Unity Among
Theosophists Is Provided By
Inner Affinity,
Not By External Organizations
William Q. Judge

The theosophical movement exists in all times and in
all nations
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A 2017 Editorial Note:
The following
article was first published in
1895. We
reproduce it from “Theosophical
Articles”,
William Q. Judge, Theosophy Company,
Los Angeles, two volumes, 1980, vol. II, pp.
124-126.
The pioneer character of its contents can be better
appreciated in the 21st century. The emergence of
a global civilization and the widespread use of the
Internet show that top-down “spiritual bureaucracies”
are relics from an inglorious aspect of the past. The
new circumstances pave the way for a deeper and
wider conception of theosophical movement, to which
the Independent Lodge of Theosophists is committed.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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“One can therefore see that to worship an
organization, even though it be the beloved
theosophical one, is to fall down before Form,
and to become the slave once more of that
dogmatism which our portion of the Theosophical
Movement, the T.S., was meant to overthrow.”
(W. Q. J.)
There is a very
great difference between the Theosophical Movement and any Theosophical
Society.
The Movement is moral, ethical, spiritual, universal,
invisible save in effect, and continuous. A Society formed for theosophical
work is a visible organization, an effect, a machine for conserving energy and
putting it to use; it is not nor can it be universal, nor is it continuous.
Organized Theosophical bodies are made by men for their better cooperation,
but, being mere outer shells, they must change from time to time as human defects
come out, as the times change, and as the great underlying spiritual movement
compels such alterations.
The Theosophical Movement being continuous, it is to
be found in all times and in all nations. Wherever thought has struggled to be
free, wherever spiritual ideas, as opposed to forms and dogmatism, have been
promulgated, there the great movement is to be discerned. Jacob Boehme’s work
was a part of it, and so also was the Theosophical Society of over one hundred
years ago [1]; Luther’s reformation
must be reckoned as a portion of it; and the great struggle between Science and
Religion, clearly portrayed by Draper, was every bit as much a motion of the
Theosophical Movement as is the present Society of that name - indeed that
struggle, and the freedom thereby gained for science, were really as important
in the advance of the world, as are our different organizations. And among
political examples of the movement is to be counted the Independence of the
American colonies, ending in the formation of a great nation, theoretically
based on Brotherhood. One can therefore see that to worship an organization,
even though it be the beloved theosophical one, is to fall down before Form,
and to become the slave once more of that dogmatism which our portion of the Theosophical
Movement, the T.S., was meant to overthrow.
Some members have worshipped the so-called “Theosophical
Society”, thinking it to be all in all, and not properly perceiving its de facto and piecemeal character as an
organization nor that it was likely that this devotion to mere form would lead
to a nullification of Brotherhood at the first strain. And this latter, indeed,
did occur with several members. They even forgot, and still forget, that H. P.
Blavatsky herself declared that it were better to do away with the Society
rather than to destroy Brotherhood, and that she herself declared the European
part of it free and independent. These worshippers think that there must be a
continuance of the old form in order for the Society to have an international
character.
But the real unity and prevalence, and the real
internationalism, do not consist in having a single organization. They are
found in the similarity of aim, of aspiration, of purpose, of teaching, of
ethics. Freemasonry - a great and important part of the true Theosophical
Movement - is universally international; and yet its organizations are
numerous, autonomous, sovereign, independent. The Grand Lodge of the state of
New York, including its different Lodges, is independent of all others in any
state, yet every member is a Mason and all are working on a single plan.
Freemasons over all the world belong to the great International Masonic Body,
yet they have everywhere their free and independent government.
When the Theosophical Society was young and small, it
was necessary that it should have but one government for the whole of it. But
now that it has grown wide and strong, having spread among nations so different
from each other as the American, the English, the Spanish, the Swedish and others
in Europe, and the Hindu, it is essential that a change in the outward form be
made. This is that it becomes like the Freemasons - independent in government
wherever the geographical or national conditions indicate that necessity. And
that this will be done in time, no matter what certain persons may say to the
contrary, there is not the slightest doubt.
The American Group, being by geographical and other
conditions outwardly separate, began the change so as to be in government free
and independent, but in basis, aspiration, aim and work united with all true
Theosophists.
We have not changed the work of H.P.B.; we have
enlarged it. We assert that any person who has been admitted to any
Theosophical Society should be received everywhere among Theosophists, just as
Masons are received among Masons. It is untheosophical to denounce the change
made by the American Group; it is not Theosophy nor conducive to its spread to
make legal claims to theosophical names, symbols and seals so as to prevent if
possible others from using them. Everyone should be invited to use our
theosophical property as freely as he wishes. Those who desire to keep up
H.P.B.’s war against dogmatism will applaud and encourage the American movement
because their liberated minds permit; but those who do not know true Theosophy,
nor see the difference between forms and the soul of things, will continue to
worship Form and to sacrifice Brotherhood to a shell.
NOTE:
[1] “The Theosophical Society of
over one hundred years ago”. This is a reference to the theosophical movement
of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, since the present article was written
in 1895. (CCA)
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
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