The method by which she was elected, however, is suggestive of the
future course of the movement in India.

When nearing death, Colonel Olcott was induced by Mrs. Besant to
invoke and to consult the "Masters"--the convenient ghosts of the
dead--with a view to a choice of his successor in office. There was no
doubt about his preference for the Englishwoman. The Mahatmas wisely
agreed with the Colonel and Mrs. Besant, and a powerful fulcrum was
secured for lifting her into the presidency. And Mrs. Besant to-day
claims that it is better for her to have been chosen by the dead than
to have been elected by the living. Upon her inauguration, she
insisted upon it that all Theosophists must cling to the "Masters" and
adhere to their decisions.

If we mistake not, this marks the beginning of a new era in
Theosophy,--at least in India,--an era during which the movement will
be entirely directed and worked by those who are the authorized
mouthpieces of the glorified dead! Thus the movement is fairly
launched upon a course which will inevitably lead it to something very
much akin to a religion, with its accumulated mysteries and with a
host of propelling superstitions of its own. More than any other land,
India will lend itself admirably to the development and the
propagation of such a cult.

Theosophy is not represented by a very large number of organizations
and members. But the movement has the sympathy of many who have not
taken upon them its name; and the society, at the present time, is
certainly in favour with a large number of the educated classes.

Orthodox pandits, however, are thoroughly suspicious of the movement;
and Mrs. Besant's recent attempts to thrust upon them her own
interpretations of certain Hindu doctrines--interpretations, too,
which are foreign to their own--has led to a spirit of opposition,
where but recently appreciation and favour existed.

Theosophy, as a harmonizer of faiths, is not likely to accomplish much
that will be permanently good. Religions to-day have lost much of
their asperity one toward the other. The study of Comparative Religion
has led men everywhere to magnify the assonances, rather than the
dissonances, of the Great World Faiths. Theosophy magnifies into a
cult this function of bringing religions together. It ignores,
however, the fundamental differences which exist, brings all faiths
into the same equational value, and assumes that they are equally
effective as ways of salvat