Western religion alone is to blame for the cruelty to animals
Western religion alone is to blame for the cruelty to animals

Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Publisher: Philaletheians UK

Published: 2021-04-30

Total Pages: 11

ISBN-13:

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Is it possible for me, who loves animals, to learn how to get more power than I have to help them in their sufferings? Why do the noblest animals suffer so much at the hands of men? I need not enlarge or try to explain this question. Cities are torture places for the animals who can be turned to any account for use or amusement by man! And these are always the most noble. Why should a harmless creature be burnt alive, or vivisected? Suffering is the cause of knowledge, so that the incarnating entity gains experience, although the organism is tortured to death. In China frogs are under the protection of law. We award the palm of superiority to the Chinese over the English legal documents, for the mellifluous, kindly, and fatherly appeal of the philobatrachian Chinese is far superior to dry, commaless, and incomprehensible legal twaddle of the British lawyer.

The Birch Grove and Other Stories
The Birch Grove and Other Stories

Author: Jaros?aw Iwaszkiewicz

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2002-01-01

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9789639241459

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Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz (1894-1980) was a significant Polish novelist and poet. Besides his literary work, he fulfilled various social roles during his long life. He studied law in Kiev, worked as a civil servant at the newly created Polish parliament (Sejm) after WW1, served at embassies in Copenhagen and Brussels, joined anti-nazi resistance during WW2, became member of parliament after the war, was president of the writers' union, received Lenin Prize for peace movement acitivities etc. His books are considered classics and even today they still sell well in Poland; some have been adapted into internationally successful films.

Truth is exiled from the press because it is not as beguiling as falsehood
Truth is exiled from the press because it is not as beguiling as falsehood

Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Publisher: Philaletheians UK

Published: 2021-04-17

Total Pages: 17

ISBN-13:

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Truth is systematically boycotted and exiled from the Press because truth is not as sensational as falsehood — it fails to tickle the reader’s bump of gossip and love of slander as effectually as a cock-and-bull story. Colenso’s insults, shielded under the cloak of anonymity, are cowardly and contemptible acts of moral violence. Human sacrifice is being offered to public prejudice by editors who know next to nothing about Theosophy, and yet each has to propitiate his subscribers, hence to besmear with literary mud all men and things unpopular in the sight of his readers. Truth pure and simple, dearly beloved Knights-errant of the quill and pencil, is often stranger than fiction. The venomous Billingsgate of the Religio-Philosophical Journal, having poisoned but itself, it is now reduced to a clawless and toothless drivelling idiot. Ignorance goes hand in hand with malevolence. A bullying descendant of Ananias, in the Agnostic Journal, pontificates that the theosophical doctrines are “phallic worship.” Can an Atheist be a Theosophist? The Theosophical Society is an international and unsectarian body of kindred souls. While showing respect for every religion and school of thought, it prides itself on belonging to none, save to the Spirit of Truth or Theosophy. In other words, our Society is a brotherhood of men and women in search of Absolute Truth — an uncompromising Republic of Conscience. Narrow-mindedness, scepticism, and worldly philosophy have no room in it. Gautama Buddha is the pre-eminent Theosophist of all ages. Haweis and Headlam transformed their pulpits into oratorial tribunes similar to those in ancient Athens, where feminine beauty in general, and Aspasia and Company in particular, were defended. 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. Thus the exalted Christianity of Jesus has been degraded to “Church” Christianity.

We should all refrain from the mania of celebrating personalities
We should all refrain from the mania of celebrating personalities

Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Publisher: Philaletheians UK

Published: 2022-02-17

Total Pages: 12

ISBN-13:

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Voluminous biographical trivialities render the real character almost invisible, like the counterfeit frankincense which smoke-blacks the favourite idol of a Catholic Church. To scribble trifles on the glass of an inn window is the mark of an idler; but to engrave them on the marble monument, sacred to the memory of the departed Great, is something worse than idleness. As insignificant stories derive no real respectability from the eminence of the person who happens to be the subject of them, they are apt to have their insipidity seasoned by the same bad passions that accompany the habit of gossiping in general. And the misapprehensions of weak men meeting with the misinterpretations of malignant men, have often formed the groundwork of the most grievous calumnies. The duty of an honest biographer is to portray the prominent imperfections as well as excellencies of his subject. But this in not an excuse for heaping together a multitude of particulars, which can prove nothing of any man that might not have been taken for granted of all men. In the present age, of celebrating the personality, we should all desist from this mania of busying ourselves with the names of others, which is still more alarming as a symptom than it is troublesome as a disease. It is worse than a crime to inflict upon the mind vulgar scandal and personal anxiety, thus polluting with evil passions the very sanctuary to which we should flee for refuge from them! Roger North’s biography of Lord Chief Justice Saunders. Very corpulent and beastly, a mere lump of morbid flesh. Those whose ill fortune it was to stand near him were confessors, and in summer time almost martyrs. He seldom moved without a parcel of youths hanging about him, revelling and jesting with them. But he had a goodness of nature and disposition in such a great a degree, that he may be deservedly styled a true Philanthropist.

Why the misery of ill-being cannot be relieved
Why the misery of ill-being cannot be relieved

Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Alexei Maximovich Peshkov

Publisher: Philaletheians UK

Published: 2023-05-21

Total Pages: 10

ISBN-13:

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Misery is a vital element in human nature, and is as necessary to some as pleasure is to others. The religious philanthropist does not do good just for the sake of doing good, but also with an eye to his own salvation. The secular philanthropist, socialist at heart, hopes to make men happy by helping them materially. Ill-being is not only endurable but agreeable to those who endure it, not from love of vice but from love of that very state which the wealthy classes call misery. Kind and considerate regard for others will sometimes bring out the worst qualities of those who led a fairly presentable life, when kept down by pain and despair. Indiscriminate benevolence can be severely harmful as all, but those blind in their love of the suffering of the poor, are compelled to admit. Practical charity is not one of the declared objects of our Society though the flame of brotherly love and sympathy in action with every living creature, whether man or beast, burns silently in the heart of every true Theosophist. A heartfelt appreciation of Theosophy will help to soften the atrocities of life by creating the charity which afterwards, and of its own accord, makes itself manifest in practical works. Even the hollow men prize their vice and live by it.

Spiritual Rules and Protreptics
Spiritual Rules and Protreptics

Author: William Quan Judge

Publisher: Philaletheians UK

Published: 2022-05-13

Total Pages: 14

ISBN-13:

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1. Ten Spiritual Commandments. 2. Ten Rules of Right. 3. Ten Injunctions for Theosophists. 4. Sixteen Cautions in Paragraphs. 5. True Theosophists defined attitudinally, ethically, and philosophically.