Quest Magazine

Originally printed in the Winter 2009 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Smoley, Richard. "From the Executive Editor - Winter 2009." Quest 97. 1 (Fall 2009): 2.

Few of you need to be told about the financial upheavals that have been taking place over the past few months. I would like to be able to tell you that the Theosophical Society is immune to these, but unfortunately we are not (at least from a materialistic point of view). The rapid drop in the stock market in the fall of 2008 has hit both our endowment and our grants funding quite heavily, and it seems that, like much of the nation, the Society is in for a time of austerity.

While this should only have a minimal effect on programs, it does mean one change for members: You will be finding Quest in your mailbox a bit less often than you once did. Financial necessity requires us to cut back our frequency of issues from bimonthly (that is, six times a year) to quarterly. From now on, you will be receiving Quest four times a year, in the beginning of January, April, July, and October. For nonmembers who are subscribing, don't worry: your subscription will be extended so that you will receive the number of issues that you have paid for.

This decision is not ideal, but it is a necessity. On the brighter side, I'm determined that it won't lead to a decline in quality, and in fact we have been working to include a wider range of contributors and ideas in the magazine—a change that should be particularly apparent in the Spring 2009 issue.

In the culture at large, it seems, the current malaise extends far beyond the realm of banks and corporations and stock markets. In science, Darwinism has frozen into a stale orthodoxy at which even the younger biologists are starting to chafe, while the mind-blowing theories of quantum physics are now quite old; many of them were devised in the 1920s, a time that is already slipping out of living memory. Attempts to update or supersede them, however fascinating, have made our picture of the universe even more confusing and less coherent than it had been. Religion and philosophy are regressing to where they were when the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875, with a ridiculous biblical literalism pitted against an equally ridiculous materialistic skepticism. On the political and economic situation I reserve comment, if only because I suspect you are as sick of hearing about it as I am. Even the New Age movement is starting to look more than a little shopworn.

One common response to a situation like this is simply fear. Certainly there is enough of it to go around. It sometimes seems as if there is a belt of fear that dwells in the collective unconscious like an enormous underground aquifer into which the mind can tap at any time and for any reason. It is, perhaps, natural for many people to fall into this trap. But as esotericists we ought to demand a little more from ourselves.

In these times, I believe, we need to remember that no matter how good or bad the world situation is, there is always work for us to do. Some of this work is internal, the constant striving for illumination and self-perfection that will never cease for as long as we are alive on this planet and quite possibly for long after. Another part of this work is external. It is oriented toward the world. Whether you conceive of this in terms of the Theosophical ideal of service, of G. I. Gurdjieff's "work for the work's sake," or of what A Course in Miracles calls your "special function" hardly matters. There is a work, a task, large or small, that you and only you can do. It may take you onto the grand stage of history, or it may leave you in obscurity for your entire life. It does not matter.

This work is yours and no one else's. For this reason, no one else can tell you what it is. Because it is so intrinsically connected with your innermost being, to discover it is to discover yourself. It can be revealed by still, small voices or by visions on the road to Damascus, but also in a career aptitude test or by answering an ad in the classifieds. It may remain steadfastly the same, a ridgepole on which your entire life depends, or it may shift and change over time. In any event, it has one central feature: it gives you the unshakable sense that this function, whatever it is, is why you exist, is what you were created to do in this lifetime.

To have this sense of your function is not a magic recipe for peace of mind in every moment. It may even prove unsettling. As William Butler Yeats wrote in "Under Ben Bulben," one of his last poems:

Even the wisest man grows tense
With some sort of violence
Before he can accomplish fate,
Know his work or choose his mate.

All this said, knowing your function, knowing where you best can serve, does promote peace of mind at a deeper level. It provides a sense of inner security that the Gospels symbolize as building your house on rock rather than on the shifting sands of circumstance. It means that you know you have this task to do regardless of what the news reports say, who is elected, or what magnificent institution collapses. Such work requires us to face our destiny stoically and unflinchingly, with a spirit of sacrifice, but it is not only a matter of sacrifice; often when we most expect to give up something, we find gifts and joys given to us unexpectedly. Even when this does not happen, the work fosters in us the long, slow growth of knowledge in the truest sense, which may be the only thing of any real value in this world. To cite the Gospels again, "The labourer is worthy of his hire" (Luke 10:7).

Richard Smoley

By John White

Originally printed in the Winter 2009 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: White, John. "Resurrection and the Body of Light." Quest  97. 1 (Fall 2009): 11-15.

Enlightenment or God-realization is the highest aspect of our human potential for growth in body, mind, and spirit. According to many esoteric traditions, as we awaken to our oneness with God, bodily changes occur, most dramatically in the higher phases of enlightenment. In the final phase, the body is alchemically changed from flesh into light, becoming immortal. Enlightenment becomes a literal fact through the transubstantiation of flesh and blood into an immortal body of light. Various traditions have different names for this transubstantiated form, including the light body, the resurrection body, the solar body, and the diamond body.

In this article, we will look at this phenomenon from a cross-cultural and evolutionary perspective. We will also consider questions such as; what is the relationship between death and resurrection? What is meant by the terms "ascended masters" and "illuminati"? We will look at Christianity as a Western enlightenment tradition whose purpose is to enable people to develop psychophysically through resurrection to become Christed god-men and god-women. Toward the end, we will look the Shroud of Turin as evidence of bodily transubstantiation and the perfection of the human race.

From Transfiguration to Transubstantiation

The model of human consciousness I will be using is essentially drawn from the ancient yogic chakra model of consciousness, which posits seven stages of development that correspond to each of the chakras. Enlightenment is the highest. The American spiritual teacher Sapta Na Adi Da Samraj (formerly known as Adi Da and Da Free John, among other names; born Franklin A. Jones) divides this phase into three substages: transfiguration, transformation, and translation. With transfiguration, the body-mind is pervaded by what he calls Divine Radiance as the person abides in God-realization. Transformation is characterized by the manifestation of extraordinary powers and faculties (sometimes called siddhis), such as psychic healing capacities, genius, and longevity, as spontaneous expressions of further permeation of the body-mind by Divine Radiance. Translation removes the individual from space-time altogether and returns him to what I call the Preluminous Void, the unmanifest state of existence before God said "Let there be light."

I believe this model, though valuable, is incomplete. Therefore I would like to suggest adding a next-to-last stage before translation: transubstantiation, or attaining the light body. This is the culmination of the entire evolutionary process of higher human development. It results in a deathless body of light, the perfection of the human body-mind, and it is the subject of this article.

The True Nature of Resurrection

Sacred traditions and metaphysical schools of thought generally agree that reality is multileveled and that each level of reality is composed of different energies or of matter with different degrees of vibration and density. In their totality, these energies and forms of matter constitute a spectrum of substance. At one end of the spectrum is purely physical matter; at the other end is pure spirit prior to its manifestation as matter and energy. This spectrum of substance is one of the two primal forms of God constituting the cosmos. The other is the spectrum of consciousness. Together, they are the inner and outer aspects of reality, the subjective and objective, the intention and extension of God.

Through our body-mind, we humans partake of all levels of reality, although we are generally unaware of the higher ones. Nonetheless, we retain the potential to awaken to the full spectrum of our being as consciousness and substance. Furthermore, we have a form or container or vehicle for our consciousness on each of those levels—a vehicle that is composed from the substance of that level. Collectively these are called energy bodies. They can be seen as nested one within the other, and all are resident within the physical body, although their energies may extend beyond it. Our physical body of flesh, blood, and bone is merely the container through which we function at the level of reality we know as ordinary space-time. At death, as the physical body decomposes, the other bodies withdraw from it, and the consciousness continues to function in other levels of reality. Those energy bodies have been given various names by various traditions. In one tradition they are termed the gross, the subtle, and the causal levels and bodies. In another they are the physical, the vital, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual levels and bodies. In yet another they are termed koshas or "sheaths" of finer and finer substance enfolding the physical body. Still more names could be given from still other metaphysical systems. Here are some of the names given to the "highest" or "final" energy body in various traditions:

• In the Christian tradition it is called "the resurrection body" or "the glorified body." St. Paul called it "the celestial body" or "spiritual body."
• In Sufism it is called "the most sacred body" (wujud al-aqdas).
• In Taoism it is called "the diamond body," and those who have attained it are called "the immortals" and "the cloudwalkers."
• In Tibetan Buddhism it is called "the light body."
• In some mystery schools it is called "the solar body."
• In Rosicrucianism it is called "the diamond body of the temple of God."
• In Tantrism and yoga it is called the "the vajra body," "the adamantine body" and "the divine body."
• In Vedanta it is called "the superconductive body."
• In Kriya yoga it is called "the body of bliss."
• In Gnosticism and Neoplatonism it is called "the radiant body."
• In the alchemical tradition, it is called "the glory of the whole universe" or the "golden body."
• In the Hermetic Corpus it is called "the immortal body" (soma athanaton).
• In ancient Egypt it was called the akh.
• In Old Persia it was called "the indwelling divine potential" (fravashi or fravarti).
• In the Mithraic liturgy it was called "the perfect body" (soma teleion).
• In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo it is called "the Divine Body," composed of supramental substance.

As I see it, these are different terms for the same ultimate stage of human development. If I understand these terms correctly, they refer to the condition in which a human being, by a combination of personal effort and divine grace, attains a deathless state through the transubstantiation or alchemical transmutation of his or her ordinary fleshly body. The traditions speak of the process in different ways. Is the immortal body created or released, attained or manifested? Is it preexistent within the individual, so that the gross matter of the body and the other energy bodies are simply "burned" away? Or is the gross matter of the body altered through a process not yet recognized by physical science that changes the atoms of flesh into something unnamed on the periodic table of elements? Is there more than one route to the perfected human body-mind?

These are provocative questions, but I have no definitive answers to offer here. I am seeking answers, and I welcome whatever information readers may have to share.

Attaining Immortality

Whatever the process may be, it enables the transubstantiated individual to operate within ordinary space-time through an immortal vehicle of consciousness. Unlike biological flesh, that deathless body is no longer carbon-based. Rather it is composed of a finer, more ethereal form of energy substance unknown to conventional physics but long known to metaphysics. For a human individual, this condition is the most exalted phase of higher human development. The person has become fully manifested as what he or she inherently is: a form of God. Such people have been recognized throughout history as "god-men" and "god-women."

The most ancient Egyptian teachings were concerned with an occult science—now lost and as yet far beyond the reach of our technology—whereby while still in this life, the carbon-based body, by suitable extradimensional radiation, could be transformed into the new type of energy-substance and form the imperishable, radiant body. In this manner, the initiate so treated could enter into a higher dimensional objective world...without the trauma of physical death.

Jesus and the Body of Light

The best-known example of transubstantiation of the human body-mind is Jesus of Nazareth. I regard Christianity as an enlightenment tradition whose true purpose is to enable people to become Christed. That is, Christianity has (or had) both a theory and a practice for attaining enlightenment in the highest degree. But that understanding has been lost in the institutional forms and sects that have arisen over doctrinal and ritualistic differences that are not essential to the process of growth to Christhood. It is important for fundamentalists to realize this fact, but it is also important for transpersonalists, integralists, and secular spiritualists who dismiss certain inner truths about Christianity and thereby overlook the possibility of connecting with a Western enlightenment tradition whose roots extend at least to ancient Egypt.

Fundamentalist Christians often speak about the blood sacrifice of Jesus. They declare that his shedding of blood was a mighty act of salvation. A hymn asks, "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" It asks whether the listener is cleansed from sin and redeemed from eternal damnation by accepting the blood sacrifice of Jesus as the sign of his rulership of creation.

With all due respect, that view of Jesus and Christianity is naive, literalistic, and superficial. It is an exoteric understanding of a situation that actually requires an esoteric understanding. In other words, conventional Christianity has the teaching, but not the key that unlocks its meaning. I will explain. 

Contrary to what many Christian fundamentalists believe, I would like to suggest that the resurrection of Jesus did not involve reconstitution of his flesh, blood, and bone into a functioning biological organism. It was not the restoration of his physical body or the reanimation of a decomposing corpse.

Similar examples of this fallacious fundamentalism may be seen in ancient China and in Orthodox Judaism. In ancient China, I have read, it was common for men to save their cut hair and fingernails on a lifelong basis so that upon the person's death they could be placed in the grave or tomb in order to be ready for use in restoring that person's body to life. Likewise, in Orthodox Judaism it is believed that the Messiah will resurrect dead bodies upon his coming, so Orthodox Jews retain even amputated body parts for burial with the person.

No matter what form this literalism takes, it needs to be corrected with insight and understanding. There is no need to collect body parts. Doing that is an entirely superfluous and literal-minded view that misdirects one's energy and consciousness. Nor is there any need to be "washed in the blood of the Lamb." The important thing is, as the Bhagavad Gita puts it, to "fix your heart on God" and then invoke the Holy Spirit, the Shekhinah, the goddess Kundalini, or whatever devotional form your particular tradition may provide. Support that with moral behavior, contemplative practice, cultivation of the mind, works of social goodness and civic responsibility. In other words, live a life of integral practice so that your entire being—body, mind and spirit—is oriented to the attainment of enlightenment. God will take care of the rest.

However, "the rest," according to esoteric traditions, includes advanced practices that are for all intents and purposes unknown to the exoteric forms of those traditions—the churches, temples, mosques, etc., where conventional worship prevails and enlightenment-knowledge is generally regarded as craziness or heresy. It is not a matter of having all your body parts collected; dead flesh is dead flesh. It is a matter of enlivening your energy bodies so that, through spiritual refinement, the dross is removed and the "highest" body is developed to the point of complete self-mastery. Then you can cast off the flesh body through the death process, but without the trauma of dying. You release the light body from its fleshly cocoon. You put on the "robe of light." You no longer cast a shadow because you no longer have a shadow.

Evidence of the Shroud

When Jesus arose from the dead, he lived in a resurrection or glorified body. That is indicated by the Shroud of Turin, which, legend maintains, was the funeral shroud of Jesus when he was buried in the tomb after crucifixion.

Although a carbon-14 test in the 1980s purportedly showed that the Shroud was no older than the fourteenth century—and therefore was a hoax—it has now been shown that the results of this test were badly flawed by two major factors. First, the sample of the fabric tested was recently found to be part of a sixteenth-century patch or invisible repair of the original cloth, which had been damaged. (The repair was revealed by microscopic examination.) Second, microscopic biological material (mold microorganisms) was present on the piece of fabric tested. These factors led to a medieval date for the Shroud. New tests move the relic's age back to the first century. Moreover, other research has identified pollen grains on the Shroud that could only have come from the vicinity of Jerusalem during the months of March and April, when such localized vegetation is in bloom. Finally, the weave of the cloth has now been identified as specific to Palestine in the first century and not to medieval Europe. For these and other reasons, the Shroud is now clearly established as an authentic first-century relic.

As for the image of the man in the Shroud, research likewise indicates that it is no hoax. The blood stains are real (type AB) and contain human male DNA. Shroud researcher Frank Tribbe notes in his book Portrait of Jesus? that the closest science can come to explaining how the image of the man was imprinted on the Shroud is by comparing the situation to a controlled burst of high-intensity radiation similar to the Hiroshima bomb explosion, which "printed" images of disintegrated people on building walls. Shroud researcher Ray Rogers, a physical chemist from Los Alamos Laboratory, said, "I am forced to conclude that the image was formed by a burst of radiant energy—light if you like." In other words, the image is recorded on the cloth as if by a photoflash of brilliant light rising from the body of the man in the Shroud. Another Shroud researcher, Alan Adler of Western Connecticut State College, concluded that the image could have been created only by a form of energy that science cannot name. Apparently a self-induced nuclear "explosion" was the means by which Jesus transubstantiated.

This line of reasoning means that Jesus actually died, physically and biologically. While he may have been alive in a yogic swoon or a near-death condition when placed in the tomb, nevertheless at some point he underwent biological death in order to attain resurrection. But unlike the typical corpse, which undergoes decomposition into its elements, Jesus's physical body was altered into something more elemental—indeed, more fundamental, although it is not understood by fundamentalists.

From my point of view, Jesus called people to duplicate himself, to grow into "the stature and fullness of Christ," so that in our own bodies—our own flesh and blood—we perform the true and complete imitation of Christ. Institutional Christianity, from evangelical to mainstream churches, aims at producing Christians when it should aim at producing Christs. The kingdom of heaven to which Jesus called humanity is not an astrophysical location but a state of consciousness known as enlightenment. Jesus' life, death, and postmortem acts opened "the gates of heaven" for everyone, but mere belief in Jesus is not enough. No one will pass through the gates unless he or she lives a God-centered life resulting in God-realization. And in the final phase of God-realization, one literally becomes light.

Ascended Masters and the Illuminati

There may have been others before (and after) Jesus who attained the glorified body or resurrection body, as is implied in various ways in both biblical and extrabiblical literature. The pharaonic ceremonial tradition of ancient Egypt is primarily about the process of consciousness transference from the flesh body to the spirit body or akh. Knowledge of that process may have passed into Judaism through Moses, who, according to the Bible, became a member of the pharaoh's household when he was rescued as a baby by a pharaoh's daughter. From Moses, according to esoteric legends, the akh knowledge descended through the centuries as an underground stream in some branches or schools of Judaism, emerging publicly and most dramatically through the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Legends and some esoteric documents also have the tradition continuing through some of the early Christians to the Cathars of southern France, and thence to the Knights Templar and modern Freemasonry as expounded by scholars such as Manly P. Hall and W. L. Wilmshurst.

Although Jesus is the primary Western exemplar of resurrection, there are others, both Eastern and Western, whom history and legend record as similarly transubstantiated. According to various esoteric traditions, a number of "ascended masters" have attained to that condition and are accessible to us when they choose to be. Among them are Melchizedek, Ezekiel, Count St. Germain, Boganathar, Kriya Babaji Nagaraj (also known as Mahavatar Babaji and Shiva Baba), Koot Hoomi, Morya, Djual Kool, Matsyendra Nathan, and Swami Ramalingam. Collectively, they are known as the White Brotherhood, the illumined ones or the true illuminati.

In a different but related situation—that of near-death research—are reports by the thousands of people who, while clinically dead, have found themselves in a nonterrestrial environment and have then become aware of the presence of a being of light. These light beings have been identified by the near-death experiencers as gods, angels, devas, saints, holy people, mythological personalities, and other figures associated with divinity. The reports imply a veritable society of such entities, operating in what seem to be vehicles of consciousness identical to the one Jesus had after his resurrection. That society resides at the top of the divine hierarchy of worlds extending from the lowest physical level to the highest of the metaphysical. The hierarchy has often been called the Great Chain of Being; it connects all life to God, from the lowest microorganisms, through humanity, to the forms native to the higher worlds, such as angels, devas, and archangels. At the highest level, the Logos—where creation itself begins—are those Christed ones of humanity who have ascended to the throne of God, that is, who have attained the condition of existence that is the seat of power for God's governing of the cosmos. Despite the apparently vast distance which separates them from us, they are simply "elder brothers and sisters" of ours who have traveled the evolutionary path before us.

They present themselves to us in ways that appeal to our deepest nature and that urge us to externalize that nature in every aspect of our own being, including relationships and social organization. They are models for human aspirations of spiritual growth. Thus Jesus, properly understood, is not a vehicle of salvation, as fundamentalists claim, but a model of perfection drawing us beyond ego to the transpersonal and the mystical.

From my perspective, someday in a distant evolutionary future we humans will wear the seamless robe of light. May all beings attain enlightenment!

John White, M.A.T., is an internationally known author and educator in the fields of consciousness research and higher human development. He has published fifteen books, including The Meeting of Science and Spirit, A Practical Guide to Death and Dying, and What Is Enlightenment? His books have been translated into ten languages. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Reader's Digest, Omni, Esquire, Woman's Day, and various other publications.

By Dorothy Bell

Originally printed in the Winter 2010 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Bell, Dorothy."Roots and Shoots: Theosophy in the United States." Quest  98. 1 (Winter 2010): 22-26.

Some members have expressed an interest in finding out about Theosophy beyond our own organization, the Theosophical Society in America (Adyar). In response, TSA president Betty Bland commissioned me to do a ready-reference family tree of American Theosophy. The accompanying diagram is introductory to more detailed ones that show events and personalities who shaped the family tree of American Theosophy. While they are a work in process, they may be accessed on the TSA Web site, www.theosophical.org/about/FamilyTreeTheosophy.pdf [pdf]. This article is an informal commentary on the original purpose and the issues that were instrumental in shaping the tree.

The names, events, and dates in the history of United States Theosophy can disguise the true nature of its cycles and patterns of growth, decline, and rebirth, and within them the struggles to bring the original purpose of the Theosophical Society to fruition. In this context, it is useful to remember the original purpose of the TS.

The idea of forming the Society was experimental. It was a"trial" (Mahatma Letters, 49) initiated from the inner realms to bring about a public organization that would reflect the inner Brotherhood. It was to be a channel, a vessel of light from the inner world, radiating outwards to help humanity rise to the next level of consciousness. It was a philanthropic work by those who initiated it, to build the "foundations of a new continent of thought" (Mahatma Letters, 68) for the next stage of the evolution of humanity, and it was chosen as"the cornerstone, the foundation of the future religion of humanity"(Mahatma Letters, 478). Since it was a trial or experiment, there was no guarantee of success, as the Brother Koot Hoomi acknowledged:"We are playing a risky game and the stakes are human souls" (Mahatma Letters, 58). KH also displayed his understanding of the human condition when he advised,"You must be aware that the chief object of the T. S. is not so much to gratify individual aspirations as to serve our fellow men" (Mahatma Letters, 8).

"The Original Programme of the Theosophical Society," written by H. P. Blavatsky in 1886, offers further insights, including this advice from a master (she does not specify which one):

Theosophy must not represent merely a collection of moral verities, a bundle of metaphysical Ethics epitomized in theoretical dissertations. Theosophy must be made practical, and has, therefore, to be disencumbered of useless discussion . . . It has to find objective expression in an all-embracing code of life thoroughly impregnated with its spirit"the spirit of mutual tolerance, charity and love. (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 7:169)

Thus the Theosophical Society can be said to be a vehicle that is to stand for Life and Light "truth, wisdom, compassion, and love "for unity and Universal Brotherhood, assisting individuals towards Self-realization, towards wholeness and oneness in discovering the divinity of their true nature. It is for Theosophists to build an"all-embracing code of life"an ethical mode of living"to be firmly anchored in their true spiritual nature rather than in the ignorance and delusion of socially conditioned thought and belief. Blavatsky underscores the need for independent and original thought:"Be what he may, once that a student abandons the old and trodden highway of routine, and enters upon the solitary path of independent thought "Godward" he is a Theosophist; an original thinker, a seeker after the eternal truth with 'an inspiration of his own' to solve the universal problems" (HPB Teaches, 56).

So the great "work in progress" for members since its inception has been that of building a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood, which is an expression of natural law, and enabling each individual to break out of second-hand beliefs and perceptions of temporal identity. The TS was created to support individual self-enlightenment, to restore a connection to the divine that has been obscured by thought and belief, and thereby to restore our connection to the divine in each other.

Organizationally, the Theosophical Society was formed in New York in 1875, under the leadership of Blavatsky (general secretary), Henry Steel Olcott (founder-president), and William Quan Judge (counsel). In 1878-79, Blavatsky and Olcott moved to India, settling first in Bombay and in 1882 in Adyar, near Madras (today's Chennai). In 1884, Olcott ordered a Board of Control to be established in order to serve as a central management for lodges in the United States. In 1886, the General Council of the TS in Adyar instructed Judge to organize the American branches into a"Section of the General Council of the Theosophical Society." That year, the American Section of the TS was officially formed in Cincinnati, with Judge as general secretary.

From the early beginnings in New York, when the experiment began and the seed of the Theosophical Society was planted, there were times of exciting growth and expansion. The pioneering spirit inspired the trailblazers to surmount the many obstacles that come from building an organization from the beginning without a blueprint, at a time when practically the only models were those of the established churches. The latter were, in fact, models that the Theosophists were explicitly instructed to shun. In"The Original Programme of the Theosophical Society" Blavatsky wrote,"If the two Founders were not told what they had to do, they were distinctly instructed what they should never do, what they had to avoid and what the Society should never become. Church organizations, Christian and Spiritual sects were shown as the future contrasts to our Society" (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 7:146; emphasis HPB's).

As the Society evolved, there were times of consolidation as well as conflict, and (to pursue the metaphor of the family tree) storms damaged branches, sometimes splitting them asunder. New seasons saw some branches thicken and extend offshoots, while others withered and died. In addition, runners from the main roots found their own place in new garden beds. The accompanying diagram illustrates only some of these offshoots. It does not depict the many small groups or magnetic centers that have formed around Theosophists or others that have been deeply influenced by Theosophy and have played an important role in what could be called the underground spiritual movement.

Perhaps Blavatsky had foreseen, even encouraged, this more informal but more natural model of organizing and teaching when she said in her letter to the American Convention in 1888,"The multiplication of local centres should be a foremost consideration in your minds, and each man should strive to be a centre of work in himself. When his inner development has reached a certain point, he will naturally draw those with whom he is in contact under the same influence; a nucleus will be formed, round which other people will gather, forming a centre from which information and spiritual influence radiate, and towards which higher influences are directed" (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 10:242).

So what were the issues that contributed to these splits and offshoots in the family tree? Across the spectrum of national and international controversies large and small, a number of contributing factors seem to emerge: freedom of thought versus conformity; termination of membership; codes of conduct or regulatory frameworks to deal with"unbrotherly" or"untheosophical" behavior and other matters; teachings and phenomena related to psychic and spiritual powers; independence from other organizations; succession of leaders; use of power and position; the mix between serving humanity and individual aspirations; concern with personalities and positions rather than teachings; dilution and purity of teachings; the balance among intellectual knowledge, experiential learning, and service; the"right" policies and methods to achieve the perceived original purpose of the Society. But all of these can be summed up in a remark by a delegate to the American convention in 1895, who said that for many, the commitment to"being right" was far stronger than the commitment to Universal Brotherhood. Sometimes intransigent views led to separation and divorce, and new cycles of birth and growth"or decline and decay"were begun.

The first big storm to have far-reaching effects in the United States began after the passing of Blavatsky in 1891, when issues relating to coleadership of the Esoteric Section by Judge and Annie Besant created early tensions. Blavatsky's final letter to the Americans at the 1891 convention (read two weeks before her death) warned prophetically of such dangers.

Now I have marked with pain a tendency among you, as among the Theosophists in Europe and India, to quarrel over trifles, and to allow your very devotion to the cause of Theosophy to lead you into disunion. . . . Advantage is often taken . . . of your noblest qualities to betray and to mislead you. . . . Some of you may put small faith in the actual existence of the terrible forces of these mental, hence subjective and invisible, yet withal living and potent, influences around all of us. But there they are, and I know of more than one among you who have felt them. . . . On those of you who are unselfishly and sincerely devoted to the Cause, they will produce little, if any, impression. On some others, those who place their personal pride higher than their duty to the T.S., higher even than their pledge to their divine self, the effect is generally disastrous.

Self-watchfulness is never more necessary than when a personal wish to lead, and wounded vanity, dress themselves in the peacock's feathers of devotion and altruistic work. . . . If every Fellow in the Society were content to be an impersonal force for good, careless of praise or blame so long as he subserved the purpose of the Brotherhood, the progress made would astonish the World and place the Ark of the T.S. out of danger. (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 13:172-73)

Tensions also arose between Olcott (the founder-president), Besant (the vice-president), and Judge (general secretary of the American Section). As a result of ongoing concerns and misunderstandings"for example, Olcott submitting, then withdrawing, his resignation"the process became polarized. Controversy about letters received and used by Judge, allegedly from the Brothers, snowballed into protests and petitions, claims and counterclaims, charges, and a call for a formal inquiry. Despite attempts at reconciliation, the impetus of the conflict was never really halted until 1895, when, with an Act of Secession, most American lodges and members, under Judge's leadership, broke with the American Section. This body was named the Theosophical Society in America (confusingly, this name would be adopted by three different organizations in subsequent decades). This new organization underwent its own teething problems, particularly after the passing of Judge in 1896. At this time Katherine Tingley assumed leadership of the splinter group, which in 1898 was renamed the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society (UB & TS). This organization moved to Point Loma, California, in 1900. After the death of Katherine Tingley in 1929, it was led by Gottfried de Purucker until his own death in 1942. It relocated and renamed itself several times in the first half of the twentieth century. Today it is called the Theosophical Society (Pasadena), although its present headquarters are technically in neighboring Altadena. In 1951 William Hartley broke with this organization to form his own branch of the Theosophical Society, now headquartered in The Hague and called the Theosophical Society (Point Loma-The Hague).

Further conflicts occurred at different times and for various reasons, and more offshoots carried Theosophy in a number of different directions, as the accompanying diagram indicates. In 1898, Judge's secretary, Ernest T. Hargrove, split with Tingley to form a second organization called the Theosophical Society in America. (This body disbanded in 1943.) In the same year William H. Dower and Francia A. LaDue also split with Tingley to form the Temple of the People, today located in Halcyon, California. In 1909, Robert Crosbie, another student of Judge's who broke with Tingley, formed the United Lodge of Theosophists (ULT) in Los Angeles. Yet another body, the Blavatsky Association, was founded in 1923 by William Kingsland and Alice Cleather; it disbanded in 1947.

After the 1895 split, the American Section of the TS"that is, the lodges and members that stayed loyal to Adyar"began the task of reorganizing and rebuilding. The organization rapidly expanded, and many members returned, particularly after popular lecture tours by international personalities including Besant, Olcott, and C. W. Leadbeater. In 1926 it established a new center in Wheaton, Illinois, and in 1934 it renamed itself the Theosophical Society in America (Adyar), the name it still carries. To this day the Society continues to provide stability, outreach, and support for thousands of members.

Perhaps those who have been disillusioned by these events and by the behavior of some of the main characters in the past historical dramas of our Society would take heart from HPB's earlier comments in"The Original Programme of the Theosophical Society":

How, then, can we make use of these insights in taking Theosophy into the third millennium?

It is reasonable to suggest that the original purpose of the Society"to form an external brotherhood in the light of the wisdom tradition"might be revisited and the means and ends of educational activities reviewed. Sometimes in institutions, means gradually become ends. Questions could be asked about how Theosophy is being made practical. How are teachings being presented as a way of living, a road to peace, a way of being without fear, a way of thinking, feeling, and acting? How are the impediments to walking the way of wisdom explored and resolved? Is Universal Brotherhood seen as an unattainable ideal, or is it being seriously explored as a higher level of consciousness and being towards which a student might work? What is the role of psychology in designing educational programs and choosing methods of teaching and learning? Do they vary according to the needs and beliefs of those who seek? Are they aligned to the self-empowerment of the seeker?

In a letter to the turbulent London Lodge in 1884, Koot Hoomi made some relevant observations:"Thus it is plain that the methods of Occultism"though in the main unchangeable"have yet to conform to altered times and circumstances. . . . The only object to be striven for is the amelioration of the condition of man by the spread of truth suited to the various stages of his development and that of the country in which he inhabits and belongs to" (Mahatma Letters, 410).

Do altered times and circumstances require different policies? Should the teachings be disseminated in a manner suited to the level of individual development and the social context? Such questions may seem heretical to some, but to others they mean that there is still work to be done and new insights to be gathered from, for example, theories in education and psychology. There is also a need to develop more understanding of and experience in the methods of intuitive and contemplative inquiry and learning. In addition, over the last thirty years, the mushrooming of diverse New Age groups in many Western countries attests to the search for personal meaning and spiritual growth across all age groupings in our societies. Perhaps in the success and growth of these groups there is also something to be learned.

References

Blavatsky, H.P. Collected Writings. Fifteen volumes. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1950-91.
Chin, Vicente Hao, Jr., ed. The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett in Chronological Sequence. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1998.
Gomes, Michael. HPB Teaches: An Anthology. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1992.
Harris, Philip S., ed. Theosophical Encyclopedia. Quezon City, Philippines: Theosophical Publishing House, 2006.
Mills, Joy. One Hundred Years of Theosophy. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1987.
Santucci, James M."The Theosophical Society." In James M. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, eds. Controversial New Religions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Dorothy Bell completed degrees in arts and education at the University of Melbourne and at the University of New England in Australia, and first visited America in 1990 as a Fulbright Scholar. Since joining the Theosophical Society in 1999, she has lectured at TS conferences in the United States, New Zealand, India, and Australia. She is also a Reiki master.

By Betty Bland

What is our purpose? What are we, who care deeply about the world, to do? If we are committed to the work of the adepts, the inner founders of the Theosophical Society, how can we stay focused and positive in the face of seemingly endless turmoil and violence? In our younger years of high idealism, we might have felt that we could "save the world" and that we would save it. Some young readers of this piece may still feel that way, and I hope they are successful. However, as time goes by and as our world broadens to include the entire globe, the problems can seem insurmountable.

In considering what we might do, we need to first look at where and who we are before ascertaining where we want to go and how to get there. Often when my husband, David, and I are driving somewhere and we get turned around (a less objectionable term than "getting lost"), I am assigned to be the map reader. As David cruises by street signs that either glide by too quickly or are too obscured by glare for my eyes to focus on, I am totally lost as to where we are on the map"”and am no help whatsoever. We have to first figure out where we are, either by seeing an identifying landmark or by stopping to read a sign. (Real men do not ask directions.) A map or plan requires both a starting and an ending point in order to be useful. I recognize that this analogy may be lost on those of you who have graduated to GPS systems in your cars, but even though the new technology can tell you where you are, you cannot move ahead without knowing the address of your destination.

So let us start with where we are. Have we formed a coherent nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity? Are we at least working in that direction? Are we building into our own characters a willingness to listen to our brothers and sisters? Do we consider kindness as a primary motivation for our actions? Of course, as imperfect human beings, we probably cannot answer totally in the affirmative, but to the degree that we can, we can be assured that we are generally headed in the right direction.

We are currently in a time of transition from the old Piscean energies of belief structures and authority figures to the uncharted waters of Aquarius, the age of cooperative knowledge and understanding. The networking capabilities of the Internet personify the spirit of this new age. Although for many of us this heightened fluidity creates stress and confusion, somehow we have to be able to regain our bearings in the cross-currents of these times. Perhaps we can be more hopeful if we realize that the chaos we see without and within is a necessary pathway of transition.

There are many things that we cannot understand or predict, but one thing is certain. If we are to have a life worth living, if we are to travel toward a better future, we must incorporate compassion and tolerance as an essential component of our being. Many of our standard landmarks may be changing, but the mandate toward brotherhood/sisterhood remains constant throughout the ages. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. He also taught that we could not love our spiritual parent, whom we have not seen, if we could not love our brothers or sisters, whom we have seen.

So wherever we find ourselves, the one certain direction is to seek to build relationships in which we touch spirit to spirit, in which we are bonded by a mutual understanding of unity and ageless spiritual principles. In the June 2009 issue of TheoSophia magazine from New Zealand, President Warwick Keys stated that if a number of people equal to the square root of one percent of the population would meditate on the same thing, it would have far-reaching results. I am not sure of the source of his figures, but I am convinced of the inherent truth of his statement. I propose that this same kind of disproportionate outcome exists relative to our impact on the world.

We always have the option of following some of the divisive patterns of the past, when members of our band stood divided against one another. Many times our Society has had disagreements and splits over issues that could have been resolved if egos and personalities could have been put aside. Our penchant for fractiousness can be reviewed in the historical family tree of American Theosophy by Dorothy Bell of this issue. This history highlights the need for us to increase and strengthen our bonds of fellowship as Theosophists"”in our lodges, in our federations, at the national and international levels"”wherever and however we can be drawn together in ways that make those bonds possible. Only by working together can we transform the world.

Once forged, those bonds become living strands within our nucleus and form what Buddhists call our sangha, our spiritual family, which provides spiritual support and encouragement. This kind of spiritual family used to be more or less limited to one"™s physical location, but can now be extended worldwide. As a part of the new wave of possibilities brought to us by our modern culture, our territory is the entire planet. The masters surely understood this when they inspired the impulse toward forming the Society, as did the French scientist and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin when he postulated the concept of the noosphere"”a dimension of consciousness that encompasses the globe. In both instances, they saw a spiritual network as being a goal of humanity as well as the ultimate salvation of our world. Grasping this idea alone can turn the tide away from violence and the clash of civilizations.

Theosophical author Geoffrey Hodson glimpsed the reality of this inner fellowship as spanning not only national borders but also the demarcations of time. In chapter 7 of Thus Have I Heard he wrote:

Nature has placed many of us in incarnation in the West. We are being borne upon the crest of a wave of materialism and of intense physical activity. We must learn to achieve and to maintain that spiritual poise and inner realisation which was ours in olden days. We no longer enjoy the close physical companionships of long ago, when we prayed and worked together in the temples, monasteries and mystery schools, for we are now spread all over the world. The old association remains but it is now mental. We are united by our common acceptance of the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom. No matter in what part of the world we may be, we are in reality one body corporate. Our ancient friendships and relationships show themselves today as we draw together in the same great cause, and follow the same glorious Leaders, who are the Masters of the Wisdom, and Their exalted representatives in the outer world.

In this sense we are to be the cornerstone of the future religions of humanity. Our activities and studies have to draw us toward this kind of bonding or they become exercises in futility. How this translates into specific programs we can only work at day by day, but this much I know: the means has to be inherent in the end sought. In other words, our goal is present at every crossroads: every step along the way has to include elements of the goal. If this goal is an unfolding of universal brotherhood/sisterhood, then the map calls for each one of us to incorporate that into the patterns of our work in daily life and for the Society. Each such spiritual bond is a treasure, a gift not only to ourselves but also to the stability of today"™s world and to the vast future stretching before us.