THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
There is a very great difference
between the Theosophical Movement and any Theosophical Society.
The Movement is moral, ethical,
spiritual, universal, invisible save in effect, and continuous. A Society
formed for theosophical work is a visible organization, an effect, a machine
for conserving energy and putting it to use; it is not nor can it be universal,
nor is it continuous.
Organized Theosophical bodies are
made by men for their better cooperation, but, being mere outer shells, they
must change from time to time as human defects come out, as the times change,
and as the great underlying spiritual movement compels such alterations.
The Theosophical Movement being
continuous, it is to be found in all times and in all nations. Wherever thought
has struggled to be free, wherever spiritual ideas, as opposed to forms and
dogmatism, have been promulgated, there the great movement is to be discerned.
Jacob Boehme’s work was a part of
it, and so also was the Theosophical Society of over one hundred years ago*;
Luther’s reformation must be reckoned as a portion of it; and the great
struggle between Science and Religion, clearly portrayed by Draper, was every
bit as much a motion of the Theosophical Movement as is the present Society of
that name – indeed that struggle, and the freedom thereby gained for science,
were really as important in the advance of the world, as are our different
organizations.
And among political examples of
the movement is to be counted the Independence of the American colonies, ending
in the formation of a great nation, theoretically based on Brotherhood.
One can therefore see that to
worship an organization, even though it be the beloved theosophical one, is to
fall down before Form, and to become the slave once more of that dogmatism
which our portion of the Theosophical Movement, the Theosophical Society, was
meant to overthrow.
Some members have worshipped the
so-called “Theosophical Society”, thinking it to be all in all, and not
properly perceiving its de facto and piecemeal character as an organization nor
that it was likely that this devotion to mere form would lead to a
nullification of Brotherhood at the first strain.
And this latter, indeed, did
occur with several members. They even forgot, and still forget, that H. P.
Blavatsky herself declared that it were better to do away with the Society
rather than to destroy Brotherhood, and that she herself declared the European
part of it free and independent. These worshippers think that there must be a
continuance of the old form in order for the Society to have an international
character.
But the real unity and
prevalence, and the real internationalism, do not consist in having a single
organization. They are found in the similarity of aim, of aspiration, of
purpose, of teaching, of ethics. Freemasonry – a great and important part of
the true Theosophical Movement – is universally international; and yet its
organizations are numerous, autonomous, sovereign, independent
The Grand Lodge of the state of New York,
including its different Lodges, is independent of all others in any state, yet
every member is a Mason and all are working on a single plan. Freemasons over
all the world belong to the great International Masonic Body, yet they have
everywhere their free and independent government.
When the Theosophical Society was
young and small, it was necessary that it should have but one government for
the whole of it. But now that it has grown wide and strong, having spread among
nations so different from each other as the American, the English, the Spanish,
the Swedish and others in Europe, and the Hindu, it is essential that a change
in the outward form be made.
This is that it becomes like the
Freemasons – independent in government wherever the geographical or national
conditions indicate that necessity. And that this will be done in time, no
matter what certain persons may say to the contrary, there is not the slightest
doubt.
The American Group, being by
geographical and other conditions outwardly separate, began the change so as to
be in government free and independent, but in basis, aspiration, aim and work
united with all true Theosophists.
We have not changed the work of
H.P.B.; we have enlarged it. We assert that any person who has been admitted to
any Theosophical Society should be received everywhere among Theosophists, just
as Masons are received among Masons.
It is untheosophical to denounce
the change made by the American Group; it is not Theosophy nor conducive to its
spread to make legal claims to theosophical names, symbols and seals so as to
prevent if possible others from using them. Everyone should be invited to use
our theosophical property as freely as he wishes.
Those who desire to keep up H.P.B.’s
war against dogmatism will applaud and encourage the American movement because
their liberated minds permit; but those who do not know true Theosophy, nor see
the difference between forms and the soul of things, will continue to worship
Form and to sacrifice Brotherhood to a shell.
Note
* “The Theosophical Society of
over one hundred years ago”. This is a reference to the theosophical movement
of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, since the present article was written
in 1895.
This article
was later compiled in William Q. Judge's “Theosophical Articles,” published
by the Theosophy Company of Los Angeles in 1980, vol. II, p.124-126.
OBSERVATION
I agree with what William Judge wrote, but to avoid
confusion I prefer to say that the theosophical movement (that is, the efforts
made to spread theosophical teachings) is incorporated within a larger movement
which is the movement for the progress of humanity (and that is what William
Judge calls “The Theosophical Movement”).
No comments:
Post a Comment