False
Dawn - Chapter 10
Helena Blavatsky and the
Theosophical Society
A guest document - By Lee Penn
Contents
Introduction
Theosophy is a blend of distorted forms of Hinduism and Buddhism with
Western occultism. [1]
This spiritual movement took its modern form in
1875 in New York City, when Helena Petrovna Blavatsky founded the
Theosophical Society. [2]
Her two principal books were Isis
Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine;
she also began the magazine Lucifer in
1887. [3] A
scholarly history of the Theosophical movement says of
Blavatsky that “Everywhere she was
involved with Freemasonry, Oriental
secret societies, occult fraternities, and with the spiritualists who
constituted, as it were, the exoteric ‘church’ from which doors opened
to the more esoteric circles.” [4]
Influential 20th century
Theosophists included Alice Bailey
(founder of the Lucifer Publishing
Company in New York City in 1922, [5] which is now known as
the Lucis
Trust), and Rudolf Steiner (founder of the Anthroposophical movement, a
variant of Theosophy). [6]
At first glance, the stated aims of the Theosophical Society appear
harmless:
- “To
form a nucleus of the universal
brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex,
caste, or color.
- To encourage the comparative study
of religion, philosophy, and
science.
- To investigate unexplained laws of
nature and the powers latent in
humanity.” [7]
These principles were established in the 19th Century, and have been
the foundation of Theosophy since then. However, in her writings –
which the Theosophical movement still publishes and reveres – Madame
Blavatsky showed the darker side of her world-view.
Mankind and Nature as
“Gods”
For Blavatsky, the Lord is not God; mankind is. In The Secret Doctrine, she said:
“esoteric philosophy shows that man
is truly the manifested deity in
both its aspects – good and evil.” [8] Since mankind is god, it
follows
through the “law of spiritual
development” that “mankind
will become
freed from its false gods, and find itself finally – SELF-REDEEMED.” [9] Elsewhere in
the same book, Blavatsky foreshadowed Gorbachev (who recently said
“nature is my god” [10])
by claiming, “The silent worship of
abstract
or noumenal Nature,
the only
divine manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity.”
[11]
Either way, for Blavatsky, God is not the Holy Trinity as revealed to
Christians.
Sympathy for the Devil
Throughout The Secret Doctrine,
Blavatsky praised the Devil and belittled God.
In Volume I, Cosmogenesis,
she wrote: “The devil is now called
Darkness by the Church, whereas, in
the Bible he is called the ‘Son of God’ (see Job), the bright star of
early morning, Lucifer (see Isaiah). There is a whole philosophy of
dogmatic craft in the reason why the first Archangel, who sprang from
the depths of Chaos, was called Lux (Lucifer), the ‘Luminous Son of the
Morning,’ or manvantaric Dawn. He was transformed by the Church into
Lucifer or Satan, because he is higher and older than Jehovah, and had
to be sacrificed to the new dogma.” [12]
Blavatsky went on to hail Satan as “Saviour”
of man: “Satan and his
rebellious host would thus prove, when the meaning of the allegory is
explained, to have refused to create physical man, only to become the
direct Saviours and the Creators of ‘divine
Man.’ ... For, instead of remaining a mere blind, functioning medium,
impelled and guided by fathomless Law, the ‘rebellious’ Angel claimed
and enforced his right of independent judgment and will, his right of
free-agency and responsibility, since man and angel are alike under
Karmic Law.” [13]
For her, Satan is the one who frees man from death: “Thus ‘SATAN’ once
he ceases to be viewed in the superstitious, dogmatic, un-philosophical
spirit of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of one who made
of terrestrial a divine MAN; who gave him,
throughout the long cycle of Mahâ-kalpa the law of the Spirit of Life,
and made him free from the Sin of Ignorance, hence of death.” [14]
In Volume II, Anthropogenesis,
Blavatsky continued to exalt the Devil. She said: “Satan will now be
shown, in the teaching of the Secret Doctrine, allegorized as Good, and
Sacrifice, a God of Wisdom, under different names.” [15] Blavatsky
added, “In this case it is but
natural – even from the dead letter
standpoint – to view Satan,
the Serpent of Genesis, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father
of Spiritual mankind. For it is he who was the ‘Harbinger of Light,’
bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton created by Jehovah, as
alleged;
and he who was the first to whisper: ‘in the day ye eat thereof ye
shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil’ – can only be regarded in
the light of a Saviour. An ‘adversary’ to Jehovah the ‘personating spirit,’ he
still
remains in esoteric truth the ever-loving ‘Messenger’ (the angel), the
Seraphim and Cherubim who both knew well, and loved still more, and who
conferred on us spiritual, instead of physical immortality – the latter
a kind of static
immortality
that would have transformed man into an undying ‘Wandering Jew.’”
[16]
In the end, Blavatsky raises up Satan as “the highest divine Spirit:”
“To make the point clear once for
all: that which the clergy of every
dogmatic religion – pre-eminently the Christian – points out as Satan,
the enemy of God, is in reality, the highest divine Spirit – (occult
Wisdom on Earth) – in its naturally antagonistic character to every
worldly, evanescent illusion, dogmatic or ecclesiastical religions
included. Thus, the Latin Church, intolerant, bigoted and cruel to all
who do not choose to be its slaves; the Church which calls itself the
bride of Christ, and the trustee at the same time of Peter, to whom the
rebuke of the Master ‘get thee behind me Satan’ was justly addressed;
and again the Protestant Church which, while calling itself Christian,
paradoxically replaces the New Dispensation by the old ‘Law of Moses’
which Christ openly repudiated: both these Churches are fighting
against divine Truth, when repudiating and slandering the Dragon of
esoteric (because divine)
Wisdom.’” [17]
For her, “In antiquity and reality,
Lucifer, or Luciferus,
is the
name of the angelic Entity presiding over
the light of truth as
over
the light of the day.” [18]
The logical consequence of these beliefs is that, for Blavatsky, “The Fall was the result of man’s knowledge,
for his
‘eyes were opened.’ Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the hidden
knowledge by the ‘Fallen Angel,’ for the latter had become from that
day his Manas, Mind
and
Self-Consciousness. ... And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red
Fiery Dragon, the
‘Lord of
Phosphorus’ (brimstone was a theological improvement), and Lucifer, or ‘Light-Bearer,’
is in
us: it is our Mind –
our
tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure
animalism.” [19]
Inverting Christian
Tradition
With this theological foundation, Blavatsky raged against other
aspects, great and small, of the Christian tradition.
Blavatsky dismissed the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a “tribal
god:” “History shows in every
race and even tribe, especially in the
Semitic nations, the natural impulse to exalt its own tribal deity
above all others to the hegemony of the gods; and proves that the god
of the Israelites was such a tribal
God, and no more, even though the Christian Church, following
the lead of the ‘chosen’ people, is pleased to enforce the worship of
that one particular deity, and to anathematize all the others.” [20]
She adds that “Jehovah has ever been
in antiquity only ‘a god among
other Gods,’ (lxxxii. Psalm).
The Lord appears to Abraham, and while
saying, ‘I am the Almighty
God,’
yet adds, ‘I will establish my covenant to be a God unto thee’
(Abraham) and
unto his seed after him
(Gen. xvii. 7) – not unto Aryan
Europeans.” [21]
(“Aryan Europeans” did abandon
the “tribal” worship of
Jehovah during
the last century. They idolized Hitler, the Aryan race, and the German
nation instead – with gruesome results.)
Blavatsky moved on to assail Christ. In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky said, “The
present volumes have been written to small purpose if they have not
shown, 1, that Jesus, the Christ-God, is a myth concocted two centuries
after the real Hebrew Jesus died; 2, that, therefore, he never had any
authority to give Peter, or anyone else, plenary power; 3, that, even
if he had given such authority, the word Petra (rock) referred to the
revealed truths of the Petroma, not to him who thrice denied him; and
that besides, the apostolic succession is a gross and palpable fraud;
4, that the Gospel according
to
Matthew is a fabrication based on a wholly different manuscript.
The whole thing, therefore, is an imposition alike upon priest and
penitent.” [22]
(With similar skepticism, Jack Spong, then serving as Bishop of the
Episcopal Diocese of Newark, wrote in 1998: “Since God can no longer be
conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to
understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the
Christology of the ages is bankrupt.” [23])
Blavatsky also claimed in 1877 that the miracles of Simon Magus, “the
Great Power of God,” were “more
wonderful, more varied, and better
attested than those either of the apostles or of the Galilean
philosopher himself.” [24]
(Likewise, Bishop Spong, who considers
himself to be a ground-breaking, reformist theologian, wrote in 1998,
“The miracle stories of the New
Testament can no longer be interpreted
in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an
incarnate deity.” [25])
Blavatsky’s description of “Sophia”
should give pause to those who
invoke her as a female Third Person of the Godhead. In Isis Unveiled, she said, “The
various cosmogonies show that the Archæal Universal Soul was held by
every nation as the ‘mind’ of the Demiurgic Creator, the Sophia of the Gnostics, or the Holy Ghost as a female
principle.”
[26] This may be
the spiritual origin of “inclusive language” for the
Third Person of the Trinity. In The
Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky added: “In the great Valentian gospel
Pistis Sophia (§ 361)
it is
taught that of the three Powers emanating from the Holy Names of the
Three Tridunάmeiς, that of Sophia (the Holy Ghost according to these
gnostics – the most cultured of all), resides in the planet Venus or
Lucifer.” [27]
The female “Sophia” resides in the planet Lucifer; you heard it here
first.
Blavatsky said in 1877 that religious truth would be found in the
aggregate of the religions: “Our
examination of the multitudinous
religious faiths that mankind, early and late, have professed, most
assuredly indicates that they have all been derived from one primitive
source. It would seem as if they were all but different modes of
expressing the yearning of the imprisoned human soul for intercourse
with supernal spheres. ... Combined, their aggregate represents one
eternal truth; separate, they are but shades of human error and the
signs of imperfection.” [28]
She added, “It but needs the right
perception of things objective to finally discover that the only world
of reality is the subjective” [29]
Maybe postmodernism is not so new,
after all.
Population Control –
in 1888
In The Secret Doctrine,
Blavatsky urged that an astrologically based form of natural family
planning be taught to “the armies of
the ragged and the poor:” “If
instead of being taught in Sunday Schools useless lessons from the
Bible, the armies of the ragged and the poor were taught Astrology – so
far, at any rate, as the occult properties of the Moon and its hidden
influences on generation are concerned, then there would be little need
to fear increase of the population nor resort to the questionable
literature of the Malthusians for its arrest.” [30] (At the time, world
population was about 1.6 billion people, roughly one-quarter of the
current human population.) In the 20th Century, many others would
follow the trail that Blavatsky blazed, and would concern themselves
with limiting reproduction among the poor.
Evolutionary Racism
Before 1950, New Age authors spoke more bluntly about race than is
usual now.
In 1877, Blavatsky quoted anthropologist Alfred R. Wallace as saying,
“it must inevitably follow that the
higher – the more intellectual and
moral – must displace the lower and more degraded races;” after
a long
period of “natural selection,”
the world will again be “inhabited
by a
single, nearly homogeneous race, no individual of which will be
inferior to the noblest
specimens of
existing humanity.” [31]
Blavatsky approved of the opinions and
“scientific methods” of this “great anthropologist,” and added, “what
he says above clashes in no way with our kabalistic assertions. Allow
to ever-progressing nature, to the great law of the ‘survival of the
fittest,’ one step beyond Mr. Wallace’s deductions, and we have in the
future the possibility – nay, the assurance of a race, which, like the
Vril-ya of Bulwer-Lytton’s Coming
Race, will be but one remove from the primitive ‘Sons of God.’”
[32] (The Coming Race was an
1871 novel by a British occultist. It was based on the existence of a
subterranean race, the Vril-ya, that were “psychically far in advance
of the human species.” Whoever mastered the energy of vril could “enjoy total mastery
over all nature.”) [33]
In 1888, Blavatsky said, “Mankind is
obviously divided into
god-informed men and lower human creatures. 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 of 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.” [34]
She saw the extinction of “inferior
races” as part of mankind’s
evolution: “a series of other less
favoured groups – the failures of
nature – will, like some individual men, vanish from the human family
without even leaving a trace behind.” [35] “A process of
decimation is
taking place all over the globe, among those races, whose ‘time is up’
– among just those stocks, be it remarked, which esoteric philosophy
regards as the senile representatives of the archaic nations. It is
inaccurate to maintain that the extinction of a lower race is invariably due to cruelties
or
abuses perpetrated by colonists. ... Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans,
Australians, Polynesians, etc., etc. – all are dying out. ... The
tide-wave of incarnating EGOS has rolled past them to harvest
experience in more developed and less senile stocks; and their
extinction is hence a Karmic necessity.” [36]
No URI document says anything of this kind. However, there is a double
standard in effect regarding the treatment of Blavatsky’s writings. In
today’s mainstream public discourse, any conservative or traditionalist
writer who ever said such things is dismissed as racist, and his entire
body of work is considered unworthy of attention. However, Blavatsky, a
spiritual predecessor of today’s New Age movement, still gets respect
from Theosophists and occultists; her followers are deemed to deserve a
place at the interfaith table.
The Theosophical
Swastika
Part of Blavatsky’s pantheon was the seven-headed “Serpent of Darkness”
bearing the swastika on its crowns. She said, “And this ‘true and
perfect Serpent’ is the seven-lettered God who is now credited with
being Jehovah, and Jesus One
with
him. To this Seven-vowelled god the candidate for initiation is
sent by Christos, in the Pistis
Sophia, a work earlier than St. John’s Revelation, and evidently
of the
same school. ... ... These seven vowels are represented by the Swastika
signs on the crowns of the seven heads of the Serpent of Eternity, in
India, among esoteric Buddhists, in Egypt, in Chaldea, etc., etc., and
among the Initiates of every other country. ... The seven-headed
serpent has more than one signification in the Arcane teachings. It is
the seven-headed Draco,
each of whose heads is a star of the Lesser Bear; but it was also, and
pre-eminently, the Serpent of Darkness (i.e., inconceivable and
incomprehensible) whose seven heads were the seven Logoi, the reflections of
the one
and first manifested Light – the universal LOGOS.” [37]
The Bible describes a seven-headed animal, as well – but does so to
warn against it rather than to praise it. The book of Revelation
portrays “a beast rising out of the
sea, with ten horns and seven
heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name upon its
heads,” (Rev. 13:1) who receives its authority from the Dragon
(Rev.
13:2, 4). [38]
The Theosophists have retained the swastika symbol. Since 1881, [39]
the emblem of the Theosophical Society has included the image of a
snake eating its tail, with an encircled swastika where the serpent’s
head meets its tail. [40]
The Nazis borrowed the swastika symbol and
ideas of Aryan racial supremacy from the Thule Society and other German
occultists, and then made their own sanguinary adaptations to
occultism. [41]
The premier historian of the occult
roots of Nazism and neo-Nazism, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, explains
the connection between Theosophy and Nazism: “Even before the First
World War, occult-racist völkisch
sects
in Austria and Germany had quarried the ideas of Theosophy for the
Aryo-Germanic cult of Ariosophy. Notions of elite priesthoods, secret
gnosis, a prehistoric golden age, the conspiracy of demonic racial
inferiors and millennial prophecies of Aryan salvation all occur in the
writings of Guido von List (1848-1919) and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels
(1874-1954) and their followers. Their ideas and symbols filtered
through to several anti-Semitic and nationalist groups in late
Wilhelmian Germany, from which the early Nazi Party emerged in Munich
after the war. At least two Ariosophists were closely involved with
Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler in the 1930s, contributing to his
projects in Germanic prehistory, SS order ceremonial and his visionary
plans for the Greater Germanic Reich in the third millennium. ... Given
the neopagan revivalism and frequent antipathy toward Christianity
among fascists, Theosophy can offer such individuals a scheme of
religious belief that ignores Christianity in favor of a mixture of
mythical traditions and new scientific ideas from contemporary
scholarship in anthropology, etymology, ancient history and comparative
religion. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Theosophy
itself tended to be associated with liberal and emancipatory causes by
its leaders in Britain and India. Here one recalls Helena Blavatsky’s
support of Garibaldi’s struggle in Italy and Annie Besant’s
championship of the Indian National Congress. However, the very
structure of Theosophical beliefs can lend themselves to illiberal
adoption. The implicit authority of the hidden mahatmas from a
Lemuro-Atlantean dynasty with superhuman wisdom is easily
transmogrified by racist enthusiasts into a new hierarchical social
order based on the mystique of the blood. And the notion of an occult
gnosis in Blavatskyan Theosophy, together with the charge that alien
(Christian) beliefs have obscured this spiritual heritage, also fits
the need to ascribe a prehistoric pedigree to modern racial
nationalism.” [42]
Dragon-Worship: The
Religion of the
Ancients – and of the Future
Blavatsky expected the current world religions to disappear; the “religion of the ancients is the religion
of the future. A few centuries more, and there will linger no
sectarian belief in either of the great religions of humanity.
Brahmanism and Buddhism, Christianity and Mohammedanism will all
disappear before the mighty rush of facts.
... But this can only come to pass when the world returns to the
grand religion of the past; the knowledge
of those majestic systems which preceded by far Brahmanism, and
even the primitive monotheism of the ancient Chaldeans.” [43]
Blavatsky claimed that the universal “religion
of the ancients” was the
worship of the Dragon and the Sun. She said,
“The tradition of the Dragon and the
Sun is echoed in every part of the
world, both in its civilized and semi-savage regions. It took rise in
the whisperings about secret initiations among the profane, and was
established universally through the once universal heliolatrous
religion. There was a time when the four parts of the world were
covered with the temples sacred to the Sun and the Dragon; but the cult
is now preserved mostly in China and the Buddhist countries. ... We
find (a) the priests assuming the name of the gods they served; (b) the
‘Dragons’ held throughout all antiquity as the symbols of Immortality
and Wisdom, of secret Knowledge and of Eternity; and (c) the
hierophants of Egypt, of Babylon, and India, styling themselves
generally the ‘sons of the Dragon’ and ‘Serpents;’ thus the teachings
of the Secret Doctrine are thereby corroborated.” [44]
The memory of this ancient religion was “the origin of the new Satanic myth” of
Christians. [45]
The restored worship of the Dragon and the Sun is what Blavatsky
expects to be the New Religion of the future. Thus, she predicted a
literal fulfillment of the prophecy in Revelation that “Men worshiped
the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast” (Rev.
13:4).
Hatred for the
Christian Churches
Blavatsky’s proclamation of “universal brotherhood” did
not extend to
Christians and their churches. In 1877, she said that Isis Unveiled was “in particular
directed against theological Christianity, the chief opponent of free
thought. It contains not one word against the pure teachings of Jesus,
but unsparingly denounces their debasement into pernicious
ecclesiastical systems that are ruinous to man’s faith in his
immortality and his God, and subversive of all moral restraint. We cast
our gauntlet at the dogmatic theologians who would enslave both history
and science; and especially at the Vatican, whose despotic pretensions
have become hateful to the greater portion of enlightened Christendom.”
[46]
In 1888, Blavatsky reiterated: “the
Secret Doctrine must some day
become the just Karma of the Churches – more anti-Christian than the
representative assemblies of the most confirmed Materialists and
Atheists.” [47]
The Worldwide
Influence of Blavatsky
and of Theosophy
Numerous authorities, from the Vatican to interfaith movement
historians and scholarly supporters of Theosophy, confirm that
Theosophy has decisively influenced occult, spiritualist, “New
Thought,” and New Age movements around the world since 1875.
Blavatsky’s work has borne plentiful dark fruit.
The Vatican’s report on the New Age movement, released in early 2003,
said that 19th-Century esotericism “reached
its clearest form in the
ideas of Helena Blavatsky, a Russian medium who founded the Theosophical Society with
Henry
Olcott in New York in 1875. The Society aimed to fuse elements of
Eastern and Western traditions in an evolutionary type of spiritualism.
It had three main aims: 1. ‘To form a nucleus of the Universal
Brotherhood of Humanity,
without distinction of race, creed, caste or colour.’ 2. ‘To encourage
the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science.’ 3. ‘To
investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the
powers latent in man.’ “The
significance of these objectives ...
should be clear. The first objective implicitly rejects the ‘irrational
bigotry’ and ‘sectarianism’ of traditional Christianity as perceived by
spiritualists and theosophists ... It is not immediately obvious from
the objectives themselves that, for theosophists, ‘science’ meant the
occult sciences and philosophy, the occulta
philosophia, that the laws of nature were of an occult or
psychic nature, and that comparative religion was expected to unveil a
‘primordial tradition’ ultimately modelled on a Hermeticist philosophia perennis.” [48]
... A
prominent component of Mrs. Blavatsky’s writings was the emancipation
of women, which involved an attack on the ‘male’ God of Judaism, of
Christianity and of Islam. She urged people to return to the
mother-goddess of Hinduism and to the practice of feminine virtues.
This continued under the guidance of Annie Besant, who was in the
vanguard of the feminist movement. Wicca and ‘women’s spirituality’
carry on this struggle against ‘patriarchal’ Christianity today.”
[49]
The authors of the New Age Almanac
say, “Theosophy became the seedbed
that nurtured the important new
movements that would emerge so forcefully in the twentieth century.
Several hundred new occult organizations can be traced directly to the
Theosophical Society. For example, drawing upon the esoteric work
initiated by Theosophy, ritual magicians have attempted to attain the
mastery of the world through occult means in a measure only hinted at
in theosophical circles. ... Theosophy also nurtured a reborn
astrology. ... Beginning with minuscule astrological groups in the late
nineteenth century, astrology made an astounding comeback to become the
most pervasive popular occult practice in the latter part of the
twentieth century. Theosophy also provided the prime channel through
which Hinduism and Buddhism reached out to claim non-Asian supporters.
Through theosophical literature, leaders, and centers, Eastern
religious ideas flowed into the West. ... Many of the early Buddhist
groups in the West began in theosophical lodges. Ultimately, however,
Theosophy proved itself more akin to Hinduism, and the new Hinduism of
the Indian Renaissance of the nineteenth century used Theosophy
effectively in its movement to Europe and North America. ... Finally,
through the success of theosophical disciples such as Edgar Cayce,
reincarnation reached a popular audience
beyond the Theosophical
Society and earned the acceptance of the vast majority of the
metaphysical community.” [50]
Another observer of new religious movements says, “Rudolf Steiner’s
Anthroposophy, Krishnamurti, J. I. Gurdjieff, and P. D. Ouspensky all
stem directly from the activities of the Theosophical Society, and the
development of modern Buddhism, and especially in its indigenous form
in present-day Sri Lanka, is largely due to Olcott’s work.” [51]
(Olcott and Blavatsky were co-founders of the Theosophical Society.)
Marcus Braybrooke, a leading historian of the interfaith movement, said
in 1992 that “Theosophists can claim
to have been amongst the first to
suggest a unity of religions.” [52]
He added, “The society insists that
it is not offering a new system of thought, but merely underscoring
certain universal concepts of God, nature and man that have been known
to wise men in all ages and that may be found in the teachings of all
the great religions. Emphasis is placed on mystical experience. A
distinction is made between inner, or esoteric, and outer, or exoteric,
teaching. It is said that all the historic world religions contain
inner teaching which is essentially the same, despite external
differences. This teaching is monistic in character, suggesting an
underlying all-encompassing unity. Theosophy has also shown a
preoccupation with the occult. ... Theosophy has been a means of
introducing many Westerners to the wisdom of the East. Some
theosophists, notably Henry Steel Olcott and Annie Besant, played a
part in the spiritual renaissance of Buddhism and Hinduism at the end
of the last century and the beginning of this century. Besides the
Theosophical Society, the teachings of theosophy have influenced
Westerners through a variety of other organizations, such as
Rosicrucianism, the Liberal Catholic Church, World Goodwill, and the
Lucis Trust.” [53]
Dr. Stephan Hoeller, Director of Studies for the Gnostic Society of Los
Angeles, says, “C. G. Jung’s
statement that Blavatsky’s Theosophy as
well as Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy (a variant of Theosophy) were
both pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress contains a large measure of truth.”
[54]
Historian K. Paul Johnson, who has written several scholarly histories
of Theosophy, said: “A remarkable
feature of Theosophy’s history is the
disparity between its miniscule membership and its vast and varied
cultural influence. Blavatsky’s ideas inspired leading figures in the
development of modern art, most notably Wassily Kandinsky and Piet
Mondrian. Theosophical influence in literature affected the Irish
Literary Renaissance, in which William Butler Yeats and AE (George
Russell) were prominent. Political activism in colonial India and
Ceylon owed an immense debt to Theosophical influence. In the West,
many social movements such as educational reform, women’s suffrage, and
abolition of capital punishment were advanced by the efforts of early
Theosophists. But in no field of endeavor has Theosophy’s influence
been as great as in introducing Eastern religious ideas to the Western
public.” [55]
Joscelyn Godwin, author of The
Theosophical Enlightenment, said that Theosophy and its offshoot
movements were an historically unprecedented rejection by a
civilization of its own tradition. Blavatsky “believed that the West
had better look to the East if it wanted to learn what real philosophy
was (or to relearn what it once knew). With equal certainty she
despised every form of institutional Christianity. As a result, her
Society, its members, and its offshoots became the main vehicle for
Buddhist and Hindu philosophies to enter the Western consciousness, not
merely as an academic study but as something worth embracing. In so
doing, they paved the way for the best and the worst of the oriental
gurus who have taken up residence in the West. They introduced into the
vernacular such concepts as karma and reincarnation, meditation, and
the spiritual path. Together with the Western occult tradition, the
Theosophists have provided almost all the underpinnings of the ‘New
Age’ movement. ... But these efforts themselves are something
characteristically Western. ... No previous civilization has ever had
the interest, the resources, or the inner need to hold the entire world
in its intellectual embrace; to take the terrifying step of renouncing,
even blaspheming, its own religious tradition, in the quest for a more
open and rational view; to publish freely those secrets that were
formerly only given under the seal of initiation; and, in short, to
plunge humanity into the spiritual alembic in which we find ourselves
today.” [56]
NOTES
Note: Internet citations were done during 2003 and 2004.
Documents may have moved to different Web pages, or may have been
removed from the Web entirely, since then.
[1] Charles Upton states,
“Blavatsky took for her own use little more than the terminology of
Hinduism and Buddhism. Almost every application she made of concepts
from these religions was erroneous.” (E-mail from Charles Upton to Lee
Penn, 03/23/04.)
[2] For further information on
the teachings of the Theosophical movement (Blavatsky, Alice Bailey,
David Spangler, Neale Donald Walsch, Robert Muller, Barbara Marx
Hubbard, and Benjamin Creme, see Lee Penn, “New Age and Globalist
Strategies: Unity, Collectivism, & Control,” Journal of the Spiritual
Counterfeits Project, Vol. 23:4-24:1, 2000, pp. 42-70, and “Dark
Apocalypse: Blood Lust of the Compassionate,” Journal of the Spiritual
Counterfeits Project, Vol. 24:2-24:3, 2000, pp. 8-31; obtainable
through http://www.scp-inc.org.
[3] Sylvia Cranston, HPB: The Extraordinary Life and Influence
of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement,
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994, p. 333 ff., on Lucifer magazine.
[4] Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment,
State University of New York Press, 1994, p. 281.
[5] See, for example, the title
page of Alice A. Bailey, Initiation,
Human and Solar, First Edition,
Lucifer Publishing Co., 135 Broadway, New York City, 1922.
[6] The Steiner biography on
the Anthroposophic Press web site does not mention the 1913 break
between Steiner and Theosophy (Anthroposophic Press, “About Rudolf
Steiner,” http://www.anthropress.org/aboutrudolf.html,
printed 03/24/04.) Instead, it begins with Steiner’s brief description
of Anthroposophy, written in 1904, while Steiner was the head of the
German branch of the Theosophical Society: “Anthroposophy is a path of
knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual
in the universe. It arises in people as a need of the heart and feeling
life. Anthroposophy can be justified only to the degree that it
satisfies this inner need. It may be acknowledged only by those who
find within it what they themselves feel the need to seek. Therefore,
anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of
life, certain questions on the nature of the human being and the
universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst. – Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts,
1904.” This publishing house reprints Steiner’s works, from his
Theosophical period and from his post-1912 Anthroposophical period,
without setting forth a philosophical break between the periods. The
editor of Steiner’s Spiritualism,
Madame Blavatsky, and Theosophy says, “Rudolf Steiner’s perhaps
even greater contribution, as we shall see, was to remove the dust of
the past and Blavatsky’s prejudices and place both method and teachings
squarely in the evolutionary development of human consciousness. It is
important to remember, however, that Rudolf Steiner did this as a
Theosophist, within Theosophy. Anthroposophy, which he taught from the
beginning, began as, and was for the first ten years of his public (and
private) esoteric work, explicitly his contribution to Theosophy.”
(Christopher Bamford, “Introduction,” pp. 15-16, in Rudolf Steiner, Spiritualism, Madame Blavatsky, and
Theosophy: An Eyewitness View of Occult History, ed. by
Christopher Bamford, Anthroposophic Press, 2001.) [For further
information on Rudolf Steiner, see Carrie Tomko, “Anthroposophy: The
Occult Influences of Rudolf Steiner,” Journal
of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, Part I, Vol. 25:2-25:3, 2001,
pp. 66-70, and Part II, Vol. 25:4-26:1, 2002, pp. 60-70; obtainable
through http://www.scp-inc.org.]
[7] Theosophical Society in
America, “Introduction to the Theosophical Society,” http://www.theosophical.org/society/intro/index.html,
printed 07/19/04.
[8] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II — Anthropogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., p. 515.
[9] Ibid., p. 420.
[10] Fred Matser, “Nature Is My
God,” an interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, Resurgence 184, http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/184/gorbachev.htm,
printed 05/20/03 and 07/19/04. Resurgence
describes itself as “the leading international forum for
ecological and spiritual thinking, where you can explore the ideas of
the great writers and thinkers of our time, both in print and on-line” (Resurgence, home page, http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/home.htm,
printed 05/20/03).
[11] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. I — Cosmogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., p. 381,
footnote.
[12] Ibid., pp. 70-71.
[13] Ibid., pp. 193-194.
[14] Ibid., p. 198.
[15] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II — Anthropogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., p. 237.
[16] Ibid., p. 243.
[17] Ibid., p. 377.
[18] Ibid., p. 512
[19] Ibid., p. 513.
[20] Ibid., pp. 507-508.
[21] Ibid., p. 508.
[22] H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: Vol. II, Theology,
Theosophical University Press, 1988 reprint of 1877 ed., p. 544.
[23] Bishop John S. Spong, “A
Call for a New Reformation,” http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox20598.html,
Thesis 2, printed 07/19/04.
[24] H P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: Vol. II, Theology,
Theosophical University Press, 1988 reprint of 1877 ed., p. 341.
[25] Bishop John S. Spong, “A
Call for a New Reformation,” http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox20598.html,
Thesis 5, printed 07/19/04.
[26] H P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: Vol. I, Science,
Theosophical University Press, 1988 reprint of 1877 ed., p. 130.
[27] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II — Anthropogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., p. 512.
[28] H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: Vol. II, Theology,
Theosophical University Press, 1988 reprint of 1877 ed., p. 639.
[29] Ibid., p. 639.
[30] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. I — Cosmogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., p. 228,
footnote.
[31] H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: Vol. I, Science,
Theosophical University Press, 1988 reprint of 1877 ed., p. 296.
[32] Ibid., p. 296.
[33] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism, New
York University Press, 1992, pp. 218-219.
[34] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II — Anthropogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., p. 421,
footnote; see also pp. 162, 168, 195, 196, 197, 249, 446, 779, and 780
for similar statements. On p. 425, she contradicts these statements,
and argues against “dividing humanity into superior and inferior races.”
[35] Ibid., p. 446.
[36] Ibid., pp. 779-780.
[37] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. I — Cosmogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., pp. 410-411.
[38] Charles Upton adds, “There
is no better illustration of how mixing constellations-of-symbols
integral to different religions can result in Satanic parodies. To
assimilate to Jehovah and Christ the seven-headed cobra who
overshadowed Gautama Buddha’s meditation is, in Judeo-Christian terms,
to assimilate Jehovah to Satan and Christ to Antichrist.” (E-mail from
Charles Upton to Lee Penn, 08/21/04).
[39] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler’s Priestess: Savitri Devi, the
Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism, New York University Press,
1998, p. 35. He says, “Despite the universalism of Theosophy, its
Aryans and swastika had a potent influence on mystical racism in
Germany and Austria from the late 1890s onward.”
[40] Steven Heller, The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption?,
Allworth Press, 2000, pp. 47-48; an example of this image is on p. 48.
[41] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke,
The Occult Roots of Nazism,
New York University Press, 1992; Steven
Heller, The Swastika: Symbol Beyond
Redemption?, Allworth Press, 2000, pp. 41-78.
[42] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism,
and the Politics of Identity, New York University Press, 2002,
pp. 85-86. Another recent account by a journalist says the same: “The
rationale behind many later Nazi projects can be traced back – through
the writings of von List, von Sebottendorff, and von Liebenfels – to
ideas first popularized by Blavatsky. A caste system of races, the
importance of ancient alphabets (notably the runes), the superiority of
the Aryans (a white race with its origins in the Himalayas), an
‘initiated’ version of astrology and astronomy, the cosmic truths coded
within pagan myths . . . all of these and more can be found both in
Blavatsky and in the Nazi Party itself, specifically in the ideology of
its Dark Creature, the SS. It was,
after all, Blavatsky who pointed out the supreme occult significance of
the swastika. And it was a follower of Blavatsky who was
instrumental in introducing the Protocols of
the Elders of Zion to a Western European community eager for a
scapegoat.” (Peter Levenda, Unholy
Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult,
Continuum, 2002, p. 40). The
Protocols were an anti-Semitic
forgery composed in France in the late 1800s, plagiarized and
modified from Maurice Joly’s 1864 satire of the regime of Napoleon III,
Dialogue aux enfers entre Montesquieu
et Machiavel. James Webb, a historian of occult movements, says,
“It is probable that the forgery entered Russia with Yuliana Glinka
(1844-1918), the daughter of a Russian diplomat who spent her time in
Paris and St. Petersburg and was a Theosophist devoted to Madame
Blavatsky.” (James Webb, The Occult
Establishment, Open Court, 1976, p. 217, for the quote and for
the overview of the history of the Protocols.)
Charles Upton comments, “The
swastika is an ancient (Paleolithic) and nearly universal symbol of
Divine action, with no sinister connotations until its use by the Nazis
and their precursors. In modern times it appeared on Rudyard
Kipling’s books, and was even the emblem of the British War Savings
Scheme during World War I. But its continued use by the Theosophical
Society after
[43] H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: Vol. I, Science,
Theosophical University Press, 1988 reprint of 1877 ed., p. 613.
[44] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II — Anthropogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., pp. 378-379.
Charles Upton comments on Blavatsky’s theological confusion: “It is
true that many archaic Near Eastern religions, as well as Hinduism and
Buddhism, took the serpent as a symbol of wisdom, a meaning which is
undoubtedly reflected in the brazen serpent of Exodus. But the dominant
meaning of the serpent in the Judeo-Christian tradition is clearly
negative; it most often symbolizes not Divine Wisdom but rather a lower
dualistic knowledge, the ‘knowledge of good and evil,’ which obscures
Divine Wisdom. Furthermore, the essentially negative Judeo-Christian
symbol of the dragon is derived from such Babylonian figures as Tiamat
(equivalent in many ways to the Biblical Leviathan), the Chaos Monster
who is slain in the Divine act of creation; this is basically what
“dragon-slaying” has come to mean in the West. In China, on the other
hand, the dragon is the Celestial Power, nearly equivalent to the
Christian Holy Spirit. For Blavatsky to confuse the dragons of the East
and the West shows “comparative religion” at its absolute worst, since
it necessarily identifies the dragon of the Apocalypse with the Holy
Spirit and the Celestial Dragon of China with Satan. One cannot presume
to compare religions until one at least shows a willingness to
understand them in their own terms.” (E-mail from Charles Upton to Lee
Penn, 08/21/04).
[45] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II — Anthropogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., p. 378.
[46] H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: Vol. II, Theology,
Theosophical University Press, 1988 reprint of 1877 ed., “Preface to
Part II,” p. iv.
[47] H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II — Anthropogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1999 reprint of 1888 ed., p. 228.
[48] For the sentences inside
the double quote marks, the Vatican was citing Wouter J. Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture:
Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, State University
of New York Press, 1998, p. 449. Charles Upton comments, “The
Traditionalist School [Schuon, A. Coomaraswamy, Guénon, et al.] also
speaks of a ‘primordial tradition,’ but denies that this tradition can
function as a viable religious dispensation in our time. All religions
ultimately spring from the same root; as the Jews and Muslims say, Adam
was the first prophet. But the tree has branched since those times,
symbolized in Genesis by the fall of the Tower of Babel and the
‘confusion of tongues’; the only paths to God are now the various
revealed religions. A revived ‘religio perennis’ can only be a
counterfeit universalism leading to the regime of the Antichrist.”
(E-mail from Charles Upton to Lee Penn, 04/27/04).
[49] Pontifical Council For
Culture and Pontifical Council For Interreligious Dialogue, “Jesus
Christ The Bearer Of The Water Of Life: A Christian reflection on the
“New Age,” 2003, section 2.3.2, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html,
printed 02/3/03.
[50] J. Gordon Melton, Jerome
Clark, and Aidan A. Kelly, New Age
Almanac,Visible Ink Press, 1991, pp. 6-7.
[51] George D. Chryssides, Exploring New Religions, Cassell,
1999, p. 87. Charles Upton notes, however, that “Gurdjieff probably
lifted something from Blavatsky, but his core teachings stem from Sufi
and Hesychast practices taken illegitimately out of context and mixed
with other influences, notably hypnosis and psychic control.
Krishnamurti as a young man was adopted by the Theosophical Society who
trained him for the role of their new ‘World Teacher,’ a role he
rejected. His own later teachings could be called the polar opposite of
those of the Society.” (E-mail from Charles Upton to Lee Penn, July 2,
2003.)
[52] Marcus Braybrooke, Pilgrimage of Hope: One Hundred Years of
Global Interfaith Dialogue, Crossroad, 1992, p. 266.
[53] Ibid., p. 267.
[54] Stephan A. Hoeller, Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient
Tradition of Inner Knowing, Quest Books/Theosophical Publishing
House, 2002, p. 169.
[55] K. Paul Johnson, Initiates of Theosophical Masters,
State University of New York Press, 1995, p. 113.
[56] Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment,
State University of New York Press, 1994, p. 379. An alembic is a
laboratory device used for distillation. World War II is as
sinister as can be.” (E-mail from Charles Upton to Lee Penn, 8/21/04).
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