Quest Magazine

By Gary Lachman

Originally printed in the MARCH-APRIL 2008 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Lachman, Gary. "Kandinsky's Thought Forms and the Occult Roots of Modern Art." Quest  96.2 (MARCH-APRIL 2008): 57-61.

IN RECENT YEARS, the contribution that occult or mystical ideas have made to the evolution of art—or to culture in general—has been increasingly recognized. But this was not always the case. For a long time, the notion that belief systems like Theosophy, founded in 1875 by Madame Blavatsky and her companion Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, were anything more than a disreputable side-show to the mainstream of cultural development was scandalous. Critics and biographers hemmed and hawed over the attention eminent figures like W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, and others paid to a variety of "charlatans" and "mountebanks"—in Yeats' case it was Blavatsky herself; for Eliot, it was the Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky. Thankfully, those days are over and much credit is due to a group of historians, critics, and researchers for uncovering what in my subtitle I call "the occult roots of modern art."

I have even made a small contribution to this effort myself. In The Dedalus Book of the Occult: A Dark Muse, I sketch an overview of how a collection of occult ideas and insights fed the European and American post-Enlightenment literary imagination. I remark that, although I focused on writers and poets, another book could easily be written about the occult interests of composers and painters. In music, seminal figures like Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Debussy all have dipped, at one time or another, into the magical grab bag. (For a brief account of this history, see my article "Concerto for Magic and Mysticism: Esotericism and Western Music" in The Quest magazine's online archives.)

The best book I know for making clear exactly how much modern art owes the occult is The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890—1985 by Maurice Tuchman, a massive catalogue from an exhaustive exhibition I had the good fortune to see many years ago. While recently re-reading some of the catalogue's articles, I came upon a few names with considerable frequency. Certainly, the history of the occult's influence on art is filled with many illustrious figures, including Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Paracelsus, and Eliphas Levi, for example. The roll call of artists so influenced reads like a who's who of the cutting edge: Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Joseph Beuys, to name a few. However, as I said, certain names kept turning up, especially in the period preceding the birth of abstract art. These were the Theosophists Annie Besant, C. W. Leadbeater, and Rudolf Steiner.

The artist upon whom these leading Theosophists made the strongest imprint was the one most associated with creating non-representational art, Wassily Kandinsky. Just when the first abstract painting was made is still a matter of debate. Some say it was Kandinsky's First Abstract Water Colour in 1910; others give the honor to the Czech Frantisek Kupka. But Kandinsky is the name most associated with the new approach to painting.

As Sixten Ringbom made clear in his seminal study, "The Sounding Cosmos," Kandinsky was deeply interested in a number of occult, mystical, and paranormal pursuits and, at times, was a practitioner of various spiritual disciplines, specifically some forms of meditation and visualization. His interest was wide and his reading eclectic; one form of paranormal phenomena that particularly intrigued him was "thought photography," the idea that thoughts could be captured on sensitive plates.

Kandinsky's interest in the occult, and Theosophy in particular, was most evident during the years 1904—1912, which roughly coincide with the attempts of various psychic investigators to use scientific methods to prove the reality of the spiritual world. Sadly, most of these efforts proved fruitless and later examples, like the Cottingley Fairies, did little more than reinforce the suspicions of an already skeptical public. These were the famous fairy photographs of 1920 that earned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who expressed belief in their veracity, much criticism, including suspicion of senility. Kandinsky's interest in thought photography, however, had a deeper impetus than to prove that the wee folk existed. Thought photography was, for Kandinsky, linked to a more important issue: the advent of a new age in human evolution, which he called "the Epoch of the Great Spiritual."

Along with many other artists and thinkers of the time, Kandinsky believed that by the beginning of the twentieth century, western civilization had reached a crisis and was sinking under a crushing materialism. It was the artist's task to lead society out of this impasse and to open new avenues of meaning and significance. One vehicle for achieving this was Theosophy. The influence Kandinsky's occult reading had on his ideas of the coming "Epoch of the Great Spiritual" is clear in his influential manifesto Über das Geistige in der Kunst, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), one of the most important theoretical works in the history of modern art.

Kandinsky's occult library was considerable, but certain books in particular fueled his speculation. Three key works were Man, Visible and Invisible  (1902) by C. W. Leadbeater, Thought-Forms  (1905) by Annie Besant and Leadbeater, and Rudolf Steiner's Theosophy (1904). Kandinsky was very interested in Steiner, and attended some of his lectures in Munich and Berlin. He was also a keen reader of Steiner's theosophical journal, Luzifer-Gnosis, and in his notebooks Kandinsky copied out several passages from a series of articles Steiner had written entitled "Von der Aura des Menschen" (On Man's Aura). Kandinsky was interested in a great deal of Steiner's thought. The interested reader might look to Ringbom's study or the internet for material about Kandinsky's interest in the occult, as well as information on his friend Arnold Schoenberg, who combined an interest in Steiner with one in the Swedish religious thinker Emanuel Swedenborg.

Besant, Leadbeater, and Steiner's writings concern the human aura. In the theosophical view, we possess four different kinds of bodies. There is the physical body we all know, but we also possess an astral body, a mental body, and a buddhic body. In fact, we really possess seven bodies, but the three higher bodies—nirvanic, para-nirvanic, and mahaparanirvanic—are beyond our present level of comprehension and discussion of them now is not relevant. In his early writings, Steiner used this theosophical concept; in later years, he retained the notion of seven bodies, but his terminology changed.

The astral body reflects our emotions and desires; the mental body is concerned with our thoughts; and the buddhic body with our spirituality. There is also an etheric body, which is a kind of life force animating our physical shells. I should point out that the aura that Besant, Leadbeater, and Steiner speak of is not the same as that revealed in Kirlian photography or in Harold Burr's "life fields," from Blueprint for Immortality, which are much more of a physical phenomenon. In Theosophy, Steiner, a profound critic of materialism, made clear that the aura referred to by him and other theosophical writers was purely spiritual; that is, it was an inner phenomenon. It was not seen with the eyes but with the soul. For all his interest in thought photography, it was precisely this distinction of Steiner's that appealed to Kandinsky.

Kandinsky believed that by the beginning of the twentieth century, whatever artistic and spiritual meaning the external world had possessed had been hollowed out and emptied. He was not alone in this; the "artist's journey into the interior," as the literary critic Erich Heller called it in the title of one of his books, had been set in motion at least a century before with the Romantic Movement. Contemporary with Kandinsky, in his Duino Elegies, the poet Rilke had declared that "No-where will the world exist but within." The novelist Hermann Hesse had mapped out der Weg nach innen, the Way within. Many poets and writers suffered the "crisis of the word," acknowledging that a language based on describing the external world was inadequate to convey the depth and subtlety of their insights and perceptions. And painters like Kandinsky's fellow Russian Kasimir Malevich contemplated a blank canvas as the purest portrait of the real.

Like the "primitives" of earlier times described in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky believed the artist sought to portray "only internal truths, renouncing in consequence all consideration of external form" (1). Like many artists of the time, Kandinsky saw in music the non-material art par excellence, and he wanted to achieve in painting what he felt composers had already accomplished: liberation from the material world. In this need to map out the cartography of the inner realms, Kandinsky found a parallel in Theosophy.

Although the aura was a spiritual phenomenon, Besant, Leadbeater, and Steiner believed it could be approximated. To the sensitive soul, a person's aura appeared as a kind of cloud or egg, enveloping their physical body. This appeared in different colors, depending upon the character and thoughts of the person. In both Thought-Forms and Man Visible and Invisible the authors provide a "Key to the Meanings of Colors." This informs us that, for example, pure religious feeling appears as a deep blue, while anger is a fiery red. Bright yellow corresponds with highest intellect and malice with black. An attentive reader of Kandinsky's manifesto will note that on the subject of yellow, he differs from Besant and Leadbeater, linking it with feelings of aggression. although he drew on theosophical ideas, Kandinsky, like any person of genius, inevitably thought for himself.

Whatever we think of the aura, it is clear that in our everyday speech we associate certain colors with certain moods or feelings. We are green with envy. If we are sad, we are blue. We speak of being red with rage, and if we are healthy, we are in the pink. Yellow is associated with cowardice, white with innocence. We all have black moods. These and other examples show that synaesthesia—the substitution or coincidence of one sense with another, as in the phenomenon of "hearing colors" or "seeing sounds"—is much more common than we think. Synesthesia was one of the central concerns of the Romantic and Symbolist movements, and was most concisely expressed in Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Vowels," which links specific colors to the vowels: A-black, E-white, I-red, O-blue, U-green. Kandinsky emerged from the latter days of these aesthetic movements, and students of Rudolf Steiner's teachings will remember that synesthesia is one of the signs of advance on the spiritual path. Steiner's Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment explains more on this topic.

The central maxim of Thought-Forms is that "thoughts are things" (16). In addition to the aura, the seer can detect emanations proceeding from it. These appear as "radiating vibrations" and "floating forms." The idea of floating forms raises the link between thought forms and hypnagogic phenomena, the various shapes, forms, faces, and landscapes, etc. seen on the point of sleep. Hypnagogia and synaesthesia are often linked; the interested reader may want to consult the chapter "Hypnagogia" in my Secret History of Consciousness.

These radiations and forms are the spiritual reflection of the person's thoughts, and they are things, not only in the sense of having a real effect on the world (in the sense that bad thoughts can actually, and not only meta-phorically, hurt someone), but even more so in the sense that to the seer, thoughts appear as definite shapes. Again, space does not allow me to pursue this, but in his Arcana Coelestia, Swedenborg spoke of "seeing thought." And in Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision by Robin Larsen, he is quoted as saying, "I could see solid concepts of thought as though they were surrounded by a kind of wave, and I noticed that this wave was nothing other than the kinds of things associated with the matter in my memory, and that in this way spirits could see the full thought" (447).

Besant and Leadbeater point out that the character of our thought forms is linked to our astral (desire) and mental (thought) bodies, and that the more refined our desires and thoughts, the more radiant and beautiful are the thought forms we create. Given, however, that the desire body "is the most prominent part of the aura of an undeveloped man" (19), what the seer most often detects are forms of a crude nature. It may be a blessing, then, that we all are not yet able to perceive the subtle shapes of our thoughts.

The character of a thought form depends on two things: what the thought is about, and the quality of the thought itself. Vague, indefinite thoughts appear as a kind of mist or cloud. Clear, definite thoughts take on more robust shapes, sharp triangles, cones, tentacles, and starbursts, for example. Thoughts of a greedy, lustful, or malicious character appear differently from those of a noble, selfless, loving nature. So, for instance, figure 28 in Thought-Forms, "Selfish Greed " appears like muddy green tentacles. This thought form emanates from someone "ready to employ deceit to obtain her desire," and is associated with "people gathered in front of a shop window" (56—57). "Sudden Fright ," figure 27, appears as a series of grey and red crescent shapes bursting out of the aura. "Explosive Anger ," figure 24, is a red and orange starburst. The "Upward Rush of Devotion," figure 15, is seen as a blue cone, and "Vague Pure Affection," figure 8, is a pinkish cloud, which "frequently surrounds a gently purring cat" (41). "Intellectual Aspiration," figure 43, is a fine spearhead of yellow, with a greyish centre, and implies "much advanced development of the part of the thinker" (72).

Besant and Leadbeater suggest that these thought forms are analogous to those of the " Chladni figures" formed by vibrating a brass or glass plate on which fine sand has been spread. Bowing the plate, the vibrations arrange the sand into remarkably beautiful geometric designs. They also see an analogy with the intricate designs formed by a pendulum on which a pen has been attached, and the illustrations they provide from Frederick Bligh Bond's book Vibration Figures, have, like the Chladni figures, a beauty not unlike that found in fractals. (Frederick Bligh Bond, we might remember, was an archaeologist involved in early excavations at Glastonbury Abbey, but was sacked after it was discovered that his methods included channeling medieval monks who had lived there.) The common element is vibrations: just as vibrations in fine matter form the Chladni figures, so too, do vibrations create thought forms. In this case, the fine matter is the aura, and the vibrations are our thoughts.

Besant and Leadbeater were assiduous collectors of thought forms and to the unknowing eye, the illustrations of these by John Varley, a Mr. Prince, and a Miss Macfarlane are very reminiscent of much abstract and surrealistic painting. Some of the most striking are the illustrations for the synaesthetic forms created by music: a mountain range of reds, blues, greens, and yellows rises above a church in which Wagner is being played. My own favorite is figure 32, "The Gamblers," whose eerie red and black eye and strange crescent shape figures remind me of Miro's weird dreamscapes.

Rather than sticking to single-thoughts such as love, hate, sadness, etc., the authors sought out the forms created by a number of experiences. Figure 33 "At a Street Accident," figure 34 "At a Funeral," figure 35 "On Meeting a Friend," and others give us some idea of the kinds of unseen thought forms hovering about us in the astral. The bright colors against the black void are particularly striking, and readers may be interested to compare these to the remarkable blackboard chalk drawings that Rudolf Steiner used in his lectures, a collection of which can be seen in Rudolf Steiner: Blackboard Drawings 1919—1924. Steiner's blackboard drawings have been recognized as works of art themselves, and they, coupled with Besant and Leadbeater's thought forms, give us some idea of what we may one day be able to see, given there is, as both Steiner and the Theosophists believe, an evolution of consciousness.
But until then, another glimpse of these astral shapes is available through Kandinsky's art. Although compared to Kandinsky's floating amoebas and other amorphous forms, the actual shapes of, say, figures 37 and 38, "Sympathy and Love for All," and "An Aspiration to Enfold All" respectively, are simple and unsophisticated, we can yet see their influence in his canvases. Space does not allow more than a mention, but one work in which the influence of Thought-Forms is quite visible is, I think, Kandinsky's enigmatic Woman in Moscow (1912), a representational work in which the non-representational begins to appear.

Kandinsky was particularly interested in this figure, as he did three versions of the work. An attractive oversized woman in her thirties stands in the foreground and behind her stretches a multi-colored Moscow. Her right hand rests on a table, and is wrapped around a small dog; in her left hand she holds a red, cloud-like rose. A bluish-green aura seems to surround her and to her left appears a glowing reddish ball with a heart-shaped center. Above this, a black cloud shape, seemingly very dense, threatens to obscure the sun, while to her lower right, a sharp spike of dark blue juts into a yellow street. Several figures float around her: a horse and carriage with a coachman and passenger, and a quasi-oriental character who seems to balance on the edge of the table. The red ball and black shape seem to suggest a struggle between malice and the heart, but as there is so much here, the interested reader should really see for him or herself.

Clearly, the black spot held much meaning for Kandinsky, as it appears center-stage in Black Spot I (1912), in which the representational figures of people, houses, and a cart are beginning to dissolve, perhaps into the astral forms that lie behind our sensory perceptions. Kandinsky's "Epoch of the Great Spiritual" may have been put on hold—at least that is the impression I get, judging by most post-modern art today. But to the open eye, his work, I believe, can still introduce us to the soul.

References

Besant, Annie and C. W. Leadbeater. Thought-Forms. London and Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1901.
Burr, Harold Saxton. Blueprint for Immortality. London: Neville Spearman, 1972.
Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. New York: Dover Books, 1977.
Lachman, Gary. "Concerto for Magic and Mysticism: Esotericism and Western Music"
———. The Dedalus Book of the Occult: A Dark Muse. London: Dedalus, 2003.
———. In Search of P. D. Ouspensky. Wheaton: Quest Books, 2004.
———. Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work. New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2007.
Larsen, Robin, ed. Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision. New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1988.
Ringbom, Sixten. "The Sounding Cosmos." Acta Academiae Aboensis, Ser. A. Vol.38 No.2. Abo Akademi, 1970.
Steiner, Rudolf. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1947.
———. Rudolf Steiner: Blackboard Drawings 1919—1924. New York: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003.
Tuchman, Maurice. The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890—1985. New York: LA County Museum of Art and the Abbeville Press, 1986.

Gary Lachman is the author of several books on the link between consciousness, culture and the western esoteric tradition, including Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work (Penguin 2007). Other books include Into the Interior: Discovering Swedenborg (2006), In Search of P. D. Ouspensky (Quest, 2004), and Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius (2001). A founding member of the rock group Blondie, Lachman was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. He is a regular contributor to the Independent on Sunday and Fortean Times, and Quest magazine. He lives in London where he is currently working on Politics and The Occult: Unknown Superiors and the Retreat from the Modern World , to be published in 2008.

By Anton Lysy

Originally printed in the MARCH-APRIL 2008 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Lysy, Anton. "Where Has Divine Madness Gone?" Quest  96.2 (MARCH-APRIL 2008): 63-67.

Of madness there were two kinds, one produced by human infirmity, the other . . . a divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention. . . . The divine madness was subdivided into four kinds—prophetic, initiatory, poetic, and erotic—having four divine beings presiding over them.

The Prophetic was the inspiration of Apollo.
The Initiatory was the inspiration of Dionysus.
The Poetic was the inspiration of the Muses.
The Erotic was the inspiration of Aphrodite and Eros.
—Plato's Phaedrus (265a-b)

I WAS ONE OF THREE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY members who attended a "Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy" at the University of Arizona in Tucson last February. As we arrived near the Law School Library, we were shocked to encounter two green dumpsters overflowing with books. Considering possible causes for this apparent crime against literacy, I immediately thought of the Phaedrus, a dialogue where Socrates points out that the written word is unable to defend itself from faulty interpretations by readers who will distort the author's intentions.

While continuing to wonder if this encounter were an omen, we resumed our journey to the program entitled "Plato and Socrates on the Nature and Teaching of Virtue" which included fifteen presentations by philosophy teachers from universities around the United States. The twenty hours of presentations and discussions took place during an intense period beginning on a Friday morning and lasting through Sunday noon. Although all three of us Theosophists, like HPB, love and respect the two Athenian philosophers, we were exhausted by the sheer amount of information and the rapid-fire exchanges of the presenters with the audience of specialists in the field of philosophy. I longed for some time to meditate and to refresh my exhausted powers of listening and reflection through the reinvigorating force of participating in the sacredness of silence. Then, perhaps, a form of Divine Madness would surface from deep within me or swoop down (supervene) from above to transform my prosaic consciousness.

Since Paul Woodruff from the University of Texas in Austin was the only presenter at the conference that I already knew of through his two recent books, I will limit my comments to his writings and presentation. Author of Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (2001), and First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea (2005), the paper he presented was entitled "Are Platonic Virtues Thick or Thin?" an intriguing distinction that I had never before encountered.

Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue

To these ideals of truth and purity we must add one that is lacking in modern life: the ideal of reverence for what is noble, of adoration for what is higher than oneself. Modern life is becoming petty because we are not strong enough for reverence. It is becoming base, sordid and vulgar because people fear that they will sink if they bow to that which is greater than them. But worship of that which is higher than yourself raises you; it does not degrade you. The feeling of reverence is a feeling that lifts you up; it does not take you down. We have talked so much about rights that we have forgotten that which is greater than our rights. It is the power of seeing what is nobler than we have dreamed and bowing before it till it permeates our life and makes us like it. Only those who are weak are afraid to obey; only those who are feeble are afraid of humility.
—Annie Besant, World Parliament of Religions, 1893

If one enters the word "reverence" into the search engine of the CD-ROM Theosophical Classics that includes HPB's collected works, one will get a quantitative sense of how important the concept was for her. She defined it as "to regard one with fear mingled with respect and affection." She also quoted Coleridge's rendering of it as "the synthesis of love and fear." And yet, she stressed that the great awe, deferential regard, and deep respect expressed through reverence is in no way the same as worship.

HPB and Colonel Olcott had, for example, made a powerful impact on the Indians of Bombay who witnessed their arrival and Olcott's striking gesture of reverence. When he left the ship, Olcott kissed the first granite step to show his regard for the "sacred soil" the two had reached after their important journey from New York. According to historian Bruce Campbell, "Their respectful and even reverential attitude toward India won them the admiration of Indians."

I first encountered Paul Woodruff inadvertently on the PBS Now program with Bill Moyers. The following exchange between the two men caught my attention immediately:

Bill Moyers: How do you define reverence?
Paul Woodruff: I think reverence is the capacity for awe in the face of the transcendent.

BM: The transcendent being—
PW: It's whatever we human beings did not create: God, justice, and the truth . . .

BM: Beauty.
PW: Nature, beauty.

BM: Death?
PW: Death is one of the most awe-inspiring facts of our lives. And I think complementary to the awe in the transcendent is a felt sense of our own mortality and our own limitations, our own tendency to make mistakes . . .

PW: The best clue to how reverent we are is how we treat the weakest people around us . . .
BM: You say, simply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.

Since hosiotes, the Greek word for reverence featured in Woodruff's book, is not a familiar term to most of us, the concept can perhaps best be understood in contrast to the more familiar Greek term, hubris. Hubris is the inflated, grandiose, and arrogant pride that leads one wrongly to feel superior to others (to tread on the territory reserved for gods in ancient Greece).

The Theosophical Society's First Object, to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color, for example, is incompatible with hubris. And those who allow their affection for animal welfare/rights or anything else to interfere with their compassion and sense of kinship with human sisters and brothers would seem to lack reverence for the rough processes involved in evolution and transformation that are inherent in the Divine Plan.

Plato had Socrates, in the Republic (415a), resort to telling a "noble lie" to maintain an artificial sense of reverence for the division of labor demanded in that ideal city. This arrogant lie maintained that God mixed the rulers with the greatest privileges with gold. The next group in the hierarchy was mixed with silver, and finally, downward to the farmers and laborers who were mixed with iron and copper. If everyone accepted his or her "ore," there would be harmony in the state. In contemplation of the "noble lie," Woodruff concludes "Power without reverence is aflame with arrogance, while service without reverence is smoldering toward rebellion" (4).

The Theosophical Society's motto, There Is No Religion (Dharma) Higher Than Truth, can be interpreted with an interesting correlation to its First Object that is both honest and compassionate about the full range of human differences in ability and opportunity. Woodruff adds, "Reverence sets a higher value on truth than on any human product that is supposed to have captured the truth" (39). It is the truth seeking of the inquiry (the hunt) rather than the reported truth of the publication (the feast). There is no "nobility" in lying that will not be seen through by an honest youth like the one who noticed and remarked that the Emperor's delusional vestments were not visible. Woodruff writes, "It is a natural mistake to think that reverence belongs to religion. It belongs, rather, to community" (5). In Theosophy, the community includes all beings, all places.

In Protagoras (320d—322d), Plato had the famous Sophist tell a creation story about how the gods had delegated to Prometheus and Epimetheus the task of distributing differing powers to different species. When interpersonal conflict was about to destroy humanity, Zeus sent Hermes to give conscience and justice to humans—to all humans, not to only a few as in the distribution of skills and abilities. This combination of conscience and justice when added to humility and honesty about one's limitations would clearly be a composite capable of holding in unity a dazzling array of differences. Woodruff states, ". . . without reverence, things fall apart" (13).
Throughout his book on the subject, Woodruff shows his reverence for Plato while disagreeing with many of Plato's teachings. As Nietzsche held, we repay a teacher poorly by not going beyond her or his teachings. Our contemporary American philosopher asks us to remember who we are in a broad and deep historical context:

Remember that you are human: this is the central message of ancient Greek reverence. "How could I forget?" you ask? Very easily, especially if you are so rich, so powerful, or so successful that you push every thought of failure away from your mind—every thought of human error, madness, or death. But you will err, if you are human; you will do crazy things, no matter how hard you cling to the notion that your mind is sound; and you will die.  Between now and death you will have many opportunities to crash down from whatever height you have reached, and you will fall harder if you forget that the human path is strewn with stumbling blocks. (81)

First Democracy:
The Challenge of an Ancient Idea

If you had not seen it, you would never believe how much more freedom pets have in this democratic community compared with any other. The dogs really do start to resemble their mistresses, as the proverb says. . . . And everything else is just as saturated with freedom . . . (563c)

Taking all this in consideration, the long and short of it is that the minds of the citizens of a democracy become so sensitive that they get angry and annoyed at the slightest hint of enslavement. . . . And they're so worried about the possibility of anyone having authority over them that they end up . . . taking no notice of the laws either, whether written or unwritten. (563d)

—Plato's Republic

Plato has Socrates conclude "that dictatorship is bound to arise out of democracy" (564a), a conclusion that has frightened me more and more every four years since 1960. Woodruff's First Democracy, on the other hand, gives one a form of hope that is grounded on a commitment to work on becoming a better citizen:

In truth, the idea of democracy served the Athenians far better than the Athenians served democracy. Yes, democracy is hard to achieve: yes, it is impossible to make perfect. But democracy is not a utopian ideal, because it takes human imperfections into account better than any other ideal of government. The ancient inventors of democracy knew that even the best of us can be distracted by ambition or fear from doing what is right. They knew how easily success leads to pride and pride to arrogance. From an ancient tradition of poetry, they knew by heart how arrogance leads to blindness and blindness to catastrophic mistakes. Democracy was born out of a reverent awareness of human folly, and it was designed to prevent its leaders from having the unchecked power that could lead even the wisest of them from arrogance to foolishness. (5—6)

The Second Object of the Theosophical Society, to encourage the comparative study of religion, philosophy, and science, seems to spring from the same source that envisions democracy. It embodies a profound mission of inquiry into differences that can develop understanding and tolerance as well as respect and reverence. At the Feet of the Master by J. Krishnamurti teaches "You must learn that no ceremonies are necessary; else you will think yourself better than those who perform them. Yet you must not condemn others who cling to ceremonies."

Woodruff, looking at contemporary American democracy in the light of the ancient Athenian form, illuminates the roles of "Freedom from Tyranny," "Harmony," "The Rule of Law," "Natural Equality," "Citizen Wisdom," "Reasoning Without Knowledge," and "Education" in successive chapters writing with simplicity and clarity that one rarely finds in the columns of our newspaper, journal, or blog pundits from anywhere on the political spectrum.

The book ends with a chapter entitled "Are Americans Ready for Democracy?" The last paragraph raises the following questions for inquiry and discussion:

Are we ready to shake off the idea that we are already a perfect exemplar of democracy? Are we ready to put the goals of democracy foremost in our political minds, as many Athenians did? Are we ready to admit our mistakes and learn from them, as they did?  Are we ready to have a national conversation about democracy? Most important, are we ready to keep the great dream alive, the dream of government of the people, by the people, and for the people?

In other words, are we willing to do the work that will forever disprove Plato's contention "that dictatorship is bound to arise out of democracy?"

Are Platonic Virtues Thick or Thin?

We know well enough what it is like not to know the virtues; Plato gives us many examples of people who think they know and do not. He also gives us a shining example of someone who knows he does not know the virtues—Socrates. I call his example shining because Socrates, unlike the others, does not seem much the worse for his ignorance. Apparently, he has found a good life without moral knowledge.

We do not have a clear picture, however, of what it would be like to know a virtue. If justice is, in its true nature, what readers of Plato call a Form or Idea, then—as Aristotle pointed out—we cannot see clearly how knowing that Form would help us make moral decisions in our own world of change and confusion. Or, to put the matter in terms of Plato's allegory, if we are living entirely in a world of shadows, as in a cave, how would it help us to know what things are like outside the cave?

The distinction between "thick" and "thin" at the presentation turned out to be based on whether a principle was involved.

A thick account of courage would harbor a principle. . . . A thick concept (if there is such a thing) is an inseparable bundle of description and attitude; examples are lewd, tactless, honest, patronizing, etc. Thick concepts seem to straddle the gap that a principle is supposed to guide you across.

Plato conceives all virtues as thin; that is, none of them are susceptible to a definition that harbors a principle that would determine how we should act in all given circumstances.

Woodruff concludes that, for Plato, "knowledge of virtues could not be a matter of principles," and, consequently, "that the shadows of the cave are not to be measured in that way" since they "are not objects of knowledge." That "shining example" of a human being, Socrates, however, can be named and used as a model that exemplifies good or bad behavior. But what he is cannot be defined.

The Third Object of the Theosophical Society, to investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humanity, seems to recognize the thick/thin distinction. The humans who we have considered to be exceptional, advanced, or evolved (the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa), are people who show us a new set of possibilities in their very presence, not merely in what they say. The reverence that Annie Besant spoke of at the 1893 Parliament was based on the recognition of a superior state of being that one emulated as a paradigm. What had been latent in the young Socrates was later manifest in the "World Teacher" who displayed principles of loyalty to his home state of Athens and its laws, principles that would not allow him to escape from drinking the hemlock that would end his life.

Where Is the Madness?

A religion old or new that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.

—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Just as it had been great to see Paul Woodruff with Bill Moyers on Now to develop a sense of the man within his writings, it was wonderful to witness his presentation and to hear him speak informally with his colleagues between lectures. He had to leave before the last day because of family obligations but I felt some of the same qualities in his presence as I had at the 1993 Parliament when the Dalai Lama was near.

Before the last session on Sunday, there was a commotion outside of the classroom. At break time, I found out that a falcon had swooped down on a pigeon. The discarded books in the dumpsters before the conference again came to mind. And now there was this display of power and destruction in the animal kingdom at the end reminiscent of the Sophist in The Republic who claimed might was right.

I was grateful to have listened to the many speakers, even more grateful for the compilation of papers presented that I could reread and ponder later. But I had not experienced the joy and enthusiasm I usually feel at the end of programs that I attend that are filled with ample time for reflection and meditation.

If there was any prophecy coming from Apollo, it seemed to be conveyed via the symbols of the dumpsters filled with books and the falcon attacking the pigeon. There had been no sense of an Initiation or a new beginning, Dionysian or otherwise, just a termination. My notes were filled with diagrams and logical symbols, smeared ink on the yellow legal pad, and no sign of anything from the Muses.

But still there was a renewed sense of the love of wisdom and a deeper reverence for the many people who have inspired me throughout my life. And there was a deep sense of gratitude knowing that my companions, Martin and Susan Leiderman, would be with me at Far Horizons, our Theosophical Camp in the Sierras of California, to offer a program entitled Beyond Plato On Love before Labor Day. The pace of our program would be slower and, hopefully, its range would be both deeper for the inner life and extend higher outside through the star filled sky. For the mountains teach reverence quietly and majestically and invite the four sources of inspiration to occur as naturally as breathing deeply.

At the end of Phaedrus, Socrates ends with this prayer to Pan:

O Dear Pan and all the other gods of this place,
Grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all of
My external possessions be in friendly harmony
With what is within me. May I consider the
Wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much
As a moderate man could bear and carry with him. (279c)

Perhaps in our time, Reverence itself, as Woodruff has delineated it, is a fifth form of Divine Madness, one that will guide us through an unprecedented period of development—an inspiration from the essence of the Great Orphan Humanity as it gets to know itself outside of the Cave.

References

"Bill Moyers Interviews Paul Woodruff," http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript_woodruff_print.html.

Woodruff, Paul. First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

———. Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. Press New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Anton Lysy has been Dean of Studies of the Olcott Institute since 1994. He is a national speaker and is on the board of directors of Far Horizons and the Theosophical Gift Book Institute. Dr. Lysy, along with David Bruce, director of the Department of Education, have just completed When You are One with Every Heart That Beats—an e-Learning course on the seven International Presidents of the Theosophical Society.

By Pedro Oliveira

Originally printed in the MARCH-APRIL 2008 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Oliveira, Pedro. "Explorations: Theosophy and Orthodoxy" Quest  96.2 (MARCH-APRIL 2008): 68-69.

HENRY S. OLCOTT, president and cofounder of the Theosophical Society, whose death centenary was commemorated on February 17, 2007, may have sounded the essential keynote of the work before the fledgling Theosophical Society when he said in his Inaugural Address at the Mott Memorial Hall in New York, November 17, 1875:

We are of our age, and yet some strides ahead of it, albeit some journals and pamphleteers more glib than truthful, have already charged us with being reactionists who turn from modern light (!) to mediaeval and ancient darkness! We seek, inquire, reject nothing without cause, accept nothing without proof: we are
students, not teachers.

In "The New Cycle," Collected Writings, vol. XI, his colleague and coworker, Helena P. Blavatsky, may have gone a step further in declaring one of the central aspects of the Society's work: "In its capacity of an abstract body, the Society does not believe in anything, does not accept anything, and does not teach anything."

The above statements, by two principal cofounders of the TS, clearly delineate the fact that though deriving its name from the Greek word theosophia (divine wisdom); the Theosophical Society does not make of Theosophy an orthodoxy nor an ideology. In other words, the position of "official" Theosophical teacher has been declared vacant from the very inception of the Society! It encourages its members to inquire, to investigate, and to study for themselves the vast breadth and depth of the Wisdom Tradition and to come to their own realization of its eternal truths.

Alas, the energetic vision of the founders did not prevent some members over the decades from erecting pedestals to "authorities" in the Theosophical philosophy, going so far as to say who was right and who was wrong. But the Theosophical Society, as an organic body, has always refused to buy into the authority game and has remained faithful to its three Objects which point to a non-sectarian and non-dogmatic direction for its life and work.

At the very core of the great spiritual traditions of the world there is a compelling call: one must see with one's own eyes. When religion, philosophy, or even science become an ideology, that is, a set, irreversible, exclusivist worldview, the beauty and transformative power of direct seeing is absent and the forces of separation and suspicion grow stronger, thus making the world a darker place. When we see for ourselves any intrinsic truth, like suffering, it leads to a new understanding as well as to compassionate action, for it represents the awakening of a deeply integrated perception within ourselves called buddhi in the Theosophical tradition. In such a perception, seeing and acting are one.

As long as the Theosophical Society remains true to the spirit that animated its foundation it will remain relevant in a turbulent world. The words of Madame Blavatsky, in her message to the American Convention of 1888, deserve reflection and consideration:

Orthodoxy in Theosophy is a thing neither possible nor desirable. It is diversity of opinion, within certain limits, that keeps the Theosophical Society a living and a healthy body, its many other ugly features notwithstanding. Were it not, also, for the existence of a large amount of uncertainty in the minds of students of Theosophy, such healthy divergencies would be impossible, and the Society would degenerate into a sect, in which a narrow and stereotyped creed would take the place of the living and breathing spirit of Truth and an ever growing Knowledge.

Pedro Oliveira joined the Brazilian Section of the Theosophical Society in 1978 and worked in several capacities. He served as international secretary at Adyar between 1992 and 1996. In 2001, he was elected president of the Indo-Pacific Federation of the TS, and re-elected in 2004. Pedro works as education coordinator of the TS in Australia and has lectured extensively in Australia, the Indo-Pacific region, and other countries as well. This article is adapted from the Campbell Library Newsletter, March 2007.

By Mona Sides-Smith

Originally printed in the MARCH-APRIL 2008 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Sides-Smith, Mona. "A Practical Path to Theosophy: AA's Twelve Steps." Quest  96.2 (MARCH-APRIL 2008): 47-51.

IN HER "VIEWPOINT" from the January-February 2003 Quest magazine, President Betty Bland included a quote found in HPB's Collected Works, vol. XIII, which reads:

There is a road steep and thorny, beset with perils of every kind, but yet a road, and it leads to the very heart of the Universe: I can tell you how to find those who will show you the secret gateway that opens inward only, and closes fast behind the neophyte forevermore. There is no danger that dauntless courage cannot conquer; there is no trial that spotless purity cannot pass through; there is no difficulty that strong intellect cannot surmount. For those who win onwards there is reward past all telling—the power to bless and save humanity.

The power to bless and save humanity is quite the reward. Betty concluded with, "As we move along; let us hone our skills for the service of others. Let us make this a year of true initiation." Both service and initiation are important principals in the Twelve Step program as well as Theosophy.

I have been involved with Twelve Step programs for almost forty years now and with the Theosophical Society even longer. Over the years, the two have enhanced each other. Theosophy made my Twelve Step path better and the Twelve Step's practical path to learning gave me a step-by-step way to get to the spiritual concepts of Theosophy and eventually incorporate them into my work as a therapist.

I discovered Theosophy by accident. During the early 1960s, I lived in Aurora, Illinois and worked at a printing company that published the American Theosophist. At that time, I worked in quality control reading press proofs for the print shop. There was a new kind of typesetting being developed called "cold" (as opposed to the "hot" poured lead type in use), and the company sent me to school to learn how to work with it. In between reading proofs, I also set type for the -. (As a matter a fact, it was one of the first publications to be published on cold type.) When the page proofs were ready, I would bring them to Wheaton where Virginia Hanson would read the galleys, and then I would take them back. I started noticing the events that were planned at Olcott and timed my proof reading visits with Virginia to coincide with when programs were taking place.

To set the type in those days you had to read the material at least three times. I was reading these theosophical articles three times and did not understand most of them any better the third time around than I did the first. I had trouble correctly pronouncing the Sanskrit words and peoples' names. Pronouncing "Krishnamurti" takes practice. It was very interesting for me and I continued, off and on through the years, to absorb the lifestyle of Theosophy into my lifestyle of the Twelve Step program. Even now I get the two mixed up and stirred together because they are so similar. My daughter Elaine explains how she separates the two by thinking of Theosophy like a "sky road" while the Twelve Steps are like an "earth road." The Steps give one a more practical or down to earth way to walk through life, while Theosophy is an elevated search. You can travel back and forth between the two as long as you balance the lofty abstractions with some down-to-earth practicality.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is not as old as the Theosophical Society (TS). The Program has its foundation in the old Oxford Group, a non-denominational Christian Evangelical association which was the source of AA concepts such as meetings and sharing for witness, finding a higher power, making restitution, and rigorous honesty. Alcoholics Anonymous has some interesting statistics. The book, Alcoholics Anonymous, referred to as the "Big Book," is the number two all time best-selling book in the world, running second only to the Bible. The Twelve Step programs are also the largest users of hotel facilities in the United States. It is an interesting statistic that always gets laughs when mentioned, but with conventions, conferences, and retreats taking place somewhere almost every weekend, there are many, many hotels around the country that are regularly utilized by Twelve Step programs.

AA began in 1935 in Akron, Ohio when word started getting around that there was a doctor who could fix drunks. Loving relatives, and not so loving relatives, began dropping off their loved ones. From those small first meetings of four individuals, AA has grown to millions of people worldwide. The international convention held in Minneapolis in 2000 drew over 50,000 people and hosted the largest AA meeting in its history.

Annie Besant, the second international president of the Theosophical Society is a hero of mine. In her lecture on "Purification" found in her book From the Outer Court to the Inner Sanctum, Annie Besant speaks about the mountain as a metaphor for spiritual growth. She asks that we visualize ourselves up in space, looking down on a large beautiful mountain and on this mountain we can see the history of our behavior. Not just of how we are now, but how we have trudged and bumbled along, and sometimes excelled. As we look down at the mountain and see the roads that circle and wind around (anyone who has ever driven in the mountains knows that the roads do not go straight up the side of the mountain), we also see there are cut backs which are very steep. Some of us try to climb straight up the mountain and end up falling down backwards. Along the way, we may get lost, try short cuts, or get distracted, as Annie Besant says "hither and thither" along the way, and we fall off the side of the mountain.

There are also stations along the way where we stop and stay awhile, reaching a plateau and resting. Sometimes, there are towers, offering a better view and as we climb up, it feels like progress, but in reality, we are just going up and down in the same place and not really moving along. We are repeating the same action and expecting different results. We climb and expect growth, but we just mark time in the same place. We do that in both our spiritual and practical life, but the road ends at the summit on this mountain.

Besant continues in her lecture describing a temple at the top of this mountain. The temple is the goal. We can look at it with closed eyes and it can be so beautiful. It is radiant. It has peace, serenity, and love. When we look with our hearts, we see these as symbols of the pure soul. The people who are at the top of this mountain have finished their course, at least for this mountain. Although their journey is finished, they remain there to help others climb up. This temple is built as the holiest of holy places. This is in the center; it is the heart, the spirit within us, God, the Higher Power, a Higher Authority. Besant mentions that there are gardens around the holy place at the top. The garden has only one gate, and as we proceed from below, climbing up the mountain to the mountain top, we eventually must go through this gate. This garden surrounds the outer court of the temple and within it is an inner court or inner sanctum.

The outer court around the temple is large and open and also has one gate. In this outer court are groups of people, Theosophical lodges, study groups, AA groups, and Al-Anon family groups. There are far more people in the outer court than in the inner sanctum. The long climb up the mountain has been accomplished and here is where the serious study begins. The goal here is to serve in order to learn how to go on.

Sometimes, when we look at the masses of people around us who are struggling, we wonder how they go on. Years pass and they go on so slowly. We are often distracted, as Besant says, by butterflies and blossoms—which we can symbolize as in-laws, outlaws, marriages, divorces, and illnesses—but we keep climbing. We are still on the mountain. We are not back at the bottom.

The Twelve Steps are very functional on this climb to the top of the mountain. The first three steps are what I call the "armchair steps." We are asked to admit our powerlessness, believe that there is an accommodating Source for a solution, and become willing to learn to access that Source. We can do all of this sitting down.

The next six middle steps are the "working steps." They are about taking a tedious inventory, talking with God and another person about strengths and weaknesses we uncover, making a list of the people we need to make amends to, and making those amends whenever possible. Character defects are not things we do on purpose. It is hard work learning to redo things and recognizing character defects helps us see what we are missing within ourselves. This is the challenge in the outer court. Success here brings us closer to finding the gate to the Inner Sanctum.

The last three maintenance steps are about prayer, meditation, and service. They are about continuing to take inventory of ourselves and righting our wrongs, and continually seeking conscious contact with our Higher Power. The Twelfth Step is about carrying the message and our own spirituality. After spiritually awakening, we carry the message to others. We are performing a service as we practice these principles in all our affairs.

Some people who are not alcoholics practice the Twelve Steps. You do not have to be a member to practice the Twelve Step program. In fact, this program has been successfully adapted by many different groups. I recommend reading Bill W.'s book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, which is a collection of essays about the Twelve Steps.

The people in the outer court are well-defined. They have climbed this path and have found themselves. The soul is growing within these people. This Definiteness—a term Annie Besant uses—is earned. It has been earned a step at a time, a day at a time. It is not an accident. Personal strength and other personal qualities are achieved. Have you ever noticed that when a person starts growing, it is visible to others? They have a sight beyond physical matter. People who have "got it" look different or shine from within. Initiations of life, the trials and tribulations, experiences of life, are our lessons. They come daily and by these initiations, we grow so that we can help others.

Some of the truths we learn are from the ancient wisdom that Mable Collins talks about in her book Light on the Path. Much of what I read today, Bill W. and Dr. Bob also read. Both Bill W. and Dr. Bob knew Dora Kunz and were familiar with Theosophical teachings. At meetings, they read ancient wisdom texts as well as the Bible. People experimented with what would help or work in their lives because they knew there was more to recovery than just not drinking.

There are four rules or truths from Light on the Path that have helped me (and confused me) over the years. As I do Serenity Retreats for the Twelve Step program, I use theosophical teachings along with the Twelve Step material without telling people that it is Theosophy. I have incorporated Theosophical references into my retreat talks without people knowing; however when there are Theosophists in the audience, they will approach me later to comment on recognizing the material.

The first truth "Before the eyes can see, they must be incapable of tears" can be translated in the Twelve Step vernacular as someone saying "Stop whining about it and get on with your life." When I am working through something confusing to me, I often bounce concepts off my friend Ruby. We might be driving along and I will throw an idea out to her, and she might respond with, "needs work," or "you are getting closer." I just hang in there. What I understand Mabel Collins saying is that it is okay to feel sorry for oneself for a while, but then you must get over whatever it is and move along. The Soul must pass from sensation to knowledge. The windows of the soul are blurred by moisture. The tears blur the work of the soul, much like when it is raining, and we cannot see out the window.

This does not mean that big girls and boys are not allowed to cry. It means that when we are crying, just go ahead and cry, but do not try to see through it and give advice or make decisions. When we are done crying, we will see more clearly. Crying is not the resolution, but it is okay to feel sorry for yourself, then get over it. Tears are symbols of violent pain and pleasure. Tears pass and the light of knowledge will eventually shine through.

The second truth reads "Before the ear can hear, it must have lost its sensitiveness." Again, in the Program we would say, "Don't take it personally." The soul must reach a place of silence in order to hear the voice from the other side. The voice of the higher power, God, whatever you have sought and found, is always soft and sweet. Outer life sounds interfere with our hearing. We must get to a place of silence where we can bring meditation into our lives. Mantras and chanting "Om" can take us to that place of silence. Silence often feels like a pall or darkness. It initially feels scary, but after the silence is when a voice sounds from the other side. It is what Bill W. referred to as his "White Light" experience. Gradually we see the gleam of the temple, catch a glimpse of God, and hear the still small voice.

People reach an emotional bottom when they have no plan. But that is when we become teachable and the Voice may be heard. It comes in many ways. It may be a feeling or a color, but it will speak in a language of its own. It may not be English, but we will understand it. Once we hear it, we know it. No earth sound can ever dull it once we have heard it. We can hear it through anything once we know what we are listening for. Mabel Collins says that these eye and ear truths must be experienced first. We have to learn not to take things personally and to stop whining.

The third truth Collins shares with us is, "Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters, it must have lost the power to wound" or for Twelve Steppers, "lost the desire to control." In Twelve Steps, we might suggest that someone "lighten up." This is where we share our strength, hope, and experience. We learn that the purpose of our being is to appeal to the Source. In prayer and meditation the appeal goes up, echoes back down, and goes out to the world. There is great power in prayer and meditation. What we appeal for is knowledge of how to speak without wounding. The Eleventh Step reads, "We pray for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." Perhaps Bill W. got the idea for this step from Mable Collins. The answer we get when we pray for knowledge is what we need—the power to speak the knowledge received. We intuitively "know" things. The condition that allows us to do this speaking is that the pilgrim becomes a link between the Higher Power and the earth.

We become a servant to deliver this message and that is what we are looking for. Not servitude, but service. We have to share it for humankind. The one gate to the inner court is labeled "Service to Mankind" and we no longer seek for self alone, but for the good of humanity. In serving humankind, we include ourselves, not just others.

The fourth truth, "Before the soul can stand in the presence of the Masters, its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart" has come to mean to me: You have to give it away to keep it.

Blood is the symbol of life. Without it humans are nowhere, gone. Empty the blood from our bodies and there is no life. You can take away an appendix, a kidney, or assorted other body parts. You can even replace them with store-bought body parts, but take away the blood and there is no life. Tears are the moisture of life and blood is life itself. We have to have the willingness to pour out this blood, this life. We must give our most precious life by being willing to serve. Bill W. used to say that we become "born" again before the term was commonly used. Our lives are our energy, our thoughts, and service. We must give this life to stand with the others who give their lives, whether it be for Theosophy or Twelve Steps.

Service can become a way of life. We can live in an attitude of service, but this can be very hard to do. I can go to the grocery store with an attitude of service, or because my family ate all the food in the house. If I serve my community because no one else wants do it and feel I have to, I will feel tired and resentful. However, if I serve with an attitude of replenishing my community, my outlook changes. When we live with an attitude of service, we stand beneath the point where all knowledge is received. According to Mabel Collins, we plug in to the cosmos. We know things we did not know before. We are able to handle situations that used to baffle us and realize there is always more to learn, more to gain. Like the onion layers that we peel off, there is always more knowledge to discover. We become the wounded healer, sharing the strength and knowledge gained through our experiences. Knowledge turned into service becomes our strength, nurtures our hope, and guides our lives.

Mona Sides-Smith is president of the Serenity Retreat League, Inc., a non-profit corporation in Memphis, Tennessee, that offers Twelve Step related retreats and workshops in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and on cruise ships. She is the daughter-in-law of Dr. Bob Smith, cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. A retired addictions and family therapist, Mona organizes and facilitates retreats, counselor training workshops, and community leadership programs. Mona is a member of the Theosophical Society and active in the Memphis Lodge. (And if you are ever in Memphis, ask her about the Three Kings Tour.)