Theos-Talk Archives (February 1996 Message tl00076)

KEY11.TXT

Text supplied by Eldon Tucker
Converted  to ASCII by Alan Bain
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The Working System of the T.S.

        The Objects of the Society
Q.      What are the objects of the "Theosophical Society"?

A.      They are three, and have been so from the beginning.

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

2.      To promote the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the
World's religions and sciences, and to vindicate the importance of old
Asiatic literature, namely, of the Brahmanical, Buddhist, and
Zoroastrian philosophies.

3.      To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect
possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially.

These are, broadly stated, the three chief objects of the Theosophical
Society.

Q.      Can you give me some more detailed information upon these?

A.      We may divide each of the three objects into as many explanatory
clauses as may be found necessary.

Q.      Then let us begin with the first. What means would you resort
to, in order to promote such a feeling of brotherhood among races that
are known to be of the most diversified religions, customs, beliefs, and
modes of thought?

A.      Allow me to add that which you seem unwilling to express. Of
course we know that with the exception of two remnants of races, the
Parsees and the Jews, every nation is divided, not merely against all
other nations, but even against itself. This is found most prominently
among the so-called civilized Christian nations. Hence your wonder, and
the reason why our first object appears to you a Utopia. Is it not so?

Q.      Well, yes; but what have you to say against it?

A.      Nothing against the fact; but much about the necessity of
removing the causes which make Universal Brotherhood a Utopia at
present.

Q.      What are, in your view, these causes?

A.      First and foremost, the natural selfishness of human nature.
This selfishness, instead of being eradicated, is daily strengthened and
stimulated into a ferocious and irresistible feeling by the present
religious education, which tends not only to encourage, but positively
to justify it. People's ideas about right and wrong have been entirely
perverted by the literal acceptance of the Jewish Bible. All the
unselfishness of the altruistic teachings of Jesus has become merely a
theoretical subject for pulpit oratory; while the precepts of practical
selfishness taught in the Mosaic Bible, against which Christ so vainly
preached, have become ingrained into the innermost life of the Western
nations. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" has come to be the
first maxim of your law. Now, I state openly and fearlessly, that the
perversity of this doctrine and of so many others Theosophy alone can
eradicate.

See the official rules of the T.S. in the Appendix, 345. Note that
"T.S." is an abbreviation for "Theosophical Society."

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