SINNETT.TXT
Jul 03, 1996 05:21 PM
by Alan
SINNETT.TXT
Would any of the Theosophical Societies be what they are today if
a series of letters purporting to emanate from certain Mahatmas
had not been written to Mr. A.P. Sinnett? I doubt it very
much. They may have developed, but, as he himself tells us,
The original society formed in 1875 had quite different ideas
about its possible role than any Theosophical Society today.
After C.W.Leadbeater had resigned, but before A.P.Sinnett himself
had left the Society along with some 200 members of the British
Section in protest at the reinstatement of CWL, he clearly had
some serious concerns about the developments the Theosophical
Society was taking. Presumably he regarded this of such
importance that he rushed into print in July, 1907, an article
that would have seen the light of day quite soon in the natural
course of events, and ensured that it was circulated among the
members of the T.S. His insights, way back in 1907, are of more
than passing interest today, and it might be said by some that
some of his greatest concerns as to the future of the Society
have proved to be more than justified.
In any event, it is an insightful and worthwhile publication with
which to conclude what I have called "The CWL Affair" in these
recent postings to the Internet theosophy list, "theos-roots."
There is more to come, but we shall be taking a small jump to the
nineteen-twenties for this ... A.B.
----------------------------------
THE VICISSITUDES OF THEOSOPHY.
[By A.P.Sinnett]
THE following article will appear in the next - the August number -
of BROAD VIEWS, but having so important a bearing on recent
events it has seemed to me desirable to circulate it in advance
as an independent address to the members of the Theosophical
Society:-
Hitherto in these pages I have said but little concerning the
history or work of the Theosophical Society, choosing rather as
my task the effort to show how occult research in the last
thirty years has illuminated a great many other problems besides
those to which it is specifically related, and has been
effective very often in putting a new complexion on problems of
science, politics and sociology. But in view of recent events
within the Society, it seems worth while to attempt a survey of
its past history, its present condition, and its possible
future, for the information, not merely of those who may be
looking on at its progress from the outside, but also for that
of the vast majority within its pale, who have lost sight of the
circumstances under which that progress has been accomplished.
As almost the only survivor of those associated with the early
growth of the Society, much that I might say if the subject were
to be reviewed with entire candour would probably be surprising
to many of those in whose minds a mythological period of
theosophical history has gradually been evolved. By many of
those who have been attracted to theosophy since its literature
has been abundant, an impression has certainly been derived, no
matter how for the moment, to the effect that this mighty wave
of regenerating thought is the product of clearly designed,
specific action, in the first instance, by those representing
accomplished evolutionary progress, spoken of in theosophical
writing as the great Masters of Wisdom, sometimes as the Elder
Brethren of Humanity, or the Adept Chiefs of that "Occult
World," concerning which I wrote more than a quarter of a
century ago. People have been led to believe that a certain
Russian lady, of very wonderful gifts and characteristics was
chosen by the adept Masters as their representative in the world
of ordinary life and sent out to inaugurate the theosophical
movement. As we see it now, spreading its branches all over the
world, those coming at late date within the range of its
influence have been encouraged to believe that the seed was sown
in the beginning with a conscious foresight concerning the
nature of the tree that would grow.
Beliefs of this kind belong to the mythology of the theosophical
movement. The little society founded in America in the year
1875, and happily selecting the word "Theosophical" as its
designation, had no very clear idea concerning its own purpose,
was professedly aiming at the study of Egyptian antiquities, and
seems to have interested its original members, chiefly because
it was associated with a wonder-working magician, Madame
Blavatsky. A scoffing crowd has always supposed that because the
doings attributed to her were of a kind that seemed miraculous,
she must be an impostor. This stupid misconception, culminated
much later on in misleading publications issued by the Psychic
Research Society, but meanwhile those who were in personal touch
with the lady in question, and who knew that she possessed
extraordinary and abnormal power over hidden laws of nature as
yet unfamiliar to physical science, were carried away with
enthusiasm on her behalf and invested her in their imagination
with attributes as foreign to her real nature as those of a
contrary order imputed to her by the representatives of
contemptuous incredulity.
During the earliest period of bewildered excitement amongst the
little group personally cognisant of Madame Blavatsky's
wonder-working powers, she and her staunch ally, Colonel Olcott,
drifted to India, vaguely believing that important results would
ensue if they attached themselves to a Hindoo religious
association, the Arya Sumaj, of which a certain native
philosopher, Swami Dyanand Saraswati, was the chief. The scheme
ultimately came to nothing; but the fact that at one time it
engrossed the zealous efforts of those generally spoken of as
the "founders" of the Theosophical Society will be enough to
show how tentative in the beginning were the efforts they were
concerned in making. They had indeed attempted, on their way out
to India, to establish a European branch of the Theosophical
Society in London, but the handful of people whose excited
interest in Madame Blavatsky's wonder working induced them to
constitute themselves members of this branch, had no definite
purpose in view, and their organisation faded almost out of
existence within the next few years. But then it came to pass
that in India, becoming acquainted with Madame Blavatsky, I came
through her intervention into close relations with some of those
great Elder Brethren of the Adept world, of whom, for the first
time, I had heard from her. The results which followed are
matters of literary history, although, in the confusion of later
events, the true course of that history has generally been
forgotten. I found the Master who responded to my appeal ready
to answer questions of a penetrating character; ready, also, to
give me unmistakable proofs of his abnormal power, proofs which
naturally contributed to render me eagerly respectful with
reference to his teaching. This in the beginning did no more
than illuminate my mind to some extent concerning the place in
Nature of the Adept Brotherhood. Thus my first book, "The Occult
World," did no more than pass on this illumination to my
readers.
But after its publication, a more important correspondence began.
The Master encouraged me to inquire more and more boldly
concerning the mysteries of life and evolution, the laws
governing re-birth and existence on superphysical planes. His
letters on these great subjects were of thrilling interest to
Madame Blavatsky as well as to myself, for their teaching was as
new to her as to me, as she frequently assured me in the frank
conversation of that period. Her magic powers that rendered her
so interesting a personage had been acquired under circumstances
that did not invest her with the theoretical knowledge we have
since accumulated.
When I left India in the beginning of 1883, Madame Blavatsky and
Colonel Olcott, representing the Theosophical Society, were
already established in a comfortable house at Adyar, Madras,
bestowed upon them by a wealthy native sympathiser. There Madame
Blavatsky declared, it was her intention to remain for the rest
of her life. She had found her final resting place! Her work
she conceived to lie entirely in the Eastern world. The Western
races, and the European especially, she held to be quite
incapable of appreciating occultism, and altogether outside the
pale of her operations. But by this time the teaching[s] of my
Adept Master were embodied in the volume which had so curious a
destiny, "Esoteric Buddhism." It was published immediately on my
return to England, and excited attention to an extent for which
I had been but little prepared. The fact was that far from being
incapable of appreciating the results of occult research, a
considerable proportion of the European world was so ripe for
its appreciation, that the moment some of its results were
available for consideration, intelligent readers in considerable
numbers eagerly embraced the magnificent philosophy thus
unveiled for the first time. It represented for the West a new
development of thought, though the body of knowledge from which
it sprang had long been in the possession of initiates pledged
to secrecy. The justification of that earlier policy will be
found in the literature itself, and I need not interrupt my
present story to review it.
Around the minute nucleus of the British Theosophical Society the
influence of "Esoteric Buddhism" gathered ever increasing
numbers, and the new revelation, for it was little less, was
most quickly appreciated by people of the highest culture. In
the beginning the Theosophical movement in Europe first took
root in the classes representative of that culture. Within the
first twelve months, the growth of the Society in London was of
a kind at once surprising and encouraging; associated also, by
reason of its character, with magnificent promise concerning
future possibilities. For it had become rooted amongst those who
were capable of exercising influence in the world. The habits of
civilisation have greatly changed during the progress of the
Christian era. In the present day, new views of life and
spiritual science are not expected to emanate from the
carpenter's shop. In the Western world no one can be respected
as a teacher unless he has to some extent the prestige of
intellectual achievement, impossible on the lower levels of
social life. New thought, to put the matter crudely, may grow
from below upwards in the East, it must descend from above in
the West, and thus it seemed to those of us who were concerned
with the Theosophical movement at its inception, highly
desirable that, as far as Europe was concerned it should become
firmly established amongst those whose social and intellectual
prestige would protect it from ridicule and discredit.
Unhappily, however, a curious change soon came over the scene.
Madame Blavatsky changed her mind in regard to the permanent
character of her settlement at Adyar. Attracted by the
unforeseen expansion of the movement in Europe under the
circumstances I have described, she, herself, accompanied by
Colonel Olcott, came over to this country. Undoubtedly her
presence inspired the movement with extraordinary force. Her
personal magnetism was marvellously powerful, but while exciting
passionate regard with some, it was provocative of exactly the
opposite feeling with others. It is improbable that the inner
history of the events leading up to the dispatch by the Psychic
Research Society, of a Commissioner appointed to investigate
Madame Blavatsky's doings in India, will ever be publicly
written. But for the time, the result was the utter collapse of
the Theosophical Society in Europe, as regards the public esteem
in which it was held in the beginning. A mere remnant survived
the storms of that period. But Madame Blavatsky was not a
person whom it was easy to crush. Gathering by degrees around
her a few of those who were still faithful to the original
inspiration, Madame Blavatsky, after a stay of some year or two
in seclusion at Wurtzburg and Ostend, was brought back to London
by a committee of admirers, and her personal influence was
revived; although the second growth of the Society bore but
little resemblance to that which had been swept away.
For the rest its history comes within the recollection of
multitudes besides myself. Madame Blavatsky published her great
work. "The Secret Doctrine," a book the history of which as
regards the circumstances of its production would itself be not
a little surprising for many of those who have been taught to
revere its curiously variegated contents. Later occult research
has invested us with capacities for judgment which show us "The
Secret Doctrine," a rather dangerous study for those who take it
up without being fully armed with knowledge enabling them to
steer their course amongst the frequent passages which later
experience has discredited. But, indeed, for all who have come
into the movement in the period succeeding the publication of
the "Secret Doctrine," that book itself, like so much that
belonged to its wonderful authoress, is already tinged with
theosophical mythology.
I should have some curious explanations to give if I went at
length, in connection with the history of "The Secret Doctrine,"
into the subject of my original correspondence with the Master -
and Mme. Blavatsky's relations therewith. Some - though by no
means all - of the letters in question came to me through Mme.
Blavatsky's intermediation, and some - though by no means all -
were curiously amplified in transmission. I am the last person
in the world to underrate the powers Mme. Blavatsky exercised
during the wonderful period when the Theosophical Society was
going through its early vicissitudes, though such powers had
nothing to do with the philosophical teaching then in process of
development.
With what motive, it may be asked, have I thus reviewed the strange
history of the movement to which the latter part of my life has
been devoted? Recent circumstances will suggest the answer. The
stream of events which my own humble efforts first set flowing
has become a roaring torrent over which I have long since ceased
to have any appreciable control. And now it has taken a new
departure since the death of the original President, Colonel
Olcott, under circumstances which are regarded from different
points of view with widely different feelings. A lady of
remarkable personal magnetism, unrivalled eloquence, and
unquestionable devotion to the theosophical cause, has been
accepted as the new President of the Society, on the nomination
of the one who has passed away, with enthusiastic approval by
enormous majorities. Probably that approval would have been
quite unqualified had it not been that the nomination is
described as having been prompted by the appearance at the dying
President's bedside, under what the world at large would
conceive to be miraculous conditions, of two great Adept Masters
undeniably associated with the movement from the beginning, one
of them being supposed to be the great teacher from whom that
early flood of occult information embodied in "Esoteric
Buddhism" originally emanated. It would be impossible here to
set forth in detail the reasons which induce some of those
amongst theosophists of the largest experience, to regard these
alleged manifestations as having been - we know not exactly what
- but certainly not what they seemed. It is hardly necessary to
say that no one supposes they were the product of any
contemptible imposture, of the kind not infrequently associated
with alleged appearances of materialised spirits through the
agency of mediums. I entertain no doubt whatever that two
figures closely resembling the Masters in question, actually
stood by Colonel Olcott's beside, materialised and visible to
physical plane eyesight. But if they were not those whom they
represented, it is obvious that they may have been in reality
the result of occult activities distinctly antagonistic to the
true welfare of the movement. Should that view be a correct one
- and I hold it to be nothing less than my duty to declare that
in my opinion the theory that they were what they seemed is
absolutely untenable - we may have arrived at a curious turning
point in the history of the great movement. It is premature as
yet to make any forecast as to the probable course of events.
With these we can only deal as they may arise, and amongst the
possibilities of the situation, even from the point of view of
those who share the disbelief I have just expressed, it will be
recognised that loyalty of intention on the part of those
concerned with the direction of the movement on the physical
plane, may, after all, disconcert any attempts to misdirect its
force proceeding from mysterious superphysical agencies.
At the same time we must be prepared for the worst, even though the
worst need not be of very great moment. The Theosophical Society
might vanish off the scene like a burst soap bubble, but the
literature that now embodies the results of the last thirty
years of occult research will remain for the service and
enlightenment of mankind throughout the coming generations,
destined beyond any possibility of doubt to play an enormously
greater part in the thinking of this century in its later
decades than it has been able to perform for a generation
amongst which it has arisen. Those few of us who have been in
touch with the original sources of its inspiration have long
been aware that the seed sown has taken root. We have long been
assured, and with advancing knowledge can now understand the
assurance, that within the current century all that body of
knowledge relating to human evolution, the conditions of its
normal progress, and the possibilities of its abnormal
acceleration, will be the common property of all cultivated
thinkers in the civilised world. And the influence of such
knowledge on human welfare will be grandly independent of the
fate that may attend specific organisations of a transitory
character, or individual activities that may have contributed to
the result. The final moral of all this is, that the teaching
concerning the great natural laws governing human evolution, set
afloat in the first instance under the conditions I have
described, and fortified by the manifold results and records of
later investigation, constitute, in fact, the Theosophical
movement, the health and future of which is independent of all
personalities known to the world so far. But even though it may
be probable that, in the long run, future generations will
devise some better machinery for the promotion of theosophical
study than any which exists at present (and is more or less
tainted with unhappy traditions), it seems to be the business of
those of us who have been working with this machinery so far, to
do the best we can with it, as long as our present life's
activities may last. For some reasons, looking back on the
curious record of my own experiences in its service, it would be
a personal relief to me if I could think it right to stand
altogether aside, and leave the future developments of theosophy
to work out their own assured destiny, perhaps, by shaking
themselves altogether free from the embarrassments of the past -
and the present. But undoubtedly the great masters from whom,
and from whom alone, the teaching I have been able to put
forward for the service of the world, has come, have been
interested in the Theosophical Society as a useful organisation
- though by no means blind to its defects and vagaries, as I
have had the means of knowing. I think they would wish all of
us, who have had to do with its beginnings, to work on in
connection with it, each doing our best to guide it into
desirable channels.
At present its organisation is unhealthy and unpractical to a
grotesque degree. If it is destined to survive and be a leading
influence in the religious and philosophical thinking of the
European and American worlds, it is ridiculous to suppose that
its affairs can be continuously controlled, and its government
carried on from so remote and inconvenient a headquarters as
that at present established in a suburb of Madras. It is absurd
in only a minor degree that its General Council should consist
of members of diverse nationality, scattered all over the globe
and incapable of meeting. But it is unnecessary at this moment
to go into further criticism of its chaotic rules. It will be
enough for those, who, with myself, may be disposed to regard
them in that light, to consider with me, perhaps, at some future
date (if circumstances should appear to prompt such an attempt),
the possibility of putting them on a more reasonable footing.
A. P. SINNETT.
July, 1907
Scanned and uploaded by Alan Bain, July 1996
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