Theosophy

[Bodhicitta]

A blog new to me, devoted to ancient theosophy and Blavatsky version of modern  such. 

 

https://circleofasia.wordpress.com

Edited January 1, 2016 by Bodhicitta

[Bodhicitta]

The Leader of the Theosophical Society at Point Loma from 1929-1942 gave many fine teachings on Theosophy.  Now his Questions We All Ask are available in pdfs; soon to be in text also.  The pdfs are huge, 200mb and 300mb for the two volumes.  These were his earliest public teachings after he became Leader of the TS.

 

Questions We All Ask

Edited November 9, 2015 by Bodhicitta

[Bodhicitta]

This WordPress  site has been around since January of 2015. It is chock full of theosophical writings, many in epub or pdf formats.

Even the Collected Writings of HPB are there, although the valuable bio-bibliography sections are not.

http://voiceoftheosophy.com

[Michael Sternbach]

Theosophy is somewhat out of fashion these days, even though some still endorse it as some kind of religion. Few understand it as the bold project it was intended to be: The union of the the religious mind with the scientific mind.

 

It is hard to overestimate Theosophy's influence on other occult societies such as Anthroposophy and The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and therefore on almost all of modern esotericism. Much of the knowledge I have of Theosophy is based on the books by Alice A. Bailey which I studied eagerly during a certain stage.

 

Their author would be the first to admit that some of the material is outdated. And so many times, I found myself bewildered by explanations and systems of correspondences that just didn't seem to make any sense. Then again, I saw nuggets of gold sparkling underneath those stupefying words - occasionally they were even out in the sunshine.

 

Theosophy's relevance may be revived as mysticism and science will be further amalgamated in the course of this century, and its spirit will reincarnate in a new body.

[Bodhicitta]

Michael,  I too was in the Baileywick many years ago.  But her stuff is not what Blavatsky and her gurus taught.  Bailey called HPB 'outdated' and Picean to denigrate real Theosophy.

 

So I found a much more vital and profound set of notions from Blavatsky.  To revisit Blavatsky, Judge, Purucker or B.P. Wadia would not be a waste of time.

[Nungali]

Yes, there are nuggets of gold amidst some old, out dated and a bit  ....    let's say 'Victorian  consciousness' . 

 

There is some interesting history here ,  yes it did seem a religious  manifestation,  but it didnt have enough 'meat' even back then, they started loosing people to the more practical and magical groups * so Theosophy tried to have a branch of that to satisfy members ... it didnt really work, although a similar but more fraternal esoteric based group took off better in  ' Co-Masonry'. 

 

All this represents the original division when HPB departed the western tradition ( like The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor )  and 'went to India' ...  the tradition (and HB of L )  evolved into things like the O.T.O.     The division remained and created rivalry and still exists somewhat today .  'Two currents' so to speak ... one 'union of the religious with the scientific mind', as you say, the other ... not so much as a religion but using its 'technology' to achieve similar aims ' Scientific Illuminism' ...  " The Method of Science, the aim of Religion'  ... or 'Magick', as it became known.  

 

 

.... yep , things certainly changed with Besant !  

[Michael Sternbach]

Michael,  I too was in the Baileywick many years ago.  But her stuff is not what Blavatsky and her gurus taught.  Bailey called HPB 'outdated' and Picean to denigrate real Theosophy.

 

I am aware of the discrepancies between Bailey and Blavatsky. I mean no offence, but I would agree to Bailey: Blavatsky is outdated as far as many of her statements. Meanwhile, so is Bailey too, and it's safe to say, all the other Theosophists of her time. "Victorian" - that describes them well.

 

Again, that is not to say that there is nothing still of value to be found in their writings. For me, it's primarily in the area of conceptual outlines, and more so in Bailey than in HPB. But to each their own.

 

So I found a much more vital and profound set of notions from Blavatsky.  To revisit Blavatsky, Judge, Purucker or B.P. Wadia would not be a waste of time.

 

Thanks, I might look into them occasionally.

[Nungali]

HPB understood 'our'   'triplacies '   ( @1.16 ) albeit in  rather obscure language for some  ( but for me ;  'Yes! ' )

 

Here is a reading that demonstrates it   ( although the reader may put some off    .... again, not me   "Partying with congressmen" ... Ha!

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2015 by Nungali

[Bodhicitta]

While these folks did live in a time labelled as 'Victorian', the metaphysics, philosophy, mysticism and theosophy they expounded were timeless, or at least ancient. 

 

Also Bailey was calling Blavatsky's teachings 'dated' only 30 or 40 years later - seems a stretch to me.  But as Michael says - 'to each their own.'

Edited January 1, 2016 by Bodhicitta

[Bodhicitta]

Theosophy unfolds to us two natures, spiritual and material, the one immortal and the other governed by the alternating law of life and death. That stuff that we discard, and that they burn or bury (brain and all), when we have "shuffled off this mortal coil," has been subjected to the alchemy of use and we have changed its nature -- possibly not much, but we have changed it for the better or the worse. Who then are we?

It dawns after a while; and all the words in all the bibles and the dictionaries ever written lack ability to tell the wonder of it when it wakes into the consciousness. That knowledge comes to us in silence, though the world may yell with passion, and there rises in us from within a dignity beyond all measure -- hope that is whole and deathless -- an illimitable patience -- and, like gentle rain on dry earth, the assurance of our own essential divinity.

Talbot Mundy

[9th]

Theosophy was to the 20th century, as Scientology is to the 21st century.

 

Dont forget, Blavatsky was instrumental in the rise of the "master race" philosophy.

[Bodhicitta]

Superficial history re: Blavatsky, it is bunk and nonsense!

[Nungali]

What part of her history is bunk and nonsense ?  

[Bodhicitta]

What part of her history is bunk and nonsense ?  

 

The attribution of the 'master race' baloney.  The keynote of her theosophical society is Universal Brotherhood & altruism.

[9th]

She was incredibly racist.  Its all on record.  Granted, racism was rife in that era, but she certainly didnt help matters.  The whole idea of "universal brotherhood" is a bunch of bullshit cooked up by apologists.  Here is the actual truth:

 

Blavatsky argued that humanity had descended from a series of "Root Races", naming the fifth root race (out of seven) the Aryan Race. She thought that the Aryans originally came from Atlantis and described the Aryan races with the following words:

 

"The Aryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are yet all of one and the same stock -- the Fifth Root-Race -- and spring from one single progenitor, (...) who is said to have lived over 18,000,000 years ago, and also 850,000 years ago -- at the time of the sinking of the last remnants of the great continent of Atlantis."

 

Blavatsky used "Root Race" as a technical term to describe human evolution over the large time periods in her cosmology. However, she also claimed that there were modern non-Aryan peoples who were inferior to Aryans. She regularly contrasts "Aryan" with "Semitic" culture, to the detriment of the latter, asserting that Semitic peoples are an offshoot of Aryans who have become "degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality."

 

She also states that some peoples are "semi-animal creatures". These latter include "the Tasmanians, a portion of the Australians and a mountain tribe in China." There are also "considerable numbers of the mixed Lemuro-Atlantean peoples produced by various crossings with such semi-human stocks -- e.g., the wild men of Borneo, the Veddhas of Ceylon, most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negritos, Andaman Islanders, etc."

 

Blavatsky connects physical race with spiritual attributes constantly throughout her works:

 

"Esoteric history teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African Negroes, &c.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern Hindu writings do."

 

"The intellectual difference between the Aryan and other civilized nations and such savages as the South Sea Islanders, is inexplicable on any other grounds. No amount of culture, nor generations of training amid civilization, could raise such human specimens as the Bushmen, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some African tribes, to the same intellectual level as the Aryans, the Semites, and the Turanians so called. The 'sacred spark' is missing in them and it is they who are the only inferior races on the globe, now happily -- owing to the wise adjustment of nature which ever works in that direction -- fast dying out. Verily mankind is 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence. We are the hot-house, artificially quickened plants in nature, having in us a spark, which in them is latent."

 

[Bodhicitta]

Blavatsky practiced and taught Universal Brotherhood as meaning essential or inner unity, not physical. Humanity having a common spiritual source is the basis for our universal family.  She wrote:

 

 

Everyone entering the [Theosophical] society is supposed to sympathize with the theory of essential brotherhood; a kinship which exists on the plane of the higher self, not on that of the racial, social, and mental dissimilarities and antipathies. These elements of discord pertain to the physical man and are the result of unequal development under the law of evolution.

 

We believe the human body to be but the shell, cover, or veil of the real entity; and those who accept the esoteric philosophy and the theory of “Karma” (the universal law of ethical causation) believe that the entity, as it travels around certain major and minor cycles of existence with the whole mass of human beings, takes on a different body at birth, and shells it off at death, under the operation of this Karmic law. Yet though it may thus clothe and reclothe itself a thousand times in a series of reincarnations, the entity is unchanged and unchangeable, being of a divine nature, superior to all environments on the earthly plane.

 

It is the physical body only which has racial type, color, sex, hatreds, ambitions, and loves. So then, when we postulate the idea of universal brotherhood, we wish it understood that it is held in no Utopian sense, though we do not dream of realizing it at once on the ordinary plane of social or national relations. Most assuredly, if this view of the kinship of all mankind could gain universal acceptance, the improved sense of moral responsibility it would engender would cause most social evils and international asperities to disappear; for a true altruism, instead of the present egoism, would be the rule the world over.

Edited December 31, 2015 by Bodhicitta

[Nungali]

It might help to post sources when making such quotes, then they can be tracked and seen where and at what time they originated.

 

What 9th posted is definitely  part of that 'Victorian occultism'  that came before the age of a lot of discovery and research in archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, etc  that helped us develop a more accurate and enlightened view. 

 

Its still rife through some 'backward occultists'  .... even today, Steiner schools still teach about Atlantis, Lemuria and  ( a bit more 'politically / racially correct' ) ideas about 'root races' *.  Its not 'progressive occultism', its 'archaic occultism', nether the less, a subject I find fascinating  ( and also fascinating, to me ,  the lengths people will still go to today to try and still prove it ; illogical disjointed arguments, citing quiet pathetic 'evidence '  { new age 'theories' and silly video clips } , faking evidence , photoshopping pictures, etc. ) . 

 

The quote in post 16 , seems from a latter period, when things got 'cleaned up a bit' . 

 

 

* There was a story here recently where a complaint was lodged about a Steiner School's teachings;  a man was concerned when his daughter came home upset that her artwork was deemed 'not good' as she used too much brown, and brown was not a good color . So he went to see the teacher to get an explanation . The teacher gave a long rave about Steiner and color theory, constantly referring to all the bad qualities of brown. The man was incredulous, he said he sat there listening to this woman gush on and on about these ideas and theories, and she seemed totally oblivious to the fact that he was a Pakistani (and so was his daughter) with very brown skin.  .....   that's like giving a negro a lecture on why black is not a good color ! 

 

 

These 'occult' ideas were actually based on  the science and postulations and limited research of those times, now  old defunct science . There still seems a proclivity, even today, to want to ignore science in favour of this occultism that was based on , now old and defunct science anyway  .   Why not incorporate  the latests science when we investigate occultism today ? 

 

...  well, some do, but then you get people  doing that, and still believing in Atlantis and 'root races' along with  how quantum physics equates to  .....    

[Nungali]

forgot the link   

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#19th_century

 

 

- you will also notice that a lot of this 'victorian occultism' and the science then was still based on the Bible . This huge chart showing human 'history' even used to be stuck up in the British Museum  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_Synchronological_Chart_or_Map_of_History

 

 

Edited December 31, 2015 by Nungali

[Bodhicitta]

For sourcing the Blavatsky quote in my post 16, just copy a few words in sequence and search.  Her 1890 article "Recent Progress in Theosophy" will come up.

[Nungali]

http://www.academia.edu/4514725/Ariosophic_Demon_Seeds_The_Theosophical_Roots_of_Nazi_Race_Theory

 

page 5 to 7 

[Bodhicitta]

For cranks looking for an exotic enemy, Blavatsky and her Theosophy are too tempting to pass up.  But the true history of Nazi racism is based in the 'science' of eugenics.  The Nazis (and German science before them) lapped up these racial notions.  

 

Read Mr Black on the nasty history:  http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1796

 

An excerpt:

 

 

Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German officials and scientists.

 

Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti-Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. While Hitler's race hatred sprung from his own mind, the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America.

 

- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1796#sthash.oZU2Hd85.dpuf

Edited January 1, 2016 by Bodhicitta

[Nungali]

Who are these 'cranks' you are referring to ? 

 

I actually have no idea what your post is on about .  Did you even read the reference I gave you before spouting off  against it and claiming   what it says ? 

 

If that is what you refering to ?

 

An except ;

 

' In the form presented by Blavatsky, the Theosophical human evolution narrative did not support Germanic notions of ultimate superiority. While it certainly supported assertions of Aryan descent, it did not promote the Germanic people as the future superior race, nor did it make the kinds of distinctions between the Aryans and Semites which became important in Nazi race theory. "

 

It does however state the same biases that  were pointed out by 9th in post  # 15. 

 

You aren't a Theosophist by any chance are you ? 

[Bodhicitta]

Nungali, I am not responding to you per se, but to common misconceptions about 'racist' Theosophy.  The Nazis threw European theosophists into prison camps - not what they would do to those considered their fellow racists.

 

My sympathies are with Buddha and his lineage, one of whom was Helena P Blavatsky, who was probably the first Occidental to take refuge in Ceylon in 1880 I think.

[Michael Sternbach]

Nungali,

 

Overall, I think your post #17 and #18 are a fair treatment of the topic. The Theosophical system of Blavatsky & Co. is in fact a remainder from Victorian times with a number of unsustainable notions. Which is not to say that there could not be certain conceptions distilled out of it that could still be put to a constructive use. Instead of elaborating on this, may I refer the interested reader to my post #4.

 

That Blavatsky's ideas played a certain role in the esoteric dressing up of Nazi racism is hard to dismiss. I leave this question  to the historians. Personally, I hold on to Bruce Lee's philosophy of absorbing what is useful and discarding what is useless. Interestingly, this is also what the foreword of Alice A. Bailey's A Treatise on Cosmic Fire suggests (and we are no longer surprised that to the OP, anything written by Bailey is a mere digression from Blavatsky's eternally true words).

 

Of course, about Atlantis, we will have to talk more, but that should be reserved for a certain other thread, which my new job as a mod somewhat keeps me from pursuing further. However, we're not done yet.

 

 

Happy New Year everybody,

Michael

[Nungali]

Nungali, I am not responding to you per se, but to common misconceptions about 'racist' Theosophy.  The Nazis threw European theosophists into prison camps - not what they would do to those considered their fellow racists.

 

Well I suppose the 'master race' comment by  9th  was seen that way by you .   Aside from a possible interpretation of that , I haven' seen  anyone suggest what you are calling a common misperception ... until  post  24 .   So I guess it is common , 

 

Its still racist  to state what they do state though, even though it may have no connection to Nazi racism.  Thats my objection.

 

Its all through early occultism ,  you should read what the G,D. said about spirituality in the southern hemisphere ... basically, it didnt exist 'down here'.