The following text is the answer
that Richard Robb, who is the founder of the world's most important
theosophical bookstore "The Wizards Bookshelf", gave to a follower of
Alice Bailey.
Hello Dick,
To comment on the Stan Treloar
letter in which he writes:
-
“I have
yet to see a valid, let alone intelligent reason why Bailey should be deemed so
foul by our ultra conservative, fundamentalist theosophists.”
Its unlikely that Mr. Treloar
will ever concede any reason at variance with his bias, but let us show why the
writings of Alice Bailey, are not theosophy.
In labeling adherents of original
teachings as “ultra conservative and fundamentalist”, we see the familiar
pattern of the revisionist, who alters facts for current agendas.
The real problem is the claim by
Bailey’s followers, that theirs teachings are somehow theosophical.
Infatuated by Leadbeater, the
Bailey’s writings are so biased towards Churchianity that it’s hardly possible
to find a page without Church overtones, and the word “God” used in extension.
And in concert with Leadbeater,
principles in nature are anthropomorphized as in “the Third Logos issued a ray
from His throat chakra...etc”.
The spook pretending to be Djwal
Khul is no different than the one who hoodwinked Sinnett after he hypnotized
Laura Holloway.
BUT WHAT IS THE POSITION OF THEOSOPHY?
Here is the response:
« Christianity may be the
official religion of the dominant races, its profession the easy road to
respectability and fortune; but it has no rewards that we court, and the
Theosophical Society is meant to be a platform of true brotherhood, a bond of
amicable tolerance, a fulcrum by which the lever of Progress may move the mass
of Ignorance.
It has no religion propagate, no
one creed to endorse: it stands for truth alone, and nothing can make us
deviate from this which we consider the path of our Duty and for which we have
sacrificed everything.
Our motto will stand forever:
“there is no Religion higher than TRUTH”
»
(Theosophist, Vol. IV, Supplement
to Nº11, August 1883, p.2)
The success of Bailey (a hapless
medium) and her mentor Leadbeater (an untrained psychic) is due to the
gullibility of mystically inclined church people, a barrage of glamorous
assertions and grandiose pronouncements, and the availability of a vast
theosophical literature to play with.
Thus, their spurious writings
have misguided the public for 75 years as to what theosophy really is.
They are the inventors of
Christian or rather “churchian Theosophy” which is, in itself, a contradiction
of terms and has nothing to do with either the true teachings of Jehoshua of
Pantera, nor of the Ancient Wisdom of Orient.
Defenders of Leadbeater or Bailey
are free to believe what they will; but when they claim it is Theosophy, they exercise
a consummate deceit and a ludicrous falsehood, which a simple comparison will
prove.
And the following excerpts will
help to indicate the position of basic theosophy:
« I dread the appearance in
print of our philosophy as expounded by Mr. Hume.
He makes of us agnostics!
We do not believe in God because,
so far, we have no proof etc.
This is preposterously
ridiculous; if he published what I read, I will have Blavatsky or Djwal Khul
deny the whole thing; as I cannot permit our sacred philosophy to be so
disfigured.
He says that people will not
accept the whole truth; that unless we humor them with a hope that there may be
a “loving Father and Creator of ALL in heaven” our philosophy will be rejected
a priori.
In such a case the less such
these ignorant men hear our doctrine, the better for both. If they do not want
the whole truth, they are welcome. But never will they find us (at any rate)
compromising with and pandering to public prejudices. »
(Mahatma Letter 54, p.304-305)
Indeed, the whole purpose of
Theosophy is to lift men’s minds out of the superstition of revealed religion,
with its debased concepts of universal deity made into an interfering
anthropomorphic personal god, of dead letter ritualism, blind faith, the
“second coming”, remission of sins (and thus implied lack of personal
responsibility), and all the rest that tend to externalize the light that is to
be found within man’s own conscience.
And that's why
Master Kuthumi also wrote:
« And now, after making due
allowance for evils that are natural and cannot be avoided—and so few are they
that I challenge the whole host of Western metaphysicians to call them evils or
to trace them to an independent cause—I will point out the greatest, the chief
cause of nearly two thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that
cause became a power.
It is religion under whatever
form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and
the churches; it is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that he
has to search out that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity
and that almost overwhelms mankind.
Ignorance created Gods and cunning took advantage of the opportunity.
Remember the sum of human misery
will never be diminished unto that day when the better portion of humanity
destroys in the name of Truth, morality, and universal charity, the altars of
their false gods. »
(Mahatma Letter 10, p.58)
Blavatsky makes an unequivocal
statement regarding “improvising” to accommodate the masses, and revisions
designed to be “popular,” which Theosophy can never be, in this era:
« Ready to lay down our life
any day for THEOSOPHY—that great cause of the Universal Brotherhood for which
we live and breathe - and willing to shield, if need be, every true theosophist
with our own body, we yet denounce as openly and as virulently the distortion
of the original lines upon which the Theosophical Society was primarily built,
and the gradual loosening and undermining of the original system by the
sophistry of many of its highest officers. ... The wise horticulturist
uproots the parasitic herbs, and will hardly lose time in using his garden
shears to cut off the heads of poisonous weeds. »
(Is Denunciation a Duty? Lucifer,
Vol. III, Decembre 1888; B.C.W., Vol. X, p.198-199)
In other words, ferret out wrong
ideas, not individuals. And the “new dispensation” which claims to be “in tune
with the times” is precisely that.
The defenders of Leadbeater and
Bailey says it has superseded the “out of date fundamentalist theosophy,” with
a modern enlightened system.
But in fact, that new wave of
pseudo-theosophy focuses on psychism instead of spirituality, since it accepts
hatha and kundalini yoga (radically imbalanced toward the physical) with its
emphasis on chakras of the body, hypnotism, survival of the personality after
death (rendering reincarnation absurd), channeling (mediumship), prayer, past
life recalls, and terminology borrowed heavily from the church pulpit.
In short, everything that stands
in direct opposition to the Ancient Wisdom. And instead they make little
emphasis on altruism, brotherhood, or Buddhist philosophy.
Only the hollow glamour of
psychic tots, permissiveness, and external observances. They are definitely in
tune with these times as physical technology runs rampant, bereft of
philosophy.
The psychic and intellectual ego
is satiated ad infinitum, while the spirit is left to starve.
No. Theosophy changes not one
iota with the cycles of time, or the fads that boil to the surface in the
cauldron of society.
The first Law of Nature is
equilibrium . . . balance . . . equity. We call it Karma.
The Middle Way is no sophistry,
but a mirror of Nature, requisite for attunement.
Discretion, altruism, and
learning through correspondences and deductive reasoning (from universals to
particulars) are the measures of real Theosophy. Instead
revelations and assertions of pseudo-theosophy
lead nowhere.
For further reading:
- The Elder Brother, by Gregory Tillett, RKP, London, 1983, 349 pages. (biog of CWL)
- Theosophy Versus Neo-Theosophy, by Margaret Thomas, 1990. Isis Books, M-793, Road 7, Napoleon, Ohio. 140 pages.
- The Pseudo-Occultism of Mrs. A. Bailey, by Cleather & Crump, Manila, 1929; 1980. 34 pages.
- Misleading Mayavic Ideations: The Neo-Theosophy of C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant, by Ray Morgan, Tucson, AZ 1976. 34 pages. 8 1/2x11.
- A Study of the Arcane School of Alice E. Bailey, by Victor Endersby. Theosophical Notes, 1963. 45 pages. 8 1/2x11. (Theosophical Notes was issued monthly from 1950-1978, Napa, California.)
(Source:
Magazine Hight Contry Theosophist, may, 1996, p.11-14)
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