Blavatsky Refutes a French Theosophist's Assertions

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 41 pages

*Forty-one pages, the largest file in this batch, and a complete controversy rather than an essay. The frontispiece is by Ilene Meyer. Its opening section, headed What's this all about?*, is unusually helpful and sets out the quarrel plainly before the documents begin.

The dispute was with a Fellow of the Theosophical Society in Paris who had asserted that theosophy is a doctrine without proof, without authority and without prestige in its origin; who accused his brother theosophists of teaching pseudo-theosophy and preaching the annihilation of the spiritual ego; and who, in the file's phrase, talked about the yugas like a blind man about colours. What follows is arranged so a reader can watch the argument develop rather than only hear one side. First come explanations relative to the controversy on occultism, excerpted from a letter of Blavatsky's. Then the section on theosophy and spiritism, where the dispute between theosophical occultism and spiritism continues, with her response on behalf of the theosophists. Then her final word in reply to Tremeschini. A closing section, headed a levy of arms against theosophy, widens the frame from the individual quarrel to the general campaign. Because it prints the exchange at length rather than summarising it, the file is one of the better places on the site to see how these controversies were actually conducted — the mixture of technical dispute about doctrine with personal grievance, and the speed with which one turns into the other. A page of suggested reading from this series closes it.

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