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Price 10 cents

An Exposition

of

[ heosophy

By ANNIE BESANT

aft

BOSTON
The Boston Theosophical Publishing Company
CHAHBER OF COMMERCE

OBJECT^ OF THE THEOfBpHHiAL gOftETY.

First — To form the nucleus of a Universal Brother
hood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed,
caste, sex, or color.
Second — To promote the study of- Aryan arid= other
Eastern literatures, religions, philosophies and sciences,
and to demonstrate its importance.
Third — To investigate unexplained laws of nature
and the psychical powers latent in man.
Beyond this the membership of the Theosophical
Society does not bind its fellows. They can remain
attached to any religious or non-religious views they may
have previously held, without challenge or question from
any. Theosophy is not a religion, but the essential truth
underlying all religions as all philosophies. Therefore,
there is nothing in the objects to prevent any one from
joining who believes in the Brotherhood of Man.

COURSE OF THEOSOPHICAL READING.

Experience indicates the following, taken in the order mentioned, as a
good series of books for a preliminary- course, of study. Sent post-paid on
receipt of price. Address The Boston Theosophical Publishing Co.

Indianapolis Letters on Theosopht  $ .10
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Mystic Quest, a tale oi two incarnations. Cloth  1.00
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Magic White and Black. " " " "  1.00
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The Secret Doctrine. The Synthesis oi Science, Eeigion and
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MRS. ANNIE BESANT.

An Exposition of Th

XPOSITION OF 1 HEOSOPHY

ANNIE BESANT.

Reprint from "The World," N. Y., February 26, 1893.

Point of Agreement and of Collision with Modern Theology.
The Evolution After Death. The Astral Body — How to
Use It. A Clear Statement of the Ethics and the
Philosophy of the Wisdom Religion of the
Orient. A careful Review of All Points
that Interest the American Public.

published by
THE BOSTON THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO.,
Chamber of Commerce,
BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.
1893.

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.

I had the good fortune to meet Annie Besant at the
rooms of the Theosophical Society on Madison avenue,
when she had a little time to spare me from her many
engagements, and the result was we had a pleasant con
versation and edifying, to me at least, as it related al
most entirely to Theosophy, of which she is at this
moment the best-known and the most intelligible ex
ponent before the people.
I asked her if she would allow me to propound some
questions on behalf of "The World," which I thought
the public would be interested in, and she replied that
she would endeavor to answer them, but she was not
sure that a colloquy could present the subject clearly to
the public.
I said I would try and ask only those questions that
the ordinary wayfaring man of intelligence would like
to have answered, and would try and preserve the spirit
of her replies.

4 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
With this understanding we talked for an hour and a
half, and, with the exception of the unimportant collo
quial breaks I have given the questions and answers as
correctly as possible.
Q. Would the general acceptance of theosophical
truths, as you state them, disturb the prevailing relig
ious concepts of man or tend to unify them ?
A. It would tend to deepen religious concepts and
therefore to unify them. Any one who studies religions
in the comparative way will be struck by the wonderful
agreement in their concepts and the wonderful diversity
in their ways of expressing these concepts. The diver
sity lies upon the surface, and is therefore the first thing
seen, and, as most people do not go beyond the surface
they remain convinced that religions are antagonistic
and, of course, that their own religion is the best. It is
as though a tree were buried so that only the ends of
spreading boughs should be seen, coming above the
ground at wide intervals; one branch might bear only
leaves, another only a flower, another a fruit, and the
branches would seem like separate plants; trace them
down underneath the ground, and they would all be
found to spring from the same stem. So with religions ;
on the surface we see their creeds and their ceremonies,
and they differ; underneath we find that the creeds ex
press the same concept, each in its own manner, and
that the ceremonies are clumsy pictorial ways of imag
ing the same truth.
Q. Do I understand you to say that Theosophy is a
religion ?
A. The Wisdom Religion, called in. modern times The
osophy, is the hidden stem from which all these different

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 5
religions have sprung, and its truths have been pre
sented under allegories, varying much with the educa
tion and the general conditions of the people concerned
and the stage of evolution reached by them. If you
were explaining a new electrical apparatus, you would
not explain it in the same way to a trained electrician
and to a child.
Q. But how does Theosophy tend to unify these con
cepts ?
A. By showing the fact that these concepts are one
in every religion and explaining the diversity of presen
tation. Thus, every religion proclaims the spiritual
nature of man and the universe, making them proceed
as material manifestations from a spiritual source. The
different religions give different names to this source
and make it more or less anthropomorphic, according to
the mental stage reached by the teachers and their fol
lowers, and so we have popular Hinduism, Buddhism,
Christianity, &c, while the highly educated and philo
sophic adherents of these creeds hold views very dif
ferent from the crude popular beliefs. The Wisdom
Religion teaches a profound Pantheism, sees the source
of spirit and matter alike in the One, that without
which no manifestation could exist ; recognizes that in
manifestation intelligence is everywhere, guiding, mould
ing, controlling matter; shows the devas of the Hindu
and the angels of the Christian to have their places and
work in the universe, but jealously guards from all limi
tations that source of which the centre is everywhere
and the circumference nowhere, in which the immeasur
able universe is but as a grain of sand, and which is yet
the life of the spirit in man.

6 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
Q. Can you not give an illustration less abstract than
this ?
A. Well take that of divine incarnation. We have
the Krishna of the Hindu, the Buddha of the Buddhist,
the Christ of the Christian. These are not antagonistic
concepts, but complementary aspects of a fact in nature.
Each is looked on as unique by the adherents of each
religion. All are looked on as repeated examples of the
same truth by the follower of the Wisdom Religion.
The fact in nature is that every man is the incarnation
of a God, and the work of evolution is the gradual mani
festation of that divine nature. The supreme teachers
of the race, the divine founders of great religions, are
men who, during ages of evolutionary progress, have so
purified and sublimed their human nature that it has
become translucent to the God within. Thus the Budd
hist should see in every man a potential Buddha, as the
Christian in every man a potential Christ, and each
should recognize that, while the other uses a different
label, he affixes his label to the same thing. The prac
tical result of recognizing this esoteric truth under the
exoteric veil will not only be to soften religious antag
onisms, but also that religious teachers will appeal to
this divine nature in man, and will trust it, instead of
treating man as being naturally inclined to evil and only
to be held back by threats. The most advanced teachers
in the Christian churches are more and more recognizing
this truth and are seeing in Christ the promise of what
each shall become, instead of an external Saviour bear
ing the penalty of other men's sins. That these great
teachers had reached a common ground is shown by the
identity of their moral teachings; their philosophic

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 7
•
presentations of nature and of man varied, for one was
speaking to a highly intellectual and the other to a
grossly ignorant people, but the moral doctrine is iden
tical. And it is significant that that doctrine is still the
high- water mark of morality ; no teacher has arisen that
has carried the tide higher. And what is true of these
is true of the teaching of Krishna, as found in the
Bhagavad Gita. Do you not see that, as more and more
people look at things from this standpoint, unity must
be approached ?
Q. Are not the so-called facts of Theosophy all hy
potheses — that is, cosmological facts, facts of human
evolution after death, facts of reincarnation ? Can these
so-called facts be demonstrated ?
A. No ; they are as much facts as any recorded by the
science of the Western World, but when you ask : " Can
they be demonstrated?" the Theosophist is in just the
same difficulty as that in which any scientist would find
himself if challenged to demonstrate some unfamiliar
and complicated discovery to an ordinary layman. The
mathematician could not demonstrate an abstruse the
orem to a lad ignorant of the first elements of mathe
matical science, nor the chemist the intermolecular
combination of a complicated hydro-carbon to one who
knew nothing of chemical theory. The facts can be
demonstrated, but training is necessary to understand
the demonstration. And that is one reason why none
of these teachings are obligatory of belief on any mem
ber of the Theosophical Society. They are laid down
as facts by the Adepts, who have verified them, but are
not forced by them on others for blind acceptance. The
cosmological facts cannot be verified by the ordinary

8 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
reader, any more than he can verify the occurrence of
other facts in ancient history. They may be corrobo
rated from many sources — as has been shown by H. P.
Blavatsky in the "Secret Doctrine " — such as geological
discoveries, ancient ruins, traces left in buried cities,
relics of long-past times otherwise unintelligible. It is
claimed that every event in the world's past evolution
has left its picture in the astral light, an ethereal atmos
phere surrounding the earth, and that the evolutionary
history can be read in these pictures. But in order to
read it certain psychic faculties are necessary, and these
are seldom innate in Western peoples; they can, how
ever, be developed by training, and then the student
may read some of these pictures for himself; but com
plete independent verification of all the cosmological
facts is only possible to the Adept.
Q. Does this argument apply to facts of human expe
rience after death.
A. The facts of human evolution after death are on a
somewhat different footing ; these are going on around
us at the present time, and may be verified by the stu
dent as he advances. What we call death is merely the
shedding by the soul of the physical body, in which it
has been living, and this is an experience which becomes
familiar to the student at a comparatively early stage of
his apprenticeship. In fact, it is not unknown to per
sons here and there who are not even studying occult
science. I know of more than one person in England
who can slip out of the body, remain conscious while out
of it, and return into the body. Any one who, by nat
ural constitution or by occult training, can step out of
the body, look at it from outside, go away from it, return

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 9
to it, and re-enter it, has gained a demonstration of the
first stage of post-mortem evolution, and it is no longer
a hypothesis to such a person, but a fact. So, if a per
son watching the dying can see, as Andrew Jackson
Davis saw, the tenuous ethereal double slip out of the
body and remain hovering over it, such a person has
gained a knowledge based on fact as much as any know
ledge acquired by careful observation through a micro
scope. _ And when, you get many persons who have had
personal knowledge of this extra-physical life, when they
all coincide in their testimony, and when the way of
verifying this testimony is put within your reach, it can
hardly be said that we are dealing with "so-called facts"
which are only hypotheses in reality. The next stage
of post-mortem experience is equally open to observation.
When the soul sheds the ethereal double, as it does very
quickly, it remains in the material envelope which is the
seat of all feelings, appetites and desires — that which
we call the body of desire.
Q. Do I understand you, then, to say that the body
of desire is present to the sense, as is any other mate
rial object of sincere study?
A. The student, as his faculties develop, can see these
bodies and can observe them, as closely as the naturalist
can observe any living thing that he may have chosen as
the object of his study. The non-scientific man and
woman, desiring some knowledge of the physical world
around them, will read the naturalist's report and will
not regard his careful observations as hypotheses, even
though they have not the time, the training, nor, per
haps, the capacity to reverify all his statements. So the
Theosophist, who is not also an occult student, will read

10 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
and may accept the conclusions arrived at and the state
ments made by Adepts, though he may lack time, train
ing and capacity to reverify the experiments. The last
stage of post-mortem experience, that during which the
soul, having shed its last envelope, dwells "in its own
place"; this, again, is a state of consciousness into
which the student may pass, at a more advanced period
in his study, so that the Adept has long been familiar
with it. The truth of the doctrine of reincarnation
rests — before memory of past lives is recovered — on
numerous facts, which are unintelligible without it. It
is sometimes forgotten that in mathematics, our most
"exact" science, a theorem is held to be proved if you
can show that any other conclusion save the one stated
is absurd. And this is the case as regards the theory
of reincarnation; we often come across a state of affairs
of which it is the only explantaion that is not absurd on
the face of it. If any one desires to find out whether
reincarnation be, or be not, a fact in nature, I would
advise him to follow some of the following lines : Let
him ask the explanation of (i) the great physical and
passional unity of all human races, coupled with the
vast intellectual and moral difference; (2) the physical
and passional resemblances between members of a fam
ily, coupled with great difference of mental and moral
capacity; (3) the similar facts in the history of twins;
(4) infant precocity, as in Mozart; (5) genius, as in
Shakespeare, with the power of perfectly representing
types of human character the most diverse, although
having a very limited personal experience; (6) why the
musical genius is born in a musical family, while the in
tellectual genius often springs from most commonplace

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 11
parentage; (7) the difference between two people of
about equal mental ability, in assimilating different
kinds of knowledge ; (8) the intuitive faculty, recogniz
ing a truth as true on its first presentation; (9) dif
ferences of innate character, one child being born with
vicious, another with virtuous tendencies; is this con
sistent with justice, unless each is reaping a harvest of
his own sowing? (10) recurrent cycles in history, as the
total disappearance of a system of thought and its re-
emergence some fifteen centuries later; (11) the rise
and fall of races and of civilizations. These are only a
few of the lines of thought, which, followed, lead us to a
belief in reincarnation as the only theory consistent
with right sense and reason.
Q. How about1 the consciousness of a previous exist
ence or condition ?
A. I have met various persons of honor and probity,
who remember some of their past lives, and I myself re
member fragments of my own past. But there is no
way in which such personal evidence as this can be ver
ified, so it is useless to put it forward as anything more
than a statement.
Q. But if reincarnation is a fact, how do you explain
the increase of population ? New souls must come into
existence to account for this.
A. Are you sure that the total population of the world
is increasing ? What do you know, for instance, of the
population of China ? Population may ebb in one dis
trict as it flows in another, and we have no statistics on
which we can base our judgment. Let us suppose,
however, that it does increase; there are myriads of
souls out of incarnation more than there are incarnated

12 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
at any given time, and a slight shortening of the period
between incarnations would double or treble the popula
tion of the globe. If you had a small hall in a large
town, and it was but half filled with people, there would
be no need to create new inhabitants of the town in
order to fill the hall ; it would be enough to induce some
more of the inhabitants to come into the hall. And so
with our globe and the inhabitants of the earth's sphere «
in space.
Q. If I lived on earth before, how comes it that I do
not remember my past existence ?
A. Your brain has not lived on earth before, and your
ordinary memory includes only impressions made on
your brain. Even these you do not remember for the
most part, although many would reappear in conscious
ness if your brain were thrown into an abnormal condi
tion. It is your soul that knows its own past, and in
that past your present body had no share ; if you make
your present brain more sensitive to impressions coming
from the soul — as you might train your eye to become
more sensitive to delicate shades of color — you, like
others, may regain the memory of the past. But nor
mally the memory of the soul prints itself on conscious
ness as character, that is, as the outcome of experience.
Just as education shows itself in knowledge, while mem
ory of the particular books in which he studied as a
child may have passed from the man, so does the effect
of past events show itself in character without the mem
ory of the particular events being thrown into conscious
ness. The experienced soul shines through the brain as
character, as the fact that a man is educated shows it
self in his speech.

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 13
Q. Do not your addresses to the public lean rather to
the thaumaturgic or spiritualistic view, than to the
esoteric view of Theosophy ?
A. I do not think so ; out of twenty lectures submitted
to Mr. Judge, the General Secretary of the Theosophical
Society in America, only two could be called " thauma-
turgical; " of these two, one has not been delivered at
all, and the second has only been delivered once. Of
course, in stating any part of the esoteric philosophy,
one may adduce any facts illustrative of the subject
under discussion, as these serve to induce conviction in
the minds of the hearers. I dissent wholly from the
spiritualistic view that man is a duality of body and
spirit, and that when he is out of the body he is a pure
spirit. Also, I regard what has been called the "phe
nomenal" aspect of Theosophy as of very small impor
tance compared with its philosophy and its ethics, and I
very rarely allude to it at all.
Q. What facts has Theosophy to offer about the
higher realms of existence ?
A. Can I answer that question without slipping into
what you call thaumaturgy ? Frankly, the superphysical
realms of existence are to us as normal and as natural as
is the physical. The realm immediately beyond the
physical is that we call the astral, or ethereal, and we
allege, as you know, the fact of the astral or ethereal
double, and demonstrate its existence. There is an
argument for the existence of this astral body that
seems to me cogent, apart from its demonstration to the
senses. Many of our modern scientists, men like
Crooks, Tesla, Helmholtz and Lodge, regard ether as
intimately related to electricity, as, perhaps, inseparable

U AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
from it. Now, we look on electricity as one of the forms
of the universal life, and on the astral body as the
vehicle of the life energy in ourselves. As the physical
body is continually changing, its molecules being con
stantly in a state of flux, some coming and some going
all the time, it seems of necessity that there should be a
stable matrix like the ethereal double, in which the life ¦
forces may play, repelling and attracting, binding and
loosing the molecules. Besides, the scientists tell us
that physical matter is not continuous, and talk about
intermolecular spaces filled with ether. If it were not
for these Tesla could not hold a tube in his hand and let
it glow with light from a current playing on and through
his body. Oh ! by and by you will all be saying that it
is obvious that there must be an ethereal replica of
man's physical body, interpenetrating it, and it is only
because we Theosophists explained it so badly that you
did not accept it at once. And, I dare say, there's some
truth in that. Passing out of the astral and the life
planes, or realms, we come to the passional, and, as H.
P. Blavatsky said, if physicians would study what they
call mania and hallucinations more carefully, they might
find out many interesting facts about the fourth realm
of existence. Beyond this lies the realm of the soul,
which shows itself as intellect in the brain of man, but
which can also work in many subtle ways on the world
of matter. For the soul, in working through the brain
as thought, not only causes therein molecular changes
which register those thoughts in the brain-memory, but
it also generates thought images or pictures, which,
once generated, assume an existence of their own, pass
outwards into the astral realm, and act therefrom on the

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 15
minds of other men, influencing them to action. Thus,
the astral light is continually being filled with our
thought-images and these effect others. Hence simul
taneous discoveries, crimes of closely allied nature,
panics, epidemics, &c. Each mind attracts from the
astral light thought-images, for which it has affinity,
and so reinforces its own tendencies towards good and
evil. From the knowledge of this comes the increased
responsibility which the Theosophist feels as to his
thoughts, for he knows that all acts are materializations
of these thought-images, the astral picture precipitated,
as it were, on the material plane. And the very fact
that he cannot tell with what other thought-images his
own may interest, renders him the more careful in seek
ing to contribute only good and useful thoughts. Let
me take a case as illustration. A wrong is committed
against me, and I feel angry and revengeful for a few
moments; I have generated a thought-form of evil type,
and that becomes a force for evil, contributed by me to
the astral world; once in that world, it is within the
range of attraction by men who have any affinity with
it. Now, suppose a man of a not very unusual type,
brutal in his instincts, strong in his passions, and quick
to translate impulse into action; some one angers him,
his passion leaps to flame, my angry thought-image is
drawn towards its like in him, and adds fuel to the flame;
his uncurbed wrath passes swiftly into brutal act, he
strikes and commits a murder. My thought has con
tributed to that murder, and I share in the effects flow
ing from that cause, and must reap my share of the
harvest to which I have contributed a seed. These are
some of the facts we learn as to the higher realms of

16 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
existence in their bearing on conduct, and we recognize
in these invisible forces the strongest agencies that can
be brought to bear on the visible. Acts are but the
final expressions of thoughts, and the force lies in the
thought realm, our fifth plane of existence. Beyond
this, we recognize two yet subtler realms, those of the
spirit and of its vehicle, but it is useless to speak of
these. Q. If you have had any experiences with the forms of
life beyond the plane of earthly existence, will you ex
plain them ?
A. My experience is very limited; like other students
I have seen elementals, astral pictures, astral bodies,
and so on, but I am not fond of talking of my personal
experience on these lines, although perfectly willing to
state the fact that I have had such experience, so as to
add my testimony to that of others, who assert the real
ity of realms of existence beyond the physical. As tes
timony of this kind is constantly accumulating, one may
hope that ultimately it will be accepted by people in
general, and that the superphysical world will be re
garded as an established fact.
Q. You have, then, seen an astral body ?
A. Yes, I have seen my own, among others. The
astral world surrounds us on every side, and we very
easily contact it.
Q. Can you convince any one else that it was an ob
jective and not a subjective impression ?
A. I have seen astral appearances when in company
with others, and those others have also seen them, but I
do not see how I could convince people who were not
there, of their objective nature if those people were de-

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. IT
termined not to believe in anything that was not of solid
physical matter. I can give my own testimony and the
testimony of others, but I might, none the less, be in
the condition of the traveller who could not convince the
Indian Prince that water could become so solid that men
could walk on it. To some people everything is hallu
cination which does not at once square with their own
limited experience.
Q. Have you ever been convinced that some one else
saw such a thing ?
A. Frequently. I have one friend who very readily
sees astral forms when she is at all nervously over
strained. You know that as you stretch a string it
yields a higher note, vibrating in shorter and more
rapid waves as the tension increases. So, as the nerv
ous system is thrown into a state of greater tension than
in its normal and healthy state, it vibrates to the shorter
and more rapid waves of the astral light. There is an
other reason why depletion of nervous energy tends to
"visions." As was said before, every nervous molecule
has its envelope of ethereal or astral matter; if the phy
sical nervous molecule is partly emptied of its vitality,
it is more at the mercy so to say, of the vibrations of its
astral envelope, and its own vibrations being feeble, the
vibrations of the other make themselves more strongly
felt. This is why very robust animal . vigor conflicts
with astral vision. If you want to catch a delicate
sound, loud sounds must be stilled. You are aware, I
suppose, that an astral form is often mistaken for a phy
sical form, until some incongruity reveals the blunder?
Thus, a member of the Blavatsky Lodge in London one
day saw an Indian seated on the sofa; the sight was a

18 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
very usual one and did not attract his special notice
until another visitor sat down plump in the lap of the
Indian, who promptly disappeared, followed by a startled
" Oh ! " from the member who had not distinguished his
unsubstantial character. I was myself similarly deluded
the other day when addressing a meeting of a branch of
the T. S. I saw a man I knew sitting by himself on a
bench, and thought that I was glad he had been able to
reach the meeting in time ; he was near me, and I looked
at him several times, but missed him when the meeting
broke up, and wondered he did not come and speak to
me with the other members. Two days later I met him,
and found he had not been present at the meeting,
though he had much wished to be there.
O. How do Theosophists regard the present interest
in psychic phenomena in the West ?
A. We regard that interest as one of the many signs
that the time is rapidly approaching when the reality
of psychic phenomena will be put beyond all challenge
and the reality of the human soul will no. longer be
matter of dispute. Theosophists are still generally
classed as cranks ; the abler ones are apt to be regarded
as knaves and the average ones as dupes. But as the
testimony of Western men of letters and of science to
the reality of psychic phenomena, of intelligence di
vorced from physical matter, of phantasmal appearances
accumulates, the hitherto despised Theosophist — who
is the only person offering a rational and coherent the
ory as to these facts — will have an opportunity of stat
ing his case with the certainty of being listened to.
O. What is the best and simplest definition of Mahat-
mas for the public?

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 19
A/ A Mahatmas is a living man who has evolved
more rapidly than the vast majority of the human race,
and has reached a stage of mental, moral and spiritual
development which will be attained by the race in the
future only at the end of milleniums of years. He is
the perfected flower of humanity, the ideal man, the
promise of the future realized to-day. In him the
spiritual nature is developed and works unrestrainedly
through the mental and physical, so that he has become
the master of all forces in nature and can utilize them
at will. Holding this position of royalty over nature, he
becomes the servant of humanity, dedicating himself
with perfect self-devotion to the good of mankind, aid
ing their progress, assisting their evolution, seeking to
show the light to any who look for it, teaching any who
prove themselves desirous and capable of instruction.
They have been well-termed the Elder brothers of the
race, from the continual watchful care they exert over
human interests. The Theosophical Society is due to
their impulse, and is intended to subserve the spiritual
advancement of man at the present stage of his evolu
tion ; it is intended, as one of the Mahatmas wrote of a
branch proposed to be started by Mr. Sinnett and his
colleagues, to "help to furnish the materials for a needed
universal religious philosophy; one impregnable to sci
entific assault, because itself the finality of absolute
science, and a religion that is indeed worthy of the
name, since it includes the relations of man physical to
man psychical, and of the two to all that is above and be
low them." (" Occult World," sixth American edition, p.
138.) It is only one of their continual efforts to help man
forward, but it is the one most in evidence at present.

20 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
Q. In what way does Theosophy conflict with such
Christian dogmas as the trinity, eternal punishment and
redemption ?
A. Theosophy recognizes a trinity at the root of
nature and of man, three aspects of the one. For the
one becomes three in manifestation, spirit or energy,
its vehicle primary matter and consciousness. In all
exoteric religions this metaphysical trinity has been
represented as a literal personified trinity, and by this
degradation has often been rendered grotesque. Eter
nal punishment is being given up by the best of the
Christian clergy, so it is not necessary to turn to Theos
ophy for its repudiation; it revolts the conscience of
mankind as aimless torture should and must ever do,
and implies a reversal of every sentiment of compassion
and sympathy in the saints who escape it. The esoteric
philosophy recognizes law, by which each individual
reaps as he sowed, but the penalty is enwrapped in the
offense and is suffered here, where the offense has been
committed. In some cases the suffering follows close
on the wrong, in others the harvest of pain may be
reaped in other lives; but, in all cases, the soul gains
experience as it eats the bitter fruit from an evil seed
and learns by its pain to avoid similar blunders in the
future. The third point raised — redemption — is not
very clear. Christian theologians have wearied them
selves with arguments over the meaning of the word,
and the old view of vicarious atonement that it used to
connote is heartily repudiated by many leaders of Chris
tian thought. I deny that one man can bear the penalty
of another man's transgression while the sinner goes
free, and such a doctrine seems to be immoral and sub-

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 21
versive of all natural law. But, knowing also that
humanity is one, I admit that our good and evil
thoughts and acts influence others, and rejoice to know
that a man may win by his effort priceless treasures
that he may scatter abroad to enrich the race, and thus
become, in a very real sense, one of the redeemers of the
world. Q. How does Theosophy differ from Christianity in
dealing with the mystery of evil ?
A. Evil and good, like light and darkness, are correla
tives, and the existence of each is necessary for the
recognition of the other. You can as easily draw a
straight line with one end as have a universe in which
both good and evil are not present. They are its poles.
And, further, a thing is evil in one place which is not
evil in another, as "dirt is matter in the wrong place."
When a stage in evolution, perfectly good in its own
place, persists into a higher stage, in which it should
have been left behind, it becomes evil. For it is incon
gruous, out of harmony, causing friction and discord.
The action which is right in the brute becomes wrong in
the man, for the man should have evolved beyond the
brute stage.
Q. How does Kama Loka differ from the Christian
concept of purgatory and the Greek theory of hades ?
A. Kama Loka — the place of desire — is a post-mor
tem stage which none can escape. In it the soul dwells,
when it has shaken off the physical body and the ethereal
double, so longNas the body of desire still encloses it,
the length of the stay depending on the relative strength
of the soul and of the animal desires. I have little doubt
that the Greek hades and the Christian purgatory are

22 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
both derived from Kama Loka, though, if I remember
rightly, the shade in hades did not pass on into any
state analogous to our Devachan, the land of the soul,
while the soul in purgatory is suffering torture on its
way to paradise, and is only admitted if not in mortal sin.
Q. What do you say to the charge made by Christian
opponents that Buddhism is a pessimistic religion, and
ends in despair ?
A. Frankly, I do not much concern myself with it.
It shows prejudice and ignorance, for Buddhism is no
more pessimistic than Christianity; both regard life
here as full of sorrow, and the Buddhist does not put
this more strongly than does the Christian. Further
more, Buddhism does not end in despair, but in Nirvana,
whereas Christianity has a bottomless pit of fire and
brimstone for all who do not find the narrow way, and
"few there be that find it."
Q. What is your view of Nirvana ? Is it the ultimate
rest of the conscious soul, or the annihilation of the
ego? A. It is the expansion of the limited human con
sciousness into the all-consciousness, and the Eastern
mind has wearied itself in the effort to strike off all
limitations, so as dimly to convey what is, in truth, in
expressible in human speech. But our Orientalists who
have so glibly talked about extinction, might have
caught a better idea of what the Buddhist struggles to
describe, if they had remembered that Buddha' entered
Nirvana when he reached enlightment, and after that
preached his good law to the world. This is clearly not
a case of the "annihilation of the ego." Nirvana is a
state reached by the Adept, out of which he returns to

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 23
earth-life with such remembrances of it as he is able to
retain when again imprisoned in the body. According
to the esoteric philosophy, the Egos re-emerge from
Nirvana to commence a new cycle of evolution with the
results they have accumulated in their past. Thus the
advanced men of one cycle become the guiding spiritual
intelligences of a succeeding cycle.
Q. Does not Theosophy look upon most of the
material manifestations of modern spiritism as brought
about by other than departed spirits ? (Elementals.)
A. Material manifestations are caused by the ethereal
double of the medium, by elementals, shells and . other
material means. Most modern spiritualists speak as
though man were only a duality, body and spirit, and
when the body is in the grave any phenomenon con
nected with the departed must be wrought by the spirit.
Spirit cannot act on the material plane, save through
various vehicles, and in the ordinary person spirit is
latent, not active, whether connected with a body or dis
connected from one.
Q. Does not Theosophy declare that the feats of the
Indian fakirs, like those of the lower order of mediums,
are brought about by the command or assistance of
these sportive and wayward " elementals " ?
A. Many of the feats of the Indian fakirs are hallu
cinations produced by mesmeric force. These hallucin
ations are often collective, imposed on a whole crowd,
but H. P. Blavatsky told me that in such a crowd there
were generally two or three who were not under the
psychological influence affecting their neighbors. Other
tricks are pure sleight-of-hand. A few are "real," i.e.,
what is seen is there before the eyes in material form. A

24 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
fakir will occasionally be the possessor of a secret, jeal
ously guarded, which enables him to produce one "real"
phenomenon. The remainder of his feats may be tricks
or hallucinations. It should not, however, be forgotten
that the power of producing a collective hallucination is
a very remarkable one, and that such a "psychological
trick" is of a most interesting and instructive character.
In the "real" feat elementals are sometimes the agents
employed. Q. Are the Oriental nations which have accepted
Buddhism and Brahminism abreast of Western or Chris
tian nations in practical benevolence, in hopeful energy,
in merciful legislation and social well-being?
A. In practical benevolence India long led the way,
for under the Buddhist ruler, Asoka, B. C. 300, hospitals
were common for sick persons and sick animals, as were
places of refuge for the destitute, shelters and works of
charity of every kind. Added to this, in India, long
before Buddhism, it was a recognized duty to welcome
as guest any wayfarer who asked for hospitality, as may
be seen in the ancient laws of India and the records of
ordinary life. The value of the Brahmin and Buddhist
training in practical benevolence cannot be estimated by
the state of the country after it has become impov
erished by Mahometan and Christian conquest. " Hope
ful energy" is somewhat at a discount in India in
material things since her children were shut out from
all share in her management, but there must have been
plenty of it in the old days, when " the droppings from
her soil fed distant regions." "Merciful legislation"
has been little required in a country under the code of
Manu and the good law of Buddha, and where the need

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 25
of societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and
animals has never arisen. " Social well-being was at one
time fairly universal, but that was ere famine trod on the
heels of conquest. Few nations, if any, have a past as
glorious as that of India, and her past belongs to Brah
minism and Buddhism. I freely grant that her present
leaves much to be desired, and that putting aside all the
evils wrought by foreign conquest, India's present is
mainly due to the decay of spiritual life among her
people, and the canker of spiritual selfishness which has
eaten away the heart of her religion and left only the
outward husk. But even to our own day, much of the
ancient virtue of the people remains in the villages little
influenced by foreign thought. Of these Lieut.-Col.
Monier Williams wrote fifty years ago, that he found
them "simple and temperate, quiet and peaceful, obedi
ent and faithful." He officially reported them as having
" the advantage of Europeans of the same class, not only
in propriety of manners, but in the practice of moral
virtues." They had "no conspicuous vices." Family
life was affectionate, and children habitually dutiful.
They were hospitable to strangers and showed "charity
without ostentation." "The indigent and diseased were
always provided for by the internal village arrange
ments," and there were no beggars save the religious
mendicants. They were so honest that "no written
documents in transactions involving money payments
were required"; cultivators paid rents without taking
receipts, and money and valuables were deposited
" without any other security than the accounts of the
parties." At a fair where 200,000 people were present,
there was "no rioting, no quarrelling, no drunkenness,

26 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
nor disorder of any kind." (See Monier Williams's
"Modern India," p. 57.) Such is the testimony of an
English Government official fifty years ago. Would a
report of any village district in Christian England be as
good ?
Q. To the Occidental mind two points of interest
present themselves in all speculative theology:
1st — What light does it shed on the destiny of man?
2nd — What scheme does it present forthe ameliora
tion of social evils? Does Theosophy meet these in
quiries with any new hope or promise ?
A. It seems to me that it does, and herein I found
much of its attractiveness. According to its teaching,
humanity is destined to evolve onward until man be
comes a perfect being in every part of his nature, and
man has, stretching before him a future dazzling in its
glory, the realization* of which depends on his ¦ own
efforts. The Wisdom Religion sees in every man a god
fallen into matter, and the ascent and triumph of that
god is only a question of time. It does not and cannot
present "a scheme for the amelioration of social evils,"
for a scheme must be adapted to the state of society in
which it is formulated and applied to the evils it is de
sired to remove. A philosophy which lasts on un
changed for thousands of centuries cannot bring special
schemes to the relief of the transitory evils of a transi
tory social system. The devising of such schemes is
the duty of the Theosophists of the day, who should
apply the eternal principles to the solution of the special
problems confronting them. The knowledge of the
Theosophist should guide him in his efforts, and so he
may avoid some of the pitfalls which beset the path of

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 27
the reformer and the philanthrophist, and may find new
and effective arguments against the continuance of
social evils. Let me take an instance; we have in our
great towns a slum population, and the Theosophist sees
in this not only a terrible evil to those now composing
it, but a soil which will perpetuate the evil; for such
men and women and such surroundings attract for
incarnation Egos, who bring with them evil tendencies
and brutal qualities, and such Egos are inevitably drawn
to the place which offers them suitable conditions for
the exercise of these characteristics. If a nation desires
to avoid increasing its population by such undesirable
elements it must eliminate its slums and encourage con
ditions which will attract nobler types of souls; thus
may it build up national greatness, but no nation can
remain great which has in its midst spots which attract
backward Egos to incarnate in its families, as surely as
dirt attracts disease. So also does a commercial system,
which encourages sharp practice and unscrupulous deal
ings, help to perpetuate thoughts which nourish the
criminal class in the way before explained. And I
might take up point after point in our teachings and
show how they lead to fundamental changes in our
social system, and how, under the guidance of this phi
losophy, the causes of evil would be removed and not
only the effects.
Q. What is the relation of Theosophy to modern
scientific evolution ? Does it not precede it as a philos
ophy historically ?
A. Certainly.' Theosophy long precedes the modern
theory of evolution, for it dates back milleniums, where
as the other is, as you say, modern. The evolution

28 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
taught in the Wisdom Religion embraces the whole
growth of the universe and considers the involuntary
side as well as the evolutionary. It traces the enfolding
of spirit in matter, as well as the unfolding of matter
into spirit, and thus presents the whole circle, instead
of the fragment of an arc. It sees in the Darwinian
view a glimpse of the truth, but repudiates the details
of his scheme. To take an instance, it regards the
anthropoid ape as the result of a degradation from the
human stock, instead of as a stage in human evolution.
Q. Were you not, before coming in contact with The
osophy, an Atheist ?
A. Yes, I was "without God; " I did not say "There is
no God." The type of Atheist who takes the latter posi
tion exists, so far as I know, only in sermons and tracts.
Q. Has Theosophy made you a Theist ?
A. If by Theist you mean a believer in a personal,
and therefore limited God, who is in the same breath de
clared to be limitless, no. Technically, I am a Pantheist,
recognizing one Divine Life as the source of all manifes
tation, and seeing in the material universe one expression
of that life. But all these terms are unsatisfactory.
Q. Is there anything in Theosophy which enlarges
the human concept of an imminent First Cause ?
A. "Enlarges the concept" is just the right phrase;
but our discussion is becoming too metaphysical.
Q. What was the process of change in your mind
from your original state of mind to your present
views ?
A. Speaking very generally, the accumulating testi
mony of the action of intelligence apart from the organ
ism of the brain. My own experiments proved this to

AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY. 29
me, and when this fact is once proved the bottom is
knocked out of materialism.
Q./Was the process in any.sense away from material
ism to spiritualism ?
A. No. I never found myself able to accept the
spiritualistic explanation of phenomena which I knew to
be real. The process was a leaving of materialism, a
suspension of judgment, an accumulation of facts, and,
finally, the finding of Theosophy, which offered a ra
tional explanation of the facts, reducing them all to
order, bringing cosmos out of chaos.
Q. Do you look upon the reflex wave of Theosophy
as a reaction against the materialism of the western scien
tific or positive tendency ?
A. I look on the reproclamation of Theosophy as the
deliberate answer of the Masters, the Adepts, to the
rise of materialism in the western world. They are the
. guardians of the spiritual treasures of our race and are
bound to preserve for man his heritage. To do this
they have met the rising wave of materialism with the
breakwater of the Theosophical Society and have placed
in the hands of such of its members as are willing to
accept it, knowledge with which they can save the
people from being swept away.
Q. How does the attitude, of the American public to
wards Theosophy compare with the attitude of the
English public ?
A. Both listen readily, and I have found large audi
ences in all parts of both countries eagerly receptive of
Theosophical teachings. The Americans are, perhaps,
more ready to listen to new views than are the English,
and are less bound by custom and tradition. They are

30 AN EXPOSITION OF THEOSOPHY.
more open-minded. This is yet more true of the Ameri
can press, which is singularly ready to admit statements
of Theosophical doctrine.
Q. Would the spread and the establishment of Theo
sophical concepts among the people of this country lead
to a new form of ecclesiasticism, — would Theosophy
result in a church or in a philosophy ?
A. Such a spread should tend to increase individual
judgment and to widen freedom of thought, since The
osophical concepts are presented on their merits and no
attempt is made to force them on people against their
judgment. The religious side of Theosophy cannot be
separated from its philosophy and its science, and I do
not think it is likely to crystallize into a church. The
warning against sectarianism was so strongly sounded
by H. P. Blavatsky that those who honor her can
scarcely disregard it.
Q. Does not the attitude of Theosophy in India dis
courage the popularization of esoteric knowledge and
the appeal to the promiscuous public.
A. Some Indian Theosophists may possibly find it
difficult to shake off the habit of spiritual selfishness
which has so injured their country in the past, but The
osophy cannot be said to assume any such attitude.
The masters have distinctly said that the knowledge is
to be popularized, and that in its spread lies the only
salvation of the West. Speaking to some of their
western pupils they have bidden them to sow the seed
broadcast, and this command is being steadily obeyed.
The bread of the Wisdom Religion is for the feeding of
the world, and selfishness in spiritual things is worse
than material greed.

A NEW BOOK.
BY
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE, P. T. S.
The Ocean of Theosophy.

This work now In press is designed to give the general reader
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and at the same time it will be of great value to students in the
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