Occultists forget self in favour of other selves. Spiritists doom other selves to unremitting recollection of their shameful existence. No wonder that Spiritualism is yet to produce a single Adept. Mediums are blind worshippers of dead thoughts decomposing, which vampirise both mediums and the living. Unlike Adepts, mediums lack self-control. Their raison d’être is to transmit unquestionably alien thoughts and passions. Theosophists are cautious in ascribing mediumistic communications to any foreign source. Rare cases of genuine mediumship may be the outcome of divine knowledge revealed to Atlantean stock.
There are Spirits and Spirits; High Planetary Spirits who have been human beings millions of ages since, and upon other besides our own planet; there are the illusionary appearances of these, projected upon the intra-psychic screen of our mediumistic, hence confused, perceptions; and there are seers and mediums, as there are great men of science, willing and sincere, but ignorant tyros. Spiritualism has spawned almost as many books as a herring does eggs. There can be no spiritual intercourse, either with the souls of the living or the dead, unless it is preceded by self-spiritualization, the conquest of selfishness, and the unfoldment of the nobler powers within us. Spiritualism and Theosophy are mere opinions and beliefs, and nothing more. They can no more claim to be regarded as “facts” than any other emotional belief, for the facts of one will be delusion in the eyes of the other. Spiritualists and Theosophists fully agree that there are higher and pure spirits outside the realm of our physical senses. But they entirely disagree as to the nature and causal agency of “communicating intelligences.” The “disembodied spirits,” instead of having become the wiser for being rid of the physiological impediments and the restraints of their gross material senses, would seem to have become far more stupid, far less perspicacious and, in every respect, worse than they were during their earthly life. As nations became restricted by their own tongue, the once-universal Mystery Language is being gradually denied to subsequent generations. While the disciples of Eastern Occultism are trying to purify matter, Western Spiritualists are striving to degrade spirit. Spiritualists and Theosophists travel along a parallel, if not quite identical, path. Yet, to those bereft of a metaphysico-spiritual vocabulary, Eastern Occultism will remain impassable to the babel tower of modern thought, caused by ignorance of the true meaning of words and their synonyms, a skin deep learning leading to mistaken notions, and the tendency of elevating misconceptions to the dignity of dogmas. If people would stop speculating, and would simply stick to substantiated fact, truth would be more readily attained in each and every case. Truth stands higher than any earthly consideration ever will. Let each of us show our facts and give our explanations; and let those who are neither Occultists, Spiritualists, nor sceptics, adjudicate between the contestant parties. The world must learn at last, under the penalty of falling back to superstitious beliefs in the biblical devil, why such phenomena do so happen, and to what cause or causes they are to be attributed. New Dispensation is the latest folly of dogmatic Christianity. We are not acquainted with a god who thinks, plots, rewards, punishes, and repents. The only god whom we serve is humanity, and our only cult is love of our fellow man. This our religion and dogma. Men have done their best to replace the solar rays with the false glare of error and fiction; none more so than the bigoted, narrow-minded theologians and priests of every faith, the sophists and perverters of the Spirit of Truth. Parsifal is the theatrical representation of good and evil in a supreme struggle. It is our universe, saved through atonement; it is sin redeemed through grace, and the triumph of faith and charity. Thus far, Pilate’s “What is truth?” has never been sufficiently answered to the satisfaction of narrow-minded sectarians. The Theosophical Society upholds and advocates only corroborated facts and Truth, and nothing but the Truth, whencesoever and from whomsoever it may come. Our views have to stand or fall upon their own merit, since we claim neither divine revelation nor infallibility. We will not serve Truth and Falsehood at the same time. Our policy is war to death to every unproved dogma, superstition, bigotry, and intolerance.
Divine conscience is being stifled by pure selfishness. Dicken’s “baleful roads of by-gone days” persist, only on a more gigantic scale, in the Emerald Island of today. Cases emanating directly from the realm of political and diplomatic action, cry loudly to the common ethics of humanity for exposure and punishment. The prosperity of every state is based upon the orderly establishment of family principles; and the first duty of those in power is to guard the sacred maternal rights against any brutal violation. A future King of Serbia is doomed to witness from his childhood daily scenes that seem to have been copied from the palaces of Messalina and the Borgia Popes. Love, wealth, and happiness smiled upon Nathalie Keshko from her very cradle, until that unfortunate marriage of hers with Michael Obrenovitch, the lineal descendant of swineherds. Natalie’s noble uprighteousness and true womanly moral qualities must have made him dread her from the first. Who gives you the right and audacity to so insult all law, divine and human? Is it in the name of Christianity that you perpetrate an act which would disgrace any “heathen” potentate and State? The unspeakable cruelty and wickedness inflicted upon the legitimate Queen of an insignificant Kingdom, may be done to any of you — when the hour of retributive justice strikes. Arise then, and protest in the name of human rights while you are still in power. For who knows how long that power may last? A heavy load of Karma is in store for the cruel King of Serbia. Whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Modern civilization is most uncivil as it can only advance at the expense of moral improvement and social cohesion. What an infamous act of despotism and injustice inflicted upon a woman, innocent and pure as few!
No one can escape from the clutches of Karma by adopting masterly inactivity. For how can a hermit practice charity or industry if he runs away from man? The greatest ascetics and saints of our own day are not those who retire into inaccessible places, They live in the midst of us. Lord Buddha retreated from society only for the first six years of his ascetic life. “Self-culture” is for cloistered yogins who live apart from the society of their fellow human beings: they are spiritually selfish! Some theosophists have arrived at a certain hostility and indignation towards matter. But “where two or three are gathered” in the name of the Spirit of Truth — the Spirit of Theosophy will be in the midst of them.
Materialism is the mother of all vices and root of the sin and suffering in the world. It is the negation of pure Spirit, resulting in brutality, hypocrisy, greed, and selfishness. Further proof of the moral blindness of materialism is the unquestioning belief in the necromantic apparitions of the disembodied “spirits” of the dead. Modern Science cannot unveil the mystery of the Spirit of Cosmos to the eyes of man. It can collect, classify, and generalize upon phenomena; but the Occultist declares that the daring explorer, who would probe the inmost secrets of Nature, must transcend the narrow limitations of sense, and elevate his Manas to the realm of noumena and the sphere of primal causes. To run counter to the views of modern Science’s most eminent exponents, is to court a premature discomfiture in the eyes of the Western world. Occultism is at odds with the spiritual blindness of anthropomorphism, idealism and hylo-idealism, positivism and the all-denying modern psychology and, not least, the endless speculations of physicists who are at loggerheads with each other. The ancient belief that the Sun is the God of Spiritual and Terrestrial Light, is nowadays regarded as a superstition only by rank materialism, that denies the triadic hypostasis of Deity–Spirit–Soul, and admits no intelligence outside the mind of man. The ever-concealed Central Spiritual Sun is the all-pervading Spirit of Life animating the playground of numberless Universes, incessantly manifesting and disappearing. Its creative energy, having originated in the Central Point, is then stored in the visible Sun, the Life- and Health-Giver of the physical world; and then, from deep in the bowels of the Earth, it keeps flowing incessantly out of the North Pole towards the Equator. Francis Bacon was among the first to strike the keynote of materialism, by inverting the order of mental evolution, not only by his inductive method renovated from ill-digested Aristotle, but also by the general tenor of his writings. The Light of Spirit is the eternal Sabbath of the Mystic. Fiat Lux, esoterically rendered, means “Let there be the Sons of Light,” i.e., the noumena of all phenomena. The Sons of Light are the Logoi of Life shooting out like seven fiery tongues from the infinite Ocean of Light, whose supernal pole is pure Spirit lost in Non-Being, and whose infernal pole condenses and crystallizes into gross matter.
Devil-evil is a mighty motor in the struggle for life. See how the Christianity of Jesus Christ was degraded to “Church” Christianity. There are two Jesuses: The real Jesus, a Master of Wisdom, and Jesus travestied by pseudo-Christian fancy and clad in pagan robes borrowed from heathen gods. Unmanifested Logos is forever concealed. The “forever concealed” followed Thorah’s advice and did so arrange its forms as to become manifested as the Universe. And if Thorah, why not Satan? Evil is the dark side of good. Yet every goodness has its defect. Truth is mighty and will prevail. Every hitherto far-hidden truth, whether concealed by Nature or human craft, must and shall be revealed some day or other.
Healing the sick requires unalloyed benevolence, untainted even by latent selfishness. Therefore, a would-be healer must be physically and morally healthy, confident in his science and in himself. Only then can he heal effectively, safely, and permanently. There is nothing “spiritual” or “divine” in any of the latent occult powers in man. But interfering with someone else’s mind, whether consciously or unconsciously, is Black Magic, particularly since there is always more than a tinge of selfishness in the operator’s mind. The true Theosophist neither intrudes in others’ mind, nor hinders others’ freedom of thought. Hypnotism is the new scientific name for the old “superstition.” What the operator is using is not his “benevolent” will, as it is commonly thought, he simply bewitches the patient by means of his auric fluid. No one has the right to take the mind of another, for any purpose, into his possession. “Doing good works” in this way is likely to be vitally injurious, as all but those who are blind in their love of benevolence are compelled to acknowledge. Instead of healing, the hypnotisers awaken the dark forces of nature and end up inoculating the sick with their own ills and vices. Learning and doing good rightly, informed by higher knowledge, is far more effective and safe than the imprudent haste for good works. Though acceptance of Truth and practice of virtue cannot avert stored up Karma, good effects can be produced today and in future. Compassionate action is what really counts, not mere thoughts and wishful thinking. Central to spiritual development is unfeigned compassion-sacrifice which, when enacted, becomes altruism as much as “inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.” (Cf. Voice of the Silence, frag. II vs. 135 p. 31)
Christianity is the official creed of the masculine social energy of the generation. It is not that Christian dogmatism is more hateful to us than any other form of obstructiveness, but because it is enjoying a wider power to prevent man’s moral development and crush truth. Has Christianity so clear and innocent a record, and freedom from dogma, as to command the immediate reverence of the Heathen? The Theosophical Society is the platform of true Brotherhood, a bond of amicable tolerance, a fulcrum by which the lever of Progress may move the mass of Ignorance. It has no one religion to propagate, no one creed to endorse. It stands for truth alone, and nothing but Truth.
Selfishness, envy, revenge, and malice are mankind’s deadliest curses. Selfishness is love misdirected to, and jealously kept for one’s little self at the expense of his Spiritual Self and of all other selves, who are transient rays of One Universal Self. Selfishness and ambition are mankind’s deadliest curses. Great intellect and too much knowledge is a two-edged weapon in life, and instruments for evil, as well as for good. When combined with Selfishness, they will make of the whole of Humanity a footstool for the elevation of him who possesses them, and a means for the attainment of his objects; while, applied to altruistic and humanitarian purposes, they may become the means of salvation of the many. Pride and Presumption, the two chief prompters of Selfishness and Egotism, are the causes that emptied heaven of one third of its divine dwellers (mystically) and of another third, of the stars (astronomically). The first statement is an allegory intimately connected with humanity; the second, a fact. Our age is criminal in its frightful selfishness, in its scepticism which grimaces at the very idea of anything beyond the material, and in its idiotic indifference to all that does not pertain to the personal self — more than any of the past ages of ignorant barbarism and intellectual darkness. The paths are many but Wisdom is One. Artistic souls envision it, those who suffer dream of it, the pure in heart know it. Only light and empty heads, egotistical and vain drones, confused by their own buzzing, will remain ignorant of the supreme ideal. They will continue existing until life becomes a grievous burden to them. Pride and conceit are the two malignant cancers devouring the heart of “civilized” nations. Selfishness is the sword of Damocles dangling by evanescent personality over the golden thread that links it with its Spiritual Centre and Life Eternal. One never ceases to be astonished by the egoism, vanity, and “self-sufficiency” of the majority. There are some for whom their little personality constitutes the whole universe. The vices and illusions of lower minds are typical of egotistical mediocrities. Overfed by the sweet delicacies of ambition and personal life, man accumulates gravitas. Kipling says that he is gathering “too much ego in his cosmos.” His “little personality constitutes the whole universe,” says Madame Blavatsky. Every veil of illusion that creates a sense of personal isolation, a feeling of separateness from All, must be torn asunder; and those who, through vanity and selfishness, go against the Divine Plan, cannot but incur the punishment of total annihilation. Life on earth is the result and consequence of that unseen, yet ever present autocrat and despot, called Selfishness and Egotism. The strongest will becomes impotent before the voice and authority of this self-appointed commander. Selfish is the life of a hermit, useless to all, and as useless to himself. “Self-culture” is for the solitary Hatha Yogis who shun the society of their fellow men. Pampering the animal self is triply distilled selfishness. The Hindu Yogi, who isolates himself in an impenetrable forest, and the Christian hermit who retires to the desert, are both accomplished egoists. The one seeks refuge in Nirvana, the other to save his soul from hell. Philosophical pantheism is based upon the correct understanding of the mysteries of being. Modern pessimism is yet another system of evil added by unhealthy fancy to an ever-growing sum of social evils, and a systematic slander of sentient life. Neither good nor evil would exist were it not for the light they throw upon each other. The bundle of Egotism disappears after death, as the costume of the part he played disappears from the actor’s body after he leaves the theatre at the end of the play and goes to bed. The slightest tinge of Selfishness precludes the employment of Spiritual Forces. For, unless the intention is entirely unalloyed, the spiritual will transform itself into the psychic, act on the astral plane, and dire results may be produced by it. The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving. But the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic. The greatest crime that was ever perpetrated upon mankind was committed on that day when the first priest invented the first prayer with a selfish object in view. Prayer is an ennobling action when it is an intense feeling, an ardent desire rushing forth from our very heart for the good of other people, and when entirely detached from any selfish personal object; the craving for “the wilds beyond the heavens” is natural and holy in man, but on the condition of sharing that bliss with others. The heart of the purely selfish man, who cares not if all others rot so he can have pleasure in their pain, is softened for those near and dear to him — his family, relatives, and friends. His affections may even extend to religious fanaticism and even patriotic fervour in his country’s wars and political schemes, in the hope of recognition and reward. However sincere and ardent the faith of a theist, unless, while conforming his life to what he pleases to term “divine laws,” he gives precedence in his thoughts, first to the benefit that accrues from such a moral course of actions to his brother, and then only thinks of himself — he will remain a pious egotist. For belief in and fear of God will develop and grow in exact proportion to his Selfishness, his fear of punishment and bad results only for himself, without the least concern for his brother. Theism and atheism grow and develop together our reasoning powers, and become either fortified or weakened by reflection or deduction of evidence. The only God which Theosophists worship is Truth. The only devil they recognize and which they fight with unabated fury is the Satan of Egotism and unbridled passions. Alone our Western religion stands in its isolation, as a monument of the most gigantic human selfishness ever evolved by human brain, without one word in favour of, or for the protection of, the poor animal. Selfishness, envy, revenge, and malice are the hallmarks of sorcerers. The Roman Catholic “fathers” and clergy, particularly when pursuing their selfish objectives collectively, they have to be ranked among the adepts of the Black Art. In the crypts of the cyclopean Stonehenge in England, and its twin-brother Carnac of Brittany, curious scenes are taking place whenever there is a new convert in view. Stupefying is the power of blind faith in, and veneration of, ecclesiastical teachings. The conscience of the Roman Catholic priest is most likely at peace. He works personally for no selfish purpose, but with the object of “saving a soul” from “eternal damnation.” In his view, if Magic there be in it, it is holy, meritorious, and divine Magic. Whenever those priest-hypnotists want to control an individual, selected by them for conversion, they retire to an underground place, consecrated by them for such purposes and there, forming a circle, throw their combined will-power in the direction of that individual. This is the kind of ceremonial Magic and sorcery practiced at Stonehenge and elsewhere. The modern Symbologist is exceedingly clever only at detecting phallic worship and sexual emblems, even where none were ever meant. But for the true student of Occult Lore, White or Divine Magic could no more exist in Nature without its counterpart Black Magic, than day without night, whether these be of twelve hours or of six months’ duration. Magic is still in full sway amidst mankind, however blind the latter to its silent presence and pernicious influence, however ignorant society may be of its beneficent and maleficent effects. Most of those magicians are sorcerers by reason of their inherent selfishness, their revengeful natures, their envy, and malice. Man accumulates knowledge, invents religions and philosophies, but he himself remains still the same. In his ceaseless chase after wealth and honours and the will-o’-the-wisps of novelty, enjoyment, and ambition, man is ever moved by one chief motor — Vain Selfishness. We live in an era of the most triumphant display of human genius. But what good has all this great civilization and progress done to the millions in the world’s slums, and to the armies of the “great unwashed”? Selfishness is the chief prompter of our age and the boisterous rebel against Nature’s decrees. The student, at the very outset, learns that the alpha and the omega of life is selflessness, and knows that only in the sanctuary of merit and self-forgetfulness can the true meaning of life reveal itself to his eager heart. By sinking his consciousness deep into his heart he can reach that holy place, only when alone in silence and darkness. When the need for silence has grown great enough, he will turn to seek it even in the midst of the struggle with self, and he will find it. Living for self alone is full of pain and sorrow; living for others is full of divine bliss and joy for ever, free from bonds tied by mortal hands. There is no danger to him who is true and sincere, and especially unselfish. For he is thus prepared to meet any temptation. The pure at heart, who study with a view of perfecting themselves, need not have any fear; but rather those who make of the Sacred Science a sinful pretext for worldly motives, who should tremble. Conscience, God’s vicegerent in the soul, speaks no longer in man when the whispers of the still small voice within are stifled by the ever-increasing din and roar of selfishness. Space and time should be given to the self-appointed censors of morality to cleanse themselves of the ferocious selfishness, narrow-mindedness, and conceit which have made their playing at “the higher life” an almost comical travesty. It is that fierce and unashamed personal selfishness, the chief motor in the “struggle for life,” that is the sole cause of human starvation, and it’s vastly more powerful extension — national egoism and vanity — which stirs up wealthy nations and individuals to bury enormous capitals in the unproductive erection of gorgeous churches and temples, and to support a swarm of social drones called Cardinals and Bishops, who parasitize their subordinates and their flocks. Compassion felt but not acted upon is not altruism, it is bare hypocrisy. Spiritual perfection and knowledge can only be reached on the spiritual plane — in that state in which all sense of separateness, all selfishness, all feeling of personal interest and desire, has been merged in the wider consciousness of the humanity at large. No blind submission to the commands of another can be demanded, or would not be of any use. Each individual must learn for himself, through trial and suffering, to discriminate what is beneficial to humanity; and in proportion, as he begins transmuting his materiality to spirituality — lead to gold — his mind will open to receive the guidance of his Immortal Self within. and best friend of the mortal self. Impersonality is the ultimate aim of cosmic evolution. We have to work along with Nature, and not place ourselves in opposition to her inherent impulse, which must ultimately assert itself. To oppose it, must necessitate suffering, since a weaker force, in its egotism, tries to array itself against the mighty Universal Law. Whenever Truth is veiled for the many, it is unveiled for the few. Men had not created evil yet in those hoary days of bliss and purity, for they were more Godlike than human. When Selfishness was born out of desires and passions hitherto unknown, and superhuman knowledge and power were abused, it became necessary to limit the number of those who knew. Thus arose Initiation. The need of veiling Truth to protect it from desecration becoming more apparent with every generation, the thin veil used at first had to be gradually thickened according to the spread of I-ness and Me-ness, Luxury and Lust — and this led to the Mysteries. Our age is pre-eminently materialistic and pietistic. Our literature, our modern thought, and the so-called progress, run on these two parallel lines, so incongruously dissimilar, and yet both so popular and so very orthodox, each in its own way. He who presumes to draw a third line, as a hyphen of reconciliation between the two, has to be fully prepared for the worst. Compassion felt but not acted upon is not altruism, it is mere hypocrisy. Real self-development on esoteric lines requires action. The only way of sacrificing oneself “to the eternal” is by attuning to the collective spirit of life, embodied in and represented in its highest divine aspect by humanity alone. Vice and wickedness are an abnormal, unnatural manifestation, at this period of our human evolution. The fact that mankind was never more selfish and vicious than it is now — civilized nations having succeeded in making of the first an ethical characteristic, and of the second an art — is proof of the of the sorry state we are all in today. The Immortal Titan and True Philanthropist is moved by Compassion-Sacrifice; the mortal man, by Selfishness and Self-adoration in every instance. If man by suppressing, if not destroying, his selfishness and personality, only succeeds in knowing himself as he truly is, he will soon stand beyond all pain and misery, and beyond all the wear and tear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be physically of matter, he will move surrounded by matter, and yet he will live beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to change, but he himself will be entirely above it, and will experience everlasting life even while in temporary bodies of a short span. Happiness cannot exist as long as Egotism reigns supreme, and intellectual progress refuses to accept a subordinate position to ethical progress. And as long as Egotism will not give way to the Altruism, happiness will remain a Utopia. Listen to the voice of the Master: Your motive, being selfish, can only generate a double effect, good and bad, and will either nullify your good action, or turn it to another man’s profit. There is no happiness for one who is ever thinking of his little self and forgetting all other selves.
