The Place of Phenomena in the Theosophical Society
Spiritual and Temporal Authority
The Relation of Masters to the Theosophical Society
The Future of the Theosophical Society
_Four Lectures delivered to the Blavatsky Lodge, London, on 13th and
27th June, 4th and 11th July 1907._
The Place of Phenomena in the Theosophical Society
I have taken for these four lectures, confined to members of the
Theosophical Society, four subjects of great interest to ourselves,
and in dealing with them I propose to ask you to look at them from a
wide standpoint rather than a narrow one, and to consider the
Theosophical Movement and the Theosophical Society, not as an isolated
movement or Society, not as a separate thing, but rather as one of a
series of spiritual impulses, like to its predecessors in its nature,
interested in the same questions, and subject to the same conditions
as those that preceded it in time.
We find, looking back over the history of the past, that great
spiritual impulses occur from time to time, and each of these in the
past has founded a new religion, or stamped some marked change in a
religion already existing. The spiritual impulse that brought to birth
the Theosophical Society is to be thought of as of the same nature as
those which founded one religion in the world after another. And if we
regard it in this way we can sometimes, looking at the whole
succession of such movements, recognise certain definite principles
working in all of them, and then apply those principles to the
movement of our own time. And this seems to me to be a wiser and saner
way of regarding the Theosophical Society than looking upon it as
unique and isolated. Certainly it is more easy to see our way in the
solution of difficult problems of our own time, if we regard these
problems as similar in nature to the problems that have been presented
to our predecessors. Because always, in dealing with the problems of
our own time, we are apt to be confused and bewildered by secondary
issues that rise up around them, complicating them, perhaps largely
clouding them, when we try to understand; whereas if we can catch
sight of the underlying principle and study it apart from any
difficulties of our own time, we are then able to apply that same
principle, as discovered apart from the circumstances of the moment,
and in that way there is a hope of applying it more justly amid the
more exciting incidents of our own day. And it is that which I want to
do in these lectures--to take our movement as a part of a world
series, to study the principles that underlie the whole of that
series, to trace out the working of these principles amongst the
societies that have preceded us in the spiritual world, and then,
having grasped them, to apply them to the solution of the problems of
our own time. For there is a tendency in the Theosophical Society to
narrow itself down to its time, instead of trying to widen out the
thought of its time. It is a tendency which we see affecting every
religion, every church, every great society, and it is useless to
recognise this fact in the history of others unless we apply the fact
for instruction in our own.
Now in all the religions of the past, so far as we have any knowledge
of them in history or from what are called the "occult records," there
is one thing we see in their early days--the presence of happenings
regarded as abnormal. I have used the word "phenomena," but it is a
very stupid word. One uses it because it is generally used; there is
no justification in using that particular word in relation to some
outer manifestations rather than to all. Properly speaking,
"phenomena," of course, will cover the whole of the objects in the
world, in the Not-Self, everything outside the Self; but the word has
been narrowed down, especially in our own time, to those occurrences
in the world around us, in the Not-Self, which are unusual, which seem
to be abnormal, which are the results of laws which are not familiar,
and therefore which are regarded by some people as supernatural, by
others, speaking more carefully, simply as superphysical. And we lose
much by separating off what we call "abnormal" happenings, the
so-called "phenomena," from the normal every-day happenings of life.
For there is no fundamental difference between them. All planes are
equally within the realm of law; all worlds, denser or grosser in
material organisation, are equally worlds moving by order and law.
There is nothing really abnormal in Nature. Some things happen more
seldom than others--are unusual; but the very idea of abnormal seems
to me in many respects mischievous and harmful. It is better to look
on the whole world-system--universe, call it what you will--as a part
of a definite order in which all the things that happen happen by law,
in which there no gaps, no abnormalities, but only limitations of our
own knowledge at a certain time. All the gaps in Nature are gaps in
the knowledge of the observers of Nature. There is nothing miraculous
or supernatural, but everything is the orderly product of Nature
working along definite lines and guided by definite intelligence.
And one reason why it is so important to recognise this is in order to
clear away the atmosphere of wonder, of marvel, of awe, of reverence,
that is apt, very much to the detriment of the observers, to enshroud
everything unusual, every manifestation of a force with which we are
not familiar, everything that in the old days was called "miraculous."
And one thing I want strongly to impress upon you is, that in
everything that can be called a "phenomenon," you ought to deal with
it according to the same laws, according to the same canons of
observation, as you deal with the phenomena with which you are most
familiar on the physical plane. You should not regard an unusual
phenomenon as one which is necessarily to be regarded with reverence
in any way. You should not necessarily talk in whispers, when speaking
about what we call "phenomena." It is better to talk in your natural
voice, and apply your ordinary common sense and the laws of sane
judgment in every case. If you do that instead of getting alarmed or
astonished, if you will stand on your feet instead of falling on your
knees, your study of the other worlds will be more profitable, and the
dangers you are likely to meet will be very much diminished.
To come back to the point of the beginnings of all religious
movements, we find that all begin in the atmosphere of "phenomena."
The divine Man who founds the religion, and those who immediately
surround Him, are always people who have a knowledge of more worlds
than one. And because they are possessors of that first-hand
knowledge, they are able to speak with authority. Now, the authority
that should be recognised in all these matters is simply the authority
of knowledge.
Another of the difficulties we want to clear away in studying
phenomena is the idea that the happening of a certain thing by a law
that we do not understand in the realm of matter gives any sort of
authority on questions of spiritual knowledge, or gives a person a
right to speak with authority on things not concerned with the
particular laws under which that phenomena takes place. The mischief
of the old idea of miracle was that it was supposed to be a proof, not
of knowledge of another world or other forces, but of the title of the
miracle-worker to speak with authority on religious and moral
questions; while, as a matter of fact, the knowledge of what occurs on
the astral plane, the knowledge of what occurs on the mental plane, or
the power to utilise the forces of these planes in the production of
certain happenings here which are not usual, these things by no means
give a man any authority to speak on moral problems or to decide on
spiritual questions. That is a matter of the utmost importance, for
knowledge of the astral and mental worlds is the same in kind as
knowledge of the physical world; and it no more follows that a
clairvoyant or clairaudient, or a man who can use any of the powers of
subtler planes down here, has more authority on religious and moral
questions than a good mathematician, a good electrician, or a good
chemist. You are not likely, on the physical plane, to fall into the
blunder of thinking that because a man is a good chemist he has
authority on moral problems: you will at once see the absurdity. But
many of you do not see that the same is true when you deal with good
chemists or electricians belonging to the astral or mental planes.
They have no more authority _qua_ their knowledge of these planes than
the chemist. I often wish that in the Theosophical Society the old
fable of the Jewish Rabbis was better remembered and applied. Two
Rabbis were arguing, and one of them, to support his side of the
argument, made a wall fall down; whereupon the other Rabbi sensibly
remarked: "Since when have walls had a voice in our discussions?" That
spirit is of enormous importance, and does not in any sense touch the
fact that you find the great Founders of religions and the illuminated
men who surrounded them were men who had power to produce phenomena of
various kinds, to heal the sick, to make the lame to walk, and so on,
and that phenomena always accompanied the great religious Teacher in
the past. These things did not give Him His religious authority: they
were simply the outcome of His knowledge of natural laws; for a man
who is thoroughly spiritual has matter subject to him on every plane
in Nature. But it by no means follows that the man who can manipulate
matter on the lower planes is therefore able to speak with authority
on the higher. The fact that the spiritual man is always a great
psychic, always has power to utilise higher forces for controlling
physical matter, that fact, while true, does not prove the truth of
the opposite idea, that the man who has power over matter is
necessarily highly unfolded as regards the spirit. It is true, of
course, that the founders of religion were men surrounded with clouds
of phenomena, and the reason for that is the one I have just stated:
that to the truly spiritual man matter is an obedient servant; to use
a quotation from an Indian book: "The truly spiritual man all the
siddhis stand ready to serve."
Now it was necessary for the founding of religions and for the
teaching of many of the doctrines of religions which had to do with
worlds invisible to the physical eye, that the man who first
promulgated these doctrines should be a man who had a first-hand
acquaintance with the conditions they described. For you must remember
that in every religion there are two sides to its teaching: the side
of the spiritual truths known only to the unfolded divine
consciousness; the side of the existence of other worlds than this,
and of the conditions existing in those worlds--important to men, as
they have to pass into those worlds after death, important to men
also, as much of the symbolism, the rites and ceremonies, are
connected with what we may roughly call occult science. As the
Buddha said when speaking of worlds beyond the physical: "If you
want to know your way to a village and particulars about the village,
you ask a man who lives there and who has gone along the roads leading
to it: and so you do right to come to me when you want to know about
the Devas and about the invisible worlds, for I know those worlds
and I know the way thereto." So that looking back to these great
spiritual Teachers and Revealers of the unseen, we find they are
always men of first-hand knowledge. That first-hand knowledge was
shared by Their immediate followers, who carried on the teaching of
the system after the Teacher had withdrawn. And it matters not what
religion you take, living or dead, you will find it equally true, that
phenomena were common in the earlier days of the teaching of that
religion.
Now let me take two typical religions, one Eastern and one Western,
with regard to the continuance of the phenomena of the earlier
days--the Hindu religion in the East for the Eastern example, and
the Roman Catholic Church in the West for the Western example. In both
these great religious movements we find a continuance of phenomena;
neither Hinduism as typical of Eastern teaching, nor Roman
Catholicism as the most widespread form of Christianity in the West,
has ever taken up the position that the life which showed itself
through the earlier teachers was cut off and no longer irrigated the
fields of the religion. On the contrary, you find both these typical
religions claiming continuity of life and of knowledge. Amongst the
Hindus it is a commonplace to assert the possibilities of yoga,
that a man can now, as much as in the days of the Manu or of the great
Rishis, do what They did, can free himself from the physical
body, can travel into other worlds of the systems, can acquaint
himself with the forces and objects of those worlds, and carry on as
definite a study of the Not-Self in those worlds, as anyone who wishes
to do so may carry on a definite study of the Not-Self in the physical
world. The claim has never been given up; the practice never wholly
disappeared. So also with the Roman Catholic communion. There has
been there a succession of saints and of seers who have always claimed
to be in direct touch with other worlds, and who have claimed and
exercised the powers of those worlds manifestly on the physical plane.
To-day in the Roman Catholic Church similar phenomena are said to
occur, and certainly the evidence offered for these phenomena is far
more easily verifiable than the evidence offered for such phenomena in
the earlier centuries of the Christian story. So also among the
Hindus it is more easy to prove nowadays the powers possessed by a
yogi, than it is to prove the possession of those powers thousands of
years ago in the obscurity of the earlier days of Hinduism.
Consequently you find amongst Roman Catholics and Hindus a definite
belief that these things are still possible; and the only thing that
either will say with regard to their happening is that the greater
descent of the people as a whole into materiality has made the
possession of these powers a far rarer qualification of a believer in
one or other of the religions, than was the case in the early days of
enthusiasm, and of a greater outpouring of spiritual life. There is no
doubt, so far as Christianity is concerned, that the sacred books of
the Christians entirely support the Roman Catholic contention. I am
not going into the question of the authenticity of particular phrases;
I simply take the New Testament, as it is admitted to be a sacred
book. There you have placed in the mouth of Jesus the distinct
declaration that those who believe on Him should do greater works than
He did; and in one passage--rejected, I know, as not in the original
manuscripts by many scholars, but still coming down from a great
Christian antiquity--you have the distinct statement that they shall
be able to drink poison, and so on. So it is clearly a part of the
definite Christian teaching and tradition, that these so-called
abnormal powers are within the reach of believers in Christianity. And
so also with regard to Hinduism.
Now another thing is to be observed in this connection: that as the
religion has gone on generation after generation, century after
century, there has been a diminution of the powers, and a much less
frequent happening of these so-called miracles. Side by side with the
weakening of these powers and the lessening in number of the phenomena
has been also the gradual lessening of the power of the religion over
the minds and lives of men. The inroads of other forms of thought, the
slackening of the grasp of the believer on the realities of the unseen
worlds, have diminished religious authority, and the power of those
unseen realities has weakened as time has gone on. So if we take the
case of Hinduism or Christianity we find them giving back before
the inroads of a more materialistic philosophy, before the inroads of
a self-assertive science. We find among cultured and thoughtful people
in the East and West there has been a great slackening of hold on the
teachings of religion, and that the power exercised over the lives of
believers has become much less real than in earlier days. That is
inevitable, the result of the efflux of time, and the need for the
recurrence of spiritual impulses lies in that fact, which is ever
repeating itself. Just in the same way in which we read in the
_Bhagavad-Gita_ that by the efflux of time this yoga
disappears, and then some teacher comes in order to restore vividness
to the life, so it is over and over again in the case of every great
spiritual movement.
Now when we apply these manifest principles and facts to the latest
spiritual movement, that which gave birth to the Theosophical Society,
we find that we are running through, in a very short time, the same
series of facts as characterised the religions of the past. Here also,
as with them, a great outburst of phenomena in the earlier days;
H.P.B. living in a cloud of phenomena and those who came in touch with
her bathed in phenomena of all kinds. You can see the result of that
early training in our late President, Colonel Olcott, to whom
phenomena in connection with the Theosophical Society were the most
natural things in the world. He had no hesitation in talking of them,
was always bubbling over with his experiences of them in the past. You
must remember, when he was over here, how much he thought about them,
the pleasure he took in recalling his earlier experiences, and of
showing the material articles produced phenomenally in those earlier
days; and you cannot take up _Old Diary Leaves_ without finding
yourself face to face with every-day happenings of phenomena. Life
then seemed to be made up of the abnormal, in the sense in which that
word is used. The normal for the time being had disappeared. If a
duster had to be hemmed, an elemental did it. If pencils were needed,
a hand was put forward, twisted the pencils about, and there were
twelve in place of the one, and so on. Much greater people than H.P.B.
were concerned in producing these phenomena. Colonel Olcott tells us
how H.P.B. on one occasion drank some lukewarm water which a Master
drew from a water-skin on a camel, and magnetised, and made her
believe it to be coffee. On his removing the magnetism before she had
finished drinking, she found to her disgust that she had been drinking
this lukewarm water. The present-day Theosophist would probably have
objected to such playfulness, but such things were continually
happening in the early days. When Colonel Olcott came into the Society
he came straight from the investigation of spiritualistic phenomena--a
thoroughly well-trained observer, beginning with a good deal of
scepticism, and beaten out of it by his own observations in
innumerable spiritualistic seances. So that when he came in touch with
H.P.B. he was no credulous, unobservant person, overborne by a number
of wonderful happenings, but a thoroughly equipped and cold-blooded
and well-trained observer of the super-physical, and he naturally
brought his powers of observation to bear on these wonderful
happenings. He has left on record the full stories of these earlier
days. You may find similar stories, not to the same extent indeed, in
Mr. Sinnett's book, _The Occult World_. There we find similar
instances, similar marvels worked by H.P.B. in order to arouse his
attention, and to prove to him the existence of certain laws; which
otherwise would have remained, so to speak, in the air. So there were
also there a large number of unusual happenings--letters in
pillow-cases, letters on branches of trees, and so on. You would all
do well to re-read the _Old Diary Leaves_ or _The Occult World_. Each
one of you should deliberately ask himself: "Why do I believe these
things to be true?" Because it seems to me that most members of the
Theosophical Society are rather slipping into the position of the
modern Christian, that in order that a miracle may be true it must be
old, and if it happens nowadays it must immediately be discredited.
That is not rational. But it is a perfectly rational position to take
up with all phenomena to say: "I shall not accept one of them unless
thoroughly satisfied with the evidence on which it rests"; that is a
perfectly reasonable attitude; but what seems to me a little less
reasonable is to swallow wholesale the phenomena of the early days,
and to look very much askance at anything that happens now; to glance
back proudly to the past, and to regard anything which might happen
now as wrong, as undesirable. Because if that is the right position,
then it ought to be applied all round; it ought to be applied to the
early phenomena of the Society as much as to anything that may occur
now; and the same rigid demand for evidence should be made as is made
at the present time. But, on the other hand, if the evidence be as
full and as satisfactory now as that which supported the earlier
phenomena, then it does not seem quite reasonable to accept the
earlier and deny the later.
Let us for a moment see how far the Society has been going along the
same line as that along which the other religions have gone--the
gradual disappearance of phenomena and the substitution for them of
teaching appealing to the reason only, and not to the senses, claiming
its authority on grounds which appeal to the consciousness in man, as
far as is practicable divorced from matter, or to that consciousness
working through comparatively thick and gross veils of matter. After
the Coulomb difficulty there was a cessation almost entirely of these
phenomena in the Theosophical Society. Two reasons led up to that:
first, the utter disinclination of H.P.B. herself to continue to
expose herself to the attacks of people with regard to her good faith.
She was so maligned and slandered, so many friends turned against her
and spoke of the powers she possessed as fraudulent and as tricks,
that when her Master raised her from the bed that might have been her
death-bed, and would have been, save for His coming to her at
Adyar, she made the condition that she should not be forced to
produce phenomena in the way she had been forced before; that she
should be allowed to put that aside. The consent was given.
Lion-hearted as she was, she shrank from the storm of slander that
broke on her. The other reason was that people belonging to the
Society took fright. The pressure of public reprobation was so strong,
the force of unbelief so crushing, that the members of the Society
itself shrank back and were afraid to face public opinion, ignorant
and persecuting as it was; and it is pathetic and interesting to read
the letters she wrote in the years immediately succeeding the Coulomb
difficulty, in which she pointed out that those to whom she had
brought the light were ashamed to stand beside her under the
conditions to which she was then exposed. She complained that the
writings in the Society were changing their character; that they were
no longer occult and full of teaching of the unseen, but had become
purely philosophical and metaphysical; that her own journal had
turned aside from its earlier occultism, and confined itself to
articles addressed only to the intellect; and she says in one of these
letters: "Say what you may, it was my phenomena on which the
Theosophical Society was founded. It is my phenomena by which that
Society has been built up." It was a natural feeling of half
resentment against the policy of the time, that had left her in the
lurch, and put the Society upon a different footing. It was in
connection with that terrible time, in the turmoil and whirl of
conflicting opinions, that those words recorded of her Master, spoken
to herself, in one of the records left to the Society, occurred, in
which He said: "The Society has liberated itself from our grasp and
influence ... it is no longer ... a body over the face of which broods
the Spirit from beyond the Great Range." Along those newer lines the
Society went, and there are many who will say: "They are better lines.
It is better that these abnormal happenings should fall into the
background, that they should not be presented to a scornful and
sceptical world, that we should rely on the literature that we have,
without desiring to increase it by new knowledge, in which much can
only be gained by abnormal means. Better to rest on what we have, and
not try to add to it." Very many of our members take that view, and it
is a perfectly reasonable view to take, a view which ought to have its
place in the Theosophical Society, a view which is useful as
correcting the tendency to undue credulity, which otherwise might hold
on its way unchecked. For the life of the Society depends on the fact
that it should include a vast variety of opinions on all the
questions on which difference of opinion is possible; and it is not
desirable that there should be only one school of thought in the
Society. There should be many schools of thought, as many schools as
there are different thinkers who can formulate their thought, and each
standing with an equal right to speak and of claiming a respectful
hearing. None of them has a right to say: "There is no place for you
in the Theosophical Society." Neither must the person who is strong on
the subject of phenomena try to silence those who meet phenomena with
disbelief, or who think them dangerous; nor should a person who stands
only on philosophy and metaphysics say to the Theosophical acceptor of
the phenomena: "Your views are wrong and dangerous." Perfect freedom
of thought is the law and life of the Society; and if we are not fit
for that, if we have not reached the position where we can understand
that the more we can enrich the Society with differences of opinion
and different standpoints, the more likely is it to do its work and
live for centuries to come, when other new avenues of knowledge unfold
before it, we are not ready to be members of the Theosophical Society
at all.
Now the Society has gone along those lines, along which every religion
has gone, from the time of the Coulomb trial. What has been the effect
of that on religions? A weakening power. We have to beware that the
same thing does not take place with us that has taken place with the
different religions of the past; we should take care--especially in an
era wherein ordinary science on the physical plane is pressing onwards
into the higher realms of the physical plane, and on to the very
threshold of the astral plane, and bids fair to cross that threshold
and demonstrate its teaching there--lest we, who claim to be in the
forefront of this great movement, do not fall into the background, and
become unworthy of carrying on the standard of knowledge. Therefore I
would claim for the Society its place as a seeker after new knowledge,
investigation by what we call clairvoyance, the definite and regular
carrying out of the third object, which has been far too much
neglected of late years; practically, where many years ago the Society
was leading the way in the investigation of the hidden laws in Nature
and the hidden powers in man, it now has to take a back seat with
regard to the contributions it is making under that particular object
for which amongst others it was founded. For more work has been done
of late years by the Psychical Research and similar Societies than by
the Theosophical Society, and that is neither right or wise--not
right, because as long as we keep such research as one of our objects
we ought to live up to it; not wise, because the lessons we have
learnt, the various theories we have studied, are better guides to
investigation than anything which the other Societies have, who have
not yet been able to formulate theories but are simply in the state of
collecting phenomena. For that reason it seems to me that the Society
can do work here which the others cannot. They collect and verify with
patient care masses of most interesting and valuable phenomena. The
work done by the late Mr. Gurney and Mr. Myers, and a large number of
their co-workers, is invaluable work from the standpoint of the
Theosophical student. But there is no order in it; there is no reason
in it. It is a mere chaos of facts, and they cannot explain or
correlate them. They cannot classify or place them in order. They have
no world-embracing knowledge which enables them to place each fact in
its own place, and to show the relation of one set of facts to the
other. There are splendid observations, but no co-ordination and
building of them into a science; and it seems to me that it is a duty
of the Theosophical Society, not only to deal with the facts that
others have verified, but to carry on researches by properly qualified
persons among its own members; to utilise its magnificent theories,
its knowledge--for they are more than theories--for the explanation of
new phenomena, for the gradual evolution of new powers among greater
numbers of its members; and I do not believe that in that there is so
much danger as some people fear. I do not believe that the study of
the hidden side of Nature is so perilous a study as some think. All
researches at first hand in the early days of a science have some
danger: chemistry, electricity, had dangers for their pioneers, but
not dangers from which wise people and brave should shrink; and I fear
for the future of the Theosophical Society if it follows the track of
many of the religions and lets go its hold of knowledge of the other
worlds, and comes to depend on hearsay, tradition, belief in the
experience of others, and the avoidance of the reverification of
experience. For it must be remembered that in giving a vast mass of
knowledge to the world, H.P.B. distinctly stated that these are facts
which can be reverified by every generation of observers; she did not
give a body of teaching to be swallowed, to be taken on authority, to
be accepted by what is called faith; but a body of verifiable
teachings, facts to be examined over again, facts to be experimented
on, to be carefully studied, as the scientific man studies the part of
the world he knows. Unless we can do that, I fear we shall tend only
to become another religion among the religions of the world; that we
also shall lose our power over the thought of our generation, and to
that which has been done so splendidly in past years--the spreading of
these ideas so that they are becoming commonplace now among cultured
and intellectual people--pause will be given, and the spreading
influence will be checked, because we have left part of our work
undone, part of our message unsaid. And I would urge on you in
relation to this that which I said in a sentence at the beginning of
my address, that there is one condition of research into these matters
common to ordinary science and to the science of the higher worlds,
and that is a balanced judgment, acute and accurate observation, and a
constant readiness to reverify and recast earlier observations in the
light of the later ones that are made. All science grows by
modification as more and more facts are collected by the scientific
observers, and no scientific man would make any progress in his
science, if he were always in the reverential attitude of the devotee
before a spiritual truth when he is working out experiments in his
laboratory. You may show reverence to great beings like the Masters,
there the posture of reverence is the right one; but when you are
dealing with the phenomena of the astral plane there is no more need
to show reverence than with phenomena of the physical plane. It is out
of place, and if you make that atmosphere round it, you will always
be at the mercy of misconception and error of all kinds. You must try,
in all psychical research, in all weighing of observation of
phenomena, to cultivate the purely scientific spirit, indifferent save
to the truth and the accuracy of the results, looking on every matter
with a clear eye, without bias and without prejudice; not seeking for
facts to verify a doctrine already believed in, but seeking for facts
in order to draw conclusions from them as to the laws and truths of
the unseen world. There is no other safe way of investigation, no
other reasonable condition of mind in face of the objective world; and
if it be possible amongst us to break down this wall between the
physical, astral and mental, to see all objects in all worlds as
simply part of the Not-Self which we are studying, dealing with them
in the same way, interpreting them in the same spirit, then we are
likely to add largely to our knowledge without risking the loss of our
judgment or becoming mere enthusiasts, carried away by marvels and
unable either to observe accurately or judge correctly. The place of
phenomena in the Theosophical Society seems to me to be a constant
place. They must be recognised as fit objects for the study of the
Theosophist. We must recognise frankly that our future literature
depends on the development of these powers which can be utilised in
the worlds beyond the physical; that we are not satisfied to be only
receivers, but also desire to be investigators and students; that
while we will check the observations of to-day by the observations of
the past, and hold our conclusions lightly until they have been
repeatedly verified, we will not be frightened back from
investigation by the idea that psychism is a thing to be disliked, to
be shrunk from, to be afraid of. Some of you think that I have laid
too much stress, when speaking of observations in the other worlds, on
the probability of mistake. Some have blamed me from time to time
because I have guarded myself so much by saying: "It is likely that
mistakes have come into these observations." But it is only by keeping
that frame of mind, that reiterated observation can correct the
blunders which we inevitably fall into in our earlier investigations.
There is no scientific man in the world who, when making experiments
in a new branch of science, is not well aware that he may blunder, is
likely to make mistakes, likely to have to correct himself, to find
out that wider knowledge alters the proportion between his facts. And
I have tried to lay stress on the fact that these things are true as
regards the astral plane as much as they are true of the physical;
that it is not a question of revelation by some highly evolved being,
but a question of observation by gradually developing beings--a very,
very different thing. And unless you are prepared to take up that
reasonable position, unless you will allow the investigator to make
mistakes and to correct them, without calling out too loudly against
them, or abusing them for not being perfect and invariable, you will
build a wall against the gaining of further knowledge, and cramp the
Society, and give it only tradition instead of ever fresh knowledge,
ever widening information.
So that I declare thus the place of phenomena in the Theosophical
Society: I declare that it was founded with them, built up by them,
nourished by them, and that they ought to continue to be a department
of our work, a proper subject for our investigation. Only, do not get
confused by bringing faith into the region of phenomena. There is only
one thing to which the word faith ought really to be applied: and that
is the conviction of Deity within us. That is the real faith, the
faith in the Self within, an unconquerable, imperial conviction of the
Divinity which is the root of our nature. That faith is truly above
reason; that conviction transcends all proofs and all intellect; but
nothing in the object world is an object of faith; all are objects of
knowledge. If you can keep that distinction clear in your mind; if you
can remember that the only warranted conviction above reason is that
conviction of your eternity, then you may go safely into the region of
phenomena, into the manifestations and happenings of the objective
world, with clear judgment, clear sight, unbiased mind; and knowledge
shall reward you in your researches into Nature, for Nature always has
a reward for the seeker into her secrets.
Spiritual and Temporal Authority
I am to speak to-night, as you know, on "Spiritual and Temporal
Authority," and I have chosen this, with the other subjects, as
bearing on questions of immediate interest to the Theosophical
Society. But in dealing with each of these, as on the first occasion,
I want, if I can, to lift you above any controversy of the moment, and
to put before you broad outlines rather than mere details, and to lead
you to look at all these questions from the wider standpoint of the
experience of the past, trying to apply that experience as far as you
can to the questions, the difficulties, of the present. And this
question that I have chosen for the subject of our thought to-night is
one which carries us back into the very beginnings of human history on
our globe, which we may trace downwards through civilisation after
civilisation, and we can then study, as it were by contrast, many of
our modern civilisations. And out of all this it may be that we shall
learn some lesson for our own small affairs of the moment. For local
affairs are only really interesting as we see them as manifestations
of the great principles which work out in the history of humanity; and
we can only rightly, I think, understand the power of the
Theosophical Movement, if we see it in its proper place in history,
and not as a mere bubble on the water of the present.
Now, far, far back--I suppose some people will say "not in history," for
the time I am speaking of is what would be called "prehistoric"--when
the great Lords from the planet Venus came to our globe to guide and
train the humanity which just then had come to the birth, we find a
group of Teachers and Rulers, not belonging to our humanity at all, but,
as I said, coming from the planet Venus, from the far more highly
evolved humanity living in that world. They came for the specific
purpose of making the evolution of the new humanity more rapid than
otherwise it would be. For, as you know, at that time humanity was
facing a very terrible danger. The bodies had evolved up to a certain
point, the brooding Spirit was over each body, but the intellectual
evolution had scarcely begun to dawn; mind, as we know it now, had
scarcely asserted itself; only mind, as we see it in the animals, had
been slowly unfolding its powers in the upward-climbing towards the
light. And as it is always true that any force which is poured down into
a body must necessarily flow along the channels which that body has
prepared for it, in these animal men, as we may call them, when they
received a new influx of spiritual life--or, if we prefer the phrase,
"as the influx grew stronger and stronger"--that new life, that
additional force, inevitably ran into animal channels, lacking the
guiding and directing force of the intelligence. Hence the immediate
result of any increased down-pouring from the spiritual plane was an
increase in animality in the growing man; and his body, growing up out
of the animal kingdom, influenced by that--although, as you remember,
human from the beginning, yet retracing its ancestry in those early
days--was driven by the incoming life into various lines of activity,
harmless to the brute, but that would have been destructive to the
upward-climbing human being. Hence the need for a swift intervention on
the part of the Guardians of all humanities; and our planetary Logos
called to His help humanity from a chain older than His own, so that He
might have for His infant children guides that would protect them
against danger, and would lead them upwards more swiftly than they
themselves could have climbed alone. Hence the coming of those Mighty
Ones, and it was They who were the first Adepts, Masters, for our
humanity. There is no other term for the moment to apply to them,
although the term "Master" is really inappropriate: They were far higher
in the Occult Hierarchy than Those we speak of as the Masters of Wisdom
and Compassion. They became the first Teachers and Kings of our child
humanity, and They were of many grades. "Divine Kings" They are called
in the old records; Teachers and Kings in one. They established the
polities of the infant nations; They gave to those same nations their
religions; and in those early days, as in the days that will close our
human history, there was no distinction recognised between "sacred" and
"profane." It was seen that Spirit, clothing itself in matter, should be
regarded in each of its tabernacles as a single individual. Spirit and
matter were not regarded, so to speak, as distinguished from each
other, save in quality. The two combined into the making of the man. And
the man's life was a human life, and the body guided by human
consciousness; but the body was not thought of as separate from the
Spirit, nor the Spirit from the body; both were combined into a single
being. And in all true organisations that is the point which is to be
aimed at: that the informing life shall shape and mould the organism
which is thus expressing the life on planes of matter; that that
organism shall ever be an organism spirit-inspired, life-shaped, so as
to become more and more perfectly the expression of the life which it
enfolds. We shall see presently that for a time, when Spirit became
utterly blinded by matter, that matter, as it were, took the upper hand
and claimed to be monarch. But in those far-off days it was still
recognised that Spirit was the master of matter, and the Gods walked
amongst men and were recognised by men as their Teachers and Kings. And
humanity in its infancy clung to These, who were as fathers and mothers
of the race, and looked to Them for everything necessary to nourish and
develop the young life. So that looking back to those earlier days, the
great lawgivers like the Manus were at once Kings and Priests. They gave
everything to the humanity that They guarded: literature, science, art,
architecture, everything which was necessary to the national life. And
under that mighty protection grew up the vast civilisations of the past.
You find traces of them, of course, in Egypt; traces of them, in fact,
everywhere in the older, the now dying, or dead peoples. And these
King-Priests, these King-Prophets, summed up in Their own divine persons
all the ruling powers of Spirit and matter alike. The State was a
Church, or the Church was a State.
Gradually, as these Great Ones withdrew, as Those who only lived for
service saw that humanity had begun to take its first steps, and
needed less physical guidance and visible helping, others still great,
but not as superhuman as the earlier ones, took up the royal and
priestly rank. Still the two ran together: the temporal and spiritual
power in one pair of hands; and so on and on, from Atlantis downwards.
Some traces of it still survive, as in the Indian civilisation, where
the ideal of the monarch is always that of the Divine representative
upon earth. But in India, after the earliest days, you see the
beginning division, and the offices of the King and of the Teacher
gradually diverged the one from the other. And as time went on, and
man grew a little older in his childhood, those who ruled over the
State gave away out of their hands the teaching of the religion.
Rightly and well; for it was necessary that humanity should learn to
guide itself. It was on the downward arc still, not yet beginning its
upward climbing, and it had to plunge deeper and deeper into matter.
The eyes of the Spirit had to be blinded in order that the eyes of the
intellect might open, and so gradually prepare humanity for a loftier
manifestation of the spiritual life.
And then we find that with the dividing of the two offices, the Kings
grew less and less fathers of their peoples, and became more and more
tyrants over the nations. In the elder days the principle that was
taught was clear and simple: the greater the power, the greater the
sacrifice; the greater the power, the greater the duty. And on that
principle of the Law of Sacrifice the old civilisations were built up;
to that they owed their splendor; to that the long ages through which
they lived and flourished; to sacrifice, as the very basis of the
national and religious polity, they owed the vigor, the young vigor,
of humanity. Their literature was grandiose; their architecture
magnificent; their art sublime. The traces of divinity ran through the
whole of it. But, beautiful as it was, it would not have been well
that it should have lasted, for had it been so, mankind would have
grown to depend too much upon the manifested Divine life walking
incarnate side by side with it. And it was necessary that the growing
child should prove his own limbs, and the growing intelligence should
learn to depend upon itself. Then we come to a long period when the
tyranny of the King brought out more and more strongly the usefulness
of the Teacher, and when the Teacher was continually standing between
the power of the tyrant and the helplessness of the people; when
religion became a shield for the weak, a strong check for the violence
of power. And we pass thus through all that long period of human
history where the oppressed found their only refuge in the priests of
the religions, and found them a sure protection against the sword of
the secular power. So went on for hundreds, nay, for thousands of
years, the growth of humanity; and the two powers went further and
further apart, coming more and more the one into opposition with the
other. And the people, the nations, gradually grew in power, grew in
intelligence, to a considerable extent. The priest was still the
teacher, and still the schools and the temples were united.
Unfortunately, after a while the religions became corrupted as well as
the royalties, and priests began to share the worldliness that had
already degraded the Kings; and then, with the failure of the
priesthood, practically ceased the education of the people for many
and many a long century, and intelligence was not developed, and the
power of the mind was not assisted to manifest itself.
And so onward and onward till we come to Middle Age Europe, and we
find a down-trodden proletariat, an indifferent and luxurious kingship
and priesthood, allied now to oppress, not to raise. Therefore,
contest between the Church and the State, until the Pontiff of Rome
remained the only representative of the union of the spiritual and
temporal authority--his spiritual authority enormous, his temporal
authority growing smaller, and badly used, so that in the States of
the Church in Italy there was almost the acme of bad temporal
government; and there was little to choose, really, between the States
of the Church and the odious tyranny of Naples. In the States of the
Church the old ideal of the Priest-King was degraded to its lowest
point, and neither on the side of Pontiff, nor on the side of King,
was the ruler of Rome the father, the shepherd of his people, but
often only a devouring wolf. Hence the last degradation of a once
magnificent office.
Meanwhile the Democracy was growing, and numbers were beginning to
claim their power, until the people, having seen how badly Kings and
priests could rule, thought that they could not, after all, do very
much worse themselves, if they seized authority by the power of
numbers, and took the helm of the States, of the Nations, into their
own rough and untrained grip. And so has risen in the modern life of
Europe the power, as it is called, of the Democracy. Practically, at
the present time, Democracy may be said to be on its trial. It cannot
claim so far to be a very splendid success, but its trial is not yet
over, and many a year may yet lie before it, in order that the world
may have an object-lesson to show that the only true authority is the
authority of Wisdom, and not the authority of numbers; and that it is
not possible for humanity to take its next step onwards until it has
managed to draw out of the lessons of the past and of the present some
way of blending, some way of uniting, the different experiences
through which it has passed. For all who study the world's unfolding
and believe that this world is not alone, but is a part linked with
other worlds, and that other beings above humanity take their share in
humanity's evolution--all who thus look at history and see the powers
that lie behind the veil and that pull the strings of those whom we
call kings, and statesmen, and generals, and the mighty ones of earth,
they know that no great human experiment can be void of its value, and
no great human experiment but has some fruit of wisdom to be gathered
from it. So that no wise man, no thoughtful Theosophist, should look
with a feeling of repulsion and anger on the experiments that are
being made all over the world to-day in the effort of the nations to
rule themselves by numbers rather than by wisdom. For it is a
necessary experience. Only in this fashion can the lower mind complete
its evolution and be ready to give up its sceptre to that Pure Reason
which is to be the mark of the Sixth Race, which is to find its
expression in the polity of that coming Race. Out of all these
experiments we are to learn, out of all successes and all failures we
are to spell out, the lesson whereon the next civilisation will be
built, whereby its foundation will gradually be laid. For if one sees
the Theosophical Society aright, it is as one of the builders of that
coming time, one of the builders of the civilisation that has not yet
really dawned on earth, the civilisation of the Sixth Root Race, with
the experiments that will go before it in the Sixth and Seventh
sub-races of the Fifth. For these experiments take long in the making,
and, as a great teacher once said: "Time is no object with us." There
is plenty of time for all the experiments, and all the blunders, and
all the failures; and all the successes of the future will grow out of
these, because every failure rightly seen is the seed of a coming
success, and only by the failures that we make in our ignorance may
the plant of wisdom be sown, and presently flower and bear fruit for
the feeding of the nations. So that there is time enough, and no need
for impatience, when we see the blunders of our various democratic
governments. But there is much need that thoughtful people should take
care so to see the signs of the time, and so to understand the forces
at work, that the same blunder be not made in the days of the present
as was made at the close of the eighteenth century in France; for
there also was a time when an effort was made for a great step
forward, a step too big, apparently, to be possible of being then
taken, a step which only caused the drowning of the forward movement
in blood, and has thrown France backward, and not forward as some
people suppose; for ever since that time she has had a cancer at the
heart of her, and no effort that has been made has borne due fruit.
Nay, it is even possible that that was her opportunity in which she
failed, and that the opportunity will have to pass to other peoples,
to be worked out by other hands.
Looking at the democracies of to-day, we see that both the great
powers are rejected, King and priest alike, royalty reduced to a mere
puppet, priesthood looked on with suspicion and with hatred; and in
both cases one is bound to admit that there is much justification, for
they are the result of the harm that unbridled power in Church and in
State alike have wrought to the people, who are now revolting against
both. But the revolt is only a passing thing. Humanity does not really
change; only passing manifestations of it change; and though the
passing manifestations be counted by centuries, what is that in the
length of a day counted by myriads of years, and to peoples who are
spiritual intelligences unfolding their powers in humanity? Kingship
and priesthood are mighty powers, and the need for them deep-rooted in
the nature of humanity. Only on the upward path they are different
from what they were on the path of descent, and the way in which those
are to be shaped and moulded and again made mighty, that will be the
answer of human experience after it has proved the rule of ignorance
to be a mistake and a failure. Gradually, in some way that as yet we
do not see, a way will be found of discovering the wise, who alone
have the right to rule. For there is no authority for the
intelligence, there is no authority for the free intellect of man,
save the authority of Wisdom, to which the intellect bows because it
is itself in flower. And those who develop the intelligence of men, as
humanity is beginning to evolve its intelligence, they will only find
their Kings and Priests where they see a wisdom greater than their
own, a knowledge which transcends theirs, but is the promise of what
they themselves in the future should become. And out of all the
birth-throes of the present, and the ugly shapes which humanity takes
on, will come the fairer birth of Wisdom, when again it shall sit on
the combined throne of King and Priest. For it is necessary that human
life should regain its unity, and that again the Spirit shall be known
to be master, and the body its instrument, its tool, its expression.
And on the upward-climbing arc we have again to come to the same
levels that we passed in our downward-going arc of the ages of the
past. In the half circle we had first the Priest-King; and then the
two side by side, co-operators; and then the separation and the
rivalry; and, finally, an evil junction to oppress the ignorant and
the poor. And slowly we shall have to climb on the path where Spirit
is manifesting more and more, and matter is becoming more and more
obedient, until each of those stages is again seen in the history of
humanity, and until, at the end, Spirit shall be lord unchallenged,
and matter obedient servant, carrying out his will. And in the
humanity of the great Sixth Race in which Buddhi, or Pure
Reason, is to be the mark, in which Wisdom will be the shaper of
humanity's plans, and the strength of matter will be used in order to
carry them out, in those days there will be the building-up of the
dual authority once more, and the shaping of it to diviner ends than
even in those early days of the infant humanity. And in those days,
again, ruler and priest shall be one, until at last the unity shall be
realised in the life of those who are to accomplish their human
evolution upon earth; until finally in each spiritual individual these
two characteristics are unfolded, and each man is King and Priest,
uniting the two phases in his own individuality, and learning, in that
dual power, to become the servant of those who are less evolved than
himself. You see a touch of that when the Christian religion was sent
out into the world, a glimpse of the splendid ideal when the Apostle,
writing to his infant Church, spoke of them as "Kings and priests unto
God"; in each individual this identity is to be at last achieved, so
that no outer rule is any longer necessary, the inner rule being
enough. That unity will mark the closing scenes of life on earth in
each of those whose human evolution will be finished, who will have to
pass on into other worlds when they shall have united again each of
these in their own persons, and shall use that twofold power for the
training of the humanity below them, ascending towards the point which
they shall have gained and shall occupy.
Such the vast sweep of humanity's evolution: from Spirit, through
densest matter, upward-climbing again to Spirit, bearing with it all
the powers that by the experience in matter it has gained. Such the
great sweep, and the great history. What relation has that to our
little Society and our little movement? Some would be inclined to say:
"None; no relation at all. You cannot bring down into so small a
microcosm those great principles shown out in their working in a
macrocosm." And yet if you and I, in our tiny personalities, repeat in
miniature the life of the Logos in the vast sweep of His creative
activity, who shall say that in a movement such as ours there is not
similarly a retracing of the lines along which humanity at large has
to grow? And who shall say whether we may not understand our movement
better, and guide it more wisely, if we recognise these
correspondences of the great growth of the world to the small growth
of our Movement--a world-reflection in a tiny mirror? For it is no
true humility to lessen too much the varied operations of the Great
White Lodge in the world of men, any more than it is a true humility
for the individual to be ashamed to claim his divine inheritance, and
look upon himself as a "mere worm of earth." The men or women who only
feel themselves to be of the earth, and not of Deity, their lives
become more vulgar and common than they ought to be; for it is a great
thing to realise possibilities and to see correspondences, and to take
out of them their inspiring value, their invigorating force. And just
as you and I have the right to say that we are Gods in the making, and
that there is nothing in the great power of the LOGOS that does not
lie hidden in germ within ourselves, just as we have the right to say
that, as man best understands himself when he knows himself divine and
realises the possibilities within him, and sees the road to Deity
which he is to tread, so is every spiritual movement great in
proportion to the realisation of its one-ness with the great
world-movement, and small and petty when the men and women who
compose it can only keep their eyes on the muck of the earth instead
of looking up to the crown of stars that the angel holds over their
head. So that I do not fear to provoke a false pride, but rather to
get rid of a false humility, when I ask you to see in this Movement,
which belongs to the Great Lodge and is its child, to see in it the
same forces at work that you see working in the world-history, and to
realise that here also correspondences exist, and that we may guide
our Movement most worthily by seeing those correspondences and
utilising them for the common good.
So let us pause now, after these high flights, in the little valley in
which we live, and see whether in the Theosophical Society any such
process of events may be seen as has been played on the great world
theatre, in the drama of evolving humanity. For mind! we have no meaning
unless we are related to that, and our Movement has no sense unless it
retraces the steps of the great world drama, as every great spiritual
movement does, from the time of its birth to the time of its passing
away, and its incarnation in some other form. I do not claim it for our
Society only, but for all great spiritual movements--churches,
religions, call them what you will.
Now, we began our Movement as humanity began its education. There was
no difference between spiritual and temporal. The whole Society was
regarded as a spiritual movement; and if you go back to those early
days, and read the earliest statements, you will find it said that
this Society existed in what then were called three Sections: First,
Second, and Third. The First Section was the Brotherhood, the Elder
Brothers of Humanity; the Second, those who were striving to lead the
higher, the more spiritual life, and were in training for the purpose;
and the Third Section made up the bulk of the Society. Those three
Sections were the Theosophical Society. So that it began on a very
lofty level; and its First Section, the Elder Brothers, Those whom we
speak of as Masters, They were regarded as forming the First Section
of the Society, and as part of it; and the Society has linked closely
the Second and Third Sections under the First, as in the days when the
Gods walked with men, in the early story of humanity. And They came
and went far more freely then than later, and mingled more with the
Society, taking a more active part in this work; and it is wonderful
to read some of the old letters of the time, and the close and
intimate knowledge shown by those great Teachers of the details of the
work of the Society, even of what was written about it in an Indian
newspaper, and what ought to be answered, and so on. And the Society
grew, became more numerous, and spread in many lands; and naturally as
it spread, many of these ties somewhat weakened so far as the Society,
as a whole, was concerned--not weakened with individuals, but somewhat
weakened with the Body at large. And so things went on and on, until
the Society passed through the same stage through which humanity had
passed when the Priest-Kings entirely disappeared, and when those
words were spoken by one of the Great Ones: "The Society has liberated
itself from our grasp and influence, and we have let it go; we make no
unwilling slaves.... Out of the three Objects the second alone is
attended to; it is no longer either a Brotherhood, nor a body over
the face of which broods the Spirit from beyond the Great Range." And
when that time was well established a change was made in the
organisation of the Society. It was no longer, so to speak, one and
indivisible, but two parts were made--Exoteric and Esoteric; and, as
you know, for some time the Colonel fought against that, thinking it
meant an unwise and dangerous division of authority in the Society,
until, as he was coming over here with his mind in opposition to the
proposal that H.P.B. should form the Esoteric Section, he received, on
board the steamer on which he travelled, a letter from his Master
telling him to carry out what H.P.B. wished; and, ever obedient as he
was, for when his Master spoke he knew no hesitation, when he arrived
here in England he did what he had been told, and authorised the
formation of what was then called the Esoteric Section of the
Theosophical Society. You can read all this for yourselves; it is all
in print. Then came that distinct cleavage of Exoteric and
Esoteric--the two heads, H. S. Olcott and H.P.B., one wielding the
temporal and the other the spiritual authority in the Society. It
meant that the Society had ceased to be the spiritual vehicle it was
in the earlier days. It meant, as was printed at that time, that some
of the members wished to carry on the Society on its original lines,
and so they formed themselves into this Section under her, on the
original lines. So it went on, like that time in the history of
humanity, in order that certain faculties might grow and become
strong, and that the spiritual side for a time might seem apart, and
the other might go its own way unruled. Many difficulties grew out of
it, but still they were not insuperable--a certain clashing of
authorities from time to time, and certain jealousy between the one
and the other. These things were the inevitable concomitants of the
separation, of the differences between the spiritual and temporal
sides, the Spirit and the body, as it were. So things went on until
the President passed away. When H.P.B. left us, she left me in charge
of her work, as her colleague did in Adyar lately, thus uniting
again the two powers, the two authorities, in a single person.
Now, what does it mean to the Society? That is the question for us.
What is it to bring forth in our Movement? Ill or well? It is only
possible, at this beginning of the road, to point out the two things
that _may_ happen. For the Society and its President together will
have to settle which of the two shall come. It may be that They, who
from behind look on, may foresee what is coming; or it may be, as it
often is, that They also are not able completely to say what shall
come out of the clashing wills of men, differing views, possible
antagonisms. Two possibilities there clearly are before us, either of
which, I suggest, may come. For you and for me it is to decide which
shall come. And I can only tell you how it seems to me, and you must
judge and act as you think right. For at last our Society, like
humanity, has reached the point when the individual must do his duty,
and must no longer be a child guided entirely from without, but a man
with the God within co-operating with the God without. Hence it is not
a question for any to decide for us: we have to decide it for
ourselves. And as I say, I can only put to you what seem to me the two
possibilities. Let me take the bad possibility first. It may be that
I, in whose hands these two powers now are placed, shall prove too
weak to bear that burden, too blind to walk along that difficult path.
It may be that I shall err on the one side or on the other, either
making the Society too exoteric and empty, a material thing, or, on
the other hand, pressing too far the spiritual side, with all that
that means. It may be that the task is too great, and that the time
has not come. I recognise that as possible; for in all questions of
peoples, persons, and times, experiments may be made which it is known
will fail, in order that out of the failure fresh wisdom may be
gathered, and it may be that this shall be a failure. And if so it
matters not, for out of that failure some higher good will spring.
That is the conviction of those who know that the Self is ever in us,
and that the Self can never perish; so that it matters not what
catastrophe may come, provided faith in the Self remains secure with
His endless possibilities of recovery, and greater powers of
manifestation. And it may quite well be that, in hands as weak and
knowledge as limited as mine, failure will meet this great experiment
which the Masters are making, and that we shall find that neither
President nor Society is fit to take that step forward, are both still
too childish, not sufficiently mature, and therefore not able to tread
the path which is the path upwards to the spiritual life, when the
organisation shall again become but the mere outside veiling of the
spiritual life, carrying the message of regeneration to the world, and
the birth of a new civilisation. That is one possibility that should
be faced. And the other?