Modern India Is Spiritually Degraded

William Quan Judge, A Master of Wisdom · Down to Earth Series · 6 pages

From The Theosophical Forum, new series, May 1895 through February 1896, Questions 1 to 64, reprinted in Dara Eklund's compilation Echoes of the Orient: The Writings of William Quan Judge, second edition, Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, Vol. II, 2009; Question 9, pages 371–72. The title-page argument sets Judge's answer against a parallel: as Spiritualists have degraded true Spirit, so Hindus have degraded Nature by anthropomorphic conceptions of it.

The question put to him is whether, India being the birthplace of theosophical philosophy and the Hindus having more natural capacity for occult knowledge, Western students should accept those Hindus who come and offer themselves as teachers rather than spend time in Branch meetings. Judge answers in stages. India is now the most ancient storehouse of Āryan philosophy that may be called theosophical, but no one can say it is the birthplace — Egypt, with its civilization, philosophy and magic, is silent and has no one to put forward its claim. He concedes that the Hindus of today have more metaphysical acumen than the West, but adds that the West is creeping up, and draws the distinction the answer turns on: intellectual and metaphysical gifts are not spiritual gifts. Those who come, he argues, are not teachers but have come for some personal purpose, and teach no more and no better than is already found in theosophical literature — what little yoga they teach being readable at large in the existing books and translations, since anyone who genuinely knew it would not teach it that way. The answer closes by calling the craze for present-day India a foolish one, and directing the questioner back to the work in hand.

Read the full text (PDF, 0.5 MB, 6 pages)