Part 21

But you will find the whole subject dealt with at length in the _Secret Doctrine_, to which I must again refer you for detailed explanations. To conclude, the very soul of Theosophy is dead against Phallic worship; and its occult or esoteric section more so even than the exoteric teachings. There never was a more lying statement made than the above. And now ask me some other questions.

IS THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY A MONEY-MAKING CONCERN?

ENQ. Agreed. Well, have either of the Founders, Colonel H. S. Olcott or H. P. Blavatsky, ever made any money, profit, or derived any worldly benefit from the T.S., as some papers say?

THEO. Not one penny. The papers lie. On the contrary, they have both given all they had, and literally beggared themselves. As for “worldly benefits,” think of the calumnies and vilification they have been subjected to, and then ask the question!

ENQ. Yet I have read in a good many missionary organs that the entrance fees and subscriptions much more than covered all expenses; and one said that the Founders were making twenty thousand pounds a year!

THEO. This is a fib, like many others. In the published accounts of January, 1889, you will find an exact statement of _all_ the money ever received from any source since 1879. The total received from all sources (entrance fees, donations, etc., etc.) during these ten years is under six thousand pounds, and of this a large part was contributed by the Founders themselves from the proceeds of their private resources and their literary work. All this has been openly and officially admitted, even by our enemies, the Psychic Research Society. And now both the Founders are penniless; one, too old and ill to work as she did before, unable to spare time for outside literary work to help the Society in money, can only write for the Theosophical cause; the other keeps labouring for it as before, and receives as little thanks for it.

ENQ. But surely they need money to live?

THEO. Not at all. So long as they have food and lodging, even though they owe it to the devotion of a few friends, they need little more.

ENQ. But could not Madame Blavatsky, especially, make more than enough to live upon by her writings?

THEO. When in India she received on the average some thousand rupees a year for articles contributed to Russian and other papers, but gave it all away to the Society.

ENQ. Political articles?

THEO. Never. Everything she has written throughout the seven years of her stay in India is all there in print. It deals only with the religions, ethnology, and customs of India, and with Theosophy—never with politics, of which she knows nothing and cares less. Again, two years ago she refused several contracts amounting together to about 1,200 roubles in gold per month; for she could not accept them without abandoning her work for the Society, which needed all her time and strength. She has documents to prove it.

ENQ. But why could not both she and Colonel Olcott do as others—notably many Theosophists—do; follow out their respective professions and devote the surplus of their time to the work of the Society?

THEO. Because by serving two masters, either the professional or the philanthropic work would have had to suffer. Every true Theosophist is morally bound to sacrifice the personal to the impersonal, his own _present_ good to the _future_ benefit of other people. If the Founders do not set the example, who will?

ENQ. And are there many who follow it?

THEO. I am bound to answer you the truth. In Europe about half-a-dozen in all, out of more than that number of Branches.

ENQ. Then it is not true that the Theosophical Society has a large capital or endowment of its own?

THEO. It is false, for it has none at all. Now that the entrance fee of £1 and the small annual due have been abolished, it is even a doubtful question whether the staff at the headquarters in India will not soon be starved to death.

ENQ. Then why not raise subscriptions?

THEO. We are not the Salvation Army; we _cannot_ and _have never_ begged; nor have we ever followed the example of the Churches and sects and “taken up collections.” That which is occasionally sent for the support of the Society, the small sums contributed by some devoted Fellows, are all voluntary donations.

ENQ. But I have heard of large sums of money given to Mdme. Blavatsky. It was said four years ago that she got £5,000 from one rich, young “Fellow,” who went out to join them in India and £10,000 from another wealthy and well-known American gentleman, one of your members who died in Europe four years ago.

THEO. Say to those who told you this, that they either themselves utter, or repeat, a gross falsehood. _Never has_ “Madame Blavatsky” _asked or received_ ONE PENNY from the two above-named gentlemen, nor anything like that from anyone else, since the Theosophical Society was founded. Let any man living try to substantiate this calumny, and it will be easier for him to prove that the Bank of England is a bankrupt than that the said “Founder” has ever made any money out of Theosophy. These two calumnies have been started by two high-born ladies, belonging to the London aristocracy, and have been immediately traced and disproved. They are the dead bodies, the carcases of two inventions, which, after having been buried in the sea of oblivion, are once more raised on the surface of the stagnant waters of slander.

ENQ. Then I have been told of several large _legacies_ left to the T.S. One—some £8,000—was left to it by some eccentric Englishman, who did not even belong to the Society. The other—£3,000 or £4,000—were testated by an Australian F.T.S. Is this true?

THEO. I heard of the first; and I also know that, whether legally left or not, the T.S. has never profited by it, nor have the Founders ever been officially notified of it. For, as our Society was not then a chartered body, and thus had no legal existence, the Judge at the Court of Probate, as we were told, paid no attention to such legacy and turned over the sum to the heirs. So much for the first. As for the second, it is quite true. The testator was one of our devoted Fellows, and willed all he had to the T.S. But when the President, Colonel Olcott, came to look into the matter, he found that the testator had children whom he had disinherited for some family reasons. Therefore, he called a council, and it was decided that the legacy should be refused, and the moneys passed to the legal heirs. The Theosophical Society would be untrue to its name were it to profit by money to which others are entitled virtually, at any rate on Theosophical principles, if not legally.

ENQ. Again, and I say this on the authority of your own Journal, the _Theosophist_, there’s a Rajah of India who donated to the Society 25,000 rupees. Have you not thanked him for his great bounty in the January _Theosophist_ for 1888?

THEO. We have, in these words, “That the thanks of the Convention be conveyed to H. H. the Maharajah ... for his _promised munificent gift_ of Rupees 25,000 to the Society’s Fund.” The thanks were duly conveyed, but the money is still a “promise,” and has never reached the Headquarters.

ENQ. But surely, if the Maharajah promised and received thanks for his gift publicly and in print, he will be as good as his promise?

THEO. He may, though the promise is 18 months old. I speak of the present and not of the future.

ENQ. Then how do you propose to go on?

THEO. So long as the T.S. has a few devoted members willing to work for it without reward and thanks, so long as a few good Theosophists support it with occasional donations, so long will it exist, and nothing can crush it.

ENQ. I have heard many Theosophists speak of a “power behind the Society” and of certain “Mahatmas,” mentioned also in Mr. Sinnett’s works, that are said to have founded the Society, to watch over and protect it.

THEO. You may laugh, but it is so.

THE WORKING STAFF OF THE T.S.

ENQ. These men, I have heard, are great Adepts, Alchemists, and what not. If, then, they can change lead into gold and make as much money as they like, besides doing all kinds of miracles at will, as related in Mr. Sinnett’s “Occult World,” why do not they find you money, and support the Founders and the Society in comfort?

THEO. Because they did not found a “miracle club.” Because the Society is intended to help men to develop the powers latent in them through their own exertions and merit. Because whatever they may or may not produce in the way of phenomena, they are not _false coiners_; nor would they throw an additional and very strong temptation on the path of members and candidates: _Theosophy is not to be bought_. Hitherto, for the past 14 years, not a single working member has ever received pay or salary from either the Masters or the Society.

ENQ. Then are none of your workers paid at all?

THEO. Till now, not one. But as every one has to eat, drink, and clothe himself, all those who are without any means of their own, and devote their whole time to the work of the society, are provided with the necessaries of life at the Headquarters at Madras, India, though these “necessaries” are humble enough, in truth! (See Rules at the end.) But now that the Society’s work has increased so greatly and still goes on in increasing (N.B., _owing to slanders_) in Europe, we need more working hands. We hope to have a few members who will henceforth be remunerated—if the word _can_ be used in the cases in question. For every one of these Fellows, who are preparing to give _all_ their time to the Society, are quitting good official situations with excellent prospects, to work for us at _less than half their former salary_.

ENQ. And who will provide the funds for this?

THEO. Some of our Fellows who are just a little richer than the rest. The man who would speculate or make money on Theosophy would be unworthy to remain in our ranks.

ENQ. But you must surely make money by your books, magazines, and other publications?

THEO. The _Theosophist_ of Madras, alone among the magazines, pays a profit, and this has regularly been turned over to the Society, year by year, as the published accounts show. _Lucifer_ is slowly but steadily ingulfing money, never yet having paid expenses—thanks to its being boycotted by the pious booksellers and railway stalls. The _Lotus_, in France—started on the private and not very large means of a Theosophist, who has devoted to it his whole time and labour—has ceased to exist, owing to the same causes, alas! Nor does the New York _Path_ pay its way, while the _Revue Théosophique_ of Paris has only just been started, also from the private means of a lady-member. Moreover, whenever any of the works issued by the Theosophical Publishing Company in London do pay, the proceeds will be devoted to the service of the Society.

ENQ. And now please tell me all you can about the Mahatmas. So many absurd and contradictory things are said about them, that one does not know what to believe, and all sorts of ridiculous stories become current.

THEO. Well may you call them “ridiculous!”

XIV. THE “THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS.”

ARE THEY “SPIRITS OF LIGHT” OR “GOBLINS DAMN’D”?

ENQ. Who are they, finally, those whom you call your “Masters”? Some say they are “Spirits,” or some other kind of supernatural beings, while others call them “myths.”

THEO. They are neither. I once heard one outsider say to another that they were a sort of _male mermaids_, whatever such a creature may be. But if you listen to what people say, you will never have a true conception of them. In the first place they are _living men_, born as we are born, and doomed to die like every other mortal.

ENQ. Yes, but it is rumoured that some of them are a thousand years old. Is this true?

THEO. As true as the miraculous growth of hair on the head of Meredith’s Shagpat. Truly, like the “Identical,” no Theosophical shaving has hitherto been able to crop it. The more we deny them, the more we try to set people right, the more absurd do the inventions become. I have heard of Methuselah being 969 years old; but, not being forced to believe in it, have laughed at the statement, for which I was forthwith regarded by many as a blasphemous heretic.

ENQ. Seriously, though, do they outlive the ordinary age of men?

THEO. What do you call the ordinary age? I remember reading in the _Lancet_ of a Mexican who was almost 190 years old; but I have never heard of mortal man, layman, or Adept, who could live even half the years allotted to Methuselah. Some Adepts do exceed, by a good deal, what you would call the ordinary age; yet there is nothing miraculous in it, and very few of them care to live very long.

ENQ. But what does the word “Mahatma” really mean?

THEO. Simply a “great soul,” great through moral elevation and intellectual attainment. If the title of great is given to a drunken soldier like Alexander, why should we not call those “Great” who have achieved far greater conquests in Nature’s secrets, than Alexander ever did on the field of battle? Besides, the term is an Indian and a very old word.

ENQ. And why do you call them “Masters”?

THEO. We call them “Masters” because they are our teachers; and because from them we have derived all the Theosophical truths, however inadequately some of us may have expressed, and others understood, them. They are men of great learning, whom we term Initiates, and still greater holiness of life. They are not ascetics in the ordinary sense, though they certainly remain apart from the turmoil and strife of your western world.

ENQ. But is it not selfish thus to isolate themselves?

THEO. Where is the selfishness? Does not the fate of the Theosophical Society sufficiently prove that the world is neither ready to recognise them nor to profit by their teaching? Of what use would Professor Clerk Maxwell have been to instruct a class of little boys in their multiplication-table? Besides, they isolate themselves only from the West. In their own country they go about as publicly as other people do.

ENQ. Don’t you ascribe to them supernatural powers?

THEO. We believe in nothing supernatural, as I have told you already. Had Edison lived and invented his phonograph two hundred years ago, he would most probably have been burnt along with it, and the whole attributed to the devil. The powers which they exercise are simply the development of potencies lying latent in every man and woman, and the existence of which even official science begins to recognise.

ENQ. Is it true that these men _inspire_ some of your writers, and that many, if not all, of your Theosophical works were written under their dictation?

THEO. Some have. There are passages entirely dictated by them and _verbatim_, but in most cases they only inspire the ideas and leave the literary form to the writers.

ENQ. But this in itself is miraculous; is, in fact, a _miracle_. How can they do it?

THEO. My dear Sir, you are labouring under a great mistake, and it is science itself that will refute your arguments at no distant day. Why should it be a “miracle,” as you call it? A miracle is supposed to mean some operation which is supernatural, whereas there is really nothing above or beyond NATURE and Nature’s laws. Among the many forms of the “miracle” which have come under modern scientific recognition, there is Hypnotism, and one phase of its power is known as “Suggestion,” a form of thought transference, which has been successfully used in combating particular physical diseases, etc. The time is not far distant when the World of Science will be forced to acknowledge that there exists as much interaction between one mind and another, no matter at what distance, as between one body and another in closest contact. When two minds are sympathetically related, and the instruments through which they function are tuned to respond magnetically and electrically to one another, there is nothing which will prevent the transmission of thoughts from one to the other, at will; for since the mind is not of a tangible nature, that distance can divide it from the subject of its contemplation, it follows that the only difference that can exist between two minds is a difference of STATE. So if this latter hindrance is overcome, where is the “miracle” of _thought transference_, at whatever distance?

ENQ. But you will admit that Hypnotism does nothing so miraculous or wonderful as that?

THEO. On the contrary, it is a well-established fact that a Hypnotist can affect the brain of his subject so far as to produce an expression of his own thoughts, and even his words, through the organism of his subject; and although the phenomena attaching to this method of actual thought transference are as yet few in number, no one, I presume, will undertake to say how far their

## action may extend in the future, when the laws that govern their

production are more scientifically established. And so, if such results can be produced by the knowledge of the mere rudiments of Hypnotism, what can prevent the Adept in Psychic and Spiritual powers from producing results which, with your present limited knowledge of their laws, you are inclined to call “miraculous”?

ENQ. Then why do not our physicians experiment and try if they could not do as much?[56]

THEO. Because, first of all, they are not Adepts with a thorough understanding of the secrets and laws of psychic and spiritual realms, but materialists, afraid to step outside the narrow groove of matter; and, secondly, because they _must fail_ at present, and indeed until they are brought to acknowledge that such powers are attainable.

ENQ. And could they be taught?

THEO. Not unless they were first of all prepared, by having the materialistic dross they have accumulated in their brains swept away to the very last atom.

ENQ. This is very interesting. Tell me, have the Adepts thus inspired or dictated to many of your Theosophists?

THEO. No, on the contrary, to very few. Such operations require special conditions. An unscrupulous but skilled Adept of the Black Brotherhood (“Brothers of the Shadow,” and Dugpas, we call them) has far less difficulties to labour under. For, having no laws of the Spiritual kind to trammel his actions, such a Dugpa “sorcerer” will most unceremoniously obtain control over any mind, and subject it entirely to his evil powers. But our Masters will never do that. They have no right, except by falling into Black Magic, to obtain full mastery over anyone’s immortal Ego, and can therefore act only on the physical and psychic nature of the subject, leaving thereby the free will of the latter wholly undisturbed. Hence, unless a person has been brought into psychic relationship with the Masters, and is assisted by virtue of his full faith in, and devotion to, his Teachers, the latter, whenever transmitting their thoughts to one with whom these conditions are not fulfilled, experience great difficulties in penetrating into the cloudy chaos of that person’s sphere. But this is no place to treat of a subject of this nature. Suffice it to say, that if the power exists, then there are Intelligences (embodied or disembodied) which guide this power, and living conscious instruments through whom it is transmitted and by whom it is received. We have only to beware of _black_ magic.

ENQ. But what do you really mean by “black magic”?

THEO. Simply _abuse of psychic powers_, or of any _secret of nature_; the fact of applying to selfish and sinful ends the powers of Occultism. A hypnotiser, who, taking advantage of his powers of “suggestion,” forces a subject to steal or murder, would be called a _black magician_ by us. The famous “rejuvenating system” of Dr. Brown-Sequard, of Paris, through a loathsome _animal injection_ into human blood—a discovery all the medical papers of Europe are now discussing—if true, is _unconscious black magic_.

ENQ. But this is mediæval belief in witchcraft and sorcery! Even Law itself has ceased to believe in such things?

THEO. So much the worse for law, as it has been led, through such a lack of discrimination, into committing more than one judiciary mistake and crime. It is the term alone that frightens you with its “superstitious” ring in it. Would not law punish an abuse of hypnotic powers, as I just mentioned? Nay, it has so punished it already in France and Germany; yet it would indignantly deny that it applied punishment to a crime of evident _sorcery_. You cannot believe in the efficacy and reality of the _powers of suggestion_ by physicians and mesmerisers (or hypnotisers), and then refuse to believe in the same powers when used for evil motives. And if you do, then you believe in _Sorcery_. Yon cannot believe in good and disbelieve in evil, accept genuine money and refuse to credit such a thing as false coin. Nothing can exist without its contrast, and no day, no light, no good could have any representation as such in your consciousness, were there no night, darkness nor evil to offset and contrast them.

ENQ. Indeed, I have known men, who, while thoroughly believing in that which you call great psychic, or magic powers, laughed at the very mention of Witchcraft and Sorcery.

THEO. What does it prove? Simply that they are illogical. So much the worse for them, again. And we, knowing as we do of the existence of good and holy Adepts, believe as thoroughly in the existence of bad and unholy Adepts, or—Dugpas.

ENQ. But if the Masters exist, why don’t they come out before all men and refute once for all the many charges which are made against Mdme. Blavatsky and the Society?

THEO. What charges?

ENQ. That _they_ do not exist, and that she has invented them. That they are men of straw, “Mahatmas of muslin and bladders.” Does not all this injure her reputation?