[Theosophie und Occultismus]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
The general interest shown in the theosophical writings is undoubtedly due to the fact that every human being contains the striving for the betterment of his condition, and that theosophical teachings, in contrast to most theological views, which teach men only the putting off the expectation of a better “hereafter” after death, but leaving him to his fate in this world, keeping ideals in mind that are not unattainable, but can already be realized in this life. A new tidal wave of spiritual life has swept over the earth, and as an anthill begins to swarm when, after the freezing cold of winter, the spring sun sends down its warming rays, so it is now, after, the period of a cold, spiritless, and loveless materialism. For the most part, there has been a spiritual activity again, which is noticeable, among other things, through the emergence of numerous associations, which differ from one another more in the names they call themselves than in their nature and purposes. There are “Theosophists,” “Occultists,” “Illuminati,” “Gnostics,” “Christian Mystics,” “Christian Scientists,” “Neoplatonists,” “Neotheosophists,” “Sons of Zion,” “Faith Healers,” “Rosenicrucians,” “Temple Brothers,” “Brothers of Silence,” “Spiritists,” etc., etc., and as human nature is generally the same everywhere, no matter what club a man belongs to, we find pretty much the same elements in all those clubs; every person brings his or her own qualities to the association in which he or she joins, be they good or bad.
With regard to their aspirations, however, two classes can be distinguished among these people, namely those who would like to come into possession of secret powers in order to use them for their personal advantage, whereby they, like the great majority of people, are still deeply stuck in their egoism, and the relatively few who understand that higher spiritual powers only come to those who are entitled to receive them through higher spiritual growth, and that this growth means leaving egoism, growing out of the hard shell of assumed peculiarity, without which the light of knowledge cannot spread in the soul and the divine power in our inner being cannot be revealed. The former seek, whether consciously or without understanding, to drag down the highest and the divine to themselves in the dust and make it serve their earthly interests and animal needs. By doing so, they humiliate themselves and go to ruin. The others try to let the higher powers working in them unfold, to dedicate them to the service of the highest (love) without selfishness, and the more they grow out of their self-delusion, the more the divine nature emerges from them, and so on the more they are elevated and the more their divine power develops. This is the difference between “black” and “white” magic, the power of evil and the power of good, the devil’s art and the miraculous power of holy love. The latter is wisdom, the former is nowadays baptized with all sorts of scientific names; it used to be called “witchcraft.”
It seems that modern “Occultism” and Spiritism have given birth to far more schools of the devil’s art than of wisdom. In newspapers and books, even in the streets, advertisements stare at us telling us where to learn the occult arts cheaply and to practice by the exercise of which wealth and honor can be acquired. Hypnotists roam the land and amaze the world by depriving man of his free will and paralyzing his reason. While thousands of doctors are busy ruining man’s physical health with vaccines and immunization shots, the curious psychologist seeks to take possession of himself, and the fanatical spiritualist thinks he has achieved something great if he or others “becomes a medium.” That is, “developed” into a soulless and will-less being in which the last spark of divine reason is expelled, until it becomes a plaything of equally soulless influences and ends up as an idiot in a madhouse.
What worldly people desire is not true becoming, but apparent knowledge, which can be attained much more easily than true knowledge. “Theosophy” means divine wisdom; but how could there be god-wisdom without God? The Spirit of God is all love; how could his spirit be manifest in a heart filled with hatred, envy, vanity and covetousness? How can he be a true disciple of occult science who does not know what is hidden within himself and therefore is called “occult”?—How can a man be an illuminate or “enlightened one” if he is not enlightened by anything and does not know the light of truth?—How can there be any question of Christian Science where Christ (divine love) is not present is? How does a person want to recognize spirits if he himself is spiritless or does not know his own spirit? How can a person heal another person through spiritual power if spiritual life has not awakened in him and he consequently has no spiritual power ?—How can a person work through faith when his faith is only the product of his imagination and lives only in the head, but not in the heart, the center of all spiritual powers?—What use are means to us by unknown spirits when we have no self-knowledge and cannot know whether their statements are true or false? How can a person appear impersonal when he is still firmly in the grave of his personal selfhood, or exercise higher powers while he still has not come to a higher consciousness, but sleeps the sleep of the earthbound and dreams their dreams?
As the name “Theosophy” or “divine wisdom” implies, this wisdom does not belong to blind, speculating, mortal man, but to the angel in man reborn in the spirit of truth. “All true wisdom is in God, comes from God and leads back to God.”— “God is the will of eternal wisdom,” says Jakob Böhme, and this will of God is love free (from all selfishness). Therefore this love is also the source of all higher knowledge, and the occult science that springs from this is not for the spiritually dead, but for the living, i.e., intended for the true theosophists who possess the true power of faith, for those baptized and enlightened by the holy spirit of self-knowledge, which is why H. P. Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine” is not for blind fools, dreamers and doubters, but is dedicated for the “true theosophist.”
In order to awaken the inner, spiritual powers of nature in oneself and thereby to unlock and get to know them in truth, a key is needed that is known to the wise, but they wisely keep it hidden so that it does not fall into the hands of the uncalled, resulting in great evils for all mankind. However, there are known means by which the lower soul forces can also be awakened in everyday people, enabling them to perform lower magical effects through will power. As a result of their ignorance of the mental constitution of human beings, such experimenters then cause a great deal of mischief and at the same time imagine that they are doing something good when they drive out a small evil by substituting a much greater one in its place without knowing it. But those harm themselves the most who abuse a higher power that has been bestowed on them for base, selfish purposes, to earn money, or to gain prestige and the like; for whoever takes in what is clean while he is unclean himself defiles and degrades it, “he eats and drinks for himself the judgment” that condemns him.[2]
Every reader and listener with a thirst for knowledge can find satisfaction in books and lectures, but that alone does not make him better. By progressing on a level, he does not climb higher, but at most walks around in circles. Acumen and knowledge without love does not lead to spiritual growth. Among the greatest criminals and poisoners there were often very clever people and great scholars. Faithless knowledge is spiritless and pulls man down, because the earth-born intellect, which is not raised by love to the higher, always gravitates to its origin, the low. Many scholars excel at brutality and greed, and cruelty is seen by some inquisitive researchers as an indispensable means of advancing their knowledge.
The only source of all true higher knowledge and all self-knowledge and one’s own insight is the love of the highest. Therefore, when the “Theosophical Society” was founded, the formation of a nucleus for general human brotherhood was set as the first purpose. This did not mean the formation of a sentimental brotherhood or an association for the mutual admiration of personalities, but something quite different; for no man can love in another those qualities which he dislikes, and until men have true self-knowledge their inclinations and opinions will differ and fight one another. The struggle for existence is a law of nature, without which there is no progress. The one goal in which all people come together is true knowledge. If everyone recognizes the higher nature in themselves and in everyone else, then they can also overlook the personal faults of the other and live with them in friendship and harmony. However personal characters may diverge or clash, the Spirit of God in one recognizes the divine nature in the other, and in that recognition they are then one within and brothers without.
If no such knowledge can be found in a society, but the highest ideal of the members is the pastime or the satisfaction of scientific curiosity, if megalomania and vanity or greed, envy and jealousy prevail in such associations, one association treats the other as a “competitive society” and tries to suppress everything that does not come from your own kitchen or bears the stamp of your own party, how can there be talk of “tolerance” in such a society or how can it be called “theosophical”? The inquisitors also had such “tolerance”; they welcomed anyone who submitted to them. Her door was open to everyone, but woe to him who did not go in; he was pursued and possibly burned.
Not personal individual love, but divine love should be the basis of this brotherhood, love for the Spirit of God in everything from which individual love springs. F. Rückert expresses this excellently in the following lines:
“With single love who begins to waste
The treasure of the heart will end with self-love.
It is all love that first fills the heart,
From whose magical scent single love is revealed.
Single love blossoms and withers, the dream sinks down,
And like at the beginning, everything is the same at the end.
All love for nature, for every creature,
And in yourself to every trace of God.”
So whoever wants to join a real theosophical society should be free from selfishness; he should not ask: “What can this accession do me externally?” but, driven by a love of good, he should ask: “Will this accession enable me to do more good for myself and others than I would if I stand alone would be able to accomplish?”
Only when a person has really become what is understood by the name “theosophist”, that is, when he feels within himself the essence of true love, feels the nature of true wisdom, and has purified his heart so that it becomes a worthy temple of the knowledge of truth, then he is ready to be initiated into the realm of the deeper mysteries of nature which are called “occult” because the key to opening them and the power to contemplate them is not to be found on the outside, but on the inside. Without this awareness, mindless research leads only to a labyrinth of error, if not to ruin.
When H. P. Blavatsky was urged by certain quarters to found a “school of magic” “for advanced students,” she refused, saying that the whole “Theosophical Society” should perish rather than give one man an opportunity to fall into the devil’s art. Nowadays one does not take this so exactly. One finds schools everywhere, especially abroad, in which, for payment of the entrance fee, everyone is taught arts by which he can harm himself and others. Unfortunately, many are driven into such schools by the craving for the acquisition of occult powers. They don’t try to improve themselves, they even think they’re perfect; they seek in the possession of such secrets only an increase in the means of satisfying their greed and vanity. But the true disciple of wisdom is not greedy for possessions; he places himself not above wisdom and not above God, but rather gratefully acknowledging what he has already received, and thereby enabling himself to receive more. He cultivates the flower of wisdom in his heart and worships the gardener who planted it, and when his time of maturity has come the Master will come, and with him Enlightenment; for the grace of God knows no favourites, the spiritual sun of the universe is for everyone, and when we emerge from the dark dungeon in which our assumed peculiarity keeps us captive, the light is already there.
But how to find the way out of the bonds of selfhood is taught in all major religious systems, and thus they can be regarded as preliminary schools, so to speak, for “theosophy” or knowledge of God. Whoever finds the truth in the system to which he belongs does not need to seek it in another; but too often do we see that the kernel of truth contained in these systems is hidden under a mass of deceptive tinsel, formulae, etc., as the shell envelops the egg, or the bark over the trunk of the tree, and there it appears from great value in comparing the different systems and their teachings; for through this comparison what is hidden in this or that under allegories often becomes clear to the understanding. This study of comparative theology and philosophy is the second purpose of the Theosophical Society and was particularly encouraged by the writings of H. P. Blavatsky. But we should not think that such a study is its own end, but rather only a means to an end, which is execution. Without practice, theory is of little value; for it is not through knowledge but through becoming that man becomes perfect and attains immortality, while the imperfect naturally succumbs to annihilation.
Notes
[1] Theosophy and Occultism. [Theosophie und Occultismus. Dr. Franz Hartmann. Theosophischer Wegweiser 4, no. 5 (February 1902), 144-154] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] Compare I. Corinthians XI, 27–30.