Several months before the publication of this work, simply by glancing at a small pamphlet which gave a summary of the headings of its chapters, we had said: “This comes from the same hierarchy of unscrupulous enemies and plagiarists, of the Butler–Nemo and the ‘H. B. of L.’ clique.” When we received it for review, and had read its first pages, we felt more than ever convinced that the quill which traced the author’s introductory remarks and his reasons for its publication was drawn from the same goose as the pen of Nemo, of the Hiram Butler gang, who wrote Theosophia a few months ago.
We did not care to learn the name of its anonymous author, or authors rather; we knew them by their landmarks and literary emanations. It was sufficient for us to read sneers about “the sacerdotalism of the decaying Orient,” vituperations against Karma and Reincarnation, and the writers’ (for there are several) impudently expressed declaration that “the writer(s) only desires to impress upon the reader’s candid mind the fact that his earnest effort is to expose that particular section of Buddhistic theosophy (esoteric so called) that would fasten the cramping shackles of theological dogma upon the rising genius of the Western race,” to recognize the author rather by his donkey’s ears than by his “cloven foot.” However great the help given to that “author” by persons more intelligent than himself, his “ears” are plainly visible. We recognize them in the accusations of selfishness launched against the Eastern Masters, and the qualification of dogma given to teachings more broadly catholic and unsectarian than those of any other school the world over.
And now comes a corroboration of our idea in the shape of a complete exposure of the “author” whose wish was to expose “Buddhistic Theosophy.” We might go farther than The Path and append to the review of The Light of Egypt the “author’s” photograph. We have it from a double plate, one showing * * * before, and the other after, the unpleasant and arbitrary ceremony of being photographed gratis by those in authority. The author and “adept” of “twenty years’ occult study” is an old acquaintance, known in London and Yorkshire to many outside the large circle of his dupes and victims. But we pause to await further developments.
Meanwhile this is what The Path of New York says of this great collective “author”:
“This is a paper-covered book of 292 pages to which the author is afraid to put a name. It is not by the editor of the R. P. J., because he is known to be a ridiculer of theosophical works, and this book is a plagiarism similar to Street’s Hidden Way, only that here the author has assimilated doctrines put forth in such works as Isis Unveiled, Esoteric Buddhism, The Secret Doctrine, and The Theosophist, and then dressed them up in slightly different words. The method adopted to make it appear original is to omit citation of authorities and to denounce the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation as applicable to this earth, while admitted otherwise. A whole chapter is devoted to Karma, but we find it illogical and very muddy. The theory of life-waves along the planetary chain, first put forward in The Theosophist and modified in Esoteric Buddhism, is adopted by the author as hers, after ‘twenty years of intercourse with the Adepts of Light.’ It is strange that it was not brought forward before in the author’s other works. On page 85 we find a reproduction of what H. P. Blavatsky long ago said, ‘The fifth race is coming to a close, and already forerunners of the sixth race are among the people,’ and has repeated in her Secret Doctrine, vol. 2., p. 444. After ridiculing Karma on the ground that if the first races had no Karma there could not be the present fall, the author proceeds to answer the question, ‘What is the real cause of so much misery in the world?’ by gravely stating ‘it is the result of innumerable laws, which in their action and reaction produce discord in the scale of human development’—only another way of saying, ‘it is the result of Karma’—and then devotes a page or two to proving it is Karma by showing the gradual degradation of man through the various ages. The preface astonished us, for the book is a rehash, pretty well done, of theosophical doctrines from first to last. A great blemish is the ignorant mistake of calling Karma, Devachan, and Reincarnation ‘Buddhist doctrine,’ when mere tyros know they are Brahmanical Vedic doctrines taught to Buddhists. ‘What is new in the book is not true, and what is true is not new,’ but quite theosophical. Its numerous ex cathedra [from the chair] unsupported statements about nature are as refreshing as those in theosophical writings, lacking, however, the logical and reasonable force of the latter. The second part is devoted to astrology, and is merely another rehash of all that can be found in Lilly, Ptolemy, Sibley, and others. The book is by Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, and will no doubt be as good a business venture as her other two works.”
We hope next month to give in Lucifer a detailed examination of this pretentious volume, and to exhibit, by quotations and parallel passages, the outrageous character of its wholesale plagiarisms and the emptiness of its claims to authority.