Theosophy
(From "Christian Deviations: Essays in Defence of the Christian Faith" by Horton Davies. Used on the understanding that it is public domain.)
Beware of anyone getting hold of you by means of a theosophy which is specious make-believe, on the lines of human tradition, corresponding to the elemental spirits of the world and not to Christ."
(Col. 2.8)
Part of the attraction of Theosophy is to be found in its pontifical title. Originally the name meant no more than "a knowledge of things Divine", a designation which each other religion might claim for its own. In time, however, it came to carry overtones of meaning, implying that this was a superior and unusually intimate knowledge of God, reserved only for the intellectually and spiritually advanced. It further suggested that this esoteric system of doctrines and rites was occult and reserved only for the initiated. Its first appeal, therefore is clearly to the pride of the elect; in short, to spiritual snobbery.
The other attractions of Theosophy are, it seems, to defend the justice of the moral order, to offer a prospect of spiritual progress here and hereafter, and its profession to deliver its devotees from all constricting theological or ecclesiastical loyalties.
Although it originates from the time of the mystery religions and the Gnostics, its contemporary form has a modern derivation. It commenced when the Theosophical Society was founded by Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott in New York in 1875. The Society was intended to compare the methods of Spiritualism with those of the old Jewish and Egyptian Cabbalas. America proving to pragmatic and deficient in the appreciation of mysticism, Madame Blavatsky went to India in 1878 where she gained an immediate and widespread success. She gathered a group of enthusiastic Indian and European disciples around her and together they studied the speculations of the Eastern mystics. She claimed to be in touch with the Great White Brotherhood of Tibet who were, in her own words, a "Lodge of Masters or Adepts" in the spiritual life. The Society for Psychical Research investigated this claim but pronounced it fraudulent. After this exposure in 1885, she left Madras. In the ensuing six years of her life, she produced her book, Secret Doctrine, which is the catechism of modern Theosophy. This body of teaching was later systemized and developed by Mes. Annie Besant, who gained a respectful hearing for Theosophy among intelligent and cultured people. G. K. Chesterton's recipe for Theosophy aptly summarizes its origin: "Asia, and Evolution and the English lady; and I think they would be better apart."
It is important to notice that the cult originated in India. The Easterner and the Westerner look through the world with different eyes. The man of the East is naturally a mystic; he is more interested in the inner world of meditation than in the outward world of phenomena and investigation. His religion is apt to be an escape from the world to God. Indeed, he claims to find God by premature retirement from the world.
By contrast, the religion of the man of the West is more a desire to remould the world according to the Divine plan. Edward Vernon declares that the symbol of the East is the temple, while the symbol of the West is the scientific laboratory. The East looks inward, the West outward. Or, in psychological terms, the man of the East is an introvert, while the man of the West is an extrovert. Perhaps, however, the best distinction drawn between East and West in religion in Chesterton's. "The Buddhist saint," he said, "has his eyes shut, whilst the Christian saint has his eyes open." Theosophy, although it claims to be the universal religion, is very much the product of the East, living in the atmosphere of introspection, asceticism and withdrawal from the world, which characterizes the religions of the East.
I
The claims of Theosophy must now be considered. As previously indicated, its chief claim is to be the universal religion. Had it not borrowed its doctrines almost exclusively from the East, the claim might have some truth in it. In fact, however, the idea of the unknowability of God derives from the Hindu Upanishads, the ideal of detachment from an illusory world is borrowed from Buddhism, as also the doctrine of successive human re-incarnations. Furthermore, its methods of attaining to religious peace are all of Eastern origin.
Its claim to be the universal religion cannot be accepted for two other reasons. One is that a religion for spiritual experts only is bound to appeal to a minority, never to the majority, as a universal religion must do. But the most compelling reason against the belief that it is the universal religion is that syncretism takes place only at the cost of destroying all that is distinctive in differing religions. Christianity and Buddhism, for example, will not mix. The Christian idea of the future life is the perfection of the self, the Buddhist the annihilation of all selfhood.
The second major claim of Theosophy is to be a compound of modern science and ancient philosophy. This is rapidly disposed of by Dr. James Black, as he argues that
"The Eastern speculation of re-incarnation, i.e. souls after death being reborn into another human life, is totally against the proved findings of the science of heredity, where off-spring are known to inherit not only their physical life, but also their powers and capabilities from their parents and ancestry." [1]
II
The doctrines of Theosophy can be viewed from three vantage points.
Their teaching about God. Theosophists are Pantheists. In their own words: "All that is is God, and God is all that is." This insistence upon the unity of God seems to be admirable, until it is examined. When pushed to its logical conclusion, however, its absurdity is patent. If God is everything and everything is God, then God is as much in an archangel as in an atom-bomb, as much in the sunset as in the seaweed, as much in a cherub as in a crocodile, as much in ameliorative medicine as in a microbe, and as much in a martyr as in a mosquito.
But, the Theosophist hastens to explain, all these things were created by God and God wills them to exist. It is true that they are the materials for our human struggle, the fulcrum for our spiritual leverage; but it is idle to pretend that God is indifferent as to whether the microbe slays the man, or the man slays the microbe. Then the Theosophist replies scathingly, "But you are mistaken. It is foolish to describe God as personal. Would you endow God with the limitations of a finite human personality? He is neither interested nor disinterested, because God is not a He at all. He is suprapersonal."
It is here that the argument breaks off, because the term 'God' is interpreted differently by the Christian and the Theosophist. What the Christian regards as the noblest way of defining God, the Theosophist takes as an insult to his Deity. If both Christian and Theosophist regard the world as a prison-house, there the agreement ends. The Theosophist is eagerly searching for a key with which to escape. The Christian, on the other hand, is thinking of the other poor spirits confined in the same prison. He is eager to transform convicts into reformed characters. The Christian's greatest stimulus to reformation is the belief that Christ demands that he love his neighbour as himself. He is the brother for whom Christ died. For the Christian, therefore, the world is neither good nor bad; it is neutral. It is the school of character, 'the vale of soul-making', the edge which sharpens the soul into an instrument to improve the world. The Theosophist says 'I accept', or 'I resign'. The Christian says, 'I resist'.
The fundamental difference in outlook is due to a basic difference in the conception of God. The Theosophist's God is impersonal Justice. The Christian's God co-operates with man to make all things work together for good.
In addition, Theosophy falls under censure for its inherent contradiction. For, while it urges that God is impersonal, the 'Super-consciousness', the Deity is given such personal attributes as 'loving', 'just', and 'truthful'.
Furthermore, the Christology of the Theosophists is seriously defective and arbitrarily unhistorical. Mrs. Besant has had the effrontery to produce her own Gospel. According to her, Jesus was born a hundred years before His presumed nativity, was trained in a desert community of the Essenes, where He learned the esoteric wisdom of the East from visiting Indian and Egyptian sages. She further maintains that the 'Christ' part of His nature was added at Baptism but withdrawn during the Crucifixion and that He returned to teach His disciples the mysteries for a period of fifty years. She equates Jesus with Buddha and Confucius as one of the Masters of the spiritual life. Christian orthodoxy cannot accept this caricature of the Founder of the Faith.
The Theosophist teaching about man and salvation. The Theosophists have a peculiar doctrine of man. They assert that each individual is compounded of seven parts. The most common classification is the following: the physical body, the etheric double (or vital body), the astral (or emotional) body, the mental body, the causal body, the future body, the perfected body. Salvation consists of moving from body to body until perfection is reached in the seventh body. Successively, the unimportant parts of the self are sloughed off like the unwanted skins of a snake. Or, in the biting words of Father Bede Frost, this is 'the strip-tease of the soul.'
What is to be thought of this teaching concerning the seven parts or bodies of man? To say the least of it, it is very muddled psychology. Man cannot be divided into physical, vital, emotional, mental and volitional parts and retain the unity of his personality. All these faculties of man are employed simultaneously, not successively. A simple instance may be taken - that of a footballer scoring a goal. The kick is physical, the placing of the kick is mental, the fact that the toe connects with the ball is vital, the will to kick is volitional, and the joy that a good kick brings is emotional; these are all parts of one simultaneous reaction and action. They are only divisible on reflection, not in action. Indeed, if they took place successively, it is doubtful if any footballer would ever score a goal! Human personality cannot be divided into five parts, let alone seven. As for the future body or the perfect body, there seems to be no relation between them and the present personality of man. This psychology is confused because it isolates parts of human life that co-exist and refuse to be parted in the actual texture of experience.
But an even more serious criticism must be offered of the salvation envisaged by the Theosophists. It consists in killing the body that the soul may live. But the body is not evil, it is the instrument of the soul. It is the medium through which the soul communicates with the outer world and with other souls. What alone is evil is the abuse of the body.
Theosophists make the mistake of saying, 'Get rid of the body and you get rid of evil'. But, as Jesus reminded His disciples, it is evil thoughts that corrupt, not the body. Salvation must be wrought in the inner citadel of the mind and imagination; therefore there is no real salvation to be found in mortifying the body, which is only the agent of evil thoughts and imaginings. Evil is not like a stain on the polished table that soils the surface; it is far more akin to dry rot that weakens and then destroys the interior of the wood. Humanity needs a new inner constitution, but the Theosophists offer us only French polishing. Our need is not evolution, but revolution.
The teaching about re-incarnation. This is the most distinctive and important Theosophical tenet. It is this aspect of Theosophy which has attracted several men of distinction in the Western world, including Aldous Huxley and J. B. Priestley. In fact, the fine series of 'Time-plays' written by Priestley have this as their central theme.
Like Christians, Theosophists have to unravel the age-old problem of the suffering of the innocent. How can they reconcile this with the belief in a wise and benevolent God? The Christian admits the difficulty. His tentative answer is that since we are bound together as families and nations the innocent must suffer with the guilty for that is the price to be paid for human fellowship. Moreover, since God suffers in the afflictions of His people this tragic experience can be transmuted to gain where it is accepted in faith, for suffering then becomes an impetus to Christian love.
Theosophy takes an easier path. It denies that there is any problem, since it denies that there are any innocent persons. We are all supposed to be suffering for sins committed in previous existences or reaping the advantages of previous virtues. We therefore deserve the penalties or rewards dealt out to us in this life. Thus if we are born diseased or defective, or in the midst of crime or poverty, it is the recompense of our former evil deeds; if we have noble dispositions, great abilities, or high positions, these were won by our own former merits. This is undeniably an attractive belief because it reconciles the suffering in the world with the justice of God.
Its fundamental weakness lies in its failure to explain how suffering does benefit us. If I was a murderer in my last life and I am born deformed in this life, it is a judgement that I deserve. But, since I cannot recall the circumstances under which I was prompted to commit murder, how can such a judgement teach me repentance? How can I repent sins whose origin and nature I have forgotten? Since I cannot feel sorry, how can I improve? Moreover, if I am born deformed, I have no information to assure me that it was a just punishment. Is there more reason why I should say, 'I deserve it', than that I should curse the universe for my misfortune? These are some of the obstinate questions the doctrine of re-incarnation provokes in Christian minds.
Furthermore, Theosophy, while professing to explain the inequalities of life, succeeds only in making them disappear in the mists of the past. We are then forced to ask, What caused the first unequal conditions or the first unequal actions?
Possibly the worst feature of the doctrine of re-incarnation is that it paralyses the desire to improve the social environment and produces an ignoble fatalism. Since action is the fruit of desire, and desire must be abandoned, action is prohibited.
Moreover, it is no palliation to be told that things will be better in another existence. We wish to make the best of this life here and now. This belief in an impersonal justice has no dynamic in it. It is a conservatism of the soul, a religion of long-deferred hope.
Even the future life posited by Theosophy is only a pale shadow of the Christian doctrine of eternal life, not only because its realization may be almost indefinitely postponed, but also because it offers absorption or annihilation of individuality in the Infinite as its goal. The Christian doctrine of the perfection of the self is its complete contrary.
III
The chief criticism of Theosophy is that is appeals to the self-regarding motives. Its advice is, 'Make it easier for yourself in the next life'. This plea must be rejected by the Christian because he is not concerned primarily for a more comfortable existence in another world for himself; he wants a finer existence for his brethren in this world. He desires to be a reformer, not a pensioner. He cannot worship a God who is impartial justice. How can the thought of a Divine pair of scales either inspire or comfort him? He needs a God who bleeds with humanity in its wounds and scars. He wants a God who will redeem society and remake man in His own image. He requires a saviour and a friend. He therefore turns to God's eternal and beloved Son, the carpenter of Nazareth, whose hands are blunted in life's workshop, the loving Teacher and Companion of the common people. He turns to the lonely crucified Son of God on the stark hill-stop, who took His station among thieves.
The God of the Theosophists is too highbrow for the Christian. Their God is no more interested in our human struggle than a sleeping and gigantic elephant. The God of the Theosophists is busied with his mathematical calculations, apportioning exact retribution to our sins in different existences. His Impersonal Highness is, in short, merely a celestial calculating-machine. [2]
Christians cannot be persuaded to leave the God who met them in Christ Jesus and, without any assurance save their need, embraced them in the arms outspread on the jagged tree of Calvary. They stake their life on the fact that this God cares, because He treats our erring humanity so patiently; because, also, 'He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life'. Christ is the proof that God cares. In Him God gave us His Word.
IV
The grandeur of the Christian faith is seen in comparison with the deficiences in Theosophy which it can supply. Christianity offers us a true view of sin. For the Theosophist a sense of personal sin is thought of as weak and degrading. Forgiveness, too, is inadmissable for the Theosophist because it would represent a diminution of strict justice. No new start is possible for the Theosophist in this life, but only in the next, and a man must work out his own salvation without the assistance of God.
There is no redemption from the power of evil in Theosophy, either. The World Teachers or Bodhisattvas of Theosophy offer teaching and enlightenment and, occasionally, example. But human nature needs more - it requires the infusion of new life. It is only Jesus Christ who said, 'I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly'.
Theosophy knows nothing of the meaning of sacrifice, which includes vicarious suffering. Their ideal man practises detachment to kill desire. But this is a striking contrast to the Saviour who, 'though He was a Son, yet learned in obedience through the things which He suffered', who 'was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin', who, as the Sinless Penitent, 'hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows'.
Because of Christ's coming to serve the world, Christians cannot be content with their own salvation. They can rest only when the kingdoms of this world have become kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. There is only one faith to live by: the faith of the Apostles, enshrined in the Creed of that name. This has been admirably summed up by Dr. Norman Macleod thus: 'There is a Father in Heaven who loves us, a Brother who died for us, and a Spirit who helps us to be good, and a Home where we shall all meet at the last.' That is a creed that will see humanity through this life into the next. It is, if need be, a creed to die for; it is assuredly a creed to live for.
Footnotes
New Forms of the Old Faith (Nelson, 1948) p. 58