I send you this, and you will keep it, using it later on when I give the word. It is to be headed by me later.

The Theosophical movement was begun as a work of the Brotherhood of which H. P. B. is a member, and in which the great Initiate, who was by her called Master, is one of the Chiefs.

It was started among Western people by Western people, the two chief agents being H. P. B., a Russian,20 and H. S. Olcott, an American. The place where it was started was also Western—the City of New York.

But notwithstanding that the Brotherhood thus had it begun, it must, as a Society, be kept with a free platform, while, at the same time, its members are individually free to take and hold what belief they find approved by conscience, provided that belief does not militate against Universal Brotherhood. Hence they are at perfect liberty to believe in the Lodge of that Brotherhood and in its messengers, and also to accept their doctrines as to man, his nature, powers and destiny as given out by the messengers on behalf of the Lodge.

The fact is significant that the Theosophical movement was thus, as said, begun in the Western world, in the country where the preparations for the new root race are going on, and where that new root is to appear. This was not to give precedence to any one race or country over another, or to reduce any race or country, but was and is according to the law of cycles, which is a part of evolution. In the eye of that great Law no country is first or last, new or old, high or low, but each at the right time is appropriate for whatever the work is that must be performed. Each country is bound up with all the others and must assist them.

This movement has, among others, an object which should be borne in mind. It is the union of the West with the East, the revival in the East of those greatnesses which once were hers, the development in the West of that Occultism which is appropriate for it, so that it may, in its turn, hold out a helping hand to those of older blood who may have become fixed in one idea, or degraded in spirituality.

For many centuries this union has been worked towards and workers have been sent out through the West to lay the foundations. But not until 1875 could21 a wide public effort be made, and then the Theosophical Society came into existence because the times were ripe and the workers ready.

Organisations, like men, may fall into ruts or grooves of mental and psychic action, which, once established, are difficult to obliterate. To prevent those ruts or grooves in the Theosophical movement, its guardians provided that necessary shocks should now and then interpose so as to conduce to solidarity, to give strength such as the oak obtains from buffetting the storm, and in order that all grooves of mind, act, or thought, might be filled up.

It is not the desire of the Brotherhood that those members of the Theosophical movement who have, under their rights, taken up a belief in the messengers and the message should become pilgrims to India. To arouse that thought was not the work nor the wish of H. P. B. Nor is it the desire of the Lodge to have members think that Eastern methods are to be followed, Eastern habits adopted, or the present East made the model or the goal. The West has its own work and its duty, its own life and development. Those it should perform, aspire to and follow, and not try to run to other fields where the duties of other men are to be performed. If the task of raising the spirituality of India, now degraded and almost suffoca............