Quest Magazine

Originally printed in the Summer 2011 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Richard Smoley. "Who Are the Masters?." Quest  99. 3 (Summer 2011): 90 - 95.

An Interview with Joy Mills

Joy Mills, who celebrated her ninetieth birthday in October 2010, is one of the most admired and beloved figures in the Theosophical Society. She has dedicated her life and career to the Society in a way that few others have. She joined the Milwaukee Lodge at the age of twenty, and from that time on has been active in innumerable aspects of the TS. In 1960, she became vice-president of the American Section under president Henry Smith, and in 1965 she became president of the American Section herself, serving until 1974. In that year she became vice-president of the international Society and served in that role until 1980. Starting in 1980, she worked as director of the Krotona School of Theosophy in Ojai, California, a post she held until 1992, when she became president of the Theosophical Society in Australia for nearly three years. In 1996, she returned to Krotona, where she lives and teaches today.

     In addition, Joy has written many lectures and articles on Theosophy, and is the author of a number of works, including One Hundred Years of Theosophy: A History of the Theosophical Society in America; The One True Adventure: Theosophy and the Quest for Meaning; and, most recently, Reflections on an Ageless Wisdom: A Commentary on the Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett.

     This last work is the fruit of decades of Joy's study of the Mahatma Letters, and provides a rich, detailed, letter-by-letter analysis of these mysterious texts. In view of her knowledge of the subject, I conducted an e-mail interview with her about the Masters in the fall of 2010.

—Richard Smoley

Richard Smoley: The idea of the Masters is one of the most influential and most controversial concepts to have come out of Theosophy. How do you see the Masters of the Mahatma Letters? Do you regard them as living human beings who communicated directly with H. P. Blavatsky, A. P. Sinnett, and the others?

Joy Mills: First of all, the concept of Mahatmas or Masters needs to be seen as an integral part of the whole Theosophical worldview. It cannot be treated in isolation. One has to see the whole before one looks at the parts.

If we postulate an evolutionary journey by means of which humanity grows in consciousness toward full self-realization or enlightenment, as it's called in the Buddhist tradition, then we have to acknowledge that there are individuals, whatever you may call them—saints, seers, bodhisattvas, liberated ones, great souls, Mahatmas—who have moved beyond our present stage of understanding toward a wider or deeper knowledge. It's not knowledge in the ordinary sense but a knowledge of the principles or laws that underlie existence.

You say this is a controversial idea, but in every sacred or religious tradition this concept of the Masters—by whatever name they may be called-is present. They may be revered as founders of a particular religion—Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, and so on. Even the indigenous religious traditions acknowledge that there are elders, wise ones, who embody the knowledge, the wisdom. They may be called shamans, or some other name may be given to them. But they embody this wisdom of the clan, of the group, of the ages, in their lives. Their lives therefore reflect a purity. One has to see that this idea, while it's been influential in many directions, is an ancient one.

There's another point that I would make. According to Theosophy, the evolutionary journey upon which we're embarked is not just a biological, physical evolution, but a moral evolution. There's an evolution in consciousness. There is a spiritual evolution. To understand this fully, one has to recognize that the human being is multidimensional. He is more than the physical body. We have emotions, we have a mind that thinks, and there is a spiritual aspect to our being. The Theosophical philosophy posits a human constitution composed of various aspects: spiritual, intellectual, moral, as well as physical. It also posits that we live successive lives—the concept of reincarnation. There is a lawfulness in this whole process. You can't take just the concept of the Masters, or the Mahatmas, without seeing it in its context in the entire Theosophical philosophy.

People may wonder if the Mahatmas introduced by the TS were living human beings. Of course they were living human beings. They themselves wrote, "We are men, not Gods." But they are wiser, they have come to a deeper knowledge. From that period we have a number of testimonies of individuals who saw these Mahatmas and had direct intercourse with them-Colonel H. S. Olcott, for example, the founding president of the Society. He testified to their existence, to seeing them. And there are many others. At least twenty-five people in those early days received some kind of communication, a letter or direct visits from them, as Blavatsky did.

Mr. Sinnett, to whom the bulk of The Mahatma Letters were written, did not see them physically. He longed to but never did. He certainly accepted their existence. Certainly I do. The Letters to me breathe of another world. They have an aura and a wisdom in them, a knowledge that is to me a wonderful understanding of many aspects with which the Letters treat.

Smoley: The historian of esotericism K. Paul Johnson, in The Masters Revealed and other works, described historical figures who, he believed, were the figures behind the Mahatmas. What do you think of Johnson's views?

Mills: I knew Paul. I read his book many years ago. Many years ago, I had a little correspondence with Paul. I knew that he made every effort to identify those individuals we know as the Mahatma Morya and the Mahatma Koot Hoomi. Of course there are others: Djual Kool, Hilarion, and various others have been identified by name.

I'm not sure that Paul really did identify them as individuals in an historical way. As I recall, there were a number of gaps and flaws, and he sometimes stretched things to make them fit his hypothesis rather then taking what evidence there might be.

But the point is they were or are living human beings. They made no bones about that. They were seen by a number of individuals at various times and in various places.

From my point of view, the important thing is not who they were, historically speaking, but the teaching that they gave. That is really the essential part of The Mahatma Letters—the teaching, not who gave it or where it derives from.

I prefer not to go in to any analysis of Paul's work. I read it when it first came out. He made his contribution, and there it stands. If people want to know who these individuals were, maybe Paul had something, maybe not.

Smoley: Do you believe that the Masters who were alive in HPB's time are likely to be alive in any physical form today?

Mills: There's a very interesting article in volume 8 of HPB's Collected Writings, titled simply "Helena Petrovna Blavatsky." It's quite a long article, and is actually an account of a conversation she had with Charles Johnston, who married one of her nieces. One of the questions Johnston asks about the Mahatmas is whether they have discovered the elixir of life. HPB responds that that's not a fable; that it's a veil hiding a real occult process that wards off age and dissolution for periods which would seem to us to be quite amazing. She goes into it in some detail.

That much said, it is quite likely that the Mahatmas are not in the same physical vehicles they were in the 1880s. It doesn't mean that they may not be in physical incarnation or have taken or constructed vehicles that are similar in appearance.

There's an interesting episode that's recorded in The Mahatma Letters where the Mahatma KH appears to the English medium William Eglinton on board ship. How did he get there? How did he appear in the form that Eglinton would recognize from having seen a picture of the Mahatma KH? One of the occult powers, it is said, is that the Mahatma can create a vehicle, a mayavi-rupa, an illusory form that is recognizable by the individual seeing it. I don't want to go into a lengthy description of that process, but I would say that it's possible that they would use a physical form if necessary—that they might have incarnated, taken another physical form today.

Smoley: What role do the Masters play in the current Theosophical movement?

Mills: They play no role whatsoever in the Society. They never did other than to suggest certain directions, certain modes of action, to Olcott. They themselves say that they do not guide the Society.

Many members today accept their existence and feel that they may be inspired by them. For example, I have often felt that I dedicated my work in the Society to the Masters and to the work that they did in inspiring the formation of the Society. But that's a personal matter. One can accept their existence or not. There are many members who probably don't even think about them. There are other members who are deeply committed to the ideals that the Mahatmas expressed in their letters, even though these letters were written over a century ago.

But as to any role, no. Every member is free to accept their existence, free to deny it, free to accept any of the concepts that are presented, to interpret those ideas in their own way. There is complete freedom of thought in the Society.

Smoley: Do you agree with the idea that the Masters communicate with living people from the inner planes? If so, how are the living people likely to experience this?

Mills: Yes, I think this is quite possible. One has to be very cautious, however. I know there are individuals who claim to be in touch with the Mahatmas or with high spiritual beings of one kind or another. But I think it's easy to delude oneself that you're in touch with some high spiritual entity when it may be only your own wishful thinking.

It is possible, of course, to be in contact inwardly if one is quiet. I think there are certain ways in which you can determine whether you are receiving an authentic inner message. One very important way is that the communication is completely impersonal. If it is personal, if it plays on your vanity, your ego, your sense of importance, if it makes you feel you've been designated as unique to receive this, beware, because that's building up the personal ego. The Mahatmas do not do that. Their communications are impersonal in that sense.

There are individuals who have been inspired in some way, who report an incident in their lives when they felt a tremendous inspiration, when they were helped. I can only say for myself that in some of my writing and in some of my lecture tours around the world there have been moments when something seemed to inspire me beyond my own knowing. I can vouch for that. I'm not attributing it to one or another of the Mahatmas, because I really don't know. It may be my own higher self coming through, my own interior self or spirit or whatever you want to call it.

But if you're quiet, if you are really seeking understanding, if you're really wanting to know the truths of life, you may have an experience when something seems to break through.

I think that everyone is capable of having that kind of experience. I'm no authority on this, but I do think that one sees it in what results. There's a lot of self-help books out there that claim to be from some divine source. Maybe yes, maybe no. You have to judge it for yourself. You have to judge the experience for yourself. Does it make you feel inflated, important, significant, or did it inspire you to live a better life? I think that is the key question. Am I better for the experience? Do I live a better life? Am I kinder, gentler, more understanding? Ask yourself that question.

Smoley: What can a person today expect to learn from The Mahatma Letters?

Mills: To understand The Mahatma Letters one needs to know a little bit about their background. The majority of them were written to Mr. Sinnett; about his life one can read very easily. Some of them were to his colleague, A. O. Hume.

The letters weren't always dated, and consequently when they came into the possession of Mr. Sinnett's executrix, Maud Hoffman, after Sinnett's death, she turned them over to a man by the name of A. T. Barker for possible publication.

They were in a rather mixed-up condition, many of them not dated, as I said. Barker decided to organize them in accordance with the subject matter, but that wasn't always easy because some letters contained comments on more than one subject. Many of the letters seemed a little bit chatty, perhaps even gossipy. I've had friends say to me that they felt that the Masters seemed very personal at times, very sort of picky about flaws in individuals, very un-Mahatma-like.

The first editions of The Mahatma Letters were therefore arranged according to the way in which Barker had organized them. It didn't always make sense. It was a bit confusing because you would read in one letter something that wasn't explained; the background wasn't explained until a later letter.

Various people tried to develop a chronology of the letters. Several chronologies were published: one by Mary K. Neff, another by Margaret Conger. There were other chronologies, or attempts at them. Finally a colleague of mine, Virginia Hanson, began working with George Linton and others. She looked at the various events referred to as well as doing a tremendous amount of research into the journals of that period, such as The Theosophist. Virginia developed a chronology that is generally considered the most accurate to date. She consulted all the published chronologies as well as others that were supplied to her that had not been published. Comparing them all, she developed a chronology which the majority of the students felt was accurate. That chronology was used in the edition published by the president of the Society in the Philippines, Vicente Hao Chin. Vic, as we know him, used the chronology developed by Virginia.

My work on the letters follows that chronology. I think it makes it much more logical to use the chronological edition because while some of the letters are diffuse and some of the events are hard to follow, in the chronological edition there are explanatory notes about various events that occurred during the period that the letters were being received.

What can a person reading them today expect to learn? You can learn the history of the Society during that amazing period when the Society was establishing its headquarters in India. It mainly concerns the work that was being done in India at that time. So you can read them simply for history.

There are also a great number of passages in them about the life of a pupil, a student, known as a chela, a pupil of one of the Masters, someone who is determined to live the spiritual life and to be of service to humanity. You can learn a great deal about what is involved in becoming a student or a chela, as it was called in those days. We don't speak of chelaship much any more. If you are a student of the teachings, there is a great deal that can be learned about the kind of life that is necessary to be lived in order to come to the state of the Mahatma himself.

One can also learn a great deal about the Theosophical philosophy as it was presented in that period. The letters were received during the period before HPB had written The Secret Doctrine. There are a great number of teachings with regard to the philosophy. So there's much can be learned.

You can also learn a great deal about the Mahatmas themselves, at least about the two who indulged in the correspondence, KH and Morya. For example, you can learn that Morya really didn't like to write letters, whereas KH seemed to enjoy it and wrote at great length.

Smoley: Figures like Morya and Koot Hoomi are now invoked in a wide number of contexts, including, for example, the Church Universal and Triumphant of Elizabeth Clare Prophet. How do you see this use of the Masters? What relation, if any, do they have to the Theosophical figures?

Mills: There are many books out there that claim to have messages or even to have been written by individuals such as Morya and Koot Hoomi and others—Hilarion, St. Germain. Certainly there's been a use and abuse of the Mahatmas' names, often for very selfish ends, to glorify the individual, who feels very unique in having received some special message.

I don't really want to comment on any of these. I think that using the idea of the Masters for selfish purposes is very sad because it leads people astray. Sometimes some of these works are what I call pabulum. I don't think any Mahatma would speak that way. Then that's a judgment that I'm making myself.

I think every individual has to decide for themselves whether the message is inspiring, whether it is helpful. Does it make you a better person, a kinder person, more brotherly, more understanding, more open and generous? Does the message give you some kind of inner peace and understanding? Or does it just make you feel special? You have to judge it for yourself.

So far as I'm concerned, the majority of these so-called channeled messages today have nothing to do with the teachings that were given by the Mahatmas to Mr. Sinnett and Mr. Hume. It's very easy to say, "I received a message from Koot Hoomi and he said, ‘You must learn to be good'." Now that's really nonsense; the Master has more important things to do than telling me to be good.

Judge it by the teaching, not by the source. If there is something that expands on your understanding, that gives a new insight, a new way of interpreting the teaching, if it is a new teaching, then perhaps it comes from a Mahatma. Don't be concerned with the source; be concerned with the teaching. This, I think, is the way in which to judge these various outpourings that are coming through many different individuals.

Smoley: Some contend that the Theosophical Society has passed its prime, with an aging, dwindling membership. How, in your opinion, does this jibe with the esoteric function of the TS as a nucleus for a new world religion? Is the TS succeeding or failing?

Mills: It is true that the membership in the Society right now has unfortunately dipped to a rather low level. I'm not sure it's an aging membership, because we really have no specific figures. Certainly there are some national Sections of the Society where there are a great number of young people and certainly very active young people. I think this is encouraging. And there are some Sections that are actually growing in membership and growing because younger people are coming in at a faster rate than the older people are dying off.

Overall the Society has dwindled mainly, I think, because the ideas that it presented were new and startling over a century ago but are generally accepted today. There's a much wider acceptance of the ideals for which the Society stands. That doesn't mean that the Society doesn't still have a mission to perform or work to do—I think it does—but that's another question.

I don't think it's past its prime. I personally think the Society has a wonderful future. I don't think it will change its teachings, because the teaching is essentially the same in all ages; it is an ageless philosophy, but it may need to change its methods. It may need to be put in a new language and use new techniques, but that's for the Society's officers and administration to determine.

When you speak of its esoteric function, I presume you are referring to a statement in one of the letters in which the Mahatma says that the Society was intended to be the foundation of a future religion of humanity. It's not a new world religion but a future religion of humanity. I think that future religion is the message that is at heart of the work of the Society. It's a message of brotherhood; it's a message of true understanding of each other and of real brotherhood, which alone brings about peace while still permitting every individual to seek the highest in accordance with his own or her own path.

I don't think the Society has failed by any means, but then I am an optimist. I think the Society may be struggling, neither succeeding or failing. It may be struggling to find the best way to get the message out. For example, in regard to this debate that is going on now in New York City over a Muslim center close to the site of the destruction of the World Trade Center: to immediately say that an Islamic center should or shouldn't be there is based on personal prejudice, personal views, personal concerns, not on understanding what Islam is all about or its relation to Christianity and Judaism. These are the three religions of the book, as they're called. Do we really understand how they're interconnected? How can we have brotherhood if we shut our eyes to the paths that may be taken by others who are our brothers?

It's not a new world religion, but it's the future religion of humanity, which is the religion of brotherhood, I suggest. We may struggle to discover how best to present it using modern technology, such as the World Wide Web. But there is an inner web that unites us all, and that is what we have to come to realize.

Smoley: One idea that has fascinated seekers in the West for centuries is that of the secret Brotherhood. Could you give your thoughts on this Brotherhood, whether it exists, and if so, what it is and does?

Mills: Yes I'm convinced there are such Brotherhoods. There may be several so-called secret Brotherhoods. There are the Rosicrucians of the seventeenth-century Rosicrucian manifestos, there is the Masonic order. There are a number of so-called Brotherhoods, secret or at least private; I prefer that word. Yes, they may have secrets by which you recognize them. There may be signs and symbols by which you recognize the members of such a fraternity.

As for me, I do feel there is a Brotherhood of adepts, a Brotherhood of Mahatmas, a fraternity. In their letters they speak of such a Brotherhood. They perform different functions. Not all of them are teachers, as I think KH was preeminently. Certainly Morya took on that role in terms of the letters. But not all of them are teachers. They may be involved in other aspects of service to the world, helping the world, inspiring individuals who are open to their influence.

Yes, there is a Brotherhood of adepts, a Brotherhood of Mahatmas. They themselves speak of it. There are other Brotherhoods, as I say. A Brotherhood of adepts serves to preserve the teachings, the ageless wisdom, keep it alive at inner levels even when it is obscured in the world about us. I think that's one of its functions. It is always alert to any seeker who genuinely desires to be of service to humanity. And so inspires and helps in some way that seeker. They may be involved in healing services.

I think they have various functions within the Brotherhood. Not all of those functions can be named in a sense that we're accustomed to—labeling what people do. Their main purpose is to be of service; to aid the awakening of humanity; to give encouragement to those individuals who are struggling towards deeper understanding, deeper service. I think that's their key word.

Smoley: There is a certain amount of interest in the Esoteric Section of the TS, although there is comparatively little said about it publicly. Could you talk about the ES and its current state and role?

Mills: In 1888, HPB was living in London and published The Secret Doctrine there. Many of the individuals around her pressed her for a way in which they could come together for a deeper study. It was at that time that she established what is today called the Esoteric School of Theosophy, the ES. It has been in existence since HPB's time. It is open to any member of the Society who has been a member for at least two years and follows a certain discipline in one's life. In one sense it is quite independent of the Society, but to belong to it one must be a member of the Society. Its headquarters in the United States are at Krotona in Ojai, California. It is not so much a secret school as a private one. We meet together and study some of the Theosophical books.

It's a body of seekers who meet together on a regular basis and live a certain mode of life that is in harmony with their spiritual aspirations. While I am a member, there is very little I can say about it, but if anyone is interested they can always write to the headquarters of the Esoteric School here in Ojai. There is literature, there are brochures that explain the function. Each member is free to determine if that's the way they wish to go.

by Morry Secrest

Originally printed in the Spring 2011 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Secrest, Morry. " Saving the Fry." Quest  99. 2 (Spring 2011):73.

Some years ago, I took part in a meditation class of more than a dozen folks in the Portland, Oregon , area who worked for eight weeks to learn the basics of meditation. They finished the class, all of them, but they wanted more. They were eager to put their newfound skill to use in the real world by doing something useful.

After some discussion, our group adopted the following assignment: Knowing that the dams along the Columbia River present a significant difficulty to fry (baby salmon) swimming downstream, the group decided to go to one of the dams and meditate so that the devas (nature spirits) of the fish would be encouraged to guide the fry to the fish ladders alongside the dams and avoid going through the huge generator turbines and spillways.

One of our members knew that the greatest danger to the fry traveling downstream was not physical harm, but rather the shock of the fast changes in pressure that develop whenever the fry pass either through the turbine or over the spillway. They are not physically harmed, and will quickly recover and resume their downstream travel. However, the stunned fry tend to float to the surface until they reawaken. During this brief time, they are vulnerable to their major predator, the seagull.

Every dam has a large flock of seagulls congregated on the downstream side of the structure. They swoop down to snag the unconscious fry, which become a meal. A fairly large proportion of fry are lost in this way.

When the fry utilize the fish ladder, however, they suffer no shock and maintain their ability to avoid the predators. It is this which our group determined as its objective.

We all traveled up to the Bonneville Dam, the nearest one to Portland , on a Saturday morning. The weather was warm and sunny, and we all quickly settled into an overlook from which we could see the intake to the fish ladder on the upstream side of the dam. Here we concentrated on communicating with the devas in charge of the salmon fry, encouraging them to lead their charges to the fish ladder intake rather than to the face of the dam itself. After two hours, we all decided among ourselves that the meditation was successful, though without any evidence whatever for corroboration.

Fish passage monitoring is done by means of a large window built into the fish ladder waterway, with the monitor capturing the number and type of fish passing by. Many weeks later, one of our members reported back that he overheard a conversation between two of the folks who reviewed the fish passage activity. (His desk at his workplace was two cubicles away from theirs.) Their conversation revolved around a puzzling event: the number of fry using the fish ladder had increased considerably during the latest reporting period. They had no idea why such an increase should have occurred. The baby salmon were surviving! Our group was elated.

Now even though this little story is true, it is clearly nothing more than a case of synchronicity. It is hardly admissible in a scientific discussion of fish survival tactics. But it is useful for encouraging meditation groups to look for opportunities in their local areas to help Mother Nature and to encourage all concerning the reality and value of using thought power in beneficial ways. It might be possible to include one or more scientifically trained people who could write up the data in such a way that it would be suitable for being published in a scientific journal.

Morry Secrest is a retired engineer. He is a longtime student of Theosophy and teacher of meditation.

by Arlene Gay Levine

Originally printed in the Spring 2011 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Levine, Arlene Gay. " Seasonal Poetry: A Path through the Woods." Quest  99. 2 (Spring 2011):70-71.

To everything there is a season

And a time for every purpose under heaven.

—Ecclesiastes 3:1

Poets are experts at tricking out the unconscious. The patterns of evolutionary spirals and cycles deeper than personal memory are waiting to be tapped. Like the wheel of the year, we are called to move forward, beyond old limiting stories we have lived by, to create new myths closer to our heart's desire. Creating poetry at the seasonal change, whether you are novice or veteran writer, is an ideal vehicle for the transformational journey of Self-discovery.

Our lives are filled with cycles, periods of time that repeat themselves in the same order. Night and day, the days of the week, phases of the moon, the water cycle, and of course the seasons. With each season we associate a process of actions particular to that interval, whether it be on the physical or spiritual plane.

Think of the carefree days of summer, when the sun reaches its zenith: long days and short nights brimming with the energy of outward manifestation. Fall brings a crisp colorful world with the gathering of the harvest and, at the autumnal equinox, a brief balance of yang and yin energies. When the winter solstice approaches, we prepare for inner growth. The earth rests under a blanket of white as we meditate on the dark fertile unknown in ourselves. The sun then moves from Pisces to Aries. Increasing hours of light herald the magnificent burst of growth for a world on the verge of rebirth each spring.

The seasons are seeds waiting to sprout with hidden meaning. Let the approaching season become your focus. Begin to list words and phrases that come to mind in relation to it. Allow thoughts to flow like a rushing creek at spring thaw, gliding over any boulders your mind might create. If you hit an ice block, melt it with the heat of repetitive words, written over and over again until you blast through to a new idea. Do not take your pen off the paper (or fingers off the keyboard), and keep coursing along for at least five minutes.

In this free association blitz, we enter the domain of the right brain. It takes charge by conjuring up images and comparing through metaphor rather than measurement. Here intuition reigns, so a picture is perceived complete with ambiguities and opposites. In this, a true equinox moment, we can explore our own balance, the shadow self as well as our light.

From this glorious bounty, gather the words and phrases that call out for expansion or combination. Now the left brain, recognizing parts and the cause and effect between them, kicks into high gear. Its active style of linear thinking can assess, draw conclusions, and concentrate on what is tangible: it is a trusty editor.

If we put our faith in these two distinct operations, a poem will emerge just as surely as spring follows winter. It need not be any particular form like haiku, that ancient Japanese genre so steeped in traditional categories for seasonal words. In this rigorous approach, a poet's location, as well as the climate and seasonal phase, can be indicated by the turn of a phrase. For example, the word icicles (tsurara) would indicate a late winter poem while pale red leaves (usumomiji) speak of mid-autumn. For our purposes, feel free to accept what comes without expectation or limitation.

As Aristotle suggested, "The universal exists for, and shines through, the particular." By choosing to explore a specific season, we define the content and set the scene. Hopefully, if we have dived deep enough into our rushing creek, another layer of meaning is evoked by the time the poem is finished. The poet discovers a connection with the earth's processes of birth, growth, decline, death, and rebirth. Sensing ourselves as parts of the eternal whole, interrelated in joyous harmony with all that is, we become light bearers for ourselves and our readers.

Arlene Gay Levine, author of Thirty-Nine Ways to Open Your Heart: An Illuminated Meditation (Conari Press), has had poetry appear in many venues, including The New York Times, an off-Broadway show, and on CD. Her article "Father Time's Birthday Party" appeared in Quest, Winter 2010. Finishing Line Press will publish her poetry chapbook Movie Life this June.

The Road

Here is the road: the light

comes and goes then returns again.

Be gentle with your fellow travelers

as they move through the world of stone and stars

whirling with you yet every one alone.

The road waits.

Do not ask questions but when it invites you

to dance at daybreak, say yes.

Each step is the journey; a single note the song.

—Arlene Gay Levine

From Bless the Day: Prayers and Poems to Nurture Your Soul, edited by June Cotner (Kodansha International).

by Jeff Durham

Originally printed in the Spring 2011 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Durham, Jeff. " "Effective Art": Imaginal Worlds, Fohat, and Freedom ." Quest  99. 2 (Spring 2011): 65-68.

Sacred art is a doorway from the manifest world of the senses to the unseen realm of hidden potential. This magical portal works in two directions. From one direction, artists use symbols, texts, and icons to show us the unseen realm of sacred realities. From the other, observers contemplate sacred art to move from ordinary reality into other sorts of worlds—places where the black-and-white distinctions of the linear, rational mind no longer hold true. Here is the "imaginal world," where sacred myths, images, and rites reside, where ideas becomes experience and where representation becomes reality. Under these conditions, sacred art becomes a vehicle for transporting awareness from one type of "world" to another; sacred art then becomes "effective art."

In this paper, I would like to suggest how sacred art can lift us from consensus reality into that imaginal place where facile binary distinctions between is and is-not no longer hold true, reawakening us to the fact that we live in a world mediated by symbols and permeated by metaphor—and perhaps thereby helping us to reclaim our ability to shape the course of experience.

Ambivalence toward Sacred Art

To see how the process works, note first that sacred art both reflects and shapes human experience (Geertz, 93-95). For this reason, it is both powerful and potentially problematic. Accordingly, we often feel a quite natural ambivalence towards sacred art. This has generated a biphasic historical cycle. In the first phase, a given culture celebrates sacred art, which expresses truths beyond words. In the second phase, we forget we have made these symbolic expressions (Berger, 87ff.). Consequently these images can gain an "irrational power" over human awareness, seeming to exist by themselves, independently of human action (Looper, 151). At some point, however, we wake up and recognize that we have mistaken the symbol for the thing symbolized, the map for the territory. Now an antisymbolic reaction ensues. The artistic revolution of Akhenaton in ancient Egypt, the iconoclastic movement in eighth-century Byzantium, and the Protestant Reformation all express the second, reactionary phase of this cycle.

This second phase has become especially important in the past half-century, which has seen a strong reaction against sacred symbolism. It has also witnessed several curious attempts to remove symbol and significance from definitions of fine art. Some thinkers have gone so far as to define art per se by excluding cultural products that might have anything at all to do with metaphysical concepts or practices. On this reading, any art that exhibits evident religious symbolism is not art but religion (Mitchell, 106). As in recent debates between religion and science, here there can be no compromise, no gray area. We find ourselves in a dualistic, digital world of yes or no, black or white, day or night; things either are or are not. Here we are "alienated" in Berger's sense from our true nature as artists of our own experience. Here is bondage—but as we shall see, it is seeming bondage only.

Imaginal Worlds and Fohat 

Ironically, the hard-edged, binding world of absolute truth or falsity is itself an abstraction, even though it pretends to be self-revealing; in that sense it is a kind of illusion. But in an even stranger twist, the land in between truth and falsity, the place that Islamicist Henry Corbin called the "imaginal," may hold the key to establishing some rapprochement between truth and illusion.

The imaginal world is a strange place; in fact, it is not a place at all, for in its ubiquity it cannot be pointed out in space as "here" or "there." In the imaginal realm all ideas, all potentials for manifestation, are held suspended "as if in a mirror" (Corbin, 7). Moreover, the imaginal realm reflects itself microcosmically in the human faculty of active imagination, our primary tool of artistic creativity. This faculty enables us to create sacred art. And such art can precipitate the infinite potential of the imaginal world into form. Conversely, it provides the finite mind with a ladder of symbols by which it may ascend back to the imaginal. Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, this capacity is not abstract. It is inscribed into the very structure of the human organism as the hidden energies of the subtle body, sometimes identified as the Sanskrit prana or the Chinese chi (Freidel and Schele, 210-211). In Theosophical thought, it presents startling parallels to the crucial idea of Fohat.

Like the imaginal, Fohat is the subtle electromagnetic force that binds mind and matter. Yet it is much more than just the life force, for Fohat is also "the link to universal and individual consciousness, where abide the timeless ideas or forms of nature expressed in time" (Ellwood [2009], 21).

But how does this linkage operate? The Stanzas of Dyzan provide the crucial clue, for it is through symbolic means that we can "recover the lost language of the ancients" (Blavatsky, 1:309), in the process recovering our ability to discern and shape the course of experience. The grammar of this language is symbolism, and its power lies in its ability to give the individual access to the universal, the conscious mind access to the imaginal.

Symbolic potential becomes effective art when consciously constructed into a tableau or composite work. Its deeply encoded and interconnected semantic structures can then be recovered, and the imaginal realm accessed—if a person possesses the key to its cipher. Strangely, the key is simply this: the recognition that we are life artists who use active imagination, Fohat, to cocreate our experience.

Literalism versus Effective Art 

We are fundamentally symbol-making beings; everything we know is symbolically mediated. We can try to banish representation from our world, but to make the attempt is of course a fool's errand. We in fact continually use our symbolic capacities to cocreate our world of experience, both at the individual and the collective levels. Thus to maintain that we can directly access the world in the naevely realistic sense is to remain under the spell of what visionary artist William Blake called "Newton's sleep"—materialism, reductionism, utilitarianism, and above all literalism.

Literalism is anathema to sacred art. Sacred art always has the potential to help human beings "reach into realms beyond their normal command" (Thurman, 17) precisely because it rejects all flat literalism. It only becomes "effective," however, when its world becomes coextensive with our experience, waking us up from our perception of a mind-matter world into a perception of the imaginal world.

Effective art can transport us into imaginal worlds because the sacred symbols from which it is composed—the material of which effective art is made—have the capacity of "participating in what they symbolize" (Ellwood [1986], 39). In so doing, sacred symbols can make something that is actually absent virtually present, just as an image of the god Ptah in an ancient Egyptian temple would—under the right conditions—make him virtually present. Conditions are right for entry into imaginal worlds through effective art when reality and representation become indistinguishable from one another (Clottes and Lewis-Williams, 12-17).

Stacking Symbolism on Om

In sacred art that has become "effective," to thoroughly intuit the meaning of a symbol is to access that which it represents, to climb the ladder of symbol from concrete expression back to the imaginal world, and perhaps beyond. One clear example of how the process works comes from South Asian traditions: the sacred syllable aum or om. Understood as that one thing whereby all others are known (Hume, 240), om condenses all other sounds within itself—very important in the sound-made universe of the ancient Vedas. More than this, it encodes several levels of meaning. The three letters that comprise om—A, U, and M—are each represented on the emblem—as is the silence that comes at the end of the sound. These three letters correspond to three states of awareness—waking, sleeping, and dreaming, while the whole syllable corresponds to the fourth state that transcends them (Hume, 391-393). Moreover, the three letters' web of meaning can easily be expanded to correspond to the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva—each of whom in turn symbolically expresses the continual creation, sustenance, and destruction of the universe. And through concentration (samyama) on this syllable and all its resonances—from physical to mythic to cosmic—it becomes possible to maintain awareness in and through all the various states of consciousness it represents, eventually reaching the immortal realm where time does not reach.

Encoding Buddhist Wisdom in Texts 

If individual syllables can encode vast amounts of symbolic information, literature further expands the potential of art to function as a bridge from the explicit to the implicit. In the Buddhist tradition, there is a fundamental wisdom called prajna—the knowledge that what seems solid is in fact empty (shunya) of any essence (svabhava). Mahayana texts called Perfection of Wisdom (prajna-paramita) condense prajna into their pages as a secret. (Cowell, 118)

Prajna texts progressively reduce from a 100,000-line tome into a one-letter teaching—the Sanskrit syllable for "not" (A)—through the elimination of repetition. Similarly, the teaching of the Perfection of Wisdom can be reconstituted from the letter A by adding detail and clarity regarding the nature and realization of negation. At each level of expansion and contraction, however, from the one-letter Perfection of Wisdom, through the Perfections of Wisdom in eight and eighteen thousand lines, and up to the great hundred thousand–line version, the message remains the same: all phenomena are empty (shunya) of inherent existence (svabhava). Accordingly, the Perfection of Wisdom becomes a "narrative fractal": a teaching that exhibits self-similarity at any level of analysis or synthesis, thus becoming an example of what it discusses. And by exploring these carefully constructed microcosms of emptiness, we can envision how shunyata might, contrary to all ordinary appearances, actually pervade our world of experience.

 Entering Virtual Worlds in Three Dimensions

 Sacred literature's ability to metaphorically become our entire experience, a whole world, can take some very concrete forms. Some sacred texts might even be said to "emanate" architectural versions of the symbolic worlds they contain. At Mogao in northwestern China, for example, Buddhists created elaborate caves that mimicked the virtual realms described in the popular Lotus Sutra. These cave shrines are obviously not the "real" worlds discussed in the sutra, but to insist on this would be to miss the point. For these are symbolic worlds whose intent is "the creation of an imaginary topography to situate and immerse the beholder" (Wang, 74). Here we find a symbol complex created to collapse the meditator's experience into the world depicted in the cave. Under these conditions, the cave becomes a means of virtual transportation "into" the world of the Lotus Sutra—a metaphorical space-time vehicle precisely engineered for effective travel into an imaginal realm experienced as fully actual.

Afterlife Maps and Vehicles

The Egyptians were similarly adept at creating three-dimensional effective art. In the Old Kingdom, the pharaoh Unas (whose reign is dated to 4375–4345 bce) built an entire funerary complex intended to function as effective art. To do so, Unas carved the so-called "Pyramid Texts" on the walls of his funerary monument. These hieroglyphic books have a dual function: they both describe the Egyptian afterlife and enable anyone with these texts to travel through it successfully. They occur in specific locations within the pyramid which are themselves symbolically linked to stars that never sink below the horizon and are thus "imperishable" (Stadelmann, 57). A set of rituals activates the metaphorical wormhole between these two locations. And since in Egyptian thought a virtual model of an actuality is not different from the thing it pictures, virtual rituals keep the wormhole eternally open (again metaphorically). Under these conditions, the pyramid is certainly something magnificent, "a book we walk into that encompasses us on all sides" (Naydler, 151), but something more as well: a means of interworld travel enabling the deceased to transcend the earthly and ascend to the undecaying realm of the stars.

Shaping Experience through Art

The ancient Maya possessed a very sophisticated understanding of effective art. For the Maya, all the levels of symbol, from the individual hieroglyph to the text to sculpture to the religious complex as a whole, "had the effect of a magical formula, making the inscribed event happen, regardless of whether it was seen by human eyes" (Looper, 23). That images could work automatically in this way is perhaps the key concept of Mayan sacred art. For the Maya, art was intimately connected with life itself, and this identity was expressed on the linguistic level. The term itz, similar in meaning to the Sanskrit word prana or the Taoist chi, is the life force that carries organisms through time. It is also the subtle substance that all artists manipulate in creating their work. Thus, for the Maya, to create sacred art was to work with the sacred essence of the world in its most concentrated form. This understanding of art as itz is unique and has profound consequences: by creating works of art of any kind, Mayan itz specialists were giving manifest form to the protean potentiality of cosmic itz, thus shaping the flow of experience, fixing and altering it to adapt to present circumstances (Gillette, 27).

Effective Art and Everyday Life

The methods of comparative religion can help us understand how effective art facilitates entry into imaginal worlds. This special kind of understanding may seem abstract, but like a comprehension of Fohat, it can exert powerful phenomenal effects. In particular, it can help us recover our remarkable capacity to shape the course of experience. Indeed, when we clearly see how artistic images both reflect and shape experience, we will never again be deceived by the literalist tendency to assume that we have direct access to unmediated reality. Instead, we will see clearly how all experience is symbolically mediated, and that this same symbolic capacity is our own. The literary critic W. J. T. Mitchell observed in this connection that "if we see how images got power over us, we can re-possess imagination that produced them" (Mitchell, 31). In so doing, we break a metaphorical code whose symbolic elements we can then consciously use to "participate in ultimate reality" (Ellwood, 39)—that realm that defies even the most magnificent artistic figuration, and in which lies our ultimate freedom.

Works Cited

 Berger, Peter. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religions. New York: Doubleday, 1967.

Blavatsky, H. P. The Secret Doctrine. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938.

Clottes, Jean, and Lewis-Williams, David. The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves. New York: Abrams, 1996.

Corbin, Henry. "Mundus Imaginalis or the Imaginary and the Imaginal," Cahiers internationaux de symbolisme 6 (1964).

Cowell, E. B., ed. Buddhist Mahayana Texts. New York: Dover, 1969.

Ellwood, Robert. Theosophy: A Modern Expression of the Wisdom of the Ages. Wheaton: Quest, 1986.

–––. "The Ethics and Sociology of Fohat," Quest 97.1 (2009), 21-25.

Freidel, David, and Schele, Linda. Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path. New York: Morrow, 1993.

Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic, 1973.

Gillette, Douglas. The Shaman's Secret: The Lost Resurrection Teachings of the Ancient Maya. New York: Bantam, 1997.

Hume, Robert. The Thirteen Principal Upanishads. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1921.

Looper, Matt. Lightning Warrior: Maya Art and Kingship at Quirgua. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.

Mitchell, W. J. T. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Naydler, Jeremy. The Shamanic Wisdom of the Pyramid Texts. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2005.

Stadelmann, Rainer. "Royal Tombs from the Age of the Pyramids," in R. Schulz and M. Seidel, eds., Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs. Cologne: Konemann, 1998.

Thurman, Robert. Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet. New York: Abrams, 1996.

Wang, Eugene. Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005.

Jeff Durham is former professor of comparative religion at the University of North Carolina and New York's St. Thomas Aquinas College. He currently directs the Comparative Religion Center and Yoga Sciences Center in San Francisco, lecturing and delivering workshops throughout California. His mission is to unite the wisdom traditions of East and West through the approaches and methods of comparative religion. His new book, Immortality Project: A History of Magical Art and Text, is currently under editorial review.