Theosophy News Worldwide 2nd Quarter 2021

This issue was published on 2021-07-24 or 2 years 5 months ago.

Editorial

Steven Otto

Dear friends of Theosophy,

the 30th issue of Theosophy World News and it was a rather quiet quarter, although the frequency of online lectures or discussion panels remains high. The efforts of EuST namely Mrs. Erica Georgiades, are currently particularly intensive, not only since this quarter. And even if there are isolated highlights, it is especially Adyar-related channels that are active, f.e. see also the Youtube Channel of TSiA.

Forbes, Financal Times, Vices, Jerusalem Post, Los Angeles Times are just a few of the better known news sites that mentioned Theosophy in the last quarter, mostly positively and often in connection with the artists Agnes Pelton or Hilma F. Klint.

But more so, I learned for example that Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India was a Theosophist and also, that the known Swiss painter and illustrator of Italian origin, Luigi Pericle, was Theosophy-inspired. More about this and other news, as always, in the section Press about Theosophy.

In the Topic of the quarter I deal now for the third time with the reason, why the Theosophical movement remains so extremely far behind its possibilities. I hope, for the time being the last time, and everyone should, like me, draw his consequences from these sad (as I think) facts.

And there are more interesting things to discover in this issue, so I wish you an interesting reading and a peaceful summer.

With kind regards from Germany

Steven Otto
Editor of Theosophy World News

PS: Feedback is welcome and don't forget to spread Theosophy.news -- the must read quarterly -- with your theosophical friends. Thank's for sharing.

Topic of the quarter

There is no permission for a secret section (esoteric school etc.), for anyone.

In the last two issues (see here and here) I've dealt with the subject of esoteric secret sections within the different TS (Adyar, ULT, Point Loma etc.). It comes clear for me without any doubt on the basis of the statements of Blavatsky and her teachers, that these esoteric sections lie today like a dark, paralyzing shadow over the organized theosophical movement.

Mr. Aveline recently cast further light on this issue (PDF) by referring to an older book by Alice Leighton Cleather, a student of Blavatsky's esoteric school, called "H.P. Blavatsky: A Great Betrayal." (PDF) from 1922. There it comes clear, as well as in other sources, that only HBP personally received permission from her teachers to run such an esoteric school. That means, no Esoteric section or secret school within a theosophical organization today exists with the consent and protection of the founders of the Society.

Furthermore, Cleather shows, none of us is immune to the power of our opponents without the protection and guidance of the teachers or founders. The fact, that even the honorable W.Q. Judge (as Cleather described) used a city famous medium (!) (Mrs. Tingley, whose legacy had not lasted too long) as the source of his alleged communication with the Teachers, shows how swift, great and extensive the deception can be, to which one is forced (when they filling exposed or powerful positions and do not follow the rules) once the protective hand is removed, also shown by the great transformation of Mrs. Besant in a very short time. H.P.B wrote in 1890:

But the invitation [from Adyar] came too late; neither would my doctor permit it, nor can I, if I would be true to my life-pledge and vows, now live at the Headquarters [in Adyar] from which the Masters and Their spirit are virtually banished. The presence of Their portraits will not help; They are a dead letter. [H.B.P in Why I not returned to India]

I say it again: Whoever imagines to have a legitimacy for an esoteric section etc. and/or thinks to be in contact with the Masters or HBP etc. is very gullible, acts against the unambiguous advice of HBP and the masters (as shown in the previous issues) and is, therefore, in my opinion, led by the traditional opponents of Theosophy or other sinister forces.

This is best proven by the present state of affairs. The potentials that's contained in the teachings handed down by Blavatsky are not nearly exhausted. At a time, when people are thirsting for esoteric truths as they have not been for a long time, modern theosophy is often -- the street urchin, that modern people wouldn't touch with a bargepole, pushed to the edge of oblivion and contempt (Theosophy is often unopposed named as racist, anti-Semitic, diabolical, precursor of Nazi ideology, etc. etc.  (as often shown in the previous issues). The responsible persons in TS underestimate how much this decades of accepted denigration, which would be the sole task of the TS to counteract, have seeped into society and how sensitive the younger generations react to such (and far less terrible) accusations, the truth of which they cannot assess and in case of doubt prefer to keep their hands off.)

2/3 of the people reading here are of the opinion, that such secret sections must be dissolved immediately. Almost 1/3 are of the opinion, that the opening of the Adyar Convention contains black magic elements. That it is against Blavatsky's teachings to pray as a TS has been shown by Blavatsky's own words and is 100% clear (and Adyar, as shown in previous issue, opens it convention with 10 different prayers, what a mockery, isn't it?).

One can only advise members of such organizations (imo) to leave it in order to free themselves from such influences. The organizations, which were once taken over in such a way, are certainly not reformable and so the largest part of the organized movement too, notwithstanding its numerous and very honorable members.

Whoever expects the prophesied victory of Theosophy in the 21st century is right, it will come, but certainly not with the help of Theosophical Societies running esoteric sections. This is Karma (and imperfection of man).

The ground is prepared and the clock is ticking inexorably towards the great upheaval that will await us before the end of this century. Theosophy has just begun to return to the hearts and minds of people.

Is the theosophical movement falling far short of its potential?

Choices

Press outside the movement about Theosophy


Theosophy


The Statesman

Connecting with Nehru
At the tender age of 13, Neru was accepted as a member of the Theosophical Society, where he performed all the ceremonies of initiation under the supervision of Annie Besant.
read more

 


Art


tlmagazine.com

Luigi Pericle. Ad Astra
From 18 April to 5 September 2021, MASI Lugano presents the first retrospective in Switzerland devoted to the painter and illustrator Luigi Pericle (1916–2001)... As a painter, an illustrator, and all-around scholar, Luigi Pericle, was influenced by theosophy and esoteric doctrines and took part in the cultural debate engendered over the past century by these trends.
read more

 

Forbes

Agnes Pelton Returns To The Desert At Palm Springs Art Museum
Agni Yoga, theosophy and the teachings of Helena Blavatsky among others. She was not a cultist, nor member of any religion, she was a spiritual seeker.
read more see also here.

ocula.com

Hilma af Klint: Back to a Future
The artist owned a copy of Theosophy co-founder Helena P. Blavatsky's 1888 publication The Secret Doctrine, the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy,
read more see also here

 

Sydney Morning Herald

Hilma af Klint: how a ‘crazy, remote woman’ upstaged male art heroes
Interestingly, Spiritualism, popularised by Russian philosopher Madame Helena Blavatsky, who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875, welcomed women, thought to be better suited to the work of mediumship.
read more

 

mutualart

Book Review: Culturally Appropriating Hilma af Klint
Although featuring some insight into the fascinating spiritual world of Hilma af Klint, the Guggenheims catalogue does not do her justice, at times wronging her outright.
read more

 

TheTablet.co.uk

Spirituality & Abstraction in Post-War Europe
fallen under the spell of Theosophy, an esoteric religious movement founded 35 years earlier in New York by the Russian-born Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.
read more

 

Financial Times

Artists back the digital route
'Madame Blavatsky’ by Goshka Macuga (2020) © Conradin Frei
read more

 

NewYorker

The Strange Revival of Mabel Dodge Luhan
Both Luhan and Lawrence were profoundly influenced by theosophy, a nineteenth-century occult movement, and Lawrence shared Luhan’s faith in the tonic properties of indigenous life.
read more

 


Other


Jerusalem Post

Israeli Opera's The Medium production meets applause
When Madame Blavatsky visited Vermont in 1873, a local mystic named William Eddy summoned seven visible spirits for her in the course of two weeks. These spirits spoke to her in Russian and Kurdish, she claimed.
read more

 

DailyNews

The giant behind the revival of Buddhism
As a result of the published article about this debate, many important persons such as Colonel Henry Steel Olcott and the Russian philosopher and author, Helena Blavatsky, were encouraged to visit Sri Lanka.
read more see also here

 

San Francisco Examiner

A Ray of Hope in Chaotic Times
The existence of these great Teachers was first made known in the West in the late 1800s by Helena Blavatsky, who lived among the Masters of Wisdom in the Himalayas for three years.
read more

 

FreeWeekly

Festivals: Cinco de Mayo, White Lotus Day, Mother’s Day & Taurus New Moon
White Lotus Day(Saturday, May 8) celebrates the life of Helena Blavatsky, co-founder of Theosophy, the first level of occult (hidden) teachings offered to the west (the modern world) from the temples and monasteries of Tibet.
read more

 

salon.com

How the pineal gland became an obsession for both spiritualists and sci-fi writers
Founder of a religion known as Theosophy, Helena Blavatsky argued that the pineal gland "is that which the Eastern Occultist calls Devāka, the 'Divine Eye,' or the 'Third Eye.'
read more

 

artforum

Moira Roth (1933–2021)
Pathbreaking feminist art historian and author Moira Roth, who taught at Mills College for more than forty years, died June 14 at the age of eighty-seven.... Roth was born in London in 1933 to a wealthy Scottish-Canadian mother interested in theosophy and a working-class Irish father who was teaching at the London School of Economics.
read more

 

vice

I Got Someone To Read My Soul’s Vibrations To Predict My Future
In Western societies, the concept of the akashic records has been around since the 19th century, under the disciplines of theosophy and anthroposophy. Philosophers such as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, and Rudolf Steiner described the presence of this all-knowing ethereal library, referring to it with different names.
read more

 


False Allegations


NewYorker

Why Did So Many Victorians Try to Speak with the Dead?
It became a kind of curiosity, a Victorian fad encountered chiefly in the biographies of artists such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who dabbled in mesmerism; in the footnotes to the modernist poetry of T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats, with their invocations of astrology, sorcery, and Madame Blavatsky;
read more

 

To be true, religion and philosophy must offer the solution of every problem. That the world is in such a bad condition morally is a conclusive evidence that none of its religions and philosophies--those of the civilized races less than any other--have ever possessed the TRUTH. The right and logical explanations on the subject of the problems of the great dual principles, right and wrong, good and evil, liberty and despotism, pain and pleasure, egotism and altruism, are as impossible to them now as they were 1880 years ago. They are as far from the solution as they ever were, but. . . . "To these there must be somewhere a consistent solution, and if our doctrines will show their competence to offer it, then the world will be the first one to confess, that ours must be the true philosophy, the true religion, the true light, which gives truth and nothing but the TRUTH. . . .

From the article "The Theosophical Society: Its Mission and Its Future" by H. P. Blavatsky, published in Lucifer, August 1888 and especially this paragraph HPB has quoted from the so-called "Maha Cohan Letter".

Upcoming events

TS Adyar Australia

R E A R R A N G E D: National Convention
from july 2021 to january 2022 Perth, Australia
more information

 

TS Adyar Europe

39th European Congress 2021
Healing oneself, healing the World, 2 to 7 August 2021 York, England
more information

News from Theosophical Societies

Do you remember the TS Adyar "president-issue" (because of Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act 1975 limits the term of the office bearers to three years but TS Adyar has a 7-year election cycle) we reported in our first 2018 issue? It's solved now, as Mr. Boyd stated recently (PDF). For several reason in India (government of Tamil Nadu) an exception is made for the TSA. Whether this also applies retroactively was not announced, so perhaps Mr. Boyd is the first real president of Adyar since almost half a century, according to Indian law (official reults of the election here).

TOS USA published a Webinar Series "Our Sacred Unity", more information here.

News from TS around the world can also be found in the magazine-section of this newsletter, see for example here (PDF), here (PDF) or here (PDF), as in every issue, so don't miss the magazines above.

As I said, it was a very quiet quarter in itself and no further news were published on the TS websites, e.g. no information about the recently held 135th National Convention of TSiA.

Devachan is the idealized continuation of the terrestrial life just left behind, a period of retributive adjustment, and a reward for unmerited wrongs and sufferings undergone in that special life.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1893), p. 90.

Theosophical Magazines

The TS Pasadena Amnerican Section

The Spiral Path
publisher, Summer Issue / 006 (pdf)

 

TS (Adyar) in Australia

Theosophy in Australia Quarterly
Newsletter/Quarterly of the TS (Adyar) in Australia
publisher, June 2021 (pdf)

 

The TS (Pasadena) Australasian Section

Theosophy Downunder
Newsletter of the Theosophical Society (Pasadena) Australasian Section
publisher, June 2021 (pdf)

 

The Aquarian Theosophist

The Aquarian Theosophist
publisher, April 2021 (pdf), May 2021 (pdf), June 2021 (pdf)

 

United Lodge of Theosophists (ULT)

The Theosophical Movement Magazine
publisher, January 2021 (pdf), February 2021 (pdf), March 2021 (pdf)

 

The TS Adyar Indian Section

The Indian Theosophist Magazine
publisher, April 2021 (pdf), May 2021 (pdf), June 2021 (pdf)

 

The TS Adyar Indian Section

The Indian Theosophist
publisher, April 2021 (pdf), May 2021 (pdf) , June 2021 (pdf)

 

The TS Adyar in North-America

The Quest Magazine
publisher, Spring 2021 (pdf)

 

New books

EuST

THE LUCIFER COLLECTION
read more

Sarath Amunugama

The Lion’s Roar: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Making of Modern Buddhism
read more

Guggenheim Museum

Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future: Catalogue of the work of Hilma af Klint.
read more

Articles from Theosophical sites


Blavatsky News



Book of Dzyan Blog



TheoScience.org



Theos Talk



Montreal Theosophy Project



Theosophy Watch



Theosophy Forward


Videos

Blavatsky Under the Tsars - Dr. Marina Alexandrova

#Dr.N.C.Ramanujachary #Philosophy of Theosophy #PragyaCSstudio #TheosophyOnline #Short Talks

Theosophy and the Kabbalah

Interview with Dr Barbara Hebert, President of The Theosophical Society in America

Interview with Vic Hao Chin

Reincarnation Rounds and Races in The Secret Doctrine - Dr Julie Chajes

Roger Buck: Ep 27 - With Dr Joseph Shaw: Theosophy and the New Age

#THEOSOPHY - Timeless Teachings for Kids, Episode 3 - With Kathy Gann

#THEOSOPHY for the YOUNG - With Kathy Gann Episode 2

The “Wisdom religion” is the inheritance of all the nations, the world over.

HPB, SD:1:xviii (Itroductory)

Letter to the editor

Steven S. Chernikeeff via Facebook:

Thank you - always an interesting read - in fact, my 'go to' for news around the globe anent traditional Theosophy.

✴✴✴ The End  ✴✴✴

Share your thoughts and comment

Permalink

Talking of the ES - did you know that Djwhul Khul and Alice Bailey - were planning on using the ES as their new Arcane School? Alice was kicked out of the TS partly over this issue. And as Michael Cane would say "not many people know that".
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@steven chernikeeff : Judging from what I claim here in this and previous issues, it's logical that someone can't just come in and take over the TS. Thx for that information.

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