“BACK WITH BLAVATSKY. . .”
by Alvin Boyd Kuhn.
* Note: Electronically typed and edited by Juan Schoch for
educational research purposes. I would like to state that it is my hope that
the “associates of the estate” of Alvin Boyd Kuhn will in some way contact me
so as to make available to the world the much needed missing works of this
great man. May we learn to live in harmony and peace not only with each other
but with nature and may humanity grow thereby. I would like to thank Cat
Pancero for the finding and Lynette Watters for the acquirement of the
following articles: Recapturing the Founder’s Vision & Back with
Blavatsky . . . Science Group Journal (S.G.J.) 1960 v4 Oct_Nov p4 and 1961
v5 September p4, respectively. pc93@bellsouth.net
In the May
1961 number of the S.G.J. (P.15) Dr. H. S. Murdoch was generous enough to
conclude his article on The Need for a Major Review of Theosophical
Teachings with reference to a suggestion I had put forth in an article
published in the Oct-Nov 1960 issue of the magazine. (P.4). His allusion to
this item and the general content of his fine contribution set my mind running
on a line of reflection that I feel is vital to the life of Theosophy today. It
is a theme that I have often been impelled to bring to the attention of the
Society at large. Perhaps this is the favorable moment and the strategic
situation in which to present it.
The
suggestion of mine which be commended to the serious consideration of the
Society was that the once widely current and still pertinent slogan, “Back to
Blavatsky”, be amended to the form, “Back with Blavatsky to Plato and
the Sages”. Since this may have struck many, along with Dr. Murdoch, as an
arrow pointing in a direction likely to lead to more stable grounds on which to
build up our modern effort and offering the prospect of a possible enhancement
of the power of Theosophy at this critical juncture of human affairs, I am
moved to undertake a survey of the current position of our cherished Society
and the potential embodied in the reconstructed slogan if its suggested policy
program should seriously be considered and put into effect. As Dr. Murdoch’s
article speaks of the need for a broad and comprehensive review of theosophical
teachings, my present contribution might be regarded as one member’s forthright
attempt to outline at least the form and, to a fair extent, the content of such
a review. It might indicate the wide field over which a general review should
aim to extend, if it should be undertaken by groups collectively and ultimately
by the Society as a whole, or, if any have the hardihood, by individual
members.
Dr. Murdoch
has himself pointed one of his admirable suggestions in the direction in which
my revised slogan would lead investigation, when he says that a capable review
should by no means confine itself to a search for discrepancies between
clairvoyant searching and reporting and the factual revelations of modern physical
science (particularly as to “occult chemistry”) but should extend over the
broad terrain of the great ancient wisdom and the esoteric philosophy of the
past. This in fact is a hint at pretty much what I wish to center reflection
upon in this contribution. If H.P.B. disclaimed the intent to launch a new
message, but only aimed to revive the precious heritage of past hierarchical
wisdom vouchsaged to early humanity by the demigods, surely it must be a
never-ceasing obligation of her Society to expand to the utmost the light and
influence of her own gigantic republication of that mighty corpus of truth and
knowledge, and then to press on in the effort to extend further the enterprise
of unearthing, clarifying and publishing additional material from that ancient
treasure trove. As one scans general theosophical history in its modern phase,
it has ever seemed to me that H.P.B. announced her purpose to rekindle the
great ancient light, spent herself in a herculean effort to provide the oil for
its brilliant glow – and that the T.S. has done almost nothing more in that
prime task ever since. Her accomplishment in the enterprise was indeed so
stupendous that the idea seems to have grown to full stature that she had
achieved the whole task by herself, and
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that nothing more need be done to
supplement her performance. The effect was to create the bland obsession that
she had plucked up the whole of Theosophy and handed it full-blown to the
modern world. No one will deny that she did a magnificent job of it. But she
herself was loud and insistent that she had not at all recreated the secret and
sacred science exhaustively. Rich as was the legacy she bequeathed to us, she
meant it to be only the hors d’oeuvres to a real banquet that was to be
served up from the ancient table of the gods.
In over a
half-century of participation in the life and work of the Society, it has more
and more conclusively seemed to me that the prime purpose of the movement was
centered and expressed in the language of that Second Object:
Comparative Religion, Philosophy and Science. (And I shall ever insist that at
least two additional words should have been included with the three, viz., Mythology
and Philology). Much of the Secret Doctrine touched upon “comparative”
science, and much present theosophical effort goes into correlating
theosophical principles with modern scientific development. But as regards
comparative religion and philosophy, little real work has been done in the area
of religion – and that most ineffectually – and next to nothing in the realm of
philosophy. Lodges have exploited talks on the various religions, with the
result of some knowledge of the systems of the four or five main world faiths.
But when have they ever systematically conducted courses in philosophy? Philosophy
is vaguely supposed to have been covered sufficiently when reincarnation and
karma have been conjointly expounded. It is a good ground and a fair beginning.
But the failure to study general philosophy in its academic forms and broad
scope has left the membership open to the danger of much uncritical acceptance
of occult theories that are found, under sharper scrutiny, to be incapable of
bearing the brunt of more deeply critical rationalism. As Dr. Murdoch says,
there has been a tendency in the Society, for instance, to take the
pronouncements of reputed clairvoyant investigations too readily as veridical
authority, to take theorizations too literally. It is a universal penchant of
the human mind, manifest in systematism everywhere, to make objective facts,
data or history, dance in tune with a theory. When one has a pretty theory it
is so easy to see it reflected or actualized in the objective world. Under the
cloak of rationalization we tend always to subjectivize history and living
phenomena. Given the attractive theory of root-races and sub-races, we swing
seven minor historical groups in line and declare them to have been the seven
in this or that root-race. It makes good reading, but do we really know? Or how
do we know?
Here might
be mentioned specifically our doctrine of karma, and the way we are prone to
interpret it. Because it is credible as the general law, it is all too easy and
tempting for one to explain any particular good or evil event as directly the
outcome of antecedent causes which may lie open to view and suggest themselves
as the answer. Surely it is legitimate to assume that present situations
eventuated from past action or default. But when one presumes to describe with
exactitude just how a present state or event developed out of
precisely specific past conduct, one is risking a possible mistake and venting
a possible injustice. We are often so sure that we can tell a brother exactly
why he is happy or suffering now.
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Another
instance of the foible comes to mind in regard to the principle of the
alternate destruction of continents successively by fire and water. Because it
would so nicely “prove” the theory, we jump to the truth of the assertion that
therefore Lemuria was destroyed by fire and Atlantis by water. Were they? Who
knows? No one seems to pause long enough to reflect that if a continent were
sunk beneath the oceans, it could hardly be otherwise than that both fire and
water would have to play their combined parts. For there is water above surface
and fire beneath, and a crack-up could hardly come without the equal
participation of the two. In a long study one becomes impressed with the fact
that a good deal of theosophical theory has been lightly accepted a bit too
gullibly.
It happens that
fire was the universal symbol of spirit and water of matter, and one can hardly
avoid the conclusion that, as these two forces do alternate in the run of
cycles of evolutionary progress, individuals and the world being more spiritual
at one arc and more material at another – the reciprocal interchange of
spiritual and bodily influences, so well depicted in ancient Egyptian lore by
the alternate victory of Horus and Sut over each other – the principle simply
announced this endless alternation of the two ends of the living polarity, and
that life’s methodology in this general respect has been made to refer to such
a thing in the outer world as the sinking of continents. Under the symbols of
fire and water the divine and the human expressions do so alternate. The
Christian religion has rendered itself well-nigh ridiculous and abhorrent to
the minds of deep thinkers by a ghastly run of ostensible historical
“elucidations” of Biblical allegories. How drastically our doughty H.P.B.
riddled with caustic sarcasm this unconscionable “flapdoodle”! There has been
too much of a similar phenomenon in Theosophy. A real study of philosophy,
along with comparative religion and science, as our Second Object envisages,
would have safeguarded the Society at many points in its precarious career.
This,
though important, is minor. The large consideration at stake is the fact that
the T.S. has, to a large extent, sidestepped its primary mission, which was, as
expressed in the minutes of one of the meetings that led up to the founding on
Nov. 17, 1875, in the language of the secretary, Col. Olcott, “to disseminate
the ancient knowledge”. The inspired founders saw the possibility of actually
opening the door to the sweeping influx of genuine brotherhood if they could
launch a movement of highly aspiring humanitarians that would end the scoffing,
snarling, hating and murderously persecuting religious sects and systems by the
revelation that they had all originated out of the one universal ancient wisdom
cultus. Perhaps in the consciousness of that founding group there had glowed
the realization that no progress toward brotherhood could be made at all until
that roadblock of religious and sectarian segregationism could be removed. For it is obvious to any student of religious
history that it is religion itself, the influence which would naturally be
presumed, by its central teaching of love at the spiritual level, to be the
most unitive principle in human life that has, on the contrary, proved to be
actually the most separative and divisive psychic force in the world. It has
seemed to me well-nigh conclusive that that Second Object was envisioned by the
founders as the one direct road that could lead to brotherhood.
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In a former contribution to the S.G.J. I intimated that we have
never handled the enterprise of comparative religion study by the proper
methodology. Some well-intentioned effort has been made in this direction by
presenting programs in which a look was had at one of the main world religions
in an overall survey, necessarily sketchy, then at another and so down the
list. This gives some light, of course. But a far more “scientific” way to
compare fruitfully the different systems would be to take, one by one, the
fundamental principles of the arcane science, the chief doctrines and the great
symbols, and ascertain to what extent each could be found in the several
religions. The method is found splendidly exemplified in a book that any
student interested in pursuing the technique should consult, a fine work by
Lord Raglan, a British scholar, entitled The Hero: A Study
in Myth, Ritual and Symbol (Oxford
University Press,
All this
brings us now to the point of profound consideration which I must think is
crucial for the life of our Society. Yet it is one that I have never seen
advanced in any theosophical presentations. It would at last, I firmly believe,
put theosophists in proper mental alignment with the movement to which they
have given their life’s sincerest cultural and aspirational effort and
allegiance. And it would tend to give us a proper orientation of the place,
role and importance of the modern Mahatma-Blavatsky-inspired movement in the
larger perspective of the spiritual hierarchy’s total historical effort to
help, so to say, humanity to attain its true divinization.
This
demands a shift of values in one’s mental life that may, at first glance,
appear to depreciate, by comparison, the high importance that modern theosophists
have been habituated to assign to the Society’s role in the modern period. That
is to say, that since the Masters have launched the modern version of Theosophy
through their accredited Messenger H.P.B., the feeling has been universal in
theosophic circles that this movement originated the cult of Theosophy,
and was in fact and in essence the theosophical movement in world
history. It has been felt that this enterprise gave the world Theosophy, and
that, but for it, there would have been no Theosophy in the world.
This
persuasion, fairly natural in the case, has however never done justice to
Theosophy itself, and has been a partial, limited and in fact warped and
inadequate view of Theosophy as it must more correctly be viewed. It would
contravene and negative the perspective which H.P.B. herself distinctly
pictured in the very premises of her effort. She expressly disavowed launching
Theosophy as a new, unique and novel body of truth. She forthrightly stated
that she strove to revive and republish the ageless wisdom of the sage past,
the divine message of the demigods to early mankind. The system she
reintroduced was that of an ancient wisdom, the esoteric science of old. We
might look at the
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great science through her eyes, but
it was to the past that she directed us to look. We were told to go back with
her to the ancient seers and sages. The ancient scriptures were to be our
text-books and Bibles. We took her version and – stopped there.
I am ready
now to conclude with the thought that inspired this contribution in the first
place. When we find ourselves confronted with the questions and perplexities of
the present, I have felt that the issue comes to all of us in the form of a
mental recognition that all theosophists must see as confronting them with its
positive challenge to their intelligence – and it may be put in something like
the following reflection: would I be as profoundly interested in and devoted to
the movement to revive Theosophy in the world as I am now, if it had chanced
that the Mahatma-Blavatsky resuscitation effort had never been made in our
modern world at all? Otherwise stated, would I be as vitally consecrated to
study, absorb, cultivate and promulgate the ancient wisdom, if I had come to
know something of it through general channels of study, or from other sources
than specifically through the modern revival? Even now, having had the push and
the sanction of uplift that I have derived from the Blavatsky renewal, would I
continue to be fervently committed to promote Theosophy as I now may be, if by
some magic the whole modern effort were obliterated from my knowledge?
I know this
is much like asking if a Roman Catholic could be as devoted to the promotion of
his faith as he now is, if the Catholic Church had, or had had no existence. Or asking if a Methodist would still hold loyally to his commitment
to his denomination if that church had had no existence. In this
abstract sense, it is a question that carries a real challenge to us: would we
be as genuinely devoted to the truths of the occult wisdom, the esoteric
philosophy and the spiritual science of soul-evolution, if all connection with
the modern theosophical movement were severed? If we can say sincerely that we
would still be so committed in that case, we may consider ourselves worthy of
the theosophic name. Could we maintain our enthusiasm for Theosophy in complete
independence of its foundations in Blavatskian reformulation?
To too many
perhaps Theosophy has come to be thought of as having had its full, complete,
or at any rate its fullest and highest, exposition and presentment in the
modern effort of the hierarchy and their Messenger. Therefore all final
authority as to basic questions has been looked for and in part presumptively
established on the basis of the prime literature that accompanied and launched
the modern renaissance. But H.P.B. admonished us against this posture of
belief. It would perhaps sound almost heretical to most present members if I
were to suggest that in the quest for answers to questions about the great and
fundamental truths of occultism, I might preferably turn back to Plato,
Plotinus, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Orpheus, Hermes or others of the great sages,
rather than to find them in Blavatsky’s work alone.
For what it
may be worth I conclude with the citation of my own personal experience in this
particular reference. It may by no means be conclusive as to what it has meant
to me. It may not have been an equitable test of relative values. But I can
definitely testify that this has been my experience. I had for the period of my
first twenty years in Theosophy been
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limited in my reading to the usual
run of books found to predominate in a T.S. Lodge library. This included a
heavy run of the Besant-Leadbeater and other conventional literature, deferring
the reading of Isis Unveiled, The Secret Doctrine
and the Mahatma Letters until about my twentieth year in the
Society. I confess that this reading was desultory and haphazard. The late
contact with the Blavatsky literature did greatly deepen my insight into the
larger picture. But it was then that I turned back to Hindu philosophy in the
large, to the great Hellenic systems of Platonism and, still better,
Neoplatonism, and finally, crowning it all, to studies in the ancient Egyptian
religion, most profitably through that monumental work of Gerald Massey, Ancient
Egypt, the Light of the World. And I
have to state that the deeper understanding, clearer illumination and more
dynamic inspiration that then swept into my mind so far surpassed anything I
had experienced in all former reading that I had to say to myself that I only
then felt that I had a real knowledge of what Theosophy is. On the basis of
this experience I would feel warranted in making the assertion that Theosophy
is larger and much more than what we have had in its modern representation. The
ancient wisdom is a precious heirloom that is not outmoded and obsolete because
it is ancient. It is the ageless wisdom, and the rediscovery and republication
of its treasures is the immense task our Society has pledged itself to
undertake.
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