And it may be that if the world grows more spiritual, it may be that if Spirit again becomes triumphant over matter, after passing through the darkness which wasnecessary in order that the intellect might be thoroughly developed and might learn its powers and its limitations; it may be that, in days to come, when the world is more spiritualised than to-day, climbing as it is again the upward arc, these living Masters of the world's religions will come amongst us again visibly as in the earlier days. It is not They who keep back in silence. It is we who shut Them out, and make Their presence a danger rather than an encouragement and an inspiration. And every one of you—no matter what your faith may be, Christian, Hinḍu, Buḍḍhist, Theosophist, what matters it?—every one of you who makes the Master of your own faith a living reality, part of your life, nearer than friend and brother, every such believer and worker is hastening the day of joy when the world shall be ready for the open reception of the Masters, that They may move visibly amongst humanity once more. That it may be so, open your heart to every breath of truth; that it may be so, open your eyes to every ray from the one eternal Sun. In the past the world would have none of the Masters. They slew the Christ; they made the prophets outcasts. And until in our heart the love of the Master awakens, until with passionate longing, with continual insistence, we call to the divine Men the welcome, without which They may not come, They must remain hidden. Only when there comes up from heart after heart one vast chant of devotion and appeal, only then will They come to the many as They have already come to the few, and show out the visible splendor of Their manhood, as the glory of Their divinity has ever been upon the earth.
I want to put before you clearly and plainly what Theosophy means, and what is the function of the Theosophical Society. For we notice very often, especially with regard to the Society, that there is a good deal of misconception touching it, and that people do not realise the object with which it exists, the work that it is intended to perform. It is very often looked upon as the expression of some new religion, as though people in becoming Theosophists must leave the religious community to which he or she may happen to belong. And so a profound misconception arises, and many people imagine that in some way or other it is hostile to the religion which they profess. Now Theosophy, looked at historically or practically, belongs to all the religions of the world, and every religion has an equal claim to it, has an equal right to say that Theosophy exists within it. For Theosophy, as the name implies, the DivineWisdom, theWisdomof God, clearly cannot be appropriated by any body of people, by any Society, not even by the greatest of the religions of the world. It is a commonproperty, as free to everyone as the sunlight and the air. No one can claim it as his, save by virtue of his common humanity; no one can deny it to his brother, save at the peril of destroying his own claim thereto. Now the meaning of this word, both historically and practically, theWisdom, the DivineWisdom, is a very definite and clear meaning; it asserts the possibility of the knowledge of God. That is the point that the student ought to grasp; this knowledge of God, not the belief in Him, not the faith in Him, not only vague idea concerning Him, but theknowledgeof Him, is possible to man. That is the affirmation of Theosophy, that is its root-meaning and its essence.
And we find, looking back historically, that this has been asserted in the various great religions of the world. They all claim that man can know, not only that man can believe. Only in some of the more modern faiths, in their own modern days, the knowledge has slipped into the background, and the belief, the faith, looms very large in the mind of the believer. Go back as far as you will in the history of the past, and you will find the most ancient of religions affirming this possibility of knowledge. In India, for instance, with its antique civilisation, you find that the very central idea of Hinḍuism is this supreme knowledge, the knowledge of God. As I pointed out to you the other day with regard to this old Eastern religion, all knowledge is regarded in a higher or a lower degree as the knowledge of God; for there is no division, as you know, in that ancient faith, between the secular and the sacred. That division is a modern division, and was unknown in theancient world. But they did make a division in knowledge between the higher and the lower; and the lower knowledge, or the lower science, called the "lower divine science," was that which you will call "science" nowadays, the study of the external world. But it also included all that here we speak of as Literature, as Art, as Craft—everything, in fact, which the human brain can study and the human fingers can accomplish—the whole of that, in one grand generalisation, was called "Divine Wisdom," but it was the lower divine Wisdom, the inferior knowledge of God. Then, beside, or rather above that, came the Supreme Knowledge, the higher, the superior, that beyond which there was no knowledge, which was the crown of all. Now, that supreme knowledge is declared to be "the knowledge of Him by Whom all things are known"—a phrase indicating the Supreme Deity. It was that which was called the supreme knowledge, or,par excellence, the Divine Knowledge, and that old Hinḍu thought is exactly the same as you have indicated by the name Theosophy.
So, again, classical students may remember that among the Greeks and the early Christians there was what was called the Gnosis, the knowledge, the definite article pointing to that which, above all else, was to be regarded as knowledge or wisdom. And when you find among the Neo-Platonists this word Gnosis used, it always means, and is defined to mean, "the knowledge of God," and the "Gnostic" is "a man who knows God." So, again, among the early Christians. Take such a man as Origen. He uses the same word in exactly the same sense; for when Origen is declaring that the Church hasmedicine for the sinner, and that Christ is the Good Physician who heals the diseases of men, he goes on to say that the Church has also the Gnosis for the wise, and that you cannot build the Church out of sinners; you must build it out of Gnostics. These are the men who know, who have the power to help and to teach; and there can be no medicine for the diseased, no upholder of the weak, unless, within the limits of the religion, the Gnostic is to be found. And so Origen lays immense stress on the Gnostic, and devotes page after page to a description of him: what he is, what he thinks, what he does; and to the mind of that great Christian teacher, the Gnostic was the strength of the Church, the pillar, the buttress of the faith. And so, coming down through the centuries, since the Christian time, you will find the word Gnostic used every now and again, but more often the term "Theosophist" and "Theosophy"; for this term came into use in the later school, the Neo-Platonists, and became the commonly accepted word for those who claimed this possibility of knowledge, or even claimed toknow. And a phrase regarding this is to be found in the mystic Fourth Gospel, that of S. John, where into the mouth of the Christ the words are put, that the "knowledge of God is eternal life"—not the faith, nor the thought, but the knowledge—again declaring the possibility of this Gnosis. And the same idea is found along the line of the Hermetic Science, or Hermetic Philosophy, partly derived from Greece and partly from Egypt. The Hermetic philosopher also claimed to know, and claimed that in man was this divine faculty of knowledge, above the reason, higher than the intellect. Andwhenever, among the thoughtful and the learned, you find reference made to "faith," as where, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is said to be "theevidenceof things not seen," the same idea comes out, and Faith, the real Faith, is only this intense conviction which grows out of the inner spiritual being of man, the Self, the Spirit, which justifies to the intellect, to the senses, that there is God, that God truly exists. And this is so strongly felt in the East that no one there wants to argue about the existence of God; it is declared that that existence cannot be proved by argument. "Not by argument," it is written, "not by reasoning, not by thinking, can the Supreme Self be known." The only proof of Him is "the conviction in the Spirit, in the Self." And thus Theosophy, then, historically, as you see, always makes the affirmation that man can know; and after that supreme affirmation that God may be known, then there comes the secondary affirmation, implied really in that, and in the fact of man's identity of nature with the Supreme, that all things in the universe can be known—things visible and invisible, subtle and gross. That is, so to speak, a secondary affirmation, drawn out of the first; for clearly if in man resides the faculty to know God as God, then every manifestation of God may be known by the faculty which recognises the identity of the human Spirit with the Supreme Spirit that permeates the universe at large. So in dictionaries and in encyclopedias you will sometimes find Theosophy defined as the idea that God, and angels, and spirits, may hold direct communication with men; or sometimes, in the reverse form, that men can hold communication withspirits, and angels, and even with God Himself; and although that definition be not the best that can be given, it has its own truth, for that is the result of the knowledge of God, the inevitable outcome of it, the manifestation of it. The man who knows God, and knows all things in Him, is evidently able to communicate with any form of living being, to come into relation with anything in the universe of which the One Life is God.
In modern days, and among scientific people, the affirmation which is the reverse of this became at one time popular, widely accepted—not Gnostic but "Agnostic," "without the Gnosis"; that was the position taken up by Huxley and by many men of his own time of the same school of thought. He chose the name because of its precise signification; he was far too scientific a man to crudely deny, far too scientific to be willing to speak positively of that of which he knew nothing; and so, instead of taking up the position that there is nothing beyond man, and man's reason, and man's senses, he took up the position that man was without possibility of knowledge of what there might be, that his only means of knowledge were the senses for the material universe, the reason for the world of thought. Man, by his reason, could conquer everything in the realm of thought, might become mighty in intellect, and hold as his own domain everything that the intellect could grasp at its highest point of growth, its highest possibility of attainment. That splendid avenue of progress Huxley, and men like Huxley, placed before humanity as the road along which it might hope to walk, full of the certaintyof ultimate achievement. But outside that, beyond the reason in the world of thought and the senses in the material world, Huxley, and those who thought like him, declared that man was unable to pierce—hence "Agnostic," "without the Gnosis," without the possibility of plunging deeply into the ocean of Being, for there the intellect had no plummet. Such, according to science at one time, was man; and whatever man might hope for, whatever man might strive for, on, as it were, the portal of the spiritual universe was written the legend "without knowledge." Thither man might not hope to penetrate, thither man's faculties might never hope to soar; for when you have defined man as a reasoning being, you have given the highest definition that science was able to accept, and across the spiritual nature was written: "imagination, dream, and phantasy."
And yet there is much in ordinary human history which shows that man is something more than intellect, as clearly as it shows that the intellect is greater than the senses; for every statesman knows that he has to reckon with what is sometimes called "the religious instinct" in man, and that however coldly philosophers may reason, however sternly science may speak, there is in man some upwelling power which refuses to take the agnosticism of the intellect, as it refuses to accept the positivism of the senses; and with that every ruler of men has to deal, with that every statesman has to reckon. There is something in man which from time to time wells up with irresistible power, sweeping away every limit which intellect or senses may strive to put in its path—the religious instinct. And even to takethat term, that name, even that is to join on this part of man's nature to a part of nature universal, which bears testimony in every time, and in every place, that to every instinct in the living creature there is some answer in the nature outside itself. There is no instinct known in plant, in animal, in man, to which nature does not answer; nature, which has woven the demand into the texture of the living creature, has always the supply ready to meet the demand; and strange indeed it would be, well-nigh incredible, if the profoundest instinct of all in nature's highest product on the physical plane, if that ineradicable instinct, that seeking after God and that thirst for the Supreme, were the one and only instinct in nature for which there is no answer in the depths and the heights around us. And it is not so. That argument is strengthened and buttressed by an appeal to experience; for you cannot, in dealing with human experience and the testimony of the human consciousness, leave entirely out of court, silenced, as though it were not relevant, the continual testimony of all religions to the existence of the spiritual nature in man. The spiritual consciousness proves itself quite as definitely as the intellectual or the sensuous consciousness proves itself—by the experience of the individual, alike in every religion as in every century in which humanity has lived, has thought, has suffered, has rejoiced. The religious, the spiritual nature, is that which is the strongest in man, not the weakest; that which breaks down the barriers of the intellect, and crushes into silence the imperious demands of the senses; which changes the whole life as by a miracle, and turns the face of the man in a directioncontrary to that in which he has been going all his life. Whether you take the facts of conversion, or whether you take the testimony of the saint, the prophet, the seer, they all speak with that voice of authority to which humanity instinctively bows down; and it was the mark of the spiritual man when it was said of Jesus, the Prophet: "He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." For where the spiritual man speaks, his appeal is made to the highest and the deepest part in every hearer that he addresses, and the answer that comes is an answer that brooks no denial and permits no questioning. It shows its own imperial nature, the highest and the dominant nature in the man, and where the Spirit once has spoken the intellect becomes obedient, and the senses begin to serve.
Now Theosophy, in declaring that this nature of man can know God, bases that statement on identity of nature. We can know—it is our continual experience—we can know that which we share, and nothing else. Only when you have appropriated for yourself something from the outside world can you know the similar things in the outside world. You can see because your eye has within it the ether of which the waves are light; you can hear because your ear has in it the ether and the air whose vibrations are sound; and so with everything else. Myriads of things exist outside you, and you are unconscious of them, because you have not yet appropriated to your own service that which is like unto them in outer nature. And you can know God for exactly the same reason that you can know by sight or hearing—because you are part of God; you can knowHim because you share His nature. "We are partakers of the Divine Nature," says the Christian teacher. "Thou art That," declares the Hinḍu. The Sufi cries out that by love man and God are one, and know each other. And all the religions of the world in varied phrase announce the same splendid truth of man's Divinity. It is on that that Theosophy founds its affirmation that the knowledge of God is possible to man; that the foundation, then, of Theosophy, that the essence of its message.
And the value of it at the time when it was re-proclaimed to the world was that it was an affirmation in the face of a denial. Where Science began to cry "agnosticism," Theosophy came to cry out "gnosticism." At the very same time the two schools were born into the modern world, and the re-proclamation of Theosophy, the supreme knowledge, was the answer from the invisible worlds to the nescience of Science. It came at the right time, it came in the right form, as in a few moments we shall see; but the most important thing of all is that it came at the very moment when Science thought itself triumphant in its nescience. This re-proclamation, then, of the most ancient of all truths, was the message of Theosophy to the modern world. And see how the world has changed since that was proclaimed! It is hardly necessary now to make that affirmation, so universal has become the acceptance of it. It is almost difficult to look back to the year 1875, and realise how men were thinking and feeling then. I can remember it, because I was in it. The elder amongst you can remember it, for the same reason. But for theyounger of you, who have begun to think and feel in the later times, when this thought was becoming common, you can scarcely realise the change in the intellectual atmosphere which has come about during these last two-and-thirty years. Hardly worth while is it to proclaim it now, it is so commonplace. If now you say: "Man can know God," the answer is: "Of course he can." Thirty-two years ago it was: "Indeed he cannot." And that is to be seen everywhere, all over the world, and not only among those people who were clinging blindly to a blind faith, desperately sticking to it as the only raft which remained for them to save them from being submerged in materialism. It is recognised now on all hands; literature is full of it; and it is not without significance that some months agoThe Hibbert Journal—which has in it so much of the advanced thought of the day, for which bishops and archbishops and learned clerics write—it is not without significance that that journal drew its readers' attention to "the value of the God-idea in Hinḍuism." And the only value of it was this, for man: that man is God, and therefore can know God; and the writer pointed out that that was the only foundation on which, in modern days, an edifice that could not be shaken could be reared up for the Spirit in man. That is the religion of the future, the religion of the Divine Self; that the common religion, the universal religion, of which all the religions that are living in the world will be recognised as branches, as sects of one mighty religion, universal and supreme. For just as now in Christianity you have many a sect and many a church, just as in Hinḍuism we find many sects and many schools, and as inevery other great religion of the world at the present time there are divisions between the believers in the same religion, so shall it be—very likely by the end of this century—with all the religions of the world; there will be only one religion—the knowledge of God—and all religious sects under that one mighty and universal name.
And then, naturally, out of this knowledge there must spring a large number of other knowledges subservient to it, that which you hear so much about in Theosophical literature, of other worlds, the worlds beyond the physical, worlds that are still material, although the matter be of a finer, subtler kind; all that you read about the astral, and mental, and buḍḍhic planes, and so on—all these lower knowledges find their places naturally, as growing out of the one supreme knowledge. And at once you will ask: "Why?" If you are really divine, if your Self is the same Self of which the worlds are a partial expression, then it is not difficult to see that that Self in you, as it unfolds its divine powers, and shapes the matter which it appropriates in order to come in contact with all the different parts of the universe, that that Self, creating for itself bodies, will be able to know every material thing in the universe, just as you know the things of the physical plane through the physical body. For it is all on the same lines: that which enables you to know is not only body—that is the medium between you and the physical world—but the Knower in you is that which enables you to know, the power of perception which is of consciousness, and not of body. When consciousness vanishes, all the organs of consciousness are there, as perfect as ever, but the Knower has left them, and knowledge disappears with him; and so, whether it be in a swoon, in a fainting fit, in sleep, or in death, the perfect instrument of the physical body becomes useless when the hand of the master workman drops it. The body is only his tool, whereby he contacts the things in a universe which is not himself; and the moment he leaves it, it is a mere heap of matter, doomed to decay, to destruction. But just as he has that body for knowledge here, so he has other bodies for knowledge otherwhere, and in every world he can know, he who is the Knower, and every world is made up of objects of knowledge, which he can perceive, examine, and understand.
And the world into which you shall pass when you go through the portal of death, that is around you at every moment of your life here, and you only do not know it because your instrument of knowledge there is not yet perfected, and ready there to your hand; and the heavenly world into which you will pass out of the intermediate world next to this, that is around you now, and you only do not know it because your instrument of knowledge there has not yet been fashioned. And so with worlds yet higher, knowledge of them is possible, because the Knower is yourself and is God, and you can create your instruments of knowledge according to your wisdom and your will.
Hence Theosophy includes the whole of this vast scheme or field of knowledge; and the whole of it is yours, yours to possess at your will. Hence Theosophy should be to you a proclamation of your own Divinity, with everything that flows therefrom; and all the knowledge that may be gathered, all the investigations thatmay be made, they are all part of this great scheme. And the reason why all the religions of the world teach the same, when you come to disentangle the essence of their teaching from the shape in which they put it, the reason that they all teach the same is that they are all giving you fragments of knowledge of the other worlds, and these worlds are all more real than the world in which you are; and they all teach the same fundamental truths, the same fundamental moral principles, the same religious doctrines, and use the same methods in order that men may come into touch with the other worlds. The sacraments do not belong to Christianity alone, as sometimes Christians think; every religion has its sacraments, some more numerous than others, but all have some. For what is a sacrament? It is the earthly, the physical representative of a real correspondence in nature; as the catechism of the Church of England phrases it: "An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." It is a true definition. A sacrament is made up of the outer and inner, and you cannot do without either. The outer thing is correlated to the inner, and is a real means of coming into touch with the higher, and is not only a symbol, as some imagine. The great churches and religions of the past always cling to that reality of the sacrament, and they do well. It is only in very modern times, and among a comparatively small number of Christian people, that the sacrament has become only a symbol, instead of a channel of living and divine power. And much is lost to the man who loses out of his religion the essential idea of the sacrament; for it is the link between the spiritual andthe physical, the channel whereby the spiritual pours down into the physical vehicle. Hence the value that all religions put upon sacraments, and their recognition of their reality, and their priceless service to mankind. And so with many other things in ceremonies and rites, common to all the different faiths—the use of musical sounds, a use which tunes the bodies so that the spiritual power may be able to manifest through them and by them. For just as in your orchestra you must tune the instruments to a single note, so must you tune your various bodies in order that harmoniously they may allow the spiritual force to come through from the higher to the lower plane. It is a real tuning, a real making of harmonious vibrations; and the difference between the vibrations that are harmonious and the vibrations that are discordant, from this point of view, is this: when all the bodies vibrate together, all the particles and their spaces correspond, so that you get solid particles, then spaces, and then solid particles, and spaces again, corresponding through all the bodies; whereas in the normal condition the bodies do not match in that way, and the spaces of one come against the solid parts of the other, and so you get a block. When sounds are used, the mystical sounds called manṭras in Hinḍuism, the effect of those is to change the bodies from this condition to that, and so the forces from without can come into the man, and the forces in him may flow out to others. That is the value of it. You are able to produce mechanically a result which otherwise has to be produced by a tremendous exertion of the will; and the man of knowledge never uses more force than is necessaryin order to bring about what he desires, and the Occultist—who is the wise man on many planes—he uses the easiest way always to gain his object. Hence the use of music, or manṭras, in every faith. Pythagoras used music in order to prepare his disciples to receive his teachings. The Greek and the Roman Catholic Churches use special forms of music to produce a definite effect upon the worshippers who hear them. All of you must be aware that there are some kinds of music which have the remarkable effect upon you, of lifting you higher than you can rise by your own unassisted effort. Even the songs of illiterate Christian bodies do have some effect upon them, in raising them to a higher level, although they possess little of the true quality of the manṭra. In Theosophy you find all these things dealt with scientifically—a mass of knowledge, but all growing out of the original statement that man can know God.
Now it is clear that in all that, there is nothing which a man of any faith cannot accept, cannot study. I do not mean that he will accept everything that a Theosophist would say; but I mean that the knowledge is knowledge of a kind which he will be wise to study, and to appropriate so far as it recommends itself to his reason and his intuition. And that is all the man need do—study. All this knowledge is spread out for you freely: you can take it, if you will. The Theosophical Society, which spreads it broadcast everywhere, claims in it no property, no proprietary rights, but gives it out freely everywhere. The books in which much of it is written are as free to the non-Theosophist as to the Theosophist. The results of Theosophical investigation arepublished freely that all who choose may read. Everything is done that can be done by the Society to make the whole thing common property; and nothing gives the true Theosophist more delight than when he sees the Theosophical teachings coming out in some other garb which gives them a different name, but hands them on to those who might be frightened perhaps by the name "Theosophy." And so, when we find a clergyman scattering broadcast to his congregation Theosophical teaching as Christian, we say: "See, our work is bearing fruit"; and when we find the man who does not label himself "Theosophist" giving any of these truths to the world, we rejoice, because we see that our work is being done. We have no desire to take the credit of it, nor to claim it as ours at all; it belongs to every man who is able to see it, quite as much as it does to anyone who may call himself "Theosophist." For the possession of truth comes of right to the man who can see the truth, and there is no partiality in the world of intellect or of Spirit. The only test for a man's fitness to receive is the ability to perceive; and the only claim he has to see by the light is the power of seeing.
And that, perhaps, may explain to you what some think strange in our Society—we have no dogmas. We do not shut out any man because he does not believe Theosophical teachings. A man may deny every one of them, save that of human brotherhood, and claim his place and his right within our ranks. But his place and his right within our ranks are founded on the very truths that he denies; for if man could not know God, if there were no identity of nature in every man with God, then therewould be no foundation for our reception of him, nor any reason for welcoming him as a brother. Because there is only one life, and one nature, therefore the man who denies is God, as is he who affirms. Therefore each has a right to come; only the one who affirms knows why he welcomes his brother, and the one who denies is ignorant, and knows not why he has a right within our ranks. But those of us who try to be Theosophists in reality, as well as in name, we understand why it is that we make him welcome, and it is based on this sane idea, that a man can see the truth best by studying it, and not by repeating formulæ that he does not understand. What is the use of putting a dogma before a man and saying: "You must repeat that before you can come into my Church"? If the man repeats it not understanding it, he is outside, no matter how much you bring him in; and if he sees it, there is no need to make that as a portal to your fellowship. And we believe, we of the Theosophical Society, that just because the intellect can only do its best work in its own atmosphere of freedom, truth has the best chance of being seen when you do not make any conditions as to the right of investigation, as to the claim to seek. To us, truth is so supreme a thing that we do not desire to bind any man with conditions as to how, or where, or why, he shall seek it. These things, we say, we know are true; and because we know they are true, come amongst us, even though you do not believe them, and find out for yourself whether they be true or not. And the man is better worth having when he comes in an unbeliever, and wins to the knowledge of the truth, than is the facile believerwho acknowledges everything and never gets a real grip upon truth at all. We believe that truth is only found by seeking, and that the true bond is the love of truth, and the effort to find it; that that is a far more real bond than the repetition of a common creed. For the creed can be repeated by the lips, but the seeing of truth as true can only come from the intellect and the spirit, and to build on the intellect and the spirit is a firmer foundation than to build on the breath of the lips. Hence our Society has no dogmas. Not that it does not stand for any truths, as some people imagine. Its name marks out the truth for which it stands: it is the Theosophical Society; and that shows its function and its place in the world—a Society that asserts the possibility of the knowledge of God; that is its proclamation, as we have seen, and all the other truths that grow out of that are amongst our teachings. The Society exists to spread the knowledge of those truths, and to popularise those teachings amongst mankind. "But," you may say, "if it be the fact that you throw out broadcast all your teachings, that you write them in books that every man can buy, what is, then, the good of being a member of the Theosophical Society? We should not have any more as members than we have as non-members." That is not quite true, but it may stand as true for the moment. Why should you come in? For no reason at all, unless to you it is the greatest privilege to come in, and you desire to be among those who are the pioneers of the thought of the coming days. No reason at all: it is a privilege. We do not beg you to come in; we only say: "Come if you like to come, and share the gloriousprivilege that we possess; but if you would rather not, stay outside, and we will give you everything which we believe will be serviceable and useful to you." The feeling that brings people into our Society is the feeling that makes the soldier spring forward to be amongst the pioneers when the army is going forth. There are some people so built that they like to go in front and face difficulties, so that other people may have an easier time, and walk along a path that has already been hewn out for them by hands stronger than their own. That is the only reason why you should come in: no other. Do not come to "get"; you will be disappointed if you do. You can "get" it outside. Come in to give, to work, to be enrolled amongst the servants of humanity who are working for the dawn of the day of a nobler knowledge, for the coming of the recognition of a spiritual brotherhood amongst men. Come in if you have the spirit of the pioneer within you, the spirit of the volunteer; if to you it is a delight to cut the way through the jungle that others may follow, to tread the path with bruised feet in order that others may have a smooth road to lead them to the heights of knowledge. That is the only advantage of coming in: to know in your own heart that you realise what is coming, and are helping to make it come more quickly for the benefit of your fellow-men; that you are working for humanity; that you are co-workers with God, in making the knowledge of Him spread abroad on every side; that you are amongst those to whom future centuries will look back, thanking you that you saw the light when all men thought it was dark, and that you recognised the coming dawn when othersbelieved the earth was sunk in midnight. I know of no inspiration more inspiring, of no ideal that lifts men to greater heights, of no hope that is so full of splendor, no thought that is so full of energy, as the inspiration, and the ideal, and the hope, and the thought, that you are working for the future, for the day that has not yet come. There will be so many in the days to come who will see the truth, so many in the unborn generations who will live from the hour of their birth in the light of the Divine WISDOM. And what is it not to know that one is bringing that nearer? to feel that this great treasure is placed in your hands for the enriching of humanity, and that the bankruptcy of humanity is over and the wealth is being spread broadcast on every side? What a privilege to know that those generations in the future, rejoicing in the light, will feel some touch of thanks and gratitude to those who brought it when the days were dark, to those whose faith in the Self was so strong that they could believe when all other things were against it, to those whose surety of the divine knowledge was so mighty that they could proclaim its possibility to an agnostic world. That is the only reason why you should come into the vanguard, that the only reason why you should join the ranks of the pioneers. Hard work and little reward, hard words and little praise, but the knowledge that you work for the future, and that with the co-operation of Deity the final result is sure.
I have taken for these four lectures, confined to members of the Theosophical Society, four subjects of great interest to ourselves, and in dealing with them I propose to ask you to look at them from a wide standpoint rather than a narrow one, and to consider the Theosophical Movement and the Theosophical Society, not as an isolated movement or Society, not as a separate thing, but rather as one of a series of spiritual impulses, like to its predecessors in its nature, interested in the same questions, and subject to the same conditions as those that preceded it in time.
We find, looking back over the history of the past, that great spiritual impulses occur from time to time, and each of these in the past has founded a new religion, or stamped some marked change in a religion already existing. The spiritual impulse that brought to birth the Theosophical Society is to be thought of as of the same nature as those which founded one religion in the world after another. And if we regard it in this way we can sometimes, looking at the whole succession of such movements, recognise certain definite principles workingin all of them, and then apply those principles to the movement of our own time. And this seems to me to be a wiser and saner way of regarding the Theosophical Society than looking upon it as unique and isolated. Certainly it is more easy to see our way in the solution of difficult problems of our own time, if we regard these problems as similar in nature to the problems that have been presented to our predecessors. Because always, in dealing with the problems of our own time, we are apt to be confused and bewildered by secondary issues that rise up around them, complicating them, perhaps largely clouding them, when we try to understand; whereas if we can catch sight of the underlying principle and study it apart from any difficulties of our own time, we are then able to apply that same principle, as discovered apart from the circumstances of the moment, and in that way there is a hope of applying it more justly amid the more exciting incidents of our own day. And it is that which I want to do in these lectures—to take our movement as a part of a world series, to study the principles that underlie the whole of that series, to trace out the working of these principles amongst the societies that have preceded us in the spiritual world, and then, having grasped them, to apply them to the solution of the problems of our own time. For there is a tendency in the Theosophical Society to narrow itself down to its time, instead of trying to widen out the thought of its time. It is a tendency which we see affecting every religion, every church, every great society, and it is useless to recognise this fact in the history of others unless we apply the fact for instruction in our own.
Now in all the religions of the past, so far as we have any knowledge of them in history or from what are called the "occult records," there is one thing we see in their early days—the presence of happenings regarded as abnormal. I have used the word "phenomena," but it is a very stupid word. One uses it because it is generally used; there is no justification in using that particular word in relation to some outer manifestations rather than to all. Properly speaking, "phenomena," of course, will cover the whole of the objects in the world, in the Not-Self, everything outside the Self; but the word has been narrowed down, especially in our own time, to those occurrences in the world around us, in the Not-Self, which are unusual, which seem to be abnormal, which are the results of laws which are not familiar, and therefore which are regarded by some people as supernatural, by others, speaking more carefully, simply as superphysical. And we lose much by separating off what we call "abnormal" happenings, the so-called "phenomena," from the normal every-day happenings of life. For there is no fundamental difference between them. All planes are equally within the realm of law; all worlds, denser or grosser in material organisation, are equally worlds moving by order and law. There is nothing really abnormal in Nature. Some things happen more seldom than others—are unusual; but the very idea of abnormal seems to me in many respects mischievous and harmful. It is better to look on the whole world-system—universe, call it what you will—as a part of a definite order in which all the things that happen happen by law, in which there no gaps, no abnormalities, but only limitations of our own knowledge at a certain time. All the gaps in Nature are gaps in the knowledge of the observers of Nature. There is nothing miraculous or supernatural, but everything is the orderly product of Nature working along definite lines and guided by definite intelligence.
And one reason why it is so important to recognise this is in order to clear away the atmosphere of wonder, of marvel, of awe, of reverence, that is apt, very much to the detriment of the observers, to enshroud everything unusual, every manifestation of a force with which we are not familiar, everything that in the old days was called "miraculous." And one thing I want strongly to impress upon you is, that in everything that can be called a "phenomenon," you ought to deal with it according to the same laws, according to the same canons of observation, as you deal with the phenomena with which you are most familiar on the physical plane. You should not regard an unusual phenomenon as one which is necessarily to be regarded with reverence in any way. You should not necessarily talk in whispers, when speaking about what we call "phenomena." It is better to talk in your natural voice, and apply your ordinary common sense and the laws of sane judgment in every case. If you do that instead of getting alarmed or astonished, if you will stand on your feet instead of falling on your knees, your study of the other worlds will be more profitable, and the dangers you are likely to meet will be very much diminished.
To come back to the point of the beginnings of all religious movements, we find that all begin in the atmosphere of "phenomena." The divine Man who founds the religion, and those who immediately surround Him, are always people who have a knowledge of more worlds than one. And because they are possessors of that first-hand knowledge, they are able to speak with authority. Now, the authority that should be recognised in all these matters is simply the authority of knowledge.
Another of the difficulties we want to clear away in studying phenomena is the idea that the happening of a certain thing by a law that we do not understand in the realm of matter gives any sort of authority on questions of spiritual knowledge, or gives a person a right to speak with authority on things not concerned with the particular laws under which that phenomena takes place. The mischief of the old idea of miracle was that it was supposed to be a proof, not of knowledge of another world or other forces, but of the title of the miracle-worker to speak with authority on religious and moral questions; while, as a matter of fact, the knowledge of what occurs on the astral plane, the knowledge of what occurs on the mental plane, or the power to utilise the forces of these planes in the production of certain happenings here which are not usual, these things by no means give a man any authority to speak on moral problems or to decide on spiritual questions. That is a matter of the utmost importance, for knowledge of the astral and mental worlds is the same in kind as knowledge of the physical world; and it no more follows that a clairvoyant or clairaudient, or a man who can use any of the powers of subtler planes down here, has more authority on religious and moral questions than a goodmathematician, a good electrician, or a good chemist. You are not likely, on the physical plane, to fall into the blunder of thinking that because a man is a good chemist he has authority on moral problems: you will at once see the absurdity. But many of you do not see that the same is true when you deal with good chemists or electricians belonging to the astral or mental planes. They have no more authorityquâtheir knowledge of these planes than the chemist. I often wish that in the Theosophical Society the old fable of the Jewish Rabbis was better remembered and applied. Two Rabbis were arguing, and one of them, to support his side of the argument, made a wall fall down; whereupon the other Rabbi sensibly remarked: "Since when have walls had a voice in our discussions?" That spirit is of enormous importance, and does not in any sense touch the fact that you find the great Founders of religions and the illuminated men who surrounded them were men who had power to produce phenomena of various kinds, to heal the sick, to make the lame to walk, and so on, and that phenomena always accompanied the great religious Teacher in the past. These things did not give Him His religious authority: they were simply the outcome of His knowledge of natural laws; for a man who is thoroughly spiritual has matter subject to him on every plane in Nature. But it by no means follows that the man who can manipulate matter on the lower planes is therefore able to speak with authority on the higher. The fact that the spiritual man is always a great psychic, always has power to utilise higher forces for controlling physical matter, that fact, while true, does not prove the truth ofthe opposite idea, that the man who has power over matter is necessarily highly unfolded as regards the spirit. It is true, of course, that the founders of religion were men surrounded with clouds of phenomena, and the reason for that is the one I have just stated: that to the truly spiritual man matter is an obedient servant; to use a quotation from an Indian book: "The truly spiritual man all the siḍḍhis stand ready to serve."
Now it was necessary for the founding of religions and for the teaching of many of the doctrines of religions which had to do with worlds invisible to the physical eye, that the man who first promulgated these doctrines should be a man who had a first-hand acquaintance with the conditions they described. For you must remember that in every religion there are two sides to its teaching: the side of the spiritual truths known only to the unfolded divine consciousness; the side of the existence of other worlds than this, and of the conditions existing in those worlds—important to men, as they have to pass into those worlds after death, important to men also, as much of the symbolism, the rites and ceremonies, are connected with what we may roughly call occult science. As the Buḍḍha said when speaking of worlds beyond the physical: "If you want to know your way to a village and particulars about the village, you ask a man who lives there and who has gone along the roads leading to it: and so you do right to come to me when you want to know about the Ḍevas and about the invisible worlds, for I know those worlds and I know the way thereto." So that looking back to these great spiritual Teachers and Revealers of the unseen, we find they arealways men of first-hand knowledge. That first-hand knowledge was shared by Their immediate followers, who carried on the teaching of the system after the Teacher had withdrawn. And it matters not what religion you take, living or dead, you will find it equally true, that phenomena were common in the earlier days of the teaching of that religion.
Now let me take two typical religions, one Eastern and one Western, with regard to the continuance of the phenomena of the earlier days—the Hinḍu religion in the East for the Eastern example, and the Roman Catholic Church in the West for the Western example. In both these great religious movements we find a continuance of phenomena; neither Hinḍuism as typical of Eastern teaching, nor Roman Catholicism as the most widespread form of Christianity in the West, has ever taken up the position that the life which showed itself through the earlier teachers was cut off and no longer irrigated the fields of the religion. On the contrary, you find both these typical religions claiming continuity of life and of knowledge. Amongst the Hinḍus it is a commonplace to assert the possibilities of yoga, that a man can now, as much as in the days of the Manu or of the great Ṛiṣhis, do what They did, can free himself from the physical body, can travel into other worlds of the systems, can acquaint himself with the forces and objects of those worlds, and carry on as definite a study of the Not-Self in those worlds, as anyone who wishes to do so may carry on a definite study of the Not-Self in the physical world. The claim has never been given up; the practice never wholly disappeared.So also with the Roman Catholic communion. There has been there a succession of saints and of seers who have always claimed to be in direct touch with other worlds, and who have claimed and exercised the powers of those worlds manifestly on the physical plane. To-day in the Roman Catholic Church similar phenomena are said to occur, and certainly the evidence offered for these phenomena is far more easily verifiable than the evidence offered for such phenomena in the earlier centuries of the Christian story. So also among the Hinḍus it is more easy to prove nowadays the powers possessed by a yogî, than it is to prove the possession of those powers thousands of years ago in the obscurity of the earlier days of Hinḍuism. Consequently you find amongst Roman Catholics and Hinḍus a definite belief that these things are still possible; and the only thing that either will say with regard to their happening is that the greater descent of the people as a whole into materiality has made the possession of these powers a far rarer qualification of a believer in one or other of the religions, than was the case in the early days of enthusiasm, and of a greater outpouring of spiritual life. There is no doubt, so far as Christianity is concerned, that the sacred books of the Christians entirely support the Roman Catholic contention. I am not going into the question of the authenticity of particular phrases; I simply take the New Testament, as it is admitted to be a sacred book. There you have placed in the mouth of Jesus the distinct declaration that those who believe on Him should do greater works than He did; and in one passage—rejected, I know, as not in the original manuscripts bymany scholars, but still coming down from a great Christian antiquity—you have the distinct statement that they shall be able to drink poison, and so on. So it is clearly a part of the definite Christian teaching and tradition, that these so-called abnormal powers are within the reach of believers in Christianity. And so also with regard to Hinḍuism.
Now another thing is to be observed in this connection: that as the religion has gone on generation after generation, century after century, there has been a diminution of the powers, and a much less frequent happening of these so-called miracles. Side by side with the weakening of these powers and the lessening in number of the phenomena has been also the gradual lessening of the power of the religion over the minds and lives of men. The inroads of other forms of thought, the slackening of the grasp of the believer on the realities of the unseen worlds, have diminished religious authority, and the power of those unseen realities has weakened as time has gone on. So if we take the case of Hinḍuism or Christianity we find them giving back before the inroads of a more materialistic philosophy, before the inroads of a self-assertive science. We find among cultured and thoughtful people in the East and West there has been a great slackening of hold on the teachings of religion, and that the power exercised over the lives of believers has become much less real than in earlier days. That is inevitable, the result of the efflux of time, and the need for the recurrence of spiritual impulses lies in that fact, which is ever repeating itself. Just in the same way in which we read in theBhagavaḍ-Gîṭâthat by the effluxof time this yoga disappears, and then some teacher comes in order to restore vividness to the life, so it is over and over again in the case of every great spiritual movement.
Now when we apply these manifest principles and facts to the latest spiritual movement, that which gave birth to the Theosophical Society, we find that we are running through, in a very short time, the same series of facts as characterised the religions of the past. Here also, as with them, a great outburst of phenomena in the earlier days; H.P.B. living in a cloud of phenomena and those who came in touch with her bathed in phenomena of all kinds. You can see the result of that early training in our late President, Colonel Olcott, to whom phenomena in connection with the Theosophical Society were the most natural things in the world. He had no hesitation in talking of them, was always bubbling over with his experiences of them in the past. You must remember, when he was over here, how much he thought about them, the pleasure he took in recalling his earlier experiences, and of showing the material articles produced phenomenally in those earlier days; and you cannot take upOld Diary Leaveswithout finding yourself face to face with every-day happenings of phenomena. Life then seemed to be made up of the abnormal, in the sense in which that word is used. The normal for the time being had disappeared. If a duster had to be hemmed, an elemental did it. If pencils were needed, a hand was put forward, twisted the pencils about, and there were twelve in place of the one, and so on. Much greater people than H.P.B. were concerned in producingthese phenomena. Colonel Olcott tells us how H.P.B. on one occasion drank some lukewarm water which a Master drew from a water-skin on a camel, and magnetised, and made her believe it to be coffee. On his removing the magnetism before she had finished drinking, she found to her disgust that she had been drinking this lukewarm water. The present-day Theosophist would probably have objected to such playfulness, but such things were continually happening in the early days. When Colonel Olcott came into the Society he came straight from the investigation of spiritualistic phenomena—a thoroughly well-trained observer, beginning with a good deal of scepticism, and beaten out of it by his own observations in innumerable spiritualistic séances. So that when he came in touch with H.P.B. he was no credulous, unobservant person, overborne by a number of wonderful happenings, but a thoroughly equipped and cold-blooded and well-trained observer of the super-physical, and he naturally brought his powers of observation to bear on these wonderful happenings. He has left on record the full stories of these earlier days. You may find similar stories, not to the same extent indeed, in Mr. Sinnett's book,The Occult World. There we find similar instances, similar marvels worked by H.P.B. in order to arouse his attention, and to prove to him the existence of certain laws; which otherwise would have remained, so to speak, in the air. So there were also there a large number of unusual happenings—letters in pillow-cases, letters on branches of trees, and so on. You would all do well to re-read theOld Diary LeavesorThe Occult World. Each one of you should deliberately askhimself: "Why do I believe these things to be true?" Because it seems to me that most members of the Theosophical Society are rather slipping into the position of the modern Christian, that in order that a miracle may be true it must be old, and if it happens nowadays it must immediately be discredited. That is not rational. But it is a perfectly rational position to take up with all phenomena to say: "I shall not accept one of them unless thoroughly satisfied with the evidence on which it rests"; that is a perfectly reasonable attitude; but what seems to me a little less reasonable is to swallow wholesale the phenomena of the early days, and to look very much askance at anything that happens now; to glance back proudly to the past, and to regard anything which might happen now as wrong, as undesirable. Because if that is the right position, then it ought to be applied all round; it ought to be applied to the early phenomena of the Society as much as to anything that may occur now; and the same rigid demand for evidence should be made as is made at the present time. But, on the other hand, if the evidence be as full and as satisfactory now as that which supported the earlier phenomena, then it does not seem quite reasonable to accept the earlier and deny the later.
Let us for a moment see how far the Society has been going along the same line as that along which the other religions have gone—the gradual disappearance of phenomena and the substitution for them of teaching appealing to the reason only, and not to the senses, claiming its authority on grounds which appeal to the consciousness in man, as far as is practicable divorcedfrom matter, or to that consciousness working through comparatively thick and gross veils of matter. After the Coulomb difficulty there was a cessation almost entirely of these phenomena in the Theosophical Society. Two reasons led up to that: first, the utter disinclination of H.P.B. herself to continue to expose herself to the attacks of people with regard to her good faith. She was so maligned and slandered, so many friends turned against her and spoke of the powers she possessed as fraudulent and as tricks, that when her Master raised her from the bed that might have been her death-bed, and would have been, save for His coming to her at Aḍyar, she made the condition that she should not be forced to produce phenomena in the way she had been forced before; that she should be allowed to put that aside. The consent was given. Lion-hearted as she was, she shrank from the storm of slander that broke on her. The other reason was that people belonging to the Society took fright. The pressure of public reprobation was so strong, the force of unbelief so crushing, that the members of the Society itself shrank back and were afraid to face public opinion, ignorant and persecuting as it was; and it is pathetic and interesting to read the letters she wrote in the years immediately succeeding the Coulomb difficulty, in which she pointed out that those to whom she had brought the light were ashamed to stand beside her under the conditions to which she was then exposed. She complained that the writings in the Society were changing their character; that they were no longer occult and full of teaching of the unseen, but had become purely philosophical andmetaphysical; that her own journal had turned aside from its earlier occultism, and confined itself to articles addressed only to the intellect; and she says in one of these letters: "Say what you may, it was my phenomena on which the Theosophical Society was founded. It is my phenomena by which that Society has been built up." It was a natural feeling of half resentment against the policy of the time, that had left her in the lurch, and put the Society upon a different footing. It was in connection with that terrible time, in the turmoil and whirl of conflicting opinions, that those words recorded of her Master, spoken to herself, in one of the records left to the Society, occurred, in which He said: "The Society has liberated itself from our grasp and influence ... it is no longer ... a body over the face of which broods the Spirit from beyond the Great Range." Along those newer lines the Society went, and there are many who will say: "They are better lines. It is better that these abnormal happenings should fall into the background, that they should not be presented to a scornful and sceptical world, that we should rely on the literature that we have, without desiring to increase it by new knowledge, in which much can only be gained by abnormal means. Better to rest on what we have, and not try to add to it." Very many of our members take that view, and it is a perfectly reasonable view to take, a view which ought to have its place in the Theosophical Society, a view which is useful as correcting the tendency to undue credulity, which otherwise might hold on its way unchecked. For the life of the Society depends on the fact that it should include a vast variety of opinionson all the questions on which difference of opinion is possible; and it is not desirable that there should be only one school of thought in the Society. There should be many schools of thought, as many schools as there are different thinkers who can formulate their thought, and each standing with an equal right to speak and of claiming a respectful hearing. None of them has a right to say: "There is no place for you in the Theosophical Society." Neither must the person who is strong on the subject of phenomena try to silence those who meet phenomena with disbelief, or who think them dangerous; nor should a person who stands only on philosophy and metaphysics say to the Theosophical acceptor of the phenomena: "Your views are wrong and dangerous." Perfect freedom of thought is the law and life of the Society; and if we are not fit for that, if we have not reached the position where we can understand that the more we can enrich the Society with differences of opinion and different standpoints, the more likely is it to do its work and live for centuries to come, when other new avenues of knowledge unfold before it, we are not ready to be members of the Theosophical Society at all.
Now the Society has gone along those lines, along which every religion has gone, from the time of the Coulomb trial. What has been the effect of that on religions? A weakening power. We have to beware that the same thing does not take place with us that has taken place with the different religions of the past; we should take care—especially in an era wherein ordinary science on the physical plane is pressing onwards into the higher realms of the physical plane, and on to the very thresholdof the astral plane, and bids fair to cross that threshold and demonstrate its teaching there—lest we, who claim to be in the forefront of this great movement, do not fall into the background, and become unworthy of carrying on the standard of knowledge. Therefore I would claim for the Society its place as a seeker after new knowledge, investigation by what we call clairvoyance, the definite and regular carrying out of the third object, which has been far too much neglected of late years; practically, where many years ago the Society was leading the way in the investigation of the hidden laws in Nature and the hidden powers in man, it now has to take a back seat with regard to the contributions it is making under that particular object for which amongst others it was founded. For more work has been done of late years by the Psychical Research and similar Societies than by the Theosophical Society, and that is neither right or wise—not right, because as long as we keep such research as one of our objects we ought to live up to it; not wise, because the lessons we have learnt, the various theories we have studied, are better guides to investigation than anything which the other Societies have, who have not yet been able to formulate theories but are simply in the state of collecting phenomena. For that reason it seems to me that the Society can do work here which the others cannot. They collect and verify with patient care masses of most interesting and valuable phenomena. The work done by the late Mr. Gurney and Mr. Myers, and a large number of their co-workers, is invaluable work from the standpoint of the Theosophical student. But there is no order in it; there is no reason in it. It is amere chaos of facts, and they cannot explain or correlate them. They cannot classify or place them in order. They have no world-embracing knowledge which enables them to place each fact in its own place, and to show the relation of one set of facts to the other. There are splendid observations, but no co-ordination and building of them into a science; and it seems to me that it is a duty of the Theosophical Society, not only to deal with the facts that others have verified, but to carry on researches by properly qualified persons among its own members; to utilise its magnificent theories, its knowledge—for they are more than theories—for the explanation of new phenomena, for the gradual evolution of new powers among greater numbers of its members; and I do not believe that in that there is so much danger as some people fear. I do not believe that the study of the hidden side of Nature is so perilous a study as some think. All researches at first hand in the early days of a science have some danger: chemistry, electricity, had dangers for their pioneers, but not dangers from which wise people and brave should shrink; and I fear for the future of the Theosophical Society if it follows the track of many of the religions and lets go its hold of knowledge of the other worlds, and comes to depend on hearsay, tradition, belief in the experience of others, and the avoidance of the reverification of experience. For it must be remembered that in giving a vast mass of knowledge to the world, H.P.B. distinctly stated that these are facts which can be reverified by every generation of observers; she did not give a body of teaching to be swallowed, to be taken on authority, to be acceptedby what is called faith; but a body of verifiable teachings, facts to be examined over again, facts to be experimented on, to be carefully studied, as the scientific man studies the part of the world he knows. Unless we can do that, I fear we shall tend only to become another religion among the religions of the world; that we also shall lose our power over the thought of our generation, and to that which has been done so splendidly in past years—the spreading of these ideas so that they are becoming commonplace now among cultured and intellectual people—pause will be given, and the spreading influence will be checked, because we have left part of our work undone, part of our message unsaid. And I would urge on you in relation to this that which I said in a sentence at the beginning of my address, that there is one condition of research into these matters common to ordinary science and to the science of the higher worlds, and that is a balanced judgment, acute and accurate observation, and a constant readiness to reverify and recast earlier observations in the light of the later ones that are made. All science grows by modification as more and more facts are collected by the scientific observers, and no scientific man would make any progress in his science, if he were always in the reverential attitude of the devotee before a spiritual truth when he is working out experiments in his laboratory. You may show reverence to great beings like the Masters, there the posture of reverence is the right one; but when you are dealing with the phenomena of the astral plane there is no more need to show reverence than with phenomena of the physical plane. It is out ofplace, and if you make that atmosphere round it, you will always be at the mercy of misconception and error of all kinds. You must try, in all psychical research, in all weighing of observation of phenomena, to cultivate the purely scientific spirit, indifferent save to the truth and the accuracy of the results, looking on every matter with a clear eye, without bias and without prejudice; not seeking for facts to verify a doctrine already believed in, but seeking for facts in order to draw conclusions from them as to the laws and truths of the unseen world. There is no other safe way of investigation, no other reasonable condition of mind in face of the objective world; and if it be possible amongst us to break down this wall between the physical, astral and mental, to see all objects in all worlds as simply part of the Not-Self which we are studying, dealing with them in the same way, interpreting them in the same spirit, then we are likely to add largely to our knowledge without risking the loss of our judgment or becoming mere enthusiasts, carried away by marvels and unable either to observe accurately or judge correctly. The place of phenomena in the Theosophical Society seems to me to be a constant place. They must be recognised as fit objects for the study of the Theosophist. We must recognise frankly that our future literature depends on the development of these powers which can be utilised in the worlds beyond the physical; that we are not satisfied to be only receivers, but also desire to be investigators and students; that while we will check the observations of to-day by the observations of the past, and hold our conclusions lightly until they have been repeatedly verified, we will notbe frightened back from investigation by the idea that psychism is a thing to be disliked, to be shrunk from, to be afraid of. Some of you think that I have laid too much stress, when speaking of observations in the other worlds, on the probability of mistake. Some have blamed me from time to time because I have guarded myself so much by saying: "It is likely that mistakes have come into these observations." But it is only by keeping that frame of mind, that reiterated observation can correct the blunders which we inevitably fall into in our earlier investigations. There is no scientific man in the world who, when making experiments in a new branch of science, is not well aware that he may blunder, is likely to make mistakes, likely to have to correct himself, to find out that wider knowledge alters the proportion between his facts. And I have tried to lay stress on the fact that these things are true as regards the astral plane as much as they are true of the physical; that it is not a question of revelation by some highly evolved being, but a question of observation by gradually developing beings—a very, very different thing. And unless you are prepared to take up that reasonable position, unless you will allow the investigator to make mistakes and to correct them, without calling out too loudly against them, or abusing them for not being perfect and invariable, you will build a wall against the gaining of further knowledge, and cramp the Society, and give it only tradition instead of ever fresh knowledge, ever widening information.
So that I declare thus the place of phenomena in the Theosophical Society: I declare that it was founded withthem, built up by them, nourished by them, and that they ought to continue to be a department of our work, a proper subject for our investigation. Only, do not get confused by bringing faith into the region of phenomena. There is only one thing to which the word faith ought really to be applied: and that is the conviction of Deity within us. That is the real faith, the faith in the Self within, an unconquerable, imperial conviction of the Divinity which is the root of our nature. That faith is truly above reason; that conviction transcends all proofs and all intellect; but nothing in the object world is an object of faith; all are objects of knowledge. If you can keep that distinction clear in your mind; if you can remember that the only warranted conviction above reason is that conviction of your eternity, then you may go safely into the region of phenomena, into the manifestations and happenings of the objective world, with clear judgment, clear sight, unbiased mind; and knowledge shall reward you in your researches into Nature, for Nature always has a reward for the seeker into her secrets.