“The view a genuine, impartial Occultist would take…”

DAILY THEOSOPHY QUOTES

Wednesday 26th June 2013

“The student of Occultism must belong to no special creed or sect, yet he is bound to show outward respect to every creed and faith, if he would become an Adept of the Good Law. He must not be bound by the pre-judged and sectarian opinions of anyone, and he has to form his own opinions and to come to his own conclusions in accordance with the rules of evidence furnished to him by the Science to which he is devoted. Thus, if the Occultist is, by way of illustration, a Buddhist, then, while regarding Gautama Buddha as the grandest of all the Adepts that lived, and the incarnation of unselfish love, boundless charity, and moral goodness, he will regard in the same light Jesus – proclaiming Him another such incarnation of every divine virtue. He will reverence the memory of the great Martyr, even while refusing to recognise in Him the incarnation on earth of the One Supreme Deity, and the “Very God of Gods” in Heaven. He will cherish the ideal man for his personal virtues, not for the claims made on his behalf by fanatical dreamers of the early ages, or by a shrewd calculating Church and Theology. He will even believe in most of the “asserted miracles,” only explaining them in accordance with the rules of his own Science and by his psychic discernment. Refusing them the term “miracle” – in the theological sense of an event “contrary to the established laws of nature” – he will nevertheless view them as a deviation from the laws known (so far) to Science, quite another thing. Moreover the Occultist will, on the prima facie evidence of the Gospels – whether proven or not – class most of such works as beneficent, divine Magic, though he will be justified in regarding such events as casting out devils into a herd of swine as allegorical, and as pernicious to true faith in their dead-letter sense. This is the view a genuine, impartial Occultist would take. And in this respect even the fanatical Mussulmans [i.e. Muslims] who regard Jesus of Nazareth as a great Prophet, and show respect to Him, are giving a wholesome lesson in charity to Christians, who teach and accept that “religious tolerance is impious and absurd,” and who will never refer to the prophet of Islam by any other term but that of a “false prophet”.”