Examining Some Tenets
of “Theosophical” Relativism
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
The subject of adepthood or arhatship is undeniably important in theosophy. It plays a central role at the very foundations of esoteric philosophy. In a meeting with students in the 1930s, John Garrigues - an associate of the United Lodge of Theosophists - examined the significance of having a clear understanding about this concept.
He said:
“If we had more faith in ourselves, we would have far more faith in the Masters, and the converse is just as true; in fact, even more true. It’s a strange thing, and perhaps it is one of the reasons why Mr. Judge and H.P.B began their teachings with a discussion of the Masters of Wisdom. Unless we see that there are beings (...) much higher than we are (...), and that these beings were not born that way; that they became what they are through observation, experience and inference, and by living according to the laws of Life, - we shall not have confidence that there are Masters. But once we have that confidence, results flow : each of us begins to have confidence in himself (...) ; then he begins to have confidence in his brother man (...) . That is the first real step in Universal Brotherhood.”[1]
Far from being exclusive to modern theosophy, the idea and concept of Masters of the Wisdom can be found in different cultures, countries and eras, and under many different forms.
For thousands of years Taoism has called them Immortals. For Buddhism, they are the Arhats or Buddhas. In India
In the first years of the theosophical movement - especially between 1875 and 1885 - there were numerous physical evidences of some Masters’ existence and work for mankind. In those times a number of persons had direct, independent, and physical evidences of the Masters’ practical cooperation with the esoteric movement. A vast amount of detailed testimonial proofs was gathered by authors and pioneers of the theosophical movement like Henry Olcott and Alfred P. Sinnett, and later on by researchers like C. Jinarajadasa. During the 1990s, Sylvia Cranston reproduced many of these evidences in her extraordinary biography of H. P. Blavatsky. [2]
Facts along that line are so numerous that no scientific mind can honestly say or imply that H.P. Blavatsky - the founder of the modern esoteric movement - was the sole source of direct testimony on the existence of Masters.
The wide public is acquainted with the personal testimonies written by Henry Olcott [3], William Q. Judge [4], Alfred Sinnett [5], S. Ramaswamier, Mohini Mohan Chatterji, Damodar K. Mavalankar and others [6]. Mr. Sinnett’s book “The Occult World” presents detailed descriptions of phenomena made by the Masters in front of a significant number of witnesses. [7]
First-hand testimonies abound. No bona fides researcher has the possibility to say that H.P. Blavatsky is or was the sole source of evidence as to the existence and work of the theosophical Mahatmas.
With this in mind, one should then examine the ideas of one of the main leaders and doubters of the Adyar Society in the first part of the 21st century. It will be seen that Dr. John Algeo, a former vice-president of that Society, has an almost fundamentalistic faith in his own relativism.
The Creed of a Skepticist
Mr. Algeo’s words make a sort of confession - or perhaps a declaration of principles - that he still does not believe in H.P. Blavatsky’s honesty and does not believe in the concept of Adepts and Masters.
Says Mr. Algeo:
“With respect to the substantive truth of Blavatsky’s Masters, there are a number of possibilities. One is that they are in fact ‘men beyond mankind’, as Fritz Kunz termed them, human beings of advanced spiritual development, with knowledge and abilities that seem marvelous to other human beings. Another is that they were figments of HPB’s rich imagination, derived from the esoteric traditions she was familiar with and reflecting characteristics of some actual but ordinary people she knew. Other intermediate and alternative possibilities also exist. From the standpoint of historical scholarship, no convincing evidence exists to decide the issue, which must therefore remain undecided.”
[8]
Here we have, first, the assumption that Masters may well be “a figment of HPB’s imagination”. That is to say that H.P.B. may have been a fraud or a lunatic, or both, according to Mr. Algeo.
He must have his reasons to pretend he does not know or nobody told him that there are numerous independent and valid testimonies as to the existence of the theosophical masters, other than H.P. Blavatsky’s statements.
Mr. Algeo proceeds:
“The view one takes of Blavatsky’s Masters consequently reflects one’s metaphysical assumptions about reality and one’s experience of the reality they represent, rather than a conclusion based upon documented fact and reason. (....) What is really important about Blavatsky’s Masters is not who they were, but what they have been in the experience of theosophists.” [9]
Here Mr. Algeo seems to think that, since he wants it not to be possible for him to perceive and understand that the existence of Masters is a fact, then it should follow that Masters can only exist in the “subjective experience” of theosophists, that is, in people’s imagination.
Such a subjectivistic conception is the figment of his own imagination. It is also profoundly Jungian.
According to Carl G. Jung, who had Nazi sympathies in the 1930s, it does not matter if something is true or false. “As long as people believe in it, it is the same as if it were true”. This was a basic “axiom” for Nazi propaganda techniques.
Dr. Algeo often seems to agree with this Jungian viewpoint. After publishing as true a collection of false letters ascribed to H. P. Blavatsky by enemies of the theosophical movement, he said:
“Now, it may be the case that those letters are indeed forgeries. I do not know. And neither does anyone else now living now. People have opinions, but no one knows.” [10]
In reality, evidences of the forgery of those letters are most numerous - a fact that Dr. Algeo is careful enough to avoid, so that he can stick to his Sophistic philosophy according to which “anything and everything can be true or false, according to one’s interests and opinions”.
Erich Fromm examined such a relativistic approach to truth while discussing Carl Jung’s ideas, now still influential in some would-be theosophical circles. Fromm wrote:
“Jung’s use of the concept of truth is not tenable. He states that ‘truth is a fact and not a judgement,’ that ‘an elephant is true because it exists.’ But he forgets that truth always and necessarily refers to a judgement and not to a description of a phenomenon which we perceive with our senses and which we denote with a word symbol. Jung then states that an idea is ‘psychologically true in as much as it exists.’ But an idea ‘exists’ regardless of whether it is a delusion or whether it corresponds to fact. The existence of an idea does not make it ‘true’ in any sense. Even the practicing psychiatrist could not work were he not concerned with the truth of an idea, that is, with its relation to the phenomena it tends to portray. Otherwise he could not speak of a delusion or a paranoid system.”
And Erich Fromm proceeds:
“But Jung’s approach is not only untenable from a psychiatric standpoint; he advocates a standpoint of relativism which, though on the surface more friendly to religion than Freud’s, is in its spirit fundamentally opposed to religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism. These consider the striving for truth as one of man’s cardinal virtues and obligations and insist that their doctrines whether arrived at by revelation or only by the power of reason are subject to the criterion of truth.” [11]
Indeed Jungian ideology should be better scrutinized and critically examined before theosophists adopt it as their own, thus unconsciously giving up the best of theosophy, while keeping attached to the outer wording of it.
On the other hand, if one does not believe in the honesty and good sense of the founders of the theosophical movement, one should have at least self-respect enough to abandon a movement which one believes has no trustworthy foundation.
True, we live in mayavic times, and there may be also people who don’t care about truth and who feel quite at home living among various kinds of deliberate falsehoods. This would only be one more reason for students of theosophy to constantly enhance their individual discernment - and their ability to be at all times vigilant, and open-minded, but not credulous.
NOTES:
[1] See page 27 of “Point Out the Way”, a typewritten and mimeographed / photocopied text which reproduces stenographic notes taken at informal talks on the book “The Ocean of Theosophy” by W.Q. Judge. The talks were delivered in the early 1930s at the Los Angeles Lodge of the United Lodge of Theosophists. The text can also be found at the website of the Phoenix Lodge, U.L.T. “Point Out the Way” has 211 pages.
[2] “HPB – The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the Modern Esoteric Movement”, by Sylvia Cranston, a Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam Book published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, copyright 1993, 648 pp.
[3] “Old Diary Leaves”, Henry Olcott, TPH, Adyar , India
[4] “The Ocean of Theosophy ”, William Q. Judge, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles
[5] “The Occult World” by Alfred P. Sinnett, facsimile edition by Kessinger Publishing Co., Montana , USA
[6] Testimonies from S. Ramaswamier, Mohini Chatterji and Damodar Mavalankar are to be found at “Letters From the Masters of the Wisdom”, transcribed and compiled by C. Jinarajadasa, two volumes, T.P.H., Adyar , India
[7] “The Occult World”, by Alfred P. Sinnett, facsimile edition by Kessinger Publishing Co., see Chapter IV, pp. 56-57. The volume includes a declaration on some of the phenomena which is signed by A.O. Hume, M.A. Hume, Fred R. Hogg, A.P. Sinnett, Patience Sinnett, Alice Gordon, P.J. Maitland, Wm. Davidson, and Stuart Beatson.
[8] “K. Paul Johnson’s The Masters Revealed”, an article by John Algeo published at “Theosophical History” magazine, July 1995, pp. 232-247, see p. 246.
[9] “Theosophical History” magazine, July 1995, p. 246.
[10] “Discord is the Harmony of the Universe”, an article by John Algeo, published in the magazine “The Theosophist”, July 2005, pp. 367-373, see p. 371.
[11] “Psychoanalysis and Religion”, by Erich Fromm, New Haven - Yale University Press, copyright 1950, third printing, 1961, 120 pp., Chapter II, pp. 15-16.
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