Agnosticism, Atheism, Monism

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Confusing Words Series · 11 pages

Blavatsky takes these three as typical of an endless list of -isms — evolutionism, existentialism, humanism, hylo-idealism, materialism, pessimism, positivism, quietism, rationalism, sacerdotalism and scepticism among them — and her opening move is to place agnosticism as the modern variation on the ancient theme of the Greek philosopher who knew only that he knew nothing. She defines it as ajnana-agnoia, lack of reason, nescience rather than ignorance, and quotes a Master of Wisdom for the position that having found gnosis one cannot turn one's back on it and become an agnostic.

The distinction she presses hardest is within agnosticism itself: the strong agnostic takes the negative position of knowing nothing but phenomena and refusing to believe anything else, while the weak agnostic may be ready to entertain new ideas. With the exception of psychism, every other -ism she calls a shade of materialism — a science without a soul; monism she describes as a mask concealing the void of final annihilation, and much current agnostic speculation about the First Cause as little better than veiled materialism. A note of even-handedness runs through it: brutal but frank materialism she judges more honest than what she calls the Janus-faced agnosticism of her day, and she holds that the occultist would be guilty of treason if he demolished the old gods before he could replace them with the eternal verities they represent.

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