avehicle for the ancient wisdom tradition · dr. joscelyn godwin c/o the department of music...

Volume IV, Number I Spring 2000

Radioactive Dating and the ABe of the Earth

Theosophy, BuddJiism, and

the Masters

TheosophicaL Brotherhood:

TheJ~e Case

The Many Aspects ofMUk

AVehicle for the Ancient Wisdom Tradition

Theosophical History Occasional Paper

Robert Hütwohl is the compiler of the latest offering from Theosophical History. Franz Hartmann’sessay, Some Fragments of the Secret History of the Theosophical Society, tells of his nine monthstay at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Adyar in 1884. Hartmann covers a periodthat includes the expulsion of the Coulombs from the headquarters and the Hodgson investigationthat followed. For price and details contact:

This magazine is an invitation for followers of all traditions to enter into adialogue whose goal is Truth and whose means is Universal Brotherhood.

James Santucci20733 Via SonrisaYorba Linda, CA 92886

Dr. Joscelyn Godwinc/o the Department of MusicColgate UniversityHamilton, NY 13346-1398

or

“Freedom” in Insight

In the January/February issue of Insight Geoffrey Farthing explores the concept of freedom. Whatdoes it mean to a theosophist when he talks about freedom? Geoffrey Farthing tries to point usin the right direction.

The Bhagavad-Gita comes to The High Country Theosophist

In one of several looks on The Gita Dr. C. A. Bartzokas brings together several passages from thewritings of Blavatsky and Judge that look at the true aim and age of The Bhagavad-Gita. This isfollowed by an essay that describes Dr. Bartzokas’ introduction to theosophy and the pitfalls thathe has had to skirt. I am sure that Dr. Bartzokas’ experiences are not too terribly different thanmany of ours.

More Bhagavad-Gita

The Great Lakes Branch of the Theosophical Society brings to us “Studying the Bhagavad-GitaPart 3: The Gunas.” Alex Rau looks at the gunas in conjunction with several passages taken fromThe Bhagavad-Gita. The Kali Yuga Rag can be contacted at:

Great Lakes Branch of the Theosophical Society - American SectionPO Box 370Mecosta, MI 49332-0370www.centurytel.net/theosophye-mail: [email protected]

Protogonos available on CD

Mark Jaqua reports that all the back issues of Protogonos are now available on CD. They havebeen reformatted and include a table of contents and rough index. This CD which includes someother archival material is only $5.00 postpaid. For details contact :

Mark JaquaPO Box 444Grand Rapids, OH 43522

Theosophical CD-Rom Index

Watch for a new CD-Rom index of theosophical and related periodicals to be released by the endof the year by Gladney Oakley. Various sections of the Theosophical Society including EdmontonTheosophical Society have been supplying Gladney with material. Keep an eye out for furtherdetails!

FOHATA Quarterly Publication of Edmonton Theosophical Society

ContentsEditor

Robert Bruce MacDonald

Managing EditorJoAnne MacDonald

Assistant EditorsRogelle PelletierDolorese Brisson

PublisherEdmonton Theosophical

Society

The pages of Fohat are an openforum dedicated to the pursuit ofTruth, and consequently theviews and opinions expressedherein are those of the authorsand do not necessarily reflect theviews of the publisher unlessotherwise specifically stated.

Any articles or correspondencemay be sent to:

FOHATBox 4587

Edmonton, AlbertaCanada T6E 5G4

E-mail: [email protected]: (780) 438-1717

Subscription Rates:1 year (4 issues)

$15.00 Cdn in Canada$15.00 US in U.S.A.$20.00 US international

Become anAssociate of Edmonton TSand help support its efforts.

Additional $10.00Associates receive: ETS Newsletter

Cover Design: Donna Pinkard

ISSN 1205-9676

Volume IV, No. 1Spring 2000

Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Letters to the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Lights and Shadows of Brotherhood . . . . . . . . . . 6by Brett Forray

Milk in the Kali-AMoo@ga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10by Rogelle Pelletier

The Age of Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12by David Pratt

Theosophy and Buddhism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14by David Reigle

The H.P.B. Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18by John Robert Colombo

Book Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

To be featured in coming issues:

Who Are Blavatsky’s Aryans?

The Way of the Hopi - Self-Determinationand Prophecy

AND MUCH MORE!

Theosophy and The Theosophical Society:Where Lies the Spirit?

One thing is certain; with the exception of Colonel Olcott, everyone seemed to banish the Mastersfrom their thoughts and Their spirit from Adyar. Every imaginable incongruity was connected withthese holy names, and I alone was held responsible for every disagreeable event that took place, everymistake made. In a letter received from Dâmodar in 1886, he notified me that the Masters’ influencewas becoming with every day weaker at Adyar; that They were daily represented as less than“second-rate Yogis,” totally denied by some, while even those who believed in, and had remained loyalto them, feared even to pronounce Their names. - BCW XII, p.163.

Geoffrey Farthing has recently circulated a letter thathe titled “Master/H.P.B. Association of Theoso-phists.” The letter is an invitation for those whobelieve that the original teachings, as embodied inthe works of Blavatsky, the Mahatmas and Judge aswell as later writers consonant with this body ofwork, have not been studied and adequately under-stood by students. There is also the belief that be-cause this body of work has not been studied andunderstood, later writers have come along and pre-sented ideas that may not be consonant with theoriginal teachings, and these writers have beenlumped under an ever-broadening umbrella of theo-sophical literature. This then presents a problem asnew students become confused with different termi-nologies and irreconcilable doctrines. Dr. C. A.Bartzokas presents this problem admirably in a re-cent issue of The High Country Theosophist. Dr.Bartzokas had been a student of Theosophy for someyears and quite frustrated at the seemingly differentdoctrines before he was pulled aside and told thatthe doctrines may not only seem different but in factbe different and that he should make a choice as towhich set to follow. This then is a problem and itcould very well be that those writings not includedin the set of original teachings may in the end noteven be consonant with the objects of the society.Consequently, the Theosophical Society may have,in misguided respect to the idea of freedom ofthought, accepted teachings that are not harmoni-ous with its objects, especially its first object. Geof-frey Farthing first and foremost seems to want tobring together an association of serious studentscapable of studying and understanding the literatureso that the integrity of the Theosophical Society canbe protected.

In addition to a focus on the original teachings,Geoffrey Farthing also wants this group to acknow-ledge “a loyalty to the Adyar Theosophical Society asthe one, and only one, originally set up by theMasters through H.P.B., Olcott and Judge.” He feels

that “[t]here were certain specific intentions for itwhich . . . have not yet been fulfilled.” It would seemfair to say that the full potential of the TheosophicalSociety as imparted by the Mahatmas has not beenfulfilled, however, that potential, its spirit, wouldseem more likely to be found in the hearts and mindsof earnest theosophists than in the dead or dyingbody of an institution that has lost its way. If Geoffreyinsists on such a loyalty, he may find that for no goodreason he will end up denying entrance to thisassociation of some of the most capable and resolutetheosophical students in the world today.

A Society is a body and like any body it is born, grows,gets old, and dies. It may be that the TheosophicalSociety in Britain has been powerful enough to pros-per under and despite the “so-called” parent society,but that has not been the experience of every Section.It may be that the British Section has experienced ademocratic relationship with Adyar, but that is notthe experience of every Section. The Canadian Sec-tion was unceremoniously excommunicated fromAdyar for what seems to be the politically expedientresolve of a few members at the top of the Adyarhierarchy of power. This was done with proxies en-trusted to a few and no apparent consultation withthe members who entrusted the few with these prox-ies—so much for democratic bodies. If the AdyarSociety is not dead, it is certainly the experience ofsome to be without theosophical spirit. It wouldseem that Geoffrey’s seed would grow much better inthe hearts of committed students who did not haveto work with the albatross of Adyar hanging abouttheir necks. A seed planted in the soil of pure The-osophy could lead to unexpected bounties.

Just about every Theosophical Society in existencetoday can trace itself back to Blavatsky, Judge, andOlcott as these different Societies were simply abranch of a split in the Society. It is very probablythe case that students filled with the Spirit of The-osophy can be found in all of these different

editorial

4 FOHAT

branches. One of these branches or sub-branchesmay even have managed to hold on to that originalspark that was generated by the Mahatmas. Bylimiting the membership of this Association, thisspark may be refused admittance. It is admirableto have respect and love for one’s mother, but thecorpse that is decaying in the ground does not holdthe soul of one’s mother and in order to honour herit might be better to look for her spirit in the living,in those whom she affected and shaped when shewas at the height of her power. There came a timewhen Colonel Olcott had to choose between protect-ing the Society or protecting the reputation of Blavat-sky. He chose to protect the name of the Society andsome say that he chose wrong. What is a Societydedicated to Brotherhood if it does not protect thename of its representatives when slandered beforethe public? Olcott would have done much more tostrengthen the Society had he chosen to protectBlavatsky’s honour and good name for then theSociety would be seen to be living what it preaches.Instead he chose to endow the Society with the Spiritof political expediency and it may be that the Societyhas stayed true to that Spirit ever since. However,not all of its members have.

If Theosophists committed to the Spirt of Theosophycan be gathered together into a working force study-ing the original teachings, unexpected benefits couldarise from this. One could envision in time a newSociety forming, especially if this loose Association

manages to get the Brotherhood Object right thistime. A Society capable of drawing members from allof the existing Societies would be an exciting andpowerful force capable of fulfilling some of that po-tential imparted to the original Society founded inAmerica. Certainly, the world is so dark at this timethat a Society dedicated to Truth and Brotherhoodwould be like a blazing beacon in the wilderness.People would have to sit up and take notice. Thatthey do not do so now is indicative of the states ofthe various organizations calling themselves Theo-sophical. Theosophy is the relationship between abody of people dedicated to Truth and to three ob-jects, it is not a body of those holding membershipin a certain club. This is exactly where we got itwrong the first time and if we are not careful, we mayget it wrong a second time. There may not be a thirdtime.

Geoffrey Farthing is right, those dedicated to theoriginal program have to align themselves more for-mally with one another. An attempt must be madeto rekindle the flame while the spirit still lives in theheart of some of us. The world is badly in need of anexample of a nucleus of a Brotherhood of Humanity.This was true at the end of the nineteenth centuryand it is still true today at the beginning of thetwenty-first century. Great movements always fallon the shoulders of a few; perhaps there are a fewamong us ready to take up the challenge.

The profound truth written by H.P.B. and quotedby Claude Hughes in the Winter ’99 edition of Fohatviz:-

Every Ego has the Karma of past Manvan-taras behind him. . . . At the end of its cycleof reincarnation it is still the same DivineConsciousness, but it has now become in-dividualized Self-Consciousness.

This truth can be personalised by using the step bystep meditation that takes us from the physicalthrough the spiritual to the infinite.

Physical I am (height, weight, race, sex,medical condition)

Emotional I am (occupation, marital, so-cial, community relationships)

Mental I am (knowledge, experience,intellectual capacity)

Spiritual I am (an individual patientlyworking through my karmicenvironment seeking to under-stand the workings of the na-tural laws and being preparedto accept my next assignmentin whatever circumstances Ifind myself when I reincarnateto serve the will of God as it willbe revealed to me.)

I am Immortal.

Infinite I am a part of the eternal, infinite,love-wisdom consciousness thathad no beginning and will haveno ending.

AUM.

��

Letters to the Editor:

SPRING 2000 5

Lights and Shadowsof Brotherhood

Brett Forray

History is a powerful, often under appreciated andsometimes misused tool that shapes our under-

standing of the human condition. Many minorities,for example, who read about the history and devel-opment of the country they now live in notice thateither their group is left in the margins of the story,or the story told typically favors the bias of the peoplewho are writing the history. The winners of the daytypically write the textbooks most of our childrenread. More recently, due to the post-modern move-ment, the missing stories of groups other than theones who hold the reins of power are being told andtheir perspectives are being woven into the fabric ofthe nation’s story. History is very much alive and,like any growing entity, stories change as moreinformation and insight come into the hands ofresearchers. Sometimes this is due to timing. His-tory is tucked away in many an archive, attic, orbasement that has been undiscovered or ignored.History is essential to know who we are and wherewe will be heading from that illusive point called the“present.”

Knowing the history of the Theosophical movementis no different. Like any human endeavor, Theoso-phy has had its share of glories and mistakes. Moreoften than not, the glories are exalted and the mis-takes are down played or shoved in the closet, whichwe know can turn into that proverbial skeleton. And,if you do hear about those unpleasant moments inour history, you mainly get the point of view theestablishment wants you to know. Some of Theoso-phy’s problematical periods have never been toldobjectively, let alone comprehensively. And, thismakes Theosophy’s notable moments seem too hagi-ographic and suspicious by comparison. Occasion-ally we do get holes poked into the official version ofa story. While there is much to laud about theteachings we have and the people who brought themto us, we too often forget how human they were andthereby have trouble acknowledging their mistakesor that they acted outside our assumptions of howwe think pious people should conduct themselves.We fear this takes away from their “spirituality” andsomehow devalues the teachings they brought to us.

One period in the Theosophical movement where Ihave noticed this tendency in our generation, also

happens to be one of its darkest episodes. After H.P.Blavatsky died, a struggle over who was maintaininga real relationship with the Mahatmas developedbetween William Q. Judge and Annie Besant, primar-ily, though the president, Col. Olcott also played asignificant part. Judge and Besant each claimed tohave had experiences with the Mahatmas beforeBlavatsky died. Up to Blavatsky’s death in 1891there seemed to be no qualms about the relation-ships either person had with these Mahatmas.Within a year after Blavatsky’s demise hushed criti-cisms began to blow in Judge’s direction that he wasfaking messages from the Mahatmas. This was im-portant, because even though Col. Olcott continuedas the administrative head of the Society, Besant andJudge were appointed the new spiritual leaderswithin the Society’s Esoteric Section or E.S.T. Judgewas also being strongly considered to succeed Olcottas the President. The first public criticism againstJudge appeared in 1893 in The Theosophist maga-zine. This episode was soon given the title The CaseAgainst William Quan Judge, or more briefly TheJudge Case. Besant took on the role of prosecutor.After years of claims and counter claims Judge anda majority of the American Section of the Societydecided they were fed up with the behavior of theirco-Theosophists and declared their “autonomy” fromthe rest of the Theosophical Society during the an-nual convention of the American Section in April1895. Several months later, Col. Olcott, who was inSpain at the time, issued a directive cancelling thecharter of the “succeeding” American Section and healso cancelled the membership diplomas of all theerrant members following Judge. The new group inAmerica would now be known as The TheosophicalSociety in America� and Judge was elected Presidentfor life. Ironically, Judge had been fighting tubercu-losis for years and his life would end in March thefollowing year.

There are numerous historical writings that also dealwith The Judge Case.�� Up to now most of them havebeen written by people who represented one side ofthe argument or the other. Most studies either be-lieve from the outset that Judge was guilty of theaccusations leveled against him, or the others believeBesant was at fault and had to go. Before Judge diednothing was proved that he forged Mahatmic corre-

6 FOHAT

spondence. And, Besant’s claims of Mahatmic cor-respondence were taken prima facie and never ques-tioned at all. Read objectively and carefully, you willsoon notice in each history about this period that thewriters tell their version of the story to confirm theirown assumptions. No one has approached this pe-riod to tell this story fully in a nonpartisan spirit.

Not surprisingly, you don’t hear a lot of discussionamong the different Theosophical groups about thistime period. Frankly, I don’t think they would knowhow to talk about it constructively. As with anydysfunction, Theosophists find it a difficult topic todiscuss S I don’t mean between peers (it’s easy whenpeople already believe as you do), I’m referring tomembers from different organizations.�� There arestrong and deep-seated emotions tied into this pe-riod, and despite our spiritual intentions, there arestill some primal emotions connected to how we feelabout The Judge Case. Some of these emotions stemfrom our reactions to the claims made by Judge andBesant concerning their spiritual lives. These claimsultimately compound our perception of their behav-ior throughout this period, because of the subjectivenature of paranormal experiences and the faith thatmust be taken by members who do not have the samedeclared connection with the Mahatmas as these twoleaders. Many of the emotions tied into this episodeeclipse other important issues. It should be notedthat both of these E.S.T. leaders after Blavatskyworked tirelessly for the Society. The request ofBlavatsky to work selflessly for the Society becamedominated by who was considered the authenticmouthpiece of the Mahatmas. As numerous divi-sions in the T.S. show, this is the most difficult areaof the Theosophical experience to ascertain.

To be sure, discussing the elements of The JudgeCase thoroughly and comprehensively is beyond thescope of this article. What can be more manageableis to discuss some of the consequences that camefrom this turbulent period. They have shaped whatwe are as Theosophists today, whether we knowmuch about The Judge Case or not. The first andmost obvious outcome was the divisions createdwithin the Society. The Judge Case divided nationalsections, families, long-standing friendships, andeven the first object on which the Society stood.Whether you believe in Judge’s or Besant’s causethroughout this period, you can’t help feeling sadwhen you go back and review Blavatsky’s letters tothe American conventions, which she finished writ-ing just before her death four years before the split.In these letters she reiterates time and again the needto work for Theosophy together even if approachesdiffered. She was aware of the need to let the Societybe a meeting place for a diverse membership, andemphasized the need to let people do Theosophy intheir own way, as long as their intention was to

further the great Cause of the Movement. Part of themeaning of this Cause is echoed in the motto of theSociety, “There is no religion (dharma) higher thantruth.” Different sides in The Judge Case can havea field day debating whether each side was true tothis Cause. However, in Blavatsky’s last letter, shemade the special point of commenting how importantit was to work as a united band of workers to makeit through the end of a critical cycle that closedbetween the years 1897-1898. If the split in theranks that occurred in 1895 didn’t completely de-stroy the Society as H.P.B. feared, it changed thetenor of the remaining and soon to emerge newTheosophical organizations.�� With more than onegroup calling itself Theosophical, which one wascarrying on the original impetus on which the T.S.was founded?

Each remaining Theosophical group made its claimas the successor to the parent group. While the issueof successor-ship was a concern even to Blavatsky,after 1895 it became an even more critical issue withthe new factions in Theosophy. Part of the issue ofwho succeeded whom around the turn of the centuryusually involved the blessings of the Mahatmas.And, with several Societies vying for the name ofTheosophy, whose group were the Mahatmas goingto rally behind, now? Whatever the truth, each fac-tion claimed that they continued to be assisted bythe same Masters. What criteria do we use to findout the truth in matters such as this? The simpleand favorite pat answer, “Use your intuition,” isslippery, since most people are unable to distinguishintuition from their feelings. And, people usuallylack the clarity and critical insight into their emo-tional nature. The Theosophical system of thought

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SPRING 2000 7

is a pre-psychological model and does not addresshow people can explore their emotional complexes ina very sophisticated way.

While one contemporary Theosophical leader oncepointed out that he likened the different groups todayto different flavors of ice cream, the leaders in the1890s or early 1900s would never have accepted thisanalogy and its underlying rationale. The principlesof Theosophy were strongly defended by each organi-zation in accordance to the way they saw themselvesin relation to those principles. As each group sawitself as the real defender for the Cause of Theosophywith the support of the Mahatmas, this led to thedevelopment of a form of Theosophical autocracywithin several of the remaining groups. Leaders inthe Point Loma group and the Adyar group main-tained highly autocratic powers over their organiza-tions. And throughout the early 1900s there was stilltalk of Mahatmic influence on the leaders of the day.

Each of the new Theosophical organizations had nochoice but to become a little more polarized in theirviews and beliefs about what Theosophy meant tothem in order to be distinguished from the “other”groups. Each group’s continued focus on their par-ticular view of Theosophy normalized their ideals andbehaviors within that respective group. The differentTheosophical organizations were now like birds of thesame feather. There was little if any interactionbetween members of the different groups. The Theo-sophical Society under Judge in 1896 did try toextend a hand of cooperation to the Adyar Society,but it was ignored. The original Theosophical Societywas divested of its interaction with a wider and morediverse membership after the split. The remainingorganizations generated members who approachedTheosophical ideas within the boundaries of their

newly politicized group. The brotherhood that wasto accommodate diversity of opinion, methods ofservice and growth was handicapped. You only needto spend time reading the journals of the variousTheosophical societies to see this for yourself. Inspite of this, there were certainly some tremendousaccomplishments by some of the remaining organi-zations. But they still lacked the counter balance ofreal diversity and freedom of opinion outside of theirgroup’s assumptions about what is Theosophy.They were missing the broader spirit of interactionwith different types of Theosophical thinkers that theearlier Society stood for. Now many of the accom-plishments of the separate groups reflected the posi-tion of their distinctive Theosophical Zeitgeist.

This ultimately leads to the question, “What, then, isa brotherhood?” To be fair, this was also a questionH.P.B. was constantly addressing throughout herTheosophical life. She bemoaned that the essentialquality of brotherhood was being violated in anynumber of ways. Many of her articles address thisissue either directly or indirectly, but some membersmissed her point beyond its sentimental value. Thebest way she and the other founders felt the Societycould foster an environment for brotherhood was tomanage the organization on a federal system thatcould nurture the needed solidarity among differingapproaches toward studying, and exploring ideasabout the esoteric philosophy. She felt that modelingthe Society’s administration according to a federalsystem was the best way to allow each member tobecome a true associate in what she called a “Repub-lic of Conscience.”� After the Theosophical Societybroke into its different factions, this ideal was segre-gated into Theosophical ghettos chanting, “You doyour Theosophy your way, and we’ll do our Theoso-phy our way.” There are some who believe a truebrotherhood needs the presence of a spiritual guideat its core. Possibly. Though, both Besant andJudge each claimed to be chelas in touch with thesame Masters. Are there not more objective princi-ples and criteria on which to base the formation of abrotherhood? Especially since a vast majority ofTheosophists only know the Mahatmas as an idealbased on the logical faith of the Theosophical phi-losophy and a hope anchored in the existence of aseries of letters.

The nucleus of a brotherhood that the TheosophicalSociety tried to represent began to crumble withinthe Esoteric Section. After a committee held in Lon-don in 1894 to resolve Judge’s situation failed tomeet the hopes of the committee members, Judgeand Besant came to the mutual agreement that theywould no longer work as co-outer heads of the E.S.T.They issued circulars to the E.S.T. members sayingthey would become independent outer heads work-ing only within their jurisdiction. The ongoing con-

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8 FOHAT

flict between Judge and Besant reached a criticalpoint when Judge issued an E.S.T. circular in No-vember 1894 saying that black magicians were influ-encing Besant through certain Brahman members inIndia. Judge also declared his supremacy as the soleE.S.T. leader when he single-handedly canceled Be-sant’s position as an outer head in the E.S.T., froma directive of the Mahatma. This coup d’etat becamethe straw that broke the camel’s back. This circularis the one document that must be considered themost controversial paper in all the documentationthat exists on The Judge Case. Whether you believein the contents of his circular or not, it sealed thefate of the coming split that was soon to materialize.Judge followed what he was certain was the Ma-hatma’s orders. Of course, Besant defended heractions along the same lines. Throughout disagree-ments and disputes in our Theosophical legacy, ithas not been uncommon to hear that the Mahatmashave been relied on as a source of conviction andjustification for some course of action S pleasant orotherwise. Is there a more level playing field that wecan use in making important decisions affecting theSociety, since everyone is not going to have access toMahatmas? There is no record, as far as I’m aware,that Blavatsky ever relied on the Mahatmas when shewas asked to become the President of the EuropeanTheosophists. Is a brotherhood dependent on follow-ing a single person who claims they have some kindof relationship with Mahatmas? What about havingspiritual principles at the core instead? How doesthe main body of the membership prove, for example,that there are black magicians infiltrating the Theo-sophical Society? Judge once stated that brother-hood was a fact of nature. However, incidents suchas The Judge Case show that brotherhoods aren’talways successful, because people don’t alwaysmake it work. If Judge was referring to the core of

our spiritual natures being one and the same S as afact of nature, then how can we better manageconflicting relationships in the outer world, espe-cially when there are differing claims about contactwith spiritual figures only a few out of the wholeSociety manage to have in common?

Questions like this could go on and on. But animportant perspective that we must keep in mind insituations such as The Judge Case is that the Theo-sophical Mahatmas can become troublesome ideals,since the paranormal techniques to relate with themare more difficult than we suppose, and many claimsof contact only turn out to be some form of psychicself-parody. If we want to form a nucleus of auniversal brotherhood, maybe we need to base thecriteria of this compact less on our super-sensateconnections with spiritual beings that others maynot (nor have to) share, and more on the characterand labor of the men and women who will worktogether to eventually form Blavatsky’s true republicof conscience. The Theosophical Society was notsupposed to be “the” nucleus of a world wide univer-sal brotherhood (let’s admit it, Theosophy is not foreveryone), but was supposed to set an example ofwhat it would be like to have a thriving center forsuch a solidarity. And, when people are gifted withparanormal abilities they would not be ignored, buteven as the Mahatmas stated in their letters to Mr.Sinnett, the claims of these people were tested andtried before they were accepted. Even the Mahat-mas, developed some objective means to find outwhat was true in the perceptions of occultists. De-veloping a brotherhood deserves no less. Learningmore about our history could help us understand thestrengths and pitfalls of becoming better brothersand sisters with one another. Only we must not beafraid to open the closet n together.

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SPRING 2000 9

Milk In the Kali-AMoo@gaRogelle Pelletier

Milk has had many connotations over the ages.These have ranged from the mystical and

mythological, to physical sustenance in the form ofa white beverage and cheese.

In Hindu mythology, Hansa (Goose or Swan) repre-sents Divine Wisdom because, as described in TheSecret Doctrine, “when given milk mixed with water. . . separated the two, drinking the milk and leavingthe water; thus showing inherent wisdom S milkstanding symbolically for spirit, and water for mat-ter”. ��

In Commentaries on Stanza III, HPB writes:

“The radiant essence curdled and spreadthroughout the depths” of Space. From anastronomical point of view . . . it is the “milkyway,” the world-stuff, or primordial matter inits first form. . . . [F]rom the standpoint ofOccult Science and Symbolism . . . are en-shrined more than a dozen symbols. ��

She goes on to mention that the following are ex-tracted from the allegorical “churning of the ocean”by the Hindu gods:

Besides Amrita, the water of life or immortal-ity, “Surabhi” the “cow of plenty,” called “thefountain of milk and curds,” was extractedfrom this “Sea of Milk.” Hence the universaladoration of the cow and bull, one the pro-ductive, the other the generative power inNature; symbols connected with both theSolar and the Cosmic deities. ��

Again in Commentaries on this same Stanza:

[T]he . . . Omnipresent Spiritual Ray . . . callscosmic matter to begin its long series of dif-ferentiations. The curds are the first differ-entiation, and probably refer also to thatcosmic matter which is supposed to be theorigin of the “Milky Way” S the matter weknow. . . . [T]his matter, radical and cool,becomes, at the first reawakening of cosmicmotion, scattered through Space; appearing,when seen from the Earth, in clusters andlumps, like curds in thin milk. These are theseeds of the future worlds, the “Star-stuff.”��

In the various creation myths of peoples around theglobe, the ‘first’ matter is commonly referred to asmilk or milky substance. It is commonly held thatmilk streamed from the breasts of the feminine di-

vinity and thus was the Milky Way, among othercelestial bodies, formed.

The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols & Sacred Objectslists a number of civilizations that regarded the MilkyWay, the ‘river of stars’, as a river of sparkling,life-giving Goddess milk. The Egyptians apparentlysaw it as the outflow from the udder of the heavenlycow, Isis in her bovine form. The word galaxy itselfcomes from the Greek word gala, which means“mother’s milk.” In Norse mythology the ‘moon cow’existed before every other creature and gave nourish-ment to the world. In Scandinavia the Milky Waywas known as the Moon Way. In Celtic lands it wasreferred to as the Track of the White Cow. Even in apopular nursery rhyme, the cow jumped over themoon leaving a trail of her star-milk across the sky��.

In the Hindu Ayurvedic tradition, fresh unpasteur-ized milk, because it contains calcium, protein andvitamins, is considered a food, a medicine, and ahealer all at the same time. The milk productscheese, yogurt, butter, and buttermilk are consid-ered sattvic, that is, balanced, readily digested foods.In The Healing Cuisine, India’s Art of Ayurvedic Cook-ing, the author states:

Milk is nectar for the human organism. . . .In Hindu mythology, Vishnu is often depictedpeacefully reclining on a serpent coiled in theOcean of Milk. . . . [M]ilk symbolizes thesustaining and preserving power of the Uni-verse. Milk is the preserver of the body. . . .All mammals, whether herbivorous or car-nivorous, have milk as their first food. ��

The author stresses the importance of tending to thecow in order to ensure good quality milk:

In Vedic times, care of the cow was a sattvicactivity. There was no need to pasteurize orhomogenize milk. Now milk sold in super-markets is ultrapasteurized. . . . The vibra-tional effect of an electric milking machinemust be shattering for the cow S imagine thedifference in quality of milk from a well-caredfor and revered cow, hand-milked. ��

Now there is not simply mechanical intervention inthe production of milk. Science has ‘improved’ milkby tampering with genetics in an effort to increaseproduction from individual cows. In his book MILKThe Deadly Poison, Robert Cohen states:

10 FOHAT

When the Pilgrims milked their animals al-most 380 years ago, they were fortunate toreceive even one quart of milk per day fromeach cow. ��

By the mid-1800s, the average cow yieldedjust under two quarts of milk each day. By1960, that yield was over nine quarts peranimal per day. Today, thanks to new tech-niques including increased use of antibiotics,genetically selective breeding, and . . . geneticengineering, cows can yield up to 50 quartsof milk/day. ��

Cows are also injected with genetically engi-neered versions of their own growth hor-mones. These new hormones allow theanimal to produce greater amounts of milk.The new milk is different from the old milk.Each procedure has changed the taste andconsistency of milk. . . . Natural growth hor-mones were taken from dairy cows and re-combined with the genetic material ofbacteria, then implanted inside the E. colibacteria �� . . . . The bacteria were then“harvested” with sophisticated new tech-niques, and the hormone collected. The newdrug called re-combinant bovine somatot-ropin (rBST) would then be injected intocows. ��

This genetically engineered hormone called recombi-nant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) has been in usein the United States since 1994. To its credit theCanadian government said “No” to the use of rBGHin Canada due to the negative effects on cows. Itincreases the risk of mastitis (an infection of theudder) which is in turn treated with antibiotics,residues of which can be found in tested milk andwhich has been shown to increase the growth ofdrug-resistant bacteria. Representatives from Mon-santo, the manufacturer of numerous agriculturalproducts, stated they will continue to push for ac-ceptance of rBGH in Canada.

Mr. Cohen quotes from a column written by JaneHeimlich in Dr. Julian Whitaker’s Health and HealingNewsletter:

The single most disturbing aspect of rBGH,from a human safety standpoint, concernsInsulin-like Growth Factor-I (IGF-I), which islinked to breast cancer. IGF-I occurs natu-rally in human beings as well as cows, butrBGH injections cause substantial and sus-tained increases of IGF-I levels in milk, saysSamuel Epstein, MD., professor of occupa-tional and environmental medicine at theIllinois School of Public Health.

Worse yet, “IGF-I is not destroyed by pas-teurization, survives the digestion process, isabsorbed into the blood and produces potentgrowth-promoting effects” . . . .

Epstein says it is highly likely that IGF-I helpstransform normal breast tissue to cancerouscells, and enables malignant human breastcancer cells to invade and spread to distantorgans. ��

Ms. Heimlich states more bluntly in the Forewordthat “IGF-I is a key factor in the growth and prolif-eration of cancer”. ��

Robert Cohen claims that US milk is no longer safeto consume and that the approval process for rBGHwas a fraudulent one. The details he includes in hisbook are very convincing to this effect. He furtherclaims that, through political intrigue, laws werepassed which do not allow producers who do not usethese hormones on their herds to advertise that theirmilk is “hormone free”. Today the public does notknow if the dairy products they are consuming havebeen “treated with a genetically recombined hor-mone” or not. ��

Milk does indeed have numerous connotations. Phi-losophers have used milk to allegorically describe theunfolding of the universe. An aspiration regardingthe uplifting of mankind inevitably alludes to the‘milk of human kindness’ as a prerequisite toward amore Utopian civilization. Milk is a common bondamong all mammals and humans can naturally re-late to such comments. Milk also denotes purity,smoothness, colour (milky-white) and density(opaqueness or thin-ness). It is considered a basicfood item and the products derived from milk are astaple in many a diet worldwide. Unfortunately, milkhas now been degraded to the point where in someinstances it is no longer considered a ‘healthy’ food.

Perhaps the degradation of milk is a reflection of thecurrent state of mankind. The mental and psycho-logical states of humanity can be witnessed daily inthe actions and reactions of people to each other.The first and fundamental principle of Theosophy isthe Brotherhood of Humanity. Unfortunately, at thisstage of human evolution, the responsibility whichcomes with knowledge appears to be forsaken on thealtar of materialism, with the well-being of humanityfalling a distant second to profit margin. This dis-ease of the mental/psychological human states isnaturally reflected in the physical aspects of ourlives. I believe it is a sad commentary when one ofmankind’s most common symbols of purity has in-stead become simply another consumer product ofwhich to be wary.

� � � continued on page 20

SPRING 2000 11

The Age of EarthDavid Pratt

�� !!��"��#�� #��!�� !��$!�� %

According to theosophy, the earth is about two billionyears old C a figure in agreement with ancient Hinduteachings. In the west, it was widely believed untilthe early 19th century that the earth was less thansix thousand years old, a belief based on a literalinterpretation of the Book of Genesis. In the 1640s,for example, biblical scholar Dr. John Lightfoot cal-culated that the world was created at the autumnalequinox in 3928 BC. A few years later, ArchbishopJames Ussher of Ireland announced that God cre-ated heaven and earth on Saturday evening, October22, 4004 BC.�

In the 19th century, scientists tried to work out theearth’s age by assuming that its features had beenshaped by the same gradual processes operatingtoday. For example, they calculated the time re-quired for the earth’s sedimentary rocks to be depos-ited, for the oceans to attain their current level ofsalinity, and for the planet to cool from an originalmolten state. Because these processes were not fullyunderstood, the resulting estimates of the earth’s agediffered widely, ranging from 3 million years to15,000 million years. The discovery of radioactivityin 1896 led to the development of radiometric dating,but it was not until the 1950s that the techniqueswere considered sufficiently refined to yield reliabledates. This method put an end to the significant levelof disagreement among scientists on the age of theearth.

The basic principle of radiometric dating is verysimple. A radioactive parent element spontaneouslydisintegrates, at an apparently constant rate, into astable daughter element C e.g. uranium-238 decaysto lead-206. By measuring the amounts of the par-ent and daughter elements in a rock, the time thathas elapsed since it solidified can be calculated; thegreater the proportion of the daughter element, theolder it is. However, there are various complicatingfactors. Even if it were true that radioactive decayrates never changed, some of the daughter elementmay have been present in the rock when it crystal-lized, and some of the parent and daughter elementsmay have been lost or gained by the rock since itformed. If, after a rock has crystallized, it later un-dergoes reheating, the radioactive clock will be reset,sometimes to zero. Attempts to take these factorsinto account are not always successful, resulting in

discordant dates. For example, potassium-argondating has given ages ranging from 160 million to2.96 billion years for Hawaiian lava flows that oc-curred in 1800! These anomalous dates wereblamed on the presence of ‘excess argon’. This is anextreme case, and it would be wrong to dismissradiometric dating as utterly worthless, since differ-ent radiometric techniques frequently give consistentdates for the same rock samples.�

The oldest known rocks on earth have been datedradiometrically at 3.96 billion years, and the oldestindividual crystals at 4.3 billion years. Scientistsbelieve that the earth is older than this, but that moreancient rocks did not survive the molten conditionsthat prevailed after the planet’s birth. The oldestmoon rocks have been dated at about 4.5 billionyears, and the oldest meteorites at 4.5 to 4.6 billionyears. On the basis of these results, along withcalculations concerning lead isotopes* in meteoritesand in the earth, scientists have concluded that theentire solar system, including earth and all the otherplanets, formed about 4.55 billion years ago.� Ra-diometric ages of 6 billion years for earth rocks and5.5 billion years for moon rocks have occasionallybeen reported, but such results are generally re-garded as unreliable.� At the other extreme, thereare still a number of fundamentalist Christians, orcreationists, who believe that the earth C and in factthe whole universe C is only a few thousand yearsold.�

According to Hindu philosophy, the age of the earth(to the year 2000) is 1,972,949,101 years.� The earthwill live for a total of 4.32 billion years C a ‘day ofBrahmâ’ C after which it will die and its lowerelements will disintegrate. After a rest-period or‘night of Brahmâ’ of equal length, it will reembody.H.P. Blavatsky stated that these figures were moreor less in accordance with the teachings of the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood, for which she acted as mes-senger. Has radiometric dating rendered thetheosophical age of the earth invalid, and exposedthe Brotherhood of Adepts as a bunch of amateurs?Only if we accept the key assumptions on which themethod is based C namely, that radioactive decaybegan as soon as the earth formed, and that decayrates have remained absolutely constant throughoutthe earth’s history.

E��

12 FOHAT

Each radioactive atom or isotope has a characteristichalf-life, which is the time required for one-half ofany given quantity of the atom to decay. Half-livesrange from over a billion years to less than a billionthof a second. Experiments have shown that decayrates are not significantly affected by pressure andtemperature, chemical reactions, and gravitational,magnetic, and electric fields. This is because radio-activity results mainly from very stable properties ofatomic nuclei C properties which scientists claim tobe totally unchanging. However, there is a smallmeasure of uncertainty (of up to 2%) in measuredhalf-lives. This means that extremely slow changesin decay rates could go unnoticed for a very long time.Considering the short period that scientists havebeen making such measurements, it is premature toconclude that decay rates are absolutely unvarying.It is interesting to note that carefully conductedexperiments in psychokinesis have shown that ra-dioactive decay can be influenced by the humanmind C but such results are of course ignored bymainstream science.�

In theosophy, the earth’s evolution is divided into anarc of descent and an arc of ascent. During thedescending arc, which comprises the first half of theearth’s life, the earth condensed from its originalethereal condition into an increasingly dense andmaterial state. At the midpoint of human evolution,some 4.5 million years ago, the ascending arc be-gan, during which the earth will gradually becomemore ethereal again. Radioactive decay is a sign ofetherealization, and has only become the dominanttrend since the start of the arc of ascent, prior towhich there were only temporary episodes of radio-activity.�� At present there are 118 known chemicalelements. All the elements from uranium (atomicnumber 92) upwards, are very unstable; some do notexist in nature and are known only because theyhave been artificially created in the laboratory. It isquite likely that several million years ago, when theearth reached its deepest point of materiality, therewere more stable elements than there are today.With the commencement of the upward arc, theheaviest elements are the first to become radioactive,but as times goes on, lighter elements will alsobecome unstable, and decay rates will tend to in-crease.

Thus, theosophy does not just say that decay rateshave been slower in the past, but that most of theearth’s history to date has been characterized by theconcretion of matter C the opposite of radioactivity.On the upward arc, heavier elements tend to disin-tegrate into lighter elements, whereas on the down-ward arc lighter elements tended to integrate intoheavier elements. Radiometric dating currentlymakes no allowance for this. In the uranium-leaddating method, for instance, it is generally assumed

that all the uranium in a rock has been present fromthe time it formed, and that the lead has beenproduced mainly by the decay of the uranium; thepossibility that the uranium was partly produced bythe materialization of lead is not considered. Due tothe flawed assumptions on which radiometric datingis based, it results in ages that are far too old; at best,it gives only relative dates, not absolute dates.

Scientists recognize that light elements can turn intoheavier ones by means of nuclear fusion, but theprevailing belief is that this can take place only attemperatures of millions of degrees, such as arethought to exist in stars. However, biologist LouisKervran and a number of other researchers havedemonstrated that, in both living organisms and themineral world, some common elements are trans-muted into heavier elements without the need forextremely high temperatures and pressures, andsome are transmuted into lighter elements.�� Ortho-dox science does not bother to study these subtle,alchemical processes because it is already convincedthat they cannot exist. ‘Cold fusion’ is anotheranomalous phenomenon that has largely beenshunned and sidelined by the scientific estab-lishment.�� The term covers a variety of poorly un-derstood nuclear reactions but, in contrast to ‘hot’fusion, these take place at low temperatures and inrelatively simple devices, instead of in reactors cost-ing millions of dollars. Clearly, mainstream scien-tists are in no position to decree what is or is notpossible in nature!

The earth’s history is divided into a series of geologi-cal periods, whose boundaries are often marked bygeological convulsions, biological extinctions, andthe sudden development of new species. Accordingto theosophy��, sedimentation in the present, fourthround of the earth’s evolution began in the Lauren-tian period, towards the close of the Precambrian era,about 320 million years ago (corresponding ‘scien-tific’ date: about 640 million years). This was fol-lowed by the Paleozoic era (the age of trilobites andfishes), which began with a rapid and unprecedentedproliferation of marine organisms (the ‘Cambrianexplosion’), and ended with the greatest extinctionevent in earth history. It was followed by the Meso-zoic era (the age of reptiles), and then the Cenozoicera (the age of mammals). The main theosophicaland scientific dates are given below:

Paleozoic: began about 240 million years ago(science: 540 million)

Divided into: Cambrian, Silurian, Ordovi-cian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian

Mesozoic: began about 44 million years ago(science: 245 million)

Divided into: Triassic, Jurassic, Creta-ceous


SPRING 2000 13

Theosophy and BuddhismDavid Reigle

T heosophy is the modern name given by H. P.Blavatsky to what is described by her as the once

universal but now hidden Wisdom-Religion, the par-ent source of all known religions. This original Wis-dom-Religion had been preserved intact out of thereach of the many conflicting sects, who eachthought that their piece of it was the only truth.Blavatsky was now entrusted by its custodians withthe task of making publicly known its existence andbringing out some of its teachings. She presented itto the modern world as Theosophy. In her earlywritings she referred to this Wisdom-Religion aspre-Vedic Buddhism.

We can assert, with entire plausibility, thatthere is not one of all these sects—Kabalism,Judaism, and our present Christianity in-cluded—but sprang from the two mainbranches of that one mother-trunk, the onceuniversal religion, which antedated the Vedicages—we speak of that prehistoric Buddhismwhich merged later into Brahmanism.�

We repeat again, Buddhism is but the primi-tive source of Brahmanism.�

Pre-Vedic Brahmanism and Buddhism arethe double source from which all religionssprang . . .�

When the Theosophical Society was founded byBlavatsky and others in 1875, she was asked aboutthis Wisdom-Religion by William Q. Judge, one of theco-founders. He in his question referred to the cus-todians of the Wisdom-Religion as Masters, as didBlavatsky, since they were her teachers. Her replyindicates that while pre-Vedic Buddhism is a correctdesignation for the Wisdom-Religion, she consideredthat it might best be thought of as esoteric Bud-dhism. As reported by Judge:

. . . on my asking her [Blavatsky] in 1875 whatcould the Masters’ belief be called, she toldme they might be designated “pre-Vedic Bud-dhists,” but that no one would now admitthere was any Buddhism before the Vedas, soI had best think of them as Esoteric Bud-dhists.�

The title chosen for the first book to attempt anoutline of the tenets of Theosophy or the Wisdom-Re-ligion was Esoteric Buddhism. Its author, A. P. Sin-nett, obviously also felt that this was an accurate

designation. This book was written on the basis ofcorrespondence with two of the custodians of theWisdom-Religion living in Tibet. These, Blavatsky’sMasters or teachers, also came to be called by thename used in India (where Sinnett and Blavatskywere then living), Mahatmas. Their letters, laterpublished and now preserved in the British Museum,became known as the Mahatma letters. However, asmade clear in them, the term Mahatma is not usedin Tibet. Instead, the Tibetan term byang chub isused, whose Sanskrit equivalent is Bodhisattvarather than Mahatma. Sinnett’s book based on theseMahatma letters was responsible for establishing theidea among the Western public that Theosophy isesoteric Buddhism. But the public did not correctlyapprehend what was meant by esoteric Buddhism,as the Mahatma K.H. commented several monthsafter the book of that name was published:

. . . that public having never heard of theTibetan, and entertaining very perverted no-tions of the Esoteric Buddhist System . . . theTibetan School will ever be regarded by thosewho know little, if anything of it, as colouredmore or less with sectarianism.�

Thus arose the misconception that Theosophy isderived from one religion among others, namely thatknown in the world as Buddhism, rather than fromthe Wisdom-Religion which was the source of allreligions.

In order to counter this misconception, and to stressthe universality of Theosophy, Blavatsky opened hergreatest work, The Secret Doctrine, with a refutationof the idea that Theosophy is esoteric Buddhism.She said that Sinnett’s book should have been titled,Esoteric Budhism, spelled with one “d,” to distinguishthe Wisdom-Religion, or Budhism, from the exotericreligion known as Buddhism. She repeated this inSection I of The Key to Theosophy. We can certainlyunderstand the need to correct the misconceptionthat had arisen in people’s minds; but was theproblem really with the book title, or was it withpeople being too ready to jump to unwarranted con-clusions? We may recall that at the time the bookwas being written, the Mahatma K.H. thought Eso-teric Buddhism was “an excellent title.”� One mustwonder if this distancing of Theosophy from esotericBuddhism has not produced its own misconceptions;e.g., the idea that the Mahatmas lived in Tibet amongBuddhists, but were not themselves Buddhists assuch. The literary evidence from Blavatsky’s Ma-

14 FOHAT

hatma teachers indicates that they were in fact Bud-dhists.

Starting with the first known Mahatma letter, writtento Blavatsky’s aunt in 1870 in the Mahatma K.H.handwriting, we find the following (translated fromthe original French):

She [Blavatsky] has been very ill, but is so nolonger; for under the protection of the LordSang-gyas she has found devoted friends whoguard her physically and spiritually.�

The word “Sang-gyas” (sangs rgyas) is the Tibetantranslation of the Sanskrit word “Buddha.”

Then in letters from the Mahatma K.H. to A. P.Sinnett and A. O. Hume, written in the early 1880s,we find a number of references to Sang-gyas orBuddha as “our Lord:”

They cannot place—however much theywould—the birth of our Lord Sangyas Bud-dha A.D. as they have contrived to place thatof Chrishna.

. . . the ecclesiastical system built upon thebasic ideas of our Lord Gautama Buddha’sphilosophy, . . .

. . . for the information gathered as to whattakes place beyond we are indebted to thePlanetary Spirits, to our blessed Lord Bud-dha.��

. . . and necessity of the practical applicationof these sublime words of our Lord and Mas-ter:—“O ye Bhikkhus and Arhats— . . .”��

Our Lord Buddha—a sixth r. man—��

Plato and Confucius were fifth round menand our Lord a sixth round man . . .��

. . . the old, very old fact distinctly taught byour Lord . . .��

“The right in thee is base, the wrong a curse,”was said by our Lord Buddha for such as she;. . .��

The Devachan, or land of “Sukhavati,” isallegorically described by our Lord Buddhahimself.��

In letters from the Mahatma Morya to S.Ramaswamier and from the Mahatma K.H. to C. W.Leadbeater, we find similar references to “our Lord,”using the term “Tath gata,” another title of the Bud-dha:

. . . decide after counting the whole cost, andmay the light of our Lord Tathagata’s memoryaid you to decide for the best.��

So now choose and grasp your own des-tiny—and may our Lord’s the Tathâgata’smemory aid you to decide for the best.�

Let no one know that you are going, and maythe blessing of our Lord and my poor blessingshield you from every evil in your new life.�

The letters from these Mahatmas also include otherpassages that specifically identify them as Bud-dhists:

. . . our lamas to honour the fraternity of theBhikkhus [Buddhist monks] established byour blessed master himself . . .��

“Real Adepts like Gautama Buddha or JesusChrist did not shroud themselves in mystery,but came and talked openly,” quoth our or-acle. If they did it’s news to us—the humblefollowers of the former.��

. . . he who reads our Buddhist scriptures

. . .��

Therefore, we deny God both as philosophersand as Buddhists.��

If it is objected that we too have temples, wetoo have priests and that our lamas also liveon charity . . . let them know that the objectsabove named have in common with theirWestern equivalents, but the name. Thus inour temples there is neither a god nor godsworshipped, only the thrice sacred memoryof the greatest as the holiest man that everlived.��

They distinguish themselves from other creeds, in-cluding even Advaita Vedanta, which is said byBlavatsky to be, along with Buddhism, the closest tothe Esoteric Philosophy:

We are not Adwaitees . . .��

They retain this distinction, even though they acceptthe truths taught in Advaita Vedanta, and haveAdvaita Vedanta chelas or pupils:

It is an every day occurrence to find studentsbelonging to different schools of occultthought sitting side by side at the feet of thesame Guru. Upasika (Madam B[lavatsky])and Subba Row, though pupils of the sameMaster, have not followed the same Philoso-phy—the one is Buddhist and the other anAdwaitee.��

The Mahatma Morya wrote to Dr. Franz Hartmannthat his becoming a Buddhist will make the path ofknowledge easier of access. After H. P. Blavatsky andH. S. Olcott publicly took “Panchashila” at Galle,Ceylon, on May 25, 1880, to formally become Bud-dhists, the first Westerners known to do so, Hart-mann followed suit and became a Buddhist on Dec.

a

SPRING 2000 15

26, 1883. The Mahatma Morya wrote in a letter tohim on Feb. 5, 1884:

Let me give you an advice. Never offer your-self as a chela, but wait until chelaship de-scends by itself upon you. Above all, try tofind yourself, and the path of knowledge willopen itself before you, and this so much theeasier as you have made a contact with theLight-ray of the Blessed one, whose nameyou have now taken as your spiritual lode-star. . . . Receive in advance my blessings andmy thanks.��

It would seem that not only were Blavatsky’s Ma-hatma teachers Buddhists, but so was the trans-Hi-malayan school of adepts to which they belonged.

When our great Buddha—the patron of all theadepts, the reformer and the codifier of theoccult system, reached first Nirvana on earth. . .�

. . . and philanthropy as preached by ourGreat Patron—“the Saviour of the World—theTeacher of Nirvana and the Law” . . .�

In a letter to Mrs. Sinnett, Blavatsky refers to otherMasters or Mahatmas of this school,

. . . who are pure blooded Mongolian Bud-dhists.��

Indeed, some of the clearest references identifyingthis school of Mahatmas with Buddhism are foundin the words of the Chohan, the teacher of Blavat-sky’s teachers:

That we the devoted followers of that spiritincarnate of absolute self sacrifice, of philan-thropy, divine kindness, as of all the highestvirtues attainable on this earth of sorrow, theman of men, Gautama Buddha, should everallow the Theosophical Society to representthe embodiment of selfishness, the refuge ofthe few with no thought in them for the many,is a strange idea, my brothers.

Among the few glimpses obtained by Europe-ans of Tibet and its mystical hierarchy of“perfect lamas,” there is one which was cor-rectly understood and described. “The incar-nations of the Boddisatwa Padma Pani orAvalo-Kiteswara and of Tsong Kapa, that ofAmitabha, relinquish at their death the at-tainment of Buddhahood—i.e. the summumbonum of bliss, and of individual personalfelicity—that they might be born again andagain for the benefit of mankind.” (RhysDavids). In other words, that they might beagain and again subjected to misery, impris-onment in flesh and all the sorrows of life,provided that by such a self sacrifice repeated

throughout long and dreary centuries theymight become the means of securing salva-tion and bliss in the hereafter for a handfulof men chosen among but one of the manyraces of mankind. And it is we, the humbledisciples of these perfect lamas, who are ex-pected to allow the T.S. to drop its noblesttitle, that of the Brotherhood of Humanity tobecome a simple school of psychology? No,no, good brothers, you have been labouringunder the mistake too long already.��

As clear as these references are to the Mahatmas ofthis school being the devoted followers of GautamaBuddha, and “humble disciples of these perfect la-mas,” there yet exists an even more direct statement.This came through unfiltered in a response from theMahatma Morya to a request from a certain HinduTheosophist to open up new correspondence. Heand other Hindu Theosophists, however, were notprepared to give up caste and their “old supersti-tions” such as faith in the Gods and God, as had theHindu Theosophist Damodar Mavalankar. The Ma-hatma Morya says in his characteristic blunt man-ner:

What have we, the disciples of the trueArhats, of esoteric Buddhism and of Sang-gyas [Buddha] to do with the Shastras andOrthodox Brahmanism? There are 100 ofthousands of Fakirs, Sannyasis and Sadhusleading the most pure lives, and yet being asthey are, on the path of error, never havinghad an opportunity to meet, see or even hearof us. Their forefathers have driven away thefollowers of the only true philosophy uponearth from India and now it is not for thelatter to come to them but for them to cometo us if they want us. Which of them is readyto become a Buddhist, a Nastika [one whodoes not believe in God or Gods] as they callus? None. Those who have believed and fol-lowed us have had their reward.��

These quotations given above leave little doubt thatthe Mahatmas behind the Theosophical movement,Blavatsky’s teachers, considered themselves to beBuddhists as such, and not only esoteric Buddhists.

The obvious question which now arises is this: Whydon’t the teachings given out by the TheosophicalMahatmas agree with the known teachings of Bud-dhism? To merely say that the Mahatmas are eso-teric Buddhists does not entirely answer thequestion. It does not explain the Buddhist part.What makes them esoteric Buddhists rather thanesoteric Hindus or esoteric Christians or esotericanything else? Why should there have ever been anytalk of pre-Vedic Buddhism or esoteric Buddhismunless known Buddhism has some direct connection

16 FOHAT

with their teachings? Having investigated this ques-tion for many years, my own conclusion is simplyand in brief as follows.

Buddhism is the most direct descendant of the Wis-dom-Religion now in existence, and in the Buddhistscriptures are preserved more of the Wisdom-Relig-ion’s teachings than in any other texts now extant.Thus Blavatsky’s Mahatma teachers are evenexoterically Buddhists. But, as often repeated byBlavatsky, the commentaries which give the truemeanings of the known texts have been withdrawnand are no longer accessible. Thus the teachings ofthe Mahatmas differ significantly from those ofexoteric or known Buddhism. In other words, thetexts of the Wisdom-Religion are best preserved inBuddhism, while the true teachings of these texts,long preserved in secret by the Mahatmas, began tobe given out to the world as Theosophy.

We may recall that when the Theosophical Societywas started, the scriptures of Northern Buddhismwere almost all unavailable and untranslated, unlikethose of Hinduism that Blavatsky cited frequently.The books on Buddhism that then existed werecriticized by the Mahatma K.H. Yet he indicates thateven the exoteric Buddhism portrayed in them “is fullof the sparkle of our most important esotericism,”likening it to diamond mines:

The more one reads such speculations asthose of Messrs. Rhys Davids, Lillie, etc.—theless can one bring himself to believe that theunregenerate Western mind can ever get atthe core of our abstruse doctrines. . . . Mr.Rhys Davids’ Buddhism is full of the sparkleof our most important esotericism; but al-ways, as it would seem, beyond not only hisreach but apparently even his powers of in-tellectual perception. . . . He is like the CapeSettlers who lived over diamond mines with-out suspecting it.��

To show this, the Mahatma K.H. then provides Sin-nett with the esoteric explanation of an exotericBuddhist doctrine given in Rhys Davids’ book.

En passant, to show to you that not only werenot the “races” invented by us, but that theyare a cardinal dogma with the Lama Bud-dhists and with all who study our esotericdoctrine, I send you an explanation on a pageor two in Rhys Davids’ Buddhism,—otherwiseincomprehensible, meaningless and absurd.It is written with the special permission of theChohan (my Master) and—for your benefit.No Orientalist has ever suspected the truthscontained in it, and—you are the first West-ern man (outside Tibet) to whom it is nowexplained.��

So far as I know, this explanation has not come downto us, as it is not among the Mahatma papers nowpreserved in the British Museum. From a perusal ofRhys Davids’ book, we may assume that this expla-nation was “on a page or two” of his chapter 8,“Northern Buddhism.” Specifically, it likely refers tothe listing he gives of the five Dhy ni Buddhas, theirfive Bodhisattvas, and the five correspondingM nushi (human) Buddhas.�� K.H. had also in aprevious letter spoken of sending an explanation ofthis material; but if there included, it too has notcome down to us. In this letter he appeared anxiousthat the theosophists give out the right explanationof this seemingly fantastic Buddhist teaching.

Only, to prove to you, if not to him, that wehave not invented those races, I will give outfor your benefit that which has never beengiven out before. I will explain to you a wholechapter out of Rhys Davids work on Bud-dhism, or rather on Lamaism, which, in hisnatural ignorance he regards as a corruptionof Buddhism! Since those gentlemen—theOrientalists—presume to give to the worldtheir soi-disant translations and commentar-ies on our sacred books, let the theosophistsshow the great ignorance of those “world”pundits, by giving the public the right doc-trines and explanations of what they wouldregard as an absurd, fancy theory.��

Fortunately, Sinnett did give out in his EsotericBuddhism what is apparently this right explanation.In chapter 9, entitled “Buddha,” Sinnett explainsthat the five human Buddhas given by Rhys Davidsrelate to the five races taught by Theosophy. Heintroduces this topic thus:

The explanation of this branch of the subject,in plain terms, will not alone be important forits own sake, but will be interesting to allstudents of exoteric Buddhism, as elucidat-ing some of the puzzling complications of themore abstruse “Northern doctrine.”��

The listing of the human Buddhas in the Rhys Davidsbook gives three Buddhas of the remote past, thenGautama the historical Buddha as fourth, and Mai-treya the coming Buddha as fifth. Sinnett explainswhy it is that the fourth Buddha belongs to our fifthrace; namely, that at the beginning of the first raceappears a teacher he refers to as a Dhyan Chohan,and who is therefore not in this list of five Buddhas.His explanation of this, however, was not altogetherclear; and a correspondent questioned it in TheTheosophist for August, 1884. The editor, H. P.Blavatsky, clarified that:

. . . Gautama was the fourth Buddha, i.e.,“enlightened,” while he was the fifth spiritual

a

a


SPRING 2000 17

The H.P.B. LibraryJohn Robert Colombo

A remarkable if little known re-source that is lodged in thiscountry is The H.P.B. Library.

The initial letters H.P.B. are rec-ognized by students of occultthought and especially by mem-bers of the Theosophical Soci-ety, for they identify its leading

founder, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), the Russian-born author of such books onoccultism as Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine.

The H.P.B. Library was established in her honour asan independent centre distinct from the Theosophi-cal Society by Madame’s close friend Alice L.Cleather, a member of the Theosophical Society’sEsoteric Section and later its Inner Group. A per-sonal pupil of Madame Blavatsky, Mrs. Cleatherbegan to distance herself from developments withinthe Society under the leadership of Mrs. Annie Be-sant, Madame Blavatsky’s chosen successor. So inLondon in 1917, Cleather established a lending li-brary of basic books that would be consistent withthe original aims and ideals of the Society.

How, then, did the library come to Canada, specifi-cally to be lodged in the study of a private home inthe West End of Toronto? It came about through theagency of Mrs. Hildegard Henderson, the daughter ofan American wool broker who grew up in New YorkCity. She encountered Mrs. Cleather in London,England, in 1910, and became her pupil. Mrs.Cleather transferred the responsibility of maintain-ing the collection to Mrs. Henderson in 1923, the yearMrs. Henderson and her husband retired to Victoria,B.C. Mrs. Cleather died in 1938.

Mrs. Henderson cared for the collection and devel-oped it to reflect the principles of the “Back toBlavatsky” movement until her death in Victoria in1948. A tribute to her and an account of the libraryappeared in The Canadian Theosophist, Dec. 1948.

Upon her death, responsibility for the library wasassumed by one of her pupils, Mrs. Edith Fielding,who had an eighteen-year association with Mrs.Henderson. In 1969, it went on to Mr. MichaelFreeman, a retired fruit grower in the Okanagan, whoas a very young man had been a student of Mrs.Henderson.

With the death of Mr. Freeman in 1991, responsi-bility for the collection was assumed by Mrs. JoanSutcliffe, who knew Mr. Freeman very well throughcorrespondence and through numerous visits tothe library. Since then the books have been housedat her address at 284 Ellis Avenue, Toronto, Ont.M6S 2X2.

Mrs. Sutcliffe was born in Yorkshire, England, in1940. She studied at Leeds University and laterworked at the Bradford Public Library. As she wrotein a letter to me dated 2 Nov. 1999:

During this period I became involved in spiri-tualism and explored various psychologicaland spiritual groups. In 1964 I came toCanada with my husband, Alan, and a fewyears later our two sons were born. At thistime I became interested in Eastern philoso-phy and studied Sanskrit for two years at theUniversity of Toronto and practised medita-tion with a Buddhist group. In 1969, I joinedthe Toronto Theosophical Society and was itssecretary for about ten years. In the winterof 1978, I met Michael Freeman who came toToronto to republish Alice Cleather’s bookH.P. Blavatsky: A Great Betrayal. He invitedme to visit the H.P.B. Library the followingsummer at his home in the Okanagan. Thisvisit evolved into a sort of yearly pilgrimagefor me. For many years I have also beeninvolved with an Ashram in South India,which looks after and educates poor or des-titute children. The guiding motif of theAshram is spiritual, and while basically of theHindu tradition, there is a theosophical out-look through the president. Three years agomy son and I spent some time there, andpresently I am running a sponsorship pro-gram from Canada.

She concluded:

As to the future of the library, I really have noidea, especially in this changing age. Someday I shall have to pass it on to some youngerperson, but who that will be, I do not haveany inkling at this time.

The H.P.B. Library consists of rare and originalpublications of Theosophical and occult interest.The printed catalogue to the collection lists books bythe following categories (with numbers of titles inparentheses):

��


18 FOHAT

The Mystery Schools, by Grace F. Knoche. Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1999. x + 98 pp. Price $12.95US cloth; $7.50 US softcover.

A better definition of a Mystery School could hardlybe found than that of Grace Knoche’s: “A universityof the soul, a school for the study of the mysteries ofthe inner nature of man and of surrounding nature”��.

Most students of Theosophy accept that suchSchools have always existed when required, i.e.,when aspirants on the spiritual path are ready forhigher instruction. However, because at least in theirpurest forms they are conducted in the strictestsecrecy, few are known historically. The most fa-mous of the Mystery Schools are those collectivelylabelled the Hellenistic Mysteries S Eleusinian, Or-phic, Bacchic, Isiac, Mithraic and others. But asthese were only written about (for the most partexoterically) when already in their decadence overtwo millennia ago, even in this instance our knowl-edge is limited.

Grace Knoche’s all too brief study, The MysterySchools, considers the subject from a Theosophicalperspective, beginning with the earliest cycles ofhumanity. This approach properly emphasizes the

universality of the Mysteries, though “not in detail ofcultural and ethnic interpretation” �� . Theseschools of wisdom, philosophy and science haveseveral grades, none of which can be skipped. Theiruniversal and ageless presence is therefore encour-aging to those who realize that many lifetimes willhave to be lived before final graduation.

In this regard, the necessity for the division betweenthe Lesser and Greater Mysteries, to use the Helle-nistic expression, is given due explanation. TheLesser Mysteries but serve to show candidates thepossibility of eventual individual perfection. Theyare open to all, but admission to the Greater S theroad to final perfection (telete) S is not automatic andmust be earned. It is a hard road to travel, and onlythe few with “sufficient spiritual stamina” �� areencouraged to start out on it.

This small book, The Mystery Schools, deals with animportant subject. It was originally published fiftyyears ago. Now revised, it well merits this new edi-tion.

& � '� ��

Psychic Pioneer Publications

A new publishing venture known as Psychic PioneerPublications will be welcomed by all who are inter-ested in Theosophical history and/or 19th centuryspiritualism. The founder, Leslie Price of England,was also the founding editor/publisher of the Theo-sophical History journal, now edited by Dr. JamesSantucci in California.

The initial list of intended PPP publications an-nounces “source material by and about earlier work-ers in the psychic field, together with newscholarship.” The first in the series is a book reviewby William Stainton Moses of A.P. Sinnett’s TheOccult World. Originally published in the July 1881issue of Psychological Review, it is aptly titled “Oc-cultism and Spiritualism.” Moses was one of thebetter known mediums of his day, whose own writ-ings were a serious attempt to study the phenomenawith which he was closely involved. His review there-fore is an important early assessment of the Theo-sophical teachings given directly in correspondence

to A.P. Sinnett by the Mahatma K.H. Some phenom-ena reported by Sinnett were similar to those familiarto Moses, so his approach was far from that of asceptic. Indeed, his review probably interested anumber of Victorian Spiritualists to read The OccultWorld and to join the young Theosophical Society.

Fittingly, second on the list is a paper by Leslie Pricehimself, “The Mystery of Stainton Moses.” It marksthe centenary of Moses’ death and was originallypresented at the 1992 International Conference ofthe Society for Psychical Research. Moses is of in-terest to students of Theosophy if only because hisname and mediumistic phenomena are mentioned inThe Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett.

Projected titles include a paper on the 19th centuryRussian psychic researcher Alexander Aksakoff,with whom H.P. Blavatsky corresponded; another onAbraham Lincoln and Spiritualism. One study, “TheCathars and Arthur Guirdham” indicates the serieswill not be exclusive to the 19th century.

BOOK REVIEWS

( �� " �� Fohat �"" � � �� #�� #�� #�� ##��

SPRING 2000 19

Let us keep looking up to the stars and elevating ourminds to the wonder of, and spiritual symbologyreflected in the ‘Milky’ Way. By concentrating on the

One-ness of all manifestation, perhaps we can bea constructive force in an, at times, destructiveworld.

��

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Cenozoic: began about 8 million years ago(science: 66.4 million)

Divided into: Tertiary (subdivisions: Pa-leocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene,Pliocene);

Quaternary (subdivisions: Pleistocene,Holocene)

The Quaternary period began with the Pleistocene iceage, about 870,000 years ago (science: 1.6 million),which ended with the extinction of many species oflarge mammals around 10,000 years ago, during thetransition to the Holocene or Recent epoch.

Most scientists have so much faith in the radiometrictimescale that independent verification of it is nolonger considered necessary. There are, however,indications that it might be wrong. For instance, bycounting the fine rhythmic layers making up the3800-metre-thick Tertiary deposits of Burma, L.D.Stamp concluded that the duration of the Oligoceneand half of the Miocene was about 2.5 million

years.�� This figure is consistent with estimatesbased on measurements of present-day sedimenta-tion rates. It is also exactly equal to the theosophicalfigure. The corresponding figure based on radiomet-ric dating, on the other hand, is 22 million years.

Although the main reason for the discrepancies be-tween the scientific and theosophical timescales isthe false assumptions underlying radiometric dat-ing, another relevant factor is the length of theearth-year. In theosophical dates, a year simplymeans one revolution of the earth around the sun,however long it may take. Radioactive half-lives andthe dates derived from them, on the other hand, arebased on the length of the earth-year as it is atpresent. If a year was much longer in the past, thiswould account for part of the chronological differ-ences. Scientists do in fact claim that there weremore days in a year in the distant past, but they saythat this is because the earth used to rotate morerapidly, not because it took longer to orbit the sun.Growth rings in fossil corrals supposedly confirm

H.P.B. & the Theosophical Movement (39)Occultism and Theosophy (174)Buddhism, Tibet & the Far East (95)Vedanta & Mystical Philosophy of India (81)Egypt, Islam & the Near East (33)Greek & Roman Philosophy (41)Western Occultism (132)Native American Indian Teaching (23)Science, History & Psychology (52)Pamphlets (166)Magazines Bound in Volumes (21)Reference Books (17)Oriental Art (16)

If my arithmetic is correct, 890 books are arrangedin 14 categories. There are some fascinating titleshere, especially the following (one from each cate-gory: The Hall of Magic Mirrors, Exploring the GreatBeyond, Man and Mystery in Asia, From Adam’s Peak

to Elephanta, The Todas, The Realms of the EgyptianDead, The Wisdom of the Ancients and the NewAtlantis, Guide to Glastonbury’s Temple of the Stars,The Swastika & Atlantis & the Pyramid of Xochicalco,Heredity in Light of Esoteric Philosophy, The BestFood for Man, The Prasnottara, Lucifer, Thirteen Ti-betan Tankas.

Books may be borrowed from the Library in personor by post. (The reference works may be consultedonly on the premises.) There is no borrowing charge,though donations to defray postal charges are appre-ciated.

�John Robert Colombo is nationally known as the MasterGatherer for his compilations of Canadiana, as John “Bar-tlett” Colombo for his books of quotations, and as Canada’sMr. Mystery for his books on the supernatural and theparanormal. Among the latter are Mysterious Canada�Haunted Toronto� Mysteries of Ontario, etc.%

� � � Milk continued from page 11

� � � HPB Library continued from page 18

� � � Earth continued from page 13

20 FOHAT

that there used to be about 425 days in a year in theearly Paleozoic, but this interpretation of the rathercontradictory data has been challenged by somescientists.�� According to theosophy��, the numberof days in a year averages 360 over the course of theearth’s lifetime C i.e. the earth rotates on its axis anaverage of 360 times during each revolution aroundthe sun; at times, such as at present, there areslightly more days in a year and at other timesslightly less. The absolute length of the year islikewise said to both lengthen and decrease, and ittherefore probably plays no more than a minor rolein explaining the discordances between scientificand theosophical dates.

Scientists seek to reconstruct the earth’s history byexamining the distribution and sequence of rockstrata, their physical characteristics, and the fossilspreserved in them. The ages assigned to these strataare of secondary importance. When correlating sci-entific findings with the information on the earth’shistory provided by theosophy, it is therefore impor-tant to focus on geological periods rather than years.For instance, theosophy says that the first apes arosein the Miocene, beginning about 4 million years ago,as a result of cross-breeding between undevelopedhumans and simians. According to science, the

primitive ape-like hominids known as the australo-pithecines also appeared around 4 million years ago.Given the difference between the theosophical andscientific timescales, the fact that these dates are thesame clearly indicates that they do not refer to thesame event! The 4-million-year date assigned byscience to the earliest australopithecines placesthem in the late Pliocene C millions of years after theappearance of their distant ancestors, whose fossilsare found in Miocene strata; it is to the latter eventthat the theosophical date refers.

The Quaternary is sometimes called the ‘age ofman’. From a theosophical viewpoint, while it istrue that our own fifth root-race or humanity roseto dominance during this period, recognizably hu-man beings, with self-conscious minds, emergedover 18 million years ago in the Mesozoic, and thebeginning of human evolution in the fourth rounddates as far back as the mid-Paleozoic, when hu-mans had huge ethereal forms. Our journeythrough the human kingdom on this planet em-braces vast, unimaginable periods of time. How-ever, it is not so much the attaining of some far-offgoal of relative spiritual perfection that is impor-tant, but how we handle the challenges and adven-tures we meet along the way.

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SPRING 2000 21

teacher. The first “teacher” of this “Round”on this planet was a Dhyan Chohan. As aDhyan Chohan, he belonged to another Sys-tem, and was thus far higher than a Buddha.As, however, in ordinary language, all spiri-tual teachers are called “Buddhas,” Mr. Sin-nett speaks of Gautama as the fifth Buddha.To be more accurate, it must be said thatGautama was the fifth spiritual teacher inthis “Round” on this planet, while he was thefourth who became a Buddha.�

With this one example the Mahatma K.H. showedthat the hitherto esoteric teachings now given out asTheosophy could explain the known teachings ofBuddhism that were otherwise considered fantastic,and at the same time the known teachings of Bud-dhism could support the newly given out Theosophi-cal teachings that were otherwise consideredfantastic.

The many schools of Buddhism, each with its ownvarying interpretations, all claim to have preservedintact the original teachings, and to have transmittedtheir correct explanations in an unbroken line. The-osophy, too, makes this claim. As Blavatsky de-scribes to a correspondent:

But what I do believe in is: (1), the unbrokenoral teachings revealed by living divine menduring the infancy of mankind to the electamong men; (2), that it has reached us unal-tered; and (3), that the M�� are thor-oughly versed in the science based on suchuninterrupted teaching.�

Both Buddhism and Theosophy teach that eachperson should determine for his or her own self whatis true through proper reasoning. If the examplegiven by the Mahatma K.H. be taken as repre-sentative, we may reasonably conclude that Bud-dhism does in fact preserve original teachings of theWisdom-Religion, and that the correct explanationshave indeed been transmitted in an unbroken line tothe esoteric school of the Mahatmas, and partiallygiven out to the world as Theosophy.

The Mahatma K.H. had advised Sinnett that to prop-erly study and correctly understand their teachings,a special group should be formed for the expresspurpose of seeking esoteric knowledge from theNorthern Buddhist source:

It seems necessary for a proper study andcorrect understanding of our Philosophy andthe benefit of those whose inclination leadsthem to seek esoteric knowledge from theNorthern Buddhist Source . . . that an exclu-sive group composed of those members whodesire to follow absolutely the teachings ofthe School to which we, of the Tibetan Broth-erhood, belong, should be formed. . . .��

However, the attempt made at that time soon provedabortive; and this remains unaccomplished and stilla desideratum. Now that so many of the NorthernBuddhist scriptures have become available, the op-portunities to study and interpret them in light ofTheosophy as sourcebooks of the Wisdom-Religionare very great indeed.

� � � Buddhism continued from page 17

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30hat is the Steed, 71wught is the 2?ider

,Jtis the "bridge" by which the ",Jdeas" existing in the "rnivine 71wught" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of ::Nature." 30hat is thus the dynamic eneroy of Cosmic ,Jdeation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power ofall mani~station. ... 7hus from Spirit, or Cosmic ,Jdeation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualized and attains to self - or r4f.ective - consciousness; while 30hat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between ~ind and ~tter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. - Secret rnoctrine I, 16

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