Blavatsky H.P. - The Beacon of the Unknown: Difference between revisions

It is some consolation, perhaps, to know that the majority of our literary critics, transatlantic and continental, are ex-scribblers who have made a ''fiasco'' in literature, and are now avenging themselves for their mediocrity upon everything they come across. The thin blue wine, insipid and processed, almost always turns into strong vinegar. Unfortunately, the reporters of the press in general (poor devils, {{Page aside|260}}hungry for promotion), whom we would be sorry to begrudge the little they make—even at our expense—are not our only or our most dangerous critics. Bigots and materialists—the sheep and goats of religion—having in turn placed us in their index expurgatorius, our books are banished from their libraries, our journals are boycotted, and ourselves subjected to the most complete ostracism. One pious soul, who accepts literally the miracles of the Bible following with emotion the ichthyographical investigations of Jonah in the whale’s belly, or the trans-ethereal journey of Elias, flying off, salamander-like, in his chariot of fire, nevertheless regards the Theosophists as wonder-mongers and cheats. Another—âme damnée of Haeckel—while displaying a credulity as blind as that of the bigot in his belief in the evolution of man and the gorilla from a common ancestor (considering the total absence of every trace in nature of any connecting link whatever), splits his sides laughing when he finds that his neighbour believes in occult phenomena and psychic manifestations. Nevertheless, neither the bigot nor the man of science, nor even the academician, numbered among the “Immortals,” can explain to us the smallest of the problems of existence. The metaphysician who for centuries has studied the phenomenon of being in its first principles, and who would smile pityingly while listening to the ramblings of Theosophy, would be greatly embarrassed to explain to us the philosophy or even the cause of dreams. Which of them can tell us why all the mental operations, except reasoning, which faculty alone finds itself suspended and paralyzed—function while we dream with as much activity and energy as when we are awake? The disciple of Herbert Spencer would send one who squarely asked him that question to the biologist. The latter, for whom digestion is the alpha and omega of every dream—as well as hysteria, that great Proteus of a thousand forms, which is present in all psychic phenomena—could by no means satisfy us. Indigestion and hysteria are, in fact, twin sisters, two goddesses to whom the modern physiologist has raised an altar at which he has constituted himself the officiating priest. That is his own business, so long as he does not meddle with the gods of his neighbours.

From all this it follows that, since the Christian characterizes Theosophy as the “accursed science” and the forbidden fruit; since the man of science sees nothing in metaphysics but “the domain of the crazy poet” (Tyndall); since the reporter touches it only with poisoned forceps; and since the missionaries associate it with the idolatry of the “benighted Hindu,” it follows, we say, that poor Theo-sophia is as shamefully treated as she was when the ancients called her the TRUTH—while they relegated her to the bottom of the well. Even the “Christian” Kabalists, who love to mirror themselves in the dark waters of this deep well, although they see nothing there but the reflection of their own faces, which they mistake for that of Truth, even the Kabalists make war upon us! . . . Nevertheless, all that is no reason why Theosophy should have nothing to say in its own defense, and in its own favour; or that it should cease to assert its right to be listened to; or why its loyal and faithful servants should neglect their duty by acknowledging themselves beaten.

Protestantism and Ultramontanism are opposed to Theosophy, just as they were opposed to everything not emanating from themselves; as Calvinism opposed the replacing of its two fetishes, the Jewish Bible and the Sabbath, by the Gospel and the Christian Sunday; as Rome opposed secular education and Freemasonry. Dead letter and Theocracy have, however, had their day. The world must move and {{Page aside|262}}advance, under penalty of stagnation and death. Mental evolution progresses pari passu with physical evolution, and both advance towards the ONE TRUTH, which is the heart, as evolution is the blood, of the system of Humanity. Let the circulation stop for one moment, and the heart stops and it is all up with the human machine! And it is the servants of Christ who wish to kill, or at least paralyze, the Truth by the blows of a club called “the letter that kills”! That which Coleridge said of political despotism applies even more to religious despotism. The Church, unless she withdraws her heavy hand, which weighs like a nightmare on the oppressed bosoms of millions of believers nolens volens, and whose reason remains paralyzed in the clutch of superstition, the ritualistic Church is sentenced to yield its place to religion and—to die. Soon it will have to choose. For, once the people become enlightened about the truth which it hides with so much care, one of two things will happen: the Church will either perish by means of the people; or else, if the masses are left in ignorance and in slavery to the dead letter, it will perish with the people. Will the servants of eternal Truth, which has been made by them a squirrel running around an ecclesiastical wheel, show themselves sufficiently altruistic to choose the first of these alternative necessities? Who knows?

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Theosophy, we say, comes to us from the extreme East, as did the Theosophy of Plotinus and Iamblichus, and even the mysteries of ancient Egypt. Do not Homer and Herodotus tell us, in fact, that the ancient Egyptians were the “Ethiopians of the East,” who came from Lankâ or Ceylon, according to their descriptions? For it is generally acknowledged that the people whom those two authors call Ethiopians of the East were no other than a colony of very dark-skinned Âryans, the Dravidians of Southern India, who took an already existing civilization with them to Egypt. This took place during the prehistoric ages which Baron Bunsen calls pre-Menite (before Menes), but which have a history of their own, to be found in the ancient Annals of Kullûka-Bha˜˜a. Besides, and apart from the esoteric teachings, which are not divulged to a mocking public, the historical researches of Colonel Vans Kennedy, the great rival in India of Dr. Wilson as a Sanskritist, show us that pre-Assyrian Babylonia was the home of Brâhmanism, and of Sanskrit {{Page aside|264}}as a sacerdotal language.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[Reference is most likely to the two remarkable works of Col. Vans Kennedy: Researches into the Origin and Affinity of the Principal Languages of Asia and Europe, London, 1828; and Researches into the Nature and Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology, London, 1831.––Compiler.]}}</ref> We also know, if Exodus is to be believed, that Egypt had, long before the time of Moses, its diviners, its hierophants and its magicians; that is to say, before the XIXth dynasty. Finally Brugsch-Bey sees in many of the gods of Egypt, immigrants from beyond the Red Sea and the great waters of the Indian Ocean.

Whether that be so or not, Theosophy is a descendant in direct line of the great tree of universal GNOSIS, a tree, the luxuriant branches of which, spreading over the whole earth like a great canopy, overshadowed during the epoch—which Biblical chronology is pleased to call antediluvian—all the temples and all the nations of the earth. That Gnosis represents the aggregate of all the sciences, the accumulated knowledge [savoir] of all the gods and demi-gods incarnated in former times upon the earth. There are some who would like to see in these the fallen angels and the enemy of mankind; those sons of God who, seeing that the daughters of men were fair, took them for wives and imparted to them all the secrets of heaven and earth. Let them do so. We believe in Avatâras and in divine dynasties, in an epoch when there were in fact “giants upon the earth,” but we emphatically repudiate the idea of “fallen angels” and of Satan and his army.

“TRUTH,” we reply. Truth wherever we find it; for, like Ammonius Saccas, our great ambition would be to reconcile the different religious systems, to help each one to find the truth in his own religion, while obliging him to recognize it in that of his neighbour. What matters the name if the thing itself is essentially the same? Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Apollonius of Tyana, all three, had, it is said, the wonderful {{Page aside|265}}gifts of prophecy, of clairvoyance, and of healing, although they belonged to three different schools. Prophecy was an art cultivated by the Essenes and the benim nabim among the Jews, as well as by the priests of the pagan oracles. The disciples of Plotinus attributed miraculous powers to their master. Philostratus has claimed the same for Apollonius, while Iamblichus had the reputation of surpassing all the other Eclectics in Theosophic Theurgy.

Ammonius declared that all moral and practical WISDOM was contained in the Books of Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus. But “Thoth” means a “college,” school or assembly, and the works of that name, according to the theodidaktos, were identical with the doctrines of the sages of the extreme East. If Pythagoras acquired his knowledge in India (where he is mentioned to this day in old manuscripts under the name of Yavanâchârya,<ref>A term which comes from the words Yavana, or “the Ionian,” and achârya, professor or master.”</ref> the “Greek Master”), Plato gained his from the books of Thoth-Hermes. How it is that the younger Hermes —the god of the shepherds, surnamed “the good shepherd”—who presided over divination and clairvoyance, became identical with the Thoth (or Thot), the deified sage and the author of the Book of the Dead—only the esoteric doctrine can reveal to the Orientalists.

Every country has had its Saviours. He who dissipates the darkness of ignorance by the help of the torch of science, thus disclosing to us the truth, deserves that title as a mark of our gratitude, quite as much as he who saves us from death by healing our bodies. Such a one awakens in our benumbed souls the faculty of distinguishing the true from the false, by kindling therein a divine flame hitherto absent, and he has the right to our grateful reverence, for he has become our creator. What matters the name or the symbol that personifies the abstract idea, if that idea is always the same and is true? Whether the concrete symbol bears one title or another, whether the Saviour in whom we believe has for an earthly name Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, or Aesculapius —also called the “Saviour-God,” '''Σωτήρ''',—we have but to {{Page aside|266}}remember one thing: symbols of divine truth were not invented for the amusement of the ignorant; they are the alpha and omega of philosophic thought.

Having neither dogma nor ritual—these two being but fetters, a material body which suffocates the soul—we do not employ the “ceremonial magic” of the Western Kabalists; we know its dangers too well to have anything to do with it. In the T.S. every Fellow is at liberty to study what he pleases, provided he does not venture into unknown paths which would of a certainty lead him to black magic, the sorcery against which Éliphas Lévi so openly warned the public. The occult sciences are dangerous for him who understands them imperfectly. Anyone who gave himself to their practice alone would run the risk of becoming insane and those who study them would do well to unite in small groups of from three to seven. These groups ought to be of uneven numbers in order to have more power; a group, however little cohesion it may possess, forming a single united body, wherein the senses and perceptions of the single units complement and mutually help each other, one member supplying to another the quality in which he is wanting—such a group will always end by becoming a perfect and invincible body. “Union is strength.” The moral fable of the old man bequeathing to his sons a bundle of sticks which were never to be separated, is a truth which will forever remain axiomatic.

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“The disciples (lanoos) of the law of the Diamond Heart (magic) will help each other in their lessons. The grammarian will be at the service of him who looks for the soul of the metals (chemist),” etc., etc. (Cathechism of the Gupta-Vidyâ).

The ignorant would laugh if they were told that in the Occult Sciences the Alchemist can be useful to the philologist and vice versa. They would understand the matter better, perhaps, if told that by this substantive (grammarian or philologist) we mean to designate one who makes a study of the universal language of corresponding symbols, although only the members of the Esoteric Section of The Theosophical Society can understand clearly what the term philologist means in that sense. All things in nature have correspondences and are mutually interdependent. In its abstract sense, Theosophy is the white ray from which arise the seven colours of the solar spectrum, each human being assimilating one of these rays to a greater degree than the other six. It follows that seven persons, each imbued with his special ray, can help each other mutually. Having at their service the septenary beam of rays, they have the seven forces of nature at their command. But it follows also that, to reach that end, the choosing of the seven persons who are to form a group should be left to an expert—to an initiate in the science of occult rays.

But here we are on dangerous ground, where the Sphinx of esotericism runs the risk of being accused of mystification. Still, orthodox science furnishes a proof of the truth of what we say, and we find a corroboration in physical and materialistic astronomy. The sun is one, and its light shines for everyone; it warms the ignorant as well as the expert astronomer. As to the hypotheses about our luminary, its constitution and nature—their number is legion. Not one of these hypotheses contains the whole truth, or even an approximation of it. Frequently they are only fiction soon to be replaced by another; and it is to scientific theories more than {{Page aside|268}}to anything else in this world that the lines of Malherbe are applicable:

These verses occur in Malherbe’s poem Consolation à Duperier, written about 1599.—Compiler.]}}</ref>}}

This is far from meaning that we accept as an increment of truth every axiom accepted as true by the Academies. An instance of this is the evolution and phantasmagorical transformations of the sunspots—Nasmyth’s theory at the present moment. Sir William Herschel began by seeing in them the inhabitants of the sun, beautiful and gigantic angels. Sir John Herschel, maintaining a prudent silence about these celestial salamanders, shared the opinion of the elder Herschel that the solar globe was nothing but a beautiful metaphor, a mâyâ—thus proclaiming an occult axiom. The sunspots have found a Darwin in the person of every astronomer of any eminence. They were taken successively for planetary spirits, solar mortals, columns of volcanic smoke (conceived, one must think, in brains academical), opaque clouds, and finally for shadows in the shape of the leaves of the willow tree (willow leaf theory). At the present day the god Sol is degraded. To hear the men of science talk, it would seem to be nothing but a gigantic ember, still aglow, but about to go out in the furnace of our little system.

No, it is not metaphysics as that term is generally understood, although it plays that role sometimes. The speculations of Kant, of Leibnitz, and of Schopenhauer belong to the domain of metaphysics, as also those of Herbert Spencer. Still, when one studies the latter, one cannot help dreaming of Dame Metaphysics figuring at a bal masqué of the Academical Sciences, adorned with a false nose. The metaphysics of Kant and of Leibnitz—as proved by his monads—is as far above the metaphysics of our day as a balloon in the clouds is above a pumpkin in the field below. Nevertheless the balloon, however superior it may be to the pumpkin, is too artificial to serve as a vehicle for the Truth of the Occult Sciences. The latter is perhaps a goddess too frankly décolleté to suit the taste of our modest savants. The metaphysics of Kant taught its author, without the slightest help of present-day methods or perfected instruments, the identity of the constitution and essence of the sun and the planets; and Kant affirmed, when the best astronomers even during the first half of this century still denied. But this same metaphysics did not succeed in proving to him the true nature of that essence, any more than it has helped modern physics in doing so, notwithstanding its noisy hypotheses.

Theosophy, therefore, or rather the occult sciences it studies, is something more than simple metaphysics. It is, if I may be allowed to use the double term, meta-metaphysics, {{Page aside|270}}meta-geometry, etc., etc., or a universal transcendentalism. Theosophy rejects the testimony of the physical senses entirely, if the latter be not based upon that afforded by the psychic and spiritual perceptions. Even in the case of the most highly developed clairvoyance and clairaudience, the final testimony of both must be rejected unless by those terms is signified the '''φωτὸς''' of Iamblichus, or the ecstatic illumination, the of '''ἀγωγὴ μαντεία''' Plotinus and Porphyry. The same holds good for the physical sciences; the evidence of reason upon the terrestrial plane, like that of our five senses, should receive the imprimatur of the sixth and seventh senses of the divine Ego, before a fact can be accepted by the true occultist.

In his particular case, a remarkable intuition of occult truth has been of more service to him than all his great knowledge of physical science. It is certain that neither scientific methods, nor official routine, have helped him much in his discovery of radiant matter, or in his research into protyle, or primordial matter.<ref>The homogeneous, non-differentiated element which he calls meta-element.</ref>

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That which the Theosophists who hold to orthodox and official science try to accomplish in their own domain, the occultists or the Theosophists of the “inner group” study according to the method of the esoteric school. If up to the present this method has demonstrated its superiority only to its students, that is to say, to those who have pledged themselves by oath not to reveal it, that circumstance proves nothing against it. Not only have the terms magic and theurgy never been even approximately understood, but the name Theosophy has been disfigured. The definitions thereof given in dictionaries and encyclopaedias are as absurd as they are grotesque. Webster, for instance, in explanation of the word Theosophy, assures his readers that it is “a direct connection or communication with God and superior spirits”; and, further, that it is “the attainment of superhuman and supernatural knowledge and powers by physical processes [!?], as by the theurgic operations of Platonists, or by the chemical processes of the German Fire-Philosophers.” This is nonsensical verbiage. It is precisely as if we were to say that it is possible to transform a cracked brain into one of the calibre of Newton’s, and to develop in it a genius for mathematics, by riding five miles every day upon a wooden horse.

Theosophy is synonymous with the Jñana-Vidyâ, and the Brahma-Vidyâ<ref>The meaning of the word Vidyâ can only be rendered by the Greek term gnosis, the knowledge of hidden and spiritual things; or again, the knowledge of Brahma, that is to say, of the God that contains all the gods.</ref> of the Hindus, and again with the Dzyan of the trans-Himâlayan adepts, the science of the true Râja-Yogis, who are much more accessible than one thinks. This science has many schools in the East, but its offshoots are more numerous, each one ultimately separating itself from the parent stem—the Archaic Wisdom—and modifying its form.

But while these forms varied, departing from the Light of Truth, more and more with each generation, the basis of {{Page aside|272}}initiatory truths remained always the same. The symbols used to express the same ideas may differ, but in their hidden sense they always express the same thoughts. Ragon, the most erudite Mason of all the “Widow’s Sons,” has said the same. There exists a sacerdotal language, the “mystery-language,” and unless one knows it well, he cannot go far in the occult sciences. According to Ragon, “to build or found a city” meant the same thing as to “found a religion”; therefore, that phrase, when it occurs in Homer, is equivalent to the expression to distribute the “soma juice,” in the Brâhmanas. It means “to found an esoteric school,” not a “religion,” as Ragon avers. Was he mistaken? We do not think so. But as a Theosophist belonging to the Esoteric Section dares not tell to an ordinary member of The Theosophical Society the things about which he has promised to keep silent, so Ragon found himself obliged to divulge merely relative truths to his Trinosophists. Still, it is quite certain that he had made at least an elementary study of the MYSTERY-LANGUAGE.

The root-idea of the Neo-Platonists was the existence of the One and Supreme Essence. This was the Diu or “Lord of the Heavens” of the Aryan nations, identical with the '''Ίαω''' (laô) of the Chaldeans and Hebrews, the Iabe of the Samaritans, the Tiu or Tuisto of the Norwegians, the Duw of the ancient tribes of Britain, the Zeus of those of Thrace, and the Jupiter of the Romans. It was the Being—(non-Being), the Facit, one and supreme. It is from it that all other beings proceeded by emanation. Perchance some day a wiser man will combine these systems in a single one. The names of these different divinities seem often to have been invented with little or no regard to their etymological meaning, but chiefly on account of this or another mystical significance attached to the numerical value of the letters in their orthography.”

This numerical value is one of the branches of the “mystery-language” or the ancient sacerdotal language. It was taught in the “Lesser Mysteries,” but the language itself was reserved for the high initiates alone. The candidate must have come out victorious from the terrible trials of the Greater Mysteries before receiving instruction in it. That is why Ammonius Saccas, like Pythagoras, made his disciples take an oath never to divulge the higher doctrines to any but those to whom the preliminary tenets had already been imparted, and who, therefore, were ready for initiation. Another sage, who preceded him by three centuries, did the same by his disciples, in saying to them that he spoke “in similes” (or parables), “because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given . . . because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.” [Matt., xiii, 11, 13.]

“Love one another,” said the great Teacher to those who were studying the mysteries of “the kingdom of God.” “Preach altruism, keep unity, mutual understanding and harmony in your groups, all of you who place yourselves among the neophytes and the seekers after the ONE TRUTH,” other Teachers tell us. “Without unity, and intellectual as well as psychic sympathy, you will arrive at nothing. He who sows discord, reaps the whirlwind . . .”<ref>Siamese and Buddhist proverb.</ref>

Learned Kabalists, thoroughly versed in the Zohar and its numerous commentaries, are not lacking among our members, in Europe and especially in America. What has this led to, and what good have they done to this day for the Society which they joined in order to work for it? Most of them, instead of uniting and helping one another, look askance at each other, always ready to make fun of each other and mutually to criticise each other. Envy, jealousy and a most deplorable feeling of rivalry, reign supreme in a society whose principal object is brotherhood! “See how these Christians love each other!” said the pagans in the first centuries of the Fathers of the Church who demolished each other in the name of the Master who had bequeathed to them peace and love. Critics and the indifferent begin to say as much of the Theosophists, and they are right. See what our Journals are becoming—all of them, with the exception of The Path of New York; even The Theosophist, the oldest of our monthly publications, since the departure for Japan five months ago of the President-Founder, snaps right and left at the calves of its Theosophical colleagues and collaborators. In what way are we better than the Christians of the early Councils?

“In union is strength.”—This is one of the causes of our weakness. We are advised not to wash our dirty linen in {{Page aside|275}}public. On the contrary, it is better to confess one’s imperfections openly, in other words, to wash one’s own dirty linen, than to dirty the linen of one’s brothers in Theosophy, as some people love to do. Let us speak in general terms, confess our errors, denounce anything that is not Theosophical, but let personalities alone; the latter lies within the province of each individual’s Karma, and Theosophical Journals are not concerned there.

And yet, The Theosophical Society has more victorious disciples than is generally believed. But these keep to themselves and work instead of specifying They are our most zealous and devoted Theosophists. Writing articles, they forget their own names and use pseudonyms. Some among them know the mystery-language perfectly, and many an ancient book or manuscript, undecipherable to our scholars, or which appears to the latter as a mere collection of falsehoods, as compared to modern science, is an open book to them.

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We believe we have now sufficiently refuted in these pages several grave errors concerning our doctrines and beliefs; among them the one which persists in representing Theosophists—at any rate those who founded the Society—as polytheists or atheists. We are neither the one nor the other; just as were certain Gnostics who, while believing in the existence of planetary, solar and lunar gods, offered to them neither prayers nor altars. Since we do not believe in a personal God, outside of man himself who is its temple—as taught by St. Paul and other Initiates—we believe in an impersonal and absolute PRINCIPLE,<ref>This belief concerns only those who share the opinion of the undersigned. Every Fellow has the right to believe in whatever he wishes, and in whatever way he wishes. As said elsewhere, The Theosophical Society is a “Republic of Conscience.”</ref> so far beyond human conception that we consider anyone a mere blasphemer and a presumptuous fool who attempts to define this grand universal mystery. All that is taught us concerning this eternal and incomparable Principle, is that it is neither spirit, nor matter, nor substance, nor thought, but the container of all these, the absolute container. It is in other words the “God-Nothing” of Basilides, so little understood even by the scholars and the able analysts of the Musée Guimet (tome XIV),<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[This has reference to an essay by Amélineau entitled «Essai sur le gnosticisme égyptien, ses développements et son origine égyptienne.», published in Vol. XIV of the Annales du Musée Guimet, Paris, 1887. The subject is treated of in Part II, ch. ii, thereof.—Compiler.]}}</ref> who define this term with ridicule, speaking of it as “God-nothing who has ordained and foreseen all things, though he had neither reason nor will.”

Yes, certainly, and this “God-Nothing,” being identical with the Parabrahman of the Vedântins—a most philosophical and grandiose concept—is also identical with the AIN-SOPH of the Jewish Kabalists. The latter is also the “god who is not,” “Ain” signifying non-being or the absolute, the nothing or '''το οὐδὲν ἐν''' of Basilides, meaning that human intelligence, being limited on this material plane, cannot {{Page aside|277}}conceive of anything that is, but that does not exist under any form. As the idea of a being is limited to something that exists, either in substance, actual or potential, or in the nature of things, or only in minds—that which cannot be perceived by our senses, or conceived by our intellect which conditions all things, does not exist for us.

The same is the case with the God “that is not,” a term which is merely an unsatisfactory literal translation, for esoterically, one should say the god that does not exist, but that is. The root of '''οὐδέν''' is '''οὐδείς''', meaning “and not anyone,” signifying that what is being spoken of is not a person or a thing, but the negation of both '''οὐδέν''', the neuter form, is used as an adverb, “in nothing”). Thus the to ouden en of Basilides is absolutely identical with the En or the “Ain-Soph” of the Kabalists. In the religious metaphysics of the Hebrews, the Absolute is an abstraction, “without form or existence,” “without any similitude to anything else” (Franck, La Kabbale, p. 173). God, therefore, is NOTHING, without name and without qualities; it is for this reason that it is called AIN-SOPH, for the word Ain means nothing.

It is not this immutable and absolute Principle, which is only the potentiality of being, from which the gods, or active principles of the manifested world, emanate. As the absolute has no relation to the conditioned and the limited, and could not possibly have any, that from which the emanations proceed is the “God that speaks” of Basilides, i.e., the logos which Philo calls “the second God” and the Creator of forms. “The second God is the Wisdom of the ONE God” (Quaestion. et Solut., Book II, 62). “But this logos, this ‘Wisdom’ is an emanation nevertheless?” will be the objection. “And to make anything emanate from NOTHING is an absurdity!” Not at all. First, this “nothing” is so because it is the absolute, consequently the ALL. Then, this “second God” is no more an emanation than the shadow our body {{Page aside|278}}casts on a white wall is an emanation of that body. In any case, the God is not the effect of a cause or of a premeditated act, of a deliberate and conscious will. It is merely the periodical effect<ref>At least for him who believes in an uninterrupted succession of “creations,” which we call the “days and nights” of Brahmâ, or the manvantaras and the pralayas (dissolutions).</ref> of an immutable and eternal law, beyond time and space, of which the logos or creative intelligence is the shadow or reflection.

“But this is an absurd idea!” we can hear those say who believe in an anthropomorphic and personal God. “Of the two, the man and his shadow, it is the latter that is a nothing, an optical illusion, and the man who casts it is the intelligence, however passive it may be in this case!”

Quite so, but it is so only on our plane where everything is an illusion, where everything appears transposed, similar to the reflection in a mirror. Moreover, as the realm of the only real is distorted by matter, the non-real, and as—from the standpoint of absolute reality—the universe with its conscious and intelligent beings is but a poor phantasmagoria, it follows that it is the shadow of the Real, on the plane of the latter, that is endowed with intelligence and attributes, while the absolute—from our viewpoint—is deprived of all conditioned qualities by the very fact that it is absolute. It is not necessary to be well-versed in Oriental metaphysics to understand this; and one is not required to be a distinguished paleographer or paleologist in order to see that the system of Basilides is also the system of the Vedanta, however distorted and disfigured it may have been by the author of Philosophumena. This is definitely proved to us by means of the fragmentary outline of the Gnostic systems given in that work. Only the esoteric doctrine can explain what is incomprehensible and chaotic in the misunderstood system of Basilides, as it has been transmitted to us by the Fathers of the Church—those executioners of the Heresies. The Pater innatus, or the non-engendered God, the Great Archon ('''Άρχων'''), and the two Demiurges, even the three hundred and sixty-five heavens—the number contained in the name of Abraxas, their govemor—all of this was {{Page aside|279}}derived from the Hindu systems. But all is denied in our century of pessimism, where everything moves by steam, even life itself, where the abstract—and nothing else is eternal—interests no one but a few rare eccentrics, and where man dies without having lived one instant face to face with his soul, swept on, as it is, by the whirlwind of terrestrial and selfish affairs.

Apart from metaphysics, however, everyone who enters The Theosophical Society can find therein a science and an occupation according to his taste. An astronomer could make more scientific discoveries in studying allegories and symbols concerning every star,<ref>Everyone of the 333,000,000 gods and goddesses which make up the Hindu Pantheon is represented by a star. As the number of stars and constellations known to astronomers does not reach this total, one might suspect that ancient Hindus knew more stars than do the moderns.</ref> in the ancient Sanskrit books, than he possibly could with the help of the Academies alone. An intuitive physician could learn more in the works of Charaka,<ref>Charaka was a physician of the Vedic epoch. A legend represents him as an incarnation of the Serpent Vishnu, under his name of Sesha, ruling in Pâtâla (the nether regions).</ref> translated into Arabic in the VIIIth century, or in the dusty manuscripts of the Adyar Library, works misunderstood as all others, than in the books on modern physiology. Theosophists with an inclination toward medicine or the healing art could do worse than consult the legends and symbols revealed and explained concerning Asklepios or Aesculapius. For, like Hippocrates of old, consulting the votive stelae of the rotunda of Epidaurus (surnamed Tholos) at Cos,<ref>Strabo, Geographica, XIV, ii, 19. See also Pausanias, Periegesis (Itinerary), II, xxvii, 2-3.</ref> he could find therein recipes of remedies unknown to modern pharmacopoeia.<ref>It is known that all those who were healed in the Asklêpieia left their ex-votos in the temple; and that they engraved on the stelae the name of their diseases and the beneficent remedies. Of late, a great number of these ex-votos were excavated on the Acropolis. See Paul Girard, L’Asclepieion d’Athènes, Paris, Thorin, 1882.</ref> Then, instead of killing, he might be able to heal.

“In France,” a friend of ours once told us, “so many Kabalists, so many systems. With us, they all pretend to be Christians. There are some among them who are for the Pope, so much so that they dream of a universal crown for him, the crown of a Pontiff-Caesar. Others are against Papacy, but for a Christ, not an historical one, but one created by their own imaginations, an anti-Caesarian Christ, playing at politics, etc., etc. Each Kabalist believes he has discovered the lost Truth. It is his own science which is the eternal Truth, and the science of others, merely a mirage . . . And he is always ready to defend and to uphold his own by his pen . . .

“Oh well, they are for their Messiah. It’s just a matter of date!”

True enough, in infinity there can be no anachronisms. However, as all these various terms and systems, all these contradictory tenets could not all of them contain actual Truth, I do not see how the Gentlemen Kabalists of France can claim the knowledge of Occult Sciences. They have the Kabalah of Moses de Leon,<ref>It is he who compiled the Zohar of Shimon ben Yohai, the originals of the early centuries having been lost; it would be wrong to accuse him of having invented what he wrote. He made a collection of all he could find, but he supplied from his own knowledge the passages which were missing, helped in this by Christian Gnostics of Chaldea and Syria.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[Consult on this subject Compiler’s Notes in Vol. VII, pp. 269-72, of the present Series.—Compiler.]}}</ref> compiled by him in the XIIIth century; but his Zohar, as compared with the Chaldean Book of Numbers, represents as much the work of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai, as the Poimandrês of the Greek Christians represents the real book of the Egyptian Thoth. The {{Page aside|281}}ease with which the Kabalah of von Rosenroth and his Latin manuscript-texts of the Middle Ages—read according to the system of the Notaricon—transform themselves into Christian trinitarian texts, is like a fairy scene. Between the Marquis de Mirville and his friend, the Chevalier Drach, a converted Rabbi, the “Good Kabalah” has become a catechism of the Roman Church. Let the Gentlemen Kabalists be satisfied with that; we prefer to keep to the Chaldean Kabalah, the Book of Numbers. One who is satisfied with the dead letter, parades in vain in the mantle of the Tannaim (the ancient initiates of Israel); in the eyes of the experienced occultists, he would be but a wolf dressed in grandmother’s nightcap as in Red Ridinghood. But the wolf is not going to devour the occultist, as it devoured Red Ridinghood—a symbol of the profane athirst for mysticism, who falls victim to its teeth. It is rather the wolf that will perish, by falling into his own trap . . .

Like the Bible, Kabalistic works have their dead letter, their exoteric meaning, and their true or esoteric significance. The key to the true symbolism is at the moment beyond the gigantic peaks of the Himâlayas, even the key to the Hindu systems. No other key could open the sepulchers wherein have been buried for thousands of years all the intellectual treasures which were deposited there by the original interpreters of divine Wisdom. But the great cycle, the first one within the Kali-yuga, is at an end; the day of resurrection for all that is dead may not be too far off. The great Swedish Seer, Emmanuel Swedenborg, said: “Seek the lost word among the hierophants, in great Tartary and Tibet.”

Whatever may be the seeming appearances against The Theosophical Society; whatever may be its unpopularity among those who recoil in horror from anything that appears to them to be an innovation, one thing, however, is sure. What you, Gentlemen opponents, consider to be an invention of the XIXth century, is as old as the world. Our Society is the tree of Brotherhood, grown from a kernel planted in the earth by the angel of Charity and Justice, the day the first Cain slew the first Abel. During long centuries of the subjugation of women and of the suffering of the poor, this kernel was watered by the bitter tears shed by the weak {{Page aside|282}}and the oppressed. Blessed hands transplanted it from one corner of the earth to another, under different climes and at epochs distant from one another. “Do not do unto others what you would not wish others to do unto you,” said Confucius to his disciples. “Love one another, and love all living creatures,” preached Gautama the Buddha to his Arhats. “Love one another,” was repeated as a faithful echo in the streets of Jerusalem. It is to the Christian nations that belongs the honour of having obeyed this supreme commandment of their Master in all its paradoxical force! Caligula, the pagan, wished that humanity had but one head, so that he might sever it with one blow. Christian powers have improved upon this desire which hitherto had remained theoretical, after seeking and finally finding the means to put it into practice. Let them therefore prepare to cut each other’s throats and let them exterminate more people in one day in war than the Caesars killed in a whole year. Let them depopulate whole countries and provinces in the name of their paradoxical religion, and let them perish by the sword, they who kill by the sword. What concern of ours is that?

It may well be that the beautiful utopia, the philanthropic dream, that sees as if in a vision the triple wish of The Theosophical Society come true, is still far off: entire and complete freedom of human conscience granted to all, brotherhood established between the rich and the poor, and equality between the aristocrat and the plebeian recognized {{Page aside|283}}in theory as well as in practice—these are so many castles in Spain, and for a good reason. All this must take place naturally and voluntarily, on both sides; however, the time has not yet come for the lion and the lamb to lie down together. The great reform must come about without social upheaval, without spilling a drop of blood; solely in the name of that axiomatic truth of Oriental philosophy which shows us that the great disparity of fortunes, of social rank and intellect, is due but to the effects of the personal Karma of every human being. We harvest but what we have sown. If the physical personality of man differs from every other man, the immaterial being in him or the immortal individuality emanates from the same divine essence as that of his neighbour. He who is thoroughly impressed by the philosophic truth that every Ego begins and ends by being the indivisible ALL, cannot love his neighbour less than himself. But, until the time this becomes a religious truth, no such reform can possibly take place. The egotistical saying that “charity begins at home,” or the other which says that “each for himself, and God for all,” will always move the “superior” and Christian races to oppose the practical introduction of the beautiful pagan saying: “Every pauper is a son of a rich man,” and even more to the one that says: “Feed first the hungry, and then eat what is left yourself.”

{{Style P-Signature|H. P. BLAVATSKY.}}