The Netherlands, July 31, 1997
In many countries there is a call for liberalizing laws concerning euthanasia and abortion, held to be the legacy of a dogmatic way of thinking. While people naturally desire freedom to express their feelings and thoughts, may they not unconsciously be inviting negative longterm results?
Every form of life, and thus also human life, is a manifestation of conscious being, not something we can dispose of at our convenience. If we think about how karma works, we realize it is a natural energy system and, further, that thought is one of the strongest forces in the universe, affecting everything. When a being thinks, it generates a stream of mental "electrons" which activate the life-atoms in the various levels of its entire being. Whatever the type of thought or feeling, these life-atoms are charged with an energic potential, just as batteries are charged. Upon receiving this charge, positive or negative, the life-atoms seek to unload this energy in order to bring the energic potential into balance, because one of the fundamental rules of the universe is harmony. This interaction we call karma.
Most people are unaware of the profound and beautiful ramifications of karma. No external God creates misery and destruction, any more than such a God surrounds us with unearned joy or good fortune. Our ego is continuously molding its form and character. Just as millions of individual polyps create a coral reef, so millions of our thoughts and feelings over several incarnations form our character. The same karmic rules hold for families, groups, and complete populations who have common thoughts or feelings or who generate mental streams of the same frequency.
When an ego is in complete harmony, it is said to be one with cosmic consciousness and to have deep feelings of love and full knowledge. A person who decides out of compassion to help struggling mankind charges his life-atoms with a finer, more spiritual form of energy which is affected, not only by the karmic laws of this sphere, but also by those of a higher plane than that of mankind.
Just as a dog cannot escape its own tail, so karmic results are part of the ego which created them. Clearly, then, an ego experiencing pain and anxiety resulting from its own past actions can never escape these consequences, even if it flees to the farthest corner of the universe. Choosing euthanasia, for example, to escape present pain and problems could be an attempt to avoid karmic consequences: it could charge the life-atoms with more negative energy and cause further unbalance, creating new and larger future problems. Facing life's storms tends to restore equilibrium, and herein lies the value of accepting one's destiny.
Abortion parallels euthanasia. Many people today believe that the mother, and to a lesser extent the father, have the right to terminate the life of an incarnating ego. One must seriously question whether the decision to interrupt the incarnation process for socioeconomic reasons, such as furthering the parent's career, isn't at its core selfish. Similarly, a handicapped child represents not only the karma of the incarnating ego but of the parents and the whole family. Choosing abortion to solve this problem not only postpones it, but creates larger difficulties in future lives. Working out the karma, on the other hand, will bring the individual into balance, as well as slowly help to raise the thought-life of all humanity toward the highest possible plane.
We can ignore karma by thinking that reincarnation and a universal law of consequences do not exist; but eventually our ego will discover the facts through these same cosmic laws. Then it will realize that it has lost a great deal of time and has created many additional difficulties for itself and others which could have been avoided. People wish to be free; but in fact we are always free in our will, within the constraints of the laws of harmony, and are free -- nay, compelled -- to make our own path of destiny.-- Jelle Bosma
California, November 1, 1997
In 1969 Claremont Graduate School professor John A. Hutchison commented that "ours is an age of unprecedented religious illiteracy. This is particularly true of the American academic community. While religion, along with sex and politics, continues as a perennial subject for discussion, it is also true that in such discussion a shocking lack of ordinary factual knowledge is often shown. Men who would feel disgraced to be ignorant of science, art, or politics show no compunction about harboring the grossest and crudest misconceptions in the field of religion" (Paths of Faith, vii).
If this was true of religion nearly thirty years ago, today it is acutely so of the modern theosophical movement and its principal founder, Helena P. Blavatsky. In spite of what Boston University's Stephen Prothero calls "a mini-boom in publishing on Blavatsky in the mid-1990s" (Religious Studies Review, July 1997), there is an appalling amount of misinformed and deeply prejudicial "intellectual history" being written about Blavatsky and theosophy, often parading under the mantle of scholarship. In books, periodicals, and on the Internet, one finds assertion after assertion based on factual error or hearsay -- much of it cloned from earlier publications that many present-day authors have incorrectly assumed or deemed to be reliable. To use an apt political phrase: repeat a rumor or allegation often enough, and it will become an accepted "truth" -- for a while. But this is hardly a contribution to scholarship and public education.
The widely popular Madame Blavatsky's Baboon by the "distinguished literary scholar" Peter Washington is a case in point. Written in a witty and engaging style, the book contains sufficient facts and insights, some quite good, to make it appealing to a wide readership -- beguilingly so, perhaps, for it has been cited as a source reference in magazines such as the Smithsonian (May 1995), and its author has been interviewed on British television as an "authority" on theosophic history.
On superficial examination the book appears to be well-researched and objective. But a more careful inspection discloses serious errors and omissions. Aside from fairly obvious use of innuendo and half-truths to bolster his negative conclusions about H. P. Blavatsky, Katherine Tingley, and G. de Purucker, the author shows deficient knowledge of primary sources, is frequently inaccurate, misrepresents theosophic teaching, relies on uncorroborated assertion (often from unfriendly secondary and tertiary sources), omits rebuttal evidence, garbles dates, events, and attributions, downgrades, trivializes, and generally gives a one-sided account. Whatever merit the book may have is defeated by its unreliability and prejudice.
The extent to which Mr. Washington's book has been accepted in the academic community and elsewhere prompted Dr. James Santucci, professor of comparative religion at California State University, Fullerton, and editor of Theosophical History, to publish my "Notes on Madame Blavatsky's Baboon" in the October 1997 issue. This gives a more detailed critique. Dr. Santucci comments: "Given the popularity of the book (there are numerous references on the Internet), . . . it is important that readers -- especially scholars -- be made aware of the oversights and sometimes inexcusable errors that are scattered in Mr. Washington's book. Of course, the question arises, 'If the book has this many errors in reference only to Theosophy, how many more exist in the author's treatment of the other movements?'''
After all, should not the standards expected of a book or article on the philosophy, life, and character of Plato, for example, apply equally to any other historical person and movement? At the very least, responsible scholarship demands author competence: a reasonably thorough grasp of primary sources, as well as secondary sources and their historical context. Where controversy exists, one likewise expects to find conflicting accounts marshaled, compared, and analyzed, and -- where called for -- judgments and interpretations offered as opinions, not as established fact. For example, when one mentions the frequently-cited 1885 Hodgson Report, published by the British Society for Psychical Research, which brands Blavatsky an impostor, one is duty bound to point out (Mr. Washington and most others do not) that the same SPR published a 1986 report by Dr. Vernon Harrison, a court-accepted expert in detecting forgery, who finds the Hodgson Report to be inaccurate, riddled with bias, flawed, and untrustworthy -- "a highly partisan document forfeiting all claim to scientific impartiality.''
Judging by the surfeit of publications which rely on books such as Madame Blavatsky's Baboon, one can only agree with John Hutchison's lament, and hardly wonder at the abuse. The theosophy and H. P. Blavatsky of the primary sources are virtually unrecognizable in these thirdand fourth-hand renderings. Few portray -- much less account for -- the philosophic depth and ethical content of Blavatsky's and her teachers' writings, or try to square these with allegations of fraud and imposture. Their authors, moreover, would have us believe that skepticism and objectivity are synonymous terms, while relegating to the outlands of "hagiography" any appreciative treatment, such as the well-researched HPB: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky by Sylvia Cranston (published a few months before Mr. Washington's Baboon). Skepticism is indeed a powerful, valued, and necessary antidote for gullibility, but requires little actual knowledge. Objectivity -- the ability to render fair and impartial judgment -- is, on the other hand, the fruit of a well-matured course of study, reflection, knowledge, and understanding. And how many present-day writers on Blavatsky and theosophy can justifiably claim that? Informed discussion and the public welfare depend upon a higher standard, and we should expect nothing less.
In his closing remarks, Dr. Santucci noted a renewed interest in theosophy among religious studies scholars: "It is my hope that this [a dispassionate historian of religion giving HPB her due] will take place sooner rather than later. One way of doing so is for scholars to reevaluate -- or perhaps read for the first time -- Blavatsky's principal writings in the light of nineteenth century scholarship. Readers will be surprised, in my opinion, at the depth and eclecticism that exist especially in her masterworks Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine."
One can only applaud this hopeful trend, yet be reminded that a balanced understanding of theosophy and HPB rests ultimately with each of us; reminded, too, that intellectual research alone, important as it is, will never fully yield the truths we seek. Living for the benefit of others sheds its own light of perception, its own knowing; and until that becomes part of our discipline and our search, there is little doubt that theosophy and HPB will remain a mystery waiting to be understood. -- Will Thackara