It is not violence that can ever insure bread and comfort for all; nor is the kingdom of peace and love, of mutual help and charity and "food for all" to be conquered by a cold, reasoning, diplomatic policy. It is only by the close brotherly union of men's inner SELVES, of soul-solidarity, of the growth and development of that feeling which makes one suffer when one thinks of the suffering of others, that the reign of Justice can ever be inaugurated. When men will begin to realize that it is precisely that ferocious personal selfishness, the chief motor in the "struggle for life," that lies at the very bottom and is the one sole cause of human starvation, they will try to remedy this evil by a salutary change of policy. And this salutary revolution can be peacefully accomplished only by The Theosophical Society (Universal Brotherhood) and its teachings. — Lucifer, Vol. II, p. 429
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There is a dawn for every being, when once freed from illusion and ignorance by knowledge. — Lucifer, Vol. I, p. 119
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Verily the Spirit in man, so long hidden out of public sight, . . . has at last awakened. It now asserts itself and is loudly re-demanding its unrecognized yet ever legitimate rights. It refuses to be any longer trampled under the brutal foot of materialism, speculated upon by the churches, and made a fathomless source of income by those who have self-constituted themselves its universal custodians. But the Spirit in man — the direct, though now but broken ray and emanation of the Universal Spirit — has at last awakened. Today, the Spirit in man has returned like King Lear, from seeming insanity to its senses; and, raising its voice, it now speaks in those authoritative tones to which the men of old have listened in reverential silence through incalculable ages — until, deafened by the din and roar of civilization and culture, they could hear it no longer
Look around you and behold! Think of what you see and hear, and draw therefrom your own conclusions. The age of crass materialism, of Soul insanity and blindness, is swiftly passing away. A death struggle between truth and materialism is no longer at hand, but is already raging. And the party which will win the day at this supreme hour will become the master of the situation and of the future; i.e., it will become the autocrat and sole disposer of the millions of men already born and to be born up to the latter end of the Twentieth century. If the signs of the time can be trusted, it is not the Animalists who will remain conquerors. This is warranted us by the many brave and prolific authors and writers who have arisen of late to defend the rights of the Spirit to reign over matter. Many are the honest, aspiring Souls now raising themselves like a dead wall against the torrent of the muddy waters of Materialism. And, facing the hitherto domineering flood which is still steadily carrying off into unknown abysses the fragments from the wreck of the dethroned, downcast, human Spirit, they now command: "So far hast thou come; but thou shalt go no farther!"
Amid all this external discord and disorganization of social harmony; . . . amid the late dead calm of public thought that had exiled from literature every reference to Soul and Spirit and their divine working, ... we hear a sound arising. Like a clear, definite, far-reaching note of promise, the voice of the great human Soul proclaims, in no longer timid tones, the rise and almost the resurrection of the human spirit in the masses. It is now awakening in the foremost representatives of thought and learning; it speaks in the lowest as in the highest, and stimulates them all to action. The renovated, life-giving Spirit in man is boldly freeing itself from the dark fetters of the hitherto all-capturing
animal life and matter
A new era has begun in literature, that is certain. New thoughts and new interests have created new intellectual needs; hence a new race of authors is springing up, . . . lifting up and carrying on unflinchingly the standard of the Future Man. It is finally those who, amidst the present wholesale domination of matter, material interests and SELFISHNESS, will have bravely fought for human rights and man's divine nature, who will become, if they only win, the teachers of the masses, . . . and so their benefactors. . . . The hour of the new historical era will have struck for those who will have learned to express .... the aspirations as well as the physical needs of the rising generations and of the now trampled-down masses. In order that one may fully comprehend individual life with its ... mysteries, he has to devote himself with all the fervor of unselfish philanthropy and love for his brother men, to studying and knowing collective life, or Mankind. Without preconceptions or prejudice, as also without the least fear of possible results in one or an other direction, he has to decipher, understand and remember the deep and innermost feelings and the aspirations of the poor people's great and suffering heart. To do this he has first "to attune his soul with that of humanity," as the old philosophy teaches; to thoroughly master the correct meaning of every line and word in the rapidly turning pages of the Book of Life of MANKIND and to be thoroughly saturated with the truism that the latter is a whole inseparable from his own SELF.
How many of such profound readers of life may be found in our boasted age of sciences and culture? ....
If asked then, what is it that will help, we answer boldly: . . . Take advantage of and profit by, the "tidal wave" which is now happily overpowering half of humanity. Speak to the awakening Spirit of Humanity and the Spirit in man, these three in one, and the One in All
Then and not till then will the world . . . acknowledge that it was wrong, and that Theosophy alone can gradually create a mankind as harmonious and as simple-souled as Kosmos itself; but to effect this, Theosophists have to act as such. Having helped to awaken the Spirit in many a man . . . shall we now stop instead of swimming with the TIDAL-WAVE? — Lucifer, Vol. 5, p. 173