Blavatsky Book Review: H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Russian Serials, 2025

Great day in the morning! The 150th anniversary of the founding the Theosophical Society gave us two long-awaited compilations of the writings of it's most prolific early writer. The complete compilation of her writings is nearing fruition, with more collected letters to appear, and perhaps another volume of miscellanies....

H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings Russian Serials

140 pages of new English material, full of intriguing, fascinating, engaging writings from Russian periodicals... (sourced from her scrapbooks) + Durbar of Lahore + People of the Blue Mountains

The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Chennai

 23 July 2025

 584 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8170596467

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8170596462

 

From the 36-page introduction by Michael Gomes:  

'Two sets of articles written from New York in 1878 form the first part of this volume. “From Across the Sea, from Beyond the Ocean,” signed Helena Blavatsky, appeared from March to December 1878. The text was published in the Odessa newspaper Pravda, and No. 45, 23 February; No. 59, 12 March; No. 70, 25 March; No. 110, 16 May; No. 116, 23 May; No. 237, 24 October; No. 270, 3 December; No. 272, 6 December, 1878. The other, “A Voice from the Other World,” signed “Golos” (Voice), appeared in the Tiflisskiy Vestnik (Tiflis Messenger), No. 105, 13 May; No. 107, 16 May; No. 108, 17 May; No. 204, 13 September; No. 206, 16  September; No. 208, 19 September; No. 212, 23 September; and No. 216, 29 September, 1878.

 

The two series, “From Across the Sea, from Beyond the Ocean” and“A Voice from the Other World” that open the volume, make their first English appearance here. Newly Americanized citizen Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, like a true New Yorker, had an opinion about everything and conveyed it with flair to a Russian audience. Aside from the erudite author of Isis Unveiled, we see Mme. Blavatsky as an astute chronicler of American life. The glaring inequalities are there — crime, death, and disease and the heroic narratives that arise from it — all conveyed as part of the American experience of the 1870s.'

 

In short, the new material consists of fifteen articles written for Pravda and Tiflis Messenger newspapers dealing mainly with American social, political and religious life, with international affairs, and commentary on general news events, with some coverage of spiritualism and an article on Thomas Edison and the phonograph.  Below are some short passages to give a brief glimpse of her writing style:

 

"The probable usage of the above-mentioned capacities of the phonograph in various branches of commerce and scientific industry, as well as in family enjoyment, requires more or less delicate mechanical consideration, but the practical usefulness thereof is unlimited. For instance: the preparation of the manuscripts of literary productions; the dictation of documents and books; the difficult tasks of professors and teachers who repeat the same lecture or the same lesson to their pupils; the substitution of the voice of a living lecturer by the voice of the apparatus and of the skillful playing by artists on various instruments by the playing of the phonograph — a playing which may be repeated ad infinitum with an accuracy which may not be attained another time by the performer himself, and this after any number of years; family chronicles of ordinary as well as well-known people; accurate diaries orally dictated every evening before retiring; last wills and testaments; electrotype adaptations, as for instance books, musical boxes, children’s toys, clocks, signaling on railways and at sea; sermons delivered in the voice of the preacher without his presence; commercial advertising repeated every quarter of an hour by a special apparatus outside the offices or shops, or even in restaurants, etc.,etc. ' (pp. 60-61)

'Nothing in nature reminds us much of a woman as the ocean; its caprices and fantasies quickly come and go, and no one can predict their hour. The ocean receives its color from the sky, and its turbulence from the currents of air. Its very existence, with its constant flirtation with, and mirroring of, the elements, depends upon the latter; but in spite of that, just like a woman, it constantly and daringly calls them out to battle. If you throw yourself into it in a rough manner, or go too far out, it will treat you disdainfully and without pity — and like a woman will try to ruin you. But if, on the contrary, you treat it gently and cleverly, and trust yourself carefully and quietly to its treacherous waves, it will carry you along on its high crests, and will cradle you like a child upon the breast of its loving mother.…'  (pp. 125-27)

 

“Let me remind you that we are talking here of such great scholars as Jevons,5 Babbage,6 Balfour Stewart and Tait,7 who have fully demonstrated in The Unseen Universe that even the inception and evolution of the unspoken thought cannot take place without an expenditure of energy, which, acting on the invisible ether, must carry forever the waves or vibrations of its motion through space, from the very minute of contact.
“The energy of matter, carried from the region of the visible into the region of the invisible world, is transformed in the laboratory of the latter into something tangible and cognizable, although invisible to the ordinary eye. In other words, a regular bridge (such is the expression of the esteemed scholar, not mine) — upon which the thoughts of abstract and invisible beings, clothed in concrete form — the sense from the ethereal heights of ‘other worlds,’ and the thoughts of mortals ascend upwards…Do you understand?” (pp. 98-99)

 

The Struggle for Existence, H. P. Blavatsky (3/3)

An interesting article attributed to Blavatsky in her Collected Writings. The style doesn't seem to resemble Blavatsky. It's closer to Mabel Collins in style, but with themes closer to Annie Besant. However Collins had just left the magazine and Besant wasn't on board yet. Despite this difficulty, I think that it does give a decent basis and outline for strategies of social activism and is still quite relevant for today.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

[Lucifer, Vol. IV, No. 20, April, 1889, pp. 104-111]

Reducing meat consumption would improve the environment and individual health

It is the debased taste of the rich which has rendered a surfeit of meat necessary for the maintenance of his powers in the eyes of the artisan, and so, at a price far beyond his slender resources, he adopts a diet which wastes the tissues and disquiets the system. And if the advisability of a sudden change of diet is contested, at least moderation in flesh eating should be recommended, and a proof of the possibility of maintaining one’s full powers given by those who desire the physical and moral sanity of the race. Setting aside all argument drawn from not generally accredited sources, such as the codes of the great teachers of the past, and the synthesis of all experience, physical, psychic, and spiritual, we may bring into court the medical faculty who are unanimously of the opinion that a reduced quantity of meat would improve the general health, and that many of the common ailments are due solely to excess in the use of animal food in particular, and to overfeeding in general; while chemical analysis proves conclusively that vegetable food, especially cereals, contain nutritive qualities vastly in excess of animal. 

More collective eating systems would be more efficient and less taxing

Moreover, if the false feeling of degradation in the performance of so-called menial offices, were removed by the example of the money and mind castes performing such offices themselves, or at least encouraging every invention and supporting every effort for minimizing such labour, many of the troubles which are daily taxing the resources of our housekeepers to the utmost, would be removed, and a solution to the difficult problem of the servant question arrived at; the present absurdity of domestic service would find no place, and instead of one thousand little backs bent over one thousand little kitchen ranges preparing one thousand little dinners, we should have a sane cooperative system whereby the small worries of domesticity which destroy the harmony of so many homes, would be banished.

Moderation in eating can lead to a productive old age

If such sanitary measures, therefore, were adopted, we should have physical and mental powers continuing into old age, instead of a general belief that fifty or sixty years terminates the average man’s usefulness and there then remains nothing for him but a life of inactivity and general feebleness. Of course this applies to the average individual; for we have sufficient instances of mental giants who continue their labours till the closing hours of life; these, however, intuitively or naturally practice moderation and plainness in eating, and often give striking proofs of extraordinary abstemiousness. If, then, such moderation of private life was practised by the accredited leaders of society, no inducement to excess would offer itself to their followers; or even if the animal still rioted in the masses, it would not be shamefully encouraged in its madness by the excesses of respectability.

Reducing material necessities can help social unity and broaden human culture

Thus the necessary physical requirements of all classes would be reduced to a level, and a basis obtained on which to build a firm fabric of national progress towards the realization of human unity. Meantime the mental evolution of all classes would also make vast strides, and the impulses given to study and the development of artistic tastes, would bring the real genius of the nation to the front and not confine the recruiting of professions to the money caste, irrespective of individual capacity. The present false standard of taste would fall out of date as completely as the wonderful cottage ornaments of the near past, and neatness in private decoration would, by harmonious surroundings, induce a harmony of thought and feeling. 

Simplifying one's surroundings can help develop more altruistic values

Who, for instance, could indite a poem or work of inspiration in an over-ornamented drawing-room of the modern style, with its heterogeneous and multicolored collection of bric-a-brac and trifles? But with harmonious surroundings and following such a mode of life, the individual would develop within him the larger instincts of his nature, and the flower of self-sacrifice, then finding a congenial soil, would blossom in the hearts of the many and thus, destroying all narrowness of judgment and begetting an ever widening interest in the general welfare, would develop new social organizations and institutions; the tone of the nation would be elevated and true worth become the standard of judgment among its citizens.

A belief in the essential unity of all souls would create more justice for women

Moreover, seeing that we have already proof of such an ideal being dimly sensed in all nations of the white race in the increasing discontent of nearly all classes with the existing state of affairs, no nation would stand alone in this, but the wave of progress would sweep simultaneously through all the sub-races of the race and beget a general desire to establish healthy relationships between nations and to foster every effort to unite the larger units of the race into one harmonious whole. Further, a belief in the essential unity of all souls would create stronger dissatisfaction with the existing state of social relations between the sexes, the potentialities of woman would be studied and opportunity given for that development which has previously been denied to womankind. Plain justice would demand the same ostracism of male harlots which is now meted out with so much severity to the female sex alone, and either the same leniency extended to women as is now given to men, or the higher moral standard and wisdom of awakened humanity, would compel the supply in harlotry to cease by the extinction of the demand.

This would encourage education for women and reducing work hours

To prepare, therefore, a ground in which this consummation could be achieved, it would be necessary to extend the full benefits of intellectual training to women; to encourage and advocate the necessity of athletic exercises for girls and to provide for the same in the schools of the state; to jealously guard the health of the women working classes by sanitary improvements in all manufactories and labour establishments, and to kill out the evil of over-long hours of sedentary occupation in vitiated atmospheres. Moreover, it should be made possible for women in the position of the present daughters of the lower middle classes and of parents with limited incomes to follow a calling in life, instead of being forced, against their wills and finer instincts, into the matrimonial market, to gain their bread and cheese at the price of discontented motherhood.

International aid organizations are to be encouraged

No doubt the establishment of international leagues for mutual help and on a basis other than that of self-interest will, at the present time, appear to the majority the acme of folly; but when the race has, in its social institutions, given valid proof of the efficacy of the method, the change of base becomes a possibility. 

The spread of quality education can help with dogmatism and ignorance 

The spread of education and the ability to study original authorities and to get at facts at first hand would rapidly clear away the clouds of national and sectarian prejudice, and the birth of the God within would render it impossible to poison the young minds of the race by inoculating them with the virus of dogmatism and of past national pride and passion as treasured in the orthodox theological and historical textbooks of the times; the past triumphs of the animal in individual nations would be regarded merely as the obscuration of the spiritual and yet so ordered in the economy of nature that the sun of humanity should finally shine forth more gloriously in contrast to the darkness of the past. 

The needs for maintaining a military industry would decrease

Thus the necessity for keeping up large armies and fleets would cease, and the enormous wealth so saved could be turned into channels of national improvement, thus pointing the way for the desertion of national forces from the ranks of the animal to the standard of the divine.

Theosophical Society has planted the first germ

It would be long to trace, even roughly, the possibilities of international cooperation which, in its turn, would be extended to racial cooperation of which the potentialities almost surpass description and reach that consummation of which the Theosophical Society has planted the first openly conscious germ, in endeavouring to form the nucleus of a universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour; what the potentialities of this glorious humanity may be, none but the student of the Science of Life can dream, as he alone can sense the labours of the Eldest Brothers of the Race for their poorer brethren.

Let us fight the animal in mankind for the cause of the divine unity of humanity

Let us then, aspiring to the divine, now and within, fight down the animal, that so we may be enabled to tell friend from foe in the greater battle, and, awakened by the cry, “Thou art thy brother’s keeper,” gird on shield and buckler for the cause of the divine Unity of Humanity in the struggle for existence.
PHILANTHROPOS.

Summary

1-The rich should endeavour to extend sanitary, social, and cultural benefits to all

2- The rich should set an example of good conduct

3- Reducing meat consumption

4- More collective eating systems

5- Moderation in eating

6- Reducing material necessities

7- Simplifying one's surroundings

8- More justice for women

9- Education for women

10- Reducing work hours

11- International aid organizations are to be encouraged

12- The spread of quality education

13- Reduce military industry

14- Harmony and cooperation among nations

Part 1 

Part 2 

The Struggle for Existence, H. P. Blavatsky (2/3)

An interesting article attributed to Blavatsky in her Collected Writings. The style doesn't seem to resemble Blavatsky. It's closer to Mabel Collins in style, but with themes closer to Annie Besant. However Collins had just left the magazine and Besant wasn't on board yet. Despite this difficulty, I think that it does give a decent basis and outline for strategies of social activism and is still quite relevant for today.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

[Lucifer, Vol. IV, No. 20, April, 1889, pp. 104-111]

The Struggle for Existence, H. P. Blavatsky (2/3)

Societal castes evolve from hereditary, financial, intellectual to spiritual 

Let us, therefore, enquire into the problem. In the evolution of all human societies we find the factor of caste; in the childhood of the race, caste is regulated by birth, an heirloom from the past civilizations of older stocks. Gradually, however, the birth caste wanes before the rising money caste, and hence material possessions become the standard of worth in the individual, in that the race is then plunged most deeply in material interests and has reached its highest point of development on the material plane. But the zenith of the material is the nadir of the spiritual; the law of progress moves calmly onward with the wheel of time, and nature, who never leaps, develops a new standard of worth, the intellectual, which we see even now asserting itself in proportion to its adaptability to average comprehension and the material standard of the times, and pointing to the development of a new caste standard, to be in its turn superseded by the caste of true worth in which the spiritual development of the race will be completely established.

Sometimes the evolutionary cycles give a short preview of things to come

This, however, will be the work of ages and for humanity as a whole cannot easily be quickened, for it is impossible to change the natural law of evolution which proceeds spirally in curves that never re-enter into themselves, but ever ascend to so-called higher planes. At certain periods, however, of these cycles, a forecast or antetype is offered of the consummation, whereby an example of humanity in its perfect state is dimly shadowed forth. Such a period the white race is now entering upon, and the earnest of perfect type humanity will be given by those, whether of the money or mind caste, who, realizing the goal of evolution and capable of destroying the illusion of time, by translating the future into the present, freely extend the benefits of their caste to the pariahs of the race, and approaching them in friendship, gain a practical knowledge of their wretchedness and endeavour to awaken the latent divinity that slumbers within. 

 The path of right progress should include the amelioration of the individual, the nation, the race, and humanity

 With the sword of self-sacrifice, the rightful possession of the God-man, and with the good of humanity as their watchword, they should march against the forces of individualism and self, and, with this watchword, prove all institutions of the race, especially those fresh from the womb of time, and comparing them with this one ideal, ever asking: “Does this, or this, tend to the realization of universal brotherhood?” If it is not so, the effort should be to turn such forces as act against the stream of right progress, gently and silently into their proper course; but if the thing makes for the common good, they should by all means and at all hazards foster the weakling and watch round its cradle with loving care. Now the path of right progress should include the amelioration of the individual, the nation, the race, and humanity; and ever keeping in view the last and grandest object, the perfecting of man, should reject all apparent bettering of the individual at the expense of his neighbour. In actual life the evolution of these factors, individual, race and nation, are so intimately interblended, that it would be wrong to assume any progression from one to the other; but since it is only possible to see one face of an object at a time, so it is necessary to trace the course of progress along some particular line, both for its simplification and general comprehension. 

The rich should endeavour to extend sanitary, social, and cultural benefits to all

With regard, then, to the individual, the great sanitary improvements which the money caste enjoys, should be extended to all; public baths and recreation grounds, free concerts and lecturers provided; the museums and picture galleries thrown open at times when the worker can visit them; the formation of athletic and mutual improvement clubs among the poor encouraged. All of which reforms were easy of accomplishment if only a small portion of the enormous wealth of the country, now lying idle, were generously and self-sacrificingly expended. Unfortunately there are few of the money caste who yet realize the latent unity of man, and the promotion of such schemes is left to those who, lacking the most potent power of the times, are unsupported, because there is no “money” in the enterprise. But could such men be found and the superfluous wealth of the country turned in such directions, how great would be the progress of the individual ! Health would improve and taste develop; healthy surroundings would favour healthy thought, the sight of monuments of art and science would bring refinement and both engender self-respect.

Efforts to benefit all in a sober way would create more employment

But it may be said, if wealth is withdrawn for such purposes, work would be taken from other labour, and so the misery of the workers increased, while the advantages offered to the masses would only increase their demand for greater pleasures, and render them still more dissatisfied. It will, however, be seen that not only the same amount of labour would be required in works and institutions for the public good, but even that such undertakings, being of a plain and sober nature, would give employment to larger numbers, than money spent in finer or more luxurious labour.  

People would not become dissatisfied if the rich gave a good example 

Nor would dissatisfaction arise among the masses as anticipated; for men large-hearted and -minded enough to inaugurate such reforms would display the same spirit in all things and offer an example in private life of sober and abstemious conduct; extravagance and display would cease, so that the brilliant toilettes and luxurious habits of the money caste would no longer provoke the miserable emulation of tawdry finery and debasing vices among the pariahs; for the poor copy the rich, and if the fashionable bars of the West End lacked patrons, the gin palaces of the slums would not drive so roaring a trade. 

Part 3 

The Struggle for Existence, H. P. Blavatsky (1/3)

 

 

 An interesting article attributed to Blavatsky in her Collected Writings. The style doesn't seem to resemble Blavatsky. It's closer to Mabel Collins in style, but with themes closer to Annie Besant. However Collins had just left the magazine and Besant wasn't on board yet. Despite this difficulty, I think that it does give a decent basis and outline for strategies of social activism and is still quite relevant for today.

 

The first two parts discuss an evolutionary framework for world progress, which can be summarized in 14 points:

How can the rich help the poor and suffering?

The path of right progress should include the amelioration of the individual, the nation, the race, and humanity

1-The rich should endeavour to extend sanitary, social, and cultural benefits to all

Public baths and recreation grounds, free concerts and lecturers provided; the museums and picture galleries thrown open at times when the worker can visit them; the formation of athletic and mutual improvement clubs among the poor encouraged; the sight of monuments of art and science would bring refinement and both engender self-respect.

2- The rich should set an example of good conduct

for men large-hearted and -minded enough to inaugurate such reforms would display the same spirit in all things and offer an example in private life of sober and abstemious conduct;

3- Reducing meat consumption

would improve the environment and individual health

4- More collective eating systems

would be more efficient and less taxing

5- Moderation in eating

can lead to a productive old age

6- Reducing material necessities

can help social unity and broaden human culture

7- Simplifying one's surroundings

can help develop more altruistic values

8- more justice for women

Further, a belief in the essential unity of all souls would create stronger dissatisfaction with the existing state of social relations between the sexes, the potentialities of woman would be studied and opportunity given for that development which has previously been denied to womankind

Plain justice would demand the same ostracism of male harlots which is now meted out with so much severity to the female sex alone, and either the same leniency extended to women as is now given to men, or the higher moral standard and wisdom of awakened humanity, would compel the supply in harlotry to cease by the extinction of the demand.

9- education for women

10- reducing work hours

11- International aid organizations are to be encouraged

12- The spread of quality education

can help with dogmatism and ignorance 

13- Reduce military industry

14- Harmony and cooperation among nations

THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

[Lucifer, Vol. IV, No. 20, April, 1889, pp. 104-111]

Darwinian Notion of the Survival of the Fittest 

The mother of life is death. Nowhere is this truth more conspicuous than in the animal kingdom; the life of the stronger is prolonged by the lives of the weaker, and the survival of the fittest is proclaimed by the shrieks of the mangled and hapless unfit. Long has the western world sought the solution of this grim riddle propounded to her lord and master, man, by Dame Nature, the sphinx of the ages.

Struggle for Existence a label created to solve this riddle of nature 

It has, therefore, been found necessary for the continuance of average intellectual contentment to venture some guess which shall decently dispose of this obnoxious problem, and the leading representatives of the mind of the race, proceeding by the methods of the times, have carefully labelled the riddle “The Struggle for Existence,” and having done so, are wisely refraining from further unnecessary explanations, knowing full well that their constituents, the public, who require their thinking done for them, will gladly accept the label as a legitimate answer to the riddle, and, by frequently repeating it with knowing looks, be charmed, and in their turn charm others, with the magic of its sound, and using it as a mantric formula, banish objectors to the limbo of unpopularity.

Modern struggles related to cyclical evolution

And yet though the why of this great struggle remains as great a mystery as ever, the attempted answer is of great value from the conciseness with which it formulates the law of the Ever Becoming. Throughout all the kingdoms it obtains, and especially in Man, the crown and synthesis of all. At this point, however, a new development takes place, and when humanity reaches the balance of its cycle of evolution, and each race and individual arrives at the turning point of Ezekiel’s wheel, a new Struggle for Existence arises, and we have God and Animal fighting for existence in Man. Now, at the close of the nineteenth century, in our enormously over-populated cities and in the accentuated individualism of modern competition, we see this deadly struggle in the white heat of its fury. 

Modern progress related childhood of current humanity, struggles related to attaining maturity

Grand, indeed, and magnificent has been the childhood of the white race in which material and intellectual progress have raced on madly side by side; witness the conquest of nearly the whole world’s surface by its spirit of enterprise and adventure, rejoicing as a giant in its physical prowess, the subjugation of the henchman steam, and ever fresh triumphs over the master electricity. But the child cannot be ever a child, and the race draws nigh to its manhood; the God awakes and the Struggle for Existence begins in grim earnest.

Self-sacrifice related to evolution to spiritual nature over animal

First the units of the race, some here, some there, wake dimly to the feeling that they are not apart from the whole, they sympathize with their kind, they rejoice with them. Even in the animal the faint outlines of self-sacrifice have been shadowed forth by nature, as may be seen in the mother love of the females and the formation of gregarious communities. In inferior races, man repeats this lesson of nature, and the animal being dominant, improves on her, but slowly; in races of higher type, however, fresh areas of generous impulse, containing the germ of self-sacrifice, are gradually developed. It must be remembered, however, that the races are here mentioned in this order merely for the convenience of tracing the development of self-sacrifice in a monad, and not according to their natural genesis. Thus far the white race, as a race, or in other words, the average individual of the race, has developed the subtleties of his animal nature to their limit, and now comes in contact with the divine; and it is only by extending this area of interest and sympathy that the individual can expand into the divine to be at last one with universal love, the spirit of which is self-sacrifice. 

Spiritual evolution implies widening our circle of social sympathy, often diverted to animal interests

From daily life we may take examples which clearly show forth the evolution of this god-like quality. We see the purely selfish man, who cares not if all rot so he have pleasure; the same man married, and an area of generosity developed, but bounded by wife and children; in other cases, the area increased by the extension of sympathy to friends and relations; and still further increased in the case of the fanatic or bigot, religious or patriotic, who fights for sect or country, as the she-animal for her cubs, whether the cause be good or bad. And here we may mention the instruments of national passions and cunning, necessary evils; for the race being in its youth, and very animal-like, not yet recognizing the right of self-sacrifice in the interrelations of its constituent sub-races, requires the individual who serves his country in her wars and political schemes to reduce his moral standard to the race-level. These are types of the evolution of the animal man’s affections, either in his individual development or modified by the development of the race. In most cases such types represent the mere expansion of selfishness or, at any rate, may be traced to selfish causes, or the hope of reward. 

Divine intuition inspires a sense of compassion for every human being

Ascending, however, in the scale of manhood, we come to those who shadow forth the latent God in man in thoughts, words, and deeds of divine self-sacrifice; the prerogative of their God-head first manifesting in acts of real charity, in pity of their suffering fellow-kind, or from an intuitional feeling of duty, the first heralding of accession to divine responsibility, and the realization of the unity of all souls. “I am my brother’s keeper,” is the cry of repentant Cain, and the divine summons of return to the lost Paradise. With this cry the struggle for animal existence begins to yield to the struggle for divine existence. By extending our love to all men, aye, to animals as well, we joy and sorrow with them, and expand our souls towards the One that ever both sorrows and joys with all, in an eternal bliss in which the pleasure of joy and the pain of sorrow are not.

A great battle is raging between the animal and spiritual natures in humanity

Thus, in every man the mighty battle rages, but the fortune of the fight is not alike in all—in some the animal hosts rage madly in their triumph, in a few the glorious army of the god has gained a silent victory, but in the vast majority, and especially now, at the balance of the race cycle, the battle rages fiercely, the issue still in doubt. Now, therefore, is the time to strike, and show that the battle is not fought in man alone, but in Man, and that the issue of each individual fight is inextricably bound up in that of the great battle in which the issue cannot be doubtful, for the divine is in its nature union and love, the animal discord and hate. Strike, therefore, and strike boldly! These are no idle words, nor the utopian imaginings of a dreamer, but practical truths. 

Social development and a just society is the result of human evolution. Question of social oppression- How can the rich help the poor and suffering?

For in what does man differ from the natural animal? Is it not in his power of association and combination? Therefore does he live in communities, and develop responsibility. From whence spring the roots of society, if not from mutual assistance and interchange of service? And if the race offers the individual the advantages of such combination, perfected by ages of bitter experience, do not those at least who are elder sons of the race, and find themselves in the enjoyment of such organizations, owe a debt of gratitude to their parent, and in return for the fortune amassed with tears and groaning by their forbears, repay the boon, by putting the experience of the past out to interest, and distributing the income acquired among their poorer brethren, who are equally the sons of their parent. And in this race family there are many poor, paupers physical, paupers mental, and moral paupers. How, then, shall the richer brethren help? Shower gold among the masses? Compel all to study the arts and sciences? Display the naked truth to the world? Nay, then should these poor children of the race be bound, not free! 

Part 2 

Blavatsky's French New Year Message 1890

This is Blavatsky's second article on the New Year for 1890, written for a French Theosophical magazine. It continues the same themes of comparing pagan customs with Christian ones. She might have consulted La messe et ses mystères comparés aux mystères anciens, Jean Marie Ragon, E. Dentu, 1882 -464 pages, the end section which is an astrological comparison of ancient pagan feasts compared to modern Christian traditions. 

THOUGHTS ON THE NEW YEAR AND THE FALSE NOSES

[La Revue Théosophique. Paris, Vol. II, No. 11, January 21,
1890, pp. 193-98] [Translation of the foregoing original French text. Collected Writings, Vol. 12, pp. 99-102]

Hail, 1890!
“Annum novum faustum felicemque tibi!”

Such was the sacramental phrase on the lips of all Gentiles, great or lowly, rich or poor, during the day of the first of January, centuries before the Christian era; and we hear it even today, especially in Paris. This mutual greeting was exchanged on that day throughout the length and breadth of the Roman Empire. It awoke the echoes in the palaces of Caesars, made cheerful the poor hovel of the slave, and soared to the clouds in the spacious open galleries of the Colosseum, at the Capitol and the Forum, everywhere under the blue sky of Rome. On that day, everybody assumed, in honor of the double-faced Janus, a more or less prominent false nose of goodness, frank cordiality and sincerity.

“May the New Year bring you happiness and prosperity!” —we say to everyone of our readers. “Let it be light to you,” we say to our enemies and traducers. Brothers—we say to Theosophists in every part of the world—Brothers, let us discard, at least for today, all our respective false noses, in order to wish each other health and success, and, especially, a little more cordial mutual understanding than in the year 1889, now happily defunct. 

However, whether we repeat the old Latin formula one way or another, in French or in English, it will never be but a variation of the ancient pagan phrase. For the New Year, as well as every other festival, is but a legacy to the Christian people from the worshippers of the Olympian gods. Let us, by all means, exchange wishes and gifts (étrennes), but let us not be ungrateful, Theosophists! Let us not forget that these customs come to us from paganism; and that felicitations and gifts also came to us from the same source.

As a matter of fact, gifts (étrennes) are but the strenae, the presents exchanged by the Latins on the first of January,* the day that opened the New Year. As everybody does or does not know—which is all the same to me—this day was consecrated to Janus, who gave his name to the month of Januarius or January, and even to the Saint of that name, the patron of Naples and of its lazzarone [beggars]. But, after all, this amiable Saint is but one of the false noses of the god Bifrons. The old pagan was called in his early youth Diaus, after his Vedic name, the beautiful god of the day and of light. Having immigrated to Thessaly, and thence to Italy, where he established himself in the little hamlet of Janiculum, on the Tiber, latinizing his name and becoming Dianus, god of light (whence Diana). His false noses were many, and history has lost count of them. However, since those days he has let himself be converted. Thus it is that for more than eighteen centuries, having replaced his latest and more modest false nose with a more respectable, if not more impenetrable, mask—he is called Saint Peter.

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* From Janua—“door” or any kind of entrance; the door that opens up the year.
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Let the reader kindly abstain from protesting, and particularly from slinging offensive epithets at us, which would not harm us, but might well lower him in our estimation. I am but the humble interpreter of the more or less veiled truths and symbols, well known to all who have studied their Virgil and their Horace, as well as their Ovid. Neither a false nose nor a mask could prevent an old pagan from recognizing his double-faced Janus in the Apostle who denied his Master. The two are identical, and everybody has the right to take what is his own, wherever he finds it. Saint Peter is the coeli Janitor merely because Janus was that too. The old doorkeeper of heaven, who pulled the door-cord at the palace of the Sun, at every dawn and every New Year, and closed it again when ushering them out, is but too easily recognizable in his new role. 

It is written in the stars which rule the destiny of gods as well as mortals, that Janus—who held the key to heaven in one hand and a halberd in the other, just as St. Peter, having suceeded him, does—would relinquish his role of janitor to the Sun to him who would become the guardian of the portals to Paradise, the abode of Christ-Sun. The new coeli Janitor has become the successor to all the functions and privileges of the ancient one, and we see no harm in that. Solomon has said: “There is nothing new under the sun”; and he was right. It would be silly to invent new functions and new gods—which we fashion in our image—when our forefathers on the other side of the flood went to all the trouble of doing so for us. That is why everything has been allowed to remain as in the past, and why nothing has been changed in this world—except the names.

In all the religious ceremonies the name of Janus was always invoked first, for it was only through his immediate intercession that the prayers of the pagan devotees could reach the ear of the immortal gods. Thus it is even today. Anyone who would presume to communicate with one of the personages of the Trinity over the head of St. Peter would certainly be caught. His prayer would suffer the fate of a petition one sought to leave at the office of the janitor, after having had an argument with him and having called him “old door-keeper”; it would never reach the higher levels.

The fact is, the Great Army of the “Pipelets” and the “Anastasies”* should recognize Janus Bifrons as their patron, the god in whose image it was created. It is only then that it would have a legal right to its gifts, the first of the year, while its great patron would receive his mite from the beginning to the end of the year. Everything is relative in this world of illusion; nevertheless there should exist a difference of degree between a celestial and a terrestrial janitor. As for the gifts, they have existed in all ages both for lowly and great men alike. Caligula, emperor as he was, did not disdain remaining throughout New Year's day in the vestibule of his palace, in order to receive the strenae of his trembling subjects; sometimes, their own heads, for a change. The Virgin-Queen, “Queen Bess” of England, when she died, left three thousand court dresses, which represented her most recent gifts. Both great and lowly behave similarly even now, in the year of our Lord 1890, on this crazy ball we call Terra—the “footstool” of God.

Did not this same God of Abraham and of Jacob allow himself to be moved to pity by promises and presents, just like the gods of other nations? This God and these gods, did they not receive, just like mortals, gifts for services rendered or about to be rendered? Did not Jacob himself bargain with his God, promising him as gifts “the tithe of all that thou [God] wilt give me”? And he added, this good patriarch, at Luz near “Bethel”: “. . . . If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on . . . . then shall the Lord be my God.” Saying this he did not forget to make an offering (étrenner) to the stone “Bethel” which he had raised, by pouring some oil on its top, in a simple but beautiful phallic ceremony (Genesis xxviii, 18, 20-22).

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* [Monsieur and Madame Pipelet are characters in Eugène Sue’s work, Mystères de Paris (1842), who typify the curious habits and peculiarities of the French portier, or Janitor. “Anastasie” is the first name of Madame Pipelet.]
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This touching ceremony came to the Israelites direct from India, where the stone of Śiva, the lingam, is today the object of the same exoteric rite with oil and flowers, every time his worshippers celebrate the festival of the god of Destruction (of brute matter) and of the Yogis.

All has remained as of yore. In Christian countries, especially in France, the New Year makes its triumphal entrance just as it did two thousand years ago, when the Pagans celebrated it with indigestion caused by the figs and gilded prunes they ate. The latter fruit have migrated since to the Christmas tree, which does not alter the fact that they came to us from the temples of Janus. It is true that the priests no longer sacrifice a young white bull upon his altar; that is replaced by a lamb of the same color, but whole hecatombs of quadrupeds and fowl are slaughtered annually in his honor on that day. Certainly more innocent blood is spilled today to satisfy the voracious appetite of one Paris street alone, on New Year’s day, then was necessary to feed a whole Roman city in the time of the Caesars. 

The gentle Julian, the pagan who rediscovered his well-beloved gods in Lutetia—after the gods of Gaul had been disguised by order of Caesar, with the false noses of Roman divinities—spent his leisure hours taming doves in honor of Venus. The ferocious potentates who came after him, the elder sons of the Church, tamed only Venuses that made pigeons out of them. Servile history called the former Apostate, to please the Church, and added to the names of the others some high-sounding epithets: the “Great,” the “Saint,” the “Beautiful.” But if Julian became the “Apostate,” it was perhaps because he had a horror of false noses, while his Christian successors would hardly be presentable in good society without such an artificial appendage. A false nose, when necessary, becomes a guardian angel, and upon occasion even a god. This is history. The metamorphosis of the divinities of barbarous Gaul into the gods of Olympus and Parnassus did not stop there. In their turn, these Olympians had to undergo treatment by order of the successors of Janus St. Peter—namely, a forced baptism. With the help of tinsel and brass, of paste and cement, we find the beloved gods of Julian appearing, after their violent death, in the Golden Legend and the calendar of the good Pope Gregory, under the titles of beatified Saints.

The world is like the sea: it often changes in appearance, but remains basically the same. The false noses of civilization and of the bigots, however, have hardly embelished it: on the contrary, with every New Year it becomes more ugly and more dangerous. We ponder and compare, but in the sight of a philosopher comparison with its predecessors of ancient days does not reflect favorably upon the modern New Year’s Day. The millions stored in the safes and vaults of state banks do not make either the rich or the poor any happier. Ten bronze coins with the effigy of Janus, given as a gift, were worth more in those days than ten gold coins, with the effigy of the Republic or the Queen, are worth today; the baskets of gilded prunes, a few cents worth, contained less cause of indigestion than the boxes of candy exchanged on New Year’s Day today—these candies representing in Paris alone the sum of half a million francs. Five hundred thousand francs in candies, and the same number of men and women dying from hunger and privations! 

Let us go back in our minds, my readers, fifteen centuries, and try to make a comparison between a New Year’s dinner in the years 355 to 360, and a similar dinner in 1890. Let us seek out the same good and kind Julian, when he lived in the palace of Thermae, which is known today as the Hotel de Cluny—or what is left of it. Do you see him, this great general, at his dinner, surrounded by his soldiers whom he loves better than anyone else in the world outside of his gods, and who idolize him! It is the first of January and they are celebrating the day of Janus In two days, the third of January, they will render a similar homage to Isis, patroness of the good city of Lutetia Parisiorum. Since those days, the virgin-mother of ancient Egypt was rebaptized as Geneviève, and this Saint and Martyr (of Typhon?) has remained the patroness of the good city of Paris—true symbol of a false nose furnished by Rome for the Christian world. 

We see neither knives nor forks, neither silver nor porcelain of Sèvres, at that imperial table, not even a napkin; but the meats and other foods which the guests consume with so much appetite do not have to be inspected under the microscope of chemists attached to public health offices. No artificial or poisonous product is to be found in their bread or wine. Arsenic does not add to their vegetables the false nose of a deceptive freshness; rust does not hide itself in the corners of their preserved food containers, and red brick pulverized in a mortar does not play the role of their pepper. Their sugar (or that which takes its place) is not extracted from the tar in the wheels of their chariots of war; in swallowing their liqueurs and cognac, they do not swallow a solution made from the old boots of a policeman, found in the basket of a rag picker; they did not devour, with a casual smile on their lips, a bouillon condensed from the grease of corpses (of men as well as of animals) and the rags used in all the hospitals of Paris—as a substitute for butter. For all of this is a product of modern culture, the fruit of civilization and scientific progress, while Gaul at the time of Julian was but a barbarous and savage land. But what they ate on their New Year’s Day could be eaten with safety and with advantage (except for the doctors) at the dinners on the first of the year 1890.

“They had neither forks nor silver,” they will say; “and they ate with their fingers, those barbarians!” That’s true; they had no use for forks, and probably for handkerchiefs also; but on the other hand, they did not have to swallow their ancestors in their kitchen grease, and the bones of their dogs in their white bread, as we do daily. If given a choice, we would definitely not choose the gala dinner of the first of the year of grace 1890, at Paris, but the one of a thousand years ago, at Lutetia. A case of barbarian taste, don’t you see! A ridiculous and baroque preference, according to the opinion of the majority, for natural in the fourth century, attracts us infinitely more than the false noses and the artificiality of everything in the nineteenth century.

Blavatsky on Magic 2/2

An extract from Chapter 6, Fictional Practice: Magic, Narration, and the Power of Imagination: Magic and Literary Imagination in H. P. Blavatsky’s Theosophy

Marco Frenschkowski

https://brill.com/display/book/9789004466005/BP000007.xml?language=en  

 

In this part, Blavatsky's writings about the will and imagination are probably understated. See for example, the entry on Will in the Theosophical Glossary, among several others passages (see 'Will and Desire, Lucifer, Vol. I, No. 2, October, 1887 (p. 96) ) where it is given due importance. Evidently, the publication of the The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in 1923 made a significant impact on the Theosophical movement.

In Isis Unveiled, HPB gave a summary of her early views on magic as part of “the fundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy which we have elucidated, as yet', as it summarises the most basic ideas: 

Blavatsky's 10 fundamental propositions on magic

1st. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result of law— eternal, immutable, ever active […]

4th. Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and of the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature’s forces may be acquired by the individual while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this knowledge in practice. 

5th. Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery; beneficiently used, true magic or wisdom. 

6th. Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the passive instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls himself and all inferior potencies. […] 

8th. Races of men differ in spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or any other external quality; among some peoples seership naturally prevails, among others mediumship. Some are addicted to sorcery, and transmit its secret rules of practice from generation to generation, with a range of psychical phenomena […] 

9th. […] The thaumaturgist, thoroughly skilled in occult science, can cause himself (that is, his physical body) to seem to disappear, or to apparently take on any shape that he may choose […]. Inert matter may be, in certain cases and under certain conditions, disintegrated, passed through walls, and recombined, but living animal organisms cannot. Swedenborgians believe and arcane science teaches that the abandonment of the living body by the soul frequently occurs, and that we encounter every day, in every condition of life, such living corpses. […]

10th. The corner- stone of magic is an intimate practical knowledge of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and potencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their effects in and upon the animal kingdom and man. […] To sum up all in a few words, magic is spiritual *)$',.; nature, the material ally, pupil and servant of the magician (IU 2: 587– 590; cf. Otto 2011, 560– 563)

Magical and alchemical motto 

 In a letter written immediately after publication of Isis Unveiled, she writes: If I do not uncover altogether the Saitic goddess, I hope to have at least sufficiently indicated where the Veil of her shrine can be raised by those who are ready to conform to the four cardinal rules of the so called ‘Magic’ or occult Psychology— to Know, Will, Dare, and Keep Silent. Behind the veil lies the Key to modern Spiritualistic phenomena, and there alone can be discovered the Secret of Secrets: what is man, his origin, his powers, and destiny. LHPB 1: 363 This passage so to say leads from Isis Unveiled to The Secret Doctrine. The magical and alchemical motto HPB quotes (Scire. Potere. Audere. Tacere) is usually ascribed to Zoroaster. 

Esoteric Section - Will and imagination

 As HPB did not want members of her Esoteric Section to participate in other occult groups, Westcott wrote her a not too friendly letter in early 1889 (Gomes 2010, 156), but she insisted on this rule, applying it only to the Esoteric Section, however. MacGregor Mathers was also held in high esteem: his Kabbala Denudata (a translation of Zoharic texts) HPB said she knew by heart (ibid., 375). This tradition was a major influence in the Golden Dawn, which after initially using rather simple magical practices in the 1890s became a “vehicle for effective magical initiations” (Godwin 1994, 224). The concentration on will and imagination in Crowley’s concept of “magick,” derived in part from the Golden Dawn, is not yet clearly expressed in HPB’s statements. In a study on the pentagram she writes in 1881, however: “What is in a sign?’ will our readers ask. ‘No more than in a name’ we shall reply— nothing except that, as said above, it helps to concentrate the attention, hence to nail the will of the operator to a certain spot” (CW 2: 253). This is essentially the theory of magic that became prevalent in twentieth- century magical occultism. (see The Six-Pointed And Five-Pointed Stars,  The Theosophist, November, 1881) 

Self- restraint, Crowley

 Theosophists of the first generation see magic deeply connected to self- restraint: “The foundation of magic is the ability to restrain one’s own emotions and thoughts”. The impact of Theosophy on more recent ideas of magic cannot be discussed here in more detail. Aleister Crowley’s complex relation with HPB would alone deserve separate treatment. In his Blue Equinox (Equinox 3, 1, from 1929) he included a book length commentary on HPB’s The Voice of the Silence (“Liber LXXI”; cf. also Crowley 1979, 842). This work he included also in the recommended reading lists of his Magick. Liber #6# (Equinox 1, 8, written 1912– 1913), the most complete survey of his approach to “magick.” Isis Unveiled on the other side he regarded as an “hotch- potch of fact and fable” (Crowley 1979, 604), and he saw his “magick” as a “declaration of war” on Spiritualism and Theosophy as it had become, “though I agreed with much of Blavatsky’s teachings” (ibid., 582). This is a typical attitude in the world of magicians, where her deep scepticism about practical magic is never overlooked. B Hartmann 1920, 158: “Die Kunst, seine Gefühle und Gedanken zu beherrschen, ist die Grundlage der Magie” (my translation).  

Blavatsky's phenomena- acoustic

In how far are the famous ‘phenomena’ of HPB related to her understanding of magic? Only a few remarks are possible at this place. They contributed as much to HPB’s fame as her writings (though the first printing of The Secret Doctrine was sold out on its very first day from the subscriptions alone), and kept her name for years in European, American, and Indian newspapers and magazines. They were partly strange acoustic occurrences (ringing bells to be heard from different places of the room, voices and others) that she could clearly produce at will (ODL 1: 424– 428; CW 6: 164), in some cases audible to some persons and not to others in the same room (Hartmann 2000, 30).

Materialisation phenomena 

Much more noteworthy— and even more odd— were materialisation phenomena that have only little similarity to those familiar from spiritualism. They deserve some attention, and it must be emphasized that most secondary studies do not sufficiently acknowledge the deep ambivalence and conceptual reference frame of these stories already in early Theosophy, and through this neglect create a skewed and much overrated impression of what these phenomena meant for theosophists. In fact, they found them often rather embarrassing. HPB produced these phenomena (with help from her ‘Masters,’ as she understood it), but on the other side she quite ferociously ridiculed those who were too interested in them: for her such interest was a sign of a rather low spiritual standing, of a despicable sensationalism. This attitude, often overlooked in critical studies on Theosophy, exactly repeats Asiatic views, e.g., early Buddhist interpretations of siddhi (supernatural capacities or powers, Tibetan dngos grub). (Major sources for material are Sinnett 1881; ODL 1 and 2; Barker 1926). 

Dug-up replacement tea cup

Alfred Percy Sinnett (1840– 1921; cf. the autobiography Sinnett 1986) had been the Editor of the Pioneer, India’s largest daily newspaper, since 1871. He became a main recipient of the ‘Mahatma’ letters, and an early describer of ‘phenomena.’ The grotesqueness of some of the stories is not to be denied: when at a tea party a set of tableware was found to be lacking, and HPB was jokingly asked to supply such one by materialisation; after ‘mental conversation’ with her Masters she pointed to a special place, overgrown with grass and bushes. This place immediately was dug out, and a tea- cup and a saucer were found, not different from the other six cups and saucers brought from the Sinnetts’ house. Strangely, plant roots around these items were found intact and had to be destroyed to reach them, and it was ascertained the place had not been dug out before (Sinnett 1881, 66– 68). This story and a large number of similar ones are explainable as elaborate hoaxes or simply hardly credible: and indeed Cf. on the spiritualist background of fairy bells, clairaudience and paranormal music, Hardinge Britten 1970, 57, 90, 105, 165, 173, 183, 200– 203, 301, 304, 463f. they were never given any further attention by HPB, and certainly never used as arguments for anything (though the explanation of this particular story given by Emma Coulomb 1885, 28, is clearly a free invention). 

Relative value of phenomena

On the other side some ‘phenomena’ are well authenticated and often have a spontaneous, impromptu and playful character that makes elaborate preparation unlikely. Some reserve in judgment might be advisable. More important is her tireless insistence on the little value of such phenomena. Olcott even says her reputation in India suffered from these stories, which were taken as signs of an inferior spiritual standing (ODL 1: 99f.). HPB seems to have treated these phenomena dismissively as harmless amusement for children given by adults: which of course can be interpreted as a sign of ingenuous cunning, taking the wind out of the sails of her critics. Sceptics were allowed to introduce any regulations against fraud that they proposed. A diary entry from 1878 demonstrates nicely how she regarded media coverage: “A reporter from the Graphic comes to interview H. P. B. Is respectfully begged to go to the devil” (HPBS 1: 155). Olcott and other theosophists saw these things more as maya, glamour, illusion, than as miracles. Franz Hartmann interpreted the phenomena as meant to attract popular attention, as a church bell is meant to attract people to come and hear a sermon, and not as intrinsically important (Hartmann 1915a, 33). This has been a common persuasion in theosophical circles, and it was also shared by HPB’s family (Solovyoff 1895, 286), by Franz Hartmann and others, and of course has been a controversial subject in the struggles with the Society for Psychical Research, a main competitor of the Theosophical Society for public recognition (cf. Hodgson 1885; Baird 1949, and the documents in Kelly 1990). 

Mahatma letters, precipitated

The Master letters have been the most widely discussed of these 'phenomena,’ reaching their recipients in an often spectacular manner, flying down from no visible source, appearing inside of clothing or on a blank sheet of paper, once on a seat of a railway station the recipient just decided to enter, a.o.; cf. Cooper 1998; Barborka 1966). Precipitated letters had already been known in older spiritualism, as the letters the farmer Jonathan Koons in the name of his Spirit guide John King made to appear in 1852 in Millfield Township, Ohio (cf. also Hardinge Britten 1970, 195f., 201f., 252). Interestingly precipitated letters are also well- known as magical treats in Islam (cf. already Olcott 1875, 414f.), as of course in the Bible (Dan. 5). But HPB’s letters were said to have their origin with her hidden masters: and these were not spirits, but living though inaccessible spiritual teachers. In the early days of the Theosophical Society, precipitated letters were a prime medium of conveying advice and occult teaching, and as was to be expected they were immediately accompanied by criticism and ridicule from non- theosophists. 

Interestingly the letters lost much of their impact when HPB’s own larger books became available, and the discussion on the ‘authenticity’ (which can mean very different things) had in many cases lost almost all contact with a reasonable discussion of their content. The first one of such letters was received by HPB’s Russian family in 1870 (Barborka 1966, 140f.). Reading these ‘master letters’ today after reading HPB’s own publications leaves little doubt many of them were essentially written by HPB: herself or at least with her participation. 

Part 1