THEOSOPHY AND OCCULTISM.

 

Many fears are expressed that Theosophy or Occultism will capture Spiritualism, and ultimately prove the communicating spirits to be mere "elementaries;" and not our spirit friends as they purport to be.

 

If Theosophy can bring the proof, why should we object, for it is the truth we are after, and though our dearest hopes fail, we must say that the cause, fearing the light, had best at once fall in its weakness.

 

But is there ground for fear? Will the formulae of the old Thaumaturgists be mumbled in this age of science, and the shades of goblins, commanded by magicians, work, speak and run of errands? If so, who will gainsay, or prevent? Let the discoverers of the old gifts bring them to the front. They have but to do one half of what they pretend, to convince the world.

 

Let us not be amused by tales of what has been done, and what it is proposed to do, but let us see the doing. Until this is done, the many will prefer the living present to a dead past. They will prefer spirit communion, through mediumship, rather than the mystic ways of occultism.

 

Spiritualism throws its golden stream through occultism, and forms its vital portion. It has already made life, all that is worth possessing, and so far from being captured, it will in the end, prove theosophy and occultism to be short chapters in its historic progress, and the fundamental truths they contain, a part only of its philosophy.

 

All that is true will remain, but error and dross will be blown back into the dust-heap, with the effete and dead. Pretense has no enduring life, and sometimes it is policy to allow time to adjust the claims of contending systems.

 

The so-called "occult" knowledge of the East, of Hindoo priests, and Thibetan "masters" is in mildest phrase the twaddle of ignorant pretensions, and the veriest rubbish. That there are devotees who have power to call on spiritual beings, to run here and there to their bidding, or that there are methods by which the initiate can gain such control, are unworthy even of the honor of contradiction. Of late there has been a disposition to accept the mysticism of the East, and to see in its arrogant claims and incomprehensible doctrines, a mine of wisdom. It is overlooked that a belief or doctrine may he estimated in value not in direct, but inverse ratio to its a age. The older any opinion or statement, the greater the probability that it is valueless. If travelers are to be believed, nowhere is there such wretched ignorance, uncleanliness, superstition and duplicity as among the priests of the vaunted monasteries of the Himalayas, and the miracle-workers of India are simply fakirs, who compete in feats of legerdemain with Herrmann and Kellar. I well know that these statements will bring severe criticism, and the proof will be called for. In reply, the affirmative evidence must first appear and I ask for the evidence, beyond personal assertion, of the coming of a "master," a "mahatma," a "chela," the "astral," of the existence of the "brotherhood," of one and all the claims set up by the occultists and the theosophists.

 

I am profoundly thankful that Spiritualism has no "divine order," or "several degrees of mystery." I am profoundly thankful that it has not been confined within the narrow boundaries of a creed, even though that creed had been written by the angels.

 

I am thankful that no man or clique has controlled its career. No organization has been found commensurate to restrain and embody it very attempt has been that of children playing, at curbing the course of a river. It came without a leader, it grew apace without an organized effort, and permeated everywhere, because it struck the tenderest chords of the human heart and appealed to the hope,; and aspirations of all.

 

It has no mysteries, no high priesthood, no holy of holies where only initiates can tread. Its "mahatmas" and "masters" and "astrals" are our own dear loved ones ready to give us the full measure of their assistance our welfare requires.

 

The cultivation of our spiritual faculties, which turn toward them and make their approach and communication possible, is of more moment than all the obsolete "wisdom" of the East, and initiation into "occult" degrees.

 

There is one science and philosophy of life here and hereafter, that comes free to all as the sunlight, and scorns the limitations of creed, set forms of belief, and the organic efforts of self-constituted leaders. It founds no lodge, and its believers are not identified by grip or sign. Its holy temple is the wide world, its brothers are mankind, its effort is to escape from the mysteries of ignorance to the light of truth, its leaders are the independent workers innumerable, who labor in diverse ways, and the angel host.

 

Catholic spirits work through the Catholic channels; Presbyterian spirits return to Presbyterian friends; Methodist spirits inspire Methodist orators, and thus every church and society, and the drift of all is to receive the spiritual baptism in the measure of receptivity, growing more and more.

 

We should as Spiritualists, receiving more fully with deeper comprehension, rejoice with great joy, that we have not built a dam to restrain the flood, that we cannot build walls to restrain it, or make a creed that will express it, or get up an organization to direct it, or inaugurate a propaganda for its extension.