Sharing the Light: The Collected Articles of Geoffrey Hodson
edited by John and Elizabeth Sell and Roselmo Z. Doval Santos
Quezon City, Philippines: Theosophical Publishing House, 2008. Two volumes. Hardcover, xxxvii + 1889 pages, $59.
Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) ranks among the Theosophical Society’s most respected teachers, lecturers, and writers. In addition to serving as director of studies at the School of the Wisdom at the TS headquarters in Adyar, he taught at the Krotona Institute of Theosophy and was a featured speaker at many Theosophical conventions around the world. The lecture series he presented at Krotona in 1972 attracted students from throughout southern California, and were praised for their clarity, inspiration, and common-sense approach to human problems.
A highly gifted clairvoyant, Hodson worked with physicians and scientists to investigate the mysteries of the physical world. This research culminated in perhaps his most famous book, The Kingdom of the Gods, a groundbreaking investigation of the angelic kingdom, complete with dazzling color drawings of his clairvoyant observations. A devoted Gnostic and priest in the Liberal Catholic Church, Hodson was extremely knowledgeable about the Christian faith, and wrote numerous books on esoteric Christianity, including his landmark four-volume series The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible.
In addition to having authored at least forty-six books and thirty-seven booklets, Hodson wrote hundreds of articles, making him the most prolific Theosophical writer of the twentieth century. Like his books, which have been praised for their clear and accessible style, most of his articles were based on original research. They appeared in Theosophical journals in Australia, India, the United States, New Zealand, and South Africa between 1927 and the late 1980s.
In keeping with Hodson’s broad and eclectic range of personal and professional interests, his articles covered a vast array of subjects, ranging from Theosophical teachings and their practical application to poetry, Maori esotericism, mystical Christianity, yoga, reincarnation, war and peace, health and healing, the angelic kingdom, Theosophical solutions to world problems, clairvoyant research with physicians and scientists, animal rights, and ways to promote and teach Theosophy. A number of articles included personal observations about the TS itself and some of its leaders, as well as insights into world figures including Jiddu Krishnamurti, John F. Kennedy, and the Dalai Lama.
Aware that many of Hodson’s writings for periodicals could become lost to both present and future generations, John and Elizabeth Sell, two prominent members of the New Zealand Section, devoted nearly four years of six-day workweeks tracking down, collecting, and editing nearly all of his published articles. Many have never been read by the vast majority of Theosophical students. The Theosophical Publishing House in the Philippines has published this extraordinary collection in two beautifully bound volumes containing nearly 2000 pages of text and illustrations.
Organizing the collected material was obviously a major challenge for the compilers, who divided more than 400 individual articles into thirteen sections, including “Spirituality and the Path of Discipleship,” “Theosophical Teachings,” “Clairvoyant Investigations,” “Ceremonial and Symbolism,” “The Keys to Health and Healing,” and “Presenting and Promoting the Wisdom Teachings.” A detailed glossary of terms has been constructed along with a comprehensive index (which alone totals forty pages), making what could have been an unwieldy assemblage of highly diverse material easily accessible to readers.
This astounding collection is a banquet of material for both individual and group study. Titles include “Ten Ways to Attract the Attention of the Masters,” “Meditation: the Elixir of Life,” “Clairvoyant Diagnosis of Disease,” “Earthquake in California,” “The Practice of World Brotherhood,” “The Monadic Purpose: Finding One’s Life Work,” “Art Modes of the Future,” “Theosophy for the Lawyer,” “Theosophy and the World’s Economists,” “Mind Radio: Thought Projection,” “Radiation of Power,” and “Before Himalayan Snows.”
One of my personal favorites was “Impressions of the Giant Sequoias,” in which the author describes these magnificent trees through a clairvoyant’s unique perspective. Another was “Our Work,” an article published in Theosophy in Australia, which discusses the lodge library as a center of occult power and the special role entrusted to the librarian to help individual readers select the most appropriate reading materials for their spiritual development.
The teachings found in the vast majority of articles are just as applicable today as when they were first written. In “What Are We Going to Build?” (published in The American Theosophist towards the end of the Second World War) Hodson calls upon us to become more aware of our personal responsibilities as students of Theosophy and “builders of the New Age”:
All our daily activities from rising to retiring . . . are of profound spiritual importance both to ourselves and to our fellow men. Every human activity, collective and individual, is Divine activity, an expression of Divine life, ruled by Divine Law. This is the great truth which humanity as a whole must one day acknowledge.
In addition to his articles, Sharing the Light includes a number of inspiring invocations that Hodson often used in his personal meditations and healing work. Readers will also delight at rare photographs of Hodson taken with family, friends, and colleagues at the TS. Many of these photos have never been published before.
Given the tremendous range of subjects presented in these volumes, many readers will be primarily attracted to specific themes for personal study and reflection. At the same time, much of the material presented in Sharing the Light can be utilized for group study in lodges and study centers.
While not a small investment, Sharing the Light presents a wealth of original, eclectic, and valuable teachings that will both challenge and inspire. In addition to becoming a valuable part of every lodge and study center library, it can be a timeless resource for every serious student of Theosophy.
Nathaniel Altman
The reviewer has been a member of the Theosophical Society in America since 1970. He was a student of Geoffrey Hodson at the Krotona School of Theosophy in 1972.