A Few Strong Reasons
To Be Confident About the
Future
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
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A version of the following
article was
published at “Fohat”
magazine, Canada
vol. XII, Number 1, Spring
2008 pp. 6-9 and 23.
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“... All
efforts of the greatest craft are
doomed
to failure on the day they are discovered.”
Helena P. Blavatsky
One
can see three main periods in the history of modern theosophical movement, of
which the third is still waiting to be awakened
into proper action.
The first period took place in
the years 1875-1897. During it, the
seeds of future universal brotherhood were
planted in the good soil of an ailing
civilization. That initial moment was blessed with the direct assistence given
by a number of high Initiates from around the world - some of them living in mountains and caves of
the Himalayas, others linked to Greek-Egyptian traditions or to the ancient, native
schools of esoteric wisdom in South and North America .
The second period is
probationary. It brought about the
“dying” of the planted seeds during the silent and invisible process of germination. It
corresponds, or corresponded, to the difficult
period during which the weeds of pseudo-theosophy and jesuitic ritualism dominated
most of the theosophical topsoil. It is not over yet.
The third phase corresponds to
the healthy growth of the seedlings of universal brotherhood, in direct contact
with the sunlight, and it can fully develop only after the uprooting of the top-down priestly structures from the
theosophical ground.
In the first part of the 21st century, the movement
seems to be somewhere in the
transition between phase two and phase three. An understanding of theosophical philosophy will show the student that
he can rely on the success of the present transition.
Adepts have a long-term view of life, and they can give time for
seedlings to evolve in their own rhythm. The theosophical effort was
inaugurated under the direct supervision of someone “to whose insight the future lies
like an open page”, and there is no
reason to doubt that the third period
of the movement’s evolution was already safely
contained in the two previous phases of its
history.
During the first period of the
theosophical endeavour, H.P.B. and her
coleagues directly confronted and denounced the main mechanisms of human organized ignorance. As we know, to each action corresponds a whole
variety of reactions. It was but logical
that in the second period of history Karma
Law should operate according to Nature. The inner vitality of theosophical movement
had to be then at a low ebb. As a result,
the inevitable probation started, and those challenged structures of
collective ignorance did “invade and control” most of the movement, bringing into it a progeny of
false initiates, jesuitic rituals, personal
ambitions and blind belief.
After thesis and anti-thesis, a synthesis must finally come
out.
As a consequence of the two initial steps, the autonomous seedlings must emerge as a new tidal wave from the inner world so as to win the day at the right time and pace. It is not difficult to see that the entrance hall leading to the third phase
of history includes an active work for mankind, a thorough
study of real theosophy, and the
fraternal confrontation and defeat of pseudo-theosophy. Yet before we investigate
how best to liberate the movement from the
now lifeless shells of jesuitical structures, one might start by examining what
we really mean by the word “jesuitic”.
The classical global project
of the Jesuits was described by H.P. Blavatsky in a January 1887 letter marked
with the words “private and confidential”.
Adressed to Alfred Sinnett, the letter says:
“It would be well perhaps, if the Jesuits contented themselves with
making dupes of Freemasons and opposing the Theosophists and Occultists using
for it the Protestant clergy as ‘cat’s
paw’. But their plottings have a much wider scope, and embrace a minuteness of
detail and care of which the world in general has no idea. Everything is done by
them to bring the mass of mankind again to the
state of passive ignorance which they well know is the only one which
can help them to the consummation of their purpose of Universal Despotism.”[1]
The Company or Society of Jesus was founded around the
year 1541 as part of the Counter-Reformation,
an authoritarian reaction from the Vatican
Historians tell us that in the second half of 16th century
they were already conspiring to overthrow Elizabeth I in England and to deceive
or control Lutheran king John in Sweden,
while promoting similar actions in other countries. The goal was to undermine both
national governments and protestantism and to replace them by the pope’s black militia, id est, themselves,
in their quest for a global theocratic dictatorship, or empire.
After a couple of centuries, though, their killings and conspiracies got so out of control that in the second half
of 18th century their order had to be closed. Portugal France
expelled them in 1764, Spain in 1767, and the Vatican Vatican
It it only after the second world war that the Opus Dei, a jesuitic-styled secret society founded by Spanish fascists during the first half of the
20th century, seems to have taken over in a great extent the secret role
traditionally played by the Jesuitic black
militia. Protected by recent popes, the Opus Dei had some 80.000 followers around the world by 2008, and
was well infiltrated in political, financial and religious circles.
In the 19th century, protestant England British Empire as it existed:
“Old England
HPB explained:
“In former times, at least, no country has better and more successfully
withstood the encroachments and treacherous designs of Popery than England
At this point, we must turn our focus away from the macrocosm of
Jesuitic action and into the microcosm
of the theosophical movement, and calmly ask ourselves:
“Does the general principle of the Vatican-Jesuitical action -
infiltrating everywhere through top leaders -
apply to the theosophical movement as well? In such a case, would Jesuits like to see the
main leaders of any theosophical society acting under the inspiration of their own methods and
piously cheating the public in the name of sacred Masters?”
The answer to both questions can only be yes.
Rarely a movement had so clearly challenged the designs of Popery and
Jesuitism, and this made the
Theosophical Society highly eligible for Jesuitic infiltration. H.P.B. clearly acknowledged:
“There never was an Occult Society, however open and sincere, that has
not felt the hand of the Jesuit trying to pull it down by every secret means
...” [4]
She had reasons to say that. The events leading to the second phase of the movement
- the phase of pseudo-theosophy
and jesuitism - actually started early
in the last seven years period of H.P.B.’s life (1884-1891).
In the mid-1880s, the Coulombs conspiracy and the attacks coming from Vsevolod Soloviov
were but the first attempts to infiltrate the movement. From the Jesuitic
viewpoint, those attacks were not only
valid in themselves. They were also preparatory for other and more subtle
actions in the future.
During the 1880s, the failure of
H. S. Olcott to defend the essence of movement and the work of its main founder was clearly premonitory.
Among other texts, H.P.B.’s open
letter “Why I Do Not Return to India
H.P.B. explained:
“Theosophists (...) are constantly warned, by the prudent and the
faint-hearted, to beware of giving offence to ‘authorities’ whether scientific
or social. Public Opinion, they urge, is the most dangerous of all foes.
Criticism of it is fatal, we are told. Criticism can hardly hope to make the
person or subject so discussed amend or become amended. Yet it gives offence to
the many, and makes Theosophists hateful. ‘Judge not, if thou wilt not be
judged’, is the habitual warning. It is precisely because Theosophists would
themselves be judged and court impartial criticism, that they begin by rendering that service to
their fellow-men. Mutual criticism is a most healthy policy, and helps to
establish final and definite rules in life – practical, not merely theoretical.”
And she added a few lines later:
“Criticism is the sole salvation from intellectual stagnation. It
is the beneficient goad which stimulates
to life and action - hence to healthy
changes - the heavy ruminants called Routine and Prejudice, in private as in
social life.” [5]
Of course honesty is not always the quickest way to make many friends. H.P.B. had to admit:
“Sincerity is true wisdom, it appears, only to the mind of the moral
philosopher. It is rudeness and insult to him who regards dissimulation and
deceit as culture and politeness, and holds that the shortest, easiest, and safest way to
success is to let sleeping dogs and old customs alone. But, if the dogs are
obstructing the highway to progress and truth, and Society will, as a rule, reject the wise words of (St.) Augustine,
who recommends that ‘no man should prefer custom before reason and truth,’ is
it sufficient cause for the philantropist to walk out of, or even deviate from,
the track of truth, because the selfish egoist chooses to do so?” [6]
Pseudo-theosophists must be honestly confronted, lest theosophy and the
substance of universal brotherhood should abandon the movement, as she wrote in an article published in 1889:
“If the ‘false prophets of Theosophy’ are to be left untouched, the true prophets will be very soon - as
they have already been - confused with the false. It is nigh time to
winnow our corn and cast away the chaff. The T. S. is becoming enormous in its
numbers, and if the false prophets,
the pretenders (...), or even the weak-minded dupes, are left alone, then the
Society threatens to become very soon a fanatical body split into three hundred
sects - like Protestantism - each hating the other...” [7]
The “false prophets” did win the day some time after HPB died - thus ushering the movement into the probationary
period of its history. During it, many seeds are already dead, while their successful
seedlings are yet not visible. Robert Crosbie, who in 1909 founded the
United Lodge of Theosophists, saw a
strong similarity in the strategies with which Jesuitism succeeded in infiltrating
the Masonry and the Adyar Society. Personalism
is an important part of their method ; and a “sweet, well-meaning
falsehood” is another one. In a letter to a friend, Crosbie discussed a certain
text published by the Adyar Society:
“I was looking over the magazine article you mentioned. It is
interesting, instructive in places, intelligent and bountifully interspersed
with diagrams. It gives the impression of great learning on the subject. But it
speaks here and there of the Logos and His
care of His children. Too much of the
personal God under another name, thus leaving
‘His’ poor, ignorant, sinful children none the wiser as to their godlike
nature! The article made me think of the way Jesuits side-tracked Masonry. They
entered it, obtained its secrets, invented ‘higher degreees’ to draw attention
from what lay hidden in the original ones, and gradually made it innocuous, and
incapable of leading to the knowledge that they feared”.
Crosbie was right. The tempting ideas and practices of Jesuitism infiltrated
the theosophical movement much in the same way. Besides transforming the Adyar
Society and its Esoteric Schoool into an Esoteric Popery, Adyar leaders also created new organizations, with their own versions
of Masonry and Catholic Church. They made spectacular announcements of every kind.
All these “new things” were but psychological fireworks used to draw the
attention of students away from the theosophical teachings.
Robert Crosbie went on in his letter:
“Much that is going on in the ........
society has the appearance of leading into innocuous desuetude. This is
the mode of working of Brahmano-Jesuitical forces, and the ordinary thinker is
unable either to perceive, or credit it if warned. It is not believed that there are Dark Forces
and their agents in the world, and that they war within that which they would
destroy; that they dress themselves in ‘sheep’s clothing’ so as to be
unsuspected. But it is too true. Every failure to establish the Wisdom-Religion
is to be traced to the work of the Dark ones among the unsuspecting stupid
‘sheep’, who are appealed to through their weakness and led astray. There is no
panacea for stupidity and ignorance but self-knowledge, discrimination;
anything that leads away from them
leads to desolation. Would that there might be some way by which eyes could be
opened to a wise and proper consideration of all things. Yet, if one should
publicly point out these things, ‘untheosophical’ would be the least charge
laid at his door. All that we can do is to accentuate the difference between
the Eye Doctrine and the Doctrine of the
Heart with full exemplification.” [8]
These thoughtful words have been public since 1934. In order to
understand the prudence shown in the passage, one must remember that Robert Crosbie wrote this
letter between 1909 and 1919, when the
work for real theosophy within the movement had to face tremendous obstacles:
it was the hey-day of pseudo-theosophy.
Why has the progress of the real
movement been so slow during the second period of its history? The fact is that
“Jesuitism” - or the “active side of spiritual ignorance”- is subtle and rather
difficult to identify.
It is not a personality, an individual or a society. It is a set of
vibrational patterns often unconscious,
which live around habits and procedures
based on personalities and personal
interest. No individual and no section
of the movement is ever entirely safe from it, and as a consequence of this the
practice of individual and collective self-examination is highly commendable.
“Where have we succeeded? Where have we failed? How can we do better next
time?” These ancient pythagorean questions are always useful.
The occult situation rightly described by Robert Crosbie had been somewhat foreseen by H.P.B., who, like
Crosbie, left elements and conceptual instruments to help future generations solve
the problem. She not only wrote that the
Jesuitic hand had been felt in every
occult society, since the foundation
of Jesuitism. She also added in the same text a central idea for the
theosophical work to inaugurate its third
phase during the 21st century:
“But all efforts
of the greatest craft are doomed to
failure on the day they are discovered.” [9]
From this single and self-evident statement, one can take at least one
clear and practical conclusion. In the long run, it does not matter too much if
the greater part of the theosophical
movement has been infiltrated and dominated
by false teachings and ritualisms. It also does not matter if some of
its leaders have adopted Jesuitic aims and methods. All that the real theosophists have to do is to identify
and reveal this whole mayavic process as clearly as possible. And this is
slowly taking place already. Everyday the true teachings of Theosophy are adopted
by a growing number of students worldwide. No external structure can ever be eternal,
and pseudo-theosophical mechanisms now seem
to have but the routine life of empty shells. On the other hand, the real theosophical movement is
independent from any visible structures, and its future is as bright as the
future of mankind itself. Once spiritual
discernment is used to destroy the old cognitive delusions, the jesuitic trap built
during the Besant period will be fraternally demolished.
It was certainly to the living theosophical
movement and not to any outer corporation that a Mahatma wanted to refer,
as he wrote, in his well-known report on
the views expressed by his “chief”, the Chohan:
“The Theosophical Society was chosen as the corner stone, the foundation
of the future religion of humanity.”[10]
There is also another, less famous report on the Chohan’s views about
the movement, and in it the Masters say:
“We can direct and guide (...) the movement, in general. Tho’ separated
from your world of action we are not yet entirely severed from it so long as
the Theosophical Society exists.”[11]
Theosophists have never been “abandoned”. They were but given some time,
so that their seedlings of universal brotherhood could make a certain degree of
progress by their own merit. As a
result, it will be possible for the movement to grow in independence and better
fulfill its role in human evolution.
As to the brightness of the movement’s future, one should also never forget
this prophecy made by H.P.B.:
“Error is powerful only on the surface, prevented as she is by Occult
Nature from going any deeper (...) . And, whether by phenomenon or miracle, by
spirit-hook or bishop’s crook, Occultism must win the day, before the present
era reaches ‘Sani’s (Saturn’s) triple septenary’ of the Western cycle in
Europe, in other words - before the end of the twenty-first century ‘A.D.’.” [12]
Hence, the victory of real theosophy and universal brotherhood must happen at some time between the present
moment and 2099, most probably in a gradual way.
Each theosophist is part and parcel of the process leading to the next phase in history. Every honest Adyar member, as every student
belonging to any group (or to none of them) can always adopt as his own motto the basic guiding
principle that There is nothing higher
than Truth, and thus make an
effort to get his soul in line with the spirit
of the authentic teachings.
What about humanity as a whole?
Perhaps one might ask permission to adapt the famous sentence with which H.P.B. closes
her book “The Key To Theosophy”, and re-phrase it thus, including the word “when”, instead of
“if”:
“When in the twentieth-first century the theosophical movement lives true
to its mission, to its original impulses
- earth will be a heaven, in comparison
with what it is now.”
NOTES:
[1] “The Letters of H.
P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett”, T.U.P., Pasadena , CA
[2] See this letter
from H.P.B. at the Appendix to “Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett”, T.U.P., Pasadena , CA
[3] “The Letters of H.
P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett”, T.U.P. , Letter CVI, p. 231.
[4] “Collected Writings
of H. P. Blavatsky”, TPH, Adyar, vol.
XIV, 1985, 733 pp., see p. 267.
[5] “Literary Jottings
on Criticism, Authorities and Other Matters”, in “Theosophical Articles”, H. P.
Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Vol II, pp. 389 and 390.
[6] “To The Readers of Lucifer”,
in “Theosophical Articles”, H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Vol I, p. 279. It must be noted that the word “Lucifer”
means “light-bearer” and refers to the planet Venus, “the star that brings the
new day”. This ancient term has been distorted
since the Middle Ages by misinformed Christians.
[7] “On
Pseudo-Theosophy”, in “Theosophical Articles”, H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co.,
Vol I, p. 163.
[8] “The Friendly Philosopher”,
Robert Crosbie, Theosophy Co. , Los
Angeles
[9] “Collected Writings
of H. P. Blavatsky”, TPH, Adyar, vol. XIV, 1985, 733 pp., see p. 267.
[10] See “View of the Chohan on the T.S.”, in “Combined Chronology for Use With the Mahatma Letters and the Letters
of HPB to A.P. Sinnett”, T. U. P., Pasadena, 48 pp., 1973, see p. 44.
Another version of the same text, almost identical, can be found in “Theosophical Articles and
Notes”, Theosophy Co., 314 pp, 1985, at pp.
189-193.
[11] “The Mahatma
Letters to A. P. Sinnett”, T.U.P., Pasadena ,
CA Philippines
[12] “Collected
Writings of H.P.B.”, TPH, India
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