Quest Magazine

Science and the Occult: Where the Twain Meet

By David Grandy

Originally printed in the JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Grandy, David. "Science and the Occult: Where the Twain Meet." Quest  94.1 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2006):13-17.

When I was in graduate school, one of my professors — an eminent historian of medieval science espoused in his lectures what one student affectionately tagged as "the Old Man River theory of scientific progress." The professor asserted that in his research he found no evidence of social or cultural factors impinging on the development of medieval science: driven purely by intellectual thought, the science "just kept rolling along." I suspect the professor would not have made this claim to a more sophisticated audience; although he had little patience with any attempt to explain science as nothing but a reaction to outside cultural forces, he was savvy enough to know that there is more to the story of science than just intellectual thought.

Like my professor, I enjoy science enough to see it as something truly remarkable. Perhaps, however, I am more inclined to admit that there is no clear line of demarcation between science per se and culture. Actually, this is not much of an admission: it has become a commonplace understanding among historians of science. Gone are the days that scholars of science portray it as humankind's sole instrument of truth in a confused and superstitious world. Despite this, many people still talk as if modern science is wholly distinct from and clearly superior to such traditions as alchemy, astrology, magic, Cabala, and nineteenth century Spiritualism. These movements, so this line of thought goes, have all been repudiated by science and are therefore intellectual dead ends.

This outlook is rendered problematic by historical scholarship (most of it in the last fifty years) that indicates complex and subtle interactions between now discarded beliefs and contemporary scientific principles. This is to say that scientific theories often emerge from circumstances that later may be seen as scientifically dubious. A case in point is Isaac Newton's law of universal gravity. The law, as presented in textbooks, consists of a straightforward factual statement (every body in the universe is attracted to every other with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them) and a matching mathematical equation. Given only this much, students reflexively assume that Newtonian physics is a world apart from alchemy or magic. After all, there is a conciseness and clarity to the theory that is rarely found in other domains of human experience, let alone in the murky depths of alchemy. One is surprised then to learn that Newton invested much time and energy seeking to produce the Philosopher's Stone, the ultimate aim of alchemy. What is more, this quest cannot simply be written off as an intellectual dead end because it appears to have played into Newton's scientific thinking, quite possibly into his theory of gravity (Westfall 1985).

Today alchemy is considered an occult pursuit, and it is hard to imagine how it may have once figured into Newton's formulation of universal gravity. What we tend to forget, however, is that while the law can be clearly and succinctly stated, it is not altogether obvious how gravity works. Most people today, following Newton, describe it as an action-at a distance force, but this introduces difficulties—at least it did for Newton. In explaining the tides, he proposed that the moon (and the sun) reaches across apparently empty space to tug on the earth. For some of his contemporaries, however, this explanation went nowhere because it afforded no understanding of the mechanism by which gravitational forces propagate. Indeed it introduced a puzzle for anyone (like René Descartes) wishing to evacuate the cosmos of non contact forces, the like of which bespoke astrological influences and alchemical sympathies and antipathies. Newton privately summed up his misgivings in this way:

That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of any thing else by and through which their action or force may be conveyed from one to another is to me so great an absurdity that I believe that no man who has in philosophical matters any competent faculty of thinking can ever Fall into it. (Westfall 1980)

Newton later defended his law of gravity by arguing that its validity is secured by observable phenomena—one can empirically test its predictions. However, he added, no one can discover its causes—why nature behaves this way—and in this sense only is the law "occult" (Westfall 1971). This admission speaks volumes about science (or, more generally, about the human intellect—the failing is not specific to science) and permits understanding of why occult or pseudoscientific practices often flourish side by side with science. For those who want to know the why of things or the ultimate causes, scientific theories do not quite close the explanatory circle. Arthur Schopenhauer faulted science on this score, noting that investigation of its theories recalls the experience of "somebody who unexpectedly finds himself in a group whose members systematically introduce each other as a friend or cousin, as if by doing so, they have sufficiently explained themselves; the visitor, however, though expressing pleasure with each introduction, has always the unexpressed question on his lips: "But how, the deuce, did I turn up among all these people?" (Schopenhauer 1966).

Over a hundred years ago, the young H.G. Wells, full of enthusiasm for science but sensing its limitations, stated:

Science is a match that man has just got alight. He thought he was in a room in moments of devotion, a temple and that his light would be reflected from and display walls inscribed with wonderful secrets and pillars carved with philosophical systems wrought in harmony. It is a curious sensation, now that the preliminary sputter is over and the flame burns up clear, to see his hands lit and just a glimpse of himself and the patch he stands on visible, and around him, in place of all that human comfort and beauty he had anticipated darkness still.

Wells did not mean to dismiss science; throughout the first half of the 20th century he was one of its leading advocates. He did, however, appreciate that while science has the capacity to improve human life in many ways, it also, as Wells' mentor T.H. Huxley put it, gives us a cosmos that "works through the lower nature of man, not for righteousness, but against it." In other words, a purposeless, uncaring, accidental cosmos: That is why, in Huxley's mind, science had the mandate of "building up an artificial world in the cosmos." The universe was neither congenial with nor sympathetic to humankind's interests; indeed, it had no capacity to be. As William James, a contemporary of Wells, noted at the turn of the twentieth century: "Nature has no one distinguishable ultimate tendency with which it is possible to feel a sympathy. In the vast rhythm of her processes, as the scientific mind now follows them, she appears to cancel herself."

When combined with the earlier thought that scientific explanations fail to offer ultimate answers, this consideration—that, as physicist Steven Weinberg insisted, the universe is "pointless"—makes it unsurprising that many people today, in their search for life clarifying meaning, look away from science. Of course, some scientists portray science as having religious value—thereby one reads God's Book of Nature—but since the Enlightenment this characterization has lost ground to the view that no human endeavor can publicly decide the question of God's existence or purpose. Implicit in this outlook is the positivistic intuition that science concerns the logical extraction of laws and predictive consequences from verifiable sense data. That is, science is a way of putting ourselves in a situation where hypotheses can be confirmed or rejected on the basis of procedures that keep one firmly anchored to physical facts and the unbiased analysis thereof. So disciplined, science presumably makes no unwarranted inferences or metaphysical leaps.

The positivistic outlook has now worn thin. There is, as Edwin Burtt put it in his 1920s critique of logical positivism, "no escape from metaphysics." Indeed, any escape attempt will be driven by considerations that open onto ultimately undecided issues of ontology and epistemology metaphysical considerations. Philosophically speaking, this fact blurs the line between science and the occult; historically speaking, the line has always been blurred.

Only since Newton have battle lines been drawn, for, as noted above, Newton was deeply involved in alchemy, not to mention biblical prophecy and symbolism. He believed, like Freemasons and Rosicrucian's since, that new knowledge issues up from older, larger understandings. But despite his immersion in what we now regard as occult or pseudoscientific pursuits, he spoke in a positivistic vein, implying that he had developed a method for reading the text of nature without metaphysical interpolation. Given the explanatory success of his science and the immense prestige it brought him, many came to regard Newtonian physics as a bulwark against what Freud later called "the black tide of mud . . . of occultism" (Jung 1963). This attitude, however, did not eliminate belief in the occult. For one thing, some who developed occult systems after Newton saw themselves as scientific pioneers à  la Newton, and it is only in retrospect that their systems have been deemed occult. During the latter part of the eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, Mesmerists conducted experiments, phrenologists subjected the human head to rigorous measurement, Spiritualists kept careful record of what occurred during seances, and all these groups invoked scientific terminology to report their findings.

What is more, many who worked in these movements had formal scientific training and a few were prominent scientists. Anton Mesmer earned his doctorate in medicine at the University of Vienna and, inspired by Newton's law of universal gravity, sought to harness a life force, putatively filling the cosmos, for healing purposes. William Crookes (discoverer of the element thalium and inventor of the Crookes tube), Oliver Lodge (knighted for his contributions to wireless telegraphy), and Arthur Russell Wallace (who independently formulated the theory of natural selection and co-announced it with Darwin) all affirmed the essential truth of Spiritualism, though they acknowledged that the movement had its share of charlatans. In their minds, Spiritualistic principles, far from contradicting science, were a welcome corrective to its bleak materialistic orientation. Moreover, the late nineteenth century discovery of X-rays and Becquerel rays (radioactivity) was taken by some as evidence of an unseen world of spirits existing just beyond the ken of our physical senses.

For many believers, Spiritualism held forth the heady prospect of demonstrating the reality of spiritual phenomena by scientific means. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, for example, depicted Spiritualism as "infinitely the most important thing in the world" because it was "the first attempt ever made in modern times to support [religious] faith by actual provable fact." This sentiment is not unlike that expressed two centuries earlier by Joseph Glanvill when he portrayed scientific investigation of demons and witches as "a kinde of America," a new frontier of knowledge" (Clark 1999). Along with fellow scientists Robert Boyle and Henry More, Glanvill studied and theorized about witchcraft in the same way he did about the possibility of the vacuum, magnetic action at a distance, and the nature of light.

In the nineteenth century, perhaps no scientific theory sparked more occult thought than organic evolution. At first glance this is surprising, for organic evolution is often misconstrued as a counterweight to the idea that humankind has a divine origin. Nevertheless, the prospect of humankind's unlimited evolutionary ascent within the cosmos fired the imagination of scientist and occultist alike. On the one hand, the evolutionary process, being blind and non teleological, does not aim for improvement or perfection, let alone anything like salvation or immortality. But on the other, theorists often could not refrain from dramatizing it. In the closing paragraph of his Origin of Species, Charles Darwin insisted that "[t]here is a grandeur in this [evolutionary] view of life," and elsewhere he portrayed nature (i.e., natural selection) as "infinitely more sagacious than man" and "all seeing" and "infinitely wise" (Young 1985). Huxley, Darwin's "bulldog," equated evolution with "the cosmic process . . . it is full of wonder, full of beauty, and, at the same time, full of pain." The pain, however, could be blunted through the exercise of visionary evolution: thanks to Darwin, humankind could now knowingly evolve and thereby outmaneuver a great deal of unnecessary hardship and catastrophe. With this thought in mind and almost as if he were gazing into a crystal ball, H.G. Wells spelled out the promise of evolutionary biology:

We are creatures of the twilight. But it is out of our race and lineage that minds will spring, that will reach back to us in our littleness to know us better than we know ourselves, and that will reach forward fearlessly to comprehend this future that defeats our eyes.
 
All the world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars. (Wells 1914)

Given the ease with which it could be dramatized, evolutionary biology attracted occultists. The most notorious was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who co founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. Her books, Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), blended religion (particularly Hinduism), contemporary science, and mythology into a seamless whole and opened up unsuspected vistas on the past and future. She spoke of cosmic cycles and the evolutionary ascent of "seven root races," the fifth of which is the human race. The whole process, she emphasized, was governed by the law of karma and therefore was not, as many scientists believed, random or mindless. Curiously, Blavatsky seems not to have expected most educated people to embrace her outlook, even after giving it a scientific gloss. Occult understanding, she declared, is reserved for the few, and most scientists—Darwin himself—failed to grasp the cosmic and spiritual import of the evolutionary drama. They saw the outer, naturalistic shell of that process but ironically missed its rich inner vibrancy--life itself.

Rudolf Steiner, an erstwhile Theosophist who went on to found Anthroposophy, similarly posited an evolutionary drama of cosmic proportions. His cosmology, like Blavatsky's, is complex, even dizzying, and reiterates ancient motifs now deemed occult or superstitious. Betraying a Pythagorean fondness for certain basic numbers, Steiner talked of the seven states of consciousness, the seven life kingdoms or conditions, the four elements, the three creative functions, the ten cabalistic sephiroth, the nine angelic orders, and so on. These orders, kingdoms, functions, and elements are linked to the planets or zodiacal constellations in a vast system of evolving consciousness. Like many other occultists at the turn of the twentieth century, Steiner felt that he was pulling back the curtain on materialistic science so that all could see its spiritual context.

Given its propensity to stretch the mind and summon up hope of improved if not fully transfigured living circumstances, science finds common cause with the occult. And while science may seek to distance itself from the occult, the gap between the two will never be clearly defined. To be sure, science may be delineated by its emphasis on objectivity, empirical data, and mathematics, but these characteristics merely mark a distinctive approach to nature: they do not decide what nature ultimately is or what it means. Answering these questions entails interpretative passage beyond secure scientific understandings, and here, in the realm of interpretation, science and the occult often reestablish contact.

A contemporary case in point is quantum physics. In the last century, probably no scientific development has sparked greater occult interest than quantum physics, but it is not because quantum physics explicitly points toward occult agencies or influences. It is because quantum physics, while affording incredibly accurate predictions about atomic phenomena, challenges traditional scientific assumptions about physical reality and thereby clears a space for renewed debate about a whole spectrum of issues: the nature of light, extrasensory perception, human free will, God's omniscience, and so on. Some of these issues will be deemed occult by scientific purists, but even they cannot escape the charge that their worldview is, at some level, interpretative or metaphysical. Albert Einstein understood this principle better than most: "physical [scientific] concepts," he wrote, "are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." As long as the world remains open to pluralistic interpretation, science and the occult will enjoy uneasy companionship.

David Grandy is associate professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University. He is coauthor of Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization (Indiana University Press, 2003). This essay originally appeared in the July/August 2004 issue of "Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society" (www.bu.edu/historic/hs/index.html ).
 
References
 
Burtt, Edwin. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1924.
Clark, Stuart Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Oxford University Press, 1999.
Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. New York: Penguin, 1968.
Einstein, Albert and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.
Hall, Trevor H. Sherlock Holmes and His Creator. London, England: Duckworth, 1978.
Huxley, T .H. Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays. New York: Macmillan, 1893 94.
James, William. The Variety of Religious Experience. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Jung, Carl. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Pantheon Books, 1963.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. Die The World As Will and Idea. F. A. Brodhaus, 1966.
Weinberg, Steven. Dreams of a Final Theory. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
Wells, H.G. The Discovery of the Future. New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1914. (Penguin Books)
———. "The Rediscovery of the Unique," The Fortnightly Review, July 1891.
Westfall, Richard S. "The Influence of Alchemy on Newton," Jane Chance and R. O. Wells, Jr. Eds. Mapping the Cosmos. Houston, TX: Rice University Press, 1985.
———. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge University Press, 1980.
———. The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1971), 158.
Young, Robert. Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture. Cambridge University Press, 1985.
 
 
 

Harry Potter and Dugpa

By John Algeo

Originally printed in the July - August 2007 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Algeo, John."Harry Potter and Dugpa." Quest  95.4 (JULY-AUGUST 2007): 135-139.

John Algeo

The Harry Potter cycle reaches its culmination and conclusion in the last volume of the series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Throughout all seven books, the two central characters are Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, and Lord Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Harry is, of course, the focal and title character in all the books. But Voldemort, although not present in every volume, is still a shadowy presence haunting Harry throughout the saga. These two central characters are both very much alike and at the same time very different, just as we and our shadows are both alike and different.

Voldemort, in his Tom Marvolo Riddle persona, comments upon their similarities: "there are strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. . . . Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike." (Chamber of Secrets, ch. 17)

Their likeness is more than superficial. Each has something of the other in him. Harry and Voldemort are mutually connected. Harry has Voldemort's power of understanding serpent language and of talking with serpents (they are both Parselmouths). That shared ability comes from the fact that Harry has inside himself something of Voldemort. The great and good wizard Dumbledore tells Harry, "Unless I'm much mistaken, he [Voldemort] transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure." And Harry, thunderstruck, replies, "Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" (Chamber of Secrets, ch. 17) That bit of Voldemort is a fragment of his soul, which he unintentionally transferred to Harry, making of the Boy-Who-Lived a living horcrux, or depository for a fragment of another's soul.

On the other hand, Voldemort also has a bit of Harry in him. When Voldemort succeeds in becoming re-embodied, his body is made in part from Harry's blood. That blood carries the magical protection of love with which Harry's mother imbued him when she sacrificed herself to protect her infant son from attack by the evil wizard. Harry and Voldemort thus both have an essential part of the other within themselves: Harry a part of Voldemort's soul and Voldemort a part of Harry's body. Even Harry and Voldemort's wands are "brothers." Both wands were made with the same magical core constituent: a tail feather from the same phoenix, the bird of immortality named Fawkes, which is Dumbledore's familiar pet.

Nevertheless, though there are similarities, there is also a chasm dividing the two central characters. Harry's essential nature is opposite to Voldemort's. Voldemort is a dugpa. But what is a dugpa?

First, the historical background of that term is Tibetan. The Dugpa (also called Dad-Dugpa, Druk-pa, and a number of other variant forms) is a sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It is specifically a subsect of one of the four main sects, the Kagyü-pa (or "Oral Transmission sect"), the other three being the Nyingma (or "Ancient" sect), Sakya (or "Grey Earth" sect), and Geluk (or "Virtuous Way" sect, which is the largest and the one to which the Dalai Lama belongs, also known as "Yellow Hat" lamas). The Dugpas are associated with certain tantric sexual practices and are often called "Red Hat" lamas.

Perhaps because of their particular tantric association, the Dugpas acquired a rather bad reputation. Madame Blavatsky has not a good word to say about them and uses the term not just for a religious sect in Tibet, but generally for evil sorcerers. She says that a Dugpa is "a high adept in black magic" (CW 10:225), that the term "dugpa" "has become a synonym of ‘sorcerer', ‘adept of black magic' and everything vile" (Theosophical Glossary 106), and that dugpas are also called "Brothers of the Shadow" (Theosophical Glossary 64). She also (CW 9:260-1) warns would-be disciples that the broad road leading to glittering illusion leads "only to Dugpa-ship, and they [who follow it] will be sure to find themselves very soon landed on that Via Fatale of the Inferno, over whose portal Dante read the words:"

Per me si va ne la citta  dolente,
Per me si va ne l'eterno dolore,
Per me si va tra la perduta gente.
 
Through me you enter the sorrowful city,
Through me you enter eternal grief,
Through me you enter among lost souls. 

Dugpas, then, are "lost souls." But how can a soul be "lost"?

Well, in the Theosophical tradition, all humans are composite in their natures. We have both a personality and an individuality. Our personality consists of our body, our vitality, our separate subconscious, our emotions, and our brain mind, which is formed by and concerned with the experiences we have had in this life. Our personality is of one lifetime only. Our individuality, however, consists of those aspects of our being that endure from one life to the next, including the divine spark at the center of our being, a collective superconsciousness, and an intellectual ability to see into the nature of things and to distinguish between options and to choose. Our individuality is our permanent identity, the "us" that reincarnates in various personalities.

We are personally different in every incarnation, but individually continuous. The normal situation is that our personality is linked to our individuality. When the body dies, everything in the personality that is worth preserving is absorbed into the individuality, and what is not worth preserving is simply discarded. It may hang around for a while in the psychic atmosphere, but eventually it disappears, just as the body hangs around in the physical atmosphere but eventually decays. That is the norm: what is good in us survives; what is not, does not. But there are exceptions.

The exceptions are rare, yet they occur. An exception is a person who is so thoroughly and determinedly wicked in life that the individuality, as it were, decides the connection is not working, so breaks it. The result is a personality unconnected with its original individuality; the connection has been "lost," and the disconnected personality is what might be called a "lost soul." It is still alive for a time in its physical body, but it has no future. Such "lost souls" are very rare indeed, because most of us, even if we are quite naughty at times, are not really determinedly wicked. It takes immense concentration and determination to be so wicked that a personality is abandoned by its individuality.

The exception prosaically referred to above is poetically described by Madame Blavatsky in her spiritual guidebook, The Voice of the Silence:

226. Disciples may be likened to the strings of the soul-echoing vina [a lute-like instrument]; mankind, unto its sounding board; the hand that sweeps it to the tuneful breath of the great WORLD-SOUL. The string that fails to answer 'neath the Master's touch in dulcet harmony with all the others, breaks—and is cast away. So the collective minds of lanoo-sravakas [disciples on the Path]. They have to be attuned to the Upadhyaya's mind [spiritual teacher, here, the highest Reality]—one with the Over-Soul—or break away.

227. Thus do the "Brothers of the Shadow"—the murderers of their Souls, the dread Dad-Dugpa clan.

What sort of extreme wickedness creates a dugpa, who has broken his connection with the Over-soul and thus murdered his own soul? It is an intense and total concentration on oneself. It is a view of all other beings as merely tools to satisfy one's own desires. It is complete and unmitigated selfishness. Now, all of us are selfish to some degree. That is, after all, human nature and has an evolutionary survival value. But all normal human beings are a mixture of selfishness and altruism, or concern for others. Altruism is just as much a part of normal human psychology as is selfishness. Recent stories from the Iraq war are full of examples of both selfish exploitation of others and also of heroic and selfless action to serve others.

We—most of us—are mixed creatures. Anyone who has no selfishness is not a human, but a saint. On the other hand, anyone who has no altruism is not a human either, but a dugpa. That's what dugpas are: completely selfish persons, void of any concern for others. They use others, dominate others, and exploit others unmercifully and unconscionably. They take from others whatever they want, including life:

An unscrupulous but skilled Adept of the Black Brotherhood ("Brothers of the Shadow," and Dugpas, we call them) has far less difficulties to labor under. For, having no laws of the Spiritual kind to trammel his actions, such a Dugpa "sorcerer" will most unceremoniously obtain control over any mind, and subject it entirely to his evil powers. (Key to Theosophy sec. 14)

Is it not evident that . . . the divine Law of Retribution, which we call KARMA, must visit with hundredfold severity one who deprives reasonable, thinking men of their free will and powers of ratiocination? From the occult standpoint, the charge is simply one of black magic, of envoûtement [bewitchment]. Alone a Dugpa, with "Avitchi" [hell, destruction] yawning at the further end of his life cycle, could risk such a thing. (CW 11:56)

But what happens to such a "lost soul" while still living in a physical body? Well, any personality with a concentration and determination in wickedness that is strong enough to make it into a dugpa will also be determined not just to dissipate into the psychic atmosphere. First, it will try to preserve its physical body as long as possible; it will strive for bodily immortality. That being impossible, however, it will then exercise its concentration and determination not to become just detritus on the other side, but to continue as long as possible to hold together as a disembodied personal consciousness. Madame Blavatsky refers to such disembodied dugpas:

. . . the Brothers of the Shadow, devoid of physical bodies save in rare cases, bad souls living long in that realm and working according to their nature for no other end than evil until they are finally annihilated—they are the lost souls of Kâma Loka [the after-death desire world] . . . . These Black entities are the Dugpas, the Black Magicians. (CW 9:400-Q)

Real dugpas are unpleasant to contemplate, much less to meet. But real dugpas are also exceedingly rare. However, one literary dugpa is familiar to all fans of the Harry Potter books, namely Voldemort. Here are some of Voldemort's dugpa characteristics:

  • Voldemort is incapable of love. Love is a concern for the welfare of another being. According to a prophecy, the one who will vanquish Voldemort "will have power the Dark Lord knows not." That power is the power of love, which pervades Harry's being because of his mother's loving sacrifice, but is a power that Voldemort wholly lacks.
  • He dominates everyone he can, even his own minions, the Death Eaters. He kills without compunction. He is the embodiment of selfishness, cruelty, and deceit. He controls the minds of others, subjecting them to his power.
  • He is terrified of his own death; from the first book onward, he has been searching for ways to preserve his life. His very name, Voldemort, in French means "flight" (vol) "from" (de) "death" (mort). As a dugpa, he knows that once he dies, he has no future; there is no goodness in his own personality to be preserved. What awaits him is nonbeing, extinction, avichi.
  • He has committed the great evil of dividing his own soul into parts, seven of them, placing six of the parts in objects or beings outside his body, called "horcruxes." To create a horcrux, Voldemort first has to kill another person. His motive in creating the horcruxes is to prevent his own demise. As long as one part of his soul is alive, he survives. By dividing and hiding the parts of his soul, he is trying to avoid death. But such division and separation of one's soul is the opposite of the spiritual progress that we are all called to, namely that of integrating our natures and making ourselves whole, the aim of all processes of Yoga (i.e., "uniting, yoking" oneself). Voldemort has murdered his soul, as the Voice of the Silence puts it, by dividing it.

Although the term "dugpa" does not appear in the Harry Potter books, Voldemort is a dugpa. His behavior, his character, his nature is that of the classic dugpa, a Brother of the Shadow, the murderer of his soul, a black magician, an evil sorcerer, a lost soul.

If Voldemort is a dugpa, what is Harry? What are Harry's characteristics that make him different from Voldemort? Here are some of them:

  • Harry is imbued with his mother's love. It saved his life when Voldemort tried to destroy the infant Harry with the Avada Kedavra or killing curse. It protected him when he was attacked by the Voldemort-possessed Professor Quirrell. Dumbledore tells Harry:
    Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand it is love. He didn't realise that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign . . . to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection for ever. . . . Voldemort could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good. (Philosopher's [Sorcerer's] Stone, ch. 17)
  • Far from dominating others, Harry is dedicated to helping them. He repeatedly risks his safety and even his life to protect others. In the first book, he defies the three-headed dog to descend into the Hogwarts underworld to rescue the philosopher's (or sorcerer's) stone, not for his own use, but to prevent it falling into evil hands. In the second book, he again descends to the underground caverns to combat a murderous basilisk in order to save the life of Ginny Weasley. In the third book, he takes great risks to save Sirius Black from capture and return to Azkaban prison. In the fourth book, he magnanimously intends to share the tournament prize with another competitor. In the fifth book, he recklessly enters the Ministry of Magic to try to save Sirius. And in the sixth book, he accompanies Dumbledore on a harrowing mission to find one of Voldemort's horcruxes. Harry acts, not out of personal motives, but for what he understands to be a greater good.
  • Harry faces death repeatedly and bravely, both the threat of his own death and the fact of the deaths of others dear to him: his parents, whom he never knew, his godfather Sirius Black, and his protector and mentor Albus Dumbledore. He learns from Dumbledore that "to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure" (Philosopher's [Sorcerer's] Stone, ch. 17). When he learns of a prophecy that he must confront Voldemort in a mortal combat, Harry, unlike Voldemort, is not fazed at the prospect of his own mortality. Dumbledore explains:
    "You see, the prophecy does not mean you have to do anything! But the prophecy caused Lord Voldemort to mark you as his equal . . . In other words, you are free to choose your way, quite free to turn your back on the prophecy! But Voldemort continues to set store by the prophecy. He will continue to hunt you . . . which makes it certain, really, that—"

    "That one of us is going to end up killing the other," said Harry.

    "Yes."But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was . . . the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. . . . there was all the difference in the world. (Half-Blood Prince, ch. 23)

  • Far from splitting his own soul or life into fragments, Harry seeks for wholeness. Through all of his adventures and dangers, he is in quest of one thing: self-discovery. He begins as a cinderlad, an abandoned orphan with no hope, but discovers that he is really a wizard and the descendant of great wizards, with wizards as protectors. He begins with an apparently pointless life and discovers that he has a mission, foretold by prophecy, to save the world from horrific evil. He begins in isolation and discovers that he is linked with many others through mutual connections in an immortal band, typified by the Order of the Phoenix. Harry's saga is a quest for wholeness, and wholeness is holiness.

What sort of being is it who is motivated by love to serve others, who knows that life is greater than death, and that the end of life is to discover wholeness within oneself and with all other beings? Such a being is called a bodhisattva, a term that means "one whose essence (sattva) is wisdom (bodhi)." A bodhisattva is the opposite of a dugpa. Harry Potter is a bodhisattva. That does not mean that Harry is perfect. Far from it. Harry makes mistakes. Harry sometimes behaves foolishly and irrationally. Harry sometimes sulks or is angry. Harry is a flawed human being.

Being a flawed human being is not inconsistent with being a bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas are not yet perfect Buddhas. But they have come to an understanding of what life is really about, and they have determined to live according to that understanding. They have realized that living is a matter of loving and serving, that death is not to be feared or avoided at all costs, and that unity and wholeness are the ground of all reality and that the realization of fundamental wholeness is the goal of all existence. Bodhisattvas sometimes fail in living up to their ideal. But no one is expected always to succeed. Those on the bodhisattva path are expected only to TRY. Harry tries.

The relationship between Harry and Voldemort, the bodhisattva and the dugpa, the substance and the shadow, is the central mystery of the whole Harry Potter cycle. All real human beings—all of us—are part Harry Potter and part Lord Voldemort. We are mixed creatures. Living successfully is learning how to straighten out the mixture. It is discovering the Philosopher's Stone that will transform the mortal lead of dugpa-ship into the immortal gold of bodhisattva-hood.

The prophecy says, "and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives" (,i>Order of the Phoenix, ch. 37). That is really the same thing as the words of The Voice of the Silence:

56. The self of matter and the Self of Spirit can never meet. One of the twain must disappear; there is no place for both.

Voldemort is the self of matter, and Harry is the Self of Spirit. The Harry Potter books are not just Tom Brown's Schooldays among the Wizards. They are a parable of the quest on which every human being is engaged. They are a metaphor for the spiritual journey. They are a fantasy, yes, but a fantasy about the reality that goes on inside every one of us when we enter the Path that leads to full human stature.

The epithets of the two central characters in this modern mystery drama, "the Boy-Who-Lived" and "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" are redolent of the essential nature of the two roles. Harry, the Boy-Who-Lived, is one who has survived challenges and who is trying to live fully, making choices, walking into the arena with his head held high. However old he may grow to be, Harry will always be a boy, a youth in his openness to new possibilities, like the Chinese sage Lao-tsu (a name that means "the old boy") or the Indic Sanat Kumara (a name that means "the eternal youth").

Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, is the negation, the shadow, the one without substance, wholeness, holiness, or even a proper name. Evil is not a positive reality; the supposition that it is, is a Manichaean mistake. Evil is deprivation, something nameless, something that is lacking, misplaced, or misconceived. It is all negative. Voldemort does not face death or life; he vainly attempts to run away from both.

The bodhisattva, whose essence is wisdom, is one who is loving, altruistic, confident, and whole. The dugpa is one who is selfish, exploitative, fearful, and fragmented. The Harry Potter books show us how to be a bodhisattva, not a dugpa—how to be, not Volemort, but Harry Potter.

Note: This article was written before the publication of the seventh Harry Potter book. If any of its statements are proven wrong by that last book, the reader must attribute it to the fact that the article's author was channeling Sybill Trelawney in one of her less clairvoyant states.

Was It An Angel

By Don Elwert

Originally printed in the March - April 2005 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Elwert, Don. "Was It An Angel." Quest  93.2 (MARCH - APRIL 2005):59

My mother was in a nursing home and needed twenty-four hour care. Cancer had taken hold of her body and we were told it was just a matter of time. Not wanting to die alone, my mother asked if someone could stay with her, so I volunteered. We reminisced about Dad and my sister, who both died at an early age. Mom said that when it is a person's time to go to heaven, they know. She wasn't sure how, but she believed the person just knew.

One night Mom was so weak she couldn't talk. When she looked at me, it was like she was looking through and beyond me. She lifted both arms, as though reaching for something, and then reached for me. When I came to her, she took my hand and squeezed it softly. Her eyes opened wide. It was as though something was happening that only she could see.

"It's okay Mom. Let go of this body. There is help. You'll be okay." I said quietly. She continued looking upward, but became still. After some time I sat down and returned to a book I was reading.

Suddenly, I had a sense that something was behind me. At first I saw nothing, but the room seemed steamy or hazy. My peripheral vision caught what seemed was a large pulsating spot. In the center of the spot was a multipoint star-like pattern that glowed a red-orange, but faded to a creamy yellow at the edges. I turned to look at it and the light changed to a bright white figure or form that slowly faded away.

I could still see the figure even with my eyes closed as its presence was so pervading. I thought it was an angel or invisible helper. My mother still looking toward the ceiling, moaned softly. Her breathing gradually became very slow and the color left her face. The room became very still. My mother had transitioned.

Don Elwert is a member of the Detroit Branch.

Religion in the World Today

By Robert Ellwood

Originally printed in the MARCH-APRIL 2007 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Ellwood, Robert. "Religion in the World Today." Quest  95.2 (MARCH-APRIL 2007): 53-56.

Theosophical Society - Robert Ellwood is emeritus professor of religion at the University of Southern California and a former vice-president of the Theosophical Society in America. He currently resides at the Krotona School of Theosophy.

Why is it important to understand religion? What is the real picture of religion in the world today? And why is seeing that portrait, with all its contours, all its foreground activity, and deep background important for Theosophists and others interested in the spiritual evolution of individuals and the world?
 

To begin with, consider the second object of the Theosophical Society: "To encourage the comparative study of religion, philosophy, and science." Comparative study ought to mean not only the timeless setting of the essences of religions alongside one another; it should also include perceiving how they stand in the world at any given point in time, including the present.

Even more importantly, comparative study relates directly to Theosophy's first object: "To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity." Brotherly and sisterly love requires deep understanding of the other. The old saying, "To understand all is to forgive all" may not be completely true, but surely profound comprehension of what a person's life has been like can go a long way in helping us move beyond indifference or antipathy. Shallow unconcern and heedless prejudice have long plagued the inter-religious world, and still do.

Our understanding must be accurate. Illusions, whether positive or negative, are of little help. Too often our views of other religions are simply projections of what we want to see in them and so are no more than subtle forms of egotism. It is easy to set the ideals of one religion against the actual practice of another, or to judge one by its best representatives and another by its worst.

We must also introduce the factor of time. Frequently differences within the same religion from one century to another have been nearly as pronounced as those between two different faiths. Sometimes it seems that the study of comparative religion ought to be particularly under the guidance of the Third Ray—said to be especially concerned with timing—as a way of understanding matters in terms of their particular moment in time. We need to look at the world's religions in terms of the vast sweep of evolution, which may require one aspect of spirituality, and then another, to sparkle most brilliantly in the sun.

Religions in the twenty-first century are significantly different than they were in the nineteenth, when the early Theosophists were writing about them, or even from what they were in the twentieth century. Likewise, after several wars and revolutions, and the phenomenon known as globalization, are the cultures, the nations, and the world, anything like what they were, although early Theosophy can certainly be regarded among the first intellectual and spiritual fruits of incipient globalization!

In this light, then, let us look at the specifics of world religion today, beginning with the most important fact: at the beginning of the twenty-first century, half the world's population of six billion belongs, at least in broad cultural terms, to two world faiths. Christianity claims two billion souls, and Islam, one billion or a little more. These, together with Judaism and its influence, constitute the three Abrahamic faiths (all claiming descent from the Patriarch Abraham's covenant with God), and at this moment the spotlight of history is upon them.

The Christian third of the world is in a remarkable position at present. Its numbers have more than doubled in only half a century, due partly to natural population increase and partly to rapid evangelization, especially in Africa and parts of Asia. There were those who thought that the demise of colonialism would spur the rejection of Christianity in favor of indigenous religions. Instead, although it was initially introduced by missionaries and closely identified with the imperial powers, Christianity has grown much more rapidly in Asia and Africa since independence, as though many peoples decided that once they could have the Europeans' faith without their governors or soldiers, they would take to it freely. Significantly, a great number of Christians in Asia and Africa belong to new, independent, Christian churches which are neither Catholic nor Protestant in a traditional sense, but deeply attuned to native culture.

Characteristically, they make far more use of drums and dancing than one would see in the average European or North American church. Emphasizing healing, exorcism of evil spirits, and ancestrism, these churches may be based on the teaching of an indigenous prophet. Through such prophets, who may be male or female, the voice of Christ and the Holy Spirit speaks anew, as fresh as on the day of Pentecost. The 2005 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches lists Independent churches in greater numbers than Protestant or Eastern Orthodox and ranking second only to Roman Catholic churches.

Christian growth has occurred also in traditionally Catholic Latin America. Rapid population growth, together with changing religious patterns induced by urbanization and an upsurge of Pentecostal and other evangelical Protestant movements, has revitalized both wings of Christianity. Latin America now has fresh importance to the Christian world overall.

What all this means is that the Christian center of gravity is moving to the southern hemisphere, to what is sometimes called the Third World. That shift is only abetted by Christianity's relative decline in its onetime heartland, Europe. Today the great churches and cathedrals of Europe are largely empty, as the population of Europe itself is declining, while Christian numbers are growing, sometimes explosively, elsewhere in the world. To see thronged places of worship and vital Christian faith, one must no longer go to London, Paris, or Rome, but to Nairobi, Seoul, or São Paulo.

While the number of active Christians in the United States remains impressive—some 230 million in 2005—they now represent only a little over ten percent of world Christianity and that percentage will decline as the twenty-first century advances. By 2025, half the world's Christians will live in Africa and Latin America; by 2050, only about one-fifth of the world's three billion Christians will be non-Hispanic whites, whether in Europe, North America, or anywhere else. Philip Jenkins, noting these religious-demographic projections, comments that "soon, the phrase "a White Christian" may sound like a curious oxymoron, as mildly surprising as'a Swedish Buddhist.' Such people can exist, but a slight eccentricity is implied" (3).

Third World Christianity, responding to current need, usually stresses the kind of sobriety and work ethic that help its members keep their bearings in a society changing from rural to urban. Otherwise, it reflects the traditional values as well as traditional ritual practices of the society. This has led to tension between First World and Third World branches of major denominations like the Anglican Church on such issues as the ordination of women and homosexuals, about which the First World is likely to be more liberal, and toleration of polygamy, of which the Third may be more accepting.

Christianity in these first years of the twenty-first century is more populous than ever, and embedded in a remarkable variety of cultures. At the same time, it is divided into many strands and divided on many issues, and its influence varies considerably from place to place. Still, history shows Christianity to be capable of astonishing surprises and adaptations. Only the future will show how many remain to be unveiled.

Islam, on the other hand, is shaped by outward confidence and a profound level of anxiety. It seems to me that Islam can be thought of as presently undergoing what Christianity underwent in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, an era during which many of those previously mentioned surprises and new adaptations emerged. Today Islam is about 1500 years old; the same age Christianity was in the days of Luther and Calvin. In both cases, religion was emerging from near-medieval conditions into a modern world shaped by nationalism and technological revolutions. Social conditions were changing rapidly. Religion typically responds by embracing some novelties and rejecting others, trying to define itself sharply and to draw boundaries, while striving to return to its original sources—in this case, the Bible and the Qur'an—as it perceives them. At present, Islam, like sixteenth-century Christianity, is torn between adaptation or rejection of emerging secularism, whether in the physical and metaphorical form of Galileo's telescope or what is seen in the east today as western decadence.

In the Protestant case, rejection tended to come first, but liberalism and acceptance were also potential in the new form of Christianity and emerged in time along with conservatism. As with Islam today, the Reformation brought terrible violence, culminating in the Thirty-Years War, but the upheaval finally helped push Europe, and the world, into modernity.

Hinduism does not have the worldwide presence of either Islam or the new Christianity, although its direct and indirect influence may be found throughout the world. Vedanta philosophy, yoga classes, and the importance of Mohandas K. Gandhi in inspiring others like Martin Luther King, Jr. to nonviolent action, cannot be discounted. On the other hand, India, which is seventy-five percent Hindu, is expected to become the most populous nation in the world during the twenty-first century, assuring that the Hindu religion will certainly remain a major force.

Hinduism now seems to be torn between conservative and confrontational voices like those of the Bharat Janata Party, and the liberalism of such past exemplars as Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi, or India's philosopher-president Sarvepelli Radhakrishnan, and their contemporary representatives. This situation is characteristic of religions in countries undergoing rapid change and a new openness to the world, as India has been since major European contact. As the presence of India, and therefore Hinduism, grows in the world, their collective choices and influence will hold substantial significance for the globe.

What about Buddhism and the Chinese religions? Because of their great effective losses in China as a result of the Communist revolution, neither religion has the numbers, at least not on paper, that they had before 1949. But Buddhism retains some strength in Japan and in the Southeast Asian Theravada Buddhist countries, as well as in the West, where a number of spiritual seekers have discovered the Dharma.

The fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet (1935—), perhaps the most prominent world spiritual leader after the Pope, has brought Buddhism wide visibility and respect. But despite his role as a spokesperson for the oppressed Tibetan people, it cannot be said that Buddhism has the geopolitical significance of Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism. It remains to be seen whether that ancient pathway to Nirvana has permanently lost ground as an institutional religion or will be able to revitalize itself. Of course, Buddhism's historical and intellectual legacy will linger long, regardless of any outward decline, for nothing is deterministic. Will it find ways to keep its temples, monasteries, and lineages alive over some three millennia, despite the "decline of the Dharma" predicted by the Buddha himself? Could it undergo a new reformation reshaping Buddhism for a new kind of world? Perhaps that reformation would be centered in the West, where, according to many, the religion has more spiritual power, more creative and adaptive energies than in its ancient strongholds.

Less sanguine hopes can be raised for the Chinese religions, Confucianism and Taoism. A few Confucian temples and rites are nostalgically maintained in Korea and Taiwan. Taoism is more widespread, though it is very difficult to say by how much. In Taiwan, via the Chinese diaspora, and in the People's Republic of China, it is practiced very much as folk religion. There seems little hope, though, for large-scale institutional revitalization.

What is of greater interest is the continuing non-institutional influence of these traditions. Confucian values regarding family, work, the individual in relation to social order, and the state fundamentally continue to shape culture in China, Korea, and Japan whether under communist, corporate, or even Christian guise. One could almost say that Chinese Communism, with its mottos like "Serve the people," is Confucianism under another name; just as the Party cadres, or today's world-class Chinese entrepreneurs, are like the elite mandarins of old. Japan's hierarchical society and paternalistic corporations have presented almost a capitalist version of the same.

As for Taoism, it, too, seems to be perpetuated mainly in the form of attitudes perhaps not even consciously attributed to the religion. In fact, the case could be made that Taoism has really had more influence in America than any other eastern religion! Consider how many more martial arts studios there are than specifically Buddhist, Hindu, or Taoist temples; how many surfers wear the yin/yang symbol; how often people talk about the "Tao" of this or that, or "going with the flow". And consider how much cultural influence the Star Wars movies have had, their concept of "the Force" clearly based on the chi or ki of the martial arts—since fundamentally, despite Buddhist and Confucian influence, the martial arts are in the Taoist tradition. Perhaps this is the ultimate fate of religions after their final decline: to become ongoing sources of ethical and cultural values independent of any institutional structure, much as classical Greek and Roman religion markedly influenced the Renaissance, and continue to influence western culture even today.

What are appropriate responses of Theosophists to this world situation? First, a fluid spiritual picture gives us fresh opportunity to reaffirm the principle of spiritual evolution, to note how rapid changes in the religious world indicate a process emphasizing "now one aspect, now another." We can try to understand what it is about the present that has led those endeavoring to guide the world's spiritual evolution to showcase what seems now most prominent—while realizing that some features of it may be due to human recalcitrance rather than their plans—and at the same time to recognize that none of the pattern in this or any other age is absolute. This we can also teach others, and so promote a spirit of tolerance and loving understanding.

We can let that spirit of tolerance and love encourage respectful pluralism. Along with the rigid religious mentalities that, regrettably, are still all too much with us, pluralism and acceptance of pluralism are still a growing reality in the early twenty-first century. Even though many people are not yet ready to acknowledge this new reality openly, we can see widespread evidence that religions are regarded more and more as inner maps of Reality that we ourselves reverently configure. We see religion not so much as absolute, objective truth, but more like the famous Zen image of the finger pointing at the Moon. The finger is scripture and doctrine; look not at it, but in the direction it is pointing . . . to that which is beyond expression or containment in human words and concepts, but yet can be glimpsed from afar, even if through clouds and haze.

To be sure, some fingers may point in the right direction more accurately than others. Yet in a world of pointers, people change religions freely; in the increasing number of inter-religious marriages and families, they blend religions; they accept that in a world of many faiths, people need to get along with each other. I know of Christian-Jewish families who observe both Easter and Passover, and Christian-Buddhist families who display both the Cross and the image of the Enlightened One in their homes. Surely this is a step in the direction of the universal brotherhood of humanity of which Theosophy aspires to be a nucleus.

All this is in accord with very traditional Theosophical teachings about the beginning of a time of transition from the Fifth to the Sixth Root Race. The Secret Doctrine, describes the Root Races as stages of cultural and spiritual evolution. The stage in which we have abided for many centuries has been a time when humanity was meant to learn, above all and through experience, the meaning of dwelling in the physical body and in the physical world. It was thus a time of rich development in science and technology now abundantly realized. This era also called for the articulation of clear, objective laws of nature, absolutely essential for certain stages of scientific and technological understanding, but which we are now beginning to see as more relative than absolute. On the quantum level, probability theory works better than law; on the cosmological level, perhaps even more awesome Realities than any human concept can capture underlie multiverses infinite in all directions.

Unfortunately, the mode of thinking during that stage of human development, though now passing away, produced parallels to its kind of science in religion and other humanistic fields. Religions were often seen less as the finger pointing toward the ineffable than as closed systems possessing their own quasi-scientific sets of laws, dogmas, and proofs, which—being even less appropriate in faith than in the laboratory—served to divide and ensnare people as often as uniting and liberating them. The next stage is to be a step beyond this level, showing the real heart of religion to be love and personal quest beyond the closed systems. It will show the positive meaning of the many religions as vehicles for what the Buddhists call compassion and sympathetic joy. The coming era should be an exciting time for the enhancement of spiritual vision.

Perhaps then, we can view the spiritual tumult of the present as the beginning birth pangs of a new spiritual age. As in any such process, there will be resistance, setbacks, and times of discouragement. But our role as Theosophists must be to see and understand the big picture, and to support all our fellow human beings in the process of moving from one age into another.

 

References
 
Blavatsky, H. P. The Secret Doctrine. Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1978.
Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

 

 
  1. The Self, Science, and Religion
  2. Science and Theosophy: The Challenge of Unification Part 2
  3. Guilt, Anger and the Human Condition
  4. The Dual Nature of Reality

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