett received from one of the adepts, who are called, in this book, simply “the Brothers.” The first of these communications was in reply to a proposal Sinnett had made, forwarded to his correspondent by H.P.B., suggesting that if the adepts would produce in Simla—where the Sinnetts were then living—a copy of the London Times on the day of its appearance in England, then he would undertake to “convert” everyone in that community to the fact of occult powers “beyond the control of ordinary science.” The answer, which he found on his writing table one evening, began directly with this proposal, explaining the reluctance of the adepts to perform “miracles” a la carte. The following extracts are taken from The Occult World.

 

“Precisely,” the Mahatma wrote, “because the test of the London newspaper would close the mouths of the sceptics,” it was inadmissable. “See it in what light you will, the world is yet in its first stage of disenthralment . . . . hence unprepared. Very true we work by natural, not supernatural, means and laws. 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, everyone who would thus be a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance, and the result would be deplorable. Believe me it would be so especially for yourself, who originated the idea, and for the devoted woman who so foolishly rushes into the wide open door leading to notoriety. This door, though opened by so friendly a hand as yours, would prove very soon a trap—and a fatal one, indeed, for her. And such is not surely your object. . . . Were we to accede to your desires, know you really what consequences 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, then, they to expect who would offer the world an innovation which, owing to human ignorance, if believed in, will surely be attributed to those dark agencies the two-thirds of humanity believe in and dread as yet? . . . .

 

“The success of an attempt of such a kind as the one you propose must be calculated and based upon a thorough knowledge of the people around you. It depends entirely upon the social and moral conditions of the people in their bearing on these deepest and most mysterious questions which can stir the human mind—the deific powers in man and the possibilities contained in Nature. How many, even of your best friends, of those who surround you, are more than superficially interested in these abstruse problems?”

 

Of the spirit and methods of modern science, the adept wrote:  “We doubt not but the men of your science are open to conviction; yet facts must be first demonstrated to them; they must first have become their own property, have proved amenable to their modes of investigation, before you find them ready to admit them as facts. . . . your modern men of science are less anxious to suggest a physical connection of facts which might unlock for them many an occult force in Nature, than to provide a convenient classification of scientific experiments, so that the most essential quality of a hypothesis is, not that it should be true, but only plausible, in their opinion.

 

“So far for science—as much as we know of it. 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— pride and stubborn resistance to truth, if it but upsets their previous notions of things—such are the characteristics of your age. . . .

 

“What, then, would be the results of the most astounding phenomena, supposing we consented to have them produced? However successful, danger would be growing proportionately with success. 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. . . .

 

“The ignorant, unable to grapple with the invisible operators, might some day vent their rage on the visible agents at work; the higher and educated classes would go on disbelieving, as ever, tearing you to shreds as before. In common with many, you blame us for our great secrecy. Yet we know something of human nature, for the experience of long centuries—ay, 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. . . the only salvation of the genuine proficient in occult sciences lies in the scepticism of the public: the charlatans and the jugglers are the natural shields of the adepts. The public safety is only ensured by our keeping secret the terrible weapons which might otherwise be used against it, and which, as you have been told, become deadly in the hands of the wicked and selfish.”

 

This letter, received by Mr. Sinnett during the summer of 1880, reveals the contrast between the European mind, anxious for “scientific demonstrations,” and the profoundly educational purposes of the Theosophical Adepts. The next letter, which concerned Mr. Hume as well as Sinnett, deals with the elevated moral ideas upon which the Theosophical Movement is based. Hume had read the first letter Sinnett received and together they had proposed the formation of a small group of cultured individuals for the study of occultism, which would be under the direct tutelage of their adept- correspondents, with the two Englishmen as intermediaries.

 

The second reply to Sinnett continued the explanation of the first letter, enlarging on the difference between the spirit of Eastern occultism and the mental and moral attitudes of even the most cultivated Europeans brought up under the influence of Western materialism and Christian ideas in religion. It begins:

 

“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; . . . . The mysteries never were, never can be, put within the reach of the general public, not, at least, until that longed-for day when our religious philosophy becomes universal. At no time have more than a scarcely appreciable minority of men possessed Nature’s secrets, though multitudes have witnessed the practical evidences of the possibility of their possession. The adept is the rare efflorescence of a generation of inquirers; and to become one, he must obey the inward impulse of his soul, irrespective of the prudential considerations of worldly science or sagacity.”

 

The writer now passes to the question of favoring Mr. Sinnett with personal instruction, in order that he may transmit the secrets of occultism to the public in an “appropriate” manner. Sinnett, in the early pages of The Occult World, shows his disapproval of Madame Blavatsky’s unconventional ways, referring to her failure to give “the British ruling classes of India” the proper attention. He speaks of her “attitude of obtrusive sympathy with the natives of the soil as compared with the Europeans,” deploring “mistakes” which, in his opinion, retarded the establishment of the Theosophical Society on a “dignified footing.” It is evident that Mr. Sinnett regarded Madame Blavatsky as an extraordinary woman, possessing many admirable qualities, but sadly incompetent for the task of instructing the intellectual classes of the nineteenth century. His attitude of condescension toward her, while less obvious than Olcott's proprietary airs and fits of personal pique, is evinced by such judgments as these, implying that he, Sinnett, was far better fitted than H.P.B. for teaching Theosophy or occultism to civilized people. The fact is that this cosmopolitan British journalist was quite unable to lay down the “White Man's Burden.” His ways of doing things were undoubtedly the best. In after years, Sinnett's inability to understand Madame Blavatsky slowly transformed his annoyance at her “eccentricities” into a jealousy which finally ended his usefulness to the Theosophical cause.

 

In this second letter, Mr. Sinnett is given reasons why Madame Blavatsky is the agent of the adept-fraternity, and reminded of the sacrifices that she, and Olcott also, have made in order to serve the Theosophical Movement. Concerning the motives and manner of life of those who would have direct correspondence with the adepts, the letter says:

“Your desire is to be brought to communicate with one of us directly, without the agency of Madame Blavatsky. . . . . . Your idea would be, as I understand it, to obtain such communications, either by letters, as the present one, or by audible words, so as to be guided by one of us in the management, and principally in the instruction of the Society. You seek all this, and yet, as you say yourself, hitherto you have not found sufficient reasons to even give up your modes of life, directly hostile to such modes of communication. This is hardly reasonable. He who would lift up high the banner of mysticism and proclaim its reign near at hand must give the example to others. He must be the first to change his modes of life, and, regarding the study of the occult mysteries as the upper step in the ladder of knowledge, must loudly proclaim it as such, despite exact science and the opposition of society. . . .”

 

The letter proceeds with an analysis of the motives causing Sinnett to make his proposal, which are said to be, briefly, a personal desire to know the nature of and to possess power over the occult forces in Nature; to demonstrate their existence 66 INTENT OF THE ADEPT FRATERNITY to “a few chosen Western minds”; to assure himself of the reality of a life after death, and, finally, to gain positive knowledge that the “adepts” spoken of by Madame Blavatsky actually exist, and are not “fictions of a disordered, hallucinated brain.” The letter continues:

 

“To our minds, then, these motives, sincere and worthy of every serious consider a tion from the worldl y st andpoint, appea r selfish. (You have to pardon me what you might view as crudeness of language, if your desire is that which you really profess—to learn truth and get instruction from us who belong to quite a different world from the one you move in.) They are selfish, because you must be aware that the chief object of the Theosophical Society is not so much to gratify individual aspirations as to serve our fellow-men, and the real value of this term ‘selfish,’ which may jar upon your ear, has a peculiar significance with us which it cannot have with you; therefore, to begin with, you must not accept it otherwise than in the former sense. Perhaps you will better appreciate our meaning when told that in our view the highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity become tainted with selfishness, if, in the mind of the philanthropist, there lurks the 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. . . .”

 

These early letters of the Adepts, like all the others that were to come, leave no doubt as to the basic intent of the occult fraternity. The Adepts cared only for the great ethical ideal of human brotherhood. They would teach, assist and lend their powers of occult demonstration only to those who held the cause of brotherhood first in their hearts, and who would steadfastly labor for its realization in the world of men. These were the conditions, laid down with unending emphasis, to all who applied for instruction from the Theosophical Teachers.

 O Hume, who joined with Sinnett in suggesting the formation of a society in which they would be the leading lay figures, also received a letter which states even more forcibly the conditions of success in occult philosophy. Hume was a man of exceptional intelligence and personal discipline, but, like most Westerners, he found it difficult to understand why the teachers of H.P.B. would not meet him on his terms, in stead of their own. The letter to Hume is a long one, answering several questions. It begins by a consideration of the idea of a special Society, explaining what might be practicable in this direction, and welcoming the interest of so cultivated and capable an Englishman. This done, the abyss which separates occultism from Western conceptions is again described:

“You say there are few branches of science with which you do not possess more or less acquaintance, and that you believe you are doing a certain amount of good, having acquired the position to do this by long years of study. Doubtless you do; but will you permit me to sketch for you still more clearly the difference between the modes of physical (called exact often out of mere compliment) and metaphysical sciences. The latter, as you know, being incapable of verification before mixed audiences, is classed by Mr. Tyndall with the fictions of poetry. The realistic science of fact on the other hand is utterly prosaic. Now, for us, poor unknown philanthropists, no fact of either of these sciences is interesting except in the degree of its potentiality of moral results, and in the ratio of its usefulness to mankind. And what, in its proud isolation, can be more utterly indifferent to everyone 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 sometimes be of practical use to him? . . . . “Exact experimental science has nothing to do with moraliy, virtue, philanthropy—therefore, can make no claim upon our help until it blends itself with metaphysics. Being but a cold classification of facts outside 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. . . .

 

“Were the sun, the great nourishing father of our planetary system, to hatch granite chickens out of a boulder ‘under test conditions’ to-morrow, they (the men of science) would accept it as a scientific fact without wasting a regret that the fowls were not alive so as to feed the hungry and the starving. But let a shaberon cross the Himalayas in a time of famine and multiply sacks of rice for the perishing multitudes—as he could—and your magistrates and collectors would probably lodge him in jail to make him confess what granary he had robbed. This is exact science and your realistic world. And though, as you say, you are impressed by the vast extent of the world’s ignorance on every subject, which you pertinently designate as a ‘few palpable facts collected and roughly generalized, and a technical jargon invented to hide man’s ignorance of all that lies behind these facts,’ and though you speak of your faith in the infinite possibilities of Nature, yet you are content to spend your life in a work which aids only that same exact science. . . .”

 

In answer to Hume’s query as to what good he might accomplish from the study of occultism, his correspondent wrote:

 

“When the natives see that an interest is taken by the English, and even by some high officials in India, in their ancestral science and philosophies, they will themselves take openly to their study. And when they come to realize that the old ‘divine’ phenomena were not miracles, but scientific effects, superstition will abate. Thus, the greatest evil that now oppresses and retards the revival of Indian civilization will in time disappear. The present tendency of education is to make them materialistic and root out spirituality. With a proper understanding of what their ancestors meant by their writings and teachings, education would become a blessing, whereas now it is often a curse. . . .

“The same causes that are materializing the Hindu mind are equally affecting all Western thought. Education enthrones skepticism, 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. The era of blind faith is gone; that of inquiry is here. Inquiry that only unmasks error, without discovering anything upon which the soul can build, will but make iconoclasts. Iconoclasm, from its very destructiveness, can give nothing; it can only raze. But man cannot rest satisfied with bare negation. Agnosticism is but a temporary halt. 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.

“He who observes what is going on to-day, on the one hand among the Catholics, who are breeding miracles as fast as the white ants do their young, on the other among the free-thinkers, who are converting, by masses, into Agnostics—will see the drift of things. The age is revelling at a debauch of phenomena. The same marvels that the spiritualists quote in opposition to the dogmas of eternal perdition and atonement, the Catholics swarm to witness as proof of their faith in miracles. The skeptics make game of both. All are blind, and there is no one to lead them.

“You and your colleagues may help to furnish the materials for a needed universal religious philosophy; one impregnable to scientific assault, because itself the finality of absolute science, and a religion that is indeed worthy of the name since it includes the relations of man physical to man psychical, and of the two to all that is above and below them. Is not this worth a slight sacrifice? And if, after reflection, you should decide to enter this new career, let it be known that your society is no miraclemongering or banqueting club, nor specially given to the study of phenomenalism. Its chief aim is to extirpate current superstitions and skepticism, and from long-sealed ancient fountains to draw the proof that man may shape his own future destiny, and know for a certainty that he can live hereafter, if he only wills, and that all 'phenomena' are but manifestations of natural law, to try to comprehend which is the duty of every intelligent being.”

 

The correspondence begun by these letters continued for a number of years, andwhile the foregoing extractswillserve to illustrate the general character of the Mahatma letters, later communications became long treatises on the occult philosophy—statements of the Theosophical teaching upon which Mr. Sinnett based hissecond book, 2 Esoteric Buddhism. Although Sinnett developed a deep human affection and reverence for his distant instructor, and for a time gave unstinting service to the work of the Theosophical Movement, his antagonism and injustice to H.P.B. were his undoing. He finally fell back into spiritualistic practices, losing all touch with the real inspiration of the Theosophical Movement. Hume became disaffected in 1882 and later left the Society completely. He never gave himself whole-heartedly to the Theosophical Movement, and the reservations which he maintained in his correspondence with the adepts led to an estrangement ostensibly caused by philosophic differences with them, but actually by hisimmeasurable vanity,making it impossible for himto learn fromanyonebuthimself.

 

For the first few years, however, the interest of these highly placed Englishmen was an important factor in the spread of Theosophy, in both India and Europe. Sinnett's book, The Occult World, attracted wide attention throughout the West, and when he returned to England he became active in the London branch of the Theosophical Society. Hume, although he finally severed himself from the Theosophical Movement, continued in humanitarian pursuits, becoming a prime mover in the formation of the Indian National Congress. In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi's book on Indian Home Rule, Hume's counsels to Indian patriots are more than once quoted as the wise words of a Founding 3 Father. There is no question but that, whatever the final outcome of their affiliation, the Theosophical Movement was furthered by both Mr. Sinnett and Mr. Hume, during the period of their active participation in its work.