< Information for Theosophists, from an Adept (continued from page 11-142) >
than the propagation and furthering of the interests of a disguised priestcraft, as the rules of the Arya Samaja palpably indicate. These priests have humanitarian phrases on their lips, but other thoughts are in their hearts. “By their fruits shall ye know them.” At first their ambition was modest enough. It was only to get as many guineas as they could from the credulous. The conditions concerning one’s life as a Theosophist were very elastic. Live as you please, pay only your guinea, and you are a Theosophist. That is very cheap and easy indeed, though it smacks strongly of Hindoo-American Idolleration. I doubt whether any member has yet received a guinea’s worth of theosophy. But if the Arya Samaja had only the power, they would soon become Hindoo Jesuits. I appeal to the ooncluding sentence of rule 9 (vide the rules of the Arya Samaja) and to the 12th, 13th, 25th, 26th and 27th rule, whether they are not the quintessence of the most impudent samples of Jesuitism. Thus far only to prove that I know enough of the Theosophical Society, and would only call the attention of Theosophists to the wonderfully unselfish spirit wherein those rules are laid down by the Samaja. The pure aspirations of individual members of the Theosophical Society I do not despise, but I despise their practice, and would point out to them that unless they live rightly, they can have no part in the Kingdom of Heaven that is within. Why will the Theosophists be content with a mere name which is not theirs—for no one is a Theosophist who does not know God the Absolute—and how can they know God if they do not know themselves? And how can they know themselves if they do not live rightly? People who are in such a false position should not resent but be rather glad to receive a merited correction. I admit there are honourable men and women among the members of the Theosophical Society for whom I have regard and esteem, but I consider their connection with it as an error. No one of the invisible fraternity can give that which one’s own individual soul can give.
I have no respect for sacred Majesties, infallible Popes, nor invisible Adepts. Of those self-asserted superhuman beings, when you tear the veil of false mysticism away, nothing remains but an earth-worm. Real Adepts like Gotama Buddha, or Jesus Christ, did not shroud themselves in mystery, but came and taught openly. These are divine teachers, God’s messengers. The others, the inaccessible ones, are not so, if they exist at all.
The assertion that the “Brothers” are so advanced as not to be able to communicate with the outer world, otherwise than by mediumship, proves the very reverse of that which Theosophists believe, namely, that the “Brothers” are but little advanced, and fear for themselves that if they came out into the world they would lose even that little. The higher Adepts had no such fears. Jesus spoke not through a solitary woman. There is no proof that the Brothers have surpassed the Adeptship of Jesus Christ, nor that they have even attained thereto.
I shall without fail prove my assertion in due time, that the phenomena attendant upon real Adeptship are on a different plane from Spiritualism, without being therefore at all inimical to Spiritualism or to Spiritualists. The Occult may yet become the Sanctuary of Spiritualism.
Looking over portions of the as yet unpublished third edition of private instructions on organic magnetism by an eminent lady magnetist, I find, to my extreme surprise, that although they profess to teach pure mesmerism, they run altogether into the higher grades of magic, and that the clue to the modus operandi of those magical performances of the Brothers which are not based on mediumship, is there so practically and scientifically given, that I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing in magic that is not in mesmerism, and nothing in mesmerism that is not in magic. In fact, the two are one and the same thing.
A magician is but a developed mesmerist and a mesmerist is an incipient magician. To those who attempt to study “The natural powers of the soul and how these may be manifested,” I would counsel (in order that they may not be misled by false theories) that they should learn and practice mesmerism. They will find this important branch of occult science more practically useful for attaining satisfactory results than the Theosophy of the Arya Samaja, and they will get in the precise instructions of Miss Chandos Leigh Hunt more exact information than all India can teach on this subject.
To accuse a literary man of my calibre of ignorance, is as amusing a mistake as it would have been to charge Porson with ignorance of Greek. The occult is my special subject, and having been rightly initiated there is but little, as I find while reading, that I do not know. In the practice I am at present prudently more negative than positive, because I do not desire to get premature and inconvenient results.
As regards the Hindoo systems, the Atma Boddha is perhaps the least mystifying book; but clearest of all, in a certain direction, are the teachings of Gotama Buddha as given in the Lalita Vistara and in the Lotus of the Good Law.
I am opposed to the Theosophical Society, as I cannot allow the members of it to be equal to their pretentions. And while they hold secret meetings, because their foolery will not bear public investigation, I will throw wide open the doors of the Sanctuary by announcing freely that attainment to the Absolute State is possible to all who live rightly. I do this in order that all the pure, the good, and all those striving for mental light, if they are worthy and rigidly adhere to my instructions, may behold the God within them, and attain to the absolute knowledge. The Theosophists pretend to teach. I really teach. They pretend to know, I really know. They have the propagation of their clique in view; my only object is to establish the eternal truth and to disperse errors, and I care not whether I am Hosanna’d or Crucified.