Theosophy News Worldwide 2nd Quarter 2023

This issue was published on 2023-07-21 or 1 year 1 month ago.

Editorial

Steven Otto

Dear friends of Theosophy,

let's look with this 38th issue of Theosophy World News quarterly what has been moving the Theosophical Movement in the last 3 months.

We already pointed out in our last issue the considerable work of Shawn F. Higgins and his "epic" theosophical series of articles continued, see also Blavatsky News about it. But there are also many other interesting articles more or less about Theosophy in the non-theosophical press, e.g. about Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian 'Forms of Life' at Tate Modern with a large reach e.g. on TheGuardian.com or christies.com etc. More about in the section Press about Theosophy, in which you can learn again e.g. some new aspects about theosophical history or people inspired by theosophy.

We are also witnessing considerable upheavals in the theosophical movement, this time in the TS (Adyar) England, which seems to have great financial problems, read more in the topic of the quarter.

As always, theosophical magazines, articles from theosophical blogs, upcoming (international) theosophical events from throughout the Movement, and more, make this newsletter a great time saver and if you don't already receive it by email, check in free of charge now.

And now I wish you an informative read and a peaceful summer (or winter, as the case may be).

With kind regards from Germany

Steven Otto
Editor of Theosophy World News

PS: Feedback is welcome and please recommend the website Theosophy.news -- the must read quarterly -- according to your possibilities (A link from your website to this page would be helpful). Thank You for supporting this independent theosophical non-profit project.

Topic of the quarter

TS (Adyar) England in big trouble?

Another time, as so often, very interesting news reached us via Theosophy Theos-Talk

First appearance of the incident that TS England is presumably in financial problems and therefore sells its headquarters in London here.

A little background on the story, the speculation about Tim Wyatt and his TS England unsuccessful presidential bid and how he was disqualified on a technicality here. Story about how the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain (TS England) 2010 "lost" £19 million by sold its Belgravia headquarters and how the Charity Commission investigated the case and issued a highly critical report in 2017 here.

Rumors about the dissolution of the (TS England) library, which could be one of the more serious consequences of the impending loss of 50 Gloucester Place, London, by the Trustees of the Theosophical Society in England, besides the fact, that it is a well-frequented theosophical center in London or this TS and soon it will no longer be here.

The official wording of a notification to the members of TS England (Adyar) regarding the sale (source).

"The Board of Trustees wishes to inform you that after protracted and serious consideration as to the future security of the TSEW it has been decided to relocate its Headquarters to a more modern building that is better suited to today’s needs. Until such a property has been found we will possibly be using Nottingham Lodge as temporary base. We appreciate that this will come as shock to some members, but society has changed since the Covid Pandemic and with fewer physical meetings and much more online, the current Headquarters is sadly not what the Society needs today....."

We also recall the incident last April in the TS Adyar England case when the National Secretary and Board Member (Director) of TS Adyar (Foundation) resigned and a whistleblower says, she was forced to do so for alleged misappropriation of funds (we reported here).

Now, one year later, the "crown jewels" of TS are being turned into cash. Something that can probably be seen as a last resort. That the increased number of digital events is the reason for this, does not seem very convincing to me.

But it may also be a "normal" consequence of a shrinking TS on the one hand, and ever-increasing costs on the other, to close the presumed gap between spending and revenues. But if you think about it, could you also rent out this property and thus generate permanent income?

If future -- expected -- economic dislocations are going to hit the West in particular, it is probably something we will have to get used to. Remember the dreams of Lomaland built on debt that were abruptly ended by the economic downfalls of that time.

In Chennai, the big lease deal has given them financial breathing room for the next few years or maybe decades. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Maybe someone has inside information and will share it with us?

What do you think?

What's the main reason for the sale?

Choices

Press outside the movement about Theosophy


THEOSOPHY


indianexpress.com

Theosophy, Annie Besant and a forgotten lodge in Pune
Founded in 1882 by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, the Poona Lodge Theosophical Society still draws followers in Pune, though the numbers have been dwindling. read more

 

theconversation.com

White Lotus Day celebrates the ‘founding mother of occult in America,’ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Every May 8, thousands of people celebrate White Lotus Day, commemorating a remarkable and controversial Russian American woman: spiritual leader Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who died in 1891. read more

 

scroll.in

How an American helped revive Buddhism in Sri Lanka after moving to India
Henry Steel Olcott was a journalist and an agricultural expert before he founded Theosophy and became celebrated in Sri Lanka. read more

 

patheos.com

INDO-GOTHIC YOGA
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (pronounced all-caught by the natives and all-talk by the Europeans) left the Theosophical Headquarters in Adyar on August 4, 1888. After a two-day journey by train, he was now approaching the new Victoria Terminus in Bombay. read more

 

patheos.com

DENIZEN OF ETERNITY
Now that we have the Theosophical Publishing Society, I want to print your stories. I want to make a volume of novels under which Russian names will be sold,” Blavatsky told her sister, Vera Petrovna. read more

 

patheos.com

CARELESS WHENCE COMES YOUR GOLD
I will not go into the question whether it is desirable that women should work in factories or workshops, for it would be useless to do so,” said Clementina Black. read more

 


ART


christies.com

The mystical, biological and parallel worlds of Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian
They were, however, fellow travellers on the strange, astral path of Theosophical enlightenment. Theosophy was an occult movement that espoused belief in the mystic powers of life and matter, and a cosmic connection to other spiritual realms. read more

 

news.artnet.com

In Pictures: Tate Modern Pairs Abstract Art Pioneers Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian—Who Never Met in Life But Shared a Love of Nature
At the same time, the Dutch artist’s interest grew in movements like theosophy and anthroposophy. read more

 

theguardian.com

Ouija board wonder: how Hilma af Klint’s occult dabblings made her an outcast
Mondrian, like Af Klint, became involved in theosophical circles and their ideas permeated his art. read more

 

fadmagazine.com

Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian ‘Forms of Life’ at Tate Modern
In 1920 af Klint created ‘Series II’, a group of geometrical artworks featuring circles and crosses inspired by different religions including Theosophy. read more

 

theartsdesk.com

Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life, Tate Modern review - the hidden depths of abstract art revealed
Af Klint’s mysticism was far from unusual. In fact, the pioneers of abstraction were all spiritualists. Like af Klint, Piet Mondrian – whose primary coloured paintings are the epitome of modernist abstraction – was a member of the Theosophical Society. read more

 

artlyst.com

The Art Diary May 2023 – Rev Jonathan Evens
Their early abstract works preceded the abstract art of Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky, both influenced, as was af Klint, by Theosophy. Across Europe at that time, artists and thinkers like af Klint and Mondrian turned to spiritual movements like Theosophy and anthroposophy to reconcile religion with the modern world. read more

 

thecollector.com

10 Modern Artists Who Were Influenced by the Occult
The occult roots of modern art are way more profound than it might seem. Take a look at 10 modern artists who were influenced by the world of occultism. read more

 

e-flux.com

Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn: Deep Knowledge
Her life as a woman, a researcher, a mystic, and an artist is fascinating. In the culturally and politically difficult years prior to World War II, she immersed herself in theosophy and East Asian philosophy, assembled a huge image archive, and promoted interaction between read more

 

thenation.com

The Curious Case of the Transcendental Painting Group
Though their individual persuasions varied, the artists shared a potpourri of proto–New Age beliefs like theosophy and an interest in painting invisible forces operating at the limits of consciousness. read more

 

thecollector.com

5 Famous Works by Beatrice Wood You Should Know
Although not religious, Wood’s spirituality defined her life alongside her creativity. Her study of Theosophy and esoteric teachings were a significant part of her life. In Theosophical color theory, spiritual cleansing is believed to be possible through the purification of color. read more

 

artreview.com

Just the Two of Us: The Rise of the Blockbuster Dialogue Exhibition
Af Klint and Mondrian never met, though they were born a decade apart in Sweden and the Netherlands respectively. Both were deeply involved in Theosophy, an occultist religion established in the nineteenth century—af Klint went furthest, read more

 

artnews.com

Who Was Charmion von Wiegand and Why Is She Important?
Hard-edged geometric shapes came slowly into Von Wiegand’s work, linked to her interest in theosophy. In the late 1940s and mid 1950s she looked toward East Asian art as an extension of her search for spiritual models. She studied the writings and drawings of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a founder of the Theosophical Society, and similar texts with diagrams and illustrations of chakras, mandalas, and cosmograms. read more

 

thekashmirimages.com

The Emergence of Abstract Art: A Revolution in the Art World
Kandinsky began his artistic career as a figurative painter, but he soon became dissatisfied with the limitations of representational art. He was deeply influenced by theosophy read more

 

washingtonpost.com

Ellsworth Kelly at 100’: Sensational in more ways than one
It seems that both Piet Mondrian’s jazz compositions and Hilma af Klint’s mystical pastels share at their root a late-19th-century theory about the natural world known as theosophy — or at least that’s the case the museum is making. read more

 

whitehotmagazine.com

"Fresh" at the Debbie Dickinson Gallery by Anthony Haden-Guest
Hilma af Klimt, the recently rediscovered early abstractionist, Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian were all, heavily influenced by Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy movement. read more

 

pressenza.com

Nikolai Roerich, from the Himalayas
Helena Roerich was an exceptionally gifted woman, a talented pianist and the author of numerous books, including The Basics of Buddhism and a Russian translation of Helena Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine. read more

 


MISC


fairobserver.com

How Astrology Returned to Favor in the West
The story of Theosophy is vital to the revival of astrology as we know it today. Established by the Ukraine-born Helena Blavatsky as a society in New York City in 1875, it brought the ideas of Karma and Reincarnation to the West for the first time. read more

 

easterneye.biz

Ramachandra Guha wins Elizabeth Longford Prize
The author said Indians may have heard of “Annie Besant because of her theosophy and also because she was the first female president of Congress” and Mira Behn, an admiral’s daughter who had changed her name from Madeleine Slade and was played by Geraldine James in Richard Attenborough’s Oscar winning, Gandhi. read more

 

dtnext.in

PAST & PRESENT, with a river connecting them all
The Theosophical Movement of Adyar was instrumental in opening up this movement for Indian boys. Theosophists saw that the Scout Movement shared many of its values and Besant is known to have said often: “There were two great movements which stood for Universal Brotherhood. read more

 

mutualart.com

Book Review: Ithell Colquhoun Lonely Surrealist Path
Like Leonora Carrington, Hilma af Klint, and Agnes Pelton, Colquhoun has recently become a favorite subject for art historians hungry for female heroines, and it is not coincidental that these four should have a shared interest in occultism, for during the turning decades of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it was within the speculative realms of theosophy and esoterica that strong women were able to take prominent roles as respected leaders. read more

 

explorersweb.com

Pseudo-Archaeology: More Fun, Less Facts
Capitalizing on Donnelly’s hypothesis, another controversial figure named Madame Blavatsky popped up around the same time. She was a Russian mystic who became the founder of a new esoteric religion called theosophy. Theosophy split humanity’s evolution into seven stages, or “root races.” Blavatsky perpetuated that humanity’s fourth root race lived in Atlantis, where people had psychic abilities and advanced technology. This supposedly took place around 900,000 years ago. read more

 

dtnext.in

Madras’ tryst with labour movement
He was also deeply spiritualistic and believed in theosophy. Not surprisingly, Wadia was the last person one would expect to get involved in the trade union movement. read more

 

pr.com

FASERIP.com Releases "CROM: Rivers of Blood Await You," Takes Gaming in Bold New Direction
CROM is based on the Gardner Fox comic book character from the 1940s and the then-current fringe science theories about Earth's distant prehistoric past. It incorporated ideas from Theosophy, Catastrophism, and the then-prevalent theories of ancient mass migrations of different peoples. read more

 

lithub.com

Umberto Eco’s Favorite Books Give New Meaning to the Phrase “Deep Cut”
If one types Robert Fludd into Wikipedia, the first definitions that appear are these: “He was a British physician, alchemist and astrologer, an expert in theosophy.” read more

 

boingboing.net

The world's largest occult library has a public online archive
Amsterdam's Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (AKA "The Ritman Library) houses more ths 25,000 occult texts, covering "Hermetics, Rosicrucians, Theosophy, alchemy, mysticism, Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Sufism, Kabbalah, Anthroposophy, Catharism, Freemasonry, read more

 

hindupost.in

‘Nehru and Indira may enjoy beef in private’: US govt. document from Indian PM’s 1956 visit goes viral
Motilal Nehru, was a shrewd and successful lawyer who lived in the manner of a wealthy English gentleman and brought up his children in Western fashion….Jawaharlal Nehru’s education, until he was 16, was entrusted to tutors. One, a part‐Irish teacher named Ferdinand T. Brooks, interested the young Nehru in theosophy… read more

 

bigissue.com

Aleister Crowley and the secret history of UK witches in World War II
Dion Fortune (1890-1946) is one of the central figures of British occultism from the generation before Valiente, responsible for popularising the movement in the 1920s, initially in a Christian context, through psychotherapy and Theosophy (the history of which underlies so much of modern culture, but which has now been largely forgotten). read more

 

stream.org

There’s Nothing New About Worshiping Abortion, or Linking Feminism to Satan
Shelley’s radical ideas took root and eventually influenced first Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1892), who founded Theosophy. A Russian noblewoman, Blavatsky traveled the world, supporting herself as a medium. read more

 

island.lk

More on having foreign mothers in then Ceylon
All four were members of the Theosophical Society and this is perhaps a good place to mention again that when India gained Independence, most of Nehru’s first Cabinet were likewise members of the Theosophical Society and had been influenced by that great Englishwoman, Annie Besant. read more

 

island.lk

Ven. Buddhaghosa no betrayer
In late 19th century, when Olcott and Blavatsky were spearheading the revival of Buddhism, they incorporated this concept to their Theosophy (Gombrich 1988). read more

 

lankaweb.com

We need another “Panadurawadaya” – a National debate on the attacks to Buddha & his teachings
As a result of this event, American Col. Henry Steele Olcott and Russian Helena Blavatsky (who later co-founded the Theosophical Society) arrived in Sri Lanka on 16 May 1880. read more

 

getbengal.com

Why Tagore took refuge in Planchette sessions to connect with the dead
Rabindranath’s eldest brother, the poet and essayist Dwijendranath (1840-1926), was a founding member of the Bengal Theosophical Society, which set great store by communication with the dead. His sister Swarnakumari was the Secretary of its women’s chapter. Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, founders of the Society, were frequent visitors at her Kasia Bagan residence in the 1880s. read more
 

If the ʺspirit,ʺ or the divine portion of the soul, is preëxistent as a distinct being from all eternity, as Origen, Synesius and other Christian fathers and philosophers taught, and if it is the same, and nothing more than the metaphysically‐objective soul, how can it be otherwise than eternal? And what matters it in such a case, whether man leads an animal or a pure life, if, do what he may, he can never lose his individuality? This doctrine is as pernicious in its consequences as that of vicarious atonement. Had the latter dogma, in company with the false idea that we are all immortal, been demonstrated to the world in its true light, humanity would have been bettered by its propagation.

H.P.B in "Isis Unveiled", p. 283.

Upcoming events

ITC-Board (ULT, TSPL, Adyar)

International Theosophy Conference 2022: Universal Symbolism of Theosophy - Unveiling the Language of Divine Thought

July 19 – July 23, 2023 online event
more information

 

European School of Theosophy (TS Adyar)

European School of Theosophy:THE VEIL OF ISIS
16 – 21 October 2023, Luxor, Egypt
more information

 

TS Adyar

12th World Congress of The Theosophical Society (Adyar)
23 – 29 July 2025, Vancouver, Canada
more information

 

News from Theosophical Societies

See News from European School of Theosophy (Adyar) in it's latest newsletter, f.e. about THE HARTMANN LECTURES or THE LONDON THEOSOPHICAL CONFERENCES, more news here or here.

Theosophical Society (Adyar) in (North-)America published a video update from President Barbara Hebert, Ph.D..

Some TOS news can be found in the latest TINA-issue on page 34.

For more news, see the PDF newsletters from TS Adyar Chennai and Indian Section.

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 Point Loma Blavatskyhouse

Lucifer
Periodical magazine for seekers of truth
publisher, Lucifer 2/23

 

The TS (Pasadena) Australasian Section

Theosophy Downunder
Newsletter of the Theosophical Society (Pasadena) Australasian Section
publisher, currently only per Mail (pdf)

 

TS (Adyar) in Australia

Theosophy in Australia Quarterly
Newsletter/Quarterly of the TS (Adyar) in Australia
publisher, June 2023 (pdf)

 

The Aquarian Theosophist

The Aquarian Theosophist
publisher, April 2023 (pdf), May 2023 (pdf), June 2023 (pdf)

 

United Lodge of Theosophists (ULT)

The Theosophical Movement Magazine
publisher, April 2023 (pdf), May 2023 (pdf), June 2023 (pdf)

 

The TS Adyar HQ

The Theosophist / Adyar Newsletter
publisher, Theosophist May 23 (pdf), June 2023 (pdf), Adyar Newsletter - Q2-2023 (pdf)

 

The TS Pasadena American Section

The Spiral Path
publisher, 014 Summer Solstice 2023(pdf)

 

Articles from Theosophical sites


Blavatsky News



Montreal Theosophy Project



Theos Talk



Theosophy Forward


The function of Theosophists is to open men's hearts and understandings to charity, justice, and generosity, attributes which belong specifically to the human kingdom and are natural to man when he has developed the qualities of a human being. Theosophy teaches the animal-man to be a human-man; and when people have learnt to think and feel as truly human beings should feel and think, they will act humanely, and works of charity, justice, and generosity will be done spontaneously by all.

H. P. Blavatsky to the American Conventions, letter 1

✴✴✴ The End  ✴✴✴

Share your thoughts and comment

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This is a disaster, but I can see that the income stream would be severely hit, especially during covid. The price seems ludicrously cheap with 12 bedrooms and that wonderful location. I have spent many wonderful hours in that building - very sad, and we must hold them to account, and the elected committee must make sure they make NO MISTAKES selling if they really have to. Don't follow the SAGB, who were totally INCOMPETENT - the trustees may well blame the dead President, but it is THEIR responsibility to MONITOR - they are trustees, after all.

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