Key of contradictions

"The Key to Theosophy" is Madame Blavatsky's attempt to explain her spiritual teachings in a way relatively accessible to the layman. I'm not entirely sure if she succeeds. I've read the work in an abridged Swedish edition, and found it somewhat hard to understand. Too much stuff about the seven-fold constitution of man, and so on...

The best short introduction to Theosophy seems to be C. W. Leadbeater's "A textbook of Theosophy", which I review elsewhere.

Otherwise, it's interesting to compare my reactions to Blavatsky when I read her the first time (as a sceptic and materialist) and when I leafed through her book recently (as a non-materialist). Interestingly, I reacted against pretty much the same things both times. First, the author's bleak and pessimistic outlook on life: the world is an illusion, the law of karma is absolute, "God" is an impersonal force, no forgiveness or redemption is possible, the joys of afterlife (Devachan) are really a kind of hallucination... In fact, Blavatsky's heaven reminds me of The Nexus in "Star Trek Generations", if you pardon the pop culture reference!

I also reacted to the obvious contradiction between this pessimism and Blavatsky's calls to change society (and/or individuals) for the better - what's the point, really, if everything is suffering or in perfect karmic balance anyway? Blavatsky's calls for absolute self-abnegation and perfect altruism are logical enough for a pantheist, but she then backtracks and allows that *complete* self-sacrifice is perhaps impractical or wrong. But why? According to a Buddhist legend, the Buddha in a previous life as a rabbit sacrificed himself to feed a hungry tiger! There is also a contradiction between the Buddhistic pessimism and Blavatsky's entanglements in politics, including contacts with Indian independence fighters against the British Raj.

After Blavatsky's death, her successors Besant and Leadbeater at Adyar in India took Theosophy in a somewhat different direction, with even more political activism of a broadly "progressive" kind, thereby emphasizing the evolutionary aspects of Theosophy over those traits which should logically lead to quietism. But that, as they say, is another story.

A third contradiction is Blavatsky's rejection of Spiritualism and its attempts to communicate with the spirits of the deceased. According to the author, the "spirits" that show themselves in séances are a kind of energized astral shells which retain memory traces of the deceased person and live a substitute life by feeding on the energies of the medium. However, they are not the actual souls of the dead. Rather, they are ghosts and can even be somewhat sinister. However, Blavatsky herself communicated with disembodied intelligences! Naturally, she claims that *they* were not "kama-loka shells" but rather "Nirmanakayas" or ascended masters. So how do we know which spirit-beings are phoneys and which are the real thing? A perennial problem!

I will give "The Key to Theosophy" three stars, but I suppose I will evolve into another direction than the next root-race...