Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
The Theosophical Movement 1875-1950
By
Present And Future
IF THE STORY of the seventy-five years of history of the Theosophical Movement thus far completed is bewilderingly complex and filled with contradiction, the larger world-history of the same period is not less confusing. In 1875, the people of Europe and America looked out upon a world which, so far as they could see, promised the steady progress of the human race. In the United States, the Civil War had accomplished the end of slavery, and the cycle of industrial exploitation of the Western hemisphere had begun. After the settlement of the Franco-Prussian War at Sedan, no shadow of expected conflict darkened the horizon of continental Europe, while England was enjoying the full splendor of the Victorian Age. That vigorous child of the Renaissance, modern science, was rapidly growing up to manhood and had already proved its practical possibilities in the field of invention, with promise as great for new knowledge and understanding of the natural world. A vigorous ethical spirit, also, was in the air. The ideals of humanitarian socialism were gaining world-wide attention. Filled with the consciousness that they were “civilized,” the intelligent people of the West could see no reason why great and lasting reforms could not soon transform the earth into a model “liberal” society.
Today, in 1950, we may look back upon that optimistic epoch with an envy that is mingled with war-weary chagrin. We are wiser, perhaps, in being able to see how poorly founded were the nineteenth-century hopes of illimitable progress, but our dearly-bought wisdom of experience has little positive value. We know only that the beckoning ideals of the recent past have played us false, that foundations we thought were as stable as the ground beneath our feet have cracked into ominous fissures, replacing former hopes with fears and questioning. Despite the many advances in medicine, physical health is the attainment of only a few, and the ravages of degenerative diseases have stolen away the triumphs of medical science in other directions. The psychic and mental disorders of our time are the subject of many books and articles, and while the doctors of the mind are voluble in diagnosis, there is little that they can claim in the way of actual cures. Politically, the modern world faces what seems to be an insoluble dilemma in the uncompromising struggle between rival ideologies, while the actual processes of self-government, in the lands where self-government is a principle still believed in, have suffered the acute limitations imposed by modern war.
As though to weaken further the self-confidence of the West, the “inferior” races of the Orient seem to have roused themselves to meet the challenge of a new period in their history. After centuries of virtual peonage to European conquerors, the yellow and brown peoples of the world have declared themselves free and equal to other men, just as did common peoples of Europe and America more than a century and a half ago. What if these Asiatic millions were to use their growing power as irresponsibly as the Western nations have used theirs? Truly, the world is filled with unknown quantities and incommensurables, of which the new-found destructive power of “atomic” weapons is but a single example. Nor are particular causes that may be mentioned so responsible for the pervading insecurity of the modern world as the basic loss of faith which has overtaken us. Ours is a world without religion, with a science more potent to terrify than to liberate, and with only tag-ends of yesterday’s intellectuality for a philosophy of life.
It is not too much to say that the elements of an explanation for this forbidding and apparently irremediable destiny are clearly present in the body of teaching and illustrative literature of the Theosophical Movement. Even the course of that Movement itself, despite its numerous human failures and betrayals, gives evidence of comprehending principles that throw light on the disasters which have overtaken mankind. And no disaster which can be understood is really a disaster. By understanding the meaning of what has happened, it is always possible to launch a new course of action which will not lead to disaster.
If H. P. Blavatsky really possessed the vision and foresight which her great works, Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, suggest were hers, she must have realized that the twentieth century would bring crisis after crisis to the affairs of mankind. There is ample evidence, both implicit and explicit, in her writings that she foresaw not only the external forms of present-day disturbances, but also their subtler origin on the planes of psychic and moral causation. “In a few years,” she wrote in an article published in Lucifer, “the psychic idiosyncrasies of humanity will enter on a great change.” During this period of change, she added, psychologists will have “some extra work to 1 do.” Perhaps the most obvious fact relating to the accelerated psychic development of the present time is the progressive selfconsciousness of Western man. In no previous epoch of Western history will there be found the preoccupation with mental and emotional experience that has been typical of the past halfcentury in both Europe and America. If H. P. Blavatsky’s analysis of the psychic principles of man’s nature be taken into consideration, this development is no coincidence, but represents the natural evolutionary response in consciousness to the awakening psychic capacities of the race. Mesmer, an occult teacher and healer of the eighteenth century, tried to anticipate this awakening and to direct the inquiring minds of his time to principles of practical psycholog y that were at once philosophically elevating and therapeutically valuable. The materialism of the West, however, made short work of Mesmer’s effort, which survived, along orthodox lines, only in the debasing practices of the modern hypnotists.
hich continued through heterodox channels became entangled with Spiritualism, with various aspects of “New Thought,” and with Christian Science. Then, in 1875, H.P.B. made strenuous e fforts to de epen the world’s unde rst anding of the psychological mysteries of human life, approaching this task by working, at first, with the Spiritualists. How they greeted her attempt to place their phenomena within a framework of rational explanation is now history—the early history of the Theosophical Movement. And, just as charlatans and exploiters followed behind Mesmer, transforming his doctrines into halfunderstood slog ans and formulas—the stock-in-trade of the quacks alike of medicine, psychology, and religion—so, the aftermath of the Theosophical Movement has produced much the same sort of camp-followers and traders upon things “occult.” The dark shadow which follows every innovation overtook the great moral reform attempted by the Founders of the Theosophical Society, and while the Movement’s leavening influence is everywhere felt, so, also, are the corruptions of its high ethics and psychological insight having their effect.
But where, precisely, are evidences of increasing psychic vulnerability to be sought and recognized? We have only to look about. First of all, and perhaps the most dangerous, is the new popularity of hypnotism. No large metropolitan center is without several “teachers” of hypnotism who, beneath the camouflage of high-sounding objectives, promise the acquisition of psychological power over other people to prospective learners. The counterpart of this modern resort to the techniques of sorcery lies in the growing susceptibility of the population to suggestion. This has been called the Age of Power, but might better have been named the Age of Propaganda. “Psychological warfare” is now a hackneyed expression among the essayists and commentators of the day, and it is no exaggeration to say that vast masses of the population of the world are more dependent for their sense of well-being upon an artificially prepared psychological and emotional diet than upon the satisfaction of their normal physical needs. The individual’s loss of his political independence has been accompanied by the loss of his economic and psychological independence. The economic developments of the early years of this century made it plain that marketing constituted the essential problem of business—not production, but distribution, everincreasing distribution. As soon as techniques of control of human behavior were discovered and elaborated by scientists working in psychological laboratories, these methods were studied and adapted to the service of modern marketing. Advertising became the cult of business, with thousands of devotees eager to learn the secrets of manipulating human thought and emotion for profit.
New and more penetrating channels of suggestion became available through the facilities of mass-circulation newspapers, magazines, then the radio, and now, television. An entire caste of merchandisers, working through these media, have become professionally skilled in the exploitation of human weakness and foible. Meanwhile, the growth of publishing enterprise to the status of “big business” led to standardization of reading material, and the virtual disappearance of originality and editorial independence from the field of newspapers and popular magazines. In time, the techniques of suggestion employed by advertisers were taken over by political propagandists and pressure groups of every description—by even the churches, in some instances. It has become a settled practice to deal with the public in terms of the psychoemotional effects of statements or claims made, with little regard for the actual truth-content of what is asserted.
Some notice has been taken in a previous chapter of the numerous new religious cults which have grown up in response to the frustrations of the epoch and because of the inadequacies of traditional religion. An ominous phase of these movements is their occasionally political overtones. While such movements have been forming, dissolving, and reforming, the aggressive political movements of the time reveal a corresponding tendency to exploit the religious emotions of the masses. Every serious student of modern politics has noticed in the “revolutionary” movements of both fascism and communism typical elements of religious fanaticism; the analogies between modern nationalism and the power drive of politically active religious organizations are too numerous to mention.
There can be little doubt but that dark, subterranean forces, potentialities which almost no one thought any longer existed among “civilized” human beings, are finding their way to expression, horrifying and blighting the sensitive among men; coarsening, hardening, and brutalizing others; and frightening still others into cowed submissiveness. And that these forces are psychological, there can be even less doubt. Men live in their minds and in their feelings, and what they fear and hope for are determined by what they think of themselves, what they think it may be possible for them to do and be—or to become. What is “totalitarianism,” but the monolithic political exterior of millions of human beings who have been molded into psychic conformity—almost psychic identity—by their psychological masters? What is modern war—that quintessence of the totalitarian spirit and form of “social order”—but the annihilation of all human individuality; and a form, moreover, devised and perfected for the destruction of physical humanity?
But if these things be recognized as at root psychological in nature—if the disasters of the recent past, as well as those impending, be admitted as having their beginning in the thoughts and feelings of human beings—what then? The answer afforded in the Theosophical philosophy is plain enough. It is that just as the elements of disorder have poured from the Pandora’s box of human nature, so there is in man a principle of control, of understanding and mastery over all the menacing events, dooms and disasters that the mind can conceive. What man has unleashed, he can also recapture, control, and redirect. It was H. P. Blavatsky’s purpose to arouse the good—one might say, quite literally, the “divine”—in man, as well as to explain the hidden capacities and powers which, misunderstood and allowed to run riot, have so disturbed and confused and even tortured the common life of mankind. She taught the equality of human beings to all of their problems and sufferings, not as a formula for cultist flag-waving or sentimentality, but in terms of psychological laws and ethical principles. Her object was to open up, for all who would listen—and for those who might listen later on—a vista into the r e a lm of human possibiliti e s, and to give such demonstrations as were within her power of the promise that moral and intellectual evolution holds in store for man.
What kind of hopes, then, it may be asked, remain for the future? What sort of “prophecy” is afforded by the Theosophical perspective, and what reason have we to believe that the century of effort which H.P.B. began will not find its influence lost entirely, and forgotten by men? So many “movements” have appeared throughout the past, only to blend indistinguishably with other human activities, their moral inspiration dying, their aims becoming empty echoes.
It is true that the energies of the Theosophical Movement have been spread abroad, that they have entered into other phases of endeavor and, often enough, have lost touch with their original impetus and source. But the essential impact of Theosophic principles has not been lost; rather, it may be recognized in countless places as exerting an unostentatious but very real influence upon the mind of the time. To measure with any accuracy the effect of the Theosophical Movement upon the world would be, of course, an impossible task, for the less particularized the form of Theosophical ideas, the more farreaching their power. How estimate, for example, the degree in which the fundamental propositions of The Secret Doctrine have weakened the hold of anthropomorphic religion in the Western World? Yet there can be no doubt that the personal, outside God of traditional Christianity is today only a relic of primitive belief. In the field of human relations, the ideal of human brotherhood without distinction of race, color or creed is now almost a commonplace objective. Present-day humanitarians and social thinkers simply assume that no lesser ideal can be contemplated. Who is to say to what extent the First Object of the original Theosophical Society—proposing the formation of the nucleus of Universal Brotherhood—sounded the keynote of this now universally accepted aspiration? These are ethical and philosophical influences. So far as particular doctrines are concerned, the teachings of Karma and Reincarnation have gradually penetrated to every class and stratum of society, so that beliefs affected by these ideas appear with ever-increasing frequency.
But if, as theosophists maintain, the spread of Theosophy will come about far more as an awakening process than through the imposition of ideas through propaganda, no possible way can be found to distinguish between the direct and indirect influence of the Theosophical Movement and the deeper stirrings of minds and hearts that might be expected in this period of turmoil and anxiety. In a wider sense, every tendency toward self-reliance and moral independence is an expression of the strength of the Theosophical current in history. In the region of practical economics, there are already numerous small beginnings in the direction of a more natural life. The back-to-the land movement is an agrarian reform, but it is also something of greater importance—an endeavor to restore harmonious relationships between man and nature. The new interest in unprocessed, natural foods, in natural immunity from disease, in spontaneous pleasures and self devised recreation—all these are part of the general and intuitive attempt by members of the human family to regain the basic integrity that they feel is lacking from the practical side of existence. In politics and social relationships, a similar determination to find the root-principles which apply in the organization of the human community have led to the birth of new conceptions of social order. Men who, years ago, would have been drawn into the ranks of the “radical movement” are now devoting their lives to the ideal of “community” as the basic environmental unit of the good society. Others, who have seen the revolutionary political movements of the nineteenth century end in the grim totalitarian fiascos of the twentieth century, are re-thinking their way through social issues along anarchist lines, with the conception of the moral individual as the starting point for their reflections.
The popular revolt against war has also developed to the proportion of a significant movement within the past fifty years. The influence of Gandhi in this direction has, of course, been immeasurable. In Asia a kind of international camaraderie exists among admirers of Gandhi, and these are numbered in millions, not only in Asia, but throughout the world. In Europe, the extraordinary popularity of Garry Davis, the young American who for a time renounced his United States citizenship in order to dramatize the idea of a world community, revealed the readiness of hundreds of thousands of people, and even entire cities, to support a grassroots movement for world peace—a movement rising from the hopes and yearnings of the common man, rather than in response to diplomatic concern for the “national interest.” The remarkable progress of the war-resistance movement in England and America, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, also gives evidence of the growing belief that modern war is a collective insanity of the nations, and that if the nations do not know how to stop cutting one another’s throats, the people themselves must call a halt.
Similar stirrings may be noted in the psychic and emotional life of the peoples of the West. The prestige of evolutionary materialism has lost much of its force—discounted, perhaps, along with the general disillusionment with “science” as providing the means to a happy, peaceful world. When ortho doxies show their inadequacy, there is opportunity for men to learn from their own primary intuitions and to regain the selfreliance in thought upon which all genuine growth depends. Even in the academic world, new inroads have been made into the complacent materialism of the age. Anthropologists such as Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Frederic Wood Jones in England, have shown that the human species ought to be regarded as a line of evolution independent of the anthropoid apes. The work in the field of extra sensory perception, begun by William McDougall and carried to dramatic and widely accepted conclusions by J. B. Rhine of Duke University, has opened up the prospect in scientific psychology of a new, nonanimalistic theory of human nature. It is even conceivable that, within two or three decades, the term “soul” will begin to be restored to the scientific vocabulary, where it will represent a disciplined conception of the human ego as a unitary being of consciousness, having powers, faculties and duration independent of the outer physical organism. Meanwhile, as these developments proceed in modern research, progress in the clinical aspects of psychology has also resulted in new working conceptions of the human psyche. Despite the reticence and timidity of psychiatrists and analysts as a group, some of their number have spoken out candidly against the debilitating effects of religious dogma. The psychiatrists emphasize the need for the psychically disabled to learn to think for themselves, and while modern clinical psychology has long been under the shadow of Freudian excesses, the value of psychiatric criticism of both personal and cultural delusions, springing largely from traditional religion, can hardly be overestimated.
A century ago, the forward impetus of the Theosophical Movement was prepared for through the cycle of Spiritualistic inquiry. In this century, however, psychic development and interest is concerned with the problems of modern psychiatry, with new interest in telepathy and other forms of extra sensory perception, and with the quite noticeable attractions which the idea of “yogi” powers holds for innumerable people, especially the young, who maintain a not unwholesome, if uninstructed, attitude toward such possibilities of self-development and self-control. In general, it may be said that there is much less “supernaturalism” in the psychism of the twentieth century, and while the spread of hypnotic practices is an ominous aspect of this development, many doctors are well aware of the dangers of hypnotism and are doing what they can to prevent its misuse.
In education, too, the trend is away from materialism, and toward a new self-reliance and the disciplined use of reason. The great contribution of the Progressives, led by John Dewey, was the stimulus to independent thinking and self-expression, and the insistence that knowledge must always relate to the immediate experience of individuals. While the Progressives sought to end the reign of rigid educational authority and inherited formalism, Dr. Hutchins, of the University of Chicago, has labored to restore the search for first principles as the key to all genuine teaching and education. The Great Books seminars now being carried on by volunteer educators, using the Socratic method, in hundreds of cities of the United States, are contributing to a revival of philosophical thinking. This work helps to uncover anew the undying philosophical values in the great literature of the past.
Conceivably, these various developments, hardly noticeable to those who have only the daily press to acquaint them with what is going on in the world, represent the preliminary shaping of a vast matrix for future cycles of human evolution. Even the titanic struggles of the wars of this century, the accompanying nihilistic revolutions, and the return by some nations to the barbarisms of a forgotten past, may be seen as symptoms of a much deeper revolt of the human spirit against the hypocrisies and deceits of Christendom. The aimlessness and hopelessness of countless millions of the peoples of the world of today represent at least a disillusionment that may be necessary to any sort of genuine awakening.
The world cries out for a philosophy of soul that is free from the blandishments of priests, from the oppressive authority of creeds and immovably dogmatic institutions. Human beings seek some source of faith in themselves—they long to be able to believe in themselves, to be capable of genuine love and selfrespect. Perhaps, as the Theosophic philosophy suggests, a great psychic mutation is in the making for mankind—not, surely, some kind of miraculous “inter vention” by an amiable deity, but a natural transition like the passage in adolescence from boyhood to manhood. If evolution be more than purely physical, then a change of this sort may easily be regarded as a possibility. But in any event, whatever the future holds, it will come as a blessing or a curse depending upon the degree of self-consciousness and understanding with which it is met by human beings themselves. The message of the Theosophical Movement is that knowledge is the key to human progress and happiness, and that such knowledge is possible.
The story of the Theosophical Movement reaches back across the centuries, its beginning lost in the darkness which precedes the memory of man. Itsrepresentatives, teachers and spokesmen have all said the same thing—that its origin is the evolutionary impulse of great Nature; its purpose the uplift and emancipation from suffering and ignorance of every living thing upon the face of the earth. It teaches the immortality of the soul—of the enduring human ego—that eternal pilgrim who journeys from life to life, passing through civilization after civilization, sometimes gaining, sometimes failing, but ever moving onward according to its selfmade destiny. For this soul, there is no darkness without the light which casts the shadow, no agony without a compensating joy or peace. The end of all this struggle is the growth into greater selfknowledge, which means that the hunger for love and companionship will at last be satisfied in the realization of the spiritual identity which joins every man with his fellow, which makes us all parts of one another, all brothers and children of one great parent, Life.
This was the dream for which that lion-hearted soul, H. P. Blavatsky, labored. There were those in her lifetime who felt the touch of her spirit, the magic of her indomitable will, and lived forever after in the warmth of the fire kindled within them. There have been others, since, who have found the same tide of aspiration and have merged their lives with its everrunning current. The real Theosophical Movement is not a matter of “organizations.” While it may use organizations, as souls use bodies, the life of an organization in no way defines or limits the life of the Theosophical Movement. H. P. Blavatsky cared little or nothing for the institutional forms of Theosophical organizations. She would, as she wrote to Col. Olcott, quickly drop the Theosophical Society if it ceased to be a useful tool for the spread of the living ideas with which she was solely concerned. But she cared everything for these ideas, and Judge, with her and after her, felt as she did and followed her example. The true history of the Theosophical Movement is of necessity a history of the movement of ideas—the fertilized germs of thought which stir the human intelligence and spur it onward to further heights of comprehension and a wider fraternity of mind.
