THEOSOPHY IN THE PRESS.—A great many articles, both editorial and otherwise, have within the past few months appeared in the daily papers, the most of them full of misstatements mixed with ignorance of not only Theosophy, but also of many things well known in literature. One paper devoted two columns to the subject, and the editor called them thorough and accurate, yet we find in it the mind cure treated as Theosophy, and then all the cranky notions the writer could rake up in New York and Boston are called “Buddhist bosh.” But some Theosophists have been guilty of ventilating in the papers the statement that Theosophy is _astralism_, that is to say, that the object of the Society is to induce people to go into the study and practice of spirit raising, cultivating the abnormal faculties, of clairvoyance and the like, ignoring entirely the prime object, real end, aim and _raison d’etre_ of the movement—universal brotherhood and ethical teaching. In fact, we make bold to assert, from our own knowledge and from written documents, that the Mahatmas, who started the Society, and stand behind it now, are distinctly opposed to making prominent these phenomenal leanings, this hunting after clairvoyance and astral bodies, and that they have so declared most unmistakeably, stating their wish and advice to be, that “_the Society should prosper on its ethical, philosophical and moral worth alone_.” Theosophists should haste to see that this false impression created at large, that it is a dangerous study, or that it is in any way dangerous, or that we conceal our reasons for what we are doing, is done away with. There is proof enough to their hand. India has nearly 120 branches, all studying freely and openly how best to purify their own lives, while they bring to others a knowledge of right doctrine. America has a dozen branches, nearly all of which know that the impressions referred to are ridiculous. If one or two persons in the Society imagine that the pursuit of psychical phenomena is its real end and aim and so declare, that weighs nothing against the immense body of the membership or against its widespread literature; it is merely their individual bias. But at the same time, this imagination and misstatement are dangerous, and insidiously so. It is just the impression which the Jesuit college desires to be spread abroad concerning us, so that in one place ridicule may follow, and in another a superstitious dread of the thing; which ever of those may happen to obtain, they would be equally well pleased. Let Theosophists attend to this, and let them not forget, that the only authoritative statement of what are the ends and objects of the Society, is contained in those printed in its by-laws. No amount of assertion to the contrary by any officer or member can change that declaration. * * * * *