Quest Magazine

Harry Potter and Maximizing Cyclic Opportunities

Originally printed in the November - December  2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Quinn, William W."Harry Potter and Maximizing Cyclic Opportunities." Quest  90.5 (NOVEMBER - DECEMBER  2002):226-231.

By William W. Quinn

Who is Cassandra Vablatsky, and what is the content of her book, Unfogging the Future? On a purely literary level, Cassandra Vablatsky is the author of the textbook Unfogging the Future used in a course in divination at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, whose best known student is the young wizard in training Harry Potter. But what lies behind this fictional author and her fictional book?

One suspects the title of the book has to do with lifting the veil of Isis but, as these are a fictional character and a fictional work both undeveloped by the real author of the Harry Potter stories, there is no dispositive answer to either part of the question. One may, however, speculate, based on the full context of the four existing works of fiction by J. K. Rowling, which follow the exploits of the gifted young wizard, Harry Potter, and in the third of which we encounter the reference to Vablatsky's book. Within the larger context that contains both the fictional Unfogging the Future and its probable referent, the future to be "unfogged" is not based on any empirical notion of time in a progressive, rectilinear sense, but rather of temporal duration as that occurs in cycles, both microcosmic and macrocosmic as the polar extremes of the principle of periodicity.

It has been asserted by numerous, authoritative expositors of the philosophia perennis, as well as in various prophecies in the West during the last half of the previous millennium, that the world or humanity is fast approaching the end stage of a massive cycle. Since roughly the beginning of the nineteenth century, certain of these metaphysicians began to utilize the growing body of Indic exposition of cycles and duration. This utilization was based on the increased circulation and availability of the Sanskrit texts and their translations in which these matters were treated. So at present, meaningful discourse on these subjects relies in large part on the traditional concept of the yuga and the Sanskrit lexicon of time and duration.

The concept has various subthemes, but as it relates to the cosmogonic duration of our world, a yuga is a system of four ages said to represent kalpa, a process that traces the decline from dharma at the beginning (the krita yuga) to adharma at the end (the kali yuga) or, in other words, a process that traces the disintegration of the human social (and spiritual) order from law to lawlessness and chaos, in which the expression of truth is inverted, and whereby the first shall be last.

At certain junctures in this cyclic process, opportunities present themselves for the increased infusion of light into a darkening world. Often these opportunities are subtle, but for those who are sufficiently sensitive and alert to the signs, the chance to assist in the promulgation of more light is extraordinary. Many people are familiar with the great infusions brought by the renowned light bearers, such as the scriptures revealed by Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad; the written legacy of the Socratic academy in Attic Greece, and the teachings of the Buddha and Lao-tzu, all of which occurred at specific times in our recorded history (assuming one accepts their historicity). In the most recent arc of our present cycle, these events of revelation were all spaced at roughly five-hundred-year intervals, and for those who understood the significance of these infusions at the time, the opportunity to maximize their purpose was exceptional. Such was the role and work of the disciples, arhats, and companions of the great light bearers.

In addition to these greater infusions or revelations, many of which were the genesis of world religions that serve as the bases for traditional cultures, there were (and are) other lesser points of opportunity for the infusion of light into the obscurity of material existence. One such opportunity occurred in New York in 1875, with the founding of the Theosophical Society; another related opportunity occurred several years later in India taking the form of a remarkable correspondence involving a resident British government official and journalist, both events being subsequently described as "experiments" by their originators, who were facilitating (by virtue of their sensitivity and vision) the opportunity then available because appropriate circumstances had coalesced at a point in the cycle. Roughly a hundred years later, another sizeable infusion of light came in the form of the hundreds of thousands of spiritually oriented youths of the 1960s (in contrast to the more numerous political activists and fun seekers), whose music, art, and practice were immediate expressions of certain principles of the primordial tradition, the religio perennis.

Finally, there is today a new and conspicuously overt expression of the esoteric, whose principal characteristic, while related to that of the 1960s, is even greater—because it has unparalleled breadth and scope across the planet. This new opportunity is the receptivity of the newest generation of our new millennium to teaching of a higher order that is related to, but more than, the dramatic occult powers and divination taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and exhibited by young Mr. Potter in both his apprenticeship and his exploits against the malevolent Voldemort.

Though possibly ephemeral, one needs to consider whether the Harry Potter phenomenon may be an "experiment" of the present age—another opportunity for the infusion of light. The substantial difference between this infusion and its predecessors is an enhanced receptivity for more light by literally millions of children and early teenagers in every corner of the planet who have consumed the books of J. K. Rowling (and the films made from them) with virtually unsurpassed thirst and enthusiasm. Yet this experiment, if indeed it is that, is only half completed at this point. As the next logical step in sequential order, the other and more significant half of the experiment would be to bridge the occultism of Harry Potter's world to the sacred science of higher metaphysics.

The current works of Rowling do not, in fact, teach or otherwise convey in any clear terms the higher principles of the philosophia perennis, but one can conclude that was never the objective of the books. The books convey a wonderful and interesting fictional story of the education and maturing of a young wizard who undergoes the tribulations of learning his art at Hogwarts. To the extent that this was the primary objective of the books, the author has achieved an admirable degree of success. But the books also convey other, secondary objectives, whether by the author's design or not, and they are key for the proper assimilation of esoteric knowledge.

Chief among the secondary objectives is an elucidation of the principle of the pairs of opposites—good and evil, light and darkness, selfishness and sacrifice. It may be said that this principle is common and can be found in abundant supply in the world's great myths, folktales, and fairy tales—and that is certainly true. Furthermore, one may point out that, together with ample presence of the magical and fantastic, this principle also inheres in other classics for the young (in body or heart), such as J. R. R. Tolkien's stories The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis's seven-volume Chronicles of Narnia.

However, what distinguishes J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books from these others is the clear, express, and unambiguous notion of the potential for development of the latent powers in human beings—even in Muggles. What is needed for that development is sufficient discipline and determination, set within the context of a nonempirical educational and developmental process that is based on metaphysical laws of nature and the elements. While these latent powers may be on the lower reaches of the vertical axis of higher metaphysical principles and the philosophia perennis, they are nonetheless an integral aspect of that vertical axis.

The understanding or even acceptance of such occult subjects among young readers, by virtue of the author's treatment of them in a sympathetic and gently humorous manner, is nearly always a precondition whose fulfillment may lead to further development along this path. Indeed, it may ultimately lead to understanding the higher suprarational metaphysical principles as a consequence of growth and maturity. In short, Rowling's books illustrate the graphic and undisguised conflict between what is commonly referred to as white magic and black magic, in their own terms. For many, including the world's youth, recognizing this conflict is a necessary realization before undertaking the long and arduous path to liberation from the pairs of opposites. The pairs of opposites are represented by the "outer man" and the "inner man," whose resolution occurs within at the point where these opposites coincide.

One may theorize that Rowling's reference to Cassandra Vablatsky hints at the author's understanding of a need for further and higher education for her readers. That being the case—unless Rowling herself undertakes this higher education in future works, in which she might have the graduate Harry Potter undertake the disciplines and mysteries of meditation and the study of the santana dharma while developing the suprarational faculty of intellection—it may be left to others to seize this opportunity. This, of course, is not to suggest that anyone produce a book under the fraud of a modern pseudepigrapha, but someone intent on maximizing this opportunity may well find a legitimate and suitable bridge to carry these millions of loyal followers of the exploits of Harry Potter to a new and higher metaphysical destination. In particular, associations of people who profess and promulgate the philosophia perennis need to be aware of such opportunities and to maximize them.

The overwhelming success of J. K. Rowling's work, both in print and in film, testifies to the fact that the positive response to her works is enormous, is world-wide, and numbers in the millions of readers and viewers. To state this is not to endorse a purely quantitative standard for the ultimate significance of the Harry Potter phenomenon, for unless the ground prepared by Rowling's books is planted with a commensurably qualitative spiritual influence from the center, and is subsequently nurtured by those willing to cooperate and assist in this endeavor, the phenomenon will have been only an ephemeral entertainment. The possibility of such a planting and nurturing for bringing more light to humanity, and thereby maximizing this cyclic opportunity, should be obvious. A failure to benefit the eager young audience of these books by further education in the first principles of the philosophia perennis that will lead to a higher understanding would be a missed opportunity. Not all such opportunities are taken, however, or even perceived.

For individuals who do perceive them, any effort undertaken toward maximizing these opportunities does nothing less than lend support to the work of certain bodhisattvas and all who actively assist them in their work. For maximizing opportunities inherent in cycles is in large part what that work is, examples being that which was done in 1875 and again nearly 100 years later. Those who undertake and guide this work always remain vigilant for the next such opportunity of the cyclic dynamic to appear and are neither sentimental nor conformist in the expenditure of their energies in taking the fullest advantage of the hour, for they have no energy to waste.

The new and emergent form arising from such an opportunity will invariably seem unlikely and may at first appear bizarre or foolish or trivial, but that is because we are comfortable with what we know and with what is generally acceptable. New seed sprouts and grows in the decay of the old, each on a corresponding and coequal but opposite mission. Where the new sprout promises to generate more light in the obscurity of darkness, in addition to all other consequences, that light will also serve to unfog the future.

William W. Quinn is a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, where he practices law. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1981. His doctoral dissertation, which dealt with the philosophia perennis and its relation to traditional culture, was published as The Only Tradition by SUNY Press in 1997.

The Matrix as the Hero's Journey

Originally printed in the November - December 2003 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Richardson, Chris. "The Matrix as the Hero's Journey." Quest  91.6 (NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2003):220-225.

By Chris Richardson

Theosophical Society - Chris Richardson is in his final year at Shimer College, which he attends on a Kern Scholarship. He serves on the National Board of Directors of the T.S.A. and is the former Coordinator of the Young Theosophists' Movement. This article is adapted from his lecture The Metaphysics of the Matrix given in 2001."The hero's journey" is a phrase coined by Joseph Campbell to describe the underlying monomyth that links stories from every part of the world and every epoch in human history. This story emerges again and again because it is the fundamental human story written in symbolic language, laying out the journey we all must take from ignorance to knowledge. It tells the story of our own growth and development into fully realized individuals. The hero separates from the reality we share, is awakened to greater truths, and then returns to share the knowledge and power gained. The most effective contemporary expression of this archetypal myth is the 1999 film The Matrix, in which Thomas Anderson, aka Neo, is separated from the reality he has always known, awakens to the truth of his existence, masters the power that comes with that knowledge, and then vows to free others. Neo's story is our story writ large. It reminds us, just as mystics from every age have done, that we are all asleep, that we must wake up to the truth, that our work is to help others.

Prior to The Matrix, the major cinematic depiction of the hero's journey was George Lucas's Star Wars trilogy. George Lucas has always been forthright about his debt to the work in which Campbell articulated this essential story, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (indeed, the cover of its newest edition include a picture of Luke Skywalker alongside more ancient images). The Matrix has much in common with Star Wars both in terms of content and the details of their creation. Both created influential new technologies in order to express their vision. On a more substantive level, both films address—with quite different conclusions—the relationship between humanity and technology, and both successfully combine science fiction adventure with palatable dispensations of an underlying mysticism. Most important, however, both successfully dramatize the hero's journey.

To give a quick synopsis of the movie: The Matrix is set in Chicago in 1999. The hero of the story is named Thomas Anderson. By day, Thomas is a programmer for a software company; by night he is a computer hacker known as Neo. Neo is looking for a man called Morpheus. He believes Morpheus can answer the question that haunts him: What is the Matrix? We never discover what inspires Neo to ask such a question, but the question itself is similar to us asking, What is reality?

We soon learn that Morpheus is actually looking for Neo. He contacts Neo and reveals the answer to his question. The year is not 1999, but closer to 2199. The world Neo has always known to be real is actually an advanced form of virtual reality. Morpheus explains to Neo that early in the twenty-first century humanity created artificial intelligence (AI). A war broke out between humanity and its newly independent child. During the war, humans used nuclear weapons hoping that the fallout would blot out the sky and deprive the AI of the solar power it depended upon. The AI, however, discovered it could live off of the energy the human body generated. It began farming humans, functionally reducing them to batteries. In order to keep the human bodies alive, the AI plugged them into a computer program, a massively networked virtual reality. This system is the Matrix. People live out their entire lives inside the Matrix unaware of the truth of their enslavement. Sometime in the past, there was a man who could change the Matrix at will. He used his powers to free others and began a resistance movement. After he died, it was prophesied that he would return and lead humanity in the final battle against the Matrix. Morpheus spent his entire life searching for this reincarnation. He believes Neo is it, the One.

The Matrix has spawned a great deal of discussion among philosophers and religious scholars. The story has many parallels to bibilical scripture while philosophers have seized upon the film's resurrection of long-debated questions concerning the nature of reality, and its treatment of the interplay of humanity and technology. No one, however, has yet explored the film's relevance as a depiction of the hero's journey. This may be because while its philosophical and religious references are obvious and deliberate, its mythic aspect is not. The Matrix, like the diverse myths in which Campbell identified an archetype, becomes a variation of the hero's story incidentally. It is an example of what Campbell calls creative mythology. The hero's journey is essentially the story of our own psychological growth and spiritual unfolding.Campbell sums up the phases of the monomyth as separation - initiation - return:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man (Campbell 30).

The Matrix fits nicely into this schema: Thomas Anderson separates from the everyday reality he has known; as Neo, he is initiated and taught how to bend the reality of the Matrix, eventually defeating the heretofore unbeatable agents—those trying to keep people "plugged" into the Matrix—and he returns to the world to show the rest of humanity a world "without rules and boundaries." In this way, Thomas Anderson/Neo is not only the new Luke Skywalker; he is messianic, a modern bodhisattva.

The Matrix shares with Star Wars and other myths not only this infrastructure but many of the specific steps of the hero's journey. Each of the phases of separation, initiation, and return has several stages and facets.

The journey begins with the call to adventure, the separation from the ordinary world of the hero's life. At the beginning of The Matrix, we find the main character asleep at a computer that is doing an automatic search for information on Morpheus. Suddenly the monitor goes black, and in green letters—the color is a recurrent motif of The Matrix—a message appears: "Wake up, Neo. . ." In two simple words, the filmmakers align themselves with a long tradition that sees spiritual awakening as an awakening from sleep and dreams. (The film ends with a song by Rage Against the Machine, a band name consistent with the message of the film, in which the singer screams again and again, "Wake up!") Neo does awaken, perplexed at the source of this message, which continues: "The Matrix has you." We share in Neo's confusion. The words on the screen then instruct Neo to "Follow the white rabbit," an allusion to Alice in Wonderland and Neo's impending descent into strange adventure. Finally, "Knock, knock, Neo," and the screen goes black again. Immediately there is a knock on his door, deepening both Neo's and the audience's curiosity. At the door is a group of people who have come to Neo's apartment to buy illegal software. Two of the people are named Choi and Dujour—in other words, "choice of the day" —Neo's choice of the day. Choi invites Neo out with him; Neo at first defers but then sees a tattoo on Dujour's shoulder: a white rabbit. Neo makes his choice and follows the white rabbit; he accepts the call to adventure.

Next Neo meets Trinity, who will serve as the Divine Feminine, his complement. This is an important part of the hero's journey. In order to become a complete being, Neo must come into contact with his feminine side, his anima. Myths recognize, in symbolic fashion, that our essential nature is androgynous, that in our lifetime we must learn to balance the dual energies within us. As Neo's complement, Trinity knows he is searching for Morpheus, she knows that Neo is seeking an answer to the question that drives him: What is the Matrix? The audience has only a moment to ponder the meaning of the question before the next scene begins. Neo, as Thomas Anderson, is late again to his cubicle job. His boss tells him, "You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe you are special, that the rules do not apply to you." Neo's journey will be to that very realization—that he is special, that in fact the rules don't apply to him.

The boss represents another significant step in the hero's journey, approaching the guardians of the threshold. At the beginning of any adventure the hero encounters obstacles along the way. These guardians are both the inner doubts that halt the hero's progress over the threshold into adventure and the external factors that would do the same. In The Matrix, the most significant guardians are ‘agents', white men dressed in black suits and dark glasses. Drawn from a tradition of conspiracy theories regarding such "men in black," these guardians are named simply Agent Smith, Agent Brown, and Agent Jones, their sponsoring agency yet unknown. As is later said of them, "They guard all the doors, hold all the keys." They come for Thomas Anderson and detain him for questioning. The agents aren't truly after Neo but rather want to use him to get to Morpheus. These guardians of the threshold are a test for the hero, a hint of the risks to come if the adventurer accepts their call. Neo passes the test by refusing to aid them.

Neo's separation from normal reality is made complete soon thereafter. He is brought to see Morpheus. Morpheus begins to answer Neo's question, "What is the Matrix?" The response is cryptic, and Morpheus finally tells Neo that he cannot be told what the Matrix is but must see it with his own eyes. The film then takes a shocking twist. After making one last irrevocable choice, to "see how deep the rabbit hole goes," Neo suddenly wakes up in a pod of amniotic goop, his body hooked up to numerous wires and tubes. He is in a seemingly infinite field of similar pods. A gigantic robotic spider grabs Neo and disconnects him before he is flushed out of the pod into a sewer. He effectively undergoes a birth process—not a re-birth since, as we soon find out, he was never really born the first time.

As his body recovers from its new infancy, Neo is informed of the truth of his existence. This is the beginning of Neo's initiation. Adventures often bring heroes into threatening surroundings—deep waters, jungles, and deserts, since they are symbolic of the human unconscious, are all common settings for the trials the hero must face. Morpheus welcomes Neo into "the desert of the real." The reality Neo has always perceived is actually an advanced form of virtual reality. He is a slave, part of a vast interneural network known as the Matrix, a word that echoes the Sanskrit word maya, the world as illusion. Neo's response marks another stage in the hero's journey, refusal of the call. Neo's refusal is particularly visceral. He begs Morpheus to stop, saying to himself over and over, "I don't believe it" before throwing up and passing out. Of course, the refusal is just a stage, a natural reaction to the enormity of the world or the task into which the hero is initiated. As Neo recovers, he accepts the truth and his new role.

Next in the journey comes the wise and helpful guide and the supernatural aid or magic talisman that the guide gives to the hero. In Star Wars, after Luke is called to adventure by the arrival of the droids with their urgent message, Obi-wan Kenobi, "Old Ben," is introduced as the wise and helpful guide. The light saber he gives to Luke serves as the magic talisman; his introduction to the power of "the force" is the supernatural aid. In The Matrix the guide is Morpheus. The supernatural aid is Morpheus's awakening of Neo's innate ability to manipulate the Matrix at will; the magic talisman is nothing but Neo's own mind.

Once in the initiation phase of the journey, the hero must undergo a series of trials. For Neo, those trials take place inside the Construct, a virtual reality training room similar to the Matrix itself. While "plugged in", Neo can have information downloaded directly into his brain. Even though Neo has extraordinary ability to absorb and apply the information, as demonstrated by his immediate grasp of kung-fu, he still struggles to free his mind from the constraints he has always known, showing both his potential and his present limitations.

During the journey the hero often attains mystical insight. Neo's insight is the same as many other great mystics: This world is an illusion, a playground where reality is shaped by our minds. This insight can lead to the development of spectacular powers, just as siddhis can occur through the practice of yoga. At one point, Neo meets a young boy who is bending spoons a la Uri Geller. He says to Neo, "Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth . . . There is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends. It is only yourself." Some critics have dismissed dialogues like this as pseudo-philosophical platitudes, but what few realize is that this scene paraphrases a well-known and important Zen teaching. Hui Neng, the sixth patriarch of Zen and one of the tradition's most important figures, had to go into hiding after his ordination as patriarch. He resurfaced by settling an argument between two monks. While gathered at a Dharma talk, the two monks noticed a banner moving in the wind. One claimed it was the banner that was moving, the other the wind. Hui Neng corrected them: It was their minds that were moving. The Matrix never needlessly employs Zen-like aphorisms; rather, Zen-like realizations are at the heart of the film.

The Matrix set new standards for movie spectacle, yet its most compelling scene consists of a simple conversation between Neo and a woman known as the Oracle. It would take a whole essay to detail the significance of the names, numbers, colors, and literary references that abound in the film, but the Oracle scene is particularly rich in allusion and symbolism. The oracle at Delphi was the most famous of all issuers of prophecy in the ancient world. Priestesses of the god Apollo sat on tripods above a pit of vapors that when inhaled put them into an ecstatic trance from which prophecies issued. As Neo enters the Oracle's chamber, she is sitting on a stool, leaning over the stove, inhaling the smell of baking cookies. Just as at Delphi, the Oracle has a sign above her chamber that says "Know Thyself." Even the color scheme of the scene corresponds to Michelangelo's portrayal of the Delphic oracle on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Most important, however, the prophecies of both oracles need interpretation.

Neo has come to see the Oracle to find out whether or not he is, as Morpheus believes and his name anagrammatically implies, the One. All of the film's subsequent development hinges upon her statements. She allows Neo to believe he is not, but it is exactly this belief that will lead to his realization that he is in fact the One. Essentially, he can't be told he is the One; he must discover it for himself. In order to discover it, he must sacrifice himself. He will have to choose between his life and Morpheus's.

Neo's choice is contrasted with that of the character Cypher, who embodies two other stages of the hero's journey, sacrifice and betrayal, and losing the guide. Luke Skywalker loses Obi-wan in the first of the Star Wars films and through Lando's betrayal loses Han Solo in the second. In The Matrix, Cypher betrays the crew to turn in Morpheus. Cypher regrets his original decision to leave the Matrix, the world of illusion, and makes a deal in order to return to it. In the scene of his betrayal, he savors the tastes of steak and wine, emblematic of his attachment to the senses and to the material world. Despite Cypher's villification, his choice raises a serious question: Why choose a painful reality over a pleasant illusion? For Neo, the illusion is like a "splinter in the mind." He is unwilling to go back; more importantly, he is willing to give up his own life so that others may also know freedom.

This sacrifice, self-annihilation, is an essential aspect of the hero's journey. Heroes must descend into death to attain the ultimate boon with which they return to humanity. The Matrix, as modern myth, succeeds because the audience recognizes the truth and value of the boon Neo attains. As always, it is self-knowledge—the knowledge that we are more than the rules and boundaries that govern material existence; that we are of a more divine origin than is apparent. The Matrix affirms this ancient truth in the face of modern questions. Technology is bending the limits of reality and identity, potentially ensnaring us in a web in which we are each mere nodes of information. The self-knowledge that Neo gains requires a sacrifice of the lower self. It is the lower self that, while in control, enslaves the whole self in a world of dreams and sleep. The lower self seeks to continue its existence and doubts the existence of the higher self, which is the true link to the eternal. It is only when Neo risks his own life to save Morpheus that he begins to awaken to his true nature. It is only after Neo actually dies that he fully becomes the One.

The final aspect of the hero's journey is the return. After his separation from the world of the Matrix and his initiation into truth, Neo, like all great heroes, like the bodhisattva eschewing nirvana for others' liberation, returns to the world. The film ends with Neo sending a message to the Matrix: He is going to show people a world without rules and boundaries, a world without the Matrix. The message for us is simple. We live in a world controlled by rules and boundaries. We can easily become lifeless slaves of the system, or we can realize that that system is not the ultimate reality, that we are more. With that realization comes power and freedom. And we are not free until we are all free. This is the message of virtually every enlightened soul who has graced this earth.

A myth, however, becomes important to a culture when it adapts that message to the times and brings new insight. Almost all responses to the rise of technology have been reactionary, romanticizing the natural world. As just one example, the Star Wars trilogy ends with the complete destruction of the Empire and with the main characters in a forest with woodland creatures, engaged in organic and primitive celebration. The Matrix implicitly recognizes that technology is not to be feared but recognized as a potential tool for transformation. The original script of The Matrix ends with this speech by Neo:

You won't have to search for me anymore. I'm done running. Done hiding. Whether I am done fighting I suppose is up to you. I believe deep down that we both want this world to change. I believe that the Matrix can remain our cage or it can become our chrysalis. That is what you helped me to understand. That to be free, truly free, you cannot change your cage. You have to change yourself. When I used to look at this world, all I could see were the edges, its boundaries, its rules and controls, its leaders and laws. But now, I see another world. A different world where all things are possible. A world of hope, a world of peace.

We are each the hero of our journey. This world is the chrysalis for our spirit. When we realize this, all things are possible, even a world of hope and peace.

ReferencesCampbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,1968.

Chris Richardson is in his final year at Shimer College, which he attends on a Kern Scholarship. He serves on the National Board of Directors of the T.S.A. and is the former Coordinator of the Young Theosophists' Movement. This article is adapted from his lecture The Metaphysics of the Matrix given in 2001.

This is Still It: EST, Thirty Years Later

By Eliezer Sobel

Originally printed in the MAY-JUNE 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Sobel, Eliezer. "This is Still It: EST, Thirty Years Later." Quest  94.3 (MAY-JUNE 2006):103-107.

Werner Erhard was the infamous and controversial founder of the est training, the original, two-weekend crash course in consciousness, popular during the 1970s, that became the prototype and inspiration for many human potential workshops that continue to this day. Depending on who you speak to, you might hear that Erhard was either a brilliant and beneficent humanitarian who could do no wrong-I was more or less in this camp-or a power-hungry megalomaniac who demanded fierce personal loyalty from his staff while raking in oodles of cash at the expense of naïve seekers looking for a quick fix.

Numerous books and articles over the years have presented convincing evidence on both sides of the argument and resolving it is beyond the scope of this piece. I will, however, examine some of the dynamics of Erhard's leadership that impacted me personally, and ruminate on several ideas that continue to reverberate within me some three decades later. For a general overview of the est training, please see my article "This is It: est, Twenty Years Later" (Quest, Summer 1998).

Being At Cause

At the end of the first weekend of the est training, we were sent home with an inquiry to ponder until the following weekend: Who would be wrong if your life got better? The answer, for me, was plain: I would. I would be wrong about everyone and everything I had ever blamed for my unhappiness. This was perhaps the most fundamental principle I learned at est. I am not the victim of my circumstances in life, and that which I seek will not be found by manipulating those circumstances.

A more satisfying life is not dependent upon my finding a different relationship, a better job, a new location, or more money, physical healing, or anything in the domain of what Werner called, "more, better and different". Instead he preached that at any time and in any situation, no matter what the circumstances, you have the ability to transform the quality of your life.

I received this particular teaching from the horse's mouth, while interviewing Werner in 1978. He stated it quite unequivocally and forcefully: "Listen, until you get that nothing is going to do it for you, that there isn't anything that's going to come along and make you happy, you are unprepared to get at where the truth is "The truth is always and only found now, in the circumstances you've got." The existential fact, now and always, is that this is it. The concomitant is also true: "All suffering" Werner said, "is a function of this isn't it."

The life we want is not waiting for us "out there" in a different set of circumstances, because if and when we arrive there, we will only find another set of circumstances seductively beckoning, always keeping the life we want just out of reach, with the whole cycle fueled by our obstinate insistence that this isn't it. Instead, est revealed that rather than persisting in futile attempts to wring satisfaction out of life, it is possible to bring a sense of satisfaction, completion, and wholeness into life, exactly as it is, no matter what the circumstances. As one of est's maxims put it: You don't have to go looking for love, when love is where you come from.

The fruition of one's quest for authenticity, wholeness, and enlightenment, est insisted, did not require lightning flashes, bells and whistles, or the sudden appearance of a choir of angels. It simply required a slight shift in position, "getting off of" whatever point of view one was grimly attached to, and usually "being right" about. So, if I felt any person or situation was the cause of my unhappiness, it was possible for me to relinquish that point of view, even if I was right; even if someone did do whatever it was I believed they did to me. Regardless of the circumstances, I could let go of being right about my position and point of view. Instead, I could choose to be "at cause" in the matter, rather than "at the effect of," and thus be fully responsible, moment to moment, for the quality of my experience of living.

This idea was often stretched by est graduates into the overused pop-psychology phrase, "I create my own reality." This, in turn, rapidly devolved into a realm of magical thinking in which one could be stricken with what former est-trainer Stewart Emery once called the Super Source Syndrome. Emery summarized it as this, "est participants used to come up to me after the training, shouting 'I am God, I am God!' and I would say, 'Wonderful, here's a loaf of bread and a fish, now go feed the hungry masses.'"

As empowering as the est philosophy could be, I also discovered over time that it instilled in me the potentially damaging notion that if I was not saving the world and being a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King-or a Werner Erhard — I was not truly living. With the bar placed so high, who among us would not constantly fall short? The trainers' repeated, impassioned exhortation that "who you are, matters and what you do makes a difference" could inspire greatness or paralysis, and I experienced both extremes over the years. There tended to be a built-in shame response when one's life was not working, for after all, as "cause in the matter," one was personally and completely responsible. One started to feel ashamed that life anywhere was not working, that one was personally responsible for the whole world not working, for not having ended war, poverty, and starvation on the planet. It was a bit much to take on, but Werner did, or tried to, and we had internalized his vision. 

What Is, Is

Apart from being an acronym for "Erhard Seminar Training," the word "est" is also Latin for "it is," and if the training was ultimately about one thing, it was about what is. It was about cultivating the Zen-like ability to be with and align oneself with the way things are. It was about allowing life to be exactly as it is-and as it isn't-and likewise allowing oneself and other people to be exactly who they are-and aren't. As noted author Byron Katie has put in her book Loving What Is, by adopting such an attitude we stop having an argument with reality.

One profound benefit of allowing others to be as they are — to grant them to be — is to realize that underneath all the emotional baggage we carry, beneath all our hurts and resentments, there lives a fundamental quality of unconditional love. It became crystal clear to me during the est training that at the core, people love each other when given half a chance. Love is what is waiting to emerge when we release everything that is in the way of love. (I remember one woman protested, "But my father never told me he loved me," and Werner responded, "Your father loved you, and the way he expressed it was by never telling you.")

For me, the most astounding personal example of such ubiquitous love came at the end of the training, as I stood in front of my 250 fellow-participants — complete strangers only one weekend before — announcing that I needed a place to live and would be happy to live with anyone in the room! This coming from someone who, until that time, could count on one hand the number of people on the planet with whom I would choose to cohabit. Although I was experiencing a temporary euphoria of love and connection that would fade soon enough, it nevertheless revealed to me a space of possibility; a way of being in the world, to which I would forever after aspire.

The Voice in My Head

Perhaps the most important teaching from the est training that has stayed with me these thirty years concerns my very identity. Simply put, that chattering voice living inside my head, calling itself "I" and "me," constantly narrating the story of my life, is not who I really am. Rather, the training revealed it as nothing more than an automatic and mechanistic thinking machine that sometimes has great ideas, but more often simply perpetuates a grim, problem-riddled interpretation of life, and is thoroughly ill-qualified to be in charge of me and my decisions.

One est trainer, Ron Bynum, told the story of his first wedding. While standing at the altar, about to say "I do," he heard himself thinking, "You're making a huge mistake." The words haunted him and the marriage didn't last. Several years later, following his own transformation — the transformation of his relationship with his own mind — he remarried, and as he stood at the altar, he again heard the voice say, "You're making a big mistake." This time, he simply replied internally, "Thank you for sharing" and moved confidently forward into a happy marriage.

The voice had not changed or gone away, but his relationship to it had fundamentally altered. The trainers likened this to trying to drive a car by holding onto the rear-view mirror instead of the steering wheel, resulting in our continuously crashing into things. Shifting dominion over our lives from the predictable, machine-like chattering mind, back to an authentic spacious self is to get our hands back on the steering wheel. We begin to have an intimation of this self as the context in which the content of our previous identities and ongoing life-stories appeared. We begin to see this "I" as an object within our consciousness, rather than as the sole ruling subject. It is this singular shift that launches us onto the spiritual path (as the est training actually did for thousands of people), calling into question and illuminating the fundamental nature of the very "I" which has been posing as us.

Alas, ninety-nine percent of spiritual aspirants who experience such an awakening will inevitably fall back asleep and seemingly lose, or somehow forget, what had seemed suddenly obvious, true, and liberating. Akin to spiritual amnesia, it is like finally getting the cosmic punch line, but later being unable to remember the joke. Erhard used to say it was as if a person was already in Baltimore but didn't know it, and was trying to get to Baltimore. Any move in any direction would only take the person further away from Baltimore.

I felt desperate to get back to Baltimore. For the next three decades I would try everything to get "it" back, for having once tasted the freedom of such a realization, even for a moment, one can never again get a truly good night's sleep. It is as if an irresistible urge or perpetual restlessness of the soul has been set in motion to retrieve what has been lost, through any means possible.

Thus began the endless cycle I have been caught in since, of retreats, workshops, meditation techniques, and other consciousness-altering methods, including psychedelic drugs, all manner of bodywork, New Age psychics, healers and shamans, immersion in religious traditions, and so on. Werner once said that people will do anything and give up anything to get enlightened, except the one thing required, which almost no one will give up: People will not give up that they are not enlightened!

This was certainly true in my case. Somehow, I found continuing the great search far more entertaining and less demanding than living the already-enlightened life of contribution. For in fact, est did provide many of us a visit to the inner temple of the true self, yet most of us later felt tossed back out on our butts, with the unspoken admonition to clean up our acts before we could come back. 

The Path of Service

What is the best way to regain admission to that inner chamber? Near the end of our second est weekend, our trainer quoted a passage from the Ramayana, in which Hanuman (the embodiment of selfless service to God) says to Ram (God): "When I don't know who I am, I serve You; when I know who I am, I am You." The verse is a reminder that one age-old method of moving from there to here — from sleeping to waking, from the ego-mind to self — is through selfless service; a path that tends to take one's attention off the relentless pursuits of the personal ego.

The est teachings took this idea a step further, pointing out that the highest form of service was to serve one who serves. While presumably this might refer to any number of possible servers, it was obvious to us that Werner himself was such a one, and opportunities for volunteering our time to serve his cause were abundantly available. To nail this point at the conclusion of the sixty-hour seminar, trainer Randy MacNamara's last words to us were, "There are now at least three people alive on the planet who know who you are, you know who you are, I know who you are, and Werner knows who you are."

Sitting in an expanded state of newly awakened consciousness, one tends to be vulnerable to suggestion, much as ducklings can be imprinted at a critical point in their development. In that moment, my heightened experience of self was inextricably linked to Werner, and I had the uncanny (perhaps naïve?) sense that Werner himself really was the source of my spiritual awakening, and I felt a deep kinship and gratitude toward this man I had never met.

But this idea of Werner as a source, coupled with the notion that one must serve one who serves, set in motion a potentially cultish commitment among us to serve Werner, believing it to be both our best shot at personally progressing towards the grand spiritual prize, as well as being a truly benign way to forward the noble cause of transforming the entire planet, one est graduate at a time, until we had a world that works for everyone, with nobody and nothing left out. It was a very heady adventure. 

Surrender

In the arena of master-disciple relationships, and our relationship to Werner was no exception, there is a long tradition of the disciple's decision to give up all personal rights and to serve the master and to do what one is told, no matter how unreasonable. In fact, it is precisely the unreasonable demands that most quickly elicit our protestations and resistance, and thus present us with opportunities to "get off it" and be released from the stranglehold of our own addiction to being right and doing it our way.

I once assisted at an advanced est course called the Six Day, that involved volunteering twenty hours a day for nine consecutive days. If there was a marine boot camp of the human potential movement, this was it. The conclusion of the Six-Day included the dismantling of an outdoor ropes course by the assistants, who had to haul the heavy equipment down a fairly steep mountain trail. One roundtrip took an hour and the task required three roundtrips apiece. Collapsing sleep-deprived and exhausted at the foot of the mountain following my third trip, I was informed that there was one more load that needed to be brought down.

That was the moment I truly grasped what working for Werner Erhard was about: just when you've reached utter and total exhaustion and believe you've reached your absolute limit and can do no more, you're literally asked to run up a mountain. (Which is a good experience to have once!)

Yet from the outside, this can look like madness and manipulation. A classic example of surrender from the Tibetan tradition, describes Marpa ordering his student Milarepa to build a house, stone by back-breaking stone, and upon completing it, commanding him to tear it down and rebuild it in another location. This cycle repeats itself until Milarepa is completely spent.

Imagine the headlines if this scenario were played out in today's world: "Innocent Youth Enslaved to Power-Crazed Tibetan Cult Leader!"

I joined countless others, thrilled with the benefits we received from Werner's training, understanding the personal advantage to be gained through engaging in the practice of service. We joyfully volunteered millions of collective hours of free labor in support of Werner's mission, which was to spread the possibility of transformation far and wide, through sharing the training with others.

Was this an elaborate, abusive scheme to feed more money and power back to the source, or a legitimate avenue of spiritual development? Or was it both? How was one to judge? Could one gain the enlightening benefits of selfless service through serving a person or system revealed in the end to be possibly corrupt? Recalling the old teaching adage that, "it is the purity of the disciple that determines the outcome," I would say yes.

In the end for me, it was not about the teacher, but the teaching, and the teaching was sound: The passionate, full life we yearn for is not waiting for us somewhere, someday, in the future. In the very moment we truly relinquish waiting — for anything — we awaken to the extraordinary beauty and mystery of this: our life as it always already is.

Seen through eyes unclouded by our insistence that "this isn't it," we can stop arguing with reality. Through one judo-like step to the side, we can cease being "at the effect of" life by acknowledging we are "cause in the matter," completely responsible for how we experience living, based on the choices we make and our ability and willingness to "get off it," and get on with it. Thirty years later, this is still it.

Eliezer Sobel is the author of the recent novel, Minyan: Ten Jewish Men in a World That is Heartbroken, winner of the Peter Taylor Prize for the novel, as well as Wild Heart Dancing. See www.eliezersobel.com .

HPB and Her Letters--The Formative Period

Originally printed in the May - June 2004 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Algeo, John. "HPB and Her Letters--The Formative Period." Quest  92.3 (MAY-JUNE 2004):96-101

By John Algeo

Theosophical Society - John Algeo was a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Georgia. He was a Theosophist and a Freemason He was the Vice President of the Theosophical Society Adyar.

H. P. Blavatsky was a prolific writer. In addition to her two major works, Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, of two volumes each, and her shorter books, The Key to Theosophy and The Voice of the Silence, her periodical publications and miscellaneous writings in English and French fill fourteen volumes, which do not include her Russian works, yet untranslated into English except From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan and "The Durbar at Lahore." There are also the transcriptions of her remarks in The Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge. The quantity of HPB's publications is phenomenal, especially considering the fact that most of them were produced during the last few years of her life, when she was chronically ill.

But in addition to her public writings, intended for publication, there is a mass of private writing—her correspondence with a great variety of people: her family in Russia, as well as friends and acquaintances in America, Europe, and India—scientists and spiritualists, journalists and generals, professors and preachers. Her correspondents included a distinguished Russian philosopher, Alexander Aksakoff; an American general, Francis Lippitt; a professor at Cornell University, Hiram Corson; a scholar of Platonism, Alexander Wilder; a British naturalist who anticipated Darwin in formulating the theory of natural selection, Alfred Wallace; and the inventor of the electric lightbulb, the phonograph, and other technologies, Thomas Edison. She wrote her letters in three languages: English, French, and Russian (and sometimes in a mixture of the three). Much of that correspondence—probably most of it—no longer exists, having been destroyed or lost. But what does remain gives a direct and intimate view into the mind and heart of the "Old Lady," as her intimates used to refer to her.

Even of the surviving correspondence, much no longer exists in autograph, that is, in its original form in her handwriting, but rather only in copies made by others or in published forms, the originals having long since disappeared. Many of the copied or published letters are clearly inaccurate, having been altered by the copyist or editor, sometimes accidentally and sometimes deliberately to make some point. The nonautograph letters are obviously of lesser authority and reliability, but when they are all that survive, one must, for lack of anything better, accept them as evidence, albeit flawed, of what HPB wrote. When there is no surviving original but several copies made at various times by different persons, those copies often differ from one another, sometimes only in minor details, but sometimes extensively in content.

A complete collection of Blavatsky's correspondence was begun by Boris de Zirkoff, her second cousin once removed, but he died before completing the collection or publishing any of it. De Zirkoff left his library, papers, and unfinished work to the Theosophical Society in America, where it is now archived. His manuscript collection of her letters comprises several large volumes. The American Society first arranged for John Cooper, an Australian interested in Theosophical history, to take on the task of completing the collection and editing of HPB's correspondence for publication by the Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton. Cooper also planned to use an edition of the early letters for his doctoral thesis at Sydney University. However, Cooper died suddenly, with the projected first volume of the letters only in preliminary form and unedited professionally.

To complete the work, I assumed the editorship, with the assistance of my wife, Adele, and an advisory committee consisting of Daniel Caldwell, Dara Ekund, Robert Ellwood, Joy Mills, and Nicholas Weeks. We soon discovered that the texts of many of the letters were inaccurate, and we concluded that a reader would need fuller notes and explanations to understand the letters in their historical context. It became clear that more editorial apparatus was called for and that the text of every letter would have to be verified by comparing the copy we had with the original or with the best existing version. As HPB wrote to people all over the world, her letters are now deposited all over the world. Thus getting to see the prime versions, in order to ensure the accuracy of the texts to be published in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky, entailed a pilgrimage around the globe. To give an idea of the vastness of the hunt, I will mention some of the places one must look to find the Old Lady's letters.

The Adyar Archives are the richest depository of HPB's correspondence. In addition to whatever correspondence has been there from the days of HPB's residence in Adyar, Annie Besant and others gathered as many of her letters as they could find and deposited them for safekeeping at the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society. But many of those letters are now in poor condition from the ravages of the years. Every effort is now being made to preserve them properly, but earlier damage cannot be undone.

Adele and I have spent long hours pondering the distinctive, but sometimes difficult to read, handwriting that we came to recognize as HPB's. We worked together, puzzling out whether a particular squiggle was an s or an a or just a squiggle. Deciphering HPB's script is a little like working a crossword puzzle: You go at a particular piece of it for a couple of hours, then put it aside and do something else for a while. When you return hours or days later, sometimes the mysteries solve themselves, and you immediately recognize what the message says. At other times, however, the puzzle remains a mystery, and you can only make an educated guess at the intention. But the work is fascinating, and when you finally succeed in making sense of an orthographical puzzle, you feel as though you have passed an initiation into the esoteric mysteries of HPB.

A number of other archives also contain letters or copies of letters by HPB. They include those of the Theosophical Society in America at Wheaton, Illinois; the Theosophical Society with international headquarters at Pasadena, California; the British Library; the College of Psychic Studies in London; the Thomas Edison National Historic Site in West Orange, New Jersey; the Grand Lodge of Freemasons at Freemason's Hall in London; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles; the Kroch Library of Cornell University in Itahaca, New York; the Society for Psychical Research in the Cambridge University Library; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the India Office Library (containing correspondence of the Political and Secret Foreign Service Office) in the British Library; and the private HPB Library in Toronto.

Some of HPB's letters now survive only in published form in early magazines and newspapers. These publications, some of which still appear and some not, are diverse. They include general periodicals like the Calcutta Review, Ceylon Times, Hindu, New York Daily Graphic, New York Sun, New York World, and Times of India. Others are Theosophical journals like the Path (of London), Path (of New York), Theosophical Forum, Theosophical Nuggets, Theosophical Quarterly, Theosophic Isis, Theosophist, and Word. Others include specialized periodicals like Banner of Light, Carrier Dove, Harbinger of Light, Human Nature, Link, Madras Christian College Magazine, Medium and Daybreak, Rebus, and Spiritual Scientist.

Other letters survive only by quotation in whole or part in books. Such books include Contribution la Histoire de la Société Théosophique en France by Charles Blech, Modern World Movements by Jirah Dewey Buck, Life and Teachings of Swami Dayanand by Vishwa Prakash, Life of Dayanand Saraswati by Har Bilas Sarda, The Theosophical Society, Its Objects and Creed by Arthur Theophilius, and Madame Blavatsky by K. F. Vania.

The hunt for HPB's correspondence is a quest, and, like all quests, it is never completely finished, for there always remains the yet undiscovered letter somewhere over the horizon. As recently as 2002, a letter written by HPB in 1889 turned up in a minute book of the Bradford Lodge in England, and there are doubtless others waiting to be found elsewhere. But the collecting of her letters is not just a pastime or an antiquarian activity. HPB's personal letters are of interest for what they show about her many-faceted personality, about her inner experiences, about her ideas as they were forming, about her view of her own mission, about the way the Theosophical Society came into existence and developed over the years, and about us as readers as we respond to those letters.

The letters in volume 1 of the Collected Writings edition of H. P. Blavatsky's correspondence include all known surviving letters written before she and Colonel Olcott arrived in Bombay in 1879 to transfer the center of Theosophical activity from America to India. To get some sense of what those letters are like, I will quote from a few of them to show the range of her correspondence.

The first letter by HPB for which we have evidence is undated but was written to her relatives probably about 1863, when she was just a little over thirty years old. She had been traveling widely in Caucasian Georgia, especially in mountainous and wild country, and she apparently studied there with native magicians called kudyani, as a result of which she became known for the healing and parapsychological powers she was developing. During this time, she had a shamanic-like experience, in which she led a "double life." She was fasting, had a light fever, and would enter into a kind of meditative state, in which (as she later commented) she nevertheless "understood all, for I was never delirious." She describes the state in this letter to her relatives:

Whenever I was called by name, I opened my eyes upon hearing it and was myself, in every particular. As soon as I was left alone, I relapsed into my usual, half dreamy condition and became somebody else. . . . In cases when I was interrupted during a conversation in the latter capacity—say, at half a sentence spoken by either me or some of my visitors—invisible of course to any other, for it was I alone to whom they were realities—no sooner did I close my eyes than the sentence which had been interrupted continued from the word it had stopped at. When awake and myself I remembered well who I was in my second capacity and what I was doing. When somebody else—I had no idea of who was H. P. Blavatsky. I was in another far off country, quite another individuality, and had no connection at all with my actual life.

This experience or training seems to have lasted for several years, and during it she had only imperfect control of her own developing abilities. But it came to a head, a sort of crisis, in 1865, which was a watershed in her life. As a result of her experiences in the Caucasus during the preceding few years, her parapsychological powers, which had been active to varying degrees since her childhood, came increasingly under her conscious control, and her life took a new direction. In a later letter of March 1, 1882, to Prince Dondukov-Korsakov, HPB wrote, "Between the Blavatsky of 1845-1865 and the Blavatsky of the years 1865-1882, there is an unbridgeable gulf." When HPB finally left the Caucasus to go to Italy in 1865, she was never to return there again. She expressed her sense of freedom and release in a letter to her relatives, probably written about the time she left the Caucasus:

Now I will never be subjected any longer to external influences. The last vestige of my psycho-physiological weakness is gone to return no more. . . . I am cleansed and purified of that dreadful attraction to myself of stray spooks and ethereal affinities. I am free, free, thanks to Them whom I now bless at every hour of my life.

During the next five or so years, HPB was traveling in eastern Europe and the Near East. They are sometimes called the "veiled years" because we know so little about her whereabouts or activities then, but she seems to have contacted the Druzes and other esoteric and mystic groups in the course of her travels. By 1873 she was in Paris visiting a cousin and intending to settle down there. But unexpectedly, she received a letter from her adept teacher directing her to go to America. When her teacher spoke, HPB did not hesitate. So within two days she boarded a ship bound for New York, where she arrived on July 7, about a month before her forty-second birthday, and where it was her destiny to begin her public esoteric work.

The next five and a half years were the American period in HPB's life, and most of the letters in volume 1 of her correspondence date from that time. A year and three months after landing in New York, HPB met Henry Steel Olcott. They immediately struck up (or, it would be more accurate to say, renewed from past lives) a friendship that would last the rest of their lives in their current incarnations and that would generate the Theosophical Society.

Olcott and Blavatsky met at a Spiritualist séance, and her first published article was the result of that experience. Indeed, Spiritualism loomed large in HPB's plans, as she believed it was her calling to show two things: (1) that genuine—rather than spurious—Spiritualist phenomena showed the limitations of the materialistic science of her day and (2) that the phenomena were not what the Spiritualists thought they were. Much of HPB's early correspondence thus deals with Spiritualism—the challenge it posed for science and its misconceptions and foibles.

One of her correspondents at this time was Louisa Andrews, a Spiritualist. But their correspondence was not limited to that subject. Louisa wrote to HPB about a man who frightened her. HPB's answer was clearly intended to buck up the intimidated woman:

Fiddle dee stick! Milady—darling—I defy spirit or mortal, God or Demon to become dangerous to me. I was never controlled & never will be. I don't know a will on earth that would not break like glass in contact or conflict with mine.

Louisa Andrews's comment to a mutual friend was "What a woman she is!" And indeed what a woman she was.

HPB wrote to her sister, Vera, probably in late 1875, concerning the effect of materialism and false science on the then dominant worldview:

Humanity has lost its faith and its higher ideals; materialism and pseudo-science have slain them. The children of this age no longer have faith; they demand proof, proof founded on a scientific basis—and they shall have it. Theosophy, the source of all human religions, will give it to them.

About that same time, HPB was engaged in writing her first book, Isis Unveiled, and of that work she wrote to Vera:

Well, Vera, believe it or not, some enchantment is upon me. You can hardly imagine in what a charmed world of pictures I live! . . . I am writing Isis; not writing, rather copying out and drawing that which she personally is showing me. Really, it seems to me as if the ancient Goddess of Beauty in person leads me through all the lands of bygone centuries which I have to describe. I am sitting with my eyes open and, to all appearances, see and hear everything real and actual around me; and yet at the same time I see and hear that which I write. I feel short of breath; I am afraid to make the slightest movement, for fear the spell might be broken. . . . Slowly, century after century, image after image, float out of nowhere and pass before me as if in a magic panorama; and meanwhile I put them together in my mind, fitting in epochs and dates, and know positively there can be no mistake. . . . It stands to reason, it is not I who do it all, but my Ego, the highest principles that live in me; and even then with the help of my Guru, my teacher, who helps me in everything.

HPB's correspondence reflects the personality of those to whom she was writing as much as it does her own. One of those who was present at the initial formation of the Theosophical Society was an Englishman, Charles C. Massey, a barrister who had come to America to investigate the Spiritualist phenomena about which Colonel Olcott had published articles and a book. HPB wrote to Massey in a sophisticated, worldly, and allusive style quite different from that of much of her other writing. Here are some extracts from a letter of November 1876:

Hail Son of the West,--(End), adept of the Athenaeum, Seer of the Saville; may your shadow never diminish but dazzle the Elmo with its unfailing brightness. . . . Now that I have my infernal book off my hands, my heart yearns after the trans-Atlantic brace of Iamblicho-Apollonians, and Porphyritico-Hermetists. Are they treading with stone-proof and fire-proof sole the rugged path of truth, or wandering in the enticing fields of sense and juvenile fancy? . . .

Of all the flap-doodles, Cora Tappan's last is the greatest. Did you read her masterly dissection of the word Occultism? or her Symbolism on the mother, the letter M and the religion of the ancients? Really, the woman seems to have a Verbo-mania. She gallops furiously through the Dictionaries clutching adjectives, nouns, and verbs with both hands as she passes and crams them into her mouth. It's a perfect Niagara of Spiritual flap-doodle . . .

The cremation of the old Baron [de Palm] will take place next month if nothing prevents. He must be a pretty boy to look at now. The Newspapers begin ringing the bells already, and when the thing comes off you will see the liveliest excitement that this country has ever produced: I have a good mind to cremate myself in the sight of the public together with him (or rather what remains of him, for he has turned into a Baronial broth by this time) and then resuscitate again phoenix-like.

Isis Unveiled was published in 1877, and HPB sent a copy to her relatives, with some trepidation, for her aunt (who was only a little older than she) was a devout Russian Orthodox Christian. Several of the letters to this aunt (who was more like a sister) struggle with trying to convey to her HPB's view of religion, as in the following passage for example:

You are wrong in expressing the opinion, my friend, that I only "cast a glance" towards Christ, but in reality yearn for the Buddha. I look straight into the eyes of Christ, as well as of Gautama the Buddha. That one of them lived twenty-five centuries ago and the other nineteen does not make the slightest difference to me. I see in both of them the identical Divine Spirit. . . . Neither Christ nor Gautama the Buddha nor the Hindu Krishna have ever preached any dogmas.

As the end of this period approached, much of HPB's correspondence was with people in India, to which she was preparing to travel, and that correspondence concerns the momentous change about to occur in her life. She and Colonel Olcott sailed from New York at the end of 1878. They paused for a brief period in England, and in January 1879, shortly before boarding ship in Liverpool to make the long voyage to Bombay, HPB wrote to her sister Vera, sending some photographs taken in England. This is the last letter in volume 1 of her correspondence:

I start for India. Providence alone knows what the future has in store for us. Possibly these portraits shall be the last. Do not forget your orphan-sister, now so in the full meaning of the word.

Good-bye. We start from Liverpool on the 18th. May the invisible powers protect you all!

I shall write from Bombay if I ever reach it.

Elena

This correspondence, in its fullness, of which only a few fragments have been included here, depict a remarkable woman, who was engaged in a remarkable quest: to bring timeless Wisdom to the modern world. She was no saint, but she was dedicated to her mission. She had remarkable powers, but she claimed no special status for herself. She was, in turns, tender and witty, considerate and arch, indignant about fraud and inspirational in her call to Truth. As one of her teachers wrote of her, she was flawed and imperfect—but she was the best available. And the letters she wrote show her in all those aspects.

  1. A Tribute to Clara Codd
  2. In Memory of Emily Sellon
  3. Sandcastles
  4. The Believers

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