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Adyar Pamphlets The Common Foundation of All Religions

No. 95

The Common Foundation of All Religions

by H.S. Olcott

A lecture delivered at the Pachaiyappa’s Hall, Madras, on the 26 th April, 1882

Published in 1918

Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Chennai [Madras] India

The Theosophist Office, Adyar, Madras. India

BEFORE proceeding with my discourse I must first express the profound thanks of Madame Blavatsky -

my learned colleague - and myself for the warm and distinguished welcome we have received, from your

Committee on our landing, and this immense assemblage which embraces so large a number of the

educated men of this Presidency. We have thus had one more proof of the fact that the progress of our

work in India is being watched with affectionate interest by the intelligent classes of the Indian Peninsula.

Once more, upon visiting for the first time a Presidency town, we find ourselves among friends the

sincerity of whose welcome cannot be misunderstood, and which unmistakably proves that we are not

received as strangers but as brethren are who return from a distant land to their own people. Let us hope

that the fraternal ties now created between us may never be broken, but grow stronger and stronger as

time makes us all to see the necessity for united effort on behalf of the sacred cause of Indian interests. I

trust that you will give patient attention to the thoughts that I shall now offer for your consideration.

Religion is - according to Mr Herbert Spencer -

“a great (I should say the greatest) reality and a great truth - nothing less than an essential

and indestructible element of human nature”. He holds that the religious institutions of the

world represent a genuine and universal feeling in the race just as really as any other

institution. The accessory superstitions which have overgrown and perverted the religious

sentiment must not be confounded with the religious sentiment itself. That this is done is a

mischievous mistake, alike of religionists and anti-religionists. Science in clearing away these

excrescences brings us always nearer the underlying truth, and is therefore the handmaid and

friend of true religion. The substratum of truth is the one broad plateau of rock upon which the

world’s theological superstructures are reared. It is - as the title of our lecture puts it - “the

common foundation of all religions”.

And now what is it? What is this rock? It is a conglomerate, having more than one element in its

composition. In the first place, of necessity, is the idea of a part of man’s nature which is non-physical;

next, the idea of a post-mortem continuation of this non-physical part; third, the existence of an Infinite

Principle underlying all phenomena; fourth, a certain relationship between this Infinite Principle and the

non-physical part of man.

The evolution of the grander from the lower intellectual conception in this graded sequence is now

conceded, alike by the scientist and the theologian. This evolution is accompanied by an elimination, for

in religion, as in all other departments of thought, the light cannot be seen until the clouds are cleared

away. Primitive truth is the light, theologies the clouds; and they are clouds still, though they glitter with all

the hues of the spectrum. Fetish worship, animal worship, hero worship, ancestor worship, nature

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Adyar Pamphlets The Common Foundation of All Religions

No. 95

worship, book worship; polytheism, monotheism, theism, deism, atheism, materialism (which includes

positivism), agnosticism; the blind adoration of the idol, the blind adoration of the crucible - these are the

Alpha and the Omega of human religious thought, the measure of relative spiritual blindness.

All these concepts pass through a single prism - the human mind. And that is why they are so imperfect,

so incongruous, so human. A man can never see the whole light by looking from inside his body

outwardly, any more than one can see the clear daylight through a dust-soiled window-glass, or the stars

through a smeared reflecting lens. Why? Because the physical senses are adapted only to the things of a

physical world, and religion is a transcendentalism. Religious truth is not a thing for physical observation,

but one for psychical intuition. One who has not developed this psychical power can never know religion

as a fact; he can only accept it as a creed, or paint it to himself as an emotional sentimentality. Bigotry is

the brand to put upon one; gush that for the other. Back of both, and equally threatening them, is

Scepticism.

Like man his religion has its ages; first, proclamation, propagandism, martyrdom; second conquest, faith;

third , neglect, self-criticism; fourth , decadence, tenacious formalism; fifth, hypocrisy; sixth , compromise;

seventh , decay and extinction. And, like the human race, no religion passes as a whole through these

stages seriatim. At this very day, we see the Australian sunk in the depths of animalism, the American

Red Indian just emerging from the Stone Age, the European in the full flush of high material civilization.

And so a glance at religious history shows us the cropping up of highly heretical schools and sects in

each great religion, of which each represents some special departure from primitive orthodoxy, some

separate advance along the road towards the final goal that we have sketched out. And I also note, as

the physician observes the symptoms of his patient, that history constantly shows in the bitter mutual

hatreds of these cliques and sects for each other, the clearest proofs that our postulate is correct when

we say - as just now - that Religion can never be really known by the physical brain of the physical man.

All these hatreds, bitternesses and cruel reprisals of sect for sect, and world’s faith for world’s faith, show

that men mistake the non-essentials for essentials, illusions for realities.

We can test this statement most easily. Look away from this war of theologians to the class of men who

have developed their psychical powers and what do you see? In place of strife, peace, agreement mutual

tolerance, a brotherly concord as to the fundamentals of religion. Whatever their exoteric creed they are

greater than and far above it, and their innate holiness and gentleness of nature give life and strength to

the Church they represent; they are the flowers of the human tree, the brothers of all mankind; for they

know what is the light that shines behind the clouds; under the foundations of all the Churches they see

the same rock. I ask those of you who wish to be convinced of this fact to read the Dabistan , by Mohsan

Fami, who records in it his observations of the sâdhus of twelve different religions two centuries ago.

“Granting all the premises” - the modern sceptic will say - “can you prove to me that science has not

swept away all your religious hypotheses along with the myths, legends, superstitions and other lumber?

Well, I answer, “Yes”. It is exactly on that datum line that the Theosophical Society is building itself up.

Some people think us opponents of Science, but on the contrary we are its warmest advocates - until it

begins to dogmatize from incomplete, known data upon new facts. When it reaches that point we

challenge it and fight it with all our strength, such as it may be, just as we fight the dogmatism of

theology. For to our mind, it does not matter whether you blindly worship a fetish, a man, a book, or a

crucible - it is blind idolatry all the same; and Science can be, and has been, as cruel and remorseless in

her way as the Church ever was in hers.

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Adyar Pamphlets The Common Foundation of All Religions

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The first step is to have an agreement as to what the word “Science” means. I take it to be the collection

and arrangement of observed facts about Nature. If that is correct, then I protest against half measures: I

want those observations to be complete, to cover all of Nature, not the half of it. What sort of ontology

would it be which, while pretending to investigate the laws of our being, took note only of our anatomy,

physiology and whatever relates to the physical frame of man, leaving out all that concerns his mental

function? Absurd! you would say; but I ask you whether it is any more absurd to study man in his body

without the mind, than to study him in body and mind while ignoring the trans-corporeal manifestations of

his middle nature. You want me to define what I mean by this “middle nature” and by its trans-corporeal

manifestations: I will do so, I start, then, with the proposition that there is more of a man than can be

burnt with fire, eaten by tigers, drowned by water, chopped to pieces with knives, or rotted in the ground.

The materialist will deny this, but it does not matter; the proposition can be proved as easily as that he is

a man.

They have in Europe a science which they call psychology: it is a misnomer - it is another kind of ology -

but we wont quarrel about words. Well, when you come to analyze the Western idea that underlies this

term of psychology, you will discover that it relates only to the normal and abnormal intellectual

manifestations of the brain. One class of scientists - especially among the alienists, or students of

insanity - maintain that mind is a function of the gray vesicles of the lobes of the brain; injure the brain by

any one of a dozen accidents, and sensation is cut off, thought ceases, mind is destroyed, the thinking,

hence responsible, entity is extinguished. All that is left is carrion, and out of this carrion, before the

accident, sprang by magneto-electrical energy all that distinguishes man from the lowest animal, as the

lotus springs from slimy mud.

The opposed party affirm that the brain is the organ of the mind, the machine of its manifestation, and

that the thinking something in man thinks still and still exists even though the brain be shattered, even

though the man die. The one reflects the tone of materialistic science, the other the tone of the Christian

Churches and of the two crores of so-called modern Spiritualists. The Materialists regard man as a Unity,

a thinking machine, the other regard him as a Duality, a compound of body and soul. There is no ground

for a “middle nature” in either of these schools. True, here and there, you will find some casual allusion to

a third and higher principle - the “spirit,” as, for instance, in the Christian New Testament (I

Thessaloniaus, v 23) where I Paul says: “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved

blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” - an expression which, however sound as theology,

is dreadfully loose and heterodox as science. But the whole drift of Christian teaching and of mediumistic

teaching favours the duality theory; the body dead, the second principle enters on a new career of its

own until it attains to a postulated summum bonum or summum malum state. Now experienced

observers of the mediumistic phenomena have seen many animated figures or more or less substantial

apparitions of deceased persons, and these they regard as the returning souls revisiting the land of the

living. They have no idea of this middle nature. But the Hindû philosophers make a far deeper analysis of

man. Instead of a single part, or a duality, they affirm that there are no fewer than seven distinct groups

which go to make up a human being. These are:

(1) The Material body - Stûlasarîra

(2) The Lingasarîra

(3) The Life Principle - Jîva

(4) The Kâmarûpa , resulting as Mâyâvirûpa

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(5) The Physical Intelligence (or Animal Soul) - Manas

(6) The Spiritual Intelligence - Buddhi

(7) The Âtmâ

And so minute is their analysis, that each of these groups is subdivided into seven sub-groups. Generally

speaking, the first, fourth and seventh principles mark the boundaries of the tripartite or trinitarian man.

And the fourth, which comes just midway between the gross body ( Stûlasarîra ) and the Âtmâ, or divine

and eternal principle, is this middle nature of which we have been in search. Now the next question to be

asked of us is whether this fourth principle, or Mâyâvirûpa or human “Double,” is intelligent or non-

intelligent, matter or spirit; and the next, whether its existence can be scientifically accounted for and

proved. We will take them in order.

In itself the Double is but a vapour, a mist, or a solid form according to its relative state of condensation.

Given outside the body one set of atmospheric, electric, magnetic, telluric and other conditions, this form

may be invisible yet capable of making sounds or giving other tests of its presence; given another set of

conditions, it may be visible, but as a misty vapour; given a third set, it may be condensed into perfect

visibility and even tangibility. Volumes upon volumes might be filled with bare paragraph abstracts of

recorded instances of these apparitional visits. Sometimes the form manifests intelligence, it speaks;

sometimes it can only show itself - I am now speaking of the apparitions of dead persons. I have

personally seen more than five hundred such apparitions at a place in America where hundreds more

saw them, and I put my experiences in the form of a book, which was praised by some of the eminent

scientists of Europe as a careful record of scientifically accurate observations. I only mention this to

satisfy you that here is no case of hallucination or unsupported statements. Well, then, we have here the

middle nature of man acting outside of and after the death of the physical body; though for my part -

being a believer in Asiatic Psychology - I do not believe that these post-mortem apparitions are the very

man himself - the thinking, responsible Ego. They are, I conceive, but the vapoury image of the deceased

- matter energized by a residuum of the vital force which is still entangled in the lingering molecules. But

to prove our proposition we must show that this middle principle, this Mâyâvirûpa or Double, can be

separated from the living body at will, projected to a distance, and animated by the full consciousness of

that man.

We have two means of proving this - (1) in the concurrent testimony of eye-witnesses as recorded in the

literature of different races; and (2) in the evidence of living witnesses. In the Hindû religious and

philosophical works there are many such testimonies. Not to mention others, we may cite the case of

Sankarâchârya , who entranced his body, left it in the custody of his disciples, entered the body of a

Râjah just deceased, and lived in it for a number of weeks; and that of Agastya, who appeared in the

heat of the battle between Râma and Râvana, while his body was entranced in the Nilghiris. This story is

given in the Râmâyana. In Patañjali’s Yoga Sûtras this phenomenon is affirmed to be within the power of

every Siddha who perfects himself in Yoga. As to living witnesses, I am one myself; for I have seen the

Doubles of several men acting intelligently at great distances from their bodies, and in this pamphlet that

I now show you, [ Hints on Esoteric Theosophy (Calcutta, 1882)] will be found the certificates of no less

than nine reputable persons - five Hindûs and four Europeans - that they have seen such appearances

on various occasions within the past two years. And then we have the scores of similar attestations from

credible persons living in different parts of the world which are to be read in many European books

treating upon these subjects. I do not pretend to say that a skeptical public can be expected to take this

mass of evidence, conclusive as it may be, without reserve; the alleged phenomenon so surpasses

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ordinary human experience that, to believe its reality, each one must see for himself. I however do affirm

that we have here a case of probable verity made out; for, under the strictest canons of scientific

orthodoxy, we cannot suspect a conspiracy to lie among so many individual witnesses, who never saw or

heard of each other, who, in fact, did not even live in the same generation, but yet whose testimonies

corroborate each other.

But if we have a case of probable truth, the man of science will ask us what we next demand of him. Do

we allege a natural and scientific, or a supernatural, hence unscientific, explanation for the projection of

the Double of the living, and the apparition of that of the deceased man? I answer, most assuredly, the

former. I am devoted enough to Science to deny, with all the emphasis I can give to words, the fact that a

miraculous phenomenon ever took place, in this age or any age. Whatever has ever occurred must have

done so within the operation of natural law. To suppose anything else would be equivalent to saying that

there is no permanency in the laws of the universe, but that they can be set aside and played with at the

caprice of an irresponsible and meddlesome Power. We should be in a universe going by jerks, started

and stopped like a clock that a child is playing with. This supernaturalism is the curse of all creeds, it

hangs like an incubus around the neck of the religions and hatches the satire of the sceptic; it is the dry-

rot that eats out the heart of any faith that builds upon it. This it is which, carried in the body of a church,

foredooms it to ultimate destruction as surely as the hidden cancer carried in the human system will one

day kill it. And of all epochs this nineteenth century is the worst in which to come before the public as the

champions of supernatural religions. They are going down in every land, melting before the laboratory

fires like waxen images. No, when I stand forth as the defender of Hindûism, Buddhism or

Zoroastrianism, I wish it understood that I do not claim any respect or tolerance for them outside the

limits of natural law, I believe - nay I know - that their foundation is a scientific one, and on those

conditions they must stand or fall so far as I am concerned. I do not say they are in equally close

reconciliation with science, but I do say that whatever foundation they have, whether broad or narrow,

long or short, is and must be a scientific one. And so, too, when I ask you to cease from making

yourselves ridiculous by denying the existence of this middle nature in man, it is because I am

persuaded, as the result of much reading and a good deal of personal experience, that the Double, or

Mâyâvirûpa, is a scientific fact.

Well then, to return - is it matter or something else? I say matter plus something else. And here stop a

moment to think what matter is. Loose thinkers - among whom we must class raw lads fresh from

college, though they be ever so much titled - are too apt to associate the idea of matter with the

properties of density, visibility, and tangibility. But this is very inexcusable. The air we breathe is invisible,

yet matter - its equivalents of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbonic acid are each atomic, ponderable,

demonstrable by analysis. Electricity cannot, except under prepaid conditions, be seen, yet it is matter.

The Universal Ether of science no one ever saw, yet it is matter in a state of extreme tenuity. Take the

familiar example of forms of water, and see how they rapidly run up the scale of tenuity until they elude

the clutch of science: stone-hard ice, melted ice, condensed steam, super-heated and invisible steam,

electricity, and - it is gone out of the world of effects into the world of causes!

Well then, with this warning before you, my cerebrally superheated young friend of the Madras University,

pray do not contradict me when I say that the Hindû philosophy of man fits in with the lines of modern

science much more snugly than that of either the supernaturalistic Christian or the materialistic man of

science. As we have seen the successive forms of water running up into the invisible world, so here,

Esoteric Hindû Philosophy gives us a graduated series of molecular arrangements in the human

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