Quest Magazine

The Secret Doctrine: Electronic Book Edition.
Ed. Vincente Hao Chin, Jr. Quezon City, Philippines;
Theosophical Publishing House, 1998. 5 floppy disks, 7.5 megabytes harddisk space.

The Philippines Section of the Theosophical Society, under the presidency of Vic Hao Chin, has brought turn-of-the-century technology to the study of The Secret Doctrine by producing an electronic version of Blavatsky's work.

Currently available on 5 high-density floppies, the text uses the pagination of the 1888 edition (as all modern studies do). It installs on a hard disk, runs under Windows 3.101' Windows 95, and requires 7.5 megabytes of hard disk space for its storage. It includes a search program that allows the reader to look for any word or phrase used in the text (other than special characters or words in diagrams or illustrations).

A search produces a list of sections in which the specified word or phrase is to be found, identified by volume, part, section or chapter numbers, and the title of the section. The sections are ordered in the list according to the frequency with which they contain the word or phrase, with the most abundant use first. For example, mulaprakriti is used in 22 sections of the book, most often in volume 1, pan: 2, section 12 entitled "The Theogony of the Creative Gods," where there are 12 uses, and next most often in the Proem of volume 1, where there are 11 uses, and so on.

Clicking on any given line of the list takes one to the corresponding section of The Secret Doctrine, in which every occurrence of the word or phrase is highlighted for ease of location. The click of a button takes the user from one highlighted use to the next. The text, in whatever amplitude the user desires, can be blocked and copied to a document in the word processor of the user's choice.

If a student wants to know what The Secret Doctrine says about any term or how it uses any expression, this electronic edition is the fastest, most thorough, and most accurate way to find the answer. Through it, one can produce an exhaustive list of every occurrence in The Secret Doctrine of whatever word or phrase one wants to investigate. And because its text can be copied and pasted to another document, it is the easiest way to get quotations, long or short, from the book.

Plans are currently underway to put the program eventually onto a CD with various supplementary materials. However, the electronic edition now available is excellent and highly useful. No serious student of The Secret Doctrine should be without it. Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., and his co-workers are owed a very great vote of thanks for their work in producing this electronic version.

The Future

Electronic, globally searchable texts will not put primed indexes out of business-at least, not yet. But they will transform how such indexes are designed and what they are used for.

The availability of computer searches through an electronic text largely obviates the traditional use of printed indexes, which has been to find places in a text where a given word is used and a given subject is discussed. It is pointless to look up a word manually in one printed book, note down the references given for that word, look up each reference in another book, and then copy (either by hand or xerography) the quotations one wants.

That is an obsolete research technique. Instead, one types the word or expression of interest into the electronic program, which then produces in the blink of an eye all occurrences of the word or expression, and one can electronically copy any passages one wants. Such electronic research reduces dramatically the time and effort spent in looking for information.

The existence of electronic texts will significantly alter the design and use of printed indexes, and the electronic texts will themselves evolve as new technology becomes available and as the needs of users call for evolving forms of presentation. Vic Hao Chin's electronic Secret Doctrine is the first, not the last, step in the new technology, just as John Van Mater's index is a transitional step to the new format such indexes will assume. Eventually, the two technologies-electronic text and printed index- will blend.

The key to the future of indexing is in John Van Mater's liberal use of cross-references. Vic Hao Chin's electronic text can be searched only for specific words or phrases used in the text. Thus, if one is interested in what The Secret Doctrine has to say about mulaprakriti, one can direct the program to produce all uses of that word. And it will do so, quickly and reliably. But the electronic program will not, at present, lead one on to synonyms or related terms. That's where the cross-references come

in. In a world of electronic searches, the most valuable part of the \/an Mater index are its cross-references. Future indexes need to amplify and elaborate such cross-referencing; they need to become not so much indexes to the text as thesauruses of related terms, which can be searched for by the computer program.

For example, the Van Mater index includes the complex of cross-references indicated above:

aether, akasa, anima mundi, astral light, daiviprakriti,
elements, ether, Father-Mother, hyle,
ilus, mulaprakriti, pradhana, prakriti, primordial
matter, protyle, svabhavat, world soul

To these might be added other related terms, such as the following (all of which appear in subentries under one or another of the cross-referenced terms):

aditi, aethereal, akasic, alaya, archaeus, asat,
celestial virgin, chaos, cosmic ideation, cosmic
matter, cosmic soul, cosmic substance, devamatri.
devil, dragon, eternal root, fobat, Holy
Ghost, honey-dew, hydrogen, illusion, isvara,
kshetrajna, Kwan-yin, life principle, light of
the logos, limbus, lipikas, logos, magic head,
magnes, maha-buddhi, mahat, matter, Mother,
Mother-Father, nahbkoon, Nebelheim, noumenon,
Oeaohoo, oversoul, parabrahman, picture
gallery, plastic essence, plenum, precosmic
root substance, prima materia, primordial substance,
Ptah, purusha-prakriti, root principle,
serpent, shekinah, sidereal light, Sophia, space,
svayambhu, undifferentiated matter, universal
mind, universal principle, universal soul, unmanifested
logos, unmodified matter, vacuum,
veil, waters of space, web, yliaster, Ymir

To be useful, such related terms would need to be organized into a branching tree of interlocking relationships. The best way to store and access such a tree structure is electronic. Eventually, the thesaurus-index toward which the Van Mater book has made a first step should be incorporated into the search program for the electronic text of The Secret Doctrine so that a user can search automatically not only for specific terms but also for related terms that the user may not even be aware of.

In sum, the two works under review here, the printed index and the electronic text of The Secret Doctrine, are splendid productions that will serve very well the needs of their users for the proximate future. They also point enticingly toward a more, though perhaps not very, distant future in which their technologies will be combined to afford students an unparalleled and previously unimaginable opportunity to study this foundational text of Theosophy.
-JOHN ALGEO

June 1998

H. P. Blavatsky and the SPR: An Examination of the Hodgson Report of 1885, by Vernon Harrison. Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1997. Hardback, xiv + 78 pages.

A turning point in H. P. Blavatsky's life, which at the time must have seemed to her as well as to those around her to be a calamity, was the 1885 report of the committee of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) "appointed to investigate phenomena connected with the Theosophical Society" That report, written primarily by a young investigator named Richard Hodgson and therefore usually called "the Hodgson Report," reached a devastating conclusion:

For our own part, we regard her neither as the
mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as a mere vulgar
adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title
to permanent remembrance as one of the
most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting
impostors in history. [4]

Theosophists have always held that the Hodgson Report, the initial effort of a fledgling and ambitious new investigator for the SPR, was biased, distorted, unfair, and unreliable. It would, however, not be unexpected that they should so respond to the report's highly critical judgment of the founder of Theosophy. Others tended to take the report as a soundly based, conclusive expose revealing Blavatsky as a fraud.

In 1986, shortly after the hundredth anniversary of the Hodgson Report, an impartial, critical examination of that report, covering both its methodology and conclusions, was made by a disinterested researcher, Vernon Harrison. Not connected with any Theosophical Society, Harrison had been a member of the Society for Psychical Research for fifty years; he was a professional expert in forgery and a frequent expert witness in legal cases involving forgery and counterfeiting.

The Hodgson Report dealt with a number of issues: (1) various paranormal phenomena performed by or connected with Blavatsky; (2) the putative Blavatsky-Coulomb correspondence; and (3) the authorship of the Mahatma Letters, Harrison confined himself to the last of those issues because forgery was his specialty and because primary evidence relating to that issue still exists, the Letters being available in the manuscript collection of the British Library. Eyewitnesses of the phenomena are now all dead, and the Coulomb letters mysteriously disappeared after having come into the possession of one of Blavatsky's opponents whom she sued for libel and who apparently found that the letters did not support his case.

Harrison's devastatingly critical examination of the Hodgson Report was published by the Society for Psychical Research, as the SPR editor said, "in the interest of truth and fair play, and to make amends for whatever offense we may have given" by the 1885 report. Harrison did not, however, end his investigation of the subject with that publication, but went on to examine critically all of the Mahatma Letters for evidence of forgery or fraud by Blavatsky.

Harrison's 1986 SPR article is reprinted in this volume together with a report of the new evidence from his subsequent investigation. The details of his research must be read in his own words to appreciate the thoroughness, skill, and knowledgeability with which it was conducted, There is also a keen and incisive sense of humor running through his comments. For example, Harrison demonstrates that by the same criteria Hodgson used to "prove" that HPB wrote the Mahatma Letters, he can "prove" that she also wrote Huckleberry Finn and that Dwight Eisenhower wrote Isis Unveiled, for Mark Twain and Ike's handwritings share critical features that Hodgson used to link HPB with the Mahatma Letters.

A1though it is not possible here to do justice to Harrison's full analysis, his concluding expert opinion on the subject can be summarized:

The Hodgson Report is not a scientific study…

Richard Hodgson was either ignorant or contemptuous of the basic principles of English justice…

In cases where it has been possible to check Hodgson's statements against the direct testimony of original documents, his statements are found to be either false or to have no significance in the context...

Having read the Mahatma Letters in the holographs, I am left with the strong impression that the writers KH and M were real and distinct human beings...

Who KH was I do not know, but I am of the opinion that all letters in the British Library initialed KH originated from him…

It is almost certain that the incriminating Blavatsky-Coulomb letters have been lost or destroyed, but there is strong circumstantial evidence that these letters were forgeries made by Alexis and Emma Coulomb...

I have found no evidence that the Mahatma Letters were written by Helena Blavatsky consciously and deliberately in a disguised form of her own handwriting…

I am unable to express an opinion about the "phenomena" described in the first part of the Hodgson Report ... but having studied Hodgson's methods, I have come to distrust his account and explanation of the said "phenomena."

Vernon Harrison concludes that there is much we do not know about Helena Blavatsky and many questions about her life remain unanswered. He believes, however, that "the Hodgson Report is a highly partisan document forfeiting all claim to scientific impartiality" (4), "riddled with slanted statements, conjecture advanced as fact or probable fact, uncorroborated testimony of unnamed witnesses, selection of evidence and downright falsity" (32), and therefore "should be used with great caution, if not disregarded. It is badly flawed" (69).

This book should be in the library of every Theosophist and should be studied by anyone who writes or reads about Blavatsky. It is an extraordinarily important work in HPB's biography and in the history of the Society and of Theosophy.
-JOHN ALGEO

A Solution to a Pointless Life: Spiritual Self-Help for Personal Development

Albert Amao Soria
Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2023. 306 pp.; hardcover, $34.95; paper, $20.99.

I have known Dr. Albert Amao Soria for many years and always found great insight in what he writes and says. I have quoted him in my own writing as a great source of wisdom of the human condition. He has traveled to speak to our Theosophical group in Minneapolis and others on several occasions and always given freely of his time and energy in unraveling the greater mysteries and the ancient wisdom tradition.

He is known in Theosophical circles as a national lecturer of the Theosophical Society in America, a keynote speaker, and author of the Quest book Healing without Medicine.

Amao’s new book, A Solution to a Pointless Life: Spiritual Self-Help for Personal Development., is probably his greatest effort yet. This book is packed with valuable nuggets of information from every relevant source from the New Thought movement to existentialism, Oriental religions, the Judeo-Christian tradition, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and mysticism. Here is a sociologist who has seriously considered the question of the meaning of life and humanity’s eternal quest for finding the purpose in living. His careful analysis of this quest through the ages brings the reader to a comforting conclusion, albeit a challenging one.

Amao laments the way political and religious organizations have left people feeling powerless, while materialism has filled people with illusions and false beliefs. He posits how our inability to find a purpose in life has led to neurosis. He pivots toward celebrating life as a beautiful learning opportunity that allows people to develop their inner potential. To fulfill one’s special purpose in life, he says, is to manifest your inner power. Striving to achieve life goals with determination awakens your innate psychological and spiritual powers.

Our long journey challenges us to learn and grow in consciousness, we are told, and that is the only real thing in the universe. As we return to life source, we add to the expanding universal consciousness that has been called by many names, including spirit, universal soul, life force, Brahman, Elohim, and God.

The point of living, then, is to become aware of this universal consciousness and consciously participate with it in the creation process. Humans are on the planet earth, the author suggests, to develop and raise their level of conscious awareness. The primary purpose of all human existence is to actively participate in awakening universal consciousness.

The depth of this author’s scholarship in sorting through common and diverse threads in philosophies, religions, and science is impressive. He walks us through both European and Latin American existentialism and the American New Thought movement. He analyzes everything from the Gilgamesh epic to The Wizard of Oz. He delves into the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita. He considers the quest in Jainism and Buddhism. He dives into Hebrew and Christian thought and plows through quantum physics, metaphysics, and psychology.

Areas of particular interest to me include the author’s thoughtful contrast of existentialism and the New Thought movement, his analysis of the book of Job, his treatment of the life journey as a pathless land, and the conclusion that expanding consciousness is all there really is or ever will be. Best of all, he sees a big role in this huge universal consciousness for each and every one of us as cocreators.

Von Braschler

Von Braschler is a Life Member of the Theosophical Society, a former member of the publications board of the Theosophical Publishing House, and author of several books on consciousness development.

Blessed by Mysterious Grace

Ravi Ravindra
Adyar, Theosophical Publishing House, 2023. vii + 400 pp., paper, $30.

On a Sunday afternoon, sitting at a restaurant overlooking the Ojai mountains, I laughed out loud. It was a hearty laugh, which drew attention to me. Aware of this, I tried to contain myself, but to no avail: I kept laughing and smiling. I was reading and relishing Ravi Ravindra’s latest inspiring book—surprisingly an autobiography, Blessed by Mysterious Grace—-and came across a passage where he describes his early days at the university, when even then the other students called him  “Who am I Ravindra.”

Fellow seekers who are familiar with Ravindra’s scholarly works on the traditional sacred literature of both Eastern and Western traditions (often building a bridge between the two) and his many papers on science, or who may have been fortunate enough to attend his courses on philosophy, comparative religious studies, or science, will have a chuckle too.

Seldom do we have a scholar in so many important academic fields who has written an autobiography revealing so much of his own personal journey, his doubts, fears, questions, and philosophical ideas. It is also inspiring because it points not only to higher truths but to different levels of subtle perception.

Ravindra’s readers will be grateful for this book, because in my humble opinion, I do not think anyone else could do justice to the complex man, his talent, and profound understanding of what it means to be human and honor the divine spark in our souls: “You need to work to relate the higher with the lower. That is the purpose of human existence.” There is no distance between his life and his work; they are perpetually intertwined, evolving in depth.

In one chapter, Ravindra refers to a saying in the Gospels: “From him to whom much is given, much is demanded” (Luke 12:48). He states that “there was no question” that much had been given to him, even though an objective observer would say that Ravindra worked hard, made many sacrifices, and took on responsibilities to earn what he did receive. The next line is profoundly important: “It cannot be only for my sake. My own self is too small to have any worthwhile purpose of its own. It must serve something higher.”

One does not have to read between the lines to see that serving something more important, higher, and bigger than ourselves is a theme that runs through Ravindra’s book—and life. That is why reading his book is elevating, putting us on a higher level of consciousness as we think and ponder life’s biggest philosophical questions: why am I here, and what is the purpose of my life?

At some juncture in Ravindra’s life, he found himself in turmoil: “I knew I needed a different kind of knowledge and education than I had obtained in the many schools and universities I had attended. I had become sadder and sadder the closer I was to finishing my Ph.D. The more I was certified as an educated man by the world, the clearer I was about my ignorance of myself.”

As we follow the author on the paths he explored, we see that the people he chose to seek out and study with were those who had a higher purpose in life, and he knew he could learn something from them. An encounter with J. Krishnamurti led to a touching friendship with the modern-day sage, which lasted from 1965 until Krishnamurti’s death in 1986. Ravindra evokes a gentle, kind man with a “doe-like frailty,” a characteristic not always observed by others who have written about him. He shares important conversations, humorous moments from some incidents with Krishnamurti that were unlike occurrences in an average person’s day-to-day life, as well as some of his personal frustrations because he was not able to meet Krishnamurti at the same level of clarity.

Ravindra writes of a mysterious meeting—which seemed almost accidental—in a remote village with a Korean Zen master, Chullong Sunim. After the master had spent days in meditation with Ravindra, he gave him a 1500-year-old Buddha statue from the Silla dynasty. When Ravindra tried to refuse such a valuable gift, Chullong Sunim told him he was repaying a debt to him from a past life, and proceeded to write to the customs people asking them to allow the antique to leave the country. Master Sunim said: “Maybe I took a lot from you before birth. You had done something for me in a previous life.”

Readers who have been attracted to G.I. Gurdjieff’s ideas will appreciate Ravindra’s meticulous recording of his work with Jeanne de Salzmann, a disciple of Gurdjieff’s, and his own challenges in looking objectively at himself.

The author’s association with the Theosophical Society has spanned more than four decades. He is regularly invited to teach at the School of Wisdom at Adyar and the Krotona School of Theosophy in Ojai for weeks at a time. He sums up why the TS makes a difference in the world: it’s “a unifying force which brings together all the great traditions of the world, deepening spiritual search and understanding.”

Without ever suggesting or advising, Ravindra points to the same higher truths and insights that sages have talked about throughout the ages. Nevertheless, he emphasizes, each of us must find our own way, take our own journey: no one else can do that for us: “It was clear to me that for me to approach any serious question a radical transformation of the whole of my being was needed. Nobody else, even the Buddha or Christ can answer my question; it has to be my own journey.”

This book will leave you much wiser about yourself, the human heart, and humanity. Maybe Ravindra followed a path that was “created” for him before he was born, but he has done everything he could to honor that divine spark in him.

Adelle Chabelski

The reviewer, a translator, writer, and human rights advocate, was consultant and interviewer for two award-winning documentaries, one on the former Soviet Union and the other, produced by Steven Spielberg, on the Holocaust. She teaches at the Krotona School of Theosophy and has served as president of the TS in the Ojai Valley.

Modern Occultism: History, Theory, and Practice

Mitch Horowitz
New York, G&D Media, 2023; 440 pp., paper, $24.95.

Right from the start, Modern Occultism, Mitch Horowitz’s wonderfully comprehensive and challenging new synthesis of occult history, makes its project quite clear:

The idea, simple in concept yet seismic in impact, is that there exist unseen dimensions or intersections of time, all possessed of their own events, causes, intelligences, and perhaps iterations of ourselves; the influence of these realms is felt on and through us without meditation by any religion or doctrine. (Emphasis Horowitz’s.)

Or as the author more simply puts it a few pages later, “the secret of human development is discovering the psyche’s causative dimensions and the expansion to which they point . . . within the cosmic framework you occupy, you, too, are capable of thought causation.”

People fall into two general camps. One holds that mind never interacts with matter at a distance and only exists as an epiphenomenon of an embodied animal’s brain, and that time and causation are necessarily only forward-moving. The other camp knows that these propositions are simply not true, or certainly not complete.

This book is the thousands-of-years-old history of those who not only knew the falsehood or limitations of materialistic propositions, but who—within cultural milieus as old as ancient Egypt and earlier—passionately and astutely practiced the arts and sciences of nonbounded, nonlinear, mental causation.

Horowitz tells us that the book aims to make use of the “vocabulary, outlook, and sense of possibility that emerged from the birth, rebirth, and winding path of occult spirituality.” We learn that the word occult comes from the Latin word occultus, which means secret or hidden. But what exactly counts as the “occult”? And for purposes of the book, which specific figures and places merit inclusion?  

In contrast to “esoteric” or “inner” teachings, which have existed throughout the world in Vedic, Buddhist, animist, Taoist, Confucian, and shamanic traditions, Horowitz informs us that “the occult rose from the West’s rupture with its own religious past during the rise of the Abrahamic religions, Christianity in particular.” While esoteric traditions represent the inner core of a traditional religion to which they corresponded, the occult “is independent of religion while not necessarily rejecting of it.”

According to Horowitz, the occult in this sense arose within a bounded geographic area, “territories occupied first by the Greek armies of Alexander the Great . . . and later by the Roman Empire, extending from Ancient Egypt and Constantinople to the Mediterranean Basin, Persia, and much of Europe, as well as colonial and migratory offshoots, including the Americas.”

From the ancient world to modernity, the book “explores the roots, people, ideas, aesthetics, and practices that have shaped our conception of the occult, as we have been shaped by them.” Horowitz’s metaphor is that there is an “obsidian thread” of occult history, knowledge, and traditions. His aim is tracing that thread’s “origin, entanglements, key figures, and catalytic role in modern life.”

These entanglements of so many threads of spiritual teachings necessarily broaden the book’s reach. By the time we get to the later chapters covering the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, the narrative touches upon a much wider range of practices and personages, from modern Eastern teachers to those who have led the (latest) New Age revival.

As for science, we are treated to a thoughtful consideration of the implications of quantum physics, as well as a review of where things stand on psi, or parapsychology research, versus standard science. As Horowitz masterfully conveys, we have known for at least a hundred years that according to the most stringent scientific methodological requirements, psi phenomena (such as precognition, clairvoyance, telepathy, and telekinesis) are unquestionably real.

Any real science—and not the kind of science that psychologist Charles Tart has labeled “scientism”—must accept the implications of the data that it gathers, which has unquestionably shown that sometimes mind affects matter at a distance and that sometimes time does not function linearly. 

The book is challenging in three ways. First, even to attempt this kind of history was a very challenging task—which Horowitz ably and amazingly pulls off. He fluidly weaves in the origins, personal histories, and real-world impacts of those who founded and propounded New Thought and Theosophy, and treats figures like Aleister Crowley, G.I. Gurdjieff, Jack Parsons, and Henry A. Wallace with erudition and great care.

Second, for readers, the book can be challenging not just because so many people and historical occurrences are covered, but because of the sheer amount of detail needed to bring together so many threads of history, people, and practices. But let me tell you: it was worth it, and so gratifying.

As a result of this big picture of occult history and its many players laid out in one place, all sorts of people, places, ideas, and phrases (like “thoughts become things”) that were only a little bit familiar (or completely unknown) to this reviewer now make sense. They have come into focus and interlocked to form a glorious historical mosaic that won’t soon be forgotten.

That brings us to the book’s third challenging aspect: the clarity of this exquisite picture, woven with an obsidian thread, invites each of us to transcend and transform. We are challenged by the book’s subject matter to go beyond previous personal limitations, to allow ourselves to access the occult framework, knowledge, and abilities we are capable of bringing to bear in our own lives—today.

All we have to do is remember the many times we have personally experienced the nonlinearity of time, the interactivity of mind and matter, or the unquestionable real-world impacts of a ritual or magical act, and everything can shift in an instant forever. As Horowitz challenges the reader in the book’s last word, sentence, and paragraph—try.

            Jordan Gruber

Jordan Gruber is coauthor (with James Fadiman) of Your Symphony of Selves (reviewed in Quest, winter 2021) and of a work in progress on microdosing psychedelics with St. Martin’s Press.