THEOSOHY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9221, 8 June 1893, Page 3

THEOSOHY.

. TO THE EDITOR. , ' '• Sib,—ln your issue of the sth Instant Mrs. Oakley states she did not substitute what I said against the untruth stated by " Student" about the missionaries,i and apply it to Madame v Cotoumb's confession of ( having betrayed innocent blood for thirty pieces of silver, but quotes from my ? letter- in your issue of the 29th May. as follows" The letter of " Student " I should not notice were it not to reply to a question and correct a shamelessly false statement, namely, Did not Madame Coloumb confess," etc., etc. ? and then a little lower Mr. Richardson, in answer to "Student' " remark about the missionaries and their methods, says ' this is a shamefully untrue statement.'" It will, I think, be evident to your readers, that as the only question answered in my letter of -29th May was anent Madame Coloumb's confession (and which was answered in totally different words to those quoted by Mrs. Oakley) and as the other expression .used in answer to "Student's remarks about the missionaries Mrs. Oakley did substitute what I said about the latter, for the former; but as the blasphemous parallel sought to be established by Student" between the exposure of a juggling imposture, aud the betrayal of the Saviour of the World, was equally shameless and untrue (notwithstanding the unauthentic cated hysterical letter spoken of by Mrs, Oakley) it does not matter much. What Mrs. Oakley mentions regarding the' "seven schools of religious philosophy," "Tantric rites," religious hermits, being learned, and others being able to perform extraordinary acts of austerity (though I can corroborate the last, in other places as well as the Himalayan forests; which amounts to a question of fanatical endurance only) does not touch the question of the effects of esoteric teaching. Surely if it was good, after the long years it lias run, something better than the present state of its priests and followers would be apparent. Mrs. Oakley is mistaken in thinking I merely knew and talked to the Tantric worshippers in Southern India, though I knew many of them; but my experience of the natives in Western India was much greater than my experience of the natives in the South, but the result was the' same, and to all practical people it will appear strange that if the Mahatmas, who are supposed by the professors of Theosophy to be in full possession of the highest esoteric teaching, and to have communicated it to Madame Blavatsky, were not impostors, that it should not lead to better results than changing real stones in ladies' rings, as mentioned by Mr. Chambers, and several other little acts, as well as the juggliug Madame Blavatsky was shown to have been guilty of. Throughout this correspondence I have demonstrated three things, viz.. 1. Madame Blavatsky and ner followers were proved in the opinion of all sane people in India, to have been impostors pure and simple. 2. The effects of esoteric teaching are demoralising and bad, as exemplified by the lives of its priests and followers of its teaching in India, hence it is not desirable for the young of Auckland. 3. The missionaries in India are not what "Student" represented them, but entirely the reverse —to which Mrs. Oakley has made long rejoinders, which did not gainsay the statements made, but showed very great skill in leading away from them; hence no good can come from continuing the correspondence. So ? while thanking you for your great courtesy ip allowing me so much space, 1 shall now bid the subject farewell, and trouble you no more.—l am, etc., Auckland, June 6,1893. R. Richardson.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—On the commencement of Mrs. Cooper-C ikley's mission on what she calls Theosophical science, and on which she hopes to persuade Christians to abandon their Tielief and to adopt Madame Blavatsky's creed, it fell to my lot to write to your journal the first letter on the subject, which simply contained a reference to a book published in England many years ago on the subject, and which has since run through six or eight exhaustive editions. This book, as I stated, contains a full refutation of the follies of the Theosophical system, and proves it be an intermixture of Hinduism, Buddhism, and modern Spiritualism as exposed of late years in England and America. I have been unable to attend Mrs. Oakley's lectures through ill health, but -have very carefully read all the lengthy correspondence which has appeared in your paper on the subject, and the conclusion I have arrived at is that we have at least one parallel case to Madame Blavatsky's action in the Old Testament, It is the occasion when during Moses's absence from Mount Sinai for forty days, commuting with God, the fickle Israelites called on his brother Aaron to make them a god whom they might worship, and how he took all their golden ornaments and smelted them in a pot, and as he tells us himself, " out of it came thin calf." This seems to me precisely what Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Oakley are doing for us. They have trir.d to melt down the golden truths which God has given us and out of their smelting pot has come this calf, which they call 1 Theosophy. I take the liberty of cautioning those who may have yielded to their blandishments to get out of the reach of this " golden calf," and wait patiently for that second coming whichour Mew Testament teaches us will assuredly come in His own good time. Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Oakley are not the only pretending prophetesses who have led others away from the truth. I remember well when a boy, a self-constituted prophetess, Johanna Southcoat, who led a large number of her fellow-countrymen in England by exhibiting her golden calf." 1 remember the princesses of Jshincliffe, near Durham city, who had a large number of wealthy people in their following, and we hear now at this moment of an exhibition going on in Christchurch under similar pretences, whicli is demoralising homes and ruining the happiness of almost countless families, and fools following them, vho pawned, and are pawning, their golden ornaments into the smelting pot of their Aaron. — < I am, etc., William Fox.