“Materialistic scientists will be driven out of their position not by spiritual, theosophical, or any other physical or even mental phenomena, but simply by the enormous gaps and chasms that open daily and will still be opening before them (…) until they are finally knocked off their feet by the ninth wave of simple common sense.”— Helena Blavatsky.

Judging from Helena Blavatsky’ writings, it does not seem as if people and the press fairly wanted to understand Theosophists, nor any less H.P.B., since we find her often repeating herself to journalists:

“France, why do you misunderstand us? European and American Journalists, why don’t you study genuine Theosophy before criticizing it? Because scientific aristocracy is full of vanity and struts on stilts of its own fabrication; because modern philosophy is materialistic to the roots of its hair; because both, in their pride, forget that in order to understand and to appreciate the evolution of the future it is necessary to know the evolution of the past, should one consider everything that is not understood by this scientific aristocracy and this materialistic philosophy to be “intellectual derangement and mere jugglery”? (Helena P. Blavatsky, Reply to the Article “Revolution” by Aleph in La Revue de Mouvement Social, Le Lotus, Paris, Vol. I, No. 6, September, 1887, pp. 321-338.)

There are scientists today who do not even respect PHILOSOPHY, teaching it to be useless.

As K.H. once said:

“And to show you how exact a science is occultism let me tell you that the means we avail ourselves of are all laid down for us in a code as old as humanity to the minutest detail, but everyone of us has to begin from the beginning, not from the end. Our laws are as immutable as those of Nature, and they were known to man and eternity before this strutting game cock, modern science, was hatched. If I have not given you the modus operandi or begun by the wrong end, I have at least shown you that we build our philosophy upon experiment and deduction — unless you choose to question and dispute this fact equally with all others. Learn first our laws and educate your perceptions, dear Brother. Control your involuntary powers and develop in the right direction your will and you will become a teacher instead of a learner.” (K.H. to A.O. Hume, The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, L#22, 1882)

What is more intriguing is how she critiqued science. Critiques that still apply today.

Concerning Modern Science and Philosophy

“Many a so-called man of science (…) rushes into the domains of pure metaphysics, while deriding it. (…) He attacks spiritual beliefs and religious traditions millenniums old, and denounces everything, save his own hobbies, as superstition. He suggests theories of the universe, a cosmogony developed by blind, mechanical forces of nature alone, far more miraculous and impossible than even one based upon the assumption of fiat lux out of nihil – and tries to astonish the world by such a wild theory; which, being known to emanate from a scientific brain, is taken on blind faith as very scientific and the outcome of SCIENCE.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, pg. 664)

“To reject the infallibility of a man of science is not quite the same as to repudiate his learning. A specialist is one, precisely because he has some one specialty, and is therefore less reliable in other branches of science, and even in the general appreciation of his own subject. Official school science is based upon temporary foundations, so far. It will advance upon straight lines so long only as it is not compelled to deviate from its old grooves, in consequence of fresh and unexpected discoveries in the fathomless mines of knowledge.” (Collected Writings, Vol. 13, pg. 243-5)

“A “theory” is simply a hypothesis, a speculation, and no law. To say otherwise is only one of the many liberties taken now-a-days by scientists. They enunciate an absurdity, and then hide it behind the shield of science.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, pg., 665)

“Materialistic scientists will be driven out of their position not by spiritual, theosophical, or any other physical or even mental phenomena, but simply by the enormous gaps and chasms that open daily and will still be opening before them, as one discovery follows the other, until they are finally knocked off their feet by the ninth wave of simple common sense.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, pg. 620)

“Theosophists (…) are constantly warned by the prudent and the faint-hearted, to beware of giving offence to “authorities,” whether scientific or social. (…) It is precisely because theosophists would themselves be judged and court impartial criticism, that they begin by rendering that service to their fellow-men. Mutual criticism is a most healthy policy (…) Criticism is the sole salvation from intellectual stagnation. (…)” (Collected Writings, Vol. 13, pg. 243)

“Holding to our motto, “There is no religion higher than truth,” we refuse most decidedly to pander to physical science.” (Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. 12, pg. 351)

“Even our age of scientific enlightenment may be as grossly absurd in its materialistic negations, as the men of the middle ages were absurd and materialistic in their religious affirmations.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2. pg. 708 fn)

“According to science, we owe the universe to the holy creative Trinity, called Inert Matter, Senseless Force, and Blind Chance.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, pg. 505)

“In our days, scientists are more self-opinionated and bigoted than even the clergy. For they minister to, if they do not actually worship, “Force-Matter,” which is their Unknown God.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, pg. 509-10)

“Like the Universe itself, science is ever becoming, and can never say, “I am that I am.” On the other hand, occult science has its changeless traditions from pre-historic times. It may err in particulars; it can never become guilty of a mistake in questions of universal laws, simply because that science, justly referred to by philosophy as the “divine,” was born on higher planes, and was brought on Earth by beings who were wiser than man will be, even in the seventh race of his seventh round. (…) Therefore, although, in its knowledge of the ultimate constitution of matter (…) occult science may be less well-informed as to the behaviour of compound elements in various cases of physical correlations: still, it is immeasurably higher in its knowledge of the ultimate occult states of matter, and of the true nature of matter, than all the physicists and chemists of our modern day put together.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, pg. 516)

“Science is honeycombed with metaphysical conceptions, but the scientists will not admit the charge and fight desperately to put atomo-mechanical masks on purely incorporeal and spiritual laws in nature, on our plane – refusing to admit their substantiality even on other planes, the bare existence of which they reject a priori.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, pg. 544)

‘The whole issue of the quarrel between the profane and the esoteric sciences depends upon the belief in, and demonstration of, the existence of an astral body within the physical, the former independent of the latter.’ (The Secret Doctrine., Vol. 2, pg. 149)

“The theosophists are the first to recognize the intrinsic value of science. But when its high priests resolve consciousness into a secretion from the grey matter of the brain (…) we protest against the doctrine as being unphilosophical, self-contradictory, and simply absurd (…)” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, pg. 296)

“Materialism cannot admit the existence of anything outside matter, because with the acceptance of an imponderable Force – the source and head of all the physical forces – other intelligent forces would have to be admitted virtually, and that would lead science very far. For it would have to accept as a sequel the presence in man of a still more spiritual power – entirely independent, for once, of any kind of matter physicists know anything about. Hence, apart from a hypothetical ether of space and gross physical bodies, the whole sidereal and unseen space is, in the sight of the materialists, one boundless void in nature – blind, unintelligent, useless.’” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1. pg. 587)

“Occultists” teach belief in conscious powers and spiritual entities; in terrestrial, semi-intelligent, and highly intellectual forces on other planes; and in beings that dwell around us in spheres imperceptible, whether through telescope or microscope. (…) Such belief is now regarded as a superstition only by rank materialism, which denies Deity, spirit, soul, and admits no intelligence outside the mind of man.’”(The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, pg. 477-9)

“Science is made to deny the phenomenon of an intelligent nature and a vital force independent of form and matter, and to find it more scientific to teach the miraculous performance of “natural forces working blindly without aim or design.” If so, then we are led to think that the physico-mechanical forces of the brains of certain eminent scientists are leading them on as blindly to sacrifice logic and common sense on the altar of mutual admiration.’ (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, pg. 165 fn)

Do you think there is a Scientific Aristocracy, and Philosophy degenerated? Let me know in the comments.

Published by Dominique Johnson

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