An open letter to the Fellows of the American Section of the Theosophical Society by H.P. Blavatsky. Refuting the false and malicious reports and insinuations by M.A. Lane, a thoroughly dishonest man and a wicked slanderer. I felt every time Mr. Lane’s name was mentioned a cold disagreeable sensation in me, which I could not conquer. I have proofs that Mr. Lane is only one of a regular band of conspirators bent upon destroying our Society. As to his natural deception, it is absolutely sickening. He had come to find out fraud, evil, interested motives, humbug or charlatanry, and he found instead half-a-dozen of the most earnest men and women, working with an unselfishness and singleness of purpose he is unable to understand, let alone to emulate. The purpose of this letter to the American Section is to forewarn our Fellows about Mr. Lane, and to tell him to his face that he lies.

Theosophy is a system of divine philosophy offering to eclectic thinkers rational explanations of occult phenomena, without bamboozling them with hollow tenets, sophistry, and dogmas. It is the Beacon-light of Hope guiding Humanity on her true path. Its noble aim is to unite men of all nations in brotherly love and acts of charity beyond kith and kin, to all that lives and feels, and needs help and kindness. Theosophy seeks to refine human nature at the voluntary sacrifice of the superfluous animality and private wealth, fostered by modern life and materialistic education, which is abnormal for the human race at this evolutionary stage. Theosophists are friends of all World Movements, whether intellectual or practical, striving for the amelioration of Humanity. Their mission is to open man’s heart and mind to charity, justice, and generosity — attributes which belong specifically to the human kingdom and are natural to man, once he has developed the qualities of a human being worthy of the name. Theosophy teaches and prompts the animal-man to be human, by living for others; and when men have learnt to think and feel, as all truly human beings should feel and think, they will act humanely; and works of charity to visible and invisible beings will be done spontaneously by all to All — by virtue of the immaculate nature inherent in All. On the day, when Theosophy will have accomplished its most holy pledge — namely, to unite firmly men of all nations in brotherly love bent on pure altruistic work, not on labour spurred by selfish motives — on that day only, will Theosophy become an ever-Living Power on earth, far higher than any nominal “brotherhood of man.” Great results can be achieved by those who, forgoing their own comfort, work unselfishly for the ideal of Universal Brotherhood by helping their fellow pilgrims to carry the burden of life. Such a joyful and soul-ennobling responsibility will be fruitful of good to the Society, to yourselves, and to Humanity at large. While preparations for the new cycle continue, and the forerunners of the new subrace appear on the American Continent, the latent occult powers in man have already begun germinating and growing. The Ethics of Theosophy are far higher and more precious than any divulgement of psychic laws; the latter relate wholly to the material and evanescent part of the septenary man. Only self-abnegation and the goodness of earthly love can purify and prepare for the realisation of the Divine Love. Teach, practice, and proclaim the twin doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation, for it is that system of life and principles, which alone can save the coming races. Do not work merely for The Theosophical Society, but through it for the benefit of the Great Orphan, the only disinherited one upon this earth crying aloud in the darkness for guidance and light. Had it not been for W.Q. Judge, Theosophy would not be where it is today in the United States. It is he who has built up the Movement among you, and he who has proved in a thousand ways his loyalty and steadfast devotion to the Cause of the Masters — which is Compassion, i.e., the Causeless Cause of the Spirit of Truth.

With the Kabbalists, Fire and Motion were instrumental in the formation of the world out of pre-existing Matter. Aditi, the primordial Water of Space, is the original of Sephirah, and crown of the Sephiroth. The AUM of the Hindus had become the Aion with the Greeks, and the Ævum with the Romans — the Pan or All. With Moses, Elohim and Jehovah were numerical indices of geometrical relations, and stood for a diameter and a circumference value, respectively. When Shimon ben-Yohai’s heavenly light gave place to the darkness of the gloomy cave, then only the disciples of Israel perceived that the lamp of Israel was extinguished. The key of things concealed is the key of the sanctuary. Mount Sumeru is the father of the Greek Parnassos and Tomaros. The Hindu Kailasa (Heaven), too, is the father of the Greek Heaven (Koilon). Even the German Heaven (Himmel) was inspired by the Heavenly Himalaya. From where the Greeks obtained their Parnassos, thence proceeded most of the biblical personages. Abram was one of them, a Chaldæan Brahman, transformed later into A-brahm (A-braham), i.e., no-Brahman, who emigrated westward and became the “father of many nations.” Every God and hero in ancient Pantheons, including those of the Bible, has three biographies in the narrative, running parallel with each other, and each connected with one of three aspects of the hero — historical, astronomical, and perfectly mythical — the last serving to link the other two together and smooth away the asperities and discordances in the narrative, and gathering into one or more symbols the verities of the first two. Moreover, localities are made to correspond with astronomical and even with psychic events. History was thus made captive by ancient Mystery, to become later on the great Sphinx of the age we live in. Not only is everything in Western religion is related to measures, geometrical figures, and time calculations, the principal periods being founded on historical personages, but the latter are also connected with heaven and earth truly, but only with the Indo-Aryan heaven and earth, not with those of Palestine. The Old Testament was milked out of the most ingenious brains of Hebrew Kabbalists, partly in Egypt and partly in Babylonia. Astronomically, Abraham is the sun-measure and a portion of the sun, while Enoch is the solar year, as much as is Thoth-Hermes. Equally Thoth, numerically, is the equivalent of Moses and Hermes, Lord of the lower realms and a teacher of wisdom. More! Abram and Brahmā are equivalent in numerical value! Neither the Book of Enoch, nor the Zohar, nor any other kabbalistic volume, contains merely Jewish wisdom. It was only in the Third Root-Race that the “wheel” of Enoch was invented as a first attempt at symbology, though Enoch No. 1 had naught to do with it.

Christian lamps were preserved by the power of god. Pagan lamps were the work of the devil, according to St. Augustine, “who deceives us in a thousand ways.” Their light is sublimated gold, rescued magically by invisible stellar attraction, out of material depths. With bibliographical note by Boris de Zirkoff.

Science has made wonderful discoveries on the objective side of all the physical phenomena. Where it is really wrong is, when it perceives in matter alone — i.e., in that matter which is known to it — the alpha and the omega of all phenomena. Our quarrel with the Materialists is not so much for their soulless Forces, as for their denying the existence of any “Force-bearer,” the Noumenon of Light, Electricity, etc. With biographical and bibliographical notes on Alexander Nikolayevich Aksakov by Boris de Zirkoff.

Source-material for the Future History of Psychism in the Darwinian Epoch.

Modern Zoroastrianism is a distant echo of Magianism or Sabaeanism, the oldest science of astrology and occultism. Yet, under the lifeless mask of modern Zoroastrianism the pulse of the Magi of old still beats.

There are two ways of rendering the first line of Genesis: one way is exoteric, by Christian Bible interpreters; the other, Kabbalistic — divided into the Rabbinical, and the purely Kabbalistic or Occult method. Why Christians sing never-ceasing laudations to the Mosaic Jews, who repudiated all the other Gods, preserved the most phallic and, then, most impudently, proclaimed themselves Monotheists? Jesus ever steadily ignored Jehovah and went against the Mosaic commandments. He recognized his Heavenly Father alone, and prohibited public worship. Ralston Skinner’s numerical analysis of the first sentence of Genesis, on which hung in blind faith the whole Christian religion, shows that the Bible was made to yield Phallicism, and that alone. To know the full septenary significance of the Primordial Circle, the Pyramid and the Kabbalistic Bible must be read in the light of the figure on which the temples of India are built. Genesis cannot yield anything higher or more sublime than phallic elements, the root and the cornerstone of its dead-letter meaning. Anthropomorphism and Revelation dig an impassable chasm between the material world and the ultimate spiritual truths. The so-called “creation” of Genesis is not the Primary Creation, and the Elohim are not “God,” not even the higher Planetary Spirits, but the Architects of this physical planet and of man’s material body or encasement. The Elohim, far from being supreme or even exalted powers in Nature, are only lower Angels. This was the teaching of the Gnostics, the most philosophical of all the early Christian Churches. They correspond to the Prajapatis of the Hindus, the fashioners of man’s material and astral form only. Mathers censures the translators of the Bible, who have suppressed every single reference to the feminine form of Deity. With the Occultists of the East the “One and Changeless,” Parabrahman, the Absolute All, the ONE and Secondless, cannot be conceived as standing in any relation to things finite and conditioned. But what especially strikes the student of the Kabbalah is the malicious persistency with which the translators of the Bible have jealously crowded out of sight and suppressed every reference to the feminine form of the Deity. They have, as we have just seen, translated the feminine plural “Elohim,” by the masculine singular, “God.” They also concealed the fact that Ruah, “Spirit,” is feminine. It then follows that the Holy Ghost of the New Testament is a feminine Potency. In the Hebrew, as in the Greek alphabet, there are no distinct numeral characters, and consequently each letter has a certain numerical value attached to it. From this circumstance results the important fact that every Hebrew word constitutes a number, and every number a word. The conclusion of Mathers’ analysis of the Elohim is that they are not one, nor two, nor even a trinity, but an army of Creative Powers. Madame Blavatsky names the true Creators. The “First-Born,” or Logos, is not an Emanation, but an Energy inherent in, and co-eternal with, Parabrahman — the ONE. Thus it is not the ONE and Unconditioned, nor even Its reflection, that creates, but only the “Seven Gods” who fashion the Universe out of primordial Matter, vivified into objective life by the reflection into it of the One and only Reality. Jehovah is at best, the Heavenly Man or Adam-Kadmon, used by the self-created Spirit (Logos), as a chariot, a vehicle in His descent to the phenomenal world of gross matter. The Secret Doctrine and the Kabbalah are in perfect concordance in St. Paul’s Epistles. The Zohar is not a genuine production of the Hebrew mind. It is a veil over the Secret Doctrine. The Zohar is the repository and compendium of the oldest doctrines of the East, transmitted orally at first, and then written down in independent treatises during the Captivity at Babylon, and finally brought together by Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai, toward the beginning of the Christian era. Modern Christianity is Paganism pure and simple, exoterically; and transcendental and practical Magic or Occultism, esoterically. The Solar Trinity is not Mazdean, but Universal, and as old as man. All temples in Antiquity were invariably made to face the Sun, their portals opening to the East. The last of the Solar Priests in Europe was the Imperial Initiate, Julian, now called the Apostate. He tried to benefit the world by revealing a portion of the great mystery of the Solar Trinity, and died for the same crime as Socrates. The Roman Catholic Church stands accused, not of worshipping under other names the Divine Beings worshipped throughout Antiquity, but of declaring idolatrous, not only the Pagans ancient and modern, but every Christian nation that has freed itself from the Roman yoke. Only the Philosophers, who studied Astrology and Magic, knew that the “Last Word” was to be sought in the Occult forces emanating from those constellations that are the physical bodies of Divine Beings.