a real brotherhood, is expressed in the motto of the Theosophical
Society: "There is no religion higher than truth." As an impersonal
Society we must be ready to seize the truth wherever we find it,
without permitting ourselves more partiality for one belief than for
another. This leads directly to a logical conclusion. If we acclaim and
receive with open arms all sincere truthseekers, there can be no place
in our ranks for the bigot, the sectarian, or the hypocrite, enclosed
in Chinese Walls of dogma, each stone bearing the words "No admission."
What place indeed could such fanatics occupy in them, fanatics whose
religions forbid all inquiry and do not admit any argument as possible,
when the mother idea, the very root of the beautiful plant we call
Theosophy is known as--absolute and unfettered liberty to investigate
all the mysteries of nature, human or divine!
With this exception the Society invites everyone to participate in its
activities and discoveries. Whoever feels his heart beat in unison with
the great heart of humanity; whoever feels his interests are one with
those of every being poorer and less fortunate than himself; every man
or woman who is ready to hold out a helping hand to the suffering;
whoever understands the true meaning of the word "Egoism"; is a
Theosophist by birth and by right. He can always be sure of finding
sympathetic souls among us.
We have already said elsewhere, that "Born in the United States the
Theosophical Society was constituted on the model of its mother
country." That as we know, has omitted the name of God from its
Constitution, for fear, said the fathers of the Republic, that the word
might one day become the pretext for a state religion: for they desired
to grant absolute equality to all religions under the laws, so that
each form would support the State, which in its turn would protect them
all. The Theosophical Society was founded on that excellent model....
Each Body, like each member, being free to profess whatever religion
and to study whatever philosophy it prefers, provided all remain united
in the tie of solidarity or Brotherhood, our Society can truly call
itself a "Republic of conscience."
Though absolutely free to pursue whatever intellectual occupations
please him the best, each member of our Society must, however, furnish
some reason for belonging thereto, which amounts to saying that each
member must bear his part, small though it be, of mental or other
labor for the benefit of all. If one does not work for others one
has no right to be called a Theosophist. All must strive for human
freedom of thought, for the elimination of selfish and sectarian
superstitions, and for the discovery of all the truths that are within
the comprehension of the human mind. That object cannot be attained
more certainly than by the cultivation of unity in intellectual labors.
No honest worker, no earnest seeker can remain empty-handed; and there
is hardly a man or woman, busy as they may think themselves, incapable
of laying their tribute, moral or pecuniary, on the altar of truth....
In the present condition of the Theosophical history it is easy
to understand the object of a Review exclusively devoted to the
propagation of our ideas. We wish to open therein new intellectual
horizons, to follow unexplored routes leading to the amelioration of
humanity; to offer a word of consolation to all the disinherited of
the earth, whether they suffer from the starvation of soul or from the
lack of physical necessities. We invite all large-hearted persons who
desire to respond to this appeal to join with us in this humanitarian
work. Each co-worker, whether a member of the Society or simply a
sympathizer, can help. We are face to face with all the glorious
possibilities of the future. This is again the hour of the great cyclic
return of the tide of mystical thought in Europe. On every side we are
surrounded by the ocean of the universal science--the science of Life
Eternal--bearing on its waves the forgotten and submerged treasures
of generations now passed away, treasures still unknown to the modern
civilized races. The strong current which rises from the submarine
abysses, from the depths where lie the prehistoric learning and arts
swallowed up with the antediluvian Giants--demigods, though with but
little of mortality--that current strikes us in the face and murmurs:
"That which has been exists again; that which has been forgotten,
buried for aeons in the depths of the Jurassic strata may reappear to
view once again. Prepare yourselves."
Happy are those who understand the language of the elements. But
where are _they_ going for whom the word element has no other meaning
than that given to it by physics or materialistic chemistry? Will
it be towards well-known shores that the surge of the great waters
will bear them, when they have lost their footing in the deluge which
is approaching? Will it be towards the peaks of a new Ararat that
they will find themselves carried, towards the heights of light and
sunshine, where there is a ledge on which to place the feet in safety,
or perchance is it a fathomless abyss that will swallow them up as soon
as they try to struggle against the irresistible billows of an unknown
element?
We must prepare ourselves and study truth under every aspect,
endeavoring to ignore nothing, if we do not wish to fall into the abyss
of the unknown when the hour shall strike. It is useless to leave it
to chance and to await the intellectual and psychic crisis which is
preparing, with indifference, if not with crass disbelief, saying that
at the worst the flowing tide will drive us all in the course of nature
towards the farther shore; for it is far more probable that the tidal
wave will cast up nothing but a corpse. The strife will be terrible in
any case between brutal materialism and blind fanaticism on the one
hand, and philosophy and mysticism on the other--mysticism, that veil
of more or less translucency which hides the eternal Truth.
But it is not materialism that will gain the upper hand. Every
fanatic whose ideas isolate him from the universal axiom that "There
is no religion higher than Truth" will see himself by that very fact
rejected, like an unworthy stone, from the Archway called Universal
Brotherhood. Tossed by the waves, driven by the winds, reeling in that
element which is so terrible because unknown, he will soon find himself
engulfed....
Yes, it must be so, it cannot be otherwise when the chilly and
artificial gleam of modern materialism will disappear for want of fuel.
Those who cannot form any idea of a spiritual Ego, a living soul and
an eternal Spirit within their material shell (which owes its very
existence to these principles); those for whom the great hope of an
existence beyond the grave is a vexation, merely the symbol of an
unknown quantity, or else the subject of a belief _sui generis_, the
result of theological and mediumistic hallucinations--these will do
well to prepare for the serious troubles the future has in store for
them. For from the depths of the dark, muddy waters of materiality
which hide from them every glimpse of the horizons of the great
Beyond, there is a mystic force rising during these last years of the
century. At most it is but the first gentle rustling, but it is a
superhuman rustling--"supernatural" only for the superstitious and the
ignorant. The spirit of truth is passing over the face of the waters,
and in dividing them, is compelling them to disgorge their spiritual
treasures. This spirit is a force that can neither be hindered nor
stopped. Those who recognize it and feel that this is the supreme
moment of their salvation will be uplifted by it and carried beyond the
illusions of the great astral serpent. The joy they will experience
will be so poignant and intense that if they were not mentally isolated
from their body of flesh, the beatitude would pierce them like sharp
steel. It is not pleasure that they will experience but a bliss which
is a foretaste of the wisdom of the gods, the knowledge of good and
evil, of the fruits of the tree of life.
But although the man of today may be a fanatic, a sceptic, or a mystic,
he must be well convinced that it is useless for him to struggle
against the two moral forces at large today engaged in the supreme
contest. He is at the mercy of these two adversaries and there is
no intermediary capable of protecting him. It is but a question of
choice, whether to let himself be carried along on the wave of mystical
evolution, or to struggle against this moral and psychic reaction and
so find himself engulfed in the maelstrom of the rising tide. The
whole world, at this time, with its centers of high intelligence and
humane culture, its political, artistic, literary, and commercial life,
is in a turmoil; everything is shaking and crumbling in its movement
towards reform. It is useless to shut the eyes, it is useless to hope
that anyone can remain neutral between the two contending forces;
the choice is whether to be crushed between them or to become united
with one or the other. The man who imagines he has freedom, but who,
nevertheless, remains plunged in that seething caldron of foulness
called the life of Society--gives the lie in the face of his divine
Ego, a lie so terrible that it will stifle that higher self for a
long series of future incarnations. All you who hesitate in the path
of Theosophy and the occult sciences, who are trembling on the golden
threshold of truth--the only one within your grasp, for all the others
have failed you one after the other--look straight in the face the
great Reality which is offered you. It is only to mystics that these
words are addressed, for them alone have they any importance; for
those who have already made their choice they are vain and useless.
But you Students of Occultism and Theosophy, you well know that a
word, old as the world though new to you, has been declared at the
beginning of this cycle. You well know that a note has just been struck
which has never yet been heard by the mankind of the present era; and
that a new thought is revealed, ripened by the forces of evolution.
This thought differs from everything that has been produced in the
nineteenth century; it is identical, however, with the thought that has
been the dominant tone and key-stone of each century, especially the
last--absolute freedom of thought for humanity.
Why try to strangle and suppress what cannot be destroyed? Why hesitate
when there is no choice between allowing yourselves to be raised on the
crest of the spiritual wave to the very heavens beyond the stars and
the universes, or to be engulfed in the yawning abyss of an ocean of
matter? Vain are your efforts to sound the unfathomable, to reach the
ultimate of this wonderful matter so glorified in our century; for its
roots grow in the Spirit and in the Absolute, they do not exist, yet
they _are_ eternally. This constant union with flesh, blood, and bones,
the illusion of differentiated matter, does nothing but blind you.
And the more you penetrate into the region of the impalpable atoms of
chemistry the more you will be convinced that they only exist in your
imagination. Do you truly expect to find in material life every reality
and every truth of existence? But Death is at everyone's door, waiting
to shut it upon a beloved soul that escapes from its prison, upon the
soul which alone has made the body a reality; how then can it be that
eternal love should associate itself absolutely with ever-changing and
ever-disappearing matter?
But you are perhaps indifferent to all such things; how then can you
say that affection and the souls of those you love concern you at
all, since you do not believe in the very existence of such souls?
It must be so. You have made your choice; you have entered upon that
path which crosses nothing but the barren deserts of matter. You are
self-condemned to wander there and to pass through a long series of
similar lives. You will have to be contented henceforth with deliriums
and fevers in place of spiritual experiences, of passion instead of
love, of the husk instead of the fruit.
But you, friends and readers, you who aspire to something more than the
life of the squirrel everlastingly turning the same wheel; you who are
not content with the seething of the caldron whose turmoil results in
nothing; you who do not take the deaf echoes of the dead past for the
divine voice of truth; prepare yourselves for a future of which you
have hardly dared to dream unless you have at least taken the first few
steps on the way. For you have chosen a path, although rough and thorny
at the start, that soon widens out and leads you to the divine truth.
You are free to doubt while you are still at the beginning of the way,
you are free to decline to accept on hearsay what is taught respecting
the source and the cause of truth, but you are always able to hear what
its voice is telling you, and you can always study the effects of the
creative force coming from the depths of the unknown. The arid soil
upon which the present generation of men is moving at the close of this
age of spiritual dearth and of purely material satisfaction, has need
of a divine symbol, of a rainbow of hope to rise above its horizon. For
of all the past centuries our Nineteenth has been the most criminal.
It is criminal in its frightful selfishness, in its scepticism
which grimaces at the very idea of anything beyond the material; in
its idiotic indifference to all that does not pertain to personal
egotism--more than any of previous centuries of ignorant barbarism or
intellectual darkness. Our century must be saved from itself before
its last hour strikes. This is the moment for all those to act who see
the sterility and folly of an existence blinded by materialism and
ferociously indifferent to the fate of the neighbor; now is the time
for them to devote all their energies, all their courage to the great
intellectual reform. This reform can only be accomplished by Theosophy
we say, by the Occultism of the Wisdom of the Orient. The paths that
lead to it are many; but the Wisdom is one. Artistic souls foresee it,
those who suffer dream of it, the pure in heart know it. Those who
work for others cannot remain blinded to its reality, though they may
not recognize it by name. Only light and empty minds, egotistical and
vain drones, confused by their own buzzing will remain ignorant of
the supreme ideal. They will continue to exist until life becomes a
grievous burden to them.
This is to be distinctly remembered, however: these pages are not
written for the masses. They are neither an appeal for reforms, nor
an effort to win over to our views the fortunate in life; they are
addressed solely to those who are constitutionally able to comprehend
them, to those who suffer, to those who hunger and thirst after some
Reality in this world of Chinese Shadows. And for those, why should
they not show themselves courageous enough to leave their world of
trifling occupations, their pleasures above all and their personal
interests, at least as far as those interests do not form part of their
duty to their families or others? No one is so busy or so poor that
he cannot create a noble ideal and follow it. Why then hesitate in
breaking a path towards this ideal, through all obstacles, over every
stumbling-block, every petty hindrance of social life, in order to
march straight forward until the goal is reached?
Those who would make this effort would soon find that the "strait
gate" and the "thorny path" lead to the broad valleys of the limitless
horizons, to that state where there is no more death, because
one has regained one's divinity. But the truth is that the first
conditions necessary to reach it are a disinterestedness, an absolute
impersonality, a boundless devotion to the interests of others, and a
complete indifference to the world and its opinions. The motive must be
absolutely pure in order to make the first steps on that ideal path;
not an unworthy thought must attract the eyes from the end in view,
not one doubt must shackle the feet. There do exist men and women
thoroughly qualified for this whose only aim is to dwell under the
Aegis of their divine Nature. Let them, at least, take courage to live
the life and not conceal it from the eyes of others! The opinion of no
other person should be taken as superior to the voice of conscience.
Let that conscience, developed to its highest degree, guide us in the
control of all the ordinary acts of life. As to the conduct of our
inner life, we must concentrate the entire attention on the ideal we
have proposed to ourselves, and look straight ahead without paying the
slightest attention to the mud upon our feet.
Those who make this supreme effort are the true Theosophists.
RECENT CONFIRMATION OF H. P. BLAVATSKY'S TEACHINGS ABOUT ANCIENT
CONTINENTS AND RACES: by H. T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.)
The London _Times' South American Supplement_ (May 30) contains the
first half of an article on the ancient people of Peru, in which the
writer speaks of the gigantic works in masonry wrought by a people who
lived there ages before the Incas. Being on the wrong side of the Andes
for fertility, these people built the enormous irrigation systems which
still exist; and the writer asks why they did not cross the Andes to
the well-watered slopes and plains on the east. The extent to which
they had explored their own country and its mountain heights proves
that the other country should have been within their grasp. Yet they
took all this trouble to make the western slopes fertile.
The answer given is--that in those days perhaps there _was_ no land to
the east of the Andes.
The writer then goes on to speak of the ancient continental
distribution of land, of Atlantis, of the connexion between South
America and Australasia, etc., in a way that is now growing familiar.
People whose opinions are of weight are coming to see that the true
explanation of the ancient American civilizations, as well as those of
such isolated spots as Easter Island, with its marvelous statues, is to
be sought along these lines. At the same time the subject has afforded
a fertile field for cranks and others who pin their various fads or new
gospels thereto. The latter, however, cannot last, but the truth is
eternal. The myths will be exploded, but the actual facts as to past
history will be proved.
In _The Secret Doctrine_ H. P. Blavatsky sums up all the available
speculation and information on the subject of these ancient continents
and weaves it into consistency by applying to it the keys of the
Wisdom-Religion. There is little doubt that her writings have
contributed largely, in more or less direct ways, to many of the other
published utterances on the question.
It is maintained, and with reason, by Theosophists, that the statements
of H. P. Blavatsky refer to actual facts and must therefore one day
be verified. The history of discovery and speculation since she wrote
has already done much to confirm this conviction. But as her teachings
with regard to the ancient continents are inseparably bound up with her
statements as to the ancient races of mankind, and indeed with the
Theosophical teachings in general, it follows that these also will be
confirmed.
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. LOOKING EASTWARD
OVER PART OF THE GROUNDS OF THE INTERNATIONAL THEOSOPHICAL
HEADQUARTERS, POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA]
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. LOMALAND CAÑON AND
HILLSIDE]
The great importance of this enlarged knowledge about the human race
and its history is that it so enlarges and ennobles our view of human
life. Before the light of knowledge all narrow dogmas fade away. The
errors of theology, the mistakes of scientific theory, our inadequate
sociological ideas--all these must fade in the light which will be shed
when the Theosophical teachings are more fully recognized. And all this
remarkable progress in archaeology may be welcomed as one of the signs.
The publication to which reference has been made speaks of other
countries of South America, but seems unable to do so without
mentioning their antiquities. The Aztecs of Mexico, the Aymarás of
Peru, come in for notice. The ancient people of Peru present analogies
to the Egyptians, Babylonians, Indian peoples, Polynesians, and Malays,
it is said; and some writers have theories about their connexion with
Jews and Chinese. It is easy to see that speculation, left to itself,
runs amuck among the theories.
The same writer, Comyns Beaumont, concludes his article on the ancient
Peruvians in the issue for June 27, and says that:
Central America, as the "Enterprise" or "Easter Divide," a large
submarine ridge, indicates, was connected to the Pacific Continent.
On the other side Central America was connected in the East with the
Mediterranean by another continental mass that spread across the
Atlantic Ocean, and of which today the Antilles, Azores, Canaries, and
the Atlas Mountains in Morocco are the existing remains. Peru also
was a member of this vast continental system. Apart from the evidence
of geological strata, confirmation of this is obtained from the
study of sea fauna. The marine deposits of Peru, Chile, and Ecuador
belong to the same genus as those of Central America, and to find the
corresponding genus elsewhere one must search in the Mediterranean.
Precisely, therefore, as Europe, Asia, and Africa possess a continuous
land connexion, at the epoch when the Peruvians were in the forefront
of civilization there existed a world which comprised the regions
of the Mediterranean (then very different from nowadays), the lost
Atlantic Continent, Central America, and Peru, and the lost Pacific
Continent which embraced lands not only in the Pacific Ocean, but
continued to where the Indian Ocean now washes the shores of Africa,
India, and Mesopotamia.
Thus a step is made in the fulfilment of H. P. Blavatsky's prophecy
that the present century would witness a recognition of many of the
teachings she outlined in her writings.
But there is still much to be done. And not the least important
point is to distinguish carefully between the "Sons of Light" and the
"Sorcerers" among the mighty men of these perished lands. There was a
true Wisdom and a false knowledge; and H. P. Blavatsky never fails to
discriminate between those who preserved the light and those who fell
into darkness. The Easter Island statues, for instance, she describes
as resembling the sensual type of the Atlantean sorcerers rather than
that of the "Buddhas" (so-called) of the Bamian colossi. The writer
in the _Times Supplement_ calls the Easter Island statues "Turanian,"
employing thereby such familiar classifications as he finds to hand;
and in any case he distinguishes them from that higher type loosely
designated by the term "Aryan." This "Turanian" type he finds also in
Chaldaea, India, Central America, etc., and alludes to their habit of
building pyramids.
Finally he shows how inadequate are the speculations of many
anthropologists as to the antiquity of man. Human bones disintegrate
after a comparatively short time; so that the few we find are such
as have been accidentally preserved. And these ancient civilizations
tend to disprove the conventional theories of human evolution--which
theories, however, change from year to year.
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF FOLK-MUSIC, as Exemplified in the Welsh
National Melodies: by Kenneth Morris
Great attention is being paid nowadays to the collecting of old
folk-songs in such countries as Ireland, Wales, and England; and
there has been much discussion raised as to the nature and origin of
a folk-song, properly so called. The subject is one of considerable
interest, because it leads one to a point where the known and visible
things melt away, and forces and influences of a deeper nature are at
work. These may be called spiritual and formative; there is a hand
guiding, but no one can see any hand; there is a creative mind at
function, but it is not the mind of any human being.