the society, however,
saved it from the descent into politics that has overtaken the [=A]rya
Sam[=a]j and tainted it as a religious movement. Rule XVI (1884) forbids
members, as such, to interfere in politics, and declares expulsion to be
the penalty for violation of the rule.

[Sidenote: [=A]rya period of the Theosophical Society.]

Consistently enough, when the society was transplanted to India, it
entered into partnership with the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j; for two years,
indeed, Madame Blavatsky, the first leader of the Theosophists, had been
corresponding from America with the founder of the [=A]ryas. The [=A]rya
tenet of the infallibility of the original Hindu Scriptures needed no
reconciliation with the Theosophist declaration of the ancient spiritual
glories of India. But the [=A]ryas are also religious reformers, while,
as enlightened Hindus now complain, the Theosophists are more Hindu than
the Hindus. After three years, in 1881, difference arose on the question
of the personality of God. The [=A]ryas, we have seen, are monotheist;
the Theosophical Society, we shall see, is identified with brahmanical
pantheism.[58]

[Sidenote: Buddhist period of the Theosophical Society.]

[Sidenote: Pro-Hindu period of the Theosophical Society.]

The Buddhist period of the Theosophical Society, which came next, is
best known to general readers, but is only an episode in its history. In
the early "eighties," we find the society pro-Buddhist, and apparently
identifying _Buddhism_ with "the ancient glories of India, spiritual and
intellectual," that the society was professedly desirous to revive. We
associate the period with the publication of _Esoteric Buddhism_, by Mr.
A.P. Sinnett, one of the society's leaders, and with Madame Blavatsky's
claim to be in spiritual communication with Mahatmas [great spirits] in
Thibet, the Buddhist land, now robbed of its mystery by the British
expedition of 1904. Madame Blavatsky claimed to be receiving letters
carried straight from Thibet by some air-borne Ariel. The discovery in
1884 of Madame Blavatsky's trickery ended the exhibition of "psychical
powers," and also apparently the Buddhist period of the society. That
the society itself survived the exposure is proof that it had a deeper
root than any mere cult of Buddhism or Spiritualism could give. Its
appeal, as we have said, was to the new patriotic feeling in the sphere
of religion. To Madame Blavatsky succeeded Mrs. Besant as leading
spiri