Like all scholars who to some degree reify the division between Orient and Occident, Almond overshoots his mark a bit: a few scholars (or as Donald S. Lopez labels them, "gifted amateurs") did in fact pursue living Buddhism last century. Interestingly, these attempts also tended to revolve around control; in regard to Tibet, they were usually accompanied by unabashed revulsion. L. Austine Waddell, a contemporary of Blavatsky, informs his readers that,
…realizing the rigid secrecy maintained by the Lamas in regard to their seemingly chaotic rites and symbolism, I felt compelled to purchase a Lamaist temple with its fittings; and prevailed upon the officiating priests to explain to me in full detail the symbolism and the rites as they proceeded… the Lamas were so obliging as to interpret in my favor a prophetic account which exists in their scriptures regarding a Buddhist incarnation in the West. They convinced themselves that I was a reflex of the Western Buddha Amitabha, and thus they overcame their conscientious scruples, and imparted information freely.[57]
Certainly, after Waddell has "purchased" the lamasery, he does nothing to cure the poor ignorant monks of their ill choice of Messiah. Nevertherless, once Waddell has gained control of "Lamaism," he finds little to recommend it.
…The bulk of the Lamaist cults comprise much deep-rooted devil-worship and sorcery, which I describe with some fulness. For Lamaism is only thinly and imperfectly varnished over with Buddhist symbolism, beneath which the sinister growth of poly-demonist superstition darkly appears.[58]
In sum, then, late nineteenth century scholarship denied any bona fide esoteric teachings to "true" Buddhism, rarely bothered to actually observe and study living Buddhism, and saw Tibetan Buddhism as particularly degraded, demoniac, and un-Buddhist. As Lopez writes in the Tibetan chapter of his recent book, Curators of the Buddha (1995),
… with the European construction of "original Buddhism," [Tibetan practices] were deemed a repulsive corruption of the Buddha's rational teaching, polluted with demon worship and sacerdotalism to the point that it could no longer be accurately termed "Buddhism" at all, but became instead "Lamaism."[59]
It was in this cultural context of textual obsession and scholarly horror of all things mystical that H.P. Blavatsky not only publicly embraced living Buddhism but soon claimed to speak for it, or at least its esoteric center. However, her true relationship to Buddhism, and especially to 'esoteric' Buddhism is equivocal and often, in her own words, contradictory.
Blavatsky repeatedly stated that she wanted the Theosophical Society to remain unsectarian; the T.S. was not Buddhist, but respected all religions as descendants of a far-distant, primitive "Wisdom Religion," which was now, alas, completely esoteric, along with its Adept caretakers. Responding to Emile Burnouf's assertion that the Theosophical Society was hardly unsectarian, but instead Buddhist through and through, Blavatsky wrote,
We have given our reasons for protesting. We are pinned to no faith.
In stating that the T.S. is 'Buddhist,' M. Burnouf is quite right, however, from one point of view. It has a Buddhist colouring simply because that religion, or rather philosophy, approaches more nearly to the TRUTH (the secret wisdom) than does any other exoteric form of belief. Hence the close connexion between the two. But on the other hand the T.S. is perfectly right in protesting against being mistaken for merely Buddhist propaganda… For although in complete agreement with him as to the true nature and character of primitive Buddhism, yet the Buddhism of today is none the less a rather dogmatic religion, split into many and heterogeneous sects. We follow the Buddha alone. Therefore, once it becomes necessary to go behind the actually existing form, and who will deny this necessity in respect to Buddhism? – once this is done, is it not infinitely better to go back to the pure and unadulterated source of Buddhism itself, rather than halt at an intermediate stage? Such a half and half reform was tried when Protestantism broke away from the elder Church, and are the results satisfactory?…
Here Blavatsky certainly wants to have her cake and eat it too. She denies the Theosophical Society is a vehicle for Buddhist propaganda by in turn alleging that "we follow the Buddha alone"! Blavatsky asserts that "exoteric" Buddhism is, of all world religions, closest to the "TRUTH (the secret wisdom)," yet she disdains that very Buddhism, preferring the "unadulterated source of Buddhism itself," (the same source, one might add, that Buddhist scholars had been seeking since the beginning of their enterprise). Blavatsky goes on to correct the error of the entire Orientalist establishment – and both Northern and Southern Buddhist practitioners to boot – in their neglect of the true esoteric Buddhism:
It is true [as Burnouf says] that no mysteries or esotericism exists in the two chief Buddhist Churches, the Southern and the Northern. Buddhists may well be content with the dead letter of Siddhartha Buddha's teachings, as fortunately no higher or nobler ones in their effects upon the ethics of the masses exist, to this day. But herein lies the great mistake of all the Orientalists. There is an esoteric doctrine, a soul-ennobling philosophy, behind the outward body of ecclesiastical Buddhism. The latter, pure, chaste and immaculate as the virgin snow on the ice-capped crests of the Himalayan ranges, is however, as cold and desolate as they with regard to the post-mortem condition of man. This secret system was taught to the Arhats alone, generally in the Saptaparna (Mahavaµsa's Sattapanni) cave, known to Fa-hsien as the Cheta cave near the Mount Vaibhara (in Pali, Vebhara) in Rajagriha, the ancient capital of Magadha, by the Lord Buddha himself, between the hours of Dhyana (or mystic contemplation). It is from this cave-called in the days of Shakyamuni, Sarasvaty – or 'Bamboo-cave'-that the Arhats initiated into the Secret Wisdom carried away their learning and knowledge beyond the Himalayan range, wherein the Secret Doctrine is taught to this day. Had not the South Indian invaders of Ceylon "heaped into piles as high as the top of the cocoanut trees" the ollas of the Buddhists, and burnt them, as the Christian conquerors burnt all the secret records of the Gnostics and the Initiates, Orientalists would have the proof of it, and there would have been no need of asserting now this well-known fact.[60]
So there is an esoteric and essentially "Buddhist" doctrine, but it does not exist in either of the two Buddhist "Churches." Whether HPB means by the "Northern Church" Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, or Japanese Buddhisms, or all these combined, one cannot say,[61] though it is strange that HPB will elsewhere identify Tibetans like the Panchen Lamas and Tsong-Kha-Pa as possessors of the secret doctrine.
In many other places, too, Blavatsky tries in a very convoluted manner to distinguish exoteric Buddhism (the religion) from esotericism per se, the "Wisdom Religion," which was taught secretly by the Buddha (among other Adepts). One tack HPB took, one shared by all Buddhists, is to refer to Buddhism before Shakyamuni, and to assert its eternality and identity age to age. Identifying this Buddhism, she feels she may confidently assert what is the essence of Buddhism. She claims in her earliest work, Isis Unveiled (1877) that "The earliest system of the Buddhistic philosophy - which preceded by far Gautama Buddha - is based upon the uncreated substance of the 'Unknown', the Adibuddha."[62] Yet she points out that, being so universal and eternal, this wisdom is not owned by those called "Buddhists" alone:
61
At times HPB uses the loose term "Northern Buddhism" to mean Chinese Buddhism, as when she says in