No Religion Higher than Truth

“Ernest Hargrove told reporters that the site would become a school “for the revival of the lost mysteries of antiquity.” Six feet tall and a “splendid looking young Englishman”, Hargrove was president of the International Theosophical Society, founded by Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, the famous Russian occultist.Hargrove told reporters that Blavatsky (1831–1891) believed “there is no religion higher than truth.”

She claimed that, in deep antiquity, truth thrived everywhere. Then came “centuries of darkness, ignorance, and bigotry.” Since the “pursuit of knowledge meant persecution and death,” science and philosophy “went into hiding.” The great mysteries, if known at all, were kept secret. Theosophy is not a religion, Hargrove said. Theosophists believed that all religions held basic truths in common. The name combined the Greek words theos (god) and sophia (wisdom). The new school would study “divine wisdom” and be open to all. “Never before in the history of the world was such a school instituted!” Hargrove concluded the interview with an announcement: he was only the president of the society. The real leader, the “Outer Head,” was Madame Katherine Tingley. She and several other Theosophists were on an around-the-world crusade. They would make a stop in San Diego. On February 23, she would lay the cornerstone “for the greatest temple of learning in modern times…”

Years later, Madame Tingley offered an explanation. She had a childhood dream of building a “White City in a golden land by the sundown sea.” She had never been to California. When she was 26, at the second inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant she met Major General John C. Fremont. She told him her dream. “I know that place,” he replied. “I’ve been there! It is Point Loma. It forms the western shore of San Diego Bay.”  when the crusaders were touring Ireland, Madame Tingley cabled E. August Neresheimer, a New York diamond broker and one of her largest donors. She ordered him to raise the money and buy property, sight unseen, on Point Loma. She gave him a general location — “the outer arm of land enclosing San Diego Bay” — and said she wanted the deal transacted by the time the Crusaders reached California. Neresheimer studied the real estate holdings and discovered to his surprise that Madame Tingley — how to put it tactfully? — was in error. The government owned the property. When he cabled her back, he feared the news would tarnish her reputation as a visionary, and the power, “the occult credibility,” it gave her.  When Madame Tingley read the cable in Austria, traveling companions said she was “thunderstruck.”

One of the Crusaders was Gottfried de Purucker. Raised to become a minister by his Anglican father, de Purucker translated the entire New Testament from Greek at age 14, and the Old Testament by 17. In 1893, he renounced Christianity and became a Theosophist. One of Madame Tingley’s most loyal followers — and the only one who had actually been to San Diego — de Purucker became leader of the colony after her death in 1929. Told his leader’s vision was wrong, Purucker took out paper and pencil and sketched Point Loma. The only government land, he said, was for the lighthouse at the southern tip. Her dream was accurate.

Madame Tingley cabled Rambo and Griscom: “The site of the school is exactly where I said. U.S. govt. land south of it. Make inquiries and buy quickly!” The men caught the next train to the West Coast. On February 22, 1897, the night before the cornerstone ceremony, the Crusaders held an open, two-hour meeting at the brand new Unity Hall, on Sixth between C and D [now Broadway]. Eight hundred curious San Diegans “packed the place to the doors” (Union). An estimated 200 others had to be turned away. Several distinguished gentlemen, dressed in suits and vests, their faces covered by well-trimmed whiskers and mutton-chops, sat in a row across the stage. In the center, the American flag draped from the pulpit. In the rear, a large purple banner proclaimed, in gold letters: “Truth, Light, & Liberation for Discouraged Humanity.”

Colonel E.T. Blackmer, president of the local branch, introduced the panel of “high Theosophists”: H.T. Patterson, chairman of the crusade party and prosperous hardware merchant from New York; Claude Falls Wright, one of the best known civil engineers on the East Coast; Reverend Walter Williams, of London; and E.T. Hargrove. Wright spoke about the society’s motto: “There is no higher religion than truth.” Point Loma would become the “world center of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, which has as its supreme object the elevation of the race. “The religions of the day are warring and antagonistic,” said Wright. They are no longer “a beacon light to guide children to the Path.” They offer just enough glitter to “seduce the intelligence and blind the eyes” to the truth.

“Wright is an entertaining speaker and was listened to with the closest attention,” wrote the Union, though he raised eyebrows when he distinguished between “Christianity and churchianity” — the latter sounding like a cult — and when he suggested that, to attain true brotherhood, infants must be separated from their parents and their “selfishness” at birth. “The world has not yet realized how much of truth children already know,” Wright quoted Madame Tingley, “and how much of that truth we destroy by our mistakes.” Hargrove spoke of the basic truths behind all religions. One was reincarnation. “All souls are on a journey to unite with the Over Soul. Madame Blavatsky taught that most human beings require a succession of re-births” before the soul can escape from the “Wheel of Life” and merge with “the One - the Divine Essence.”

Journeying souls, said Hargrove, are drawn to growth. Since America was still a young country, “in the rapidly increasing light of liberal thought and freedom,” the souls of great leaders would surely be reincarnating here. They always go “where the force is a rising force” and “the people are ready to listen. “Who knows the stored up and mysterious power that may exist in another?” Reverend Williams spoke about brotherly love, “the chief aim of the society.” Point Loma would become the “Athens of the West” and create “the hope for a better life through exemplary living, and a search for the great truth from past ages.”

Reminding everyone that the turn of the century was just three years away, and that a “New Cycle” would begin at that time, Williams announced that “the key note of the coming ages is being sounded at Point Loma!” The meeting ended. Madame Tingley had not spoken. She may have been in the room, but she was not on the stage. She would make her inaugural appearance the following afternoon.” ~ Jeff Smith, April 2, 2014, San Diego Reader

~ Theosophy is a synthesis of science, philosophy and religion, the three different ways to investigate and explain life. The name Theosophy stems from the Greek 'Theos' and 'Sophia' meaning Wisdom of the Gods. However, Theosophy is not a religion, it is a Philosophy of Life, which offers the possibility to find a solutions to the many problems of life. Theosophy has been called Wisdom of the Gods because among other things one may find explanations for the motivations of the human soul, its origin, destination, and relation with the cosmos…”

~ The Theosophical Society Point Loma was based at the Theosophical community of Lomaland in the Point Loma district of San Diego, California from 1900 to 1942, and the international headquarters of a branch of the Theosophical Society from 1900 to 1942. When the James A. Long was elected president of the Theosophical Society Pasadena, some Theosophical Societies left it to form the Theosophical Society Point Loma-Covina, the present day Theosophical Society Point Loma − Blavatskyhouse The Hague. The Theosophical Society is part of a universal, ethical and intellectual Movement, which has been active throughout the ages. This Movement brought forth, in accordance with the cyclic laws of Nature, spiritual impulses, which gave the initial impetus to the great religious and philosophical systems, ever produced by humanity. It were Sages such like Lao Tze, Krishna, Gautama the Buddha, Jesus the Nazarene, Plato and many others who brought forth these impulses. They tried to divulge, time and again, the age-old Theosophy among the people and did this always in a form most suitable for that time and opportunity.

~ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky founded in 1875 the Theosophical Society in New York. She acted on assignment of her Teachers, indicated by the name of 'Masters of Wisdom and Compassion'. With the knowledge they supplied, a foundation was laid for the Twentieth Century thinking. H.P. Blavatsky died in 1891 after many years of self-abnegation, disappointment, revilement and physical suffering. She left humanity a voluminous number of writings, of which the theosophical standard work The Secret Doctrine is the most well known. "
~ Wikipedia