Theosophical Correspondence.
Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
Question: — Is there any value in making public propaganda for occultism?
Answer: — Yes, for pickpockets who catch fools, and for ambitious people who want to show off their scholarly stuff and be admired for their wisdom by hysterical women and half-fools. For the masses, the dissemination of occult teachings has little value and often brings great harm, because these things are misunderstood and wrongly applied by people who are not yet ripe for their understanding.
One cannot repeat often enough to all who strive for occult knowledge the teaching of Sankaracārya [Śaṅkarācarya], who says that the first condition for attaining to the knowledge of truth is the possession of the ability to distinguish the eternal from the transitory. St. Paul teaches the same; for it is written in the Bible, as it is in every human heart: “Seek first the kingdom of God (the kingdom of truth), and all the rest will be given to you.” Without this distinction, an understanding of the secrets that belong to the inner divine man is impossible. The outer man seeks in external things and cannot do otherwise, because he knows nothing else. If he is told to search within himself, he searches in his personality, in the realm of fantasy, and falls into enthusiasm. Without the “grace from above,” i.e. without the spirit of knowledge of God, which no one can give or create for himself, no one has ever become a true occultist. Therefore, “theosophy” or knowledge of God is the first goal that everyone should strive for; only when a person has truly recognized himself is he ripe for the study of occult science. To make spiritual progress, it is not enough to be able to repeat what others have said about spiritual things, but it is a matter of taking the spirit into oneself. The more a person takes in what is offered to him from above, the more he makes himself capable of receiving more and the more he will receive. But the majority of those who are on the hunt for occult things want nothing to do with it. They sniff the soup to criticize it, but do not eat it. They constantly cry out for new instructions without following even the smallest of those already given; they look for an approved and patented “Mahatma,” hang on the coattails of every charlatan and show the door to the true spiritual guide within themselves.
To understand the things that belong to the kingdom of the Divine, one must enter this kingdom oneself, from which the true “hidden knowledge” springs. But as for that “occultism” which consists in idle speculations about what, as Goethe says, “does not fit into the human brain,” and which lacks the basis of all knowledge, the knowledge of truth, we may leave such childish games and pastimes to those who consider it the purpose of their life to drive around in the fog with a pole or to build houses of cards. There is no value in making propaganda for it.
Note
[1] Theosophical Correspondence. Propaganda for occultism. By Dr. Franz Hartmann. [Theosophische Korrespondenz. Von Dr. Franz Hartmann. Propaganda für Occultismus. Theosophischer Wegweiser 8, no, 5 (February 1907), 167-168] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than minor typos, translation from German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}