A BELOVED WOMAN OF MYSTICISM
  
By THE IMPERATOR
[H. Spencer Lewis]
  
[From The Rosicrucian Digest January 1938]
  
  
THE remark is often made by students of mysticism, mystical philosophy and universal brotherhood, that it would seem that all of the great masters and great leaders in this special field of human thought and endeavor have been of the masculine sex and that for some strange reason women seem to have been disqualified or unable to attain the same great heights.
  
Such an idea is essentially wrong and is based merely upon the assumption that since famous women leaders have not allowed themselves to be publicized to the same extent that men have been, that few women indeed have attained the same great heights as their masculine companions. But there are sufficient notable examples of women among the great leaders, avatars and Messengers of the Masters to prove that from the Cosmic point of view, and in the consciousness of the Great Masters and the Great White Lodge, there is absolutely no distinction made in regard to race, sex or color.
  
Notable among the great leaders who attained magnificent and sublime heights, was Madame Blavatsky. Her achievements and attainments are as inspiring and as effectual today as they were fifty and sixty years ago. In fact, the passing of time has tended to elevate her character, her attainments, and her profound development to a higher degree, and I dare say that among the leaders of mystical philosophy representing or presenting the true spirit of universal brotherhood, Madame Blavatsky receives today, justly, more homage, more respect, more admiration, and more love than she received even at the close of her life. And this, despite the fact that the later years of her life were ones of persecution, of bitter criticism, prejudice, hatred, envy, and malicious attack upon her from every conceivable source. In fact, it was the opinion of her enemies, and perhaps the opinion of a vast portion of the public, that preceding her physical and spiritual transition there was a complete dethronement of her character and reputation, and that these had been more deeply buried in the tomb of infamy than was her body in the soil of the earth. But her critics--always those who were unfamiliar with the real principles and spirit of mystical philosophy--were unacquainted with the great fundamental law. It is the lot of every great leader of revealed truths and spiritual law to suffer bitter criticism and crucifixions, and through these things to ascend to greater heights. Such persecution never does more than to wrack and tear the heart of the truly great, while it creates an immortal monument to their memories.
  
Perhaps no other human being in the last hundred years or more has enjoyed such intimate companionship, such close instruction and guidance, and such personal revelations and demonstrations on the part of the Great Masters of the Great White Lodge as did Madame Blavatsky. Her old-time critics and many of her present-time critics point out the errors in her early youth, the weaknesses of her early character during its process of molding, the human equation in her personality, and the errors and mistakes that she very naturally and logically made. But Madame Blavatsky never claimed for herself any special degree of divinity or any unique physical constitution or superior objective consciousness and character. She never really understood how she, of all creatures, came to be selected by the Great Masters as their special channel and special instrument. I know it was one of the great puzzles of her life, and although the Great Masters often answered her questions vaguely in this regard and assured her that there was a reason and a purpose back of the unique association, she gradually learned to yield to their impulses, to follow their instruction, to offer herself hourly and daily to the Cosmic wishes; and though stumbling, falling and struggling, to persist along the path and up the mountainside to the heights to which the Cosmic and the Masters seemed to direct her, doing the best she could and accepting the little thanks, the little praise, and the much suffering and torment as the working of the great law.
  
It was believed by a great many in her day, and is still believed by a great many, that she invented or created or established the first philosophy that was ever named Theosophical, and that this term in some way or other was unique with her, and represented a strange and hitherto unknown idea or group of ideas. But there were Theosophical studies and Theosophical movements, Theosophical ideas and ideals, long before Madame Blavatsky was born, and long before her parents, grandparents or great grandparents were ever born. But what the Great Masters did through Madame Blavatsky was to bring to the world--or only that portion of the world that was ready to receive it and understand it--a new revelation in the principles of Theosophy. And I am only one of many.