Contents



Introduction

Between 1922 and 1949, Alice Bailey published 24 books of “revelations,” most of which she claimed to have channeled from the Tibetan ascended spiritual master Djwhal Khul. All these books remain in print through the Lucis Trust, and are widely available. A standard almanac on the New Age movement says, “The Arcane School and the books of Alice Bailey have contributed heavily to the concept and language of the New Age Movement.” [1] A recent survey of new religious movements says that Bailey’s group “is widespread in the Western world and membership is probably a few thousand people worldwide.” [2]

The Rev. Betsy Stang (a Wittenberg Center interfaith minister who served on the URI Interim Global Council in 2000, [3] and who was a donor to the URI in 2002 [4]), said of Alice Bailey’s writings, “Some of Bailey’s writing is really remarkable, very Gothic. You would put her with Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, and Steiner. She is historically very important. In my mind, Bailey has beautiful, poetic evocations in her books.” [5]

Here follow some of Bailey’s “beautiful, poetic evocations.” As you read them, recall that Alice Bailey’s present-day followers are public supporters of the URI, and have been donors to the movement. Note, as well, that World Goodwill, an affiliate of the Lucis Trust, enjoys UN recognition as a “Non-Governmental Organization.” As World Goodwill says, “World Goodwill is an accredited non-governmental organisation with the Department of Public Information of the United Nations. It maintains informal relations with certain of the Specialised Agencies and with a wide range of national and international non-governmental organisations. World Goodwill is an activity of the Lucis Trust, which is on the Roster of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.” [6]

At the beginning of each of the Alice Bailey books that were – supposedly – dictated by the “Tibetan,” there is this ambiguous disclaimer by the spirit guide: “The books that I have written are sent out with no claim for their acceptance. They may, or may not, be correct, true and useful. It is for you to ascertain their truth by right practice and by the exercise of the intuition. Neither I nor A.A.B. is the least interested in having them acclaimed as inspired writings, or in having anyone speak of them (with bated breath) as being the work of one of the Masters. If they present truth in such a way that it follows sequentially upon that already offered in the world teachings, if the information given raises the aspiration and the will-to-serve from the plane of the emotions to that of the mind (the plane whereon the Masters can be found) then they will have served their purpose. If the teaching conveyed calls forth a response from the illumined mind of the worker in the world, and brings a flashing forth of his intuition, then let that teaching be accepted. But not otherwise.” [7] This is akin to a software warranty written by a crafty lawyer: you may use this, but we make no guarantee that it will be “useful.” The “Tibetan” is correct about this: those who pursue the Theosophical way do so at their own risk.


Continuing Blavatsky’s Work

Alice Bailey positioned herself as a follower of Blavatsky, and as her spiritual successor. Bailey praised Blavatsky on the acknowledgment page of A Treatise On Cosmic Fire, saying that the book is “dedicated with gratitude to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, that great disciple who lighted her torch in the east and brought the light to Europe and America in 1875.” [8] In Running God’s Plan, her husband Foster Bailey likewise made it clear that Alice Bailey had followed Blavatsky’s teachings, and claimed that both women had the same mentor, the Tibetan spirit guide Djwhal Khul: “Modern esotericism is a new phenomenon in the western world pioneered by the Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul, working with H.P. Blavatsky. Again, this time working with Alice Ann Bailey, the same master teacher has provided the interim teaching needed for conscious entry into the new Aquarian Age. The study of this new teaching in the books published under the name of Alice Bailey is producing a revival of esotericism and a new technique for self-development, this time with the selfless goal of world service.” [9]


Praising the Fallen Angels and Re-defining “666”

Bailey denied any opposition between God and the Devil, Christ and Anti-Christ: “Christ and anti-Christ are the dualities of spirituality and materialism, both in the individual and in humanity as a whole. Or you can speak of God and the Devil with the same basic implications.” [10] Bailey describes Lucifer as the ruler of humanity, “Son of the Morning, The Prodigal Son.” [11]

Therefore, the revolt of the angels against God was part of “the divine plan of evolution.” [12] Bailey said that “the Great Law of Duality came into action, bringing about the ‘fall of the angels,’ as they descended from their sinless and free state of existence in order to develop full divine awareness upon earth, through the medium of material incarnation and the use of the principle of mind.” [13] Bailey says that at the inception of the “divine plan,” “there took place the original ‘war in the heavens,’ when the sons of God who responded to the divine urge to experience, to serve and to sacrifice, separated themselves from the sons of God who responded to no such inspiration but who chose to stay in their original and high state of being.” [14] In other words, the rebel angels were really the good guys.

Bailey re-interpreted the number 666 as the number of a “Heavenly Man;” [15] she also saw it as the number of “materialism, the number of the dominance of the three worlds prior to the process of reorientation and the expression of developed idealism and purpose. The third aspect expresses itself through pure materialism, and hence the three sixes.” [16] She thus obscured a symbol which the Bible describes as “the number of the beast” (Rev. 13:18).

Alice Bailey said that “the Ancient of Days” [17] and the “Lord of the World, the One Initiator” [18] is a spirit named Sanat Kumara, “the Great Sacrifice.” [19] He came to Earth from Venus [20] in “the middle of the Lemurian epoch, approximately eighteen million years ago” and “has remained with us ever since.” [21]

Previously, Blavatsky had made clear her view of the nature and origin of Sanat Kumara. [22] Blavatsky had said that Sanat Kumara is one of “the ‘mind-born Sons’ of Brahmâ-Rudra (or Siva) the howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses.” [23] Venus, the planet from which Sanat Kumara came, “is our ‘Lucifer,’ the morning star.” [24] The parent of Sanat Kumara is Siva, “the destroyer;” Siva is “the creator and the Saviour of Spiritual man, as he is the good gardener of nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual, man.” [25] Blavatsky also noted that Christians call Sanat Kumara one of the fallen angels. [26] Therefore, Christians may conclude that the Theosophists’ lord, whom they name Sanat Kumara, is a devil, a servant of the hostile power that Christ called “the ruler of this world” (Jn. 14:30).

Alice Bailey believed that “for the first time” mankind is “intelligently participating and cooperating” in the “entire evolutionary process.” [27] Therefore, the spiritual Hierarchy can “bring to an end the long silence which has persisted since Atlantean days” and “renew an ancient ‘sharing of the secrets.’” [28]  Thus, “in the immediate future,” the “Masters will walk openly among men.” [29] This “return to the situation which existed in Atlantean days,” [30] when “the Members of the spiritual Hierarchy were openly guiding and directing the affairs of humanity,” [31] carries with it certain dangers. As Bailey herself said, “Then took place the great war between the Lords of Form and the Lords of Being, or between the Forces of Matter and the Great White Lodge. … The Forces of Light triumphed because the Hierarchy was forced to intervene potently … They brought the Atlantean civilisation to an abrupt end after a long period of chaos and disaster. This took place through the medium of a culminating catastrophe which wiped hundreds of thousands of human beings off the face of the earth. This historical event has been preserved for us in the universal legend of the great flood.” [32] Bailey’s “Hierarchy” wants mankind to return to a spiritual condition that last existed just before the Flood. Been there, done that; why would this work any better for mankind the second time than the first?


Proclaiming Human Divinity and Denying Christ

Like Barbara Marx Hubbard and Neale Donald Walsch, Bailey asserts human divinity. “We are all Gods, all the children of the One Father, as the latest of the Avatars, the Christ, has told us.” [33]

There is a down-side to this exalted status, however. Bailey denies that Christ loves us: “The Son of God was called in The Old Testament a ‘man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ This did not in reality refer to His sufferings for poor miserable humanity (as orthodox theology so selfishly interprets it) but to the fact that He had to submit Himself to contact with humanity.” [34] Nor does Christ’s sacrifice save us. “It must be remembered that it is the teaching given by the Christ which saves humanity – not any symbolic death upon a cross. Men must save themselves by their reaction and their response to the teaching given in its purity by the Christ.” [35] Bailey denies hell; she therefore also denies salvation and grace: “There is, as you well know, no angry God, no hell, and no vicarious atonement. … As these erroneous ideas die out, the concept of hell will fade from man’s recollection and its place will be taken by an understanding of the law which makes each man work out his salvation upon the physical plane, which leads him to right the wrongs which he may have perpetrated in his lives on Earth, and which enables him eventually to ‘clean his own slate.’” [36] What a rotten deal Bailey offers! Instead of being saved and forgiven through Christ’s death and resurrection and being told like the good thief, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43), we are left with the unforgiving law of karma and the requirement to right all the wrongs of all our past lives ourselves.

As befits a utopian social reformer, Bailey taught that Christ’s Kingdom is of this world: “Christ taught also that the Kingdom of God is on Earth and told us to seek that Kingdom first and let all things go for its sake.” [37] Jesus Christ said otherwise to Pilate while He was on trial for His life: “My kingship is not of this world” (Jn. 18:36).

Did Christ ascend to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father? Not according to Bailey. “He cannot return because He has always been here upon our Earth, watching over the spiritual destiny of humanity; He has never left us … He can only reappear,” [38] coming forth from “His present retreat in Central Asia.” [39]

Bailey held that in the New Age, the sign of the Cross will be replaced by a new “mark” of “a new type of salvation.” In The Rays and the Initiations, she said, “Recognition of the successful work of the New Group of World Servers will be accorded by the Hierarchy, and the testimony of the recognition will be the appearing of a symbol in the aura of the group – of the entire group. This will be a symbol projected by the Hierarchy, specifically by the Christ. … It is ‘the mark of a Saviour’ and it will embody the mark or indication (the signature as medieval occultists used to call it) of a new type of salvation or salvage. Up till now the mark of the Saviour has been the Cross … The future holds within its silence other modes of saving humanity. The cup of sorrow and the agony of the Cross are well-nigh finished. Joy and strength will take their place.” [40] Bailey’s prophecy of the replacement of the Cross by a new symbol appears to foreshadow the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s current “take down the cross” campaign.

Bailey supported progressive, evolutionary, liberal Christian theology. In her autobiography, she said, “there was really no reason because a priest or teacher six hundred years ago interpreted the Bible in one way (probably suitable for his time and age) that it should be acceptable now in a different time and age, under a different civilisation and with widely different problems. If God’s truth is truth then it will be expansive and inclusive, and not reactionary and exclusive. If God is God, then His divinity will adapt itself to the emerging divinity of the sons of God, and a son of God today may be a very different expression of divinity from a son of God five thousand years ago.” [41]


Population Control

In the 1940s – when world population was less than half what it is today – Alice Bailey said, “certain physical restrictions should be imposed, because it is now evident that beyond a certain point the planet cannot support humanity.” [42] Bailey’s proposed solutions were far-reaching: eugenics, and the reshaping of human sexuality so that people – like animals and plants – only mate and reproduce for a part of each year: “The emphasis in the future will shift from the urge to produce large families to that of producing quality and intelligence in the offspring. This will include that science of which eugenics is the distorted and exoteric indication.” [43] “The real change in human consciousness which is needed will appear only as the race itself is brought under a rhythmic law – under which, for instance, the animal lives function, or the seasonal law under which forms in the vegetable kingdom operate – thus transferring the whole concept on to a higher turn of the evolutionary spiral.” [44]

Bailey also said, “One of the tasks of the educator of the future will be to teach the meaning of the Law of Rebirth, and thus bring about such a profound change in the racial attitude to life and sex, to birth and parenthood, that sex rhythm, cyclic experience, psychological preparation and directed, controlled body-building may go forward and supersede the present methods, which are based upon an uncontrolled response to the sex urge and desire, and the unthinking procreation of children. The vast population of the world today is the result of an animal response to these urges and of the general promiscuity, which is perhaps the outstanding factor, esoterically speaking and from the standpoint of the Hierarchy, of the present world distress, economic difficulties, and national aggressions.” [45]


Astrological Racism

In many of her books, Alice Bailey upheld occult racial theories, including the division of mankind into races that are on different points of the “ladder of evolution;” the Aryans and an emerging “new race” are the most-evolved. In Education in the New Age, Bailey predicted the use of occult racial theory in the schools of the future: “Young people will then be studied from the standpoint of their probable point upon the ladder of evolution and will be grouped as: a) Lemurians, with physical predispositions. b) Atlanteans, with emotional dominance. c) Aryans, with mental tendencies and inclinations. d) New race, with group qualities and consciousness and idealistic vision.” [46]

In Problems of Humanity, Bailey stated that the races are unequal now, but that this is a temporary condition: “Under the great evolutionary process, men and races differ in mental development, in physical stamina, in creative possibilities, in understanding, in human perceptiveness and in their position upon the ladder of civilization; this, however, is temporary, for the same potentialities exist in all of us without exception, and will eventually display themselves.” [47] She said, “The new race is forming in every land, but primarily in those lands where the fifth or Caucasian races are to be found.” [48] In The Destiny of the Nations, Bailey predicted that “very low grade human bodies will disappear, causing a general shift in the racial types toward a higher standard.” [49]

In The Rays and the Initiations, Bailey said that the “new race” will be distinguished by “a state of consciousness which is the Aryan or mental consciousness or state of thinking … This state of consciousness will find its expression in people as far apart racially as the Japanese and the American or the Negro and the Russian.” [50] Distinguishing herself from the Nazi race theorists, Bailey said in Esoteric Psychology, “I am not using the word Aryan as synonymous with Nordic but as descriptive of the intellectual goal of humanity, of which our Occidental civilisation is in the early stages, but which men of all time and all races have individually demonstrated. The Aryan state of consciousness is one into which all men eventually pass.” [51]

A quarter-century later, Foster Bailey – Alice Bailey’s husband – proposed the same racial theories: “For millions of years the evolution of humanity has been going on. … We recognize three great stages of this human growth – Lemurian, Atlantean, and Aryan. We are now in the Aryan stage of the process of perfection.It is difficult to realise what a human being was like in Lemurian times.” [52]


Human Inequality in the New Age

Elitism and condescension would be the hallmarks of the planning and execution of Bailey’s proposed New World Order. In The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, Bailey said, “The needed choices can now be made in cooperation, in consultation and with open eyes. The choice is clearly before the thinking people in every country, and upon their decision rests the fate of the less intelligent masses.” [53] In Education in the New Age, she said, “Cooperative goodwill is all that can, at this time, be expected from the masses, and this is the sublimation of forces released through civilisation. Loving understanding should be the hallmark of the cultured, wiser group, plus an ability to correlate the world of meaning with the world of outer effects. Ponder on this sentence. Group love is, and must be, the outstanding characteristic of the Illuminati of the world, and it is at this time the motivating power of the Masters of the Wisdom, until such time as enough disciples are expressive of this particular force.” [54]

Inequality, based on “the new form of astrology” and “esoteric psychology” will be the basis of schooling in the New Age, as well. Bailey said, “It will be apparent, then, that those to be taught will be gauged from the angles upon which I have touched: a) Those capable of being rightly civilised. This refers to the mass of men. b) Those capable of being carried forward into the world of culture. This includes a very large number. c) Those who can add to the assets of civilisation and culture ‘the equipment’ required for the process of functioning as conscious souls, not only in the three worlds of instinctual and intellectual living, but in the world of spiritual being also, and yet with complete continuity of consciousness and with complete triple integration. Not all can pass into the higher grades, and this must be appreciated. The gauging of ability will be based upon an understanding of the ray types (the science of esoteric psychology), on a comprehension of the condition of the glandular and physiological equipment, upon certain specific tests, and upon the new form of astrology.” [55]


Anti-Semitism

Bailey expressed hatred for Judaism in many of her books. [56]

In The Rays And The Initiations, Alice Bailey says, “Symbolically, the Jews represent (from the point of view of the Hierarchy) that from which all Masters of the Wisdom and Lords of Compassion emerge: materialism, cruelty, and a spiritual conservatism, so that today they live in Old Testament times and are under the domination of the separative, selfish, lower concrete mind. But their opportunity will come again, and they may change all this when the fires of suffering at last succeed in purifying them and burning away their ancient crystallisation, thus liberating them to the extent that they can recognise their Messiah, Who will not, however, be the world Messiah. The Jews need humility more than any other nation. By humility they may learn something of value as well as a needed sense of proportion.” [57]

In a tactic that is common for today’s religious liberals, Bailey criticized St. Paul and separated his teachings from Christ. Her “contribution,” as evident in two of her works, was to add a swipe at the Jews. In The Rays and the Initiations, Bailey said, “In the immediate past, the keynote of the Christian religion has been death, symbolised for us in the death of the Christ, and much distorted for us by St. Paul in his effort to blend the new religion which Christ gave us with the blood religion of the Jews.” [58] In a section of The Externalisation of the Hierarchy written in 1946, [59] Bailey reiterated: “the failure of Christianity can be traced to its Jewish background (emphasised by St. Paul), which made it full of propaganda instead of loving action, which taught the blood sacrifice instead of loving service, and which emphasised the existence of a wrathful God, needing to be placated by death, and which embodied the threats of the Old Testament Jehovah in the Christian teaching of hell fire.” [60] She added, “I have sought – with love and understanding – to point out the faults of the world religions, with their obsolete theologies and their lack of love, and to indicate the evils of Judaism. The present world faiths must return to their early simplicity, and orthodox Judaism, with its deep seated hate, must slowly disappear; all must be changed in preparation for the revelation which Christ will bring.” [61]

In The Reappearance of The Christ, Bailey said, “Christ came to bring to an end the Jewish dispensation which should have climaxed and passed away as a religion with the movement of the sun out of Aries into Pisces. He, therefore, presented Himself to them as their Messiah, manifesting through the Jewish race. In the rejection of Christ as the Messiah, the Jewish race has remained symbolically and practically in the sign of Aries, the Scapegoat; [62] they have to pass – again speaking symbolically – into the sign, Pisces, the Fishes, and recognize their Messiah when He comes again in the sign Aquarius. Otherwise they will repeat their ancient sin of non-response to the evolutionary process. They rejected that which was new and spiritual in the desert; they did it again in Palestine two thousand years ago; will they do it again, as opportunity is offered to them? The difficulty with the Jew is that he remains satisfied with the religion of nearly five thousand years ago and shows as yet little desire to change.” [63]

In the January 1939 section of The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, [64] Bailey wrote, “The solution will come, as I said, when the races regard the Jewish problem as a humanitarian problem but also when the Jew does his share of understanding, love, and right action. This he does not yet do, speaking racially. He must let go of his own separative tendencies and of his deep sense of persecution. He will do this latter with great facility, when he grasps, as a race, the significance, the significance and inevitability of the Law of Karma, and from a close study of the Old Testament and of the acts and deeds there claimed by him as his racial acts and deeds (conquest, terrorism, and cruelty), realises that the law is working out and incidentally releasing him for a greater future. There must, at the same time, be a realisation by the Jew and Gentile of equal responsibility and equal liability for the present world difficulty.” [65] Bailey wrote this after the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogroms in Germany, and on the eve of the Shoah, the Nazi genocide.

At the same time, Bailey also gave a novel account of Jewish history – or, rather, pre-history: “those whom we now call the Jews … are the descendants of that earlier group which was held in pralaya between the first and second solar systems, If you will remember that the third ray governed that system and also governs the Jewish race, if you bear in mind that that system was occupied with the divine aspects of matter only and with external conditions, and that the Jews were the highest product of that system, you can come to an understanding of the Jew, his separateness, his desire for racial purity and his interest in all that is commercial and tangible.” [66]

In Esoteric Healing, she wrote: “Their aggressive history as narrated in the Old Testament is on a par with present-day German accomplishment; yet Christ was a Jew and it was the Hebrew race which produced him. Let this never be forgotten. The Jews were great aggressors; they despoiled the Egyptians and they took the Promised Land at the point of the sword, sparing neither man, woman, nor child. Their religious history has been built around a materialistic Jehovah, possessive, greedy and endorsing and encouraging aggression.” [67] “Today the law is working, and the Jews are paying the price, factually and symbolically, for all they have done in the past.” [68] “Until, however, the Jews themselves face up to the situation and admit that there may be for them the working out of the retributive aspect of the Law of Cause and Effect, and until they endeavour to ascertain what it is in them, as a race, which has initiated their ancient and dire fate, this basic world issue will remain as it has been since the very night of time … What I have said in no way mitigates the guilt of those who have so sorely abused the Jews. … Though much that has happened to the Jews originated in their past history and in their pronounced attitude of separativeness and nonassimilability, and in their emphasis upon material good, yet the agents who have brought the evil karma upon them equally incur the retributive aspects of the same law.” [69]

When Bailey accused Jews of “separativeness” and “emphasis upon material good,” she was making – in her own terms – the most serious accusation possible, since she said “the true nature of cosmic evil finds its major expression in wrong thinking, false values, and the supreme evil of materialistic selfishness and the sense of isolated separativeness.” [70]

In a section of The Rays and The Initiations written in 1948 [71] – after the Shoah –Bailey said that “The Jewish people have not only repudiated the Messiah (which their race produced), but they have forgotten their unique relation to humanity; they forget that millions in the world today have suffered as they have suffered and that – for instance – there are eighty per cent of other people in the concentration camps of Europe and only twenty per cent Jews. The Jew, however, fought only for himself, and largely ignored the sufferings of his fellowmen in the concentration camps.” [72]

Regarding the establishment of the State of Israel, Bailey said, “Today the Jewish people are engineering trouble, and it is interesting to note that the main contention of the past of Poland, lately of the Irish, and today of the Jews, is territory, thus evidencing a most distorted sense of values. … They are claiming a land to which they have no possible right and which the Jews have ignored for two thousand years.” [73] She added, “The menace to world freedom today lies in the known policies of the rulers of the U.S.S.R. and in the devious and lying machinations of the Zionists.” [74]

Instead of Zionism or religious orthodoxy, Bailey proposed assimilation as the solution to the “Jewish problem:” “The Jewish problem will not be solved by taking possession of Palestine, by plaint and demand and by financial manipulations. That would be but the prolongation of ancient wrong and material possessiveness. The problem will be solved by the willingness of the Jew to conform to the civilisation, the cultural background and the standards of living of the nation to which – by the fact of birth and education – he is related and with which he should assimilate. It will come by the relinquishment of pride of race and of the concept of selectivity; it will come by renouncing dogmas and customs which are intrinsically obsolete and which create points of constant irritation to the matrix within which the Jew finds himself; it will come when selfishness in business relations and the pronounced manipulative tendencies of the Hebrew people are exchanged for more selfless and honest forms of activity.” [75]

Bailey added that, on the part of Gentiles, “The growing anti-Semitic feeling in the world is inexcusable in the sight of God and man. I refer not here to the abominable cruelties of the obsessed German people. Behind that lies a history of Atlantean relationships into which it is needless for me to enter because I could not prove to you the truth of my statements. I refer to the history of the past two thousand years and to the everyday behaviour of Gentile people everywhere. There must be a definite effort on the part of the nationals of every country to assimilate the Jews, to inter-marry with them and to refuse to recognise as barriers old habits of thought and ancient bad relations.” [76] Give Bailey credit for this: she wanted to use non-violent means, assimilation and inter-marriage, as the Gentiles’ solution to the “Jewish problem.” She accurately distinguished between the Nazi genocide and the long-standing anti-Jewish prejudice in Christian and Islamic nations. [77] But as an explanation for the Shoah, “a history of Atlantean relationships” between the Germans and the Jews in their past lives is a true prize-winner.

A Lucis Trust/World Goodwill pamphlet, “The New Group of World Servers,” says of world servers, those who put Theosophical principles into practice: “When active in the religious field, they heal differences and recognise the universality of truth. They attack no people, classes or systems, and under no circumstances do they ever condemn or criticise any race or nation.” [78] It seems that Bailey would not meet the standards that her own followers at World Goodwill apply for membership in the “new group of world servers.”

There is no evidence whatsoever that any URI leaders share Alice Bailey’s anti-Semitic views. Nor have Robert Muller, Barbara Marx Hubbard, or Neale Donald Walsch repeated any of Bailey’s diatribes about Judaism; they focus their scorn instead on orthodox, “fundamentalist” Christianity. Nevertheless, in most political and religious discourse since 1945 in Western Europe and North America, any hint of anti-Semitism has usually sufficed to make suspected writers, politicians, or religious leaders – and their avowed followers – outcast. As historian Philip Jenkins has said, “the anti-Semite is denounced in the United States and obliged to keep quiet.” [79] It is noteworthy that this social sanction seems not to apply to Alice Bailey, her teachings, and her present-day Theosophist followers. This is not because Bailey’s feculent writings are secret. On the contrary. All of the Bailey books remain in print; they are readily available in bookstores, and as a Lucis Trust CD-ROM of all 24 volumes. [80]


Equal-Opportunity Contempt for Traditional Religions

Bailey consigns traditional Judaism, Islam, and Christianity to the dustbin of history: “Palestine should no longer be called the Holy Land; its sacred places are only the passing relics of three dead and gone religions. … Judaism is old, obsolete, and separative and has no true message for the spiritually minded which cannot be better given by the newer faiths; the Moslem faith has served its purpose and all true Moslems await the coming of the Imam Mahdi who will lead them to light and to spiritual victory; the Christian faith also has served its purpose; its Founder seeks to bring a new Gospel and a new message that will enlighten all men everywhere. Therefore, Jerusalem stands for nothing of importance today, except for that which has passed away and should pass away. The ‘Holy Land’ is no longer holy, but is desecrated by selfish interests, and by a basically separative and conquering nation.” [81]

Alice Bailey specifically hated the Vatican – enough to propose dropping the Bomb on the Holy See. In a section of The Externalisation of the Hierarchy dated April-May 1946, she wrote that “The atomic bomb does not belong to the three nations who perfected it and who own the secrets at present – the United States of America, Great Britain, and Canada. It belongs to the United Nations for use (or let us rather hope, simply for threatened use) when aggressive action on the part of any nation rears its ugly head. It does not essentially matter whether that aggression is the gesture of any particular nation or group of nations or whether it is generated by the political groups of any powerful religious organisation, such as the Church of Rome, who are as yet unable to leave politics alone.” [82]

Bailey explained her animosity: “The churches are themselves great capitalistic systems, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, and show little evidence of the mind that was in Christ.” [83] She said, “The Roman Catholic Church stands entrenched and unified against any new and evolutionary presentation of truth to the people; its roots are in the past but it is not growing into the light; its vast financial resources enable it to menace the future enlightenment of mankind under the cloak of paternalism, and a colorful outer appearance which hides a crystallization and an intellectual stupidity which must inevitably spell its eventual doom, unless the faint stirrings of new life following the advent of Pope John XXIII can be nourished and developed.” [84]

Bailey despised the Russian Orthodox Church, as well. She praised the Bolsheviks for crushing the pre-1917 church and replacing it with a collaborationist, KGB-riddled structure: “The Greek Orthodox Church reached such a high stage of corruption, graft, greed and sexual evil that, temporarily and under the Russian Revolution, it was abolished. This was a wise, needed and right action. … The refusal of the revolutionary party in Russia to recognize this corrupt church was wise and salutary … The church in Russia has again received official recognition and faces a new opportunity. … The challenge of its environment is great and it cannot be reactionary as can – and are – the churches in other parts of the world.” [85]

While Bailey condemns traditional Judaism and Christianity repeatedly in many of her books, she also aims a few shots at traditional Asian religions. “In the Oriental religions a disastrous negativity has prevailed; the truths given out have not sufficed to better the daily life of the believer or to anchor the truths creatively upon the physical plane. The effect of the Eastern doctrines is largely subjective and negative as to daily affairs. The negativity of the theological interpretations of the Buddhist and Hindu Scriptures have kept the people in a quiescent condition from which they are slowly beginning to emerge.” [86] She added, “There is no indication that the great Oriental religions are taking an active lead in producing a new and better world.” [87] She also said, “all the world Scriptures are now seen to be based on poor translations and no part of them – after thousands of years of translation – is as it originally was, if it ever existed as an original manuscript and was not in reality some man’s recollection of what was said.” [88] And so much for the Koran and all other religions’ sacred texts.

In the early 1970s, Foster Bailey, who had been Alice Bailey’s husband until her death in 1949, dismissed all the major religions with similar contempt. He said, “It is not reasonable that either Buddhism or Christianity, or any of the other old age organised religions, can transcend their perversions or that they have within themselves the qualities needed for world usefulness in the new Aquarian age. However, they still can have usefulness for the millions of human beings who are Atlantean in consciousness and who do not have the capacity to respond the new spiritual potencies of the Aquarian age.” [89]


The Coming New Religion

A New Religion would replace these outmoded beliefs. To establish the New Religion, Alice Bailey’s New Age Christ has three current tasks:

“Therefore, we have isolated (if I may use such a word) three activities to which the Christ is at this time dedicated:


The New Religion proposed by Bailey would be based on magic, spiritual elitism, and the manipulation of the people: “The new religion will be one of Invocation and Evocation, of bringing together great spiritual energies and then stepping them down for the benefiting and the stimulation of the masses. The work of the new religion will be the distribution of spiritual energy and the protecting of humanity from energies and forces which they are not, at the particular time, fitted to receive.” [91] In the New Religion, “the science of invocation and evocation will take the place of what we now call prayer and worship,” [92] because “as man progresses upon the Path he forgets worship; he loses all sense of fear, and adoration fails to engross his attention.” [93] (By this standard, the seraphim, cherubim, and elders described in chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Revelation have not progressed far “upon the Path.”)

There will be two levels of religious practice – one for the masses and one for the adepts of the New Age: “This new invocative work will be the keynote of the coming world religion and will fall into two parts. There will be the invocative work of the masses of the people, everywhere trained by the spiritually minded people of the world (working in the churches whenever possible under an enlightened clergy) to accept the fact of the approaching spiritual energies, focused through Christ and His spiritual Hierarchy, and trained also to voice their demand for light, liberation and understanding. There will also be the skilled work of invocation as practised by those who have trained their minds through right meditation, who know the potency of formulas, mantrams and invocations and who work consciously.” [94]

The New Religion will work closely with the United Nations: “Thus the expressed aims and efforts of the United Nations will be eventually brought to fruition and a new church of God, gathered out of all religions and spiritual groups, will unitedly bring to an end the great heresy of separateness.” [95] This foreshadows Robert Muller’s writings about the religious role of the UN.

In April/May of 1946, [96] Bailey wrote that all of us must change our religious beliefs, since the alternative is “a religious war which will make the past war [97] appear like child’s play.” [98] She said, “That the Jews should be rid of fear is of major importance; that they should know and recognise the Christ as the Messiah, and therefore find for themselves that the religion they follow is destructive of many of the finer values, is likewise of major importance; that orthodox Judaism, along with all the other faiths, should … all move towards some loving synthesis and eliminate their mutual antagonisms and rivalries is equally urgent.” [99] Bailey continued, “That the Vatican cease its political scheming, its exploitation of the masses and its emphasis on ignorance is as important; that the manifold divisions of the Protestant churches be bridged is imperative. If none of these things happen, humanity is headed towards a religious war which will make the past war appear like child’s play; antagonisms and hatreds will embroil entire populations and the politicians of all the nations will take full advantage of the situation to precipitate a war which may well prove the end of humanity. There are no hatreds so great or so deep as those fostered by religion.” [100] Bishop Swing’s warning, “What is a bigger terrorist threat than religion in the world today? There is none,” [101] echoes this statement by Bailey.

Bailey expected the New Religion, which she called the “Church Universal,” to emerge by the close of the twentieth century – that is, just in time for the formation of the URI. She said, “Eventually, there will appear the Church Universal, and its definite outlines will appear towards the close of this century. In this connection, forget not the wise prophecy of H.P.B. [102] as touching events at the close of this century.” [103] (Blavatsky had said, “In Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable proofs that … the source of all religions and philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages forgotten and lost to men, but is at last found.” [104])

Bailey added, “I write for the generation which will come into active thought expression at the end of this century; they will inaugurate the framework, structure and fabric of the New Age which will start with certain premises which today are the dream of the more exalted dreamers and which will develop the civilisation of the Aquarian Age.” [105] She said that “the problem before the Hierarchy” is to ensure that “the Plan can be rightly materialized and the close of this century and the beginning of the next see the purposes of God for the planet and for humanity assume right direction and proportion.” [106]

Bailey said, “The day is dawning when all religions will be regarded as emanating from one great spiritual source; all will be seen as unitedly providing the one root out of which the universal world religion will inevitably emerge.” [107] She added that “in the new world order, spirituality will supersede theology; living experience will take the place of theological acceptances. The spiritual realities will emerge with increasing clarity and the form aspect will recede into the background; dynamic, expressive truth will be the key-note of the new world religion. The living Christ will assume his rightful place in human consciousness and see the fruition of His plans, sacrifice, and service, but the hold of the ecclesiastical orders will weaken and disappear. Only those will remain as guides and leaders of the human spirit who speak from living experience, and who know no creedal barriers; they will recognise the onward march of revelation and the new emerging truths. These truths will be founded on the ancient realities but will be adapted to modern need and will manifest progressively the revelation of the divine nature and quality.” [108] Thus, liberal Protestants and modernist Catholics will have their dreams realized in the New Religion.

Bailey also said that mankind’s adherence to the traditional religions is an accident of birth, and that old differences will be superseded by “One Humanity”: “World Unity will be a fact when the children of the world are taught that religious differences are largely a matter of birth; that if a man is born in Italy, the probability is that he will be a Roman Catholic; if he is born a Jew, he will follow the Jewish teaching; if born in Asia, he may be a Mohammedan, a Buddhist, or belong to one of the Hindu sects; if born in other countries, he may be a Protestant and so on. He will learn that religious differences are largely the result of man made quarrels over human interpretations of truth. Thus gradually, our quarrels and differences will be offset and the idea of the One Humanity will take their place.” [109]


Updating Freemasonry for the New Religion

Alice Bailey said, “one of the things that will eventuate – when the new universal religion has sway and the nature of esotericism is understood – will be the utilisation of the banded esoteric organisms, the Masonic organism and the Church organism as initiating centres. These three groups converge as their inner sanctuaries are approached. There is no dissociation between the One Universal Church, the sacred inner Lodge of all true Masons, and the innermost circles of the esoteric societies.” [110]

Alice Bailey also predicted that Masonry would be a path to power in the new world order: “The Masonic Movement when it can be divorced from politics and social ends and from its present paralysing condition of inertia, will meet the need of those who can, and should, wield power. It is the custodian of the law; it is the home of the Mysteries and the seat of initiation. It holds in its symbolism the ritual of Deity, and the way of salvation is pictorially preserved in its work. The methods of Deity are demonstrated in its Temples, and under the All-Seeing Eye the work can go forward. It is a far more occult organisation than can be realised, and is intended to be the training school for the coming advanced occultists. … It meets the need of those who work on the first Ray of Will or Power.” [111]

Her husband Foster Bailey, a 32nd degree Mason, [112] said that Masonry “is all that remains to us of the first world religion which flourished in an antiquity so old that it is impossible to affix a date. It was the first unified world religion. Then came the era of separation of many religions, and of sectarianism. Today we are working again towards a world universal religion. Again then, Masonry will come into its own, in some form or another.” [113]

Alice Bailey held great hope for Masonry as a building-block for the religion of the future, but believed that Masonry would have to adapt to the times. Part of this adaptation would be the cleansing of Christian and Jewish imagery from Masonic rituals: “The time has now come, under cyclic law and in preparation for the New Age, for certain changes to be worked by Masons with spiritual understanding. The present Jewish colouring of Masonry is completely out of date and has been preserved far too long, for it is today either Jewish or Christian, and should be neither. The Blue Lodge degrees [114] are entirely Jewish in phrasing and wording, and this should be altered. The Higher Degrees are predominantly Christian, though permeated with Jewish names and words. This too should end. This Jewish colouring is today one of the hindrances to the full expression of Masonic intention and should be changed, whilst preserving the facts and detail and structure of the Masonic symbolism intact.” [115]


Dealing With “Reactionary Forces”

Bailey believed that “conservative elements” and “reactionary forces” will be the opponents of the New Religion: “This inherent fanaticism (found ever in reactionary groups) will fight against the appearance of the coming world religion and the spread of esotericism. For this struggle certain of the well-organised churches, through their conservative elements (their most powerful elements), are already girding themselves.” [116] Bailey offers a solution – to “arrest the reactionary forces in every nation”: “If we can delay the crystallisation of the ancient evils which produced the world war, and arrest the reactionary forces in every nation, we shall be making way for that which is new and opening the door to the activities of the New Group of World Servers in every land – that group which is the agent of the Christ.” [117] She left it unclear whether she meant to stop her opponents spiritually, or whether she was suggesting that the “reactionary forces” should be put under arrest on the physical plane.

Bailey said that the coming of “the new ideals, the new civilisation, the new modes of life, of education, of religious presentation and of government” [118] is inevitable. “They can, however, be delayed by the reactionary types of people, by the ultra-conservative and closed minds and by those who cling with adamantine determination to their beloved theories, their dreams and their visions, their interpretations and their peculiar and oft narrow understanding of the presented ideals. They are the ones who can and do hold back the hour of liberation.” [119] It’s not a giant step for a Theosophist to conclude that “the hour of liberation” should be hastened by getting “the reactionary types of people” out of the way.


Bailey’s New World Order: “A New Power of Sacrifice”

With the New Religion and the “coming world state,” there will be spiritual totalitarianism. As Alice Bailey said, “This coming age will be as predominantly the age of group interplay, group idealism, and group consciousness as the Piscean Age has been one of personality unfoldment and emphasis, personality focus and personality consciousness. Selfishness, as we now understand it, will gradually disappear, for the will of the individual will voluntarily be blended into the group will.” [120] After all, the existence of separate persons is an illusion; we are all really part of The One. She said, “In the coming world state, the individual citizen – gladly and deliberately and with full consciousness of all that he is doing – will subordinate his personality to the good of the whole.” [121] (As Orwell said of his protagonist, Winston, at the end of 1984, “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” [122])

Alice Bailey and her associates at the Lucis Trust have repeatedly praised revolutions and dictatorships, approving them as part of the workings of “the Plan.” In September 1939, [123] she said, “The men who inspired the initiating French revolution; the great conqueror, Napoleon; Bismarck, creator of a nation; Mussolini, the regenerator of his people; Hitler who lifted a distressed people upon his shoulders; Lenin, the idealist, Stalin and Franco” were “great and outstanding personalities who were peculiarly sensitive to the will-to-power and the will-to-change;” all were “expressions of the Shamballa force” (a force which Bailey extolled) and “emphasised increasingly the wider human values.” [124]

Bailey explained that “There are disciples of Shamballa just as there are disciples of the Hierarchy … It is wise and valuable to remember this. They are powerful, these disciples of Shamballa, headstrong and often cruel; they impose their will and dictate their desires; they make mistakes but they are nevertheless true disciples of Shamballa and are working out the Will of God as much as the disciples and Masters of the Hierarchy are working out the Love of God.” [125] Bailey uses pseudo-mystical language to dismiss the victims of the dictators: “If you study the nations of the world today from this angle, you will see this Shamballa energy of will working out potently through the agency of certain great outstanding personalities. The Lord of Shamballa in this time of urgency … is sending forth this dynamic energy. It is form destroying and brings death to those material forms and organised bodies which hinder the free expression of the life of God, for they negate the new culture and render inactive the seeds of the coming civilization.” [126]

Bailey viewed the dictatorships of her time as a positive part of human evolution, fostering humanity’s “power to regard himself as part of a whole:” “Everywhere and in every country men are being taught in their earliest years that they are not only individuals, not only members of a state, empire or nation, and not only people with an individual future, but that they are intended to be exponents of certain great group ideologies – Democratic, Totalitarian, or Communistic. … All this is very good and part of the ordained plan. Whether it is the democratic ideal, or the vision of the totalitarian state, or the dream of the communistic devotee, the effect upon the consciousness of humanity as a whole is definitely good. His sense of world awareness is definitely growing, his power to regard himself as part of a whole is rapidly developing and all this is desirable and right and contained within the divine plan.” [127] (After World War II started, Bailey’s writing strongly supported the Allies, favoring early US entry into the war against the Nazis. [128])

Bailey expected that “a spiritual Hierarchy” would appear and “govern the people throughout the world and will embody in itself the best elements of the monarchial, the democratic, the totalitarian, and the communistic regimes. Most of these groups of ideologies have latent in them much beauty, strength and wisdom, and also a profound and valuable contribution to make to the whole. Each will eventually see its contribution embodied under the control of the Hierarchy of the Lords of Compassion and the Masters of the Wisdom.” [129]

For Bailey, spiritual Communism was the objective: “The Lord of the World, the ‘Ancient of Days,’ is releasing new energies into humanity, transmuted in the present furnace of pain and fiery agony. This transmutation will being about a new power of sacrifice, of inclusive surrender, a clearer vision of the Whole and a cooperative spirit hitherto unknown and which will be the first expression of that great principle of sharing, so sorely needed today.” [130]


World Wars and Atom Bombs: Engines of Human Evolution

There is no one so cruel as a utopian who sees traditionalists standing in the way of the March of History. In Bailey’s view, war and genocide were part of God’s plan, a divine house-cleaning to remove obstacles to the return of “the Christ” and the coming of the New Age.

Alice Bailey began writing about a coming “selection” as early as March 1934. [131] She said, “Thus is the New Age dawning. … Ever the race is to the strong, and always the many are called and the few chosen. This is the occult law. … Lest this widespread upheaval and consequent disaster to so many should seem to you unfair, let me remind you that this one life is but a second of time in the larger and wider existence of the soul, and those who fail and are disrupted by the impact of the powerful forces now flooding our earth will nevertheless have their vibration ‘stepped up’ to better things along with the mass of those who achieve, even if their physical vehicles are destroyed in the process. The destruction of the body is not the worst disaster than can overcome a man.” [132] When Bailey wrote this, the Nazis had just taken power; manmade famine and political purges were occurring in the Soviet Union; Japan had begun its war against China. Many, many “physical vehicles” were being destroyed.

Bailey’s dismissal of people as “vehicles” foreshadows the beliefs of the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult. They viewed human bodies as temporary “vehicles,” to be discarded in order to reach the higher plane of existence. [133] When the Hale-Bopp comet appeared in 1997, the cultists expected to be picked up by aliens and taken into the next kingdom. Therefore, 39 members of this group committed suicide together in a California mansion in March of that year in order to make a “spiritual” ascent. [134]

In September 1939, [135] Bailey wrote in Externalisation of the Hierarchy about the “beneficent and needed” aspects of the beginning of World War II, which she saw as a necessary step towards creating “new forms in the religious, political, educational and economic life of the race:” “Today we are watching the death of a civilisation or cycle of incarnation of humanity. In all fields of human expression, crystallisation and deterioration had set in. … there is everywhere a cry for change and for those new forms in the religious, political, educational and economic life of the race which will allow of freer and better spiritual expression. Such a change is rapidly coming and is regarded by some as death – terrible and to be avoided if possible. It is indeed death but it is beneficent and needed.” [136] She added, “Pain has always been the purifying agent, employed by the Lords of Destiny, to bring about liberation. The accumulated pain of the present war and the inherited pain of the earlier stage (begun in 1914) is bringing about a salutary and changing world consciousness. The Lord of Pain has descended from His throne and is treading the ways of earth today, bringing distress, agony and terror to those who cannot interpret His ends.” [137]

Bailey said in June 1947 [138] that World War II, “with all its unspeakable horrors, its cruelties, and its cataclysmic disasters – was but the broom of the Father of all, sweeping away obstructions in the path of His returning Son.” [139] (These “obstructions” are people, not impersonal forces or institutions.) She added, “It would have been well-nigh impossible to prepare for the coming in the face of the pre-war conditions. Upon these facts the new group of world servers must today take their stand.” [140]

In The Rays and the Initiations, Bailey gave credit to the “Hierarchy” of ascended spiritual masters for “Their decision, taken early in this century, which precipitated – in the centre which we call ‘the race of men’ – those potencies and stimulating energies which produced that major destructive agency, the world war (1914-1945).” [141] In April 1943, [142] Bailey said, “One of the purposes lying behind the present holocaust (World War II) has been the necessity for the destruction of inadequate forms. … Therefore the Law of destruction was permitted to work through humanity itself, and men are now destroying the forms through which many masses of men are functioning. This is both a good and a bad thing, viewed from the evolutionary angle” [143] (“Destroying the forms” does not mean shredding IRS paperwork; it is the Theosophist code phrase for killing.)

After the war, Bailey wrote in Education in the New Age that “the Custodians of God’s Plan” viewed World War II as “in the nature of major surgical operation made in an effort to save the patient’s life;” the operation had been “largely successful” in removing “a violent streptococcic germ and infection” that had “menaced the life of humanity.” [144] The operation “was made in order to prolong opportunity and save life, not to save the form. The operation was largely successful.” [145] Nevertheless, she warned that the two World Wars would be only the beginning of sorrows: “The germ, to be sure, is not eradicated and makes its presence felt in infected areas in the body of humanity. Another surgical operation may be necessary, not in order to destroy and end the present civilisation, but in order to dissipate the infection and get rid of the fever.” [146] She added, “The next stage of human evolution will emerge as a result of the purificatory action of the World War.” [147]

Bailey’s romance with mass death extended to nuclear weapons. Regarding the origins of the Bomb, Bailey said, “The atomic bomb emerged from a first ray Ashram, working in conjunction with a fifth ray group; from the long range point of view, its intent was and is purely beneficent.” [148]

In an essay titled “The Release of Atomic Energy,” written on August 9, 1945, Bailey hailed “the release of atomic energy … this week, August 6, 1945, in connection with the bombing of Japan” as “the greatest spiritual event which has taken place since the fourth kingdom of nature, the human kingdom, appeared.” [149] She added: “You will now understand the meaning of the words used by so many of you in the second of the Great Invocations: The hour of service of the saving force has now arrived. This ‘saving force’ is the energy which science has released into the world for the destruction, first of all, of those who continue (if they do) to defy the Forces of Light working through the United Nations. Then – as time goes on – this liberated energy will usher in the new civilisation, the new and better world and the finer, more spiritual conditions.” [150] Bailey viewed the “first use of this energy” in “material destruction” (the atomic incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) as “inevitable and desirable; old forms (obstructing the good) have had to be destroyed; the wrecking and disappearance of that which is bad and undesirable must ever precede the building of the good and desirable and the longed-for emergence of that which is new and better.” [151] (It is an interesting coincidence that Bailey hated Christianity – and Nagasaki was the oldest Christian community in Japan. [152])

Perhaps Alice Bailey was channeling Dr. Strangelove on the Earth-plane. Her followers continue to do the same.

In 1990, Mary Bailey, the second wife of Foster Bailey, [153] published A Learning Experience, present-day reflections on the teachings of Alice Bailey. The book contained an essay, “Atomic Energy – Curse or Blessing?,” written in response to the Chernobyl disaster. She reprinted most of Bailey’s “Release of Atomic Energy” essay from 1945 – including all the material quoted above. And she defended Alice Bailey’s position: “It seems inevitable that, at this stage in its planetary evolution, humanity should be more aware of the destruction of form resulting from the use of two atomic bombs than with the liberation of the soul within the form. But this liberation and new opportunity, to the spiritual Hierarchy, is the real consequence of the bombs and their only justification because here the evolution of rootraces (and subraces) is concerned, with far-reaching implications.” [154]

Bailey’s calm acceptance of others’ deaths arose from her beliefs about life and death, views reminiscent of Gnosticism that were expressed in Education in the New Age: “To the Custodians of God’s Plan and to Those Who are working out the new developments, the form side of life, the outer tangible expression, is of entirely secondary importance. Your vision is oft distorted by the pain and suffering to which the form is subjected (either your own or that of others, individually or en masse).” [155] (“The form” is New Age-speak for a person.) She reiterated: “let us never forget that it is the Life, its purpose and its directed intentional destiny that is of importance; and also that when a form proves inadequate, or too diseased, or too crippled for the expression of that purpose, it is – from the point of view of the Hierarchy – no disaster when that form has to go. Death is not a disaster to be feared; the work of the Destroyer is not really cruel or undesirable.” [156] Rather than being the “last enemy to be destroyed” (1 Cor. 15:26), Bailey says that “death is the great Liberator.” [157] This is so because “The domination of spirit (and its reflection, soul) by matter is what constitutes evil.” [158]


Praise for Communism: From Lenin to Mao

Alice Bailey criticized the Stalinist regime in the USSR [159] but said that “The true communistic platform is sound; it is brotherhood in action and it does not – in its original platform – run counter to the spirit of Christ. The imposition of intellectual and formal communism by a group of ambitious and sometimes evil men is not sound; it does not adhere to the true communistic platform, but is based on personal ambitions, love of power and on interpretations of the writings of Lenin and Marx which are also personal and run counter to the meaning of these two men.” [160] Like the Trotskyites, Bailey wished to defend the reputations of Marx and Lenin.

Bailey said that “true Communism” would “prove convincing to the world” after the fall of the Iron Curtain. In The Rays and The Initiations, she said, “In Russia a world ideology is being wrought out which (when proven) can be presented to the world as a model system; this, however, will not come as a result of dictatorship, nor can it be presented aggressively to the world. Russia is in reality – whether she realises it or not – undertaking a great experiment in education and, in spite of evil methods and sinning against the soul of human freedom, eventually this educational process will prove convincing to the world and provide a world model. This can only take place when the present group of dictators and arrogant men have passed away or been forced out of power by an awakening people.” [161] She added, “when the present group of totalitarian rulers (behind what you call the ‘iron curtain’) die out a different state of affairs will gradually supervene and a true Communism (in the spiritual sense of the term) will take the place of the present wickedness.” [162]

The economic system that Bailey proposed for the “new world order” will be built on global economic planning and wealth redistribution. In The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, she said, “The new world order will recognise that the produce of the world, the natural resources of the planet and its riches, belong to no one nation but should be shared by all. There will be no nations under the category ‘haves’ and others under the opposite category. A fair and properly organised distribution of the wheat, the oil and the mineral wealth of the world will be developed, based upon the needs of each nation, upon its own internal resources and the requirements of its people. All this will be worked out in relation to the whole.” [163] The order of the day will be world central planning: “the entire economic problem and the institution of the needed rules and distributing agencies should be handled by an economic league of nations. In this league, all the nations will know their place; they will know their national requirements (based on population and internal resources, etc.) and will also know what they can contribute to the family of nations; all will be animated by a will to the general good.” [164]

In Problems of Humanity, Bailey said that capitalism must go; “The world economic council (or whatever body represents the resources of the world) must free itself from fraudulent politics, capitalistic influence and its devious scheming; it must set the resources of the earth free for the use of humanity. … Sharing and cooperation must be taught instead of greed and competition.” [165] She added, “The problem of distribution is no longer difficult once the food of the world is freed from politics and from capitalism.” [166] Communism, which ruined the economies and the natural environment of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, would be attempted on a global scale.

Foster Bailey carried on Alice Bailey’s work after his wife’s death in 1949. In a 1972 Lucis Trust book, Running God’s Plan, he praised the Russian Revolution: “Another hierarchical project approved at a centennial conference was to take action to raise the consciousness of the four hundred million mass of Russian people. In a few short years this effort has achieved amazing results and is already an outstanding hierarchical success. It has been demonstrated that hopeless, illiterate peasants when stimulated and given a chance become industrial workers.” [167] Historians describe these same events as forced industrialization, coerced collectivization, and man-made famine. He also said, “History may well recognize Khrushchev as the greatest Russian liberator since Lenin” [168] – a telling definition of “liberation,” given the totalitarian nature of the regime that Lenin founded.

Foster Bailey’s spiritual “hierarchy” of ascended masters also approved of Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution – which was still in progress when Running God’s Plan was published. Foster Bailey said, “The cultural revolution in China was begun a few short years ago. This also is an hierarchical project. Amazing changes have been achieved in that short period. Chester Ronning, Canada’s former Ambassador to China and an authority on China today, says that the Chinese people through revolution have changed their way of thinking. This is fundamental to national reform.” [169] He added, “The change for the better in the life of the common people in China in the last few years is more than amazing. Seven hundred million human beings have been lifted into a new way of life.” [170] Foster Bailey specifically praised the Cultural Revolution’s practice of forcible rustication of city dwellers: “Today under Mao the mass of the people receive the greatest attention. … City dwellers are sent into the countryside to learn of the farmers. Not just how to farm but attitudes to life and to people.” [171]

Foster Bailey’s spirit guides also approved of the unification of Europe – by whatever means necessary: “Another approved hierarchical project is the uniting of the nations of Europe in one cooperating peaceful community. … One attempt was to begin by uniting the peoples living in the Rhine river valley using that river as a binding factor. It was an attempt by a disciple but did not work. Now another attempt is in full swing, namely the six nation European Common Market.” [172] (This “disciple” was probably Napoleon, whom Alice Bailey had hailed as a “great conqueror”.) [173] Napoleon’s principal legacy was death and destruction – “17 years of wars, perhaps six million Europeans dead, France bankrupt, her overseas colonies lost.” [174]

Evidently, the Theosophists’ spiritual masters in the “Hierarchy” condoned mass bloodshed to achieve their goals. According to the Black Book of Communism, there have been approximately 20 million killed under Soviet Communism, and 65 million slain by the Chinese Communists. [175] Many critics of New Age and Gnostic ideology have argued that these world-views are favorable to totalitarianism; [176] the writings of Alice and Foster Bailey bear this out.

How will the New World Order be brought about? In a 1978 pamphlet, Bailey’s followers at World Goodwill divided mankind into four classes with varying levels of enlightenment, and stated that social change flows from the Hierarchy to the “New Group of World Servers,” and then down to the rest of us:



This theory of social class and social change gives a new meaning to the term “liberal elitism.”


Human Civilization: Destruction and Rebirth

Bailey wrote in the 1940s that the New Age, which she described as “the new heavens and the new earth,” would be preceded by two kinds of “intense creative activity.” [178] First would come “A destructive cycle, wherein the old order passes away and that which has been created – human civilization with its accompanying institutions – is destroyed. With this destructive action Humanity is today occupying itself – mostly unconsciously. The major creative agents are the intelligentsia of the race.” [179] (She appears to have prophesied the global cultural revolution of the 1960s, and the role that the “chattering classes” have played in destabilizing traditional order.) Bailey said that after the destruction of the old order would come the building of the new, “A cycle of restoration, with many accompanying difficulties in which the mass of men take part, under the influence and inspiration of a regenerated intelligentsia.” [180]

Bailey said that the spiritual Hierarchy has been busy with destruction since 1775. And when humanity achieves spiritual fusion with these entities, the result will be “the final act of destruction.” In The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, she wrote, “It is interesting to note (though it is of no immediate moment) that the work of destruction initiated by the Hierarchy during the past one hundred and seventy-five years (therefore since the year 1775) has in it the seeds – as yet a long way from any germination – of the final act of destruction which will take place when the Hierarchy will be so completely fused and blended with Humanity that the hierarchical form will no longer be required. The three major centres will then become the two, and the Hierarchy will disappear and only Shamballa and Humanity will remain. … This event of final dissolution will take place only at the close of our planetary existence.” [181]


The End of the Theosophical Road: “The Centre of Pure Darkness”

Bailey also set forth the results that individual seekers would attain from ever-growing closeness to the Hierarchy. Those who learn to meditate will see that “darkness is pure spirit.” [182] Followers of Bailey’s New Age path will find that “each contact with the Initiator leads the initiate closer to the centre of pure darkness – a darkness which is the very antithesis of darkness as the non-initiate and the unenlightened understand. It is a centre or point of such intense brilliance that everything fades out and at the place of tension, and at that darkest point, let the group see a point of clear cold fire.” [183] (Perhaps Dante was right when he described the center of Hell as ice.) [184] She urged her followers toward the “Great Renunciation,” “the final great transference, based upon the renunciation of that which for aeons has connoted beauty, truth, and goodness.” [185]

Dale McKechnie, Vice President of the Lucis Trust, said in 1998 that “The Bailey books carry one deeper into the relationship between Christ and God and the spiritual Hierarchy.” [186] For those with eyes to see, the character of Bailey’s “spiritual Hierarchy” is clear: individual intercourse with it leads to “the centre of pure darkness,” and when mankind has blended with the Hierarchy, there will be a “final act of destruction.”

McKechnie said in 1998 that the teachings of Alice Bailey “oppose what would be called orthodox Christianity. The one overshadows the other.” [187] Given the nature of Bailey’s teachings, that’s an understatement.



False Dawn - Chapter 12: Present-Day Followers of Alice Bailey


Pathways to Peace and its Theosophical Associates

Pathways to Peace is listed as a URI Affiliate; [188] its president is Ms. Avon Mattison, who has donated to the URI for several years. [189] She was also a member of the URI “Organizational Design Team” that prepared the initial draft of the URI Charter in early 1998. [190] The vice-president and treasurer of Pathways to Peace, Masankho Banda, [191] is active in the URI. [192] Robert Muller is “Senior Adviser” for Pathways to Peace.” [193] Other members of the “Council of Advisers” include Gordon Davidson, Corinne McLaughlin, Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and David Spangler, all of whom are prolific New Age authors. [194] Pathways To Peace says that it “has Consultative II Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and works with the U.N. Centre for Human Rights, U.N. Centre for Human Settlements, UNESCO, UNICEF, and other Agencies. It is also an official Peace Messenger of the United Nations.” [195]

Mattison, along with Gordon Davidson and Corinne McLaughlin (who also support the URI), are members of the “Steering Group” of the “World Service Intergroup” (WSI). [196] The WSI’s stated purpose is to “generate a focused, conscious and deliberate intergroup effort to specifically assist the Externalization of the Hierarchy and the Reappearance of the Christ. Hierarchy is a term used here to refer to those spiritual Masters of all traditions who have evolved through human experience to embody greater light, love-wisdom and spiritual power through ceaseless service to humanity and the Divine Plan. They have worked throughout the ages to further human evolution, and They are now in process of ‘externalizing’ or becoming known in public life. One of our tasks is to recognize them, and assist them by preparing humanity for the imminent reappearance of the World Teacher.” [197] WSI members “study and honor all of the great spiritual teachings of the ages, especially the more modern presentations by H.P. Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, Helena Roerich and other teachers of the Ageless Wisdom.” [198] The members of WSI’s “Steering Group” are “representatives of esoteric organizations who are willing to dedicate major time and energy to the work of the World Service Intergroup … All members are long-term students of the Tibetan [199] and have in-depth meditation and intergroup service experience.” [200] In short, Mattison, Davidson, and McLaughlin are devotees of the teachings of Alice Bailey.


Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson

The Dalai Lama wrote a laudatory foreword for McLaughlin and Davidson’s Spiritual Politics, describing the book as “timely” and “a new approach for creating a happier, more peaceful world.” [201] This is surprising, since the authors say that war can be a source of positive social change: “if peace is maintained at any price in order to continue vast injustices and materialistic, wasteful life-styles, then spiritual death may be the result. Physical death is only of the body, the form nature, which according to the Ageless Wisdom will be reborn again in another form. We must be cautious about a stubborn idealism that loves the ideal of peace more than it loves humanity’s evolution. We can become so enamored of peace that it leads to inertia, stagnation, and above all else, an attachment to material comfort. Peace and war are not true opposites; peace and change are. War is only one form of change, and often the least effective. Yet there is a role for the right use of destruction when it is used against rigid and crystallized forms of thought and cultural patterns that prevent Life from evolving to its next step.” [202] This belies the Dalai Lama’s statement that Spiritual Politics promotes a “more peaceful world.”

McLaughlin and Davidson wrote that “the next release of the Shamballa [sic] energy into human consciousness is planned for the year 2000 … which will bring another cycle of major upheaval and change as we move into the next millennium. This high-voltage energy of synthesis will test every individual and institution to determine if they are aligned with the Higher Will. … If they are out of alignment, they will degenerate emotionally, physically, and mentally. This process has already begun, as we can see through the downfall of groups that are opposing evolution and synthesis, and will only accelerate in the years ahead.”[203] Shamballa [204] energy “destroys those material forms that have outlived their usefulness and that hinder the free expression of the Light of God … Once the obstacles to its free expression have been removed, the unifying force released by Shamballa will … create union and interdependence in religious, social, political, and economic fields.” [205] In other words, the Shamballa energy will get the reactionaries out of the way, allowing global unity.



NOTES              

Internet citations were prepared in 2003 and 2004; documents may have been removed from the Net, or moved to different locations, since then.

[1] J. Gordon Melton, Jerome Clark, and Aidan A. Kelly, New Age Almanac, Visible Ink Press, 1991, p. 10.

[2] Christopher Partridge, ed., New Religions: A Guide – New Religious Movements, Sects, and Alternative Spiritualities, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 329.

[3] United Religions Initiative, “Interim Global Council Membership in 2000,” Annual Report 2000, p. 8.

[4] United Religions Initiative, “Honoring URI Donors and Volunteers,” Annual Report 2002 leaflet.

[5] The Rev. Betsy Stang (Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources), telephone interview by Lee Penn, 12/10/97.

[6] Lucis Trust, “World Goodwill,” http://www.lucistrust.org/goodwill/index.shtml, printed 08/06/04.

[7] Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Psychology – Volume II: A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Lucis Publishing Company, 1942, p. vii.

[8] Alice A. Bailey, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, Lucis Publishing Company, 1925, p. xi.

[9] Foster Bailey, Running God’s Plan, Lucis Publishing Company, 1972, p. 27.

[10] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 137.

[11] Ibid., p. 107.

[12] Ibid., p. 118.

[13] Ibid., p. 118.

[14] Ibid., p. 118.

[15] Alice A. Bailey, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, Lucis Publishing Company, 1925, p. 306

[16] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 79-80.

[17] Alice A. Bailey, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, Lucis Publishing Company, 1925, p. 211.

[18] Alice A. Bailey, Initiation, Human and Solar, Lucis Publishing Company, 1922, p. 29.

[19] Ibid., p. 28.

[20] Ibid., p. 129.

[21] Ibid., p. 28.

[22] Charles Upton comments that the Theosophists appear to have erred in their characterization of Sanat Kumara. He says, “In Hindu doctrine, Sanat-Kumara is one of the four “mind-born sons” of Brahma the Creator. Madame Blavatsky and her Theosophical Society have distorted this figure in the following ways: 1) They name him as a son of Shiva, not Brahma. 2) They identify him with the Hebrew Ancient of Days, though he is actually a pictured as an eternal youth. 3) They consider him the ‘Lord of the World’ or ‘planetary logos,’ whereas in his original form he has nothing to do with world governance, but rather represents ascetic withdrawal from the world. 4) They claim that he came to Earth from Venus, a planet named after the Roman goddess of erotic love and identified with similar goddesses by both the Greek and the Mesopotamians, and a planet identified by the Hindus themselves with the god Shukra, analogous to the Greek Eros – and yet the Sanat-Kumara in Hindu belief is a brahmachari, a religious celibate. It’s as if Blavatsky’s sources were deliberately attempting to invert traditional Hindu doctrine.” (E-mail from Charles Upton to Lee Penn, 08/13/04 and 10/09/04.)

[23] 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. 458-459.

[24] 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. 45, footnote.

[25] 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. 459, footnote.

[26] Ibid., p. 458.

[27] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 685.

[28] Ibid., p. 685.

[29] Alice A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, Lucis Publishing Company, 1948, p. 121.

[30] Ibid., p. 121.

[31] Ibid., p. 121.

[32] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 122-123.

[33] Alice A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, Lucis Publishing Company, 1948, p. 9.

[34] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 530.

[35] Ibid., p. 635.

[36] Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Healing – Volume IV: A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Lucis Publishing Company, 1953, p. 393.

[37] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 603.

[38] Ibid., p. 597.

[39] Ibid., p. 590.

[40] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 233-234.

[41] Alice A. Bailey, The Unfinished Autobiography of Alice A. Bailey, Lucis Publishing Company, 1951, p. 142.

[42] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 134.

[43] Ibid., pp. 133-134.

[44] Ibid., p. 136.

[45] Ibid., p. 138.

[46] Ibid., p. 71.

[47] Alice A. Bailey, Problems of Humanity, 1947, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 90.

[48] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 118.

[49] Alice A. Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations, 1949, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 125.

[50] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 593-594.

[51] Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Psychology: Volume II – A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Lucis Publishing Company, 1942, p. 379.

[52] Foster Bailey, Running God’s Plan, Lucis Publishing Company, 1972, p. 154.

[53] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 213-214.

[54] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 54.

[55] Ibid., p. 51.

[56] In addition to the books cited below, other Bailey works contain anti-Semitic material: Alice A. Bailey, Problems of Humanity, Lucis Publishing Company, 3rd ed. 1964, pp. 86, 95-105, 141, and 172; also, Alice A. Bailey, The Unfinished Autobiography of Alice A. Bailey, Lucis Publishing Company, 1951, pp. 118-121; also, Alice A. Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations, Lucis Publishing Company, 1949, pp. 34-35.

[57] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 705-706. Other anti-Semitic material appears on pp. 429-430, 534, 548, 634-637, and 679-681.

[58] Ibid., p. 318.

[59] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 541.

[60] Ibid., p. 543.

[61] Ibid., p. 543.

[62] Charles Upton notes an error of Bailey’s: “The symbol of Aries is the ram – a male sheep – not the goat.  The astrological sign of the goat is Capricorn.” (E-mail from Charles Upton to Lee Penn, 10/09/04.)

[63] Alice A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, 1948, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 81.

[64] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 71-79.

[65] Ibid., p. 78.

[66] Ibid., pp. 76-77. Other anti-Semitic material appears on pp. 74, 87, 88-89, 92, 544, 551, 615, and 637.

[67] Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Healing – Volume IV: A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Lucis Publishing Company, 1953, p. 263.

[68] Ibid., p. 264.

[69] Ibid., pp. 265-266. Other anti-Semitic material appears on pp. 267-269 of Esoteric Healing.

[70] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 753.

[71] Ibid., p. 620; see the parenthetical comment in the book.

[72] Ibid., p. 635.

[73] Ibid., p. 634.

[74] Ibid., p. 680.

[75] Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Healing – Volume IV: A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Lucis Publishing Company, 1953, pp. 266-267.

[76] Ibid., pp. 268-269.

[77] Charles Upton comments, “This prejudice against Jews may have been of long standing, but was by no means universal. The history of Islam contains as many examples of Muslim-Jewish amity and cooperation as of Muslim-Jewish enmity. When Benjamin Disraeli became British Prime Minister, his opponents protested that he would be partial to Arab interests in the Middle East since he was a Jew.” (E-mail from Charles Upton to Lee Penn, 04/27/04)

[78] World Goodwill, “The New Group of World Servers,” 1978, p. 4; from the New Religious Movements collection of the Graduate Theological Union Library in Berkeley, California.

[79] ZENIT.org News Agency, “Historian Laments the New Anti-Catholicism in U.S.: Philip Jenkins, an Episcopalian, Faults the Intellectuals and Liberals,” http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=36317, printed 06/04/03.

[80] Lucis Publishing Company, “US Online Secure Order Form,” https://www.lucistrust.org/purchase/price.shtml, printed 06/04/03.

[81] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 754.

[82] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 548.

[83] Alice A. Bailey, Problems of Humanity, Lucis Publishing Company, 3rd ed. 1964, p. 169.

[84] Ibid., p. 131. Bailey originally published this book in 1947, and died in 1949. The reference to Pope John XXIII is a posthumous emendation of the text by the Lucis Trust. It is noteworthy that they did not amend Bailey’s cruel, totalitarian writings in the newer printings of her other works.

[85] Ibid., p. 131.

[86] Ibid., p. 129.

[87] Ibid., p. 138.

[88] Ibid., p. 126.

[89] Foster Bailey, Running God’s Plan, Lucis Publishing Company, 1972, p. 160.

[90] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 544-545.

[91] Ibid., p. 401.

[92] Ibid., p. 414.

[93] Ibid., p. 268.

[94] Alice A. Bailey, Problems of Humanity, Lucis Publishing Company, 1st ed. 1947; rev. ed. 1964, p. 159.

[95] Alice A. Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations, Lucis Publishing Company, 1949, p. 152.

[96] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 541.

[97] Bailey was referring here to World War II.

[98] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 545.

[99] Ibid., p. 545.

[100] Ibid., pp. 545-546.

[101] Coleen O’Connor, “Uniting Religions: Bishop Swing talks about religious terrorism, atomic bombs, and why we need a United Religions now,” http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/interviews/int_19990107.shtml, printed 2/4/03.

[102] Bailey often abbreviated the name of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky to “H. P. B.”

[103] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p 510.

[104] 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. xxxviii.

[105] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 109.

[106] Alice A. Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations, 1949, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 11.

[107] Alice A. Bailey, Problems of Humanity, Lucis Publishing Company, 1st ed. 1947; rev. ed. 1964, p. 140.

[108] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 202.

[109] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 88.

[110] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 513.

[111] Ibid., p. 511.

[112] Foster Bailey, The Spirit of Masonry, Lucis Publishing Company, 1957, p. 135.

[113] Ibid., p. 29.

[114] The “Blue Lodge” degrees are Enrolled Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. These degrees are universal throughout Masonry. Anyone who wishes to pursue the higher-level Masonic degrees in the Scottish Rite or York Rite must first attain the Master Mason degree. For the texts of the rites used in the “Blue Lodge,” see Malcolm C. Duncan, Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor, David McKay Co., Inc., 3rd ed., n. d. This book is widely available in paperback.

[115] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 418.

[116] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 453.

[117] Alice A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, Lucis Publishing Company, 1948, pp. 188-189.

[118] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 278-279.

[119] Ibid., p. 279.

[120] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 109.

[121] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 122.

[122] George Orwell, 1984, New American Library edition, 1961, p. 245.

[123] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 105.

[124] Ibid., p. 133.

[125] Alice A. Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations, 1949, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 16.

[126] Ibid., p. 17.

[127] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 103-104.

[128] See, as one example, Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 229-240.

[129] Alice A. Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations, 1949, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 11-12.

[130] Ibid., p. 95.

[131] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 3.

[132] Ibid., p. 7.

[133] “Members of the group believed they were ‘exiting their vehicles,’ or their human bodies, to move onto a higher plane.” (CNN, “Former Heaven’s Gate member kills himself; another tries,” May 6, 1997, http://www.cnn.com/US/9705/06/heavens.gate/, printed 06/04/03.)

[134] For further information on this cult, see Christopher Partridge, ed., New Religions: A Guide – New Religious Movements, Sects, and Alternative Spiritualities, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 372, 391, 406.

[135] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 105.

[136] Ibid., pp. 114-115.

[137] Ibid., p. 116.

[138] Ibid., p. 612.

[139] Ibid., p. 618.

[140] Ibid., p. 618.

[141] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 553.

[142] Ibid., p. 76.

[143] Ibid., pp. 75-76.

[144] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 111.

[145] Ibid., p. 111.

[146] Ibid., pp. 111-112. Bailey’s use of the germ/infection metaphor for people paralleled Himmler’s speech to senior SS officers in Posen in 1943: “We have exterminated a bacterium because we do not want in the end to be infected by the bacterium and die of it. I will not see so much as a small area of sepsis appear here or gain a hold. Wherever it may form, we will cauterise it. All in all, however, we can say that we have carried out this most difficult of tasks in a spirit of love for our people. And we have suffered no harm in our inner being, our soul, our character.” (Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History, Hill and Wang, 2000, p. 661).

[147] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 149.

[148] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 548. Bailey’s teachings include the idea that there are seven “rays” – spiritual traits – that dominate human action.

[149] Ibid., p. 491; see also Alice A. Bailey, Problems of Humanity, 1947, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 81: “The release of the energy of the atom is definitely the inauguration of the New Age.”

[150] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 497.

[151] Ibid., p. 498.

[152] John McManners, The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 515.

[153] Biographical information is from Michael D. Robbins, “Alice A. Bailey,” http://www.esotericastrologer.org/EA%20Essays/EAessaysMDR12.htm, printed 05/19/04. Mary Bailey married Foster Bailey after Alice Bailey, Foster’s first wife, died in 1949.

[154] Mary Bailey, A Learning Experience, 1990, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 191-192.

[155] Alice A. Bailey, Education in the New Age, 1954, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 111.

[156] Ibid., p. 112.

[157] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 607.

[158] Ibid., p. 144.

[159] She opposed Soviet “separateness,” not totalitarianism. “The major sin of Russia, and that which has prostituted and warped the initial divine impulse underlying the ideology of that country, is the determination she demonstrates at this time to be separative and to shut the Russian people away from world contact, using the instruments of deception and the withholding of information. It is not the totalitarian nature of the Russian government which is the prime disaster; it is the refusal to develop the universal consciousness. … Russia is drifting into a pronounced expression of the great heresy of separateness.” (Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 595; see also pp. 428 and 679 for similar criticisms.)

[160] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 680.

[161] Ibid., p. 632.

[162] Ibid., p. 745.

[163] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 191.

[164] Ibid., p. 197.

[165] Alice A. Bailey, Problems of Humanity, Lucis Publishing Company, 1st ed. 1947; rev. ed. 1964, p. 177.

[166] Ibid., p. 175.

[167] Foster Bailey, Running God’s Plan, Lucis Publishing Company, 1972, p. 12.

[168] Ibid., p. 45.

[169] Ibid., pp. 12-13.

[170] Ibid., p. 165.

[171] Ibid., p. 166.

[172] Ibid., pp. 14-15.

[173] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 133. Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, followers of Alice Bailey and supporters of the URI, said, “Napoleon was following the guidance of the Adepts as he successfully began to unify Europe, but they warned him not to invade Russia. His own ego and lust for power overcame him, and he refused to listen. His obsession with power was dramatically expressed by demanding a coronation as emperor and then suddenly seizing the crown and placing it on his own head, rather than allowing the pope to crown him, as was the custom. This symbolized his supreme arrogance in setting himself above even the Pope as God’s representative on Earth. By not following the spiritual guidance he was given, Napoleon cut himself off from further help and eventually brought disaster upon himself and his armies.” (Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, Spiritual Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out, Ballantine Books, 1994, p. 243). Another Theosophist and follower of Alice Bailey, David Spangler, said the same: “Napoleon was an individual who was sent with a divine destiny to create in Europe something equivalent to the United States of America. His task was to lay a foundation for a United Europe, with one set of laws, one basic language, one coinage, and to eliminate the kind of strife that we have had for the past two hundred years in Europe. Unfortunately, as Napoleon gained power to do this, when he moved into the position where he was able to accomplish this, it went to his head. This was symbolically evident when it was time for him to be crowned Emperor and he seized the crown from the bishop and placed it on his own head. This is very symbolic of an individual’s saying, ‘It is I who am crowning myself. It is not God.’ It was at this point that the spiritual powers of the world that had been backing him and had been responsible for many of his successes withdrew. It was at that point that Napoleon began to go downhill.” (David Spangler, Explorations: Emerging aspects of the new culture, Findhorn publications lecture series, 1980, p. 102). Do these fans of tyranny channel information from the same sources, or do they plagiarize each other on the material plane? (For more information on David Spangler, see Ron Rhodes, “The New Age Christ of David Spangler,” Journal of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, Vol. 23:2-23:3, 1999, pp. 20-29; available through http://www.scp-inc.org)

[174] Victor Davis Hansen, “The Little Tyrant: A review of Napoleon: A Penguin Life, by Paul Johnson,” Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2003, http://www.claremont.org/writings/crb/summer2003/hanson.html, printed 06/06/03.

[175] Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, p. 4.

[176] The following works link totalitarianism to Gnosticism: Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction, University of Chicago Press, 1952; Eric Voegelin, Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, Regnery Publishing, 1997; Thomas Molnar, Utopia: The Perennial Heresy, Sheed and Ward, 1967; Stephen Muratore, “The Earth’s End: Eschatology and the Perception of Nature,” Epiphany, Vol. 6, no. 4, Summer 1986, pp. 40-49. However, Stephan A. Hoeller, a present-day Gnostic scholar, denies this link. He says, “All modern totalitarian ideologies are in some way spiritually related to Gnosticism, says Voegelin. Marxists, Nazis, and just about everybody else whom the good professor finds reprehensible are in reality Gnostics, engaged in ‘immanentizing the eschaton’ by reconstituting society into a heaven on earth. … At the same time, Voegelin has to admit that the Gnostics regard the earthly realm as unredeemably flawed. One wonders how such a realm could be turned into an earthly utopia. That Voegelin’s supposed Gnostics have no knowledge of or sympathy with historical Gnosticism does not bother him either. Gnostics they are, and that is that. The confusion Voegelin created was made worse by a number of conservative political thinkers, mainly those with Catholic connections. Thomas Molnar, Tito Schabert, and Steven A. McKnight followed Voegelin’s theories despite the obvious inconsistencies.” (Stephan A. Hoeller, Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing, Quest Books, Theosophical Publishing House, 2002, p. 183.)

[177] World Goodwill, “The New Group of World Servers,” 1978; from the New Religious Movements collection of the Graduate Theological Union Library in Berkeley, California, pp. 6-7. This fourfold division of mankind is derived from Alice Bailey, Esoteric Psychology, Volume II, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Lucis Trust, 1942, pp. 632-639. She listed the classes as “the ignorant masses,” “the middle classes,” “the thinkers of the world,” and “the New Group of World Servers.” Above all of these stand “Those Whose privilege and right it is to watch over human evolution and to guide the destinies of man.” This material is on-line at http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/psychology2/psyc2248.html, http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/psychology2/psyc2249.html, and http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/psychology2/psyc2250.html (printed 07/20/04); the web site has electronic copies of all the Bailey books.

[178] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 553.

[179] Ibid., p. 553.

[180] Ibid., p. 553.

[181] Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, pp. 566-567. Bailey says that there are now “three major planetary centres – Shamballa, Hierarchy, and Humanity.” (Bailey, ibid., p. 567) With the fusion of Hierarchy and Humanity, only Shamballa and Humanity, two “planetary centres,” will remain.

[182] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 174.

[183] Ibid., p. 174.

[184] In contrast to Bailey’s description of “the Initiator” as “pure darkness,” the Apostle John wrote, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) Charles Upton warns against Bailey’s “clear cold fire.” He says, “Fire without heat symbolizes knowledge without love – which, according to St. Augustine in The City of God, is precisely demonic knowledge.”

[185] Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960, Lucis Publishing Company, p. 224.

[186] Telephone interview, April 24, 1998, by Lee Penn of Dale McKechnie, Vice-President of the Lucis Trust.

[187] Ibid.

[188] United Religions Initiative, “Affiliates – North America,” http://www.uri.org/regionalnews/affiliates/index.asp, printed 09/23/04.

[189] United Religions Initiative, “Honoring Our Donors,” Annual Report 2001, p. 10, and United Religions Initiative, “Honoring Our Donors,” Annual Report 2000, p. 9.

[190] URI on-line archive, e-mail from Sally Ackerly to URI leadership, February 27, 1998, http://origin.org/uri/txt/Org2Design.txt. Printed 1998; no longer on the Net.

[191] Pathways to Peace, “Council of Directors,” http://www.pathwaystopeace.org/pathways/executive_council.htm, printed 06/06/04.

[192] Masankho Kamsis Banda, “Creating a worldwide Legacy of Peace Messengers” (biography), http://www.ucandanc.org/Biography.html, printed 04/11/03.

[193] Pathways to Peace, “Council of Directors,” http://www.pathwaystopeace.org/pathways/executive_council.htm, printed 06/06/04.

[194] Ibid.

[195] Pathways to Peace, “Mission,” http://www.pathwaystopeace.org/pathways/organization_and_mission.htm, printed 04/11/03.

[196] “World Service Intergroup,” http://www.synthesis.tc/, printed 12/16/02.

[197] Ibid.

[198] Ibid.

[199] The Tibetan is the nickname of the spirit who (according to Alice Bailey, as she stated in her books) dictated Bailey’s Theosophical books.

[200] “World Service Intergroup,” http://www.synthesis.tc/, printed 12/16/02.

[201] Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, Spiritual Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out, Ballantine Books, 1994, foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, p. xiv.

[202] Ibid., p. 51.

[203] Ibid., p. 255.

[204] McLaughlin and Davidson mis-spell the term throughout their book; its correct spelling is Shambhala. (See, for example, Christopher Partridge, ed., New Religions: A Guide – New Religious Movements, Sects, and Alternative Spiritualities, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 210.)

[205] Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, Spiritual Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out, Ballantine Books, 1994, pp. 252-253.



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