Theosophy: A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom

Alvin Boyd Kuhn

Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV

FROM SPIRITUALISM TO THEOSOPHY

Nothing seems more certain than that Madame Blavatsky had no definite idea of what the finished product was to be when she gave the initial impulse to the movement. She knew the general direction in which it would have to move and also many objectives which it would have to seek. In her mind there had been assembled a body of material of a unique sort. She had spent many years of her novitiate in moving from continent to continent1 in search of data having to do with a widespread tradition as to the existence of a hidden knowledge and secret cultivation of man's higher psychic and spiritual capabilities. Supposedly the wielder of unusual abilities in this line, she was driven by the very character of her endowment to seek for the deeper science which pertained to the evolution of such gifts, and at the same time a philosophy of life in general which would explain their hidden significance. To establish, first, the reality of such phenomena, and then to construct a system that would furnish the possibility of understanding this mystifying segment of experience, was unquestionably the main drive of her mental interests in early middle life. Already well equipped to be the exponent of the higher psychological and theurgic science, she aimed to become its philosophic expounder.

But the philosophy Madame Blavatsky was to give forth could not be oriented with the science of the universe as then generally conceived. To make her message intelligible she was forced to reconstruct the whole picture of the cosmos. She had to frame a universe in which her doctrine
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1 It seems that she had been in Peru and Brazil in 1857, according to her later statement to A. P. Sinnett as found on page 154 of the Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett. A sentence in Vol. I, of Isis Unveiled makes mention of her personal knowledge of great underground labyrinths in Peru.

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would be seen to have relevance and into whose total order it would fall with perfect articulation. She felt sure that she had in her possession an array of vital facts, but she could not at once discern the total implication of those facts for the cosmos which explained them, and which in turn they tended to explain. We may feel certain that her ideas grow more systematic from stage to stage, whether indeed they were the product of her own unaided intellect, or whether she but transcribed the knowledge and wisdom of more learned living men, the Mahatmas, as the Theosophic legend has it.

Guided by the character of the situation in which she found herself, and also, it seems, by the advice of her Master, she chose to ride into her new venture upon the crest of the Spiritualist waves. America was chosen to be the hatching center of Theosophy because it was at the time the heart and center of the Spiritualist movement. It was felt that Theosophy would elicit a quick response from persons already imbued with spiritistic ideas. It cannot be disputed that Madame Blavatsky and Col. Olcott worked with the Spiritualists for a brief period and launched the Society from within the ranks of the cult. As a matter of fact it was the work of this pair of Theosophists that gave Spiritualism a fresh impetus in this country after a period of waning interest about 1874. Col. Olcott's letters in the Daily Graphic about the Eddy phenomena, and his book, People From the Other World, did much to revive popular discussion, and his colleague's show of new manifestations was giving encouragement to Spiritualists. But the Russian noblewoman suddenly disappointed the expectations thus engendered by assigning a different interpretation and much lower value to the phenomena. Before this she and Col. Olcott not only lent moral support to a leading Spiritualist journal, The Spiritual Scientist, of Boston, edited by Mr. E. Gerry Brown, but contributed its leading editorials and even advanced it funds.

The motive behind their participation in a movement which they so soon abandoned has been misconstrued.

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Spiritualists, and the public generally, assumed that of course their activity indicated that they subscribed to the usual tenets of the sect; that they accepted the phenomena for what they purported to be, i.e., actual communications in all cases from the spirits of former human beings. However true this estimate may have been as appertaining to Col. Olcott--and even to him it had a fast diminishing applicability after his meeting with H.P.B.--it was certainly not true of her. Madame Blavatsky shortly became the mark of Spiritualistic attack for the falsification of her original attitude toward the movement and her presumed betrayal of the cause.

Her ill-timed attempt to launch her Société Spirite at Cairo in 1871 foreshadowed her true spirit and motive in this activity. It is evident to the student of her life that she felt a contempt for the banal type of séance phenomena. She so expressed herself in writing from Cairo at the time. She felt that while these things were real and largely genuine, they were insignificant in the view that took in a larger field of psychic power. But the higher phenomena of that more important science were known to few, whereas she was constantly encountering interest in the other type. If she was to introduce a nobler psychism to the world, she seemed driven to resort to the method of picking up people who were absorbed in the lower modes of the spiritual science and leading them on into the higher. She would gather a nucleus of the best Spiritualists and go forward with them to the higher Spiritualism. To win their confidence in herself, it was necessary for her to start at their level, to make a gesture of friendliness toward their work and a show of interest in it.

Her own words may bring light to the situation:

"As it is I have only done my duty; first, toward Spiritualism, that I have defended as well as I could from the attacks of imposture under the too transparent mask of science; then towards two helpless slandered mediums [the Holmeses]. . . . But I am obliged to confess that I really do not believe in having done any good--to Spiritualism itself. . . . It is with a profound sadness in

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my heart that I acknowledge this fact, for I begin to think there is no help for it. For over fifteen years have I fought my battle for the blessed truth; have traveled and preached it--though I never was born for a lecturer--from the snow-covered tops of the Caucasian Mountains, as well as from the sandy valleys of the Nile. I have proved the truth of it practically and by persuasion. For the sake of Spiritualism2 I have left my home, an easy life amongst a civilized society, and have become a wanderer upon the face of the earth. I had already seen my hopes realized, beyond my most sanguine expectations, when my unlucky star brought me to America. Knowing this country to be the cradle of modern Spiritualism, I came over here from France with feelings not unlike those of a Mohammedan approaching the birthplace of his Prophet."3

After her death Col. Olcott found among her papers a memorandum in her hand entitled "Important Note." In it she wrote:

"Yes, I am sorry to say that I had to identify myself, during that shameful exposure of the Holmes mediums, with the Spiritualists. I had to save the situation, for I was sent from Paris to America on purpose to prove the phenomena and their reality, and show the fallacy of the spiritualistic theory of spirits. But how could I do it best? I did not want people at large to know that I could produce the same thing at will. I had received orders to the contrary, and yet I had to keep alive the reality, the genuineness and the possibility of such phenomena in the hearts of those who from Materialists had turned Spiritualists, but now, owing to the exposure of several mediums, fell back again and returned to their scepticism. . . . Did I do wrong? The world is not prepared yet to understand the philosophy of Occult Science; let them first assure themselves that there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'spirits' of the dead or elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man which are capable of making a god of him on earth."

"When I am dead and gone people will, perhaps, appreciate my disinterested motives. I have pledged my word to help people on to Truth while living and I will keep my word. Let them abuse
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2 Not assuredly of the séance-room type. She is obviously using the term here in the wider sense that it came to have in her larger Theosophic system, as expounded in this chapter.

3 Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I, p. 12.

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and revile me; let some call me a medium and a Spiritualist, others an impostor. The day will come when posterity will learn to know me better."4

As long as it was a question of the actuality of the phenomena, she was alert in defence of Spiritualism. In the Daily Graphic of November. 13, 1874, she printed one of her very first newspaper contributions in America, replying to an attack of a Dr. George M. Beard, an electropathic physician of New York, on the validity of the Eddy phenomena. She went so far in this article as to wager five hundred dollars that he could not make good his boast that he could imitate the form-apparitions "with three dollars' worth of drapery." She refers to herself as a Spiritualist. In her first letter to Co. Olcott after leaving Vermont she wrote as follows:

"I speak to you as a true friend to yourself and as a Spiritualist anxious to save Spiritualism from a danger."5

A little later she even mentioned to her friend that the outburst of mediumistic phenomena had been caused by the Brotherhood of Adepts as an evolutionary agency. She could, of course, not believe the whole trend maleficent if it was in the slightest degree engineered by her trusted Confederates. She added later, however, that the Master soon realized the impracticability of using the Spiritualistic movement as a channel for the dissemination of the deeper occult science and instructed her to cease her advocacy of it.

Along with her reply and challenge to Beard in the Graphic there was printed an outline of her biography from notes furnished by herself. In it she says:

"In 1858 I returned to Paris and made the acquaintance of Daniel Home, the Spiritualist. . . . Home converted me to Spiritualism. . . . After this I went to Russia. I converted my father to Spiritualism."

Elsewhere she speaks of Spiritualism as "our belief" and "our cause." In an article in the Spiritual Scientist of March

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4 Ibid., p. 13.

5 Ibid., p. 68.

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eighth she uses the phrases "the divine truth of our faith (Spiritualism) and the teachings of our invisible guardians (the spirits of the circles)."

Madame Blavatsky's apparently double-faced attitude toward Spiritualism is reflected in the posture of most Theosophists toward the same subject today. When Spiritualism, as a demonstration of the possibility and actuality of spiritistic phenomena, is attacked by materialists or unbelievers, they at once bristle in its defense; when it is a question of the reliability and value of the messages, or the dignity and wholesomeness of the séance procedure, they respond negatively.

It is the opinion of some Theosophic leaders, like Sinnett and Olcott, that Madame Blavatsky made a mistake in affiliating herself actively with Spiritualism, inasmuch as the early group of Spiritualistic members of her Theosophic Society, as soon as they were apprised of her true attitude, fell away, and the incipient movement was beset with much ill-feeling.

The controversy between the two schools is important, since Madame Blavatsky's dissent from Spiritualistic theory gave rise to her first attempts to formulate Theosophy. To justify her defection from the movement she was led to enunciate at least some of the major postulates and principles of her higher science. Theosophy was born in this labor. It is necessary, therefore, to go into the issues involved in the perennial controversy.

To Spiritualists the phenomena which purported to be communications from the still-living spirits of former human beings with those on the earth plane, were assumed to be genuinely what they seemed. As such they were believed to be far the most significant data in man's religious life, as furnishing a practically irrefutable demonstration of the truth of the soul's immortality. They were regarded as the central fact in any attempt to formulate an adequate religious philosophy. Spiritualists therefore elevated this assumption to the place of supreme importance and made everything else secondary.

Not so Madame Blavatsky. To her the Spiritistic phe-

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nomena were but a meagre part of a larger whole. Furthermore--and this was her chief point of divergence,--she vigorously protested their being what Spiritualists asserted them to be. They were not at all genuine messages from genuine spirits of earth people--or were not so in the vast majority of cases. And besides, they were not any more "divine" or "spiritual" than ordinary human utterances, and were even in large part impish and elfin, when not downright demoniacal. They were mostly, she said, the mere "shells" or wraiths of the dead, animated not by their former souls but by sprightly roving nature-spirits or elementals, if nothing worse,--such, for instance, as the lowest and most besotted type of human spirit that was held close to earth by fiendish sensuality or hate. There were plenty of these, she affirmed, in the lower astral plane watching for opportunities to vampirize negative human beings. The souls of average well-meaning or of saintly people are not within human reach in the séance. They have gone on into realms of higher purity, more etherealized being, and can not easily descend into the heavy atmosphere of the near-earth plane to give messages about that investment or that journey westward or that health condition that needs attention. At best it is only on rare and exceptional occasions that the real intelligence of a disembodied mortal comes "through." There are many types of living entities in various realms of nature, other than human souls. Certain of these rove the astral plane and take pleasure in playing upon gullible people who sit gravely in the dark. Most of the occurrences at circles are so much astral plane rubbish; and, besides, séance-mongering is dangerous to all concerned and eventually ruinous to the medium. If the mediums, she bantered, were really in the hands of benevolent "guides" and "controls," why do not the latter shield their protégés from the wrecked health and insanity so frequent among them? She affirmed that she had never seen a medium who had not developed scrofula or a phthisical affection.6
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6 Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, herself a medium and among the foremost Spiritualists of her day--also a charter member of the Theosophical Society--made

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Inevitably the Spiritualists were stunned by their one-time champion's sudden and amazed reversal of her position. A campaign of abuse and condemnation began in their ranks, echoes of which are still heard at times.

What Madame Blavatsky aimed to do was to teach that the phenomena of true Spiritualism bore not the faintest resemblance to those of table-tipping. True Spiritualism should envisage the phenomena of the divine spirit of man in their higher manifestations, the cultivation of which by the ancients and the East has given man his most sacred science and most vital knowledge. She wrote in a letter to her sister about 1875 that one of the purposes of her new Society was "to show certain fallacies of the Spiritualist. If we are anything we are Spiritualists, only not in the modern American fashion, but in that of the ancient Alexandria with its Theodidaktoi, Hypatias and Porphyries."7 In one of the letters of Mahatma K.H. to A. P. Sinnett the Master writes:

"It was H.P.B. who, acting under the orders of Atrya (one whom you do not know) was the first to explain in the 'Spiritualist' the difference between psyche and nous, nefesh and ruach--Soul and Spirit. She had to bring the whole arsenal of proofs with her quotations from Paul to Plato, from Plutarch and James before the Spiritualists admitted that the Theosophists were right."8

In 1879 she wrote in the magazine which she had just founded in India:

"We can never know how much of the mediumistic phenomena we must attribute to the disembodied until it is settled how much can be done by the embodied human soul, and to blind but active powers at work within those regions which are yet unexplored by science."9

In other words Spiritualism should be a culture of the spirits of the living, not a commerce with the souls of the dead. To
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a statement to the same effect to Col. Olcott in 1875. See Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I, p. 83.

7 Quoted in William Kingsland's The Real H. P. Blavatsky (J. M. Watkins, London, 1928), p. 123.

8 Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (New York, Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1924), p. 289.

9 The Theosophist, Vol. I, 1879.

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live the life of the immortal spirit while here in the body is true Spiritualism. We can readily see that with such a purpose in mind she would not be long in discerning that the Spiritualistic enterprise could not be used to promulgate the type of spiritual philosophy that she had learned in the East.

When this conclusion had fully ripened in her mind, she began the undisguised formulation of her own independent teaching. Her new philosophy was in effect tantamount to an attack on Spiritualism, and that from a quarter from which Spiritualism was not prepared to repulse an assault. It came not from the old arch-enemy, materialistic scepticism, but from a source which admitted the authenticity of the phenomena.

Her first aim was to set forth the misconceptions under which the Spiritualists labored. She says:

"We believe that few of those physical phenomena which are genuine are caused by disembodied human spirits."10

Again she

"ventures the prediction that unless Spiritualists set about the study of ancient philosophy so as to learn to discriminate between spirits and to guard themselves against the baser sort, twenty-five years will not elapse before they will have to fly to the Romish communion to escape these 'guides' and 'controls' that they have fondled so long. The signs of this catastrophe already exhibit themselves."11

Again she declares that

"it is not mediums, real, true and genuine mediums, that we would ever blame, but their patrons, the Spiritualists."12

In Isis Unveiled she rebukes Spiritualists for claiming that the Bible is full of phenomena just like those of modern mediums. She asserts that there were Spiritualistic phenomena in the Bible, but not mediumistic,--a distinction of great import to her. She declares that the ancients could
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10 Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, p. 13.

11 Ibid., p. 53.

12 Ibid., p. 489.

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tell the difference between mediums who harbored good spirits and those haunted by evil ones, and branded the latter type unclean, while reverencing the former. She positively asserts that

"pure spirits will not and cannot show themselves objectively; those that do are not pure spirits, but elementary and impure. Woe to the medium that falls a prey to such!"13

Col. Olcott quotes her as writing:

"Spiritualism in the hands of an Adept becomes Magic, for he is learned in the art of blending together the laws of the universe without breaking any of them. . . . In the hands of an inexperienced medium Spiritualism becomes unconscious sorcery, for . . . he opens, unknown to himself, a door of communication between the two worlds through which emerges the blind forces of nature lurking in the Astral Light, as well as good and bad spirits."14

In The Key to Theosophy15 written near the end of her life, she states what may be assumed to be the official Theosophic attitude on the subject:

"We assert that the spirits of the dead cannot return to earth--save in rare and exceptional cases--nor do they communicate with men except by entirely subjective means. That which does appear objectively is often the phantom of the ex-physical man. But in psychic and, so to say, 'spiritual' Spiritualism we do believe most decidedly."16

One of her most vigorous expressions upon this issue occurs toward the end of Isis.
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13 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 586.

14 Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I, p. 110.

15 Page 27.

16 That H. P. B. was by no means alone in predicating the existence of other than human spirits denizening the astral world is shown by Col. Olcott, who (Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I, p. 438), cites Mrs. Britten's statement printed in an article in The Banner of Light, as follows: "I know of the existence of other than human spirits and have seen apparitions of spiritual or elementary existences evoked by cabalistic words and practices."

According to Olcott the Hon. A. Aksakoff, eminent Russian Professor, states that "Prince A. Dolgorouki, the great authority on mesmerism, has written me that he has ascertained that spirits which play the most prominent part at séances are elementaries,--gnomes, etc. His clairvoyants have seen them and describe them thus."

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"The totally insufficient theory of the constant agency of disembodied human spirits in the production of Spiritualistic phenomena has been the bane of the Cause. A thousand mortifying rebuffs have failed to open their reason or intuition to the truth. Ignoring the teachings of the past, they have discovered no substitute. We offer them philosophical deduction instead of unverifiable hypothesis, scientific analysis and demonstration instead of indiscriminating faith. Occult philosophy gives them the means of meeting the reasonable requirements of science, and frees them from the humiliating necessity to accept the oracular teachings of 'intelligences' which, as a rule, have less intelligence than a child at school. So based and so strengthened, modern phenomena would be in a position to command the attention and enforce the respect of those who carry with them public opinion. Without invoking such help Spiritualism must continue to vegetate, equally repulsed--not without cause--both by science and theologians. In its modern aspect it is neither science, a religion nor a philosophy."17

In 1876, the writing of Isis was committing her to a stand which made further compromise with Spiritualism impossible. Her statement reveals what she would ostensibly have labored to do for that movement had it shown itself more plastic in her hands. She would have striven to buttress the phenomena with a more historical interpretation and a more respectable rationale.

In this context, however, the following passage from Isis is a bit difficult to understand. It seems to make a gesture of conciliation toward the Spiritualistic hypothesis after all. She says:

"We are far from believing that all the spirits that communicate at circles are of the classes called 'Elemental' and 'Elementary.' Many--especially among those who control the medium subjectively to speak, write and otherwise act in various ways--are human disembodied spirits. Whether the majority of such spirits are good or bad, largely depends on the private morality of the medium, much on the circle present, and a good deal on the intensity and object of their purpose. . . . But in any case, human spirits can never materialize themselves in propria persona."18
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17 Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, p. 636. 18 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 67

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If this seems a recession from her consistent position elsewhere assumed, it must be remembered that she never, before or after, denied the possibility of the occasional descent of genuinely human spirits "in rare and exceptional cases."

Before 1875 she wrote to her sister that there was a law that sporadically, though periodically, the souls of the dead invade the realms of the living in an epidemic, and the intensity of the epidemic depends on the welcome they receive. She called it "the law of forced post-mortem assimilation." She elsewhere clarified this idea by the statement that our spirits here and now, being of kindred nature with the totality of spirit energy about us, unconsciously draw certain vibrations or currents from the life of the supermundane entities, whether we know it or not. Through this wireless circuit we sometimes drink in emanations, radiations, thought effluvia, so to speak, from the disembodied lives. The veil, she affirmed, between the two worlds is so thin that unsuspected messages are constantly passing across the divide, which is not spatial but only a discrepancy in receiving sets. And both she and the Master K.H. stated that during normal sleep we are en rapport with our loved ones as much as our hearts could desire. The reason we do not ordinarily know it is that the rate and wave length of that celestial communication can not be registered on the clumsy apparatus of our brains. It takes place through our astral or spiritual brains and can not arouse the coarser physical brain to synchronous vibration.

Her critique of the Spiritualistic thesis in general would be that something like ninety per cent of all ordinary "spirit" messages contain nothing to which the quality of spirituality, as we understand that term in its best significance, can in any measure be ascribed.

In rebuttal, Spiritualists point to many previsions, admonitory dreams, verified prophecies and other messages of great beauty and lofty spirituality, some of them leading to genuine reform of character, and they advance the claim, that genuine transference of intelligence from the spirit realms to earth is vastly more general than that fraction of

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experience which could be subsumed under her "rare and exceptional cases of "spirituality."

In one of the last works issued by Mr. Sinnett19 he deplores the unfortunate clash that has come between the two cults, points out that it is foolish and unfounded, and reminds both parties of the broad bases of agreement which are found in the two systems. He feels that there can be no insurmountable points of antagonism, inasmuch as Spiritualism, too, he asserts, is under the watch and ward of a member of the Great White Brotherhood, the Master known as Hilarion; and that it would be illogical to assume that members of that same spiritual Fraternity could foster movements among mankind that work at cross purposes with each other. But Mr. Sinnett does not give any authority for his statement as to Hilarion's regency over Spiritualism, and many Theosophists are inclined to doubt it. He feels that there is every good reason why Spiritualism should go forward with Theosophy in such a unity of purpose as would render their combined influence the most potent force in the world today against the menace of materialism. Whenever Spiritualists display an interest in the formulation of some scheme of life or cosmology in which their phenomena may find a meaningful allocation, they can hardly go in any other direction than straight into Theosophy. This is shown by their Articles of Faith, in which the idea of Karma, the divine nature of man, his spiritual constitution and other conceptions equally theosophic have found a place.

Perhaps Theosophists and Spiritualists alike may discern the bases of harmony between their opposing faiths in a singular passage from The Mahatma Letters, an utterance of the Master K.H.

"It is this [sweet blissful dream of devachanic Maya] during such a condition of complete Maya that the Souls or actual Egos of pure loving sensitivities, laboring under the same illusion, think their loved ones come down to them on earth, while it is their own Spirits that are raised towards those in the Devachan. Many of the subjective spiritual communications--most of them when the
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19 Collected Fruits of Occult Teaching (London, T. F. Unwin, Ltd., 1919).

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sensitives are pure-minded--are real; but it is most difficult for the uninitiated medium to fix in his mind the true and correct pictures of what he sees and hears. Some of the phenomena called psychography (though more rarely) are also real. The spirit of the sensitive getting idylized, so to say, by the aura of the Spirit in the Devachan, becomes for a few minutes that departed personality, and writes in the handwriting of the latter, in his language and in his thoughts, as they were during his life-time. The two spirits become blended in one; and, the preponderance of one over the other during such phenomena determines the preponderance of personality in the characteristics exhibited in such writings and 'trance-speaking.' What you call 'rapport' is in plain fact an identity of molecular vibration between the astral part of the incarnate medium and the astral part of the discarnate personality . . . there is rapport between medium and 'control' when their astral molecules move in accord. And the question whether the communication shall reflect more of the one personal idiosyncrasy or the other, is determined by the relative intensity of the two sets of vibrations in the compound wave of Akasha. The less identical the vibratory impulses the more mediumistic and less spiritual will be the message. So then measure your medium's moral state by that of the alleged 'controlling' Intelligence, and your tests of genuineness leave nothing to be desired."20

This plank in the Theosophic platform not having been laid down in 1875 to bridge the chasm between the two movements, Madame Blavatsky drew away from her Spiritualistic associates, and it became but a matter of time until some propitious circumstance should give to her divergent tendency a body and a name.

The break with Spiritualism and the launching of the Theosophical Society were practically contemporary. The actual formation of the new organization does not on the surface appear to have been a deliberate act of Madame Blavatsky. While it would never have been organized without her presence and her influence, still she was not the prime mover in the steps which brought it into being. She seems merely to have gone along while others led. However her Society grew out of the stimulus that had gone forth from her.
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20 Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, p. 101.

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It was Col. Henry Steele Olcott who assumed the rôle of outward leader in the young movement. He gave over (eventually) a lucrative profession as a corporation lawyer, an agricultural expert, and an official of the government, to expend all his energies in this enterprise. He had acquired the title of colonel during the Civil War in the Union army's manoeuvres in North Carolina. At the close of the war he had been chosen by the government to conduct some investigations into conditions relative to army contracts in the Quartermaster's Department and had discharged his duties with great efficiency, receiving the approbation of higher officials. He was regarded as an authority on agriculture and lectured before representative bodies on that subject. He had established a successful practice as a corporation counsel, numbering the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company among his clients. In addition to these activities he had done much reportorial work for the press, notably in connection with his Spiritualistic researches. His authorship of several works on the phenomena has already been mentioned. His career had achieved for him a record of high intelligence, great ability, and a character of probity and integrity.

It is the belief of Theosophists that he was expressly chosen by the Mahatmas to share with Madame Blavatsky the honor and the labor of spreading her message in the world. A passage from the Mahatma Letters puts this in clear light. The Master K.H. there says:

"So, casting about, we found in America the man to stand as leader--a man of great moral courage, unselfish, and having other good qualities. He was far from being the best, but--he was the best one available. . . . We sent her to America, brought them together--and the trial began. From the first both she and he were given to understand that the issue lay entirely with themselves."

In spite of difficulties, caused by the clash of temperaments and policies, this odd, "divinely-constituted" partnership held firmly together until the end. Their relationship was one of a loyal camaraderie, both being actuated by an uncommon devotion to the same cause.

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As early as May, 1875, the Colonel had suggested the formation of a "Miracle Club," to continue spiritistic investigation. His proposal was made in the interest of psychic research. It was not taken up. But Madame Blavatsky's sprightly evening chatter and her reported magical feats continued to draw groups of intelligent people to her rooms. Among those thus attracted was Mr. George H. Felt, who had made some careful studies in phases of Egyptology. He was asked to lecture on these subjects and on the 7th of September, 1875, a score of people had gathered in H.P.B.'s parlors to hear his address on "The Lost Canon of Proportion of the Egyptians." Dr. Seth Pancoast, a most erudite Kabbalist was present, and after the lecture he led the discussion to the subject of the occult powers of the ancient magicians. Mr. Felt said he had proven those powers and had with them evoked elemental creatures and "hundreds of shadowy forms." As the tense debate proceeded, acting on an impulse, Col. Olcott wrote on a scrap of paper, which he passed over to Madame Blavatsky through the hands of Mr. W. Q. Judge, the following: "Would it not be a good thing to form a Society for this kind of study?" She read it and indicated assent.

Col. Olcott arose and

"after briefly sketching the present condition of the Spiritualistic movement; the attitude of its antagonists, the Materialists; the irrepressible conflict between science and the religious sectaries; the philosophical character of the ancient theosophies and their sufficiency to reconcile all existing antagonisms; . . . he proposed to form a nucleus around which might gather all the enlightened and brave souls who are willing to work together for the collection and diffusion of knowledge. His plan was to organize a Society of Occultists and begin at once to collect a library; and to diffuse information concerning those secret laws of Nature which were so familiar to the Chaldeans and Egyptians, but are totally unknown to our modern world of science."21
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21 Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I, p. 119. From notes taken at the meeting by Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, and published a day or two later in a New York daily.

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It was a plain proposal to organize for occult research, for the extension of human knowledge of the esoteric sciences, and for a study of the psychic possibilities in man's nature. No religious or ethical or even philosophical interest can be detected in the first aims. The Brotherhood plank was a later development, and the philosophy was an outgrowth of the necessity of rationalizing the scientific data brought to light. The very nature of the movement committed it, of course, to an anti-materialistic view. Col. Olcott was still predominantly concerned to get demonstrative psychic displays. He was made Chairman, and Mr. Judge, Secretary.

It is interesting to note the personnel of this first gathering of Theosophists.

"The company included several persons of great learning and some of wide personal influence. The Managing Editors of two religious papers; the co-editors of two literary magazines; an Oxford LL.D.; a venerable Jewish scholar and traveler of repute; an editorial writer of one of the New York morning dailies; the President of the New York Society of Spiritualists; Mr. C. C. Massey an English barrister at law; Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten and Dr. Britten; two New York lawyers besides Col. Olcott; a partner in a Philadelphia publishing house; a well-known physician; and . . . Madame Blavatsky herself."22

At a late hour the meeting adjourned until the following evening, when organization could be more fully effected. Those who were present at the Sept. 8th meeting, and who thus became the actual formers (Col. Olcott insists on the word instead of Founders, reserving that title to Madame Blavatsky and himself) of the Theosophical Society, were: Col. Olcott, H. P. Blavatsky, Chas. Sotheran, Dr. Chas. E. Simmons, H. D. Monachesi, C. C. Massey, of London, W. L. Alden, G. H. Felt, D. E. deLara, Dr. W. Britten, Mrs. E. H. Britten, Henry J. Newton, John Storer Cobb, J. Hyslop. W. Q. Judge, H. M. Stevens. A By-Law Committee was named, other routine business attended to, a general discussion held and adjournment taken to Sept. 13th. Mr.
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22 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 119.

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Felt gave another lecture on Sept. 18th, after which several additional members were nominated, the name, "The Theosophical Society," proposed, and a committee on rooms chosen. Several October meetings were held in furtherance of the Society; and on the 17th of November, 1875, the movement reached the final stage of constitutional organization. Its President was Col. Henry Olcott; Vice-Presidents, Dr. Seth Pancoast and G. H. Felt; Corresponding Secretary, Madame H. P. Blavatsky; Recording Secretary, John S. Cobb; Treasurer, Henry J. Newton; Librarian, Chas. Sotheran; Councillors, Rev. H. Wiggin, R. P. Westbrook, LL. D., Mrs. E. H. Britten, C. E. Simmons, and Herbert D. Monachesi; Counsel to the Society, W. Q. Judge. Mr. John W. Lovell, the New York publisher, has the distinction of having paid the first five dollars (initiation fee) into the treasury, and is at the present writing the only surviving member of the founding group. At the November 17th meeting the President delivered his inaugural address. It was an amplification of his remarks made at the meeting of Sept. 7th, with some prognostications of what the work of the Society was destined to mean in the changing conceptions of modern thought.

The infant Society did not at once proceed to grow and expand. The chief reason for this was that Mr. Felt, whose theories had been the immediate object of strongest interest, and who was expected to be the leader and teacher in their quest of the secrets of ancient magic, for some unaccountable reason failed them utterly. His promised lectures were never scheduled, his demonstrations of spirit-evocation never shown. This disappointment weighed heavily upon some of the members. Mrs. Britten, Mr. Newton, and the other Spiritualists in the group, finding that Madame Blavatsky was not disposed to investigate mediums in the conventional fashion, or in any way to make the Society an adjunct of the Spiritualistic movement, suffered another disappointment and became inactive or openly withdrew. Mr. Judge and Col. Olcott were busy with their professional labors, and

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Madame Blavatsky had plunged into the writing of Isis Unveiled. The Society fell into the state of "innocuous desuetude," and was domiciled solely in the hearts of three persons, Olcott, Judge, and Madame Blavatsky. However dead it might be to all outward appearance, it still lived in the deep convictions of this trio. True, an occasional new recruit was admitted, two names in particular being worthy of remark. On April 5th, 1878, Col. Olcott received the signed application for membership from a young inventor, one Thomas Alva Edison, and near the same time General Abner W. Doubleday, veteran Major-General in the Union Army, united with the Society. Edison had been attracted by the objects of the Society, largely because of certain experiences he had had in connection with the genesis of some of his ideas for inventions. They had seemed to come to him from an inner intelligence independent of his voluntary thought control. Also he had experimented to determine the possibility of moving physical objects by exertion of the will. He was doubtless in close sympathy with the purposes of the Society, but the main currents of his mechanical interests drew him away from active coöperation with it. As for Major-General Doubleday, Theosophy gave articulate voice to theories as to life, death, and human destiny which he had long cherished without a formal label. He stated that it was the Theosophic idea of Karma which had maintained his courage throughout the ordeals of the Civil War and he testified that his understanding of this doctrine nerved him to pass with entire fearlessness through those crises in which he was exposed to fire.23 When Theosophy was brought to his notice he cast in his lot with the movement and was a devoted student and worker while he lived. When the two Founders left America at the end of 1878 for India, Col. Olcott constituted General Doubleday the President of the American body.24
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23 He was in active command of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg, following the death of General Reynolds on the 1st of July until the arrival of General Meade.

24 He devised the modern game of baseball.

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Concerning Mr. W. Q. Judge, there is only to be said that he was a young barrister at the time, practicing in New York and making his home in Brooklyn, where until about 1928 a brother, John Judge, survived him. He was a man of upright character and had always manifested a quick interest in such matters as Theosophy brought to his attention. It is reported among Theosophists that Madame Blavatsky immediately saw in him a pupil upon whose entire sympathy with her own deeper aims and understanding of her esoteric situation she could rely implicitly. He is believed always to have stood closer to her in a spiritual sense than Col. Olcott; in fact it is hinted that there was a secret understanding between them as to the inner motivations behind the Society. Later developments in the history of the movement seem to give weight to this theory.

Mr. Judge and General Doubleday were the captains of the frail Theosophic craft in America during something like four years, from 1878 to 1882, following the sailing of the two Founders for India. If little activity was displayed by the Society during this period, it was not in any measure the fault of those left in charge. They were not lacking in zeal for the cause. It is to be attributed chiefly to a state of suspended animation in which it was left by the departure of the official heads. This condition itself was brought about by the long protracted delay in carrying out a measure which in 1878 Col. Olcott had designed to adopt for the future expansion of the Society. Madame Blavatsky's work in Isis had disclosed the fact that there was an almost complete sympathy of aims in certain respects between the new Society and the Masonic Fraternity; that the latter had been the recipient and custodian down the ages of much of the ancient esoteric tradition which it was the purpose of Theosophy to revive. The idea of converting the Theosophical Society into a Masonic body with ritual and degrees had been under contemplation for some time, and overtures toward that end had been made to persons in the Masonic order. In fact the plan had been so favorably regarded that on his departure Col. Olcott left Mr. Judge and General

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Doubleday under instructions to hold all other activities in abeyance until he should prepare a form of ritual that would properly express the Society's spiritual motif and aims. It happened, however, that on reaching India both his and his colleague's time was so occupied with other work and other interests that for three years they never could give attention to the matter of the ritual. By that time they found the Society beginning to grow so rapidly without the support they had intended for it in the union with an old and respected secret order, that the project was abandoned. But it was this tentative plan that was responsible for the apparent lifelessness of the American organization during those years. A number of times the two American leaders telegraphed Olcott in India to hasten the ritual and hinted that its non-appearance forced them to keep the Society here embalmed in an aggravated condition of status quo. When the scheme was definitely abandoned, straightforward Theosophic propaganda was initiated and a period of healthy expansion began.

It is of interest in this connection to note that on March 8, 1876, on Madame Blavatsky's own motion, it was "resolved, that the Society adopt one or more signs of recognition, to be used among the Fellows of the Society or for admissions to the meetings." This might indicate her steady allegiance to the principle of esotericism. The practice fell into disuse after a time. Yet it was this idea of secrecy always lurking in the background of her mind that eventually led to the formation of a graded hierarchy in the Theosophical Society when the Esoteric School was formally organized.

Another development that Col. Olcott says "I should prefer to omit altogether if I could" from the early history of the Society was the affiliation of the organization with a movement then being inaugurated in India toward the resuscitation of pure Vedic religion. This proceeded further than the contemplated union with Masonry, and it led to the necessity of a more succinct pronouncement of their creed by Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky.

Naturally Madame Blavatsky's accounts of the existence

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of the great secret Brotherhood of Adepts in North India and her glorification of "Aryavarta" as the home of the purest occult knowledge, had served to engender a sort of nostalgia in the hearts of the two Founders for "Mother India." It seemed quite plausible that, once the aims of the Theosophical Society were broadcast in Hindustan, its friendly attitude toward the ancient religions of that country would act as an open sesame to a quick response on the part of thousands of native Hindus. It was not illogical to believe that the young Theosophical Society would advance shortly to a position of great influence among the Orientals, whose psychology, ideals, and religious conceptions it had undertaken to exalt, particularly in the eyes of the Western nations. India thus came to be looked upon as the land of promise, and the "return home," as Madame Blavatsky termed it, became more and more a consummation devoutly to be wished. With Isis completed and published the call to India rang ever louder, and finally in November, 1878, came the Master's orders to make ready. It was not until the 18th of December that the ship bearing the two pilgrims passed out of the Narrows.

There had seemed to be no way opened for them to make an effective start in India, no appropriate channel of introduction to their work there, until 1878. Then Col. Olcott chanced to learn of a movement recently launched in India, whose aims and ideals, he was given to believe, were identical with those of his own Society. It was the Arya Samaj, founded by one Swami Dhyanand, who was reputed to be a member of the same occult Brotherhood as that to which their own Masters, K.H. and M., belonged. This latter allegation was enough to win the immediate interest of the two devotees in its mission, and through intermediaries Col. Olcott was put in touch with the Swami, to whom he made overtures to join forces. The Arya Samaj was represented to the Colonel as world-wide in its eclecticism, devoted to a revival of the ancient purity of Vedantism and pledged to a conception of God as an eternal impersonal principle which, under whatever name, all people alike worshipped. An

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official linking of the two bodies was formally made in May, 1878, and the title of the Theosophical Society was amended to "The Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj." But before long the Colonel received a translation of the rules and doctrines of the Arya Samaj, which gave him a great shock. Swami Dhyanand's views had either radically changed or had originally been misrepresented. His cult was found to be drastically sectarian--merely a new sect of Hinduism--and quite narrow in certain lines. Even then the Colonel endeavored to bridge the gap, drawing up a new definition of the aims of his Society in such an open fashion that the way was left clear for any Theosophists to associate with the Samaj if they should so desire. It was not until several years after the arrival in India that final disruption of all connection between the two Societies was made, the Founders having received what Col. Olcott calls "much evil treatment" from the learned Swami.

When the first discovery of the real character of the Arya Samaj was made in 1878, it was deemed necessary to issue a circular defining the Theosophical Society in more explicit terms than had yet been done. Olcott does not quote from this circular of his own, but gives the language of the circular issued by the British Theosophical Society, then just organized, as embodying the essentials of his own statement. This enables us to discern how far the originally vague Theosophical ideals had come on their way to explicit enunciation.

1. The British Theosophical Society is founded for the purpose of discovering the nature and powers of the human soul and spirit by investigation and experiment.

2. The object of the Society is to increase the amount of human health, goodness, knowledge, wisdom, and happiness.

3. The Fellows pledge themselves to endeavor, to the best of their powers, to live a life of temperance, purity, and brotherly love. They believe in a Great First Intelligent Cause, and in the Divine Sonship of the spirit of man, and hence in the immortality of that spirit, and in the universal brotherhood of the human race.

4. The Society is in connection and sympathy with the Arya Samaj of Aryavarta, one object of which Society is to elevate, by a

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true spiritual education, mankind out of degenerate, idolatrous and impure forms of worship wherever prevalent.25

In his own circular, Olcott, with the concurrence of H.P.B., made the first official statement of the threefold hierarchical constitution of the Theosophical Society. This grouping naturally arose out of the basic facts in the situation itself. There were, first, at the summit of the movement, the Brothers or Adepts; then there were persons, like H.P.B., Olcott himself and Judge, with perhaps a few others, who were classified in the category of "chelas" or accepted pupils of the Masters; then there were just plain members of the Society, having no personal link as yet with the great Teachers. A knowledge of this graduation is essential to an understanding of much in the later history of the Society.

In the same circular the President said:

"The objects of the Society are various. It influences its Fellows to acquire an intimate knowledge of natural law, especially its occult manifestations."

Then follow some sentences penned by Madame Blavatsky:

"As the highest development, physically and spiritually, on earth of the creative cause, man should aim to solve the mystery of his being. He is the procreator of his species, physically, and having inherited the nature of the unknown but palpable cause of his own creation, must possess in his inner psychical self this creative power in lesser degree. He should, therefore, study to develop his latent powers, and inform himself respecting the laws of magnetism, electricity and all other forms of force, whether of the seen or unseen universes."

The President proceeds:

"The Society teaches and expects its Fellows to personally exemplify the highest morality and religious aspirations; to oppose the materialism of science and every form of dogmatic theology . . .; to make known, among Western nations, the long-suppressed facts about Oriental religious philosophies, their ethics, chronology, esotericism, symbolism . . . ; to disseminate a knowledge of the sublime teachings of the pure esoteric system of the archaic period
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25 Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I, p. 399.

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which are mirrored in the oldest Vedas and in the philosophy of Gautauma Buddha, Zoroaster, and Confucius; finally and chiefly, to aid in the institution of a Brotherhood of Humanity, wherein all good and pure men of every race shall recognize each other as the equal effects (upon this planet) of one Uncreate, Universal, Infinite and Everlasting Cause."26

He sums up the central ideas as being:

1. The study of occult science.

2. The formation of a nucleus of universal brotherhood.

3. The revival of Oriental literature and philosophy.

And these three became later substantially the permanent platform of the Society. In their final and present form they stand:

1. To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.

2. To encourage the study of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Science.

3. To investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.

The inclusion of a moral program to accompany occult research and comparative religion was seen to be necessary. Madame Blavatsky's disapprobation of Spiritualism had as its prime motivation that movement's lack of any moral bases for psychic progress. Therefore the ethical implications which she saw as fundamental in any true occult system were embodied in the Theosophic platform in the Universal Brotherhood plank. Brotherhood, a somewhat vague general term, was made the only creedal or ethical requirement for fellowship in the Society. At that it is, as a moral obligation, a matter of the individual's own interpretation, and it is the Society's only link with the ethical side of religion. Not even the member's clear violation of accepted or prevalent social codes can disqualify him from good standing. The Society refuses to be a judge of what constitutes morality or its breach, leaving that determination to the member himself. At the same time through its literature it
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26 Ibid., Vol. I., p. 400.

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declares that no progress into genuine spirituality is possible "without clean hands and a pure heart." It adheres to the principle that morality without freedom is not morality. Thus the movement which began with an impulse to investigate the occult powers of ancient magicians, was moulded by circumstances into a moral discipline, which placed little store in magic feats.

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