SECTION XIV.

The " Theosophical Mahatjias " :

Are They " Spirits of Light " or " Goblins Damn'd " ?
The Abuse of Sacred Names and Terms

288
300

CONCLUSION.
The Future of the Theosophical Society

304

Appendix

308

PHEF ACE .

The purpose of this book is exactly expressed in its title, " The
Key to Theosopht," and needs but few words of explanation. It
is not a complete or exhaustive text-book of Theosophy, but only
a key to unlock the door that leads to the deeper study. It traces
the broad outlines of the Wisdom EeUgion, and explains its funda-
mental principles ; meeting, at the same time, the various objections
raised by the average Western enquirer, and endeavouring to
present unfamiliar concepts in a form as simple and in language as
clear as possible. That it should succeed in making Theosophy
intelligible without mental effoi-t on the part of the reader, would
be too much to expect ; but it is hoped that the obscurity still left
is of the thought not of the language, is due to depth not to con-
fusion. To the mentally lazy or obtuse, Theosophy must remain
a riddle; for in the world mental as in the world spiritual each
man must progress by his own efforts. The writer cannot do the
reader's thinking for him, nor would the latter be any the better
off if such vicarious thought were possible. The need for such an
exposition as the present has long been felt among those interested
in the Theosophical Society and its work, and it is hoped that it

Xll PEEFACE.

will supply information, as free as possible from technicalities, to
many whose attention has been awakened, but who, as yet, are
merely puzzled and not convinced.

Some care has been taken in disentanghng some part of what
is true from what is false in Spiritualistic teachings as to the post-
mortem life, and to showing the true nature of Spiritualistic phaeno-
mena. Previous explanations of a similar kind have drawn much
wrath upon the writer's devoted head; the Spiritualists, like too
many others, preferring to believe what is pleasant rather than
what is true, and becoming very angry with anyone who destroys
an agreeable delusion. For the past year Theosophy has been the
target for every poisoned arrow of Spiritualism, as though the
possessors of a half truth felt more antagonism to the possessors
of the whole truth than those who had no share to boast of.

Very hearty thanks are due from the author to many Theosophists
who have sent suggestions and questions, or have otherwise contributed
help during the writing of this book. The work will be the more
useful for their aid, and that will be their best reward.

H. P. B.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

I.

THEOSOPHY AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

THE MEANING OF THE NAME.

Enquibee. Theosophy and its doctrines are often referred to as a new-
fangled religion. Is it a religion?

Theosophist. It is not. Theosophy is Divine Knowledge or Science.

Ekq. What is the real meaning of the term?

Theo. " Divine Wisdom," eeoirc^m (Theosophia) or Wisdom of the
gods, as eeoycia (theogonia), genealogy of the gods. The word
Qebs means a god in Greek, one of the divine beings, certainly
not " God " in the sense attached in our day to the term.
Therefore, it is not " Wisdom of God," as translated by some,
but Divine Wisdom such as that possessed by the gods. The
term is many thousand years old.

Enq. What is the origin of the name ?

Theo. It comes to us from the Alexandrian philosophers, called
lovers of truth, Philaletheians, from ^ix (phil) " loving," and
dx^Sfia (aletheia) " truth." The name Theosophy dates from

2 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

the third century of our era, and began with Ammonius
Saccas and his disciples,* who started the Eclectic Theo-
sophical system.

Enq. What was the object of this system ?

Theo. First of all to inculcate certain great moral truths upon its
disciples, and all those who were " lovers of the truth." Hence
the motto adopted by the Theosophical Society : " There is no
religion higher than truth."f The chief aim of the Founders

* Also called Analogeticists. As explained by Prof. Alex. Wilder, F.T.S., in his
" Eclectic Philosophy," they were called so because of their practice of inter-
preting all sacred legends and narratives, myths and mysteries, by a rule or
principle of analogy and correspondence : so that events which were related as
having occurred in the external world were regarded as expressing operations and
experiences of the human soul. They were also denominated Neo-Platonists.
Though Theosophy, or the Eclectic Theosophical system, is generally attributed
to the tliird century, yet, if Diogenes Laertius is to be credited, its origin is much
earlier, as he attributed the system to an Egyptian priest, Pot-Amun, who lived
in the early days of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The same author tells us that the
name is Coptic, and signifies one consecrated to Amun, the God of Wisdom.
Theosophy is the equivalent of Brahm-Vidya, divine knowledge.

t Eclectic Theosophy was divided under three heads : (1) Belief in one absolute,
incomprehensible and supreme Deity, or infinite essence, which is the root of all
nature, and of all that is, visible and invisible. (2) Belief in man's eternal
immortal nature, because, being a radiation of the Universal Soul, it is of an
identical essence with it. (3) Theurgy, or " Hhiiae work," ot producing a worli
of gods ; from theoi, " gods," and ergem, " to work." The term is very old, but,
as it belongs to the vocabulary of the mysteries, was not in popular use. It was a
mystic belief— practically proven by initiated adepts and priests— that, by making
oneself as pure as the incorporeal beings — i.e., by returning to one's pristine
purity of nature — man could move the gods to impart to him Divine mysteries,
and even cause them to become occasionally visible, either subjectively or
objectively. It was the transcendental aspect of what is now called Spiritualism ;
bnt havmg been abused and misconceived by the populace, it had come to be

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 3

of the Eclectic Tlieosophical School was one of the three
objects of its modem successor, the Theosophical Society,
namely, to reconcile all reUgions, sects and nations under a
common system of ethics, based on eternal verities.

Enq. "What have you to show that this is not an impossible dream ;

regarded by some as necromancy, and was generally forbidden. A taravestied
practice of the theurgy of lamblichns lingers still in the ceremonial magic of
some modem Kabalists. Modem Theosophy avoids and rejects both these kinds of
magic and " neci-omaney " as being very dangerous. Eeal divijtc them-gy
requires an almost superhuman puritj' and holiness of life ; othei'wise it degenerates
into mediranship or black magic. The immediate disciples of Ammonius Saccas,
who was called TheodiAaliios, "god-taught" — such as Plotinus and liis follower
Porphyry — ^rejected theurgy at first, but were finally reconciled to it through
lamblichns, who wrote a work to tliat effect entitled " De Mysteriis," under the
name of his own master, a famous Egyptian priest called Abammon. Ammoniiis
Saccas was the son of Christian parents, and, having been repelled by dogmatic
spiritualistic Christianity from his childhood, became a Neo-Platonist, and like
J. Boehme and otlier great seers and mystics, is said to have had di\"ine wisdom
revealed to him in dreams and visions. Hence liis name of TlicodiilaJifos. He
resolved to reconcile every system of rehgion, and by demonstrating their identical
origin to establisli one universal creed based on etliics. His life was so blameless
and pm-e, his learning so profound and va^t, that several Church Fathers were
his secret disciples. Clemens Alexandrinus speaks very highly of him. Plotinus,
the " St. John " of Ammonius, was also a man universally respected and
esteemed, and of the most profound learning and integrity. ■\\Tien thirty-nine
years of age he accompanied the Roman Emperor Gordian and his army to the
East, to be instructed by the sages of Bactria and India. He had a School of
Philosophy in Borne. Porphyry, his disciple, whose real name was Malek (a
Hellenized Jew), oolleoted all the writings of his master. Porphjiy was himself
a great author, and gave an allegorical interpretation to some parts of Homer's
writings. The system of meditation the Plulaletheians resorted to was ecstacy, a
system akin to Indian Yoga practice. '\Miat is known of the Eclectic School is
due to Origen, Longinus, and Plotinus, the'immediate disciples of Ammonius. —
(Vidf Eclectic PhU-s., by A. Wilder.)

4 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

and that all the world's religions are based on the one and the
same truth ?
Theo. Their comparative study and analysis. The "Wisdom-
religion " was one in antiquity ; and the sameness of primitive
religious philosophy is proven to us by the identical doctrines
taught to the Initiates during the MYSTERIES, an institution
once universally diffused. " All the old worships indicate the
existence of a shigle Theosophy anterior to them. The key
that is to open one must open all ; otherwise it cannot be the
right key." (Eclect. Philo.)

THE POLICY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

Enq, In the days of Ammonius there were several ancient great
religions, and numerous were the sects in Egypt and Palestine
alone. How could he reconcile them ?

Theo. By doing that which we again try to do now. The Neo-
Platonists were a large body, and belonged to various religious
philosophies* ; so do our Theosophists. In those days, the
Jew Aristobulus affirmed that the ethics of Aristotle represented

* It was under Philadelphua that Judaism established itself in Alexandria, and forth-
with the Hellenic teachers became the dangerous rivals of the College of Eabbia
of Babylon. As the author of " Eclectic Philosophy " very pertinently remarks :
" The Buddhistic, Vedantic, and Magian systems were expounded alono- with
the philosophies of Greece at that period. It was not wonderful that thoughtful
men supposed that the strife of words ought to cease, and considered it possible
to extract one harmonious system from these various teachings. , . . Pan-
senus, Athenagoras, and Clement were thoroughly instructed in Platonic
philosophy, and comprehended its essential unity with the Oriental systems."

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 5

the esoteric teacliings of tlie Law of Moses ; Philo JucIeeus
endeavoured to reconcile the Pentateuch with the Pythagorean
and Platonic philosophy ; and Josephns proved that the Essenes
of Carmel were simply the copyists and followers of the
Egyptian Therapeuttc (the healers). So it is in our day. We
can show the hne of descent of every Christian religion, as
of every, even the smallest, sect. The latter are the minor
twigs or shoots grown on the larger branches ; but shoots
and branches spring from the same trunk— the WISDOM-
EELIGrlOISr. To prove this was the aim of Ammonius, who
endeavoured to induce Gentiles and Christians, Jews and
Idolaters, to lay aside their contentions and strifes,
remembering 0]ily that they were all in possession ot the same
truth under various vestments, and were all the children of a
common mother.* This is the aim oi Theosophy likewise.

Enq. What are your authorities for saying this of the ancient Theoso-
phists of Alexandria?

* Says Mosheim of Ammonius : " Conceiving that not only the philosophers of
Greece, but also all those of the different barbarian nations, were perfectly in
unison with each other -with regard to every essential point, he made it his
business so to expound the thousand tenets of all these various sects as to show
they had all originated from one and the same source, and tended all to one and
the same end." If the writer on Ammonius in the Edinhurgh Encyclo^xBdia
knows what he is talking about, then he describes the modem Theosophists,
their beliefs, and their work, for he says, speaking of the TJieodidaMos : " He
adopted the doctrines which were received in Egj'pt (the esoteric were those of
India) concerning the Universe and the Deity, considered as constituting one
gi-eat whole ; concerning the etei-nity of the world . . . and established a
system of moral discipline which allowed the people in general to live according
to the laws of their country and the dictates of nature, but required the ^^•ise to
exalt their mind by contemplation."

B

6 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Theo. An almost countless number of well-known writers.
Moslieim, one of them, says that : —

" Ammonius taught that the rehgion of the multitude went hand-in-
hand with philosophy, and witla her had shared the fate of being by
degrees corrupted and obscured with mere human conceits, superstitions,
and lies; that it ought, therefore, to be brought back to its original purity
by purging it of this dross and expounding it upon philosophical prin-
ciples ; and the whole Christ had in view was to reinstate and restore to
its primitive integrity the wisdom of the ancients ; to reduce within
bounds the universally-prevailing dominion of superstition ; and in part
to correct, and in part to exterminate the various errors that had found
their way into the different popular religions."

This, again, is precisely what the modern Tlieosophists say.
Only while the great Philaletheian was supported and helped
in the policy he pursued by two Church Fathers, Clement and
Athenagoras, by all the learned Eabbis of the Synagogue, the
Academy and the Groves, and while he taught a conmion
doctrine for all, we, his followers on the same line, receive no
recognition, but, on the contrary, are abused and persecuted.
Peoj^le 1,500 years ago are thus shown to have been more
tolerant than they are in this enlightened century.

Enq. Was he encouraged and supported by the Chui-ch because, not-
withstanding his heresies, Ammonius taught Christianity and was
a Christian ?

TnEo. Not at all. He was born a Christian, but never accepted
Church Christianity. As said of him by the same writer :

" He had but to propound his instructions according to the ancient
pillars of Hermes, which Plato and Pythagoras knew before, and from
them constituted their philosophy. Finding the same in the prolotrue of
the Gospel according to St. John, he very properly supposed that the

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 7

purpose of Jesus was to restore the great doctrine of wisdom in its primi-
tive integrity. The narratives of the Bible and the stories of the gods he
considered to be allegories illustrative of the truth, or else fables to be
rejected." yLoTeoYex, a.ssa.ys the Edinburgh Enoyclopcsdia, "he acknow-
ledged that Jesus Christ was an excellent man and the ' friend of God,'
but alleged that it was not his design entirely to abolish the worship of
demons (gods), and that his only intention was to purify the ancient
religion."

THE WISDOM-BELIGION ESOTERIC IN ALL AGES.

Enq. Since Ammonius never committed anything to writing, how can
one feel sure that such were his teachings ?

Theo. Neither did Buddha, Pythagoras, Confucius, Orpheus,
Socrates, or even Jesus, leave behind them any writings. Yet
most of these are historical personages, and their teachings
have all survived. The disciples of Ammonius (among whom
Origen and Herennius) wrote treatises and explained his ethics.
Certainly the latter are as historical, if not more so, than the
Apostolic writings. Moreover, his pupils — Origen, Plotinus,
and Longinus (counsellor of the famous Queen Zenobia) — have
all left voluminous records of the Philaletheian System — so far,
at all events, as their public profession of faith was known, for
the school was divided into exoteric and esoteric teachings.

Enq. How have the latter tenets reached our day, since you hold that
what is properly called the WISDOM-EELIGION was esoteric ?

Theo. The WISDOM-RELIGION was ever one, and being the last
word of possible human knowledge, was, therefore, carefully
preserved. It preceded by long ages the Alexandrian Theo-

8 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

sophists, reached the modern, and will survive every other
religion and philosophy.

Enq. Where and by whom was it so preserved ?

Theo. Among Initiates of every country ; among profound seekers
after truth — their disciples ; and in those parts of the world
where such topics have always been most valued and pursued :
in India, Central Asia, and Persia.

Enq. Can you give me some proofs of its esotericism ?

Theo. The best proof you can have of the fact is that every ancient
religious, or rather philosophical, cult consisted of an esoteric
or secret teaching, and an exoteric (outward public) worship.
Furthermore, it is a well-known fact that the MYSTERIES
of the ancients comprised with every nation the " greater "
(secret) and "Lesser" (pubhc) MYSTERIES— e.(/., in the
celebrated solemnities called the Eleusinia, in Greece. From
the Hierophants of Samothrace, Egypt, and the initiated
Brahmins of the India of old, down to the later Hebrew
Rabbis, all preserved, for fear of profanation, their real bond
fide beliefs secret. The Jewish Rabbis called their secular
religious series the Mercavah (the exterior body), " the
vehicle," or, the covering which contains the hidden sold — i.e.,
their highest secret knowledo-e. Not one of the ancient nations
ever imparted through its priests its real philosophical secrets
to the masses, but allotted to the latter only the husks.
Northern Buddhism has its "greater" and its "lesser" vehicle,
known as the Mahayana, the esoteric, and the Hinayana, the
exoteric, Schools. Nor can you blame them for such secrecy ;
for surely you would not think of feeding your flock of sheep

THE KEY TO THEOSOHPY. 9

on learned dissertations on botany instead of on grass ? Pytha-
goras called his Gnosis " the knowledge of things that are," or
V y„u>^Ls tQ>v ivTuiv, and preserved that knowledge for his pledged
disciples only : for those who could digest such mental food
and feel satisfied ; and he pledged them to silence and secrecy.
Occult alphabets and secret ciphers are the development of
the old Egyptain hieratic writings, the secret of which was,
in the days of old, in the possession only of the Hierogram-
matists, or initiated Egyptian priests. Ammonius Saccas, as
his biographers tell us, bound his pupils by oath not to divulge
his higher doctrines except to those who had already been
instructed in preliminary knowledge, and who were also
bound by a pledge. Finally, do we not find the same even in
early Christianity, among the Gnostics, and even in the teach-
ings of Christ ? Did he not speak to the multitudes in parables
which had a two-fold meaning, and explain his reasons only to
his disciples ? " To you," he says, " it is given to know ihe
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven ; but unto them that are
without, all these things are done in parables " (Mark iv. 11).
" The Essenes of Judea and Carmel made similar distinctions,
dividing their adherents into neophytes, brethren, and the
perfect, or those initiated" (Eclec. Phil.). Examples might be
brought from every country to this effect.

Enq. Can you attain the " Secret Wisdom " simply by study ? Ency-
clopaedias define Theosophy pretty much as Webster's Dictionary
does, i.e., as "supposed intercourse loith God and superior spirits,
and consequent attainment of supicrhuman Jmoiuledge by physical
means and chemical p)rocesses." Is this so?

Theo. I think not. Nor is there any lexicographer capable of

lo THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

explaining, whether to himself or others, how superhuman
knowledge can be attained by physical or chemical processes.
Had Webster said "by metaphysical and alchemical processes,"
the definition would be approximately correct : as it is, it is
absurd. Ancient Theosopliists claimed, and so do the modern,
that the infinite cannot be knoAvn by the finite' — i.e., sensed by
the finite Self — but that the divine essence could be communi-
cated to the higher Spiritual Self in a state of ecstasy. This
condition can hardly be attained, like hypnotism, by " physical
and chemical means."
Enq. What is yom- explanation of it ?

Theo. Eeal ecstasy was defined by Plotinus as " the liberation of
the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming one and
identified with the infinite." This is the highest condition,
says Prof. Wilder, but not one of permanent duration, and
it is reached only by the very very few. It is, indeed, identical
with that state which is known in India as Samadhi. The latter
is practised by the Yogis, who facilitate it physically by the
greatest abstinence in food and drink, and mentally by an
incessant endeavour to purify and elevate the mind. Medita-
tion is silent and unutterecl prayer, or, as Plato expressed it,
" the ardent turning of the soul toward the divine ; not to ask
any particular good (as in the common meaning of prayer), but
for good itself — for the universal Supreme Good " of which we
are a part on earth, and out of the essence of which we have
all emerged. Therefore, adds Plato, " remain silent in the
presence of the divine ones, till they remove the clouds from
tliy eyes and enable thee to see by the light which issues from

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. ii

themselves, not what appears as good to thee, but what is
intrinsically good."*

Enq. Theosophy, then, is not, as held by some, a newly devised
scheme ?

Theo. Only ignorant people can thus refer to it. It is as old as the
world, in its teachings and ethics, if not in name, as it is also
the broadest and most catholic system among all.

Enq. How comes it, then, that Theosophy has remained so unknown
to the nations of the Western Hemisphere ? Why should it have
been a sealed book to races confessedly the most cultured and
advanced ?

TiiEO. We beUeve there were nations as cultured hi days of old
and certainly more spiritually " advanced " than we are. But
there are several reasons for this willing ignorance. One of
them was given by St. Paul to the cultured Athenians — a loss,
for long centuries, of real spiritual insight, and even interest,
owing to their too great devotion to things of sense and their

This is what the scholarly author of " The Eclectic Philosophy," Prof. A. Wilder,
F.T.S., describes as " spiritual photograijhy" : "The soul is the camera in which
facts and events, future, past, and present, are alike fixed; and the mind becomes
conscious of them. Beyond our every-day world of limits all is one day or
state — the past and future comprised in the present." . . . Death is the
last ecstasis on earth. Then the soul is freed from the constraint of the body,
and its nobler part is united to higher nature and becomes partaker in the
wisdom and foreknowledge of the higher beings." Eeal Theosophy is, for the
mystics, that state which ApoUonius of Tyana was made to describe thus: "I
can see the present and the futiu-e as in a clear mirror. The sage need not wait
for the vapours of the earth and the corruption of the air to foresee events.
. . . The iAeoi, or gods, see the future ; common men the present ; sages that
which is about to take place." " The Theosophy of the Sagos " he speaks of is
well expressed in the assertion, " The Kingdom of God is within us."

12 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

long slavery to the dead letter of dogma and ritualism. But
the strongest reason for it lies in the fact that real Theosophy
lias ever been kept secret.

Enq. You have brought forward proofs that such aecrecy has existed ;
but what was the real cause for it ?

Thko. The causes for it were : Firstly, the perversity of average
human nature and its selfishness, always tending to the grati-
fication oi personal desires to the detriment of neighbours and
next of kin. Such people could never l)e entrusted with divine
secrets. Secondly, their unreliability to keep the sacred and
divine knowledge from desecration. It is the latter that led
to the perversion of the most sublime truths and symbols, and
to the gradual transformation of things spiritual into anthro-
pomorphic, concrete, and gross imagery — hi other words, to
the dwarlino- of the g-od-idea and to idolatry.

THEOSOPHY IS NOT BUDDHISM.

Enq. You are often spoken of as " Esoteric Buddhists." Are you then
all followers of Gautama Buddha ?

TiiEO. No more than musicians are all followers of Wagner. Some
of us are Buddhists by religion ; yet there are far more Hindus
and Brahmins than Buddhists among us, and more Cliristian-
born Europeans and Americans than converted Buddhists.
The mistake has arisen from a misunderstanding of the real
meaning of the title of Mr. Sinnett's excellent work, " Esoteric
Buddhism," which last word ought to have been spelt iviih one,
instead of two, d's, as then BudUsm would have meant what it

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 13

was intended for, merely " Wisdomism " (Bodha, bodhi,
" intelligence," " wisdom ") instetid of Buddhism, Gautama's
religious philosopliy. Tlieosopliy, as already said, is the
WISDOM-EELIGION.

Enq. What is the difference between Buddhism, the religion fomided
by the Prince of Ivapilavastii, and Budhism, the " Wisdomism "
which you say is synonymous with Theosophy ?

Thko. Just the same diiference as there is between the secret
teachings of Christ, which are called " the mj^steries of the
Kingdom of Heaven," and the later ritualism and dogmatic
theology of the Churches and Sects. Buddha means the
''■ Enlightened " by Bodha, or understanding, Wisdom. This
has passed root and branch into the esoteric teachings that
Gautama imparted to his chosen Arhats only.

Enq. But some Orientalists deny that Buddha ever taught any esoteric
doctrine at all?

Theo. They may as well deny that Nature has any hidden secrets
for the men of science. Further on I will prove it by Buddha's
conversation with his disciple Ananda. His esoteric teachings
were simply the Gupta Vidya (secret knowledge) of the
ancient Brahmins, the key to which their modern successors
have, with few exceptions, completely lost. And this Vidya
has passed into what is now known as the iimer teachings of
the Mahay ana school of Northern Buddhism. Those who
deny it are simply ignorant pretenders to Orientalism. I
advise you to read the Eev. Mr. Edkins' Cldnese Buddhism —
especially the chapters on the Exoteric and Esoteric schools

14 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

and teachings — and then compare the testimony of the whole
ancient world upon the subject.

Enq. But are not the ethics of Theosophy identical with those taught
by Buddha ?

Theo. Certainly, because these ethics are the soul of the Wisdom-
Eeligion, and were once the common property of the initiates
of all nations. But Buddha was the first to embody these
lofty ethics in his public teachings, and to make them the
foundation and the very essence of his public system. It is
herein that Ues the immense difference between exoteric
Buddhism and every other religion. For while in other
religions ritualism and dogma hold the first and most important
place, in Buddhism it is the ethics which have always been
the most insisted upon. This accounts for the resemblance,
amounting almost to identity, between the ethics of Theosophy
and those of the religion of Buddha.

Enq. Are there any great points of difference ?

Theo. One great distinction between Theosophy and exoteric
Buddhism is that the latter, represented by the Southern Church,
entirely denies (a) the existence of any Deity, and (b) any
conscious post-mortem life, or even any self-conscious sur-
viving individuality in man. Such at least is the teaching of
the Siamese sect, now considered as the purest form of exoteric
Buddhism. And it is so, if we refer only to Buddha's public
teachings ; the reason for such reticence on his part I will
give further on. But the schools of the Northern Buddhist
Church, established in those countries to which his initiated
Arhats retired after the Master's death, teach all that is now

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 15

called Theosophical doctrines, because they form part of the
knowledge of the initiates — thus proving how the truth has
been sacrificed to the dead-letter by the too-zealous orthodoxy
of Southern Buddhism. But how much grander and more
noble, more philosophical and scientific, even in its dead-letter,
is this teaching than that of any other Church or religion. Yet
Theosophy is not Buddhism.

II.

EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC THEOSOPHY.

WHAT THE MODERN THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IS NOT.

Enq. Your doctrines, then, are not a revival of Buddhism, nor are
they entirely copied from the Neo-Platonic Theosophy ?

Theo. They are not. But to these questions I cannot give you a
better answer than by quoting from a paper read on
"Theosophy" by Dr. J. D. Buck, F.T.S., before the last
Theosophical Convention, at Chicago, America (April, 1889).
No living theosophist has better expressed and understood the
real essence of Theosophy than our honoured friend Dr.
Buck :—

" The Theosophical Society was organized for the purpose of promul-
gating the Theosophical doctrines, and for the promotion of the Theo-
sophic life. The present Theosophical Society is not the first of its kind.
I have a volume entitled : ' Theosophical Transactions of the Phila-
delphian Society,' published in London in 1697 ; and another with the
following title : ' Introduction to Theosophy, or the Science of the
Mystery of Christ ; that is, of Deity, Nature, and Creature, embracing
the philosophy of all the working powers of life, magical and spiritual,
and forming a practical guide to the sublimest purity, sanctity, and
evangelical perfection ; also to the attainment of divine vision, and the

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 17

holy angelic arts, potencies, and other prerogatives of the regenoration,'
published in London in 185-5. The following is the dedication of this
volume : —

" ' To the students of Universities, Colleges, and schools of Christendom ; To
Professors of Metaphysical, Mechanical, and Np.tural Science in all its forms :
To men and women of Education generally, of fundamental orthodox faith : To
Deists, Arians, Unitarians, Swedenborgians, and other defective and ungrounded
creeds, rationalists, and sceptics of every kind : To just-minded and enlightened
Mohammedans, Jews, and oriental Patriarch-religionists : but especially to the
gospel minister and missionary, whether to the barbaric or intellectual peoples,
this introduction to Theosophy, or the science of the ground and mystery of all
things, is most humbly and affectionately dedicated.'

" In the folio-wing year (1856) another volume was issued, royal octavo,
of 600 pages, diamond type, of ' Theosophical Miscellanies.' Of the
last-named work 600 copies only were issued, for gratuitous distribution
to Libraries and Universities. These earlier movements, of which there
were many, originated within the Church, with persons of great piety and
earnestness, and of unblemished character ; and all of these writings
were in orthodox form, using the Christian expressions, and, like the
writings of the eminent Churchman William Law, would only be
distinguished by the ordinary reader for their great earnestness and
piety. These vyere one and all but attempts to derive and explain the
deeper meanings and original import of the Christian Scriptures, and to
illustrate and unfold the Thcosophic life. These works were soon for-
gotten, and are now generally unknown. They sought to reform the
clergy and revive genuine piety, and were never welcomed. That one
word, " Heresy," was sufficient to bury them in the limbo of all such
Utopias. At the time of the Reformation John Reuchlin made a similar
attempt with the same result, though he was the intimate and trusted
friend of Luther. Orthodoxy never desired to be informed and enlight-
ened. These ) el'ormers were informed, as was Paul by Fcstus, that too
much learning had made them mad, and that it would be dangerous to go
farther. Passing by the verbiage, which was partly a matter of habit and
education vfith. these writers, and partly due to religious restraint through

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

secular power, and coming to the core of the matter, these writings were
Theosophical in the strictest sense, and pertain solely to man's know-
ledge of his own nature and the higher life of the soul. The present
Theosophical movement has sometimes been declared to be an attempt
to convert Christendom to Buddhism, which means simply that
the word ' Heresy ' has lost its terrors and relinquished its power.
Individuals in every age have more or less clearly apprehended the
Theosophical doctrines and wrought them into the fabric of their lives.
These doctrines belong exclusively to no religion, and are confined to no
society or time. They are the birthright of every human soul. Such a
thing as orthodoxy must be wrought out by each individual according to
his nature and his needs, and according to his varying experience. This
may explain why those who have imagined Theosophy to be a new
religion have hunted in vain for its creed and its ritual. Its creed is
Loyalty to Truth, and its ritual ' To honour every truth by use.'

" How little this principle of Universal Brotherhood is understood by
the masses of mankind, how seldom its transcendent importance is
recognised, may be seen in the diversity of opinion and fictitious inter-
pretations regarding the Theosophical Society. This Society was
organized on this one principle, the essential Brotherhood of Man, as
herein briefly outlined and imperfectly set forth. It has been assailed as
Buddhistic and anti-Christian, as though it could be both these together,
when both Buddhism and Christianity, as set forth by their inspired
founders, make brotherhood the one essential of doctrine and of life.
Theosophy has been also regarded as something new under the sun, or
at best as old mysticism masquerading under a new name. While it is
true that many Societies founded upon, and united to support, the
principles of altruism, or essential brotherhood, have borne various
names, it is also true that many have also been called Theosophic, and
with principles and aims as the present society bearing that name.
With these societies, one and all, the essential doctrine has been the
same, and all else has been incidental, though this does not obviate the
fact that many persons are attracted to the incidentals who overlook or
ignore the essentials."

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. ig

No better or more explicit answer — by a man who is one of
our most esteemed and earnest Tlieosopliists — could be given
to your questions.

li^NQ. Which system do you prefer or follow, in that case, besides
Buddhistic ethics ?

Theo. None, and all. We hold to no religion, as to no philosophy
in particular : we cull the good we find in each. But here,
again, it must be stated that, like all other ancient sj-stems,
TheosopliT is divided into Exoteric and Esoteric Sections.

Enq. What is the difference?

Theo. The members of the Theosopliical Society at large are free
to profess whatever religion or philosophy they like, or none
if they so prefer, provided they are in sympathy with, and
ready to carry out one or more of the three objects of the
Association. The Society is a philanthropic and scientific
body for the propagation of the idea of brotherhood on
practical instead of theoretical lines. The Fellows may be
Christians or Mussulmen, Jews or Parsees, Buddhists or
Brahmins, Spiritualists or Materialists, it does not matter ; but
every member must be either a philanthropist, or a scholar, a
searcher into Aryan and other old literature, or a psychic
student. In short, he has to help, if he can, in the carrj'ing
out of at least one of the objects of the programme. Other-
wise he has no reason for becoming a " Fellow." Such are
the majority of the exoteric Society, composed of " attached "
and "unattached" members.* These may, or may not, become

* An "attached member" means one who has jomed some particular branch of the
T.S. An "unattached," one who belongs to the Society at large, has his diploma,
from the Headquarters (Adyar, Madras), but is connected with no branch or lodge.

20 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Tlieosophists de facto. Members they are, by virtue of their
having joined the Society ; but the latter cannot make a
Theosophist of one who has no sense for the divine fitness of
things, or of him who understands Theosophy in his own — if
the expression may be used — sectarian and egotistic wajr.
" Handsome is, as handsome does " could be paraphrased in
this case and be made to run: "Theosophist is, who Theosophy
does."

THEOSOPHISTS AND MEMBERS OF THE " T.S."

Enq. This applies to lay members, as I understand. And what ot
those who pursue the esoteric study of Theosophy ; are they the
real Tlieosophists ?

Theo. Not necessarily, until they have proven themselves to be
siich. They have entered the inner group and pledged them-
selves to carry out, as strictly as they can, the rules of the
occult body. This is a difficult undertaking, as the foremost
rule of all is the entire renunciation of one's personality — i.e.,
a 2:)ledged member has to become a thorough altruist, never to
think of himself, and to forget his own vanity and pride in the
thought of the good of his fellow-creatures, besides that of his
fellow-brothers in the esoteric circle. He has to live, if the
esoteric instructions shall profit him, a life of abstinence in
everything, of self-denial and strict moralitv, doing his dutv
by all men. The few real Theosophists iii the T.S. are among
these members. This does not imply that outside of the T.S.
and the inner circle, there are no Theosophists ; for there

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 21

are, and more than people know of ; certainly far more than
are found among the lay members of the T.S.

Enq. Then what is the good of joining the so-called Theosophical
Society in that case ? Where is the incentive ?

Theo. None, except the advantage of getting esoteric instructions,
the genuine doctrines of the " Wisdom-Eeligion," and if the
real programme is carried out, deriving much help from
mutual aid and sympathy. Union is strength and harmony,
and well-regulated simultaneous efforts produce wonders.
This has been the secret of aU associations and communities
since mankind existed.

Enq. But why could not a man of well-balanced mind and singleness
of pm-pose, one, say, of indomitable energy and perseverance,
become an Occultist and even an Adept if he works alone ?

Theo. He may : but there are ten thousand chances against one
that he will fail. For one reason out of many others, no books
on Occultism or Theurgy exist in our day which give out the
secrets of alchemy or medieval Theosophy in plain language.
All are symbolical or in parables ; and as the key to these has
been lost for ages in the West, how can a man learn the
correct meaning of what he is reading and studying ? Therein
lies the greatest danger, one that leads to unconscious bhck
magic or the most helpless mediumship. He who has not an
Initiate for a master had better leave the dangerous studj'
alone. Look around you and observe. While two-thirds of
civilized society ridicule the mere notion that there is anything
in Theosophy, Occultism, Spiritualism, or in the Kabala, the
other third is composed of the most heterogeneous and opposite

22 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

elements. Some believe in the mystical, and even in the
supernatural (!), but each believes in his own way. Others
will rush single-handed into the study of the Kabala, Psychism,
Mesmerism, Spiritualism, or some form or another of Mysticism.
Eesult : no two men think alike, no two are agreed upon any
fundamental occult principles, though many are those who
claim for themselves the ultima thule of knowledge, and would
make outsiders believe that they are full-blown adepts. Not
only is there no scientific and accurate knowledge of Occultism
accessible in the West — not even of true astrology, the only
branch of Occultism which, in its exoteric teachings, has definite
laws and a definite system — but no one has any idea of what
real Occultism means. Some limit ancient wisdom to the
Kabala and the Jewish Zohar, which each interprets in his own
way according to the dead-letter of the Eabbinical methods.
Others regard Swedenborg or Boehme as the ultimate expres-
sions of the highest wisdom ; while others again see in
mesmerism the great secret of ancient magic. One and all of
those who put their theory into practice are rapidly drifting,
through ignorance, into black magic. Happy are those who
escape from it, as they have neither test nor criterion by
which they can distinguish between the true and the false.

Enq. Are we to understand that the inner group of the T.S. claims to
learn what it does from real initiates or masters of esoteric wisdom ?

Theo. Not directly. The personal presence of such masters is not
required. SuflJce it if they give instructions to some of those
who have studied under their guidance for years, and devoted
their whole lives to their service. Then, in turn, these can

to

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 23

give out the knowledge so imparted to others, who had no
such opportunity. A portion of the true sciences is better
than a mass of undigested and misunderstood learning. An
ounce of gold is worth a ton of dust.

Enq. But how is one to know whether the ounce is real gold or only a
counterfeit ?

Theo. a tree is known by its fruit, a system by its results. When
our opponents are able to prove to us that any solitary student
of Occultism throughout the ages has become a saintly adept
like Ammonius Saccas, or even a Plotinus, or a Theurgist like
lamblichus, or achieved feats such as are claimed to have been
done by St. Germain, without any master to guide him, and
all this without being a medium, a self-deluded psychic, or a
charlatan — then shall we confess ourselves mistaken. But till
then, Theosophists prefer to follow the proven natural law of
the tradition of the Sacred Science. There are mystics who
have made great discoveries in chemistry and physical sciences,
almost bordering on alchemy and Occultism ; others who, by
the sole aid of their genius, have rediscovered portions, if not
the whole, of the lost alphabets of the "Mystery language," and
are, therefore, able to read correctly Hebrew scrolls ; others
still, who, being seers, have caught wonderful glimpses of the
hidden secrets of Nature. But all these are specialists. One
is a theoretical inventor, another a Hebrew, i.e., a Sectarian
KabaUst, a third a Swedenborg of modern times, denying all
and everything outside of his own particular science or rehgion.
Not one of them can boast of having produced a universal or
even a national benefit thereby, not even to himself. With

24 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

the exception of a few healers — of that class which the Koyal
College of Physicians or Surgeons would call quacks — none
have helped with their science Humanity, nor even a number
of men of the same community. Where are the Ohaldees of
old, those who wrought marvellous cures, " not by charms but
by simples " ? Where is an Apollonius of Tyana, who healed the
sick and raised the dead under any climate and circumstances ?
We know some specialists of the former class in Europe, but
none of the latter — except in Asia, where the secret of the
Yogi, " to live in death," is still preserved.

Enq. Is the production of such healing adepts the aim of Theosophy?

Theo. Its aims are several ; but the most important of all are those
which are likely to lead to the relief of human suffering under
any or every form, moral as well as physical. And we believe the
former to be far more important than the latter. Theosophy has
to inculcate ethics ; it has to purify the soul, if it would relieve
the physical body, whose ailments, save cases of accidents, are
all hereditary. It is not by studying Occultism for selfish
ends, for the gratification of one's personal ambition, pride,
or vanity, that one can ever reach the true goal: that of
helping suffering mankind. Nor is it by studying one single
branch of the esoteric philosophy that a man becomes an
Occultist, but by studying, if not mastering, them all.

Enq. Is help, then, to reach this most important aim, given only to those
who study the esoteric sciences ?

Theo. Not at all. Every lay member is entitled to general instruc-
tion if he only wants it ; but few are willing to become what
is called " working members," and most prefer to remain the

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 25

drones of Theosophy. Let it be understood that private
research is encouraged in the T.S., provided it does not in-
fringe the limit which separates the exoteric from the esoteric,
the blind from the conscious magic.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEOSOPHY AND OCCULTISM.

Enq. You speak of Theosophy and Occultism ; are they identical ?

Theo. By no means. A man may be a very good Theosophist
indeed, whether in or outside of the Society, without being in
any way an OccuUist. But no one can be a true Occultist
without being a real Theosophi.st ; otherwise he is simply a
black magician, whether conscious or unconscious.

Enq. What do you mean ?

Theo. I have said already that a true Theosophist must put in
practice the loftiest moral ideal, must strive to realize his unity
with the whole of humanity, and work ceaselessly for others.
Now, if an Occultist does not do all this, he must act selfishly
for his own personal benefit ; and if he has acquired more
practical power than other ordinary men, he becomes forth-
with a far more dangerous enemy to the world and those
around him than the average mortal. This is clear.

Enq. Then is an Occultist simply a man who possesses more power
than other people ?

Theo. Far more — if he is a practical and reaUy learned Occultist,
and not one only in name. Occult sciences are not, as
described in Encyclopaedias, " those imaginary sciences of the

26 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Middle Ages which related to the supposed action or influence
of Occult qualities or supernatural powers, as alchemy, magic,
necromancy, and astrology," for they are real, actual, and
very dangerous sciences. They teach the secret potency of
things in Nature, developing and culti^-ating the hidden
powers " latent in man," thus giving him tremendous
advantages over more ignorant mortals. H}q:)notism, now
become so common and a .subject of serious scientific inquirj', is
a good instance in point. Hypnotic power has been discovered
almost by accident, the way to it having been prepared by
mesmerism ; and now an able hypnotizer can do almost any-
thing with it, from forcing a man, unconsciously to himself,
to play the fool, to making him commit a crime — often by
proxy for the hypnotizer, and for the benefit of the latter. Is
not this a terrible power if left in the hands of unscrupulous
persons ? And please to remember that this is only one of
the minor branches of Occultism.

Enq. But are not all these Occult sciences, magic, and sorcery, con-
sidered by the most cultured and learned people as rehcs of ancient
ignorance and superstition ?

Theo. Let me remind j'ou that this remark of yours cuts both
ways. The " most cultured and learned " among you regard
also Christianity and every other religion as a relic of ignorance
and superstition. People begin to beheve now, at any rate,
in hypnotism, and some — e^-en of the most cultured — in
Theosophy and phenomena. But who among them, except
preachers and bhnd fanatics, will confess to a behef in Biblical
miracles? And this is where the pohit of difference comes in.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY- 27

There are very good and pure Theosophists who may beheve
in the supernatural, divine miracles included, but no Occultist
wiU do so. For an Occultist practises scientific Theosophy,
based on accurate knowledge of Nature's secret workings ; but
a Theosophist, practising the powers called abnormal, minus
the light of Occultism, wiU simply tend toward a dangerous
form of mediumship, because, although holding to Theosophy
and its highest conceivable code of ethics, he practises it in
the dark, on sincere but blind faith. Anyone, Theosophist or
Spiritualist, who attempts to cultivate one of the branches of
Occult science — e.g., Hypnotism, Mesmerism, or even the
secrets of producing physical phenomena, etc. — without the
knowledge of the philosophic rationale of those powers, is like
a rudderless boat launched on a stormy ocean.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEOSOPHY AND SPIBITUALISM.

Enq. But do you not believe in Spiritualism ?

TiiEO. If by " Spirituahsm " you mean the explanation which
Spiritualists give of some abnormal phenomena, then decidedly
tve do not. They maintain that these manifestations are all
produced by the " spirits " of departed mortals, generally their
relatives, who return to earth, they say, to communicate with
those they have loved or to whom they are attached. We
deny this point blank. We assert that the spirits of the dead
cannot return to earth — save in rare and exceptional cases,
of which I may speak later ; nor do they communicate
with men except by entirely subjective means. That which

28 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

does appear objectively, is only the phantom of the ex-physical
man. But in psychic, and so to say, " Spiritual " Spiritualism,
we do believe, most decidedly.

Enq. Do you reject the phenomena also '?

Theo. Assuredly not — save cases of conscious fraud.

Enq. How do you account for them, then ?

Theo. In many waj^s. The causes of such manifestations are by
no means so simple as the Spiritualists would like to believe.
Foremost of all, the deus ex machind of the so-called
" materializations " is usually the astral body or " double " of
the medium or of some one present. This astral body is also
the producer or operating force in the manifestations of slate-
writing, " Davenport "-like manifestations, and so on.

Enq. You say "usiially " ; then what is it that produces the rest '?

Theo. That depends on the nature of the manifestations. Some-
times the astral remains, the Kamalokic " shells " of the
vanished j)^^'sonalities that were ; at other times, Elementals.
" Spirit " is a word of manifold and wide significance. I really
do not know what Spiritualists mean by the term ; but what
we understand them to claim is that the physical phenomena
are produced by the reincarnating Ego, the Spiritual and
immortal " individuality." And this hypothesis we entirely
reject. The Conscious Individuality of the disembodied
cannot materialize, nor can it retuni from its own mental
Devachanic sphere to the plane of terrestrial objectivity.

Enq. But many of the communications received from the " spirits "
show not only intelligence, but a knowledge of facts not known to

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 29

the medium, and sometimes even not consciously present to the
mind of the investigator, or any of those who compose the
audience.

Theo. This does not necessarily prove that the intelligence and
knowledge you speak of belong to spirits, or emanate from
disembodied souls. Somnambulists have been known to
compose music and poetry and to solve mathematical problems
while in their trance state, without having ever learnt music
or mathematics. Others, answered intelligently to questions
put to them, and even, in several cases, spoke languages, such
as Hebrew and Latin, of which they were entirely ignorant
when awake — all this in a state of profound sleep. Will you,
then, maintain that this was caused by " spirits " ?

Enq. But how would you explain it ?

Theo. We assert that the divine spark in man being one and
identical in its essence with the Universal Spirit, our " spiritual
Self" is practically omniscient, but that it cannot manifest
its knowledge owing to the impediments of matter. Now the
more these impediments are removed, in other words, the
more the physical body is paralyzed, as to its own independent
activity and consciousness, as in deep sleep or deep trance, or,
again, in illness, the more fully can the inner Self manifest on
this plane. This is our explanation of those truly wonderful
phenomena of a higher order, in which undeniable intelligence
and knowledge are exhibited. As to the lower order of
manifestations, such as physical phenomena and the platitudes
and common talk of the general " spirit," to explain even
the most important of the teachings we hold upon the subject

30 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

would take up more space and time than can be allotted to it
at present. "We have no desire to interfere with the belief of
the Spirituahsts any more than with any other belief. The
onus prohandi must fall on the believers in " spirits." And at
the present moment, while still convinced that the higher sort
of manifestations occur through the disembodied souls, their
leaders and the most learned and intelUgent among the
Spiritualists are the first to confess that not all the phenomena
are produced by spirits. Gradually they will come to
recognise the whole truth ; but meanwhile we have no right
nor desire to proselytize them to our views. The less so, as in
the cases of purely psychic and spiritual manifestations we
believe in the intercommunication of the spirit of the living
man with that of disembodied personalities.*

' We say that in such cases it is not the spirits of the dead who descend on earth,
but the spirits of the living that ascend to the pui'e Spiritual Souls. In truth
there is neither ascending nor descending, but a change of state or condition for
the mediiun. The body of the latter becoming paralyzed, or "entranced," the
spiritual Ego is free from its trammels, and finds itself on the same plane of con-
sciousness with the disembodied spirits. Hence, if there is any spiritual
attraction between the two they can communicate, as often occm-s in dreams.
The difference between a mediumistic and a non-sensitive nature is this : the
liberated spirit of a medium has the opportunity and facility of influencing the
passive organs of its entranced physical body, to make them act, speak, and
write at its will. The Eao can make it repeat, echo-like, and in the human
language, the thoughts and ideas of the disembodied entity, as well as its own.
But the non-recejitive or non-sensitive organism of one who is very positive
cannot be so influenced. Hence, although there is hardly a human being whose
Ego does not hold free intercourse, during the sleep of his body, with those
whom it loved and lost, yet, on account of the positiveuess and non-receptivity
of its physical envelope and brain, no recollecti(»i, or a very dim, dream-like
remembrance, lingers in the memory of the person once awake.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 31

Enq. This means that you reject the philosophy of Spiritualism in
toto ?

TriEo, If by " pliilosopliy " you mean their crude theories, we do.
But they have no philosophy, in truth. Their best, their most
intellectual and earnest defenders say so. Their fundamental
and only unimpeachable truth, namely, that phenomena occur
through mediums controlled by invisible forces and
intelligences — no one, except a blind materialist of the
" Huxley big toe " school, will or can deny. With regard to
their philosophy, however, let me read to you what the able
editor of Light, than whom the Spiritualists will find no wiser
nor more devoted champion, says of them and their philosophy.
This is what " M. A. Oxen," one of the very few philosophical
Spiritualists, writes, with respect to their lack of organization
and blind bigotry : —

It is worth while to look steadily at this point, for it is of vital moment.
We have an experience and a knowledge beside which all other know-
ledge is comparatively insignificant. The ordinary Spiritualist waxes
wroth if anyone ventures to impugn his assured knowledge of the future
and his absolute certainty of the life to come. Where other men have
stretched forth feeble hands groping into the dark future, he walks
boldly as one who has a chart and knows his way. Where other men
have stopped short at a pious aspiration or have been content with a
hereditary faith, it is his boast that he knows what they only beheve, and
that out of his rich stores he can supplement the fading faiths built only
upon hope. He is magnificent in his dealings with man's most cherished
expectations. " You hope," he seems to say, "for that which I can
demonstrate. You have accepted a traditional belief in what I can
experimentally prove according to the strictest scientific method. The
old beliefs are fading ; come out from them and be separate. They con-
tain as much falsehood as truth. Only by building on a sure foimdation

32 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

of demonstrated fact can your superstructure be stable. All round you
old faiths are toppling. Avoid the crash and get you out.

" When one comes to deal with this magnificent person in a practical
way, what is the result ? Very curious and very disappointing. He is so
sure of his ground that he takes no trouble to ascertain the interpretation
which others put upon his facts. The wisdom of the ages has concerned
itself with the explanation of what he rightly regards as proven ; but he
does not turn a passing glance on its researches. He does not even agree
altogether with his brother Spiritualist. It is the story over again of the
old Scotch body who, together with her husband, formed a " kirk."
They had exclusive keys to Heaven, or, rather, she had, for she was " na
certain aboot Jamie." So the infinitely divided and subdivided and re-
subdivided sects of Spiritualists shake their heads, and are " na certain
aboot" one another. Again, the collective experience of mankind is solid
and unvarying on this point that union is strength, and disunion a source
of weakness and failure. Shoulder to shoulder, drilled and disciplined, a
rabble becomes an army, each man a match for a hundred of the un-
trained men that may be brought against it. Organization in every
department of man's work means success, saving of time and labour,
profit and development. Want of method, want of plan, haphazard
work, fitful energy, undisciplined effort— these mean bungling failure.
The voice of humanity attests the truth. Docs the Spirituahst accept the
verdict and act on the conclusion ? Verily, no. He refuses to organize.

He is a law unto himself, and a thorn in the side of his neighbours."

Light, June 22, 1889.

Enq. I was told that the Theosophical Society was originally founded to
crush Spiritualism and belief in the survival of the individuality in
man?

Theo. You are misinformed. Our beliefs are all fuunded on that
immortal individuality. But then, Hke so many others, you
confuse personality with individuahty. Your Western psycho-
logists do not seem to have established any clear distinction

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 33

between the two. Yet it is precisely that difference which
gives the key-note to the understanding of Eastern philosophy,
and which lies at the root of the divergence between the
Theosophical and Spiritualistic teachings. And though it may
draw upon us still more the hostility of some Spiritualists, yet
I must state here that it is Theosophy which is the true and
unalloyed Spiritualism, while the modern scheme of that name
is, as now practised by the masses, simply transcendental
materialism.
Enq. Please explain your idea more clearly.

Theo. What I mean is that though our teachings insist upon the
identity of spirit and matter, and though we say that spirit is
potential matter, and matter simply crystalhzed spirit {e.g., as
ice is solidified steam), yet since the original and eternal
condition of all is not spirit but meto-spirit, so to speak, (visible
and solid matter being simply its periodical manifestation,) we
maintain that the term spirit can only be applied to the true
individuality.

Enq. But what is the distinction between this " true individuality "
and the " I " or " Ego " of which we are all conscious?

Theo. Before I can answer you, we must argue upon what you
mean by " I " or " Ego." We distinguish between the simple
fact of self-consciousness, the simple feeling that " I am I,"
and the complex thought that " I am Mr. Smith " or " Mrs.
Brown." Believing as we do in a series of births for the same
Ego, or re-incarnation, this distinction is the fundamental pivot
of the whole idea. You see " Mr. Smith " reaUy means a long
series of daily experiences strung together by the thread of

34 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

memory, and forming what Mr. Smith calls " himself." But
none of these " experiences " are really the " I " or the Ego,
nor do they give " Mr. Smith " the feeling that he is himself,
for he forgets the greater part of his daily experiences, and
they produce the feeling of Egoity in him only while they last.
We Theosophists, therefore, distinguish between this bundle of
" experiences," which we call the fake (because so finite and
evanescent) personality, and that element in man to which the
feeling of " I am I " is due. It is this "I am I" which we call
the true individuality ; and we say that this "Ego" or indivi-
duahty plays, hke an actor, many parts on the stage of life.*
Let us call every new Hfe on earth of the same Ego a 7iight on
the stage of a theatre. One night the actor, or " Ego,"
appears as " Macbeth," the next as " Shylock," the third as
"Eomeo," the fourth as "Hamlet" or "King Lear," and so on,
until he has run through the whole cycle of incarnations. The
Ego begins his hfe-pilgrimage as a sprite, an "Ariel," or a
" Puck" ; he plays the part of a super, is a soldier, a servant,
one of the chorus ; rises then to " speaking parts," plays lead-
ing roles, interspersed with insignificant parts, till he finally
retires from the stage as " Prospero," the magician.

Enq. I understand. You say, then, that this true Ego cannot return
to earth after death. But surely the actor is at hberty, if he has
preserved the sense of his individuality, to return if he likes to the
scene of his former actions ?

Theo. We say not, simply because such a return to earth would
be incompatible with any state of unalloyed bliss after death,

* Vide infra, " On Individuality and Personality."

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 35

as I am prepared to prove. We say that man suffers so much
unmerited misery during his Hfe, through the fault of others
with whom he is associated, or because of his environment,
that he is surely entitled to perfect rest and quiet, if not bhss,
before taking up again the burden of life. However, we can
discuss this in detail later.

WHY IS THEOSOPHY ACCEPTED f

Enq. I imderstand to a certain extent ; out I see that your teachings
are far more complicated and metaphysical than either Spiritualism
or current religious thought. Can you tell me, then, what has
caused this system of Theosophy which you support to arouse so
much interest and so much animosity at the same time ?

Theo. There are several reasons for it, I believe ; among other
causes that may be mentioned is, firstly, the great reaction from
the crassly materialistic theories now prevalent among scientific
teachers. Secondly, general dissatisfaction with the artificial
theology of the various Christian Churches, and the number
of daily increasing and conflicting sects. Thirdly, an ever-
growing perception of the fact that the creeds which are so
obviously self — and mutually — contradictory cannot be true,
and that claims which are unverified cannot he real. This
natural distrust of conventional religions is only strengthened
by their complete failure to preserve morals and to purify
society and the masses. Fourthly, a conviction on the part of
many, .and hnoivledge by a few, that there must be somewhere
a philosophical and religious system which shall be scientific

36 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

and not merely speculative. Finally, a belief, perhaps, that
such a system must be sought for in teachings far antedating
any modern faith.

Enq. But how did this system come to be put forward just now ?

Theo. Just because the time was found to be ripe, which fact is
shown by the determined effort of so many earnest students to
reach the truth, at whatever cost and wherever it may be con-
cealed. Seeing this, its custodians permitted that some por-
tions at least of that truth should be proclaimed. Had the
formation of the Theosophical Society been postponed a few
years longer, one half of the civilized nations would have
become by this time rank materialists, and the other half
anthropomorphists and phenomenalists.

Enq. Are we to regard Theosophy in any way as a revelation ?

Theo. In no way whatever — not even in the sense of a new and
direct disclosure from some higher, supernatural, or, at least,
superhuman beings ; but only in the sense of an " unveiling "
of old, very old, truths to minds hitherto ignorant of them,
ignorant even of the existence and preservation of any such
archaic knowledge.*

* It has become " fashionable," especially of late, to deride the notion that there
ever was, in the mysteries of great and civilized peoples, such aa the Egyptians,
Greeks, or Eomana, anything but priestly imposture. Even the Eosicrucians
were no better than half lunatics, half knaves. Numerous books have been
written on them ; and tyros, who had hardly heard the name a few years before,
sallied out as profound critics and Gnostics on the subject of alchemy, the fire-
philosophers, and mysticism in general. Yet a long series of the Hierophants
of Egypt, India, Ghaldea, and Arabia are known, along with the greatest
philosophers and sages of Greece and the West, to have included under the
designation of wisdom and divine science all knowledge, for they considered the

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 37

Enq. You spoke of "Persecution." If truth is as represented by
Theosophy, why has it met with such opposition, and with no general
acceptance ?

TiTEO. For many and various reasons again, one of which is the
hatred felt by men for " innovations," as they call them.
Selfishness is essentially conservative, and hates being disturbed.
It prefers an easy-going, unexacting lie to the greatest truth,
if tlie latter requires the sacrifice of one's smallest comfort.
The power of mental inertia is great in anything that does not
promise immediate benefit and reward. Our age is pre-
eminently unspiritual and matter of fact. Moreover, there is
the unfamiliar character of Theosophic teachings ; the highly
abstruse nature of the doctrines, some of which contradict
flatly many of the human vagaries cherished by sectarians,
which have eaten into the very core of popular beliefs. If we
add to this the personal efforts and great purity of life exacted
of those who would become the disciples of the inner circle,
and the very limited class to which an entirely unselfish code
appeals, it will be easy to perceive the reason why Theosophy
is doomed to such slow, up-hill work. It is essentially the
philosophy of those who suffer, and have lost all hope of being
helped out of the mire of life by any other means. Moreover,
the history of any system of belief or morals, newly introduced
into a foreign soil, shows that its beginnings were impeded by

base and origin of every art and science as essentially divine. Plato regarded
the mysteries as most sacred, and Clemens Alexandrinus, who had been himself
initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, has declared "that the doctrines taus;ht
therein contained in them the end of all human knowledge." Were Plato and
Clemens two knaves or two fools, we wonder, or^both ?

p

38 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

every obstacle that obscurantism and selfishness could suggest.
" The crown of the innovator is a crown of thorns " indeed !
No pulling down of old, worm-eaten buildings can be accom-
plished without some danger.

Enq. All this refers rather to the ethics and philosophy of the T.S.
Can you give me a general idea of the Society itself, its objects and
statutes ?

Theo. This was never made secret. Ask, and you shall receive
accurate answers.

Enq. But I heard that you were bound by pledges ?

Theo. Only in the Arcmie or " Esoteric " Section.

Enq. And also, that some members after leaving did not regard them-
selves bound by them. Are they right ?

Theo. This shows that their idea of honour is an imperfect one.
How can they be right ? As well said in the Path, our theo-
sophical organ at New York, treating of such a case : '• Suppose
that a soldier is tried for infringement of oath and discipline,
and is dismissed from the service. In his rage at the justice
he has called down, and of whose penalties he was distinctly
forewarned, the soldier turns to the enemy with false in-
formation, — a spy and traitor — as a revenge upon his former
Chief, and claims that his punishment has released him from
his oath of loyalty to a cause." Is he justified, think you ?
Don't you think he deserves being called a dishonourable man,
a coward ?

Enq. I believe so ; but some think otherwise.

Theo. So much the worse for them. But we will talk on this
subject later, if you please.

III.

THE WORKING SYSTEM OF THE T.S.*

THE OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY.

Enq. What are the objects of the " Theosophical Society " ?

Theo. They are three, and have been so from the beginuiug.
(I.) To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of
Humanity without distinction of race, colour, or creed. (2.) To
promote the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the
World's religion and sciences, and to vindicate the importance of
old Asiatic literature, namely, of the Brahmanical, Buddhist,
and Zoroastrian philosophies. (3.) To investigate the hidden
mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the
psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially. These
are, broadly stated, the three chief objects of the Theosophical
Society.

ExQ. Can you give me some more detailed information upon these ?

Theo. We may divide each of the three objects into as many
explanatory clauses as may be found necessary.

* Vide (at the end) the official rules of the T.S., Appendix A. Nota bene, " T.S." is an
abbreviation for " Theosophical Society."

40 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Enq. Then let us begin with the first. What means would you resort
to, in order to promote such a feeling of brotherhood among races
that are known to be of the most diversified religions, customs,
beliefs, and modes of thought ?

Theo. Allow me to add that which you seem unwilling to express.
Of course we know that with the exception of two remnants
of races — the Parsees and the Jews — every nation is divided,
not merely against all other nations, but even against itself.
This is found most prominently among the so-called civilized
Christian nations. Hence your wonder, and the reason why
our first object appears to you a Utopia. Is it not so ?

Enq. Well, yes ; but what have you to say against it ?

Theo. Xothing against the fact ; but much about the necessity of
removing the causes which make Universal Brotherhood a
Utopia at present.

Enq. What are, in your view, these causes ?

Theo. First and foremost, the natural selfishness of human nature.
This selfishness, instead of lieing eradicated, is daily
strengthened and stimulated into a ferocious and irresistible
feehng by the present religious education, which tends not
only to encourage, but positively to justify it. People's ideas
about right and wrong have been entirely perverted by the
hteral acceptance of the Jewish Bible. AH the unselfishness
of the altruistic teachings of Jesus has become merely a
theoretical subject for pulpit oratory ; while the precepts of
practical selfishness taught in the Mosaic Bible, against which
Christ so vainly preached, have become ingrained into the
uinermost life of the Western nations. " An eye for an eye

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 41

and a tooth for a tooth " has come to be the first maxim of
your law. Now, I state openly and fearlessly, that the
perversity of this doctrine and of so many others Theosophy
alone can eradicate.

THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN.

Enq. How ?

Theo. Simply by demonstrating on logical, philosophical, meta-
physical, and even scientific grounds that : — (a) All men have
spiritually and physically the same origin, which is the funda-
mental teaching of Theosophy. (b) As mankind is essentially
of one and the same essence, and that essence is one — infinite,
uucreate, and eternal, whether we call it God or Nature —
nothing, therefore, can affect one nation or one man without
affecting all other nations and all other men. This is as
certain and as obvious as that a stone thrown into a pond
will, sooner or later, set in motion every single drop of water
therein.

Enq. But this is not the teaching of Christ, but rather a pantheistic
notion.

Theo. That is where your mistake Ues. It is purely Christian,
although not Judaic, and therefore, perhaps, your Biblical
nations prefer to ignore it.

Enq. This is a wholesale and unjust accusation. Where are your proofs
for such a statement ?

Theo. They are ready at hand. Christ is alleged to have said :
" Love each other " and " Love your enemies"; for "if ye love

42 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

them (only) which love jou, what reward (or merit) have ye ?
Do not even the publicans* the same ? And if you salute
your brethren only, what do ye more than others ? Do not
even publicans so ? " These are Christ's words. But Genesis
ix. 25, says " Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall
he be unto his brethren." And, therefore, Christian but
Biblical people prefer the law of Moses to Christ's law of love.
They base upon the Old Testament, which panders to all their
passions, their laws of conquest, annexation, and tyranny over
races which they call inferior. What crimes have been com-
mitted on the strength of this infernal (if taken in its dead
letter) passage in Genesis, history alone gives us an idea, how-
ever inadequate.f

Publicans — regarded as so many thieves and pickpockets in these days. Among
the Jews the name and profession oJ a publican was the most odious thing in
the world. They were not allowed to enter the Temple, and Matthew (xviii. 17)
speaks of a heathen and a publican as identical. Yet they were only Eoman
tax-gatherers occupying the same position as the British of&cials in India and
other conquered countries.

t " At the close of the Middle Ages slavery, under the power of moral forces, had
mainly disappeared from Europe ; but two momentous events occurred which
overbore the moral power working in European society and let loose a swarm of
curses upon the earth such as mankind had scarcely ever known. One of these events
was the first voyaging to a populated and barbarous coast where human beings
were a familiar article of traffic ; and the other the discovery of a new world,
where mines of glittering wealth were open, provided labour could be imported
to work them. For four hundred years men and women and children were
torn from all whom they knew and loved, and were sold on the coast of Africa
to foreign traders ; they v/ere chained below decks — the dead often with the
living — during the horrible 'middle passage,' and, according to Bancroft, an
impartial historian, two hundred and fifty thousand out of three and a quarter
millions were thrown into the sea on that fatal passage, while the remainder

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 43

Enq. I have heard you say that the identity of our physical origin is
proved by science, that of our spiritual origin by the Wisdom-
Eeligion. Yet we do not find Darwinists exhibiting great
fraternal affection.

Theo. Just so. This is what shows the deficiency of the material-
istic systems, and proves that we Theosopliists are in the right.
The identity of our physical origin makes no appeal to our
higher and deeper feelings. Matter, deprived of its soul and
spirit, or its divine essence, cannot speak to the human heart.
But the identity of the soul and spirit, of real, immortal man,
as Tlieosophy teaches us, once proven and deep-rooted in our
hearts, would lead us far on the road of real charity and
brother^ goodwill.

Enq. But how does Theosophy explain the common origin of man ?

Theo. By teaching that the root of all nature, objective and sub-
jective, and everything else in the universe, visible and
invisible, is, was, and ever will be one absolute essence, from
which all starts, and into which everything returns. This is
Aryan philosophy, fully represented only by the Vedantins,

were consigned to nameless misery in the mines, or under the lash in the cane
and rice fields. The guilt of this great crime rests on the Christian Church.
' In the name of the most Holy Trinity ' the Spanish Government (Roman
Catholic) concluded more than ten treaties authorising the sale of five hundred
thousand human beings ; in 1502 Sir John Hawkins sailed on his diabolical
eiTand of buying slaves in Africa and selling them in the "West Indies in a ship
which bore the sacred name of Jesus ; while Elizabeth, the Protestant Queen,
rewarded him for his success in this first adventure of Englishmen in that in-
human traffic by allowing him to wear as his crest ' a demi-Moor in his proper
colour, bound 'with a cord, or, in other words, a manacled negro slave.' " —
Conquest! of the Cross (quoted from the Ar/nostic Journal).

44 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

and the Buddhist system. With this object in view, it is the
duty of all Theosophists to promote in every practical way,
and in all countries, the spread of non-sectarian education.

Enq. What do the written statutes of your Society advise its members
to do besides this ? On the physical plane, I mean ?

Theo. In order to awaken brotherly feehng among nations we have
to assist in the international exchange of useful arts and pro-
ducts, by advice, information, and co-operation with all worthy
individuals and associations (provided, however, add the
statutes, " that no benefit or percentage shall be taken by the
Society or the ' Fellows ' for its or their corporate services ").
For instance, to take a practical illustration. The organization
of Society, depicted by Edward Bellamy, in his magnificent
work " Looking Backwards," admirably represents the
Theosophical idea of what should be the first great step towards
the full realization of universal brotherhood. The state of
things he depicts falls short of perfection, because selfishness
still exists and operates in the hearts of men. But in the
main, selfishness and individualism have been overcome by the
feeling of sohdarity and mutual brotherhood ; and the scheme
of life there described reduces the causes tendino- to create
and foster selfishness to a minimum.

Enq. Then as a Theosophist you will take part in an effort to reahze
such an ideal ?

Theo. Certainly ; and we have proved it by action. Have
not you heard of the Nationahst clubs and party which have
sprung up in America since the pubhcation of Bellamy's book ?
They are now coming prominently to the front, and will do sc

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 45

move and more as lime izoeo on. Well, tliese clubs and this
party were started iu the lirst instance by Theosopliists. One
of the first, the JN^atioualist Club of Boston, Mass., has Theoso-
phists for President and Secretary, and the majority ot its
executive belong to the T.S. In the constitution of all their
clubs, and of the party they are forming', the influence of
Theosophy and of the Society is plain, for they all take as their
basis, their first and fundamental principle, the Brotherhood
of Humanity as taught by Theoso[)liy. In their declaration of
IVinciples they state : — "The principle of the Brotherhood of
Humanity is one of the etern;d trnths that govern the world's
progress on lines -vvhich distinguish human nature from brute
nature." What can be more Theosophical than this ?
But it is not enough. AVhat is also needed is to impress
men with the idea that, if the root of mankind is one, then
there must nlso be one truth which irnds expression in all
the various religions — except in the Jewish, as j'ou do not find
it expressed even in the Kabala.

Enq. This refers to the common origin of religions, and you may be
right there. But how does it apply to practical brotherhood on the
physical plane ?

Theo. First, because that which is true on the metaphysical plane
must be also true on the physical. Secondly, because there is
no nrore fertile source of hatred and strife than religious
differences. When one partj- or another thinks himself the
sole possessor of absolute truth, it becomes onlj' natural that
he should think his neighbour absolutely in the clutches of
Error or the Devil. But once get a man to see that none of

46 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

them has the whole truth, but that they are mutually com-
plementary, that the complete truth can be found only in the
combined views of all, after that which is false in each of
them has been sifted out — then true brotherhood in rehgion
will be established. The same applies in the physical world.

Enq. Please explain further.

TnEO. Take an instance. A plant consists of a root, a stem, and
many shoots and leaves. As humanity, as a whole, is the stem
which grows from the spiritual root, so is the stem the unity
of the plant. Hurt the stem and it is obvious that every shoot
and leaf will suffer. So it is with mankind.

Enq. Yes, but if you injure a leaf or a shoot, you do not injure the
whole plant.

Theo. And therefore you think that by injuring one man you do
not injure humanity ? But how do yoic know ? Are you aware
that even materialistic science teaches that any injury,
however slight, to a plant will affect the whole course of its
future growth and development ? Therefore, j'ou are mistaken,
and the analogy is perfect. If, however, you overlook the
fact that a cut in the finger may often make the whole body
suffer, and react on the whole nervous sj'stem, I must all the
more remind you that there may well be other spiritual laws,
operating on plants and animals as well as on mankind,
although, as you do not recognise their action on plants and
animals, you may deny their existence.

Enq. What laws do you mean '?

Thbo. We call them Karmic laws ; but you will not understand
the full meaning of the term unless you study Occultism.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 47

HoTrever, my argument did not rest on the assumption of
these laws, but really on the analogy of the plant. Expand
the idea, carry it out to a universal application, and you will
soon find that in true philosophy every physical action has its
moral and everlasting effect. Hurt a man by doing him bodily
harm ; you may think that his pain and suffering cannot
spread by any means to his neighbours, least of all to men of
other nations. We affirm that it will, in good time. Therefore,
we say, that unless every man is brought to understand and
accept as an axiomatic truth that by wronging one man we
wrong not only ourselves but the whole of humanity in the
long run, no brotherly feelings such as preached by all the
great Eeformers, pre-eminently by Buddha and Jesus, are
possible on earth.

OVR OTHER OBJECTS.

Enq. Will you now explain the methods by which you propose to carry
out the second object ?

Theo. To collect for the library at our head quarters of Adyar,
Madras, (and by the Fellows of their Branches for their local
libraries,) all the good works upon the world's religions that
we can. To put into written form correct information upon
the various ancient philosophies, traditions, and legends, and
disseminate the same in such practicable ways as the trans-
lation and publication of original works of value, and extracts
from and commentaries upon the same, or the oral instructions
of persons learned in their respective departments.

48 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Enq. And what about the third object, to develop in man his latent
spiritual or psychic powers ?

TiiEO. This has to be achieved also by means of publications, in
those places where no lectures and personal teachings are
possible. Our duty is to keep alive in man his spiritual
intuitions. To oppose and counteract — after due investi-
gation and proof of its irrational nature — bigotry in every
form, religious, scientific, or social, and cant above all, whether
as religious sectarianism or as belief in miracles or any-
thing supernatural. What we have to do is to seek to obtain
knowledije of all the laws of nature, and to diffuse it. To
encourage the study of those laws least understood by modern
people, the so-called Occult Sciences, based on the true know-
ledge of nature, instead of, as at present, on superstitious
beliefs based on blind faith and authority. Popular folk-lore
and traditions, however fanciful at times, when sifted may
lead to the discovery of long-lost, but important, secrets of
nature. The Society, therefore, aims at pursuing this line of
inquiry, in the hope of widening the field of scientific and
philosophical observation.

ON THE SACREDNESS OF THE PLEDGE.

Enq. Have you any ethical system that you carry out in the Society ?

Theo. The ethics are there, ready and clear enough for whomsoever
would follow them. They are the essence and cream of the
world's ethics, gathered from the teachings of all the world's

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

49

great reformers. Therefore, you will find represented
therein Confucius and Zoroaster, Laotze and tlie Bhacfavat-
Gita, the precepts of Gautama Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth,
of Hillel and his school, as of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and
their schools.

Enq. Do the members of your Society carry out these precepts ? I
have heard of great dissensions and quarrels among them.

Theo. Very naturally, since although the reform (in its present
shape) may be called new, the men and women to be reformed
are the same human, sinning natures as of old. As already
said, the earnest working members are few ; but many are the
sincere and well-disposed persons, who try their best to live up
to the Society's and their own ideals. Our duty is to encourage
and assist individual fellows in self-improvement, intellectual,
moral, and spiritual ; not to blame or condemn those who fail.
We have, strictly speaking, no right to refuse admission to
anyone — especially in the Esoteric Section of the Society,
wherein "he who enters is as one newly born." But if any
member, liis sacred pledges on his word of honour and
immortal Self notwithstanding, chooses to continue, after that
" new birth," with the new man, the vices or defects of his
old life, and to indulge in them still in the Society, then, of
of course, he is more than likely to be asked to resign and
withdraw ; or, in case of his refusal, to be expelled. We
have the strictest rules for such emergencies.

Enq. Can some of them be mentioned ?

TiiEO. They can. To begin with, no Fellow in the Society, whether
exoteric or esoteric, has a right to force his personal opinions

50 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

upon another Fellow. " It is not lawful for a7iy officer of the
Parent Society to express in public, by word or act, any
hostility to, or preference for, any one section,* reHgious
or philosophical, more than another. All have an equal right
to have the essential features of their religious belief laid before
the tribunal of an impartial world. And no officer of the
Society, in his capacity as an officer, has the right to preach
his own sectarian views and beliefs to members assembled,
except when the meeting consists of his co-religionists. After due
warning, violation of this rule shall be punished by suspension
or expulsion." This is one of the offences in the Society at
large. As regards the inner section, now called the Esoteric,
the following rules have been laid down and adopted, so far
back as 1880. "No Fellow shall put to his selfish use any
knowledge communicated to him by any member of the first
section (now a higher 'degree'); violation of the rule being
punished by expulsion." Now, however, before any such
knowledge can be imparted, the applicant has to bind himself
by a solemn oath not to use it for selfish purposes, nor to
reveal anything said except by permission.

Enq. But is a man expelled, or resigning, from the section free to
reveal anything he may have learned, or to break any clause of the
pledge he has taken ?

Theo. Certainly not. His expulsion or resignation only relieves
him from the obligation of obedience to the teacher, and from

• A " branch," or lodge, composed solely of co-religionists, or a branch in partibue,
as they are now somewhat bombastically called.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 51

that of taking an active part in the work of the Society, but
surely not from the sacred pledge of secrecy.
Enq. But is this reasonable and just ?

Theo. Most assuredly. To any man or woman with the slightest
honourable feeling a pledge of secrecy taken even on one's
word of honour, much more to one's Higher Self — the God
within — is binding till death. And though he may leave the
Section and the Society, no man or woman of honour will
think of attacking or injuring a body to which he or she has
been so pledged.

Enq. But is not this going rather far ?

Theo. Perhaps so, according to the low standard of the present
time and morality. But if it does not bind as far as this, what
use is a pledge at all ? How can anyone expect to be taught
secret knowledge, if he is to be at liberty to free himself from
all the obligations he had taken, whenever he pleases ? What
security, confidence, or trust would ever exist among men, if
pledges such as this were to have no really binding force at
all ? Believe me, the law of retribution (Karma) would very
soon overtake one who so broke his pledge, and perhaps as
soon as the contempt of every honourable man would, even
on this physical plane. As well expressed in the N.Y. " Path "
just cited on this subject, " A pledge once taken, is for ever
binding in both the moral and the occult worlds. If we break
it once and are punished, that does not justify us in breaking
it again, and so long as we do, so long will the mighty lever
of the Law (of Karma) react upon us." (The Path, July, 1889.)

IV.

THE EELATIONS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY TO

THEOSOPHY.

ON SELF-IMPROVEMENT.

Enq. Is moral elevation, then, the principal thing insisted upon in your
Society ?

Theo. Undoulitedl}- ! He who "would he a true Theosophist must
brincf himself to live as one.

Ekq. If so, then, as I remarked before, the behaviour of some members
strangely belies this fundamental rule.

Theo. Indeed it does. But this cannot be helped among us, any
more than amongst those wlio call themselves Christians and
act hke fiends. This is no fault of our statutes and rules, but
that of human nature. Even in some exoteric public branches,
the members pledge themselves on their " Higher Self" to live
tlie life prescribed by Theosophj'. They have to bring their
Divine Self to guide their every thought and action, every day
and at every moment of their lives. A true Theosophist ought
" to deal justly and walk liuml3h\"

Enq. What do you mean by this ?

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 53

Theo. Simply this : the one self has to forget itself for the many-
selves. Let me answer you in the words of a true Phila-
letheian, an F.T.S., who has beautifully expressed it in the
Theosophist : "What every man needs first is to fmd himself,
and then take an honest inventory of his subjective possessions,
and, bad or bankrupt as it may be, it is not beyond redemption
if we set about it in earnest." But how many do ? All are
wilUng to work for their own development and progress ; very
few for those of others. To quote the same writer again :
" Men have been deceived and deluded long enough ; they
must break their idols, put away their shams, and go to work
for themselves — nay, there is one little word too much or too
many, for he who works for himself had better not work at
all ; rather let him work himself for others, for all. For every
flower of love and charity he plants in his neighbour's garden,
a loathsome weed will disappear from his own, and so this
garden of the gods — Humanity — shall blossom as a rose. In
all Bibles, all religions, this is plainly set forth— but designing
men have at first 'misinterpreted and finally emasculated,
materiahsed, besotted them. It does not require a new
revelation. Let every man be a revelation unto himself. Let
once man's immortal spirit take possession of the temple of his
body, drive out the money-changers and every unclean thing, and
his own divine humanity will redeem him, for when he is thus
atone with himself he will know the ' builder of the> Temple.' "

Enq. This is pure Altruism, I confess.

Theo. It is. And if only one Fellow of the T.S. out of ten would
practise it oiirs would be a body of elect indeed. But there

54 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

are those among the outsiders who will always refuse to see
the essential difference between Theosophy and the Theosophical
Society, the idea and its imperfect embodiment. Such would
visit every sin and shortcoming of the vehicle, the human body,
on the pure spirit which sheds thereon its divine light. Is this
just to either ? They throw stones at an association that tries
to work up to, and for the propagation of, its ideal wdth most
tremendous odds against it. Some vilify the Theosophical
Society only because it presumes to attempt to do that in
which other systems — Church and State Christianity pre-
eminently — have failed most egregiously ; others because they
would fain preserve the existing state of things : Pharisees
and Sadducees in the seat of Moses, and publicans and sinners
revelling in high places, as under the Eoman Empire during its
decadence. Fair-minded people, at any rate, ought to remember
that the man who does all he can, does as much as he who has
achieved the most, in this world of relative possibilities. This
is a simple truism, an axiom supported for believers in the
Gospels by the parable of the talents given by their Master :
the servant who doubled his two talents was rewarded as much
as that other fellow- servant who had received five. To every
man it is given " according to his several ability."

Enq. Yet it is rather difficult to draw the Une of demarcation between
the abstract and the concrete in this case, as we have only the
latter to form our judgment by.

Theo. Then why make an exception for the T.S. ? Justice, hke
charity, ought to begin at Home. Will you revile and scoff at
the "Sermon on the Mount" because your social, political

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 55

and even religious laws have, so far, not only failed to carry-
out its precepts in their spirit, but even in their dead letter ?
Abolish the oath in Courts, Parliament, Army' and everywhere,
and do as the Quakers do, if you ivill call yourselves
Christians. Abolish the Courts themselves, for if you would
follow the Commandments of Christ, j^ou have to give away
your coat to him who deprives you of your cloak, and turn
your left cheek to the bully who smites you on the right.
" Eesist not evil, love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you," for " whosoever shall break
one of the least of these Commandments and shall teach men
so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven,"
and " whosoever shall say ' Thou fool ' shall be in danger of
heU fire." And why should you judge, if you would not be
judged in your turn ? Insist that between Theosophy and the
Theosophical Society there is no difference, and forthwith you
lay the system of Christianity and its very essence open to the
same charges, only in a more serious form.

Enq. Why vwre serious ?

Theo. Because, while the leaders of the Theosophical movement,
recognising fully their shortcomings, try all they can do to
amend their ways and uproot the evil existing in the Society ;
and while their rules and bye-laws are framed in the spirit of
Theosophy, the Legislators and the Churches of nations and
countries which call themselves Christian do the reverse. Our
members, even the worst among them, are no worse than the
average Christian. Moreover, if the Western Theosophists
experience so much difficulty in leading the true Theosophical

56 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

life, it is because tliey are all the children of their generation.
Every one of them was a Christian, bred and brought up in
the sophistry of his Church, his social customs, and even his
paradoxical laws. He was this before he became a Theo-
sophist, or rather, a member of the Society of that name, as
it cannot be too often repeated that between the abstract ideal
and its vehicle there is a most important difference.

THE ABSTRACT AND THE CONCRETE.

Enq. Please elucidate this difference a little more.

Theo. The Society is a great body of men and women, composed of
the most heterogeneous elements. Theosophy, in its abstract
meaning, is Divine Wisdom, or the aggregate of the knowledge
and wisdom that underlie the Universe — the homogeneity of
eternal good ; and in its concrete sens 3 it is the sum total of
the same as allotted to man by nature, on this earth, and no
more. Some members earnestly endeavour to realize and, so
to speak, to objectivize Theosophy in their lives ; while others
desire only to know of, not to practise it ; and others still may
have joined the Society merely out of curiosity, or a passing
interest, or perhaps, again, because some of their friends
belong to it. How, then, can the system be judged by the
standard of those who would assume the name without any
right to it ? Is poetry or its muse to be measured only by
those would-be poets who afflict our ears ? The Society can
be regarded as the embodiment of Theosophy only in its
abstract motives ; it can never presume to call itself its

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 57

concrete vehicle soloBg as human imperfections and weaknesses
are all represented in its body ; otherwise the Society would
be only repeating the great error and the outflowing sacrileges
of the so-called Churches of Christ. If Eastern comparisons
may be permitted, Theosophy is the shoreless ocean of
universal truth, love, and wisdom, reflecting its radiance on
the earth, while the Theosophical Society is only a visible
bubble on that reflection. Theosophy is divine nature, visible
and invisible, and its Society human nature trying to ascend
to its divine parent. Theosophy. finally, is the fixed eternal
sun, and its Society the evanescent comet trying to settle in an
orbit to become a planet, ever revolving within the attraction
of the sun of truth. It was formed to assist in showing to
men that such a thing as Theosophy exists, and to help them
to ascend towards it by studying and assimilating its eternal
verities.

Enq. I thought you said you had no tenets or doctrines of your own ?

Theo. Xo more we have. The Society has no wisdom of its own
to support or teach. It is simply the storehouse of all the
truths uttered by the gxeat seers, initiates, and prophets of
historic and even pre-historic ages ; at least, as many as it can
get. Therefore, it is merely the channel through which more
or less of truth, found in the accumulated utterances of
humanity's great teachers, is poured out into the world.

Enq. But is such truth um-eachable outside of the society ? Does not
every Church claim the same ?

Theo. Not at aU. The undeniable existence of great initiates —
true "Sons of God" — shows that such wisdom was often

58 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

reached by isolated individuals, never, however, without the
guidance of a master at first. But most of the followers of
such, when they became masters in their turn, have dwarfed
the Catholicism of these teachings into the narrow groove of
their own sectarian dogmas. The commandments of a chosen
master alone were then adopted and followed, to the exclusion
of all others — if followed at all, note well, as in the case of the
Sermon on the Mount. Each religion is thus a bit of the
divine truth, made to focus a vast panorama of human fancy
which claimed to represent and replace that truth.

Enq. But Theosophy, you say, is not a rehgion ?

Theo. Most assuredly it is not, since it is the essence of all religion
and of absolute truth, a drop of which only underlies every
creed. To resort once more to metaphor. Theosophy, on
earth, is like the white ray of the spectrum, and every religion
onl}'- one of the seven prismatic colours. Ignoring all the
others, and cursing them as false, every special coloured ray
claims not only priority, but to be that white ray itself, and
anathematizes even its own tints from light to dark, as heresies.
Yet, as the sun of truth rises higher and higher on the horizon
of man's perception, and each coloured ray gradually fades
out until it is finally re-absorbed in its turn, humanity will at
last be cursed no longer with artificial polarizations, but will
find itself bathing in the pure colourless sunhght of eternal
truth. And this will be Theosophia.

Enq. Your claim is, then, that all the great religions are derived from
Theosophy, and that it is by assimilating it that the world will be
finally saved from the curse of its great illusions and errors ?

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 59

Theo. Precisely so. And we add that our Theosophical Society is
the humble seed which, if watered and left to live, will finally
produce the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which is
grafted on the Tree of Life Eternal. For it is only by studying
the various great religions and philosophies of humanity, by
comparing them dispassionately and with an unl^iassed mind,
that men can hope to arrive at the truth. It is especiallj'' by
finding out and noting their various points of agreement that
we may achieve this result. For no sooner do we arrive —
either by study, or by being taught by someone who knows —
at their inner meaning, than we find, almost in every case, that
it expresses some great truth in Nature.

Enq. We have heard of a Golden Age that was, and what you describe
would be a Golden Age to be reahsed at some future day. When
shall it be?

Theo. Not before humanity, as a whole, feels the need of it. A
maxim in the Persian " Javidan Khirad " says : " Truth is of
two kinds — one manifest and self- evident ; the other demanding
incessantly new demonstrations and proofs." It is only when
this latter kind of truth becomes as universally obvious as it is
now dim, and therefore liable to be distorted by sophistry and
casuistry ; it is only when the two kinds will have become
once more one, that all people will be brought to see ahke.

Enq. But surely those few who have felt the need of such truths must
have made up their minds to believe in something definite ? You
tell me that, the Society having no doctrines of its own,
every member may believe as he chooses and accept what he
pleases. This looks as if the Theosophical Society was bent upon

6o THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

reviving the confusion of languages and beliefs of the Tower of
Babel of old. Have you no beliefs in common ?
TiiEo. What is meant by the Society having no tenets or doctrines
of its own is, that no special doctrines or beliefs are obligatory
on its members ; but, of course, this applies only to the body
as a whole. The Society, as you were told, is divided into an
outer and an inner body. Those who belong to the latter
have, of course, a philosophy, or — if you so prefer it — a
religious system of their own.

Enq. May we be told what it is ?

Theo. We make no secret of it. It was outUned a few years ago
in the TheosopJiist and "Esoteric Buddhism," and may be found
still more elaborated in the " Secret Doctrine." It is based on
the oldest philosophy of the world, called the Wisdom-Eeligion
or the Archaic Doctrine. If you like, you may ask questions
and have them explained.

V.

THE FUNDAilENTAL TEACHINGS OF THEOSOPHY.

ON GOD AND PBAYEB.

Enq. Do you believe in God ?

Theo. That depends wliat you mean by the term.

Enq. I mean the God of the Christians, the Father of Jesus, and the
Creator : the Biblical God of Moses, in short.

Theo. In such a God we do not believe. We reject the idea of a
personal, or an extra-cosmic and anthropomorphic God, who
is but the gigantic shadow of man, and not of man at his best,
either. The God of theology, we say — and prove it — is a
bundle of contradictions and a logical impossibility. There-
fore, we will have nothing to do with him.

Enq. State your reasons, if you please.

Theo. They are many, and cannot all receive attention. But
here are a few. This God is called by his devotees infinite
and absolute, is he not ?

Enq. I believe he is.

62 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Theo. Then, if infinite — i.e., limitless — and especially if absolute,
how can he have a form, and be a creator of anything ? Form
implies limitation, and a beginning as Avell as an end ; and, in
order to create, a Being must think and plan. How can the
ABSOLUTE be supposed to think — i.e., to have any relation
whatever to that which is limited, finite, and conditioned ?
This is a philosophical, and a logical absurdity. Even
the Hebrew Kabala rejects such an idea, and there-
fore, makes of the one and the Absolute Deific Principle an
infinite Unity called Ain-Soph.* In order to create, the
Creator has to become active ; and as this is impossible for
ABSOLUTENESS, the infinite principle had to be shown
becoming the cause of evolution (not creation) in an indirect
way — i.e., through the emanation from itself (another absurdity,
due this time to the translators of the Kabala) f of the
Sephiroth.

Enq. How about those Kabahsts, who, while being such, still behave
in Jehovah, or the Tetragrammaton?

Theo. They are at liberty to believe in what they please, as their
belief or disbelief can hardly affect a self-evident fact. The
Jesuits tell us that two and two are not always four to a

* Ain-Soph, ;r^iD ^''^=t4 nm^xeipo;, the endless, or boundless, in and with
Nature, the non-existent which IS, but is not a Being.

t How can the non-active eternal piinciplo emanate or emit ? The Parabrahm of
the Vedantins does nothing of the kind ; nor does the Ain-Soph of the Chaldean
Kabala. It is an eternal and periodical law which causes an active and creative
force (the logos) to emanate from the ever-concealed and incomprehensible one
principle at the beginning of every maha-manvantara, or new cycle of life.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 63

certamty, since it depends on the -will of God to make
2X2 = 5. Shall we accept their sophistry for aU that ?

ExQ. Then you are Atheists ?

Theo. Xot that we know of. and not unless the epithet of
'■Atheist" is to be apphed to those who disbeUere in an
anthropomorphic God. We beheve in a Tniversal Divine
Principle, the root of ALL, from which all proceeds, and
within which all shall be absorbed at the end of the great
cycle of Being.

E^•Q. This is the old, old claim of Pantheism. If you are Pantheists,
you cannot be Deists ; and if you are not Deists, then you have to
answer to the name of Atheists.

Theo. Xot necessarily so. The teiin " Pantheism " is again one of
the many abused terms, whose real and primitive meaning has
been distorted by bhnd prejudice and a one-sided view of it.
K you accept the Christian etymology of this compound word,
and form it of ^oj., "all," and eeos, "god," and then imagine' and
teach that this means that every stone and every tree in
Xature is a God or the ONE God, then, of course, you will be
right, and make of Pantheists fetish-worshippers, in addition
to their le<ntrmate name. But vou will haxdlv be as success-
ful if you etymologise the word Pantheism esoterically, and as
we do.

Enq. What is, then, your definition of it ?

Theo. Let me ask you a question in my turn. What do you
understand by Pan, or Nature ?

64 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Enq. Nature is, I suppose, the sum total of things existing around us ;
the aggregate of causes and effects in the world of matter, the
creation or universe.

Theo. Hence tlie personified sum and order of known causes
and effects ; the total of all finite agencies and forces, as
utterly disconnected from an intelligent Creator or Creators,
and perhaps " conceived of as a single and separate force " —
as in your cyclopedias ?

Enq. Yes, I believe so.

Theo. Well, we neither take into consideration this objective and
material nature, which we call an evanescent illusion, nor do
we mean by -kRv Nature, in the sense of its accepted derivation
from the Latin Natura (becoming, from nasci, to be born).
When we speak of the Deity and make it identical, hence
coeval, with Nature, the eternal and uncreate nature is
meant, and not your aggregate of flitting shadows and finite
unrealities. We leave it to the hymn-makers to call the visible
sky or heaven, God's Throne, and our earth of mud His footstool.
Our DEITY is neither in a paradise, nor in a particular tree,
building, or nrountain : it is everywhere, in every atom of the
visible as of the invisible Cosmos, in, over, and around every
invisible atom and divisible molecule ; for IT is the mysterious
power of evolution and involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent,
and even omniscient creative potentiality.

Enq. Stop ! Omniscience is the prerogative of something that thinks,
and you deny to your Absoluteness the power of thought.

Theo. We deny it to the ABSOLUTE, since thought is something
limited and conditioned. But you evidently forget that in

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 65

philosophy absolute unconsciousness is also absolute con-
sciousness, as otherwise it would not be absolute.

Enq. Then your Absolute thinks ?

Theo. No, it does not ; for the simple reason that it is Absolute
Thought itself. Nor does it exist, for the same reason, as it is
absolute existence, and Be-ness, not a Being. Eead the superb
Kabalistic poem by Solomon Ben Jehudah Gabirol, in the
Kether-Malchut, and you will understand : — " Thou art one,
the root of all numbers, but not as an element of numeration ;
for unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form. Thou
art one, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are
lost, l)ecause they know it not. Thou art one, and Thy unity
is never diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed.
Thou art one, and no thought of mine can fix for Thee a hmit,
or define Thee. Thou AiiT, but not as one existent, for the
understanding and vision of mortals cannot attain to Thy
existence, nor determine for Thee the where, the how and the
why," etc., etc. In short, our Deity is the eternal, incessantly
evolving, not creating, builder of the universe ; that universe
itself unfolding out of its o'wti essence, not being made.
It is a sphere, without circumference, in its symbolism,
which has but one ever-acting attribute embracing all other
existing or thinkable attributes — ITSELF. It is the one law,
giving the impulse to manifested, eternal, and immutable
laws, within that never-manifesting, because absolute LAW,
which in its manifesting periods is The ever-Becoming.

Enq. I once heard one of your members remarking that Universal
Deity, being everywhere, was in vessels of dishonour, as in those of

66 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

honour, and, therefore, was present in every atom of my cigar ash !
Is this not rank blasphemy ?

Theo. I do not think so, as simple logic can hardly be regarded as
blasphemy. Were we to exclude the Omnipresent Principle
from one single mathematical point of the universe, or from a
particle of matter occupying any conceivable space, could we
still regard it as infinite ?

IS IT NECESSABY TO PBAY?

Enq. Do you believe in prayer, and do you ever pray ?
Theo. We do not. We act, instead of talking.

Enq. You do not offer prayers even to the Absolute Principle ?

Theo. Why should we ? Being well-occupied people, we can
hardly afford to lose time in addressing verbal prayers to a
pure abstraction. The Unknowable is capable of relations
only in its parts to each other, but is non-existent as regards
any finite relations. The visible universe depends for its
existence and phenomena on its mutually acting forms and
their laws, not on prayer or prayers.

Enq. Do you not believe at all in the efficacy of prayer ?

Theo. Not in prayer taught in so many words and repeated
externally, if by prayer you mean the outward petition to an
unknown God as the addressee, which was inaugurated by the
Jews and popularised 1)y the Pharisees.

Enq. Is there any other kind of prayer ?

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 67

Theo. Most decidedly; we call it will-peayee, and it is rather
an internal conunand than a petition.

Enq. To whom, then, do you pray when you do so ?

Theo. To " our Father in heaven " — in its esoteric meaning

Enq. Is that different from the one given to it in theology ?

Theo. Entirely so. An Occultist or a Theosophist addresses his
prayer to his Father which is in secret (read, and try to
understand, ch. vi. v. 6, Matthew), not to an extra-cosmic and
therefore finite God ; and that " Father " is in man himself.

Enq. Then you make of man a God ?

Theo. Please say " God " and not a God. In our sense, the inner
man is the only God we can have cognizance of. And how
can this be otherwise ? Grant us our postulate that God is a
universally diffused, infinite principle, and how can man alone
escape from being soaked through by, and in, the Deity ?
We call our " Father in heaven " that deific essence of which
we are cognizant witliin us, in our heart and spiritual con-
sciousness, and which has nothing to do with the anthropo-
morphic conception we may form of it in our physical brain
or its fancy : " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and
that the spirit of (the absolute) God dwelleth in you ? " * Yet,

One often finds in Theosophical writings conflicting statements about the Christos
principle in man. Some call it the sixth principle (Buddhi), others the seventh
(Atman). If Christian Theosophists wish to make use of such expressions, let
them be made philosophically correct by following the analogj' of the old Wisdom-
religion symbols. We say that Christos is not only one of the three higher
principles, but all the three regarded as a Trinity. This Trinity represents the
Holy Ghost, the Father, and the Son, as it answers to abstract spirit,

68 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

let no man antliropomorphise that essence in us. Let no
Theosophist, if he would hold to divine, not human truth, say
that this "God in secret" listens to, or is distinct from, either
finite manor the infinite essence — for all are one. Nor, as just
remarked, that a prayer is a petition. It is a mystery rather ;
an occult process by which finite and conditioned thoughts
and desires, unable to be assimilated by the absolute spirit
which is unconditioned, are translated into spiritual wills and
the will ; such process being called " spiritual transmutation."
The intensity of our ardent aspirations changes prayer into
the " philosopher's stone," or that which transmiTtes lead into
pure gold. The onty homogeneous essence, our " will-prayer "
becomes the active or creative force, producing effects
according to our desire.

Enq. Do you mean to say that prayer is an occult process bringing about
physical results ?

Theo. I do. Will-Power becomes a living power. But woe unto
those Occultists and Theosophists, who, instead of crushing
out the desires of the lower personal ego or physical man, and
saying, addressing their Higher Spiritual Ego immersed in
Atma - Buddhic light, " Thy will be done, not mine," etc.,
send up waves of will-power for selfish or unholy purposes !
For- this is black magic, abomination, and spiritual sorcery.

differentiated spirit, and embodied spirit. Krishna and Christ are philosophic-
ally the same principle under its triple aspect of manifestation. In the
Bliagavatgita we find Krishna calling himself indifferently Atman, the abstract
Spirit, Kshetragna, the Higher or reincarnating Ego, and the Universal Self, all
names which, when transferred from the Universe to man, answer to Atma,
Buddhi and Manas, The AiiKgita is full of the same doctrine,

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 69

Unfortunately, all this is the favourite occupation of our
Christian statesmen and generals, especially when the latter
are sending two armies to murder each other. Both indulge
before action in a bit of such sorcery, by offering respectively
prayers to the same God of Hosts, each entreating his help
to cut its enemies' throats.

Enq. David prayed to the Lord of Hosts to help him smite the
Phihstines and slay the Syrians and the Moabites, and " the Lord
preserved David whithersoever he went." Li that we only follow
what we find in the Bible,

Theo. Of course you do. But since you delight in calling j'our-
selves Christians, not Israelites or Jews, a.s far as we know, why
do you not rather follow that which Christ says ? And he
distinctly commands you not to follow " them of old times," or
the Mosaic law, but bids you do as he tells you, and warns
those who would kill by the sword, that they, too, will perish
by the sword. Christ has given you one prayer of which you
have made a lip prayer and a boast, and which none but the
trite Occultist understands. In it you say, in your dead-sense
meaning : " Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,"
which you never do. Again, he told you to love your enemies
and do good to them that hate you. It is surely not the " meek
prophet of Nazareth " who taught you to pray to your "• Father "
to slay, and give you victory over your enemies ! This is why
we reject what you call " prayers."

Enq. But how do you explain the universal fact that all nations and
peoples have prayed to, and worshipped a God or Gods ? Some have
adored and propitiated devils and harmful spirits, but this only
proves the universality of the belief in the efficacy of prayer.

yo THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Theo. It is explained by that other fact that praj'er has several
other meanings besides that given it by the Christians. It
means not only a pleading or petition, but meant, in days of
old, far more an invocation and incantation. The mantra,
or the rhythmically chanted prayer of the Hindus, has
precisely such a meaning, as the Brahmins hold themselves
higher than the common devas or " Gods." A prayer may
be an appeal or an incantation for malediction, and a curse
(as in the case of two armies praying simultaneously for
mutual destruction) as much as for blessing. And as the
great majority of people are intensely selfish, and pray only
for themselves, asking to be given their " daily bread "
instead of working for it, and begging God not to lead
them " into temptation " but to deliver them (the memorialists
only) from evil, the result is, that prayer, as now under-
stood, is doubly pernicious : (a) It kills in man self-reliance ;
(i) It develops in him a still more ferocious selfishness and
egotism than he is already endowed with by nature. I
repeat, that we believe in " communion " and simultaneous
action in unison with our "Father in secret"; and in rare
moments of ecstatic bliss, in the mingling of our higher

' DO O

soul with the universal essence, attracted as it is towards
its origin and centre, a state, called during life Samadhi,
and after death. Nirvana. We refuse to pray to created
finite beings — i.e., gods, saints, angels, etc., because we regard
it as idolatry. We cannot pray to the absolute for reasons
explained before ; therefore, we try to replace fruitless and
useless prayer by meritorious and good-producing actions.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 71

Enq. Christians would call it pride and blasphemy. Are they wrong ?

Theo. Entirely so. It is they, on the contrary, who show Satanic
pride in their belief that the Absolute or the Infinite, even if
there was such a thing as the possibility of any relation
between the unconditioned and the conditioned — will stoop
to listen to every foolish or egotistical prayer. And it is they
again, who virtually blaspheme, in teaching that an Omniscient
and Omnipotent God needs uttered prayers to know what he
has to do ! This — understood esoterically — is corroborated
by both Buddha and Jesus. The one says " seek nought from
the helpless Gods — pray not ! hut rather act ; for darkness will
not brighten. Ask nought from silence, for it can neither
speak nor hear." And the other — Jesus — recommends :
" Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name (that of Christos) that
will I do." Of course, this quotation, if taken in its literal
sense, goes against our argument. But if we accept it esoteri-
cally, with the full knowledge of the meaning of the term,
" Christos," which to us represents Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the
" SELF," it comes to this : the only God we must recognise
and pray to, or rather act in unison with, is that spirit of God
of which our body is the temple, and in which it dwelleth.

PEAYEB KILLS SELF-BELIANCE.

ExQ. But did not Christ himself pray and recommend prayer?
TiiEO. It is so recorded, but those " prayers " are precisely of that
kind of communion just mentioned with one's " Father in

72 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

secret." Otherwise, and if we identify Jesus with the universal
deity, there would be something too absurdly illogical in the
inevitable conclusion that he, the " very God himself "' prayed
to himself, and separated the will of that God from his own !

Enq. One argument more; an argument, moreover, much used by
some Christians. They say, " I feel that I am not able to conquer
any passions and weaknesses in my own strength. But when I
pray to Jesus Christ I feel that he gives me strength and that in
His power I am able to conquer."

Theo. No wonder. If " Christ Jesus " is God, and one independent
and separate from 1dm who prays, of course everything is, and
7nust be possiljle to " a mighty God." But, then, where's the
merit, or justice either, of such a conquest ? Why should the
pseudo-conqueror be rewarded for something done which has
cost him only prayers ? Would you, even a simple mortal
man, pay your labourer a full day's wage if you did most of
his work for him, he sitting under an apple tree, and praying
to you to do so, all the while ? This idea of passing one's whole
life in moral idleness, and having one's hardest work and
duty done by another — whether God or man — is most revolting
to us, as it is most degrading to human dignity.

Enq. Perhaps so, yet it is the idea of trusting in a personal Saviour to
help and strengthen in the battle of life, \\hich is the fundamental
idea of modern Christianity. And there is no doubt that, subjec-
tively, such behef is efticacious ; i.e., that those who believe do feel
themselves helped and strengthened.

Theo. Nor is there any more doubt, that some patients
of " Christian " and " Mental Scientists " — the o-reat

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 73

''■ Denier s "* — are also sometimes cured ; nor that hypnotism,
and suggestion, psj'chology, and even mediumship, will produce
such results, as often, if not oftener. You take into con-
sideration, and string on the thread of your argument,
successes alone. And how about ten times the number of
failures ? Surely you will not presume to say that failure is
unknown even with a sufficiency of blind faith, among
fanatical Christians ?

ExQ. But how can you explain those cases which are followed by full
success ? Where does a Theosophist look to for power to subdue
his passions and selfishness?

Theo. To his Higher Self, the divine spirit, or the God in him,
and to his Karma. How long shall we have to repeat over
and over again that the tree is known by its fruit, the
nature of the cause by its effects P You speak of subduing
passions, and becoming good through and with the help of
God or Christ. We ask, where do you find more virtuous,
guiltless people, abstaining from sin and crime, in Christendom
or Buddhism — in Christian countries or in heathen lands ?
Statistics are there to give the answer and corroborate our
claims. According to the last census in Ceylon and India,
in the comparative table of crimes committed by Christians,
Mussulmen, Hindoos, Eurasians, Buddhists, etc., etc., on two
millions of population taken at random from each, and covering

* The new sect of healers, who, by disavo-wing the existence of anything but spirit,
which spirit can neither suffer nor be ill, claim to cure all and every disease,
provided the patient has faith that what he denies can have no existence. A
new form of self-hypnotism.

74 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

the misdemeanours of several years, the proportion of crimes
committed by the Christian stands as 15 to 4 as against
those committed by the Buddliist population. (Vide
LucirEii for April, 1888, p. 147, Art. Christian lecturers on
Buddhism.) No Orientalist, no historian of any note, or
traveller in Buddhist lands, from Bishop Bigandet and Abbe
Hue, to Sir William Hunter and every fair-minded oiScial, will
fail to give the palm of virtue to Buddhists before Christians.
Yet the former (not the true Buddhist Siamese sect, at all
events) do not believe in either God or a future reward, outside
of this earth. They do not pray, neither priests nor laymen.
"Pray!" they would exclaim in wonder, "to whom, or
what?"

ExQ. Then they are truly Atheists.

Tniio. Most undeniably, but they are also the most virtue-loving
and virtue-keeping men in the whole world. Buddhism
says : Eespect the religions of other men and remain true
to your own ; but Church Christianity, denouncing all the
gods of other nations as devils, would doom every non-
Christian to eternal perdition.

Enq. Does not the Buddhist priesthood do the same ?

TiiEO. Never. They hold too much to the wise precept found
in the Dhammapada to do so, for they know that, " If any
man, whether he be learned or not, consider himself so
great as to despise other men, he is hke a blind man
holding a candle — blind himself, he illumines others."

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 75

ON TEE SOURCE OF THE HUMAN SOUL.

Enq. How, then, do you account for man being endowed with a
Spirit and Soul ? Whence these ?

Tuij). From the Universal Soul. Certainly not bestowed by a
■personal God. Whence the moist element in the jelly-fish?
From the Ocean which surrounds it, in which it lives and
breathes and has its being, and whither it returns Avhen
dissolved.

ExQ. So you reject the teaching that Soul is given, or breathed into
man, by God ?

TiiKo. We are obhged to. The " Soul " spoken of in cli. ii. of
Genesis (v. 7) is, as therein stated, the "living Soul" or
Nephesh (the vital, animal soul) with which God (we say
"nature" and immutable law) endows man like every animal.
Is not at all the thinking Soul or mind ; least of all is it
the Immortal Spirit.

E:.Q. Well, let us put it otherwise : is it God who endows man with a
human rational Soul and immortal Spirit?

TiiEO. Again, in the way you put the question, we must object
to it. Since we believe in no personal God, how can we
believe that he endows man with anything ? But granting,
for the sake of argument, a God atIio takes upon himself
the risk of creating a new Soul for ever)- new-boi'n baby,
all that can be said is that such a God can hardly be
regarded as himself endowed with any wisdom or prevision.
Certain other difficulties and the impossibility of reconciling
this with the claims made for the mercy, justice, equity and

76 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

omniscience of that God, are so many deadly reefs on wliicli
this theological dogma is daily and hourly broken.

ExQ. What do you mean? AVhat difficulties ?

TiiEO. I am thinking of an unanswerable argument offered once
in my presence by a Cingalese Buddhist priest, a famous
preacher, to a Clnistiau missionary — one in no way ignorant
or unprepared for the public discussion during which it
was advanced. It was near Colombo, and the Missionary
had challenged the priest Megattivati to give his reasons
why the Cliristian God should not be accepted by the
'• heathen." Well, the Missiouarj- came out of that for ever
memorable discussion second best, as usual.

Enq. I should be glad to learn in what way.

Theo. Simply this : the Buddhist priest premised by asking the
jjadri whether his God had given commandments to Moses
only for men to keep, but to be broken by God himself
The niissionar)^ denied the supposition indignantly. Well,
said his opponent, " you tell us that God makes no
exceptions to this rule, and that no Soul can be born with-
out his will. Now God forbids adulterj^ among other
things, and yet you say in the same breath that it is he
who creates every baby born, and he who endows it with
a Soul. Are we then to understand that the millions of
children born in crime and adultery are your God's work ?
That your God forbids and punishes the breaking of his
laws ; and that, nevertheless, he creates daily and hourly souls
for just such children? According to the simplest logic, your
God is an accomplice in the crime ; since, but for his help

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 77

and interference, no such children of lust could be born.
Where is the justice of punishing not only the guilty parents
but even the innocent babe for that which is done by that
very God, whom yet you exonerate from any guilt himself ? "
The missionary looked at his watch and suddenly found it
was getting too late for further discussion.

Enq. You forget that all such inexplicable cases are mysteries, and
that we are forbidden by our religion to pry into the mysteries of
God.

Theo. No, we do not forget, but simply reject such impossibilities.
Nor do we want you to believe as we do. We only answer
the questions you ask. We have, however, another name for
your " mysteries."

THE BUDDHIST TEACHINGS ON THE ABOVE.

Enq. What does Buddhism teach with regard to the Soul?

Theo. It depends whether you mean exoteric, popular Buddhism,
or its esoteric teachings. The former explains itself in the
Buddhist Catechism in this wise : " Soul it considers a word
used by the ignorant to express a false idea. If everything is
subject to change, then man is included, and every material
part of him must change. That which is subject to change is
not permanent, so there can be no immortal survival of a
changeful thing." This seems plain and definite. But when
we come to the question that the new personaUty in each
succeeding re-birth is the aggregate of " Skandhas," or the

78 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

attributes, of the old personality, and ask whether this new-
aggregation of Shandhas is a new being hkewise, in which
nothing has remained of the last, we read that : " In one
sense it is a new being, in another it is not. During this life
the Skandhas are continually changing, while the man A. B.
of forty is identical as regards personality with the youth
A. B. of eighteen, yet by the continual waste and reparation
of his body and change of mind and character, he is a
different being. Nevertheless, the man in his old age justly
reaps the reward or suffering consequent upon his thoughts
and actions at every previous stage of his life. So the new
being of the re-birth, being the same individuality as before
(but not the same personality) , with but a changed form, or
new aggregation of Skandhas, justly reaps the consequences
of his actions and thoughts in the previous existence."
This is abstruse metaphysics, and plainly does not express
disbelief in Soul by any means.

Enq. Is not something like this spoken of in Esoteric Buddhism?

Theo. It is, for this teaching belongs both to Esoteric Budhism
or Secret Wisdom, and to the exoteric Buddhism, or the
religious philosophy of Gautama Buddha.

Enq. But we are distinctly told that most of the Buddhists do not
believe in the Soul's immortality ?

Theo. No more do we, if you mean by Soul the personal Ego, or
life-Soul— iVepAesA. But every learned Buddhist believes in
the individual or divine Ego. Those who do not, err in their
judgment. They are as mistaken on this point, as those
Christians who mistake the theological interpolations of the

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 79

later editors of the Gospels about damnation and hell-fire, for
verbatim utterances of Jesus. Neither Buddha nor " Christ "
ever Avrote anything themselves, but both spoke in allegories
and used " dark sayings," as all true Initiates did, and will do
for a long time yet to come. Both Scriptures treat of all
such metaphysical questions very cautiously, and both,
Buddhist and Christian records,sin by that excess of exotericism ;
the dead letter meaning far overshooting the mark in both cases.

Enq. Do you mean to suggest that neither the teachings of Buddha
nor those of Christ have been heretofore rightly understood ?

Theo. What I mean is just as you say. Both Gospels, the Buddhist
and the Christian, were preached with the same object in view.
Both reformers were ardent philanthropists and practical
altruists — preaching most unmistakably Socialism of the noblest
and highest type, self-sacrifice to the bitter end. " Let the
sins of the whole world fall upon me that I may relieve man's
misery and suffering!" cries Buddha; . . . " I would not let
one cry whom I could save ! " exclaims the Prince-beggar, clad in
the refuse rags of the burial-grounds. " Come unto me all ye
that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest," is
the appeal to the poor and the disinherited made by the " Man
of Sorrows," who hath not where to lay his head. The teach-
ings of both are boundless love for humanity, charity, forgive-
ness of injury, forgetfulness of self, and pity for the deluded
masses ; both show the same contempt for riches, and make no
difference between meum and tuum. Their desire was, without
reveahng to all the sacred mysteries of initiation, to give the
ignorant and the misled, whose burden in life was too heavy

8o THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

for them, hope enough and an inkhng into the truth sufficient
to support them in their heaviest hours. But the object of
both Eeformers was frustrated, owing to excess of zeal of their
later foUowers. The words of the Masters having been mis-
understood and misinterpreted, behold the consequences !

Enq. But surely Buddha must have repudiated the soul's immortahty,
if all the Orientalists and his own Priests say so !

Theo. The Arhats began by following the policy of their Master
and the majority of the subsequent priests were not initiated,
just as in Christianity ; and so, little by little, the great
esoteric truths became almost lost. A proof in point is, that,
out of the two existing sects in Ceylon, the Siamese believes
death to be the absolute annihilation of individuality and
personahty, and the other explains Nirvana, as we theosophists
do.

Enq. But why, in that case, do Buddhism and Christianity represent
the two opposite poles of such behef ?

Theo. Because the conditions under which they were preached
were not the same. In India the Brahmins, jealous of their
superior knowledge, and excluding from it every caste save
their own, had driven millions of men into idolatry and almost
fetishism. Buddha had to give the death-blow to an
exuberance of unhealthy fancy and fanatical superstition
resulting from ignorance, such as has rarely been known
before or after. Better a philosophical atheism than such
ignorant worship for those —

" Who cry upon their gods and are not heard,
Or are not heeded— — "

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 8i

and who live and die in mental despair. He had to arrest
first of all this muddy torrent of superstition, to uproot errors
before he gave out the truth. And as he could not give out
all, for the same good reason as Jesus, who reminds his
disciples that the Mysteries of Heaven are not for the
unintelligent masses, but for the elect alone, and therefore
" spake he to them in parables " (Matt. xiii. 1 1) — so his caution
led Buddha to conceal too much. He even refused to say to the
monk Vacchagotta whether there was, or was not an Ego in
man. When pressed to answer, " the Exalted one maintained
silence."*

Enq. This refers to Gautama, but in what way does it touch the
Gospels ?

* Buddha gives to Ananda, his initiated disciple, who enquires for the reason of
this silence, a plain and unequivocal answer in the dialogue translated by Olden-
burg from the Samyuttaka Nikaya: — "If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk
Vacchagotta asked me : ' Is there the Ego ? ' had answered ' The Ego is,' then
that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine of the Samanas and Brah-
manas, who believed in permanence. If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk
Vacchagotta asked me, ' Is there not the Ego ? ' had answered, ' The Ego is
not,' then that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine of those who believed
in annihilation. If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked
me, ' Is there the Ego ? ' had answered, ' The Ego is,' would that have served
my end, Ananda, by producing in him the knowledge : all existences (dhamma)
are non-ego? But if I, Ananda, had answered, 'The Ego is not,' then that,
Ananda, would only have caused the wandering monk Vacchagotta to be thrown
from one bewilderment to another : ' My Ego, did it not exist before ? But now
it exists no longer ! ' " This shows, better than anything, that Gautama
Buddha withheld such difficult metaphysical doctrines from the masses in order
not to perplex them more. What he meant was the difference between the
personal temporary Ego and the Higher Self, which sheds its light on the
imperishable Ego, the spiritual " I " of man.

82 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Theo. Eead history and think over it. At the time the events
narrated in the Gospels are alleged to have happened, there
was a similar intellectual fermentation taking place in the
whole civilized world, only with opposite results in the East
and the West. Tlie old gods were dying out. While the
civilized classes drifted in the train of the unbelieving Sadducees
into materialistic negations and mere dead-letter Mosaic form
in Palestine, and into moral dissolution in Eome, the lowest
and poorer classes ran after sorcery and strange gods, or
became hypocrites and Pharisees. Once more the time for a
spiritual reform had arrived. The cruel, anthropomorphic and
jealous God of the Jews, with his sanguinary laws of " an eye
for eye and tooth for tooth," of the shedding of blood and
animal sacrifice, had to be relegated to a secondary place and
replaced by the merciful " Father in Secret." The latter had
to be shown, not as an extra-Cosmic God, but as a divine
Saviour of the man of flesh, enshrined in his own heart
and soul, in the poor as in the rich. No more here than in
India, could the secrets of initiation be divulged, lest by giving
that which is holy to the dogs, and casting pearls before swine,
both the Revealer and the things revealed should be trodden
under foot. Thus, the reticence of both Buddha and Jesus —
whether the latter Uved out the historic period allotted to him or
not, and who equally abstained from revealing plainly the
Mysteries of Life and Death — led in the one case to the blank
negations of Southern Buddhism, and in the other, to the three
clashing forms of the Christian Church and the 300 sects in
Protestant England alone.

VI.
THEOSOPHICAL TEACHINGS AS TO NATURE AND MAN.

THE UNITY OF ALL IN ALL.

Enq. Having told me what God, the Soul and Man are not, in your
views, can you inform me what they are, according to your
teachings ?

Theo. In their origin and in eternity tlie three, like the universe
and all therein, are one with the absolute Unity, the unknow-
able deific essence I spoke about some time back. We
believe in no creation, but in the periodical and consecutive
appearances of the universe from the subjective on to the
objective plane of being, at regular intervals of time, covering
periods of immense duration.

Enq. Can you elaborate the subject?

Theo. Take as a first comparison and a help towards a more
correct conception, the solar year, and as a second, the two
halves of that year, producing each a day and a night of six
months' duration at the North Pole. Now imagine, if you can,
instead of a Solar year of 365 days, ETEENITY. Let the sun

84 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

represent the universe, and the polar days and nights of 6 months
each — days andnights lasting each 182 trillions and quadrillions
of years, instead of 182 days each. As the sun arises every
morning on our objective horizon out of its (to us) subjective
and antipodal space, so does the Universe emerge periodically
on the plane of objectivity, issuing from that of subjectivity —
the antipodes of the former. This is the " Cycle of Life."
And as the sun disappears from our horizon, so does the
Universe disappear at regular periods, when the " Universal
night" sets in. The Hindoos call such alternations the "Days
and Nights of Brahma," or the time of Manvantara and that of
Pralaya (dissolution). The Westerns may call them Universal
Days and Nights if they prefer. During the latter (the nights)
All is in All; every atom is resolved into one Homogeneity.

EVOLUTION AND ILLUSION.

Enq. But who is it that creates each time the Universe ?

Theo. No one creates it. Science would call the process evolution;
the pre-Christian philosophers and the Orientalists called it
emanation : we, Occultists and Theosophists, see in it the only
universal and eternal reality casting a periodical reflection of
itself on the infinite Spatial depths. This reflection, which you
regard as the objective material universe, we consider as a
temporary illusion and nothing else. That alone which is
eternal is real.

Enq. At that rate, you and I are also illusions.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 85

TiiEO. As flitting personalities, to-day one person, to-morrow
another — we are. Would you call the sudden flashes of the
Aurora horealis, the Northern lights, a " reality," though it is
as real as can be while you look at it ? Certainly not ; it is the
cause that produces it, if permanent and eternal, which is the
only reality, while the other is but a passing illusion.

Enq. All this does not explain to me how this illusion called the
miiverse originates ; how the conscious to he, proceeds to manifest
itself from the unconsciousness that is.

TiiEO. It is unconsciousness only to our finite consciousness. Verily
may we paraphrase verse v, in the 1st chapter of St. John, and
say " and (Absolute) light (which is darkness) shineth in dark-
ness (which is illusionary material light) ; and the darkness
comprehendeth it not." This absolute light is also absolute
and immutable laAV. Wliether by radiation or emanation — we
need not quarrel over terms — the universe passes out of its homo-
geneous subjectivity on to the first plane of manifestation, of
■which planes there are seven, we are taught. With each plane
it becomes more dense and material until it reaches this, our
plane, on which the only world approximately known and
understood in its physical composition by Science, is the plane-
tary or Solar system — one sui generis, we are told.

Enq. What do you mean by sui generis ?

TiiEO. I mean that, though the fundamental law and the universal
working of laws of Nature are uniform, still our Solar system
(like every other such system in the millions of others in
Cosmos) and even our Earth, has its own programme of mani-

G

86 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

festations differing from the respective programmes of all
others. "We speak of the inhabitants of other planets and
imagine that if they are men, i.e., thinking entities, they must
be as we are. The fancy of poets and painters and sculptors
never fails to represent even the angels as a beautiful copy of
man — plus wings. We say that all this is an error and a
delusion ; because, if oji this little earth alone one finds such a
diversity in its flora, fauna and mankind — from the sea-weed to
the cedar of Lebanon, from the jelly-fish to the elephant, from
the Bushman and negro to the Apollo Belvedere — alter the
conditions cosmic and planetary, and there must be as a result
quite a different flora, fauna and mankind. The same laws
will fashion quite a diff'erent set of things and beings even on
this our plane, including in it all our planets. How much
more different then must be external nature in other Solar
systems, and how foolish is it to judge of other stars and
worlds and human beings by our own, as physical science does!

Enq. But what are your data for this assertion ?

TiiEO. What science in general will never accept as proof — the
cumulative testimony of an endless series of Seers who have
testified to this fact. Their spiritual visions, real explorations
by, and through, physical and spiritual senses untrammelled by
blind flesh, were systematically checked and compared one
with the other, and their nature sifted. All that was not cor-
roborated by unanimous and collective experience was rejected,
while that only was recorded as established truth which, in
various ages, under different climes, and throughout an untold
series of incessant observations, was found to agree and receive

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 87

constantly further corroboration. The methods used by our
scholars and students of the psycho-spiritual sciences do not
differ from those of students of the natural and physical sciences,
as you may see. Only our fields of research are on two different
planes, and our instruments are made by no human hands,
for which reason perchance they are only the more reliable.
The retorts, accumulators, and microscopes of the chemist and
naturalist may get out of order ; the telescope and the astro-
nomer's horological instruments may get spoiled ; our recording
instruments are beyond the influence of weather or the
elements.

Enq. And therefore you have implicit faith in them?

Theo. Faith is a word not to be found in theosophical dictionaries :
we say knowledge based, on observation and experience. There
is this difference, however, that while the observation and
experience of physical science lead the Scientists to about as
many " working " hypotheses as there are minds to evolve
them, our knowledge consents to add to its lore only those
facts which have become undeniable, and wliich are fuUy
and absolutely demonstrated. We have no two beliefs or
hypotheses on the same subject.

Ekq. Is it on such data that you came to accept the strange theories
we find in Esoteric Buddhism ?

Theo. Just so. These theories may be slightly incorrect in their
minor details, and even faulty in their exposition by lay
students ; they are facts in nature, nevertheless, and come
nearer the truth than any scientific hypothesis.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

ON THE SEPTENABY CONSTITUTION OF OUB PLANET.

Enq. I understand that you describe our earth as forming part of a
chain of earths ?

Thbo. We do. But the other six " earths " or globes, are not on
the same plane of objectivity as our earth is ; therefore we
cannot see them.

Enq. Is that on account of the great distance ?

Theo. Not at all, for we see with our naked eye planets and even
stars at immeasurably greater distances ; but it is owing to
those six globes being outside our physical means of per-
ception, or plane of being. It is not only that their material
density, weight, or fabric are entirely different from those of
our earth and the other known planets ; but they are (to us)
on an entirely different layer of space, so to speak ; a layer
not to be perceived or felt by our physical senses. And when
I say " layer," please do not allow your fancy to suggest to
you layers like strata or beds laid one over the other, for this
would only lead to another absurd misconception. What I
mean by " layer " is that plane of infinite space which by its
nature cannot fall under our ordinary waking perceptions,
whether mental or physical ; but which exists in nature outside
of our normal mentality or consciousness, outside of our three
dimensional space, and outside of our division of time. Each
of the seven fundamental planes (or layers) in space — of course
as a whole, as the pure space of Locke's defiiiition, not as our

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 89

finite space — has its own objectivity and subjectivity, its own
space and time, its own consciousness and set of senses. But
all tliis will be liardly comprehensible to one trained in the
modern ways of thought.

Enq. What do you mean by a different set of senses V Is there any-
thing on our human plane that you could bring as an illustration
of what you say, just to give a clearer idea of what you may
mean by this variety of senses, spaces, and respective perceptions ?

TiiEO. None ; except, perhaps, that which for Science would be
rather a handy peg on which to hang a counter-argument.
We have a different set of senses in dream-life, have we not ?
We feel, talk, hear, see, taste and function in general on a
different plane ; the change of state of our consciousness being
evidenced by the fact that a series of acts and events
embracing years, as we think, pass ideally through our mind
in one instant. Well, that extreme rapidity of our mental
operations in dreams, and the perfect naturalness, for the time
being, of all the other functions, show us that we are on quite
another plane. Our philosophy teaches us that, as there are
seven fundamental forces in nature, and seven planes of being,
so there are seven states of consciousness in which man can
live, think, remember and have his being. To enumerate these
here is impossible, and for this one has to turn to the study of
Eastern metaphysics. But in these two states — the waking
and the dreaming — every ordinary mortal, from a learned
philosopher down to a poor untutored savage, has a good
proof that such states differ.

Enq. You do not accept, then, the well-known explanations of biology
and physiology to account for the dream state ?

go

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Theo. We do not. We reject even the hypotheses of your
psychologists, preferring tlie teachings of Eastern Wisdom.
Beheving in seven planes of Kosmic being and states of
Consciousness, with regard to the Universe or the Macrocosm,
we stop at the fourth plane, finding it impossible to go with
any degree of certainty beyond. But with respect to the
Microcosm, or man, Ave speculate freely on his seven states and
principles.

Enq. How do you explain these ?

Theo. We find, first of all, two distinct beings in man ; the spiritual
and the physical, the man who thinks, and the man who
records as much of these thoughts as he is able to assimilate
Therefore we divide him into two distinct natures ; the upper
or the spiritual being, composed of three " principles " or
aspects ; and the lower or the physical quaternary, composed
oi four — in all seven.

THE SEPTENARY NATURE OF MAN.

Enq. Is it what we call Spirit and Soul, and the man of flesh?

Theo. It is not. That is the old Platonic division. Plato was an
Initiate, and therefore could not go into forbidden details ;
but he who is acquainted with the archaic doctrine finds the
seven in Plato's various combinations of Soul and Spirit. He
regarded man as constituted of two parts — one eternal, formed
of the same essence as the Absoluteness, the other mortal and
corruptible, deriving its constituent parts from the minor
" created " Gods. Man is composed, he shows, of (1) A mortal

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

91

body, (2) An immortal principle, and (3) A " separate mortal
kind of Soul." It is that which we respectively call the
physical man, the Spiritual Soul or Spirit, and the animal Soul
(the Nous and psuche). This is the division adopted by Paul,
another Initiate, who maintains that there is a psychical body
which is sown in the corruptible (astral soul or body), and a
spiritual body that is raised in incorruptible substance. Even
James (iii. 15) corroborates the same by saying that the
'• wisdom" (of our lower soul) descendeth not from the above,
but is terrestrial (" psychical," " demoniacal," vide Greek
text) ; while the other is heavenly wisdom. Now so plain is
it that Plato and even Pythagoras, while speaking but of three
" principles," give them seven separate functions, in their
various combinations, that if we contrast our teachings this
will become quite plain. Let us take a cursory view of these
seven aspects by drawing two tables.

THEOSOPHICAL DIVISION.

•

Sanscrit Teems.

Exoteric Meaning.

Explanatory.

(a) Rupa, or Sthiila-

(a) Physical body.

{a) Is the vehicle of all the

>^

Sarira.

other "principles" dming

vi

life.

^

(i) Prana.

(b) Life, or Vital prin-

(b) Necessary only to a, c, d,

ciple.

and the functions of the

lower Manas, which em-

§■
ti

brace all those limited to

the (physical) brain.

H

(c) Linga Sharira.

(c) Astral body.

(c) The Double, the phantom

body.

^A

{d) Kama mpa.

(d) The seat of animal

((7) This is the centre of the

desires and pas-

animal man, where lies the

sions.

line of demarcation which
separates the mortal man

from the immortal entity.

92

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

n

Eh

Sanscrit Teems.

Exoteric Meaning.

(e) Manas — a dual
principle in its func-
tions.

(/) Buddhi.
(g) Atma.

(<■)

Mind, Intelligence :
which is the liiglier
human mind, A\hose
light, or radiation
links the Monad, for
the lifetime, to the
mortal man.

(/) The Spiritual Soul.
(g) Spirit.

ExPL.iNATORY.

((') The future state and the
Karmic destiny of man
depend on whether Manas
gra\itates more downward
to Kama rupa, the seat of
the animal passions, or up-
wards to Bnddlii, the
Spiritual Ego. In the
latter case, the higher con-
sciousness of the individual
Spiritual aspirations of
viinrl (Manas), assimilating
Buddhi, are absorbed by it
and form the Ego, which
goes into Devachanic
bliss.*

(/) The vehicle of pure uni-
versal spirit.

ig) One with the Absolute, aa
its radiation.

Now what does Plato teach ? He speaks of the interior man
as constituted of two parts — one immutable and always the
same, formed of the same substance as Deity, and the other
mortal and corruptible. These " two parts " are found in our
upper Triad, and the lower Quaternary {vide Table). He
explains that when the Soul, psuche, " allies herself to the Nous

In Jlr. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism " d, e, and/, are respectively called the Animal,
the Human, and the Spiritual Souls, which answers as well. Though the
principles in Esoteric Buddhism are numbered, this is, strictly speaking, useless.
The dual Monad alone {A tma-Buddhi) is susceptible of being thought of as the
two highest numbers (the Gth and 7th). As to all others, since that " principle "
only which is predominant m man has to be considered as the first and fore-
most, no numeration is possible as a general rule. In some men it ie the higher
Intelligence (Manas or the 5th) which dominates the rest ; in others the Animal
Soul (Kama-rupa) that reigns supreme, exhibiting the most bestial instincts, etc.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 93

(^divine spirit or substance*), she does everything aright and
fehcitously "" ; but the case is otherwise when she attaches her-
self to Anoia, (folly, or the irrational animal Soul). Here, then,
^ve have JIanas (or the Soul in general) in its two aspects : when
attaching itself to Anoia (our Kama rupa, or the " Animal
Soul " in •' Esoteric Buddhism,") it runs towards entire annihila-
tion, as far as the personal Ego is concerned ; when allying
itself to the Noits (Atma-Buddhi) it merges into the immortal,
imperishable Ego, and then its spiritual consciousness of the
personal that ivas, Ijecomes immortal.

THE DISTINCTION BETTi^EEN SOUL AND SPIRIT.

ExQ. Do you really teach, as you are accused of doing by some
Spiiitualists and French Spiritists, the annihilation of every
personality '?

Theo. We do not. But as this question of the duality — the indi-
viduality oi the Divine Ego, and the pet'sonality oi the human
animal — involves that of the possibihty of the real immortal
Ego appearing in Seance rooms as a " materiahsed spirit,"
which we deny as already explained, our opponents have
stai-ted the nonsensical charge.

• Panl calls Plato's Xou^ "Spirit"; but as this spirit is "substance," then, of
course, BuddJii and not Atma is meant, as the latter cannot philosophically be
called "substance" under any cii'cumstance. We include Atma among the
hmnaii " principles " in order not to create additional confusion. In reality it is
no ' ■ hum:m " but the universal absolute principle of which Buddlii, the Soul-
Spiiit, is the caiTier,

94 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Enq. You have just spoken of psuche running towards its entire an-
nihilation if it attaches itself to Anoia. What did Plato, and do
you mean by this ?

Theo. The entire annihilation of the personal consciousness, as an
exceptional and rare case, I think. The general and almost
invariable rule is the merging of the personal into the indi-
vidual or immortal consciousness of the Ego, a transformation
or a divine transfiguration, and the entire annihilation only of
the lower quaternary. Would you expect the man of flesh, or
the temporary personality, his shadow, the " astral," his animal
instincts and even physical life, to survive with the " spiritual
Ego " and become sempiternal ? Naturally all this ceases
to exist, either at, or soon after corporeal death. It becomes in
time entirely disintegrated and disappears from view, being
annihilated as a whole.

Enq. Then you also reject resurrection in the flesh ?

Theo. Most decidedly we do ! Why should we, who believe in the
archaic esoteric philosophy of the Ancients, accept the unphilo-
sophical speculations of the later Christian theology, borrowed
from the Egyptian and Greek exoteric Systems of the Gnostics ?

Enq. The Egyptians revered Nature-Spirits, and deified even onions :
your Hindus are idolaters, to this day ; the Zoroastrians
worshipped, and do still worship, the Sun ; and the best Greek
philosophers were either dreamers or materialists — witness Plato
and Democritus. How can you compare !

Theo. It may be so in your modern Christian and even Scientific
catechism ; it is not so for unbiassed minds. The Egyptians
revered the "One-Only-One," as Nout ; and it is from this

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

95

word that Anaxagoras got his denomination Nous, or as he
calls it, xow am-oKparris, "the Mind or Spirit Self-potent," the
apxi-ni; /ticTjSeus, tile leading motor, or primum-rnohile of all. "With
him the Noiis was God, and the logos was man, his emanation.
The Nous is the spirit (whether in Kosmos or in man), and the
logos, whether Universe or astral body, the emanation of
the former, the physical body being merely the animal. Our
external powers perceive phenomena ; our Nous alone is able
to recognise their noumena. It is the logos alone, or the
noitmenon, that survives, because it is immortal in its very
nature and essence, and the logos in man is the Eternal Ego,
that which reincarnates and lasts for ever. But how can the
evanescent or external shadow, the temporary clothing of that
divine Emanation which returns to the source whence it
proceeded, be that which is raised in incorruptibility ?

Enq. Still you can hardly escape the charge of having invented a new
division of man's spiritual and psychic constituents ; for no
philosopher speaks of them, though you believe that Plato does.

Theo. And I support the view. Besides Plato, there is Pythagoras,
who also followed the same idea.* He described the Soul
as a self-moving Unit (monad) composed of three elements, the

' "Plato and Pythagoras," saj-s Plutarch, " distribute the soul into two parts, the
rational (noetic) and irrational (agnoia) ; that that part of the soul of man
which is rational is eternal ; for though it be not God, yet it is the product of
an eternal deity, but that part of the soul which is divested of reason (agnoia)
dies." The modern term Agnostic comes from Agnosis, a cognate word. We
wonder why Mr. Huxley, the author of the word, should have connected his great
intellect with " the soul divested of reason " which dies ? Is it the exaggerated
hwrmlity of the modem materialist ?

96 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Nous (Spirit), the phren (mind), and the thumos (life, breath or
the Nephesh of the Kabahsts) which three correspond to our
" Atma-Buddhi," (higher Spirit-Soul), to Manas (the Ego), and
to Kama-rupa in conjunction with the lower reflection of
Manas. That which the Ancient Greek philosophers termed
Soul, in general, we call Spirit, or Spiritual Soul, Buddhi, as
the vehicle of Atma (the Agathon, or Plato's Supreme Deity).
The fact that Pythagoras and others state that phren and
thumos are shared by us with the brutes, proves that in this
rase the lower Manasic reflection (instinct) and Kama-rupa
(animal living passions) are meant. And as Socrates and
Plato accepted the clue and followed it, if to these five, namely,
Aijathon (Deity or Atma), Psuche (Soul in its collective sense),
Nous (Spirit or Mind), Phren (physical mind), and Thumos
(Kama-rupa or passions) we add the eidolon of the Mysteries,
the shadowy /orm or the human double, and the physical body,
it will be easy to demonstrate that the ideas of both Pythagoras
and Plato were identical with ours. Even the Egyptians held
to the Septenary division. In its exit, they taught, the Soul
(Ego) had to pass through its seven chambers, or principles,
those it left behind, and those it took along with itself Tlie
only difference is that, ever bearing in mind the penalty oi
revealing Mystery-doctrines, which was death, they gave out
the teaching in a broad outline, while we elaborate it and
explain it in its details. But though we do give out to the
world as much as is lawful, even in our doctrine more than
one important detail is withheld, which those who study the
esoteric philosophy and are pledged to silence, are alone
entitled to know.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 97

THE GBEEE TEACHINGS.

Enq. We have magnificent Greek and Latin, Sanskrit and Hebrew
scholars. How is it that we find nothing in their translations
that would afford us a clue to what you say ?

Theo. Because your translators, their great learning notwithstand-
ing, have made of the philosophers, the Greeks especially,
misty instead of mystic writers. Take as an instance Plutarch,
and read what he says of " the principles " of man. That
which he describes was accepted literally and attributed to
metaphysical superstition and ignorance. Let me give you an
illustration in point : " Man," says Plutarch, " is compound ; and
they are mistaken who think him to be compounded of two parts
only. For they imagine that the understanding (brain intellect^
is a part of the soul (the upper Triad) , but they err in this no
less than those who make the soul to be a part of the body, i.e.
those who make of the Triad part of the corruptible
mortal quaternary. For the understanding (nous) as far
exceeds the soul, as the soul is better and diviner than the
body. Now this composition of the soul {i'vxv) writh the under-
standing (i/oDs) makes reason ; and with the body (or thumos,
the animal soul) passion ; of which the one is the beginning or
principle of pleasure and pain, and the other of virtue and vice.
Of these three parts conjoined and compacted together, the
earth has given the body, the moon the soul, and the sun the
understanding to the generation of man."

This last sentence is purely allegorical, and will be conipre-

98 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

bended only by those who are versed in the esoteric science of
correspondences and know which planet is related to every prin-
ciple. Plutarch divides the latter into three groups, and
makes of the body a compound of physical frame, astral shadow,
and breath, or the triple lower part, which " from earth was
taken and to earth returns"; of the middle principle and the
instinctual soul, the second part, derived /rom Sund through and
ever influenced by the moon* ; and only of the higher part or
the Spiritual Soul, with the Atmic and Manasic elements in it
does he make a direct emanation of the Sun, who stands here
for Agathon the Supreme Deity. This is proven by what he
says further as follows :

" Now of the deaths we die, the one makes man two of three and the
other one of (out of) two. The former is in the region and jurisdiction of
Demeter, whence the name given to the Mysteries, reXuv, resembled that
given to death, reXeurai'. The Athenians also heretofore called the
deceased sacred to Demeter. As for the other death, it is in the moon or
region of Persephone."

Here you have our doctrine, which shows man a septenary
during life ; a quintile just after death, in Kamaloka ; and a
threefold Ego, Spirit-Soul, and consciousness in Devachan.
This separation, first in " the Meadows of Hades," as Plutarch
calls the Kama-loka, then in Devachan, was part and parcel
of the performances during the sacred Mysteries, when the
candidates for initiation enacted the whole drama of death,
and the resurrection as a glorified spirit, by which name we

* The Kabalists who know the relation of Jehovah, the life and children-giver, to
the Moon, and the influence of the latter on generation, will again see the point
as much as some astrologers will.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

99

mean Consciousness. This is what Plutarch means when he
says : —

" And as with the one, the terrestrial, so with the other celestial
Hermes doth dwell. This suddenly and with violence plucks the soul
from the body ; but Proserpina mildly and in a long time disjoins the
understanding from the soul.''' For this reason she is called Monogencs,
only begotten, or rather begetting one alone; for tlw better part of man
becomes alone lolien it is separated by her. Now both the one and the
other happens thus according to nature. It is ordained by Fate (Fatum
or Karma) that every soul, whether with or without understanding
(mind), when gone out of the body, shotdd wander for a time, though not all
for the same, in the region lying between the earth and moon {Kamaloka) .\
For those that have been unjust and dissolute suffer then the punishment
due to their offences ; but the good and virtuous are there detained till they
are purified, and have, by expiation, pm'ged out of them all the infections
they might have contracted from the contagion of the body, as if from
foul health, living in the mildest part of the air, called the Meadows of
Hades, where they must remain for a certain prefixed and appointed
time. And then, as if they were returning from a wandering pilgrimage
or long exile into their country, they have a taste of joy, such as they
principally receive who are initiated into Sacred Mysteries, mixed with
trouble, admiration, and each one's proper and peculiar hope."

Tliis is Nirvanic bUss, and no Theosopliist could describe in
plainer though esoteric language the mental joys of Devachan,
where every man has his paradise around him, erected by his
consciousness. But you must beware of the general error

* Proserpina, or Persephone, stands here for post mortem Karma, which is said to
rej^ilate the separation of the lower from the higher "principles": the Soul, as
Nephesli, the breath of animal hfe, which remains for a time in Kama-loka,
hom the higher compound JSgo, which goes into the state of Devachan, or bHss.

t Until the separation of the higher, spiritual " principle " takes place from the lower
ones, which remain in the Kama-loka until disintegrated.

100 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

into which too many even of our Theosophists fall. Do not
imagine that because man is called septenary, then quintuple
and a triad, he is a compound of seven, five, or three entities ;
or, as well expressed by a Theosophical writer, of skins to be
peeled off like the skins of an onion. The " principles," as
already said, save the body, the hfe, and the astral eidolon, all
of which disperse at death, are simply aspects and states of
consciousness. There is but one real man, enduring through
the cycle of life and immortal in essence, if not in form,
and this is Manas, the Mind-man or embodied Consciousness.
The objection made by the materialists, who deny the possi-
bility of mind and consciousness acting without matter is
worthless in our case. We do not deny the soundness of their
argument; but we simply ask our opponents," Are you acquainted
loith all the states of matter, you who knew hitherto but of
three ? And how do you know whether that which we refer
to as ABSOLUTE CONSCIOUSNESS or Deity for ever invisible and
unknowable, be not that which, though it eludes for ever our
human finite conception, is still universal Spirit-matter or
matter-Spirit in its absolute infinitude ? " It is then one of the
lowest, and in its manvantaric manifestations fractioned-
aspects of this Spirit-matter, which is the conscious Ego that
creates its own paradise, a fool's paradise, it may be, still a
state of bliss.

ExQ. But what is Devachan .'

Theo. The "land of gods " literally ; a condition, a state of mental
bUss. Philosophically a mental condition analogous to, but far
more vivid and real than, the most vivid dream. It is the
state after death of most mortals.

VII.
ON THE VARIOUS POST MORTEM STATES.

THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL MAN.

Enq. I am glad to hear you believe in the immortality of the Soul.

Theo. Not of " the Soul," but of the divine Spirit ; or rather in
the immortality of the re-iucarnating Ego.

Enq. What is the difference ?

TiiEO. A very great one in our philosophy, but this is too abstruse
and difficult a question to touch lightly upon. We shall have
to analyse them separately, and then in conjunction. We maj'
begin with Spirit.

We say that the Spirit (the " Father in secret " of Jesus), or
Atman, is no individual property of any man, but is the
Divine essence which has no body, no form, which is impon-
derable, invisible and indivisible, that which does not e.vist and
yet is, as the Buddhists say of Nirvana. It only overshadows
the mortal ; that which enters into him and pervades the
whole body being only its omnipresent rays, or light, radiated
through Buddhi, its vehicle and direct emanation. This is the

H

102 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

secret meaning of the assertions of almost all the ancient
philosophers, when they said that " the rational part of man's
soul " * never entered wholly into the man, but only over-
shadowed him more or less through the irrational spiritual
Soul or Buddhi.f

Enq. I laboured under the impression that the "Animal Soul" alone
was irrational, not the Divine.

Theo. You have to learn the difference between that which is
negatively, or passively " irrational," because undifferentiated,
and that which is irrational because too active and positive.
Man is a correlation of spiritual powers, as well as a corre-
lation of chemical and physical forces, brought into function
by what we call " principles."

Enq. I have read a good deal upon the subject, and it seems to me
that the notions of the older philosophers differed a great deal from
those of the mediaeval Kabalists, though they do agree in some
particulars.

Theo. The most substantial difference between them and us is this.
While we believe with the Neo-Platonists and the Eastern
teachings that the spirit (Atnia) never descends hypostatically
into the hving man, but only showers more or less its radiance
on the inner man (the psychic and spiritual compound of the

In its generic sense, the word " rational " meaning something emanating from the
Eternal Wisdom.

I Irrational in the aenae that as a pure emanation of the Universal mind it can have
no individual reason of its own on this plane of matter, but like the Moon, who
borrowa her light from the Sun and her life from the Earth, so Buddhi, re-
ceiving its light of Wisdom from Atma, gets its rational qualities from Manas.
Per se, as something homogeneous, it is devoid of attributes,

THE KEY JO THEOSOPHY. 103

astral principles), the Kabalists maintain tliat the human
Spirit, detaching itself from the ocean of light and Universal
Spirit, enters man's Soul, where it remains throughout life
imprisoned in the astral capsule. All Christian Kabalists still
maintain the same, as they are unable to break quite loose
from their anthropomorphic and Biblical doctrines.

Enq. And what do you say ?

TiiEO. We say that we only allow the presence of the radiation
of Spirit (or Atma) in the astral capsule, and so far only as
that spiritual radiancy is concerned. We say that man and
Soul have to conquer their immortality by ascending towards
the unity with which, if successful, they will be finally linked
and into which they are finally, so to speak, absorbed. The
individualization of man after death depends on the spirit, not on
his soul and body. Although the word " personality," in the
sense in which it is usually understood, is an absurdity if
applied Uterally to our immortal essence, still the latter is,
as our individual Ego, a distinct entity, immortal and eternal,
per se. It is only in the case of black magicians or of criminals
beyond redemption, criminals who have been such during a lojig
series of lives — that the shining thread, which links the
spirit to the personal soul from the moment of the birth of the
child, is violently snapped, and the disembodied entity becomes
divorced from the personal soul, the latter being annihilated
without leaving the smallest impression of itself on the former.
If that union between the lower, or personal Manas, and
the individual reincarnating Ego, has not been effected during
life, then the former is left to share the fate of the lower

104 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

animals, to gradually dissolve into ether, and have its person-
ality annihilated. But even then the Ego remains a distinct
being. It (the spiritual Ego) only loses one Devachanic state
— after that special, and in that case indeed useless, life — as
that idealized Personality, and is reincarnated, after enjoying
for a short time its freedom as a planetary spirit almost im-
mediately.
Enq. It is stated in Isis Unveiled that such planetary Spirits or Angels,
" the gods of the Pagans or the Archangels of the Christians," will
never be men on our planet.

Theo. Quite right. Kot " such," but some classes of higher
Planetary Spirits. They will never be men on this planet,
because they are liberated Spirits from a previous, earlier
world, and as such they cannot re-become men on this
one. Yet all these will live again in the next and far higher
Mahamanvantara, after this " great Age," and " Brahma
pralaya," (a little period of 16 figures or so) is over. For
you must have heard, of course, that Eastern philosophy
teaches us that mankind consists of such " Spirits " imprisoned
in human bodies ? The difference between animals and men
is this : the former are ensouled by the " principles "
potentially, the latter actually* Do you understand now the
difference ?

Enq. Yes ; but this specialisation has been in all ages the stumbling-
block of metaphysicians.

TuEO. It was. The whole esotericism of the Buddhistic philosophy
is based on this mysterious teaching, understood by so few

* Vide " Secret Doctrine," Vol. II., stanzas.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 105

persons, and so totally misrepresented bj^ many of the most
learned modern scholars. Even metaphysicians are too inclined
to confound the effect with the cause. An Ego who has won
his immortal life as spirit will remain the same inner self
throughout all his rebirths on earth ; but this does not
imply necessarily that he must either remain the Mr. Smith or
Mr. Brown he was on earth, or loss his individuality. There-
fore, the astral soul and the terrestrial body of man may, in the
dark hereafter, be absorbed into the cosmical ocean of sub-
limated elements, and cease to feel his last personal Ego (if it
did not deserve to soar higher), and the divine Ego still
remain the same unchanged entity, though this terrestrial
experience of his emanation may be totally obliterated at the
instant of separation from the unworthy vehicle.

Enq. If the " Spirit," or the divine portion of the soul, is pre-existent
as a distinct being from all eternity, as Origan, Synesius, and other
semi-Christians and semi-Platonic philosophers taught, and if it is
the same, and nothing more than the metaphysically-objective soul,
how can it be otherwise than eternal '? And what matters it in such
a case, whether man leads a pure life or an animal, if, do what he
may, he can never lose his individuality?

Theo. This doctrine, as you have stated it, is just as pernicious
in its consequences as that of vicarious atonement. Had the
latter dogma, in company with the false idea that we are all
immortal, been demonstrated to the world in its true light,
humanity would have been bettered by its propagation.

Let me repeat to you again. Pythagoras, Plato, Timaeus of
Locris, and the old Alexandrian School, derived the Souloira.z.n
(or his high(3r " principles " and attributes) from the Universal

io6 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

World Soul, the latter being, according to their teachings,
jEtlier (Pater-Zeus). Therefore, neither of these " principles"
can be unalloyed essence of the Pythagorean Monas, or our
Atma-Buddhi, because the Anima Mundi is but the effect, the
subjective emanation or rather radiation of the former. Both
the human Spirit (or the individuality), the re-incarnating
Spiritual Ego, and Buddhi, the Spiritual soul, are pre-existent.
But, while the former exists as a distinct entity, an individuali-
zation, the soul exists as pre-existing breath, an unscient
portion of an intelligent whole. Both were originally formed
from the Eternal Ocean of light ; but as the Fire-Philosophers,
the medieval Theosophists, expressed it, there is a visible as
well as invisible spirit in fire. They made a difference between
the anima hruta and the anima divina. Empedocles firmly
believed all men and animals to possess two souls ; and in
Aristotle we find that he calls one the reasoning soul, voOs, and
the other, the animal soul, <(,vxri. According to these philoso-
phers, the reasoning soul comes from within the universal soul,
and the other from without.

Enq. Would you call the Soul, i.e., the human thinking Soul, or what
you call the Ego — matter ?

Theo. Not matter, but substance assuredly ; nor would the word
" matter," if prefixed with the adjective, primordial, be a word
to avoid. That matter, we say, is co-eternal with Spirit, and is
not our visible, tangible, and divisible matter, but its extreme
sublimation. Pure Spirit is but one remove from the ?io-Spirit,
or the absolute all. Unless you admit that man was evolved
out of this primordial Spirit-matter, and represents a regular

I I

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 107

progressive scale of " principles " from mrfa-Spirit down to
the grossest matter, how can we ever come to regard the mner
man as immortal, and at the same time as a spiritual Entity
and a mortal man ?
Enq. Then why should you not believe in God as such an Entity ?

Theo. Because that which is infinite and unconditioned can have no
form, and cannot be a being, not in any Eastern philosophy
worthy of the name, at any rate. An " entity " is immortal,
but is so only in its ultimate essence, not in its individual form.
When at the last point of its cycle, it is absorbed into its
primordial nature ; and it becomes spirit, when it loses its name
of Entity.

Its immortality as a form is limited only to its life-cycle or
the Mahamanvantara ; after which it is one and identical
with the Universal Spirit, and no longer a separate Entity. As
to the personal Soul — by which we mean the spark of conscious-
ness that preserves in the Spiritual Ego the idea of the per-
sonal " I " of the last incarnation — this lasts, as a separate
distinct recollection, only throughout the Devachanic period ;
after which time it is added to the series of other innumerable
incarnations of the Ego, like the remembrance in our memory
of one of a series of days, at the end of a year. Will you bind
the infinitude you claim for your God to finite conditions ?
That alone which is indissolubly cemented by Atma [i.e.,
Buddhi-Manas) is immortal. The Soul of man {i.e., of the
personality) per se is neither immortal, eternal nor divine. Says
iheZohar (vol. iii,, p. 616), " the soul, when sent to this earth,
puts on an earthly garment, to preserve herself here, so she

io8 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

receives above a shining garment, in order to be able to look
witlaout injury into tlie mirror, whose hght proceeds from the
Lord of Lio-ht." Moreover, the Zohar teaches that the soul
cannot reach the abode of bhss, unless she has received the
"holy kiss," or the reunion of the soul with the substance from
ivMch she emanated — spirit. All souls are dual, and, while the
latter is a feminine principle, the spirit is masculine. While
imprisoned in body, man is a trinity, unless his pollution is
such as to have caused his divorce from the spirit. "Woe to
the soul which prefers to her divine husband (spirit) the
earthly wedlock with her terrestrial body," records a text of the
Book of the Keys, a Hermetic work. Woe indeed, for nothing
will remain of that personality to be recorded on the imperish-
able tablets of the Ego's memory.

Enq. How can that which, if not breathed by God into man, yet is on
your own confession of an identical substance with the divine, fail
to be immortal ?

Theo. Every atom and speck of matter, not of substance only,
is imperishable in its essence, but not in its individual con-
sciousness. Immortality is but one's unbroken consciousness ;
and the personal consciousness can hardly last longer than the
personaUty itself, can it ? And such consciousness, as I already
told you, survives only throughout Devachan, after which it is
reabsorbed, first, in the individual, and then in the universal
consciousness. Better enquire of your theologians how it is
that they have so sorely jumbled up the Jewish Scriptures.
Eead the Bible, if you would have a good proof that the
writers of the Pentateuch, and Genesis especially, never regarded

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. log

nephesh, that whicli God breathes into Adam (Gen. ch. ii.), as
the immortal soul. Here are some instances : — " And God
created .... every nepAesA (life) that moveth" (Gen. i. 21),
meaning animals; and (Gen. ii. 7) it is said: "And man
became a nephesh " (living soul), vehich shows that the word
nephesh was indifferently applied to immortal man and to
mortal beast. " And surely your blood of your nepheshim
(lives) wiU I require ; at the hand of every beast will I require
it, and at the hand of man" (Gen. ix. 5), "Escape for
nephesh " (escape for thy life, it is translated), (Gen. xix. 17).
"Let us not kill him," reads the English version (Gen. xxxvii. 21).
" Let us not kill his nephesh," is the Hebrew text. ^'Nephesh
for nephesh," says Leviticus (xvii. 8.) " He that killeth any
man shall surely be put to death," literally " He that smiteth
the nephesh of a man " (Lev. xxiv. 17) ; and from verse 18 and
following it reads : " And he that killeth a beast (nephesh)
shall make it good .... Beast for beast," whereas the
original text has it " nephesh for nephesh." How could man
kill that which is immortal ? And this explains also why the
Sadducees denied the immortalitj- of the soul, as it also affords
another proof that very probably the Mosaic Jews — the
uninitiated at any rate — never believed in the soul's survival
at all.

ON ETERNAL REWARD AND PUNISHMENT ; AND ON NIRVANA.

Enq. It is hardly necessary, 1 suppose, to ask you whether you believe
in the Christian dogmas of Paradise and Hell, or in future rewards
and punishments as taught by the Orthodox churches ?

no THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

TnEO. As described in your catechisms, we reject them absolutely ;
least of all would we accept their eternity. But we believe
firmly in what we caU the Law of Retribution, and in the
absolute justice and wisdom guiding this Law, or Karma.
Hence we positively refuse to accept the cruel and unphiloso-
phical belief in. eternal reward or eternal punishment. We
say with Horace : —

" Let rules be fixed that may our rage contain,
And punish faults with a proportion' d pam ;
But do not flay him who deserves alone
A whipping for the fault that he has done."

This is a rule for aU men, and a just one. Have we to
believe that God, of whom you make the embodiment of
wisdom, love and mercy, is less entitled to these attributes
than mortal man ?
Enq. Have you any other reasons for rejecting this dogma?

Thko. Our chief reason for it lies in the fact of re-incarnation. As
already stated, we reject the idea of a new soul created for
every newly -born babe. We believe that every human being
is the bearer, or Vehicle, of an Ego coeval with every other
Ego ; because all Egos are of the same essence and belong to
the primeval emanation from one universal infinite Ego.
Plato calls the latter the logos (or the second manifested God) ;
and we, the manifested divine principle, which is one with the
universal mind or soul, not the anthropomorphic, extra-cosmic
and -personal God in which so many Theists believe. Pray do
not confuse.

Enq. But where is the difficulty, once you accept a manifested

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. iii

principle, in believing that the soul of every new mortal is created
by that Principle, as all the Souls before it have been so created ?

Theo. Because that which is impersonal can hardly create, plan
and think, at its o-vvn sweet will and pleasure. Being a uni-
versal Law, immutable in its periodical manifestations, those
of radiatiucr and uianifestatinK its own essence at the betrinning
of every new cycle of life, it is not supposed to create men,
only to repent a few years later of having created them. If
we have to believe in a divine pi'iuciple at all, it must be in
one which is as absolute harmony, logic, and justice, as it is
absolute love, wisdom, and impartiality; and a God who would
create every soul for the space of one brief span of life, regard-
less of the fact whether it has to animate the body of a
wealthy, happy man, or that of a poor suffering wretch, hapless
from birth to death though he has done nothing to deserve his
cruel fate — would be rather a senseless fiend than a God.
{Vide infra, "On the Punishment of the Ego.") Why, even
the Jewish philosophers, believers in the Mosaic Bible
(esoterically, of course), have never entertained such an idea ;
and, moreover, they believed in re-incarnation, as we do.

Enq. Can you give me some instances as a proof of this?

Theo. Most decidedly I can. Philo Judseus says (in " De
Somniis," p. 455) : " The air is full of them (of souls) ; those
which are nearest the earth, descending to be tied to mortal
bodies, TraXivipoiioMi. aoon, retum to other bodies, being desirous to
live in them." In the Zohar, the soul is made to plead her
freedom before God : " Lord of the Universe ! I am happy in
this world, and do not wish to go into another world, where I

112 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

shall be a handmaid, and be exposed to all kinds of pollu-
tions."* The doctrine of fatal necessity, the everlasting
immutable law, is asserted in the answer of the Deity:
" Against thy will thou becomest an embryo, and against thy
will thou art born." f Light would be incomprehensible
without darkness to make it manifest by contrast ; good
would be no longer good without evil to show the priceless
nature of the boon ; and so personal virtue could claim no
merit, unless it had passed through the furnace of temptation.
Nothing is eternal and unchangeable, save the concealed
Deity. Nothing that is finite — whether because it had a
beginning, or must have an end — can remain stationary. It
must either progress or recede ; and a soul which thirsts after
a reunion with its spirit, which alone confers upon it immor-
tality, must purify itself through cyclic transmigrations onward
toward the only land of bliss and eternal rest, called in the
Zohar, " The Palace of Love," nont^ h^'^n ; in the Hindu
religion, " Moksha " ; among the Gnostics, " The Pleroma of
Eternal Light " ; and by the Buddhists, " Nirvana." And all
these states are temporary, not eternal.

Enq. Yet there is no re-incarnation spoken of in all this.

Theo. a soul which pleads to be allowed to remain where she is,
must be pre- existent, and not have been created for the occa-
sion. In the Zohar (vol. iii., p. 61), however, there is a still
better proof. Speaking of the re-incarnating Egos (the rational
souls), those whose last personality has to fade out entirely, it is

• " Zohar," Vol. II., p. 96.

t " Mishna," " Aboth," Vol. IV., p. 29.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 113

said : " All souls which have alienated themselves in heaven
from the Holy One — blessed be His Name — have thrown
themselves into an abyss at their very existence, and have
anticipated the time when they are to descend once more on
earth." " The Holy One " means here, esotericaUy, the Atman,
or Atma-Buddhi.

Enq. Moreover, it is very strange to find Nirvana spoken of as some-
thing synonymous with the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Paradise,
since according to every Orientahst of note Nirvana is a synonym of
annihilation !

Theo. Taken literally, with regard to the personahty and differen-
tiated matter, not otherwise. These ideas on re-incarnation
and the trinity of man were held by many of the early
Christian Fathers. It is the jumble made by the translators of
the New Testament and ancient philosophical treatises between
soul and spirit, that has occasioned the many misunderstand-
ings. It is also one of the many reasons why Buddha,
Plotinus, and so many other Initiates are now accused of
having longed for the total extinction of their souls — " absorp-
tion unto the Deity," or " reunion with the universal soul,"
meaning, according to modern ideas, annihilation. The per-
sonal soul must, of course, be disintegrated into its particles,
before it is able to link its purer essence for ever with the
immortal spirit. But the translators of both the Acts and the
Epistles, who laid the foundation of the Kingdom of Heaven,
and the modern commentators on the Buddhist Sutra of the
Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness, have muddled the
sense of the great apostle of Christianity as of the great

114 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

reformer of India. The former have smothered the word
^uxiicoi, so that 110 reader imagines it to have any relation with
soul; and with this confusion of soul and spirit together, Bible
readers get only a perverted sense of anything on the subject.
On the other hand, the interpreters of Buddha have failed to
understand the meaning and object of the Buddhist four degrees
of Dhyana. Ask the Pythagoreans, " Can that spirit, which gives
life and motion and partakes of the nature of light, be reduced
to nonentity ? " " Can even that sensitive spirit in brutes
which exercises memory, one of the rational faculties, die and
become nothing ? " observe the Occultists. In Buddhistic
philosophy annihilation means only a dispersion of matter, in
whatever form or semblance of form it may be, for everything
that has form is temporary, and is, therefore, really an illusion.
For in eternity the longest periods of time are as a wink of the
eye. So with form. Before we have time to reaUze that we
have seen it, it is gone like an instantaneous flash of lightning,
and passed for ever. When the Spiritual entity breaks loose
for ever from every particle of matter, substance, or form, and
re-becomes a Spiritual breath : then only does it enter upon
the eternal and unchangeable Nirvana, lasting as long as the
cycle of life has lasted — an eternity, truly. And then that
Breath, existing in Spirit, is nothing because it is all; as a
form, a semblance, a shape, it is completely annihilated ; as
absolute Spirit it still is, for it has become Be-ness itself. The
very word used, " absorbed in the universal essence," when
spoken of the " Soul " as Spirit, means " union with." It can
never mean annihilation, as that would mean eternal separation.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 115

Enq. Do you not lay yourself open to the accusation of preaching
annihilation by the language you yourself use? You have just
spoken of the Soul of man returning to its primordial elements.

Theo. But you forget that I have given you the differences between
the various meanings of the word " Soul," and shown the loose
way in which the term " Spirit " has been hitherto translated.
We speak of an animal, a human, and a spiritual. Soul, and
distinguish between them. Plato, for instance, calls " rational
Soul " that which we call Buddhi, adding to it the adjective of
" spiritual," however ; but that which we call the reincarnating
Ego, Manas, he calls Spirit, Nous, etc., whereas we apply the
term Spirit, when standing alone and without any qualifica-
tion, to Atma alone. Pythagoras repeats our archaic doctrine
when stating that the Ego (Nous) is eternal with Deity ; that
the soul only passed through various stages to arrive at divine
excellence ; while thumos returned to the earth, and even the
phren, the lower Manas, was eliminated. Again, Plato defines
Soul (Buddhi) as " the motion that is able to move itself."
"Soul," he adds (Laws X.), "is the most ancient of all things,
and the commencement of motion," thus calling Atma-Buddhi
" Soul," and Manas " Spirit," which we do not.

" Soul was generated prior to body, and body is posterior and secondary,
as being according to nature, ruled over by the ruling soul." " The soul
which administers all things that are moved in every way, administers like-
wise the heavens."

" Soul then leads everything in heaven, and on earth, and in the sea,
by its movements — the names of which are, to will, to consider, to take
care of, to consult, to form opinions true and false, to be in a state of
joy, sorrow, confidence, fear, hate, love, together with all such primary

ii6 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

movements as are allied to these. . . . Being a goddess herself, she
ever takes as an ally Notos, a god, and disciplines all things correctly and
happily ; but when with Annoia — not rums — it works out everything
the contrary."

In this language, as in the Buddhist texts, the negative is treated
as essential existence. Annihilation comes under a similar
exegesis. The positive state is essential being, but no mani-
festation as such. When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance,
enters Nirvana, it loses objective existence, but retains sub-
jective being. To objective minds this is becoming absolute
" nothing " ; to subjective. No-thing, nothing to be displayed
to sense. Thus, their Nirvana means the certitude of in-
dividual immortality in Spirit, not in Soul, which, though " the
most ancient of all things," is still — along with all the other
Gods — a finite emanation, m. forms and individuality, if not in
substance.

Enq. I do not quite seize the idea yet, and would be thankful to have
you explain this to me by some illustrations.

Theo. No doubt it is very difficult to understand, especially to one
brought up in the regular orthodox ideas of the Christian
Church. Moreover, I must tell you one thing ; and this is
that unless you have studied thoroughly well the separate
functions assigned to all the human "principles" and the
state of all these after death, you will hardly realize our Eastern
philosophy.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 117

ON THE VABIOVS "PBINCIPLES" IN MAN.

Enq. I have heard a good deal about this constitution of the " inner
man" as you call it, but could never make "head or tail on't " as
Gabalis expresses it.

Theo. Of course, it is most difficult, and, as you say, " puzzling "
to understand correctly and distinguish betvreen the various
aspects, called by us the " principles " of the real Ego. It is
the more so as there exists a notable difference in the number-
ing of those principles by various Eastern schools, though at
the bottom there is the same identical substratum of teaching.

Enq. Do you mean the Vedantins, as an instance ? Don't they divide
your seven " principles " into five only?

Theo. They do ; but though I would not presume to dispute the
point with a learned Yedantin, I may yet state as my private
opinion that they have an obvious reason for it. With them
it is only that compound spiritual aggregate which consists of
various mental aspects that is called 3fan at all, the physical
body being in their view something beneath contempt, and
merely an illusion. Nor is the Vedanta the only philosophy to
reckon in this manner. Lao-Tze, in his Tao-te-King, mentions
only five principles, because he, like the Vedantins, omits to
include two principles, namely, the spirit (Atma) and the
physical body, the latter of which, moreover, he calls " the
cadaver." Then there is the Taraka Raja Yoga School. Its
teaching recognises only three " principles " in fact ; but
then, in reality, their Sthulopadi, or the physical body, in its

ii8 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

waking conscious state, their SuJcshmopadhi, the same body
in Svapna, or the dreaming state, and their Karanopadhi or
" causal body," or that which passes from one incarnation to
another, are all dual in their aspects, and thus make six. Add
to this Atma, the impersonal divine principle or the im-
mortal element in Man, undistinguished from the Universal
Spirit, and you have the same seven again. * They are
welcome to hold to their division ; we hold to ours.

Enq. Then it seems almost the same as the division made by the
mystic Christians : body, soul and spirit ?

Theo. Just the same. We could easily make of the body the
vehicle of the " vital Double" ; of the latter the vehicle of Life
or Prand ; of Kamarwpa, or (animal) soul, the vehicle of the
higher and the lower mind, and make of this six principles,
crowning the whole with the one immortal spirit. In Occultism
every qualificative change in the state of our consciousness gives
to man a new aspect, and if it prevails and becomes part of the
living and acting Ego, it must be (and is) given a special name,
to distinguish the man in that particular state from the man
he is when he places himself in another state.

Enq. It is just that which it is so difficult to understand.

Theo. It seems to me very easy, on the contrary, once that you
have seized the main idea, i.e., that man acts on this or another
plane of consciousness, in strict accordance with his mental
and spiritual condition. But such is the materialism of the
age that the more we explain the less people seem capable of

' See " Secret Doctrine " for a clearer explanation. Vol. I., p. 157.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 119

understanding what we say. Divide the terrestrial being called
man into three chief aspects, if you hke, and unless you make
of him a pure animal you cannot do less. Take his objective
body; the thinking principle in him — which is only a httie
higher than the instinctual element in the animal — or the vital
conscious soul; and that which places liim so immeasurably
beyond and higher than the animal — i.e., his reasoning soul or
" spirit." Well, if we take these three groups or represen-
tative entities, and subdivide them, according to the occult
teaching, what do we get ?

First of all, Spirit (in the sense of the Absolute, and there-
fore, indivisible All), or Atma. As this can neither be
located nor hmited in philosophy, being simply that which is
in Eternity, and which cannot be absent from even the tiniest
geometrical or mathematical point of the universe of matter or
substance, it ought not to be called, in truth, a "human"
principle at all. Eather, and at best, it is in ]\Ietaphysics, that
point in space which the human Monad and its vehicle man
occupy for the period of every life. Xow that point is as
imaginary as man himself, and in reality is an illusion, a maya ;
but then for ourselves, as for other personal Egos, we are a
reahty during that fit of Ulusion caUed life, and we have to
take ourselves into account, in our own fancy at any rate, if
no one else does. To make it more conceivable to the human
intellect, when first attempting the study of Occultism, and to
solve the A B C of the mystery of man. Occultism caUs this
seventh principle the synthesis of the sixth, and gives it for
vehicle the Spiritual Soul, Buddhi. Xow the latter conceals a

I20 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

mystery, wMcli is never given to any one, with the exception
of irrevocably pledged chelas, or those, at any rate, who can
be safely trusted. Of course, there would be less confusion,
could it only be told ; but, as this is directly concerned with
the power of projecting one's double consciously and at will,
and as this gift, like the " ring of Gyges," would prove very
fatal to man at large and to the possessor of that faculty in
particular, it is carefully guarded. But let us proceed with
the " principles." This divine soul, or Buddhi, then, is the
vehicle of the Spirit. In conjunction, these two are one,
impersonal and without any attributes (on this plane, of course),
and make two spiritual "principles." If we pass on to the
Human Soul, Manas or mens, every one will agree that the
intelligence of man is dual to say the least : e.g., the high-
minded man can hardly become low-minded ; the very in-
tellectual and spiritual-minded man is separated by an abyss
from the obtuse, dull, and material, if not animal-minded man.

Enq. But why should not man be represented by two " principles " or
two aspects, rather ?

Theo. Every man has these two principles in him, one more active
than the other, and in rare cases, one of these is entirely stunted
in its growth, so to say, or paralysed by the strength and
predominance of the other aspect, in whatever direction. These,
then, are what we call the two principles or aspects of Manas,
the higher and the lower ; the former, the higher Manas, or
the thinking, conscious Ego gravitating toward the spiritual Soul
(Buddhi) ; and the latter, or its instinctual principle, attracted
to Kama, the seat of animal desires and passions in man.

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 121

Thus, we have four " principles " justified ; the last three being
(1) the " Double," which we have agreed to call Protean, or
or Plastic Soul ; the vehicle of (2) the life principle ; and (3)
the physical body. Of course no physiologist or biologist will
accept these principles, nor can he make head or tail ot
them. And this is why, perhaps, none of them understand to
this day either the functions of the spleen, the physical vehicle
of the Protean Double, or those of a certain organ on the right
side of man, the seat of the above-mentioned desires, nor yet
does he know anything of the pineal gland, which he describes
as a horny gland with a little sand in it, which gland is in
truth the very seat of the highest and divinest consciousness
in man, his omniscient, spiritual and all-embracing mind.
And this shows to you still more plainly that we have neither
invented these seven principles, nor are they new in the world
of philosophy, as we can easily prove.

Enq. But what is it that reincarnates, in your belief?

Theo. The Spiritual thinking Ego, the permanent principle in man,
or that which is the seat of Manas. It is not Atma, or even
Atma-Buddhi, regarded as the dual Monad, which is the indi-
vidual, or divine man, but Manas ; for Atman is the Universal
All, and becomes the Higher-Self of man only in conjunc-
tion with Buddhi, its vehicle, which links it to the individuality
(or divine man). For it is the Buddhi-Manas which is called
the Causal body, (the United 5th and 6tli Principles) and which
is Consciousness, that connects it with every personality it in-
habits on earth. Therefore, Soul being a generic term, there are
in men three aspects of Soul — the terrestrial, or animal ; the

122 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

Human Soul; and the Spiritual Soul; these, strictly speaking,
are one Soul in its three aspects. Now of the first aspect,
nothing remains after death ; of the second {jious or Manas)
only its divine essence if left unsoiled survives, while the third
in addition to being immortal becomes consciously divine, by
the assimilation of the higher Manas. But to make it clear,
we have to say a few words first of all about Ee-incarnation.

Enq. You will do well, as it is against this doctrine that your enemies
fight the most ferociously.

Theo. You mean the Spiritualists ? I know ; and many are the
absurd objections laboriously spun by them over the pages
of Light. So obtuse and malicious are some of them, that
they will stop at nothing. One of them found recently a con-
tradiction, which he gravely discusses in a letter to that
journal, in two statements picked out of Mr. Sinnett's lectures.
He discovers that grave contradiction in these two sentences :
" Premature returns to earth-life in the cases when they occur
may be due to Karmic comphcation . . . " ; and " there is no
accident in the supreme act of divine justice guiding evolution."
So profound a thinker would surely see a contradiction of the
law of gravitation if a man stretched out his hand to stop a
falling stone from crushing the head of a child !

VIII.
ON EE-INCARNATION OE EE-BIRTH.

WHAT IS MEMORY AGCOEDING TO TEEOSOPSICAL TEACHING?

Enq. The most difficult thing for you to do, will be to explain and give
reasonable grounds for such a belief No Theosophist has ever
yet succeeded in bringing forward a single valid proof to shake my
scepticism. First of all, you have against this theory of re-incarna-
tion, the fact that no single man has yet been found to remember
that he has lived, least of all who he was, during his previous life.

Theo. Your argument, I see, tends to the same old objection ; the
loss of memory in each of us of our previous incarnation.
You think it invalidates our doctrine ? My answer is that it
does not, and that at any rate such an objection cannot be
final.

Enq. I would like to hear your arguments.

Theo. They are short and few. Yet when you take into con-
sideration (a) the utter inability of the best modern
psychologists to explain to the world the nature of mind ; and
(b) their complete ignorance of its potentialities, and higher
states, you have to admit that this objection is based on an a

124 T^E ^^^ ^O THEOSOPHY.

priori conclusion drawn from primd facie* and circumstantial
evidence more than anything else. Now what is " memory "
in your conception, pray ?

Enq. That which is generally accepted : the faculty in our mind of
remembering and of retaining the knowledge of previous thoughts,
deeds and events.

Theo. Please add to it that there is a great difference between the
three accepted forms of memory. Besides memory in general
you have Remembrance, Recollection and Reminiscence, have
you not ? Have you ever thought over the difference ?
Memory, remember, is a generic name.

Enq. Yet, all these are only synonyms.

Theo. Indeed, they are not — not in philosophy, at all events.
Memory is simply an innate power in thinking beings, and even
in animals, of reproducing past impressions by an association
of ideas principally suggested by objective things or by some
action on our external sensory organs. Memory is a faculty
depending entirely on the more or less healthy and normal
functioning of our physical brain ; and remembrance and recol-
lection are the attributes and handmaidens of that memory.
But reminiscence is an entirely different thing. " Eeminiscence "
is defined by the modern psychologist as something inter-
mediate between remembrance and recollection, or " a conscious
process of recalling past occurrences, but without that full and
varied reference to particular things which characterises recol-
lection." Locke, speaking of recollection and remembrance,
says : " When an idea again recurs without the operation of the
like object on the external sensory, it is remembrance ; if it be

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 125

sought after by the mind, and with pain and endeavour found
and brought again into view, it is recollection." But even Locke
leaves reminiscence without any clear definition, because it is
no faculty or attribute of our physical memory, but an intui-
tional perception apart from and outside our physical brain ;
a perception which, covering as it does (being called into
action by the ever-present knowledge of our spiritual Ego) all
those visions in man which are regarded as abnormal — from
the pictures suggested by genius to the ravings of fever and
even madness — are classed by science as having no existence
outside of our fancy. Occultism and Theosophy, however,
regard reminiscence in an entirely different light. For us, while
memory is physical and evanescent and depends on the physio-
logical conditions of the brain — a fundamental proposition with
aU teachers of mnemonics, who have the researches of modern
scientific psychologists to back them — we call reminiscence
the memory of the soul. And it is this memory which gives
the assurance to almost every human being, whether he under-
stands it or not, of his having lived before and having to live
again. Indeed, as Wordsworth has it :

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us, our life's star.
Hath elsewhere had its setting,
And cometh from afar."

Enq. If it is on this kind of memory — poetry and abnormal fancies, on
your own confession — that you base your doctrine, then you will
convince very few, I am afraid.

Theo. I did not " confess " it was a fancy. I simply said that
physiologists and scientists in general regard such reminiscences

126 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

as hallucinations and fancy, to which learned conclusion they
are welcome. We do not deny that such visions of the past
and glimpses far back into the corridors of time, are not
abnormal, as contrasted with our normal daily hfe experience
and physical memory. But we do maintain with Professor
W. Knight, that " the absence of memory of any action done
in a previous state cannot be a conclusive argument against
our having lived through it." And every fair-minded opponent
must agree with what is said in Butler's Lectures on Platonic
Philosophy — " that the feeling of extravagance with which
it (pre-existence) affects us has its secret source in materialistic
or semi-materialistic prejudices." Besides which we maintain
that memory, as Olynipiodorus called it, is simply phantasy,
and the most unreliable thing in us.* Ammonius Saccas
asserted that the only faculty in man directly opposed to prog-
nostication, or looking into futurity, is memory. Furthermore,
remember that memory is one thing and mind or thought is
another ; one is a recording machine, a register which very
easily gets out of order ; the other (thoughts) are eternal and
imperishable. Would you refuse to believe in the existence
of certain things or men only because your physical eyes have
not seen them ? Would not the collective testimony of

* " The phantasy," says Olympiodorus (in Platonis Phsed.), " is an impediment to our
intellectual conceptions ; and hence, when we are agitated by the inspiring
influence oi the Divinity, if the phantasy intervenes, the enthusiastic energy
ceases : for enthusiasm and the ecstasy are contrary to each other. Should it
be asked whether the soul is able to energise without the phantasy, we reply,
that its perception of universals proves that it is able. It has perceptions,
therefore, independent of the phantasy ; at the same time, however, the phan-
tasy attends in its energies, just as a storm pursues him who sails on the sea."

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 127

past generations who have seen him be a sufficient guarantee
that Julius Csesar once lived ? Why should not the same
testimony of the psychic senses of the masses be taken into
consideration ?

Enq. But don't you think that these are too fine distinctions to be
accepted by the majority of mortals ?

Theo. Say rather by the majority of materialists. And to them
we say, behold : even in the short span of ordinary existence,
memory is too weak to register all the events of a lifetime.
How frequently do even most important events lie dormant in
our memory until awakened by some association of ideas, or
aroused to function and activity by some other link. This is
especially the case with people of advanced age, who are
always found suffering from feebleness of recollection. When,
therefore, we remember that which we know about the
physical and the spiritual principles in man, it is not the fact
that our memory has failed to record our precedent life and
lives that ought to surprise us, but the contrary, were it to
happen.

WHY DO WE NOT REMEMBER OUR PAST LIVES?

Enq. You have given me a bird's eye view of the seven principles ; now
how do they account for our complete loss of any recollection of
having Uved before ?

Theo. Yery easily. Since those " principles " which we caU
physical, and none of which is denied by science, though it

128 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

calls them by other names,* are disintegrated after death
with their constituent elements, memory along with its brain,
this vanished memory of a vanished personality, can neither
remember nor record anything in the subsequent reincarna-
tion of the Ego. Eeincarnation means that this Ego will be
furnished with a new body, a new brain, and a new memory.
Therefore it would be as absurd to expect this memory to
remember that which it has never recorded as it would be idle
to examine under a microscope a shirt never worn by a
murderer, and seek on it for the stains of blood which are to
be found only on the clothes he wore. It is not the clean
shirt that we have to question, but the clothes worn during
the perpetration of the crime ; and if these are burnt and
destroyed, how can you get at them ?

Enq. Aye I how can you get at the certainty that the crime was ever
committed at all, or that the " man in the clean shirt " ever lived
before ?

Theo. Not by physical processes, most assuredly ; nor by relying
on the testimony of that which exists no longer. But there is
such a thing as circumstantial evidence, since our wise
laws accept it, more, perhaps, even than they should. To get
convinced of the fact of re-incarnation and past lives, one must
put oneself in rapport with one's real permanent Ego, not one's
evanescent memory.

• Namely, the body, life, passional and animal instincts, and the astral eidolon o£
every man (whether perceived in thought or our mind's eye, or objectively and
separate from the physical body), which principles we call Sthula sarira,
Prana, Kama rupa, and Linga sa/rira (vide supra).

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 129

Enq. But how can people believe in that which they do not know, nor
have ever seen, far less put themselves in rapport vrith it ?

Theo. If people, and the most learned, will believe in the
Gravity, Ether, Force, and what not of Science, abstractions
" and working hypotheses," which they have neither seen,
touched, smelt, heard, nor tasted — why should not other
people believe, on the same principle, in one's permanent Ego,
a far more logical and important " working hypothesis " than
any other ?

Enq. What is, finally, this mysterious eternal principle ? Can you
explain its nature so as to make it comprehensible to all ?

Theo. The Ego which re-incarnates, the individual and immortal —
not personal — " I " ; the vehicle, in short, of the Atma-Buddhic
Monad, that which is rewarded in Devachan and punished on
earth, and that, finally, to which the reflection only of the
Skandhas, or attributes, of every incarnation attaches itself.*

Enq. What do you mean by Skandhas ?

Theo. Just what I said : " attributes," among which is memory,
all of which perish like a flower, leaving behind them only a
feeble perfume. Here is another paragraph from H. S. Olcott's
" Buddhist Catechism "f which bears directly upon the

• '\

There are five SAareti/tas or attributes in the Buddhist teachings : " Bupa (form or
body), material qualities ; Vedana, sensation ; Sanna, abstract ideas ; Smnkhara,
tendencies of mind ; Vinnana, mental powers. Of these we are formed ; by them
we are conscious of existence ; and through them communicate with the world
about us."
t By H. S. Olcott, President and Founder of the Theosophical Society. The accuracy of
the teaching is sanctioned by the Rev. H. Sumangala, High Priest of the Sripada
and Galle, and Principal of the Widyodaya Parivena (College) at Colombo,
as being in agreement with the Canon of the Southern Buddhist Church.

130 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

subject. It deals with the question as follows : — " The aged
man remembers the incidents of his youth, despite his being
physically and mentally changed. Why, then, is not the
recollection of past lives brought over by us from our last
birth into the present birth ? Because memory is included
within the Skandhas, and the Skandhas having changed with
the new existence, a memory, the record of that particular
existence, develops. Yet the record or reflection of all the
past lives must survive, for when Prince Siddhartha became
Buddha, the full sequence of His previous births were seen by
Him. . . . and any one who attains to the state of Jhana can
thus retrospectively trace the line of his lives." This proves
to you that while the undying qualities of the personality —
such as love, goodness, charity, etc. — attach themselves to the
immortal Ego, photographing on it, so to speak, a permanent
image of the divine aspect of the man who was, his material
Skandhas (those which generate the most marked Karmic
effects) are as evanescent as a flash of lightning, and cannot
impress the new brain of the new personality ; yet their failing
to do so impairs in no way the identity of the re-incarnating
Ego.

Enq. Do you mean to infer that that which survives is only the Soul-
memory, as you call it, that Soul or Ego being one and the same,
while nothing of the personaHty remains ?

Theo. Not quite ; something of each personality, unless the latter
was an absolute materialist with not even a chink in his nature
for a spiritual ray to pass through, must survive, as it
leaves its eternal impress on the incarnating permanent Self

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 131

or Spiritual Ego.* (See On post mortem and post natal Con-
sciousness.) The personality with its Skandlias is ever
changing with every new birth. It is, as said before, only
the part played by the actor (the true Ego) for one night.
This is why we preserve no memory on the physical plane of
our past lives, though the real " Ego " has lived them over and
knows them aU.

Enq. Then how does it happen that the real or Spiritual man does not
impress his new personal "I " with this knowledge?

Theo. How is it that the servant-girls in a poor farm-house could
speak Hebrew and play the violin in their trance or somnambulic
state, and knew neither when in their normal condition ? Be-
cause, as every genuine psychologist of the old, not j'our modern,
school, wiU teU you, the Spiritual Ego can act only when the
personal Ego is paralysed. The Spiritual " I " in man is
omniscient and has every knowledge innate in it ; while the
personal self is the creature of its environment and the slave
of the physical memory. Could the former manifest itself
uninterruptedly, and without impediment, there would be no
longer men on earth, but we should all be gods.

Enq. Still there ought to be exceptions, and some ought to remember.

Theo. And so there are. But who believes in their report ?
Such sensitives are generally regarded as hallucinated hyste-
riacs, as crack-brained enthusiasts, or humbugs, bj'' modern
materialism. Let them read, however, works on this subject,

* Or the Spiritual, in contradistinction to the personal Self. The student must not
confuse this Spiritual Ego with the " highek self " which is Atma, the God
within us, and inseparable from the Universal Spirit.

132 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

pre-eminently " Eeincarnation, a Study of Forgotten Truth" by
S. D. Walker, F.T.S., and see in it tlie mass of proofs which
the able author brings to bear on this vexed question. One
speaks to people of soul, and some ask " What is Soul ? "
" Have you ever proved its existence ? " Of course it is useless
to argue with those who are materialists. But even to them I
would put the question : " Can you remember what you
were or did when a baby ? Have you preserved the smallest
recollection of your life, thoughts, or deeds, or that you lived
at all during the first eighteen months or two years of your
existence ? Then why not deny that you have ever lived as a
babe, on the same principle ? " When to all this we add that
the reincarnating Ego, or individuality, retains during the
Devachanic period merely the essence of the experience of its
past earth-life or personality, the whole physical experience
involving into a state of iJi potentia, or being, so to speak,
translated into spiritual formulse ; when we remember further
that the term between two rebirths is said to extend from ten
to fifteen centuries, during which time the physical conscious-
ness is totally and absolutely inactive, having no organs to act
through, and therefore no existence, the reason for the absence
of all remembrance in the purely physical memory is apparent.

Enq. You jiist said that the SpieituaI/ Ego was omniscient. Where,
then, is that vaunted omniscience during his Devachanic life, as you
call it ?

Theo. During that time it is latent and potential, because, first of
all, the Spiritual Ego (the compound of Buddhi-Manas) is not
the Higher Self, which being one with the Universal Soul or

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 133

^Find is alone omniscient ; and, secondly, because Devachan is
the idealized continuation of the terrestrial life just left behind,
a period of retributive adjustment, and a reward for unmerited
wi-ongs and sufferings undergone in that special life. It is
omniscient only potentially in Devachan, and de facto exclu-
sively in Nirvana, when the Ego is merged in the Universal
Mind-Soul. Yet it rebecomes quasi omniscient dui-ing those
hours on earth 'vvhen certain abnormal conditions and physio-
logical changes in the body make the Ego free from the
trammels of matter. Thus the examples cited above of
somnambulists, a poor servant speaking Hebrew, and another
playing the violin, give you an illustration of the case in point.
This does not mean that the explanations of these two facts
offered us by medical science have no truth in them, for one
girl had, years before, heard her master, a clergyman, read
Hebrew works aloud, and the other had heard an artist playing
a violin at their farm. But neither could have done so as
perfectly as they did had they not been ensouled by that
which, owing to the sameness of its nature with the Universal
Mind, is omniscient. Here the higher principle acted on the
Skandhas and moved them ; iu the other, the personaUty
l)eing paralysed, the individuality manifested itself. Pray do
not confuse the two.

134 ^^^ ■^^^ ^<^ THEOSOPHY.

ON INDIVIDUALITY AND PEBSONALITY.*

Enq. But what is the difference between the two? I confess that I
am still in the dark. Indeed it is just that difference, then, that
you cannot impress too much on our minds.

* Even in his Buddhist Catechism, Col. Oloott, forced to it by the logic of Esoteric
philosophy, found himself obliged to correct the mistakes of previous Orientalists
who made no such distinction, and gives the reader his reasons for it. Thus he
says : " The successive appearances upon the earth, or 'descents into generation,' of
the tanhaically coherent parts (Skandhas) of a certain being, are a succession of
personalities. In each birth the personality differs from that of a previous or
next succeeding birth. Karma, the deus ex machina, masks (or shall we say
reflects ?) itself now in the personality of a sage, again as an artisan, and so on
throughout the string of births. But though personalities ever shift, the one line
of life along which they are stnmg, like beads, runs unbroken ; it is ever that
particular line, never any other. It is therefore individual, an individual vital
undulation, which began in Nirvana, or the subjective side of nature, as the light
or heat imdulation through Eether began at its dynamic source ; is careering through
the objective side of nature under the impulse of Karma and the creative direction
of Tanha (the unsatisfied desire for existence) ; and leads through many cj'clic
changes back to Nirvana. Mr. Ehys-Davids calls that which passes from per-
sonality to personality along the individual chain ' character,' or ' doing.' Since
' character' is not a mere metaphysical abstraction, but the sum of one's mental
qualities and moral propensities, would it not help to dispel what Mr. Rhys-Davids
calls ' the desperate expedient of a mystery ' {Buddhism, p. 101) if we regarded
the life-undulation as individuality, and each of its series of natal manifestations
as a separate personality ? The perfect individual, Buddhistically speaking, is a
Buddha, I should say ; for Buddha is but the rare flower of humanity, without the
least supernatural admixture. And as countless generations (' four osanTcheyyas
and a hundred thousand cycles,' Fausbbll and Rhys-Davids' buddhist birth
STORIES, p. 13) are required to develop a man into a Buddha, and the iron will
to become one runs ihroughout aU the successive births, what shall we call that
which thus wOls and perseveres ? Character ? One's individuality ; an indi-
viduality but partly manifested in any one birth, but built up of fragments from
all the births 1 " (Bud. Cat., Appendix A. 137.)

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 135

Theo. I try to ; but alas, it is harder with some than to make
them feel a reverence for childish impossibihties, only because
they are orthodox, and because orthodoxy is respectable. To
understand the idea well, you have to first study the dual sets
of " principles " : the spiritual, or those which belong to the
imperishable Ego ; and the material, or those principles which
make up the ever-changing bodies or the series of personalities
of that Ego. Let us fix permanent names to these, and say
that : —