Pledged Students' Prescribed Guide for Conduct

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 15 pages

Fifteen pages carrying the Preliminary Memorandum of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, from the Collected Writings volume XII, pages 494 to 498, where it appears as the E.S. Rules. The frontispiece is by Gail Bartel. *The document was headed strictly private, confidential and personal, for members only* — so it is worth saying that it is reproduced here as a historical text long since published, not as anything still restricted.

Its first purpose is not to impose rules but to offer a way out. One object of the memorandum, it states at the outset, is to give anyone who has signed the pledge an opportunity to withdraw it, should they feel unable or unwilling to accept fully and without reserve the instructions that may be given, the consequences that may result, or the duties whose performance will be asked. Two reassurances and one warning follow immediately, and they are stated with unusual precision. Such duties, it says, will never interfere with or encroach upon the probationer's family duties. But it is certain that every member will have to give up more than one personal habit such as is practised in social life, and to adopt some few ascetic rules. Anyone who wishes to retire after reading what follows may have his name removed from the list and the pledge returned by applying in writing — within three weeks of receiving the document, members in Europe applying directly to Blavatsky at 17 Lansdowne Road. That combination of seriousness and an explicit escape route is what makes the file worth reading: it is a joining document written by someone who plainly preferred fewer committed members to more uncertain ones.

Read the full text (PDF, 0.6 MB, 15 pages)