Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
One hears so much about “opponents of theosophy,” and yet there can be no reasonable person who is an opponent of theosophy; for “theosophy” is the higher self-knowledge, and no person is conceivable who is an opponent of the fact that he himself comprehends, understands and recognizes something. It therefore makes no sense at all to speak of “opponents of theosophy”; at most one can speak of opponents of the “Theosophical Society”; but even this opposition is based on a complete ignorance of the situation; for since the Society as such has no dogmas whatsoever, and everyone has the freedom to believe, think, say and write what he wants or thinks is good, where is the dogma that one could be an opponent of? The purposes of the “Theosophical Society” are the practical exercise of humanity, the pursuit of enlightenment and one’s own spiritual development. No reasonable person can be an opponent of these either. Therefore, we can only speak of opponents of individual members of the society, or of opponents of the views propagated by individual members, and every opponent who opposes a wrong view, whether he is a member of the “Theosophical Society” or not, is welcome to us, because he is our co-worker on the path to the knowledge of the truth.
Unfortunately, the opponents of the Theosophical Society do not care at all about the knowledge of the truth, nor about the principles that make up the essence of the Theosophical Society and on which it is founded. Like an animal that only sees the clothing of a person and not the person who is wearing the clothing, these opponents see nothing but the personalities of individual outstanding members of this society, who cannot be perfect precisely because they are subject to personalities and human weaknesses. They know nothing of the inner spirit that animates these people and seeks to attain revelation through them. They are like a supposed “expert” who is expected to make a decision about the quality of a wine, but who sees nothing but the shape of the bottles that contain the wine, has no idea about the wine itself and perhaps does not even know what wine is. He then judges everything by the shape of the bottle and the label stuck on it. In this way, these opponents also see only the personalities, but know nothing at all about the spirit that fills them and works through them. Since they themselves are spiritless,[2] they cannot recognize the spirit in any other person; for just as sensory perception requires sense organs, only the intellect perceives the intellectual and the spirit the spiritual.
Dogmatism and blind adherence to preached opinions have become so prevalent today that there are only a few people who know what is meant by independent thinking. But the idea that there could be a society of people who do not blindly follow a leader who leads them, but strive to acquire the ability to think and recognize for themselves, is still quite incomprehensible to most people. They do not believe in the truth, but only in the authentication of it by some authority they have set up. But the truth does not need authentication from anyone; it is based on nothing other than itself. Anyone who relies on the confirmation of the truth by someone else does not know the truth himself. Self-knowledge of the truth is achieved in no other way than when it reveals itself in man and he himself recognizes it.
If Socrates or anyone else had never said, “Man, know thyself,” it would still have been an eternal truth that it is a very excellent thing for man to feel and recognize his true self, i.e. the basis of his immortal existence, God, the origin of everything; if Socrates had really been the criminal for whom he was executed, this would not have affected the truth of his statement; self-knowledge would not have become worthless because a criminal taught that it was something valuable. But the so-called “opponents of theosophy” have no understanding of this, for they do not know what is meant by self-knowledge. They are deeply mired in authority mania and personality cult, because they did not like this or that personal quality in H. P. Blavatsky’s person, for example, and so they want to prevent the world from reading her writings and forming their own opinion about their content. This is roughly the same as wanting to condemn a book because it is not bound the way you would like it to be.
It is precisely those who most rant about the personality cult allegedly practised with H. P. Blavatsky who are themselves most devoted to some kind of personality cult; it is precisely those who claim to oppose blind faith and are always crying out for proofs of things that lie beyond the limits of their understanding who are most caught up in blind faith in authorities. Since they have no idea of the nature of self-knowledge (theosophy), according to their concepts all knowledge consists only in believing what this or that certified author says. If the character testimony of a person who proclaims a truth is suspect, they believe that they must also reject the truth proclaimed by him. Their whole endeavor is not aimed at finding the truth, but at finding someone whom they can fully trust and whose testimony they believe they can rely on. In this way, they believe, they have gained knowledge of the truth. The person who really knows does not need a witness on whose credibility he must rely; If the light of truth reveals itself in himself, then its existence is enough proof of its existence.
What could be more foolish than the cries that are being made on many levels, on the one hand that theosophy is spiritualism, and on the other that it is an enemy of spiritualism. Theosophy is one’s own knowledge, and the realm of one’s own knowledge extends to everything, consequently also to the phenomena of spiritualism and the laws underlying it; there can be no true science, be it in material or religious terms, where there is no knowledge of truth, and every science or form of religion has real value for us only insofar as we recognize the truth in it. Every thing has a spark of truth (reality) in it, which is the reason for its existence, and without it it would not exist. To recognize the truth in all things, not through hearsay or descriptions from the pulpit, but through one’s own experience, observation and knowledge: that alone is theosophy.
Truth is no one’s enemy, it is only an enemy of lies, in the same sense that light is an enemy of darkness, which cannot stand before it. It is not a question of self-righteousness and differences of opinion between light and darkness, between knowledge and non-knowledge, but where knowledge reveals itself, non-knowledge ceases to exist. It therefore makes no sense at all to speak of an enmity between theosophy and spiritualism or between theosophy and modern science; for spiritualism and science can only be true insofar as truth is contained in them, and the knowledge of the truth contained in them is precisely knowledge of truth or theosophy.
There are, of course, many teachings proclaimed by so-called theosophists which contradict many of the rational conclusions drawn from external observations; but the teachings put forward by another person are not self-knowledge or theosophy for the person who receives them, but nothing more than a theory. It is therefore not a question of accepting such theories blindly and faithfully, nor of rejecting them out of doubt and stupidity, but of finding out for oneself whether and what is true about them. Anyone who does this is pursuing the purpose of the “Theosophical Society” and is our co-worker, even if he is not aware of it himself.
The “opposition to theosophy” can therefore, if it wants to make a claim to reason, be directed neither against its own knowledge (theosophy) nor against the “Theosophical Society”, but only against individual members of this society and their views, and its reversal is of two kinds:
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- Either these opponents are prejudiced against the persons concerned and misunderstand their teachings. This is especially the case with the opponents of H. P. Blavatsky, the vast majority of whom have never known H. P. Blavatsky and have never read her works, or if they have read them, have certainly not understood them.
- Or there are really incompetent people in the “Theosophical Society” who spread false doctrines. If this is the case, then those who are more capable and have more wisdom should consider it their duty to join this society and to replace the incompetent elements with more capable ones. There is nothing to prevent this from happening, since the “Theosophical Society” has no articles of faith and is a free association for free research; perhaps the only society in the whole world where one need not profess any particular system or doctrine, and where one need not follow any “leader” other than one’s own reason and conscience. No one in this society is required to do more than he is capable of, and if he does so, he has done his duty. The society as such need not be ashamed of its principles, nor of the fact that it consists of people who strive to use their abilities for the good of humanity, even if they themselves are not yet perfect; but humanity should be ashamed that it has not yet produced better material to fully realize the ideal of a human society striving for the knowledge of truth.
The “Theosophical Society” is not a “society of theosophists” but of people who strive to become theosophists, just as a “philosophical association” need not necessarily be an association of real philosophers or philosophers. There is a world of difference between the two concepts, which only stupidity cannot see. Anyone is free to join the “Theosophical Society”, but no one becomes a real theosophist or attains divine self-knowledge by declaring their membership of this society; they only create more favorable conditions, which make it easier for them to attain self-knowledge, just as someone who climbs a high mountain in the morning enjoys the sunrise more easily than someone who hides in a cave in a dark valley.
The term “Theosophist” is used by ignorant newspaper writers in a derisive sense towards the members of the “Theosophical Society”. A real Theosophist, i.e., a man who possesses divine wisdom, will not boast of it and will certainly not claim to be a Theosophist, because he is only too aware of his own shortcomings. But anyone who boasts that he is a Theosophist can be safely assumed not to be one; he is nothing but an ape puffed up with self-conceit. There may be such “apes” in the “Theosophical Society”, to which everyone has access, just as well as in any other human club or society, and the reason for this lies in the ape-nature of man, and not in the constitution of the “Theosophical Society”, which is designed to overcome this ape-nature and to bring man nearer to the knowledge of his true divine self.
In fact, there is no such thing as a personal, visible theosophist; for the first condition for becoming a theosophist is that one should rise spiritually above one’s own valuable personality, give up all self-knowledge, self-will, self-ability and self-desire, and live only in the spirit, in the whole and for the good of the whole, that one lets “God” think, feel and will in oneself and act through oneself. The true theosophist, as a personality, is nothing more than an instrument through which the God who has awakened to self-consciousness in him feels, thinks, speaks and acts. He is a spiritual man who cannot be perceived by the material senses; what one sees, the personality, is only the instrument of the spiritual man, the sheath inhabited by the great soul (Mahatma), which, however, is much greater and more sublime than this sheath and, in terms of its existence, is independent of it. In a similar way, no one has ever perceived a real human being through the senses; what one perceives through the senses is only the material body of the human being. But there is another ability through which one can perceive whether there is something true in a human being whose body one sees, and this is the spiritual impression his character makes on us, and our understanding of this is intuition.
Anyone who understands this will immediately understand how foolish it is to argue about whether, for example, H. P. Blavatsky wrote this or that “herself” or whether a “Mahatma” wrote it through her. In order to decide this, one would have to know exactly the spirit from which every writer draws his thoughts. If the great soul in me has achieved self-consciousness, then everything I think and write is an outflow of it; if this is not the case, then it is my own personal work and not the work of my great soul (Maha-Atma [mahātmā]). But no one can decide this except myself, for everyone is closest to their own spirit; others can only speculate, and everyone speculates according to the standpoint from which they stand. Anyone who has not experienced inner enlightenment himself will hardly admit that such an enlightenment is possible in another person.
This explains the cries of “deception” raised by the ignorant against H. P. Blavatsky and others. From her letters, which will soon be published in the “Lotusblüten,” it is clear that she never learned anything externally about all the great and sublime things about which she wrote and which she knew from her own observation. Her knowledge must therefore have flowed from an inner duel. Whether these duels were her own mind or that of another is something that no committee of scholars who know nothing about the mind can decide.
Even in the “Theosophical Society” there are many who know nothing about the spirit and spiritual powers because these spiritual powers have not yet developed in them. Therefore, the members of the “Theosophical Society” fall into three classes, just like people in general:
- Those who cannot yet think for themselves, but need a crutch to lean on. These form the “outer circle” and, according to their taste, cling to this or that leader or leader, accept their views and opinions, believe in probabilities and consider this to be a knowledge of the truth. This is a very imperfect state, but it is nevertheless a fact that even a purely theoretical preoccupation with spiritual things often leads to their practical knowledge.
- Those who stand on their own feet spiritually and have learned to think for themselves. They do not need an external leader to hang on to; they are ready to examine everything and to absorb what they are able to recognize as true. These naturally form the “inner circle”, which is all the more internal the more inner knowledge there is. Unfortunately, there are still many among these who consider theoretical knowledge to be true knowledge and imagine that theosophy consists in being able to speak learnedly about the seven principles, reincarnation, karma, evolution and the secret doctrine. Such people may be of great benefit by helping to spread a higher world view than the one previously held, but they have not yet themselves got beyond the realm of selfhood, which is the greatest enemy of inner enlightenment and spiritual rebirth.
- A few who have overcome themselves and in whom the spirit of truth has attained self-knowledge. They differ from other people in no way outwardly, but inwardly in that their thoughts arise not from their own imagination, but from true knowledge and experience. The speculating philosopher means this and that; the true theosophist means nothing, but is like a traveller who returns from a foreign land and relates what he himself has experienced. He does not need to give any proof of his experiences, and no one is obliged to believe him blindly; but someone else who wants to undertake the same journey may benefit from his experiences.
Without practical experience, the study of theosophical works has not achieved its highest purpose. Most of our modern scholars are like a lame cripple who has never left his study in his life, but is constantly poring over a map to study the location of countries and roads. He knows exactly which way he must go if he wants to get to where he is, and can lecture learnedly on what he has read or heard. But he himself does not get anywhere, and if he has to go out into the world, he would fare badly.
To learn about the world of phenomena, it is enough to observe these phenomena and to have external experience. To learn about what is probable, speculative philosophy, comparison, mathematics and logic are enough. But to gain true knowledge of spiritual things, spiritual experience is required, and this can only be achieved by the person himself becoming more spiritual within, growing up to a higher level of spiritual existence. When spiritual self-consciousness awakens in him, spiritual perception and memory follow, and he then does not need to rely on theories and probabilities, because then the truth reveals itself in him and he recognizes it himself. Such a person is free of all opinions and his own master. This is why Paracelsus also says: “Non sit alterius qui suus potest”[3]; i.e.: whoever is capable of belonging to himself (his true self) should not bind himself to anyone else. This is the spiritual freedom which the Theosophical Society was founded to promote, but which is still understood by only a few, and which the obscurantists resist in vain. But the wheel of time marches forward inexorably; the hand of the clock does not stand still, and the theosophical movement draws its strength from the resistance it encounters, whether within or outside the Theosophical Society. Even the gods fight in vain against stupidity, but where there were no ignorance, no knowledge would be possible, and the devil himself becomes our savior by being overcome within ourselves.
Notes:
[1] Thoughts on Theosophy and the “Theosophical Society”. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Sphinx 20, no. 109 (March 1895), 164-171 [Gedanken über die Theosophie und die “Theosophische Gesellschaft”.] Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025. The original text was set using the German fraktur or blackletter.
[2] [R.H.—I think Dr. Hartmann may be misunderstood here. He means the Soul or Spirit within the person is not manifesting it to any great extent. However, there are humans which are walking lower quaternaries, i.e., their higher triad has disconnected from its low quaternary, but this is very rare.]
[3] [R.H.—There is no one else who can do it.]