Olcott H.S. - The President-Founders Address: Difference between revisions

  | original title = The President-Founder’s Address

  | has text = yes

  | publications = [[Lucifer/Vol3|''Lucifer'', vol. 3]], no. 18, February 1889, pp. 496-504

  | read links = [[Lucifer/Vol3/Text|Electronic journal edition in Teopedia]]

  | origin = English: H. S. Olcott, ''The President-Founder’s Address''

}}

<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Brothers</span>, Delegates of India, Japan, Ceylon, Europe and America, I bid you heartily welcome to the Thirteenth Annual Convention of the General Council, and declare the Session duly opened.

The work that we shall have before us, you will find extremely important, and demanding your most careful consideration. I rely upon your coming to conclusions respecting it, with a single eye to the paramount interests of the Society and the movement as a whole, regardless of sectional or personal prejudices and predilections. For my part, I wish my existence and personality to merge into the movement, and to do, and to have done, that which is for its greatest good. And this brings me to the vital questions whether I am the best man available for the office of President, and whether I should be left the widest discretion, with proportionate responsibility, or be part of an executive administration, in which I should have but one vote, with a casting vote in case of a tie in the Council. As you know, my powers were practically unrestricted from the beginning, in 1875, to the year 1885, when the Executive Council was formed, with my consent, and with the declared object of testing practically the scheme of joint responsibility which had been urged upon me by certain European colleagues, then resident at Head-quarters. My repeated public declarations – notably my Annual Address before the Decennial Convention, when I strongly urged, to no purpose, the acceptance of my official resignation and the choice of a successor – will prepare you for the statement that I have loyally tried to remove every hindrance in the way of the scheme in question. It is for you who most closely occupy yourselves with our Society’s affairs to say whether the change was an improvement or not. I think it was not. I have not been relieved of the smallest portion of my sense of responsibility for our

business affairs, everything of grave moment has been left to my discretion, the work has gone on exactly as before, there has been no notable bettering of our prospects or unprecedented quickening of the movement, the expenses have been about as great as ever, without any increase of revenue outside that traceable to my own personal exertions; and all this time I have been oppressed with the feeling that we were giving trouble to the honourable gentlemen of the Executive Council, which might be avoided under the old theory of Presidential responsibility. Perhaps I should have allowed things to go on as they were for a while longer, but the Delegates of the American and British Sections brought up the subject in a recent Session of Council, and it is now imperatively necessary that it should be settled for good and all, one way or the other. I mean that it shall. My offer to retire was rejected by unanimous vote at the Convention of 1885, and I was told I must serve the Society during my life. I yielded my own inclinations to the sense of duty; and the time has come when I should say, most distinctly and unequivocally, that since I am to stay and be responsible for the progress of the work, I shall not consent to any plan or scheme which hinders me in the performance of my official duty. That duty is, first, to the unseen yet real personages, personally known and but recently seen by me and talked with, who taught me the way of knowledge and showed me where my work lay waiting a willing worker; next to my colleague, friend, sister and teacher who, with myself and a few others, founded this Society, and has given her services to it these past thirteen years, without fee or hope of reward; and, thirdly, to my thousands of other associates in all parts of the world, who are counting upon my steadfastness and practical management for keeping the Society moving forward in its chosen line of usefulness. The practical part of its business is my special department: I form and keep alive the body which contains the indwelling spirit called Theosophy. I have never interfered with the esoteric or metaphysical part, nor set myself up as a competent teacher. That is Madame Blavatsky’s speciality; and the better to enunciate that idea, I have just issued an Order in Council, in London, creating an Esoteric Section under her sole direction, as a body, or group entirely separate and distinct from the Society proper, and involving the latter in no responsibilities towards those who might choose to enrol themselves in her list of adherents. With our forces united, each doing the work most congenial and attractive, we two have, under the favour, or rather the benevolent sympathy, of our Teachers, built up this Society, created the first nucleus of its literature, given the first impulse to the now world-interesting movement, which has rallied thousands of sympathizers around our initial nucleus, revived Hinduism in India, reanimated Buddhism in Ceylon, made the principles of Asiatic Philosophy and the names of the Sages known in distant lands, established many religious schools and journals in Asiatic countries, and several high-class Magazines in Europe, America and Australasia, palpably affected the views of the leading Spiritualists, and proved the unity of true Religion with true Science. Am I not speaking within the truth? Have not all these results been accomplished already? Certainly, none can doubt it. Well, then, this is my determination: – to be obedient and loyal to the Teacher we personally know, and a few of us appreciate at her true worth. This is my last word on that subject; but in saying it I do not mean to imply that I shall not freely use my own

judgment, independently of Madame Blavatsky’s, in every case calling for my personal action, nor that I shall not be ever most willing and anxious to receive and profit by the counsel of every true person who has at heart the interests of the Society. I cannot please all: it is folly to try; the wise man does his duty as he can see it before him.

{{Style P-Quote|1=“But it has to be remembered that Theosophy, as such, has a high and severe moral code of its own. It teaches that the power of the spiritual over the material is conditioned upon the highest spiritual development; that toilsome study and the most patient and consistent practice of the virtues are essential to entrance into the sphere of occultism. It is not a faith for the vulgar, and is peculiarly unsuited to the quack. And it has, among people of high intelligence and noble aims, its numerous devotees. It is in this light, as a new moral force in a social order from which some of the old forces are disappearing, that it becomes of peculiar interest. * * * We must at least give to Theosophy the credit of standing upon a plane very different from that of the old and familiar frauds}}

{{Style P-Quote|1=upon the public. It contains the germs of an ethical system of a high order. It attracts intelligence and virtue. It opens a field of spiritual possibilities which may well be subject to consideration and to such examination as can be given it, even though it be proved that we can never enter it with our feet resting upon firm ground.”}}

<ol start="37"><li>''The Buddhist.''</li><li>''The Hestia.''</li><li>''L’Initiation.''</li></ol>

Of course, the great event of the year and the most important literary event in our history, is the completion and publication of Madame Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine.” I have had the opportunity to look over the proof-sheets of the book, and can promise you such a rare body of esoteric instruction and scientific suggestion as no other book of like character has supplied in modern times.

The increase in the number of Branches is this year mainly confined to the United States of America, where, under the conservative yet enlightened management of Mr. Judge, and his Executive Committee and the General Council of his Section, public interest in our work is rapidly growing and spreading. Up to the present time, there are but twenty-five American Branches, it

is true, yet from what I know of my native country and fellow countrymen, I should not be surprised if the time were near at hand when there will be more Branches in that country than there are at present in India. Theosophical ideas are new to Americans, but there has been for years a gradual inclination of the American mind towards the line of thought represented in Asiatic Esoteric Philosophy. Our statistics of growth show the following figures: –

|}

Our expenses of all kinds, including the purchase, up-keep, and furnishing of the Head-quarters estate; the building of the Adyar Library, its furnishing and purchase of books; construction of new buildings; repairs; travelling; and all other sundry expenses, have been about Rs. 30,000 or 40,000 more than the receipts; which deficit has been made up by the Founders from private resources under their personal control. To show for the major part of this outlay, we have the moveable and immoveable property of the Head-quarters, worth perhaps 35 to 40 thousand rupees; the sum of Rs. 9,267-8-3 in Government securities, and cash in Savings Bank, constituting together the Permanent Fund; and Rs. 3,000 to the credit of the Anniversary, Head-quarters, Subba Row Medal, and Library Funds.

It was found expedient by the Executive Council that I should proceed to Europe and attempt to bring our affairs into order. We saw the Continental Branches languishing for lack of superintendence and reciprocal work, although there was reason to hope that the movement might be greatly strengthened and expanded under a proper organization; while in the United Kingdom a strong desire had recently shown itself for an active propaganda, similar to the American and Indian ones, which could only be effected by the organization of a section of the General Council to act as a Local Committee of supervision and

administration. Accordingly, I sailed from Bombay for Brindisi on the 7th August, visited London, Liverpool, Cambridge, Glasgow, Paris and Bologna, on Society business, and returned to Head-quarters on the 15th November. I formed new Branches at Liverpool, Glasgow and Cambridge; dischartered the old “Isis” Branch at Paris, and chartered a new one, the “Hermes”; called two Conventions in London of representatives of the British Branches; organized and chartered a British Section of the Theosophical Society; and issued an Order in Council forming an Esoteric Section of the Society, with Madame Blavatsky as its responsible Head. The trouble in the Paris Branch was solely due – as we have almost invariably found to be the case – to personal jealousies and disagreements. The landmarks of the Society had been obliterated and forgotten, there had arisen a strife for supremacy, and, instead of setting the public the example of zealous fraternal union for the propagation of our ideas, the members had fallen to mutual abuse, oral and printed. Both parties were to blame, as I found, after a patient examination of the documents, and so, without exonerating either, I first tried to get the dissentients to work harmoniously under the old charter; and then, this failing, dissolved the Branch completely, cancelled the charter, and offered charters to both parties and every facility for organization of two Branches. Only one was accepted, and so one new Branch, “Hermes,” came into existence, under officers for whom I feel great respect and of whom I expect much. I firmly believe that, with means at my command to employ necessary help, we should soon see several French Branches spring up. The French mind is, in my opinion, almost as ripe for the reception of the sound philosophy of India, as the American mind. Before concluding this brief notice of my observations and acts in France, I have pleasure in giving thanks on your behalf to a very sincere and devoted lady member, Madame d’Adhemar, for throwing open her drawing-room to all Theosophists for a weekly social gathering. It is in the great Western capital a very strong support to any movement to have such social centres, where members and enquiring friends of a Society can meet on neutral ground for the exchange of ideas. I shall leave the Delegate of the British Section to acquaint you with the details of the new organization and the views of his colleagues, which he is expected to lay before the Convention.

My visits to Bologna and Rioli, were to see Count Cæsar Mattei, the founder

of the new school of Homœopathy, great accounts of whose efficacy had reached me. The benevolent gentleman kindly ordered a large supply of his medicines to be sent gratis to Mr. Tookaram for experiment.