FOOTNOTES TO “THE NEW DISPENSATION DISSECTED”

[The Theosophist, Vol. III, No. I, October, 1881, pp. 5-6]

[The writer, Babu T. Banerji, discusses the merits of the newly-formed religious sect known as the New Dispensation, whose leader and inspirer, Babu Keshub Chunder Sen, claims inspiration and the power of directly communing with God and the Prophets, and purposes to “purify the religions of India.” The writer finds a resemblance between the policy of the new Prophet and that of Mohammed, and says that many a time his religion has been mistaken for Christianity in disguise. Speaking of Babu Keshub C. Sen, H.P.B. says:]

We believe, that however great the moral mischief produced by Babu K. C. Sen at present, it will be limited to the small nucleus of his followers. On the other hand, the world at large may yet be benefited by the practical instance he affords the modern historian of pointing out to our immediate successors the correct picture of the conception, germination, the growth and development of all the religions founded upon avatarism. We see in it the true retrospective representation of what were the beginnings and results of Vishnu, and Christ-worship. We discern in it the possible repetition of the Mosaic Law, whose cruel dogmatism, crystalized under the influence of dry, heartless bigotry and intolerance, led finally the most civilized nations of the world to accepting, the one—Mariolatry as a faithful copy of Isis and Venus worship, the others—Bible worship with its suicidal thirty-nine articles as a result, its brain-murdering theological casuistry, landing into the worst kind of sophistry, its incomprehensible dogmas, and intellect-killing

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mysteries. We may yet see Babu K. C. Sen’s mother become a successor to Isis, Devaki and Mary. Read the New Dispensation and even the more cautious Sunday Mirror and behold there all the germs of the Inquisition, Calvinism and the Blue Laws of Massachusetts combined.
The very name of the “New Dispensation” is an old one. It was first coined by the Quakers, the followers of old mother Ann Lee, and is now universally used by the Spiritualists, American Spiritualists especially never using another term to designate their belief. See Banner of Light and other spiritualistic papers.
[Fatherhood and Motherhood of God.] This idea is again bodily taken from the Spiritualists. All the invocations to the Deity by their trance or “inspirational” mediums begin with, “O Thou Great Father and Mother God.” See the trance lectures delivered by Mrs. Cora Tappan-Richmond—the best, at least the most verbose of the American Spiritual trance-lecturers. See Banner of Light and other spiritualistic papers. Who knows but after all the Spiritualists of both hemispheres are right in maintaining that Babu Keshubis but a Medium!