Q. If Theosophy is even half of what you say, why should there exist such a terrible ill-feeling against it? This is even more of a problem than anything else.

A. It is; but you must bear in mind how many powerful adversaries we have aroused ever since the formation of our Society. As I just said, if the Theosophical Movement were one of those numerous modern crazes, as harmless at the end as they are evanescent, it would be simply laughed at-as it is now by those who still do not understand its real purport-and left severely alone. But it is nothing of the kind. Intrinsically, Theosophy is the most serious Movement of this age; and one, moreover, which threatens the very life of most of the time-honored humbugs, prejudices, and social evils of the day-those evils which fatten and make happy the upper ten and their imitators and sycophants, the wealthy dozens of the middle classes, while they positively crush and starve out of existence the millions of the poor. Think of this, and you will easily understand the reason of such a relentless persecution by those others who, more observant and clear-sighted, do see the true nature of Theosophy, and therefore dread it.

Q. Do you mean to tell me that it is because a few have understood what Theosophy leads to, that they try to crush the Movement? But if Theosophy leads only to good, surely you cannot be prepared to utter such a terrible accusation of faithlessness, heartlessness, and treachery even against those few?

A. I am so prepared, on the contrary. I do not call the enemies we have had to battle with during the first nine or ten years of the Society's existence either powerful or "dangerous"; but only those who have arisen against us in the last three or four years. And these neither speak, write, nor preach against Theosophy, but work in silence and behind the backs of the foolish puppets who act as their visible marionettes. Yet, if invisible to most of the members of our Society, they are well known to the true "Founders" and the protectors of our Society. But they must remain for certain reasons unnamed at present.

Q. And are they known to many of you, or to yourself alone?

A. I never said I knew them. I may or may not know them-but I know of them, and this is sufficient; and I defy them to do their worst. They may achieve great mischief and throw confusion into our ranks, especially among the faint-hearted, and those who can judge only by appearances. They will not crush the Society, do what they may. Apart from these truly dangerous enemies-"dangerous," however, only to those Theosophists who are unworthy of the name, and whose place is rather outside than within the T.S.-the number of our opponents is more than considerable.

Q. Can you name these, at least, if you will not speak of the others?

A. Of course I can. We have to contend against:-

1. The hatred of the Spiritualists, American, English, and French;

2. The constant opposition of the clergy of all denominations;

3. Especially the relentless hatred and persecution of the missionaries in India;

4. This led to the famous and infamous attack on our Theosophical Society by the Society for Psychical Research, an attack which was stirred up by a regular conspiracy organized by the missionaries in India.

5. We must count the defection of various prominent (?) members, for reasons I have already explained, all of whom have contributed their utmost to increase the prejudice against us.

Q. Cannot you give me more details about these, so that I may know what to answer when asked-a brief history of the Society, in short; and why the world believes all this?

A. The reason is simple. Most outsiders knew absolutely nothing of the Society itself, its motives, objects, or beliefs. From its very beginning the world has seen in Theosophy nothing but certain marvelous phenomena, in which two-thirds of the non-Spiritualists do not believe. Very soon the Society came to be regarded as a body pretending to the possession of "miraculous" powers. The world never realized that the Society taught absolute disbelief in miracle or even the possibility of such; that in the Society there were only a few people who possessed such psychic powers and but few who cared for them. Nor did it understand that the phenomena were never produced publicly, but only privately for friends, and merely given as an accessory, to prove by direct demonstration that such things could be produced without dark rooms, spirits, mediums, or any of the usual paraphernalia. Unfortunately, this misconception was greatly strengthened and exaggerated by the first book on the subject which excited much attention in Europe-Mr. Sinnett's The Occult World. If this work did much to bring the Society into prominence, it attracted still more obloquy, derision, and misrepresentation upon the hapless heroes and heroine thereof. Of this the author was more than warned in The Occult World, but did not pay attention to the prophecy-for such it was, though half-veiled.

Q. For what, and since when, do the Spiritualists hate you?

A. From the first day of the Society's existence. No sooner the fact became known that, as a body, the T.S. did not believe in communications with the spirits of the dead, but regarded the so-called "spirits" as, for the most part, astral reflections of disembodied personalities, shells, etc., than the Spiritualists conceived a violent hatred to us and especially to the Founders. This hatred found expression in every kind of slander, uncharitable personal remarks, and absurd misrepresentations of the Theosophical teachings in all the American Spiritualistic organs. For years we were persecuted, denounced, and abused. This began in 1875 and continues to the present day. In 1819, the headquarters of the T.S. were transferred from New York to Bombay, India, and then permanently to Madras. When the first branch of our Society, the British T.S., was founded in London, the English Spiritualists came out in arms against us, as the Americans had done; and the French Spiritists followed suit.

Q. But why should the clergy be hostile to you, when, after all, the main tendency of the Theosophical doctrines is opposed to Materialism, the great enemy of all forms of religion in our day?

A. The Clergy opposed us on the general principle that "He who is not with me is against me." Since Theosophy does not agree with any one Sect or Creed, it is considered the enemy of all alike, because it teaches that they are all, more or less, mistaken. The missionaries in India hated and tried to crush us because they saw the flower of the educated Indian youth and the Brahmins, who are almost inaccessible to them, joining the Society in large numbers. And yet, apart from this general class hatred, the T.S. counts in its ranks' many clergymen, and even one or two bishops.

Q. And what led the S.P.R. to take the field against you? You were both pursuing the same line of study, in some respects, and several of the psychic researchers belonged to your society.

A. First of all we were very good friends with the leaders of the S.P.R.; but when the attack on the phenomena appeared in the Christian College Magazine, supported by the pretended revelations of a menial, the S.P.R. found that they had compromised themselves by publishing in their "Proceedings" too many of the phenomena which had occurred in connection with the T.S. Their ambition is to pose as an authoritative and strictly scientific body; so that they had to choose between retaining that position by throwing overboard the T.S. and even trying to destroy it, and seeing themselves merged, in the opinion of the Sadducees of the grand monde, with the "credulous" Theosophists and Spiritualists. There was no way for them out of it, no two choices, and they chose to throw us overboard. It was a matter of dire necessity for them. But so hard pressed were they to find any apparently reasonable motive for the life of devotion and ceaseless labor led by the two Founders, and for the complete absence of any pecuniary profit or other advantage to them, that our enemies were obliged to resort to the thrice-absurd, eminently ridiculous, and now famous "Russian spy theory," to explain this devotion. But the old saying, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," proved once more correct. After the first shock of this attack, the T.S. doubled and tripled its numbers, but the bad impression produced still remains. A French author was right in saying, "Calomniez, calomniez toujours et encore, il en restera toujours quelque chose." Therefore it is, that unjust prejudices are current, and that everything connected with the T.S., and especially with its Founders, is so falsely distorted, because based on malicious hearsay alone.

A, Yet in the 14 years during which the Society has existed, you must have had ample time and opportunity to show yourselves and your work in their true light?

A. How, or when, have we been given such an opportunity? Our most prominent members had an aversion to anything that looked like publicly justifying themselves. Their policy has ever been: "We must live it down;" and "What does it matter what the newspapers say, or people think?" The Society was too poor to send out public lecturers, and therefore the expositions of our views and doctrines were confined to a few Theosophical works that met with success, but which people often misunderstood, or only knew of through hearsay. Our journals were, and still are, boycotted; our literary works ignored; and to this day no one seems even to feel quite certain whether the Theosophists are a kind of Serpent-and-Devil worshipers, or simply "Esoteric Buddhists"-whatever that may mean. It was useless for us to go on denying, day after day and year after year, every kind of inconceivable cock-and-bull stories about us; for, no sooner was one disposed of, than another, a still more absurd and malicious one, was born out of the ashes of the first. Unfortunately, human nature is so constituted that any good said of a person is immediately forgotten and never repeated. But one has only to utter a slander, or to start a story-no matter how absurd, false, or incredible it may be, if only it is connected with some unpopular character-for it to be successful and forthwith accepted as a historical fact. Like Don Basilio's Calumnia, the rumor springs up, at first, as a soft gentle breeze hardly stirring the grass under your feet, and arising no one knows whence; then, in the shortest space of time, it is transformed into a strong wind, begins to blow a gale, and forthwith becomes a roaring storm! A slander among news, is what an octopus is among fishes; it sucks into one's mind, fastens upon our memory, which feeds upon it, leaving indelible marks even after the slander has been bodily destroyed. A slanderous lie is the only master-key that will open any and every brain. It is sure to receive welcome and hospitality in every human mind, the highest as the lowest, if only a little prejudiced, and no matter from however base a quarter and motive it has started.

Q. Don't you think your assertion altogether too sweeping? The Englishman has never been over-ready to believe in anything said, and our nation is proverbially known for its love of fair play. A lie has no legs to stand upon for long, and-

A. The Englishman is as ready to believe evil as a man of any other nation; for it is human nature, and not a national feature. As to lies, if they have no legs to stand upon, according to the proverb, they have exceedingly rapid wings; and they can and do fly farther and wider than any other kind of news, in England as elsewhere. Remember lies and slander are the only kind of literature we can always get gratis, and without paying any subscription. We can make the experiment if you like. Will you, who are so interested in Theosophical matters, and have heard so much about us, will you put me questions on as many of these rumors and "hearses" as you can think of? I will answer you the truth, and nothing but the truth, subject to the strictest verification.

Q. Before we change the subject, let us have the whole truth on this one. Now, some writers have called your teachings "immoral and pernicious." Others, on the ground that many so-called "authorities" and Orientalists find in the Indian religions nothing but sex-worship in its many forms, accuse you of teaching nothing better than Phallic worship. They say that since modern Theosophy is so closely allied with Eastern, and particularly Indian, thought, it cannot be free from this taint. Occasionally, even, they go so far as to accuse European Theosophists of reviving the practices connected with this cult. How about this?

A. I have heard and read about this before; and I answer that no more utterly baseless and lying slander has ever been invented and circulated. "Silly people can see but silly dreams," says a Russian proverb. It makes one's blood boil to hear such vile accusations made without the slightest foundation, and on the strength of mere inferences. Ask the hundreds of honorable English men and women who have been members of the Theosophical Society for years whether an immoral precept or a pernicious doctrine was ever taught to them. Open The Secret Doctrine, and you will find page after page denouncing the Jews and other nations precisely on account of this devotion to Phallic rites, due to the dead letter interpretation of nature symbolism, and the grossly materialistic conceptions of her dualism in all the exoteric creeds. Such ceaseless and malicious misrepresentation of our teachings and beliefs is really disgraceful.

Q. But you cannot deny that the Phallic element does exist in the religions of the East?

A. Nor do I deny it; only I maintain that this proves no more than does its presence in Christianity, the religion of the West. Read Hargrave Jenning's Rosicrucians, if you would assure yourself of it. In the East, the Phallic symbolism is, perhaps, more crude, because more true to nature, or, I would rather say, more naive and sincere than in the West. But it is not more licentious, nor does it suggest to the Oriental mind the same gross and coarse ideas as to the Western, with, perhaps, one or two exceptions, such as the shameful sect known as the "Maharaja," or Vallabhacharya sect.

Q. A writer in the Agnostic journal-one of your accusers-has just hinted that the followers of this disgraceful sect are Theosophists, and "claim true Theosophic insight."

A. He wrote a falsehood, and that's all. There never was, nor is there at present, one single Vallabhacharya in our Society. As to their having, or claiming Theosophic insight, that is another fib, based on crass ignorance about the Indian Sects. Their "Maharaja" only claims a right to the money, wives, and daughters of his foolish followers and no more. This sect is despised by all the other Hindus.

But you will find the whole subject dealt with at length in The Secret Doctrine, to which I must again refer you for detailed explanations. To conclude, the very soul of Theosophy is dead against Phallic worship; and its occult or esoteric section more so even than the exoteric teachings. There never was a more lying statement made than the above. And now ask me some other questions.