The arguments against Theosophy are like a verdant moss, which displays a velvety carpet of green, without roots, and with a deep bog below. Abuse, pure and simple, is the only weapon of partisans. When a man has lived in crime, his astral cadaver which holds him prisoner, seeks again the objects of his passions and desires to resume its earthly life. It torments the dreams of young girls, bathes in the vapour of spilt blood, and wallows about the places where the pleasures of his life flitted by. The term elementary applies not only to one principle or constituent part, i.e., an elementary primary substance, but also embodies the idea which we express by the term elemental — that which pertains to the four elements of the material world. Elementaries are earth-bound incarnated thoughts of evil men who have passed away. In the grain of sand, as in each atom of the human body, spirit is latent, not active. Yet, the atom is vitalized and energized by spirit, without being endowed with distinct consciousness. Spirit and matter co-existent, inseparable, interdependent, and convertible to each other. But European tongues are too materialistic to make room for such metaphysical ideas. A copious vocabulary, indeed, that has but one term for God and for alcohol! In Sanskrit, for instance, there are twenty words or more to render one idea in its various shades of meaning. Christendom, with its boasted civilization, has outgrown the fetishism of the Fijians. The anthropomorphic ideas of Spiritualists concerning spirit are a direct consequence of the anthropomorphic conceptions of Christians as to their Deity. Spirit is abstract light, uncreated, latent in every atom, in whose profound and sacred repose all motion must cease for ever. Spirit is a ray, a fraction of the Whole; and the Whole being Omniscient and Infinite, its fraction must partake, in degree, of the same abstract attributes. The critics of Theosophy refuse to comprehend the philosophical doctrine that every atom is imbued with Divine Light. It is only when this atom, magnetically drawn to its fellow atoms, that is transformed at last, after endless cycles of evolution, into Man — the crown of intellectual and physical evolution on earth.

These study notes are about a Fellow of the Theosophical Society in Paris, who asserted that Theosophy is a doctrine without proof, without authority, and without prestige in its origin; who accused Brother Theosophists of teaching pseudo-Theosophy and preaching annihilation of the spiritual ego; who talked about the yugas like a blind man about colours; who invented apocryphal Codes in order to discredit Oriental Theosophy; who was not aware of the relation between the sacred sound and the ether of space, or that the Yajur-Veda is “black” when recited by whose accent is impure.

Since the mind of every religionist of whatever faith, is firmly impressed with the superiority of his own creed, his mind is firmly closed to the truths of other beliefs. This is the root-cause of sectarianism and intolerance. Theosophists, instead of preaching they own religion, they implore everyone to first study his own and remain in it, whatever it is — for Theosophy is not only compatible with every religion, nay, being the pristine stream from the Mother-Source, it is the informing life and creed of all religions — pure and convincing in its simplicity. While modern science has no knowledge of an “Intelligent Being” or “Spirit,” the science of metaphysics rejects entirely the possibility of the Infinite having any relation whatsoever with the finite, whether conscious or otherwise.

There are Spirits and Spirits; High Planetary Spirits who have been human beings millions of ages since, and upon other besides our own planet; there are the illusionary appearances of these, projected upon the intra-psychic screen of our mediumistic, hence confused, perceptions; and there are seers and mediums, as there are great men of science, willing and sincere, but ignorant tyros. Spiritualism has spawned almost as many books as a herring does eggs. There can be no spiritual intercourse, either with the souls of the living or the dead, unless it is preceded by self-spiritualization, the conquest of selfishness, and the unfoldment of the nobler powers within us. Spiritualism and Theosophy are mere opinions and beliefs, and nothing more. They can no more claim to be regarded as “facts” than any other emotional belief, for the facts of one will be delusion in the eyes of the other. Spiritualists and Theosophists fully agree that there are higher and pure spirits outside the realm of our physical senses. But they entirely disagree as to the nature and causal agency of “communicating intelligences.” The “disembodied spirits,” instead of having become the wiser for being rid of the physiological impediments and the restraints of their gross material senses, would seem to have become far more stupid, far less perspicacious and, in every respect, worse than they were during their earthly life. As nations became restricted by their own tongue, the once-universal Mystery Language is being gradually denied to subsequent generations. While the disciples of Eastern Occultism are trying to purify matter, Western Spiritualists are striving to degrade spirit. Spiritualists and Theosophists travel along a parallel, if not quite identical, path. Yet, to those bereft of a metaphysico-spiritual vocabulary, Eastern Occultism will remain impassable to the babel tower of modern thought, caused by ignorance of the true meaning of words and their synonyms, a skin deep learning leading to mistaken notions, and the tendency of elevating misconceptions to the dignity of dogmas. If people would stop speculating, and would simply stick to substantiated fact, truth would be more readily attained in each and every case. Truth stands higher than any earthly consideration ever will. Let each of us show our facts and give our explanations; and let those who are neither Occultists, Spiritualists, nor sceptics, adjudicate between the contestant parties. The world must learn at last, under the penalty of falling back to superstitious beliefs in the biblical devil, why such phenomena do so happen, and to what cause or causes they are to be attributed. New Dispensation is the latest folly of dogmatic Christianity. We are not acquainted with a god who thinks, plots, rewards, punishes, and repents. The only god whom we serve is humanity, and our only cult is love of our fellow man. This our religion and dogma. Men have done their best to replace the solar rays with the false glare of error and fiction; none more so than the bigoted, narrow-minded theologians and priests of every faith, the sophists and perverters of the Spirit of Truth. Parsifal is the theatrical representation of good and evil in a supreme struggle. It is our universe, saved through atonement; it is sin redeemed through grace, and the triumph of faith and charity. Thus far, Pilate’s “What is truth?” has never been sufficiently answered to the satisfaction of narrow-minded sectarians. The Theosophical Society upholds and advocates only corroborated facts and Truth, and nothing but the Truth, whencesoever and from whomsoever it may come. Our views have to stand or fall upon their own merit, since we claim neither divine revelation nor infallibility. We will not serve Truth and Falsehood at the same time. Our policy is war to death to every unproved dogma, superstition, bigotry, and intolerance.