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Theosophy, Religion and Occult Science [lectures].
Theosophy Religion and Occult Science - lectures Author:Henry Steel Olcott General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1885 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND ITS AIMS. When a new Society asks a hearing of the world it is sure to be challenged. The public has that vested right, and none but fools will object to its exercise. Infallibility is out of fashion, notwithstanding the Roman conclave of July ijth, 1870, where, as the Syllabus of the Vatican Council tells us, the Holy Ghost sat with the Bishops and judged with them. Men now-a-days take nothing on faith ; the era of inquiry and proof has come. The Theosophical Society expects no exemption from the rule ; has asked none ; and my presence before this great audience, so soon after the arrival in India of our Committee, shows our readiness to give a reason for its existence. We believe it was a necessary outgrowth of the century. I hope to show you that the hour demanded its coming, and that it was not born before its appointed time. Our society points to four years of activity as one proof that there was room for it in the world. And this activity, please observe, was not in themidst of friendly environments, with no one to question or oppose, but in the enemy's country, with foes all about, public sentiment hostile, the press scornful and relentless, traitors working with honest opponents to break up our organization and neutralize our labours. Occupying, as most of us did, positions of some influence, we have had to suffer, in ways that will suggest themselves to each of you, for the privilege of free speech. While the press has lampooned us, in writing and pictorial caricatures, by the clergy we have been denounced as the children of Satan, doomed to eternal damnation al...« less