In my former paper I merely hinted at the two principal doctrines promulgated by the Theosophical Society; it is well now to notice the fact that the Society itself was organized amid a shout of laughter, which at intervals ever since has been repeated. Very soon after it launched forth it found a new member in a Bavarian gentleman, Baron Henry Louis de Palm, who not long thereafter died and obligingly left his body to be cremated. The funeral was held at Masonic Hall, New York city, and attracted widespread attention from both press and public. It was Theosophical in its character, and while conducted with befitting dignity in view of the solemnity of the occasion, was along distinctly original lines. All this of course, drew forth satire from the press, but served the purpose of gaining some attention for the young Society. Its history since then has been remarkable, and it is safe to say that no other similar body in this century has drawn to itself so much consideration, stirred up such a thinking among people on mystical subjects, and grown so rapidly amid the loudest derision and against the fiercest opposition, within the short space of fifteen years. While the press has been sneering and enemies have been plotting, the workers in the Society have established centers all over the world, and are to-day engaged persistently in sending out Theosophical literature into every nook and corner of the United The Theosophical map of which I have spoken is a curiosity, an anomaly in the nineteenth century. Few of the members are allowed to see it; but those who are say that it is a register of the actual state, day by day, of the whole United States Section—a sort of weather map, with areas of pressure and Theosophical humidity in all directions. Where a Branch is well founded and in good condition, the spot or sensitive surface shows clearness and fixity. In certain places which are in a formative condition there is another appearance symptomatic of a vortex that The grand theories of the Theosophists regarding evolution, human races, religions and general civilization, as well as the future state of man and the various planets he inhabits, should engage our more serious attention; and of these I propose to speak at another time. |