Blavatsky H.P. - Going To and Fro in the Earth: Difference between revisions

But for the present moment all is changed. Cautiously as it is worded, yet the glorification of Theosophy over the head of Freethought—fondly imagined as prostrate and in the dust—appears prominently in several ''Christian'' papers, and chief among them is the miniature but aggressive organ {{Page aside|407}}of the Rev. Z. B. Woffendale. The Light of the World, published “for the spread of Christianity and the cure of Infidelity” (sic)—(esoterically, “cure” should read “abuse”)—sends to the “Light of Asia,” like Jacob to Esau after having deprived him of his birthright, “presents for his brother,” she-goats and rams, “ewes and milch camels,” in the shape of rather forced preference for theosophy over freethought. Pious Jacob bows seven times to his injured brother. Shall Esau run to meet him and weep, falling on his neck? Alas, no; Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes! The Light of the World may exhaust its capitals to print as it has done in its August issue in inch-long letters about “MRS. ANNIE BESANT’S CONVERSION FROM ATHEISM TO GOD” (?!); withal, it fails to hoodwink anyone but those who find it convenient to remain blind. If Theosophy were no better than “Satanism” only yesterday, it cannot have suddenly become “theism” and even “God,” today—and this owing only to the said and so-called “conversion.” Nor does the pious editor of this little monthly believe anything of the kind in his heart of hearts; he must know as well as we do that Mrs. Besant is, as a Theosophist, as far from the God of the Theist and the dogmatic Churches of today, as she ever was, when a Secularist. Nay, the reverend editor ought to be told something more. He has to be informed without one moment’s loss of time that Annie Besant is much more of a Freethinker now, than she ever had a chance of being, before she joined our ranks. And the reason for it is this: because Modern Freethought shows itself in the person of some of its chief public representatives in England—we exclude, of course, Mr. Bradlaugh from this group—as stubborn in its fossilized views, as bigoted in its special ideas, and as ferociously vindictive and unscrupulous, as any Church sectarians can be. And Theosophy, kind enemies, is the reverse of all this.<ref>The difference that exists between the policy of the editors of theosophical magazines and that of the conductors of the London Freethinker is clearly marked by the respective attitudes of their editors and the contents of their journals. The Theosophist and Lucifer for instance, are ever ready to publish a well-written philosophical article or even a skit against the Society if it contains some truth—as witnessed by the (August) Theosophist in the article called “About the Kabbalah” and our serial story “The Talking Image of Urur.” But it remains to be seen whether the Freethinker would ever insert one line against the personal views of its editors. We invite anyone to try. Again, neither Lucifer nor The Theosophist has ever breathed one word against the extreme views of the editor of the Freethinker, and our Madras journal has ever defended and expressed sympathy with him in his great trouble when “Blasphemy Law” had, like the car of Juggernaut, almost crushed him. But, if anyone would find scurrilous abuse of Theosophy and especially slander of, and brutal insults offered to, H. P. Blavatsky, caused by Mrs. Besant’s joining our ranks—let him open the Freethinker and learn what Freethought is like in its columns.</ref>

Judging indeed by the attitude of a few of Mrs. Besant’s late colleagues, now her open enemies, they wanted to see her following them as a bondwoman rather than as one made free by the recognition of fact and truth. If to be considered a modern English Freethinker it is held absolutely necessary to be bound hand and foot to the so-called scientific materialism of the Vogt and Haeckel school—that crass materialism which destroys all, without ever creating anything lasting—and especially to hold to the vituperating canon of Messrs. Foote and Co., then we doubt whether Annie Besant was ever a Freethinker at all until she joined us. But now she is one by birthright. As well remarked by herself, some Freethinkers neither “keep open a window towards new light,” nor do they refuse—as they ought to if they were real Freethinkers “to pull down their mental blinds.”<ref>Pamphlet: Why I became a Theosophist.</ref> And seeing all this, and to be consistent with herself she joined Theosophy, and thus became a true Freethinker.<ref>It is interesting as an answer to some who persist in accusing us of shifting our views in order to “compass converts,” to quote here a few lines from an article we have written in The Theosophist as early as August, 1882.—It is just seven years ago, when Mrs. Besant, misled by a misstatement of our views as to the so-called “Supernatural,” pointed out that belief in the supernatural was not consistent with Secularism. To this we replied as follows:—“. . . We beg to assure the Radical editors of the National Reformer, that they were both very strangely misled by false reports about the as radical editors of The Theosophist. The term ‘Supernaturalists’ can no more apply to the latter than to Mrs. A. Besant or Mr. C. Bradlaugh. Our Society is neither a sect of jumping Shakers who invite ‘the Spirit to move them,’ nor a band of Spiritualists who long to hold communion with the ‘spirits’ of the dead . . . Most of our Members decline to believe on second-hand testimony, even in the well-proven phenomena of mesmerism . . . We doubt whether the ‘scientific materialism of secularism’ can ever hope to reach, let alone surpass, the ‘scientific materialism’ of Buddhism” We closed our reply with the hope that our secularist “colleague and Brother,” the editor of the Madras Philosophic Inquirer, “will remain forever true and loyal to his principles of a Freethinker and—a Fellow of the Theosophical Society.” (See The Theosophist, Vol. III, August, 1882, p. 278.) Where’s the difference between what we said then, and now (See Editorial in the July Lucifer), to the editor of the National Reformer? Did we seek to “compass a convert” then also?</ref> Now Mrs. Besant has entered upon the one royal {{Page aside|409}}highway of Freethought. Now she stands on a secure spot, wherein every collateral path lies in the sunlight of truth and fact in nature, as much as these can ever be unveiled by human and finite intellect, and where no personal preconception, no partisan fanaticism, is ever permitted to overshadow it.

. . . . .one of the cleverest of the Infidel advocates, has suddenly hauled down the black banner of Atheism and trampled its folds ignominiously beneath her feet.

For, she has done nothing of the kind. Nor has she turned “from Atheism to God,” if atheism means simply denial of an anthropomorphic god and refusal to recognize or bow before an extra-Cosmic deity. If so, then the Theosophical Society is full of “Atheists.” Nor could Annie Besant be a Theosophist were she to turn round on any belief or school of thought she happened to disagree with and trampling it “under her feet” damn and anathematize it. Theosophy, moreover, as shown in our editorial of July in reply to Mr. Bradlaugh and others, was never synonymous with belief in God—i.e., a personal Being. Our “God” is not even an intra-cosmic deity but the COSMOS itself, the soul of nature, its spirit and its body; our creed being, therefore, {{Page aside|410}}transcendental PANTHEISM. Is this, reverend sirs, your god? You admit the contrary yourself, moreover, for you further say that:—

Mrs. Besant acknowledges that she has joined, and has “reasons for joining THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, a Society, she remarks, in which “a somewhat subtle form of Pantheism is taught as the Theosophic view of the Universe.”

And she is right in this. Our Deity is a universal, absolute Principle manifesting in Humanity as in Nature, the Spirit in both being one and inseparable—hence the true Spiritual Brotherhood of Man. With us, man is the offspring of the GODS (not of God), and the forefather in the present cycle of still greater gods, in a future cycle. Such is the creed of our philosophy.

It follows then that if Mrs. Besant has somewhat modified of late her Secularistic opinions with regard—not merely to “another life and worlds,” but—to other lives and other worlds, she may still repeat as sincerely now as she did then, when writing the sentence quoted by the Light of the World from the “National Secular Society’s Tracts”—“We drive the God idea (of theology and the Churches) back from off the ground we have won.” For the majority of the Theosophists are with the Secularists—in this, at any rate. Otherwise how could we ever be really philosophical and logical?

Theosophy, and the rules of its Society if not the embodiment and practical demonstration of the widest tolerance and of the broadest Catholicity would be but a farce. Freethought, which in the views of the lexicographers is only unbelief “which discards revelation” and “undue boldness of speculation” according to Berkeley, is, in the rules of our Society, a sine qua non of true theosophy which being liberty of thought untrammelled searches for and accepts truth, and nothing but the truth, sacred to every lover of Wisdom. Hence, while laughing at this absurdly sudden change of front, evanescent as it is, on the part of several of our Christian contemporaries in our favour, we cannot but feel at the same time, indignant at the strenuous though fruitless attempts made by the Light of the World to use us, Theosophists, as convenient weapons in its warfare against {{Page aside|411}}(if not altogether for “the cure of”) Infidelity. It would fain profit by the darkness thrown over the heathen word “theosophy” through the fanciful etymology it has been given in the Dictionaries compiled by monotheistic lexicographers, and use the term now, as a sledge-hammer to break the heads of Secularism and Freethought. Against this—we protest. We may not be in sympathy with materialism, and may even abhor it; yet the Theosophical Society ought never to forget that which it owes to Freethinkers. It is to the unceasing efforts of a long series of adherents to Freethought—almost every one of whom has been made a martyr to his convictions at the hands of bigotry—that we, in the present century, owe the very possibility of our existence as an organized body. And the fact that none of us has been or can be now roasted alive in Trafalgar Square—to the greater glory of that God to belief in whom Annie Besant is now alleged to have been converted—is due to the long battle of Freethought against Superstition and dark fanaticism.

Yes, we protest, and Mrs. Besant, we feel sure, will protest along with us. It is just because “her eyes have been opened,” that she can never be converted “to a belief in [a personal Moloch of a] God.” Hence we repudiate any such dire results of her “conversion” to Theosophy as fondly hoped for by the editors of the Church Reformer and the Light of the World. It may have “fallen like a bomb-shell among the London Infidels” in the sense that it took them by surprise. But, we have too much sincere respect for Mr. Bradlaugh and genuine sympathy for Mr. Foote—as a man who has greatly suffered for his convictions<ref>Those who had the opportunity of reading the latest pamphlet—Mrs. Besant’s Theosophy, by G. M. Foote, and remembered his uncalled-for and shameful attacks upon “Madame Blavatsky,” may wonder perhaps, at this sympathy? Let the reader attribute it neither to forbearance, nor desire to render good for evil, but simply to theosophical principles. The editor of the Freethinker may become ten times more vulgar and brutal than he has already shown himself on more than one occasion—it does not matter to us in the least. If instead of following the sunlit paths of freedom of thought he prefers to drag its noble car along the miry ruts and furrows of his personal and narrow bigotry, prejudice and likes and dislikes—it is the look out of the Freethinkers of the better kind and does not concern us at all. It is not his personality we sympathise with, but only the “Freethinker” (in its abstract sense) who was made to suffer for his convictions, however much they had run off from the right track, that has ever inspired us with a feeling of sympathy. What we think of him personally may be found in our REPLY to Mrs. Besant’s Theosophy—The Thersites of Freethought, at 7 Duke Street, Adelphi.</ref>—to ever {{Page aside|412}}admit the possibility that one of them “is filled with alarm, dismay and despair,” and the other (the dauntless and fearless editor of the National Reformer!) “rendered almost prostrate by this sudden secession of Mrs. Besant from the Freethought ranks.”

Mr. Bradlaugh having made the mistake of saying that from his point of view a consistent Secularist cannot be a Theosophist, the editor of the journal for the “Cure of Infidelity” now repeats it, assenting thereto with spasmodic joy. But what next, ye gods of the older Heaven! After the painfully absurd and illogical deductions from Mrs. Besant’s “conversion” by some Christian papers we would not really feel too much surprised at finding General Booth’s War-Cry claiming her as a convert, and the Salvationists boisterously proclaiming Annie Besant a candidate—as a Hallelujah Lass—for a “harp” in the “Sweet By and By.”

<center>THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH.

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