The herald., 1893-02-19
WHY SHE IS A THEOSOPH|ST.
A Personal Statement by Mrs.
Annie Besant.
She Outlines the Manner of Her Ac-
ceptance of That Doctrine.
She Claims That the Belief Lifts Hope
Iessness from Social Conditions.
Opens New Realms of Science
and Teaches Brotherhood.

The question so often asked, "Why are
you Theosophist is one which can
not be answered fully in brief essay,
but some attempt, :however inadequate,
may be made to trace the lines of
thought along which student may
travel as his face turns to the Theoaophist
goal. The line which will first attract
him will be the one most allied to his
own favorite study, for theosophy en-
braces all subjects of human interest
and throws fresh light on each, hence it
comes to each man as he walks along
his own road i'm the world of thought
and says to him: "Come further with
me and I will give you light where now
there is darkness only" Happy he who
has ears to hear the quiet whisper that
steals through the noises of earth; who
has eyes that catch the dawning of the
future day.
In my own case, the attraction first
offered by Theosophy was the opening up
of new avenues of investigation into the
more complicated problems of life and
mind. For years 1 had been studying
these problems, and could find no satis-
factory solutions. nor even hope of solu-
tions whole groups of phenomena were
left unrelated to any sane thought or
Ineligible view of the universe; human
experiences. recurring century after CEN
tury, were flung out OF court contemptu-
olsly as mere superstition; human tes-
timony was rejected wholesale because
it did not fit into modernly-conceited
theory of the universe; and more and
ha f,x,, la t,l
question: "How can mental and moral
evolution be explained in universe of
a purely mechanical type, in which there
is nothing to serve as motive power
for the upward trend; nothing to serve
as substratum in which mental and
moral qualities can inhere; or be trans
mitted from generation to generation ?"
Now Theosophy offers an Ineligible
theory of the universe, including all
phenomena within the realm of law, ex-
planning facts instead Of rejecting them,
and relieving the mind from the neces-
sity for CHASING mankind at large as
fools or knaves, while concentrating all
the wisdom of the race in few great
minds of the nineteenth century-minds
which have no past evolution to explain
their presence, nor future evolution to
Justify their efforts to improve. This
theory regards the universe as evolving
from primary substance which is es-
| sentially life and consciousness, every
material form being hut crystalliza-
ton, so to speak, of the one eternal, all
persaaiug lie. ALI the objective uni
verse ia built up of countless, infinitesi-
NAL lives, whose syntheais is some higher
| form of living thing, and whose disin-
| tegration is its death and dissolution.
What we call the objective universe, re-
lated to US by means of our body with
its fine senses, is only one plane of the
universe in reality; and phenomena
which seem abnormal, disorderly and
unintelligible as they appear on this
plane, come from other planes of the
universe, obey their own laws, manifest
in fashion as natural and sequential as
any phenomena familiar to us on the
physical plane. Thus the phenomena
of seeing and hearing at distance, or
through opaque matter, called clairvoy-
ance or clairaudience, are not disorderly,
unrelated fancies, still less frauds and
charlatanries, but are the normal exer-
else OF certain senses innate in all persons,
though latent in most, on what is called
by Theosophists the 'astral plane"
To this plane belong senses which are
related in kind to our physical senses,
though differing from them in degres !;
they are developed in 'sensitives,"
mediums" in persona thrown into the
mesmeric or hypnotic trance, or suffer
ing from some form of nervous disease,
and also in healthy, strong, we'll bal
anced persons who have deliberately
developed them aud exercise them nor
mally, without losing hold of their con-
sciousness on the physical plane. All
the phenomena OF clairvoyance, clair
audience, second sight, visions of
"ghosts," etc., reading past events in q
PERSONS life, rational dreams, trance,
many of those termed ''spiritualistic,"
belong to this astral plane, and are or
derly manifestations of the universal
life acting under the conditions which
characterize this plane of existence.
They can be observed, studied, expert
mented on, and the reports of sane per-
sons who have developed and who ex-
ercise faculties belonging to this plane,
not yet generally developed, are as
worthy of examination and as valid as
evidence as the reports of investigators
OF the physical plane.
Theosophy leads US to the recognition
OF five other planes in the universe, each
distinguishable in thought by its own
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. dlQ hS We SO Oh III our
study we find with delight that whole
tracts of human history that seemed
scenes from Walpurgis night of frantic
orgy become Ineligible; we regain re-
spect for our race, we begin to under
stand something of its wonderful and
complete constitution, we recognize that
the whole universe is pulsing with life,
consciousness, intelligence, in every part,
and that it is our ignorance of nature,
not natures barrennese, which has made
cur vision 80 restricted, our thought 80
broken winged. We find that man can
develop senses which enable him to in
vestigate every plane of the universe,
and go obtain about each knowledge OF
the same defniteness, of the same GER
tainty, as that which he now possesses
regarding the physical plane alone.
Thus, as touching science, theosophy
takes the student by the hand and leads
him along new avenues of thought to
new fields OF investigation; the walls
that nave blocked his path fall down
before him, and his entfanced eyes
range widely over an expanss bounded
by nothing that can be named
the unknowable, however much may
yet be unknown.
But science 10 not the be-all and end
all of human life, and if this were its
only aspect, Theosophy would not have
drawn me with the invincible attraction
that it holds for me today. Much of my
life and all OF my heart were given to
the bettering of the heavy burden on