Theosophy

Sylvia Cranston – USA

[Condensed from HPB: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of H. P. Blavatsky, pp. 143-48, Path Publishing House, Third and Revised Edition. This excerpt is reproduced on Theosophy Forward in a slightly revised format to fit the magazine’s template. Permission is granted to reprint one time this article written and published by Anita Atkins (aka-Sylvia Cranston) to Jan Nicolaas Kind, publisher of Theosophy Forward. Copyright Owner: Dr. Caren  M. Elin, September 5, 2017].

In paging through H. P. Blavatsky’s scrapbook, the following entry is found in her handwriting under date of July 1875:

“Orders received from India direct to establish a philosophic-religious Society & choose a name for it – also to choose Olcott.”

On September 7, 1875, sixteen or seventeen persons joined HPB in her rooms at 46 Irving Place to hear a lecture by George H. Felt, an engineer and architect, on “The Lost Canon of Proportion of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.” The talk was enthusiastically received, and Olcott wrote on a slip of paper: “Would it not be a good thing to form a society for this kind of study?” He handed it to William Q. Judge to pass to HPB, who nodded assent. Judge moved that Olcott be elected chairman, and he, in turn, moved that Judge be appointed secretary. The meeting was then adjourned until the following evening.

A report of the first meeting appeared in a New York newspaper:

“One movement of great importance has just been inaugurated in New York, under the lead of Colonel Henry S. Olcott, in the organization of a society, to be known as the Theosophical Society. The suggestion was entirely unpremeditated, and was made on the evening of the 7th inst. in the parlors of Madame Blavatsky, where a company of seventeen ladies and gentlemen had assembled to meet Mr. George Henry Felt, whose discovery of the Geometrical figures of the Egyptian Kabbalah may be regarded as among the most surprising feats of the human intellect. The company included several persons of great learning and some of wide personal influence. The Managing Editors of two religious papers; the co-editors 6f two literary magazines; an Oxford LL.D.; a venerable Jewish scholar and traveler of repute; an editorial writer of one of the New morning dailies; the president of the New York Society of Spiritualists; Mr, C. C. Massey, an English visitor [barrister-at-law]; Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten and Dr. Britten; two New York lawyers besides Colonel Olcott; a partner in Philadelphia publishing house, a well-known physician [Dr. Seth Pancoast] and Madame Blavatsky herself, comprised Mr. Felt’s audience …”

Among those present, but not named in the foregoing report, were William Livingston Alden, an editorial writer for the New York Times; John Storer Cobb, editor of the New Era, organ of reformed Jews; and Charles Sotheran, scholarly editor of the American Bibliopolist and a high-ranking mason.

At subsequent meetings bylaws were decided upon and officers elected. Olcott was chosen president, and Dr. Pancoast and George Felt vice presidents. HPB agreed to serve as corresponding secretary, Sotheran as librarian, and Judge as counsel. The selection of a name for the society was difficult. Turning the pages of a dictionary, Sotheran came across Theosophy, which was unanimously adopted.

The word has a venerable history going back to the Neoplatonists and was later used by Christian mystics. Derived from the Greek words theos, “god,” and sophia, “wisdom,” it means godlike wisdom, or, according to HPB, “Divine Wisdom such as that possessed by the gods.”

To attempt to define the term more specifically is an unrewarding task, as Professor Ralph Hannon admits in an article on the subject:

“To ask the question ‘What is Theosophy?’ has been part of the history of the Theosophical Society since the beginning. In the very first issue of The Theosophist, Madame Blavatsky wrote a long article responding to this question. Numerous attempts have followed. On many occasions I have been asked this same question by members as well as nonmembers. I’m afraid my various answers have always left a degree of self-doubt. Only recently have I come to realize that I had been trying too hard. The answer, as with all things, is really a hierarchy; a multilevel system that is limited only by our ability to comprehend. In other words, ‘What is Theosophy?’ is a koan. We are told in Zen that ‘a koan is a formulation... pointing to ultimate truth. Koans cannot be solved by recourse to logical reasoning but only by awakening a deeper level of the mind beyond the discursive intellect.’”

As a practical, ethical philosophy, however, Theosophy can be defined, as Blavatsky indicates in a letter to the 1888 yearly Convention of American Theosophists:

“Many who have never heard of the Society are Theosophists without knowing it themselves; for the essence of Theosophy is the perfect harmonizing of the divine with the human in man, the adjustment of his god-like qualities and aspirations, and their sway over the terrestrial or animal passions in him. Kindness, absence of every ill feeling or selfishness, charity, goodwill to all beings, and perfect justice to others as to oneself are its chief features. He who teaches Theosophy preaches the gospel of goodwill, and the converse of this is true also – he who preaches the gospel of goodwill teaches Theosophy.”

“A Theosophist, with us, is one who makes Theosophy a living power in his life.” On another occasion, quoting the saying “handsome is who handsome does,” she paraphrased it to read: “Theosophist is who Theosophy does.”

One may wonder what good works of a practical nature the Theosophical Society itself performed in carrying out the objects. In the same 1888 letter HPB answers:

“Theosophists are of necessity the friends of all movements in the world, whether intellectual or simply practical, for the amelioration of the condition of mankind. We are the friends of all those who fight against drunkenness, against cruelty to animals, against injustice to women, against corruption in society or in government, although we do not meddle in politics. We are the friends of those who exercise practical charity, who seek to lift a little of the tremendous weight of misery that is crushing down the poor…

The function of Theosophists is to open men’s hearts and understandings to charity, justice, and generosity, attributes which belong specifically to the human kingdom and are natural to man when he has developed the qualities of a human being. Theosophy teaches the animal-man to be a human-man; and when people have learned to think and feel as truly human beings should feel and think, they will act humanely, and works of charity, ; justice, and generosity will be done spontaneously by all.”

The Theosophical Movement has three objects:

1. To form the nucleus of a universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.

2. The study of ancient and modem religions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance of such study; and

3. The investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man.

Sympathy with the first object is all that was required to join the TS. One need not believe in karma, reincarnation, or the existence of Masters or any other teaching.

The official birth date of the TS is generally regarded as November 17, 1875, when its president delivered his inaugural address, seventy days after the Society was first proposed.

Fifteen years later, when HPB was living in London, she was invited by the publisher of a leading U.S. publication, The North American Review, to contribute a paper on “recent progress of theosophy.” Under that title her article appeared in the August 1890 issue and described the phenomenal achievements thus far effected in various fields of human thought. Here we are concerned only with the contributing causes for such success. She remarked:

“The theosophical movement was a necessity of the age and it has spread under its own inherent impulsion, and owes nothing to adventitious methods. From the first it has had neither money, endowment, nor social or governmental patronage to count upon.

Accepting thankfully the results of scientific study and exposure of theological error, and adopting the methods and maxims of science, its advocates try to save from the wreck of cults the precious admixture of truth to be found in each. Discarding the theory of miracle and supernaturalism, they endeavor to trace out the kinship of the whole family of world-faiths to each other, and their common reconciliation with science...”

For many a long year the ‘great orphan,’ Humanity, has been crying aloud in the darkness for guidance and for light. Amid the increasing splendors of a progress purely material, of a science that nourished the intellect, but left the spirit to starve, Humanity, dimly feeling its origin and presaging its destiny, has stretched out towards the East empty hands that only a spiritual philosophy can fill. Aching from the divisions, the jealousies, the hatreds, that rend its very life, it has cried for some sure foundation on which to build the solidarity it senses, some metaphysical basis from which its loftiest social ideals may rise secure.... Such is the goal which theosophy has set itself to attain.”

The excerpt above was previously published in Theosophical Digest 1994 v6 i1 p21.