Lodges of Magic

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Living the Life Series · 11 pages

First published in Lucifer, Vol. III, No. 14, October 1888, pages 89–93, and reprinted in Blavatsky Collected Writings X pages 124–30. The epigraph is from Charles Churchill, on men believing fiction because they love the lie, while truth must have solemn proofs to pass her down. The running head asks the question the article ends on: what can we do for our fellow men?

Three propositions are set out before the text. The first concerns the conditions of understanding: that occult truth cannot be absorbed by a mind filled with preconception, prejudice or suspicion, being something perceived by intuition rather than reason, spiritual by nature and not material. The second lists the prerequisites for psychic development named in the mystical manuals of all Eastern systems — a pure place, pure diet, pure companionship and a pure mind. The third states what the Society actually needs, and does so by contrasting two questions its members might ask: not the constantly self-unmasking “What will it profit us to join, and how much will it harm us?” but “Can we not do substantial good to mankind by working in this cause with all our hearts, our minds and our strength?” The occasion is a proposal from an esteemed friend in occult research for forming working Lodges devoted to the development of adeptship, and the reply turns on the practical impossibility of forcing that process — redirecting the energy behind the proposal towards the kind of Branch the third proposition describes.

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