Vol 4 Page 492

FOOTNOTES TO “ESOTERIC SPIRITUALISM, THE LAW OF ‘INFLUX’ AND ‘EFFLUX”’

[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 9, June, 1883, pp. 210-11]

[William Yeates, the writer of the article, considers T. Subba Row to be “a defender of the true faith in Orthodox Brahminism.” On this H. P. B. remarks:]

Our esteemed correspondent and brother is wrong here. We say again—Mr. T. Subba Row is no “defender of the true faith in orthodox Brahminism,” for the present “Orthodox Brahminism” is rather heterodox than orthodox. Our brother, Mr. T. Subba Row, is a true Vedantic Advaitee of the esoteric, hence genuine, Brahman faith and—an occultist.

Page 493

[The writer further on claims that The Theosophist “admits that . . . the Oriental system has, from time to time, declined: and in spite of repeated revivals at different epochs, every effort to restore it to the traditional pristine glory of the Golden Age has failed.” H. P. B. writes:]

We beg to be permitted to emphatically deny the statement Neither The Theosophist—i.e., its Editor nor any one of the Founders, has ever admitted anything of the sort about the “Oriental System” whatever some of its contributors may have remarked upon the subject. If it has degenerated among its votaries in India (a fact due entirely to the cunning of its dead-letter interpretation by the modern orthodox Brahmin who has lost the key to it) it flourishes as high as ever in the Himalayan retreats, in the ashrum of the initiated Brahmin, and in all the “pristine glory of the Golden Age.”

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