THE MODERN THEOSOPHIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3098, 30 July 1913, Page 61

THE MODERN THEOSOPHIST.

1)v Constance Clyde.

There is uo doubt that the theosophist lias come to stay: there is equally no doubt that no one quite knows what theosophy is. The theosophist gets out of this difficulty by informing us, according to one of their leaders, that the only plank in their platform is biotherhooa. Nevertheless, it may be said of all theosophists in general that they arc vegetarians, believers in fresh air and reincarnation. So far from taking no thought of the morrow, they take thought of a great many morrows. In the theosophist home the children are not allowed martial toys, and the theosophist’s poor relation laps its milk uncheered by more blameful food unless it forgets the “fourfold path” and captures its brother mouse. Theosophy, like all religious ideas, comes from the East. Our books give it as the outcome of that curious desire of the Eastern mind fox annihilation, so that while the Western mind for centuries regarded with unspeakable dread the possibility of, everlasting death, the Eastern has seen himself bound forever to the wheel of life, and by one hold effort has sought to tree himself. The modern theosophist, of course, tells us that this Nirvana is not annihilation, but supreme Heaven. The Western mind, however, cannot in the least feel any Eastern horror of all the Jives he must yet live. One seems to see the theosophists here looking forward with a certain complacency to the possibilities of captainships and kingships which they will have earned in the lives to come. '1 hey do not look forward to these lives as a Inn den. which is as if a shipwrecked sailor were to look forward to all the other shipwrecks that might, happen to him in future instead of keeping his mind to the immediate rescue. Still. 1 am with the leading* Dunedin theosophists who remarked the other day that it would take fifty lives to teach some people not to tel! a lie. In fact, 1 think he is unduly hurrying them up. To most critics the theosophists are (as a Dunedin writer describes them) harmless,, amiable people: hut it seems rath"r the harmlessness of the bullet before it has got into the revolver. What a world it would he if the theosophists captured New Zealand ! —as is possible. The Rabbit Act would he repealed, and. logically, I do not I see how the theosophist could obey the latest medical mandate and “kill that fly.” Anti-militarists under theosophical rule would he crowned with bay, and all citizens suspected of moral superiority would be obliged to marry, for it seems that there is a shortage of good parents for advanced spirits waiting to “return,” and so emigration is being hampered. A kingship certainly would be created, for theosophists believe that wis? men of the last incarnation are born kings in this.,, in which case much of their wisdom must have been lost on the astral plane. It is curious what weapons are used io fight the theosophical idea. One writer makes fun of its originator, the 80-Tree under which he sal immersed in contemplation . and so forth. But there is nothing absurd in the idea that a religion may arise in this way, for it is in ways not vastly different from this that ' mamreligions have arisen. The weakness, of the thoosopliist’s position lies in this, that he seems unable to offer any proof of these occurrences, and that when you re-

j quest of him or her such proof he simply asks you not to scoff and jeer. At other times he will point out how harmonious it all is, everything “fits in.” everything is explained. But though, the heart of our religion should be clear and blight, is there not something in us that demands that our reliction shall be a little misty at the edges? As Browning puts it, heaven would not be heaven it we conid reach it—now. And there is that in ns which craves not for an explanation that ends mystery, but for an oxplunat on that leads to further mvsterv. —